Silent Saturday Read online

She stood up, rubbing her chalky hands together. On impulse she turned and spoke to the woman in English. ‘He can’t hurt himself. The mats are really thick.’

  She got an appraising look in reply, but that was all. No Thanks, no Mind your own business. Just a look.

  She went over to the boy and said, ‘If you want to climb that, you have to use your legs, not your arms.’ She hopped up onto the wall beside him. ‘If you pull yourself up with your arms, you’ll get tired. And you have to stick to one colour. Look, the red ones are quite easy.’ She nodded at the holds.

  The boy looked at her and then glanced at his mother, calculating whom he could annoy the most. ‘I can go higher than you,’ he announced.

  ‘Go on then,’ Veerle invited him.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said the boy’s mother. ‘Would you please not encourage him?’

  Veerle jumped lightly down onto the mat. ‘If he swings on his arms, he’ll tire himself out. He’ll be more likely to fall off,’ she said. ‘If he learns to climb properly—’

  ‘He’s only here for a party,’ said the woman stiffly.

  ‘Still . . .’

  ‘Come down from there,’ said the woman to the child. ‘You’ll fall.’ She watched the boy make another move upwards. ‘Now look,’ she said to Veerle.

  Veerle relented. ‘Hey, kid,’ she said.

  ‘My name’s George.’

  ‘George, you want to learn how to traverse?’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘You go along, not up.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘You think? Bet you can’t go right round the room without touching the floor.’ She gave him a challenging look. ‘I can.’

  To prove it, she stepped back onto the wall and moved a couple of metres to the right. By the time she stepped back down onto the mat, the boy was already following.

  ‘I can do that too,’ he told her.

  ‘That’s good,’ said Veerle, grinning.

  ‘George—’ began the woman.

  ‘Be careful,’ finished Veerle with a sigh.

  She ignored the venomous look this earned her and padded off to the other side of the room, but her concentration was broken. She started to climb the underside of the arch she had fallen from, but she didn’t even get as far as she had the first time. The voice of the woman telling her son to get down from there, George and be careful, George was impossible to ignore. It echoed around her skull like the throbbing of a headache. Telling herself that it had nothing to do with her, that she had to ignore it and focus, didn’t help. She still wanted to go over and shake the woman by the shoulders, ask her why she didn’t just keep the kid in a cage at home where nothing was ever going to happen to him. Eventually she dropped onto the mat and went to change back into her street clothes.

  It had been snowing earlier that day, and it took her a while to bundle herself up in her winter jacket, jeans and boots. She stuffed her leggings and rock shoes into a rucksack and headed for the exit.

  The scruffy reception area was full of children, most of them boys, jumping up and down thunderously on the worn floorboards, their voices full of bluster and bravado. The little boy called George was amongst them, leaping around as boisterously as the rest. His mother stood nearby, chatting unsmilingly with another woman. Her gaze fell on Veerle as she pushed her way through the milling children and she said something to the other mother. Veerle heard the words: ‘ . . . thanks to her’.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said, and that was all it took to tip her day from frustrating to bad.

  The woman looked at her with naked irritation in her pale eyes. ‘I said no thanks to you,’ she snapped. ‘Don’t you speak English?’

  Veerle stopped in her tracks and looked at her. ‘Yes, I speak English,’ she said.

  The expression of contempt she got in return was unmistakable. ‘I don’t think so,’ said the woman. She was already turning away, towards the other mother. That might have been the end of it, only then she said something to the other woman, something deliberately half audible. Veerle heard the single word ‘stupid’ and saw the glance that flickered back at her.

  She thought afterwards that if it had not been for that glance, she might have walked away. Instead she stood her ground.

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘Do you speak Flemish?’

  ‘I don’t need this,’ said the woman dismissively.

  ‘So, do you?’ persisted Veerle. Her heart was pounding now, pounding so hard that she felt dizzy and short of breath.

  ‘I don’t see what that has to do with you.’

  ‘You asked me if I speak English.’

  ‘I’m really not interested,’ snapped the woman.

  ‘We’re in Flanders. Do you speak Flemish?’

  Veerle knew she shouldn’t be losing her temper, but the way the woman kept trying to brush her off was the last straw. She could feel herself losing her grip on calm as surely as if her fingertips had been peeling off a polished hold on the wall.

  ‘How long have you lived here?’ she said.

  ‘I don’t have to tell you that.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Just go away, will you?’

  ‘How long?’

  Now the pair of them were almost shouting at each other, and the children were starting to look round, their eyes wide and avid.

  Someone came striding towards them, pushing their way through the milling children. With a sinking heart Veerle recognized Bart, the manager. Bart looked like the most laidback old hippy in the world with his tie-dyed green T-shirt and faded pink climbing trousers and three-day-old stubble, but Veerle wasn’t fooled; that shaggy greying head contained a business brain as sharp as that of any suited city businessman. She was outnumbered, she realized; Bart would never side with one seventeen-year-old against a group of over twenty paying customers, whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation.

  Two minutes later she was out on the street in the evening dark and cold. The door was swinging back and forth in its frame from the violence of her exit, and back inside the brightly lit exterior Bart was already shepherding the crowd of kids towards the bar area for another round of cola.

  ‘Shit.’ She swung her rucksack at the wall. ‘Stupid, stupid, stupid.’

  She wasn’t even sure whom she was aiming that at – the woman for her infuriating rudeness or herself for rising to the bait. There was no point in raging at Bart; he had a business to run. She thought that he might tolerate her returning to the climbing wall at some future point, as long as there weren’t any more rows, but it wouldn’t be for a while. Weeks, months . . . next year, maybe. By then perhaps her cheeks would have stopped flaming and she could contemplate going back herself.

  For the time being, it was another escape route closed down, another corridor sealed off in the maze that was her life. She stared back at the bright square of light in the door and reflected bitterly that there was nothing for it but to go home.

  2

  THE BUS STOP was a five-minute walk away, on the other side of the retail park, along pavements that were slick and shiny with the melted remains of recent snow. Christmas lights were strung up across the road, but they didn’t strike Veerle as festive any more. There was something faintly depressing about Christmas lights once the festivities were over, the gifts had all been opened, the tree had dropped all its needles. She kicked away brown slush with the toe of her boot. Happy New Year.

  Inside the pockets of her winter jacket, her hands were clenched into fists. She was in the grip of a feeling so bitter that it was like being caught in the coils of a python; her rib cage was tight with it, her breath came in painful gasps. Everything’s wrong, she thought desperately. The rudeness of the boy’s mother, her own overreaction, and the unstated ban from the wall, one of her only refuges. The situation at home. That was at the core of it; that was the thing that flowed underneath everything else like dark brackish water. Home. Claudine. Hearing Be careful half a dozen times every day of her life, and knowing
that it was getting worse: her mother’s fretting, the restrictions, the perceived threats everywhere. Sometimes, just existing in that claustrophobic atmosphere felt like struggling inside a clinging net. How did it get this bad? she asked herself.

  When Veerle finally reached the bus stop she couldn’t stand still; she paced up and down under the yellow-and-white De Lijn sign as though testing the limits of an invisible enclosure.

  The bus she took back to her own village was not the only one that went from this stop. You could take a bus to Leuven from here, or if you crossed the road you could take one to the nearby airport or to Brussels-North. Supposing I did that? Veerle said to herself, pacing. Supposing I got on a different bus and went somewhere else entirely? She could see herself doing it, being borne away into the night. Escaping. I’ll take the first bus that comes, she told herself. If it’s the one home, I’ll take that, and if it’s to somewhere else, I’ll take that instead.

  She glanced at her watch, and when she looked up there was a bus only fifty metres away. It was her normal one, the one that ran to her village, stopping within sight of the house on Kerkstraat. She grimaced, and then stuck out her arm.

  On board were five other people, and in the artificial light all their faces looked grey and pouchy. Bus of zombies, thought Veerle, but the thought didn’t raise a smile. It was too near the truth. Dead inside, dead with boredom, but still walking. She slid into a seat. It was too depressing looking at those faded and dreary faces, so she looked out of the window instead, into the dark.

  The bus pulled away from the kerb. It would take about thirty-five minutes to get to her village, since the route took a dogleg through half a dozen other villages first. Shiny wet streets slid past, then a parade of shops, and then the bus was leaving the town again and it was dark on Veerle’s side. There was very little to see for about half a kilometre apart from a long stretch of crumbling red-brick wall overhung with bare winter trees, closely clustered together.

  Veerle had passed this way every week for years, so she knew what was on the other side of the wall, even though she couldn’t see it. Behind the trees was a large area of open parkland, overgrown and unkempt, and in the middle of it was a castle.

  The castle had probably been stunning once. The oldest part was built of uncompromising grey stone, but the newer and larger part was of bi-coloured brick, red and white, so gaudy that it might have belonged to the witch in the gingerbread house. There were towers and a spire and a small arcade, and a big stone canopy supported by columns over the main door. It had been designed to impress, from the gilded weathervane on the tip of the spire to the sweeping curve of the drive, introducing the building like a bow and a flourish.

  Look a little more closely, however, and you could see that the castle’s glory days were long past. The walls were crumbling, there were slates missing from the roof, and some of the windowpanes had been smashed, leaving dark holes where there should have been gleaming reflections of the grounds. The gravel drive was choked with the dead brown weeds of the previous summer. The castle looked desolate and unloved. Even without the wire fencing over the main gate and the KEEP OUT notices there was nothing to invite anyone inside. It was old, creepy and probably dangerous. Local people said it was haunted too. Lights had been seen in the castle on dark nights, moving to and fro along the upper galleries. There were tales of a grey cavalier, a pale lady. Restless ghosts. Nobody did anything to refute the idea. It was a convenient way of discouraging children from trying to get into the castle grounds. Go in there and something will get you.

  Veerle was not afraid of ghosts, but she thought the old building was intriguing. She always looked out for it on the way to the climbing wall, simply because it was something a little different from the uninteresting vista of neat little houses, shops and petrol stations that dotted the route. At this time of year there was nothing to see on the way home. The castle was set so far back from the road that it had vanished in the dark as completely as if it were a stone dropped into inky black water. She still looked, because there was nothing else to do, but she didn’t expect to see anything.

  The bus was slowing down for the stop closest to the castle – right outside the gate, in fact; so close that the bus stop had KASTEEL printed on it.

  Veerle was still gazing into the dark, and suddenly her eyes widened.

  I can see something. There’s something in there.

  She leaned closer to the glass, and instantly it fogged over with the warmth of her breath. She pulled the sleeve of her jacket up over the heel of her hand and rubbed at the glass. Now it was clear again and she could still see whatever it was; she wasn’t dreaming, there was a light in the castle.

  It was so tiny, so faint, that she could barely see it; it seemed to flicker too, sometimes vanishing altogether. But her eyes were not deceiving her. There was definitely a light.

  A series of possibilities flitted across her mind in a matter of seconds. Local historian visiting, surveyor checking the property out? No; they would be carrying halogen torches you could see from a kilometre away, or more probably they would come in daylight. Kids? Maybe, though she’d never heard of break-ins at the castle before, perhaps because of its sinister reputation. A fire starting? That didn’t seem likely, either; the castle was probably too old, too long-deserted to be electrically wired, and there wouldn’t be any power even if it were. So that leaves . . . ghosts?

  Don’t be ridiculous, Veerle told herself, but she felt the stirring of excitement. She peered out of the window, and then she glanced at the bus driver. An elderly man had just got onto the bus and was making a drama of looking for his bus pass, which was seemingly nowhere to be found. Veerle saw the driver lean over, saying something. Don’t drive off yet, she prayed silently.

  Suddenly her heart was beating wildly. I could get off here, she thought, glancing back out of the window into the dark. I could get off the bus and go and see what that light is for myself.

  She looked at the driver again. The elderly man had found and presented his pass, and was fussily wedging himself into a seat. Now there was a tall youth in a leather jacket getting on, his face sullen, his jaws working a piece of gum. The driver said something, and the boy began to dig around in his jeans pockets. The driver revved the engine, trying to speed up the transaction. There were perhaps ten seconds left before the bus pulled away. Ten seconds to decide between adventure or a bus ride to boredom.

  Last chance, thought Veerle, and before she had time to think about what she was doing, she was on her feet, heading for the door.

  Too late. The rear doors were closing with a sound like an indignant sigh. The bus lurched forward a metre, and then Veerle was pressing on the STOP button, pressing it again and again even though there was no point, and glaring at the driver in the rear-view mirror, willing him to stop and let her off.

  He shrugged at her, and for a moment she thought he wasn’t going to stop. He let the bus drift on another couple of metres, and then, grudgingly, he braked. The doors opened.

  ‘Dank u,’ said Veerle, and then she was out of the bus, standing on the pavement, breathing rapidly as though she had been running. The doors closed behind her and the bus moved off, a lighted capsule tunnelling away through the dark.

  Veerle watched it go. The wind plucked at her clothing with icy fingers. There was nothing on this side of the road – nothing except the wall with the desiccated skeletons of bushes huddled up to it, and the bus stop. On the other side there were houses but the ones directly opposite were all dark. She felt the night close in. She was alone.

  3

  YOU KNOW THIS is madness, Veerle said to herself as she picked her way along the wall. The strip of pavement by the bus stop had run out and now she was walking on snowy mud and grass. The ground was pitted and studded with stones, and the dried-up remains of brambles looping across the grass threatened to trip her up. If it’s bad out here, it’s going to be worse in there. She could feel her boots crunching through the thin ice th
at crusted the ruts in the mud. You should . . . what, go home?

  She was shocked by what an unappealing option that was. To get off the bus in the usual place, to turn the corner and walk up Kerkstraat alongside the churchyard wall, to the brick house with the roller shutters prematurely lowered for the night, like eyelids closed in speechless disapproval. There wouldn’t be any lights visible, no golden glow to pilot her home, because her mother, Claudine, shut out the rest of the world as soon as she got home from work, and sealed the front of the house so tightly that no chink of light escaped. So Veerle would walk up the wet pavement to the front door, and then she would ring the bell before she inserted her key into the lock, because her mother liked to know the instant she was home, even if she herself were in the furthest reaches of the house. Then she would go inside and Claudine would come out of the kitchen or the sitting room, her cardigan pulled tight around her skinny body as though she were trying to keep out the cold, her unmade-up face shining in the yellowish light of the hallway, her eyes pale and pink-rimmed yet somehow avid.

  Even before Veerle had hung up her coat it would start. Why had she been so long? Had the bus been late? Why hadn’t she taken the earliest one? Didn’t she realize how dangerous it was travelling around after dark on your own?

  There was going to be a scene if Claudine found out about this, and she was almost certainly going to, because Veerle was going to be very late home.

  The prospect of this, and the equally evil prospect of hurrying home every day like a little kid, and the incident with the woman at the climbing wall, were all thundering around her head like great pieces of flotsam carried on flood water, crashing into each other, splintering, whirling off again into the foaming dark. No, she thought. No, no. I don’t want that to be my life.

  She felt an overwhelming urge to break out, to do something reckless. She felt the bite of the chill January air, felt the night all around her like the beating of dark wings. She wanted to run until she was exhausted, she wanted to scream with defiance. It was cold and dark and possibly dangerous, but she was going to go to the castle, break in if necessary, and see what that light was.