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Angelita Bradney

Angelita Bradney is a prize-winning fiction writer living in south-east London. Her work has been published in literary magazines and appears in three anthologies, including a collection of stories about climate change and a project to raise funds for the charity Shelter. She won the National Memory Day story prize in 2017 and has been shortlisted and commended in several other competitions.

Her novel-in-progress, Wildwood, is a story of guilt, loss and love set in the UK’s Forest of Dean and the Philippines. London lawyer Nina has tried her best to forget her traumatic adolescence, but when she’s summoned by her mother for a family gathering she discovers she’s not the only one grappling with an unspeakable past.

The following extract is the opening of Wildwood.

Website: www.angelitabradney.com

Email: mail@angelita.co.uk

Twitter: @AngelBradn

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It’s been three years since I visited Mama at Wildwood. I press my foot to the accelerator and the forest unrolls, moss-covered trunks stretching to the left and right. A road sign warns of wild boar. The tarmac is split, two tracks of dried mud showing where the last vehicle passed. We crossed the suspension bridge twenty-five minutes ago, and I can’t help feeling that we’ve left more behind than its engineered white cables. Civilisation, perhaps.

It was a surprise when Mama invited us to visit for her sixtieth birthday. Normally she’s happy to come to me in London or to Ed in Oxford. We’d arrange a dinner or a trip to the theatre. But this time she wants a family gathering: ‘Here at Wildwood,’ she declared over the phone. Wildwood. A cold hand pushed through my chest and pinned me to the wall where I was standing.

‘No excuses, Nina,’ Mama said, as if she’d anticipated my protests. ‘It’s my birthday.’

I licked my lips. ‘Of course, Mama. But – ’

‘You can bring – what’s his name again? Patrick.’

‘Philip. But he’s very busy with work. As am I.’

‘Your brother suggested August would suit you. And it’s school holidays for him, of course.’

‘I’ll have to see.’

‘Actually, there’s something I want to tell you both.’

I hesitate. Mama’s used this ploy before. ‘Is it something you can tell me now, Mama?’

‘I’d rather do it in person. Anyway, this will be the first time we’ve been together at Wildwood since your father left.’

Mama’s mention of Dad – deliberate of course – crumbled any remaining excuses I might have come up with to stay away. We always were a paltry family and now it’s just the three of us: Mama, me and Ed. It’s a far cry from the hoards of siblings, uncles and aunts that Mama grew up amongst in the Philippines – a fact she often reminds us of. Ed has at least done his duty by acquiring a wife and kids.

I admit defeat. ‘I’ll be there, Mama.’

Outside the car it’s thirty degrees but inside the temperature is icy. Tracks lead from the road into the forest, the pathways dark and identical-looking. A brown tourist sign points to a pottery centre that I know has been closed for years. We drive past a pair of breeze block cottages painted a grubby cream and a board reading Fresh egg’s next right.

In the passenger seat Philip scrolls through his phone. He looks, in his shirt and pressed jeans, exactly like what he is: a banker on a mini-break. Now he swears and shoves his hands into his lap.

‘No signal.’

‘I warned you.’

‘I really need to get through these emails. Especially as I’m taking the week off.’

‘I hope you don’t regret coming,’ I say.

‘No, no.’ Philip raises his hands. ‘I’m keen to see your childhood home.’

‘It’s not my childhood home. We moved here when I was thirteen.’

‘So you keep saying. Look at all these trees. What was it like growing up here?’

‘Quiet.’ This is my usual response; people don’t normally ask for more details.

Now we’re getting close. The green canopy closes above us. There’s something on the road ahead: a compacted mass of fur and blood. The animal it used to be is unrecognisable. I swerve to avoid it. Despite the air conditioning, my armpits are sticky.

One more house to go before we reach Wildwood. My head feels light, and there’s a sound far away like a bell ringing.

It’s upon us before I realise.

‘Woah. Look at that place,’ says Philip.

The cottage is worse than I remember. The windows are cracked and the roof slopes precariously, with gaps in the tiles like missing teeth. Vegetation has encroached all the way to the door, so it looks like the house is sinking into the forest.

‘They used to say a witch lived there,’ I blurt out.

‘What?’

‘She wasn’t really one, of course.’

‘You knew her?’

The bell in my head is ringing louder. Why did I have to say that to Philip? I watch the cottage recede in the rear-view mirror, its blank eyes staring after us.

This is where you live.
Come in. Don’t worry if my mum seems a bit strange, she’s not used to having people round.
I hope she doesn’t mind me coming.
Of course not. You’re my best friend.

The steering wheel twists under my hands. There’s a thud and a scrape, and something strikes the roof of the car. I scramble for the brakes, but instead of slowing the vehicle lurches forward. Someone screams. My nose explodes with agony. The car shakes, then we’ve stopped.

Seconds of silence.

Philip says, ‘Shit.’

My breath comes back to me. I put a hand to my face and my fingers come away wet with blood.

‘My nose.’

‘Are you all right? Here, use this.’

He hands me something – a piece of chamois leather. I press the stiff cloth to my face, tears blurring my vision. ‘I’m okay. What happened?’

Philip opens the car door. I follow, gripping the handle to stop my legs from collapsing. There’s a rustling in the trees above us. A crow is half hidden by leaves, watching us with glassy eyes. It opens its beak and emits a shriek. I use my free hand to pick up a stone and hurl it into the branches, but my aim is shaky and I miss. The crow flaps unhurriedly away.

The front right tyre has a gash the size of my hand. Philip stares at it shaking his head. ‘I checked the pressure before we left. And it doesn’t look like you hit anything.’ He runs his hands over the paintwork then looks at me. ‘Oh god. Your face.’

‘I’m fine.’

Philip peers at me. ‘Let’s have a look.’

‘Ow!’

‘Let’s hope you haven’t broken it.’

I want to howl but I manage to keep it to a whimper. You don’t know who might be listening. Philip puts a tentative arm around my shoulder but I pull away; I don’t want to get blood on him. We both check our phones. No signal.

‘We can walk to Wildwood from here,’ I say.

‘What about the car?’

A spike of irritation cuts through the throbbing in my head. ‘Never mind the fucking car. Can we just get out of here? Please.’

‘We’re going to leave it on the side of the road?’

I close my eyes. The pulse in my head sounds like an axe chopping wood. When I open them, Philip has opened the boot and is yanking out our luggage. He pulls up the handles of the two suitcases and hangs a grocery bag from each shoulder.

‘Hope there’s a decent garage nearby. No don’t try to help, just keep that thing pressed on your face.’

Breathing through my mouth, I follow Philip up the hill. Through my blood I can taste the forest. Mushrooms, decaying leaves, the scents left by unseen animals. Come on, Nina. I’ll show you where we can build a den. Spaces yawn behind the trees. On either side of the road insects hover over the ditches. I wonder if they will be attracted by the red drips down the front of my dress. Vampire midges. I could use that in a story for my niece and nephew.

I look back and see the car at an angle across the verge: a silvery, streamlined shape. The dilapidated cottage is still in view. Light plays on its windows, as if it has flickered into life.

 

‘Here we are.’

We’ve reached the top of the hill. There are no trees and the sun pours glare into my head. I shade my eyes with my hand to look at Wildwood’s boxy silhouette. Two rows of sash windows might look elegant were it not for the brown pebble-dash stuck to the exterior. A crazy-paved path leads up to three stone steps before the front door. It was built in Victorian times by a local engineer as a present for his daughter. He’d planned to construct a house for himself on a neighbouring plot but died while the foundations were being laid. I used to imagine the daughter alone in her new house, wandering from room to room with only the forest and her father’s ghost for company.

Philip points to the weather-beaten estate agent’s board. ‘You didn’t say the place was for sale.’

‘Oh that,’ I say. ‘I’d forgotten. Ed and Mama put it on the market a couple of years ago but no one wanted to buy.’

We pass through the open gate, which is wide enough for a car, and enter the garden. It looks like Mama has been carrying out some minimal maintenance: the grass is short, and the trees dotted around the lawn are hung with wind chimes. The holly hedge that holds back the forest, however, is ragged and full of holes. Dad once planted a vegetable patch but the weeds have taken over and you can no longer see the plots he marked out.

On the day we moved here I spent five hours squashed in the back of our family Vauxhall with three duvets and a vacuum cleaner: a piece of luggage like everything else. Ed, eight years older than me, had escaped off to university. While new horizons opened up for him my future became narrower. The air in the car hung thick with blame. In the weeks running up to the move Dad tried to be positive: ‘Fresh air and fields to run around in,’ he kept saying, as if we’d chosen to leave the city, my school and my friends. My best friend and I had woven bracelets for each other; we’d promised to wear them until we met again. I twisted mine around my wrist and noticed that I’d managed to nick it while packing. A section had already unravelled.

Philip gives up trying to pull the suitcases over the uneven path and lifts them, one in each hand.

‘Strange,’ I say. ‘Mama’s car isn’t here.’

There’s a flicker at the edge of my vision where the track beside the house disappears into the woods. My nose starts to throb again.

We climb the steps to the front door with its brass knocker in the shape of a hand. I lift it and let it fall. No answer. Squinting through the glass I can make out several pairs of Mama’s shoes lying in the hallway, strappy and embellished with jewels. There’s a photograph of Ed, Laura and their two children on the side table, next to a pot of curling bamboo.

‘Don’t you have a key?’

I do, and it’s in the bottom drawer of the bedside table in my flat in London, together with diaries I haven’t got around to destroying and Dad’s address in Canada. Last night I went to put the key in my bag, but I only looked at the drawer and didn’t open it. Stupid.

‘I’ll try to phone.’

There’s one bar of signal at the top of my screen. As I watch, it flickers out. That’s it. Something comes apart inside me. Edges press into my stomach, hurting when I try to breathe. My knees tremble and I sink onto the steps.

‘Where is Mama?’

‘Nina, are you all right?’

‘No I’m not all right. Every time I come here something happens! We can’t even get away in the car. We’re trapped.’

The air is too hot. My skin blooms with sweat. I press my hand to my chest as if it will help me slow my breathing. I can smell the blood on my clothes, sharp like old rust.

Philip holds up a grocery bag. It makes a clinking sound.

‘Don’t worry,’ he says in a cheerful voice, playing up his Middlesbrough accent. ‘Let’s drink something from here while we’re waiting.’