Black Wood Read online

  But then – with the first word out of her mouth – I realised why.

  “Charlie?” she said. Almost immediately, she stopped herself. She barely had the word out when she must have realised that it wasn’t Charlie. Perhaps fear would have kicked in then, if anger hadn’t kicked in first. “Who the hell are you?” she screamed. “What are you doing outside my window?”

  I still hadn’t looked up. I couldn’t; I was too mortified. It didn’t matter; she soon recognised who I was.

  “You!? You fucking pervert, what are you doing ... jerking off outside my window?”

  I couldn’t believe it. As if mortification wasn’t enough, I was now going to be blamed for depraved sex acts that I wasn’t even taking part in. I stuck my head up.

  “No,” I said. “I would never do something like that.”

  “Get off my window ledge, weirdo.”

  With all the commotion, I was starting to slide down. I tried to get a grip but there was nothing to hold on to. I either needed to get back down or get inside. Ordinarily, I would have begged her to let me go, let me climb back down the stepladder and run away. But that night had done something to me, or should I say the things I’d done had engendered something in me. A newfound confidence. I didn’t ask her to let me down, I asked her to let me in.

  “Please, let me in and I’ll explain everything.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re not only a pervert, you’re crazy as well.”

  “I’m neither. Please, let me in.”

  “What, so you can rape me?”

  “I’m not going to rape you. Jesus, you could probably beat me up.”

  Her voice went up an octave. “You’re outside my bedroom window in the middle of the fucking night, peeping in. What’s there to explain?”

  “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “You gotta be kidding me.”

  “Please, give me five minutes. Two minutes.”

  She thought about it as I slid incrementally down her roof, staring at me with a look that was a mixture of contempt and curiosity. Finally, she stood back out of the way to let me in. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said. As I climbed in, she said, “My parents are going to be back any minute. If they catch you here, you’re fucked, you do know that?”

  I did know that, but I didn’t care. All that was important to me was that she didn’t think I was some kind of pervert peeping through her window. I had to let her know that I wasn’t Harold. I had to let her know that I was doing it for them, to tell their story. Although, I had no idea how I was going to tell her that.

  Once I was in the window, I got up from the floor and looked around the room.

  “Less of the sightseeing,” she said, “and speak up. C’mon, spill it. What great excuse have you got for hiding underneath my windowsill and perving on me?”

  “I was observing you.”

  “I know. I noticed.”

  “No, not like that ...” My throat was dry. “It’s hard to explain exactly. I’ve been observing you ... you and Charlie.”

  For the first time since she opened the window, she was silent. “Wait ... you’ve been spying on us?”

  “No ... I don’t spy. It’s not spying.”

  “Where? Where have you been spying on us?” Her face was right up against mine.

  “I was curious about you and him ... I mean, you wouldn’t normally associate with each other. I was curious—”

  “You were nosy ...”

  “... I was curious why you were hanging out together. Especially after what he did to you ... and the court case and everything.”

  She turned away from me and walked back over to the bed. “That’s none of your business. That’s none of anybody’s business.”

  “I thought your story should be told.”

  “We’re not a story.”

  “You are to me. You would be to other people.”

  She turned back to face me. “So, you were going to tell our story?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you fucking nuts?”

  “No. I’m a writer.”

  She let out a sigh of exasperation and flopped down on the bed, in a way someone would after they’d been trying – unsuccessfully – to reason with a five-year-old. I couldn’t believe I was this close to Samantha Pierce in such an intimate setting – in her bedroom, with her in her sweatpants.

  “Why would anyone want to read about us?” she said.

  “Why wouldn’t they? I think you’re fascinating. Both of you.”

  “You would.”

  I didn’t answer that particularly hurtful line.

  “We’re just High School kids,” she went on. “Nobody writes books about High School kids.”

  “Every writer has to start somewhere. Besides, what about SE Hinton?”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “It’s a she.”

  “What is this? A fucking book club?”

  She sat there with her head down, thinking to herself. I was feeling rather awkward standing there, and I did something that I’m still not sure where I got the nerve for. I sat down beside her on the bed. She looked at me.

  “Get off my bed.”

  I got up, and said, “Sorry.”

  “So, you want to be our friend, is that it?”

  She made it sound needy.

  “I wanted to get to know you better, so I could write about you better.”

  “Well, given the fact that you’ve been spying ... sorry, ‘observing’ us, you know that we’re not allowed to see each other anymore.”

  “I know, but I could help you.”

  Her eyes darted in my direction. “How?”

  Now I had her attention.

  “I could get messages to Charlie for you,” I said. “And I could set up meetings between you. No one would know.”

  “You’re gonna be our go-between?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “You know, I think my father actually thought by bringing me over to your house that night, that we might become friends. I think he thought that if I became friends with someone like you, then I might stop hanging around with certain other people.”

  “So ... there you go. It’s perfect. Tell him we’re friends. That’s how we could set up meetings. You could tell him we’re going to the library to study.”

  “You’re loving this, aren’t you, you little perv?”

  Unlike her previous barb, I sensed less venom in her voice, when she said this. I thought maybe she was warming to me.

  “Listen,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but no one’s going to believe that you and I are friends.”

  “They don’t have to. We don’t have to be friends. Your Dad wants you to re-sit your SATs, right?”

  “How did you ... oh, never mind.”

  “So, you say I’m helping you study for them. We can be study partners. Plenty of the cool people are study partners with nerds. Look at Louise Kearns and Mike Mitchell. Or the quarterback and that Chinese girl.”

  “They’re all stupid. I don’t need a study partner, and I don’t want people saying that I do.”

  “Would you rather people say you needed a little extra tuition, or would you rather never see Charlie again?”

  She set those cynical eyes on me. “Are you playing me, nerd?”

  “No.”

  I could hear the cogs whirring behind her eyes. “I’ll do this,” she said. “I’ll do this because I don’t have any choice. But I don’t like it. And I don’t want you going around telling anyone about this, okay? We’re not friends, we’re study partners. If anybody asks, I just needed a little extra brush-up on math.”

  “Cool.”

  “Alright, you need to go.”

  I started to make for the window, and she said, “Jesus, use the front door.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Samantha was in my apartment last night. In my apartment. I still can’t quite believe it happened. And it couldn’t have happened at a
better time. I was going through one of my dark days. It happens. Show me one person in the world who hasn’t suffered at one time or another with some form of existential angst. Sometimes I despair. I try my best not to, not to let myself get sucked down that black hole of apathy. But, it’s hard. It’s hard not to see everything as bleak and pointless.

  It’s the not knowing. Not knowing if there’s a point to it all. All this thinking about the past, writing about the past – what’s it all for? Will it amount to anything? One has to believe that we do it for some reason more than self-aggrandisement. I’m reminded of the Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, who said, “What is there to confess that’s worthwhile or useful? What has happened to us has happened to everyone or only to us; if to everyone, then it’s no novelty, and if only to us, then it won’t be understood.” I write about all of this as if it has only ever happened to me. But is that true? Is this universal? Has it happened all over the world, throughout history? Am I wasting my time writing this?

  How do you get to something truthful; how do you get to something that – as Pessoa put it – “may provide some hurt or sad soul a few moments of distraction from something worse”? I don’t mean truthful in the case of facts; I mean truthful in the sentiment. Maybe, that’s why I’m writing all this down. I’m trying to write my way through to the truth, a truth that may provide that sad soul their few moments of distraction.

  I knew from the first moment I saw Samantha and Charlie together that there was a story there that needed to be told. And I knew that I was the only one that could tell it. Why did I think that? What gave me the audacity to think I could tell someone else’s story? But that’s what a writer possesses, isn’t it? More than imagination. It’s the audacity to believe, not only that we can tell someone else’s story, but that someone will actually listen to us when we do. That takes some chutzpah, as they say. But that’s what separates the artist from the non-artist, that audacity. The belief that not only is there a story there, but that you’re the only one that can tell it.

  That’s how I felt that first time I saw Samantha and Charlie together. Maybe because of the way things turned out, I decided that the story should never be told. I locked it away in the recesses of my mind. But that doesn’t matter anymore. The story is being told now. And I am still the only one who can tell it. I have to put away these fears and these doubts and believe. Those doubts stopped me from telling the story for many years. I wrote prodigiously, but I never told the story as it actually happened until now. It’s too late for those concerns. What happened between Samantha and me in my apartment last night has given me the confidence I needed to continue with my work. The world is going to see me now, warts and all.

  Mind you, the night didn’t start out that promising. Samantha turned up at my door clutching an envelope, looking dishevelled and close to tears. I think the stress of it all is starting to get to her. She’s starting to unravel.

  “This was left at the hotel for me,” she said, as I opened the door. She pushed past me into the apartment.

  “How did you know where I live?”

  “Jesus, I thought you were supposed to be the clever one. The same way I found out your phone number.”

  “Oh.” I closed the door and followed her into the kitchen. Luckily, I’d cleaned up. She started rooting through cupboards.

  “Can I help you find something?”

  “Yeah. Booze.”

  “It’s over here,” I said, beckoning her to the drinks trolley in the living room. She followed me over and I poured her a drink. She took it and sat on the couch.

  “Jesus,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You clean up much?” She pointed at the piles of manuscripts and books, scattered around the living room and on the table and couch.

  “The place is clean, I just ... Those things are always there. I never notice them. I’m a writer.”

  I moved to pick up one of the piles, and she said, “Forget it. It doesn’t matter. Will you look at this?” She was still clutching the envelope in her hand and she handed it to me. I opened it and pulled out the piece of paper inside. The message on it was pasted together from cut up newspaper clippings. It read: 20,000 dollars or I tell them about the body. Manhattan Mall. Food Court. Tomorrow at noon. Bring the money.

  I moved over to the couch and sat beside her. She gave me an odd look, but she didn’t object. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m going to figure this guy out.”

  “And how are you going to do that?”

  “Samantha, I told you twenty years ago, I can be very resourceful when I want to be.”

  “Did you?”

  Jesus, did she remember anything?

  “I did. I will find this guy. And I will stop him.”

  She looked at me and her whole expression changed. It was like twenty years before, after I met Charlie in the Black Wood. When their looks at me started to change from disdain to a grudging respect. Suddenly, that look was back again. She remembered. She remembered what I was capable of. She remembered what I’d done for her that night in the Black Wood. I leaned in to her and put my hand up to her face.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  “Sorry.” I was about to pull away, but I stopped myself. This wasn’t High School anymore. There were no more second chances. If I walked away now, I was a fool. And it wasn’t that she wanted me to walk away. I could see that by her. It was just

  the instinctual thing with Samantha to say stop, to push someone away.

  “I’ll get us another drink,” I said.

  Great. Get her drunk.

  When I came back, I handed her the glass and leaned into her.

  “Samantha, I’ve waited a long time ...”

  “Look, I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know if it’s the right time.”

  “It’ll never be the right time. High school wasn’t the right time, now’s not the right time. We could wait our whole lives for this.” Where was this chutzpah coming from? “We’re too old to be playing games. And we’re too young for regrets. We need to take this opportunity.”

  I was at my most eloquent. I put my hand to her face. She was about to pull away from me again, but she stopped. I ran my hand down the side of her face, over her high cheekbone and down the curve of her jaw, to her lips. I was touching something I’d longed to touch for twenty-five years. I inched closer to her. Her eyes, the pools of brown and green, were coming ever-closer, pulling me into her orbit.

  And our lips met.

  My God, I could have died right then. Which would have been unfortunate, considering what happened next. After a deep, long, lingering kiss, she pulled away, gave a faint smile and stood up from the couch. She took me by the hand and led me into the bedroom. I think I must have been shaking with nerves and anticipation. I was certainly breathless. I considered reaching for my asthma inhaler, but I realised it would probably kill the mood, so I let it go. At that moment in time asphyxiation didn’t bother me. Nothing did.

  What happened next defies description. Much as I said that describing her was impossible, so was this. I believe it was the author V. S. Pritchett who said, “The ecstasies of sexual sensation are no more to be described than the ecstasies of music they resemble.” I’m inclined to agree. Besides, a true gentleman never kisses and tells. So, I won’t tell you how I smelt the heat from her skin rising, mixing with her perfume. She smelled like musk and roses. Her soft breasts with their hard, brown nipples brushed against my face. I ran my hands over them, feeling the flesh against the palms of my hands. My hands reached to her shoulders, and she arched back slightly, then ran down over breasts and underneath where I felt her ribcage expanding and contracting in time to our motion. I could go on, but what’s the point? Trying to describe it is – as I said earlier – like trying to describe her: it’s pointless. Or to put it another way: as someone once said, “Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.”

&n
bsp; So, I won’t tell you any of this. I will simply say that we drank deep of each other that night and were sated.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  When I talk now about how I broached Sam and Charlie’s inner circle, it sounds as though it was easy, as though I just walked in her door. Or rather, climbed in her window. But it hadn’t been easy. It had taken many, many nights of observing them before it had come to that point. To be honest, it was a simple twist of fate. She could just as easily have thrown me out the door, told me to get lost. But she didn’t. She knew when a good thing was being offered to her. But that was only one half of the equation. The next obstacle that had to be overcome was Charlie.

  Through various twists of fate – most notably, an unsteady ladder – I had now ingratiated myself with Samantha. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d done it. However, doing that with Charlie would be even harder. Samantha was smart; she knew when there was something in it for her. She knew she could use me to her own ends, and I had no problem being thus violated. Charlie was a different story; he was notoriously distrustful. I’d seen how long it had taken for him to open up to Samantha and he obviously had feelings for her. Why would he possibly trust me, someone he didn’t even know?

  I broached the subject with Samantha the next day. She was standing in the hallway with two of her friends.

  “What is it?” was the first thing she said when I walked up to her.

  “Uh ... I need to speak to you about study.”

  She glanced over impatiently at her two friends and then gestured at me to follow her. When we were out of earshot, she said, “What is it?” just as impatiently. I realised it wasn’t a front.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Charlie.”

  She glanced around. “Keep your voice down. What about him?”

  “When are you going to tell him?”

  “Tell him what?”

  “About us.”

  A bemused look crossed her face. “Us?”

  “About us ... about me. About me being a mediator for you.”