MORNING SERIAL

NOW alone, I could adjust myself and allow a groan that expressed all the creaks of my dehydrated state.

I poured a tumbler of water from the sink and dropped in some dissolving tablets, watching them fizz and break apart.

What was to be done? Lou’s name careered around inside my head like a funeral chant. There was no time for this anymore, I thought. I necked the milky water, and cracked my neck, and went to the door. It took a moment to see where Illie had gone – I thought at first he must have sprinted up to the house, but then I came out a little and looked across the flats, then I came out a little further and looked down to see if he had gone down to the pool, and then over the opposite side of the ridge to see down to the woodland. And I just caught him, a small shadowed figure, entering the wood by the east side.

I waited for him to be gone and then I went down after him.

The track was not finished, perhaps purposely difficult to navigate, steep and covered in shale. I was very careful not to kick rocks down the incline and alert him to my movements. I came to the edge of the wood and then realised that the trees were actually quite spare, but that their tops were fulsome and almost totally blocked out the sun and heat.

It was extremely dingy in there. I know nothing of trees, but they were pale-trunked with heavy charcoal dapples across them, and they were not all that tall – maybe only two or three times the height of a man. I went in.

I was only a few steps into the wood when I saw the first canvas nailed to one of those trees. It was not one of mine, and didn’t look like one of mine, although the content was the same – the dark background drawing the eye in to a red child’s swing just off centre left. I knew immediately this was the work of Francis Benthem. Then there was another one on the tree just to the right of it.

This was most certainly not the work of Francis. It was extremely amateurish.

> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com