Stef Penney - The Tenderness of Wolves

The girl stared at him for a moment, then dropped her eyes again. It could have been a nod.

‘Eve …’

Seton wanted to lean over to her, to gather her in his arms, Sturrock could feel it, but the girl was so still and forbidding he did not move. He merely said her name again, one or two times, and then struggled to calm himself.

‘What … I don’t know how … Are you well?’

She moved her head in that single up-and-down movement. Now the old man spoke again, and the interpreter, who was also crammed into the teepee behind them, translated.

‘This man is her husband. The old man is his uncle. He has brought her up in his own family since they found her.’

‘Found her? Where? When was this? With Amy? Where is Amy? Is she here? Do you know?’

The old man made some remark that Sturrock recognised as a curse. Then Eve herself began to speak, and all the time her eyes looked past them, at a spot on the floor.

‘It was five, six, seven years ago. I don’t remember. It seems very long ago. Another time. After we went for a walk we got lost. The other girl went first. She went off without us. We walked and walked. Then we were so tired we lay down to sleep. When I woke up I was alone. I didn’t know where I was, where anyone was. I was frightened and I thought I would die. And then Uncle was there, and took me with him and gave me food and shelter.’

‘And Amy? What happened to her?’

Eve did not look towards him. ‘I don’t know what happened. I thought she had left me. I thought she was angry and had gone home without me.’

Seton shook his head. ‘No. No. We did not know what had happened to either of you. Cathy Sloan came back, but there was no trace of you, or Amy. We looked and looked. I have never stopped looking for you since that day, you must believe that.’

‘It is true,’ Sturrock said into the silence. ‘Your father has spent every waking minute, and everything he has, in the search for you and your sister.’

Seton swallowed–it sounded loud in the little tent. ‘I have to tell you, I am sorry to say, that your mother passed away three years ago this April. She never recovered from your disappearance. She could not bear it.’

The girl looked up, and Sturrock thought he saw the first–and last–trace of feeling on her face. ‘Mamma is dead.’ She digested this, and shared a glance with her husband, although what it meant Sturrock could not guess. Although it sounds callous to say it, it was unfortunate–the presence, even at a distance, of Mrs Seton could have made a difference to what happened next.

Seton wiped a tear from his face. There was a moment when Sturrock thought he would start to make small talk, start to release the terrible tension he had been holding, and then there would be a way forward. He was wondering how long he should leave it before bringing the meeting to an end, before anyone got irritated. And then it was too late.

Seton’s voice seemed harsh and too loud in the confined tent:

‘I don’t mind what took place, but I must know what happened to Amy. I must know! Please tell me.’

‘I told you, I don’t know. I never saw her alive again.’

The phrasing sounded odd, even to Sturrock.

‘You mean … you saw her dead?’ Seton’s voice was strained but controlled.

‘No! I never saw her again at all. That’s what I meant.’ Now the girl was sullen, on the defensive. Sturrock wished Seton would leave the question of Amy alone; harping on about her to the other daughter would hardly help.

‘You will come back with me. You must. We must carry on looking.’ Seton’s eyes had a far-away, glazed appearance. Sturrock leant towards him and put a hand on his arm to calm him. He didn’t think Seton even noticed.

‘Please, I think we should … Excuse me …’ he was talking to everyone now. ‘It’s the strain. You cannot imagine how hard it has been for him all these years. He does not know what he is saying …’

‘Good God, man, of course I know what I am saying!’ Seton threw his hand off with a violent movement. ‘She must come back. She is my daughter. There is no other course …’

Then he reached towards the girl across the fire, and she flinched backward. With that movement, she revealed what the striped blanket had so far hidden–that she was heavily pregnant. The young man was on his feet, barring the way to Seton.

‘You should leave now.’ His English was perfect, but then he switched to his own language, addressing the interpreter.

Seton was gasping and crying all at once, shocked, but determined. ‘Eve! It doesn’t matter. I forgive you! Just come with me. Come back with me! My dearest! You must …’

Sturrock and the interpreter manhandled Seton out of the teepee and over to the horses. They managed to get him into the saddle. Somehow, although Sturrock’s memory is vague on this matter, they persuaded him to leave. Seton never stopped calling out to his daughter.

A year later, at the age of fifty-two, Seton was dead of a stroke. He never saw Eve again, and despite further searching, they never found the slightest trace of Amy. At times Sturrock doubted she had ever existed. He was ashamed of his own part in it: he wanted to stop the search, because Seton’s obsession was unanswerable; the meeting with Eve had taught him that. And yet he couldn’t bring himself to walk away–the man had suffered too much already. So Sturrock carried on, unwillingly, without being much use or comfort. He should, he thought afterwards, have got someone else to take his place. But the afternoon at Burke’s Falls had somehow bound the two men into a confederacy of silence, for the strangest thing of all was this: Seton refused to admit that they had found Eve; he let out that it had been another false alarm, another girl. He persuaded Sturrock to keep it quiet also, and Sturrock reluctantly complied. Only Andrew Knox had been let in on the secret, and that inadvertently.

Once or twice Seton mentioned going back to Burke’s Falls and trying to persuade Eve to come away, but he seemed half-hearted. Sturrock suspected he wouldn’t have gone through with it. Without telling Seton, Sturrock went back a week later to speak to her alone, but could not find them anywhere. He doubted it would have done much good if he had.

The way northward along the river exerts its pull on all of them. Now more men, it is rumoured, are getting ready to set off. Searchers after searchers. She will not be included, of course. But she feels the pull just the same–that is why she is here. A sharp wind cuts into Maria’s face as she follows the path beside the river. The trees are bare now, the fallen leaves muddied, the snow spoilt. She sees the smooth lump of Horsehead Bluff up ahead, below which the water swirls in its self-scoured basin. In summer she and Susannah used to come swimming here, but that all stopped years ago. Maria has never swum since the day she saw the thing in the water.

She wasn’t one of the ones who found it–they were a group of younger boys who had come fishing, but their shouts attracted the attention of Maria and her best friend at the time, David Bell. David was the one person at school who sought her out; they weren’t sweethearts, but outcasts united in opposition to the rest of the world. They rambled in the woods, smoking and discussing politics, books and the shortcomings of their peers. Maria didn’t much like the smoking but liked doing something that was forbidden, so she forced herself.

When they heard the urgent cries, they ran up the river-bank, and saw the boys staring down into the water. They were laughing, which jarred with the alarm in their initial yells. One boy turned, addressing David, ‘Come’n see! You ain’t seen nothing like this!’

They stepped up to the bank, smiles already forming on their faces in anticipation, and then they saw what was in the water.