Rushcutter Arms — Ch. 1

As the little fibreglass boat approached Rushcutter Arms, the same palpable sense of dread that had stuck with him for many weeks did not move from Will Andrews’ mind.

He paddled slowly and methodically on the still water, canoe style, Francine bundled up in the blankets behind him, watching all about in case anything living emerged from the mist. The sun was starting to lower further, and with it visibility was becoming worse and worse. A pale glow bathed them in a milky, dreamlike orange light that made the edges and shapes of things irregular and difficult to judge. It was very still. And very silent. There were no bird noises, no sounds of traffic, no farm machinery. Nothing except for the splish sploosh of the paddle dipping into the water, which had taken on a metronome quality that, together with the rocking boat and the silence, gave Will a soporific feeling that he knew would soon prove irresistible.

He was very tired. He had rowed, by now, 7 or 8 miles to try and get to Rushcutter Arms before it got dark. He knew that if he stopped he would never be able to continue again, so just carried on through the burning pain in his shoulders and in his back, the burning in his thighs from kneeling. His head had been constantly rotating, as though fixed on a swivel, so that he could keep watch through his unblinking eyes, and his neck ached and cried out to be massaged. Yet he did not stop looking. The skin on his hands was becoming raw from the cheap plastic handles of the paddles, his armpits chafing from the switching of sides. But he did not stop paddling. He knew that stopping would cause him to lay back and rest, and if he rested then he would fall asleep like Francine and to fall asleep like Francine was suicidal. He had carried on, and, gradually, through the mist and beyond the tall reeds, the prominent tall black outline he had been drawing them to kept getting bigger and bigger even though the sky was getting darker and mistier. And now it was here, finally. Rushcutter Windmill.

He looked backwards briefly, idly watching the long wake of the boat as it rippled the orange reflection out over the smooth water to the banks of the river and, gritting his teeth against the pain in his shoulder blade, slowly turned the boat to the left, pointing it toward the bank on the farside. The boat rocked a little, but it otherwise kept stable and Will pushed forward again towards the bank, towards the windmill and the various dark silhouetted buildings that were scattered around it.

There was a long jetty over the reedbed, just as he had remembered, but it was jutting into the river at an oblique angle. He looked across and saw that some of the wood had rotted on the side furthest from them and, perhaps during a tidal surge, it had given way, causing the structure to only be held in place by the one thick trunk-like pole. It was not moving of course, with the water so still, but it did not look landable. The reedbed was wide on both sides of the river, at least 15 metres, and other than the jetty there was no easy way of landing the boat.

Slowly he turned himself about in the boat, facing the pile of blankets that contained the sleeping Francine and the bags and bits they had carried with them, and reached into the leather satchel underneath the bench in front of him. From it he removed a machete, turned back to face again, and then, with the machete in his right hand and the paddle in his left, he pushed the boat on into the reeds, leaning forward over the stern chopping at them so as to make a path for the boat.

His arms were extremely sore. With every cut and sythe he felt a sharp pain run from his arm, up and over his shoulder and down his back. He threw the blade at the reeds, often so tiresomely he simply let the gravity take the weight of the blade as it swished through them before he stopped his arms from dropping the blade into the water. He kept this up for five minutes before he noticed a scraping against the floor of the boat.

He looked around, seeing that he had buried them into something of a corridor of reeds and tall grass that towered over them on three sides, and then, straining against the instinct to fall lazily backwards again, he gingerly stood up. He waited for the blood to flow to his legs again, and then grimaced as he waited for the horrible feeling of pins and needles to subside. He wiped the sweat and dirt from his face with the back of his arm, and then stepped into the shallows in front of the boat

His foot sunk immediately, and for a horrible moment he thought he might sink all of the way in, but it hit the solid bed and he was able to shore his footing as he slid the other leg over the lip of the boat, still cutting away at the reeds in front of him. Eventually he walked forward, bending the reeds with his foot to create a path and then, finally, he hit proper dry land. The grass verge.

He crouched down, resting on the tip of the machete and panted heavily, desperately sucking the oxygen into his lungs as though they had been forgotten about for the last four hours. The sun had completely dipped below the horizon, and all that was left around was a twilight glow that reflected around the mist in the reeds and the grasses. To his right he saw the mill, sitting almost impossibly close to the river such was the optical illusion caused by the meander and the long bank of reeds, it’s wooden sails pointing at exactly 9, 12, 3 and 6 o’clock. In front of him was the millhouse and a barn. To his left, he knew, was the pub but he could not see it from where he was crouched, such was the way the shadows had now fallen.

Slowly he brought himself back to his feet and walked back towards the boat, wincing as his already drying trainers became soaking wet again. He leant against the side, and called out, startled by the sound of his own voice in the silence.

“Francine? Francine wake up. We’re here.”

The mass of blankets moved and groaned, then the head of a teenage girl appeared, her eyes defocused and dazed.

She dragged herself forward, shaking the blankets, and shook herself awake. Her face was pale and clammy, the freckles prominent except for where dirt covered it. Her curled black hair too, was dirty and ragged with mud caked into certain parts of it so badly only a deep wash and a cut would get rid of it. She wore a grey, light, hooded jumper that was zipped up to the bottom of her neck to suggest that she was cold, and jeans that had ripped in several places, including a place that revealed a particularly nasty looking scabbing gash on her left thigh that, as far as Will was aware, was supposed to be bandaged.

She did not say anything. Instead, now that she had fully gathered herself, she stared at her father with a mixture of fear and shock, an expression she had worn now for several days.

She stood up and Will held her hand as she stepped over the side, but his arms were aching so much he knew he’d not be able to catch her if she fell.

“Could grab the torch…?” he asked, quietly.

She reached back into the boat, rummaged around in a duffel bag, produced the torch and handed it to Will. It was a large but cheap torch that he had once purchased at a market stall several years ago, but it still worked nonetheless. He gave the crank several winds, and then switched it on, the cutting light leading the way through back through the reed corridor sending the shadows all the wrong way. They stepped onto the shore, the light from the torch cutting through the mist like a grim light show. A dampness hung in the air and clung to everything. It mixed with Will’s perspiration.

He held out his hand again and gestured towards her to climb over the side. She hesitated.

“It will be all right Francine. It will be all right.”

She clasped his hand and he helped her over, the both of them being careful not to scratch themselves on the reeds that seemed to grow up and around them as they moved. He pushed her in front, looking into the little path that he had made through the bed, and reached into the boat and pulled out the nearest canvas bad to him, the biggest. He pushed back towards Francine, and continued pushing her forward along the path, convinced that the hesitation she walked was not just so that she could find her balance. When they reached the shore again, he guided her towards the wooden bench that sat on a concrete plinth amongst the overgrown grass, the spider’s webs shimmering in the forever fading evening light. Next to the bench was a sign, curved upwards slightly so that it was possible to lean on, and he pointed the torch towards it.

At the top, in big black letters were the words “Rushcutter Arms, RSPB Reserve”, and underneath there was a stylised, and thus not entirely to scale, map of the area around them. Will pointed the torch to each area in turn, not looking to Francine as he spoke.

“This is where we are, the jetty. And you can see the windmill still, just about.” He pointed towards the windmill, from the map to its real life location. “Then that way is the pub, we’ll go there in a bit, and there’s the old farm buildings, the birdwatcher’s shelter, the groundskeeper’s hut — little more than a shed if I remember right — and then, even though it looks close on this map, the train station is about a half a mile along this path…”

While Francine still did not say anything, she studied the map intensely. Her eyes flickered around with Will’s torch as if she were a general looking at battlefield plans.

“As I told you back in Norwich,” Will continued breathlessly, jerking his thumb behind them. “Yarmouth is only about three miles that way, but you can’t cross the marsh or the river unless you go north and go over the bridge on the A47, and then double back down the otherside of the river again on this -” he pointed back at the map at a near enough straight yellow line. “- the only track that leads out of here. It’s, like, a trip of ten miles I would have thought.” And then, to convince himself more than anything else. “We’re sheltered on three sides by the river and the marsh, and the only open side is a good six mile long rough track leading to us that we can easily see anyone coming down.”

Francine looked at him neutrally and wearily, the only expression of acknowledgment that she could now give, and Will took this as a sign of understanding. He took the bag again, and pointed to his left with the torch, it’s beam of light cutting through a mist that was now rapidly turning into a fog.

“Let’s get to the pub before we can’t see our hands in front of our faces.”

They plodded along the track. The pub was a rickety old building, with white washed walls and a sloping tiled roof. Once it may have been thatched like so many of the buildings around the Yare, but someone long ago probably had decided that the cost of keeping the thatch was simply not worth it. Instead the roof titles were a curious kind of slate, the sort of material that wouldn’t be found nearby, which gave the whole building a look of a hillside pub in the Peak District or Brecon Beacons. The varnish was already peeling from the sign above the door, with the simple blackboard and red text, solemnly reading “Rushcutter Arms”. Flowerbeds sat unloved, overgrown and full of weeds next to the main front door and the hanging baskets, once perhaps carrying posies or geraniums, had fallen and crashed to the gravel floor spilling soil all about. There was no traditional picture sign from what they could see. That, complete with its image of a neutral expressioned man with a sythe in front of a bundle of twigs and reeds, was out towards the river — in an attempt to entice passing pleasure boats and their thirsty captains.

The door and windows were boarded up with plywood sheets, and Will had expected this. He reached into the duffel bag, produced a hammer and, with the claw end and with some painful shocks from his arm muscles, started to crowbar the sheet of wood on the front door.

It came away easily. Cheap nails had been used, and they had all but rusted away. Holding the torch in his mouth, he peeled it back and had a look at the door. It was solid, locked and otherwise impenetrable.

“We’re not getting in this way then. Window it is.”

The wood on the window next to the door was somewhat harder to jimmy open, but eventually, with some of it splintering, there was a large enough gap to crawl through.

“I’ll go in first,” he said, as Francine nodded. “Here, hold the wood open.” Francine did as she was told and Will, ungraciously stepped through the broken window into the darkness.

The torch beam cut through the dancing dust inside like a headlight through fog. Squinting, and with a musty smell threatening to make him gag, he peered around the room. Chairs and tables were stacked at odd angles, some on their side. To the left was a bar, the logos on the beer taps still curiously clean, Guinness, Heineken, Greene King IPA, and, at the back of the room, was an open fireplace. Low wooden beams ran perpendicular to the walls across the ceiling.

“It’s safe. Come on in.”

Francine did so.

“Do you hear that?”

They both stood still and stopped breathing. Francine strained her ears, but could not hear anything but, when Will turned his head just so he was sure he could hear a quiet but shrill echo.

They walked around the bar and into a back room — the living room of the private house that ran parallel to the pub in front — and climbed the stairs. The noise was becoming louder and louder and it quickly became recognisable as music.

Sat slumped against the wall was the body of a woman. A knife was sticking out of her chest and the blood had dripped down and covered her clothes. It had pooled on the carpet, turned syrupy and flies had started to feed off of it. Over her head there were two large can headphones and these were connected to what Will, with a rush of a grim nostalgia, recognised as a Sony Walkman cassette player.