The Scratch
From the No.1 bestselling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London comes a gothic novella – perfect for fans of The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.Clare and Gerald live a perfect life in the Forest of Dean with their cat, Cannop. Then Gerald’s young nephew comes to stay. Jack is from another world – active service in Afghanistan. The experience has left him outwardly untouched, but for a scratch that won’t heal. Jack and Cannop don't like each other. Clare and Jack like each other too much. The scratch begins to fester.
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ANDREW TAYLOR
The Scratch
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2016
Copyright © Andrew Taylor 2016
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollâinsPublishers Ltd 2016
Andrew Taylor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it, while at times based on historical fact, are the work of the authorâs imagination.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Source ISBN: 9780008171230
Ebook Edition © JULY 2017 ISBN: 9780008179779
Version: 2017-06-19
Table of Contents
The first time I saw Jack was when Gerald brought him from the station. We thought it might be easier for Jack that way. We didnât know what to expect, and nor did he. Jack had been seven or eight when Gerald had last seen him. Gerald appeared to have almost no memories of the meeting.
âJack was just a boy,â Gerald said. âHe was trying to make something out of Lego.â
âBut you must have some idea what he was like.â
âClare, I just canât remember. OK?â He hesitated, frowning. âI think it was some sort of spaceship, though. Star Wars? The Lego, I mean.â
The more I questioned him, the less certain Gerald became even of that.
When they arrived, I was standing at the landing window looking down on the top garden and the gate. Most of the house faced the other way, towards the Forest, but from the landing window you could see the lane, with more cottages beyond and the piece of waste ground where we and our neighbours parked our cars. I wasnât exactly waiting for them but I had gone up to our room to change my skirt. We used to make the run to the station so often that I knew, almost instinctively, when they were due. On my way downstairs I paused by the window.
So yes, I suppose that in a way I was waiting. On some level I must have wanted to see Jack before he saw me.
Cannop was with me. He was sprawling on the windowsill, a favourite spot of his in the late afternoon because it caught the sun. He was lying to the left of the big blue ginger jar that stood there. The jar had a domed lid with one of those squat Chinese lions to guard the contents.
He was dozing, as usual â I read somewhere that cats spend most of their lives asleep. But when the car drew up outside, he lifted his head and stared. He liked to monitor our comings and goings.
Gerald was the first out of the car. Then the passenger door opened and Jack got out. He stood there for a moment, looking about him, while Gerald opened the tailgate of the car and took out a large grey backpack.
Jack wasnât what I had expected â you could say in that respect he began as he continued. One of the few things I knew about him was that he had been in the army, and that had made me think he would probably be a beefy young man, perhaps with a closely shaven head and tattoos on his forearms. Instead he was thin, perhaps medium height or a little less, with dark, curly hair. When he turned towards Gerald, the sun caught the rims of the gold-rimmed glasses he wore. The glasses made him look almost scholarly. And fragile. That at least I had been expecting: the fragility. One of the other things I knew was that he hadnât been well.
There was a thump as Cannop jumped from the sill to the floor. I glanced over my shoulder and saw him trickling down the stairs like an articulated shadow. When I turned back to the window, Gerald was opening the gate, standing back so Jack could go first.
Jack was looking up at the house. He seemed to be looking directly at the landing window. I felt foolish and even guilty, which was ridiculous. Why shouldnât I look out of my own window?
I took a step away and followed Cannop down the stairs. I wondered if Jack had seen me and, if so, what he had seen. A glimpse of a white face. A blur behind the glass. Something and nothing.
The heart of the house was the kitchen, which was at the back. When I stood at the sink I looked down the garden, past the strip of tussocky grass we called the lawn, past the fruit trees and the old pigsty, to the irregular line of the stone wall at the end. (Neither the house nor the garden had many straight lines in it.) A copper beech grew there beside the gate into the Forest. In the corner, built into the wall, was the Hovel.
