Ravens Gathering by Graeme Cumming Page A

things
in a certain way for thirty years or so, he didn’t like the idea of change.”
    “So to keep things the same, he got rid of his business,
sold his house and moved a hundred and fifty miles north.”
    “It does sound ridiculous when you put it like that.”
    “But who knows what makes us do the things we do?”
    She knew the question was rhetorical.  They walked in
silence for a while, the path winding through the trees but still rising.
    “Why did you come to Ravens Gathering?”
    “Ian heard about Forest Farm , and thought he could
make a go of it.”
    “And what did you think?”
    “Honestly?”  Even as she asked the question, she knew
it was redundant.
    “You can lie if you want to, or you could even refuse to
answer the question on the grounds you might incriminate yourself.”  She
looked at him and saw the good-natured smile on his lips.
    “I thought it was a crap idea.”
    “You didn’t think it’d work?”
    “No it wasn’t that.  To be fair to Ian, I could see
exactly where he was coming from.  I just thought if he was going to sell
up, he’d be taking the opportunity to retire and move abroad.”
    “I have heard that a lot of southerners think the North is a
foreign country.”
    “We do,” she laughed.  “And having lived up here for a
couple of years, I can’t say my view’s changed.”
    “Presumably you were thinking of somewhere more exotic.”
    “I had my eye on some villas in the Costa del Sol.”
    “I’d have thought you’d prefer the Canaries or the Greek
Islands.”
    “Not to mention the Caribbean.  But it seems Ian
couldn’t even afford Spain.  He said if he could have drawn his pension,
it might have been possible, but he can’t touch that until he’s sixty. 
The stupid thing is, because things have gone wrong here, his pension will
barely allow us to exist when he does draw it.”
    The trees were closing in on them now, and the woods were
becoming darker.  She guessed it must be around five o’clock.  Still
more than two hours before sunset.  Yet the visibility in here was little
better than she would expect after nightfall.  She stumbled over a tree
root sticking up from the ground.  Martin’s hand shot out and grabbed her
arm just above the elbow, steadying her.  When he released his grip, she
felt him take her hand gently.  It felt safer.
    “So, you’re stuck here then?”
    “Unless you fancy whisking me away,” she said.
    “I don’t think my lifestyle would suit you, Tanya.”
    And she knew he was right.  Her attraction to him was
purely physical.  If she was looking for someone to rescue her from the
mess at the farm, it would have to be a man who had his own car and didn’t carry
his belongings around in a rucksack.
    Up ahead, she could see a beam of sunlight shining down
through a gap in the wood’s canopy.  Martin had obviously seen it too,
because he suddenly stopped walking.
    “We’re here,” he said.

Ten
     
     
    It hadn’t occurred to Tanya that there was a destination in
mind.  Martin had said he wanted to go for a walk in the woods, but he
hadn’t given any indication that there was a specific part of the woods to go
to.  For a brief moment, it occurred to her that he might have remembered
a special place which was good for taking girls to.  Perhaps he’d
considered the pending arrival of her husband might be too much of a
distraction for him, and bringing her here would allow them to take their
pleasures uninterrupted.  But his face suggested that was simply wishful
thinking on her part.
    He was wary.  His eyes darted in all directions, taking
in everything that lay before them.   She looked ahead, curious to
see what it was that had attracted him here.
    Where the light was brighter, it was apparent that this was
because there was an open space among the trees.  The edge of the clearing
was about a hundred yards away.  It was difficult to tell from this
distance, but she guessed it must be circular in