Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke (10 page)

I didn’t like to think of Spike stewing in any sort of juice, lying on a mattress in a room in a house in Wivey with no work and no money, scared to go out, playing his idiocy over and over in his head, wondering when he was going to get out of this mess. But what could I do? Nothing more, and there was probably nothing more he could do either, so I said, “OK,” and when we reached the end of the bumpy track, Pollock turned onto the road and the long hill towards Wellington. When we reached the pub, Smith said, “You’ve been very helpful, Elliot. We’ve been trying to nail Dickens for years, and you’re the break we’ve been waiting for. And you’re not to worry. We’ll keep you safe.”

“That makes me feel a lot better.”

“Good.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

“I know.”

“Do I call you?”

“Yes. Give us a couple of days.”

“OK.”

“Keep safe, Elliot.”

“I’ll try.”

He reached across me, opened the door and said, “You’re free to go.”

“Thanks,” I said, and I stepped out of the car and walked to my bike.

Stawley church sits like an ark in its own green sea, a drop of warm stone, somewhere to stop and hope for balm or help. It’s a peaceful place, and when I was at primary school the teacher took my class there for a history lesson, and we learnt about the Normans and a man called Henry Howe. He was a rich and powerful man in the parish, and when he died the words “Pray for the soule” were carved backwards over one of the doors. I suppose I was about nine or ten, but I remember how it was on that day: it was spring, and buttercups were growing around the graves, and Spike was laughing instead of listening to what the teacher had to say. I was never a swot, but I listened and thought that if I’d been born in the olden days I would have liked to have met Sir Francis Drake and travelled with him to the Spanish Main. I would have stood next to the man while he navigated and fought and stole, and when he returned to show the Queen his treasure, I would have told her that yes, I was as brave as he was, and as bold.

I stopped at the church on my way back to the farm, stood in the graveyard, stared at the dying flowers in their vases, and then went inside. It was cool and quiet, and I sat in one of the pews and let the place calm me. I’ve never believed in gods, never thought that anything could have a greater power than a wood or a field, so I didn’t say a prayer or hope that someone would lay a kind hand on me, but I did dip my head, fold my hands and listen.

A bee was trapped against one of the windows, and as it banged against the glass its buzz rose and dipped. It was too high for me to cup and carry outside, so I let it do what it had to do. Maybe it would find some pollen in the flowers by the altar, and maybe it would find its way home through a crack in the door. I wondered – do bees recognize the problems they face? Do they worry? Do they ever stop for a moment and wonder? Or are they, as I read in a
National Geographic
magazine, simple machines, useless without their queen, as their queen is useless without them? Tiny cogs turning until they die, with no chance to make a choice or take an unexpected opportunity? Maybe, I thought, and probably. And when I left the pew and the cool and stepped into the evening, I left the bee against the glass, and the buzz of its futility echoing around the old church like, I supposed, my own.

It was half-nine by the time I got back to the farm. As I dropped the bike in the front yard, Mr Evans came from the house and said, “Someone came looking for you. I told her you’d be back later, but she wanted to wait, so I let her into the caravan.”

“Her?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

“And I wanted to say,” he said, and he cleared his throat, a loud crack of a noise, “that I didn’t mean to be short with you this morning. But there are some things it’s difficult to talk about.”

“No,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

He reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. I waited for him to say something else, something about the War or the woman he left behind and the letters he wrote. “She looks like a nice girl. So don’t make my mistake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t lose her.” He turned and hobbled up the steps to his front door. He stood at the door and said, “And don’t be late for milking.”

“Am I ever?”

“There’s always a first time, Elliot.”

“I’ll be getting them in before you’re up.”

“Just make sure you are,” he said, and he turned and went back inside for a cup of tea in front of the television, and a snoozy climb up the stairs to his bed.

Sam was sitting on the cushions at the front of the caravan, her legs tucked up, reading a book by the light of a candle. She was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, and her hair was hanging loose.

“Hope you don’t mind,” she said.

“No,” I said. I wasn’t sure whether to stay where I was or kiss her. I felt stuck.

“I couldn’t work the lights.”

“Here,” I said, and I got the matches, dropped them, picked them up again, lit one of the lamps and said, “Want something to drink?”

“What have you got?”

“Beer?”

“Great.”

I took two bottles from the fridge, passed her one, sat on the opposite cushion, took a long swig and stretched.

“You look like you needed that,” she said.

“I did. I’ve had a hell of a day. Sometimes… sometimes I feel like a bee against a window.”

“What do you mean? What’s been going on?”

I looked at her little eyes and her red mouth, and the way her neck curved to her shoulders. Her neck curved to her shoulders in the same way as any other woman’s neck would curve, but hers had a ridge that caught the gaslight and the candlelight, and made the shadows dance. Even if the shadows hadn’t wanted to dance they would have danced, they would have loved to see her skin and feel the tiny hairs that grew there.

I suppose I could have explained, could have told her about my day, but I didn’t want to spoil her mood or remind myself. I didn’t want questions and I didn’t want to give answers. All I wanted was to listen to her breathe and talk, so I said, “Tell me about your day, and maybe I’ll tell you about mine.”

“Well,” she said, and she took a little sip of beer, rested the bottle on her knee and dabbed her lips with her fingers. Even the way she drank beer made me feel good. “I went to work…”

“Work? I didn’t think you worked.”

“Of course I work. We all work.”

“Where?”

“In Bampton. Some friends have got a little shop. I work behind the counter.”

“What sort of shop?

“Food. A few craft things for the tourists. It’s nice. I got back and had some tea with the others, then thought I’d come over and see where you live. Had a bit of an accident down the lane though…” she leant forwards and showed me a bruise on her forehead.

“Ouch,” I said. “What happened?”

“I slipped in a cow pat.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “I’m sorry,” I said. I put my hand over my mouth. “I didn’t mean to.”

“No. It’s fine. It is funny,” and she took my hand and rubbed between my fingers. “Kiss it better if you like.”

I looked into her eyes and I looked at her cheeks. I reached out my other hand, crooked the little finger and rubbed her nose. I leant forwards and kissed the bruise.

As my lips touched her she closed her eyes and I closed mine, and I felt her breath on my neck. She gave a little sigh and moved her head up, and she brushed her lips against mine. Then we were kissing, and behind the taste of beer I tasted cake mix, the sort of mix my mum would leave in the bowl and let me scrape out. Vanilla and sugar and the old flavour of a wooden spoon. I pulled away and said, “Yes,” and then we kissed again, harder this time and deeper.

And it was as if a door had opened in a wall, a wall I knew was there, but a door I hadn’t seen, a low door that led into a wet garden lit by washed sunlight. Sunlight that laddered through the trees and made the leaves dance in their twisting and tumbling. A place where puddles coined in the undergrowth, and paths led from one hollow to the next. And the hollows were made of whispered words and careful thoughts, and the paths carried bad memories away. They carried them to a burning ground beyond the garden, a place where ash was swallowed by kind beasts and smoke was taken and woven into ribbon.

And the door opened wider and I stepped into the garden and walked beneath the trees and touched their trunks with my fingers. They were smooth and cool, and leaves tinkled above me. A bird, a bright tame bird came and brushed its wings against my face, and the dust of its feathers became the air. And the air was scented with hay.

Music was playing in the garden, the sort of music monks make with bells and bowls of water and wooden sticks. Music recognized by mountains and glaciers. Music that can fold in on itself and make pictures out of its own notes. And the pictures are more than pictures. They smell of skin and hair.

Rain began to fall in the garden, soft and light, and more birds came, and small animals. Hares and voles, lambs and cats. At a place where the path met another path, the ground sloped away, the trees thinned and the sea shone in the eye of the horizon. I saw a little fishing boat with a red cabin and a yellow hull. It had a brown sail over its stern and was moving slowly, lumbering through the glassy swell like a cow in heat. Seagulls were following its wake, and a man was standing on the deck, staring at something. He was wearing a check shirt and blue jeans. He shaded his eyes. I opened mine and said, “I can smell a garden.”

“Me too.”

I closed my eyes. “And I can see the sea.”

“Me too.”

I wouldn’t say that I experienced an overwhelming wave of something that I can only describe by talking about something else, but I had never felt what I felt with Sam in the caravan that night, not with any of the girlfriends I’d had before, or with anyone else. Maybe the things I was going through gave Sam in the caravan that night an edge, and made me see things in a different way. A clean café on a busy street, a raft floating at sea, a wooden bench in an evening park. So when she said, “Can I stay?” it was the only question left to ask, and the answer was simple.

I dropped the table between the two couches at the front of the caravan, spread the cushions and made a double bed. I made it comfortable with sheets and pillows. She asked for a biscuit. I gave her a biscuit. She ate it in front of me, slowly. She caught some crumbs in the palm of her hand and gave them to me. I poured them into my mouth. We washed. I found a clean towel. I leant her a toothbrush. I gave her a glass of water. We stood in front of each other and listened as gravity held onto us. We stood in front of each other and tasted the failing season. We stood in front of each other and I touched her face. It was that easy.

She went to bed first. When I joined her she was face down, propped up on her elbows, looking out of the window at the fields, the moon and the flights of stars. Sheep moved through the half-dark like nervous lights. The tower of Stawley church shone. The caravan smelt of something I hadn’t smelt before. Primrose and the removal of dust. She’d pulled the sheet up to her waist. Her back shone. The gaslight flared. I reached up and turned it low. I lay down next to her. She turned towards me and rested her right hand on my shoulder. She traced a circle with her finger. She said, “This must be the best view from the best bed.”

“I think it might be,” I said.

“Make it better,” she said.

“Make me better.”

In the morning, Sam helped me fetch the herd in. The day was bright and clear, no threat of rain, just more heat. We walked down to the bottom fields, and while she strolled around to fetch the stragglers, I stood and looked down at the place where the hung man had died. The woods didn’t give me any sign, no clue, just darkness and silence.

On the way back, Sam opened gates, closed gates and said kind things to the cows as they passed by. I stood back, leant on my stick and watched her. I loved the way her bunches of hair flipped across her face, the way she reached out and stroked the flanks of the slowest beasts, the sound of her quiet voice, the line of her back as it curved into her waist, her deep brown eyes. I remembered the first time I’d seen her eyes and how I’d thought they were like conkers peeped out of their autumn shells, jewels in the dying season.

When the cows were in, she leant against the parlour wall, watched me milk, asked me questions – “What’s that for?” “What are you doing that for?” “Do the cows like it?” – and fetched a saucer for the cat. Then she helped me wash the floor, watched the herd go back to pasture and followed me back to the caravan. As we were eating breakfast, Mr Evans knocked on the door. He had a rifle tucked under his arm. He pointed at the yard fence and said, “When you’ve finished that, make a start on the parlour. There’s whitewash in the store.”

Sam appeared behind me. She was eating a slice of toast and holding a cup of tea. Mr Evans smiled, blushed a little and said, “Good morning, missy.”

“Morning, Mr Evans.”

“Sleep well?”

“I did, thanks. Very well.”

He looked at me, took the rifle out from under his arm and tapped the stock. “I’m off to the top-field copse. Some of those rabbits have been doing what rabbits like to do…” He winked at me. “And they’ve been doing it a bit too often.”

“Nice gun,” I said.

“Rifle,” he said. “.22. Perfect balance, fits me like a glove…” He held it up to me. “Have a feel.”

I took it, and he was right. It felt almost light, hardly lethal. It could have been made of wood and feathers, the bullets wax, the stock rubber. I put it up to my shoulder and aimed at a hedge. “Careful,” said Mr Evans. “We don’t want any accidents.” I passed it back to him. “No,” I said. “We don’t.” And he tucked it back under his arm and headed off for his shooting.

As he disappeared, Sam said, “I don’t like guns.”

“Nor do I,” I said. “Too much to go wrong,” and we went back inside the caravan, took our clothes off and went to bed.

A couple of hours later I gave her a lift to Ashbrittle. I dropped her at her place, put my arms around her, kissed her and said, “I like you.”

“As much as biscuits?”

“More than biscuits.”

“Good,” she said, and she blew in my ear.

“See you tomorrow?”

“I’m counting on it.”

I left her at the door and freewheeled down the road to home. Mum was in the kitchen, listening to the radio and baking a cake. When I appeared, she threw her arms around me and said, “Pet!”

“Hi.”

“I’ve been worried about you.”

“Mum…”

“I heard about Spike’s fire…”

“It’s been a nightmare…”

“How did it start? Is he OK?”

“I don’t know what happened,” I said, “but he lost just about everything. Not that he had a lot in the first place. He’s staying with a friend in Wivey.”

“He could stay here if he wants.”

“No, Mum. You wouldn’t want that.”

“Why not?”

“You just wouldn’t.”

She opened the oven, took the cake out, stuck it with a knife, put it back in the oven and wiped her hands on her apron. “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?”

“Yes Mum. He is.”

“Are you going to tell me about it?”

“He’s been an idiot.”

“Wasn’t he always?”

“Yes. But he is my mate.”

She patted my hand and said, “You’re just like your father.” She was warm.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re loyal. You stick by your friends.”

“What else am I supposed to do?”

“I think you’re already doing it.”

There is nothing like the smell of a baking cake. The comfort, the memory, the touch and promise. I stayed with Mum until it was ready, and although she said it wouldn’t be ready or proper to eat for a couple of hours, I persuaded her to cut me a slice. She made a pot of tea, and we sat and drank and ate, and she said, “Have you got anything else to tell me?”

“I’ve met a girl.”

“Anyone we know?”

“She lives in Milton’s Cottage. At Pump Court. Her name’s Sam. She works in Bampton…”

“One of the hippies?”

“Some people call them that.”

“You and Spike do.”

“Yes,” I said, “but they’re more than that.”

“I’m sure they are. They seem very nice to me. Those boys always say good morning. And I think they work hard.”

“They do. They’re just getting on with their lives. Just like everyone else. They don’t do anyone any harm.”

“Of course they don’t. And she’s a nice girl?”

“She’s lovely.”

“I’m glad. And when you say you’ve met her, does that mean you’re courting?”

The cake was warm and moist, sponge with raspberry jam in the middle. “We’ve only been out a couple of times, but I suppose so, yes.”

She reached across the table and took my hand in her right hand, put the left over the top, closed her eyes and took a deep breath. As she let the breath out I felt a tingling beneath my skin, and a buzzing behind my eyes. “Maybe it’s the start of good things for you.”

“I hope so.”

“Don’t forget to listen to the signs.”

“Sometimes I wonder, Mum…”

“You wonder what?”

“Spike says it’s all mumbo-jumbo. He says real life is what it’s all about.”

“Well, you can tell him from me that if his life is anything to go by, maybe he should get a bit of mumbo-jumbo. And when it comes to you, Pet, you can wonder all you like. In fact, the more wondering the better. I know what I know, and even though you might not know it yet, you’ll come round. You’ll understand soon enough. Probably sooner than you think.”

I knew it was best not to argue with her when she was in this sort of mood, so I said, “I expect you’re right,” and pulled my hand away from hers. As I did I heard a little click in the air, a sound like a bird would make as it guards its territory. Mum smiled and said, “Your father understands. And if he does, then anyone can.”

I laughed at that, finished my cake and said, “I’d better get back to work.”

“I think you’d better.”

“Mr Evans will be wondering where I am.”

I left her sitting at the kitchen table, put my plate and mug in the sink and kissed the top of her head. “Ride careful,” she said.

“Don’t I always?”

“No.”

“I will,” I said, and I went out by the back door, round the front, climbed onto the bike, kicked it over first time and gunned off through the village and back to the farm. I fetched the can of creosote from the store and carried on painting the yard fence.

It was easy, satisfying work, and I’d been at it for ten minutes when I heard the crack of a gunshot. Mr Evans had got a rabbit. As the sound echoed across the lands, I said, “One for the pot,” to myself, and waited for the next shot. It came. Maybe another rabbit. I reached the last rail, put the top on the can, carried it back to the store and went to the parlour to get ready for milking.

The smell of creosote was strong, but I could smell Sam through it, Sam and Mum’s cake and hay. This, I thought, is how it should be. It should be easy and simple and quiet, and all our senses should chat to each other. But how it should be didn’t remain how it should or could or would be. As I was checking the clusters it turned. It turned with the sound of a car I didn’t recognize. I went to a window that looked out to the front. A white car was parking in the yard. I felt my blood do that thing blood does when you’re scared: it didn’t chill, but it seemed to flush and rearrange itself in my veins. And my eyesight sharpened, and I heard a vague whistling in my ears, like the sound of a distant alarm.

Two men were sitting in the car. I didn’t recognize the driver, but I recognized the passenger. He was bald and had pale-blue eyes, and his baby face glistened with sweat. He lifted up his hand and scratched his face. His silver watch twinkled. He turned his head and said something to the passenger, who got out of the car and walked towards my caravan. He knocked on the door. He waited for a moment, then kicked the door. It didn’t budge. He tried the handle. It swung open. He stepped inside, and I heard him banging around for a minute before he came out again, went to the car and said something to Dickens. Dickens stepped out of the car, looked at his shoes and spat. I saw him mouth the words “Fucking hell”. He pointed one way and then pointed in the other, and the driver walked the first way and then he walked the other. I got down from the window, crept along the parlour and left it by the side door. I crossed the backyard and stepped into a half-ruined barn where we kept hand tools, baler twine, tins of paint and forgotten old stuff. I picked up a long-handled hook, the sort we use for trimming hedges, and climbed a ladder at the back of the barn. This led to a loft, a place where broken bales of straw were scattered around. The floorboards were rotten in places, and holes and broken joints were hidden by scattered straw. I stepped carefully and found a place where I could hide behind the bales. I had a good view of the yard, the back of the house and some of the fields. I lay down, put the hook at my side and waited.

I didn’t have to wait long. The driver appeared in the yard below me. He was slightly crouched, walking slowly and deliberately, eyes swivelling. A nondescript, ordinary man with brown hair and two days’ stubble on his chin. The sort of man you wouldn’t notice if you sat down next to him on a bus. He was carrying a stick. He opened the door to the parlour and went inside, and I watched his reflection pass the windows. When he reached the far end, he stepped out and walked towards the barn below me. He put his head inside and, as he did, Dickens appeared in the yard and shouted “Found him?”

“No,” said the ordinary man.

“Keep looking.”

“OK.”

The ordinary man stepped into the yard below me and started poking around the tools. I heard some fall over, and I heard him curse. He reached the bottom of the ladder. He started climbing the ladder. The rungs creaked, and as he reached the top I could hear his breathing. It was slow and heavy, like wind rolling through a narrow valley. Or a bull. Or a chicken sighing as it roosts. I kept absolutely still. I was a stone. He stopped climbing. He waited. I could sense his waiting, sense that he could sense something. Ten seconds passed, then twenty, and then I heard the rungs creak again and a thud as he put his shoe down. Then another shoe. He took a step towards me, stopped, took another. Now I could smell him, and he smelt of burgers. He started poking at the straw with his stick, flicking it up and tapping the floor beneath. He sneezed. He took another step, and for a moment there was silence, the silence of waiting and promise. A crack split the air, the board gave way beneath him and his foot fell through. As he went down he yelled, “Fuck!” and tried to grab something. I don’t know what he tried to grab, but it made no difference. I didn’t sit up, didn’t show myself, but I could imagine what he looked like. I could see him with one leg through the floor and the other at a crazy angle behind him or to the side, and his fingernails splintered by the boards. He cursed again and scrabbled and thrashed, and as he tried to haul himself up, another board cracked. Now I stood up, slowly, carefully, picked up the hook and looked down at him. It took him a second. He looked at my boots, and then he raised his head and looked up at me. He was splayed at a crazy angle, his left leg in a gaping hole, the other bent and twisted behind him, his right arm in another hole. The boards beneath his chest were sagging, and the splintered pieces around him were riddled with worm and mould. He opened his mouth, and as he did there was the loudest crack and the floor shuddered beneath him. He reached his free hand towards me and said, “Help me…” I say “he said”, but it was half question, half plea, knowing he was half doomed.

“Why?” I said.

“I’ll say I never…” he said, but before he could finish what he was about to say the floor gave way completely and he fell the twenty feet into the barn below. I took a step back, but saw his eyes widen and his legs flail. He hit the tools below and yelled as something pierced his leg. I jumped into the hole, hopped onto the ladder and skipped down. I stood next to him. He was out cold. A pitchfork was sticking in his thigh and he had a huge reddening bruise on his head. I stepped out of the barn, crossed the yard and ducked into the parlour. A moment later I heard running feet. I watched from a crack in the door as Dickens went to the barn door, looked inside and said, “Hello?”

No reply.

“You there?”

Nothing. He stepped inside.

“Shit…”

Half a minute later he pulled the ordinary man out of the barn by the shoulders, and started dragging him across the yard. “Fuck…” he said, “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” Across the yard, through the gate, around the corner and down to the front of the farmhouse. I crossed the parlour so I could look out of the windows, and I watched as he dragged him to the white car, propped him against the door and stood up straight. He put his hands to the small of his back. He stretched. He looked down at his bleeding friend. He shook his head. And then, as if he’d been waiting for his moment, Mr Evans appeared, gun held at his waist and his face red with fury.

“And what the hell are you doing?” he yelled.

Dickens’s hands shot up in the air. “I…”

“Yes? You what?”

“We’re old friends… friends of Elliot’s.”

“Are you now?”

“Yes.”

Mr Evans looked towards the caravan. “And you just popped in to say hello?”

“Yes.”

“And what happened to him?”

“We were looking over there. In the man… he tripped.”

“Must have been a hell of a trip.”

“It was…”

“And did you find Elliot?”