by Rob Parker
‘Listen, Roisin, when you see me… don’t worry, but my face is a bit of a mess.’ The line went quiet.
‘Are you OK? Should I be worried?’ Roisin asked, her voice brittle as an eggshell.
‘No, I’m fine. But if you have any ice handy, that’d be decent.’
9
After parking in a muddy side road, in the shade of a stand of moss- clad silver birch, Thor checked that the only living things that had
caught sight of him were the ragtag herd of sheep below. Satisfied, he made his way down the shallow slope to join them in Crook’s
Hollow—not the village, but the actual Crook’s Hollow, the valley on
the Crooks’ land after which the entire village was named.
The Hollow itself was a lazy shallow V etched into the green, as if dug by a gigantic, chubby finger, which flooded easily in even the lightest showers. A drystone wall ambled around the eastern ridge, while the rest of the valley floor was merely grass and little else. It was pretty and iconic in the most British of ways. As Thor walked, picking his way through the mounds of fresh droppings and mole hills, he saw Roisin’s trailer up tight next to the wall, its rear looking over the Hollow, its front facing the open fields down to Crook’s Farm. It was a nice spot, and one that Thor was getting more accustomed to spending time at.
As a Loxley the Hollow was off limits, but his ostracisation from his own family had seen a relaxing of the convention. He would never be a Crook, but he was barely a Loxley now either. The Crooks were the Loxleys’ natural enemies, a clan rivalry cast in stone generations prior to the contemporary tendency to forgive and forget old quarrels. Still, Thor couldn’t help thinking of the long-dead brethren of both clans spinning in their graves at the thought of a Loxley and a Crook about to have sex. In fact, Thor thought with a smile, their horror at such inter-clan coitus may be the only thing that the two families would ever have agreed on.
To Thor’s eye, the trailer could either have been cream or a mucky off-white, as he walked beneath it on the brow. He took the steeper ascent to the stone wall, keeping the caravan firmly between himself and possible eyes. Having scaled the wall, he inched along to the high window of the bathroom, which was cracked open, just as Roisin promised. He perched his backside on the ledge, shucked out of his boots and clattered them together to beat the mud and shit off them, before going in.
He was immediately swallowed by a warm steam cloud, lost in a sudden haze.
The bathroom was tiny and it didn’t take him long to see that he wasn’t alone. In the shower cubicle to the right of the window stood Roisin, naked and dripping. The look in her eyes made Thor’s knees quake. Her black hair was streaked back from her forehead and down over her shoulders, and her face was composed of big sovereign-gold eyes, over an elegant nose and full lips. In the steam, he could make out little else but the most inviting of shapes.
‘I know I said I’d be in bed, but I thought you wouldn’t mind this little plot twist,’ she said. Her concern was there, but masked, and she was just about pulling it off. Before she could finish saying ‘Poor baby, what happened to you?’ Thor was in and upon her, saving the answers for when their blood wasn’t pounding so fiercely.
Sometime later, they lay in the narrow bed in the bedroom, Thor staring at the peeling floral cladding above, while Roisin traced the bruises on his face with a bag of frozen Alphabet-Bites she had fetched from the kitchenette. He had just told her everything and left nothing out.
‘You should have got on with it…’ Roisin said, leaving the words
hanging in the air over their heads like mistletoe.
Thor glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, watching her jaw and bottom lip jut out in thought. Her brow was wrinkled in concern, and she looked at him earnestly. It was the tiny moments like these, when she was at her least self-conscious and at her most honest and naked (not literally, even though she was and he liked that too) he could feel the hole in himself widening to allow her in deeper, the hole he himself was digging for her, into which he was falling too. His love for her was growing, regardless of scandal.
The people that Thor and Roisin were, and the kin that they had descended from—farming people, prone to action—dictated that they found themselves speaking of solutions as opposed to their fears. Thor’s grandfather, one of the many other Wilkes’ of yesteryear, once told him, ‘Taters don’t grow better with frettin’, only your hands can help.’ It was about the most profound thing he’d ever said.
‘Who might say such a thing to you?’ she asked, bringing the thawing bag to a nasty red welt on his ribs.
‘Who might say such a thing to anyone?’ Thor replied. ‘It implies I’m late with something. So what am I late with?’
‘Rent?’
‘That would be the obvious one, given it’s probably my only real financial obligation. But no, I’m all up to date there. Besides Mo and Ahmed are cool, they’d just have a quiet word with me if something was amiss. And besides, who would murder someone over late rent?’
‘Library books all returned on time?’
‘I don’t think mowing people down with farm machinery has started replacing fines for late books. Besides, I haven’t set foot in the library since they stopped stocking comics.’
‘Mistaken identity?’
‘Nope, I don’t think so. He checked my ID, remember, before tossing it back out into the field.’
‘The field… Maybe he left something out there about himself by accident. A clue. Evidence. Maybe we should go back there and have a look?’
‘That’s a good idea.’
He pulled her body tighter to his. Despite the uncertainty of the moment he felt a bright safety and warmth in her presence, amplified by being so close to her. She squeezed back, her care and worry evident in the strength of her grip.
‘Not bad for a dirty Crook,’ he said.
She was about to protest the jibe when their solitude was shattered by two pounding knocks on the caravan door.
10
Roisin answered the door, having pulled on a jumper and jeans in record time, while Thor waited in the bedroom. As the cold air hit her face, she saw two men she immediately recognised, a feat seemingly made all the easier by the fact that they were identical.
‘G’morning,’ said Wendell Crook laconically, standing side by side with his brother Ward. ‘Mum’s looking for you.’
‘Morning, Wendell,’ Roisin replied. She had her own issues with her family, issues that had seen her banished to the far reaches of their property in an old caravan. ‘Did it really need both of you to come out here for that? You could’ve sent me a text. Or better yet, Mum could have.’
Wendell smiled thinly, causing his thick red moustache to stretch on his lip like a tired caterpillar. Ward, unhelpfully wearing his facial hair exactly the same way, mirrored the gesture and for a moment it looked to Roisin like the two caterpillars were locked in a mating ritual of imitation. ‘We know he’s here,’ said Wendell.
Roisin didn’t act one bit surprised—or intimidated. ‘So you thought you’d come and protect me? Twin knights in shining armour.’
‘He shouldn’t be here, you know.’ Wendell’s smile darkened. ‘This here is my caravan. I can have over who I like, when I like.’
‘The land.’ Wendell grew more serious with each word. ‘He shouldn’t be on this land. His family have had enough to do with our land, no Loxley should be anywhere near it.’
‘Oh, that old chestnut.’ Roisin smiled and turned to Ward. ‘Are you going to say anything, or are you just the hired muscle?’
‘What he said,’ muttered Ward.
Despite the two being physically identical, the brothers couldn’t have been more different. Now in their early forties, they still were lucky enough to have thick red hair, eyes of Everest blue, and both were built like tree stumps. In terms of personality, they were wildly different, and Roisin knew from experience that her dig at Ward being the hired muscle was more than a little t
rue. Where Wendell was gobby, in-your-face, and mischievous, Ward was dark, reticent, and mean.
‘So you’ve come to escort him off the property, is that it?’ asked Roisin.
Ward’s eyes betrayed a fleeting excitement at the mere thought. ‘Nothing so dramatic,’ answered Wendell before raising his voice
to shout into the trailer. ‘Just want him to know we are here and keeping an eye on him.’
In the bedroom, Thor had just finished pulling his socks up when he heard the invitation. He had actually listened to the entire conversation and had, up to now, been happy to keep a low profile. The animosity towards him, so pointless in the grand scheme of things, irked him and another thought entered his head: Could they be so protective of Roisin as to want him dead? Did the Loxley name really boil their blood that much?
The pieces began to slot all too quickly in Thor’s mind and before he knew it he was on his way to confront the brothers. By the time he had got to the door he had reasoned, even though he only saw one, that two men could easily have been there last night, one to attack him and one to start the combine engine. When he appeared next to Roisin at the door, he was fizzing inside.
‘Fellas, I’ve been doing my best to go under the radar, and when I’ve not managed that I’ve at least tried to be courteous. But hunting me down and railroading me off the property is hardly going to promote progress, is it?’
‘Always the same,’ said Ward. ‘Bait the mouth of the rat’s nest, and eventually he’ll stick his head out.’ His tone dripped with aggressive, almost perverse sarcasm.
‘That’s not helping,’ retorted Thor, stepping down off the steps. ‘Anything you want to tell me about? Wait, I’ve got to take your mental dexterity into account. Last night: where were you?’
‘Watch your face-hole,’ Wendell warned.
‘Yeah, yeah, I’ve been told that like four times already today. First time with face-hole, though. Answer the question.’
There was a moment of silence as the three men examined each other, and it became apparent to Thor that the longer the wordless moment persisted, no alibi was being offered.
‘Your silence is pretty deafening, gents. What’s on your mind?’ Thor pressed his advantage, looking them in the eye and keeping a close grip on his cool. But he could feel his anger rising, hot with volcanic unpredictability.
Ward broke the moment with an icy smirk. ‘Loxley prick,’ he seethed. ‘All the same, aren’t you… All high and mighty, even when you bite off more than you can chew.’
‘You’re not doing much to put my mind at ease, Ward. Again, what were you up to last night?’
‘Something that’ll piss your dad right off,’ Wendell spat. Ward looked at him immediately with a questioning glance.
That was a curve ball for Thor. His dad? What would upset his dad? To Thor’s mind, the idea of him getting hurt would likely not upset Wilkes Sr. An unexpected wash of protective feeling rolled over Thor at the mention of his father’s well-being, and the heat of the moment took over. Thor marched straight up to Wendell, but before he got within two feet of him, Ward had him in his grasp.
Thor cursed himself for acting so foolishly, and he struggled as Ward slipped him into some kind of choke hold. Thor had never been in a choke before and a strange detached slice of him marveled at it. His hearing went muffled, like he was in forty feet of water, and sparks frittered at the edges of his vision like moths on fire. He could hear Roisin pleading with Ward to let him go, and his legs turned into gummy bears stuffed down his jeans. The moths got bigger and darker, and his knees buckled. He could hear laughter louder than Roisin’s voice, and it took all his concentration to work out that it was Ward laughing in his ear. He slipped from consciousness.
The last words he heard, while the moths blocked out all else, was Wendell’s bellow: ‘He started it, and his family before him. He should’ve got on with it…’
11
Thor came round to find Roisin standing over him. Half his face felt slick and cool, yet somehow gritty, and he realised it was the muddy puddle he had been dumped in.
‘There he is. Welcome back,’ said Roisin, kneeling by his side stroking his cheek. ‘I’m really sorry about that. Just take a minute there. I’ve seen him do that so many times—it’s like his party piece. One Christmas he did it on Cassie.’
‘Cassie?’ Thor croaked, while trying to right himself.
‘Our last sheepdog. And that was only because Grandpa had already fallen asleep after too much sherry with pudding.’
Weird family, thought Thor, as he sat up straight. He was feeling better by the second, his faculties stronger with each breath. In some strange way he felt a pang of respect for Ward, in amongst the distaste. Now there’s a man who doesn’t hesitate. Thor felt he could learn from that going forward.
You should have got on with it. The very words from last night. That couldn’t be a coincidence. And to pursue it further, he’d need some tangible proof they were involved.
He was fairly sure where he could start looking for some, so he pulled himself to his feet. ‘No rest for the wicked. You mind driving to the field off Mill Lane?’
‘Of course not,’ said Roisin, reaching inside the caravan door for her keys on the kitchenette counter. She closed the door behind her and started off down the track. Thor loved that she had only just shrugged on whatever clothes she had to hand, and was ready to roll without a moments glance in the mirror - not that she needed it. Ready for anything, his gal.
‘Your door—don’t lock it?’ Thor asked, stumbling after her.
‘I’d have thought you’d worked out that with Ward and Wendell around, security isn’t that high a priority here.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
Roisin’s rust-flecked Vauxhall Corsa sat by the gate where the drystone wall cut away from the Hollow and across the field. A single- track road leaked in a straight arrow down to a series of farm buildings a quarter of a mile away—the main body of Crook’s Farm.
Thor opened the five-bar gate while Roisin got the Corsa going. A couple of tries and it was away, and as soon as the engine caught, a gaudy pop song filled the quiet morning air at obscene volume. Thor smiled. That was Roisin, through and through. Happy in her own little world, doing her own thing.
He hopped into the car and hunkered down in the seat. Roisin took the car a bit too fast for the battered track, but before long they emerged into the smoother roads of the farmyard, and Thor kept his head down as they swung through. From his position below the window line, he could see Roisin waving at a few people as she gunned through. Thor couldn’t tell if she was waving to farmhands or family members, but either way he was glad to progress unseen. Everyone loved gossip, and in a place like Crook’s Hollow, gossip was like currency, passed furtively in shadows and across bright dining tables with the same glee.
They passed into the shadows of the main barns, and Thor realised Roisin had taken the route farthest from the main house. Good, thought Thor. The farmyard itself soon passed and she was out between some beech hedges onto the public road. It was only then that Thor straightened in his seat.
‘Safe to come out?’ he asked.
‘Yep. Only a few of the boys kicking about today,’ she replied.
‘I bet they love you—the beautiful farmer’s daughter they catch a glimpse of from time to time.’
‘Worked on you, didn’t it?’ she replied with a smile.
Thor couldn’t help but smile back, because she was so right. He had seen her many times and felt for all sorts of reasons—from simply the gulf between the families right through to the fact that he felt a girl of Roisin’s beauty was clearly out of his league—that he would never have a chance with her. Fate clearly had other ideas.
The sun was shining, even though the air had a crispness to it. It felt a bit strange—a meteorological paradox.
‘Do you buy into it? The talk of the floods, I mean,’ he asked, his mind wandering. Recent news bulletins had torrential rain in
the coming days, with some of the more paranoid outlets using the dreaded word floods, but any such time felt a world away from this pleasant winter morning. It had been an unseasonably warm autumn, and winter hadn’t even looked a remote possibility until very recently.
‘I reckon there’ll be rain, yeah,’ Roisin replied. ‘Not sure we are going to be surfing out of here, but it’ll probably get a bit wet.’
Thor didn’t know of any time when there had been a flood here in Crook’s Hollow. The idea just seemed inconceivable, like a meteor strike or an alien landing. So, to himself and most others he knew of, it was mostly dismissed.
Three minutes more driving, while another pop song came on which Roisin knew all the words to, even though Thor thought it was very generous to call it a song, or even music, for that matter, and they were there, parking alongside the road next to a thick brambled hedge overhung with sycamores.
The road was utterly quiet, save for the simmer of leaves in the trees above and the odd chirrup of unseen birds. Thor got out and started towards the field’s entrance, a creaking stile used primarily by dog walkers. Roisin slipped her hand into his as they walked, as if tuned in to his nerves and offering him reassurance.
They hopped the stile and looked at the field ahead of them. It was fairly sizeable, about ten hectares to Thor’s eyes, but was left fallow. The grass was long and patchy, undulating softly in a rolling rustle. On the far side, the bottoms of its huge wheels hidden by the climbing grass, stood the combine, just where it had stopped the night before when Thor freed himself. Its jaws were still clamped tight in the hedge, which had been pushed back awkwardly.
Roisin’s grip tightened and her pace slowed. They started walking towards the combine, their swishing footsteps the only sound. Once there, the scene of the struggle was visible, and Roisin gasped and covered her mouth.