At Hawthorn Time

by Melissa Harrison

  ‘Course,’ – and she made way for him at the bar.

  As he waited to be served, turned away from the rest of the group, he told himself that with a couple of drinks inside him it would start to seem fun. It was always like this at the beginning, especially if you arrived late: you came in off the street to a packed crowd of people all laughing and shouting together and it took a while before you felt like you were one of them. It was always annoying at first, how hot it was and how loud, but soon enough he’d be part of it all.

  When it was his turn he ordered a tequila shot and knocked it back on the sly before passing the other drinks over his shoulder.

  The bar closed at midnight, by which time Jamie was definitely drunk. But so was everyone else, and worse than him: Lee had nearly got into a fight, and one of the bouncers had come over. Megan had had to calm it all down.

  Outside a gaggle of people had formed around the bar’s entrance, smoking, laughing, phoning for cabs. There was a crowd around the cashpoint across the road, too, a different one: doleys in hoods and caps, a blonde woman in pyjama bottoms and slippers with a man’s coat over the top, a dealer half the town knew. Looking over Jamie recognised a lad who’d been in the year above him at school – except now he had a tattoo on his neck and his eyes were sunken and blank. Benefits, Jamie remembered, were paid out at midnight.

  He turned away. ‘You coming to the Vault, then?’ he asked, grinning down at Megan who was sparking up a fag. ‘Should be fun.’

  ‘Oh, I see, it’s like that now, is it?’ she smiled back and blew out smoke.

  ‘Yeah, it is. Come on.’ And he started walking off, hands jammed in his pockets.

  ‘Jamie!’ she called, as though telling him off – but not really. It was lovely. ‘You don’t even know which way!’

  Jamie laughed, spun on his heel, jogged back. ‘I wasn’t really. I wouldn’t . . . we’ve got to wait for the others, haven’t we?’

  ‘We have got to do that, yes.’ She only had a cardigan over her top, and she had her arms crossed, her shoulders hunched. What if he put his arms round her, just friendly, just to keep her warm? He pictured it: not anything sexy, just holding her against him for a moment, her letting him, maybe leaning in to his chest. Lee could have pulled it off, definitely; he wouldn’t even have thought twice. But what if he tried and she pushed him away and things went weird?

  ‘Want my jacket?’ he asked instead.

  ‘Ooh, d’you mind? You’re such a gent.’

  But just as he was taking it off she called out a name, dropped her cigarette and clattered across the street to embrace a girl in a red dress and heels, the group around the other girl looking over non-committally as Lee, Andy and Nick joined Jamie on the pavement.

  ‘Who’s Tits talking to?’ said Andy.

  ‘Tits?’

  ‘Megan.’

  ‘Oh. Don’t know – friends of hers,’ replied Jamie, grinding out her abandoned fag butt with his shoe and shrugging his jacket back on. He could feel himself turning red. ‘She just went.’

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Lee. ‘Not that lot.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Been out with them before. Fucking . . . young farmers or whatever.’

  ‘Don’t look it.’

  ‘Honestly, mate. Unbelievable.’

  Andy started saying something filthy about pigs, but stopped when he saw Megan coming back over. ‘Ready, lads?’ she said. ‘That lot are going too – might as well all go together. Come on, Jamie!’ and she put her arm through his and led him back over the road to be introduced.

  Four in the morning and Jamie was stumbling along the Boundway towards Lodeshill. The horizon jumped up and down as he walked, and when a car roared past he leaned too far into the hedge and nearly fell.

  Where the fuck was his jacket, anyway? No idea. And where were the others, why had they left him? Or had he left them?

  He remembered being in the club: the flashing lights, the backs of people’s heads as they danced. Elbows, people jostling him. But it was OK, he didn’t mind. Then they were at the bar. Shots, they did shots. Something green. Whose idea was that? He fumbled in his trouser pockets for his wallet: thank God. And his keys. OK. But then what? He’d talked to Megan a lot: oh fuck, what had he said, had he told her anything, had he made an idiot of himself? And then Lee, shouting into his ear over the bass whumping out of the speakers – something about females in general, then about Megan, something nasty. Calling her ‘Tits’ again. The buzzing pain in his eardrum as Lee yelled, making him flinch.

  Perhaps Lee had his jacket, or had he left it in the club? He couldn’t remember leaving, the last thing he could think of was being on the dancefloor. Oh fuck, that was a point: he’d danced. Not actually with Megan, but they’d all danced. But if everyone had that must be OK. None of them were looking anyway. And that other lot, they were all right, weren’t they? Why didn’t Lee like them? He’d ripped the piss out of them all night, copying them behind their backs. Funny though.

  There was a sour taste in his mouth. Fuck, he’d thrown up! He remembered it now, crouched on the floor of the cubicle. Just a little flash: seeing the vomit streaking the side of the toilet bowl, how it had made him retch again. What else? He remembered having a piss, and – Jesus – snorting something off the corner of a credit card. What was that? It had stung his nose; he still couldn’t breathe out of one nostril now. Bloody Nick that was, where’d he get it? Good fun though – wasn’t it? They were his mates, all his mates. Just wished he knew what the fuck had happened to them all; how had he lost them? Why was he stumbling home like this, by himself?

  He wasn’t far from the Lodeshill turn-off when he saw it: something on the carriageway ahead, something he couldn’t yet make out in the dim, pre-dawn light. The straight road pointed to it like an arrow, and as he drew closer, growing more sober with every step, it moved from the realm of the dreamlike to the disbelieved to the real.

  For the most part the deer looked unmarked, although there was a black puddle spreading from somewhere underneath it and Jamie could smell blood and fear on the night air. He knelt down near it, its big eye rolling whitely at him in panic. ‘Oh shit, oh shit,’ he found himself whispering, and then, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK.’

  He took a breath and laid one hand on its warm flank, gently. Its front legs kicked and a low noise came from it like the pure spirit of pain and fear itself. He stumbled back, then walked off a little way, looking up and down the road, but there was nothing coming; the fields on either side were dark and silent, and above him the Milky Way slashed the sky as though in echo of the road beneath. There was nobody to help.

  He became conscious of wanting to be the kind of person who could just act, who was effective, adult, unmoved. Wasn’t it in these crises that you found out if you were a man? ‘Fuck – fuck –’ he heard himself mutter, over and over.

  He fumbled his shirt off, the night air constricting his nipples and raising the fine hair on his arms. The shirt would smell of him, which wasn’t ideal, but he had no choice.

  An owl shrieked from the dark wood to his right as he knelt, no longer drunk at all, by the twitching deer and dropped the warm fabric gently over its head. Immediately its legs became still, although its ribs still heaved in and out. The shirt’s hem was already soaking up blood, but it hardly mattered: it wasn’t as though he was ever going to wear it again.

  The pool beneath the deer’s flank grew and spread like slow, black oil, and he tried to keep clear of it, rocking back on his heels as he thought through what he had to do next. It was a roe buck, and probably strong. Its back legs didn’t seem to be working, but the front ones were, with their lethal slotted hooves – and who knew what agonies it would drive itself to once it understood what he was going to do.

  Jamie stood up again and looked down at the hooded deer. His heart thumped under the fine, bare skin of his chest as the knowledge came to him that he had to kill it now. Briefly he looked up at the sky: the black fading to blue, dawn ga
thering somewhere behind the treeline in the east.

  He stood astride the deer, facing its head. He crouched down, using one knee to hold its front legs still, and hoped the stricken back legs wouldn’t move too much. He held his shaking hands above the white shirt for a moment, as though in benediction, and at last wrapped the warm fabric tight around its muzzle and squeezed his shaking hands where the hot breath came and went – and came and went – and then, as the big deer heaved and bellowed and weakly tried to run, did not come again.

  19

  Yarrow, dropwort, common spotted orchid.

  It was the middle of May and the first really warm weekend of the year. The breeze, when there was any, was light and came from the south-west, and almost the entire country was bathed in sunshine. The rookeries were busy, blossom was turning the hedgerows creamy-white and the song thrushes nesting in the lilac beside Manor Lodge’s front drive were onto their second brood.

  Once Kitty had left for morning service Howard went downstairs and put the first Burning Rubber album on loud. It was the one the band had been touring when he first started roadying for them, and he knew it inside out: every word, every chord, every riff. The feelings it brought back were so strong: it was like a time machine, a portal back into another self. He didn’t play it too often any more; it was – not painful, exactly, but somehow acute.

  He’d agreed to meet Kitty outside the church in an hour for the annual Rogation walk. ‘Sounds happy-clappy,’ he’d said when she’d explained what it was. ‘Walking and praying? Bit New Age for you, I’d have thought.’

  ‘No, Howard, it goes back centuries,’ she’d said. ‘Don’t you remember, I went last year? You walk the boundary of the parish, a bit like claiming your territory. It used to be really important, before proper maps. Everyone goes, practically the whole village.’

  ‘And there’s praying?’

  ‘Only once or twice – it’s more about the local landmarks, and the crops, and just . . . well, getting to know each other. And then afterwards everyone goes to the pub.’

  ‘What, the Green Man?’

  ‘Yes, they’re doing a ploughman’s. Howard, I’d really like you to come. You’ve barely met anyone in the village, and last year I said you weren’t well. If you don’t come again people will think you’re unfriendly.’

  And so he’d agreed, although he wasn’t actually feeling too friendly. But why was that? He considered himself an affable enough guy, but it was true, he hardly knew most of the people in Lodeshill – certainly not enough to dislike them. So why was he so unwilling to make the effort?

  Perhaps it was just because it was a churchy thing, he thought. But if he was honest with himself he knew it wasn’t just that; it was about not being one of them. But was that because he didn’t want to be, or because he didn’t think they’d let him?

  He sighed and went up to the radio room, leaving the music on downstairs. The Philco People’s Set he’d picked up in Wales had turned out to be even better than he’d expected: the Deluxe version, and not in bad nick. It wasn’t working, though, and he needed to get at the circuits; he’d checked the power supply yesterday, but that had seemed OK. Thing was, given its provenance it could have been sent back to the shop because of a manufacturing defect; there was no real way of telling. He’d have to take it apart and start from scratch.

  Kitty’s key in the door made him jump. ‘Howard?’ she called up the stairs. ‘Rogation. Have you forgotten?’ The music stopped abruptly.

  Shit, he thought. He’d been supposed to meet her outside church, and he wasn’t even ready. ‘Sorry,’ he called out. ‘Just coming.’

  Downstairs, he fetched his walking boots and began putting them on. ‘Is it warm out?’ he asked. ‘Too warm for a jacket?’

  ‘Far too warm,’ Kitty replied. ‘Oh, do come on. The others are all waiting.’

  But when they got to the church there was a further delay while a couple of children and someone’s dog were fetched. Kitty stood and gossiped with Christine Hawton while Howard smiled vaguely into the middle distance. Eventually, after a few words from the vicar, in dog collar, short-sleeved shirt and walking trousers, they set out.

  Twenty-two: Howard had counted. It was hardly the whole village, though most of them were probably too old to make it, he supposed.

  ‘It’s Howard, isn’t it?’ Bill Drew had appeared alongside him; Kitty was still talking to Christine, who was alternately listening to her and chiding her cocker spaniel for pulling on the lead. ‘Bill Drew,’ he continued, sticking out his hand. ‘We’ve met once or twice. It’s good to see you here.’

  ‘Thanks, yes,’ said Howard. ‘Thought I’d come along. I was ill last year, or I would have made it.’

  ‘Of course. Such a lovely tradition, especially for newcomers. A great way to be welcomed into the parish.’

  The word ‘parish’ had unstable connotations for Howard; was it a religious thing, or just a countryside thing? They hadn’t had them in Finchley, or not that he remembered. He hoped it wasn’t like being welcomed into the family of God or something.

  ‘Thanks – though I’m not religious, I should say.’

  ‘Oh, few people are these days, it seems, or if they are they say they’re “spiritual”, which is something different, I suppose. It’s quite all right, anyway – beating the bounds is more a village event than anything.’

  The vicar had led off down the road past Hill View, and was about to turn into Ocket Wood. ‘Beating the bounds?’ asked Howard.

  ‘Yes, at Rogationtide. They used to beat the boundary stones with sticks – and beat the village’s little boys, sometimes. It was a way of drumming the landmarks into the next generation so that they’d know if there were any landgrabs by neighbouring parishes.’

  Howard looked around doubtfully; there were a couple of under-tens and some reluctant-looking teenagers at the back. ‘I don’t think that would go down too well these days.’

  ‘No, quite. Anyway, how are you enjoying life in the country? You’ve been here, what, a year now, it must be.’

  ‘Oh – wonderful. We love it here.’

  ‘You were in London before, I believe? Must have been a bit of a shock to the system at first.’

  ‘We’ve settled in OK. How about yourself, have you always lived here?’

  ‘Here and hereabouts. My wife Jean, over there – have you met her? – she’s originally from the Welsh Valleys. We met at a dance in Ardleton when I was doing national service. But we’ve lived in Lodeshill for a long time now, a long time.’

  Howard wondered what that must be like: never to have lived in a city, always to have been marooned somewhere inconsequential. Never even to have moved around the country very much. It was hard to imagine.

  Before he could say anything in reply, the vicar, out in front, turned to them and held up his hand.

  ‘This is the first place where we pause,’ he said, as the small group came to a halt around him. ‘Here, behind me, is one of the parish’s oldest trees, an ash stool believed to be at least six hundred years old. I’ll read a short lesson, and then we’ll give thanks for our local woods, their beauty and benison.’

  Oh God, thought Howard, remembering his piss puddling at the base of the ancient tree. Benison. Why did they have to use language like that? It was offputting. He glanced over at Kitty as she listened to the vicar read from the Bible; she was hunting for something in her handbag and didn’t look particularly reverential, which was something.

  At least the God bit was brief; in a couple of minutes they had moved on, emerging from Ocket Wood to follow the line of a ditch along a field. Howard found himself almost tripping over the cocker spaniel and then, as Christine apologised, he was drawn into conversation with her.

  Jamie was walking with his dad and George Jefferies, who was on good form, lucid and cheerful. It was the first Rogation walk he’d been on in years. His mother had nagged him into it, but once he’d got out of the house he found it helped to distract him from
the uneasiness he still had about Friday night.

  He’d missed his shift at the bakery the day before, had phoned in sick. His hangover had kept him in bed most of the day; that and an obscure but inescapable feeling of shame. The thought of how uncomfortable the bike would be to ride until he replaced the rear shock hadn’t helped.

  To distract himself he began counting off the birds he could hear: song thrush, skylark, jackdaw, wren. There was so much birdsong at this time of year, although according to his grandfather the fields were almost silent compared to when he was a boy. But then, didn’t everyone think things was better when they were young? And besides, the old man had been slowly going deaf for years.

  The group turned into what he and Alex had always called ‘treasure field’ because of the potsherds and jug handles it gave up each time it was ploughed. Jamie tried to remember its real name – Wood Rean? New Rean? – but found he could not. When they were little he and Alex had spent whole afternoons there, fossicking around in the mud. His mother would go spare at his trouser knees when he got home, but on one of the windowsills at the farmhouse was arrayed the treasure they had found: fragments of pot, glass beads, a couple of cloudy marbles, hobnails, a triangle of willow-pattern plate. Alex had wanted to look it all up on the Internet, but Jamie hadn’t been bothered about that, he’d just liked finding things and thinking about who had touched them last, and how they had been lost. As they walked he wondered what had become of it all since he’d last been there; whether, without Alex to stop him, Mr Harland had thrown it all away.

  The vicar stopped halfway along the field margin. ‘This is the first of the parish boundary stones we’ll come to. There are nearly forty around the village that we know of, but you’ll be pleased to hear we’re only going to stop at a few.’

  Although he hadn’t been this way in a few years Jamie knew the stone, with its inscribed ‘L’, so well he didn’t even have to look to see where it nestled in the hedge. Still, going round with everyone else like this made the woods and fields feel shared; defused, somehow, rather than dense with his own, complicated web of significance.