Every Fox is a Rabid Fox
Page 15
I found a taxi driver shouting at another car in the rank. Bookings only. Official passes passable to parking officers, but where they were the bemused other-driver couldn’t tell. When I went over, to interrupt, I could hear him trying to explain that he was only waiting for his daughter.
Throat deep in mayonnaise my father says, ‘So tell me.’ He says that and nothing more.
‘The driver told me, “Bookings only,”’ I say.
We’re eating early. Well, he’s eating. I’m picking. Not flicking through channels. Doesn’t matter what we watch. ‘I could see the taxi office from where he was shouting. I had to go over and ask for a taxi, and then I had to wait five minutes. And when they told me, “He’s arriving now,” it was the same driver I’d just spoken to.’
My father nods.
My little sister’s curled up where the dog used to sleep.
‘You spoken to your mother?’ he says.
‘A little.’
‘She still living in Essex?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘You should see her before you find another job and get too busy to visit us again.’
‘Maybe.’
My father nods.
I clear the plates. Kitchen’s a mess. Father says, ‘Thought we might take the guns out tomorrow.’ He’s rolling a cigarette. ‘Bag a few birds while we look for that fox’s den.’
‘Didn’t know you smoked,’ I say.
He nods.
‘Okay.’
‘Okay what?’
‘Let’s take the guns out.’
My sister looks up.
‘I’ve still got that old .410, you know,’ says my father.
‘I thought you’d sold it.’
The bin is overflowing.
‘No. I’ve been popping rats at that new barn they’ve built. You still hungry?’
I look at what’s left of the burger on my plate. Soggy from microwave. Sweaty pillow for bun. Kebab dream meat patty and mystery cheese. I say, ‘No.’ Open the fridge for some juice.
‘Sorry about the smell,’ says my father. ‘I haven’t had time to mend the broken seal. Here,’ he says, getting up and walking over, ‘I bought a cake for pudding, if you like.’ Before I can answer he’s already cutting me a slice. Elbowing around a kitchen that used to feel a lot bigger. ‘Carrot’s your favourite, right? Carrot’s your favourite? I know it’s not homemade, but I’m sure it’ll taste alright. I’ve got some work to do in the village tomorrow afternoon. Bit of plumbing at the church hall. But if you’d like to take the guns out, the morning’s free.’ My sister coughs loudly, expecting a treat. ‘Though, they could do with a clean.’
*
‘There’s newspaper by the Parkray,’ says my father. ‘Put the newspaper on the table and–’
‘Some on the floor?’ I say. ‘I know. I remember.’
My father takes a key from the dresser by the wall bracket TV and opens the door to the cupboard under the stairs where the gun cabinet is bolted. He brings out two cleaning kits. One for the .410 and one for the 12 bore. They’re in long thin cardboard cases, the 12 bore case slightly thicker, its edges worn, one corner torn, and an elastic band round the middle to keep its guts together. My father lays them on the newspaper I placed on the table then goes back to the cupboard. ‘Spoken to Stephanie lately?’ he asks me.
‘I saw her yesterday, actually.’
‘How’s she getting on?’
‘She seems fine. How do you think?’
He brings out the shotguns. Lays them next to the long thin boxes on the newspaper on the table. ‘Just a second,’ he says, going back for the old can of Youngs 303.
‘How’s the baby?’
‘Which one.’
‘The one that’s been born.’ He shakes his head.
‘Quiet,’ I say. ‘Looks more and more like him every day.’
My father nods. ‘Can’t be easy.’
‘She’s cracking on,’ I say. ‘Keeping busy.’
My father nods.
He sits down.
‘She’s got a fox,’ I tell him, standing up from my chair to get a glass of water from the kitchen where, speaking louder, I say, ‘keeps stealing her chickens.’
‘She going to kill him?’ he asks.
‘No. And it might be a she.’
My father shakes his head. ‘She’s a fool there,’ he says. ‘If she doesn’t kill him, or at least get someone else to kill him, he’ll end up taking every chicken she owns.’
I sit down at the table and face him. ‘Probably. But even if she does,’ I say, ‘one of its children will just do the same.’
My father rests his hands on a shotgun. ‘You’ve got to shoot them all, I’m afraid.’
There’s a pause.
‘Look here,’ he says, pointing at the newspaper I placed open on the table, ‘Kelly’s Heroes is on Channel Five tomorrow.’ He sniffs. ‘Shall we watch it? Haven’t seen that in years.’
I smile, tell him, ‘I’d love to.’
‘Good,’ says my father, smiling too. ‘Now, to field-strip your shotgun, you–’
GETTING AWAY WITH ARSON
I get up early for breakfast. When I come downstairs from my old bedroom I find my father near the kitchen, by the cupboard under the stairs where the shotguns and camouflage clothing and cartridges have always been kept. Busy man. Excitable. Putting on a pair of camouflage trousers that had once fitted but are now too large for him. His olive drab shirt is open. Grey chest hair. Sunken sternum. Makes me sad. When he sees me he says, ‘I got yours out too, but I don’t suppose they’ll still fit you.’ A small pile of clothes has been dumped on the armchair. They smell of soil and silage. Grease and cordite. Haven’t been washed in years. ‘Don’t worry though,’ says my father. ‘Farmer’s been cutting new footpaths but there’re still plenty of bushes to hide in. And your hat,’ he says, putting something brown on my head, ‘looks fine. Your head always was rather large as a child.’ He laughs. ‘Here, take this,’ chucking me a Barbour. ‘Was your grandfather’s, that.’
We walk up the zigzag track to the bend where I shot my first rabbit. There are no rabbits there today, so we walk a little further. The farmer has a hunch that the fox lives near the old concrete reservoir, so we head in that direction. And as we walk my father speaks a little, and speaks quietly. ‘I spoke to Jim’s solicitor,’ he tells me. ‘The, uh, Last Will and Testament is about to come through.’
‘What could he have possibly left behind?’ I ask.
My father sighs. ‘Your uncle was never a rich man. He could’ve been. He was so smart. But he didn’t care much about that kind of thing.’
‘I expect he probably buried his riches somewhere.’
My father laughs. ‘Not still going on about murder, are you?’ he says. ‘Jim was a debt collector. And then a very ill man.’
‘Were you with him when he died?’ I ask.
There’s a pause.
It is a long pause.
It is made longer because my father has stopped walking. When the pause ends and he starts walking again my father says, ‘Yes.’ Then my father says, ‘He didn’t want to linger.’ He puts his hand on my shoulder and we stop walking again. Just stand here facing each other on the track. Guns underarm. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look like he’s going to cry. He was stoic when my mother left him, and I didn’t see him at my brother’s funeral because I wasn’t there. ‘Do you understand?’ he says.
My mouth’s been open the whole time. My eyes a little too wide. ‘You mean you–’
‘It’s fine.’
‘How?’
‘I helped him.’
‘How?’
My father hugs me.
‘He just went out for a little swim.’
At the top of the track we look in the field behind our house. The old concrete reservoir is still there. The elder tree is still beside it. The woods are further on. ‘Usual drill,’ says my father. ‘I’ll go to the top, try and flush some birds down to you
at the bottom. Okay?’ We start walking away from each other, but after about twenty metres I stop and I turn and I say, ‘We did burn that barn down, you know.’
My father nods. ‘I know, Robert,’ he says. ‘It just never bothered me.’
When I reach the hedgerow at the top of the down my dead little sister is there. She’s been waiting for me all morning. ‘Took your time,’ she says. ‘What did he say?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Fine, don’t tell me.’ She’s shrinking. She’s getting ready to go back in. To be reabsorbed. I stand next to her in the hollowed out bush beneath the tree, she at once both my age and a child, a baby. ‘Is it loaded?’ she asks, pointing to the old .410 that had belonged to Gentleman Jim. Rustier now. Worn out old hammer and white paint flecks on the stock that someone, years ago, tried to scratch off.
My phone vibrates.
‘Hold on,’ I say. ‘It’s our mother.’
‘What does she want?’
‘She says she’s sent me a Tesco delivery.’
My sister raises her eyes. ‘The gun–’
‘Yes, it’s loaded,’ I tell her, ‘but the safety is on.’
‘Turn it off,’ she says.
I switch the safety off.
Click.
She says, ‘Give that to me.’
I hand her my phone.
She throws it across the field. Wild flowers. Dry earth. The smell of burnt wood. I lower the handle and turn the gun upwards.
‘Rest your–’
‘Chin on the end of the barrel. Yes, I remember.’
The sound of church bells drifts up from the village.
I put my finger on the trigger.
‘Good,’ says my sister. ‘Now, we’re going to count to five.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to thank Nathan Connolly and Amelia Collingwood at Dead Ink, Emily Harrison, for making me work harder, Aki Schilz, for her continuing guidance, Frank Brinkley, for giving his time and annotations, and The Authors’ Foundation and The Society of Authors K Blundell Trust Award, for their recognition and encouragement.
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