Aged though Moccus was, the beast-god still towered over him, and though his tusks were yellowing they were still sharp enough to disembowel him with a single toss of the head. Everett held his breath, waiting for the deity’s response. Next to him he could feel Ardwyn’s tension like a bowstring thrumming in the air.
Moccus’ snout began to wrinkle in a snarl, and he lowered his head to charge.
With a roar, Gar leapt onto his back, slamming both knees into the base of his spine while simultaneously curling his arms into the crooks of Moccus’ elbows and pulling the god’s arms back, bending his torso skyward even as he was driven to his knees. Everett leapt forward and plunged the black-bladed knife deep into Moccus’ breast even as the god managed to rip one arm free and swat him. Everett went reeling, his head full of ringing chaos. He was aware of Gar and Moccus both roaring and tearing at each other, then a great concussion in the earth nearby and then silence.
When he shook his head clear and looked around, Moccus was lying on his back, feebly clutching at the ground, his chest heaving, the blade still hilt-deep. Gar was picking himself up painfully from where he’d been flung.
Then the heaving stopped.
The deserter spat out dirt. ‘Get the chain block,’ he said, and went to retrieve his knife.
* * *
They rested after hoisting Moccus up into the apex of the tripod slaughtering frame and bleeding him into the cattle trough. Gar, nursing several bruised ribs, disappeared on his own business. Ardwyn dipped a finger in the cruor and marked Everett’s mouth with it. It tingled, like salt sherbet. She sucked the rest of it off her finger and said, ‘You have a busy night before you, slaughterman. But first we celebrate.’
She used her hands to paint him with the blood of Moccus, putting feral striping along his face, flanks, and thighs. He did the same for her, decorating her breasts and belly with swirls and whorls which might have been fruiting vines or serpents. She slicked his cock with cruor and lay back to take him, and he fucked the blood of their slaughtered god into her beneath the light of a dying moon.
6
BARBECUE
SUNDAY WAS THE BUSIEST DAY OF THE WEEK AT BRIAR Hill Allotments, and there were plenty of eyes to watch the preparations for the much-anticipated barbecue. The weather had set in overcast but it wasn’t actively raining, which was the most anybody could expect from late March. The first surprise was when the newcomers’ battered blue van arrived around mid-morning, because most people had assumed that they would simply buy a hog roast in from Partridge’s or a catering company – and when the young man and woman started hauling out trestle tables, bags of charcoal, boxes of disposable picnic supplies, crates of beer and soft drinks, trays of bread rolls, and three large red cool-boxes, a few muttered that they’d bitten off more than they could chew but the general feeling was one of approval. The new neighbours weren’t going to dazzle them by flashing their cash on something slick and corporate. They were doing it old school.
Within ten minutes they had offers from half a dozen pairs of willing hands who, between them, made short work of digging a wide, shallow pit for the charcoal, putting up the tables, and setting out the plates, cups, bottles, and napkins. This attracted satellite hangers-on in the form of friends and relatives, and in half an hour a sizeable crowd had gathered. Meat came out of the cool-boxes in large foil-wrapped joints that were placed directly onto the charcoal once it had died down to white embers, more embers were shovelled over the top and then turves from the pit were laid on top of that to keep in the heat.
Everett popped the top off a bottle of beer, dumped himself into a camp chair, smiled around at the crowd and said, ‘And now we wait. You know this is going to take about six hours to cook, right? Did anybody bring a pack of cards?’
People brought more than a pack of cards. From sheds across the allotments came outdoor games and toys that had been stashed away for the summer: giant Jenga, swingball, and cricket sets. Shane Harding brought a set of juggling balls, causing hilarity and chaos by substituting them with increasingly improbable objects like potatoes, cushions, and – to cries of delighted disgust – even Hugh Preston’s false eye. The festivities drew out even the recluses like Ben Torelli and dour old Marcus Overton, a decommissioned grammar school headmaster who was using retirement to enjoy his twin hobbies of gardening and misanthropy. While the kids played, the adults stood around in groups and chatted, comparing notes on what they were growing, arguing about sport and avoiding politics because a dispute over football statistics was one thing, but a conversation about Brexit could end friendships. Most went and brought back some contribution or other to the occasion – salads, snacks, more bread, more drinks. Over the next six hours they came and went, some stayed for a few minutes, some an hour, some went home to do the laundry and came back again later, some went back to work on their plots, but as the afternoon lengthened and the time for the pit to be opened drew near, the numbers gradually increased.
Dennie watched the day unfold from her own plot. She couldn’t see any sign of the brother, but that still wasn’t any kind of incentive to join in with the festivities. She watched Ardwyn and Everett being the perfect hosts – chatting, mingling between the various groups, playing swingball with the kids, and saw nothing to suggest that there was anything underhanded about them. The door to their shed was wide open, and as far as she could see from here it looked absolutely normal, stocked with the kinds of tools and gardening odds and sods that she would have expected to find in any of the other sheds. Looking at its solid wooden floor it seemed ridiculous to think that she had heard digging coming from inside; it was much more likely to have been a dream or another episode, but the one thing that she was absolutely rock-solid sure of was the mockery she had seen in Ardwyn’s eyes. The young woman’s solicitous concern for Dennie’s health had been a mask behind which she was laughing at her. Worse, she was now laughing at all her friends and neighbours. Dennie watched Ardwyn chatting with Becky while David helped Everett check the cooking pit, then hunker down to say something to Alice which made the girl giggle, and thought Right, that’s it. Whatever game the couple were playing, they weren’t going to play it with the Pimblett family.
But that didn’t mean she had to march over there and make a big fuss like last time. They’d caught her off guard, and she’d made a fool of herself. Worse, she’d alerted them to the fact that she knew they were up to something. They wanted to pretend that she was just a doddery old fart. Well that was a part she was more than happy to play.
‘But you stay here, my big hairy hero,’ she told Viggo, and put him on his leash in the shed. ‘I don’t need you picking any more fights on my behalf.’
He thumped his tail and whined as she left, not at all convinced that this was a good idea.
* * *
‘I think it’s incredible what you’ve done with this place,’ David said to Everett as they strolled towards the end of the allotment. ‘Especially in so short a time.’
The bottom half of their plot was still an unreclaimed wilderness of brambles and nettles growing through heaps of debris, but the space between that and their over-sized shed – roughly ten yards of the overall length – had been cleared, dug over, and marked out with sticks and twine.
Everett waved the compliment away with his beer. ‘Thanks, but this is mostly Gareth’s handiwork. He’s an absolute fiend for digging.’
‘So, come on then, what are your plans for it? When you sit on your deck at the end of a long day and you gaze across your empire, what will you see?’
‘Mostly heritage varieties, you know, streaky tomatoes, purple carrots, that sort of thing. I want to bring something old out of the ground.’ He gave a little laugh.
‘Ah, going for the millennial market. Too bad avocados don’t grow in this climate.’
‘Give it time. But no, not really. This isn’t a style statement – it’s the exact opposite, as a matter of fact. A hundred years ago, farmers and gardeners grew vegetables t
o be sold at local markets for greengrocers that were just around the corner instead of flying them halfway around the world, and they grew varieties that they liked the taste of. Somehow we’ve lost that. I just think, here I have this opportunity to make something of my own, why am I going to grow the same crops that are cultivated over thousands of square miles and bred to be wrapped in plastic so that they can sit in a fridge for two weeks?’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘I have a particular fondness for the Hutton Wonder Pea.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Genuinely, I have no idea. I just love the name.’
They walked on for a bit, passing the tangled wilderness, the sounds of merriment fading behind them as they headed towards the very end.
‘And yours?’ asked Everett. ‘What’s the Pimblett Project?’
‘Nothing as ambitious,’ David admitted. ‘As organic as we can be, I suppose. We took the allotment just after Alice was born because we wanted her to grow up eating something not so much full of pesticides and antibiotics and shit like that. Then just to prove that the universe has a sick sense of humour she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia—’
‘Ouch.’
‘Yeah. And we haven’t been able to keep it up, obviously. She’s still not out of the woods but she’s slowly getting better, so I’ve tried to give it a bit of TLC. Maybe I can pay your fiend of a brother to come and have a go at it.’
Everett smiled. ‘Well, I genuinely hope that we can arrange something like that.’
They passed the end of the allotment and walked back up the other side to rejoin the party.
* * *
At around teatime the turves were removed, the cinders raked away, and the half dozen large foil parcels brought out to be unwrapped. The aroma that rose from them was rich and warm, gravy and rosemary and apples and cloves, drawing murmurs of appreciation from the guests, and despite Dennie’s fourteen years of vegetarianism even she found her mouth watering.
‘Now before I do this,’ said Ardwyn, holding a corner of foil between finger and thumb like a magician about to whip away a handkerchief, teasing her audience, ‘I just want to say on behalf of myself and Everett that we never expected to be lucky enough to find ourselves in a place with so many new friends and neighbours. In the short time that we’ve been here we’ve been bowled over by your helpfulness and generosity. I’m not a religious person—’
Everett suppressed a snort of laughter.
‘—but I do believe in coincidence and good timing, and I don’t think it’s an accident that this is the spring equinox, or as near as, a time for renewals and new life. I mean look who I’m talking to!’ She laughed. ‘You’re all gardeners, you know this. This is a new beginning for me and my partner, but I hope that maybe this can also be the start of a new tradition, because I’d love to have one of these parties every year.’
‘Hear hear!’ came a shout from the back, to general laughter.
‘Now,’ she continued, peering at what was under the foil. ‘Having said all that about timing, I hope this is done…’ and she whipped it away to reveal a joint of pork studded with cloves and gleaming in its own juices. The meat was so tender that she didn’t have to carve it – it fell apart beneath a pair of forks that she used to pile it onto bread rolls that were passed out amongst the crowd who watched her, rapt. It’s like she’s feeding the five thousand, Dennie thought. It was a performance. Ardwyn Hughes knew exactly what she was doing.
And then she is bathed in bright sunlight and it is 2007 and Sarah has invited her to a late summer picnic on their allotment. Little Josh is four and about to start Reception at school next month. Brian has only been dead a year and Dennie hasn’t yet made the resolution to go veggie yet, so she’s looking forward to one of the burgers that Colin is pushing around on the cheap disposable barbecue in its silver foil tray – ideally with a side helping of the salad made from lettuces and tomatoes that Sarah has grown herself. Colin has insisted that he do the cooking as it is the man’s job (and here is a thing she’s never been able to fathom: why they won’t go near the kitchen cooker but get them outside with a pile of charcoal and they think they’re Jamie bloody Oliver), but the problem is that Colin has been drinking steadily since the morning and he’s burning the burgers, and is becoming increasingly aggressive to Sarah when she tries to warn him.
‘I know what I’m doing, for God’s sake,’ he growls. ‘Don’t you tell me how to cook a fucking hamburger. They need to be well done. Or do you want to get fucking food poisoning, is that it?’
‘Darling,’ Sarah murmurs. ‘We have a guest.’
‘Oh, have we?’ he replies with withering sarcasm. ‘Is that who I’m doing this for?’
‘Maybe I should go,’ Dennie says to Sarah, and gets up to leave.
‘No—’
‘Yes,’ says Colin. ‘Maybe you should go, and maybe you should stay gone.’
She knows she shouldn’t say anything, that there’s nothing she can say that will help. Sarah has confided in her that Colin received a redundancy letter in the mail earlier this week from the Indesit factory in Blythe Bridge where he’s worked for the past five years making cooker parts. No, anything she does say will only make things worse. But she says it anyway: ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘What that’s supposed to mean,’ he sneers, and she can smell the beer on him even at this distance, ‘is that maybe you should stay the fuck off this allotment and out of my marriage.’
‘I’m not—’
‘Dennie, please—’
‘Like fuck you aren’t. I know why she spends so much time up here rather than at home. Don’t tell me that you two don’t sit here and gossip about me while I’m at work, making shit up. Well, enough. I’m putting my foot down.’ He waves the spatula that he’d been cooking with in her face. ‘Keep away from my wife, you old witch, or I’ll give you the slapping that your dead husband should have given you years ago.’
It is so vicious, so totally and utterly out of order that it shocks her into silence, as is doubtless the intention. Very quietly, trembling slightly, Dennie gathers her things together and goes, leaving Sarah weeping.
Then the present reasserted itself and Dennie staggered a little with the sudden rush of remembered fear and impotent fury. She found an empty chair to sit on while her breathing steadied and her heartbeat slowed.
Obviously she declined when a pork roll came her way, and she wasn’t the only one – she was in a sizeable minority who were enjoying the alternative halloumi burgers and veggie kebabs – and almost regretted it, seeing how obviously delicious it was. People were chewing, lost in savouring the texture and flavour, making little murmuring noises of enjoyment; they moved like sleepwalkers or drug addicts, with their eyes slightly distant as meat juices streaked their fingers and chins. She saw David enjoying one, though Becky politely declined one for herself and Alice. Meanwhile Everett and Ardwyn stood hand in hand and watched with beatific smiles.
Dennie was sure that quite a few of the people queuing up weren’t allotment holders but residents of the neighbouring houses who had heard that there was a free meal on offer. For example, there was Matt Hewitson and his mates; Matt was the youngest son of Shirley Hewitson, whose garden backed onto the allotments. Technically she wasn’t a tenant, though she was close enough friends with Carole and Geoff Bennett, who owned the plot behind her house, that the Bennetts let her use the few yards directly behind her back fence – which in practice meant that Matt and his friends were often hanging out there. There was the occasional grumble about noise and mess, but it all fell into the grey area of the by-laws about ‘guest use’ and was never serious enough for a formal complaint. Matt, his girlfriend Lauren and a handful of their friends – who were very definitely not allotment tenants – were queuing up for pork rolls, but Everett and Ardwyn didn’t seem to mind. They were served as generously as everyone else.
The only crack that appeared in th
e new neighbours’ façade came during the one incident that cast a shadow over the afternoon. Ironically, it was a heated argument between Matt and Lauren. Matt was nineteen, long enough out of school to have been able to get a job by now, if there had been any going, while Lauren was a few years older with a flat of her own and a job at a travel agency in town, which anybody who paid attention to the local gossip could see put her out of his league – anybody but Lauren, apparently, and her friends had given up trying to tell her and were just waiting for the penny to drop. Apparently it dropped that afternoon, and dropped heavily, because Matt went looking for her and found her behind a shed snogging one of his mates, Darren Turner. Darren was the son of a local farmer, but had a motorcycle and a Deliveroo contract. There were shouts, accusations, and, inevitably, fists. Matt took a swing at Darren, missed, and put his fist straight through a small window – if the shed hadn’t been so old, the pane would have been Perspex and his fist would have just bounced off, but it was glass, and he went straight through up to the wrist. Then there was blood and screaming, and Ardwyn leapt forward with a tea towel to staunch the wound, and that was when Dennie saw it: for a flash of a second, Ardwyn grinned. Probably nobody else noticed it, their attentions fixed on Matt’s bloody fist, and even if they had, would have dismissed it as a grimace. But Dennie knew delight when she saw it.
The fuss attracted his mother, who stopped just long enough to accuse Ardwyn and Everett and the Briar Hill Committee as a whole of unspecified health and safety violations before rushing her son away to Accident and Emergency, and Dennie took the opportunity to establish her own mask a bit.
‘That was quick thinking, there,’ she said to Ardwyn. ‘Poor boy. I hope he’s all right.’
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