The Country Life

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by Rachel Cusk


  The belly remained intransigent behind the glass.

  ‘Hello?’ I cried again.

  There was another pause, and then a man’s voice issued faintly out to me from the side.

  ‘What can I do for you, dear?’

  It was quite a high voice, and heavily accented, but it sounded friendly enough.

  ‘I’m very thirsty,’ I said, directing my comments to the belly for want of a more conversational appurtenance. It required the greatest effort for me even to be polite. ‘I wondered if you would be so kind as to give me a glass of water.’

  Before my eyes, the belly seemed to roll away as if attached to a large rotating wheel lodged behind the scenes, and in its place appeared a grinning human face.

  ‘Glass o’ water?’ it said – I could now not be sure whether it was a woman or man. Its hair stood up in a frizz above its pocked forehead as if electrified, and confronted with the disastrous, freckled spectacle of its features I felt the thrill of looking at the ugliest human creature I had ever seen. ‘It’ll cost ya!’ it said, grinning wider to show hoary teeth like a jumble of old gravestones.

  ‘But I haven’t any money!’ I gasped. ‘I was merely asking for a drop of human kindness. And besides, as this isn’t a restaurant you can’t charge me for water. It would be’ – I put a hand to my fevered throat – ‘unethical.’

  The creature looked at me quizzically, its brows – the hairs of which were preternaturally long and curled – furrowed to form a single line, as if a fake moustache had been attached to its forehead.

  ‘I was only joking, girl,’ it said, quite sorrowfully. ‘If you come round the back, I’ll put you right.’

  It disappeared abruptly from behind the glass and after some protracted shuffling on the other side of the partition a door slowly opened to my left.

  ‘Come on,’ coaxed the creature, beckoning me with a saurian claw. ‘Don’t hold back, girl.’

  It held open the door and I passed through into a narrow enclosure. A further door lay directly ahead of me, and to my right was the scene I had glimpsed through the glass, the old till on the counter with what looked a child’s high chair drawn up to it. There was a paperback book lying open on the seat. The space was no bigger than a coffin, and was roughly the same shape.

  ‘Step this way, if you would,’ the creature said with sudden formality, as if I had all at once ascended a level in some cryptic hierarchy. I felt it hovering at my elbow, and looking down realized that in height the creature barely rose above my waist.

  ‘Thank you,’ said I, moving forward through the second doorway. I was now in a dark corridor which smelt very damp.

  ‘All the way to the end, madam. That’s right.’

  We entered a room about which, the curtains being drawn to exclude all but a faint white seam of light, I could discern almost nothing.

  ‘Now, let’s see, shall we, madam?’ murmured the creature, straying from my elbow. I heard the whisper of its feet against the floor, but could not make out in the dark where it had gone.

  ‘It might be easier if you put the light on,’ I advised. ‘It’s pitch black in here.’

  ‘Oh, no need for that, my lady,’ it said. ‘We’ll manage.’

  ‘I think I would prefer it, actually,’ I asserted; for I had suddenly become nervous at how I had been lured into this shadowy lair, where no one would ever think of looking for me. ‘I insist that you turn on the light!’

  There was a pause, there in the dark. I could hear no sound of movement at all and began to feel positively frightened. I was about to turn and flee when a steely grip on my arm pulled me down so that I was bending almost double.

  ‘Are you a sympathizer?’ the creature whispered fiercely in my ear. Flecks of spittle rained on my cheek. ‘Is that why you came?’

  My heart was pounding hard with the surprise, but I was not so cowed that I could not think clearly. Having no idea of what I might be supposed to be sympathetic to, still I could see that it would be a good idea to concur.

  ‘Yes,’ I responded, in a loud voice.

  ‘Ssssh! Good. Well, then. You’ve come to the right place.’

  The grip on my arm was released and a moment later the light came on; a naked bulb which depended so far into the room from a length of flex that I felt its heat against my hair. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw around me. The tiny room was no less than a shrine, a votive chamber dedicated, to my astonishment, to the Maddens.

  ‘Good God!’ I exclaimed, my eyes frantically combing the walls thickly billeted by leaflets and posters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and what looked, more worryingly, like instruments of torture – nooses made from wire, with a chain attached – hanging from nails like commemorative wreaths.

  ‘Impressed?’ said the creature, who had been busy meanwhile at a small sink – hardly bigger than a cup – which stood dingy and serene in the corner of the tumult. It crossed the room as coyly as a party host and handed me a large glass of water. ‘It’s taken me years to get it like this.’

  My thirst, forgotten amidst this drama, flamed anew at the sight of the glass. Delicious pearls of liquid trailed down its sides. I took it and raised it trembling to my lips.

  ‘Course it picks up at this time of year,’ continued the creature, while I drank. I believe that there is no sensation on earth more pleasurable than the one I was at that moment experiencing. ‘We get all sorts down here in the summer, especially round the bank holiday weekend. That’s my busy time. Come next week, I’ll be flat out.’

  ‘Do you work alone?’ I gasped, draining the glass and handing it back. ‘Can I have another?’

  ‘Certainly, madam.’ It took the empty glass, lost in contemplation of its handiwork. After a moment, and with a last longing look at the noose on the far wall, it shuffled back towards the sink. ‘When it started it was just me,’ it called, over its shoulder. ‘Now there’s hundreds, just contacts mostly, but it comes in handy. I’m still the boss, mind. I tell them what to do, and they do it. Day to day, Darren over at the Dog mucks in when he can.’

  ‘Did you put that leaflet under my door?’

  ‘Me?’ The creature looked round. ‘No fear. I’ve got a contact at the farm does that kind of thing for me. No, too risky for me over there these days.’

  I wondered who the creature’s ‘contact’ could be. Mrs Barker? Thomas? Thomas was the most likely suspect, given his presence at the scene of the crime. From behind I still could find nothing either in the creature’s attire nor its physique to determine its sex. Its back and shoulders were round and quite strong, but tapered into bony shanks from which its dirty dark-brown trousers hung in folds. They were too long in the leg, and the hems gathered into frills around a pair of scuffed slippers. It seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time fetching the water, and with the selfishness of physical need, I resolved to make no further enquiries which might slow the rate of service until I had the glass in my hand. This plan paid off, for the creature, head jerking up slightly at the silence, looked swiftly over its shoulder as if to make sure that I was still there.

  ‘You’ll be wanting your water,’ it said, nodding. ‘Quite a thirst you’ve got on you.’

  I remained silent until the water was safely on its way. When the creature turned around, its swollen belly protruded so distinctly that I wondered if it might be pregnant.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ I said graciously, accepting the second glass. Things were less of a blur now that my emergency had been met, and my eyes surveyed the walls more calmly. There were several of the familiar leaflets pinned at intervals around the room, and many others of a similar type duplicated this pattern. Indeed, I soon saw that I had been slightly misled in my first impressions of the place, for the campaign’s look of abundance was achieved more by repetition than diversity. The photographs, of which there were some dozen, were blurred Polaroids and I could make out little of what they were supposed to represent; except that all had been taken outdoors and t
hat in each case the photographer appeared to be falling over. A large poster printed on a white background which hung directly in front of me read ‘MADDEN KILLS!’. Beneath it was an efficient drawing of a noose identical to those adorning the walls.

  ‘He hasn’t really killed anybody, has he?’ said I, alarmed.

  The creature snapped its head round to look at me, aggrieved. The cliff of its forehead creased into fleshy ridges and its lower lip protruded, like that of a child about to cry. I wondered then if Mr Madden really had, incredible as it seemed, murdered some close relative or associate of the creature; or at least was suspected of having done so.

  ‘Of course,’ nodded the creature, as if to itself. ‘You’re new around here. You wouldn’t have heard, would you?’

  ‘No,’ said I. ‘But even so, I find it frankly unbelievable that Mr Madden could have hurt anybody.’

  The creature looked away sharply, as if in pain.

  ‘Tell that to Geoff!’

  ‘Who is Geoff?’ I ventured.

  ‘Was. Was.’ It looked down at its slippers and raised a weary hand to the great pale flank of its forehead. It heaved a sigh. ‘Geoff,’ it said, ‘Geoff was my friend. My best friend. And now he’s gone.’

  ‘What – what happened to him?’

  ‘Gone!’ The creature buried its mouth in its palm. Its shoulders heaved up and down. ‘Three years ago this bank holiday Monday! And not a day goes by that I don’t think about him!’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’ I cried urgently.

  ‘Dead,’ said the creature, matter of factly. ‘Murdered.’

  This seemed too fantastical to be true.

  ‘Are you sure? Mightn’t he just have gone off somewhere without telling you?’

  ‘Ahhh!’ The creature let out a long breath and rubbed its eyes with its hands. ‘Buried him myself on the Monday night. Just out there in the yard.’ It jerked a thumb over its shoulder. ‘Shot clean through the head, he was. At least he didn’t feel any pain. I found him up on the top field. He loved it up there, used to go chasing rabbits. He could have lain there for days. But I knew something was wrong. When he didn’t come back I went out looking for him. Carried him in my arms all the way back to the village. Everyone came out and stood at their doors. You never heard it so quiet.’ It swiped a tear or two from its eyes. ‘I’ll never find another dog like him. Wouldn’t want to. He was only a mongrel, you know. But I loved him.’

  ‘How do you know that it was Mr Madden?’ I sombrely enquired. ‘It could have been someone else. It could have been a mistake.’

  ‘It was no mistake!’ said the creature fiercely. ‘Trimmer had warned me about Geoff before. Was dying to take a pot-shot at him, he said as much.’

  ‘Who is Trimmer?’

  ‘You not met him yet?’ The creature looked at me quizzically. ‘No, I suppose you haven’t. You’ve only been up at Franchise since Saturday. Trimmer’s the manager. It’s him puts those down.’ It nodded towards the nooses. ‘Fast as I take them away, he replaces them.’

  ‘Well, it was probably Mr Trimmer who killed your dog!’ I cried, frustrated at the creature’s stupidity.

  ‘Maybe,’ admitted the creature stubbornly. It folded its arms and looked at me. ‘But it’s the institution that should take the blame. You ought to be going, dear. The cripple will be back from Buckley any minute.’

  I looked at my watch and saw to my horror that it was a quarter to six.

  ‘Before you go,’ said the creature, turning and waddling off, ‘I’ll give you something to put on that skin of yours. You’ve had too much sun. You should be more careful. It ages you something terrible.’

  ‘But I’ve got to go!’ I wailed, as it opened a cupboard camouflaged by a crust of leaflets on the far wall. ‘I’ll get into trouble!’

  ‘Won’t take a minute.’ The creature took a jar from the top shelf and came back towards me, unscrewing the lid. ‘Hold still a jiffy and shut your eyes.’

  I closed my eyes and seconds later felt the most astonishing caress upon my cheeks, as if the coolest silk were being gently drawn across the skin. I immediately forgot about the necessity for hurrying back to the farm, and indeed about everything that I had seen and heard during the past hour, longing only for the sensation to continue. It descended to my neck and then beneath the collar of my shirt, and then out again and up my sleeves, up my arms and down again right to my fingertips.

  ‘That’s better,’ I heard the creature say. ‘You can open your eyes now.’

  I opened them, feeling as if I had been asleep.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, miraculously cooled. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

  ‘Off you go, then.’ The creature jerked its thumb again. ‘I’d keep quiet about our little meeting if I was you. I’ll be seeing you again, I’m sure. You’ll excuse me if I don’t show you out.’

  I turned and opened the door. As I did so a newspaper clipping pinned beside the frame caught my eye. It bore a grainy picture of Pamela. She was smiling and I could just make out a disembodied arm curled about her shoulders. Lovers’ tiff behind farm attack, say police, read the headline.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I cried, turning back.

  The creature was screwing the lid back on to the jar. It looked up, surprised amidst the mayhem of paper, and gave me its terrible grin.

  ‘You can call me Al,’ it said.

  I ran down the dark corridor without looking back, and, crossing the deserted shop floor, stumbled blinking into the glare of the High Street with the bell shrilling in my ears.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I came up the back passage as quietly as I could – having remembered to remove my tar-stained shoes at the door, my movements were virtually silent – hoping to be able to replace myself in the kitchen, where I had last been sighted by Pamela, unseen. Having no idea of how the Maddens would regard my tardiness – it was by now almost half-past six – my nerves responded to the most exaggerated scenarios imagination could devise. The sound of voices coming from the kitchen froze me outside the door with dread for some time, although eventually I realized that this was merely making my predicament worse.

  I opened the door on an idyllic scene; one which filled me with pleasure but also, unexpectedly, with the bitterness of envy and regret. Pamela and Piers were standing side by side beside the ‘Aga’, their bodies not actually touching but proximate in a way which suggested comfort and fondness. Both were looking with palpable affection at Martin, whose chair was positioned directly in front of them, and who was relating to them some incident which was making them laugh, his hand placed on the glossy head of Roy who sat contentedly beside him. In glimpsing this scene of familial love I also, inevitably, disturbed it. Pamela and Piers looked up in unison at the sound of the door opening, and whatever narrative Martin was embarked on was lost for ever as he twisted round in his chair and gave me his strange, flapping smile.

  ‘Here’s Stella!’ Pamela cried, as if overjoyed.

  ‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ I said, filled suddenly with the sorrowful desire to be excluded. ‘You all looked so lovely over there,’ I continued, unable to stop myself. ‘You looked like a proper family.’

  ‘Goodness!’ said Pamela. ‘That is a compliment!’

  ‘Where have you been, Stel-la?’ interjected Martin plaintively. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  At this I was driven almost to weep, especially given the reasons for my absence, which now I profoundly regretted. Had my skin not still been luxuriating in whatever cream it was that the creature had applied to it, I would have been tempted to believe that the whole interlude at the post office had been a hallucination.

  ‘You look so well!’ exclaimed Pamela, continuing in the friendly vein which seemed to have been established. ‘Doesn’t she, Piers?’

  ‘Marvellous,’ said Piers, to my surprise.

  ‘And your skin!’ she rhapsodized, raising a hand to her own cheek. ‘Oh, to be young, what bliss! Look after it, Stella, please, while you�
�ve got the chance. I left it far too late!’

  Glad as I was to have escaped a reprimand, I felt that a denial of this fact would push the happy scene over into excess and merely gave her an erubescent smile. It was some time before she removed her hand from her cheek; and seeing her like that, I remembered the newspaper clipping I had seen in the creature’s room. What could it have meant? The words ‘lovers’ tiff were clear in my mind. They evidently did not, unless I had misunderstood them, refer to the Maddens’ own relationship. Could Pamela or Piers have had an affair? It seemed, looking at them now, impossible; and besides, who was there in the countryside with whom to have one? I had seen barely anybody during my time here, except the creature, and the people who ran the ‘shop’; unless, of course, you counted Darren over at the Dog, or Mrs Lascelles, for whom I could not vouch. So far, the only people with whom I could consider either of them having an affair were each other.

  ‘Right!’ said Mr Madden, brushing some invisible detritus from his trouser leg. ‘I’d better get on.’

  ‘OK, darling,’ said Pamela radiantly. To my surprise, she even took his arm and walked with him over towards the door. I wondered what had happened in my absence to provoke this marked increase of affection between the Maddens. I soon realized, however, that Pamela had accompanied Piers to the door so that she could talk to him privately; although I am afraid that I could hear every word she said. What she said was: ‘You’ll sort out that business in the top field, won’t you? We don’t want any trouble with the police.’

  ‘Yes, yes, all right. Just leave it to me,’ Mr Madden mysteriously replied.

  I glanced at Martin, but he was occupied ruffling Roy’s velveteen ears and did not seem to have heard anything. Pamela, thinking herself unobserved, laid a hand on Mr Madden’s cheek and looked at him with an expression I could not fathom.

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said. She withdrew her hand longingly. ‘Go on, off you go.’

  ‘What would you like to do now?’ I said to Martin in a loud voice as soon as Mr Madden had gone.

  ‘Dunno,’ he replied, still engrossed in Roy. ‘We could go up to my room and listen to some records if you like.’

 

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