by Guy Kennaway
‘Amy had another bird?’ Banger asked, annoyed.
‘No, a gerbil that choked on a banana skin,’ said Herbert. ‘I saw it getting extra fruit; I tried to warn it.’
‘How long have you been here?’
‘I’ve seen three Christmas trees,’ said Herbert. ‘I like Christmas, they watch Watership Down. Great movie. Very lifelike.’
Amy worked all afternoon decorating the tree. Jim came in and stood watching her, hunched and shivering slightly in the middle of the room while she applied the last touches, groping round the back of the bucket for the plug. With a click the fairy lights came on. Jim smiled, but silent tears ran down his sunken cheeks. Amy looked up. ‘What’s wrong, Dad?’ she said.
He shook his head. ‘You’ve made it beautiful, it’s so beautiful. You made it wonderful, love.’
She put down the empty box of tinsel and went over to hold him. Banger saw her face pressed against Jim’s chest; she too was crying. Jim’s emaciated hands gripped around her back, holding onto her tightly.
‘I love you, Dad,’ Amy said. ‘I’m scared …’
‘Yes,’ said Jim, ‘so am I …’
‘Stop it,’ Banger said to himself. He looked away at the knots in the boarding of his cage, but couldn’t stop the tears welling up in his own eyes. ‘Pull yourself together.’ He looked back and felt his heart ache. Ache, ache, ache. Like a wound. He suddenly hated it that he never put his arms around Victoria. Ever.
‘The lights work,’ said Jim.
‘Yes. Well, they always work,’ said Amy, going to turn off the overhead bulb. ‘That’s better,’ she said.
In the darkness the tree glowed. Jim put his hand out and Amy took it in hers. They stood in silence looking at the tree.
Banger felt a thaw inside him, and all the pent-up anger and disappointment and hatred poured away, as though downstream, like melt water over the waterfall. All his stupid stubbornness had prevented this ever happening to him. All he had needed to do was right in front of him. Tenderness seemed so simple, he couldn’t understand why he had never tried it, why he had never put his hand out to Victoria. And now, when he wanted to, he was a caged pheasant in a hutch in some Chester suburb.
That night Banger was woken by doors slamming and shouts and murmurs. Heavy footfalls thumped up and down the stairs, and when Mrs Bridge came into the lounge Banger saw a blue flashing light shining into the hall. The house fell quiet, until Amy got up to get Banger out of his hutch for a cuddle.
Nobody came home that evening.
‘They’re at the hospital,’ Banger said.
‘Well, I wish they’d come back, I’ve done a doo-doo that needs clearing up,’ said Herbert. ‘It’s squelchy, must have been that quiche.’
A few days later, on Christmas Eve, Jim was brought home, but Banger didn’t see him as they took him straight upstairs. He came down on Christmas Day for an hour or so while the presents were opened.
Amy took a little package from under the tree and said, ‘Dad – this is for you.’
Jim smiled weakly without moving his neck. ‘Who’s it from?’ he whispered.
‘Beauty,’ said Amy.
Banger pressed his beak to the mesh to see what it was.
Jim pulled away the wrapping.
‘It’s not very well wrapped,’ Amy said. ‘Pheasants can’t wrap very well.’
‘It’s a diary,’ said Jim, ‘for next year.’
‘Well,’ said Amy, ‘you’re going to need one.’
Jim got up, tugged his dressing gown around his bones and shuffled through to the sun room.
‘Don’t go in there, it’s chilly,’ called Mrs Bridge.
He ignored her and came up to Banger’s cage. ‘Thank you, my friend,’ he said. Banger looked into his eyes and saw death staring back. ‘You’ll look after her, won’t you?’ he whispered. ‘My Amy.’
Jim died three days after Christmas, in his bedroom, in the early hours. Banger heard Mrs Bridge’s moaning and knew what had happened.
‘Oh God, here we go,’ said Herbert. ‘This means they’ll forget breakfast, no doubt.’
The lounge door opened and Amy came in, heaving with sobs. She sat on the sofa and cried and cried, her shoulders tight with misery, then she stood up, came through to the sun room and went to Banger’s cage, took him out, and held him closely. He couldn’t remember a single other time when anyone had come to him for comfort.
‘The sun’s coming up. Let’s have a look, shall we?’ Amy sniffed as she opened the door into the garden, and stood on the glistening grass to watch the orange disc rising over the larch-wood fence. Banger breathed the fresh air; it was the first time he’d been outside for months. Amy wiped her nose on her sleeve and took him back in, setting him on the carpet while she went to make a cup of tea.
Banger glanced around and saw she had left the door open. He could be in the garden and over that fence long before she got back. There had to be a municipal park in Chester; life in it wouldn’t be too bad; feeding at the litter bins, roosting in the plane trees, avoiding slow, well-fed cats.
He could hear Amy sniffing in the kitchen, and then Justin came barefoot down the stairs and said something with a lump in his throat. Banger looked into the garden. It was going to be a clear crisp sunny day. He sighed. Even he could see that if he disappeared from Amy’s life on the same day as her father, it wouldn’t exactly be helpful. Banger’s heart could now tell him that. He scratched at the carpet and waited impatiently for her to come back into the lounge.
‘Please. Don’t do that again,’ he said to Amy.
‘Oh, I left the door open,’ she said, and went to close it.
She sat on the sofa, and Banger hopped across the carpet and did his best to console her by laying his head against her leg. It wasn’t much, but he hoped it helped. She lifted him onto her lap for another cuddle.
After the funeral Mrs Bridge and her sister laid out a buffet in the lounge.
‘Look at them pigging out, there’s going to be nothing left for us,’ Herbert said.
Aunty Pat and her husband Ron came out for a smoke in the sun room.
‘How long we gonna hang around?’ Ron asked.
‘Babe, we can’t go early, it’s Jim’s funeral.’
Ron looked around for a place to ash his Lambert and Butler. ‘Is that the pheasant?’
‘Yeah.’
Ron brought his bald head and double chin to the mesh. He had eyes that fiddled expenses.
‘What do you want?’ Banger snapped.
‘It whiffs a bit. Why don’t they just let it go?’
‘Ssh, Amy doesn’t know they’re moving yet.’
‘Why are they moving? It’s all right here.’
‘Don’t say that,’ said Aunty Pat. ‘We get the suite in the lounge if they downsize.’
‘It’s creepy, that thing,’ Ron said. ‘Look at the way it’s watching us. We can’t keep it, we’ll get it put down.’
Banger went into a decline. Like Jim he tried to put on a brave face for Amy, and strut a pace or two around his hutch when she was watching, but his feathers were dull, and he soon just wanted to sit and lean against the wall. Amy stroked him for her comfort, and kept him fed and the cage clean. One morning she slipped a double page of ‘Femail’ under his claws. A picture of a stout, hippyish woman caught Banger’s eye. There was something familiar about her. The headline ran: FROM CHATELAINE TO CARAVAN. Banger’s throat went dry as he read on: Wealthy heiress Victoria Peyton-Crumbe never expected to be living in a caravan as a single parent with her dogs and son when she grew up in the lap of luxury as the privileged only child of millionaire parents. But the best laid plans of mice and men …
Banger felt something inside him crumple when he finished the piece. Victoria and Tom were living penniless in a static caravan. He rapped his head against the larchwood wall until it bled.
Later in the day he glanced at the photograph of the mad woman and her pack of dogs. His daughter looked like a traveller. A nast
y sensation rose from his claws to his beak. He closed his eyes. He was drowning in shame.
But then a detail in the photograph caught his eye.
Behind Victoria, parked a little squintly in the mud, stood his old Land Rover. It was as dirty as he had left it, with the dashboard still crammed with old papers. The old Lanny. That was where he had put the will. Tucked behind the visor above the passenger seat.
It started coming back to him. The day before he had been killed, Banger had had tea with William, who was there for the next day’s shoot, and had told William about the change in his will. That had turned out to be a major mistake. He had thought William would understand why he was rewriting it in favour of Victoria and Tom. He thought he might be pleased at the new family harmony. Idiot. Banger rapped his pheasant head against the wall. William had even offered to take the will to Mr Hudson, planning, obviously, to destroy it. Still Banger had not smelt a rat. Idiot. Banger hit his head again. Banger had been unable to find a fresh envelope in the drawers of his desk; he had ended up stuffing the document in some old junk mail. It didn’t really matter, as he was going to deliver it personally to the lawyer. This little detail was yet another arrow in his bleeding heart. Even if Victoria saw the envelope in the car, she wouldn’t possibly think it was important. It was a recycled envelope from a hearing-aid company, the last thing anyone would inspect closely. Banger had left the Hall, and had got on his way to Oswestry in the Land Rover, the envelope on the passenger seat.
Banger closed his eyes as he recalled what had happened next. He had come across Tom standing by the side of the drive, and had stopped and chatted to his grandson, whose hair was wet on his scalp. Tom had told Banger he’d discovered a cave under a waterfall. Banger knew it well, but had pretended it was the first time he had heard about it. Banger had offered to run Tom back to Victoria’s farmhouse as he was shivering. When Tom had walked round the car to get in, Banger had leant across to open the door, picked the letter off the seat and slipped it behind the visor, where he often stuck odd bits of paper for safe-keeping. He had then taken Tom home, had a cup of tea with Victoria, and by the time he had got out it had been too late to go to Oswestry. He had returned to the Hall, had dinner with William (at which he had mentioned he had missed Hudson), and then the next day he had been murdered.
So the will was, most likely, still above the visor. Only thirty feet from Victoria in the photograph.
Banger started moaning. ‘Gnnnnnn, gnnnnnn,’ and hitting his head on the wall.
‘You sound hungry,’ said Herbert. ‘Don’t worry, it’ll soon be grub’s up.’
26
Hopping Mad
BANGER WAS ON death row, and tortured about Victoria and Tom. To make things even worse, Aunty Pam kept calling. She advanced on Justin, trying to meet his evasive eyes and shouting, ‘Let it out, love! Don’t be afraid to cry! You must cry! Release it all! Come here!’ and forced his head into her voluminous bust with her fat arms.
‘Leave him alone!’ Banger shouted.
‘She likes everyone to have a good cry, Aunty Pam,’ said Herbert.
Many people believed that the grieving process was one than must be accepted, entered into and embraced, and that open expressions of pain, loss and sadness helped the bereaved. Banger had felt differently. To blub your eyes out, as he had called crying, was a sign of weakness. It was acceptable in women, where weakness of character was a given. (Though the best women did not blub.) Banger watched Justin’s approach to grief, which was to sneak into the sun room and grind his knuckles into the brickwork saying ‘Shit, shit, shit’ through tightly clenched teeth.
When Oofy had died, Banger had been a young man, not much older than Justin. He had gulped three sharp swigs of whisky, taken a long walk up onto the moor, and had bid goodbye to the father he had adored by manfully refusing to cry for twenty minutes. That accomplished, Banger had drawn a line under it. Then he had done that old fashioned-thing: got on, and hadn’t dwelt on it, and especially not on his feelings. But Justin’s pent-up misery echoed uncomfortably in Banger, and he began to reassess the efficacy of the Banger school of grief therapy.
Aunty Pam held Justin’s hands in hers, and dipped and weaved her head to try to look into his eyes.
‘I’d like to get my hands on you for a couple of days, young man!’ she said. ‘I’d squeeze some tears out of you, I would.’
Justin shook her podgy hands off his and left the room, mumbling.
Aunty Pam came through to the sun room for another Lambert and Butler. She took out her phone. ‘It’s me,’ she said. ‘Total nightmare. That lovely boy. He needs counselling. I’ve told my sister. I’m quite prepared to do it myself. By the way, I’ve said we’ll have the pheasant. I’ve said we’ll put him in the shed, but we’ll just give it the chop, and say it died. Be back for tea. Bye, babe.’
Banger was further angered by a TV programme that Amy and Justin were watching, about, apparently, animal cruelty. A pet-shop owner had sold a goldfish to a boy who was under sixteen; her punishment for this crime was to do community service or be tagged. As her back was too bad for community service (they said that an injury could lead to her suing the council), her swollen, mottled ankle was tagged. The man from the council removed a cockateel from her pet shop and destroyed it, because it had a septic eye. He said the pet-shop owner was causing it ‘unnecessary suffering’. The phrase ‘unnecessary suffering’ was what made Banger literally hopping mad. Life itself was ‘unnecessary suffering’; trying to prevent unnecessary suffering was the job of God, not a council official. And anyway, who gave a damn about a bloody goldfish? These thoughts were disturbed by Mrs Bridge, who suddenly said to Amy and Justin, ‘What do you two think about moving house?’
Justin said, ‘Where?’
‘There’s a flat for sale near work.’
‘Wrexham? Mum, all my friends are here,’ Justin said.
‘It’s cheaper there, and we need to think about money …’ said Mrs Bridge, standing up and going into the kitchen.
‘Give her a break, Jus,’ Amy said.
‘I don’t want to go there – it’s Wrexham.’
‘It’s okay.’
‘No way. I’m not going, right?’
Justin never changed his mind, and was saying, ‘I refuse to move, right?’ almost up to the point the removal men came. The week before they were due to move, Mrs Bridge said to Amy, ‘I don’t think Beauty is going to be able to come with us, love.’
‘But why?’
‘We haven’t got the room in the new place.’
‘He can live in the lounge,’ said Amy.
‘He can’t, it’s not hygienic.’
‘What about my bedroom?’
‘I’m sorry, there’s just not the room.’
‘We could have him as our last meal here,’ said Justin.
‘I hate you, Justin,’ said Amy.
‘Aunty Pam said she’d look after him in their garden shed. You can go and see him there.’
‘Aunty Pam?’ said Amy. ‘Aunty Pam is not having Beauty. Are you mad, Mum? She doesn’t even like him.’
A couple of days later Banger could see they were making plans for him to leave. Amy took him out of his cage and Justin put the cage in the Volvo.
‘Bad luck, mate,’ Herbert said.
‘Look after Amy, will you?’
‘Leave it to me,’ said Herbert.
Banger was put into the hutch in the back of the Volvo, while Mrs Bridge and Amy got in up front. After forty minutes, when they had left the city behind them, Mrs Bridge said, ‘It’s country here.’
‘No, not here. Go on a bit further.’
‘I don’t think it really matters, love. Pheasants are stupid.’
‘No they’re not,’ said Amy. Then, ‘Here! Here! Here, just here!’ she shouted. Mrs Bridge pulled over.
Amy came round the back of the car, opened the boot and took Banger out. She held him so tight he could hear her galloping heart. ‘Can’t we keep him?’ s
he said.
‘No,’ said Mrs Bridge.
Banger sniffed the cool air of the country.
‘Let him go,’ said Mrs Bridge.
Amy squeezed Banger more tightly against her chest, and buried her face in his feathers. ‘Bye bye,’ she said. ‘Bye bye, Beauty.’
Banger realised that he had a role in this particular drama that he had not chosen. A girl who had lost her father was saying goodbye – forever – to her pet bird: him. It was the kind of thing that Banger recoiled from as a human, but now he looked up at her little face, and knew he had to put on a good show.
He hadn’t flown in two and a half months, but when she held up her hands and released him, he sprang into the air and ascended theatrically above her. She was looking up and shading her eyes. Banger knew that her head would be full of thoughts of Jim, and he didn’t want to disappoint her. He hovered, agonisingly, forty feet above her head, and then swooped down, banked to the left, and flew past her a second time, emitting a shrill cry as he passed and glided into the wood, which was mercifully close. He was exhausted almost past the point of standing up when he finally landed on the soft damp ground. He thought he heard a call of ‘Bye!’ from Amy. He liked that, but admonished himself: ‘God, I’m getting soft.’
He was so unfit his heart pounded in his breast and he gasped for air. He remembered how dangerous it was in the wood, even though the shooting season was over, and looked around for a safe place to roost. The harsh winter woodland was beginning to soften with snowdrops, crocuses and a green hint of buds on the hawthorn. The afternoon light lingered. Banger shivered; he had grown used to central heating.
27
Evenly Pouched
IT WAS SPRINGTIME, but the rain wouldn’t come to make it happen. For two weeks the scene through the picture window of the Pemberley Sovereign was held in suspension. The purple-tinted branches of the birches on the hill couldn’t come into leaf, the tired fields looked pale, the earth opened in cracks that screeched for water, the brook faded to thin rivulets, and the buds on the alders along the riverbank waited patiently, and then desperately, for rain. Even the pregnant ewes held on; guided by their own mysterious need for rain to bring forth their lambs.