The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  ‘We’ve forgotten to buy any seed,’ Joss groaned as they stood in the yard.

  ‘Or hay and straw, for him,’ Tom said pointing at the horse.

  Tom went off quickly and returned minutes later. ‘Lead the shire over, will you. I’ve bought a load of hay and straw from the man who bid earlier. Probably paid over the odds, but we haven’t got much choice. We’ll back up to the sheds.’ he advised. ‘I’ve also bought the remnants of oat seeds. They advised us to put them in straight away.’

  He spoke in a hurried, matter-of-fact way as he started to tack up the horse. Joss stroked the velvety-smooth muzzle of the great beast that had stopped eating. The horse sidled up closer, blew great clouds of steamy breath into the chilling air. Behind them, the cart had been attached, and Tom was now piling their wares with clattering expletives. Joss stood motionless.

  Half an hour later, they were clambering up one of the long, low hills that led out of town. Kidderminster was in a dip, with its centre taken up largely by carpet factories, and was dissected by the small, polluted River Stour and a dirty canal. The livestock market was on the opposing hill on the other side of this centre. On the old river terraces of the River Stour were clusters of terraced houses and narrow streets which wound down to the trading area, giving a curious feeling of being trapped in a sunless, cramped centre. Yet, going up this long hill towards the Shropshire border, you left it all behind. As always, Tom’s eyes were drawn to the countryside on the higher terraces, with its pattern of ploughed, pink-tinged fields and bare, sun-lit spinneys. The late winter sun made everything look pale but expectant. Tom smiled. Somewhere behind that, they had their home. Joss was holding the reins and sensing Tom’s pleasure, nudged him and grinned.

  ‘You certainly have the knack for auctions,’ Joss said.

  Tom shrugged. ‘It’s all about not showing the under-bidder you’re wavering. You have to bid, chop, chop, chop, then drop like a stone when it’s gone beyond what you want to pay. Don’t give your opponent any clue you’re about to drop.’

  ‘I was pausing too long.’

  ‘Yes. Once you hesitate, you’re basically saying to the other bidder, ‘it’s going too high, one more bid and you can have it’.’

  ‘Oh.’

  They went on in silence, clanking along the roads and then down small, high-hedged lanes, which seemed gouged into the bedrock, towards the farm. As they negotiated a wider stretch, a car, the Deerman’s family car, overtook them steadily. Joss whistled loudly, Tom waved, but the car went on regardless.

  ‘I suppose they wouldn’t expect us to be driving this,’ Tom remarked. ‘We do look a bit of a sight, with the old horse and a knackered cart.’

  ‘Our old horse and our knackered cart.’

  ‘A couple of wrecks.’

  ‘Speak for yourself.’

  They talked in the stilted way of drunks, but they had not even had a pint of ale in Kidderminster. Instead, the crazy unfamiliarity of this familiar place made them light-headed, as though they were going to wake up somewhere more recognisable, like the trenches, and find this had all been a longed-for dream.

  It had rained heavily overnight so the lane up to the farm was lagooned with deep puddles, silted and burnished orange from the underlying sandstone. They were still joshing each other as they turned down into the courtyard from the grassed, rutted track, and Joss had to pull up sharply to avoid the family car. Beside it were two figures.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Hello, Deerman, Fielder,’ said Barratt, now in civvies, striding forward to shake their hands.

  The family chauffeur stepped forward as Tom walked towards him. ‘Madam asked that Captain Barratt be brought over,’ he explained.

  ‘Yes, I thought I’d call in,’ said Barratt as they walked towards the house. ‘I was passing Woodham Hall and thought I’d drop in to see you.’ Stepping back, he appraised Joss. ‘You’ve made a spectacular recovery, I’m pleased to see.’

  Once inside, Joss beamed, the light from the lit oil lamp picking out his deeply-set dimples, ‘I’m feeling very well.’

  Tom hauled a huge puttering kettle from the range and after emptying the stewed contents down the sink, threw in scoops of tea and filled it up. ‘Please sit down,’ he said to the elderly chauffeur who was standing stiffly by the door. ‘There’s no ceremony round here. Would you like some tea?’

  The chauffeur smiled broadly. ‘Thank you, Sir. That’d be welcome.’ Tom motioned him to sit with them at the table.

  ‘Your mother insisted I was brought over,’ Barratt said. ‘I hope that was all right with you two?’

  ‘Absolutely!’ Joss enthused.

  ‘I’ll be back in a flash,’ Tom said. ‘But I’ve got to stable the horse, feed it.’

  The others did not appear to hear him as he went out.

  ‘So how have things been, Sir?’

  ‘Barratt, please.’

  Joss nearly repeated: ‘So how have things been, Barratt-please’ but stopped himself.

  ‘I must say Deerman, I’m impressed,’ Barratt continued, looking around. ‘I did think that the farm thing was perhaps a pipe-dream in the trenches.’

  ‘I have to lay the credit with Tom,’ Joss said, suddenly noticing Tom’s absence. ‘He’s the one with the drive... Anyway, how are things with you?’

  ‘Oh, you know,’ Barratt said, vaguely.

  Tom had shaken out several bales of straw in the stable, filled a raised trough with fresh water he had drawn from the well, and then led the old horse in, who immediately stuffed his nose into the water and drank noisily. Tom pushed past him to fill the feeding rack with hay. The horse moved, compliant and patient. Then moving to the hay rack he munched away as Tom rubbed him down. The colossal size of these horses always surprised him. Just the slow movement of his hoof seemed an event.

  ‘We’ll have to find a name for you,’ said Tom, stroking his nose. ‘We’ll give you a new name. How about Jasper?’ The horse gave a quiet rumble of a whinny.

  Joss and Barratt were talking animatedly around the table as Tom went back into the warm interior of the kitchen.

  ‘Barratt’s decided to stay for the night,’ Joss said, looking up at Tom with a smile.

  ‘I’d better be getting back,’ said the chauffeur. Tom shook hands with him as he walked past, aware that Joss blinked, as if in surprise, then seemed to remember himself.

  Barratt plonked a bottle of whisky down. ‘Help yourselves,’ he said. Joss poured liberal measures. The whisky stung Tom’s gullet and he turned away to cover it. Going down into the cellar, Tom gathered up an armful of beer bottles. His choice of drink was beer, always beer. As he walked up the cold stone steps he heard Barratt saying ‘...so all this talk about a big homecoming is cobblers.’

  ‘Of course it is,’ said Joss. ‘Did you really believe any government was going to help?’

  Barratt splashed a generous measure into his glass and Joss’s. Tom signalled no, and opened a bottle of ale, emptying its cool, brown contents into a large mug.

  ‘I saw a man begging on the street, this morning,’ said Barratt. ‘In Worcester.’

  ‘Are you back at your old job…um–’

  ‘Barratt, or Charles if you prefer,’ Barratt said. ‘I’m back at the accounts firm in Worcester. Amazingly, they had another position open, but, you know, I don’t think I can bear it, staying there for another year. Not after what we’ve seen. It’s...’ He knocked the whisky back and splashed another tumbler-full.

  Joss looked at him more carefully.

  ‘I’ve tried talking to people back here,’ Barratt continued. ‘You know, ‘starting again’ as they keep telling us, but do you know what most of them ask? What it was like bayonetting someone in the guts... Can you believe it?’

  ‘Unfortunately I can,’ said Joss.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Barratt said. ‘There has to be something more than this, surely?’ He knocked back the next whisky. ‘Others want to talk about the new housing, the new fashions. We’re ha
s-beens. Burnt-out.’

  ‘It’s early days yet,’ said Joss gently.

  ‘It is really you know, s– I mean Barratt,’ said Tom.

  Barratt held the bottle up, frowned in surprise when he realised he had almost drained it. ‘I used to love women,’ he said unexpectedly. ‘The thought of them. Their softness. I used to make them laugh – I was quite witty once,’ he said to the bottle as though this was a revelation to himself. ‘When I came back, I thought I’d have no problems, a captain and all that. But when I put on my civvy suit, I found I was just another chap who works in accounts. A bore, like the rest of them, who drinks too much.’

  Slumping in front of the bottle, Barratt continued: ‘I went over to an old friend’s house a few weeks ago. Found he’d had his left leg blown off. Yet he’s managed to get married. And you should see his wife! I sat watching him as he talked, and all I could feel was this awful envy, because he has a woman and I don’t. Don’t you think that’s bloody awful of me?’

  ‘Entirely understandable,’ said Joss.

  ‘Is it?’ Barratt asked, turning to him. ‘I could hardly speak to him. I kept thinking how did you manage to get her? I’m able bodied, not too noticeably looney, and I can’t even get a woman to even talk to me for more than a few minutes.’ Barratt’s hand slid towards the beer bottles, and, grasping one, pulled it towards him. He poured it into his tumbler. ‘And I’m sure Salter – that’s the friend – knew what I was thinking, so then we couldn’t even look each other in the eye.’

  ‘It’s stress,’ said Tom, lamely.

  ‘You’re telling me it is, Fielder! Let’s face it, in our fathers’ day they were concerned with careers, with everyday things. And what have we been concerned with for the past few years? Killing and not getting killed. That’s the bloody difference!’ Barratt’s face had become redder. ‘And these lady friends and I have nothing to say. I mean, how can you described what happened?”

  ‘You can’t,’ said Joss.

  ‘Better not to say anything, then,’ said Barratt resolutely, in a sudden change of tone. ‘We’ll stay the silent minority. The new outsiders.’

  And on they drank. The oil lamps guttered out of oil so Tom lit candles in old tin cans and put them on the table. They talked in the quiet whispers of trench-time nights. Several times they broke off and, for a split second, listened into the darkness, remembered and regrouped, laughing at old jokes. Hours later, they lay slumped in an alcohol-infused sleep, Tom sitting with his head and chest hunched across the table, as if he had been shot. Sometime and somehow in the early hours they had fallen into nominated bedrooms and passed out, fully clothed, and snored and chattered in terror-ridden dreams until mid-morning.

  Tom was the first down, and, after drawing water, went out to the horse, which neighed when he saw him. Rubbing the side of his head with the back of his hand, Tom stayed back as the horse drank and then led him out into the meadow by the stream. The chickens started clucking and flapping as they heard him.

  ‘All right, ladies!’ he called out and started opening the doors at the front. The chickens tumbled out, walking with puffed-out chests and started pecking the ground. They ignored the shire munching the winter grass and he ignored them.

  Tom peered in the next boxes but there were only a few eggs. He scooped them up and headed back with the empty water pail to the kitchen. He was pumping water into the pail when Joss appeared from round the staircase door, hair awry, and rubbing his eyes. He looked dishevelled and deeply desirable.

  ‘Good morning!’ Tom said brightly, and grinned.

  ‘How is it you never get hangovers?’ muttered Joss, slouching outside to the privy. ‘It’s not fair...’ His voice disappeared into the clear late February air.

  Tom carried the pail and two others of chicken mash he had prepared the previous evening. The ‘ladies’ ran over to him comically. As he poured the food into the metal food troughs, they ploughed into it, all beaks and feet. The shire looked up, lumbered over and came to rest, leaning against Tom, who looked up and patted his neck. Tom sensed he was being watched and saw Joss standing at the gate, beckoning him over.

  ‘Barratt has to leave,’ he said as they walked indoors.

  Barratt was sitting at the kitchen table, hands around a steaming mug. He glanced up as they walked in.

  ‘Hope your head is better than mine, Fielder,’ he said.

  ‘Tom never gets hangovers,’ Joss said, and sat down beside him, looking...what was it, Tom thought, proprietorial? Surely not.

  ‘You lucky sod,’ said Barratt, seemingly oblivious to Joss’s look. ‘Anyway, I have to get back to Worcester. It’s back to work tomorrow.’

  Half an hour later, they watched Barratt leave on the next train from the halt. It disappeared through its steam and the mist of the late morning.

  ‘It was good to see him,’ said Tom.

  Joss shook his head. ‘The poor fellow’s struggling.’

  Tom demurred. ‘Yes. Did you get his address where he’s staying?’

  ‘He’s in lodgings in Worcester... Barratt’s drinking far too much.’

  ‘Yes.’ They stood still, and not quite knowing what to say next, then walked back down the grassy track to the courtyard.

  ‘Briggs?’

  A lanky young man in a worn-out officer’s uniform looked up. ‘No.’

  ‘Robert Briggs?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Barratt asked, looking at the dishevelled second lieutenant’s uniform.

  ‘Course I’m bloody sure!’

  ‘You remind me of someone from the Front.’

  The shabby lieutenant turned his back on Barratt and pretended to search the busy taxi rank by the town hall. Barratt looked at him more carefully. Yes, there was Briggs, the same straight brown hair and slim, youthful face, but now it had a knowing, almost cunning look.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not Briggs?’ Barratt persisted.

  ‘Just piss off, will you!’

  Barratt walked away. He could not deny it: he needed another drink. Feeling in his tunic pocket, he found loose change. He went into the nearest public house, a small, rather squalid place up a step entry, in the town centre. Several down-at-heel men squinted at him from the bar as Barratt leaned against the counter. He bought a few shots of gin and swallowed them quickly, all the time seeing Briggs. Went through their last interview, felt the bitter pain of humiliation and disappointment. Finding a table by the door, Barratt downed another drink.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ he said aloud. ‘I’d have helped if I’d known. But you know what it was like...’

  The bartender came over, drying a glass with a cloth, and sat next to Barratt. ‘You all right, son?’

  Barratt refocused. The room lurched before his eyes. He stared at the bartender’s round heavily moustached face, saw sad eyes watching him. For a moment, it seemed that Barratt was going to tell, but then he stood up and swayed out of the smoky cave of the room where oil lamps flickered over staring, lean faces. Holding on to the tops of the bare wooden chairs to steady him along, then taking hold of the handrail, he staggered down the steps of the narrow entry, and nausea suddenly gripped him. He felt himself spinning, losing grip. The next thing he was thudding down the steps. Then he was at the bottom on hands and knees, staring at the blood spotting from his nose on the blue-black engineering bricks. He could feel large grazes starting to sting his forehead, his chin, his shins. Several people stepped forward. An older man sniffed the air.

  ‘It’s a drunk!’ he said in disgust, and the people backed away. Barratt was still on all fours. He peered up, saw Briggs looking at him, in a shop-clean uniform, his buttons shining, his Sam Browne unscratched.

  ‘So you’re back then?’ said Barratt, getting clumsily to his feet. He leant on the rail at the bottom of the step entry. ‘Are you going to stay this time?’

  Briggs waited then walked alongside him.

  ‘You don’t know what it’s like, do you?’

&nb
sp; Briggs said nothing.

  ‘If you want something, ask. Don’t expect me to guess,’ Barratt continued. ‘There’s no time for that out here.’

  An older man walked by, whispered something to his female companion.

  ‘I suppose I do look a bit of a mess,’ said Barratt, wiping his bloody nose. Briggs looked at him, expressionless then started to walk off. Barratt gaped after him.

  ‘Briggs,’ he yelled. ‘Come back here. I haven’t finished yet!’ But Briggs kept on walking.

  “E’s barmy, that’s what!’ came a voice. Barratt looked round, saw a small crowd was forming behind him.

  ‘Ere!’ shouted another. ‘Go on, say some more!’

  The street was now busy with leering spectators.

  ‘Get out of the bloody way!’ shouted a man with a pony and cart. Barratt looked around, realised he was in the middle of the road.

  ‘Go on, give us a dance!’ shouted a woman with discoloured teeth. More laughing. Barratt stared at them dumbly then stumbled onto the pavement. His jaw was throbbing with pain, as though all the layers of skin had been scraped away. He swung in through the doors of the next public house to get away from these people.

  ‘Looks as though you’ve been in the wars, mate!’ said the barman. ‘Do you want a bandage for it, lint?’

  Barratt refocused. ‘S’all right, thanks,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a double whisky.’

  ‘I think you’ve had a few too many already,’ said the barman.

  ‘What I drink is my damn business... And I want a double whisky. Now.’

  ‘Suit yourself. But do us a favour and sit down, won’t you.’

  Barratt lurched towards the table, fell on the chair, drank the whisky in one go. Went up for another. Downed that. Then the insensibility of alcohol took over. Nothing mattered. So he went out. Felt as though he was spinning along the damp, dreary pavements. People were staring at him, but it didn’t matter. He didn’t care about their insults and had lost Briggs from his mind. Briggs, who was indifferent to his state. He found himself in the entrance of yet another pub. Then two men took hold of him and he was out on the pavement again.