Clovenhoof 03 Godsquad

by Heide Goody

  Joan wrinkled her nose.

  “I’m sorry, Em, I’m not sure I can promise those things…”

  “I’m joking, you doofus,” said Em, waving her away. “Go collect nuts and berries or whatever.”

  “I think I can snare some rabbits or the like,” said Joan. “And I might find some edible berries. Shout if there’s trouble.”

  Em took out her lighter and stared into its small flame as Joan departed.

  “I think we’re already in trouble,” she said to herself.

  She sighed and began to gather dry pine needles and fallen branches to construct a fire.

  “I’d kill for a cigarette or coffee right now,” she said. “I’d maim for a cushion or a blanket,” she added on reflection.

  “Do you know what I want?” said Matt, unexpectedly breaking the silence of their journey. He didn’t really expect a two way conversation with the wolf, but it felt better than talking to himself.

  “A car with legroom?” suggested Christopher who had known ancient torture devices that offered more comfort to the larger man. Well, maybe not the ones with the spikes pointing inward but still...

  “I want to go home,” said Matt. “Pootling round Europe is fine in its way, but I’d rather be back in Blighty. I miss the telly. I miss decent fish and chips. I miss the grey skies, the rain and the bloody people.”

  “Your balloon mate’s guesthouse is down that road, by the way,” said Christopher, pointing.

  Matt instinctively indicated and turned.

  “The Brits know how to respect a man’s property. And privacy and personal space. You wouldn’t catch people striking up a conversation with you on British public transport or in the street. Lord, no. Eyes averted. Everyone keeping themselves to themselves. Bliss.”

  “Sounds downright miserable,” said Christopher.

  “And, yes,” said Matt, “we may be the most miserable buggers on the planet but at least there’s some consistency in that.” He looked across at the Wolf of Gubbio. “Your friends or owners or whatever are a funny bunch, wouldn’t you say? Definitely not British.”

  The wolf said nothing, naturally.

  “That Francis character – is he your owner, huh? – is he actually a real monk or friar or whatever it is he’s dressed as? It’s like he’s going to a fancy dress party. Although that Joan… Every time I see her she’s got some new get up. That knight in shining armour outfit, the, um, leather thing with all the straps. She’s quite a character.”

  “No comments on me I noticed,” said Christopher.

  Matt frowned at himself.

  “There’s no doubt she’s an… attractive character,” he said.

  “Oh, my goodness, you’ve taken a shine to her,” said Christopher.

  “She’s a bit of a puzzle. She’s this strange mixture of self-confidence and utter naivety. The things she said. I do wonder if she and Francis have escaped from some kind of institution.”

  “Institution?”

  “She’s not got a personality like anyone else I’ve ever encountered. It’s… it’s…” Matt suddenly laughed, the car wobbling on the road. “Bloody hell, boy, she’s honest. That’s all it is. She’s honest. That’s something you almost never see in a person. No wonder I didn’t recognise it.”

  “Hey, I’m honest,” said Christopher. “It’s not our fault that you live among ne’er-do-wells, liars and charlatans.”

  “She’s also got the cutest smile and she certainly threw some athletic shapes on the dance floor last night.”

  “Dance floor?” said Christopher, sitting up abruptly and squashing his head on the ceiling. “I hope you and she haven’t been doing anything improper.”

  “Mind you, I don’t think there can be anything between us,” sighed Matt.

  “Quite.”

  “Not given the company she keeps.”

  “Hey!”

  Longecombe had shut up shop for the evening by the time Matt’s car drew into the town. Shutters were down, many windows were dark and the only sign of movement came from the shifting green lights on the local pharmacy sign.

  “Left here,” said Christopher. “Here.”

  Matt didn’t quite know why but he turned down the side street. A woman stood in the gateway of a large house. She watched them approach, arms crossed.

  “Are you the English detective?” she asked when Matt stepped out.

  “I’m a police officer.”

  “And what’s this about you looking for my brother-in-law’s penis?”

  “It’s a balloon,” said Matt.

  “I’m not sure that makes any more sense. You’ll want to see the room.”

  “I really need to check in with the local police and begin searching those woods.”

  The woman cast her eyes upwards.

  “It’ll be dark before you know it.”

  “Aye,” said Christopher, squeezing out the car door. “Wait until morning, Matt. Have a lie-in.”

  “Do you have any luggage?” asked the woman.

  “Barely any,” said Matt. “Just —”

  “A great big dog. Is that a dog?”

  Matt nodded.

  “Of course. He’s big, I grant you, but he’s just an ordinary dog.”

  “So why is he ringing?”

  “What?”

  Christopher got down beside the wolf and listened.

  “It is ringing again. I’m surprised the phone gets any reception in there.”

  Matt knelt at the wolf’s other side and held his ear to the beast’s chest.

  “There’s a voice talking.”

  Christopher listened harder.

  “… sounded his trumpet,” said a very muffled voice, “and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon and a third of the star…”

  “I can’t quite make it out,” said Matt.

  “’so that a third of the day was without light and a third of the night,’” quoted Christopher. “It’s our psycho soulless client, Simon, giving us chapter and verse from the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse.”

  “No, I can’t hear it anymore,” said Matt.

  “And is it normal to listen for voices coming from inside your dog?” asked the woman.

  “Probably not,” said Matt.

  “Slow down, Bwother Squiwwel,” called Francis, tripping over another low branch and snagging himself on yet more bramble. Night was falling rapidly and their trek seemed to have no end in sight.

  The red squirrel sat on a tree limb a dozen yards ahead and chittered at Francis.

  “Well, yes,” agreed the saint. “I am a big clumsy lummox. I would dearly love to scamper from twee to twee like yourself. Is there no easier way thwough these woods?”

  The squirrel squeaked.

  “No, I don’t know these woods at all. I defer to your expert judgement, bwother. It just seems that this path is awfully difficult and circuitous.”

  Francis freed his habit from the brambles and scratched his extensive nettle rash while the squirrel berated him noisily.

  “No,” Francis said in reasonable tones. “I am vewy gwateful and I appweciate you taking the time to – what? What did you say? Where?”

  Francis hurried forward and pushed aside the undergrowth to reveal a small grey rabbit entangled in a loop made from a shoelace. The rabbit bucked frantically but was securely held.

  “Are you twapped, little wabbit?” asked Francis.

  The rabbit rolled over and eyed him critically.

  “It was more of a whetowical question,” said the saint. “Now, if you just hold still, for a second… Some people nearby you say? Well, we shall be having words with them.”

  Francis loosened the noose of cord around the rabbit’s legs and took her into his arms.

  “There. All safe now, sister,” he said.

  Francis stood and gestured for the squirrel to lead on.

  “I do hope we will find the edge of this wood soon,” said Francis. “Or at least a better path.”

  The rab
bit wriggled in Francis’s cradling arms.

  “I have put my trust in Bwother Squiwwel,” Francis replied. “I am welying on him to lead me twue.”

  Francis stepped through a screen of undergrowth and into a clearing. Em and Joan sat beside a small fire. Joan appeared to be cooking some form of nettle broth over the fire, using her armour breastplate as a makeshift pot. Em had placed her blue, chemical soaked cigarettes beside the fire to dry out.

  “Well met,” called Francis. “I didn’t expect you two to have made such sterling pwogwess through this difficult tewwain. We must have made at least ten miles this day.”

  “Really?” said Em and nodded over to a tree and the blue toilet that sat beneath it.

  “What?” gasped Francis and whirled round, looking for the squirrel. “Bwother!” he said. “I thought you knew this fowest well… Then how come we have come full circle?”

  From a high branch, the squirrel chattered and twitched.

  “Did he lose his way?” asked Joan, stirring the nettle soup.

  “No,” said Francis moodily. “Turns out my new fwiend is something of a pwactical joker.”

  “Git,” said Em. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘git.’”

  Shortly before midnight, Christopher crept out of the guesthouse with the Wolf of Gubbio in tow.

  As he tiptoed along the hallway, it occurred to him that, being invisible and all that, there was no need for tiptoeing or any other stealthy behaviour. However, he felt it set the right mood and helped convey the need for silence to the generally indifferent wolf.

  He slowly opened the latch on the front door and waved the wolf through.

  “Come on, you bloody rug,” he hissed. “We’re going to find your master.”

  The wolf padded out and sniffed at the overcast night.

  “Best foot forward,” said Christopher, “and we’ll have them found before the copper even wakes up.”

  Joan woke slowly, grunting as she stretched. She sat up. A dewy dampness clung to her clothes. The air was cool but the rays of the morning sun were warm on her face.

  “Best night’s sleep I’ve had since we came to earth,” she said.

  “You’re kidding, right?” said Em.

  The older woman sat by the embers of their camp fire, a fat roll-up cigarette between her lips. She looked like she had been awake for hours, the lines in her face more deeply scored than ever before.

  “There was many a time when I slept out in the open,” said Joan. “You know, back when I was alive.”

  “Doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

  Joan brushed the forest dirt from her clothes where she had lain. There were a couple of twigs in her hair that were soon extracted.

  “Where’s Francis?” said Joan.

  “Gone off. He was getting on my tits.”

  “How?”

  “Calling all his woodland ‘bwothers and sisters’ to him for worship. Rabbits, birds. Even a bloody deer. It was like that scene from Snow White. I told him and his cutesy backing dancers to go do it somewhere else before I turned some of his furry chums into slippers.”

  Joan knelt down by Em’s ever-filling pool of fresh water and washed her face.

  “And what are you doing?”

  “Well, first up, I’m trying to work out why the hell I’m being forced to spend my nights sleeping out in the open. Currently, I can’t help but think it’s all your fault but, no fear, I’m not finished thinking yet. Secondly,” she said, relighting the extinguished roll-up between her lips, “I’m trying to find something to smoke that doesn’t taste like shit.” Em inhaled and then coughed violently. “Shredded dock leaves are not the way to go.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find something eventually.”

  “And thirdly, since Francis rescued last night’s barbecue banquet from your snare, I’m thinking I’ve got to eat something soon and I might try these berries that Francis’s squirrel butler brought for us.”

  Joan looked at the pile of berries on the leaf next to Em.

  “Poisonous,” she said.

  “You sure?” said Em.

  Joan shrugged.

  “You can eat them but you’ll be squatting in the bushes within half an hour.”

  “At least we’ve got plenty of toilet paper.” Em jerked her head towards the Portaloo.

  Joan looked round for a suitable pine cone and then passed it to Em.

  “Chew on this,” she said.

  “Seriously?” said Em.

  “It has some value. And it fools your mouth into thinking you’re eating something proper.”

  Em took the offering and nibbled tentatively on a corner.

  “Hmm,” she said. “It’s not exactly the breakfast of kings, is it? Hey.” She held it out for Joan to see. “Do you think this looks like my boy?”

  Joan squinted at the cone.

  “Did Jesus have a brown knobbly face?”

  Em shrugged.

  “I think it looks like him a bit. Fancy finding that here. Although, on reflection, I’d still trade it for a comfy mattress.”

  “You surprise me,” said Joan.

  “Really? How?”

  “I don’t mean to be rude but you give off this air of being in control, of being totally self-sufficient.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But, put you in the middle of a forest and suddenly you’re pining for your creature comforts.”

  “You can’t blame a woman for wanting a little of the good life,” said Em.

  “No, but…” Joan sought the most diplomatic words. “Everything you say, everything you and your friends have talked about doing, is about tearing down the structures of civilisation, removing the patriarchs from power. And yet, your life is secretly built around all those things.”

  “Listen,” said Em, pointing with her pine cone. “Just because I want a fag and decent cup of coffee in the morning doesn’t mean I’m in thrall to the cocks of this world.”

  Joan hummed to herself, lightly amused.

  “What?” said Em.

  “Nothing.” Joan began to eat her own woody breakfast-substitute.

  “No. Clearly you’ve got some thoughts on the matter.”

  “Well,” said Joan, “it occurs to me that you do want to tear civilisation down to its roots and then rebuild it exactly the way it was before.”

  “What would be the point in that?”

  “Because then the world would be made in your image, not His.”

  Em spat.

  “What? God? Are you suggesting I’m…” – Em swallowed hard, although whether this was due to bitter emotions or inedible pine cone was difficult to tell – “You think I’m jealous?”

  “I think you might have some resentment issues with…”

  “With what?” Em glowered.

  “Nothing. I’ve upset you. Forget it.”

  “With what?” demanded Em.

  “With men.”

  Em shook her head.

  “Such a narrow-minded, parochial and… and chauvinistic view of the complex philosophical and political beliefs I try to uphold. What? You’d cast centuries of feminist ideology aside, arguing that it’s just the ‘little woman’ getting her knickers in a twist because she had the ‘misfortune’ to be born with a uterus.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But that’s what you meant. That’s just the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “What do you mean?” said Joan.

  “It’s an old saying which comes from the time when —”

  “I know what the expression means,” said Joan. “I meant, what do you mean?”

  “Well, sweetheart,” said Em, throwing her clearly unsatisfying pine cone breakfast into the bushes, “I’m not the one who spent her short adult life trying her damnedest to become a man.”

  Joan turned to face Em squarely and, when she spoke, there was an icy bite to her tone.

  “What did you just say?”

  Cast out from the campsite, Fr
ancis had found the perfect spot for his woodland spiritual gathering, his church of animals. He had found a clearing little more than a hundred yards away. It was grassy and vaguely bowl-shaped, a natural amphitheatre for a wilderness sermon.

  “Settle down, my bwethwen,” he called, with a calming wave of his hands.

  The hedgehogs, voles and crows settled down on their grassy pews. However there were certainly glances exchanged between the stoats and the foxes, the falcons and the hawks, each of them hungrily eyeing the rabbits, moles and dormice. Part of Francis felt it would have been simpler if he’d deliberately seated the carnivores and herbivores apart, but that was exactly the sort of divisively negative behaviour that he wanted to undo with his forest service. Also, he wasn’t sure what he would have done with the badgers. How could he place them and the other omnivores based on diet? Should they be together or ranged in the space between meat-eaters and plant-eaters?

  “Vewy well, my flock,” he said. “We are gathered here today to —”

  He stopped as something brushed against his ankle. An adder looped over his grubby designer shoes.

  “Oh,” he said, suppressing a shudder. “Bwother adder, how delightful to see you. No, you’re not too late at all. Perhaps you can find a pew over there with the fwogs, toads and worms.”

  The adder looked up at him and flicked its tongue.

  “Not at all,” said Francis. “I’m against segregation and I certainly have nothing against any cold-blooded animals. Besides, I do believe that our insect fwiends are entirely bloodless.”

  The snake licked the air questioningly.

  “Ichor, I think,” said Francis.

  Francis maintained a beatific smile as the adder slithered over to join the other icky and slimy creatures. He reflected that the animal kingdom was like a big happy family, although there was always that creepy uncle that everyone preferred to forget.

  “Vewy good,” he said. “Now, today I would like to speak to you about the twin virtues of chawity —”

  A seedcase bounced off Francis’s shoulder.

  “Chawity and tolewance,” said Francis. “I want us all to weflect on how we can” – another seedcase narrowly missed him. – “be kinder to one another, give more to one another and, in the end” – a third seedcase struck Francis in the forehead – “accept the shortcomings of others without wesorting to violence.”