by Rob Palk
‘And did you?’ said Marie. She had the knack of sounding interested in these people, like the Queen.
‘Not yet,’ said Mike. ‘Not so many single women in the sticks. Lot of the lads round here, they go for those Thai girls. Second wives. Save their cash all year then go and find a bride. All the pubs round here have Thai curry now. You see all these kids with old dads and Thai mothers. I’d do it myself but I couldn’t stand the lemongrass. No, I’ve got a woman in the village. She’s got these cold hands, though, I always say to her, you need to get some gloves. Even in summer the cold. You two married then?’ I smiled and told him we were. It was interesting, being married. It felt sexier, more adult, than I’d expected. Sexy like a seventies colour supplement. My wife will have the salad. Thank you, my wife won’t require a wake-up call. No, my wife does not take sugar in her coffee.
I never did this. I never ordered her stuff.
‘Good on you,’ said Mike. ‘A lot of the young folk don’t, do they? Well, apart from the gay lads. Keeping it all going. You do right, marrying young. Horrible, missing your time.’ We rode on, feeling married, feeling that all these adventures were worth their while. That’s how I was feeling. My wife will have the dessert. I’m afraid my wife was rather disappointed with the quality of the napkins. Oh, there was a power in it. Tradition and ownership and other things I didn’t believe in.
The cab turned into a gravelled driveway with a thatched and gabled guesthouse at the end. A sign on the lawn read ‘The Grange’. There didn’t seem to be a main entrance. Going down a path to the right we found a side door which led us into a shadowy bar-cum-slouching space, empty apart from a dozing and lumpy black cat and two collie retrievers, both of whom recognised Marie as a Friend to the Animal World and pounced on her in a joyous wriggling scrum. She jumped onto a leather sofa, laughing as the two dogs rolled and writhed all over her. I smiled at this, her capacity for love. Even a dog could recognise it. Neither of them glanced at me.
I sat on a stiff-backed wing chair and leafed through the magazine. It fell open upon the badgers. I wondered if we’d see any. I hoped that if we did they wouldn’t be dying or dead. Actually, I thought it would be nice just to spend the weekend here. They had at least one decent ale. Probably okay food. It would be romantic, sort of, another honeymoon. Of course, getting shot at by Tories was pretty romantic too.
A middle-aged woman, with skin as brown and polished as the table-tops, strolled through and said hello. Marie shook off the collies and went over and within minutes they were happily chatting. About, of course, the animals. People warmed to Marie. Some quality she had. I hoped she wouldn’t mention the badgers. I was happy to get through this weekend without upsetting anyone. Marie took the keys and marched back to me, a smile upon her face.
Our room was high-ceilinged and draughty and for some reason we had been given two single beds. I hooked my shoes off and stared in the mirror. Twin satchels under each eye, my lips starting to chap with approaching autumn. A married man. ‘You look nice,’ Marie said. ‘You look actually sort of rustic.’
‘I’m wearing Gap jeans,’ I said. ‘Will the anarchists object?’
‘I don’t think we’ll meet any anarchists.’ She lay on one of the beds, hands under her head, face tilted to the roof. ‘We’re not going to run into any of the hard-core sabs.’
Hard-core sabs. Now what would they be like? I hoped that she was right. I already felt like the most timid and vacillating liberal. They’d detect my urge for compromise. Still, at least sabs didn’t have guns. I was going to spend the whole night getting in the way of men with guns. I hoped that the badgers appreciated it. I wasn’t sure they would. One set of noisy lumberers would aggrieve them as much as another, I felt, regardless of intentions.
‘Come to bed,’ I said, patting the duvet. It had been, how long, more than a week since we’d had sex. She was busy with the badgers and I hadn’t always been well. Now seemed a good time to make up for this. I patted the duvet again and undid my trouser button in a way I hoped was seductive. It might have looked more like I’d just finished a hefty meal. She looked at me as though I’d suggested playing leapfrog.
‘Not now Stuart. Not with all this. It feels indecent. When this is going on. I’m maybe too caught up in it.’
‘It’s supposed to feel indecent,’ I said. ‘And it’s been a while, you know. Badgers do it, don’t they? Nature and all that. I bet they have a right old time.’
‘They’re too scared to do anything,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem. I told you this. All those hunters marching around. They’ll be too scared to mate.’
‘It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.’
‘Get some sleep,’ she said. ‘There’s a long night ahead of us. Please, can you do that for me, try and get some sleep?’
I closed my eyes and dribbled and dreamt about badgers and guns.
By the time we got the cab back down to Newent, the mood and the day had darkened. I felt as though everyone knew exactly why we were there. Teenagers, acne bumps on close-shaved necks, gobbed outside corner shops cider-less, resentful of the interlopers who had brought the police to the village. Patrol cars parked on every street, with watchful officers scoffing sandwiches. Troupes of shirt-sleeved boozers muttered as we passed. We ducked into a DIY shop and bought two heavy black torches.
‘You could kill a badger with these things,’ I said.
‘Please don’t talk about killing them,’ said Marie. Her body gave one large twitch, as though she’d just had a mild electric shock.
‘Would you do it, if you had to, though? You know, if it was ill? Or if it came down to you or the badger?’
‘Please shut up.’
‘I reckon I could do it. If it was injured, I mean. I hope that I don’t have to.’
‘You almost certainly won’t. You’re supposed to call a vet, not . . . Just stop. Please.’
I put my hands in my pockets.
We went into a pub, the Rose and Crown. Honeysuckle on the walls, a swinging hand-painted sign, an A4 poster in multiple ugly fonts, advertising Dave ‘Elvis’ Fenton’s upcoming gig. I was nervous, I admit. I thought the place would be full of farmhands, drunk on the blood of mammals, ready to show practical opposition to any drippy, squeamish urbanites they saw. It wasn’t quite that bad. They seemed ruddier variants on your typical pub-dwelling Bloke. I sensed hostility all the same. The barmaid was a teenage girl, who I thought would be sensibly unconcerned with rural politics, but might, for all I knew, be courting some badger-slaying lunk.
‘Glass of Pinot . . . Glass of the house white and a pint of the—’ I pointed at the beer, certain that I would not be able to convincingly say its name.
‘Pint of Licky Miller,’ she said. ‘Any food for you?’
‘Scampi and chips,’ I said, ‘and . . .?’ Marie was frowning in a new way she had developed. It was a frown, I felt, of conscience.
‘They haven’t anything veggie.’
‘There’s scampi. They’ve got fish and chips.’
‘Fish aren’t some kind of moving underwater lettuce, you know. Cod isn’t an aquatic cabbage.’
‘They’re not really animals. They haven’t any fur.’
‘I think I should go vegan.’
‘We’ll come back to order food.’ Picking up the drinks I lolloped across the pub to an empty table, praying no one had heard. We sat down, Marie glancing distastefully at the menu, her blue eyes showing the saintly spiritual fervour they seemed to have gained of late. Martyr’s peepers, sorrowful yet patient. Princess Di on Panorama.
‘Veganism now? When did this happen?’
‘It’s something I’ve been thinking of a lot. I mean, the dairy industry is pretty much sponsoring this cull.’
‘It’s ethically consistent. It is. But I like cooking for us. I like cooking for you. And I like cooking with cheese. Sometimes milk. Cream, there is. Butter too. Eggs. Eggs are important.’
‘All those calves they have to slaughter.’
>
‘Don’t talk so loud about that.’
‘Why shouldn’t I? Do you think the civil rights movement were scared of upsetting people? Anyway no one cares. I wish they did.’
‘They probably care about their sick cows.’ An unhappy silence came over us. I felt she sensed I didn’t care. Well I did care. I just cared more about her.
‘Are you really thinking of going,’ I mouthed the word, ‘vegan?’
‘I really think I have to.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. I’m going to say something that might irritate you now.’
‘You could just not. You could just not say it.’
‘I am going to say something.’
‘Really, I think you might want to consider not saying anything.’
‘I am going to.’
‘I probably know what it is. Anyway.’
‘In which case you will be able to temper your annoyance. And prepare yourself.’
‘If what you say is what I think it is then I will still be annoyed.’
‘I am going to say it all the same.’
‘Okay.’
‘Do you think this might be an eating disorder? Only you maybe have lost weight.’
‘That is what I thought you would say.’
‘Are you annoyed?’
‘I am very annoyed.’
‘Am I possibly right?’
‘You are not right. You are saying that a choice, a choice I have thought about, is actually a sign I’m not well. You are like those doctors in the Soviet Union who said dissenters were all mad.’
‘I don’t think I am exactly like that.’
‘You are saying my rational choice is an illness. You are saying the decision to eat ethically must be because I am psychologically unwell.’
‘I like cooking for us. This will make it harder and harder to do that.’
‘So your concern is that this will impact on you? That is what you are worried about.’
‘No. No. That’s not what I meant at all.’
‘It’s actually controlling, this side of you. Wanting to cook everything, wanting to make sure I eat what you want. It’s a very controlling side of you.’
‘I don’t think I am in control of anything, least of all you. I’m going to the loo. Buy some crisps or something, come on.’
‘You’re doing it again.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Because without the nutritional value of a packet of fucking Wotsits I might starve?’
‘I’m going to the bathroom now.’ I made my way through the crowded pub, wishing I’d dressed a bit less like an anarchist. Eyes trailed my clumsy zigzag across the room. I wondered why we kept arguing so much. There’d been a time we never had. Badgers were causing a rupture. In the narrow urinal I tried my best to go, expecting, at any moment, to be coshed. There were two posters on the wall. One advertised condoms and showed a surprised looking young woman holding a piece of fruit. The other said that the local primary school were soon to perform the Joe Meek Story.
I stepped from the bathroom and straight into an oncoming local. He bounced back, wobbling on his heels and for a second there was a moment when, united in fascination, we watched the lager rise over the rim of his glass, arc, glinting, through the air and land down the front of his shirt.
‘I can’t see,’ I said quickly. To illustrate this I pointed at my right eye. It was crucial I get this key fact across before he hit me, like a politician doing a hostile interview. ‘I’m partially . . . I’m blind. In one eye.’ A necessary exaggeration. His arm, which had been raised ready to strike me, dropped to his side. He seemed disappointed, robbed of a chance for aggro.
‘You going to buy me another?’ He said this as if I might try and weasel out of it in the same way I’d dodged a beating, perhaps pulling out a certificate to say that spending money made me ill. I told him of course I would, asked him what he had been drinking, apologised about seven times and turned to the bar.
‘I haven’t got any cash,’ I said. The drenched local and the barmaid looked at me with something short of pity. ‘If you hold on I can ask my wife.’
‘You knock over my drink then you go crawling to your wife to pay for it,’ said the local. His tee shirt, which was mostly cream-coloured, now had a central island of yellow between the nipples.
‘I’m not crawling,’ I said. I made sure I stood up straight.
‘Just leave it,’ said the local. ‘It’s fine.’
‘I really am par . . . I really am blind. On the right side. And it’s kind of the pub’s fault they don’t take cards. If they took cards I could have got you one by now.’
‘You blaming me now?’ said the barmaid. Various drinkers looked up, foggy eyes snapping into murderous clarity. I explained that I blamed no one but myself.
‘What was all that about?’ said Marie. The anger had gone from her voice, replaced by a strived-for patience.
‘Nothing. You know, your drink probably has rennet in it. It actually probably has.’
The scampi was already going cold, shrivelling, dead on the plate. In half an hour we were due to meet the Badger Patrol. Marie held onto her wine, not looking at me. I thought about reminding her of the time she had saved my life, sent me to the opticians, but I didn’t see any point. She had other lives now to save.
Seventeen
‘Right so, what you do,’ the optician said, ‘is when I turn the lights down you should see these little red dots crossing the screen. Just these little red dots. And when you see one of these little red dots what you do is you press the buzzer. Simple as that.’ He seemed to enjoy saying ‘little red dots’.
It was the day after Marie had told me to get a second opinion, so I had gone down the road to do that. I sat with my chin on a plastic rest and my face enclosed by a hollow half-oval device, the creamy beige colour of vintage computer equipment. The optician turned a dial and the view before me dimmed. Everything was black until across the sky a red dot zoomed, a pinpoint crimson will-o’-the-wisp. I pressed the buzzer and the red dot disappeared. This was easy. I would shoot down as many of these dots as I could manage. I was a guard, a sentinel, standing lonely watch across a galaxy. I was protecting my universe from attack. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
‘Don’t buzz unless you see one though,’ said the optician. I told him I thought I had seen one. The game went on for a further ten minutes. My neck began to ache. The plastic rest began to irritate my chin. I zapped as many of the red dots as I could. The optician told me I could stop buzzing and went to examine my score. It began to feel very important I pass the test. I put my glasses back on and waited for him to return. When he did, he was stroking the hanging black fronds of his beard and had a nervous look on his face, as though he thought I’d be cross.
‘Well, one thing to say, your glasses are the wrong prescription. You didn’t get them from here, did you?’
I admitted I’d bought them elsewhere.
‘Wrong prescription, mate. You been messed with. Thing is though, that only accounts for some of the loss of sight. You’re still missing a fair bit of vision from the right side and new glasses won’t alter that. You might need to go and talk to your GP.’
‘Are you eating enough vitamin D?’ my GP said. He looked over his spectacles, as though he were scouring me for traces of the stuff. While he spoke, he scribbled into a squared school exercise book.
I told him I didn’t know how much vitamin D I ate and that I had lost a lot of my sight.
‘People in this country, they don’t get enough vitamin D. Not enough sunlight, everyone sitting at their desks. Right now, we are having a serious push on vitamin D. Lack of it can cause multiple sclerosis, all manner of ailments. Breakfast, is what you need for this. A cooked breakfast, outdoors, with eggs and mushrooms and sunlight. Problem is,’ he continued, ‘we are talking very great quantities of mushrooms. Enormous volumes of egg. There would be health problems just from eating this many breakfasts in one day. And in this country everyone skips breakf
ast. They skip breakfast so they can sit at their desks out of the sun.’ He shook his head at the folly of our land, our work ethic and aversion to daylight.
‘You think I have multiple sclerosis?’ This seemed something to worry about.
‘No. Did I say you had multiple sclerosis?’
‘No. You did not say that.’
‘Listen, you say you have gone blind.’
‘I do.’
‘I’m not an eye specialist. You want to go to an optician.’
‘I did go to an optician. They sent me here.’
‘You need to go to Moorfields.’ He tutted, scribbled extra hard and waved me to the door.
‘Mind where you’re fucking well going.’ The man did not wear dark glasses. His eyes were like a broken doll’s, with pupils adrift, off-kilter. He had a mysteriously orderly even-haired beard, so that I wondered how he kept it trim. Perhaps he had someone to do it for him. ‘Can’t you see I’m blind?’
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said. ‘Only I think I might be a bit blind too. That’s why I’ve come here.’ I reached out to put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but thought better of it. I didn’t want to miss and stroke his chin.
‘You too?’ he said. ‘Makes sense I suppose. I’ll let you off, this once. Here, do you think they’ll sort it out for you?’
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘It’s all a bit new and upsetting.’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘I hope for your sake they do. Because you’ll not enjoy it one bit, being blind. I’d go so far as to say being blind is really fucking awful.’ He went off, with his stick in front of him, tapping as though he were looking for precious stones. I didn’t get the chance to ask him about his beard.
They took me down to a chilly basement and into the MRI room. I had to put my glasses in the sort of plastic tray you get at airport security. They made me lie down and gave me earmuffs. I was shunted into a thick metal tube. It was a bit like being a lipstick.