Poor old Rogue is no more. Which is terribly sad. But worse still is the knowledge that I – yes, me! – am going to be chiefly responsible for burying the body. Tatteh is too busy focusing on the onerous task of preparing a brief funeral oration and gathering together Rogue’s favourite toys to be buried alongside him (I note that several of these are items I have given to Tatteh myself – among them a Clarks’ sandal, a Johnson’s cashmere scarf and a little, plastic flamingo which I bought to commemorate the arrival of a lone bird of that species on Pett Pools in 1978, 1979 or some time thereabouts).
I have a fork and a spade, but the ground is pretty hard. And space is limited because numerous other dog corpses have been deposited here in years past. Upwards of thirty and counting, I’d have thought.
And Rogue was so huge! The sheer depth required to cover his bulk, and the terrible likelihood that if he isn’t buried deep enough the foxes will dig him up again haunt me as I work. I have bound up the thumb which aches horribly. In fact I am unwinding my makeshift bandage (consisting of a mesh washing-up cloth) and attempting to reapply it when Clifford Bickerton comes charging into the garden.
‘I saw your bike out front as I was driving past,’ he puffs. ‘Your dad says you dislocated your thumb.’
‘Rogue had a heart attack,’ I explain. ‘I was climbing over the side gate and my pesky belt got snagged on a piece of wood …’
Rusty takes off his work coat, folds it over his arm in order to put it down and grab the spade and commence digging, but as he does so a clementine (satsuma? Tangerine?) falls out of the pocket and rolls into my partly dug hole.
I stiffen.
‘Then after I’d been hanging there a while,’ I continue (more halting, now), ‘some big goose … some … some Smart Alec happens along and … and without warning … they untied my trousers. I fell head first on to the gravel below. Dislocated my thumb. Then they buggered off.’
‘Bloody hell!’
Rusty looks shocked, then ruminative (not quite the reaction I’d have expected). His eyes briefly de-focus.
I reach down and retrieve the satsuma, once again remembering – quite clearly – that very strong smell of tangerine. Or clementine. Or satsuma. From earlier. I proffer him the fruit.
‘Keep it,’ he suggests, ‘I’ve been eating the bloody things all morning. Mum bought a giant sack of them for the B&B-ers. I’ve actually got a little ulcer on my tongue.’
As he speaks, I notice a patch of dried blood on his forearm.
‘What happened to your arm?’ I ask.
‘Uh … I was bitten by a dog.’ He scowls. ‘Up at Mulberry. A setter. It belonged to some woman who was tending the girl’s shrine.’
‘What were you doing up at the cottage?’ I ask, scowling.
‘Uh …’
Again the uncertainty. ‘Uh … Mrs Barrow called me.’
He starts to dig, chin burrowing into his breastbone, almost ashamedly.
‘Why?’ I wonder.
‘Because …’
As he begins to respond (still digging) a hedge-cutter roars into life in a neighbouring garden.
‘Sorry?’ I place a hand to my ear.
‘Mr Huff’s wife died,’ he roars, just as the hedge-cutter is turned off again.
‘What?’ I take a small step back, blasted (in two senses) by this news.
He continues digging but offers no further information.
‘When did she die?’ I ask, shocked. Oh Please God Let It Be Today! Let It Be Yesterday!
‘About three or four days ago.’
I do the sums. My heart plummets. He continues to dig.
‘But then why would Mrs Barrow …?’ I persist, struggling to piece the thing together to my complete satisfaction.
‘I don’t know,’ he says, still digging. ‘I don’t think she wanted to bother you. After the landslip and everything. The underlying tensions with Mr Huff …’
‘But then why … why would she call you of all people?’ I finish off. I mean why wouldn’t she just call Mr Barrow? Is Clifford Bickerton now part of some new, UN-sponsored Pett Level Peace Initiative I know nothing about?
‘To help,’ he says (as if this is the most obvious thing in all the world).
‘With what?’ I ask.
‘A missing bulb.’ He shrugs. ‘A broken window. The rabbit hutch.’
‘Rabbit?’ I echo.
He nods. He digs. I watch, rotating my sore thumb, thinking about Mr Huff. Thinking about his dead wife. At the same time, I try and imagine Clifford Bickerton unfastening my trousers and letting me drop like that. Making those weird noises. Running off. No. No! I just can’t. I can’t imagine it.
Clifford pauses for a moment to catch his breath. ‘He was married to that photographer,’ he explains, ‘the one who … the one who got burned.’
‘Sorry?’
‘The photographer. His wife. Kimberly someone. He’s her husband. Although I don’t think …’
‘Kimberly Couzens?’ I gape. ‘Are you sure about that?’
He nods.
A short silence follows.
‘But why wouldn’t he have …? Kimberly Couzens? Mr Huff was married to Kimberly Couzens? He was the … the husband of …?’
‘Yup. And – for the record – it was probably him …’ he adds (just at the precise moment that damn hedge-cutter starts up again).
‘What?’ I yell.
‘The gate. Mr Huff. Who ran off. I sent him down here earlier to see if your dad had a spare hutch.’
‘Sorry? You … you actually think …?’ I scowl, trying to work out if I’ve heard him correctly. ‘You actually think it was … that Mr Huff dislocated my thumb?’ I yell.
He nods, fiercely. He gestures towards the hedge-cutter.
‘There aren’t any hedges!’ he yells.
‘Sorry?’
‘No hedges!’ he yells. ‘I can see. From up here. There aren’t any. Only fences. It’s a farce. This is all her. It’s just so …’
He gesticulates towards the fences, then towards his head in an uncharacteristic gesture of ‘has the world finally gone mad?’ or possibly, ‘Crazy, eh?’
‘… so embarrassing!’ he concludes. ‘I mean how stupid does she think we all are?’
As Clifford completes his little diatribe, he steps back slightly (recoiling with the sheer force of its delivery, I suppose) into a small heap of soil and almost loses his balance. I grab his arm to steady him (can’t have him collapsing backwards into that shallow hole!), but in the act of grabbing him (and him automatically steadying himself), he somehow manages to let go of the fork he’s holding (I could’ve sworn it was a spade – that he was holding a spade) and the thing drops from some height, straight down on to his foot and pierces his leather boot (his old cherry-coloured Doc Martens).
The hedge-cutter falls silent (in awe, almost – in shock) at that exact same instant. We both stare down at his foot, aghast.
‘Oh God,’ I murmur.
‘It’s okay,’ he insists, slightly tentative, not moving, still just looking. ‘It’s only a warning this time. I don’t think it’s actually … uh … actually … uh … pierced the flesh.’
He gingerly pulls the fork out. There are three clean holes in the leather. I fall to my knees and start untying his laces as he lowers himself down – white as a sheet – into a sitting position. We carefully remove the boot together. His socks are also pierced! But no blood, as yet. I gently remove the sock. We inspect the foot together. Nothing. Nope … Nothing! Not a scratch on his skin! The prongs have somehow contrived to fall in between his toes!
I am in awe. I am flabbergasted. ‘You were so lucky,’ I mutter. ‘That was just so … so … so incredibly lucky.’
And as the last ‘lucky’ is leaving my lips, a couple of swans come flapping across the line of back fences and swoop overhead (that extraordinary, gasping-pounding-wheezing sound the wings make! The huge, ungainly grandeur of the bird itself with its utterly un-aerodynamic-seeming, almost comically distended neck! So big! So white! So rhythmical! So close! The strangely holy-spotless-miraculousness of it all!) and a giant bird poo hits him on the head.
Whap!
Giant! A giant poo! Square on the head! As he quietly sits there! In one sock! With his bizarrely undamaged foot!
I am still holding the satsuma – tangerine – clementine in my one hand. His sock is in the other. I look down at these two objects and something strengthens within me (my nerve? My resolve?).
‘I must go and see Mr Huff!’ I announce, breathlessly. ‘I must go. Right now. This very instant. Yes.’
Then I pass him his sock, with my heart … I don’t know … my heart kind of … sort of … almost … Oh God … exploding in my chest, and I clamber to my feet and run – run like the bloody clappers – into the house.