4

Any as had half a brain could’ve told Chickenhead was angry. She didn’t say anything at first, just stood quiet on the doorstep while the dad gibbered on, we’ve brought your basket back, delicious mushrooms, and the like. They’d waited a day to frame themselves up before coming, but that hadn’t bated her anger none, it bred in the quiet, and when finally she did speak I could hear it grating at the underside of her words. And so could Father. He was sat in his chair, the telly burbling away, but I knew he had an ear on the doorway.

Actually, she said, they were riddled with maggots.

I played with the whelps under the table, where she couldn’t see me.

Well, that couldn’t be helped could it, Helen? said the dad. Fact of Nature.

Oh, Nature, of course. It’s Nature’s fault my little boy hasn’t eaten a jot in twenty-four hours, is it?

Mum was stood at the door with them. Our Sam didn’t tell you to check for mawk-holes?

No. He didn’t.

Play with the whelps. That was what filled my head. Just keep on playing with the whelps. Father was looking at me. I gripped Sal into my belly and thumbed her big ears over her eyes until she squirmed to get out, and I let her go, sniffling and shaking her head.

Well, said Mum, you’ll know for next time, then.

All I heard after was the dad chuntering his goodbyes and the door closing shut.

Father sat stewing in his chair, silent. Mum went out to put the basket in the storehouse. And this is Laura, said the telly, doesn’t she look stunning in this twelve-pound top from New Look? She looked half-decent, fair enough. My legs ached from being sat under the table so long. I could see the top of Mum’s head out the window, she was fussing about in the yard because she didn’t want to come back indoors. What can I do now? Ah, I know, I’ll take this washing down off the line, it’s a bit damp but no matter. He stood up then and came toward me. I didn’t flinch, it was daft flinching, I just waited for it. He took his time, sod knows what he was waiting for, he was probably listening to the telly or something, then – clout – the back of his hand against my cheek. The whelps were scarpering, I fell to the floor and scrabbled up against the table leg.

What’d I told you, Nimrod? The tip of his boot was next my face. It was caked with shit. I could smell it. Eh, Nimrod, what’d I told you? I didn’t answer him. I stayed there with my cheek flat on the carpet where I had an upskittled frame of the whelps cowering under Father’s chair, chins hid between their paws. So it needn’t cost you the earth to look a million dollars, but it wasn’t Father said that, it was the telly. Father said, I’ll smash your top, you goat with them again. Then he buggered off out the room.

I lay there a time looking at the whelps, a humdinger of a throbbing in my ear. There were small feathers and bits of hair matted into the carpet, too worn in for the vacuum to suck up.

She’d not come up with them – there was that, at least.

I was penning sheep in the top field when I heard the cattle-grid rattling. They were going out. Father was off in the tractor so I left the sheep half-penned and hoofed it round the hill to track where they went. Their vehicle was parked out front of Deltons’. I squinted to get a look inside the car but it was empty, far as I could tell, though it jipped to focus proper owing to the beltenger Father had gave me earlier. They were in the kitchen, listening to Delton. Devilry, that’s what it was, nobbut devilry, but I can tell you worse. That’s not the worst of it with him. Is it, Arnold? and she’d turn round to old Arnie Delton like he might say a piece himself, but he was taking no notice, sat farting in his chair with his eyes goggled on Countdown. Devilry. You poor dears.

They’d been parked up ten minutes. The engine still chugging away. A nip in, hello, we’re the towns, is all they’d reckoned on but Delton had them hooked with her cats and grim mumblings. Mushrooms! Ee, you should’ve seen what he did to my poor little car, that’d mark you the nature of the boy. Daft old trull – I’d done nothing to her car, it was her own fault driving so slow. She’d been crunching along the track going who knows where, probably off to buy cat food, so course when I came round the corner I fucked into her back-end. Only a small dint in the tractor, mind, and Father never noticed. She had a whole load of stories like that she could tell them. Like the time she said I’d shot her cat, left it dead in a field someplace – only it turned up again the week after, she’d not had it neutered and it’d been copping off with every bitch between there and Whitby.

Chickenhead came out, then the girl, only the two of them. When they got to the car, the girl looked back and gave a little wave. The side of the house blocked my view of Delton waving back on the step, that gnarly smile on her, now just you remember what I told you, and don’t think he wouldn’t do it again in a flash.

I lay down with my hands behind my head and stared into the sky. I stayed like that till it was nearing dark, and the sky was bare save for Mr Moon and every while a bird flying home for bed. I shut my lids and fell asleep.

When I woke up and angled my watch in the moonglow it was fast on half-midnight. The hillside was settled with peace, not a sight or sound anyplace but for a breeze chirring through the tree next me, and the lines of orange dots running stitches along the valley below. I stood up and my knees cracked. There was Deltons’ – a shadowy square in the dark – Delton asleep inside, the jowl wobbling, that gnarly smile on her. The girl waving, well done Mrs Delton, that was a good one today, he’s real vermin, isn’t he?

Ain’t that right, Mr Fox, I said, for there was a scurvy old feller skulking over by the tree. He spun his head round to see who it was had said it. Real vermin, you and me, skulking round in the dark, eh? Speak for yourself, he said, and off he went. Folk had their chickens shut up tight these past few weeks, owing to him – same as they had their doors bolted to keep me off their daughters.

Fuck you, I shouted. The words jimmied off the hill back to me, and faded into the valley. Fuck you, but no one to hear it, not even Mr Fox, heh, heh, let’s just see if I can’t get in these chicken coops. I don’t know who I was shouting at, mind. Delton, probably, because that was where I started walking when I’d said it.

There was a wall all round Deltons’ for keeping out the vermin. Not a drystone wall, that wouldn’t do it, but a high, solid affair with slugs of yellowy cement in the cracks. No bother for me and Mr Fox, though. I dumped down on the other side, into a bunch of nettles. They reached up to my pits, they were that overgrown. Not much of a weeder, are you, Delton? I lifted my arms like a scarecrow and trod through. It made me laugh, that did – me playing scarecrows middle of the night at the back of Deltons’, but then a nettle snuck up my trouser leg and stung me to buggery. Delton smiled at that one. I wasn’t bothered, though. She could smile all she liked now, the whiskery old trull. I slipped out the nettle-bush and smuggled round the house.

Each few steps I gave a rub on my calf to quiet the sting. It was a day for soreness, first my head, now the leg, pain see-sawing up, down my body, but I hadn’t time to think on that now, I could tend to that later when I was back with the pups and Delton’s smile had slid off her face in a slump on the floor. I tilted the latch off the chicken coop and creaked it open.

A dim bulb was dangling on the wall, sending a fuzz of yellow into the dark beyond the door-gap. In I went. My feet brushed fresh straw, a dull golden covering across the floor, and all these tufts sticking out from boxes and roof-beams, making the whole place snug. Not a hard life for these chickens. I wouldn’t have minded a try of that – not an itch of worry, apart from where’d that worm go? And course the fox creeping in to snatch their heads off. I thought I’d just take a look so I stepped further in, stooping under the beams, peeking in the boxes where puffed-up chickens brooded nice and peaceful. We didn’t keep chickens at our place. They make more shite than money, was Father’s opinion. No shite on view in Delton’s coop, mind. She probably had them trained to crap in trays.

Scratch, scratch, I could hear, so I followed on past a tower of sideways boxes, stacked up into a block of flats for chickens, and there was a mouse rubbing his hands behind a pile of long sticks. He fucked off when he saw me. As I walked back to the door, a chicken popped her head over the top of a box. Hello there. She sided her head so the eye was full on me. Cluck, cluck, Marsdyke’s here. More heads popped up. Shut it, chickens, I said, you’ll wake her up. Then the cockerel started up. Cock-a-doodle-doo, eh? You barmpot, it’s the middle of the bleeding night, some alarm clock you are. But there was no talking to him, perched up on the beam there like a pineapple. Cock-a-doodle-doo, he called again, how many girlfriends do you have, Marsdyke? I’ve got twenty.

I got out the door sharpish and pulled it shut. Then I stood in the darkness behind the coop and waited for the gabble inside to quiet down as they went back to roost. When I was sure they were all settled and Delton wasn’t coming inspecting I opened the door again, just a sliver.

I near took off then, near went home for bed and left Mr Fox to his midnight feast, but I didn’t, because there was a chicken by the side the coop that had got out without me seeing. She was fair relaxed, for a runaway, poking in the ground for worms. God had certain wired chickens up nice and simple – switch them on and they look for food, never mind if it’s the middle of the night and the fox is on his way. I watched her a moment. If there was one out, the rest would follow soon enough. I was two steps off but she didn’t notice me. Some daft bloody chickens you’ve got here, Delton, and the gnarly smile comes out, you’ve done it now, Marsdyke, she’ll never be warm on you after I tell her about this.

Poke, poke, poke, has anyone seen that worm? I’m sure it was round here someplace, oh, is that you Marsdyke? The head pricked on one side, then the other. Have you seen the worm? The fuck I have, I said, get back in the coop. I got behind her and shunted her with my boot. She clucked and fluttered some, and scooted in the door.

I followed her in. The place was at peace now, all snug and yellowish, and she looked up at me. You again, Marsdyke? You’ve done it now, that’s for sure. The rubbery red jowl under her chin was wobbling. I moved toward her and she clocked me with her marble eye. Vermin, you are, nobbut vermin. I was near enough I could see the red rim of her nosehole. First the mushrooms, now this, dear me, poke, poke. Fuck you, I said, and I kicked her. She flailed through the air like a torn football. Heads popped up over the boxes but I ignored them and went in for her again. I belted her high this time and she thumped down in the corner where the mouse had been. Straw and feathers floated by my face. She was clucking something desperate now but she couldn’t move apart from a shuffle as her wing was broke, hanging limp aside her. A hundred heads looked on, a hubbleshoo of noise starting to get up. I picked up one of the sticks from the pile. She scraffled through the straw away from me, but I stepped right up to her till she turned at me and clucked, the jowl wobbling, get off, cluck, cluck, she’ll never warm on you now, not after I tell her about this. Fuck you, I said, and took a swing.

There was a crunch as the stick clobbered her head. She lipped up then, but her body jerked about in the straw, so I gave her another hit and this time her head flapped on the side, and I gave her another and it snapped clean off – like knocking the top off a thistle.

I stood a time, and my brain went quiet. I knew there was a noise all about the place for they were out the boxes and the cockerel was back on his beam, but indoors of my head was still. I leant the stick with the others, the damp end bedded into the straw, and I fetched up the body. It was heavy and warm. I tucked it under my arm, trying not to gleg the neck, all stringy red wires like the insides of a cable. It made me want to gip. I’d done it now. Done it, champion. I rooted about in the straw for the head.

The eye glinted up through cusps of golden straw flecked with blood. I picked it up by the beak, then I inspected quickly round the coop to make sure Mr Fox hadn’t snuck in. I latched the door up, and bid my riddance. I wasn’t mooded for letting him in any more.

I couldn’t climb the wall with the body under my arm, so I threw it over first and listened for the thud other side, the head stored in my pocket, for I didn’t want to toss it up and lose it in the dark.

I went down by the beck. All burbling water and a wriggly picture of the moon. It would’ve been postcard down there, a scene like that on a fine, clear night, if there wasn’t a head sodding up the insides of my pocket. I buried the body and head together in the soft mud by the water, and I legged it for home.