Come Not When I Am Dead (24 page)

I walked down
the track earlier to the orchard to have a cigar and do a bit of sketching, and
in the shadows, beneath the trees I saw a little leveret, crouching, head
tucked in and away and not moving, but breathing fast.
 
I got closer thinking I would take it to
the house and look after it, and then saw that it was a stone and what I
thought was a breathing body was the light shining through the canopy of the
trees, flickering on the surface.
 
Things in my head are much nicer, I think than they really are.

We are having breakfast in the
kitchen, it is 10am and Jo is still in her pyjamas “Jo that really is quite
disgusting you know, won’t you go and get dressed properly?”
“Don’t go on” she doesn’t look up from her Cornflakes
“but it is horrible, but I can’t insist can I?”
 
I am pushing it.
“Shut up.
 
Do you really mind?” and
she looks at me like an arsy teenager
“yes of course” I want to say it just doesn’t suit the house, but that sounds
stupid.
 
It doesn’t suit me.
 
I don’t approve of it.
 
It’s the sort of thing you hear about
slobby people doing, but you don’t know them.
 
“But they’re so comfortable” and she
looks wearily up at me again from her cornflakes
 
“You don’t do casual do you?” and I
think that’s meant to be an insult, or at least defence “we should go shopping
for you.
 
Save up your money and
we’ll go.”
“Alright, but shut up now.
 
Look at
this in the paper.”
 
I strode over
to her side of the table, stretching each leg before me as I walked, to use
maximum muscles just to feel what it’s like.
 
“What at?” I am leaning over her, my hair
touching her shoulder
“look at
 
the state of that dog,
it’s really sad, just left it to die by the side of the road.
 
Look at it’s poor eyes, just look at the
fucking state of it” her efag has come out of her mouth and she’s going to cry,
and so I pat her on the back and look again at the paper over her shoulder.
 
The dog was on the front page, mangled
and tangled, and an eye that looks like it’s hanging out.
 
The dog was too weak to move when they
got to it and they’re looking for whoever is to blame “it really is
horrible.
 
I’ll ask Frank about it.”
 
And I remembered lying in bed with
Charlie’s soft face and long body, telling me about all this.
 
“Ask Frank about what?” as the kitchen
door opened and Frank walked in and both Jo and I screamed in shock and hit the
table as we unintentionally stood up.
 
Two big buffoons together, four fists banging the table at the same time.
 
I am slow to see the smile on his face,
because at first he was just an unexpected presence, not Frank.
 
It is funny how different people look
when you don’t expect to see them.
 
“I
didn’t hear the door”
“it was open.
 
Any tea Jo?”
 
And Frank walks over to her first and
puts his hand on her shoulder.
 
Anyone would think he likes Jo better than
me
, I think, maybe he does, but I know he loves me more, but maybe that’s
just because he’s always known me.
 
It doesn’t matter, I’m just observing, but I think it does matter a
little bit.
 
“Why don’t you say ‘any
tea Gussie?”
“because I know Jo will look after me” he does love me.
 
“Now, what were you going to ask me?
 
Thank you dear” as Jo hands him a cup of
tea and Frank sits at the table and helps himself to some cold chewy toast, and
he glances up to the shelf above the table “remember your grandma used to have
all those little butter portions, all in gold paper?
 
I always think of her when I see them in
hotels now, and that shelf there was full of silver teapots, not dust and odd
plates.”
“Oh God, stop moaning Frank, it’s actually quite tiresome and you’ll start Jo
nagging me again.
 
Tell us about the
dog stuff” and I pushed the paper over to him “and tell Jo to go and put some
proper clothes on.”
“She’s alright as she is”
“seeee!”
“Ah, that’s a nasty business, those dogs”
“and have you found out who left it there.
 
Maybe some foreigners?”
“We have some ideas” he says, ignoring or missing my snide remark.
“Tell us Frank! We won’t say anything to anyone, will we Jo?” we want to be
conspiratorial and we want inside information.
 
“Come on, you can trust
us
” and I think Jo was going to say
‘Uncle Frank’.
 
“Well, I shouldn’t
really, but it’s common knowledge that there’s dog fighting going on around
here.”
 
I see movement out of the
window and “look, the wild musket’s on the aviary again!”
“Oh.
 
Gussie, I’m listening to
Frank, shut up” but these things are important.
“There
has
been dog fighting going on
around here and we’re pretty sure it’s linked to this dumping of dogs, we
will
get them, I’m sure you’ll hear soon
enough”
“which means you know more than you’re saying”
“I should hope so, I am the filth as you criminal class say”
“
I
would never say that.”
“Well, we’re pretty sure we know who the perpetrators are, but proving it at
this stage is another matter.
 
We’re
all acting together on this, police, rspca, vets, it’s never a fast process”
and we all seem to heavily sigh at the same time and then all gaze out of the
window.
 
The sun is yellow white on
Frank’s hair and I put my hands in the shafts that pass over the table.
 
“Are you two going to the County show
next week?
 
We’ll be there with the
sniffer dogs.”
 
He is eating more
chewy toast, he’ll have hiccups in a minute.
 
I love the idea of sniffer dogs, I love
the power that Police have, those sudden flashing lights and sirens and pulling
people over.
 
I’d love to have that
power, and I wonder if I’d be a good policewoman and I say to Frank “do you
think I would be a good policewoman?”
“Awful”
“Why?”
“Because you never do what you’re told and you’re in a dream half the
time.
 
Will you be going to the
show?”
“I expect so, will you come Jo?”
“Yeah, why not, as long as you don’t embarrass me” and Jo and Frank both laugh
as if they shared some secret.
 
“Did
I tell you about Joseph’s boyfriend and the gallery in Hong Kong?”
“You did, bout time you made some money”
“I keep telling her that” Jo removes her efag “I’ll end up buying this house
off her if she doesn’t hurry up and make some money.
 
But don’t worry, you can be my lodger,
but the rent will go up, and no magpies!”
“That’s not at all funny
Joan
” and it
did hurt, that did hurt, it felt inappropriate and I left the room, chink,
chink went my keys in my pocket and £6.50 in coins.
 
I’m not quite happy with all of that.

I can see a deer, a red deer, it’s
just come out of
 
the trees at the
bottom of this field, I have my binoculars ready, she is head down, grazing as
she walks, with flowing, yet stemmed walk.
 
And today the wild juvenile musket was on Sergeant’s aviary roof again,
they just hung out together and I stood at the garden gate watching them.
 
They didn’t hear me because of the
wind.
 
The house martins are doing a
strange and wild dance today, they are more boisterous, more noisomely active
than they have been this season and maybe this is the last waltz before they
head off for the winter.
 
The wild
musket is back again and there goes Major, swooping in to attack him and the
musket is off like a shot.
 
I don’t
know if a musket would seriously go for a magpie, I hope not, that’s not a
sight I’d like to see, and a month or so ago two wild magpies attacked him and
he screamed like a baby not knowing what to do as they went for him on both
sides, but I saved him.
 
Gabriel
sent another puzzle in the post today for the Major and a note asking me to get
a Jay.
 
He sent a bracelet too that he
found in his house, it’s very pretty and I put it on, all shiny and jangling
and the Major comes straight over and tries to pull it off my wrist.
 
On the news a few weeks ago was a report
that Magpies didn’t like shiny things and were frightened of new things.
 
But that’s rubbish, the Major loves
anything shiny and bright, loves pink things and is intrigued by anything,
everything new and often snatches without thought.
 
And before you say that he’s a tame
magpie, when I shimmy up trees to look in wild magpie nests I see little
collections of rings from the tops of cans and other shiny bits and bobs.
 
So, they can bugger off with their
stupid out-of-the-window research.

Autumn is coming, a change in the
weather, a change in everything, and as I drove off today the leaves tumbled in
abundance from the trees, dancing down to the ground, a congregation of leaves
leaving the church.
 
And Sergeant
comes quicker to the food I put in his aviary, I’ll take him out very soon.
 
I ring Charlie “how’s my handsome
dragoon?”
 
“Handsome.”
“Shall I see you later on?
 
Can we?”
“I will try, but I’m not sure”
“why?”
“if I can I will” and I hear the beginning of exasperation in his voice
“but you’re a man, you can do anything, you’re a man and an adult, just come.”
“And you’re a child.
 
It’s not as
easy as that Gussie.”
“Yes it is” and I hear another sigh from him.
 
This will end in tears if I don’t change
the subject and play by his rules again.
 
Maybe, maybe I would be happier without a boyfriend, maybe I’d be
happier without expectation, or maybe just another boyfriend, one that loves me
so much he’d do anything for me, drop anything for me.
 
He came around later, but not for long
and I felt that it was a bit of a duty.
 
He was distracted and clock watching and I didn’t want him there then.
 
I was getting kindling ready for the
rayburn and Charlie emptied his pockets of paper into the log basket “here you
are, there’s enough paper there to start a fire.”
“Charlie, do you think maybe I can see you later?”
“Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“I’m taking my children out”
“where?”
“I don’t know yet, maybe for a meal” and he had that stupid, floaty tone of voice
again that he has when he does know, but he’s just pretending he doesn’t.
 
“Why don’t you ever take me out for a
meal?”
“Because we’d be seen.
 
Gussie, why
are you being so exasperating?
 
What
day of your cycle is it?”
“Don’t be so bloody rude and stupid, it’s got bugger all to do with my
cycle.
 
If you’re trying to piss me
off you’re going about it the right way.
 
We could go to North Devon, or Somerset or I don’t know, but it doesn’t
have to be around here”
“well, we’ll see”
“which means ‘no’”
“no it doesn’t.”
“I think maybe I should have a boyfriend that I can be with in public if I
like, or do normal things with and not hide and be shifty with”
“that sounds like a threat”
“it’s not” but I am ungracious.
 

When he’d gone I stayed on my knees
in a fury and lit the rayburn I took all his papers out of the log basket and
threw them onto the already burning tortoise paper, and as they left my hand I
saw his writing ‘sorry’ and it’s not because I’m snooping, I wouldn’t snoop,
but I pulled it quickly out.
 
Over
and over again on the paper he’d been trying to write a letter.
 
Just bits of letter, then crossed out
and little bits added, but each one said he was sorry, words galloping one
after the other, barging in to my head, that he couldn’t go on like this anymore,
that he wasn’t happy and he didn’t want to hurt me.
 
My heart slipped slowly down my body,
through my feet to the floor and I was shaking so much that it couldn’t get
back in.
 
And why couldn’t he have
said it to me?
 
Why?
 
When did he write it and why hasn’t he
said anything?
 
I turned the paper
over and saw it was written on a bank letter, over and around and above and
below and on the other side.
 
And
the date of the letter was July last year.
 
Is that when he was planning to ditch me but didn’t?
 
And then sometimes he tells me things
about his wife “she’s always in one mood or another” he said “so I need to pick
my time carefully when I want to say something”
“do you do that to me?
 
Because
that’s disgustingly dishonest, to be thinking of something, to have it in your
head but not to tell her, but to know that you will when the time is
right.
 
Do you do that to me?
 
Am I sometimes unaware of something
potentially important to us because you’re waiting for the right moment?”
“No, it’s not like that with us is it?”
“why?”
“Because we’re straight forward with each other.”
 

And then still on the floor, puzzled
and stunned, he rang me and when I answered the phone, with fury and hate
building high, high, high, he had no reception and all I heard were broken
sounds and then nothing and I grabbed the phone by the case and smashed it down
on the tiles on the floor and smashed and smashed it until it was in pieces,
scattered around the room.

And that night I dreamt…. There was a
grass snake in the house, it was weak and another grass snake had brought it in
through the cat flap from the garden, as prey.
 
The strong snake made a bubble on the
weak one’s belly and injected poison in to it with it’s fangs.
 
I watched it, getting closer and closer
and then the strong grass snake went to attack me and I scurried back. Then I
heard a noise and I looked outside to see what it was and saw a nasty man sneaking
around.
 
He looked like someone from
one of the Monkees episodes, with his hair too long and he was wearing a big
turtle neck jumper.
 
I called out to
him and he turned and came back, it would be a confrontation.
 
He said to me “I want to talk to you, go
and put something more suitable on,” he was arrogant and nasty and I let him in
to the house and strangely submissive, ran upstairs to change.
 
I thought I would record our
conversation and looked frantically around my bedroom for a Dictaphone, but
when I found one, a big screen showed up on my bedroom wall saying that it was
full.
 
I changed my dress and then
thought I’d have a quick look at the grass snake, I picked it up and it still
had the poison fluid on it’s belly and some of it got in to a cut I had on my
finger, I knew I wouldn’t be able to talk to the nasty man if I was weak with
poison, I had to sort it out and find someone to help.
 
I picked up my navy blue Barbour jacket
and put it on and put my hands in the pockets and I heard tiny squeaks, I
looked in the pockets and there were two, dead, day old chicks in there that
I’d forgotten since last season, they should smell, but instead they were alive
and had grown and needed food desperately.
 
Charlie was there and I called him and asked him to get chick crumbs and
he said he would.