Fen (16 page)

In the mornings she carried out boxes of empty bottles, at night she woke to hear their voices raised in protest, argument or merriment. There were only four or five men but they made noise enough for more. The vet was not there – they spoke of things he would not have cared for – and she did not know the names of the others.

Each night she was woken by the sudden bursts of them starting up their cars to drive home and would lie, listening to the sound of him up the stairs, the drunken rest he took halfway. On Friday night he put his balled fists beneath her legs, put her on the floor at the foot of the bed, bent low as though he was going to fall.

On Sunday there were men in the yard out front all day. There were more than before, coming and going, in and out. She made cups of tea in a daze. Burnt the beef brown, undercooked the potatoes. They did not notice, crowded knees and elbows in at the table, slopped their glasses full and then full again, talked loudly. Horses, sheep and cows were being attacked from the Ridgefield's buildings to the start of the coastal farms; a child had scars from the side of its neck up to missing an eye; nobody would keep chickens outside. All the same, this was different from sitting in the pub and talking about the number of birthed cows or the firmness of corn heads. And it was better
than talking about a single animal, probably mangy from rabies and on a spree, the way it was the last time. This was something, anyway.

That night, after she'd washed up, she was tired enough to sleep. Was woken later by the cold wash of air coming from the open window, tried to get up and close it. There was a sudden weight on her chest. Held her breath. Then it was gone, and she was throwing pillows aside, looking for the slick body, whatever that weight had been, flicking the light on to show the corners of the room. Only when he stumbled up, took her wrists and held them did she see there was nothing there, and think perhaps there never had been.

He pushed his mouth against her shoulder, pressed his teeth into her skin. This was what it had done to him, the late-night talks, the fast slicks of activity across the farm, the bite marks on the fetlocks.

She woke early that morning. He was still asleep. She lay and looked at his back. Once when they first met in the city, they took bottles of beer to a park, sat on the uprise of a hill. Where I come from, he said, there aren't any hills at all. She made jokes at that, told him that was clear if he could call what they were sitting on anything other than a pimple. He didn't laugh much at that, though he'd been laughing at her jokes all evening, only swilled the bottle up and took a gulp big enough to lessen it by half. The land was in him; he was born with the flats reflecting
in his pupils. Even feeling the small bushel of something she felt for him that night was enough to hold her to that place for ever.

She got up without waking him. By the front door she put on her shoes and coat. Crossed the yard, skirting the puddles. At the door to the arena she paused, looked back at the window of their bedroom. She expected to see him there, looking at her.

Seeing the house and fields and barns the first time, she'd been confused as to what the arena was for: a square building with a swing gate. That was until the summer came and she watched them breaking the horses beneath the high corrugated roof. After the animals were broken enough to ride they never stayed long, only given time to grow stocky around the hocks and then off to a riding school or as some child's first pony. Except nobody would buy a horse so mauled that it looked as though you beat it.

She could hear the horses in the stables now. There were chains on the stable doors and Greg Lowe's dog lying outside. She'd heard them debating it in the kitchen, how the foxes got in though some nights three men stayed up late to watch and some nights there were four dogs there. One of them, she didn't know his name, was derisive of their doubting, said foxes were getting into houses, into locked bedrooms; that their barn wasn't much of a challenge. All they were doing was digging under and in. They'd netted the floor. She had spent a weekend sewing
the teeth-torn nets whole, though they wouldn't use them for that again.

She went into the arena. They had raked the sand clean of foot – of hoof prints – so she left her own solidly on the walk to the middle. In the centre there was a stake hammered down into the ground with a metal ring bolted to one side. On the walls the hooks were spaced out evenly, going from a little above her head to her knees; three hooks, then along, and then another three. She caught her finger on the end of one, pressed to see it whiten the skin.

When she went back inside, toeing off her shoes at the door, he was at the kitchen table, doing up his boots. She didn't say anything and neither did he. She made coffee and toast, put them in front of him and sat opposite, drinking hers. Thinking of the hooks on the wall, of the stake dug into the sand: she felt famished, and when he didn't move to eat she took three pieces of toast and had them in quick succession. And thinking, then, about afterwards – the post fallen and half buried under sand that is hot and wet; nothing but pieces left over: fur and bone – made more toast and ate that too.

When are they coming? she said.

He brushed the empty toast plate towards her.

Aren't there any eggs?

No, she said, they're all gone.

He spent the morning in the kitchen, at the table, not doing anything, only sitting or asking for more coffee.
Then he cleaned the stalls out, reappearing with wheelbarrows full of muck to empty onto the heap. That only took two hours. Then he was back at the table, pushing toast crumbs into lines with a finger. She put the radio on.

At lunchtime she made him a sandwich. He ate half and she, nervous and ravenous, ate the rest standing over the sink. He stayed there for the rest of the day, now and then pouring himself glasses of water, now and then going upstairs to the toilet, now and then turning the pages of the local newspaper. She got nothing solid done, only half doing anything and then forgetting to finish it. The feeling of it was like the feeling of something else, so when he went to the sink for another glass of water she couldn't help it: put her hands onto the tops of his thighs.

What are you doing?

She didn't answer, cupped her fingers around his legs.

They'll be here soon.

She didn't say anything, pressed herself lengthwise along the back of him, felt the rough burr of energy making her hands shake.

She reached round, fumbled at the catch of his belt. His hands were restraining for a moment, at her wrists, and then gone. She pulled the belt undone, chucked the button free, pushed the zip down.

By the time she was up on the sink and the shaking in her hands was bridging down the rest of her, there were men in the yard shouting for him. She felt him speed himself up, watched the tension in the side of his face;
watched him thinking about afterwards: doing up his trousers and belt, sitting to put his boots on, going out the door, into the barn and fastening the head collar on the horse. It was ruined for her, so that when he was actually doing all these things and she had rearranged her clothes, washed her face and spat into the sink, the bud of fearful energy was worse than ever and there had been none of the release she'd hoped for.

She went outside. Trucks and cars in the yard, more than there had been all week. A dog jumped up at a window as she walked past. In the backs of each vehicle were the heavy farm guns. His – she recognised the smooth clean of it from his working on it at the kitchen table – was leaning against the wall of the stables. The arena gate had been swung open and she could see their shapes moving inside. It was not quite dark yet but it was getting there. She went and stood by the door. She couldn't see much, only heard their quiet voices.

When she moved inside the arena, stood with her back against the wall, she could see better. The horse was tied to the stake in the middle. The men grouped loosely round it. He was beside the head, his fingers looped under the head collar. When they cut the horse – once along its neck, once on each side of its stomach, once on its face – he held on, though the horse was making a high sound and throwing the back of its body around.

She thought she would be able to smell the blood as it went down the sides of the animal and into the sand
but she couldn't. She wondered if this was the way it was the first time, when it was only a dog they were cutting and only one fox they were trying to catch.

The bedroom was hot as a flat rock left in the sun. Outside the men were quiet and the dogs in the trucks did not bark. She lay counting for a sleep that would not come. She was waiting for the gunshots but they did not come.

She went barefoot down the stairs, through the kitchen and outside and they did not hear her. It was dark enough there were only shadows of shapes: men by each truck, resting their arms and guns on the bonnets and looking towards the arena. Passing by she could smell the rank sweat of them. She tried to pick out the one that belonged to her by the smell of him and the sound of his breathing; could not. A man walked past her and she bent against the shade of the barn and he did not see her.

At the door to the arena she waited for a sudden shout or hands pulling her back. There was nothing. It was too dark to see anything. She stepped inside, and moved slowly around the wall, keeping her back tight against it, then went forward, shifting the toes of one foot into the sand and then the other, hands held out to either side. When she touched something – wet and warm – she pulled away fast and felt the horse's fear and put her hands over her face. Only it did not come at her and she put a hand back out and then the other and moved close enough to touch the blood. The horse's nose came heavily down
onto the cup of her arm. They stood like that for a long time. There was no sound from outside and she wondered how long they would wait.

The horse was drawing in long, harsh breaths through its nose, and then she felt a jolt in its sides. When she looked she could see the pulled-back whites around its pupils and then she realised she could see other things: the shape and size of the barn, the shape of the horse's head and body, her own hands as she held them up.

The horse made a sound the same as when the men had cut it and pulled back hard so the rope burnt across her arm and when she looked she could see the fox too. It was standing a few feet away, its head turned to one side, its body angled. It stood there and looked at her and she looked back.

Behind her the horse jerked back and forth, the noise of the rope and the head collar and the smell of the animal's fear, and she wondered if there were more, skirting in around the walls the way she had, feeling their sides against the wood, crossing towards her.

She did not look away from the fox and, though already there was movement growing and growing around them, the fox did not look away either.

THE FIRST TIME
she saw the fish she was leaning out from the side of the crusted rocks at the base of Bovary, reaching for the umbrella she'd seen from up top. The fish came cresting up. It was narrow-bellied when it rolled to curse her, the dark flesh sliding off to white before it reached the stomach; the eyes, when it lolled frontwards and ogled her, round as marbles. She stood watching the lope of it, the way it surfed up to jaw wordlessly at her.

Inside she hooked out the fish guide from its shelf, laid it down on the sofa, and flicked through the pages. There were all the fish you could have and some she thought there couldn't possibly be, even right out there in the mess. Trout and marlin and shoals of sardines with bones small enough to eat whole. There weren't any fish that looked like that one, not in these waters and not with that body; none, she thought, slim enough to fit through
the cracks in boat hulls, or long enough to turn back and watch their bodies coming after. Fish like that could breathe air and travel on land – of that she was relatively certain.

Towards the end of the light shift she went to the walkway up top and the sky was going fast with the air coming in big open-mouthed bursts. A storm was unbuckling itself from somewhere. The radio would start going soon and she'd be pitched down beside it, no time to think of the fish or anything else. She pulled the slicker up to her nose.

When the dark shift was over she walked down to the beach. It was a spit of sand, a long tide-walk running from land to water with the lighthouse at the very tip, and she'd salvaged well from it before, the lighthouse busy with shelves and drawers filled with leftovers. A storm like that would normally leave plenty: bottles and plastic bags but treasures too; water-cleansed seal skulls, silver rings whittled thin. And, once, a heavy round clock too watered through to count time.

Today there was nothing to find. She walked back up to the lighthouse, paced the rocky base in a widening circle to check, went down with her hands into the puddles, kicked clods of wet muck aside.

It was the fish that had done it. She'd known it on the walk back to Bovary and on the walk up the stairs and she knew it all day and it stopped her reading or tidying
or doing much of anything. Its being there had stopped anything coming to her. Maybe the umbrella the day before would not have been broken if she hadn't seen the fish just as she was reaching for it.

She forged a plan. She forged a plan to catch it. And when it was done? She was not certain. Fish stew or salted and left to dry till a dull day. Nothing got rid of a fish curse as well as a feast.

She'd caught fish before. That summer when something lopsided happened to the tides, storms every night and the spit-beach covered so often they couldn't get food to her for a week. She'd caught fish to feed herself; something wonderfully hysterical about holding on with her toes to the rock, gripping the rod. Never anything bigger than the piddly seaweed eaters who shoaled at the lighthouse base, stupid enough to bite onto nothing but the bare hook shine – but she could fish if she put her mind to it.