Lie of the Land (32 page)

He put the rifle back into its case. It's easier, at the end of a telescopic sight, but not that easy. Adam was safe to throw his weight around until someone else threw it back at him. Let him sleep in the sun, saved for another day. Uncle Adam. The Big Boss.

Laughing softly to himself, Carl made his way back along the spit, through the foreshore rock pools, and back up to the roadblock. The
Aurora
was motoring back towards the bay now. He watched it approach the pier, throttling back.

Calmer now, his pulse back to normal, Carl made his way to Alec John's. Shooting animals was power enough.

Change had been thrown over him like a cloak of lead. The more he struggled under it, the heavier it got. Maybe if he stopped struggling, the future would lie lightly on him, and possibility would begin to flower once again. Lead would transmute, become lighter than air.

Jess came scrabbling down the shell path as soon as she heard Carl's footsteps. He stroked her, which set her tail to a joyful thrashing. Every time he saw Dr Morgan in Alec John's house he
assumed the worst: that the old man had decided enough was enough and it was time to go.

‘Well?'

Dr Morgan was in the sitting room, heating some milk on the range. She stirred the pan, ordered Jess into her blanket-lined basket. ‘He's okay,' she said. ‘He's got something to think about.'

‘What d'you mean?'

‘It's good news, maybe.' Dr Morgan brightened. ‘I found a nanomed in the surgery. It's less than two years old. It wouldn't slot into the applicator as normal, so I just stuck it in a drawer ages ago.'

‘Can you use it?'

Dr Morgan nodded. ‘I think so. It's a fiddly job getting it into an ordinary hypodermic, that's why I didn't use it.'

Carl clapped his hands. Jess jumped out of her basket and gave a short bark.

‘That's fantastic.' His enthusiasm waned when he saw Dr Morgan's expression. ‘What's wrong?'

Warm milk was poured into a mug. ‘Well,' she said, ‘if he takes the nanomed in one go his lungs will be restored, almost, to the way they were. He'll have three good months.' Dr Morgan glanced at Carl. ‘And then, unless the nearest mast fails – and assuming we can find more nanomed when it does – he'll have to go through all this pain and discomfort again.'

Carl sat at the table and stroked Jess at his knee. Death wasn't going to decide this one, not entirely.

‘What does Alec John think?'

‘He's not sure. I could give him it in two lots. He'd feel a lot better than he does now, but not well enough to go into the hills. He'll have a few months if I split it in two.'

Dr Morgan went through with the milk, Carl following her, to the end bedroom. ‘He's asleep,' she whispered.

Propped on a bank of pillows, Alec John slept with his mouth open, thin hands splayed out on the duvet, ancient at sixty-six. His breathing was fast and shallow.

‘I thought he'd be asleep,' said Carl softly. ‘He can't sleep through the night so he dozes through the day.'

‘Are you up with him at night?'

‘Not often,' said Carl. ‘He hates it when I come in. He was sitting in the chair the other night.'

‘Really?'

Carl nodded. ‘Yeah. He was just sitting there, both hands on his walking-stick, like he was just about to get up.'

‘Did he?'

‘No. He was back in bed half an hour later. Is there a drop of rum in that?'

‘Yes,' said Dr Morgan with a smile. She walked back through to the stove with the cup of milk. ‘You can warm it again when he wakes up.' She poured the milk back into the pan and put the lid on. ‘You're very attentive.'

Carl shrugged. ‘He's done a lot for me.'

Dr Morgan rinsed the cup under the tap, dried it, and hooked its handle on the stand. She picked up her jacket and put it on. They both stood there.

‘In about two days' time, I would say, your daughter is going to come into the world.'

Carl pursed his lips. ‘I'm staying. Whatever happens. Even if the masts failed tomorrow, where would I go?'

‘Good,' said Dr Morgan. ‘If you hang around for long enough, you might even try to make the best of it.' She buttoned her jacket, picked up her case, and patted Jess goodbye. Closing the front door, she was off, scrunching down the path.

Evening came down just as the low cloud lifted, fresher air sweeping in off the Atlantic, warmth in the spring air. Carl sat in Alec John's sitting room, by the warm stove, listening: to the old
clock on the wall, logs settling in the grate, Jess breathing in her basket, the wind outside moving through the hazel.

He sat for a long time, drifting between regret and uncertainty, watching the wind at work as it roused the awakening earth.

New Life

Carl stopped the argocat and crept down into the open depths of the glen, keeping his eyes fixed on the middle distance. He had an idea what to look for now; the telltale signs and likely whereabouts of what he was driven to find.

After half an hour, he found it.

Crouching, Carl sank into a bank of heather. A single hind, quite young, was grazing down the slope close to a stream. As if sensing she was being watched, the hind lifted her head and scanned the higher ground. Carl dipped his head, waited then inched upwards until he could see again. She was thin, and clearly not pregnant. She'd come through the whole winter without being impregnated, which was rare, and was on her own, separate from the rest of the master's harem who were across the glen near the forest. He heard Alec John's voice telling him what a gift this was, winter-thin or not.

The lie of the land was such that Carl had to double back a little to the stream that rose on the sodden slopes. It was in spate, and the sound of rushing water would help mask any noise that he might make in his approach. The hind was a good 200 metres away, too far for a kill shot.

Following the stream down into the glen Carl crept along its hunched banks of rock and thin grass, stopping close to where the water slowed and opened out across beds of gravel.

There she was, down below, a fair distance away. There was a better way to come, he could see that now. But this was as close as
he could get by following the water. Settling into a comfortable firing position, Carl sized up the target.

The hind was head-on so he would have to wait. It took another ten minutes for her to change her stance. Now they were ready.

Just above and to the left of the hip joint. That was the spot.

Now there was the slowing of breath, the emptying of mind; the universe packed into a square inch of grey-brown fur, the dead centre of extinction, where the energies of death and life were interchangeable.

‘Thank you,' Carl whispered as he held his final breath, squeezing the trigger on the exhale. Twelve stone of deer dropped where it stood.

He clicked the distance function on the deltameter, and started off down the slope. Carl watched the figures mount. He touched the barrel of the .308 to the hind's staring eyeball. There was no response.

The reading said 137 metres. Alec John was right – Carl had a talent for this. In a different life, he could have made the Olympic team, but this was his truth now. He found the animal's carotid and plunged the knife home, indifferent to the blood that gushed out onto the grass. Carl had learned to live in this world. A truce had become uneasy peace. Back when it mattered, there had been different work that needed doing, and he'd done it until long after it became a pointless urge. After years of doing this other work, he'd realised there was a river of shit whose flow he was powerless to arrest. He'd take the odd bucketful, just to show people that what they were being told was pure water was, in fact, tainted. Septic with lies. But there was plenty more where the bucketful had come from. The river never stopped.

Wiping the lock-knife on his trousers he closed it and put it back in his jacket pocket. He watched, impassive, as the hind emptied her blood onto the new grass.

He had eighteen bullets left for the .308.

His work now was pure.

•

That evening he lay on the bed in Room 14 and looked at the ceiling. Paint was flaking from the cornices; and there was a dark stain from an oil-lamp that long ago burned by the bed while he burned and sweated in it. The room smelled of dampness now, or maybe it had always smelled like this and he had just never noticed before. On this bed and in this room. With sunlight in the window, shadow creeping along the wall, and that bloody painting. There had been no escape from any of it. But Boat At Rest hadn't run aground. And neither had he. Afloat, in one piece, but with no great voyage ahead.

Carl became aware of a presence in the doorway.

‘Did you go somewhere?'

It was Isaac.

‘Yes,' said Carl, lying on the sheetless mattress with his hands clasped behind his head.

‘Did you go for a walk?'

Carl sat up. ‘Yes,' he said. ‘You remember Alec John?'

The boy said he did.

‘Well,' continued Carl, ‘he died, two years ago today, so I went to the graveyard to pay my respects.' He glanced at Isaac. ‘Do you know what that means?'

Isaac said he did.

Sighing, Carl got off the bed.

‘Are you going away?'

‘It's not far,' said Carl, closing the window, securing the clasp. ‘It's just a' – he searched for the right words, wondering how the boy might react – ‘a little holiday. That's what people used to do. Take holidays from . . . themselves, sometimes.'

‘Have you fallen out with Mum again?'

‘You could say that.'

‘So, you're going back to the other house.'

Carl nodded.

‘Oh,' said Isaac.

‘It's not far,' Carl repeated, and smiled. ‘It's where Alec John used to stay. He gave me his house. Do you remember?'

For a split-second Isaac looked utterly dejected. ‘All right,' he said, brightening in a flicker, fizzing from the doorway and down the stairs, whooping, ‘I remember, I remembeeerrr . . .'

Carl went down the hallway to room seven, and sat on the bed for a spell.

They'd been doomed, him and Simone, from the outset. Instead of all the preliminaries, like getting to know each other and living together, they had gone straight to pregnancy. Hardly an ideal beginning. They had never learned to be a couple, just the two of them, so being parents was just too difficult.

He picked up his bag, feeling the radiator for warmth, and went downstairs.

Oh well.

In the residents' lounge, George and Isaac had their game visors on and rifles at the ready. Sound effects – squawks and explosions and barked orders – boomed from the wall-speakers.

Carl left them to their mission and went on one of his own, to the kitchen.

‘Is she asleep already?'

Simone was at the sink. ‘She was tired today. Her last teeth are coming through and she didn't sleep well, not that you'd know anything about that.'

Carl shifted in the doorway, saying nothing.

Stains were scrubbed, angrily, from clothes, and the seconds ticked by.

‘Where did you get the soap?'

There was no emotion in Simone's voice. ‘A bottle of shampoo from the Mackays. A Christmas present they never used.'

In the sink, his daughter's clothes were taking a damn good
pounding. There were things that could be said, if he wasn't careful. He almost said them.

‘Go on then – piss off.'

‘I'll be round tomorrow,' said Carl. ‘If that's okay.'

‘Don't put yourself out on our account.'

Simone threw a rinsed-out sleepsuit down on the draining board. Who was this irritant taking up space in her kitchen?

‘Oh, just go away, will you? Clear off to your pied-à-terre and do us all a favour, you self-centred arsehole. Off you go and enjoy your nice easy life.'

She stormed into the garden with an armful of wet washing.

‘I'll see you tomorrow then?'

‘Don't bother,' shouted Simone from the hall. ‘We're emigrating, on the next luxury cruise-liner.'

Outside, the day was dry, though there was a haze of low cloud wisping over the headland and round Heron Point as Carl walked along the road. He said hello to the folk who were out. Some days he could pass the boatyard and not even think about the guys in there. Today wasn't one of those days. Part of him enjoyed glaring at Cutler or Casper whenever he encountered them, but the place was silent today. No swearing and shouting, no grinder shrieking against metal. The biofuel generator wasn't even running. He heard footsteps, light ones, hurrying behind him.

‘Hey.'

‘Hey,' replied Isaac.

Carl apologised for not saying goodbye, and they walked on.

‘You were busy killing aliens with your granddad. Does your mum know you've gone out?'

Isaac nodded. ‘It isn't aliens – it's World at War: Battle of the Bulge. I'm the Germans, and I'm winning.'

‘Really?'

‘Yeah. I'm in Ostend now.' He added casually, ‘It's a town in Belgium.'

‘Ostend, wow. That's bad news.'

‘But I'm winning!'

‘Well, in that case, Gruppenführer, go for it.'

‘I am winning . . . but Granddad's visor is going fuzzy.'

‘Oh. Can you not swap about to make it fairer?'

Isaac screwed his nose up. ‘Nah. He gets the fuzzy one.'

They walked on, around the head of the bay, talking and laughing about nothing in particular. Climbing the track to the house, Carl stopped and picked something up off the ground.

‘Here's your knife, you wally.' He handed the penknife keyring to Isaac.

‘Brilliant,' said the boy, delighted. ‘We couldn't see it the last time.'

‘Sometimes you can't see things for looking. Then one day, when you aren't looking, you find stuff that was lost.'

Isaac opened the two-inch long blade and tested it. ‘It's blunt. Will you sharpen it?'