Pollard Read online

  She’d never seen a poacher before. She had no idea what he’d do to her if the flashlight pointed her out, crouching like a criminal herself, watching. What colour were her clothes?

  But he knew where he’d shot, obviously. He found the deer. Anne saw the fine head caught in the beam, the black eye open, still registering that split second of surprise. A young buck. Then the man came up to his kill, put the light down so he could paunch it. He pulled a knife out of a leather sheath, strapped on his belt, and she saw the blade gleam. She could make out the sandy-coloured hairs on the back of the poacher’s hand, the green of his jacket sleeve, his boot, close to the deer’s head. Then, as he bent his head into the light’s arc, she saw Ranger.

  He was quick about it, but even so she had cramp when she finally unfolded and creaked upright. She had watched him tie the back legs to the fore, drag the carcass out of sight, to his truck. She listened for the cough of the truck’s motor and the whine of it reversing, wheels catching and spinning once or twice before it was gone. She gave the wood a good chance to regain its silence, to plug – with darkness – the hole Ranger had made, to seal itself into itself again.

  She was cold so she walked back faster than normal, not the way she’d come but on round, and because of the speed and because she was digesting this new fact, that the Ranger was also the Poacher, she walked slap into her next surprise. Plastic tape at hip height and it snapped against her so she almost tripped. What on earth? What now? It was so unexpected, tape stretched, now she felt along it, on and on, between the trees. She followed it round, a hand on the tape, up to the next tree, where the tape was wound once round the trunk, and on again, miles and miles of plastic it felt like, although when she came to the end of it, she realised it was a horseshoe shape. She was back where she’d started pretty much. Baffling.

  Perhaps it was marking off Ranger’s shooting, for the safety of people like her – who knew. Perhaps the shooting was legal after all. Would you cull like that, alone, at night?

  Anne felt heavy. She shook her head as though to dislodge something. She muttered. Night was more different than she’d remembered.

  She left them behind, the taped trees, the poaching ground, back to her own parts and there was comfort in that. She walked all the way round to clear her head properly, through the field of dozing cows, their jaws working through green dreams. Nice smell. Across Steve’s old track, now the path to the housing estate, through the hedge and into the hayfield beyond. She flicked at her face to brush something away. A bat. Close to, like that, she always thought she had something in her eye. Through the gate and into the different world of the wood. Smelling the trees thinking about rotting in high summer, the fusty comfortableness of the habit of leaves, like middle age. In the hut the stove had gone out. Who cares, she thought, it wasn’t winter.

  ♦

  He turned up again two days later, Peter Parker.

  Anyone at home? Come on then. We’re going hunting, remember? You promised.

  Anne was on her second day of worm preparation. She didn’t look up.

  Oh man, what you doing?

  His disgust always made her laugh. He had no stomach for anything. She was grinding dried worms, obviously. He squatted, looking serious for once. Don’t tell me you actually eat that. He couldn’t get over it. He put his head close over the stone where she was working. His cheeks had tiny gold hairs on them. He was like a peach. He’d watch for a bit, then he’d put his head down to one side. Ugh. Ground-up worms. I don’t believe you. Then he’d watch her again. She swept the powder carefully into a jar, picked up some more worms off the drying stone and started again.

  You eat everything, don’t you? Do you even eat sticks? Go on, eat a bit now. Eat some worms then.

  Anne licked one finger, dipped it carefully in the worm powder and licked it off. She put out her tongue so he could see the powder on it.

  He was up dancing round her clearing, his nose in the crook of his elbow, shaking his free hand at the ground as if there was something on his fingers. Oh man, he kept saying, I don’t believe you. Dried worms. And he jumped about again. What does it taste like?

  Anne didn’t eat them like that. You didn’t just eat worm powder. You used it to thicken stews. It was protein and vitamins. You needed those things to keep you going. She looked up at him. It’s a supplement.

  How did she know what to do? Who told her about supple-whatsits? He was back next to her stone, watching again.

  She had a friend once. He told her. He knew all about survival and he told her. Anne looked into the canopy of her trees, her hands still, the worms forgotten. And the memory of Steve caught her and drowned her, like a wave. She wanted him back so badly. Peter Parker watched her. He never missed a trick. What was his name, her friend? Was he her boyfriend?

  Steve. He was called Steve. And no he wasn’t. What a stupid question. You don’t know anything you don’t. She gave the worms a bang.

  Alright, keep your wig on. I was only asking. Give us a go then. Let me have a go at that.

  She gave him the flint that she used for grinding. She’d found it in the field at ploughing time, a long white unbroken flint with a round end, like a pestle. Go careful. You don’t want to waste it. She put a little pile of dried worms on the stone for him. It’s just a small movement. Just kind of rock it back and forth. Mind you don’t jog them off the stone.

  He was quite good at it in fact. Anne got up and fetched her spade. She made an incision at the edge of the clearing, turned the clod and picked through it. She was quick, like a bird, for all her size. The worms she found, she dropped into her tin, on the drying stone. He stopped grinding. What are you doing now? She had a worm between finger and thumb.

  Squeezing the mud out of it before it dries. I don’t eat mud, you know.

  His eyes were wide. You’re cruel.

  ♦

  Another day. She didn’t know why he kept coming back. He just appeared. Sometimes it felt to Anne as though he was drinking her, when he was focused. The number of questions he asked and the directness of his glance. He was thirsty for something. And he kept on about the hunting.

  When do you go then?

  Depends. The corn was high and ripe and Anne was boiling up birdlime.

  What is that? Are you going to eat that and all? He looked into the pot. Holly leaves? That’ll make your throat well sore.

  What if I’m not going to eat it?

  He shrugged. What’s it for then?

  Catching jackdaws. Ever eaten jackdaw stew?

  He didn’t know what a jackdaw was. But then he didn’t know anything. He didn’t even know the simplest things. Robin, he’d said to a bullfinch once, when she’d asked him, and blackbird to anything, a magpie, a crow, a swift on the wing. Imagine that, not knowing a blackbird. Confusing that dapper little singer with a crow. She’d shown him a crow seesawing on a post, coughing up his coal-lump croak. Same difference, he’d said with a shrug. And to the flowers that Steve had loved, yellow archangel, woundwort, tansy – I dunno, daisy? Then, in triumph once, over a blaze of ragwort, Buttercup. It’s yellow, isn’t it? Anyone knows that, buttercup. So Anne told him the names, in case he ever needed them, like Steve had done for her. Heartsease, bittercress, she told him, forget-me-not.

  She thought she’d show him everything she knew, in its time, how the goat willow lit the wood like a torch in spring, how the seedlings pushed blind and hooped through the earth, how the birds lived twig by twig, every year starting over, with unquestioning artistry of moss and down, each one different. She thought she’d show him the flowers and seeds, which to eat and which not. She thought she’d show him what she knew of the papery eggshells, hatched or broken or burgled, what she knew of who ate what, the snapped neck, the small spat-out bones, the frozen body on the ground. But he’s always looking at something else when she tells him, banging at the trees with a stick, shooting with his fingers, hopping around. Loser, he says to the pigeon flattened on the road. Same differenc
e.

  So? What about the hunting?

  She set the traps at night. He couldn’t go with her.

  He could so.

  Well, I’m not having you. You’ll make a noise. Scare everything away.

  He was injured. He would not. He was quieter than her. Lumping great feet she had. Hear her coming a mile away. Anne went on with what she was doing, not answering.

  When d’you check them then? I can come for that.

  Early in the morning. Before you’re up.

  ♦

  But he was up, the following morning. He arrived just as she was leaving. He had a rucksack on his back, for school. I’m going to school after. And he wanted a spear. Just sharpen the end for me. I got to have a weapon.

  He was so excited, dancing around, making feints with the stick she’d sharpened. This is wicked.

  It was more of a walk than he’d expected, round to the chicken-shed field. Several times he said, Come on, what about here? There must be loads of rabbits here. Why can’t we just stop here?

  Can you see a rabbit?

  No.

  Finally Anne stopped. He was driving her mad with his constant jumping about and his complaints.

  Don’t you ever look at anything? Peter Parker opened his eyes at her, as empty as the sky. She made an impatient gesture with her arm, taking in the fields, the feathered line of the wood’s edge.

  It was a morning to match him, not that he noticed anything. It was gold and pink, with light clouds and a sky palest blue. Soft and warm already. There were comma butterflies along the edge of the wood, a cuckoo calling in the depths. On the tips of the grasses the craneflies gangled, impractically chinooked some of them. The pigeons were winging to and fro and at the corner, where the wood turned uphill, there were swifts, stunt-flying low over the long grass, in a frenzy of feeding.

  Anne leant forward into his face. I’m going to check my traps, she told him slowly and for the last time. There’s nothing to check here. If you don’t want to come, then get lost why don’t you.

  They went on in silence, for several minutes. Then Peter Parker started up again. He kept throwing his stick forward at nothing. Nearly had something then, he said every time. I was like – he made a gesture with his finger and thumb – that far away.

  That far away from what? A dock leaf?

  No. A fox.

  Anne made a noise in her throat. He’d be lucky if he could spell fox, let alone catch one.

  F.O.X. See? He threw the stick again. You’re just jealous.

  But he held his nose through the chicken-shed field, so Anne had some peace then. He was horrified by the smell. Into the wood, near the warren, she stopped noticing him. She was busy looking at the ground. She went slow, picking up dry second-time-round droppings and putting them in a bag. What are you doing? That is so wrong. He had his hand over his face. That’s poo you’re touching. Anne had almost forgotten he was with her. She turned round, shushing him threateningly so that he was properly quiet for the first time.

  She went on again, head down, checking for trails, for fresh droppings, looking at the size of a new tunnel through the grasses on the ditch, judging who’d made it. I’ll do one more lot, she said, more to herself than him, then leave it for a bit. He was following her so close, trying to see what she was doing, that he bumped into her when at last she stopped. We’ll try a couple here, she said, the excitement getting to her. You’re more likely to catch them where they’ve got to go round something. She measured a hand’s length from a fallen branch and drove a peg into the ground. Then she measured the length of the wire noose and put two sticks in, forks up to hold it. So the rabbits get used to it, she told him. He was all attention for once. I’ll put the wire on tonight.

  Can’t we stay and watch it get caught?

  No.

  ♦

  But when they went to the set snares it was a different story. Two were empty. Anne pulled them up. The third had a rabbit by the neck, still but not dead. As they approached, it beat the ground with its back leg in panic but it was exhausted, you could see that. Peter Parker didn’t like it. It unsettled him, the thumping contortions, the bulging bloodshot eye. He looked at Anne. She was busy. She didn’t notice. She was breathing heavily as she bent down and as she worked the wire loose she put her tongue out at the side of her mouth, like a spastic, between her teeth. Peter Parker put his hands up to his head. She whipped the rabbit up by the hind legs and coshed the back of its neck. Not easy because it writhed and bucked in the air, even upside down.

  Limp now. Just the frozen eye, staring out its last emotion.

  He looked from her to the rabbit and back again. Aghast.

  Well what had he thought it would be like? Killing is killing.

  He didn’t say much on the way back and he didn’t throw his stick. He might have just been tired.

  ♦

  Anne didn’t notice if the rabbit knocked its head against things when she walked. She held it by the legs, head down and swinging. She dropped it on a stone near the pool. Peter Parker sat uneasily, a little further away, but never took his eyes off the rabbit. She came back with a knife. He was whitish and when she paunched it into the nettles, purple and viscous and still warm, he retched. It’s the smell, he told her, gets right up your nose. The rabbit had been pregnant. Anne showed him the little babies, eyes seamed shut, slimed among the gore.

  He hung around, kept going back to the guts to look again.

  I thought you were going to school, Anne said to him, as she skinned the rabbit.

  Well, I ain’t.

  He didn’t like the look of the flayed rabbit but he hung around looking at it. He didn’t like the smell, when Anne jointed it and put it on the stove to cook, pretty well straight away, so it couldn’t go off in the heat. He hung around the pool while she scraped the skin with her knife and pegged it out over a flat stone. What’s that for then?

  To make a blanket for me in the winter. When I’ve got enough.

  The day burnt on. There were flies now, over the guts. Peter Parker had a sulky face most of the afternoon. He kicked the baking stones and he threw things into the pool. He was rough. That is wrong, that is. He said, looking at the guts again. I couldn’t live with that anywhere near my house. Why don’t you put it in the bin?

  It’s far enough away and it’ll be food for someone.

  You’re rank.

  Anne felt sorry for him. She didn’t know if it was her weakness, or his own, that made him so cross. What do you eat then?

  Peter Parker shrugged. I don’t know. Steak sometimes. Burgers.

  Anne opened her mouth. Steak? And he couldn’t take a rabbit?

  Chorus of Trees

  Heat. Summer well advanced, and the wood rustling like tissue paper, trying not to transpire, while every bird sings liquid from its branches. Close your eyes when you next listen to birdsong and you’ll hear green in every note. Lushness pours out of their throats.

  Birdsong in a dry summer can be a torment.

  This is a killing summer. No movement at all is best. If you want to survive. The trees along the wood’s edge patiently holding branches out into the fields. So light and dry. Little weight to carry this year. Closing stoma, holding stiff the tough little leaves, small size, thick and in-turned.

  Down in a thicket, on a hot day, Anne and Peter Parker hiding from Ranger, sitting on their haunches in the only damp, sniggering, and the Ranger standing, hands on hips in the baking clearing, looking this way and that. He is annoyed. He has sweat patches under his arms.

  When Ranger goes, they crawl out stuck with goosegrass. Peter Parker is fussy, picking away at his shirt, complaining while Anne wades into the pool calf-deep. His voice floats up through still air. He doesn’t want to get his clothes wet. These are Lacoste, he tells her. Anne isn’t listening.

  ♦

  Inside, the trees hold greener summers. Summers when you hear it drop, drop. Feel it slip around branch and trunk, gathering in the elbows, the snags
, the rot holes. Running off the smooth-barked trees, seeping round the roots.

  Green summers before, when the rain was drinkable, dropping through layers of leaves and the length of us, root tip to shoot, sipped, sipped. Moss furring everything then. You could hear things growing, the ferns, the hazels holding their green pennies to the sky, the slow push all summer long. Effortless multiplication of cells.

  We hold our memories. Not in the pinched rings of a hard season but in rings that are wide with growth. We can remember that.

  Nothing like summer rain in a wood.

  ♦

  Now, look into the burning eye of the sky and try not to feel that we are light-headed with drought this time.

  Stand, reaching branches over fields that are browning already, filled with rushed seed heads and thistle, and think of grass that is green and beaded and bending.

  Outside the wood a kestrel on the telegraph wires, sleek in a pink cloak, scoring the grass fields for food, hunting by itself already. Swivel, swivel. It has an eye like a bradawl.

  The ground hard, the puddles dry, earth cracking under a brilliant sky. The kestrel rises, sweeps sickle-backed across the field to a minute movement. He’s a brazen bird in a world that glints like metal. Stops in mid-air. His other name is windhover.

  Timber I

  They were extending the Woodpecker café. There was a big skip at the car-park entrance. Nigel was slumped over another carrot cake. No one could say I haven’t tried, he told Anne. At least I can rest easy. Anne looked wearily at the cake he wasn’t eating. As though eating cake was a duty, she thought. I’ve shouldered my lance so to speak. He looked accusingly at Anne.

  There’s tape around the trees, she said, although she said it more to herself than to Nigel. That was how their conversations often went. As though each one was thinking out loud and the other simply overheard, both of them disowning their brief communications almost before they were spoken. They’ve taped off loads of trees.