Can you keep a secret, p.13
Can You Keep A Secret?, page 13
Across the wall, the creep of ivy seemed black and heavy. I held myself still as Patrick stepped away from his friend, releasing him, and started back towards the house, grim and purposeful, but my eyes stayed on Marcus. His hand went to the top of his head. He held his body very still, and I had the sense he was trying to calm himself. Patrick would be entering at the kitchen door, to get the guns for the shoot. Perhaps, trying to steady himself, too, over whatever had passed between them.
The gong sounded from downstairs in the hall. Catching myself, I realized how closely pressed I was to the window, how intent I had been in my watching. Just as I was stepping away, I noticed something small and gilded on the windowsill. Bending to pick it up, I found it was the ashtray I remembered from the days when Heather Bagenal slept in this room. A little brass dish in the shape of an upturned turtle-shell. I thought again of the shadowy figure in my bedroom window, the glowing embers of a cigarette briefly flaring, then disappearing. The gong sounded again, resonating up through the floorboards.
‘Fuck,’ I said aloud, hastily returning the ashtray to where I had found it.
I dressed quickly, hurriedly combing my hair. As I turned to the door, I heard something falling to the floor. It was the little ashtray. I must have left it balancing precariously. The hard, chill sound of it meeting the floorboards stayed with me as I closed the door on the room and made my way downstairs.
We gathered on the lawn, all eyes fixed on Patrick as he talked us through how to conduct ourselves on the shoot. Behind him, the stone figure of the Earl of Baldonnell lay on it’s side, silently communicating reproach. The statue seemed to have become more embedded in the gravel overnight, an immovable blockade, lying close to the threshold.
‘The shotgun must remain broken until you stop, ready to shoot,’ Patrick explained. ‘This is mainly for your own protection. The trigger is fairly sensitive, and you’d be surprised how easily it could happen – you’re climbing over a hedge and accidentally drop the gun and bang! You’ve blown your head off.’
There was a small ripple of laughter among the group, but it was nervous laughter and I wondered how many of the others were also thinking of Peter Bagenal. Patrick’s manner seemed brisk and businesslike, most of his attention focused on Liv, who was the only one among us who had no experience of shooting. For his part, Marcus seemed pensive, standing a little apart from the rest of us.
‘When you’re ready to shoot, make sure there’s no one in your line of fire, and no one about to walk across you. Close the gun, like this.’ Patrick demonstrated, snapping it into place. ‘And don’t take the safety off until literally just when the gun is up and you’re ready to shoot the trigger. Now, Liv. Take this.’
He handed her the gun, which she accepted with an air of misgiving. ‘Is it loaded?’
‘No. Those are blanks.’
He instructed her on how to hold the gun, bringing it up so the stock was against her shoulder.
‘It needs to be right in against your cheek also,’ he said.
‘I’m a little nervous of it,’ Liv said, her giggle invading my memory.
‘No need to be nervous,’ Patrick said. ‘Just be cautious.’
I was hit by a sudden blast of déjà vu. My own first time shooting, uttering those very same words: ‘I’m nervous.’ Peter Bagenal’s retort – If you’re afraid, then don’t come shooting – coming instantly to my ear. He existed only in my memory, and yet his curious blend of gruffness and affection had been the centre of this house – the beating heart of it. Somehow, I had assumed I would feel more of a sense of him this weekend. Surprising, then, to find it was Heather I felt more. The ghostly scent of her cigarettes and perfume, the languid movement in the air as if she had just passed; the way she stood waiting and watchful at the window. I turned quickly to look back at the house, as if expecting to catch her there at my window – her window – but there was nothing, only the windows gazing blankly back, opaque with the reflection of the sun.
‘Keep both eyes open while you’re taking aim,’ Patrick went on. ‘It’s important that you don’t shut off your peripheral vision. When you see a crow rise in front of you, take aim, fire, follow through, then fire again.’
‘Not wanting to split hairs, Patrick,’ Hilary said, ‘but are you sure it’s crows we’re shooting? They looked more like rooks to me.’ She held a gun under her arm, having rowed back on her assertion of the previous day that she would refuse to take part.
‘Well, technically, you’re right. Although “crow” is also commonly used as the collective term for the genus which includes rooks,’ he said, leading us over the lawn towards the trees, and we followed in a loose grouping, the dog, Jinny, trotting alongside us, the sun rising in the sky, beating down on the backs of our necks. Ahead of us the trees rustled with the promise of relief and, as we headed towards them, Hilary asked if we would be shooting the birds where they roosted.
‘No. In the fields,’ Patrick said, to my surprise, and pointed to a spot beyond the woodland where the agricultural land began. ‘They’ll be in the wheat by now, and that’s just where I want to clear them out from, before they decimate the crop.’
I thought of the early morning in April when I had come back to Thornbury, and how we had stood in the avenue together, Patrick and I, staring up into the trees bristling with hundreds of crows. Something jarred about it now, and I said to him:
‘I thought you wanted to clear them from their roosts in the trees? I thought they were driving you mad – the noise of them?’
‘Well, yes. Up to a point. But the main reason is to protect the crops from them,’ he said, busying himself with checking the pockets of his gilet for cartridges.
He didn’t look at me while he spoke, not even a quick glance, and I couldn’t help but feel slighted.
‘Let’s get moving,’ he said, hastening towards the trees, while the rest of us traipsed along in his wake.
‘Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning,’ Niall remarked softly, and Hilary said:
‘Well, Lindsey? Did he?’ And she sniggered, Niall guffawing next to her.
When I didn’t respond, Niall said: ‘Ah, sorry, Lins. Don’t get the hump.’
‘I’m not,’ I replied, smiling resolutely at him.
His eyes flickered over my face, and he winced. ‘That’s quite the shiner you’ve got.’
‘Yes. Thanks for that.’
‘Here, tell you what, you can take a swing at me.’ He pulled off his wraparound shades and offered his face to me, grinning. ‘Come on. Go for it.’
‘Don’t think I’m not tempted.’
‘Go on,’ he encouraged, laughter bubbling to the surface, and Hilary said: ‘Don’t, Lins. He’d only enjoy it,’ and then the laughter spilled over, the two of them creasing up at a joke that wasn’t particularly funny. They were both unusually animated this morning – particularly Niall, who had brought his own gun with him. A William & Son Sidelock, he told us all, after Hilary noticed the particularly fine scroll engraving on the panelling of the stock.
‘They only produce twelve guns a year,’ he announced proudly.
‘It must have cost a fair whack,’ Hilary said.
‘You buy cheap, you get tat,’ he retorted.
‘You’re not shooting?’ Rachel asked, coming up behind me. She looked pale and somewhat bored by the whole endeavour.
‘Just my camera,’ I said, and she remarked that it was just as well, all things considered. It was impossible to read her expression accurately, her eyes hidden behind a pair of shades.
I let them all walk on, hanging back for a moment on the pretence of changing the lens on my camera. I fiddled with lens caps and apertures, my camera bag lying open on the ground at my feet, mulling over Patrick’s moodiness. I couldn’t help but feel hurt by his lack of enquiry about the injury to my eye, which had grown more visible and glaring overnight. But more than anything, I was troubled by what I had seen between him and Marcus – baffled as to what could inspire that violent reaction from him.
I put my camera to my right eye, closing the left, and through the viewfinder, I watched the others. They were all similarly attired, in jeans, T-shirts and boots. Some wore peaked hats to keep off the sun. Only Niall was distinguished, in a pair of khaki fatigues, the pockets bulging with cartridges. Marcus and Patrick wore shooting vests, their cartridges more neatly stowed. Even though my shooting eye was undamaged, I felt the strangeness of swelling in the left as I closed it to focus. Somehow, this new thickening about my face affected my ability to focus, unbalancing it. The camera felt wrong next to my face, unfamiliar.
I passed Niall and Hilary, who continued their banter, while Liv looked on. Marcus and Rachel were walking together. I caught a snippet of their conversation as I passed.
‘I just couldn’t sleep,’ she was saying. ‘I kept hearing this noise. It sounded like crying.’
‘Probably foxes,’ he remarked.
‘It sounded so human, though.’
‘They often do.’
‘But it was coming from inside the house.’ His comments about the acoustics of the place were lost to me as I caught up with Patrick.
‘Hey,’ I said, and he glanced at me, before offering a quick smile in a way that offered encouragement to keep up as he quickened his pace. We had broken away from the group a little, the others lagging behind in twos and threes, the hum of their conversation punctuated with the occasional shout of laughter.
‘Is everything okay?’ I asked.
‘Everything’s fine. Why?’
‘You seem a little tense.’
‘Not really. The others might joke around, but I’m responsible for everyone, and for the guns. Some one has to be the grown-up.’ His manner remained somewhat aloof. His open affection of the previous day had disappeared. I couldn’t imagine him taking my hand now, or slinging an arm around my shoulders.
‘I’m sorry I left before you woke,’ I said, lowering my tone, lest the others hear, although they were some distance behind us. ‘I had forgotten my medication. It was back in my room,’ I explained.
We were coming to a clearing in the woods, the path widening to reveal a swathe of open land bathed in sunlight. Jinny had bounded on ahead, the swish of her red tail disappearing into the long yellow grass. Soon we would reach the shooting point and the others would gather. But before that happened, I wanted to share with him what I had seen the night before.
‘Someone at the window?’ he repeated, his brow furrowed in thought.
‘Yes. They were smoking. I could see the ash glowing through the darkness.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘It must have been Rachel,’ he said.
‘Rachel? But why would she have been in my bedroom?’
‘I didn’t mean that. Your bedrooms are alongside each other. You must have mistaken her window for yours.’
‘I don’t think so—’
‘The smoking is the giveaway,’ he went on. ‘She’s a terror for sitting up half the night, smoking her head off. Has been since we were teenagers.’
‘Really?’
‘She’s an insomniac. Just like our mother.’
‘I never knew that.’
My mind went to the small brass ashtray in her room – the upturned turtle. I tried to picture Heather sitting by her window, staring wretchedly out into the endless night, wondering which would come first – sleep or dawn? And I remembered again the scent in my room, and the sensation of someone sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘I was sure I saw a person in my room.’
‘It would be an easy mistake to make. Especially seeing how unreliable your vision has become lately.’
I thought about the tumour lodged fast against my optic nerve, pressing against the tail of my eye, and about all the tremblings and jumps in my peripheral vision. Was this the ocular flutter the doctor had talked about? Was it possible that I had been mistaken?
The coldness with which Patrick said it came as a surprise. To hear him state it so baldly, so matter-of-fact, made something rear up within me, a little burst of angry defiance.
‘Well, someone was in my room, because they left something there that wasn’t there before.’
‘What?’
‘An old photograph of me. One of your father’s.’
He stopped abruptly and fixed me with a sharp look of enquiry.
‘What photograph?’ he snapped.
‘The one from his exhibition. With the dead rabbits,’ I explained, keeping my voice low and steady. His vehemence had taken me back. ‘It was on the floor by the window, leaning against the wall.’
‘It was probably there already. You just didn’t notice.’
‘It wasn’t,’ I said, softly but firmly. ‘Patrick, what’s the matter?’
I could see him struggling to decide whether or not he should tell me. But then Niall shouted: ‘Are we ever going to shoot these fucking guns or what?’ and his face cleared of indecision, taking on a harder, more determined look.
‘This way!’ he shouted back, turning from me and leading us out into the field.
The air held a dry heat among the wheat. My head full of confusion, deeply dissatisfied with Patrick’s coldness, his irritation, I held the camera up to my face and looked through the viewfinder, seeing the darkness of the trees beyond, hearing voices approach. The camera still felt strange, but as I stood there framing and clicking, framing and clicking, I felt myself grow calm. Jinny had found me and thrown herself down by my feet, her long tongue hanging out, her mouth open as though grinning. Beyond me, the field lay on a slight incline and a gentle breeze came up and ruffled the long stalks, grain budding at the ends, before dying away. Stillness came over the land as I watched everyone walk down through it. The crows could be heard deep within the field – a sort of muffled cawing, as if their beaks were already full, their concentration fixed on the act of filling their bellies, making their calls muted, half-hearted.
At some point, someone’s phone beeped. Then another, and another. It was as if we had crossed a threshold into the world of modern communication, and for a few minutes the entire group was consumed by the act of checking messages, responding to emails, listening to voicemails.
The phones put away, the shooters spread out across the land, Patrick at the centre, leading the way. When he stopped and raised his hand, they all drew to a halt and waited. Etiquette demanded that the host take the first shot, and we all watched as Patrick loaded the gun, snapped the barrel into the lock and brought the stock to his shoulder. A hush fell over us, waiting for that first bird to break ground cover and rise up into the air.
A shot rang out. A crow fell to the ground with a heavy thud and, instantly, the sky was full of them. Flapping and black, calling out with startled indignation, feathers flying, a riot of avian fury. A flurry of shots fired at random; birds falling from the sky.
The hunters advanced through the field, taking aim and firing. Gunfire sounded over the land, and echoed in the silence after. It amplified the sense that we were in the middle of nowhere, far from the city.
I stopped every now and then, and scanned the vista before me in the hope of a good shot. From my position, I tried to capture them: Marcus, poised and deliberate, holding his fire until he was sure of his aim. Hilary, standing with her arms crossed, looking faintly disgusted by the proceedings. Niall, I observed, was a reasonably good shot. He picked his prey, followed the arc of the bird’s flight with the barrel of his gun as he fired, then fired again, Liv behind him, conscientiously leaning down to pluck the spent cartridges from the earth where they fell.
‘Would you look at him,’ Hilary said, nodding with scornful amusement in Niall’s direction. I followed her gaze to where Niall stood with a cigarette clamped between his lips, the gun held to his hip rather than his shoulder as he fired up into the sky.
‘He thinks he’s Clint Eastwood,’ she remarked.
Behind Niall, Liv stood with her hands over her ears, her shoulders high and tense, looking as if she might bolt for the house at any moment.
‘You’d think he’d give Liv a shot,’ I offered.
‘Not a chance! Even if she wanted a go, which I suspect she doesn’t, I can’t see him relinquishing the gun. Not for a second.’
We watched his cowboy stance, the way he threw back his head and hooted whenever his shot hit the mark.
‘He seems a little hyped up,’ I remarked. ‘Is he always like this?’
She kept her gaze fixed on Niall, a smile coming to her face. ‘He’s got a bit of gunpowder in his system.’
‘Gunpowder?’
‘Fun powder.’
‘Are you serious?’ I asked, as she giggled. Her own eyes appeared a little glassy, the pupils wide. ‘Cocaine and shotguns? Do you really think that’s a good idea?’
‘You’re not going to tell on us now, are you, officer?’
‘Of course not,’ I muttered, looking down at my camera and changing the filter on the lens.
The sun had risen high above us as noon approached and the birds moved on. The field had emptied and, in the distance above the copse of trees that lined the perimeter, they appeared as a floating black cloud, the murder of crows escaping to safer ground. Marcus suggested we sit in the shade of the trees to cool down. His own face appeared flushed, and I could see that Niall’s forehead was sunburned. But no one made any move to get out of the field.
‘How many did you get?’ Niall shouted over to Marcus.
‘Three or four maybe,’ was the reply.
‘Is that all? I got seven.’
‘Why does it always have to descend to bragging rights?’ Hilary remarked.
‘Can we take a break?’ Rachel called, running a hand over her brow. ‘I’m sweltering.’
Marcus agreed, but Niall started to protest. ‘We should follow them!’ he shouted, waving towards a field further down the valley where the crows were resettling. Liv had broken away from his side, and approached me and Hilary with a rueful smile.
‘I think I’ve had enough shooting for one day,’ she said. ‘Do you suppose we could find somewhere to sit over in those woods?’
