Nicola Barker - In the Approaches

I have a fork and a spade, but the ground is pretty hard. And space is limited because numerous other dog corpses have been deposited here in years past. Upwards of thirty and counting, I’d have thought.

And Rogue was so huge! The sheer depth required to cover his bulk, and the terrible likelihood that if he isn’t buried deep enough the foxes will dig him up again haunt me as I work. I have bound up the thumb which aches horribly. In fact I am unwinding my makeshift bandage (consisting of a mesh washing-up cloth) and attempting to reapply it when Clifford Bickerton comes charging into the garden.

‘I saw your bike out front as I was driving past,’ he puffs. ‘Your dad says you dislocated your thumb.’

‘Rogue had a heart attack,’ I explain. ‘I was climbing over the side gate and my pesky belt got snagged on a piece of wood …’

Rusty takes off his work coat, folds it over his arm in order to put it down and grab the spade and commence digging, but as he does so a clementine (satsuma? Tangerine?) falls out of the pocket and rolls into my partly dug hole.

I stiffen.

‘Then after I’d been hanging there a while,’ I continue (more halting, now), ‘some big goose … some … some Smart Alec happens along and … and without warning … they untied my trousers. I fell head first on to the gravel below. Dislocated my thumb. Then they buggered off.’

‘Bloody hell!’

Rusty looks shocked, then ruminative (not quite the reaction I’d have expected). His eyes briefly de-focus.

I reach down and retrieve the satsuma, once again remembering – quite clearly – that very strong smell of tangerine. Or clementine. Or satsuma. From earlier. I proffer him the fruit.

‘Keep it,’ he suggests, ‘I’ve been eating the bloody things all morning. Mum bought a giant sack of them for the B&B-ers. I’ve actually got a little ulcer on my tongue.’

As he speaks, I notice a patch of dried blood on his forearm.

‘What happened to your arm?’ I ask.

‘Uh … I was bitten by a dog.’ He scowls. ‘Up at Mulberry. A setter. It belonged to some woman who was tending the girl’s shrine.’

‘What were you doing up at the cottage?’ I ask, scowling.

‘Uh …’

Again the uncertainty. ‘Uh … Mrs Barrow called me.’

He starts to dig, chin burrowing into his breastbone, almost ashamedly.

‘Why?’ I wonder.

‘Because …’

As he begins to respond (still digging) a hedge-cutter roars into life in a neighbouring garden.

‘Sorry?’ I place a hand to my ear.

‘Mr Huff’s wife died,’ he roars, just as the hedge-cutter is turned off again.

‘What?’ I take a small step back, blasted (in two senses) by this news.

He continues digging but offers no further information.

‘When did she die?’ I ask, shocked. Oh Please God Let It Be Today! Let It Be Yesterday!

‘About three or four days ago.’

I do the sums. My heart plummets. He continues to dig.

‘But then why would Mrs Barrow …?’ I persist, struggling to piece the thing together to my complete satisfaction.

‘I don’t know,’ he says, still digging. ‘I don’t think she wanted to bother you. After the landslip and everything. The underlying tensions with Mr Huff …’

‘But then why … why would she call you of all people?’ I finish off. I mean why wouldn’t she just call Mr Barrow? Is Clifford Bickerton now part of some new, UN-sponsored Pett Level Peace Initiative I know nothing about?

‘To help,’ he says (as if this is the most obvious thing in all the world).

‘With what?’ I ask.

‘A missing bulb.’ He shrugs. ‘A broken window. The rabbit hutch.’

‘Rabbit?’ I echo.

He nods. He digs. I watch, rotating my sore thumb, thinking about Mr Huff. Thinking about his dead wife. At the same time, I try and imagine Clifford Bickerton unfastening my trousers and letting me drop like that. Making those weird noises. Running off. No. No! I just can’t . I can’t imagine it.

Clifford pauses for a moment to catch his breath. ‘He was married to that photographer,’ he explains, ‘the one who … the one who got burned.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The photographer. His wife. Kimberly someone. He’s her husband. Although I don’t think …’

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