Rachel Cusk - In the Fold

‘Not much you can do.’

‘What about feeding it by hand?’

‘Maybe. Then you’ve got to feed them all night too. It’s a lot of work. Sometimes it’s best just to let nature take its course.’

Hamish had a story in which a child looked after an orphaned lamb. The story made it clear that compared with everything else, the nurture of small animals ought to be rudimentary.

‘I probably will, though,’ continued Beverly flatly. ‘Those black ones are sort of cute.’

I took another load in the wheelbarrow and pushed it out into the open yard. Adam was there raking the pile up against the wall in the wind. Little scratchy shreds of matter were whirled up into the air and came barrelling against our faces.

‘We drew the short straw, you know,’ he said in a low voice. ‘All this shovelling and tidying up — the nights are much better. Brendon got them, of course. Him and Beverly light all these candles and sit in the straw drinking beer.’

I was surprised.

‘I didn’t know Brendon was still here.’

‘He never left. He lives in the lodge. They’ll give you hot water at the house, you know,’ he called over to Beverly.

Beverly was sitting in the yard lighting the little gas burner she’d brought with her in her van. It made a hoarse noise of great exertion against the wind. She had a tin kettle she stood on it to make tea.

‘I’m all right here,’ Beverly called back.

‘Brendon,’ Adam continued in a discreet voice, ‘isn’t viable.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He isn’t capable of independent life. He’s never even had a job! He just sits there talking to his chickens. And for that,’ Adam concluded grimly, ‘he gets all the perks.’

I found that I felt defensive of Brendon: something in the way Adam spoke about him made me think of Hamish. I remembered the little white face of the forgotten boy I had glimpsed in the chicken house the first time I came to Egypt.

‘I remember he liked chickens.’

Adam laughed and shook his head.

‘Incredible, isn’t it? No one’s ever lifted a finger to help me and Lisa. Everything we’ve got, we’ve got for ourselves. Some people have to be carried through life,’ he added, looking at me significantly, as though to ascertain whether I was one of those people. ‘I’m going over there now, actually. I’ve got to ask him to help Vivian with the dogs. Should be entertaining — he’s got some kind of dog phobia. We’re just going down to the lodge,’ he called to Beverly.

‘See you,’ she said, lightly but with resignation. ‘Tell Brendon I’ll see him at the pub.’

I followed Adam out of the barn. He raised his arm beside me in assent but when we got out on to the track he said:

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of her seeing him at the pub.’

‘What’s wrong with it?’

‘There’s nothing morally wrong with Brendon seeing a woman,’ admitted Adam after a while.

‘Is this where the artist used to live?’

We were going down the track towards the stone gates.

‘Which artist?’

‘The one who painted Caris.’

‘Oh, him. I don’t know what happened to him. He sort of disappeared.’

‘I thought he was going to be the next Frank Auerbach.’

‘Well, he wasn’t.’

A single-storey grey stone building appeared on the side of the hill. A feather of wood smoke came out of the chimney, bent sideways by the wind. As we approached I saw that a big wire structure was attached to the side wall. It was like a tunnel or hangar following the line of the building. There were three large wooden hen houses inside. A number of fat, ruffled birds were pecking the ground around them.

‘You’ve been busy,’ said Adam when his brother opened the door.

A set of bamboo wind chimes hung from the lintel. They made a crazy knocking noise and writhed about in the wind. Brendon wore an expression of astonishment. He regarded us, wild-eyed, for a full ten seconds.

‘You mean the new run,’ he stated.

‘It’s pretty close to the house.’

‘Right by it,’ nodded Brendon, emphatically.

He was taller and more slender than Adam. His pale blue eyes were startled and round. His blond hair stood up in spikes. He looked like a doll that had been too energetically played with. I had last seen him as a child and I could still see that early version of him within the man he had become. It was like seeing someone imprisoned in a very small cell. On his feet he wore big lace-up boots that had been clumsily hand-painted in the colours of the rainbow.

‘This is Michael.’ Adam gestured towards me.

‘H-hi. Welcome.’

‘The birds’ll scratch a trench along the wall,’ Adam said.

Brendon stared at him.

‘Thought of that,’ he gasped, nodding. ‘I l-lined it with bricks. Want to see?’

We followed him round to the side of the house, where the wind desisted a little.

‘They love the s-s-space,’ stammered Brendon, red with pride. ‘My yields have sh-shot up.’

He was wearing a shirt which had on it a pattern of buxom, dark-haired women with garlands around their necks.

‘You should change your cartons,’ said Adam. ‘You’d get more business.’

‘I don’t think I can. I’ve got a new customer that likes them.’

Adam lifted his head suspiciously.

‘Who’s that?’

‘Sh-shelby’s.’

‘You can’t supply someone like Shelby’s from here,’ said Adam. ‘There isn’t the infrastructure.’

Brendon moved his mouth, as though he were ingesting the word.

‘Come inside,’ he said finally. ‘You look a bit stressed out. Beverly says it’s pretty manic up there.’

We followed him through the door of the cottage and into a cramped sitting room. The ceiling sagged perilously in the middle. On one wall a large dark patch of rot was smeared across the plaster. A decrepit-looking sofa and a malformed armchair were the only furniture. The room smelled of damp and wood smoke. It didn’t look like a place where a person could live. I remembered what Adam had said about Brendon receiving perks, and wondered if this was meant to be one of them.

He went through a doorway into a lean-to that housed the kitchen. I watched him pick up a hot-water bottle that lay on the counter and unscrew the plug. With his back to us he emptied the contents into the kettle and switched it on.

‘We should sort this place out,’ said Adam, looking around. ‘People are getting a fortune for this kind of thing. They rent them out as holiday cottages. The Brices say theirs is booked nearly the whole year round.’

‘You can’t do that here,’ said Brendon from the kitchen.

‘Why not?’ Adam demanded.

‘You can’t. Dad w-wanted to. He got someone to come and look at it and they found, you know, asbestos. In the roof. So officially the building’s a, um, health hazard.’ Brendon appeared in the doorway. ‘It isn’t harmful so long as you don’t touch it.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘Asbestos.’

The kitchen was so small that when the kettle boiled it sent a jet of steam out into the sitting room.

‘Bloody typical,’ muttered Adam. He seemed to think Brendon had put the asbestos there himself. ‘How much is that going to cost to sort out, I wonder?’

‘I d-don’t know. A lot. Dad decided it wasn’t worth it. It would have h-halved the price.’

‘What price? We’re talking about renting it out, not selling it.’

‘No.’ Brendon shook his head. ‘No, it was to s-sell.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘He wanted to sell it,’ repeated Brendon. ‘With some land. Half the l-little field down the hill and —’

‘I don’t believe it,’ said Adam again.

‘The problem was,’ Brendon continued, tentatively coming further into the room like something being slowly lured out of its burrow, ‘they’d have knocked it down.’