Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘A kestrel?’

She turned and started walking.

‘No. Different. Bigger.’

‘Then maybe a kite? A red kite?’

‘Well I guess it doesn’t really matter now,’ Kane trailed along behind her, ‘because it was dead.’

‘It must’ve died mid-air,’ she reasoned, starting to climb the stairs, ‘on the wing, mid-flight.’

‘But that’s the strange thing,’ Kane said. ‘It was completely frozen.’ ‘Oh.’ She frowned. ‘So maybe it froze to death. It certainly feels cold enough out there tonight…’

She was half-way up the stairs now. The stairway, Kane noticed, smelled quite strongly of damp.

‘And it had no eyes,’ he interrupted her, ‘the eyes had been torn out.’

She stopped in her tracks. He almost slammed into the back of her. He reached out his hands to steady himself. One hand touched her waist. He quickly withdrew the hand, as if burned.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered.

She half-turned. ‘What did you do with it?’ she asked.

‘I guess I should’ve just tossed it into the undergrowth,’ he said, shrugging, ‘the damn thing dented my roof …’

‘But you kept it? You brought it with you?’

He nodded.

The boy began screaming for his mother from the bathroom.

‘Go and fetch it,’ she said, ‘I’d like to see it.’

He stayed where he was, confused.

‘Fetch it,’ she repeated.

‘Now?’

‘Yes. Go and get it. I want to see it.’

‘Muuuummmmy!’

Kane paused for a moment, surprised, and then he turned and jogged back down the stairs, out through the front door and along the short garden path to his car. He quickly disabled the alarm, retrieved the bird from the front passenger side, winced as he held it, grabbed an old Sainsbury’s carrier bag from the floor at the back and wrapped it around the bird, then carefully carried it inside.

But by the time he’d returned, she’d disappeared. He waited for a minute or so in the hallway, unsure whether to go up and find her. He could hear her conversing with the child in the bathroom.

‘Hold up your arms,’ she was saying, ‘quickly now. You don’t want to get all cold again, do you?’

Pause

‘What’s that on your arms?’

‘Where?’

‘Those rashes. They look like flea bites. Gracious me…there are dozens of them…’

‘I’m hungry, Mummy,’ the boy said.

‘But I don’t understand all these bite marks, Fleet. Daddy powdered the dog a few days ago, didn’t he…?’

‘I’m hungry , Mummy!’

‘I can make you some warm milk…But we’ll need to put some calamine lotion…’

‘I want an egg in it.’

‘In your milk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay. After we’ve put on the lotion I’ll make you milk with honey and a dash of nutmeg, how would that be?’

‘And an egg.’

‘Okay. With an egg. And how about if for a special treat I tuck you up in my bed. Would you like that?’

No audible response

‘Good. Then let’s go and get you settled.’

As he listened to her talk (his eyes unfocussed, the frozen bird held to his chest, a dopy smile teasing the corners of his mouth) Kane observed a slight movement at the far end of the hallway. He focussed in on it–

?

It was the dog. The spaniel–

Angela?

Sarah?

Michelle?

‘Hello, girl,’ he murmured.

The dog wasn’t hitched to its cart. It was dragging itself along — somewhat laboriously — by its front legs, the two back legs hanging flaccid (almost boneless , like rubber chicken wings) from the base of its spine. Its progress was agonisingly slow. Kane watched it, quite fascinated (by the various techniques it employed, the different muscles it used, the physical adjustments it made…) as it inched its way gradually forward.

‘It is a kite…’

Kane almost jumped out of his skin. Elen was standing beside him again.

‘Sorry,’ she smiled, ‘did I alarm you?’

‘No. It’s fine. I was just…’

He held out the bird to her but she didn’t take it from him, just moved around him, carefully inspecting it from various angles.

‘Totally frozen,’ she murmured. ‘You were right.’

‘It’s absolutely solid ,’ Kane said, his eyes alighting on her chin, her nose, her lips. ‘My hand’s gone numb just holding it…’

‘And the eyes…’

She stared at the bloody sockets, grimacing, then reached out a tentative hand and gingerly touched her finger to the top of its head. As her finger stroked the bird’s domed crown its beak suddenly snapped open, almost as if she’d pressed some kind of hidden mechanism.

Kane dropped the kite, with a yell.

‘ Jesus ,’ he gasped. ‘How’d you do that?’

Elen just stood there, frowning.

‘What d’you think it means?’ she wondered, slowly pushing her hair behind one ear.

‘Means?’

‘A kite. A red kite. I wonder what it represents…’

‘ Represents? You think it’s an omen? A sign?’

He gazed down at the bird, anxiously.

‘Don’t you?’

She picked up the kite, inspected it again, then gently placed it inside the carrier bag.

‘A sign?’ Kane mused. ‘What kind of a sign?’

‘I don’t know.’

Kane suddenly thought of Peta.

‘I love your hair like that…’ Elen interrupted his brief reverie. Kane’s eyes refocussed and he smiled down at her.

‘…That’s just how Beede wears his,’ she continued. Kane’s smile faltered.

‘So what will you do with it?’ she wondered, apparently oblivious. ‘Pardon?’

‘The bird. What will you do?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Bury it, I suppose…’

She nodded. ‘That’s a good idea. I might have room in the back garden,’ she said, ‘or there’s a cemetery directly opposite where I work…’

She hung the bag on an empty coat hook. The hook promptly fell out of the wall.

‘Two hundred and nineteen,’ she announced, picking the bag up again and hanging it on the next hook along, then heading off down the hallway, grabbing a hold of the dog as she strolled past and propping it, easily, under her arm.

Kane followed her through to the kitchen where she placed the dog into her basket, washed her hands, dried them on a dishcloth and then indicated that Kane should do the same. As he obliged her she gazed over at him, frowning. ‘You’re still limping,’ she said. ‘Is it the verruca? Are you in pain?’

‘No,’ he lied.

‘You should come and see me at the surgery. It’s on Queen’s Road, just left of the Mace Estate. It’s only a short spit from your flat.’

As she spoke she removed a carton of milk from the fridge, poured a large quantity into a pan and began heating it up. Half-way through, she carefully turned away and sneezed, violently.

‘God. I think I may’ve caught a chill. I got soaked earlier. My clothes are still all damp…’

She held up a dark sleeve for him to feel.

He ignored the sleeve and reached out to gently brush the fabric covering her right collarbone with the back of his hand instead. The tips of his fingers tickled her jaw.

She dropped her arm and took an unsteady step away from him, then turned back to face the counter, quickly separated three egg yolks, plopped them into the warming milk and whisked the mixture, adding a generous pinch of nutmeg.

Kane walked over to the kitchen table. On top of it was a large box. On top of the box was a book. He picked it up. ‘ The Lily of Darfur ,’ he read. He stared at the picture of the woman on the cover. ‘Wow. She certainly looks like a force to be reckoned with…’ he mused, his eye resting on the gun.