Nicola Barker - Darkmans

‘No,’ he said, glancing down at her hand.

She let go, embarrassed.

Kane removed the cigarette from between his lips and casually flicked its ash on to the tarmac. Maude quickly moved away and began inspecting the plastic collar on a small Holly bush nearby.

‘They plant these damn things in their thousands ,’ she grumbled, ‘but then there’s never any proper after -care…’

‘ Jesus, ’ Kane mused idly, ‘you sound just like my dad…’

He glanced at her, sideways, but she was already striding back, purposefully, towards her car. Kane gazed blankly at the road again. Two highly customised Volkswagens sped past (possibly en route to some kind of specialist car show). He shuddered.

After a minute or so Maude returned, pulling on a pair of black, hand-knitted gloves — with a neat line of pale, pink ribbons sewn on to the knuckles — and holding a treacherous-looking Stanley knife between her teeth. She caught Kane’s quizzical look. ‘My da ha breatht canther,’ she lisped. ‘I thell the ribbonth for tharity…’

She formed her hands into fists and held them out. ‘Wou you li one?’

As she spoke a small quantity of spit dribbled down on to her chin. ‘Uh…’

Before he could answer she was reaching into her pocket to locate him a ribbon. She pulled one out, but it didn’t have a pin attached.

‘Your dad died of breast cancer?’

He winced at the idea.

‘He din’t die ,’ she removed the knife, shocked (carefully dabbing at her chin with her sleeve). ‘He’s fine . He’s in remission…’ she stared up at him, candidly. ‘Men have breasts too, you know.’

‘Of course…’

Kane reached into his own pocket, scowling, as she continued to try to locate a spare pin.

‘No bloody pins,’ she muttered.

‘It doesn’t matter. Just hang it over the button or something…’

She did as he’d asked. ‘Don’t you go and lose it,’ she warned him. ‘I won’t.’

He found a pound coin and handed it to her. She inspected the coin. ‘This is Gibraltarian,’ she said, and passed it straight back again. ‘Oh.’

He inspected the coin himself while Maude calmly released the blade on her knife, moved over to the small Holly bush, and started hacking away at its plastic collar. The collar came off, quite readily.

‘ Urgh ,’ she muttered, indicating angrily towards a thick gash in the bark. ‘See the damage it was doing?’

She tossed the collar aside, enraged, and then moved on — automatically — to the next bush in line.

‘Are you allowed to do that?’ Kane enquired, almost without thinking–

Allowed?!

‘Allowed? ’ Maude shot him a withering glance.

‘Is it legal?’ he persisted–

Legal?!

‘Legal? ’ Another withering stare.

‘Sure…’ Kane stuck to his guns, ‘I mean aren’t those collars Council property or something?’

‘You planning to stage a Citizen’s Arrest?’ she snorted.

‘No .’

‘You seriously think the Council gives a shit?’ she sneered. ‘ Ashford Council? Jeez . Just look around you. When I was a kid this place was a beautiful, rural backwater, and now it’s like fucking Lego-land …’ She shook her head, disgusted, hurling the second collar to the ground.

‘Oh come on ,’ Kane scoffed. ‘It was hardly as great as all that… ’ She shot him a black look.

Kane gazed along the steep curve of the embankment. There were hundreds of collars surrounding hundreds of small trees and bushes. ‘How many are you planning to do?’ he asked.

‘Why?’

She hacked away, furiously, at another collar as he watched on benevolently.

‘Your hair’s coming loose again…’ he reached out his hand to gently reposition a tight, bright, blonde ringlet which seemed determined to fall into her eyes as she worked. She pulled back, defensively.

‘I’ll do as many as I possibly can,’ she muttered, flattening out the curl herself and pinning it down. ‘See how the collar’s cut into the bark?’ She indicated, irritably, towards a lop-sided conifer. ‘I mean they haven’t even been fitted properly…’

Maude kicked at a Gorse bush which’d collapsed under its own weight—‘See that? There’s no real support …’—then her head snapped around and she fell inexplicably silent.

‘What’s up?’ he enquired, after five seconds’ grace.

‘Shhh!’

She put a finger to her lips.

‘What?’ he demanded, mystified.

‘Didn’t you hear it?’

‘What? ’

‘Listen …’

They were quiet for a while. Several cars rumbled past.

‘You should give me your mobile number,’ Kane said, refusing to indulge her any further. ‘Then at least we can…’

‘I don’t have a mobile,’ she cut in. ‘The electromagnetic waves have a devastating impact on avian reproduction.’

‘Pardon?’

‘ Shhhh…! ’ She jerked her head around for a second time ‘…There it goes again…’ she grinned, taking a couple of tentative steps forward, standing on her tip-toes and peering, excitedly, into the field beyond.

‘I didn’t hear it,’ Kane said, bemused.

‘Eee-ooo-ii! Eee-ooo-ii!’ she called.

He frowned at her, surprised. She seemed entirely different now (out here, by the road) from the shy girl he’d first encountered at the restaurant. He quietly inspected her face, in profile. She was pretty, but her nose was tiny; too flat and too snub. Her lips were full, though, if somewhat chapped.

‘King of the Birds,’ she announced, delighted.

‘Sorry?’

‘King of the Birds,’ she repeated, ‘the peacock.’

Kane scowled.

‘Flannery O’Connor,’ she expanded, smugly, ‘“The King of the Birds”. It’s the title of an essay she once wrote about keeping peacocks. We studied it at college. It’s actually a brilliant piece of writing — very dry, very funny, very clever…’

Kane continued to stare at her, speculatively.

‘Not much of a reader, huh ?’ she shrugged.

‘I know who Flannery O’Connor is,’ he asserted.

‘Oh yeah?’

She removed a third collar and threw it down (somewhat provocatively) at his feet.

Kane smiled, unperturbed, nudging at the collar with the toe of his boot. As he lifted his foot, however, he felt a sharp dart of pain beneath it, centred on the arch area–

Verruca

He drew a deep breath. ‘My late mother was a huge fan of Southern Gothic writing…’ he observed haltingly (trying to distract himself), ‘Carson McCullers? Eudora Welty…?’

Maude nodded.

‘In fact she once helped to choreograph a modern dance production of Wise Blood…’

‘Really?’ Maude looked incredulous.

‘Yeah. It had a completely original score, a semi-professional cast, and even a small, live orchestra, composed mainly of students from the London School of Music. It played the Edinburgh Fringe for over a month and then moved down to this tiny theatre in North London for a while…’ his voice gradually grew more confident as he spoke, his tone more insistent, ‘The Intimate Theatre — in Palmer’s Green or Winchmore Hill…I forget which. I still have the programme somewhere…’

He frowned. ‘This was 1974, 1975. She took a couple of minor roles herself — an old, blind woman, a gorilla…’

He grinned, remembering. ‘She actually kept the mask — from the gorilla costume — and I used to mess around in it as a kid…’ He shook his head, fondly. ‘It received blistering reviews,’ he winced, ‘really venomous. People just weren’t ready for it back then. It was all too new, too radical. Mum tried to put a brave face on the whole débâcle …’