Nicola Barker - Darkmans

Gaffar, meanwhile, was idling dreamily in the cheese aisle, quietly weighing up the distinct culinary virtues of Gorgonzola, Feta and minted Halloumi.

Beede strolled up behind him. ‘So which is preferable?’ he asked. ‘The unenvironmental plastic tub or the horrendously overpriced shredded stuff in the bag?’

Gaffar turned, saw the tub held cruelly aloft, and promptly swooned.

He turned right at the public phone box and into Ox Lane (just as she’d instructed), then right again down Barnfield. ‘There’s a line of normal-looking houses,’ she’d said, ‘intersected by a small, dirt track. Take the track. And do watch out for the geese…’

‘I’ll drive carefully,’ he assured her.

‘No. I mean you watch out,’ she explained. ‘They’re savages. Just sound your horn as you pull up, then sit tight. I can’t come out myself — I’m right in the middle of something — so I’ll send a dog to guide you. Two dogs. I’ll send Koto and Pinch. Do exactly as they ask and you should be just fine…’

Should?!

She wasn’t exaggerating. The geese (white-feathered, blue-eyed, mud-splattered, brightly beaked — beautiful geese, he supposed — if he’d been in a mind to consider a goose beautiful–

Am I in that mind?

— he gazed at them, quizzically–

Uh…No. )

— were strident, vicious and hysterical. There were about thirty of them, in total, and as soon as he applied his brakes they surrounded the car like a gang of little hooligans; battering at the paintwork, jabbing at the metal trim, honking cacophonously.

The general sense of affray was only exacerbated by the sudden arrival of five or six huge turkeys which patrolled the outer perimeter of the fuss, gobbling indignantly, like a posse of grey-suited prison guards, drawing back their necks, imperiously, shaking their wattles (like fat bunches of keys), and somehow producing a curiously hollow booming noise ( how? With their throats? Their wings?), like the awful, reductive bang of a cell door closing at the far end of a distant corridor.

Kane unfastened his seat-belt and lit a cigarette. His hand — he realised — was shaking slightly. He tensed it up into an impatient fist and gazed around him, with a scowl.

It was certainly an unusual property–

A small farm?

A big smallholding?

He was parked in the cobbled courtyard which was full of old–

Junk

— farm machinery and surrounded by an ugly confusion of large sheds, barns and garages.

The courtyard itself was somewhat unkempt and exceedingly muddy. He adjusted his feet and peered down at his fine, white trainers–

Damn

The house–

Or cottage?

— (he glanced up again, wincing at the racket) seemed ancient (if not particularly charming); it was small, single-storey and entirely covered — ceilings, walls — in old, red tiles. It looked as if it’d once consisted of two storeys, but had hunkered down during an especially cruel storm, perhaps, or had taken a piece of bad news too much to heart, and had sunk, with an awful sigh, into the hollow refuge of its own foundations.

The windows were hung at awful angles. He shuddered. And the chimney? Utterly wonky. Like it’d been sloppily sketched on — as an afterthought — by a simpleton.

He checked his watch, then drew, impatiently, on his cigarette. He’d done just as he’d been instructed and had sounded his horn— once, twice —as he pulled up (how long ago now? Two minutes? Three?) but there was still no sign of deliverance; no dog, certainly, although he could’ve sworn he saw a curtain twitch — in the cottage — and the hunched outline of a small figure within (possibly a child), carefully observing him.

He sounded the horn again (setting up a terrifying chain-reaction among his feathered compatriots, who blared back at him, discordantly), then reached into his pocket and withdrew a tiny, neatly sealed polythene bag containing five or six white tablets. He pulled open the seal, took one out and swallowed it. Then he slid his fingers back in, removed a second, and swallowed that, too. He closed his eyes for a moment and drew a deep breath.

In his mind’s eye he suddenly had a clear vision–

No…

— an idea?

No…

— a perfect memory of geese — not these geese, but another breed, a different variety, a grey-brown variety with pink bills and pink feet–

All carefully dipped in tar, to preserve them, for the journey

There were hundreds of them — almost thousands — and they were being driven, in a messy line, a clucking, parping stream, along The London Road–

Hang on there:

Dipped in tar?!

Journey?!

He — Kane–

Right.

Yes.

That’s me…

— was sitting–

I’m high…

Up high

— he glanced down, in his mind’s eye–

Good Lord!

— astride a pony, watching them pass with a sense of casual impatience. He was hungry. Part of him was idly wondering if he might steal one–

Steal a goose?

— but geese — he knew, from hard experience–

Really?!

— were far too noisy for casual abduction.

He opened his eyes again.

Wow.

He inspected his scholarly hands–

?!

— which were anxiously fingering the polythene bag–

Just four left

Calm down

Calm down

Two was more than enough—

— then shoved it back, impatiently, into his pocket. He sucked on his cigarette. He thought about phoning again, or putting on some music…

Then finally–

Finally

— (how long now? Five minutes? Seven?) a dog slunk into the courtyard from one of the larger barns. A sheepdog, but a terrible advert for the breed: skinny, sly-looking, filthy, with large bald patches along its flanks and an utterly naked grey-blue tail. It crawled along the cobbles, approaching the car at an angle, but never looking at it directly, and never confronting a goose (the geese — in truth — seemed all but oblivious to it). So submissive was the beast that it looked as if its nerve might just give, as if it might simply slink past…

And so it did. Straight past, into a shed opposite.

‘Great.’

Kane folded his arms, irritated.

A minute or so later a second dog arrived; bigger than the first; fatter, but equally filthy. It seemed indifferent to the activities of the first dog. It sat, yawned, then leaned over and gnawed, neurotically, at its own hind leg–

Fleas.

Yes…

— Kane frowned–

I have a treatment for fleas—

A special powder…

— he chuckled–

What?!

He stopped chuckling. He shook his head. He blinked again, lifting his hand (like one of those ineffectual little cranes which clumsily snatches up small baubles in a glass box at the arcade) and suspending it, indecisively, above the horn…

Should I sound it?

But he held off.

The second dog (meanwhile) had stopped its gnawing and was gazing around the courtyard, casually. It sneezed. It surveyed the geese, nonchalantly. It slowly stood up–

Now what?

Kane frowned. He stubbed his cigarette out, keeping his eyes closely trained on it.

Then suddenly, without warning, the geese all turned, as one. Kane also turned. He saw the first dog — the sly dog — emerging from the opposite shed. And nothing had changed — so far as he could tell — it was still low to the ground, eyes askance but nonconfrontational. Yet the geese had sensed something — a difference about it. Or maybe it was merely the combination of the two animals, in conjunction — a mathematical issue; a matter of basic goose geometry.