Evie Wyld - All the Birds, Singing

‘My saw’s a big one,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘Mine’s pretty big too.’

‘You know how to use it?’

‘I do.’

‘Well,’ Don said, not satisfied. I curled my tongue into my mouth and gave a short smile. It was important not to be rude. Don turned his attention to Lloyd.

‘Nice to see her with a bit of company about the place.’

I cleared my throat.

‘Oh,’ said Lloyd, visibly uncomfortable, ‘I’m afraid I rather forced myself on her.’

Don barked, ‘About time!’ He started up his engine so that he had the last word, raised a hand and disappeared up the track. Lloyd looked at me and I tried to soften my jaw.

‘He likes winding you up that old guy, huh?’

‘He does.’

We drove back to get the chainsaw in silence. I went into the shed and topped up the diesel, and picked up an axe too. Lloyd waited by the car talking softly to Dog. I put the axe and chainsaw in the back and he moved to get in with me.

‘You stay here,’ I said.

‘Er—’

‘With the dog.’ I got in the truck and left him there looking embarrassed.

Back at the fallen tree, I got out of the truck, left the door open and took the tools from the back. I started with the axe, feeling the fluid pump through my shoulders, skimming off the smaller branches until I had a clear shot at the trunk and then I laid into it, hacked with no particular aim, but a steady rhythm, shouting and sweating as I gouged at the wood until there was no strength left in my arms and I stopped to pant and close my eyes. I had the singular clear thought, He doesn’t know me. And I pulled the choke out on the saw, and yanked the cord to start it.

It was dark by the time I was done, and raining. Lloyd had lit a fire in the fireplace.

‘I hope you don’t mind,’ he said when I walked in to find him standing at the sink, washing up. Dog wagged his tail from his spot on the sofa by the fire, like it was normal.

‘How’d it go with the tree? I would have cooked something,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t know what you were saving. I did a bit of cleaning instead.’ He turned around and looked at me. ‘Not because the place needed it, just to say thank you.’ He turned back to the sink.

‘Huh,’ I said. It was annoying that he had moved things, and that the place looked nicer because of it. It smelled different, the air was dry and warm. I never lit the fire. I ran a bath and was in it before I noticed how much I ached.

We shared a can of mushroom soup at the table. I’d thought I could cook the chicken, but it smelled green. The wind rattled in the pipe of the Rayburn. It was late to take him into town, but maybe after tea.

‘So,’ Lloyd said, not for the first time, and then because the silence was not comfortable, I got up and took a bottle of whisky out of the cupboard. I poured two mugs and sat down, handing one to him.

‘Thank you,’ he said and coughed. ‘So.’

Dog growled. We both looked over to him. He had left the warmth of the fire and was standing by the front door, head down. Lloyd looked at me.

‘Why’s he doing that?’

I scraped back my chair and went to the window.

‘He can smell something outside.’ The growl was a deep one from down in his guts. I pulled back the curtain and looked out.

‘Turn the light off,’ I said quietly.

Lloyd flipped the switch and came to stand next to me. I closed my eyes for a moment to try and get them used to the dark, then looked again.

‘The human eye senses movement before all else,’ said Lloyd, and I stared at him. ‘What?’ he said. ‘I read it in National Geographic .’

Out the window, nothing moved.

‘Someone’s watching the house, I can feel it,’ I said, and Lloyd’s eyes widened at me.

There was a loud knock at the door, and Dog bared his teeth and growled like a wolf.

‘Fuck,’ we both whispered.

‘Who’s there?’ called Lloyd in a deeper voice than I’d heard him use before. He coughed with his mouth closed.

There was no answer, but the doorknob started to turn and rattle like someone was trying to get in.

I went towards the door.

‘What are you doing?’ hissed Lloyd.

‘This is stupid,’ I hissed back. ‘Hold Dog.’ Lloyd grabbed him by the scruff and held on while he barked and wrestled about. If I had been on my own, I would have taken the axe handle to the door with me.

On the other side of the door was a man with a young face. His hair was gelled in neat rows from his crown to where it spiked over his eyes in mouse-brown spears. Wind came into the house and all I could think about was a time in the near future when this man would be gone and the door would be closed and the wind was outside again.

‘What do you want?’ I asked in a voice that was not as confident as I had hoped. He looked at me, confused. It looked like his hair interfered with his eyes, which were red and crusted with yellow. The skin around his chin and neck had been recently picked free of spots. He wore a slick-looking puffer jacket, and he stared at me, rubbing his index finger up the side of his nose. He sniffed hard.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. He looked around me in a way that made me think he was about to come inside. Dog barked behind me.

‘I live here,’ I said. ‘What do you want?’ He stopped rubbing his nose and looking over my shoulder, and looked at me a few beats.

‘Where’s me dad?’ asked the man.

‘Are you— Do you mean Don?’

‘I mean me dad and who the fuck are you?’ His eyebrows drew together.

‘I live here,’ I said again. ‘I bought this place off Don Murphy — if that’s your father, he lives over in the next valley now…’ But he was not listening, his mouth was open and he breathed through it, ran his flat palm up his nose to take care of a drip that had formed there.

‘You shacked up with the old fucker, are you? Yeah that’d be right, shack up with some cunt and forget about Samson, to fuck with Samson.’

Dog snarled.

‘Now then,’ said Lloyd from behind me, in a teachery voice. I drew myself up to my full height but the man was not put off. He looked at Lloyd.

‘An’ who the fuck is this bearded prick?’ His voice squeaked and he sniffed hard again. The wind knocked him in the back and he stumbled forward a step. There was white spittle at the edges of his mouth. He took a couple of steps back to steady himself and then a couple forward again. Dog’s barks rang out over the valley.

‘Careful,’ I said. I heard Lloyd drag Dog to his room to lock him in. The young man looked over my shoulder again.

‘Don’t put that filthy dog in my bedroom!’ he shouted. ‘What the fuck?’ I heard the door close on Dog, and he flung himself against it, howling and scratching. Lloyd came and stood by me.

‘Look,’ said Lloyd, ‘go over to the next valley and talk to your father. If you don’t go away, I’ll let the dog out, and he’s completely out of control.’

I looked at Lloyd.

‘Fuck you, grandad.’ The young man took another step forward, brought his fist up. Lloyd stepped in front of me and pushed him hard in the throat, and the young man gagged and staggered backwards, trying to catch his breath.

‘I told you,’ said Lloyd, ‘now get lost.’

Lloyd had lodged himself in the doorway, suddenly taking up a lot more space than he had before. The boy’s face sagged.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered and dug his wrists into his eye sockets. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’ He let out a small sob and turned around; in a few paces he was out of sight. From the dark came a muffled cry and the noise echoed around the house long after we’d closed the door. Dog yelped from the bedroom and Lloyd let him out. He turned three circuits of the kitchen table and went to stand by the door, looking at the gap underneath it with dark concentration.