Rupert Thomson - The Insult

I waited on the porch, sitting in a rocking-chair and smoking cigarettes to pass the time. I had a small knapsack on my lap. It had some food in it, and a box of cartridges. Kroner’s rifle leaned against the wall behind me. There was a wind that night, and the trees on the far side of the road roared like a furnace with the door open. I could see the silhouette of Miss Poppel’s house, still uninhabited. I could hear the dull clank of the exhaust-pipes as they swung from the crab-apple tree. I thought of the birthday present I’d given Mazey. It was a tape of his wind-chimes. I’d recorded them one day when he was out. He kept the tape in his pocket at all times, along with his pen-knife; they were his prized possessions. We always played it if we drove somewhere together in the car.

I’d been sitting there for almost an hour when I heard footsteps in the house behind me. We didn’t have any guests that night. With Karin gone and Kroner confined to a wheelchair, it could only mean one thing. I put my cigarette out under my shoe, then I sat back and kept quite still.

The front door opened and Mazey appeared on the porch. He was wearing a long coat; his head was bare. He closed the door quietly, one hand on the handle, the other flat against the wood, so he could feel the lock catch. It was surprising to see what care he put into it. I watched him move down the steps and over the grass. He was heading away from the village, making for the bridge. I waited until he was hidden by the trees before I rose out of my chair. When I reached the road I could see him on the bend in front of me, a tall figure, stoop-shouldered, with hair that was so pale, it was hard to tell if it was fair or grey. He seemed at one with the night and the empty road and the fast clouds high above. He seemed at home.

At the bridge I felt exposed: only one lane each way and thin metal railings on either side. I hid behind an upright while he crossed ahead of me. Thick, silver water below. I watched a duck land and blacken it. Mazey turned his head at the noise, but it was just a reflex; he didn’t stop to look. Once he was over the river, I had to break into a run to catch up. Me, a forty-five-year-old woman, running …

I chose to walk in the grass at the edge of the road, close to the tree-line. Then, if he did happen to turn round, he wouldn’t see me. But I was struck by his purpose, his concentration. He didn’t look behind him, not even once. He didn’t hesitate at all, or dawdle, or meander. Sometimes his head moved from side to side, but I presumed he was just checking his bearings. He had the air of someone who knew exactly where he was going. I was reminded of something Eva had said once, before the sulphur got into her brain and ate everything intelligent. He looks like he could walk all day and all night, too. Like he could walk for ever. Then she’d thought for a moment. He looks like he could walk from this world right into the next.

I’d fallen into a rhythm, I was hypnotised by it, so I almost missed his sudden plunge into the trees. I had to break into a run again. Up the grass bank, across the road and down the bank on the other side, keeping my eyes locked on the place where he had been. I parted low branches, ducked into the undergrowth. The trees closed over me.

In the forest everything was black and silver. Mostly black, though. I stood still, just inside it, listening. I heard the crack of dead wood, bracken hissing. It had to be him. I began to move forwards, following the noise. Something caught on my cheek and tore the skin.

At last I saw a path.

It was quiet now, except for my own feet in the leaves. I walked on, further into the forest. It was quiet, but not peaceful. Once I saw a man’s head float between two trees. Mazey? But it was too high off the ground, even for him. It must have been a bird. Or a piece of pale bark. Or just the fall of moonlight.

All of a sudden, there was a thrashing in the undergrowth ahead of me and to my right. It sounded like horses being ridden in a stream. It sounded wet. A scream lifted out of the darkness. One high note held for three or four seconds. Then it cut out. Darkness poured back into the space it left. Darkness pushing at me, almost too thick to breathe. The scream wasn’t human. But it was pain. It was definitely pain. I gripped the rifle hard. Shock had dropped me into a kind of crouch and I was panting.

I forced myself to go on again, along the path. Towards the scream. I kept low and I whispered to myself, it didn’t matter what, just words, any words. I felt the ground with my foot each time I took a step. I thought of a mother rolling up her sleeve and dipping her elbow in a tub of water, testing it for temperature. Not my mother, though. Someone else’s. And all the time I scanned the forest that massed in front of me. Trees jumped sideways. Moonlight was fog, then snow, then water. Darkness bellied like a black sail with the wind behind it.

Then I saw him.

He was below me. There was a glade, a shallow bowl among the trees. A steep bank rose on the far side of it, casting a shadow. The earth had eroded there, and I could see a tangle of exposed roots. The path I was on circled the edge of the glade, keeping some distance above it.

I stood still, one hand braced against a tree. He was sitting on his haunches with his back to me and, just for a moment, I had the impression that he was washing clothes. I took two silent steps and stopped beside another, larger tree. I could see one side of his face now — half of it, anyway: an ear, part of his cheek, the tip of his nose. In the moonlight his skin shone like bone. He was crouched over something. An animal of some kind. Not a dog or a cat. Larger than that. A deer, perhaps. He seemed to have his hands inside it. His arms were black to the elbow. Though in daylight, I realised, they wouldn’t be black. They’d be red.

That scream, it must have been the animal.

WHO COULD DO SUCH A THING?

Whether I made a noise as I stood there, or whether he just sensed my presence, I couldn’t be sure, but suddenly he was looking over his shoulder, with his head angled in my direction. He didn’t move for at least a minute. I knew he was looking at me, but I didn’t think he knew who I was; I didn’t think he recognised me. And yet I found I couldn’t move. I was hardly even breathing.

At last he stood up. He began to walk towards me. He didn’t hurry, though. His arms didn’t swing at all, or even bend; they just hung at his sides like dead weights. He came up out of the glade in one straight line and for the first time in minutes I was aware of the wind moving in the trees above my head.

He stopped in front of me. I noticed something I’d never noticed before. The colour of his eyes wasn’t a colour at all, not even grey. It was just empty, drained. Or perhaps this was another trick, something moonlight did.

He was staring at me.

I could see dark patches on his clothes and his arms. I could smell the blood. I wasn’t frightened of him, and yet I knew I had to speak first.

‘It’s very late.’

I used my strictest voice with him.

‘You should be in bed.’

His face didn’t alter.

‘No baby,’ he said.

He had looked in the hotel. He had looked in his grandfather’s house as well. He had looked high and low — behind doors, under beds, in drawers. Then, one night, his mother had explained where babies came from. A hand placed over her stomach. In here. And if they came from there, they could go back again. They could hide in there. And so he began to look for the baby in living things. All those dogs and chickens slaughtered and torn open. He was looking for Nina, that was all. He wouldn’t rest until he found her.

I lifted the rifle until it was pointing at his head. He didn’t move. Moonlight down one side of his face, his eyes still searching mine. Pull the trigger. Pull it. I felt my finger tighten. Because I wasn’t sure what else I could do. There was the institution, of course. I could go to Kroner in his wheelchair and I could say, ‘You were right about the boy.’ Kroner. The tension in my finger eased. I lowered the rifle, looked at it. It was Kroner’s rifle. There was his name, etched into the stock. And he was channelling his thoughts through it. I couldn’t believe I’d listened. His mind like cardboard when it’s been rained on. His brain all soggy. And I had listened.