Nine
Tom and Charley dined outside on the sheltered patio at the rear of the house, on a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of champagne, and watched the red ball of sun sink down behind the paddock, leaving its heat behind it in the dusk.
The days were getting noticeably shorter; in a few weeks the clocks would be going back, but now, in the balmy evening, winter seemed a long way away.
The grazing chestnut mare turned into a silhouette and slowly faded to black. Stars appeared in the metallic sky, bats flitted and the lights of planes coming into Gatwick winked.
They picked at the last grains of rice and strands of noodles and wrote a list of things to be done.
Later, in bed, they made love. But in a strange way it was more like a rite than a spontaneous act of passion. It reminded her of when they had made love on her wedding night after two years of living together. Both of them had been tired, flaked out, but they knew it ought to be done. Consummation.
They had consummated the move tonight for their own secret needs, hers to be held and to hold; to hold something real, to feel Tom, to feel life after the weirdness of the discovery, first of the car in the barn then the chewing gum. Reality.
She wondered what his need was. Wondered whatwent through his mind when he made love to her so mechanically, so distantly. Who did he think about? Who did he fantasise she was?
The noises came after, through the open window. The noises of the night. Real darkness out there.
She could taste the minty gum in her mouth.
Ben padded restlessly around the room, growling at squeals, at shrieks, at the mournful wail of vixens.
It was two o’clock. She slipped out of bed and walked across the sloping wooden floor to the curtainless window. The new moon powered a faint tinfoil shine from the lake. Somewhere in the dark a small creature emitted a single shriek of terror, several more in fast succession, then one final shriek, louder and longer than the rest; there was a rustle of undergrowth, then silence. Mother Nature, Gaia, the Earth Goddess was there dealing the cards, keeping the chain going. Life and death. Replenishment. Recycling the living and the dead equally methodically.
Serial murderers were out there too. In the inky silence.
Tom had taken two weeks’ holiday for the move, but he had to go to London in the morning. A wife had poured paint stripper over her husband’s new car and had blinded his racing pigeons. Tom brought home stories of cruelty every day. Sometimes Charley thought there were few acts committed in the world crueller than those under the sanctity of marriage.
The water slid relentlessly over the slimy brickwork of the weir, crashing down into the dark spume of the sluice. It seemed to echo through the stillness, unreal; it all seemed unreal. She was afraid. She wanted to go home.
She had to keep reminding herself that she was home.
* * *
‘Blimey, what you running here? A space station?’ The Electricity Board man’s eyes bulged from a thyroid complaint and there was sweat on his protruding forehead from the heat outside. He tapped his teeth with his biro.
‘What do you mean?’ Charley asked.
Footsteps from the hall above echoed around the cellar. Somewhere a drill whined. She looked at the man irritably. She was tired.
He held the printed pad so she could see the markings he had made. ‘The quarterly average for the past year here has been five hundred units. This quarter it’s gone up to seven
thousand
.’
‘That’s impossible. It’s been empty for a year and we only moved in yesterday.’ She watched the metal disc revolving. ‘Is the meter faulty?’
‘No, I’ve tested it. It’s working fine. See how slowly it’s going? You’re not using much juice at the moment.’
‘If there’s a short circuit, could that —?’
‘Must be. You’ve got a leak somewhere. You’d better get an electrician to sort it out. It’s going to cost you a fortune otherwise.’
‘We’re having
Tom and Charley dined outside on the sheltered patio at the rear of the house, on a Chinese takeaway and a bottle of champagne, and watched the red ball of sun sink down behind the paddock, leaving its heat behind it in the dusk.
The days were getting noticeably shorter; in a few weeks the clocks would be going back, but now, in the balmy evening, winter seemed a long way away.
The grazing chestnut mare turned into a silhouette and slowly faded to black. Stars appeared in the metallic sky, bats flitted and the lights of planes coming into Gatwick winked.
They picked at the last grains of rice and strands of noodles and wrote a list of things to be done.
Later, in bed, they made love. But in a strange way it was more like a rite than a spontaneous act of passion. It reminded her of when they had made love on her wedding night after two years of living together. Both of them had been tired, flaked out, but they knew it ought to be done. Consummation.
They had consummated the move tonight for their own secret needs, hers to be held and to hold; to hold something real, to feel Tom, to feel life after the weirdness of the discovery, first of the car in the barn then the chewing gum. Reality.
She wondered what his need was. Wondered whatwent through his mind when he made love to her so mechanically, so distantly. Who did he think about? Who did he fantasise she was?
The noises came after, through the open window. The noises of the night. Real darkness out there.
She could taste the minty gum in her mouth.
Ben padded restlessly around the room, growling at squeals, at shrieks, at the mournful wail of vixens.
It was two o’clock. She slipped out of bed and walked across the sloping wooden floor to the curtainless window. The new moon powered a faint tinfoil shine from the lake. Somewhere in the dark a small creature emitted a single shriek of terror, several more in fast succession, then one final shriek, louder and longer than the rest; there was a rustle of undergrowth, then silence. Mother Nature, Gaia, the Earth Goddess was there dealing the cards, keeping the chain going. Life and death. Replenishment. Recycling the living and the dead equally methodically.
Serial murderers were out there too. In the inky silence.
Tom had taken two weeks’ holiday for the move, but he had to go to London in the morning. A wife had poured paint stripper over her husband’s new car and had blinded his racing pigeons. Tom brought home stories of cruelty every day. Sometimes Charley thought there were few acts committed in the world crueller than those under the sanctity of marriage.
The water slid relentlessly over the slimy brickwork of the weir, crashing down into the dark spume of the sluice. It seemed to echo through the stillness, unreal; it all seemed unreal. She was afraid. She wanted to go home.
She had to keep reminding herself that she was home.
* * *
‘Blimey, what you running here? A space station?’ The Electricity Board man’s eyes bulged from a thyroid complaint and there was sweat on his protruding forehead from the heat outside. He tapped his teeth with his biro.
‘What do you mean?’ Charley asked.
Footsteps from the hall above echoed around the cellar. Somewhere a drill whined. She looked at the man irritably. She was tired.
He held the printed pad so she could see the markings he had made. ‘The quarterly average for the past year here has been five hundred units. This quarter it’s gone up to seven
thousand
.’
‘That’s impossible. It’s been empty for a year and we only moved in yesterday.’ She watched the metal disc revolving. ‘Is the meter faulty?’
‘No, I’ve tested it. It’s working fine. See how slowly it’s going? You’re not using much juice at the moment.’
‘If there’s a short circuit, could that —?’
‘Must be. You’ve got a leak somewhere. You’d better get an electrician to sort it out. It’s going to cost you a fortune otherwise.’
‘We’re having
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