before.
Turning, he checked what I kept glancing at. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, there’s a trick to this door.” He leaned his shoulder against the heavy timber while turning the handle, both pushing and pulling. It opened with a heave, the glass panes shuddering. “Although I might start locking it.”
Outside, the back of the house showed its workings: extensions, erected through the decades, jutted out in different styles as if the house itself had periodically mutated. Stacked against the bluestone walls was an assortment of gardening paraphernalia; a project involving the parts of an elaborate concrete fountain seemed to have been abandoned.
“How to put this?” Alexander stopped to growl at the barking dogs. He was carrying the picnic basket, which he now fixed at a distance to them on the open bed of the truck. “I mean, I don’t want to sound dramatic, but some odd things have been happening.”
“What kind of odd things?”
He squinted. “Someone’s been writing to me.”
The letters I’d found in his desk drawer. “Writing things you don’t want to read?”
“Correct.” He opened the truck’s passenger door and I climbed in.
The vinyl dashboard was equipped with a CB radio and a large knife in a worn leather sheath. It was covered with dried mud. So was the steering wheel, and the floor, and all the upholstery.
He closed the door and I watched for him in the rearview mirror. Did his slumped posture mark a bad mood?
“Anyway.” Settling into the driver’s seat, he smiled. “I should have introduced you to Zinc and Florence.” As the engine rattled to life, the dogs moved around in the back, straining against their chains.
I put on my seat belt. He did not put on his. We were closer now physically than I really wanted us to be.
Alexander steered the truck through an old carriage gateway, marked by two tall bluestone columns. The garden ended abruptly and I stared with barely seeing eyes at vast tawny fields separated by cypresses that acted as windbreaks. It was a relief to be out of the house, but I wasn’t feeling myself, nor did I feel like the character I’d been hired to play. Around us his land seemed to stretch uninterrupted in every direction.
“You’re very quiet,” he said.
“Where are the mountains?” I asked.
“Which way is the sun?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s behind us—northeast, so we’re driving southwest.” Alexander took us down another dirt road, stopping at an iron gate. He waited, expecting me to climb out and open it.
I did not move.
On his side of the truck, in the distance, was a herd of black cows.
“Okay, allow me.” Giving in, I stepped into the wind and cold. My shoes were not designed for the mud underneath them.
“Be careful where you walk,” he called over the engine.
“Why?”
“A cow calved by the gatepost.”
I looked at him.
“Placenta,” he added, straight-faced.
At the next paddock we adopted the same procedure, with me taking tentative strides to open and close the gates. This paddock looked just like the last. Cows and their calves stood in various configurations. In the paddock after that were a dozen bulls, blue-black with yellow eyes full of disdain. And after that, sweet-faced ewes, then rams, formally dressed with their horns on.
As we kept driving Alexander didn’t bother with any tour narrative, and I couldn’t have absorbed one anyway. Something about these scenes shocked me; I suppose I’d imagined animals in bonnets and breeches, leading chaste Beatrix Potter lives under the nose of a lusty, distracted farmer. The reality shut me up. These creatures stared back at us with silent reproach. They looked resigned. Resigned to living in a paddock for a few years until someone hit them on the head. Nothing to do but eat grass, have babies, and stand there, waiting.
It was a revelation that Alexander spent his days with these animals like this, the days he
Turning, he checked what I kept glancing at. “Don’t worry, it’s not loaded,” he said. “Oh, and by the way, there’s a trick to this door.” He leaned his shoulder against the heavy timber while turning the handle, both pushing and pulling. It opened with a heave, the glass panes shuddering. “Although I might start locking it.”
Outside, the back of the house showed its workings: extensions, erected through the decades, jutted out in different styles as if the house itself had periodically mutated. Stacked against the bluestone walls was an assortment of gardening paraphernalia; a project involving the parts of an elaborate concrete fountain seemed to have been abandoned.
“How to put this?” Alexander stopped to growl at the barking dogs. He was carrying the picnic basket, which he now fixed at a distance to them on the open bed of the truck. “I mean, I don’t want to sound dramatic, but some odd things have been happening.”
“What kind of odd things?”
He squinted. “Someone’s been writing to me.”
The letters I’d found in his desk drawer. “Writing things you don’t want to read?”
“Correct.” He opened the truck’s passenger door and I climbed in.
The vinyl dashboard was equipped with a CB radio and a large knife in a worn leather sheath. It was covered with dried mud. So was the steering wheel, and the floor, and all the upholstery.
He closed the door and I watched for him in the rearview mirror. Did his slumped posture mark a bad mood?
“Anyway.” Settling into the driver’s seat, he smiled. “I should have introduced you to Zinc and Florence.” As the engine rattled to life, the dogs moved around in the back, straining against their chains.
I put on my seat belt. He did not put on his. We were closer now physically than I really wanted us to be.
Alexander steered the truck through an old carriage gateway, marked by two tall bluestone columns. The garden ended abruptly and I stared with barely seeing eyes at vast tawny fields separated by cypresses that acted as windbreaks. It was a relief to be out of the house, but I wasn’t feeling myself, nor did I feel like the character I’d been hired to play. Around us his land seemed to stretch uninterrupted in every direction.
“You’re very quiet,” he said.
“Where are the mountains?” I asked.
“Which way is the sun?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s behind us—northeast, so we’re driving southwest.” Alexander took us down another dirt road, stopping at an iron gate. He waited, expecting me to climb out and open it.
I did not move.
On his side of the truck, in the distance, was a herd of black cows.
“Okay, allow me.” Giving in, I stepped into the wind and cold. My shoes were not designed for the mud underneath them.
“Be careful where you walk,” he called over the engine.
“Why?”
“A cow calved by the gatepost.”
I looked at him.
“Placenta,” he added, straight-faced.
At the next paddock we adopted the same procedure, with me taking tentative strides to open and close the gates. This paddock looked just like the last. Cows and their calves stood in various configurations. In the paddock after that were a dozen bulls, blue-black with yellow eyes full of disdain. And after that, sweet-faced ewes, then rams, formally dressed with their horns on.
As we kept driving Alexander didn’t bother with any tour narrative, and I couldn’t have absorbed one anyway. Something about these scenes shocked me; I suppose I’d imagined animals in bonnets and breeches, leading chaste Beatrix Potter lives under the nose of a lusty, distracted farmer. The reality shut me up. These creatures stared back at us with silent reproach. They looked resigned. Resigned to living in a paddock for a few years until someone hit them on the head. Nothing to do but eat grass, have babies, and stand there, waiting.
It was a revelation that Alexander spent his days with these animals like this, the days he
Similar Books
