27
Perhaps a bright start but becoming cloudy, with showery rain a likelihood
THERE IS NO denying that spring has driven her sideshow into town. Buenos dias. These hedgerows are thick with insy flowers, birds zag, giant foxgloves stand at the side of the road. Game on. Even the sun has made an entrance and is lighting up the weather vanes and the church spire.
Things are supposed to change in the spring, nature knows it. I am the same old knob, but. A single event could change that any day soon. There is a certain je ne sais quoi in the air.
On the corner, just after the postbox, I stop. Have I come the wrong way? Mental or what? I look behind me. It is our lane. I look ahead. It is our cottage, but.
Words, spray-painted words, cover the brickwork, every inch. Blue and black words, taller than the windows, wide as the house, stretching and separating around corners, reaching up to the chimney. I stand a minute to read them. GOG IS AN ARSE. GOG IS NOT GOD. HELLO. GOG IS A KNOB. I AM A PRISONER. GOG IS A KNOB. GOG IS A KNOB.
This is him, always was. He will push push until. Everything I have done. All these years.
And this is how.
I run to the house.
Ned!
I jump the stairs two at a time, across the landing, into his room. He is sitting on the windowsill, his back to me, his legs hanging out of the open window, gazing at the field. He doesn’t hear me. He wouldn’t. He doesn’t turn.
I stare. He is blond. My dark-haired brother is. For a moment I don’t know my own house, my own brother. Then the sound of a large penny dropping. Catch up, Lee. Wake up. Nordic stalker on the premises.
I bolt downstairs. After the chemo, before the naturopaths, she wore a short bleached wig when she lost her hair. Why not? she laughed, maybe I’ll have more fun.
He must’ve found it, he must’ve discovered it in my room when I was at work.
I dive into the kitchen. Change of rules. Fine by me. I pick up the .22. I’ve done my best.
Come on then. I run back up. I am in charge of plans.
His room is empty this time, curtain blowing. Through the open window I see him running barefoot flat out along the set-aside towards the mast.
Ned!
I run. Two can play. I’ll count you down. No probs.
I am at the mast before you can say Lee Hart is a knobhead, but.
Heavy sky, no wind. All I can hear is my breath and Crow rasping in the oaks. I go beyond the boundary into the woods. I wait, steady, listen. I could walk this path blind. No word of a lie. Not that I’m bragging, just saying. I am the trees and the wind and this ground. I am the bones of the woods. Every twitch I feel. No point him hiding, I’ll sniff him out. I am Lee. The woods’ll give him up. Everything knows I’m here, everything that grows and crawls. I breathe in and the woods breathe out. Everything changes in the spring. I don’t stop to think, there is nothing to think. I find him quick – I would. He stands looking at the canopies. Fascinated by the patterns, always was. He doesn’t hear me – he wouldn’t.
He will paralyse in a chair, like Lester. He will paralyse me first. He will end up, we will both end up, same old. Our family tradition, dead or dead as. Done with it, I am. Arrivederci. Very sorry, but.
I position myself, aim. His heart, his head. I could blind him at this distance. Oblivious, he is. Candy from a baby.
I hesitate. I breathe out. Come on.
He just stands there. For f*cks.
I lower the weapon. I close my eyes. I can’t. Call yourself a hunter?
I yell. Loud as. It sends the birds straight up from the trees. My ears buzz.
Ned gazes up at the birds. He raises his arms to them.