Escape and Evasion

by Christopher Wakling

  With its rains failed again for seven months now it pushes the small group rice collective northwestern into harder times and until unexpectedly a giver emerges. But this is the case it seems today. From overseas there have come a supporting hand of a generous with nearly half a million of …

  Hold on.

  The empty whiteness of the house has shifted. The blank space inside it is colouring itself in.

  That noise there is a door slamming.

  And those are voices.

  Naomi’s, plus Lara’s. Zac’s, too, asking if they can have burgers for lunch.

  They’re downstairs.

  Joseph is staring very hard at the iPad screen. Not at the story, but at the header bar, which reads Saturday 28 May, 1.32 p.m.

  What a complete fucking idiot.

  They’re not at school. Of course they’re not. Because it’s the weekend. Which means they’re probably returning from Lara’s horse riding lesson. Which in turn means that any minute – any second! – now she’ll jog upstairs to change out of her riding clothes.

  92

  Joseph’s fingers have already started tapping at the screen. He’s not sure what he’s doing until he’s done it. He’s erased the search history and shut the browser down. Now he’s returning the iPad to the pile of clothes and sidestepping pretty damn light-footedly, like a dancer, almost, albeit with a limp, to the open bedroom door. From here he can peer out at the top of the stairs. But he can’t very well go down them, can he? Because the bottom flight spills out into the big hall, which is visible through any open door to the kitchen, study, living room, dining room, games room, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

  Damn open-ish-plan living!

  There’s a reason he wants to take the risk and jog down those stairs anyway, but he’s not quite sure what it is, not until he’s made a break for it across the landing, towards Zac’s room. He could run straight on to the back stairs from here, but they drop down between the kitchen and utility rooms, and that’s quite possibly where Naomi is, sorting out the dog and pulling lunch ingredients from the fridge; no, better exit the way he came in, namely via hupping up onto Zac’s little desk and edging out onto the window ledge.

  Oh crap.

  His boots.

  What should he do?

  A good soldier always looks after his feet!

  But he put his goddamn boots in the boot room, and as with everything else at the bottom of the main stairs, the boot room is pretty exposed to the open-ish-plan comings and goings of the revamped Nine Pines.

  He is crouching on the window sill, one hand on the frame, unsure of what to do next.

  Well, not nothing!

  Try this instead.

  Quickly Joseph drops back down into Zac’s room, skirts the air-hockey table and what’s this, he seems to be ramming his son’s moccasin slippers into his jacket pockets.

  But they’re a size five, and Joseph is a size nine.

  So he’s doing this why?

  He has his reasons. Possibly they also explain why he’s pocketing Zac’s catapult, too. Not just because it might come in handy, but because if he shuts his eyes he can see his son’s fingers curled around its handle.

  Maybe now isn’t the best time for Joseph to shut his eyes.

  No.

  If they’re having lunch they’re most likely to be in the kitchen, and that’s on the other side of the house, which makes it not the stupidest idea in the world for Joseph to climb out onto the – actually pretty high – ledge again, and lean out to grip the trellis, trust it with what’s left of his weight, and hand-over-hand-plus-foot-scrabble his way to the – ouch! – gravel below.

  He pauses, back pressed to the brick wall.

  The nearest cover is over there, but the nearest cover he can reach without passing a lot of twice-monthly-professionally-cleaned windows is beyond the garages, namely the big beech hedge; he can get behind it next to the wheelie bins.

  Turns out gravel is quite like hot coals: run across it fast enough and somehow the hurt to your feet is less hurtful, though he’s always suspected fire-walkers might actually do a bit of hopping from one foot to the other off camera in an actually-that’s-pretty-painful way, and he finds himself doing the same behind the recycling.

  Damn driveway: he always knew they should have gone for the herringbone brickwork option anyway.

  He’s out of sight here, at least.

  Joseph catches his breath, marvels at the throbbing of his feet, looks back at the house from between the bins. There’s a magpie on the porch roof. One for sorrow. No, phew, there’s its mate, up on the satellite dish. What’s that in its beak? A fairly sizeable twig. Joseph watches as the first magpie joins its other half up behind the satellite receiver, since that’s clearly where they’re making their nest.

  Nice spot.

  He has a lot of admiration for stick-built homes these days.

  Still, the magpies are lucky he’s not currently in residence: he’d have their nest in this here bin pretty swiftly, not because he’s cruel, just to stop them shitting down the terracotta roof shingles, filling up the gutters, et cetera.

  Build your nest elsewhere, magpies! Leave my home alone!

  Damn dressing gown.

  93

  He has his breath back, and nobody has come out of the house after him, making it pretty likely they didn’t see him, because if they had, if they’d seen him and thought wow, there’s a thin ragged version of Dad running quite painfully across the drive to the bins, they’d no doubt immediately have run after him, all three of them, arms outstretched, shouting, ‘Come back, Dad slash Joseph, we love you!’, but they didn’t, meaning he made it undetected, which is good, right? – but still, narrow escape notwithstanding, he’s shaking all over, as in from actual head to painful feet, a physical shuddering stutter, unable, unable, unable …

  Unable to do what?

  Go back?

  As in: walk back up the drive, knock on the door, wait for it to open, possibly kneel down on the front step, explain everything.

  Pah!

  He didn’t come this far just to—

  To just what?

  Just pull yourself together, man. As in: chin up, shoulders back and make a move, head back to camp.

  Joseph takes his own advice. It’s fairly slow going, barefoot, but the shakes subside as he presses on, his horror at having nearly been caught offset by a mini surge of euphoria resulting from, well, not having been caught.

  Ex-Big(ish) Beast: still at large!

  If a bit compromised.

  Because, let’s face it, he’s going to have to lie low – lower than that, lower still, as low as possible in fact – for a while now.

  Well, sitting tight will certainly be less painful vis-à-vis his feet, which, crap, really don’t like these stones, prickles, roots, rocks, bits of twig and so on, which pepper the route back to the den.

  He makes slow, painful progress home.

  Ah, the den.

  He eases his way through the rhododendrons, relieved to see that the camouflaged den entrance has not been disturbed. Here we are. Just move this brush-section aside, lift the trap door slash chimney, drop the bag down the hole and follow it in.

  He’ll be dug in here a while now, since he can’t very well risk being spotted near Nine Pines again, can he?

  No.

  That’s the spirit.

  Again, the uprush of unexpected good cheer. Because although he cannot be sure, what with the translation-in-need-of-translation, et cetera, what he read seemed to be pointing in the right direction, didn’t it? Yes. Hence this mini underground air-punch!

  Still, it’s possibly a shame he didn’t borrow a little more food, because there really isn’t that much of it now he’s setting the packets and tins out on the little den-wall earth-shelf, but this is all there is, for now, so he’ll just have to make goddamn do.

  94

  Make do is what he does, more or less.

  He lies up on the little cot th
rough the rest of the day, all the next, and all the one after that, only leaving the den to use the toilet spot on the far side of the spine, and rationing what food he has – a few mouthfuls of tinned pineapple for breakfast, a biscuit at lunchtime, a third of a tin of chickpeas for dinner – to make it last. With his knife he splits open the heels of Zac’s moccasins, and yes, they’re still pretty tight at the toe end but, on the bright side, that helps them stay on his feet. When his water runs out, he waits until dark and hobbles to the stream – wow, that hip has really seized up – builds a fire on his return, and boils what he’ll eventually drink for a thorough ten minutes before setting it aside.

  On his back, beneath the den roof, he watches the patterns of light and dark change shape through the day and night, and he listens to the occasionally pattering rain, the birdsong, the wind, the squirrel-chatter and the underlying earth-hum.

  This, now, is where he belongs.

  And this shutting down is what he deserves.

  He feels strangely focused. Yes, beyond the ache of hunger and the stiffness of his bashed hip, beyond the now-swollen cut under his eye and the headache behind it, beyond the word-gaps and the razor and dressing gown and squelch of the trampoline, beyond the bank and the debt and the bastard envelope, there’s a new stillness he can half glimpse, half hear, half feel, a measured emptiness like that left behind in a house after the front door slams.

  What was that quotation his dad used to like?

  ‘And calm of mind, all passion spent.’

  No idea where it came from, but that.

  Yes, that.

  95

  Until his food actually runs out. Then the hunger changes shape. It’s not that he can’t bear it: his appetite has shrunk to a dot, albeit a dot radiating an ache, but the ache is so persistent he’s grown used to it. Thing is, he knows he can’t actually eat nothing without growing weak, and within a day of zero rations, fear of losing what strength he has left propels him to head out – quite slowly, more like a deep-sea diver than a hunter-gatherer – at dusk, Zac’s catapult in hand, bound for the field beyond the edge of the wood, which he knows will be hopping with rabbits.

  It’s worth a try.

  And look, there they are, nibbling about.

  Joseph has a pocket full of decent-sized stones he’s dug out of his very own ammo dump slash den. Remember the tin cans in the garden, with Zac? They got pretty good at hitting those from twenty yards, possibly nearer ten, every now and then. You don’t have to creep up on empty cans of Pepsi Max, though. Moccasin-footed, he’s treading super softly anyway, but look at that nearest little bastard, it’s definitely clocked him already and he’s still way out of range and, damn, with his next step the rabbit bounces off, not particularly quickly, casually in fact, as if to say: yeah right ha hop ha hop ha.

  Some others, though, over there.

  Joseph drops down onto his hands and knees, crawls through the bracken fringe, settles himself with a view of the field. He can wait just here – man, has he got good at waiting! – and sooner or later one of the flock, herd, whatever, will stray over to him. All he has to do is keep an eye out. Will this thing work? He gives the sling a practice stretch, feeling pretty probably not if he’s honest, and trying not to rue the fact he never bought Zac that air rifle, but Naomi put her foot down re that suggestion: ‘You want to arm a ten-year-old? He hasn’t even said he wants one!’ Fair point. Joseph would never have been able to climb down the trellis with it anyway. Unless of course it was in a case, with a strap, et cetera, and this is what more waiting feels like, and look how long the shadows are over there, the sun sinking so midsummer-slowly, blood-orange through the treetops, but plenty of twilight left yet, bags of it, and yes, he knew it, look: there’s a rabbit-shaped shape on the other side of that clump of bracken, now partly in view, now hopping a little nearer, looking pretty relaxed, stopping for a bit of a nibble, still too distant but yes, yes, coming closer, and pausing, and eating, and coming closer, and closer still, and when it reaches that bit of bare earth, if it does, well, that’s when Joseph will have a pop at it, and Christ, excellent, it’s nearly there.

  Here it comes.

  As in it’s actually here.

  Right, then.

  Steady.

  Joseph pinches a stone into the little leather sling and very slowly, careful to make no sudden movement at all, he draws the catapult rubber back, further, further, tighter, further still, right back, with the rabbit framed between the two stubby arms, and the elastic so taut now that the stone must surely fly hard and level and hit its mark.

  Sadly, before he has the chance to find out, there is a sudden crack as the elastic, rubber, whatever, snaps.

  Ow!

  His hand is smarting.

  And wow: the rabbit is exactly where it was. Stupid thing hasn’t even looked up.

  Joseph is still holding the little rock.

  He stands and throws it at the rabbit, and of course misses, but at least that prompts the rabbit to bolt into the undergrowth.

  Ha.

  The slingshot rubber broke in the middle. As it would. There’s not really enough either side to tie the thing back together again.

  Hilarious.

  As in he, Joseph Ashcroft, is a joke.

  He’s also, now that he’s stopped focusing, utterly exhausted. Dizzy, sweating, aching, sick with tiredness, so spent he’s tempted simply to lie down in the bracken exactly where he is, shut his eyes, and just give in.

  But he can’t.

  He’ll make it back to camp if he goes slowly. Might as well follow the edge of the field, noting the buttercups, the Jurassic Park-sized thistles, the – damn – rabbit-bitten grass. He knows this corner well because it’s where he put the second … snare.

  Joseph stops in his tracks.

  Is he seeing things?

  The trap has worked!

  As in, it’s occupied.

  Hold on, though.

  By a squirrel?

  How on earth?

  Squirrels generally avoid the ground, don’t they, preferring to gambol about at tree level, making full use of their boastfully quick reactions and those grippy little claws. This one’s are tight shut now. Possibly it got lost? Or is a baby? Some creatures – seagulls, for example – seem to be born pretty huge: possibly this is a large infant squirrel, young and therefore yet to master high-level travel from branch to fence post to bush and treetop, et cetera. Look at it, on its side, head canted back, grippy claws shut … opening.

  Oh no: it’s still alive.

  Just about.

  Joseph feels a surge of tenderness for the creature. How long has it been pegged here, kicking against his garden wire? Those black eyes are unblinking. Look at the soft white fur of its underbelly. And that ragged throat. It’s definitely still breathing, poor thing.

  If he had his boots on he could put it out of its misery that way, but in slippers, no thank you. Instead use the knife. Squat down, use the big blade, watch it disappear into the fur on the side of the squirrel’s neck. This is not pleasant. Ignore the feeble kicking. Press hard. Harder.

  Done.

  Not much blood in a squirrel.

  Or much meat on it, obviously.

  A deer, chicken, rabbit even, this is not.

  But Joseph is determined to follow through: he caught an animal to eat – the snare worked: take that, Lancaster! – and now he must eat it. All he has to do is remember what they taught him twenty years ago about skinning a rabbit. Just do that, plus of course gut it, prepare it properly, and cook it, and – karma-wise – all will be well.

  May as well leave the head here.

  And the tail.

  It’s just so squirrel, that tail.

  In fact, let’s have a go at preparing the corpse, carcass, whatever, here: that way he’ll be returning home as from a trip to the shops, with a ready-to-go meal, sort of. It’s easier to skin a just-dead – or was it just-bled? – animal; he remembers that, at least. You make a cut in the be
lly region, angling the knife tip up and not in, careful to avoid hitting the organs, guts and whatnot, and once there’s a hole slash flap, do as much of the skinning as possible with the best tools known to a man, namely: fingers. That’s right, peel it back, hear that sucking, soft rip. Messy, but yes, it’s working, the skin is coming away like a sock off a bloody foot, all the way up to the forelegs, sort of sticking to the paws, though – so grippy! – but let’s just cut those off here and now, like so, and do the same backwards to the hind legs, taking off its trousers so to speak, and again cutting off those feet.

  Debagged, headless and tailless, the squirrel looks smaller still!

  Also pretty marbly. Sort of glowing in the half-light.

  But it’s still full: he’s yet to hook out the guts.

  You jab the knife in under the breastbone, yes? And slit down towards the crotch, if a squirrel can be said to have one.

  Now get your thumbs in there and prise the little body open, as if to read it like a book.

  What have we here, then?

  Mostly: grey, bubblesome, interesting.

  Intestine.

  Plus the darker heart and lungs and whatnot.

  Just yank it all out, warm and slippery and smelling faintly of wet wood.

  He could probably eat some of this offal, but not knowing what’s what exactly means he’d be risking a mouthful of squirrel shit. So: just sling it all in that bush. Ditto the pelt, and other bits. Goodbye head, tail, et cetera.

  Christ, what’s left is about the size of a canapé!

  Nonsense, it would fill a bap, if he had a bap to fill, which he sadly doesn’t of course, but never mind that for a moment: he did it!

  Yes, minutes beforehand Joseph was dead on his feet, a joke. Now he’s borderline elated, triumphant. If sticky-fingered. Best return to camp via the stream. He can wash the meat, too. There it is, swishing back and forth underwater; de-magnified it looks about the size of a child’s hand. But he’s damn well going to eat it.