‘I’m glad we’re not any closer,’ Polly said.
It walked in a small circle then swung its head, hitting one antler against a tree trunk. The knock echoed across to them. It did it again with the other antler and looked straight at them, like a display, or a dare. It lifted its head, exposing its shaggy throat, and made a low, loud, sonorous bellow that made Gabrielle’s stomach churn. She was afraid of it, and in awe.
She turned to Polly, but the other woman was sprinting away from her, towards a figure on the hill above the garden.
‘Don’t!’ Polly shouted.
Art had a rifle to his shoulder.
There was no kickback when he took his shot. The crack sounded muffled. She looked back at the stag. It was gone. Some of the branches where it had been were still shaking from its flight. He’d missed.
Art was shaking his head and walking towards Polly. She was shouting at Art in a fury and Art’s replies were almost as loud, but Gabrielle didn’t care what they said to each other. She was just glad that Art was no marksman.
They were still arguing when she reached them.
‘It might come back,’ Art was saying. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘It’s not dangerous,’ Polly said. ‘That’s not why you want to shoot it.’
‘What do you think, Gabrielle? It was your boy that was almost gored in there.’ Art jiggled the rifle vaguely in the direction of the hedge maze, directly behind Gabrielle.
‘Put the safety on, Art,’ Gabrielle said.
He clicked it on without comment. Polly’s face was thunderous.
‘Something that beautiful shouldn’t be shot for sport,’ she said.
‘And I thought you were a pragmatist,’ Art said.
Gabrielle wasn’t interested in their bickering. Before she could move past them, Art thrust the rifle butt towards her midriff.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Show me some of those famous shooting skills.’
She wanted to knock the gun away, but her hands seemed to act of their own accord. She took it. It was a modified police rifle and seemed to be well maintained. It was hard to get the paperwork for something like this. A professional piece of kit.
‘There’s no way you should have this thing,’ Gabrielle said, studying his face. His eyes were puffy, and he seemed to have lost his wealthy glow. She lifted the rifle to her shoulder, looking out towards where the stag had been. Nothing but trees. She was glad.
‘Take a shot,’ Art said.
Gabrielle lowered the gun. ‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m not your plaything. This isn’t a toy.’
‘You’re afraid you’ll remember how much you like it.’
‘Fuck off.’
Art looked at his watch. His arm was shaking. Alarm spread across his face and, without saying a word, he sprinted towards the house.
‘What’s that about?’ Gabrielle said.
Polly looked worried. ‘Something’s wrong.’
Like the stag, the only sign that he had been with them was the swaying of a tree branch by the car park. Polly went after him.
Gabrielle weighed the rifle in her hands, adjusted the strap, and put it over her shoulder. Art was right, she did miss her old life. Being in Armed Response had been like hunting in a pack. It was only after joining the force that she had discovered how much of a social animal she was. Perhaps that was why it hurt so much to leave. The hole was still there. She had just been ignoring it.
She headed up the valley, to the left of where the stag had been, with a vague idea of looping around to the part of the woods where she had found the deer carcasses on the tarpaulin. The rifle gave her courage, though she was no game hunter. She knew how to drop from a helicopter on the roof of a tower block, but she wouldn’t last a couple of days in the wilderness. She was still mulling over Polly’s words, but the many shades of green soothed her anxieties – the mosses, the leaves, the grasses – and she loved how the thin white trunks of the ash trees mixed serenely with the heavier oaks. The gentle undulation of the wood floor moved her onwards.
It was still hot, even under a thick canopy, and she was sweating lightly. A shallow gradient became steeper and eventually the trees thinned and there were patches of sun. It felt good to use her body. Her breathing, and the occasional scuff when she kicked a stone or branch, were the only sounds. She emerged without warning at a summit, looking miles across the tops of forest at distant mountains. The enormity of the space, and her minuscule place within it, made her imagine floating away, being pulled up into blue nothingness.
It was too much. She looked at the grass, dizzy, trying to control her spinning vision. The clearing swam around her. Another attack. She somehow got the rifle off and sat heavily on the grass, putting the gun to one side, lowering herself onto her back. She kept her eyes closed. Perhaps it was agoraphobia of some kind. The cold grass tickled her neck and she felt a soft breath of wind on her ankles.
She imagined her father’s face looking down at her, full of concern.
The phone call from the hospital had come as she had been looking forlornly at a naked mannequin on Hope Street One. The party dress she had been coveting was gone – purple with a silver hem and a slightly ridiculous boa made of cleverly woven peacock feathers. The bare mannequin had hands on hips and was looking imperiously down at her.
It was a number she didn’t recognise. ‘Gabrielle Hunter?’ A female voice.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you the daughter of Lyndon Hunter?’
‘Yes.’ Oh God. ‘What’s happened?’ She kept looking at the mannequin’s blank face.
‘He’s been brought to the hospital. Can you come to Incident Central?’
‘Is he okay?’
‘He is stable. I can’t say any more on the phone.’
It was one of the new hospitals, the first the robots had built, and the ward was on the forty-third floor. When she got to it her father was sitting up in bed, by a window, looking out towards the Area Hub and Central Transit Two. His face looked old, as wrinkled as a currant. The man in the opposite bed was in the foetal position, uncovered, in just his pyjamas. The two other beds were empty. Her father was propped up with two big pillows and looked distressingly small.
‘Dad?’
He turned to her voice. His head was dressed in a bandage and there was a long scratch on his cheek. ‘Gabrielle?’ he said, sounding unsure.
‘Can you see me?’ She tried to make eye contact.
‘I’m not blind.’ That familiar sharpness.
‘Dad,’ she said, kissing him and pulling a chair closer. ‘What happened?’
‘They phoned you, then?’
‘The hospital did. The man at the desk said Mrs King gave them my number.’
‘Gloria? I’ll have to thank her. They made a right mess. I hope she’s okay. Was she okay?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘The doctor said I can go home.’
‘They did? But you were unconscious, Dad. Do you remember what happened?’
‘I’m not an imbecile.’ His voice was raised. He puffed his cheeks and pushed himself up with the bed rail. He coughed once, then again. There was a new wheeze in his chest.
‘It’s just they haven’t told me anything,’ Gabrielle said. ‘That’s all.’
‘My memory is fine. A blow to the head like that shakes you up.’
She took his hand. They sat like that for a minute or two. He settled once more.
‘I was in the bathroom,’ he said. ‘I heard a clatter, but I couldn’t come out. I didn’t think much about it. It could have been anything. But when I did come out the place was a hell of a mess. They’d emptied everything out on the floor, pulled the furniture apart. And then—’
He looked over her shoulder, eyes unfocused, searching for the memory. He started
to cough again. He let go of her hand and looked for a tissue. She handed him the box. He was definitely worse since she had last seen him. It was hard to watch. Eventually, the cough eased.
‘I think I saw one of them,’ he said. ‘Or at least, I thought—’ He trailed off.
He started pulling at the bandages on his head.
‘Leave those, Dad,’ she said. ‘We can talk about it another time.’
‘Then someone was shining a light in my eyes. I’ve still got my wallet.’ He pulled his black, leather wallet from under the hospital sheets. He had been holding it all this time.
‘Your wallet,’ she echoed. And what was in it – an old identity card?
He looked out of the window again. She took his hand again and he let her. His fingers were dry, and he didn’t have much of a grip. She couldn’t remember when they had last held hands. His face reddened, and he coughed again, violently, shoulders shaking from the effort. He looked so frail. What a difference. Or had he been frail for some time and she had stopped noticing? Gabrielle felt like crying.
‘You sound terrible,’ she said.
‘I’m okay. It’ll pass.’
A nurse came in. ‘When is the doctor coming?’ Gabrielle asked.
‘Around five,’ the nurse said. ‘Why don’t you come back later? He can get some rest in the meantime.’
‘Go back to work,’ her father said, as if sensing her helplessness. ‘I’m okay.’
She nodded, dumbly. The good daughter.
She didn’t go back to work. Instead she walked around the shopping districts, losing herself in the window displays. When the phone rang in her pocket, she answered automatically.
‘Mrs Hunter?’ A female voice, gentle.
‘Yes.’
‘Your father. I’m afraid he passed away. About fifteen minutes ago. I’m sorry.’
Those words. She thought about them a lot. Your father. I’m afraid he passed away. About fifteen minutes ago. I’m sorry. She said them, often, to herself, like a prayer, over and over. The voice on the phone was anonymous and kind. She held the phone to her ear after the woman had hung up, listening to the eventual click and silence. She remembered the word that had come to her then. Orphan.
She woke lying on her side on the mountain grass. While she had dozed it had become colder. She sat up slowly. The attack had passed, but when she picked the rifle up, she kept her eyes on the floor. The wind cut through the thin fabric of her clothes. She got herself back into the protective embrace of the trees, checking the rifle out of habit. That was who she had been, once. She waved some flies away from her face. A bird called somewhere to her left. Birds. Life. She had to smile at that. For a few seconds in the garden it had seemed like nothing lived within the grounds of the house, not even insects. It had been paranoia. The house was getting to her. Out here was a reminder of what was real. Not Art, not Polly. Nature.
She took her time walking back. After a kilometre or so patches of sun began to break through the trees. It was midafternoon. She came to a clearing, which opened out between two enormous oaks that had a cathedral-like quality to the arcs of their branches above her. The woods demanded quiet. All was hushed. She stopped in the oaks’ shade.
There was a deer lying on the grass, content, eyes closed, face to the sun. A doe. A fawn was trying to scramble up its mother’s back, its legs split comically, the doe happy to let it try. Another deer, a buck she guessed, sniffed at the ground nearby. Gabrielle wished she didn’t have the rifle. It was a blight on the purity of the scene. A magical moment.
The doe looked at her. Instead of bolting, it turned its head and stretched to lick the fur of the fawn, who had finally reached the summit, only to tumble off the other side. Gabrielle allowed herself a soft laugh. She was mindful of the stag appearing. He was clearly a brute, and she was wary of him. The buck also looked at her. It had black speckles in its neck fur and its chest was a dirty cream.
As quietly as she could, she sat on one of the oak roots. The buck went closer to its mother. She remembered when Stefan was a baby and she had been at home in the evenings, alone with him, listening to Bach, of all things, trying to get him to stop crying. What she would have given to be as at ease as this doe. And her father, at the end of the phone, didn’t know how to help. He would listen to her cry and tell her she was doing a good job. He would tell her that he was proud of her, her mother would have been proud of her, and that she was doing a better job than he had done with her.
It hit her that he was gone. He was not at the end of a phone line. His body was in the ground. She would never hear his voice again, or hold his hand, or get to see him laugh at something Stefan had said. He could not be angry with her, or criticise her, or snap at her, or be happy for her. He was an empty space.
She cried, head in her hands, her sobs full-throated, from deep within herself. More than her father, she sensed she had somehow lost the rest of her family too along the way.
When the tears dried up, she stared for a long time at the tree root between her legs, using her sleeve to wipe away tears and snot. She expected the deer to be long gone, but the doe was watching her, now at the far side of the clearing. At her glance, it turned and walked off into the brush.
Eventually she decided to head back. Her stomach was aching because she had not eaten lunch. A day’s fasting would do her no harm. As she walked, the closer she got to the house, the warmer it became, until her back was slick with sweat again. Polly said Art thought it was a local anomaly. She kicked at some yellowing sycamore leaves that looked fresh from the trees. There was a lot of autumnal colour in the tree canopy, now that she was looking. Was this the local anomaly too?
The sun was quite low by the time she passed their car. She checked that it was fully charged. She was glad Leo had fixed the power. They had hardly seen each other. She would fix that tonight.
It wasn’t rational, but she sensed some sort of trouble brewing, in the woods and at the house. She had to pay more attention. Now that she was back, she realised that Polly was right – she had to know where her exits were.
Gabrielle slipped the rifle off her shoulder and looked around. There was nobody watching. She got down on one knee and placed the rifle as far as she could reach under the car. Art would never find it there. She would think of a lie to tell him. It would be a small victory.
She wiped her hands on her trousers and went to find the others.
Leo: Stag
Leo watched Art at the hob, tea towel over his shoulder, moving his attention between two large pots and two smaller saucepans, looking like he owned the place. Leo was fascinated by Art’s face. His cheeks were a high colour, almost rouged, and Leo remembered a man he had known once, a heavy drinker, who had, in the end, died from sclerosis of the liver. The lights above the hob were bright white, which didn’t help, but Leo wondered for the first time if Art was in good health. There were crevices around his eyes and cheeks. Perhaps he had an underlying condition. He would never reveal it, that would show weakness.
Art dipped a spoon into the nearest pot and blew on it before sipping. He groaned extravagantly.
‘It’s so good,’ Art said. ‘You are privileged to be in my restaurant for the evening.’
‘What is it?’
‘Coq au vin. And some baby vegetables.’
‘Oh.’ Leo wrinkled his nose.
‘You’re not even going to pretend to like it? You hurt my feelings, Leo. What is there not to like?’
‘I’ll eat it.’
‘You are in for a treat, I promise you. Look, have some bread. I made it today, with my own hands. You’re so busy with your project, you haven’t eaten. Your blood sugar is probably low.’
It was true he had been holed up at the terminal all day, digging further into the house tech. He’d hardly seen anyone, except Stefan briefly at lunch, and Polly, of course. He had no idea where Ga
by was. That suited him fine.
Art brought a plate from the counter with strips of white bread on it and a small bowl of olive oil and gave it to Leo. ‘Glass of red while we’re waiting?’
‘From your vineyard again?’ Leo said.
‘Of course. And the olive oil is from a farm I own. It’s premium stuff.’ Art broke into a self-satisfied guffaw. ‘There’s a whole bottle of the shiraz in the coq.’
‘How many vineyards have you got?’ Leo asked.
‘Just the three.’ Art gave him the fuller glass. ‘I don’t take them for granted, I promise you. Fleur will inherit them one day.’
Leo took the plate of bread and oil to the table. Polly was sitting there. He hadn’t noticed her come in. She gave him a demure smile and put her book down, moving to the counter to get herself a wine glass. Art filled her glass too.
‘How is she?’ Polly asked Art.
‘She’s fine. Fine! Stefan is with her somewhere. Those two are really getting on.’
Leo sipped his wine. It was frustratingly good.
‘I thought you were into farming, not wine,’ Leo said.
‘A vineyard is a farm. And anyway, my businesses aren’t always obvious. Everyone wants privacy, don’t they? And I try to keep mine.’ Art tapped his nose. ‘It’s amazing what a good accountant can do.’
‘And those patents that were in the news? The human rights stuff?’
‘That looked really bad. I know. But the media only sees one side of the story. It’s back to privacy again. Not looking like the good guy is a price I am willing to pay to do what I want. It’s always more complicated. Always.’ Art was getting more and more animated. ‘You take from this pot and you put something in, hopefully of more value, in this pot. That’s the art of it. Adding value, creating jobs, all while doing what you really want.’
‘And what do you really want?’ Leo said.
‘I want my drink,’ Art said, looking around. It was next to the bubbling larger saucepan, which caught his eye. ‘Ah, I need to concentrate for a minute.’
‘You okay?’ Leo mouthed at Polly. She nodded and started getting bowls out of the cupboards. Art reached for a plate and it rattled on the counter as he put it down. He seemed to pause very briefly before continuing. He lifted a teaspoon from the other pot towards his lips, but his fingers were shaking, and he spilled it.
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