Like Rats

by Adam Watts

  Ordinarily, I’d make a weak attempt at self-defence, no matter how lame and craven it might seem, but today I’m struggling to keep a level head. I know Stan was pissed off and I know he always talked about going, but I thought he’d know better than to skulk off in the middle of the night without so much as a farewell.

  Harry sets about fixing the chain link, huffing like a put-upon teen. ‘The cable ties will have to do until I think of a more permanent fix. That friend of yours causes nothing but problems, even when he’s gone.’

  ‘You need any help?’ I ask, feeling partially responsible for Stan’s mess.

  ‘If I need your help, I’ll ask for it,’ he says before giving the mended section a good hard shake to check its integrity. ‘Bloody idiot could’ve doomed us all.’

  I watch Harry as he inspects his handiwork, how he scrutinises every inch of what he’s done, making sure he’s completed it to a satisfactorily ‘proper’ standard. Even though I find it hard to like this man, what with all his sheriff-like posturing and self-important talk, I suppose I have to begrudgingly admire his commitment to the village. He spent the whole morning looking for Stan with me, checking every house and outbuilding before walking the entire length of the perimeter fence. I do wonder whether Harry is secretly happy that Stan’s gone or whether he sees it as another pair of hands lost, like a human resources officer suddenly faced with the prospect of filling a vacancy that was never really needed in the first place.

  Before the fences went up, we used to have a village police officer. I forget his name. You’d only see him once in a blue moon. Not that he was ever really needed since this place practically ran itself. Although once in a while, something worthy of his attention would occur.

  About ten years ago there was a spate of burglaries that coincided with the arrival of a new family. Everybody said it had to be them because they were new, and everything had been fine and dandy before they turned up. Therefore, they reasoned, a coincidence was unlikely. That’s what you might call rural logic. I always got the impression that this assumption was fuelled by the family in question being black. Nobody ever said it –because what the village lacked in cultural understanding, it more than made up for in its superficial sense of decency – but they were the only black people who ever lived here, so I can’t see how it wouldn’t have crossed people’s minds. Particularly the minds of those who (in hushed tones) referred to them as coloureds.

  Burglar alarms suddenly started to appear on the fronts of houses, and doors which had been left unlocked for decades were dead-bolted well before dusk. No gate was left without a padlock, no car without a clamp, and blinding security lights became the scourge of the village cats as they attempted to go about their secret feline business under cover of darkness. Mr. Bateman, who lived a few doors down from me, even installed a CCTV system, which seemed particularly heavy-handed at the time. An opinion quickly retracted when he captured footage of the culprit trying to break into his garage.

  Funny thing was, the perp was none other than Mrs. Bateman. The police found a stash of stolen goods squirreled away in various draws, boxes and cupboards in the garage. Apparently she’d wanted to leave the village for years but Mr. Bateman wouldn’t have it. I suppose getting caught burgling her own property in full view of her husband’s CCTV system was some kind of desperate cry for help.

  The village bobby did pretty much nothing about it. Everybody’s belongings were returned and nobody wanted to press charges. I assume he’d have been pleased to avoid the paperwork, not to mention the ire of a community who didn’t like their sense of decorum contradicted by external meddling. However, there were some in the village who still blamed the black family, or at least suspected that their presence might somehow attract other minorities more inclined to criminality. The padlocks and security systems all stayed after Mrs. Bateman was caught. Mild panic became a hard habit to break.

  ‘We’re going to need to think very seriously about how we maintain our security in the wake of this breach,’ Harry says, still surveying his handiwork.

  ‘You really think we need to do that?’

  ‘Absolutely. There’s no telling who or what is out there.’

  ‘Wade said there’s nothing out there.’

  ‘You’ll have to forgive me if I choose not to take Wade’s word as gospel on the matter. Wits as dull as a spoon, that one. You could probably put him within ten yards of a horde of miscreants and he’d be utterly oblivious.’

  ‘He seemed okay though, didn’t he? I mean, when you saw him he didn’t seem like he’d had a rough time out there or anything.’

  ‘Hard to tell really. I can’t imagine he’d be inclined to tell us if he had hit any problems, being that it’d put a dent in that naïve pride of his. If you ask me, the whole thing stinks.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘That boy could barely wipe his own backside when he was here with us. I find it hard to believe he stayed alive out there for six months on such meagre faculties as his.’

  ‘You think he had help?’

  ‘You forget that I’ve been out there. I’ve seen the state of the towns and cities. The things I’ve witnessed would turn your stomach. After everything I went through to get here, I’d say his lack of injury is a little more than dumb luck.’

  All at once my heart lurches at the thought of Stan being out there. What if Harry’s right about Wade? What if his return was some sort of trick, or a fluke? And then for the first time, something else occurs to me, something that draws the breath from my lungs and thickens the blood in my veins. What if Stan never comes back?

  ‘That should hold until I’ve got the right tools at hand,’ Harry says, testing the fence once last time with a jarring rattle. ‘Cross your fingers we don’t get any more unwanted visitors.’ Harry looks me over with a deep frown. ‘What’s up with you then? Worried about your mate?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, without wanting to reveal the full extent of my concern.

  ‘Not thinking of going out there after him are you?’

  ‘No,’ I say, and I mean it.

  ‘See that you don’t. You might be a waste of space, but we need bodies in this village to keep it viable. Come on…’ he says, ‘best do another sweep to make doubly sure we didn’t have any unwelcome visitors in the night.’

  ‘Can’t,’ I say.

  Harry frowns once more and shakes his head. ‘Won’t, more like. You’ve got a responsibility to this village, boy. Your parents brought you up here, did they not? So man-up and do your bit. Maybe now he’s gone you’ll stop farting about and do something useful with your time.’

  ‘Frida’s worried,’ I say. ‘Feel like I need to check in on her.’

  ‘Frida?’ says Harry, his tone softening. ‘Oh… yes… go… Send her my regards, won’t you?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘Always thought she was the best chance you two ever had at turning it round. Thought she might work her magic on you both, file a few of those edges down.’

  ‘Maybe she’s not averse to a few edges,’ I call after him.

  Harry raises a hand and swats the air dismissively.

  There’s a woman at Frida’s who I’m pretty sure I’ve never met, but she certainly seems to know me. She’s asking about Stan and whether he’s gone off with ‘That Wade Character’. I keep telling her I don’t really know, but she won’t take my word for it. She talks a lot, mostly repeating the same things, like her brain’s nailed to a wheel. Frida’s doing her best to keep up appearances and is as engaging as ever, but the worry is right there to see if you know what you’re looking for. Whenever she thinks nobody’s watching, that affable smile drops as quick as you can blink, like it was never there in the first place. It cuts deep to see her look so sad; sorrow has no business weighing those eyes down.

  The woman is still talking, but has switched to the subject of my parents, like this is something we’ve spoken about a hundred times before. I reply with some polite chit-chat; as lit
tle as I can get away with. I can’t help but wonder whether she snuck in through the hole that Stan left. Maybe she’s a spy. Maybe this is a confidence trick. Assimilation or something. That’s what Stan would think. Not that I’m making plans to take his place as the village conspiracy nut.

  The lady finishes up and says her farewells, promising to see Frida down at the allotments tomorrow. She makes her way to the door, but not before Frida has plonked a cake in her arms.

  ‘Who’s that?’ I ask, wondering why Frida gave her a cake. Frida makes a fair few cakes but they’re generally to keep her visitors well fed; the cake and company tend to bring a lot of visitors to Frida’s table.

  Frida looks unimpressed with my question. ‘You mean to say you don’t recognise her?’

  ‘Nope. Weird how she knows me, though.’

  ‘She’s lived here all her life, so she should know you pretty well by now.’

  ‘Really? You sure about that?’

  ‘That’s what she tells me.’

  ‘What’s her name?’ I narrow my eyes. Maybe she is a spy… sent from beyond the fences to infiltrate the village and bring back as much cake as she can carry.

  ‘Catherine. Catherine Rom.’ Frida widens her eyes, her head shakes just a little.

  ‘Oh…’ I say, feeling a little foolish since I do know who Catherine Rom is. ‘She looks a lot different than she used to.’

  ‘Well I suppose that’s what living this way does to us. Although it probably changes some of us more than others,’ she says, arching an eyebrow just enough to make sure I understand the underlying meaning. ‘Of course, you’d have seen the change a little more clearly if you’d bring yourself down to the fields for more than two minutes at a time. There’s a lot goes on in this village that you don’t see. And It’d brighten up my day to have you down there. Getting your hands in the soil is good for the soul, so they say.’

  ‘I keep meaning to,’ I lie, trying to swallow the bitter knowledge that I may have disappointed her. ‘You doing ok? About Stan, I mean.’

  She sits back in her chair and sighs. ‘I’m sad he’s gone. I know some folks around here don’t think a great deal of him, but he made me smile. Such an odd ray of sunshine…’

  ‘Yeah,’ I say. And she’s right, he does have this way of forcing you to like him, even though he’s basically a complete jerk. It’s easy to get frustrated by Stan, but even easier to miss him when he’s not about. I don’t think there’s been a day gone by in the last two years where I’ve not seen him.

  ‘You and Mr. Cobden find anything of his whereabouts?’

  ‘Just the hole in the fence where we think he got out,’ I say, smothering that little spark of hope I saw in her eye.

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine,’ she says, rocking herself gently.

  ‘You never know, Frida. He might be back in a day or so. Maybe he’ll have his little adventure out there and get homesick. If nothing else, he’ll miss your cooking.’

  Frida chuckles, as if recalling a now bitter-sweet memory. Probably the thought of Stan rolling home drunk and eating her out of house and home like some skew-eyed but improbably charming billy-goat.

  ‘I’m gonna bring you something nice for your stewing pot tomorrow. I’m willing to bet Stan hasn’t taken all of his implements of murder with him. Reckon I can bag you a rabbit, or maybe a pheasant.’

  ‘Thank you my sweet-heart. And you can be certain that you’ll be welcome at my table any time.’ Frida’s face lights up a little. She stands and heads for one of her kitchen cupboards before returning with something in her hands. ‘You’ll stay for a game of cards, won’t you, my darling.’ This is not a question. She removes the deck from its box and begins to shuffle the cards. ‘Let’s keep the jokers in the pack,’ she says with a wink.

  On Your Knees and Beg for Dinner.

  The rabbits are mocking me. The pheasants too.

  They were wary of me this morning; predictably fearful, in fact. But now – being as it’s past lunchtime and not a single shot has struck its target – they seem almost cocky. Until now I’d never beheld derision in the eyes of a rabbit. How did I become the passive party amongst the prey animals? Perhaps they see the distraction in my eyes. It’s true that I’ve been prone to searching the horizon this morning. The world beyond the fence has taken on new colour.

  After so long in here, it’s hard to imagine anything beyond the village. It was hard enough before we were fenced in. The fences were a convenient means of avoiding the question of whether I should leave or not. But now, in Stan’s absence, the question returns.

  He could be anywhere by now. For all I know he could be well on his way to Luxemburg, in pursuit of those clean, zombie-free streets. I suppose it’s equally possible that he’s hovering somewhere in the tree-line, laughing at me from the shadows as I gnaw my lips raw and pull at the skin on my knuckles with worry, all the while failing to bag a bunny for dinner. It’s the not knowing, and the not being able to know, that makes it so difficult. It’s not like he can send me a text message or document his travels with a string of Instagram selfies. But the thought that really digs its hooks into my guts and refuses to let go, is that he might be dead, and I would never know for certain. I suppose there’ll always be the hope that he’ll come back, but alongside that, there’s the sense of helpless despondency when each day ends without him and the fear that tomorrow may be no different.

  The same thoughts must have crossed Frida’s mind too. Every now and then she’ll call me Stan and not even notice she’s done it. I don’t have the heart to correct her. Last night, she wanted me to stay in the spare room, to act as substitute. But I couldn’t do it. She asked if I’d be going to look for Stan. Her eyes fell flat at my response, and though she attempted an understanding smile, her disappointment was clear. I was not the man to bring her boy back. A sentiment shared by Harry, no doubt. What was it he said I’d be if I left the village? Dead meat dangling on a hook. Something like that. But he’d have probably said the same about Wade. He’d have given him no more than a few hours before being reduced to a gnawed skeleton. In Harry’s eyes, there was only one proper man in this village.

  From the corner of my eye I catch movement. A little rabbit settles maybe five meters from me, twitching its whiskers, staring its wide-eyed stare, content in the knowledge that I’m no threat. Even when I raise the catapult, load a stone and pull back, it retains its composure. I focus, perhaps for the first time today. We lock eyes, the rabbit and I. Maybe I am the man to get Frida’s boy back. Maybe I don’t have to disappoint her. Maybe I can prove Harry wrong and become proper and perhaps debunk his theory that the world beyond the fence is twisted and savage, that not all who step out beyond the horizon are consumed and forgotten. Maybe I can come back, with Stan, and set the village free. Maybe I can be the hero.

  I fire the stone, sure and true. One rabbit for Frida’s pot. The stone whips through the air towards my prey. Misses.

  ‘Fuck sake!’ I yell. The rabbit blinks lazily and lollops off, reassured that I am just as incompetent as the legends of his people state. I toss my weapon out into the grass. ‘Piece of shit.’ I’m sure a good workman never blames his tools, but I am the very antithesis of a good workman, so blaming my tools doesn’t bother me a bit.

  What I want is to give up and go home, to sit and sulk and possibly drink, but I can’t tear my eyes from the forest. What must it be like out there now? I remember walking through the trees when I was younger, planning to build dens, making believe that I could erect some sort of Ewok city and live there with my friends, and maybe impress a few girls in the process with my practical prowess. The dappled sunshine and prospect of creating something remarkable seems a hard image to marry up with the darkness and danger that now seems to lurk between the boughs.

  Perhaps it’s all in my head, though. Maybe it looks darker than it is. I could find out. I wouldn’t have to commit to going all the way in and embarking on some epic mission. I could just test the water. It would be e
asy to get out, just cut the cable ties and slip out the same way Stan did; go for a little walk, see how I feel. If it’s scary I can come back, put some new cable ties in place and nobody would ever have to know. But if it seems ok out there, who knows how far I could get. Being the hero might be easy. It all starts with the first step. That’s what Dad used to say. A little lame, admittedly, but it’s true enough in its own bungle-footed way.

  What the heck. Maybe I will do it. What’s to stop me?

  ‘Hey, Pres. Need some company?’

  ‘Shit!’ I say, nearly falling off my perch. ‘You scared the bejesus out of me!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Eve says. ‘You looked like you were in a world of your own up there.’

  ‘Yeah… sorry, been trying to focus. Want to get a rabbit or two for Frida.’

  Eve looks around for evidence of my success.

  ‘It’s been a lean morning,’ I tell her.

  ‘Maybe the rabbits are getting smarter,’ she says, smiling broadly.

  ‘Is that a diplomatic way of saying I’m getting stupider?’

  ‘Y’know, you should never underestimate the appeal of a simpleton.’

  ‘So, you’ve just come to insult me then?’ I say.

  ‘Maybe just a little bit…’ Eve shrugs, bites her lip.

  ‘That’s kinda low considering my best friend went missing yesterday. Thought maybe a gift would be the way to go, help ease my suffering.’

  ‘I’ll get right on it when the shops open up. Must be a bank holiday or something.’ Eve straightens her face and rubs awkwardly at her shoulder. ‘I thought maybe it’d be nice to have a fire later. Couple of drinks... talk some rubbish… y’know, if you’re not busy washing your hair or painting your toe-nails. What do you reckon?’

  There are times in life when it’s imperative that you say exactly the right thing. Problem is, when the heat is on and you get the feeling that the response you’re about to give could be critical in determining your destiny, there’s a tendency to over-think and under-react, and you’ll just stand there looking dumb whilst your mouth says nothing. And the longer you stand in that fearful state of idiotic silence, the bigger the chance you’ll say something complete absurd that ruins the situation completely. Something like…