The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  Barratt and Sykes walked along the canal towpath that ran out of Kidderminster alongside the carpet factories, where a suggestion of new grass was trying to grow on the path of coal spoil. Several men were fishing but it was common knowledge that the canal was too polluted for fish, as was the River Stour, which ran parallel a short distance away. The fishers were men of about their age. Barratt kept glancing over to Sykes as they walked, transposing Sykes’ thin, knowing face for Briggs’ youthful, tormented expression.

  ‘You should have said something,’ Barratt said. ‘Not left it all bottled up.’

  ‘What?’ Sykes seemed to come to, as though roused from some preoccupation.

  ‘What?’ Barratt looked at him, puzzled.

  ‘You said something.’

  Barratt squared his shoulders and walked on. The brick factory walls got taller and the path now seemed to be a passageway that the rest of the town wanted to forget.

  ‘You got somewhere to live?’ asked Sykes.

  ‘No.’

  They went under a road bridge. The air smelled of old bath water.

  ‘Well you can’t doss down here, it stinks. You can join me, like I said several times before.’

  ‘Where exactly do you live?’ Barratt asked.

  ‘In one of the caves by the back of the steel factories.’

  ‘In the sandstone caves?’

  ‘Yeah. I used to have rooms but I got thrown out when I couldn’t pay the rent. All this bollocks about a land fit for heroes, eh!’

  ‘Precisely. So how do you eat?’ Barratt asked, realising he really knew nothing about this man.

  A smirk flickered across Sykes’ face. ‘Beg, borrow or steal – mostly beg.’

  They walked on. An unexpected dread ran through Barratt. All his life he had been used to an organised life, of knowing where to go, where to eat, knowing there was money in his pocket. But he had spent most of it, so was now at the mercy of chance to survive. For a moment, he felt like walking away, taking the next train back to Edgbaston and his parents’ house. But he didn’t. He kept on walking alongside Sykes.

  ‘Do you manage to keep yourself by begging?’ he asked, not quite believing he was having this discussion.

  Sykes shrugged. ‘Varies. Market days are good – that’s the Thursday and Saturday markets. Some days you can live off the unwanted bread and fruit and stuff. Some of the traders are pretty decent. They’ll give you their throw-outs if you turn up at the right time.’

  Barratt hesitated, took in a breath. Tried to visualize sleeping in a cave and being permanently hungry – no difference to the trenches then. He had survived those. He caught up with Sykes again.

  ‘They say there’s more work down London way and the south,’ he said.

  Sykes looked at him incredulously. ‘Work with that lot of Jessies? Forget that. I’ll stick it out round here.’

  Barratt laughed remembering the rugby match with the Hampshire’s in rest camp. Remembered seeing Briggs laughing aloud; the only time Barratt had ever seen him laugh. Barratt closed his eyes against the memory.

  ‘Come on,’ said Sykes, as though making his mind up to take Barratt into his confidence. ‘I’ll show you where I live.’

  They climbed onto the road then took another branching off it. It was an industrial lane with a sawmill and a timber yard, and with small workshops set back along the sandstone rock face. At the end of the road was a steep set of grimy steps made from the dark bluish-black engineering bricks flanked on either side by a factory warehouse with several smashed windows and a run-down public house. Again, Barratt hesitated.

  ‘Ignore that,’ said Sykes. ‘It gets better.’

  They reached the top. Set back in the cliff were sandstone caves with what looked like vaulted brick arches, old stores of some description with doors long gone. Sykes crawled into one. Barratt followed. It was surprisingly dry and fresh smelling. In one corner lay a straw mattress and several old army blankets. In another, a table. Near the door was a rocking chair with a broken runner, a half-brick propping it up.

  ‘Gives a good view of the town,’ said Sykes. ‘If you want to hole up here for a while, we can go up there and get you some stuff.’ He pointed to a wired-off compound at the top of the bank.

  Barratt considered then nodded.

  They scrambled on all fours up to the back gates of a hay and straw merchant who also dealt in second-hand furniture. After looking each way, a workman raised a finger in recognition and came over.

  ‘Need a mattress and some blankets,’ Sykes said.

  ‘How much are you talking about?’

  Sykes felt in his pockets. ‘Two bob.’

  The man thought. ‘I’ll ‘ave a word with the guvnor.’

  ‘I can pay for it,’ said Barratt.

  Sykes silenced him with a curt shake of the head.

  The man came back with a stained mattress and two rough blankets. Sykes gave him the money and without another word, they scrambled back down the bank.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ Barratt insisted.

  Sykes refocused on him. ‘Look, I drank most of your whisky. Fair’s fair. Anyway, if you announce you have too much money with that lot, they’ll stitch you for everything they can get out of you.’

  Barratt looked at him and frowned.

  ‘It’s dog eat dog, mate,’ said Sykes noticing the look.

  ‘Were you really an officer?’ said Barratt.

  Sykes gave him a thin, knowing smile. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Oh.’ He smiled to himself; at one time this would have bothered him, now it didn’t matter at all. Sykes laid the mattress down in the warmest most sheltered corner of the cave and then started stoking a rusty old brazier with old logs and twigs that he dragged in from round the side of the cave.

  Barratt felt his eyes drooping, so he crawled into the back of the den and lay on his bed. Sometime later, he woke and saw Sykes sitting in the doorway, smoking peacefully, looking at the town in the valley. The carpet looms were throbbing relentlessly like some vast mechanical heart, and a glimmer of light came out from the dark factory blocks, spilling yellow into the dusk. Barratt leaned up; saw the acres of acute-angled factory roofs around the Stour and the brick of the terraced streets shining a deep orange in the last light of day. Then he saw the red from the fire merging with the sunset sky, saw things blur and soon he felt the short muddled fragments of his mind take over, the last conscious moments before sleep.

  In the trees was a suggestion of green, as though something was about to erupt. Joss was scratching his head and yawning as Tom walked in with a box and a big smile on his face.

  ‘Our first birth,’ he said and opened the box carefully and the delicate woolly yellow head of a chick peeped over the top. Tom was careful not to touch it. ‘The mother’s out eating. I’m going to have to put it back before she realises.’

  Joss grinned and straightened up. His vertebrae seemed to clank down in his spine. He stood up on his left side and immediately lost his balance. Swearing quietly to himself, he wandered over to the range and poured steaming water from a wheezing kettle into the large teapot. Yawning again, he cut bread and, as Tom walked back in, they sat down.

  ‘We need a few sheep here I think,’ said Tom.

  Joss refocused on him. ‘Uh?’

  ‘We’ve got good pasture here and sheep are fairly easy to raise and we can get a good turnover if we fatten them for the meat market.’

  Joss shrugged. ‘As long as they don’t eat my strawberries, I don’t mind.’

  ‘They’ll be in separate fields, Joss.’

  ‘I need the sunniest field.’

  ‘The one with the south-facing slope across from the meadow.’

  They sat down. ‘I’ll need to put them out in the next few weeks,’ Joss said.

  ‘Then we need to get the field ploughed and made ready.’

  ‘I’ll have to lead the horse,’ Joss said. ‘My back’s getting painful.’

  Tom looked up in surp
rise. ‘Of course. That’s taken as given.’

  Joss felt a ripple of unease. ‘When do we need to plough it?’

  ‘Now, really. To get the soil warmed up and manured.’

  So that afternoon they ploughed the pasture opposite the meadow that stretched up lazily up to the terrace, which lead to the heath. Jasper plodded along the furrows and Tom pushed the plough in and along and, before long, brown ripples of soil scarred the rough grassland. Something in Joss rebelled against cutting the land open as it had once with Tom, the brown reminding him of gashes across a hitherto intact body. But he reasoned with himself that it had to be done; they needed to make money from this farm to survive.

  They worked into the early evening and by seven o’clock it was done. Tom led the horse to its stall and gave him water and food. Jasper stood eating slowly and stolidly while he rubbed him down. But now Tom did not notice the stars, ice-white in the velvet sky, nor hear the owl hoot close by as he walked back to the house. Instead, he thought over the tasks for the following day. But his heart flipped as he saw Joss filling up the tin bath from the copper.

  ‘For you,’ Joss said.

  Lying together later that night, Tom relaxed, leaning his cheek against Joss’s chest, listening to his regular heartbeat.

  ‘We’ll plant out the strawberries together, whenever you want to,’ Tom said. ‘It’ll be good to work together for a change.’

  ‘Yes, it will.’

  They waited for the next sunny day and, taking out a meal of bread, cheese, beer and cake to the fields, they worked together, putting out row after row of small strawberry plants as Nico lay upside down and asleep on a blanket on the nearest area of unploughed soil. Tom nudged Joss and pointed over to the dog. The sun was marvellous that day, almost as warm as summer. They worked in shirtsleeves and sat down regularly by Nico, swilling beer and getting merrier and louder. That evening they stayed up late, eating whatever they could find in the cupboards even after Joss had fried eggs, bacon, tomatoes and bread.

  ‘S’how about growing mushrooms?’ Tom had slurred as they crawled up the stairs.

  ‘You need a lot of crap for those,’ Joss slurred back.

  ‘D’you... Really?’

  ‘Umm.’

  ‘We can get the horse to crap on them.’

  ‘Shat on from a great height.’

  They collapsed, giggling helplessly onto the bed.

  ‘Oh bollocks,’ said Joss. ‘Brewer’s droop,’ and promptly went to sleep.

  The next morning both woke late with pounding heads. After drinking copious amounts of water, they slumped down at the table.

  ‘That was brilliant,’ said Joss.

  ‘It was.’

  They looked at the empty frying pan and forced down the gag.

  An hour later, they were sitting on the train to Kidderminster.

  Barratt slithered inch by inch through the waterlogged holes of a nightmare. They were surrounded by lagoons of boiling oil with spurts leaping up and down like frenzied bats. The sky was tumbling over itself in violent thunderclouds. A thousand fires roared. The enemy was in position. They had to retreat in front of them. Barratt could not call to any of his men. Briggs was lying face down, as though dead. Barratt slid over to him, lubricated by mud and blood. Catching hold of Briggs’ leg, he tried to pull him back. Briggs was crying; his fist forced into his mouth. ‘Are you hit?’ Barratt whispered. Briggs stared at him, said something about letters, the post, and not being able to take this anymore. ‘Hold onto my arm,’ Barratt said. But Briggs pulled the bayonet off his rifle and forced it into his own neck. Barratt froze, then started ordering the corpse on. The enemy was creeping in all around them now. It was not the German army but something unknown and depraved. Night fell completely. All around, there was a glow of weird phosphorescent green with strange eyes glinting out from the depths. Then the sound of choking, unnatural breathing grew louder. They reached the barbed wire. Briggs was a wriggling corpse. Barratt whimpered as a submerged rusted mat of wire tore into his chest. Then an arc lamp flashed on, exposing the whole spread of panic-stricken men and a blast tore the freezing air, like the cruel roar of a thing relishing a long and easy kill. Hard, heavy footsteps started coming after them. The air was alive, tingling with bullets. Someone was helping him on. It was Briggs. Then Barratt put his mud-choked whistle to his lips, blew. Got up, waving his arms madly to his men. ‘Run for your lives!’ he screamed. ‘Run for your bloody lives!’

  Sitting bolt upright in the hard, blue moonlight, Barratt caught his breath. Sweat drenched his clothes, collected in the dip of his neck; his breathing was fast. He heard a movement in the corner of the cave.

  ‘You all right, mate?’ Sykes asked. A match flared, fell, then two orange points glowed in the dark. ‘ ‘Ere,’ he said, giving him a cigarette. They sat in the cave entrance. ‘I know what it’s like.’

  ‘I just want the whole damn thing to stop.’

  ‘It has.’

  ‘The fighting. Not the war. Did you read about the naval skirmish up north, see it on the billboards?’

  Sykes shrugged and stared out across the empty, starlit town.

  May arrived, with fat bursting buds on twigs, full green in the hedges and verges, a fullness, which the sun, wonderfully bright, made look as though the world had been washed in spring water. It was one of these days when Roger Deerman called by, bumping down the grass track in a new car that he was eager to show off. Joss saw him from the strawberry field where he was planting out the latest strong plants raised in the glasshouses. Calling to Tom who was mucking out the stable, he walked over to the courtyard, crossing the small stream that ran crystal-clear over worn stones.

  Deerman gave a wide, insincere smile as he saw them.

  ‘What a scene of industry!’ he said. ‘Thought I’d show off my latest acquisition.’

  ‘How interesting,’ said Joss.

  ‘Interesting! You could be a little more impressed John,’ squawked Deerman.

  ‘Oh it’s super, Roger,’ said Joss in a monotone.

  ‘Would you like some tea?’ asked Tom, standing back awkwardly.

  Deerman swerved his hungry gaze onto Tom. ‘Thank you, Thomas. At least someone around here has some manners!’

  Tom went into the cool kitchen, stood in the doorway catching the sun, while Joss tried to feign interest as he looked around the motorcar. Several minutes later Tom emerged carrying three mugs of steaming tea.

  ‘Oh mugs!’ said Deerman. ‘But I suppose this is the land of the hearties!’

  Joss patiently cleared his throat.

  Tom looked around the red motorcar with its pushed-back black hood and gleaming chrome wheels and trim.

  ‘You can sit in it, if you wish, sit in the driver’s seat,’ said Deerman. Tom went to get in; Deerman stepped forward quickly and put a travelling rug over the cream leather seat. Tom tried not to smirk and took the steering wheel. The feel was alien and odd.

  ‘Rather superb isn’t it!’ said Deerman, leaning into him. ‘Imagine all that power throbbing under your backside.’

  Tom went to get out. Deerman restrained him.

  ‘Turn the engine on, feel the power.’

  Tom clicked the door open and walked over to where his tea steamed on the stone wall by the gate.

  Joss sat in it and went through the bored motion of turning the ignition and revving the engine, which spewed exhaust and hung like ghosts in the new growth of the hazel bushes by the gate.

  ‘Yes, fantastic,’ said Joss flatly. ‘Now why don’t you go and have a little spin somewhere, preferably not round here.’

  Deerman’s mouth twitched. ‘Oh, do I sense a little jealousy, younger sib?’

  Joss glanced at him with a blank expression. ‘No.’

  Deerman looked over at Tom who was shaking hands with Nico, then back at his gleaming car, and drove away up the drive, bouncing comically in the seat as he negotiated the ruts. Several times the car slewed over mud and Deerman corrected it angrily
.

  Joss sat by Tom on the stone seat. ‘I wished I liked him more.’

  ‘He makes it rather difficult.’

  Joss downed his tea. ‘Come and have a look at the progress with the strawberry field,’ he said getting up.

  They walked over the sunlit courtyard and out into the meadow where the chickens were pecking and scratching. ‘I’ll need to move the coops over to the far pasture,’ said Tom as he strode over the small stream and onto the strawberry field; the soil studded at intervals with small plants. ‘We need to let this meadow for a hay crop to feed Jasper in the winter. ‘We can move the coops this afternoon, if you want,’ Joss said.

  They looked over the field, resting their elbows on the gate. The sun picked out the nearest plants.

  ‘How’s your back?’ Tom asked, squinting into the sun.

  ‘I need to stop for today,’ he said. ‘That’s why I thought we could move the chickens.’

  ‘I’ve heard ducks keep the slugs down,’ Tom said.

  Eight mallard ducks and drakes arrived at the halt a few days later. They had taken the cart up to take delivery and had laughed with the guard, as four large crates were unloaded amidst a tumult of quacking and hissing.

  ‘I thought these were ducks,’ said Joss as a drake hissed at him through the bars.

  ‘They are; they’re mallards.’

  Joss gave him a cross-eyed stare. ‘I think I know that. I didn’t know they hissed.’

  ‘They can be right feisty little buggers,’ said the guard. ‘The wife’s sister’s got some. One of them drakes runs after me, attacks me feet.’

  They laughed. The train drew away slowly and the driver let the steam out down the track, so as not to frighten the ducks.

  Jasper lumbered down the track as Joss lead him and Tom sat in the cart steadying the crates.

  Minutes later, the ducks were out in the field, flapping, squawking, and already feasting on slugs and snails amongst the straw Joss had laid around the plants. As they went to move away, one of the drakes stormed towards him like a winged wine bottle, and pecked at Joss’s heels.

  ‘I think he likes me,’ said Joss.

  They laughed. The sky above was a delicious mauve-blue.