The Opened Cage

by S. C. Howe

  And so, as Joss slept out of pain, Tom walked with Nico across the heath where there appeared to be no other human, and he was grateful for that. Doing things just for the enjoyment of it was something new for him, he thought, as he rounded a patch of gorse and noticed, as if for the first time, its rash of yellow, coconut-smelling flowers. Turning back he nearly walked straight into Roger Deerman who held a gun, broken for safety, across his arm. Tom turned and started to walk back to the farm.

  ‘Fielder, I’d like a word with you.’

  Tom stopped, but did not turn round. Deerman could see the tension in his shirt-clad back.

  ‘I want to apologise,’ Deerman said. Tom turned to face him. Instead of the cowed, nervous expression Deerman expected and wanted, he was met with a look of anger and undisguised dislike.

  ‘Well, go on then.’

  Deerman’s face tightened into haughtiness. ‘I apologise,’ he said brusquely.

  ‘You nearly ruptured me,’ Tom said. ‘Did you know that?’

  Deerman turned his face away. ‘We had sex, that’s all. I didn’t attack you as you told everyone.’

  ‘Really? I remember it rather differently.’

  There was a silence. Tom started to walk away.

  ‘I apologise then if I was rather too keen.’

  ‘Keen? Brutal I’d call it.’

  Deerman shifted uncomfortably. ‘It was only because I really had to have you.’

  Tom looked at him with incredulity. ‘So it’s a case of what you want, you get, is it?’

  A flicker of a smile showed on Deerman’s face. ‘I wanted you. Still do as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Well, get this into your head: I don’t want you. I didn’t then and I don’t now! Do you understand?’

  ‘So if you were so unwilling, why did you go hard in my hand?’

  ‘That’s a physiological response. Any man in that situation would have had a response.’

  ‘I see; you’d have an erection with any man, would you?’

  Tom stared at him. ‘You know what I’m talking about.’

  ‘Does John know all this? I’m sure he’d be very interested to know his boy can get it up for anyone, including a female tart. Maybe I’ll tell him.’

  ‘I’ve already told him what happened, so you blackmail me all you like – it won’t work.’

  Deerman considered. ‘Look Fielder, I came over to apologise if I had been too rough.’

  Tom shrugged. ‘So now you’ve done that, you can get on your way.’

  Deerman caught hold of him by the arm. ‘I felt something different with you,’ he said quickly. ‘Normally I just expend myself, but with you I felt something. It was different.’

  Fielder’s face contracted. ‘Believe me, all you did was expend yourself – don’t delude yourself that it was anything more. It was revolting.’

  Deerman stepped back. For a second there was a flash of raw emotion, but then his face stiffened into its usual slightly mocking expression. His jaw tightened and he walked away.

  A week or so later, Tom was brushing down Jasper after harrowing one of the arable fields – they were converting it to pasture and he had sourced a good clover and varied grass mix. From now on, he would let the wild grasses and sedge seed where they would, return it to what he had ploughed up in his obsession for expansion. That afternoon Joss had weeded the flowerbed by the house and found the remains of what Tom had planted just for the sake of it; in this Joss scattered some wild flower seed he had kept from the previous summer. It had been a pleasant spell of weather and he had sat out in the sun, potting on some of the hundreds of strawberry plants he had grown from suckers. The Greeners had left the previous week; they had been awkward at first but when Joss pressed Joe Greener’s hand and genuinely wished him the very best, they had relaxed and left on good terms and the promise they could call on them at harvest if they needed extra hands. They were moving to help on a bigger farm that was expanding and needed extra farmhands. That evening he and Tom had sat in the early evening sun on the stone bench in front of the house.

  ‘Back to just you and me,’ Joss said.

  ‘I’m glad. Also because from what I’ve heard, there are straightened times ahead for farming. People have been talking about it at the farm merchants.’

  Joss stared ahead, either not fully listening or disinterested, Tom could not tell.

  ‘All we need is to feed ourselves and keep warm; the rest is almost an irrelevance seeing what we’ve been through,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  Joss looked at Tom. ‘Are you sure this is enough for you?’ His tone was serious. ‘I’ll be quite happy just trundling along, but if you want to diversify, then we can do that. I don’t want to hold you back.’

  ‘The one thing I realised when I was wandering around, virtually out of my head, was that what we have together is everything to me, and it’s all I want.’

  Joss had hugged him.

  And so to getting much of the land back to permanent pasture. Sowing mixes that weren’t the most hard-wearing, but were ones with the most types of grasses. Looking after the hedges and trees and the rest of the natural world he had inadvertently driven out by the plough and bow saw, which would come back. Tom had seen it in Flanders, how, even after the most devastating of bombardments, nature had come creeping back like shadows, little by little, once the guns had gone. He remembered travelling back through a landscape that had seemed destroyed for all time, and then seeing with a shock of astonishment the riot of colour from the annual flowers that had swarmed back to inhabit the land. And now, he looked over land he had tried to plough up and control, and shook his head, but knew it would heal if he just left it alone.

  On a late afternoon later that week in the stable as he brushed Jasper down he thought he saw something flit across the back of the barn. He stared into the darkness. No, it was nothing; corner of the eye stuff.

  The following day, at about the same time and doing the same job, he saw the same thing. Tom was keen on routine; if he were honest, it gave him a security now he had largely given up his numbers thing. Putting down the brushes, he went over to the back of barn and promptly fell over a small roll of barbed wire. He frowned. He was sure he hadn’t put that there, and he knew Joss had been up at the glasshouses all day. He picked the roll up, walked over to the door and dropped it as though it was on fire. Entangled were shreds of khaki and what could only be bits of flesh. His mouth went dry and he looked back into the barn then something gave within him. His heart started to thud, his eyes widened. Then he picked up the roll and threw it out of the barn and into the courtyard. Nico came running over, ears and tail streaming behind him and went for the bits of flesh.

  ‘Leave it!’ shouted Tom and grabbed hold of the dog’s collar. Dragging him back to the house he shut Nico in, found a heavy-duty sack and thrust the wire inside, tying the top tightly. Joss came limping over as quickly as he could.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked; his face was alarmed. ‘I heard this appalling noise.’

  Tom made the split second decision not to involve him. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘A rat got caught in the wire so I had to get it in a sack. I’ll get it dumped on the way to market.’

  Joss looked pale and Tom realised, with a sickening feel, that the walk over at such a pace had hurt him.

  The next day Tom came back to attend to the horse an hour earlier, and, as he brushed the horse down, he cast around for any movement or anything out of its place. Nothing. Everything was silent. It was only as he was hanging up the brushes, that he saw the large blood-soaked patch of canvas lying across one of the stalls. He saw it from the corner of his eye at first, and his gaze went creeping to it. This time he made no sound. Joss had suffered another night of pain because of the too fast walk to the barns the previous afternoon. This time Tom would say nothing, do nothing. He rolled the canvas up to a small area, stuffed it into another sack which was mercifully dry and, making himself breathe slowly, he went over
to the range and crammed it into the firebox.

  So it went on, day after day: a blood-soaked field dressing falling on his head as he opened the stable door, a handful of spent bullets clattering down from a ledge. Tom had looked up and shouted into the dark.

  ‘You’ve had your fun, whoever you are. Come on out and face me. I’ll settle this once and for all!’

  There was an odd laugh from outside; the words ‘Tom Clomper’ were called out in a nasal twang as footsteps sounded over the cobbles. Tom ran out, but Deerman had run into the cover of the woodland to one side of the track and then up and away onto the railway line. The next evening Tom had gone into the barn early and found the words scrawled on the wall in chalk: ‘Never let you forget, pansy boy.’ All the time this was happening Tom stayed quiet, not wanting to alert Joss, or worry him, and that evening he sat with him by the range and Joss had tried to engage him in light talk and stared at his pale, anxiety-drawn face. It was as though Tom was waiting for something profoundly dreadful to happen which would always be at some future date and this was their swan song. Bit by bit the numbers dribbled back into his head and Tom found himself touching the barn door four times, the next time touching his ear twice; small things so that Joss wouldn’t notice.

  ‘What is it Tom?’ Joss had asked. ‘I know there’s something.’

  Again, it was an immediate decision and Tom peered up. ‘Just tired,’ he said.

  Sykes was skinning a few rabbits in the front of the cave when Tom walked in.

  ‘All right?’ said Sykes.

  Tom nodded.

  ‘What’s up with you?’ Sykes continued. ‘You look like crap.’

  ‘Just tired that’s all,’ Tom continued. ‘I’ve dropped by to tell you to watch out. Joss’s brother appears to have taken it upon himself to tackle poachers. I saw him on the heath above our farm with a gun.’

  ‘So why should I be worried over this way?’ Sykes was now giving him his full attention.

  ‘Roger Deerman is a big-wig on the town and parish councils.’

  ‘Oh, one of them,’ Sykes said dismissively. ‘I’ll stick his gun up his arse if he starts any lord of the manor crap with me!’

  Tom hesitated. ‘Sykes, just be careful, will you? I think he’s up to something.’

  Later, Sykes considered this warning as he lay on his mattress by the fire. Whistle was upside down on the other, waggling his paws in a dream about running.

  All things considered, he had a pretty good life out here, Sykes thought, even better now spring was coming on. He had a middleman in Kidderminster for his poached rabbits and pheasants – a case of don’t ask any questions – who paid him well for the game he and Whistle caught. No, Fielder was an anxious, introvert sort, and was that because of the war, or before? he wondered, and fell into an velvet-black sleep.

  The incidents at Heathend had stopped after a week and Tom dared to hope it was a transient thing. No-one in the village or at the local pub acted any differently towards him, no-one gave him an askance look or muttered anything as he passed. No, all was as normal and people were friendly to him as they had always been and life moved on in its gentle way. The world was greening up all around and the sun lit up the early May flowers, speckling the countryside with whites and the bright yellow of dandelions jewelling the thickening green of the meadows.

  Day by day, the numbers thing drifted back to the subterranean caves of his mind, and, one warm afternoon he walked down a back street from the cattle market, taking a quicker back road to the railway station.

  ‘Oi mister! Want to use our firing range?’ came a youth’s voice. ‘Six rounds for threepence.’

  He considered. He had liked the feel of the Lee-Enfield rifle in training, he had to admit it, although then it had been held in ignorance. But what would it be like now, actually using a gun, knowing what it did to people. He went in. The range was actually a makeshift booth in the very long cellar and comprised a concrete floor, mildewed in one corner by a broken drain, the brick walls of the pub and the back of a warehouse. The place smelled of mould and stagnant drains.

  ‘Use a gun before, ‘ave you?’ asked the youth, holding up a Webley service revolver.

  ‘Only in training.’

  The youth looked to his mate who was sitting on an upturned box and who was obviously the older of the two. Their strained look of tolerance vanished. ‘What d’you mean ‘only in training’?’ demanded the older youth, jumping down.

  ‘You weren’t a conchie, were you?’ asked the other.

  ‘Yeah, let all the rest of us do your dirty work.’ The youths started to corner him. ‘Were you out there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then of course you used a–’

  ‘I was a stretcher-bearer. On the front line.’

  ‘Oh, right then mate, right. Now you’re talking... Here, ‘ave a go.’

  Tom took the Webley, while the older youth stood beside him, giving him a quick lecture on how to use it before leaving him. Lying down on his stomach, legs spread for balance, Tom distributed his weight, became comfortable with the weapon and after getting a few bullets near the bulls eye, had to admit he was getting some deep satisfaction, even pleasure, from it. At first it was just the sensation of getting bullets near the centre, but as one round went to another, his heart started to beat faster. Slowly the target became some vague outline of anger and his aim became truer. He knew something was coming. For a second he put the revolver down, felt himself start to sweat. This was wrong, surely. This was the sort of feeling he had during the rugby fight on the front line, where he had enjoyed the sensation. How long before he saw a face and not a target?

  ‘All right chum?’ said the older youth, peering down and finding Tom still had unused rounds. ‘You just take it easy. You ain’t got nothing to prove,’ he added as an afterthought, seeing the strain on Tom’s face. Then, as he aimed the gun, Tom felt his eyes narrow. Roger Deerman. It came to him as though a veil had been snatched away from a clear, obvious meaning. It was his face he wanted to see in the centre of the target. The wood near the bulls eye blistered with bullets. As each spent case fell, so his guilt dropped. Yes, it was Deerman he wanted to get. He reloaded the magazine and fired, again and again, shattering the target.

  ‘Ere, hold on mate!’ shouted the older youth. ‘I don’t want the bleedin’ pub demolished!’

  It was then that Tom realised the barrel was hot. He then saw that several of the shots had knocked out bits of brickwork.

  ‘Want another go?’ the younger youth asked eagerly, seeing he was out of bullets.

  ‘I don’t think I’d better,’ Tom said, with an odd smile. ‘I was enjoying it too much.’

  ‘All the more reason to have another go then, ain’t it?’

  ‘I wasn’t enjoying it in quite the way you were thinking,’ Tom said, handing over the revolver.

  The youth gave him a sideways look and loped off, leaving Tom to walk out alone, feeling like a panther padding around the town looking for a fight – wishing he could meet Deerman and knock the crap out of him. He stopped still, surprised how easily the thought had come to him. Throughout the war, throughout his life in fact, he had accepted orders, his supposed fate, without question. Passivity had been at his core. It had been a continuation of his youth: orders accepted because there seemed no other way. He had had to buckle down to survive. But not now.

  A dog trotted out in front of him, head up, its flag of a tail streaming out behind like Nico’s, and Tom had to come to a stumbling stop against a man who was arranging a fruit display outside his shop.

  ‘There’s a lot of these mutts round here, raiding the bloody bins and everything,’ he said, as they regained their balance. ‘Especially now they’re cracking down on the poachers.’

  ‘Are they, still?’

  ‘Some new councillor’s got a bee in his bonnet.’

  The dog stopped and stood side on to them as though listening, its mouth lolled open as though grinning. This and its n
onchalant attitude made Tom laugh. It carried on trotting ahead of him as he went through the Bull Ring, passed the cabstands and down onto a brick-paved ramp to the River Stour. Several people were huddled around a brazier under the bridge where another lurcher sat cleaning its ears indolently. The dogs were uncouth-looking creatures with wiry black coats and sprouts of grey fur sticking out randomly at right angles.

  ‘You wantin’ summat?’ a woman asked. She was middle-aged, dressed in an over-sized coat tied with a belt, and had a man’s scarf tied over her head.

  ‘I was admiring your dogs,’ said Tom, his voice firm, not apologetic.

  ‘Oh yeah?’ The woman watched him carefully. A man, probably her husband, caught hold of a dog that was sniffing along the railings; he had a pronounced limp, so painful he had to sit down after a few seconds.

  ‘You can have her – if yer price is right.’

  Tom thought. It was a female so no threat to Nico. Nico was light and wiry; this dog was dark and sprouting.

  ‘Used to be me working dogs till me accident,’ the man explained. ‘Can’t afford to keep two. And this one keeps wandering off. Missus and me can’t keep her tied up, it ain’t fair. Her’s not used to it. We was after a better life out in the country; now we’m stuck down ‘ere.’

  ‘What sort of working dog is she?’ Tom asked.

  ‘What’s it to you, son?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Only interested.’

  ‘Are you the law or summat?’

  ‘No I’m not.’

  ‘Ow’s ten bob?’

  Tom nodded, wondering what an earth Joss would say when he turned up with this disreputable looking animal.

  ‘You mind you’re good to her. Her’s a good dog and I only wants her to have a better life.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Muffin.’

  ‘Muffin it is then,’ said Tom, feeling in his coat pocket and finding the right money.