It Knows Where You Live (14 page)

The rain has stopped by now. Bill unzips his cagoule but keeps it on; Hannah peels hers off and ties the arms around her waist, wearing it like a skirt. The V-necked fleece she has on under the rain jacket is tight-fitting. Bill feels his gaze drawn to her large breasts.
 

They made love last night, listening to the rain as it hammered against the small Velux windows of the converted roof space. It was the first time in weeks she allowed him anywhere near her, and although he was fully satisfied, he felt her own experience was disappointing. It was nothing she said, just the way she turned her back on him afterwards. Then she wrapped the quilt around her body to form a barrier between them.

Sometimes he feels Hannah is only with him because he is easily dominated. That and his money: there is always the money to consider...

The sheep roam sluggishly in their field, moving as a loose group and keeping pace with the couple as they walk. Bill starts to feel uncomfortable. He is sure they aren’t meant to behave like this. The sheep stare at them—every single one of them watching with small black eyes. It is strange, having all those animal eyes upon him. He doesn’t even think Hannah has noticed.

“There’s the sun,” she says, falling into step alongside him. “At last.”

The sun strains to penetrate the clouds, succeeding for brief seconds before it is swamped once again by the darkness in the sky.
 

“Well,” says Hannah. “At least it’s trying.” She links her arm with his, rubbing at his forearm with her other hand. He wishes she’d stop. He doesn’t like it.

Bill stares hard at the side of her face. Sweat forms a glistening line from her brow to her jaw. Her skin, outside in the open air, looks paler than it was last night—as if her year-round tan has receded under the onslaught of the rain. Her teeth—each impeccable one—look false, like plastic dental models in a medical display. Her hair resembles a limp wig. Taken out of her element and placed into nature, her beauty fades to a point that she is almost ugly.

Beside them, a sheep lets out a sound something between a
baaa
and a bleat. The animal sounds as if it might be in pain...or angry at something.

Bill stops walking and glances towards the low fence. A single grubby sheep, its tattered fleece hanging like an ill-fitting garment, stands against the wire-strung uprights. The rest of the sheep are standing in a line behind this first one. They are staring at Bill and Hannah.

“What the hell is this?” Hannah lets go of him. She takes a couple of steps back, her boots slipping on the wet dirt.

Bill steps forward, towards the fence. The sheep is rubbing itself against the barrier, worrying at its flesh with the barbed wire. Blood has dyed the patchy fleece dark red—a dirty stain. The sheep keeps on making that weird sound—half bleat, half normal sheep-like
baaa
ing noise.

“Stop that,” says Bill, feeling foolish. “Come on, boy. No need for that.”

“It’s so depressing out here even the sheep are self-harming.” Hannah laughs again at her own joke, but nervously. “Jesus, Bill—stop it from doing that, would you? It’s gross.”

The sky is still dark, but shafts of sunlight attempt to pierce its armour here and there, creating bright slashes. Bill squints at the great dark clouds, imagining the vastness of space above them, and then returns his attention to the sheep.

Its fleece—or what remains of it—is now almost entirely red. The sheep is still rubbing its body against the barbed wire, and each of the barbs has snagged either a lump of flesh or a hank of red-matted wool. At least the sheep has stopped making that awful sound, but its fellows are still standing behind it in silent encouragement. The line they form is almost regimented, as if this is part of some bizarre ritual and their role in events is simply to stand and watch.

“Oh, please...stop it, would you? Just stop it.”

The sheep carries on mutilating itself against the wire. By now the barbs have dug right into its side, tearing away hunks of meat to reveal the wetness beneath. Blood flows freely along its hide, down its stiff little legs, and splashes the wet grass.

“I’m going.” Hannah starts to walk away, heading forward in the direction of the castle they will eventually reach if Bill’s map-reading skills aren’t as bad as she clearly expects them to be. He watches her narrow back as she quickly puts some distance between herself and this horrible sight.

The sheep keeps rubbing, rubbing—Bill is unable to move away. The sky and the clouds press down on him. He feels for some reason as if he should stay here and watch until the sheep is done. Walking away would be an insult. This creature is baring itself to him, opening up its body to display a secret, so the least he can do is observe until the end.

The other sheep watch in silence. But now, instead of staring at the lone sheep, they are watching Bill. Their dark eyes are unblinking; they don’t move as much as an inch as they stand and stare.
 

Bill wonders if they are waiting for something. If there is an act he is meant to perform; his part of the ritual.

Finally the mad sheep sags against the fence. There is a wide rent in its side, and a curl of intestine bulges from the wound, like an extreme hernia. The fence creaks as the sheep leans all of its weight against the flimsy structure, but the boundary holds. The other sheep remain there for a second more, and then, one by one, they turn away and head to different parts of the field. Shortly there is just him and the lacerated sheep. The animal makes no sound, but it keeps staring at him. It stares and stares, and at last Bill realises it must be dead.

He turns away and walks after Hannah. This entire event has been strange, like something from a nightmare, but now he is afraid. The death of the sheep feels like the beginning of something—as if a rite has been performed, and whatever was summoned is now abroad, walking the rain-flattened fields and the narrow lanes, looking for someone to blame.

To blame for what?
 

His mind is reeling; his thoughts make little sense.
 

The death of one of its minions?

This is getting silly—no, it has moved beyond silly, and is now becoming worrying. He struggles to keep hold of his natural optimism. It is as if Hannah’s viewpoint has clouded his emotions, and is forcing him to see the things she does,
feel
the way she does.

Hannah is nowhere in sight. The lane cuts a straight line between the fields, but he can see nobody walking ahead of him. It is as if she’s vanished—or perhaps run off into one of the fields, trying to escape him and his effete urbanite demeanour. He remembers last night, when she lay there with her back to him; and the sound of her breathing as she pretended to sleep.

The rain starts up again, drizzle at first but then turning to proper rainfall. He thinks about pulling up his hood but for some reason the idea of getting soaked appeals to him. Let it rain: he can put up with more discomfort than everyone thinks. He isn’t the weed people make him out to be; he is a self-made businessman with a six-figure income. You have to possess some strength of character to survive in the world of corporate buy-outs and low men in identikit suits.

“Hannah!” His voice is swallowed by the lowering sky. Even if she is in earshot, she will never hear him calling her name. He begins to run. Not too fast, just jogging pace. Because if he increases his speed much more than this, he might be forced to face the possibility he is on the verge of panic.

The cold rain keeps him switched on; his cheeks sting, his eyes hurt. Once he starts to breathe heavily, and realises there is little point in running, he slows again to walking pace.
 

Hannah is not here. She has gone...somewhere else. Somehow she has managed to slip away, and perhaps she is now on her way back to the cottage, where she’ll make coffee and put on the television so she can drown out all thoughts of Bill.
 

Well
, he thinks.
Fuck her.
Fuck you, Hannah. This is it. It’s the end. I can’t do this any more.

Somewhere deep inside he accepts that he is lying to himself, but still it feels good to pretend he is dumping her. He will enjoy her sudden realisation that the money supply is being cut off for good.
 

He stops walking and turns around, trying to see if he can spot her in one of the fields. Maybe she’s gone for a piss, or is hiding just to wind him up. She likes to play little jokes, even when her audience is unresponsive to her kind of games. He half expects to see her lying down on the wet grass, or squatting behind one of the stunted little bushes dotted like watchers throughout the landscape.

The sky near the horizon is so close to the ground it looks like a barrier coming down; all he can see is a thin slit of gauzy greyness between earth and cloud, a narrow passage through which anything could slip unnoticed.

When Bill looks behind him the sheep are standing on his side of the fence. There is no gate. It’s as if they’ve just appeared there, stalking him.

The lane is blocked by a wall of grubby woollen flanks, cold staring eyes and hard little hooves. They stand in lines four or five deep—he could have sworn there were fewer of them back in the field, watching the other sheep’s slow ritual suicide; but now there are at least a hundred of the critters, and they are standing right behind him.

Was that what he witnessed back there, some kind of deliberate animal suicide? Is there a type of weird country virus—a sheep version of Mad Cow Disease—that forces them to do this to themselves?

Jesus. It’s almost funny—might have been if it were not for the silent animals, all of them watching him, waiting for his next move. Funny in the way Hannah’s jokes often are: cruel and hurtful and just the slightest bit unnerving.

The sheep watch him impassively, yet with a cruel intelligence. He watches them back, afraid to move in case he spooks them. He’s scared of a bunch of sheep—the very idea is absurd, yet it is true. He is terrified.

Then he sees what they’ve brought him.
 

The offering.
 

Because that’s exactly what this is: an offering or devotion, like votive candles on a church alter or wilting flowers left beside a loved one’s grave.

A small, ragged shape in the front rank of livestock is even now being pushed forward. The others are pressing against it with their red-smeared noses, kicking at it with their cloven feet. He sees something pink and sopping, staining the ground red: an ugly package of wool, flesh and dirt, all rolled up and tied clumsily with barbed wire. Then he glimpses what looks like a torn piece of black plastic—
part of
the hood of a cagoule?
—peeking from within the sodden ruin, but only for a second. Less than a second. And could that be a shard of spectacle lens stuck to the clammy mass?

Whatever it is, this sad, twisted thing, there is too little left of it to properly identify.

The rain falls harder, heavier, obscuring his vision.

Bill stands there for what feels like hours before the phalanx of sheep finally turns and walks away. He waits even longer before taking a tentative step towards the bundle on the ground. And he prays to the darkened heavens that when he reaches it all he’ll find will be the mutilated remains of the dead sheep.

He walks forward in silence, too afraid to say her name.

SMALL THINGS

Sheila had always known it was the small things in life that mattered; the miniscule details that made the world go round and often even stopped it in its tracks. Take her current situation, for instance: if John had simply thought about how his absence might affect Abby’s emotional state, he might have turned up to watch the school hockey match last night instead of working late at the office. Oh, he had offered a seemingly valid excuse; he always did. But the fact that he worked long hours to help pay for the things Abby needed—school uniform, trips away, pocket money—didn’t hold much water with a father-fixated thirteen year-old looking for the slightest excuse to storm off in a huff.

Sitting in the car, staring at the stationary traffic up ahead, Sheila wondered if they’d tried harder, things might have worked out differently. If she and John were still together, how much better would their lives be?

Then she remembered the other small things. The lack of affection, the way he never seemed to want any kind of physical contact unless it led to sex, the countless times he’d gone out to the pub rather than sit in the house with her, just talking about their future, and then returned to paw at her until she relented.

“Screw you,” she muttered, reaching out to turn on the radio. She caught the end of a news update regarding the state of the rush-hour traffic. Looking through the windscreen, she saw enough to suspect the news had been bad. An accident, or perhaps road works, somewhere further along the dual carriageway leading into town.

The car ahead of her lurched suddenly and then stopped after gaining only a paltry few yards of burnished black tarmac. Sheila sighed. She looked at the clock on the dashboard. 4:05 p.m. She was already late, but had spoken to Abby’s teacher earlier to warn her of the possibility of Abby being kept behind until she arrived.

“Come on, come on.” She drummed her fingers on the steering column, seeking the music’s beat but failing to grasp it. Sickening of the unrecognisable tune, she changed the channel and listened to a dull middle-class voice introduce a programme about film soundtracks.

“Jes-sus!”

As if in response, the traffic started to move; slowly, inch by inch, but this time it kept on going. Sheila allowed her foot to fall against the accelerator pedal, and when the familiar one-way system began to suck her in, she felt a burst of relief in her chest.

It was 4:15 p.m.

The spaces between cars increased as the blockage cleared; Sheila felt her car build up speed, and thanked the gods of the road for getting on with things. The noses of vehicles nudged out of various side roads as she skirted the town centre, but she did not have the time or inclination to let them out of their pens. Then, finally, she saw the familiar school signs and it seemed as if everything would work out just fine—the head teacher wouldn’t be too annoyed and Abby might not go into one of her usual moods.