Ah Sweet Mystery of Life Read online

  ‘It was a mess,’ I said.

  ‘What!’ he cried.

  ‘Of course it was. We can’t possibly go back now. That keeper knows there was someone there.’

  ‘He knows nothing,’ Claud said. ‘In another five minutes it’ll be pitch dark inside the wood and he’ll be sloping off home to his supper.’

  ‘I think I’ll join him.’

  ‘You’re a great poacher,’ Claud said. He sat down on the grassy bank under the hedge and lit a cigarette.

  The sun had set now and the sky was a pale smoke blue, faintly glazed with yellow. In the wood behind us the shadows and the spaces in between the trees were turning from grey to black.

  ‘How long does a sleeping-pill take to work?’ Claud asked.

  ‘Look out,’ I said. ‘There’s someone coming.’

  The man had appeared suddenly and silently out of the dusk and he was only thirty yards away when I saw him.

  ‘Another bloody keeper,’ Claud said.

  We both looked at the keeper as he came down the lane toward us. He had a shotgun under his arm and there was a black Labrador walking at his heels. He stopped when he was a few paces away and the dog stopped with him and stayed behind him, watching us through the keeper’s legs.

  ‘Good evening,’ Claud said, nice and friendly.

  This one was a tall bony man about forty with a swift eye and a hard cheek and hard dangerous hands.

  ‘I know you,’ he said softly, coming closer. ‘I know the both of you.’

  Claud didn’t answer this.

  ‘You’re from the fillin’-station. Right?’

  His lips were thin and dry, with some sort of a brownish crust over them.

  ‘You’re Cubbage and Hawes and you’re from the fillin’-station on the main road. Right?’

  ‘What are we playing?’ Claud said. ‘Twenty Questions?’

  The keeper spat out a big gob of spit and I saw it go floating through the air and land with a plop on a patch of dry dust six inches from Claud’s feet. It looked like a little baby oyster lying there.

  ‘Beat it,’ the man said. ‘Go on. Get out.’

  Claud sat on the bank smoking his cigarette and looking at the gob of spit.

  ‘Go on,’ the man said. ‘Get out.’

  When he spoke, the upper lip lifted above the gum and I could see a row of small discoloured teeth, one of them black, the others quince and ochre.

  ‘This happens to be a public highway,’ Claud said. ‘Kindly do not molest us.’

  The keeper shifted the gun from his left arm to his right.

  ‘You’re loiterin’,’ he said, ‘with intent to commit a felony. I could run you in for that.’

  ‘No you couldn’t,’ Claud said.

  All this made me rather nervous.

  ‘I’ve had my eye on you for some time,’ the keeper said, looking at Claud.

  ‘It’s getting late,’ I said. ‘Shall we stroll on?’

  Claud flipped away his cigarette and got slowly to his feet. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

  We wandered off down the lane the way we had come, leaving the keeper standing there, and soon the man was out of sight in the half-darkness behind us.

  ‘That’s the head keeper,’ Claud said. ‘His name is Rabbetts.’

  ‘Let’s get the hell out,’ I said.

  ‘Come in here,’ Claud said.

  There was a gate on our left leading into a field and we climbed over it and sat down behind the hedge.

  ‘Mr Rabbetts is also due for his supper,’ Claud said. ‘You mustn’t worry about him.’

  We sat quietly behind the hedge waiting for the keeper to walk past us on his way home. A few stars were showing and a bright three-quarter moon was coming up over the hills behind us in the east.

  ‘Here he is,’ Claud whispered. ‘Don’t move.’

  The keeper came loping softly up the lane with the dog padding quick and soft-footed at his heels, and we watched them through the hedge as they went by.

  ‘He won’t be coming back tonight,’ Claud said.

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘A keeper never waits for you in the wood if he knows where you live. He goes to your house and hides outside and watches for you to come back.’

  ‘That’s worse.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, not if you dump the loot somewhere else before you go home. He can’t touch you then.’

  ‘What about the other one, the one in the clearing?’

  ‘He’s gone too.’

  ‘You can’t be sure of that.’

  ‘I’ve been studying these bastards for months, Gordon, honest I have. I know all their habits. There’s no danger.’

  Reluctantly I followed him back into the wood. It was pitch dark in there now and very silent, and as we moved cautiously forward the noise of our footsteps seemed to go echoing around the walls of the forest as though we were walking in a cathedral.

  ‘Here’s where we threw the raisins,’ Claud said.

  I peered through the bushes.

  The clearing lay dim and milky in the moonlight.

  ‘You’re quite sure the keeper’s gone?’

  ‘I know he’s gone.’

  I could just see Claud’s face under the peak of his cap, the pale lips, the soft pale cheeks, and the large eyes with a little spark of excitement dancing slowly in each.

  ‘Are they roosting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Whereabouts?’

  ‘All around. They don’t go far.’

  ‘What do we do next?’

  ‘We stay here and wait. I brought you a light,’ he added, and he handed me one of those small pocket flashlights shaped like a fountain-pen. ‘You may need it.’

  I was beginning to feel better. ‘Shall we see if we can spot some of them sitting in the trees?’ I said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I should like to see how they look when they’re roosting.’

  ‘This isn’t a nature-study,’ Claud said. ‘Please be quiet.’

  We stood there for a long time waiting for something to happen.

  ‘I’ve just had a nasty thought,’ I said. ‘If a bird can keep its balance on a branch when it’s asleep, then surely there isn’t any reason why the pills should make it fall down.’

  Claud looked at me quick.

  ‘After all,’ I said, ‘it’s not dead. It’s still only sleeping.’

  ‘It’s doped,’ Claud said.

  ‘But that’s just a deeper sort of sleep. Why should we expect it to fall down just because it’s in a deeper sleep?’

  There was a gloomy silence.

  ‘We should’ve tried it with chickens,’ Claud said. ‘My dad would’ve done that.’

  ‘Your dad was a genius,’ I said.

  At that moment there came a soft thump from the wood behind us.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Ssshh!’

  We stood listening.

  Thump.

  ‘There’s another!’

  It was a deep muffled sound as though a bag of sand had been dropped from about shoulder height.

  Thump!

  ‘They’re pheasants!’ I cried.

  ‘Wait!’

  ‘I’m sure they’re pheasants!’

  Thump! Thump!

  ‘You’re right!’

  We ran back into the wood.

  ‘Where were they?’

  ‘Over here! Two of them were over here!’

  ‘I thought they were this way.’

  ‘Keep looking!’ Claud shouted. ‘They can’t be far.’

  We searched for about a minute.

  ‘Here’s one!’ he called.

  When I got to him he was holding a magnificent cockbird in both hands. We examined it closely with our flashlights.

  ‘It’s doped to the gills,’ Claud said. ‘It’s still alive, I can feel its heart, but it’s doped to the bloody gills.’

  Thump!

  ‘There’s another!’

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