‘My dad keeps live chickens and if a customer orders one he kills it in the sink at the back.’
‘We are the strongest species on the planet,’ Maley replied.
‘He makes me hold the bird while he slits its neck. They’re strong, chickens. It’s not a job for a kid.’
‘But not the wisest,’ Maley added ruefully.
We left the mill and continued upwards along a rough path.
‘He says a Bismillah as he presses down the knife. That way it’s halal. Then he tips it upside down so that the blood washes down the sink.’
‘Slitting its neck would really hurt a chicken.’ Maley’s face seemed to contort into a frozen mask. ‘I’m glad I wasn’t born you.’
I stared at him. It was a shock hearing that. I was about to say the same thing to him, but something stopped me. I closed my mouth and considered the view.
‘Look,’ I said, pointing, ‘I can’t see the top of Turner’s Hill anymore. It’s disappeared into the clouds.’
‘If we hurry we might see the edge of the rain.’ Maley’s eyes bulged with excitement.
‘The edge of the rain. How come I don’t know that?’ I struggled to keep up with Maley. Having little weight to carry he was sprightly.
After another hour of climbing circuitous, slippery paths, often having to fight our way through the undergrowth, we got to the top of Turner’s Hill. The rain had stopped, and we didn’t catch the edge of it. The low dark clouds limited our view to the large clumps of manure below our feet.
‘It’s fresh,’ said Maley seriously. ‘They have grazing up here, see.’
‘What, cows?’
‘Mostly horses,’ he said. ‘Scrap iron men. Gypos. Fairground when it comes. Must have gone into some barn on account of the weather. They’re clever, see, horses, can sense a storm.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Rode one once. At Pontins. Used to go every year. Don’t remember it though. Dad keeps a picture in a frame on the wall. Been on a beach as well and sat on a tractor.’
‘Thought you said you were poor?’ I looked him over, taking in his trousers that were a few inches too short, the vinyl parka falling like an apron to somewhere around his knees, his lively face painfully dotted with leaking acne.
‘I’ve seen pictures of me as a kid when we were rich.’
‘What happened?’
‘This bottle of pills she got from the chemist’s was wrongly labelled. She got irreversible liver disease.’
It made me suddenly angry that he was referring to his dead mother as she. ‘Wrongly labelled?’
I said it reflexively, and regretted it faster than a kingfisher could catch a fish. Maley didn’t reply. He took a few steps towards the base of the aerial and disappeared into the clouds. I kicked at the sodden earth, the air cold around me. Before I could start to worry about how I would make it back alone, a bush shook as though caught by the wind and Maley reappeared from behind it, his hand outstretched and covered in manure.
‘Look, I found a slow-worm. It’s a big one.’ He seemed happier than he had been all morning. Cupping his hands together, he held them out to me. I looked inside them, not putting my head too close. I could see something brown wriggling between a crack in his fingers.
‘They break easily.’ He turned away, guarding his hands. Carefully he lowered the worm onto the grass, then collected some foliage to tuck around it. ‘Mum said I should go watch them cremate her,’ he added.
‘I wouldn’t go,’ I said.
‘People do weird things. It’s just human nature. Animal kingdom, now that’s much better.’
‘I find animals boring.’
‘You think kingfishers are boring?’ Maley’s neck began to flush red, just like it did after a spitball was dropped on him from the stairwell or he was kicked from behind. ‘Well then, you’re an idiot like the rest of them.’
‘Well, I think kingfishers must be okay,’ I allowed.
‘They’re one of the fastest species on the planet.’
We meandered back down the hill. Maley stopped frequently, crouching to examine a plant or a bug, and once a wasp, apparently with no fear. He used words I had never heard before — alder, alderfly, ecotone, cowslip, gastropod, mallard, vole, cow parsley — and each time I’d nod and murmur a non-committal Yeah, sure, which seemed to satisfy him, and he’d get up and we’d carry on. Before we got to the road he stopped once again, next to a hedgerow.
‘Listen, can you hear it?’ His face was frozen in concentration. I shook my head. He put a finger to his lips and then carefully teased apart the branches of the hedgerow. ‘In here,’ he whispered, beckoning with a slant of his head.
I was cautious at first, fearing another dirty slow-worm, but when I looked in I saw the most beautiful thing. Deep within the hedgerow was a nest containing four tiny brown birds. They craned their necks and chirped with beaks that seemed paper-thin but far too big for their small heads.
‘Best not to disturb them,’ Maley whispered. He carefully replaced the foliage and tiptoed backwards. I couldn’t say anything, still enraptured by the image of those pink beaks, the tiny bodies chirping for all they were worth, short sharp tweets. ‘Their mother must be watching us from somewhere around here.’ Maley scanned the trees above us.
Once on the road we were both suddenly aware again of the fact that we had wagged school. As much as possible we kept to the side streets, and as the roads got busier we quickened our pace.
Maley led, lifting his chin and sniffing as though he was following his nose back to my house. ‘I’m hungry,’ he said, rubbing his stomach. ‘I can feel it turning over.’
‘Mum says that hunger is the very worst thing.’
‘She’s right,’ said Maley. ‘More than hungry, I’m starving.’
‘Mum doesn’t allow me to use the word starving. If I use it by accident she says a hundred Bismillahs.’
Already Turner’s Hill seemed a distant memory as I led Maley into the house. He peered wide-eyed into a large pot on the cooker. The steel sides of the pot were still warm. Mum had cooked the curry before going out to help at the shop. She didn’t serve customers, she worked out the back: plucking chickens, sealing them over a gas ring, gutting them and chopping the meat to order. She soaked chickpeas and lentils in brine so they could be sold soft, and she always had a large cauldron of oil on the go, deep-frying samosas and other battered savouries that were put on a large tray and sold up front. The back room was as much a part of the store as the shop itself. She also collected eggs from hens we kept in a yard to the rear of the shop, and boxed them ready for sale.
Maley pocketed the marble he had been turning over all day, smiled, and stirred the pot with a large wooden spoon.
‘It’s butter chicken, is that okay?’ I said.
Maley thought for a moment. ‘Well, if I ate a balanced diet I think I would be a vegetarian, but because of the way it is I allow myself some meat protein when I can get it.’
‘There’s bread in that cupboard.’ I pointed at it. ‘Can you get us some?’
I thought he would take two, perhaps three slices for each of us, but he placed the entire loaf on the table. I felt powerless to object and reassured myself that he’d probably eat only a few slices. I put some curry into two bowls and placed them on the table. Maley sat motionless, elbows on the table, his eyes fixed on the steam emanating from his bowl. He sniffed, looked at me and then back at the bowl, a worried expression on his face. He picked up a slice of bread and stopped.