There was a loud knock at the door, and Dog bared his teeth and growled like a wolf.
‘Fuck,’ we both whispered.
‘Who’s there?’ called Lloyd in a deeper voice than I’d heard him use before. He coughed with his mouth closed.
There was no answer, but the doorknob started to turn and rattle like someone was trying to get in.
I went towards the door.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Lloyd.
‘This is stupid,’ I hissed back. ‘Hold Dog.’ Lloyd grabbed him by the scruff and held on while he barked and wrestled about. If I had been on my own, I would have taken the axe handle to the door with me.
On the other side of the door was a man with a young face. His hair was gelled in neat rows from his crown to where it spiked over his eyes in mouse-brown spears. Wind came into the house and all I could think about was a time in the near future when this man would be gone and the door would be closed and the wind was outside again.
‘What do you want?’ I asked in a voice that was not as confident as I had hoped. He looked at me, confused. It looked like his hair interfered with his eyes, which were red and crusted with yellow. The skin around his chin and neck had been recently picked free of spots. He wore a slick-looking puffer jacket, and he stared at me, rubbing his index finger up the side of his nose. He sniffed hard.
‘Who are you?’ he asked. He looked around me in a way that made me think he was about to come inside. Dog barked behind me.
‘I live here,’ I said. ‘What do you want?’ He stopped rubbing his nose and looking over my shoulder, and looked at me a few beats.
‘Where’s me dad?’ asked the man.
‘Are you— Do you mean Don?’
‘I mean me dad and who the fuck are you?’ His eyebrows drew together.
‘I live here,’ I said again. ‘I bought this place off Don Murphy — if that’s your father, he lives over in the next valley now…’ But he was not listening, his mouth was open and he breathed through it, ran his flat palm up his nose to take care of a drip that had formed there.
‘You shacked up with the old fucker, are you? Yeah that’d be right, shack up with some cunt and forget about Samson, to fuck with Samson.’
Dog snarled.
‘Now then,’ said Lloyd from behind me, in a teachery voice. I drew myself up to my full height but the man was not put off. He looked at Lloyd.
‘An’ who the fuck is this bearded prick?’ His voice squeaked and he sniffed hard again. The wind knocked him in the back and he stumbled forward a step. There was white spittle at the edges of his mouth. He took a couple of steps back to steady himself and then a couple forward again. Dog’s barks rang out over the valley.
‘Careful,’ I said. I heard Lloyd drag Dog to his room to lock him in. The young man looked over my shoulder again.
‘Don’t put that filthy dog in my bedroom!’ he shouted. ‘What the fuck?’ I heard the door close on Dog, and he flung himself against it, howling and scratching. Lloyd came and stood by me.
‘Look,’ said Lloyd, ‘go over to the next valley and talk to your father. If you don’t go away, I’ll let the dog out, and he’s completely out of control.’
I looked at Lloyd.
‘Fuck you, grandad.’ The young man took another step forward, brought his fist up. Lloyd stepped in front of me and pushed him hard in the throat, and the young man gagged and staggered backwards, trying to catch his breath.
‘I told you,’ said Lloyd, ‘now get lost.’
Lloyd had lodged himself in the doorway, suddenly taking up a lot more space than he had before. The boy’s face sagged.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered and dug his wrists into his eye sockets. ‘I didn’t mean to be rude.’ He let out a small sob and turned around; in a few paces he was out of sight. From the dark came a muffled cry and the noise echoed around the house long after we’d closed the door. Dog yelped from the bedroom and Lloyd let him out. He turned three circuits of the kitchen table and went to stand by the door, looking at the gap underneath it with dark concentration.
Lloyd clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously. ‘Right,’ he said loudly, ‘shall we go to the pub then?’
I’d been to the Blacksmith’s Arms a couple of years ago. It hadn’t worked out. Sitting at the bar with a pint of something warm and treacly, I’d tried a rocky conversation with the barman.
‘The wind always this fierce?’ He’d looked at me with an unreadable face.
‘Sometimes.’
And then a drunk farmer had brushed against me and I’d barked at him. I’d left without drinking even a third of the pint.
When Lloyd went to the bar, I watched how easy it was for him, how the barman volunteered conversation without hesitating. It was warm, the light was low, and rain beat on the windows. Lloyd brought us over whiskies. He’d put too much ice in mine, and I hooked out two cubes and put them in an empty glass. Lloyd watched me but didn’t comment. The next one came with just one cube.
‘I never come here,’ I said after a while.
‘Why not? It seems nice. Nice ambiance.’
I looked at him a while before replying.
‘They don’t like me.’
‘Ha!’ said Lloyd. I frowned. ‘They’re just interested in you.’
‘Interested?’
‘Christ, I’ve been here half an hour and two people have already asked how I know you and what sheep you’re breeding.’
‘What did you say?’
‘I said I don’t, and they’re white ones.’
I glanced up at the barman, who was looking, and shifted in my seat. Lloyd didn’t seem bothered.
‘What will you do?’ he asked. ‘About the boy?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ll speak to Don in the morning.’
‘You think he could be the one — hurting your sheep?’
I turned my glass around on the table a few times. I didn’t. Watching him out there against the dark, I’d felt something strange wind its way up around my heart, like I recognised him, like we’d known each other once. Those spittle-grey eyes and desperate mouth.
‘I don’t know. He seemed mad.’ I stole a look at Lloyd and then downed my drink. ‘I’m not that sure it’s kids any more. I saw a fox this morning.’
‘Does he count as a kid?’
I shrugged. ‘He just seemed batshit.’
‘Right,’ said Lloyd.
We watched a teenager try to get served. In his hand he held some keys which I supposed he was hoping looked like the keys to his people carrier or his family townhouse. He wore a badly fitted jacket that on him looked like a school blazer.
‘Pint of cider, thanks,’ he said and the barman didn’t move to get the drink, just stared the boy down, resting his hands on the bar in front of him like he was bracing against it. The boy cleared his throat and nodded to the pump. ‘Cider, pint of, please.’ He looked like he had considered saying my good man at the end, but had rightly decided against it. The barman still did not move, just fixed the boy with a strong look. Then he slowly raised his arm and pointed, without looking, at the sticker underneath the spirits that had an 18 with a red line through it. He didn’t say a word, but the boy’s ears turned pink. He opened his mouth and closed it and then tried for a leisurely retreat, which he almost carried off, swinging his arms and keeping his knees soft and neck loose. But he stubbed his foot on the rug and it wasn’t much of an obstacle, he barely stumbled, but it took the ease out of his departure and the whole face went red and he sped out the door. The barman remained looking at the same spot in front of him like the boy was still there.
‘Terrible age,’ said Lloyd. ‘Can’t do anything with yourself.’ He drained his drink. ‘I don’t think they had a drinking age when I was a kid. What about you? I bet you got served.’