‘You okay?’ I asked and he straightened up. I tried not to smile.
‘It was all I could think to shout.’
I shrugged. ‘Worked.’
Lloyd wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. His eyes brightened.
‘Quite invigorating really,’ he said.
I walked up to the hawthorn stile and looked back down on the house. Over on Don’s side of the hill I could see the yellow glow of his electric lights — every window lit, even in daylight, like he was trying to burn off the fog with them. On the border of his property, I saw the vixen again, dragging with her a large bird, a pheasant maybe, I was too far away to tell. She pranced, holding her kill high, weaving and bouncing. I glanced at Dog but he had his nose to the ground smelling out the things that had been there in the dark. If her cubs had made it, they’d be getting bigger soon, hungrier, and the lambs were coming. I watched her disappear into the woods, and heard on the air the far-away tinkle of Don’s digital radio, which played tinny pop music. I patted the pocket with the fox bait in.
‘Hey.’ A girl was sitting on the stile, smoking. ‘You’re the woman in Samson’s old house.’
‘Who are you?’ I said, suddenly aware that I may have been talking out loud to myself.
The girl blew out a waterfall of smoke which played over her face. It must’ve stung her eyes but she showed no sign of that.
‘I’m Marcie. I went to the same school as him. I know you from the shop.’
‘Oh.’ She looked different out of her thick green tracksuit. She wore a full face of make-up and her hair was dirty blonde, straight and still.
Marcie narrowed her eyes at me. ‘This is public property, you can’t do anything about me being here.’ She squinted at me.
‘No. Would be good if you took your rubbish with you though.’ She didn’t react, apart from to take an open can of drink from the pocket of her overcoat. She drank it looking me in the eye, like she was waiting for me to be shocked.
‘What are you doing anyway?’ she asked, putting her can carefully back in her pocket.
‘I’m laying fox bait,’ I said, to have something definite and grown-up to offer her.
‘Isn’t that against the law?’
‘That’s fox hunting.’
‘Same difference.’
‘Not how most people see it.’
She lifted herself off the stile and came and stood next to me. Dog presented his nose to her and she touched it.
‘Your dog’s pretty wild-looking.’
‘He’s okay.’
‘What’s his name?’
I toyed with making one up to avoid the questions, but couldn’t think of a name that would be convincing.
‘Dog.’
Marcie shrugged off this information.
‘So what’ve you got against the foxes?’
‘It’s lambing season. You’d know that, being from around here?’
She hissed breath through her teeth. ‘I keep out of it. As soon as I can I’m away from here anyway.’ She drew her hair back from her head into a high ponytail and held it there. ‘I want to be in London. Or Sheffield.’
‘Cities can be crappy places too,’ I said.
She shrugged and let her hair drop back down to her shoulders. ‘At least they’re not boring.’
‘I suppose.’
‘So they eat the lambs?’
‘What?’
‘The foxes?’
‘Yes. I’ve seen you before.’
Marcie’s face showed no surprise or intrigue. ‘I told you — I know you from the shop. Anyway, everyone here has seen everyone before.’
‘Out on the Military Road. I’ve seen you there before. Your friend showed me his arse.’
‘He shows everyone.’
‘It wasn’t very nice.’
‘Take it up with him,’ she said and got her cigarettes out of her pocket. She shook two out. ‘Smoke?’
I looked at her for a moment. ‘Thanks.’ I don’t know if she expected me to take one, but again, there was no reaction. She held a lighter out to me and I made a shield with my hands to light up then handed it back.
‘You’re younger than everyone else,’ she said.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Everyone else who has a farm. And you’re a woman.’
‘I am,’ I said, and blew out smoke. For the first time she raised her eyebrows, but she closed her eyes as she did it which perhaps meant it was not surprise but something else. Disgust maybe.
‘Is that man you’re hanging out with your boyfriend?’
I frowned. ‘Have you been watching me?’
She shrugged again.
‘He’s just passing through. I don’t really know him.’
‘You just let people you don’t know stay in your house? Well, I suppose it keeps it fresh. You know he’s been doing some pretty funny shit around the place.’
‘What kind of funny shit?’
She shrugged again. ‘Sings to your dog quite a lot.’
We both looked at Dog, who gave a slow wag of his tail then looked away up the hill like he was thinking of something else.
‘He’s a strange man,’ I said.
Marcie smiled, and I smiled back. I would have liked her if I was her age.
‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’
She behaved as if she hadn’t heard me. ‘So this vendetta against the foxes — how come there are so many about if you lay all this poison for them?’
‘I don’t usually.’
‘So why now?’
‘Something’s been killing my sheep.’
‘Has it?’
‘It has. In fact, I thought it might have something to do with your lot.’
Marcie’s eyes widened but again she didn’t really address what I said. ‘I have this cousin, Wesley, on my mum’s side — he’s on the mainland but up north, way up north — and he’s just got in trouble for messing with horses.’
‘What kind of messing?’
‘What — do I have to spell it out for you? He fucked a horse,’ she said and there was silence. Then Marcie giggled and I smiled.
‘Don’t worry about spelling it out for me in the future,’ I said.
She took her can out of her pocket and took a swig. It was super-strength lager. After a pause she offered it to me. I shook my head.
‘Aren’t you young to drink?’
She cocked her head to the side. ‘Something?’
‘Huh?’
‘You didn’t say foxes are killing your sheep — you said something is killing your sheep. So you don’t really think it’s foxes?’
‘I don’t know.’ I used the cigarette to pause the conversation. I blew smoke out and it disappeared against the white sky. ‘Do you ever see… anything?’ I said. ‘I mean it feels like you’re out there all the time.’
Marcie smiled. ‘We see everything,’ she said, like she thought she was a teen witch. ‘I’ve seen things you couldn’t imagine.’ She looked into the distance and her smile softened a little. ‘But mostly, it’s just people having sex with each other.’
‘Anything that might be killing my sheep? Anybody?’
‘Oh!’ she said loudly. ‘There was a big fuck-off bear or some shit that Samson was telling us about.’
‘A bear?’
‘Not a bear — a big cat or a big dog or something. A beast. Samson’s full of shit though. He’s a bit… retarded, if that’s allowed. Mentally challenged? I don’t know. It’s not as bad as when my dad calls them coloureds.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said he doesn’t want any coloured people moving into the lane, not because he’s racist but because it’ll mean the house is worth less.’
‘What did Samson say, about the beast?’
‘Oh, I don’t know — it might have just had big feet or teeth or something. I think he’s telling stories. He likes telling stories. Sometimes he camps in the woods, and he reckons something was licking his tent in the night, that he shone his torch on it and it was this cat-eyed thing. I told him, it’s just the weed.’ She glanced at me when she said ‘weed’.