GOOSEBERRY FOOL
1
THE DAY WAS hot, with small white clouds studding a bright sky. The lady in the gooseberry patch paused to take off her gloves. Her palms were sore, the balls of her thumbs swollen like fruit. A cow lowed in the distance.
‘Ah,’ she said, thinking of her absent husband.
2
In the bright morning sun, his waxy table cloth shone like silver. The stainless steel cutlery sparkled; warm little glints bounced off the polished china. He looked with such pleasure at his radiant napkin-rings. Just before work, he ate breakfast right from the toaster so he wouldn’t spoil the magic.
3
Phil could conceive of nothing finer than nicking off. Free! The word ricocheted around his ratty little brain. He poked about the garage, knocked around the snooker balls, played with his dad’s collection of Zippos. Then it came to him. Wolfing three cans of beans, he waited for the rumbles.
4
After a long walk across the moors she sat down by a beck. Taking off her shoes and socks, she slipped her tired feet into the water. It ran cool and clear over her toes.
Only later did she notice the carcass, its front leg bent awkwardly into the stream.
5
Under the sprawling ladder, Jim came to. He reached out a hand and pain rocketed through his back and legs. He felt clammy and nauseous. His lunch, on top of the toolbox, shimmered like a mirage. After a while things went numb.
So this is how it feels, he thought.
6
He stood, stock still, beside a tree. In the woods nothing moved, the heat thick between branches. His rifle lay flat against his side. He took quick shallow breaths, sweat sliding down his brow. When the deer came it was young, and thinking of his mother he lowered the gun.
7
At the gates of the village school, Billy waited nervously. They’d tortured him again that morning - ‘Fatty, fatty! Tree-trunk legs!’ – and would soon be outside, cracking their hairy knuckles. All he needed was luck, timing and a thin stick. Good.
Gravel, cool and sharp, glinted wickedly in the sun.
8
Daisy scowled at the Moulinex. She’d always hated this dessert, its spiny little sharpnesses and flabby cream, but nothing was too much trouble for cousin Tom. Doubtless they’d eat to the strains of London-is-Wonderful. As she reached for sugar she spotted the baking powder, the corn flour - the salt.
9
Summer noises across the valley – distant tractors, the creak of a gate, rising birds – washed over him as he lay back in the heather and closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids shapes moved slowly, like fingers.
He slept, waking only when a plane, tiny overhead, began to splutter and stall.
10
He hadn’t expected this. All right, his seventh pint was long gone – and then he’d switched to whiskies – but he felt marvellous. The gooseberry fence hadn’t put up much resistance. Outlined against the starry sky, the goosegogs looked like tremendous thumbs. That one forking the moon, the finger of God.
First published in The Phone Book 3.1 (Arts Council England, 2002)
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