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54
THE DAY OF HIS DEATH: 11:12
Tom
Tom picks the sheep up under one arm and climbs the ladder. The sheep’s size and shape make it awkward to get it through the hatch and he grapples with it until he works up a sweat but gets it through eventually. He climbs back down to retrieve the box it came in and takes the box up, too. The attic space is tidy. Nicole has strict rules about what they can store up here; she doesn’t want it full of junk. In the middle of the space, where the headroom is greatest, he hefts the sheep back into its box. It’s not easy because the box is tall, and Tom can’t quite stand upright. He looks in at the sheep and says, ‘Sleep tight for a while.’
He closes the box flaps and feels very satisfied. Nicole told him she didn’t want an expensive birthday present, but something thoughtful instead, and he hopes this will work. At the least, he knows it will make her laugh.
The attic is stuffy, and the temperature is rising. He climbs back down and presses the button on the wall, making sure he’s well out of the way as the ladder ascends and disappears into the hatch, which closes as it should.
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Good.’
He returns downstairs and wonders what to do. A walk would be sensible, he supposes. He’s found it hard to motivate himself lately, though he hasn’t told Nicole. He wouldn’t do that to her. She always dreamed of having a different, more special life when they were younger, and now she has it, he can’t burst her balloon. His insecurities and his bouts of lethargy will remain hidden. He’ll figure out how to get through it himself.
He feels weary. Dealing with Patrick was exhausting, and sad. Tom struggles to come to terms with what just happened; he wants to find some hope in it, but part of him also knows this is the culmination of months of Patrick’s behaviour degenerating. It hurts that Patrick is the only person he admitted his true feelings to, telling him in one of their better conversations about his struggles with their new life, and Patrick has responded with total selfishness, fixating on the money. Tom sighs. It annoys him, too, that Patrick has put a blight on this morning.
Perhaps some music would help. He’s been trying to educate himself in opera. Nicole wants to go and see one at Covent Garden. She wants a box and a fancy dinner and a lovely new outfit. He’s totally up for it, but he also wants to understand opera a little before he goes because he’s tired of feeling ignorant, so he bought an album by the Three Tenors.
He tells the house to play it, now, and to play it loudly, and the sound swells from the speakers, pleasing him until a little headache starts to press behind his eyes, but he ignores it and concentrates on listening. When ‘Nessun Dorma’ comes on, he conducts, humming along, and chipping in with the one or two words he’s picked up. It’s his favourite. His mood lifts and he sets it to play on a loop.
He sees the bag that he dropped on the floor, the one he found in the outbuilding. It would be good if he can track down whoever stashed it there and ask them to leave before Nicole finds out they were ever on their property.
He steps outside, carrying the bag. The music in the house is supposed to stop playing and transfer to the outdoor speakers, but it doesn’t. He mutters his disapproval, but who cares, really? Let it play in the house. There’s no one out here to be disturbed by it. He enjoys hearing it as he walks down the meadow.
He reckons that if there’s someone camping near enough to want to use the outbuilding for storage, they’re probably in the treeline close to the river. He can still hear the Three Tenors faintly. When he reaches the trees, it’s a relief to get out of the sun. In the shade of an oak tree, he wipes a sheen of sweat from his forehead and presses on through the woodland until he reaches the boundary of his property.
He follows the fence line. When they bought the land they replaced the old barbed wire with new wooden fencing. It looks more beautiful and is less likely to harm wildlife, but it occurs to him that it also makes it a lot easier for people to sneak over it.
The ground crunches underfoot as he walks, twigs and leaves bone-dry after the weeks of heat. His nostrils curl as a distinctive odour reaches them. It smells like fire and there shouldn’t be any fire here. He finds the smoking embers soon after, in a clearing beside the fence. The fire is part of a wild campsite: a one-man tent and a small cooking stove, a pile of rubbish. There’s no sign of the camper and Tom’s furious. This is the height of stupid behaviour. What if the fire spread? He can imagine it ripping up the dry meadow towards the Barn, catching the tall grasses, creating a wall of flame.
‘Hello?’ he calls. He hates confrontation normally, preferring to see the best in others and considers himself a benevolent landowner, but this is one of those moments when his outrage exceeds his better intentions. ‘Hello?’
He sees a man approaching, coming up the riverbank. He’s carrying a jerry can, water spilling messily from the top of it. The man is about Tom’s age but dishevelled, wearing a T-shirt and knee-length cargo shorts, well-worn trainers. His hair is messy and quite long. He has a few days’ growth of patchy beard, and bloodshot eyes.
‘Is this your fire?’ Tom asks.
‘Just got some water to put it out, mate.’ The man lifts the jerry can. He says it as casually as if this were his property, his land, as if Tom is being a jerk.
‘You shouldn’t have lit it. It’s dangerous.’
The man pushes the jerry can beneath the fence and leaps it effortlessly. He takes his time dousing the fire with water. It’s like a performance, as if he’s trying to make the point that Tom is being unreasonable.
Tom’s temper rises. It doesn’t happen often, but he’s annoyed that the man is assuming him to be hostile, when he came here with the intention of giving him his bag and asking him nicely to move on.
When the can is empty and the fire’s a sodden pile of ashes, the man looks Tom up and down and Tom feels judged for his nice clothes and his relative cleanliness. He tries to stand taller, straighter. ‘Is this yours?’ he asks, holding out the bag.
‘Yes,’ the man says. He takes it.
‘You can’t store stuff on my property. How long have you been here?’
‘Not long. I only left the bag in your hut because I don’t want to carry everything with me every day. I’m moving on today so I would have got it. It’s not like it’s doing you any harm.’
Tom isn’t satisfied. He wants more contrition. ‘And you shouldn’t have a fire. Can’t you see? It’s a tinderbox here.’
The man clutches the bag to his chest. ‘I was careful with the fire.’
‘Lighting it wasn’t careful, mate.’
