It was becoming overcast, the sky threatening to split open like a bag of flour. There would be one last drive. The beaters fanned out again and I took the furthest edge through a copse, pressing forward through tangles of ivy and briar. I heard a noise and turned expecting to see one of the dogs, but it was David. It had been over three years since we’d seen one another. If he was shocked, horrified, or delighted to see me, he didn’t show it. If anything, he looked at me with weary recognition, like he was facing a familiar and unwelcome vision.
“Not like you to be waving the white flag.” The guns were still firing, the shot raining among the trees, the sound of the pheasants breaking cover. “Listen, I wanted to—”
Only I didn’t get to find out what David wanted. A gun fired close by, too close, and there was a shout of pain, and then another voice shouting, Stop! And then I was running, sure that it was Marcus I’d heard.
It had been one of the young ones. He hadn’t shot a bird all day and there was one, so near, and he let off one barrel and missed, and then tracked it downward, firing again. There was blood when I got there, trickling down Marcus’s wrist and spattering the ground. He was sitting on a log and his face was set and I did not know how bad it was, and I threatened to kill the boy, Alexander, so that his dad quickly led him away, Marcus calling after him saying he was all right.
I got his coat and shirt off; even I could see it wasn’t much, but I kept checking. Even though Marcus was trying to calm me down and make me stop. It wasn’t till David touched me, laid a hand on my shoulder and said evenly, “Come on, Andy, he’s going to freeze to death. Let’s get him to the doctor,” that the earth steadied under my feet.
A green Land Rover was brought round and we helped Marcus into the back. Zack was at the wheel and soon we were joined by Priss, Alice, Rob, and finally David. Zack kept apologizing, stopping only long enough to introduce the others. I had my arm round Marcus’s shoulders, one finger resting on his neck, warm and living.
“How do you three know each other then?” Rob was in the front. I could see his eyes on me in the rearview mirror. Alice had her head cocked to one side, listening.
“That summer I was on the lam and hiding out at your parents’ house, Marcus and Andy were very good to me. Only I don’t think they like me now because I disappeared without a word,” David said.
“Is that why you were staring at me in the pub that time? I thought she wanted to rape and murder me,” Rob said.
“You were half right.”
“I’m flattered.” His voice was amused. He clutched at his heart. “Anytime, Andy is it? Anytime. I promise I won’t fight.” And then quickly in response to the looks he was given, “Sorry. Inappropriate me. It’s the tension, like when people laugh at funerals. Shock. I can’t be held accountable for anything I say. Zack, you’re a total prick. Maybe we should all have sex. How about a massive loan?”
The Land Rover bumped down the track. Behind us came the game cart. There were ninety birds, including eight partridges and a mallard, plus a rabbit that one of the dogs had stumbled over and brought in. As the light failed, I watched Col become a silhouette, a straight-backed figure swaying as the pickup lurched over the ruts, a silent Charon with his cargo of dead.
* * *
Zack took us to Accident and Emergency, and he fetched Mars bars and coffees and poured brandy into them from a hip flask and kept us entertained while Marcus waited to be seen, but it was Rob who invited us to the manor. He phoned Zack while the doctor, having checked the x-rays and given Marcus a shot of something, dug four lead pellets out of him. Afterward, I washed them off and slipped them into his pocket.
“Now you can tell everyone about that time you got shot.”
“Back in ’Nam.”
“Cheltenham.” It was an old local joke.
When he was patched up, Marcus shook the doctor’s hand and then walked gingerly back to the car with Zack and me dancing attendance.
“Rob wants you to come for dinner tomorrow.” Tomorrow was a Friday, the seventeenth of December. “We’re all staying at his place. He says you’re to stay over, if you’d like, so it won’t spoil the drinking. There’s umpteen bedrooms and Priss has offered to cook.” There was a slight hesitation in his stride. “He said to tell Andy that he’s sorry for being rude to her and that he wants to make up. He said to invite your friends, Peter and Em. David would love to see them. He said to say that you’re all welcome.” Zack’s voice was completely at ease, but his brow was slightly furrowed. It was a bit out of proportion in his book, I could see that.
“Get shot and win a weekend in a country house?” But before I could say anything else, Marcus cut in.
“What time?”
“Rob says eight.”
“Fine. We’re in.”
Zack took me home first. As I got out he said, “We dress for dinner. Just for fun, really, and you can wear whatever you like, but just so you know.”
“You sure you’ll be up to it?” I said.
Marcus nodded. He had to go pick up the van, and then he was going to drop in on his mum.
Once inside, I moved from room to room, keyed up but with no idea quite what I should be doing. After a few minutes the phone rang.
“Is he all right?” It was Em and she was livid. News spread fast.
“Reckon so. They had to scrape a few bits of lead out of him.”
“The whole thing is fucking stupid. It’s not a sport. It serves him right. It fucking serves him right.” It wasn’t like her to be so angry.
“David was there.”
“What?”
So I told her.
“And no explanation for the disappearing act?”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
“You want us to go then?” I heard her doorbell ring. She was home for another couple of weeks. Her parents were away visiting relatives in Salisbury. They’d taken Faye with them.
“Marcus is keen.” It wasn’t quite an answer. The doorbell went again.
“I best get that.”
“Who is it?”
“Don’t know, do I? Bit late for carol singers.”
I had hoped for more chat, for questions—how had David seemed? How was it to see him again? The kind of teasing out Em was good at.
After a bit, I called the vicarage. The terms at Oxford were short, but Peter often stayed up to be close to the libraries. To the quads, and balls and punting. Or just away from home. But I was lucky and after a minute, Patricia succeeded in bringing him to the phone. After I’d told him, I listened carefully to hear what was in his voice, but he sounded flat. Perhaps it was just that Patricia was listening.
“Will you come then?”
“And Rob Calcraft invited me and Em? I mean by name.”
“Yes.” I thought about it and began wondering what other information David had offered up about us besides our names.
“If Rob’s invited us, it’s because he wants something. I’d think twice, Andy.”
“You know him?”
“He was in the year above me. Left Oxford last year. Perverse sense of humor.”
“So you won’t come?”