The Things I Know(5)
Twelve months might have passed, but her cousin was still yet to grasp the fact that his words and jibes slid from her skin like butter off a Teflon pan. There was nothing he could say that was new or inventive, nothing more hurtful than those words that had been spoken since the night she was born.
The story of Hitch’s rather hasty arrival one snowy night twenty-five years ago, the first child to a couple in their forties who had long since given up the dream of parenthood, had been told so many times she knew it by heart. It was her mum’s party piece.
‘Oh my word! She was no more than an itty-bitty scrap of a thing, no bigger than a little pup, and with so many problems the doctor told me to get her christened quick as! And so we did. Shook the moths from the family christening gown stored in the attic and got the job done with barely enough time to pick a name or make a cake. Grandma Elsie poked her head in the crib and said, “Lord above! What’s wrong with that babber?” And I stared her down and said, “Where d’you want me to start? A little bit of her mouth missing, a weak heart, guts that don’t quite work proper, a twist to her toes and a couple of bent-up fingers. We’ll be lucky if we still have her here for Christmas!” And then I burst into tears, I did, couldn’t quite take it in. But she showed them, that girl of mine! She might be a bit patched up here and there, she won’t get any certificate of learning and she won’t win any races, but she’s a little fighter and no mistake! And we shall treat her like a little lamb whose mum has gone on. We shall hand-feed her and keep her close, out of harm’s way! And we have. And we always will, grateful to the Lord above she’s still here!’
And this was exactly how she’d always been treated, like a little lamb who needed hand-feeding, a child who was never going to get a certificate of learning or win a race.
Even if she felt like she could.
She’d done her very best to keep up in school, but in the rural environment in which they lived, where class sizes were small, she found herself lumped in with the speedy readers and extroverts, and her lack of confidence meant it was often easier to keep quiet and stay hidden.
And in fairness, the limitations her parents and teachers had placed on her in her early years had made her feel safe. When the other kids at school hadn’t wanted to play with her, she didn’t blame them, not really, no matter how much it hurt. She could fall back on the knowledge that she was a little bit different, and took comfort from it. There was nothing she liked more than being at home, operating within the boundaries constructed by love and a desire to protect, knowing she would not come to harm. But now those boundaries often felt a lot like prison walls, and the fierce love threatened to suffocate her. She felt the need to stretch her wings, no matter how damaged, wanted to see how far she could wander.
Hitch had always sat in the background, watching life go by and wondering if her thoughts were the right level of thoughts, curious, for example, if arriving in the world as an itty-bitty scrap with a list of things that were wonky was the reason she got so easily distracted. Hitch overheard her grandma say she was no doubt a ‘bit soft in the head’, a curious phrase and one that interested her enough to try to find out just how soft her head was. Because the truth was there were times when it didn’t feel soft at all, in fact, quite the opposite – it felt as if it contained all the dreaming of the universe. If wishes were fuel, she was certain she’d have powered herself to the moon and back and grabbed herself a boyfriend on the way.
Rather than ask the thousand questions that battered her skull, she stayed quiet, close to the farm and to her family, going about the business of keeping things ticking over. And all the while she took the comments, the jibes, the teasing of Emery and his horrible friends, and the supposition of those close to her that most things were a little beyond her, and fashioned them into an armour of sorts.
Teflon . . .
‘Come on, Buddy.’
She tapped her thigh and stepped out into the cold, dark morning. The chill air cut her lungs and made her cough. She breathed through her nose, loving the autumnal aroma of earth, the slightly sweet perfume of rotting fruit and fallen leaves, mixed in with the scent of real fires, since folk in this sleepy farming hamlet burned wood, oil, coal – anything to keep the bite of cold out and the warmth in.
Hitch made her way across the garden with her unsteady walk, stamping on the frostbitten soil and stepping nimbly in the dark around the raised planting beds in which, when the seasons allowed, her mum grew beans, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, sweet peas and various herbs. With Buddy at her heel, she walked over to the low row of outbuildings which had been converted over the years and now provided a potting shed, a tool shed, a workshop, a tractor shed and a large concrete-floored, metal-roofed building known as Big Barn. She heaved open the barn door with her chilly fingers, sliding it along the wide runner before reaching up for her twin-handled straw pannier, which hung on a hook by the door. She patted Buddy on the flank and shut him inside. He knew the drill by now and made his way to the comfy, battered sofa along the back wall, knowing with certainty that she’d be back before too long.
‘Good boy.’ She smiled at her beloved companion and headed out to the chicken coop, glancing at the duck pond, where the two Muscovies, Bonnie and Clyde, huddled together. ‘I know. It’s cold, right? Maybe we should get you sweaters.’
Accessing the henhouse was a complex procedure. In an effort to prevent attack, Pops had raised the coop off the ground so Mr Fox couldn’t dig underneath. He had then fashioned a double layer of chicken wire over a wooden frame, and to get in she had to roll one gate away in one direction and the next gate in the other. It was a pain, no doubt, but she had to confess that, despite Mr Fox’s best efforts, they hadn’t lost a single hen to him or any of his wily contemporaries this last year. She briefly pictured the scene of blood, feathers and carnage that had greeted her last November when Daisy Duke, Mrs Cluck and her friends Daphne, Helga and Little Darling had provided a sumptuous feathery supper for the sneaky fox. It had been a mess and she’d cried great, gulping tears as she scooped up feathers, lumps of bloodied pale pink flesh and the discarded entrails from the remains of his feast. Little Darling and Daphne were intact, perfect in fact, but still dead. This made her dislike Mr Fox even more. To kill because he was hungry and programmed to do so was one thing – she was no stranger to rural life and closer to understanding the food chain than most – but to kill for the sake of it, for sport, was quite another.