The Bone Clocks

SORT OF. RAFIQ has plodded upstairs and Zimbra is locked on the porch. It’s four dead hens, not three, which is a medium-sized loss, with eggs being my main bartering token at the Friday market, as well as Lorelei and Rafiq’s main source of protein. Zimbra looks okay, but I can only hope he doesn’t need veterinary attention. Synthetic meds for humans have all but dried up; if you’re a dog, forget it. I turn down the solar, dig out a bottle of Declan O’Daly’s potato hooch, and pour myself what Dad would’ve called a goodly slug. I let the alcohol cauterize my nerves and look at the backs of my old, old hands. Ridged tendons, snaky veins, vacuum-packed. My left hand trembles a little these days. Not much. Mo’s noticed, but pretends not to. If you’re Lol and Raf’s age, all old people’re trembly, so they’re not worried. I pull my blanket over me, like Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother, who I feel like, in fact, in a world of too many wolves and not enough woodcutters. It’s chilly out. Tomorrow I’ll ask Martin the Mayor if we’re likely to see a delivery of coal this winter, though I know he’ll just say, “If we see any, Holly, the answer’s yes.” Fatalism’s a weak antidepressant, but there’s nothing stronger at Dr. Kumar’s. Through the side window I see my garden chalkdusted by the nearly full moon, rising over the Mizen Peninsula. I should harvest the onions soon and plant some kale.

In the window I see a reflection of an old woman sitting in her great-aunt’s chair and I tell her, “Go to bed.” I haul myself to my feet, ignoring the twinge in my hip, but pausing for a moment at the little driftwood box shrine we keep on the dresser. I made it five years ago during the worst grief-numbed weeks after the Gigastorm, and Lorelei decorated it with shells. Aoife and Цrvar’s photo is inside, but tonight I just stroke my thumb across the top edge, trying to remember how Aoife’s hair felt.

“Sleep tight, sweetheart, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

October 27

UP BEFORE DAWN to pluck the feathers from four dead hens. Only twelve hens left, now. When I first moved to Dooneen Cottage—a quarter of a century ago—I couldn’t have plucked a hen if my life depended on it. Now I can stun, decapitate, and gut one as casually as Mam used to make a beef and Guinness stew. Necessity’s even taught me how to skin and dress rabbits without puking. One old fertilizer bag of feathers later I put the dead hens into the wheelbarrow and walk down the end of the garden via the hen coop, where I add the fox’s body to my one-wheeled hearse. He’s male, I see. Don’t touch fox’s tails, Declan says. A fox’s brush is a bacteriological weapon, barbed with disease. Probably got fleas, too, and we’ve had enough trouble with fleas, ticks, and lice as it is. The fox looks like he’s having an afternoon nap, if you ignore the ripped-out throat. One of his fangs protrudes slightly, pressing in his lower lip. Ed’s tooth did that. I wonder if the fox has cubs and a mate. I wonder if the cubs’ll understand that he’s never coming back, if the heart’ll be ripped out of their lives, or if they’ll just carry on foraging without a second thought. If they do, I envy them.

The sea’s ruffled this morning. I think I see a couple of dolphins a few hundred yards out, but when I look again, they’ve gone, so I’m not sure. The wind’s still from the west and not the east. It’s an awful thing to think, but if Hinkley is spewing radioactive material, which way the wind happens to be blowing could be a matter of life or death.

I tip the wheelbarrow’s grisly cargo off the stone pier. I never name our hens, ’cause it’s harder to wring the neck of something you’ve named, but I’m sad they had such frightened deaths. Now they’re drifting away with their killer into the open bay.

I want to hate the fox, but I can’t.

It was only trying to survive.

BACK AT THE house, Lorelei’s in the kitchen spreading a bit of butter on yesterday’s rolls for her and Rafiq’s lunch. “Morning, Gran.”

“Morning. There’s dried seaweed, too. And pickled turnip.”

“Thanks. Raf told me about the fox. You should’ve woken me.”

“No point, love. You can’t raise chickens from the dead, and Zim dealt with the fox.” I wonder if she’s remembered the date. “There’s a few strips of corrugated iron from the old shed—I’ll try sinking some underground walls around the coop.”

“Good idea. It should ‘outfox’ the next visitor.”

“That’s one gene you inherited from Granddad Ed.”

She likes it when I say that sort of thing. “It’s, uh,” she makes an effort to sound breezy, “Mum and Dad’s Day, today. The twenty-seventh of October.”

“It is, love. Want to light the incense?”