I would track the bridlepath to its mysterious end, wherever it might be.
The very first stretch of the bridlepath is no mystery at all. Every kid in the village’s been down that neck a million times. It just leads past some back gardens to the footy field. The footy field’s actually a scrap of ground behind the village hall that belongs to Gilbert Swinyard’s dad. When Mr Swinyard’s sheep aren’t on it, we’re allowed to play footy there. We use coats for goals and don’t bother with throw-ins. The scores climb as high as rugby scores, and one game can last hours, until the last-but-one kid goes home. Sometimes all the Welland and Castlemorton lot come over on their bikes and then the games are more like battles.
Not a soul was on the footy field this morning, only me. Later on, chances were, a game’d start up. None of the players’d know Jason Taylor’d already been there before them. I’d be fields and fields away by then. Maybe deep under the Malvern Hills.
Oily flies fed on curry-coloured cowpats.
New leaves oozed from twigs in the hedges.
Seeds thickened the air, like sweet gravy.
In the copse, the bridlepath joined up with a moon-cratered track. Trees knitted overhead, so only knots and loops of sky showed. Dark and cool, it was, and I wondered if I should’ve brought my coat. Down a hollow, round the bend, I came across a thatched cottage made of sooty bricks and crooked timber. Martins were busy under its eaves. PRIVATE, said a sign, hung on the slatted gate, where the name should go. Newborn flowers in the garden were Liquorice Allsorts blue, pink and yellow. Maybe I heard scissors. Maybe I heard a poem, seeping from its cracks. So I stood and listened, just for a minute, like a hungry robin listening for worms.
Or two minutes, or three.
Dogs hurled themselves at me.
I hurled myself back, across the track, clean on to my arse.
The gate shrieked but, thank God, stayed shut.
Two, no, three, Dobermanns jostled and slammed, standing on their back legs, barking insanely. Even when I got up they were still as tall as me. I should’ve just gone while I had the chance, but the dogs had prehistoric fangs and rabies eyes, gammon tongues and steel chains round their necks. Their brown-polish-on-black suede skins wrapped not just dogs’ bodies, but something else too, something that needed to kill.
I was scared but I still had to look at the dogs.
Then I got a savage poke in that bone that’s the stump of a tail.
‘You’re goadin’ my boys on!’
I whirled round. The man’s lip was gnarled and his sooty hair had a streak of white like combed-in bird crap. In his hand was a walking stick strong enough to stave in a skull. ‘You’re goadin’ my boys!’
I swallowed. Laws down the bridlepath are different to main-road laws.
‘I don’t appreciate that.’ He glanced at the Dobermanns. ‘SHUT IT!’
The dogs fell quiet and got down from the gate.
‘Oh, a whole yard o’guts you’ve got,’ the man studied me some more, ‘goadin’ my boys from this side o’ the gate.’
‘They’re…beautiful animals.’
‘Oh, aye? My boys’d turn you into mincemeat if I gave ’em the nod. Still call ’em beautiful animals then, would you?’
‘I s’pose not.’
‘I s’pose not. Live down them fancy new houses, don’t you?’
I nodded.
‘Knew it. Locals have more respect for my boys than some townie. You come here, come traipsin’ about, leavin’ gates open, puttin’ up your little toy mansions on land we’ve been workin’ for generations. Makes me sick. Just lookin’ at you.’
‘I didn’t mean any harm. Honest.’
He twizzled his stick. ‘You can bugger off now.’
I began walking, fast, just looking over my shoulder once.
The man hadn’t taken his eyes off me.
Faster, warned Unborn Twin. Run!
I froze, watching the man open the gate. His wave was almost friendly. ‘GET THE BUGGER, BOYS!’
The three black Dobermanns were galloping straight at me.
I ran full pelt but I knew thirteen-year-old boys can’t outrun three snarling Dobermanns. A snatch of turfy drumming, then I went flying over a ruck and the ground booted the air out of me and I got a glimpse of a leaping dog’s flank. I screamed like a girl and scrunched up into a ball and waited for the fangs to sink into my side and ankles and slaver and rip and tear and pluck and for the snarling bag-snatchers to run off with my scrote and liver and heart and kidneys.