The Lost Art of Gratitude

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EVERY BIT THE ANGEL OF DEATH, Billy McClarty, scourge of foxes, chairman of the Dalkeith and Bonnington Model Railway Association, father and husband, stepped out of his van and made his way down the driveway to Isabel’s front door. He was carrying a metal-barred cage, heavy enough to give him a curious, unbalanced gait. The cage was surprisingly small if it were to accommodate a fox, but not built for comfort, of course. For most foxes finding themselves trapped within, this would be the condemned cell in which they would be incarcerated with their last meal—half a chicken, perhaps, or, if Billy’s advice had been heeded by the householder, a gamy portion of pheasant.

It was five o’clock, and Grace had gone home. Jamie had just returned and was having a shower, while Charlie and Isabel were playing with a set of building blocks that had been passed down to Charlie from a boy over the road who had outgrown them. Charlie was learning to balance one block upon another, three high, and then knock them down. He appeared to find this endlessly amusing; not much different, thought Isabel, from slapstick humour, from the antics of silent-film actors, from those flickering scenes where people stood up and then fell over, and we all laughed.

When the bell rang and she realised that it could be Billy McClarty, Isabel lifted Charlie and deposited him in his playpen with a couple of his bricks for diversion.

Billy McClarty was wiping his shoes when she opened the front door. Isabel glanced at the cage. “Mr. McClarty.”

“That’s me,” said Billy. “Sorry I’m a bit later than I thought, but there was a wasp bike in Morningside—a big one—and I had to get up on someone’s roof.”

Isabel assured him that it did not matter. As she spoke, she noticed the tattoo across his right forearm—the Hand of Ulster, with Ulster is British in shaded lettering beneath it. It was well executed, the hand itself in red and the motto in blue. I was right, she thought: Billy McClarty is an Orangeman, a follower of William of Orange, who had put the Catholic James VII to flight. That might have happened in the dying years of the seventeenth century, but it was not too long ago to be a very live issue for some, the symbol of the securing of a Protestant monarchy. And that, in due course, became all tied up with freedom from being told what to do and think by priests—a cause that at least was about liberty, at any rate from Billy McClarty’s perspective. Catholics, of course, thought otherwise.

She led Billy McClarty round the side of the house to the garden. “We last saw him in those bushes over there,” she said, pointing to the deep bank of rhododendrons. “He may still be there, but I’m not sure.”

Billy McClarty took a step forward and peered into the undergrowth. “Good place for one of these fellows,” he said. “Dark. Private. Good place.”

“Like us, they need shelter,” said Isabel.

“Aren’t like us at all,” said Billy. “Aren’t like anything, these boys. Just foxes.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant,” said Isabel. “I meant that they have the same needs as we do. That’s what I meant.”

Billy McClarty sniffed at the air. “They don’t have the same needs,” he said. “Not at all.”

He took a step forward and crouched to get a better view of the ground under the rhododendrons. “He’s been burrowing down there,” he said. “I cannae see him now, but he’s been there all right. I’ll put the trap in there, I think. He’ll be by.”

“It won’t hurt him, I take it,” she said.

Billy McClarty reassured her. “The most that can happen—the most—is that he gets his tail stuck in the door. That’s all.” He stood up again and gestured towards the trap. “You got that chicken?”

“A pheasant,” said Isabel. “It’s in the kitchen.”

“Even better,” said Billy McClarty, looking in the direction of the house. “You fetch it and we’ll set this up.”

She went into the kitchen and took the pheasant from the fridge, a whole bird, roasted for Brother Fox. When she returned to the garden, Billy McClarty had positioned the trap under the outer foliage of the rhododendron. He took the pheasant from Isabel, sniffed at it with approval and pushed it into the trap, up against the back. Then he pulled back on the small spring arm that would trigger the closure of the door once Brother Fox had succumbed to temptation.

The trap armed, Billy McClarty took a step back and inspected his handiwork. “Aye, that’ll do.” He turned to Isabel. “And then?”

“When he’s safely in there, I’ll call the vet.”

“And then?”

Isabel found herself irritated by Billy McClarty’s manner. It was condescension, of course—the condescension of a man who assumes superiority simply because he is a man. “I shall call the vet,” said Isabel. “I have already told him about this, and he’ll come out and treat his wound.”

Billy McClarty looked sceptical. “Foxes nip,” he said. “How will he be able to look at him without getting nipped?”

“I assume that he has a …” Isabel was not sure, but she was not going to let Billy win. “I assume that he has gloves. And a sedative.”

Billy McClarty shrugged. “I don’t know why you bother,” he said. “Nature, you know.”

“Because he’s suffering,” said Isabel. She stared at this man with his red Hand of Ulster tattoo and his tobacco-stained fingers. “Suffering, Mr. McClarty. Suffering calls for us to do something about it. Don’t you think that too?”

He stiffened. “You can’t fix everything.”

“No. You can’t. But you can fix some things.” She paused. He was looking at her with what amounted to a sneer. She would not tolerate that.