She stood up to get out of the way.
'Ooookay ...'
I recocked and went through the firing sequence, aiming at the centre of the circle and, sure enough, I pissed off the birds again big-time.
The zero was good; the round went in directly above the point of aim, roughly in line with the other two rounds to the left. At 300 the round should cut paper slightly above the circle, but I'd soon find out.
I was still looking through the sight when I felt Carrie's knees against my arm again.
'Is it OK?' I kept my eye on my shot, still checking. Teah, it's fine.
Dead on.'
I ejected the round and moved my head away from the sight as she leant over to pick up the empty cases.
We stood up together and she walked back into the shade as I cleaned the mud off the rifle's furniture.
'If that wasn't a window to your mind, I don't know what is.'
Maybe I should have worn her Jackie Os.
Tour eyes aren't as silent as your mouth, are they?'
I heard the metallic clink of the empty cases as she threw them into the ammo box. She sat down under a tree, crossing her legs.
I worked hard to think of something to say as I walked over to her.
'How did the house come to be here? I mean, it's a bit off the beaten track, isn't it?'
She picked up the bottle and took a swig as I settled down a few feet away. We faced each other and I took the water when she offered it to me.
'A rich hippie guy built it in the sixties. He came down here to escape the draft.' The fly's eyes looked at me, and the smile stayed on her face as she fished out a tobacco tin and Zippo from her cargos.
'He swapped the forests of Vietnam for the forests of Panama. Apparently he was a real character, kept the dealers and bars in Chepo in business for over twenty years. He died maybe eight or nine years ago.'
There was a pop as the tin opened, and she picked out one of the three or four ready-prepared roll-ups. She giggled to herself, showing a set of brilliant white teeth as she checked the cigarette was still intact. The lenses turned on me again and my reflection moved up and down with her shoulders as she started to laugh.
'Got killed by a logger's truck after a night hitting the bars. He staggered out into the road, trying to stop the truck from leaving, claiming that the wood belonged to the forest and it had spirit. Strangely enough, the truck seemed not to hear him, and that was that. Sawdust.'
I laughed with her, seeing in my mind's eye the absurd contest of man versus truck. She flicked the Zippo deftly and lit up. The twisted end of the roll-up flared as she took a deep breath, held it, then slowly exhaled. An unmistakable smell filled the air between us. She chuckled to herself before finishing off the story.
'He was the one who had spirit, but unfortunately for him that night it was all in his bloodstream.'
I took in more water as she turned her gaze once more to the building, picking bits of Rastafarian Old Holborn from her lips.
'He'd left the house and the land to the university, for research. We've been here nearly six years now. Cleared the land out back for the helicopter. Even put up the extension ourselves.'
She turned back and offered me the joint.
I shook my head. If other people wanted to, that was up to them, but it was something I'd never even thought of trying.
She shrugged and took another drag. We can only do it out of the house so Luz doesn't catch us. She'd freak if she knew what Mommy was doing right now. Talk about role reversal.' She inhaled deeply, her face screwing up as the smoke blew from her mouth.
'I suppose someone like you wouldn't do this, would you? Maybe you're worried you'll drop that guard of yours. What do you think?'
'Aaron told me you met at the university ...'
She nodded as I started to fill the magazine with more rounds.
'Eighty-six.
Without him I'd never have had the stamina to get my Ph.D. I was one of his students.'
She looked at me and smiled expectantly, obviously well used to the reaction to her announcement. I probably fell in with the one she anticipated.
Her tone challenged me.
'Oh, come on, Nick, have you never been attracted to an older woman?'
Teah, Wonder Woman, but that was when I was the same age as Luz.'
I'd made her laugh, though maybe the giggle weed had a little to do with it.
'Half the university staff ended up marrying a student. Sometimes they had to divorce one student to set up with another but, hey, why should the course of true love run smoother in a faculty building than any other place?'
I sensed it was a well-rehearsed explanation of their relationship.
'Staying here to study while the folks went back up north and got divorced was great,' she went on.
'You know, straitlaced Catholic family gone wrong the rebellious teenage years, father not understanding that sort of stuff.' Her glasses pointed my way and she smiled, maybe thinking about those good times as she took another drag. There's even a kind of convention about sleeping with your teacher, you know. Not exactly as a rite of passage, more a visa stamp, proof you've been there. Someone like you would understand that, no?'
I shrugged, never having known anything about what went on at those places, but now wishing I did.
She picked up the fully loaded rifle that lay between us. The bolt was back and she checked chamber before laying the weapon across her knees, then slowly moved the bolt forward to pick the top round out of the magazine, feeding it into the chamber. But instead of locking down the bolt as you would to fire, she pulled it back so the brass round was ejected from the chamber with a clink and into the grass. Then she pushed the bolt home again to repeat the action.
'How does Luz fit in here?' Even as I started to speak I knew I'd fucked up, but it was too late to stop the flow.
'She isn't your natural child, is she?'
She might have been: she could have had her with somebody else. I was crashing and burning here. I tried to recover. I didn't mean that, what I mean is, she isn't-' She laughed and cut in to save me.
'No, no, you're right, she isn't. She's kind of fostered.'
She took a long, reflective drag and looked down, concentrating on the slow ejection of another round as it flew out of the chamber on to the rough grass. I couldn't help but think of Kelly and what my version of fostering had added up to these past three or four years.
'She was my dearest and only friend really, Lulu ... Luz is her daughter ... Just Cause.' She looked up sharply.
'You know what that is?'
I nodded. Not that she could see me: she was already looking down again. The invasion. December 'eighty- nine. Were you both here?'
She pulled back the bolt on the third round and shook her head slowly and sadly from side to side.
'No one can imagine what a war is like unless they witness one. But I guess I don't need to tell you that.'
'Mostly in places I can't even pronounce, but they're all the same wherever they are shit and confusion, a nightmare.'
The fourth round tumbled out of the weapon.
'Yep, you're right there. Shit and confusion ...' She picked one up and played with it between her fingers, then took another puff of the spliff, making it glow gently.
Her head was up now but I couldn't tell if she was looking at me or not as she blew out smoke.
'Months before the invasion things were getting really tense.
There were riots, curfews, people getting killed. It was a bad, bad situation only a matter of time before the US intervened, but nobody knew when.
'My father kept wanting us to move north, but Aaron wouldn't have any of it this is his home. Besides, the
