And what a load of bollocks, she thought. Fancy believing that! She felt embarrassed now, blithely explaining to Vince on the bus that, as a baby, she’d been struck by lightning. I’ve made myself look silly, taking other people’s stories for granted.
There was the sound of an engine. At first she thought the moon was powering up to blast her again. But she looked down the bumpy country lane and saw a small white bus heading towards her, towards town. Strange time for that, she thought, as it came closer, moving fast. She saw it was almost empty. One figure was standing beside the driver. Like Boadicea in her chariot, racing into town.
The bus hurtled past and Penny flung herself back off the tarmac, into the ditch. For a moment she had been transfixed like a rabbit.
Within seconds the sight and sound of the bus was gone. She was left with muddy shins, a slightly sprained ankle, a bitter aftertaste.
Reinvention, Penny thought. Things are moving.
NINE
Vince was wincing as he came downstairs, looking for Andy. It was just past seven in the morning and neither had been able to sleep. A milky weak sunshine came through the wirenetting windows into the taxidermist’s shop.
Everything downstairs looked flat in the dawn, filmed with dust. Birds of prey stared at the floor with their wings pegged out, half-ashamed by exposure. Voles and hedgehogs clung to their mildewed logs. The single leopard stood arrested in pride of place in the window. He was crammed with fake, lumpy bones and patched here and there with scraps of old fox fur. Affronted by the light’s intrusion, his eyes raked the street.
Andy in his Noel Coward dressing gown had the collar pulled up like a boxer before he goes into the ring. Perched on the butterfly case in the middle of the grey and yellow room, he was rotating his neck slowly, breathing raggedly. He’d switched the gas heater on and the air was warming. Salty and vinegary at the same time, it had a comforting smell, underlaid with a mustiness Vince supposed came from the animals.
‘Hi-ya.’ Vince took him a cigarette. They couldn’t find matches and Vince knelt painfully to the heater to light both from its orange grill.
Last night they had elected not to go to Casualty. Vince thought that, when they eventually arrived there, right across town, they would only get embarrassed, sitting in a roomful of real and terrible cases. People with bits missing, heart attacks, accidents. He thought they’d feel shamed into doing something dreadful to themselves, to justify the visit. So they struggled back here and mopped themselves up.
Andy had no qualms about tapping ash on to the shop floor. Vince mentioned it. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Andy said. ‘Everything in the shop is dead. The room is full of ash and dust.’ It was true, the heat was stirring the air up and it was full of particles which could have come from anywhere.
Vince found an ashtray anyway, under the counter, by the till. There, too, was a whole row of glass bottles. They had home-made labels and he found their colours enchanting. In the new light they shone and he found himself, without even thinking, stuffing one, no larger than a Body Shop tester, into his pocket.
His head felt twice the usual size. Someone had put a football inside his skull and inflated it through his nose. His flesh was pulpy and about to peel away. He had checked in the mirror already and his cheekbones were nowhere to be seen.
When he sat beside Andy, Andy was saying, ‘Just when you feel great, when you feel calm and nothing could get at you, there’s always some cack-handed fucker to come along and shove you back on your arse. To remind you that you’re just a piece of shit on the pavement. Just like they are.’
Vince took a slow drag of his Marlboro Light. ‘Yeah. You’re right.’
Andy turned to him. ‘So?’
‘What do you mean, “So”?’
‘You said I was right. But what do you think?’
‘It doesn’t matter what I think. We got tumbled by queer-bashers. It happened and that’s it. It’s the risk you take.’ Andy resumed looking out of the window. He looked to where the leopard’s gaze was fixed. His face flushed red. ‘You’ve got a real fucking attitude problem.’
‘What?’
‘Can’t you even get a tiny bit worked up about this?’
‘What’s the point? You’re just narked still because you got knocked on your arse. It reminds you you’re just like everyone else.’
‘What?’
‘This is what it’s like when you live in a town. You take your chances. I’ve lived in bigger towns than this.’
‘Oh. Yeah. Mr Fucking Cosmopolitan. Just because he’s been to Manchester a couple of times.’
‘Fuck off, Andy.’ Angrily Vince stubbed out his tab. ‘What do you mean, I’ve got an attitude problem?’
Andy burst out laughing and hugged his bruised ribs. Uncertainly Vince joined in. Then a dark silhouette swung into place in the doorframe. It set about unlocking the shop door.
‘Fucking hell, it’s Ethan Nesbit!’ Andy whispered hoarsely. Suddenly he felt very stranded on the butterfly case. It seemed as if every stuffed beast in the shop had shifted its gaze to the door, hackles were invisibly raised and butterfly wings were astir beneath them. Keys rattled against the lock.
Vince froze. ‘Who?’
‘He owns the shop.’ Andy drew his dressing gown in and tied it tighter as the door opened, admitting more of the bland light and revealing what to Vince looked like an ancient grotesque in a raincoat, balancing skilfully with one hand on the doorknob. The tip of his wooden
