I had never heard her speak to me in that way before. She was sometimes odd with her body language or the way she spoke to me, but I put it down to the fact we were still in a relatively new friendship and friendships needed to be cemented. I was certain once we had hit our one-year friendship anniversary by the summer, things would be great. She was everything I needed. We had to be together, and I wasn’t about to let a silly little falling-out ruin any of that.
Eventually, Mum had had enough of my sighing and lolling around and told me to go and sort out whatever problems I was having with Caitlin.
‘What?’ I did the face that annoyed Mum.
‘I know you, Sasha. You haven’t seen each other since January, you’ve been raving about seeing her, and now she’s here and you’re back home within the hour, moping and sighing.’
I looked at her and wondered how it was that she knew everything about me without me ever having to say anything.
‘Go. Shoo!’ she said and pushed me out of the garden. I found myself standing on the front driveway looking at the iron gates to Saxby House, wondering if I should go back after what Caitlin had said. I decided I would go and politely knock on the back door to see if Chuck fancied a game of Frisbee out on the driveway. Perhaps, if Caitlin had got herself out of her mood, then she would join us.
I arrived in the courtyard to a small crowd gathered around the hen house. I could just about make out Caitlin in the centre, surrounded by Josephine, Chuck and Judith. I felt my joy levels rising, Caitlin was out of the outhouse, Chuck was with her, and so if my request alone didn’t work, then he would be able to chivvy her along. If anyone could pull someone out of a mood, it was Chuck.
I skipped over to the crowd, calling my hellos until I was by Chuck’s side.
But I noted the solemn look on everyone’s faces and the fact that no one was looking at each other. Instead they were all looking at a small pile of black feathers in the centre of them, next to Caitlin’s toes. Instantly I knew; I didn’t need anyone to explain it to me or to engage in the pointless conversation that I could already hear playing out around the circle. Questions coming from every mouth. How? Where? What happened? Then sounds of sympathy until finally I was acknowledged, first by Chuck, who took me into his arms and pressed me into his chest.
‘Darling, Sasha, you may not want to see this.’
But I had seen it, and I could also feel something, a strange shift in the atmosphere, and then a physical pain, as though I had been stabbed straight through the heart.
Caitlin fell to her knees, and she scooped the heap off the floor, which I now knew for certain was my beloved Ivy.
‘Sasha, there you are. Poor henny pen – I know she was your favourite. She must have followed you into the outhouse when you popped in there before you went home. I saw her in there – they don’t usually go into those buildings those hens, but you seemed to have made such a connection with her, she must have forgotten all her instincts. I heard the crash as the lawnmower tipped over – she got trapped, Sasha. She must have crushed a major artery. But it was quick, dear Sasha, I can tell you that – she wouldn’t have suffered.’ In that moment, Caitlin looked the very epitome of bereft: her open mouth, wide eyes, the way her breath came hard and fast. But she held Ivy out towards me like some sort of sacrificial offering.
I forced myself to look down at the hen, to see her small beady eyes, which were half closed, her limp body. I knew from looking at her, there was no sign of being crushed, but no one seemed to be questioning that. I looked hard at Caitlin, willing her to say it, to admit what she had done. But she wouldn’t look me in the eye. A dead hen to the Clemonte family meant nothing, but to me, it felt as though my world were imploding.
I looked down at my hand. I could almost still feel the pressure from Ivy’s beak where she had been pecking not so long ago. In the thirteen years I had spent on this earth, I had never known death. I had never owned a pet, not even a goldfish. We had lived in a pokey little flat before we came here; I was never even allowed to bring the pet hamster home from school. Mum was not really an animal person, she had never really warmed to any of the creatures on the estate or the surrounding fields, and she would skirt around the hens when she came out of the back door.
Me, however, I had made a connection, I had found a love for an animal that I would never have thought in a million years could intrigue me and enchant me the way Ivy had.
I felt my throat grow fat and my nose began to burn. I refused to cry amongst the claustrophobic atmosphere of the circle. I needed to be away.
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ came Josephine’s voice.
‘Such a pity, such a lovely little hen,’ Chuck echoed.
I turned and began to run, back to the safety and security of our little cottage. As I ran, I stumbled a few times, but the running released the tears and my face was soaked. I could hear the words that Caitlin had muttered from the outbuilding once more: You’re the one who needs to be careful.
But
