MORNING SERIAL
JENNIFER kneels to free the animal. ‘Hey, you can’t do this, it’s cruel.’
Jack doesn’t look up from his task.
‘Did you hear me, little man? You can’t tie the lamb up. You’ll hurt it.’
‘I don’t want it.’
‘I thought you were going to look after it.’
‘I think we should eat it.’ She manages to unfasten the buckle that holds the red canvas harness around the lamb’s shoulders and starts to wrestle it out. It wriggles free and bounces over to Jack, stands on the jigsaw. The tiny landscape is fractured into pieces again. He sits back on his haunches and sighs.
‘I’ll take it down, okay little man?’ She scoops the lamb up. ‘You do the puzzle again and Bobbins won’t be able to accidently break it this time.’
Jack pushes the pieces into a pile, drops them one at a time into the box.
‘Why can’t I go outside?’
There are rabbits by the grass verge. The light is almost gone, but she sees their familiar shapes, hunched and soft, as they graze. They don’t startle when she approaches. Back home she’d have to sit and wait, upwind, with the air rifle. They’d scatter at the first shot, and she’d walk down to finish the job, if the pellet wasn’t on target. Wait another hour or more for them to come back out, cautious.
These rabbits just flick their ears towards her, sniff the air. If this area isn’t part of the tours, if the loggers rarely come, they may never have seen a human in their lifetimes.
She crouches, shuffles close. Reaches out a hand. The nearest animal flinches, then carries on eating. She has one chance. Lunges. Grabs. Catches the hind leg and feels it kick and strain as the others run and disappear into the bushes. It’s panicking, thrashing as she readjusts her grip. She takes its hind legs firmly with one hand and makes a ring around its neck with the thumb and index finger of the other.
The Half Life of Snails by Philippa Holloway is published by Parthian at £15