Page 13 of Vine

Whoever invented the phraseparalysed by fearhad never accidentally petted a brumating snake in the middle of the goddamn night. With a squeal that no man who’s gone through puberty should ever be able to generate, I leaped four foot in the air. And then collapsed in a stunned heap as the back of my skull smacked against the underside of the sink, felling me like a tree.

In any other situation, I’d have stayed there, huddled on the kitchen floor, poleaxed and whimpering. But for all I knew, a fucking grumpy man-eating python was psyching itself up to attack. I scrabbled backwards, dizzily trying to keep the contents of my bladder from spilling into my pyjamas. The gatehouse took on the dimensions of a ballroom, the stone tiles under my feet as slippery as an ice rink. Obviously needing a bump on the front of my head to distract from the one on the back, I careened into a wall, pinballing off another to smack my hip into a shadowy sofa.

With more luck than judgement, my hand landed on the front door handle. A nanosecond later, I launched myself through it, tripping down the first step, diving across the second, doing the splits over the third, and finishing up face-planted into unforgiving wet gravel.

From thereon, things went a little hazy.

CHAPTER 5

MAX

Several breeds of owl hooted to each other at night. Like the wizened old men commenting onboulesmatches in the village square, they threw out occasional random remarks, each with their own particular voice. For instance, the happily married short-eared pair nesting in the old beech tree behind my housecoo-cooedadoringly to each other at ten thirty p.m. every evening, without fail. I could set my watch by them. Whereas the bachelor barn owl, hunkered down in a grain store out on the Ars road, was the sort of miserable old sod who determined, if he was awake, then everyone else should be too. He patiently waited until not even a blade of grass stirred before uttering a rasping, harsh scream straight out of a Tarantino movie.

Not dissimilar to the earth-shattering shriek jerking me awake from a dreamless sleep. But not quite the same pitch as the barn owl. Lying on my back, I processed the curious noise. Noir shuffled from his comfy basket onto my even comfier feet.

Over the wintry months, in the ditches between the salt flats, a family of coypus had made a home. Horrible, ugly, vicious things, with sharp teeth that could rip a man’s dog to shreds.They had a scream on them too, if threatened, but less shrill, more of a vindictive malevolent snarl.

This wasn’t the cry of an embittered coypu.

Arguably, red foxes were the worst. Mama vixens yelped for hours, as if their cubs were being slowly strangled, just for the hell of it. Could raise the dead, one of those screams.

It wasn’t a red fox either. Nor a dog, a cat, or a rat in a trap.

I clambered out of bed.

A comforting inky blanket of darkness stretched over the vineyard. A steady fall of rain drummed against my skylight, and a shrill wind rattled the shutter clips. A night made for thieves, sinners, and the ghosts of dead sailors. A night to be tucked up tight. As caution against the chill, I pulled on a sweater.

My oilskin jacket hung on the hook where it always hung, next to a blue woollen hat my mum knitted for me, and my leather gloves. Below, my rubber boots waited, side by side. Thick blue woollen socks poked from the tops of them, ready for tomorrow. A confused Noir watched me dress, and I took my time, gathering a torch, my phone, and a pocketknife. Nosily, he slunk out behind me.

The front door of the other gatehouse swung to and fro with the wind. As I closed it, I spied a pile of bedding dumped on the bare mattress.

My dog wandered across the stranger first, a metre or so from the empty gatehouse and lying face down. I knew where he’d come from, of course—he was one of the television people. Not from the island. No islanders would have been so daft. How long would it be until he was missed?

Noir pawed the ground, whining with curiosity as I bent over him. Laid out on sharp wet gravel, the stranger was dressed stupidly, a thin jacket thrown over even thinner pyjama bottoms, with canvas shoes on his feet. One arm was crooked above his head, like he was signalling for a taxi. The other laytrapped underneath his slim body. His face was turned to the side, one cheek smooshed into the gravel, the other chalky white below a closed eyelid, blue-veined, soaked, and fragile. A spot of blood blossomed from his lower lip, trickling down his chin. Another drip followed, diluted by raindrops, and then another. A puff of breath spiralled into the breeze as he groaned.

He was alive, then.

With nowhere else to be, I studied him for a minute.What would my brother Nico do?

The main house still lay in darkness. His scream hadn’t disturbed anyone else then. Another minute ticked by, during which I glanced back at my cosy gatehouse and then down at the man on the ground.What would my dad do?

Something eminently sensible. Crouching to study him more closely, I scratched my chin, coarse against the worn leather of my glove. A familiar prickle of anxiety worked its way up my spine. I glanced at my cosy little house again, wishing I was still asleep in it.

I was not my dad. I was not my brother. Sensible would mean phone calls, conversations with strangers, people tramping onto my land and into my home. Uninvited. Asking me questions, expecting answers, expecting me to talk to them, wanting cups of coffee, to use my toilet, to fuss my dog, to make a written rep?—

With another pitiful groan, the man stirred. He smacked his lips, shifting in his sleep. Noir nosed at his dark hair. Then his armpit. Then back to his hair again. I’d never breathed in the scent of another man, not up close, like the dog was enjoying. I’d never kissed one either. I’d wanted to, though. I once had a school friend, Luc, with thick chestnut curls that flopped across his forehead each time he bent over his work. I’d stare at them for most of our geography lesson, imagining the texture rubbed between my finger and thumb, wondering how soft they’d feel brushed against my nose.

How would this man’s lank, dark strands smell if they were clean and dry?

After another minute, I gingerly rolled him onto his back. He groaned again. The jacket fell open. Underneath, he wore a thin white T-shirt. Clumps of dirt and grit stuck to it, plastered against his chest. The pyjama bottoms clung to him wetly, too, the slit at the crotch darkly gaping. Fat, greedy, relentless drops of rain spattered down onto the both of us. Under my oilskins, I was warm and dry. The man was cold.

What would someone like me do?

I’d hauled much heavier sacks of oysters. Though less slippery wet. Through the fabric of my coat, the man’s hipbone dug into my shoulder; our oysters were plumper. It was hard to tell how old he was, a few years older than me perhaps.

The warmest, most comfortable place for him was my bed. After laying him on a towel to protect my under sheet, I stripped his clothes from him. Efficiently, like a nurse might. Not lingering, especially not on his groin, because that wouldn’t have been proper. I dabbed a square of toilet paper on his lip to stop the bleeding, like when I occasionally shaved off my beard and nicked my skin. It did the trick. One of his eyes was swollen shut where he’d hit it against something, a jagged gravel chip perhaps.

Sharp stone edges didn’t account for the blood seeping from under a square dressing on his arm. Nor for the four healing wounds evenly spread over both arms. And nor for the narrow threads of silver adjacent, either. I knew what they were: the scars of a million tears, faded over time. I hoped this stranger’s shame and sadness had faded with them, but as I redressed his newest injury with a fresh bandage from my first aid box, I concluded they probably hadn’t. Why was he so sad? Could be anything—not everyone had good fortune like mine.

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