The Woods

We haven't had much of a summer but I appreciate the rain because it keeps the wife's aunt out of the garden. She likes to stand on the lawn and sing, letting the wind take the songs away to someone else. The wind brings her songs too. She moves around as if she was moving an aerial, trying to get a better reception. She sings what she hears so we can hear it too. She's our radio. It makes you appreciate radios you can turn off. Yesterday she sang a song about snails floating away in bubbles.

My cousin Gary was once in a pub by the river with some friends of his. One of his friends, Monica, said, "I'd love to live on the river. In a boat."

"I'd love to live in the woods," Gary said.

"You'd have to kill your food."

"I could become a vegetarian."

"How are you going to grow vegetables in the woods?"

"I could make a clearing."

"Where are you going to find the energy to cut down all those trees if you don't have any food?"

"I could just go to the shop too."

"You wouldn't survive a day, even if you were within a hundred yards of a shop."

"I would. The more often people tell me I couldn't do it, the more determined I'd be to do it. Remember the time Martin said I couldn't wear a party hat for a week? I even wore it at a funeral."

"You wore another hat over it at the funeral."

"For most of the time, yeah. But most people wouldn't have worn either. Most people would have said, 'To hell with this. I'm just going to kick Martin.' Which I've also done just because he said I couldn't do it."

"Okay then. Prove me wrong by spending a day in the woods. Twenty-four hours."

"Alright. I will."

He had often gone camping before, so he wasn't too daunted by the prospect of spending a night in the woods. Monica and some of his other friends went with him to the entrance of the forest to see him off. Martin had a camera. It was eight o' clock in the evening when he left them and set off to find a camp site in the trees.

There was a wide path through the woods, and there were a few narrow paths that led off it. He followed one of these. It led him up a hill, next to a stream. He crossed a wooden bridge. The forest at the other side was thicker. It was like entering night, but he re-emerged into the end of the day when he came to a small clearing. He decided to make his camp here.

By the time he'd set up his tent, the stars were out above. He turned on a battery-powered lamp, and he took a photo of the tent with his phone. He sent it to Monica to show her his surroundings.

He turned on his radio, but he got the feeling that there were things hiding in the trees, and they were listening to the sound of the radio, approaching the source of the sound, getting ever closer to him. His imagination created these 'things' in the trees all around him, but it didn't draw a clear picture of what these things were. He turned off the radio, and he imagined the things halting their advance. He listened carefully. The symphony of bird song only drew pictures of birds in his mind.

Before long, the sky above was black. He wasn't tired enough to go to sleep, and he was afraid to go into the tent in case his mind drew the things entering the clearing. He regretted agreeing to spend a night in the woods just to prove to Monica that he could. If he managed to get out of it alive, she'd say, "Well done," and she'd have forgotten about it in five minutes. Her mind was always jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone. His was always slipping into the water. He'd agree to do something, and it would always seem like a brilliant idea at the time, but when he'd get to the banks of the river he'd find that he's soaking wet and it's cold.

At half-eleven he thought he saw a flashing light out of the corner of his eye. He turned and stared into the blackness where the trees should be if they keep existing when no one sees them. He kept looking for ten minutes and he saw nothing, which was much more terrifying than trees because it was a blank slate for his imagination to draw on.

He gave up his vigil, and he started walking around the tent, hoping to tire himself out. On the hundredth and twenty-first lap of the tent (he was counting to take his mind off of his surroundings) he thought he saw the light again. This time it was coming from a different direction. It was close to the path that led out of the clearing. He stared into the blackness again. He knew he'd never be able to convince himself that there was nothing there just by looking at nothing, so he decided to take a walk down the path.

He moved as quietly as he could. Every time he heard a sound he'd stop and listen. He'd stand completely still and hold his breath, and when he'd convinced himself that it was just a squirrel or a bird, he'd move on again. But then he heard a voice and he couldn't convince himself that it came from a squirrel or a bird. As he inched forward he heard a conversation between two men. They were talking about fishing. When he came to a turn in the path he saw them. They were just a few yards away, and they saw him too. They said hello, and Gary responded with a faint 'hi'.

One of them said, "It's a nice night."

"It is."

"Are you just visiting?"

"I suppose you could say that. I'm camping here."

"Fair play to you. Are you thinking of making a permanent move?"

"No. It's just for the night."

"Have you sampled any of the night life yet?"

"I don't know. It depends what you mean by 'night life'."

"Come on and I'll show you exactly what I mean."

Gary followed the two men down a path. They introduced themselves as Liam and Ivor. Gary could hear other voices and the sound of music. The path got wider, and then he saw the first house. It was a small log cabin next to the path. There were more cabins at either side of the path further on. It was like coming into a small wooden town.

"Do people live here?" Gary said.

"Oh yeah. We both live here. We couldn't afford to buy a house outside the woods."

They came to what looked like a main street. It wasn't wide enough for a car, but that wouldn't be a problem in the woods. There were wooden shops at either side. Most of them were closed, but their windows were lit up. At the end of the street the path went off in two different directions. In between the two paths there was a pub, and this is where the music was emanating from. A band was playing inside. There was a mannequin on the stage. It was holding a guitar.

Liam insisted on buying Gary a drink. The three of them sat at a table, and they spoke about living in the village. Ivor said he was carving a bath in his house.

A woman came over to them and she said to Gary, "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"

He looked up at her, and he thought she looked familiar. "Are you one of Monica's friends?" he said.

"I am. I think met you with Monica once."

"I remember. It's Emily, isn't it?"

"Well done. I'm afraid I can't remember your name."

"It's Gary. I'm only here because of Monica." He told her the story about the bet, and she said she'd show him around the place. They left the pub and they took a path that led down a hill. As they walked she said, "I'm always fighting with Monica. She blamed me for telling everyone about the hamster she killed. I told her that no one needed to say anything about it because the look on her face said 'I killed a hamster'. She said, 'You must have done something to your head because the stuff that's coming out of it is cuckoo.' And I said, 'Nobody says "cuckoo" any more. You should go away and... do something with... a dog.' I can't remember what I said, but she looked as if her head was a grenade and I'd just pulled the pin. Or she looked as if her head was the pin and I'd pulled a grenade."

The path led them to a small pond. There were couples in boats on the water. Some people were fishing. Gary and Emily walked around the pond, and they took another path back towards the village. They stopped to look at people playing lawn bowls, and Emily started talking about Monica again. "I said to her, 'Well, y' know, you did kill that hamster, didn't you?' And she said, 'Yeah, well, y' know, it's all up in the air with the clouds and the birds and the bees and the booze and those blue things my aunt Imelda threw at what's-his-name who owned the thing, so I don't know if I can give a more definite answer than that.' And I said, 'Yeah, alright, I don't really care anyway.' I was going to say, 'I couldn't care if your aunt Imelda ate one of the blue things and... punched the man with the thing.' That would have driven her mad because she once punched a man with a thing. It wasn't much of a thing. It was just a pen. Leona once said to her, 'You look like something the cat dragged in during one of its bad spells.' Leona's friend has bad spells when she paints everything black. Well, not everything."

When they got back to the village they met the band who had been playing in the pub earlier. Gary asked them why they were carrying a mannequin around with them. The drummer said, "What mannequin?"

"That one," Gary said, and he pointed at it.

"That's our guitarist."

"Sorry."

"I mean, I know he doesn't move very much, and we often have to carry him, but he's not a mannequin."

"He looks like a mannequin to me," Emily said. "If ye see a guitarist, that's fine. I used to see a white horse every morning. Sometimes it was smoking a cigarette. People used to tell me it was the milkman, but I always saw him as a white horse. And then one day I saw him walking into these woods so I followed him in. That's how I discovered this village. I've often come back here since then, and I hope to move here permanently."

"Now that's interesting," the drummer said. "If our manager was here he'd faint if you mentioned a white horse. But he's not here. He doesn't do much in the way of managing, or if he does, it has nothing to do with us. He wanted us to follow a white horse. He was upset that this horse was being left unfollowed, so he followed it himself, and as far as we know he still is following it, all along the coast. He believes that it will give us the gift of song-writing. Or maybe he just wants to walk along the coast. We haven't seen him in months."

The lead singer said, "We already have all the song-writing ability we need."

Gary had heard them earlier, and he thought their manager was right to believe that they could write better songs with a horse. The horse couldn't possibly come up with anything worse.

"This probably doesn't have anything to do with anything," Gary said. "But I was building a house of cards once, and I kept getting the feeling that a pony was looking over my shoulder. The higher up I went, the stronger this feeling became. And once I saw a pony in a field and he looked just like the one I imagined behind my shoulder. He stared at me, and I could tell he was thinking... I don't know what he was thinking, but he was definitely thinking something. Something about the cards."

"We've been brought here for a reason," Emily said.

"Have you seen the white horse here?" the lead singer said.

"Yeah, I saw him in the doorway of the house next to the restaurant."

They went to this house and Gary knocked on the door. When the door opened, Emily saw a white horse, and the others saw a former milkman. His name was Peter He invited them in and Emily told him about how they had been brought to him for a reason. She found it difficult to talk to a horse without laughing.

When she finished the story, he said, "I think I must have been brought here for a reason too. I lost my job as a milkman because of too many late nights. I used to go to gigs and play gigs. I often played with a busker I met on the streets, but then his career took an unexpected turn. His name is Harry. The story I heard was that two record company executives had a bet. One of them said he could make anyone a star and the other one bet him a million euros that he couldn't. They chose Harry to be the 'anyone'. This executive went to him on the street and offered him a brilliant contract, but Harry thought that the executive was a donkey, which made for a difficult working relationship."

"That's definitely a sign," Emily said. "We should go to see Harry."

They all went to see him on the following day. Peter was able to track him down through friends of his. When the band saw him they were shocked. Harry was their guitarist, or their former guitarist. He had left the band without telling them, and he got the mannequin to take his place. They saw that their new guitarist was really a mannequin when they saw Harry again. He apologised for leaving, and he asked if he could re-join. They welcomed him back into the fold, and he convinced them to recruit Peter as their rhythm guitarist. They sounded much better with the addition of two guitarists (the mannequin was moved to tambourine duties). The executive was happy with this development because working with the band was much easier than working with Harry on his own. He vowed to make the band a success.

The manager was delighted when they told him they had found the white horse, but it was a bit of an anti-climax when he returned and saw the milkman. But he was proud of the brilliant job he had done with the band. He believed he was responsible for the record deal. He said, "Trust your instincts -- that's what I always say. If your instincts are telling you that the best way to manage a band is to look for a white horse, then that's what you should do."

The moose's head over the fireplace is looking very distinguished in his tie. The wife makes him wear a tie when she plays music that can only safely be performed by a man in a suit. Some songs call for a cravat. When I play my prog rock records she makes him wear ear muffs.

Shadows

The weather is becoming predictable. Every day it's the same: sunshine and heavy showers. The grass is having a field day in the garden.

My cousin Albert joined a hill-walking club with his friends, George and Neil. On one weekend, the club went on a trip to climb a mountain, and they stayed in an old country house. Albert stood in the back yard after the sun had set. He liked the way the full moon illuminated the landscape at night. The shadows reminded him of night scenes in old Westerns, scenes that looked as if they were really shot by day. He looked at his own shadow. He thought it had a cool, cunning aura as it lay motionless on the ground, dressed in black. The effect was completely ruined when he moved suddenly, responding to his shock at the sound of footsteps. Another shadow appeared. This one belonged to Anthea. He tried to get his shadow to return to its cool, cunning pose, hoping to impress her shadow, but it never looked quite right. He was facing Anthea and the moon, and he couldn't see what their shadows were doing behind him, but he knew it was unlikely to be any different to what the owners of the shadows were doing: standing in silence as he tried to think of something to say.

He didn't get a chance to say anything. Finn appeared. He looked a lot like Albert's shadow had looked before Anthea arrived. Anthea tried to stay calm, but her shadow looked like a puppy wagging its tail and running in circles around Finn. Albert hated Finn. Women normally left and took their shadows with them when Albert arrived. Finn asked her if she'd like to go to the pond and she struggled to stop the puppy from jumping up on him.

Albert went to talk to George and Neil. He told them about Anthea going to the pond with Finn. "It's just all surface with him," Albert said. "He's as lacking in substance as his shadow. Why do virtually all women say they prefer substance to surface in men, and yet they go for the man with more surface appeal? At least men are honest when they say they prefer surface."

George said, "Just because you have less in the way of surface, it doesn't mean you should have more substance. Saying you prefer surface in women proves that."

"I didn't say I prefer surface."

"Do you like Anthea because of her substance?"

"Well, no."

"It's good that you don't have substance. If you had substance you wouldn't do anything about it. You'd say, 'The best man won,' and you'd read books instead."

"What can I do about it?"

"You can show her what the real Finn is like. There's a coward hiding beneath the surface. When Billy said his house was haunted, Finn fainted when the cat fell off the fridge."

"How are we going to show her he's a coward?"

"I think this sounds like the perfect opportunity for using my Northern Ireland accent." He gave them a preview of the accent when he said, "I'm from Northern Ireland, so I am. I've got a baseball bat, so I have. Give me your money or you'll be a blood donor, so you will."

"Why a Northern Ireland accent?" Neil said.

"Because we can't use our own accents and that's the one I do best. And we'll be wearing balaclavas."

"I thought those days were over in Northern Ireland."

"Well let's just say they've moved down here and they've targeted idiots like Finn. He'll probably start crying when he sees us in the balaclavas, dressed in black. We'll take his wallet, and we can return it to him later. We'll say we saw three men in balaclavas running away, so naturally we tackled them. 'Naturally'. I like that. And 'tackled'. He's always talking about the things he does on the rugby field. He makes it sound like assault. It'll drive him mad when he hears that we were the ones who tackled the thieves while he cried like a baby."

Neil pretended to be Australian because he couldn't do the Northern Ireland accent. They got a loan of the balaclavas from Tony, a fellow member of the club, who always wore balaclavas while climbing hills and mountains. He said he had a phobia of getting frost bite on his face. They couldn't find baseball bats, so they used sticks instead.

They crept up on Finn and Anthea by the pond. Finn nearly fell into the water when Neil said, "Give me your money, mate." Albert and George felt like hitting him for saying 'mate'.

Finn was slow to get his wallet because his hands were shaking and he kept shouting 'Please don't hurt me'. Other members of the club heard him and they came to see what was going on.

On the one hand, the more people who knew about his cowardice the better, but on the other hand, if amongst those 'more people' there were some who'd love nothing more than a fight with stick-wielding muggers, with the added intoxication of a possible Northern Ireland political element, they'd leave their shadows behind in their eagerness to get to the action. Most of 'more people' fitted this bill. They chased Albert, George and Neil.

The first part of their plan (exposing Finn's cowardice) had gone perfectly, but the second part (playing the role of heroic, wallet-returning tacklers) would have to be abandoned given their failure to get the wallet and the fact that if anyone was going to tackle Albert, George and Neil, it wouldn't be Albert, George and Neil. This latter point presented a further problem: if they were tackled and caught, they'd be exposed as muggers who prey on women and cowards in isolated spots late at night, and Anthea might decide she'd prefer a coward to that.

They ran towards a house that looked abandoned. They tried opening the front door, but it wouldn't move. As they were wondering what to do the door opened and they saw a man smoking a pipe. He took the pipe out of his mouth to say, "Good evening, gentlemen." He replaced the pipe. He had no intention of losing his composure, which disconcerted Albert, George and Neil. Your composure is the first thing you should lose when you're faced with three men who are wearing balaclavas and holding sticks, and if that's all you lose you can count yourself lucky.

He said, "It's a grand evening for it."

Albert wondered if by 'it' he meant something you'd do with sticks or a general sort of 'it'. "It is," Albert said.

Albert, George and Neil looked around when they heard their pursuers approaching. He saw that they didn't want to be caught, so he invited them in. They took off the balaclavas in the hall. The man introduced himself as Andrew.

He took them into his living room, where a poker game was taking place. There were two other players, apart from Andrew. One was a priest, Father Moran, and the other was a man known as Grassy. Andrew introduced them to Albert, George and Neil.

Grassy looked at them suspiciously. He thought that Andrew and Father Moran were trying to cheat just to get some money out of him. The last time they played, he lost a fortune, and it coincided with a time when Father Moran needed money to repair the church roof. "Let's get on with the bloody game," Grassy said.

At the end of the next round, Father Moran said, "I was down at Ted's house earlier. He's after getting himself into an awful mess. It's no secret that he's been concerned with his thinning hair for years. To call it 'thinning' now would be flattering the top of his head. It couldn't possibly get any thinner. I suppose I wouldn't be giving the game away if I told you that the strange apparatus he used to cover his head was a comb-over."

"It would have been some achievement if his hair had done that of its own accord," Andrew said.

"If you stood down-wind of him, you'd get the smell of gel half a mile away. A gale force wind wouldn't shift his hair. But I suppose he must have realised that using his comb-over to hide his bald head was like using one of Elvis's jumpsuits as camouflage. He was thinking about getting a toupee. His sister had a wig, and she told him he could try that on, just to see what it would feel like to wear one. But whatever she used to stick the wig to his head, it did its job too well. They couldn't get the wig off. So he's stuck with a sort of a Marilyn Monroe look. That'll stand out even more than the comb-over. He's been soaking his head in hot water, hoping it'll ease the grip of the glue. If it doesn't come off tomorrow, his sister is going to style it for him, presumably to make him look less like Marilyn Monroe."

"We've got to see this," Grassy said.

"We could call to see him when our game is finished," Andrew said.

"He'll know we're just there to see his hair," Father Moran said.

"You could call to the door and we'll hide outside."

"Fair enough, but if he sees a priest at his door after midnight he'll get a heart attack. And it'll be well after midnight before our game is finished."

"Let's go now so."

"Fair enough."

"If we're going now," Grassy said, "I'm taking the deck with me." He suspected that some of the cards were marked, so Andrew and Father Moran knew what he had and what each other had. He'd been examining the backs of the cards all evening, and he hadn't noticed anything unusual, but he was convinced that Andrew would switch the deck when they left the house.

"There's no way I'd trust you with the cards," Andrew said.

Father Moran said, "We could give the cards to one of these lads."

"I don't trust them," Grassy said.

"How about this. We deal another hand and then we give our cards to the lads. And you can decide which one gets which hand, but they won't know whose hand they have, so if they do tamper with them, they won't know who they're helping or hindering."

Grassy didn't like being openly suspicious of a priest, so he agreed to this. The cards were dealt, and the three of them put their cards in piles on the edge of the table. Albert, George and Neil faced the other way. Grassy then re-arranged the order of the piles. He told George to take the first pile, Neil to take the second, and Albert to take the third. "If I see ye looking at them," he said, "the next thing ye'll be looking at is the interior of a ditch five miles away, and ye'll be wondering what happened ye'r knees."

They put the cards into their pockets without looking. Grassy made them walk ahead of him on the way to Ted's house. They hid outside his gate while Father Moran went to the door. They had trouble holding back the laughter when Ted appeared.

Father Moran said to him, "Sorry to bother you, Ted, but did I leave my glasses here earlier?"

"I haven't seen them."

"I'm sure they'll turn up somewhere. They always do. I found them in a flower pot once. Sorry for calling so late."

"Not at all, Father."

On the way back to Andrew's place they tried to think of a way of photographing Ted's new look. They were all in a good mood when they got back to the house. Andrew said, "Ye can return the cards now, lads. Albert, you had Father Moran's. George had Grassy's and Neil had mine."

Albert, George and Neil had a quick look at the cards before giving them back. Andrew got a bottle of whiskey from the sideboard and filled their glasses.

Andrew won that round. They were playing Texas hold 'em. He had an ace and a nine, and there were another two aces on the table. Grassy's good mood evaporated, and the suspicion returned.

The end of the game was within sight a few rounds later. Grassy put all of his chips into the pot. Of the five cards that were faced up on the table, three of them were aces. As soon as the third one appeared, Grassy stood up and turned the table over. "There are three aces on the table," he said, "and I have another two of them." He showed them his hand.

Andrew and Father Moran remained calm. Grassy couldn't take his anger out on Father Moran, and he was scared of Andrew, but he could take it out on Albert, George and Neil. He broke a leg off the table and chased them out of the house. They ran back towards the house where they were staying. They made sure they didn't scream like Finn had done. They didn't notice when Grassy stopped suddenly and said, "I had five aces!" He dropped the table leg and ran back to Andrew's house.

Their fellow club members saw them running towards the house. Gordon had led the chase earlier. He asked them what they were running from.

"We saw men in balaclavas," Albert said. "They had sticks."

"Yeah," Gordon said, "they frightened Finn too." Albert, George and Neil hung their heads.

Anthea seemed to be magnetically drawn towards Gordon, but Albert didn't mind because it was much better than seeing her with Finn.

Gordon found the table leg on the following day and he assumed that it must have been one of the weapons the muggers used. Albert, George and Neil went to see Andrew. He told them that Grassy had failed to win the pot with his five aces because he had turned the table over before betting was completed, so he only had himself to blame. Andrew was to blame for the extra ace. When they had returned from Ted's house, Neil had a look at Andrew's hand before giving it back. There was no ace in it, so he must have added the ace and lost the four of diamonds when he went to get the whiskey at the sideboard.

The moose's head over the fireplace has been watching Mr. Ed. There's a look of disdain on the moose's face every time Mr. Ed talks. He doesn't like horses, but he can tolerate them if they run in races and win at long odds, just as he predicted. He can't abide a horse who stays in his stable and talks. The moose's head would never demean himself by using human words.

The Heckler

The wife's aunt got a garden gnome that's wearing a white bridal gown and carrying a bouquet. It also has a beard. I suppose it wouldn't really be a garden gnome if it didn't have a beard. It shouldn't be wearing white, not after what the dog did to it.

My cousin Chloe has been playing the harp since she was ten. She took it up mainly because her father played it, but she loved the sound of the harp, and she loved the visual impression she created by playing something that was bigger than her. It felt like taming a lion, and her friends who played the tin whistle weren't even charming a snake -- they were prodding a snail.

She became a very accomplished harpist. She often played with a traditional band, and she played at weddings for friends and relatives. She enjoyed going to traditional music festivals, and joining in sessions in pubs or outside on the street. She gave solo performances too.

She went to a festival in a small town with some friends of hers, who were also musicians. They rented a holiday home near the town. She was playing in the town hall one evening. She was the third act on stage, after a piper and a group of set dancers who looked as if they were people randomly chosen off the street, and the street in question was one outside a half-way house for mental patients, but when they started dancing they proved to be surprisingly talented. They got a standing ovation when they finished.

Chloe had been playing for less than thirty seconds when she was heckled for the first time in her life, or the second if you count the time her brother called her a wildebeest, but he just said it because he liked saying 'wildebeest'. A man in the audience said, "Are you trying to put us to sleep?"

Chloe stopped playing. She was so shocked she didn't know what to do, but instinct soon took over. She stood up and defended herself in what some people would interpret as a verbal attack. One man laughed at it, but this only served to highlight the silence of the rest of the crowd. When she sat down again she was expecting a round of applause, but she just got the overwhelming silence.

She started playing again. When she reached the end of the song she got a light round of applause. It was nowhere near the ovation for the dancers.

She met a friend of hers called Jimmy on the following day. He said, "People are saying you went mental in the hall last night."

"I didn't! Unless they mean it in a good way."

"No, I don't think it's meant in a good way."

"I didn't! A man in the audience went mental. He started heckling me. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine if someone started heckling you when you were playing the flute? What would you say to that?"

"You can't really say anything when you're playing the flute."

"Exactly. I had to stop playing. There's no way I could have gone on. And I had to say something after I stopped."

"I heard you said he stuck one of his fingers too far into his head."

"I could have said much worse than that. That's not going mental. That's stating the obvious."

"Yeah. But still, it wouldn't be the sort of thing most of the audience would like to hear. I've often heard people make jokes about the AI man. Jokes like that seem to go down very well in places like this. You should have said something about the AI man."

"What does AI stand for?"

"Artificial insemination. For cows."

"What could I have said about that?"

"Lots of things. Like... Actually, you're probably better off putting a bit of thought into that. You could offend someone very easily."

"No one cares about offending a harpist who's just trying to entertain them."

"My brother Nick was giving a speech once and he was heckled, by one of his friends. Nick said, 'You're from China and your name is You're Some Fool.'"

"And did people laugh?"

"Oh yeah, they thought it was hilarious. Although some Chinese people didn't get it."

Later that day she went to the town square to play. A crowd gathered around her. Before she began playing she heard someone in the crowd say, "If you're standing up, make sure you have somewhere soft to land when you fall asleep."

Everyone laughed. Chloe remained silent. She wondered if she should point out the pointlessness of that statement, because they were all standing up, and they were standing on concrete. But she let it pass.

Other things were said while she played. She didn't hear all of them, but she did hear 'I haven't shoved it far enough into mine'. She got a huge round of applause at the end. It was mixed with some laughter, and she got the impression that they were applauding her for being the object of their ridicule rather than for her playing.

Jimmy came up to her and said, "I have a good line about the AI man, if you want it."

"No, thanks."

She went to a pub that evening to play a session with some other musicians. She met the man who heckled her. His name was Keith.

He said, "Have you calmed down since last night?"

"I'm always calm," she said.

"If last night was calm, I'd hate to see you angry."

"Then why are you so determined to make me angry?"

"Is that what you think I'm trying to do?"

"If I started heckling you when you were in the shop or mowing the lawn, you'd be angry."

"How would you heckle someone when they're mowing the lawn?"

"I'd say, 'What are you trying to do to that lawn?'"

"I'd say I was mowing it."

"Yeah well I'd just make fun of your clothes then."

"What's wrong with my clothes?"

"They're the sort of clothes you'd be buried in if your family bore a grudge against you."

"I wouldn't be angry if you said that. I'd love to be buried in these clothes. And my family do bear a grudge against me. I married the wrong woman."

"What if I started heckling your wife?"

"I'd applaud that. She bears a grudge against me too."

"I'd just throw something at you so."

"Are you still calm?"

"You're obviously just trying to make me angry. I've never heard of anyone heckling a harpist before."

"I was offering constructive criticism. You're playing the wrong instrument. You put people to sleep with your performance so you need to go mental every so often to wake them up. If you were playing the drums, you wouldn't need to go mental."

"I've never gone mental."

"I know. You're always calm."

"I am."

"You're just like me. I'm always nice."

Just as the session was about to begin, Keith said, "I haven't been this excited about a performance since I was addicted to sleeping pills."

Everyone laughed. Chloe glared at him. She said, "Have you just had a visit from the AI man?"

The place erupted in laughter before she had a chance to deliver the punch line, which was: "'AI' as in 'artificial intelligence'." She was going to deliver the punch line when the laughter died down, but the laughter went on for a few minutes, and she started to think that her line would be an anti-climax.

They were laughing because the AI man once threw a turnip at him. Keith didn't know what to say to Chloe. The look on his face suggested she'd got one over on him. When she started playing she was smiling. No one dared heckle her.

The moose's head over the fireplace is looking very thoughtful. He has two weeks worth of insights to explore now that he can focus his mind on higher things without being distracted by Wimbledon. The sound of tennis must have instilled some unpleasant images in his mind. One of our neighbours says he once beat a former Wimbledon champion. He says he did it with a pitching wedge, so it probably wasn't tennis. It wouldn't have been golf either.

The Bodyguards

It's a good time for cloud spotters, with the mountainous white clouds carried on the wind. You don't need to travel for scenery when the wind brings the mountains to you. The wind blows waves through the fields, creating a green sea. You can't climb the mountains in the sky or surf the fields. I have no desire to do either. The wife's uncle told us about a woman he knew who took him surfing. He couldn't even stay on the board, but she was able to perform complex manoeuvres, like three-point turns or reversing around a corner. She dispelled his perception that women were poor at parking.

My cousin Alan once spent a summer working as a lifeguard in a seaside town. He lived in an attic apartment in a house overlooking the sea. In the evenings he'd visit Esther, who lived downstairs. They'd listen to records or she'd play the piano. Sometimes they'd just talk and smoke. She had a glass ashtray with the word 'Albert' in red letters on the bottom of it. She didn't know who or what Albert was. She knew who Edward was. She knew exactly what he was too, but she was too polite to say it. Edward was their landlord. He was always laughing at his own jokes. No one would have recognised them as jokes if he didn't laugh.

Her brother came to stay with her. His name was Greg and he was a music critic. He told Alan about how he became a critic by chance just a few months earlier when a friend took him to see a jazz band. The friend, Michelle, knew the drummer. To Greg, the drummer seemed as if he was playing with murderous intent. "What's he trying to kill?" he said to Michelle, but she didn't say anything.

When they met the drummer later she said to him, "Greg thought you were trying to kill something."

The drummer, whose name was Peter, said, "Kill what?"

"He didn't know," Michelle said. "He asked me what it was."

"I didn't mean it in a bad way," Greg said.

"Since when has murder not been bad?" she said.

"It's not necessarily murder. It could be self-defence, or an accident."

"You can't accidentally try to kill someone."

"You could if you meant to do something else. Like playing the drums."

"So that's what you thought when you saw them play, that Peter was inadvertently beating someone to death?"

"I didn't mean it in a bad way."

"Since when has accidentally beating someone to death not been bad?"

"Well firstly, I said 'trying' to kill, so it wouldn't actually result in a death. And secondly, the person being beaten could be evil. It could be Hitler. Trying to beat Hitler to death."

"No one's ever described my playing like that before," Peter said. "I like it."

They spent the rest of the night talking about ways to describe the band's sound. Greg came up with the phrase 'like snowflakes made with diesel', and the band used this on their posters. The editor of a magazine saw it, and he got Greg to review albums and gigs.

Esther and Alan went to the pub one evening, and on their way home they saw a poster for a gig by a band called 'The Basket Kickers'. "Greg reviewed their album," she said. "He liked it, I think. Sometimes his prose needs a lot of interpretation. We should go to see them."

When they got back to Esther's flat, she told her brother about The Basket Kickers' gig, and he looked shocked. "They must have followed me!" he said.

"What do you mean?"

He told them about how they were unhappy with his review. Their songs were full of violent lyrics, but he said they were about as scary as a lawn. They confronted him at a gig one night, and when he saw them in person, their lyrics suddenly seemed authentic. They looked as if they'd been in fights. Greg felt the blades of a lawnmower bearing down on him, but he was able to get away, and he came to stay with Esther for a while until they calmed down. "I thought I'd be safe here," he said, "but they must have tracked me down."

"They can't stay around for ever," Esther said. "You just have to avoid them for a few days."

On the following day, Esther and Alan did a bit of detective work. They found out that the band were staying in a house next to a bookshop, and they were playing in another town three days later, so Greg just had to avoid them until then."

He didn't want to leave Esther's apartment. Instead of going to the pub that evening, Esther and Alan decided to stay in with him. Alan went to the off-licence to get some drink. Esther invited the other tenants in the building around and it turned into a minor party.

At half-ten they heard the door opening below. They wondered who it could be. All of the tenants were in Esther's apartment. They heard steps on the stairs, and then a knock on the door. Greg hid behind a sofa before Esther opened the door, but it was just Edward, their landlord. When he saw everyone there he said, "It warms my heart to see the communal spirit taking hold. I've had tenants before who've only wanted to kill each other. There was plenty entertainment to be had from that, but it could never warm the heart."

When Greg sneezed, Edward asked what was wrong with the sofa. Greg stood up. "He's my brother," Esther said to Edward. "He wasn't trying to hide from you. He's actually trying to hide from a band because they bear a grudge against him. They're staying in a house next to the bookshop, but they'll be leaving town in a few days, so he just has to avoid them until then."

Edward smiled. He said, "I can help you out, young man. You can't waste your time hiding behind the sofa on beautiful summer days like these. What you need is bodyguards, and my nephews would be ideal for the job."

Esther was standing behind Edward. She shook her head at Greg, and she mouthed the word 'no!' (with her demeanour, she was able the express the exclamation mark).

Greg paused as he looked at her, and Edward took that as a yes. "I'll give them a call," he said.

His nephews were Eric and Barry. They could watch the seagulls for hours. Some people might take this to be a sign of inner peace and serenity, but if they had a gun they could shoot the seagulls for hours. They were more likely to achieve inner peace by making things explode, whether it be seagulls, sheds or dumps.

Esther once saw them being transfixed by moths that flew around their heads. They tried to set one of the moths on fire when it landed on the window, but it flew away as Eric approached with his cigarette lighter. Then he tried to set the window on fire.

She first met them when Edward brought them around to knock down a wall. He said to her, "They're both single, so you can take your pick."

"No, thanks," she said.

"'You can take your pick' is a phrase they'd be familiar with. They'd always hear it just before the words 'and shove it'. They have a pickaxe and a shovel in the back of their van. I'd say half the things they do leave them with things they need to bury. Some women would go for men like that."

"Would they."

"I've found that some women can be very morbid. More so than some men. Eric and Barry wouldn't be morbid at all, but they take to death like a duck to water. A duck wouldn't be a duck if they couldn't shoot it."

"It wouldn't be a duck for long if they could shoot it."

"If it was Eric and Barry versus the duck, I'd put my money on the duck. They're not the brightest of bulbs."

"Really."

"Are you sure you don't want to have a go at one of them?"

"No, thanks."

"Because I know of a few women who have their eyes on them. The lads in the pub were saying that wherever their eyes are, it wouldn't be in their eye sockets, but I'd say it's more to do with what's in their heads."

"Really."

Greg didn't have any say in the choice of his new bodyguards. They arrived at Esther's apartment about ten minutes after their uncle had phoned them. Edward said to them, "I have a little job for ye. Ye could do this sort of thing in ye'r sleep. I want ye to protect this man here. His name is... What's your name?"

"Greg."

"His name is Greg. Don't leave his side for the next few days. Sedate him if you have to."

Neither of the brothers knew what 'sedate' meant. It sounded too much like 'seduce' for their liking. Greg expressed what they were thinking when he said, "There's no need to go that far. I'd jump out of a window to get away from being sedated."

"Okay so," Edward said. "Forget about the sedation. But don't leave his side. There's an empty apartment on the ground floor. Ye can stay there while ye're doing this job."

There was silence after Edward left. The other tenants decided it was time to go home, leaving Esther, Alan and Greg alone with the brothers. "Why don't we go to the pub?" Esther said. "You don't have to fear the band now that you've got bodyguards. In fact, you should let them see you with Eric and Barry."

The atmosphere was only marginally better in the pub. The brothers sat at either side of Greg. Esther asked them if they were still trying to find the briefcase they buried.

"Yeah," Barry said. "Someone can't find the map he made to lead us to where we buried it."

"That someone is Barry," Eric said.

"Yeah," Barry said, "but someone else has a mouse's head in his pocket."

"That isn't someone else," Eric said. "That's Barry too."

Barry put his hand in his pocket. He said, "Okay. But it was definitely someone else who put his foot in a snare to see if it was working."

Eric said nothing.

Alan got the next round of drinks. Greg had a double whiskey. He didn't want to spend any more time with the brothers, especially not alone with them. On the following day he tip-toed down the stairs, and he had nearly made his getaway when the door to the apartment on the left of the hall opened. Eric was standing there. "Where do you think you're going?" he said.

"Nowhere. I'm waiting for ye."

"Come on in so. Do you want some breakfast? We found some mackerel."

"No, thanks."

After breakfast, the brothers took him to a disused quarry to pass the time. They threw stones at an old crane, but Greg refused to partake in this activity. "It's stupid," he said.

"Do you think we're stupid?" Barry said.

"I wouldn't say 'stupid'. Or 'think', for that matter."

"Do you think you're better than us?"

"No. I think I'm above ye. There's a subtle but important difference."

"Do you want to explain that, or would it just end in pain?"

"Pain for who?"

Barry shook his head and said, "You're stupid. I 'think' you're stupid."

"It sounded as if you were in pain when you had to think."

Barry moved towards him with the intention of inflicting pain, but Eric intervened and reminded his brother that they were supposed to be protecting Greg.

Greg threw a stone at the crane as a gesture of peace, and that eased the tension.

He finally cracked in the afternoon, after spending hours throwing stones at an old boat. He said, "I've had enough of this. I'm going to see the band to apologise to them."

The brothers were sick of Greg, so they didn't try to talk him out of it, but they didn't abandon their duty as bodyguards. They went with him, hoping for a fight with the band.

They went in the brothers' van. Barry parked it outside the house next to the bookshop. Greg got out. He stood outside the door of the house and he took a deep breath. He was just about to ring the doorbell when he heard Eric say, "The bastard!"

Greg turned around. The brothers were looking at a skip outside a house further down the street, at the other side. Edward had bought that house. It was an old house, and he needed to remove all the old furniture, carpets, wallpaper, sinks and so forth. He said he needed to 'gut' the place, and he promised Eric and Barry he'd let them do it. They liked the sound of the word 'gut' and they were looking forward to the job. But Edward didn't like the way they were looking forward to it. He was afraid they'd burn the place down or blow the place up, so he got someone else to do the job, and he got them to protect Greg just to keep them away from this street.

They saw a pile of old tiles being ejected from an upstairs window. The tiles landed in the skip below. Then a face appeared in the window and the brothers' anger increased exponentially. It was Eamon, their cousin. He was six-foot-four and all muscle. They were always fighting with him, and he always beat the two of them, but only just. He saw them on the street below and he smiled the smile of a man approaching a fight he knew he could win. The head disappeared inside and they knew he was coming down to meet them. Eric said to Greg, "Now it's your turn to help us. Have you ever hit someone with a piece of skirting board?"

"Forget about it. Leave me out of this."

"You're helping us," Barry said, "and you don't have much choice in the matter. We could never sedate you, but we could easily kill you."

Eamon emerged from the door and walked out to the centre of the street. He stood there, smiling and shirtless. The brothers went to the centre of the street too. They stood about twenty yards away from him, facing him. Greg couldn't tell who made the first move, but suddenly they were running towards each other, shouting something indecipherable as they ran.

Greg stood back and watched the fight. He didn't think it was likely that the brothers could kill him while Eamon was doing his best to kill them. But after a few minutes of being punched and kicked by Eamon, they somehow managed to pin him to the ground. It would have been the perfect time to sedate him. If you didn't know what was going on, you might think that the seduction had already taken place. Eric said to Greg, "Get the rope from the van." Greg didn't move, and Eric said, "If you don't get it now, it'll be your noose later."

So Greg turned around to get it, and he saw a member of The Basket Kickers looking down from an upstairs window of the house. He wanted to get away as quickly as possible, so he ran to the van, got the rope, ran back to the tangle of bodies and he tied Eamon's hands together. Barry told him to tie the feet too. They dragged Eamon along the ground to the van and lifted him into the back, and then they drove away as quickly as they could. It was all done to a soundtrack composed by Eamon, consisting entirely of profanities.

They took him to an abandoned house outside the town, and they tied him to a chair. The brothers often used this house to hide things.

"Ye can't keep me tied up forever," he said.

"We could keep you tied up for a day or two," Eric said. "We could have a lot of fun in a day or two."

"The more fun ye have, the more ye'll pay for it when ye release me. And ye can't keep me tied up forever."

"Aren't you having fun?" Barry said.

"I'm having the time of my life. Because I'm imagining what I'm going to do to ye when ye un-tie me."

"Well then we won't un-tie you."

"Ye can't do that. Blood is thicker than water, or so they say. I've never been well acquainted with water, but I know blood."

"We could get someone else to un-tie you in a day or two," Eric said. "And in the meantime we could do whatever we want to your record collection."

"Ye wouldn't dare."

"We will," Barry said. "We're off to break into your house. We'll leave you here to imagine what we're up to."

They left to more soundtrack music. As soon as they got into the van, Barry said, "Oh God! What have we done!"

"I haven't done anything," Greg said.

"You were the one who tied him up."

"Maybe we should leave town for a while," Eric said. "We'll get someone to release Eamon this evening. By then we'll be long gone."

Greg liked the sound of that, but he didn't want to go with them. They dropped him off at his sister's apartment and they drove on. He got his things together and he left the building. He tried to hide his face beneath a baseball cap. He went to a road leading out of town, hoping to hitch a ride. After a few minutes, a van stopped. Greg was shocked to see The Basket Kickers inside, and they looked shocked to see him too. He was getting ready to run, but they drove away quickly. They had decided to leave town after seeing his involvement in Eamon's kidnapping. They were more afraid of him than he was of them.

The moose's head over the fireplace seems to enjoy looking at the clouds through the window. The sight of snow-covered mountains would remind him of home. Of course, not all of them look like mountains. I saw one that looked just like a turkey, a dead one, gliding through the air in slow motion, moving much more gracefully than a live one could. It reminded me of the last time I saw a dead turkey. If that one had been moving in slow motion I might have been able to avoid it.