Magpie. Sophie Draper
about coins. He must have stumbled on the metal detecting websites and begun asking and answering questions. Before long he was pretty knowledgeable, with a host of new internet friends. Ironically, he used StickMan as his online name.
By fifteen he’d bought his first metal detector. There was a local group near Matlock and he joined up, spending his weekends tagging along, learning from them. I was glad. I’d decided it was good for him. He thrived on their acceptance, being part of a group. That was important to him. He’d never found acceptance at school. Or home.
The morning doesn’t come. At least that’s how it feels. I look out of the big window and there’s fog right up against the glass. I can’t see a thing.
I stand on my tiptoes, as if that would help. It’s like the Barn is suspended in the air, travelling at more than thirty thousand feet. I feel disorientated, Dorothy in her tiny shack, spinning through the sky towards the Land of Oz. The glass is cold beneath my fingers, and the swirls of fog float and curl like blooms of white ink in water. I’m not sure that white ink is even a thing.
I’m tired from the night before. I’ve hardly slept a wink. Duncan hasn’t come back, not that it surprises me. Joe hasn’t come home either. Must be the fog – he’d easily get spooked in that. I hate to think of him out there, in the cold. If he’s got any sense, he’ll have taken refuge somewhere, waiting it out. The fog moves again, drifting apart and back again, heaving like a giant’s breath. Duncan will have gone to work by now, rolling out of whatever or whoever’s bed he’s slept in.
I fantasise about Duncan never coming back. How much easier that would be, if he suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. Walked out and never came back. No messy divorce, no emotional meltdown, no arguments over money. He won’t like being forced to sell the Barn. I smile at that, sweet revenge for all those years of neglect.
What if he died? The thought comes to me from nowhere. I’d inherit everything. I could sell up and do whatever I liked.
The very idea, however, fills me with horror. I think of his body mangled in the mud, his legs bent the wrong way, his head twisted to one side, eyes wide and staring. Her too, whilst we’re at it. Whoever she is, her long hair splayed on a dashboard – it’s got to be long hair, it’s far more visual, crimson blood trickling down her head. Oh, God, what am I thinking?
I don’t want that. How could I want that? This was never what I wanted. For a moment I ask myself if I can really do it, leave Duncan, leave everything we’ve built up between us. The comforts of our life, the home we have, even if I don’t particularly like it. I know I’m damned lucky compared to most people – ungrateful, that’s what my mother would have said. Just as well she’s no longer here to see me. She died five years ago, my father two years before that. Mum always approved of Duncan – she thought he could do no wrong. A handsome man with his sleeves rolled up, saving doggy lives … what’s not to like?
Duncan and I have been together for ever, since we were both eighteen – the same age that Joe is now. I’ve hardly known anything else. Have I really stopped loving him? I think of Duncan when we were newly married. His warm body pressing down on mine, his breath teasing at my ear. His energy and wit. I adored him then. If I didn’t love him still, then it wouldn’t hurt like this, would it?
I sigh and the fog sighs with me, rolling back to reveal a glimpse of the outside. There must be a breeze, there always is, up here on the hill. But the trees are unmoving. I see the horizontal lines of the five-bar gate, the darker shapes of the hedgerow in the fields, the uneven turf. Under all that grass, there are dips and hollows and holes dug out by rabbits and moles and foxes … I feel the touch of cool air on the back of my neck, almost as if I’m out there not inside. Then the fog lifts, uncertainly, like a grey sheet flapping in the wind. I can see through to the far slopes of the valley on the other side of the water. There are figures. Dark, black figures. People.
I lean in. There are four of them, I think.
Moments later, the fog sinks down again and I can’t see them anymore. Then the fog rolls back and now there are only two. I’m not sure if what I’m seeing are real people, wearing coats and hats and earphones, holding those stupid sticks. Or if they’re animals, cows or even sheep in the distance. It plays tricks on you, the fog, especially here in the valley, something about the light being distorted by the shadow of the hills. Or maybe I need a pair of glasses. I watch as the fog closes in again, thick and solid against the window, like the safety curtain on a stage. I can’t see them anymore. I can’t see a thing. I wait and watch and moments later, when the fog shifts and the view opens up, the men, or whatever I saw, are gone.
A short while later, there’s the scrabble of a hand on the back door and the sound of Arthur’s wet paws clattering on the tiles. A cold draught gusts across the kitchen.
‘Mum?’
It’s Joe. He’s back.
‘Mum – are you there? You won’t believe what I’ve found!’
‘Look, Mum! Did you ever see anything so beautiful?’
I look at the tiny disc in his hand. It seems little more than a clump of dirt to me. But I can make out that it’s a coin. Albeit of the chewed, dull and damaged sort.
The edges aren’t quite circular and the disc is slightly bent from its years under the ground. Perhaps it’s got crushed by farming equipment, or simply warped through the process of time. The metal is heavily tarnished, soil still clinging to the surface. Joe turns it over in his hand and there’s definitely some kind of pattern on each side. One is more obscured than the other, but the reverse has the clear shape of a head, crowned with a laurel wreath.
‘It needs cleaning,’ Joe says. ‘But wow! Look at it!’
‘That’s amazing, Joe. Very nice.’
I’m not sure what else to say. Nice – what an awful word that is, but so convenient. I lean forwards, trying to show more interest.
‘Where did you find it?’ I ask.
‘In the bottom field. I’ve been working that rough ground beside the reservoir near the road. On my own. I’ve not told any of the other guys what I’m doing as it’s our land. They’re out there today, further up the valley, so I had to come in. I found this last night only a few inches down in the earth. I’ve not found a coin as old as this before!’
His fingers hold the coin as if it’s the most precious thing in the world. He folds his fingers around it and I can’t see it anymore. He kicks off his shoes, leaving them abandoned on the floor. Then he reaches up into one of the cupboards, grabs a bowl with his free hand and exits the kitchen, climbing the stairs. I hear the usual bang of his bedroom door and then silence. No music, not this time.
That coin, I guess, will keep him occupied for hours.
I pick up the shoes, tucking them out of sight, and unlatch the power pack from the metal detector – Duncan will have a fit if he knows Joe has a second one. I take it up to Joe’s room and knock on the door. He doesn’t answer.
I nudge open the door and it swings back on its hinge.
‘Joe?’
He’s not there. The door to his en suite is closed. I hear the sound of the shower running on the other side. His bed is strewn with dirty clothes, and a week’s worth of socks and pants lie scattered on the floor. There are deconstructed bits of bike and a deflated inner bicycle tube curling like an abandoned snake skin on the carpet. His desk isn’t much better: littered with half-eaten crisp packets and an empty bottle of Coke. I hate that – I’ve had a running battle with him about fizzy drinks ever since he was old enough to spend his own pocket money.
The bowl he took