The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (life changing books txt) 📕

each imaginary shot, “There’ll be nothing left but tails mother, he’s the sharpest shooter …”

“The smartest shooter …”

“The rooting-tooting …”

“… super-duper …”

“… best-ever shooter in town.”

The three of them laughed. A moment of peace, if not quite happiness. The smart brother then rose from the chair, clearing away the breakfast plates and mugs. The slow brother went towards the cupboard by the door to the staircase to get the gun and ammunition. The mother thought for a while and then spoke to the slow brother.

“Before you start ratting, go up to the fields and get me a big strong rabbit for the pot. We’ll have ourselves a rabbit pie.”

The slow brother, loading the gun and feeling its weight in his hands, nodded and smiled.

“The biggest, strongest rabbit … for the shiniest, brightest gold coin,” he said cheerfully.

* * *

The slow brother moved carefully through the Christmas trees and out towards the fields. His gun was cocked, ready to use.

He crouched, the Christmas trees behind him, and looked over to the boundary of their land to the edge of the forest.

Knew that if he waited there for a while, probably not too long, rabbits would appear. And if he stayed still, they would come across the field towards him. He could shoot them easily. Whichever he wanted.

He did not shoot the baby rabbits with their fluffy tails.

Nor the mummy rabbits. The baby rabbits needed their mummy rabbits.

Only the big rabbits, the older, slower ones that no one loved. The father rabbits.

As he waited, he remembered when he shot his first rabbit. It was here, or close enough to it to make no difference. It was his seventh birthday. Father made him crouch down between his legs and he could feel his breath upon his neck and the smell of tobacco from his lips.

Father had made him hold the gun, finger on the trigger, and had then wrapped his big hands around his own smaller ones. He felt Father’s body pressed against his, the hardness of it, although he did not really understand it at the time nor his father’s heavier breathing.

He remembered the shot, the smell, the power of the gun in his hands. And, after crossing the field, the bulging-eyed rabbit that lay twitching by their feet. “Mix a my toes-ees,” was what he thought his father had said.

Myxomatosis, the reality, with the two of them, and the smart brother and the mother, shooting rabbits for what seemed like forever after that. Maybe just the summer, he thought, but he could not be sure.

He sighed. Sad suddenly.

At the memories of his father.

So many of them. Forcing their way into his mind.

The nights Father would bathe the two of them. Soaping away softly and carefully, at first, until their bodies were covered with lather. The careful drying and attention to detail so they’d avoid chafing and sores.

And then the stories at bedtime, with Mother downstairs darning and sewing by the fire. The acting out of stories. Of dragons and knights. The boys kneeling and bending before him. On and on.

And the burning. With the iron. The day he had fought back, the brother, the smart brother, standing there horrified, unable even to scream. And the lies. A fire in a barn. A brave boy burned.

It was the 1960s. Another world. No one investigated, nobody cared. A respectable father. Compliant children. A silent mother. And children were seen but not heard then. Life carried on.

He felt sudden anger. Raised his gun. Ready to shoot.

And he recalled the end. When he was grown up.

The words mostly. He remembered each one. Could almost say them as a rhyme.

Father, old now, a man in his late fifties, taunting and mocking the slow brother as he stood, in the outhouse, struggling, all fingers and thumbs, to skin a rabbit.

Stupid. Ugly. Good for nothing. Waste of space. Homo. Thick as shit. Mummy’s boy. Only good for fucking up the …”

And he remembered stabbing him. In the throat with the knife. Over and over again. Until he fell. Calling the smart brother. Hiding the body. The first in the old, long-since-unused cesspit.

The story the smart brother dreamed up. Rehearsed. Repeated. On and on. For ever and ever. Say this. Say that. Never anything else. Pretend you don’t understand. Nor know what to say. Act dumb if you have to. That should be easy enough.

He saw movement in the trees in the forest. Rabbits.

Swung the gun in that direction. Watched closely.

But there was nothing there, just his imagination. Wind in the trees.

They saved children like them. Abused by fathers who presented one face, happy and smiling, to the world and another, of fear and loathing, at home.

At first going out together, until the smart brother said the slow brother would be recognised one day. That they would be caught. Imprisoned. Mother left alone. Then the smart brother went out on his own, until he almost got caught and stopped for a while.

And then, in recent years, more occasionally, and far and wide, the slow brother waiting patiently among the trees for the smart brother’s return. To do what he did with the bodies.

And they had got away with it. All of it. For all these years. The two of them here at the farm with Mother. The smart brother out and about. The slow brother at home looking after Mother. And, in turn, Mother taking care of them.

A sudden noise behind. Rustling. The sound of a rabbit. He turned, raising his gun.

A little girl there, blonde and blue-eyed, the sweet child of his dreams.

She looked at the man with the melted face and screamed as he fired the gun.

* * *

The shot went up and over her head.

His instinct, to recoil as he shot the gun.

A moment’s silence as she stopped screaming then turned and ran, screaming again.

The slow brother stood for a second or two, as if dazed by what had happened. And then he was after her, running between the Christmas trees in a straight line following