Robbie's Wife (17 page)

Robbie is shearing the sheep, and we watch him, standing in a puddle of water, peeling off the wool and suddenly he throws the shears into the air.

ROBBIE:

Fucking piece of shit!

(He picks up the shears and examines the frayed wires, then jiggles them until the shears come to life again.)

English current is 220 volts. That’s why I needed this little transformer for my laptop. There was a pool of water that seemed to permanently be in front of the stalls. If Robbie were to be standing in the pool of water, and the shears dropped into them, then he’d suffer an electrocuting shock. How many films had I seen where the woman was in the tub and knocked her hair dryer into the water? Or someone plugged a curling iron in and dropped it into the tub, and the blonde shuddered and died and it was a terrible accident? The only thing was to make sure he was in that water. Jack would have to come up behind him, hit him with something, stun him, and then make sure the wires on the shears were exposed.

INT. SHED

Robbie falls into the water. The shears lie next to him.

Closeup of the shears. Suddenly there’s a blinding light.

Yes, I thought, Jack is home free. Clive Owen will come and he’ll see where Robbie hit his head against the front of the stall and he’ll find the shears with the frayed cord and he’ll come to the only possible conclusion.

JACK AND THE YOUNG MAN walk around the car while he inspects it, noting a scratch on the plastic bumper, a chip in the windshield.

YOUNG MAN:

No point in you paying for somebody else’s misfortune.

He checks them off on the sheet, now soggy from the misting rain, and hands Jack a copy, turns and ducks back into the garage. Jack slides behind the wheel and drives out of the industrial park, onto the A16 and, in a few miles, onto the M3, heading west.

EXT. MOTORWAY

It seems like he drove this same route months or years ago, but it’s really only four weeks since he went off to Dorset in search of White Church Farm, resolved to write something that would put him back on the map in Richard’s office. Richard and Los Angeles are a dim memory now, as is Mr. Orchard and the wretched hut JACK rented on the coast.

JACK’S POV: The windshield begins to fill again with rain.

FLASH BACK TO: The clerk in the hotel commenting that this is the rainiest, coldest Spring that England has ever recorded.

JACK’S POV: He turns the wipers up another notch and they work steadily back and forth. Car after car passes, sending up sheets of water. Apparently the English have no fear of driving at high speeds in the rain. But he isn’t in a hurry. He will take the same road he took a month ago, turning off at Dorchester, arriving in the lane outside Mappowder just at dark.

It’s early enough that Jack knows he will have to kill time someplace and he thinks of detouring through Gillingham, north of Mappowder. It’s enough out of the way that Maggie or Robbie are unlikely to be there on some errand, and he can find a pub where he can stay dry and wait for evening.

EXT. GILLINGHAM – NARROW STREET

Gillingham is gray and wet and it’s late enough so that the streets are empty when he comes through the roundabout near the train station. He finds a pub and parks the car.

INT. PUB – LOW CEILING, DARK

Jack goes in to find it nearly empty, only a few lonely drinkers and a barmaid absently polishing glasses. He orders a pint and takes it to a table by the window where he sits.

CUT TO: WINDOW, LOOKING OUT

He watches the rain sheet down, going over his schedule again, hoping that Robbie will take advantage of the terrible weather to go out into the shed to shear more sheep. Perhaps he has sheared all of them already and will be in the warm kitchen.

CUT TO: KITCHEN – SHEEPHEAVEN FARM

Terry is working on a drawing and Jack the dog is lying near the cooker and Maggie, rising on the balls of her feet, is floating about. It will all be luck, he knows, that Robbie will be in the shed when he arrives. He will have to time it right.

CUT TO: SHED; ROBBIE WITH A SHEEP CAUGHT BETWEEN HIS LEGS

Robbie is shearing a sheep, having started before dark, and Maggie will wait tea a bit longer. If Jack has calculated right, Robbie will remain in the shed and Jack will arrive just after the light goes. Jack has watched him twice before and knows he will have to arrive at the precise moment he has planned.

INT. PUB – JACK’S POV

It’s three o’clock and already darkening because of the steady downpour. A half hour from Gillingham to the road outside Mappowder, five minutes to park the car off the lane, another ten minutes to walk across the field to the shed. It will be dark enough at six so he will have to leave Gillingham by five, but he doesn’t want to sit for two hours nursing a beer. There’s too much chance that he will be remembered. He will have to leave soon, drive for an hour or find another place to kill some time.

He finishes his pint and goes back out to the car, drives south from Gillingham for a half hour until he’s nearly parallel with Mappowder, then east, away from the village, toward Blandford.

EXT. CAR COMES UP A NARROW LANE BETWEEN HEDGEROWS

He circles around and comes at the village from the south, finds the lane at dusk and parks. He knows the spot, a break in the hedgerow where he has several times walked.

The rain has slackened by the time he’s on the lane. He easily finds the gap in the hedgerow and stops the car along the verge.

CUT TO: JACK GETTING OUT OF THE CAR

He walks inside the gap to make sure the ground isn’t too soft. The last thing he wants is to have the car stuck when he comes back, but the ground is hard enough, the rough flint and stone of Dorset unplowed along the edge and the car fits neatly against the hedge, well hidden from the road. Jack zips his Mac, pulls the hood over his head and starts across the field. He can see the lights of the farmhouse and light spilling from the shed when he gets closer. Mud clings to his shoes, making his feet feel heavy. He stops about twenty yards from the shed, wondering if Jack the dog will sense him coming and warn Robbie. With any luck the dog is inside the house with Terry. Jack hears some bleating and then, listening carefully, he hears the high-pitched whine of the electric shears and he feels a surge of excitement.

At the back of the shed is the pile of old timber and he bends in the near blackness, feeling for a piece that’s long enough that he can easily grip. He finds a piece about the size of a baseball bat, wet and heavy, and swings it a few times and then goes to the corner of the shed where the whine of the shears is louder. He hears a bark and then Robbie’s voice.

ROBBIE:

Jack! Mind the sheep!

JACK’S POV:

He steps into the open doorway and there is Robbie, bent over, a struggling sheep between his legs, the wool peeling off in a long strip and Jack the dog turns and looks at him and then turns back to the opening in the pen, making a quick dart at a sheep that has moved into it. The sheep lunges back, tumbling against the others. Jack steps forward, raises the piece of timber over his head and taking another step, swings it at the back of Robbie’s head.

In that instant, Robbie raised his head, and looked straight at me and there was a terrible moment of recognition. He threw up one arm to ward off the blow, but it was too late, the wooden weapon caught him in the temple and there was a sound like a splitting watermelon and I remembered when I was a boy finding Halloween pumpkins with friends and hurling them out into the street, watching them smash. Robbie went down in a heap and the sheep struggled loose from his collapsed body, coming toward me, and Jack darted past, turned the sheep back in and the half-naked animal was driven into the pen. The dog was so intent on the huddled sheep that he paid no attention to Robbie’s body, darting forward again to nip at a sheep that tried to bolt.

Robbie lay motionless on the wet floor, blood oozing from his head, and I dragged him to the puddle of black water next to the stall so that his head was next to the post where I hoped they would think he had struck it and then I picked up the shears. They had gone off automatically when Robbie dropped them. I unplugged them, and tugged at the frayed wires at the base of the shears, worrying them until I had them exposed. I carefully plugged them in again, holding the shears gingerly, and then, making sure that I wasn’t standing in the pool of water, I dropped them. There was a blinding blue-green flash that filled the shed, and it was suddenly black, fuses blown. Jack began to bark frantically and I felt sheep surge past me toward the open door. I went with them, stumbling blindly and now I was running, climbing the low wall to the field, the rain coming down again, slipping, the muddy field grabbing at my shoes. All I could see was Robbie’s startled face and then the green flash and I felt sick, paused to vomit, bent over, hands on knees, and began to run again, struggling up the field.

Behind me Jack was barking, sheep were bleating, and I struggled, head down, almost on all fours, gasping, up the slippery slope toward the far end of the field. Once over the brow I paused for breath, and I could see Robbie’s startled recognition again and I thought, what if he isn’t dead? What if he’s only unconscious and when he wakes he’ll remember me standing there swinging that piece of timber with both hands and this time Clive Owen will hunt me down, knock on my hotel room door, and I would see him there with a young constable and hear his clipped British accent and I sank to my knees and I hoped that Robbie wasn’t dead, that I had only stunned him and that the electricity hadn’t been enough to harm him and I repeated over and over again, out loud, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” and I began to run again toward the car.

But when I reached the hedge and worked my way along it until I found the opening, I couldn’t find the car. I thought perhaps in the darkness I had gone too far, so I doubled back, hunched over at a half trot, stumbling over roots and clods along the hedge, but the field began to slope down and there was neither an opening nor a car. I doubled back, stumbling, blindly putting one foot in front of the other in the darkness, slipping on the muddy track, almost falling, wondering at each step if I would step in a hole or a rut and twist my ankle and still I ran. The rain had been light but now it was harder and it stung my face and I knew it was no longer rain but sleet. Another degree and it would turn to snow. I was soaked and suddenly the opening was there, the pavement of the road a lighter black. I got down on hands and knees and felt for the tire tracks and they were there, filled with water, and there was broken glass, crumbs from a broken car window and I realized that the car had been stolen. I remembered Robbie saying I should lock the car even in the farmyard since it might get broken into. The fucking English countryside isn’t safe from the bastards anymore, he said, and now the car was gone, a rental car parked just inside the entrance to a field between high hedgerows along a little-traveled road in the rain and dark and it had been an easy target. I knew I couldn’t stay where I was and I remembered the travelers at the top of the ridge. They were up there in the copse, the ancient buses, parked in a haphazard circle surrounded by makeshift lean-tos and abandoned cars. If I were you I’d steer clear of them, Jack. That’s what Robbie had said. If anybody would take money to hide me I knew they would. It was my only chance now.

I went through the opening in the hedge and crossed the road, searching for a break on the other side. I finally found a weak spot, worked my way through the hedgerow into the field and began to climb. It was an easy slope, tall grass, and I was worried that I was leaving a track that would easily be followed in the morning, but I continued, now at a half-trot.

Suddenly the field was no longer tall grass but freshly plowed and I slammed into the wet earth, landing on my shoulder and side, the pain shooting up my arm. I lay there for a moment, listening to my breath come in harsh gasps, moving my fingers on my numb hand, hoping that nothing was dislocated or broken, and then I pushed myself upright, rose unsteadily and started out again. Through the rain I could see the blurry lights of Hazelbury Bryan off to the left and the ground began to rise. Clumps of mud clung to my shoes, making them heavy to lift. I slowed, moving at a fast walk, my breath still coming in gasps, temples pounding, wet to the skin now, the sleet stinging my face, forcing myself to keep moving.

Another hedge loomed in front of me and I ranged along it to the right. Finally I found an iron gate and when I climbed over it I found to my surprise that I was standing on pavement. It must be the road to Mappowder, I thought, and I tried to remember where I would be. If I cross the next field and go up I will have to bear left if I hope to find the travelers.