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Authors: Patrick Flanery
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will be very safe here. And it’s that kind of neighbourhood, if you know what I mean, where people don’t mind what two ladies do.’
Marie looked at Clare. There was no reason they should correct his misunderstanding. Clare had never imagined herself as anything but feminine, even if feminine at one-and-a-half times life size. But her very size made men – and for all she knew, other women, too – speculate about the alignment of her affections.
‘Yes. The rich don’t care what two ladies get up to. I’m sorry you thought it remarkable,’ Clare said, smiling down on him, and she could tell from his flinch that she had been ungenerous. He was only trying to be cosmopolitan, a man of the world.
Clare expected that her invasion and subsequent move would make news, appearing in the headlines and on the nightly broadcasts, off and on, for several weeks. There were only a small number of national celebrities and she liked to count herself amongst them. The media, she thought, would enjoy gloating over the apparent retreat of a champion of an open society into a fortress of personal security. Reporters would deliver dull updates from outside her new home. Editorials would wonder if she herself kept a gun, suggesting that one should know the business of one’s own house; guns were anti-progressive. Marie might have killed one of the invaders, but there was no way to know. As far as Clare knew, no one had turned up at any hospitals complaining of gunshot wounds that matched the calibre of Marie’s elegant little arm – then again, the police had not been in touch to tell her one way or the other.
In the event, Clare’s move went unnoticed. But if the press ever did come to call, she knew what she would say:
‘My fortress is the envy of the president; he says all old ladies should be so lucky. He speculates that I shall die here. Do you think that’s a veiled threat or an acknowledgement? An admission of guilt? Never mind, the fortress will protect me. I do not keep a gun, though I know how to use one. That is the legacy of frontier life, knowing how to care for and fire a gun, knowing what a gunwill do. Have you ever fired a gun? No? Ever held one? No. Oh, someone once had a gun in your house, but he was a guest, a policeman, and unloaded it, and placed it on top of the refrigerator, to put you all at ease while you ate your dinners, as if that would put you at ease. No, that is not the same thing as knowing how to handle a rifle, which I am entirely capable of doing. We had ours hidden in a safe in the floor. My father learned to shoot a gun as a boy. His father, my grandfather, was a farmer who thought it sensible that his sons should know how to protect themselves in the bush. He taught my father and his brother to shoot, and when they grew up into men, they taught my sister and me and my cousins to shoot, frail English girls shouldering guns nearly as long as our own bodies and taking aim at nothing to start with, the usual nothings (tins, bottles, trees), then being encouraged to take aim at more horrible targets. The first thing I killed with a gun was my cousin’s horse, because she could not kill what she had loved. To the men it was just my cousin’s horse, and it was injured – I cannot recall the nature of the injury – and nothing could be done for it, and this, my irresponsible grandfather and uncle and father thought, should be my initiation into killing. It took five shots; I had such bad aim at first. The first two struck nowhere near the head, and I nearly shot off my father’s foot, and the poor horse had to be settled again, and then three more shots until it was dead. They should have let me kill a dog first, because a dog is only a dog, it degrades itself hourly, but a horse is something more than human. It was like killing a god rather than an animal, and I did it badly. What does that do to the mind of a child? Today they would put my father in prison on charges of child abuse or
Marie looked at Clare. There was no reason they should correct his misunderstanding. Clare had never imagined herself as anything but feminine, even if feminine at one-and-a-half times life size. But her very size made men – and for all she knew, other women, too – speculate about the alignment of her affections.
‘Yes. The rich don’t care what two ladies get up to. I’m sorry you thought it remarkable,’ Clare said, smiling down on him, and she could tell from his flinch that she had been ungenerous. He was only trying to be cosmopolitan, a man of the world.
Clare expected that her invasion and subsequent move would make news, appearing in the headlines and on the nightly broadcasts, off and on, for several weeks. There were only a small number of national celebrities and she liked to count herself amongst them. The media, she thought, would enjoy gloating over the apparent retreat of a champion of an open society into a fortress of personal security. Reporters would deliver dull updates from outside her new home. Editorials would wonder if she herself kept a gun, suggesting that one should know the business of one’s own house; guns were anti-progressive. Marie might have killed one of the invaders, but there was no way to know. As far as Clare knew, no one had turned up at any hospitals complaining of gunshot wounds that matched the calibre of Marie’s elegant little arm – then again, the police had not been in touch to tell her one way or the other.
In the event, Clare’s move went unnoticed. But if the press ever did come to call, she knew what she would say:
‘My fortress is the envy of the president; he says all old ladies should be so lucky. He speculates that I shall die here. Do you think that’s a veiled threat or an acknowledgement? An admission of guilt? Never mind, the fortress will protect me. I do not keep a gun, though I know how to use one. That is the legacy of frontier life, knowing how to care for and fire a gun, knowing what a gunwill do. Have you ever fired a gun? No? Ever held one? No. Oh, someone once had a gun in your house, but he was a guest, a policeman, and unloaded it, and placed it on top of the refrigerator, to put you all at ease while you ate your dinners, as if that would put you at ease. No, that is not the same thing as knowing how to handle a rifle, which I am entirely capable of doing. We had ours hidden in a safe in the floor. My father learned to shoot a gun as a boy. His father, my grandfather, was a farmer who thought it sensible that his sons should know how to protect themselves in the bush. He taught my father and his brother to shoot, and when they grew up into men, they taught my sister and me and my cousins to shoot, frail English girls shouldering guns nearly as long as our own bodies and taking aim at nothing to start with, the usual nothings (tins, bottles, trees), then being encouraged to take aim at more horrible targets. The first thing I killed with a gun was my cousin’s horse, because she could not kill what she had loved. To the men it was just my cousin’s horse, and it was injured – I cannot recall the nature of the injury – and nothing could be done for it, and this, my irresponsible grandfather and uncle and father thought, should be my initiation into killing. It took five shots; I had such bad aim at first. The first two struck nowhere near the head, and I nearly shot off my father’s foot, and the poor horse had to be settled again, and then three more shots until it was dead. They should have let me kill a dog first, because a dog is only a dog, it degrades itself hourly, but a horse is something more than human. It was like killing a god rather than an animal, and I did it badly. What does that do to the mind of a child? Today they would put my father in prison on charges of child abuse or
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