From the very second she sees the old man bend down at exactly that point on the back garden fence behind which she knows her daughters to be playing, she has been aware of a building internal tension, her equilibrium itchy and unstable between that moment when either she will rush out to them or they in to her. Such are the hazards of having permitted them to stray just far enough from the house to allow them foster the illusion of being beyond the realm of her authority, but not so far away as to cause her any real concern, or at least until now.

Alerted by the girls’ sudden quiet, she had watched approach and pass along the fencetop that visible section of his head, its recognisably uneven rise and fall the result of a broken and supported tread, his hair too black to be congruous with whatever age she presumed him to be.

They were aware of him from the neighbourhood, not of their own actual street but one not too far from, this man she and her husband refer to, not always unkindly, as old Boo Radley, surrounding whom she inferred an ambience of if not actual grief then certainly a sort of generic sadness, and of whom her earliest and most lasting impression is that at some point in his past he had suffered a deal of damage, damage the details of which you did not pursue, reckoning there were indeed people whom you simply had to allow the carrying of their own cross.

Breath held, she feels herself tipping to that point past which she will be able to wait no longer, until he rises again, slowly into view. With the itch now in abeyance she continues to watch as he moves off, a more and less visible out of kilter undulance ebbing away into the back lanes’ blind spot proffered by her perspective, after which the hinged section of fencing disappears and both girls burst breathless across the back grass and into the kitchen, visibly effervescent with their news.

cog: He played marbles with us.

cog: He

cog: He did one of our marbles.

cog: My big red one.

cog: My big red one.

cog: No Mum because I won it before.

cog: Just

cog: He did one of our marbles but he didn’t win anything.

cog: Wait wait wait. Just… He played marbles with you?

cog: Just one, he only did one of them, my big red one. But he didn’t win anything.

cog: I didn’t, he was already there before we could run away.

cog: No no no, that’s… it’s not

cog: He did one of my marbles in the circle but he didn’t win anything.

cog: He threw it in but it went right through.

cog: And he didn’t win anything.

cog: And he, his stick had funny letters on the side. It said something funny.

cog: Like what? Did you, do you know what it said?

cog: No, but they were red and blue.

cog: Red, what

cog: I saw it, but I couldn’t read what it said, but one letter was red and then one was blue and then a red one and a blue one like that.

cog: And what did it say? Had he written it on himself?

cogs (both, emphatic): NO, it was on the stick.

cog: I couldn’t read it because it went up and down.

cog (suddenly thinking anything): What do you mean, was he moving it?

cog: No, the word was up and down on the stick.

cog: You would have to move your head

demonstrating

cog: sideways to see it

cog: And what did he say? Did he say anything to you?

cog: He said something funny.

cog: Yeah, I don’t remember.

cog: He said something, and then he said it again but I don’t remember what it was now.

cog: What do you mean you don’t remember, it only happened a minute ago.

cog: I know, but I don’t remember.

cog: And he said it two times.

By choice her own exchanges with the man have barely extended beyond passing courtesies, weather-talk at most, still she is surprised, amused too even, to suddenly understand she is begrudging her daughters this degree of contact she herself has been denied, or denied herself.

cog (mumbling): ..smells funny.

cog: Sorry Ellen, what was that?

cog: Nothing.

cog: No no no please, go on, tell me what you said.

cog (defiant): He smells funny.

cog: Yeah he smells funny.

cog: But funny like what? Like Granny?

cog: No, like… I don’t know.

cog: Was he sweaty?

cog: What’s that? What’s sweaty?

cog: Well…

smiling at having to actually consider her answer to this.

cog: Like when you run around and you get hot and clammy and your face gets damp, well, that dampness is called sweat.

cog: What does it smell of?

cog: Does it smell like feet, Mum? Is it like what feet smell?

She removes her glasses, wipes at her face with both hands the while shaking her head.

cog: It’s more

cog: You come and play with us, Mum.

cog: Yes. Yes, go on then.

Out in the back lane, in the still heat of the afternoon and extending off either side of the little arena described in the sandy dirt still cluttered with their marbles, she could discern the pattern of his irregular footprints, each alternate punctuated with the accompanying pock of his walking stick.

cog (gesturing to the marbles): See? He didn’t win anything.

cog: He didn’t win anything.

She stands staring first one way, then its opposite, as if perhaps this cipher might be decoded and yield at least some semblance of whatever words had passed between them, before bending down to collect a shooter up into her fist.

In the ever-simultaneous elsewhere.

deleted name (writing): The blood rises slowly, scarlet grapeshot waste.

through all of which he scratches a line, before again

deleted name (writing): The blood rises slowly to the surface, scarlet grapeshot waste.

and again

deleted name (writing): The blood rises slowly to the skin, scarlet grapeshot waste.