They’d told us to expect gas the first day of the war. The country had been in a panic. There’d been a fuss about gas masks for pets, but the government said they couldn’t spare the raw materials. People had their animals put down to spare them the unspeakable death that gas would deliver.
A car slowed as it drove past the house. Stan reached for his gun.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
We heard the car crunch on stones as it turned off the road, pulling in behind my van on the sandy layby. The engine cut off with a shudder, the fuel mix too rich.
Stan picked up the gun and recocked it. Both chambers.
‘It’s the person who hurt you both,’ I said. ‘They threatened you. Hurt your wife. Thumped you around. But they didn’t get what they wanted. So now they’re back. Am I warm?’
‘A tactical error on their part,’ Stan said. ‘They’ve misjudged the situation.’
A car door slammed, then another. Two people. The garden gate slammed shut.
‘Wait in the kitchen,’ Stan said. ‘Don’t let them hurt her.’
A fist pounded on the front door.
Mrs Leckie opened a connecting door from the kitchen to the snug.
‘They’re back,’ she said.
‘Take Johnny,’ he said. ‘Lock yourselves in the kitchen and don’t come out until I give the all clear.’
I followed Mrs Leckie into the kitchen. Better to stay with the unarmed person, see what I could do.
The pounding on the front door repeated.
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ I asked her.
‘It’s too late now. Keep quiet and you’ll be all right.’
She thought I was scared. She was protecting me. Her and her husband, sitting in the snug with his shotgun, fighting their own fight.
‘I can help,’ I said.
She shushed me, putting her finger to her lips for emphasis. We listened. A third knock.
‘It’s not locked,’ Stan shouted.
The door creaked. Footsteps. Two men, stepping into the hall. Waiting. Eyes adjusting to the darkness.
‘In here,’ Stan said.
I pictured them looking right, as I had, through the door into the snug. Seeing an old man, wrapped up in his blankets. The long barrel of an antique shotgun wavering through the darkness towards them.
Mrs Leckie whispered to herself. I strained to hear.
‘Shoot,’ she said.
She did it again.
‘Shoot, you old bugger,’ louder this time. I got the feeling she wasn’t entirely happy with the division of labour – her hiding in the kitchen while her husband took point. If it had been her in the armchair with the shotgun, the intruders would be dead by now.
‘That’s the plan?’ I asked.
She nodded.
