FROM THE BLACK NOTEBOOK
205
clambered up, walked across to the trees, and came back with the
two corpses.
"We don't need a dog after all," remarked Paul.
It
was said be–
fore Jimmy was half-way back across the grass, yet he heard it. I
should imagine that Paul had not intended him to hear, yet did not
particularly care that he had. Jimmy sat down again, and we could
see the very white thick flesh of his shoulders had begun to flush
scarlet from the two short journeys in the sun across the bright grass.
Jimmy went back to watching his insect.
There was again an intense silence. No doves could be heard
cooing anywhere. Three bleeding bodies lay tumbled in the sun by a
small jutting rock. The grey rough granite was patched and jewelled
with lichens, rust and green and purple; and on the grass lay thick
glistening drops of scarlet.
There was a smell of blood.
"Those birds will
go
bad," remarked Willi, who had read steadily
during all this.
"They are better slightly high," said Paul.
I could see Paul's eyes hover towards Jimmy, and see Jimmy
struggling with himself again, so I quickly got up and threw the limp
wing-dragging corpses into the shade.
By now there was a prickling tension between us all, and Paul
said: "I want a drink."
"It's an hour before the pub opens," said Maryrose.
"Well, I can only hope that the requisite number of victims will
soon offer themselves, because at the stroke of opening time I shall
be off. I shall leave the slaughter to someone else."
"None of us can shoot as well as you," said Maryrose.
"As you know perfectly well," said Jimmy, suddenly spiteful.
He was observing the rivulet of sand. It was now hard to tell
which ant pit was the new one. Jimmy was staring at a largish pit, at
the bottom of which was a minute hump-the body of the waiting
monster; and a tiny black fragment of twig-the jaws of the monster.
"All we need now is some ants," said Jimmy. "And some pigeons,"
said Paul. And, replying to jimmy's criticism, he added: "Can I help
my natural talents? The Lord gives. The Lord takes. In my case, he
has given."
"Unfairly," I said. Paul gave me his charming wry appreciative
