Cockadoodledoo
Cockadoodledoo. Elvis is dead.
The sign outside Mary’s house reads: ‘Eggs for sale from very happy hens.’ A couple of years ago she rented part of a field from a farmer, installed coops and an electric fence, and began keeping chickens as a hobby so that she and her friends could enjoy ‘happy eggs’. Then she acquired her pride and joy, a magnificent cockerel called Elvis.
Ten years ago there were three farmyards in the middle of the village. Although many inhabitants commute to Cambridge, and two busy road cross in the village centre, the lowing of cows and bleating of sheep were audible from the High Street, reminding even ‘the newcomers in the new houses’ that they were in the country. But the farmers got old, their children had moved on, and the farmyards were built over. Except for the cars, the village fell silent.
There was no need to announce Elvis’s arrival. In the village shop, at the bus-stop, in the playground, people smiled and said how nice it was to hear a cockerel again. Then Mary got a letter from the council: there had been a complaint. Mary showed the inspector round: the cockerel was on agricultural land, not in a garden, and further away from houses than any of the old farmyards had been. She was told he was a nuisance and would have to go. Mary offered to have Elvis put down if the complainant insisted on it. The council agreed to report back. The village was pleased to learn that Mary heard no more.
Yesterday she went to feed the chickens and found Elvis dead and dismembered. This had not been a humane killing and Elvis had evidently put up a fight. Mary knows who killed her cockerel but, like him, she maintains a stony silence.
