Appetite

by

Doug Soutar

"It’s called a sundew plant. Latin name’s Drosera something", Chris added, knowing Ben would be impressed and store the information away for future use. He was uncannily wise for a twelve year old was Ben.

"And it’s carnivorous? Really?"

"Yeah and quite rare."

"Cool!" said Ben kneeling down to have an even closer look. "So why’s there no dead flies and stuff?"

It had been a long day’s walk and Chris was keen to get back to John’s cottage and get his boots off and relax with a few glasses of malt and catch up with his old friend. They had a whole week at John’s and he didn’t often get the chance to talk with a kindred spirit.

"Well I’m not sure Ben. Maybe these particular sundews have lost their appetite".

Ben looked even more closely at the sticky tentacled leaves for the remains of a midgie supper – but not a sausage.

With supper over and Ben in bed, the two men settled down with the bottle of Macallan Chris had brought. They talked. Or rather Chris talked and John listened. John had expected this, even encouraged it when he’d asked, "So what went wrong in the end between you and Sally? I always thought you were the ideal couple."

"Sex mostly. In the end she kind of lost her appetite for the flesh. And she’d always been a bit of a live wire. Up for it any time, any where. Christ, when we were students it was… well, you remember. Then when Ben was born – it got less - only to be expected I suppose - but it didn’t come back. She was like a sort of sexual vegetarian – some interesting side-dishes now and again, but definitely no meat, know what ah mean? And then… Well the relationship, the love, withered and died and the family thing just wasn’t there any more. It’s been hard, especially for Ben".

*

That night you lie awake wanting so much to sleep but can’t. Up here it’s the long summer nights. It’s still daylight out there behind the curtains and you feel the need to think, work things out in your head. You hear Dad and his friend talking next door. There’s a smell of whisky and woodsmoke and you catch some phrases. When you’re dozing into sleep you pick up on words and phrases overheard and rearrange them and sometimes you find them again in your dreams. Sometimes they get stuck; like trying to shake a piece of sellotape off your finger. No appetite... Flesh... Love withered…died. The family thing... Just wasn’t there. So, you think, love dies when there’s no appetite. And now you only see Dad every other weekend and two weeks like this in the summer holidays. At first you’d cried. A lot. And then you got into other things. Being in Scouts helped. And you cried less. It focused you on the things you loved to watch; birds, insects, plants and stuff. You love these things and days like these with Dad are special. Getting out of the city. But then you wonder if everything you love will die if it loses its appetite. You know you have to do something. And just when you need to think it all through, you’re falling asleep. If only you can keep awake a wee bit longer. Just think it through. You think you can’t sleep but you always do in the end.

*

"Ben! Come on son, there’s breakfast on the table. Rise and shine." Chris thought he’d give him another few minutes. He must’ve been tired last night after the long walk they’d done. But finally his patience broke and he called again with a wee bit of an edge. Still there was no reply so he barged noisily into the bedroom to give Ben a shake. But the bed was already empty. The worry didn’t kick in at first. Maybe the dawn chorus had woken him and he’d gone for a stroll with his binoculars. Even so it wasn’t like Ben to skip breakfast.

Out in the backyard Chris called Ben as loudly as he dared, conscious of neighbours. But then he remembered there were none here in this idyllic spot and so he shouted again even louder. The worry began in earnest now and he quickly put on his walking boots and took the path out of the back gate and up into the woods coming out onto the dew soaked moor a few minutes above. He was about to call again when he spotted something blue on the edge of a dip in the moor a few hundred yards away. Ben’s cagoule. Ben was kneeling with his back to him, crouched over something. Rather than calling, Chris smiled and trudged over the boggy ground towards him.

"What you up to Ben? I was worried. Yer breakfast is ready."

Ben didn’t respond so Chris came around in front of him to see more clearly what he was doing. With a matchbox in one hand and the tweezers from his Swiss army knife in the other, he was carefully placing a small dead fly onto the stickiness of a sundew plant.

"Giein’ it a good breakfast then, eh?

Ben looked up as if finally waking from a dream and said, "Aye. Well ye know some times you wake up and you just have to do something straightaway. Well ah had this idea that ah needed tae feed the sundew plants coz if they lose their appetite they might die… Know what ah mean?"