The badger is lying broken by the edge of the road.
It catches my eye as I walk out of the front door, and I can’t help myself. I am drawn to go up and look at it. Its body curls protectively in on itself but its head is stretched outwards, mouth slightly agape. Small sharp teeth show themselves, whilst a trickle of dried blood cakes thickly into the dead animal’s fur. Wide eyes stare glassily far away into nothingness.
The animal has evidently been hit by a car during the night. Someone must have stopped to move it to the side of the road so that nobody else would hit it, in which case it must have died on impact or, more heart-wrenchingly, it had crawled by itself through the dark night, to take its final laboured breaths on a cold grass verge. I feel a familiar tug inside me, at the thought of the potential pain and terror this animal must have suffered. I know Dave does not feel the same way, and that he is impatient for us to go. The way he is standing next to the car, swinging his bag to and fro whilst looking at me with raised eyebrow gives me a clue to this.
He thought I was mad when I stopped to pick up an injured crow by the side of the road once. Predictably, once I had found a vet who would see it, the poor thing was just put to sleep but at least it had not had to flap around in pain as lorries and cars whizzed by, until it finally gave up the will to survive. To be honest I think the vet thought I was a bit mad as well. My views on animals aren’t largely reciprocated in the rural world.
I leave the badger and open the car, settling into the driver’s seat. It’s a clear blue morning and birdsong and sunshine wrap themselves warmly around us. The curtains are closed in the windows of Mrs Butters’ downstairs flat. Normally an early riser, it’s extremely unusual that we should be up before her but today Dave has to get the ridiculously early train to London and, loving girlfriend that I am, I’ve agreed to give him a lift to the mainline station. Despite the ungodly hour, it still seems amazing to me that he will be in London before nine o’clock. It seems worlds away from here.
I can’t say I enjoy being woken by the alarm at such an hour but as I lay in bed grasping weakly and unsuccessfully to remember the dream I’d had to leave so suddenly, I’d become gradually aware of the sounds of the sea and the gulls squawking, harsh against the smaller birds’ voices but comforting to me all the same. My sleepy eyes soon welcomed the bright Cornish light seeping in through the curtains and I leaned over to kiss Dave, who was still snoring lightly. It never amazes me how he can just sleep through pretty much any alarm.
The beautiful start to the morning has been somewhat dampened by the dead badger. While I should feel privileged to be out at this time, taking some of this day for myself before most other people have even begun to wake up, I sigh to think of the poor creature and try to push the thought of it from my mind.
Dave, on the other hand, is bright and energetic, sure he is going to land some nice juicy work in London today.
“Don’t tell me you’re feeling sad about that badger?” he asks, half-teasingly, at my sigh.
“I am actually,” I answer defensively, “I hate it. Why should an animal lose its life just because someone wants to get home quickly? Just for the sake of convenience to humans? They don’t have a choice, it’s just shit.”
“That’s life though, Jamie. It’s the way the world is. It’s evolution anyway. Survival of the fittest and all that.”
Dave pulls the sun visor down and smiles at himself in the mirror.
“Or perhaps that should be survival of the shittest,” I say, “What kind of a world is it where only the most selfish survive?”
”That would be this world my dear, and it may not be fair but like I say, that’s life.”
By now I know this argument off-by-heart. I’m not totally comfortable with it as it reminds me how differently Dave and I think on certain things but then Dave is a different person to me and I can’t expect him to believe everything I do. It’s the fact he really doesn’t seem to care at all that makes me feel sad sometimes. Perhaps I’ve just clung on to my teenage views too long but I still see the world as containing so much injustice, and I’m not comfortable to think that we’re just going to accept there’s nothing we can do about it.
Having said that, the carefree side of Dave is actually one of the things I find attractive about him. He has an easy air about him, and doesn’t get too bogged down in worries. He just gets on with life.
Sometimes I find it hard to get to sleep at night, my mind resistant to winding down from the day. The slightest thing – for instance something someone had said at work - can take on the most significance, somehow more sinister in the dark. All my thoughts and feelings surrounding it gain momentum, tumbling into my consciousness and multiplying, and once I’ve let worry in and acknowledged it, I know that sleep will be a long time in coming.
Dave, on the other hand, seems to be completely free of this affliction. He sleeps like an innocent, his mouth puckered open and his forehead smooth and relaxed.
As much as I envy him his easiness, I am generally glad that I care about the things I do. And despite all our differences in opinions, I would not want to change Dave, as some people seem to want to do with their partners. Letting him into my life has been easier than I had imagined it might me. I can hardly believe we haven’t even known each other a year and I can’t imagine life now without him.
“Do you know what time you’ll be back tomorrow? Do you want me to pick you up?”
”I don’t know. If it’s late I’ll get a cab, no point in you waiting up for me.”
”Well let me know if you do want a lift, it’ll save you the cab fare and I’m not planning to do anything.”
”Thank you darling.”
Dave leans over and kisses me on the cheek. I glance at him sideways and smile.
Secretly I am quite pleased at the thought of a night in on my own. I can watch whatever I want on TV, or perhaps just sit and read all night. I do like to have some time to myself and although I love Dave living with me, I sometimes miss the freedom of living alone.
I should really give Mel a call too, I haven’t spoken to her since the weekend. I am really wary of forgetting my friends now I’m in a relationship again. Not that I could ever forget Mel.
“It could be quite exciting today anyway – now that we, or should I say London, has got the Olympics; there should be loads of work coming out of that. I need to get in there today and pimp myself around all the agencies; early bird catches the worm and all that. A rolling stone gathers no moss. A stitch in time saves nine. This time next year we could be millionaires.”
”You are such a dickhead,” I grin.
The journey, which should only have taken twenty five minutes, stretches into forty, as we get stuck behind a tractor. Like the badger getting run over, this is another hazard of the country roads. However we’ve plenty of time till Dave’s train is due so it’s not a problem. I enjoy the feel of the air warming up as the day comes into its own. The fresh smell of the recently-cut hedgerows and the unmistakeable salty taste of the sea breathe life into me and I am glad I’m awake to appreciate this early morning. Since living in Bristol I have appreciated all of this far more than I ever did before. Over the fields, I can see swallows and housemartins darting and swooping like fighter planes, caching bugs.
At the station, Dave gives me a hurried kiss on the mouth, grabs his bags from the back seat, and is gone. I watch him walk through the doors then I am gone too.
If I’m lucky, I’ll have time for a leisurely breakfast in my garden before I have to be at work. Turning the radio up, I listen to the delight over London winning the bid for the 2012 Olympics and think what a good time it is to be in this country.