A Lonely Chicken Farm

No one will think to look for us here. The next village is four miles over and our closest neighbour, a burnt out petrol station two miles in the other direction. The man who used to run the petrol station still lives there in a dingey looking bungalow with a conservatory sprouting out the back like some kind of glassy tumour. Your man must be pushing ninety. It’s just him and the dog these days. They say he only keeps one room heated. He eats all his meals off a tray and sleeps in his chair, dozing in front of the ancient telly. Since they built the new dual carriageway the traffic bypasses this area. The folks commuting up and down to the city, nip off just before the village begins and sweep seamlessly back into the old road where it widens out, by the garden centre. It suits us down to the ground. We wouldn’t want strangers sailing past the end of our lane in their Vauxhall Nova’s and Ford Fiesta’s. Peering in. Asking each other, “who lives up there?” Wondering whether they might come back at the weekend and have a wee look for themselves. No thank you. We value our privacy here on the chicken farm. We were glad the day they opened the bypass. Your man with the petrol garage would no doubt see things differently. He’d feel the loss of the traffic, so he would. All them drivers stopping in for petrol and maybe buying a Lion Bar while they were there, or an air freshener for the car. He probably wishes they’d never opened the dual carriageway though he wouldn’t be able to run the garage himself these days. He’d have to get a fella in to help him. There used to be a fella here, helping with the chickens. He’s not here anymore. Well, he is and he isn’t. He’s at the bottom of the garden, buried under the rhododendron bush, next to the ones who used to run the chicken farm. They were called the Millars. We only know that ‘cause we read their names off a letter. We didn’t stop to talk to them the day we arrived. There was no time for chit chatting or having a cup of tea. The police were only half a mile behind us. You could hear the nee naws over the top of the radio and we had the radio cranked up loud enough that night. We thought the game was up. We were enjoying, what we thought would be our last singalong, belting out the Garth Brooks while we sped by the garden centre and past your man in his petrol garage, (which was still a petrol garage back then), and round that wee fiddly bend where folks are always coming off the road. We’d two hundred thousand in the boot and we were singing If Tomorrow Never Comes, (which, under the circumstances, seemed the perfect choice), when we saw the chicken farm up the lane. We thought, sure what have we got to lose and pulled a handbrake turn and yes, it wasn’t ideal -having to take the shotgun to Mr Millar and Mrs Millar and, in the morning, the fella who came to help with the chickens- but you could also say it was almost perfect. For there were two of them. A man and a woman. And there were two of us and we were also a man and a woman. And they were a lonesome sort of couple, on account of owning a chicken farm in the middle of nowhere and did not have any friends. And so, in some ways, you could say it was the perfect set up and has been, for six years now. We’ve become accustomed to the slower pace, though we can’t imagine ever growing used to that smell. Banks are all well and good, but they’re a risky kind of business; better-suited to younger folks. You know where you are with chickens. I can’t see us leaving here any time soon.

Inspired by a line from Agatha Christie’s 1940 novel One, Two, Buckle My Shoe