by Jon McGregor
Ray came out of the caravan. We took the short way across the fields to the Stewart place and watched the lorry driver unloading the chairs and tables and linens, and when old man Stewart came out of the house to sign for everything we cleared off back to the caravan again.
The fishing lake was old man Stewart’s. The lake and the land around it and the house where Jackie lived and the hay meadow and the three fields between here and the Stewart place. Also the pine plantation between the Stewart place and the Sands. Also possibly the caravan, although not even Jackie was sure about that and anyway it didn’t seem like something he’d want to argue over. It had just always been there she’d told us, when we first moved in, and always seemed like about the right word. We were supposedly on-site security and maintenance, was the idea. We were there to provide a presence. Also to undertake certain unspecified maintenance tasks. Such as for the only example so far digging the ditch to provide drainage from the hay meadow into the lake. There wasn’t really any money involved, but the situation suited us and I think it suited Jackie as well in terms of some kind of company and not having to be on her own all the time. But she said old man Stewart had started getting on the phone and asking what was he hearing about these new people on the site, meaning Ray and me. Jackie said it was he was unhappy about the progress but it was also probably due to he knew certain things about certain things which had occurred a great many years previous, certain things which Jackie also had a fair idea about but which she appeared to be putting in the category of now we deserved a second chance but which old man Stewart was apparently placing into quite a different category. Some people have very much longer memories than other people, is what it came down to.
The night before the wedding Jackie was sitting outside the caravan and telling us what she knew about the rest of the Stewarts. Most of the family had arrived that afternoon and most of them had needed to ask for directions, shouting something about bloody satnav down from the road and waving their phones around to try and get a signal. The family were all down south now, was what Jackie was telling us. Hadn’t been up this way for years. Most of the crowd tomorrow will be from London, she said. That’s where the groom’s from. They’re talking about it’ll be near enough two hundred of them there. One of Jackie’s cleaning jobs was at the Stewart place, was how come she knew all this. She started off naming names, like who was who in the Stewart clan, the ex-wife and the sons and the half-brothers and the nephews and nieces, but we weren’t really listening. I was breaking up another pallet for the fire and Ray was either looking at the stars or else his head was back like that because he was asleep. We could hear most of the Stewarts out the back of their place, shouting and laughing. I asked Jackie how come with all these relations old man Stewart lived on his own and most of them couldn’t even find their own way to the house. Ray said something about therein lay the tale. Without lifting up his head. He actually said therein. Me and Jackie just sort of looked at him, and tried not to laugh, and Ray sat up and rolled a smoke without offering one to anyone. Therein. Jackie asked me had I got the pallet from behind the caravan and I told her yes. She said she’d been planning on using those to make the fishing jetties with. She said she’d told us that. Wasn’t much I could say to that, with my foot halfway through the pallet and the fire spitting away like it was. I didn’t know much about fishing lakes but I thought it would probably take something better than pallets to build the jetties with. I told her well I was sorry about that but I was sure we could get some more. Ray lit his smoke and said we’d definitely get her some more no need to worry about that.
It wasn’t like me or Ray knew enough about fishing to build a fishing lake. We were just there to do a few jobs. I’d never been fishing in my life but I could see this pond wasn’t up to much. It was full of green algae or something like that. She’d told us it needed cleaning up and some oxygenating plants putting in and we’d nodded like we knew what she was talking about. She’d said she was going to mainly stock it with roach and carp but she wanted it all fixed up first before she placed any orders. I couldn’t see how that overgrown drainage ditch was ever going to support a living creature but I kept my mouth shut. Ray had said something about using barley-straw to freshen up the water and she’d looked impressed. Don’t know where he got that. Could have picked it up from all the reading he’d done when he was working in the library.
When she said goodnight and set off walking back to her house on the other side of the lake Ray watched her and asked me if I would. I said he was joking I would. He shrugged. He said he might do only it would depend on the situation. He said something about gravity and big women and then he went off in the caravan and shut the door and turned the radio on in there.
I sat there with the moon shining off the water and the bats twatting silently about and the noise of all those Stewarts barking out across the fields like each of them was trying to be the last to stop laughing. The groom was probably sat outside another back door somewhere now, smoking a last cigarette and listening to all that and wondering what he was letting himself in for.
A Tornado went over and dropped a bomb on the Sands. First time they’d done it in the dark that I knew of. I felt the shadow of it first and like the weight of the heat of it, and then the noise came dragging behind like it always did but it seemed much louder in the dark and I covered my head with my arms until it had passed. I heard shrieking from the Stewart place, and men laughing, and I got up and pissed on the back wheel of Ray’s car and went to bed.
Ray was a Muslim at one time. He converted when we were inside. You wouldn’t have thought it to look at him. He never had the beard or the hat or anything but he took it very seriously. He changed his name to Abdul Wahid and went to the prayer-room five times a day with the other brothers and took down all the graven images from his cell. I asked him what he was going to do with them. He said it wasn’t permitted for any man to make images of the human form which Allah has created or something, so I bought them off him for a SIM card and a pack of tobacco. They were pretty fucking graven. I asked him how come he’d turned Muslim all of a sudden and he said he’d heard the voice of Allah calling to him. I asked him was it just like that out of nowhere and he told me it was out of the blue. He’d been up all night doing press-ups and reading a translation of the Koran he’d got hold of from working in the library and he’d been fasting for three days just to see what it was like, but yes basically he had totally out of the blue heard the voice of Allah. Calling him by name, he said. I didn’t ask whether the voice had called him Abdul Wahid or Ray. Turns out the voice of Allah didn’t have much else to say so he just kept calling whichever name it was. Ray said it was like nothing else he’d ever heard. He said it was like a light going on inside his head. He said it was like being called home. Which I didn’t think was something he would have been hankering after particularly but I didn’t say as much. Maybe that’s not what he meant. He told me the whole experience had left him feeling blessed. He said it about three times and I believed him even though right then we were standing in line waiting to slop out. But you could see it in his face, the way he felt about it. He asked me how I’d be able to resist if I’d heard the voice of Allah calling me home. I told him that’s fair enough Ray, and good luck and all that. He said it wasn’t Ray it was Abdul Wahid.
I’m not too sure how things worked out with the whole Muslim thing after that. He spent most of his time in the prayer-room or with the other brothers and I didn’t really see him. There was word went round that he’d only converted because someone had been rinsing his gravy-boat and the best protection around was getting in with the brothers, but I don’t know if that was true or what. I’ve never asked him. I got transferred a long while before either of us got out, and we lost touch after that. This was years ago we’re talking. And when I saw him again at the start of the summer it seemed like he’d gone back to calling himself Ray. I wasn’t sure, but he didn’t look like he was feeling too blessed. He certainly weren
’t forswearing alcohol. Could be he was still a Muslim but he’d toned it down a bit. Could be that was what he was up to when he kept going back in the caravan and turning the radio on in there.
Someone at the Stewart place tested out the sound system first thing on the Saturday morning. Nine am on the dot, like they’d purposely waited for what they thought was a respectable time. Didn’t seem like a respectable time to me. Ray near enough punched a hole in the caravan wall. They played a few tunes and then they started talking on the microphone. Seemed like they didn’t really know how loud it was or at least how far sound can travel around here. This was some of the younger Stewarts, it seemed like. Old man Stewart was probably already out somewhere, like straightening the cushions on the church pews or something. They said a few things they obviously thought wouldn’t carry as far as the church, and then there was a howl of feedback and a noise like the wrong plug being pulled out and it went quiet again. Ray got up and went outside and I heard him pissing against the wheel of his car. He came back and got two cans of Guinness from the bag by the door and asked if I wanted some breakfast.
We sat by the lake and drank the cans and threw stones into the water. We could see a few cars pulled up outside the church already, three fields to the north. Old man Stewart’s Range Rover was there. I asked Ray what he thought about the line I’d staked out for the ditch. He said it was the finest line of stakes he’d ever seen but I needn’t think he was about to start digging anything at the weekend when we didn’t even have the right tools anyway. I threw some more stones into the water. They made holes in the green algae and then the holes closed up. It happened pretty quickly and then it was like nothing had happened. I wasn’t sure how Jackie thought she was going to get all that cleared up. A car pulled out from the farmyard at the end of the road and stopped. A woman got out and tied a sign and some balloons to a telegraph pole. We watched her. She got back in the car and drove along the road and stopped at the top of the bank and got out and tied some more balloons to the telegraph pole there. She looked about the right age to be the bride’s mother, dressed in presumably her wedding outfit already. We waved but she didn’t see us. Ray shouted hello and waved again and she looked down to where we were sitting. Ray asked if the balloons were to help people find their way to the wedding and she said they were. She was wearing a big wedding hat, and holding on to it like there was a wind blowing a gale. Ray told her that was a good idea, that it was easy to get lost round here even with the bloody satnav. She nodded and smiled and got back in the car and drove off. She drove along and stopped and got out and tied balloons to every telegraph pole between us and the church.
The weather was clear and still and already warm. It was a good day for a wedding, if you liked that sort of thing. I finished my Guinness and threw the can with the others in the ditch at the bottom of the bank and went and had a look around the lake. Ray asked was I going for some kind of leisurely stroll and I gave him the finger. I was wondering how many fishing jetties would fit around the lake and how close you’d put them and how you’d get them to float. I was starting to think we might as well get on and do some of the jobs Jackie had talked about. Since we were here anyway. Might be good to feel like we were getting something done. She’d need some more pallets though.
A couple of vans drove past. They looked like they were from the catering company. Ray waved as they passed but I didn’t see anyone waving back. He got up and went in the caravan and came out with another couple of cans. Another van came past, from the off-licence in town. We didn’t bother waving.
Late in the morning Jackie came down with a couple of plates of fried-egg sandwiches and said if we were going to be having that sort of a day we might as well get a lining in our stomachs. Meaning the drinking, it seemed like. She had this look on her face like she was indulging us. She said but Monday we’d have to get some work done otherwise old man Stewart would want to have words. She said it was still his land at the end of the day. She called him Mr Stewart. We didn’t say anything. We ate the sandwiches. The yolks were soft and the whites were crisp round the edges. We both said they were good sandwiches. Jackie kept looking over towards the church. There were more people standing around outside, and balloons tied to the gateposts at the entrance to the field they were using for a car-park. We’d offered to help with that, earlier in the week, either with the rolling out or even with the like traffic control on the day, but old man Stewart had just looked at us like we weren’t even there until we’d turned round and left. Jackie was wearing this sort of flowery orange dress and a straw hat and Ray asked her if she’d been invited to the wedding. She said she hadn’t, but she might take a wander over there and see how things were going and see what the bride was wearing and see the flowers and everything. A Tornado came over and dropped another bomb on the Sands. Ray finished his sandwich and licked his fingers clean and told Jackie her dress looked nice. She gave him this look like she was waiting for the punchline and then when there wasn’t one she didn’t know what to say. Another Tornado came over and then something like a dozen or two dozen Tornadoes came over at the same time and dropped bombs on the Sands and we just stared up at them and the sound was like the actual ground being ripped open. Fucking, asunder. We all crouched down without realising and it took a minute or two to straighten up again once they’d gone.
Ray said the wedding would most likely be ruined if they kept that up all day. He looked pretty pleased about it. He said it would have been a major operation to get the whole squadron in the air and formed up like that, it would have taken serious logistical oversight and a fair amount of groin on the part of the pilots. He said he didn’t think they’d be doing that for nothing. One of his uncles had worked on the base for a while, in the kitchens, meaning that was another thing Ray liked to sound knowledgeable about to anyone who’d listen, meaning the planes, not the cooking. I tried to say something about it looking pretty serious now, but I couldn’t hear anything I was saying. I was still waiting for the rushing noise in my ears to fade away and basically what felt like my internal organs to fall back into their rightful place. I tried saying it again, that it looked like things were getting serious. Jackie didn’t say anything. She was just looking over towards the Sands. I remembered the thing about her son. She took our plates back to the house. Ray said it was good of her to wash our crockery as well as doing breakfast. He laughed. I told him to leave it out. I went and got another drink. What was his name. Jackie’s son. Mark. Fucksake.
*
I drove to the Stewart place about as slowly as I could. I wasn’t feeling overly confident in my driving abilities by that point, plus not in the state of the car either, and plus there could have been people walking back along the road. There weren’t any taxis around and that was probably going to come as a surprise to the crowd they had over there. We saw two of them just before we got to the turning, walking in bare feet with their shoes sticking out of their handbags, their arms folded across their chests. They looked young.
That’s what I’m talking about, Ray says.
Just the drinks, I say. Nothing else.
Rinse them dishes any day, he says. I thought he was going to make me stop right there, but he didn’t say anything else so I carried on and turned in at the entrance to the Stewart place. We passed some older guests getting into their cars and holding on to each other. We drove down a grassed track which led around the back of the house, past some open barns with more cars parked inside. At the far end of the track, just past the turning into the field with the marquee, we saw a girl being sick into a bed of nettles. Her dress was a bit on the short side for her to be bending over like she was. A lad in a pink shirt with a pinstriped waistcoat was stood next to her, holding her hair away from her face and rubbing her back. They both looked over their shoulders at us, squinting into the headlights. The girl had a string of something hanging from her mouth. We could see her knickers. They were black as sin.
That’s what I’m fucking talking about
, Ray says.
Just the drinks, I say.
*
We knew Mark from school, and for a bit after that. Years back. Spent a bit of time with him. He was all right, he didn’t mind getting up to things. Not that there was all that much to get up to. Mostly it was getting hold of some drinks and finding somewhere to go. One time we walked the five miles out to the Sands with a bottle of cider just so we could drink it while we sat and watched the seals. This was the last year of school. Meaning we were fifteen or sixteen. Ray tried chasing one of the seals and ended up turning round and doing most of the running. It’s surprising how fast a seal can move, if you start messing around with it in breeding season. That was the day we took a car the first time, when none of us wanted to walk all the way home again. I didn’t know Ray knew how to do the thing with the wires, but he said one of his uncles had shown him. We could all drive, just about, but Mark wouldn’t take his turn so we kicked him out and made him walk the rest of the way. He never told anyone about it, which was a good start. That was how come we took him on a job soon after, but it turned out he wasn’t really up for it. He didn’t know what we were doing until we got in through the back door, and then he wouldn’t come in any further than the doormat. He kept saying he could hear someone coming, he could hear a car pulling into the yard, he could maybe hear a siren? He was near enough crying by the time we’d finished so we didn’t take him on a job again. Ray made sure he knew not to tell anyone.
