by Graham Johns
There were very few people about and Mick figured that with it being a new country, coupled with its isolation, it would take a while before there was any need for commuters. Even the local primary school was dead quiet. It felt eerie. The village was never what you’d call busy but it was never like this either. There was a small crowd at the pub though, even at this hour, and so it was that Mick parked his bike up to the rear of the Dog & Duck and decided to see if he could source himself a passport.
The front door to the pub was wide open and the warming glow of the interior made for temptation that Mick found hard to resist, but resist he did as he stood at the threshold poised to pounce on an unsuspecting passport holder as they happened out of the fine establishment. Broken spotted Mick from adjacent to the bar and shouted “MICK SUCKS!” at him for good measure, causing Mick to casually amble out of his sight.
He didn’t have to wait for too long in the moist air for someone to emerge. It was Patricia Volta, the local stripper, and Mick knew Trish rather well. Known as ‘Electrishity’ while performing, Patricia was a voluptuous woman who knew how, when and where to shake and gyrate it. Her tassel-spinning technique was peerless in the whole of Yorkshire, especially according to local farmers who had nobody else to compare her to. Despite only being in her early thirties, she always wore classy make-up and a good amount of it. Dark and long wavy hair was always beautifully done and cascaded to her shoulders. Mick carefully adjusted his position so that he caught her eye with a wink as she brushed past him.
“Hi, Trish! It’s been a while!”
“Mick! What’ve you been up to, you devil?” she asked in a way which really meant, to Mick at least, “Shall we go back to my place for some fun times?”
“Oh, you know, this and that.”
“You are a deviant, you should know that I know that you’ve always been up to something naughty.” She brushed his arm with her hand to complete the sentence in a way which said, “I know you’ve been watching me through Smutty Mathew’s telescope, you mucky lad…and I liked it.”
Mick was finding it tricky to stay focussed on the task in hand and Trish was certainly distracting him.
“Me? Naughty? No! I’ve been too busy building walls and things like that,” Mick protested weakly with an innocent expression.
“I know you, you’re round at Mathew’s often enough. I can see you through my telescope,” she winked at him then. This really meant, “I’ve seen you naked and I still like what I see.”
“That’s outrageous!” he said in genuine shock. “I feel violated!”
“It’s all just give and take, now how about you come back to mine and we get it on?” Mick didn’t need a translation there, and being just a man, he followed meekly along with a slightly peculiar gait.
It is worth pointing out that although Mick took a dim view of women who weren’t really ladies, he considered Patricia beyond reproach as she only had one man at once.
***
It would be inappropriate to describe the goings on in the Volta house in detail but suffice to say that Mick was treated to a private dance beyond compare. Three hours later he suddenly recollected his mission, dragged himself out of bed and began collecting his rumpled suit and undies from the floor before heading into the bathroom. Trish’s telescope was on the windowsill and he picked it up and peered outside. Smutty Mathew filled his field of vision, pouting and grinning all at once right back at him while clicking his camera at the same time. Mick pulled the blind down and freshened up a touch.
Deciding it was time to finally change his outfit, Mick found a clean set of his clothes in Trish’s walk-in wardrobe, secreted in amongst the clothes that were too small for her these days, along with a pair of her knickers, and dressed himself. The lacy cerise knickers chafed a bit but they’d have to do in the absence of anything better. He now had a fresh dark grey suit and white shirt to continue his quest. He carefully placed his dirties in her laundry for collection on another day. His rumpled suit went in with her dry cleaning.
As he opened the door of the dressing room, Trish was stood by her bed looking at him.
“Going already, three shoes?” she smiled.
“Yeah, best be off, I’ve got a few things to do, sorry.”
“It’s OK. It was good as always. Can you put on the latch on your way out, please?” she asked him sleepily.
“OK. Thanks, it was great! Until next time…”
Mick ambled down the stairs and noted her leopard print handbag on a small table by the front door. He had a quick look inside and ‘borrowed’ the passport. He went away with a smile on his face and a spring in his step caused mostly by a pinching sensation around his scrotum. All in the service of the community.
***
Back once more at Gordon’s place and relaxing with a nice cup of Yorkshire Tea, Mick examined the spoils of his morning. The passport was pretty dull. To be frank it was somewhat amateurish and looked like the kids at the local primary school could’ve made it. It amounted to some blank sheets of card folded in half and stapled in the middle, with an ink stamp of a sheep’s head, presumably an artist’s impression of Tufty, on the front cover along with the words ‘Republic of Nether-Staining’. The only information within the document was the name of the person, their date of birth and their address. There was no photo, signature or any kind of hologram to even attempt security.
Feeling disappointed, Mick tossed it face down onto the windowsill of the kitchen just as the glorious sun poked through. Mick noted that the sunlight had caught something on the passport cover and he picked it up once more.
On the back was a message in barely legible cream ink which said ‘Not Valid for Travel Anywhere’ which certainly raised an eyebrow or two.
Wrenching Trish’s pants from round his tackle, Mick said, “What the hell is going on here?”
He then wondered where on earth Gordon was and wished he was there with him.
***
As it happened, Gordon wasn’t there and nor was he here. Gordon was still very much somewhere else. He, Selina and Nigel had overnighted in a room in a Lancashire pub called the Masked Ferret which was rather pleasant and Gordon had even discovered a liking for black pudding in the morning. Who would’ve thought it? Not Gordon, that’s for sure!
They still had far to journey but Gordon pressed on with his wife and dog.
***
Mick decided to return the passport to Patricia before he did anything else. He knocked on her door using an appropriately large knocker. She didn’t take long to answer and was apparently getting ready to go out somewhere as she was dressed as a policewoman.
“Hello, Mick! I didn’t expect you to come again so soon!”
The statement didn’t require an STS but Mick found it slightly hard to focus.
“I-I just found this outside your gate and thought you might have dropped it,” he partially stammered out.
Patricia looked quite delighted, “Oh thank you, that’s so nice of you, I can’t go far without this!”
“Tell me, have you seen the writing on the back cover?” Mick asked.
Patricia scrutinised said cover, then frowned for a moment before a blank expression took hold and she just said, “No. What writing? There isn’t any.”
“My mistake,” Mick replied, “I’ll leave you to get on with your day, farewell.”
With that he departed, and the door closed behind him.
***
Mick walked with purpose for the short distance back to the Dog & Duck. He had a new mission now and was determined to confront Bob.
On an occasion such as this when a man needs to manfully enter a building, there is a certain desire for appropriate furniture such as some waist-high saloon doors to fling open with as much force as you can, thus causing everyone in the pub to turn and stare, and for pool balls to pause mid-roll on the table. The front door to the Dog & Duck was wide open, however, and there was only Billy the Village Drunk in there at present, tottering this way
and that on his way to the toilet.
Bob was awaiting custom from his usual position behind the bar, grooming his beard absent-mindedly with his left hand.
“Bob, I need to speak with you please,” Mick said with a degree of force as Billy disappeared into the Ladies. “Amateur handling of the Hole,” thought Mick of Billy, shaking his head as he did so.
Bob looked a little nervously from side to side and said, “Me? Why? Everything OK?”
“It’s about the new passport…”
“Yes? Lovely isn’t it, I don’t think anywhere else has a white one. We’re quite unique, you know.”
Mick wasn’t sure if Bob was being true or not, “Have you read the back cover?”
“What about it?”
“If you’ve got a spare one I’ll show you.” Mick indicated to Bob with a wave of his right hand that now would be a fine time to go and retrieve a blank passport which Bob duly did from the far end of the bar.
When he returned, he passed the document to Mick who flipped it over immediately and pointed to the text. Bob looked at it blankly and said, “What?”
“The words!”
“What words?”
Mick pointed and pressed his index finger hard onto the document which left a slight crease in the card, “Those words there!”
Bob gazed at the words for a moment and even put the passport under a light, “Are you sure? I’m not seeing anything. I think that perhaps you’ve been drinking as usual.”
Even Mick could see this was going nowhere and felt himself getting rather hot under his nice clean collar but said, “It says in plainly not very visible cream lettering that this is ‘Not Valid for Travel Anywhere’ so do please tell me what the hell is going on in Nether-Staining?”
“Nothing you don’t already know I’d say. We are our own country now and you’d do well to stop spreading rumours like this. Now please go about your business, you’re barred!” Bob stormed off upstairs.
“YOU’RE BARRED!” screamed Broken while bobbing his head and stepping from side to side on his perch.
There was little point in Mick asking for a pint it seemed, especially as there was no one around to buy it for him, so he strode rather less purposefully from the pub than when he had entered.
He figured he really needed to go and do something proactive, if only he could decide what that thing was. Right now, he wasn’t sure who to talk to or even why. And then Mick had an idea.
***
Hermit Harry lived atop Bent Knob Hill on the outskirts of Nether-Staining. He liked the isolation. From up here he had a superb view of the village and the surrounding area. He could spot people venturing towards the area long before they arrived using the remarkably straight B-road which thankfully provided a bypass of their lands to the south west. Nobody bothered him in his shack and he, in return, bothered nobody in their fancy houses. To say nobody bothered him is only almost true, as there had been an incident in the not-too-distant past where the roof of his place had been caused to collapse thanks to Beryl, the bar maid, banging on his door. Mick had a fairly long history of occasional hangings out with Harry but he had been present at the destruction and was standing encouragingly just to the rear of Beryl at the time.
The building, if you could call it that, nestled in a clearing with an overgrown dirt road heading to it; and consisted of a shed with a metal roof balanced precariously on the top, sloping upwards from the front to the back. The roof had a small window set into it from which Harry sometimes tipped a bucket of his own effluence onto undesired visitors. The windows around the walls of the shack had dirty rags partially obscuring them and an expected level of cobwebs. Harry had a productive allotment of decent size growing a variety of vegetables and herbs, and a small orchard of various fruit trees. He was a man who knew how to survive when the going got tough, and Mick figured that the going was going to get tough, although at the moment it was set at marginally trying.
Mick knocked tentatively on the door.
“Piss off! No visitors today…or ever!” came a shouted response from a gnarled old voice.
“Harry! It’s Mick! Can we talk?” Mick asked.
“You heard me! Piss off! I’ve no wish to parley with the likes of you! You were an accessory to the wrecking of my house!”
On the positive side for Harry, something he forgot when convenient to do so, he’d sold his story to the press which had paid for repairs to his ramshackle establishment so that at least it was more weathertight than it used to be. He’d even managed to get some new fruit trees with what was left over.
“It’s important! I’m not even going to bang on your door this time out of respect. There’s only me here! Please open the door!”
“You heard me! Piss off!”
“I’ll make it worth your while!” Mick shouted in hope.
There was silence from inside which lasted a couple of minutes. Mick used the opportunity to thoroughly adjust his attire somewhat just in case Harry opened the door. In fact, that is a disservice to Mick’s dexterity for a middle-aged man as he did something quite unexpected in the trouser department while waiting.
The door suddenly opened a crack and a voice, minus a visible face, rasped through the gap, “How?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“How will you make it worth my while?”
Mick took an intake of breath, “I’ve got something that I think you’d enjoy.”
Harry interest was piqued, “What is it?”
Mick held his hands behind his back secretively. “If you open the door and invite me in for a short while, I will give it to you. Call it an act of faith.”
The door closed.
“Bugger,” Mick thought to himself.
Then the door opened again, fully this time, to reveal the scraggy form of Hermit Harry, complete with his stitched together rags draped over his bony form, a messy grey beard and lank hair.
“You’re looking well,” commented Mick, “it’s been a while.”
“No it hasn’t. You were here in that stupid leotard when my house was destroyed. Now give me the gift and we can talk!” Harry didn’t care for pleasantries as you can see.
Mick produced a pair of lacy cerise knickers from behind his back with a magician-like flair and waved them in front of Harry’s astonished expression.
“Whose are they?” he asked.
“I assume you’ve heard of Patricia Volta?”
Harry nodded eagerly.
“Well, they’re hers.” Mick let that sentence hang in the air for a moment.
“How did you get them?” Harry asked with more than a degree of suspicion.
“The opportunity presented itself while I was at her house earlier, I couldn’t resist, but I’m willing to share the spoils.”
“Are they clean?” Harry asked.
There comes a point every so often in life when you have to decide whether to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth or a lie. But then there are numerous shades of truth. Mick decided he would choose a nice grey shade of truth.
“No. They’ve been worn.”
This news seemed to excite Harry and a wicked grin came on to his face, “You’d better come in.”
Mick entered and Harry proffered a hand in expected receipt of his prize. Mick duly obliged and Harry immediately held his lacy prize up to his nose, inhaling deeply with a satisfied grin. Mick tried not to burst out laughing and managed to contain himself to a wicked grin all of his own.
Breath complete and carefully placing the underwear on an old orange box that doubled as a table in the dark, dusty space which carried a distinct stale, earthy smell, Harry said, “So what gives?”
Mick told him what he knew which didn’t take too long, although he decided to pad out the history a bit more as Harry had no knowledge about why walls had been moved and whatnot although he had seen things changing from his lofty outlook.
“Interesting,” Harry said, “it’s like the whole village have decided to become h
ermits!”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that but you’re right!”
“We can’t be having that, I’m the only hermit in the village…or indeed country. I’m not giving up my unique selling point that easily!” The indignant look of pride on his face was nothing short of priceless. “What do you need from me?”
“I’d really appreciate it if you could spy on the goings on in Nether-Staining, especially in the Dog & Duck, over the coming days. I’ve got somewhere I need to be and something I need to do. Can I count on you?” Mick asked hopefully.
“Get me some better clothes so I won’t stand out quite so much, and maybe another pair of Volta’s undies, and you’ve got a deal.”
They shook hands, which to Mick felt a bit like grasping an old piece of dirty, greased leather, and then Mick quickly went back to Trish’s place. Trish was out but he used a key hidden under a rather naughty-looking, bent-over gnome by the front door; retrieving his crumpled suit and, this time at least, some properly worn knickers. He doubted Harry would note the variation in smell, but if he did, Mick was sure Harry could create a reason why that might be just to amuse himself. After handing them across Harry’s threshold into his eager hands, Mick felt it prudent to check he wasn’t gifting valuable attire for nothing.
“How will I find you when I return?” Mick asked.
“I’ll be around, don’t worry, just go somewhere conspicuous and I’ll find you.”
CHAPTER 16
CROSSING A BORDER IS SCARY,
CROSSING IT CAN BE RISKY,
ONCE YOU’RE THERE AND YOU’RE PULLING YOUR HAIR,
GET IT DONE AND DO IT BRISKLY.
Those who exist on the underbelly of society have a knack. Their knack is something most people can only dream of having. Their knack is their ability to become invisible. Think about it, when was the last time you really noticed a homeless person? Sitting there shaking a tin asking for a few coins and hoping for just a hint of eye contact and acknowledgement? Admit it, you just walk on by, you might even move to the side and wonder why.
