A Tangled Summer

by Caroline Kington

  ‘No, not exactly. Charlie deals with all that side of the business and sorts the bills. But I do know he keeps on muttering about things being tight at the moment, which is why the money isn’t forthcoming for my pump and why you didn’t get your allowance.’

  ‘How much is the overdraft?’

  ‘’Bout fifty K.’

  Alison’s jaw dropped, ‘Fifty thousand? We owe the bank fifty thousand?’

  Stephen felt hot and uncomfortable, ‘More than that with the loan. That’s about another sixty.’

  ‘My God, it’s worse than I ever dreamed of!’ And Alison fell silent, the schemes she had been thinking up since they had agreed to the meeting, suddenly looking paltry in the light of a debt of such magnitude.

  * * *

  ‘This way, Mr Tucker,’ a bored young girl, bursting out of her regulation blouse and skirt, showed Charlie into a small, windowless room. ‘Take a seat; Mr White will be with you shortly.’ And she left, shutting the door firmly behind her.

  It was hot in the room, and the large, silent fan, swishing round overhead, did little more than stir the warm air. There was nothing in the room to interest or entertain or, more particularly, to distract attention from the nervous knot growing in his stomach. The room had been created by boxing off the corner of a much larger room and there was barely enough space for the desk, on which there was a computer, and for the three wooden chairs, one of which Charlie had sat on. Light cream wallpaper with a silvery stripe lined the walls, on which were hung a series of pictures of date palms. It was only the presence of those prints that prevented the room from being, in Charlie’s opinion, rather like a police interview room.

  The minutes ticked by and Charlie became increasingly uncomfortable. His mother had persuaded him to wear his suit and he could feel the perspiration trickling down his back. He had just decided to hell with it, he was going to take his jacket off and roll up his sleeves when the door opened. A waft of aftershave preceded the entrance of Gordon White. He was not much older than Charlie, but the two men could not have been more different. Charlie was strong and upright – there was a freshness about him, a directness that some, like Gordon White, might find disconcerting. His eyes glinted with hidden laughter, his skin, not yet coarsened by the elements, glowed with health, and his ill-fitting suit accentuated the strength of his body. By contrast, Gordon White had already started sagging. His skin was pallid; he was slack-faced, and had eyes like boiled sweets; every hair on his head was a testimonial to an expensive hairdresser, and his handshake was flaccid and sticky.

  Charlie disliked Gordon White on sight, and smooth though he was, the bank manager made little attempt to conceal his distaste for Charlie. He waved at Charlie to sit, and sat himself, turning straightaway to the computer as he talked.

  ‘Thank you for coming in, Mr Tucker. I’m new to this branch, as you may be aware, and I’ve made it my business to go through all our customer accounts that are carrying large overdrafts. I have one or two little concerns that I need to air with you…’

  As he continued and then invited Charlie to comment, it became clear to Charlie they didn’t talk the same language; Gordon White made no attempt to understand the problems Charlie presented to him, problems that were currently besetting any small-scale farmer. Sympathy, compassion, understanding, were words simply not on the agenda. What made it worse was that when Charlie grew heated and loud, Gordon White remained completely detached, cool and quietly spoken.

  They reached an impasse in their discussion; Gordon White stared at him for a moment, a half-smile on his face then turned away to give the computer his complete attention. Charlie glared at the profile of the manager; he could swear that, right now, Gordon White was enjoying himself. The man was bad news. Charlie had met his type before and despised them. They were the school prefects of life; the head boys who became petty officers; the lizards of the business world; the petty sadists in control of small things, who regarded Charlie and his sort with ill-concealed contempt, and who enjoyed humiliating them.

  As if feeling Charlie’s eyes on him, Gordon White looked up, his immaculately manicured fingernails gently playing over the keyboard as he spoke. ‘Believe me, Mr Tucker, I hear what you are saying. Indeed, you are not the first farmer to be outfaced by circumstance and the bank has leaned over backwards to implement sympathetic packages for clients so impacted…’

  Charlie struggled to understand what Gordon White was driving at.

  ‘But, you will appreciate, we are not a charity. You are not delivering, Mr…er…Tucker, so it’s time for us to get a grip, time for us to retrench, to safeguard our investments, you understand. When a business like yours is clearly not cost-effective…’

  ‘It’s not a business. It’s a farm. We’ve just been through ten years of hell. It’s not surprising…’

  ‘No, it’s not surprising looking over the extent and nature of your enterprise. I would suggest to you it is just not viable. We’ve no wish to see you go bankrupt, Mr Tucker, but we are going to have to change gear, close the floodgates, as it were...’

  Charlie looked at him, suddenly feeling very frightened. This was like being back in court. The magistrates had fined him ninety quid; this, he knew, was going to be worse, a lot worse. ‘What do you mean?’

  Gordon White smiled faintly and leaned back in his chair. ‘What I mean, Mr Tucker, is that we need to implement certain measures to reduce the risk factor to our shareholders. And this is what we want you to do. I am sure you will see that we have bent over backwards to be reasonable…’

  But Charlie could see nothing reasonable in anything that Gordon White required of him. He argued, he shouted, he refused to agree, but at the end of the day, Gordon White had the upper hand and there was nothing Charlie could do about it.

  Stephen and Alison had cleaned up and joined Jenny in the kitchen by the time Charlie returned. He went to his room to change out of his suit without a word to anyone, and with foreboding the other three awaited his news.

  It was not good, and when he rejoined them in the kitchen, Charlie made no attempt to disguise the fact. While the repayments were made regularly on the bank loan, it remained in place; the overdraft however had exceeded the agreed limit, and not only did Gordon White insist it be brought down to that limit, he decreed that the limit itself should be reduced; those repayments to start at the beginning of the next month.

  Unfortunately for the Tuckers, September was always the month when their outgoings were greatest, with farm insurance to be paid, and the field rent to the Merfields due; quite apart from all the other bills that seemed to accumulate by the end of summer.

  ‘How much?’ Alison enquired, in a small, depressed voice.

  ‘We’re going have to find an extra three thousand. Stupid bastard! Where does he think we’re going to find that from? Anyone would think he wants to make us bankrupt!’

  He looked grimly round the table. His mother was close to tears; Stephen had a dead, lumpen expression on his face and Alison looked as miserable as he’d ever seen her. In a small white T-shirt with her hair pulled back, she looked very young. It touched a chord, reminding him of times when his dad was still alive and his little sister thought that he, Charlie, had the answer to everything. His face softened.

  ‘Well, come on. Let’s start this meeting. Mum, I’m gasping for a cuppa. Ali, Stevie here says you think marriage might not be what Gran is after? It certainly wasn’t one of shitty Mr White’s suggestions.’

  Jenny got up and fussed over the kettle and the teabags, while Alison went through her conversation with Elsie and the discussion she’d subsequently had with Jenny and Stephen about finding new ways of improving the farm’s fortunes.

  ‘Maybe you’re right.’ Charlie said, thoughtfully. Alison nearly fell off her chair. Charlie generally gave her a hard time and never lost an opportunity to put her down. ‘Maybe we should think of other thin
gs we could do. OK folks, so what grand ideas have you got up your sleeves then, eh?’

  ‘I’ll make notes,’ Alison rummaged around the pile of papers at the end of the table and produced an old envelope and a pencil. ‘Just in case we decide to follow something through. You go first, Mum.’

  Jenny placed an assortment of mugs on the table and poured out the tea. Then patting a stray wisp of hair back into place, and wiping her hands on her flowery pinafore, she cleared her throat and, almost shyly, she explained to Charlie her idea about rare breeds.

  ‘There are so many different pigs, Charlie, you wouldn’t believe it. I’ve been looking them up. If we didn’t farm them for meat, we could have them as an attraction…open the farm to visitors.’

  ‘That would fit in with what I had in mind,’ chipped in Stephen, still in his blue work overalls and, ever hungry, eating a bowl of cornflakes. ‘I was reading this article on ostriches. Apparently, you can use every bit of the ostrich, except the eyes. We could farm them and turn them into an attraction. According to this article, there’s a butcher in Bristol sells ostrich meat for an absolute bomb.’

  ‘And then we could have a farm shop – we could sell ostrich feathers there, couldn’t we Stephen?’ Jenny’s state of near despair at Charlie’s news was rapidly dissolving in the excitement of the moment. ‘And we could sell other things, too – tomato chutney, jams, cakes, biscuits. I could make them. People like buying home-made things.’

  Alison smiled at her mother’s enthusiasm. ‘You could sell some of your knitting as well, Mum, and we could sell Gran’s liqueurs and cordials.’

  ‘And if only I could free my strawberry beds of slugs and snails, we could sell strawberries, in season, and I could make strawberry jam…’

  ‘Perhaps we should pick the snails and sell them as strawberry-flavoured snails, a local delicacy!’ Alison quipped, adding, ‘Actually, PYO is really popular – would our land be any good for soft fruit, Charlie?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘Ask me another. We could find out, I guess, but don’t underestimate the amount of graft that goes into that sort of farming. And if we took away the barley and grass, we’d have to buy in to feed Stephen’s cows – unless, of course, all these schemes of yours are assuming we get rid of the herd.’

  Stephen went pale. ‘No way – you lay off my cows.’

  Charlie became impatient. ‘Look Steve, we can’t have it all ways…’

  ‘We should think of other things,’ Alison hastily interjected. ‘And maybe stuff not directly connected with farming, but which uses the land…’

  ‘Like motocross does, you mean – now you’re talking my kind of talk, Ali!’ And at Alison’s evident displeasure, Charlie threw back his head and laughed.

  For the next half hour they battled on, racking their brains, and throwing around ideas that seemed to get wilder and more unrealistic. After they finally lapsed into silence, Charlie had had enough. ‘OK folks, I’ve got work to do. Ali, what have we got so far?’

  Alison read out the ideas that had made it to the back of the envelope. Charlie sighed, suddenly feeling raw again after his experience at the hands of Gordon White. ‘Well, I don’t think we’re going to earn a fortune, even if we do get any of these ideas off the ground; certainly not enough to get the bank off our backs. There’s only one way we can do that...’

  ‘What’s that, Charlie?’ asked Stephen, looking hopefully at his brother.

  ‘Bump the old lady off,’ he said, grimly. ‘Get her off our case, and then maybe we could find out just how much she’s really worth...’

  * * *

  ‘So what sort of ideas did y’all come up with, then?’ asked Lenny, pouring tea from a thermos. The weather had held, and he and Charlie had nearly finished cutting the field. ‘Here. Fancy a biscuit?’

  ‘Ta. Well Mum was keen on rare breeds and selling stuff that she could make.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Oh, you know: jams, pies, cakes, chutney, that sort of stuff.’

  Lenny, who knew Jenny’s cooking of old, goggled. ‘You won’t make much out of that, mate!’

  ‘Maybe not, but she’s keen to do her bit. Don’t know where she got this rare breeds idea from. Could be worth looking into, but I reckon it’d cost too much to set up. Stephen’s keen, but then he’d go along with anything that will allow him to keep his herd.’

  ‘So where are you gonna find this extra three K the bank wants by the end of next month, Charlie?’

  ‘ I don’t know, and I’m fed up with thinking about it.’

  ‘Would you think of taking up old Lester on his offer?’

  ‘Over my dead body. He’s made two offers, now, both silly money. What does he think I am – the village idiot? No, something will turn up, you’ll see.’ But he didn’t feel as optimistic as he sounded and they finished their tea in a depressed silence.

  ‘It’s a pity,’ Charlie observed, as they stood up to resume work, ‘that Marsh Farm is so bloomin’ flat. If it weren’t, we could have our own motocross circuit here. You should have seen Ali’s face when I suggested it. I meant it as a joke, but I bet old Cruddy rakes in a fortune down at Farleigh.’

  ‘You should do a deal with Hugh Lester. You know he wants your fields for his nags. Swap one of your meadows for Knoll Woods. We could build a cracker of a course in there.’

  ‘Fat chance; he makes a mint out of them pheasants – ripping off hordes of bloody foreigners, firing in every which way...’

  ‘Lucky for us they seem to miss so many!’ Lenny smirked, and they both laughed.

  ‘I bet shooting pays better than motocross.’

  ‘Mebbe, but you can bet yer bottom dollar that motocross pays better than farmin’.’

  ‘A lot more fun, too. Well, if you come up with any brilliant ideas, Lenny, bring ’em on in. Now let’s finish this little lot off, then I’ll stand you a beer at The Grapes, bank or no bank.’

  ‘You’re on – though it’ll have to be a quick one. As it ’appens, I’ve got a date with old Lester this evening.’

  Charlie turned and looked at Lenny, his eyebrows raised, momentarily, in surprise. Then he said lightly, ‘Ooh, get you, hobnobbing with the enemy! What on earth are you going to see him for?’

  Lenny was almost apologetic, ‘He wants to offer me work, according to my missus. I don’t mind taking a few bob off him.’ Suddenly he clutched Charlie’s arm. ‘Look, Charlie, it’s them. There they are again.’

  Unnoticed by them, a sleek black car had parked in the lane by the gate, and two men in dark glasses were walking across the stubble towards them.

  Charlie climbed down from his cab, motioning Lenny to stay where he was, and walked across the field to meet them.

  The two men looked incongruous, standing in the middle of a stubble field in dark designer suits, slick shiny shoes, and flashes of gold around their necks, fingers and wrists.

  They greeted him without smiling.

  One, slighter and younger than the other, got straight to the point. ‘Hey, man, you said you was the farmer owned these fields?’ His voice was flat, devoid of much expression, with an accent that Charlie would have identified as Estuary English from the television he watched.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘We told you we was interested in mebbe renting ’em for a week?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, we are. As from now, for the next two weeks. This one, and the one next to it. We’ll make it worth your while. You still up for it?’

  ‘I might be…’

  The second man growled, warningly.

  The first shook his head, wearily. ‘Cut the crap, man. Either you are or you ain’t. I haven’t got the time to arse around.’

  Charlie didn’t hesitate any longer and the deal was spelled out to him. They wanted the fields left as they were, stubble and all, but he was to fix the ga
tes so the fields could be secured; and when the time came, there would be more work for Charlie and his hired hand, if Charlie wanted it, for which they would pay extra.

  The sum offered for the use of the fields had Charlie gasping, although he did his best to conceal the fact, and found his voice sufficiently to ask for a down payment. A bulging wallet was produced.

  Much the same age as Charlie, they had obviously attained a level of prosperity that Charlie could only dream of, so it was with some considerable envy, the deal done, that he watched them walk back across the field to the small lay-by where they had parked their car.

  Seeing the men depart, Lenny came over to join Charlie. ‘What’s all that about, then?’

  Charlie, fingering the large wad of notes that he had shoved into the pocket of his overalls, could barely speak with excitement. ‘That, me old sparkplug, was “something turning up”!’ His eyes shining, he punched the air. ‘Yea-ah!’

  His excitement was infectious. ‘What? Come on Charlie, what is it? You look as if you’re gonna burst a blood vessel…’

  ‘So would you, if one minute you were staring ruin in the face, and the next minute, enough lolly drops into your lap not only to pay the bloodsuckers at the bank, but to put up a fair whack for a reconditioned bike in time for the next Farleigh meeting!’

  Lenny let out a whoop of joy. ‘Bloody hell, Charlie. Why? What ’ave you got that they want so much?

  ‘These two fields, my boy, the ones we’ve just cut – they want to borrow them for a short while; but Lenny, before I tell you what it’s all about, you’ve got to swear you won’t say a word to anyone, mate, OK? Those guys were heavy about that; they don’t want anyone to get wind, in case someone pokes their nose in. There’s five thousand smackers riding on this, so forget you know anything!’