Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke

by Peter Benson

  “Sounds like it,” said Grace.

  A typical Sunday lunch at Mum and Dad’s, and as I cleared the plates away and Grace took a trifle from the fridge, I glanced out of the window.

  Ashbrittle is a small place. Everybody knows everybody, and everybody knows everybody’s dogs, cats and cars. If you take a letter to the letter box someone will ask you if you’re going to post a letter, and if you don’t peg out your washing on the day you usually peg out your washing, someone will tell everyone else that you’ve had a heart attack while listening to the news. Every now and again, someone will come and visit the old yew tree, but other than that the place isn’t visited by many strangers. So when a car no one knows appears, it’s an event. It might not be mentioned in the parish magazine, but people will probably talk about it over their tea, and wonder who the people were and what they were doing.

  As I was staring out of the window I saw a car I hadn’t seen before driven by a bald man I had seen before. He was sitting there, staring straight ahead, his hands out of sight, still as a corpse. The moment I saw him I felt a wash of ice flow through my blood, and I froze. And as I looked at him, he turned his head very slowly towards me. Deliberate and knowing, and his eyes fixed on mine. His mouth twitched. His teeth were clean and white, and he flicked his tongue. He flicked his tongue again. I tried to look away, but I could not. The car window was open, and his eyes were as pale as clouds reflected on snow, and as cold. He stared on and on, and then he did something inside the car, reached up and his hand dropped a lit match onto the road. He wasn’t smoking, and he looked like the sort of person who had never smoked. He looked like he kept himself very fit. A fanatic. A maniac in the gym with the weights and the heavy bag and the rowing machine. In the corner, pumping and swearing and pumping and swearing and pumping some more, towel around his neck, arms glistening, sweat on his face, dripping down, dripping in pools, blood under his fingernails. A tough man, wiry, sprung and ready. Swift. Planned. Silent even when he screamed. A screech owl. All these things. And then, as slowly as he had turned to look at me, he turned away again, ran his tongue over his lips, started the car and pulled away, and I was left standing with my dirty plate and a black feeling in my stomach that twisted and turned and fed on its own dark bile.

  ‌12

  I didn’t feel like eating trifle, and made up an excuse to leave early. Something about a cow ready to drop a calf and Mr Evans wanting me back at the farm. But they knew I was lying. They could tell. They could see it in my face and the way I thanked Grace for the food and told Dad he told a good story. Mum came with me to the door. She put her hand on my shoulder and stared into my eyes, but she didn’t say anything. She just nodded, touched the middle of my forehead with her middle finger and let me go. When I got on the bike, I didn’t go back to the farm. I took the road to Spike’s.

  I smelt it before I reached it – the dark, acrid smell of burning filled the air around Greenham. For a moment I thought that everything Mum had said was true. I was listening to my heart and recognizing the signs, and I was smelling the fire she smelt. But when I was fifty yards from his place the lane was blocked by a fire engine. Smoke was billowing over the trees, and the sound of cracking and spitting filled the air. I dropped the bike in the hedge and walked past the engine until a fireman stopped me. Hoses were snaking up the road and filthy water was running in the verge.

  “Sorry mate. You can’t go up there.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “House fire.”

  “The little bungalow?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is he OK?”

  “Who?”

  “Spike. The bloke who lives there.”

  “There was no one home. The neighbours called…”

  “OK…”

  “When can I get up there?”

  The fireman shrugged. “Not sure, mate. It’ll be a while. The state of the place, I reckon they’ll be pulling it down.”

  “OK. Thanks,” I said, and stood for a moment and watched as the smoke blew, then went back to my bike, picked it out of the hedge and rode back to the farm.

  I rode fast and I rode badly, and all the time my mind was chasing. A voice was yelling in my head “Enough! Stop! Enough! Stop!”, and when I took the junction at Appley Cross I almost came off the bike. It slewed towards the bank and I caught my foot in the hedge, took my hand off the throttle, slipped sideways and stopped. I stopped for half a minute, took deep breaths and started up again.

  When I got to the farm I found a note tucked under the caravan door.

  EL. I HAVE GONE BECOSE SOMEONE COME TO MINE LAST NIGHT. I WAS OUT AND WHEN I GOT BACK I SAW THEM ROUND THE BACK. I GOT THE WEED SO I’LL CALL YOU WHEN I NO WHERE I AM. SPIKE.

  As I was reading the note, Mr Evans came from the farmhouse. “You missed him,” he said. “Came round just after you’d gone for your lunch.”

  “Know where he went?”

  “No. Looked in a hurry though.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and now, in a rush of anger and flame, I thought that this was it. I was tired. Tired of living with stupidity and panic and fear and death, and I wanted to go back to how it was when I first moved into Mr Evan’s caravan and I could watch birds without worrying. I wanted to be able to make a cup of tea and drink it slowly. I wanted to be able to jump on my bike and ride for no reason. I was going to talk to someone, and I was going to talk to them now. Maybe they wouldn’t be there or maybe they would, but what the fuck. You do what you have to do even if you don’t know if it’s the only thing to do.

  I rode to the phone box in Appley. I was going to take a risk, the biggest risk I could take without jumping off a bridge with a stone tied around my neck. I’d thought about it, but I didn’t have any choice. I was trapped, and the trap was bolted to the floor of a cave. I could hear things in the cave, scrapes and whispers, and all the things imagination barks in the night.

  I dropped the bike in a hedge, stood outside the phone box and listened. The sky was quiet, but the trees tweeked with birds. An owl here, a crow there, a family of blackbirds watching for a cat. Something rustled in the field beyond the hedge, a fox or a badger, and beyond them, sheep. They were standing in quiet groups, staring at each other as if they were having deep conversations. When sheep look like they’re talking you can be sure that something bad is going to happen. I didn’t doubt that, I didn’t doubt it at all. There are people who say that superstition is a blanket the poor use to keep their minds warm with, but don’t believe it. Superstition isn’t a blanket at all. It’s more than that. It’s not even superstition. It’s a bridge we use to cross to the place where meaning is wearing a feathered hat, an embroidered shirt, velvet trousers and big leather boots. And this meaning doesn’t run. It walks and jangles the change in its pocket. I felt in my pocket for some change, jangled it, listened again. Now everything was quiet and still.

  The phone box smelt of sick and beer and fags, and the floor was covered in crisp packets and something sticky. I picked up the receiver and called Taunton police station. When someone answered I dropped a coin and said, “Can I speak to DS Pollock?”

  “Hang on a minute.”

  “Thanks.”

  A minute later I heard “Pollock speaking”.

  “DS Pollock?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Elliot.”

  “Who?”

  “Elliot Jackson.”

  “Elliot Jackson?”

  “Yes. I found the man, the man hanging in the woods.”

  “Oh yes. Elliot. Hello. How are you?”

  “Fucked.”

  The man laughed. “So you’ve got something you want to tell me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “OK.”

  “I know it’s Sunday, but can I come and see you?”

  “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday – it’s all the same to us.”

  “Can I just talk to you please? In a pub or something. Somewhere quiet…”

  “Well…”

/>   “Please?”

  I could hear him thinking. “Is this important?”

  “Very.”

  “OK. You know The Black Horse? It’s on Bridge Street.”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “Meet you there in an hour?”

  “OK.”

  I was there in three quarters, ordered a half and found a quiet corner table. The place was busy, but I was ignored. People played darts, stared at the juke box and chose their music, men eyed women, and a bored dog lay by the bar hatch and snoozed. Pollock appeared on time, bought a bottle of Coke, sat down opposite me and said, “This isn’t how we like to do things, Elliot…”

  “It’s the only way I can,” I said. “I’m scared.”

  “You’re scared? Now why would that be?”

  “Well…” I said, “it’s difficult.”

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “Can I trust you?” I said, knowing that even if he said that I could I was taking a chance.

  “Of course you can trust me, Elliot. I’m a policeman.”

  I laughed.

  “Why the laugh? And why the question?”

  “Can I fucking trust you?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You can trust me.”

  I looked into his eyes. I watched his mouth. He gave nothing away, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing at all. I had to ignore whoever he was and whatever he knew. I had no choice. “OK,” I said. “I’ll tell you,” and I did.

  I started at the beginning, told him about the time Spike came to me and said he’d seen someone in the woods below Heniton Hill, and how we’d found the smoke in the hoop house, and how he’d stolen it. And how the hanging man had been the someone we’d seen, and now Spike’s house had been burned to the ground, and then I said, “We saw someone else with the man who died.”

  “You said.”

  “But I saw him again.”

  “Where?”

  “In the car park behind the police station.”

  “What?”

  “I think he’s a policeman.”

  Now Pollock narrowed his eyes, leant towards me and lowered his voice. “You think he’s a policeman? And why would you think that?”

  “He was in a suit, but he had a police badge sticking out of his top pocket. And someone called him ‘sir’. And I saw him again. He was sitting in a car outside my mum and dad’s house. And I think he burned my mate’s house down.”

  “And why do you think that?”

  “Because he dropped a lit match out of the car window.”

  “Not a lot of evidence to go on, Elliot.”

  “I know. But he has a twitchy mouth. And a look in his eyes.”

  “A look in his eyes? Don’t we all?”

  “Not like they want to kill you.”

  “OK.” He sipped some Coke.

  “Now you see why I asked if I could trust you?”

  He nodded. “I do.”

  “And can I?”

  “I told you. Yes. And can I tell you why?”

  “Please.”

  “Because you’re talking about DI Dickens.”

  “DI Dickens?”

  “Detective Inspector Dickens, Elliot. We call him Twitchy.”

  “Because of his mouth?”

  “Exactly. He’s not a man to fuck with. He’s got more decorations than a Christmas tree, and he’s twice as prickly. And he’s as mad as…”

  “So you think I’m kidding you?”

  “Not at all.” He moved even closer to me. “Far from it. There are people out there who’ve been trying to nail him for years.”

  “Why? What else has he done?”

  “Lots, Elliot. He’s got his fingers in a lot of pies. He’s a vicious bastard. But there’s nothing anyone can prove. Not yet, anyway.”

  “And who are these people?”

  He tapped the side of his nose. “Look,” he said, and he fished in his pocket, pulled out a card and put it on the table. “First of all, you’re a lucky bloke. When you decided to call me, you called the right man.”

  “You’ve got an honest face.” I sipped my drink. “I think.”

  “That’s what my missus says.” He pushed the card towards me and tapped it. “This is my direct line. If you call it and someone else answers, don’t say a word. Just hang up. In the meantime, I’m going to speak to someone I know in Bristol.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t worry. But they might be the best friend you ever had.”

  “OK.”

  “You know where your mate is?”

  “No. But I’ve got an idea.”

  “OK. Because if I’m thinking right, we might need him.”

  “Why?”

  “And we’ll need the smoke.”

  “I think he’s got it.”

  “Good.”

  “So go and find him. Try and talk some sense into him.”

  “That won’t be easy.”

  “The difficult is never easy, Elliot. Maybe you’re beginning to learn that.”

  “I think I am,” I said, and I leant back and for a moment I caught a look in Pollock’s face that spun at the edge of deceit. Either he was honest or he was a genius liar. “Fuck…” I said, and he smiled. At least I think it was a smile, though it could have been a grimace or a response to the Coke he was drinking, or the news he was taking back to the police station.

  ‌13

  I’m a good worker. I put my head down. I do what I’m told. If I’m asked to do something I don’t want to do, I’ll still do it, usually. I don’t mind getting dirty. I don’t complain if my shirt is torn. I sweat. And when I sweat I take my shirt off and tuck it in my belt and work on. I whistle and I sing, and if I have the time I’ll stop for five minutes and listen to the world in its turning and ripping. But then I’ll go back to work and sweat some more.

  I used to sweat when I worked for the tree surgeon, and I used to sweat at the pig farm. And before those jobs I sweated for a man called Albert who made ornamental blocks. We’d work in a shed at the bottom of his garden, mix cement in a knackered mixer and pour the stuff into patterned moulds. When the cement had set, we’d knock the blocks out, stack them in a corner and wait until they were dry. Then we’d load samples into a van, visit garden centres and landscapers and try and sell them. Albert was an optimist, but his optimism took a beating as everyone we tried to sell the blocks to shook their heads and said that they bought their ornamental blocks from someone else. “But ours are handmade,” Albert would say, scratching the palms of his hands and making weird clicking sounds with his tongue. “I can see that,” the customer would say, shaking his head and pointing at some flaw on the block. I worked for Albert for a couple of months, but when the ornamental-block business went tits up he told me it would be best if I looked for work somewhere else. He didn’t have the heart to tell me that he’d have to let me go, but I could see it in his eyes and the way his lips shivered. He was down, but he wasn’t beaten – the last time I saw him he told me he was buying one of those old-fashioned bicycles with an ice-cream box in the front. He was going to take it to Torquay and cycle up and down the sea front selling lollies and cones. “I’m going to make a killing,” he said, and I believed him. I’m like that. I believe people and I try to believe myself. So if I haven’t felt sweat roll off my neck and down my back I’ll think I’ve had a dishonest day, and I’ll have a word with myself. Maybe I’m old-fashioned like that, or maybe it’s in my blood. I don’t know.

  In the morning I used work and sweat to block the fright and panic. I could have asked Mr Evans for the day off, could have made up some excuse, but there were jobs to do. So when I’d finished the milking and he asked me to go to the copse beyond the top fields and cut some wood for his winter fires, I did as I was told.

  The copse was long and thin, untidy with hazel coppice and ash, and it slipped down a frightened slope like a skirt off a thigh. I took an axe, a bow saw and some sacks, and when I found a good stand, I started chopping. A robin
came to watch me work and wait for the likely worm, and hopped from branch to branch with a cheep and a twitch. I remembered a story I’d heard about how robins were only brave in England: if they live in any other country they’re furtive and shy, and hide behind leaves in the densest bushes. I said, “You’re a brave bird,” to him, and he tweeted back at me, flitted towards the place where I’d piled the sacks, sat on one and stared at me. “But you’re not to follow me home and come indoors,” I said. A robin in the house means a death in the family. “You hear me?” The bird looked at me, hopped to a closer branch, sang a little song and carried on watching me. I went back to work, and when I had a stack of wood as high as a bale, I found a crook and started sawing.

  The work was hard and hot, but the shade of the copse kept the worst of the heat away. And for a while I did force the trouble away. If it had been a mouse it would have hidden itself in a hole in the ground, curled itself up and tucked its tail to its nose. It would have breathed so quietly not even a beetle would have heard the noise, or an ant. And as the logs piled up, so the trouble faded to a whisper and all my mind did was think about how Mr Evans would keep warm and cosy through the long dark nights of winter.

  I love the smell of fresh sawn wood. It’s the smell of promise, like the smell of a cut tomato or baking bread. If it could be a person, it would be a good listener, someone with kind eyes, a smile and a glass of cold lemonade. It wouldn’t have travelled much, but it would be wise. And when it spoke it would speak slowly and quietly, short sentences, simple words, nothing complicated. It wouldn’t threaten, wouldn’t understand violence, wouldn’t welcome trouble. And as I started to fill the sacks with wood, I thought, for a moment, that the smell of the wood did speak to me, did say, “One day, all this will pass. One day, you will be able to sleep again.”

  The robin got bored with watching me and flew off to find something more interesting to do, and an hour later I was back at the farm. I stacked the sacks of logs in a lean-to behind the house, then fetched the cows in for milking. They were waiting at the gate, dusty and swishing their tails at the flies. As I followed them to the backyard, Mr Evans came and stood at the kitchen door and said, “Don’t forget the cat.”