Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke

by Peter Benson

  Driving with the smoke wasn’t easy, and the further I drove the more difficult it got. It was strong stuff, sweet and warm, and after a few miles it was getting deep inside my head, boring holes through my brain and into my neck, down to my heart and my lungs and my liver and all the other parts. Down and down and further down. Colouring me. Filling me. Twitching at me. Twitch, twitch, twitch. I opened the windows, let the fresh air in, but the smoke wouldn’t let me go. Bad smoke. Leave me alone. Let me do what I have to do. Stop that. Keep your hands to yourself. Leave it. But it didn’t listen. It rustled. The sacks rustled. My brain rustled, grabbed an edge of paranoia and told me to slow down.

  Slow down.

  Slow.

  Stop that.

  Stop now.

  Forget.

  Stop.

  But it didn’t stop. It got worse. The fumes concentrated themselves, filled my head, burst out, broke back in and nailed themselves to my nose. The road twisted and changed. All the familiar places gave themselves new names. Pubs I had drunk in, garages I had filled up in, houses I wished I could live in, fields. A corner I had stood and thumbed a lift from. A roundabout I had slowed for. And all the way the glow of the sodium lights, beaming and shining and throwing short shadows on the road and verge.

  The smoke sang to me. Songs. Psalms. Opera. German stuff. The slamming creep. The sudden lights of a car. The sudden lights of another car. A lorry. Two lorries. A bend in the road that used to be more of a bend. The cider place with wagons parked on the grass. The hill towards the Stonegallows pub and the old wonderings of what happened at that place before the pub was built and named.

  The pub sign was a picture of a stone gallows. Solid and tall and built to hang two men at the same time, it cast a cloud over the clear night, spit spirits at the van, cries of grief and pain and end and loss. I flicked the windscreen wipers on. I don’t know why. I leant my head out of the window. I took a deep breath. Dropped a gear. Thought I saw a crowd of ghostly, baying faces lap around the van, felt my paranoia swell, smelt blood, tasted iron, stone, rope, light, tangerines, wool, smoke, wood, socks. I smelt these things all the way to the hospital, found a dark corner in the car park, fell out of the van, rolled over and lay on a patch of grass with my eyes wide open.

  I’d smoked smoke and I’d eaten smoke, but I’d never been drenched and drowned in the stuff. I was turning with the world as the stars sang and spun over me. The grass twitched and clicked with movement and life, and when I turned my face towards the sounds, the sounds fingered my ears and whispered back at me. They were talking about their lives and my life, and said things I didn’t think they knew about me. And when I turned my face back to the sky, the stars told me that although the world was dark, the light was always ready to break through. It had a great power, the power to spark a revolution.

  Revolution? Power? Whispers? I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t let nonsense fuck with my head. I had things to do. People to visit. I stood up, leant against the van and stared at the hospital. The windows shone. I could see nurses. A doctor. The ends of beds. Bright lights. They were too bright. I fell over.

  As I lay in the grass again, I heard a new sound. Running water. I waited for five minutes, stood up again and took a deep breath. Fresh air. A cure.

  The sound of water was coming from a fountain. I knelt at its side and dropped my head in. Cool. I pulled my head out, dropped it in again, pulled it out again, let the water dribble down the inside of my shirt to my waist. I looked back at the hospital. It was still shining. I was shining. I was shining hard like the stars and the ground and the water on my face and the smoke in my head and the van in the car park and the grass on the verge. I went over to the grass on the verge, lay down and closed my eyes. I didn’t plan to sleep, but I did, and my dreams were bright and wild and long, and when I woke up birds were singing in my ears.

  ‌22

  Nine o’clock. I went to the hospital canteen and bought a cup of coffee and a bacon sandwich. As I waited at the till, I caught sight of myself in a mirror. I was a mess. My eyes were bloodshot, and my hair had a twig in it. I had grass on my shirt and mud smeared my cheeks. The woman behind the counter looked at me suspiciously, and when I said, “I had a rough night,” she said, “Haven’t we all?”

  I didn’t know about that but I didn’t say anything else. I found a table in a corner where I was hidden from the nurses, doctors and other visitors. The coffee was strong and sweet, the bacon was salty and the lights were too bright. I ate slowly, and when I’d finished I found a toilet. I washed my face and hands and flattened my hair, then walked down to intensive care and sat with Sam for a while.

  Her condition hadn’t changed. She was still plugged into the beeping machines, and as I held her hand and talked, her face gave nothing away. She could have been floating beneath the surface of a still lake, her skin paled by the dull water, her pain nibbled by fish. I watched her chest as she breathed, and I think I saw her eyeballs move beneath their lids, but I might have been mistaken. The teddy bear her parents had brought was propped at the bottom of the bed, staring blankly at her. When I left I squeezed her hand and said, “I’m going to sort everything out this morning, and when I come back all I’m going to do is help you get better.” And as I walked away, I told the nurse I’d be back in the afternoon.

  “You look like you need some sleep,” she said.

  “I do.”

  “Then get some.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The transport café was twenty minutes from the hospital. I drove with all the windows open and my face leaning towards the fresh air, so by the time I’d reached the place, my head was almost clear. It was 10:15. There were a couple of lorries and a van in the car park, but otherwise it was empty. I sat with my hands on the steering wheel and stared at a hedge. A wren came hunting for insects, a little fat dart of terror and temper. High above me, two buzzards were soaring in widening circles, their primaries wide and their eyes bright for food. I heard the wren sing, and I heard the buzzards cry, and as the minutes ticked by, I felt my heart tighten. My palms sweated. The world ground its teeth. A sudden breeze picked up some dust and blew it at the van, then died down again. The clouds I had seen from Heniton Hill had been burnt and blown away. The temperature took a sudden leap, and suddenly it was very hot.

  At twenty-past, a white Transit pulled into the car park. It slowed and pulled in opposite me, and I saw Pollock sitting in the passenger seat. He was wearing sunglasses, two days’ worth of a ginger beard and a woollen hat pulled down tight. Sweat was pouring off his face. I didn’t recognize the driver. Pollock saw me and put a finger to his lips. I looked away. I was patient. I kept my hands on the steering wheel. I listened to the breeze and the birds, watched clouds drift, smelt the scent of petrol and diesel. At half-past, another van arrived, drove slowly towards me and stopped. Inspector Smith was driving. He was wearing a black cap and sunglasses. He rolled his window down, looked at me and said, “Good morning, Elliot.”

  “Hello.”

  He pushed the glasses down his nose, winked, then pushed them back up. “You OK?”

  “I will be.”

  “Of course you will.” He smiled, a smile that lashed at his face like a little whip and quickly disappeared. “You’ve got something for me?”

  “Might do.”

  “Want to show me?”

  “OK.”

  I got out of my van, and he got out of his, and we walked to the back of mine. As I opened the doors, he whispered, “Act cool.”

  “Sure…”

  “And everything’ll go to plan.”

  “OK,” I said, and he peered into the van, sniffed, whistled through his teeth and said, “That’s a lot of smoke.”

  “It is,” I said, and he winked again. Smith was confident and strong, and this made my heart slow its pace. I felt OK. I felt safe. “A lot of good smoke,” I said, and he stepped back, straightened up and turned to walk back to the front of the van. As he did, I saw something sw
inging towards him. I ducked down, heard a crack, looked under the chassis and he was lying flat on the ground. Blood was pouring from his head and pooling in the dust. Someone in shiny black shoes stood over him. One of the shoes poked Smith’s side, then started walking around the van towards me. I stood up, turned around and Dickens said, “Elliot. We meet at last. At long fucking last.” His eyes were wide and glazed, his mad fucking mouth twitch was going like a train, and he was holding a baseball bat. He tapped its fat end in the palm of his hand.

  I looked over my shoulder. I looked at the white Transit. I looked back at Dickens. Dickens looked at the white Transit. He smiled at it and smiled at me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you think you were going to get out of this?”

  “Well…”

  “Think that someone was going to come running?”

  I looked towards the Transit again and, as I did, two men came running from the café. They were carrying black canvas bags, and as they ran they pulled guns from the bags and pointed them at the Transit. Its back doors flew open and two more men jumped out. As soon as they saw the guns, they froze and put their hands up. Suddenly Pollock was there too, and we were all standing in the middle of the car park – men with guns, men with their hands in the air, Dickens laughing and me thinking that now was the time to piss myself.

  Pollock was the first to say something. “This is fucking mad, Dickens. You any idea what’s going to happen when this is over? When they catch you?”

  Dickens took a step towards Pollock and said, “Catch me? Even if they could, do you think I’d care?” His eyes were blinking, his mouth was out of control, he looked like lobsters were fighting in his brain. And if anyone was in any doubt, if men with guns or men with hands in the air or bleeding men were in any doubt, here was complete madness in a man. “The thing is,” he said, “it’s not about the smoke any more. Not that it ever really was. No.” He laughed at something. “No. It’s not about that at all…”

  “Then what is it about?” said Pollock. “Apart from the other things we’ve got you on. The smack you picked up in Bridgwater last month. The speed that’s waiting for you at Avonmouth…”

  “Well!” said Dickens. “Let me count the ways. Let me stick a dog up your arse and count the fucking ways. The way I’m going to teach you and everyone else who fucks with me.” And he pulled out a gun and shot one of the men from the Transit in the foot, and the man fell over, screaming.

  “One,” he said, “and counting.”

  “Dickens!” Pollock took a step forwards. Dickens pointed his gun at Pollock’s head.

  “You want to be number two? Please say you want to be number two…”

  “This is mad.”

  “Mad? Oh yes, it is, isn’t it? Teaching people a lesson is quite crazy. Or should it be sending people a message? You know, I just don’t know any more. I’m feeling a little confused.” He turned towards me and grinned, and now I looked down the barrel of the gun. I surprised myself. I wasn’t scared. Instead, as I looked at that hole I thought about the very smooth way the metal folded around the barrel and the little ridges around the trigger guard. I watched the man’s finger and I saw a bead of sweat run down his cheek and disappear under his chin. Time stretched. A second was a minute. “You…” he said, his mouth moving slowly as he tongued the words, “are coming with us. You’re going to be the lesson everyone else is going to learn.” He dropped the gun to his side and wiped some spit from his lips. He pointed at a red van on the far side of the car park. “That’s your ride.” And he took my arm and started to walk me away. As he did, one of his heavies went over to Pollock’s van, pulled out a knife and stuck it in the tyres. The other went to Spike’s van and started the engine. He pulled away, and the last thing I saw before I was thrown into the back of Dickens’ van was Pollock, the shot man and the other man standing in the middle of the car park, scared faces pushed against the windows of the café, the huge blue sky and the sound of the buzzards’ cries as they circled higher and higher, almost out of sight now, almost gone.

  ‌23

  When it comes to words, Mum picks them carefully. She never swears, never says any of the words for God and, most of all, most particularly, she never says the word “hare”. If she sees one, she’ll call it old turpin, the cat of the wood, the stag of the cabbages, the sitter on its form, the fellow in the dew and any one of a hundred other names, but she’ll never call it hare. It’s bad luck or it’s good luck, or it’s whatever luck you want to choose – and if you don’t believe in luck, then you have that choice too. I don’t know why Mum has this thing about the word, but I know that in the old days women like her could escape the ducking stool by turning into hares and heading for the woods, so maybe that’s the reason behind that secret.

  I’ve seen hares boxing in the spring, up on their hind legs, a jill fending off a jack who’s coming on too strong at the wrong time. And I’ve seen hares in my dreams, curious animals who want to take me to their hollows and run rings around my head.

  I dreamt of hares as I lay in the back of Dickens’s van. I’d smacked my head on the floor, and as I swam in and out of consciousness, a talking hare came to me and asked if I wanted to come with him to a place where dew ponds formed and trees dripped silver. I told him I wanted to stay where I was and rest. He was an easygoing animal, and wasn’t going to force me to do anything I didn’t want to do, so we sat together on a hillock and watched a horse nuzzle a gate post. Dew ponds, silver in trees, nuzzling horses – I know there are people who interpret dreams, but I’m with Mum when she says that a dream is simply your mind going to a party. A dream doesn’t foretell the future, it doesn’t indicate hidden loves or fears. Like clouds that shape themselves into the look of animals prancing or people talking, dreams mean nothing but the pictures they show you.

  I don’t know how long I was out for, but when the dream hare gave up with me and I woke up, we were still moving. I was lying on the floor in the back of the van. My head was throbbing and my mouth was dry. I thought about moaning, but I kept quiet. My hands were knotted behind my back, and my ankles were tied. One of the heavies was driving, and Dickens was sitting in the passenger seat. I didn’t move. I opened my eyes for long enough to see what I saw, then closed them and listened.

  Dickens was talking crazy, words tumbling out like rocks and stones rattling in a tin box, rambling about how they thought they’d heard the last of him, but they hadn’t, and the next time they heard from him they’d have to rewrite the book, and when they’d finished doing that they’d have to rewrite it again and remake the film, and when they’d done that they’d have to build a fucking statue in his fucking honour. The more he spoke, the crazier he sounded, and the more spit flew at the windscreen. The words he used reminded me of things I remembered from school and the Bible, words like redemption, tribulation, plague and wrath, so by the time I felt the van slowing down and we were pulling into a garage, my mind was curdled with pain and terror. As we jolted towards the pumps, I opened my eyes and lifted my head and moaned. Dickens turned and looked at me. “Fuck me…” he said, and he hit me on the top of my head with an Atlas.

  “Ow…” I said.

  The heavy stopped the van.

  “Ahhh…” I said.

  “What?” said Dickens.

  “Naaa…”

  “What the fuck’s your problem? Apart from the bleedin’ obvious…”

  “Piss…” I said. “Need a piss…”

  “Yeah,” said the heavy. “We all need one of those…”

  I tried to sit up. “Can I?”

  “Piss in your pants, fuckwit,” said Dickens.

  “He isn’t pissing in my van,” said the heavy.

  “He’ll piss where I say.”

  “But not in my fucking van.”

  “You wouldn’t have this fucking van if it wasn’t for me.”

  “And you wouldn’t have your smoke back if it wasn’t for me. And you can do what you fucking like, but the last thing dead boy’s g
oing to do is piss in my fucking van.”

  Dickens looked at the heavy, and the heavy looked at Dickens, and something passed between them. I didn’t see it pass, but I felt it, like electricity.

  “OK. Fill up and then take him to the fucking bog.”

  The heavy stepped out of the van, walked to the pump and started to fill up. Dickens pulled a penknife out of his pocket, clicked the blade out, started to clean under his fingernails and said, “You know what? I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward to something so much.” His head twitched. “Ever. I simply cannot wait.”