He hopped over the hedge. I battered my way through it.
‘Muddy,’ said Dermot, squelching off across the landscape. ‘Filthy fucking place. No wonder no one lives here.’
He turned to look at me.
‘What,’ he asked, smirking nastily, ‘is the point of these fucking fields?’
III
It took us hours. Dermot’s shortcuts saved on the distance but added to the time. It was difficult to walk across muddy fields. I got wet feet.
I didn’t mention it. I didn’t think that Dermot would be sympathetic.
The rain continued to fall. That soaked me from the head downwards. The mud soaked me from the feet upwards. It seemed likely that the two fronts of moisture would meet.
When we saw the first houses looming out of the soaking air, I almost cheered.
They were of grey stone, possibly slate. The entire landscape was grey; even the mud was grey. The small village was entirely silent. All I could hear was the sound of myself moving in my wet clothes.
‘Here we are then,’ said Dermot. ‘Back to civilisation.’
The houses turned out to be barns, and empty. Behind them, a group of small cottages huddled together under the terrible sky. There were cheerless lights in a couple of windows. A wet dog, looking like a cross between a collie and a crocodile, ran over to snarl at us.
‘Fuck off, dog,’ said Dermot. The dog slinked away. Dermot was in a foul mood, and even dogs could tell that he was to be avoided.
‘Pick a house,’ said Dermot. ‘Whose day are we going to liven up?’
I pointed at the nearest house. My feet were aching and wet, and I didn’t want to walk any further than was absolutely necessary.
‘Here we go,’ said Dermot, striding damply to the front door and rapping on it with his clenched fist. After what seemed like a very long time, the door opened a fraction of an inch.
‘Who is it?’ asked a frail voice from inside, in a very Welsh accent.
‘We’ve broken down,’ said Dermot.
‘I wasn’t expecting anybody,’ said the frail voice. The emphasis was on all the wrong parts of the wrong words and the syllables were each pronounced separately.
‘We broke down,’ said Dermot. ‘We didn’t expect to be here, so you can’t have been expecting us.’
‘I don’t know about that,’ said the voice, with a hint of doubt and panic.
‘Can we use your telephone?’
‘It’s not connected, see? We haven’t got it connected. I’ll have to shut this now. Letting the rain in.’
The door closed. Dermot looked at me.
‘All I asked you to do was pick a house. Pick another one.’
I pointed at the house next door to the one we’d made no progress with.
‘This one had better work,’ he said, plodding heavily to the indicated door and knocking on it.
After what seemed like a very long time, it opened a fraction of an inch. A narrow portion of a face – including one eye and one side of a nose – manoeuvred its way close to the gap. Dark hair, not unlike Dermot’s own, topped it.
‘Can we use your telephone?’ Dermot asked. ‘We’ve broken down.’
The door opened another fraction of an inch. The eye – brown pupil, red whites – looked first at Dermot and then swivelled to take me in.
‘How do I know you’re not here to burgle the house?’
‘I only want to use the telephone.’
‘That’d be what you’d say. Then you’d get in and burgle the house.’
‘You could call for us,’ I said. ‘We’ll wait here.’
‘Call who?’
‘Is there a garage near here?’ asked Dermot. ‘Or the AA perhaps. They would do.’
‘Are you a member?’ I asked him.
‘Let’s not quibble about the fucking details. You’re a member. Give the man your card.’
‘It’s in my car.’
‘Well what the fuck is it doing there? How is that supposed to help us? Why didn’t you swallow the fucking thing and really make a day of it?’
‘It’s for that car. It’s not transferable.’
I wasn’t sure about that, but hoped that Dermot wouldn’t know.
‘Well, I’ll join them now. If they come out I’ll join them now.’
‘I’ll see if they’re in the book,’ said the face. The door closed.
Another long time passed.
The door opened a few inches. The face inhabited the gap. The eye took us in.
‘They’ll be on their way,’ said the face. ‘There will be a charge to pay. They won’t come here, you’ll have to meet them at the main road. This isn’t the main road.’
‘You’re telling me,’ muttered Dermot.
‘Goodbye then,’ said the face. The door closed.
We retraced our route back across the last two fields.
‘We’d better walk along the road,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘If he drives past us, we’ll see him. Then he can give us a lift back to the car.’
‘Fucking fields,’ said Dermot. ‘They aren’t growing anything in them, there are no animals in them, so what’s the fucking point of them?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What time is it?’
I looked at my watch. It was just after 3 pm.
‘Three,’ I said.
‘It’ll be fucking midnight before we get there at this rate. It’ll be tomorrow fucking morning. It’s going to be dark, isn’t it? It’s going to be dark when we get there, and there’ll be a storm.’
I nodded. We seemed to be fated to endure a traditionally Gothic ending.
I hoped it’d be an ending.
We’d been walking for about an hour when I heard the sound of a vehicle. Looking round, I saw a yellow van slowly approaching us.
‘Here he is.’
‘Well get in his way and fucking stop him,’ said Dermot. ‘I’m not walking any further.’
He stood in the middle of the narrow road and flagged down the AA van.
‘We called you,’ said Dermot. ‘My car is another few miles along here.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’ asked the AA man, in a curiously high voice.
‘The exhaust fell off.’
‘Oh. We get a lot of that. Have you far to go?’
‘Borth. Then back to the Midlands.’
‘Oh aye, the Midlands? Not been there myself but I hear it’s foul. Well I can lash it up but you’ll not be going far. Is there somewhere here you can stay?’
‘Not fucking likely,’ said Dermot. ‘Have you seen the people round here?’
‘I know what you mean,’ said the AA man. ‘Well, you’re stuck then. I can tie the exhaust up no trouble, but it’ll not last you long. You’ll need to get it to a garage. There’s a station in Bethel, you could leave the car there and get a train home.’
‘How long will it take to fix it?’ asked Dermot.
‘No time at all. A couple of hours, no bother. But it’ll need to go up on ramps, and I can’t do that. You might get someone to look at it today, but it’s late now, and they like to get to bed early round here. Not much else to do, is there? Do you lads want a lift back to this car of yours then?’
We did. The AA man let us squeeze in next to him, and we filled his van with steam from our damp clothes.
‘Rainy, is it? That’s no surprise, is it? I tell you what, this is a right pain of a patch to cover. Hundreds of miles and no proper roads. Jez Scott,’ he said, offering me a hand to shake.
‘Mick Aston,’ I said, shaking it. ‘And this is Dermot.’
‘Aye, he looks it. What do you drive?’
‘I’ve got a Meriden 733t,’ said Dermot.
‘Oh aye? Fast buggers, those. Nought to sixty before you can blink. Not really built to last, though. Fall to pieces over bumps. Not designed for these roads. Here we are, then.’
He pulled up next to the abandoned 733t and got out to inspect the damage. I got out
and stood nearby. I wasn’t helping, but I didn’t want to sit in the warm dry van while Jez Scott did all the work. That would have felt like bad behaviour.
It didn’t seem to worry Dermot. He sat in the van by himself.
‘Aye, thought so,’ said Jez, bending double and looking under the back of the 733t. ‘I can do you a temporary fix but it’ll not keep you going long. Bethel is about fifteen miles on and if I were you I’d go there and see what they can do. There’s a little garage there. Mostly stock cars, from what I’ve seen. Two pumps and a pit pony. There’s a little railway station there too, you might get a train somewhere. If they’re running.’
He opened panels on the flanks of his van and produced a thick soft mat, some wire, and a short length of plastic tubing. He put his mat close to the rear of the 733t, lay down on it, and began to fiddle with the exhaust. Clanks and amiable swearing rose through the rain. Dermot remained safely behind the misted windscreen of the yellow van.
In a few minutes, Jez Scott stood up.
‘That’ll do you,’ he said. ‘Now, can I see your card?’
‘It’s his car,’ I said. ‘He wants to join now.’
‘Oh aye? Well, he’ll need to fill this in then.’
Dermot reluctantly filled in a membership form, and I reluctantly paid for his membership.
‘That’ll do nicely,’ said Jez. ‘Now, you lads drive carefully. It’ll be slippy in this weather, and that little beauty isn’t designed for wet weather.’
Dermot got up the energy to get into his own car, and I got in after him after waving Jez off in his yellow van.
‘What’s the plan then?’ Dermot asked. I told him about Bethel. He didn’t seem keen on the idea, but didn’t have any suggestions of his own to make.
‘We’re going to get there after dark,’ he warned me. ‘You do know that? It’ll be dark when we get there?’
‘I’m in the dark now,’ I said. ‘At least things can’t get any worse.’
He raised his eyebrows and powered up the 733t, which – despite ominous rattlings – got us to Bethel without any further trouble.
IV
Bethel had a chapel, three small houses, a tiny railway station and a garage. As Jez Scott had told us, there were a number of stock cars on the garage forecourt, which was an unpaved field. A small squat prefab building must have been the shop or office. Two pumps offered petrol at strange prices.
‘How fucking much?’ Dermot asked no one in particular.
He parked the car next to the prefab building. A teenage boy with shoulder-length dark hair and a gloomy expression looked out at us and then made his way out into the rain to see what we wanted. He wore a Sisters of Mercy tee-shirt that looked faded enough to have been an original.
‘It’s a Welsh goth,’ said Dermot. ‘How fucking miserable is that?’
The Welsh goth approached the car, careful not to appear impressed with it. Dermot wound down his window.
‘We need the exhaust fixing,’ he said. ‘We’re from England.’
‘There’s no one here today. My dad does all that sort of thing. He’s not here today.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Not today. He’s not here today.’
‘I get that. I understand that. When will he be back?’
‘Might be tomorrow. Is it just the exhaust then?’
‘Yep. It fell off. We’ve lashed it together but it won’t hold. Can’t you do anything with it?’
‘My dad does that sort of thing. I can serve you with petrol. Otherwise you’ll have to wait for him.’
‘Can we leave the car here, and then he can look at it when he gets back?’
‘If you like. It won’t be today though.’
‘That’s fine, we’ll get a train to somewhere.’
The youth was cheered up by this idea. That didn’t make me feel any happier. This was hardly a main line.
‘Well, there’s the station over there,’ he said. ‘Can I have some details? So my dad can get back to you, like?’
Dermot found a pen and paper, wrote down his name and phone number, and handed it over.
‘Thanks,’ said the youth. ‘We’ve not had one of these here before.’
He looked at the 733t.
‘What, one of these cars?’ asked Dermot.
‘No. A car. We’ve not had a car here before. Is this a good one?’
‘You’re having me on,’ said Dermot.
‘I might be, at that,’ said the youth. ‘It’s not like we have much else for entertainment. Although there is the railway timetable, that’s always good for a laugh. Good luck, then. I’ll see you when you come to pick her up. We’ll have her mended by then, no worries.’
Dermot handed him the keys, and then we walked to the station in the rain.
V
The station was small. There were two platforms, one on either side of the tracks. There was no bridge connecting the tracks; a sign advised you to look both ways before crossing. A sloping wooden roof supported by wooden posts kept the rain off, or at least it would have done if the rain had been falling straight down. As it was, a brisk wind was blowing and the rain threw itself gleefully under the useless shelter. A small ticket office was comprehensively closed. A timetable explained that trains might stop here if many conditions were met; on a Monday in peak season (defined in table B) except where indicated by an asterisk, in which case table C should be used unless superseded by the conditions outlined in table A, which was missing.
There might be a train in half an hour, or later that week, or not at all. The tracks curved gently out into the rain. No one else was waiting. Perhaps no one ever did.
Dermot looked for diversions. There were none. There were only the two platforms and their inadequate shelters. Pale green weeds had found cracks in the platforms and were struggling to make a go of it. A sign indicted that toilets were at the end of the platforms, but there was nothing there. At one end of the platform, the buildings of Bethel squatted. At the other end, miles of damp nothing carried on to the vanishing point. There was no visible horizon because the weather was sitting in front of it.
I tried to make sense of the timetable, just to pass the time. It was impossible. It wasn’t designed to be comprehensible. It was a masterpiece of obfuscation and confusion. Nothing was as it appeared. Sub-clauses changed their parent clauses, and were kept well away from them.
Time passed slowly. Time crawled. I began to think that the pale green weeds would grow into trees before a train turned up. What if it didn’t stop? What if a train came and didn’t stop at all? I’d been on train journeys and seen stations in the middle of nowhere, far from towns or roads or anything, with overgrown abandoned platforms and permanently closed ticket offices. Could this be an abandoned station?
‘Could this be an abandoned station?’ I asked Dermot.
‘Well I don’t fucking know, I don’t work here. I’m just a tourist, which hardly makes me a fount of good fucking sense now, does it?’
Dermot’s voice came from above me. He’d legged his way up a corner post and was now on the wooden roof above the platform.
Perhaps it was drier up there.
‘What are you doing up there?’
‘Looking out for trains.’
‘Trains are the ones on rails, you can see them from down here. Planes are the ones in the sky. You catch those at airports, and this is a station.’
‘Well, that’s all very technical. I can see further from up here. I’ll see the train coming before you do.’
‘Where are we catching a train to?’
‘Well, if one turns up, we can catch one to Borth. There’s a station there.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then go to fucking Borth. This was your idea, were you paying any attention? Let’s go to Borth, you said. Fucking good idea that was.’
‘I think you’ll find it was your idea.’
‘Train,’ said Dermot, dropping from the roof and sprawling on the wet platform.
‘Ow. My fucking ankle.’
‘Is it alright?’
‘Well of course it is, that’s why I’m lying down here on the wet fucking floor and fucking swearing at the fucking thing. Help me up.’
I helped him up. As he had said, a train was approaching. It neared the platforms and slowed to a halt. The doors slid open.
We got in.
TWENTY-ONE
I
The train made off slowly along the tracks. It consisted of a single long carriage, which we were standing in. We weren’t sitting, partially because we didn’t want to get the seats wet and partially because we didn’t want to get our clothes dirty. At either end of the carriage doors led to small driving compartments so that the driver could get a good nap whichever way the train was heading. An old man lay across a pair of seats at one end of the carriage. A pair of children, one male and one female but both identifiably malevolent, sat on seats close to one another and sniggered in our direction. The door in the direction of travel opened, and a guard came into the carriage and looked at us with great disapproval.
He couldn’t have imagined that we were dirtying the carriage. The trenches of the Somme had nothing on it. There wasn’t a surface that wasn’t encrusted with dirt, drool, damp, death-watch beetle holes or disgusting (but demonstrative) diagrams. The seats were slashed and had chewing gum intimately entangled in the fibres of their torn fabric. Cigarette butts and empty drinks cans rolled helplessly around the floor, searching for somewhere clean to lie. The windows were smeared. All but one were jammed closed; the other one was jammed open. The air was stuffy and yet cold. The motion of the carriage was at the precise frequency that best induced nausea. Evidence of this could be seen at various points.
The lights were of the long flickering type, and did little to illuminate the carriage. This may have been a blessing.
The guard was not in much better condition we saw, as he approached us with an unsteady gait that suggested he’d never been on a moving train before. It was possible that he hadn’t. His uniform, or at least the parts of it he’d bothered to put on – namely, a jacket and a cap – were made for someone larger than himself, and with interesting deformities. Under the jacket he wore a string vest, and his trousers were denim jeans of the type normally found being sold out of the backs of white vans, safely out of sight of the constabulary. His shoes were trainers of no particular brand, but with the usual array of flanges and flaps. He carried a ticket machine that resembled a mad Victorian scientist’s attempt at an automated accordion, a cuboid metal contraption with a number of switches and buttons and a handle to turn. It dangled heavily from a leather strap which was slung around his neck.
Execution Plan Page 23
