Saving Septic Cyril: The Illegal Gardener Part II (The Greek Village Collection Book 16)

by Sara Alexi

  Chapter 38

  ‘He can’t stay.’ Flecks of spit glisten on his lips. Dawn takes a step back into the room.

  ‘Can I help you?’ Aaman steps forward.

  ‘I don’t see what you have to do with this. All I want to know is when is he going?’ Mr Brocklethwaite pushes past Aaman and into the front room. ‘Well, buckets of blood!’ he exclaims, coming to a sudden halt. Saabira frowns. She has never heard this expletive before, and it clearly is an expletive by the way he spits it out.

  ‘What on earth happened here? Has he gone already?’ Mr Brocklethwaite chortles.

  ‘No, Mr Brocklethwaite, he’s not gone, and I’ll not recommend that he goes,’ Dawn says tartly, pulling her shoulders back.

  ‘Aye, I thought you might change your tune. You give a man the feeling that you’re friendly but you’re not.’

  ‘Mr Brocklethwaite, if you are referring to the other day–’ Dawn’s tone is indignant.

  ‘Oh no, let’s not go there.’ Mr Brocklethwaite dismisses her with a wave of his hand. ‘You were quick to take me sherry, though.’

  ‘You’ve got a nerve!’ Dawn spits back at him, and Aaman takes a step to her side, Saabira on the other side, their allegiance made plain. ‘Forget it,’ says Dawn, regaining her composure. ‘I have nothing to say to you. Cyril, or rather…’ She turns to Saabira.

  ‘Saabira,’ says Saabira.

  ‘And…’ Dawn turns the other way.

  ‘Aaman,’ says Aaman.

  ‘Saabira and Aaman, instead of trying to cause trouble for Cyril, have helped him to make his home a better place and in the process they now have a good, clean neighbour. Perhaps if you had tried to help rather than point the finger this whole issue would have been dealt with years ago.’ And with this she turns on her heels and marches out, past Mr Brocklethwaite, who has turned a deep red, and to the car. As she is getting in, fighting with her seat belt, she adds, ‘Oh, and let Cyril know about my offer with the rabbit – just in case it is a help to him.’ The last half of the sentence is aimed at Mr Brocklethwaite. She then slams her car door shut and backs down the cobbled street at an alarming rate.

  Mr Brocklethwaite murmurs something under his breath, which could be ‘cow’, but Saabira is not sure.

  ‘Well, you can tell Septic Cyril that I do not intend to let it rest here. Old Archie has been dead these two year past, and with no landlord he’s nowt more than a squatter. I’ll have him out yet.’ Pushing past Aaman for a second time, he leaves by the front door, marching – pumping his arms and leaning forward slightly because of the incline – up to his own house next door.

  ‘My goodness!’ Aaman says in his usual quiet voice. ‘So that was Mrs Dawn Todman and Mr Brocklethwaite! It is certainly not a dull place we have chosen!’ He whistles through his teeth. ‘Actually, she is not as bad as you made her sound, but he is much worse!’

  ‘She seems to have changed,’ Saabira admits. ‘Or maybe the first time I met her she was just having a bad day.’

  ‘Well, if this was an example of how her days go then every day must feel like a bad day. And what was Mr Brocklethwaite saying about sherry?’

  ‘I don’t really know, but Dawn did mutter something to herself about Mr Brocklethwaite being an octopus when Mrs Brocklethwaite was out of the room.’

  ‘An octopus?’ Aaman laughs.

  ‘Really, Aaman, it is not a laughing matter! The man has no respect for anyone, not even his wife.’

  ‘Why so serious, wife – don’t you know that you too are married to an octopus…?’ and he slides his hand around her waist.

  ‘Aaman, are you never going to grow up?’ she says, pulling away.

  Aaman’s face takes on his sad look, the one that always reminds her of a lonely puppy. She steps towards him and allows his other arm to go around her waist. He pulls her to him, making her giggle, but, as seems to happen more often than not, as if she knows what she is doing, Jay begins to whine through the baby monitor Saabira has on a piece of cord around her neck. She and Aaman sigh in unison.

  ‘I’d better go, anyway,’ Aaman says. ‘I will be late for work.’

  ‘But you’ve had no breakfast.’

  ‘It looks like today I will go without breakfast.’ Back in their house, Saabira hurries upstairs to Jay, calling down to Aaman, ‘It is not good to go without breakfast, you will not work so well.’ By the time she carries the child downstairs Aaman is putting on his big coat.

  ‘Take some of yesterday’s rotis at least?’

  ‘Ah, my little jasmine!’ Aaman kisses her on the cheek, and then kisses his daughter, who pulls away and hides her face. Aaman smiles. ‘It is only one meal. It is not even a whole day, and food is assured.’

  She knows he is referring to his time in Greece.

  ‘Well, take an apple,’ she insists, grabbing one from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table.

  He chucks her under the chin and turns to leave.

  ‘I might go into Bradford today,’ Saabira says as he puts his hand on the doorknob. ‘I thought that if Cyril can be left I might just go to the big library there and see if I can find a book that will tell us what his rights are, in case it is true that he is a squatter. Maybe by paying rent he can become legal again.’

  Aaman’s eyebrows lift. ‘You never cease to amaze me,’ he says. ‘If you do come, find a telephone box and call me.’ He takes out a card from his pocket and hands it to her.

  ‘What is this?’ she giggles, studying the card. ‘You have a proper business card now?’ She laughs again and Jay grabs at the colourful card.

  ‘Of course,’ Aaman replies. ‘I am a proper English businessman now.’ He lifts his chin but then wobbles his head from side to side and puts his palms together and raises them slightly, and bows deeply, grinning.

  ‘You are a clown,’ Saabira replies, and with a kiss he is gone.

  Saabira makes a pot of tea and takes a steaming mug up to Cyril.

  Chapter 39

  She comes into the room smelling of rich spices and light flowers and, as always, her bracelets jingle as she moves.

  ‘Good morning. I have brought you tea.’ She sets it down on the bedside table. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  ‘She’s been already.’

  ‘Who? Oh yes – Dawn Todman. She was very impressed with your house.’

  ‘Am I to be evicted?’

  ‘Oh no! I do not think so. She will be presenting a favourable report. Her only concern was about the number of dogs, and whether they would not be happier if there were not so many together.’

  Cyril frowns. Not so many together? It’s not clear what that means. They certainly would not be happier back on the street, where a car might come. ‘You know, find them new homes, with people who love them,’ Saabira adds, pulling the stool from behind the door and sitting down. Her knees neatly together, she rests her hands on top.

  His chin starts to quiver. Are they going to take them, give them to other people? He doesn’t want her to see his mouth, which he is having trouble controlling, so he lifts his mug of tea high enough to hide it.

  ‘Anyway, it is not a thought for now.’ She dismisses the subject breezily and Cyril’s tears, that were threatening, subside. ‘Mr Brocklethwaite also came round whilst she was here.’

  ‘I thought I heard him.’ Cyril heard him say the word squatter and then his boots clacking against the cobbles as he marched up the lane. Mr Brocklethwaite marched like that when he argued with Archie, he remembers.

  ‘So what’s your excuse this time?’ Mr Brocklethwaite asked of Archie, a mug of Bovril in his hand. Archie and Mr Brocklethwaite were sitting either side of the fireplace, which Archie had only lit ten minutes before, so it was not very hot. Sometimes it got so hot you had to move the chairs away from it. Mr Brocklethwaite would come round sometimes, and he and Archie would talk about this and that; Cyril understood some of it, but often he didn’t really listen to what they said.

  ‘I don’t need an excuse,’ Archie said
. ‘I just don’t fancy it.’

  ‘Every Sunday you used to come – until he moved in.’ He hissed the end part of this sentence, as if he didn’t intend Cyril to hear, but Cyril knew that he had wanted him to hear really. Marion came to sit under the kitchen table and Cyril continued to study the jigsaw puzzle that was laid out on top of it. Archie had put all the edge pieces together but then he had said he was bored with it and gone to light the fire just before Mr Brocklethwaite came round. The picture on the front of the puzzle box showed a pair of kittens with bows in their hair, and it made Cyril smile, and he was glad to have something to concentrate on now that Mr Brocklethwaite was here.

  ‘It’s nowt to do with him. I just don’t fancy it.’ Archie pushed his legs out towards the fire, crossed his ankles, his fingers intertwined across his chest, chin down.

  ‘You used to fancy it. Come on, I’ll get Brenda to make sandwiches for both of us.’

  ‘No, you’re alright, Eric, I’ll just stop in. Besides, weather’s changing, it’s getting a bit nippy out there.’

  ‘And when did that ever bother you?’ He stood then and his voice was raised. ‘I’ll tell thee, you’ve been a changed man since he moved in.’ He didn’t try to hide who he was talking about this time, and even jerked his thumb in Cyril’s direction to make it clear.

  ‘Leave lad alone,’ Archie drawled.

  ‘No, I won’t. We’ve been friends these last years, and every Sunday we go fishing. Every Sunday, mind. Then he runs up and suddenly you’ve no time for your old pal. Well, things change, and I’ll tell you that for nowt! When he’s gone, wandered off, got himself lost or locked up, you’ll look for your friends then and my guess is you’ll expect them to be there. Well, they might not be.’ He walked over to the kitchen table and slammed his cup down so hard that some of the Bovril splashed out and some went on the jigsaw. Cyril looked up accusingly but Mr Brocklethwaite just grinned back at him, and it was not a real smile.

  Then he left, banging the door behind him, but it didn’t close properly and Cyril could hear his boots clattering up the cobbles.

  ‘Shut door, lad,’ Archie said to him, and he did. ‘You know, in a way it is your fault but not in the way he thinks,’ he said, indicating the chair that Mr Brocklethwaite had vacated. Cyril felt his breathing quicken. ‘Before you came I went fishing and never thought twice about the fish. Now, seeing the way you are with all living things, the respect you show even the tiniest insect – well, it’s made me think twice. Maybe sticking a hook in a fish’s mouth is fun for me – but I don’t care what folk argue about their nervous system and whatnot, it can’t be fun for the fish, gasping and flapping about, now can it?’ And that was all he said. After that, Cyril couldn’t remember Mr Brocklethwaite coming round for Bovril and a chat.

  ‘I’m afraid that Mr Brocklethwaite is not as easily pleased as Dawn Todman,’ Saabira says.

  ‘If there’s no landlord he might be able to evict me more easily,’ Cyril says, his head hanging forward.

  ‘Maybe we have to face the reality, Cyril. But I am also thinking that, whatever Mr Brocklethwaite can do, maybe I can undo. Who was it that said, “It only takes the good to do nothing for evil to prevail.”’ She smiles.

  ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Cyril corrects her, but the moment he has said the words he wonders if he has done wrong: she looks shocked, not pleased.

  ‘You know this quote?’

  He is not sure what to say. Is she angry?

  ‘No, please, I am interested that you know this quote. Where do you know it from?’

  ‘I read it.’

  Her mouth drops open but she closes it quickly.

  People often assume he cannot read because he doesn’t like to read in front of people. He never has. Being taught to read was the one great gift the children’s home gave him. But no sooner had he discovered books then the other children used it against him. They teased him endlessly, stole the books he was reading, drew rude pictures and words in them, and even tore them up when they belonged to the library. He very quickly learnt to hide the books and to hide himself away when he read.

  ‘A politician said it. Edmund Burke.’ Like so many other sentences, he had read it and it had stuck. He can still remember the page because, on this one, someone had drawn a little Mickey Mouse in the margin – that had been done before he borrowed it from the library – and because on the second line from the bottom was a typo, which read form instead of from.

  His answer does not seem to have satisfied Saabira, but she asks no more, and he volunteers nothing.

  ‘So I thought that I might go to the library in Bradford today to see if I can find anything out about your position – you know, see if Mr Brocklethwaite can be stopped somehow.’ Saabira’s tone is kind, and she does not appear to hold anything against him. ‘But I will only go if you feel you will be alright on your own.’

  ‘Maybe today I could go downstairs?’ He wanted to ask yesterday but as the subject didn’t come up he just stayed in bed and watched pictures from his mind on the wall. He used to be able to do that for hours but now he finds it bores him a little, and he prefers talking to Saabira.

  ‘Okay, shall we try?’ Saabira is on her feet.

  ‘Can we try in half an hour, please? Your tea is really nice,’ he raises his mug slightly, ‘And then I would like to put on my trousers.’

  ‘Certainly.’ She seems pleased, gives him a little nod and leaves the room.

  With Jay settled on the rug, happily taking beans out of the jar and putting them back in, Saabira takes the diary from the shelf.

  Chapter 40

  Saabira settles down on the rug next to Jay, with Archie’s diary. Cyril’s flash of knowledge has stirred her up and made her question so many things she has just presumed about him. If she is honest, she has compartmentalised him as being harmless, and kind, but not very bright and consequently unable to read. But that has just been proved untrue. How much of what he shows is just a result of his life so far, and how different would he be if he’d had a loving family around him as he grew up? It is all very fascinating. She opens the diary.

  ‘I feel cold all the time now. It’s not really surprising when I have no fat on me any more. I’m down to just bone. My belly is just wrinkled skin, my legs are like sticks. There are odd moments when I feel a little stronger and I think I might recover a bit but I am only lying to myself. I was hoping my mind would go before my body and then I would be unaware but it seems my body is going bit by bit even though my mind still feels strong. Mind you, it was almost worth letting those hospice witches in to get these new pills. They are amazing. At the moment I am completely pain free.

  ‘So, as this is one of my more lucid moments I’ve decided not to waste it rattling on about myself but to take the time to tell you a few things, Cyril.

  ‘We’ve got on alright, you and me, these last four years, and I can honestly say you have not been the irritation I thought you might be, at first. You never step over the mark, you are always respectful and polite and you always, always think one step ahead about how the things you do may affect me, or other people in general, for that matter. I appreciate that you are this considerate around me.’

  Saabira is interrupted by Jay who wants her to put one of the beans in the jar, then another. She takes a handful and they take turns to put them in the jar. Jay enjoys this, and Saabira tries to read as she flips one bean after the next into the container.

  ‘I digress,’ Archie continues, ‘I am rattling on about myself when I said I wasn’t going to. These strong pills make my mind wander and sometimes I don’t notice for ages.

  ‘So, back to what I wanted to tell you. Because you are always so respectful you never asked me questions, which was how I wanted it. But as a result you never found out what it is that I do to make me daily bread. Or should I say what it was that I did to put brass in my pocket – I have changed the tense because now I will be dead. That is su
ch a strange thing to write, but in a way it makes me feel better, as if I will be talking from beyond the grave when you read this.

  ‘There I go again, talking on about myself when I am trying to tell you what I do/did and what this has to do with you.

  ‘I wish you had known Marion (my mother, not the dog). She was a very strong woman and, in her lifetime, after society gave her such a hard time for having me out of wedlock, she pushed herself and acquired several properties, not just this one that we live in. She also had four terraced houses in Bradford and the corner shop in Greater Lotherton. I’ve added to this with a couple more in Bradford and a couple more round here. It’s a good game, property, ’cause once they are bought and you get a letting agency to take on the running there is little more to do and you get a steady little income.’

  Saabira leans back. ‘We know you were the landlord, Archie,’ she says to herself, ‘but who has your house now? Who does Cyril pay his rent to?’

  There is a rhythmical tapping above her head. It can only be Cyril.

  As the fire is not yet lit and Jay is engrossed in her game, Saabira leaves her to go halfway up the stairs to call to Cyril. He informs her that he is dressed and ready to come down, and would she kindly help him?