Mercury Falling

by Robert Edric

  ‘You hardly know me,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Perhaps, but I see enough men like you to know you better than you might think. Besides, we have rotas to fill. What was it you were looking for?’

  Devlin turned to look at the man on the distant lorry, waving his arms and shouting at the labourers around him.

  ‘Nothing much. I was just looking, that’s all.’

  ‘Go and see him. He’ll tell you when and where to get started. Tell him the bit about being flooded out. He’s ex-military himself, so …’

  ‘Right,’ Devlin said, and set off towards the lorries.

  Upon his approach, the man on the bonnet shouted down for him to stay where he was. A succession of smaller tipper lorries came slowly up the low bank and then along its rim. They carried sludge from the dredgers and laid it in mounds over the adjoining fields. When they had passed, the man climbed down and approached Devlin.

  ‘Tindall sent me,’ Devlin said, as though he already knew the man well. ‘I’m looking for work.’

  ‘That’s Mister Tindall to you.’ The man considered Devlin and shook his head at what he saw. ‘We only take on bona fide grafters.’

  ‘I can graft.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I worked on the Steeping Bank and then the Wainfleet Staunch at the Havenhouse Station. Dug the channel and laid the rail bed.’

  ‘I can check up on all of that easy enough.’

  No he couldn’t.

  ‘Feel free,’ Devlin said. ‘Went straight into the work when I was demobbed. Forty-six. After two years’ Active.’

  The man nodded at everything he said. ‘And since then?’

  ‘Bits and pieces. The flood put an end to most of it.’

  The man screwed up his face. ‘I can start you as a casual,’ he said. ‘Paid weekly. You just do what you’re told and no complaining.’

  ‘It’s what I’m good at,’ Devlin said.

  ‘We’ll see. You got any work clothes?’

  ‘Not on me. I wasn’t expecting to be here.’

  ‘Follow me,’ the man said, and led Devlin to a caravan parked below the embankment.

  He pushed open the door and then pulled a face at the smell inside. ‘There’s overalls, boots and hats. New regulations say we’ve got to wear hats. No one does. If we’re due a Ministry inspector, word will get round. If there is an inspection and you’re not wearing a hat, then that’s you gone, capiche?’

  ‘Capiche,’ Devlin said. He wondered if he ought to salute.

  Beyond the caravans a line of men had been digging into a ditch and throwing the wet clay into one of the waiting tippers. At the foreman’s approach they’d all been sitting on the slope, smoking and talking.

  ‘Find something your size and then come and get me. I’ll fill in your forms.’

  Devlin explained about his cards.

  ‘I hear that same old story ten times a week. All I really need is a name and an address.’

  ‘“No Fixed Abode” do?’ Devlin said.

  The man clicked his lips. ‘Smart lad like you – you’ll find somewhere.’

  Devlin went into the caravan and searched among the scattered, mud-stained clothing for a pair of overalls that fitted him. He found boots and a helmet, and a belt which he pulled tight at his waist. He put on a pair of stiff gauntlets and considered his reflection in a dirty mirror. He looked like a different man completely and smiled at what he saw.

  Going back outside, he sought out the foreman.

  ‘At least now you look the part. I’m Thompson, by the way. I’m the one who tells you what to do, and I’m the one you say “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” to. Are we clear on all that?’

  ‘As water,’ Devlin said.

  Thompson looked into the water below them and shook his head. He told Devlin to join the men digging nearby.

  Devlin went to the men and those closest to him introduced themselves. It was clear to Devlin that they were all just waiting for Thompson to leave before stopping work and settling themselves back on the bank again.

  When Thompson finally went, the man beside Devlin asked him where he lived. When Devlin said he was looking for somewhere, the man took him along the slope and pointed to the high frame of the distant Crescent Sluice.

  ‘See that? Track on the left, running in from the coast. Half a mile on the right. Ray Duggan’s farm. Flooded out and never properly brought back. He lets out rooms to make ends meet. If you’re interested.’

  Devlin thanked the man and memorized the directions.

  He worked at the shovelling for the rest of the day. At noon the others ate the food they’d brought with them. Seeing Devlin had nothing, the man who’d told him about the farm shared his own dry sandwiches.

  They worked until four, when a whistle blew and everyone immediately stopped what they were doing. Devlin followed the others back to the caravan, where they all took off their work clothes and then washed themselves at several nearby standpipes. Devlin did the same, rinsing the worst of the mud from his overalls and boots.

  Setting off towards the sluice, he carried the overalls on his back, drying them in the sun as he walked.

  He followed the bank to the sluice and then turned along the track. Every muscle and joint in his body ached. He was expected back at the drain at six in the morning, another half-hour’s walk. Men did this day after day after day of every month of every year of their long working lives.

  As he walked, the caked mud peeled and fell from his clothing and boots and skin. The rotting-vegetable smell of the drain stayed with him every step of the way.

  4

  ARRIVING AT THE farmhouse, Devlin waited at the gate and studied the place. The fields around it were unploughed and weed-filled. Furniture and waste were piled and scattered in the yard surrounding the building. Another flooded farm not yet recovered. Devlin’s first thought was that the place was empty, but as he watched, the door opened and a woman came out. She carried a wicker basket and started pegging washing to a line.

  Devlin watched her, careful not to attract her attention. But something caught the woman’s eye and she stopped pegging. She raised the sheet she had just hung and looked directly at Devlin.

  She watched him for a moment before taking a few paces towards him. ‘What you looking at?’

  Devlin unfastened the tied sleeves of his overalls and shook more dirt from them. ‘I’m looking for Duggan,’ he said.

  ‘Which one? There’s my husband and there’s his father.’

  ‘I was told there was a room to rent. I’m working on the drainage.’

  The woman said nothing in reply to this.

  Devlin guessed her to be in her mid forties. Her hair fell loose over her face. There was dirt on her cheeks. Her legs were bare. She wore canvas shoes, a pinafore and an apron.

  ‘You want my husband,’ she said.

  Picking up his helmet and gloves, Devlin went closer to her.

  ‘What’s your name?’ she said to him, and Devlin told her.

  ‘I’m Alison Duggan. I can’t say anything one way or another until Duggan gets home.’

  ‘You got a room or not?’ Devlin suddenly felt weak on his legs. ‘I’ve been either walking or shovelling all day.’

  ‘So? I still can’t say. Look around you. We’re not in a good way here.’ She motioned to the discarded furniture. ‘Can’t even get it to burn with petrol.’

  Devlin saw where several of the mounds had been scorched and then left.

  ‘Duggan poured it on, but the stuff was saturated. Under water for a week, most of it. We lost everything.’

  ‘It’ll dry in time,’ Devlin said, turning his closed eyes to the sun.

  ‘I daresay. Last man we had staying here went off owing a week’s rent.’

  ‘I can’t give you a penny until I get paid, but after that I can give you something in advance.’

  ‘It’s not open to negotiation. My husband will tell you exactly what and when you pay.’

  ‘Where’d yo
u learn long words like that?’ Devlin said.

  ‘“Negotiation”? Oh, I know words much longer than that. And soon I’ll be living somewhere where I get to use most of them.’

  ‘Boston?’ Devlin said, causing the woman to smile.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. Boston.’

  She was still considering the remark when a much older man appeared round the side of the house behind her. He called out to her and she immediately fell silent.

  ‘Who’s he?’ the man shouted, coming to stand beside her, almost as though to protect her from Devlin.

  ‘He’s looking for a room.’

  The man embraced her and kissed her cheek. The woman stiffened at the gesture, her eyes fixed on Devlin.

  When the old man released her, she returned to where the basket of clothes still stood beneath the line. Water had already pooled on the ground around it, drying at its edges.

  The old man came to Devlin.

  Devlin saw that he carried a heavy book which he had so far held behind his back.

  ‘I’m Duggan,’ he said. ‘Any business here, I’m the one you’re seeking.’

  ‘The drainage sent me,’ Devlin said. Seeking?

  ‘The drainage. I see.’ Then the old man raised the book he held and waved it in Devlin’s face. ‘Know what this is?’

  Behind her father-in-law, the woman covered her mouth and shook her head in amusement.

  ‘I’m going to guess at a Bible,’ Devlin said.

  ‘Then you’re guessing right. You’re a shiftless, know-it-all smartarse – I can see that much just by looking at you in your hand-me-downs – but if you can’t put your hand on this book and swear to act honest and decent and pay everything you owe, then you can turn right round and walk all the way back to wherever it was you started from. And after that you can walk ten miles further and forget you were ever here.’

  ‘I’m as honest as the next man,’ Devlin said, more to prolong the woman’s amusement than to appease the old man.

  ‘That’s not saying much in this part of the great wide world.’

  Devlin shrugged. Another pointless argument. ‘You sound like a preacher,’ he said.

  ‘That’s because I am one.’

  Devlin doubted this. ‘Ordained?’

  ‘What’s that ever been worth? I’m a man of God.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Devlin said, but in a low voice that only the woman heard, causing her to turn away from the pair of them.

  ‘The world hereabouts is changing faster than men can walk,’ the old man said. ‘Especially since the flood. The simple fact is, even honest men need to be led back to firm ground every now and again.’

  ‘And that’s what you do, is it – show them the way, all those lost and wandering honest men?’

  The old man looked at the piles of waste all around him. ‘This, all this – this was God’s lesson to us all. You don’t agree with that – I can see that, too – but that’s what it was. What else would it have been?’

  ‘If you say so,’ Devlin said. He turned to the woman, who moved along the sagging line, hanging out smaller pieces. ‘That what she believes, too, is it?’

  The old man seemed suddenly uncertain of himself. ‘I know she laughs at me,’ he said. ‘Both of them do, her and Duggan. It’s an easy thing to do – mock a man of conviction. You and all your engineers and diggers, you think you’ve got all the answers, all the power and reckoning in the world. Well, that’s exactly what you thought and believed until the water came overtopping everything you’d put in place last time to keep it out.’ He ran out of breath and wiped a sleeve across his face.

  ‘I’ve only been at the work a day,’ Devlin said. ‘Nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Makes no odds.’

  Devlin wondered what the old man’s rant had achieved. ‘I only came looking for a room,’ he said.

  ‘Then come in and look at it,’ the old man said. He called for the woman to accompany them and she picked up the empty basket and followed them into the house.

  ‘You smell that?’ he said when they were inside. ‘Floodwater. Take a house this old five more summers to get rid of that smell. And then it’ll be back at the first bit of dampness. You’ll never keep the wet out of the bones of a place like this.’

  The sharp odour caught in Devlin’s throat.

  ‘You get used to it. Keep a few doors and windows open. It’s worst in the early spring when the first heat comes. The winter will kill it off again.’

  Devlin wafted the air with his hand. He’d smelled the same in a dozen other houses. He looked at the waist-high tide mark around the room. In places, the plaster had already been scraped away to reveal the lathwork beneath.

  ‘Duggan started to strip the place out,’ the woman said. ‘Not much point, to my mind.’

  The boards beneath Devlin’s feet sagged where he walked and he tested the spring in the wood.

  ‘Joists are still good,’ the old man said. ‘You might go through the boards in a few places, but that’s all.’

  ‘And here’s me thinking you’d have people queuing back to the road to rent that room.’

  ‘Needs must, I suppose,’ the old man said. He sat at the table and placed the Bible at its centre. ‘Swear on it,’ he said to Devlin, tapping a finger on the gilt lettering.

  ‘Swear what?’

  ‘That you’re an honest man.’

  Devlin sat opposite the man. ‘And suppose I say it and then burst into flames where I sit?’

  ‘Then we’ll know two things for certain,’ the old man said. ‘One, that you’re an out-and-out liar – though not many set any store by the truth these days.’

  ‘And the second? If I burn.’

  ‘That the place is drying out faster than we thought.’ He laughed at the remark and both Devlin and the woman joined in. The old man’s laughter became uncontrollable and turned into a bout of coughing and then breathlessness from which he struggled to recover. He motioned for the woman to pat his back, and she came to the table and did this.

  Watching her, it occurred to Devlin that she struck the old man with her cupped hand considerably harder than was necessary.

  Eventually, the old man grew calm and sat breathing deeply for a moment.

  The woman went to the sink, leaving the men together at the table.

  ‘How long do you reckon you’ll stick at the work?’ the old man asked Devlin when he was finally able to speak. ‘It’s hard work, the drainage. Look at your hands, you’re not going to last the month. And then where will the rent come from?’

  ‘I’ll stick at it until something better comes along,’ Devlin said.

  ‘And what would that be? These are hard times all round. The politicians try to tell us different, but they’re the biggest liars of all. Hard times, and likely to get even harder.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Devlin said.

  ‘I was right about you and that mouth of yours. I knew it the minute I saw you in the yard. What you running away from? The law?’

  ‘Who says I’m running away from anything?’

  ‘You just did. You aren’t anywhere near as clever as you like to think you are. I’m not saying that you’re stupid, but then again I never believed that being stupid was the opposite of being smart.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Devlin said.

  ‘I lost you the minute you tried to get one over on me,’ the old man said. ‘But do it anyway.’

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Put your hand on this book here and tell me you’ll pay up on time while you’re living under my roof.’

  ‘Whatever you want,’ Devlin said and slapped his hand down on the Bible.

  ‘Say it,’ the old man said. ‘We’re all waiting.’

  5

  DUGGAN CAME BACK to the farm two hours later. He drove a flat-back lorry whose uneven load was loosely sheeted.

  From where he lay, Devlin heard murmured and then raised voices in the room below. This was followed by Duggan coming to the bottom of the s
teep stairs and shouting for him to go down to them.

  Devlin went down.

  ‘You need to go,’ Duggan said to him before Devlin could say anything.

  Devlin looked at Duggan’s father, still at the table, who avoided looking at him, pretending instead to study the crumpled newspaper he held across his knees.

  ‘I’d have told you straight off,’ Duggan said. ‘Except I was out.’

  ‘I swore on the Bible to pay my rent as soon as I’m paid,’ Devlin said.

  Duggan smiled. ‘The old fool makes everybody do that. It doesn’t mean a thing. Probably even told you he was a preacher.’

  ‘I am,’ Duggan’s father insisted.

  ‘I’ve unpacked all my stuff now,’ Devlin said.

  ‘What does that amount to? You’ve only got the clothes you’re standing up in and the ones the drainers hand out. Besides, you won’t stick at it a week, man like you.’

  ‘He already told me that,’ Devlin said. ‘Besides, you’re both wrong. I’m a trained mechanic. They’ll have me working on the machines, the engines, before long. I’ve only been there a day. You wait.’ It seemed a fair argument to him.

  Duggan laughed at this, and then he grabbed Devlin’s hand and turned it palm up on the table. ‘Now tell me you’re a mechanic. You’re casual, that’s all, and a week of that kind of work will see you long gone. And my rent with you.’

  ‘Not me,’ Devlin said. ‘Besides, I need the money.’

  Duggan let go of his hand and Devlin resisted the urge to rub where the man’s strong fingers had dug into him. He considered another way. ‘I was flooded out just like you,’ he said.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over beyond the Three Towns drain close to Sutterton.’ The place had been in all the papers.

  ‘Never heard of it,’ Duggan said.

  ‘So?’

  Duggan dropped heavily into the room’s only armchair. The aroma of cooking meat and vegetables filled the house.