by Robert Edric
‘I won’t be there long,’ Devlin said. ‘I’m just waiting for some money I’ve got coming. I like to keep moving.’
‘I can see that. Some men never settle to anything, never settle in their lives, never settle in their own skins.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I just see it, that’s all – some men, all they ever want is to stand still, a bit of security, all the usual trappings. And others, all they want is to keep moving, to keep making up their lives according to where they are and who’s listening to the tales they’re telling.’ There was no malice or judgement in the old man’s voice.
‘What makes you such an expert?’ Devlin said.
‘Nothing. I’m just saying, that’s all. I saw it in you that time I first found you in the chapel. Some men, if they don’t catch on to whatever it is they’re meant to be in life, then it’s almost like they make a deliberate point of never catching on.’
‘I’ve been doing all right for myself,’ Devlin said. He put the gun to his own eye and swung it in an arc across the empty sky. ‘Why are you here?’
Samuel pointed to the distant inland embankment and the pastures running to the misty horizon. There was still snow in the dykes and up against the low hedges. ‘They’re wintering the sheep. Big time of year, this. They come out in lorries and spend a few weeks here.’
‘Who pays you?’ Devlin asked him.
‘The farmers, mostly. Some want their animals on the marsh, some on the improved land. The cost depends. It’s not much, but it’s enough. I’ve never wanted much out of life myself.’ He pulled at the thin rope which acted as a belt round his dirty coat.
They walked together towards a dry dyke, where they were able to sit out of the wind. The tin chapel was again visible towards the bank, its roof rising from the thin mist.
‘They’re talking again about pulling it down,’ Samuel said. ‘Roof’s gone, walls have gone, hardly a full pane of glass in its window.’
‘Good riddance, I say,’ Devlin said.
‘You would.’ Samuel felt in the bag he carried over his shoulder and took out a bottle and a flask. ‘Tea,’ he said. ‘Hot as when it went in four hours ago.’ He poured some out and handed the cup to Devlin. ‘My daughter bought it for me.’
The hot liquid burned Devlin’s lips. ‘Four hours?’ he said.
‘As God’s my witness. It’s a Thermos. She’s a modern woman, my daughter. Forever telling me as much. Says she likes to keep up. Every week it’s something new.’
‘It’s the way they are,’ Devlin said, thinking of his own sister.
‘Not that I blame her.’ He passed Devlin the bottle and Devlin drank from it. ‘She’s just back from London. She went all that way just for the day to look at the new Queen’s wedding presents. Apparently, they were all out on show for ordinary people to look at.’
‘What’s the point of that?’ Devlin said.
‘I suppose she thought it would make people think better of her.’
‘The lot of them get handed everything on a plate as it is,’ Devlin said.
‘I suppose so.’
‘No “suppose” about it. It’s why the rest of us have got to do what we can not to get left behind.’
‘She enjoyed it, anyway. Listen, you’ll laugh, she said that in one room there was nothing but silver salvers on display, hundreds of the things – from companies, regiments, that sort of thing.’
‘What’s a salver when it’s at home?’
‘A serving dish, but made of silver.’
‘Then why don’t they call it a serving dish?’
‘Never really thought about it, to be honest,’ Samuel said.
‘I’ll tell you why – because it keeps them separate from us, from ordinary people.’
‘If you say so.’
‘I do,’ Devlin said.
‘Hundreds of the things. I told her I’ve still got the serving dish I was given as a wedding present. Full of cracks and chips, but still serviceable once or twice a year.’
‘Exactly,’ Devlin said. ‘They’ve got hundreds, all made of silver and never used, and you’re making do with some piece of old tat.’
Samuel took back the bottle and blew on his own small cup of tea. ‘My daughter said she’d seen a Sheffield plate dish in one of her magazines, said she was thinking of ordering it on the never-never.’
‘What’s Sheffield plate?’
‘A kind of silver. Beats me why anyone would want to eat meat off a silver dish.’
Devlin kicked at a stone beside his foot and watched it slide down the slope. ‘And then there’s that husband of hers.’
‘The Duke of Edinburgh? What about him?’
‘Edinburgh? Don’t make me laugh. He’s a bloody Greek, practically an Eyetie. I’ll bet there’s not one in a thousand could tell you his real name. They got that one sorted out fast enough. Duke of bloody Edinburgh. When was he ever in Scotland?’
‘I can see you’ve given it all some thought,’ Samuel said.
‘Because you need to know what’s what in this world, keep your wits about you.’ It occurred to Devlin that he was perhaps starting to sound like Morris.
Neither man spoke for a minute. The bleating of distant sheep could be heard, and Samuel pushed himself up to look out over the top of the dyke.
‘To be entirely honest with you,’ he said, ‘I came out to make sure you weren’t shooting at the sheep.’
Devlin smiled at this. ‘And here’s me thinking it was a social visit.’
‘We always lose a few each winter. Butchers looking for a bit extra.’
‘Thought never crossed my mind,’ Devlin said.
Samuel looked at him. ‘I wish I’d never mentioned it now,’ he said.
‘Stop worrying; you’re only doing your job. Besides, I’ve got enough on my plate without having the police after me for shooting sheep.’
‘They give me a carcass or two when they come to take them back inland. I usually make a few quid selling them on. My daughter’s talking about a refrigerator. A friend of hers has one. She can make ice cubes in a tray.’
‘What for?’ Devlin said.
‘Search me. You put them in drinks.’
‘I’ll tell my sister,’ Devlin said. ‘It’s the kind of thing she’d appreciate.’
‘I don’t know where it will all end,’ Samuel said.
‘That’s the point,’ Devlin said. ‘It won’t. You’ll be getting the never-never like you used to get your wage packet before long. And not too long after that you’ll be up to your eyeballs in debt. You can tell her that from me. I’ve seen how the world works.’
‘I can see that. You finished with the tea? I need to keep an eye on the cups. They’re just glorified lids really, but they keep the thing tight, see?’
Devlin handed back the cup and Samuel carefully screwed it on to the flask. He rose from the slope and looked back over the distant sheep, little more than whitish dots against the hazy green.
‘I’d better get back,’ Samuel said, picking up his bag. ‘She’ll start to wonder where I am.’
Devlin wiped mud from the barrels of the gun.
‘Going to snow again soon, and worse,’ Samuel said. He shielded his eyes to look out over the sea.
‘See any ducks?’ Devlin asked him.
38
TWO DAYS LATER, he went back to Harrap’s for the first time since his eviction five months earlier. It seemed more like five years to him.
Where the house had stood, there was nothing. The barn and all the outbuildings had gone. Even the vast concrete yard had gone. A few pieces of rubble lay here and there along the entrance track and beside the posts of the grubbed-out boundary hedge, but apart from that, nothing.
The previous day he had returned to the boatyard on the Welland and found the place abandoned. The McGuires had been busy. The place looked as though no one had set foot there since the war. He had broken in to the boatshed where everything had been hidden. Empty. No
t even the boat builder’s own debris remained. Not even a few spilled screws or piece of shining wire or pile of white shavings. Nothing. He might just as well have dreamt the whole episode. In Colchester gaol, a warder had warned him upon his admission that, whenever pushed, man turned wolf to man. Wolves, jackals, hyenas. Always those winners and always those losers, always those predators and always those victims.
He’d gone to the centre of the high, empty space and shouted his own name, hearing it echo vaguely off the curved roof, like the flapping sound of a bird trying to find its way out of the building.
He went now to where the farmhouse had stood and searched for its outline on the ground. Nothing. It seemed impossible to him that something so substantial, something so permanent-seeming could have disappeared so completely. Even those ancient civilizations that collapsed and fell centuries ago – the Romans, he remembered from school, the ancient Greeks – still left their massive ruins standing today. But here there was nothing.
Where the surrounding land hadn’t already been ploughed, it had been broken and turned. The rubble would have been carted away. The big mechanized ploughs – Canadian, he imagined; he did know something about farming – were too precious to risk damaging. Even amid the sparse detritus on the track there was nothing he recognized. A few whole bricks, but that was all. Shards of glass lay in the wet grass and reflected the winter sun. The deeply ploughed earth was blacker than any he had ever seen.
He looked beyond where the barn had stood. Even the few trees that had once grown there and shaded the building had been chopped down and their roots grubbed out. And if there was any truly hard labour in this world, then the grubbing out of tree roots was it.
And just as it seemed impossible to him that anything could disappear so completely and so quickly, it was also hard to believe that the new owner of the farm would have wanted to get rid of something so completely.
He went back to the road. Reaching where the gateway had once stood, he watched a car come towards him. It drew up beside him and a man got out. He wore a clean overall with a badge on the pocket.
‘Can I help you?’ he said to Devlin. He looked back along the track leading to the lost house, and then to the vast dark fields beyond.
‘Help me?’ Devlin said. ‘I was just looking.’
‘No, what you’re just doing is trespassing.’ The man still didn’t look at him.
Devlin peered into the car and saw scattered paperwork on the passenger seat.
‘Trespassing? I doubt it. It’s a public road, this.’
‘You were over there,’ the man said, pointing to where Devlin had been. ‘And that’s private land, and the pathway’s a private road.’
‘Is it yours?’ Devlin asked him.
The man let out his breath and finally looked at Devlin. ‘I’m not here to argue the toss with you, my friend. I’m here to tell you that you’re trespassing and that you need to leave, and sharpish, and then steer well clear in the future.’
Or what? Devlin thought, but said nothing. ‘I was leaving. I came here to look – no law against that, is there, looking? – and now I’m leaving.’
‘Look at what?’ the man said suspiciously.
‘I used to farm here.’
‘Since when?’
‘Until that bastard Harrap sold the place from under me, that’s when.’ It sounded a good, believable story.
‘Never heard of him. Nothing to do with me, that side of things. I just act on behalf of the land management company.’
‘What’s that when it’s at home?’ Devlin said.
‘Everything you’re not, probably. I’d offer you a lift, but I’m not allowed. Company car, see? They’re very strict on things like that.’
‘I can imagine,’ Devlin said. He looked back over the land. ‘What happened to it all?’
‘Cleared,’ the man said. ‘Landfill, probably. You can look in three directions from this spot and it’s all the same land-owner for as far as you can see. Small farmers are a dying breed these days. That soil’s going to be left to drain and then it’ll be turned again before anybody even thinks of planting in it. Double ploughing, see? When did anyone round here ever double plough? It’s all to do with science these days.’
Old farmers often said they could hear things growing in that soil, it was so rich, its fertility guaranteed as far into the future as it had been accumulating in the past.
‘We’ve got people in the offices back up in Lincoln selling crops that haven’t even been planted yet,’ the man said, getting into his stride now.
All Devlin had to do was look impressed, interested at least.
‘There’s a spot over Boston way where they’re building acres of greenhouses. Greenhouses the size of which you wouldn’t believe. Salad crops.’
‘It’s winter,’ Devlin said. ‘Besides, who eats salads?’
‘You’d be surprised,’ the man said. He looked at his watch and frowned. ‘I’m due somewhere else,’ he said. ‘I’m going to have to log this, so I’ll need your name.’ He took a pen from his pocket and stood clicking it over and over.
‘My name? What for?’
‘I just said. For my log. Everything has to be written down.’
‘Since when?’
‘Look,’ the man said impatiently, ‘I wish I’d got all day to stand around arguing the toss, but I haven’t. What’s your name?’
Devlin started walking away from him.
‘I’m still waiting,’ the man shouted after him.
‘Then that’s what you can do,’ Devlin said, and continued walking. After a few seconds, he heard the man running to catch him up. Waiting until he had almost reached him, Devlin turned and held up his fists.
The man stopped running and stood panting, his eyes fixed on Devlin’s fists. ‘What’s that for?’ he said breathlessly. ‘I’m only doing my job.’
‘Let’s just say that I’m getting sick and tired of being told what I can and can’t do,’ Devlin said. ‘And where I can and can’t go.’
‘Still, there’s no need for violence.’ The man started to back away, suddenly more concerned, it seemed to Devlin, to find himself so far from his car, its door still open. ‘All I asked for was your name,’ he said.
‘And all I told you was that you could whistle for it.’
The man considered this. He brushed the front of his clean overalls. ‘I’m going to do you a favour,’ he said. ‘Just this once. I’m going to pretend none of this ever happened.’
‘Pretend what you like,’ Devlin told him, then turned and started walking again.
Behind him, the man returned to his car and drove off in the opposite direction.
39
THE NEXT OF the season’s storms arrived, followed only two days later by another. There had been little fresh snow over the past fortnight, and certainly nothing to match the heavy falls of the early winter, but the ground had remained frozen all that time and the drifts and ice had persisted. Now the storms were forecast. A third was due at the end of the week. A turn in the wind direction, high tides and a predicted surge along the North Sea coast, the newspapers said, would cause more flooding. Not as severe as that of the previous winter, but still bad. People needed to start taking precautions. People needed to remember.
For a week, the Army and the depleted workforce of the Drainage Board filled and stacked sandbags all along the Welland and the Nene. The Army set up a temporary camp at Spalding, and another close by the Hobhole drain. Lorries came and went along the narrow roads and tracks at all hours of the day and night.
Devlin regretted the lack of a wireless in the prefab to keep himself up to date. The storms and the likelihood of further flooding were all people were talking about.
During the first of the storms, the prefab shook and one of its roof panels was lifted. When the wind finally fell after twelve hours, Devlin went out and stacked bricks on the roof to hold the panel down.
In the second storm the panel was lifted again, this t
ime tearing free of the building’s flimsy frame and scattering bricks across the rest of the shaking roof and over the nearby ground. There was nothing Devlin could do about any of this until the storm ended and so he sat up through the night hoping that no more of the roof would be torn away from him and that he would not be left completely exposed to the elements and drenched in the persistent rain.
In the respite following the storm, he left the shattered building and broke into another. He threw ropes over the flat roof and anchored these to stakes he drove into the soft ground. The continuing bad weather shook this second building but did little real damage to it. The small awning – useless anyway – was torn away from above the door, and a pane of glass was shattered, but the tethers held firm, and apart from a few places where the near-horizontal wind drove rain through dilapidated joints and seams, the building remained sound. There was little chance of any real flooding that far inland.
After the second storm, Devlin went out and inspected the remaining prefabs. Some of these had lost roof panels and whole windows. One of the structures had even been blown off its brick foundations and stood now at an angle in the grass and mud like a foundered ship.
He went further afield, beyond the Washdyke road, and saw the depth of the water lying in all directions. Everywhere, normally sluggish or empty drains and channels were filled and running with turbulent brown water. Any coastal surge, were it to materialize, was not expected until the third storm, and the highest tide of the month would also come in the middle of the night at the same time.
Soldiers visited properties that had flooded previously and tried to evacuate their inhabitants. Few went. Most, only just back on their feet after the previous year, insisted on staying where they were. People took precautions, moving furniture upstairs, stockpiling what food and clean water they could find. There were already tales of abandoned properties being looted again. Farmers and smallholders took their livestock inland. All around the Wash fishermen abandoned their work and moored up their boats. The sluice committees were convened. Plans were made. Past errors, people said, would not be repeated. Everyone waited.
