The Restraint of Beasts

by Magnus Mills

  “Thought you’d forgotten us,” said the landlord as he pulled a double order of six pints.

  “No, no,” said Tam.

  We had two pints apiece, and they were the best beers any of us had ever had, ever. Even better, the two young women were lounging near the bar, watching the darts game in progress. Because we arrived late our usual table had already been taken, so instead Tam and Richie headed for a narrow wooden bench set into an alcove in the wall. They were still wearing their rubber workboots, and as they sat side by side holding their pints, they reminded me of gnomes on a shelf at a garden centre.

  ♦

  Next morning, as he selected a plate from the sink and scraped it clean, Richie made an announcement.

  “I’ll take the post hammer today,” he said.

  Tam glanced at me and went and stood in the doorway, looking out of the caravan.

  “Why’s that then?” I said to Richie.

  “I need the practice,” he replied.

  This was well said. In spite of his other fencing skills, Richie had never quite mastered the post hammer. At best his aim was questionable. At worst…well, you have to remember the hammer had a cast iron head weighing several pounds. In the wrong hands it could be dangerous. Yesterday, Tam had only damaged one post out of all those he knocked in: a single mishit had caused a chip of wood to zing off sideways into the air. Furthermore, he had been going at such a good rate that there were only about twenty posts to do in that first fence. Richie wanted to hammer in these last few. He was quite determined, so we let him get on with it. Which meant that Tam had to hold the posts for him. I must admit I admired the way he didn’t even flinch when Richie took his first swing of the day. I made a mental note to check how many spare posts we had, to replace the ones Richie was bound to split.

  While they finished off that section I had some carpentry to do. The straining posts at each end of the fence had to be fitted with a support strut, and this was usually my job. Donald always specified that the timber be joined properly using a hammer and chisel. Some fencers just held the strut in position with six-inch nails but the company frowned on this practice. The strut was a good length of 4x4, set firm in the ground, and gave the high-tensile fence much of its strength and durability. I quite liked this job, and was always pleased when the join was neat and tidy.

  Richie managed to complete the line of posts without damaging any or injuring Tam, so we were able to make good speed towards getting the rest of the wires towed out, tightened and fixed to complete the first fence.

  That evening I decided to give Donald a ring to let him know how we were getting on.

  “How are you getting on?” he asked.

  “Not too bad,” I replied. “Just about on schedule, I should think.”

  “Good,” said Donald. “And how are your two charges behaving?”

  “They’re being OK, actually,” I said. “No problem at all.”

  “Good,” said Donald again. “We like all our gangs to be balanced.” There was a pause and then he said, “By the way, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about Mr McCrindle.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Are you sure you finished him off properly?”

  “Er…how do you mean?”

  “It’s a simple enough question,” replied Donald. “I just asked if you finished him off properly, that’s all. Did you get the wires fully tightened, check the posts and so forth?”

  “Oh,” I said. “Er…yes. I’m sure the fence was all up to standard when we left.”

  “And was it straight?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “I see.”

  “Why’s that then?”

  “It’s just that Mr McCrindle has failed to settle his account. I thought there may have been a problem of some kind.”

  “Not as far as I know,” I said.

  “Alright then,” said Donald. “Keep in touch, won’t you?”

  “Righto. Bye.”

  When I got back to the caravan Tam and Richie looked at me expectantly.

  “What did Donald say?” asked Tam.

  “Not much,” I replied. “He said Mr McCrindle hasn’t settled his account.”

  “Oh fuck,” said Tam. “I never thought of that.”

  “Nor me,” I said.

  “Did you ask him about our wages?” asked Richie.

  “No, I forgot.”

  “Oh, for fuck sake!” said Tam.

  “Alright,” I snapped. “I forgot, right? I’ll go and ring him again.”

  So I went back down to the phone box and rang again. Donald said the wages were ready, and I suggested he sent them to the general stores near the Queen’s Head, which also acted as a sub-post office.

  “There’s a deduction to be made from Tam’s money for a few days he was off last month,” he said.

  “Have you told him?” I asked.

  “Robert told him,” he replied. It was the first I’d heard of it. The company didn’t have a regular pay day. It all depended where people were and how long jobs were expected to take. Money only turned up when we asked for it. As long, that is, as Donald agreed he owed us any.

  The other thing about working for this company was that we didn’t stop at weekends. We were expected to carry on working every day until the contract was complete. Unfortunately, Tam and Richie never seemed to get used to this idea, and when Friday came along, as it now had, they started to think in terms of ‘going out’. Most of the day went OK, and we began to work on the cross-fence that would divide the hill the other way. As soon as we got back to the caravan that evening, however, Tam turned to me and said, “Are you changing?”

  I examined the backs of my hands. Then I peered closely in the mirror.

  “Don’t think so,” I replied.

  Tam looked at me. “You know what I mean,” he said. “Are you changing to go out?”

  “Spec so. Clean shirt…yeah.”

  “Are you shaving?” he went on.

  “I shave every day, don’t I? Course I am.”

  “So you’re going to get ready?”

  “Yes,” I said. “When I’ve had my tea.”

  Tam sighed and sat down on his bed. He looked over to Richie, who was standing by the sink. “Are you getting ready, Rich?”

  “Yep,” replied Richie. He had already taken a large saucepan from the sink and started cleaning it out. Then he put some water on the boil. While he waited he got his cowboy boots out of the cupboard and buffed them up with his spare underpants. When the pan boiled he poured the water into a bucket and topped it up with cold. Then he stuck his head in, added shampoo, and washed his hair. There was a lot of it. Both he and Tam seemed to be involved in some kind of competition to see who could grow their hair longest. I didn’t know when they’d given up having it cut: probably the day they left school, whenever that was. It was all to do with their head-banger image. Now they were both ‘long-haired’, although Tam was clearly in the lead, which apparently dismayed Richie. His constant complaint against the world was that his hair had slowed down growing as soon as he stopped having it cut. He wanted his hair to be even longer to go with the electric guitar he couldn’t play yet. If they’d lived in the dark ages they would have been Vikings. But they weren’t. They were itinerant fencers. And on Friday nights, wherever they were, they washed their hair.

  After washing, Richie towelled himself dry. Now came the final part of the routine. First, he put on his denim jacket. Next he bent down, throwing his hair forward and then quickly straightening up again, at the same time flicking his head back, so that his hair fell over his shoulders like a lion’s mane. He went to all this trouble because it was Friday night.

  Now it was Tam’s turn. He repeated the whole procedure, his head disappearing in a blur when he towelled himself dry at the end. I noticed for the first time that Tam had a tattoo on his forearm. It consisted of a diagonal flag and a scroll bearing the words, ‘I’m a Scot’. However, the tattooist hadn’t really left himself
enough room, so the words actually read ‘I mascot’.

  When Tam and Richie had changed their jeans and put on their cowboy boots they considered themselves to be ‘ready’. Now that the bucket was free, I got some water boiled and began to have a shave. There was a mirror halfway up the door of the caravan wardrobe, and every time I looked in it to see how the shave was going I could see Tam sitting on his bunk, watching, and waiting.

  “I can’t shave any faster,” I said.

  “I don’t know why you bother,” he remarked.

  Richie had picked up his copy of An Early Bath for Thompson by A.D. Young, and started reading again.

  “What’s that about then?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” he replied. “I haven’t finished it yet.”

  It was half past seven before I was ready to leave.

  “If we’re going to be drinking all night Rich’ll have to drive,” I said.

  “Alright,” said Richie, without further comment, and we set off for a wonderful evening at the Queen’s Head.

  I was interested to see if Tam and Richie would do anything different tonight, considering all the trouble they’d just gone to with their hair and so on. I was surprised, therefore, when they went and sat at our usual table in the corner. I’d have thought it would be better to hang round the bar if they wanted to get anywhere with the two women who had been ignoring them all week. Instead their technique was to sit behind their pints and wait to see what happened. All night if necessary. When we got there at ten to eight there was hardly anybody in, so the wait was going to be a long one. The place did eventually fill up, though, and even had a weekend feel to it. I suspected I would be incapable of drinking the amount Tam and Richie planned to, so I dropped out after the first three rounds and went and put my name up for the darts knockout. It would make a change, and I could talk to other people. Furthermore, there was a higher ratio of women in this part of the pub. I’d just positioned myself by the bar when the landlord, who had glanced our way a couple of times during the evening, suddenly turned to me and said, “How’s the fencing going?”

  There was something odd about this. Over the last few days he’d ceased questioning us about ‘what we were getting up to’ and started treating us like normal customers. Now, however, he seemed to have reverted to his previous ways. Except that there was a slight difference in his tone. It was almost as if the question was directed to me, but actually meant for somebody else’s ears. If any heads turned as he spoke, I didn’t notice. I just said something like ‘Not too bad really’ and carried on watching the darts game. After a while I glanced over towards Tam and Richie, wondering if they’d heard the brief conversation. It appeared they hadn’t, for they were now isolated in their corner, cut off from the central attraction, namely the darts knockout, by a knot of standing drinkers. Tam and Richie just stayed there with their pints. I also noted that the two regular women who had been the original attraction to this pub finally turned up with men who were obviously their husbands. I got through the first round of the darts knockout OK, but failed to survive the second. The victor and I both said ‘bad luck’ and ‘well done’ at the same time, shook hands (each attempting to crush the other’s bones), and then I bought him the obligatory pint.

  I made my way back through the throng to Tam and Richie.

  “You got beat then,” said Tam.

  “Yes, thanks,” I replied.

  Judging by all the empty glasses on the table they’d had a good night. They were both yawning a lot, which I regarded as an encouraging sign, because the sooner I could get them home, the better would be the chance of getting them up to work in the morning. There was still time for another drink before closing, however, and so, inevitably, we had one.

  “This is shite,” said Tam. “There’s no women.” This wasn’t in fact the case. There were quite a few women in the pub this evening. I knew what he meant though.

  “We’ll have to go into town tomorrow night,” he added.

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll look forward to that.”

  Eventually we were turfed out into the night. I handed Richie the keys to the truck and tried not to think too hard about the journey home. He didn’t seem to have any trouble getting out of the car park, so I left him to it. Tam had fallen silent just before we left the pub, but now, as we got going, he spoke at last.

  “What did the landlord say to you?”

  “When?”

  “Up at the bar, you were talking to him during the darts.”

  “Oh nothing,” I said. “Nothing. He just asked how the fencing was going, that’s all.”

  “Why did he want to know that?” he asked.

  “Dunno,” I replied.

  “You do really,” said Tam.

  “No I don’t.”

  “You do.”

  “Look,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “There were some guys staring at us,” said Richie.

  “Were there?” I said. “I didn’t notice.”

  “Hall Brothers,” said Tam.

  “What?”

  “That’s who it was.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked.

  “I just do that’s all.”

  “But it could have been anybody.”

  Tam turned and looked at me. “Why were they staring at us then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because they’ve heard we’re here!” And with that he put his arm out through the open window and banged on the cab roof with his fist. Richie, who was driving quite well for someone containing almost a gallon of beer, took no notice of the disturbance and drove us home.

  By the time we got back Tam had stopped going on about the Hall Brothers and slumped into oblivion. I was hoping this would be him out for the rest of the night, but when we were manhandling him into the caravan he came round and insisted on having a fag. He also lit the portable gas fire. The weather had been getting chilly over the last week and there was nothing unusual about doing this. The problem was that he had a habit of sitting right up close to the fire and then dozing off. A couple of times already he’d come close to catching alight, and I’d had to shout to wake him up. Now he was guarding the fire jealously and could not be persuaded to turn it off until he was warm.

  Richie said, “Might as well leave him,” and went to bed. Eventually I did the same, hoping Tam wouldn’t burn us all to death.

  In the middle of the night there was a crash. I came awake aware that Tam’s end of the caravan was glowing red from the firelight. Tam himself was now on the floor between his bed and the sink. I got up and turned the gas off. Then, at last, we all slept.

  ♦

  When I woke up next morning I realized that, like Tam and Richie, I didn’t like working on Saturdays much either. My head was throbbing from the drink. Worse, there was rain falling on the caravan roof. To people who work outside all day this is one of the most desolate sounds known. Rain can transform the most pleasant task into drudgery. The only reason we had managed to keep the job just about on schedule (more or less), was because the weather had stayed dry. Now we faced a muddy, soaking wet struggle from the moment we went out in the morning until the end of the day. And, of course, the squalor inside the caravan would reach new depths, with wet clothing hanging everywhere and mud on the floor. All we had to dry us off was the gas fire. I lay on my bed thinking about this and wondering how I was going to motivate Tam and Richie to get up.

  Nevertheless, if we were ever going to get away from Upper Bowland the job was going to have to be completed, sooner or later. We would just have to get on with it. I got up and managed some breakfast, hoping to stir Tam and Richie into life. There was little sign of movement, so I decided to go and collect our wages from the sub-post office, where they should have arrived by now. I got back about quarter to ten and found them sitting on their bunks, smoking, and apparently ready for work. The settling of Tam’s debts turned out to be less difficult than I had expecte
d. Inside the registered letter (addressed to me) were three separate pay packets. Figures were written on the outsides, in Donald’s handwriting, explaining the various deductions. Tam’s packet was noticeably thinner than mine or even Richie’s.

  We all opened up and checked the contents. Tam seemed to accept straight away that his would be less than ours. Richie, meanwhile, was folding his notes with an awkward gesture before putting them in his jeans pocket (at the back, not the one he kept his lighter in.)

  Tam looked at me, grinned, and said, “Fuck it…c’mon then, what am I due you?”

  I told him and he counted out the sum.

  After a dutiful pause Richie spoke, “You’re due me some too.”

  “It’s alright, Rich,” replied Tam. “What was it again?”

  “Just give me what you can,” said Richie.

  “No, no, I’ll pay in full,” Tam insisted.

  “Er…OK, then.” And Richie told Tam the bad news.

  “Fuck me, I’m back where I started,” said Tam, handing Richie his entire wedge apart from some coins.

  “Never mind. I’ll lend you some until next week,” promised Richie. And he did, there and then, on the spot.

  A thought then occurred to Tam. “What about your guitar instalments, Rich?”

  “It came out of my mother’s catalogue,” replied Richie. “She’s going to pay them till I get back.”

  So that was alright.

  When they had their breakfast Tam asked me if he could possibly have a lend of my can opener for their beans.

  Yes, I said, just this once he could.

  ♦

  Eventually, on that dismal autumn Saturday, we dragged ourselves into the rain to do some work. I was lucky in that at least I had a full set of waterproofs. Richie had just the top half of his, but didn’t seem the slightest bit bothered about his jeans getting soaked, and probably wouldn’t have worn the waterproof bottoms even if he had had them. That just left Tam, who only had his leather jacket. He’d bought this new sometime in the summer, and hadn’t originally intended to work in it. However, at some stage he had caught sight of a friend’s jacket that had seen a few seasons on a motorcycle, and decided that his own didn’t look worn enough. It was too crisp and shiny for his liking. So he started ‘wearing it in’ at work, deliberately scuffing it against things, and generally treating it roughly. As a result, now that the autumn rains were here, it was already showing signs of falling to pieces. As a waterproof it was next to useless. Still, he persevered with it for the time being as he had nothing else.