He hadn’t heard from Skates and assumed he must still be in New York, so was able to put off worrying about the chairs for a bit longer and continue clearing out some of the tumble-down sheds that were once a vital part of the farm. An urge as old as mankind itself was telling him it was time to take stock – to discard what was of no use, and to make a tally of that which still had virtue. It was his autumn as well as that of the land around him, so he delved into forgotten sheds and buildings he hadn’t looked in for years.
The farm had never been a very successful one. The land around it was decent pasture but the fields under the plough had given a reasonable harvest only when the weather was kind. Along with many other family farms in this part of the world, it had slowly decayed as the men who might have worked it moved away to earn livings elsewhere or died in various wars.
Having purchased only a tiny bit of land with the buildings, Bill had moved in and got working just as soon as he could. The big barn had become his workshop, some of the larger buildings were used for storage or lumber, and there was even an outhouse with its bucket still under the now worm-eaten seat. Sheds that had been stuck like limpets onto other buildings were now covered in ivy so dense their doors were no longer visible. The corrugated iron roof of one of these was rusted into a mere tracery above his head. Light trickled through ivy and through the branches of an ancient yew tree that had woven themselves around and through the building. There amongst the dry leaves and fallen shelves he found a large, rusted device that, when he uncovered it, chilled him to the bone.
It was a man trap. Taking it out into the yard, he set it down. It was rusty, but the steel was still good, with pointed teeth that would grab and tear the leg of any poor sod who stepped in it. With its metal jaws grinning, it certainly looked like a thing of evil intent. He had seen its like before, and knew that old ones such as this were sought after by collectors. People had them cleaned and blackened to adorn their walls, neither knowing nor caring how many unwary men (ostensibly poachers and other trespassers) they had maimed. Bill put the thing in the back of one of the stables, up high where Jack wouldn’t stumble across it during one of his excursions.
As the shadows lengthened, he realized he was thirsty and felt he had earned a trip to the pub. After washing some of the rust and dirt from his hands and face, he called Bess to him and they headed out. They walked along a small lane that was crowded on both sides by vegetation that towered above sunken sections of the track. From the lane, a gate opened onto a footpath that led to the village and the dubious pleasures of The George, his local watering hole. He called it a watering hole because the beer was watered and it was indeed a hole, but it suited him.
Run-down and dirty, with an interior redolent of tobacco smoke and sweat, the pub had a back bar that contained chairs that ‘belonged’ to certain regulars. George Hapkins, for instance – a great big fat man who took a fiendish snuff that caused massive expectorations on anyone in his immediate vicinity – adorned an old Windsor that had been in the pub for years; one that Bill knew was an original and probably worth more than the entire stock of the bar. On its ancient seat was a cushion covered in what had once been a floral pattern. This was now just a shapeless lump that lurked on the seat like a dead badger and smelled about the same. Any careless traveller who wandered into the back bar and sat in this chair would certainly go away with memories, most of them olfactory, as the vile juices from the dreadful cushion soaked into his trouser seat.
Same with the long bench that ran down one wall: ‘Death Row’ it was called, because all the old boys who sat along it slowly died off like flowers in winter. Their flowering had been as young men in khaki, but now they were no longer fit enough to work in their gardens, and being at home with their wives was not a habit they had ever acquired. So they nursed their pints and slowly smoked pipes or rollups, making both last for as long as they could.
Bill went into the almost deserted public bar. It was too early for some, and the others had already headed home. Betty, the landlady, pulled him a pint of cider without his even having to ask. She was a gaunt lady with a shock of white hair and a smattering of makeup, and she hated the customers almost as much as she hated her husband, whom no one ever saw because he was always pissed by midday. The sympathy of the regulars was squarely with this man; they reckoned you couldn’t live with a malevolent old witch like Betty and stay sober. Still, provided you never asked for credit and were not ill on or over the premises, she would serve you. But you needed to watch your change if you’d had a few; she was as artful as a bag of monkeys.
Bill took his cider over to a small, round table that was placed as close to a meagre, smoky fire as possible, and sat down opposite a thick-set man who looked as if he had been there since the place was built. This was Sid. Bill had known him for decades now, ever since Bill had first moved to the farm. Sid knew his way around any sort of vehicle or machinery, and hired himself out by the job whenever he needed to earn a little money. As well as being a jack of all mechanical trades, Sid was a certified rat catcher, which always secretly impressed Bill. They had got on well from the start, especially after it had been established that Bill always paid in cash and never tried to knock Sid down on his prices.
Sid had a beer belly that entered a room just a second or two before he did, and people tended to think of him as jolly, even harmless. His round face was more moulded than chiselled, but if you looked closely there was scar tissue under his ruddy complexion. Huge, bushy eyebrows hung over sharp eyes that missed nothing. For all his girth, he was very strong, having been in the Royal Marines in his younger days, and was the anchor for the pub’s tug-of-war team.
In addition to admiring his mechanical skills and rat-catching abilities, Bill appreciated Sid’s wicked sense of humour. No one had ever proved it, but Bill knew it was Sid who had hidden a kipper under the seat of the chairman of the magistrates in the small court next to the police station in Castle Cary. How he had got into the place without being caught Bill never found out, but the fact that Sid had been up before the selfsame magistrate earlier that week for various minor motoring offences was probably no coincidence. It was a local legend how the smell of the rotting fish defied all attempts to remove it. These included digging up the floors looking for dead rats, cleaning the drains, and even investigating the plumbing in the magistrate’s very own personal convenience.
Bill lit up, and clouds of tobacco smoke curled around them. Bess sat at his feet, patiently waiting for the biscuit she knew he had in his pocket.
‘There now, lass,’ Bill said, as he gave it to her. ‘Now we’ve both got a little treat, eh?’
Bess gently took the biscuit from his hand and lay down to eat it. After that she would stretch out and go to sleep, knowing the two men would be there for a good long while.
Both men supped their cider, in no hurry to talk, just enjoying each other’s silent presence. Finally, Sid asked the question that had been on his mind since he had seen his old friend walk in.
‘You look bushed, mate. You been working too hard or what?’
Bill smiled and shook his head, took another swallow, then replied, ‘I wish that was all it was. I could cope with that.’
Then he told Sid how Skates was putting the screws on him to take a commission that was likely to be a right bastard from start to finish.
‘I could do it all right enough,’ he said, ‘and years ago I might have jumped at the chance, but I’m older and wiser now. No, too dodgy by half, Skates and his damned chairs.’
When Bill described how his house had been broken into and a note left on his kitchen table, Sid looked serious. This was more than just an intrusion, it was a downright threat.
‘A man’s home is his castle, all right, but only until some fucking rat crawls up the drain pipe,’ Sid said. ‘Want me to weld up a few bars? Firm up that old door of yours?’
Bill said no, he had all that in hand. ‘Still,’ he added grimly, ‘that’s Londoners for you. Neve
r had this sort of goings-on in the past.’
Sid had no intention of being fobbed off, however. ‘So what can I do to help, you stubborn old bugger?’
‘Sid, I really don’t want you involved. It’s just a bit of a bastard job, that’s all. Well, that and this bloody cough that won’t shift.’
‘You ill?’ asked Sid.
‘Not as such,’ said Bill. ‘Just feel like shit some of the time, but working with wood dust all your life, you’re bound to get your tubes bunged up a bit. Anyway, I’m having tests.’
Then he remembered he still hadn’t phoned the hospital. To change the subject, he asked Sid, ‘And what have you been up to? Any new work for the Frigging Brigadier?’
Brigadier Archie Stanhope-Smythe, Royal Army (retired), known to all and sundry as the Frigging Brigadier, lived a mile or so up the road in what had been a farmhouse of grand proportions. He rode and kept good horses, the right sort of dogs, and the wrong sort of wife. She was much younger than him and pretty in a plumpish kind of way that made some of the older men think of Singapore and its ladies of negotiable affection. She was also kind and generous, and had no airs or graces.
Her husband was the exact opposite. Mean, arrogant, and deeply suspicious of the lower classes, he was a tall, gaunt man with a toothbrush moustache that looked like an angry ginger caterpillar under his long, bony nose. He had a large military pension, and his wife had the fortitude to put up with a man many years her senior who had been institutionalised from boarding school onwards. However, having had enough of being sneered at by the other officers’ wives and ignored entirely by the regimental servants, she had prevailed upon her husband to take the offer of retirement and head back to Blighty. He chose the place and she chose the gardener. It was rumoured (well, not so much rumoured as stated as fact by their cleaner, Mabel) that Mrs Brigadier Stanhope-Smythe, Royal Army (retired) was a bit of a lass when it came to strong young men who were good with their hands.
Now, it was not true that time stood still in that part of Somerset, but things did tend to move forward at their own pace. When things needed to be done, they were done, eventually. If you were a local, then by default you were part of a tribal network that covered most trades and skills. This resulted in a largely cash economy that relied on tradition and, in many cases, a useful cousin. Strangers or ‘blow-ins’ could tap into this network if they were not ‘up ’emselves’ and, more importantly, if they had the right contacts. If you needed a car fixed and you knew and were known, then there were several good blokes in garages or sheds who could fix you up cheaper and better than a main dealer in any of the big towns nearby. The same with building work: if you were part of the tribal network, you’d know who to ask and you’d be told who would be good for what and when. The downside, of course, was always that ‘when’. A job would be looked at and pondered on, and a date of starting agreed upon, both parties understanding that this date was not just flexible but downright elastic. But if you knew how the game was played and were content to trust in fate and strong cider, then all would be well.
But that was not good enough for the Frigging Brigadier. Therefore, shortly after he moved to the area, he had hired a reputable builder in Salisbury to widen, flatten, and generally improve the long drive up to his house, carry out some hard landscaping, and eventually dig out an old cesspit and fill it in. The reputable builder immediately employed a local subcontractor. Two men with one mechanical digger were soon being welcomed each morning by a lady who liked to watch them as they worked. She took them tea, cooling lemonade, and, as they got to know each other better, her husband’s whisky.
Of course, the brigadier had views on how things should be done, and so each day he would stalk down to see what progress had been made and to tell the workers what they were doing wrong. It was no surprise, therefore, that the work took a lot longer than had originally been anticipated. It all came to a head one day when the brigadier found one of the men helping his wife to ‘move some straw’ in the stable loft. Strong words were used, including the phrase horse whipping, which resulted in a fast exit by the subcontractor’s only digger driver.
So Sid, who had frequently worked for this subcontractor before, was asked to step in and operate the digger. He had not been on the site for five minutes when up sprang the Frigging Brigadier to look over his new man. Striding up, red-faced and full of his own piss and importance, he saw Sid atop the digger. Sid was no fool and the money was good, so he stopped the machine, got down, and, to the amazement of his co-worker, stood to attention and threw a very smart salute to the brigadier. The old boy was as pleased as punch and, although they were both in civvies, returned the salute with that elegant wave that only the true Sandhurst-trained officer can pull off. Honour was not just satisfied, it marched up and down in ranks.
Thus it came to pass that whenever the difficult old bugger needed a job done, he demanded that Sid be in the workforce. He only ever spoke to Sid and always addressed him as ‘Sergeant’, which suited Sid’s mate who owned the equipment.
Now Sid answered Bill’s question with a smile. ‘The driveway is pretty much done, so we’re starting on the landscaping soon. I asked him, ‘You expecting an attack, sir? Shall I dig a few foxholes, tank traps, or what?’ The silly old sod says ‘No, and if I was, I wouldn’t ask a ruddy marine to do it!’
Sid laughed and continued. ‘What he’s actually after is for that bottom field he used to exercise his horses on to have a bit of a scrape to level it out and for new top soil to be put on. I don’t know what my mate’s charging him to keep that digger hanging about, but it suits me.’
The two old friends (three if you counted Bess fast asleep at their feet) smoked and gossiped till almost closing time. Sid knew Bill had not told him everything that was troubling him, but was sure he eventually would, so respected his silence for now.
Chapter 11
LATER THAT AUGUST
The next few days passed uneventfully. Bill made himself call the hospital to set a date for the tests Dr Hall had ordered. Skates was on his horizon but not in his life at the moment, and he was happy to consign any thought of that bastard (and the dreaded hospital visit) to the future.
Right now it was a bright Sunday, and he was meeting up with his family to celebrate Gloria’s birthday. Bill was determined to pay, even though it was going to be at a posh pub that had recently changed hands and become all gourmet and upmarket. He just hoped they served good-sized helpings, none of this new-age rubbish and bits of what looked like snot dribbled over square plates full of not very much at all.
The pub was the Old Harrow. He pulled up in his van and parked alongside big, four-wheel-drive vehicles that had never seen a clump of mud in their entire mechanical lives. The place had been tarted up something rotten. He remembered it as it used to be when it was the den of the infamous South Somerset Free Trade Association. Membership was by invitation only, and you were carefully vetted for any contacts you might have with the police or any other tiresome barriers to a liberal and free-thinking attitude to commerce. Having a criminal record was not necessarily a bar providing it was for the receiving or handling of liberated goods or some other offence not involving violence or household robbery. There was a standard to be maintained, after all, and nobody wanted to share a table with the sort of scum who turned over some poor sod’s home and made off with a few keepsakes and granddad’s watch.
Now the former inn had been renovated, and its new, trendy paintwork was like make-up on an aging hooker. It hid the cracks and brightened up a few bits, but underneath were old bones steeped in cider and larceny.
Inside, Bill hardly recognised where he was. The snug in which gamblers had played poker for days on end was gone. The saloon bar had been knocked into the public bar and an extension built on to accommodate a large dining area. It was all clean and bright, with tools and farm implements on the walls and a carpet underfoot. Anything vaguely wood was made to look like stripped pine: new ‘old’ furniture, not his
taste at all. Not only that, but no one was smoking. A big sign hung over the long bar that took up one entire wall and proclaimed, in elegant lettering, ‘Thank You For Not Smoking’. Stuff this, thought Bill.
As he stood resenting this insult and all the other changes that had been made, his arm was suddenly grabbed by his grandson. All thoughts of the old place and the old days were driven out of his mind as he was pulled lovingly to where his family were sitting. A chair was pulled out for him between his son and Jack. Gloria sat opposite and looked a million dollars as she leaned across and kissed him in welcome.
Bill turned to Jack and asked him if he had washed behind his ears that morning. This was one of Jack’s favourite games; he knew just how it would turn out and loved every minute of it.
‘Yes, Granddad, but you better check just in case.’
He squirmed in his seat as Bill looked in one of his ears, then turned his head dutifully and allowed the other ear to be pulled gently, and – well, would you believe it, a pound coin had appeared in his grandfather’s hand!
‘You didn’t make much of a job of it! Look what I found lurking behind your lug ’ole, boy.’
This not-so-sleight of hand brought a smile to Philip’s face and a gasp of theatrical astonishment from Gloria. Tradition had been maintained.
‘In my day it was only a penny,’ said Philip.
‘Ah, well, that’s inflation for you,’ said Bill, and he hugged his grandson.
They ordered from a lengthy menu proffered by a waitress whose smile was purely professional. Bill’s chest had been bad that morning, but the clean atmosphere in the restaurant was actually therapeutic. The conversation drifted round the table, taking in Philip’s job, Gloria’s parents (who were still hanging in there and moaning about the neighbours), and of course the goings-on in the life of his grandson.
Dovetail Page 9
