A Little Bit on the Side (3 page)

‘Oh don’t be such a bloody Jonah,’ snapped Kate. ‘You stick to your city life if you want to. We’re looking for some change and a little adventure.’

Roger just sighed heavily. ‘I’d like my lunch and beer now please.’

‘Sybarite!’

Noting the agent’s name and phone number, they turned away and dropped down the long incline towards Barlow which lay about six miles off, basking in the warmth of the early afternoon sun. Spread out around All Saints’, a church already centuries old before The Parish Pump was thought of, the town showed little trace of the twentieth century apart from a small estate that lay half-hidden in a valley to the west.

In the narrow alley leading to the main bar of The Pump the flaps to the cellar stood open awaiting a delivery, and the two men paused to gaze down at the stone-flagged floor and the ancient brickwork receding into the gloom, where half-a-dozen chocked-up barrels stood in their cool recesses, their beers just waiting for the summons from the pumps in the bar above.

‘They’re strange, aren’t they, the pleasures of civilisation?’ said Roger reflectively. ‘We come all this way to fill ourselves up from the barrels down there, only to piss it all out at the back before we leave. Remember that bit in Hamlet about the dust of Alexander stopping a bunghole? How many bladders do you think our beer will have passed through over the centuries before it came to our turn?’

‘God, I do wish you’d keep your literary and anatomical speculations to yourself, or at least save them for some other time.’

With that Kate walked on into the bar and they followed her quietly.

The bitter, as usual, was sweet, cool and moreish, and Mrs Arscott, the landlord’s wife and cook, had excelled herself. Steak and kidney puddings that melted in the mouth (all local beef) and with fresh vegetables harvested the day before and brought in from the nearby market earlier that morning. That at least was what Mr Arscott reported when Roger went back to the bar for their third pint. Delicious and satisfying, the puddings left precious little room for an apple pie with goats’ milk custard that left Roger speechless. He simply lapped it up and beamed.

Replete, but comfortable, they lingered over a coffee and cigarette, while Roger picked his teeth with the wooden toothpick he carried in his wallet for such occasions, and conducted his survey of the bar.

‘Just about perfect for an old-fashioned county town inn,’ he said. ‘Inglenook with logs set ready for lighting. Comfy seats. Papers in the racks. Four or five well-kept draught ales. Hops over the bar, and the buzz of locals conversing. You’re a lucky old lad Jack.’

‘And thank God it’s not just up the road,’ said Kate, ‘or he’d never be out of it … and that toothpick’s a disgusting habit’

Odd the way Roger and Kate always keep up these sniping exchanges when we’re together thought Jack. He suspected, a self-flattering thought, that each harboured a little jealousy over the other’s close relationship with himself.

‘Ah well. Mustn’t be greedy and keep it all to myself. Got to think of generations yet unborn.’ And with that parting shot at Kate, Roger left them in search of the gents.

From The Pump they returned to the alley, still in shade between its high walls, and walked through into sunshine and the square where the local market was busy under the arcades of the old market hall and on the stalls that had spilled out across the open area around the war memorial.

‘Handsome old building,’ said Jack as they passed under one of the arches and into the shade again. ‘Late Georgian, rather solid. A bit smug and self-satisfied like the Georgians themselves despite their kick up the arse from the States, but a damned sight better than the replacement planned to celebrate Victoria’s jubilee. A bloody monstrosity that would have been. There’s a sketch of what was proposed upstairs in the Assembly Room as was: when it’s open. Luckily wiser heads prevailed, and they restored this one.’

Too stuffed from lunch to try one of the many tearooms they set off for home, with Kate and Roger snoring in the back while Jack, at the wheel, battled to keep his eyes open. Finally at the highest point of their return over Barton Hill he gave up the struggle, pulled off to the side, lowered the window and closed his eyes. It was more than half-an-hour before he opened them again to the gentle breathing of a rheumy-eyed old ewe reaching up to the window for the tit-bit they had all come to expect from the day-trippers who stopped off on the hill for the view.

Late on the Sunday Roger left them for the fleshpots of London, and on the Monday Jack phoned the agents for further details of the property, and to arrange a viewing.

They met with Dawkins, the owner, a week later. They hadn’t been long at the place, he said. Thought they might enjoy the country life, but the wife hadn’t taken to the isolation, and now spent more time at her mother’s than on the hill — he made little attempt to hide his own dissatisfaction at the turn of events.

Having already looked at more properties than enough, Jack and Kate had devised a little formula to use if the owners insisted in keeping them company while they made their viewing. If either remarked that anything was ‘like Aunt Elsie’s’ it was a signal to cut it short without offending. Neither did, and having finished their tour of the house they went outside to walk the boundaries, have a look at the land, and take in the views.

‘There are just a couple of other things I think I should mention at the outset,’ said Dawkins. ‘You’ll see as we move on a bit that a couple of footpaths cross the land which are still used from time to time by the locals, and up at the north east corner there’s an old quarry -quite deep, and could be dangerous if you aren’t careful. If we go a bit further on you’ll see the long gully that runs up to it from the road where they used to take out the stone by horse and cart, but that all finished at the end of the last century. Not been touched since then -full of wildlife, and there’s a badger sett at the bottom end of the gully.’

That alone was enough for Kate to determine that other things being equal they would have the place, and so they moved back towards the house to look over the one large barn.

‘Useful sized outbuilding’ said Jack, as they sat drinking tea with Dawkins before they left. ‘Room for a couple of cars and some livestock if divided.’

‘There’s a bit of a story about that and the house, if you’ve time’ said Dawkins.

‘Oh yes please. I love to know the local gossip,’ said Kate.

‘Apparently some years ago the land, no buildings on it then, was inherited by a Mr Bates who already farmed a couple of hundred acres about fifteen miles the other side of Barlow. He’d got absolutely no use for another nine acres this far away of course, but with a house on the site he reckoned he could sell it and turn a nice little profit. He knew though that as things stood the prospect of getting planning permission was zero.

Now Bates must have been a pretty sharp customer well versed in the dark art of manipulating planning regulations, for he keeps stum about the house, and applies instead for planning permission for a milking parlour on the site. This went through on the nod of course. Agricultural building: no questions asked. Approval received almost by return, and within six months the parlour’s in place. Then he puts half-a-dozen cows on the land, makes an arrangement with a local to attend to them, and sits tight for six months.’

Here Dawkins paused, as much for effect it seems as to refresh himself from his cup of tea, but Kate was impatient for the end of his story.

‘Oh do go on — the suspense is killing me.’

‘Well, having set the scene for the rest of this rustic farce, he then puts in his application to build accommodation on the site, pleading the case that commuting that far is proving too difficult in winter, and that his son now wishes to move on to the land and start up on his own. It seemed a likely enough story, but was initially refused, probably because the committee suspected what was going on.

All this was standard procedure as far as Bates was concerned, so he bangs in an appeal, and engages the wiles of a local solicitor who specialised in that sort of thing, and played golf with the chairman of the planning committee. At that point the planning department seemed to throw in the towel and approved the first set of plans that had been put in. The rest you see around you.’

‘Fascinating,’ said Jack. ‘A wonderfully devious plan of campaign.’

‘Ah well, you know what they say about the old countrymen - half ox, half fox. They know what’s what alright when it comes to their own interest’

Story, tea and biscuits over they left, and before the day was out had decided that they had to go ahead. After a little haggling over price the deal was closed, and as they already had a buyer waiting patiently for their town house the legal processes all moved along quite smoothly. Some four months later, as the first signs of autumn began to colour the landscape before them, Jack and Kate were enjoying their first evening in residence.

Several months had passed and they were in the depth of winter when Jack got to hear from Jimmy of his neighbours’ apparent intimate knowledge of his professional activities.

‘But how the hell did they get to know? How the hell did you get to know? I’ve said nothing to you or to anyone else, and I’m commuting more than twenty miles to work each day.’

‘Who did your legals? Was it local or in town?’

‘Bayley, Bayley and Bedgood, in Barlow. Had them recommended to me by the seller, who’d used them when he came in.’

‘Ah! That would explain it. Wouldn’t touch them with a bargepole for anything I needed. I’m sure they’re fine on the legal side, but Charlie Genner’s daughter Hilda works there. She passes on any titbits to her mum, and that’s as good as giving them to the town crier.’

‘But I don’t even deal with the tax for this area, and if I did I’m sure none of their stuff would come to me. I don’t normally talk much about the work, but to be honest I don’t see any of the farms or businesses around here being in my league. I play with the big boys, if I can put it that way. Serious taxation fraud, criminal prosecutions: that sort of stuff. None of them are at it in that way are they?’

‘I wouldn’t think so, and they wouldn’t tell me if they were, but you know what countrymen, farmers especially, are like: suspicious of anything with even a whiff of authority. Anyway they wouldn’t have the faintest idea of the scope of your work. You’re a taxman: that’s enough, and I imagine most of them are on the fiddle to a lesser or greater extent …. You’re known jokingly as The Gauleiter, by the way, and they call the place Colditz.’

‘Oh bloody hell, that’s marvellous. OK Gauleiter I can see, but why Colditz.’

‘It’s their idea of a joke: all that fencing you’ve had done, and the six foot high fruit cage. Remember the scene in the film where the prisoner vaults over the fence?’

‘Oh yes … Very funny, but I can see now why old Bickley wouldn’t take cash when I was paying him for his fencing work: insisted on having a cheque. Suspicion and lack of trust, that’s all the appreciation we get for protecting the national flock from the gathering predators. Ah well it’s a cross we have to bear. Pity they don’t know just how pissed off I am with the whole business anyway. We’re just bloody window-dressing: a little bit of diversionary entertainment while the real plunder takes place elsewhere. If only they knew.’

Jack’s meeting with Jimmy Gillan and its gradual maturing beyond acquaintance into friendship, at that time the only one with any of his neighbours, had been an accidental affair in every sense of the word.

From his first days on the hill Jack had frequently seen Jimmy passing and re-passing on the field track to his isolated cottage at Gollins Croft about half-a-mile away. Their paths didn’t cross for some time, however, until Jack, out for a stroll across his few acres as dusk was falling, thought he caught the sound of a distant shout. He stopped and listened, but heard no more until he drew a little closer to the quarry, when the call was repeated quite distinctly. It was a cry for help, loud, and long-drawn-out in the hope of attracting attention, and it came from the quarry.

When he got to the edge he had no difficulty, even in the closing gloom, in recognising the figure at the bottom as the man who regularly crossed and re-crossed the land. That part of the quarry wasn’t steep-sided or deep, and he didn’t look to be in too much trouble, but his problem became clear when he called up from below.

‘My God am I glad to see you: thought I was going to be stuck here into the night. I got too close to the edge trying to follow the track of a badger. Slipped and took a tumble, ending up here. Not much damage, but I’ve twisted my ankle, and can’t get myself back up the slope without help.’

‘OK. I’ll be down with you in a minute.’

‘Jimmy Gillan,’ said the man, holding out his hand as Jack arrived at the bottom.

‘Jack Manning,’ said Jack, shaking it.

‘I know,’ said Jimmy with a smile.

With Jack to help, Jimmy managed to claw his way up to the top, and then, leaning heavily on Jack, back to the Croft where Celia his wife, used to Jimmy’s long wanderings around the countryside, was getting on with her weaving quite untroubled by his extended absence.

Faint as it had been, Jack had heard more than enough of Jimmy’s accent during their walk back to identify him as a Scouser, and hadn’t expected to be received by a wife with such impeccable received pronunciation: almost cut-glass, he thought, as he made his way back home, having accepted an invitation to go over with Kate and join them for a meal two evenings later.

By then several months had passed since they moved on to the hill, and all around the countryside was locked fast into one of the hardest winters for many years. With no road access to the Croft it was by footpaths and the light of a good lantern that they left for their first visit in the early evening of a day when a deep frost had gripped the countryside without relenting from the previous bitterly cold night. If anything the cold had intensified during the day, and the first haze of a hoar frost was starting to show in the hedgerows as they made their way across the field track.