Jack by the Hedge (Jack of All Trades Book 4) (8 page)

Jack thought about having a bite. He was peckish. Maybe half his sandwiches now with a second cup, save the other for lunch.

‘Good morning,’ said the old man when he reached Jack.

‘Morning,’ said Jack. ‘What they doing down there?’

‘Couldn’t see much.’ The old man shrugged. ‘An injection maybe and getting him on the stretcher… I live over there you know. That house. My son’s the manager here. He said it’s another of those Eastern Europeans.’

Jack could see the man’s false teeth slipping. The old man pushed them in.

‘We get a lot of them sleeping in here. They climb over the fence at night. We should have Alsatians wandering about. That’d keep ‘em out.’

‘He’s English,’ said Jack. ‘From Hertfordshire.’

The man was disappointed, not knowing what to say about natives of Hertfordshire.

‘Makes a change,’ he said at last.

‘How long you lived over there?’ said Jack, hoping to change the subject.

‘Five years. Since I retired. I was a foreman myself, sort of like my son. I got another son, he’s a teacher, his marriage blown to bits. Lives up in Manchester.’ He sniffed, looking at the wall Jack was working on. ‘You’re doing a good job cleaning them bricks.’

‘Thank you,’ he said, grateful to have got the man off his diatribe. ‘I’m going to reuse them.’

‘I was a brickie myself, before I got made up to foreman.’ He wagged his finger, reminiscent of his son, ‘I could hump twenty bricks on a hod, and run up three ladders with ‘em.’

Jack didn’t believe him, having heard this too many times on sites. A stupid boast anyway, with too many old builders ending up with back trouble.

‘One in each hand is enough for me,’ said Jack with a smile.

The man blew a raspberry. ‘I’d’ve sacked you in five minutes.’

‘I’d get the union on you.’

‘Bleeding unions!’ His stick was waving fiercely to battle off union tigers. ‘Rainy day payments. Health and safety, this, that and the other. All a way of skiving off.’

‘People die on building sites,’ said Jack.

‘People die everywhere. I’m going to die. You’re going to die.’

‘I don’t have to die because scaffolding falls on me.’

‘Codswallop. A load of softy tosh. You and your lot cause all the trouble.’

‘Fine,’ said Jack wearily. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’d like to have my tea in peace.’

From behind the marquee, the paramedics appeared, stretchering the ill man, followed by Ian and Liz.

‘How much is that costing us?’ exclaimed the old man. ‘Ambulance, doctors, nurses, drugs… All coming out of our taxes.’

‘I’m having my tea,’ said Jack in annoyance. ‘That man is ill. Why don’t you go off and kick a tree? And leave me alone.’

‘Filth,’ exclaimed the old man and spat by Jack’s foot. ‘Union scum.’

‘And Merry Christmas to you too, pal,’ said Jack with a cheery wave.

The paramedics had laid their charge in the ambulance. One of them was putting a blanket over him, the other climbing out of the back. And then the doors were pulled shut from the inside. The paramedic outside, a woman in mauve overalls, ran round to the front and was quickly in the cab. The vehicle started up and began to back slowly up the drive beeping, on its way to the main gate. The old man pressed against the wall to give the ambulance room.

Once the vehicle had come past, Ian and Liz were approaching, watching its progress along the drive.

‘What’d they reckon?’ said Jack to Liz who’d stopped close by.

She shrugged. ‘Heart attack. He’ll probably need an operation. And then he’ll be back out on the streets. And then what? Winter’ll be here in a few weeks. No one should be on the streets.’

‘Poor bloke,’ said Jack, lacking the mental wherewithal to remedy the country’s injustices.

The old man was talking to his son and waving his stick in Jack’s direction. Jack wondered what the old man was telling him. Not likely to be complimentary, but then the manager already had his own views, so what did it matter?

‘I’m sorry about our tea,’ she said.

He turned to her and smiled, pleased to have someone more pleasant than the cantankerous old man to converse with.

‘These things happen,’ he said.

‘I couldn’t do much for him really,’ she said, ‘but I didn’t want to leave him with Ian. Not that he’d have kicked his head in or anything. But he just hates anyone trespassing in his park.’

‘So does his old man.’

‘They take it personally,’ she said. ‘As if they own it.’ She sighed. ‘And now I’d better get some work done.’

‘Might I come over with my telescope this evening?’ She looked at him, eyes arched. ‘You said earlier…’

She was thoughtful, biting her lip. Was she going to slam this one away?

‘I’ve got an evening class this evening,’ she said at last. ‘You could come about nine. I’ll make us a bite of supper…’

‘And I’ll show you Mars and the Andromeda Galaxy.’

Chapter 11

Rose wondered who else she might text. Or maybe go for that builder. He wasn’t a bad looker and seemed keen enough. She didn’t want another night in the bowling green pavilion. It got so cold in the early hours. She shivered to think of herself last night with all her clothes on and her knees huddled to her chest. There’s the payoff for a cheap sleeping bag, OK for a midsummer night at Glastonbury but not much else.

She’d make a play at lunchtime. Firm up the invite. And if one of her texts came up, maybe drop him or maybe not. Why not give him a try? Couldn’t be worse than some of the fumblers she’d had. OK when stoned, unbearable in the light of day. It was inviting them back to Liz’s which got her kicked out. Her sister was as staid as a nun; five years older but you’d think Liz was her mother. Still, it had to be admitted the cottage was warm. Lovely and warm, no fares, and Liz always had food in the house, and didn’t bug her for money, well – not that much. The hassles were about cleaning up and the racket at four in the morning, with men who came and went.

The problem was, useless men or otherwise, she was a night person. Could she help that? She could function on three hours’ sleep. Day wasn’t her time.

Back to the builder, she had yet to suss out the basics. Typical, her mother might say, if she ever gave her the chance. Anyone can flirt; that proved nothing. The guy might be married with three screaming kids. So check it out that he had a place on his own. She wasn’t pushing for a screw in the back of his van, and then to be bundled out into the cold night air.

Jack of All Trades, she’d seen it on his van. That gave her a chuckle. She might just test it out.

There were maybe a dozen children present in the playground as she came in with the vac, all pre-school, with their mothers. She’d hate to be trapped with a sprog all day. Her idea of hell, stuck with a pushchair, fully attendant on a two year old, grasping and hollering. She shuddered. Even worse than a leaf vac.

A couple were gossiping as they pushed their toddlers on the swings, a regular haunt, she recognised them. A child of unknown sex was expertly climbing the net rope pyramid, watched by a mother who pleaded with him/her to be careful, Frankie.

Frankie had reached the top with Mummy pleading with him/her to come down. But Frankie was smart, and was sticking it out as she upped the offer: a bar of chocolate, sausages and beans for dinner, an ice cream. Frankie came quickly down.

Amy came out of the playground office, hardly an office really with its single chair and small table. She was a short, heavy woman who’d put on extra weight since being put on a regime of diabetic pills over the last year. All those steroids, she’d said, instead of making her into an Olympic athlete had made her a puffball. Though to her surprise, she’d discovered her husband preferred her big, which just went to show. Over her blonde, streaked hair, she wore a green woolly hat that she’d crocheted to go with her park’s overalls. She saw Rose, gave her a wave and crossed to her.

‘You are so lucky to be working in the playground,’ said Rose, curling her claws in mock attack. ‘How do you swing that on the old pig?’

‘My charm, darling,’ smirked Amy, swaggering with a hand on her hip.

‘While I’m stuck with this leaf vac. I’m sure he does it on purpose. He wants me to go. And I might just. What’s the point anyway? I’m going to be dead by the time I’m 35 – do you know that?’

‘I don’t know it. And neither do you.’

‘I’m certain of it. As certain of that as of anything. I’ve nothing to live for. So why bother to get old? My sister loves her greenhouses. It’s sickening. Gets up early to paint and plant her vegetables. Me? I don’t care about a thing. That’s why I’ll be dead. My life is a pointless waste of breath and food.’

‘You should get married, have a family…’

‘Oh!’ she grimaced, ‘you’re just like my mother. I can’t stand kids.’

‘You’re just saying that, Rose. All women want kids really.’

‘I hate them. I see a woman with a pushchair and I think, tip it in the canal. A woman with a pregnant bump and I want to scream at her: the last thing the world needs is another kid! Stick a coat hanger up yourself!’

‘I am appalled at you, Rose,’ exclaimed Amy leaning away from the tirade. ‘That’s so wicked. Where would families be if everyone thought like you? The other week, I was at the christening for my niece’s first child. It was lovely. The baby girl in a white silk dress, water tipped over her head and given a name, Jamie, with her parents, aunties and uncles and all the grannies and granddads dressed to the nines…’

‘Stop! All that sickly, drippy grinning stuff with the baby shitting its nappy – as if it’s never been done before. Yuk! Another mouth to feed, another me, me, me, who’ll want a house, a car and a job on this crowded tip of a planet…’ Rose glared round the playground at the children and mothers. ‘We should stop every one of them breeding for twenty years. A no child policy. And after that, it’s one in ten allowed to have one baby only, by ballot… until we’ve got the numbers down to a billion. Then the rest of us could breathe without bumping into people, and choking on their effluent.’

‘You’re so selfish, Rose. I can’t believe your attitude. You would deny anyone the joy of a family.’

‘And you’d have the world packed so tight we’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder, so that all we’ll be able to do is screw, until we’ve squished ourselves into a great ball of lard.’

Amy threw her hands up. ‘Then kill yourself, Rose. Do us all a great favour, don’t wait till you’re 35, and don’t give me no more of this baby killing rubbish.’

Rose might have given her quite a bit more of her baby bashing tirade as she was enjoying taunting her, but a thin woman pushing a pushchair had come over. And Rose had to stop. The woman stopped by Amy.

‘Is it you who does the Women Fly Women thing?’ she said shyly.

‘I do,’ said Amy.

‘I want in,’ said the woman.

‘Have you got the flight price?’

‘I have,’ said the woman and began to take some money out of her handbag.

‘Let’s go to the office,’ said Amy and led the woman away from Rose to the playground office.

Rose watched. She had known for some time that Amy was up to something in the playground, some little money making scheme, but didn’t know what. Amy was evasive when asked directly. But here she was in action and the woman eager to buy in. Rose knew she should be vaccing the playground, but she just had to know what was going on.

Except she couldn’t see much. Amy was in the office, the top half of the door was swung open obscuring her view so she could only see the bottom half of the woman with her pushchair and its occupant. Rose turned on her vac and began sweeping in their direction, more intent on what was going on in the hut than picking up leaves. She saw or thought she saw the rapid passing of notes, and the woman hurriedly putting a box into a shopping bag hanging on the handle of the pushchair.

When the woman had gone, Rose hoovered up to Amy and turned off the machine.

‘What’s Women Fly Women?’ she said.

‘Why? Do you want in?’ Amy was sharp, her face concentrated, none of the usual easy giggles about her.

‘How much do I need?’

‘Two hundred.’

‘I’ve got it.’ Rose hadn’t, but knew she wouldn’t get any information if she didn’t pretend. ‘What do I get for it?’

Amy took her to the office and opened the top half of the door. There were a pile of white boxes, each about 20 centimetres square, taking up much of the floor space. Amy picked one up.

‘This.’

‘What is it?’ said Rose.

Amy opened the carton. Inside were lots of ornate little bottles of an amber liquid. Amy pulled one out and gave it to Rose.

‘Smell it.’

Rose twisted off the gold top and gingerly smelt the liquid. ‘Perfume.’ She sniffed again. ‘Quite nice.’ She put the cap back on. ‘Is that all I get for 200 quid?’

Amy took the bottle from her and put it on the office desk.

‘There’s 20 bottles in this carton. You sell each one for a tenner…’

‘That just gets me my money back,’ Rose shrugged. ‘All sweat and no profit.’

Amy tapped her nose conspiratorially. ‘But you don’t lose any. And that makes you a passenger.’

‘But I’ve badgered all my friends, just to get my original two hundred.’

‘The next step,’ said Amy, ‘is to sign three of them up. You get a tenner for each one you bring in.’

Rose shrugged. ‘30 quid for all that hassle. Not even minimum wage.’

Amy ignored her and went on. ‘Then in three months you get a £1000 pay out.’

Rose was startled. ‘How does that work?’

‘It’s all the profit up the line. It’s why that woman was so eager to sign up. Her mate just got £1000.’ Amy smirked at Rose. ‘It’s winners all round. Women Fly Women.’

‘How much are you making on it?’

‘That’d be telling. I’m a pilot, so of course I make more.’

‘You a pilot? Where’s your plane?’

Amy sighed. ‘It’s just what I’m called. When you buy the box of scent you become a passenger. Then when you bring in three others, you become a crew member. And I’m the next rung up, a pilot.’

‘Who’s over you?’

‘The captain.’

‘Then who?’

‘The marshal and that’s the top.’