Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke (8 page)

I’m a good worker. I put my head down. I do what I’m told. If I’m asked to do something I don’t want to do, I’ll still do it, usually. I don’t mind getting dirty. I don’t complain if my shirt is torn. I sweat. And when I sweat I take my shirt off and tuck it in my belt and work on. I whistle and I sing, and if I have the time I’ll stop for five minutes and listen to the world in its turning and ripping. But then I’ll go back to work and sweat some more.

I used to sweat when I worked for the tree surgeon, and I used to sweat at the pig farm. And before those jobs I sweated for a man called Albert who made ornamental blocks. We’d work in a shed at the bottom of his garden, mix cement in a knackered mixer and pour the stuff into patterned moulds. When the cement had set, we’d knock the blocks out, stack them in a corner and wait until they were dry. Then we’d load samples into a van, visit garden centres and landscapers and try and sell them. Albert was an optimist, but his optimism took a beating as everyone we tried to sell the blocks to shook their heads and said that they bought their ornamental blocks from someone else. “But ours are handmade,” Albert would say, scratching the palms of his hands and making weird clicking sounds with his tongue. “I can see that,” the customer would say, shaking his head and pointing at some flaw on the block. I worked for Albert for a couple of months, but when the ornamental-block business went tits up he told me it would be best if I looked for work somewhere else. He didn’t have the heart to tell me that he’d have to let me go, but I could see it in his eyes and the way his lips shivered. He was down, but he wasn’t beaten – the last time I saw him he told me he was buying one of those old-fashioned bicycles with an ice-cream box in the front. He was going to take it to Torquay and cycle up and down the sea front selling lollies and cones. “I’m going to make a killing,” he said, and I believed him. I’m like that. I believe people and I try to believe myself. So if I haven’t felt sweat roll off my neck and down my back I’ll think I’ve had a dishonest day, and I’ll have a word with myself. Maybe I’m old-fashioned like that, or maybe it’s in my blood. I don’t know.

In the morning I used work and sweat to block the fright and panic. I could have asked Mr Evans for the day off, could have made up some excuse, but there were jobs to do. So when I’d finished the milking and he asked me to go to the copse beyond the top fields and cut some wood for his winter fires, I did as I was told.

The copse was long and thin, untidy with hazel coppice and ash, and it slipped down a frightened slope like a skirt off a thigh. I took an axe, a bow saw and some sacks, and when I found a good stand, I started chopping. A robin came to watch me work and wait for the likely worm, and hopped from branch to branch with a cheep and a twitch. I remembered a story I’d heard about how robins were only brave in England: if they live in any other country they’re furtive and shy, and hide behind leaves in the densest bushes. I said, “You’re a brave bird,” to him, and he tweeted back at me, flitted towards the place where I’d piled the sacks, sat on one and stared at me. “But you’re not to follow me home and come indoors,” I said. A robin in the house means a death in the family. “You hear me?” The bird looked at me, hopped to a closer branch, sang a little song and carried on watching me. I went back to work, and when I had a stack of wood as high as a bale, I found a crook and started sawing.

The work was hard and hot, but the shade of the copse kept the worst of the heat away. And for a while I did force the trouble away. If it had been a mouse it would have hidden itself in a hole in the ground, curled itself up and tucked its tail to its nose. It would have breathed so quietly not even a beetle would have heard the noise, or an ant. And as the logs piled up, so the trouble faded to a whisper and all my mind did was think about how Mr Evans would keep warm and cosy through the long dark nights of winter.

I love the smell of fresh sawn wood. It’s the smell of promise, like the smell of a cut tomato or baking bread. If it could be a person, it would be a good listener, someone with kind eyes, a smile and a glass of cold lemonade. It wouldn’t have travelled much, but it would be wise. And when it spoke it would speak slowly and quietly, short sentences, simple words, nothing complicated. It wouldn’t threaten, wouldn’t understand violence, wouldn’t welcome trouble. And as I started to fill the sacks with wood, I thought, for a moment, that the smell of the wood did speak to me, did say, “One day, all this will pass. One day, you will be able to sleep again.”

The robin got bored with watching me and flew off to find something more interesting to do, and an hour later I was back at the farm. I stacked the sacks of logs in a lean-to behind the house, then fetched the cows in for milking. They were waiting at the gate, dusty and swishing their tails at the flies. As I followed them to the backyard, Mr Evans came and stood at the kitchen door and said, “Don’t forget the cat.”

“I never do.”

“Good lad,” and he went to make a cup of tea.

After milking, I ate a sandwich and went to look for Spike. There were two places he could have run to. The first was his sister’s. She lived in Wellington. It didn’t seem likely: the last time I heard they weren’t talking, but I called in anyway.

She answered the door with a kid on her hip. She had her brother’s wiry look, but this was doubled by her tired mouth, the rings around her eyes and her thin, spidery hands. As she looked at me she was joined by a huge dog. It had a bandage on its head and weird, crossed eyes. It looked at me, showed its teeth and growled. “You’re kidding,” she said, when I asked if he was there. “I wouldn’t have that bastard here if you paid me.”

“Have you heard from him?”

“No. Not for months.”

“OK.”

“So what’s he done now?”

“Oh you know…”

“No I fucking don’t. If I did I wouldn’t be asking, would I?”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t,” I said. “He… he said he’d meet me for a drink, but didn’t show.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Really.”

She shook her head at me, the kid started to whine, and I could see she didn’t believe me, but I didn’t care. “Look,” she said, “I’ve got stuff to do. You run along, and if you find him, don’t say hello from me…” The dog took a step towards me. It looked hungry, and for a moment its eyes glazed over.

“OK. Thanks.”

She looked at me in amazement. Maybe no one had said “Thanks” to her for years. Or maybe they had. But whatever. She said nothing in reply, and slammed the door in my face. I stood for a moment and listened as she disappeared into the house, and then went back to the bike.

I rode on, out of Wellington towards Milverton. The road was quiet and twisty, the shadows were long in the parched fields, and there was a corner near the turning to Langford Budville where a little whirlwind of dust suddenly appeared, spinning over the hedge. The dust was curling and rising like a ghost, a thin woman in a yellowed dress, her features blanked by trouble and loss and death. Spinning towards whatever hell she thought she was due, lost at the edge of what I could see and what I didn’t want to know. I slowed down to look, but as quickly as it had appeared it – or she – disappeared behind the hedge, leaving clear air, blue sky and the outline of a pear orchard. I heard a dog bark, I accelerated, I leant into the corner and headed down the hill.

Milverton was a smart little village with rich houses, tidy gardens, roses growing on honeystone walls, a trimmed churchyard and neatly parked cars. The place smelt of money, but here and there were places where money and tidiness couldn’t get a grip. One of these places was behind a raised terrace on the Taunton road, a filthy cottage with rotting windows, holes in the roof and the sound of bad music booming from an upstairs room. Rubbish was piled in the garden, and a broken bed was leaning against the front wall. This was home to some of Spike’s smoking friends, a crowd of crusties who rented the place and didn’t do a lot else. I knocked on the door, but there was no reply. I yelled towards the upstairs window but it didn’t open, so I went to the pub in the main street and found one of the crusties sitting at the bar. He was as drunk as fuck, and when I asked him if he’d seen Spike, he said, “Who wants to know?”

“I do.”

“And who are you?”

“His mate.”

“Spike’s got a mate?”

“Yeah.”

“You could have fooled me.”

“I don’t want to fool anyone.”

The crusty looked at me, tried to sit up straight, slumped back, stuck a finger in his ear, pulled it out, stared at the crud he’d found and said, “Are you fucking with me? Cos if you are I’ll fuck you.” He belched. “And when I fuck you you’ll stay fucked. Got it?”

“Hey…”

“And don’t fucking ‘hey’ me!”

“OK.” I took a step back and said, “Thanks. If you see him, tell him Elliot was looking for him.”

“Tell him your fucking self.”

I took another step back, then turned and made a swift exit, jumped on the bike and was out of Milverton before anyone had a chance to spot me, chase me and whack me on the back of the head with a mallet.

I rode without knowing what I was going to do next. I headed towards Bathealton, slowed to look in pull-ins and green lanes and copses and hidden gateways, and when I reached the top of the hill on the road to Stawley, stopped and stood and scanned the fields below. I wasn’t expecting to see him, but I thought it was better to look than not.

The sun was setting, and it coloured the land green and gold. A flock of crows was heading to its roost, and cows, fresh from milking, were fanning through the meadows. The woods looked cool, the single trees looked right, the farms and houses were safe. It was easy to feel fooled by the scene, the peace and quiet and beauty and dying heat. Easy to think that here was the secret of calm, here you could find the end of some rainbow. Some place where leaves drifted and water lapped, and the earth folded like sheets over sleepers. Quiet guitars could strum, a flute could warble, rabbits could skip and jump from their holes. A paradise of colour and quiet, a place where worried people could meet and leave their worries behind.

And people did leave their worries behind in this place. They walked footpaths through the fields and over the hills. They held hands, they talked in low, quiet voices, they laughed. They had picnics in the shade of green trees. They leant with their backs against gates and shared bottles of beer. And when they’d finished eating and drinking and talking, they closed their eyes and let warmth and comfort bathe them.

I sat and stared and smelt the air for half an hour. A couple of cars drove by, and a tractor, and in the distant lanes I saw other cars and other tractors, but no white van. I heard a motorbike, another motorbike, a buzzard high over my head. A bee. A squad of pigeons. Another bee. Some walkers crossed the field below me and disappeared into a copse. I waited for them to appear again, but they didn’t. They were probably bird watchers or maybe they were looking for a quiet place to fuck. It’s impossible to tell what people are planning or thinking when all you can see is their backs from half a mile away, so I got back on the bike, rode on and stopped at The Globe for a pint. All the talk was about the fire at Spike’s place, and how he was an accident waiting to happen. Someone said, “I went down there one day, and the place was a pit. Shit everywhere. You wouldn’t sit on the sofa. He had a gas fire that looked like it had come out of the ark, and his cooker… I don’t want to think about it.”

“He wouldn’t be told,” someone else said.

“Wouldn’t be told what?” I said.

“To tidy himself up.”

“All he has to do is make an effort.”

“Not a bad worker though. Always puts his back into it. He doesn’t look it, but he’s as strong as an ox.”

“True.”

“But that’s not everything, is it?”

“No.”

“You’ve got to have some discipline, a sense of responsibility.”

“True.”

“Talk of the Devil…”

I looked out of the window as Spike’s van slowed down outside and pulled into the car park. I left my pint and went outside to see him. He parked and sat with his hands on the wheel. He was pale, and his lips were cracked, and had a mad, hunted look in his eyes. He was shaking and sweating, and biting his nails. I’d never seen him like it before. He looked like some sort of mirror of the friend I used to know. Life had been sucked out of him and something blank had been put in its place. I got in the van and sat in the passenger seat. The smoke was stacked in bags in the back. It was sweating and it stank. I said, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I didn’t know where else to go. I went up to your place, but you weren’t there. I’ve just been driving around. I’m scared…”

“You’re scared?” I thought I’d never hear him say such a thing, but there it was, the words bare and out. “I’m not surprised.”

“Fucking scared, El.”

“I got your note. There are some heavy guys looking for you, Spike.”

“I know.”

“And they’re pissed off.”

“More than pissed off, El. They burned my fucking house down. I’ve lost everything. All my clothes. My records, the telly, the stuffed badger.”

“The stuffed badger?”

“Yeah.”

“Fuck. You’ve had that for ages.”

“I know. And my pictures.”

I put my hand on his arm. He looked at it as if it was a surprise. “But you’ve got your van…” I said.

“Sure.”

“And the smoke. How did you manage that?”

“I’d put it in the van last night. I was going to see my man in Exeter.”

“You were going to see your man in Exeter…” I said the words slowly, like I couldn’t believe I was saying them.

“But I got paranoid.”

I shook my head. “You know what you’ve got to do, Spike.”

“What?”

“Get away. Disappear.”

“Disappear?”

“Yes.”

“And how the fuck am I going to do that? Whatever I do, wherever I go, they’ll find me. They’ll hunt me like a fucking dog.” He put his hand on mine. It was hot. “I should have listened to you…”

“You should have what?”

“Listened to you.”