Two Cows and a Vanful of Smoke

by Peter Benson

  “Why?” I said.

  “I’ll say I never…” he said, but before he could finish what he was about to say the floor gave way completely and he fell the twenty feet into the barn below. I took a step back, but saw his eyes widen and his legs flail. He hit the tools below and yelled as something pierced his leg. I jumped into the hole, hopped onto the ladder and skipped down. I stood next to him. He was out cold. A pitchfork was sticking in his thigh and he had a huge reddening bruise on his head. I stepped out of the barn, crossed the yard and ducked into the parlour. A moment later I heard running feet. I watched from a crack in the door as Dickens went to the barn door, looked inside and said, “Hello?”

  No reply.

  “You there?”

  Nothing. He stepped inside.

  “Shit…”

  Half a minute later he pulled the ordinary man out of the barn by the shoulders, and started dragging him across the yard. “Fuck…” he said, “Fuck, fuck, fuck…” Across the yard, through the gate, around the corner and down to the front of the farmhouse. I crossed the parlour so I could look out of the windows, and I watched as he dragged him to the white car, propped him against the door and stood up straight. He put his hands to the small of his back. He stretched. He looked down at his bleeding friend. He shook his head. And then, as if he’d been waiting for his moment, Mr Evans appeared, gun held at his waist and his face red with fury.

  “And what the hell are you doing?” he yelled.

  Dickens’s hands shot up in the air. “I…”

  “Yes? You what?”

  “We’re old friends… friends of Elliot’s.”

  “Are you now?”

  “Yes.”

  Mr Evans looked towards the caravan. “And you just popped in to say hello?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what happened to him?”

  “We were looking over there. In the man… he tripped.”

  “Must have been a hell of a trip.”

  “It was…”

  “And did you find Elliot?”

  “No…” Dickens said, and as he did, the ordinary man moaned and opened his eyes. He winced and put his hand to the wound in his thigh. “That bastard is…” he started, and then he looked up and saw Mr Evans and his gun.

  “Which bastard?” said Mr Evans.

  The ordinary man looked up at Dickens, then back at the gun. He looked totally confused, as if he’d woken from one bad dream only to discover he was in another. “Hurts…” he said. “That bastard is killing me.”

  “I think,” Mr Evans said, and he lifted the gun and pointed with it as he spoke, “that you need to get in your car and go back to wherever you came from. I’ll let Elliot know you came calling, and if he wants to see you I’m sure he’ll get in touch.”

  “Yes,” said Dickens. “That’s a good idea.”

  “I’m full of them,” said Mr Evans.

  “We’ll be off then.” And Dickens opened the passenger door, put his hands under the other man’s armpits and helped him into the car. Then he went to the driver’s side and slowly drove away. I watched until the car was out of sight, then stepped out of the parlour and went to see Mr Evans.

  He was in his kitchen, washing at the sink. Three rabbits lay on the table. As I walked in he turned on me, wiped his hands on a towel, threw the towel at me and yelled, “What the bloody hell is going on?” His face was red with fury and his hair was sticking up like corn stubble. He picked up a gutting knife and planted it in the table. It made a twanging sound. I stared at it and shuddered.

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I don’t care how bloody complicated it is! This is my farm! My land! When I come back from an afternoon’s shooting I don’t expect to have to use my gun on a couple of thugs!”

  “But you didn’t…”

  He stepped towards me. His anger was growing. His eyes were flashing and spit flew from his mouth. I’d never thought he could get like this, so mad with rage. I’d always thought he was the calmest man in the parish. “I was ready to! The safety was off, my finger was on the trigger! If I’d have squeezed it you’d have had your answer!”

  “What answer?”

  “To the question you asked me the other day, Elliot. About the War. Remember?”

  “Oh…”

  “Yes. Oh.”

  “So you’d better tell me what’s going on. Before I throw you off the farm and tell everyone else round here that you’re the worst damn worker I ever had!”

  “But Mr Evans…”

  He gripped the table. His knuckles turned white and the gutting knife wobbled on its tip. “No ‘but Mr Evans’, Elliot! Just bloody well tell me!”

  What could I do? Where could I go? I couldn’t back out, couldn’t not tell him something, so I explained as much as I could. I told him that Spike had found the smoke and stolen it from the man I found hung in the woods, and that the men who’d just turned up had something to do with the smoke. I didn’t say that I’d hidden it in the kale field barn, and I didn’t say that one of the men was a bent policeman. I let those things go. I let them lie for later, or maybe not at all. And when I finished the story I let Mr Evans shout at me. “You idiot!” he yelled. “You and that Spike, you’re as bad as each other!”

  “No we’re not. I…”

  “Shut up! If I say you’re as bad as each other, then that’s what you are.”

  “But…”

  He put a finger to his lips, and when he did that it meant more than anything he could have said. There was threat in the action, even menace. “How long have you been working here?”

  “A few weeks.”

  “And you want to carry on working here?”

  “Yes. Of course I do.”

  “Well, I’m not sure I want you to stay.”

  “Shit.”

  “You could say that. You could say it louder.”

  “I’ve been trying to clear the mess up. I warned Spike. I told him…”

  “Did you? Maybe you should have done more than just tell him. Maybe you should have shouted.”

  “I think I did.”

  “You think you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head and turned away from me. “I just don’t know…”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Yes.”

  “You probably will be. I’m going into the other room now, and while you’re fetching the cows in I’m going to phone the relief. You can take a couple of days off – no pay mind you – and she’ll do the milking. While you’re away you can sort this mess out, and when you get back we’ll decide whether you’re going to stay here.”

  “Thanks, Mr Evans.”

  “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for.”

  “For giving me a second chance.”

  “I haven’t yet.” He took a step towards me and for a moment I thought he was going to hit me. He clenched his fists and wheezed, narrowed his eyes and tapped the side of his head. Then he said, “You want to think about what you’re doing, Elliot,” and he stepped around me, left the kitchen, walked down the corridor, went into his front room and slammed the door. I stood and stared at the gutting knife in the table, reached out, touched its handle and closed my eyes. I saw spits of light in the dark, and heard the sound of distant birds calling from trees. At least I think they were birds, but they could have been the sounds my brain makes when it’s tired and wants to go somewhere else.

  ‌17

  Milking was tough. I sweated, and my mouth was dry, and every time I let a cow out and a gate slammed shut I jumped. I didn’t know what Dickens would do next, but I did know he could do anything he wanted. As he’d left the farm he’d looked at Mr Evans’s gun, but there hadn’t been fear in his eye, just the look of someone who’d recognized a friend in a pub and wanted to say hello. “This is a gun; it can kill me, but it won’t. I could have it off the old man, but I won’t. I could come back any time, but I won’t. I’
ll wait. I might be mad, but I’m patient. I’m as patient as the fucking hills and as patient as a fucking river. I’ll wait. I’ll wait some more. I’ve got all the time I need, and I love time…” These were the sort of things I imagined he thought as he drove away, but maybe he didn’t. Only he knew. And when Mr Evans suddenly appeared in the parlour and shouted, “Don’t forget the cat!” I almost pissed myself.

  “I never forget the cat!”

  The cat was sitting on a window sill.

  “Good for you.”

  He left me to it, and as I carried on, the fright and worry stayed with me like a itch in my eye. However hard I tried to push it away, it came back, tweaking my mind and whispering stuff I didn’t want to hear. “You’re dead… feel the pain… die in a heap… lose your head… the dogs will catch you… the dogs are mad… we’ve sharpened the dogs’ teeth… we’ll push you through a window… you’ll fall off a bridge… you’ll eat your own heart…”

  “Shut up!” I yelled to the ceiling.

  “We’ll snap your fingers one by one… we’ll stick pins in your eyes… we’ll stick pins in your tongue…”

  “Quiet!” I yelled to the ceiling.

  “We’ll have you swallow glass… you’ll bleed from the inside out… you’ll split like a plum…”

  “No!”

  The whispers didn’t quieten so I turned the radio on, loud music with a loud DJ, and I talked to the cows as I let them into the parlour. That almost did the trick and, by the time I’d finished, my head had almost returned to normal. When I say “normal” I don’t mean normal like it used to be, like it was before Spike stole the smoke, but the panic was nothing more than a light ache, and the whispers had stopped.

  I packed some stuff into my rucksack, and as I was tying it onto the back of the bike Mr Evans came out. He’d calmed down, his face had lost its redness and he almost smiled. He said, “When you’ve sorted this mess out, give me a ring. You’re a good lad, and I don’t think you need to be this stupid.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “I never said you were.”

  In all the excitement I think he had. But maybe he hadn’t. I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t contradict him. I just said, “Thanks, Mr Evans,” and rode to Ashbrittle. When I got to the top of the hill, I stopped and rested for a few minutes, and took some deep breaths. My hands were shaking and my heart was beating hard, and for a moment fright swam back to the surface and bared its teeth. “Oh fuck off,” I said to it, and I went home.

  Mum was in the yard, collecting some washing from the line. When she’d unpegged everything, I carried her basket, followed her into the house, told her I’d been given a couple of days off and asked if I could stay in my room. She said, “Are you in trouble?”

  “No.”

  “You’re in trouble. Did you get the sack?”

  “No.”

  She took my chin in her hand and held it tight, and said, “When’s it going to end, Pet?”

  “I don’t know. Soon.”

  “That won’t be soon enough.”

  “You can say that again,” I said, and I went to see Sam. She was on her knees in Pump Court’s kitchen garden, staring at some onions. She jumped up when she saw me, hopped across the vegetables and kissed me.

  “The future is ripe,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Gardening.”

  I nodded but I didn’t know what she was on about. “What have you and your mates been talking about?”

  “Gardening’s the future,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said, “I suppose it is.” I didn’t want to say that gardening was also the past and the present, and saying it was the future was the sort of thing I’d expect a hippy to say, but I didn’t want to upset her. Not that I think I could have upset her. She wasn’t the type. She took my hand and pulled me towards the onions. She knelt down and said, “I don’t know whether to leave them in the ground or pull them up. But I don’t suppose they’ll grow any more.”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think they will,” so we started to pull them up.

  It was satisfying work, and although the onions were small there were lots of them. The earth was grey and thirsty, and as we worked Sam hummed a little tune. I don’t know what it was, but it sounded like it had come from far away, maybe a country where farmers live in felt tents and herd goats and ponies across steppes. I’ve read about these people in National Geographic magazines and other books, and seen films about them on the telly. Their tents are called yurts, and their fields stretch for hundreds of miles. Their grass is coarse and brown, and when it sways it sounds like the ghosts of dead children have gathered and are whispering down a chimney. And as we worked and the tune swam around us, I had a moment of foresight, a clear thought that made me stop and take a breath. I don’t know if it was the sort of foresight Mum has, but I think it was. My body felt light and my fingers tingled, and I saw myself as an old man. A happy man, a contented man, a man with a wife and children and grandchildren, someone who could charm birds out of their nests and colour their feathers with stories about yurts and goats. When I say I saw myself, I didn’t have a vision – an apparition didn’t appear, clouds didn’t part or faces loom. I just felt something deep inside my body, a pinprick of warmth that started deep and swelled like a cake in an oven, and the flavour of this cake was the sight of myself in the future. I don’t think I’m explaining myself very well, but then it’s difficult to explain something so strange. I’d never expect Mum to explain the things she feels, and I know that if I asked her she’d tell me not to be so foolish.

  I let the feeling fill me, I listened to Sam’s humming, I felt the sun on my back. And when we’d finished, we piled the onions into boxes and sat down with our backs against a wall and listened to the evening.

  A wasp, drunk on flight or anger or both, surprised us, and an exhausted cockerel crowed in a garden beyond the green. A couple of crows flapped towards their roost, and somewhere out of sight a buzzard mewed its hunger at the sky. A dog barked. A car passed. My heart beat.

  Sam took my hand, traced a circle on the back of it and said, “Happy?”

  I nodded. I wanted to tell her about the afternoon, but I didn’t want to spoil the moment. There was plenty of time to spoil plenty of moments, and there was plenty of time to tell as many stories as I wanted. For now I was happy, and I didn’t want the feeling to go away. “You?” I said.

  “Very.”

  “Good.”

  “Fancy a drink later?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but I’ve got to see someone first.”

  “Someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s someone?”

  “A friend.”

  “Are you being mysterious with me, Elliot?”

  “No,” I said. “My best mate. Spike.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Wiveliscombe.” I stood up and brushed the backs of my trousers. “I won’t be long. He’s been having a bit of trouble. I just want to check he’s all right.”

  “OK then.”

  “I’ll see you in a couple of hours.”

  “Here?”

  “Yes,” I said, and I kissed her. I kissed her on the lips and I kissed her cheek, and I smelt the onions on her fingers. I told her she smelt lovely, and I told her that when the drought broke we’d go swimming in the river. She asked me which river, and I said, “The Tone. I know a place. We can take a picnic.” And then I went back to the bike and rode away.

  I love riding a bike through a warm summer’s evening. The brass glow of the land, the gathered smells of the dying day, the feeling of a night’s promise, the offering of that promise, the promise of the offering, the twist of words, the words that mean whatever you choose them to mean. And even though I carried the constant nagging of threat, it couldn’t kill my pleasure. Maybe threat was just a word, and what could a word do to me? I remember reading somewhere about how water was soft and rock was hard, but water was stronger than
rock. It always found a way through it, always crumbled it, always left it mud. Maybe I read it in a National Geographic magazine, or maybe I heard it on the radio, but wherever it was I thought it made sense. And when I got to Wiveliscombe and knocked on the door of the house where Spike was staying, I was thinking “rock, water, water, rock, pebbles, sand, mud…” – and when the door was answered by a bloke with red eyes and a plaster on his face I looked straight at him, didn’t flinch, didn’t take a deep breath, didn’t do anything at all except say, “Is Spike in?”

  “No.”

  “Know where he is?”