Saving Septic Cyril: The Illegal Gardener Part II (The Greek Village Collection Book 16)

by Sara Alexi

  The rain is lashing against the back of the house like a nine-tailed whip. It stings his cheeks and drives into his clothes. Coco immediately backs inside. The other dogs also shrink from the downpour.

  ‘Come on, you lot, I would rather leave of my own accord in a bit of rain than have the humiliation of someone throwing us out.’ But the dogs hang back. The sky is not too black; the greys vary from slate-grey to silver. To the north-west, the sky has patches of blue and that is where the wind is coming from.

  ‘It will be over in an hour.’ He encourages the dogs, which have now curled up with one another in the middle of the empty room. Tonight they will sleep on the moors. He can imagine it – the sound of rustling and small feet running at ground level amongst the bracken as tiny night creatures come out to carry on their lives. The bracken is so high he will be entirely hidden, the bright moon above in a sky of a thousand stars. He will lie on his back and name them.

  The wind bites through his tweed jacket, the hole at his elbow letting the cold in.

  ‘Sleeping bag!’ All the dogs start at Cyril’s sudden outburst. ‘Where did Archie’s sleeping bag go?’ He looks at the door of the cupboard under the stairs. Crossing the room and rummaging in the dark seems like a great deal of effort. He needs to conserve his energy for walking. The rain picks up and the noise it makes increases. With the back door still open, he can see the clouds rolling over one another.

  With the sleeping bag in his rucksack and the dogs around his heels, he slams the door behind him and sets off. The peat is saturated and squelches as he walks but his feet stay dry in his big boots. He pulls his tweed flat cap firmly down on his head and the dogs bound ahead, now unconcerned by the rain. It is as if they sense that they are not setting out on a short walk.

  Chapter 46

  The sun blazes in through the curtains and the sky is blue in the first light of dawn. For a moment Saabira thinks she is back in Pakistan, which happened a lot in the first few weeks. She would wake and not know where she was, or she would think she was back home. But this is home now. She still misses family and friends, of course she does, but she knew she would. What she didn’t expect was that she would fall in love with her new home. She likes the house, the village with its narrow cobbled street, the bleak romantic moors, the choice in the supermarkets, the cleanliness of everything, and all those details that make England so different. The hanging flower baskets, empty trains and buses, public toilets with toilet paper and soap and hot water, metal drain holes in the roads that lead to underground pipes to take the rainwater away, ready-made naan breads and sandals, of such quality and so cheap.

  ‘What on earth!’ she says to herself. It is a new expression she has learnt, and right now it fits.

  Someone is shouting outside, and there is the sound of a metal dustbin lid being thrown or hit. Aaman, who is sitting up in bed reading a newspaper, stops and looks up.

  ‘It seems there is always something on this street. What is it?’ he asks.

  More shouting. ‘It is Mr Brocklethwaite.’ Saabira gets dressed hurriedly and runs down the stairs.

  ‘I have found things out!’ Mr Brocklethwaite is screaming so loudly his voice cracks.

  Saabira breathes heavily from her sprint. Aaman is right behind her. Mr Brocklethwaite stands on the pavement outside his house, legs astride as if he is about to have a shoot-out and there, facing him, outside his own house, is Cyril, with an envelope in his hand.

  ‘This house,’ Mr Brocklethwaite points at Cyril’s house, ‘belongs to a company. Noiram Trust Limited.’ His chest is all puffed out and he sneers as he talks.

  ‘Should we do something, say something?’ Saabira asks Aaman.

  ‘Do what? We do not know what the letter says.’

  ‘Well, we can tell him to stop shouting. We can discuss this without raising our voices, surely?’ But, looking at Mr Brocklethwaite, there appears to be little chance of him calmly discussing anything.

  ‘Did you know that?’ Mr Brocklethwaite seems to be relishing the confrontation and he takes a few steps nearer to Cyril.

  Cyril shakes his head. ‘Not until today.’ He holds up the letter and points to it but Mr Brocklethwaite ignores this gesture.

  ‘Just as I thought. If you didn’t know they owned your house then you can’t have been paying them rent, can you, eh?’ Another step closer.

  Cyril shakes his head.

  ‘So, I’ve got you Cyril Whatever-Your-Name-Is,’ he crows triumphantly, and he raises an accusatory finger – takes another step forward to close the gap, so the finger is pointing straight in Cyril’s face.

  ‘Sugden,’ Cyril replies quietly.

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’ Mr Brocklethwaite’s jubilance fades and the muscle above one side of his mouth twitches, lifting his lip. Saabira’s heartbeat quickens. They are only an arm’s reach apart now.

  ‘Cyril Sugden.’

  Mr Brocklethwaite turns pink and then red, his hand squeezes into a fist and Saabira worries for his health.

  ‘You dirty little toerag. First you steal my pal Archie, then you steal the house once he is dead, and now you steal his name. Identity theft, that’s what it is. Identity theft!’ And before any of them sees it coming he takes a balletic leap towards Cyril and catches him with a blow that is more of a slap than a punch. Cyril stumbles backward, and Saabira turns away to protect Jay, so it is Aaman who catches Cyril to stop him falling. When Saabira turns back, Aaman, shorter than both of the men by half a head, is standing between them, a hand on each of their chests.

  ‘I’ll have you Septic-Cyril-Bloody-Sugden.’ Mr Brocklethwaite jabs a finger over Aaman’s arm towards Cyril’s face.

  ‘I must tell you something,’ Cyril says.

  ‘You’re not right in the head, you halfwit.’ Mr Brocklethwaite is spitting down his own chin as he shouts.

  ‘You need to listen,’ Cyril implores.

  ‘Do you know what a runt is? Well, you are a runt and a cuckoo. Stealing other people’s nests.’ He makes another lurch for Cyril, but Aaman stands his ground. Several neighbours down the street have come out onto their doorsteps to see what is going on.

  Cyril thrusts the letter towards Saabira.

  ‘Tell him,’ he begs, one arm shielding his head from Mr Brocklethwaite. ‘Look.’ He jabs his finger at the words on the page. Saabira skim-reads the top page of the sheaf of papers Cyril has handed her and gasps.

  ‘Ah, Mr Brocklethwaite!’ she shouts, and he stops trying to lash out at Cyril and tightens his mouth into a thin line to try to stop the twitching, but his expression remains murderous. ‘Mr Brocklethwaite,’ she says again, calmly, and with authority.

  ‘What?’ he snaps.

  ‘Well,’ she says, ‘it seems Archie was a bit of a business man.’

  ‘Smart man, Archie, till that got under his skin.’ He points to Cyril.

  ‘He was so smart that he put his house into a trust. Noiram Trust,’ she says.

  ‘Aye, I just told you that, and he’ – he jabs his finger at Cyril again – ‘has just admitted he’s not been paying rent to them. Squatter. I’ll have you out!’

  ‘Ah, but you have missed the point, Mr Brocklethwaite. It says here that Archie owned Noiram Trust and everything in it, and Archie gave all he had to Cyril.’ Mr Brocklethwaite and Aaman’s mouths drop open at these words. Aaman starts to smile and Mr Brocklethwaite starts to grimace.

  ‘Not only that but he also gave Cyril his name, Sugden – gave him it through deed poll. It is all in the letter.’ Saabira is aware this information is goading Mr Brocklethwaite, and as soon as she has said it, she wonders if it was a wise thing to do. His red face suggests he has high blood pressure.

  Noises behind her take her attention. Whilst this exchange has been taking place, the other villagers have slowly moved from their respective doorways, inching towards Cyril’s house, arms folded, alert to catch every word as if it is a theatre production.

  The muscles around Mr Brocklethwaite’s mouth c
ontinue to twitch, distorting his countenance as he faces the audience.

  ‘So he is not a squatter, and he is not illegal. Actually he now owns his own house,’ Saabira continues, and Aaman grins.

  Cyril points again to the part of the letter he indicated before.

  ‘I think you should tell him that, Cyril,’ she says and holds out the paper for him, but he shakes his head.

  ‘Please,’ he says. She smiles to let him know that they are still friends despite yesterday’s misunderstanding. Lifting her chin, she reads loudly enough for everyone to hear.

  ‘It says here that Noiram Trust owns numbers thirty, thirty-one and thirty-two Little Lotherton,’ Saabira announces.

  ‘Thirty?’ Aaman says, grinning at Cyril. ‘That is our house!’ and he offers a little nod of respect.

  ‘Thirty-two! That’s my house!’ Mr Brocklethwaite splutters. Saabira looks up from the letter.

  ‘Mr Brocklethwaite,’ she says, lowering the letter. ‘Please may I introduce you to your landlord.’ She waves a hand towards Cyril, whose chin is now lifted in a manner that would appear regal were it not for his glasses with the broken lens.

  ‘My landlord,’ Mr Brocklethwaite repeats in a thunderous voice. ‘My landlord!’ He spits it out the second time. He looks around at all the neighbours who have gathered to watch the spectacle. ‘I’ll not bloody live here with him as my landlord,’ he shouts, and turns on his heel.

  ‘Aye, be gone with you!’ someone from the crowd remarks, and this is followed by much laughter and some cheering and several people clap as Mr Brocklethwaite retreats up the road. Evidently he will not be missed if he leaves Little Lotherton.

  Cyril turns to see who is clapping, and finds the whole street is gathered there. Mr Brocklethwaite’s front door slams behind him, and the crowd that has gathered all look to Cyril. But they are not laughing at him, or sneering. They are smiling. Mr Dent winks at him and mutters, ‘Way to go, Cyril.’ The lady with all the children, who still has on her blue hairnet from the bakery, says, ‘Couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.’ Even Mrs Pringle says, ‘Go on love, you show ’em.’ And then they begin to spread out and wander back to their own houses.

  Chapter 47

  The road is emptying now and Cyril faces Saabira and Aaman.

  ‘This is wonderful news, Cyril – or shall I call you Mr Landlord?’ Aaman says. He holds out his hand and Cyril shakes it but he cannot look happy.

  ‘Cyril?’ Saabira asks.

  ‘I feel so bad about the way I treated you. I just presumed you were like everyone else. I am so sorry.’

  ‘Ah, it is nothing.’ Aaman says.

  ‘Cyril, that is what we all do all the time. People did it to you, people do it to us.’ She waves a finger between herself and Aaman. ‘It is human nature, but it is not a bad thing.’

  ‘It was a very bad thing,’ Cyril says.

  ‘Here I must disagree. We cluster people into similar groups and make presumptions because it stops us wasting time and energy. It’s a major part of our self-protection. It warns us off the “baddies.”’ She smiles. Aaman puts his arm around her shoulder and looks at her with pride in his eyes, his other hand on the baby monitor around his neck.

  ‘Well, I am very sorry.’ He puts as much feeling into the words as he can.

  ‘So, does this mean we can continue to be your tenants?’ Aaman asks, and they all laugh, and without a word they wander back into the warm house and Aaman runs up the stairs to gather up a now-whingeing Jay. Saabira puts the kettle on.

  Sitting at the kitchen table, with a big pot of tea between them, Cyril flattens the letter out on the table.

  He got quite a long way onto the moors with his throbbing leg. But the bats swooping low over the heather took his mind off the pain, and so did the lonely calls of the owls in the village, becoming fainter and fainter as he walked on, until there was nothing but silence and the stars, a great wide shimmering galaxy of stars that filled the sky and him, and he was at peace. But then he remembered the rabbits, still locked in their cages. There was no choice; he had to return to set them free.

  By the time he got back to the house he was so very, very tired it made more sense to go to bed and set out again the next day.

  He was woken next morning by the letter coming through the door – a sound he had not heard since Archie died, or at least not since he had put the wardrobe porch on the front of the house. He picked it up and examined it, turning it over to inspect the postmark, and remembered Saabira’s words from the day before, imploring him to read it.

  ‘I’ll do you a swap,’ he says with a hint of mischief in his voice, which takes Saabira by surprise. She has not heard Cyril joke before. ‘You read this and I’ll read Archie’s diary. My guess is they say just about the same thing.’

  Saabira stands immediately and takes Archie’s diary down from the kitchen shelf.

  ‘It’s your book, Cyril. Your book, your house,’ she says, her eyes smiling as much as her lips. Jay, who is sitting on Aaman’s knee, reaches across the table to take the book and Cyril surprises himself. Instead of pulling it back, jealously and greedily, he lets her take it.

  ‘Shall I go to my room, or my house?’ he asks. It might be rude of him to sit amongst them reading.

  Aaman points to the sofa by the fire. ‘Here looks like a cosier place to read, I would say.’ He smiles again. ‘Saabira, can I help you with anything in the kitchen?’

  Saabira is not sure if Jay is helping Cyril walk or the other way around. The two of them cross the room to the sofa; Cyril sits rather heavily and then helps Jay up, and she crawls to sit in the crook of his arm.

  ‘Shall I read you a story?’ he says to her and opens the diary. His head bends down towards Jay’s, whose hand comes up and points at his glasses. Saabira remembers that she must do something about that – find someone to fix them. Or perhaps Cyril will do it for himself now?

  With Jay’s warm body against his, Cyril opens Archie’s diary and begins to read in a very soft voice to the child. He knows well that it is not the words that impact a child so much as the tone, so he reads it like it is a fairy tale.

  But before he has got very far he forgets to read aloud, as Jay is quite content concentrating on a hole in the hem of his tank top, pushing her finger through and wiggling it as it appears on the other side. Where was he? Oh yes, Archie has just been talking about his mother having houses, and about some others that he had bought. The diary continues:

  ‘I’ve added to this with a couple more in Bradford and a couple more round here. It’s a good game, property, ’cause once they are bought and you get a letting agency to take on the running there is little more to do and you get a steady little income.

  ‘But this is the bit I have been dying to tell you.’

  The memory of Archie’s voice is so clear Cyril can almost hear it.

  ‘Dying to tell you. Ha! I almost laughed then, but my lungs complained. Dying to tell you – what a suitable choice of words. I would love to not be dead when I told you, just so I could see your face, but I don’t want our relationship to change whilst I’m still alive, I don’t want your thanks, or for you to feel beholden. I just want us to potter along as we have done these four years, so I’ll leave you to find this out when I’ve gone.

  ‘I’ve made you, Cyril Sugden, beneficiary of Noiram Trust, and because the houses are all in trust there is no inheritance tax, which means we’ve got ’em, Cyril! We got ’em, and not a penny goes to the government. You are now the owner of five terraced houses in Bradford (as I said, I had to sell one to cover inheritance tax but you won’t have that problem), and there is also this one we live in and the ones either side.

  ‘But the shop in Greater Lotherton, well, I’ve sold that to an old man from Pakistan. He was so old I asked him what on earth he wanted it for – why he didn’t just retire? Turns out he wanted it to provide a future for his grandson. I wouldn’t have understood this once, this making plans for after you’re dead, but I
get it now. Anyway, the selling of the shop brings me to the second thing I wanted to tell you. This one I’ve found harder keeping a secret from you.

  It’s really going to thrill you, this one. Oh, hang on, I can hear your boots on the back doorstep, so I’ll continue this the next time you’re out.’

  Cyril thinks he can remember the day. The moors had been so muddy that he had scraped his boots for ages to make sure he brought no muck into the house, and Archie seemed to be hiding something under his blankets. He rubs his fingers against the book cover and suddenly yearns so hard for Archie he has to look up and around to see Aaman and Saabira sitting at the kitchen table. The two of them reading his letter, their heads bowed towards each other. The yearning subsides at the sight of them, his new friends, and he returns to the book.

  ‘It’s been a fair few days since I’ve last written. I’ve felt so weak, even holding a pen is too much. Even thinking has finally become a struggle. To be honest, I wish it was all over now – I’m done with fighting this. I hope you don’t miss me too much when I’m gone but I think I will miss you. I’m aware that is a ridiculous thing to say but I miss you already, I miss the world and everything in it before I am even gone. It’s the truth.