by Magnus Mills
“Oh, right.”
“Could you run it round there quickly?”
“Er…if you like, yeah.”
“That’s good,” he said. “It’s the least we can do under the circumstances.”
“Yeah, suppose.”
“Ever driven an ice-cream van before?”
“No,” I said. “Why, are they different from other vehicles?”
“Not too bad, but you’ve got to watch them on the curves. They can be top-heavy in some conditions.”
“OK, I’ll remember that.”
“Maybe you’d like to familiarize yourself with the controls.”
He said this in the form of an order, so obediently I climbed into the cab, from where I watched him wander back towards the water’s edge. He went to the end of the jetty and once again stood gazing out over the lake, a motionless figure surrounded by grey, churning waves.
I allowed a suitable length of time to pass, then called through the window, “Right, I’ll get going then!”
Still with his back to me, Mr Parker raised a hand in acknowledgement.
Putting the van into gear I headed off between the trees. The pale afternoon light was beginning to fade already, so when I got to the road I switched on the headlamps. Craning my neck and leaning out of the window I saw that the roof-lights had come on as well. There seemed to be nothing I could do about this, and I had no choice but to drive round to Bryan’s place fully illuminated. Despite Mr Parker’s warning about top-heaviness the vehicle seemed to handle OK. As a matter of fact it pootled along very nicely, although the steering wheel struck me as being unnecessarily large. On the approach into Millfold it was tempting to set the chimes going, but I had second thoughts when I realized that people might come rushing out to buy ice-creams. Instead I passed through the place in a sedate manner so as not to attract attention.
As I neared Hodge’s shop I noticed a large, new sign in the window. I slowed down to have a look.
“SPECIAL OFFER,” the sign said, “BAKED BEANS REDUCED TO HALF PRICE.”
Continuing on towards Bryan’s it occurred to me that I hadn’t actually seen or spoken to him since my ban from the Packhorse, and that he might not appreciate me arriving out of the blue like this. After all, he was captain of the darts team I was considered to have let down so badly. What if he’d taken against me like the rest of them, then what would I do? For all I knew he might have been harbouring a serious grudge. Suddenly it didn’t seem such a good idea to go turning up on his doorstep, especially as he had all those sheepdogs he could set on me.
Still, I could hardly go back now, so I decided to press on. I pulled into Bryan’s yard just as he came out of the house, and was relieved when he gave me a sympathetic smile. As usual he was wearing his cardboard crown.
“Tommy rang up to say you were on your way,” he announced as I got out of the van.
“Oh, right,” I said. “Did he mention, then…about?”
Bryan nodded. “Yes, he did.”
“Oh…right.”
“And you’re manning the breach.”
“Yeah, suppose I am. I’ve brought this.” I handed him the bottle.
“Thanks very much,” he said. “It’s for my Uncle Rupert.”
“Thought so.”
“He likes his homogenized every week.”
“Yes, I remember you saying.”
“In his tea, like.”
“Yes.”
Bryan placed the bottle on a shelf inside his doorway, then turned to me.
“By the way,” he said. “Tommy asked if you could leave the van here and take his pick-up back.”
“OK then.”
“Save him coming for it.”
“Right.”
This was easier said than done. The Dutch barn which had previously housed Mr Parker’s lorry was now home to Bryan’s own pick-up and tractor. The other pick-up was parked behind them, and getting it out involved a good deal of manoeuvring. We spent the next five or ten minutes busily forwarding and reversing various vehicles, swapping them all round until the ice-cream van was at the back of the barn and Tommy’s pick-up in front. Then the two of us stopped for a bit of a chat.
“Got those boats finished yet?” Bryan asked.
“Well, all the preparations are done,” I replied. “As soon as I find a spare moment I’ll get a start on the actual painting itself.”
“What? You haven’t started yet?” He looked quite surprised.
“No, but as I say I’ll be getting going very soon.”
“So you’ll have them done by Christmas, will you?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “That should be no problem at all.”
“Be a bit of a push though, won’t it? December’s almost on us.”
“Well, it hardly matters really. They won’t be going back on the water ‘til Easter.”
“Maybe not,” he said, giving his crown a significant tap. “But it’s Christmas that counts, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant by this, so I just nodded and said, “Yeah, suppose you’re right.”
He looked at me for a long moment before a grin slowly appeared on his face. I grinned back and then he laughed and slapped me on the shoulder.
“Good on you!” he said. “You had me there for a minute!”
I joined in the laughter, and Bryan laughed some more, and then I said I’d better be going.
“Don’t be late tomorrow,” he said, as I departed.
“No, alright,” I replied.
Tomorrow being Thursday I assumed he was referring to the next darts fixture in the Packhorse. I took his remark as meaning that my period of exile was over and I could begin drinking there again. This came as quite a relief. My resolution of the previous evening about ‘not drinking anywhere for the time being’ had seemed very bleak in the cold light of day. After all, what was the point of working if I couldn’t go to the pub at night? Now I had confirmation from the darts captain himself: I could go back to the Packhorse tomorrow evening.
In the meantime I had an engagement with Gail to fulfil, so I put my foot down and sped home. When I arrived in the yard at Hillhouse I noticed Deakin’s pick-up truck parked in front of the big shed. Standing beside it were Mr Parker and Kenneth Turner, deep in conversation about something or other. When they saw me approach they beckoned me to join them.
“We’ve had a word with one or two people,” said Mr Parker.
“And we think you might as well take over the milk round straight way.”
“Take it over?”
“Yes, then you’ll be all set up to keep it going.”
“Better for everyone in the long run,” added Kenneth. “People always need milk.”
“Yeah, but…” I hesitated. “Surely I can’t just seize control of a going concern?”
“Why not?”
“Well…it just doesn’t seem right, that’s all.”
There was a long silence, then Mr Parker said, “I thought you liked Deakin.”
“Yes,” I replied. “I did quite like him.”
“Well, if you took the milk round over you’d be looking after his best interests, wouldn’t you?”
“Suppose so, if you put it like that.”
“Nobody would be getting let down.”
“No.”
“So you might as well start straight away, hadn’t you?”
I shrugged and nodded towards Deakin’s pick-up. “Is it all fully serviced now?”
“Yep,” said Kenneth. “OK for another year.”
“And how will I know where to deliver the milk?”
“Deakin’s order book is in the cab,” said Mr Parker. “All the details are there.”
With my head still reeling from the suddenness of this turn of events, I was shown the order book and also a delivery-route map. Kenneth then handed me a wad of requisition dockets for the dairy at Greenbank.
“If you get there early someone’ll give you a hand loading the crates,” he said.
“What do you mean by early?” I asked.
“Well, Deakin used to start at five o’clock.”
Five o’clock! This was the part of the equation I hadn’t considered. I always thought I got up early when I worked at the factory, but that was only for an eight o’clock start. Five o’clock was three hours earlier, and I began to wonder what exactly I had let myself in for. To get a full night’s sleep of seven hours I would have to go to bed at about half past nine. Which was the time I usually went to the pub. It dawned on me that I was saying goodbye to any social life I had just to keep Deakin’s business going. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling quite elated at the prospect of having my own milk round! I decided to buckle down and get used to the idea of becoming an early riser.
Once everything was settled Mr Parker gave Kenneth a lift home, and I went over to the bothy for some tea. Around seven there came a knock on the door. It was Gail.
“Ready for a lesson then?” she asked.
This made it sound as if she would be teaching me, not the other way round, but I let the remark go and produced the dartboard from under my bed. When Gail saw it she took it from me and seemed to hold it rather fondly in her arms. Then she led the way towards the hay-loft.
“By the way,” I said. “What are we going to do for darts?”
“There are some up there,” she replied.
Getting into the hay-loft required going up a wooden ladder and through a trapdoor. Gail found the light switch and went up first, and I followed. After clambering over Bryan’s hay bales we came to a space about four feet wide and ten long. Just enough room for a darts game. By the time I got there Gail had already hung the board up on a hook at one end. The surrounding area of wall, I noticed, showed signs of having being struck many times by pointed objects. There were also a number of scores chalked up on a nearby plank of wood. Someone had even marked out an oche on the floor.
“Done this before then, have you?” I asked.
“Oh yeah,” she said. “Loads of times.”
“Who with?”
“Anyone who happened to be here.”
“So I’m not the first one?”
“No, course not.”
She opened a box in the corner and took out some darts. They were a rough-looking bunch with cheap plastic flights, but they would do for practising. She gave me a set of red ones and chose yellow for herself. Then we began.
I suppose we must have played about fifteen games altogether that evening. Gail knew how to stand correctly on the oche, and her aim wasn’t too bad. Where she fell down was on tactics. She had no idea about the importance of eights and sixteens for a double finish, nor did she recognize the problem of ‘blocking’ until it was too late. Time and again she’d be on three darts to win, and then lose the game because she just couldn’t see an out-shot. This was were I came in. I was able to give her little hints and tips that I’d picked up over the years, and slowly her play became stronger. At first I won game after game, but after a while Gail began to win a few as well. When she’d had the satisfaction of beating me a few times we gave up for the evening and put the darts away. We both agreed that we might as well leave the board hanging where it was.
“By the way,” I asked. “Where did it come from?”
“Don’t know,” she replied. “Marco got it from somewhere.”
“Who’s Marco?”
“The one who was here before you.”
♦
That night I made the mistake of going to bed early, assuming it was what people did if they had to get up at half past four.
At ten o’clock I was tucked under the sheets with my head on the pillow, but still wide awake. The thought hadn’t occurred to me that it would be better to catch up on lost sleep after I’d lost it, rather than before. As a result I spent several long hours trying desperately to drift off, while all the time worrying in case I overslept.
Finally, about four o’clock, I got fed up with tossing and turning, so I rose from my bed and put the kettle on. I was bleary-eyed, but began to feel better once I’d worked my way through a whole pot of tea. At twenty to five I went out into the yard, found Deakin’s pick-up in the darkness, and set off towards the dairy at Greenbank. I’d never been in that direction before, but it was marked clearly on the map and I was there for five o’clock. As I approached the building a loading bay came into view, where some other vehicles were waiting. There were a few men in overalls standing around, and one of them signalled me to reverse in next to a pile of full crates. By the time I’d got out of the cab he was already swinging them into the back of the pick-up, so I climbed up to lend a hand.
“Morning,” he said, without any introduction. “Got a docket for me?”
“Oh yes, sorry,” I replied, producing the paperwork from my pocket. “I’m new to this game.”
“Don’t worry,” he grinned. “You’ll soon settle into it.”
I gave him a requisition docket, which he separated in two, giving the bottom half back to me. Then he got me to sign the sheet on his clipboard.
After we’d finished loading he said, “Right. That’s your lot. If you take my advice you’ll go down the side of the common first, get rid of your gold-tops, then you’ll have an open run for your pasteurized as far as Millfold. After that it should be plain sailing. Oh, don’t forget homogenized is on ‘specials’ Wednesdays and Fridays.”
“Thanks,” I said, trying to take it all in.
None of this information meant anything until I got back in the pick-up and studied the order book and route map together. Then I realized that planning a milk round was no less than an applied science. The route included loops, short-cuts and unavoidable dead-ends, but every effort had been made to minimize wasted mileage. As I began making my deliveries I came to understand that the man on the loading bay had spoken with the wise voice of experience. As he’d predicted, the crate of gold-topped (extra cream) milk was empty by the time I’d cleared the common below Greenbank, and I then had an unbroken run of silver-topped pasteurized as far as Millfold.
Nevertheless it was only my first day, and despite the useful advice I soon fell behind schedule. The trouble was that a lot of the delivery points were at the end of remote lanes, and I seemed to waste a lot of time turning round in tiny spaces, and going through endless sets of gates. I quickly came to the conclusion that I would get along much more efficiently if I had an assistant: someone to open gates and plonk bottles on doorsteps while I kept the vehicle moving.
Another problem, of course, was that I frequently got lost. The map was quite detailed but it had obviously been in use for a good while, and as a result some small destinations were lost in the folds. The only way I could complete these deliveries was by guesswork, making random forays up unmarked roads and hoping I’d find the right place eventually. Usually I did, but once or twice I went seriously wrong and had to retrace my journey before trying again.
Less difficult to find was Wainskill, where I had a fair number of drops to do. It was dominated by the ice-cream factory, and quite a few of my customers seemed to live close by. Dawn was breaking as I delivered two pints of milk to the Journeyman, and one each to a small row of dwellings a little further along the road. I wondered in passing if Lesley occupied any of these sleeping households.
By the time I got to the Millfold area I was running very late, but interestingly enough I heard not one word of complaint. Arriving at various farms and business premises I began to recognize familiar faces from the Packhorse (and the Ring of Bells), and in spite of my lateness received nothing but encouragement. In many cases it was obvious that they’d actually been waiting for me to appear with their milk so they could start breakfast. I would have expected this to put them in a bad mood, yet when I finally turned up I was invariably given a cheery wave from the kitchen window. If the door happened to be open I would slip the bottle just inside and say ‘Thank you’ in a sing-song sort of voice before continuing on my way.
Along t
he road towards Hillhouse I met the school bus coming in the opposite direction, and as our vehicles passed Maurice sounded his horn in a friendly manner. I thought I saw Gail’s face amongst those looking out, but I couldn’t be certain.
After making two deliveries at Hillhouse, one to Mr Parker’s door and one to my own, the next call was at Stonecroft, which I hadn’t visited since the episode with the circular saw. Again there were two drops, one for young Mr Pickthall and a second for his father at the other end of the house. I was hoping to see the old man and maybe have a brief chat, but when I turned round in the yard there was no sign of him. What did catch my eye though, apart from the stack of timber still waiting to be sawn up, was a large collection of oil drums gathered together in one corner. I was just wondering what young Mr Pickthall was planning to do with them all when he emerged from the house, carrying an empty bottle.
“Seen my father on your travels?” he asked in an abrupt tone.
“No, sorry,” I replied, handing him his milk and accepting the empty in return. “Gone for a walk, has he?”
“Seems like it,” he said, with a grunt of disapproval. “Half the time I don’t know what he’s getting up to.”
It struck me that the old man should be free to do as he wished at his age. However, I didn’t say anything since it really had nothing to do with me. I wanted to get away quickly before the unfinished timberwork was mentioned, so I nodded politely, and then went off to deliver his father’s milk. When I returned to the pick-up I glanced across the yard and saw young Mr Pickthall standing amongst the oil drums, marking each one with a piece of chalk. He looked up as I departed and I gave him a wave, but he failed to acknowledge me.
There were only two or three deliveries left to do after that, yet for some reason I still had a full crate of milk remaining. When I stopped and looked at the order book I realized with a shock that I’d missed out a section of the route! I was supposed to do Bryan Webb’s side of the lake first and then come along here afterwards, but for some reason I’d got it the wrong way round. As fast as I could I completed the drops on this side, then tore off towards Bryan’s place. He was standing in his yard when I arrived, the cardboard crown upon his head.