The copper sees my look of terror. ‘I wouldn’t worry,’ he says, in a soothing tone that he probably learned in police school. ‘It’s not a lot of grass. Certainly not enough to be owned by anyone you have to be concerned about. I’ll send a crew down in the next few days to gather the rest of it up and dispose of it properly.’ He gives me a meaningful look. ‘Just be a bit more careful when you’re clearing vegetation in future,’ he tells me, as if I’m likely to stumble across hoards of psychedelic plants whenever I break out the garden shears.
‘Thanks, officer, I promise I will,’ I reply meekly for some reason. It must be the stab vest. It makes me nervous – and very, very compliant.
The policeman leaves, having done his job to the best of his abilities. This leaves me with some apologising to do.
‘I’m so sorry about all this, Sally,’ I tell the landscape gardener as she sips her cup of tea. Hayley and Fred have gone off to fill the electricians in on what’s been going on. I’m sure they’ll embellish the story magnificently, because nobody likes a good tall tale more than a bunch of tradesmen.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Sally says. ‘How were you supposed to know?’
I grin in sheepish fashion. ‘Do you still think you could do anything with the garden?’ I ask her.
‘Oh yes!’ she says enthusiastically. ‘It’s a simple plot, and I like a blank canvas to work with. Give me a week or so to come up with a design and I’ll get back to you.’
‘Thanks very much,’ I say. ‘Though, could you keep it nice and simple, please? Our budget’s already getting pretty stretched.’
Sally laughs. ‘No problem. I’ll cancel the water feature and the ha-ha then.’
‘The what now?’
Her face pinches. ‘Never mind. After inhaling half a ton of marijuana smoke, I don’t think you’re in the best mental state for me to try and explain what a ha-ha is.’
I looked it up on Google after Sally had left, and immediately had to agree with her. It sounds like a jolly strange thing even when you’re straight as a die. Trying to have the finer points of a complicated landscaping structure explained to you while you’re still coming down from a massive psychedelic high is a hiding to nothing.
Miraculously, I manage to end the day with a landscape designer secured, and a lengthy term in a psychiatric ward avoided. We’ll call that breaking even – and move on as swiftly as possible.
For the whole of the next week, I keep one eye on the bottom of our garden. The tired copper may have assured us that no criminal gangs will be turning up on the scene to reclaim their prized hoard of illicit drugs, but then I watched enough episodes of The Bill when I was younger to know that coppers don’t always tell the truth. Especially when it comes to extramarital affairs with the nearest detective sergeant.
It’s only when I start to pay attention to that end of the property’s land that I realise how easy it would have been for my imaginary criminal gang to come and go without being seen by any of us. The end of the garden is so far away, and slopes downhill to the woodland, so unless you’re craning your neck, or standing on the first floor, it’s extremely difficult to get a clear look at what’s going on down there. About the only person in our work crew who may have seen anything is Pat The Cow, and, as we’ve firmly established, she is not the type to be assisting in the apprehension of the criminal underclasses.
Good to his word, the copper sends out a clean-up team to eradicate the rest of the marijuana from the woodland and the back of the garden. It ends up being quite an impressive haul. They need three bin liners to take all of it away.
Surely this destruction of the crop will bring the evil Tattooed Weed Gang down on our heads? They will surely seek their revenge on us!
You see? I don’t need to be high as a kite to be paranoid.
Of course, I do not see any members of a criminal gang (tattooed or otherwise) for the whole week, no matter how many times I look up from whatever job it is I am doing. Not even when I volunteer to paint the window frames in the back bedroom. This gives me perfect line of sight to where the marijuana was, but other than a few birds and Pat The Cow, there are no signs of life whatsoever.
And so, I forget about my constant vigil. My attention span is minimal at the best of times, and even the threat of death by a criminal maniac can only keep me interested for about a week, before my mind wanders off to somewhere else.
That somewhere else for me is Mischa in her underwear. Again. What can I say? I am a man of little imagination when I’m not on drugs.
As I finish off the last of the undercoat on the windowsill, I start to have a particularly pleasant daydream about the unreachable object of my affections – one that would be instantly banned from cinemas, if it were ever exposed to celluloid. As I’m reaching a fairly graphic part that causes my hand to get a little unsteady as it guides the paintbrush along the woodgrain, I spy something out of the corner of my eye: a brief flash of red coming from the woodland.
I am instantly transfixed. There’s somebody down there!
There’s a person in the woodland. That flash of red was a hooded top, I’m sure of it.
And what do hardened criminals like to wear? Hooded tops, that’s what! We’ve all seen Crimewatch. We all know how they like to skulk around in the shadows with their hoods up, waiting to smack the next unsuspecting person around the head and take their wallet.
My heart starts to race. What do I do? Do I confront this evildoer alone? Do I recruit some of my burly building colleagues to help me apprehend the monster? Do I call the police?
Or do I calm down a fucking bit, take a few deep breaths and go have a better look, before I jump to any more ridiculous conclusions?
I put the paintbrush down, walk downstairs and go out into the garden through the kitchen, eyes locked on the woodland and whatever miscreant may be hiding down there.
‘Where are you goin’?’ Baz asks me from inside the front room, as he notices me creep past the patio doors.
‘Um . . . Pat The Cow. She needs feeding,’ I tell him.
Baz looks confused. ‘I only fed her an hour ago with that stuff Blenkins sold us.’
Pat The Cow has become the de facto mascot for Daley Farmhouse now, and everyone has embraced her as a large, smelly pet. Everyone except Fred, who refuses to have anything to do with her. Poor cow.
‘Well, I heard her mooing,’ I tell Baz. ‘You must not have fed her enough.’
Baz looks crestfallen, and I feel awful. But what else am I supposed to tell him? That I’m jumping at red-hooded shadows? They all had a jolly good laugh at my expense (again) when the full details of the marijuana bonfire came to light. I hardly want to give Baz any more ammunition for a good giggle by telling him I’m off to investigate who put the bloody stuff there in the first place.
With some trepidation, I make my way down to the bottom of the garden. Pat The Cow is actually nowhere to be seen. I can’t rely on her for back up, it appears.
As I reach the hedge, I duck down and crab my way along it, listening for more evidence of human activity. I get it when I hear some sulphurous swearing coming from just the other side of the hedge.
‘Fuck! Fuck! Bollocks!’ the voice says. ‘Where’s it all bloody gone? Fuck!’
Rather than the gruff, harsh tones of a gigantic man who has stabbed more people than he cares to remember, this is the voice of a very angry, but also very teenage, girl. Unless I haven’t been watching the right episodes of Crimewatch, this doesn’t strike me as the type of person who would be part of a gang of international marijuana smugglers that want to use my genitals as earrings.
I’m not taking any chances though, and remain hidden, listening intently to the one-sided conversation going on beyond the greenery.
‘India? Is that you?’ I hear the girl say, apparently into a phone, unless she’s gone mad with the grief of losing her drugs. ‘Where’s Cindy? Is she there?’ A pause. ‘Who do you think it fucking is, you idiot? It’s Mel! I’ve got to tal
k to Cindy. All the bloody plants have gone!’ Another pause. ‘I don’t know, do I? I just got down here, and someone’s nicked them!’
Aha!
So it’s not a gang of Eastern European thugs then. Just some teenage girls.
‘I’m gonna get out of here,’ Mel continues, ‘before he sees me.’
He?
Does she mean me? Has my lonely vigil been noticed?
It’s probably about time I confronted this girl, before she has a chance to slip away.
Emboldened by the fact that I’m fairly sure I could hold my own in a fight against someone who sounds about sixteen years old, I stand up, gird my loins and leap over the freshly cut hedge like Batman on a particularly bad day.
‘Stop right there!’ I cry manfully, which makes Mel scream, somewhat unsurprisingly like a teenage girl.
‘Who the fuck are you?’ she hollers.
‘Me? I’m the man who’s been waiting for you, young lady!’
Mel the teenage drug-dealer’s eyes widen. ‘Paedophile!’ she screeches.
‘What?’
The girl bends down and picks up a large, thick branch, which she then proceeds to hit me with.
This is not going the way I thought it would. This girl is meant to be terrified, knowing that her criminal ways have been discovered by an upstanding member of society. She is not supposed to mistake me for a child molester and start hitting me about the torso with a short length of beech tree.
‘Ow! Ow! Stop it!’ I wail. ‘I’m not a bloody paedophile!’
‘Yes, you are! I know your type!’ Mel argues. ‘Britney got jumped out on the other day when she was walking home from Budgens. He waved his willy at her and asked her to touch it. And Britney is a right fat lard ball, so he must have been a weirdo! Just like you!’
She swings the stick at me again, but this time I manage to dodge it, my arms flailing wildly as I lose my balance and fall back into the hedge. This gives Mel the hooded terror the opportunity to advance on me, stick held aloft. ‘I’m not touching your willy!’ she screams.
‘Everything alright here, is it?’ Baz says conversationally, from where he’s peering over the hedge at proceedings.
‘Baz! Help me, Baz!’ I implore.
‘This bastard wants to fiddle with me!’ Mel rages at him.
Baz calmly pokes a finger in one ear and has a bit of a rummage. ‘I doubt it, luv,’ he tells the girl. ‘You’re not his type.’
‘Thank you, Baz!’
‘If you was from Europe and liked to design houses you might stand a chance.’ Baz chuckles. ‘Not like he does though, eh, Danny?’
‘Here! That’s not fair!’ I argue, temporarily forgetting that I have an enraged and tiny teenage girl standing over me, ready to bash my brains in with a big stick.
‘Sorry, Danny. Couldn’t resist,’ Baz tells me, and climbs over the hedge himself. ‘Gi’s that, luv. Can’t have you smashing the boss’s head in.’
I’m touched by Baz’s use of the word ‘boss’ in relation to my good self. It’s a slightly misconstrued description, but I’ll take it nonetheless.
‘He’s a paedo!’ she snaps.
‘No, he ain’t,’ Baz disagrees, snatching the stick away. ‘But you’re a druggie, right?’
Mel’s face goes white. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You’re the one who planted all them Mary Jane plants that Danny found the other day. The coppers cleared it all out though, there ain’t nothing left.’
‘Coppers?!’ Mel says in a terrified tone.
‘Yeah!’ I interject. ‘The police are on to you!’ I tell her, trying to get back to my feet as I do.
Mel backs away. ‘Oh God! Please don’t take me to them! Please don’t let them know it was me!’ She shakes her head back and forth. ‘It was Cindy’s idea. She got the seeds from her brother! She said we should plant them here cos of my dad!’
‘Your dad?’ I ask, confused.
Mel’s eyes go wide. ‘Please don’t tell my dad! He’ll kill me!’ Tears start to well up at the corners of her eyes.
‘Here, steady on,’ I say. ‘Don’t cry.’
Baz rolls his eyes. ‘Let’s get back over this hedge and up to the house.’ He points at Mel. ‘If you try to run away, I’ll grab you before you get far, alright?’
I know Baz is a right soft touch, but he is still six foot three and built like a brick shithouse, so I can understand the look of fear that crosses the girl’s face.
It doesn’t go anywhere while we frogmarch her up to the house, and it gets even more pronounced when Fred’s entire crew crowd around her.
‘You’re in a lot of trouble, petal,’ Fred tells Mel and points at me. ‘Your drugs made poor old Daniel here think a demon cow was after him.’
Oh, thanks, Fred.
Mel gives me a long look. ‘Really? Cos all I get off that stuff is a buzz. Cindy says she sees tracers, but I don’t believe her. You really saw a demon cow?’
‘Maybe,’ I reply in a very small voice. Now I have the distinct pleasure of knowing that I have less resistance to strong marijuana than a bunch of teenage girls.
‘Who’s your dad?’ I ask her, changing the subject. Her face blanches.
‘Look, flower,’ Fred says, ‘it’s either we tell your dad, or we tell the coppers. Choice is yours.’
‘Shouldn’t we just tell the police anyway?’ Hayley says.
Fred shrugs. ‘What good would it do? She’s fifteen years old.’
‘Sixteen,’ Mel says with a huff.
‘Sixteen years old. They won’t charge her with anything. I reckon her dad will be a better bet, punishment wise. If she tells us who he is.’
‘I ain’t saying nothing,’ Mel says, crossing her arms.
It’s at this point that Pat The Cow appears in the doorway, looking at Mel intently.
The girl turns around and says something that gives me a bloody good idea of exactly who her father is, whether she wants us to know or not. ‘Angelina?’ the girl says incredulously. ‘What are you doing here?’
I put two and two together.
‘Blenkins!’ I shout. ‘Your dad is Blenkins! He owns the farm next door.’
Mel cringes. She knows I’ve got her pegged! She starts to cry. ‘He’s going to kill me! He’s going to bloody kill me!’
‘Moo,’ Pat The Cow intones, as one who has finally seen justice served this day.
En masse, we deliver Mel back to her father.
As she predicted, he is not best pleased. ‘Growing drugs on moi land!’ he snaps at her. ‘You’re in a lot of trouble here, missie! You just wait until I tell your mother!’
The farmer turns back to us. ‘Are you gonna tell the police on her?’ he asks.
‘Nah,’ I reply, to his visible relief. ‘If Mel here promises not to do it again, we’ll say no more about it.’
In truth, getting the police back would be more hassle than it’s worth, and I have no real desire to ruin the life of a small girl just because she made one stupid mistake.
‘Thanks very much,’ Blenkins says. ‘How’s Angelina workin’ out for ya?’
‘Pat The Cow is a legend,’ I tell him. Everyone behind me nods in agreement.
Then they stop, realising how stupid they look. Pat The Cow’s influence runs deep.
We exchange a few more words with the farmer while Mel squirms and looks at her feet. I have a feeling that her mother is the disciplinarian of the family, and will be meting out the kind of justice that the police probably couldn’t get close to if they tried.
We part company with Blenkins and Blenkins Junior, satisfied that this matter can now be put behind us.
As I wander back to the house with the others, I am forced to reflect that without Pat The Cow’s timely intervention, we may have never discovered who Mel’s father was.
Maybe my idea for a cow-based TV series isn’t so ridiculous after all. Altogether now:
It’s Pat The Cow, she’s Pat The Cow,
If you’re in troubl
e, she’ll come right now.
She catches thieves, she catches thugs,
She’ll tell your dad if you grow drugs.
HAYLEY
October
£129,734.28 spent
When we began this crazy renovation I did a lot of reading about the pitfalls and problems that you can – and probably will – encounter during the project. I am a girl who likes to plan ahead, and I most certainly do not like surprises. You can imagine how disconcerting I found it when pretty much the first thing I read about house renovations was to ‘expect surprises’. Nevertheless, I spent a great deal of time familiarising myself with the kind of bombshells we might encounter, just to be as ready as possible for any eventuality.
And so far that prior planning has paid off. There have been some shocks and surprises along the way, but each and every time, they were the kind I half expected to happen at some point. Take the subsidence, for instance. That ended up costing us thousands more than we thought, but while it was painful in the pocket, it wasn’t a complete and total surprise. Therefore, my stress levels remained in the yellow zone. More floorboards needed replacing due to the woodworm as well. Again, this was expensive and time-consuming, but was a fairly typical problem with a property of this age and again, my stress levels didn’t tick into the red zone once.
Yes, indeed, I thought that whatever Daley Farmhouse wanted to throw at us, I was ready and prepared to deal with it. Woodworm, rising damp, broken sewerage pipes, bad wiring, bad weather, bad insulation – Hayley Daley was ready to cope with all of these things, and many more!
However, in all those online articles I read, in all the books I bought, in all the TV shows I watched, not once, not bloody once, did anyone mention that during a house renovation you might come across unexploded ordnance.
Yes, that’s right. A fucking bomb.
An unexploded shell from the Second World War, to be more precise.
I mean, come on people. That’s entirely unfair!
If we were fixing up a house on the Normandy beaches I could accept it, but not in the middle of the bloody Hampshire countryside!
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