by Tim Orchard
The living room and the kitchen were one big space with a closed staircase running up one wall to the two bedrooms above. The bathroom was a little add-on at the back of the kitchen. They’d lived alone there ever since D.C. moved to the trailer. It was a small space and there weren’t many secrets between mother and daughter.
Julie was on the couch, not exactly prone but resting easy. Stoned. Sometimes Petal felt older than both her parents. With a shake of her head, she laughed and sighed at the same time. “Dad’s already been here, right?”
It was nine in the morning. Julie propped herself up on an elbow. “Yeh, he dropped a handful off on his way by. It’s good.”
Throwing her jacket onto the bench beneath the window, Petal picked up the teapot from the coffee table and felt the side. It was almost cold. She emptied it, switched on the kettle, and flopped down on the couch beside her mother. “Well, at least you could skin up, Mum.”
Julie rolled a joint and they smoked it and drank tea. They talked about Petal’s idea. She asked her mother, “What should I do?” At that moment, Julie didn’t know. She’d been in a co-op once back in London but it was all a bit hazy. She agreed with Petal, but would everybody else? Julie hugged her daughter and they snuggled into each other, touching temple to temple.
Julie said, “It could all go wrong. Some of the people, you know, the ones that have been here for generations, may not see things the way we do. They don’t like drugs and a good few of them don’t like us blow-ins anyway, you know that. Your boyfriend’s dad for one.” She nodded slowly. “You know, if you go out on a limb you better be careful what limb you go out on.”
Petal giggled. “That sounds like some bit of tosh Dad would come out with.”
Julie gave a stunted little laugh. “Well, we did live together for quite a long time. Look, D.C. may be an awkward git, but you know he’s got a good heart and he loves you.”
Pulling herself a little away from her mother, Petal fixed her with a look. “A good heart? You know he wants to keep it all for himself and sell it.”
With a grimace, Julie said, “Yeh, he did mention that.”
They both sighed and were silent for a moment. Petal said, “What’s he like?”
Julie laughed. “He’s like you—but dafter. Don’t worry, he’ll come around in the end.”
They made more tea and some toast. Julie suggested Petal go to the library in Dymchurch and see if there was a book on co-ops. She said, “From what I remember it was all deadly dull: quorums, chairpersons, and a secretary taking minutes.”
Petal said, “What’s a quorum?”
Julie laughed again. “I’ve no idea.”
They chatted on. Out of the blue, Petal asked her mum, “Why couldn’t I have had a normal dad? One that went to work and came home and didn’t keep saying things. I mean, what was all that when I was young and he wouldn’t let me call him Dad?”
There wasn’t really an answer to that. Julie shrugged and kissed her daughter on the cheek. “What can I say? It was a sixties-seventies vibe, know what I mean? We thought we were doing things differently.”
“Yeh, yeh, I heard it all from Dad: there was a counterculture once, but now it’s just an over-the-counter culture, blah, blah.”
They both laughed. After a little while, Julie said, “Anyway, everything looks weird when you look back on it.”
Unable to help herself, Petal had a gentle little dig. “Like free love. What was that?”
Julie licked a couple of papers together and, shaking her head, began to build another joint. “Who knows, in thirty or forty years the sixties and seventies will look even stranger than they are beginning to look now.”
8
After Dick dropped off Petal he went home to face the day ahead, when all he really wanted was to go to bed. His father wasn’t in the house, probably already out stalking the farm for damage. Firing up the bike again, Dick began to tootle about the farm, in between the rows of polytunnels and greenhouses, around the finely tilled fields of strawberries and runner beans, assessing any damage and keeping an eye out for his father.
When Dick found him, Henry Stick was ripping lengths of thick plastic sheeting from the frame of a wind-damaged polytunnel. He stopped and pointed the Stanley knife he was cutting the plastic with at Dick. “Did you see? There’s a couple more damaged. We need people here to help get this straight. It’s going to take a couple of days at least. Get three or four of those hippie fuckers over here. There’s fresh plastic in the barn for the tunnels, and we’ll have to cover the broken glass in the greenhouses with the plastic sheeting as well, until I get the glass cut. Some of the beans need re-staking, and the bird mesh on the soft fruit bushes has blown away.” Stopping suddenly, he stared at his son as though he’d only just noticed him. “State of you. Where have you been?”
Dick sighed, turned off the bike’s motor, and went over to help. He loved his father and hated him at the same time. He’d like things to change because of the love he felt, but he couldn’t break out because of that little bit of hate. He didn’t understand it. He’d tried, but with his dad nothing ever got resolved. Once, when they were both drunk, his dad got all maudlin and told him, “Everybody leaves me.”
Taking hold of the plastic, Dick pulled it taut while his dad slashed, and together they ripped off a whole section and, dragging it away from the tunnel, folded it roughly and dumped it beside the path. They worked together for half an hour or more until the tunnel was stripped.
Dick had understood, that time they were drunk, his dad was feeling sorry for himself and talking indirectly about his wife, Dick’s mother, even though, according to his dad, he never talked about her. In reality, it was Dick who couldn’t talk about his mother because his dad would throw a moody if he did.
Dick said, “I’ll get some breakfast, then I’ll go and check a couple of people out—but don’t expect anyone to come today.”
That didn’t really satisfy Henry Stick but nothing much did. He wanted to gyp and moan. Instead, he sighed and then shouted uselessly after his son’s retreating back: “Make sure you get them here tomorrow!” His rages and anger were useless and he knew it. His aging body told him so, and anyway, what was the point? He knew Dick was a good lad. It was just hard—hard for him to live with someone, to bring him up, to love him, when the way he looked reminded him of the wife he’d lost.
Moving on to the next tunnel, and again slashing away with the knife, Henry thought about his wife and his own failures. He’d been selfish and insensitive back then, and he knew, deep down, that he hadn’t changed all that much. For eighteen years he’d raised Dick alone. He’d done his best but knew it wasn’t always good enough. Something in him had died when Sylvia went, something lovable he’d never got back, and it hurt. He stopped what he was doing, straightened up, and looked about. The farm was a burden to him and always had been. Aimlessly, he mooched down the center of the ruined tunnel, righting the battered tomatoes against the canes. The tomatoes were mostly still green. He touched them gently and the musty smell of them filled his nostrils. He didn’t hate everything.
Once, before he’d come back to the island, he’d been a different type of man: he’d had friends, he was open, he’d been the sort of man who could attract a girl like Sylvia. Sylvia was a London girl. That was where they’d got together, lived together, loved together. London was another world then, and now. He should have known, should have seen Sylvia could never be able to live on the island, but ego and natural-born arrogance was blinding. It was obvious to him now that they could probably have been happy living a different life, in London or somewhere else. He could have been a different man, but everybody is blind and stupid in his own way.
Henry Stick didn’t have to come back to Stickle. He could have just left his dad to die and sold the lot, but he didn’t, he did what the Sticks had always done: hunkered down on the island. But Sylvia wasn’t one for hunkering. Five years and she was gone, and he’d never really gotten over it. Maybe
he’d been wrong, but he wouldn’t let her take Dick, wouldn’t, for a while, so much as let her contact him. As though she could be forced back by emotional blackmail. That stupid idea had blown in the wind a long time back, but either way, none of it had made him happy. Sometimes he couldn’t remember being really happy, happy the way he’d been with Sylvia, and sometimes life was just drudgery, going around and around, doing the same old things, and it hurt. No, he’d never really gotten over losing Sylvia.
At the far end of the tunnel there was a standpipe. He turned it on, ran it for a few seconds, and, bending down, sucked water straight from the tap. Of course, Henry could see things differently when he chose. Then he could pat himself on the back. He’d done good; he’d put his shoulder to the wheel, taken responsibility, and brought his son up, all by himself. Some man for a man. But then most people would have done that for a dog. He loved Dick—didn’t always know how to show it, but he did. How his son managed, what he felt, Henry didn’t know, and now, although they had never talked about it, he could tell his son wanted to leave. It was inevitable. He didn’t want to be left alone and didn’t need to be told that these days he couldn’t manage the farm by himself. He splashed water on his face and went back to cutting away the polythene.
When D.C. had called him a king in his own kitchen, he’d been right. Little big man. The truth was Henry didn’t want to be anything very much anymore. It was like he’d spent the best part of his life angry and now he didn’t know why. The idea of change frightened him, yet somewhere a distant part of him hankered for something different, wanted Dick gone, wanted to get on and deal with what would be left. Henry had made plans. He’d put money aside for Dick, so if or when he did decide to leave, the lad would be free. If worse came to worst, he’d get a manager in and sit back. Whatever trouble the future held for himself, he didn’t want Dick to have to return, the way he’d done.
Back in the house, Dick made himself an egg and bacon sandwich with a dab of brown sauce. He cooked the bacon crispy. He made tea and sat near the warmth of the Rayburn to eat. It was true, Dick did want to leave the island. He felt restricted. It wasn’t about his father, although he didn’t help. It was more about the way people treated him because they’d known him most of their lives. Like he didn’t matter because they knew him so well. If they laughed while they insulted him, it was all right and he wouldn’t be hurt. Either that or they didn’t care when they hurt him. And that was just his friends.
Like with Petal. When he’d asked her what she’d said to Si to make him agree to take the stuff up to the barn, she’d given him a big, wide-open grin and said, “I don’t have to do anything to get Si to help me.” Not that he was jealous of Si, not really; they had been best mates for years. But so had Petal, and she’d ended up with him and he was lucky. Could just as easily have been Si. Had her feelings changed? Sometimes it did seem to him when people knew you too well, they forgot about your feelings.
Friends thought Dick was scared of his dad, but he wasn’t exactly—maybe a bit when he was young, but for all his temper, moods, and bluster, his dad had never raised a hand to him. His father pained him, though, for all sorts of reasons. High blood pressure, for one. His drinking, for another. The fact that without help organizing the pickers, the accounts, and transport to the wholesalers, the farm would fold. Dick may have wanted to leave, but he just didn’t know how to leave his old dad in the lurch.
Dick went to the bathroom and washed the gel and some of the crazy color out of his hair, until his pride and joy was just a drab mullet. Putting on the crash helmet, he set out to gather the workers, ready for the morning.
9
It was midafternoon before Carter and Simp arrived in Dymchurch. They parked the car and checked the ferry time. There was almost an hour to wait. Carter twitched and went into one: “Why? Bloody thing’s just sitting there. Typical. The moment you fucking leave London nothing works right. No wonder the rest of the country’s skint! Don’t give me that north-south divide or that city/country shit. Get it together, you fucking carrot crunchers!”
They went to the pub and Carter had two quick doubles. Simp had a glass of ginger beer. After, they stood on the quay and looked out to sea with their hands in their pockets, waiting. They looked completely out of place.
Carter was wearing a moss-green mohair suit with thin lapels, five-button cuffs, a twelve-inch center vent, and straight-legged trousers. His shirt was a white button-down of soft cotton; the tie was thin, in muted stripes of earth red, bruised blue, and green. His shoes were dark burgundy brogues. If someone had planted a porkpie hat on his head and stuck him in a silly pose, he’d have looked like the oldtime member of a new-time ska band. He was dressed the same way as when he was twenty but twenty-odd years older. He was thin, five ten, and mostly sprung tight. He could still carry it off.
Simp, on the other hand, was a big man, six four, brick shithouse style but with a soft little-boy face. Although Carter was a dangerous man, Simp had been doing Carter’s dirty work since their playground days. It was just a job to him, the same way as some people are carpenters or shopkeepers and all that. Simp was casual in a scuffed tan leather coat that came down to his knees. He wore it open over a baggy Hawaiian shirt with parrots on it and was wearing trainers and Levi’s.
After a little while Carter pointed to a smudge out on the horizon. “Is that it out there?” Simp looked at him and waited. Carter nudged him. “I said, what the fuck is that?”
Simp started. “Sorry, boss, I thought that was one of them rhetorical questions.”
Sometimes it seemed to Simp he’d known Carter forever, and actually he almost had. It was what clever people called a symbiotic relationship. He knew that. It was need and want, help and hindrance, all held in a fine balance. A bit of love thrown in. It had started when they were barely eight years old, in the school toilets.
Carter wasn’t a likable kid. Some of it wasn’t his fault. His mother left him to his own devices while she drank and her men came and went. There was never much money and of what there was he didn’t get his share. He was dirty and he smelled, his clothes were secondhand, he was hyperactive and prone to strike out in all directions. A bunch of the older boys soon got sick of him and had him cornered in the boys’ toilets at break time. Simp happened to walk in, and Carter was punching and biting and kicking for all he was worth, but there were just too many bigger boys and he was going under.
At eight, Simp didn’t think in straight lines, didn’t have an overview, and he didn’t know himself or what he was capable of, and he was big, even as a young one. He didn’t know why he waded in—maybe because they were in the same class. To Simp, Carter was just some kid, a chavvy like himself, a boy at the back of the class. Between the two of them, they had fought the others off, and then later, they picked the boys off one by one as they came to school or as they walked home, intimidating and robbing them of the few pence they had. After that the two lads were left alone. It was the start of a beautiful friendship, and in some ways, it had been the same ever since. There were times these days, though, when Simp wanted things to change.
Mostly it was kids of various shapes and sizes on the ferry. The big, fat black BMW was the only car, and before they set off, the ferryman came over and said, “You realize this is the last ferry today, don’t you?”
Carter didn’t really like to be told anything or asked anything or anything. Looking the man up and down, he said, unpleasantly, “So what?”
With a shrug and a half smile, the ferryman looked Carter up and down. “Nothing.” Let the London pricks find out for themselves.
Off the ferry, they tooled gently down the island’s main street, past the church and the post office and the dozen or so houses. They looked at each other. Carter frowned. “I don’t like this. I do not fucking like this at all, not at fucking all.” The place was dead. Nothing was happening and that bothered him. Nothing happening had always bothered Carter.
On the other hand, Simp didn’t
see the problem. He liked the country; it had good memories. Anyway, there wasn’t any point in getting paranoid. It was the country. It was quiet. That was what the country was like. He said, “Looks nice, quiet.”
Carter blew air through his nose. “It’s too quiet. Something’s got to be going on. It’s like one of those films, you know, where the whole village has a brood of these kids with weird eyes and they end up running the fucking planet.”
Simp looked at him sideways and said, “Weird eyes?”
Carter didn’t bother to explain and, in an attempt to look at his ease, opened the window. He took in a great snoot full of pure air and coughed. Even he had to admit it was all very picturesque and lovely, with the afternoon sun making the air all warm and creamy. But where were the people?
They drove slowly around the island’s rutted roads, the high green hedgerows bursting with blooming honeysuckle, fuchsia, and sukebind. The last’s heavy, sensuous scent filled the car and sent Carter into an uncontrollable fit of sneezing. “Fucking countryside.”
Simp flipped him a pack of anti–hay fever tablets. “Here, here’s those tablets you got last year.”
Carter took out the flask he always carried and, with a swig, swallowed a couple. “Fucking countryside!”
The island was small. Having almost completed a circuit, Simp pulled into the gateway of a field. When Carter stepped out of the car, it was into something nasty a cow had left, and he complained and moaned and spent ten minutes cleaning his shoe with clumps of dock leaves and grass. In the meantime Simp spread a map out on the roof of the car. Together they looked at it this way and that, they turned it around, they cocked their heads. They weren’t Boy Scouts.