by Tim Orchard
In most cross-party discussions, the party of desperation gives in first because it has the most to lose, and so it was with Carter. Carter told D.C. his little story about the weather and loss of income and indicated how the situation could be resolved easily with or without violence and waved the back of his hand at Simp. “Hours he was, walking up and down that desolate beach!” He raised his shoulders and opened the palms of his hands at D.C. “Look at him, barely half the man he was!”
D.C. smiled. Simp shrugged.
Carter said, “Okay, maybe we got off to a bad start, but honest, we don’t want any trouble, I just want my product back.”
Downing his tea in a gulp, Simp took another refill and stepped outside again. He didn’t need to hear any more. Simp knew it was all bullshit. Whatever was agreed to now wouldn’t matter on the day. The bales were Carter’s and he was going to take them back.
For a while, all was quiet between the two men, until D.C. said, “So how much would you give to get those bales back?”
Carter looked around the trailer. It was fucking pathetic how some people were prepared to live, like that fucking vicar with his kitchen from the Dark Ages. Leave me out. It was hard to keep the contempt from his voice but he thought he managed. “Well, let’s say I’d be more than generous. How would ten thousand pounds sound to you?”
They looked at each other and drank their tea. D.C. refilled the cups, and they drank. He said, “I ain’t no quantity surveyor, but my guess is that little lot has got to be worth at least like two million quid.”
Carter couldn’t argue. It was near enough, but he was losing patience and it went against the grain to negotiate. He thought, Fuck you, we’ll just come back and take it. Then, almost without him noticing, a gentle wave rolled through his system, and despite himself, he said, “All right, twenty.”
D.C. watched Carter. He said, “I think ten percent would be more like it. About two hundred thousand pounds.”
That brought Carter back to earth. Money always sharpened his senses. He laughed. It wasn’t a very nice laugh. “You’re out of your league.”
D.C. smiled. “Am I?”
With a shake of his head, Carter said, “What do you do, eh? A few quarters, bits and bobs. You think you know but you don’t understand the game.” Maybe he would have said more or threatened more, but the mushrooms came on him again.
D.C. could see it, and he said, “Don’t I? I was born game. Look, you’re a villain, so your game is fixed because you think yours is the only game, and that’s a weakness. On the other hand, you don’t know me and you don’t know my game. True, you may know your own environment, but this ain’t your environment, old son. You don’t know the people living on this island and that could prove a mistake.”
Carter didn’t really listen to a word D.C. said. Instead he watched the way the light fell through the dirty window and across the tabletop and the way it made the tiny little bits of silvery stuff in the Formica sparkle, and he thought of his daughter, Amber, and her refusal to go back to school. Yeh, he’d spoiled her, and now he didn’t know what to do with her. Under his breath he mumbled, “She’s a good girl really.”
Time passed. Simp opened the trailer door and looked about. The inside was all roundy and kind of pink and homely, and someone had brightened it up while he’d been talking to the pig. He looked at D.C. and D.C. was smiling, and all he could do was smile back. Everything went flat for a moment. Reality checkpoint. Talking to the pig? He reached in the door and tugged at Carter’s sleeve. It wasn’t that he was paranoid, but something wasn’t right. “I think we should go, boss.”
They left like children, nothing resolved.
After they’d gone, D.C. took a flagon of island cider from the fridge, poured a glass, and rolled a joint, and everything was lovely, so he carried a chair outside and sat propped back against the trailer in the sun and watched his pig root around in its enclosure, listened to the birds sing, and loved life and the earth he lived on.
17
That morning, when Petal awoke in her bed, her first unbidden thought was of Si and how their legs had touched when they were taking the bales up to the barn, and that made her think about when they were still both children, always running around together, her, Si, and Dick, always together. The second unbidden thought was how Si and she had practiced kissing, silly kids’ stuff, way, way before she’d thought about boyfriends. As he’d grown older, the scant years between them seemed to stretch, and Si had become shyer and she knew, even if she hadn’t gone with Dick, she could have died of old age before Si made a move. Now she wasn’t so sure. It felt like something between them was different. The last of the unbidden thoughts came as understanding. It was like, until the previous day, she’d grown into the habit of seeing Si merely as a friend. He’d always been there, but now she didn’t know how things had changed or how quickly. In the warmth of the bed, her body had its own kind of fuzzy logic, and she tried to think of Dick, but Si wouldn’t go away. It was that touching in the tractor. Leg against leg. That moment when skin becomes electric. She knew it but didn’t want to fully acknowledge it.
When Petal came down, Julie was already up drinking tea. Petal made toast. They talked about this and that, the way people who live together do, and they talked about the bales and what to do next. Although Petal wouldn’t admit the fact to anyone, even to her ever-loving mum, she knew jack shit about co-ops. She kind of knew what a co-op was but not how to start one. Her mind oscillated between that and Si and Dick. She drank her tea, mind still half under the bedclothes, and sulked and sighed and ate her toast and needed a little help but didn’t want to ask for it. She drank more tea and tossed the crust of her toast back onto the plate, sniffed and held her head in her hands, and said, “Shit, what am I going to do?”
Julie wasn’t an expert, but before they had moved, when they’d lived in the London squats, she’d been part of a food co-op. It had been a small affair, but Julie guessed the legal stuff would be more or less the same and Petal could probably find out most of what she needed to know when she went to the library. Petal grimaced at the term legal. Julie patted her daughter’s knee. “From what I remember it’s all got to be quite businesslike, and before a meeting can take place there has to be a quorum.”
Petal laughed. “What’s a quorum?”
Unable to exactly remember, Julie got the dictionary and thumbed through it. She said, “Apparently, it’s like the amount of members required before any business can be transacted.”
At a loss, Petal yeh-yeh’d her mother. There was too much to think about. She wanted to get things started, if only to distract herself. Si kept drifting into her mind. Right or wrong, something needed to happen. She pulled on a jumper and headed to the ferry, leaving her mother to arrange the meeting. Julie phoned John Newman about having it at his place later that night, and John, in turn, called on D.C. to pass along the information.
The two men sat and watched the pig root around in its sty. They drank cold cider. After a while, D.C. asked, “So did you meet our visitors?”
John shook his head. “No. Si told me he’d seen some strangers. They stayed at the rectory, right?”
D.C. nodded. “I reckon. But anyway, that stuff in your barn, it’s theirs.”
Taking a deep breath, Newman sighed. “What did they want?”
D.C. shook his head. “Leave out that naive shit, John. They want it back, what else?”
With a swig of cider, Newman grunted amiably. “What did you tell them?”
“Well, I told them we would want about ten percent of value. The main man didn’t like that.” He paused. “Oh yeh, and I put mushrooms in their tea.”
John Newman started to chuckle and then D.C. too. After a little while, John said, “That must have helped.”
Innocent as, D.C. laughed again. “Don’t know really. When the mushies came on they left in a bit of a hurry.”
Glass out for more, Newman said, “I wonder what they did. It’s one of those time
s, you know, you’d just like to watch. To be there, like the ghost in that Ghost and Mrs. Muir. Do you think they were all right?”
D.C. wished with all his heart he’d never have to see Carter or Simp again. He wished the mushrooms he’d given them had sent the pair of them stark staring mad and that they’d been taken off the ferry in an ambulance to a nuthouse, destination unknown. Never to be seen again. Fuck them!
He said, “Sure, they’ll have been all right for a few hours, but when they come down they’ll be the same pair of cunts they always were. Some people are just built like that. Anyway, who cares, they caught the ferry, I saw them.” They drank. D.C. said, “But, John, they’ll be coming back for sure. These two, they ain’t no mugs, and it could get nasty. We’ll have to think about that.”
Quaker and pacifist blood still dribbled through John Newman’s veins, and diluted as it was, he still didn’t like trouble, he didn’t like violence, and he didn’t like the sound of dealing with a bunch of villains. What if they came back and took what they wanted? How could they stop them?
D.C. shook his head. “I don’t know, it could be we’ll be hurt. Me, I don’t care, I’ll take my chances, but don’t know about everybody else.”
Even John understood he wouldn’t be able to pacify his way out of that kind of violence. Money. He didn’t like it but knew it was all about money. There was no meaning. Bought and sold was all most folks ever were. Over and over. Democracy was a con, a kind of volunteer slavery. Newman swallowed the rest of his cider and rose to leave. He stretched but said nothing because he didn’t know what to say.
D.C. said, “Don’t worry.” Then he smiled all inscrutable-like. “Eight’s fine with me but I’m bringing one more person along.”
John Newman sighed, shrugged. “Who?”
All enigmatic, D.C. tapped the side of his nose. “I know one thing for sure, this ain’t going to happen without him.”
18
Earlier, after Carter and Simp left the trailer, they almost began to drive away, but the world was strange. They looked at each other boggle-eyed, giggle giddy, daft as brushes. Laughing, Carter said, “Wow! What do you think was in that tea?”
Simp smiled sloppily. “Don’t know, boss, but whatever it was, it works.”
Carter watched Simp attempting to fit the key into the car’s ignition and asked, “Do you think you can drive?”
What the fuck did Simp know? He giggled. “If I can get the key in the ignition, we’ll give it a go, eh?”
They started laughing again, and suddenly the key fit in the hole and it was tight like that, and Simp thought of the dead blues singer Clara Smith and then thousands upon thousands of automatic physical responses, compounded day in and day out, kicked in, and like he was normal, Simp turned the key and watched as, on the dash, all the little lights started shining, and he thought of Joni Mitchell. He couldn’t hear the engine and the steering wheel seemed soft and malleable, but, eyes wide, he did what drivers do next and put the BMW in gear. The clutch, brake, and accelerator were like small, live animals tickling his toes through the soles of his trainers. He didn’t feel dangerous, he felt sensitive. He drove carefully.
For reasons Carter couldn’t be bothered to understand, he was excessively happy. The world was melting around him and he didn’t care. Everything made him want to laugh and that was such an unusual and good feeling that he couldn’t help but give vent to his joy. In a wavering but tuneful voice, he started to sing a Small Faces song: “Here come the nice, looking so good, he makes me feel like no one else could.”
They tootled along. Sometimes the hedgerow was a continuous sunny glade with a twisty little tarmac path that they followed like a pair of little red hooting rides, and other times they watched the rise and fall of the road like they were on a river spreading out wide as it flowed between super-green hedgerows and big open fields dotted with some kind of black-and-white bovines of a caliber they had never seen before. More surreal than Milton Keynes concrete cows—no, not happening. They marveled momentarily. Then there was something else.
They had no real idea where they drove or for how long, but almost unconsciously, like homing pigeons, they found themselves once again at Fishtail Bay. They wandered about on the beach, sat and marveled at empty shells and sea-worn colored stones, at the movement of the sea, at the wheeling sea birds, happy out.
Out of the blue, Carter said, “I wish I had a fishing rod. I’d just like to sit out on those rocks there and do nothing, never again. Catch a fish, fry it, throw out the line. Simple as that.”
The ridiculousness of Carter doing nothing broke Simp up, and the state of Simp broke Carter up, and when they’d recovered, they gave each other man hugs like a couple of hippie twats.
Hours went by, and when normality slowly returned, they went to the dock and waited, docile-like, for the ferry. Simp said, “I like it here.”
Carter, slipping back into reality, said, “If you like it so much, why don’t you move down here and become a carrot cruncher, grow your hair, buy a checked shirt, and start listening to country and fucking western music, instead of that soul crap you like so much.”
Still with a little edge of mushrooms on him, Simp looked about and said, “Yeh, maybe I will.”
19
The first meeting wasn’t called to order, they didn’t elect a chair, no one cared about a quorum, a secretary wasn’t appointed, and no one took notes.
John Newman and Si, Julie, Petal, and Dick were already sitting at the big deal table in the Newmans’ kitchen with mugs of tea in their hands, chatting as they waited. When D.C. walked in with PC Paloney, the talking stopped. Mouths hung open, stalled in midsentence. Mugs hung dangerously, halfway between lip and sip. They all became quiet. With a grin, D.C. put an arm around Paloney’s shoulders. “This is my mate Phil.”
The silence hung. D.C. hugging the policeman was an unexpected occurrence. Eyes skittered as thoughts of prison flickered through their minds. D.C. looked quizzically from person to person.
“What’s up, ain’t you ever seen a pig out of its official blanket before? Look, he knows everything. He watched us taking the stuff off the beach. He’s here to help and we’ll need him on our side if this is going to work.” He paused and rubbed his hands together. “Now, how about a cup of tea?”
While he waited for tea to be poured, D.C. explained about Paloney, and Paloney explained about himself and how he didn’t want the island to become a drugs staging post, but on the other hand he really liked living on the island and he didn’t want the place shut down by a bunch of bureaucrats.
Talk turned to the intentions of the two strangers who’d come to the island. John Newman pointed to D.C. as the only person who’d had any actual contact and Paloney added, “Apart from the vicar and the postmistress. I’ll call there tomorrow and see what they made of them.”
D.C. told what he knew. These were frightening, dangerous people, and if the island was going to do something collectively, they better get it together quickly and be ready. It could turn nasty. When Julie suggested that maybe, as they didn’t know exactly where the dope was, they would give it up and not bother to come back, D.C. smiled. Julie had a kind and loving heart and always looked at life in that way, despite knockbacks, and that was nice, but then again, she hadn’t run into Simp and Carter, he had.
He said, “They know it’s here, not exactly where but they know, and they’ll be back all right and bloody soon.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together. “Money. That lot in the barn has got to be worth about two million. It’s not grass they see, it’s money. Look, we’ll have to be ready for them; these aren’t your average businessmen.”
There was a silence while the rest of them around the table considered consequences and their own fearful hearts. Julie asked, “How much are we talking about?”
“The smaller guy offered ten grand,” D.C. replied. “More when the mushrooms got him, but I wouldn’t rely on that.”
A light went on in most peo
ple’s eyes. Fist clenched, Petal said, “Brill’!”
With a withering look at his daughter, D.C. added, “I told them we’d want somewhere in the region of two hundred thousand pounds.”
Si whistled quietly. “That’s an awful lot of money. Don’t get me wrong, I think Petal’s idea is great, but a lot of people would kill for that much money.”
With a sniff, D.C. shot a sideways glance at Petal. “Well, let’s face it, you can’t change fuck all with ten grand. Seems to me we’ll have to fight to get what we want.”
It was a horrible truth and everyone sat in silence. They could all see perhaps ten grand could change something on a personal level, but spread over the island it would be scrape thin.
Phil Paloney spoke first. “However much money is involved, I think D.C.’s right. If they come back we’ll have to be ready for them.”
Petal could feel the surreptitious, gentle pressure of Si’s knee as it rested against hers. Regardless of whether their legs had touched by chance or design, neither moved. What happens under the table stays under the table, but no—what was happening under the table was affecting her whole body and quite a bit of her mind. She was all over the place. What was actually happening, like having a policeman in on it all and hearing him and her dad agree, was just a bit weird. And the amount of cash involved seemed huge, much more than she’d imagined. Now there was the fear of what could happen if it went wrong. And the slap down from D.C. hurt; he knew how to get her.
At the library, she’d had no trouble finding the right book A Modern Guide to Forming a Co-op—but it had been in the reference section and could not be borrowed. She’d scanned through it, trying as best she could to pick out the relevant bits, but it hadn’t been easy, beginning with the fact that there were several types of co-ops, depending on how it was financed and how the members expected the co-op to function. The members, which in Stickle’s case would be everybody living on the island, had to agree and adopt a governing document. Just the idea of Stickle people all agreeing was mind-boggling, never mind the legalese, much of which she didn’t understand. Nevertheless, she’d photocopied a dozen or so pages, which she intended to study until she did understand. The trouble was, by the time she was back on Stickle, the meeting had been arranged and she hadn’t had time to absorb any of it. Then there was Si and Dick, and she just wasn’t prepared.