Welcome

As time grows short there is much left to say. I sometimes waste whole hours and minutes, but I try not to waste a whole day.

Monday, December 14, 2009

Chapter Fourteen - Mister Creosote


Both Gerry and his brother were put to work, a brush each, at the very unpleasant and onerous task of creosoting the perimeter wooden fence of the Hood’s boundary. Their property, which consisted not only of the house, its manicured lawns and well-stocked gardens also comprised the adjacent building-plot which his father had set-aside as his pension plan. At the time this had variously consisted of a vegetable garden which Gerry and his brother would be required to dig and weed, a large asbestos-panelled shed - which had once been inhabited by a flock of Bantam chickens which the boys were required to muck-out, and which now mercifully housed only three of the four Jack-Russell terriers on which Bill doted - a hut containing oscillating numbers of ferrets - the mightiest of whom was called Joe Young and whose mere size alone terrified everyone except Gerry’s father - the rusted hulk of the family’s deceased Vauxhall Velox, and the wasps nest which lay hidden inside the mound of turves which had been cut from the foundations of the house in which the Hood’s dwelled.

Wasps nests held a special place in the Hood family history. Many years ago a wasps nest had insinuated itself in the back garden of Gerry’s grandfather’s cottage and toward the end of summer its inhabitants had become a persistent pest. Gerry’s grandmother was despatched to Lincoln on the Road Car bus whereupon she collected a mysterious bottle of chemicals at her husband’s instruction which was provided according to his scribbled note on a scrap of paper. The blue bottle, which sat next to her, balanced uncertainly on the vibrating bus’s parcel shelf, was duly transported back to Toleby where her husband poured a very small amount into the wasps nest. A mere whiff of its contents rendered a down-wind neighbour instantly unconscious and upon regaining consciousness he was mortified to learn that its contents, sodium cyanide, had been delivered on the bus. Such was its toxicity that it would have rendered the entire bus, if not village inert and possibly dead in seconds had the bus driver not somehow managed to time his acceleration and braking to such perfection on that day.

His grandmother managed to recount the tale with quiet amusement perhaps blissfully unaware of how close she had come to meeting her maker. Gerry’s father had a quite different strategy for the recently arrived wasps nest to which the boys had alerted him. He burned them out by setting a petrol soaked rag on the end of a pole and dangling it into the swarms entrance to their nest. It was highly effective if dramatic and ended the insects brief reign of terror. The boundary fence itself had become a source of territorial dispute between Bill Hood and his neighbour Dave Holly. It was an odd dispute occasioned by Mr. Holly’s insistence of planting Burgundy Poplar trees along the length of the shared boundary. Bill had apparently resisted this new arborial invasion, pointing out to his hitherto friendly neighbour the effects of their aggressive root growth and how this would ultimately affect the foundations that Bill proposed to erect for a bungalow on the land under which they would inevitably make their incursion.

Undeterred, Dave Holly’s trees arrived, bundled in the earth of their foreign ancestry, and were planted, three feet apart, as he had intended. Dark mutterings from Bill were heard as he chewed his way through disgruntled dinner and within a week the sleek and healthy looking saplings were suddenly showing all the signs of a very premature autumn. As their leaves browned and fell the striplings, as they now were, became the subject of heated discourse between the two neighbours and botanical experts determined that this climate change phenomenon had been occasioned by their roots, on the Hood side of the boundary, being encapsulated in milk bottles full of Sodium Chlorate, a secret intervention of Gerry’s father.

The resulting court case was bitter and very expensive and during its protracted course caused much disharmony in the home resulting in Gerry’s mother’s breakdown from the stress of it all. No good came of the case with only lawyers profiting and although Gerry’s father and his neighbour did eventually mend their own fences much sleep, money and goodwill was squandered over a petty and avoidable dispute.

Like the court case, the fence painting was a protracted and miserable business. Although the boys were both issued with protective, over-sized, rubber gloves the creosote would splash their faces, arms and chests, leaving sore and painful burn marks. From time to time their misery was compounded by well-meaning friends who would visit to enquire ‘are the boys coming out to play?’ which merely served to deepen the dark mood that Gerry’s brother Glenn had fallen into since being summarily placed on the chain-gang of his father’s invention and his brother’s misdeeds. Entire weeks were thus consumed as the blackened and sweating boys carried out their sentence in solemn stripes of molasses-black stench until, magically, the whole fence stood out like a cauterised barrier of resentment in a deeply wounded neighbourhood. Like the black flag of the plague their hated achievement stood before them in all its grim glory. But then there was the newly arrived greenhouse to paint, this time in white thixotropic paint, which Gerry set-to in isolation, his brother’s repeated pleas for clemency having finally been heard and Gerry’s muffled admission to the boxwood-rule fiasco having extended his sojourn with a paintbrush.

This was no ordinary greenhouse, purchased from some now-bankrupt horticulturalist, it was longer than the house was deep and Gerry had to paint every facet of this enormously complex structure. Envying third-world children served to get Gerry through the torturous frames with vents that had a further eight facets per vent but the smell of the paint was appalling and with his senses rapidly mutinying upon him Gerry found himself fantasising about going back to school, notwithstanding that this would mean his new school, the grammar school. Driven perhaps by the fear of this unknown establishment he accelerated his progress and, by the simple expedient of watering-down the loathsome paint, completed his Herculean task before the holidays were entirely spent. A day in town, being fitted for his new uniform still left Gerry with a few precious days in which to act out his by now murderous fantasies against his father but he chose instead to return to his larcenous friends who had taken up residence that summer in the cricket scoreboard at the local recreation ground.

It wasn’t really a scoreboard but a hut that housed, and through rectangular holes displayed the spools of numbers which it had been discovered made very useful hammocks when laid upon the length of starched and painted calico material from which they were constructed. It was whilst laying aimlessly upon one, one sultry afternoon that the plot to burgle the nearby sports club was hatched. A reconnaissance of the building had revealed a weakness in the sash windows to the rear of the building which it was felt could easily be jemmied open at night. The club was the haunt of sportsmen from the surrounding district whom, after their exertions at football, tennis or in this season, cricket, would emerge clutching frothing pints of beer, and if there was beer to be had there was most likely cigarettes to be plundered also.

Although the job was discussed by several boys in the event it was left to Gerry and his new ‘big’ friend Buster to carry out the crime. Ralph Ireland-West was kept firmly out of the loop on this one and Gerry and Buster approached the blacked-out building in cautious silence. The window provided little or no resistance to the spade they had located leant up against the wall and was easily pried into the open position for their stealthy entry. Buster allowed the smaller boy to enter first and as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness Gerry was just about to warn the much larger boy of the nearby pot of paint when his size eleven shoe stepped straight into it, submerging his unseen foot up to the ankle. Disconcerted by this unexpected development, Buster made his complaint widely and loudly but Gerry placed a quieting finger on his lips to avert discovery. They waited as the headlights of cars spilled into the darkness but then passed and taking their torches, borrowed for the occasion, they approached the serving hatch beyond which lay their anticipated spoils. Well more behind than beyond, as barring their way was a wooden panel affixed at both ends of the bar by two enormous padlocks. This was their second unexpected barrier and as Buster trudged disconsolately around bemoaning his ruined footwear Gerry made a surprise discovery. The serving hatch may well have been carefully secured but the entrance door had been carelessly left open.

Or so it appeared! Walking through the door revealed a different scene. Scattered on the floor in front and around them lay the detritus of wanton theft and destruction. Empty and broken bottles of spirit littered the floor like a Western Saloon following a barroom brawl. Scattered on top of it was the litter of chocolate wrappers, crisp bags and what appeared on first inspection to be a mat of mud and cardboard but which proved to be the combined matter of chocolate and the vending box which previously contained the sticky repugnant mass. What the previous visitors couldn’t consume they had trampled flat. Central to this less than charming pastiche of destruction was the now looted till which still contained two one-pound notes and some very small change. The two boys turned their astonished faces toward one-another silently declaring their sombre realisation - they’d been beaten to it! Someone had already robbed the place that night! And now, were they apprehended red-handed like this, they’d get the blame! They would go to borstal for sure!

As the grim calculations raced through their minds, now vapid with the seriousness of their situation Gerry moved for the quickest way out. The way they’d come, of course. But what if Police dogs were awaiting them now? Stifling the urge to panic Gerry lead his mystified friend back the way they’d come but as he ushered his petrified friend to climb once again through the casement window disaster struck once more. He stepped unerringly into the paint can, this time with the other, as yet unspoiled size eleven brogue shoe. Splat! Once again up to his ankle in grounds man’s boundary marking paint. Gerry hurried the hapless giant out of the window and they raced off across the field for home furiously aware that as they ran they were leaving behind them a perfect set of size eleven footprints which accurately described their escape route and the whereabouts of at least one of the culprits.

They waited silently for the finger of blame to arrive at Buster’s door and said little to even their confidants about their hapless adventure. That they were never apprehended or even questioned about the moonlit raid said much for the incompetence of the local constabulary who were, had the boys but known it, engaged in their own petty scandals, corruptions and debaucheries as Ray Ireland-West knew all too well. The fact that they were signally unable to follow the ivory white size-eleven footprints which lay all the way to the doorstep of one of the miscreants is a little harder to explain, unless the crime remained unreported for equally mysterious reasons they would never fathom.
Gerry’s summer of punishment had taught him one thing for sure. Don’t get caught, but if you do get caught, deny everything! An honest man’s appeal to honesty had almost made a crook out of him and the black book in which Ralph Ireland-West had already left a mark - and in which they would both write several new chapters - now fell open before Gerry who resolved that crime, and punishment, were very random things!

No comments:

Post a Comment