Bricking It (16 page)

I wonder if she’d like to hear my song about Pat The Cow?

I try to get the giggles under control as the others get closer, without much success.

‘Danny? Are you alright?’ my sister asks. ‘You’ve been down here for ages. The gardener is here to talk to you.’

‘Yes! Yes, I’m fine!’ I reply, tittering slightly.

Don’t think about a cow in a crown.
Don’t think about a cow in a crown.

‘Pleased to meet you, Danny,’ Sally Willingham says, offering me a hand. I go to shake it, but miss completely, as a wave of nausea blows through me.

‘Oh dear,’ I say. ‘I appear to be feeling a little light-headed.’ I attempt to grasp her hand again, this time with more success. I pump it up and down once before letting go. ‘So! What do you think of our garden then?’ I say in an inexplicably loud voice.

Sally Willingham is taken aback. ‘Um, it’s very large. But there’s plenty we can do with it.’ She points at the bonfire. ‘Mr Babidge told me you were down here clearing some cuttings away.’

I gaze at the fire.

I continue to gaze at the fire.

I continue to continue to gaze at the fire.

In fact, the fire is all that exists in the universe. Its flickering flames, its burning inner light, its curling, wonderful swirls of smoke that I could get lost in for hours . . .

‘Danny!’ Hayley snaps. ‘Sally is talking to you!’

‘Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm?’ I reply, sounding like a malfunctioning electrical transformer.

Hayley looks exasperated. ‘I said, Sally is talking to you.’

What is a Sally? Is it an alien creature? Or maybe it’s a small turtle from beyond Atlantis?

Maybe Sally is a cow, just like Pat The Cow. They could rule us together as our benevolent cow overlords. The world would bow to their bovine might. We would tremble! Tremble, I say!

I collapse into another fit of giggles. The three of them stare at me as if I have gone completely off my rocker, which to a certain extent, I have.

Maybe that’s it . . .

Maybe I’ve gone stark staring insane in this garden. After all, people do go insane, don’t they? Maybe this is how it happens. Maybe one minute you’re a perfectly normal human being cutting down some hedges, the next you’re visualising cows as world leaders with tears of laughter streaming down your face.

That must be it.

Oh God! I’ve gone mad!

I instantly sober up as I realise that for me, the universe has now become a dark and cold place. Has the sun gone in above my head? Yes, it has! The world has darkened! The creature comes for me!

What slouches towards Bethlehem? I do! I am cursed by the demon! Star Wormwood! The end of days!

I give my sister an imploring look. ‘I . . . I think there might be something wrong with me,’ I tell her in a raspy voice.

Sally Willingham has been studying me closely for a few moments, with a speculative look on her face. She takes a couple of steps past me, and sniffs the air closer to the bonfire.

‘Ah, I think I see what’s happening here,’ she tells us all.

‘Is it Satan?’ I ask, terrified. ‘He’s come to claim me, hasn’t he?’

‘I very much doubt it, Mr Daley.’ She points at the burning plant material. ‘That’s your problem.’

‘What is?’ Hayley asks.

‘I believe your brother’s bonfire consists largely of marijuana,’ Sally states, trying not to laugh.

Fred has no problems expressing his amusement. ‘Ha! I don’t believe it! The captain’s gone and got himself stoned!’

I am not laughing – far from it. I’ve reached a stage of such sublime paranoia and dread from the vast amounts of marijuana smoke I’ve inhaled that I’m pretty much terrified of everything. Out of the corner of one eye I see Pat The Cow ambling towards us. Except that it is no longer Pat The Cow. It is Pattus Cowisicus, Roman deity of death and destruction. She has come to claim me! Claim me for her own!

And with that, I’m off and running.

‘Danny!’ Hayley shouts, but I hear none of it. Pattus Cowisicus is right behind me! I must flee for my mortal soul!

Sadly, standing between me and the ability to flee from the Friesian Death Goddess, is one of the twisted old apple trees, whose trunk I choose to run into at full speed.

Did I say apple tree? No. What I meant is Arborus Applosicus, Roman deity of torture and severe bowel cramps brought on by sorbitol intolerance.

‘Mehunga!’ I screech. I have no idea who or what a Mehunga might be. Perhaps I am praying to a sworn enemy of my two foes, in the hopes that he or she may appear out of thin air to save me from a fate worse than death.

This does not happen, of course. Rather, I stumble backwards away from the apple tree and lose my balance, collapsing onto the uneven grass. To me, this does not feel like rough, uneven ground covered in stones and clumps of dying grass. To me, it is a soft and comfortable mattress made of woven cloud, upon which I can rest my weary head for the rest of eternity.

Not even Pattus Cowisicus and Arborus Applosicus can trouble me here. In this place, all is well. All is good. All is peace.

‘Had we better call an ambulance?’ I hear the disembodied voice of my sister say.

‘Yes, I’d say so,’ Sally Willingham replies. ‘From the looks of his reaction, that was some very strong stuff he burned. Probably a strain of outdoor skunk.’

There’s a pause.

‘My brother is a police officer,’ Sally Willingham continues. ‘You learn things.’

Instantly, my peace is shattered. The police! The man! 5-0! The Rozzers! The Peelers! The Old
fucking
Bill!

I’m a man stoned out of his brains on skunk. They will arrest me, chuck me in the nearest cell and throw away the key!

My becalmed state is immediately replaced by the paranoia and fear again. This time it’s not cow gods I am afraid of, it’s having my poor innocent bottom ravaged by a never-ending queue of hardened criminals.

I must get away!

I’m back on my feet before anyone can stop me, and within seconds I’m careening down the side of the house with my sister, builder and potential landscape gardener in hot pursuit. They catch up to me as I’m sat astride my motorbike, trying to kick-start it into life.

‘Danny! What are you doing?’ Hayley demands, pulling at my arm.

I slap her away. ‘No! No! Leave me alone! My poor bottom! They will destroy my poor bottom!’ I wail, still feverishly working at the kick-starter with one trembling leg.

Fred Babidge assesses the situation and decides to take a decisive course of action. ‘Right, my old china, that’s quite enough of that. I once had to calm my cousin Clive down when someone slipped him a mickey in his drink. Let’s see if the same method works on you.’

Fred stands beside me, measures me up, and gives me a hard bop on the side of the head with his fist. This has the desired effect. I fall limply off the motorbike and crumble to the asphalt. This does not feel like a comfortable mattress in any way, in fact it feels like precisely what it is – a hard black road surface, designed to carry heavy vehicles. In the sane part of my brain that has been locked away by all that inadvertent marijuana abuse, a coherent thought forms: I must be coming out of it. The weed must be losing its potency.

I no longer think monster cows are after me. I do, however, start to feel the massive bump on my head incurred from hitting that apple tree at full pelt.

‘Can someone help me back inside please?’ I ask the three of them. ‘I think I might need an aspirin.’

Four aspirin and two pints of water later, the ambulance arrives. Hayley is dismayed to see that one of the paramedics is Alistair, the poor bugger she abused some time ago when she shot herself with a nail gun. He doesn’t look happy about being called back to this house either. Last time he was here, he nearly broke an ankle. I’m sure he wants to see the back of the place this time as quickly as possible, before it can do him any more injury.

To that end, he and his female partner deal with me swiftly. They take my blood pressure and run a few other checks to see that my vital signs are all okay. Alistair also treats the bump on my head with some antiseptic, which stings like hell.

‘You know, we have to tell the police about this,’ he says to me.

‘Yeah. I figured as much.’

To tell the truth I’m not all that concerned about the police coming down here, now that the drug high has worn off. If nothing else, I want them to get rid of the rest of the marijuana at the bottom of our garden.

‘How the hell did it get there? Who put it there?’ I ask the tired-looking policeman who turns up to the house about half an hour later. The paramedics have gone by this time. As he left I’m sure I saw Alistair sketch the sign of the cross, which I felt was a little over the top.

The copper shrugs. ‘Could have been anyone really. These more remote areas are popular for growing outdoor marijuana plants. It’s probably kids.’

‘I thought you had to grow that stuff in a greenhouse or something?’ Hayley pipes up. This is a good question. If I knew marijuana could grow outdoors in the UK I might have realised what I was burning before it sent me loopy.

‘Nah. Some strains can grow outdoors here,’ the copper replies. ‘It just needs a bit of sun and warm weather.’

Well, there you go. You learn something new every day – even if you didn’t want to. I’ve never smoked cannabis in my life, so all of this has been a real eye-opener for me.

Then Hayley gives voice to a question that makes my blood run cold. ‘What if whoever planted them comes back?’

I hadn’t thought of that! What if it isn’t kids? What if it’s hardened Eastern European criminals, covered in tattoos and just itching for the chance to remove the testicles of anyone who burns their cash crop?

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.