Lettuces and Cream (2 page)

‘Here, Zac, pack these carpets around the piano we don’t want it scratched.’

‘Okay man, sure thing,’ Zac replied in his overly relaxed manner. Mike would have preferred him to appear a little more alert and concerned.

‘What’s next Jan?’

‘Beds I think.’

And so it went on. Walking back and fore stuffing little things in little places to maximize the load. It all had to done in one trip; there was no coming back. The plan was that Jan would drive Mikes beloved maroon coloured Austin Cambridge, together with the kids, Blackie the cat and as much small stuff as possible. Mike would go with the van and show Zac the way.

‘We’re nearly done, Jan, you and the kids can get going and we’ll finish up here.’

‘Okay, love, take care –what’s that funny smell.’

‘Zacs tobacco, he said it’s some herbal stuff for his weak chest,’ Mike replied naively.

The van trundled on through lanes and villages and Mike relaxed a little as he observed the scene from high up in the cab. How peaceful it all looked with the cattle and sheep munching quietly in the fields in the warmth of the late August sunshine. It was an idyllic image that dreams are made of and Mike felt elated that he and Jan were going to be part of the rural landscape and that they had escaped as it were from the confines of town. And, as Mike had jokingly remarked, ‘and to be able to have a pee in your own fields without worrying about what the neighbours would say.’ This was a strange offer that Jan had found extremely easy to decline. As the van crossed the county marker for Cardiganshire he was also reminded of what one bar-propping customer and ex-pat of the County, had told Jan. She used to work part-time in the bar of an hotel and when he had learnt where Jan was moving to, had joked, ‘oh yes, that’s where they sleep with each other’s wives all year, and share the kids out at Christmas.’ Although it was a joke, it was not what Jan wanted to hear. She was hoping they were leaving thoughts of such behaviour behind them.

The twenty-acre smallholding, situated some four miles from the tiny village of Llanbeth, was accessed by about a third of a mile of rough stone track with frequent, foot deep rain gouged holes. It was okay for tractors but not much use for anything else and was a big job on Mikes list.

‘Slow down Zac, the track is really rough.’

‘Yeah man no worries,’ he was fond of saying that.

The first part of track sloped downwards and was the most un-manoeuvrable section. Once past this it levelled out and was less rutted.

‘Slow down Zac, this is the worse bit. Watch out for the ditch on your side.’ Mike took his eyes off the road for a second to give Zac a worried glance. Zac seemed oblivious to the conditions and didn’t seem to know what slow meant.

‘Slow down Zac, for Christ’s sake.’ It was to late. The front wheel of the van slid into the ditch and there was a sickening crunching and slithering of the vans contents.

‘Wow man, some crazy trip eh.’ Zac turned off the engine and lit up yet another of his herbal smokes. The impact of the crash had tousled Zacs long and unkempt hair over his face, which gave him a manic appearance. Mike felt like giving him a bloody good shaking as he seemed totally unconcerned as to the predicament. He too lit up one of his own cigarettes and prepared to climb down from the now angled cab and assess the situation.

In the farmyard Jan and the children were sitting in the car waiting for Mikes arrival. The cat was still howling within the confines of the cardboard box and the children were busting to get out of the car. Three and a half hours was a long time for them to be in one place.

‘Can we get out now Mum please?’ David pleaded.

‘And me mum, can I?’

‘Daddy will be here soon then we can all get out. Here he is now.’ She knew instantly that something was wrong.

‘What’s the matter, where’s the van?’

‘In the bloody ditch, I told him to slow down, the useless sod. He seems to be half asleep and nothing seems to bother him.’ Mike rarely swore. He dragged agitatedly on his cigarette.

‘What do we do now, love,’ Jan said sympathetically, resisting the urge to say, I told you so.

‘See Mr Davis, he must know someone with a tractor. He’s still here I suppose?’

‘Yeah when I arrived he was having a meal as though he has all the time in the world.’

‘Bugger, still, we need him now. I’ll go and see him.’

‘Oh yes, and there’s a woman with him. His wife I think.’

‘He told us she had run off with the coal-man.’

‘Well perhaps she’s come back. Perhaps she’s after the money from the farm sale…

‘Slowly now, right, start the van up, leave it out of gear, Dan.’ The father and son team, Idris and Daniel, had arrived with a monstrous tractor that looked capable of towing the Queen Mary let alone a three-ton van. Zac just stood by and let them get on with it totally unconcerned about the state of his van. Mike’s only worry was the condition of the contents. The two welcome helpers shouted instructions to each other in what was to Mike incomprehensible local Welsh but with a good sprinkling of easily recognized four letter words, and effortlessly positioned the van back on to Terra Firma.

‘You going to be living here then, are you?’ Said Idris giving Mike and Zac a bemused look.

‘I am, he’s not,’ Mike replied, gesturing towards Zac. ‘We’re going to start a nursery growing salad crops, lettuce and tomatoes mostly,under cover in plastic tunnels.’

Idris looked bewildered ‘Lettuce? Plastic tunnels? Out here?’ his head turned, scanning the wide-open fields dotted with patches of woodland. It was obvious that unless Mikes plans included four hooves and mooed, his ideas were bizarre and out of place. Added to that Idris probably wasn’t too keen on eating raw lettuce leaves either. Only animals did that. The quizzing continued with Idris wanting to know where they were from and all the other, ‘ins and outs of a cats bum,’ as Mike’s grandmother would have said.

‘Anyway thanks very much. What do I owe you Mr?’

‘Evans-Idris Evans, no, no nothing at all.’

‘I’m Mike, Mike Jones and I’m really grateful, but are you sure I don’t owe you anything Idris?’

‘Yes yes, nothing, we’ll be off now,’ he looked at his watch, ‘it’s nearly time for milking anyway.’ Back in the tractor cab the two looked at each other with superior attitude and smiled. ‘I wonder how long they will be here for, eh Dan. Bloody English hippies,’ they both sniggered disparagingly.

By the time Mike and the van reached the house he found the kids had been released from the car and were rampaging with great joy around the overgrown and junk laden farmyard. Jan was still in the car, doors open and enjoying a cigarette and watching a dozen or so scrawny old hens and a cockerel scratching about in the dirt. Jan thought that they were left over’s from the farm sale being too old to interest a buyer. The poor cat was still in the box but had quietened down considerably.

Mr Davis and the woman, who indeed was his wife, had finished their meal and were now throwing a few boxes and other bits and pieces into the battered Land Rover. ‘Now the road is clear we’ll be away now then,’ Mr Davies said, shaking Mikes hand and wishing them well and was off. The old Land Rover belching out diesel fumes disappeared from view and Jan and Mike headed indoors to assess the situation.

‘God, what a mess, they’ve left all this junk for us to clear out, the scruffy devils. Not to worry love,’ Mike said encouragingly, ‘the first thing is to decide which room we can shut the cat in out of the way until he calms down a bit. Those tablets were bloody useless made him wilder not quieter, useless dam vet. Then I think a bonfire is called for before we can get our stuff in. I’ll get Zac to empty the van in the yard so he can get back to Barey. Okay?’

‘Yes alright, I’ll make a start here.’

‘Mum, mum Mandy’s cut her hand on some glass in the yard,’ David shouted from the open front door.

‘Glass? Oh great, - coming,’ Jan shouted in reply and headed outside.

By eight’ o’ clock they had got two rooms ready to sleep in. One for themselves and one for the kids. The children would have to share for a while, which didn’t please either of them, but they would to put up with it. In the yard the bonfire still raged on, consuming vast amounts of old cheap furniture, packets of stale food and mud encrusted, tatty old carpets. The place looked really decrepit when devoid of furniture and Mike’s stomach had given a lurch of panic at what he had taken on. The the now uncarpeted wooden bedroom floors and the boarded ceilings looked decidedly worm ridden. The place had been built in the late seventeen hundreds and looked it. But then, to the farmers of yore a house was just for eating and sleeping in. It was the land and stock that was the important thing, not a pretty home. Mike suggested the place was probably in a worse state because Mr Davis had been living alone, it might have been a little better if his missus had been around, although Jan didn’t think so. It was just the way they had lived.

The kitchen was a half brick lean-to structure tacked onto rear of the house, and for access a doorway had been roughly hacked through the three foot thick outside wall. Roofed outside with corrugated asbestos, inside the ceiling was of cheap hardboard warped with time into an uneven and dirty surface. There was a cold-water tap over a battered cream coloured enamelled sink, which stood upon a crude wooden frame. Placed under each leg of the frame were old house bricks to give it extra height. Mike couldn’t imagine why it hadn’t been made to the right height to start with. There was no telephone, no hot water heating system or mains water. All the water had to be drawn in by an electric pump from a well in the yard to a large, square metal tank situated indecorously on the upstairs landing. However as a standby there was a hand pump fitted to the wall above the motor. But everything had been so crudely and cheaply done and pipes were held up with baling twine and bits of old wooden orange boxes.

The floor was of uncovered concrete-and grease. It was disgusting, and Jan had given a quiet whimper of despair when she first saw it. But after a good old fashioned scrubbing the place looked fractionally less desperate. The kids of course were bemused and intrigued by the situation and David in particular saw many future opportunities for less than perfect behaviour. For instance there was no bathroom or inside W.C - that was a bucket and plank affair set up in a small corrugated iron shed in the yard just outside the front door. Well, the only door to the house actually. To be honest there was a bath - a tin tub hanging on a hook in the barn.

‘’Cos there’s no bathroom we don’t have to have a bath do we mum?’

‘Oh don’t worry son, we’ll think of something, but not today, we’re too busy.’ David gave a smirk of satisfaction and disappeared back outside.

‘Mum I don’t want to go in that toilet, it’s all smelly and spidery.’ Mandy moaned, the tiny cut on her finger now a forgotten major incident.

‘I know darling, it’s not very nice is it, but daddy will sort it all out very soon.’

‘Oh yeah, job nine hundred and ninety-nine,’ Mike said in rather despondent tone. You’ll just have to a brave girl for now. We’re all going to have to use it aren’t we?’

‘Will you come to the toilet with me, mum.’

Jan gave a stifled exasperated sigh and headed to the ‘shed.’

By nine’ o’ clock they had all been fed and watered and Mike and Jan were exhausted and the four of them were sitting in the large living room. All the furniture was indoors and more or less in final positions. Although no doubt Jan would have it all repositioned at least twice. Most of their stuff had survived being flung into the ditch but the piano had lost some of the veneer and sounded rather out of tune. But that was the least of their concerns.

‘What a day,’ Mike sighed, letting out a great stream of fag smoke. ‘Mind you, it was a bit of luck that Idris chap was available. Nice of him not to charge us anything for doing it. Seems a nice bloke. But I think, he thinks we’re English hippies just because I’ve got a lot of hair.’

‘Well we don’t speak enough Welsh do we? It’s their first language after all so I suppose to him we are English. We’ll have to go to Welsh lessons. Anyway, I think it’s time for bed kids, it’s long past your bedtime. But a wash down in the kitchen first. Mandy come on sweetheart I’ll help you.’ There were groans from both of the little Angels, but Mandy meekly followed Jan across the hall from the living room and into the ‘bathroom.’

‘Dad when can we have our dog?’

‘Whew, give me a chance son we’ve only been here half a day and we’re a bit busy right now. Soon, I promise.’

‘And when can we have the telly on.’

Their television was only a small portable black and white and was still packed away-somewhere.

‘I don’t know where it is at the minute. Any way we don’t want it now it’s bedtime, but I’ll try and get it sorted soon, son.’ He had been saying that a lot that day.

Once the kids had eventually gone to bed, Mike and Jan sat quietly enjoying another well-deserved cup of coffee and a cigarette.

‘I’ll think I’ll give up smoking,’ Jan said unexpectedly, and gave the cigarette in her hand a resentful glare.

‘What made you think of that, love?’

‘Well I only used to do it because most of the Am Dram crowd did. Out here, away from the town, I think I could give it up. You should as well Mike-it would save us money.’

‘Oh no, I’ve got enough stress at the minute without that, I’ve got so much to do.’

Suddenly there were bumping sounds followed by a loud cracking noise, then a pause, then hysterical childish laughter from upstairs. David came thumping down the stairs and into the living room with the news.

‘Dad, Mandy was jumping on her bed and the legs have gone through the floor.’ Mike and Jan looked at each other and laughed for the first time that day.

In bed that first night, the room dark and silent even though there were no curtains at the windows, they lay together, but alone, each in their private universe. The intensity of the silence and inky blackness of the unlit countryside had caught them both by surprise. In fact before climbing the wooden hill to sleep they had stood on the doorstep staring out at the sky and marvelling at the utter peace and quiet of the place. They certainly didn’t miss the traffic constantly passing the house nor the glaring street-lights. The contrast with what they had left behind was immense. But now, in this other quieter, calmer world, other thoughts began travelling across their minds. Some were common to them both; such as trying to comprehend and visualize what their new life would be like, but other considerations were far more personal. For Mike, thoughts of sex were never far away, but he was no longer angry. Neither with Jan’s lack of interest, nor with her frequent but gentle rejection of him, but yes, disappointed. He still couldn’t understand why she could surprise him with unexpected and rare moments when she did want sex, and then nothing for weeks. He found this strange, because through her veil of motherly warmth he sometimes caught a glimpse of a powerful sensual streak. He couldn’t define it precisely, but he sensed it. Perhaps with age he was beginning to develop paranormal powers, Mike smiled at this idea but there was something in her eyes, that certain smile if you like. If only he could decipher the code and unlock the passion he believed lay within her. In other ways they got on so well, they were a team. Which was just as well for now he would be working at home everyday.