Every Living Thing (22 page)

“Well, I’m sorry, Calum. I know you’re dead keen on that sort of thing, but those hours are just not practical. We can’t do that—it wouldn’t work.”

He shrugged philosophically, said “Okay,” and turned to go.

“Just a minute, Calum,” I said. “While we’re talking, I’d like to mention something else to you. You’re a bit elusive.”

“Eh?”

“Yes. Difficult to find when I want you. As you know, quite a few of the small farms aren’t on the phone and sometimes the only time I have been able to get hold of an assistant was to catch him at mealtimes. But your eating habits are irregular and often you’re in and out again without my knowing, and there might be something urgent waiting. So please give me a ring whenever you do come in.”

Calum gave me a mock salute. “Very good, sir, I will unfailingly report.”

We went out together to the dispensary and in the passage I was assailed by a dreadful stench. Sickly, horrible, it seemed to be coming from upstairs and I could see wisps of steam issuing from Calum’s flat.

“Hell, Calum, that bloody awful stink! What’s going on up there?”

He looked at me in mild surprise. “Oh, I’m just boiling up some tripe for my animals.”

“Tripe! What sort of tripe?”

“Just ordinary cows’ stomachs. Left-overs at the butcher’s. He says he’ll let me have any tripe that’s gone off a bit whenever I want it.”

I put my handkerchief over my face and shouted through the folds. “Off-colour tripe! You’re not kidding! For God’s sake get up there and take that pan off. And cancel your order at the butcher’s!”

I reeled into the back garden and took a few deep breaths, and as I leaned against the wall, a little thought swam in my mind. I was sure I was going to have a happy relationship with Calum, but nothing in the world was ever quite perfect.

Later that day, when I came in to lunch it was confirmed that he had heeded my words of the morning. The phone rang and it was Calum’s voice at the other end. “Permission to eat, sir!”

“Granted, young man,” I replied, falling in gladly with his sally. I didn’t know it then, but throughout the time he stayed with the practice I would hear those words every day. He never ever came in at mealtimes without checking, and now when I look back over the years and think of him I seem to hear those words.

“Permission to eat, sir!”

W
HEN WE STARTED IN
Rowan Garth, I felt again the stirrings of the urge that had sent me off to those house sales during our first days in Skeldale. As the provider, it was my job to see to the absolute essentials—like the concertina.

At Rowan Garth I had a different kind of blinding insight. I had to make a grass tennis-court in the back garden. It was for the children but also for Helen and me since we were keen players—when we could find the time.

After mapping out the court I realised that the big problem was to stop the balls from being knocked out of the garden and far away. Obviously a lot of high netting was required, and I thought my problem was solved when a fisherman came to the door selling off fishing nets. He had just gone out of business, he said, and he was selling off these superb nets at a giveaway price. I bought an enormous bundle of the things, tightly tied up with tarry rope, for £12 and proudly showed my purchase to Helen.

She was not impressed. “Are you sure you haven’t done something silly again, Jim? You know you are very easily taken in.”

I was indignant. “Taken in? Impossible! You could see that this fisherman was as honest as the day. He was from Fraserburgh and was wearing a navy blue jersey. Cheerful, red, open face, I could smell the tar and salt off him. He said these were the last of the nets and he was selling them off extra cheap to get rid of them so that he can get back home.”

“Hmm. I don’t like the sound of that, either,” Helen murmured. “Did you look in his van to see if he had any more?”

“Well, no…that was quite unnecessary. I assure you I’ve made a good buy this time. Come on, I’ll prove it to you.”

We went out to the lawn and I began to untie the vast bundles of nets. As I opened them up my spirits began to sink. They were a mass of enormous holes, some of them several feet in diameter. Helen began to giggle, and as I unrolled one holey net after another she staggered around laughing helplessly.

“Oh dear,” she said, wiping away the tears. “It’s a good thing there’s one practical person in this family. Thank heaven I never do silly things like this.”

Badly discomfited, I looked glumly at the useless things. “I could maybe patch up those holes with string,” I said.

“Oh, stop it,” Helen said, beginning to fall about again. “Don’t start me off again. I feel weak.”

Those nets were a sore point and I kept away from the subject over the next few weeks, but I did, on several occasions, surreptitiously retire to the lawn when nobody was watching and have a go, unsuccessfully, at doing a bit of patching.

After this disaster I tried to win back a little credibility by thinking of some new ideas for the improvement of the garden. I noticed an advert in one of the Sunday papers for cloches to protect tender plants and it struck me that they would be an excellent thing in the harsh Yorkshire climate. The pictures showed the cloches standing in long trim rows, neat and functional, and they seemed extraordinarily cheap, too.

Without mentioning it to Helen I sent away for a substantial supply. I expected them to arrive in some enormous crate and was very surprised when the postman delivered a modest flat parcel. How could they possibly be the things I had seen in the picture?

The mystery was quickly solved because it turned out that what I had thought was rigid plastic was in fact ordinary floppy polythene sheeting. Not only that, but the rest of the outfit consisted of a mass of flimsy wires with ominous instructions to slide rod A into notch B and engage with flange C. I have never been any good with such things and spent maddening hours wrestling with the wires as Helen watched me curiously.

I was forced to confess my scheme to her and was irritated by the immediately sceptical reaction. She looked doubtfully at my tangled purchases and the corner of her mouth twitched as though she was fighting back a big grin. I fought on doggedly and at last had a row of the wires assembled and began to drape the polythene sheets over them.

The result was pathetic. Helen came out to have another look just as I was surveying what looked like a long, low-slung line of washing with the polythene half attached to the wires and flapping disconsolately in the wind.

It was too much for my wife. She collapsed against the wall of the house and after a minute or two of unrestrained laughter had to go inside and sit down. I was left in the garden trying to muster a bit of dignity, but I couldn’t bear to look at the cloches any more. I bundled them quickly into their original parcel and hid them away in the garage. It was another catastrophe and my stock plummeted even lower.

A week later I came in from my round and found Helen in an unusual mood. She was wide-eyed and excited, slightly breathless.

“Come in and look at this, Jim,” she said, leading me into the sitting room. The furniture had been pushed back to accommodate an extraordinary carpet, a huge, garish thing, thick and knobbly.

“What the devil’s this?” I asked.

“Well,” she was more breathless than ever, “a man came to the door this afternoon with this lovely carpet. It’s a genuine Kasbah.”

“A what?”

“A Kasbah. It’s a very rare oriental type of carpet.”

“Oriental?”

“Yes, this man’s just come from India. He got it from a tribesman on the frontier.”

“A tribesman? The frontier?” My head was beginning to swim. “What are you talking about?”

Helen drew herself up. “It’s surely quite simple. We have the opportunity to buy this beautiful carpet. It’s something we need, and it’s a bargain.”

“How much?”

“Twenty pounds.”

“What!”

“It’s very cheap,” said Helen, colouring. “It’s a genuine Kasbah. The man said it would cost hundreds of pounds, only he was lucky enough to meet this tribesman on the…”

“Don’t start that again,” I said. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Where is this man?”

“He’s coming back any minute now. I told him you’d want to see him.”

“I certainly do.” I bent down and felt the Kasbah. It seemed to be made of some spiky material and prickly strands came away and pierced my fingers painfully as I examined it. The violent colourations built up every few inches into mounds high enough for anybody to trip over. I had never seen anything remotely like it. Hot words were on my lips but I held my peace. I had a long record of this kind of boob and I wasn’t on firm ground. I mustn’t say it was a horrible carpet. Care must be my watchword.

“Helen,” I said gently, “are you really sure we want this? Look, it’s so lumpy you can’t close the door over it.” I demonstrated. “And don’t you think the colours are a bit bright?”

My wife began to look doubtful. “Well…maybe I have been rather hasty…but I hear the man at the door now.”

She led in the carpet specialist, a pleasant-faced chap in his forties radiating a powerful selling technique. Smiling warmly, he wrung my hand and presented a card to prove he was a seafaring man. Then, words pouring from him, teeth flashing, he extolled the Kasbah. His eyes never left mine and the effect was hypnotic. But when he started on about the tribesman on the frontier I managed to marshal my wits and stopped him.

“Many thanks, but we really don’t want the carpet.”

He was astounded and indeed incredulous that we should throw away this heaven-sent opportunity, but I stuck grimly to my gentle refusals. He was fluent and persuasive, but as he lowered the price again and again, familiar ominous phrases began to creep in. “Now, I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you,” “To be perfectly honest,” and “I’ll be very frank,” and finally I managed to stop the torrent.

“I’ll help you carry it out,” I said.

Clearly deeply disappointed in me, he inclined his head gravely. The thing was unbelievably heavy and we staggered out in a glum silence, shedding thousands of multicoloured spicules on the way.

After he had gone I didn’t say much about the incident and, in fact, I have kept pretty quiet about it ever since. With my record I cannot afford to be uppity. Helen is undoubtedly the sensible and practical member of our partnership and that has been her only aberration, but over the years whenever I landed in deeper than usual trouble it has been nice to have something up my sleeve. I have always been able as a last resort to bring up the subject of the genuine Kasbah.

B
OUNCER WAS THE ONLY
all-round canine games player I had ever met.

“Come on, lad,” cried his master, Arnold Braithwaite, “let’s see Lew Hoad’s big serve.”

Eagerly, the dog, a handsome Border collie, stood up on his hind legs, waved his right fore-paw above his head and brought it down in an authentic sweep.

I laughed in delight. “That’s wonderful, Arnie, I didn’t know he was a tennis player, too.”

“Oh, aye.” The big man gazed at his pet with intense gratification, then bent over and fondled the shaggy head. “There’s nowt ’e can’t do in that line. He’s like his master—an expert at all sports. And I’ve been able to teach ’im that serve knowin’ Lew Hoad like I do.”

“You’ve met him, have you?”

“Met ’im? He’s an old friend. Me and ’im’s big pals. Thinks a lot about me, does Lew.”

I looked at Arnie, feeling the wonderment welling in me as it always did when I was with him. He was a retired builder, or that was how he described himself, but nobody could remember him doing much building. A bulky, fit-looking bachelor in his late sixties with a fanatical devotion to all forms of sport. His knowledge was encyclopaedic and he appeared to know everybody. How he managed this was not clear, because he rarely left Darrowby, but there seemed to be few among the world’s top sportsmen who were not his friends.

“Now then, lad,” he said, addressing his dog, “let’s have a bit o’ cricket.” We went out to the little lawn behind the house. “You’re fieldin’ in the slips, right?” He lifted a bat and a soft ball and as Bouncer crouched in anticipation he struck the ball swiftly to one side of him. The dog leaped, caught the ball in his mouth and brought it back before taking up his position again. Arnie repeated the action, first to one side, then the other, and every time the dog brought off a clean catch.

“Never drops a catch,” chuckled Arnie with deep satisfaction. He held up the bat. “That’s the bat ah was tellin’ you about. Len Hutton borrowed it a time or two for some of ’is big innings. I remember ’is very words. ‘A fine bit o’ wood, Arnie,’ ’e said.”

I’d heard that one before. The legendary Len Hutton, later Sir Leonard, was at that time captain of England, holder of the record test match score, a household name throughout the world, and quite simply a God in cricket-mad Yorkshire.

“And these boots.” He held up a pair of well-blanco’d cricket boots. “Them’s the ones Len borrows, too. Borrows ’em a lot. Says they bring im luck.”

“Yes, I remember you saying so, Arnie.”

“Aye, ah’ve had some times in cricket.” His eyes took on a dreamy look and I knew he was going into one of his sporting reminiscences from the First World War. I had only dropped in in passing to clip Bouncer’s nails, but I knew that would have to wait.

“Aye, it was when our battalion was playing the gunners out in France. Our bowlin’ was getting knocked all over t’place and the score was mountin’ fast. The colonel threw me the ball. ‘I’ll have to call on you, Braithwaite,’ he said. ‘Things are looking bad.’ Well, I did the hat trick straight away.”

“You did?”

“Aye, three wickets, just like that. Then the colonel came over to me. ‘I’d better take you off, Braithwaite,’ he said. ‘That’s kept the score down, but we don’t want to push it too far the other way.’ Well, the same thing happened. Their batsmen started to clout our bowlers for sixes and fours, so the colonel came over to me again. ‘I’m sorry, Braithwaite,’ he said, ‘I’m going to have to call on you once more.’ ?

Arnie paused and looked at me seriously. “Well, I did it again.”