Before All Else Read online

  “What’s that noise?”

  “Nothing, Ben. We’re going to have to repack the van, that’s all.”

  “Wha’?”

  “Just grab hold of these and make a neat pile.” Ned hands out the first of twenty or so spades to the lad who slowly and methodically lines them up against the garden wall. Hurry up, Ned grumbles. The sooner they get started on this ridiculous venture, the sooner they can all get home again.

  Thanks, in no small part, to Marcus’s rallying call on the village’s social network site, upwards of fifteen people had volunteered to clear the scrubland ready for the fair. Despite Chris Eveans’s earlier confidence, pinning down Major Welding’s watertight and binding permission to use the Town Field had taken a deal of tact and negotiation. For a time it seemed it might have been necessary to cancel the fair altogether for want of a venue.

  At the last hour, Chris Eveans, who had given the impression of a man sorely pressed between a rock and a hard place, produced a half-page document for the remaining committee members’ inspection. Beads of sweat shone on his forehead as, with a mute appeal to the assembly, he said, “If you can agree to the conditions of this definitive document, we can go ahead.”

  So it was that, on condition the field be cleared of ragwort, thistle, bramble, bindweed, dandelion, vetch; the grass be mowed to a uniform 3mm length; molehills levelled; rhododendrons, gorse and birch cut down to within 10mm of ground level, a cross-hatch made in the stump of no less than 3mm and the stump painted a fluorescent yellow to indicate a trip hazard; hedges trimmed to a height no lower than 2.5 metres and no higher than 4 metres; no produce, fruit or berries to be removed or consumed without the landowner’s permission, including eggs; adequate toilets provided together with litter bins, clearly marked parking bays, marshalls, coconut matting if rain should exceed 10mm within four days of the fair; refuse and any other accoutrements appertaining to the gathering removed before dusk of the following day, then Bullenden would be granted, by gracious permission of Major Welding, use of the Town Field; a field which, many assumed, belonged to the town anyway.

  “So, basically, our overlord’s getting an acre of land cleared for the privilege of his name appearing on the programme with humble thanks from all his serfs,” said Stan from Hammer and Tongs, who had overcome his displeasure at being knocked off the Chairman’s spot for the vicarious pleasure of seeing someone else struggle with the role. The struggle, being mighty, made for pleasurable viewing.

  Eventually there is enough floor space around the van door to allow Ned to slide it in place. It shuts perfectly.

  “Come on, Ben. Jump in.”

  “But, Mr Gallagher…”

  “Jump in, Ben. We haven’t got all day.”

  Ben shrugs and, tonguing the inside of his cheek and with double-handed concentration, returns the spade to join its fellows against the garden wall. Just as he manages to close the passenger door behind him, the van speeds off down the road. Over the noise of the much-taxed engine, there is a clattering sound as the contents redistribute themselves at the first corner while ten spades remain standing, sentry-like, against Ned’s garden wall.

  So it is, on the appointed day, with just over two weeks till the day of the fair, a small crowd has assembled on the field between the old watermill-turned-antiques-emporium and the river.

  A group of five robust ladies are sitting on benches in the car park, pouring steaming coffee into small beakers. One of their number breaks open a packet of custard creams while a cluster of blokes looks on enviously, blaming themselves or their wives for being less than adequately victualled for the arduous day ahead.

  “No sign of the manicured Mr Eveans then?”

  “No. And where’s Ned?”

  For the moment they lack a leader but are content to sit for a while and sample the balmy air. “Typical Ned. Never arrives anywhere but he’s late and in a hurry.”

  “Stand back, everybody! He’s here.”

  There is a collective marshalling of feet and bags as Ned’s white van hurtles through the gate and comes to an abrupt halt, the back wheels sliding to form a fan-shaped gouge in the ground. The engine pops and black smoke belches through the exhaust pipe. “Aye aye. Here’s Napoleon.”

  “Good morning, everyone. Goodness, what a good turnout. Excellent.” Ned claps his hands. “Right, everybody. If I can have your attention please.”

  Ned has to wait while refreshments and phones are stowed away in safe places and the volunteers gather round. He looks around at the task in hand. Bloody ridiculous, the whole thing. He’ll be losing a day’s pay and is expected to pull off a minor miracle. The only advantage to the land he can see is that it is flat. Good job it has been a dry spring as one good deluge and the place would be flooded. Someone has obviously had a go at putting in drainage at some point, as there is a scattered line of bricks and shards of reinforced concrete, which will all need to be collected and placed in the skip, adding to the rigours of an already demanding day.

  At last he has the crowd’s attention. First with the motivational stuff. “I’ve got to say, it’s very good to see everyone, and I am sure many hands will make light work. We can all take pride in the sense of community that has brought us here today. This year’s fair promises to be one that we will not forget.”

  “You can say that again!”

  “Just like that programme off the telly.” Madge nudges her neighbour.

  Ned waits for the murmuring to die down.

  “Given the scale of the task ahead of us, I think we should divide ourselves into separate work details. You can organise yourselves into groups and select which tasks you want to undertake. There will be breaks every hour for ten minutes and a lunch break at midday for half an hour.”

  “Not so much DIY SOS as OAP Boot Camp,” Madge’s neighbour nudges back.

  “I have to remind everyone that you are all here at your own risk and that neither Major Welding nor any of his agents can accept any responsibility for loss of or damage to persons or their property.”

  “Get on with it, Ned. Haven’t got all day.”

  “Right, then. What I’ve done is divide the jobs into four sections. There’s Rubble Clearance, which means picking up stones, bricks, pebbles, debris. There’s Trimming and Strimming, which means cutting back overgrown hedges and brambles. There’s Edging. Which means clearing and marking out the paths. And there’s Levelling. Bit like knocking back the divots at a polo match, filling in any obvious dints and flattening any obvious bumps. So, if you’d like to get yourselves into teams of five or six, we can begin.”

  Ned pulls out the items from the jumble in the back of the van until against a crumbling brick wall stand a variety of brush cutters, strimmers, chainsaws and petrol cans, all of which seem to hold Ben’s rapt attention.

  For now the volunteers are keen and eager. But how will they be after a few hours of hard labour? It is going to be a hell of a day. He is going to have to keep a really close eye on Ben. “Can I have a go with this, Mr Ned?” Ned gently prises the strimmer from Ben’s grasp.

  “No you can’t. Now just go and stand over there and don’t touch anything. I’ll be along in a minute.” The youth rocks off, his hands in the pockets of his black jogging pants, chewing the end of the pull cord in his sweatshirt in a consolatory manner.

  “Fuckin’ unfair, that’s what it is.”

  It is going to be a minor, not to say major miracle if they are all going to get through the day without injury or amputation.

  “Madge. Madge. Over here!” Madge turns round and round in a bewildered fashion, looking for her companions. They are standing next to the table with trowels and trugs. “We’re on Levelling Duty. Come on.” The five doughty ladies grab their tools and set off like a team of scene of crime officers.

  “Can I ’ave a go on the chainsaw, Mr Ned?”

  “No. Wait a minute, Be
n. I’ll get you sorted in a minute.”

  Cecily and Marcus and Bob Junior from the garage are amongst those hovering around the table with the empty plastic animal feed bags, sturdy gloves and small garden forks. “Rubble Clearance, that’s us,” says Marcus to the group, all of whom look just as enthusiastic and pumped as if co-opted to a day on a chain gang.

  “Me mum says that I can have a go at anything, so long as it’s not got petrol in it.”

  “That’s very good, Ben. We’ll find you something to do in a minute. Tell you what. See those wheelbarrows over there. You can be in charge of fetching the bags of rubble out to the skip on the car park. What do you think?”

  Ben surveys the big yellow skip, its short edge levered down, planks set in place. “Yeah. Looks alright.” Ned is relieved.

  Several men gather in one group to eye the mechanised equipment. They casually jostle and rearrange themselves as if on a ready, steady, go command they would be closest to their instrument of choice. “OK, fellas. You all look like you know what you’re doing. It’s the brambles, the elders, the sycamore saplings. Cut up and burn. Give Ben a shout if you want anything barrowing.”

  “By the way, Mr Ned, Mum says I’m not to do anything with matches either.”

  Ned knew this actually, having already encountered Ben’s pyromaniac tendencies during a trip from the school to his nursery, when about two hundred plastic trays stored under the work benches mysteriously melted and melded together. Forty-three children and several teachers and nursery staff had had to evacuate the long greenhouses as black smoke billowed out through the open vents. No further action had been taken, at least not of a punitive nature.

  Several days later, Ben’s mum, who in addition to being Ben’s mum was also a helper at St Giles’ school, returned to the nursery with a bottle of whisky.

  “This is from the children,” she’d said, proffering the wrapped bottle to Ben.

  “Er. Bit young for that, aren’t they?”

  “No. You know what I mean.”

  “Oh, cheers. Thanks, but you really didn’t need to.”

  “Well. It’s from me really. I think you know why. I’m Ben’s mum. And I’m really grateful. And sorry. For, you know, what happened.”

  Her boots were too big for her slender legs. She reminded him of a cartoon character on TV from his youth. Her golden hair tumbled from a single clasp behind her head. She looked pot-bound. He had to restrain himself from reaching down to snip off a few shoots, a few tendrils, to tidy her up, to put her in proportion.

  “Hey. It’s fine. We always have too many of those bloomin’ trays anyway.” They stood facing each other, their eyes wandering.

  “Well, you’re very kind. I hope you enjoy the bottle.” He turned it, thoughtfully, in his hands for a moment. She watched him. He had big hands. Capable hands. Despite the chipped nails and engrained grime, they looked intelligent hands. Sensitive hands.

  “Right.”

  “Right.”

  Ben’s mum turned to leave. “Tell you what.” She turned back again as he gave voice to an uncensored thought. “Would Ben like to come and lend a hand at the nursery? Might teach him a few skills. Nothing difficult, mind. Just a bit of potting up. Making tea. That sort of thing. I mean, I’m sorry if I’m speaking out of turn. Sometimes it’s a good thing, you know, sort of making reparations. And I can see he’s not…he’s not…er…” Ned’s heart sank as he felt himself about to make the most monumental gaff. How could you describe this boy of hers?

  She just stood there, with her head on one side, weighted by this great mass of hair. Luckily she was smiling. She seemed to be willing him to find a word, smiling quietly at his discomfort. He flapped his hands in the air, the tissue paper coming away from the bottle, as all words eluded him. “Er…”

  “No, he’s not very ‘er’, is he? But that’s the way he is, and I love him.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t saying for a minute that you don’t, you wouldn’t. I’m sure he’s a lovely lad.”

  “Are you? Are you really?” Her voice was rising. “Sure? Because he isn’t always. That you’ve seen for yourself.”

  Ned began to wonder if his hurriedly offered suggestion had been a wise one. It seemed to have sprung more from an electric moment between himself and this unknown woman than from any desire to provide extra-curricular learning opportunities to some fourteen-year-old with a handy habit with matches and a sarky mum. “OK. Well, I’ll leave it with you to think about.” He turned, this time, to walk away. She reached out a hand and grabbed his arm.

  “I’m sorry. You just get a bit defensive. It’s a lovely offer. Can he come Saturday afternoons, after football?”

  Which was how Ben was in today’s work detail with permission to be off school on ‘work experience’. Ben’s mum had been delighted. “All they seem to do at that school of his is make toast and play shop. This would give him an insight into the real world. Maybe he could even get a landscaping job in the future. Maybe he could even…” Her voice trailed off and Ned look away non-committally.

  “What shall we do, Ned?” An assorted group stand in front of him, those that have no real group to ally themselves to, being neither a doughty lady or one of the Sunday Supremoes. Bob the Elder, with his crooked stoop and arthritic knees. The tall chap from Byzantium Cottage who had had him in once to tackle the moss problem in his lawn and then taken six months to pay. Doreen from the post office. Ned wonders if between them they have the reach and articulation to cut up random bits of fencing and greenery for the skip.

  “Give it a go, anyway, and see how you get on.”

  Ned looks up to the blue sky and sighs. It has taken about an hour to get all the volunteers organised but they are all beavering away now. It is a warm June morning. The sweet, lemony smell of elderflower fills his nose. Shame to cut back a flowering shrub but orders are orders. The noxious tang of hot oil and the rising and falling cadence of the chainsaw also fill the field. A couple of walkers observe from the other side of the river, their spaniel advancing and retreating, barking at full pitch.

  He’ll let them work for ten more minutes and then call a tea break.

  If he were at all a sentimental soul, he would almost admit to this being a perfect moment, almost medieval. Everyone around bent to a common purpose; everyone engaged in their own perfect moments. None of the jobs in themselves were particularly elevating – quite the opposite, really. Who would, by choice, really want to crook their backs into picking up rubble, scratch their arms and faces on thorns, scuff their boots with a poorly aimed edger, breathe in petrol fumes and thick smoke from the bonfire? Who, on reflection, would really want to give up a day for the transient benefit of others and the longer-term benefit of someone vastly more privileged than themselves? It’s not as if Major Welding is the most popular resident, and Chris Eveans seems to have angered or irritated just about everyone in the village. A couple of the Sunday lot are whistling a jaunty air.

  It had all seemed very different the night before. “What’s up with you?” Mandy had asked, finding Ned at the kitchen table with his head in his hands.

  “Pyramid coercion, that’s what it is. Nobody wants to do it but nobody wants to be seen to be the missing brick in the wall, the ha’porth of tar. I’d bloody say no, if I had half a mind.”

  “Well, you haven’t and you won’t.”

  “What if nobody does turn up? What if I have to do all the work myself – for free. Buckshee? What’s the point of it all? Just to give muggins here a hard time of it? Don’t expect Major Welding or that flash git will turn up to lend a hand tomorrow.”

  But Mandy wasn’t listening. She already had her back turned to him, chopping potatoes for chips. What did she care? The peelings were soaking into the newspaper, turning it darker and greyer. She turned the peeler to twist out an eye. He felt a momentary pain in his own eye. Still he stared at her back; she hadn’
t even bothered to take off her coat. How long had she had that coat? It had lost its plush redness in its exposure to the elements, stitches in the quilting were coming undone so the diamond shapes ran into each other, giving the coat a weird, bumpy appearance. She must have highlighted her hair for Christmas. By now the red had turned a sludgy brown colour and was an unappealing foil to the tracts of grey. He was poised between tenderness and repulsion.

  Mandy turned to him and gave him a long look. Their blank eyes locked. Neither spoke.

  “What time’s tea?” were the only words he could summon to break the moment.

  Even Ned has to acknowledge, despite yesterday’s gloom, the day is turning out better than he’d expected. Enough volunteers to see the job through in one day. Barring any disasters, they’ll all be home for an early bath by four o’clock.

  Oh Christ! What is that lad up to now? “Ben. No!”

  Ned runs towards the burning heap of brambles and branches as Ben raises his arm, about to throw a black plastic container onto the flames. “Stop!”

  Jim swiftly turns and grapples the container from Ben’s hands until Ned arrives, panting. “Don’t put that on the fire.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, plastic doesn’t burn well, so it would make a lot of thick, bad-smelling smoke.”

  Ben’s eyes light up.

  “And you don’t know what’s inside. Could be petrol or anything.”

  “Mum said no petrol.”

  Ned sighs with inward relief that Ben seems to have got the message. It isn’t always easy to get through to the lad. He looks at the world through a different lens than everyone else, one that refracts certain images to a crystal and imperative clarity and completely removes from sight others that are as plain as day to anyone else.

  “Where did you find it, anyway?”

  Ben points to a small rise in the ground in a far corner of the field. “OK. Well anything else you find, put it in the skip. Do you understand?”