Almost Eden, page 39
As I drew level with Sophie, I shouted, ‘Can I help you there?’
‘You look like you’re doing OK.’
I did not like the sound of that at all. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Lots of planting going on,’ he noted.
‘Yes, so why don’t you come back next spring and see how they’re progressing,’ I said as I closed in on the fence. The man appeared to be in his thirties, casually dressed, unshaven.
My comment had taken the smirk off his face. ‘You have chickens and eggs?’
‘We do.’ I stopped and faced him through the fence.
‘Can I buy some eggs?’
I had long given this moment a great deal of thought, and what I might do. If I sold him eggs he would return, and he would tell other people. Still, I figured that many farmers were selling their produce direct around here, and that it was no big deal. I was partly interested in making money, and certainly interested in helping people, but I feared that opening up shop on the side of the road might lead from one thing to another.
And what if things got worse, and what if someone turned up – hungry and in need – but without any money. Was I going to share my stored food with strangers? And what of the future, and if the worst case scenario was realised? Then I would be hungry myself, and my cash would be useless.
‘Well?’ the man pressed.
‘We have enough for the eight of us, that’s all.’ I had inflated our numbers, but not by much.
‘Just you and the girl I can see.’
‘Meaning what? That you think you could jump the fence and overpower me, and take what you want?’
He studied me carefully, and I studied him back. For the first time in decades I was actually sizing up a man for a fight. My potential opponent was not tall, nor broad, but offered a mean look etched into a strong face. My heart started to race.
‘I offered you money for the eggs, and I can pay over the odds.’
‘Or what?’ I found myself asking, wondering just when I became so adversarial. My speech to Ben about warning shots came flooding back.
Our visitor stared back at me through the fence for a moment, but then started to edge along towards the gate, very slowly. I had a hoe within arms distance, and I made a mental note of where it was.
Before the man reached the gate, Ben shouted out, ‘Alright, Dad?’
Both I and my potential opponent glanced around, and found Ben stood near Sophie on the slope, air rifle on his hip.
‘We’re fine,’ I told Ben. ‘No need to shoot anyone.’
‘That an air rifle?’ the man asked me.
‘That is, but the rather large gentleman behind you has a shotgun, and it’s loaded.’
My opponent did not immediately turn around, figuring it a trick, but curiosity got the better of him. As he turned, Robby filled the man’s field of vision, shotgun soon pointing at the man’s head.
‘You’s bother me boss, I blow’s yer fucking head off and uses it like a football.’
Well, I didn’t know about our visitor, but I was afraid.
Robby closed in, lowered the shotgun, but then jabbed the man in the face with it, blood drawn. With the man bent double, holding his face, Robby calmly said, ‘Off you go now.’
Closing in on the green fence, I watched the man scamper off, across our potato fields and to the wall. Scrambling over the wall he dislodged numerous stones, and I heard a car rev and pull away.
‘Have to keep a good eye out,’ Robby commended.
‘Yes,’ I sighed, my heart still racing. ‘We can take turns.’ I walked down to Sophie and Ben.
‘What did he want?’ Sophie asked, obviously nervous.
‘To buy some eggs, but … he was not about to take no for an answer.’
‘We have plenty,’ Sophie pointed out.
‘If … if we sold him eggs, he’d be back every day, and then others, and … what happens when they run out of money? Are we here to feed everyone in this area?’
‘We could have given him something,’ Sophie quietly protested.
‘Sophie, if … if things get bad out there, really bad, people like him will come here with weapons, and they won’t ask us nicely for eggs.’
She dropped the plant pot she had been holding, and ran to the house crying, Ben going after her.
In brilliant sunshine I stood and took in the estate, the water calm and inviting, the scenery something from a postcard. The air hung still and warm, and it had been easy to forget the outside world, and what was happening out there.
Lifting her plant pot, I scooped up the spilt soil, placing the pot with the others, feeling terrible about that man – terrible that I had not even given him even a few eggs. He may well have had a family at home, a young family, and they were going hungry. I almost felt like Sophie, and I forced away a tear; I had turned away a hungry man - when my cellar overflowed with food.
Ambling slowly down to the beach, I stared at the calm turquoise water, and stood for a while with my hands in my pockets, wondering just how, as a country, we had allowed ourselves to end up in this situation. This incident had been a reality check, a good kick, and a wake-up call for me. Things were bad out there, obviously, but they were still hard to imagine here in the estate, and with the sun shining.
Thinking back, I pictured the last time I had squared up to man. It was … in a car park, and he was unhappy that I may have taken his space. I was … what, twenty-eight I think. We hadn’t ended up fighting, and I struggled to consider just when was the last time I actually punched a man, figuring I was nineteen at the time, a fight in the bar in college.
Back in the kitchen, I found Sophie deliberately busying herself by peeling potatoes, her head down. I made myself a cup of tea without saying anything, and finally sat.
‘Sorry about that,’ I offered.
‘There are people going hungry out there,’ she softly stated without looking up.
‘Yes, our … politicians … did a bad job.’
‘They’re all fucking idiots,’ she quietly cursed.
‘I can safely say that … your comments will have been reflected upon this past week.’
She lifted her head. ‘If a woman came, with a child…?’
‘I … would probably be as tearful as you.’
She looked away.
‘We have what seems like plenty here, but … it needs to last, just in case. I’m sure that this will sort itself out, but if it drags on, then come winter we’ll be the ones needing some help. We have to keep our stores to ourselves for now. And I, as the owner of this estate, and as your father, have to do what I know is best, but also what I know is morally wrong - and hard to accept for us all.’
In my room, I adjusted on old belt and fashioned a sling for my shotgun. Unloading it, I placed the cartridges in my pocket, and slung it over my back.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Ben’s voice said, ‘That’s it then.’
I paused, slowly blowing out before finally turning my head. We exchanged a look, nothing said, and I took another step down.
‘And my trust fund?’ echoed in my ears. ‘That’s fucked up, isn’t it.’
I halted my progress, staring out of focus down the stairs.
‘Back to university in September, never mind the zombies walking around. Yeah right. Sit and study like I’ll get a job at the end of it.’
I took a measured step down.
‘What job will that be, Dad? Farm hand? Clean out the horses?’
I lifted my face to him, trying to hide my fear for him and his sister. ‘Right now … we have each other, and we have this place, and that’s it.’
Robby had a properly fashioned strap, and fetched it, the two of us soon looking like Mexican bandits as we inspected the fence, considering what we could do to bolster our defences.
But it was Ben that came up with the idea. He appeared with a reel of chicken mesh, and garden sheers. ‘Watch,’ he called. Unravelling the mesh, the reel about three feet high, he cut slices into the top easily enough. ‘It was sharp before, but now it’ll be very had to grip.’
Cutting down the middle of a length, he lifted the finished product, which was not unlike barbed wire, Robby fixing it to the other side of the gate. It wouldn’t stop a determined person, but it would deter them – as well as slow up their progress.
An hour later, and Ben had cut many sections, his top now off, my son now sweating in the heat as Robby appeared with a trap containing two adult rabbits. He dumped them into the rabbit enclosure as I observed, the rabbits examining their new home, and soon hiding themselves in the plastic U-bends. We still had no pigs in our half-finished pen, and I now figured we’d not get any unwilling guests creating a stink.
After our evening meal together, the mood a bit off, Sophie said, ‘Take a look at the lounge windows.’
Curious, and now worried, I stepped next door. The outside of the windows now displayed the same wire mesh that we had been cutting up earlier, but not frayed at the edges. Outside the front door I stood and stared, Ben having nailed the mesh to walls.
He stepped out to me. ‘Concrete nails, small and tough, they have barbs on them. It should hold.’
I gripped a section and tugged, sure that it would hold, but was not sure if this was necessary. It was a bit … bunker mentality.
‘Only need do the downstairs,’ Ben said. ‘And some of the windows don’t open, so we don’t need to do them. Doors are solid.’
‘Yes, the doors are good, that’s the one benefit of an old house on the coast; they’re built for storms. But Ben, any ideas like this and … run them past me first, OK?’
He shrugged.
‘How’s Sophie?’ I asked.
‘She figures that if someone comes, there’ll be no 999 call and a flashing blue light.’
I faced the house and took in the mesh. ‘No, no police will be rushing around. So, from tonight we rotate guard duty; the men that is.’
He shrugged a shoulder. ‘OK. But I can rig up stuff, switch it on after dark. If someone opens the chicken coop a light could come on in the house.’
‘Good idea,’ I commended.
‘And I can electrify that mesh.’
‘Well, that’s … that might be an idea as well.’
‘We’ve got the power, Dad, come on. I can run a cable right around the top of the fence and the gate, but we’ll loose juice through the distance. If I take one of the wind turbines, and if it’s turning, then that could do the fence well enough, right up to the road.’
I was in two minds about his idea, but gave him a go ahead anyway, not least because I wanted his mind occupied – and Sophie reassured. Stood appreciating Aunt Betty’s rose bushes, the poor flora subjected to regular coastal storms - and now looking a little sorry for themselves, I considered the future. I stepped onto the coastal path, the bulb bright, the water wheel spinning, and I figured that I had turned Aunt Betty’s estate into a very nice prison, a prison where the inmates were on the outside.
Law and order had broken down and - as much as I wished for it, a return to normality seemed unlikely any time soon. And what if things did turn around? With the damage done, the economy would take forever to recover, and my kids would leave university to join the dole. I was not that worried for myself, and this place could sustain me, but that was no consolation for the theft of my children’s future and the lost realisation of their potential.
But by a strange quirk of fate I had locked my children into this inside-out prison with me, secretly very glad that I had done so. I could see the look on that man’s face as he had stared through the fence; no police around, Sophie there, just my sad frame to knock aside to get at her. I doubted that he would have simply stopped at the collection of a few free-range eggs, passing the time of day in a neighbourly fashion, a comment about the roses.
A toot of the horn caught my attention, and I stepped quickly inside, my shotgun slung as I emerged. Robby joined me outside, Ben with his air rifle, as Marcus’s beaten-up old Land Rover came down the access road. He had moved aside our gate, what little deterrent that gate was.
Squeaking to a halt, Marcus eased out. He said nothing as he approached, and looked gaunt.
‘You OK, Marcus?’ I asked.
‘My … kid is missing. Taken.’
‘Taken?’ I queried.
‘And there ain’t no police nowhere.’
‘Would you like us to help with the search?’
He didn’t answer straight away. ‘Car was seen, kid in the back.’
‘An abduction?’ I loudly questioned, horrified at this turn of events.
He nodded, looking drawn.
I glanced at Ben. Addressing Marcus, a half step taken towards him, I asked, ‘How is it out there?’
‘Went up to Kinsgbridge earlier; shops all smashed up, places burnt out, bodies in the street.’ I swallowed. Marcus continued, ‘Saw old lady in night dress, just walking down middle of main road. We went past nursing home on tother side, bodies on lawn, old’uns in no clothes walking around, staff all gone.’
‘Jesus,’ I quietly muttered, closing my eyes for a moment. ‘How … how are your supplies over at the commune?’
‘We has enough, and … we broke into homes, people we knew were rich fuckers from London, not yer now.’
‘If you need help, don’t hesitate to come ask me. And if the gate is blocked, toot the horn.’
‘Went back to that farm, but people there now, taking everything from the fields.’
‘At least we got some of it, there is that.’
‘I has summit for you.’ He returned to the Land Rover, and came back with a CB radio. ‘We has one, farmers either side have ‘em. Channel 20 or 22.’
‘Thanks, that’s … a great idea, yes.’
With Marcus gone, Ben fired up the radio, soon talking with someone at the commune, a farmer cutting in, a three way conversation going about the state of things.
I told Sophie, ‘The police might not come if we call, but the men from the commune will. Help is close by, at least not too far away.’
Ben was warned not to repeat what Marcus had detailed - about how bad it was out there, firmly warned, but he had been shaken by it as well. As for his father…
I retreated to my room, fighting hard not to just break down and cry right there. Sitting and facing the beach, the image of those pensioners at the nursing home came to mind, the staff having just walked off and leaving their charges. No wages, no food, no fuel; the staff had gone back to their own families.
Those able to queue up, or to steal, were doing so. Those vulnerable citizens, unable to fend for themselves, were starving and dying. How had we come to this, how had we created such a society I puzzled, my face in my hands.
That evening, Ben got someone from Salcombe on the CB radio, and they chatted about their circumstances as we listened in. It was an old couple that had gone off-grid years ago and grew their own, a smallholding on the coast. Discovering that their solar panels had been damaged in the storm, now not working, Ben informed them we had spare wind turbines – but that the journey around to Salcombe was probably dangerous.
They owned a small boat, but would only venture out if the sea was calm. Without my prompting, Ben asked what they could swap for the wind turbine. They came back on and listed a number of items, explaining that they had way too many tomato plants, most in pots, their branches laden with semi-ripe or ripe tomatoes. Ben struck a deal for six trays worth, and I had no idea how we would figure the value either way.
Sophie was keen for face-to-face contact to be established, and she even spoke to the couple herself, a meeting planned for the next day – good weather and small waves permitting.
For an hour after we had “signed off” the lounge was alive with vibrant chat about bartering things and contacting people, the CB radio a small ray of sunshine in the midst of the gloom, and I headed off to bed feeling less gloomy – at least optimistic in a small way. Robby would sleep till 1am, Ben taking the late watch because it suited him. That watch entailed him sitting in the kitchen with my shotgun, window open, coffee being sipped, vigilance being maintained.
A new perspective
The CB radio came to life at 10am the next day, the weather perfect for messing about in boats, the estuary calm. The old couple, called the Flintoffs – dubbed the Flinstones by Ben, set out as the tide was coming in, and thirty minutes later we keenly stood on the beach, a small boat finally spotted. It was moving, the remainder static and moored - and awaiting some interest from now-absent owners. I figured that the boat owners had more pressing needs right now.
As our visitors approached they could clearly see that our particular stretch of coastline offered no landing, and I waved them towards my half-built rock groyne, Ben and Sophie walking with me along the coastal path, our visitors adopting a parallel course. Stood at the end of the groyne, I waved the boat in.
I cupped my hands around my mouth. Speaking loudly, slowly, and hopefully clearly, I said, ‘We don’t have a landing, but its soft mud and sand here, no rocks under the water.’
As we observed, they pulled alongside the groyne without scraping it, and I could now see a grey-haired couple wrapped up warm in suitable nautical jackets, red life vests over the top, caps on heads.
‘Hello,’ the wife enthusiastically let out as the boat scraped sand and came to a halt.
‘You’re OK, there,’ I said. ‘Tide will come in a bit more.’
The husband reached across and handed me a small and lightweight anchor, which I jammed between two large rocks. I offered a hand, and the wife threw a leg over the side, soon stepping across safely to the gravel atop the groyne, her husband following without any assistance.
‘Come on in, I’ll get the kettle on,’ I offered.
‘I see you go around armed,’ the husband noted, but without any hint of concern.
‘Sadly, it’s necessary.’
‘Chaos in Salcombe,’ he said as he stopped to admire the rose garden. ‘I ventured there before the storm; shops smashed up, places on fire.’ Shaking his head, he followed me inside. ‘So, this is the famous Norton house.’
