Truestory Page 4

Sam was still sitting on the floor too far from the table to reach his Weetabix, his spoon still hovering.

  ‘I am doing geography,’ he whispered.

  Larry nodded: ‘A million years ago when I was at school geography was my favourite subject. Nowadays rather than study the world in a book, I travel it.’ And he tapped his map.

  Sam wrapped his arms round his knees. ‘One million years ago you would not have been at school. You would have been living in the Palaeolithic period with bands of other Homo sapiens, collecting plants and making tools out of stone.’

  Larry laughed and Duncan snapped: ‘Come back to the table and get your breakfast eaten properly!’

  Sam ignored Duncan. He strained to see onto the table and his attention was fixed on Larry’s map. As though speaking to himself, Sam said:

  ‘I have seen that map on the internet.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Larry.

  Duncan cut in obviously thinking enough time had been spent on Sam: ‘So what do you reckon the crop yield will be in the first six months if we can get it sown this week or next?’

  Larry turned away from Sam and scratched his chin to think about it.

  ‘Well . . .’

  I threw what was left of my cold coffee into the sink.

  ‘Sam, I’ve got you some studying sorted. I’ve sent a link. Geography.’

  By now Sam had curled himself into a small ball and hutched himself halfway to the bottom of the stairs.

  Duncan and Larry scraped their chairs back and put their boots on to go outside.

  ‘Thanks for breakfast,’ Larry said, even though I’d had nothing to do with it. He gave a little salute to Sam who covered his head with his arms. When they’d gone I took Sam’s spoon off him.

  ‘Have you had enough? Do you want to come and sit at the table properly?’

  He gave a tiny shake of his head and, scrambling to his feet, he scuttled upstairs.

  I sat among the dirty pots and greasy pans. I knew I should be grateful Sam had not freaked out at the sight of Larry. I should be relieved that the worst had been a bit of bluntness and curling into a ball – but I wasn’t grateful or relieved; I was reeling and jittery. There would be a price to pay for this. Of that I was certain. There was always a price to pay with Sam.

  I was tempted by one of Larry’s roll-ups, even though I hadn’t smoked in years. I slipped the lid off the battered tin of Golden Virginia he’d left on the table, chose one he’d rolled earlier and lit it with one of his matches.

  I took a drag, put my head back and let the nicotine do its stuff. The smoke drifted across the kitchen. What had Sam really made of Larry? With Sam there was no way of getting inside his head; no way of knowing. That was hard. It was sad to have a child who was a closed book to you, a child who was a baffling enigma.

  I heard Sam trotting downstairs and I knocked the ash off my fag and put it in Larry’s saucer. He came in and examined the table, ignoring the smoking fag. Then he gazed about the rest of the kitchen searching for something.

  ‘How’s the geography?’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘That man might still be here at lunchtime,’ I said. ‘But I’ll make sure he’s gone by teatime.’

  Sam stopped scanning the work surfaces and looked at me.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Larry is an acquaintance of mine. I do not want him to go.’

  I was so surprised I gaped at him, waiting for the punchline.

  But Sam said nothing else. He looked around Larry’s chair and up and down the kitchen then, giving up his search, he went back upstairs.

  Chapter 7

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  I want it but I do not know where it is.

  Truestory

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.25

  What shall I do? I want it but I do not know where it is.

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  Fizzy Mascara

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.32

  Huh?

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  Sweet Cheeks

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.35

  We all want it babes, don’t u worry!! 

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  SpiritLove

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.41

  Hi Truestory, Don’t think of the item as lost, think of it as ready to be found. So the first step is to relax and stop looking. Then take some deep breaths and imagine – what does it feel like, what does it smell like? You will begin to resonate with the object and it will be found. I’ve got a great little booklet on this and other visualisation techniques described on our Spirit&Soul website, which can be purchased here Only $2.50. Plus p&p.

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  AuntieMaud

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.45

  My mother used to use divining rods to find lost things – actually they were wire coat hangers but they did just as well. She held one rod/hanger and repeated the name of the lost thing until the rod/hanger moved to point in a direction. She would then hold both rods/hangers and walk in that direction. When the rods/hangers crossed she would find it!

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  AuntieMaud

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.51

  By the way, my mother once found a diamond ring even though she was only looking for her sandal. She has been dead for 26 years now though so I’m afraid I can’t ask her for any more details.

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  NoShitSherlock

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.55

  My mum always said – it’s where you left it, is where it’s at!!

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  AuntieMaud

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 9.59

  My mother was a very wise woman too. I used to wonder how I would manage without her. I still wonder that. She was my best friend.

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  Truestory

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 10.03

  An acquaintance of mine has a map. I want it but I do not know where it is. It is correct to refer to him as an acquaintance because an acquaintance is defined in my on-line dictionary as a “slight friendship”. I only have a slight friendship with Larry because my father only found him in the pub last night.

  Re: I want it but I do not know where it is.

  Truestory

  Date: 4 June 2014

  Time: 10.07

  The map is one of the Ordnance Survey Explorer range with a scale of 1:25,000, which means it is 4 centimetres to every kilometre. It is of the area of Backwoods Farm, which is Number 296 in the Ordnance Survey index. I have never seen this map in real life. I have only seen it on the internet. I want it, but I do not know where it is.

  Chapter 8

  ‘Cannabis!’ I stared at Duncan. He’d finally lost it. ‘We’re going to grow cannabis?’

  ‘Yeah, Larry’s an expert.’

  My wooden spoon dripped over the soup pan. This was a joke, right?

  Duncan was full of it: going on about crop yield per square foot and polytunnels and ventilation requirements. I hadn’t seen him like this for ages. Not since the caravan episode. He was striding round the kitchen bombarding me with details, ridiculous, stupid details about thermostatic fans and carbon filters, a big daft grin on his face. This was going to sort out all our money worries. This was going to be the answer to everything. This was it.

  ‘What the hell do you know about growing cannabis?’ I threw the spoon into the pan, and soup splattered up the wall and across the stove.

  ‘Larry’s wo
rked in a market garden.’

  ‘Larry’s a bloody hobo you found in the pub last night, for Christ’s sake. And what’s all this about polytunnels? We haven’t got a polytunnel.’

  ‘We’re taking the trailer this afternoon.’

  I grabbed the spoon and stirred again, so fast the soup splashed and spat on the stove.

  ‘It’s illegal, for a start.’

  ‘That’s the thing about being stuck out here – who’s going to know?’

  ‘And this is all Larry, is it?’

  ‘No, he’s a stroke of luck.’

  Some stroke of luck. I took a deep breath. This wasn’t the time for ranting; Sam would be down in a minute. I could see Larry through the window, mooching up the yard, throwing his fag end down and screwing it into the ground with the toe of his boot. I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to strangle both of them. When I thought the worst that could happen was Duncan wasting money on crappy caravans and cartridge presses, it seemed we were setting up in business as cannabis dealers.

  ‘Yeah, it was lucky finding Larry,’ Duncan said. ‘I’ve never set eyes on him before and as a rule I don’t go to the pub on a Tuesday, but if I hadn’t met Larry this couldn’t have got off the ground. It’s one of them chances in a million. You’ve got to grab them while you can.’

  I had to stop myself grabbing him. I felt like wielding the wooden spoon like a club, brandishing it and telling him he was an idiot who never learned and to wake up and see some sense while he still had the chance. But it was nearly half past twelve and Sam would be down any second.

  I grabbed some bowls and shoved them round the table – pushing Duncan’s towards him so fast it nearly shot off the end. He was telling a long-winded tale about how it had all come about: how Bill Webb’s mate, Dob, had heard about the stuff from his son’s pal, Smash, up past Lancaster, who said he knew a guy near Penwortham who had the stuff going cheap, seeds and everything. The fella’s neighbours were getting nosey but for folks out in the middle of nowhere it was a chance too good to miss, a real opportunity.

  ‘Larry’s sticking around for a few days – going to help me get everything set up in return for bed and board. Won’t cost us a penny.’ Duncan looked like he’d won the lottery. ‘He’s welded the yard gate this morning too. Good as new.’

  I drew breath to point out that for a scheme supposed to be secret, a lot of dodgy folk seemed to know about it. But Sam was running downstairs and Larry was tapping on the door. It’d wait. As I came back to the table with the soup pan, Duncan grabbed my wrist.

  ‘The cannabis will pay for the cows, Alice. It’s a chance to keep this place going.’ I sloshed some soup into his bowl. Sam was standing at the bottom of the stairs watching Larry wash his hands at the kitchen sink.

  I nudged Duncan’s hand off. Would Sam come in or would he leg it back upstairs?

  ‘Sam, it’s your favourite – mushroom. Come and sit down.’

  ‘My favourite is French onion. My second favourite is mushroom.’ Sam’s eyes were fixed on Larry who dried his hands and smiled at him.

  ‘You done your Geography, son? Keep at it and you’ll soon find your way around the world, like me.’

  Duncan didn’t seem to register that Larry and Sam had arrived. He touched my arm again.

  ‘This could fix everything, Alice.’

  I shook him off. ‘Sam, come and eat your dinner,’ I said.

  Sam glided across the kitchen and slid into his place. He picked up his spoon and poked it round his bowl.

  ‘Larry Dougal sounds like two first names put together,’ he said.

  Larry dragged his chair back and sat down, smiling. ‘Aye, you’re right, son.’ He grinned at me and nodded thanks for the soup.

  ‘I Googled to discover if there are any famous Dougals,’ said Sam. But a song came on by Dougal and Gammer which was 160 decibels and made my heart beat at 110 beats a minute.’

  Larry nodded at him and slurped his soup. ‘Aye?’ he said.

  ‘The song was called “Fuck Me I’m Famous”.

  ‘Sam!’ Duncan rounded on Sam: ‘Don’t talk like that!’

  Sam dipped a piece of bread in his soup and put it in his mouth. He didn’t look at Duncan and I wasn’t sure he’d even heard him.

  ‘Soup okay?’ I said to divert attention. Duncan was great at ignoring Sam most of the time but came down on him like a ton of bricks when he stepped out of line.

  ‘Aye, it’s a nice drop a’ soup,’ said Larry.

  ‘Aye, it’s a nice drop a’ soup,’ parroted Sam.

  ‘Sam!’ I shook my head.

  He went on. ‘ “Fuck Me I’m Famous” was even louder than my mother shouting at my father “YOU DRIVE ME BLOODY MAD BRINGING A BLOODY HOBO INTO THE HOUSE”.’

  ‘SAM!’ Both of us yelled that time.

  ‘Yahoo Answers says that the symptoms of being mad are “Yelling, clenched face and slanted eyebrows”.’ He went on, ‘In which case I think both my mother and father may have been driven mad.’

  Larry kept a straight face, but I saw the corner of his mouth twitch. Duncan appeared to be doing the impossible – eating his lunch through gritted teeth.

  Sam was looking around the kitchen like he’d lost something. Suddenly his spoon clattered to the table and he slithered down in his seat and disappeared from view.

  ‘GET BACK ON YOUR SEAT!’ Duncan jumped up. He strode round the table, knocked Sam’s chair backwards and bent down to grab him by the scruff of the neck. He hauled him up by his sweatshirt yelling ‘GET. BACK. ON. YOUR. SEAT.’

  I felt both anger and tears well up. The situation between Duncan and Sam could boil over in a matter of moments – but who was the adult? Surely Duncan should be able to keep his temper for more than five seconds.

  Sam was spluttering and choking, his eyes swimming as Duncan dropped him back on his seat.

  I screamed ‘You’re going to kill him!’ Sam clamped his hands over his ears to block out the noise. I wiped my eyes on the bottom of my jumper. ‘You’ll bloody kill him.’

  Larry patted Sam’s back.

  ‘Get it up, son, get it up,’ he said as Sam retched and coughed a piece of bread onto the table. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Why are you always like that with him?’

  Ignoring me, Duncan sat down and started shovelling his soup in with a face like thunder. I dropped my head into my hands. I couldn’t be bothered keeping up appearances – I didn’t know Larry from Adam anyway. What the hell had Duncan expected, inviting strangers into the house?

  ‘It’s okay, Sam,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to eat any more.’ Sam was still gazing about the room absorbed in his search for something and as though the nasty choking scene had never happened. ‘It’s okay, you can go to your room,’ I said, and Sam left the table in slow motion and disappeared upstairs.

  Larry finished his soup and said he was off for a smoke before they went for the stuff and he went outside. This was my chance to kill the stupid cannabis idea once and for all.

  ‘This cannabis thing’s not going to work. Can you not see that?’

  ‘It’s the answer, Alice. Just wait and see.’

  ‘Is it bloody hell!’ I picked up Sam and Larry’s bowls and clattered them on top of mine.

  ‘Something’s got to stop the money draining away,’ said Duncan. ‘We could start making some money again. Imagine that.’

  ‘You’re driving me mad. Honest to God, this is the last bloody straw.’

  ‘Larry says it’s piss easy growing cannabis. He says it grows like weeds. He says you can’t go wrong. Honestly, you can’t go wrong.’

  I looked at him. Can’t go wrong? Really? If there was one thing I knew after being married to Duncan for twenty-four years, it was that he could always go wrong.

  ‘It’s illegal, for a start,’ I said. ‘And I’ll say right now that it’s going to be another bloody waste of time and money. Another one.’

  ‘It’s what we’ve been waiting for.’ Duncan folded his arms.
‘You wait and see.’

  Duncan shoved his boots and jacket on and crashed the door closed behind him. After a few minutes I saw him and Larry mooching across to the Land Rover. They were chatting away like there’d been no swearing and choking and screaming and crying in the kitchen. Like it had never happened. That was the thing: Duncan always over-reacted but then he recovered and moved on leaving me with my stomach in knots.

  The Land Rover pulled out of the yard. I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and smoking a roll-up I’d found on the kitchen units. It had been left next to my coffee cup with a box of matches.

  I could hear the Land Rover juddering down the lane and I cursed them both. I was so furious and lost in thought about how I could get back at Duncan and get rid of Larry that when Sam walked through on his way outside I couldn’t get to grips with what he was up to.

  ‘Are you all right, Sam?’ I said, but he didn’t answer. ‘Where are you going?’ I squashed the cigarette out in a soup bowl.

  ‘Outside,’ he said, pulling the door to behind him.

  He came back ten minutes later when I was wiping the crumbs off the table. He was carrying a pair of yellow pliers by his finger and thumb and wearing a pair of sunglasses.

  Where’ve you been?

  ‘The workshop,’ he said. ‘Dad says: “Don’t let me catch you in my workshop”. But he’s not here. So he couldn’t catch me.’ And he headed upstairs.

  I had a shaky feeling that things were about to get worse. Sam had stared at Larry a lot during lunchtime; in fact he seemed mesmerised by him. The whole Larry thing was unnerving me – I didn’t think he was having a good effect on any of us and I wanted him gone.

  It took Duncan and Larry over two hours to get back with a great trailer-load of metal lengths and hoops and plastic sheeting. When they pulled into the yard I didn’t look outside. I stayed at the table with my back resolutely to the window.

  I could hear them shouting to each other as they unloaded the trailer. They sounded like a couple of kids, laughing and joking and dragging stuff round to the back of the house.