Aaron Connor (23 page)

“
Hop straight
in mate” I said, “make yourself comfortable”

“
With
pleasure!” he said, “I’m going to have to put this on my
blog!”

Harry climbed into the sidecar.
He fastened himself in with the make shift safety belts made of
rope that we used in Edinburgh. He wriggled his behind in the seat
to make himself comfortable and looked eager to get going. We took
our helmets from the boot and I offered mine to Harry. He declined
the offer with a regal shake of his hand.

“
This hair
takes hours to perfect” he explained, “don’t want it ruined, do we?
Besides, I trust you mister . . .”

“
Connor” I
answered, “Aaron Connor, and this is Lizzie”

“
Hello dear!”
said Harry to Lizzie, “You are looking most ravishing, I must
say!”

“
Thank you
Harry” she replied, “You don’t look too bad yourself”

“
Splendid”
said Harry, “Mr Connor, are we about ready to depart?”

“
I think we
are” I answered, “Are you?”

“
Most
defiantly!” exclaimed Harry, “Let’s hit the road, hey?”

It was Lizzie’s turn to drive
so she climbed up onto the Moped first. She was fastening her
helmet straps as I climbed on behind her. She kicked the engine
into life with a fantastic purr. Harry clapped his hands and was
now wildly excited. It must be lovely to get as excited about
something like this, as ordinary and mundane as a Moped.
Nonetheless, Harry’s was flushed and smiling with the thrill that
being in the bike’s sidecar was giving him.

“
Tally-Ho, I
say!” he cried over the noise of the engine,
“Tally-Bally-Ho!”

Lizzie gave the young man what
he wanted and we were soon zooming out of the village and
travelling across the countryside. Harry was yelling and whooping
all the way. I’ve never seen someone act the way he does. I wish I
could act like that, maybe then I wouldn’t be so bloody
cynical.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

An hour and a half into the
trip we stopped off at a roadside service station. This one was a
lot smaller then the one we were in when we met Purple Skull. It
was a restaurant, news agents, hotel foyer and book shop all
combined into one smallish room. It was cramped with all of the
people in the place, but that didn’t matter as a table was cleared
for us the moment we went into the restaurant. What I and Lizzie
didn’t know was that the Grumsby Family was very known and highly
respected. We didn’t even have to pay for our meal. We instantly
knew that assisting Harry would be a very good thing to do.

After we had something to eat,
we went outside and took the Moped to the petrol station which
stood on the other side of the car park. We found a pump and filled
up the Moped with petrol. We got £20 worth of petrol, which we
thought was plenty and would last us a fair while. Even though
Harry wanted to pay, I insisted that I and Lizzie would pay for it
as Harry was our guest. We paid at the pump and then rode off back
onto the main road.

Very soon we were beginning to
come into Aylesbury. From this point onwards, Harry was giving us
directions on how to get to the Manor. We followed his commands as
if he were a Sat Nav. He led us off the main road and down some
country lanes. We passed a girl trotting along the road on a horse,
with her riding teacher giving her pointers from her horse which
was trotting behind her. We slowed down the Moped as we came
alongside them, as to not frighten them. That was our first sign
that we were no longer in the district of the farmers. We were now
travelling through the upper class countryside. Harry kept giving
us more directions until, finally, we turned a corner and could see
Grumsby Manor in the near distance.

Grumsby Manor was a very large
estate. It had three stories with balconies, wide windows,
conservatries, turrets, towers and hundreds of windows looking into
hundreds of rooms. The Union Jack was flying from a flag pole on
the roof, the gentle wind was making it gently sway. At the front
were two large iron gates which were three times the height of me.
We drove up to one of the gates where Harry leaned out of the
sidecar to talk into one of the speakers.

“
Open the door
Freddie” he said, “It’s me, Harry”

“
Righto!”
another well pronounced voice called back.

The gates automatically opened
with a loud and metallic creak. Once the gates were fully opened,
Lizzie drove the Moped right up the gravel path towards the
entrance. We passed trimmed hedges, flower arrangements, fountains
and verandas as we drove on through a very long front garden.
Butterflies were fluttering to and fro from the bloomed flowers.
Bees were buzzing along. Birds were singing and swimming in
birdbaths. It was a very pleasant place to be. The kind of place
where I would have never guessed, in a million years, I’d have the
pleasure to visit.

Another boy around Harry’s age
was standing at the top of the marble staircase. I guessed that
this boy was the “Freddie” that Harry was just speaking to. Freddie
was a ginger lad with hair that had been perfectly slicked back
with gel. He wore hunting clothes and wore Sherlock Holmes style
Deerstalker hat on his head. He held a long rifle in his hand which
was polished to a shining gleam.

As we came closer to the
staircase, Freddie came down and stared at us in confusion.

“
Who the
bloody hell are they?” he asked, “They look like Chavs. Are they
Chavs? If they are, you are in so much trouble. What has Daddy told
us about talking to poor people?”

“
Lighten up
Fred!” said Harry, we had arrived at the staircase where Lizzie
stopped the Moped for us to get off, “They gave me a lift home.
There’s no need to be so unpleasant”

“
But they’re
commoners!” said Fred, “dirty, council house scoundrels. I’m
surprised that they didn’t stab you!”

“
Now stop it!”
insisted Harry, “These chaps helped me get back home without a
second thought. I thought it would be nice, to say thank you, to
invite them to a round of shooting”

“
As if Daddy
will allow that!” retorted Fred, “You can ask him all you like, but
you know ruddy well that he’ll have none of it”

“
On the
contrary, I think he’ll love the idea” said Harry, “he’s not some
bigoted toff like you!”

“
I’m just
warning you before you even try” explained Fred, “That Daddy will
not agree to such rubbish!”

“
What wouldn’t
I agree to?” asked a voice from behind Fred.

A middle aged man came out from
the front door and stood next to Fred on the top of the stairs. The
man also wore simpler shooting gear as Fred, maybe just a bit nicer
then Fred’s, and held a long rifle in his hand. The man was
slightly tanned and had a slightly greying hair. There was a fair
amount of stubble across his face in a stylised way. Like the
others, he spoke in a posh voice.

“
What are you
two arguing about now?” he asked,

“
Harry got a
lift from some Ghetto roughens!” said Fred,

“
No need to
jump to such dire assumptions” said the man coolly, “they don’t
look like roughens to me. Your not roughens are you?”

“
No” replied
me and Lizzie,

“
You see” said
the man, “Your just being closed minded again, my boy”

“
Harry wants
them to come shooting with us!” said Fred,

“
Does he?”
asked the man, “What a splendid idea!”

The man climbed down the stairs
to meet us, leaving Fred at the top looking deeply irritated. The
man stood before us and put out a friendly hand for us to shake,
which we did. Harry was making faces at Fred in triumph. Fred
showed his fist to Harry in a threatening way, before heading back
inside the massive Manor.

“
Welcome to my
home” said the man, “My name is Lord Grumsby. I hope that your stay
here will be a pleasant one. May I ask you what your names are, by
any chance?”

“
Lizzie Penny”
she said,

“
Aaron Connor”
I told him,

“
Charmed” said
Lord Grumsby, “come inside chaps, we’re about to begin the
shooting. I’m sure we can arrange some refreshments for you
two”

“
Thank you
very much, sir” I said, “I’ve never done clay pigeon shooting
before, I’m buzzing”

“
Buzzing?”
asked Lord Grumsby,

“
Oh, it means
“excited”” I explained, I kept forgetting that not everyone used
modern slang like I did,

“
I see!” said
Lord Grumsby, “well, I’m buzzing myself don’t you know? Come in,
come in”

I, Lizzie and Harry followed
Lord Grumsby up the marble stairs and through the large double
doors into the building. It was incredible. I’ve never seen so much
marble in one place. Everything was sparkling clean. The first room
we came into had a tall ceiling, like in a church, and from the
ceiling hung a huge crystal chandelier. The floor was so clean and
reflective that we could see ourselves in it like a mirror. All
around where painting of naked women and baby angels, classical
paintings is probably the best way to describe them. Directly in
front of us was a massive self portrait of Lord Grumsby himself,
looking very regal and grand indeed. This is what I imagined the
inside of Buckingham Palace looks like.

Through a long window I could
see lots of people on a stone balcony, which looked out onto miles
of private land. The people were all wearing shooting gear and
drinking with thin glasses of wine. A classical string quartet was
playing on the balcony, the music rung loudly and added to the
ambience of a place of pure class. It felt so unreal, that people
like me and Lizzie would find ourselves spending a day with such
people. It was pretty cool.

Lord Grumsby led us to where a
wooden rack stood which was designed to hold many rifles. Most of
the spaces were empty, as the people out on the balcony had already
taken them, but some were still left for the taking. Right at the
end was one more gun for Harry and three spares. Lord Grumsby
handed Harry his gun, which was engraved with his name, and handed
Lizzie and me with the two spares.

The guns were real. I know that
that’s an odd thing to say, but I’d never held a real gun before.
The gun was surprisingly light even though it was made of real wood
and metal. Both of us were holding the guns in an awkward way,
unsure what to really do with them.

“
Come along”
said Lord Grumsby, “I’m sure that you’ll make quite a stir among my
guests. Let’s see how shallow these bastards really are”

Lord Grumsby led the way out of
the room and onto the balcony. Instantly the faces spun around to a
mixture of reactions. Some were indifferent while the others looked
at us in disgust. The Lord chuckled and leaned in to tell us
something.

“
Talk to the
ones who are not pulling a stupid face” suggested the Lord, “Ignore
the others, they’re just being bloody daft”

We had a nice little chat with
some of Lord Gumsby’s guests. I would tell you more about what they
were said, but they were so frightfully posh that I had no idea
what they were saying. That isn’t to say that all upper class
blokes are like that, what I’m saying is that these blokes were
hard to understand. I swear that I even got some plashes of spit on
my face, trying not to react was unbelievably hard.

“
Righto!”
called out Lord Grumsby after a few minutes of casual conversation,
“enough talk, let’s shoot some clay pigeons!”

“
Well said!”
said one women with the face of a horse,

“
Time to blast
those blighters to bits I say!” said a man with a beard worthy of
Father Christmas,

“
Then let’s
make haste!” cried Lord Grumsby.

The crowd went off down the
stone steps and onto the grassy field. Some blokes just to the side
of the field had catapults ready to fire the clay pigeons from. The
guests began to load their guns with skill and experience. I and
Lizzie stood there looking none the wiser, in fact we had no idea
what to do with the flipping thing.

After much turning, flipping,
pulling and spinning around of our rifles, Harry came over and gave
us a hand. Whatever he did he did it fast. The guns became a blur
where I could hear some loud clicking and snapping. One second the
gun was empty and useless, the next it was handed back to me all
ready to go. The same was done with Lizzie’s gun that got the same
bizarrely fantastic treatment. The gun was handed back to her.
Harry gave us a nod and walked back to his Father without a
word.

Both I and Lizzie knew that it
wouldn’t be a good idea to try and go first. We simply stood and
watched the other more experienced people, take part in the sport
in a hope that we could mimic their techniques. Lord Grumsby went
first. He brought the gun up to his shoulder, waited for a few
moments before shouting: “Pull!” In reaction to this, one of the
people by one of the catapults released the clay pigeon. The pigeon
flew high into the sky where it was shot by the Lord with much
expertise.

There was a fair amount of
gentle clapping, “golf clapping”, from the Lord’s guests. Lord
Grumsby stood back and invited Harry to have his go. Harry did the
same as his father and shot the pigeon just before it had to chance
to fall back down to Earth. Several more people had a go, all of
them shot the pigeon without any hassle. It was actually
entertaining to watch. Each person had their own speed and style to
shooting, each more unique then the last.