Lettuces and Cream (3 page)

Unlike Mike, Jan was not interested in discussions or scrutiny of this sort. But he was a bit of a philosopher and often questioned in his mind, and sometimes louder after a drink or two, many aspects of male female relationships, marriage and love and the like. Jan’s thoughts were a little more down to earth, and she was thinking that there was something very nice about not having a pristine house to clean and fuss over and this pleased her. She would be free of such considerations until the house was renovated and that, she thought, would be some way in the future. Income would be the most important issue. She had similar views about her appearance, she would be able, well not exactly slop around the place in tatters, but wouldn’t have to keep up with her old Am Dram mob. And of course she thought of sex as much as Mike did, but not quite in the same way. Of course she would, all to infrequently for Mikes appetite, respond to his advances, out of love, or was it sympathy? However, whenever she could, she avoided the dissatisfaction of intimacy with Mike and preferred pleasing herself. This wasn’t going to be so easy now that Mike would be around all day, and not even a bathroom for privacy. However, sometimes, at night when Mike was asleep beside her, she had learnt how to cleverly reach a peak without waking him. In this respect Mike was no slouch and he too would sometimes privately ‘comfort’ himself. But soon, fatigue had brought an end to their cerebral ramblings, and they had fallen into a deep sleep.

Their first morning in their new home, was heralded by the old Suffolk latch, on the old bedroom door, being energetically rattled open.

‘Dad, dad, there’s a man in the yard talking Welsh and I think he wants to see you- about some pigs-I think.’

Both Mandy and David had been attending a Welsh medium school back in their home town but the local version of the language was causing David some problems.

‘Pigs, David? I don’t know anything about pigs. God, it’s Sunday, bit early for callers isn’t it? What time is it?’ He looked at the clock. ‘It’s only eight’ o’ clock,’ Mike groaned.

‘Okay, son, tell him I’ll be there in a minute.’

‘That’s it love, up with the lark, we’re in the country now,’ Jan said with a grin and gave him a playful jab in the ribs

‘Okay, okay I’m getting up.’

Outside in the yard Mike found the early morning visitor peering through the doorway of the large, cob walled and slate roofed barn. He was tall, thin, aged about forty, and wearing dung spattered old clothes and Wellingtons, and with an equally dirty flat cap. There was also a distinctive aroma about the man that Mike assumed was the smell of pigs. He turned away from the barn door but made no attempt to introduce himself.

‘Good place for pigs in there,’ he said, nodding towards the barn. He voice was incredibly high pitched and thin, and sort of squeaky. Mike was a little startled at such an unusual sound from a man.

‘Well I hadn’t thought of keeping pigs, well, any stock really.’

‘Good money in it, we do sell them to the weaner group, you see, and the muck is good for your lettuce.’

Blimey, thought Mike, news travels fast around here. ‘Weaner group? What’s that? Like a co-op?’

‘Yes yes, something like that.’ He spoke slowly as though struggling to talk in English, although the generous sprinkling of expletives came through clear enough, and he looked anywhere except at Mike. When he did catch his eye; they looked somehow, old, red rimmed and a very pale blue. Mike had the impression of someone a bit on the sleazy side. He went to explain what weight the pigs had to be and what money Mike could expect, and even where he could buy his first sow to make a start. It sounded interesting and profitable.

‘The trouble is it’s going to take a lot of work making the barn ready and I’ve so much other work on. But I’ll think about it. Okay?’ Mike held out his hand as a gesture of ending the conversation, but it was ignored. ‘I’m Mike by the way.’

‘Yes yes, I know. I live at Ty Mawr,’ he spoke curtly and seemed annoyed at Mike’s reluctance. He turned and began walking back over the fields and down to the village. Mike still didn’t know his name and thought even more adamantly that he was a very odd bloke indeed.

‘What was all that about?’ Jan said, placing the belated breakfast toast in front of Mike. ‘Do want jam or marmy.’ ‘Marmy’ was Mandy’s childhood name for marmalade. Actually they had quite a stock of silly family names for things. ‘Luggy’ for ear, was another favourite.

‘Marmy, please love. Well he reckons there’s money in rearing pigs to a certain weight, then selling them on through this group to other farmers for fattening up. Supposed to be very profitable, but I imagine it will cost a bit to get the barn ready. And of course you need a sow to start with.’

‘I think I’d like keeping pigs,’ Jan said pensively.

‘Huh, pigs are smelly,’ Mandy, said her face wrinkling with disgust.

‘Well, you could help me to keep them really clean couldn’t you?’ Mike replied with a grin and waited for her reaction.

‘Aw, dad I don’t have to do it really, do I?’ She whined.

‘Only joking-David will.’

‘Huh, I’m not cleaning up pigs poo.’

Jan interrupted the cheerful banter. ‘Who was he Mike, what’s his name?’

‘God knows, he’s a bit odd-didn’t tell me. Told me where he lives though. And all the blokes around here seem to swear after every other word -and he said he’d help. You know, tell me what to do, and all that.’ Mike crunched his toast as he contemplated the pig business.

‘Wouldn’t we need a male pig, a boar,’ Jan exclaimed sipping her tea.

‘Trust you to bring sex into it,’ Mike grinned salaciously, never missing a chance to get a dig at Jan’s lack of conjugal intent.

Jan as usual ignored the remark

‘Our mystery man said he keeps a boar but then he’s got lots of sows. Not worth keeping one, for one sow-wouldn’t get much work would he,’ Mike laughed.

Jan changed the subject, ‘What are you going to do today?’

‘Well I want to start marking out the field ready for the poly tunnels, but what do you think about clearing out that little room under the stairs and making into a toilet, just for now. The other one is far to close to the well, which isn’t very hygienic. And anyway we can’t keep crossing the yard at night, or in the winter. We’ve got to go shopping for Wellingtons for all of us on Monday anyway, so we could buy a nice new modern chemical toilet as well.’

Mentioning the toilet evoked bad memories.

‘We don’t like the old toilet dad,’ Mandy moaned, her young fresh face wrinkled in disgust.

‘I don’t either,’ added David.

‘Well it seems it’s a good idea, Darl. I’ll wash the dishes, and then start clearing out that room.’

‘Okay troops, onward and upward,’ Mike said getting up from the table and purposefully striding out of the house and out, into the great beyond.

‘We’re always being called, troops dad,’ David laughingly called after his amusing father.

As Mike strode purposefully outside, the warm late summer sunshine tempted him to walk around the field and woods-just to get the feel of the place, before he began his work. The dry weather was a huge bonus, because in Mikes limited experience of moving house, it was, like funerals, a time when it often rained. Blackie the puss, who was now fully recovered from his drug-induced ordeal, was also prowling around the yard sniffing the air and staking out his territory. He had plenty of it to choose from, unlike his tiny patch of garden in town.

There is something immensely satisfying about walking about on your own land, whether is a suburban garden or thousand-acre plot. And he was experiencing just such a feeling. Mikes land lay mostly on a level plateau, sheltered on three sides by yet higher land, mostly woodlands. As the Crow flies, the village was only about a mile or so away, some four miles by car, and hidden in a valley and couldn’t be seen from the yard. The farm was in a very secluded spot indeed.

He had reached the small area of his woodland and wandering through the trees was impressed by the size of some of them and thought that they wouldn’t be short of firewood. They were looking forward to a roaring open fire, a big change from the gas fires they were used to. Of course there was no mains gas in the area and so wood or coal would be the mainstay, for the short term anyhow. Having their own firewood would at least save them money. Still, his meandering had to come to an end; he had to get some work done.

Mike thought that soil, earth, was an amazing substance. He had read somewhere that it takes a thousand years to create a half inch of topsoil in which plants can grow, and that a teaspoon of it has millions of micro-organisms. And some people called it dirt, eh? And, he had just dug down into fifteen inches of the stuff, and there was still plenty to spare. Marvellous.

He had chosen the field for the poly-tunnels with care. After all their entire livelihood depended on it. It was an open site, sunlit all day long so crops had the best chance to grow well. Of course selling what he grew was to be yet another challenge, but he had found that all the salad crops in the area came in from Hereford or South Wales. He hoped to intrude upon this market.

As he set out the markers, his mind drifted, as it does, from this to that, and memories of his father came into view. He wished he were here to help him now. He was doing what his father had always wanted to do-have some land, grow things, but he had died when Mike was aged fifteen of the dreaded, C disease. The disease, which in Mike’s childhood, was spoken of in whispers, just in case mentioning the name caused it to infect others. He still missed him, missed him a lot, and in his melodramatic mood imagined he was near to him now, watching as Mike toiled in the field. He looked over his shoulder, almost expecting to see him, and a tear ran down his face, he swallowed hard, pushing the emotion back, deep down into his gut.

Meanwhile, Jan’s good intentions for the preparations of the temporary lavatory had been cruelly shattered. Before she could put her hands in the suds, there was a knock on the already open front door. Followed by a chorus of ‘hello’s.’

‘Hello? Yes, I’m coming,’ Jan called out, entering the hallway full of curiosity as to who the visitors were. She found three well-built women; all were dressed in their somewhat sombre dark coloured and old-fashioned Sunday best, complete with the seemingly compulsory mud-smeared Wellingtons. Jan guessed they were all in their fifties, their ruddy country complexions make-up free and for some reason they reminded Jan of The Three Bears. One was tall, the other less so, the third less again. Two struggled to smile and had the obvious facial signs of people used to looking on the black side of life. But middle-sized bear was the smiley one and was the first to speak.

‘We have just come from Chapel and thought we would walk up over the fields and come and say hello to you. You must be Janice, yes?’

‘Yes?’ the other two repeated in unison.

‘Yes, but everyone calls me Jan.’ God, they even know my name Jan thought.

Names and places of abode were given and it turned out that the Smiley one, who appeared to be the leader of the trio, lived the nearest to Jan and said she would be a regular caller. Jan didn’t know whether to be pleased or not at the prospect. The other two Bears seemed to have been shanghaied into the visit simply as a support unit for Smiley. Jan was bemused, and a little embarrassed by their appearance on her doorstep, and wondered how they had got past the kids in the yard. Normally, their curiosity kept their senses sharp and they were as good as watchdogs. At least she would have had some warning. She had no biscuits or other hospitality nibbles for her guests and the place was in a shameful mess, but never the less, she ushered the visitors into the kitchen where they all readily sat down around the table.

‘Whew, its a steep walk up from the village,’ said Big Bear, slumping down onto the chair, which groaned a little under her bulk. ‘You’ve meet my husband, Idris, haven’t you?’ Big bear continued, peering out at the world through her spectacles. ‘He helped you get the van out of the ditch.’

‘Well I didn’t see him myself, but yes, my husband has.’

‘There will be a lot of work for you to do here. It’s a bit of a mess isn’t it?’ Smiley Bear said with simple candour, looking around the kitchen. ‘That’s how they were you know, never did a thing with the house.’

‘Well, we hope to build a new kitchen-eventually.’

‘Yes, well, it all takes time,’ Smiley said, to which the other Two Bears, benevolently agreed.

Mike’s job progressed, and as the hours past, tentacles of marker posts grew out across the site. But he was beginning to feel hungry and realised lunchtime was upon him. Still, he had done well; he was pleased with the mornings work and set off back to the house with a confident, jaunty stride.

Back at the house the children were sitting expectantly at the old and large farmhouse table, the only piece of furniture the Davis’s had left that was of any use. The kids were messing about clanging their knives and forks, supposedly creating music-it wasn’t.

‘Will you two behave please, all that noise, I can’t hear myself think. Oh there you are Mike. I’ll have to get a bell or walkie talkies, or something, so I can call you.’

‘Good idea love. I’m bloomin’ starving. Yeah it’s really odd, being so far from the house and still being on your own land. Bloomin’ big garden eh?’ He laughed, and crossed to the kitchen sink to wash his hands. ‘How did you get on with the toilet room?” Mike asked, crossing the room to join the children at the table.

‘Don’t ask-peace of the countryside, that’s a joke. Yesterday there was that funny pigman, then today, these three women turned up out of the blue. One of them was Idris’s wife-you know, the one that pulled the van out. Oh yes, she said if you want any ploughing or jobs like that done he’ll do them for you. Anyway, they said they had just come from chapel, I thought for a minute they were here to persuade me to go as well, but they didn’t. Mind you, I did say I would go to the W.I sometime to see what its all about. And it’s not only the men around here that swear a lot, two of these women let a few, f-u-c-k’s, drop as well. Ann, the happy smiley one, wasn’t too bad, and because I didn’t, they eventually stopped doing it. Still, it was good job the kids were outside playing. But they all seemed nice enough people, it seems around here even the women accept swearing as normal.’