To him that has plenty more shall be given, the parable ends, to him that has nothing, even that will be taken away from him. (Sarcastic, partial drum roll.)
So there you have it: my pathetic little life in two short sentences. And the worst part? I knew, I just sensed, even as a small, snotty, scab-knee-and-elbowed youth, that this would all turn out to be completely true; that I would of course I would! find myself at the thin end of this parabolical wedge.
Looking back (a great hobby of mine) I can clearly deduce that it was at this precise moment (the reading of the talent parable pay attention) that I finally lost all sympathy with the Judeo-Christian tradition. There have been others since (other moments, other losses) still more painful. But then thats Well.
Good. Okay. So Im not entirely sure why I bored you rigid with that anecdote. I suppose it was a toss-up between this brief Bible-study session or an in-depth breakdown of the journey from Chick Hill to Toot Rock undertaken in a twelve-year-old Ford Transit with no side door, dodgy transmission and a malfunctioning water pump.
Because these are the manifold riches of my life, ladies and gentlemen (the boring parable, the crappy van). No sudden landslips or obscure collections of Soviet memorabilia here, no ancient beefs with the CIA or complex issues of avian gender orientation. None of that. Just practical, gormless old Rusty. Mr Can-do. Mr Happy to Oblige. Mr Thats Absolutely Fine, Mrs Barrow, Just Point Me in the Right Direction and Ill Get On With It, Shall I?
Thats fine. Just point me in the right direction and Ill get on with it, Mrs Barrow, I tell her. Mrs Barrow has kindly provided me with a list. At the top is porch bulb (in all honesty I think she couldve handled most of these herself what am I? Her drudge? Short answers on a postcard, please), then theres dispose of shark, then theres rabbit? (her question mark), then bin, then, finally, bathroom window. Putty? (putty underlined, twice).
Of course as soon as Mrs Barrow describes the general scenario (rotting sand shark under the bed?!) I am 100 per cent convinced that the salmon-pink paws of Miss Carla Hahn are all over this mysterious and completely unprovoked attack. In truth I think Mrs Barrow suspects as much herself, but worker/employer loyalty (and Mr Huff availing himself of the nearby bathroom) prevents her from confiding in me. All credit to her for that. Although there is a brief exchange of significant looks. Yes. And a slightly raised, under-plucked eyebrow. And she is very very keen to stop the highly offended (hurt, violated!: his words) Mr Franklin D. from getting the local police involved (but what else might you expect from the wife of the local poacher? Eh?).
I know all the signs, though. In fact Im so certain of Carlas involvement that I promptly head over to an old brass coal-scuttle stored just inside the entrance to the bomb shelter (there is a bomb shelter behind the house a drab, claustrophobic concrete shed-like thing with a basement nobody ever goes into. Did anyone bother mentioning this before? Nah. Probably not) and I retrieve the porch bulb from this old favourite Carla hidey-hole.
I am smiling to myself (even allowing myself a gentle tut) and straightening up when Oh bugger! I see Mr Franklin D. Huff standing behind me, arms crossed, braces dangling (At ease, Suh!), watching me from the back with a look full of what I can only call deep misgivings.
Sorry if there is something grammatically awry with that sentence. But I think you get what I mean. I respond with my broadest hayseeds smile. This smile is doubly effective because of a missing canine (front top left).
Hello, Massa. I just be doin my work here, Massa. No need for the likes of you to be troubling yourself on my account, Massa.
(Touch brim of pretend flat cap.)
I didnt actually speak that out loud, I just compressed it into a slight bending of the knee and the broad smile, obviously. Especially the smile. Although theres an extra (bonus!) atmosphere of I might look like a moron I am a moron but if you mess about with my Carla trifle with her Im going to well
What might I do?
Bleat like a lamb?
Burst into tears?
Absolutely bloody nothing, same as always?
Oh God, I just had this this horrible this shadow-falling-across-my-grave feeling. An icy chill in my A moment of
Shes going to make me stand up to him, isnt she? The cow Author. Shes going to make me act totally out of character rise to the occasion, give the smug, cosmopolitan arsehole what for and then quickly kill me off. But itll be something mundane that does me in a nosebleed or an infected toenail. Or something completely stupid and embarrassing like like being squashed under a tractor after diving to save a duckling. Swerving to avoid a weasel and driving off a cliff.
I know thats what shes planning.
I suppose I should just be grateful that the over-tight jumper didnt prove to be my undoing (Ch. 7? Ch. 8?). Although Im not sure how that wouldve been managed, technically (Im always interested in the technical side of things. This isnt much of a virtue in your average romantic hero, I realize. Sorry to interrupt you, Miss Eyre, but the axle on your carriage has noticeable signs of wear ). To be perfectly frank, it doesnt have all that much credibility as an idea (dispatched by an over-tight jumper?!). I mean this is only my second chapter! Its early days yet. To kill me with a lethal piece of knitwear after how many? three pages? Thatd be so so clumsy, so amateur. The criticsd have a field day! Although she killed someone in another novel (forget the name of it, offhand) with a frozen, miniature butter pat and then she won a bloody prize. A prize! A big money prize!
What were they thinking?!
In fact there was this very sweet man in her last novel kind and gentle, a bit of a wimp; rather like me, I suppose (sound the alarm bells!!) who she hit with a sudden brain haemorrhage just when everything had finally started to work out for him. I dont remember his name or all the circumstances exactly. But shes probably planning something similar for me now. Right now.
What a nightmare. What an awful, bloody nightmare.
store your bulbs.
Franklin D. is speaking but I miss the gist of it worrying about all this other crap. There was one character who fed his fingers to an owl and then walked in front of a bus. Or a lorry. But he was the hero. And I dont know if he died or not. I think she left it open so that if the book was successful she could write a follow-up. But the thing bombed.
Ha!
Although damn! none of this works, logically logistically (Oh great, Mr Technical!). Because Im thinking these thoughts in October 1984 and she only started writing seriously in 1987 on a student trip to Ireland while volunteering for the Council for the Status of Women. She wrote a wretched piece of teen fiction during that interlude called The Perverse Yellow Flower. It was inspired by three paintings of Christ she saw in a shop window in Windsor and a conversation she had while she was looking at them with a man called Marcus who wanted to make her join a weird cult called Sabud.
store your bulbs.
Franklin D. is speaking but I miss the gist of it worrying about all this other crap. There was one character who fed his fingers to an owl and then walked in front of a bus. Or a lorry. But he was the hero. And I dont know if he died or not. I think she left it open so that if the book was successful she could write a follow-up. But the thing bombed.
Ha!
Although damn! none of this works, logically logistically (Oh great, Mr Technical!). Because Im thinking these thoughts in October 1984 and she only started writing seriously in 1987 on a student trip to Ireland while volunteering for the Council for the Status of Women. She wrote a wretched piece of teen fiction during that interlude called The Perverse Yellow Flower. It was inspired by three paintings of Christ she saw in a shop window in Windsor and a conversation she had while she was looking at them with a man called Marcus who wanted to make her join a weird cult called Sabud.
What?!
Hang on a second
Where the heck did all that come from? How could I ? I I just cant be having these thoughts right now, about her other books and her sadistic urges and her I dunno. It just doesnt make any sense. Its its unnatural, its supernatural.
store your bulbs.
Argh. Am I just sabotaging myself again? Same as I always do? Am I? Eh? Mr Bickerton, will you sign on the dotted line for your regular delivery of a truck-load of self-pity, please? Oh youve lost your pen. And your pencil. Boo-hoo-hoo.
Theres nothing positive or clever or rational about it, either, is there? I know that. Im simply stewing in all this stuff all these regrets. I really need to just try and I dunno. Grow a set. Stop over-thinking. Stop making everything twice as complicated as it needs to be. Heroes dont dither, do they? Do they? No. Heroes arent ditherers.
Uh. Sorry. Could you just feed me that line again, please?
Well thats a very strange place to store your bulbs!
Uh Okay. Uh I already did the smile, didnt I? The hayseeds goofy smile (my staple)? So how about I just repeat what he said back to him and then work the rest out from there?
A very strange place to store your bulbs. Yes. Very strange indeed. You must be Mr Huff. You were holed up in the bathroom when I first arrived. Im Clifford. Clifford Bickerton. People call me Rusty.
We shake hands.
Did you see the shark? Mr Huff asks, following me over to the front porch where I quickly re-fit the bulb. Yup. I nod (Dont give anything away, Clifford!).
Very convenient being so tall, Mr Huff observes.
Great for replacing bulbs, I affirm, but not so great in other arenas. Its hard to cram myself inside certain models of car.
Mr Huff nods.
I sometimes break antique furniture.
Mr Huff nods again.
And I play havoc with sofa and bed springs.
Mr Huff considers this, scowling.
And everythings dusty.
Mr Huff looks quizzical.
Ive noticed how women never dust above their own height. Up here I find everythings dusty. Its sad. Ive often thought how theres something deeply unloved about this altitude.
Mr Huffs eyes de-focus. I am boring him already.
I mean how are we going to dispose of it, he wonders, with the bin stuck up on the Look Out?
Follow me, I say, and walk around, through the little allotment (Ye Gods! He obviously hasnt fed the badgers) to the front porch where the shark currently abides. I pick it up by the tail, take two steps forward and toss it over the cliff into the mess of rocky gorse below.
Bloody hell!
Mr Huff is scandalized.
Somethings bound to eat it eventually. I shrug. Ill go and fetch you that bin now, eh?
Will you climb up the little ladder? Mr Huff is intrigued. It seemed a rather precarious arrangement when I went up there the other day.
The ladders not a good option, I inform him. The metal joists are corroded. It has a history of suddenly shearing off falling out of the wall
Mr Huff blanches.
But theres a series of thick planks hidden in some nearby bushes, I add, trying to keep the atmosphere positive, and a quantity of corrugated iron. We generally construct a sloping walkway from the edge of the far end of the rock to the roof. Its not especially stable
We? Mr Huff asks.
Local folk, I say, casually.
I stride out and Mr Huff follows. We retrieve the bin in no time. When we return we find a woman in the garden accompanied by two large red setters, tending the little girls shrine.
Mr Huff is not best pleased by her sudden arrival. One could almost go so far as to say that he is infuriated by it, and doubly so when one of the dogs menaces him as he opens the gate.
Do you know this person? he asks, stopping by the gate as I position the bin in its regular place, scowling.
Uh no. But theres a little gang of them, I say. Good, decent Catholic women in the main. Locals for the most part. They arent too much of a problem. Its the other group the Romanies youll need to keep an eye out for. They come up here in their vans and block off the roadway. Infuriates the people in the Coastguards Cottages, it does. Causes no end of trouble.
But this is trespass, surely? Mr Huff persists.
If you try and stop them youll only make them more determined. I grin.
Faith is like bindweed, Mr Huff snarls, an unremarkable enough plant, but give it any kind of leeway and youll find it pushing its fragile green shoots through thick inches of brickwork.
They have Carlas blessing. I shrug, moving past him.
Yes. Miss Hahn said as much in her Welcome Pack, Mr Huff grumbles, following. At the mention of Carlas name he seems profoundly demoralized. I glance back at him as we circumnavigate the allotment to avoid the dogs. He looks ragged. I notice the pinkness of his irises, the bags under his eyes.
No point railing against it, I console him (emboldened by the Welcome Pack comment). Its going to be a major part of the plot at some point, I suppose.
Sorry? Mr Huff looks confused.
The plot. The story, I repeat, you know I blithely indicate towards the little shrine. Orla Nor Cleary. The truth behind what really happened back then. The subject of your book the book. Everything else the parrot, the landslip, this its all just incidental detail, surely? Just filler. I mean I cant speak for you, obviously, but I know Im totally insignificant just a minor character, a handy plot device. Thats it.
Still nothing from Mr Huff, but its almost as if he starts to to fade.
Im very tired, he says, flickering. Or is it me thats flickering? Its hard to tell.
Mrs Barrow mentioned a rabbit? I quickly change the subject.
Rabbit? He instantly jumps back into sharp relief.