Fallow Page 5

  ‘I knew a guy like that, Jabbar I think, Lebanese, who we got to dig ditches, similar job to yours, Paul. He was a bit...’ he tilted his hand side to side. ‘He wore a shirt on his bottom half instead of trousers.’

  ‘As in legs through the...’

  ‘That’s it. Legs through the armholes.’

  ‘Wow.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Mikey’s not like that. He’s just a bit... a bit sensitive.’

  ‘Aye, some people are like that. We’ll get him toughened up if he decides he needs a bit of work.’

  I thought about the prospect of bringing Mikey along in future. There was the concern of exposing him to so many new people and the risk of him blabbing his mouth off. On the other hand, perhaps it was less risky to have him by my side than leave him alone in the wee house where anyone could come calling. At least if he was here I could give him one of my looks if I felt he was going down a dangerous road, conversation-wise. And besides, we could really do with the extra cash.

  ‘I’ll maybe say to him,’ I told Duncan.

  ‘Grand.’

  The road started to descend and I realised we’d come through the hills and were going into the next valley over. After maybe half an hour we turned from the main road onto a dirt track and a huge sign, planted in the ground, read ‘The Home of Your New Mason Dew Development’.

  ‘Mason Dew,’ I said. ‘That’s your company?’

  Duncan shook his head. ‘Not exactly. Mason Dew’s the people that want to build but the council says they have to get a company like ours to survey the land before it’s allowed. Make sure there’s nothing, eh, significant underneath before the building starts.’

  We went along the dirt track until we came to a cluster of cabins at the edge of an overturned field, a crowd of people gathered way out on it. Duncan parked up the van and we wandered over to the cabins.

  ‘Rise and shine,’ he shouted, throwing open the door of the first cabin.

  ‘No fucking way,’ said a voice from inside.

  ‘I’ve got some more workforce for you here,’ Duncan said, grinning at me.

  A woman came to the door, wrapped up in a sleeping bag. Her hair was curly anyway but a night spent sleeping in the cabin had made it a riot. She rubbed her nose.

  ‘It can’t be morning,’ she told us.

  ‘This is Paul,’ said Duncan. ‘Our newest digger.’

  The woman held the sleeping bag across her breasts with her forearm and extended her other hand. ‘Sam,’ she said. Her voice was syrupy, maybe Australian or even South African, I couldn’t tell.

  I shook her hand and she huffed. ‘Right. Pleased to meet you. Give me a minute to get my head together, eh Dunc?’

  Duncan shut her inside and walked away, laughing. ‘Best not to mention her staying in there, especially if any of the lads from Mason Dew show up.’

  ‘She’s not meant to be there?’

  ‘Absolutely not. Nah, that’s well against protocol. She got chucked out by her man.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘She’s a wild one is our Sam,’ was all he said.

  We went over to one of the other cabins and Duncan ducked inside, telling me to wait. I walked over to the edge of the field. I was just able to make out the crowd of people standing in the haze at the edge of the flat land. They didn’t look like they were working yet. After weeks and weeks of being up within the hills and mountains it felt odd to be able to look around and have the land be unbroken between the horizon and me.

  Duncan was crashing about inside the cabin and wasn’t making any sign of returning, so I leaned on the field’s fence and rolled myself a fag. I lit up and Sam emerged from her cabin. She’d managed to wrangle her hair into a scarf and looked surprisingly fresh for a person living in a large box.

  She eyed my fag as she approached. ‘Wouldn’t do me one of those, would you?’

  I let her have mine and rolled another.

  ‘I’m supposed to have quit,’ she said. ‘But the smell.’

  ‘It’s bad for you, I suppose.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She asked me what Duncan was up to in the cabin and I shrugged. She shook her head. ‘Daft fucker,’ she said. ‘Did he tell you what you’ll be doing?’

  ‘Nope.’

  She turned to face the field and I followed her. ‘All that,’ she said, ‘needs to get ditches dug into it. The whole thing.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘That’s your job. Then we come along and see if there’s anything of interest.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Good fun eh?’

  I pointed at the crowd in the field. ‘Are they all diggers too?’

  ‘A mixture. We’ve got diggers in, we’ve got a few others like me and Dunc, people from the firm. We’re not due a visit from Mason Dew for a while. That’s who you want to avoid.’

  ‘The company?’

  ‘Well, no. But there’s the supervisor. Mr Raymond.’

  I was about to ask what was so bad about Mr Raymond when Duncan fell out the cabin.

  ‘Are we not putting things away in their homes any more, Sam?’

  ‘Honestly, Duncan?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Fuck yourself.’

  Duncan roared with laughter and got me to help him carry the equipment he’d managed to dig out. We went through the kissing gate and the three of us crossed the field. There were long lines of string running right along the length of it, spaced about six feet apart. I could see that some of the strings already had ditches dug beneath them.

  ‘How did we get on yesterday?’ Duncan asked Sam.

  ‘Oh, fine. Another couple of ditches laid. I was up in the far corner because Pawel thought he might have found something important.’

  ‘Oh aye?’

  ‘Yep. It was roots.’

  ‘Roots.’

  ‘Like, a bunch of roots and the clay or whatever was caked around it in such a way that I suppose we can forgive him for mistaking it for a head.’

  ‘He thought he’d dug up a head? That’s hilarious.’

  I thought about the man in the garden. I thought about his head, under the ground, and laughed at Sam’s story. Both of them gave me funny looks. Perhaps I’d laughed a tiny bit too loud.

  ‘You all right?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Fine.’

  We came up to the people in the field. They were a mixture of brutish youths and wiry men and women. I guessed the brutes were my fellow diggers. They eyed me with suspicion and the wiry archaeologists looked right through me.

  ‘Having your breaks before you’ve even started?’ Duncan asked the group.

  ‘What time do you call this, Duncan?’ asked one of the archaeologists in a heavy South American accent. ‘Did you sleep in?’

  Duncan showed the South American a vigorous set of Vs and led me over to the far end of the field, to the first unworked string line. He told me to work it all the way down and showed me how I could measure it with my spade. The ditch would be as wide as my spade and half as deep. He said he would come and get me for morning break and that if I found anything I should put it to one side. I watched him stroll back to the cabin and caught the eye of the man working the string line to my left.

  ‘Pawel,’ he shouted over.

  ‘Paul.’

  ‘You’re local?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Wow.’

  The earth was baked dry by the heat. It took a good couple of heaves with the trowel to break the dusty crust. I scooped up a spadeful of earth and threw it onto the area between the string lines. Underneath the surface the soil was wet and dark as chocolate cake. Looking down the string as it stretched away from me I started to wonder if this was good work I’d got myself into.

  Of all the jobs I’d had, working in the garden centre had been the best. You were supposed to make yourself available to customers at all times but the outdoor shopping area was so big you could hide behind fountains and s
heds if you saw an old bag coming, wanting you to help her carry her solid concrete sun dial out to the car. She wouldn’t even give you a tip either. It was boring, aye, behind the fountain or the shed, but it was better than having to deal with the customers. I worked there for a year and a half until someone made a complaint and they had to let me go.

  We worked right through until eleven or so. Duncan stood at the cabins and yelled over to us. We put down our trowels and walked down our lines of string. There was warm squash and a plastic bag full of cereal bars waiting for us. Pawel had brought his own plastic tub of some sort of rice dish. I wolfed down my cereal bar and jealously eyed Pawel’s tub.

  Sam and Duncan and the rest of the archaeologists went into the cabin for their break and I was left outside with the rest of the lads.

  ‘Here,’ I said to Pawel, pointing my thumb to the cabin. ‘One of them was saying to me about Mr Raymond?’

  Pawel’s face darkened. ‘He’s a terrible man.’

  I pressed him for more details but they weren’t forthcoming.

  There were a few more breaks through the day with cereal bars and squash. I made good progress on my ditch. By the time Duncan came over to offer me a lift back I was nearly halfway down.

  ‘You’re a natural,’ he said.

  He stopped off at the cabin on the way back to give me my wages. Just over forty-five quid. I put the notes into my pocket.

  Duncan tapped himself on the nose. ‘And not a word to Mr Raymond or the good old HMRC.’

  I slumped down in the passenger seat of Duncan’s van, exhausted. My hands and arms and front were covered in a dry coating of dust and dirt. We drove down the track, past the sign for Mason Dew and onto the main road.

  ‘How was it then?’ asked Duncan. ‘Your first day?’

  I nodded. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Grand. I said it would be boring, didn’t I?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  He went along past the long loch with the bone-coloured beach. The road began to climb and I knew we weren’t far off. He dropped me outside the wee house and I climbed out.

  ‘Same time tomorrow?’ he asked.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Remember and say to your brother?’

  ‘Aye.’

  I found Mikey playing with the dog in the back garden. He was lying on the grass and letting it run and bounce near his head. It was licking his face all over when I came around the house.

  ‘That’s disgusting, Mikey.’

  He pushed the dog away and it gave me a dirty look. I gave it one back and turned to Mikey. ‘Do we know what it’s called yet?’

  ‘It says Doris on its collar,’ he said, clambering up. ‘How was the job then? What was it?’

  ‘Digging ditches for these archaeologists. They’re all a bunch of poncey bastards, like. I’m knackered. Have you done any tea?’

  ‘I didn’t know when you’d be back.’

  ‘So you just decided to lie on the floor and play with the dog.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I went in through the back door and sat at the kitchen table to roll myself a fag. I helped myself to another tumbler of whisky. The kitchen was soon full of blueish fag smoke, curling around itself in the light from the open door. The dog lay down in front of Mikey and put her head in his lap. Above them the mountain range stood, solid and dead.

  I squeezed myself into the bathroom and undressed. My reflection in the mirror was rough. I was skinny and pale on the areas untouched by sun, my hair was unkempt and beard thick and scratchy. I got the shower going good and warm and went under the water. It was so hot that it stung. I lined my cock up with the plughole and pissed into it directly. I used the man’s Head and Shoulders on my hair and I used his shower gel on my face. My skin was roasting from a day in the sun. I was thinking about the can of beer I’d open once I was dry and then the doorbell went.

  The sound of the water pummelling on the bath’s ceramic.

  My breath in the wet heat.

  I fumbled with the shower curtain and nearly fell over the side. My blood was kicking in something awful. Wrapped up in a towel, I stumbled into the hall. Mikey was already there, watching the front door. Drops fell from me, water ran down my face.

  ‘Who the fuck’s that?’ I hissed at him.

  He gave a shrug.

  I was imagining him, alone in the house all day. Picking up the phone, making a call to the police. Saying, My name’s Mikey Buchanan and here’s where I am.

  If someone really had come for us…

  Well, I wouldn’t let that happen. I wouldn’t let them take Mikey away. I couldn’t have him talking to anyone like that. I’d worked so hard the first time the police came for him, I didn’t know if I could pull it off again.

  I turned to face the door. There was a shadow on the glass.

  4

  I touched the handle and looked at Mikey. I opened the door.

  I said, ‘Yes?’

  The butcher nearly dropped his carrier bag with surprise. ‘It’s you pair!’ he exclaimed, eyeing my bare chest and wet hair.

  I felt Mikey settle beside me. ‘Aye,’ he said.

  ‘What are... Where’s...’

  I could see a DVD case pressed against the side of the butcher’s carrier bag. You could just make out the girl on its cover through the thin plastic. He saw me looking and swung it round behind his legs.

  ‘Where’s Jock?’ he said.

  ‘Off on holiday,’ said Mikey.

  ‘Or was it business?’ I said.

  ‘Could have been business,’ agreed Mikey.

  The butcher looked at us, dumbfounded.

  ‘We’re housesitting,’ I explained. ‘He employed us as house sitters.’

  ‘House sitters,’ said the butcher.

  ‘That’s right. Looking after the dog.’

  ‘Doris,’ interjected Mikey.

  ‘Doris,’ I repeated. ‘Making sure the lights go on and off. That sort of thing.’

  The butcher scrabbled at his scalp. He sucked his red lips. ‘I didn’t know he was away. Jock never said. Where is it he’s off to?’

  ‘Spain, I think, was it?’ Mikey said to me.

  ‘I think he said the Costa del Sol. Maybe even del Brava. One of the Costas anyway.’

  Mikey put his finger in the air. ‘Did he say it was one of them special vouchers you get these days?’

  ‘I think he might have done Alan,’ I agreed, remembering Mikey’s false name just in time.

  ‘Not bad for some, Rob,’ he said and we both turned to the butcher.

  ‘I see,’ he said. ‘That’s odd. Well...’

  I pointed to his carrier bag. ‘If you need to drop something off we can keep it safe till he gets back.’

  ‘No, no,’ he said, wrapping the carrier bag up to try and obscure the contents. ‘That’s fine. Tell him to give me a ring when he gets back.’

  ‘Will do,’ I said, closing the door. ‘Cheerio.’

  We scurried through to the living room and peered through gaps in the curtain to make sure he was leaving. When he was gone I turned to Mikey and found myself smiling.

  ‘That was good,’ I said.

  ‘We did all right, eh?’

  ‘We did.’

  He was better than I gave him credit for, Mikey. Perhaps I could trust him with the job after all. I went up the Ramsay ladder to dry myself and get dressed. Afterwards, I threw a few chicken breasts in the oven for our tea and went outside to smoke. It was a fine evening. Mikey had put Doris back in her run. She was curled up in her bone-shaped bed.

  ‘Hiya Doris,’ I said to her and she didn’t even look up. Ignorant beast, I thought, rattling the wire side of the run so the metal clanged. She jumped up in fright. ‘That’s better,’ I said.

  We had the chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy. I thought we should sit at the table in the kitchen – to celebrate our first proper night in our new house and my first day as a working man.

  I told Mikey all about the people at the site,
the archaeologists and the diggers. I described Duncan and Sam and how Sam was living in a cabin because she’d been sleeping around. He nodded and listening and chewed on huge mouthfuls of chicken and potato.

  ‘They were talking about the boss or the supervisor of the company. He sounds like a bad egg. Someone to watch out for. ‘

  Mikey nodded.

  ‘So,’ I said, putting my cutlery down. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About making some money yourself.’

  ‘How am I going to make any money?’

  ‘Duncan was saying you could come along and do some digging.’

  ‘For money like?’ he beamed.

  I laughed. ‘Aye for money.’

  That night I dreamed of a memory. It was the day it happened. Me and Mikey, fifteen and thirteen years old, ticking off the school. We were in the woods and something was after us. I didn’t see it, in the dream, but I knew it was a monster and that it wanted to devour us. We found a ladder in the trees and climbed it to safety.

  ‘What’s happening?’ Mikey asked me.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep us safe.’

  I woke and it was still dark. Mikey’s snoring was at full blast and I knew right away that I was up for good. I went down to the living room and rolled myself a fag, smoking in the dark. The clock on the mantelpiece said four. Duncan wouldn’t show up until sevenish.

  I went out through the back door into the garden and the huge sky. It was clear and the stars were fizzing. I climbed the fence by the dog’s run and went out into the waste ground, pulling my jumper close around me. The land was covered in these twisting grooves, like miniature canyons. Like miniature ditches. They looked like a maze for rabbits.

  I found the mound of overturned earth from the other night and I lay down on a cushion of moss beside it. I could see the wee house the way I’d come. I could hold out my hand and close it around the house and garden and it contained everything inside – Mikey, the dog, the house itself. Those were all mine.

  I put my hand on the fresh soil the man lay beneath. It buzzed with life. There were atoms spinning in the earth, there were electrons moving through it like worms. I felt myself get hard in the pyjama bottoms.