The Peas and Carrots Series Boxset 1, page 27
part #1 of Peas and Carrots Series
‘Okay, okay,’ Maggie stepped in front of Norman blocking the line between him and the officer. ‘I’ll sign up. Where can I do it? I’ll sign up now. This isn’t Uncle Nor’s fault.’
A satisfied smile appeared on the Officer Clarke’s face.
‘Brilliant, that’s exactly what I hoped you’d say.’
Chapter 4
THE NEXT MORNING, George choose to forego his normal walk to the newsagents, and decided instead to catch up on the news via the radio. He still couldn’t believe it, the ridiculousness of it all. He, George Sibley, nearly arrested for smoking marijuana. Not to mention being a public nuisance. He couldn’t imagine what would have happened if Maggie hadn’t agreed to take the deal. He would have been forced to call Eric to come and bail him out most probably. No, he took a gulp of his tea and a bite of his toast. He would never have lived that down. He would have had to just spent the night at the station, or prayed that Cynthia would bail him out too when she came down for Norman. He took another bite of his toast, then opened the bread bin and put another slice of bread in the toaster.
He was starving, ravenous, and had been since he had woken up. He’d already eaten through three days worth of bread in sandwiches and toast, and his stomach was showing no signs of filling. It was going to completely put him out for the week.
While he waited for his sixth slice of toast to pop, George turned up the volume on the radio. Listening to the news on the radio just wasn’t the same as reading it in the paper he decided. You couldn’t get the same level of feel for a story. With a paper, a headline grabbed you and all you had to do was follow the instructions and turn to page seven. Then voila, another six columns on the story telling you everything you wanted to know. No such luck on the radio. You listened to the stories they wanted, and that was it. And they talked so fast nowadays, always trying to cram the information in before another weakly developed song started. You couldn’t ask the lady to repeat something here and there because your hearing was deteriorating or the kettle chose that exact second to whistle out that it was done. No, the radio had its place, but when it came to the news, he would always choose a paper. Of course, a radio didn’t have a crossword in either.
The lack of a walk, and then lack of a crossword to occupy his morning, thoroughly threw George and rather than spending his mid-morning sat at the kitchen table working out a seven-letter mammal from the southern hemisphere ending with an S, he spent half an hour pacing around the house, rearranging his cutlery draw and emptying the filter in the tumble drier. By the time he found himself a book and settled down in his armchair to read, it was nearly midday, and he was ready for lunch.
Standing at the hob, George stirred his soup while it heated. Every few minutes his eyes glanced toward the phone. When Eric had called he’d mentioned that he was going for promotion and although that was over a month ago, George was still waiting to hear whether or not he had got the job. Gloria used to keep track of the number of days it had been since she and Eric had last spoken. They averaged once a week, normally a Saturday afternoon. If ever it went longer than that George would notice the change in his wife.
‘Let’s not go out,’ she would say if George suggested they go for a drive in Sally. ‘I feel like staying in today. But you go if you want to go. I’m more than happy by myself.’ And sometimes he did go out on his own, because it was easier that way, away from it all, than sat at home watching his wife pining at the telephone as his thankless son failed to call.
George, however, did not count the days. He refused to. Because if he did, he would have to admit something to himself. He would have to admit that his son didn’t want to speak to him. Perhaps it was his own fault, George mused as his soup began to boil, and not just because of the difficulties he had had with Eric growing up. George hadn’t made life easy for him where his son was concerned, even in the more recent years. One particular point of tension stuck in his mind.
When Suzy had fallen pregnant, Eric had suggested that George should get a smart phone, so that they could send him photos of Abi, after she was born. He even offered to pay for it. But George wouldn’t have it. Oh no, he saw that trap a mile off. How long would he have had to listen to Eric go on about how much he had spent if he accepted that offer? Years probably, if not longer. There was no way he wanted to be indebted to his son like that. So, George had said he was fine without the phone and made it perfectly clear he would not receive any gifts of such a sort graciously.
Of course, back then, Gloria had still been alive and so Eric’s visits had been more frequent and George had got to see far more of Abi. But when she passed away the visits became less and less. Now it was down to three times a year at a push. The camera phone had played on his mind continually, up until a point last year where he drove into Maldon, parked up and marched into the nearest phone store determined to buy one.
‘What kind of tariff are you looking at?’ the woman had asked him. ‘Do you need a sim, or just the phone?’
‘A sim? I just want to receive pictures?’
‘Ahh okay, are you looking for unlimited data? Will you want roaming included?’
‘Roaming?’
‘Do you have anything for upgrade? And were you thinking of paying over 24 months or 36? What monthly rate were you thinking of?’
In the end, he had walked out with an armful of pamphlets he didn’t understand, which he promptly deposited in the nearest bin. He would have to carry on without a camera phone, he had decided there and then. Recently he had started debating the possibility of asking Eric to come shopping with him the next time he visited. Assuming there was a next time.
He tipped the soup into a bowl and moved it over to the kitchen table. He had just pulled out the chair and sat down, when the telephone rang. Groaning, he put his spoon down and headed out into the hall.
‘Have you been down the plot today?’ Norman bellowed down the line.
‘No, why?’
‘According to Cynth, the buggers have been at it again. Not been down, myself, feeling a bit chesty today.’
George sighed.
‘I’m done,’ Norman continued. ‘Sod what the rest of them think. We need this thing finished now. You and I, we’ll get it done.’
‘What are you —’ George stopped talking, the line already dead.
Muttering to himself, George made his way back to the kitchen and his soup. It was slow eating. A painful tingling spread down his wrist every time he gripped the spoon. He clenched his fists, trying to eradicate the sensation, but only made it worse. Perhaps the late-night antics and being out in the cold was the reason why they hurt so much. Perhaps it was just old age catching up with him. Either way, it probably wasn’t worth trying to take Sally out to day, he decided. He would stay in today. See how he felt tomorrow.
Once he had finished his soup he washed and dried the bowl and stacked it back in the cupboard, before ambling through to the living room. He always walked at half his pace in the house, George realised a few months ago. It wasn’t an intentional thing, but he always did it; a slow laborious lumber, weighed most probably by the thousands of memories that echoed around him.
The living room had a chill. The windows had been replaced when Eric was still in school, but not since and spots of damp speckled the paint around them. George had considered getting them sorted, but what would be the point. When he died Eric would just sell the place to the highest bidder and they would strip everything from it there and then. And there was no point having the heating on, not in a house this size, not when there was only him living it. He took a blanket off the back of the chair and wrapped it around his shoulders, then settled himself down into the seat. Sleeping away the hours, that was another thing George had gotten much better at since Gloria had passed away. Sleeping away the days.
A loud bang jerked George awake. Jumping from his seat, he rubbed his eyes and tried to make sense of his surroundings. The light in the living room was muted and dusky; he had exceeded his normal length nap by quite some way. That stuff last night really had played havoc with him, he considered, although this time it was no wonder his stomach was growling. He had most certainly missed his four o’clock snack and may well have passed dinner time too. A bang rattled through the house for a second time and then a third. It was only on the fourth bang, that he realised there was someone at his front door.
‘You ready? You don’t look ready.’ Norman was standing outside George’s front door in full winter gear, with a puffer jacket, fleece gloves and woolly hat that, in combination with his beard and scarf meant that his vivid eyes were the only visible part of him.
George rubbed his eyes, trying to wipe away the fog of sleep.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said. ‘What do you mean ready? We can’t do the music again. You know we can’t. She said she’d arrest us.’
Norman grunted into his scarf. ‘Who said anything about music? What’s wrong with you, we discussed it on the phone? Remember?’
‘Did we?’
‘Aye, we did. Sod Cynthia, I’ve done everything I can. This is it. You and me, remember?’ Norman nodded to the back of his car, where two large shovels, poked out of one of the windows.
‘Now have you got another couple of those blankets?’ Norman added ‘’cos we’re gonna need them.’
George didn’t know why he agreed. He wasn’t entirely sure he had. The passage of time, in between Norman arriving at his house, telling him it was time to leave and the pair of them arriving at the allotment, kitted out with blankets, earmuffs and three layers of socks seemed to have been lost to haze.
‘Are you sure we can actually sleep here?’ George asked as Norman attempted to lay his two garden chairs as flat as they would go. ‘You don’t think we are going to get arrested again?’ There was no denying that the sound method of mole eradication had worked at a similar level to the chewing gum method. More hills had spread across the plots, and not just large rounded ones, but other ones too. Flat patches or dirt, like the mole had attempted to burrow back in through a different route. Maybe George could ask the committee if it was possible to change plots the next time a new one became available. That way they could all be left to do their own thing in peace.
‘Firstly,’ Norman had finally managed to get the back down on one of the chairs, ‘we didn’t get arrested and if you keep on going on like that, I’m going to do something that will get you banged up for good, just to shut you up. And secondly, we’re not going to be sleeping. Not a chance. That rodent is not going to get the best of us again. No, we’re going to stay awake until that bastard pops up, and it’s gonna be the last time his twitchy little nose ever sniffs fresh air.’
George gulped. ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to stay awake all night,’ he said, tucking the blanket in around his shoulders. A small grin appeared on Norman’s face, pushing his eyes up into two tiny downward crescents, George’s stomach fluttered.
‘Don’t you worry, I got that one sorted too.’
It was, without doubt, the strongest smelling drink George had ever encountered. He wasn’t ignorant to the ways of fizzy drinks. He himself was quite partial to the odd lemonade or even Coca Cola at the pub now and again. And growing up he had been all about the ginger beer. The stronger the better. This stuff though, this was a whole different board game.
‘More caffeine than fourteen cups of coffee apparently,’ Norman said as he handed George his second can. ‘It’s probably not great for the old ticker, but it’s not like you and me ’ave got that many miles left on the clock anyway.’
‘Then why aren’t you drinking it too?’ George questioned, noticing that Norman’s hand was still lacking a can.
‘Can’t,’ Norman said with a sigh. ‘Cynth made me go to the doctor’s this morning. Put me on these drugs for me chest. Off the caffeine, and the beer, and the cigarettes. Fortunately, he didn’t say nowt about the other stuff,’ he motioned with his head to his shed behind him. ‘So I figure I’m fine on that one. Don’t worry, I’m not going to sleep anyway. I’m not going to leave you on your own.’
George took the second can and sniffed, before pretending to take a large gulp. There was no way he was drinking anymore. Even disregarding the smell, there was the fact that it was the exact colour of toxic waste.
‘Supposed to be pineapple flavour,’ Norman commented.
Where do they grow their pineapples? George wondered to himself. Chernobyl.
The effects had been almost instant. After half of the first can he felt like his chest was going to explode. Every heartbeat, every breath felt like 1000 trains rushing through him. There was no chance he could have another can, or even sip, without risking a heart attack. But he didn’t want to tell Norman that. He was already terrified Norman was going to make him be the one to hit the mole over the head when it finally appeared and he didn’t want to let him down on this matter either.
There was nothing for it but to pretend. Pretend to keep drinking the drink, and pray that he didn’t fall asleep. He shouldn’t need to fall asleep, he thought to himself. Not after the nap he had had that afternoon. He shouldn’t really have had any problem staying awake all night at all. It was a clear night and thousands of stars twinkled down on them from above. George gazed upward, before he pretended to polish off the second drink.
‘You can shut your eyes if you want,’ he said to Norman, who was already hunkered down beneath his blankets and scarf. ‘I’ve got this.’
When George woke, it was to the sound of birdsong. Not distant or muted, the way it normally was when he woke, but loud and piercing, like it was right beside his ear. He must have left the window open, he thought. That would explain the draft too.
‘What the … you fell asleep?’ Norman’s voice caused George’s eyes to ping open in surprise.
‘What ... where ...’ he stuttered.
‘You said you’d got this. You said you wouldn’t fall asleep.’ Norman was still in his seat, bent double as he commenced a fit of hacking coughs.
George rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t understand. Did I fall asleep?’ he said.
‘What do you mean, did you fall asleep? Of course you bloody fell asleep. What time is it?’ Norman glanced at his watch. ‘God damn it, it’s nearly nine o’clock. Cynth’ll be having a bleedin’ heart attack.’
‘I thought ... I think …’ George was having trouble processing things. The cold air had seized around his thoughts and his joints. He pulled up his blanket, accidentally knocking one of the cans by his side. The toxic yellow liquid ran out toward Norman’s feet.
‘You … you …’ His cheeks were red with rage.
‘I can explain,’ George said as he desperately tried to think of some way to justify his treachery. ‘I was saving it. I didn’t want to use it all —’
‘There you are.’ The two men stopped silent and turned their heads. ‘Excellent, this saves me a trip. George.’ Cynthia nodded in his direction. ‘I trust you had a good night’s sleep? Norman …’ Her tone changed. ‘We'll discuss this later. First, I want you guys to meet Andy.’
Until that moment George had been too flustered to register the stranger at Cynthia’s side. He was a young lad, probably similar in age to Eric, although kitted out in work boots, a plaid shirt and a thick pair of gloves, indicating he was much more willing to get his hands dirty, than Eric ever would be.
‘Andy here is from Humane Pest Removal.’
He stretched out his hand, first to shake George’s hand and then Norman’s. ‘So you’re the one with the mole. Hopefully we’ve put an end to that now. But, I guess we should go check the traps. Sometimes it can take a couple of days.’
‘Traps? What traps?’ While Norman’s beard bristled with confusion, George’s eyes were fixed solely on Cynthia. A small, knowing smile, edged its way up on the corner of her lips.
‘There are no more hills since yesterday morning by the looks of it,’ Andy said as he walked. ‘That’s a good thing. We’ll check the outer ones first, though they don’t normally have quite as much luck. We’ve used a lot though, your wife had wanted me to put them everywhere,’ he said to Norman. ‘Quite insistent we get this problem solved as quick as possible.’
There, in the third trap they checked, was the small, dark, bane of the last few weeks. His tiny eyes squinted closed, as his feet grappled against the hard metal of the cage.
‘He’s a feisty little thing,’ he said, pulling a cloth from out of his bag and draping it over the cage, plunging the mole into darkness. ‘No wonder he caused you so much trouble.’ He put the cage down on the ground. ‘It’s nice to get it sorted like this, quick and easy, no fuss. Honestly, you wouldn't believe the lengths some people go to trying to get rid of these things.’
‘No.’ George and Norman exchange a look. ‘We probably wouldn’t.’
I hope you enjoyed this short story and the little insight into George Sibley. Don’t forget to read the continued adventures of his son, Eric, and his family in Peas, Carrots and a Red Feather Boa. Available to buy HERE
Peas, Carrots and a Red Feather Boa
Book 2
For Mum and Dad
Chapter 1
ERIC YELPED AS he missed the nail and hammered his thumb for the fourth time in half as many minutes.
‘Bugger,’ he said.
It was the evening before Christmas Eve. Outside the air tasted of early winter; of ice and grey clouds and wood smoke drifting up from red brick chimneys. Inside it tasted of sawdust, drill bits, and pent up frustration.
