Lanky Jones Read online

  The window was wound up with a slam. The Land Rover almost seemed to leave the ground, and they were some way along the main road when Michael, glancing at Mr Jones and with no aggressiveness in his voice now, said, ‘Funny, you always get offers of help that you can do without.’

  ‘You’re not very fond of him?’ Mr Jones’s question was quiet and Michael grunted ‘Huh!’ before answering: ‘Fond? I hate his guts. I’ve always been able to smell a stink a mile off, yet it’s queer, my dad’s a very sensible man except where he’s concerned, for he could never see anything wrong in him. Apparently they met when they were doing their National Service and became what Combo calls bosom pals. He’ll neither work nor want that one. Never kept a job down in years. Lives on Social Security and periodically turns up here. I can never understand Dad putting up with him.’

  ‘Wartime relationships are very strange.’

  ‘There was no war on; it was all over, so I gather. But to hear him talk, he won it all on his own.’ He paused for a moment, and then, his voice dropping, he said, ‘It only wants the third thing to happen, and I know that’s coming.’

  It was on the point of Daniel’s tongue to say, ‘Is the thing connected with the screams in the night?’ when he was shocked to hear Michael add, ‘For my father is going to die.’

  There was silence in the cab now except for the throbbing of the engine; then Mr Jones said quietly, ‘Really? You mean there’s no hope?’

  ‘That’s what I mean. He’s got a liver complaint. Mam thinks he’s getting better and will be home soon. He’ll never be home again. I…I saw the doctor last week; he told me what to expect.’

  Again there was silence. And now Daniel bent slightly forward to look past his father and at the sharp profile of the seventeen-year-old boy who was a man already, and he found that once again his opinion of this new acquaintance was changing. He could like the young man who was driving this truck; yet he didn’t like the young fellow who shook his sister roughly, nor the one who had crept down from the attic stairs with that small white implement in his hand. Then there was the fellow who wisecracked until he began to get on your nerves. Michael Everton was a mixture right enough, and it came to Daniel that he wouldn’t like to cross him in any way. Well, he wouldn’t be called upon to do that, would he, because he had no intention of visiting his farm ever again.

  It was amazing the number of different characters he had come across this weekend, from his mother’s new husband to the three people at the farm, not forgetting the man they had just passed. Oh, he’d be glad when he got back home, he’d even be glad when he got back to school.

  He had been so taken up with his own thoughts that he hadn’t realised that they were running into Hexham station.

  ‘I won’t park, I’ll just drop you, because I must get to see Dad.’

  Michael’s voice was abrupt again and Mr Jones said, ‘Of course, of course. And I don’t know how to thank you. If I could only do something to repay your kindness, and your mother’s.’

  For a moment there was a glimpse of the joker that Daniel had become acquainted with as Michael said, ‘Come up for a few days at shearing and then for a month in the summer, that should clear the debt.’ Michael brought the truck to a stop.

  As he lowered his head to get out, Mr Jones said, ‘Right. Right. We just might do that. What do you say, Daniel?’ But Daniel, who was already in the road, said nothing, he simply lifted his hand and returned Michael’s salute.

  It was almost a half-hour later when they were sitting in the train for Newcastle that Mr Jones said, ‘You know, I cannot remember a time that I’ve enjoyed more. We only met them around half past three yesterday yet I feel it’s years away and I seem to have known them all for a lifetime.’

  It was quite some seconds before Daniel replied slowly. ‘You didn’t think it was odd that you never had the chance to say goodbye to Sally?’

  ‘No, because she wasn’t there. While you were upstairs her mother told me the neighbouring farmer had called and picked her to go and spend the day with them. They have four children between the ages of twelve and four.’

  ‘Mrs Everton said that?’ Daniel’s face was screwed up.

  ‘Yes; what’s strange about that?’

  ‘What’s strange about that?’ Daniel repeated each word slowly. ‘Only that Sally was in the house all the time; I saw her at the upper window just before I got into the car. And what’s more, she had a busted face as if she had been in a punch-up. Now tell me that I imagined I heard screams in the night.’

  Chapter Three

  It was nearly seven weeks later when Mr Jones got his car back. During this time there had been snowstorms like no-one had ever remembered before. The car had lain at the side of the road for three weeks and when it was finally towed to the garage so many things were found to be wrong with it that Mrs Everton had informed him on the phone that the garage owner had suggested it would be better to let it go for scrap. But Mr Jones wouldn’t hear of this, and so four weeks later he picked up the car together with a very large bill.

  The roads by now were temporarily clear and so, being relatively near the farm, he made it his business to go and commiserate in person with Mrs Everton on her loss, for her husband had died some three days previously.

  Daniel had not accompanied him and for the first time he and his father had really had words bordering on what could be called a row. Was he still harping on about those silly ideas? his father had demanded. And to this Daniel had come back with, ‘All right, if they are silly ideas then I must be going off my head. Either I heard screams and saw her face or I didn’t, and if I didn’t and thought I did then I must be going barmy.’ And to this his father, before going out and banging the door, had replied, ‘And that could be possible.’

  But later that evening when his father returned there was no anger in him, in fact his manner was placating. After saying ‘Any tea kicking about?’ he sat down at the kitchen table and, joining his hands on it, he looked at them as he said, ‘I’m sorry, Daniel, that I went for you about that business, because it seems that in parts you’re right. Of course, I didn’t hear any screaming and I didn’t see the young lass before I left because as I told you her mother said she had gone to friends. But today when I saw her, although her face wasn’t still swollen, there were definitely the signs that she’d had a cut lip. What is more she had lost two front teeth and, by all accounts, she’s attending the hospital in Newcastle for special fittings of some sort. Apparently her teeth are chalky, so her mother said, and false ones would have to be drilled into the gums or some such. Yet’—he lifted his head now and turned towards Daniel who was about to hand him a cup of tea—‘apart from the sorrow that they’re feeling over the loss of the father, the three of them seemed close. It was Michael who insisted I stay and have something to eat. And he couldn’t have been nicer to the lass. Just before I went to take my leave I saw them in the passageway: she was leaning against him and he was holding her tenderly. I can’t make it out. But I’ll tell you what I think, I think there may be somebody in the family stuck up in the attic. You know this does sometimes happen when there’s a relative not right in the head. They don’t want them put in an asylum or some place of care, so they keep them hidden. Cases have come to light again and again.’

  Daniel now sat opposite his father and shook his head for a moment before saying, ‘I can’t see it like that.’

  Mr Jones sighed now as he remarked, ‘You remember he talked a lot, Michael did, that night we were there. It could have been a sort of cover up putting us at our ease. And then Mrs Everton lying to me about Sally going to stay with friends. It’s fishy. And you know, boy’—he smiled now across at Daniel—‘I’m really sorry I went for you about the whole business. I’ve thought a lot about it on my way back and about the warm invitation we’ve got to visit anytime we like. Sally asked particularly when you were coming again. She even wanted to know why you hadn’t come along with me today. I said you were working hard f
or your O levels. But you know something? Since my visit and seeing that girl’s face, which confirmed all you said, I’ve got a feeling that we should go back. I’ve never felt so curious about anything before. How do you feel about it?’

  How did he feel about it? Frightened? No, not exactly frightened now. Curious then? Yes, perhaps; but not curious enough to make him want to spend another night there, and he voiced this: ‘I…I don’t think I’d like to spend another night there, Dad.’

  ‘Well I can assure you, if we ever should I’d determine to sleep light or give you the order to shake me awake with a kick or by any other appropriate method.’ He laughed now, and then on a more sober note added, ‘That fellow was there. His full name is Billy Combo. There’s certainly no love lost between Michael and him.’

  ‘How does Mrs Everton take him?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say. She’s pleasant enough to him. I didn’t stay long, but long enough to know that I would have one thing in common with Michael, I wouldn’t be able to stand that little fellow. He’s a slimy bloke. Well now, what do you say, after your next trip to Carlisle, we call in?’

  Daniel hesitated for a long moment and then he said, ‘I’ll leave it to you, Dad.’

  ‘All right then, we’ll call in.’

  But Daniel didn’t have a trip to Carlisle; he caught influenza after getting soaked through on the playing field. He was in bed for three weeks and when he got up he had to find the use of his legs which to his dismay seemed to have grown inches longer. And it was during the second week of his convalescence and on a Friday afternoon that the Evertons paid a surprise visit.

  Daniel opened the door to them and stood with his mouth slightly agape as he looked at the three smiling faces, and it wasn’t until Michael said in what appeared to be his characteristic way, ‘You going to leave us on the doorstep then?’ that Daniel cried, ‘Come in. Come in. I’m…I’m just surprised, but I’m glad to see you.’

  ‘Well, you want to look it another time.’ Michael laughed at him, and Mrs Everton said, ‘Take no notice, Daniel. How are you now?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine.’

  ‘You’ve got taller still.’

  Daniel blushed as he looked down on Sally, saying, ‘Yes, I know; it’s getting to be a worry.’

  ‘You should worry; I’d swap you any day.’ Michael now lifted a bag onto the kitchen table, and pointing to it, Sally said, ‘We’ve brought you lots of things to fatten you up, eggs, butter and cream and a hock of bacon and…’

  ‘Be quiet, Sally.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you.’ Daniel was looking at Mrs Everton but his mind was still on Sally, thinking how changed she seemed, perky, talkative. But there was still the scar on her lip, and as he looked at her again she squared her lips at him and dug her index finger at her teeth, saying, ‘I’ve got my new teeth today.’

  ‘Oh.’ He could find nothing more to say until Michael chirped in again as he looked at his mother saying, ‘We always offer people a cup of tea when they visit us, don’t we, Mam?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. Sit down. Sit down. Or…come into the sitting room.’

  ‘No, no’—Mrs Everton waved her hand at him—‘we’ll sit here. But I could do with a cup of tea.’

  ‘You’ll have it in two shakes.’

  As Daniel busied himself putting the kettle on he chatted, answering questions and asking one or two himself, the last one being as he handed the cups of tea around. ‘Who’s looking after the farm?’ he said.

  After a short pause, Mary Everton answered, ‘Billy turned up last week—he does at times—and as Sally had to come into Newcastle I thought it was a good idea for a break and a chance to do some shopping.’

  Daniel noticed that Michael made no comment on this; in fact presently he changed the subject by saying, ‘You’ll have missed a lot of schooling and just at a bad time.’

  ‘Yes; but I’ve been working when I could. I take my O levels next week, and I have a feeling the number of my passes will be zero.’

  ‘Well, that’ll make a pair of us,’ said Michael. But his mother chipped in, saying, ‘You got five O levels, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Yes, all in subjects that are no use to a farmer: Art, French, History, English Lit, Religious Knowledge, and although, on second thoughts, farmers have to rely on God, the weather He sends is never the right kind. Anyway, apart from calling in to see how you are, the main object of the visit is to see if you would like to come and spend the holidays with us. Of course there’s a method in our madness, in mine at least: it’s a busy time and I want another hand.’

  There was a moment of hesitation before Daniel replied, ‘Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, I’d like to come.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  Daniel looked at Mrs Everton now, saying, ‘Oh, he wouldn’t mind me going. Anyway, it…it would give him a chance to come up at weekends an’ all.’

  ‘A busman’s holiday.’

  ‘Yes, doing gardening all day, you’d think he’d want a change from the country. But his main ambition in life is to have a cottage and a plot of land. I think he dreams about it. Well, you know what happened when we went to look at a particular cottage.’

  ‘Do you go to discos?’

  The question caused all eyes to turn on Sally, and Daniel smiled ruefully as he said, ‘Not very often. I’m…I’m no good at dancing even when you are doing your own thing. In fact’—he began to chuckle now—‘I haven’t been since a girl told me that I had legs like an octopus and they were all left ones, and all over the place. I suppose it’s one of the penalties of being lanky.’

  Amid the laughter he now looked at Sally and asked her, ‘Do you go to discos?’

  ‘No’—her face had a solemn look as she added—‘but I see them on television.’

  ‘We are…we are too far away from the town,’ her mother put in quickly now. Then gathering up her handbag, she said, ‘Well, we’ll have to be on our way, it’s a longish ride back. I’m sorry we can’t stay till your father gets in, but tell him we’ll look forward to seeing him and that I hope he’ll agree to you spending the holidays with us.’

  As they were about to take their departure, Sally caused some consternation by looking up at Daniel and saying, ‘Will you take me to a disco some time?’

  Before Daniel had time to answer, Michael gave his sister a push through the open front door and onto the pavement, almost barking at her, ‘Go on, get out, or I’ll disco you, you brazen hussy.’ And Mrs Everton, shaking her head, now said, ‘It was different in my day, you waited until you were asked.’

  There was no need for him to give any reply to this, for Michael was bundling his mother and Sally into the Land Rover.

  The next minute they were off amid waves. Daniel looked after them for a few moments, then went inside and closed the door.

  He stood with his back to it thinking. He was going to spend his summer holidays on a farm; he should feel excited. Well, was he? He didn’t really know because there was something, still that something troubling him, and strangely, unlike his father, he didn’t want to get to the bottom of it. Perhaps he was a coward in more ways than one, afraid to be caught up in other people’s lives. The self-criticism was disturbing. It made him feel low, of no account.

  Slowly he went into the kitchen and began to empty the bag of food, and when it was arrayed on the table stood looking down on it muttering, ‘They’re kind. That’s one thing about them, they’re kind.’

  Chapter Four

  The first week of the summer holidays was over, and Daniel had enjoyed the five days he had already spent on the farm. Up to a point that is, and the point that set the query was the name Combo.

  Combo, he knew, didn’t like him and he certainly didn’t like Combo. He felt that his own dislike of the man almost equalled Michael’s, yet at the present time Michael, he knew, was glad of Combo’s services for he was an experienced farmhand whereas Daniel himself was, as Michael had laughingly put it, an
over-anxious bungler. He could feed the chickens. Well, anyone could feed the chickens. He could feed the pigs. Again, anyone could feed pigs. And he could muck the latter out. But it wasn’t everybody who jumped at that chance.

  And now today with the cows. There were not enough of them to warrant the expense of a milking parlour so the milking was done by hand. And his efforts in this were causing hilarious hoots from Sally, laughter from her mother, and the usual chipping from Michael. But Billy Combo’s reactions to Daniel’s efforts were a shrug and the words: ‘What do you expect from a woolly-headed gangling townie?’

  Daniel’s innate disinclination to start a quarrel which might end in physical blows for one rare moment deserted him and he had made to follow the man out of the cow byres. But Mrs Everton laid her hand gently on his arm and, shaking her head, said, ‘No, no; please. He…he doesn’t mean half he says.’ Nevertheless, she herself followed the man outside and Daniel saw her through the open door of the byres talking to Combo. But it didn’t look from this distance as if she were reprimanding him, rather that she were pleading with him, for her hands were joined together at her waist and the expression on her face indicated anything but harshness. Sally too was looking towards her mother, and presently she said, ‘I wonder how he would have stood up to you if you had gone for him?’ But before he had time to make any reply whatever, Michael spoke from where he was sitting on a small stool to the side of a cow. ‘He wouldn’t have only stood up to you, he would have savaged you. He’s vicious; I’ve seen him in a fight.’ Then he added, more to himself as he leant his head against the cow’s side, ‘But one of these days he’ll get a surprise, and I hope I live long enough to give it to him.’

  It was Friday morning when he received the letter from his mother. He had written and made excuses for not visiting her, saying he had been invited to spend the holidays on the Evertons’ farm. Her reply was anything but pleasant. It was his duty, she said, to come and see her, and if he couldn’t spare the time then she would come and see him. After all, he was her son and he should remind his father that he was bound by the court ruling until he himself was sixteen, which was still three months away. What attitude he would take then towards her she would leave to his conscience and his sense of duty, she said, which she feared wouldn’t be encouraged in him if he took notice of his father.