Chapter 1.1

Please start here… https://schnark.home.blog/2024/10/16/the-man-who-wrote-real-fiction/

NOTE THERE ARE ELEVEN CHAPTERS BEFORE THIS ONE

Or, if catching up, go here for chapter selection… https://schnark.home.blog/category/other-things/fiction/

Arriving

Callum found Mikey in the Islander’s bar, staring at a pint. They were pleased to see one another, and all the usual excited proclamations – on what had changed and what had not – ensued.

Callum sat by the window and stuffed his hat in the pocket of his hoodie, he wouldn’t take a drink. Mikey brought his pint and sat beside him, and asked Callum what he would find on the farm. Callum told of two sultry dark haired maidens who lived mostly with their mother, but had more fun with him, he felt bad about that, but “what could you do”. He told Mikey of the three years he’d been in the army, a big mistake, with no one to see to things at home. He’d had to come back and chase kids out of his caravans, and an age of clearing up and getting the land back in hand.

Really the farm was just a base, he fattened a few cattle on the land up behind, but had no time or energy to do much with it, so he was eeking out a meagre existence on what small pay he got for contract work and odd jobs. He’d even taken bar and kitchen work at times, but that had dried out, and the few poor bastards that got jobs had to have a broom surgically fitted so they could be cleaning as they waited table and ran the kitchen.

At the moment the buzz was in conservation, most of the estates were still run for hunting, shooting and fishing but her majesty’s government had promised to plant ridiculous numbers of trees and had nowhere really to put them, so many were getting squeezed in here, and if you were local, and had a little bit of nous you could make a small living, and at least he’d no rent to pay.

If Mikey would just drink his beer instead of talking to it, he’d show him around.

Mikey stood up and raised his glass looking out the window at the brown hills, then tipped the pale liquid down his neck, and they wandered outside to find Callum’s truck.

George looked out of his own window, at the bus stop down the road. He saw a mother with two children in fits of giggles chasing one another around the post. He wondered where Mikey was going, where Callum was coming from. He hadn’t meant to conjure such desolation, and despite the heading, they still hadn’t really arrived. Maybe he would change the heading? Or maybe it didn’t matter.

He resolved to get his own travel plans sorted, he could leave the next day, but he might give himself a couple of days, and leave the place ship shape, with a well stocked fridge for Debs.