“Well, What do you think?”

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/

What do you think?

Mikey knew what he thought alright, the place was a mess.

The house that he remembered chasing Callum around all those years ago, looked like no one had been in it since, the roof staved in at one end, moss, almost eight inches thick growing over most of it, big diagonal cracks running across the front, and the chimney stack at the gable end leaning alarmingly outward.

“Ah Callum, that happen when you were down south?”

Callum laughed, “Neigh, it was always like that, even when my Ma was about, we just never noticed. Well… it’s got a bit worse, but the house has long been a gonna.”

Mikey looked down from the wood behind the house that stretched around a paddock and a couple of small fields. What had once been a vegetable garden beside the house was now a mess of brambles, all now gone to seed, and hardening their thorns in defensive arcs. There was a higgledy piggledy circle of caravans, some bigger than others, and an ugly portacabin at the far side raised up on a concrete hardstanding. “And this your solution?”

“It does for now”

“Well where too first?”

Callum didn’t go into the house anymore, and the girls knew it was out of bounds, there was a room at the east end that had served as a kind of bothy in summertime. Back in the day they’d had some fun in there, but the girls mum, Ailsa, thought it was a health hazard, and Callum knew it wasn’t a fight he could win, so he’d locked it up. No one went near the place. It stood like a great grey ghost in the corner of the yard.

He took Mikey through the circle, and they walked a path of flag stones, that had been recently swept, up to the steps before the portacabin. There were pine trees at either end, but the front and back were kept clear. The door opened outwards, and Callum pushed a rock against it to hold it there. Mikey beheld a large space, low ceilinged with another door at the far end, and a reasonable sized kitchen off to the right. It was cold, but not damp. A large office type table stood on their left, surrounded by high backed chairs, and over at the back end an old square sofa kept its back to the wall. Around the edges of the room stood cupboards, and tools lay on the floor in front of them, suggesting more tools inside. Callum pushed Mikey into the kitchen. In there was a nicer table and four, more sensible sized chairs. Mikey looked up to see electric blow heaters bolted to the walls either side, but Callum didn’t move to switch them on, instead he held a large tin tea pot over the electric kettle to warm.

“So what are you fleeing from Young Mikey?” (Mikey’s dad was Old Mikey).

“I’m not. I just thought it was about time I caught up with the doings and the goings around here.”

“And you thought your old friend Callum would be useful in that?”

“Aye, somethin like that.” “Where do you sleep Callum?” he said, leaning back through the door, and casting his eye again around the, surprisingly tidy space, and noting almost nothing that could be described as a soft furnishing.

“They three larger vans do for us, That one’s mine, that one’s the Wendyhouse, and that one’s Polly’s. Yous can have that smaller one there” said Callum, eyeing the old touring caravan that really looked like something out of a child’s drawing, even little Wendy wouldn’t have taken that, “or you can sleep on that there sofa”.

Polly’s house was the largest of the three, and Polly had managed to get a little garden growing around it, with honey suckle and ivy curling around the windows, crocuses just beginning to push up through patches of bare soil, and a small holly bush, bright with berries in front to the right of the steps. The Wendyhouse was smaller, and had a scruffy bike leaning against the steps. Mikey looked over them to the low ridge of hill behind and the birch and beech running up the gully behind. The rumble of a lorry down the lane came and went, lending an emphasis to the quiet of the place.

“You’ll see Poll, she’ll be around, she’s ney bother Mikey.”

“I expect there’ll be lads?”

“And lasses, but that’ll be her business, she’s a good head on her, that one.”

Callum sniffed the milk, and poured out a large mug of steaming tea, Mikey was glad to have it, the kitchen was almost like being outside, with all the doors hooked open, this was how Mikey remembered living, but so different from what he’d got used to in Park Royal. There’d be little chance of people watching here, he’d little interest in Callum, and he’d soon get in trouble if he took too much interest in the daughters’ comings and goings.

They took their tea, and Callum walked him around the farm, pointing out the little improvements he’d made, which amounted to nothing more than the odd field drain, fences, a gate that he’d salvaged from somewhere. Chickens that had been a bit shy at first, started to come out of their dark corners under the vans, and peck about their feet. Callum lead Mikey to his proudest achievement, a hedge that he’d planted along the back of the back field.

“Mixed deciduous,” he said, “all native, and the elm, I got a new resistant variety, they say we can grow it here, because we’re far enough away from any diseased trees.”.

They were about 3 years old, and Mikey tried to imagine how they would fill out, it seemed like such a slow process, he couldn’t really understand his friend, who would leave his house to ruin, but make such a fuss of a few trees, that would take generations to really establish. Callum explained that in a hedge the trees would support one another, lend shelter to the field and the animals, help retain water, and also stop it getting boggy in all but the worst floods, they were just beginning to have these effects now, but each year they would get stronger and stronger, “Ye watch!”