Chapter 12 The devil maketh mischief still
for idle hands to do
Chaz heard a
sound of disapproval from Rachel as he
knelt to remove the ever-encroaching cleavers from his borders, the seeds
brought on animal fur or the legs of human visitors, and a never-ending
nuisance in any garden. It was halfway between a mew and a growl, and he was
always surprised by how loud such a small cat managed to be. There was also the
sound of something hitting the stone flags of the path. Chaz stood up, to find
Rachel, who had been dozing in the lavender bush, hissing like a tea-kettle at
the boy who had apparently just shied a stone at her and had another in his
hand. Rachel showed no signs of being hurt, so Chaz shouted,
“You, boy! You come right here!”
Apparently
Captain Cunningham had not been put back into the box after having been
permitted out in the protection of one of his men as the shout was worthy of
the parade ground. The boy fled.
Chaz was not
about to let this go, and thundered across his lawn, to hurdle the stone wall
just in front of the youth, and laid a hand on his shoulder. The boy was lanky
but rather skinny, and Chaz judged him to be no more than thirteen. His hair was dark and messy but he showed no
signs of neglect, his skin was as clean as any teen’s, which is to say probably
would not stand a close look behind the ears, and his clothes looked well cared
for with no more grime than might be explained by a day’s wear. But Chaz did not recognise him.
“I told you
to come here, laddie; wasn’t I loud enough?” he demanded, grimly.
“You can’t
whack me or I’ll say you assaulted me,” said the boy.
“Do you think
whacking you would stop you, anyway?” asked Chaz, manoeuvring the boy back
towards the gate.
“No!” said
the boy.
“Then it
would be a damned silly thing to do, wouldn’t it?” said Chaz. “I’m going to introduce you to my cat, whose
name is Rachel, and if she scratches in retaliation, you’ll have deserved it.
And we’re going to look for that stone you threw. How much do you weigh?”
“About
forty-five kilos,” muttered the boy.
“What has that to do with it?”
“Everything,”
said Chaz. “Rachel weighs three kilos; she’s a small cat, always has been. It
doesn’t stop her being bossy, though, she keeps her brother well under her
little paw. Rachel, this is... what is your name?” They had got far enough up
the path to be level with Rachel’s lavender bush. She hissed but did not move.
She began washing her already immaculate black fur with apparent
unconcern.
“Evan. Evan Queave,” said the boy. “Me mum’s bossy.”
“Well, you
understand Rachel, then,” said Chaz. “Now, this looks like the stone you threw;
is it?”
Evan
shrugged.
“Yeah,
reckon,” he said. It was a large stone,
taken from Chaz’s wall, the vicar thought, a flint nodule easily as big as the
hand that had thrown it.
“Right, Evan,
come inside and we’ll find my kitchen scales.”
“I ain’t
supposed to go inside no-one’s house that I don’t know.”
“A sensible
prohibition, and I swear on all I
believe in that I mean you no harm. But I don’t want you scarpering while I get
my scales, because if I have to search you out, I won’t be in a good mood.”
“I’ll stay
here,” said Evan. “Why do you want your scales?”
“I’ll show
you,” said Chaz.
It was a
calculated risk to leave the boy, but Chaz decided to trust his word. He was
pleased the boy was still there when he came out, albeit with his hands in his
pockets and looking sulky.
Chaz set down
his scales and placed the stone on it.
“How much
does it weigh?” he asked.
“Almost a
kilo,” said Evan.
“So a third
of what Rachel weighs,” said Chaz. “And you weigh forty-five kilos, so a stone
as big to you would weigh fifteen kilos. Now, my sack of fertiliser over there
weighs fifteen kilos; will you go and see if you can lift it?”
Evan did so,
with a struggle.
“Now, you
know how much fifteen kilos weighs. Come and see which of the rocks on my
rockery weighs as much,” said Chaz.
Evan tested
several, and pointed to one.
“That one,”
he said.
“Ah, a nice
piece of red granite,” said Chaz. “How would you feel if I were to retaliate
for you shying stones at my cat by throwing that one of comparable size to the
one you threw at her?”
Evan paled.
“It’d break
my leg,” he said.
“And your
stone might have broken Rachel’s leg, or her ribs, or killed her,” said Chaz.
“Don’t you think I have good reason to be angry on her behalf?”
“Yeah, I
guess so,” said Evan. Chaz waited. The
boy shuffled. “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again,” he said. “She looked so
self-satisfied and it made me angry. I wanted to disturb her.”
“I fancied
that might be something like it,” said Chaz. “Why don’t you nip into the
pergola and get out a couple of garden chairs while I get some... let me see,
do you drink home-made lemonade?”
“Dunno; never
had it,” said Evan.
“Well, I’ll
get some, and then we can talk about why you are angry and what I might do to
help,” said Chaz.
If Evan
wondered why he was meekly obeying, he kept his mouth shut about it..
Chaz brought out lemonade and some of his iced biscuits on a tray with
legs, making a mini table, pouring a glass of lemonade for the boy, and pushing
the plate of biscuits towards him.
“Hey, this is
good!” said Evan, cautiously sipping the lemonade.
“Thank you,”
said Chaz. “I made the biscuits too; I like to cook.”
Evan made
approving noises through the crumbs.
Chaz let him
scoff, and drink a refill of lemonade.
“I’m bored,”
said Evan. “We just moved here, because dad wants to start up on his own with a
business putting in patios and things. And he won’t let me help, and I’m not
really that interested anyway.”
“What do you
want to do?”
“I want to go
back to the Isle of Man and be a mechanic for the TT races.”
“You know
that only happens for a short while, and then the men and their bikes go away?”
“Yes, but
normal folk will want their cars and things fixed,” said Evan.
“That’s the
same anywhere.”
“Yes, but I
had a friend who worked on the bikes. And I had more boys my age to hang out
with.”
“Yes, there
is a singular paucity of young folk in the village. Suppose I had a word with
Barty Thorpe, who runs the village garage. If he’s agreeable, I can get you a
Saturday job working for him. It’ll pay peanuts, but he’ll give you a lot of
tips, and if you work hard, he might let you work on the old Bugatti he has in
the back, which he’s hoping to get running for the next car rally.” Chaz grinned.
“According to Wendel – the vet – Barty has been promising to get it ready for
the next car rally for the last ten years at least, but with a helper, who knows? He might. And you’ll have my motorbike in there for its
service and M.O.T. as well.”
“You have
that big Ducati 900, don’t you?”
“I do. I
remember Mike Hailwood winning the TT on one, though that’s before your time by
a long chalk,” said Chaz. “I’m not convinced the race is safe anymore, too many
people, the bikes can go faster now than the roads are designed for, but it
thrilled me when I was younger. I was
six when he won the TT and it stuck in my memory.”
“Cor!” said
Evan. “I’d love to drive something like that.”
“And you’ll
only do so once you’ve worked your way up with smaller machines,” said
Chaz. “Now, how about you come and say
sorry to Rachel, and then we’ll walk over and talk to Barty?”
“Thank you,
sir,” said Evan. “I... I am sorry. I didn’t think. And I was in such a temper
with Mum telling me to go out and do something, and not knowing what. I don’t
deserve you being kind.”
“Oh, everyone
deserves someone being kind,” said Chaz. “I could see you were miserable. Most
people who throw stones or paint nasty graffiti – I don’t include clever
pictures – are miserable. Because people who can’t make things die a little bit
inside, and start to destroy what others make in defiance. And then, you know,
if they get punished without being helped, they only get more angry. You
understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir, I
do,” said Evan, with feeling. “There’s
boys who spray rude words on the school bus, and laugh if anyone tells them
off.”
“Unfortunately,
it’s none of my business, but I’d get them painting the bus properly,” said
Chaz. “Designing pictures to put on it as well, and then they’d be invested in
keeping it nice.”
“I bet
there’d be less trouble if you were the headmaster,” said Evan.
Chaz sighed.
“I can’t be
everywhere,” he said. “My Boss can, because that’s the nature of God, but He
puts men in places to help, and has to rely on them to do His will. And each of
us can only do our best.”
“Did I ought
to tell them that painting the bus would be hard work?”
“No, they’ll
probably beat you up,” said Chaz. “It’s all very well to say doing what is
right is better than doing what is easy, which in principle it is, but
principle is a bit airy-fairy when you’re in hospital in traction and your
words didn’t reach anyone anyway. You have to be practical about these things.”
“You’re
awfully sensible for a grown-up,” said Evan.
“I do try to
be,” said Chaz.
The garage
was one of those places which tend to fascinate small children and not so small
children who like mechanical things. There was a small breaker’s yard out the
back, as Barty cheerfully bought in any car being scrapped to cannibalise for parts, some of which he
mended and sold on to a larger garage in the nearest town. Chaz
was pretty sure that they charged as for new, but he had not been able
to catch them at it, and suspected that Barty’s methodical reconditioning might
provide pieces which were superior to new parts in any case.
The garage
itself had been built in the 1930s, and was definitely a fine example of art
deco architecture, the poured concrete of its construction featuring the
rectangular and triangular patterns on the front and over the big double doors
typical of the period. Inside, various cars sat about in various states of
disrepair, and right at the back the racing car which had to be contemporary
with the garage, and which put Chaz strongly in mind of Captain Hastings from
the ‘Poirot’ T.V. series.
Barty’s
daughter Trisha was in here, helping out, covered in greasy overalls as usual,
but the overalls not hiding that she was becoming fairly shapely. Chaz smirked to himself to see Evan noticing
her. Being of an age, a friendship between them, with or without any
extracurricular snogging, would doubtless be good for both.
“I’m not
sure, Vicar...” said Barty, when Chaz explained the problem. “They changed the
law so you have to be sixteen to work. Not that anyone takes any notice, but
there’s that little shit, Sir Tarleton-Rickett, who would make trouble if he
could.”
“You could,
however, let your daughter’s class-mate help her help out and drop him a little
pocket money,” said Chaz.
Barty was
dubious, but nodded, slowly.
“Trish, you
know Evan?” he asked.
“Yeah, he’s
at school with me; new boy,” said Trish.
“Check him
out on the Mini to see if he’s worth letting us help with the Bugatti,” said
Barty.
“He knows
what he’s doing, he crosswired the ignition on all the teachers’ cars so they’d
only start if they were holding the horn down,” said Trisha. “The noise was
delightful...uh, most terrible,” she amended with a glance at Chaz.
“I can
imagine it being a blast,” said Chaz, making her grin.
“Yeah,
something like that,” she said. “Old Fink blamed me but I demanded trial by
jury as I could be alibi’d all day. And he couldn’t disprove it and he didn’t
dare put me in detention or dad would have given him what-for.”
“I suppose I
should confess,” said Evan.
“Why? It’s
yesterday’s news now,” said Trisha. “We can figure out something really
spectacular to do for the end of term now we’ve talked to each other.”
“And don’t
discuss it in front of me,” said Chaz, who had very little opinion of Dr.
Finklebrand , the deputy head. “And for goodness sake, Evan, do try to keep up
with your school work,” he added.
“Why? If I
have a job to walk into...”
“Because in twenty years, you might have
changed your mind, and you might even be the next headmaster, if you can keep
your studies going. And you need good exams to study engineering at university
anyway,” said Chaz. “In twenty years you’ll be almost the same age I am now,
and I never planned to be a vicar. I was going to be a career soldier. But God
called me, and I packed my kitbag and followed Him into a battleground far more
challenging than one where you know the enemy and all you have to do is to shoot
them.”
“I’ll work
hard at school as well as on cars,” said Evan.
Chaz hoped
his enthusiasm would be maintained.
