Trifles — a short story: Part 4
Arriving late for the Rainy Day fiction serial? Here's part one, part two and part three.
A helicopter thudded the air in the distance. A convoy of grey-black military vehicles was nosing its way up along the Glen road. When the basket became too heavy he placed it on the ground and switched carrying hands. Neddy could see all way to home now across the light green, dark green mosaic of fields. Someone was moving sheep up the hill and a dog barked.
Only once had he been stopped by a patrol. It wasn't long after they'd started doing the runs to Rathbones. The third trip. His mother had made a rhubarb tart, but in a flat, deep tin as opposed to the usual round, shallow one. They were trying out different ways of moving identity papers.
The vehicles were angled across the road just past the Bend. It was then that he noticed the soldier lying beside the drain, his face smudged with green and brown paint. Another was kneeling near a furze bush. They held their weapons with a casual, professional boredom. Four more were standing around the lead van, chatting and smoking and all of them seemed to welcome the sight of Neddy.
Although they spoke in his direction, he couldn't make out what they were saying because they were talking into their helmets at the same time. Crackled chatter spilled out from another part of their headgear so he proffered the basket in the hope that it was what was expected of him. The smallest one indicated that he should place it on the road — "Not there. Here. Understand? Here!" — and when he was satisfied with its positioning, another one of them came forward and moved a metal bar backwards and forwards over it. Neddy noticed another muzzle pointing directly at him through the hedge on the right-hand side of the road.
The biggest of the soldiers bent down, removed the dishcloth that covered the tart and placed his palm on the surface. He raised his hand to his mouth, swallowed and smiled before wiping his face with his sleeve.
"Merciful hour!" said Mrs Rathbone, when he showed her the cratered rhubarb tart.
"A black man!" said Mr Rathbone, "That's a terror!"
"Are you sure he was black?"
"As black as the ace of spades," answered Neddy, pleased that he was quick enough to use the adultism.
Despite their concern, they didn't hesitate to send him home with a bowl of trifle containing an embedded pair of pliers.
Much later, he concluded that someone inside the army had provided a tip off about the road block and that was why he had been sent out to meet it. The incident would be logged and future patrols would not waste time on young boys carrying food baskets, although there was the danger that word of the delicious rhubarb tart might get around. But everything involved risk.
"What kept you, Neddy?" asked his mother when he walked into the kitchen with the basket. The welcome sounded gruff, but it was filled with maternal concern. Love isn't always articulate, he was to learn. He picked up a crust of bread and began to chew on it, while telling her about the fall and Anastasia Rathbone's treatment of the cut knee.
"Go on, now," said his mother, after checking the dressing, "Granny's waiting for you."
The parlour was filling up. The big men, Nightly and Made, had arrived and were already rolling up their sleeves. It was their job to strip the informer, drag him to the table, heave him onto it, bind him with the spancels and hold him down during the interrogation. Like most men blessed with extraordinary strength, they spoke softly and their conversation was marked more by silences than by sentences, but they filled in the spaces with glances and nods. Tomorrow, in preparation for the Town cattle sale, they'd be grappling with mountain animals that could cripple a man with a kick or the swipe of a horn so they had developed an asynchronous approach to deeds and words.
"Neddy, will you come on?" called Granny, crossly, rising from the fireside seat, bending over her stick. It was time to leave the truthing.
Although he was part of the operation and while he had a very good idea of what was involved in its final stage, he was not allowed to be a witness.
In the words of Aunty Breedy, Neddy was "a sensitive child" and she wanted him to go places, to do well at his books, to avert his eyes and ears from sadism. Right now, that meant he'd have to leave and lead his grandmother down the road to the Green Tree.
MacK, the owner, nodded at them from behind the bar as they entered. He filled a glass with lemonade and began to fill a much smaller one with sherry. As they watched the dark liquid rise, the door behind him opened and an ancient, almost translucent figure began to emerge.
Next week: The END
