The Levels by Peter Benson Page B

was tied to the seat with a piece of string.
    â€˜You’re a bloody mistake,’ I said.
    â€˜Thanks.’
    â€˜Hey!’ my mother shouted, he swivelled round, ‘Yes, you!’ She disliked the sight of Dick. She didn’t like his motorbike putting the chickens off.
    â€˜And you!’ she pointed at me. We didn’t like this, and for once, united in approach.
    â€˜You ...’ she took Dick by the collar, ‘won’t ride your bike on the property like that.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Because if you do, riding a motorbike will become, for you, painful, in the future.’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜And you!’ she grabbed me by an ear, ‘never use that language near me again.’
    â€˜Language?’ She was a bloody hypocrite.
    â€˜You know, don’t play with me. I heard.’ As we walked away, she hit Dick on top of his crash helmet.
    â€˜Oi!’ she shouted, ‘remember!’
    â€˜She’s mad,’ he whispered, picking up his buckets.
    â€˜I know.’
    He sat by the workshop window. ‘What’s this then?’ he said.
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜I saw you!’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜Wednesday? Thursday? Last week, the day it rained. Wednesday.’
    â€˜So?’
    â€˜I saw you!’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜Isle Brewers, come on,’ he said, ‘you know what.’ He winked.
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜She’s from Drove House. I went up there too.’
    â€˜What?’ I shouted, ‘what you doing there?’
    â€˜It’s a free country. I can go where I like. Took Hector out.’
    â€˜Oh yes?’
    â€˜Yeah, he hadn’t been out for a day. All right?’
    I didn’t like the idea of his nose in it, now I knew someone he didn’t, and had done something I didn’t want to tell him about. Needn’t either.
    â€˜Come on,’ he said, ‘everyone knows about it!’ Which they didn’t.
    â€˜Look!’ I pointed a finger. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’
    â€˜Oh!’ he yelled, ‘aren’t we the one.’
    â€˜Oi!’ came a voice, my father, ‘where’s the scrap?’
    â€˜He’s going on,’ I said, pointing at Dick.
    â€˜I only asked where he went.’
    â€˜Minute ago you knew.’
    â€˜We’ve all been doing that,’ my father said. ‘Didn’t get any sense out of him. Got a girl though. Pretty.’
    â€˜Shut it,’ I said.
    â€˜Ha!’ went Dick.
    â€˜And to you.’
    â€˜Start again and I’ll fetch mother,’ said the old man, ‘you’re a couple of kids.’
    â€˜He might be ...’ I said.
    â€˜Enough of that,’ said Dick, ‘I know what’s going on.’
    â€˜I hope not,’ said the old man.
    â€˜What’s going on?’ screamed my mother, looking over my father’s head, a silence falling upon the workshop, as the temperature climbed and the air filled with pollen. To be in the cool grass on Higher Burrow with a girl like Muriel; with Muriel. I wanted to argue with her, not with all these same people. The crop of swallows flew around the yard, singing at the insects.
    â€˜Nothing,’ I said.
    â€˜Sounds like a lot of it,’ she shouted.
    I stood, ‘He,’ I yelled, ‘is getting up my nose.’ I pointed at Dick. My parents blocked the door. I wanted to leave. I shouted ‘Excuse me!’
    I climbed the bank behind the workshop and sat by the river. A mad poet, Coleridge, said the river Parret looked as filthy as if the ‘Parrots’ of the House of Commons had been washing their consciences therein. I said this to old man Chedzoy when I was ten, on the way home from school where I’d learnt it, and he’d said, ‘Bugger off.’ In the heat, I lay on my back, closed my eyes and listened to Dick wonder where I was.
    My mother shouted, ‘Sulking up the bank?’
    â€˜Mooning after