comparisons, Dad because he prefaced the meal with a couple of bottles of strong ale and washed it down with another two before driving down to the Black Dog in Mireton. He successfully avoided the attention of the local constabulary by driving his old Defender along the forest tracks, which he knew like the back of his hand, and leaving it on the edge of the estate and walking the last quarter mile to the Dog.
Sorry, I’ve gone on a lot more than I intended about all this early trauma stuff and I know all you really wanted was an account of how me and Imogen got together. But I started off trying to explain the kind of youngster I was, and to understand that, you need to know the rest.
To cut a long story short, because of my instinctive reluctance to get close to anybody and because of the almost total lack of any meaningful supervision at home, I ran wild. Literally. Every free moment I had I spent roaming the countryside. Some streak of natural cunning made me realize the dangers of too much truancy, and I trod a line between being an internal nuisance and an external problem. But I usually turned up late and when I could I bunked off early. As I said, Aunt Carrie was ill-equipped physically or mentally to cope with me. Indeed, as I grew older and wiser, ifthat’s the right word, a combination of self-interest and I hope fondness for the old lady made me cover up for her as best I could.
Of course my behaviour did not go unremarked, but unlike in the towns where suspicion of child neglect prompts people either to look the other way or at best to ring Social Services anonymously, in the countryside they deal with such problems in-house, so to speak. Looking back, I see that I was probably watched over much more carefully than I understood then. The postman was the eyes and ears of the district, the vicar dropped by a couple of times a week, and there was a steady stream of local ladies who found a reason to call on Carrie, and help with a bit of tidying up. Also for some reason I never really understood, everyone, teachers and locals alike, seemed ready to show a remarkable degree of tolerance towards my aberrant behaviour.
Maybe I’d have turned out better if someone had been ready to skelp my ear a bit more frequently!
Sir Leon was another one who missed the chance to sort me out. I remember when I was eight or nine I got caught by his gamekeeper. I was never a serious poacher, though if the odd trout or rabbit came my way, I regarded it as the peasant’s tithe. The day I got caught peering into Sir Leon’s newly stocked tarn, it was the fact that I had no criminal intent that made me vulnerable. I was stretched out on the bank, raptly viewing the tiny fry at their play, when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder and I was hauled upright by Sir Leon’s head keeper.
When he realized who he’d got, he threw me into his pick-up and drove me through the forest to where my father was supervising a gang of loggers. Sir Leon was there too, and after the situation had been explained, he stared down at me and said, ‘This your brat then, Fred? What’s your name, boy?’
‘Wilf,’ I blurted.
‘Wilf?’
Then he squatted down beside me, ran his fingers through my hair, opened my mouth and peered in like he was checking out a horse, then winked at me and said, ‘Sure you don’t mean Wolf?Looks to me like you’ve been suckled by wolves. That might explain things! Suckled by wolves, and here’s me thinking they were all dead.’
He stood up, laughing at his own joke, and everyone else laughed, except me and Dad.
Thereafter every time Sir Leon saw me he called me Wolf and gradually the name stuck. I rather like the notion of being suckled by wolves, maybe because Sir Leon with his long nose and great mane of grey-brown hair looked like he might have a bit of wolf in him too. His name, Ulphingstone, certainly did.
Dad, however, hadn’t cared to be shown up in front of his workers and his boss. That night he
Sorry, I’ve gone on a lot more than I intended about all this early trauma stuff and I know all you really wanted was an account of how me and Imogen got together. But I started off trying to explain the kind of youngster I was, and to understand that, you need to know the rest.
To cut a long story short, because of my instinctive reluctance to get close to anybody and because of the almost total lack of any meaningful supervision at home, I ran wild. Literally. Every free moment I had I spent roaming the countryside. Some streak of natural cunning made me realize the dangers of too much truancy, and I trod a line between being an internal nuisance and an external problem. But I usually turned up late and when I could I bunked off early. As I said, Aunt Carrie was ill-equipped physically or mentally to cope with me. Indeed, as I grew older and wiser, ifthat’s the right word, a combination of self-interest and I hope fondness for the old lady made me cover up for her as best I could.
Of course my behaviour did not go unremarked, but unlike in the towns where suspicion of child neglect prompts people either to look the other way or at best to ring Social Services anonymously, in the countryside they deal with such problems in-house, so to speak. Looking back, I see that I was probably watched over much more carefully than I understood then. The postman was the eyes and ears of the district, the vicar dropped by a couple of times a week, and there was a steady stream of local ladies who found a reason to call on Carrie, and help with a bit of tidying up. Also for some reason I never really understood, everyone, teachers and locals alike, seemed ready to show a remarkable degree of tolerance towards my aberrant behaviour.
Maybe I’d have turned out better if someone had been ready to skelp my ear a bit more frequently!
Sir Leon was another one who missed the chance to sort me out. I remember when I was eight or nine I got caught by his gamekeeper. I was never a serious poacher, though if the odd trout or rabbit came my way, I regarded it as the peasant’s tithe. The day I got caught peering into Sir Leon’s newly stocked tarn, it was the fact that I had no criminal intent that made me vulnerable. I was stretched out on the bank, raptly viewing the tiny fry at their play, when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder and I was hauled upright by Sir Leon’s head keeper.
When he realized who he’d got, he threw me into his pick-up and drove me through the forest to where my father was supervising a gang of loggers. Sir Leon was there too, and after the situation had been explained, he stared down at me and said, ‘This your brat then, Fred? What’s your name, boy?’
‘Wilf,’ I blurted.
‘Wilf?’
Then he squatted down beside me, ran his fingers through my hair, opened my mouth and peered in like he was checking out a horse, then winked at me and said, ‘Sure you don’t mean Wolf?Looks to me like you’ve been suckled by wolves. That might explain things! Suckled by wolves, and here’s me thinking they were all dead.’
He stood up, laughing at his own joke, and everyone else laughed, except me and Dad.
Thereafter every time Sir Leon saw me he called me Wolf and gradually the name stuck. I rather like the notion of being suckled by wolves, maybe because Sir Leon with his long nose and great mane of grey-brown hair looked like he might have a bit of wolf in him too. His name, Ulphingstone, certainly did.
Dad, however, hadn’t cared to be shown up in front of his workers and his boss. That night he
Similar Books
