Three Stories about Madness

By Peter Sutcliffe

Stories that hopefully show some things about people and the way they live 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Sutcliffe
• Release date: Feb 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393654759

Peter Sutcliffe

The author lives in Brighton, England and can be contacted at [e-mail] - if you'd like to make any comments on the book, good or bad.

Book preview

The Gardeners

If only the ordinary fellow, the man you meet on the street, would take up vegetable cultivation he would be physically and morally rejuvenated, and would know what is to be a happy man. 14th October 1953.

Sowing

If my calculation be accurate – and I would place my savings on it – twenty square rods, poles, or perches of ground (each being 30 ¼ square yards, surely) will feed us all year round, day in, day out. If cropped well, of course. 2nd March 1960

The garden was close to the motorway, close enough that a south-west wind would bring cans, cups, a mixture of papers, a bounty of plastics strewing their plot. He didn’t mind. He hummed loudly as he collected items in his burlap sack, loud enough, almost, to cover the noise of the cars. Though not the big lorries.

‘Them buggers, they’ll shout out every other bluddy thing’

He’d say, mostly to himself, and look around for agreement whether any other body was near him or not. Most times William would be close enough but William would pay no mind, having heard the same thought expressed the same way many times.

He still liked the lorries though, liked trying to make out the words and pictures on the sides, imagining their journey from far away places, over the sea, a line of noise and blurred words stretching back to their origins away there. Their homes. He pictured the lines, thousands of them, criss-crossing space and time and grew dizzy and paused in his work to stop himself falling.

‘Get on, boy’

His brother William shouted from where he stood by the water barrels, breaking the thin ice sheet, and Jem bent over to pick up a paper wrapper. The wrapper showed two letters 'T' and 'O' in red but the rest of the letters were partly erased. By a tyre? The black erasing lines looked like tread. Four crease lines, all on the right half of the paper, mostly vertical though veering slightly, had cracked the paper, obscuring any other words. Water damage had washed away ink. As he studied the paper it became too real to be contained in his mind and he was too dizzy to stand. He shoved the paper in the bag and sat down heavily on a heap of straw.

A shadow fell on him and he looked up, his head still spinning: William, black against the sky.

‘Why sittin' there, boy? You’ll think that the work's all up?’

‘No, William’

‘Well, rouse your’sen an' go to it. Work over them beds, rouse ‘uns up too.’

He stood up and shook himself, to lose the traces of the other world that clung to him. He looked at his bag distrustfully and shook it and its contents as well, to show them not to take liberties with him. But didn't dare look in. Best leave it lie. He was unsure what liberties might do to him but they weren't to be taken near or with him. He dropped the bag. Then kicked it gently. Feeling fully back in the garden, he picked up a hoe and began turning the earth along the planned carrot rows. The frozen dry soil crumbled gently under the blade. The weeds lay broken either side of the row, stalks severed, bleeding. A blackbird hopped along the frosty ground, alert eyes in slanted head. He whistled three notes, descending, like a low wind blowing through the shithouse wall. A head appeared in a low hole made by the old dog fox in the scrubby hedge between the garden and the bastard. The lad grinned. He grinned back and waved. Then spun round quick, to make sure William hadn't seen. No. Turning back, the lad had gone. He whistled again, to see if the blackbird would come back but he was gone as well. Still, there was always the cars. He stood for a while judging the blurred colours, squinting to see them as a dull old rainbow until his brother shouted again to bring him back to the afternoon's work.

At the early dusk, he carried in some wood and fed the range, stirring up the old embers. A pot of vegetable stew from yesterday sat on the hot plate and he stirred that as well, resentfully.

'Old bloody roots again'

He muttered. He thought about the shiny food you could get in town, all sweet and flavoursome, and jabbed at the stew with his spoon.

'Leave it be, Jem. What's point of beating it about?'

William asked. He was pulling his shirt off, quarter filling the sink from the tap and then, proper careful, adding some hot from the kettle steaming on the hob. Just enough, Jem thought, always just right. He watched William go through his cleaning routine, same as always, step by step. All white hairs now, though, sprouting out everywhere, like crabgrass:

'Getting old, then, brother'

Said Jem without meaning to speak aloud. William turned to him and grinned.

'Aye, I reckon that's what happens, my’sen, time goes on an' on!'

Jem lit the lamps and they sat at the table to eat. Jem quite enjoyed the silence but also the noises that their mouths made, chewing, swallowing.

'Us should get a goat'

He said and William stared at him for a full minute before asking

'What's to do with a goat?'

'For milk and cheese. And company, like.'

There was a pause before William started laughing and then coughing and Jem had to slap him on the back and then they were both laughing.

After tea, William took down one of Da's books and sat reading. He tutted and nodded at significant bits, which was irritating and Jem went outside to check on the chooks and stand in the dark for a time. The birds were quiet, warmly gathered in their hut, so he stood staring up at the clouds. He could see the shapes of fairy spirits as they rode the wind, plucking the stars for rings or necklaces and he wished he could fly with them. The old dog fox ran along the far end of the garden, where the bean frames stood, just before the compost piles and the old walnut tree that marked the end of the garden. The fox paused for a second, eyes full of violence.

'Get thee gone, mister.'

Jem growled and the fox obliged. The road carried on hollering but he ignored it mostly, though sometimes he mimicked a low long growl and shook his head; lion-like, he thought. When he went to the shithouse it was a moment of peril. The shithouse was old, a box of weathered planks with holes and gaps that stood almost 20 paces from the cottage. When the wind blew it whistled and moaned, rattled like a skeleton. He sat with his trousers round his ankles and strained to be done quick, before the ghosts arrived. He shivered and saw the fingers reaching for him through the cracks, long, white cloudy fingers that dissolved when they touched him. But one day they wouldn't dissolve. One day those icy fingers could pull him through the cracks and away. Hurriedly, he wiped his arse and flushed, pulling his trousers up as he trotted back to the cottage.

Inside William read on, sighing with contentment.

'Listen on this, boy: the victorious vegetable grower is a person who drinks deeply of the joy of life. How could it be said better 'an that? Eh?'

He smiled broadly at Jem, ignoring undone flies.

'Other folk have indoor shitters'

Said Jem, resentfully buttoning. William frowned and closed his book.

'It's good enough. It were what us was left on.'

And that finished the discussion. Jem doused a lamp and followed as William carried the other lamp into the bedroom. They undressed quickly, pulling on nightshirts and climbed into the old iron-framed bed. William on the right, Jem on the left, as always.

'Done?'

William asked and, without waiting for a reply, doused the lamp and turned onto his side. Within a minute he was snoring. Jem lay on his back and stared up, through the ceiling, through the roof, through the clouds, up and away, beyond the world, beyond all.

'There's more than the garden.'

He whispered. But he didn’t really mean it. The sound of the road merged with William's snores and he fell asleep.

The next week was all potatoes, potatoes, more potatoes. William was mad for spuds, thought Jem, as he bent over to crumble a little dried turd into the drill holes. His pail was full of horse turds, mostly darkish brown, well-rotted. He pulled one out and examined it closely: summer shat, almost certainly, fresh grass. Proper grown horse, definitely, mare, full horse, gelding? He sniffed it carefully. Mare, he thought.

'You’sen goin' to eat the bloody thing? Or smoke 'im?'

'Maybe. Taste better than your old stews.'

William snorted with laughter and carried on pacing out the rows, a yard apart. He twirled his drilling rake like one of those girls Jem saw once at the town festival:

'Majarits.'

He pronounced carefully, pleased with his word.

'Majareets'

They had shiny boots though, not like William's patched old rubbers.

'Them Da's old boots?'

He asked, without thinking what the question would stir.

William paused in his calculations but did not look up.

'Aye, they were. You know that.'

He remembered that now, he knew, and he looked fearfully around the garden. Even the road was quiet for a few seconds and he could hear the rooks, in the trees next by the road, calling up bad spirits. Spirits that could catch him later, were he not careful.

'That's the problem with dead 'uns, some of them are proper tricky, ain't they?'

William started pacing again, paying little attention.

'Yes, I suppose that is so.'

The roar from the road resumed and silenced the rooks. William stood with his hands on his hips, legs wide apart, as if he was showing off his command of angles. Jem held both hands, thumb and finger set squared, up to his eyes and tried to shape him. Just a rectangle, plainly.

‘You could get your’sen a better shape, Will’em.’

‘That’s right.’

William nodded slowly, still ignoring:

'2 square rods of early tatties, 3 mid and a single rod put in the ground end of May. June, even, maybe. I reckon on 5 sacks. 'Nough for us roasties all year long, eh?'

Jem carried on dropping the manure into the drill holes.

In the afternoon, he was carefully placing the seed potatoes into the drills, filling and tamping them down when something hit his back. He turned around and a bright lemon thing was on the ground. He picked it up. It was shiny and crackly plastic, twisted at each end. He untwisted the plastic and examined the thing inside: sticky. It smelt of plastic.

'Eat it, stupid!'

Someone hissed. He looked up and saw the lad in the hedge. Another yellow thing hit him on the leg.

'It's a sweet, stupid!'

He put the thing in his mouth and the shock of sour and sweet tastes made him spit it out immediately.

'Stupid!'

He picked it up, wiped it on his trousers and put it back in his mouth. Saliva filled his mouth and dribbled a little down his chin. He picked up the other yellow sweet and flicked it quickly at the lad. Face and sweet disappeared. He wasn't sure if he'd hit or not. He spat out the sweet and crushed it under his boot, scuffing it into the soil.

The rest of the short afternoon, the other yellow sweet went back and forwards, hitting Jem on the head, shoulder, legs and once, painfully, in the eye. He thought he'd hit the lad a few times but wasn't sure. He could only throw when William was turned away, still sunk in thought with his calculations. But he thought he'd done okay and he laughed to himself when he remembered the sound one throw had made.

'The lad's head is knocked out of auld tin plate.'

He said to himself as they got into bed.

The next two days was a mixture of sleet and snow, nasty sharp stuff that the wind lashed through coat and balaclava, so they stayed in, sitting by the range to stay warm. William read Da's diaries. Jem polished his Punch doll, shining his ugly face and brushing his red suit. When he was bored with Mr Punch, he practiced his knots: constrictor, figure eight, marl.

‘Maybe Da was wrong. Them onions, maybe they need to shift. They been on the same spot ever since... Well, since ever.’

Jem worked a figure eight, loosed it, re-tied it.

William read:

‘Rotation of crops is a system for, and by, scoundrels. That’s what he says. But I don’t as know. What does thee reckon?’

Jem tried to run a marl down the length of his leg but ended up in a mess.

‘That were from 1965. A good year for beets, by all accounts.’

A constrictor went better and Jem lost most of the feeling in his right foot for a moment.

‘Does you have a thought?’

Jem paused for a moment:

‘Does he say how to use a pair of pliers? Twisting, like.’

William looked blank for a moment, then twisted his mouth, like he’d tasted something sour.

Jem held up Mr Punch, a hangman’s knot around his neck, and William deliberately turned his chair away.

On the second night Jem slipped out of bed and buried William's boots near Da.

The morning was clear and bright though the few clouds blotting the sky were reddish. A little snow lay on dark parts of the garden but almost all had melted. Jem got out of the house as quick as he could, leaving his brother getting dressed. He stared up at the sky as hard as he could: would the red sunlight fall on him? What would it do? He looked at his right hand closely. Was it swelling into a giant fist? He shook it at the sky, to see if anything occurred but it was just a hand in the air. William came out of the house and he hurried to get out of the way.

The bastard had thrown rubbish over the hedge: black sack oozing strange heavy liquids and a broken chair. He picked up the chair and examined the broken plastic seat, gently flexing the battered orange panels to judge their worth, test their usefulness. Receiving no response from the chair, even when he stroked it, he started to carry it to the front of the house, along with the sack.

William stopped him:

'Seen my boots?

He pulled a thoughtful face and looked up at the sky, as if searching for an answer from the spirits.

'Nah.'

He looked down at William's feet. He was wearing his going to town shoes.

'You goin' to town, then?'

'Maybe.'

'Can't garden in them'uns.'

'Can I not?'

'Doubts it my’sen.'

'Right'

William stared at him and the chair and the sack. He looked up at the sky again. A wind sprite rode a cloud, shaking his head sadly. That meant it was going to snow again, now.

'It'll snow again, now.'

He carried the rubbish to the front of the house and put in the bin that they sometimes used for things they found. Never for things of their own. He walked back to the garden. The air was nipping at the skin on his cheeks and his ears. He froze for a moment as if made of solid ice. What if he became a frozen statue and stayed in this place, in this attitude, for ever and a day? People would come from all over to see him and maybe carry him off to the city and put him up high. Maybe in a fountain. He thought about pissing but William was still standing there in his going to town shoes.

'Hedge needs cutting, boy.'

'Okay, Will’em.'

He went to the lean-to and got a pair of decent shears. Cutting forcefully, he could hear the plant screaming but there you were. What could you do?

'We all has our worries.'

He said out loud.

'I am sorry and all that but there you be.'

He heard something rustling by his feet and heard:

'Psst.'

He looked down and saw the lad's head pushing through a half hole in the hedge.

'Psst your’sen!'

Pleased with his response, he stopped cutting and chuckled.

'Psst.'

He thought of a new thing to say but, as he leaned down to speak, the going to town shoes were there, next to him.

He straightened up nervously and rubbed his nose hard, remembering to use the hand that wasn't holding the shears. William's face was red and his lips stuck out, like he'd swallowed a beetle.

'Sorry, William.'

The silence was a bad sign.

'Told you to not mind the lad. Did I not? Times over, I told 'un. You want more strife with the da? More of that dross over our hedge, day and day again? That bastard.'

William shook his head.

'Lad's bad, I telling you, maybe not his self fault, maybe not, but bad for us all anyhow.  ‘You knows what happens when it goes bad, Jem, you knows as well as any, eh? Eh?'

He did know and he shivered as he answered:

'I don't like them ghosts.'

'No, no’un does.’

William held out a hand and Jem gave him the shears. William looked at his shoes and said:

'Going to town.'

'To buy your’sen some boots? I can come?’

Asked Jem eagerly.

'No, little brother. Not today. We need more muck, ready for them beets.'

'Get us a funny paper, then, Will'em.'

Their own road – Jem knew it was called Sandown Close but refused to call it so, never having met Mr Sandown or known anything about him – just ended, more or less, just ran out of tarmac and became a dirt track. He pushed the cart over the ruts, down into the dip. When the ground melted it would be wet mud, good for sending footprint signs to the ghosts. Or it would sink under water. Like a river. He’d never seen a river but he’d seen pictures. Maybe he could float logs down the path, past beavers and moose, if they appeared from somewhere, along with the river. Now the path was just frozen ridges, hard to manoeuvre the cart over. He tried to hurry past the group of trees. Someone told him it was called a corpse. A corpse of trees! No wonder the rooks were dangerous; mean midnight dark birds that shrieked curses at him as he went past. He whistled a lark's song as he passed and he could see the sounds rising into the air, distraction for the evil that the rooks had called up.

Past the corpse, the track narrowed and hedgerows of elder, hawthorn, blackthorn, leaves frozen into icy slivers, pressed either side. He pushed on, hoping that he disturbed nothing fearful, and soon he reached the Bleysham road. Straight over, over the road, the track carried onto the cow farm, his usual route but now he turned left and walked along the road. Sometimes a car went past him but he ignored them. He saw plenty from the garden and they were dull and lifeless, mostly. He leaned forward to push the cart, keeping a steady pace. In his head he was a buzzard, wheeling lazily on the air currents up high, staring down on a small middle-aged man in dirty, black clothes, pushing a cart.

'Bird'll see us's bald patch and drop summat on the spot.'

He chuckled and stopped to rub his wiry brown hair around his head. He didn't think it covered the bit with no hair but he'd never seen the top of his head so maybe it did. One day he was going to get a mirror or look in a pond or something. Maybe he'd go into town and get a