The Essence - Part one

The Essence - Part One

They’d been forecasting heavy weather for days but all there had been was the occasional snow flurry, so I thought I’d be safe in cycling the thirty miles or so to my friend Donna’s home.
Not one of my better decisions as it turned out.
I was well wrapped up against the cold and being a keen cyclist a couple of hours cycling through flat fenland didn’t deter me. I left my home just south of Peterborough on the edge of the fens and within thirty minutes I’d made good progress, some distance east of a village named Thorney.
That’s when my problems began.
The snow they’d harped on about for days finally hit. Small needles at first but rapidly enlarging until it seemed that someone with a vendetta behind the layer of brown that served as sky was hurling snowballs at me.
I deemed it too dangerous on the main route and veered off onto a lane running parallel. After a few minutes it veered sharply left and I found myself approaching a village whose signpost was already obscured by snow. I stopped briefly to adjust my gloves and experienced a certain unease. The rough weather was bringing an early dusk and the wind was getting ever stronger, whistling the snow into my face. Roughly half way to my destination I was too far out now to go back, but with receding prospect of getting much further forward, at least on my cycle.
To my left and right the fens were plunged in white and the trees resembled beanstalk snowmen. I was approaching a corner leading to the village-with-no-name- when a Jeep covered in snow flew past me, cutting the corner, forcing me off my bike, onto the pavement and sliding towards the edge of the fields. I gathered my senses just in time to see the vehicle roaring into the village. I could just read its number plate through the snow and was determined to lodge it in my memory should I encounter the Jeep again.
Pulling myself gingerly up I was shaking as much with anger as the cold. How could the driver not have seen me? The visibility might have been poor but I was a walking snowdrift.
At any rate the four wheel drive was now out of sight, leaving behind a mushrooming cloud of snow. Composing myself I examined my cycle, finding nothing untoward other than a detached chain which I rectified before rejoining the road. The incident had brought home to me the folly of persisting with the cycle ride in the conditions. I was at the mercy of every nutcase on the road and there were enough of them about.
The question of acquiring lodgings however was an obvious one. I knew nothing about the village I was passing through, not even its name and at first sight it didn’t seem very large. Passing several smallholdings I was coming to the main street proper when a vehicle parked inside a five bar gate caught my eye. Immediately my mind connected to the Jeep which had run me off the road and sure enough the number matched it.
Determined to have at least a word I dismounted and pushed my cycle across to the gate; as I did so the engine fired up and it backed into a barn in the yard. I watched as two men sprang from the front and saw a hefty bearded guy resembling a doorman grab a drill from a shelf and begin unbolting the rear number plate. Changing my position to get a better look I peered through a hedgerow directly opposite the barn entrance and saw the other guy, similar build but bald headed, unloading brown boxes. Working quickly he began stacking them at the rear of the barn. Not deeming this to be “normal behaviour” I abandoned my intentions of “having it out” with them. The big bearded
one who’d removed the number plate was now replacing it with another.
That was it, I’d seen enough, I just hoped there was a police station in this small village where I could report an obvious robbery; that was my intention now.
Speed seemed to be the priority with these guys, and I’d gone unnoticed, I was sure; and so covered in my white blanket I headed into the village main.
‘Where’s the police station?’ I asked a passer-by.
He looked at me with wide unblinking eyes, as if what I’d asked hadn’t actually got through, then pointed at a narrow side street further up. ‘Thanks,’ I said, pushing my cycle past him. ‘It closed two years ago,’ he mumbled, and head bowed continued his trudge through the snow.
‘Cheers for that.’ Now what? Passing a butcher’s shop and small general store I noticed a pub sign creaking on the other side of the street, “The Miller’s Arms,” it looked like, but like most other things now it was wearing a mask of white. I trudged across, secured my cycle to a lamp-post and went inside.
The lounge was closed so I went into the other bar, I can’t say it struck me as the most savoury of places, tasteless peeling brown walls and all, but it was obviously
a regular’s haunt and as often happens when a stranger enters a tightly knit gathering all eyes turned in my direction.
I crossed the wooden floorboards to the bar, needless to say the regulars didn’t make way for me, but I was tall enough to be spotted by the guy serving.
‘Can you call the police,’ I yelled.
He screwed his eyes, ‘Why, what’s up?’
‘There are a couple of guys unloading goods- they’ve changed the number plates of a Jeep. I’ve seen them do it.’
‘Where’d you say this was?’
‘Down the street where the smallholdings start,’ I felt the heat of a dozen pairs of eyes on me.
‘I’ll alert the coppers,’ the guy said stone-faced, drying a glass with a towel and not seeming in any hurry, ‘would you be wanting anything else?’
I was wanting something else, like a drink and a room if he had one, but just then I wanted him to get on and call the police.
‘I’m just making my mind up,’ I said, and he seemed to get the message, placing the glass in an overhead rack and proceeding to a room at the back where I saw him talk on a wall phone.
A couple of minutes later he came back and said simply, ‘Done.’ A regular pushed past and I squeezed into the gap he’d left.
‘I’ll have a pint of cider please,’ I said.
‘No cider I’m afraid,’ he said tersely.
‘A pint of bitter then?’
‘Nope, none of that either,’ he tilted his head back and I noticed the locals drinking from glasses containing a light cloudy liquid, that but for the green tint might have resembled scrumpy. ‘I’ll try some of that then.’
The landlord sniffed, glanced uneasily at his regulars and shook his head, ‘Last of it’s gone.’
Feeling distinctly irritated, ‘What have you got then?’ I asked.
‘Water, no charge.’
Thanks for nothing, I thought. What a pub this was – no beer, nothing, apart from the cloudy green liquid the locals were drinking. I noticed then, that the bar was also bare of spirits.
I shook my head, taking a tumbler of water the landlord poured from a tap, ‘I’m looking for a room,’ I said edgily, ‘any ideas?’
‘I’ll check what’s available.’
Some progress of sorts, I thought, watching the regulars continue drinking whatever it was they were drinking. I wasn’t sure whether it was my presence but for a local bar there was a distinct lack of conversation in the place, plenty of glazed eyes though and mostly staring in my direction. It felt as though the window by which I’d sat was actually a screen.
Then a couple of guys came in and I realised with mounting consternation they were the two I’d reckoned to be on dodgy dealings – I didn’t know whether to leap up, shout that’s them or keep quiet. I felt them looking at me, hostile glares if ever there were any and I was filled with an urge to bolt for the door, but to my alarm one of the big guys stood blocking it while the other leaned over the bar. I noticed the locals parted for him readily enough.
A quick word, a nod from the landlord and he was heading back – in my direction, ‘You the fella wants accommodation?’ It didn’t sound so much a question, more of an accusation and his rough voice reeked of some foul substance. I looked at the big check-shirted guy and then at his mate, also wearing a lumberjack shirt, ‘Well, I was hoping for a room here,’ I said trying to duck out of it.
‘Ain’t none available, it’s us or nothin’ he barked; with anxiety climbing quicker than spider-man up a wall I realised that “nothing” wasn’t an option. I was promptly frogmarched out to their Jeep. ‘Get in,’ the bald headed one snapped.
‘My bike –‘ I pointed shakily.
‘Ain’t no accommodation for that, now get in.’
I didn’t exactly get in as get bundled into the back, whereupon the Jeep took off at speed through the snow.
‘Heard you been doin’ a little reporting fella.’
I sighed, feeling as tense as a spring coil; it wasn’t exactly something I could deny. I just knew you were up to no good,’ I mumbled, the words seeping out despite my attempts to seal them in.
‘You just keep that gob of yours buttoned,’ the driver said over his shoulder, best my brother’s temper gets the better of him.’ He nodded towards the big bearded guy who turned with a toothy grin, an ugly one at that. It struck me then, that evil as it was, this was the first smile I’d encountered since entering the godforsaken place.
Just as they’d bundled me into the Jeep they bundled me out, concealed by overgrown foliage from anyone daft enough to be out in what was now a blizzard; I was forced into the barn I’d seen them unloading boxes from.
They shoved me inside and I fell flat on my face. I felt them raking my pockets but it wasn’t my wallet they were interested in, rather my mobile phone which the bald headed guy who’d driven wedged into his pocket.
The door slammed shut followed by the sound of a padlock being secured. I heard the Jeep start up and crunch through the snow, the growl of its diesel engine slowly dying away. Either left to rot or await my fate I thought of my friend Donna who I’d called shortly before I left. She’d be worried but I’d no way of reaching her now.

Part two of three to follow...