Untitled 14

Back at the wall, work was torn into.
Within the first hour of the afternoon period, Ray had taken out and thrown down all of the ivy from his side, leaving the gutter and drainpipe for the wide chisels and circular saw. Apart from the removal of the branches from the brick and mortar, that would be the preparation done.
During the second hour, Ray and Terry worked together on finishing the other side whilst Rob bagged up the ivy and dragged it towards the gate.
At break-time, they decided not to go back to the shed for tea. They were tired and needed a rest, not a walk, so they lay on the lawn and drank some water from Ray’s flask.
‘Almost there,’ said Rob.
‘Yeah, nearly done,’ said Terry, taking off his smock and smacking it into the lawn to get the horrible stickiness of the ivy off.
Ray laid back onto the lawn and looked up to the sky.
He’d never once in all his working life relaxed in such a way but those old rules didn’t count now.
Rob looked worse for wear, too, and chose to do as Ray, lying back on the lawn in a trancelike state.
‘Oi,’ said Terry. ‘What’s all this, Butlins? Never seen you lie on the lawn before, chef.’
Ray mumbled something and carried on looking at the sky.
‘Oi,’ said Terry. ‘You do feel alright, don’t you, chef?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Ray, without much conviction. ‘Just let up for a minute and enjoy the sunshine.’
Terry had never heard Ray talk like that before and shook his head, but then he decided to join them and laid down next to Rob to dwell with the sun.
After about a quarter of an hour, the three gardeners pushed themselves up from the lawn and went to finish off the ivy.
With Ray and Terry on the ladders either side of the drainpipe, they hacked and snapped and chiselled away at the coiled web of ivy around the long metal shaft. Rob stood beneath them catching strips of ivy.
If Terry couldn’t prise out a strip from his side, Ray would try and pull it out or bash it through with a hammer from his side, and so they carried on up the pipe towards the top.
The trouble started only a few feet from the ground, when they quickly realised that the ivy had eaten through from behind the drainpipe and as good as replaced the brickwork with a set of knots and knuckles that they assumed went right to the top, a sort of tree of knots and knuckles concealed behind the innocent rainwater pipe.
The more they hacked and blunted their instruments, the more evidence that the brickwork would need major work.
Suddenly, it dawned on Ray that he may well have inadvertently strayed from the depth in which he felt relatively comfortable.
If David had been there to see the building nightmare that had been revealed by killing the ivy, he would have had no choice but to reprimand Ray and inform the Trust that a surveyor was urgently required for an assessment of major damage caused to the historical site as a result of long-undetected ivy.
In Ray’s favour, if he hadn’t seen fit to cut it back now and waited till the end of or even next summer, the Trust may have had even more of a catastrophe on their hands.
As far as Ray could tell from the extent of the damage made by the fused knuckles, there was little doubt in his mind that he had done the right thing by tending to it.
The only thing that he couldn’t work out was whether he could properly renovate the wall in the time that David was away.
The note had said that he would not be at work all week, which gave them three more days to rebuild the holes left by all the knots and knuckles and to finish it off with bricks and lime mortar, which they had a stack of around the back of the shed.
If David’s problem could only persist into the next week, the three gardeners would be home and dry by Wednesday at the very latest.
The Trust would save an arm and a leg, health and safety would be none the wiser (which wasn’t difficult) and Ray’s job would be secure again.
If ever it came to light what had gone on, Ray would strongly urge to the Trust that the lads be kept on, no matter what their views as regards the wall. They, he would stress, were merely carrying out orders.