Untitled 22

Friday was a bright, breezy, sunny day.
It had been a hung parliament and all of Britain seemed clueless as to what was going on.
There was already talk of a re-election. The Liberal Democrats, and chiefly Nick Clegg, were already being courted by Cameron and Brown to hatch a plan for a sneaky little coalition to box the voting into a new, unelected government.
Terry, having paid a fine to retrieve his car from the police station last night, decided to drive to work. He hadn’t realised that he could still drive whilst awaiting trial for his offence, which would see him off the roads for a year, but he fully intended to enjoy his final days of driving, especially as his insurance renewal was only a months away.
Rob had the tea in the pot by the time Ray got to the shed, and Terry arrived happily.
‘Got the car back,’ he said with a proud sniff.
‘They’re not going to do you, then?’ asked Rob.
‘No, they let me off…said the breathalyser was faulty,’ replied Terry, only to adjust his tone with, ‘Course they’re going to do me.’
Ray looked up from the crossword.
‘Leave off him, Terry,’ he said.
‘I was only arsing around, chef,’ said Terry.
After a small silence, Ray thought he’d let the lads know the day’s planning.
‘Right,’ he said, putting down his paper, ‘we’ve almost cracked that wall and it’ll be a pretty easy day’s work today. I want you two to point from the bottom while I finish off the brickwork at the top.
After break, we’ll carry on pointing till lunch and then we’ll fix the brickwork around the drainpipe in the afternoo…’
There was a knock at the door.
Only David knocked like that, thought Ray.
‘Come in,’ he said, getting up. The lads stayed seated, looking at one another with mouths and eyes agape.
‘Hello, Ray,’ said David as he poked his head inside the door and entered. ‘Hello, Terry..Rob.’
‘Hello, Mr Spokes,’ said the lads in unison.
‘Hello, David,’ said Ray, a quizzical grimace moulded over a slanted smile, ‘how are you?’
‘Oh, I’m fine,’ he replied, ‘a place came up for me on the slab so I decided to get it over with. You know, the old hernia thing. Right as rain now.’
‘Yes, Jane wrote me a little note saying that you’d be away for the week,’ said Ray, hoping that David might explain his earlier than expected reappearance.
‘Yes, I did ask her to let you know,’ replied David. ‘I thought I’d just have a look in today. Got some dreaded emails from head office that need special attention,’ he added, with a wink to Ray. ‘We’re collecting bids for an eco-friendly toiletries distributor and energy-saving lighting. Costs a fortune to set up, you know. Oh, and a Russian oligarch’s coming this afternoon to look around the place for his daughter’s wedding. High drama,’ he said, hoping for a chuckle from Ray.
Having never withheld information that David should know about, Ray couldn’t seem to get a response together, so David went on.
‘He particularly wants to see the Garden That Flows,’ said David.
Terry’s eyes rolled back into their sockets and Rob coughed uncomfortably.
David, sensing that something was awry with the three gardeners, looked across the room and noticed that a large proportion of Ray’s tools were missing from their usual places.
‘It looks like you’ve been busy on something, Ray,’ said David.
Ray held their breath, searching for a decent excuse for what must have seemed highly dubious to David.
‘Well, David,’ said Ray, as Terry and Rob bit their lips. ‘Well, David.. you see..we’ve been very busy on a job down at the..’
‘At the edge of the estate,’ barked Rob.
Everyone turned towards him, and then an awkward little silence developed uncomfortably.
‘Yeah,’ said Terry in the nick of time, ‘Ray’s been teaching us how to carve wood using old traditional methods down by the hangar. Mostly wood we’ve used from lopped trees. We’ve been at it for the last couple of days and I reckon it’s about the best thing we’ve done for ages, don’t you, Rob?’
Rob nodded wildly in agreement without opening his mouth.
‘You should come down and have a look at what we’ve done, Mr Spokes,’ continued Terry, gaining in confidence. ‘Ray thinks we could start a new class, if it’s alright with you, that is.’
David couldn’t quite get his head around this.
For a start, Ray always kept the lads to task with the usual nuts and bolts of the gardens. There was more than enough remedial work to be done now that spring had arrived, and it all seemed too unbelievable to take on board, not that he had any reason to distrust them.
‘I thought it would be good for the lads to learn something new,’ said Ray finally, doing well to appear slightly apologetic. ‘We’re well on top of things around the estate. Besides, the pollarding we did last year hadn’t taken and the trees would have surely died.’
With this reasonably plausible explanation, David thought he’d got the gist of what was going on. Ray was a natural teacher and had merely wanted to bestow his talents upon the lads, he thought.
‘I think that’s a fabulous idea,’ he said after a short silence.
When he said this, the posture of the three gardeners eased and their tight shoulders dropped happily.
‘You really should come and have a look when you have some time, Mr Spokes,’ said Terry. ‘It’s amazing what you can do with a hammer and chisel. The way Ray does it’s mind-blowing.’
Rob hid a sman with a tight cough and raised his shoulders to stem any further laughter.
‘I’d love to,’ said David, ‘but I think it’s a bit far for me to walk today.’ Looking over to Ray, he added, ‘you will be back on the gardens Monday, won’t you?’
‘Oh yes, I only intended for us to carve for a day, but the lads enjoyed it so much that it carried on into yesterday and now today.’
‘That’s fine, Ray,’ said David, losing faith in his previous thoughts that there was something awry.
There was surely something going on, but he wasn’t about to find out now. Besides, he’d only popped in to say hello and there were plenty of things to get on with in the office.
As he went to leave, he asked Ray to look in on the Garden That Flows on their way to the hangar, just to make sure that it was presentable for the Russian oligarch to view.
‘You don’t need to do too much, just clear some leaves and unlock the gate for us,’ he said.
‘Will do,’ said Ray with a pathetic smile.
Once he was out of earshot, Ray looked over at Terry and Rob. Never before had they seen Ray look angry, not once, but he was fuming over them.
The lads said nothing, stood like statues, waiting for him to fire them both.
After a few moments, Ray’s facial expression began to change.