Magnus Mills - Three to See the King

She soon had him sitting down at the table with a hot cup of coffee, and once he’d recovered a little he told us what had happened.

‘I don’t know if you’ve heard,’ he began, ‘but I’ve been out to stay at Michael Hawkins’s place quite a few times lately.’

‘Yes,’ replied Mary Petrie. ‘We’d heard that.’ (I understood from the look she gave me that I wasn’t allowed to pass comment on the subject.)

‘Well, I was there until quite late last night,’ he continued. ‘Couldn’t drag myself away until the small hours, but the moon was out — did you see the moon?’

‘No, we didn’t.’

‘Marvellous, it was, very shiny, so I decided to travel home by moonlight. We do things like that at Michael’s: getting up early, staying up late, it’s all part of daily life out there.’ He paused and took a deep breath. This was followed by a sigh. ‘Anyway, as I drew nearer I expected to see the outline of my house appear ahead of me, but instead there was nothing. It was dawn when I got to where it should have been, and all that remained was this big pile of tin, with the flagpole lying nearby.’

‘What about your captive balloon?’ I asked.

‘They’ve let it down.’

He was beginning to look tearful once more, so Mary Petrie put her arm round his shoulder and said, ‘There, there, you’ll soon put it together again.’

‘I don’t know how,’ he moaned.

‘Well, we’ll help, won’t we?’

She eyed me firmly, and I realized I was going to have a busy few days ahead.

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘We’ll have a nice breakfast, and then we’ll go and see what can be done.’

To tell the truth, by the time we were ready to leave I was quite looking forward to the project. It would be a fruitful pastime, I thought, reassembling someone’s house, and thereby earning their eternal gratitude. Of course, when Mary Petrie had said we’d help she actually meant me. For her part, she knew nothing about building from tin, and would have been no use at all. Actually, I knew nothing either, but I assumed it would be fairly straightforward.

Mary Petrie saw us off after breakfast, and said she might have a walk across later to see how we were getting on. Meanwhile, she’d have some space to herself, which would be an agreeable change for her. By now I was pleased to see that Simon was getting some of his bounce back, and as we approached his place we shared a general feeling of optimism.

This disappeared the moment we saw the enormity of the job. I had expected it to be quite obvious which piece went where, but when we were confronted by that huge pile of tin I was frankly dumbfounded. How were we supposed to tell the roof from the walls, the back from the front, and so on? The only readily identifiable parts were the door, the shutters and the chimney, which had been carefully set to one side.

‘Considerate of someone,’ I remarked, as we stood surveying the ruins. They’ve even folded up your balloon.’

There didn’t seem to be any malice attached to the dismantling of Simon Painter’s house. I mean to say, anybody who wished to destroy it would have been better off using dynamite. Instead they’d simply taken it to pieces and left it in a heap. There was a separate stack which turned out to be all his worldly goods, neatly bundled together so as not to come to any harm.

‘You didn’t leave the door locked then?’ I asked in passing.

‘Of course not,’ replied Simon. There was no need … normally.’

I could see he was quite upset, so I decided the best thing would be to get started immediately, in order to keep his mind occupied.

Where to begin, though? It was like attempting to solve a jigsaw puzzle that had come in a box without an illustration on the lid.

‘We should have brought that picture you gave me,’ I said. ‘You haven’t got another one anywhere have you?’

‘There’s one on the bedroom wall.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘At least that’s a clue: we’ll start there.’

I approached the pile of tin and began going through it in search of the piece with the picture attached. Deep inside, though, it felt like a hopeless task. Even if we did find part of his bedroom wall, how on earth were we going to build the rest of the house around it?

‘I’m sorry I can’t offer you a coffee,’ said Simon. The stove won’t work without the chimney.’

‘Not to worry,’ I replied. ‘What about lighting a fire out in the open? That’ll cheer us up a bit.’

‘No fuel,’ he said. ‘I’ve spent so much time at Michael’s lately that it’s completely run down.’

‘Blimey, you have got it bad haven’t you?’

‘Suppose so.’

‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Here comes the cavalry.’

There were two figures moving towards us in the distance, and as they drew nearer I recognized Steve and Philip. Then all at once they started running.

‘Don’t touch the tin!’ shouted Steve, as soon as he was close enough. ‘Each piece is specially marked!’

‘Alright!’ I called back. ‘We’ve only moved a few!’

They dashed up and began manhandling the pile until it was more or less back to how it had been before. Meanwhile, Simon stood and watched them in stunned silence.

‘This and this are right,’ said Steve as he attended to the last pieces. ‘But that has to be put on top of there.’ He and Philip heaved a long section of tin onto the pile, then turned and looked at Simon with an air of satisfaction.

‘Righto,’ announced Steve. ‘You’re all ready to get moving.’

‘Moving where?’ Simon asked.

‘Towards Michael Hawkins’s, of course.’

‘You mean move my house there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh … I see.’

Simon’s reaction was interesting, because instead of exploding with rage at Steve and Philip’s audacity, he just stood there blinking as the idea sunk in.

‘Is this the “encouragement” you were talking about the other day?’ I asked. ‘A “bit of a push”?’

‘Yep,’ said Steve.

‘And you never thought to consult Simon first?’

‘Nope.’

1 suppose we should have really,’ remarked Philip. ‘When you come to think about it.’

‘No, it’s alright,’ said Simon, suddenly breaking his silence. ‘It’s a marvellous thing you’ve done, setting me on a path I should have taken a long while ago. Thank you both! Yes, I will move. I’ll build my house within a mile of Michael.’

At this moment I thought it wise not to set forth my own opinion on the matter. Nonetheless, I was surprised at the ease with which Simon accepted his new circumstances. Here he was being practically evicted by a pair of well-meaning neighbours, yet he talked as if it was part of his destiny. I’d already noticed how he adopted a very solemn tone of voice whenever he spoke of Michael Hawkins. Now, it seemed, he was prepared to stake everything on their friendship.

‘How are you going to get it all budged?’ I asked.

‘Simple,’ replied Steve. ‘We’ll take it one piece at a time.’

Apparently he and Philip had been planning all this for a good while. They’d known in advance that Simon would be away for a couple of days, and as soon as he’d departed they’d come over. Then the pair of them had gone all round the house, marking each section with chalk before dismantling it, so it would be easy to assemble again. This had been a two-day job. Having finished the work late on the previous evening, they’d popped over to Philip’s for supper and bed, planning to return in the morning and surprise Simon. As it was, he’d decided to travel overnight and had got back sooner than expected, which is why he’d wound up in a distraught state at my place.

‘All the chalk marks correspond,’ explained Steve. ‘So as long as we keep the pieces in order, we’ll have the whole outfit back together in no time.’