Magnus Mills: All Quiet on the Orient Express

“Yes, I suppose it would.” He tapped on the steering wheel again. “So what job were you doing then?”

“I was in the paint shop.”

“Painting?”

“Well, it was spraying really.”

“Not brushes?”

“No.”

A few moments passed.

“But you can handle a paintbrush, can you?” he asked.

“Not bad with one,” I replied. “Haven’t done much though.”

“Well, we’ve got a bit of a chore for you if you’re interested.”

“Oh,” I said, with some surprise. “What’s that then?”

“This gate needs painting.”

I glanced at the gate that was hooked open beside us. It was a steel tube type, painted red and hinged on substantial concrete posts.

“It’s already been painted,” I remarked.

“Wrong colour,” he said. “It needs to be green.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well, I can paint it for you if you like.”

“How much would you want for doing that then?”

“I’m not really bothered about the money.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to work for nothing, would you?”

“Tell you what,” I said. “Let me off the remainder of my rent and that’ll do.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, positive. It’ll be something to keep me occupied. I quite like painting.”

“Oh, right,” said Mr Parker. “Well, when you’re ready come up to the house and I’ll sort you out some paint and suchlike.”

“OK then.”

I got out of the truck and watched as he continued up the concrete road in the direction of his house. As soon as he’d gone it occurred to me that I’d probably diddled myself. What I should have done was charge him a fiver and he’d most likely have let me off the rent anyway. After all, I was hardly taking up any space in his field. Still, it was too late to worry about that now, and to tell the truth I wasn’t really bothered. It was actually quite nice to have something proper to do for a change, and so as soon as I’d dumped my groceries in the tent I set off up towards the house.

The camping field was on flat ground, but the concrete road started getting quite steep just after it passed the shower block. It was flanked for some distance by sparse thorn hedges before eventually emerging in a hard gravel yard. As I came up the slope I was aware of the house looming above me, overlooking the yard, the road and the fields below. I passed the lower corner of the building and scuffed some gravel with my boots.

“That was quick, you must be keen,” said Mr Parker.

I looked up and saw him standing on a terrace at the side of the house, at the top of some concrete steps.

“Might as well get on with it,” I replied.

“That’s what we like to hear.”

Having arrived in the yard I saw straight away that what I’d taken to be a barn was in fact better described as a corrugated steel shed. It stood opposite the house on a huge concrete platform set into the sloping ground. There were large folding doors at the front, and access to the platform was by means of a concrete loading ramp. Concrete had also been used to create the base for an ancient green petrol pump sited beside the platform. Glancing round, I began to wonder exactly how much concrete had been poured on to this piece of hillside. It seemed to crop up all over the place, like some form of indigenous rock.

Parked next to the steel shed was a Morris van that didn’t look as if it had been anywhere for years. Further along there were several stone outbuildings, including a hay-loft, as well as a small bothy, apparently unoccupied. The higher side of the yard was bounded by a dry wall, with a gateway through to another area of hard-standing where I could see a group of second-hand oil drums. This, presumably, was what Mr Parker had referred to earlier as the ‘top yard’.

Not that I had much time to examine my surroundings in detail. Within moments of my arrival he’d come down the steps to join me.

“Right,” he said. “Let’s go and have a look in the paint shed.”

He led the way to one of the outbuildings and pushed the door open. Inside, on a series of shelves, were dozens of tins of paint, some pristine and unopened, others not so new. He selected one, handed it to me, and then produced a one-inch brush from another shelf. In doing so he pushed the door open a little further, and the daylight revealed yet more paint stacked at the back of the shed.

“Now then,” he said, turning to me. “Do you know how to reseal a tin of paint?”

“No,” I said. “Sorry, I don’t.”

“Well, I’m surprised about that. I thought you said you worked in a paint shop.”

“Yeah, but that was spray paint. It all came out of pressure pipes.”

“Ah, well,” he said. “It’s easy enough done. When you’ve finished painting you put the lid back on nice and tight, and then turn the tin upside down for half a minute.”

“Oh,” I said. “OK.”

“And when you turn it back the right way up, it’s sealed. See?”

“Yep.”

The tin I was holding had never been opened before. I also noticed there was no label.

“How do you know what colour it is?” I asked.

“It’s green,” he replied.

“Yeah, but how do you know?”

“I got it in a job lot,” he said. “All the unlabelled ones are green.”

I looked across the yard at the green petrol pump, and the green-painted doors on the big shed.

“Nice colour,” I remarked.

“Can’t stand it myself,” said Mr Parker. “But I haven’t any choice.”

A quarter of an hour later, having walked down to the front gate, got the lid off the tin and given the contents a stir, I began my work. The gateway was quite wide, about sixteen feet across, presumably so that arriving campers wouldn’t miss the turning. As a result there was a lot of painting to do. I decided that the best way to go about it was to be methodical, so I would start with the hinges, then do the outer frame of the gate before working my way inwards.

Not long after I’d begun, Mr Parker came by in his truck, again with the trailer in tow. As he passed he slowed down and looked at the job in progress, but said nothing.

The same sort of thing happened every time a vehicle went past on the public road. There wasn’t much traffic, but occasionally someone would go by, and they always eased up a little to see who was painting Mr Parker’s front gate. I wondered whether I looked like a professional painter. Probably not. A genuine tradesman would more than likely have had a van parked near at hand, with the back doors open and a radio blaring out. He’d be in proper overalls as well, whereas I was clad only in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. My equipment consisted of no more than a brush and a tin of paint. Obviously an amateur. Someone who’d been roped in to do the job because he had nothing better to do. Nevertheless, I was surprised at the interest my presence seemed to arouse amongst passers-by. There must have been thousands of visitors to the area throughout the summer, and the locals would surely be used to outsiders by now. Yet just because a stranger was painting someone’s gate, he immediately came under local scrutiny.

Not that I was bothered by all this. The vehicles that went by were few and far between, and their passing broke the monotony of the job. It was actually taking much longer than I’d expected, and although being outside in the sunshine was quite pleasant, I began to find all the fiddly corners and underneath bits rather tedious. I was just working along one of the diagonals when I heard a clinking noise coming along behind the hedgerow. Glancing round, I saw a pick-up truck go by, loaded with crates full of empty milk bottles. It slowed down as it passed, and a moment later the clinking stopped. There then followed the clunk of a gearbox, and the truck came reversing back up to the gateway.