Джеффри Арчер - Tell Tale - Stories

“What came up?” demanded Molly.

Joe buttoned his lip when his dad strolled in, and it wasn’t until they climbed into bed later that night that he told Molly how he’d spent his day, and then shared his big idea with her.

“You’re daft as a pumpkin, Joe Simpson. That’s council land, and you’d be done for trespassing, and what’s more I’ll prove it, then you won’t have to waste any more time and can go and get that job at the zoo before someone else grabs it.”

Molly spent the following morning at Barnsford Town Hall, where she visited the estates department, and got chatting to a young man who, after checking several ordnance survey maps, couldn’t be sure who did own the land, the council or the zoo. Molly still wasn’t convinced. But at least she now considered it a risk worth taking.

Joe took the bus to the zoo every day for the next week, where he made notes of how many people parked on the land, and roughly how long they spent visiting the zoo. He waited until they closed for the night and the last car had departed, before he paced out the boundaries. He wrote in his little book: 226 paces by 172.

The following day, he returned to his old stomping ground on Lakeside Drive, explaining that he needed a word with his old man. But once he got there, he measured a council parking space, this time not in paces, but in feet with an old school ruler: 18 ft. by 9 ft. for cars and vans, 40 ft. by 11 ft. for coaches. His dad couldn’t make head nor tail of what the lad was up to.

Joe spent the weekend trying to calculate how many cars could be parked on the zoo site. After he double-checked his figures, he decided there was enough room for 114 cars and 5 coaches. When Molly returned from work that night, he showed her his planned layout for the car park. She was impressed, but remained skeptical.

“You’ll never get away with it!” she said.

“Maybe not, but as no one else is offering me a job, I’ve got nothing to lose.”

Molly raised an eyebrow. “So what are you going to do next?”

“I’m going to learn how to paint a parking space in the dark.”

“Then you’ll need a torch, and a pot of white emulsion,” said Molly, “not to mention a brush, a bucket of water, and a broom to clear the space, as well as some string and nails to mark out a straight line even before you can start thinking about painting anything. And by the way, Joe, while you’re at it, I’d recommend you start by trying to paint four straight lines in the light.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in my plan?” said Joe.

“I don’t, but if you’re going to give it a go, at least do the job properly.”

Joe visited every paint merchant in the town, while Molly went off to work at Mason’s. After a day of comparing prices, Joe came to the conclusion he could only afford to buy six tins of white paint if he was still going to have enough money left over to get all the other bits and pieces Molly had insisted on.

“I can get the string, nails, a hammer, and a large broom from Mason’s,” said Molly when she arrived home after work that evening. “So you can cross them off your list.”

“But what about the bucket?”

“Well, borrow Mr. Mason’s fire bucket, and then you can fill it up in the public toilet outside the zoo.” Joe nodded. “Next thing you’ll have to do is a dry run,” said Molly.

“A dry run?”

“Yes, you’ll need to find a derelict council site and practice painting one space, until you’ve got the hang of it.”

When Molly went to work the next day, Joe headed off to an old bomb site on the outskirts of town, and painted his first car parking space. Not as easy as he had thought it would be. However, by the end of the week, he could complete one in forty minutes that wasn’t half bad. The only problem was that he ran out of paint, and although he had nearly perfected his technique, Molly had to sacrifice a week’s wages so he could replenish his stocks. By early December, he was ready to move onto the site.

“Our next problem,” said Molly, “is finding a time when you can paint the parking spots while no one else is around to see what you’re up to.”

“I’ve already worked that one out,” said Joe. “This year Christmas Day falls on a Friday, so no one will be visiting the site on the Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, and even bank holiday Monday, when the zoo will still be closed. So I could probably paint a hundred spaces in that time.”

“I think a dozen would be quite enough to start with,” said Molly. “Let’s make sure your big idea works before we spend any more money than necessary. Don’t forget that Mr. Mason started his business with six cars, and now he’s got a showroom with over a hundred in the forecourt, as well as a Jaguar dealership.”

Joe reluctantly agreed, and began to prepare himself for the big day.

Joe couldn’t get to sleep on Christmas Eve, and was up the following morning even before Molly had woken. He put on a T-shirt, a pair of jeans, a sweater, and his old school gym shoes. He crept downstairs and collected an ancient pram from the shed at the bottom of the garden, which Molly had filled the night before with everything he would need.

He pushed the pram all the way to the zoo, and spent the next few hours sweeping the ground and clearing it of leaves, dirt, and dust. Once he was satisfied that the site had been properly prepared, he measured out his first parking space with the help of a tape measure borrowed from his mum’s sewing basket. He then knocked nails into the four corners, to which he attached a length of string. He stood back and admired the canvas on which the artist was about to work.

It was just after ten by the time Joe had completed his first parking space, and he was exhausted. He hid the pram in a clump of trees, and somehow still found enough energy to run all the way home. He arrived back even before his father had got up, and only his mother asked how he got white paint on his jeans.

“My fault,” said Molly, without explanation.

After Christmas lunch, Joe waited for everyone to settle in front of the television, or fall asleep, before he once again set off for the zoo. By the time the streetlights came on at four o’clock, he’d completed two more spaces. On Boxing Day, another four, and by five o’clock on December 27 all twelve spaces were finished and ready for occupation. He hoped they’d all be dry by the time he returned the following morning.

Barnsford Zoo opened its doors to the public at ten o’clock on Tuesday morning, but business was slow. Joe stood on the corner of the site and watched at a distance. Whenever a car appeared, it immediately drove into one of his neatly painted spaces, now dry, which at least gave him a degree of confidence. He carried out the same routine for the next three days, and discovered the pattern didn’t vary. But then, the British are a nation who believe in queues, and behaving in an orderly fashion.

On December 31 and January 1 and 2, Joe went back to work, and he and Molly celebrated the New Year having painted twenty parking spaces.

“Quite enough,” declared Molly, “because you’ve still got to find out if the public will wear it.”

Joe rose at six o’clock the next morning, put on his old council parking attendant’s uniform, and collected one of his father’s discarded ticket collecting machines from the shed.

He took a bus to the site, and was standing on the parking lot long before the zoo opened for business. He patrolled his twenty spaces like a lion protecting its cubs, and when his first potential customer appeared, he walked tentatively over to a man who had parked in one of the spaces.

“Good morning, sir,” said Joe. “That will be two shillings.” If the man had told him to bugger off, he would have done just that, but he meekly handed over a florin.