Louis de Bernieres - Notwithstanding - Stories from an English Village

‘An Iranian?’ repeats Alan.

John looks at him levelly. ‘Haven’t you ever wondered why there’s tank traps all around this place?’

‘Tank traps? You mean those big white pyramids? I thought … well, I don’t know what I thought. I thought they were just there, like trees and fences and things.’

‘They’re tank traps. It wa’n’t that pop star who put them in. You know, the one I told you about. I grew his mushrooms for him. Always pie-eyed and drugged-up, he was, always getting pinched by the drug squad. Anyway, it wa’n’t him. He sold the place to the Shah of Iran, and it was him put in all those tank traps so that no one could drive in from Munstead in his little tank and be a nuisance. I said to him, “Your Majesty, there in’t any tanks in Munstead, and none in Notwithstanding neither,” and he says, “You can’t be too careful.” Anyway, he came to a bad end, the poor old sod. Died of cancer. Then it was Mr Gull bought this place, and I’ve been here all the time providing the house with organic veg and flowers. And anyway, I reckon it was an Iranian who did it, because it was some mohammedanny warrior, see, and he came here to assassinate the Shah. And you know how it is, when you’re all agog with nerves, it makes you want to relieve your bowels, and if you’re that desperate you’ve just got to do it in the first place that comes to hand. And I reckon that after he’d done it in the kettle, he was still all agog, and he ran away.’

‘Iranian poo in a Christian kettle,’ summarises Alan, but John contradicts him. ‘’Cept I’m not a Christian. God knows what I am. I reckon that when you think about God, He scrambles up your mind a bit, see? And like that you don’t ever come to no conclusion. The thing you got to know about God is that He don’t want us to work Him out. He’s like MI5. He’s like those folk who do all the benefits. Social security and the like.’

Sylvie has a question, something she has to clarify, and she turns and looks at Alan’s face, her eyes betraying her anticipation of loss.

‘When are you going to university, Alan? You are going, aren’t you? Someone told me you were.’

‘Next month,’ says Alan. ‘I’m going to do English.’

Alan feels uncomfortable about this university business, and John makes matters worse. ‘Sounds to me like you speak it already.’

‘It’ll be literature mostly,’ explains Alan, unsure if it really will be and knowing that he won’t be able to justify it all to the earthy John, whose practical, organic world makes Milton an anomaly. But John’s away on his own tack again.

‘You know what I like? I like them Latin names. I read ’em in the evenings, all those words. Erica tetralix, Gynu sarmentosa, Nepeta mussinii, Dianthus barbatus, Lilium martagon, Fritillaria meleagris, Cornus kousa, Chlorophytum capense, Peristrophe speciosa, Primula denticulata , that’s poetry that is. I like all that foreign stuff. It’s like I sometimes tune in on one o’ them French radio stations. Don’t speak a word o’ Froggy, but it’s nice to listen. You know the strangest thing I reckon I saw? We had a Frenchman living down the village, oh, about fifteen year ago, next to that Mrs Griffiths, the old sourpuss, and he had an Alsatian dog, and this dog knew all how to speak French. He knew “dindins” and “come here” and “walkies” and “lie down” and “sit” and “get in your basket” all in Froggy, and I said to Herbert, that was his name (the Frog, not the dog), I said, “Blimey, Herb, your dog’s a sodding genius, speaking all that French,” and Herbert he jus’ laughs and says, “Funny you should say that, ’cause every time I see a dog understanding English, I think, ‘La la la la la, what a clever dog.’”’

Alan and Sylvie ponder the cleverness of dogs, and Alan says, pointlessly, ‘I could do a thesis on the poetics of plant names.’

‘Better than all that “O what a lovely flower” la-di-da soppy stuff,’ exclaims John, his face screwed up with the pain of so much lyric verse, and then he declaims: ‘I wandered lonely as a silly sod, Saw some daffs, and said, “Thank God I wasn’t sittin’ on the grass, Them daffs’d grow right up my arse.”’

Sylvie and Alan laugh with real surprise and delight, and Sylvie applauds. ‘That’s brilliant,’ she says. ‘Did you just make it up?’

John shrugs modestly. ‘Always could do rhymes, mostly silly stuff. My missus don’t like it, mind, so I don’t do it much. Can’t do serious ones. Anyway, lad,’ (and here he pats his thighs as if encouraging them into motion) ‘I’m goin’ to plant up the strawberry runners for the greenhouse, and then I’m goin’ to prune the climbers. When you’ve done the diggin’, you can net the pond to keep out the leaves, all right?’

Sylvie suddenly recalls. ‘My mum says, can we have the windfalls to make scrumpy with?’

‘Course she can,’ says John, and Sylvie stays in the shed while the men go out and toil. Sylvie is breaking off her split ends and talking to George. ‘My God, I’m such a skiver, I’m terrible, really I am. Maybe I should have been a gardener instead of a stable girl and then I wouldn’t have a conscience about being in here. The truth is, George, I just like being in here because it’s where Alan sometimes is. That’s the chair where his bum goes, and I can sneak a look in his dinner box, and he’s having honey sandwiches again, that he made himself. And his shoes down in the corner, all abandoned and lonely-looking. Do you think I’m stupid, George? I do. I wish I wasn’t so stupid. I mean, sometimes I look at myself in the mirror, like when I’m combing my hair, and suddenly I get a little shock. I think, “Sylvie, you’re so ignorant, you just don’t know anything, and all you think about is horses and saddle sores and bridles and martingales, and you’re nineteen years old, and life is just beginning, really.” And I just know that there’s a great mountain of life out there somewhere, but I don’t know where it is and I don’t know how to climb it.’ Sylvie goes to the window, whose glass is encrusted with lichen, and she looks at it rather than through it, leaning on the bench, always talking to George. ‘I get this feeling sometimes when I’m up on one of the horses, and it’s just after dawn, and the mist is lifting up from the grass, and the daddy-long-legs are like little helicopters, and I’m galloping the horse in all that chilliness, and the steam rises up from the horse’s neck, and I feel as though I’m flowing and flying, and the horse knows what I’m thinking, and I know what the horse is thinking. His mind is all full of alertness and interest, and there’s really nothing in there at all except happiness. Happiness about being a horse, and doing horsey things, like just galloping, and making the world roll underneath you, and looking forward to a bag of pony nuts. And for a few moments I know what it’s like to have perfect pleasure, and I feel so happy with the horse’s happiness that it makes me want to cry, and the horse’s hooves are thudding on the turf with a sound as if the earth is hollow, and the leather’s creaking, and there’s the musty smell of the horse’s sweat, and the horse is nodding its head up and down with the motion of galloping, and I think, “Yes, this is it, this is it, this is what it’s all about.” And then the moment’s over, and I’m just me again, and I’ve lost all that exhilaration and I don’t know when it’ll come back, and I feel stupid and silly.’ Sylvie picks up one of Alan’s shoes, noting the shape that is the ghost of his foot, and says, ‘I always wanted to count for something, and I don’t think I ever will. I don’t think I’ll even be happy. ’Spose I’d better go and do some mucking out.’ She puts the shoe down, and shakes her head. ‘My God, look at me. When I’m not talking to a horse, I’m talking to a bleeding spider.’ The door scrapes as she leaves, and she says to George, ‘See you anyway.’