During Beattie's wild swing at my sister the blanket had fallen away from her upper body. Seeing my auntie's huge breasts swing one way and the other as she used her fists was an image I didn't want to relive ever again. The swinging breasts were more appalling than her attack on my sister. I went off towards the cottage to make some tea or soup. I would bring it out to them in one of the many thermos flasks my auntie seemed to own. When moving about on the farm these two women appeared to always be clutching a thermos ready for any cold snap or emergency, even in the height of summer, so finding one wasn't going to be difficult.
Of course I had another motive for going to the cottage alone. It was convenient to do a quick search. I had too much of an idea why my auntie was crazy. She was as high as a kite on LSD! The only way she could be high was if she'd ingested it quite recently at the cottage. Inside the cottage everything was in disarray. Both windows were blown in with the tattered curtains looking grotesque as they moved in the light breeze. The banister rail going up from the lounge had three spindles missing, and an enormous amount of damage to the rail itself. Everywhere inside the cottage was gouged and peppered by small holes. The pock marked settee was across half the doorway. It had been pulled aside so my Auntie Violet could leave the house. The back of this generously stuffed settee was in tatters from many direct hits. Luckily my Auntie Violet had the wherewithal to fire warning shots over Beattie's head to drive her back, and was smart enough to stay low behind the settee.
She had managed to drag the phone across to her command position behind the makeshift barricade. It had a cable long enough to run to the front windows and up to the bedrooms at night. The aunties liked to have the phone near them “just in case”. I never knew quite what this meant, but I did now, and I had no idea their emergency would ever be like this. I imagined one of them would have a heart attack, a stroke or a nasty fall. The idea that one of them would be high on LSD was quite beyond my imagination.
When you're young you never understand the fear of decrepitude. The words, just in case, filled many scenarios, none of which included a naked female hippo with a shotgun. As a small boy suffering with aunties and their version of just in case, I always thought of illness or invading armies, even alien invasion. Tonight, I've got to admit, did have me laughing slightly too much which made me laugh even more when I thought about my aunties telling me every time I ever laughed at anything that “this is no laughing matter”!
The kitchen revealed a pile of Beattie's discarded clothes along with her favourite grotesquely frilly, flower-covered apron. The large farmhouse table was covered in baking materials. I had no idea why. My aunties relied entirely on my mother for baking skills. They had both been very capable bakers. At times when I was a small boy they produced a wondrous variety of delicious scones, sponges and pastries. However, of late my aunties relied on my mother for all their baking needs. Beattie hadn't wielded a rolling pin for a considerable time, apart of course from chasing the odd rat around. It was a farmhouse, after all, and the door was always open in the summer.
On the table was a great variety of baking goods, most of which were flour and butter, but the source of my interest were the additives. She had put out all the pots of jam, mincemeat, which isn't meat at all, a fact that always amused me as a child. Best of all she had some little bottles of essences, most of which had been high up above the electric meter in the spice cupboard for some years. To gain any access you needed a set of stepladders. I was certain Beattie hadn't risked her chubby neck on the ladders, and I had to assume Violet was co-opted to do the mountaineering.
To cut to the chase, somebody, and it may have been my mother volunteering earlier in the day, had brought down all these little bottles of essences, most of which had handwritten labels. Others had labels that were unreadable with age. One of them had a bright green label. Normally it contained some very strange peppermint flavoured essence, but time always turned this delightful flavour into a sticky solid. This little green labelled bottle stood out amongst all the rest, and on a subliminal level attracted me. I recognised it, and I knew why!
In that moment I realised LSD can be a liquid â lysergic disulphide. I was hiding it in a bottle the aunties would never see, secreted at the back of a high cupboard where in normal circumstances it would be undisturbed for a lifetime, at least a lifetime for my aunties. For some reason they'd decided to bake. The old bottles all needed tasting and relabelled. Essences that failed to meet the correct standard would be thrown away. Auntie Beattie had obviously shaken each of the small bottles against her fingertip to release the flavour and then popped it on the end tongue for the tasting. Most had not been opened. You could see that from the dust. This bottle with the bright green label was more attractive than the others. This would explain why it was one of the first to be experimented with, and this was the moment Beattie began her recreational drug experience.
It was a revelation, I knew I'd found all the LSD. This small bottle was enough, if used with a syringe to meter out the liquid it would provide hundreds of doses, if not thousands. I examined the bottles more thoroughly discovering that only eight bottles had labels low down. These all seemed to be the most attractive bottles and the least dusty. All these could be the hiding place for the LSD. I didn't want to take any chances. All the bottles were on the table, the cupboard was bare so to speak, and my cup was overflowing. Looking around I found a pillow case in the washing and placed all the bottles on the table in it, every single last one.
I could hear the sound of footfalls on the drive. I had to be quick! I dived out of the back of the cottage which wasn't as quick as I had hoped because the door was a massively bolted very thick oak, a godsend to my Auntie Violet. On opening the door the light from the kitchen revealed a ragged scarring on the outside from numerous shotgun blasts, some of which had gouged great splinters from the door, luckily for Violet none penetrating it. I had only seconds to hide the bottles outside, pushing them under some bushes and kicking some ground mulch over anything that showed white. As I took a final glance at the hiding place I turned to look at the back door. Framed in it was my sister.
“We're all going to the farmhouse. You're coming too! Regardless of what you say, we're sorting this out!” Jane said.
I wondered how long she had been standing at the doorway. Had she seen me burying the bag, or did she think I was out the back examining the door or taking a leak?
More questions, no answers.
“Your Sid was a bastard, a cheap spiv, a coward of a man!” Violet spat these words across the family kitchen. We all looked at her in astonishment. Violet was directing full venom on her sister Beatrix.
“Sailor Jack, sailor Jack won't come back. I don't think he's dead I think he's messing about with the girls somewhere. Always liked sex, used to touch me, try and seduce me. He was a fucker.” Beattie remained under the influence, or so we thought!
Violet reared up and rushed across the room. She grabbed the seated Beattie by the hair. The thin woman dragged her large sister to her feet. To our horror the blanket fell away again, and we were subjected to the dreadful montage. Violet leaned in until she was less than an inch away from the wobbling Beattie's chubby veined nose. “My Jack volunteered and lost his life fighting for this country. He was a wonderful husband, a kind and generous lover to me, and ONLY me. You're jealous, you fat old cow!”
“My lovely Sidney lost his life in the war. My Sid was doing his bit. You know some people had to stay at home because some people didn't have the health!” Beattie was crying, something I'd never seen.
“Don't make me laugh. My Jack died in ice-cold oil-filled water. Your Sidney, your precious Sid, was crushed to death by a crate of contraband stockings. You know the driver panicked when the police came and the box fell on top of him. There was never anything wrong with your husband apart from greed, and his liking for fast cars and cheap girls. He never wanted to screw you, you fat old bitch!”
“Violet! Beattie! This isn't like you. Please stop it. You're sisters and you're hurting yourselves!” Iris my mother moved in separating them.
“If that fat bitch ever bad mouths my Jack again I will take the shotgun and blow her brains out!” Violet had gone from thin mouse to tigress, and I don't think she was ever going to let Beattie dominate again.
“Come on, calm down. You two (she was pointing at my sister and I) help me with the aunties. Get some cocoa on while I attempt to settle them. Beattie's had a bit of a turn (my mother looked at me with steely eyes), and Violet has been very stressed tonight. A good night's sleep and it'll all be different in the morning.” My mother said this whilst pulling a grim face to my sister Jane. Would it be all right in the morning or ever again between the sisters?
The aunties were both gently wrapped in blankets and after two hours of kind words and a large amount of medicinal alcohol they were both calm enough to be helped up to the bedroom.
The aunties were now tucked up in bed, one of the double beds in a guest room. They often stayed over if it got too late and Beattie had taken a little too much medicinal whisky. Giving my auntie an alcoholic drink tonight didn't seem like a smart idea. However, normally you could never argue with Beattie, â ever. Tonight Violet had proved an exception to the rule. With most of the whiskey finished the two of them were tired. In the last hour they hadn't mentioned there violent exchange, as if the venomous words had never been spoken.
In the morning shame would prevent Beattie from ever talking about it. She would forget it, her mind was made up, and that would be it. They always slept in the same bed at the farmhouse. At the cottage they had their own rooms both with very different distinct styles, Beatrice chintz, Violet stainless steel and science fiction, but in the family home they shared a bed. Tonight Violet would be awake the whole time watching to see if her beloved sister was going to be all right. Auntie Violet was taking no chances. She was wearing a white nightgown borrowed from my mother. No crow shades!
Down in the kitchen the remains of our family were sitting round the large table, my mother, an angry-looking brother George who had returned from a neighbouring farm, my sister Jane who now sported a very bruised cheek, and myself who was not looking forward to the upcoming interrogation. Rather strangely my mother Iris set it off with something I didn't expect.
“George, haven't you got work to do? I don't want this turning into a shouting match, some stupid sibling argument. Just go and do what you have to do on the farm!” Iris said this with quiet authority, and what surprised me was George picked up a piece of cake, and he then pointed a finger at me with an almost pistol-like gesture. My brother left the kitchen without saying a word. The finger wasn't a death threat it was more an indication to behave. I think!
“So, Peter⦠is this nonsense about having amnesia your method of wheedling your way out of this?” Iris said. This, of course, is where I was going to take centre stage and explain everything. So without any further ado I ran most of, but not all, the story past my mother who was less than impressed.
“You're very consistent with your story, but how did you know where the drugs were? Don't lie to me. I know you hid them,” Jane chipped in. She'd seen me hiding them and now my mother knew.
My mother looked at me sizing up the situation. She knew I was involved in drug dealing, and I didn't doubt we'd argued about it. However, no matter what scars she bore from past arguments I had no bitter words to remember, no recollection of cruelly spoken remarks. As far as I was concerned we had not spoken for seven hundred days.
“You little shit! You drugged up Beattie! You could have killed them both! And if you don't know anything, how do you know where the drugs were? No more bloody lies!” This came as a surprise coming from my mother. I had never, ever, heard her swear, not once in all my life apart from one time when she took a vicious kick to the thigh from a dairy bull.
I had no choice but to explain all of it to again, of course, missing out the very interesting sexual learning experience with Samantha, and the bit with Baby Doll which I still didn't understand. As I went through the story once again I was trying to clarify in my own mind what had happened. The bottles of LSD finally raised their ugly little stoppers. Questions I couldn't answer came to mind. I explained the difficult task of driving the car on the road, and how after a few minutes I gained the level of competence of an experienced driver. The skills were hidden inside but how I accessed memories was something I hadn't yet managed to get a handle on. I failed to explain my rapid learning curve in the bedroom. Some things you just can't tell your mother.
Jane believed me to a point, but my mother was less easy to convince. However, I pressed on trying to explain my instincts driving me to find the money in the dust bag of the vacuum cleaner and the strange feeling that the teddy bears contained something. I didn't put my head back in the lingerie drawer with its sensation of deep desires. That would be too much!
I told my audience I knew Beattie was high after I'd seen her in action, and even her beloved sister Violet had nearly become a dead crow nailed to a tree. I'm not sure Beattie would have gone as far as that, or she might! Can you imagine if Beattie had managed to kill Violet and nail her to a tree? I imagine the crucified auntie story would've been the stuff of Sunday tabloid legend. I explained that I didn't know if I'd ever taken LSD. At this my mother raised a rather elegant eyebrow as if to say,
“You're quite good at this forgetting thing. Persuade me”.
“I figured out that whatever she'd taken was in the house, so when the opportunity presented itself I searched the cottage. I saw the bottles and there was something irresistible about the one with the green label. It stood out from the crowd. That's when I realised it wasn't just bits of paper or small pills. It was really a liquid and I had all of it, several thousand pounds worth of the stuff, so where have I hidden the money and how do I get out of this situation?” My words were something like that.
Jane broke in to the conversation. “How did you get here so fast? You don't have a car, not one that works anyway. Who gave you a lift?”
“A minicab and the bastard made me pay double for thumbing him down!”
“You can't thumb a minicab, and on a Sunday night?” Jane was sharp and smart, unlike me.
“I wasn't far from the flat, you know, running along holding my thumb out. The man just came up from behind and stopped.”
“You live on a quiet housing estate. I think he was following you!” Jane said. I pondered this and was certain that he wasn't. A few seconds later I was wavering. It did seem a bit odd, two mini cab rides in the same day, in the same cab.
My sister shrugged her shoulders and left the room, but not before pointing at me and menacingly adding, “Following you!”
My mother was not to be distracted by the minicab debate. She continued cross examining me. How could I possibly be the inexperienced boy who'd left the house full of innocence two years before? Hearing my story again after all these years I now understand why my mother doubted me. It was all too far-fetched and she left me in no illusion, “If this is some kind of trick I promise I will never speak to you again!”
It wasn't a trick. I was only able to pick things up when the right key hit me, and there hadn't been many of those. One day everything might come back in a flood. Something inside may push it to the front, but for now it was like dancing with shadows.
Jane returned to the kitchen, I thought she'd been upstairs dressing her wounds. My sister was being more proactive and she'd gone down the farm track to the gate to see if I was being watched. Both of us were surprised when she announced that the minicab was parked in a field entrance about two hundred yards down the main road. She could see the glint of the windscreen in the moonlight.
She'd followed the hedgerow until a full view of the car was possible without letting the driver ironically see he was being watched by what he was watching. The minicab driver wasn't having too much luck. He was watching me, but of course in the days before mobile phones he had no way of telling whoever put him up to it where I was. The only way he could do this was leave the scene of his surveillance, a risky move.
My mother rose from the table, walked over to the electric kettle, filled it and turned it on. She fixed me with a steely gaze and spoke. “You two have a cup of tea. I've got a little errand to run.” With this she went to the cupboard in the corner and pulled out a very nice double-barrelled lady's shotgun. She used this to shoot rats in the farmyard. We both rose to stop her, she held out a calming hand,
“I'm tougher than you think and I've got some rat hunting to do. Don't follow me!” She donned her wax jacket, placed a large number of cartridges in a pocket, and marched out of the kitchen. My sister and I just stared at each other dumbstruck.
What happened next was described to us by my mother on her return minutes later. It went something like this. “I found the little rat in the field entrance and shot him!” We were speechless for several seconds, stunned that my mother would go out with vengeance in her heart and murder somebody in cold blood with very little evidence of any crime.
“He's not dead, but I think he wet his pants.” Then she laughed. My sister told me later this was the first time she laughed since my father died. Jane went on to say that was the moment my mother seemed to become herself again. It was a strange way of finding yourself, by making some weasel minicab driver piss his pants.
My mother explained everything. She'd seen him sitting there with a window open smoking probably his sixtieth cigarette of the day whilst he stared up the road in a casual manner, but it was obvious he was keeping the farm entrance under surveillance. Despite our recent history she was enraged that somebody was watching me. She'd already lost her husband, her older son George was so wrapped up in the farm that nowadays they never seemed to communicate. This left Iris stranded in a house full of women. She was determined they were not going to take me away from her, no matter how dark my past. She was starting to believe my story, but then mothers always do believe their sons are angels, true story or not. “He's a good lad”, how many times have you heard that from the gangster's mother?
Iris was a good shot, having years of practice as a girl brought up in a family of doctors on an old farm run by her grandfather, and of late shooting rats by the dozen in the farmyard. The first shot glanced across the windscreen of the car shattering it into the lap of the driver who immediately spat is cigarette out which burnt its way through his trouser leg to his testicles in a matter of seconds. He was too scared to look for it, or to jump from the car. The second shot my mother put through the back side window making him feel that the next one would be for him. The panic set in. He was being burnt alive by a cigarette he didn't have time to look for, and he didn't need to find as his fear did the job. He pissed his pants.
He was frantically trying to find the keys he'd placed on the floor of the minicab. Probably he'd left the vehicle on occasion to mope about in the lane trying to catch glimpses of the farmhouse through the trees along the driveâ¦My mother quickly reloaded and fired two more shots at the car. The first was aimed squarely at the door panel, the second scraped across the rear window blowing that into fragments as well. She reloaded the gun yet again. These cartridges did not contain particularly large pellets. A shot to the face would be very serious, but a hit to the body at that range might bring some blood up through the clothes, or at least a lot of high-quality bruising.
She fired two more shots at the car, both into the rear door. The driver was cowering on the floor by now, so she poked the shotgun into his ear. What he hadn't realised was my mother was very careful not to murder him. She hadn't reloaded the gun. Having a hot barrel thrust into your ear can be quite persuasive. She asked him who'd sent him to watch me, and he didn't hesitate in replying that somebody called Dave had sent him. He owed him a favour, a big favour, and was desperate the gunmen didn't find out he'd spilled the beans. This driver was clearly in trouble. The poor man was now clearly terrified of both Dave and my incredible mother.