Come Not When I Am Dead (28 page)

I knew it was going to be horribly
hot today and so I woke up early, for me.
 
By 8.30am I was up and dressed and out of my front door, my head heavy
with not enough sleep.

I was off strimming by the river and
as it would take four hours or so I wanted to start early and avoid the worst
of the heat.
 
The Major, my magpie, was
watching me with suspicion from his aviary, a slicker, a flicker of black and
white mischief, I took my inflatable killer whale from the boot of my car and
he shrieked and shouted at me “Oi Oi” he says, he doesn’t like black
plastic.
 
I hid it as much as I
could behind my back so I didn’t upset him and he muttered something
querulously, then shouted with rage whilst catching glimpses of shiny black and
white, too bright.
 
I put the
strimmer motor-end in the boot of my car, I collapsed the back right hand seat
of my muddy little red Peugeot and rested the shaft of the strimmer there, and
the head of the strimmer I put in the cruck of the passenger seat, up in the
air so it wouldn’t leak.
 
Bits of
grass and dried slugs fell from it, wafering over the seat and then lay mingled
with pastry crumbs, sweet wrappers and cockerel feathers.
 
I am tired and I am concentrating on
everything.

I had made myself a large bottle of
ginger and lemongrass cordial and I put it beneath the strimmer head, placed
with care betwixt jacket and bag.
 
I
will look forward to that later.
 
I
put a block of Wensleydale and cranberry cheese there too, it would sweat, but
I like it like that.
 
And strimming
does make me very hungry and today I intend to exhaust myself.
 

I patted the pockets of my boiler
suit to make sure I had my mobile phone and my Swiss army knife.
 
I checked that my work gloves, my
neckerchief and my visor were all attached to the strimmer handle and, after
whispering my goodbyes and “see you ever so soon darling” to The Major, looking
up at the House Martins cheeping away and flying to and from their nests, I got
in the drivers seat, shuffled in to place, adjusted my knickers beneath my
boiler suit and drove off.

It was pretty hot already and I have
no air conditioning in my car, and I sped along with open windows and open legs
and a song on my lips ‘If the weather’s sunny, there’s things here that I’ve
got to do, it may sound quite funny, but I dig to do them with you’.

I drove the route to the river,
through lanes where I maybe passed two cars in forty minutes.
 
Tall Devon hedges shading the lanes,
home to millions of horizontally projectiling birds, out they shoot and I think
about the sport I’ll have this coming autumn with my little musket,
Sergeant.
 

When I got to the river, I parked my
car in the lay by on the road.
 
I
slinked out of my seat with my door open, avoiding the nettles and took the
strimmer and petrol and spare wire out, I put them on the road and then walked
back round to the drivers side and locked the door with the key.
 
I checked that the fuel tank of the
strimmer was full, I checked the harness, I patted my pockets once more for my
knife and my phone.
 
I checked the
time I got there so I could invoice the syndicate later.

I strode out across those fields that
I know so intimately.
 
The first
field has a herd of Hereford cattle in it, cows and calfs, bold in soil-red
beauty.
 
They are standing in a
fine, strong group in the centre of the field and I lift my hand lightly to
them as I go by to say hello, then I stop and look a little longer.
 
I get my mobile phone out of my pocket
and take a few photos of them.
 
They
are beautiful.
 
Everything is going
according to plan. Everything is in slow motion.
 
And the clock ticks, tick, tick, tick as
a hundred dandelion seeds whish into the sky before me.

The ground is hard now but where the
cattle have poached it when it was wet, it is bumpy and I stumble here and
there and every time I do, I say “whoopsy” aloud to myself.
 
The horse flies are beginning to pester
me, but I have repellent on and I’m sure it will work.
 
“Bugger the bishop” I say to myself, who
was that then?
 
Who was that?
 
At the end of the first field is a
shaded area where there’s a gate with an annoying latch, over a little tiny,
broken wooden plank bridge in to the next field.
 
But the latch today is easy to open, and
as I go through to the next field I remember to duck down with the strimmer so
I don’t hit the strand of electric wire.
 
I love knowing my way around.

I like the next field best I think.
 
I could live in this field.
 
Charlie and I once saw a Barn Owl fly
just below the canopy of the trees to the left, beautiful and fluid and loose
flying, a ghost out of time, but that’s not why I love it.
 
I stand, when I am half way through it
and face the left hand side, I plan a house and a planted orchard in it, I plan
no road, no drive, you have to walk to it, I see children running amongst the
trees.
 
I collect myself and walk on.
 
The next gate always makes me think for
just a fraction of a second too long, how to get past it.
 
Open the latch, which is a bit of a
bugger with the strimmer, or climb over, which is difficult too with strimmer
and heavy jerry can.
 
I climbed over
it and that too is easy today.
 

Now I am in the field where I
released Bill, the tawny owl I had rescued and made wild when it had been taken
from the nest and someone tried to man and imprint it.
 
It is over a year later now and yet he
still calls hello to me when I’m here fishing in the evening.
 
His fawn coloured feathers following me
lightly through the trees and a hoot ever closer and closer gliding upon the
air.
 
I go through this field to the
next one, I have no feelings about this one, except that it always feels too
large when I’m tired and that I think maybe I’m half way there.
 
I walk through the open gate at the end
of this field and there, on my right is the stony beach of the river that I’m
going to just have a look at.
 
But I
can’t see the stony beach, it is a jungle of Himalayan balsam, some in flower,
most not.
 
It is tall, I am 5’ 4”
and it’s a lot taller than me.
 
I
hadn’t expected it to grow back so quickly, do densely, so secretively.
 
It is a hidden army.
 
I put the strimmer down and say “well,
bugger me, you bastard” to myself, but still I’m not unsettled, it’s work to be
done, it will be good to cut it down, to make paths through it getting wider
and wider until there is just a patch and then nothing.
 
I imagine it and wonder how long it will
take, many hours I think but it will be satisfying work to do.
 
I tie my neckerchief across the lower
half of my face.
 
My boiler suit
arms are tied around my waist and on my top half I have on a white cotton loose
shirt that I bought in Oman and only ever wear strimming, It’s cool and light
and protects my arms from sap that occasionally burns your skin.
 
The shirt is rather green stained now,
but in my head it’s still pure white.
 
I pat my pockets again to make sure of my phone and my knife.

I put the jerry can down with the
sunglasses.
 
I half pick up the
strimmer and pump fuel into it, open the choke and push the switches and pull
the chord, vroosh, vroom, vroom it goes, and quickly I close the choke so the
engine doesn’t stop.
 
I say “come on
then” to myself or the strimmer or the river and sling it over my head, strap
going from my right hand shoulder to my left hand waist, once it’s in place and
comfortable, my shoulder blades shuffling it round a little, I put the visor
on.
 
You can’t tie your hair up with
the visor as part of the strap goes over your head, you tighten it up with a
little wheel behind your head and that gradually loosens, and you often and
more often have to wipe the visor clean with your sleeve, it gets so covered in
sap and swollen sliced slugs.
 
I am
aware of everything.
 
I am so quiet
and so calm that I fall in love with myself.
 
I can depend on myself, I am not to be
ruffled.
 
I am alone with my
strimmer and my thoughts.
 
I pull
the neckerchief up over my mouth and lower nose and begin strimming.

I decide to begin by walking towards
the river, strimming as I go.
 
I will
strim a wide path and that way I will be able to judge things better, as it is
I can’t even see the river.
 
I cut
the balsam in three swipes, the head, the belly, the foot and then it falls,
tattered to the ground.
 
The thick
and wet stems are very short now and I crunch and burst them under my
feet.
 
Puuush
they say as they are destroyed.
 
The sand martins, behind my head chase
after the insects that fly from the destruction and carnage.
 
There is sap flying through the air like
bullets and I say “Pfff pfff” like distant gun fire as I continue, this is now
a battle ground and my work is aggressively exciting.
 
The balsam cracking and splitting
spitting all over my face, my arms, my neck, it is covering me,
 
I wipe my face, I wipe my neck it’s
making me itchy.
 
I am concerned
that it will burn where it hits and so I wipe off every wet patch right away
with the inside of my once white sleeve.

It really is very hot and getting
hotter, I don’t like it, the sun is strong in my eyes and I turn my back on it,
it’s making me sweat.
 
I don’t like
sweating.
 
I make a horse noise as
sap touches my lip, keep my head down, adjust the visor which falls slightly as
my head lowers.

I walk with my legs together a
little, the seam on the boiler suit is sometimes firm against my crotch, it’s a
lovely feeling and I begin to think about sex.
 
I wonder whether I should stop and have
a quick wank through the open bits behind my pockets, but the thought of horse
flies keeps me working.
 
I go into
automaton for a while, because in my head I’m singing “Love me or leave me, let
me be lonely” and I have a full orchestra behind me.
 
I am shining on stage in a shimmery ball
gown and everyone is delighted because I love singing to them.
 
My head goes up to thank the crowd and I
am aware of something below, I hear myself say “oh” and look down to see what
it is.
 
It is a wader boot.
 
I often strim up boots, leather boots,
and trainers, but not wader boots.
 
“That could be useful” I think, half realising that it is a full boot.
“Is it full of water or stones or mud?” I say and before I have time to turn
the strimmer off, there is another boot.
 
They are pointing upwards, they are five inches from each other.
 
I am in a cathedral and this is the
crypt of a knight, the sun shines harshly though the stained glass windows and
I don’t like the claustrophobic and suffocating atmosphere inside churches.
 
I turn off my strimmer, I am
frowning.
 
I gently put it down on
the ground next to me and I know, I know, I know.
 
I stand up and straighten up, I smooth
my hands over my hips, my head is high and I turn to the boots, I am sucking my
lower lip.

I push the balsam away with my left
foot and I see the bottom of waders, waders full of legs, legs with wader boots
on.
 
I feel my chest tight, I open
my mouth so I can breathe easier, my head goes up and looks ahead, my eyes
widen and I bite the inside of my mouth.
 
“Stop it, stop it, stop it Gussie, don’t cry.”
 
I pat my pockets, I feel the rectangular
leather of my phone case and I get it out.
 
No reception.
 
It is magical
how you can call 999 with no reception, that is part of the almighty power of
the police.
 
“Emergency services” it
is a man’s voice, he has an accent I don’t know, maybe somewhere up North, he
sounds kind.
 
“ I want the police”
and in response to his questions I tell them what I have found.
 
I tell them where I am, how to get to
the river.
  
I try to convert
the images in my head into words that the police will understand, they don’t
navigate by trees so I have to wonder how many yards or meters something would
be.
 
My voice quickens and I am in
shock, I am in shock, I am not calm anymore, I am still fully aware of
everything now but I don’t want to be.
 
“Shall I carry on strimming?” I say to them, I hear myself say, “Or
shall I come and meet you?”
 
They
tell me to do nothing, stay by the body and don’t touch anything else.
 
And the clock ticks, tick, tick, tick, a
thousand rooks in ceaseless objection.