Dogsbody (2)

      After the interview at the Employment Exchange, I set to. 

      Next day, I took a notebook down to the phone box in the village and looked up ‘Farmers’ in the Yellow Pages.  I checked the locations on a map to see which ones were the nearest to where we lived.  Then I made a note of their names and numbers and gave them a call, using a stack of 2p pieces I’d saved.  I’d rehearsed what I wanted to say.  I said the same thing every time, as soon as I heard the “Hello?” or “Yes?” answer at the other end, or sometimes just the silence of a kitchen or hallway.  A few times, the first thing I heard was a dog barking frenziedly, followed by a gruff “Shut up!” or a “Shut that bloody thing up, will yer!”  I tried to be extra polite with those ones in case I’d disturbed the calm tenor of their afternoon, or woken them out of a nap prior to their going out to get the cows in for milking.

      “Hello, is that Mr Edgecumbe?” or whatever else the book had told me his name would be.  I even said it to a woman once – automatically, before I could stop myself.  The man’s wife.  She went and got him.

      “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’ve just left school and am looking for a job.  I wondered if you’d got any vacancies for farm labourers on your farm, please.”

      The reply was usually one I could have pre-scripted, too.

      “Not just now, thank you.”

      Only once did I get something different. After the question, there was a pause.  “Well,” he said at last, “do you have any experience?”

      I told him I’d done haymaking.  I told him dad was a farm labourer.  I told him I liked hard work.

      There was another short silence.  I could hear a clock chiming down the line, plates or pans rattling in the distance.  He sniffed.

      “I don’t really need anyone right now, to be truthful with you.  But it’s good of you to ring.  Maybe….”

      I waited.  The clock stopped chiming.

      “Maybe give it a few weeks.  Then, if you still haven’t got nothing, give me another call and I’ll see.  I’ve got a chap at the minute, but he might have gone by then.”

      I wasn’t sure what that meant.  Was the chap dying?  Was the farmer planning, perhaps, to murder him and bury his body in a dung-pile?  I wasn’t sure I fancied working for someone who might take against me one day and decide to feed me to the pigs.  But he sounded like a genial old boy, so hopefully it wouldn’t be any of those things.

      “Thank you.  I will,” I said, drawing a circle around his name and number.

      “Right-o,” he said.  And hung up.

      He was the only one, in the end, who offered anything like a promise.

 

      I decided to expand my search and started ringing other places instead.  Shops, factories, pubs.  I couldn’t be faulted for initiative there, I thought.  Dad could say what he liked – I was trying.  Just the thought of having some money of my own to spend.  To buy things for myself.  Records, books… and, the big thing I was aiming for – a proper typewriter.  And a moped or scooter, if I could get the hire purchase.  Presents and drink for Christmas which weren’t funded by the pocket money that mum and dad couldn’t really afford to give me, and which usually went on a couple of Cokes at the Club and the light meter for the snooker table.

      During the one summer holiday I’d had while at that school, I’d got a job in the mechanics yard at the garage in our village – The Old Forge.  I was just helping out, so was only paid a small amount: 25p an hour, for a full 40-hour week.  I’d help to undo nuts and bolts on cars, or fetch a jug of oil, or hold a part in place while one of the mechanics tightened it up, or pump an accelerator or a brake pedal when asked.  I'd use the petrol pumps if a customer drove in.  I’d tidy up the staff room, or make tea, or run up the road to the village shop for things the men wanted for their lunch.  None of them ever really spoke to me.  They used to give me odd looks all the time. 

      One day, I overheard one of them say “I’m not working with that twat” – that last word tailing off into silence as I stepped out to the yard where he was chatting with the others.  He smirked when he saw me. I knew what he was thinking.  Probably the same that they were all thinking.  There I was - this milky, skinny London kid, thick as three short planks, probably spending every alone moment wanking (that last bit was certainly true).  Couldn’t tell a nut from a washer, a cross-ply from a radial, an Austin from a Morris… and didn’t even like football! 

      But I put up with it for those six weeks – going home each night with filthy, greasy hands and filthy, greasy hair and writing things in my note-book about what I’d somehow managed to learn that day:

      UJ = universal joint.  Goes on each end of a prop shaft.

      PROP SHAFT = long pole that goes under a car and makes the

      back wheels go around.

      AXLE GREASE = grease pumped into grease nipples on axles to

      keep the joints working.  One of the mechanics said he some-

      times used it on his wife, but he didn’t say how.

      I’ll always remember the end of the first week.  The garage owner came into the tea room late on Friday afternoon and gave us all a small brown envelope.  I opened mine excitedly and looked inside at the roll of notes.  I saw the green lettering, and the oval with the queen’s head in it.  When I got home, and after washing my hands, I went to my room and tipped the notes onto my bed.  Then I laid them out together – first in two columns of five, then in three rows of three with one at the bottom.  I made a big circle out of them.  Then a box – three up each side, two each at the top and bottom.  I kept moving them around and looking at them, lying there on my bedspread. 

Ten pounds. 

Ten one pound notes. 

My first ever wages.  I was fascinated by them - and even more fascinated by the fact that they were all mine.  I’d earned them.  All the nuts and bolts I’d held and jugs of oil I’d fetched and brake pedals I’d pressed and sandwiches I’d bought and mugs I’d washed up.  And this is what I’d got for it.

      I went to the bathroom and had a strip wash, and put some fresh clothes on.  Then I gathered my ten one pound notes up and went downstairs.  Mum was in the kitchen getting dinner ready.  I gave her five of the notes – the first ‘keep’ I’d ever been able to pay.  She gave me two of them back, though.

      “You’ve earned this,” she said, “so keep that and treat yourself to something.”

      Seven pounds.  The possibilities were endless.  I’d never had so much money to myself before.  I could spend all weekend in the Club playing snooker and never run out.  I could get the bus into Totnes and buy an LP and still have half of it left over.  It was there in my pocket.  It needed spending.

      In the end, I jumped on my bike and cycled down to the village store, where I bought a 5-pack of Castella cigars for £1.  After dinner, I gave one to dad.  Then we all sat and watched the telly in the evening, and I smoked two of them – one after the other – between sips of orange squash to take the taste out of my mouth.  I was earning money, and this was what it was about: being able to smoke cigars and think how great life was starting to become.  Better than school, anyway.  No one beating me up.  No need to hide in the bogs any more.

 

      I managed to get a few ‘bit’ jobs.  One of the pubs I rang said I could come and tidy out his drinks shed.  It was a couple of miles away, near the next village, so I cycled over the next day.  His ‘shed’ was in the garden at the back.  It was more like the size of a barn.  It was like a junk shop inside.  Old garden furniture, dustbins, logs, heaps of scrap, a couple of rusty fridges and an old washing machine – and, off to one side, a small stack of aluminium beer barrels and some crates of bottled mixers: Schweppes, Britvic, Coke.  The owner wanted it all cleared out, anything that was rubbish or broken put in a pile for carting away, and the place cleaned up.  He left me to it and said to just come into the pub when I’d finished.  I guessed he was about thirty - smartly-dressed, with an open-neck shirt and cravat.  He sounded like he was from London, and quite posh as well.  Maybe that’s what made him take me on from the phone call – though by then, I already had what I thought was a passable Devon accent.  It must have sounded like a piss-take to a genuine local.  I never thought of it as a piss-take, though.  I saw it more as being respectful - a bit of ‘When in Devon, do as the Devonians do.’  I was proud to live in Devon.  I loved it there.  But this was perhaps the first and most obvious example - many of which I've had through life - where I’ve misjudged things like that, and said something disrespectful or insulting under the impression of its being the right thing to say. 

      "My nan had a wart that big on her face.  Have you tried wishing it away on the new moon?"

      That kind of thing.

      It took me most of the morning to clear the ‘shed’ out and tidy it.  When I’d finished, I went in to report.  The chap was sitting at the bar with a drink and a cigarette.  It was a bit dingy, but I could make out a few other people - mostly young and trendy-looking.  Not the average Devon look.  A couple of young women in mini-skirts and sweaters were dancing around to some music playing on a cassette player.  One of them looked at me and smiled, so I turned away.  It seemed more like a private party than a pub at lunchtime.  The chap came out to see what I’d done, bringing his glass - his cigarette in his mouth.

      “That’s good,” he said.  “You’ve worked hard, I can see.  Good fellow.”

      He dug into his trousers pocket and took out a handful of coins.  He gave them to me without counting them.  It was about three quid.

      “Maybe you could come in tomorrow, too, and I’ll find you some other jobs.”

      I cycled home, bought myself some more cigars in the shop, then went up to my bedroom to smoke them.  This work thing wasn’t too bad, I thought.  It bought me cigars that I could sit and smoke.  It seemed easy enough.  I could get a taste for this high living.  I thought about those women, dancing in the bar.  Especially the one that looked at me and smiled. 

     I kept thinking about her as I went to the bathroom and locked the door.

 

     That job saw me through the rest of the week, when the posh chap thanked me and told me that was all that he needed.  It was alright while it lasted, anyway.

     I never saw that woman there again.

 

(continued) https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/dogsbody-3