“They belong to Bryan Webb mostly. He keeps his hay in our loft here.”
“Oh.”
“As a matter of fact he’ll be bringing a lot of ewes through the yard sometime soon, and he may need some help directing them. I’ve told him you’ll be around to lend a hand.”
“Oh, right,” I said. “But you don’t keep sheep yourself?”
“Not any more, no,” he replied. “We lost a flock one winter years ago and decided to give it up.”
“That’s a shame.”
“They’re no longer a safe bet, sheep aren’t, what with man-made fibres and everything.”
“No, suppose not.”
“So we went into buying and selling instead.”
“Yes, I noticed you do a lot of that.”
“Best way to make a living these days.”
“What about the boats?” I asked.
“What about them?”
“Aren’t they a good way to make a living?”
“No,” he said. “Practically a liability, to tell the truth.”
During this conversation Mr Parker had been going through the Gazette with a biro, putting marks and crosses beside certain items. Now he rose from his seat and went into the next room where the telephone was.
After he’d gone Gail said, “What are you like at geography?”
“Well, I know east from west,” I replied. “Why, have you got some more homework?”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
“Alright, bring it over sometime and I’ll have a look at it.”
“You can have it now if you want.” She reached under the table and produced an exercise book from her bag.
I glanced through the questions. “OK. Should be no problem.”
“Could you get a couple wrong this time, please?” she asked.
“Why’s that?”
“Well, you got twenty out of twenty for the geometry, and they might start getting suspicious.”
“Suppose so.”
“By the way,” she added. “Your essay got read out in class.”
“Oh,” I said. “Did it?”
“The teacher said it was the best work I’d ever done. So, thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
She smiled again and looked at the clock on the wall. “I’ve got to go.”
“Yes,” I said, getting up from the table. “I’d better get started too. Thanks for the breakfast.”
I took my leave and went across to the big shed. Someone had already been over and undone the padlock, so I slid the door back and went in, closing it behind me. Then I examined the place that was going to be my workshop for the next few weeks. Several transparent panels in the roof helped make it quite light inside, and I noticed there were a good few electric lamps as well. The sander and blowlamp Mr Parker had mentioned were lying on a shelf to one side, along with some other useful-looking equipment. Despite all the stuff crammed into the building enough space remained between each boat to allow plenty of room to work. There was even a stove and chimney in one of the corners, to keep the shed warm when the weather turned cold. All in all I was quite encouraged by what I saw, and decided I could be quite at-home here. Before I began work I wanted to find out what it was I’d seen glinting over at the back of the shed the first time I came in. This meant clambering over a number of packing cases and scaffolding tubes, and round the back of a large metal frame that seemed to house some kind of weighing apparatus. After a lot of squeezing through gaps I finally saw the object of my curiosity. It was a row of motorcycles. There were half a dozen of them altogether. Some were brand new, preserved in a layer of grease and still bearing the manufacturers’ shipping labels written in Japanese. Others were second hand, vintage models similar to mine, and one of them even had a pre-unit gear box. I was just wondering what Mr Parker planned to do with them all when I heard the shed door being slid back.
Then I heard his voice. “Where are you?”
“Over here,” I said quickly. “I think there’s a panel loose somewhere. I was just trying to find it.”
“Oh yes,” he said. “I heard it banging the other night. We ought to get it fixed soon.”
He climbed over the packing cases and joined me.
“Nice bikes,” I remarked.
He nodded. “Thought I’d hold on to them, see how the prices go.”
He was already examining the walls of the shed, searching for the loose panel. “Looks like we need a few new rivets along here.”
I pressed at random against a corrugated sheet and it moved outwards.
“Here we are,” I said. “The next one’s a bit loose too.”
“So it is,” said Mr Parker. Then he turned to me and asked, “Have you ever done any riveting?”
Six
Three days it took me to replace all the rivets in that shed. No sooner had Mr Parker seen the loose panels for himself than he decided this was the only suitable course of action.
“A chain is only as good as its weakest link,” he announced. “And the same goes for rivets.”
Accordingly he produced a riveting gun and showed me how to use it. I was also given a drill to remove the old rivets, and a ladder to get at them.
“Be careful when you’re up there, won’t you?” he said.
I had to admit that the view from the top of the shed was spectacular. I could see a good part of the lake, as well as a long section of the road from Millfold. It gave me an idea of how much Mr Parker could observe from the front window of his house. I never seemed to get invited past the kitchen, but even there I always had the feeling of being very high up. Here on top of the shed I was higher still, so I made the most of the scenery on offer. The weather wasn’t particularly pleasant though. The promise of sunshine after the rain had come to nothing, and the sky remained grey and cold. Clambering about on that ladder in the wind wasn’t easy and the pace of work was very slow. Nevertheless, by the time I got towards the end of the job I had become an accomplished riveter. Occasionally Mr Parker would appear at the bottom of the ladder and ask how I was getting on, but mostly he just left me to it. Which presumably meant he was quite satisfied with what I’d done.
As we sat at breakfast on the third morning he said, “Almost finished the shed have you?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Just about an hour’s work left to do.”
“Then you’ll be able to get on with the boats?”
“Yep.”
Outside a clinking noise could be heard approaching, and next thing Deakin’s pick-up truck pulled into the yard, fully laden with milk. He got out and bobbed up the steps, then ran over to the bothy before returning to the vehicle and driving off in a great hurry.
After he’d gone Mr Parker looked at me and said, “You could do that if you wanted.”
“Sorry,” I asked. “What?”
“The milk.”
“Oh, no,” I replied. “I don’t know a thing about cows.”
“Nor does Deakin.”
“Doesn’t he?”
“Course not.”
“But I thought he was a dairyman.”
“He collects it from the dairy, yes, but that’s all.”
“Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“You’d only need a pick-up truck of your own and you could do it.”
“Well, I’d never even thought about it, really.”
“There’s a good bit of business to be had in that milk round.”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t want to put Deakin out of work.”
Mr Parker shook his head. “Nobody’s going to miss Deakin.”
At that moment the telephone rang in the adjoining room, instantly causing Gail to spring from her seat.
“I’ll get it,” she said, darting next door.
A moment later she was back.
“Dad, it’s for you.”
Mr Parker went through and picked up the receiver, while Gail sat down again opposite me.