‘But who’d do that?’ asks Sylvie, tossing the fair hair back from her eyes and over her shoulder, thankful to be part of this conversation, to be in the same shed as Alan and the old man. ‘Who’d break in and do a poo in the kettle? I mean, it’s a bit pointless, isn’t it?’
‘We never rightly knew,’ says John, ‘but I reckon it might have been Harold. The old head gardener afore me. Went mad enough, I reckon, to break in and do one in the kettle. Might have been them chrysanths. Nutty about chrysanths, he was. Had so many he couldn’t keep up. Worked all God’s hours, he did, and never could manage. It was the strain, see? And all them chemicals, more than likely. And he went potty, and anyway, there’s me coming into work one day, and lo and behold, there’s Harold’s wellies sticking up out of the rain barrel, and I have a look, and there’s Harold wearing the wellies, and he’s down in the barrel head first. And I pull him out, and I say, “Bloody hell, Harold, what do you think you’re a-doing of?” and he says, “I’m trying to drown myself, and now you’ve gone and buggered it up.” Anyway, they bunged him in the loony bin and when I go and see him, there he is, lying in bed, and all around him’s vases of his own chrysanths that drove him barmy in the first place.’
Sylvie grows waggish, her eyes sparkle, her voice has a tease in it. She catches Alan’s eye and laughs. ‘The gardeners here are always mad, it’s a tradition.’
John growls, ‘Cheeky scallywag,’ and then he reflects, ‘You know the sad thing? The first time I put that kettle in the hedge, it filled up with water from the rain, and the chicks all drowned stone dead and sodden, poor little beggars, so I cleaned it out and put it back with the spout downwards, so it wouldn’t happen no more, and I gave the chicks to the ferret, so’s at least they weren’t wasted.’ John remembers his regret at the death of the chicks, and stuffs his pipe from the greasy pouch he has had since before the war. ‘Or it might not’ve been Harold,’ he continues, ‘we never rightly knew. But I’ll tell you one thing; I said to the police, “You take that manure away and get it analysed, and you’ll find out everything there is to know about him who did it. Blood group, what he ate, everything. Do a forensic on it,” I says, “and then when a suspect turns up, you wait ’til he manures again, and you match it up, and you’ve got your man.” And the copper, it was Arthur Diss was the bobby back then, he says, “Come off it, John, it in’t that serious,” and I say, “Listen, son, if someone broke into your cop shop and dunged in your kettle, you’d think it was bloody serious,” and he laughs and says, “So I would, so I would, but I’m not takin’ that away and havin’ it analysed. I’ve analysed it already and I can tell what it is.” Anyway, I don’t know who it were, but I’ve an idea it was an Iranian. One o’ them Persian johnnies.’
‘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?’