A Little Bit on the Side (15 page)

For many years following their arrival in the mid-fifties, with Celia getting stuck in to the hard graft just as much as Jimmy, they had applied themselves and the small nest-egg of money provided by Daddy to restoring and renovating the range of amenity buildings that lay to the side of the house, and getting the perimeter of their little estate securely fenced.

Despite a methodical and determined approach to their life of smallholding self-sufficiency, however, it hadn’t taken more than a couple of years for their starting pot of cash to run dry. By then, however, the quality of Jim’s work had been seen by the locals, and he was never without a cash commission when he needed one to top up their funds.

From the day of their arrival they had taken the locals as they found them, accepting and entering enthusiastically into the local ways and customs. On their part, wary as they were of incomers, the locals respected both this and their hard graft and honest workmanship, and within ten years or so the Gillans were as well entrenched in the community as anyone could be who had not actually been born there.

With a holding of less than six acres Jimmy had kept things simple: no sheep or cattle. Far too much trouble, he said. So they started off with a dozen or so general purpose hens, half-a-dozen ducks, a couple of Roman geese, and a goat. To these, when he had restored the old pig sty in the outbuildings, he added a handsome Gloucester Old Spot sow, who helped as much in digging and rooting up the land as Jimmy’s ancient rotovator.

Well aware of the dangers of emotional entanglement with their sow, for pigs are loyal and friendly creatures, they decided at the outset that Sadie would live out her life with them as the one family fast breeder (like Jack and Kate they had no children), but that they would harden their hearts against the piglets when they arrived.

A couple of acres was assigned to intensive cultivation, and on an acre at the head of the smallholding, on a south-facing slope with soil conditions which Jimmy found to be perfect for the crop, he planted the Croft’s crowning glory, a field of fragrant lavender, at the edge of which a year later Celia set up her bee hives.

By the time Jack and Kate came to the Croft all these operations were well established and running smoothly, and the mature Sadie had been tamed and trained to the extent that, short of being allowed on to the living room settee, she was regarded as one of the family.

By the end of their third or fourth visit to the Croft, Jack and Kate had been given an introduction to all (or all but one as Jack would later discover) of the activities that enabled Jimmy and Celia to lead what seemed to be the ideal life of self-sufficiency. Jimmy brought in cash and produce from electrical or carpentry work, for which he was in such demand that he could afford to pick and choose. Celia had an outlet in the local market for her weaving and lavender products, but also accepted special commissions for her painting: portraits, pets, properties or views. She seemed competent at them all.

And for Jack there was an intimate and detailed introduction to Jimmy’s final re-cycling triumph: an elegantly crafted version of the Reverend Moule’s dry earth -closet, over which he waxed lyrical, in terms better suited to a work of art than a privy.

‘Approved and adopted in the best of circles in their time Jack. Even the old Queen, as Ada always calls her, had one at Windsor. Give it a trial. Be my guest.’

‘Difficult to resist the strength of such a royal commendation,’ said Jack, ‘But I think I’ll give it a miss. There is a time in the affairs of men which taken at the flood etc, and this isn’t mine. First thing after breakfast for me: regular as clockwork.’

‘Right,’ said Jimmy, ‘But isn’t it perfection: clean, odourless, and no waste of water. Then into the heap and on to the garden: bloody marvellous compost. Cauliflowers thrive on it. Old Tom knew a thing or two about that’

Jack and Kate had enjoyed quite a few of the fruits of Jimmy’s vegetable garden before Jack belatedly learned what it was that nourished them, but he forced that thought to the back of his mind: better if Kate were kept in blissful ignorance.

‘Didn’t catch on though, it seems,’ said Jack. ‘Why not?’

‘Ignorance and laziness. No sooner had Moule set up a company to manufacture them, than along came Thomas Crapper … no jokes please … with his water-closet. Might not have caught on, but Prince Edward got to hear of it, and had them installed at Sandringham — one in the eye, so to speak, for Mama. Once that news got out Crapper’s fortune was made, and apart from cognoscenti like me, poor old Moule faded into history.’

In time Jack also came to hear a little more of Jimmy’s contact with his family following his abrupt wartime departure from home. Of his mother he had seen nothing in almost thirty years, nor in all that time had he returned to the area of his childhood where his parents now lived in a rambling turn-of-the-century house with Sorcha, his younger sister, and her husband.

His father and his older brother Kevin he did, however, see regularly on half-yearly visits, when all three made a pilgrimage to Anfield for a Liverpool home game, and then stayed overnight with Kevin, before Jimmy returned home the following day. If his mother knew that they met in this way she either didn’t care, or thought it politic not to ask.

It was late on the Thursday less than a week after one such visit when Kevin phoned Jimmy with the news that his father had suffered a heart attack from which he died almost immediately, leaving no time for them to call Jimmy up to see him.

Jack and Kate heard nothing of this until they returned from work on the Friday after Jack’s meeting with Stevens, when Celia phoned to give them the news.

‘He seems more like his old self now Jack,’ she said, ‘but although I’ve seen him drunk before, I’ve never seen him quite as bad as this. Kevin called him with the news in the early evening, and he’d hardly put the phone down before he was drinking hard, and ranting and raving non-stop about his bitch of a mother, and the tough time she’d given the old man in the early years. It seemed I just couldn’t get through to him or help in any way.

I had had an hour or more of that before he walked out taking the bottle with him, and locked himself in the barn. He wouldn’t speak or open up, so by then I was in floods of tears because he was shutting himself away from me. Eventually I wrapped myself up in a blanket, took out a chair and told him I’d be sitting outside the door until he opened up. By now it was bloody cold I can tell you, and I was getting angry. We really wouldn’t have been a pretty sight.

He eventually opened up just after midnight, but only I think because he’d emptied the bottle. He was on his way to starting all over again when he came back in to the house, but by then he’d had more than enough, and somehow, around about two, I managed to get him upstairs and into bed. He came round about lunchtime, had a shower, and now he’s sleeping again in his armchair, but before he dozed off he said he’d like to see you, so if you could both come over tomorrow evening I’d be very grateful’

‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ said Jack. ‘I knew well enough from what he’s told me that despite the old woman’s best endeavours he remained very close to his father, but I’d no idea the news would take him that badly. Not at all like the Jimmy I’ve known, but of course we’ll come over tomorrow.

I don’t recall that he’s ever mentioned you when he talked about his trips up to see his father and Kevin. Have you ever had the chance to meet any of the family?’

‘Never, although I’ve told him several times that I’d be quite happy to go up with him. This time though he wants me with him at the funeral, and I think that’s why he’s asked to see you. Come about five-thirty,’ she added. ‘I’ll have a meal ready for later, but that will give us time for a drink and a good old chat before we eat’

As they set off across the fields for the Croft the following day they saw Jimmy sitting on the style by the quarry waiting for them. He came towards them with a sheepish smile, but with a finger to his lips enjoining silence.

‘Nothing to say. Nothing to say,’ he said, giving each of them a hug. ‘I know how you feel well enough. Let me do this my own way.’

They walked on in silence for a couple of minutes before he spoke again.

‘Seems I went over the top rather,’ he said. ‘Been a bloody nuisance and gave Celia a bit of a fright until I opened up and let her in, and then she was almost as bad as I’d been because I’d shut her out. All over now though, so we can just have a quiet drink and a meal together. Glad to have your company for a few hours.’

Settled comfortably with a glass of wine in front of the blazing stove they listened as Jimmy, now quite composed, talked a little about his early childhood with his father, before moving on to the arrangements for the funeral.

‘I’ve spoken to Kevin again since Celia phoned you,’ he said, ‘He told me that Michael, Seamus and my Aunt Mary are coming over, probably with a couple of cousins or more. The funeral will be from my sister’s house where the Da was living, and is fixed for week from now. I’m told they’ll be bringing him home on the morning of the day before the funeral, so it looks as though they’re planning to send him off in the old style, which I like, but not the Catholic circus that goes with it, but I can’t do anything about that.

As the Irish contingent plan on staying over for a few days I’d like to be up there on the day the old boy comes home, and stay at least two or three nights myself. This time Celia will be coming with me, so I’ll need someone to keep things ticking over with the livestock while we’re away. Think you could help with that Jack?’

‘Just show me what to do Jimmy, and take all the time you need.’

Leaving the women to themselves as Celia busied herself with the final preparations for their meal, Jimmy and Jack stepped outside into the fading light to make a round of the livestock and the few simple chores that would need to be done.

‘No problem with any of that Jim,’ said Jack. ‘Weather’s starting to ease now, birds coming back into song, and it’ll be a pleasure to be up and about before I head for the office. I’ll let them know I’ll be late in for a few days.’

‘Before we go back in there’s one other thing I want to show you Jack,’ said Jimmy. ‘And a confession of sorts I have to make.’

Saying no more he led Jack to the end of the range of outbuildings and a door that had always remained firmly padlocked on Jack’s earlier rounds of the holding.

‘Don’t want to leave you in charge with one door locked against you,’ he said. ‘Show’s a lack of trust, and I don’t like that’

Holding the door open, he motioned Jack to enter what might once have been a stable with two windows in the far wall, both of which had been boarded up, either for privacy or to exclude light for other reasons. In the fading glow of sunset the shadowy interior received little illumination from the open door, but in such as there was Jack could see against the far wall what in the gloom looked disconcertingly like a small scale guillotine.

‘A cider press: all my own design and construction,’ Jimmy said proudly, inserting juice tray and pressing boards and giving the process a dry run to demonstrate to Jack his pressing technique which employed the pressure from a cleverly adapted car jack.

‘Very workmanlike: just as I’d expect.’ said Jack. ‘But we never drink cider, and why all the secrecy?’

‘Now you’re a man of taste and discernment when it comes to the booze, aren’t you Jack? Think back to all those after-dinner brandies, or calvados as you like to call them, that you’ve enjoyed. Good stuff were they? Professional touch and all that?'

As he spoke Jimmy nodded, pointedly directing Jack’s attention to the corner behind the door. Jack turned, and with a hint like that immediately recognised the function of the two polished copper cylinders and piping glowing dully in the half-light behind the door.

‘Oh you cheeky bugger Jimmy, you’re distilling.’

‘Absolutely. Old Irish tradition.’ he replied. ‘Simplicity itself, although it takes a bit of time and care. Apples from a neighbour to the press. Pulp to Sadie who loves it, but not too much or it gives her the squits, then a few hours work with the still. I favour the old pot still myself. Doesn’t give so high an alcohol content, but keeps more flavour of the fruit. Then three years in the barrels before I tap and bottle.’

‘I say again, you cheeky bugger. It’s illegal of course, but you’re not bothered I take it’

‘Of course it’s illegal, that’s half the fun, but from what little I’ve read I don’t think it’s a criminal offence. It’s a bit like your tax fiddles, just a civil matter with fines and confiscation of equipment. Bit embarrassing if the Customs caught me, but when did you last hear of a prosecution for home distilling? Customs and Excise have got bigger fish to fry than chasing after small-time operators like me.’

‘I’d always thought there was something rather distinctive about the Armagnac you’d managed to get your hands on, and now you tell me that it’s all moonshine. Me, a loyal servant of the Crown and employee of the Revenue, I really must say Jim, I’m shocked, shocked.’

‘You’ll take a bottle with you though?’ asked Jim.

‘I’ll take two,’ said Jack, ‘Or I’ll shop you.’

‘A glass and a smoke then, before we go in,’ said Jimmy, bringing a couple of glasses down from a shelf, and turning to a bottle that was already open.

On a couple of upturned boxes they sat in silence for a while, watching the last of the day fade away through the open door, and quietly savouring their drinks as the smoke from their cigarettes curled slowly upwards to lose itself among the tangle of beams and the cobwebs and dust of ages.

Then, passing the bottle to Jack to top up, Jimmy began softly to sing:

‘At the foot of the hill there’s a neat little still,

Where the smoke curls up to the sky.

By the whiff of the smell you can plainly tell

That there’s poteen brewing nearby.

Oh it fills the air with a perfume rare,

And betwixt both me and you,

As home we roll, we can take a bowl

Or a bucket of the mountain dew.’