Pleasure and a Calling by Hogan Phil

Author:Hogan, Phil
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Transworld

THE HUT IS ONE of my places, but I’ve never been inside before. If adults see you alone in the cemetery (and most of those who do are taking a short cut from the park to the bus stop) they give you a look to let you know they’ve seen you there, loitering amid the black stones, some of them as old as the town itself. But I’m not loitering. I am just drawn to the hut.

The hut is on the far side of the cemetery from the park. From the hut you can see the flat roof of the whitewashed pavilion, which is always dark inside and has a wooden floor that echoes when you stamp on it, and smells of pipe tobacco and is the preserve of the slow-witted park keeper who issues tickets to the putting or bowls on busy days. Today is not busy. And the cemetery is deserted. All the loved ones of the dead people here are dead themselves and buried in a more modern cemetery across town or their ashes cast over the waters of the Broads. The man who rides the mower and looks after the cemetery is nowhere to be seen. This is his hut. I have seen him run a hose from the tap here or take his round-bladed spade and neaten the verges or the grass paths around the graves. He is friendlier to children than the park keeper or other adults are and wears a flat cap smoothed to a leathery dark finish with weather and grime. Some of his front teeth are missing. The hut sits against the cemetery wall. It is hand-built from unwanted lumber with tarry asphalt on the roof. It is inexpertly fitted with windows salvaged from other buildings, held in by nails that have been hammered in and bent over and left to rust. If you peep in you can see the chair and bench where the cemetery man eats his lunchtime sandwiches or reads his paper or has a cup of tea when it’s raining. It’s perfect. I loose the hasp and staple and with a tug the door is open.

‘This is my house,’ I tell the children (though strictly speaking nothing has ever been my house and may never be again).

We begin with a surprise. I take out a box of coloured matches we have had since Guy Fawkes Night and crouch down to strike one. Anthony’s eyes widen at the sight of the red flame. I tell them they are my magic matches. I strike another, holding the match expertly until the flame goes normal and then dies. I strike another. I am happy to lie on the bench while the children play underneath. I have draped a dustsheet over the bench like a curtain and found some sacking for them to sit on and given them each a biscuit. Around us, in our sun-warmed space, are the tools of the cemetery-tending trade: gardening equipment, flower urns and zinc buckets, a bag of cement, another of sand, a third of gravel.

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