All Quiet on the Orient Express by Magnus Mills

Author:Magnus Mills
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 1998-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

A telephone number was also given. I read the advert several times to make sure I wasn’t mistaken, then continued turning the pages. Further along someone was inviting advance orders for Christmas trees. Ten per cent discount would be given for immediate payment. This struck me as a bit early until it occurred to me that Christmas was now only a couple of months away. Autumn had certainly crept up on me as I laboured away at my boats, and a blast of wind outside confirmed this. I’d hardly noticed that the weather was slowly worsening because I spent a good part of each day in the big shed. Even so, the signs were obvious. Despite all the riveting I’d done, the shed continued to creak and groan as the elements pounded against it. There were other indications too. The trees were bare, and the temperature was declining slowly. When I walked to the pub at night I could hear seabirds out in the middle of the lake, squawking and arguing. It sounded as though there were thousands of them. I had no idea where they’d come from, but they seemed to have settled in for the winter. I thought about the seven boats waiting to be painted, the darts fixtures and the endless pints of Topham’s Excelsior Bitter, and realized that I’d settled in for the winter as well.

♦

It was almost dark when Mr Parker returned with yet another load of oil drums.

Having just finished work for the evening, I went out into the yard to meet him. There was something I wanted to ask him about the mooring weight.

“It’s quite heavy,” I said. “How are we going to get it out onto the lake?”

“You’re the boat man,” he replied. “You tell me.”

“Well, if we use the tender it’ll tip straight over.”

“Will it?”

“Yeah. We need a proper mooring raft really, with a hole in the middle to drop the weight through.”

“Oh,” he said. “I see.”

When Mr Parker first told me he knew nothing about boats I hadn’t really taken him seriously, but over the past few weeks I’d come to realize it was true. He didn’t seem to have any idea about how to lay a mooring, and I now saw that I was going to have to take charge of the operation.

“So how do we make a mooring raft?” he asked.

“Quite easily,” I replied. “It just takes four empty oil drums and some planks.”

“Well I can’t spare any oil drums.”

“Oh…can’t you?”

“Not really,” he said. “I wanted to sell them all to that factory of yours.”

“Is that why you’ve been collecting them?”

“Of course it is. You told me I’d get a good price.”

“Yeah, but…it’s miles away.”

“That’s alright. I don’t mind how far I have to go as long as I make a profit.”

“How will you get them all there though?”

“On my lorry.”

“I didn’t know you had one.”

“Yes, you’ve seen it. Over in Bryan Webb’s barn.”

“Oh, right.”

“He keeps his hay here, I keep my lorry there.”

“Sounds like a handy arrangement.”

“It’s mutually beneficial and saves exchanging cash.

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