Almost Eden Read online

  Walking to the car, I asked Robby, ‘What was his problem?’

  ‘He’s the nephew. The old farmer … he blew is own brains out.’

  ‘Hell,’ I cursed, suddenly realising how that man must have felt.

  ‘Be a few more of them an all,’ Robby mentioned as we returned to the nominated parking area.

  ‘How do, Robby,’ a man in suit offered, cold and formal. His suit was finished by green Wellington boots.

  Robby gestured towards me. ‘This is Mister Roger, he inherited Mrs Hobson’s old place, her family like.’

  The man now looked at me like I had made his daughter pregnant, but wouldn’t marry the lass. ‘You selling?’ he abruptly got out.

  ‘For a sensible offer, yes.’

  He eyed me carefully. ‘That old house needs work, Robby’s cottage ain’t got shit, bad access road.’

  I waited. ‘And … your offer?’

  ‘Right price is two hundred thousand.’

  ‘Right price … is five hundred thousand, if you were to build holiday cottages on it.’ Now he looked like I had made his wife pregnant as well. ‘Why don’t you think about it, and contact me through Robby?’ He stormed off.

  ‘Bad ‘un, that one,’ Robby cautioned as we got into the car.

  ‘Would he, by any chance, be the local property developer?’

  ‘Aye, he buys and sells. Bought a place round headland, built eight cottages.’ We pulled off. ‘Problem was, council blocked the original owner from building ‘owt. Once Mister Mason ‘ere, once he bought it – for a song like, council says he can build what he likes.’

  ‘Ah, what intrigue there is down here in the country,’ I quipped. ‘Did the council man … get a new car?’

  ‘They’s all thick as thieves, that lot. But he’ll respect you now, he know’s you’s not an idiot, and he knows … that you’s knows about the cottages an all.’

  ‘And would I be right in assuming … that I’d never get planning permission to build?’

  ‘He’d do what he could to stop you.’

  ‘Planning permission suddenly being granted after I sell.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Then we’ll need to be clever, and sell it to one person – who’ll want it for living off-grid, commune or not.’ We drove on in brilliant sunshine, being followed, not that I noticed. ‘But what of you, Robby, what’ll you do when I sell?’

  ‘Don’t go worrying about me none, I have’s a place where my mum is. She’ll not last long, ‘nother five year, and I’ll have her cottage, behind Salcombe, near Hope.’

  I slowed down behind a tractor. ‘And with fish for supper … you’ll always live cheaply. I have an apartment in London, about the same size as your cottage, and it’s eight hundred pounds a month plus bills, about eleven hundred all in.’

  ‘Thousand pounds … a month?’ Robby queried

  ‘Yep, and it’s not even mine.’

  ‘Seems like daylight robbery. Thousand pounds? That’d keep me going for five months or more.’

  ‘Yes,’ I loudly sighed, pulling around the tractor. ‘It’s a world away from this place.’

  With my hook baited I cast out, thinking about many things, the day again hot; I had picked the right weekend to come down, a few rare days of sunshine in the British summertime. And I couldn’t help thinking that Wendy would like this place, she always had when we visited.

  As I turned and stared at the house, I realised that it had potential, and that a lick of paint and some new windows would make a world of difference. I suddenly had an image flash up, an image of myself and Wendy sat outside the house of a warm summer’s evening, old and grey, enjoying our retirement down here. It wasn’t a yacht, but this land could be worth a million at some point, and done up … this place would be an attractive proposition to any woman, whether that be Wendy - or some poor unsuspecting lady yet to enter my life.

  ‘Build your nest, then find a bird to feather the nest with,’ my father used to say. As well as lot of stuff about carts before horses. But he might have been right, at least about the potential of this place – a good nest to tempt a lady with. At the Over Forty’s Night I could casually drop in: ‘I have forty acres in Devon, nice big house, private beach. Would you … care to visit for the weekend?’

  I took in the estuary and sighed, noticing someone on the ridge, maybe a tourist. As for my father’s view on things, I had saved up, got married, saved some more, and had kids late in life – when we could afford them. I had done exactly what he had advocated I do; I had followed the prescribed route map. But that route map held no sage advice for what to do when your wife divorces you.

  Nodding an agreement with myself, I considered that having this place as a weekend retreat – and as an investment – could only enhance my appeal to the female of the species. This Peacock may not have all his feathers left, he may be getting on, but his nest could be very attractive.

  A twitch of the rod, and I was suddenly snapped out of my line of thought. I had a bite! Yanking the rod, I aimed to make the hook sink properly into the lips of the poor unsuspecting fish, and I began to reel it in. But this was a monster, and it was not about to go quietly.

  Reeling in was hard work, and I suddenly remembered my youth. Pull back on the rod, wait for the tension to ease, reel in whilst easing the rod forwards, start the process again.

  ‘You’s got the hang o’ that,’ Robby commended, appearing at my side.

  ‘It’s a monster!’ I informed him.

  ‘An eel.’

  ‘Eel?’ I very was disappointed with his suggestion that my monster was a common eel.

  ‘They fight more than most, wriggle and bury themselves. Keep it moving or it’ll be under the mud.’

  I kept the pressure up on my monster, and when it broke the surface it was a damn eel, a large one, twisting over and over like a snake. Robby grabbed the line and dragged the eel onto the sand, the fish soon entangled in the line. A blow from a rock stunned it, a second blow killing it, Robby untangling the wire.

  ‘I’ll cook that now if you like, you’s can try some.’

  ‘Well … OK then. It put up a fight, so it’d better taste great.’

  ‘Great with a bit o’ butter.’

  Robby made use of the kitchen in the old house – as if he lived here, the electricity still on. He boiled my eel for half an hour after cleaning, and then fried several fillets in butter. I was soon sat staring down at eel fillet, but - as he had suggested - it did taste a bit like chicken. It was definitely not cod, but it was tasty enough anyway.

  ‘You never married, Robby?’ I idly enquired as we ate.

  ‘Naw, but there’s time yet.’

  ‘Time … yet. Might I enquire … as to how old you are?’

  ‘Thirty two next birthday.’

  ‘Oh, I … thought you a bit older.’

  ‘Needs an ‘air cut.’

  Yes, I thought, a haircut would make you look so much younger, and as well as very attractive to the local ladies. I shook away images of Robby at the local dance - in his big green wellies.

  ‘How about yee then?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I was married, almost thirty years, two fine children in university.’

  ‘She died?’ he idly asked without looking up.

  ‘No, no … she divorced me. Three years ago now.’

  He looked up. ‘What’d you do to upset her, like?’

  ‘I grew old … is probably the answer, although some stay together for life.’

  ‘Happen they did before, but not now. In the pub they said that seven in ten splits up, even old folk.’

  ‘Yes,’ I sighed. ‘The national divorce rate is high, and highest amongst those aged fifty to sixty apparently.’

  ‘You got another one?’ he asked without looking up.

  ‘No, not yet. I … kind of foolishly hope that she’ll come back to me – my ex-wife that is. In fact, she always liked this place and … if it was done up nicely, nice garden, she might like to visit.’

  ‘Quiet spot in winter,’ he cautioned, and I realised that he was right.

  Bringing a female friend or partner down here in the summer would be idyllic, but remaining through the winter would be like a prison sentence - locked inside by the weather and isolated from the world. I was beginning to think that I should consult with Robby about all of my ideas, plans and decisions; he had the annoying habit of being perfectly correct each time.

  After my eel fillet, which wasn’t half bad, I ambled down the beach inspecting the flotsam and I eventually found the overgrown footpath that the solicitor hand mentioned. And if anyone had used this in the last hundred years I would have been surprised; stinging nettles had grown across it, forming an impenetrable barrier.

  Returning the beach, I grabbed a suitable stick – one that must have washed ashore, and began hacking at the nettles. Ten minutes of hard labour made a path up the bank, and at the crest of the headland I stood panting in a cooling breeze, now glimpsing sailboats tied-up and awaiting some interest from their owners. And I could just glimpse the built-up area of Salcombe across the estuary, about a mile and a half from where I stood.

  Hunting around, I could hardly tell where the damn path led, and so abandoned the idea of following it. Returning to the beach, I whacked plastic bottles as if practising my cricket swing. Happening across a dead seabird that I had not noticed earlier, I lifted it by a wing tip and tossed it onto the mud. The next tide might take it out, food for the crabs, or it might just deposit it back where I had found it.

  Back at the front of the house, I said, ‘Surprising how much wood washes ashore. Some of it looks useable.’

  ‘Some of it is. Last winter, right outside Salcombe, a ship ran aground. Every day for a month the timber washed up the
estuary, good stuff as well. I dried out more ‘an a hundred planks on the beach, and sold ‘em. Some I used in the cottage.’

  ‘Law of salvage,’ I mentioned.

  Robby shook his head. ‘No such law, but folks thinks so. Old laws says that it’s The Crown’s stuff, washed up. Taking it is stealing.’

  ‘Really? Oh. Still, The Crown won’t object to us taking some firewood.’

  ‘Over at commune, they collect wood each tide, enough to stay warm.’

  ‘And it’s all free. Way the economy is going, there’ll be a few more doing that soon enough!’ I thrust my hands into my pockets and peered up at the house. ‘What do you think about the windows?’

  Robby stopped what he was doing and peered up as well. ‘These is not two layers, Mrs Hobson never had the two layers in – but talked of it because of the winter winds. And these is old.’

  ‘I know,’ I sighed.

  ‘Old like the ones what people want.’

  After a moment, I let out a ‘Huh?’

  ‘People wants to buy ‘em because they’s old.’

  ‘Antique,’ I realised.

  He pointed. ‘Them’s iron frames, and old, and some folk want ‘em for the cottages, not plastic.’

  ‘So … they could be listed as a feature.’ I nodded to myself. ‘You can get the glass panes?’

  ‘Most oh these is coloured.’

  ‘Coloured?’

  ‘If you put in normal glass you see the difference. It ain’t much, but the glass is a bit yellow or a bit green, and in the summer the room is coloured.’

  ‘Ah, yes, I remember; subtle lighting. Can you get the coloured glass locally?’

  ‘There’s a fella who has them stacked up round back of his house, can’t sell ‘em. Bottle of summit and he’ll let me have a few.’

  ‘Please, try and get those that are close to the original. And some paint for the walls.’

  ‘Need wash it down and scrub it down first, paint won’t stick. Winter yer cracks the walls, every spring a wash down and painting. I’s done it ten year now.’

  ‘Then by all means … do so again, and drag in some help. But this time, make a good job of it, lots of paint. I’d like to see it a brilliant white. And black paint for the window frames.’

  ‘Aye, will do, should be nice enough after.’

  I pointed at the wall around the front garden. ‘Same for the wall. Concrete for the cracks, new flat stones on top, and painted.’

  ‘Garden of Eden,’ Robby said with a smile.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What Mrs Hobson said, little Garden of Eden yer.’

  ‘I remember,’ I softly told myself, but something else was nagging at me, something about Eden, something I had long since forgotten.

  With the sun setting I left Robby to his cottage, and to his road kill, and I headed back to the bed and breakfast. I lay on the bed, thinking, and I fell asleep for an hour, but it was a restful sleep - and I woke feeling good about life for a change.

  After a shower and a change of clothes I set off out, parking at the same spot in Salcombe. I passed the fish café and decided to try a pub that offered barbequed chicken.

  The food was nice enough, but the company was not so nice, local louts behaving like idiots. I left the rowdy locals behind and enjoyed a stroll, knowing now exactly where the headland footpath was. I stopped and stared across at it through the dark, just seeing its dark outline.

  With little to do in Salcombe of an evening, especially alone, I headed back to the bed and breakfast, made a coffee from a sachet, and turned the TV on.

  In America, a bank was in trouble, or at least its customers were in trouble. Four billion had gone missing, and … no one knew where it had gone. And this had been ring-fenced client money, not investment money, but someone had taken the money – the money that no one should have taken – and invested it and lost. And, for the bank’s customers, it was tough luck – but not the bank’s fault apparently.

  I stared at the screen, giving the bank’s director an incredulous look. ‘Not your fault?’

  He argued his case that the bank would re-finance and carry on, but that those accounts that had been robbed would not be compensated and … he hoped to attract new business in the future … and people should still trust the bank. I changed channel. If that man had been in the room, I would have probably hit him.

  I found a documentary about charities, but it detailed the fact that – in this current economic climate and with the banking crisis – people were not giving as much to charity as they used to. Oddly enough, the tack then changed, to one of how much the various big charities spent on their overheads. Seemed that for the average large UK charity, less than ten pence in the pound found its way to where it was supposed to go.

  ‘Ten percent?’ I found myself repeating.

  The programme detailed the large country house that the particular charity in question had bought – with charitable funds raised by Boy Scouts – and displayed the twelve new Mercedes that the directors drove. I shook my head, sighed, and flicked channels.

  A film about the Korean War held my attention for an hour before my phone trilled. Lifting it, I could see Ben’s name. ‘Hi, Ben.’

  ‘Alright, Dad, how’s it going? You OK?’

  ‘Yes, very well, in fact – tanned and a little sunburnt.’

  ‘Great weekend, but I’m in studying, exam next week.’

  ‘I’m in Devon, at Aunt Betty’s place.’

  ‘Ah, Mum did say something. You getting it ready to sell or something?’

  ‘Actually, I’m doing it up, and I might use it as a second home. You’ll have to pop down in the holidays, we’ll go fishing – like we did when you were young.’

  ‘I remember the place, mud under your feet when you went swimming. Little sandy beach.’

  ‘That’s it. But I’m going off-grid.’

  ‘Off-grid? You? You getting with the technology, Dad?’

  ‘I most certainly am; wind turbines, water turbines, solar panels, vegetable patch, the works.’

  ‘How’ll you look after it, you’re in London all the time?’

  ‘The estate has a cottage, the cottage has an odd-job man that works for his supper – and he keeps the place.’

  ‘I can just imagine you in green wellies with a spade!’

  ‘Hey, I did the garden at home, and that was always well kept.’

  ‘Mum’s putting in decking and a summer house.’

  I stopped to consider that. ‘Oh. Well, sounds nice. And … have you met this man … Patrick something?’

  ‘Yeah, couple of times. He’s OK…’

  ‘But…?’

  ‘Your old friend, William, he knows him. Last time he was around he rowed with Mum over this guy.’

  ‘Rowed … with your mother? What over?’

  ‘This guy is in property … and he evicts people he don’t like, some talk of tenants being beaten up or moved out illegally if they can’t pay.’

  ‘Oh. He … sounds like quite the rogue.’

  ‘He denies it, and Mum believes him, so … she’s not stupid, maybe it’s just rumours, or people that work for him.’

  ‘Could be, yes; we shouldn’t judge till we know.’

  ‘So … you’ll do up Betty’s place then.’

  ‘Yes, and it’s larger than I realised, more than forty acres; woods, cottage, stream, two large fields, as well as the beach.’

  ‘Be worth a bit then.’

  ‘Moot point, since planning permission will make all the difference. With no planning permission, anything from two to five hundred thousand, with planning permission – a million.’

  ‘Mum divorced you too soon!’

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.’

  There was a long and awkward silence.

  ‘So,’ he began again. ‘You down there now?’

  ‘Yes, in a bed and breakfast, been working on the place, making plans.’

  ‘If it gets you out of London, great.’

  ‘Funny you should say that…’

  ‘You … planning on spending more time down there, Dad?’

  ‘I am, at least during the summer.’

  ‘When will it be ready?’

  ‘For you to visit? In about four weeks. The beds are OK, but I’ll get new bedding and wardrobes.’

  ‘Last exam is on the 15th,’ Ben informed me. ‘I’ll need a rest by then.’