Chapter Sixteen
For a greedy man, even his tomb is too small.
(Tajikistani proverb)
Arnie Garth had noticed the Olde Rough Fell Village Hall – so what’s newe?
Everything’s friggin’ olde around here! – when he had last passed through the small market square.
He can’t recall why he had noticed it; perhaps he had spotted more of those ancient wooden beams across its front and sides and an instinctive ducking response had kicked in.
This time, however, there is a large banner outside that reads, Proposed Rough Fell Leisure Park, Mall and Multiplex – Emergency Meeting and clear sounds of activity from within.
Arnie Garth’s oeuvre has, of course, never been seen anywhere near a multiplex in its entire sordid life, although Arnie himself has passed many a rewarding couple of hours inside such palaces, watching legitimate mainstream movies and picking up wonderfully poignant and imaginative cinematic ideas he can soil, abuse, defile and degrade.
Yet hold on – he vaguely recalls now that Noreen herself was going on about something to do with multiplexes and malls, wasn’t she?
But let’s be honest, who listens? And isn’t that the raspy voice of the lady herself, echoing through the half-open doorway?
He can almost smell the cardigans from here.
“…and in conclusion, lovely, kind and wonderful people of Rough Fell…”
Yes, that is unmistakably she.
As he walks in, head sensibly bowed, Arnie can feel age and history, like a noxious emission, begin to clog his orifices and cling to his new-worldly pores.
Gazing out towards the front of the hall, he notices an impassioned Noreen Millburn, woolly arms flailing but minus those hazardous charity cans, addressing the packed house from the podium.
He has never seen the bobble on her hat bounce so energetically.
Seated behind Noreen are a group of men in smart business suits and an equally well-turned-out young woman with a laptop.
They appear to be listening intently, if you can actually do this when your eyes are rolling faster and faster around your head.
Arnie can only see the backs of the audience from where he is standing, yet even these appear hostile.
Before he can begin to unravel whatever garbage Noreen Millburn of this parish is currently spouting in her curious brogue, he can sense the genuine and fervent passion of its delivery.
Arnie wonders if the speaker might ever willingly let rip such unbridled passion for him.
Forget the ‘ever’; stroke of midnight Sunday would suit.
“…I know that you’re all behind me in saying a great big and extremely polite, ‘Sorry but no, thank you very much, Apex Holdings, to despoiling our lovely, unique Cumbrian countryside with this horrible multiplex, bowling alley, pizza parlour, fitness centre and designer outlet complex of yours.’”
She turns round to address the most senior of the guys, a portly, greying man, who sports an APEX HOLDINGS lapel badge, document case, tie and golfing umbrella.
“No offence to Apex Holdings, by the way, or to you, Mr Edwards. I’m sure you’re all very nice.”
The Edwards person, who doesn’t look particularly nice, makes a smarmy ‘no offence taken, madam, but if you could just quietly go somewhere and die’ gesture, but Noreen doesn’t see it, as she is back addressing her people and her community, the ones who have known her from childhood and knew her parents and grandparents before that.
“So, I ask you now, dear friends and neighbours of so many years, fellow farmers and landowners, lovers of the countryside, devotees of clean air and natural beauty, to stand up from your chairs and raise your voices. Join me, one and all, in making Apex Holdings hear how you feel. Don’t be shy – shout, clap, stamp your feet – let them know we are not going to sell off our priceless heritage for shoddy, short-term gain! Come on! All together! Raise the roof!”
Arnie walks round so he can watch this peasants’ revolt for himself. So far, he is the first and only man standing.
“Now!” says Noreen. “Well, in your own time,” she modifies. “Finish whatever you were doing. No rush… I think we’ve got the hall till three.”
Arnie is now fairly near the front. He spots an empty chair and sits down next to some guy who smells like he might be a local farmer. Or someone for whom personal hygiene isn’t yet a mantra.
After a few seconds, the hall’s newest arrival computes that he is the only person in the room without his arms folded defiantly. Immovably. And in total silence, save for the occasional cough, fart or expectoration.
“Did you hear me, Mrs Davenport?” asks the speaker, just beginning to sound plaintive.
No one will ever know if the aforementioned Mrs D did, in fact, hear this, or at least discern the gist of the argument from Noreen Millburn’s slightly desperate arm-waving.
After a few more painful seconds, the large, rusty-haired landlord from the Wordsworth Arms, whom Arnie hadn’t hitherto noticed, rises majestically from his seat at the other end of the front row and turns to the assembly.
“And all those in favour of selling off our lovely, priceless heritage for shoddy, short-term gain?”
The room erupts instantaneously into a deafening surge of cheers and frenzied clapping. Hats, sticks and strings of homemade pork sausages are flung in the air. On the raised dais, Mr Edwards and colleagues permit themselves satisfied executive smirks.
Over the commotion, Arnie can make out the odd, shouted comment:
“Sell up, you stupid cow!”
“Sod heritage!”
“Just let them pull your bloody cottage down.”
But at this point, a sweet old lady, bent over and shaky, using her well-worn stick and the kindliness of a neighbour for support, rises onto her two tiny feet.
Noreen sighs in some relief, as she sees her. “Mrs Davenport?”
“String the stroppy bitch up!” suggests the doughty little Cumbrian.
Noreen sighs with a profound sadness. Her despondency is hardly dispelled by noticing a now sadly familiar figure, in an incongruous linen suit and inappropriate footwear, as he scuttles away at some speed towards the exit.
***
Arnie is back in the Morris Traveller, hitting his phone.
He knows that he is taking a risk, as the ‘borrowing’ of this insane vehicle has surely been reported by now.
And it hardly merges into the crowd. But at least he is parked in a tiny alleyway and most of the village appear to be in the olde hall giving Noreen a hard olde time.
The rank outsider is at a total loss. Having checked his wallet and his pockets, he knows that he has barely enough cash remaining to take a bus ride, let alone hire a car.
Not that he has actually seen any buses, even if he wanted one.
Stranded. Scuppered. And all because of that venomous, malignant, poisonous wife of his.
Qualities which, he has to admit, would quite regularly turn him on in the past, when they weren’t being directly targeted at him.
“Welcome to the American Express Customer Helpline,” says the recorded voice message.
“To request your balance, press one. To report a lost or stolen card, press two. To query a recent transaction, press three. To increase your credit limit, press four. To complain about your card being frozen by your vengeful partner due to severe mental competency issues, press the teensy little button thing right there in the middle of your handset.” Arnie dutifully presses five.
“All our lines are busy right now. Please don’t wig out.
Imagine an idyllic pastoral scene from your childhood. ”
“Goddammit!” screams Arnie, only slightly bemused by the tone of this alarmingly specific, targeted new message.
He tosses his phone over his shoulder into the back of the van – and guess whose hand reaches out smoothly to catch it, with a Tom Cruise-like deftness that belies his age and lack of physical substance?
“Ambrose!”
“You’ve cut to the chase. I like it. Do I smell food?”
Arnie nods towards the rear of the van, where there are still two lukewarm trays remaining. “You want the beef or the chicken?”
“They would go right through me!” I say in a moment of light-hearted banter, which I have to say are all too infrequent these days.
Most probably because seedy Arnie Garth is facing imminent death and a one-way trip to hell, which can sometimes gnaw away at a sense of humour.
“So, how’s it going with Saint Noreen?” I ask, by way of conversation.
And, unlike certain people, I am a pretty good listener.
“She said those magic words yet, Arnie? You know you’ve only got three days ’til… ”
To my surprise, our guy from the City of Angels (no relation) seems unexpectedly bullish.
“Hah! I’ll have time to spare. You watch, Soul Man. Right now, that poor beleaguered lady needs all the pals she can get. And guess what? She don’t have any. Oh, and hey, did you know women like it when you listen to them?”
“That’s what the Boss says. In fact, she never shuts up about it.” I’d continue in this disarmingly droll vein, but Arnie’s attention is drawn once more to the mean streets of Rough Fell.
Noreen Millburn is outside the hall now, retreating backwards from the main doorway and just one teeter from toppling dangerously down the rain-splattered stone steps.
We can both only sit and watch in fascinated terror as she edges uneasily away from rabid villagers bent on vengeance.
They are moving towards her en masse, anger in their hearts and the prospect of an extremely satisfying thump in their fists.
Even Arnie, observing this mob, can see that something drastic needs to be done.
“I can’t sell my little cottage and all the land around it that my mum and dad left me!” protests Noreen above the grumbling and calls for blood. “What about the environment?”
“Bugger the environment,” says the ever more red-faced landlord of the Wordsworth Arms. “We want first-run movies!”
“We want Dolby Digital 5.1!” says another.
“And deep-pan pepperoni!” adds little Mrs Davenport, who is heartily sick of Meals on Wheels.
“You like to help people,” cries someone else, “so help us all get bloody rich!”
The other mob members endorse this to the hilt. “Yeahhhh!”
Noreen tries to speak but the words simply don’t come. She looks like she may very soon burst into tears.
Mr Edwards of Apex Holdings, dapper suit still neatly buttoned over his business-lunch belly, approaches her, wearing an indulgent smile.
He addresses the obstructive and currently besieged landowner in a more conciliatory fashion than that of the fired-up locals bent on trampling her quivering face into the wet cobbles.
“The people have spoken, Miss Millburn. And I’m rather afraid the people don’t much care for your stubborn stance. So, we may have to—”
He is suddenly interrupted by a tidal wave of filthy water as an old Morris Traveller careers through the massive puddle right in front of him.
“Yuk!” cries Arnie, shouting empathically out of the open window to the man in the previously pristine pinstripe. “You may wanna change your pants there, pal.” He throws open the passenger door, praying that it won’t fall off altogether. “Noreen, get in, will ya!”
“I will,” agrees Noreen gratefully, shuffling with maximum clumsiness into the vacant seat and slamming the door. She looks around the vehicle, although it doesn’t really require much introduction. “Why do you have Mrs Wainwright’s Meals on Wheels van, Mr Garth?”
Arnie says nothing. He just stares at her. Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpses an economy-size wicker man being swiftly erected on the nearby village green.
After a moment, having received no explanation, Noreen shrugs and moves on.
“Oh, Arnie, I-I just want to go home.”
Arnie says nothing once again. He simply nods. And cocks his head.
“No,” she decides on impulse, “I want to get right out of Rough Fell altogether!”
Arnie repeats the nothing. And simply smiles.
“And I don’t bloody care where – oh, excuse my French! Arnie?” asks Noreen Millburn, beginning to stare at her driver in some bemusement. “Are you okay?”
He nods again and continues to drive on what he still considers the stupid side of the road.
“Aren’t you talking to me?” she enquires in some concern. “Is it because of what happened in the hotel bedroom? When that terrible film was playing. Did I hit you too hard?”
He just shakes his head.
A voice from behind him butts in, if indeed a person can butt in on a head shake. “You can overdo the listening shtick, you know,” I tell the idiot. “Talk to her!”
Arnie nods again, this time in understanding, and turns to his bemused passenger. “So, Noreen, you got any hobbies?”
“Jesus!” I say, then offer a silent apology skywards (you can’t be too careful these days). “For pity’s sake, Garth, tell the poor lady something she wants to hear! ‘You got any hobbies!’ Tell her you’ll take her away from all this. Somewhere nice! Somewhere romantic!”
“Yeah, right,” scoffs Arnie, turning to talk to the back seat. “I’m outta cash, my credit cards have all been nixed, the bank thinks I’m a person non gratis and I’m driving a hot delivery van! Literally!”
“You’re talking to food trays, Arnie,” observes Noreen Millburn.
I have to think for a moment.
Yes, me. I. Your narrator. Ambrose.
Hey, even Collectors of Immortal Souls, Upper Level, Grade 27 – 06 – D, we gotta pause for rumination once in a blue moon.
“I got it!” I cry, in some elation. Okay, okay, I know it’s not like Izzy Newton and the falling Golden Delicious thing or old Alby Einstein with his famous theory, but in its own way it has moment.
“Go to Manchester Airport right now. The information desk. There’ll be a passport for Noreen and two tickets to a super-romantic destination, with swanky hotel reservations in your name. ”
I can do this sort of thing. When absolutely essential for the plot. Don’t ask.
“Business Class?” says Arnie, to which a stare is the only word I can think of. “Whatever. You’re an angel.”
“Working on it!” I josh, and then disappear from his view before he can ask any more leading, or just plain irritating, questions.
Noreen is gawping at the empty rear of the car and then at Arnie, hoping without huge hope for some sort of an explanation. “Er… Arnie?”
“Eh. Oh, I… have conversations with my poor, dead, departed mother.”
Noreen beams at this – her first of the day. “I do too! My mum, I mean, not yours. The very same thing, Arnie – every night without fail!”
“What are you – nuts?”
They say little more until they approach the airport. Or maybe Noreen still talks but Arnie has simply stopped listening.