* * *
I woke to a raging head. My body hadn’t wanted to stay up as late as I’d forced it to, and now it was getting revenge by pretending to be asleep. The weeding job I was so pleased to have gotten out of the day before was waiting for me at Tabitha’s; pulling out the dandelions on my hands and knees in the vomit position did nothing to help my stomach, as did the sound of the lawnmower when Al started it up halfway through the day. It was straight home to bed after work and can’t fucking wait for the weekend to get here.
Then when Friday finally arrived we became weekend vampires, sleeping all day so we could stay out all night, leaving a trail of empty beer cans in our wake. It was turning into something of a habit, but then enjoyable things often do.
Mondays always come too soon.
“Morning Tabitha,” Al and I said almost in unison as she greeted us at the door of her house, on the worst day of the week.
“You two will be working with someone else this week,” she said. Al and I looked at each other in surprise. “Come with me.”
She led us through the garden, past where the horses were kept, all the way to the point where her land met the farmer’s field.
“Gus this is Al and this is Luke, they’ll be assisting you this week,” Tabitha said, gesturing towards us individually as she named us.
“Alright lads,” he smiled. In the background Tabitha held on as if to make sure Al and I were going to be up to the job. Gus was wearing a green polo shirt that had ‘Kirk-Leigh Landscaping’ printed across the front, something the pair of us should have found daunting. Little did she know I already knew him, in fact the three of us knew each other. He was the bloke who’d sold us the canoe.
“I know you two lads don’t I?”
“I’m going to go now,” Tabitha said. “If you need me for anything I’ll be in the house.”
None of us acknowledged her.
“You sold us a canoe,” I said.
“That’s where I know you from,” Al said, “I knew I recognised you from somewhere.”
“Ah yes, I thought it was you two. How did you get on with it?”
“It was brilliant mate,” I said. “I’ve still got it at home.”
“Do you still use it?”
“Not really, I’ve got a motorbike now,” I said. Al’s face bore a look that said he wanted a motorbike too.
“You two must be leaving school soon if she’s got you working here?”
“Already finished, we start college in September,” Al said.
Gus laughed, “You’ll be trading things like canoeing for the pub all too soon then.”
“So what are we doing today?” Al asked.
“Some hard work to be done today, we’re putting fence posts in,” Gus replied. “Have either of you ever done anything like this before?”
“Never, just been clearing out rubbish and weeding so far,” Al said.
“You’ll feel this tomorrow morning then,” Gus flicked us a knowing look.
“Why does Tabitha need a fence here?” I asked. “Her house is all the way back over there, this is just the edge of the farmer’s field.”
“They’re building some new houses on that bit of land over there and Tabitha wants to make it clear to the people who buy them where the edge of her land is.” Gus pointed in the distance. “She doesn’t want their kids thinking they can just play around on her property. With a fence there they’ll have to go out of their way to trespass on her land. Right shall we get on with it then?”
Al and I showed just the right amount of fake enthusiasm, how hard could it be?
“There are some posts laid out here where they need to go.” He pointed towards a row of evenly spaced posts on their sides. “I’ve dug the first hole, I need the same size hole for each of the posts. If you look at how far the first hole is from where the farmer has ploughed to, that’s how far away they all need to be.”
“Have you got a spade?” Al asked.
Gus laughed out loud then reined it in again when he remembered we were only sixteen. “You don’t use a spade for this.”
Al and I watched as he walked back to his Toyota pick-up truck on Tabitha’s drive, returning with two spiked metal poles like straightened out crow-bars.
He put one down on the ground behind him, knelt on his knees, and with the other began to stab at the earth, one hand halfway down the shaft to aim it, the other on top of the spike to really drive it in. It punctured deep into the soil, where he twisted it around, breaking the ground into fist sized chunks; veins in his forehead swelling as they became engorged with blood, his face becoming taught as he strained. He drove the spike down through the broken clumps and deeper into the soil, twisting it again and breaking the ground up further. His long grey hair tied into a ponytail swinging on his back. Then he pulled the spike out and laid it next to him on the grass. Wiping sweat from his brow he took a pair of worn gloves from the back pocket of his camouflaged trousers and put them on. Fuck this looked like hard work.
He dug down with his hands and scooped the soil from the hole, taking the bigger pieces and throwing them into the ploughed field where they instantly looked like they belonged.
“All done then? Ready for the post to go in?” I asked, looking down at him on his hands and knees in front of me. Gus laughed.
“Come over to the first hole I dug,” he said.
We followed him over.
He reached his arm down into the hole. “Two feet deep it needs to be, as deep as this. Put your arm in to the bottom and see where the ground comes to, you’ll know how deep you need to go with your holes then.”
I tried after Al, the level of the ground came to just before both of our shoulders.
“So you know what you’ve got to do now then? I’ll let you get on with it on your own.”
Al walked over to the hole that had been started and put his hand to the bottom. The soil didn’t even come to his elbow. We each picked up a spike and started digging away.
“Whoa! What are you doing?!” Gus shouted. “Don’t both dig in the same bloody hole. I’m not taking you down the hospital when one of you has a piece of metal stuck through your hand. You carry on there Al, Luke you start the next one.”
Al gave me a look that said unlucky mate as I walked on to the next post. I picked my spike up, while behind me I heard the other two taking out their frustration on the ground.
I lifted the spike above me and bought it down. It went in a few inches. I tried again, much harder this time. It still only went in a few inches. For my third attempt I put it behind me, using the weight of my whole body to swing it over my shoulders and into the ground. It went in a long way this time, it deserved to seeing as I had tried so hard. I twisted it around in front of me, soon finding it was easier to do this holding onto the top. I took a big clump of soil out with my bare hands, I wasn’t yet in the habit of carrying gloves with me, and threw it out into the farmer’s field. My arms were aching already and I hadn’t even finished the first hole. With the sound of the other two still working to keep me company, I quickly got back on with digging. By the time the hole was deep enough the ache had spread to the rest of my body, but mainly in my lower back. We soldiered on for what seemed like days, Gus digging as many holes as Al and I put together, as we worked our way along the edge of the field.
When he finally stopped us for lunch and drove Al to the post office I was absolutely knackered, lying on my back on the grass, waiting for them to return. Al had bought pasties and sausage rolls, warmed up in the microwave in the shop. Perfect for a day of what we were doing.
“So what do you think of working here so far?” Gus asked us as he tucked into his food.
“Yeah it’s not too bad mate, today’s been hard work but it’s all been alright so far,” I replied.
“Good, that’s what I like to hear. And what about working for Tabitha?”
“She’s quite nice, just leaves us to get on with it most of the time,” Al said.
?
??No, come on lads this is Gus you’re talking to, what’s she really like? When she’s talking down to you.”
“She can be a bit like that, but it’s her house and we’re working for her aren’t we? She’s the boss,” Al said.
“What and you think that’s right? That just because she’s got some money and a big house her husband left her, that you have to put up with her talking to you like you’re worthless and thinking she’s above you?”
“I don’t know mate,” I said, “this is only the second job we’ve ever had.”
“Right I’m gonna tell you two something, and this is from someone who’s been doing this sort of work for a lot of years, as many years as you’ve been alive, both of you put together.” He stared at the pair of us. “Listen. You don’t have to put up with this from anyone. If you think someone’s treating you like shit then just pack up and go, there will always be another job to go to. Remember that, you don’t have to take shit from anyone.”
“Er....cheers Gus,” Al replied, not knowing what to do with the advice.
“She’s just a moany old woman who gets off on talking down to people,” Gus said. “Just so you know though lads, this is between us three. Yeah?”
Al and I nodded.
“I’ll give you one last tip lads, before you go out into the world of work. If you do think your boss is taking the piss and you’re planning to just walk away from your job, make sure you get your wage packet first. That was a lesson I learned the hard way,” he laughed.
I liked Gus. Not many people treated us like adults at this age, but he did. Passing on wisdom to help us in life, I wondered if someone had done the same with him when he was sixteen. It felt good to go back to work after lunch, working for someone who looked at us as if we were grown-up, even if part of that meant doing a grown-ups work.
When five o’clock came around he even dropped us both home.
For once I was pleased to get inside, although it was a struggle to get upstairs as I was aching so much. Sitting in a steaming hot bath with some of my mum’s lavender oil, I thought about the day. It was the hardest anything I’d ever had to do and I hurt like hell, but I wanted to get back there the next day to help Gus finish because I knew if I didn’t that would mean more for him to do and I’d be letting him down. Going out into the working world suddenly didn’t seem like such a scary prospect, not when it was us lads sticking together. I’d never felt like that at school.