There was a bike outside the house. Its frame glinted in the morning sun. All else was normal–the vehicles gone from the drive, the air still and quiet, the curtain shut. Only this bike, rested up against the back the house, and an expedition of ducks waddling out the coop, off down the beck.
I sat in the kitchen while Mum shuffled about baking parkin. She was yammering about Father’s ailment.
He’s riled he can’t shake it. It’s that has got him i’ this state.
She spooned a large dollop of treacle into a bowl filled with oatmeal and whirled it round.
Janet thinks it’s bronchitis, but course your father won’t go to t’ doctor’s–he’s behind enough already wi’out wasting his time at the bleedin’ quack’s. She lifted the spoon out the bowl, twiddling it round to catch a dangling gloop of treacle, then put it in her mouth and sucked loudly. She was making the Christmas parkin–I didn’t know why she bothered still, it was only for Deltons. Tradition. They swapped tins a fortnight before Christmas, wary, like two crooks doing a deal. Course Delton didn’t make parkin, she made fatty cakes. Best fatty cakes I’d ever ate and all, she’d not have made better if she was baking them for the mayor, just so as she could get one over on Mum. I watched as she poured the mixture into a tray.
I’ll take them down to her if you like, Mum.
She fixed me a look, shaking the last drops on to the tray.
Why’s that, then?
Don’t know. Might as well.
She was flummoxed, clear, but I could tell what she was thinking–that she’d not have to go herself.
All right. They’ll be ready tonight. I’ll put ’em in ’ tin and you can take ’em down in the morning. And you can take a tin for them down the hill and all, get ’em right side o’ us. No mawks in parkin, eh?
There was a griming of snow over the fields as I set foot for Deltons’. Too cold to snow a big dump, they’d be saying in town, whatever the bugger that meant. Too cold?–you didn’t see a mighty load of snow in summer, did you? It was there again. Same place, but leant up slacker against the wall, like he’d been in too much of a hurry to get inside for fettling it up proper. I carried on to Deltons’, kicking at frozen humps of molehills, explosions of soil scuttering on to the snow. She’d have a turn when she saw me at her door, old Delton. Good morning, Mrs Delton, Mum asked me to send you her best–here, she baked you some parkin, you crozzled old trull.
I got to the top of Deltons’ land, and I laughed out, but there was no one to hear me, not even Sal, as I’d left her behind dozing in the stable. I opened the lid of the tin to sneak out a piece of parkin, but Mum had layered it neat as a crop field and I didn’t want to spoil it up.
I snecked open the gate to her garden. I could tell somehow just from the sound of my feet on the snow-cleared path, my sort wasn’t welcome there. Even the gnomes were pissed to see me. Would the lady of the house be at home? I asked them gnomes, but they weren’t going to answer me, they had a munk on because I’d scared all the fish away, they just looked down at their rods drooping into the snow.
But she was ready for me. The door opened and she was stood there with a cake tin snugged under her breasts.
Morning, Sam.
Mrs Delton.
It was the same tin as always–a square, red article with a gold edge and a picture of a robin pecking at a nut.
Your mother sent you down, then. She’s keeping well? I hear your father’s taken bad.
He has the flu. He’ll be ’right.
A cat slipped round her ankle and sat looking at me from next her foot. You aren’t coming in here, Marsdyke. I’d get gone if I were you, I don’t know what you were thinking coming here in the first place.
You’ll send our best, will you?
Yes. Here. I offered the tin toward her and as we swapped them over I glegged indoors of the kitchen. There was a newspaper on the table with a pair of glasses weighted on top. She was hoarding up her gossip for the day. Bogeyman buggers ramblers’ board game in pub. She’d glut on that for weeks, if she found out, but it must’ve been they’d not called the police, and Norman hadn’t told, neither, for Father hadn’t been near me since.
They’re a decent sort, the family moved into Turnbull’s, aren’t they? Delton said then.
I’ve not seen much of them, I said, but that was daft because she knew it was a lie, and the gnarly smile came out soon as I said it.
Oh, they are, too, lovely family. Daughter’s a pearl. She turned to go in. Give your mother my best. Parkin, is it? Tell her thanks. The cat slithered in through her legs and she shut the door.
She knew about the boy, she’d seen the bike come past, that was why she said it. Daughter’s a pearl. She knew I’d made a gawby of myself over her, it wasn’t hard to find that out, she didn’t need to read it in The Blatherskites’ News to learn it. I fucked off for home with the fatty cakes, readying up for my second delivery.
There was a damp patch on my arse where I was sat, owing to the snow melting away, past couple of days. The tops had a covering still, other side the valley, and there were dollops of white along the wall bottoms, but most the land below was smeared with grey, half-thawed slush. It was clagging his wheels up, that was why he was going so slow. Most the week he’d raced along the tyre tracks Chickenhead and the dad had ploughed leaving the house, but he wasn’t mooded for that today–he didn’t want slush spraying up his backside.
I bolted another piece of parkin. Then I picked out another for Sal and let her scraffle a feed out my hand. She was partial to sweetmeats, cakes and the like, toffees–she’d eat the wrapper and all if she snatched one up Mum had let fall on the settle. We sat on the rock there, the tin between, eating their parkin.
Eleven o’clock he always came, when the house was certain empty. Mind, I didn’t know why they had to keep it secret–Chickenhead would likely fall over her arse to know her daughter had copped on with a boy from the school. A decent sort of boy, all shiny teeth and rugby muscles. Why keep that hid? She had a lust for secrets, was why.
He cycled on, steady, closer. No head down, arse in the air today–here I come! Here I come! Hope you’ve got the fire ready–he got off by the trees and walked the bike the rest the way. She didn’t come out. He cocked it on the wall, usual place, and went round the front the house, bold as brass, like he’d been coming round for years and not just this past week. Nothing happened then for a while, except for Sal was sick off the edge the rock, until a half hour later smoke started spilling out the chimney.
They kept the fire going into the afternoon, a smudgy coal-cloud seeping around the house as I finished off the parkin, then finally he strode out to the bike, still I couldn’t see her, and he stole off before Chickenhead got back with the kid brother.
I left then, fettling Sal up comfortable in the stable, for she had the collywobbles, and I took the empty tin up to my room and hid it under the bed for safe keeping until after Christmas.