The next day dawned sunny and bright. William woke up, for once eager to get up and get on with it. He wasn’t sure what ‘it’ was, but he knew he wanted to do something. He had a shower, got dressed and had fed the cat all before 9 o’clock, which was unprecedented for him. Breakfast was coffee, cornflakes, toast and the proper number and kind of pills as prescribed by the Social men, in their instructions left behind the toaster. Pleased with himself for this foray into normal living, he opened a bottle of beer and took it into the garden.
He approached the tumbledown shed at the bottom of his garden with some trepidation, suspecting that all he would find would be dirt and spiders. Dirt and spiders there were in abundance, but there was also an old-fashioned lawnmower, covered with a protective sheeting, a spade, a garden fork and a pair of rather rusty old shears, together with an assortment of gardening equipment, bundles of string, gardening gloves, baskets, plastic bins, bags and various bottles and packages containing stuff to make things grow and stuff to kill off things that are already growing.
“Bingo, Ginger,” he said. Ginger was interested in the shed and emerged from beneath a pile of old rags covered in a layer of cobwebs and unidentifiable mess that changed him from a ginger to a tabby feline!
With some difficulty, William managed to pull the lawnmower out of the shed, covering himself in hanging cobwebs as he did so, and out into the open space of his garden, where he could inspect it properly. It was an ancient one of a very simple design and there didn’t seem to be anything obviously wrong with it. He could not, however, try it out on his own garden, there being little grass of any description there, only dirt and stones and rubbish, interspersed with the occasional struggling patch of green.
The next problem then presented itself. How could he get into Mrs. Brenner’s property, together with the riches of his shed, in order to carry out his plan of garden maintenance? He pushed the lawnmower up to the dividing hedge, which was rather wild and unkempt on his side, and viewed the situation. He tried to lift the mower, but it was far too heavy for him, the hedge was far too high and he had to admit defeat. He felt a little shoot of anger growing inside him but before it could turn into one of his rages he saw a possible solution. Mrs. Brenner, like himself, had a door at the bottom of her garden which opened on to the alley. Quickly, he went through his own door, into the alleyway, and pushed on her door. It was locked!
Furious and disappointed he returned to his own area, and felt the need for a drink coming upon him. Still angry and muttering to himself, he turned to go into his kitchen to fetch another beer, if there was one. Coming out, bottle in hand, he looked across the hedge which divided her property from his. He had a good vantage point from where he was standing as the hedge was a little lower near the kitchen; there was even a bit of a gap through which he could look straight down over her lawn. He looked long and hard down her garden at the alleyway door. There seemed to be no sign of a padlock on it. Could he just make out a couple of bolts? He could. He was sure he could. So all he had to do was hop over the hedge himself and undo the bolts, then wheel the lawnmower in. Problem solved!
To ‘hop over the hedge’, as he put it to himself, was not the easiest thing in the world for a man of his age (whatever that was) and in his condition. With the aid of a chair from the kitchen, on which he climbed rather perilously, and by dint of hanging onto the branch of a small tree in his neighbour’s hedge, which unfortunately split in two as it took his weight, he did manage to propel himself into the desired area, although he did arrive flat on his back, bedecked with branches and bits of greenery, with his feet in the air. Scrambling, with difficulty, to his feet, he went straight to the door and found, to his delight, that indeed it was secured by two bolts, top and bottom. These he undid, went round to his own home and duly wheeled in the lawnmower. Now for the real business of tidying up Mrs. Brenner’s garden. God had said ‘Do More’ and he was going to Do More.
First he needed that drink, which he had left on the ground near his kitchen. He could see that gardening was going to be hard work, so he brought yet another bottle of beer from the kitchen with him. On the way back, he picked up several bits, useful things, from his shed. He didn’t think he would need a spade, but he took the shears and a plastic bin to put rubbish in, also a contraption to fix on to the front of the lawnmower to catch the grass cuttings. All these things he put in the plastic bin. Thus equipped, he sat down on Mrs. Brenner’s lawn, emptied the bin and studied the situation. The beer was most refreshing. Eventually, he stirred himself and began to mow the lawn.
It was not a big lawn and he began mowing from the kitchen end down to the alleyway door end and back. The lines were a little wobbly, it was true, especially where he came up against the pile of things he had taken from his shed, the bin, the shears and, he realised, the grass cuttings container. He paused to fix this on to the lawnmower, which he did after something of a struggle. He continued mowing a little erratically for a while before feeling that he needed a bit of a rest. He was aching and a little sore from where he had tumbled over the hedge. It was a hot day and he had, it is true, exerted himself rather more than usual. He sat down on the grass and opened the second bottle of beer. Ginger, still covered in cobwebs, joined him, carrying something that he had filched from the kitchen, possibly half a pork pie. Filled with a sense of having done something ‘More’, as God had suggested, something worthwhile, William, also bestrewn with cobwebs and with foliage from his adventurous arrival into the garden, dozed off and Ginger curled up beside him.
Two doors down, a neighbour, Maisie Watson, looking out of her back bedroom window, saw what she thought was a dirty old drunk, covered in cobwebs and complete with two beer bottles, lying, presumably drunk and insensible, in the middle of Mrs. Brenner’s lawn. She didn’t see the lawnmower as it was shielded from her vision by the hedges in between. She knew Mrs. Brenner was in hospital. Naturally she did what every law-abiding citizen should do in such circumstances. She phoned the police.
It took the rest of the day to sort it all out. A Panda car with two constables, rather young and very keen, arrived outside Mrs. Brenner’s and they had almost taken the decision to break down the door, fearing for her safety, before the neighbour who had phoned spotted them (she was a keen member of Neighbourhood Watch) and guided them to the alleyway at the back. Here they had a prolonged interview with William, whom they initially suspected of stealing the lawnmower and other articles from Mrs. Brenner. They took him down to the police station, in the Panda car, where the station sergeant was unfortunately out, attending a course on Good Police Relations with the General Public, and a great argument broke out.
William said it was his lawnmower but the police thought this was unlikely, as he didn’t have a lawn. They accused him of breaking and entering into his neighbour’s property, but he explained he was driven by altruistic motives of wanting to do some garden maintenance next door. This struck them as also very unlikely. They then accused him of being drunk in charge of a vehicle. He said it wasn’t petrol driven so it wasn’t a vehicle and he wasn’t drunk anyway. They then breathalysed him, which proved he had been drinking but not that he was especially drunk.
One of the men recognised him as having caused some disturbance in the big supermarket a few months ago. William, who was by now consumed with rage, made matters worse by shouting and swearing, somewhat incomprehensibly, about God, emails, artichokes, mobility scooters, white van drivers and especially the police. Things began to look bad and William demanded to see his solicitor. They asked who his solicitor was and of course he did not have the least idea. They sent for the duty solicitor, who happened to be in the station at the time, who attended, rather less than enthusiastic at being involved with the misbehaviour of an elderly drunk.
By this time the station had had enough of William. The older, more experienced station sergeant had come back from his course, the younger, very keen policemen who had brought William in had been cut down to size and Mrs. Watson, the neighbour who had reported him, had turned up and now recognised him as the man who lived next door to Mrs. Brenner. She had phoned the Social Services, knowing that William had regular visits from them, and now Denis and Robert had also arrived. All William’s anger was still going strong. He was blazing away at everybody, especially at the neighbour who had called the police, and announced his intention of suing everybody who was intent on making his life a misery, including the Social Services, who had not provided him with a bus pass.
Eventually he was released and Denis and Robert took him home in Denis’ car. They told the police they would see to the mess in Mrs. Brenner’s garden and look after William. They sympathised with him, expressed their astonishment at his efforts with Mrs. Brenner’s garden and his foray into the old shed. They made him a cup of tea and fixed up a light meal and were altogether of much more use than they usually were. They fed Ginger. Mrs. Watson came round to apologise to William, with a friend from No. 63, Mrs. Jenkins, who was very curious about the whole incident, and they also had a cup of tea. William began to feel that he was supported by a small circle of friends, a very unusual feeling for him. There is of course nothing like being unfairly treated by the police to ensure that one has a respected standing in the community.
Denis and Robert retrieved the lawnmower and gardening objects from Mrs. Brenner’s and put them back in William’s shed, which they tried to make waterproof. There only remained the problem of how to fasten the back door to the alleyway from Mrs Brenner’s garden. Eventually, Robert was prevailed upon to enter by the same means that William had, although returning by that route was very much more difficult. As he was scruffy to start with the damage to his appearance was less bothersome than it would have been had Denis undertaken the task. Mrs. Brenner’s lawn had undoubtedly taken a beating and was left in a troubled and trampled state. Her hedge had also been somewhat damaged. The Social Service men were comforting. “It will repair itself, you’ll see,” they said.
William raised the issue of the bus pass. Apparently they had actually provided him with one, some time ago. It was likely that William had torn it up in a temper or otherwise lost it, unfortunately. They agreed to get him a new one.
When William arrived at the pub that evening he was amazed to discover that the events of the day were now common knowledge and had become somewhat embroidered and glorified in the telling. He had changed from being Community Nuisance to Local Hero, with a tendency to take a little drink now and then but with a Heart of Gold, a man who looked after his neighbour’s cat while its owner was in hospital and even tried to look after her garden, a man who had been persecuted and fitted up by the Old Bill and nearly put in prison for being a decent neighbour. Numerous people offered to buy him a drink and a lady with a large shopping bag gave him a tin of cat food for Ginger. It was all very gratifying and he thoroughly enjoyed himself.
That night he slept well.