Part 9 (1/2)

'Yes.'

'Often,' he said. 'At least twice a week.'

'Didn't she mind?'

'Mind? Of course she didn't mind. She came with me.'

'She didn't!'

'She certainly did. She came with me every single time until just before you were born. She had to stop then. She said she couldn't run fast enough.'

I thought about this extraordinary piece of news for a little while. Then I said, 'Was the only reason she went because she loved you, Dad, and because she wanted to be with you? Or did she go because she loved poaching?'

'Both,' my father said. 'She did it for both the reasons you mentioned.'

I was beginning to realize what an immense sorrow it must have been to him when she died.

'Weren't you afraid she might get shot up?' I asked.

'Yes, Danny, I was. But it was marvellous to have her along. She was a great sport, your mother.'

By midday we had prepared one hundred and thirty-six raisins. 'We're in good shape,' my father said. 'Let's break for lunch.'

He opened a tin of baked beans and heated them up in a saucepan over the paraffin burner. I cut two slices of brown bread and put them on plates. My father spooned the hot baked beans over the bread and we carried our plates outside and sat down with our legs dangling over the platform of the caravan.

Usually I love baked beans on bread, but today I couldn't eat a thing. 'What's the matter?' my father asked.

'I'm not hungry.'

'Don't worry,' he said. 'The same thing happened to me the first time I went out. I was about your age then, maybe a little older, and in those days we always had a hot tea in the kitchen at five o'clock. I can remember exactly what was on the table that evening. It was my favourite thing of all, toad-in-the-hole, and my mum could make toad-in-the-hole like n.o.body else in the world. She did it in an enormous pan with the Yorks.h.i.+re pudding very brown and crisp on top and raised up in huge bubbly mountains. In between the mountains you could see the sausages half-buried in the batter. Fantastic it was. But on that day my stomach was so jumpy I couldn't eat one mouthful. I expect yours feels like that now.'

'Mine's full of snakes,' I said. 'They won't stop wiggling about.'

'Mine doesn't feel exactly normal either,' my father said. 'But then this isn't a normal operation, is it?'

'No, Dad, it's not.'

'Do you know what this is, Danny? This is the most colossal and extraordinary poaching job anyone has ever been on in the history of the world!'

'Don't go on about it, Dad. It only makes me more jumpy. What time do we leave here?'

'I've worked that out,' he said. 'We must enter the wood about fifteen minutes before sunset. If we arrive after sunset all the pheasants will have flown up to roost and it'll be too late.'

'When is sunset?' I asked.

'Right now it's about seven-thirty,' he said. 'So we must arrive at seven-fifteen exactly. It's an hour and a half's walk to the wood so we must leave here at a quarter to six.'

'Then we'd better finish those raisins,' I said. 'We've still got more than sixty to do.'

We finished the raisins with about two hours to spare. They lay in a pile on a white plate in the middle of the table. 'Don't they look marvellous?' my father said, rubbing his hands together hard. 'Those pheasants are going to absolutely love them.'

After that, we messed round in the workshop until half-past five. Then my father said, 'That's it! It's time to get ready! We leave in fifteen minutes!'

As we walked towards the caravan, a station-wagon pulled up to the pumps with a woman at the wheel and about eight children in the back all eating ice-creams.

'Oh, I know you're closed,' the woman called out through her window. 'But couldn't you please let me have a few gallons? I'm just about empty' She was a good-looking woman with dark hair.

'Give it to her,' my father said. 'But be quick.'

I fetched the key from the office and unlocked one of the pumps. I filled up her tank and took the money and gave her the change. 'You don't usually close as early as this,' she said.

'We have to go out,' I told her, hopping from one foot to the other. 'I have to go somewhere with my father.'

'You look jumpy as a jack-rabbit,' she said. 'Is it the dentist?'

'No, ma'am,' I said. 'It's not the dentist. But please excuse me. I have to go now.'

14.

Into the Wood My father came out of the caravan wearing the old navy-blue sweater and the brown cloth-cap with the peak pulled down low over his eyes.

'What's under there, Dad?' I asked, seeing the bulge at his waistline.

He pulled up his sweater and showed me two thin but very large white cotton sacks. They were bound neat and tidy round his belly. 'To carry the stuff,' he said darkly.

'Ah-ha.'

'Go and put on your sweater,' he said. 'It's brown, isn't it?'

'Yes,' I said.

'That'll do. But take off those white sneakers and wear your black shoes instead.'

I went into the caravan and changed my shoes and put on my sweater. When I came out again, my father was standing by the pumps squinting anxiously up at the sun which was now only the width of a man's hand above the line of trees along the crest of the ridge on the far side of the valley.

'I'm ready, Dad.'

'Good boy. Off we go!'

'Have you got the raisins?' I asked.

'In here,' he said, tapping his trouser pocket where yet another bulge was showing. 'I've put them all in one bag.'

It was a calm sunny evening with little wisps of brilliant white cloud hanging motionless in the sky, and the valley was cool and very quiet as the two of us began walking together along the road that ran between the hills towards Wendover. The iron thing underneath my father's foot made a noise like a hammer striking a nail each time it hit the road.

'This is it, Danny. We're on our way now,' he said. 'By golly, I wish my old dad were coming with us on this one. He'd have given his right teeth to be here at this moment.'