"He's not the Messiah. He's a very naughty boy!" 

Monty Python 

The Allotmenteers

 
This isn't a thing I'd tell my wife, but finally getting the allotment was one of the happiest days of my life. I'd been on the list for years, along with hundreds of other people, and when my name came up I felt like I'd won the lottery.

By that time I'd already done everything I could with the little garden behind our terraced house. I'd got quite good at finding the right plant for the right spot, even for the permanently shadowed part behind the wall. Foxgloves are your friend there, if you're interested.  It's amazing how such big bright things love the shade. 

There's only so much you can do with a couple of dozen square feet though, and it was never going to be enough for what I had in mind. 

It wasn't just the extra space that I was so excited about, even though I couldn't believe how much there was when I first got up there. No, it was also the ownership, and the privacy. This is something else I'd never tell my wife, but I'd always wanted my own bit of something away from her and the kids and the job and the in-laws and all of it. It's not that I don't love them, her and the kids I mean, but you can have too much of a good thing.

These were good allotments too. Bigger than normal, and each one surrounded by it's own corrugated iron wall. Each one was a little sun trap that you could wander around in naked as the day you were born if you wanted to. Not that I ever did obviously. The rules that came with the contract you had to sign didn't actually say you couldn't, but having waited so long for the thing I wasn't going to risk losing it.

My fellow allotmenteers were great, friendly enough, and just enough. They were obviously there for the same reason as me. We all had families, jobs, whatever else outside the fences, but inside we had peace and quiet and a shed for when it rained. 

Of course nothing is perfect and we did have occasional problems with break-ins. One of the lads had quite an expensive lawn mower stolen, and another time somebody lost some chickens. They were let out rather than stolen, but apparently a fox got to most of them before the poor fella got back the next day, so that wasn't much comfort.

That was the first thing I thought of when I came up once early morning during the week. I'd taken the day off sick, which I sort of was, but I decided not to tell the wife so there'd be no arguments about me coming up to trellis the peas. They were getting quite leggy and I was worried because there was strong wind forecast. Anyway, what do I find when I get there but a broken padlock and somebody digging in the squash bed!

"What the bloody hell are you doing?" I asked the intruder.

He looked at me, an expression of shock on his wrinkled old features. He must have been 70 if he was a day, and I could see that the digging (with my own best spade, if you can believe the cheek of it) had cost him a lot of effort. He was shiny with sweat, and even in this situation he took the opportunity to rest on his spade.

"I suppose you're going to turn me in," he said with a sort of quiet resignation. He almost sounded relieved.

"I should do," I said. If he'd been a gang of burly youths rather than a little old man I probably would have done so already, quietly calling 999 before they knew I was there. As it was he looked both pitiable and manageable. I considered arming myself from the tool shed, but it hardly seemed necessary.

"I know you should," he said, looking down. "But it was such a long time ago. And they really were awful people."

I wondered if he was senile, then followed his gaze. For the first time I realised how deep he had dug, right down to the sandstone, And also, what he had dug up.

Bones. Lots of them. I saw what I was pretty certain was a scapulae. And then something that wasn't a bowling ball. They aren't cream coloured, bowling balls. And they don't grin.

"Oh God," I said. All the years and years I'd waited to get this place and now there'd be police and forensics and press swarming all over it. And the council! They'd probably close the whole place down. No, not probably. Definitely.

"You shouldn't have got this plot," the old man said. "My old obbo fixed the papers in the council so nobody would. But then he died and I suppose  it all went computerized . . . " he trailed off with a hopeless shrug.

"How many?" I asked.

"Three on this site," he answered.

"What were you going to do with the bones?"

"Just smash them up and bury them under my house. I didn't like to back then because of Maeve and the kids, but she's gone now and they're in America. It gets quite lonely to tell the truth."

I sat down and thought about how un-lonely my life was about to get. The in-laws had started coming over at the weekend, both days, to play bridge with my wife. I'd be included. Then there would be after dinner, nothing to do and nowhere to go. Stuck in our little house with the family, feeling like a loony in a padded call. Not that I don't love them obviously.

"Right," I said, going to the shed to get my second best spade. "I'll help you. But if you ever come back, you'll end up down there where they were. And for God's sake, hurry up. Hainsworth will be up to feed his pigeons in a couple of hours, and he's bound to stick his nose in when he sees what you did to the lock."

I don't know who the intruder was, and I never saw him again. I suppose I should care about what he did and who he dug up, but I'll be honest. When I sit up here in the peace and the quiet, drinking tea and feeling the plants grow and watching the clouds scudding happily along overhead I really couldn't care less.

I'm back, baby

George Costanza

Let me die a young man's death.

Not a clean and inbetween

the sheets holywater death.

Not a famous-last-words

peaceful out of breath death.

When I'm 73

and in constant good tumour

may I be mown down at dawn

by a bright red sports car

on my way home

from an all night party.

Or when I'm 91

with silver hair

and sitting in a barber's chair

may rival gangsters

with hamfisted tommyguns burst in

and give me a short back and insides.

Or when I'm 104

and banned from the Cavern

may my mistress

catching me in bed with her daughter

and fearing for her son

cut me up into little pieces

and throw away every piece but one.

Let me die a youngman's death.

Not a free from sin tiptoe in

candle wax and waning death.

Not a curtains drawn by angels borne

'what a nice way to go' death.

-

Roger McGough

A kiss with a fist is better than none.

Florence and the Machine

It is more blessed to give than to receive.

Acts 20:35

If it doesn't hurt, it isn't real.