The Last Time I Saw John

The last time I saw John in real life was at his dad’s farm. We were asked to look after it while his dad and step-mum went on their annual holiday. We didn’t know shit about running a farm, but somehow we managed to blunder through. It was early autumn and nice enough weather to want to spend hours in a field trying to catch a sheep that had a poorly leg; or to bomb around the farm on the quad, trying to count the cows. We miscounted them every single time, and so drastically that we didn’t even notice that two calves had been born under our jurisdiction. On an evening, John would hand me a garden fork and gesture toward the vegetable patch saying “have a look round and see what you fancy for your tea” and then we’d cook giant marrows and cabbages into any sort of dish we could manage. After we’d made sure all the chickens were safely shut up in their pen for the night, we’d settle down with a fine wine from his dad’s cellar and watch cheap horror films. It was easy, really.

Being on the farm was good, hard, honest work. The occasion I mentioned with the sheep was especially interesting as we had to call upon the help of a local farmer, Alastair, who sometimes helped out on this one. He was a dairy farmer and after we had managed to catch the sheep (which was fine by the way, just a little lame) we had a long cup of tea with him and he told us all about the industry and where it’s going and how it had changed and that his dad had been born in the very barn we kept the quad in. (Alastair didn't make too subtle a hints at the fact that he wanted to rent the land on this farm and so was eager to press his emotional attachment to it upon us, hoping the sentiment would seep upwards to John's dad.)He was a really great guy and you felt good just by getting on with him; as if vicariously, you were as wholesome as he was, even if for just a few days.

One day some of our friends, including John’s girlfriend, came to stay at the farm for the night. Earlier that day John had asked me if I wouldn’t mind mowing the lawns and the paddock (of which there was a lot). I think he wanted everything looking shipshape and impressive and he strutted about like a land owner as he opened up the shed to reveal the ride-on mower. I’d never used one before and so leaped at the opportunity. I had great fun trying to make the lines as straight as possible and, I admit, to behaving a little bit over-confident and cavalier at times; making too tight a turns too quickly and knocking down a length of fencing John had only finished a few days before. The fence-blow aside, I was really enjoying mowing. I chugged along singing pop songs that I’d re-purposed for my newfound love of mowing.

The Beatles: - please don’t spoil my day I’m miles away and after all, I’m only mowing. Dum dum dum dum dum.
The Bangles: Am I only dreaming, or am I mowing an eternal lawn...
Kate Bush: Keep mowing up that lawn, keep mowing up that hill, keep mowing round that corner
etc.etc.

When I eventually finished and came inside I was shocked to discover that the others had already arrived; they must have driven up the track right next to the paddock I was mowing and I had not noticed them at all.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you were all here I would have come and said hello otherwise!
and Vicky said
“It’s OK, we’ve been watching you through the window but John had said ‘leave her’.”
Three and a half hours I’d been mowing and it had passed in a blink.

A few days later we were at the end of our farm fostering term and it was the last afternoon. John was staying on that night to make a clean switch over with his dad and step mum but I was leaving that evening. We’d spent the morning putting up a section of fencing that had been destroyed by Tarragon, the bull, in an attempt to reach a sapling just over the fence that must have looked tastier than anything in his field. He watched us as we worked; snorting and generally stropping about. You often find you can get used to anything after a while; sewerage workers get used to their surroundings and the smell, high-rise builders get used to the precarious positions they are in every day (we’ve all seen the famous photo of a bunch of builders having their lunch on some sort of insanely high piece of scaff.) But anyway, my point being, that no matter how one can usually get used to anything with enough exposure, I never got used to being near Tarragon. I simply didn’t trust him and his little devil eyes.
“He’s a softy” John would say, but that’s just what Tarragon wanted him to say and I knew it.

The rest of the afternoon had been spent shoveling muck off the long track up to the farm. We literally used shovels and a stiff brush and it was hard work on the arms and the back. The air was fresh though and the sun was low in the sky. The Dales glowed gently; green lit through orange.
We got back in and cleaned off our wellies and fed the dogs. John flung himself on the sofa and stretched out, while I put the kettle on and as I was stood there making the tea he started talking about the music business and what artists he especially hated. Even with all that good, honest fresh air inside his lungs, out bellowed this vitriol and hatred so quickly that by the time I was handing him his mug, he was already onto the ‘televised’ part of his plan. I laughed it off of course, and only half-listened while I caught up on my emails and reported in jest back to friends on instant messengers the basic gist of John’s hate-filled pipe dream of what he would like to do with Lady Gaga.

I left the farm in a form of goodbye, as it was truly the end of the summer now, and John was moving back through to university the following week and I was away all the days to follow until then. It was a nice way to spend the end of the summer; on the farm and driving down that track in the setting sun with a snoring dog on the front seat who was exhausted from all the excitement of being a farm dog for a week. It felt like the end of a holiday and the beginning of head-down, work mode which has always pretty much been my favourite sort of seasonal feeling.

It was two months later when I saw John again, but this time it wasn’t in real life. I’d been working in the recording studio all day and then came through to the front room to watch Coronation Street with my dinner on a tray on my knees. My mum, dad and sister were all away so it was just me and the dog and the cat. I was sitting there with a horribly catchy whistling melody ringing around my ears, trying to forget about arrangements and kick drum patterns and just enjoy watching new-mother-Molly trying to get around the fact that Tyrone wasn’t the father and that Kevin, who was the father and Tyrone’s business partner was there at the birth and how his wife, who was clueless to the whole situation helped deliver the thing. It was just what I needed, and there, with my vegetable stew, I sank into my planned evening.

Just as Tyrone was suggesting that heroic baby-deliverer Kevin ought to be the godfather, the picture on the television went a little fuzzy and before I could even reach for the remote to try and fiddle around with the settings, there was John’s face looking right at me, from the screen. I simply couldn’t understand what had happened. Had I accidentally set playing some sort of video recording John and I had made messing around on the farm or something? But it didn’t take long to realise that this was not the case, the video nor DVD player were even turned on, I was watching ITV and ITV was broadcasting John... John on a boat...? Yes, he was on a boat of some sort, at sea it seemed from all the motion, and he was adjusting the camera.

My vegetable stew fell from the tray on my lap onto the floor which the dog was quick to take care of and I sat there in absolute bafflement as to what could possibly be going on. Even though it was the strangest thing in the world, for some reason it also seemed familiar somehow in a way that I couldn’t quite understand or remember. John, who was wearing an orange life jacket and had a weather-beaten face with his cheeks even rosier than normal looked nothing but... angry. His arm reached forward to something on the camera and with a clunk he had turned on the microphone. Wind battering the mic like scrunching up crisp packets and the sound of halyards wildly clanging against a mast. It was now clear that John was on a yacht that was not under sail, merely drifting about in whatever body of water he was in the middle of. Above the wind and the clanging sounds came John’s voice while he stared right down the lens.
“Right. I’m sorry to interrupt, but this just had to be done. It’s just gone too far, so I’ve gone too far to even things out. If you think this is extreme just have a little listen to the top 40 charts. Want to arrest me? I don’t give a shit, I’m saving humanity and what you gonna do anyway? I’m in the middle of the fucking ocean, it will be way too late by the time you find me....” and then the really sinister bit where I suddenly remembered why this was familiar to me:
“Or by the time you find her....” at this point, John leaned forward and took a hold of the camera. He jerked it across the deck and zoomed in then out a little until she was bang in focus. There she was; Lady Gaga, bound and gagged to the pulpit. I clapped my hands to my mouth and watched with wide eyes, utterly incapable of turning away even though I KNEW what was coming next.

So that was the last time I saw John in any form. I watched him on that boat with Lady Gaga, dressed in her finest lead bodice that had crude parrots John had obviously made from the foils of KitKat wrappers hanging off her like a baby’s cot mobile. She was wearing an eye patch made from a patch of astro-turf and she wore thigh-length boots that appeared to be made of thousands of snail shells glued together. The whole ITV-watching nation watched as he made her walk the plank whilst blasting out from some elaborate sound system he had rigged up on the deck, the title track from the Marvin Gaye What’s Going On album. When the splash was made John turned to the camera and said
“Sorry you missed Corrie. In a bitch. Over and out!”
and then the picture went fuzzy and came back on to the end credits and mournful horn theme tune of Coronation Street. My phone started ringing immediately, but I didn’t answer the calls.
I’ll ring them back in a bit, I thought as I went to clean up what the dog had missed of the vegetable stew from the floor. Just before I went to fetch the floor cloth and stain remover though I headed for the CD player, and took out What’s Going On.
He’s got a point, I thought as I turned up the volume.

Cat Flap

"Coping with a cat, when you live in a flat
can be hard" said Faye who had been trying to stay out of Evan and Daniel's big argument.
Dan gave a snort "Well you can't talk! You live in a 9th floor apartment!"
"Dogs are different, they're patient, obedient! Dealing with dogs is much easier!"
Evan came in
"Oh don't you begin, going on and on about dogs again!
We want a cat. A cat, and that's that! Tis only the colour we cannot agree on!"

Faye started to pout as she sat drinking her stout in the pub that they always came into. She was only saying, that's all - just saying! Well, really! She was growing quite tired of those two:

"I saw a white one, a cat I mean, in the snow one winter some years ago. It had bright green eyes which came as some surprise as his eyes were all I could see of him!"

"Well I saw this black, giant big cat round the back of the garden last October. It was Halloween and I'd just been to a party and was in no way sober. This cat just seemed to shine and gleam with his glossy black coat he was purring and ever since that, I've wanted a cat as black as the sky when midnight's occurring."

Stirring her foot on the floor, Faye became sure that in both of their points lay the answer.
"I've got it! I know it! Now listen, okay? You two listen to what I'm going to say: the colour of the cat that's not white nor black is very simply GREY!"