Published in Novel Times (Issue 2, 31st July, 2011) & Icasm Magazine (Issue 1, 5th December, 2011).
Out in the wilder end of Northumberland, there once lived a farmer’s daughter who never slept.
She cost her dad a great deal in lightbulbs and heating, but more than made up for it in the work she did in the lonely hours, when her family rested. She had so much time, and yet never wanted for things to do, because others were always happy to give her the tasks that in other farmholds would fall to them.
So when her mam got up, some time before first light, the breakfast would be mostly done, the kitchen would be cleaned and the dogs would fed. When her brother Mark got up, at first light, the troughs would be full, the milking machine would be ready and the animals would already be out. When her dad got up, some time after first light, the tractor would be filled with petrol, the rotas would be ready for the lads, and his bacon would be crispy.
And this was aside from the other things she did. She washed and scrubbed and cleaned, she mended clothes and farm equipment with equal skill, she single-handedly saw to any birth or death of an animals that occurred at an inconvenient hour, she fetched in the wood and fiddled the accounts better than even her uncle Larry could manage. All of this she did all night, every night, except for the short stretch of each evening she allowed herself to read.
She had been doing this since she was four, when she had become increasingly puzzled at sleep, and had decided not to go in for any of that nonsense. She started with the old books in the house, but these were few and simplistic, tending to feature annoyingly smug yet gung-ho males who did such unlikely things as fly planes, drink whisky, or go into distant fantasy lands to free the exotic populace with the aid only of a crotchety goat, a compliant female, and a magical slipper. The girl decided she was having none of that, and so she started visiting the library, on the sly of course, because that was her secret.
But that was an hour of her life, the rest of her unsleeping time belonged to family and farm.
Now word got out, and a few of the local boys perked up at the idea. The girl was known to be quiet and a little shy, was decently pretty, was the daughter of a well-off farmer and allegedly never stopped working. Quite the prize they were sure.
And so they began to court her.
First was William ‘Billy’ Avers, whose family were from up Ashington way. He came to the girl one day and decided he would act like a real man, because that’s what all birds liked (especially her sort). He was sure.
“Morning pet,” he said as she stitched her brother’s many work shirts in the back yard, “I’ve been seeing you about like, and I reckon you could handle me, and there’s not many birds I’d say that about.”
The girl smiled, and said she would indeed handle him, if he could only guess her favourite book.
“Book?” He sneered. “What’s a lass like you want one of them for?”
And so the girl lost her temper with the uncouth youth and strangled Billy, and left his body in the pig trough. They fed well that day.
Next was Abdul ‘Abbers’ Carter, whose family were ‘not from these parts’, as the locals were wont to say in politer company. He decided the best way to woo the girl was to act like an old fashioned gentleman, and charm his way into her affections. A friendly smile and some choice, polite words would be just what such a quiet, hardworking girl would fall for. He was sure.
“Good morning Miss Handler,” he was wearing his best jacket, his cleanest t-shirt, and his shiniest trainers when he approached her outside the Post Office, “what a fine day this is. Would you care to take a turn about the graveyard? ‘Tis uncommonly pretty since the litter pick.”
The girl smiled, and said she would indeed take a turn with him in the graveyard, if he could only guess her favourite book.
“Why,” he said after some thought, “for a genteel lady such as yourself, I would assume the many romances of Mrs Stephanie Meyers.”
And so the girl lost her temper with the boy who saw her as such a stereotype, and caved in the back of his head with the hardback copy of Pushkin’s
The Tales of the Late Ivor Peterovich Belkin which she kept in her handbag for emergencies. Later depositing his body in the freshly dug flower-bed of the vicarage, as there were some useful rumours about the suspiciously new vicar and his wild, catholic youth. The Rhododendrons did uncommonly well that year.
The third boy to try his luck was little James ‘Jammy Dodger’ Atkinson, whose family were local and had been local as long as anybody cared to remember (and they certainly cared to remind other folk, sometimes twice a week). He decided that honesty was the best policy, and felt that if he told her exactly why he would like them to plan a life together, then she would be his. He was sure.
“Hey,” he said, as she untangled the remains of a sheep from the wire fence that bordered the gorge that separated their farms. “I’ve been thinking, ‘n my dad sez I ought to get married, ‘n I reckon your dad would want you to marry my dad’s only son, bring the two farms together sort’a thing. Up for it?”
The girl smiled, and said she would marry him for his massive endowment, if he could only guess her favourite book.
“Err...
The Bible?” he managed after several moments of hard thought, delving for the name of something he had once read, in the distant time when he was required to do such taxing things.
And so the girl lost her temper with the boy who didn’t even pretend to like reading, and whipped him to death with a length of barbed wire, before allowing his mutilated body to sink into the bogs on the far side of the gorge. The tadpoles did reasonably well, that year.
For a time there were no further attempts to court, seduce or marry the girl who never slept, the village was far too interested in the mysterious disappearances to think of such things. The girl continued on as she had, deep at night working her way through one of the more readable greats of Russian literature, and otherwise just generally working.
But eventually there came attention from another boy, the slightly drippy boy, the boy on holiday with his parents despite being a little too old to be doing so. They were staying in a caravan, rumour had it the three of them shared a bed.
She caught him staring intensely at her, one afternoon in the library. He was sitting with a tome bedecked in fake, black leather, with a silver skull on the cover. She was standing, browsing a collection of diaries, coloured in shades of green and brown, and published by Faber & Faber.
She felt uncomfortable with his gaze on her neck, not because she was unwelcome to such attention, but just because she didn’t want word getting back to her family that she wasted time in the library. They could get very snippy when she rested, they feared the disease would become terminal.
But he solved this dilemma and, for the first time in his life, the boy asked a girl out. Had it simply been for the way she fondled her folios, he may have been able to resist. Even though the way she handled her hardbacks left him wide eyed and panting, he simply wouldn’t have dared. But the way she pawed her paperbacks, well, that was quite another thing indeed.
The girl smiled, and told him she would indeed go round the back and fuck like bunnies, if only he could tell her what her favourite book was.
He did not hesitate, merely wrinkled his brow in confusion and asked;
“You mean you actually have a favourite?”
No one could have a favourite, he was sure.
And that was it, she was in love.
She was not a girl to wait around, and he was not a boy to blow such a chance. Seventeen minutes later they were engaged, and slightly out of breath. But neither family were pleased with the news.
His mother wailed and screamed and mourned the passing of her baby, she did not make it sound as though he were dead to her, she made it sound as though death would have been the preferable option. Her dad shouted and raged, asked what they were going to do on the farm. Who would strangle the unwanted kittens now, he wondered, did she expect her brother to do it instead? She found it all very tiresome.
Happily, their dilemma was brought to an unaccountably fast end by the execution of Operation
Casus Belli, when a unit of police stormed the farm. The bodies had been found, and it was common knowledge that all three of the boys had been going to ask out the peculiar girl with the bags under her eyes. Her dad was not known to be a gun-shy man, nor to be the kind of man who would allow his daughter do something so selfish as choose her own husband, so the police came with what numbers they could, and they came loudly.
Their cars had flashing lights and rattling engines, in her father’s head came a flashback to that tragic night he had watched
Full Metal Jacket,
Saving Private Ryan and
Apocalypse Now back-to-back. The bang of a faulty exhaust completed the relapse and out came the shotgun, with which he retreated to a makeshift barricade consisting of the fridge, the dresser, two sofas and the kitchen table. From that spot he peppered the invading filth with antique lead, accompanied only by a succession of equally matured terms of abuse.
Armed response was sent, and in the ensuing gun battle the girl’s mam and brother were both killed, and her dad eventually subdued and arrested, after a good seeing-too in the police van. The two lovers escaped through the field, and soon reached his caravan.
The boy solved the dilemma of his parents by placing a sheep’s head in the vehicle’s small fridge, leading his mother to panic and cling to her short and tubby husband in fright, accidentally smothering the poor man in her comically large bosoms. She then killed herself, thoughtfully saving her son the effort, though the effort of weighting their corpses for disposal in the river still remained.
The young, literate lovers then departed in the blissful malaise of first romance, and planned their life together. They found themselves opposite enough to be interesting, and similar enough to be compatible. He did sleep, but mostly through the day, which was ideal for her because she was never lonely when it was light. More importantly he did not call her pet, he had never seen the appeal in shiny trainers, and happily he had no intention of ever owning a farm. Instead he had a caravan all of his own, she’d never met anyone who could offer her the open road in such a way.
The marriage could not last, he was a genre boy to his death, and she was a lit-fic girl always and forever, but it was certainly fun for a time.
Copyright John Conway - 2011 - john.charles.conway@googlemail.com
