Dave Trellis and the Allotments of Doom (4 page)

Dave beckoned
to Enoch, who trotted over to the pavilion.

‘Look, that lad
is green as a cucumber. He doesn’t know his elbow from a punch in
the kidneys, you can’t let him play with you and the dogs,’ said
Dave.

‘Is he
warrior?’ asked Enoch. ‘Does mother dress him?

‘Don’t give me
that old crap; you know how innocent he is.’

‘He want play –
let play. Just rugby, no swords.’

‘Enoch, he’s
human, not palaver, not dog. He can’t play with you – he’ll be
wrecked.’

‘Dave, we be
gentle. Let him be man.’

‘Only if you
accept responsibility Enoch, you break him, you fix him.’

‘Done, Davey
boy,’ said Enoch, who lifted his arms up, threw his head back and
yelled. ‘Now rugby - ARRROOOOGAAAHH!’

Dave
Trellis

One
Life, One Woman, One Shed

Enoch kicked
off. The ball flew through the early evening air in a lazy,
tumbling arc. A dog leapt high and grabbed the ball in mid-air. The
game was on.

The ball flew
down the line, from dog to dog to Fergus, who took it at speed and
made for the line. His legs pumping hard, feet hitting the firm dry
turf, accelerating, leaning almost too far forward. Ball grasped
firmly against his chest, he pounded down the wing towards the last
defending Palaver.

Three strides
from the hulking figure, Fergus changed grip and made ready to pass
the ball back towards the centre. He started the pass, but at the
last minute dummied and jinked left. The defender left standing and
Fergus dived for the line. Three feet off the ground with the ball
outstretched, Fergus was hit by three Palavers, each with its own
distinct trajectory. 600 kilos of high gravity muscle descended
with substantial velocity on the frail human body of Fergus Loaf
and he was undone.

Dave ran across
the lawn. He pushed his way into the muttering huddle of dog and
Palaver.

‘The entire
diameter of ball has to cross line and the player must exert
downward force for it to be a try,’ said Enoch, reading carefully
from a small book.

One of the dogs
half barked, half yowled and Enoch grinned. ‘Yar, good point,
plenty downward force.’ There was some general sniggering, before
Dave exploded.

‘You cretins,
you broke him didn’t you. I told you he’s just human. What did you
want and go and do that for?’

‘He fine Dave,
we lever out of ground, get breath back. No worries,’ said
Enoch.

‘Yes there are
worries you clod. Look at him; he looks like a kid’s drawing of Mr
Corkscrew Legs. There’s blood everywhere.

‘Oh. We thought
weak bladder. Is bad Dave?’

Dave looked
down at the broken mess that was Fergus Loaf. It was worse than he
thought. Not just broken legs. The knees bent in the wrong
direction, probably with multiple fractures hidden below the turf.
The pelvis was too narrow and the torso seemed to join the lower
body at the wrong angle.

The anger on
Dave’s face drained away.

‘It’s bad
Enoch, really, really bad. We can’t fix this. He might even
die.’

Enoch’s grin
disappeared and he whistled two loud, rising notes. Something round
and flat was thrown hard by one of the Palaver. Enoch caught it,
held the disk between his palms, and twisted. The disk split open
along its edge. Enoch ripped open Fergus’s shirt and pressed one of
the halves firmly onto Fergus’s chest.

Enoch studied
the other half of the disk and pressed it a few times. Fergus
shuddered, coughed, and drew in a huge breath. His eyes blinked
open and he jerked his head forward. Enoch pressed the disk again,
and with a sigh, Fergus closed his eyes and sank into
unconsciousness.

‘Won’t die
now,’ said Enoch.

‘Aye, but he’ll
never play rugby again,’ said Dave.

Enoch scratched
his chin and grinned.

‘We fix him.
Fix him good. But not allowed - embargo. Still, special
circumstances Dave. You have power. Who are we not to obey the
Planetary Plenipotentiary?’

Dave raised his
eyebrows and stared at Enoch.

‘Oh right. Now
all of a sudden the unbreakable embargo can be ignored at the wave
of my imperial hand. Enoch you are so full of it I am surprised you
don’t squelch when you walk. ‘You break him, you fix him’ that was
the deal. Don’t go dumping responsibility on my doorstep. I shall
be in the pavilion, taking a much-deserved snifter of the finest
Irish. I shall be casting my all powerful eyes over there.’ Dave
pointed towards the barbican, ‘Do what you have to, I don’t want to
see, I don’t want to know.’

Dave stomped
back to the pavilion, deliberately not hearing words like ‘viral
re-structuring’, ‘half-body soup suit’ or ‘emergency pupation’.

Two hours later
Fergus had regained the priceless gift of consciousness and sat
lengthways on a bench with his back against the wall of the
pavilion. A flexible casing, like half a sarcophagus enclosed
Fergus from the waist down and a thick woollen blanket covered his
shoulders. He sat opposite Dave, his right arm resting on a card
table, his hand holding a large Irish whiskey. The other held a
cigar, which he waved around as he made his point.

‘They have no
skill, just speed and strength. Now with a bit of -’

A voice yelled
‘Incoming!’ and a yowling descended through the evening gloom.

‘Oh bugger not
again,’ said Dave, who stood quickly, held his whiskey and cigar
high in the air and took two paces backwards. A dark blue blur
landed on the veranda and sent the table flying. The dog scrambled
to its feet and with claws skidding on the wooden floor, ran
straight back out again.

Dave shouted at
the departing dog, it sounded like ‘hussen vaver’ and from the
gloom came a growled response of ‘vuvark’

‘What was
that?’ asked Fergus.

‘Oh, I called
him ‘a dog that likes to sniff its own farts’ and he replied I was
‘an old grey snout who licks his testicles for pleasure,’ said Dave
as he set the table upright and sat down.

‘They aren’t
dogs are they? I mean every day, household dogs’

‘No lad, they
aren’t,’ said Dave, ‘More your Superdog or Ubermutt. To be
accurate, elite military-trained beings from another world. Think
S.A.S. with four legs, shiny coat, and a wet nose. They specialise
in reconnaissance and diplomatic protection. Not that they talk
about it mind, but the Palaver are terrible gossips.’

‘And the
Palaver?’ asked Fergus.

‘Finest
infantry in existence, apart from the show tunes that is.’

‘So they are
here to protect Earth from things that arrive, like the Honey Bun?’
asked Fergus.

Dave laughed,
‘The dogs are here due to diplomatic incidents or just plain bad
luck. They are hiding, like many of our visitors. The Palaver come
here to visit the dogs, comrades in arms and all that. We’re just
the local natives; think of the British Empire and how we treated
the indigenous population of our colonies. It’s all a bit hoisted
by our own petard, if you get my drift.’

‘I don’t
understand.’

‘Give it time
lad, it’ll come,’ said Dave. Just understand this; they are here
for their own benefit. Of course they are fond of our ethnic
traditions, interesting native culture and they allow us a fig leaf
of dignity by letting us think we’re in charge. This is just a safe
haven to them.’

‘Like in the
film Casablanca?’ asked Fergus.

‘Aye, but put a
sock in it lad, if the Palaver hear you, it’ll be ‘As Time Goes By’
all bloody night. Any road, what about you? What’s your story?’

‘Hmm, it’s hard
to know where to start. I’m an orphan, sort of. My parents left me
with my uncle Bran when I was eleven. They went on expedition to
Brazil. They were supposed to return in six months, but they never
came back. I tried to find out what happened. The Brazilian Embassy
denied any knowledge of them, no entry visa, no hotel records,
nothing. I couldn’t find any flight details of them going anywhere.
Their bank accounts were untouched. My uncle helped, but he always
seemed resigned to their disappearance, as if searching for them
was hopeless.

I suppose I
never really believed they were gone for good. I kept expecting
them to arrive suddenly, all smiles and exotic presents.

About a year
after that I was packed off to boarding school and my uncle went to
look for them. There was plenty of money, so I never suffered, but
I was lonely and felt a bit sorry for myself. Eventually I just got
on with it.

I went to a
good school, had friends, a few girlfriends and so on. I stuffed up
my A-levels trying to disprove Quantum Mechanics. It is wrong you
know, I just can’t invent the maths necessary to prove it. I left
school and drifted for a while; then my entire world was turned
upside down by a visit to the local allotments.’

‘So how come
you’re broke and homeless?’ asked Dave.

‘I was funded
while in full time education. I get the rest when I’m thirty. My
parents felt young people are irresponsible.’

‘Sharp people
your parents. So you’re just a trust fund kid slumming it until the
inheritance kicks in.’

‘Hey, I worked
hard to fail my A-levels and now I’m trying to support myself. I’m
an entrepreneur not a trustafarian.’

Fergus drew on
his cigar and watched the dim figures on the lawn struggling in the
growing twilight.

‘Don’t they
ever give up?’ asked Fergus.

‘Well, they
would have packed it in ages ago, but you went and buggered it all
up by scoring a try. That hasn’t happened before and the Palaver
never admit defeat. This could run and run.’

‘What? Nobody
scored before?’

‘Nope. The dogs
keep knocking the Palaver down like skittles. The Palaver keep
picking the dogs up and throwing them back down the pitch. It’s a
stalemate. Anyways, aren’t you worried, what with this rubber cast
around your legs and everything? Don’t you want to know what
happened?’

‘Strangely, I
feel completely at ease, happy even. It’s probably the painkillers
or perhaps this excellent whiskey. As to what happened? Well, I was
just about to score when I became very heavy and it all went dark.
I do remember dropping the ball though. I didn’t ground it; it
wasn’t a try.’

Dave stared at
Fergus then smiled; he pulled a whistle from his pocket and blew it
long and hard. The yells, grunts, barks and growls stopped and out
of the gloom trooped twelve exhausted Palaver and twelve
dishevelled dogs. They formed a rough semicircle in front of the
pavilion and gave Dave, the official match referee, their full
attention.

‘Right listen
up! Full time, end of game, the score nil – nil. The try is
disallowed as Ace here,’ Dave hooked a thumb towards Fergus, ‘Tells
me it wasn’t grounded.’

The Palaver
grinned like teenagers in a brothel and put up a tired, ragged
cheer. One the dogs muttered ‘hussen vaver’, turned round and
kicked grass at Fergus. Enoch stepped onto the veranda and patted
Fergus on the cast.

‘Honesty may be
own reward, but we do something nice for you. Good man.’

The Palaver
wandered away, the dogs trotted off, unintelligible banter passing
between them fading in the night, with only a loud cry, and a sharp
yelp before the quiet descended leaving Dave and Fergus in the
bright light of a hissing primus lamp.

Finally Dave
broke the silence ‘I don’t suppose you play Go by any chance?’

‘I’m not going
anywhere,’ said Fergus, ‘and it would be interesting to learn a new
board game.’

‘I’ll give you
a nine point start and how about a fiver on the side just to make
it interesting?’

‘Ok you’re on,’
said Fergus and shook Dave’s hand.

‘I’ll go and
get the board and stones,’ said Dave and stood up. He was gone some
time. When he returned he placed a thick wooden board on the table
and at each side a wooden bowl filled with stones the shape of Mint
Imperials, one set of stones black, the other white. Then Dave set
nine black stones on the thick wooden board, each on the
‘Three-Three’ points, the intersection of three lines in from each
corner.

‘This here is
considered your first move; you play on the crosses not the
squares. So how did you know it was a board game?’ asked Dave as he
played his first move.

‘Lucky guess?’
said Fergus, but the tone and the twinkle in the eye gave it
away.

‘Bugger,’ said
Dave.

Sometime later,
after a string of humiliating setbacks, Dave sighed and passed over
a rumpled five pound note.

‘Thanks Mr
Trellis,’ said Fergus, ‘Not just for the fiver you understand.
Thanks for the whiskey, the excellent cigar and a cracking game of
Go.’

‘After today
lad, you can call me Dave. And thank you for not behaving like a
pillock. You stood still and shut up, when most people would have
run screaming for the nearest hole in the ground. Moreover, you had
the hubris to play rugby with that lot, which points to stupidity
or bravery verging on the suicidal; probably the former in your
case. So well done lad, good job.

‘Which brings
me to a few thing I need to say,’ continued Dave, ‘I’m sure you’re
thinking that after all that went on this afternoon, after all you
have seen, I could not possibly refuse a polite request for an
allotment. You may consider that the slightest insinuation of a
phone call to the papers, the BBC, or even the local police would
force my hand. In this you would be wrong. Any such feeble attempt
at coercion would be firmly rebuffed for two reasons. First, no one
would believe you; second, you wouldn’t get far before Enoch ripped
your liver out through your arsehole.