The Lamp of the Wicked

‘It’s the reason we came to you, Mr Parry. Our surveyor said that you, of all people, would indeed give it to us… straight.’

Gomer nodded. This surveyor, Darren Booth, he was a reputable boy. He’d said these Pawsons could be looking at trouble, and he wasn’t wrong. Gomer looked over at the Efflapure, blinking through his rain-blobbed glasses.

‘All your ground’s to the far side of the house, ennit? That orchard?’

‘We did try to acquire some more, but—’

‘And how far’s he from the house?’ Gomer nodded at the Efflapure. ‘Four foot? Five foot? Bugger-all distance, ennit? You don’t do that, see, Mrs P. Should’ve been set back, that thing, well bloody back. Likely Lodge done it this way to save a few yards o’ pipe and having to go into the old orchard, mess with roots and stuff. But you never digs it in that close to a house, specially—’

‘We specifically…’ Mrs Pawson all but stamped her nice clean trainer in the mud. ‘We specifically told him that cost was not an issue.’

‘Ah…’ Gomer waved a hand. ‘Some folk, they’d cut corners for the sake of it. Don’t reckon he’d’ve passed on no savings to you, mind. So, er…’ Holding back a bit, because this wasn’t good. ‘What exackly did young Darren say could happen?’

‘He didn’t.’ Mrs Pawson shivered under her umbrella. ‘He just said it could become a problem and advised us to get a second opinion, and he suggested you, as… as the most honest contractor he knew. For heaven’s sake, Mr Parry, what does it mean?’

Staring at him, all wild-eyed. She was up here on her own this weekend – husband still in London, kiddie with the nanny – and she was finding out, in the mud and the rain and the wind, how country life wasn’t always a bowl of cherries. She looked thin and lost under the big brolly, in her white jeans and her clean trainers, and Gomer felt sorry for her.

He sighed. Nobody liked jobs like this, where you had to clean up after another outfit. But this time it was Roddy Lodge, and Roddy Lodge had it coming to him.

He went over to the house wall. No way you could be entirely sure, see, but…

‘See this bit of a crack in the stonework?’

‘Is that new?’

‘Sure t’be. What he’s done, see, is dug ’isself a nice pit for this article, eight, nine feet down, right up against the ole foundations.’

‘You’re saying’ – her jaw trembling – ‘it could cause the house to collapse?’

Gomer thought about this, pushing back his cap.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘not all the house.’

They agreed it needed moving, this Efflapure, to a safer location. If you accepted that such an object was actually needed at all.

‘See, I wouldn’t’ve advised you to get one o’ them fancy things,’ Gomer said. ‘Wasteo’ money, my view of it. You got a nice, gentle slope to the ground there. Needs a simpler tank and a soakaway, like there was before. Primitive, mabbe, but he works, and he goes on workin’. No problems, no fancy meters to keep checking. Low maintenance, no renewable parts. Get him emptied every year or two, then forget all about him. Tried and tested, see, Mrs P. Tried and tested.’

A gust of wind snatched at the brolly. Mrs Pawson huffed and stuttered. ‘So what on earth are we supposed to do with the… Efflapure?’

‘Get your Mr Lodge to take the whole kit back, I’d say. Tell him what your surveyor said. He’ll know Darren Booth, see, know how he puts ’isself around the county, talks to the right people, so if you and your husband puts it over to Lodge, tackful-like, that it wouldn’t look so good if it got out he’d been cutting corners to save ’isself a few quid, you’d have most of your money back off him pretty quick, I’d say.’ Gomer nodded seriously, figuring this was good advice – at least let Lodge know there were a few folk onto his games. ‘Who was it told you to go to the feller in the first place, you don’t mind me askin’?’

‘He…’ She brought out some folded paper from a back pocket of her jeans and handed it to Gomer. ‘Somebody… pushed this leaflet through the letter box.’

Gomer opened it out. There was a drawing on the front of a roses-round-the-door Tudor cottage. Cartoon man in a doublet-thing with a ruffle round his neck and a cartoon woman in a long frock and an old-fashioned headdress. They both had big clothes-pegs on their noses. Underneath the drawing, it said:

IN DAYS OF OLDE,

DAYS BEFORE…

EFFLAPURE

Gomer tried not to wince.

Mrs Pawson said in a panicky voice, ‘It was a local firm. We thought—’

Gomer shook his head. ‘Not what I’d call a firm, exackly. Lodge, he operates out of a yard, back of Ross-on-Wye, what I’ve yeard, with a coupler part-timers on sickness benefit.’

‘But he’s an authorized agent for… for Efflapure.’

‘Agent for more dodgy outfits than you can shake a stick at,’ Gomer said.

‘So you… You know him.’

‘Well… I knows of him. Seen him around.’

Roddy, with his baseball cap and his wraparound dark glasses. Roddy and his big, whipped-cream smile.

‘Can you…?’ Mrs Pawson gripped the shaft of the umbrella with both hands, knuckles white. ‘Can you take it away?’

‘Me?’

‘You could probably make some money out of it, couldn’t you?’

‘Well…’ Gomer scratched his cheek. ‘There are places one o’ these might be suitable. Working farm, light industrial, mabbe. We could likely come to an arrangement. But I gotter say, you’d be better off going back to this Lodge and—’

‘No!’ Her whole body a-quiver now. ‘I don’t want that. I don’t want him here again.’

Traffic swished past, all mixed in with the wind. There was a sudden thump in the leaves near their feet. Gomer saw that a big, ripe Bramley had tumbled from one of the trees, but Mrs Pawson jumped and looked behind her like it could be something a deal bigger than that. Now she was actually clutching his arm, the umbrella all over the place.

‘Mr Parry, how soon could you do it?’

‘You sure you don’t wanner talk this over with your husband?’

‘How soon?’

‘Well, you won’t be yere, will you, ‘less it’s a weekend?’

‘It doesn’t matter whether we’re here or not. Could you do it tomorrow?’

‘Tomorrow?’ Gomer was more than doubtful. ‘I’d have to put it to Nev – my nephew, my partner in the business…’

‘Look,’ Mrs Pawson said, teeth gritted, shivering seriously now, ‘I just want it out of the way. We’re new to the area and we made a mistake. It was a mistake and we’re paying for it. I want it out and I don’t want… him doing it, do you understand?’

Likely this was when Gomer should have spotted something. The look on her face: this kind of… well, fear, really. No getting round that.

The up-and-down of it was that he was sorry for this London woman, alone in her farmhouse with no farm attached, husband likely bored with it already. Smart-looking, educated woman washed up here, marooned in the flat fields with the traffic blasting past.

After what happened, he’d often think what else he might have said, how else he could’ve handled it – like stalling a while, taking advice, checking Roddy out a bit more. But what was to check out? What else was there to