it due?’
‘May the twentieth or thereabouts.’
‘There’s lead in your pencil then.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘How’s Primrose?’
‘She’s grand. No sickness or anything. Mum and dad are right pleased.’
‘I’ll bet. Well, sleepless nights ahead then.’
‘No worse than lambing.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘You’ll have to visit when it arrives,’ says Max. ‘If I can prise the baby off mum. She’s that excited.’
‘Yes, I’ll bet,’ says Bartholomew. ‘Right, well, I’d best go. Give my love to Primrose.’
‘Will do. Hang on, dad wants another word.’
‘Bartholomew? One other thing,’ says Joe.
‘Yes?’ says Bartholomew, weary with his father again and making it known in his voice. This has become a habit, his shortness with Joe.
‘Nothing, never mind,’ says Joe. ‘We’ll talk at Christmas. When you come up.’
Bartholomew hangs up.
He looks across the warehouse at the lagoon of tat which is spreading across the floor, growing ever more garish with the approach of Christmas. Leonard is opening some boxes with a Stanley knife. Beside him is a huddle of statues: a boy with a bit of copper piping for a penis, a cherub with one foot missing, a Victorian lady bending with an umbrella. There are buckets of glass globes and butterflies on sticks; tables groaning with plastic toadstools, random painted figurines, pots shaped like handbags. Oh how it sold.
‘Where d’you want these?’ asks Leonard.
‘What are they?’
Leonard lifts one out of the box – a plastercast dog, nut-brown with a white tummy, carrying in its mouth a large Victorian lantern. Its neck is garlanded with red tinsel.
‘Solar-powered apparently,’ Leonard says. He holds it away from his body, as if to avoid contamination.
This was the kind of extraneous guff that Maguires excelled in. Last night, Bartholomew had driven out of town for the champagne evening on the outskirts of Guildford and had wandered, glass in hand, through the vast hangar, its aisles empty of people and smelling of sawn timber. He’d marvelled at the banks of children’s toys, power tools of every make and model, troughs full of bulbs (all the really suburban varieties). The staff were spotty adolescent boys mostly, and for all their corporate orange jackets, they appeared to have even less energy than Leonard. That pleased him, at least.
‘Put them next to the wrought-iron frogs,’ he says to Leonard. ‘With any luck they’ll eat each other. Cup of tea?’
‘Yes thanks. Don’t leave the bag in too long though. I don’t like it stewed. It should just glance the water. Skim it.’
‘Right you are,’ says Bartholomew. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through in the next couple of days. Can you sort through the bare-root trees and roses and make sure the labels are right and they’re priced up?’ He approaches the counter with two mugs. ‘I was thinking, you know, about our winter footfall. How to get people in the door, and I had this idea for a farm collective, well a shop really. We’d clear all that crap from the far corner—’
‘That crap sells,’ says Leonard.
‘Yes, but Maguires is going to do that stuff on a massive scale. I thought we should go in another direction.’ He is hoping he might sweep Leonard along, somehow make of him a ‘we’ until together they took flight. ‘We’d get together a collection of local farmers who’d come in and sell food in a farm shop and maybe people could order veg boxes through us too. It would bring people in during the quieter months.’
‘Actually I have to ask you something,’ Leonard says.
Bartholomew presses on. ‘I’m quite excited about the idea, don’t you think? I mean, early days. Thought I’d try to set up some meetings with some farmers.’
‘Can I have tomorrow off?’
‘Oh god Len, why? There’s masses to do.’
‘I’ve got a pair of No-Iron Comfort-Waist Chinos arriving from the Lands’ End catalogue.’
‘And you have to take a day
‘May the twentieth or thereabouts.’
‘There’s lead in your pencil then.’
‘Looks like it.’
‘How’s Primrose?’
‘She’s grand. No sickness or anything. Mum and dad are right pleased.’
‘I’ll bet. Well, sleepless nights ahead then.’
‘No worse than lambing.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘You’ll have to visit when it arrives,’ says Max. ‘If I can prise the baby off mum. She’s that excited.’
‘Yes, I’ll bet,’ says Bartholomew. ‘Right, well, I’d best go. Give my love to Primrose.’
‘Will do. Hang on, dad wants another word.’
‘Bartholomew? One other thing,’ says Joe.
‘Yes?’ says Bartholomew, weary with his father again and making it known in his voice. This has become a habit, his shortness with Joe.
‘Nothing, never mind,’ says Joe. ‘We’ll talk at Christmas. When you come up.’
Bartholomew hangs up.
He looks across the warehouse at the lagoon of tat which is spreading across the floor, growing ever more garish with the approach of Christmas. Leonard is opening some boxes with a Stanley knife. Beside him is a huddle of statues: a boy with a bit of copper piping for a penis, a cherub with one foot missing, a Victorian lady bending with an umbrella. There are buckets of glass globes and butterflies on sticks; tables groaning with plastic toadstools, random painted figurines, pots shaped like handbags. Oh how it sold.
‘Where d’you want these?’ asks Leonard.
‘What are they?’
Leonard lifts one out of the box – a plastercast dog, nut-brown with a white tummy, carrying in its mouth a large Victorian lantern. Its neck is garlanded with red tinsel.
‘Solar-powered apparently,’ Leonard says. He holds it away from his body, as if to avoid contamination.
This was the kind of extraneous guff that Maguires excelled in. Last night, Bartholomew had driven out of town for the champagne evening on the outskirts of Guildford and had wandered, glass in hand, through the vast hangar, its aisles empty of people and smelling of sawn timber. He’d marvelled at the banks of children’s toys, power tools of every make and model, troughs full of bulbs (all the really suburban varieties). The staff were spotty adolescent boys mostly, and for all their corporate orange jackets, they appeared to have even less energy than Leonard. That pleased him, at least.
‘Put them next to the wrought-iron frogs,’ he says to Leonard. ‘With any luck they’ll eat each other. Cup of tea?’
‘Yes thanks. Don’t leave the bag in too long though. I don’t like it stewed. It should just glance the water. Skim it.’
‘Right you are,’ says Bartholomew. ‘We’ve got a lot to get through in the next couple of days. Can you sort through the bare-root trees and roses and make sure the labels are right and they’re priced up?’ He approaches the counter with two mugs. ‘I was thinking, you know, about our winter footfall. How to get people in the door, and I had this idea for a farm collective, well a shop really. We’d clear all that crap from the far corner—’
‘That crap sells,’ says Leonard.
‘Yes, but Maguires is going to do that stuff on a massive scale. I thought we should go in another direction.’ He is hoping he might sweep Leonard along, somehow make of him a ‘we’ until together they took flight. ‘We’d get together a collection of local farmers who’d come in and sell food in a farm shop and maybe people could order veg boxes through us too. It would bring people in during the quieter months.’
‘Actually I have to ask you something,’ Leonard says.
Bartholomew presses on. ‘I’m quite excited about the idea, don’t you think? I mean, early days. Thought I’d try to set up some meetings with some farmers.’
‘Can I have tomorrow off?’
‘Oh god Len, why? There’s masses to do.’
‘I’ve got a pair of No-Iron Comfort-Waist Chinos arriving from the Lands’ End catalogue.’
‘And you have to take a day
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