Nowt Better To Do

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Nowt Better To Do

Concrete, that’s what’s needed for a good foundation,” grunted Bill as he heaved another shovel full of sand into the mixer. “Just a drop of water this time, Nell,” he urged his wife, “don’t want it too sloppy or it’ll never set.”

He waited for her to splash the water in before he delicately sprinkled a little more of the powered cement into the mixture after the manner of a master chef seasoning a haute cuisine dish for his favourite patron.

“Are you nearly finished?” asked Nell, dashing the perspiration from of her eyes, as she added another trickle of water. “You’d better say yes, if your want any dinner.”

Bill gave her a dirty look. “Can’t we get it done tonight?”

She shuffled her shoes in the dry soil as she pretended to think about his suggestion.

“OK, but it’ll have to be toasted sandwiches or spaghetti on toast. If you’re dead set on finishing before dark I won’t have time for anything else so you’d better get used to the idea.”

She could have hit him with the bucket, daft old fool. He was determined to make his neighbours pay for his frustration. What did it matter if the guava hedge was encroaching on their property? She always picked the fruit on her side and made it into jelly; jelly that Bill spread lavishly on his toast at breakfast.

“Well, are you going to stand there dreaming all the ruddy night,”

Nell took a deep breath, for two pins she’d throw the next can of water at him and go inside and lock the door. She watched him up end the mixer and pour the concrete into his wheelbarrow. As he trundled off with to where he’d dug the holes for the concrete blocks, she wondered why he’d got the old mixer out, couldn’t he have bought some of that quick-mix stuff they sold at the hardware place and mixed it in a bucket?

He was determined to get the blocks set in place before dark. Footings for a shed he was going to build, a shed, which would be sited so that it blocked their neighbour’s view of the bay. It wasn’t as if it was a panoramic view, they had to stand at the kitchen window and look hard to the left to catch a glimpse of the sea. But it was a boast of theirs that they had a view of the bay, and if Bill had his way, that boast was soon going to be a thing of the past.

Ever since his heart attack, and the specialist recommended that he sell his small business, he’d been looking for a fight with someone. He hated the inactivity, hated sitting around the house. He didn’t seem to realise that life was no picnic for her either; having an old, grumpy man under her feet every day. She’d suggested hobbies, a painting class, the bridge club, and even a walking group, after all the doctor had told him that a half hour’s walk daily would do wonders for him, but he was having none of it. He’d spent the last month preparing to wage war on the Simmonds. Poor things, they’d done nothing to justify his rage. The damned guava hedge had been there for over thirty years, you couldn’t blame Maddie for refusing to pander to his whim to have it removed and replaced with a fence. She’d laughed in his face when he told her that he was quite prepared to cough up half the money it would cost.

“Stands to reason you would,” she’d retorted, “ that’s the law. But there’s no law that says we have to dig out our hedge. I don’t know what’s got into you lately, Bill, you’re like a bear with a sore head most of the time.”

“It’s that damned hedge that’s got into me woman,” he’d yelled back at her, “ that damned hedge, it gets up my nose.”

Maddie hadn’t stayed to listen; she’d slammed her back door on him. Which was the best thing to do under the circumstances, but only served to strengthen his determination to get back at her.

Maddie knew exactly how Nell felt. She’d even suggested Nell buy him some St John’s Wort to calm him down and rid him of the black depression, which sat on him like a witch’s cloak and addled his thinking. But how on earth could Nell to persuade him to take the stuff? He called alternative medicine, modern quackery and laughed at her friends who swore by their Rescue Remedy and suchlike.

“Silly fools”, he ranted, “have they nothing better to do with their money?”

The job was finished at last and as Nell set about heating the tin of spaghetti and toasting the bread she smiled to herself. This meal will serve him right, she thought, knowing how he hated makeshift dinners, but she wasn’t going to let on that she had a perfectly good casserole stored in the freezer, which she could have heated in the microwave. Let him pay for his sins. At least tomorrow would see them out of the house. They’d promised to visit an old army friend, Ian, who lived over the other side of town, and she knew he wouldn’t miss that for the worlds.

Bill was out before six examining his handiwork but the promise of a day out seemed to have placed a cap on his temper for once. She heard him singing in the shower, something that hadn’t happened for quite a while. Thank God for small mercies she thought as she picked a bunch of roses to take for Rose.

The journey across town was without incident. Rose had the jug boiling and some of her special fruit cake waiting for them when they arrived. Soon it was obvious that Ian had something planned, he was a like a cat on hot bricks as he urged Bill to get a shuffle on and it wasn’t long before the two of them were hurrying out to the car.

“We won’t be long girls,” called Ian as they disappeared through the door.

“Bill’s going to enjoy this,” said Rose as she settled herself in an armchair, “Ian’s taking him to fly a kite.”

“A kite,” exclaimed Nell, ‘I don’t think that will appeal to Bill, the mood he’s been in lately he’s liable to fly off the handle and give Ian a lecture about childish nonsense.”

“We’ll see,” said Rose, “come on Nell, lets have all the latest gossip.”

Nell felt herself tensing when the front door slammed heralding the men’s return,. Please Lord, she thought, don’t let him have done his bun and the sight of the big grin on Bill’s face as he entered the room assured her that this was one prayer the Lord had answered. Then when Ian offered to lend Bill a kite, so he could practice at home, her cup ran over.

The next few days were heaven. Early each morning Bill announced that the breeze was exactly right for kite flying. She packed him a picnic lunch and he took off for hours. She even found time to read the novel Rose had lent her. Bill returned home daily hungry, ready for dinner and full of the joy of kite flying. It wasn’t long before he was on the phone to Ian to arranging a visit to the kite shop.

As for the footings he’d poured, well, on the first day without a breeze, Bill boxed them in with lengths of timber and turned the ground between them into raised garden beds.

“It’ll save all that bending and back ache and be just the job for a couple of old fogies like us,” he assured Nell as he grabbed his kite ready for another exciting day out in the paddocks.