Volleyball

I spent the evening trimming some of the hedges with the hedge clippers. I did it just a few weeks ago, but they’ve grown a lot since then. The grass was cut just a few days ago, and that’s after getting high again too.

My cousin Hugh was once caught in the hotel where the Australian women’s volleyball team were staying. He had recently become engaged to his girlfriend, Annabel, and her cousin Betty was coming over from America to stay with her family. A few days before the visit, Annabel’s aunt asked her if she had Betty’s phone number in America. Annabel picked up a dictionary and looked through that, and then she wondered why she was looking through a dictionary when she should be looking in her address book. And she found it even more curious that she was looking in the dictionary under J. She got the number from her address book and wrote it down on a piece of paper. When her aunt reminded her about it later, Annabel said, “It’s J… No, sorry, that’s not it… I have it written down somewhere.” Her sister had just got back from a holiday in Belgium with her husband and her son. Annabel asked her nephew what he had learnt about Belgium. He hadn’t really learnt anything, but he tried to think of something. He said, “In Belgium, snails can get jobs as… doormen. Or door snails.” Annabel didn’t put much thought into that, but something in the back of her mind told her that it didn’t sound quite right. Later on in the evening she decided to check it up in the encyclopaedia, under B for Belgium, but she ended up looking in the dictionary under J. As she looked through the pages she tried to remember what it was she was looking for. Whatever it was, she couldn’t find it in the dictionary under J. She decided to look in her address book under B. She came across the name of a friend of hers who she went on holiday with on the previous year. This friend got into an argument with the doorman at a hotel and she called him a pig. The barman in the hotel was much nicer. He was from Australia, and Annabel’s friend called him a lamb. Annabel remembered all this when she saw the name in her address book, and it seemed to provide the answer she was looking for, even though she still couldn’t entirely remember the question. On the following evening she went to see a musical called ‘The Hill and I’. The woman in the starring role would say ‘It’s cold up here’ to indicate that she was on the hill, or ‘I’m glad to get out of the wind’ to show when she’s not on the hill. She had a pet lamb who was played by a young boy, and the only words he ever said were variations of ‘baa’. Annabel could definitely hear an Australian accent in his baa-ing. The other main character in the musical was a man who kept trying to catch the lamb with a net, but he always failed because the lamb constantly jumped up and down. Betty was arriving on the following day. She was travelling around the country and she was due to check into a hotel, and my cousin Hugh was supposed to collect her there. He called Annabel on the phone to get the name of the hotel, but she couldn’t remember it off the top of her head. She had written it on a piece of paper, but instead of looking at that she looked at a newspaper article she had been reading about the Australian women’s volleyball team. As she read it, in her mind she saw the lamb jumping up and down at the net. She gave Hugh the name of the hotel where the volleyball team were staying, so he went there to collect Annabel’s cousin. At the reception he said he was there to collect Betty and they gave him the room number. He went up the stairs and knocked on the door, and a voice from inside told him to come in. When he went into the room he could hear the sound of a shower, so he assumed that Betty must be having a shower, which seemed to be confirmed when he heard the voice again: “I’m just having a shower. I’ll be out in a minute.” But Hugh heard an Australian accent and he assumed he was in the wrong room. In the wrong room with a woman in the shower was not the place to be for a man who recently won a local election. He went towards the door to make his getaway, but he heard voices outside, and the door knob started to turn. Hugh headed straight for the wardrobe, and he managed to hide himself inside before anyone saw him. But a woman who had come into the room headed straight for the wardrobe too. She opened the door and saw my cousin inside. He saw her too, next to a man who looked familiar. He was a journalist who had come to interview the volleyball players. The woman in the shower thought it was this journalist who knocked on the door. Her team mate met him in the hall and brought him inside. Hugh decided that the best course of action in this situation was complete honesty. He said, “I think I’ve got the wrong room,” and he left as quickly as possible. On the following morning, the headline on the front page of the paper was: Local Politician Caught in Women’s Volleyball Team Hotel. He had a lot of explaining to do when Annabel saw it. He told her the story and she accepted it because she couldn’t help feeling that she was partly to blame. She didn’t know exactly how, but she got that feeling. He didn’t have any explaining to do to the electorate. The incident did his popularity a lot of good.

The moose’s head over the fireplace was staring blankly ahead when I came into the room. I glanced up at its face and its expression seemed to suggest that he remembered meeting Ingrid Bergman. I couldn’t figure out what it was about the expression that suggested meeting Ingrid Bergman. I looked out the window for a while, then I walked back to the other end of the room. I looked at the moose again and I could see Ingrid Bergman stroking his head and whispering something in his ear. I could see it in the eyes.

Bees

I put the watering can on the ground and turned on the tap. I looked up at two birds flying into a breeze in the blue sky above me, rising slowly and diving quickly. I only looked down when the watering can was overflowing.

My aunt Audrey once told me a story about bees. Whenever I say that to people they say, “No, Henry. She didn’t tell you a story about bees. You were just stung by a bee.” But no, they’re thinking of another time. She did once tell me a story about throwing a shoe at a bee. She was staying with her son, Hector, and his family. He has two daughters, Alice and Grace. Their mother taught Alice the difference between a hare and a rabbit and she loved being able to identify them, but she hardly ever got a chance to identify hares because she rarely saw them. There were plenty of rabbits around. She started identifying things as not being hares. With almost everything she came across that wasn’t a hare she said, “That’s not a hare.” But she got bored with putting everything into the non-hare category, so she started identifying things like tables or spoons as hares. She used to make little ‘hare’ labels and leave them everywhere. Hector would often walk around the fields with Alice and Grace, and Alice would identify things as hares. “That’s a hare, and that’s a hare. That’s a hare too, annnnd there’s another hare.” “But that’s a rabbit,” Hector would say, and she’d say, “Oh yeah. But there are too many rabbits as it is. Let’s say it’s a hare.” Hector knew two people called Betty-Sue. He’d often meet them in the pub, and he’d boast to everyone about how he knew two people called Betty-Sue. He once saw both of them changing a light bulb and he came up with a joke about how many Betty-Sues it takes to change a light bulb. It wasn’t really a joke. He’d just say, “How many Betty-Sues does it take to change a light bulb,” and laugh. He was in the pub one evening when one of the Betty-Sues walked in wearing a T-shirt with ‘Mary-Lou’ written across the front. Hector had had a few drinks, and he couldn’t quite get his mind around the sight. He thought he might be able to understand it better if he looked at the T-shirt with his reading glasses, so he took them out, but he found a ‘rabbit’ label stuck to them (Alice had got sick of too many hares). This confused him even more. He looked up at the ceiling. One of the light bulbs was gone, and he wondered if this had something to do with the fact that one of the Betty-Sues had become a Mary-Lou, but he was too confused to work it out. He went home early that evening. The girls were playing Monopoly with their mother and their grandmother, my aunt Audrey, who was staying with them for a few nights. Alice had put a ‘rabbit’ label on all of the pieces on the Monopoly board, including the dog. One of the light switches upstairs used to make a buzzing sound every time it was turned on, and the light flickered. Grace came to believe that somewhere there was a switch to turn on the bees too. Alice said it was a stupid idea, but she was secretly hoping that her sister would find the switch so they could turn the bees off. Grace tried a lot of different light switches in the house to see which one was for the bees. The only switch left to check was the one for the living room, where they were playing Monopoly. It was starting to get dark when Hector arrived home, and his wife asked him to turn on the light in the living room. He went to the light switch. There were too switches on the wall – one for the kitchen and one for the living room. One of them had a ‘rabbit’ label attached to it and the other had a ‘bee’ label (Grace had crossed out the word ‘rabbit’ and written in ‘bee’ – she didn’t want to turn on the switch herself because she knew that this must be the bee switch). Hector was more confused than ever when he saw the switches. He couldn’t figure out which one to turn on, so he went for the ‘rabbit’ switch because that sounded better. The light came on in the kitchen. Grace was keeping a very close eye on this. She looked into the kitchen and saw a moth flying around the light. Hector still stared at the switches. Grace got a pen and crossed out the word ‘rabbit’ on the label. She replaced it with ‘moth’, and she underlined the word ‘bee’ on the other label. Alice came over and looked at the labels on the switches. She said, “That’s not a moth. That’s a rabbit.” Grace pointed to the moth in the kitchen and said, “No it’s not. It’s a moth.” Alice wasn’t going to give in to her sister. She said, “It’s clearly a rabbit.” The confusion in their father’s mind grew even further. Alice said to him, “Dad, that’s a rabbit, isn’t it?” “Ahhh…” Alice was afraid that he was about to say ‘no’, so she said, “Or a hare.” That's when it started to make sense to Hector. “Yeah,” he said, “that’s what it is. A hare.” Alice crossed out the word ‘moth’ and wrote ‘hare’. She said, “And this one is a hare too.” She crossed out the word ‘bees’ under the other light switch and wrote ‘hare’. Suddenly it all made sense in Hector’s mind. “Of course! Betty-Sue was just wearing a Mary-Lou T-shirt. It was still the same Betty-Sue beneath the T-shirt.” “How do you know about that?” his wife said. He tried to explain it but he sounded more confused than ever. And then my aunt Audrey threw a shoe at a bee. But some people say it was a moth. I was stung by a bee when I hit my head off a tree.

The moose’s head over the fireplace seemed to be falling asleep as I came into the room, but when I looked at it, it woke up suddenly. I stood at the window and looked out at the fields. The window was open. I could hear the sound of the birds and smell the evening air. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the moose’s eyelids drooping.

The hills are alive.

When the sun was low on the horizon it lit up the back wall of the shed, but I still couldn’t find the rake. I took a walk around the gardens, stopping every now and then to take in the smells or look at the shadows on the grass, and half an hour later I found the rake leaning against the wall of the shed. I took it out earlier when I brought out the lawnmower.

My cousin Isobel was a very good ice skater and that’s how she met her fiancé, Jack. He wasn’t so good. She tried to teach him, but he got into a habit of falling over and he never got out of it. He still loved going ice skating because it meant he got to spend time with Isobel, and he couldn’t think of any other way to spend time with her. It also meant he got to spend less time with his family over the Christmas holidays. Normally he wouldn’t mind spending time with his family, but on the first day of the holidays, his mother took them all out for a long walk in the hills. He didn’t mind the walk either, but what he wanted to get away from was his mother’s singing. She always sang when she walked in the hills and she got all of them to join in. When they got back to their car after this particular afternoon of walking and singing, they found that the car had been clamped. It was a small car park out in the middle of nowhere, with only two other cars, and only theirs had been clamped. Jack’s mother wondered if they had been clamped because someone didn’t like the singing. She refused to be defeated by the clampers. She left the car there and they walked home. She made them all walk back to the car park on the following day. The car was still there and still clamped. They went for another walk in the hills, and Jack’s mother sang louder than ever. When they got back to the car it was still clamped, and she told them all that they’d be back the next day, and they’d come back every day and sing in the hills until the clamp was removed. Jack wanted to go ice skating to meet Isobel, but that wasn’t a good enough excuse to get out of the hill walking, so he told his mother that he had to go to the library (he was in college at the time). He used this excuse every day, but he always went to the ice rink. Jack’s older brother, Andy, had a seven-year-old daughter called Carol. Her mother once took her to a play performed by string puppets. It was about a man walking under a lonely star at night. He went to sleep under an apple tree next to a river and he woke up in the morning sun. She loved this play and she acted it out in almost everything she did. If she got the milk from the fridge, the milk would walk under a lonely star from the fridge and fall asleep on the table. She loved eating caramel, and she performed a very quick version of the play when she was getting the caramel because she wanted to get to the end as quickly as possible. Her father came to like caramel too because it meant he didn’t have to endure her plays for so long. He often gave her caramel. During her plays he used to read the paper until the morning sun came out. On one day during the Christmas holidays, he asked Jack to take Carol to the library for a while because he had to meet someone in the pub. Jack was going to the ice rink, so he took Carol along, but he told her not to mention the ice skating at all – if anyone asks, they were at the library. Carol and her father went hill walking in the afternoon while Jack was still in the ‘library’. Carol picked up a stick and acted out her uncle Jack’s visit to the library. As Jack walked under a lonely star he kept falling over. He was very unsteady on his feet. When Jack’s mother saw this the only explanation she could think of was that Jack had been drinking. He must have been going to the pub rather than the library. But that seemed completely out of character for Jack. In Carol’s version of the play, he fell asleep under the tree and when he woke up in the morning he said, “Oh, hello Isobel.” It all made sense in his mother’s mind when she heard about Isobel. He’s been meeting this woman and she’s been leading him astray. When Jack met his mother that evening she said, “Who’s Isobel?” “She’s… just…” “You’ve been meeting her when you should be at the library, haven’t you?” “Yes.” His mother insisted on meeting Isobel. She told Jack to bring her along on their hill walk on the following day. Isobel got a very cold reception when she met Jack’s mother. They hardly exchanged a word on the walk until the singing started. Isobel joined in and she had a beautiful voice. Jack’s mother started to think that she had misjudged my cousin. When they got back to the car the clamp was gone, and she thought Isobel was the nicest woman Jack had ever introduced to her.

The moose’s head over the fireplace seemed to be staring at something on the opposite wall when I walked into the room. I looked up and saw a spider on the wall near the ceiling. I stood at the window and looked out. I could hear the faint sound of a tractor but I couldn’t see it. I looked out until the sound faded. When I turned around the spider had reached the ground, but the moose’s head had lost interest in it.

Golf

I spent the evening painting the shed. It was built over fifty years ago, and as far as I know, it was only painted once since then. The green paint on the wood had been fading and flaking for years. I painted it red.

My cousin Darren once played golf. He only played once because that first round didn’t go so well. He was playing with his boss, and everything was perfect until the tenth hole. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful setting. Darren took a deep breath and said, “This place looks amazing. You could almost imagine deer coming out of the woodland.” His boss, Bob, told him about his own pet deer called ‘Donkey’. He decided to get a pet deer because he thought he could use it to attract women, and women did find the idea of a pet deer very appealing when he told them about it, but then he told them the name and they suddenly found the idea very unappealing. He hadn’t attracted a single woman with Donkey. As he was telling this story, a group of people were standing behind them on the tee, waiting for Bob to take his shot. The Saint Patrick’s Day parade had taken place a few days earlier, and the floats in that year’s parade were very different from previous entries. On the year before that, a group of school kids entered the parade. They just walked along the route. One of them held a Japanese flag, one rang a bell and the rest just waved to the crowd. For some reason, one of them was holding a pencil in the air, but his teacher kept telling him to put it away. Their excuse was that their float had been stolen by joyriders, but really they’d just forgotten about the parade. They won because people had pity on them. So on the following year all of the entrants tried to elicit pity. One group of people just walked the route of the parade and kept walking. They pretended that they didn’t have homes to go to. They would have won if they had stopped walking on the first night, but they wanted to make sure, so they kept walking for two days, and it was this group who turned up on the golf course. They stood on the tenth tee and they heard the end of Bob’s story about Donkey the deer. They heard him refer to ‘Donkey’ and the woman who led the group asked him who or what Donkey was. Bob had seen them in the parade and he thought they were homeless people. He felt guilty about having a pet deer when these people had nothing, so he told them that Donkey was his pet donkey. Having a pet donkey was nothing to feel guilty about, and they were very impressed by this. They walked around with Bob and Darren, and Bob told them all about his donkey, but on the fourteenth green he told them a story about the time Donkey got his antlers stuck in an apple tree, and the leader of the group said, “Antlers? He’s not really a donkey at all, is he?” “No,” Bob said, “he’s a deer.” The ‘homeless’ people didn’t like this at all. For the rest of the round they constantly booed Bob and Darren. This is what put my cousin off golf. But the group weren’t really angry with Bob. They weren’t really homeless. The only reason they got on the golf course was because most of them were members. The woman who led the group called around to Bob’s house a few days later to see the deer. They’re engaged now. A few other people in Darren’s office have tried this method to attract women – buy a deer called Donkey and tell women that you have a donkey called Donkey.

The moose’s head over the fireplace reminded me of Sherlock Holmes when I walked into the room. As I looked out the window I imagined the moose wearing a hat and smoking a pipe. I turned around to look at it. I think there was something about the eyes that reminded me of Sherlock Holmes. I looked out the window again. A few minutes later I thought I heard the word ‘Watson’. I turned around and I very nearly said, “Yes, Holmes?”