Writing for Fun
November 2015
It Takes Two - Pete Norman
The removal van disappeared around the corner of the Close and Graham let out a groan. 'Good grief, it looks as if a bomb's hit the place – will we ever get it sorted?'
Sally looked at the boxes stacked at random in large piles around the lounge making it almost impossible to sit on the settee for the foreseeable future. 'Tell you what, how about a cuppa before we start, eh? Then we can concentrate on one room at a time. It won't take long once we get going. You go and sit down out there and I'll bring it to you.'
Graham squeezed through the narrow gap between the boxes to the big sliding doors and out into the warmth of the conservatory. He proudly surveyed his new garden. It had been well maintained: the beds were full of colour, a wide clump of ornamental bamboo oozed out of a pot by the side fence and a mass of red robin swarmed up the back wall . . . and above it towered the tallest Leylandii he had ever seen.
'Those bushes are bloody tall!' he called through to the kitchen.
'They're no higher than they were on the day we viewed the house.'
'Yes, well maybe I didn't take a lot of notice then, but they are tall.'
'If you remember, I did point them out to you, but you were far too interested in the size of the shed.'
'But I need a large shed . . .'
'So that's all right then.'
'But they are tall . . .' Graham tilted his head back to peer up at the top. 'Must be at least 20ft high.'
From the kitchen came a patient voice, 'More like fifteen . . . if that.'
Graham huffed. 'I'll go round and sort them out tomorrow – there are laws about the height of hedges – I'll get them to cut it lower.'
Sally brought through two steaming mugs and patiently tried to change the subject.
The following day they walked around the corner, Graham striding out purposefully and Sally almost running to keep up.
'Now, you must try and be reasonable.'
'I'll be perfectly reasonable if he takes six foot off the top of that monstrosity.'
'Graham, promise me you won't lose your temper.'
'Well, I'll try, but it's enough to try a saint.'
'Then let me do the talking . . . please?
'Alright, but only if you . . .'
'Graham!'
'Alright, but . . .'
'Graham!'
'Alright.'
The door was opened by Heather, an attractive red head, much the same age as themselves.
'Hello, I'm Sally and this is Graham, we've just moved into the house that backs onto yours.'
'Oh, you bought it from the Thompsons – what a nice couple – why don't you come in.' She held the door open wider and called out, 'Roland.'
Graham was not entirely happy entering the enemy camp, he would have much preferred to negotiate on the doorstep, on neutral ground, but reluctantly he followed his wife inside.
Roland was in the conservatory; he was 6ft tall with a shock of blond hair and muscles rippling under his T shirt.
Graham bristled.
'It's about that bloody hedge . . .'
Sally cut in quickly. 'What Graham is trying to say is that your Leylandii is quite high and we were wondering if you would mind if we called someone in to take just a little bit off the top.'
Roland looked at Sally with a hint of a smile on his lips . . . and then he looked at the hedge . . . and then he looked at Graham. 'It's not that high, it's only about 10 foot.'
'But it's nearer 20 foot in mine . . .'
'What Graham is trying to say is that your garden is four or five feet higher than ours, so the hedge appears to be much higher on our side.'
'Yes. The sun sets half an hour earlier for us!'
For a moment the tension hung in the air, buzzing with testosterone. It was Roland who broke the moment. Keeping his voice level and calm he said, 'It's due to be trimmed. I'll get them in.'
'You want at least six feet off it.'
Roland locked eyes with Graham.
Sally and Heather exchanged a helpless look.
'It has always been acceptable in the past to have a few inches trimmed off the top each year.'
'But it is not acceptable now. Those bloody things grow three feet a year at least.'
Sally said, 'Thank you, that will be just fine,' and grabbed Graham by the arm, dragging him towards the door. 'It will be nice if you can trim it back a little.'
As they walked home Graham said, 'I could have decked him!'
Sally had an awful image of the body-builder towering over her diminutive accountant and sighed. 'I don't think I'd like to have seen you try.'
Sally watched Graham through the kitchen window as he worked on the garden. She was worried that he was taking this so personally, it wasn't good for his blood pressure. He was like a man possessed: ramming the fork into the clay soil like a dagger, tugging the weeds out with a stranglehold grip and hurling them onto the ever growing pile of waste.
Graham stood up, eased his aching back and then clambered up onto a large pot and peered through a gap in the hedge. That arrogant fitness freak was lounging in his garden reading a book. Oh dear me . . . what a shame!
It took a bit of effort to get the bonfire going, as the weeds were so green, but when it was finally alight they produced a satisfyingly dense white cloud of foul smelling smoke, which, because he had already tested the wind direction, was oozing through the hedge into the other garden.
Sally called through the window, 'Graham . . . are you sure that's a good idea? What if they've got their washing out?'
Her husband shrugged his shoulders. 'Sorry, honey. But I can't see through that bloody-great-hedge!'
Roland slammed his book shut in disgust, packed up his sun-lounger and went indoors, closing all the windows. The idiot would regret it – of that he was certain!
That evening Heather was getting ready for bed when, to her surprise, Roland picked up a packet of cigarettes and said, 'You go up – I'm going outside for a smoke. I might have a look out for some slugs while I'm out there – they've been playing havoc with the Hostas.'
He lit a cigarette and shone a torch onto the garden. The nightly slug army was on the march across the borders.
He grinned.
It only took ten minutes to fill the glass with the slimy invaders, then he crept over to the gap in the hedge and shook the contents over the wall. Twice more and it was getting more and more difficult to find the little rascals, so he called it a night . . . there was always tomorrow night . . . and the next!
The next day Graham went out to finish the tidy up and could hardly believe his eyes – where his new plants had once been was nothing more than a scruffy mess of holes surrounded by what little remained of the leaves. Absolutely unbelievable!
But then his eyes trailed upwards from the epicentre of the damage – there, immediately above, was the hole in the hedge . . .
The penny dropped – just like the slugs had the night before.
Ok – if he wanted war he could have it!
He rushed indoors, fired up the laptop and searched for 'Southend Borough Council' and then 'trees'.
Roland picked up the three letters from the doormat, two white and one brown. He thought he would keep the brown one 'til last – it was probably only a boring bill – but then the words 'Southend Borough Council' printed along the top edge caught his eye and something about the words set alarm bells ringing. He ripped it open and scanned the contents. It was from the Environmental Health Department. A few lines down it quoted the High Hedges and Hedgerow Regulations.
His blood began to boil.
He ran his eye down through the official wording, not really taking much of it in, but when he reached the section headed 'Part 8 Antisocial Behaviour Act 2003' he flipped!
'How dare he?!' Roland stormed through to the dining room where the computer sat innocently upon its desk. 'If he wants war, then that's exactly what he's going to get!'
It seemed to take forever for the computer to boot up and he sat drumming his fingers uselessly on the desk edge while he waited. When the Google screen finally appeared he began to type furiously.
A manic grin spread across his face – there were several local suppliers – and they all delivered.
Graham drove into the Close, happy to be back on home turf after an exhausting day. Accountancy might be one of the most boring of occupations, but on occasions it could be a frantically busy kind of boring. However, he knew from experience that a large glass of single malt in the conservatory while he waited for dinner would put the world back to rights again.
He swung the BMW onto the driveway . . . and immediately slammed on the brakes. Ten large bags blocked his way. Puzzled he climbed out . . . and the stench hit him like a sledgehammer. He didn't need to see the company logo on the side – he could recognise the smell of horse manure from a long way away and right now it was uncomfortably close.
Graham stormed inside, slamming the door behind him. Sally was in the kitchen peeling carrots.
'Have you seen it? Have you bloody seen it? I'm going to sort him out once and for all!'
Sally spun around, a small, sharp paring knife pointed at his throat. 'You will do nothing of the sort – do you hear me? Nothing of the sort.'
'But I can't let him get away with this – there's all this . . .'
'This stupid thing has gone on long enough; it stops right now before someone gets hurt.'
Graham opened his mouth to argue, but slowly closed it again. He might well run his office with a rod of iron, but the sight of his wife's fiery eyes and that ominously oscillating knife stopped him dead in his tracks.
Roland was feeling quite smug as he drove home, he even made a slight detour and was grinning like a Cheshire Cat when he saw the large stinking bags on the driveway. 'That'll teach that idiot to mess with the likes of me!'
He was still smiling when he opened his front door. 'Hi, honey. I'm home.'
He hung his jacket in the hall and made his way into the lounge. There was a view right through the lounge, right through the conservatory, right across the manicured lawn and . . .
. . . and instead of the familiar mass of green, he could see the brick wall – every single bare inch of the brick wall – and above it loomed the neighbours' house, the first floor windows like two laughing eyes and the glass of the conservatory a huge mocking mouth.
'I'll kill him . . . I'll bloody well kill him!'
He stormed out of the lounge and up to the front door.
'Roland.'
Ignoring her he wrenched the door open.
'Roland! Stop!'
He spun around to face his wife. 'Have you seen what he's done?' he screamed.
'He's done nothing,' she answered, quietly.
'What? You call cutting down my hedge, nothing?'
Heather stood her ground bravely, although inside she was quivering.
'I said 'he' has done nothing.'
Roland stared at his wife in disbelief, his knuckles white on the door handle, his lip trembling.
'Sweetheart, this has all got out of hand. What comes next, eh? Does someone have to get hurt to draw a line under all this?' She drew in a deep breath, gathering up all her strength to deal with the explosion which would inevitably follow. 'Sally and I have got together and we have decided that it takes two men to start a war, but it takes two women to put a stop to it.'
She studied the changing emotions on her husband's face with trepidation, waiting for his response. She was fully prepared to deal with the outburst, no matter how devastating . . . but she was not prepared for the chuckle, which deepened into a full blown belly laugh. Her husband's face was a picture, but she was terrified – he had flipped – and she knew that he would take it out on her, and it was all her fault.
'You know what?' Roland could hardly speak. 'You know what? I never really liked the bloody thing, anyway!'