All Chapters of Coming of Age the Fast Way: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

51 Chapters

The Hunt

Day 12. Friday.I only just got to the pub on time. Over breakfast Sonya engaged me in a discussion on the morning that lay ahead. I could have done without it. She likes winding me up.'Everyone thinks that hunt protesters feel sorry for the fox. Why don’t you?''Do you feel sorry for the fox?''Kinda. It’s alive, has feelings. It’s a bit like a weed really.'I knew I was in for a child’s view of the persecuted in this world.'In what way is a fox like a weed?' I sighed.'A weed is any plant you don’t want to grow in your garden. We grow horseradish. We make horseradish sauce and sell it. It’s inedible unless you want your brains through your ears, but some people buy it. Horseradish isn’t a weed - to us. It is a weed to everyone else in the village because it tries to take over the world.''Where do foxes appear?'
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-05
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Honesty

I thought she would explain. Instead, came the change of subject.'Economic reasons to build the wind farm.''Income of about three hundred thousand a year for the land owner, who is a local man, and unless he buys a villa in the Caribbean, which I don’t think he will - Suffolk born and bred, son of the soil and all that - he will wisely spend that money within the community, preferably supporting job-creation schemes and helping local businesses prosper.''That sounds better. If only it were true.'She scribbled some notes, although everything I’d said, and a few pages besides, was on the sheets I’d given her. Finally, she drew breath.'Environmental, and don’t start on about the Niger bloody Delta. This is Suffolk, warts and all. Let’s deal with them.''You can supply local businesses with cheap power by forming your own electricity generation cooperative.''That’s brilliant. That’s why Juli
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-06
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In Vera's debt

I decided that turning up at the pub, drinking a sherry and going home again, was a compromise I could deal with. She would doubtless ride.I walked home via the stables and dropped in on Sid. I had to tell her that Vera was looking for a lover. But Sid was busy reading stories and being a mother and housewife. I popped next door, to give her time to get straight, but Charley kept me busy a long time.When I finally walked home the pub was shutting. I hated walking in the gloom when strangers were around. Strangers? The village has enough of its own home grown scrumpy-head loonies. Why be scared of the visiting ones?Most of all I was scared of the hunt. That was new territory and I had never dreamt I would cross the threshold into the biggest openly flaunted symbol of plutocracy in these fair isles.I needed Sid to walk with me. What would my severest critic have said?'I am excited and flattered that Vera is so keen on my ideas for disbursing the
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-06
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The Hunt Ball

I didn’t go home, but round to Charley’s stable apartment. He was just making his industrial-strength tea. Once settled with a full mug, I came to the point.'What do you know about Vera not riding with the hunt today?''She no longer has a horse. I mean she has plenty but her grey hunter is gone.''What? Explain!''Sold it, I think - yesterday a man in a van from Lowestoft came to collect it. She told me to sign the paperwork and put the company stamp on what looked to me, like a bill of sale.''Why did a numpty oik like you have to sign?''Steady with the abuse. I’m a trusted employee.''Course you are, but that is a bit strange.''And she was a bit attached to the horrible nag. She came the evening before to say goodbye and give me instructions - there were floods of tears - then she fled.'I was silent while we supped tea. I was in shock. Why would she offload a beast she was so fond of? I broke the
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-07
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The awakening

Day 13.  Saturday. The birds were making a din. I tried to focus on the clock, but needed first to find my specs. It was only four thirty. Vera had me in a vice-like clinch from behind. I managed to extricate myself without waking her. No idea how. I walked through to Vera’s study. First job - find something to wear. Some woofty kimono thing was hanging in the bathroom. It tied like a kimono, but was sexily short. I thought they should be ankle length. I had to make it do. Secondly - text Sonya, before she wakes and alerts the house to my absence. She’s a worrier. I needed to touch base or she would panic. I kept it short and confusing. ‘Waylaid at ball. Safe and sound - don’t wait up for me. X Mill.’ Third job - reunite Charley with his clothes. He could hardly slide out unnoticed, wearing DJs that probably cost four figures. I met him on the landing between Vera’s apartment and my room. He
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-10
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Charley on a promise

An hour later I was walking past the church, up to the dark cottage in the valley, with an insulated carton of cooked runner beans and scrambled eggs under my arm. How different to my previous attempt to help the Walkers, this felt. A mother’s wisdom - just turn up with something useful, versus the folly of youth - stand at the gate and have a shall I/shan’t I moment.The place looked almost inhabited. The curtains were open and the weeds in the front garden mown. I knocked and Sid’s dad opened. He was sober. I peered through the door. The lights didn’t need to be on as someone had cut the trees around the windows back.'Hallo, Millie. Fancy you dropping by. We were expecting Charley any minute, or Sid, to pick the children up. Sid has long shifts on Saturday, and now that we ...' He hesitated. Maybe he thought I didn’t know about the alcohol problem in the Walker household. I helped him out.'Now that you aren’t drinking anym
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-11
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Sunday, not so bloody Sunday.

Day 14. Sunday.I woke at six thirty. I hadn’t heard Charley rise. I assume he was already next door, sorting the children out, so that Sid could have a lie in. What drives that man? Is he going for beatification? Silly. He’d have to be martyred first.I dressed, walked home, and found the early morning air unseasonably cold. No wonder. I was still in my shag-me shorts and shirt from the previous evening. My bed looked even colder and more uninviting than the walk home, so I shoved Sonya to one side, crawled in beside her, and snuggled up. I remember a physics lesson on radioactive decay. At the time I decided Sonya - then only about seven - must have a plutonium core, gently decaying to heat the universe -  perfect to cuddle up to on a cold morning. That girl will never want for the love of a good man in her life.Sonya turned out at eight and turned me out with her.'It
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-13
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Vera's tears

‘Why I left with tears in my eyes? I don’t think I was crying,’ she lied. She paused to consider, then said, 'Your dad can guess. Ask him.' 'I have, and he said, ‘another time.’' 'Another time it is then. Next question.' I looked intently down the newly raked sand path, between the roses, toward a beautifully overgrown wall at the perimeter of the rose garden. Should I argue? No point. If she and my dad don’t want to talk about it now, then I should leave it. Next question it is. 'You didn’t ride out on Friday with the hunt, presumably because you had sold your field hunter. Why would you do that?' 'It was a very valuable horse - I needed to raise some quick capital and I knew the company bank wouldn’t help.' 'Come on, Vera. That’s only confounded the riddle. The most that nag could have fetched is a couple of grand and you have that as pin money.' She peered at me over her reading glasses, which she always wore when eating. I
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-14
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Marketing lies

'So, no one else cottoned on?' 'People may have thought us totally bereft of any common sense, but once the gossip mill was grinding, they lost all sense of reality. Perhaps they liked the idea that her ladyship had a couple of bastards by another man and gave them to a childless farmer in Scotland with a big financial reward. I think every other interpretation of my disappearance was too bizarre to be believed.' I pondered her tale. Once it had sunk in, I was aghast. 'So, let me get this straight, Vera. Not only did you have the trauma of miscarrying twins, you had to live a lie, deny any local support systems for a grieving mother and go live on your own in some Scottish castle. And you had a husband, who would rather be married to an adulteress than a faithful wife who had the misfortune to miscarry. When was your breakdown? 'Very perceptive. It hasn’t happened yet, although for a while I fought with it every day. 'Past tense?' 'Yes
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-15
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Master of the Horse and other lies

Back to the tour with a jolt. We stopped at two massive oils of sea battles - by the appearance of the ships, probably Trafalgar or the Battle of the Nile. Someone dared ask a question. 'What was the family connection with the Royal Navy?' 'We don’t know. The artist was a family friend and he liked doing ships. That’s about it really.' They simply liked pictures of sea battles, which is a bit like me covering my bedroom wall with pictures of Flanders ca. 1916. I had made a decision as I started the tour, come what may, my lips had to stay zipped. These tour guides don’t understand critical questions. This whole exercise was very dangerous ground for me. The guides saw it as their chance to convince the tourists that the British Aristocracy were beyond reproach. I don’t blame them for that. They have children to feed and bills to pay and there isn’t much around Lower Butts not controlled from this house. And then we came to the picture of some
last updateLast Updated : 2022-01-16
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