Excursion To Wild Country by Christian Butler-Zanetti

“All set, Mum?”

“Don’t fuss me, Pop.”

Mum tugged her trolley to the hall where Pop was appraising himself in the mirror.

“You might move out of the way.”

“Got to look my best,” Pop huffed. He cocked a glance over his shoulder. He straightened, pulled back his shoulders, tugged in his paunch.

“Hark at Valentino,” Mum grumbled. She buckled up the trolley and was set.

“Voice to a min,” Pop whispered. “You’re right by the door.”

Mum chuckled.

“As though anybody’s up!”

All the same, they hushed. Pop tiptoed to their door, finger to his lips. A safety light glowed at the end of the corridor. They crept the carpet to the stairs.

#

The front desk was empty. There was meant to be someone on at all hours but the night shift boys were ever so relaxed. The pair scurried over like beavers, slipped through the double doors and were out in the night air.

#

When they’d cleared the lawn Pop fell into a stride. He performed a hop in the air.

“Shazam!” he sang, spinning on his heel and jabbing a finger at Mum.

She chuckled. It was warm and still. The street lamps glowed orange. Pop’s spectacles made a long shadow on his cheeks and his nose and he smiled all over. He lifted his arms and crept the edge of the curb like a tightrope walker.

“Howsat?” he leapt from the curb into the road. “There’s life in the old dog yet.”

Mum smiled, keeping apace, trolley in tow. Pop danced about her. He undid the buckles on the trolley, lifted the lid with a whip of his hand and pulled out the sun umbrella. He opened the brolly, rested it over his shoulder and offered Mum his hand.

“Mad bugger,” she remarked, taking it in her own.

#

There was pink coming up from the houses when they reached the other side of town. They’d not seen a body all that time but when they got to the motorway a single car whistled by in front of their eyes, as fast as you like. They crossed into the first of the fields. Mum wasn’t overly keen on cows and Pop had said he couldn’t promise there wouldn’t be cows, these being fields, but they seemed to be lucky with this one. Gingerly he led her from the bushes at the field’s edge and stamped down the grass.

“Blanket out,” Pop instructed. “Time for brek.”

Mum was already giving the blanket a good shake. They had apples and some sort of dip and fresh bread and grapes and a flask of coffee which, believe it or not, was still hot.

“That’s the stuff,” Pop said, tucking in. “Good job, Mum.”

The sun was up by now and birds sang, but it wasn’t yet warm enough that they could take off their layers.

“Look at that,” Pop said, his eyes fixed across the field. Mum looked. A fence post was all off-kilter and one of its wires hung broken. The other posts had been dragged under the weight.

“That’s what I’m talking about just there, Mum.” He pointed the butter knife. “How long do you suppose it’s been left like that? Just what I’ve been talking about.”

“It’s no good, is it Pop?”

“It’s a flaming joke,” Pop exclaimed, punching at the ground with sudden fury. His face was red and the punch had caused white strands of hair to fall over his forehead. Mum looked at the ground.

“Pardon me, Mum,” Pop said at last. “It’s seeing it all go to pot, gets me that way.”

“It’s not good enough, is it?” Mum sighed.

Pop nodded, taking another bit of bread in his fist.

“Quite right,” he said.

“Sun’s up. I wonder what the time could be.”

Pop eyed the sun as he chewed.

“Around about six, I should say. Time to be getting on, I think.”

Mum shook the crumbs from her lap and looked at the spread, ordering the tidy-up in her head before getting started.

#

The trolley got to be a bother with the grass so long. Pop complained that Mum was moving too slowly. They stayed lucky with the cows anyway. Sometimes they’d catch sight of farmers and field workers, far away, and they’d wave.

“We must look a sight,” Mum remarked. “A pair of old timers wobbling across their field.”

“Who’s an old timer?” Pop scoffed. “Besides, it’s the country code. It’s not like crossing a fellow’s garden.”

As they muddled along the colour of the scenery changed from green to brown. Later, when they stopped for a rest the mud was dry and there were only little patches of grass.

“These flies,” Mum complained at one point, perched on a mound.

“It’s the air,” Pop told her.

“Well, all the same.”

#

By early evening the farms and the sounds of life were behind them. No soul about and the ground dry and bare. They had entered wild country. Pop led them through a sort of valley with great beige formations at either side, blocking the low sun out of view. Beyond the valley they saw flatter ground, dusty and dead for miles in front of them. It was quieter here than Mum had ever known. Pop unbuttoned his waistcoat. Mum stopped to remove her cardigan. She had a light shawl that was much better for the warm weather.

In time the sky darkened and the stars came out. All day they’d nattered about the scenery but in wild country they said nothing at all, only looking at the edges of the cliffs and at the great lumps of rock in the valley. They walked closely together, hand in hand, trolley trailing faithfully behind them. The cliffs yawned black against the sky.

“Better rest here, I think,” Pop said at last. He took the handle of the trolley and dragged it to the edge of the valley. A huge rock lay balanced upon another, hanging over like an upside-down boot. Pop parked the trolley and clambered halfway up the rock to check that it was stable. He paced about, tapping at the rock with his foot and the umbrella. Satisfied, he lowered himself.

“This’ll do nicely,” he declared, clapping his hands together. He began to unpack the trolley. Mum joined him, quietly taking over the job while Pop rummaged. She lay the picnic blanket down and the sleeping bags on top and put the last of the food between them.

Together they lay, the rock overhang filling their eyes and, past its edge, a sky of stars.

#

“Hmn,” Mum chuckled. “Puts me in mind of when we were young.”

“Second childhood is it, Mum?”

“Cheek!” she tapped him through the sleeping bag. “Do you remember camping that year, with the school? In Devon, was it?”

“Shouldn’t wonder,” Pop assented. “You had the tent with the Irish. Maureen, was it? Never could bear the girl.”

“She had a clever tongue and no time for you,” Mum chuckled. “I seem to remember you tried to give her a peck at some point or other.”
“That was a bet,” Pop chuffed.

“And I’ll bet it was!” Mum giggled. “That was the year the Healey boy asked me to the end-of-year dance, do you remember that one?”

“Do I ever? Little spiv,” Pops chuckled.

“The scene you made! ‘No sister of mine’ll be seen within a mile of a ruffian like you’ wasn’t it?”

“Something along those lines,” Pops smiled, pulling his arms from the sleeping bag to wipe at his eyes. “And his people saying we were queer folk anyway so what did he care, and mother saying ‘what did it matter?’ I might have knocked his block off.”

“Told me he’d like to father a few by me,” Mum sighed. “I liked him too, a little bit.”

The pair fell silent, remembering.

“The fellow had a grubby shirt on him when he called at the house, I remember that much.”

“That he did.”

Pop raised a brow, cast his gaze across at Mum.

“What might have been, is that the theme?”

Mum smiled, eyes closed.

“A silly business,” Pops sighed. He peered across, tapped her sleeping bag. “Anyway it’s all done now.”

“Yes,” Mum echoed. “It’s all done now.”

#

In the early hours when the sky was brighter a figure appeared on the sheer cliff above. It was a man on horseback, a silhouette against a pale patch of sky. He was heavily burdened, his things clattering and clanking as the horse drew to a stop. The man peered at the valley below; at the big rock, the tips of their sleeping bags and their camping things. He lifted a bugle to his lips and blew a tune for them both. Then he lowered the bugle, took the reins and was gone.

Christian Butler-Zanetti is an author, visual artist and musician living in London, UK. He is a member of post-punk band The Pheromoans and sound collage duo The Teleporters. Christian is the creator of Spineless Authors’ Night, a monthly open mic event for new and emerging authors and poets. He also performs occasionally as the appalling poet and fringe figure Mad Headed Octogram.