‘Adam!’
‘Sure, sorry…’ he came over to Chris who was now mopping at a bloody hole in his trousers. The Crow settled back to one of the top rafters and was watching us, satisfied.
‘Bloody witches’ hat house,’ said Chris.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ I said. We came out into the sunshine. Adam wanted to know where the borehole was and we figured it must be back at the house. His enthusiasm seemed to be growing by the minute, but the little I had was waning fast. We drove round for another hour, looking.
‘So do we know what a borehole looks like?’ I’d had to go and pee in the bushes twice, the second time I’d been stung by a nettle in a sensitive place.
‘It’s a hole in the ground,’ said Adam peering out of the window at the fields whipping by.
‘Ooh, it’s Roger!’ said Chris. ‘He’s the groundsman, he’ll know.’
An old man in a flat cap and tweed suit was up ahead, riding along on a bicycle far too small for him. Chris pulled to a stop.
‘Afternoon Master Chris,’ said the groundsman gliding up to Chris’s window.
Master Chris, mouthed Adam.
‘Hello Roger, we’re looking for the borehole, could you help us?’
‘Is that the Slater borehole or the Krays borehole?’ asked Roger.
‘I don’t know. It’s the nearest borehole to Strangeways Farm.’
‘Oh that’d be The Krays borehole. It’s right behind the house.’
‘Thanks Roger. These are my friends, Coco and Adam, they’re looking to buy the farm.’
‘How do,’ said Roger touching his cap. We said hello.
‘Be careful up the vineyards around September time. Lots of local kids hang about, they strip the vines like locusts… I fell asleep one time and, when I woke up I couldn’t see or chew…’
‘What did they do to you?’ I asked.
‘Stole the glasses off me face and the teeth out of my mouth,’ he said.
‘Thanks Roger, we’ll bear that in mind,’ said Chris. He wound up the window and we drove off.
‘He doesn’t wear glasses,’ I said.
‘Mum sent him for laser therapy last year, she’s very fond of him. Does everything round here.’
We bumped and jolted our way back up to the house. I was cold, hungry and my privates were still stinging. Adam leapt out, and so did Chris. What is it with men and mysterious holes? I followed them to the back of the house, where they were scraping grass away, uncovering a round wooden lid. Adam pulled it off and we peered down, down, down where there was a little circle of water reflecting the sun. He noticed a faded blue rope, and with help of Chris they started to pull at it, bringing up metres of slack until a black plastic bucket emerged. It was full of clear water. Adam scooped some up with his hand and drank.
‘Coco,’ he said turning to me with a huge dripping grin. ‘This is it. Taste it!’
‘I’m not drinking that,’ I said. Chris gingerly put his hand in and tried the water.
‘Oh my god! That’s divine. Pure sweet water.’
I put my hand in the bucket and scooped out some of the cold water. It was delicious. You think water is the grim diet option usually, tap water having nothing going for it, but this was something else, sweet and light.
‘It’s lovely, but we’re not going to trek up here to fill the kettle,’ I said. Adam grabbed me and planted a huge kiss on my mouth.
‘No. Beer. Beer is all about the water, just as much as the hops,’ he said with a light in his eyes. ‘With the right marketing, this could be a huge success! Imagine it, beautiful bottles, a delicious amber coloured bitter, sweet and full-bodied, a niche product. You could write about the farm on our website, a blog, we could dry hops the traditional way in the oast house.’
He stared at me.
‘Oh my God you’ve made me want to drink bitter for the first time ever!’ said Chris, a committed gin and tonic drinker.
‘Ok, let’s consider things,’ was all I could say.
Adam jabbered with Chris all the way back to Cheshire Hall about the history of the land. He asked if any historical battles had taken place where the farm stands.
‘Well there was a huge hoo-ha when they wanted to build a Tesco on Hawkins meadow.’
‘No, no, surely the battle of Hastings might have stopped or gone through the land?’
‘I think there’s something in the Domesday Book, we’ll have to check.’
‘Is there a Kindle edition of the Domesday book?’ asked Adam grabbing at my bag.
‘No, now just calm down,’ I said. But Adam was so excited. We said goodbye to Chris and I promised we would phone him.
‘Are you really going to do this Cokes?’ said Chris.
‘I don’t know…’
Adam drove us home and talked about his plans; he has so many plans.
‘Coco. I’m going to find us the best mix of ingredients and make the most stunning beer and we’re going to be so rich and happy!’
I didn’t know what to say.
We got home around lunchtime. A stench of sour beer hit us the minute we came through the front door. Beer was dripping off the bannisters and walls, and clung to the ceiling in ripe brown drops. We came upstairs and saw the airing cupboard door was hanging half off its hinges. The window opposite the airing cupboard had been blown out, glass was everywhere. The forty-litre container was over the fence, bobbing around in the Cohen’s pond. Also strewn across the lawn were all Adam’s underpants, my big knickers and bras.
‘Shit,’ said Adam. ‘Now we won’t get to taste it.’
‘Are you kidding? I shouted. ‘Look at this mess! We’ve got no window, the house is drenched and… all my bras are dirty!’
I craned my head out of the window. Our laundry continued down the alleyway. There was even one of my bras hanging off Mr Cohen’s digital weather station. A pink lacy one. I looked at Adam.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ll fix this… You’re still going to let me have my own brewery though?’
I made Adam go and get the plastic container and all our underwear from the Cohen’s garden. I hid inside attempting to clean off the thin wet film of beer that seemed to cover everything.
He came back half an hour later with the forty-litre container full of our soaking wet pants.
‘Mr Cohen thinks the underwire of your bra has interrupted the sensitive instruments of his weather station. He says since your bra covered the sensors it shows a warm front throughout London,’ said Adam.
‘You’re joking?’
‘I wish I were. They now think we’re both officially mad.’
Adam found some planks of wood from the back of the garage and nailed them over the window.
Thursday 24th May
On top of working at the bar, Adam has cleaned the house from top to bottom removing the thin film of beer, ordered a new window, (coming tomorrow which coincides well with payday), set a new batch of beer brewing (with a promise it won’t explode) and discovered the Domesday book online.
‘Look at this Cokes,’ he said as we sat at the breakfast bar with our coffee. ‘There’s a Domesday website where you can click on each county in England and see information about towns and villages going back 900 years.’
He turned the laptop round to face me.
‘Look, Strangeways Farm is here, spelt ‘Strangewayes Farme’’ said Adam. ‘The Domesday book traces it back to the year 1068.’ He clicked on the screen and started to read,
‘The medieval owners were, Ralph FitzBobold and Hugh de Bruffe, they got the land from the Bishop of Bayeux. It’s classed as one Church, three mills, a fishery with thirty eels, two beehives, and one wild mare. Isn’t it amazing?’
‘Ralph and Hugh, they so sound like a couple,’ I said. ‘And what about that wild mare, do you think she was their fag hag?’
‘Coco, be serious, I’m thinking about the branding for our micro brewery. People love this stuff, listen to this,’
He opened a glossy b
rochure for the Pickled Peacock microbrewery and read,
‘Our land can be traced back to the year seven hundred AD, and is mentioned in the Domesday book, when King Alfred the Great stopped over-night on his way to Calais to rest and empty his latrines…’
‘So an old King pitched a tent there and dumped his raw sewage, and because of this they can charge a premium for their ale?’
‘Yup. It was the raw sewage of a King… Our edge Coco, would be the oast house. The Pickled Peacock Brewery have to dry their hops mechanically, what if our beer was completely traditional?’
I could see the potential… I was just worried about making the house habitable for a baby.
‘We need to get this house valued,’ said Adam getting up to leave for work. ‘Could you phone an estate agent today?’
‘This soon?’
‘We need to know love,’ he said kissing me on top of the head. When he’d gone I clicked about on the internet and found a nice looking estate agent called Bonham & Sons. I phoned and booked for someone to come out and see the house. It only took two minutes, but my hands were shaking when I came off the phone.
Moments later midwife Justine rang.
‘Morning Coco! How are you?’ she asked. ‘I’m just reminding you we have your twenty-eight-week appointment tomorrow and I need your birth plan. Just a side of A4, so we can tailor your birth experience.’
I don’t remember having a birth plan with Rosencrantz. In fact his birth has receded into the mists of time. I just remember the terrible green paint on the delivery room wall. I remember not wanting Ethel there, but she came anyway and kept poking her head round the door with a lit Benson & Hedges saying,
‘Psst! Danny! Is she crowning yet, or have I got time to watch the rest of Emmerdale Farm in the TV lounge?’
And Daniel, who insisted on sitting between my legs with the doctor, popped his head up and said, ‘Has Mum got time to watch the rest of Emmerdale Farm?’ Then a huge contraction rolled over me and I kicked him in the nose.
After all this, I don’t hold much faith in birth plans. I know Meryl had one. I also know she had it laminated for her water birth (which never went ahead as someone had stolen the plug for the birthing pool). I picked up the phone and gave her a call at Daniel/Jennifer’s place. She answered straight away.
‘Coco, I was just about to phone you…What’s Throwback Thursday?’
‘It’s where people post pictures on social media which are obviously from the past, and it’s usually done on a Thursday,’ I said.
‘Right…’
‘Are you thinking of getting involved?’ I asked.
‘No. Tony’s posted a Throwback Thursday picture of us from 1992, back when we were members of that amateur dramatics group, you remember? We were both in A Clockwork Orange…’
The image of Meryl and Tony dressed in bowler hats and codpieces as droogs is something I have never forgotten.
‘It’s just so unexpected,’ said Meryl. ‘For the past few months Tony’s been posting endless pictures of him and Mai Ling… And now he posts one of me and him.’
‘Maybe he misses you Meryl,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said wistfully. ‘He probably just wants to look young and hip for Mai Ling. She had her twenty second birthday last week. Twenty two! Tony’s had the same wallet for twenty five years. Of course, he kept the wallet…’
There was a pause and I asked Meryl if she could send me a copy of her birth plan. This seemed to cheer her up.
‘Yes of course, it would be nice if someone appreciates it,’ she said. ‘I spent days writing it, and no one in the hospital gave it a second glance…’
A few minutes later it came through by email. It’s quite a read…
Friday 25th May
I filled in my birthing plan very simply. I just want the baby to be born easily. I have asked for gas and air, and if I scream for an epidural, I want it. I also said I would be breastfeeding. midwife Justine sat behind her desk reading through with her little troll pen hovering over it.
‘This is wonderful Mrs Pinchard,’ she said. ‘I have something very valuable here, it might be worth a few quid in the future.’
‘What?’ I asked.
‘You didn’t tell me you were an author!’ she pulled a copy of Agent Fergie out of her handbag, and came over to the examination bench where I was perched.
‘I was doing it for my book club, and only realised when I saw your photo on the back…’
She handed me her troll pen and asked me to sign it. I wrote,
“TO JUSTINE, THE BEST MIDWIFE A GIRL COULD ASK FOR! LOVE COCO x x”
‘I’ve bought Chasing Diana Spencer too, will you sign that?’ I said I would.
‘I feel all embarrassed now,’ she said. ‘Now I know you’re famous.’
‘Don’t, I’ll be the one embarrassed when I’m lying there in stirrups,’ I said.
‘We don’t do stirrups anymore. You can squat on the floor, stand up, kneel on all fours…’
It all sounded hideous. She pumped the blood pressure monitor on my arm, and when the cuff was at its tightest she listened with her stethoscope.
‘Pulse sounds healthy. Are you having heartburn?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘Now I haven’t seen you at my antenatal classes…’
‘Things have been a bit crazy,’ I said.
‘Well you should. I always start the session with pelvic floor exercises. I can’t emphasise enough doing your pelvic floor exercises.’
‘I’ve got a very strong bladder,’ I said. She opened her drawer and handed me a leaflet for good measure.
‘Seeing as you are my special patient. Would you like to see something funny?’ she asked.
I said a cautious yes. Midwife Justine seemed a bit over excited and I was dreading that she was going to whip out something she’d had pierced.
‘I wouldn’t show this to patients usually,’ she said. Oh God it is a piercing, I thought. ‘The patient’s name is blacked out so it’s not a data protection issue.’ She unpinned a sheet of paper from the noticeboard behind her desk. ‘Here,’ she said. With relief I took it. Without having to read too much I could see it was Meryl’s birth plan!
‘Where did you get this?’ I said.
‘It’s been doing the rounds for the past year or so. Nearly every midwife I know has had this forwarded to her as an email!’
Meryl’s name, date of birth and other details had been blacked out.
‘I mean, who is this woman? What a nutcase,’ she said. The look on midwife Justine’s face was priceless. I burst out laughing, it jolted through me, and then, I wet myself. I couldn’t stop.
‘Oh, oh Coco, Mrs Pinchard, um… you’re just doing a little wee, nothing to be embarrassed about.’ Midwife Justine lunged for the paper towel dispenser as a wet patch started to grow on the front of my denim dungarees. I was caught between mirth and horror, but I couldn’t stop laughing.
‘It’s okay, pelvic floor exercises,’ she said grabbing my hand. ‘Squeeze and draw in your anus at the same time, and close up and draw your vagina upwards, can you do that for me?’
This made me laugh even more. In the end I had to phone Adam who came to the surgery with a change of trousers and a bin liner. When I made it to the car the full horror of what had happened came over me.
‘I can’t look at you,’ I said.
‘It’s okay. I didn’t see you wet yourself,’ said Adam.
‘But you had to bring me a change of clothes, oh my God… I’m not supposed to be wetting myself until after the baby is born.’
‘What made you…?’
I told Adam how Meryl’s birth plan had gone viral. Adam collapsed into hysterics. He laughed so hard tears were running down his face. This set me off again.
‘Quick, drive,’ I said. Luckily we got home in one piece with dry seats. I’ve told Adam not to say anything on pain of death. In Meryl’s mind she was writing a perfectly serious birth plan.
Sat
urday 26th May
An Estate Agent came today to value the house. I was expecting a bit of a slime ball, but he was a pleasant young chap called Neil. As we took him round, he asked a lot of questions. Did we have a basement? A loft conversion? Underfloor heating? Underground parking? a wastewater recycling system?
We had to say no.
‘Have you installed Creston or Lutron?’ he asked.
‘Is that a kind of flooring?’ said Adam.
‘No, they’re home automation systems, allows you to programme and control lighting and sound.’
We shook our heads guiltily, feeling very uncool.
‘We have got a dimmer switch in the lounge,’ I said. Neil frowned.
‘And there’s a little pond and a view of the London Eye from the garden.’
Neil gave a nod to say you’ve got a crap house. He took lots of pictures on his iPhone, and left saying he would be in touch with a valuation.
‘We’re never going to sell it,’ I said. ‘People want fancy houses in London, not this dump.’
June
Friday 1st June
I am now huge, and sleeping is a problem. I can’t get comfy. Gravity seems to pull my bump and boobs in all the wrong directions. I now know why hippos wallow in the mud: it must give their heaving bodies a comfy weightlessness.
I woke up suddenly with a shout. It was three-thirty, and I could hear muffled laughing. I got up to use the loo, and Adam had the airing cupboard door open and was fiddling about with the big container of fermenting beer.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked blearily.
‘Measuring the pressure.’
‘Is it okay?’
‘Yes,’ he smirked.
‘Good. We wouldn’t want an explosion.’
Adam started to laugh.
‘What’s funny about another explosion? It would stink the place out.’ This set him off even more.
‘What?’
‘I love you, and I know you’re pregnant, but you just did the hugest fart in your sleep. You actually shouted, ‘Ooh what was that?’ when you woke up.’ Adam laughed even harder.