Framed

  I said, ‘I see you’ve got Miss Sellwood.’

  Miss Sellwood said, ‘Are we at the Spar?’

  ‘No, Miss Elsa, just by the pub.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t want to go to the pub.’

  The man said, ‘Do you know this woman?’

  ‘Yes, she’s Miss Sellwood.’

  ‘Do you know she’s completely blind? She was driving, and she is completely blind. She came straight down at me and never slowed up. I near killed her. She near killed me. I had to swerve to avoid her.’

  I said, ‘Are you all right, Miss Sellwood?’

  ‘Right as rain, thank you, Dylan. But Edna is bad with her nerves. So I had to come down to get her prescription.’

  ‘That’s dangerous though, Miss Sellwood. You should have asked Mam to come and get you.’

  ‘I didn’t want to put her to no trouble. Anyway, this nice young man is taking care of me now. And he’s doing a very good job, I must say.’

  ‘You’re all right then?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ said the man. He was a bit sharp with me, actually. ‘And her car’s fine. Whereas I have tipped my van.’

  ‘Oh. When you say tipped, is that tipped over?’

  ‘Right on its side. That’s why I need the tow truck.’

  ‘Righto. No problem.’ But I wasn’t going to let it rest there. This was a classic opportunity for a bit of market research. I said, ‘So did the food tip out at all?’ quite casual.

  And it had! He’d lost the whole load of food and admitted that the men on the mountain were waiting for it. They would be starving. This was it – our chance to become a catering force!

  On the Hughes Family team sheet that afternoon we had: Tom driving the tow truck; me making the whole thing happen through the magic of market research; Minnie as brains; Marie operating the lifting gear; and Mam – well, Mam didn’t seem that interested, really. I suppose Max was keeping her busy.

  Minnie had the brilliant idea of taking all the Pot Noodles up with us, as it was such a good opportunity. When she asked, Mam just said, ‘If you like . . .’ and carried on looking out of the window.

  Obviously it was a disadvantage having no captain, but it also made us determined to do him proud.

  Some people are sometimes surprised that Marie is so good with machinery. The thing is, Dad has to read lots of magazines about cars for his work, and there’s nearly always a beautiful woman on the front. So from when she was still quite small, Marie got the idea that beautiful women are supposed to be interested in cars. And she is beautiful. Plus Dad was always encouraging us to learn about engines anyway. Even me. Until the mix-up about the difference between antifreeze and oil and Ms Stannard’s Fiesta, which could have happened to anyone. So that’s how Marie became good with machines. Like Donatello (the Turtle).

  As we drove up the mountain we were all singing:

  Splinter taught them to be ninja teens (He’s a radical rat!)

  Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines (That’s a fact!)

  Raphael is cool but crude (Gimme a break!)

  Michelangelo is a party dude (Party!)

  Miss Sellwood tried to join in the song.

  When we got up the mountain, there were cardboard boxes all over the side of the road. The rain had made them soft and floppy and most of them had burst. You could see the little packets of frozen food inside. The big beige van was wedged sideways into a ditch at the edge of the road so the undercarriage was showing. Lester was walking up and down, looking worried.

  Minnie said, ‘We are so going to sell Pot Noodle.’

  ‘Hey!’ Marie shouted and jumped out of the truck. ‘It’s sunny up here. How come it’s sunny? How long does it take to get a tan?’ She took off her jumper and rolled up her sleeves.

  Tom was fastening the lifting gear to the van’s front axle. Lester went over and said, ‘How bad is it, do you think?’

  ‘Well, you definitely won’t be able to refreeze any of the chicken. Stuff like lasagne takes longer to defrost, so you might be lucky there.’

  ‘I was talking about the van,’ said Lester, ‘not the food.’

  ‘Oh. Right. Well, you’re best off talking to Marie. I’m not really a mechanic. I just help out about the place.’ He waved to Marie, who was now in the driver’s seat.

  The chains tightened. The exhaust gave a big puff of smoke and suddenly the van started to move upwards very slowly, like when you really don’t want to get out of bed. Then, when it was mostly up, we all took a step back and it suddenly plonked on to its wheels and stood there in the road again, as if nothing had happened.

  Tom started to undo the chains. Marie got back out of the cab. She said to the driver, ‘You might as well give it a go. You could have got away with it. The ground’s dead soft and you weren’t going fast.’

  And she was right. It started first time. The driver looked very happy. He said, ‘I’m going right back to Birmingham to report that old woman. I’ll come back when they’ve locked her up.’

  ‘Oh, don’t do that,’ said Marie. ‘She only comes out of a Wednesday. All you have to do is pick a different day. Tell him, Lester.’

  Lester went to say something, but the driver just turned the van round and headed off down the mountain, scrunching a big box of frozen chicken wings down into the mud as he went. The van had a surprisingly tight turning circle, for a vehicle with such a long wheelbase.

  Miss Sellwood didn’t seem to mind being talked about.

  ‘The whole thing is very exciting,’ she said. ‘I haven’t seen the mountain so crowded since the war. Did you know they brought all the paintings from the National Gallery and put them in the quarry to stop Hitler dropping bombs on them?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ said Lester. ‘We’re doing it all again now.’

  ‘Oh, but you needn’t,’ said Miss Elsa. ‘Hitler’s dead now.’

  Lester tried to explain about the problems with the floods and the insurance. But Miss Elsa was too happy remembering the war. She said, ‘Were you up here then? The last time? Do you remember the night we had a dance out by the big boulder?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t born, I’m afraid,’ said Lester.

  ‘What a shame. It was a lovely night. You’re interested in art though, I hope?’

  ‘Yes. That’s my job.’

  ‘Our father loved to paint,’ said Miss Elsa. ‘Painted all the time. You should come and take a look at his pictures. You’d appreciate them more than most. More than me, anyway. I’m blind, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lester. ‘Yes, I think that point has been made.’

  Marie and Minnie got the boxes of Pot Noodle out of the van and carried them to Lester’s car.

  Marie was saying, ‘It’s not exactly Delia, but it’ll fill a hole while you’re waiting.’

  ‘How very generous. Pot Noodle?’ said Lester. Only he pronounced it like ‘Pot Noodle’ so you could tell he’d never heard of it before. Marie explained that all you had to do was add water – ‘boiling water, that is’ – and that there was a choice of flavours. The man who’d asked me to play football that day came over and said, ‘Thanks very much. You’ve saved our lives.’ Then he gave me a big wink and said, ‘Pity you couldn’t save our bacon.’

  ‘Oh. Yes,’ mumbled Lester. ‘Indeed. What do we owe you?’

  I was thinking, Fifty-three Pot Noodle at £1.75 a pop, that’s . . .

  But Marie said, ‘No, no. We’re neighbours. We’re just being hospitable.’

  ‘Oh. Well. Thank you very much.’

  When she got back in the Wrangler, Tom said, ‘Fifty-three Pot Noodle at one pound seventy-five a pop, that’s . . .’

  ‘Ninety-two pounds seventy-five,’ said Minnie.

  ‘A lot of money,’ said Tom.

  ‘I know it seems daft, turning the money down,’ said Marie, ‘but I had a feeling it’s what Dad would’ve done. And if Dad would’ve done it, it must be right.’

  It’s funny, but that’s exactly what I was thinking. We sang al
l the way down the mountain. ‘Team Hughes always sticks together no matter what.’ Like the Turtles TV theme. Not the original, the remake.

  We were right about it being right!

  We were just closing up when Ms Stannard came in for chocolate. She always comes in for chocolate at closing time. Marie says it’s because she’s probably spent the whole evening trying not to think about chocolate so that she won’t eat any, but at the last minute her nerve goes and she jumps in her car and races up to the garage.

  She was trying to get Mam to help her choose between Revels and Minstrels when Lester came in. Ms Stannard gave him this big smile and asked him which he preferred, Revels or Minstrels.

  ‘I’ve never really thought about it,’ said Lester.

  ‘How disappointing. Still, now that you’re in Manod you’ll have lots of time to think about things you haven’t thought about.’

  ‘Yessssssssssssssss,’ said Lester really slowly. ‘Yessssss.’ Then he looked at Mam. ‘I just wanted to say thank you for all you did today. I wondered if there was anything we could do in return.’

  This was it. Our big chance. We all looked at Mam. She could name her price. She said, ‘Oh, it’s all right. Glad to see the back of the Pot Noodles, to be honest.’

  Lester looked a bit surprised. ‘Well – I was wondering – a lot of the men have been complaining about the bread we get from our supplier, and it struck me that perhaps you . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ That was me, not Mam. ‘Yes, we can get bread. And what about milk?’

  ‘Of course. Yes. Milk. Thank you.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Well, there are twelve of us up there so . . .’

  ‘Six litres of milk, ten sliced loaves. White or brown?’

  ‘Five of each, I imagine.’

  ‘Great. And the cakes?’

  ‘Well, the cakes seem to be very popular.’

  ‘Great.’

  I looked at Mam. She still didn’t seem to be taking that much interest, even though I was being so brilliant.

  Then Minnie was brilliant too. ‘Are they all happy with the Financial Times?’ she said. I’d never have thought of that one.

  ‘Oh. No. No, they’re not. What do you suggest? The Mirror?’

  ‘Five Mirrors. Maybe a couple of Guardians?’

  ‘Yes, that sounds about right.’

  ‘I’ll put them on your tab. And the Manod Month keeps you in touch with what’s going on, round and about,’ said Minnie.

  Lester said, ‘Is anything going on, round and about?’ and then he made a little ‘ha ha’ noise. Nobody joined in. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Thank you again. If you’re sure there’s nothing else I can do, I’ll go.’

  That’s when Ms Stannard said, ‘You could show the children the paintings.’

  Lester frowned. ‘Children?’

  ‘I’m the teacher here. It’d be lovely to show them the paintings . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid that wouldn’t be possible. We have security issues and health and safety and, really, you’re not supposed to know the paintings are here.’

  He gave me a bit of a look.

  ‘They’ll never have an opportunity like this again,’ said Ms Stannard.

  ‘I’m afraid they’re not having that opportunity now either.’

  ‘They’re in desperate need of visual stimulation. Do you know, I had an art lesson recently and they painted everything grey. The yellow ochre, the crimson lake, the magenta – all untouched.’

  ‘I wish I could help,’ said Lester.

  ‘When they boarded off the boating lake, the council sent us an artist to paint a mural on the fence. I suggested Arthurian scenes. Or something to do with the geology. Do you know what they voted for? Scenes from the life of Elvis Presley. Up to and including the King’s encounter with Mr Davis in Home and Bargain. Go and look at it. No appreciation of art round here.’

  ‘If they don’t appreciate it, it seems a shame to drag them up a mountain to look at it.’

  ‘I’ll let you sleep on it. You can give me a ring when you’ve really thought it over.’ And she wrote her number on the front of his Financial Times and walked out.

  Lester looked at Mam. ‘It really won’t be possible,’ he said.

  She just sort of shrugged and said, ‘Fine. Whatever.’ Which isn’t the kind of thing she normally says.

  That night I decided to give Mam a surprise. ‘No need to cook,’ I said. ‘Look what I got.’ I’d managed to save a whole pack of lemon and coriander chicken fillets. They were sealed, so it was fine. There was enough for Tom to stay and eat too. We microwaved them and had them with baguettes and sat around trying to work out how much money we were going to make from all this new business. It was a lot. Compared to what we normally made it was, anyway.

  ‘We could make a lot more if we stole one of those paintings,’ said Minnie, looking at Tom.

  ‘You couldn’t steal them,’ said Tom. ‘There’s men on quad bikes and everything up there.’

  ‘There’s always a way,’ said Minnie. ‘Like when an as yet unidentified thief stole a priceless Bruegel from the Belvedere in Vienna. D’you know what he did? He posed as an expert and told them the frame had woodworm. Then he said he had just the thing for woodworm, which was wasps. Special wasps that ate the woodworm. So they paid him – they actually paid him money – and he built like a tent around the painting to keep the wasps in. Then he went for his tea break and never came back. They didn’t take the tent down for hours because they were scared of the wasps. And when they did . . . no painting. He’d gone off with it. Perfect crime.’

  ‘See, I could never do that,’ said Tom. ‘I’m frightened of wasps. I—’

  ‘There were no wasps. That’s the whole point,’ said Minnie.

  ‘Then what did he need a tent for?’

  ‘One hundred and fifty-seven,’ said Marie. ‘That’s what we made today.’

  I said, ‘Dad’s going to be amazed. The way things are going, we’ll be making so much money he’ll be able to stop working on the New Barrier and come home. Won’t he, Mam?’

  She said, ‘I’d better get Max ready for bed. Clear the table when you’ve finished.’ She said it in a faraway voice, like she was thinking about Dad coming home and really cherishing the thought.

  10 May

  Cars today:

  MINIBUS – Gwynedd Education Committee

  Weather – damp

  Note: LESTER’S NOT HIS REAL NAME

  This minibus is the one that comes every morning to collect Marie and take her to Blaenau High School. It is actually quite beastie for a minibus. Mountain Rescue used to use it, so it has snow chains and bull bars and four-wheel drive and an exhaust that sounded like a helicopter.

  It stopped at the garage because Ms Stannard had got her way – sort of. Lester was going to let her take a school party up to the quarry, but it had to be on a Saturday because the men were doing essential maintenance in the week. I mean, who is going to turn up on a Saturday? When it pulled on to the forecourt, it turned out that the answer to the question was: everyone. The whole school was on this bus, except me and Minnie. Then Minnie got on.

  I said, ‘What about Mam? She’ll be on her own.’ Marie had gone to Blaenau.

  Minnie said, ‘Conwy Car Boot Madness.’

  So we got on the minibus. Mam hadn’t had time to make our breakfast. Or sandwiches. And we’d sold all the Pot Noodle. So we made do with a couple of Mars bars each from the sweet rack in the shop.

  One good thing about being the only boy in the school is that no one wants to sit with you. So I could eat my chocolate in peace, though I did notice Terrible Evans glaring at me over the back of her seat, like she could smell the chocolate.

  The minibus couldn’t take the corners on the mountain road. Twice we had to get out while the driver edged it round a big boulder. Then we pulled out of the clouds, and the others were so amazed by the sunshine that they all clapped. Except Terrible Evans, obviously.

  Les
ter met us at the top. You could tell he didn’t really want us down his quarry. First thing he said was, ‘It’s such a beautiful day, it seems a shame to take them underground when they are surrounded by such natural beauty.’

  I said, ‘Yeah,’ thinking I might still get a game out of this.

  Ms Stannard said, ‘It’s not a shame at all. Lead the way, Lester.’

  We all followed him in through the quarry entrance. There was the warm breeze and the little railway track, just like last time. He explained that the track was once used by wagons bringing slate to the surface. Now specially adapted trailers carried the paintings down to the secure chamber. He showed them one of the trailers.

  ‘You can pull it back and forth if you like, see how it works.’

  ‘Can we ride on it?’ said Jade Porty.

  ‘No.’

  ‘And the paintings,’ said Ms Stannard, ‘where are they?’

  ‘In the secure chamber, directly below us. I’m afraid we’re not covered for people going down there without hard hats, and as we don’t have any hard hats—’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Ms Stannard. ‘The quarry’s been closed for forty years. Anything that was going to fall down has fallen down long since. You worry too much, Lester.’

  And she took herself off down the track. Everyone followed her. Even Lester.

  The track led down and down. It kept doubling back on itself like the big flume at Plas Madoc. You could feel yourself getting deeper and deeper. It was funny to think that you were almost down the mountain but on the inside. I couldn’t concentrate on the feeling though, because Terrible Evans kept coming up behind me and trying to get her hand in my pocket.

  Suddenly we came round one last corner and, instead of more tunnel, there was a room. I don’t mean a room like a bedroom. This was like the inside of the biggest room you’ve ever been in, which in my case is the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham the time we went to the Motor Show. It was that big. It was lit by these great big floodlights on stands. And it was full of hundreds and hundreds of rows and rows of wooden boxes. Hundreds of them. Hundreds and hundreds, leaning against these big metal shelves.

  ‘There it is,’ said Lester. ‘The entire National Gallery collection.’ He looked over and gave me a little smile when he said that. Then he strolled down to the rows of boxes and pointed to the first one.