The Tall Girl from Somerset 25

Bob's wall
Bob put on his gloves and found that the water was frozen in the hose-pipe.  He would have to mix the mortar later.  He started to move away the fallen stones to get a clear area of work and to mark out the line of the new wall.  Every job becomes easy when you have a system.  Have a clear working area.  Don't move any stone twice.  Give yourself room to work.  Then you can get somewhere.

An hour later, when the sun came out and the temperature rose a little, when the mortar had been mixed and several base stones had been laid and the wall was on its way, Quentin dashed down the steps.

“Morning,” said Bob.

“Ah, so you’re starting.  How long will it take you to finish?”

“It depends how it goes.  About a week, I should think.”

“A week?  It’s only a garden wall.”

“It’s stonework”, said Bob. 

Quentin was already getting in his car. He had no idea of what stonework was or the time it took, or of any work that you did with your hands. It was still very cold. 

Bob carried on, stone by stone, (‘Each one fits, lad. Don’t start wandering round the site choosing the right one.  Each one fits.’  That’s what Don told him when he started to do stonework.  ‘Each one fits, lad.’  And he was right.  When you’ve been working with stone for thirty years, you know what you’re talking about. And the wind blew up the street.  ‘A lazy wind’ Bob’s grandfather would have called it.  He was from Barnsley and there are some terribly lazy winds up in Yorkshire. A lazy wind doesn’t make the effort to go round you; it goes through you instead.  Straight through you.

The wall was finished on Friday afternoon.  Don came round at about half past three.

“You’re finished then, lad.  That’s not bad going.”

“Yes, it’s done in time for the weekend.”

“It’s not bad.”

“It’s a lot better than it was before they knocked it down.”

Don admitted to himself that it was the best bit of stonework that he’d seen in a long time.  It was as good as what he’d done himself over at Clifton the year before, and he’d been proud of that.

“It’ll do, lad.”

Bob settled for that.  Coming from Don, this was high praise.  

“Pick up your tools and get off home.”  This was quite a concession.  The working day didn’t finish till 5.30.

Bob was sweeping up the last of the mortar and stone chippings when Quentin arrived.  Admittedly, Quentin had had a difficult afternoon.  His secretary had been away, and that meant he had had to spend much more time than usual on the phone just when he also had a stack of papers to go through on his desk. 

Bob said, “It’s finished now.  What do you think?”

“I think it’s taken a very long time.”

“Stonework always does.   Do you like it?”

“It’s a wall. It’ll do.  Goodbye.”

Quentin hurried into his house.  After all, it was too cold to stand there chatting to the builder. And he had to send a cheque to the NSPCC.  He had to do that to satisfy his conscience, the weekly good work, so to speak, before permitting himself the pleasure of seeing Anne that evening.

“No man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.”  Bob had managed pretty well in life without ever hearing of Samuel Johnson, but at that moment, as he leaned against his own wall, he would have wholeheartedly agreed with him.

He took one last look at the wall and smiled. It was his wall, not Quentin’s. It would always be his wall.  Whenever he drove down that road in the future, he would see his wall. He picked up his tools, put them in the boot of his car and drove away.  It was Friday evening, it was skittles night at The Rising Sun, tomorrow was Saturday, the City were playing at home at Ashton Gate, and then came the lie-in on Sunday.  Life wasn’t so bad.  Now he was warm from the work and then, in his car, with the heater full on, he felt like toast. Absolute luxury.