Blacklands

Chapter 24

MIRACULOUSLY, IT TOOK STEVEN AND UNCLE JUDE ONLY HOURS to clear years of vegetation and rubbish from the back garden.

Both were stripped to the waist and sweating—Steven wiry and pale, Uncle Jude broad and nut brown.

Steven blew his cheeks out in satisfaction, sweat dribbling into his eyes; he wiped it away, happily aware that he’d left dirt in its place.

Lewis was unimpressed. “What about snipers?” he whined. “There’s nowhere to hide now!”

True to form, Lewis had come round at ten to help clear the back garden, and had proceeded to direct operations through mouth-fuls of Lettie’s cold leftover spaghetti Bolognese which he spooned straight from the Pyrex dish.

Uncle Jude winked at Steven and Steven grinned. Lewis clattered the spoon back into the empty dish.

“I don’t know why you don’t just buy some fucking carrots.”

Steven said nothing. Buying carrots did seem like the more sensible option. He felt stupid but also angry with Lewis, so he just kept on digging.

Lewis slid off the low wall. “See you later,” he said coldly.

“Aren’t you going to help dig?” said Steven appeasingly.

“Nah,” said Lewis, “you’re doing it all wrong anyway.”

He disappeared through the back door and Steven frowned after him.

“Don’t mind him,” said Uncle Jude.

So Steven didn’t.

He and Uncle Jude drank from the hose and laughed about stupid things, and when his nan refused to let them in for tea so grubby, they stripped down and marched into the kitchen in bare feet and underpants, making Davey and Lettie laugh. Nan turned away but Steven knew she wasn’t angry—or even mildly annoyed—by the way she didn’t purse her lips or bang the spoon as she dished out the stringy grey stew.

By nightfall he was aching and exhausted but there was a patch of newly turned, newly weeded black earth in the garden, seeded and marked in neat rows with string, and protected from cats and birds by a canopy of chicken wire.

As he drifted off to sleep, Steven thought that his spade had never felt so right in his hands as it had today, and that Arnold Avery and Uncle Billy and the Sheepsjaw Incident seemed like a bad dream he had once had as a very small and distant boy.