It was just me and Jayjay on the hunt. I am me, you know me, while Jayjay was a strapping lad named John Jones who was my friend. At school they used to make fun of him (me too, for other reasons) because he was a proper country boy whose father was a shepherd on an estate, and also he had a very particular gait, earning him the nickname plodder. We never called him anything other than Jayjay and we were friends... I mean me and Putley, mainly.
On the hunt, Jayjay had a four-ten shotgun and he was very pleased to be carrying it around. He let me carry his air rifle and shoot with it. We blundered up to a field with some rabbits in it and he let off a couple of wild shots into the distance and then made out he'd only just missed. I don't think I had a chance to fire the air rifle until we reached the barn, which had, standing before it, a very old and rusty looking machine that Jayjay called "the crawler", with evident satisfaction.
- We'll start it up later.
- Yeah.
I always had a feeling of slight apprehension when I was alone with Jayjay, because he was unpredictable and he also liked to sometimes play practical jokes. Or he would tell me a cock and bull story to see if I would believe it, and I suppose I would believe a few because I didn't know about farm life and animals. But he tolerated my gullibility and perhaps I sometimes saw through the ruse so it was all OK, but I never used to agree too enthusiastically to his plans, since he was known to be reckless. Because it seemed natural to me that he might want to impress me, I always made sure I was impressed at the smallest novelty, to avoid him feeling the need to resort to objectively dangerous matters and even criminal proceedings with the associated exposure to a broad range of negative consequences, including the immediate death of ourselves and persons and other living creatures in the vicinity and other even more serious outcomes involving our school reports and enduring ability to watch our favourite television shows in the lounge, and listen to our favourite records in our bedrooms.
My bedroom was a kind of bedsit. I used to be in it all the time, listening to records and playing the guitar or doing a picture and so on. That's how it was, in those days.
In the barn Jayjay showed me how to snatch up a mouse and dash it against the wall. I don't remember whether I tried it or not. I shot the air rifle and didn't hit anything except the barn door. I don't think I really wanted to hit anything. I think Jayjay could sense my reticence. Perhaps he saw it as middle class snobbery... as though I had airs and graces. But actually, by that time, I had started to hate any form of injuring of people and animals. I continued to go fishing, but I was careful to put the fish back when I had finished bothering them.
The crawler was much better than it looked. Jayjay could drive it easily and I had a go too. The steering with two levers was the best thing. After a bit Jayjay went to another shed and opened it up to reveal a Land Rover with a cloth hood. In in we got, to go to another group of buildings a couple of miles away, where, he said, we could have a go on the John Deere. Jayjay has his own way of talking. He mainly talked by profanities, with swear words used to replace the ordinary nouns and proper nouns and also verbs in his utterances. Some of the swear words referred to uncleanness between people and farm animals. I think everyone on the farm knew them, because the gamekeeper used to swear all the time with the same sort of language. He used to say those words, accompanied by nods of the head in the attempt to actually make himself understood, given his distaste for regular words, in a very broad Banbury country accent, such as was not heard in polite society in those days but that had such lovely sounds and twangs that I found it irresistible, despite the unpleasant and even harrowing images that the words represented. It was just so much talk, or so it seemed to me, although years later I understood that some strange business can happen on farms, very strange indeed... especially on a big estate like that, where a rule of omerta prevails.
True to form, Jayjay, who was no more than fourteen years of age at the time, like me, didn't bother to drive the Land Rover on the metalled road leading to the spot, but headed straight across the fields and down a steep incline into a valley followed by a long and very uneven haul towards the brow of a hill, every bone in our bodies shaken out of joint and the Land Rover sounding a bit indignant, or perhaps that was just my imagination.
The John Deere was super. Sleek and massive, with handsome green and yellow livery and front and rear tyres as tall as me. Jayjay couldn't seem to get the key to it in the end, and I think this shows quite clearly that his father, if not a controlling and obsessively attentive type of parent, was most certainly a sensible man.
So we walked slowly back for our tea which, in his case, woud have been a proper nice meal cooked by his mum in the proper country fashion, with pies and swedes and marrow and pickles and all such matters, plus plenty of beef and pork and such meats and bacons, alongside of things like eggs and cheese and so on. I know, because I once stayed over and had tea with the family. Although I was not as fond of swedes and turnips as they seemed to be, it was real fun. Mr Jones got out his gun (on Jayjay's insistence), and it was a very finely engraved double barrelled 12 bore shotgun that was probably a hundred years old. It was a cherished possession, though I don't know that Mr Jones used it much if at all. It was more a museum piece perhaps, with the barrel deemed unsafe. Whatever the gun, Mr Jones was not allowed to shoot a fox, which would have been his main instinct during the lambing season, because, he said, many lambs were lost. Also any game animals were strictly reserved for the people in the big house. He could always shoot a rabbit of course. That was allowed for commoners. A woodpigeon too, was fair game for a regular man. A squirrel also, but I don't know it they were much eaten. Forty years later I bought one on the market in Stourbridge and my mum and dad were very surprised to see the proposed fare and made me eat it alone.
As we walked, Jayjay, who was on my right, suddenly swung around in front of me and fired the four-ten right in front of my face, across my field of view at a distance of inches rather than feet. The shot was accompanied by a very loud bang, I do remember that, along with the distinctive and exciting smell of a fired cartridge. That's why I was saying, about Jayjay, that he was sometimes unpredictable. I don't think I was in any danger, but I did get quite a fright and I have never forgotten the incident.
I think I uttered some mild exclamation of surprise, once again with the intention of not rewarding such unsettling types of behaviour with high ratings. I just hoped he'd never do it again and I think I might have mentioned that to him before I went home.