Struggling into the kitchen, I dropped the heavy toolbox onto the stone-flagged floor before collapsing into a nearby chair.
"Bleedin' 'ell, Peter boy, yer really are out 'o condition, ain't yer?" Uncle Hobart observed, handing me a long, cool, glass of beer.
Scowling, I studied his wiry old body. It didn't sit well that somebody so much older should be so much fitter. Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I raised my eyebrows. "Alright if I stay over tonight?" I asked. "I don't fancy driving all the way back to London this late."
Pouring himself another tankard of beer, Uncle Hobart considered my request. "Tell yer what, Peter boy," he finally replied. "Why don't yer stay over fer a couple o' days and 'elp me out? Yer did say yer 'ad some 'oliday owing, didn't yer?"
I nodded, leaning back in his comfortable captain's chair with a grateful sigh. As I was just back from an exhausting sales trip in Saudi, the idea of a few more days away from the noise and bustle of the big city was certainly attractive, and I did need some space to unwind.
"Yeah, I'd like that." I said, saluting him with my glass. "Thanks."
"Suppose yer going ter tell me yer 'ad a 'ard time in the desert?" he asked with a self-satisfied smirk.
I shrugged. "Well, it was a bit stressful. Those Arabs certainly know how to bargain, I can tell you that. Really clever at it."
Uncle Hobart harrumphed. "What's so bleedin' clever about buying sand off o' you, when they live in the middle o' the biggest sand-pile in creation?" he asked with a twinkle in his eye.
Pursing my lips, I stared at the ceiling, not wanting to be drawn into this argument. I knew from bitter experience that once Uncle Hobart got started, he was like a turd stuck to the bottom of a shoe: immovable and bloody offensive!
"So what did you want to borrow the Ramset for?" I asked, changing the subject.
Uncle Hobart crooked a finger at me, and I followed him out of the kitchen. He led me upstairs, into his bedroom. Walking through the doorway, I couldn't fail to notice the huge hole in the plasterwork.
"What happened?" I queried, nodding at the hole.
"Putting up a shelf, weren't I?" he responded. "Yer know what its like trying ter get fixings in these old stone-walled cottages."
I smirked, enjoying his discomfort. It wasn't often I saw his composure shaken.
"But you've knocked half the bloody wall down!" I gloated.
"Just a bit o' plaster, that's all," he reasoned.
Prodding at the plaster, I stepped back as another large chunk fell to the floor with a crash. "Look, you can see all the old stonework underneath. Made a bit of a mess, haven't you?" I commented over my shoulder.
Uncle Hobart was finding it hard to ignore my jibes. "Don't do that yer cretin! Yer'll 'ave the bleedin' lot down!".
"Temper, temper!" I chuckled, goading him further.
Clicking his dentures, he held his hand out. "Just give us the Ramset, will yer? I want ter shoot a couple o' bolts into the wall fer the brackets."
Shaking my head, I looked down my nose at him. "Not a chance. You're too bloody dangerous to be let loose with that thing. You'd probably end up shooting yourself in the foot with it. No, I'll do it for you, thank you very much."
After unpacking the Ramset and loading it with cartridge and steel bolt, I carefully placed it against the wall, pulling the trigger. As the loud discharge set my eyes watering, a large cloud of dust set me coughing and my deafening scream set my ears ringing. Hopping around on one foot, I tried to massage my throbbing toes, cursing the huge stone that I'd dislodged as it rolled lazily across the bedroom floor, finally coming to rest against the chest-of-drawers by the opposite wall.
Uncle Hobart waved the dust away, frowning. "Now look what yer bleedin' done!"
"I'll try fixing one over here," I muttered between clenched teeth, limping to a new position. Uncle Hobart sucked in a deep breath, clicking his dentures in that, Are you sure you know what you’re doing? way he had. I enunciated my next words very carefully. "Look, I know what I'm doing, okay? Just shut it!"
"But..."
My voice rose a notch, "Just go and get me some cement."
"But..."
"Just bloody do it!" I shouted, loosing all self-control.
While I pushed my guilty feelings aside, turning back to the task at hand, Uncle Hobart left to get the cement, shuffling away with slumped shoulders and a hurt expression. Placing the nossel of the Ramset in position, I pulled the trigger again, this time with more success.
I was in the process of fixing the last bracket in place, when I heard Uncle Hobart return. Breathing heavily, he let the bucket of cement thump to the floor, then came and stood right up behind me, looking over my shoulder.
"That stone looks a bit loose ter me," he observed quietly.
"It's okay," I told him, twitching my shoulder in irritation. Clicking his dentures, he muttered something under his breath. "It's bloody fine!" I shouted, tugging at the bracket. "Look."
*
At this point I should explain that, unbeknownst to me, when the house was modernised and the electricity installed, the electrician had chosen that very stone as an anchor point for the glass ferruled bracket holding the incoming overhead mains cable. This cable, installed as it was under considerable tension, exerted a great force on the stone, which having been shot at with the Ramset, had loosened somewhat. It was this set of circumstance, along with Uncle Hobart's habit of replacing blown fuses with four-inch nails, that culminated in my untimely mishap.
*
A tingling sensation in the palm of my hand alerted me to the fact that the bracket was beginning to vibrate in a most alarming manner, and naturally, being a touch curious, I placed my ear against the wall. "I can hear a strange kind of funny twanging noise," I whispered, intrigued as to what it might be.
Well I soon found out, because before either of us could say another word, the room was shaken by an horrendous, ear-splitting crack. and a section of the bedroom wall disappeared. The bracket, torn from my grasp, went with it. Now this wouldn’t have caused me much anguish in normal circumstances, had the damned thing not caught in the sleeve of my jacket, pulling my arm through the hole, with the rest of me rapidly following. I was plucked from the bedroom, yanked through the hole in the wall, and shot across the front-yard at breakneck speed. The released tension on the overhead wires had acted like a huge elastic-band.
Landing on the asbestos roof of the cow shed with a rib-jarring crash, I watched the cables continue their erratic flight across the yard towards the church next door, where they wrapped themselves around the tower in a shower of sparks. The show that followed was equal to any firework display I've ever witnessed, and I looked on in stunned silence.
As the sparks died down, I groaned loudly, struggling to sit up. At least I wasn't too badly hurt, just a few bruises. Counting myself lucky to have got away so lightly, I staggered upright, yelling in surprise as the roof gave way beneath my feet. Falling face down, I suddenly found myself spread across the back of Uncle Hobart's meanest bull, my fingers clutching desperately for purchase on the animal's thick neck. Surprised, it took off like bar of soap from a pair of wet hands, with me still aboard.
Crashing through the barn door in a shower of splintering wood, we careered across the field in a mad dash, the bull bellowing its hostility, me bellowing my terror. The nightmare ride ended as abruptly as it had begun when we reached the edge of the field. The bull dug its feet into the ground, slithering to a halt, my momentum ensured that I continued onwards and upwards, my body following a gentle arc that ended in the thick, gluttonous effluent of a five-foot deep cesspool.
*
Some three hours and four baths later, I was supping beer by a roaring log fire, nursing my bruises. Uncle Hobart sat down opposite me and hissed open a can.
Wrinkling his nose, he shook his head. "Cor blimey Peter boy, you still smell bleedin' awful!"
Lighting a cigarette from one of the candles that were scattered about the room, I shrugged. "So who was that on the phone then?"
He sniffed again and pulled a face. "It were the bloke from the leccy. 'E reckons it's all sorted out now. Said they'd ‘ad ter put new fuses in the main line or summat, but the lights should be back on any minute now."
As Uncle Hobart uttered these words, the lights flickered once, twice, then began to burn steadily. He rose from his chair with a soft grunt and tottered around the room, blowing out the candles. "Yer know," - phhht - "it were a real pretty show," - phhht - "watching all them sparks from the church tower."
"Did the bloke from the electricity board tell you why the main fuses blew by any chance?" I asked in a quiet voice.
Uncle Hobart nodded and smiled at me. Tilting his head to one side, he clicked his dentures before replying, a frown creasing his forehead. "'E reckoned it were them cables yer managed ter wrap around the church tower what done it. But I can't see why that'd blow the fuses in the whole bleedin’ district, mind."
I held up a burnt, twisted nail that I’d extracted from the main fuse box in the outhouse. "Wouldn't have anything to do with this, I suppose?" I asked with a knowing smile.
Uncle Hobart clicked his dentures again, taking the nail from me as he sat down. "Where on earth did yer get that from?" he asked in wide-eyed innocence, before tossing the offending article onto the fire.