The Jack Hansard Series: Season Two

Episode 3.1

Dawn's watery grey light filtered in through the moth-holes of my windscreen blanket. The blankets pinned to the side windows were more intact, but the light was persistent in its exploitation of every tiny gap that allowed it passage into my car and beyond my eyelids.

I threw an arm over my face, but it was no use. Not even the comforting dark could shield me from the hellish sound that had dogged me all night and followed me into the grim light of day.

It was the sound that nightmares are made of. A dull rattle of machine guns in fog; the rumble of thunder over a restless ocean; the snorting and grunting of bulls readying to charge.

It was Ang, snoring.

With huge reluctance, I opened my eyes. I couldn't see Ang from my bed on the backseat. Not long after her 'moving in' to my car I'd taken to pinning a blanket to the ceiling at night to separate front seats from back, for some small semblance of privacy between us. Often, I wished it were a thick granite wall instead.

As my mind sharpened into full consciousness, I became aware of a strange weight on my chest. I craned my neck and came almost nose-to-nose with a rat.

It had a large, greasy parcel strapped to its back.

'You could at least knock,' I shifted the creature off me and thumped the back of Ang's seat with my foot. 'Wake up, you bloody bulldozer.'

'Whuh?'

'There's a rat here. Think it's for you.'

She was sharp as a tack within seconds. 'Why didn't ye say?' She whipped down the privacy blanket and glared at me. The effect was somewhat ruined by the fact that she still had her nightcap on. It was a remarkably clean thing, given the grubbiness of Ang's other supposedly white clothing, and the hint of frill at the edges with her curly grey hair poking out from underneath made her look like a little old Victorian grandmother.

I jostled the rat off my chest and Ang welcomed it into her lap. The parcel contained exactly what I expected: a thick Cornish pasty, gently oozing gravy at one corner where it had possibly been nibbled in transit. Ang placed it lovingly to one side. The amount of tenderness she shows towards pastry worries me, sometimes.

She smoothed out the paper it had been wrapped in and stared at it intently. Coblyns, I've learned – and knockers, for that matter – won't waste anything if they can help it, and if a thing can be put to more than one use, then all the better. Even if that thing really ought not be left soggy from grease and covered in dirt after travelling via rat.

How the rodent postal system worked was an utter mystery to me, but it somehow reliably delivered Ang her Cornish pasties wrapped in letters from her not-exactly-a-friend every few weeks.

Her mouth moved very slightly while she read over the words.

'How's Goron?' I asked, sitting up properly and looking for my shaving kit.

Her eyes snapped up. 'What's t'be saying it's from him?'

'He always sends you food.'

She looked like she wanted to argue – but Ang isn't quite so good at arguing with the truth as I am. Instead she muttered, 'Good pasties, they is.'

'I'm sure. So, how is the old knocker? What's in the letter?'

'Dunno, gwas.' Her brow furrowed as her eyes cast back down. 'Trouble.'

* * *

Author's Note

Quite a short one this week, but I'd rather get something out than nothing. If you follow my blog you'll know I've been much busier than usual with writing up a new Jack Hansard-inspired Virtual Bookshop Tour every day. If you love quirky English bookshops, come check it out. (Website links in my profile.)

Longer instalment planned for next week ;-)