THE OLD ONES

The old man was out on the allotment with his wife that day. The sun was shining on their ageless forms and Spring bestowed them with the vernal zing they needed to live again. 

After a radiant morning digging in fresh, firm seed potatoes to boost their ration the elderly couple sat on deck chairs, ate potted beef sandwiches and drank sweet tea from an old stripy flask they got as a wedding gift before the war. The old man mopped his brow with a white cotton hanky stuffed in his rolled-up shirt-sleeve. It seemed as if they'd been digging for decades, the victory of hard work that broke the Hun and freed the world.

It was around one when they packed up and looked forward to listening to Sowerbutts on the wireless and maybe an afternoon nap. The May sun was at its fulcrum and all the world seemed to balance motionless on its point.

The old man brought their pride and joy, a brand new Morris Traveler, one of the first from the factory, round from the car park nearer to the gate where his wife was waiting with a well-maintained wheelbarrow full of old-fashioned but well looked-after garden tools. A spate of thefts from Andersons had put them off leaving them there.

After heaving the barrow in the Traveler's boot his wife sat in the passenger seat waiting for the old man to finish loading the last few tools, wiping oil on the sharp blades with an old rag. She wanted to catch the start of Down the Garden Path but loved the smell of tool oil, savouring this moment of peace.

As the final hand-tools were going in a very loud revving could be heard. The old man turned to see a gleaming BSA doing a ton up the road towards him. It had to brake to avoid hitting his Morris.

"Fuckin' move your car you old bastard!" the young rider screamed from under his helmet.

"Just ride round!" suggested the old man clutching his potato spade. 

"Your taking up all the fuckin' road you old cunt! Fuckin' shift your wooden car!"

The angry helmeted youth got off his bike, lowered his aviators and approached the old man.

He poked him hard on the chest, were he had a medal pinned, with his gloved finger.

"Move this heap of shit now!"

The old man's wife heard the commotion and got out of the car.

"What the fuck do you want bitch!"

"Please don't speak to my wife like that you jumped-up streak of baby grease!"

"You fuckin' what!"

The helmeted youth went up to the old man's wife and screamed in her face.

"Biiiiiiiiiiiiiitch!"

With surprising speed and strength for his age, the old man lunged and grabbed the youth's leather-jacket collar dragging him away.

"DO NOT SHOUT AT MY WIFE!"

The youth kicked out catching the old woman hard in the stomach. She doubled-up in agony and fell to the ground, where the youth kicked her again with his boot.

The old man hefted his spade with the hands of a seasoned warrior and swept it up high into the air. He brought it down in a beautiful arc of light and steel straight onto the youth's pudding helmet. It split in two like a walnut. Thwummp! The old man wielded it again, attuned to it's ancient grain, this time cleaving the youth's combed skull clean in half. He fell to his knees and shrieked in pain holding his riven head. The old man swung the spade round one last time, a perfect glistening circle from the side, susurrating through a split, cleaving the youth's slicked head clean off at the neck. It fell to the ground next to the helmet's halves with a thud.

The old woman stared at the old man.

"He shouldn't have kicked you."

"No dear. He shouldn't have."

"No respect these greasy boys. Not for us."

They didn't finish filling in the new vegetable bed until tea. The body took time. The bike had to be hidden in the Anderson. Sand had to be strewn on the road. Exhausted, they napped on deck chairs holding hands.

It was dusk when they woke.

"Lets go home and have a nice piece of carrot cake."

The two ethereal figures drove into the dying shards of sunlight, their radio stuttering from another age. The car's red rears faded in the shadows beneath the planes and they were gone until tomorrow when they would dig it all over again.