WALL
OF CONFLICT
Nik Morton
“What’s
up?” he asked.
“Arlington
Street has started picketing the builders,” she said.
“How
nice for them!”
“They’re protesting
that the top of their street’s now walled-off from the corner shop while the
bottom’s separated from the corner pub...”
Lowering his
stout frame behind the metal desk, he grunted, “And no doubt they’re raising
another petition?”
Mary
nodded but would not look at him.
He
signed a couple of routine letters then returned his attention to her. “There’s more?”
“Yes, Mr
Farrar. The police have been called in
to safeguard the workmen,” she went on. “The
wall should be completed this afternoon.”
“And the other
streets?”
“Similar
progress there, sir. Although, they don’t
seem to mind their streets being blocked-off half-way...”
They
wouldn’t, he thought, amused. Of all
those chosen, only Arlington Street had a pub at one end and a shop at the
other.
He
dismissed Mary and smiled. His hate had
come to fruition. Hate for Arlington
Street had festered and grown ever since he resigned his commission in the Army
and overheard someone talking about him in that damned local. “Arrogant swine, he is. Still thinks he’s top
brass in the Army!”
Even
his mother sided against him when he told her.
“Son, they’re friendly if you give them a chance...”
“It’s
their ignorance, mother - their jealousy warps them,” he informed her in
measured tones. “They know I’m better
than them, but won’t accept it.”
Then,
Nat Brice, their next-door neighbour and the council’s Director of Technical
Services had called. “I’m sorry,
Lamby...”
“For
Heaven’s sake, Brice, stop calling me “Lamby”!
We’re not kids now!”
“Sorry,
Lambert.”
Sorry!
That’s all he ever got out of him! No
damned back-bone, that was always his trouble.
How on earth did the borough cope with him at the helm? “Well, out with it, man!”
“My
van - I backed into... your Bentley... Nothing serious – I’ll pay for the
repair...”
Lambert
had responded with the invective traditionally reserved for raw Army recruits.
Still, the incident prompted him to seek
alternative parking for the Bentley. The
solution was simple enough. Knock down
the wall and turn the front room into a garage.
Trouble was,
when he made his project known, thirty neighbours objected to the idea and Nat
Brice made a representation to the Housing Minister. Brice had also protested
in the national press: “A garage in the front of the house will spoil the
appearance of the road and create fumes and noise.”
They
won the day. While the urban council
agreed to Lambert’s proposal, the county planners turned it down. He moved out
of his mother’s house and rented a flat round the corner.
The sourness of
that defeat goaded him. A senior post in
the town council became vacant. With the help of qualifications gained in
Forces’ Correspondence courses and the leverage of a few very influential
friends, he managed to get the job.
He reflected
smugly that his rise had been uncanny.
Ironically, on his third anniversary in the council, he achieved the
position of Assistant to the Director, Nat Brice no less. The appointment galled him; but he had
already formulated a scheme to rid himself of Brice.
It
was brilliantly engineered. But everything he handled had flair.
The
local weekly paper scooped the nationals with a sensational exposé: ROOF FALLS
IN ON HOUSING RACKET - BOROUGH DIRECTOR RESIGNS.
It
had taken some string-pulling, altering documents where necessary, and it wasn’t
easy to twist the incriminating evidence in Brice’s direction.
For
all Brice’s protestations of innocence, the stigma stuck; he had no option but
to resign as an enquiry was called.
Moving
into Brice’s office had been a marvellous feeling. And, at forty, still the
town’s youngest-ever Director of Technical Services.
Lambert’s
first speech was an impressive one. “Our
society faces a growing problem - increasing town traffic. I aim to curtail any further influx of
vehicles.”
They were
unanimously behind him for it was an explosive issue brought home to them by
irate house-owners and pedestrians. And the cold statistics of rising
road-deaths only lent more substance to such a prohibition. Speed-bumps and speed-cameras weren’t the
answer, he’d said. Too expensive.
He never looked
back after that. Now, he was a
well-known figure, though not very popular with motorists. The tabloids had speedily pointed out that he
still allowed himself one concession - the Bentley...
“I won’t be
provoked,” he said during one press gathering.
He had other plans...
As
proposals for ring-roads and one-way systems went forward, he dropped another
vote-catching bombshell: “The safety of the towns-people’s youngsters!”
His
speech made front-page headlines. “This aim has always been dearest to my heart
and I believe now is the time to make the streets safe for our children to play
in.” Every word his own. “I want to see
more play-streets in this town and less traffic...”
Put
like that, he knew the council had no alternative but to agree wholeheartedly.
They wouldn’t particularly relish hundreds of mothers hounding them should they
veto the idea!
Shopkeepers
and the sturdier die-hards offered their objections. But he soon silenced them: “For the price of
a few bricks and mortar you’d see more of the town’s children run over?” Good
rhetoric, that.
The intercom
squawked. “The wall’s completed, Mr Farrar.”
He felt content
at last. Revenge! The brick wall
stretching across the middle of Arlington Street, dividing his mother’s door
from her neighbour, Nat Brice, and chopping the entire street in half!
“An Arlington
Street representative is on the line, sir,” Mary hesitated then added: “It – it’s
Mrs Farrar... your mother...”
Lambert”s
finger paused on the console. Cunning devils! Oh, well... “All right,” he said
coldly, “I’ll speak to her.”
He
listened absently to her pleading tirade, then interrupted, “I’ll look into it,
honestly, mother. It’s a trial period. But you must appreciate the safety of
our neighbours’ kids comes first, boozing and packets of fags at the corner
shop a sad second.”
“Since
when have you had the welfare of our neighbours at heart?” He could picture her flaccid rouged cheeks
quivering with barely suppressed emotion.
“Ever
since they took such a liking to me, mother.” He hung up.
***
The cool night air hit hard as he emerged
from the pub. Quite a celebration! He clambered into his parked Bentley.
He
pulled away from the kerb. A note from
Mary was still unopened in his coat pocket.
He’d forgotten all about it in his eagerness to come out and celebrate;
he might relent after a few months and have a doorway cut into the wall for
pedestrians. He fished out the envelope.
Accelerating
into his own street, he suddenly realised he was driving with no lights and the
street-lamps were on the blink again.
He tried to
brake on seeing the obstacle in his way, but his reactions were too
dulled.
***
When they cut him out of the tangled
wreckage, a crumpled envelope was found in his dead hand. The note inside said:
The
protesters dismantled the bricks from the Arlington Street wall and dumped them
across your street. Do you wish to
prosecute?
***
Previously
published in the Costa Blanca News,
2005.
Copyright
Nik Morton, 2014
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