13 friday

The narrator is preparing for a poaching job with their father. They spend the morning preparing raisins filled with a white powder. The father shares memories of the narrator's mother and their poaching adventures together. They take a break for lunch but the narrator is too nervous to eat. They discuss the plan and the importance of arriving at the woods before sunset. They finish preparing the raisins and get ready to leave. As they are about to leave, a woman stops by to get gas and notices that the narrator is nervous. CHAPTER THIRTEEN FRIDAY When my father woke me at six o'clock the next morning, I knew at once that it was the day of days. It was the day I longed for and the day I dreaded. It was also the day of butterflies in the stomach, except they were worse than butterflies, they were snakes. I had snakes in the stomach the moment I opened my eyes on that Friday morning. The first thing I did after I got dressed was to hang the sorry clothes notice on one of the pumps and have a quick breakfast. Then the two of us sat down together at the table in the caravan to prepare the raisins. They were plump and soft and swollen from being soaked in the water, and when you nicked them with a razor blade, the skin sprang open and the jelly stuff inside squeezed out as easily as you could wish. I slit the raisins while my father opened the capsules. He opened only one at a time and poured the white powder onto a piece of paper. Then he divided it into four tiny piles with the blade of a knife. Each pile was carefully scooped up and put into a single raisin. A needle, a black cotton, finished the job. The sewing up was the hardest part and my father did most of that job. It took almost two minutes to do one raisin from start to finish. I enjoyed it. It was fun. Your mother was wonderful at sewing things, my father said out of the blue. She'd have these raisins done in no time. I didn't say anything. I never knew quite what to say when he talked about my mother. Did you know she used to make all my clothes herself, Jenny? Everything I wore. Even your socks and undies? I asked. Yes, he said, but those were knitted and so quickly. When she was knitting, the needles flew so fast in her fingers you couldn't see them. They were just a blur. I would sit here in the evening watching her and she used to talk about the children she was going to have. I shall have three children, she used to say. A boy for you, a girl for me, and one for good measure. There was a short silence after that. Then I said, When was your dad? Did you go out very often at night? Or was it only now and then? You mean poaching? Yes. Often, he said. At least twice a week. Didn't she mind? Mind? Of course she didn't mind. She came with me. She did. She certainly did. She came with me every single time until just before you were born. She had to stop then. She said she couldn't run fast enough. I thought about this extraordinary piece of news for a while. Then I said, What's the only reason she went? Because she loved you, Dad. And because she wanted to be with you. Or did she go because of poaching? Both, my father said. She did it for both the reasons you mentioned. I was beginning to realise what an immense sorrow it must have been to him when she died. Weren't you afraid she might get shot up? I asked. Yes, Danny, I was. But it was marvellous to have her along. She was a great sport, your mother. By midday, we'd prepared 136 raisins. We're in good shape, my father said. Let's break for lunch. He opened a tin of baked beans and heated them up in a saucepan over the paraffin burner. I cut two slices of brown bread and put them all on my plate. My father poured the hot baked beans over the bread and we carried our plates outside and sat down with our legs dangling over the platform of our caravan. Usually I love baked beans on bread, but today I couldn't eat a thing. What's the matter? my father asked. I'm not hungry. Don't worry, he said. The same thing happened to me the first time I went out. I was about your age, Dad, maybe a little older. And in those days, we always had a hot tea in the kitchen at five o'clock. I can remember exactly what was on the table that evening. It was my favourite thing of all, toad in the hole. And my mum could make toad in the hole like nobody else in the world. She did it in an enormous pan with the Yorkshire pudding very brown and crisp on top and raised up in a huge bubbly mountain. In between the mountains, you could see the sausages half buried in the batter. How fantastic it was. But on that day, my stomach was so jumpy, I couldn't eat one mouthful. I expect yours feels like that now. Mine's full of snakes, I said. They won't stop wriggling about. Mine doesn't feel exactly normal either, my father said. But then this isn't a normal operation, is it? No, Dad, it's not. Do you know what this is, Danny? This is the most colossal and extraordinary poaching job anyone has ever been on in the history of the world. Don't go on about it, Dad, it only makes me more jumpy. What time do we have to leave here? I've worked that out, he said. We must enter the wood about 15 minutes before sunset. If we arrive after sunset, all the pheasants will have flown up into the trees and it'll be too late. In sunset? I asked. Right now it's at about 7.30, he said, so we must arrive at 7.15 exactly. It's an hour and a half's walk to the wood, so we must leave here at a quarter to six. Then we'd better finish those raisins, I said. We've still got more than 60 to do. We finished the raisins with about two hours to spare. They lay in a pile on a white plate in the middle of the table. Don't they look marvellous, my father said, rubbing his hands together hard. Those pheasants are going to absolutely love them. After that, we messed around in the workshop until about half past five. Then my father said, that's it, it's time to get ready. We leave in 15 minutes. As we walked towards the caravan, a station wagon pulled up to the pumps with a woman at the wheel and about eight children in the back, all eating ice cream. Oh, I know you're closed, the woman called out through her window, but couldn't you please let me have a few gallons? I'm just about empty. She was a good-looking woman with dark hair. Give it here, my father said, but be quick. I fetched the key from the office and unlocked one of the pumps. I filled up her tank and took the money and gave her her change. You don't usually close as early as this, she said. We have to go out, I told her, hopping from one foot to another. I have to go somewhere with my father. You look as jumpy as a jackrabbit, she said. Is it the dentist? No, ma'am, it's not the dentist, but please excuse me, I have to go now.