Retirement Fund

by RE Carroll

   I am not going to enter any of my information in a box. I do not have an email address. I do not have a phone number I want public. My official income is non-existent. My wealth is not something to be shared. So, on buying my cottage I cannot just go online and do a search.  That’s what people would recommend. “Go online and do a search.” If I ever discussed my plans with people.

   I do not want to deal with estate agents. I do not want to deal with the children in suits. Ignoring my needs but noting my details. I deal with children in suits day in, day out. They seem to know about nothing but about how to fuck my day up. No records, no paper trail, no cookies. I know about the cookies. Crumbling all my secrets to God knows who. There are bad people out there. I will never type my name in a box... let the world know where I am.

   I do this the proper way. I drive around in the mornings. Setting off before dawn. Hitting the b roads above London when daylight breaks. Avoiding even the small towns. Shefford. Gamlingay. Saffron Walden. Great Dunmow. Sawbridgeworth. I look at the farms. Some modern redbrick. A crane has lifted a house from the city housing development new builds and spat it on to concrete. No. The old places are what catch my eye. The old places with no recent work done. Four granite walls and a roof. The farms where someone has not bothered to make a home. These are the ones I stop at, look about, see if there are any structures further away from the dilapidated farmhouses.

  Near Braughing I find what I’m looking for. A cow farm, the main cluster of buildings all functional, filthy, unloved. A lonely man owns this land. Up a hill, beyond a copse is a shale stone cottage.  At the boundary of this lone man’s land. A cottage where every morning no light comes on, no smoke rises from the roof. I rub thick mud over my licence plate. Obscure a few numbers on both sides. I drive up his trail of soil and jagged edges. I feel my tyres curse me at every jutting stone. He is waiting at the door of his home, shotgun on arm.

   “What do you want?”

   I get out of the car. Hands at five and seven, palms open. I nod to his gun, my look questions its presence.

   “Badgers.”

   His explanation comes back with anger. It says I could easily be mistaken for a badger. And I could. My hair and beard are grey, white and few stubborn strands of black. I left in darkness and did not comb my hair.

   “Is your cottage for sale?”

   “Do you see a sign?”

   “No… but I am looking for a cottage and saw yours.”

   “Not for sale.”

   “That’s a shame as I was…”

   “I would rent it for £2000 a month.”

   I am not interested in renting.

   “Perhaps we could go look.”

   “Busy now.”

   “I am here now.”

   “Didn’t ask you here though?”

   As we talk, smoke starts rising from behind the farmhouse. It is denser and blacker and more pungent with every word. I follow the farmer around his structure to a pyre with dead cows doused in petrol. I count twelve hooves. The farmer looks at it for a bit, seems happy with the progress.

   “Badgers. Come on.”

   Maybe the badgers have spread TB to his cattle. The beasts wandering still alive near the bonfire look healthy but hungry. Very little green. He remains silent as we enter the small woods. It is bracken and overgrown. Gutted carrier bags and stripped wire cords are impaled on the thorns. A canopy eclipses us.

   Back out into the daylight the cottage is up a steep incline. We trudge up the gravel. It is satisfyingly loud under foot. The cottage seems sturdy. The door frames need replacing, the windows need dusting and de-webbing but I see no issues.

   Inside is full of junk to begin with. A new dumping ground never ventured too deep into from the doorway. We squeeze our bodies past old kettles and wheelbarrows. Further in, it is neat. A time capsule from about a decade ago. Piles of newspapers tied together with yarn create a maze to a small toilet and fitted bath. A room with a quilted bed and desk with an oil lamp - not musty. A picked-clean kitchenette with a stove that would heat the place entire finely, even at winter.  I look out the back window to a large duck pond, then an electrified fence. No doubt set up by the better run farm adjacent. The front window gives me a view of the gravel path, the copse, his fire and then the main road. There is not much space. Even when you lose the papers and the junk it would feel like a cell. This is all good.

   “My mother’s.”

   “I would like to buy it.”

   “No buy. Told you rent is £2000 a month.”

   He talks to me like a foreigner. Which I am. But he does not know that.

   We walk back to my car in silence. Me leading the way. I can feel his doubts, that he has missed his chance, warming my back. I stop at his bony livestock and shake my head noticeably.

   When we reach my car, I ask him to wait. I go to my boot, take out a document case. In it is all the paperwork our solicitors have pre-drafted and a million pounds in twenty-pound note bundles. I am not worried about showing him this, even with his loaded shotgun in hand.

   “This is four times more than the land beyond the trees is worth. It is now my land. You are not to set foot on it without my invitation.”

   Within a day he has had the documents looked over, signed and filed.

***

   I do not return for a year and a half, except to occasionally look from the main road at my new retirement home. It is only once I realise I shall be living here soon, with a rare week spare looming, that I start work.

   Boss will be away on holiday in the Caribbean for the week, so I have the mornings free. The mornings at the very least. I’m there early enough to hear the cows crying. In my boot are fifty industrial rubble sacks. It is hard to know what to clear out first. Rows of soup cans that are out of date. Empty bookshelves stay. By noon I’m a quarter cleared and covered in dust. I load the boot. All that I leave that is new is two 15 litre bottles of water and a new pull up bar. I squeeze and screw it between the bedroom doorframe. After testing that it will take my weight, I leave it alone. My arms ache enough from the day.

   Before driving to the dump, I check the duck pond around back. The water seems clear and surprisingly deep. There is no stagnant smell. I walk the circumference, kicking and stamping the edges where turf becomes water. A second surprise. The far side is a cement wall.

   The cottage is clear by Wednesday. Walls, floors, units and ceiling sugar soaped and bleached thoroughly by Thursday. The husk is sturdy and needs only minor repairs. I have not set eyes on the farmer once.

   On Friday I shop. Towels, sheets and blankets. Toilet paper, bars of soap. Tinned soup, tinned pies and tinned chilli. Dry pasta, instant coffee, UHT milk, dark chocolate biscuits and an 84-litre plastic crate to seal them in. Pots and pans, a whistling kettle. 10 rolls of extra strength clingfilm. Cash paid. I reckon the bookshelves can take about 100 paperback books. I visit a chain bookshop; their biography section only occupies two bays. I clear them out - ignoring popstars and sports stars and anyone else born after the sixties. Cash paid. I buy the basics at the building store first. A hammer, a screwdriver, a shovel, oil for the old oil lamp I decided not to put in a rubble bag. Then 4 stainless steel commercial eye bolts with long shanks, a pack of four marquee stake pegs, a submersible drill, 20 metres of welded chain, and 5 all-weather combination padlocks. Cash paid. Finally, a yacht shop sells me a simple snorkelling mask and a 64 litre overboard drybag. Cash paid.

   I drop everything off late that evening, pack all the household stuff away before spending my first night. I need to reteach my body parts to not escape the bedding at night. The cold they let in wakes me a few times. I’m up standing before dawn breaks. The duck pond water is bracing and less than a metre down the darkness is stifling. At the far side I follow the man-made wall down to the soft earthy bed, it is about six metres deep. Once the sun provides enough light I start to drill and attach the bolts at metre intervals down along the cement, coming up and down for air every minute or so.  I hammer the pegs deep into the turf leading away from the edge of the pond. They anchor what will be the dry end of the chain. Then I thread the chain next to the exposed eyeholes. Then I attach the padlocks into the chain, clasping each bolt. The combinations are 1812 2522 1001 0301.

   I come up for air after the fourth padlock and the farmer is standing at the back of my cottage watching. He nods as I catch my breath and walks away.

   Both feet on the wall, I pull my drybag full of money into the water. £23 million pounds in twenties and fifties wrapped in clingfilm. And a pistol wrapped in two condoms. Some fake IDs with my likeness on them. It sinks to the bottom. I swim down after it; I padlock the wet end of the chain to the bag. I do it in such a way that the chain can be used to pull the full weight of the bag back up along the wall. I attach the padlock in such a way that if you were to try and remove the chain from the bag without the combination, water would flood in. It would take three or four strong swimmers to lift the bag out even if the contents were dry.

   I resurface happy with my day’s work. Happy with my week’s work. I would like to say I left the bag in full confidence after that. I swim down half a dozen more times checking the integrity of my sunken retirement fund. I give up and trust my method once the daylight dips. As I leave the farm the next morning, I notice the cattle feed troughs are empty, except for rust.

***

   Two young men in suits prod me up to the duck pond. Armani. Hugo Boss. Neither is dressed for the farm or my copse. I am only wearing my dress trousers. They are wrinkled, bloody, I have pissed myself. My face is covered in pink phlegm, my blood has dyed the sticky drivel from my face holes. Inside my mouth a broken tooth rattles around. I dare not spit it out. I run its sharp edge against my tongue and inner cheek, hoping to distract myself from my real pains. I am barefoot, my shoes are in a warehouse in Hanwell. I would not be able to wear them again. They have removed my big toe. God knows what cowshit and goose shit I am pressing into my open stump as I lead these young men in suits to my money. At least we are not following the gravel path.

   At the edge of the duck pond I try to explain how I’ll need my snorkel from the cottage. One hits me in the temple with the butt of his gun. I black out for a second. They are pulling at the chain when I reawaken. It will not budge. The padlocks are doing their job.

   The more violent one, Armani, kicks me into the water. With little breath I pull myself down to the first padlock. 1812. It opens and I drop it down into the deep water. I come up for air. Gasp at first but I am out of their reach now. I sputter a bit, then take three deep, lung filling breaths. I almost swallow that jagged little tooth. Using the chain to guide me, I pull myself deeper down to the next padlock.  2522, it comes free. I blow out a bubble of trapped oxygen. I decide to keep going down. My lungs ache as I turn the tumblers to 1001. I swim up with this padlock in hand. I throw it at their feet.

   “One more to go…”

   Their faces betray smiles. All the ingrained hardness disappears from them for a few seconds. They could be lads fishing from a canal bank, feeling the first tug on their line. I wonder what is going through their heads right now? Are they thinking about the money? About keeping the money for themselves? Rather than bringing it back to our boss as instructed.

   I resubmerge. Follow the chain down further into the darkness. The cold water dulls all the pain from the torture I have been through. I wish I could stay down here indefinitely. My hands work the tumblers of the padlock. I cannot see the combination number. 0301. It takes some effort to prise open this one. It is unwilling to detach from its grip. The chain slackens as it comes away. Then tightens. They are already heaving the bag up. I feel the links ascend, tug up through my palms. I let go. Could I swim to the other side now? Make a run for it while their hands are full of chain? Where would I go, broke and broken? How much of a chase would they have to give to catch an old man with nine toes?

   They leave me to drag myself back onto the verge. I am soaked and shivering. The bag heaves up next to me.

   The violent one crouches on the other side of the bag. With the rifle of his automatic he toys with the final padlock.

   “Open it.”

   My whole body is convulsing but I right myself up, hunching over the heavy drybag. I look up beyond the trees down at the farmhouse. No light is on, there is no noise. I have no hope of the farmer coming up. A few of his emaciated cows circle us warily.  I comply. I slowly turn the numbers with my juddering, wrinkled fingertips.

3…

5…

4…

9…

   The violent one’s face lights up. He looks at me greedily as if I have served him up a hot feast. He leans in as I open the bag. I can feel the warmth of his breath on my sodden torso. He overlooks my hand reaching inside the bag. He is too excited. When my fingers find the unmistakable slimy rubber of the condoms I whistle. He looks up at me. I spit my broken tooth right into his eye.

   He stumbles back screaming. His gun hand goes up to cover his face retroactively, hitting his forehead accidentally. I take my chance and dive forward. Using my wet weight to knock him further off balance. We roll around on the muddy verge, my bare feet penetrating the drybag. I will not have this small advantage for long. Hugo Boss will have raised his shotgun. He’ll be trying to figure out whether to risk shooting me as we struggle. I’m dead either way so I take rough aim with my condoms covered weapon and squeeze where the trigger should be.

   Nothing hits its target but it does not have to.

   Instinctively, he returns fire with his less precise gun. Fifty fifty the blast will hit me or Armani as we wrestle for dominance. For the first time in two days, luck is on my side. The body I struggle with goes limp. His partner has shot the wrong one of us. The farmer should surely hear the noise just made?

   Now I have Armani’s Springfield Hellcat. I unload all twelve rounds at a shell-shocked Hugo Boss. Better grip, no condoms obscuring the sight. He does not stand a chance. He flops to the floor before I even finish firing.

   I pull myself away from the wounded dead. Scrabble over to the bag. I find only old newspapers and twine inside. All the money has gone, along with the fake IDs. No sign of life down the hill at the main building, even after all that gunfire. I smile. At least the old bastard has left me the farm. Somewhere to bury these two.