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And so life at the filling-station returned to normal, or anyway nearly to normal. I say nearly because things were definitely not quite the same as they had been before. The difference lay in my father. A change had come over him. It wasn't a big change, but it was enough to make me certain that something was worrying him quite a lot. He would brood a good deal, and there would be silences between us, especially at supper-time. Now and again I would see him standing alone and very still out in front of the filling-station, gazing up the road in the direction of Hazell's Wood.
Many times I wanted to ask him what the trouble was and had I done so, I'm sure he would have told me at once. In any event, I knew that sooner or later I would hear all about it.
I hadn't long to wait.
About ten days after his return from hospital, the two of us were sitting out on the platform of the caravan watching the sun go down behind the big trees on the top of the hill across the valley. We had had our supper but it wasn't my bedtime yet. The September evening was warm and beautiful and very still.
'You know what makes me so hopping mad,' he said to me all of a sudden. 'I get up in the mornings feeling pretty good. Then about nine o'clock every single day of the week, that huge silver Rolls-Royce comes swishing past the filling-station and I see the great big bloated face of Mr Victor Hazell behind the wheel. I always see it. I can't help it. And as he passes by, he always turns his head in my direction and looks at me. But it's the way he looks at me that is so infuriating. There is a sneer under his nose and a smug little smirk around his mouth and although I only see him for three seconds, it makes me madder than mackerel. What's more, I stay mad for the rest of the day'
'I don't blame you,' I said.
A silence fel
l between us. I waited to see what was coming next.
'I'll tell you something interesting,' he said at last. 'The shooting season for pheasants starts on Saturday. Did you know that?'
'No, Dad, I didn't.'
'It always starts on the first of October,' he said. 'And every year Mr Hazell celebrates the occasion by giving a grand opening-day shooting party'
I wondered what this had to do with my father being madder than a mackerel, but I knew for certain there would be a connection somewhere.
'It is a very famous event, Danny, that shooting party of Mr Hazell's.'
'Do lots of people come?' I asked.
'Hundreds,' he said. 'They come from miles around. Dukes and lords, barons and baronets, wealthy businessmen and all the fancy folk in the county. They come with their guns and their dogs and their wives, and all day long the noise of shooting rolls across the valley. But they don't come because they like Mr Hazell. Secretly they all despise him. They think he's a nasty piece of work.'
'Then why do they come, Dad?'
'Because it's the best pheasant shoot in the South of England, that's why they come. But to Mr Hazell it is the greatest day in the year and he is willing to pay almost anything to make it a success. He spends a fortune on those pheasants. Each summer he buys hundreds of young birds from the pheasant-farm and puts them in the wood, where the keepers feed them and guard them and fatten them up ready for the great day to arrive. Do you know, Danny, that the cost of rearing and keeping one single pheasant up to the time when it's ready to be shot is equal to the price of one hundred loaves of bread!'
'It's not true.'
'I swear it,' my father said. 'But to Mr Hazell it's worth every penny of it. And do you know why? It makes him feel important. For one day in the year he becomes a big cheese in a little world and even the Duke of So-and-so slaps him on the back and tries to remember his first name when he says goodbye.'
My father reached out a hand and scratched the hard plaster just below his left knee. 'It itches,' he said. 'The skin itches underneath the plaster. So I scratch the plaster and pretend I'm scratching the skin.'
'Does that help?'
'No,' he said, 'it doesn't help. But listen, Danny...'
'Yes, Dad?'
'I want to tell you something.'
He started scratching away again at the plaster on his leg. I waited for him to go on.
'I want to tell you what I would dearly love to do right now.'
Here it comes, I thought. Here comes something big and crazy. I could tell something big and crazy was coming simply from watching his face.
'It's a deadly secret, Danny' He paused and looked carefully all around him. And although there was probably not a living person within two miles of us at that moment, he now leaned close to me and lowered his voice to a soft whisper. 'I would like', he whispered, 'to find a way of poaching so many pheasants from Hazell's Wood that there wouldn't be any left for the big opening-day shoot on October the first.'
'Dad!' I cried. 'No!'
'Ssshh,' he said. 'Listen. If only I could find a way of knocking off a couple of hundred birds all in one go, then Mr Hazell's party would be the biggest wash-out in history!'
