Rough justice

Mr W. is all 'blahblahblah who wants to friggin' know about your whining Hong Kong life? Why don't you tell people something important? Like what happened to me down the allotment?'

I say yes, alright. I've had enough with my whining as well.

So here's something different.

Mr W. hires a van and drives to the council allotment to fetch his water butt and his wheelbarrow and all his gardening tools.

Don't ask me why. I forget. Maybe he wants to rebuild a scale model of his allotment in his kitchen and call it installation art. I don't know. Anything's possible.

But Mr W. arrives at the allotment and what does he see? Nothing, that's what. His patch of soil is bare. It's been cleared. Of everything. Including the plants.

Mr W. is not the sort of man to clear it already and forget. I would do that. I would forget. I would look at my crusty council soil, scratch my head, then come home and look under the sofa. I would imagine I lent the wheelbarrow to someone, or it would turn up. After a while I would forget that I forgot. Not Mr W. He immediately is on the trail.

He walks around the allotments until he sees Bill (let's call him Bill). Bill's the Big Chief. With his round face, straightforward manner and rolled up shirtsleeves he's been put in charge. He's responsible for keeping everyone else on weed duty, patrolling the communal paths, and tidying up when people leave their allotments for vegetables patches elsewhere. Each week Bill has tea with the little blonde-haired PCSO and her high-pitched laugh, in his shed, when she drops by on her community walk.

Bill looks up, surprised, as Mr W. comes down the path towards him. 'Hello Bill', says Mr W. 'Have you seen my stuff? It's disappeared!'

Bill says 'Nah, nah, not at all mate.' They talk about the weather and what a rotten season it is for cabbages. Just as Mr W. is about to go, he sees through a crack in Bill's shed door, the red handle of a wheelbarrow. Mr W. stops and says, 'Why is my wheelbarrow in your shed?'

Bill's eyes dart right and left. He says, 'Ah! That wheelbarrow! It's yours, is it? Yup. I put it there for safe keeping.'

Safekeeping? asks Mr W. 'I chained it up. Someone cut through the chain with bolt cutters.'

Bill's eyes slide this way and that. He licks the corner of his mouth and rolls up his shirt sleeves, just a little. There's no-one around. He suddenly looks Mr W. straight in the eye, and laughs. He pokes a finger at Mr W.'s chest. He laughs, a big scornful laugh. 'You can't do nothing!' he shouts. 'Nothing!'

If I were Bill, I wouldn't have done that. Mr W. is a big man. Broad in the chest with heavy arms. You can bet those arms could swing a length of industrial metal pipe like it was a feather duster. Mr W. draws back one of his heavy, muscular arms and has a word with Bill.

Bill has no option but to listen to that word. Within a trice he clamps his hand to his face and runs as fast as he can to his shed where he locks himself in and telephones the police.

Mr W. shouts 'Yeah! You do that! And I want no button nosed PCSO either!'

Within a trice the squad cars arrive. 'Four of them!' Mr W. roars in delight. 'Four squad cars just for me!'

So that's as much as I will say. You could play a game called Did the police get it right? What would you do with Bill and Mr W.? Did anyone get a caution? Did anyone get arrested? Did anyone get a night in the cells?

One thing is for sure. It was a much better story to tell than how I decided to pack the white sandals and not the black sandals on the basis that the black ones hurt my big toe.


And I apologise to Mr W. for making free with his story. (But the punching is true.)