There is one building here I particularly like. According to Lisa, it was an outdoor bath house back in the eighteenth century, and at one time it must have made your average heated swimming pool in the commuter villages of Surrey look like my granddad’s old tin tub in front of the fire. But a hundred years later some other lord or earl, one of the Saviles, decided to build a glass roof over this thing and convert it into an orangery. You know, like you grow your oranges in. You haven’t got one? Well, it was all the thing in Nottinghamshire then. Everybody had to have one.
But then Rufford suffered a disaster. It was sold on by the Savile family and ended up in the gentle hands of the British Army, who used it during the Second World War for storing ammunition and basically let the place fall down. You won’t be surprised to hear that Nottinghamshire County Council and English Heritage are planning to finish restoring Rufford Abbey. When they can get the money.
There’s also a permanent sculpture collection here, that Lisa showed me once. Really modern stuff. Interesting. There’s a big Easter Island sort of stone head and a woman with no head at all. Then there’s something called Iron Equinox, which is an inventive creation combining the contrasting tones and textures of cast iron, steel and lead. Well, all right, it’s a lump of metal with bits of wire trailing from it. Interesting, though.
One of these sculptures is by some bird called Siobhan Coppinger. Basically, it’s a bench on a stone base, and it sits in a corner of the orangery. At one end of the bench is a bloke in wellies and a hat, with his coat collar turned up. At the other end is a curly horned sheep, all four hooves on the bench, like it was sitting up ready for a bit of intelligent conversation. Both the bloke and the sheep are made of chicken wire and ferro-concrete, but there’s more life in them than there is in some of my neighbours on the Forest Estate. There’s also room in between them on the bench for people to sit, so that’s what I did. It’s the sort of thing that amuses me.
I sat for a while staring at the sculpture opposite me. It’s a bronze thing called the Charioteer, but to me it looks more like a duck falling off a plinth. I haven’t figured that one out yet. I’ll have to remember to ask Lisa about it.
When the lad I was meeting arrived, he first clocked me from behind a tree in the arboretum. I saw him stop, gape and dodge back behind the trunk like someone playing cowboys and indians. That irritates me. These idiots have always watched too much telly.
Finally, it seemed to dawn on him that the other bloke on the bench with me wasn’t real, and he sneaked up gradually, pretending I couldn’t see him until he was a few feet away. I humoured him. He already looked nervous enough without me startling him with a display of supernatural powers, like being able to see him creeping up on me in full view. Even if I hadn’t been looking, I’d have noticed the smell approaching. It was like a mixture of motor oil and chips. You get a lot of it wafting round the Forest Estate and it makes me feel at home.
The lad still hesitated in the doorway of the orangery, his eyes shifting sideways, taking in the art. Old Siobhan had obviously made an impact. In case he hadn’t realised, I pointed out that the bloke in wellies wasn’t really with us, not even in spirit.
“Don’t worry, he’s made of concrete, so he ain’t listening. In fact, he’s stone deaf.” But the bloke was looking past me at the other occupant of the bench. “Oh, got a thing about sheep, have ewe?”
“This is weird, man. What’s it all mean?”
“Good question, Trevor. It makes you think, doesn’t it?”
“Er, yeah.”
“Sit down.”
“Is it safe?”
“What do you think’s going to happen — the sheep’s going to bite you, or what? But of course you’re a city boy, aren’t you, Trevor? Nobody’s ever explained to you that real sheep aren’t made of concrete.”
He eventually sat down next to me on the bench. I might say he looked a bit sheepish, but I won’t. I don’t know quite how to describe what he did look like in his tattered jeans and army boots, with a filthy, smelly anorak pulled over his t-shirt. That anorak was so shiny with grease it could have deflected the glare from a nuclear explosion. His lank hair wasn’t much better. But at least there was life in there among that oily tangle, which is more than could be said for his eyes. He looked as though he was just coming down from a trip, and it had been a bad one, worse than a works outing to Skeggie. When I said I was clutching at straws, I really meant it.
“They made me pay a quid in the car park,” he complained.
“You’ve got a car, Trevor? I didn’t even know you’d got a licence again.”
“I haven’t. But how the hell do you get here from Nottingham on the bleedin’ bus?”
“You telling me you nicked a motor to come here?”
“That’s what everybody does round here, ain’t it? Why couldn’t we have met somewhere else? What’s wrong with a pub? This place gives me the creeps.”
“There are supposed to be a lot of ghosts here.”
“Eh?”
“Don’t worry about it, Trevor. Just enjoy the sculptures.”
“Is that what they are?”
“Of course.”
“So why do they call it the orangery then? That’s what it said on the sign. Orangery.”
“Bloody hell, did you think they were oranges? You’ve lived a more sheltered life than I thought. Have all my sheep jokes been wasted then?”
“You’re always bleedin’ taking the piss, you are, Stones. I don’t know why I bother coming when you shout.”
“Yes you do, Trevor. It’s because you love me as the caring human being I am, and want to express your friendship and admiration for me.”
“Piss off.”
“Here. Take a look at this.”
At first, Trevor shied away from the piece of paper I held out to him. He looked as though he might be about to claim he couldn’t read, but I knew better than that. He’d been to Nottingham High School and got nine ‘O’ levels and four ‘A’ levels, followed by a degree in Sociology. But everyone has to have a role to act out, don’t they?
“What is it?”
“It’s a love letter from me to you, Trevor. I’ve hidden my feelings for too long. It’s time we came out. Why don’t you read it and see what it is for yourself, you pillock?”
While he read it, I admired the scenery in the orangery. An old couple down the far end were reading an interpretation board about the history of Rufford Abbey. I heard the old biddy commenting on one of the sculptures, complaining about the way it had been treated. It wasn’t the Charioteer, but a sort of fractured concrete ball, three feet high, that was split wide open at the top. The old girl was outraged that somebody had left their sweet wrappers in it. I hadn’t the heart to tell her it was an avant-garde rubbish bin.
“This is a list of names,” said Trevor cautiously.
“Well done. Your education wasn’t wasted.”
“Who are they?”
“That, old mate, is what I want you to tell me.”
“I’ve never heard of any of them.”
“Are you sure?”
“Well, not a hundred per cent,” he said. “I’d have to check.”
“That’s more like it. Do all the checking you like, youth. That’s what you’re for, isn’t it?”
Trevor crumpled the piece of paper into the pocket of his tattered jeans and wiped his nose on his sleeve.
“It’ll cost you, Stones.”
“And I suppose your services come as expensive as usual?”