The story so far... Leanne was visited by the Queen’s loyal porcinerry, has agreed to work for him as a courier and is now about to perform her first delivery...
Finding the envelope full of cash unfortunately proved that the whole experience had not been in her imagination. A tall, green, quivery snouted and hairy boar had materialised in her kitchen, pronounced himself to be a servant of the British Crown, and invited her, a person of no special character or quality, to become his aide in the delivery of who knows what. And furthermore, she had let him persuade her to do it.
The envelope fluttered from between her fingers and shed its load of used notes onto the threshold of her flat. Quickly she gathered them up and riffled through them. Resentment fled her mind. Seventy pounds. If that was half her payment, then two times thirty-five pounds meant that her first shift would be just four hours, there would still be time to sleep before her normal job. She stuffed the money into her purse and hurried on down the stairs, pausing to give her cycle, which was chained to the railings at the foot of the stairs, a cursory, yet critical, once over.
The bike wasn’t new, but it was a smooth ride. However, the bulb on the back light had gone. Leanne wasn’t a rich person, she had just enough money to spend on rent, bills and food, and on cat food for Pig, but not on things like holidays, presents or new bike lights.
Ruefully, she realised that most of the seventy pounds would have to be spent on the bike now; to replace the light, get some better reflectors, and the rest she would have to spend on warm clothing, but it was only half the payment and she reasoned that she could keep the other half for herself.
Right then she didn’t spare the time to wonder about why she accepted the Boar’s job so quickly, because she had to get to work. But you see, it wasn’t just about the money, or her bravery, it was simply because she wasn’t accustomed to being praised, or even noticed, for the things she could do. When the Boar had spoken to her in such way it had felt nice and she wanted more.
Her talents were not the sort that get you noticed, but quiet ones such as being able to concentrate for a very long time, or always remembering people’s names. Those are the sort of important talents that easily get overlooked, and over time, every small occasion of being disregarded ground down her natural self confidence and eventually she grew used to it and always expected to overlooked or live in the shadow of other people’s more noticeable talents.
This might make some people unhappy, but not Leanne. Partly because it was something she had got used to, like the comfortable but threadbare cardigan you wear around the house and won’t discard regardless of its holes and food stains, even if it horrifies your friends, and even when they threaten to steal and burn it. Mostly though, it was because she discovered that going unnoticed also meant being left alone to carry on doing things her way. That allowed her to live a life with a lot less hassle in it than would have otherwise have been the case.
But the Boar seemed to think that she had extra special talents, and even though the circumstances were peculiar to say the least, she was unable to resist such praise. So much so that she was determined not to disappoint.
When she returned home after work with her new purchases for the bike she was excited to find a note in the bucket saying that her first job as a courier would start that very evening, at 10pm.
At ten exactly, there was a smart rap on her door and there on the door mat was the Boar’s mask, as before in its old fashioned basket, with a note tied to the handle, which said, ‘Zenith Brewery, Western Street’. She picked up the basket, took it inside, put it back down on the floor and waited for the boar to transfigure just as he’d done last time. Nothing happened. Disappointed, not only because she wanted to see him do it again, but because she had questions to ask; like how she was going to find Zenith Brewery because she had no idea how to, and where was the thing they were supposed to deliver.
Eventually, she peered into the basket and spotted an A to Z map book tucked in next to his mask. She plucked it out and turned to the page that was marked with what turned out to be a carefully folded chocolate wrapper, and discovered that a route had been drawn in red pen from her house, which was marked with a large cross, to the brewery, which was circled. Obviously, that was all the information that she was going to get at this point.
The brewery was on the other side of town, on the outskirts and near the river, not somewhere with which she was familiar, but only an hour’s cycle ride away. She wondered how it would be that they would need four hours to get there and back.
Still feeling nervous about the trip but more relaxed about making it on time, she fixed the basket firmly to the front of her bike with carpet tape, shrugged into her brand new bright yellow reflective jacket, securely fixed the chinstrap on her old helmet and wheeled the bike out of the building being both careful not to disturb her cargo and at the same testing the changed distribution of weight on her cycle. It was now more front heavy than she was used to, but not so much that it would be difficult to ride. She pulled on her new waspish gloves that had so many little yellow reflectors stuck onto the outside that her hands would look like a swarm of insects in the dark, checked her pocket for its stash of chocolates, which she thought might be a good idea to bring although she had no idea how she might use them, turned on her bike lights and set off without disturbance in the direction described in the A to Z.
The first part of the journey was easy. She thought people would notice a fluorescently dressed young woman with an ugly boar’s mask in a basket cycling at night. She thought that might be a problem, but it wasn’t. She sped through the streets unimpeded, weaving smoothly between what little traffic there was. It had rained earlier and the road was still wet, reflecting headlights and shop windows in a colourful way. The traffic lights, which she generally ignored anyway when she was cycling, all seemed to be working in her favour, a fact that didn’t occur to her as odd at the time. She enjoyed the ride and didn’t feel cold at all.
Everything was fine until, just before she was about to cross the third bridge, she realised that she was unsure which way to turn next; she needed to consult the A to Z map again. So she stopped and propped herself and the bike up with her foot within the little pool of light of a street lamp, but as she grabbed the book, the boar’s voice boomed, “Why have we stopped, Leanne of the Green Boar?”
She jumped, nearly dropped the book and stammered, “I’ve forgotten which way to go.”
“You must remember.” He exclaimed. “It is dangerous to stop before we get there. Turn right after the bridge. Go!”
“Sorry!” She stuffed the A to Z back into the basket and pushed off from the curb.
In a more normal tone, the boar added, “If you are lost, say so. I can guide you.”
She pedalled speedily over the bridge and turned right which took them alongside the river then veered left, away and up a shallow hill into a residential area filled with large brick detached houses with long driveways and so many hedges and plants that the lights from their many windows were obscured. They were the only traffic on the darkened road.
She leant forward and whispered, “Which way do I go at the end?”
There was a bit of a pause, by which point she was cycling past a bus stop where two teenage girls were idly chatting and sharing a magazine, so when his voice boomed out the new directions she shushed him, exclaiming, “They’ll hear you!”
“They cannot hear me. They can only hear you.”
She looked back over her shoulder at the girls. Indeed, they appeared undisturbed.
“You should have told me that earlier. Why can’t they hear you?
“Because they can’t.”
“How...?”
“It is not of my doing. It is because their ears are not open enough to hear creatures of my sort.”
“So only I can hear you?”
“Many people can hear me, but most of them still cannot understand me. Very few people can. Leanne, this is why your talents are so special.”
She took a few moments to digest this, feeling embarrassed and slightly ashamed that she still considered the boar’s opinion of her to be flawed, it felt churlish in the face of what she sensed to be a genuinely meant comment. She changed the subject: “What are we delivering?”
“I cannot tell you that at this time. It is better, for your safety, that you don’t know.”
“What? I can’t know what it is?” This alarmed her. All of a sudden it came home to her that she had put herself into what could be a very dangerous position. They could be carrying anything, and her employment contract as a courier was hardly official. If, by unlucky chance, the police stopped her and whatever it was turned out to be illegal, how would she defend her innocence? If the police couldn’t hear the boar, and she assumed that if they couldn’t hear him they wouldn’t see him either, how could her activity be explained? Everything suddenly looked very bad.
The boar carried on speaking, “For your own safety, you understand?”
“Is it drugs? I don’t want anything to do with drugs. If it’s drugs we are stopping right here, right now, and you can find your own way home.”
“It isn’t drugs. I’m sorry, but it really is better that you don’t know.”
Leanne didn’t agree with this line of thought at all. She let the bike start to coast and decided to force the issue; bravely she said, “We’ll stop right here unless you tell me what is.”
They were on a quiet bit of road between two housing estates; some parkland fringed with woody scrub, no houses nearby. They were the only living talking things out in the open. If she screamed now nobody would hear and no one would come to her aid, but that would also allow her to yell forcefully at a magical disembodied boar’s head in a basket without anyone thinking she was a complete lunatic.
She said, loudly, to him, “Promise me that I am not carrying anything illegal.”
“I promise. Please don’t stop.” The boar entreated.
“How can I trust you?”
“I have given you my word.”
“What good is a word?”
“The word of Le’Roy the Green Boar, Porcinerry to the Queen is the word of truth! We hold the highest standard of honour in the land and nobody doubts that.”
“Nobody! Then how come I’d never heard of you?”
“Because you live in a society where no one ever listens to what is important, everyone hears only what they want to and ignores what they don’t like or don’t understand.”
“Okay.” To Leanne that made sense; he’d just perfectly described her world. “So the only thing you can offer me is your word even though you have no reputation in my world.”
“Yes. Can you trust me?” The boar sounded worried.
“Your word is all you can give me?”
“Yes. The word is all. I have nothing else. If we stop then I will have to fight and it will be dangerous.”
“Then you want me to keep going?”
“Yes. Please Leanne. I don’t want to fight unless I have to.”
“Your real name is Leroy?”
“My full name is Le’Roy, of the Green Boar. My family were originally French.”
“Roy? Your name is Roy? Roy the boar.”
“Le’Roy. The head of my family is always called ‘The Roy’, so I am Le’Roy. Not Roy. Le’Roy of the Green Boar. We are a very long and distinguished line.”
“Okay. So, Roy.”
“Le’Roy.”
“So Le’Roy, if I trust you when you say that it will be dangerous if we stop, then I also have to trust you when you say that what we are carrying is not dangerous or illegal.” Leanne paused, weighing the weight of her next words, “And I haven’t stopped yet.” This was true, although the bike was moving only just fast enough to allow her to keep her balance. “I’ve trusted you, obviously, so you should trust me. I think I have a right to know what this is that I am carrying for you.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not.”
“It wouldn’t be wise.”
“I’ll stop.”
“Please don’t stop, Leanne. Please. I have full responsibility for our package, and equally I have full jurisdiction over it, and I have decided to share its contents with no one. Your task is to help me get it safely to its next destination, not to know what it is. That it is of the utmost importance, to your Queen and country, is all you need to know, and all that it is safe for you to know. But I can assure you, that as far as the police are concerned it is not drugs and it is not illegal.”
Leanne was still angry, she didn’t think this would help her explain anything to the police if she had to, “How come you get to make that decision? This is my cycle and I’m riding it, therefore I have a right to know what it is I’m carrying on it.”
The bike was dawdling now, but they were about to encounter a low slope so it would carry on freewheeling unless she deliberately stopped it. She kept her feet on the pedals. She wasn’t sure that antagonising the boar was a sound policy.
He changed tack, “Do you really want to know what it is?”
“Yes!”
“What do you want to know about it?”
“What is it?”
“I cannot answer that.”
“You just asked me what I wanted to know about it.”
“Yes. What do you want to know about it?”
“What? I just asked and you wouldn’t tell me.” Leanne lowered her voice with difficulty, they were entering the next housing estate and she didn’t want to be seen talking to her bike, but he was annoying and made her feel like yelling.
“It doesn’t have a name.”
“Well, what type of thing is it then?”
“It’s not really a thing.”
“Not a thing...?”
“It doesn’t exist as an object in the way you think of an object being.”
They’d reached the end of the slope so she started to pedal, feeling that as they were making progress in the right direction that it was the least she could do. “Still though, how can it not be a thing? Everything is a thing somehow, in some form or another. Even air is a thing.” She breathed in a huge gulp of it and blew it out again. “There are things in that breath, yet that breath is still a thing of itself. There is nothing that cannot be a thing.”
The boar said nothing in reply.
“Okay. So if it’s not a thing, then has to be a message.”
“Turn left here. It is not a message in the way you think of a message.”
“What? Because it is also not a thing?”
The boar was silent. There were a few minutes of silence between them and she grew afraid that she had angered him, then he said, “You ask difficult questions. Yes, in a way you are right about that. Turn right. You must ride quickly now.”
“Why now?”
“We are close to our destination. The closer we get the more dangerous it is. Please ride as fast as you can.”
She did so to humour him. They were entering an older part of the suburb now, more industrial, with Victorian warehouses, factory buildings and fewer houses. She could see the brewery up ahead, it’s two aluminium conditioning towers shining golden in the sodium lights of the street lamps. The whole complex was contained by a high brick wall, dark red and blackened with time, parted only by a gate made of thick black wrought iron which was topped with curls, spikes and a coat of arms that she had never noticed before. It was odd for a brewery to have a coat of arms, but she didn’t have much time to think about it because she was concentrating on breaking to a sensible stop outside the gates.
As her breaks squealed the boar shouted, “No, not here. Don’t stop. It’s the other door we need. Go! Go! Oh, they’ve seen us.”
Before she could start off again the head in the basket moved up of its own accord and spun in the air, reforming before her eyes into Le’Roy’s green and hairy body. This time, to her shock, he was clad in shining silver armour and in his trotters he held a chain, indelicately weighted at either end with nasty looking spiked metal balls, one end of which he began to spin around his head, faster and faster until it blurred into a squashed circle. Her mouth dropped open.
There was a strange whooshing noise, then, almost straight after, an almighty clang, just as if the spiked ball had hit something hard and metallic. Red sparks exploded from the circle above their heads, showered down around them and scattered, jumping and hissing, on the road.
“Go!” He screamed at her again, pointing with the other trotter down the road behind him, “Left and round the back. The door with the bear. You must get that basket inside the compound, or all is lost. I’ll hold them back”
Unable to see anything that could account for ‘them’, but taking in his terrifying figure alone she was only too eager to comply; she kicked off as fast as she was physically able. Her feet seemed to find the pedals without her knowing but wind whipped through her helmet and a chill ran like iced water ran over her body. Taking the first corner around the brewery complex without slowing down she nearly lost her back wheel in a skid, but righted herself somehow, miraculously, and chanced a glance back at Le’Roy, and was nearly unseated again by what she saw...
... to be continued...
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