Open Writing

There’s always something going on in Alfie’s field. This is a hilly area, and the field has the virtue of being quite flat. When the travelling fairs come, as they often do, the field is booked months ahead. Every fourth Sunday, the car boot brigade is there in the morning, with a big hand-painted board leaning over the hedge next to the main road: “Car Boot This Sun” it says. “Five Pounds a Car !”

This week there is a group of travellers in the far corner with vans, old bangers, babies and dogs, and the locals are none too pleased to see them. Alfie was a traveller himself once and still is at heart, so he knows how to talk to them and have an understanding. They’ve told him they will be gone in a fortnight, so they will, and then the complaints and the grumbles in the local paper will stop.

On May Day they have the Maypole dancers right in the middle of the field, and there’s plenty of room for onlookers. On Midsummer’s Day the Morris Dancers come, and on Shrove Tuesday the Pancake Races bring people from miles around. Alfie is not a greedy man and the sliding scale of charges for these entertainments is very reasonable, but nonetheless his pockets are lined quite well. He used to ‘do the fairs’ in his younger days, and still does sometimes with his youngest daughter, so he’s well-known by almost everyone.

As long as anyone can remember, through all these comings and goings, the field has been sweet and clean and clear underfoot as a cricket green. Except for the daisies and buttercups and vetch in the summer, it has always been the perfect field: green and flat and square, like a huge tablecloth sprinkled with flowers.

That is, until last weekend. On Saturday Alfie went down to put the board in position, ready for the next day’s Car Boot sale. It wasn’t until he was coming out through the five-barred gate that he noticed the molehills. There was a little mountain range of brown humps, fifteen or twenty at least, right in the middle of the field.

As he stared in disbelief, mouth open, there was a little volcanic eruption right in front of him and tiny explosions of soil burst through the turf. Just under the grass the mole pushed and thrust and almost appeared, until the pyramid was finished. Alfie was so angry he kicked it flat, then jumped up and down on it, hoping to squash the culprit. Then he ran to the middle of the field, rushing from one molehill to another kicking and stamping on them, his thoughts racing ahead to the next day’s car boot sale. When there was nothing left of the brown eruptions, Alfie went home. He didn’t even turn for a last look as he closed the gate.

The next morning, Sunday, was bright and sunny, perfect for car boot sellers and buyers alike. When Alfie arrived at ten o’clock to open the gate, there were already a dozen cars waiting to go in. The drivers had left their cars and were pointing and gesticulating as he got out of his car. Alfie could hear anger in their voices.

“What’s the use of going in there?” said one of the regulars. “There’s not enough space for a one-legged man to hop in.”

The field was peppered from top to bottom with a rash of molehills. It was as if every mole for miles around had come to take its revenge. As he stood beside his car, bereft of speech, he saw the carbooters climb back into their cars and drive away, angry and disappointed. Alfie knew that the field was as good as finished now, for once you have moles, that’s it; you have moles for ever.

He stood there, staring straight ahead, but unseeing. His mind was already racing ahead to the next weekend when the circus was due, and the one after that when the church fete was booked., and then there was the Dog Show. It was the end of Alfie’s field, that flat, green, lovely place where everything happened. Not any more: now they would call it he Mole field, and they would have to find another place for the Maypole dancers and the Morris men and all the other things of the village, and somebody else would have his pockets lined.