
Night Vision
Last winter my television broke down. I couldn’t afford another, so instead I’d sit at my window at night with the light off, with a hot water bottle, a few custard creams and a cup of tea, watching for life in the house across the glen.
Usually, there was plenty. And luckily for me, they didn’t bother with curtains.
I’d inherited a pair of night vision binoculars from my uncle, who’d been in the Home Guard. They were still in perfect working order. I spent hours staring through them; from my window there was only one place to look, really, and that was across the glen.
It never crossed my mind that there might be someone staring back.
I found out one morning when Archie the butcher stopped by on his weekly round with his mobile shop.
“Mary-Ann,” he said. He was a fine-looking man, Archie the butcher, blood-stained, sausage-like fingers aside; he had a fine opinion of himself, too.
“Yes Archie?”
“Mary-Ann. Young Norman’s engaged to be married. Did you know that?”
“ I’ll take four of your pork and beef sausages, a small piece of boiling beef and half a pound of smoked back. Rind-free, and make sure it is. You gave me rind-on last week, and you charged for the full half pound. Young Norman from across the glen? Who to?”
“Shanice. Bonny girl. I believe she…” he grimaced as he bent sideways to grope beneath the narrow counter for the right kind of bacon “…I believe she stays there most nights.”
He looked at me pointedly as he slapped the bacon on to the scales. “They’re doing the place up. Adding an extension for when they start a family. Which they’ll be doing very soon, I imagine. Young couple like that.”
“Is that right? Well whatever goes on over there is none of my concern, I’m sure.”
“That’s correct. It’s none of your concern.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your uncle would turn in his grave if he knew what you were doing with his night vision binoculars. He wasn’t the only one round here who was in the Home Guard, Mary-Ann. You’ve been spotted.”
“Spotted?”
Archie popped a Murray Mint into his mouth then leaned forwards over the white formica counter, splaying his blood-stained, sausage-like fingers. As he spoke I could smell stale tobacco on his breath, underlying the sickliness of the mint.
“The game’s up, Mary-Ann. Throw the binoculars over the cliff, before they get the police on to you.”
“I haven’t done anything illegal.”
“Folk are saying you’re a pre-vert.”
“A pre-vert?” I held his eye.
“Yes!”
“Is that what you’re saying too, Archie? Am I a pre-vert?”
Archie shrugged and crunched his mint.
“Well! And me a loyal customer for umpteen years! Don’t bother coming round here again Archie. You can stuff your bacon where the sun don’t shine. And by the way — your personal hygiene’s shocking.”
Archie passed wind contemptuously by way of reply.
“Filthy beast. Binoculars nothing,” I said, as I manoeuvred myself out of the van, “I’m saving up for a telescope.”
(first published on Shortbread Stories website and on www.seapenguin-thecurioussheep.blogspot.com)
