The Swap by Charlotte Levene

Joe

Joe has had enough. Walking with his shoulders back and his head upright, he focuses on the bit of wire fence that had become detached from its post. Everyone knows that this is the easiest way to leave the school if the gate is locked. Come to think of it, Joe considers that anyone trying to break in to the school grounds is probably also aware of this weakness in security. Well, this is not something that need concern Joe. At least not today.

            The buzzing inside Joe’s head propels him forward. It had begun in class when the boy next to him started chewing. Joe could not stop the boy, so he moved to the front of the class. Joe was awaiting the arrival of Mr Chipping. Joe had a Very Important Question for him.

            Mr Chipping did not arrive. Mr Bartlett arrived. Mr Bartlett knew about football and running and how to do handstands with straight legs. But Mr Bartlett did not know about nature. Last week Mr Chipping had taken them for a walk and had shown them the well on Spring Lane. He had told them that, when he was a boy, the well was full of water. And then it was not. Today Joe had a question for him but he was not there. Joe became more conscious of the buzzing.

            In Joe’s pocket was his Get out of Jail Free card, which allowed him to take a break if things became Too Much. He felt it with his fingers. Was this Too Much? How would he know? There were days when Joe suspected everything was Too Much, but he couldn’t very well just stick it to his forehead and be done with it all. Or maybe he could. The class erupted when they realised Mr Chipping was not coming. Turned their seats around, shouted, sung, whooped, threw things. Joe pulled the card out of his pocket, firmly held it in front of his face as he walked past Mr Bartlett, and left the room.

            The buzzing in Joe’s head did not lessen as he walked along the corridor. The strip lighting above pulsated brightly, and he wished he had ear defenders for his eyes. Did they exist? They should. When Joe has a question, it joins the buzzing in his head and neither will quieten whilst he is at school.

            So, this is why Joe finds himself heading across the playing field and to the fence. He throws his bag through the gap, crouches down and tries to pull the fence back. Unsuccessfully. His coat is bulky and he can’t work out how to get his body through the hole at the same time as pulling at the fence. He tries to move forward. Or backward. But he can’t. His coat is stuck.

            “Fuck fuck fuck” he shouts.

            “Fuck!” comes a voice from the other side of the fence.

Joe looks up and sees a small scruffy looking girl walking towards him. Joe swears a lot. Because sometimes they are the only words that feel right when they tumble out of his mouth. But hearing fuck repeated by a girl who couldn’t be more than about seven years old, he suddenly feels shame.

“You’re stuck,” says the girl.

“No shit,” replies Joe, immediately regretting that he didn’t have a better word to use.

“Shit, shit, shit,” says the girl singing away. “Shit shit shit, fuck fuck fuck.”

Joe laughs. He can’t help himself.

“You are like Winnie-the-Pooh” the girl says. “Can’t go forwards, can’t go backwards.”

She spots his bag on the pavement, her side of the hole. She opens it. “No jar of honey in your bag though,” she says after peering inside.

Joe hasn’t got honey in his bag. But he does have a biscuit.

“Help me and I’ll give you a prize,” he tells her. Joe is sick of being stuck and he is worried that if he doesn’t get away soon, someone from school will find him.

The girl puts the bag down and takes a closer look at the gap. “You need to take your coat off,” she says authoritatively. “It’s too puffy.”

Joe tries to undo his coat but it’s tricky. He reaches down for the zip but from his position, lying on his back, he cannot see it and it is stuck.

“I can do it,” says the girl, and she does.

Joe wriggles out of it and crawls through the hole. The coat is still attached to a broken bit of wire. “Stupid fucking coat,” he says. He detaches it carefully, keen to not make a big hole. He will not be getting new clothes so he had better make this one last.

“It is a stupid fucking coat,” says the girl following him. “Where’s my prize?”

Joe reaches into the bag and finds the biscuit wrapped in a piece of paper. He hands it to her.

When Joe is overwhelmed and there is a buzzing in his head, he walks. He walks down the pavement to the path that leads to the field. He walks along the path and looks up at the gap in the trees. Sometimes he dares himself to walk the whole way, looking up, because if there is a gap overhead there are no trees to walk into. Today, he is not alone. Today a girl is following him, occasionally running to keep up with him. He had wanted to be alone but can’t send her away. He notices the buzzing in his head has stopped. The question is still there but no buzzing.

            They get to the field and it's across this one and then it’s the hill. Joe always runs down as fast as he can. It is steep and he dares himself to trip over. What will hurt more? The running or the falling? When he runs, his head fills with the sound of his breath and he’s free from the thinking thinking thinking. Thinking that there is no water in the well. No water in the river. Thinking that the water in the canal is browner than it should be and that he has stopped walking that way home as he doesn’t want to look at it.

He runs. The girl runs. She squeals and shouts and yeehaas and whoopppeeeees. Joe just runs.

            He reaches the bottom and the girl’s speed surprises him. She catches up quickly, despite her short legs.

            “Where are we going?”

            We? Joe has not anticipated a we.

            “Spring Lane,” he tells her.

Dave Chipping

Dave has had enough. He has taught at the school for twenty-four years. Twenty-four fucking years. Last week, he woke up and the thought of talking to a room full of young people who would rather be anywhere than listening to him was Too Much. It was cold in his house and colder outside. His bed, however, was warm, so Dave pulled the duvet and blanket tight around him and did not get up. This was a week ago.

There are books next to Dave’s bed that he has not read. Last year, Dave read more than sixty books. He knows this because it was never less than one a week and quite often it was two or even three. Which adds up to at least more than sixty. Then, a few weeks ago, Dave did not read a book. He watched a show about baking. He found that there was series after series of this show so he watched more. The presenter explained the reason that one contestant’s cake hadn’t risen. Why another’s was too dry. Dave retained this information and, for the first time ever, he made a cake. It was not too dry and it rose. Dave had taken it back to bed and eaten it.

When Dave wakes up at lunchtime, after not going to school, he is hungry. He wishes that he had continued on his baking journey. Had made the delicious focaccia from bread week. He has jars of pickle that he made last winter but this does not appeal. And a lot of kombucha. None of this is really food. In his fridge are some crumpets, a cabbage that is past its best and cheddar cheese.

Crumpets, cheddar cheese, cabbage. C, C, C, C, Dave thinks to himself. Dave is a man who notices patterns. The letters may go together, but the food is less harmonious. But it is what he has and it could be worse. Dave puts two cold crumpets on a plate alongside a lump of cheese and the cabbage, and carries the plate upstairs, climbs back into bed and eats. The cheese is dry and the crumpets too moist and the cabbage too slimy. Dave eats it all and wonders if the pickle would have made it worse or better. Bits of cabbage get caught in his teeth and he can’t remember when he last brushed them. The dry bitter morning mouth that used to repulse him has started to feel familiar and homely. For now he is keeping it.

It’s been a week since he went to work. Maybe that was the last time his teeth were clean, when he had a shower, when he bought food and when he actually cooked a proper meal. Dave knows that at some point he will need to leave the house.

Perhaps apathy is contagious, he ponders. Too much time spent with disillusioned teens, broken adults. His nature walks used to be popular. This is where The River Frome once flowed. There were dippers here and people travelled for miles to come and see them. Dave told them about the kingfishers he had watched, about the times he had seen otters. But there are only so many times people want to listen to a memory that they will never see.

When the doorbell goes, Dave is on the sofa smoking a rollie. The tobacco is dry and is making him cough. It’s not his tobacco. Dave doesn’t smoke. Or hadn’t smoked in years. He found it when litter-picking by the canal and he had stuffed it in his pocket, then on a shelf. The doorbell goes again and then again and Dave realises he might have to answer it, even if it’s to just tell whoever it is to go away.

It’s kids’ voices at his door which stops Dave for a moment. Why on Earth would kids be at his door?

Dave’s not really dressed. He’s not exactly undressed. Just wearing the same boxers and T-shirt and jumper he put on a week ago. The trousers are still bunched up in a ball in his room. Uncomfortable to sleep in them. He grabs his big overcoat and wraps it around him. He doesn’t want to greet children in his underwear.

It’s Joe. Joe and a small girl who Dave does not know. Dave is not sure he has the energy for Joe. Or a small girl he does not know.

“What was the date?” Joe asks and Dave is so taken aback by the abruptness of the question that he stops wondering why they are at the door and tries to see if he can access Joe’s train of thought.

“Today?” asks Dave.

Joe’s eyeroll is one all teachers are familiar with. “When the well stopped being a well. What was the date?”

Last week Dave had taken Joe’s class on a walk. They had moaned about going down the hill, knowing that they would have to climb back up. They had wanted to go to the shop. They didn’t want to walk by the river bed, in case their trainers got muddy. Even though there had been no water running for years. In the end Dave had given up talking about the trees that were here and the trees that were not. The birds he could hear and ones that he had not seen since he was a boy.

He walked them through town and up the cobbled path and past the chip shop that once sold fish every day but now only sold it on Fridays (sort of like a long time ago he had heard). He took them to Hemlock Well because he couldn’t really think of where else to go. Told them that it had fresh water running through it when he was their age. He walked along Spring Lane and showed them Hemlock Well House and asked them how the well and the road and the house may be connected. He told them he had lived in his house, a few doors up, all of his life.

It had been an error. Is this where you live, sir? Your room is messy innit sir? No-one else live with you? No wife, husband? Not even a cat, sir? Bit shit, innit sir?

He had hurried them away again. Wishing he hadn’t told them that this is where he lived and unsure why on Earth he had mentioned it.

Now here is Joe and the scruffy little girl. At his house again. Joe, of course, had been listening.

Dave likes information. Patterns and questions and information. Joe likes answers.

“Twenty years ago,” he tells Joe. “At least. Just stopped.”

Joe nods. “But then the real question is, Mr Chipping, why? Why did it stop?”

Dave looks at him. This boy who gives a shit about why the well no longer has water. He knows this boy and he knows why he is asking. Because, if he can work out why it stopped, he thinks he can make it go again.

Dave and Joe like information. But Dave cannot help.

“Too long ago Joe,” he says. “Ain’t happening,” and he sees Joe’s crestfallen face, but what can he do? He sighs. “It’s been twenty years, Joe. That water is no longer water.”

“Fucked?” Joe asks.

“Fucked,” Dave replies.

Joe nods.

Pam

Pam has had enough. The big boy and the man have been talking about wells and water and springs for a while. No-one has spoken to her or asked what she might know.

“I’m Pam,” she says loudly and she puts out her hand towards the man in the coat.

The man looks slightly surprised and then shakes her hand.            “Dave, Mr Chipping.”

            “Hello Dave missed a chipping,” Pam says shaking his hand as hard as she can. Her mum has taught her the importance of a firm handshake. “What chipping did you miss?”

            Before Dave can answer, Pam laughs. She knows how to make a joke. She looks at the big lumbering man in a coat and no socks.

            “Could be the soil structure,” she tells them as she pushes past Dave and into his cottage.

            “Can I have some water?” she asks him. She sees Dave’s confused expression. “The spring drying up,” she tells him and then beckons to Joe to follow her through the house. She doesn’t know this man. She doesn’t know Joe either but he is a child so it’s different. Through the living room, into the kitchen. There are dirty cups in the sink and Pam swills the coffee out of one then fills it with water and drinks.

On the side, amongst the grubby plates and saucepans, Pam spots some ominous looking bottles. Sealed tightly, bubbling away, these bottles are full of a dark yellowy-brown liquid. Joe has followed her into the kitchen and Pam turns and hits his arm and then signals to the bottles. “Is that… wee?” she whispers.

Joe peers closely at one of the bottles and shakes his head. “I don’t think so,” he whispers back.

Mr Chipping clarifies the situation. “Kombucha, good for the gut.”

“Looks like wee,” Pam responds. She pauses, looks around the room and sees more bottles on top of his fridge and on a shelf. “How many do you have?”

Dave shrugs.

“Well you can’t need them all. Take four to the Cemetery Swap.”

Dave

Dave rubs his eyes. He is tired and confused. Why does his house have children in it? And why is the smaller, louder, stranger-to him-child telling him what to do? Curiouser still, why is he reaching for the shelf and gathering together bottles?

“There’s a bag out back,” he tells Joe and points at the door leading from his kitchen to the garden.

Joe gets the bag and Dave starts filling it with bubbling bottles.

Pam sits down at his little kitchen table, swinging her legs from the stool.

Dave looks at the clock on his wall and then at the kids. It’s nearly two o’clock. “Why aren’t you in school?” he asks them.

“I’m a Swap Kid,” Pam responds, as if he should know what that was.

“A what?”

“Swap Kid.” Pam rolls her eyes. “Swap knowledge in the morning, stuff in the afternoon.”

Dave knew The Swap, obviously. Everyone did.

“Give what you can, take what you need” says Pam in a sing song voice.

Dave knows that kids at school go to the Afternoon Swap. Take food that won’t be eaten. Clothes that no longer fit. Books well read and games they are bored of. He avoids it like the plague. He doesn’t care if he eats the same thing repeatedly. It is better than spending time with people outside of work.

“Never been,” he says. “Take the kombucha. No-one will want it but fill your boots. There’s pickle too. Might as well have them.” He waves his hand in the direction of a cupboard.

“Not how it works!” Pam says, her voice full of shock. “You have to bring it.”

Dave looks at Joe and he nods at him. “Wait here,” he tells the two kids. “Don’t touch anything else.” He goes upstairs to find his clothes. When he gets back down the kids are hauling heavy bags of kombucha and pickles to the front door. Dave grabs the heaviest and leaves his house for the first time in a week.

Penny

Penny has had enough. The walk to the top of the cemetery is steep. There are wet leaves covering the path and it’s fine now but she’s bound to slip when she climbs back down. Her knee is better since she had the replacement but it’s not perfect and the other one is now giving her bother.

At the last minute, Alan had changed his mind about where he wanted his ashes scattered. When their father had died, they had waited for a rainy blustery day and had gone to The Wetland Centre. Alan had assured her it would be quiet. They had thrown the ashes off the tower and no-one was there to tell them off. They’d walked to the big lake. As children they had visited every winter to watch the Bewick’s Swans migrate from Russia. Alan had commented that there had been more the year before. And twice as many when they used to come with their dad.  

This all seemed like a lifetime ago. It was a lifetime ago.

Ironic. Refusing to have a funeral but wanting ashes sprinkled throughout the cemetery. This thought propels Penny to the top of the hill and gives her a chance to smile at the thought of her stubborn little brother. Alan had told her about this place. Said it was beautiful and looked over the whole of Stroud. That may be the case in the summer, but it’s getting dark and it’s drizzling and all Penny can see is gravestones and mud. At least The Wetlands had a viewing tower.

The last time he had been to The Wetlands, there had been no Bewick’s at all. It was January but they no longer needed to migrate. Russia wasn’t that cold anymore.

Well, it is certainly cold enough here, thinks Penny. Her scarf has unwound and she rewraps it, realising that it has been dragging along the ground behind her. It is now wet and making her colder. For fuck’s sake. As she reaches the top, she sees that there is a building lit up and people are coming in and out. Fuck, should have sprinkled them earlier. She heads along a path that leads away from the building, glad that it’s dusk and she can’t be spotted. Opening the box, she is reminded that human ashes take up both less and more space than one might expect.

The first handful fly into her face.

Trying hard not to let herself get annoyed at Alan, she adjusts her position away from the wind and scatters more. Should she say something? A few words? To whom?

Dave

The kids scamper ahead of him. He’s taken the heaviest of the bags from Pam but she insisted on carrying one. Despite the darkening sky, she is quick and fearless, obviously knowing the paths. Joe is close to her at all times. Maybe he’s more cautious, perhaps he’s keeping an eye on his new younger companion. Dave isn’t sure but he doesn’t usually see Joe with friends and this unusual pairing is pleasing to him. They call to him to hurry up, now half illuminated by the lit-up building at the top of the hill. He’s about to oblige why does he keep obeying these children when he passes a woman sitting on a bench. She is emptying the contents of a box onto the floor. He has had one of these boxes and he has emptied one alone.

            He considers not turning back as he doesn’t want to scare her. But he does. “Those boxes,” he says, pointing, “often take surprisingly long to empty.”

            “And surprisingly quick to empty,” she replies.

            Dave nods.

            “Do you have a cigarette?” she asks him.

            Dave feels slightly pleased that he looks like a man who might smoke. He has got the tobacco on him. He isn’t sure whether to sit down so stands awkwardly fumbling in his pocket for a lighter. She gestures to the bench.

            The kids call down again and he tells them to go inside and he will catch them up.

            “Yours?” she asks and he laughs and shakes his head.

“Jesus, no. Taking stuff to The Swap.” He points to the Cemetery Hall along the path from where they are sitting.

            Penny gives a small laugh. “Of course. I hadn’t quite connected the dots.”

            Dave sits quietly and waits for her to explain.

            “My brother,” she points at the box. “He helped set it up. The Swap. I’ve never been.”

            “Me neither,” he replies. The tobacco continues to disappoint and he gives up trying to smoke it. He stands up and gathers together his bags.

            “What are you swapping?” she asks him and he digs into one of the bags and takes out a jar of kombucha and offers it to her.

            She wrinkles her nose. “I’d have a cup of tea though.”

            Dave puts the jar back in his bag and offers Penny his hand to help her up. She takes it, picking up her almost empty box of ashes.

            The Hall is bright and loud and Dave wants to turn round and leave. Dump his bags and return to his grubby house that is warm and small and quiet. But he notices that Penny has stopped at a table full of flowers, letters, cakes, and trinkets. She picks up a pen and writes something on her box, then places the box on the table. She looks up and smiles when she catches Dave’s eye. Dave goes closer to the table.

Alan’s Memorial Table

In memory of Alan Potter, founder of The Swap who died at (to quote Alan in his last days) “The adequate age of seventy-seven.”

            One summer, Alan placed a notice in The Stroud News and Journal asking community members to donate surplus food items to the “Old Market Table.” Alan sat at the table, where the market once was, and waited, unsure that anyone would come. By lunchtime the table was full and, in true Stroud fashion, volunteers found another table and boxes were filled and labelled. By late afternoon, the boxes and tables were empty. People had taken what they needed. So Alan did the same a month later. People donated and people took. As winter came, Alan (in true Alan fashion) somehow acquired the keys to The Cemetery Hall and The Swap (as it came to be known) moved inside.

            Alan didn’t want a funeral so here at The Swap we are honouring him in the only way we know how, by Giving what we have and Taking what we need.

Bring something he may have liked and share memories of Alan on the pieces of paper provided. And choose something from the table that you may not know you needed.

This piece of paper is stuck to the outside of an old cardboard folder. Inside are charts and notes. Interviews with people who worked for the water board, pictures of the Cotswold Escarpment and a complex diagram of a saturated aquifer. There are freedom of information requests about water quality and photos of what appears to be a Pagan dance troupe filling the well with daisies. Dave delves in deeper and finds a story about a stonemason who stuck a ferret in a wall in order to catch a rabbit. The ferret disappeared but was found days later, exiting the spout of Hemlock Well. Pages and pages of documents.

Dave reaches into his bag and takes out two jars of pickles, places them on the table in exchange for the folder which he puts under his arm. He tells Penny that he will find them some tea and then heads to where Joe is sitting, munching on biscuits and leafing through an old comic. Pam is behind a table full of condiments and tins. She has lined the kombucha up in the front and she is greeting everyone with warmth and chatter, like the seven-year-old matriarch that she is. Dave hands Joe the folder.