Family Values

Douglas’s heart swelled with pride; his vegetable patch stood every chance of winning a gold medal at the annual produce show. The allotment bloomed with ruby-red plums, plump, sweet blackberries, and rows of fern-like fronds of juicy carrots. It was a sultry, mulch-scented late autumn day; when leaves squelched underfoot and caterpillars concertinaed their fat green bodies under old bricks and fell asleep. Hanging low in the sky, the sun prickled the bronzed shoulders of busy gardeners.

Scraping mud from his Wellington boots, on the honed edge of his shovel, he inhaled the earthy scent of his compost bins. His stomach lurched, reminding him of when he took part in the Chipping Magna raft race and disgraced himself by heaving his breakfast over the side. It wasn't the smell that threw his equilibrium; his wellies were six feet off the ground by the time he grabbed for the roof of his shed. A rough-hewn finial came away in his hand, and as he ascended, like a tweed-wrapped Michelin Bibendum, he flung it with force into the trees beneath his feet.

"If that's you, John, this isn't funny," he said, his voice booming, his eyes seeking whatever crane or contraption had pulled him into the air. But there was none, and Douglas grimaced as a tenuous idea formed in his mind. Elchinor.

#

Douglas was little more than a spoiled egg when his mother set up home in Chipping Magna: his birthplace was the dim-lit cellar of the library, between the musty piles of late returns - A to D. Within months, she had assumed the role of the chief librarian and obtained a small mortgage on the stone-clad semi-detached property in Armstrong Avenue.

‘We’re closing in ten minutes,’ was baby Douglas’s signal that a warm milky bosom was coming his way, and he learned to love the library as a place of comfort and sustenance.

When he was thirteen, and inseparable from his woollen hat, his mother told him the truth of her arrival on Earth.

Douglas’s mother and her co-pilot, Yishak had buried themselves under a bush behind the Chipping Magna library. It was fortunate for them both that the library had not yet installed CCTV, but instead relied on the honest citizens of the town to snitch on the dustbin surfers and the dog walkers who failed to scoop their poop. Yishak returned, dishevelled, to the ship and she disappeared to seek out a bathroom and missed the shuttle back to the orbiting spacecraft.

She taught him his native language 'just in case,' and Douglas practiced the sibilant alphabet, made easier by speaking while chewing his toothbrush.

"Visssh, topeshh, moossik, glouzz."

The letters sizzled on his tongue.

That he was different, not odd, made Douglas’s heart beat a little less heavily in his chest. Knowing that his father had not deserted him, but his mother had, 'missed the jolly old boat, dearest,' he celebrated by sleeping with his beanie hat in a drawer. But he was a sensible boy, and the next morning, bouncing, long-limbed, to school, he kept his head covered and his mouth shut.

#

When questioned later, Douglas remembered his abduction was on a Tuesday because it was pasta night, and he had anticipated the peppery Jalapeno Muenster cheese sauce his mother ladled on in generous measures. Wearing pink slacks with a smart crease down each leg, an M and S polo-neck jumper, a well-arranged Hermes lookalike scarf, and serving mac 'n' cheese meant Tuesday. He knew his mother's idiosyncrasies were a talking point among Armstrong Avenue's Am-Dram Society.

"Wednesday?" one thespian would ask in a stage whisper.

"Ham omelette, beige moleskin," the reply.

Amateur dramatics made an excellent cover for the self-styled Mrs. Adams, who learned English from the collected works of Coward and Wilde and spoke like an eccentric flapper. The milkman had objected to, 'darling boy, leave it there and peel me a grape instead,' complaining to Douglas that he felt, 'used.'

Her silver turban was not part of the usual costume, but neighbours still spoke of her portrayal of Lady Bracknell with hushed awe. Rolling her crimsoned lips around the phrase, 'a handbag?' she stole the show.

#

As an impromptu spaceman, Douglas gave little thought to his mother's wardrobe or her potential as a Mastermind subject. No longer at the whim of gravity, he ascended, arm outstretched, his garden spade tugged by the impatient magnetic field of a passing spacecraft. He flew, like the six-foot-six string of an eccentric balloon, through the gossamer of space. The solar panels of the International Space Station dazzled his eyes, and he missed seeing the waved fists of the astronauts completing their first, but no longer ground-breaking, space walk. Gloomy Saturn thundered past like a sweat-drenched pugilist, surrounded by its cheering and jeering satellites. Despite the stream of frost-laced air from the oxygen-powered spacecraft, Douglas glowed with warmth, glad to be wearing his comfortable duffle coat, hat, and wellingtons.

Gaseous elements tickled his sensitive nostrils; pungent sulphur and methane, from the spacecraft's exhaust. Vague worries formed in his head; would the allotment committee give his plot to John Arnold, who coveted his courgette patch and tried to sabotage his cabbages with black-fly? Was a spade's iron content enough to keep him in the spacecraft's magnetic field? Best hold on tight to the implement, he decided. Crashing into China might cause a breakdown in interstellar relations.

A preference for fibreglass shovels meant no one else from the Chipping Magna Allotment Association tumbled in the spacecraft's tow. Douglas was as alone in space as he was in life.

Getting close to someone is hard when you can't remove your hat, he thought.

He waved the spade above his head, in the direction of travel. Would anyone see him? he wondered. Did interstellar vehicles have a rear-view mirror? The spacecraft slowed as Neptune appeared, glowing azure blue like a royal diadem. His mother had told him, Earth was an oxygen refuelling station, but Neptune was a launch pad. Images of his body being torn apart by the immense speed filled his head. For a moment he considered letting go of the spade and taking his chances with China.

Douglas felt the increasing tug of the vehicle as it reversed toward him, its frosty emissions sprinkling him with a fine white coating. If he'd had one of his carrots with him it would have made a fine nose. Gripping the spade, hands shoulder-wide, knuckles protruding, his body dangled like a snowman-gymnast. A hatch opened; a mechanical hand flexed and grabbed the toggles of his coat. The airlock clunked closed behind him. A purple aroma tinted the air. The scent filled his ears. He laughed aloud, an unaccustomed noise, overflowing with the gooeyness of a chocolate caramel bar. Holding his hands over his ears he pumped to create a vacuum, until his ears popped and his normal senses returned. Patting himself down he counted his limbs, and finding they were all intact, gave a silent fist-pump.

His wellies left their mark on a pristine floor. It reminded him of home, except for the Laura Ashley floral paper his mother chose for the ceiling. He wondered if she missed him yet, whether she ever would, and, if he sent her a postcard would they accept an IOU for the postage.

#

On the bridge of the ship, the pilot awaited his stowaway-the pungency of compost and the rubbery stickiness of Wellington boots wafted along the corridors like an early warning signal.

Douglas's eyes widened like saucers as he encountered his mirror image. The pilot stared back, mouth agape. Flinging aside his spade, Douglas tore off his hat. Crackling with static, his cerulean blue hair reached for the stars; the three small buds, which his mother said resembled the moons of Elchinor, pinged cranberry red.

Tears washed his cheeks with the scent of a motorway service station in the rain.

"Yishak," he said. "Mikmazz," a crack in his voice, his arms open wide. "Daddy."