From My Diary, A Few Days Earlier: It’s cold out, and the winter is doing things that I never expected in middle-age. My feet, knees, and hips feel like they’re locking up completely.

The fingers, wrists, and elbows are doing their share. All round, my Personal Physical Misery Quotient (if such a thing exists) is in the high-medium range.

The thickening bits of skin here and there? I don’t get out much, so the search engine’s suggestion of “Sun Cancer” can go back to Australia and stay there. Anyway, they’re not black, they tend toward a nutty brown colour – perhaps I’m turning into a conker! I’ll get checked out at the local NHS clinic eventually.

In the meantime, I might as well take advantage of having to sit here in front of the fire, and write, though I haven’t the faintest idea who will eventually read this rambling.

-=-=-=-=-=

It was just over sixty years ago.

In the beginning, we were seventeen in number, united in our time of appearance, and other ways beside. The Parkes-Lucas comet had blazed its brief-but-brilliant way across the skies around the time of our conception, and it seems that all thirty-four of our parents had been ardent watchers of the heavens.

I was told that the visiting midwife responsible for Wyndham Beynon, and the smaller villages and farms nearby, saw most of us into the world, and promptly retired when the last of us was weaned.

Ah, our poor mothers! We developed teeth quite early: big, healthy gnashers that never decayed, or (for that matter) seemed to need the problematic business that kept the Tooth Fairy busy in other households. We did not, however, develop the awareness and empathy that might have saved our mums from all the resultant gnawing and biting: perhaps that’s why each of us is an only child.

Maybe the village school’s Head and staff should have been more welcoming. Our pending enrolment was, after all, responsible for the Department of Education and Science purchase of Harris Cottage and its attached market gardens, so a new classroom could be set up, and play facilities expanded.

As it turned out in less-than-ideal reality, we became Them, and the opposing Us consisted of the other hundred-odd students of Wyndham Primary, plus a significant number of the staff.

-=-=-=-=

The time Maisie Howe, first-born of us Seventeeners by a few hours, was cornered in the girls’ loos and nearly drowned by a handful of Fifth Grade girls, served as an eye-opener, and more.

We generally tended to stick up for each other: while the occasional snide remark was not much to worry about, it was better to have company than to be pinched, thumped, or targeted by chewed paper balls. At least Miss Williams, our Third Grade teacher, had an impartial sense of what was fair.

Maisie had left a peaceful session of “Pepper” skipping, to answer a call of nature. A cluster of the nasty girls happened to be in the Girls’ facilities, and they pounced.

I’d always thought the background noise in my ears was just crickets or something. It was no problem, and I hadn’t even given it a second thought – like eyelashes, didn’t everyone have it?

Playing marbles suddenly faded from my focus of attention, even if it was for keeps, with Brian Nettle’s best bloodsucker in my sights. The insect hum became a panicked screech.

I had to run, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t even think of “where” – that just seemed to be automatic. Within a minute, the female loo was crowded: apart from Maisie and her tormentors, there were sixteen copper-headed third-graders, scowling.

What might have happened next, nobody will know. Miss Williams had followed that sixth sense good teachers have, and she sharply dismissed the attackers. Maisie recovered with staffroom tea, and a Jaffa Cake from the principal’s own tin, permission be damned.

Everyday life, both in and out of school, was calmer after that, at least on the surface. The staring and pointing didn’t stop, and the occasional flat bike tyre might have been random (if only that misfortune wasn’t confined to Seventeeners’ bikes alone).

-=-=-=-=

We grew up, and grew together, though not in the sense of a gang or clique. The obvious division in the school was a microcosm of the way things were in the village itself, and we could generally find enough interesting things to do, singly or in small groups, without the involvement of non-Seventeeners, though we welcomed a few other unpopular kids.

For some reason, it seems that bad karma, whatever that may be, chased down some of those who were bad to us. All five of those girls who attacked Maisie were in the same Ford Escort when it went over the edge of the abandoned quarry, into water so deep and cold none survived. Fate wasn’t swift, and it may have been a combination of blind chance and confirmation bias, but I couldn’t help feeling some incidents were quite fitting.

For all our green-eyed, pale, uniformity, we weren’t exactly a choir of heavenly angels. Indifference is sometimes the result of eagerness-to-please copping a few too many smacks to the nose: it’s fair to suppose a few more jolts might produce antipathy.

When adolescence reared its coppery head, we tended not to seek company outside the group. Mind you, when over a dozen others seem to know a lot of your innermost thoughts, it’s not like you’re going to get more serious than the Curious Fumble phase anyhow.

Oh, there was one of us… but let’s not get ahead of things.

-=-=-=-=

From school, some of us went on to further education by correspondence, some attended night classes in nearby towns, and others found niches of their own in backroom jobs with local businesses.

I was always expected to help out in Dad’s garage, and when he died, I employed a couple of lads to handle the front apron and customers, so I could spend my time with the machinery, which I seemed to understand better than people. Mum kept the books for the business till fairly late in life, and by the time she asked to stop, I’d already been surreptitiously using my personal computer to keep track of figures for a few years.

A village isn’t a big place, and I often had cause to think of the others, even if we didn’t meet up in numbers that would have constituted a quorum if we were something like Enid Blyton’s Secretive Seventeen. I’d see Harriet Keene when she brought the garbage truck in for servicing, and almost daily I thought gratefully of Todd Crewett, as I tucked into something he’d baked on his overnight shift.

And while I hardly ever saw Anthony Gladwell, in the early years I dealt with the results of his work more often than I really wanted.

Somebody in the village had dubbed him “Slippery”, after a car, fresh-bought from Tony Gladwell Exclusive Autos, went wildly astray. The result was damage to both the vehicle and the floral clock that had up till then been Wyndham Beynon’s pride: a straight-through path on the village roundabout was ploughed with no rear braking whatsoever, due to tyres liberally anointed with the fluid which gushed from a badly-sealed crack in the transmission.

At the garage, Terry and Arvind were given clear instructions: “If Slippery calls, Boss is out or with a client”. I think I even spent a little time in the far end of the storefront, listening as our local councillor wittered on about his next Mercedes, just to avoid Slippery on the forecourt.

Slippery didn’t avoid people, but I wouldn’t say he was any more an integral part of society than any of the rest of us. Still, there’s a world of difference between “pariah” and “piranha”…

-=-=-=-=

I’m reasonably sure Tony’s motivation wasn’t just greed for the sake of greed: perhaps he thought money and position would make him more acceptable, or something similar.

However it went, he’d definitely decided there was safety in numbers, particularly the number seventeen.

My invitation said something about Tony Gladwell Exclusive Autos expanding its scope to include new cars - a certain brand of fragile, expensive, sports vehicles - and my garage being invited to tender for the rights to service said show-ponies.

I didn’t ask what was in the other fifteen invites, but there we all were, in the Village Hall, beset by trays of cheap nibbles and flanked by various beverages (none of which were improving as they slowly attained room temperature). Slippery had achieved hundred-per-cent attendance of the Seventeen for the first time.

Never mind the initial premise of the various bait letters, calls and emails that had gotten us here: Tony launched into a spiel combining vision, ambition and a fairly hefty smear of flattery with moves and lighting changes that might have made a stage hypnotist jealous.

I’d heard about the Tony Talk from a few previous Gladwell Exclusive Customers. According to one bloke whose newly-acquired Transit van came in dragging behind Arvind and our recovery truck, “I’d swear I didn’t want a bloody van… I was just looking at sedans, then that ginger guy – ah, no offence, Mate – was all in me face and before I knew where I was, I’d signed up for this bloody four-wheeled doorstop.”

Sad Transit Man had learned too late about the things not covered by Gladwell’s warranty (aha, so that was where the “exclusive” bit came in, I thought).

Now, Tony was doing his best to be in sixteen faces at once. The words, the graphics for his presentation, the body language… combined, it was starting to make me dizzy.

The five year success plan that would somehow see us (oh, all right, Gladwell Development Management, as our benevolent partner and trustee) in charge of Wyndham Beynon and most of Greater Wyndham? It looked plausible, if somewhat risky. I was running through some loan figures in my head.

“GARBAGE!” Harriet’s bellow cut through the mental haze.

“No, Harriet. I can stand by these provisional earnings projections with confidence. They’re verified by…”

“Not what I’m talking about, Slippery. Fuckin’ GARBAGE! You invited me here to discuss a joint venture in recycling oils and auto parts disposal, and the only relevant part I see is that you’re planning to do away with my job altogether. ‘Subsume Wyndham Beynon’s urban services into a public/private enterprise under the Greater Wyndham header’, indeed! I’ve hauled away skips that didn’t reek as bad as what you’re trying to sell us.”

I was starting to feel better. Around me, others were shaking themselves as if feeling a sudden chill.

The rapport we shared had been sullied. I am sure Tony was trying his hand, and if he’d succeeded with the Sign Up For Greatness thing, other, worse, things may have followed.

My anger found a focus, and I felt my brows tighten. A brief glance across the second-row seats beside me showed others were also frowning. The ever-present tinnitus flared louder, and I think there were noises like sparrows chirping.

At the front, Tony Gladwell stood, trying to regain our attention, but sweating, swaying, and red-faced. Suddenly, he jerked to attention, leaned forward, and released a stream of foamy vomit down his gaudy tie.

“Where is it gone? I can’t hear you all!” He shook his head hard, rapidly, like a wet spaniel.

After scanning the room with a bug-eyed, panicked expression, Slippery spun on his heel and left via the fire stairs.

Five minutes went by, and still nobody had heard his Audi start.

The car was left sitting outside the hall for a fortnight, with no sign of Tony. Eventually, our councillor signed a purchase order, and Arvind towed it to the Wyndham Impound Yard.

Now there were sixteen of us, the ever-present inside sound changed, at least to my perception. For the next twenty years, the hum was more welcome, a mellow chord of sorts.

-=-=-=-=

I suppose it could be said we are all retiring types. In the workplace sense, some of us have retired as time grinds on.

Todd Crewett now owns the bakery, though the MacNellie name remains on the shopfront, and he’s happy to keep charge of night-time operations, especially in winter.

Maisie doesn’t custom-sew as much as she used to: she’s been suffering symptoms much the same as my “walnut joints and thick skin” problem. She has a reasonable amount coming in from some cute mouse-doll patterns she sells online – they’re very popular, and the personal touches in every parcel have kept her ahead of the pirates and plagiarists. (Gee whiz, did I get a Look when I told her she could “Eek out a living”.)

I’ve started to plan half-seriously for my own increase in leisure time. While Terry is content to keep the bowsers and forecourt going, I’m happy to keep him, despite the change to self-service and non-cash payments. He might be getting on in years and showing it (unlike Seventeeners, who just become a bit rounder and develop a few facial wrinkles), but he’s intervened in the right way to prevent a dozen robberies in the last year alone. He has the sense to tell whether a waved tyre-lever or a quick call to the Plod is the right tool for the occasion.

Arvind and two of his sons now handle all the workshop and towing side. Dinesh, the eldest, is the only apprentice I managed to retain from first-year to full qualification, and I’ll be very happy when Arvind offers to buy me out. I will strongly recommend that Terry stays on: he and Arvind have always done pretty well together.

Harriet has driven six successive waste trucks for the village, and she’d just now been discussing prospective replacement models with me, over an evening coffee, when the head-noise became a bit too insistent for me to ignore.

Now, I’ve always been the “what’s that tone” kind of chap: up till recorded music started including AI instruments that had never really existed, I could win pub bets by identifying the brand (and sometimes model) of bass used on a tune, with fairly strong results on other stuff like electric pianos and identifying uncredited background singers. Considering I had to pretend to be wrong now and then, I don’t even think I was ahead on beers… Still, I know my strengths, and the alert I felt/heard was clearly very similar to the one which had brought us all running to the primary school lavs nearly half a century back.

This was a Maisie Mayday, beyond a doubt.

-=-=-=-=

I don’t know what takes over when that beacon in the brain starts up. The nearest set of keys were for the 25-seater bus Wyndham Primary uses for class outings: I grabbed them and headed out, with Harriet close behind, only then remembering that the bus was nearest the road, and my car was blocked in.

The diesel started quickly, thanks no doubt to Dinesh’s constant care. As we headed up the High Street, some of the other Seventeeners could be seen, all heading in the direction of Maisie’s cottage on the Quarry Road. Thanks, perhaps, to Harriet’s expertise deadlifting bins onto the truck, all made it aboard without injury, despite my not completely stopping the bus.

I pulled up outside Maisie’s. A few cars, one motorcycle, and Gareth Smith’s electric trike were already there. Apparently we had once more managed a 100% turn-out, if you don't count Tony Gladwell.

Up Maisie’s stairs we trooped, in single file. A distant part of me wondered if such old stairs and such a quaint little cottage could stand the challenge of the whole Red-Headed League at once. Fortunately, nothing broke.

Maisie was in the bed, and it soon became obvious she was now beyond talking. Her knees were drawn up under the coverlet, and her arms were folded under her chin, as if she was high-diving into whatever came next.

That thick, brown, skin condition was now at total coverage, from what I could see. Clutched in one of her gnarled, twisted hands was a sketch, possibly for a future sewing pattern.

The illustration was of a caterpillar and a chrysalis, on some flowering plant. Above them flew a butterfly.

Below, in mock cross-stitch, were the words “Better latent than never”.

Did we all look up and lock eyes at that moment? Yes. Now things made a bit of sense.

Gee. I wonder what I’m going to grow up to be.