Christian Burial

Last updated: Mon, 23 May 2005 12:01:00 GMT

I'll spare you the saga of my never-to-be-completed fence.

I'll tell you instead about an interesting event at the weekend, whereupon the guy who'd come to collect the now full skip lifted a fragment of corrugated concrete sheet from the top of the rubble.

The corrugated concrete sheet I'd found under the pointless 6 square metre area of hardstanding in my back garden, which I'd recently enjoyed smashing up with a pneumatic drill.

"How much of this stuff is in there?" He gave me a hard stare. On the edge of my vision, I noticed my next door neighbour look up from pruning the shrubs he maintains, in place of a life. I turned back to the wagon driver. Something in his stare made me nervous. He was a big guy. Bigger than me. Working class hard, but up until this point as friendly as you like.

"Uh, well the amount you can see on the top," I said, indicating the four ton skip, filled to the brim, "is representative -- there's about that much all the way through it. Maybe twenty, thirty kilos?"

He continued the glare. I'd call it inscrutable, but scruting was the last of my worries.

"This is asbestos. Where did you find it?" Exit neighbour, stage left.

"Whoever laid the concrete hardstanding had used a load of building rubble in the footing, to bulk it out. I though maybe because it was cheaper than aggregate, or they were lazy."

His face changed, and I realised what had been happening. He was trying to work out whether I knew what it was, and whether or not I was trying to dick him over. He relaxed, I relaxed.

"I can't handle this stuff. Well, I can, but it'll cost me six hundred nicker to get rid of it, and if the environmental health get wind of me doing owt else with it I'll be fucked. Really fucked. The slip I left you with when I dropped off said no asbestos."

"Ah. Look, I didn't know it was asbestos. I'm sorry. What next?"

He looked me up and down, tugging on his gold earring. Shifting four tons of rubble had done me in already. Shifting the same four tons another two times to get a few kilos of asbestos out would kill me.

"Yeah, some joker's buried it under there rather than get rid themselves, lazy bastards."

"But this house is fifteen years old, that concrete more recent, was it not illegal fifteen years ago?"

"Oh yeah. We get this all the time." A pause. "Look, I'll not tip it out over your garden here, but I can't shift this stuff for you. Tell you what, I'll take it back to the depot, tip it out, separate it, and then you can come and pick it up. The council will take it away for free. How's that?"

"Yeah, that's great."

He hooked the chains up to the side of the skip.

"Who do you fancy in the cup then?"

"Today? Dunno. I don't really follow football." I didn't even know who was playing. "I'm more interested in the formula one."

"So who's on pole for tomorrow?"

"Raikkonnen, provisional, followed by Alonso and Webber. Should be a good race."

"Schumacher?"

"Oh, he's way back in eighth."

A grin split his face from ear to ear. "Best place for him, I say."

And with that he started up the hydraulic lifter and swung the skip onto the back of the wagon, drowning any further conversation. Later, I collected two sacks of asbestos and called the council. They'll charge me £15 for disposal, which isn't too bad.

But what I should point out, gentle reader, is that the vanishing neighbour next door was the previous occupant of this house and, I strongly suspect, the very same joker who buried 30Kg of asbestos in my back garden.

Dick.