Mrs Flannagan's Trumpet

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Well, following the discovery of the cave within the cave, so to speak, me granny’s mind started to work overtime.

  ‘“About the house you’re going to build,” she said to me grandfather one day. “I’ve found the very place for it.” So she brought him along the cliff top here, and she pointed out the site which was in a direct line from the cave but well above the slope. At first he thought she was mad. Build a house this far from the town, and wide open to the wind and weather, the sea on the doorstep, what was she thinking about! It was different back in the town. There the huddled houses sheltered each other. No, it was a mad idea.

  ‘But me granny stuck to her guns. And then she pointed out something to him that had been in her mind all the time but was news to him. “That inner cave down there,” she said, “could be connected with the house and nobody would know a thing about it but ourselves. And as you know, the others say they are going to give up here because this quarter’s getting too hot for them. The watchdogs are getting fly. So before long they’ll take the run farther along the coast.”

  ‘Me grandfather, so I’m told, looked at his wife and again he threw his arms about her. Of course, I don’t think either of them would have been so merry at that moment if they had known that there was ten years of hard slogging afore them.

  ‘Anyway, there it is. Me grandfather and grandmother, with the help of my father Joe and his brother Dan, started to build this house from plans that me grandmother had drawn up. A rough plan, but a clever one nevertheless, for if you measure the inside of the house you’ll find it all of eight feet short of the outside, and if you measure the width you’ll find it two foot less in the inside from where my bedroom begins to where it ends.

  ‘As I’ve said me grandfather was a stonemason, he could make two pieces of stone meet as if they had never been split. He could make a stone swivel like an oiled hinge. They worked every spare minute they had on the house for three years. People came out and had a look at it. “What thick walls you are building!” they said. “But you’ll need them with the sea at your door.” “What’s those long narrow rooms on the end for?” they said. “Oh, they’re going to be a couple of storerooms and a water closet.”

  ‘“What? A water closet?” They laughed their heads off at that. Aping the gentry, they said. A water closet, and all the coastline to do your business on. It was daft. Anyway, the house seemed such a long time going up that people lost interest in it.

  ‘But at last it was finished and me grandparents and their two sons took up their abode here. There wasn’t much furniture at first because they had spent nearly all they had on stones and wood.

  ‘And then began the real work, which they did mostly at night. It was nothing to them making the false door from the bedroom into the cavity wall. It was when they began to break into the rock foundation below that they realised what kind of a task they had set themselves. But they went at it inch by inch, foot by foot, year after year.

  ‘In the meantime the cave above the cave had come in more than handy. But there was always the fear that someone with an eye as sharp as me granny’s would look up one morning and see the hole and investigate. They did think about putting a stone door there but then that would have meant having a lever on the outside.

  ‘So there was nothing for it but to go on chiselling downwards. Sometimes they went too steeply, sometimes not steep enough, which made them drop the next grade steeper still. Then one night they were brought to a full stop for they came on a shelf of rock where the grain wouldn’t give way to either hammer or chisel, it needed an explosive, and that, of course, was out of the question. So it took them months to make a way through that single point. And that’s the part where a woman with an outsize bust or a man with a pot belly would come unstuck.’

  When the laughter died down, she continued, ‘Down and down they went, and then one night their chisel goes straight through the rock as if through a thin layer of paper. It was me father who was chiselling at the time and he quickly makes a hole big enough for his head, his hand and a candle, and what he saw I’m told, and I believe him, because it’s had the same effect on me, turned his blood cold for he was looking down into the dark roaring depth of a cleft and the sound was deafening.

  ‘One after the other they took their turns in looking through the hole, and the lads, that was me father and me uncle Dan, were for giving up. Even me grandfather thought, well, that was the end, but not me granny. Oh no. “We’ll go round it,” she said. “After all, what is it but a cleft in the rock. It’s a wonder we haven’t come across one afore now. We’ll skirt it with a loop.”

  ‘My father told me from his own lips that me grandfather’s hair turned snow white during the six months of nights it took them to chisel their way round that hole. But once beyond it they all worked like maniacs because they knew that now they were within yards of their goal.

  ‘But what nearly drove them all white-haired was the night that they actually broke through. So elated were they, they were just about to jig and dance when they heard voices which froze them all into statues. Fortunately they weren’t coming from the cave but from outside on the shore. They never knew whose voices they were, whether coastguards, or pollis, or mates in the same game as their own, but they stayed frozen until the sound of the voices died away. Then cautiously they went back up the long trek and came into the house, and once inside they did jig, they did laugh…and they did get drunk, blind, mortallious.

  ‘Would you mind filling the glasses again, Ted?’

  ‘Aye, Maggie. And I think I’ll have a long one, something cooling because you’ve got the sweat running down me oxters. You have that.’

  ‘You, Daisy, get up off your backside and give Mr Reade a hand.’

  ‘Aye, missis. Aye, missis.’ Daisy seemed to have to pull herself up as if out of a dream.

  As for Eddie, he leant against the head of the couch and looked about him. Everybody, he saw, was sweating; but, of course, it could be the fire, it was blazing high.

  When his mother leant across the couch and touched his hand he gripped her fingers and smiled at her. But, of course, his granny had to go and spoil it by crying, ‘That’s it, treat him like a bairn. Hasn’t he been spoilt enough these past weeks?’

  His mother didn’t answer his granny but she continued to smile at him and pressed his fingers more tightly before releasing her hold on them.

  Mrs Flannagan now called to Daisy, saying, ‘And bring those plates. I think we could do with somethin’ to eat an’ all.’

  ‘Oh, Mother!’ Lilian was leaning forward now. ‘Let’s wait; I want to hear the end, we all do.’

  ‘Oh well, just as you say.’

  It was odd, Eddie thought as he drank his ginger beer, that his granny’s tone when speaking to her daughter could be so different from the one she used when speaking to him. But here she was going again.

  ‘As you know,’ she was saying, ‘it’s local history the boats that have been wrecked along this coast, and not a few, if all the truth were told, were scuttled on purpose. Well, about this particular time I’m coming to, me father was around twenty-five years old and me Uncle Dan twenty-four. Me father had joined me grandfather early on in the mason’s yard but not me Uncle Dan; he took after his own grandfather so he went out with the fishing boats. And, of course, this in a way was a good thing for the business they had on the side, for it was a kind of blind. By this time, too, me Uncle Dan had his own little boat. He was the kind of man that must always be his own master, and, as I also understand, he was as different from me father as chalk was from cheese ’cos he was wild in his ways and drank heavily, whereas although me granda and me father liked their drop they knew when to stop. But not me Uncle Dan.

  ‘Anyway, it was around this time, as I said, that me Uncle Dan got very mysterious and talked about big pickings, and one night when the weather was bad, real wild, he tells them all, me granny included, to get down to the top cave, that’s what they called the one where the
candles are now, and wait for a signal from him. By now me grandfather had fitted a door in the aperture of the cave, but it could only be opened from the inside.

  ‘Anyway, there they were, me grandfather, me grandmother and me father waiting. And then the signal comes and they open the door, and there down below is me Uncle Dan standing knee deep in water. And he’s nearly bursting with excitement, and bobbing all around him are long boxes. “Get them up! Get them up!” he shouts, and they haul the boxes one after another into the upper cave. And still they come. Even when the water’s swirling round his waist, he guides more and more boxes from outside the cave to the foot of the rope ladder, and they all work until their arms are fit to drop off and until there’s hardly room to move on the floor of the cave. Not until the water reached his chin and the last box was up the ladder, would me Uncle Dan come up. And you know what he did then? He lay down on the floor of the cave and laughed until the tears rolled down his face. And they laughed with him although they didn’t know what they were laughing at. Then springing to his feet, he attacked the first box to his hand with an axe, and when it burst open they stood amazed as candles rippled out onto their feet.

  ‘“Candles?” me grandfather cried. “What in the name of God is this!”

  ‘“You wait,” cried me Uncle Dan. “You wait. Did you bring the knives with you?”

  ‘“Aye.” They all nodded at him.

  ‘“Well, get going then and split them up.”

  ‘“Split the candles up? What in the name of God for?” me granny now cried at him.

  ‘“Because, dear Ma,” he said, “there’s a fortune hidden in these here candles that’s going to make me rich and you rich; and you, Da, rich; and you, our cautious Joe, make you rich an’ all. Rich as Lords, all of us.”

  ‘So without asking any more questions they all started splitting the candles like madmen, and they went on splitting the candles all night until they were almost buried in candle tallow and tallowed string; but still there were more boxes to go through.

  ‘It was me granny who called a final halt. “There’s another day,” she said. “There’s another day.” And Dan, weary himself now, said, “Aye, you’re right, Ma.”

  ‘So back to the house they came, and me Uncle Dan answering their demands to know what it was all about explained to them that quite by accident he had found out that the shipment of candles was a blind. It was a comparatively small boat, hardly much bigger than a wherry, but it was laden to the watermark and it was making for Hull where it was to pass its cargo on to a bigger ship there.

  ‘It was at this point that the business got nasty, for me grandfather gripping his son by the throat, demanded, “Tell me, you had no hand in the scuttlin’?” and although me Uncle Dan denied it with angry curses me grandfather didn’t believe him; nor did me grandma, nor me father.

  ‘“How did it get so near inshore? they demanded.”

  ‘“Because,” Dan said, “it was blown off course by the storm.”

  ‘“What about the men on board?”

  ‘“They had got away in a sculler,” he said.

  ‘“Then it was a put-up job,” me granny accused him.

  ‘No. Yes. No. He waffled, and kept protesting that he’d had no hand in the scuttling and it was the small crew that had thought the whole thing up.

  ‘Anyway, the next day when he went down through the passage to start splitting the candles again he went alone.

  ‘Now at different times when Dan had been passing up and down the passage he had, the daredevil that he was, despised going round the loop and had jumped the hole, and more than once me granny’s heart had leapt into her throat. If he had drink on him and the devil in him he would dance round the hole.

  ‘Well, when he had been down in the upper cave nearly all day, me granny decided to take him something to eat, and it was as she edged her way through the narrow cleft that she heard his whoops of joy and she knew that he had found what he was after. She also knew that the sound was coming not from the upper cave but from near the crevasse.

  ‘It was a mild day outside and the sea demons in the hole were strangely quiet, and so when the passage suddenly rang with an ear-splitting, fearful, piercing scream she turned her face to the rock wall and banged her head against it, after which she became strangely still. When she turned about it was not in the direction of the crevasse but up towards the house, and when me grandfather came in he found her sitting near the open stone door in the bedroom.

  ‘When he demanded to know what had happened she didn’t speak but she pointed into the passage. He went in and down, and after a time he came out again and looked at her, but still she didn’t speak.

  ‘Me father had arrived home by now and he and me granda went down past the loop to the candle room, as it came to be called. The place looked like something you would imagine at the bottom of the sea, broken white wax and hundreds of pieces of string, seemingly mountains of it, with splintered crates sticking up out of them like ribs of dead ships. But there was no sign of me Uncle Dan. Apparently he had found what he was looking for and it had gone with him.’

  Mrs Flannagan’s voice was low now as she said, ‘It was four days later when his body was washed ashore. Me granny lived for another two years after that but she rarely spoke unless it was absolutely necessary, so me father said.

  ‘Well, me grandfather was not long in following her, a year to be exact. And there was me father left alone and lonely. So he lets another year go by out of respect and then he marries. That was early in 1824 and I was born here the same year. And here I grew up. But I knew nothing about the wall room, the passage or anything else until I was well into womanhood.

  ‘So’—she now turned and addressed Eddie—‘you know now, lad, who the man was in the peak cap and the reefer jacket. But you’re not the first one he’s guided aright in dreams, as old Doctor Collington knows, but guide you he did, I’m sure of that, for I would never have gone back down there that morning if you hadn’t mentioned what you called your nightmare.’

  Mrs Flannagan now did an unusual thing, at least to Eddie it was unusual for, leaning towards him, she patted him on the knee and the pat had an affectionate touch about it. So much so that he thought, wonders will never cease; I’d better have another nightmare the night. But no; he mustn’t joke about the nightmares. Whatever good that fellow had done, he didn’t want to see him again, sleeping or waking.

  They all now remained still and silent for a moment as his granny said softly, ‘The only thing I hope is we’ll never have to use that passage again. You know, I used to hate it at one time, but not any more, not since it was the means of saving my man. But then, that only came about by the sharp eyes of me grandson.’ She now actually caused the colour to flood up to the roots of Eddie’s hair as she added, ‘And not only did he do that but he saved his sister and brought an evil man to justice, and narrowly escaped with his life in doing so. And…’

  ‘And he came down and got me, missis.’

  All eyes were now turned on Daisy, and Mrs Flannagan, nodding at her, said briskly, ‘You’ll never forget that till the day you die, will you?’

  ‘No, I won’t that, missis, never till the day I die.’ Daisy was not smiling any more and Mrs Flannagan nodded at her and said, ‘Well, that’s as it should be.’ But now she was looking at Eddie again, and her voice unusually soft, she said, ‘He and I know there’s somebody else we should thank, don’t we, lad? The man in the peak cap who haunted your dreams. We should thank him, shouldn’t we, lad?’

  ‘Aye, Gran.’

  ‘I doubt if you hadn’t told me about him if we’d ever have gone down there again that night. Aye, I doubt it very much. But there, we did, didn’t we?’ Again she was gripping his knee. ‘And he led us to Hal Kemp. And you fought him like a man. Aye. Aye, you did that. I reckon I was as proud of you as I’ve been of anybody in me life as I looked down on you bashing away at that creature. And when later I had time to meself to think, do you know what I
thought, lad?’

  It was as if they were alone in the room together now, facing each other, quite unaware of those around them, and he answered her softly, ‘No, Gran.’

  ‘Well, lad, I thought, he comes of good stock on both sides; it’s as he said, his father was a good man. And I say now to your face, and to me daughter’s’—she flicked her eyes in the direction of Lilian—‘I wish I’d realised it earlier, for me own sake, as well as everybody else’s.’ …

  ‘Aw, Gran!’ Simultaneously their arms went out, and about each other, and he felt the strength of her small frame as he hugged her to him, and for the second time in one evening he was kissed full on the mouth. But before he had time to savour the miracle he was pushed forcibly from her and she was bawling at him in her own inimitable way, ‘And if ever I hear you calling me Gran-Flan again I’ll swipe the hunger off you! Do you hear me?’

  ‘I hear you, Gran-Flan.’

  The room was alive with laughter, his mother’s mixed with tears, his granny’s high and cracking to cover her emotion, his grandfather’s deep and throaty, Penny’s a high pipe, Daisy’s merry and gurgling, Ted’s a choking chuckle. There was only himself in all the company that wasn’t laughing aloud.

  He was sitting back on the couch, his arm outstretched still holding his granny’s hand, and the feeling inside him couldn’t be expressed through laughter. He was filled with a strange happiness, a complete and bewildering happiness, and he realised in this moment that he had never felt so secure and safe in all his life. He also realised that his mind was confronting him with a problem, for it was asking, ‘How was it possible to love somebody that you once hated?’ for now he knew he loved his Granny Flannagan.

  The End