The Kicking Tree

by Trevor Stubbs

  “What have I done for you?” queried Jack. “I haven’t done anything.”

  “You treated me like a respectable person… and you talked to me about things that last. And thanks for introducing me to Jalli. I’ll not forget you… Will you be coming back?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Well, if you do, look me up.” And she wrote down her address and gave it to Jalli. Then kissed her on the cheek.

  “I hope you get a good teacher, Loops. I know you will work hard,” encouraged her new friend.

  “Talk to God for me.”

  “I certainly will,” assured Jalli.

  When the soldiers and Loops had finally left, the Somafs were all over Jack. The day they had got their food back they couldn’t believe it. Especially when they had heard the story of how Jack had refused to leave the convoy. And now here he was, back with the two boys. It was clearly going to take some time for them to get over the experiences they had been through.

  Jack said that the people he had met were not that bad. Clearly in wartime people just did things they would never dream of doing any other time. Jalli promised to pray that the peace would hold, and that the people of Tolfanland would be left alone to sort out their own differences without outside interference from international pressure groups. After lunch, Jack and Jalli felt it was time to leave. They helped put things straight in the croft and, having reluctantly accepted things for the journey, they packed their backpacks and set off for the white gate. Mr. Somaf, Tilly and the youngsters went with them. They followed Jack’s marks without any difficulty and had no trouble spotting the white gate in the hedge halfway up the hill. The Somaf’s could see nothing of course.

  “OK,” said Jack finally, “this where we just disappear.”

  They took their leave once more. Tilly was crying, saying she would never forget Jalli. It had been really special having her with her during such a difficult time.

  “Let’s hope we can meet again,” whispered Jalli, giving her a big hug.

  *

  Back on the lawn in front of the cottage, Jack threw off his backpack and lay full length under the sun. Jalli joined him.

  “I could sleep for a week,” declared Jack.

  “Me too. Tell you what, though. In this garden, surrounded by the scent of the flowers, you stink! And I bet I do, too.”

  “No,” returned Jack, “you just pong! Do you think we could use the showers in the cottage?”

  “Why not?”

  “I’d like to nip through to Persham and ring Mum first though.”

  “And I’ll ring Grandma. But don’t get lost! Don’t be gone long. You know Jack, I really missed you!”

  “And I you. There’s only one Jalli in the whole wide universe – and the more we do together – the more we have shared, the more important you become… Look! The gate into Tolfanland. It has gone!”

  Jalli breathed, “You know God, you did ask us to do the most amazing things. I hope we did them OK?”

  “The Somaf family said some real nice things about you, Jalli.”

  “And they thought you were absolutely wonderful! And so do I!”

  “The Owner of the challenging white gates does seem to know what He is doing. OK let’s call our people and then come back and shower.”

  After half-an-hour, they were looking like the old Jack and Jalli again. “I’ve decided I’m going to look for my father,” asserted Jack. “In Tolfanland I met kids without any fathers at all. At least I have one, somewhere. And I’ve decided I’m going to find him. Jalli, will you help me look?”

  “I’ll have to. Because I’m not letting you out of my sight again! When do we begin?”

  “You are eager! We can meet here tomorrow, and you can come on down into Persham and we’ll begin asking my mum. I think she might have some idea of where to look. But I’ll need you to help me because I’m really scared of talking to Mum about my dad… and I haven’t the faintest idea where to begin otherwise.”

  “You shouldn’t go looking for him without your mum knowing.”

  “Exactly. But she won’t like it.”

  “I think she may understand.”

  The exhausted couple kissed and, reluctantly, Jack saw Jalli into Wanulka and on to the bus. She was almost asleep before she reached home.

  13

  “Platform four for… the… 10.33 to… Newcastle,” announced the p.a. system. Jack and Jalli pushed their way onto the crowded platform. Jalli had never travelled in England before, nor been on a train. Jack took pride in leading her onto the train and finding two seats together. He ushered Jalli into the window seat. The day was cold but fine. Coming from sunny climes Jalli had found the draughty platform especially cold, even with several layers of British clothing. They found themselves on a coach with an interesting assortment of people. Jack’s attention was drawn towards a girl in a white mini-skirt and hot pink blouse with a low neck line despite the weather. She had knee high boots and large earrings beneath a shock of jet black hair that fell across one shoulder.

  Jalli was glad that from where they were sitting Jack could only see the top of her head!

  “Keep your eyes on me!” she laughed.

  “Willingly!” said Jack. “But you can’t help noticing someone like that.”

  “That’s the idea!” stated Jalli, “Don’t fall into the trap!”

  “Too blatant. The skilful ones just capture your heart in more subtle ways.”

  “Exactly. By just being naturally impressive.”

  “Like you! I’m afraid I am totally captured.”

  “Good job. I wouldn’t know what to do on this rail thing in a strange land.”

  “Train. We say ‘railway train’ in England. Well I feel great sitting with you. Let all the other guys look at me and be beside themselves with jealousy! Seriously I am so pleased you’re helping find my dad. If you weren’t here beside me I would be really scared. So scared I might not actually have got on this train.”

  “Are you very frightened of him?”

  “Not so much frightened of him, but what he will be like when I find him. I don’t know how I will feel when – if – I meet him. I can’t even imagine what I’m going to say to him.”

  “Don’t worry about that bit now. You can’t decide that in advance. It doesn’t work like that.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Well, like when I was trying to work out what I would say to you when we arranged to meet for the second time. I had it all worked out, but it did not go like I thought because you said something first, and then everything turned out quite different.”

  “And, in fact, what I said bore no relation to what I thought I might say.”

  “Right. And if you don’t know what he’s going to be like you have no idea what you might want to say.”

  “I might not want to tell him who I am.”

  “That’s always a possibility. Anyway, what you have to do first is find him.”

  “And with a name like Smith that might prove quite hard.”

  “How come?”

  “You know, you learn so fast that sometimes I forget you’re from a different world. You know so much, and then the things that everyone from England knows, you don’t. Smith is probably the most common name in English. We got our names from our professions back in the Middle Ages. Then there were so many different sorts of smith – anyone who worked with any kind of metal really.”

  “So there might be quite a few Shaun Smiths.”

  “Yes. But I have the address he was last known to be at. That was ten years ago so he could have moved long since. If he has, someone might know where he went. When we get to Newcastle Central, we are to take the Metro to North Shields. We might have to stay overnight. I’ve never been to Newcastle before.”

  “This whole venture sounds expensive.”

  “Mum is paying. She wants to find out about him too. And with you here it kind of makes it possible, it makes it safe.”

  “How
?”

  “Well, she knows she won’t lose me too because you will look after me. She thinks that you will keep me from harm. In a way she’s right.”

  “I think I understand.”

  A succession of interesting people entered and left the train. Miss Hot Pink and White was replaced by a man with a white beard who spoke endlessly on his mobile so that everyone knew the names of all his family and the delicate health of his dog before they arrived at Newcastle.

  “I never knew there were so many treatment options for pets,” declared Jalli.

  “You learn lots of things on trains,” replied Jack, “most of it excruciatingly boring!”

  After getting out at Newcastle Central, they were swept down the platform by people all of whom seemed to know where they were going. In this new environment it was Jalli who sussed where to go first. She spotted the large “M” sign of the metro. It was remarkably easy to follow and in no time they were rattling along in the direction of North Shields. Jack got out the address and asked someone on the train who looked as if he knew where he was going, where the place was.

  “Yes, just go though the Beacon Centre to the Library and across Northumberland Square, turn left along Upper Norfolk Street and cross the Albion Road. It’s not hard to find.”

  It wasn’t. They were soon knocking on a door of a terraced house. They were pleased to find someone at home. A middle aged lady came to the door. She was simply dressed with an apron over a pair of blue jeans. She stared at this unlikely couple who were clearly not local.

  “Well?” she ejaculated as Jack struggled to find the courage to ask her about his father.

  “Excuse me,” he stammered, “I… I am looking for a man called Shaun Smith. I believe he lived here once… recently.”

  “Are you, then?” the lady replied, “‘e don’t live here now – but a’ believe ‘e once did. Ma husband’s away wi’ the Magpies so we can’t ask him. Why don’t you try next door? They’ve lived here donkey’s years.”

  “Thank you,” said Jack, “we’ll do that.”

  “They in’t in till six o’clock. They’re minding their daughter’s bairns while she’s shopping.”

  “We’ll come back, thank you very much.”

  “I’ll tell ‘em you came,” said the lady. They thanked her again and continued down the road.

  “Well that looks hopeful,” muttered Jack. “I would have been very surprised if we had found him first time.”

  “Magpies? Donkeys?” asked Jalli. “Didn’t you call the big black and white birds in Wanulka magpies? And why donkeys?”

  “Donkeys? Oh, ‘donkey’s years’. It means a long time! I don’t know what it’s got to do with donkeys… And quite right, magpies are birds. But here in Newcastle it is the local football team. They wear black and white. I hadn’t thought of that. If they had been ‘at home’ the train would have been crowded with supporters all coming to Newcastle.”

  They walked back to the Beacon Centre and bought two lattes and doughnuts. Jack explained about the English football league system and how important it was for teams to be in the Premiership. As detail followed on detail he failed to notice Jalli’s eyes begin to focus more and more on the shops and the people bustling in and out of the centre. He was just talking about Michael Owen and his stunning goal for England against the Argentinians in a World Cup match, and how he once played for Liverpool and…

  “Michael who?” asked Jalli. “Did he know your father?”

  “Very unlikely!”

  “What about him then? How can he help?”

  “He can’t help. He’s a footballer. And anyway he’s not here – well, I don’t think he is. Haven’t you been following what I’ve been saying?”

  “Honestly, no. Is this football stuff important?”

  “Yes, of course! Well, no, not really. It’s a game. But it’s very popular all over the world, and we invented it here in England. We have one of the best leagues in the world. Millions of people go to watch football matches every weekend. And even more millions watch them on the telly. Even in the middle of Africa and the Far East.”

  “But not that lady we met. And the people next door whose daughter had gone shopping.”

  “But they’re women!”

  “So football is a ‘man’ thing then?”

  “Er… yes. Mostly. There are quite a few women though who…”

  “I can understand that now. I couldn’t imagine why people should get so passionate about the smallest details like a – what do you call it – a ‘goal’ in Michael.”

  “A goal scored by Michael Owen. But that is not a small… well, OK, it wasn’t actually that important in the end I’ll grant you. We still lost the match. The really big thing was in 1966 when…”

  “You weren’t born in 1966!”

  “But we won the World Cup. The only time.”

  “I think I would like to do some shopping like that woman next-door. There are some interesting shops here. Can we go and look at some of them?”

  “Well, if you like. There’s nothing special about this place. Same as every other shopping centre.”

  “But I have never been to a shopping centre in your country.”

  “But we haven’t any money to buy things with.”

  “No. Not buy! Just look.”

  Jack inwardly sighed. How much happier he would be watching football. He hadn’t realised how much he had missed it – he didn’t even know how his team were doing this season! He had been so caught up with Jalli and their adventures. It then occurred to him how much this girl had changed him, had changed everything. For her he would go round window shopping and he would not say a word of complaint. He never would have done that for anyone else. He reflected how cross he had been with his mother the last time she insisted they go shopping for clothes. Clothes he really needed. But then he knew his mum would go round looking at things she had no hope or thought of buying, and that annoyed him.

  They wandered from shop to shop with Jalli asking questions, delighting in this or that display, asking about certain shops that looked especially unusual. She spent some time examining women’s underwear while Jack did not know where to look or stand. If he stood too close to her, he thought, then it became excruciatingly embarrassing. (He was glad he was not anywhere where anyone was likely to recognise him!) If you stood too far away though, people might think you were on your own, and just hanging round the lingerie because of some odd fetish you might have! But Jalli was fascinated by the huge varieties of things people in England apparently wore underneath – something she had not seen on her travels before. She had lots of questions but it was quite obvious that Jack, not having a sister or anything, really had little idea. He explained that he was only interested in clothes when people were wearing them. They stayed in the centre until things began to close down and people were heading off home.

  “We must go round to these neighbours just after six,” said Jack, “in case they go out again or get into watching the telly – and then we’ll find somewhere to stay for the night and get some fish and chips.”

  They knocked on the door at about ten past six. An elderly lady, short and a bit dumpy (what Jack’s mum would describe as “homely” looking) opened the door. But before Jack could utter a word she declared, “Well. I never! You’re Shaun’s kid, if I’m not mistaken. Next door told me to expect someone asking after him.”

  “I… I… I am looking for my father,” responded Jack, “how do you know I am Shaun’s son?”

  “You’re the spitting image of him! Well, don’t keep standing there, come in.”

  Jack and Jalli followed her into the house and found themselves in a medium sized room that seemed to serve for everything except sleeping and washing. An old gentleman was sitting opposite a television with some quiz show on, but instead of watching it he was reading a newspaper.

  “Tom! We’ve guests!” announced the woman. The man looked up from his paper and caught sight of Jalli, then Jack, and pulled
himself to his feet. Quite clearly they were not used to strangers in their home, least of all imposing young people who dressed a “bit posh”. (Jack was wearing smarter clothes to travel than he normally did about Persham.)

  “Er… welcome,” Tom spluttered. After he transferred his eyes from Jalli to Jack, he asked, “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Sit down, sit down!” insisted the lady of the house. She found them a settee from under a pile of newspapers and some knitting in progress. “Tom, put the kettle on. You’ll have a cuppa tea, no doubt.”

  “Er… thank you,” said Jack.

  “Tom, put the kettle on. Milk and sugar?”

  “Yes. thank you,” said Jack again.

  “Both on you?”

  “Yes. Please,” replied Jalli.

  “Did you hear that?” the old lady shouted to her husband who was filling the kettle from a tap.

  “Tea for two with milk and sugar. That right, Marge?”

  “That’s right!” and more quietly to Jack and Jalli, “He’s a bit deaf these days, you know. Got that way in the works. Now then. You are Shaun’s boy?”

  “Well, yes. But I wouldn’t know him if I saw him. He left home when I was two. I’ve been wondering about him all my life.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “Nothing much. Mum didn’t like talking about him. There was another woman, but I think they had fallen out before that.”

  “So why do you want to find him now. Is everything alright at home?”

  “Yes. Fine. It’s just that… that I want to know what… I’m curious about him.”

  “Course you are! And this is your… girlfriend? You’re foreign aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” said Jack, “this is Jalli. I’m Jack. You seem to know a lot about people before they tell you anything.”

  “I’ve always been good at that. Now take your father. There was a lot of good in him underneath that many people didn’t see.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He left here six years ago, but we got a Christmas card from him only last year so he’s still in the same place, Leeds. Well he was then. So you’re a bit too far north.”