by David Almond
“How do you mean?” says Mam.
“That’s what I sez – ‘How d’you mean?’ Veronica shrugs. ‘I was a weakly child,’ she says. ‘I was back and forward to the doors of death.’ Me and the lads is hushed. They were different days back then. There were many little’ns took too soon. Stanley hisself had a sister gone before he was born. ‘Are you all right now?’ he whispers to Veronica. And she laughs, the way she did. ‘Now how could I run to South Shields if I wasn’t, Stanley?’ And up she jumps with her big heart and her big soul and her strong legs and her big boots and we’re off again, and as we leave Jarrow behind we start telling each other we can smell the sea. Which was more a matter of hope than truth. Nae sign of any sea. Nae sign of any South Shields. We’ve soon been gone more than two hours. It’s afternoon. It’s blazin’ hot. We’re absolutely knacked. We’re slowin’ doon. Nobody says it but we’re all thinking of giving up. Even Veronica starts puffin’ and pantin’ and gaspin’ for air, and Stanley’s watching her with great concern. And then we hear it, the clip-clop-clip of Gabrieli’s pony and the toot of Gabrieli’s horn.” He laughs at the memory. “It come upon us like a miracle.”
“The ice-cream maker?” says Mam.
“Aye. Mr Angelo Gabrieli, master ice-cream maker of South Shields. He’s on an ice-cream cart that’s painted all white and red and gold. The pony’s shining black. Mr Gabrieli’s sitting there in his white shirt and his white trousers and his white cap with GABRIELI’S printed on it and there’s a great big tub of ice cream at his side. He toots his horn again. He laughs. ‘Buy a Gabrieli!’ he calls. ‘Best ice cream this side of Heaven!’ And he tugs the pony to a halt at our side. We halt as well. We puff and pant. We drool. We watch the shining tub. I think of Veronica’s cash. Never mind the train, I think. Buy some ice creams now! ‘Good afternoon, my fine children!’ says Mr Gabrieli. ‘And where might you be going on this perfect day?’ ‘South Shields,’ I tell him. He grins in satisfaction. ‘The perfect destination! Your names, my friends?’ We tell him our names. I tell him we’ve run all the way from Newcastle and Felling. ‘Indeed?’ he says. ‘I thought you looked a little hot. Perhaps a little ice cream would be rather helpful.’ We daren’t speak. We look at Veronica. Our eyes and hearts are yearning. ‘Perhaps a little one now,’ says Mr Gabrieli, ‘and the biggest one you’ve ever seen when at last you reach the beach!’ And he opens the tub and digs into it, and gives us each an ice cream for free.Ha! And nothing I’ve tasted in the seventy years since has tasted anything like that glorious gift. Mr Gabrieli smiles as he watches us. He ponders. ‘I could offer you a lift,’ he says and Norman’s mouth is opening wide with joy. But Veronica’s shaking her head and telling him no. ‘Yes, you are right, Veronica,’ says Mr Gabrieli. ‘This is an achievement you will remember all your lives. Do not worry, boys. It is not far now. Along here then right and onto lovely Ocean Road, and then at the end of that – the shining sea itself ! I will meet you there!’ He snaps the reins. ‘Onward, Francisco! Until we meet again, my friends!’ And off he trots.”
Harry rests. He gazes out at the trees and the sky. Mam brings more tea.
“You’ve not told anybody about this till now?” she says.
“I’ve told bits of it, pet, just like bits of crack and reminiscing at the club. But I’ve never telt it all with all the detail in. And even now, there’ll be bits of it I must leave out.”
“It was such an amazing thing, Harry,” Mam says. “Like Mr Gabrieli said, such a great achievement.”
“Aye, that’s true. And it was a day of daftness and joy, and if we’d never started and we’d never kept on going, just think of what we’d’ve missed.” He smiles, like he’s slipping into a dream. “So we kept on going and we kept on going. We followed Gabrieli’s cart until it went right out of sight, and we kept on going with the lovely thought of massive ice creams still to come. And then we’re on Ocean Road, and there’s seagulls in the air and a breeze on our faces, and this time we can truly smell the sea, and then, ‘Oh, I can see it, mates! I can really see the sea!’ ”
And Harry’s eyes are wide, like he can see the sea again.
“And he’s there, like he said he would be. Mr Gabrieli. He’s sitting up on his cart and he smiles to welcome us and holds his arms out wide. ‘Now,’ he says. ‘Which should come first? The ice cream or the sea?’ And we divent hesitate. We’re straight onto the beach and plunging into the watter. And when we look back, there’s Mr Gabrieli laughing at us as we jump and dive and tumble through the waves. Then we stand together and he photographs us, and we come out and he leads us to the cart and he gives us the biggest ice creams we’ve ever seen, then he photographs us again. And he has our certificates ready and we sit in the sand and read them to each other. And then Mr Gabrieli asks us if we know that we are wonderful, and he sings to us – something I never heard before and have never heard since, except in dreams, something Italian and strange and very beautiful.”
He points to the envelope.
“Should be something else in there,” he says. “He got some passer-by to take it.”
Mam slips her fingers inside and takes it out, another photograph. Everybody’s in it, standing smiling before the ice-cream cart and Francisco the shining pony. Harry, Veronica, Stanley and Norman with their certificates, and lovely Mr Gabrieli himself, all in white with GABRIELI’S printed on his cap, and past them is the beach and then the sea. And me and Mam don’t say anything, though we can see that Harry and Veronica are standing right together, holding hands.
“And then,” says Harry, “we give our addresses to Mr Gabrieli and we say goodbye. And back we go up Ocean Road and to the railway station. And then we get the train, and off it puffs, through Jarrow and Hebburn and Pelaw and Heworth, doing in minutes what took us so long. And then along the track to Felling.”
“And Veronica?” says Mam.
“She got off there. And we went on. And we were home in time for tea.”
“You know what I mean. Did you see her again?”
“Most nights, in me dreams.”
“No more than that?”
He shakes his head, closes his eyes, then points into the box.
“That brown packet there,” he says.
She lifts it out.
“Gan on,” he says.
She opens it, and there they are, Harry and Veronica. They’re on the Tyne Bridge, maybe eighteen years old. The breeze is in their hair and there’re seagulls in the air behind them, and they’re laughing out loud and holding hands again.
“Aye,” he says. He takes the photograph and holds it. “We made sure we found each other again. And we were together for a time. And she really was something else. But then…”
His voice falters. He shakes his head.
“Not now, love. I’m knacked. The lad’s got running to do, I’ve got a home to go to, and you’ve got some helping out to do.”
“OK then, Harry,” says Mam.
She kisses him. She tells him to close his eyes, to have a rest.
“Aye, I will,” he says. He licks his lips and stares into the photograph.
“Do you think…?” he says to Mam.
“Think what, Harry?”
“Do you think there’s a Heaven, like they used to say there was? A Heaven where we meet again?”
“I don’t know, Harry.”
“Me neither. And mebbe it doesn’t matter. Mebbe this is Heaven. Mebbe you enter Heaven on the best of days, like the day we got to Shields, like other days.”
“Days with her? With Veronica?”
“Aye. Days with Veronica.”
His eyes flutter. He looks at me.
“You’re a good lad. Get started, keep on going. You’ll have a lovely life.”
He closes his eyes.
“You know what?” he murmurs before he sleeps. “Me great achievement is that I’ve been happy, that I’ve never been nowt but happy.”
“Go on, son,” says Mam. “Go and see Jacksie. Get your training
in.”
Harry never got to St Mary’s Nursing Home. He died that afternoon while I was running with Jacksie through Jesmond Dene. Mam said he just slipped away like he was going into a deeper sleep. She arranged the funeral. People came to our house afterwards. We played a CD of Italian songs. There was beer and a big tub of ice cream, and there was crying, and lots and lots of laughter. I ran again that afternoon with Jacksie, and I heard Harry deep inside me: “That’s reet, lad! Run! There’s a wolf at your tail! Run for your lovely life!”
A week later we ran the Junior Great North Run. We belted round the quayside and across the bridges, hundreds of us running through the sunlight by the glittering river and through the cheering crowds. We raced each other to the finish line, me an’ my best mate Jacksie, numbers 2593 and 2594, and Jacksie just got there in front of me. It didn’t matter. We stood arm in arm with our medals and certificates. We laughed into Mam’s camera. We were young and daft. We’d run the run, and we felt so free and light I really thought we might have run into a bit of Heaven.
Next day she drove us all to Felling. We stood on the bypass and here they came, the thin, fast lines of professionals and champions and record-holders and harriers; then the others – hundreds after hundreds after hundreds of them – puffing and panting, grinning and gasping. Here came the young and the old, the determined and the barmy. They waved and grimaced and sighed and giggled. They squirted water over their heads and over us. There were gorillas and ducks and Supermans and bishops and Frankensteins and Draculas and nurses. And the watchers laughed and yelled.
“You’re doing great!” yelled Mam. “Good lad! Good lass! Gan on! Well done!”
And then I saw them. They were kids, too little and young for this run. Three skinny lads in vests and boots that thudded on the road, a dark-haired lass in boots as well and wearing a white dress. They twisted and dodged and threaded their way through the crowd. And I looked at Mam a moment, and her eyes were wide with astonishment and wonder as well. As the four of them passed by, one of the lads lifted his hand high and waved at us and laughed, and then was off again. And they’d gone, lost again in the crowd, a crowd that kept on running past and running past, a crowd we couldn’t wait to join, a crowd that seemed like the whole of Tyneside, the whole of the world, all running through the blazing sunlight to the sea.
“Sometimes, usually in winter, I get to wondering, why on earth do I live in the north? It gets so cold! It seems so far away from everywhere! Then I go to the coast, and I start to understand again. As a kid I used to stand at the top of the town and look down to the river, snaking its way past shipyards, warehouses, great cranes, the cluttered riverbanks of Hebburn, Jarrow, Tyne Dock, then flowing between the twin piers at Tynemouth and South Shields to merge with the North Sea. Sometimes the sea shone brilliant blue and sometimes it was almost black. When the wind was right, you could smell it. Seagulls squawked above our streets. When there was fog, the river bells rang, and distant foghorns droned. The lights of ships shone at night like stars. The sea was always with us, part of what we were, and it seemed we always wanted to be near to it.
On bright Sundays our family went on car trips to South Shields. There’s a photograph of us all – we’ve put up a windbreak and spread our blankets on the sand, and the beach all around is packed with folk. Granddad’s there, a huge, round, silent man, in his blue serge three-piece suit, his cloth cap, his big black boots, sitting with his legs straight out, puffing on his pipe as always. Grandma, almost as big as he is, in her floral frock, pours tea from a thermos. Dad’s still got his glasses on, wearing his green trunks, hands on hips, poised for action. Three kids: Colin, Catherine, me, all in swimming gear. Mam’s wrapped up in a cardigan and scarf because of her arthritis. I can hear her words.
“Go on. Run and play. Those that can run should run, those that can play should play.”
Soon we’ll wade into the water, dive and swim furiously out against the waves. Yes, it’ll be bitterly cold, but so what? You quickly get used to it. And yes, we’ll shudder and our knees will knock when we run back out again, but Dad’ll wrap towels around us and rub us hard to get us warm. And there’ll be hot tea, and fish and chips from Frankie’s. We’ll be in and out of the water all day long, just like dozens of other kids all along the beach. Back then I thought that all seas must be the same. I recall my amazement when I swam in the Mediterranean for the first time.
The best trips took us further. We’d drive north, up the Great North Road and across the Great Northern Coalfield, where pitheads still filled the landscape and men in their thousands still worked underground. We headed to what lay beyond: the beaches and sea villages of Northumberland; Craster, Embleton, Beadnell. These were wild and lovely places: long, pale beaches with rolling dunes behind; the Farne Islands stretching towards the horizon; the ruined castle of Dunstanburgh on its rocky black headland; Bamburgh Castle, high above its village and its beach; Lindisfarne Castle like a mirage way out on its long, low island; distant lighthouses. Everything was on a greater scale: a sea so wide you could see the curve of the earth upon it; the Cheviot Hills rising darkly above the land behind; families scattered sparsely across the great sweeps of sand. Flights of puffins dashed over us, terns danced above the waves, oystercatchers picked at the shore, gannets plunged from on high. And there were seals, and sometimes dolphins and porpoises, that rolled in the water’s surge.
Mam sat in a deckchair unwrapping our picnic while we played war games in the dunes with Dad. On the days I recall, the younger children were now with us: Barbara, who so quickly disappeared, then Mary and Margaret. We lit driftwood fires. We built castles from damp sand and from the weird objects thrown up by the sea. We played in the rock pools, turning stones to find crabs below. And we swam and swam, then took the long drive home again, sleeping and dreaming as we headed back towards Tyneside’s light.
As I grew older I left family trips behind. And Dad died, so the trips were no longer possible anyway. But I still went there with my friends. We took the slow bus from Newcastle, or we hitchhiked in pairs. Sometimes we took tents and pitched them at the small duneside site in Beadnell or at Waren Mill beyond Bamburgh. Sometimes we slept in bus shelters or under fishing boats or in soft hollows in the dunes. We took loaves of bread and tins of spam and hunks of cheese. We had bonfires and beach parties. We swam in the shallow waters of Beadnell Bay while the sun went down over the Cheviots and the sea and sky glowed pink and gold. I fell in love for the first time on Beadnell Beach – with an eighteen-year-old art student. I was fifteen. She must have been humouring me, but we sat by the embers deep into the night. We watched the rays of Longstone Lighthouse sweeping across the sea, the land, the sea again. We talked about the beauty of the moon, gasped in wonder at the stars and at this world, and I gazed at her as the light passed over, and imagined she must be some lovely creature from the sea itself.
I still go there as often as I can, to walk the beaches in that intensely clear air and light. I wade in the water (I don’t swim – I understand now how stunningly cold the water is!). I sometimes go there to write, and even when I’m not writing, the words are somehow always there, part of the geography of my imagination.
Stupor Beach, the village in the story, isn’t a real place. It exists in a fictional Northumberland – it’s a little like Boulmer or Newton or Alnmouth. The girl who tells the tale lives in a version of the wooden shacks that still exist in the dunes around those places. They’re beautiful, much-loved rickety creations, built decades ago as holiday homes by long-gone pitmen.
Annie loves the place where she lives. She knows that somehow her true identity comes from the sea.
My mother says that all things can be turned to tales. When she said it first I thought she meant tales like fish tails, but I was wrong. She meant tales like this, tales that are stories. But this tale of mine is very like a fish tail too.
This is about me and my mum, and where we come from. And it’s about the man who came one sunlit day and t
ook the picture that hangs on the wall by my bed and shows the truth of me. His name was Benn. So this little tale of mine is some of his tale, too.
I’m Annie Lumsden and I live with my mum in a house above the jetsam line on Stupor Beach. I’m thirteen years old and growing fast. I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like the sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel further out. My wonderings roll in the deep like seals. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do, and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself. They are the things that I see when I look at the picture the man from America give to me before he went away.
Our house is a shack and is wooden, white and salty. We have a room each at the back with a bed each and a cupboard each and a chair each. We have a kitchen just like everybody has and a bathroom just like everybody has. From the kitchen window we can see the village past the dunes – the steeple of St Mungo’s Church, the flag on top of Stupor Primary School, the chimney pot on the Slippery Eel. At the front of the shack is the room with the big wide window that looks out across the rocks and rock pools and the turning sea towards the rocky islands. There are many tales about the islands. Saints lived on one of them long ago. Another of them has an ancient castle on a rock. It’s said that mermaids used to live out there, and sing sailors to their doom. We are in the north. It is very beautiful. They say it’s cold here, especially the water, but I know nothing else, so it isn’t cold to me. Nor to Mum, who loves this place too. She was brought up in the city, but ever since she was a girl she knew her happiness would be found by the sea.