The Spuddy

by Lillian Beckwith

  ‘Ach, they’re that proud,’ she said defensively. ‘They’re not my own folk.’

  ‘Aye, right enough they’re not,’ said Jake resignedly. ‘But all the same I’m sayin’ I’d like to see my son growin’ up and there’ll not be much chance for me to do that if you have him away at your parents as much as you have been yourself. I’m askin’ you not to stay away so long.’

  ‘That’ll depend on how my father’s keeping.’ Jeannie’s voice sparked at him like sticks on a newly lit fire. ‘He wasn’t keeping so well in my mother’s last letter,’ she added. She thumped the iron down and started to gather up the pile of clothes.

  Jake looked at her, dismayed as always by her apparent renunciation of him but he was too proud and thought of himself as being too inarticulate to plead with her further. He opened a cupboard and took out some tools.

  ‘Which is the shelf you say you want fixin’?’ he asked her in a tired voice.

  Chapter Three

  While Marie Glenn was speeding away from Gaymal another car was speeding towards the village. In this car there were again only two occupants, the driver himself and sitting beside him a boy of about eight years old who stared out at the passing landscape with wide inscrutable eyes. The boy’s name was Andy but he could not have told anyone that for though he was a good looking boy, well grown and sturdy with curly fair hair and large eyes the colour of fresh cut peat, he was completely dumb. When people first saw Andy they tended to exclaim admiringly: ‘That’s a grand looking boy!’ but when they realised he could not speak they would add: ‘Ach, the poor thing’s a dummy!’ And Andy, whose hearing was at least as good as theirs, winced at their pity as if it had been abuse. From the time he had been able to understand the speech of adults and had thus become aware of his own affliction he had begun to feel excluded even from his own parents. His father was in the merchant navy and was away for long periods leaving Andy and his mother on their own. But their being together had not resulted in togetherness for once Andy had outgrown the toddler stage, ceasing for her to be an absorbing interest, she had become withdrawn. Not that she displayed any lack of affection towards the boy. On the contrary she was at times demonstrative. She had even spared the time to teach him to write his name and had encouraged his love of drawing, buying vast quantities of paper and crayons to keep him occupied. But when she was not being demonstrative she appeared indifferent, even a little resentful towards him and as he grew older Andy sensed that his muteness embarrassed her. He thought he understood. She was a vivacious woman liking the company of the many friends who called while leaving Andy to sit quietly in a corner of the room drawing the boats he loved. As he listened to the lively chatter and banter and thought how much prettier his mother was than all the other women he wondered if like him she was wishing, deep down, that his father’s leave would soon be due and they could all three be together. But there came a time when, Andy noticed, the number of friends being entertained dwindled until there were only two or three and finally one, a man, and when he came his mother insisted on Andy going to bed.

  When the telegram arrived announcing his father’s imminent arrival, instead of grabbing Andy’s arms and exuberantly dancing him around the room his mother rushed upstairs and began packing suitcases. Coming down again she said in reply to Andy’s look of bewilderment: ‘I’m going away for a bit.’ Her voice was strained. She gave him no further explanation but told him not to go out until his father arrived, and added that there was a cold lunch prepared for them both in the larder. Then she put an envelope beside the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘See your father reads that when he comes,’ she told him. She was frowning in an abstracted way and her eyes were bright. As she moved past him Andy put a hand on her arm and looked at her imploringly. ‘I can’t stay, Andy,’ she said in a tight voice. ‘It’s no good. I just can’t stay.’ His hand slid down to his side. ‘Be a good boy,’ she said, giving him a quick hug. The door closed behind her and she was running down the garden path and out to the car where a man was waiting. She did not glance back or wave at her son who stood forlornly holding aside the curtain watching his mother go.

  Even when his father arrived and enveloped him in a huge hug Andy did not break down but only pointed to the letter on the mantelpiece. With a half quizzical glance at Andy as if he suspected a joke his father took the letter and sat down to read it. After he had read and re-read it he stood up and put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. ‘Your mother’s gone away for a wee whiley,’ he said thickly. ‘I expect she told you. It’s your granny, she’s not keepin’ so well. I daresay she’ll be back soon.’ He didn’t look at Andy as he spoke. ‘Now I’m just going upstairs for a wee kip and when I come down again we’ll put on our best bibs and tuckers and go out somewhere, eh?’ He was too distressed to see his son’s anxious eyes following him out of the kitchen.

  Andy stood desolate. He had wanted his father to talk to him: to admit that his mother had left them for someone she liked better and not try to fob him off with a lie about Granny. He knew what had happened and he wanted his father to share their mutual knowledge and their grief; he felt they ought to have been able to comfort each other. His shoulders sagged. It seemed that even in this moment of crisis his dumbness was still a barrier; that even his own father accepted that an inability to speak meant a similar inability to understand and even feel or share emotion. Andy got out his paper and crayons but he found he did not want to draw. He wandered into the larder and looked at the food but he had no desire to eat. He had no desire for anything – not even to go out as his father had promised, because of a fear that if they left the house it and all the other familiar things would not be there when they returned. Not knowing what to do with himself he went at last and sat on the bottom stair, hugging his knees and listening for a sign of movement from his father.

  When his father did come down, determinedly bright and talkative, they went out despite Andy’s reluctance to leave the house and for the ensuing six weeks of his father’s leave they did more things together than they had ever done before. There were trips by rail and by bus; walking in the country; fishing; taking meals in restaurants, so filling Andy’s days with new experiences that at night he was too tired to brood for long.

  The day came when his father began preparations to return to his ship.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ he said in reply to Andy’s questioning glance. He knelt down and putting an arm round the boy he went on. ‘I’ve fixed up for you to go and stay for a little while with your Aunt Sarah and Uncle Ben. You’ve never seen her but she’s seen photographs of you and she’s taken a real fancy to you.’ His father’s arm tightened around him. ‘And there’s Uncle Ben. You’ll like him. He doesn’t draw boats like you but he builds them. They live at Gaymal where there are plenty of boats. You ‘ll be able to go down to the pier whenever you like and draw as many as you’ve a mind.’ He looked into Andy’s eyes. ‘You’ll like that, won’t you?’

  Andy nodded and managed a faint smile.

  ‘Aye, and you’ll be able to get on board one or two of the fishing boats for a trip if you’ve got good sea legs, which you ought to have, boy, seeing you’re the son of a sailor.’ Andy knew his father was wanting him to show enthusiasm so he responded as best he could. He dreaded the idea of leaving home and going to live with strange people even if they were relatives but he knew there was no alternative.

  ‘There’s a car coming for us both tomorrow and I’ll ride with you part of the way,’ his father continued. ‘I wanted to come with you all the way and see you settled in but my leave’s been chopped a bit. The idea now is that this car will take us to the docks where my ship is and you’ll be able to see me go aboard before you set off for Aunt Sarah’s.’ Andy nodded and again forced a faint smile. ‘So off you go up to your bedroom and pack up anything you want to take. Mrs Peake next door is coming in to pack your clothes and things but you’ll be wanting to take your paper and crayons and a good few of your sketches, eh?’

  As Andy we
nt slowly up the stairs to his bedroom his father stood, staring after him, asking himself whether it would be more heartrending to have a son who could confide in words his fear and dejection rather than one like Andy who could only convey it by the slump of his body and the anguish in his eyes.

  Andy had seen his father’s ship; watched his father stride up the gangplank and turn and wave before disappearing from sight. Then the driver had said very firmly that they must continue their journey if they were to reach Gaymal before dark. The driver was very kind to Andy, inviting him to sit at the front with him and pointing out so many interesting things that the boy had little time to be miserable. Shortly after five o’clock the car entered Gaymal and pulled up in front of a house three doors away from Marie Glenn’s former home.

  Chapter Four

  The Spuddy still lay on the top step of the empty house having returned there after seeking out the dinner Marie had conscientiously left for him in his bowl beside the coal shed. Marie had always put his dinner beside the coal shed and the Spuddy would watch her doing it although he always waited until the church clock struck twelve before he would approach and start to eat. Always that is unless the church clock happened to be slow for it seemed his own time was more accurate than mechanical time. If Joe ever spotted the Spuddy eating his dinner before the clock struck he would switch on the wireless to check the time so that he could report to Danny, whose responsibility it was to regulate the clock.

  The Spuddy watched the car arrive as he had watched every other activity in the street since Marie had left. He saw the boy alight and be greeted warmly by his aunt; he saw them go into the house for a while and then come out again, when the driver got into the car and drove away, leaving the boy and his aunt standing on the pavement. The woman moved towards the house calling to Andy but he had noticed the empty looking house and the Spuddy lying there alone and ran after her, pulling at her sleeve while gesticulating towards the dog. The Spuddy affected not to notice their interest as the woman, pausing to explain, shook her head disapprovingly in the Spuddy’s direction. She disappeared inside, gesturing the boy to follow, but Andy did not go immediately. With his hands grasping the pointed railings that divided his aunt’s garden from her neighbour’s he leaned over and stared fixedly at the dog until the Spuddy’s head came round and he returned the boy’s stare with a long glance of interest.

  At tea time when Aunt Sarah wasn’t looking Andy managed to slip a couple of slices of bread and a sausage into his pocket. Since his aunt had explained that the Spuddy had been abandoned he had resolved that he himself must try to feed the dog. He estimated that if his aunt regularly put as much food on the table as she had this evening he wouldn’t have much difficulty in providing for the Spuddy. After tea while his aunt was in the kitchen washing the dishes he slipped out into the dusk and sped quietly to the gate of the empty house. Not knowing for certain whether or not the dog was savage Andy held out a hunk of bread before daring to open the gate and when the Spuddy ignored the offering he pulled the greasy cold sausage from his pocket and waved it about, hoping the dog Would smell the appetising meatiness and be tempted to come for it. The Spuddy, having eaten his one accustomed meal of the day, was not hungry and refused to show any interest. All the same he was intrigued. The Spuddy had never regarded himself as being a child’s dog. Children were noisy and excitable and he preferred to evade their approaches but though he could recall young boys trying to cajole him with soft words or to command him with curses the patient mute overtures of this boy baffled him and he continued regarding him with aloof enquiry, making no movement as he saw him unlatch the gate, sidle through and advance tentatively up the path towards him. Andy held out the sausage but the Spuddy still disdained it and the boy’s friendly expression changed to one of disappointment. Andy put down a piece of bread and the sausage on the ground beside the Spuddy but still they were ignored. Venturing closer he held out a hand, palm outstretched, hoping the dog would sniff it and realising it was the hand of a friend would perhaps even give a lick of acceptance. The Spuddy looked at the hand and looked away again. He was not in the habit of licking hands let alone strange ones: it would have been too much like an act of submission. To Andy the Spuddy seemed to be spurning his offer of friendship. He slumped down on the bottom step looking up at the dog in the gathering dark waiting for some reciprocal gesture of comradeship and when it did not come his head drooped forward until it was resting on his arms and his shoulders began to shake with the sobs that had for so long been wanting to escape from his body. Only then did the Spuddy weaken. Moving down to the bottom step he sat down and laid a paw gently on the boy’s neck, glancing about him as he did so as if he was afraid someone might witness his unwonted display of tenderness. He need not have worried. By now it was quite dark and there was no sound in the street until a door opened and Andy heard his aunt calling him.

  Chapter Five

  All that night the Spuddy lay on the steps of his former home but when the first fingers of light reached over the shoulders of the hills he got up, stretched himself and sauntered away down the street. Andy, coming out of his aunt’s house after breakfast, was disappointed at not seeing the dog and resolved to go and look for him. Since he did not know his own way about Gaymal Andy had no idea where he should look but nevertheless he set out with that intention and as all Gaymal roads led inevitably towards the harbour it was on the pier that he eventually found himself. He stared in wonder. He had visited docks with his father but busy and exciting as they had seemed to him he now thought of them as being landlocked and lethargic in comparison with the spectacle of Gaymal. There was so much sea everywhere, so much sky and colour and movement and he could only stand letting the sights and sounds and the smells of the harbour envelop and enthrall him. He forgot his intention of looking for the Spuddy; forgot the ache of depression that had been with him during the past few weeks. He even forgot for the time that he was dumb since everyone was so busy and there was so much noise that people tended to gesticulate rather than talk. Here were boats galore: herring boats landing their catches; launches loading supplies; the lifeboat swinging at its moorings, and at the end of the pier the steamer was hauling up its gangplanks preparatory to leaving. The raucous siren announcing its intention of doing so seemed to Andy to be lifting the upper half of his body from the lower half and he pressed his hands over his ears to deaden the noise. Passing fishporters observing him threw him friendly grins and Andy grinned back ecstatically. He picked his way among all the fish boxes, trolleys, barrels, hoses and ropes that go to make up the impedimenta of a fish pier, his shoes scrunching on pieces of crab shell or skidding on fish that had been pulped to slime by the wheels of the lorries, until he reached the end of the pier. The steamer was well away now leaving a wake like a discarded shawl as it sailed into a misty rainbow that arched itself across the distant islands. Andy watched until steamer wake and rainbow vanished behind a gauzy screen of rain when, suddenly realising that the rain was now sweeping in over the pier and that he himself was getting wet, he ran for the meagre shelter of a high-piled stack of fish boxes where he waited until the shower had passed before continuing along a path between more stacks of fish boxes which brought him into the boatyard where his Uncle Ben worked. As his father had predicted Andy had taken an immediate liking to Uncle Ben. He quite liked his aunt but whereas Aunt Sarah was all scuttle and sharp-tongued splutter Uncle Ben was slow with smiling eyes and more given to expressing himself by nodding his head than by speaking. When he was not eating Uncle Ben had his pipe in his mouth and the only time he had conversed with Andy so far was when he had taken out the pipe to refill or relight it. He had said little then but his voice was gentle and the words comforting. Andy felt his uncle understood and he began to feel safe again. He thought that some day he might even show Uncle Ben some of his drawings – an honour so far reserved for his parents.

  Andy found his uncle working on a fishing boat that was winched high on the slip: a boat that had
hit a rock, his uncle explained, and had needed several planks renewing. She’s been lucky, his uncle told him, if the weather had worsened the boat could easily have become a total wreck before the lifeboat reached her and the crew could have lost their lives. As he was speaking his uncle’s hands were caressing the boat’s side with as much tenderness as a mother smoothing a cot sheet over a sleeping child. Andy, who had never before seen anything bigger than a dinghy completely out of the water was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the underside of the boat. Standing beneath her and letting his eyes run along the generous curve of the bilge; the sweep of the hull into the keel; the sweet run of the seams, and the whole resulting in an impression of rightness; of strength and of fitness for the continual combat with the sea, he thought how beautiful she was. Uncle Ben, who had been observing him, took his pipe out of his mouth to say, ‘Aye, a boat’s a beautiful thing, boy,’ to which Andy replied by running his own hands along the planks and smiling rapt agreement. He knew now that no longer would he be content to draw boats: he wanted to go to sea and he wanted to go in a boat just like this one he was admiring.

  The church clock striking twelve reminded them it was time for their dinner and in the leisurely way of a devoted craftsman Uncle Ben put away his tools. Together they left the slip, climbed up to the quay and made for home. As they turned into the street the first thing Andy saw was a large van parked outside the empty house and men unloading furniture from it. ‘Where’s the Spuddy?’ he thought in a panic and was angry with himself for having forgotten his intention of looking for the dog. Andy dawdled, letting his uncle go in front of him. He stood by the gate gaping at the activity. Foolishly he had let himself think that the house would remain empty; that the Spuddy would continue to visit and sleep there and thus be accessible to further overtures of friendship. But new people meant complications. New people might have a dog of their own or they might dislike dogs altogether and what would happen then? It was at that moment he saw the Spuddy.