Comet

by Andie J Fessey

“Once you’ve fed him son, go out and play with your friends will you please?”

  “Have I done something wrong Mam?” He asked.

  “No, of course you haven’t done anything wrong Love. I just need, I just need to have a talk with Connie and Joyce, that’s all.”

  Feeling uncertain, it sounded to him his Mother had been crying, he saw no way to get passed the figure of Joyce.

  Returning into their yard, he leant to stroke their chocolate brown Labrador, jumping at the prospect of his next meal.

  Inside the kitchen his Mother resumed crying.

  Leaning across the table, Connie gently placed her hand upon her shoulder.

  “You have to do something Love, you can’t go on like this,” she said, Sheila continuing to weep into her arms.

  “Here you go, get this down you Love,”Joyce said, walking across to them, two cups in her hands.

  “Thanks Joyce,” Sheila said, taking one of the offered cups.

  Placing the cup to her lips, she took a sip of the sweet tea, the other women staring at her.

  “I’m alright,” she said, returning their gaze.

  “Well, you don’t bloody look alright Love.” Connie replied.

  “I know it’s not really our business Love, but you can’t go on like this,” Joyce added.

  A light knock rapped on the kitchen door, Joyce rushing over and opening it, to find Wally stood outside.

  “What is it son, we’re having a talk with your mam like we said?”

  “Can you ask me mam if I can go to the beach with me friends?”

  Drying her eyes, Sheila turned slightly to her son, careful for him not to see the mark on her face.

  She could not help but notice however, the red mark upon his.

  “Oh, come here our Wally!” She cried, rushing to him.

  Connie unable to stop her, she reached him, holding him in a tight embrace.

  “I’ll sort something out Love, I promise,” she whimpered, holding him tightly to her chest.

  “It’s okay mam, I’m here for you,” He replied, attempting to hold back his own tears, “I’m always here for you.”

  Feeling her heart rise into her throat, Connie watched the heart-breaking vision of Mother and child embraced in the doorway of the kitchen.

  Though far from reaching its zenith, the sun shone brightly into the kitchen, causing Mother and son to be silhouetted against its harsh glare.

  In Connie’s eyes, it appeared they were surrounded by a corona of their own.

  “Now son, go play with your friends and be careful if you go to the beach alright?” Sheila instructed, pushing him slightly away from her, her arms gently holding his shoulders.

  As Wally nodded his head in agreement, she leant forward, placing a kiss upon his forehead.

  Bringing her hand to his face, she gently touched the angry redness.

  He flinched only a second, wanting to show his Mother how brave he could be.

  “I promise I’ll sort it soon son, now go.”

  Wally walked across the kitchen to the hallway, picking up his worn wellington boots from the vestibule floor, he walked outside, pulling the door locked behind him.

  Looking across the street, he caught sight of the figures of the Bennett children running from their house.

  Waving at them, he ran across the street.

  Back inside the kitchen, the three women sat around the table, nursing their cups of tea.

  “I know you told your Wally you’ll sort it Shee and that’s lovely, but Love you really will have to do something about it. You can’t go on like this,” Connie said.

  “I know Connie and I am.”

  “What are you going to do Love?” Joyce asked, raising the cracked cup to her mouth, pausing with the lip of the cup at her lips, as she received an immediate answer.

  “I’m taking me and our Wally to Australia…”

  The cup of tea nearly fell from Joyce’s hand.

  “You’re joking, aren’t you?” Connie asked.

  “I can’t take it anymore! I don’t care if people talk about me for doing it! I don’t care if a woman leaving her husband is frowned upon around here! I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care!” She cried, collapsing onto the kitchen table, sobbing so violently her body shook with the tremors wracking from within.

  Standing from their seats simultaneously, the other women hurried around the table to be at her side.

  Kneeling next to her, Connie wrapped her large arms around her trembling body.

  “Come ‘ere Love,” she said, tightly embracing the weeping girl.

  “Sweet Mary Mother of God, how bad is it sweetheart?” Joyce asked, stroking Sheila’s hair attempting to soothe her.

  “I’m, I’m…” Sheila uttered, through convulsing waves of tears, “I’m the, the joke around here!”

  “Don’t be silly Love, nobody thinks yer a joke,” Joyce said soothingly.

  “I, I am, and, and I know it!”

  “Hush love,” Connie instructed her gently, continuing to hug her, pulling her tightly against her body, “you are nothing of the sort.”

  “I can’t take it anymore Connie,” she replied, amidst harrowing sobs.

  “I know, I know love, but don’t be knocking yourself.”

  “Why not Connie? Hopefully it’ll save Henry from knocking me himself!”

  Connie looked up to Joyce, the pair of them shaking their heads sadly, understanding Sheila’s statement possessed a dreadful, double meaning.

  Chapter Four

  Sitting on the pavement, warming under the heat of the sun, the boys awaited their companion’s arrival.

  “You bringing yer wellies then?” Frank asked, indicating to the old pair of wellington boots leaning against the kerbside.

  “What do you think Frank? I’m not carrying them just for show!” Wally stated.

  “Ay, I’m not having a go Wal,” Frank replied.

  “Wally Welly!” Daniel called jovially.

  Sat on the edge of the kerb, Wally held his head in-between his knees. Robert, stood nearby, walked across the pavement, sitting next to him.

  “What’s wrong Wally?”

  “Nothing,” he mumbled in return, continuing to stare at the ground.

  “Look at me,” Robert instructed.

  “What for?”

  “Wally please,” Robert asked, placing his hand upon his shoulder.

  Turning slowly, Wally looked at his companion, who in turn closely inspected his face, noticing the red mark upon his cheek, the weal still apparent.

  “Oh Wally, has your old man hit you again?”

  Returning his gaze to the ground in-between his legs, his friend nodded slightly.

  Leaning down, Robert squeezed his shoulder with a mature tenderness.

  When I grow up, I’m going to batter his old man.

  “Do yerwant a game of kerby while we wait for the others Wally?” Frank said, approaching them with a frayed leather ball held in between his hands.

  Nodding his head, the other boy stood, crossing to the other side of the street.

  Throwing the ball towards him, Frank deliberately threw it high so it missed the kerb completely, bouncing into Wally’s outreached arms.

  “My turn!” Wally shouted, cheering up slightly, now in the welcome company of his friends.

  “Can I go on your side Wally?” Daniel called to him.

  Wally waved to him as Daniel turned his gaze to his brother Robert, who stood up and taking a hold of his hand, walked him across the street to the opposite side.

  As they walked across the cobbled surface, Robert ensured his youngest sibling looked both ways.

  Though there drove hardly any traffic on the streets these days, he would do anything to keep his brother safely from harm’s reach.

  Jack took a position next to his brother Frank, continuing their game.

  Half of an hour passed before three of the four friends they were waiting for walked around the corner of Harrowby street, i
ncreasing their strides until they joined up with them.

  Their greetings became interrupted by a loud wail.

  Looking to one of the houses further up the street, they saw the last of their gang running from his house, arms outstretched at his sides shoulder height, mimicking a plane.

  He reached them within a couple of minutes, after zig zagging and shooting imaginary Messerschmitt one after the other, until sitting on the porch-way, a huge grin upon his face.

  Now they were all together, their own little gang, their own little club, physically an ill-suited looking bunch, but in their youth, this not bothering them in the slightest.

  They were the closest of friends, and that is what mattered to them all.

  In addition to the Bennett brothers were Wally, stood in threadbare clothes; Jimmy, self-appointed clown of the group; Samuel, an overweight boy and brother of Barbara, one of the girls stood with them.

  Their Father owned the butchers shop on Linacre Road, ensuring, even with the rationing in place, they still ate well.

  The final member making up their gang being Jimmy’s cousin Maisie, a pretty girl perpetually in awe of her older cousin.

  The small group of friends rarely encountered any ‘run-ins’ with the other children from the area, trying to avoid trouble.

  The most trouble they received, not from the unruly children hanging around in gangs in the likes of Marsh Lane in Bootle, originated from a couple of children who lived opposite the Seaforth Stadium, the Nelsons.

  Namely Nicola and Maurice.

  Their Father Mike, an obese man, lank, greasy grey hair hanging over fat shoulders and onto the stained string vest he always wore, had not gone to war, claiming disability prevented him from doing so.

  A disability not preventing him from propping up the bar in the Caradoc Pub most evenings, bumming drinks from any of the Dockers too inebriated to know better.

  Their Mother Marnie, as thin as a rake with a gaunt, haunted expression and, apart from her weekly shopping excursions into Bootle, rarely seen outside their house.

  They had an elder son, Ian, but the children of Harrowby Street rarely saw much of him, being in his twenties, hanging around with gangs far older than theirs.

  Undoubtedly the worst Nelson, was Nicola.

  At times the self-appointed matriarch of the family, if any of the local Mothers found themselves having to knock at their house to complain at the Nelson household about the behaviour of their children, they usually discovered it to be her standing in the doorway, giving abuse to all and sundry, showing no respect whatsoever to anybody, regardless of age.

  Both her and her younger brother, the broad, overweight boy with a shocking mop of carrot orange hair, spent most of their time hanging around the Dock Road, known locally as the ‘Docky’, an area the children themselves avoided.

  Back at Harrowby Street, the children stood on the pavement outside of the Bennett brothers’ home or sat at the adjacent kerb.

  “So, are we going to the beach or what?” Jimmy said, stamping his feet on the ground overdramatically.

  “Yes, we are Jimmy so stop acting like a prat,” Frank said, taking the leather football and throwing it into their house.

  “Are you ready to go our Dan?” Robert asked of his youngest sibling, sat at the kerb, gazing at him with reverence.

  “Yes please!”

  Chapter Five

  “Come on boy,” Archie said, steering the cart from the busy, bustling main route of Stanley Road onto one of the quieter Bootle side streets.

  A few people waved to him as the cart trundled slowly along road, Archie waving back at each of them in return, a smile upon his face.

  “Morning Archie!”

  “Alright Archie!”

  Acknowledging each one, he slowed the cart to a stop each time any local children wanted to stroke the huge horse.

  Glancing up, he spied another horse drawn cart turn into the road, slowly travelling towards him from the opposite direction.

  It stopped, as a young boy ran up to it to retrieve bottles full of milk from the rear, placing them on doorsteps or handing them to the women stood in several of the doorways.

  Giving a wave to the driver who waved in return, Archie steered the cart along the street to meet them.

  Within a few minutes he pulled the cart up directly in front of the other one, the bottom of Comets head touching the top of the other horses, before the two horses sniffed at each other, snorting loudly in recognition.

  “You’re out a bit late in the day aren’t yer Percy?” Archie said, climbing from the cart and approaching the other man, instinctively stroking the smaller horse.

  “Short staffed Archie me old mucker,” the other man said, climbing from his own cart onto the road.

  “Short staffed? You’re having a laugh aren’t yer? There’s more than enough blokes around who’d jump at the chance of a job in the Dairy.” Archie asked incredulously.

  Walking to him, the other man shook his hand in a firm grip, standing smaller than Archie, but carrying a lot more weight.

  “Bit of a last-minute thing as it were,” he replied, “do you know Sean and Mark?”

  Archie thought a moment before replying, trying to place faces to the names.

  “Do you mean the Kershaw brothers who do the milk round up our way and around Hatton Hill?”

  “Aye, that’s them. Well they told Joey Wilson, you know him, old Argie Wilson’s son, god rest his soul. They told him they were going to be quitting the job soon, because they’re buggering off down under.”

  “There’s a lot of that going on these days,” Archie interrupted, “seems quite a few people are packing their bags and going off to start a new life down there.”

  “Aye, well, it’s alright for the youngsters but too late in the day for the likes of you and I, who are way passed getting long in the tooth for that sort of malarkey,” Percy said smiling.

  “Any roads, they were supposed to be shipping out in a couple of weeks but there was some sort of mix up and they had their names down on another ship entirely, it ships out tomorrow morning.”

  “I’ll bet they’re running around like blue bottomed flies right now,” Archie said, grinning.

  “Expect they are Archie, couldn’t have come at a worse time for me.”

  “Why’s that Perc?”

  “You know, my retirement and everything.”

  Archie looked at the other man for a few moments, before it dawned on him Percy mentioned his retirement to him a few weeks previously.

  “I’d forgotten all about that Perc to be honest, are you hanging up your milk urns soon then?”

  “In a couple of weeks’ time mucker. Both me and old Merlin here are going out to pasture.”

  Archie stared at the horse tied to the front of the dairy cart.

  Broad and large, he stood at over sixteen hands but nowhere near as tall as Comet, whose withers rode high.

  “That’s a crying shame that is, how old is Merlin now Perc?” Archie asked, stroking the horses neck.

  “He must be a least twenty years old now my friend, its way past his bedtime as they say.”

  “So, what’s going to happen to him?” Archie asked, dreading to hear the words ‘Knackers Yard’, but knowing it may well be the answer he received.

  “Stroke of luck for old Merlin here Archie, Joey took a bit of a shine to him back when he started out in his old man’s business and he’s promised old Merlin here is going to be put out to pasture at a farm up past Ormskirk way. Me and our Dolly will still be able to go visit him, won’t we boy?” he said, stroking the horses coat, speckled with grey.

  “Well, it’s a shame to see you retire my old friend, not enough horses about these days as it is. Is Joey going to get another horse to replace Merlin or is he going to get one of those vans?”

  “No idea Archie, as you say it’ll be a crying shame if he doesn’t get replaced with another horse, but that’s the way of things these days sadly, isn’t it
?”

  Nodding his head in response, Archie offered the other man a cigarette, interrupted by the young boy running to them, after carting bottles back and forth from the back of the cart to the various doorsteps.

  “Finished them all Mr WilMicks,” he said breathlessly, “where too next?”

  “You jump on the seat Ernie and we’ll head off to Hawthorne Road, only a few more to do now.”

  The young lad walked to the cart.

  “He’s a good one is Ernie, but even he’s off to pastures new as his parents are moving away down south with him next week.”

  “Sadly, it’s the way of the world these days my friend,” Archie replied.

  “Aye, well you take care of yourself Archie,” Percy said, turning and returning to the front of the cart.

  The young lad, now sat on the thick leather seat, leant across and offered an arm to help his older companion up.

  “Getting too old for this,” Percy said, taking the offered arm and raising himself up into his seat.

  Pulling the reins to the left, he started the cart, Comet and Merlin emitting exclamations of whinnies, as Merlin found himself steered away into the middle of the street.

  Archie waved at the milk man and his helper, riding to the end of the street.

  Casting a glance around, he found not a soul in the street now, either having returned into the confines of their homes or making their way to whichever destination they were headed to.

  No pickings here today.

  Giving Comet a scratch behind his ears, he climbed onto the tattered brown leather seat.

  Taking a firm hold of the leather reins laid across the bar in front of him, he gave a firm pull.

  Whinnying slightly, an indication of understanding of the request of the pull on his rein, Comet obediently moved forward.

  From around the far corner of the road, a van appeared. Its driver drove the large, dirt encrusted white vehicle slowly, but passing nearby to the cart, he pressed hard on the horn, emitted a loud, squealing ‘honk’.

  “You idiot!” Archie yelled at the driver, Comet startling at the sound.

  He saw the van belonged to Corey O’Leary, by the garish font of the livery on the side.

  ‘O’Leary Metal Merchant Company’