It is impossible to breathe under water. We have lungs and fish have gills and they are totally different. That’s why fish can’t breathe out of water. Which is why it is a good thing that Margueretta let me back up to take a breath before I died but then she pushed my head back under again and held it down with her knees.
Complaining about your older sister trying to drown you is not the same thing as whining. But it didn’t matter because absolutely no one was listening to me when I was trying to tell them about nearly drowning because they were all singing and it’s hard to hear a little boy complaining about nearly drowning when you are singing very loudly on the beach about a brass band playing tiddley-on-pom-pom.
Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside!
I do like to be beside the sea.
And I do like to stroll along the prom, prom, prom,
Where the brass bands play, tiddley-on-pom-pom!
You shouldn’t try to dance on stones, which is why Auntie Ethel fell over and broke her sherry glass. Luckily, they brought spare glasses with them and Mum got her a refill. I didn’t tell Auntie Ethel that she put her arm in some of the black tar when she fell over. She will have that tar on her arm for the rest of her life, and she will have to tell people that she was being stupid trying to dance on stones on the beach.
It is also not whining if you are really very thirsty and you ask for a drink just once. I only asked once and Mum said there was nothing for me to drink and she offered me an Opal Fruit pastel because they are made to make your mouth water, which is the same thing as a drink. So I ate the fruit pastel and it did not make my mouth water. It is not the same thing as a drink. It made me even more thirsty.
If you ask for something twice then that is possibly the start of a whine. And when I asked for a drink a third time, while running around in circles, it was definitely a whine. Mum said there was a really good chance that she would take me home and leave me there if I didn’t stop and Uncle Jack agreed that he did not come all the way here from London just to listen to my whining so I should bloody well shut up.
And I thought I was going to pee myself when he told me to come over and stand in front of him. All the time, his fingers twitching around that belt buckle.
Twitch, twitch, twitch.
I stared at that belt and he stared into my eyes.
Then he poured me a big glass of sherry and handed it to me and that made him and Dad laugh and they laughed even more when I gulped down the whole glass because I was so thirsty.
“Just like your dad! You’re a real man now, sonny,” Uncle Jack shouted.
“That’s my boy!” said Dad.
Dad was really proud of me and I am a real man now. But Auntie Ethel looked angry.
“What the bloody hell did you just give him?” demanded Auntie Ethel.
“It was Harvey’s Bristol Cream Sherry! The boy said he was thirsty,” Uncle Jack replied.
“You can’t do that!” Auntie Ethel replied.
“Why not? He said he was thirsty!”
“Well, that’s our sherry. The sherry is for the women. You should have given him one of your beers! Bloody cheek of it!” said Auntie Ethel.
And everyone started laughing and singing again and Uncle Jack said I could have another drink if I wanted one but I said no because I was feeling very dizzy.
“Och, come on, wee ones. Let’s get you out of here.”
Nana said I would feel much better once we get to Billy Manning’s. I was only sick once on the beach and Uncle Jack said I needed a lot more practice and he said that would be no problem with my dad around and next time I should just have a beer instead of drinking a whole glass of sherry so quickly.
And I knew it was a mistake when Nana said we should go into the House of Mirrors. The mirrors make you fat with a tiny head or like a dwarf with massive eyes and I was looking in the mirror with Nana and noticed there were three Nanas. No, four. Five. Six Nanas. And they were going around and around.
Those people in there did not like it when I was sick all over the mirror. It’s also hard to get out of the House of Mirrors in a hurry because some of the doors look like mirrors and you don’t know which ones are real.
“Och, those mirrors even made yer old Nana feel unwell! How about the carousel?”
Sometimes Nana doesn’t listen to me and I was not whining when I said over and over again that I did not want to go on any rides and they were not making me feel better. And she lied when she told those people on the carousel that it wasn’t me when the ride stopped and I slid off my horse. Everyone could see it was me who had sprayed sick everywhere. There was sick all down my shirt and the horse.
And then she put me on the Helter-Skelter and they will have to close that ride for the day. And the Laughing Sailor was funny with all those people watching until I was sick in the middle of the crowd.
“Get your bloody brats out of this place!”
That man doesn’t know that Nana could thump him and he wouldn’t get back up.
“Och, you big bag o’ wind. It’s just a wee bit o’ excitement. Can’t you see the wee laddie is just a bit dizzy from all the rides?”
“Dizzy? Dizzy you call it? He’s been bloody well sick in the House of Mirrors, the carousel, the Helter-Skelter, and the Laughing Sailor. What in God’s name is next? The bloody Ghost Train?”
“Och, we’re not staying where we aren’t welcome. Come on kids. We’re leaving.”
We’re going home. And no one wants to sit next to me on the bus.
15
Tommy is not my best friend anymore. It is bad enough that he almost killed me. Offering your best friend a sweet, which he said was definitely a mint imperial, and then sucking them together was very nice. But when I got home, Nana wanted to know what that dreadful smell was, and it turned out to be me. It is incredibly dangerous to eat mothballs because they are made from poison, which is why they were in his grandmother’s coat pockets where Tommy found them. They are definitely not mint imperials and I could easily have died if Nana had not stuck her fingers down the back of my throat three times to make me sick.
And making mud pies together and patting them around and turning them into shapes with your fingers is fine if you are making them with mud. It is not fine if you are making them with dog shit. It was a lot of fun until we took our mud pies to show my Nana.
And then while Nana was washing my hands with carbolic soap, Tommy ate our cabbage just like that without even asking. We were in our scullery and there wasn’t much cabbage left, mostly leaves, and he ate it all. Well, that made Nana even angrier and I’m not surprised. And it wasn’t because Tommy hadn’t washed the dog shit off his hands before he ate the cabbage. Tommy said he was starving and that’s why he ate it but Nana said we will be starving too if we have no cabbage and we will be like those people in Ireland who had the famine and ate worms. So he can’t come round again or the next thing you know he will be eating our potatoes and then all we will be left with is worms and dirt.
We obviously need more food so I have decided to take the eggs from the kitchen cupboard and hatch them into chickens. I think eggs need to be warm to help them hatch so I have put them in my cowboy hat and wrapped them in Nana’s scarf, the tartan one with the tassels. When they hatch, I will make them a small pen in the backyard and then they will grow into chickens and lay lots of eggs and everyone will be able to eat eggs—not just The Irish.
I have checked the eggs all day and there is no sign of them hatching yet. I am not sure how long it takes for an egg to hatch into a chicken. I hope it will be today, although it is nearly suppertime already and Nana is looking in the kitchen cupboard.
“What in God’s name has happened to ma eggs?”
Nana is looking at me and I know she thinks that Tommy has been round here again and eaten the eggs, which is really stupid because one of us would have to cook them first because you can’t eat raw eggs. And we don’t know how to cook eggs.
Nana will be very pleased wh
en she hears what I have done and how we will have all the eggs we can eat just as soon as those chicks hatch out.
I will go and check on them again.
“It’s a mystery to me,” says Dad.
Dad has no idea what happened to the eggs but he will also be very proud when he knows that we have chickens in a pen in the backyard laying eggs all day. He could even have eggs for breakfast. Yes, he is going to be really proud of me. I know he is. Even more proud than seeing me drink a glass of sherry on the beach.
But The Irish don’t seem very happy because there are no eggs for their supper and that only leaves potatoes. I will check on the eggs one more time.
“Och, I know I had a half a dozen eggs in that cupboard! Someone has stolen ma eggs! Who would do such a thing? Johnny? You’ve got that guilty look on your face, laddie!”
It was when I told Nana my chicken plan that she slapped me round the face, right there in front of The Irish. Eggs are dead and I am a very stupid boy for thinking that I could hatch them into chickens.
“There will be no supper for you! You need to learn your lesson, stealing ma eggs!” she said.
“He was just trying to help,” said Dad.
“And what would you know about that?”
“Well, I know enough to know that a five-year-old boy was just trying to put food on the table!”
“Aye! And that’s something that his forty-year-old father cannee do!”
“And now you’re going to make him go to bed hungry? That’s heartless.”
“He needs to learn his lesson.”
And Dad turned away and grabbed his coat from the chair. I ran after him as he walked up the black passageway to the front door.
“Stay and play with me, Daddy!”
“I can’t.”
“Please stay! Stay and play with me, Daddy!”
“I can’t.”
He opened the front door and pushed me back but I sprang forward and held onto his leg. He peeled my fingers off his leg and pushed me back again.
“Your daddy has to go. You’ll understand one day. One day you will be a man. Then you will understand.”
“But I want you to stay with me!”
“I have to go, wee Johnny. Be a good boy and go back to your nana. Go back now.”
He’s gone.
And I’m going too. I’m leaving home. And I am taking my cowboy hat with me. But not Nana’s tartan scarf.
I am going to live in the backyard but I only have two planks of wood and five nails. I cannot build a shelter. I also do not have a hammer out here with me. There is only one answer because it’s cold and dark and I am hungry. I will have to sleep in the garden shed and eat worms for the rest of my life.
I have never been inside our shed because Nana said that Pop spent a lot of time in there when he first came to this house and that is why he now thinks he is a train. I need to stop asking questions because the shed is full of things a little boy should not know. I think that’s where Pop keeps his playing cards with the pictures of naked women. But I don’t know what that has to do with my Auntie Beryl or if she has ever been inside our shed. Anyway Pop does not go into our shed anymore because he is not allowed out on his own now that his tongue hangs out all the time.
I almost jumped out of my bedroom window onto the shed roof once. I was trying to escape from Tommy who was a screaming, bloodthirsty Comanche Indian. I was a cowboy but I don’t like heights so I just ducked when he tried to scalp me with our coal shovel.
It’s very dark inside our shed. That is why I keep my secret box of matches in my pocket at all times. I’ve never lit a match before and I’ve never lit a candle. It glows and makes lots of shadows in the dark. Bad things and shadows in the dark.
I don’t like those shadows. I don’t like those bad things.
16
I am never going in that bloody shed again. It is full of terrible things. Pop probably killed someone in there. God knows it was much better being back in the warm with Nana, singing along to Freddie and the Dreamers on Ready, Steady, Go!
You were made for me,
Everybody tells me so.
You were made for me,
Don’t pretend that you don’t know…
And Margueretta was dancing with Sam and he was twirling her around and we could all see her knickers again. And they were smiling at each other like they knew a secret.
The telly was really loud and that is why we never heard those people banging on our front door. And we never lock our front door, which is why those people didn’t wait for us to hear them and they came bursting in and ran down our passageway. That was the end of Freddie and the Dreamers singing “You Were Made For Me.”
“What in God’s name is going on?” Nana shouted.
“Did you know your shed is on fire?” they shouted back.
Now that is a stupid question, if you ask me, because if we knew our shed was on fire we would not be dancing and singing along with Freddie and the Dreamers. No, we would be outside throwing a bucket of water on it.
But no one seemed to care because everyone was running down the passageway to the kitchen and out through the scullery and the backdoor and into the backyard.
“How in God’s name did our shed catch on fire?” Nana yelled.
The fire engine was bright red and shiny and made a fantastic clanging sound when it came down the street. And they ran their hoses all the way through our house to the backyard. I really wanted Tommy to see it but he’s still not my best friend anymore.
“Quick! For God’s sake, it will burn down the whole bloomin’ street!” shouted the woman from next door.
Nana ignored her because she is spying on us. But the fire was quite big and the flames were reaching up to my bedroom window and that’s the problem with a shed that’s on fire when the shed is built against the back of your house. And our house is in a row with all the other houses so the woman from next door was right because it could burn down the whole bloody street. And that’s why they had to get another fire engine.
“Stand back! Stand back!” shouted the Fire Chief because all the windows were exploding.
“Stand back! Stand back! Choo-choo! Choo-choo goes the train!” shouted Pop.
Then all the other neighbors came into our backyard because they heard the fire engines and that’s how the whole street knew our shed was on fire and they would rather watch our shed burning down than watch Freddie and the Dreamers. And the women and children screamed each time one of the windows exploded but I didn’t scream. I just stayed quiet and watched the sparks floating up into the dark sky over the roof of our house.
Everyone cheered when the firemen put out the last of the flames and Nana made them all cups of tea.
“How in the world did our shed catch on fire?” asked Nana.
“Sheds don’t just burst into flame on their own,” said the Fire Chief.
“Och, that’s right enough!”
“I think it’s reasonably certain that someone left a candle burning in there.”
“A candle? But no one was in the shed.”
“Well, someone was in there and that person left a candle burning on the shelf.”
“It was me!” I shouted.
So I deserved to be locked in the cellar. And they took away my matches. The Fire Chief said that he should really call the police and have me arrested and I would go to jail. I don’t want to go to jail and never see my mum and dad again so it is better that I am locked in the cellar in the dark.
And it’s here with me. It’s whispering.
Drip, drip, drip.
But I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to hear it whisper. I want it to kill my sister. Not me. Go into her bedroom again and kill her. Go inside her head like all those other voices.
Sometimes I think I can feel it. It feels like something is touching my arm in the dark. I can’t scream because then it will hear me and know where I am. Even though it has eyes bulging out of its head, I don’t think it can
see. Nana says we would all go blind if we lived in the dark. That thing has been living in the dark for a long time. Blind in the dark.
Dear Jesus, save me. Please, Jesus.
17
I must apologize to everyone for burning down the shed—and I must pay for it. Nana has given me a pair of her bloomers and one of Pop’s shirts. It’s the one he spilt his tomato soup on last week and the stain won’t come out. He can only eat soup now because Nana has taken away his teeth because his tongue no longer fits in his mouth and he kept biting it.
She has also given me a Woolworth’s paper bag, six pairs of my dad’s socks, and all of last week’s copies of the Daily Mirror. I have to screw up all the newspaper and stuff it down her bloomers. And Nana has taken her lipstick out and she has drawn a face on the paper bag, which makes it look a little bit like a clown.
Emily is helping me and Nana says we have to make a gruesome tortured Guy, which we will then take out and ask for a, “Penny for the Guy!” A long time ago, a man called Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament but they caught him and tortured him and hanged him. Nana said they were supposed to cut out his guts while he was still alive but he jumped off the scaffold and broke his neck. I would not want someone to cut out my guts while I was still alive but I would also not like to be hanged. Nor do I know why someone would want to take off his shoes and hang himself in the toilet with his tie until his eyes bulged out like marbles when he was just supposed to be going for a wee. And then stay in the corner of our cellar waiting for a chance to kill us all in our beds.
Nana said we have to make our Guy look very realistic if we want to get a lot of pennies for the Guy but this is hard to do when he is wearing her knickers and has a face that looks like a clown. However, Pop has started talking to the Guy so it must be quite realistic. Mind you, Pop also talks to the kettle.
The Boy Who Lived With Ghosts: A Memoir Page 5