Callum had grown up believing that such a pattern of behaviour was normal but, as a young man, he had found himself increasingly at odds with his erratic father. The declaration of war in 1914 had proved, for him at least, a timely intervention and, since his return, it had been a weary, ageing man who came noisily home to fall asleep in the chair.
When Callum had succeeded in getting a job with the Corporation two weeks before, it had proved a turning point for his mother. It was as though a heavy blanket of worry had been lifted from her shoulders; her eyes became brighter, her clothes were smarter, despite her sparse wardrobe remaining unchanged. Even her hair had taken on a new lustre. She got out of her bed at 6.00am each morning with a rediscovered vigour, boiled a kettle for his shave and made his breakfast. Whilst he was eating, she prepared sandwiches for his lunch and placed them in the battered tin box. It was the only useful object that had been bequeathed to him by his father. On the first Friday, he had handed her his unopened wage packet and her eyes had widened with astonishment. Going to the snug at the King Billy later that evening, she had bought them a jug of porter though he had declined to share it with her. Just the thought of touching alcoholic drink after his experience at his father’s funeral had made him feel violently sick.
Last night she had gone to the cinema with Amy Benson’s mother. She had been widowed by the war. Callum found the teenage Amy a fascinating creature; mature beyond her years with a sparkling personality that was irresistible. Though the eight year age gap precluded any possibility of a romantic liaison, her blushing, non-committing admiration was a pleasant boost for his hesitant ego.
He took the paper aeroplane to his open bedroom window, balanced it carefully in his hand and threw it towards the yard door. The forward momentum quickly changed into an upward swoop and it hit the lintel above his head before spiralling limply to the ground. There was a cry from the room below followed by a shrieked ‘Ahh, you bloody thing, you,’ as his mother burnt herself again. A loud clattering as the iron smoother fell off the table was accompanied by another scream from his mother. ‘And there’s my sodding foot almost flattened like a pancake apart from me wearing these clogs, thanks be to God. Are you there, our Callum? We’ve got a seagull fallen into the backyard and Kitchener’s jumping down off the wall to get it.’
‘It’s ok, Mam,’ he shouted. ‘It was a piece of paper that I threw out of the window.’
‘And what are you doing throwing paper seagulls out of the window at your age? Oh, now look. If I haven’t gone and burnt your socks.’
‘Mam,’ Callum shouted, exasperated, through the window. ‘What are you doing ironing my socks?’
‘Who is ironing you socks?’
Callum knew that it would be better not to pursue this conversation but, such was the symmetry of his mind, he needed to question things to the point of a satisfactory answer. His mother, however, had a more elusive approach to discussions with the result that, whilst exploring more avenues, it tended to produce more questions that needed answering.
He sighed with the inevitability of what he was being drawn into then shouted through the open window. ‘You just said you were.’
‘Why do you want your socks ironing? Are you going somewhere special?’
‘No, I’m not going anywhere special. I’m going to a concert at Central Hall.’
‘It seems a bit fertile to me ironing socks just to go there.’
‘I can’t see why he needs his socks ironing to go and listen to a concert,’ a voice from next door’s back yard responded.
‘That’s right, Agnes,’ his mother shouted across the wall. ‘Unless you are doing a bit of courting maybe,’ she said, leaving an inquiring pause after the comment.
Callum groaned and placed his forehead against the top bar of the lowered window. ‘It’s futile, Mam, and I’m not.’ This was becoming a recurrent theme with his mother who, although she would have been devastated at the loss of her wage earning son, was anxious to establish that his interest in smelly engines and classical music wasn’t to the exclusion of more normal pursuits. He did find it quite thrilling to talk to the girls at the concerts with their welcoming smiles and fresh smells but he also found that he became uncomfortably anxious. His hands sweated, his collar became tight and he could feel his face glowing; sensible words of conversation became mumbled noises and he invariably extricated himself quickly or made a fool of himself by enthusing about motor cars. For the last four years, having rushed to follow his Uncle Liam into the Army, his life had been filled with mud, danger, death and motorised trucks and his contact with the opposite sex had been minimal.
‘That Amy Benson has had a soft spot for you since you came home in your uniform,’ his mother shouted, keen to explore this new topic. ‘Her mother told me last night that she’s got your name written on the front of her diary. Mind you, she’s only a slip of a girl yet.’
Callum gave up the struggle and went downstairs to the kitchen. ‘Look, Mam, I was just asking you why you are ironing my socks. I don’t have them ironed and I don’t need them ironed.’
‘Why would I be ironing your socks? Do you think I’m going servile or something? They’re on my hands to stop this sodding iron burning me.’
‘Well how have you managed to burn them, then? And no, I don’t think you’re going senile.’
‘I was putting it back on top of the gas stove when your seagull flew past and scared the pants off me. The flames burnt the sock when I was destructed.’
Chapter 3
The train slowed as it approached the dingy environs of the town, the buffers on the carriages clanked momentarily and the two lads, Billy Murphy and Ted Craigie, jostled for position at the window. A row of iron-framed, whitewashed windows in a black-bricked mill rolled slowly by and the engine shrieked a greeting to the signal box.
‘Will you two watch where you are putting your feet,’ Liam grumbled. ‘What are you both getting so excited about? You have only been away for a day.’
‘We are seeing which of us will be first to spot somebody we know,’ Billy informed his father. ‘Ted says that he saw one of the customers that he delivers to in that mill but there was no way that he could see through those windows.’
‘He cheats at everything,’ Ted’s sister, Pippin, observed from the seat in the opposite corner of the carriage. ‘He just hates losing.’
‘That is a bit unkind,’ her mother said. ‘You are quite competitive yourself. Look at the way you were carrying on with your donkey because you didn’t think that it was going fast enough. I could hear you screaming at it from fifty yards away.’
‘It was his fault,’ she said, glaring at her brother. ‘He was turning his donkey in front of mine so that I couldn’t get past.’
‘You had no chance, anyway,’ Ted taunted. ‘How do you expect to win on a donkey with bandy legs?’
Pippin slammed the book that she had been reading down onto the seat and stood up. ‘I didn’t want that stupid Bluebell in the first place. I said that I wanted Spartacus and you pushed in and got on it. And he,’ she said, pointing angrily at Billy, ‘pulled me off that Titan when I tried to get on it, just so that he could ride it.’
‘’Cos obviously, they are the ones for the lads. You are just a softy girl and girls have to ride the Bluebells and the Buttercups,’ Ted taunted.
Edward sat forward and stretched out his arm to block his daughter as she advanced on her smirking brother. ‘Alright, darling, don’t let him get to you. He is just trying to goad you.’
‘Why do boys always think that they are so superior at everything, anyway?’ Pippin demanded, returning to her seat. ‘God might have given them bigger muscles but he also gave them thicker bones, particularly in their heads, so there is less room for a brain.’
Liam spluttered and his wife, Bridget, began to laugh at Pippin’s outraged remarks, waking eight year old Declan who had fallen asleep against her shoulder. ‘Well, that’s put you men in your places right enough,’ she said.
‘But I think that I would have won that little competition, anyway. The guard over there with the whistle in his mouth, that’s your Uncle Jack. We had best get ourselves ready. Cross Lane will be the next station.’
‘Oh, Mam, why did you have to say that,’ Billy complained. ‘I would have known that it was Uncle Jack if you had given me chance to see him.’
Steam from the engine’s boiler was still drifting across the station but Liam immediately recognised the ruddy cheeks with the whistle held between his lips, ready for the shrill blast that would indicate that, in his responsible judgement, the train was now ready to depart. Jack loved his job and took pride in the important role that he played in ensuring the timely turnaround of the trains. He even enjoyed the summer months, when he could exercise his skills in urging and cajoling the higher volumes of passengers to alight from, or board, the train expediently in order to conform to the strict demands of the timetable. On his days off, Jack would happily spend a few hours sitting on the platform, monitoring the performance of the other guards before going for a pint in the Dog and Partridge, relaxed in the knowledge that his own exacting standards were unmatched.
Edward stood up and began to pass down the bags and coats from the luggage rack. Liam heard the shrill blast of Jack’s whistle, felt the jerk as the carriage connections tensioned, and listened to the slowly increasing rhythm as the wheels rolled over the rail expansion joints. It had been a clear blue sky all day in Southport and they had had no need for many of the clothes that they had taken with them. Brig and Laura, though, had made good use of their umbrellas during the day to provide shelter from the blazing sun. He had had some doubts at first, when Eddie had suggested that their two families should have a day away together, but had been persuaded that they all deserved a bit of fun after the last four years. He still had a bit of his Army pay left over. They were trying to eke it out until he could get himself fixed up in a job but they felt that the family needed a treat. It would help to overcome some of the awkwardness that they had felt since his return. For him, at least, it might. He needed to be able to understand and re-define where, and how, he fitted into the routines of the house without feeling like an intruder. If he reprimanded either Billy or Declan, they would look at their mother, seeking her affirmation of his right to do it. His carrying out of household chores or repair jobs required direction from Bridget. Even trying to help by preparing food needed a check on everyone’s preferences.
It had been a relaxing and happy day. The adults had enjoyed the antics with the donkeys except, that is, until Laura had noticed that the mount carrying her young son, Ben, had not turned after the first leg of the ride and had continued trotting down the beach. Edward had been despatched, his half-smoked Woodbine glowing in his mouth, to recover their panicking child. Waving his arms frantically to attract the attention of the donkey minder who was leading the remaining group back, Edward had been accompanied by two dogs, anxious to join the chase. Gasping for breath, he had grabbed the minder’s arm to draw his attention to the straying donkey, still plodding balefully off into the distance. The man stopped and gazed disinterestedly at the wilful beast. ‘Aye, th’owd bugger forgets these days. Thinks that he’s doing the long walk. Him’ll turn round when he gets to that pile of rocks. Costs twice as much for that ride, you know.’
Eddie spluttered, almost losing his Woodbine. ‘I’ve just run down here like somebody not right just because you have a donkey with bloody dementia. Now you expect me to pay for a longer ride, you cheeky sod.’
The minder pulled on the reins of the animal that he was leading. ‘It’s alright mate. You can have that one on me this time,’ he said, continuing wearily back to the bales of straw that marked his base.
A game of cricket with a rubber ball and pieces of driftwood on the huge, expansive beach, followed by the picnic lunch that they had brought with them, had been great fun. But it had needed Brig to tell Declan that he had been bowled out and, therefore, needed to hand the bat to Pippin. And when a group of giggling young girls had stopped to watch them, both Billy and Ted had been determined to showcase their prowess with the bat by hitting the ball as far as possible down the beach. Eddie, still recovering from his urgent sprint after the wailing Ben, had opted to just keep the score. Pippin, unimpressed by the preening displays of the young men, had told the lads to go and field it themselves.
In the afternoon, they had marvelled at the goods in the arcaded shop windows in Lord Street before treating the children to an ice cold Vimto. Whilst he and Eddie had enjoyed a pint of Walker and Homfray’s best bitter, Laura and Bridget had settled for a glass of shandy. At the Fun Land Park, Liam had regretted having gone on the slide, spiralling down the outside of a huge tower. His war-injured head had taken an odd turn and when they dropped into the great, polished wood bowl at the bottom, in a melee of flailing arms, legs and sisal mats, he had found it impossible to regain his feet. The pursuing pack had found it difficult to avoid colliding with him and his head had reeled with the shouting and screaming. Eddie had seen his distress and stepped down to help him out.
They had all enjoyed the Grand National game. After getting into an early lead, Laura, eyes shining, a determined set to her mouth, had stayed in front to prove an easy winner. Both he and Eddie had refused to go on the Rifle Shooting but had proved accurate, if oddly unsuccessful, on the Coconut Shy. Later, walking through town, they had come across a public hall where a large crowd were enjoying an afternoon of community singing. They had all gone in but bought only four of the penny song sheets to share between them. He had laughed out loud when Eddie had held Laura’s hand to his heart as they sang My Old Dutch and she had whispered back a rebuking ‘Cheeky monkey.’ They had then all linked arms to sing and sway together to his old Da’s favourite On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep. Liam had excelled himself acting the part of a gauche youth, looking coyly over his shoulder as he sang ‘I’m Shy, Bridget Murphy, I’m Shy.’ And when the compere had asked for volunteers to come up on stage, Brig and Laura had gone forward, despite the pleadings of their mortified offsprings, and had given an entertaining and very creditable performance of Beside the Seaside, Beside the Sea.
Brig still had the capacity to surprise him; her occasionally subversive views about the Catholic Church; her sudden and fiery anger at social injustices; her heroic interventions against bullying and intimidation. He had stood by her, apprehensive and fearful, when three ruffians had been threatening Mrs Hewitson from round the corner, demanding immediate payment of debts that were due from her recently deceased husband. Brig had instructed them to produce signed documents to that effect, pointed out that she knew where two of them lived, and said that, if any one of them set foot in her street again, they would feel the length of her poker across their backs. ‘And don’t make signs like that to me, young man, or you will have my husband here to deal with,’ she had shouted after them as they retreated up Goodiers Lane, thrusting forward the nervously gulping Liam.
When he had come home from France she had clung on to him so tightly that he could barely breathe. ‘You’re back, you are back. Thanks be to God, He’s brought you back safely to me,’ she had sobbed. He had dealt badly with this unfettered, undemanding expression of deep emotion, trying to pull himself away. He was unworthy of her; bloodied by the atrocities of war. Guilt lay heavy; Brig had loved, and missed, a different man. With the war, whilst she had grown, he had diminished. She had clung on to his stained, emaciated body believing it was the man who had left her in 1914 to perform heroics for his family. Young boys had died in the reticle of his gun sight and his little daughter, Lizzie, had died, out of his sight; out of his care. The fragile life had ebbed out of her small body whilst he had been trudging, complaining, self-pitying, through the hot desert sand.
Brig would never listen to his protestations of inadequacy and just touched his lips with her finger when he explained his shame. She put her hand on his cheek and kissed his forehead when he cried in the night. But he was sure that s
he had flinched when, perhaps from a sense of duty, he had touched her breast. He had stopped then and turned over; she had put her hand on his shoulder but said nothing. She kissed him in the mornings, ironed his shirts, asked his opinions on the striking engineers and linked him as they walked around Ordsall Park with the lads. She darned his socks, got him to repair the lads’ shoes and a leaking drain and slowly and selectively stitched together the tapestry of family and neighbourhood trivia and gossip. After Uncle Paddy’s funeral, she had taken the lads home to allow him some time with his extensive family. A severe pain in his head wound after only two tots of whisky, though, had given the grateful Callum, who accompanied him home, a reason for an early departure. He sensed the small spaces that she was opening up for him; he was grateful for her unquestioning love; surprised by the gentleness that was such a powerful and healing force. But she had flinched.
Rags, Bones and Donkey Stones (Sequel) Page 2