Arthur McCann

by William Pitt

  But in its way it was appropriate because years ago it was another aged man, my grandfather, Murky, who first brought us together. Two ancients like bent doorkeepers opening and shutting the doors at each end of our life together.

  My grandfather was called Murky, for some distant reason which he would never discuss. He was a slate-coloured old man who contrived to look and converse like an ancient mariner, although my father swore that he was a filthy old liar who had never been west of the Bishop Light.

  Murky came to live with us after my grandmother died during the war and he was the one member of the family who said firmly that it was Aunt Clementine who had never succumbed to my father's charms and persuasions. When she came to our house Murky would giggle into his carefully upturned miniature beard and repeat half a dozen times: 'Heh, heh. Here's the Dock Street virgin.' Clementine would fluster, grow red and look appealingly around to the other members of the family. If my father was there, and the old grandfather persisted, there would be a brief scuffle while Murky was taken out and locked in the outside lavatory which was unused because a bathroom had by then been interpolated into the house by the Newport Borough Council. When we were having tea we could hear the faint sounds of Murky banging on the wooden door and when he was eventually released he would come in, chastened, and spend the rest of the day sadly and quietly engrossed in getting the splinters out of his elderly fists.

  I loved the old man because from my earliest childhood I was the listener to his stories of the oceans which my father swore were untrue. They sounded true to me and they still do.

  'There's an island in the southern ocean, boy,' he would whisper, as though he alone had discovered it and was anxious to keep it secret. 'About eight south, fourteen west. Called Ascension. Comes out of the sea like one of them there ice cream cornets, turned up. And on the leeward side there's some tall, straight trees, like fingers on a man's hand ...' He would hold his fingers up to show me. They were as brown and thin as an Indian's. 'Somebody planted those trees specially for sailing ships, like ours, that came in wrecked, demasted from a storm. Cut down a tree, boy, and you had a mast to get you home ..."

  Hearing this, or something like it, my father would laugh like a bursting boiler and call Murky a bloody old liar. ' Fancy telling the kid that,' he would snort in his big way.

  'All you ever sailed in was a rotten dirty coaler.'

  Murky would regard him with ancient hatred. 'I've been there,' he would say. 'What I'm telling the boy is right.'

  'You!' mocked my father. 'Dressing up like you do. That cap and the beard. Wonder you don't cut your sodding leg off and get yourself a parrot.'

  'No brains, let alone any memory,' returned Murky. 'That's you. Never did have. I've sailed before the mast and seen places you've never dreamed about.'

  'Dream about them - that's all you've done,' said my father.' Why don't you go down to the Hornpipe and drink with the rest of the old boys. Tell you why - because they'd find you out. They'd know it was a lot of made up tales. All you do is go to the James Street library. You get it all from books.'

  One Monday morning they had a fist fight while my mother was doing the washing at the steaming boiler in the kitchen. It was about kodiak bears or the location of Quinn's Bar in Tahiti, or something like that. Normally old Murky would retreat from the argument under threats from my father to shut him in the outside lavatory, but he was particularly trenchant on this morning and it ended with a spontaneous brawl among the piles of laundry and the flying suds of the back kitchen.

  'Buggering old liar!' bellowed my father.

  'Conscientious Objector!' howled the old man.' Cowardly bastard!'

  'The child!' cried my mother. 'The boy!'

  My grandfather was over seventy but he was as strong as he was brave. He rushed my father back to one end of the kitchen and it was then that the washing boiler tipped and poured its gallons of scalding water everywhere. My father was in his socks and he got the worse of it. He howled and danced out into the back yard, the blisters ballooning from his feet.

  When I sailed to Ascension Island many years later, I saw the plantation of Norfolk pines at the side of the steep mountain. Some of them had been cut down for ships' masts and the rest stood slim and straight as my grandfather's fingers.

  The Newport War Heroes Ball was held at Mandles Dance Hall in August 1945. 1 had, naturally, returned from my first eventful voyage to a great deal of praise and publicity, which gave my father even more to boast about than usual. After all, as he said every half-an-hour, was it not he who had sent me off to sea? Was it not he who had spotted the potential? Only I knew that his judgement had not only put me in danger of being drowned, but of being buggered as well.

  Sadly now I remember the warm August night of the Heroes Ball. The moon and Mandles and Pamela.

  In my grandfather's younger days Mandle's Dance Hall, overlooking the pebble beach at the end of the docks, had been a roller skating rink and the old man got seized with a bout of hysterical second childhood that night. All the week he had muttered and moped about wanting to celebrate the end of the war like anybody else, more, because he had seen more wars begun and ended, than anybody. Very strangely, I think he also got a bit jealous over all the publicity and the attention I got because of being sixteen and torpedoed. When the newspaper reporters and photographers were in the house he kept buttonholing them and saying: 'I once killed a giant sloth in South America.'

  He began by whispering and, when no one took any notice, progressed to violent shouting, finally retiring to a defeated corner where he would moan to himself: 'Yes, a real giant sloth.' Over and over.

  Then when they took the pictures he tried to edge his way into the lens, even nudging me from my place in front of the cameras. He nearly cried when he looked in the papers and found that he was not in any of them nor a single mention of the sloth. My father, naturally, got lots of space and his picture all over the place, although his part in the matter of the SS Queen of Atlantis was no matter for congratulation as far as I was concerned. Once, out of sheer pity, I looped my arm around Murky's old head to get him in the picture and this one did appear in two editions of the South Wales Echo. Unfortunately the photograph was so blurred that my grandfather's head could have been anything from a cannon ball to a Christmas pudding. The newspaper said I was embracing my dog.

  This naturally upset Murky more than ever, so that when it was arranged that I would be one of the guests of honour at the ball, he demanded to be there too. My father told him to stop at home and mind the house in case the publicity attracted burglars, and the old man was having one of his cries when we left (he used to enjoy a sob towards the end of his life). The whole of South Wales society was at the Heroes Ball and they stamped, shouted and whistled as we marched through the ballroom to the band's version of' The White Cliffs of Dover' (a difficult feat) led by a small sea scout in a gas mask.

  This child had become a hero by offering another boy the use of his gas mask during a supposed gas attack on the town by German aircraft, which turned out to be a false alarm, a fact, it was felt which should not deter from his bravery. An assortment of soldiers, airmen, sailors and merchant seamen followed in ranks of four, and then an air raid warden carried by comrades on a stretcher, and the local women who had knitted three tons of sweaters, scarves, balaclava helmets, and gloves for the services. Three ladies who had served tea at the docks throughout hostilities followed, wheeling their scarred trolley. The squadron leader from the barrage balloon unit in the park marched just behind me and I could feel his hostile eyes on my neck as we paraded around the hall.

  We halted raggedly, except one seaman who had been deafened by a foghorn when his ship was wrecked under a lighthouse in Scotland, and who marched resolutely on until pulled back by beckoning spectators. The Mayor inspected us and made a speech about us. All the time the small sea scout was wearing his gas mask, the window having now misted over.

  It was during the mayor's oration that I first s
aw Pamela.

  She was laughing into her hands and trying to keep it quiet. There seemed to be some sort of commotion going on near the door, although I could not see what was going on there because of the crowd around the floor.

  At the conclusion of the ceremony the band swooped into 'The White Cliffs of Dover' again this time in foxtrot time, and I went to Pamela and asked her to dance.

  ' I saw you laughing,' I said.

  'Couldn't help it,' she replied. 'Fancy making that kid wear a gas mask like that. And you all looked so funny. The man on the stretcher and the one who kept on marching when the rest of you stopped! God, I thought I was going to have a fit. And then there was some old boy about ninety trying to get in on roller skates! Did you see him?'

  'No,' I said. I felt hurt that she should laugh at the Heroes' Parade.

  'They were trying to chuck him out and he was trying to get in and his skates kept rolling from under him. It was just like a film. Funniest thing I ever saw. What's it all about anyway?'

  'What's what all about?'

  'Well, this,' she said. 'All this.'

  'Didn't you know?' I frowned. 'It's the Heroes Ball. Everybody in the parade did something brave during the war.'

  'Oh, I see. Even that little kid in the gas mask ... ?' She began giggling again and her head dropped forward on to my chest as we danced. Suddenly below my chin, like a luxuriant beard was her dark hair. Eventually she straightened up. 'I shouldn't laugh,' she apologised. 'Not really. But it was ever so funny. All marching around like that. Out of step and everything, and that poor little bugger staring out of his steamed-up gas mask. And then the old man trying to keep his skates on the floor, while about six men tried to throw him out.'

  'How did you get in?' I asked.

  'Usual way. Through the door.'

  'But you must have known what was going on,' I argued.

  'It's a special all-ticket night. Did you have a ticket?'

  'No, don't be silly.' She dropped her tone. 'I know the man at the door and he always lets me in to everything. Last week it was the Newport pets club, or something. They all had their dogs and cats and birds in cages with them. Somebody left a donkey outside. It was dead funny. Not as funny as tonight, though. Nothing like.'

  'You just come in for a dance then?' I said.

  'More or less. Not much else to do on a Thursday around here. Never know, you might meet somebody.'

  She was seventeen then, her face sweet and assured, her eyes laughing at me, her body still with its puppy fat. Bravely I asked her if she wanted to go outside and she said she didn't mind going for a walk. I glanced around to see if I could see my father or mother. I saw him immediately dancing grandly with the mayoress, and then I saw my mother sitting alone in an alcove, a drooping fern over her like a sympathetic canopy, a bottle of orange squash on the table before her. Pamela was walking off the floor ahead of me. I followed her.

  Outside a police van was just moving away and there were people standing around laughing about the old man on roller skates. We walked down to the broken beach, over the assorted pebbles, around the sheets and bars of rusty iron and tangles of barbed wire. Someone had seriously thought that the Germans might have invaded there. It was a close August night with the moon low over the coaly channel. She looked as though she had full breasts but they were flattened, oval, under her dance dress. Her figure was almost matronly in that immediate post-war moonlight.

  'Heroes,' she ruminated. 'Christ, it was funny, wasn't it, Alan?'

  'Arthur,' I said. 'And I didn't think it was all that funny. They didn't have to put the kid in his gas mask, I suppose. But it was pretty serious underneath.' I was waiting for her to ask me how I became a hero.

  'I don't think it was serious,' she argued. 'That man on the stretcher, the one they were carrying like the Queen of Sheba, he's no hero for a start, because he lives down our street. His name is Dodkinson and I know that he broke his leg falling down on a bombed site when he was drunk. Everybody in the street knows it. He's always plastered, running up and down the street in his tin hat, blowing his whistle in the middle of the night.'

  We did not know it then, but that night was the last night of all the war. The Japanese surrendered and when we were kissing each other for the very first time all the sirens along the coast sounded off.

  But before that, we were sitting on the grass above the short cliff, and the moon coming from the direction of Bristol made her silk dance dress shine where it was rounded over her body. The channel was a white streak under the moon, like a Newport workman's best silk muffler. The tide kept rolling a metal drum against the pebbles. Along the coast the lights shone freely and the lighthouse swung its arms like a gymnast.

  'Just look at it,' I said pompously. 'It was really worth fighting for, you know.' I still wanted her to ask me about the lifeboat.

  She was staring out to sea.' My grandad looks through my keyhole and sees me dressing,' she said.

  Stunned by the suddenness of the information I remained silent, torn between wanting to repeat my patriotic appreciation of this night of peace and a desire to hear what her grandad saw through the keyhole.

  'Silly old devil,' she sighed. 'Still I suppose he's not got much to enjoy, and he's nice really. He makes me laugh. And if you can't do something for your own grandad who can you do anything for?'

  'Quite,' I said inadequately. 'Who can you?'

  'Do you know what my old grandmother looks like in the nude?'

  Her bizarre twist of the conversation nonplussed me. She always did it; all through the years I knew her.

  'No,' I said eventually as though I had been carefully considering it. 'No, I don't. What's she like?'

  'Ghastly. Bloody ghastly,' she continued slowly, her eyes narrowed. ' I saw her in the bath one night and she looked just like a bit of old sacking held up with poles. Like one of those screens the men clearing the bombing used for a lav.'

  'Sacking,' I repeated trying to nod wisely, wondering if she were playing a game.

  'Just like,' she said. 'Sacking hanging between poles. So I thought there's not a lot there for my grandfather to look forward to, and so when I realised he was having a squint at me through the keyhole I let him get on with it. One day I'll probably go out and scare the daylights out of him. But that seems a bit unkind when I think about it. After all it doesn't cost me anything.'

  Her odd conversation, naturally, gave me some hope for my personal ambitions. If she showed that to her old grandfather what might she do for me? I put my hand negligently on her shoulder and then let it slip down her side to her thigh. Without mentioning it she took it and replaced it on the shoulder.

  'Mind you,' she said almost absently.' I'm terrible sometimes. When I know he's got his eyes right up to the hole, right against it, I strip completely off and walk towards him. Slow as I can, wriggling as I walk. Then I hang my dressing gown on the door knob. It must drive him potty.'

  I tried transferring my hand again from its companionable touch at the back of her neck down to her breast. She removed it again.

  'Don't spoil it, Alan,' she said, dreamily.

  'Arthur,' I grumbled.

  'Well, Arthur,' she replied. ' I bet you don't remember what I'm called.'

  'Of course I do. You're called Pamela.'

  She appeared genuinely impressed at this. 'It is too,' she agreed. 'You must be serious about me.'

  'But I am serious,' I said, jumping in. She was sitting primly, looking out to sea, so I had to curve my neck around to kiss her. She let me do it and responded a little.

  Suddenly, and with dismay, I realized that I, who had

  furgled Rose by the barrage balloon, who had spent half a steaming night with a Negress, and the entire next day with a six foot Jewish lady, I, Arthur McCann, sixteen-year-old international lover, was now faced with a girl. A girl with all the teenage corners still to be rubbed off, full of idiotic barriers and taboos, a chubby prick-teasing, seventeen-year-old who enjoyed telling me what she disp
layed for her grandad, but wouldn't let me shift my famished finger a quarter of an inch. After all the things I had done I was back at the beginning, back at the place where everybody else has to start. She wanted to be courted.

  'I don't like it,' she sighed.

  'What?' I felt helpless, drifting around in the flotsam of her conversation.

  'Pamela, my name. Sounds like some sort of soap.'

  'I think it's nice,' I assured her.

  'Better than Alan,' she said.

  'Arthur.'

  'Well, Arthur. Better than that too. Not much, mind.'

  I remembered a joke which somebody told on the SS Queen of Atlantis. 'Put this in your palm Olive,' I recited into her ear. 'Not on your life boy.'

  'I don't like dirty jokes,' she said with no emphasis.

  'Oh. Sorry.'

  'It's all right. You couldn't know could you? I'm glad the war's over. Did you have to go ?'

  I choked over my annoyance. 'What d'you think I was doing marching with the Newport War Heroes tonight?' I demanded. ' I wasn't there to keep the buggers in line.'

  'It was funny, though, wasn't it?' she giggled. 'That kid in his gas mask!' She gave me a friendly girlish shove with her hand. 'Go on, admit it. It was funny.'

  My exasperation had curdled into a thick gloom. 'All right,' I nodded. 'We'll say it was funny.'