A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  Far from making me feel better, her answer heightened my anxiety. If I was going to learn everything Billy and Jack knew I’d surely better get started. The clock was ticking.

  ‘Anyway, we’ll be going back in a few weeks’ time,’ Mum said. ‘It’s not as if you’ll never see your friends again, is it?’

  I didn’t answer her. It all seemed so unfair. We all loved being in the country, and we always felt fed up driving home from the farm. Even Petra seemed deflated, and slept on my knee all the way – which was good news, since it gave me a chance to tease all the sticky burrs out of her coat. As soon as we drove into the Avenue, however, she perked up and pressed her nose to the partly opened window and started whining, eager to get out and see what had been happening in the neighbourhood.

  ‘Michael,’ Dad said, getting out of the car and stretching, ‘you take her for a walk while your mother gets tea on the table. And don’t be long.’

  I shoved my way past Christine and climbed out through the door, glad that I wouldn’t be involved in unpacking the dirty laundry or sweeping up the sand and bits of shell that had accumulated on the Traveller’s seats. A man on a bicycle was coming down the road and Petra was off after him, barking and snapping at his heels.

  ‘You wanna keep that dog of yours on a lead!’ the man shouted as he pedalled furiously towards the main road.

  As he drew away from Petra she came running back to me, her tongue out, grinning. I clipped the lead onto her collar.

  ‘Let’s go and see Spike,’ I said, and at the very sound of his name Petra started to tug harder on the lead.

  What she wanted was to go into my friend Tim’s garden to see the rabbits. Tim’s Dad kept a beautiful rock garden. He’d created a series of little hills and a small water feature powered by an electric pump. And, scattered amongst the shrubs and flowers, was his collection of weathervanes. I never knew what purpose they served, but some time later I was to be very grateful for them. I paused to look at the waterfall Tim’s Dad had built, pulled Petra away and carried on down towards the railway line to see whether Spike was at work.

  Spike was the crossing-keeper. He seemed ancient to me, older even than Billy and Jack, with his snow-white hair and stubbly chin and blackened front teeth. He had a little brick-built cabin and he spent most of the day there, sitting in a tattered upholstered rocking-chair. He had a coal-fired stove to keep him warm, a big old kettle that was always steaming, a telephone and a pile of books – westerns mostly. All he had to do all day was open and close the gates when a train came through – which was about every hour or so on a busy day. Spike liked company. He must have been lonely, stuck out there with so little to do. He’d been in the war and was always telling us stories about his rescue from Dunkirk, his days in North Africa and Italy. That and his days as a fireman on the steam locos that thundered up and down the main line between York and London.

  I must have been about seven when I first met Spike. It was a Saturday and we were playing down by the railway line, hanging around, waiting to catch a glimpse of the freight train that rattled through every morning about eleven, or maybe the fabled Deltic which, according to Phil, came by on holidays – not that I’d seen one yet. Sometimes in the summer we’d see the steam engine that pulled the trainspotters’ special from Leeds to the coast. So was it any wonder we were drawn to the line? I knew that I shouldn’t be there. Mum and Dad had always warned us to stay well away, but of course the prospect of watching the trains fly by was irresistible, all the more so when your big brother was telling you he had a new trick to show you. Up to that point Phil had always treated me as a baby. Most times I had to plead with him to let me follow him around, but as often as not he shook me off.

  But this particular day he asked me, ‘How many coins have you got?’

  It was one of those dull days, with rain threatening, and nobody was about. For once in a while, he was at a loose end. I dug my hand into the pocket of my shorts and pulled out a sixpence, a penny and one of the new ten pence pieces.

  ‘That’ll do nicely,’ he said.

  ‘Where we going?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ll see.’

  To get to the line we had to cross a large field. It was planted up with barley – waist deep to me and just forming its seed-heads. We made our way around the edge, ploughing through the long grass and trampling the cow parsley. At the far side we could see the line, protected against intruders by a broken-down fence and a tangle of brambles. We fought our way through them, clambered over the fence, and stood looking at the sloping ballast, the sleepers and the shiny steel rails. Scarborough one way, York the other.

  ‘Give us your money then,’ Phil said.

  I handed over the coins. ‘What you going to do?’ I asked.

  He didn’t answer me, just looked at his watch and said, ‘Should be here in a couple of minutes.’ He looked both ways, scrambled up the slope, laid the remains of my week’s pocket money on the track and hurried back. ‘Now we keep our heads down.’

  The sun came out and warmed us as we crouched down below the level of the ballast. It was only when we heard the train approaching that I realised what was going on.

  ‘Phil?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah what?’

  ‘I’ll still be able to spend my pocket money, won’t I?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Course you will.’ He thought for a moment, then added, ‘It’ll go a lot further.’

  I wasn’t sure what he meant, but in any case whatever powers of reason I might have had were instantly derailed by the approach of the Class 37 engine, from this proximity a roaring monster of a thing with a blunt yellow nose. I knew it was a Class 37 because Phil said it was – and I knew better than to question his judgement. It was pulling a mixture of coal and oil wagons, a string of nondescript brown vans, a couple of long flats laden with steel girders – collected, he said, from Weaverthorpe – and of course a brake-van. I was fascinated by brake-vans, ever since I’d seen the guard leaning on the veranda, puffing on his pipe and waving to me one morning as we waited at Haxby level crossing gates with our bicycles. Much as I wanted a job like Billy and Jack’s when I grew up, I also had a fancy for a life as a freight train guard. It seemed a leisured existence, and one of considerable status. However, there was no guard to wave at us this time, just a wisp of coal smoke coming from the chimney on the brake-van roof, and the train was soon disappearing in the direction of York.

  Phil was on his feet, checking the line in both direction before climbing up the ballast once more.

  ‘Can you see them?’ I asked. He stood there for a moment, scanning the stone chippings before crouching down. ‘Got the penny,’ he said. ‘And the ten pence. No sign of your tanner, though.’

  He handed me the coins. I studied them carefully. The Queen’s head on the penny was strangely distorted, the edges of the coin jagged, and it was almost twice its original size. The ten pence piece was a sort of elliptical shape and curved, but it gleamed in the sunlight. No doubt about it: it was an impressive result, but it had cost me.

  ‘What about the sixpence you’ve lost?’ I asked.

  Phil surveyed the jumble of weeds and undergrowth that crowded the lineside, shrugged his shoulders and started to move off.

  ‘It’s your money. If you want it, you’d better start looking.’

  I pushed my way a few feet into the brambles, scratching my arms as I did so. Beneath my feet was a mat of dead grass and bits of litter. I felt the weight of the two squashed coins in my pocket, decided that I’d better cut my losses, and hurried after my brother. He was already halfway to the crossing-keeper’s cabin.

  ‘Now then, boys. What you been up to?’ Spike was spooning sugar into a freshly made mug of tea. Behind him on a little gas ring a kettle was simmering. ‘Not putting coins on the line, I hope.’

  ‘N-no!’ I said. I may have been not quite seven years old, but I knew it was a good idea to deny anything any adult accused me of.

  ‘Go on, show him.�
� Phil was prodding me with his forefinger, pointing at my pocket. I looked at him, then at Spike, who was grinning at me, exposing his blackened teeth.

  ‘Don’t worry, lad. I won’t shop you. Boys have been doing that since dinosaurs trod the Earth,’ he said. ‘It’s as natural as breathing. Go on, let me have a look.’

  I took the coins out of my pocket and handed them to him.

  ‘Why,’ he said, ‘they’re a couple of beauties, aren’t they? A real treasure.’ He handed them back. ‘And what’s your name, eh?’

  ‘John,’ I said. Phil looked at me, his mouth hanging open. But before he could correct me, Spike carried on. ‘Well John, young fellow-me-lad, just you take care of yourself, you hear?’ Then he turned to Phil. ‘You lads going to stop and have a bit of cake with me?’

  I looked at Phil. Were we allowed? Was this like taking sweets from a stranger?

  ‘Sure,’ he said. Spike was already opening up a big Oxo tin and peeling the grease-proof paper off a slab of rich fruit cake. ‘My missus,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t want me to starve, does she?’

  We sat against the outside wall of the cabin and ate the cake while Spike perched on a metal-framed chair, supped his tea and told us how he’d escaped from Dunkirk, wading into the icy water as the bombs fell around him and clambering aboard a cabin cruiser that had sailed all the way from Yarmouth. ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘England’s finest moment.’ And then he put his mug down on the ground, grinned and said, ‘or so they told us.’

  A few minutes later Phil looked at his watch and said we ought to be going.

  ‘Aye,’ Spike said, ‘drop in again, you lads.’ He looked at the sky where a dark cloud was covering the sun. ‘Better hurry up before the weather changes,’ he said. Then he looked at me. ‘And you look after yourself, young John.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Phil said. ‘He’ll be okay with me.’ As we made our way back across the field he asked, ‘What’s all this John business then?’

  ‘That’s what I want to be called,’ I said.

  ‘What’s wrong with Michael?’

  The truth was, I’d been watching a lot of cowboy films on the telly, and as soon as I saw John Wayne I decided that that was the kind of man I’d like to grow up to be. And I’d take his name too. And once I’d thought that, it was a short step to deciding that Michael was a sissy sort of name.

  ‘I don’t like Michael,’ I said. ‘It makes people call you Mickey, and then every time people say they’re taking the mickey I feel sort of – funny. Anyway, it sounds like a girl’s name.’

  Phil thought for a moment, then said, ‘Maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t. But I tell you what.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Getting a new name isn’t going to stop you being a big girl’s blouse.’ And with that he shoved me over and ran off across the field.

  I picked myself up and chased after him. One day, I swore to myself, I would get revenge. Just because he was taller than me he thought he could do as he liked. But one day … one day he’d stop growing and I’d carry on, and then he’d better watch out. I hurried on around the hedge-side. I’d almost caught up with him when I spotted something strange in a neighbouring field. It was a huge yellow machine with caterpillar tracks, a vertical exhaust and a curved, shiny, steel blade on the front, and it was chugging its way across land that had been lying fallow for as long as we could remember – just the occasional horse or two tied up by travellers passing through.

  Phil had seen it too. He’d stopped to stare, same as I had.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  We both stood there and watched it ploughing the top off the field and piling the earth up.

  ‘Wow, that’s a bulldozer! And a big one,’ he said. ‘C’mon, let’s go and have a look.’

  It was the biggest, most exciting machine I’d ever seen. The noise it made – and the cloud of dark smoke that spewed into the afternoon sky – was thrilling. It had a glass cab, and through the glass I could make out a man in a peaked cap, a cigarette in his mouth, pulling levers as he manoeuvred the big beast backwards and forwards. Here was yet another job I could have when I grew up. The world seemed full of exciting opportunities – but which one to take? We stood and watched it work to and fro, piling up the earth in a huge mound, until we realised that it had come on to rain and we were getting wet. We hurried home. It would soon be time for tea, after we’d sat and watched our favourite TV show, The Goodies.

  ‘Dad, Mum!’ I said as we burst in through the back door. ‘Guess what we’ve seen? A giant bulldozer. It’s in the field. You want to see it, it’s fantastic.’

  Dad was deep in his Evening Press. He seemed unmoved. ‘I see,’ he murmured, ‘so they’ve started, have they?’

  That wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted a reaction. ‘Mum, Mum!’ I shouted. ‘There’s this giant bulldozer, with smoke coming out of its chimney. It’s fantastic. It’s in the field. Do you think I could be a bulldozer driver when I grow up?’

  ‘Yes, Michael, I heard you the first time. Now go and wash your hands. I don’t know how you get them so dirty.’

  I hurried off to the sink, wondering whether she meant yes, I could be a dozer driver, or yes, she knew about it. That was the thing with adults, it seemed to me. You never really knew what they meant.

  We children watched our show, after which it was teatime. I brought the subject up once more, and this time Mum explained. ‘There’s been talk of them building a housing estate over there for a long time. It sounds as though it’s finally going to happen.’

  ‘Yes,’ Dad said, folding his paper and putting in his hip pocket before taking his seat, ‘the inexorable march of the city. It’ll swallow the village up before long. And there’s not a lot we can do about it, I’m afraid.’

  He didn’t say anything else, but I could tell he wasn’t happy. Mum had bought kippers for tea, one of his favourites, but he ate almost in silence. And after we’d got down, and Christine and I had gone to do the dishes, he disappeared into his shed. He spent a lot of time out there, and at that age I didn’t really know what he was up to – apart from maintaining the car. Neither did any of us know, at the time, that this was going to be good news for all us before too long.

  Meanwhile our neighbours had evidently got to hear what was going on. More importantly, their children had got wind of it too. Over the next few evenings, as the field started filling up with piles of sand and gravel, hills of topsoil, stacks of assorted bricks and timber, as well as rows of concrete pipes, and a whole range of yellow-painted machinery, so all the children within a mile or two were drawn to the site like bees to a honey-pot. The contractors fenced it off. Of course they did. But while they may have kept out the local villains who cruised around the perimeter in their vans and trucks eyeing up the materials on display, we kids were in under the fence like so many rabbits, turning the place into our very own adventure playground.

  Over that summer we climbed the sand-piles and tobogganed down them on scraps of plywood. We dared each other to climb the ladders that were left lying against the sides of half-built houses, and walked around the scaffold-boards shouting to each other and staging mock battles between cowboys and Indians, British and German soldiers, or Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, depending on what TV programmes we’d been watching, or what comics we’d been reading at the time.

  One sultry August evening we rigged up a diving board and took turns to jump off it into a large tank of water, and all around the neighbourhood irate mothers scolded their offspring for coming home soaked to the skin, while their grinning, dripping kids asked if they could be excused washing – seeing that they’d already had a dip.

  In all the many evenings we played over there I don’t recall seeing a single security guard patrolling the site. Perhaps they only came on duty at nightfall. Perhaps it was a more innocent age. The only aggravation we got was an occasional shout from a passing dog-walker who waved a stick and threatened to call the police. But whether they did or not
we never found out. We certainly never saw the boys in blue.

  Just when we thought life couldn’t get much more exciting, news reached our ears that it could indeed. The new estate was being built by Barratts. We all knew who Barratts were: they were the ones who advertised on the telly. We loved those adverts almost as much as we loved the programmes they interrupted. What could be more thrilling than seeing Patrick Allen parachute from a helicopter before it smashed through a fake wall, uttering the immortal catchphrase ‘Now that’s a breakthrough!’

  I loved Patrick Allen. When I wasn’t dreaming of being John Wayne, this was the man I aspired to be. He seemed to me a combination of my cowboy hero, my caterpillar driver and my freight train guard, with a dash of James Bond and Spiderman thrown in. What’s more, he was English, which pleased Dad. What a life it must be, I thought, riding around the countryside in a helicopter. And now the news leaked out that the great man was going to drop in on us. I say it leaked; in fact it was advertised on posters all around the site which was now nearing completion, with the flags flying and the show-house open to potential buyers.

  It may have spelled the end of a glorious summer of fun and adventure, but what did we care when we heard that the man from Barratts was going to arrive, in his helicopter, on the new estate, our estate? As if that wasn’t enough excitement, The Goodies, whose show we watched religiously, were going to show up on their bicycle-made-for-three.

  If I’d been a year or two older I might have had the good sense to keep my mouth shut about all this, but at that age there was no way I could contain my excitement.

  ‘Mum, Dad, Mum, Dad! You’ll never guess!’ I burst out as I hurtled in through the back door, only to be stopped in my tracks by Mum, a mop in her hand, standing on a square of newspaper with a bucket of soapy water beside her.

  ‘Not in your muddy shoes!’ she shouted. ‘Out! This minute! Do you hear me?’

  I used to hate that, the way adults always seemed determined to take the wind out of your sails. Why were they so … calm, so boring? Here was I, bearing the most thrilling news Park Avenue had ever heard, and all my Mum seemed to care about was a bit of mud on my shoes.