A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  ‘Now then,’ she said, after she finally gave me the all-clear to tiptoe across her polished floor and into the back sitting-room, ‘what’s all the excitement about this time?’

  ‘It’s the Goodies,’ I said.

  ‘And the man from the Barratts advert,’ Phil added. Even he was getting wound up now.

  ‘Yes? What about them?’ Dad had put down his paper and narrowed his eyes – which I knew wasn’t good news. It was his ‘persuade me’ look.

  ‘They’re coming to the new estate and they’ll be giving out sweets and things, and we’ll be on the telly, and – ’

  ‘No we won’t.’ Phil might have been getting into it, but he wasn’t getting carried away. ‘It won’t be on the telly, but it’s going to be dead good. Can we go?’

  ‘And when is this?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Saturday afternoon,’ Phil said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, casting a glance at Dad.

  Dad looked us up and down.

  ‘I don’t want you two going over there. It’s too far from home. You could easily get lost.’

  I looked at Phil. Didn’t they realise we’d been playing over on the site for weeks and weeks, that we knew our way there and back blindfolded?

  ‘No,’ Dad continued, ‘I don’t like the sound of it.’

  After tea that night Phil and I held a whispered conversation in the back garden.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘They’ll never know.’

  ‘Never know what?’

  He tutted impatiently. ‘If we go to the estate on Saturday.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Sure. So long as we get back in time for tea. Who’s to say where we’ve been?’ And then he grabbed me by the shoulders. ‘But listen.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I don’t want you saying a word about this to anyone – especially not the girls, you hear?’

  I swore I’d keep my mouth shut. Not only was I thrilled to think that my dream would come true, but here I was hatching a plan with my big brother. It was as if I was his side-kick, and that felt extra good.

  The week that followed seemed to last a month. Longer than that. It was like waiting for Christmas, or you birthday. Saturday seemed so far distant that I struggled to believe it would ever arrive. I compiled a chart and hid it under my mattress. That was at night. In the daytime I rolled it up, shoved it up my shirt and took it to school with me. I kept it pinned to the underside of my desk lid, and every so often I’d open it up and have a quick check, almost as if I expected another day to have passed. I had them all written in big block capital letters. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday … The Great Day Itself. But waiting for the first day to pass took too long. It was more than I could stand. I re-drafted it, dividing each day into sections. Tuesday morning, dinner, Tuesday afternoon, tea, Tuesday night. Finally, I tore a huge sheet off a roll of old wallpaper I found under the stairs and started again. Now every day was sub-divided into twenty-four hours.

  ‘What you bothering with that for?’

  Phil was allowed up a full half-hour later than me, and I’d always try and stay awake to hear what had happened in the TV show I’d been watching when Mum called me through to get ready for bed. When he came up that night he found me crouched on the floor, waiting for the big hand to reach the twelve on the Thunderbirds alarm clock – at which point I scored through another hour with a flourish.

  ‘Because,’ I explained, ‘a day takes ages and ages.’

  ‘Yeah, but – every hour?’

  Phil didn’t get it, and it was my task to explain it to him.

  ‘See, when I get up in the morning,’ I said, ‘it’s great. I get to wipe out a whole load of hours at once.’

  Somehow the week made its tortuous way to the end. Saturday morning was finally here and I could take my felt-tip pen and cross out another ten hours. By the time I’d done my weekly jobs and earned my twenty pence pocket money – four bob in Dad’s language – it would be almost time to make our pilgrimage across the field where we would witness the most wonderful event of my young life so far.

  Everything was in place for a great afternoon. The sun was out, we’d been across to the shop where I spent a slice of my pocket money on an ice-cream and a bag of salt-and-vinegar crisps. By the time I’d scoffed them and we’d made our way to the estate it was barely fifteen minutes before the scheduled arrival of the TV stars. People were walking in from all directions. Hordes of them. There were knots of youths, families, gaggles of kids – and a few bemused motorists crawling through the village in first gear. As we entered the estate on the newly tarmac’d road we saw a York Evening Press van, a couple of ice-cream vendors and a mobile chippy; there was even a police car parked beside the show house. The man from the Press had a camera round his neck and was on one knee, photographing the crowds. I tried to drag Phil over.

  ‘Come on, we can be in the paper,’ I said, running a hand through my hair and standing there with a big grin on my face.

  ‘Never mind that,’ Phil said. ‘Let’s get a move on or we’ll miss him.’

  But I waited for the camera to click before following him. We shoved our way through the tightly packed crowd of people gathered around the spot where our man was to land. They stood in silent expectation, and after a while we heard a murmur spread through them, a murmur that grew into a great long ‘Aaa-ah!’ Everybody was craning their necks, scanning the skies – and there, coming in over the roof-tops was the Barratts helicopter. It looked simply huge, and the way it hovered, almost perfectly still, all but took my breath away.

  ‘Wow! There he is!’

  I hurled myself forward and wormed my way through the crush. I heard Phil call after me to wait for him. I knew he’d told me not to lose sight of him, but the thought of seeing Patrick Allen descending from the heavens was too much. I squeezed between a couple of old ladies and found myself up against a rope with the landing-spot in front of me. The air was filled with the sound of rotor blades whirring. Great gusts of wind were blowing dust in our eyes. Women were hanging onto their skirts and hats. And then the magic moment: our craggy-faced hero in his grey suit and wearing his headphones, stepping deftly from the chopper and waving to the multitude as he landed neatly on his feet.

  To tell the truth, it all got a bit boring after that. People started making speeches. Some fellow in a suit took over and began yapping about mortgages and percentages. I looked around, wondering where Phil had got to. Maybe he’d gone to see the Goodies.

  It’s a strange thing, being lost. I mean when you’re little. I suppose I can only speak for myself, but since I was the kind of child who couldn’t resist wandering off alone, I managed to get lost a number of times – and I always remember the feeling. One minute the world is perfectly normal. Yes, you’re surrounded by strangers, but you don’t see them as strangers when you’re with someone close to you – your Dad, your Mum, your big brother. But once I realised that Phil wasn’t there – that I’d lost him – I suddenly saw all those faces around me as what they were: people I didn’t know. People I’d never seen before. People who looked right through me and took no notice of one more little boy. Within a few moments the whole world had turned into a strange and frightening place. I seem to remember crying, trying to fight my way out from the crowd. Next thing I remember I was in the open and some helpful person was putting an arm around me and asking me what was wrong; but that frightened me even more and I wrestled myself free and ran off as fast as I could. Of course, I had no idea what direction I was running in. While we had got to know our way around the building site over the summer, so many changes had taken place so suddenly during the last couple of weeks, with people moving into the new houses, with lawns being laid and trees planted and cars appearing where there had previously been sand-heaps and site-huts. Now I was hopelessly at sea – and, without realising it, getting deeper and deeper into trouble.

  I’d managed to escape the crowds, but I was on a road I
’d never been down before, lined with houses that looked unfamiliar. There was a gang of boys standing looking at me, older boys. One of them shouted something. Another threw a stone. A dog barked. I turned and headed off in a new direction, towards a row of shops. But they weren’t our shops – not the newsagent I’d walk to with Dad, nor the confectioners I’d ridden my bike to that very morning to agonise over flying saucers, black-jacks and Bazooka bubble-gum. I stood there, fighting back tears, a horrible trembling sensation overtaking me.

  And then something wonderful happened. I saw a boy I recognised from my class at school. He was coming out of a sweet-shop – and he was with his mother. I ran over to him and blurted out, ‘How do I get to Park Avenue? I went to see the helicopter and I don’t know my way home.’

  The boy’s mother took my hand and led me back along the road.

  ‘You’re lucky you found us,’ she said. ‘Goodness knows where you might have ended up. Now, Park Avenue, did you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ I sniffed.

  ‘And what number is it?’

  We must have walked for a mile or so before I started to recognise where we were. The kind lady took me all the way to our front door and handed me over to Mum. She was relieved to see me, of course; but after she’d hugged me and thanked my rescuer and seen her on her way, she hit the roof.

  ‘And where exactly have you been to?’

  ‘I been playing in the park.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Just some of my friends.’

  ‘And what about your brother, eh? Where’s he? Answer me.’

  I had no idea where Phil was, of course. The last I’d seen of him he was off in search of the Goodies. As I stood there, not knowing whether to come clean or keep up the pretence, she must have realised I was holding back.

  ‘You’ve been over at the estate, haven’t you? After what your father said.’

  ‘No,’ I whined. ‘I was playing cricket, in the park.’

  Behind me, Christine laughed. ‘I bet he has,’ she said.

  ‘You keep out of this!’ I shouted.

  Mum ignored the sideshow. ‘And what about that brother of yours? Where’s he?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  That brother of mine didn’t show up for another hour. And when he did he was mightily distressed. He really thought he’d lost me for good, and arrived at the door in tears. Then he saw me, sitting there eating my tea and doing my best not to grin at him. He was in trouble, of course, for being late, but with a crafty wink he made me understand that we were not to admit to anything.

  We’d got away with it. When we went to bed that night we both heaved exaggerated sighs of relief, then laughed until we had to bury our heads in our pillows to stifle the row.

  Not a word was said about the affair over the rest of the weekend. We’d cracked it. Got away with it. What a good feeling it was.

  Then came Monday evening. Mum was in the kitchen making tea. Dad was in his easy chair scanning the paper. We kids were all sitting in front of the television, straining to hear what was being said. Dad would only let us watch it when he was in the room if we turned the sound way down so that he didn’t have to hear it. Suddenly, as he turned a page he froze. He gave out a long low sort of sighing noise, then inhaled deeply. Rising from his chair he switched off the telly, told the girls to go to the kitchen and help Mum, then turned to address me and Phil.

  ‘Right, you two. You have some explaining to do.’

  I remember starting to shake. There was no doubt what this was about. As far as I could remember I’d done nothing else that could’ve provoked such a reaction. But how had he found out?

  As Dad marched towards me I staggered backwards until my rear end was pressing against the living room wall. I had my eyes shut.

  ‘Just what … is the meaning of this? Hm?’

  I opened my eyes, just a crack. I wasn’t looking at Dad but at the Evening Press. As the page came into focus I saw the picture. A crowd of people grinning at the camera, and there, right slap-bang in the middle, waving, face cracked by a huge grin: me.

  Dad lowered the paper and stood there, frowning at me. ‘Care to explain?’ he asked.

  I can’t remember what the punishment was, but knowing Dad I suspect it would have ‘fitted the crime’. Most likely it was the most exquisite torture he could inflict on me: staying inside the house or garden for the next week. No trips to the park to play cricket with my mates; no walks down to the railway line to listen to Spike’s war stories; no expeditions down to the beck to fish or join the boys for a quick dip.

  But you know what? It was worth it.

  Bows and Arrows

  When I think back to my childhood it seems to me that I was a little boy with a very inquisitive streak. I was always exploring, always investigating, always taking things apart. You’d think that adults would approve of that, that they’d want to bring out the potential mechanic, or inventor, in me – my practical side. I mean, James Watt must have started somewhere. But they couldn’t see it. Half the time they thought I was nothing but a nuisance – and didn’t hesitate to tell me so.

  ‘Questions, questions, questions,’ they said. ‘Always asking questions.’

  And, when I started peering into the back of the telly, or the fridge, or upending the vacuum cleaner, it was, ‘Leave that thing alone!’ Or, if they’d left it too late, ‘Now put it back together – and woe betide you if it doesn’t work.’

  What people objected to most of all was when my restless, enquiring mind took me into the fields, down along the beck, across to the railway line, or into Dad’s workshops. But that’s what I liked best, being out of the house.

  I couldn’t stand being confined indoors, especially not if that meant the classroom. In school, I had little interest in what was written on the blackboard – or in anything that didn’t make loud noises, didn’t move quickly, didn’t look as though it might explode. So why would I be interested in all that reading, writing and arithmetic? Bo-ring!

  And so I looked out of the window. The world out there seemed so much more interesting. There were birds building nests, planes flying by, the noise of distant traffic. There was the ever-changing weather, always catching my attention. And there were people doing interesting things. Sometimes, for instance, a coal lorry would come into the yard and I’d see men with blackened faces humping sacks of coke across the playground, blokes who whistled and chewed gum and gave you the thumbs-up if they caught sight of you. How come none of our teachers did that? I’d have been far more likely to listen to them if they’d been able to raise one eyebrow and wink at the same time, like the milkman did, or put a piece of string in their mouth and bring it out knotted, like the caretaker, standing outside the boiler-house during playtime and performing conjuring tricks for us. Why were teachers so dull?

  The thing was, I wasn’t daft. I could’ve been up near the top of the form if I’d been interested. If only they’d had lessons about toy guns – and how they worked; or bikes – and how to make them go faster; or how to build soap-box carts that didn’t fall apart every time you crashed; or how to bake a conker without it bursting open. And what about fireworks? I asked the question in class one time. We were being taught about the Gunpowder Plot, and of course I was all ears. The idea that somebody back in ancient times had had the bright idea of blowing up Parliament – wow, that was my kind of history. I put my hand up and shouted, ‘Miss, Miss, Miss!’

  ‘There’s only one teacher in the room, Michael, so one “Miss” is perfectly adequate. Now, what is it you want to ask?’

  ‘You know every Christmas, Miss, when we all make a cracker to take home?’

  ‘Ye-es.’ I could tell by the way she answered that she was on her guard. I don’t think she really approved of us making crackers. It was far too much fun.

  ‘Well, Miss, seeing as it’s Guy Fawkes next week, why don’t we get some gunpowder and have an experiment and see who can make the best banger, Miss?’

  ‘
Michael, we do not come to school to learn how to make explosives.’

  ‘Why not, Miss? I mean, it would help us understand old Guy Fawkes, wouldn’t it?’ It seemed a fair question to me, but half the class groaned, and the other half laughed.

  ‘Michael Pannett, we prefer not to play around with gunpowder for two reasons. One, because it’s a lethal substance, and two, because we have better things to do.’

  I thought for a moment, trying to imagine something better than making bangers and rockets. I soon gave that up as a dead loss, but I wasn’t beaten; not yet. I was like a dog with a bone.

  ‘But Miss,’ I said, ‘in factories and that … I mean, whoever makes the fireworks must be an expert. They must have learned all about explosions and that before they got the job. Otherwise there wouldn’t be any fireworks, would there?’

  I really thought I’d got her there, but one thing I was to learn over the years was that teachers always have an answer for you.

  ‘You are very likely correct, Michael, but I don’t think the person in question would have learned his skills at New Earswick Primary. Now, let’s get back to the story of Mister Guy Fawkes, shall we? And then after break we can carry on sticking those autumn leaves in our books.’

  Sticking leaves in a book. Now where was the fun in that? It was all books – that and copying from the blackboard. I had little interest in reading back them. Comics, yes. Actual books, no. So when I couldn’t look out of the window I just got bored – until I got to twelve or thirteen and discovered girls, that is. When it came to girls I would be keen as mustard. And a fast learner, always willing to do a spot of homework. But that was in the future. When I was seven, eight, nine all I wanted was to be outside, learning about the world, experimenting. Like when we went on those wonderful trips to Staintondale. Now that was my kind of education. There was always something to learn over there.

  Jack had taught me to tickle trout. Later he’d teach me about fly-fishing, something that still interests me to this day. But Jack wasn’t my only tutor. Billy, with his grubby old flat hat and brown corduroy trousers, also had a lot to teach me. He was different in his approach, though. Whereas Jack would offer to teach you something you’d never thought about, Billy would wait till he saw you wrestling with a particular problem – as he did one summer’s morning when he found me out in the yard trying to make the best of a bad job.