A Likely Tale, Lad

by Mike Pannett

  However, when Grandpa retired he felt he deserved to enjoy a simple pleasure that had been denied him through his working life. Around midday he’d take a stroll across the fields and enjoy a refreshing pint – and when I was off school he’d let me go with him. If it was a fine day he might sit outside with me, but more often than not he’d leave me on my own, with instructions not to talk to any strangers. I didn’t mind. I had my treats, and maybe a comic to read, and after half an hour or so we’d walk back across the fields.

  Sometimes, on the road, we’d see a lorry go by and he’d wave at the driver and say, ‘Aye, he’s a good lad. I took him on, back in 1958.’

  Grandpa had been a transport manager at Terry’s chocolate factory in York, one of a number of my family who worked there. My Aunt June, who used to visit every other week and come to stay when we were at Crayke, she’d been personal assistant to Sir Peter Terry himself, and used to bring us home lots of goodies at Christmas and Easter. Like most of their employees, she was very proud of their chocolate, and would tell anybody who cared to listen that it was superior to any of Rowntrees’ products.

  In the pub Grandpa drank Guinness. I only knew that because he told me. He said that when I grew up that’s what I should drink. He said that he owed his long and healthy life to the two pints he’d have on those lunchtime outings.

  Like a lot of older people, Grandpa liked to talk about the past – about steam trains, about horse-drawn days and about how cheap everything used to be when he was a lad.

  But one thing he never talked about – and I always wished he would – was the war. Either war, because he served in both. Like most boys, I wanted to hear about guns and bombs and tanks and fighting from someone who’d actually been there. War was still very much on our minds, and to us lads it all seemed very exciting. When we weren’t playing cowboys and Indians we were pretending to be American soldiers, or British fighter-pilots. We’d act out scenes we’d seen in the old black-and-white films that came on television, sometimes things we’d read about in our comics. I knew that I was seeing exaggerated versions of the real thing, and was dying to ask Grandpa what it was really like to be at war, but Mum had warned me, many times.

  ‘Don’t you ever ask him,’ she’d say. ‘He’d rather forget all about it. He had a terrible time in the trenches.’ And then she’d add, ‘He was a very brave man, your grandfather.’

  She told me that he had medals – seven of them – tucked away in the box he kept on his mantelpiece.

  For years I wondered what they looked like – and what he won them for – but it was never discussed. The little wooden box, lovingly polished, went with him when he entered a care home and took pride of place on his bedside table. We used to visit him, and I always looked at it and wondered, what was the story behind them? As he aged, his mind started to go. It was desperately sad to see, and quite disturbing. I remember the time I went to visit him and he got it into his head that I was a German. I must have grown taller, and with his failing eyesight I suppose he could’ve mistaken me for a grown-up. One minute he was standing up to greet me, the next he had his hands around my throat and it was as if he was trying to strangle me. I think one of the staff stepped in to defuse the situation, but I remained shocked that such a kind and gentle man could seem so determined to do me damage.

  It was only after he died that we were allowed to look at the medals and learn that one of them was awarded for bravery in the field. We’d been to his funeral and brought a few of the relatives back to the house for tea and sandwiches. Everybody was talking about Grandpa and that seemed to prompt Mum to tell us what she knew of his days in uniform.

  In the Great War, as she called it, he joined a cavalry regiment. He’d grown up with working horses, so it seemed the obvious place for him to serve. His job was to ride a horse that was one of a team pulling heavy guns through the mud. He didn’t like the work and felt for the poor animals, having to work so hard in awful conditions, sometimes under bombardment from enemy artillery. At times he’d end up on the front line, hiding in a trench as a barrage opened up. It was in the trenches, Mum told us, that he earned his medal for bravery.

  ‘The way he told it – and he only ever told it once in my hearing – he and his companions were dug in opposite the German lines. They were so close that they could see and hear each other. They actually shouted insults to and fro when there was nothing going on, or sang songs, trying to drown each other out. This one time one of the Germans threw a hand grenade which landed in your Grandpa’s trench, right beside him. He rushed forward and picked it up.’

  ‘What did he do that for?’ I asked.

  ‘So that he could throw it back at them – or at least into No Man’s Land.’

  ‘But wasn’t he scared it’d go off?’

  ‘I should think he was. But he acted without thinking. He always said that that’s how a lot of medals were won – fellows just doing daft things without thinking. If they died, that was that; but if they survived they were heroes. What he did that day saved several lives, or at least a lot of horrible injuries. As it happened, it did explode, just as he released it.’

  ‘Wow. So was he injured?’

  ‘Blinded, and sent to a field hospital.’

  ‘So that makes Grandpa a real hero,’ I said.

  Mum shook her head. ‘He never called himself a hero, and we shouldn’t either. He always insisted that the heroes were the ones who died. He hated the war. Thought it was a terrible business, and that’s why he never talked about it again. Imagine if you’d seen your friends blown to pieces and had to come home without them.’

  I tried, but I found it hard. Still, at the very least it was good to hear a little about Grandpa’s wartime experiences. He may not have liked the word ‘hero’ but now that I knew what had happened I felt very proud of him.

  ‘So what did he do in the Second World War?’ I asked. ‘Did he go back and join the cavalry again?’

  Mum smiled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘There hardly was any cavalry by then. It was nearly all cars and trucks. Besides, he was a married man, too old for normal service. He joined what they call the Home Guard – like Dad’s Army on the television. They had a base at Poppleton. Every night after work he’d hop on his bike and pedal out there to do whatever they did. Training, I suppose. In case we were invaded.’

  I thought for a moment, then said, ‘How come he can see okay when he got blinded by that grenade?’

  ‘Oh, that was just temporary. Whatever they did to him in the hospital they cured him, and he went back into the line with his horses.

  Mum and Dad inherited some money from Grandpa’s will. I don’t know how much, but it was a substantial amount. And, as I said, it helped them with the move out to Crayke.

  As well as that, they sat down and talked about what little luxury they might allow themselves out of the windfall, and decided on a piano. They bought a secondhand upright. None of us could play, but Dad decided he wanted to give it a try. Typically, he didn’t bother with a teacher, just bought a book and sat down and taught himself. That’s the kind of man he was, and he very quickly learnt to play like a professional. Mum was ever so impressed and would constantly praise him – something I don’t think he objected to.

  There was a down-side to the piano, unfortunately. It turned out that there was enough money in Grandpa’s bequest for us children to have lessons. Christine hardly needed them: she was a natural like Dad. I wasn’t. I had no desire to play the thing, but every week we had to walk to the house of a Mrs Cundall. She was what you’d call old school: ruled by the metronome, and not prepared to take any nonsense from a fidgety little boy. It was all about sitting up straight at the piano – ‘and keep those wrists in position, Michael!’ Every time I let them drop I got an old-fashioned reminder, much as you’d dish out to a recalcitrant horse, except that the skin on my forearms was a lot thinner than a horse’s.

  Much as I cherished my memories of Grandpa, and much as I respected him for his deeds
in the war, I often used to wish he’d spent all his money before he died. But I never said that. It would’ve seemed ungrateful – and besides, Mrs Cundall sacked me in the end. She came to the same conclusion I’d come to the very first time we met: I was never going to be a pianist.

  Girls

  ‘Girls.’ Phil said, ‘Take it from me, they’re nothing but trouble.’

  That was pretty ripe, coming from a lad who had a string of girlfriends, and who spent half his spare time in front of the mirror trying to get his hair to behave – or squeezing his spots.

  I remember wondering why he was so bothered about spots. Being eleven years old, and not yet afflicted by acne, I thought they were cool, a sure sign that you were now a man. While he peered into the glass, alternately squeezing and applying dollops of Clearasil, I stood on tiptoes and peered over his shoulder, studying my face, hoping to find a single blackhead I could call my own.

  There’s no doubt about it: having an older brother is a blessing and a curse. You have this idea that they know everything worth knowing, so you pester them, and they tell you things you’re probably too young to hear. Then, when you wind up in trouble, they laugh. I was always trying to worm secrets out of Phil, right up until the time he left home.

  The day would come when I’d tag along with him and try to get served in the Durham Ox, but that was well in the future. At ten and eleven, it was his knowledge of the fair sex that intrigued me. At least, the knowledge he professed to have. To me, he seemed a real man of the world, and I hung on his every word.

  I don’t know when I started taking an interest in girls, but I can say with confidence that it was a very long time ago. In fact, now that I think about it I’m struggling to remember a time when I wasn’t getting distracted by them. My first week at school I came home and told my Mum that the little lass who sat next to me at the dinner table had shiny hair, that she wore a kilt, was very pretty, and that she was my girlfriend.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ she said. ‘Now run along and play, will you?’

  As my first Christmas at school drew near, I sat at the kitchen table and made a card for our form teacher, Miss Dalton. Mum watched with interest, and helped me write my name in block letters, but when I put a row of Xs underneath she made me rub them out.

  ‘Suppose everybody in the class did that,’ she said. ‘Poor Miss Dalton, she’d be smothered.’

  Next day, before assembly, I borrowed a red crayon, scrawled a big red X on the card, and placed it on Miss Dalton’s desk. I was in love with her, and I thought it only right that she should know.

  On average, I fell in love about three times a term, and had my heart broken accordingly. For some reason, the girls just weren’t as keen on me as I was on them. When I tried to chat them up they laughed at me and carried on playing with their skipping ropes and dolls. They seemed to enjoy being chased across the playground – if their shrieks were anything to go by – but whenever you caught one she’d stalk off to her friends and pretend to be outraged. Undaunted, I continued to chase them. And from time to time I did manage to get chatting – not that I really knew what to say. I just knew that I liked being in their company.

  By the time I was in the top class of primary school I was confidently telling people that Julie and I were going out together. I even told Phil when he came up to bed one night. I thought I would impress him. I immediately wished I hadn’t bothered.

  ‘Oh aye,’ he said, ‘so this lass you’re going out with. Where you taking her then?’

  It was a fair question, to which I had no answer. To tell the truth, I hadn’t really thought about what a date consisted of. I chewed it over for a moment or two and said, ‘It’s a secret. I promised not to tell.’

  ‘Gonna take her fishing, are you?’ he taunted me. ‘’Cos you can’t afford to go to the flicks, can you? Eh? Not like me and my girl.’

  Phil had a paper round. Every Saturday he got paid in cash. He loved to jingle all the coins in his pocket or, as now, spread them out on the bed and count them.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘you could say we’re off on a fishing trip tomorrow night.’

  I didn’t speak. It had never occurred to me that you might take a girl fishing. Especially in the dark. It all sounded very grown-up, if not sinister.

  Phil laughed as he scooped up his cash, put it into his pocket and stood up.

  ‘Yep, we’re off to see Jaws. The scariest film ever made. It’s about a man-eating shark. I’ll tell you all about it when we get home.’ He looked down at me. ‘Or maybe not. Don’t want you getting nightmares. Anyway,’ he said, ‘take it from me. You should leave the girls alone. You’ll only get into trouble.’

  I really hated the way my big brother talked down to me as if he knew everything, but it would take more than a bit of sarcasm from him to put me off chasing girls. In fact, my interest intensified year by year – and I soon discovered that Phil was right about one thing. Girls could spell trouble, even when they didn’t mean to. The trouble with Jackie started, strangely enough, with a fishing trip. And it would lead me to the place that so many of my early misadventures took me.

  It was a gorgeous sunny day in late July. I’d just completed my final year in primary school. We’d put on our end-of-year show, said goodbye to our friends – and one or two enemies – and our teacher had wished us all good luck for the future. Yes, the future. Senior school. We were all worried about that, although none of us dared to admit it.

  In any case, right now, with the whole of the summer holidays stretching ahead of us, it seemed a long way in the future. Six whole weeks away. And when you’re eleven years old, six weeks can seem like a very long time indeed. Besides, I was never a great worrier. Let tomorrow look after itself, that’s my motto. And in the meantime, live for the present.

  I’d been to town the previous Saturday and bought a new fishing rod, and I couldn’t wait to try it out. I called on my mate Simon. He liked to fish as well, and we agreed to go down to the River Foss together, to a little spot we knew of just the other side of Stillington. Simon had a big brother too, and it was he who had shown us this little hideaway.

  So there we were, cycling through the village, free-wheeling down the hill, our back-packs bulging with supplies. We had sandwiches, crisps, a bottle of pop apiece, an assortment of sweets, and all our gear: hooks, bait, spare line, a net.

  The entire day was at our disposal. The only constraint on our time was that we had to be back for tea. Neither of us had a watch, but of course in those days you didn’t need one. Maybe it was our stomachs, maybe it was some sixth sense we inherited from our ancestors, but something always seemed to alert us to the fact that it was time to head for home – and somehow we always seemed to arrive just in time to be greeted by the smell of food cooking.

  Home time, however, was far from my mind as I raced Simon through the village that morning, steering my bike with one hand, clasping my new rod under my free arm, the wind blowing through my hair. He’d got a head start on me, but I soon overtook him, almost nudging his shoulder. As he wobbled onto the verge and slammed on his brakes, I laughed aloud. I didn’t have a care in the world.

  Then I saw her.

  Jackie was a year older than me and already in senior school. The rumour was that there were lads in the village aged fourteen and fifteen who’d asked her out. I’d just admired her from afar. But once – and how could I forget it? – once, when I was singing in the choir, I caught her eye and smiled at her. And she smiled back – in fact, I could’ve sworn she winked at me.

  Now here she was in her flared purple trousers, her cheesecloth blouse and sporting a pair of sun-glasses with small, oval lenses. With her long blonde hair she looked like a film-star. She was walking towards me, a vision of loveliness. And she seemed to be waving at me.

  Ask any bloke. It only takes a flicker of the hand, the hint of a smile, and your judgement and good sense go right out of the window. I leaned back on my saddle, took my left hand off the handlebar
and waved back at her – with my brand-new fibre-glass rod. I was just drawing level with her as I hit the pothole. My rod slipped from my grasp, arrowed forward and went straight through the front wheel.

  I’ve heard all sorts of things about what goes through people’s minds when they have accidents. They see their life pass before their eyes. Everything goes slow-motion. They watch themselves as if they’re in a film.

  All I remember was seeing Jackie flapping her hand about once more, just as I took flight over the handlebars, and realising as I somersaulted through the air that she wasn’t trying to attract my attention at all, but was trying to bat a wasp away from her face.

  I was sprawled on my front. My bike lay in the road nearby, the rear wheel spinning. I could taste blood.

  ‘You all right?’ I rolled over and saw Simon standing over me, panting. I didn’t answer.

  Beside him stood the divine Jackie, leaning forward so that her hair fell forward and caressed my cheek. She’d taken off her sunglasses and was staring at my face, puckering up her lips as if she’d just bitten into a sour apple. I shaped my mouth to speak to her, and that’s when I realised that bits of my front teeth were scattered around in my mouth. Whatever it was I was trying to say came out as a blur of mumbled syllables laced with a lot of bloody saliva.

  Seeing me rise to my feet and pick up my bike, Jackie put her sunglasses back on and resumed her progress through the village. Simon helped me home, and Mum arranged a taxi to take me to casualty, where they put a couple of stitches in my lower lip and packed me off to the dentist.

  That night, when Phil got back from town, he looked at my stitches and asked me what had happened. He laughed when I told him.

  ‘See what I mean?’ he said. ‘Girls. They’re nothing but trouble.’