And the yellowhammers? They were in those final hedges, nests of them, with their exquisitely scribbled-on eggs, which I, definitely, and Brian or Trevor, probably, took, carried home, pierced with a pin, blew, labelled and transferred at the last into another nest of fluffed-out cotton wool. In a shoebox.
But the thing is, not the bluebells or the yellowhammers (so much for a title) or the unlikely pram even. The thing is: how did we know where to go? And so unerringly. Our ages were ten and nine and nine, and eight and six, say, five, possibly … and a baby. I only remember going once. Nobody, as I recall, led the way. We simply went. It seems to me now we were like wildebeest or spawning salmon. No maps or adult guidance, just a current of prior knowledge flowing through us, or printed in us, like the lettering in a stick of rock.
And that’s it, maybe. I might only remember going once, but I’d been before, I bet, as a four-year-old, or the baby even, in the pram. Our parents, uncles, cousins, grandparents would have made the trip in earlier times, before the road was a dual carriageway, before the park was a park, before the golf course was ever dreamed of.
Well, the golf course has shrunk now, encroached upon by houses, the Merrivale is boarded up, the New Wolverhampton Road showing its age. But is the trail still there? Did the baby on his own two feet go again? Did his baby? And might a ghostly tribe of shaven-headed boys and pig-tailed girls come meandering (yet purposefully) along through people’s gardens, backyards, hallways, once a year in May or early June, along the golf-course streets with sections of surviving hedgerows (no yellowhammers). A ghostly tribe plus pram exercising, quite rightfully, their right of way?
Old Soap
Begin at the beginning
Old soap in a cup
Hot water from the kettle
And a spoon to stir it up.
A soup of soap, slimy and green, like frogspawn, like snot. A clay pipe that, more often than not, produced when blown a myriad of tiny bubbles and a noise like a clucking hen. It was difficult to isolate one bubble and enlarge it. Better a ring of wire, like half a pair of glasses. (The old soap, its sharp incisions, its name, its decorations, worn away. The old cup, chipped, no handle, demoted.) Then, out of the slime – a butterfly from its chrysalis – a larger bubble, wobbly and iridescent. Or perhaps, when you are very little, someone else is blowing them, casting them adrift for you to chase across the grimy yard, between the houses and the wash houses, the washing lines and dustbins. Yes, I see it now, those floating bubbles, some caught and splattered between my chubby hands, others escaping, rising, losing their mirrored sheen, becoming at the last mere empty circles in the air. Above the wash-house roofs and upturned faces. And going (end at the end), an instantaneous annihilation. Pop.
Brierley Hill
Once a month on a Sunday
When the town was slow and still
I went with my mournful mother
On a bus to Brierley Hill.
I had my Sunday suit on
And knew I must behave
As we rode on the upper deck
To Auntie Mabel’s grave.
The whole world died on Sundays
Back then as I recall
Shops shuttered, factories dumb
You could not kick a ball.
We carried a bunch of flowers
Chrysanths, I remember the smell
A pair of scissors to cut the stalks
Some cleaning cloths as well.
The cemetery was small and high
You could see halfway to Clent
Gravestones angled like giant teeth
Discoloured and bent.
Mum did a bit of weeding
Removed dead flowers from the pot
The marble pot (named Mabel)
Gone but not forgot.
My job was to fetch the water
And carry it up to the grave
And not put my hands in my pockets
Or whistle, or misbehave.
But the thing I really remember
Is the squealing that filled the air
From Marsh & Baxter’s factory
And the pigs imprisoned there.
Yes, the whole world died on Sundays
And the pigs they were not dumb
They squealed for their lives disappearing
And the sausages they’d become.
It surely did upset me
Scare me, that echoing sound
Far worse than the lurching gravestones
Or the bodies underground.
I was glad when we departed
And hurried off down the hill
And caught the bus back to Oldbury
Where the town was slow and still.
The Clothes Horse
A wooden frame like a folded fence
Or a windbreak, three feet high
It stands in the kitchen on winter nights
With the washing spread out to dry.
And into that steamy tent I creep
And under that 60-watt sun
I spy on the enemy’s forces
And pick them off with my gun.
My hair’s slicked flat, my cheeks are pink
My face has an apple’s shine
The rest of the room is Mum and Dad’s
But the clothes-horse space is mine.
And under these billowing sheets I sail
Over those rag-rug waves
To islands of parrots and pirates
Palm trees and treasure caves.
My dad sits painting a soldier
My mum sits darning a sock
The fire shuffles down in the fireplace
Time ticks by in the clock.
And I sit tight in the clothes horse
Where the socks and the palm trees sway
Directing my soldiers and shipmates
Hard at work at my play.
The radio talks in the corner
Just William, ITMA, news
Mum pours tea from the teapot
Dad cleans a pair of shoes.
A wooden frame like a folded fence
Or a deckchair on its side
With laundered flags a-fluttering
And room for a boy to hide.
The air has a soapyish flavour
A freshly ironed smell
While our lives shuffle down in the kitchen
I remember the embers … well.
I do remember the clothes horse, almost more than any other domestic item from my childhood (except, possibly, the mangle). I could have called this whole book The Clothes Horse, had I not used the title already for a previous collection of stories. When Jessica was small, she once asked Janet what a ‘jackpot’ was. She had heard it on the radio. I came in in the middle of their conversation and contributed.
Yes, well, y’see, there was this giant who had a problem with boys named Jack. They were forever creeping up to his house, hiding behind the milk bottles, getting into his slippers, pestering his wife. So, finally, the exasperated giant had an idea. He got a big pot and put it in the kitchen next to the fridge. After that, whenever he or his wife or their small (fourteen-foot) son came upon a Jack, they’d pick him up and drop him into the pot. Each evening the giant would stroll down the garden and empty the pot at the far end, which from the Jacks’ point of view was about fifteen miles away.
Jessica appeared content with this explanation. I, for my part, was (briefly) overjoyed with it. Look what I had stumbled on! The language itself was full to overflowing with words and phrases like The Jack Pot that contained, had folded up within them so to speak, entire stories. Night Train, Fire Escape, No Man’s Land, Car Park, The Shadow Chancellor. It was an oil well, a gold mine. I could write one a week for years. Well, in the finish I wrote, let’s see, all told a dozen or more, and published ten. And the first of them, inevitably I now feel, was:
THE CLOTHES HORSE
Once upon a time a magician made a horse out of clothes. He used two pairs of trousers for the legs, two pairs of shoes
for the feet, a mac for the back and a tie for the tail. The head was made from a large sock, with buttons for eyes and a painted mouth. The magician cheated a little with the ears, however. They were cut out of felt and sewn on.
Well, the truth is this horse didn’t look too much like a horse, when you got close to him, which I suppose was only to be expected. All the same, he had been put together by a magician, and could therefore gallop and neigh and eat his bag of oats with the best of them.
For a time the horse found himself a job pulling a milkman’s cart; this was in the old days, before they had milk-floats. But he soon got bored with this and ran away (galloped away, I should say). The milkman didn’t mind too much, however. He was bored with being a milkman. And the magician wasn’t bothered either. He was occupied just then making a cat out of bottle tops.
Well, the horse ran away, and – to cut a long story short (or a short one shorter) – had his trousers stolen by a couple of tramps whose own trousers had worn out. His mac was taken by a little girl who wanted to make a tent with it. His tie was ‘borrowed’ by a man who couldn’t get into a restaurant unless he was wearing one; and his sock was removed by another man (with a wooden leg) who was getting married.
Anyway, by this time there was not too much left of the horse. (There isn’t too much left of the story either.) For a little while he did try walking around (or trotting, I should say) in just his shoes. But he only felt silly doing this, and besides it often scared people (dogs, too) to see four shoes coming down the road with nobody in them. They thought it was a ghost – no, two ghosts!
So, finally, one bright and sunny morning the horse stepped out of his shoes and completely disappeared. Then he thought to himself: This must be the end of me! And it was.
Well, perhaps not entirely the end, if the truth be known. He was still there after all; you just couldn’t see him. Anyway, what happened later (this is really another story, but I will tell it all the same), what happened later was this: The horse went back to haunt the magician and play tricks on the bottle-top cat. And after that he had the clever idea of stealing washing. He stole two pairs of pyjama bottoms, a couple of blankets, another sock, a sun hat … and so on. Finally, so I’ve heard, he got a job on the stage – pantomimes, mostly. Perhaps you have seen him. Of course, some people think he is really just two men dressed up as a horse. There again, you and I know better, don’t we?fn1
The Depths of the Painting
I can see it from where I sit. It is a proper painting – in a frame. An old man on a horse. A little girl and a little boy also on the horse. The old man has a sword. There are some ducks – and reeds – and a river. The little girl looks worried. The little boy looks worrieder.
He is a knight, Miss Palmer says. Sir Isumbras. He is saving the children. The picture is Sir Isumbras at the Ford, which is a shallow part of the river (not a car), Miss Palmer says, where you may cross.
I cross. I leave my seat and cross. And enter the picture. The ducks fly up, the reeds bend, the water splashes. The fish … the horse. We need another horse; four on a horse is too many. A pony, a pony like Ice-cream Jack’s, or I could have a bike. I could have armour, golden like Sir Isumbras’s. And a sword.
I made a sword once from a chestnut paling and the lid of a powdered-milk tin. I could use that. My pony’s name is … Billy.
Where the pools are bright and deep
Where the grey trout lies asleep
Up the river and over the lea
That’s the way for Billy and me.
I learnt this poem for Recitation. In my report it says: ‘Recitation – marks out of 20 – 19; position in class – 7’. It also says: ‘Writing – 14 out of 20, position in class 41; Craft – 9 out of 20, position in class 51’.
I help Sir Isumbras. He gives me jobs. I can be the lookout, or I can gallop off and fetch things. On the other side of the river or round a bend there will be a castle. I can gallop off there with a message. Billy and me. Miss Palmer is speaking. Allan, she says. And asks me something. Now I am worried. I need Sir Isumbras to save me too. I shrivel in my seat. Hands raised up, around me and against me. What’s the answer? What’s the answer? What’s the question? I come out of the picture.
‘Allan could do much better,’ Miss Palmer writes in my school report (for the half-year ending December 1946). ‘He is most inattentive and dreamy at times.’
I am not inattentive. I am attentive. For instance, now, aeons later (for the half-year ending December 2011), I attentively google Sir Isumbras and see him for the first time in sixty-five years. I observe now that he looks worried. (It’s a big responsibility, taking care of children. My child is thirty-two; my stepchildren, twenty-six and twenty.) I google Sir Isumbras at the Ford by Sir John Everett Millais (1829–96). The girl is bigger than I remembered, the boy has a bundle of sticks on his back. There are no ducks; they must have flown in from the park, or I made them up. No evidence either of my presence in the picture, my passage through it, up the river and over the ford. No telltale pony’s hoof prints or home-made sword abandoned in the reeds. But a sleeping trout, perhaps, who knows, down there in the painting’s hidden depths.
The Pillowcase
Christmas came in a pillowcase. How old was I when I first knew what to do? Three, four? My main duty was to endure the passage of time. How long was the day before Christmas Eve? How long was Christmas Eve itself? Time, of course, as we all learn, accelerates with life, rushes off with us at the end. But it does so from a standing start. Three-year-olds creep like snails through their days. Baby time is geological.
Our house (on Cemetery Road), two down, three up, outside lavatory and wash house, had no heating in its upstairs rooms. There was a chilly dampness there. On winter nights my mother put a hot shelf from the oven wrapped in a towel in my bed to warm it up. It was at first too hot to rest my feet on. The bedroom curtains were thin, light seeped in from the street. There was a rag rug on the floor, shiny lino.
So … I would get up and creep on to the landing, far too early. Sounds from the kitchen below: the wireless, voices, clattering cups. I’d return to bed, sleep and wake again. The hot plate is cold, the lino cold, the street lamp out, the darkness pitch. And yet … there, out on the landing, glowing as if from an inner source of light, is the pillowcase. I drag it back into the room, heave it on to the bed. What time is it? Three o’clock, three-thirty, four? I put the light on and unwrap my treasures: a Bakelite cowboy on a horse, a wind-up car, model soldiers – shop-bought, perhaps, or home-made – a kit for making cotton-reel tanks, a box of games: Ludo, Snakes and Ladders. No books, as I recall. Sweets and nuts. An orange.
I can remember, from out of those slow-moving times, particular and special gifts. A mouth organ in its own red lacquered box lined with green velvet. A toy fort complete with matchstick-firing cannon. A miniature gramophone with matching records: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, ‘Some day my prince will come’ … ‘Heigh-ho, heigh-ho!’ The enduring memory, though, and the source of this short piece, is none of these, or their unwrapping even. No, it’s that first glimpse on the landing, the mysterious shape, and all my little heart and soul swept up, consumed, in the discovery of it.
Trapdoors in the Grass
My head in a towel, my wet hair being dried. The barber is as old as me, or thereabouts. He dries my hair the way my mother did, but not so roughly. He even dries inside my ears as she did. When I was little, the towel enveloped me. Tin bath in front of the fire, pyjamas warming on the oven door, soap in a cup.
My mother was a cleaner, of offices and other people’s houses and me. She did a thorough job, beating back the tide of dirt that ever sought to claim her precious son. Screwing one corner of the skinny towel into my ears, like a bradawl.
My mother’s cleaning jobs opened up new worlds for us: posher houses, gardens, garages. The daughter of one family she cleaned for, Cecilia her name was, Cecilia, such a flowing, such a romantic name; aristocratic. Ce-ci-li-a. And her brother was my a
ge and size. Now and then I’d inherit one of his unwanted but still-wearable shirts, thin pretty stripes, or a jumper of the softest wool. Otherwise my jumpers were home-made, hand-knitted by my mum or Auntie Mabel. My hands manacled, yes, handcuffed by the skeins of Auntie Mabel’s wool.
Another posh person was Mr Griffin, the insurance man (collar and tie, waistcoat, briefcase), calling once a week to collect his money, accumulating his heavy load of shillings, sixpences and pennies. The smoke from his pipe often arrived before he did. He had a bald head with a semicircular fringe of hair, like my present barber, and for that matter his two barber sons, here now at their respective chairs, left and left again of their father. A bald trio of barbers … my head in a towel … the memorable aroma of Mr Griffin’s pipe.
When my mother was old and I was middle-aged, I would visit her in her council bungalow high up on the Rounds Green Hills. She would stand behind me (like the barber now) as I sat in a chair and tap lightly with her knuckles on the top of my head, sounding me out like a coconut or a boiled egg. ‘Where’s it all come from then?’ she’d ask. Meaning all those children’s books I was writing. Good, bad or indifferent they may have been, but there were a lot of them. It was a puzzle to her, how I had turned out. And she’d pretend to open me up, lift my lid, look inside.
There’s a flash of light, caught on a windscreen in the street outside, bouncing about in the barber’s mirror, fractured in its bevelled edges, rainbowed. The shop-window lettering, reversed and reversed again in the mirror, out of sense and back into it.
And I recall the trapdoors in the grass. In the park. Cut with Billy Harold’s penknife, three sides and the fourth for a hinge. Lift the lid and look inside. A little cavity, treasures hidden – toy soldier, marble, penny – and returned to later, rediscovered. I bet we lost a few things, though, forgot their whereabouts. There again, the park is still there with its descendant grass. I could go back and look.
The Bucket Page 2