Aunty Lily Read online

  “It must be sick,” concluded Miss Turner, and she lined us up along the fence to watch what was going to happen. The cow rather than looking sick, however, frisked and frolicked around the field with an abandon similar to that of Miss Turner’s bosoms. The vet’ and the farmer started to gesticulate wildly, and though we couldn’t hear clearly what they were saying, it was obvious to me they wanted us gone. It may have been that the distance was too great or she couldn’t see properly because of the sun shining into her eyes, but Miss Turner obviously neither saw nor heard and instead of leading us away, responded with an enthusiastic, but inappropriate, “Hallooooo!”

  The two men, anxious to be about the business at hand, shrugged and walked back to the horse box. Miss Turner was well known in the village for her unusual educational methods. They must have decided she knew what she was doing. Then the vet’ opened the trailer door while the farmer cautiously undid the five-barred, wooden gate. The bull, a huge animal of staggering proportions, charged out of the trailer with such force that the gate was knocked out the farmer’s hands and flew open wide. I stared hard at that gate—it was the first gate I had seen all year, and I recognized it instantly. It was a five barred, wooden wicket gate. Instantly, I gathered my wits about me and kept my eyes fastened on Interpreter, for that’s who I knew it to be. Interpreter thundered into the field and stood heaving and snorting, steam shooting from both nostrils, his tail lashing backwards and forwards in an agitated manner. The effect on the cow was immediate. She set up a bellowing the like of which I had never heard before. It was guttural and primal. The effect on Miss Turner was also immediate. She, too, let out a cry that was both guttural and primal, and for the first time that year her bosoms were perfectly still. They sat rigidly to attention, as O. Henry would say, like “two setters at the scent of a quail.2” Then I remembered my position of responsibility. I turned to Sylvia ready to catch her when she fainted, but there was no need. For the first time that year her eyes were shining and her cheeks were an unusually healthy pink!

  Then the bull charged after the cow, dust and grass flying. The cow set off in a half hearted attempt at escape. The bull reared again and again as the cow swerved and jumped and frolicked, seemingly oblivious to any threat the bull may have posed. There was no doubt in our minds just who was in charge in this game. The bull bellowed in frustration and when it seemed he was ready to burst, the cow dug in all four hoofs and stood stock still. The bull, unable to contain his momentum, crashed into her rear end in an undignified manner. Unperturbed, he managed to rear up once more and this time his front hoofs rested squarely on the back of the now cooperative cow.

  “Bull’s eye!” Mr. Johnson roared, and as quickly as the whole thing started, it ended with the bull following on the cow’s heels like a lamb that had narrowly escaped the slaughter.

  “That’ll give ‘em something to write about,” yelled the farmer this time cupping his mouth with both hands.

  Miss Turner, rendered incapable of speech for the moment, managed only to smile weakly. She relaxed her grip on the fence and her bosoms dropped back into their usual position where they rolled dreamily around her middle like waves gently lapping against the shore. We stood in line once more and thoughtfully followed the ebb and flow of their tide. When we reached the street, Miss Turner seemed to revive. “Let’s sing!” she cried. This was unusual, but a song did seem necessary to relieve the tension that still gripped the orderly line.

  Glad that I live am I;

  That the sky is blue;

  Glad for the country lanes,

  and the fall of dew.

  After the sun, the rain,

  After the rain, the sun;

  This is the way of life,

  ‘Till the work be done.3

  The postmaster waved to us out the post-office window, pedestrians stopped to laugh and stare, but my heart beat in time with the rhythm of our singing. To think that I had seen the wicket gate and of all places in Farmer Johnson’s field! I threw it open wide amazed at how easy it was. I looked down Thurmaston Main Street where I could see the small cross on the top of the school, and I felt the weight of my burden fall effortlessly from my back. The sunlight flashed off Miss Turner’s glasses surrounding me in golden raiment.

  As we filed in through the main entrance of the school and went by the headmaster’s study, I saw the commemorative brass plate on the wall. I read the inscription clearly and loudly: “Thurmaston Church of England Primary School, established in 1844 by the Thurmaston Parish Council.” I was amazed at how obedient the letters were. Miss Turner smiled and as we passed by the other first form classroom where they were still laboring over their readers, Miss Turner changed the song and we filed into our classroom singing “Onward Christian Soldiers.” I sat in my seat a Christian ready to set off with all the other Christians toward our own individual Celestial Cities.

  * * *

  1 From John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress, London, 1678.

  2 From The Gift of the Magi, written by O. Henry, (William S. Porter), 1905.

  3 From the hymn “The Wayside Lute” by Lizette W. Reese, 1909.

  A Real Friend

  FOR THE PURPOSES OF SPORTS DAY at our primary school, the village was divided into two factions: the North and the South. The scrappy, working class kids lived in the North and those children who rose to the dizzy heights of the middle classes lived in the South. We Northerners occasionally won our sporting events by using sheer grit and determination—and by cheating when we could get away with it. The blue ribbon identifying those of us from the North and the red for the South were largely superfluous; we Northerners wore our ragged school PE uniforms and holey plimsoles, flimsy, insubstantial canvas shoes, while those from the South sported brand new shorts, red T shirts, and real athletic shoes—some even wore spikes. Despite our occasional cheating, we never really stood a chance.

  We also formed our friendships as if an invisible line had been drawn down the middle of the village—those of us who lived in the predominantly government-owned council houses that made up the bulk of the North rarely made friends with those from the South, who lived in detached houses and bungalows, which their parents actually owned and where they grew flowers instead of potatoes.

  However, when I was ten and in my final year in primary school, the impossible occurred. Diane Giannopoulos, who heralded from the South, looked upon me with something resembling kindness and invited me to tea after school! Dianne Giannopoulos was a small, dark-skinned, brown-eyed somber girl whose dark silky hair was cut all one length that ended in a straight line just below her ears. To keep it from falling across her face, she wore a partial pony tail tied at the side of her head by a large, brown satin bow. Though unremarkable in many ways, she was surrounded by an aura of hopeless sophistication. This was on account of the fact that her mother and father were divorced—which would have been a scandal had not her father—a wealthy, mysterious foreigner—left the family well provided for. Diane and her mother still lived in their large detached house that had an automatic washing machine and a telephone, forms of technology that would take years to arrive on Charnwood Avenue where I lived.

  At my house, Diane’s invitation was heralded by total disbelief, and on the day of the tea party necessitated a great deal of early morning scrubbing until I glowed an unhealthy salmon pink. The night before, my mother had set out a freshly laundered white shirt—usually one did for the entire week—and she brushed and ironed my navy blue pleated skirt—a hand-me-down worn shiny by years of use.

  The event exceeded all my expectations. When we arrived, Diane’s mother had just come out of the bath tub—at four o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon! In my family, all six of us—one after the other beginning with my parents—shared the same bath water once a week on Saturday nights so that in the unlikely event we might decide to go to church the next morning we would not be found wanting. Not only that, but Diane’s mother wore a skimpy, bright red dressing gown made of some sort
of silky material that barely reached to her knees and failed to disguise the fact that she was completely naked beneath. By contrast, my mother always wore a thick, flannel affair that succeeded in concealing the fact that she was human let alone there might be a female body beneath it.

  Mrs. Giannopoulos’s eyes flickered over me from top to toe, taking in the frayed cuffs of my now ink-stained shirt and shiny skirt, and emitted an exasperated sigh. Then, with a dismissive wave of her cigarette, she bade us wash our hands while she disappeared into the kitchen.

  The bathroom was a revelation: pearly white tiled walls, thick, plush bathroom mats that swallowed my feet as hungrily as sinking sand, and a low, pink—pink!—toilet, on which my granddad might have been able to lower himself but never get back up again. It had a matching a pink hand basin and bath tub. In my mind, I contrasted the tiny delicate toilet to our monstrous lav’ with its black water tank on the wall above and long chain and handle for flushing—technology we considered revolutionary compared to the outhouses we had been used to. But most shocking of all: there was no evidence to suggest that someone had just taken a bath, which meant that they had two bathrooms! For a moment, I could hardly take in the magnitude of this alien reality! Recovering only slightly, I washed my hands and followed Diane to what she called the dining room where we sat down to eat.

  Mrs. Giannopoulos arrived carrying a large tray—she hadn’t even bothered to get dressed to prepare the tea! I was dizzy with delight!

  Then, rendered speechless, I gazed open-mouthed at the food she had prepared: tinned spaghetti on toast and as many Kit-Kat® bars, still wrapped in their silver foil and orange wrappers, as we wanted for dessert—store bought luxuries which we Blount kids raised on solid, home made fare coveted with almost a biblical passion. I gazed longingly at the mountain of sweet temptation and resisted a momentary impulse to stuff a few chocolate bars into my school satchel! They would hardly be missed.

  Remembering my manners, I recovered somewhat and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Giannopoulos.” The words did the breast stroke in the pond that had gathered in my mouth. Mrs. Giannopoulos gave another dismissive wave of her cigarette and disappeared into the hallway where soon she began to murmur and laugh quietly into the telephone.

  I waited until Dianne picked up her knife and fork and watched as, with an air of studied indifference, she cut off a tiny piece of toast and popped it disinterestedly into her mouth. I tried to follow her example, but I was already a lost cause. One delicious tangy whiff of tomato sauce thrust all notion of polite restraint aside. Grabbing my knife and fork, I bent my head to the task and shoveled in great mounds of toast and spaghetti one after the other until only a few singed crumbs and a smear of orange sauce remained. With a sigh of satisfaction, I sat back in my chair and looked at Diane, who was staring at me with a sort of horrified fascination.

  “I didn’t have much lunch,” I smiled sheepishly, noting that she had hardly eaten a thing.

  As if she couldn’t imagine it possible I could eat another morsel, she announced, “We’ll have dessert later,” and for a moment I was bereft.

  “We’re going outside to play,” she informed her mother.

  Another dismissive wave of the cigarette and an admonition not to get dirty sent us on our way.

  The back garden consisted of a neat lawn as smooth as green velvet surrounded by a wide spacious border of blooming flowers. It was dominated by a towering tree that sheltered a small, neat play house. A garden shed, looking almost as neat as the little house, hid behind a flowering bush.

  “Let’s climb the tree,” I yelled.

  “I’m not allowed to climb trees,” Diane declared, as if that settled the matter.

  “Oh.”

  “We’ll play dress up!” Diane insisted in such a way I knew I had little choice in the matter.

  I groaned when I saw the array of fairy princess dresses that hung on tiny hooks inside the play house. In no time at all, Diane transformed herself into a yellow princess, and then with a firm efficiency that fairly took my breath away, she grabbed a pink confection and thrust it over my head. Before I knew what had happened, I was a fairy. A gold tiara completed my humiliation—and I wished that the privet hedge surrounding the garden was a little taller to keep prying eyes away.

  Diane pretended to prepare tea and poured it into the diminutive china cups upon the small table. I sat my oversized self in the undersized chair and did my best to appear as if I were enjoying myself—as Diane evidently was. But, after sipping numerous cups of air, even she began to lose interest. “Let’s play something else,” I suggested. “Do you have any stilts?”

  Diane looked startled. “No.”

  “What about snobs or marbles?”

  “No.”

  “How about conkers?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind!” I wracked my brains. Then, remembering the smooth, green lawn, I suggested, “We could play stretch if I’d brought my knife.”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I bet there’s one in the shed. My daddy left all his tools behind.” She ran off to investigate and returned flushed with success and handed me a substantial pocket knife. Though it was somewhat stiff, I managed to open up the impressive blade. Then, still dressed as fairies, we skipped across the grass.

  Diane had a momentary hesitation. “I’m not sure my mother would approve of playing with knives,” she said, glancing nervously toward the house.

  I thought to myself that none of the kids in my neighborhood would approve of my fairy outfit either, but I didn’t say that. “Has she ever said you can’t play stretch?”

  “Well, no but . . .”

  “Well, then, there’s no problem. It’s fun. You’ll see.”

  I showed her how to hold the knife and throw it in such a way that it stuck into the velvet lawn. She tried it a few times, seeming to enjoy the weight of the knife and the satisfying sound it made when the blade sank into the soil. “Not bad!” I exclaimed and she beamed.

  I explained the rules of the game, which were simple. We had to stand facing one another and taking turns throw the knife just a few inches to the right or left of one another’s foot, and then we had to remove the knife and move our foot to that spot. If the knife failed to stick into the ground, you didn’t have to move your foot. If you threw the knife too far, you lost that turn, and if you threw it too close, you might lose a toe, but nobody ever had.

  Gradually, our feet would get further and further apart until we couldn’t stretch any more and one of us would fall down, which meant you lost the game. We began to play and for a first timer, Diane was doing brilliantly. Thoroughly engrossed in the game, she gripped the knife and threw it as if her life depended on it. Only once or twice did the knife fail to stick into the ground.

  Soon, both our feet were getting wider and wider apart, and we were both wobbling dangerously. Diane was laughing out loud—something I’d never heard her do before. “This is fun!” she cried as she threw the knife with deadly accuracy to within an inch of my right foot.

  “Watch it. Not too close!” But I couldn’t help laughing, too. I pulled out the knife, covered the place with my foot, and started to wobble in earnest. Diane laughed even louder, but then I had my turn and she, too, was struggling to stay upright. Suddenly, quick as a whippet, she shot forward and pushed me over. As I went down, I took hold of the big, brown satin bow in her hair and gave it a tug. With her hair spilling over her face, she fell down on top of me. We went rolling away from the knife, across the lawn, a human barrel of pink and yellow tulle and navy blue serge, and across the flowery border into the dirt.

  Heedless of our fairy outfits or of our school uniforms beneath, we grabbed handfuls of dirt and lobbed them at one another. Diane was laughing so hard, she started to hiccup, which made us laugh even harder. At last, we managed to stop laughing and lay on our backs, wondering what to do next. But, before we could decide, we heard a frightening shriek.

  “Diana, Alexandra Ariana Giannopoul
os! What on earth do you think you are doing?”

  Diane shot up like a singed cat and tried to brush the dirt from her clothes and the hair from her face. Mrs. Giannopoulos then looked at the knife, which was still stuck into the ground as if into a corpse. Horrified, she grabbed the red silk of her bath robe at the neck as if I were about to plunge the knife into her chest. “It’s time you went home,” she hissed in a thin, steely voice, which my mum could never emulate, even on one of her worst days. “Diana, come into the house . . . now!” With a toss of her beautiful head, Mrs. Giannopoulos marched back into the house, a blister of red rage.

  We stood up and helped one another remove the fairy princess dresses and the dirt as best we could.

  “I’m sorry, Diane,” I muttered as I handed her the hair ribbon.

  “I think it might be best if you slipped out the side gate,” whispered Diane. “It’ll be safer that way! Come to the front door and I’ll bring your satchel.”

  I agreed this was a good idea, and as I made my way back to the front of the house, I stooped beneath the level of the hedge as a precautionary measure. After some time, Diane appeared; I noticed the hair ribbon was back in place. I took my satchel and turned to go, but Diane touched my arm, “I had a good time!” she said, and then as an after thought she added, “Perhaps, next time I could come to your house.”

  I looked at her. “That’s a good idea,” I agreed . . . but we both knew it could never happen. “See ya,” I said.

  “See ya.”

  As I started off down the road, I threw the satchel over my shoulder, which seemed heavier than I remembered, but I waited until I had put some distance between me and Mrs. Giannopoulos before I fumbled with the buckles. When I looked inside, I saw that Diane had filled it to the brim with Kit-Kat bars. I was impressed! Now that’s what I call a real friend, I thought to myself as I tore ravenously into the first bar. Then, munching happily I set my face toward the north, which was, after all, where I belonged.