Aunty Lily Read online

  Gone Fishing

  ONE RARE, SUN DRENCHED SUMMER in the memory of childhood, the school holidays arrived with a promise of fish the size of lorries4. Rumor had it that Barky Brook was running dry and fish were just lying in the muddy water ripe for the picking. So, the first day we planned a bike ride to the brook to see for ourselves. In case the rumors were true, we took buckets to accommodate the size of the fish. At the time, we were ten and eleven years old and usually we fished with small nets we made out of old stockings—we kept our fish in jam jars where they eventually died. Visions of big fish made us greedy, and we harbored no other thought than to capture as many as we could.

  Early in the morning, we set off—there was Clueless, long and skinny, buck-toothed and amiable; Dez, dangerous and carrying within him the anger that would later explode into a criminal record; Needy Nealey, red-haired, freckle-faced and lost; Snot—juicy, green and forgiven; and Currant, whose last name was Bun. For some reason long since forgotten, they called me Boz—I was the only girl in their gang because I could beat them all at marbles.

  We headed towards the iron train bridge, tin buckets hanging on our handlebars, announcing our mission in a volley of clangs. We pumped uphill to the bridge, muscles roaring their protestations in slicing pains that we ignored. Then, down the other side, we released our agony in whooping cries that were devoured by the roaring wind. Down, down, down, our eyes blinded by tears, we hurtled toward Potter’s farm where danger lurked. Our whooping cries became a taunting chant, “Black bugger, black bugger!”

  Flying on mechanical birds, we were flung by gravity into harm’s way. In a torrent of snarls, Blackie, Potter’s vicious little terrier, shot out from the farmyard all bristling hair and flashing teeth.

  “Black bugger, black bugger!” we continued our chant, and then in a single choreographed movement, we lifted our feet from the pedals and raised our legs up and out into wings that carried us above the teeth, the hair, and the rage.

  We were clear to the other side and beyond when a cry rang out, “Ahhhh, you black bugger!” The flashing teeth had caught the cuff of Snot’s trousers. Blackie’s body streamed out from Snot’s leg, a perpendicular streak of fury. Leaning at a dangerous angle, Snot attempted to compensate for the weight of the dog, which hung on despite being beaten again and again by the demented swinging of the bucket. Dez, who was in the lead, whipped around and drew alongside the dog. With a deft kick he caught Blackie on the rump. Yelping, the dog released its grip and sailed into the air before landing in a dusty heap on its back.

  “Black bugger, black bugger,” we laughed as we sped off in a noisy din of heartless triumph.

  At a more leisurely pace, we spread out—lords of the road—careless of our safety and oblivious to the rights of motorists. When we crested Cricketer’s Hill, once more we formed a single line and with heads bent forward we flew like projected missiles from cricketers’ bats down the steep incline. Rounding the corner at the bottom, we shot into the intersection causing an egg lorry to swerve dangerously. Its honking horn hailed our arrival in Barkby where the brook, fat with fish, awaited.

  Eventually, we left the meandering main road that wound its way through the village and followed the dirt trail by Turpin’s farm which led to the brook. Here we abandoned our bicycles and, grabbing the handles of our buckets, clambered toward the bush-tangled banks where we discovered that the brook was dry. All that remained was a long smear of cracked mud.

  “We’re too late,” murmured Currant.

  “Don’t be daft,” spat Dez. “We need to go to the deepest part of the brook to find the fish. That’s where they’ll be.”

  “Under the bridge!” yelled Currant.

  “To the bridge! To the bridge!” we all yelled dramatically.

  “Shhsssh!” warned Dez—as if we were engaged in some sort of illicit activity.

  As we struggled along the dry streambed in silence, every now and then the cracked surface gave way and our feet disappeared into the foul-smelling mud beneath. Whenever this happened, Dez sniggered.

  Soon, a rank odor of sweet slime and rotting fish filled our nostrils—perhaps we were too late, but no one dared say anything. Dez led the way and as we rounded the corner, we heard him utter a low, sibilant sound. The old bridge, cracked and dried out in the merciless heat, arched above the disaster below as if lifting its brick skirt above the rotting filth that lurked beneath. Dez edged closer, stepping carefully on the green, slippery rocks and disappeared into the fetid gloom under the bridge.

  Carefully, we edged along by the wall, which was still slimy and damp in places, until we came to the middle where the water used to be deepest—where in summers past we used to swim, where in summers past we took an old tin bath tub and sailed it like a boat out of the darkness and down the shallow rapids of the brook. We didn’t know back then what size of creatures lurked beneath, but here they were stranded as we had hoped. To us they seemed huge—the biggest catfish we’d ever seen. They were be-whiskered and bewildered, flopping and gasping in mud they had once called friend.

  “We’ll need water,” hissed Dez.

  “Turpin’s farm,” Clueless reminded us in a whisper. “There’s a tap inside the yard.”

  It didn’t take us long to fill our buckets and return, eager to begin our plunder.

  The first to begin, Dez grabbed the biggest fish with both hands and hoisted it high into the air as though at last he had found himself the victor at the end of a long and honorable struggle. Dressed in its armor of mud, the black fish opened and closed it great gaping mouth in silent shouts of protest. Dez plopped it into his bucket where it performed a series of pirouettes before coiling around and around in a desperate attempt to keep its whiskery head submerged.

  And then with animal cries that Dez didn’t attempt to silence, we fell to looting and pillaging. Clueless got a grand-daddy he reckoned was at least a foot long, a gross exaggeration, but still bigger than anything we’d ever caught before. Needy managed to find two decent sized six-inchers, I snagged a beauty of about eight inches, and we all laughed at Snot who ended up with a tiddler no more than four inches long.

  Laughing and slipping, muddied and smelly, we carried our plunder heedless of the water that leaped from our buckets onto the parched ground. When we reached our bicycles, we hung the buckets onto the handlebars. The logistics of riding our bicycles with such heavy buckets had not occurred to us until then, but it didn’t take us long to find a solution. If we pointed our knees outward and leaned a little to one side, we could manage to pedal and clear the hanging buckets which banged rhythmically against the metal frames of our bikes. In single file, we made our tortuous way along the dirt path by Turpin’s Farm and onto the long country road that wound through the village.

  When we came to Cricketer’s Hill our spirits and strength gave out. We stopped trying to pedal our over-laden bicycles, and instead we got off and pushed them while our buckets swung back and forth creating small tidal waves that splashed a steaming trail down the dusty road. It was mid-day and the sun beat down mercilessly upon our exposed heads. Currant was sweating profusely and his face had turned beyond bright red to puce. As Clueless pushed his bicycle upwards, he leaned forward so much his skinny body formed a parallel line with the road.

  “I can’t go on,” gasped Needy, and groaning loudly, we all agreed.

  Dez glared at us menacingly, “Stop complaining, you bloody weaklings, or I’ll give you something to complain about.”

  We never knew what would set Dez off but after exchanging fearful looks, we plodded on without another word. With boiling faces and straining muscles, we forced our way upwards. When at last we reached the top, we took shelter under an ancient oak that spread its branches between us and the sky. We removed the buckets from the handlebars and placed them in the shade. Groaning and gasping, we fell onto the dry, scorched grass.

  We were done for. Going on with our plunder seemed an impossible feat. Returning with it to the brook was a
hurdle too enormous to contemplate.

  “Me throat’s parched,” gasped Currant. “I could grab one of them buckets right now and drink the lot.”

  “That’s disgusting,” said Snot, but he convinced nobody. “I could just go for a swig of Dandelion and Burdock pop or a long gulp of Vimpto,” he continued in a tantalizing manner. We all groaned as visions of long, cool drinks of something, anything, filled our heads.

  “We could get home a whole lot faster without these bloody fish,” suggested Dez.

  Immediately, the idea leaped from one to the other like a mirage in the arid deserts of our brains.

  “What’ll we do with ‘em?” asked Currant.

  A moment of silence descended as we considered our options. Eventually, Needy spoke up. “They’d die at home eventually, and we couldn’t flush these buggers down the lav’, they’re too bloody big.” Death was the fate of all the fish we caught; there was nothing in the history of our fishing to suggest that these would fare any better. However, the difficulty of disposing of what would be monstrous, black corpses was another thing we hadn’t thought about.

  In a quiet voice Clueless whispered, “They’d stand a better chance back at the brook.” Everyone groaned in horror, but I knew it was what we should do—we all knew it was what we ought to do. The chance to do the right thing yawned before us. I knew that if just one of us could find the courage to speak up, then we all would. But no one moved; no one spoke and just like that the opportunity passed.

  Dez smiled and in an oily voice said, “They were going to die back at the brook anyway. They might just as well die here! I tell you what, we’ll leave ‘em in the buckets, give ‘em a bit more time.”

  “My old man will kill me if I lose this bucket,” whimpered Needy in such a pathetic way we all let out a snort of laughter.

  “Your old man will kill you anyway,” said Dez but he, too, started to laugh. And just like that the tension eased.

  United by laughter, we set about our task. We headed toward the deep, shady ditch where we lined up the buckets. To prevent the water from evaporating too quickly, we covered them loosely with branches and leaves. The black, coiled fish lay still—as if slowly absorbing their fate and our treachery.

  With a final glance toward our handiwork, Dez retorted, “We’ve done them a favor really. At least they’ve got water, which is more than they had before.”

  “It’s more that we’ve got,” added Needy despondently.

  We all nodded our agreement, and we actually began to feel sorry for ourselves.

  Then, we retrieved our bicycles and climbed onto them. Without our heavy burdens, we discovered fresh reserves of energy and sped off down the road. And just like that, we left. We had exploited the weak and abandoned the vulnerable. With no more thought for our victims, we turned our backs upon them. Like seasoned politicians, we had cloaked our crimes with the rhetoric of the just. On our way home, our heads filling with tantalizing images of glasses filled with Dandelion and Burdock or Vimpto®, we carelessly made our plans for the next day’s adventure.

  * * *

  4. Trucks

  Aunty Lily

  MY AUNTY LILY WAS BEAUTIFUL. She was tall and elegant and always wore her long auburn hair piled high on the top of her head in a bun. She always wore designer clothes and long golden earrings that reached all the way to her shoulders. But the thing I loved best about Aunty Lily was the fact that she swore. She swore like a trooper. She even swore when she came over for tea on Sundays. My mother, who, as a rule, could not abide bad language of any kind, never said a word!

  There was an air of mystery surrounding Aunty Lily that I found both compelling and dangerous, and how it was that mother managed to persuade her to take me into town for a much needed pair of school shoes, I’ll never know, but such was the case. We set off early one Saturday morning. I was feeling rather dowdy in my homemade cotton dress, but Aunty Lily looked frightening in her little black suit with the nipped-in waist, black silk stockings with seams as straight as two ruled lines, and long, gold gypsy earrings that bounced on her shoulders as she walked.

  We walked all the way to the bus stop. We didn’t have long to wait. Soon, the Midland Red bus came roaring down the street. It took one look at Aunty Lily and screeched to a halt. The bus driver gaped, the passengers stared, and the young bus conductor tip-toed back from the doorway as if Aphrodite in all her naked glory was standing at the bus stop. Aunty Lily noticed none of this and with an air of unconscious superiority began to board the bus. She was just about to pull herself up when the elastic in her one hundred per cent French Parisian silk camisole knickers broke. Her underwear fluttered around her legs like a flag in a breeze, falling with a silken sigh around her ankles. Everybody froze. There was no movement except for the violent blush that exploded in the lard-pale face of the young conductor.

  “Ooooooo ya bugger!” Aunty Lily swore. “Me bloody elastic’s broke.” Without missing a beat, she stepped out of the offending underwear, shook them, and then folded them before popping them into her purse. A gasp of unabashed admiration rippled among the passengers as we took our seats.

  When we got to the bus station, we were allowed to get off the bus first. Without even a backward glance, we sailed into town. We walked all the way through the market place, all the way to a tiny, exclusive shoe shop where my mother only ever dared window shop. We marched right in, and Aunty Lily bought me a pair of black, patent leather, silver buckled, totally unsuitable—I’ll never be allowed in town with Aunty Lily again—school shoes. As we came out of the store, I clasped the shoes to my chest and followed Aunty Lily through the market and down the street toward the bus station. All of a sudden, it began to rain. It came down in buckets.

  “Sod it!” Aunty Lily swore. “I don’t have me bloody umbrella. Come on, Jen!” She grabbed hold of my hand and we ran down the street, all the way to the bus station. We dived into the ladies’ lavatory.

  She took one look at herself in the mirror and exclaimed, “Ooo ya bugger! I’m bloody well wet through!”

  Then, I watched while she set about repairing the damage. First, she spread a little lace handkerchief on the shelf. Then she unpinned the bun from the top of her head—she took it off, dried it, and put it on the shelf. Next, she took out her teeth. She rinsed them in cold water, dried them, and put them next to the bun. Then, for her ‘piece de resistance,’ she took out her left eye, washed it off and dried it, and placed it next to the teeth.

  The transformation was nothing short of miraculous. In a few swift strokes Aunty Lily had changed from a tall elegant woman into a straggle-haired, sunken faced, one eyed old hag. I stared at her in open-mouthed admiration.

  She turned and looked at me with her one good eye, “You must always remember this, Jen!”

  “I think I will, Aunty.”

  “No, not this,” she said indicating the various parts of her on the shelf. “What I’m about to tell you. Things are never what they seem. Beauty—it’s not even skin deep. And always take good care of your teeth!”

  “I will, Aunty.”

  Then, I watched while she put herself back together. She pinned the bun back into position on the top of her head. She opened her mouth and popped her teeth back into place. Then, she carefully inserted the glass eye into the empty eye socket. A little eye shadow, a little lipstick completed the reformation. With a sigh of satisfaction, Aunty Lily stood back from the mirror. “How do I look, Jen?”

  Well, I looked at her, and I could see that the auburn of the bun didn’t quite match the auburn of her hair. I could see the rigid perfection of the false teeth and the frozen unseeing stare of the glass eye. Suddenly, I realized I was actually seeing Aunty Lily for the very first time, and in that moment, I understood exactly what she had been trying to tell me. Without any further hesitation, I looked at her and said, “You are beautiful.” And she was!

  The Revenge of Stuart Smith

  STUART SMITH WAS ODD. He certainly looked odd. He had
large, luminous green eyes, a loose sloppy grin and great, big ears, which stuck straight out from his head and were so paper-thin you could see the network of tiny blue veins beneath the skin. He flitted in and out among us like some alien moth, but the strangest thing about him was his silence—he never spoke. He could speak, but he just chose not to. We had been friends for as long as I could remember. In all that time, I heard him speak real words only one time.

  It was the end of fall and we were coming up to winter warmer season. In the rest of the world, time is measured by the passing of the seasons, but on Charnwood Avenue time was measured by the games that we children played. In the spring it was time for whip-and-top, in summer it was stilts and marbles, in the fall it was conkers and snobs, and in winter—why this was the best of all for this was winter warmer season. Stuart and I were eleven years old, and this was the first year we were allowed to make a winter warmer. We went to our respective homes to begin work.

  The first thing I needed was an empty tin can. I sneaked into the kitchen and searched through the cupboards until I found what I was looking for—a tin of powdered milk from the welfare, which still contained some dried milk. Making sure my mother was no where in sight, I started to pour it into the trash, but the eyes in the back of her head must have been on high alert. “There are children starving in this world,” she declared, stealing up behind me so quietly I almost dropped the tin in fright. “And here you are wasting good food,” she concluded pointedly.

  I shuffled toward the back door. “Sorry, Mam,” I called over my shoulder and escaped to the wash house where I found a hammer and a big nail and started to punch holes in the sides of the tin. This was the tricky part because if you hit the nail too hard, you could put a big dent in the side and the tin would be ruined, so I took my time and worked carefully. Soon the tin was littered with holes. Then I got a long piece of wire and attached it through two holes near the top on either side of the tin to make a handle. I crumpled some newspaper in the bottom and covered it with little bits of wood. I was about to sprinkle some coal on the top when I realized I’d forgotten the most important part and had to sneak back to the kitchen to get it. I didn’t relish the thought because I knew I’d be in for the rest of the lecture on the starving masses. Instead, as I tip-toed into the kitchen, there was my mother with a big grin on her face and a freshly washed potato in her hand. “Be careful!” was all she said as she dropped the potato into my winter warmer. It didn’t take me long to cover the potato with coal, and then later in the evening I ran next door to call for Stuart. It had just rained and everything smelled fresh and clean like the newly washed potato my mother had given me.