Aunty Lily Read online

  Stuart was already waiting for me at his garden gate. We gave each other’s winter warmer the once over and nodded our approval. Smiling, we ran down the darkening, shiny street. We met the other kids in the cul-de-sac, which we called the ring, where we played tin-tin-ta-lurky and pie-crust-coming as a way of passing the time until the real purpose of the evening arrived.

  When it was good and dark, we retrieved our winter warmers. Some were shiny and new, while others were last year’s model and were charred black. Then, we gathered in the circle of light under the street lamp. A hushed silence descended and our excitement charged the air like an electric current. We felt as if we were gathered at a sacred altar, taking part in some ancient ritual. I stood next to Stuart and I could feel him shaking.

  “Who’s got the matches?” whispered Needy. There was a faint rustling and Clueless produced a box and lit a match. In its flare, I could see Dez Scriggin’s cruel face with its cold black eyes glittering like beads. The altar that Dez saw was different from ours; his was in need of a sacrifice, animal or human it didn’t matter to him. His eyes flickered over each one of us until they came to rest briefly on Stuart. I suppressed a shudder. Dez had always been mean, and he wasn’t improving with age. I no longer liked him hanging round with us, not many of us did, but our fear made us silent and accepting.

  I dragged my eyes away from his humorless smile and watched as Clueless ceremoniously inserted the lit match into a hole at the bottom of each winter warmer—no religious act was performed with greater reverence. When they were all alight, we grabbed the wire handles and gradually the blackness of the night swallowed us one by one. We spread out down the entire length of the street and simultaneously swung the winter warmers around and around, like you do a bucket of water so that none of it falls out. You could hear the whoosh and roar as each small furnace burst into flame, and you could hear Stuart. Tiny, high-pitched sounds came out of him like an animal’s in the night. Not that you could blame him, because when you looked down the street, bright circles of flame sprang in the night, shimmering and roaring like a great fire-breathing dragon.

  All too soon, it seemed the mighty dragon died and we gathered once more under the street lamp. We talked in hushed whispers and warmed our hands over the smoldering coals. Just before the fires went out, we shook out our steaming, hot potatoes, sprinkled them with the salt we carried wrapped in a bit of paper in our pockets, and sat and ate in a communal silence.

  It wasn’t long after that things started to change. Some of the lads started to hang around exclusively with Dez. At first, they started to pick on the little kids but when they got fed up with them, they started picking on Stuart, who was another easy target.

  One day after school, I hunted for Stuart to see if he wanted to play but couldn’t find him anywhere. In desperation, I even went to his house. Everyone avoided going to Stuart’s house because his mam seemed physically incapable of regular, ordinary speech. She screeched, a fingernail-on-the-blackboard-screech, which went right through you.

  “I’m not expecting him back ‘til bloomin’ teatime,” she shrieked when I asked for Stuart. I turned on my heel, escaping before she could engage me in a lengthy conversation. I made it to the curb, sat down, and practiced French flydobs with my snobs. Clueless sauntered past. “Hey, Clueless,” I yelled, “have you seen Stuart?”

  “Stuart?” he asked as if he’d never heard of him before. He looked nervous, and I knew something was wrong.

  “What’s going on, Clueless?” I grabbed him by his shirt and shook him. He was bigger than me and in a fight he always won, but the victory didn’t come easily. I fought like a fox terrier never letting go until someone pulled me off. Clueless, who obviously wasn’t in the mood, looked around nervously. “Don’t tell anyone I told you or I’ll clobber ya. I saw Dez and his lads a little while ago. They were marching Stuart toward the spinney.” The spinney was a wooded area at the top of the street. There in a field beyond the trees, Ernie Miller kept his bull.

  “Thanks, Clueless,” I let him go. “I don’t suppose you want to go with me to find him?”

  “Are you nuts?” he snorted and shuffled off.

  I knew better than to go after Dez by myself, but I knew none of the other kids would dare go with me. So, I had no choice but to use my big guns. I ran down the garden path and dived into the kitchen. “Come quick, Mam. Dez and the lads have got Stuart.” Without saying a word, she shot up and started taking off her apron. No law abiding, respectable housewife on Charnwood Avenue would be caught dead in the street wearing an apron—not even, it would seem, to rescue a desperate child. Running up the street, I led the way with the heavy artillery bringing up the rear. I dived into the spinney with my mother surprisingly close on my heels. We ran through the wood yelling Stuart’s name until at length we came into the clearing where a big oak stood. There was no sign of Dez or the lads, but Stuart was there. They had tied him to the tree. He was a sorry bedraggled mess. Goodness only knows what they had done to him before we arrived, but as we got closer, it was obvious from the smell that they had peed on him.

  “The dirty little buggers!” Mother swore. I was shocked. I’d never heard my mother swear before, but I could tell by the look in her eye and the set of her jaw that it hadn’t just slipped out. It was then that I learned one of life’s valuable lessons: sometimes a swear word is not only acceptable but absolutely necessary.

  I looked at Stuart. It was the first time I’d ever seen him when he didn’t have a smile on his face. His ears drooped, but his eyes were the worst—for the light had gone out. They were red-rimmed, dull, and they were empty.

  “Come on my little chicken,” crooned Mam as we undid the rope. The heavy artillery melted into marshmallows and we took him home.

  I didn’t see much of Stuart after that. Whenever I called for him, his mam said he didn’t want to play. Instead, I started hanging around with Clueless, who wasn’t a bad sort, but every now and then I’d still try Stuart.

  One Saturday evening just as it started to get dark, I went to call for Stuart, but I was too late. He was already at the top of the street, swinging a shopping bag back and forth. He must have been on his way to the small grocery store that stayed open a little later on Saturday nights. I yelled his name, but he ignored me. Running after him, I yelled even louder. I knew he had heard me but he just took off running and disappeared round the corner, so I gave up. Oh, I know I should have tried harder, but I knew what he was up to—he thought if he stayed away from me, Dez and the lads would leave me alone.

  Not having anything better to do, I went to call for Clueless instead. We roller skated for a while and then we decided to go to the spinney to Ernie Miller’s field and do a bit of bull baiting. This activity, of which I’m not particularly proud, involved tormenting the bull by pulling faces, blowing raspberries, and flicking little lumps of clay in its direction until it rolled its eyes and steam poured out from both nostrils. Ernie kept his bull in a barn which had a small circular paddock in front where “Killer” could graze. We called the bull Killer because whenever we saw Ernie, he limped over to us and showed us the horrible scars where the bull had gored him one time. “You keep away from that thar’ bull,” he’d say, “it be a killer that one.” And although we laughed, we always did our bull baiting behind the sturdy fence.

  Clueless and I had just reached the end of the spinney when we heard voices coming from Ernie’s field. We ducked behind some low bushes and peeked out. We could see Dez and Danny Lagdon, Malcolm Mobbs, Benny Toon, and Walter Babcock. Dez had Stuart under his arms and Walter held his feet and they were swinging him backwards and forwards like a sack of old potatoes. Stuart clutched his shopping bag and its contents as if it were a life preserver and they were about to throw him into deep water. Suddenly, they all began to count in high, sing-song voices and on three Dez and Walter let him go. Stuart flew over the fence, legs flailing, but still clutching the life preserver desperately to his chest. He landed with a si
ckening thud in front of the bull. Already wound up, the bull stood wild-eyed with its sides heaving.

  Instantly, I leaped to my feet. “Ya’ bloody, great big bullies!” I knew instinctively that this was just the right time for a swear word! Clueless grabbed me, pulling me back behind the bushes, but it was too late. Dez had seen us.

  “Get ‘em lads!” With a single “whoop” they charged after us, and we set off running blindly through the spinney.

  “We’ve got to save Stuart!” I screamed.

  “Not me!” yelled Clueless.

  “Split up and double back.”

  “They’ll kill us,” moaned Clueless. But he did it! I leaped off to the right and Clueless to the left.

  “After ‘em,” yelled Dez. “Don’t lose ‘em.”

  It took only a moment for them to split up, but it gave us the edge we needed. Following a semi-circular path through the trees, within seconds of one another we came crashing from the trees into the field. Clueless reached the fence just before me and threw his body against it. Then he froze. I forced myself to look where he was staring, and what I saw made me gasp in horror. Although it was getting dark and a thick mist was drifting upward from the grass, we could still see the bull in the middle of the paddock, pawing the ground angrily. We could see two shoes and though they were mangled and torn and covered with what looked like thick, red blood, we could tell they were Stuart’s. Scattered all around were slices of white bread—as if they were trying desperately to mop up the blood. Discarded, the shopping bag lay in an empty, deflated heap. I looked behind the bull into the misty shadows of the dark field beyond to see if I could see Stuart’s crushed, lifeless body, but it was getting too dark.

  Howling and screaming like a pack of wild animals, Dez and the lads thundered out of the spinney, stopping dead in their tracks when they saw our rigid bodies. Walter was the first to see over the fence. “Oh my God!” he exclaimed. “Do you think the bull’s killed him?” Someone laughed a high pitched, nervous laugh and then silence descended while the horror of what had happened sank in. Even Dez was shaken. His face was a deathly white, and the glass beads of his eyes were like holes in his head. Time slowed down. Everything was in slow motion as if we were under water. Then something made Dez look toward the barn. Slowly, his mouth dropped open and what little blood was left drained from his face. We followed his gaze. To our dismay, we saw something hanging in mid-air in the misty darkness beside the door. The lamp above the door of the barn shed enough watery light to show that it was a human form but its legs and feet had been devoured by the mist. The eerie light cast dark shadows over its face making its eyes look like two empty sockets. Its mouth hung open in a large gaping hole and its ears stuck straight out from its head like two transparent wings.

  “It’s Stuart,” Malcolm whispered. “He’s come to haunt us.”

  No one moved. Time had stopped and was holding us relentlessly in its grasp. Slowly and deliberately, the ghost—or whatever it was—lifted its long, skinny arm and pointed its bony finger at Dez. Time released the rest of us long enough for us to take one step away from him. Then the apparition began to screech in a loud, terrible voice. “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, do we not REVENGE?” The terrible voice was like ten fingernails scraping down a board. Even Killer scampered over to the far side of the paddock in an attempt to escape the terrible sound. Suddenly, time sped up and unleashed everyone. We exploded into a run, screaming and tripping over one another in an effort to escape. Gripped by terror, we crashed out of the spinney into the safety of the street beyond, where I bent double to recover from the stitch which stabbed me in the side like a knife. Straightening at last, I watched the others as they poured down the street in a deluge of panic until they disappeared into the safety of their respective homes. Suddenly, in that moment, everything fell into place.

  Once I recovered my breath, I ran back through the spinney, into the field, and around to the far side of the barn where it connected with the paddock fence. On top, I could see Stuart standing in his stocking feet.

  “Ha! Ha! You were brilliant!” I laughed, but of course, Stuart didn’t say anything—he just grinned.

  “Come on,” I shouted. Infused with a reckless courage, we ignored the bull and climbed over the fence to retrieve Stuart’s shoes and empty shopping bag. We cleaned them off as best we could before setting off for my house to replace the lost bottle of ketchup and the loaf of bread he had bought earlier. The shop was closed now and Stuart’s mother would kill him if he went home without them.

  As we walked down the deserted street, we didn’t say another word. There was no need. Stuart just smiled, his mouth hung open in a loose, sloppy grin, his eyes, which were the vivid, vibrant green they had always been, shone is the darkness, and his ears stuck straight out from his head like two transparent wings. Once more we felt the old, comfortable silence settle around us—a silence as golden and precious as our friendship.

  The Arrival

  WHEN GRANDDAD CAME TO LIVE WITH US, he arrived in bits and pieces. For many weeks my father had been bringing Granddad’s possessions and installing them in the front room, which was to be his bedroom and sitting room. However, Granddad insisted on making the final journey himself.

  It was this insistence that prompted my mother to call a family council meeting. Now, the term council meeting conjures images of lively debate and the free flowing exchange of ideas, but nothing could have been further from the truth. We four children sat around the kitchen table stony-faced and silent while Mother told us in no uncertain terms what was expected of us. Our involvement was simple: show up, sit up, and shut up.

  On this particular occasion, Mother wanted to impress upon us the need to make Granddad feel at home and above all to make him feel useful.

  “Do you all understand?” she asked in a quiet, urgent voice, “Under no circumstances must Granddad feel that he has lost his independence.” She said the word “independence” as if it were a secret password written on a piece of paper that we must chew and swallow. We nodded our heads solemnly and, without having uttered a single word, another family council was satisfactorily concluded.

  The very next morning, John, the youngest member of our family, and I set off to the bus stop to await Granddad’s arrival.

  “Granddad could be on any bus,” yelled Mother. “You could be waiting all day!”

  “That’s all right, Mum. We don’t mind.” Not knowing which bus he was on allowed us to ride the waves of anticipation that gathered with the arrival of each Midland Red bus. Six buses came and went and six times the excitement built to an unbearable peak only to topple and crash in a sea of disappointment.

  With the arrival of the seventh bus, the bus conductor, on seeing our crestfallen faces, wanted to know who we were waiting for.

  “Our Granddad’s coming to live with us,” I informed him.

  “He’s very old,” John added, as if this somehow explained why Granddad had not yet appeared.

  The bus conductor took this as a professional affront, as if the Midland Red Bus Company was somehow responsible for the loss. “Don’t worry,” he assured us. “I’m sure he’ll be on the next run.”

  I didn’t like to inform him that Granddad was neither late nor lost, and that we had no idea when he was likely to arrive. However, seeing the bus roar off with the conductor hanging out of the door yelling, “The Midland Red always gets its man!” added to our excitement and filled us with the comforting sense that the bus company was out to hunt Granddad down not merely transport him.

  And get him it did! On the very next run when the bus turned the corner at the bottom of the street, we saw the bus conductor hanging out of the door, yelling above the roar of the engine, “Mission accomplished! Mission accomplished!” The bus screeched to a halt and the bus conductor stood back from the doorway as Granddad appeared.

  “Tadaaaaaaa!” the bus conductor c
ried, like a magician who had made a rabbit magically appear out of a hat.

  “Oh, thank you,” I cried.

  “Don’t mention it. All in a day’s work.” He handed Granddad his suitcase. Granddad, not surprisingly, was looking rather confused by all of this, and then the bus roared off in a triumphant puff of smoke.

  John, who had been beaming mightily up to this point, stopped smiling. “What’s up, Granddad?” he asked

  Granddad was looking troubled and was systematically patting his breast and hip pockets, as if he had lost something very important.

  John’s fat face creased with concern, and he whispered ferociously to me, “I think he’s lost his independence.”

  “Shhssss!” I admonished him, “Granddad will hear you!”

  Granddad glared at us. “I’ve lost my bloomin’ hat!” He continued to pat him pockets, though it was quite obvious to us that they could hardly conceal a large, felt trilby hat. Just then, the bus came roaring back down the street and stopped across from where we were standing. The bus conductor jumped off and ran over to us.