Mrs Flannagan's Trumpet Read online

  He turned his face full towards her and spelt out with his lips, ‘Yes, I like it.’

  When she picked up the trumpet and put it to her ear he closed his eyes for a moment before standing up and, leaning over Penny, yelled into the trumpet, ‘Yes, I like it.’

  ‘Don’t bawl; I want me head left on me shoulders.’

  Oh Lord!

  It must have been the look on his face that caused his grandfather to put his foot out under the table and give a couple of taps on his boot, but Eddie, not as yet broken into the ways of under-table complicity, raised his head and smiled at his grandfather. Then realised immediately it had been the wrong thing to do for his grandmother was bawling now, ‘What’s going on, eh? Signals above and below board. Davy Flannagan, what are you putting the boy up to?’

  ‘Nothing, Maggie, nothing.’ Mr Flannagan’s voice was quiet but his lips moved widely. ‘Not a thing, not a thing. Don’t frash yourself.’

  ‘Who’s frashing themselves? That’ll be the day when I frash meself about any of you. Have you finished?’ She turned now to Penny.

  ‘Yes, Gran.’ Penny spoke quietly, at the same time nodding her head, and Mrs Flannagan, nodding back towards her, shouted, ‘That’s a good girl. You don’t bawl. Well, if we’ve all had our fill we’ll be like the beggars, we’ll go when we’re served, eh?’ And she startled Eddie afresh by bursting into deep laughter.

  Really! She was a character. And how had she known that his granda was signalling to him? And that laugh, it was bigger than herself, than two of her. Even Mrs Wallis, her who lived along the street and was seventeen stone and gave great belly laughs, she couldn’t come up to his granny.

  In the sitting room once more, Mrs Flannagan monopolised the conversation. Addressing Penny first, she said, ‘You know you’re going to a different school, don’t you? Your legs won’t carry you to that one back in the docks.’

  ‘Yes, Gran.’

  ‘You’ll like this school over at Marsden. I saw the mistress. She’s a sensible woman.’

  Eddie was listening with interest now. He knew that Penny was to go to a school at Marsden, but that his granny had seen the mistress came as a surprise to him. He had the idea that his granny never left the house for she was a dead-old woman, near sixty-six years old.

  ‘And you!’

  Eddie blinked. He’d have to get over being startled by her. It wasn’t only her voice, it was her quick movements. She might be old but she was springy as a whippet at a rabbit coursing.

  ‘Your granda’s mapped out a way for you. It’ll shorten your journey to work. Middle dock, isn’t it?’ She didn’t wait for an answer but went on, ‘Although in my day I walked four miles to school and thought nothing of it, an’ glad to go. ’Twasn’t everybody who could go to school in my day, so sleet, hail, or snow I went. But now they make them soft…You’ll go by the cemetery and come out at The Chichester. He says it’ll cut quite a bit off. You did, didn’t you?’ She was looking at her husband now.

  ‘Yes, yes, I did, Maggie.’ Mr Flannagan nodded towards his wife.

  Changing the subject abruptly now, she said, ‘Your mother should come back a new woman. A wreck she is, a wreck. But what else could you expect, living as she has done for all these years, hand to mouth.’

  ‘She hasn’t lived from hand to mouth.’ Eddie found that he was bawling now.

  ‘What did you say?’ His granny picked up the trumpet and put it to her ear, and he rose from his seat and yelled into it. ‘She didn’t live from hand to mouth, me da had a good job. He looked after her well and thought the world of her. And she of him. Don’t you say anything against me da, I’m tellin’ you, ’cos if you do I’ll walk out.’

  The black circle of the trumpet slowly moved away from his mouth, and in its place was the face of his granny, the brown eyes staring up at him, and his own brown ones almost black now with the intensity of his feelings glared back into them.

  And her next words incensed him further because, slowly but not so loud now, she said, ‘Your father was a docker. That’s what he was when my daughter married him. He hadn’t one penny to rub against the other; he hadn’t even a place to take her; they were in lodgings for almost six months and there was a time when things were even worse when you were both very small and she starved herself to feed you. Your father was a docker…’

  ‘He was a gaffer in the docks, he rose to be a gaffer.’

  ‘Gaffer! What’s a gaffer?’

  He noticed that she had understood that word all right, and she went on, ‘Anybody could be a gaffer, anybody who shouted the loudest could be a gaffer.’

  ‘Then you could be one!’ As he spoke he pulled the ear trumpet round towards his mouth again and repeated, now yelling into it, ‘You could be one then!’

  He was standing straight when she took the trumpet from her ear and pressed her hand over the side of her face. His grandfather was on the other side of her now, his voice soothing, saying, ‘Maggie. Maggie. Let up, will you. Let up.’

  Her hand still pressing her ear, she turned her head to the side and looked at Eddie, and it was in genuine remorse now that he said, ‘I’m sorry; I’m sorry, Gran, if I hurt you.’

  Whether or not she understood him he didn’t know, for what she said now was, ‘I’m going to me bed.’

  As Mr Flannagan went to help her to her feet she smacked his hand away from her arm, saying, ‘Stop your fussing, I’m not senile, not yet, and I think I can find me own way to me bed.’ And on this she actually marched from the room, her short thin body as stiff as a soldier’s.

  ‘Pay no attention, boy.’ Mr Flannagan now pressed Eddie onto the couch; then himself sat down and drawing Penny towards his knee, he patted her hand and said, ‘Don’t look so worried, child. Your granny doesn’t mean half what she says.’

  ‘Our da was a nice man, Granda.’ Penny swallowed deeply now.

  ‘I’m sure he was, my dear. In fact I know he was. But you see’—the old man turned his head towards Eddie now—‘women are a different kettle of fish from men. Perhaps you’ve already found that out. And if they’ve got a daughter they have ideas for her. And your granny had ideas for your mother. Oh, big ideas. There was a first officer on my ship, he’s a captain now, and that’s who your granny wanted for your mother, a captain, like I was. And your mother liked him. Yes, she did, because the day she came onto my ship presumably to see me, it was, I know, to have a look at him too. It was on that day, too, a day of unloading, that she slipped on the deck. And who should break her fall but a fine, sturdy looking docker who eventually became your father. Did you know that?’

  He looked from one to the other, and they both shook their heads dumbly.

  No, Eddie thought, he didn’t know that was how his ma had met his da, it was news to him.

  ‘As you said’—Mr Flannagan was looking down on Penny—‘your father was a good man and my girl must have recognised that in him straight away, because when we next docked in the Tyne, it was to find my girl was a married woman and your granny distraught.’

  ‘You see’—he put his head to the side now—‘your mother was her only child and had been her constant companion. But then what power has a mother, or father for that matter, against the power of a young woman in love?’

  He looked at them, and they looked back at him. A log fell in the grate and sent sparks up the wide chimney. ‘Ah!’ He lay back now, smiled at them; then closing his eyes, he said, ‘Go and talk to Daisy. She’s young company, good company is Daisy.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Have you seen your rooms?’

  ‘No, not yet, Granda,’ Eddie said quietly.

  ‘Then Daisy will show you, and much more besides if I know Daisy. Go on with you.’

  Daisy was at the sink and at their entry she turned her head and said, ‘Come for your bundles, have you? I’m nearly finished the dishes, then I’ll take you up. Did you like your supper?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ They both spoke together, and Penny added, ‘There was a lot of everythi
ng.’

  ‘Oh aye, it’s a good meat house, the missis never stints. Do you hear that?’ She jerked her head towards the square kitchen window that showed black against the night. ‘The wind’s getting up an’ it’s blowin’ this way, so there could be some pickings on the beach the morrow.’

  ‘What kind of pickings?’ Eddie walked slowly towards her, and she looked at him as she dried her hands and answered, ‘Oh, it all depends. Sometimes just wood, empty barrels and crates an’ such; but then it might be a cask with something in.’ She laughed now. ‘I once found a cask, just a little one, but it was full of rum. By! The master wasn’t half pleased, he gave me a whole half dollar. And once I saw a dead man.’

  As Penny put her fingers across her lips and screwed up her face, Daisy said, ‘Oh, you needn’t be frightened, dead people can’t hurt you, but they look awful. This one was bobbing on the water like a cork. I came scampering back an’ told the missis, and she came down with me. Mind, she had a job ’cos I can hardly get down meself. Anyway, down she got, and she pulled him inshore, then sent me to the coastguard station. An’ I was glad to go, I can tell you, ’cos he looked awful.’

  ‘Aw, I wouldn’t want to go down there.’ Penny shuddered, then added, ‘I would rather go to Marsden Grotto; I’ve been to the Grotto.’

  ‘Who hasn’t!’ Daisy hung the coarse towel up on a nail, straightened her apron and pulled her starched cap down about her ears. ‘Everybody goes to the Grotto,’ she said. ‘It’s like August Bank Holiday every week in the summer, people going to the Grotto. But as the missis says they’re not real caves, they were cut out of the rock. There’re real caves along here though, real deep ones.’

  ‘Where?’ The abrupt question brought Daisy round to face Eddie; but seemingly she had no quick answer ready for him for she didn’t reply until she had rolled down the sleeves of her blue print dress and buttoned the cuffs, and then she said, ‘Well, all along the coast.’

  ‘Have you seen any?’

  She slanted her eyes at him. ‘No, I haven’t; but…but the missis says there’s caves all along the coast, and if she says there’s caves all along the coast’—her voice was now rising—‘then there are caves all along the coast.’

  ‘But have you been in a cave, in a deep one?’

  Daisy pressed her lips tightly together and wagged her head. ‘No, Mr Smarty, I haven’t been in a deep one, but I have in the little ones. An’ there’s some in our cove.’ She pointed again to the window. ‘But I believe what the missis says, and Mr Van an’ all.’

  ‘Mr Van, who’s he?’

  ‘He’s a gentleman, a very nice gentleman, kind and nice. He…he picks pebbles and stones and things along the beach and cliff tops.’

  ‘Pebbles and stones, what does he pick them for?’

  ‘How should I know?’ Her chin shook with impatience. ‘He sort of collects them for their colours and things. Min…mineral somethings they have inside them. He lodges with Biddy, Biddy McMann, but he’s soon goin’ home to his family. He’s got three little girls and a little boy, an’ he tells me about them.’

  ‘Where does he live, this Mr Van? I mean where does he come from?’

  ‘Belgium.’

  ‘Belgium!’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said, Belgium, and his name isn’t Mr Van, it’s Van something, but I can never remember the other part, it’s a funny soundin’ name. All foreign names are funny soundin’. But I know one thing, when he goes I’ll miss the coppers that he gives me on a Sunday for collecting the pebbles and things.’

  ‘You collect pebbles for him?’

  ‘Aye, when I can, like on me half-day.’

  ‘Could we come with you?’ Penny asked eagerly now, and Daisy appeared to consider a moment before she answered, ‘I don’t see why not. But I don’t suppose he’ll dish out any more coppers.’

  ‘Who’s wantin’ his coppers?’ Eddie’s tone was indignant, and Daisy rounded on him now, crying, ‘Well, I was only tellin’ you. By! you are touchy. Aw, come on’—she stumped away from them down the kitchen—‘I’ll show you where you’re sleepin’. And mind’—she turned as she neared the door and looked at them both—‘you’ve got to make your own beds. I’ll sweep your rooms out but you’ve got to empty your slops and do the rest yourselves because I’m run off me feet from mornin’ till night when Biddy isn’t here.’

  ‘You needn’t worry about us, we can clean our own rooms.’

  ‘All right, Mr Clevershanks, I’ll keep you to that.’

  Penny followed Daisy through the door, but Eddie remained where he was for a moment. Eeh, he felt he wanted to skelp her lug, he did that! She was a cheeky monkey.

  When he reached the landing, which was like a wide corridor with doors going off both sides, the weak rays of a small oil lamp hanging from a hook on the wall showed him Penny and Daisy disappearing through a doorway at the far end, and when he, too, entered the room Daisy was lighting a candle and saying, ‘It isn’t very big but it’s comfortable. And I’ve put the bonny patchwork quilt on it for you’—she now pointed to the bed—‘and a clippy mat down, ’cos when you step on the lino in the morning it freezes you right up to your gullet.’

  ‘Well now, that’s you settled.’ She smiled at Penny, then turned to Eddie and stared at him for a moment before dipping her knee and, adopting a most servile expression, she said, ‘Would you care to come an’ see your apartment, sir?’

  Eddie, staring down on her, had the desire to burst out laughing at her antics, but that, he warned himself, would never have done. So what he did say was, ‘I can see you gettin’ your lug skelped one of these days.’

  At this Daisy became her usual self again, and giving a huh! of a laugh, she said, ‘Well, there’s one thing sure, Mr Dockworker’—she now wagged her head at him—‘it won’t be you that’ll do it.’ And turning she went from the room with Penny, who was trying to suppress a giggle, following her.

  Again he remained still as the thought came to him that although he was the grandson of her mistress and she herself was only a maid, she treated him as someone of no account, in fact as not even her equal. Well, he would see about this; aye, before he was much older he would see about this.

  ‘Are you comin’?’ It was a hissed whisper, and when he took the few steps onto the landing, Daisy pointed to the door next to Penny’s bedroom, saying, ‘That’s Mr Kemp’s room, but over there’—she now pointed to a door in the opposite wall—‘that’s the master’s and missis’ room. It’s the biggest one in the house an’ it looks out onto the front. And you, your lordship, are in the next one.’ She tiptoed now across the landing and, pushing open the door, she said, ‘Here!’ and stood aside to allow Eddie to pass before her.

  The room was in pitch darkness and he hissed at her, ‘Where’s the candle?’

  ‘You’re privileged, you don’t have a candle, you have a lamp. Stand still a minute an’ I’ll light it.’

  When the room was illuminated, Eddie looked round and was scarcely able to conceal his surprise. It was almost three times the size of Penny’s room. There was a single brass bedstead, the head of which stood against a stone wall, the same as could be seen on the outside of the house. It crossed his mind that it would have looked better whitewashed. Then his eyes were drawn to the left of him where a huge wooden cupboard seemed to take up the whole of the side wall.

  Following his look, Daisy pulled open two doors in the middle of the cupboard, saying, ‘It’s a wardrobe sort of, but you’d need some clothes to fill it. And over there’—she turned and pointed—‘that’s your wash-hand stand. But if you take it into your mind to wash up here you’ll have to cart your own water up and down.

  ‘Well, there you are.’ Daisy now looked at Eddie but he was staring at the floor flanking the bed and there might have been the merest twinkle in his eye as he said, ‘There’s something missing.’

  ‘Missin’? What do you mean, missin’?’

  ‘Well, where’s the clippy mat? And there’s not even l
ino on the floor, only bare boards.’

  ‘And that’s what you’re gettin’, bare boards, ’cos that’ll be the day when I go to the trouble of puttin’ a mat down for you and havin’ to lug it downstairs and shake it in the yard. Oh aye, that’ll be the day.’

  As she walked jauntily from the room, Eddie looked at his sister, and when he jerked his chin upwards Penny bit on her lip; then they smiled at each other and Eddie said softly, ‘Do you want to go to bed?’

  ‘Aye, Eddie, I’m tired.’

  ‘Me an’ all. Goodnight then.’ He went towards her, then shyly he bent forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘That’s from me ma. She said to give it to you and tell you not to worry.’

  When she threw her arms impulsively around him and leant against him for a moment, he stood stroking her hair, until he became aware of Daisy standing once again in the doorway; and now he almost pushed Penny from him and when she said, ‘Goodnight, Eddie,’ he answered gruffly, ‘Goodnight,’ and closed the door abruptly on them both.

  A few minutes later, having decided that the warmest place would be in bed, he was pulling his shirt over his head when the door opened abruptly and Daisy’s face came round it, and she flung her voice across at him in a hoarse whisper, saying, ‘Would you like a mug of cocoa? Penny’s gonna have one. I could bring it up when I bring the missis’.’

  He was standing stiffly, his shirt held in front of his bare chest, his face grim, and he had to swallow twice and cough before he could say, ‘Aye…thanks…ta.’

  Her smile was brighter than the lamplight; it seemed to illuminate her face as she bobbed her head at him.

  When the door was closed he stood staring at it; then dropping down onto the side of the bed, his head moved slowly from side to side as he said to himself, ‘Eeh! What can you make of her?’ In a way she was as big an irritant as his granny, only different, sort of.

  Chapter Three

  The wind was still high; it tore their voices away. Looking to where Daisy was running helter-skelter along the sand followed by Penny, Eddie knew it was no good him yelling to stop them going round the point of rock that jutted out from the cliff proper and where the incoming tide was already lapping it, and so he took to his heels and dashed after them. When he came abreast of Penny he didn’t stop, but ran until he had overtaken her, grabbed Daisy’s shoulder and brought them both tumbling face forward onto the sand.