Mrs Flannagan's Trumpet Read online

  ‘What do you think you’re up to?’ Daisy was rising from her knees puffing and gasping, her hands to her head straightening her round straw hat that was held in place by a band of tape which passed over the top of it and under her chin. ‘An’ look at me Sunday coat!’ She now banged her hands all over the front of the black serge coat that reached to her ankles.

  ‘Couldn’t you see the tide coming in?’ Eddie shouted as he pointed towards the rocks ahead of them.

  ‘Aye, I’m not blind.’

  ‘You were going to go round there.’

  ‘What! You’re up the pole, that’s what you are. Me goin’ round there! Don’t be daft; I’d be up to me neck in water in a few feet, there’s a groyne there. I know this stretch. Anyway, what made you think I was goin’ round there?’

  ‘Well’—Eddie rose to his feet now and dusted the sand from the knees of his trousers—‘you were running helter-skelter for it. And you an’ all.’ He turned on Penny.

  ‘I wasn’t. I was only running. An’ what’s the harm in that?’ Penny now tossed her head in unusual defiance.

  After staring at her for a moment, Eddie let out a long breath and turned from them and retraced his steps along the cove. She was right; what was the harm in that? What was the matter with him? All of a sudden he had been filled with panic as he saw them rushing towards that point of rock.

  It was a weird place, this, he didn’t like it. He looked at the towering rocks. The whole surface right up to the top looked tormented as if a giant hand had clawed at it. He could understand the ruggedness of the bottom of the cliffs where the tide lashed up to all of five feet above his head and had left its waving signature here and there with lines of seaweed and debris, but that it should be the same right up to the top puzzled him.

  He half glanced over his shoulder now to see where the girls were and saw them near the foot of the cliff scattering the pebbles. Reluctantly he turned about and went to join them, telling himself as he did so that it was like looking after two bairns. What he wanted to do was to go for a brisk tramp, not dawdle along here when the wind and the sea deafened you. Last night he had gone to sleep with the sea in his ears and it had woken him up this morning. Why did some boys want to go to sea, and men like his grandfather spend their lives on it? They could keep the sea for him.

  He kicked at some loose small rocks, and as they scattered his eyes followed a white object and he bent down and picked it up. It was oval-shaped like a miniature egg, and perfectly smooth all round. Fancy—he shook his head as he turned the stone within his fingers—he had never seen such a pure white stone before.

  ‘Look!’ He went quickly towards the girls now holding out his hand. ‘Is this the kind of thing you’re looking for?’

  ‘Oh, that’s bonny an’ all white, oh, it is.’ Daisy took the stone reverently from his hands. ‘Eeh! I’ve had pieces that were white in parts but I’ve never seen a smooth one like this. It’s a lovely stone. You’ll likely be a lucky picker.’

  As she handed it back to him, he shook his head, saying, ‘I don’t want it, you keep it.’

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Yes. What good is it to me?’

  ‘Oh, ta, thanks.’ The bright beam spread over her face again. ‘Mr Van’ll like this one. Ta,’ she said again.

  He turned now and looked towards the water, saying, ‘The tide’s coming in fast; don’t you think we’d better be going up?’

  Daisy paused as she was about to bend down again; then as if making a concession because of his gift, she said, ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right. But it’ll be a good half-hour afore it reaches here.’

  The three of them moved along the beach now, Daisy and Penny skipping on ahead again, stopping only where the sand gave way to shingle to scan the pebbles, before running on once more. Just like two bairns let out of school, Eddie thought. Somehow, they made him feel old and lonely. He nipped at his lower lip, thrust his hands deep into his pockets and walked with his head down, thinking now, I wonder how she’s getting on.

  He missed his mother. He’d known he’d feel lonely without her, but hadn’t expected to have this lost feeling again. He had felt like this after his father died. Sundays had been a special day for both him and his mother. After he came back from his tramp she always had a big tea ready for him, and after tea they would sit around the fire if it was winter, or they would go walking down to the South Park if the weather was fine. She liked walking in the park.

  His thoughts were creating a funny feeling in his chest. It rose into his throat and he had to swallow quickly. He jerked his head upwards as if to throw it off, then paused in his step as he saw in the distance Daisy and Penny talking to a man.

  He didn’t hurry; his step was slow and it seemed a long time before he reached them. And when he did the man spoke immediately, saying, ‘Well, well! So this is your brother.’ The voice didn’t sound English, although the man himself looked no different from any Englishman, at least a well-to-do one.

  ‘How do you do?’

  ‘I’m all right…thank you.’

  ‘Miss Daisy here tells me that you found this.’ He held out the white stone. ‘Very nice, very nice indeed.’

  Eddie didn’t look at the stone but he looked at the man. He had a pleasant face, his side whiskers were slightly grey, as was his pointed beard; he was of medium height and thin with it, and altogether he bore out Daisy’s description of being a nice man. He was saying in his word-spaced fashion: ‘It has been a wild night.’

  ‘Yes, it has.’ Eddie thought he should have added, ‘sir’. He watched the man now put his hand in his pocket and bring out some loose silver, and when he handed Daisy a sixpence, she exclaimed on a high note, ‘Eeh, a tanner! Eeh! I’ve hardly got any for you. Was it because of the white one?’

  ‘Yes’—he nodded at her—‘we’ll say it’s because of the white one. And here, young lady.’ He bent towards Penny, offering her a sixpence too, but Penny hesitated and looked at Eddie. However, any protest Eddie might have made was cut off by the man saying, ‘I cannot give to one without the other, now can I?’

  ‘No, well, I suppose not.’ Eddie found himself smiling, and when he nodded towards Penny it was to give her permission to take the money.

  ‘Oh, thank you, sir, thank you.’

  ‘You…are…welcome…that is what they say here, don’t they? You…are…welcome.’

  They were all laughing together now, and when they turned about and walked along the beach the girls presently went on ahead again and Eddie was left with the man.

  ‘I…I understand from Miss Daisy that your mother is ill?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ It seemed easy to say ‘sir’ to this man.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that. Will she be away long?’

  ‘For three months.’

  ‘Three months! But you will like living with your grandmother.’

  Eddie cast his eyes sidewards, and as his gaze met that of the man he felt able to say, ‘I don’t know so much about that, sir; she’s a bit of a tartar.’

  ‘All grandmothers are bits of tartars. I know because I have four children and their grandmother is a…bit…of…a…tartar.’

  The man laughed, and Eddie laughed with him, at the same time feeling grateful to him, for that awful womanish feeling had gone from his chest.

  They had come to a sort of gulley which had eaten its way somewhat into the cliff; but although the sides were still very steep, a way up to the top had been made by a rough series of steps that had been cut out many years before, but which had now been reduced by wind and weather to mere toe grips.

  They were all out of breath when at last they reached the top of the cliff; but with Daisy and Penny their breathlessness seemed to last only for a moment, for once again they were scampering away.

  As the man stood gasping he looked after them and said, ‘What it is to be young. And your sister, she’s very pretty. Indeed, yes, she is very pretty.’

  Yes, he supposed Penny was pretty. His mot
her was always on about her being pretty. If you got down to facts it was because of her prettiness that he was landed out here. If she had been a plain Jane nobody would have bothered to look the side she was on, and they could both have been at home now.

  ‘Well, I must be going.’

  Eddie turned to the man. ‘You’re not going back along the cliff top?’

  ‘No. I have an appointment at Marsden.’

  ‘Oh. Goodbye then.’

  ‘Goodbye, young man. Goodbye. It’s been very pleasant meeting you.’

  His mind was answering, ‘And you,’ but he couldn’t make his tongue use the words. He just jerked his head in acknowledgement of the compliment, or courtesy, or whatever it was, and turned and hurried after the girls. But as he did so he thought, I could go for a tramp, there’s still some time till dark.

  Well, why didn’t he? He was looking at Penny and Daisy racing back towards him, their skirts held up almost to their knees, and instead of his mind giving him a direct answer to his question, it said, ‘Eeh! She’s a wild young monkey, that Daisy.’

  When Daisy came panting up to him and gasped breathlessly, ‘Mr Van went then?’ he replied, ‘Well, he’s not here, so he must have.’

  ‘Oh, smarty! Anyway, he’s nice, isn’t he?’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  She stared at him for a moment, then said, ‘He didn’t give you anything so you can have half of me sixpence because it was your stone, you found it.’

  ‘I don’t want half of your sixpence!’ He scowled at her now, then marched off towards the house, and she shouted at him, ‘You needn’t get your shirt out then.’ …

  They were walking one on each side of him now and Penny, looking across him, said, ‘You don’t mind going in early on your day off, Daisy?’

  ‘Why no, if I didn’t go in I’d just walk about, wouldn’t I? It’s different when you go into Shields, there’s things to see there.’

  ‘Haven’t you anybody to go to?’ Eddie asked, and Daisy looked at him first before turning her gaze straight ahead again and saying, ‘No, nobody. I don’t remember me ma, and me da was drowned off the banks.’ She pointed over the sea in the direction of the sandbanks. ‘I was just on six then, an’ I was livin’ with Mrs Day. I called her auntie, but she wasn’t me auntie. She had seven bairns and it was me job to look after the three youngest.’

  ‘And you just on six!’ There was a large blob of doubt in Eddie’s tone.

  ‘Aye.’ Daisy turned her head abruptly towards him. ‘You don’t believe me? Well, I can remember pushin’ the two young ones down Ocean Road in the pushchair, right to the sands, when I was just on five.’

  ‘Oh, I can believe you, Daisy.’ Penny’s voice held its usual conciliatory note, as it always did on these occasions when her big brother was getting on the wrong side of someone. ‘Janie Tyler, she lives right at the bottom of our street, she’s not six yet, and she looks after the two youngest. And she’s good at it, she’s always cleaning their noses.’

  ‘How did you come to work for me granny?’ Eddie’s tone was slightly more credulous now.

  ‘Oh that! That was through Biddy McMann.’ Daisy laughed now. ‘Biddy saw I was being worked to death an’ she said I wouldn’t be reaching the old age of ten the way I was being treated, so she bluffed, as she can, you know. Oh aye, she can bluff all right. She said she was a distant relation of me da’s, and she took me away. I stayed with her in the cottage, and I went to school regular until I was thirteen. Then I was bad for a bit and when the school board didn’t trouble me she got me set on with Mrs Flannagan.’

  ‘Why don’t you go an’ see her on a Sunday then?’ Eddie was looking fully at her now.

  ‘For the simple reason that she’s never there on a Sunday, she goes across the water to Howdon to see her son.’

  ‘I thought her leg was bad?’

  ‘If she was walkin’ on stumps she’d still go across to see him.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he come across to see her?’

  ‘Well’—her tone was pert again—‘if you want to know, her son’s a cripple. He wasn’t born crippled but she says he is now, he’s all screwed up with rheumatics and things.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes, oh! You want to know the far end of the smell of a dead fish, you do.’ And on this and a high laugh she sped away again.

  This time Penny didn’t immediately follow her, but looking at Eddie, she said, ‘She’s funny, isn’t she? Merry like. I like her; don’t you, Eddie?’

  Eddie considered for a number of seconds before he deigned to reply and then he said, ‘Well, not much…Oh, I suppose she’s all right; but she’s too bloomin’ cheeky for the size of her.’

  ‘You like her!’ Penny’s voice was teasing now, and he turned on her, almost growling, ‘I don’t! Not like that. I’d like to slap her face half the time.’

  ‘You like her!’ Penny was rushing backwards now, and when she cried again, ‘You like her!’ he spurted forward but not so quickly that he could catch her, and when she reached Daisy, Daisy caught her hand and together they ran squealing over the grass, along by the front of the house and into the yard, there to be greeted at the half-open kitchen door by Mrs Flannagan.

  ‘Running like that, like mad March hares on a Sunday! Come in with you!’ She pulled open the bottom half of the door, and when, panting, their heads down, they passed her, she turned her steely glance on Eddie, shouting, ‘Have you gone back into your childhood? But I suppose it’s a change from the big fellow you think yourself to be. Get in there!’

  When she placed her hand between his shoulder blades and pushed him further into the kitchen he stiffened, then turned sharply round on her. For a moment they faced each other, the little straight-backed woman in the grey cotton dress with the billowing skirt, and the gangling boy, like two combatants not unfairly matched.

  Eddie was the first to give in. His head drooped. He turned away and towards the table where Daisy was standing looking at the set meal and exclaiming, ‘Oh! It’s a nice tea, Mrs Flannagan.’

  ‘What?’

  Daisy now came round the table. She had her straw hat in one hand and with the other she lifted up the trumpet from her mistress’s breast, where it was hanging by a black silken cord, and putting it to Mrs Flannagan’s ear, she shouted, ‘You’ve set a lovely tea…Is the master coming in an’ all?’

  ‘Well, where do you think he would eat, in the coalhouse?’

  Daisy laughed heartily at this. Then turning round, she spoke to both Penny and Eddie, saying softly now, ‘She often makes the tea when I’m out on a Sunday, always in the sitting room, but she’s laid it here the day ’cos there’s more of us. Isn’t it nice?’

  When Penny nodded at Daisy, Mrs Flannagan cried, ‘What’s she saying?’

  Once more Daisy was shouting into the trumpet, ‘I said it was nice of you.’

  ‘Don’t you try to butter me up, girl.’ And the trumpet was pulled from Daisy’s hand, and she, her face one bright smile, looked at her mistress and, shaking her head, mouthed widely, ‘I’m not. I’m not, missis.’

  ‘Get your things off, then go and tell the master the meal’s ready.’

  ‘Aye, missis.’

  ‘Are you two not staying?’ Mrs Flannagan was now dividing her gaze between Penny and Eddie. ‘Well if you are, get your things off and wash your hands. See your nails are clean; I’ll have no funeral fingers at my table, in the kitchen or elsewhere.’ And so saying she went bustling about the kitchen.

  Meanwhile Eddie, after taking his coat off, went and scrubbed his hands under the pump in the yard. When he returned, his grandfather was already seated at one end of the table and his grandmother at the other. Penny and himself sat down at one side and Daisy opposite them; but there was still a seat vacant, and he saw his grandmother looking towards it. Presently, glancing at her husband, she said, ‘Going to bed on a Sunday afternoon, sleeping off his drink! Well, I won’t have it. I’ll tell him.’

  It was at t
his moment that the door leading from the hall opened and Hal Kemp entered the room, and his voice was cheery as he sat down at the table and said, ‘Good. Good; that’s what I can do with, a cup of tea and a bite.’

  It was evident that Hal Kemp was aware of his aunt’s displeasure and so he turned his attention to Daisy saying, ‘Been for your Sunday jaunt?’

  Daisy now looked towards her mistress, but seeing that her eyes were downcast she dared to answer him, otherwise she would have remained silent because she wasn’t allowed to speak at the table. Quickly she muttered, ‘Aye; we all went and we got some lovely stones, at least Eddie did, a big white one, and Mr Van gave me and Penny sixpence each.’

  ‘He seems a very enthusiastic stone gatherer, this Mr Van.’ It was Mr Flannagan speaking now, and he turned towards Hal Kemp and said, ‘I’ve never happened to meet him, what’s he like? What’s your opinion of him?’

  ‘Me? Oh!’ Hal Kemp moved his head from side to side while screwing up his face and replying, ‘Don’t know the man, except I’ve seen him at Biddy’s when I’ve dropped in. No more than good day passed atween us, otherwise I’ve no idea.’

  Eddie was about to transfer a succulent piece of boiled ham to his mouth but he held it stationary for a second midway between his plate and his chin as his glance rested on Daisy. Daisy was looking at the downcast head of Hal Kemp, and her mouth was open and her eyes stretched wide. Suddenly she blinked, closed her mouth and went on with the meal …

  It wasn’t until later in the evening when the table was cleared and he had been reluctantly brought in to a game of ludo with the girls that he asked Daisy quietly, ‘What made you look like that when Hal Kemp said he didn’t know your Mr Van?’