KING JIM
a novel
(Work in progress...)
Chapter One:
Lucy Jones.
12 years old.
In the bathroom.
Door locked.
If you were an annoying little brother and were spying through the keyhole you would see that she wasn’t sitting on the loo.
Or cleaning her teeth
Or slapping on spot block
Lucy is standing like a soldier in front of the bathroom mirror.
Not because she thinks she’s a vision of loveliness.
Which is what her stupid brother thinks she thinks.
Ooo look at me! I’m soo beautiful! My name is Lucy. I love myself. I am so hot. I’m a princess.
And then she would have had to beat him up.
Which is why the door is locked.
Her brother was 100 per cent wrong. As usual.
The truth is Lucy has got this problem. She can’t match up what she sees in the mirror with what other people say about her.
What she can see is a collection of blobs and blemishes.
It doesn’t matter how many times her mum and dad insist that she has a lovely face.
It doesn’t matter that she once overheard her Gran describing her as having ‘striking good looks.’ Yeah well ‘striking’ like being bashed in the face with something ugly.
Obviously, being family they are prejudiced but surely they’re not that blind!
Of course Lucy is completely aware that compared with starving children, civil wars and global warming what she looks like is not that important.
But it would be nice to be a bit less lumpy and bit more gorgeous like Annabelle Louise Rogers. Annabelle Rogers is Lucy’s friend. Sometimes best friend. Sometimes second or third. They sit next to each other in English and Tech. Everyone loves Annabelle Louise Rogers. Everyone.
She has a heart shaped face and nice skin and straight blonde hair and blue eyes and a proper nose.
Annabelle doesn’t even have to try…
Her thoughts are interrupted by someone rattling the door handle.
‘Open up! Open up!’
Meet Lucy’s little brother Peter Anthony
Or PeeBee.
(P is short for pain. B is short for bum.
As in P in the B. Which he is.)
‘Go away!’ calls Lucy ‘I’m busy!’
He bangs on the door
‘Need a pee! Need to go now!’
‘Go Down Stairs.’
‘Can’t. I’m bursting.’
‘Just buzz off and leave me in peace.’
‘Let me in Lucy I really am bursting.’
‘Go. Down. Stairs!’ insists Lucy. ‘I haven’t finished.’
The door gets one last angry kick.
‘You’re horrible and mean. I’m going to tell mum!’
She can hear him rushing down the stairs.
‘Don’t care.’ She mutters. ‘Stupid little boy. ‘
She sticks out her tongue and returns to the Naked Truth Examination Mirror.
Item one: a horrible mouth.
No-one is ever going to want to kiss that are they?
It’s a sort of lizard mouth.
Thin and scaly.
Item two: Horrible hair.
Ginger wire hair.
Of all the genes she had to inherit from Granny 2 why that one? Why couldn’t she have proper long straight hair like her mum.
Lucy hates her hair almost as much as she hates her items three and four:
skimmed milk skin and freckly arms.
Also five
Legs dumpy. Short.
Six:
Ears too small.
Seven: And her nose turns up at the end like a skateboard jump.
Add them all up and you don’t get pretty. You get mutant freak elf child.
And then of course there is that enormous erupting volcano spot on the side of her nose. Which is why she often brushes her teeth with her eyes closed.
The only member of the Jones family who wouldn’t ever waste their time trying to convince Lucy she was a cross between Madonna and Marylyn Monroe was Uncle ‘Ginger’ Glynn.
Appearances didn’t matter much to Uncle Ginger. His clothes were Oxfam his shoes TK Max. He wasn’t one to waste money on such lightweight concepts as fashion even if he had the money. Which he certainly didn’t. Uncle Ginger had always been the poor relation. He was about the closest the Jones family had got to a black sheep. All families need at least one black sheep; it gives them something to talk about at weddings and funerals. To be fair Uncle Ginger was really more of a lamb than a sheep. He wasn’t a serial killer, he didn’t loiter round primary schools selling crack cocaine to seven year olds and he hadn’t wasted all his money on horses and Porsches. His main qualification was the fact that he was a little bit of an embarrassment to the family; no qualifications, permanently broke, seldom in work, not even nearly married.
This made him perfect material for use as a threatening weapon by the parents.
e.g.
IF YOU
Muck about in lessons/Don’t do your homework/ chatter on your mobile/Watch Neighbours/ Have too much fun
YOU WILL
End up like Uncle Ginger.
There were two ways to respond to this.
The preferred parent option was:
Thank you thank you! What brilliant parents you are. Now I realise how foolish I’ve been I will work so hard from now on that my brain will bleed.
The more usual response was
Yeah, so what. I like Uncle Ginger. Uncle Ginger may be poor but he’s happy isn’t he?
This provoked a long exasperated sigh from the lecturing parent, because it was annoyingly true.
Uncle Ginger was the opposite of ambitious.
He didn’t want to be famous
He didn’t want to be a millionaire.
Or own his own airline.
And have a luxury holiday home on a palm-fringed paradise in the Carribean.
He was happy the way he was.
Free to get up when he wanted,
Eat when he was hungry,
Sleep when he was tired, even if it did happen to be four in the afternoon.
Also Uncle Ginger had been a school drop-out.
Not because he was thick. Even his enemies called him Swotty. In fact he was more like was one of those inspiring children you see on tv recruitment adverts. The eager beavers with their arms upstretched who want to know about everything and anything. It was assumed that Glynn passing his exams was a mere formality and then he would go on and be brilliant at university or work in some high tec lab like his dad. But one morning fifteen year old Glynn had a revelation. He looked up from his cornflakes and noticed his father’s sagging shoulders and forlorn expression as he shuffled around the kitchen getting ready to go to work. And that was it. Suddenly he knew what he didn’t want to do. As soon as he was 16 Glynn shut up his books, waved goodbye to his astonished teachers and walked out.
This was:
Madness, stupid, thoughtless, foolhardy, or un-bloody-believable according to Glynn’s parents.
Lucy was quite impressed. Imagine saying no to Gran!
And then there was his house, Pant Glas, the centre of Glynn’s world.
Lucy remembered the first time she’d seen it.
It was when she was ten. He had been going on and on for weeks about some house he’d discovered and was trying to buy. In the end, one wet Sunday afternoon the whole family piled into his land rover and went for a tour.
According to the estate agent’s ‘blurb’- Pant Glas was a 'traditional stone and slate farmhouse with many original features in need of modernisation.’
This was such a porker.
Pant Glas was a total dump.
When they’d finished scrambling up the track and first caught sight of it, Lucy’s parents had been so appalled their jaws had dropped open. Uncle Ginger didn’t seem to notice, or if he did, he must have assumed they couldn’t speak because they were overwhelmed by wonder.
Pant Glas wasn’t a house; it was more a collection of big mossy rocks randomly piled on top of one another.
There wasn’t an unbroken pane of glass in any of the downstairs windows. The roof was a precarious jigsaw of rusty red corrugated iron sheets. There were jackdaws nesting in the chimney. The kitchen floor was invisible beneath a crusty black carpet of sheep poo. And the smell! It was like the boys' toilet at school, times twenty two!
But Uncle Ginger looked as happy as if he’d just won the National lottery.
Where other people could only see doom, gloom and disaster Glynn saw sunshine hope and opportunity.
They might as well have been looking at two completely different buildings.
‘Check out the stonework on that fireplace.' He purred.
'Look at the grain on those old beams. Beautiful or what?
‘Hey come and check out this view. Look at those mountains…. Can you believe it?’
Glynn was in love…
Three years later Pant Glas looked like a proper home. The sheep had been banished, the jackdaws evicted and the roof made waterproof. The outside had been painted with deep pink lime wash. The windows were glossy blue. He’d rebuilt the old Rayburn in the kitchen, and he was very proud of his new spiral staircase. ‘Look at the finish on that. Welsh oak that is. ’
‘Hmm. You’ve done a great job!’ said her dad, trying not to sound too surprised.
As far as Glynn was concerned this was paradise. There were mountain views in one direction and the distant glittering sea in another. His nearest neighbour was a friendly family of badgers. He could do what he wanted, make as much noise as he liked. He could dance around naked in the middle of the night and there was nobody going to complain.
Except of course Granny One who refused to even get out of the car because she was worried she might 'catch something'.
Lucy smiled.
Good old Uncle Ginger.
And another thing she liked about her Uncle Ginger was his attitude to sport.
Unusually for a Welshman and unlike all the other males in the family, Glynn had zero interest in rugby. (And it must be added sub-zero knowledge.)
That’s just about acceptable for a welsh girl, but for a welsh man it’s almost a social suicide note.
Rugby is what real men and real boys and their proper girl friends are expected to do. Watch it, play it, put on the red shirts and the dragon hats and the stripy scarves and then talk about it. Endlessly. Over lunch. In the office. In the playground. Down the pub.
Glynn kept very quiet. He didn’t know the difference between a line-out and a Cornish pastie.
On the other hand he was completely fluent in multi-national corporations, global warming and the evils of MacDonalds. Any mention of the queen or the royal family (‘the bloody useless royal family’ to give them their full title.) would have him sitting up wide awake and banging the table..
Uncle Ginger’s solution to almost everything was to abolish the royal family, sell off all the royal palaces and force the queen to live on a council estate in Merthyr.
He certainly wasn’t the only Welshman to have such feelings; his attitude had probably been shared by generations of republican Joneses but for Glynn, it was a passion. He wrote angry letters, he argued in bars and if any royal was rash enough to step over the border, Glynn was out there at the front of the crowd heckling and shaking his placards.
This not only made him unpopular with the police it made him unpopular with his own mother. Lucy’s Gran had recently and inexplicably gone over to ‘the other side’ and become a royal groupie. Instead of shuffling about in the post office and forgetting things like proper old people, she spent hours and hours lurking on ebay snapping up tea towels china plates and other royal memorabilia.’ Glynn’s occasional public protests reduced her to shaking, spluttering rage: ‘Stupid boy! What on earth does he think he’s doing? Disrespectful, irresponsible…’
For the older members of the Jones’ family Uncle Ginger and ‘irresponsible’ went together as naturally as Caerphilly went with cheese. Lucy reckoned they were all secretly jealous. They envied his carefree life style. Just because he never bothered to phone up three weeks in advance and get his visits marked down on the kitchen calendar, didn’t mean he was irresponsible. But adults just didn’t appreciate his good qualities. He was like a protruding rock in the smooth flowing river of their lives.
You mean he’s gone?
Yes.
But where to?
Dunno.
Didn’t he say anything?
No. Yes. He said ‘Things to do, people to see.’
Anything else?
Er.. Goodbye? Lovely to see you?
And that’s it?
Yup.
Is he coming back.
Didn’t say.
I swear that man lives on another planet.
In one important way Uncle Ginger was one of the most reliable people Lucy knew. Some adults promised a lot but then forgot. Uncle Ginger was more sparing with his promises but if he said he was going to do something or be somewhere; he did it.
Which is why what happened on Lucy’s 13th birthday was so surprising and upsetting.
It is June 21st, the night before Lucy’s birthday.
Lucy is lying in bed. Eyes wide open.
Annoyed. Frustrated.
But it’s not easy keeping up annoyed after you’ve been lying in a warm bed for half an hour. Her teeth-clenching foot-stamping door-banging fury had somehow melted down into her pillow and become a small damp patch of irritation.
Being a twelve year old girl wasn’t much fun.
Well the girl bit was ok because she certainly wouldn’t want to be a boy, but twelve is not a good age. It’s not one thing or the other. You’re more than a child but less than a teenager. Nobody listens to you. Nobody takes you seriously.
Especially certain control-freak parents!
Even though you've worked everything out and the fact that you've been planning it for weeks and phoned up and got all the bus times and it's really really safe because she'd be going with Annabel who was fourteen and they were only going to Swansea for the day, not Afghanistan!
They were so old fashioned! In bed by ten! Just because it was ‘a school day’
What sort of a stupid rule was that?
It was embarrassing.
Her friends couldn’t believe some of the things she wasn’t allowed to do!
Their parents let them do ANYTHING.
They’d been going out on their own for ever.
Some of them had even been out with a boy.
After dark.
One or two had even held a boy’s hand and not got pregnant.
Shock horror!
Anyway she was keeping her fingers crossed that the landmark of becoming a teenager would make a difference.
A bit less ‘No, I'm sorry Lucy but you're only twelve so blah blah blah…
A bit more ‘blah blah blah so what do you think Lucy?’
The trouble was, although she couldn’t stop yawning, she also couldn’t get to sleep. Random thoughts were bouncing about inside her head like silver balls in a pin ball machine.
And another annoying thing were her restless legs. Every time she snuggled herself into a comfortable part of the bed one of her legs would get overheated and twitchy and demand to be moved to a cool spot. Lucy sat up, flipped her pillow over to the cool side, jiggled her feet up and down and then crashed back down again.
The clock ticked.
The clock tocked.
Hickory dickory dock.
Tick tock.
Tick tock.
Or more like tick tick really.
Tick, tick, tick.
Time torture.
Like water dripping from a leaky tap.
Downstairs she could hear the muffled sound of laughter from the TV in the sitting room. That was so unfair! She had really wanted to watch. Just because it was a stupid school day tomorrow…
She lay in the dark with her eyes squeezed tight and tried to think soft sleepy thoughts.
Cotton wool
Fluff
Clouds
Warm sand
Sea shore
Sunshine
Dozing
Drifting
Far away noises
Sleep…
SLEEP!
No chance.
In just two hours it was her birthday. Everybody would have to be nice to her for the whole day.
Even PB.
AND she would at last find out what she was getting as her Birthday Surprise.
Usually by the time it came to June 14th Lucy had a fair idea what it was going to be. Last year it had been a weekend up in London staying with Auntie Ree. That had been so cool! Front row tickets for The Lion King. She was still the only person in school to have been on the London Eye.
The year before that the parents had organised ‘The Great Vampire sleep-over’ with a pizza party and a load of horror movies.
This year…?
This year was a total mystery.
But she was guessing it was going be something very sophisticated; e.g. a full-on meal at the posh Indian in Ammanford. Birthday girl plus select friends?
Anna and Beth had never been out to a proper restaurant in their whole lives! It would be such fun to introduce them to the joys of Peshwari naans, onion rings, aloo Sag. And then there were all those brilliant desserts. She could still remember the first time they’d gone to Shezan and the thrill of discovering her orange sorbet was served up inside a real frozen orange!
Excellent.
BUT.
Maybe she was wrong.
An awful thought crept into Lucy's mind, sat down on a pile of brain cells and pulled a very ugly face.
What if there was a downside to becoming a teenager? Apart from the obvious; getting periods, having to do household chores and zits etc.?
What if to make up for the extra pocket money, respect etc you had to give something up?
What if there was some rule that said teenagers are too old for stuff like birthday surprises?
What if it was just a thing for little kids, like tooth fairies and bedtime stories and goodnight kisses and sitting on laps?
NooOOO!
They wouldn’t…?
She kicked the ugly thought back into the darkness where she was 99.5 per cent sure it belonged. Not her parents. They wouldn’t do that. It wouldn’t be fair.
And fairness was practically a religion in this house.
She looked at the pulsing, glowing numbers on her bedside clock and yawned.
10.33
Tick tick
Tick tick
1034
Tick
How was she going to get through the night?
Perhaps if she put the pillow over her head and blocked everything out.
On the other hand...
Did she need to go to the loo?
Maybe...
Maybe not.
The more she thought about it the worse it got. In the end she had to give in and slide out from under the warm covers.
Cold feet hitting the floor. Squeaky door. She screwed her eyes up against the hard bright landing light.
Halfway to the bathroom the phone started ringing.
She heard the sitting room door opening and her dad answering:
‘Hello? 860702’
‘O Hi Ginger’
Then suddenly his voice dropped to a shocked whisper.
‘NO!’
Lucy blood froze.
It was obviously some disaster.
Who was dead?
Had someone’s parents split up?
WHY didn’t he want anyone else to know?
By holding her breath and listening really hard Lucy could pick out the odd word.
‘Stroppy?’
‘Mum?’
‘Overtired?!’
They were having a secret conversation about her!
This was an outrage. It was an infringement of her human rights.
It wasn’t that Lucy was nosy or anything. She was just curious. She didn't go in for listening at keyholes. And you wouldn’t catch her wandering into her brother's room while he was away at canoe club and looking in his diary, which happened to have been left wide open in the drawer, underneath his socks, to see if he had been writing anything nasty about her.
Oh No.
It was a simple matter of needing to know
Exactly What Was Going On?
Where It Was Happening?
and
WHY SHE HADN’T BEEN INVITED!
Sometimes adults were so obsessed with their jobs and dentist appointments and electricity bills that they often forgot to tell her important things; things a girl really needed to know. Anyway this time what really made her ears prick up and take notice was the word ‘Mosquito’. She dropped to her knees and pressed her head hard against the banisters.
For most people a mosquito is a whining little blood-sucker who ruins camping holidays and gives people malaria.
For Lucy it had a whole different meaning.
The Mosquito was a typical Glynn project. A micro-light plane made from recycled materials. Imagine even thinking it might be possible to build your own aircraft let alone actually doing it!
Now what were they saying?
‘Well mumble mumble difficult.’ whispered her dad conspiratorially, ‘mumble mumble Lucy…but really… ’
‘OK.’
‘mumble burble mumble Yup.’
‘Excellent.’
‘Did she? ’
‘Fine. But can you… mumble? Sure that’ll be…and burble burble keep it clear. ’
‘No mumble problem.
Mumble burble.
‘Fantastic.’
‘See you later.’
Uncle Ginger
Plus
Birthday
Plus
Mosquito
The birthday surprise?
It was all she could do to stop herself from jumping up and shouting with excitement.
But she stayed crouching, coiled, fist pressed into lips and waited until the sitting room door clicked back shut. Then she scurried off to the bathroom, pulled on the light and grinned at herself in the mirror.
‘YE-ES!’
She turned off the bathroom light and skipped joyfully back to bed.
It turned out that she didn’t need a pee after all.
(Chapter 2)
The perfect birthday:
Starring Lucy Jones as the famous Birthday Girl
With PB as the annoying brother
Other parts played by members of the family
Scene 1. Take 1.
Blue sky, birds singing, sunny day etc. Dressed. Teeth. Mascara. Homework into bag. Kitchen. Card extravaganza.. Flowers on table. Parcels. Grinning parents. Goggle-eyed brother. Rip open. Excitement. Hugging. Toast. Weetabix.
Scene 2:
School. More hugging. Squeals. More stuff. End of school. Mum waiting outside gates. Oh my lord!
CUT
WHAT is THAT on the car! (Dear Mum PLEASE don’t be uncool and tie balloons to the aerial. I'm 13 not 3.)
Back home. Out of car. Round to garden. Table, tablecloth, candles and wild flowers. (Please Dad cut grass and move guinea pigs. Maybe clean out if time?) Brandy snaps. Cream. Crisps. Dips. Jelly. Meringues. Sausage rolls etc etc . And then…?
CUT!
She pressed rewind and had them all reversing back into the car.
Bursting through the front door. Clattering up stairs to bedroom. (Remember to tidy in morning!) Lying around listening to new cds. Suddenly Mum would shout ‘Tea Time Girls!’ All run outside in slow motion. But Hey! What was that buzzing noise? Pointing skywards. The steady drone of an approaching micro light. It would get louder and louder and suddenly there he’d be, gliding round and round over their heads, like a giant bird of prey.
All her friends would be SO impressed! ...Then Glynn would wave and he would swoop down and land in the garden.
How cool was THAT going to be!
Lucy yawned.
She couldn’t wait till tomorrow!
A sleepy smile spread across her lips - it would be the talk of Year 9 for weeks and weeks and weeks...
CHAPTER Three
Air Male
The day began perfectly, just like the radio said it was going to do. Ideal flying weather. Warm sun, clear sky, a lazy breeze rustling across the tops of the broad beans. By 12.30 he had finished his morning jobs. Chicken house roof repaired. Two rows of lettuces planted out. Letters to Western Mail Carmarthen Journal re Royal Visit. Fuel for Mosquito.
By half-past two he was ready to go. Glynn picked up the bag of presents, his flying goggles and his trusty black crash helmet. He slipped his trusty swiss army knofe into his pocket, locked the back door, slid the key under the flowerpot and walked to the top of Pant Glas hill. 'The Mosquito,' lay waiting for him; its green and blue delta wing resting like a giant arrowhead on the short, sheep-nibbled grass. He licked his finger and held it up to check the wind direction. Then he ducked under the wing, flipped the fuel switch to ‘on’, muttered a small prayer to the god of small engines and tugged at the starting cord. ‘Perummp. Perummp.’ The engine turned over but nothing happened. He pulled again and this time the engine gave a hopeful cough ‘CA- TAHHH’ ‘Good girl!’ Muttered Glynn encouragingly ‘Next time you’re going to do it.’ He gripped the cord, took a deep breath and pulled. Immediately the little engine buzzed into life. Glynn smiled happily. ‘We have lift off Houston!’ He ducked under the wing and began strapping himself into the body harness. He put on his helmet, pulled on his gloves, slipped the end of the throttle string into his mouth, gripped the steering bar and started running.
Suddenly he was in the air.
For a few minutes he circled over the hill; gradually gaining height until at last he could see the whole of the valley miniaturised beneath him. He eased back to half-throttle and smiled. It was such a fantastic feeling he couldn’t imagine ever getting tired of it. But it was time to get going; he had a mission. He manoeuvred his feet back into the back bag so that he was lying full stretch under the wing, then he opened out the throttle and headed up the valley, towards Caio and the birthday girl’s house.
After half an hour he was crossing over the lazy silver snake of the river Towy and following the line of the main A40 as it headed North. He glanced down at the map and looked at his watch. He was making good progress, probably helped by a gentle tail wind. A few minutes later somewhere between Cross Hands and Carmel this sleepy summer breeze took an enormous breath, narrowed its eyes and turned into a howling black tornado!
What happened next is anybody’s guess.
Captain Kersey on BA 112 from Heathrow to Boston had just finished advising his passengers to ‘return to their seats and fasten their seat belts because of possible turbulence’ when he happened to glance out of the side window. He thought he saw a man with a pony tail and a red beard . But since they were 4000 feet off the ground and flying at 250 miles an hour, it was obviously impossible, so he kept his mouth firmly shut.
The front page of the Carmarthen Journal ran a headline ‘Freak Storm. Hay Barn destroyed.’ It reported the uprooting of an enormous two hundred year oak tree near Llandeilo together with a photograph of local farmer Dewi Morgan grinning like an idiot in front of a chaotic heap of broken beams and twisted corrugated iron.
The last thing Glynn remembered was glancing over towards the coast and noticing an interesting looking black cloud gathering on the horizon. ‘Wonder what that is?’ he thought. A few seconds later there was a deafening roar and suddenly the Mosquito was engulfed in darkness. The little aircraft began to shudder and shake, (tossed about like a toy) it was all he could do to hold on to the steering bar. Glynn just had time to think ‘O my god! The wing’s going to break off. I’m going to die. Lucy. The presents…’ then he must have blacked out.
It was cold; bone-numbingly, brain-freezingly cold. He couldn’t see anything. Nervously he lifted his left hand off the steering bar and tried to wipe the condensation from the outside of his goggles; it made no difference. He was flying blind in the middle of heavy, thick cloud. The pilot’s nightmare. What you were supposed to do was to try and drop below the cloud but that could be dangerous too. There were plenty of obstacles lurking out there; electricity pylons, church spires, mobile phone masts. Glynn pushed cautiously down on the control bar and as the little plane tilted down he tried to work out what on earth had happened.
So far so good thought Lucy with a happy smile. Her friends really seemed to be enjoying themselves. The parents had done nothing embarrassing like talking or shaking hands.
The grass was cut. The garden was tidy.
Someone had even washed the plastic garden chairs.
'Wow a tree-house.’
Guinea pigs! O they're so cute! I love guinea pigs.'
The food looked fantastic, especially the cake in the shape of a keyboard.
'Wow! That’s so clever! Did she make that too? I wish my mum could do cakes…'
Even PB was keeping a low profile and not showing off like he often did when Lucy brought friends back.
It was all going well except for one thing. Where was Uncle Ginger?
She was starting to think she must have imagined the whole conversation, when she happened to glance over to the house and noticed her dad framed in the kitchen window, looking up at the sky. He didn’t look very happy.
The roaring had completely stopped. In fact it was so quiet it was almost spooky. The only sound was the steady droning of his engine. He glanced up to check whether there had been any damage to the struts or the wing but they seemed to have survived.
Just at that moment the Mosquito burst out of the gloomy grey dampness into dazzlingly bright sunshine.
The shadow of the little plane skimmed across a patchwork of small neat fields edged with stone walls. Far away to his left he could make out the jagged line of unfamiliar snow capped mountains. On his right, a fairy tale castle with dazzling white walls and turreted towers perched on a rocky hill top.
It was both strange and familiar at the same time; like being inside one of PB’s computer games.
But where was he really?
Where was the river?
What had happened to the A40?
He had to get back on course. Find the river. Find the road. Find Lucy’s party.
He had most of her presents. They'd be waiting for him.
How long had he been unconscious?
He pulled back the glove and looked at his watch but it had stopped.
Damn. Damn. Damn! He hated to let people down.
What he needed was a telephone.
He swung the aircraft round and headed in the direction of the castle figuring that a castle meant people and people might mean telephones. He was about halfway there when he spotted the farm. He pulled back on the steering bar and five minutes later he was circling a collection of wooden barns and outbuildings grouped in a square round a picture-postcard thatched farmhouse. It looked as if there was a reasonable piece of flat ground in a field at the back of the house, so he eased off the throttle, untucked his legs and braced himself ready for landing.
But the closer he got to the ground the more uneasy he began to feel. There was something worrying about the scene below him. Something was missing.
And then he realised what it was. This was a farm so why couldn’t he see any animals? Where were the barking dogs? Where were the children?
Where was Anybody?
He made a long low circuit over the yard.
His instinct had been right.
It wasn’t at all the peaceful scene he had first taken it for. The farmyard looked like a battle field. There were piles of bloody white bones scattered all over the grass. The carcass of a dead horse lay broken and bloated in one corner. An overturned hay cart drunkenly blocked the front door. There was glass and rubble everywhere. Doors had been torn off their hinges. Ripped curtains flapped through broken windows. The only sign of life was a solitary, scraggy chicken scratching around in the dirt. And then the smell hit him! The stomach churning stench of death and decay.
Disappointed and afraid he pulled back the control bar and with an angry whine the Mosquito soared safely skywards again.
Chapter 4
PB noticed it first.
They had just got off the school bus. Lucy was waving goodbye to her friend Annabel when she felt a tugging at her sleeve.
‘O for goodness sake Pete! she snapped ‘Leave me alone!’
‘Look!’ said Pete, ‘It might be something to do with Uncle Ginger!’ From the road they could see the top of their track. There was definitely an alien car parked outside the front door. However, even at that distance Lucy could see it wasn’t the landrover. They started running anyway. It might be someone with news!
As they panted past the car Lucy glanced through the side window. Half-eaten plastic sandwich. Sunglasses. Newspaper. Squished up butt ends in ashtray. Pack of Regals on the dashboard. Camera bag lying on the passenger seat.
He followed the road as it twisted and turned along the valley bottom between the empty fields. Was it his imagination, or was it gradually becoming wider and straighter? As if it had finally made up its mind to stop dithering about and get to somewhere important? Hopefully a nice big town with crowded streets, cafes and shops.
So far he’d not seen a single living creature. Of course living at Pant Glas he was used to being on his own but somehow he never felt lonely. This was different. Mile after mile after mile with not even a sparrow to keep him company.
It was several more miles before he spotted something living. It was a cow moving slowly across a field. A large fat black and white cow. His spirits lifted immediately. There is something very reassuring and solid about a cow. And a herd of cows was even better! There were about twenty of them standing, cooling their heels in the middle of a stream.
He was so relieved to see some fellow mammals that he put the Mosquito into a gentle dive and swooped down towards them. At first they took no notice but by the time he was buzzing over their heads, one or two of the younger ones, started panicking and stampeded clumsily up the bank and out of the water. He could hear the disapproving bellows of the parents as they followed their calves onto the bank.
'Oops! Sorry!' yelled Glynn but he was smiling.
After another quarter of an hour things were definitely looking up! He caught sight of his first human; a man on horseback rounding up some cotton wool sheep. He passed cottages with smoke drifting up out of their chimneys. Dogs barking in back gardens. Women pegging out sheets on washing lines. Two tiny children clinging onto the top of a tree, waving. It was all so gloriously normal!
He still didn’t have a clue where he was but did it matter? It was good to be alive. He was pretty sure he wasn’t in Wales. Cornwall perhaps? Gloucester. Maybe he’d been blown clean across the Irish Sea! Hopefully he was about to find out.
Glynn steered himself towards what looked like a wide open space in the town centre.
Landing is the most difficult and dangerous part of flying. So many different things to do at once. He spiralled round and round, gradually losing height until he was certain that his landing site was solid grass and not some treacherous weed-covered pond. When he was sure that he was going to go for it he slipped his legs out of the back bag . Suddenly the ground was rushing up to meet him. He cut the engine and braced himself for the shock as his feet hit the grass running. Then with a couple of bumps it was all over.
Now all he had to do was find a phone.
What country friends is this?
‘Hey! Wait for me!’ gasped Lucy.
At the top of the track it was a dead heat. But Lucy had a much heavier bag so Pete was first through the front door.
‘Mum dad?’ he shouted breathlessly ‘Have they found him?’
‘In the kitchen!’ called her Mum. ‘Someone to see you.’
Pete and Lucy standing in the hallway looked at each other and shrugged.
‘Come on.’ sighed Lucy steering her brother by the shoulder, ‘We’d better get it over with.’
The parents were sitting round the table drinking tea.
A man in a stripy grey suit and cropped gelled hair was leaning against the cooker writing in a notebook.
‘This is Jeff’ explained Lucy’s Mum.
‘He’s a reporter. From the Mail in Cardiff!’
Jeff flashed a smile. ‘Just got a few questions. Don’t look so worried. I won’t keep you long. Don’t want to keep you from your homework eh? Obviously it’s about your uncle. We, my editor and I, thought it might make a good story - human interest and all that. I’ve been telling your mam and dad how a bit of publicity might be helpful. Jogging people’s memories, that sort of thing. So all I want is for you to tell me what happened.
He turned to Lucy. ‘ Perhaps we could start with er...’ he flicked over a page of his notebook... ‘Lucy isn’t it? Thirteen yeah?’ Lucy nodded.
There was something about this man she really didn’t like.
It wasn’t just his horrible shiny suit and his slimy hair.
She didn’t like the way he seemed to have taken.
As if he was using up all their Oxygen.
He was…creepy.
She was certain of one thing; Uncle Ginger would have hated him.
Glynn unclipped himself from the harness, stepped out from under the wing and stretched.
It was good to be back on good solid ground.
From all directions small groups of adults and children were hurrying towards the landing site.
‘Aha! thought Glynn. A welcoming committee.’ ‘That's nice.’
In his imagination he was gulping down a steaming hot cup of tea.
But as they got closer Glynn saw that serving up hot drinks was probably the last thing on their minds. He'd read about crowds 'turning ugly'; well this crowd didn’t have far to turn. They were UGLY with a capital U and double underlines! They looked as if they’d escaped from a history book and were on their way to a Saturday night witch burning.
Glynn found himself slowly backing away towards the Mosquito.
Then he decided that he was just being silly. Why would a bunch of people he’d never met before want to hurt him? They were just being curious. They probably wanted to get a better look at him and his microlight.
He gave them a little friendly wave.
‘Hello! He called in his cheeriest voice. ‘Lovely day isn't it?’
There was no reaction. The crowd continued their shuffle towards him.
A thought struck him. Maybe they didn’t understand?
'DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH?' He spoke the words slowly, carefully, almost spelling out each individual letter.
They remained wall-faced and sullen.
‘SIARED CYMRAG?
SPRECHEN SIE DEUTSCH?
HABLA ESPANOL?
He had to stop there because he had run out of languages. To be honest Glynn’s Spanish and German weren’t up to much of a conversation. He knew how to say Hello thank you 2 cold beers and a sausage please’ and ‘Could you please direct me to the gentlemen’s bathroom?’
Now he had run out of both words and ideas.
He coughed politely.
‘I'M FROM WALES.’ He explained. ‘CAR-MAR- THEN-SHIRE? CR-OSS HA-NDS?'
They weren’t impressed.
Glynn swallowed nervously. It was unsettling being stared at by several hundred pairs of unsympathetic eyes.
Smiling nervously he turned back to the Mosquito and made an elaborate show of unscrewing the fuel cap and peering inside.
He was now completely surrounded.
There were hundreds of them, at least four or five deep. Men, women, children, dogs, even a couple of goats. He noticed that a few of the men had pitchforks and axes slung on shoulders.
He tried again.
‘I hope this is ok my landing here? Had a bit of trouble. I mean I could move if....if...?’
His voice trailed away.
Some of them were looking at him as if he was Adolf Hitler’s much nastier younger brother.
This was getting ridiculous.
He scanned the crowd and choosing the least hostile adult he stepped forward and held out his hand.
‘Glynn Jones’ he announced. ‘Pleased To Meet You.’
There was a horrified gasp from the crowd.
They scuttled back as if they were afraid of catching something.
Glynn stopped.
They stopped.
With an exasperated sigh he turned round and moved the few paces back towards the Mosquito. He could hear one or two of the braver ones shuffling slowly after him.
It was like playing grandmother's footsteps.
‘This is stupid!’ thought Glynn. " Really Really stupid!'
It could have gone on for ever but after five minutes of this frustrating dance Glynn was getting desperate.
Suddenly, before anyone had time to realise what was going on, he swivelled round and walked back into the crowd. There was screaming chaos as they pushed and shoved each other in their haste to escape!
Glynn reached out to try and get hold of someone. Then he felt a sharp painful blow on his back and lost his balance. As he toppled forward, he tried to save himself by grabbing onto an arm but it was too late. They both crashed to the ground and Glynn found himself sprawled across a very angry old woman.
‘So sorry!’ he panted as he helped the old woman up from the ground.
‘But what’s going on? Why won’t anyone talk to me?’
The woman glared at him.
He hadn’t made a good choice for a landing mat.
The dry bony 108 year old hand he was holding belonged to Old Ma.
She was either
a)
an incredibly well respected, wise and terrifying senior citizen who could not only tell stuff that was going to happen but also when it was going to happen and even how many horses and bottles of wine it would take to stop it happening.
Or
b)
An irritating miserable old witch, a self appointed self important busybody who could curdle milk with one of her curses.
She snatched her arm away from Glynn's grasp and pointed at the Mosquito.
‘Devil bird!’ she growled.
Glynn forced a smile. ‘No. no no.’ he explained, ' It's a plane. I built it myself from…
The crowd gasped.
'Magic' they murmured.
Glynn groaned despairingly but before he even had a chance to explain the principles of aero dynamics and powered flight the old woman slammed her stick down onto the ground and once again the crowd fell silent.
'We don't like outcomers in these parts' she announced.
A murmur of agreement mumbled round the crowd.
Outcomers enders are trouble. Outcomers are a danger to the community. They are a disease. There is only one cure for Outcomers.
By this point Glynn was guessing that ‘the cure’ probably had nothing to do with five star hospitals, crisp white nurses or unlimited supplies of grapes. Furtively he reached down into his pocket and felt for his trusty swiss army knife. He was pretty sure that next door to the thing for getting stones out of horses’s hooves there was a cunning fold out tool for dealing with restless natives.
‘Yes! Yes!’ chanted the crowd.
'We've got troubles enough as it is and we don't...'
It was at this moment that Glynn decided he was too hot and pulled off his flying hat.
The effect was as instant as it was unexpected.
Total silence.
Old Ma stopped in mid rant. Her hands dropped to her sides, her stick clattered to the ground. It was as if someone had whipped out her batteries. A look of total amazement slowly spread over her wizzened features. Then she sank down onto her knees, seized hold of Glynn’s hand and kissed it three times.
A ripple of excitement ran through the crowd.
Ooo.
Glynn was confused.
And worried.
Dark thoughts chased each other round his head.
‘O my lord!’ thought Glynn ‘she must be having a fit!
Supposing she died?
Guess who was going to get the blame?
Why was that axe man looking at him in a funny way?
Supposing, and this was a particularly ghastly thought, supposing he had to get down and give her the kiss of life!
Gently but firmly he hooked his hands under her armpits and tried to pull her back onto her feet. She wouldn’t be moved. It was like trying to lift heavy jelly.
She remained gazing up at him like an adoring puppy.
It was obvious that she’d had some kind of revelation - one of those moments when the brain whips back the curtains of uncertainty and spotlights reveals some blinding, mind-boggling truth. Like the meaning of life or how to do binomial fractions.
'Red.' she gasped.
Glynn fingered his beard. 'Yup’ he admitted ‘No denying that!'
At this Old Ma rose triumphantly to her feet, turned to the crowd flung her arms high into the air and announced;
The Red Rider has returned!’
It was like a spell had been broken .
All at once the previously hostile but dumb crowd found its voice.
It started as a low murmur like the drowsy buzz of summer flies.
Then it grew as loud as several wasps in a jam jar and finally it ended up like the contents of two beehives knocked over by a clumsy cow. You could hardly hear yourself think above the clacking of tongues, the jabbing of fingers and shaking of heads.
Really? Can it be?
I was expecting someone bigger.
Nice jacket though.
Look after my axe a minute I need the toilet.
And me.
He has quite nice eyes.
Hang on I want to go too.
He'd be mad in my opinion.
Well mad is as mad does.
That's true.
Old Ma is never wrong.
No. Never,' they agreed.
Glynn stood there scratching his head, wondering whether he was just having a crazy dream or had died and gone to a downmarket branch of Hell. He was only slightly surprised to notice that the entire crowd, were now following Old Ma’s example and had all dropped onto their knees and were slowly shuffling towards him, raising their arms up and down in salute.
When they were close enough for Glynn to see the off-whites of their eyes and also note that personal hygiene and the control of body odour weren't taken all that seriously, they started punching their fists in the air as if they were Swansea City fans and they'd just thrashed Man U 5 -1
Red Rider! they chanted.
Red Rider! Red Rider!
Glynn shifted from one foot to the other and tried to get the right expression on his face. Modest yet cool was a tricky one to pull off and sadly he ended up looking like Gawky McGeek the Village idiot.
Not surprising really, considering he was still trying to cope with this dramatic rubber-burning u-turn in his fortunes.
One minute he being treated like something nasty the cat had sicked up and then before he even had the chance to get out the cloth and disinfectant he had been promoted to superhero!
How long would it last? He didn't know.
But in a way he was rather enjoying himself.
He hadn’t been worshipped like this since Miranda Holt had developed a crush on him in primary school.
Not Present and Not Correct
Lucy’s Jones's (pictured left with brother Michael 8)13th birthday celebrations in the picture postcard village of Caio Carmarthenshire, ended in tragedy when the star attraction, a Microlight piloted and constructed by her Uncle James Jones failed to arrive. The police and air sea rescue services were notified but failed to find any trace of either Uncle or aircraft. ‘We’re baffled’ admitted local police supremo Owen Johns. ‘He seems to have disappeared without trace.’ The birthday girl herself was putting on a brave face. ‘I don’t care about the presents’ she said. ‘I just want my uncle back.’ Investigations are continuing.
Sometimes on market days (Alternate Tues. and Sats.) you could hardly move for wise women, stretching out their wise old palms and suggesting wise old things to do.
But, compared to Old Ma, they were quite frankly, amateurs. Maybe on a good day they could forecast the weather for the next ten minutes, give you directions to the post office and sell you the ingredients for long life tea (caution may cause drowsiness, satisfaction not guaranteed. No refunds.) Not one of them, however, was in the same league as Old Ma. She was the champion of champions.
She knew how many beans made five.
She understood about the sound of one hand clapping.
She was never ever surprised by events because she could see into the future and being 108, she was part of the past so she knew just about everything.
So she was the obvious person to answer questions like
‘What's going on ?’
'Why are you all looking at me as if I’m Mister Universe and have psychedelic sunbeams coming out of my ears?'
‘Aha!’ she cackled, ‘I already knew you were going to ask me that!' ha ha hah!’
Apparently it was a very long story.
But of course if you wanted a very long story Old Ma was your woman.
Apparently…
It all began a hundred years ago when young Prince Radofan (13 and a half ) was out strolling in the Forest of Eden with his Nanny (56 and three quarters).
They were on a mushroom hunt and had just about got enough for a flan when somehow or other they got separated.
At first the little prince wasn’t at all worried, he thought it was one of Nanny’s amusing hide and seek games so he just carried on. But after one hour passed and then another and there was still no sign of Nanny. His little princely face started to sag. 'Nanny? he shouted ‘Save me Nanny! Save me!'
By the end of the afternoon the exhausted prince was on the point of giving up and going to sleep, when he stumbled out into a large clearing. It was such a relief to be away from the trees and see some open sky. The clearing was about the size of a football pitch. Round the edge there was a circle of huge rotting tree stumps. The ground was a soft carpet of ivy and pine needles dotted with small pink flowers and clumps of tall thin blue grass. But the sight that made the prince’s heart leap with hope, was on the opposite side. It was an old fashioned log cabin with a stone chimney. The little prince was overjoyed and he started running towards the little house.
© 2008/9 Jonathan Shipton