Tall Short Tales , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers - Gary Blair

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68 pages

English

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Storytelling is an art and one I am not sure I have perfected. I learned from a generation long gone as I listened to them spin wild yarns and tell tales purely for enjoyment. Having been raised in a rural part of Northern Ireland, I heard many stories from many people as they met in living rooms, kitchens, bridges and the crossroads that were central to village life. It is a part of the social history of our country that is often forgotten about and certainly eclipsed by the turbulent times we have lived through. The folk of Northern Ireland are generally fond of a laugh and good at telling yarns for enjoyment. I will never be the storyteller of that generation now gone but I hope, with this offering, to at least be making an effort to carry on their tradition. None of my stories are actual events but all spring from an incident or series of incidents I heard about. That was how my forefathers did it; they took a nucleus of an idea, a mere snippet, and built a story around it. I hope you enjoy my attempt to mirror those we loved and lost to the passing of time.

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Short story

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	30 novembre 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528988995
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0175€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Tall Short Tales
Yarns from Northern Ireland
Gary Blair
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-11-30
Tall Short Tales About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Working Class Hero The Rookie The Wake The Tent The Caravan The People’s Choice The Still The Holiday
About the Author
Gary was born in the village of Bendooragh, near Ballymoney in north Antrim. Growing up in the 1970s, he used to listen to the stories told by his grandfather and a group of his friends who met frequently in his home. As time passed, the memory of these stories faded but not his memory of how enjoyable they were to hear. The aim of this book is to bring laughs and happiness to the reader in the old tradition of storytelling that has been largely eclipsed by modernity.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Archie Atcheson, and his generation of storytellers who made their own entertainment before the advent of multimedia and reliance on television for fun and laughter.
Copyright Information ©
Gary Blair (2020)
The right of Gary Blair to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Austin Macauley is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In this spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528988988 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528988995 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge the help and support I received from my immediate family and the ‘Blues Brothers’ who encouraged me and took a genuine and avid interest in my work and ideas.
Working Class Hero
A chink of light cut its way through a narrow slit, where the curtains met, and attacked the sleeping eyes of John Spence. He opened one eye to challenge the intrusion and quickly closed it again. Although awake, John resisted the urge to get up and greet the morning – if it was indeed morning for it could be much later. He shut his eyes tightly, in a bid to return to the tranquillity of a dreamless sleep but the light had done its work. Like it or not, John was awake and left with no choice but to face the day ahead.
Downstairs in the living room of the two-up, two-down terraced house, Madge Spence sat, gloomily clutching a mug of tea with both hands as if to let go would mean the mug would escape. She scanned the room, acknowledging the frayed curtains, the ancient television and the scuffed armchair and sofa. Madge was a woman who went through the daily trial of coming to terms with her lot in life. Every morning, she would get up, make a pot of tea, and sit in the same uncomfortable wooden chair sipping her hot, sweet tea, and deliberate on how cruel her life had been. It had all began so promising. On leaving school, she got a job in the shirt factory and met the man who would one day be her husband. Their courtship was a whirlwind of nights out and long walks on a Sunday. He had boasted of the money he would make, and she confided that she would continue to work in the shirt factory regardless how rich they would become.
The wedding was a small affair, in a local church that neither groom nor bride had attended with much enthusiasm or regularity. Afterwards, they had a reception in a local bar and headed off for two days to Donaghadee. They would have gone further, but with Madge being already three months pregnant, her new husband, Ronnie, said it would be far too dangerous. Anyway, they would get a foreign holiday after the child was born, he promised. After three testing months, living in her cramped mother’s house, Madge successfully secured them a marital home nearby. He would have taken care of all that, Ronnie had said, but he was far too busy earning money and caring for his beloved pigeons, who were still living in a loft, in the back yard of his father’s home.
Madge reflected bitterly, how they had scraped together enough money to buy a strange assortment of second hand furniture. The new stuff would come, Ronnie assured her, but this would get them started. He would be getting a promotion for sure, and as soon as the baby came, everything would improve. At that point, Madge slowly removed her hands from the mug and placed one over each eye. The furniture around and below her was the exact same furniture, they had bought all those years ago!
Eighteen years ago, in fact, she thought with renewed anger! Slowly, she opened her fingers and looked again at the furnishings, as if they might have changed their appearance and become new and fresh. She sighed deeply as she recognised the same old tatty chairs and scuffed linoleum. Removing her hands from her face, Madge pulled a ridiculously long cigarette from the pack beside her mug of now lukewarm tea and lit it, inhaling and exhaling deeply.
What a life! What a house!
A slight noise distracted Madge from her melancholy and she turned her head slightly to glance out the kitchen window. Ronnie Spence, oblivious to his wife’s rage and resentment, and unaware of her piercing looks through the glass, held his favourite pigeon lovingly in his hands. Although she couldn’t hear what he was saying, Madge shook her head in despair and disbelief.
Out there talking to a bird! He never says a word to me, he wouldn’t make a bed or brush the floor yet there he is, out there making small talk with a pigeon! Still shaking her head, she watched as Ronnie smiled fondly at the disinterested bird and uttered a few more words of love and encouragement.
What a man! What a waste!
Suddenly, Madge was distracted from the sight of her introverted husband and his pigeon. A creaking noise from above alerted her to the imminent arrival of her useless, lazy son. It’s fine for him to lie in his bed until this time of the day! He has not a care in the world! She glanced again at her husband, who had now set the pigeon on a narrow shelf, and seemed to be talking more earnestly to it. The apple didn’t fall far from the tree , she thought bitterly. Well, at least he worked for a while , she reasoned, looking again at her husband, who was now looking at the sky. That useless cretin up there has yet to start , she mused looking towards the ceiling.
What an excuse for a son! What a lazy lump!
The door opened slowly and noisily, and John stumbled into the packed living room. Silently, he moved towards the chair, pausing to help himself to one of Madge’s cigarettes. He lit it and sat down heavily as if the exertion had been unreasonable and extreme. Madge marvelled that he had accomplished the walk from his bed to the chair, with one eye half opened and the other tightly shut. Even the extraction of the cigarette had been done without the aid of vision. She looked at him wondering if he had fallen asleep again as both his eyes closed. Madge had never known what to do with John’s hair. As a child, the barber seemed every bit as bewildered. It was as if John’s hair had a mind of its own and today was no exception. Madge sighed again and looked fiercely at her son. Skin and bones , she thought. All hair and ribs!
“Any tea in that pot, Ma?” John drawled quietly.
Madge reached over to the nearby unit and retrieved a mug, slamming it down angrily on the table. She used to be a trim 8 stones but was now just over fifteen, which didn’t work well with her 5'2" height. Her weight fought against her every movement but she did not blame herself for it. After fifteen years in the shirt factory, the business ran into trouble and closed its doors to the world, leaving Madge and Ronnie unemployed and unemployable. She could never explain her refusal to work somewhere else, rather she just accepted that her working life ended the day the machines shut down for the last time. Ronnie had worked for short periods in various jobs, but he had either been sacked for bad time keeping or had found a reason for leaving. Now they lived in a terraced bubble, where time ended and began again on their front door step.
John opened his eyes warily, needing an ashtray but too afraid to ask for one. He tapped his ash into his hand and looked at his mother . She has had that bathrobe for as long as I remember , he mused thoughtfully. And them rollers in her hair! Every morning in life, she sat there drinking her tea and coughing, making the rollers bob forward and backwards .
“That for me, is it?” he asked, nodding to the mug of black tea.
“Aye, and if you can find the energy, there’s milk in the fridge and sugar in the larder!” Madge barked back. “And there’s a letter for you there, if you’re interested,” she continued, nodding at a brown envelope on the table.
John sat up in surprise. He was not someone who was accustomed to getting mail. Gingerly, he reached across and gently took the envelope from off the table and examined it closely. He lifted a nearby biro and slid it along the top of the envelope as if it was something of immense value, and deserved to be handled with care and respect. Madge stared at him impatiently.
“Just open the thing!” she yelled “You’re as bad as your da! Everything has to be a drama with you both! I don’t know what you’re being so canny about, ’cause it’s from the broo. It says so on the front at the postmark!”
Suddenly, both of John’s eyes were wide open as he quickly