Day Return to Cocoa Yard , livre ebook

Austin Macauley Publishers - Mark Bickerton

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106 pages

English

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Day Return to Cocoa Yard is an anthology of sixteen novellas and short stories charting the journey of underdogs, whether theyre children, adults, murderers or tragic lovers.

Sujets

Short story

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Publié par	Austin Macauley Publishers
Date de parution	28 août 2020
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781528990950
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Extrait

Day Return to Cocoa Yard
Anthology of novellas and short stories
Mark Bickerton
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-08-28
Day Return to Cocoa Yard About the Author Dedication Copyright Information © Acknowledgements “Repas Heureux” “The Sleeper on the Train” “Bedfellows” “Mr Johnson’s Dragon” “The Birds Are Dead” “Four and Twenty Blackbirds” “Last Halloween” “Embers” “I Am the Egg Man” “It’s That Old Evil Called Love Again” “One for Miners and Children” “Shelter” “Day Return to Cocoa Yard” “Mystery Came to Dinner” “Orange Dog—the Diary of Malcolm B” “Baiser Au Pays Des Mille Collines”
About the Author
Mark Bickerton has many writing and producing credits in TV, radio and theatre. He is known principally for his work on soap operas such as Coronation Street and Emmerdale but is now working with his first love of prose. Day Return to Cocoa Yard is his debut book. As a storyteller and writing consultant, Mark has lived and worked in remote and often troubled parts of the globe including Rwanda and the African Great Lakes region. His permanent home is in Cheshire England, where he lives alone with a part-time lodger called depression and many full-time friends. He has been married twice and has four children and two grandchildren.
Dedication
To my parents and my children.
Copyright Information ©
Mark Bickerton (2020)
The right of Mark Bickerton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him 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.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781528990943 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781528990950 (ePub e-book)
www.austinmacauley.com
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LQ
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank the Bickertons: Mary Madeline, Harry, El Gabriel, Dominic, Charlie, Constance, Paul, Gary and Terry, also Jayne, Miranda Gorst, Zoe, and all his friends especially Dave Turner, the Knappers and Chris Shenton, who are a bridge over troubled water. Thanks also go to the many characters good and evil encountered on his travels, who have—sometimes unwittingly—inspired these writings.
“Repas Heureux”
Seventeen days after the bairn showed up in the world I was the happiest man alive. She was eight pound eleven ounces, a big baby that meant poor wee Danni had to be cut. I was there for the birth, dashed over from Clyde, and there for the needlework. The Chinese doctor with the thread had a cold and he was breathing hard, trying to sniff back the snot that was saturating his mask because he couldn’t interrupt the flow of what he was doing to blow his nose, and I was sitting there worrying he’d infect us, especially the baby. Would I kick off about it? Tell them to send some other doctor without ailment? Still, these guys are snowed under and wee one was sleeping in her tantalus, smiling blissfully unaware, and despite my concerns about the doctor’s germs, Danni and I couldn’t stop smiling too, and whispering that we’d brought something so wonderful, miraculous, into this shitty world.
After two drunken days and nights I was back to the infirmary with my sister because she had a car to bring them home, mother and daughter. The little thing, that’s my daughter not Danni, pink with tufts of hair, the tiny hands also pink and plump as I allowed her to grip my finger. Danni and I were nervous, anxious, inexperienced and excited twenty-something new parents to the wee bundle of miracles, her beautiful face creased as a fist. Phoebe was what we decided.
At the time I was welding on the Clyde in Govan, just about clinging to a job Thatcher’s Eighties would surely claim. “Another wee belly to fill,” Danni said. So between shifts at the pub with the lads to wet the bairn’s head, I was putting in as much overtime as possible, welding the social, professional and fatherly roles together. Until with impeccable timing, calamity struck and I was told the job was no more – come end of the month I’d be like the rest of the lads and the hordes of unwashed hopeless.
With Danni not working obviously we needed something quick but it wasn’t easy. Precious few new ships to sail and my redundancy package such as it was would not last so long. So when my brother-in-law, Peter, said he needed a hand with a painting job, I tore his arm off from the pit.
“Guess who’s got work?” I said to Danni who was giving wee Phoebe a bottle when I was in from the pub.
“Great!” she exclaimed, “Where?”
“Painting job with Pete,” I said.
“Ah, that’s brilliant so it is,” she said, “But where?”
“Only temp, but it’ll keep us going till I find something more permanent.”
“Of course but are you going to tell me where?”
“He said we should be able to string this one out for a month or so.”
“But where for Christ’s sake?” she said. And I took a breath or two before saying the word.
Peter’s friend of a friend of a friend called Fat Andy from Edinburgh was one man the eighties were being good to. He drove a fancy BMW and owned a string of properties from Edinburgh to London or beyond, and his latest acquisition was a Pyrenean chalet in some place called Les Angles near Andorra. Apparently, he bought it so him and his wife could spend the winter there skiing, jammy fat bastard, and he wanted it fixing up for their first trip to icy luxury.
“I’ve seen the photos,” said Pete, “it looks fucking amazing.”
“So what will we be doing?” I asked him.
“Apparently, the roof wants looking at, the drains are backing up and some of the wooden structure needs replacing.”
“Sounds like a big job.”
“Maybe a month and we’ll need scaffolding. I’m taking you and a guy called Ab I met in the pub. Nice enough bloke with a wonky eye but knows his way around the tools. He’s signing on and fancies a bit of moonlighting.”
“So what will I be doing?” I asked.
“The balcony’s away from the back wall in danger of coming down the mountain.”
“She’ll be comin’ down the mountain when she comes.”
“Aye,” he said, unimpressed, “That’s where you come in, with your welding gear.”
“Brilliant.”
“And then it wants repainting, inside and out, and the floor varnishing. That’s where we all come in. Last job, we varnish our way out the door so it goes off when we close up behind us and say au revoir .”
“Sounds great.”
“Aye. There’s a lake at the bottom of the mountain called Lac Matemale and you can see ibex apparently.”
“Is that a fish?”
“No, it’s a goat.”
“In the lake?”
“Fuck off you prick. Do you want the job or not?”
“I want the job aye.”
“I’ll show you the plans tomorrow. Meantime, you’ll have to work out how you’re going to tell Danni you’ll be leaving her and the wee bairn.”
“No sweat,” I said and hid a while in my pint as he gave me a look, before adding “I’ll tell her it was Tebbit’s orders.”
And that night I found her giving my beautiful little Phoebe a bottle and nervously said the word.
“France?” she said, pulling the bottle out with a plop.
And so I told her the spec, all about Pete’s friend of a friend of a friend called Fat Andy from Edinburgh who was doing well for himself in his posh BMW and string of properties the latest of which was some holiday retreat in the Pyrenees.
“Bully for him! But France!”
“I know, hen, but the man’s a gold mine. Could be a lot more work if we pull this one off.”
“What about me and wee Phoebe?”
“I know I know,” I said, softly. “But the money won’t last for ever. We need to feed wee one and clothe her, they soon grow out of things my sister said, and somewhere to live. She’ll outgrow this place as quick as her clothes.”
“I know,” she said, showing signs of weakening.
“I’ll phone every day,” I said.
“You’d better.”
“And Millie said she’d come round and help with wee one.”
“You told your sister before you told me!”
“Only because I was nervous of telling you,” I reassured, knowing I’d jeopardised things and fearing some fire from the Irish side of her.
“What did she say?”
“She said of course she’d help you, goes without saying. And she knows the score, we need the money.”
“Is she all right with Pete going to France?”
“No sweat at all, she said. She trusts him.”
“Are you saying I don’t trust you ?”
“I’m not saying that! I know you trust me. It’s in the mountains, there’ll be bugger all else to do except work.”
“No French madams then?”
“No French madams I promise. Anyway, apparently there are ibex.”
“What are ibex?”
“Goats. Would you mind if I got that desperate?”
And she laughed and said take over the feed because she needed a pee.
“Are you sure this fucking heap of rust will get us there?” asked Ab, giving Pete’s old DAF the once-over with the eye that could find it.
“Cheeky bastard,” said Pete, “This van’s never let me down. Get your tools in.”
Pete had got the cheapest deal possible and we were to drive to Dover for the ferry then share the driving from Calais through Paris, down through Limoges, Toulouse and climb the Pyrenees to Les Angles. He knew the route, got it sussed, and even knew where we’d be stopping off for a beer and a bite. It was a long trip but we were ready for it, excited, three lads in a van, a bit of money in our pockets, singing songs. Ab even had his banjo, which he couldn’t play but at least he had it. He seemed a decent bloke, bit of a