Homecoming 1983
“Letting the train take the strain.”
As the nineteen eighties TV commercial of the time used to say and I was doing just that, peering out at what little remained of the once lush British countryside whizzing by outside my window, while hoping the train driver was having considerably better luck seeing through his than I had out of mine.
On the table opposite of me lay an unfurled copy of The Times newspaper and beside it, a garishly coloured tartan spectacle case. The owner of these items, a rotund but not particularly jolly looking fellow was sitting opposite me. Sporting thick, dark rimmed spectacles that had made the Giant Slalom run all the way down from the bridge of his nose, eyes tightly closed while his eyelids flickered like a dying light bulb. One of those London city gents I shouldn`t wonder, probably around 35 years of age, stockbroker or the like, and judging by the quality of his upholstery and a protruding chin that I could easily have buttered my bread on, his champagne life had been good one.
While acutely aware that the benefits of a Secondary Modern Education have little to offer when up against the might of the old school tie, I did though spare a despairing thought for the gentleman`s Saville Row tailor, who, for all his no doubt enormous talent had merely succeeded in putting lipstick on a pig!!! Opening his eyes for a few brief seconds, he appeared somewhat peeved that I had disturbed him, before swiftly returning back to sleep without uttering a word.
It`s a conundrum how common courtesy has got such a name when it apparently isn`t the least bit common at all?
The train journey home from Peterborough to Manchester that bright and sunny day in August 1983 was devoid of any attempts at polite interaction, and I admit to my irritation over the chap`s earlier display, and a childish yearning on my own part to get even. This I expressed by stopping the trolley lady as she was doing her rounds and purchasing a couple of bags of cheese and onion crisps together with a can of tepid Foster`s lager to wash it down.
While hardly ultra sonic warfare, the Golden Wonder cacophony of deafening devastation that followed did not go unnoticed nor did my humble working-class contribution to the catnapping class divide.
“Next stop Manchester.”
The Train Attendant announced over the PA, as I, opening wide, emptied the few remaining crisp crumbs down my gullet, before neatly folding the empty bag and inserting it into my empty beer can.
As the train slowly pulled into Manchester`s Piccadilly Station, I rose to my feet and removed my holdall from the luggage rack above my head, while my soundly sleeping Nemesis remained as oblivious to my departure as he had been when I arrived.
Still, I can`t help wondering his reaction waking up to find scattered fragments of cheese and onion crisps that had mysteriously crossed the great divide and that were now littering his newspaper.
“A sign of The Times would be a fitting epitaph to end our brief encounter”
I said to myself before joining the milling queue of passengers bearing their luggage as they waited in the aisle.
Strangely, the initial euphoria I feel whenever my thoughts turn to returning home to Manchester are rarely matched by my disappointment upon arrival, as outside the station Nimbus clouds accumulated high in the rapidly darkening Mancunian sky, and with spring in my step I made all haste towards the city centre ahead of the imminent deluge from above.
Dodging the usual bumper to bumper traffic outside the station, I dashed across the road and made my way along the side streets that would take me past Chorlton St Bus Station and towards Piccadilly when suddenly from behind me, I heard a woman’s voice.
“Hello love, you looking for business?”
She asked.
“Sorry, bent as a hairpin I´m afraid!”
I answered with the first thing that came into my head.
Briefly pondering this unforeseen occupational stumbling block, she gave me an odd look and replied curtly.
“Not impressed!”
Before heading off in the other direction towards Sackville Street.
Once in Piccadilly, I boarded the waiting number 82 bus and was just about to go upstairs for a smoke when I could hear loud voices and what sounded like a scuffle, and so opting for a slice of the quiet life, I sat downstairs together with the OAPs.
Taking the vacant seat beside one elderly woman, I couldn’t help noticing out of the corner of my eye, that she was glancing down at my holdall and then looking at me as if she intended to say something. A short while had passed when, pointing to my holdall, she asked.
“Excuse me young man, I hope you don`t think I´m being nosey or anything, but have you been on holiday?”
Me: No it’s perfectly fine, and yes I have actually been on a holiday of sorts I suppose you could say. You see I have been on one of those working holidays, picking fruit down in the South East.”
“Oh really. I remember staying down South once, but mind you that was a long time ago when my husband was still here.”
She said her voice tinged with sadness.
“I am very sorry to hear that, has he been gone long?”
I asked?
“Gone? She replied with an element of surprise.
You mean dead? Oh, good God no!”
Then grasping me gently by the arm, she pulled me towards her, and in a low voice whispered.
It pains me to say but the bastard is still going strong, but mark my words it´ll be a sorry day for him and that smelly arsed little trollop he ran off with should I ever catch up with either of them!”
As we continued to chat, I found it difficult not to take a liking to this nice old granny with the psychotic streak, and before too long we had struck up an instant friendship, and sharing my bag of Murray Mints, we indulged in lengthy discussions about politics, cats, crime, cats, pension cuts, cats.
The old dear could gab för Great Britain and would have had plenty to spare had there only been an export market, and though I hardly got a word in edgeways, I never minded it in the least.
Then, when it was time for me to say goodbye, there was something poignant in her voice as she told me how much she had enjoyed our chat and how she seldom got to meet other people.
“The pleasure was all mine.”
I assured her before wishing her all the best and even more so to her wayward husband for should their paths ever cross again there was little doubt in my mind which of them would be in need of it most.
I hate saying goodbyes, and as I stepped off the bus, a voice in my head assured me I needn`t bother to look over my shoulder and that she was probably still peering at me through the window as the doors shut and the bus drove away.
I couldn`t help thinking how glad I was that the old dear didn`t live around here, The Alexandra Park Housing Estate is no place for kindly, lonely hearted old souls whose only man about the house is a cat.
Stepping inside the garden gate to my parent’s council house and walking along the path, it felt like I was being bombarded by waves of emotions that came sweeping towards me. It´s funny how it always feels the same, whether I have been gone a day, a week or far longer. An emotional tug of war when euphoria of returning back home is matched equally by the impulse to leave.
I had never spared a thought for all those times I broke my mum`s heart when she watched me walking out the gate never knowing if I would return, nor how my dad felt, for we men never spoke about such things.
In the window, I could see the lace curtains being brushed to one side, and Screamer the cats emotionless face staring at me as I approached the house, the first chance he got he would be off into the garden and over the next-door fence on his mission to service the neighbourhood’s felines.
Sure enough, as the door suddenly opened, this black and white blur bolted down the path and into the bushes where he irrigated my dad’s potatoes before jumping over the fence and disappearing until the following morning.
Nothing could ever match my mums at seeing the return of her prodigal, nor the feeling of belonging I felt as she smothered me with hugs and sloppy kisses before ordering me inside the house and sit down to a cup of piping hot tea and a plate of my favourite Bourbon Creams.
Even my dad, who for one normally so tightfisted with words, showing an interest, inquiring how things were down South and keeping me up to speed on the comings and goings at Manchester United. One could easily have been forgiven for believing I had been gone for far longer than only a week.
It’s hardest thing to admit, but as important and integral as the family home was to my growing up, there was always something inside of me, compelling me to close the door and leave it all behind. Maybe it was that cocoon of warmth, love and security it offered that the turbulent side of me could never quite come to terms with...and the answer to a question which I still seek to this day.
I could compare life to a box of chocolates, where good times are like the soft centres that disappear first, and as for the nuts…..well ….as my mum might say:
“Every silver lining has a cloud.”
Excerpt taken from RBN Bookmarks forthcoming second book.
About the author
rBBookmark has been writing since 2013, his first book published in 2016 and shortly to be followed by the publication of his second and final book in 2025.
Did you enjoy the story? Would you like to shout us a coffee?. Half of what you pay goes to the author the other half goes to expense se.g. Maintaining h the web site and setting up The Best of Café Lit book each year.
No comments:
Post a Comment