Woodcall

By Mike Hoinville

This collection begins with the tale of a boy with a musical talent driven on by his mother's ambition; Great Expectations always seem to end strangely don't they? Ah – England! A mecca for tourists from all over the world... and not only this one it seems. Then a different mother with the same proxy-ambitions for her talented balletic son... and he reaches breaking point too but finds relief with a little help from... well, from somewhere. Then a short one about a Nurse who finds a little love in a short affair; shorter than she might have imagined it turns out. Finally, the title story that takes us from Dorset to France; back in the history of Mother Church... and far further than that in Time... for some, the Quest goes on....

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: Apr 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781785381010

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Publisher Information

Published in 2015 by

Andrews UK Limited

www.andrewsuk.com

The right of Mike Hoinville to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998

Copyright © 2015 Mike Hoinville

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 without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Finger Exercises

The growling and crashing brought him out of sleep. It went on for minutes - long enough for him to get out of bed and stand, naked as he was, to peer out of the kitchen window at the council rubbish lorry with its scurrying, careless crew; all dour faces and acid yellow safety waistcoats. It was Wednesday. He lingered on at the window heedless of the occasional passer-by. No one ever looked up and the Bingo Hall opposite had been empty for years while the garage diagonally opposite was still not open yet.

As he was about to get on with his normal morning routine he paused as a man came out of the entrance to Market Walk beside the bingo hall; a shabby, short figure in what was once a neat grey suit. The man simply stood there ignoring gaps in the traffic, simply staring ahead and turning left and right from time to time as if lost or deciding which way to turn. To Luke, from his vantage point, the stranger looked out of place compared to the normality of life in that little market town - and anything that broke the repetitiveness was welcome - plus the fact that Luke could not be seen and this added a kind of cool detached pleasure.

A large lorry came out of the market entrance and slammed to a halt with a loud hiss of air brakes. The scruffy figure recoiled against the wall and his hands came up under is chin, elbows tight to his ribs and fingers rapidly scrabbling in the air - the whole impression most insect-like - a wood lice on its back, a vertical millipede. Luke stood transfixed till the truck lurched off, all blatting diesel noise - to leave the little figure leaning back against the sunlit red bricks, his hands still defensively up under his chin but the fingers now stilled to a watchful curl. Luke could see the lips move silently, as in prayer, the head nodded once, twice...a decision seem to have been silently made as the figure peered rapidly left and right and trotted across the now empty road with a speed that was unexpected. Soon the figure was out of Luke’s sight.

Odd, Luke thought and during his routine morning he found his thoughts returning to the figure he had seen and keeping an eye out for him as he wandered around the few streets of the town centre.

Coming home with heavy supermarket bags - beer cans mostly - Luke spied the distinctive little figure once again coming around the corner from the large Church on his left at the junction of the two main roads. The man stopped at the corner of Luke’s street with downcast eyes, fingers plucking slowly at the hem of his jacket, obviously avoiding contact. ‘Hello’, said Luke. The man raised his eyes - dark brown, almost black - and gave what could have been the beginning of a smile before turning round to stare vacantly; seemingly finding something interesting in the road surface. Luke shrugged and moved on feeling the man’s eyes following him but not turning back to check.

Normally Luke could not be considered to be either sociable nor interested in the comings and goings of the town around him. When he worked at all it was only a series of random jobs - he had long given up on the thought of a career after a bitter few years in advertising. But occasionally and for no apparent reason he followed some meandering avenue of thought in between employments for as long as his small wage-savings would allow him to. So it was that he had delved into the history of the local park, the local castle and the coats of arms in the driveway there; another time it had been the long history of the nearest small city...all fairly random amusements.

Now Fingers had awoken his curiosity. He had dubbed the man Fingers from his first observation of the frightened insect reaction the day before. He decided to start a man hunt; a real target for sleuthing and the challenge was as much in the fact that he knew nothing about his quarry as the fact that it had to be done without raising either suspicion in the man himself nor in...well, the Police for example. So where would he start? The man had to live somewhere - he did not look so much like a tramp yet he also did not look like he had money. Unless he was some lost son of a millionaire after years on the road he had finally found his inheritance? Luke wandered around this thought for a while; after all, this inbred little town was as likely a venue for that scenario as anywhere.

His first idea was the Citizen’s Advice bureau; but advice on what? He soon went off the idea of describing why he was looking for a complete stranger who was no relative of his...even if he made up some complex fiction the trouble seemed greater than the rewards. Police were out - they would start investigating him! The local pub - in this small town this seemed as good a bet as any and luckily there were three local pubs within five minutes walk as the town was historically blessed with a local brewery in years past and once boasted an extraordinary number of pubs whose clientele was mainly the mill workers from the local factory - and though the factory was not what it had once been and even though the brewery had closed long ago, still there remained this strong information resource of some dozen or more pubs.

It didn’t take long to find what Luke was looking for.

Older bar members had quite a lot of memories of ‘Fingers’ - though nobody remembered his name. Comments on his dictatorial and extremely Puritan-minded mother were plentiful but Fingers always seemed to figure as some walk-on part at best and, at worst, as some sort of shadowy appendage to his mother’s occasional trips to the town shopping. A small, neatly dressed boy, usually in grey of some description who did not seem to go to school as far as anyone remembered; maybe he was taught at home? Seemed likely as the mother was very educated and ‘came from up country’ - which, in local parlance could as easily mean Taunton as Manchester.

The mother was a war widow, or left by a drunken husband, or was that most scandalous of things for those days, an unmarried mother. The boy’s father was a brutal drunk, an American soldier, a rich shop owner who ran off with his senior assistant, a handsome farm labourer who was not ‘good enough for her’, or a local doctor (or vicar) whose ‘shame’ was to see his illegitimate son paraded around the very town the man lived in. Thus the ‘poor woman’ was a victim, just another war statistic, a revengeful harpy...or a bit deranged with a mixture of grief and unremitting anger.

She drank a lot - or not at all. She dressed well in an old fashioned way or had ‘let herself go badly’.

But apparently two qualities did seem pretty certain. She had independent means enough to buy (or rent) the cottage next to the ‘old chapel’ on the edge of town - maybe that was the alleged vicar connection? She was also either a musician herself or was determined to make her son one as piano music had often been heard from the cottage and a fairly unmusical voice (female) from time to time.

Nothing else much. The woman had not appeared to have any regular visitors or friends and had not worked locally - probably not all having a young son. Luke was soon discouraged enough to give up on the idea of solving some mystery - he lacked mental stamina for problem solving in general and this was too...well too everything really. He put Fingers on his mental ‘back burner’.

Then on Saturday, in one corner of a long bar with pop music blaring out and slot machines flashing and tweeting, Luke came across an elderly man eating a sizeable plate of food that belied his age and thinness. They were alone as far from the flashing lights and music as the bar would allow; linked by a distaste for the garish and a wish to find quiet - and perhaps, by a slight bemusement as to why either of them were in that place at all; at least the old man had his food as an excuse.

Saturdays were always quiet in the majority of the town pubs; they came in two sorts - the music and food (in its loosest sense) based emporia which catered for the young (and too young) element. These venues were the quiet ones in daylight as the towns’ youth (and bigger children) had easily fallen into the ‘Fun means Friday and Saturday nights; formula and thus they saved up and pooled their meagreness for those nocturnal revels only. The other pub category was for the more elderly town shoppers and retired farmers who used the Saturday chauffeuring of their wives to supermarket as an excuse to ‘catch up on business’ with their cronies in one or two drink-but-sorry-only-crisps-or-nuts bars on the main street.

Luke stretched his pint out until the man had finished eating and had put his plate on an empty table, made a call on a new-looking mobile phone and drank from his small glass with a neutral nod of acknowledgement to Luke as he did so.

Bit noisy eh? Ventured Luke.

Indeed. Came the calm reply, Reminds me of the fifth year music project. The man smiled at this private joke, shaking his head gently at the memory.

A teacher then are you? Luke suggested just to keep it going.

Was, was. Forty years of it. You know how it is - there again maybe you don’t. Young people don’t have forty year careers nowadays I don’t think

Luke was silent a moment trying to imagine forty years doing the same job - especially teaching; he couldn’t grasp the variables.

Can’t really imagine how that works really. Local school?

The man nodded again with that shy half smile.

Oh yes, right here. If they had thought of it they could have made ‘Goodbye Mr.Chips’ on a quarter of the budget and still paid me well enough to retire earlier. Luke smiled dutifully, not fully understanding the reference to a play or film perhaps.

Mind if I join you? Luke proffered his empty glass, Buy you a drink perhaps? Luke felt a swift glance of appraisal, a momentary glint of sharp schoolmasterly gaze.

That’s very kind of you - just a white coffee with no sugar thanks. I only allow myself a half a day as a limit.

On his return from ordering Luke eased himself into the vacant chair and extended a hand, feeling strangely formal as he did so. It was gripped firmly in a dry palm. Malcolm Leonard - Luke made the obvious comment about the mixture of names being confusing. Malcolm nodded.

I still get letters addressed to Leonard Malcolm after all these years - you get used to it I suppose but it is still irritating. Not much to get a man’s name right is it?

Again that gentle shake of the head in disapproval.

Luke suddenly had a mental flash of curiosity for no apparent reason and described Fingers to the teacher. Immediately the pale grey eyes fixed on Luke’s face again but this time with real interest.

He did come back then? I said he would - only a matter of time. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go really I suppose even though he is only tied to this place by the saddest of memories.

Luke gently probed the enigmatic comment. The grey eyes looked reflective - then re focused as his coffee was brought. He looked up at Luke.

Neil Leman he was called. Talented lad; bit odd, no friends really, too intelligent for the local bumpkins I think. He could actually read with expression and did his homework well and on time - bound to get you a reputation for being weird eh? A gentle chuckle issued from the neat shirt and woollen waistcoated front. Luke smiled and nodded, not wishing to break the flow.

Mother was odd if you ask me. Hardly saw her except when she came with the boy on the first day and occasionally at parents’ meetings but only to look quickly around the walls for her son’s work and then disappear before the meeting actually started; she never once came to the boy’s prize giving or the end of term concerts - not once. Must have been hurtful for the lad but he never showed it - never showed anything much like feelings actually; still must have been unpleasant for the poor lad.

That appeared to be it. Luke felt comfortable enough with the gentle manners and soft delivery to push a bit harder.

D’ya know why this Neil would react strangely like he did? Luke described the raised twitching fingers and recoiling gesture he had seen. The pale eyes looked unwaveringly at Luke as he recounted the incident. A suggestion of a shrug and a definite hardening of the voice as the teacher replied.

After his breakdown maybe; shouldn’t be surprised. All his mother’s fault I suppose - couldn’t be anything else eh? Keeping the poor boy in for hours, weeks I’ve heard, practising and practising. And for what? She never came to see him play - never heard of him playing anywhere except for school now and again. You’d think he was going to be a concert pianist the way she kept him at it. As if she had any talent herself of course; she thought she did - yowling out the window all hours of day and night - awful voice. Used to live at the end of the lane you know - I used to hear it often enough. Poor lad!

Luke used the pause to pursue his question but the teacher forestalled him with a lean forward and some passion in his voice - the daily half was working Luke thought and leaned back to let the man continue.

I went round there once you know. Must have been about 10.30 at night. I’d been hearing the endless piano and her screeching for about two hours. There were three cottages there in that lane then - all church property. Only one left now - other two sold off for development. I dunno if that one that’s left is still church property, the chapel closed down years ago; could be I suppose. Anyway - I knocked on the door about six times before the noise stopped. She opened the door a crack, well, I assumed it was her - pitch black it was. Mrs. Leman? I said - she never answered you know, couldn’t hardly see a thing in that dark. Would you mind keeping it down a bit, I said, d’ya know what time it is, I said. ‘Sorry’ - she said and closed the door. That was it, one word; sorry, she said and closed the door - just like that. Mind you the noise did stop and I never did hear it so late at night; early morning sometimes but not late at night.

Luke waited patiently for a moment, letting the memories subside. He leant forward slightly to ask further; but the teacher needed no further prompting - his thoughts were on the trail now.

Jewish you know. That didn’t help much either in those days. Nothing against Jews myself of course but the world was different then - just after the war you see. Luke struggled to make the connection; and couldn’t.

"Kept herself to herself but still people talked. Well - small town after the war; stranger in town, bit foreign looking, strange name. Usual nonsense. I moved here from Somerset and it took me some time to fit in - so they must have had a really hard time. Never mixed you see. Word gets around in a school if a mother doesn’t join in. And where the father was no one knows - you know how it is. What people don’t know they make up - especially in towns like this back then. How old is young Neil now then...well must be over fifty eh? How old would you say he was then...ah...Luke wasn’t it?"

Luke nodded - and thought. Odd that - he only had a vague overall impression of Fingers, short, slight of build. He could be anything from late thirties on...certainly younger impression than fifty-something. Luke shrugged and the gesture was enough to encourage the teacher on again after he had carefully placed his empty coffee cup on the adjacent table and began together himself together in preparation to leave.

Well - not much more to tell about the poor lad. I know he had some sort of illness when he was about fourteen or so - or was that the other lad? A pause, gaze far off, shake of the head.

"No Neil it was - the other boy...what was his name now...ginger haired lad...oh, never mind that. I did hear that it was some sort of nervous breakdown - complete collapse. Fourteen years old and completely broken down - imagine.

So what happened to him - and his mother come to that?

The figure straightened his tie and made to stand.

I don’t know really. Neil left school of course and his mother was hardly seen at all for a while. The boy was sent to somewhere near Bristol, where exactly I don’t remember now - I had no further contact with the family; I was only his class teacher after all. Oh, rumours and all that as usual in this place. His mother did come back to the area I seem to recall and got in trouble with the council some while back for having loads of cats in her house. He paused, No, caravan it was - yes, caravan. Well - free standing home they call it now...but basically it was a run-down old caravan on the outskirts of town - you know where they have built all those new houses; toy town I call it, all look alike tiny places, pocket handkerchief gardens and cost a fortune...well, there. Used to be a big caravan and chalet park there. Loads of cats all over the place - noise and smell and all that. They moved her on. I don’t know about the poor old cats though. A bit of sad bad news that Mrs Leman - quite sad really. Well Luke, thanks for the drink I must toddle off now. Bye then.

A final handshake and the slim figure wove his way carefully out between the tables of the still empty pub and out into the watery autumn sunshine.

So - he had a name, some sort of sad history; what now? Seemed like the mystery had been short-lived. He felt deflated somehow. Still, it was a small town and memories were long and something like Fingers’ story was enough of a drama to leave its fading mark here. Luke left the pub and went up to the park that overlooked the town. He could see the dark smudge of trees way over his right at the very edge of the town which marked where the chapel and cottages had once been. The town had not expanded out on that side yet; still farmland and the road that led over the hills to the next town some miles away. For no real reason Luke decided to take a stroll over there and was soon out past the supermarket, the new hospital complex and turning right past the little collection of council bungalows and up the rise to the trees. He paused for breath after his brisk ten minute hike and looked back up to the park he had just left - gave a little smile of satisfaction at his speedy walking and turned into the lane fronted by two enormous yew bushes with their bottle-shaped profiles - still well tended and looking like those in the local churchyard. Someone must look after them then - few odd cuttings still on the floor by his feet.

Through the bushes the lane was immediately divided into two. The left hand drive - new tarmac with a neat sign Mallard Close 1-2. The right hand was a broken down surface of old stone, grass and overgrown verges. The near illegible sign on the bottom of the crumbling stone wall read ‘The Chapel’ and some other figures or letters too worn to read. Luke plodded up the steepish hill noting the heavily overgrown privet and laurel bushes with undergrowth encroaching well over the path leaving just enough room to have to almost push through the tangle in places. The hedges grew higher and Luke notice how quiet it was just these few yards away from the road. The path led around to the right, better condition here with trickles of water from some hidden source running across his steps from time to time.

Ahead was the remains of the old chapel, windows long gone and gables sagging. On reaching the tangle of bramble and bush around the door Luke was surprised to see an apparently new padlock of some size on a hefty chain not yet completely tarnished - more signs that some attention had been paid to the area recently. The church still owned it he guessed.

Up past the side of the ruined chapel was a high netting and post fence with the sign ‘Guard Dogs. Beware!’ Luke wondered why they would warn guard dogs - then grinned at his own dullness; he doubted that any guarding had done here for quite a while. He idly followed the fence past the chapel for a while and paused; the path was not overgrown and, here and there, were depressions in the muddy track that could have been old footprints - kids maybe, or courting couples? He pushed on past the overgrown bushes on his left and the fence; quite a few others must have done so if the well-trodden path was anything to go by.

He knew he was being watched. A rustle of leaves, a slight sussuration, of something passing through the hedges. Luke paused several times, oddly tense and expectant but the noises ceased and he pressed on to where the fence followed the line of the old chapel and left him standing in front of a huge privet hedge intertwined with bramble higher than he was. There was the cottage. He could only see on top window and the sharply peaked roof through the wildly overgrown shrubs flanking the near invisible gate and moved forward to see if it was another ruin or...from his left out of the dense hedges came a crowd of cats; ginger, black and white, tabby; a multi coloured crowd of silent cats. It was the silence that was so creepy. They re arranged themselves into some hierarchical group; some sitting to blink slowly at him, others to crouch down and tuck in their paws neatly, others in a kind of readiness with haunches bunched to spring and tails lazily swishing left and right - and all the while this silence - and a pungent smell of feral felinity, the odour of the animals lair, primeval and musky.

Luke had heard of the wild cat groups among the ruins of Rome and tentatively took a step backwards glancing to left and right and noticing yet more cats to his right that he had not heard in his absorption with the first group. He instinctively felt he should not turn his back and run. They did not seem to be creeping nearer, just sitting in allocated places with no snarling or arguing, no playing - just watching him. He risked a glance behind him as he trod backwards a step at a time; no - he was not surrounded.

A score of heads all turned slightly, some cats raised up in expectation.

They won’t hurt you. It is time for their food. The cracked voice was still heavily accented with something vaguely Middle European - Luke’s first reaction was of old movie villains with fake accents. The woman was tall, dressed in dark clothes, black