Blackberry Sponge with Custard

By Carol Williamson

It is about an estate in Ireland and it's colourful characters who love to laugh even in the midst of poverty and shame. It is dedicated to everyone who picks blackberries.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493100439

Carol Williamson

author bio will follow

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Carol Williamson.

ISBN:                  Softcover                           978-1-4931-0042-2

                            Ebook                                978-1-4931-0043-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 10/23/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

[e-mail]

307256

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

SOPHIE’S STORY

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

For the best wee blackberry pickers I know,

my wonderful grandchildren,

Rebekah

Noah

Sophia

Eva

Chapter 1

‘Hey, missus, whatd’ye think yer doin?’

‘Oh, hello.’

‘Oh, hellooooo,’ courses a choir of young people of indiscriminate ages. ‘Listen to her and her poncey voice, hello yerself what’d ye think yer doin pinchin our blackberries, missus?’ asks the roughest-looking of the group. Even though she is a girl, she hides her femininity very successfully from the world and her enemies, dressed, if one could call the way a somewhat mix of attire thrown at a body, in the uniform of the young and we want to be different brigade, of jeans and hoodie, yet they all end up looking the same. Fashion never really changes entirely; things just go around and around, and yet there is always a very small something that is changed in the design, so it is not worth holding on to items of clothing hoping that they will be back in fashion. Oh no, the designers have this sorted. They have us conned with their slight changes to fashion, slight changes that make it impossible to wear auntie’s miniskirt from the sixties; it will be the wrong colour or some other change that will make us fashionistas, buy ‘new vintage’, and make the designers loads of money, and they laugh all the way to the bank. It is a brave girl who does wear ‘real vintage’, a very brave individual who does not care what the world and her peers think.

‘Your blackberries?’ asks a young woman, with a smile of delight that belies her treacherous situation in among young cannibals; surely she is aware of their menace. ‘I am so very sorry, but I thought they were actually my blackberries, I picked them.’

‘Well, yer’re wrong then, aren’t ye? We own the blackberries in this lane, don’t we, kids? They’re ours, so giv them ’ere!’ the young woman says and reaches for the said blackberries, grabs them out of our young lady’s hands, and scatters them on the ground, on which the rest of the group whoop and stomp them, taking great pleasure from the destruction of the innocent fruit. A tribal dance only known to their kind, handed down through the ages from one helpless reprobate to another, invades their souls, and they move to a beat only heard in their own heads, but each moves in unison with the next, a bond born in poverty and despair.

‘Oh dear, I wish you would not have done that. Why did you not keep them or leave them for the birds to eat? Why did you feel the need to destroy the beautiful fruit? You have really saddened me today, and I woke feeling really happy this morning. What made you do such an awful thing?’ asks our young lady.

‘Wid ya listen t’ her, where’d ye get off asking us why we do anything? What business is it of yours why we do anything? They were ours, so we can do what w’ like, see, yeh comprehend? Or are ye so thick that ye don’t know the meanin of ‘ours’. Y’d better get out a’ here before we do t’ ya what we did t’ the blackberries. I’m serious, git,’ threatens the young warrior queen bee.

‘Aye, missus, ye’d better run.’

‘Ooooh, deeear! Hark lady muck!’.

‘Bet she wears silk knickers.’

‘What for the love of it has that got te’ do with it? Eh? Moron, shud up or I’ll slap yer gub, silk knickers, aye ye probably have none on, that’s why ye mention thim, ha. Ha, Stacy has no knickers, Stacy’s gone commando!’

‘You shut your gub,’ states a red-faced soldier who suddenly realises that she has made a fatal mistake in shaming her commanding officer in front of their enemy and takes to her heels and runs for her life, knickers and all.

‘Cheeky bitch, wait till’I get ’er. She’ll have her knickers twisted round her fat neck fer that!’

Our lady realises the danger of attracting the queen’s anger towards herself and thinks an apology might take the heat out of this confrontation. ‘Forgive me for sounding so cheeky, but you see I have spent ages picking those blackberries because I wanted to make a blackberry sponge for my husband.’

‘Blackberry sponge for me husband, ha, ha, ha! Well, he’ll starve now, won’t he?’ quips another volunteer in this band of thieves.

‘Ye had better go’ta the shops and buy him one then, won’t ya or why don’t ye scoop up this lot and make the bugger a blackberry mud pie, ha, ha, ha?’ And the band of villains laugh at their unfunny joke, poking each other and rolling about on the hedges, making faces and generally trying to generate as much mirth as they can wring from their pathic joke.

To their amazement, the young lady standing before them bursts out laughing and takes a spotless, white folded hanky out of her pocket, wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes.

‘Are ye laughin’ at us, ye hussy?’ asks the queen bee, who is feeling out of her depth and floundering in the face of this woman who is not worried about their threats. ‘Ye better not be taking the mick out’a us. I’m warning ye, ye’ll not be picking any more blackberries when we’ve finished wi’ ye.’

‘I’m sorry but the thought of my hubby eating mud and blackberry pie was too much for me. You know he is so good he would probably eat it rather than upset me, ha, ha.’ And once again, the hanky is used to wipe away tears of laughter.

Now, our warrior queen was not looking for tears of laughter. No, she really wanted tears of fear, tears that would once again show her peers that she really was their queen and worthy of her place as leader of the gang. What should she do? Normally, people whom they threatened walked away or ran away amongst a hail of abuse, verbal and physical, but this woman standing in front of our queen actually threatened her by her obstinacy, at not being frightened of her or her gang. She was undermining our queen’s certainty of her actions.

Our young queen’s curiosity was pricked: Who was this woman? All anger had subsided, so she decided to talk instead of fight. ‘Did ye say ye were goin to make a blackberry tart?’

‘No, a blackberry sponge. My husband loves them,’ answers our relieved young woman, who had been every bit as frightened as our queen would have liked, but she also had a love in her heart for young people, children who she felt had had a rough deal in life and she reckoned that the ones standing before her fell into that category, so she had hid her fear and hoped that her friendliness would defuse the situation enough so that she could talk to these feral children and show them that there was another way to act and ultimately live in peace with all mankind.

Chapter 2

Where had all the hostility gone? Where had all the anger gone? Now a calm had settled because our queen bee had become interested in this specimen before her. This calmness, which had infuriated her at the beginning, was now holding her attention like no other person in the near past had ever done. ‘Ye cin cook then, cin ye?’

‘Yes, I love to cook. Do any of you cook?’

Shrill laughter fills the air as ten mouths open and emit sounds that portray not only derision but a hopelessness unknown to their benefactors. Here, our characters stand in this leafy lane, surrounded by the heat of the sun and the beauty of God’s earth. How the earth throbs and undulates with the loveliness of the summer day, birds fly past and gaze down on our tableau of humanity. What do they think of the people they fly over, do they even acknowledge their existence? ‘Cook, aye, we can all cook. We cook in the microwave, ha, ha.’

‘Shall we start over again? My name is Sophie and I love to pick blackberries, but I will make sure that I do not pick your blackberries ever again but you must promise me that you will not destroy them. If you don’t want them, then leave them for the birds because they adore them.’

‘They’re ours, so we can do what we want, lady muck!’ says a ragamuffin who earns for himself a sharp whack around the head from his leader who has decided to enter into a conversation with the enemy. All her soldiers are confused, but they fall into line, and each young body relaxes as their queen shows her interest in this strange woman in their midst.

‘Ye’ve broke me head, ye. Whad ye do that for?’ asks the head that was whacked.

‘For being cheeky, ye friggin nuisance ye, I’m goan havt’d sort you lot out one of these days, per see!’

A truce is declared, and Sophie breaths out for the first time since she encountered the kids, but she knows deep down in her heart that they mean no real harm, they are just being territorial and using to great advantage the only possession they have—their anger.

‘Well, cat got yer tongue, has it?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Pardon, Parrrrdonnnnn,’

‘Shut up, ye friggen morons, or I’ll whack the lota ye. Show some respect.’

Sophie is on the verge of real belly-busting laughter but realises that she might lose the attention of this termagant that stands proudly before her at the head of her army. To laugh at this adversary would be suicide indeed.

‘I just think it sad that all those gorgeous blackberries were ruined, and I can’t help thinking of the huge delicious pie I could have made. Have you ever tasted blackberry sponge?’

‘No, I’ve tasted apple tart at Halloween that me ma made years ago.’

‘Liar, liar, pants on fire, your ma couldn’t bake if she’d tried. She probably bought it in Tessco’s, ha, ha,’

No sound emitted from the open mouths of kids that stared with horror at their queen, and the one mouth that had uttered this unfortunate information was hit so hard by the queen’s fist that blood spurted and the said mouth squealed like a cat with its tail stuck in a mangle.

‘Oh dear, help her. She’s really hurt and bleeding.’

Sophie’s entreaty fails to make even one of the gang move. All are standing with heads lowered and feet glued to the ground, waiting for the guillotine to fall on their own necks.

‘No one, and I mean no one mentions my ma’s name. Do ye hear me?’ growls a queen, ready to thrust her sword into any who dare to speak.

‘I’m sorry, really sorry, Bianca. I forgot yer ma was dead. I’ll never mention ’er name again.