Amid Thummer Nite's Dream

By Jim Connibeer

A quiet seaside, rural community, cut off from the rest of the country, has its customs threatened by internal feuds. The future appears to Thummer in a dream, and its dramatic consequences cannot be altered.
Unusually named characters lead the story through a year in the life of Bottom, the community dependent on its apple crop and its end product, to the realisation of Thummer's dream.
A humorous caricature of rural customs and pursuits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780244512125

Book preview

Amid Thummer Nite's Dream

AMID THUMMER NITE’S DREAM

BOTTOM

It seemed that this was the last place on earth to feel the benefit of the morning rays as the weary sun dragged itself slowly above the high ridge of hills that surrounded the village of Bottom. The rust coloured fire clay roofs of the clustered cottages seemed reluctant to shake the shadows from their awnings, the colour washed walls indignant at such a disturbance. Patches of green moss adorned the fire clay, giving the whole village the appearance of seaweed encrusted rocks at low tide. This image was furthered by the lethargic arm of the ocean which divided the tiny village into two, now dormant, halves.

If it were not for the preordained cycle of which it was a part, the disinterested cobbled streets and idly shuttered windows would have persuaded the sun long ago that the effort of awakening this sleepy backwater was vastly out-weighed by the lack of gratitude it received for so doing. Something that the sun could never understand was that, despite having a choice, a certain member of the community took great delight in reinforcing the begrudging damage already done by the spreading rays. Perhaps, reflected the sun, cockerels are either masochists or have no brains!

THUMMER

Bloody bird!

Thummer Nite stood like the phantom of the morning amidst clouds of cordite fumes, supporting his bulk against his open bedroom window, his paunch reaching a good six inches below the outside sill. The cockerel had disappeared amidst a cloud of feathers! It is extremely doubtful that the bird had actually been hit, for it had developed the defensive technique of shedding a few withered tail feathers whenever this event occurred. As this was almost every morning, however, his tail was by now wearing rather thin! But the ruse worked and Thummer, although motionless, had registered the apparent disintegration of his quarry. That is, his mind had registered it! His body had a will of its own, or rather a lack of will. It gave the impression that had Thummer not been wearing a nightshirt, it would have spread itself evenly and liquidly over the floor.

It required a great effort of will to move such a mass, and more often than not Thummer was incapable of mustering that effort without stimulation. The cockerel had stimulated the physical extravaganza of movement from the bed to the window, the raising and firing of the primed and waiting shotgun. The noise had awoken the mental half of our hero, and now the stage was set for some further stimulant to reverse the whole process.

Whilst awaiting this stimulant, the cogs in Thummer's head had started to grind into motion, a motion as if hampered by heavy treacle, but at least a motion. Slowly he asked himself, how did Arthur Pint manage to find so many dopey cockerels if his gun destroyed, on average, five a week? Before an answer to the question could be produced the cogs ground to a halt. Thummer remained motionless. His face looked as if once it had been grandly featured with large nose, high protruding cheeks, large chin and ears. Now it was as if that same face had begun to melt and droop sorrily earthwards. To liken it to that of a bloodhound would have been no compliment to the beast. His eyes did give some expression; that of gratitude! They had long since learned that this early morning fiasco only necessitated the use of but one of them, and that that need barely open. This was the pose they adopted until the drama was over and they returned to bed.

The stimulant arrived! Thummer's wife, Lillee, burst into the room, as was her custom. She knew she had to burst in, and not enter normally, otherwise she could not have aroused the necessary reactions in Thummer. She would then have had either to carry him to bed or leave him standing against the window. His bulk made the former impossible; Arthur Pint's attempted revenge for his precious cockerel made the latter a hazard.

Bed! she screamed.

As if the whole of his motive forces were designed around this word, Thummer heaved and waddled his way from the window towards his bed.

Bloody bird.

The words seemed to come from somewhere but his mouth certainly made no effort to claim them. Thummer unceremoniously tripped over the gun he had dropped to the floor and crashed into a chest of drawers.

Bloody drawers.

Thummer was at his most articulate at this hour!

The drawers were used to such assault and had long since surrendered such appendages as knobs. It cannot be said, though, that Thummer came off the worse.

The bed shook with the impact, the right eye now totally closed. The night cap came to rest in the yawning cavern Thummer liked to consider his mouth, Lillee left the room and peace was restored.

ARTHUR

It was the custom of the villagers to give their children names that made sense. Hence we meet such people as Garden Shed, Cattle Grid and Barn Door, or, more cleverly, Dandy Lion, Pinny Four and Arty Choke. Where, one might ask, does Thummer fit in. Thummer's parents were a simple couple who would never have dreamt of going against the local customs, so if it hadn't been for the fact that the vicar had forgotten his teeth at the Christening, Thummer would now be called Summer Nite. As it is, Thummer is probably a lot more appropriate.

Arthur Pint's parents were social climbers and would settle for no less than his clever name. As it happens the choice was unfortunate as Arthur's growth had been seriously stunted and he now only rarely aspired to heights in excess of four feet. All the built up boots in the world had no effect and, as a consequence, Arthur had become withdrawn. Socially all there was in Bottom were the pubs, but with a name like Arthur Pint, these were the last places you'd find him. He had devoted his life to chickens and would, no doubt, have had remarkable success with his eggs had his hens not had to tolerate the dawn chorus of Thummer's shotgun. Arthur had been forced into the life of a miser, living entirely on the few eggs his hens did produce, and had to fill the gaps left by his meagre diet with a passionate hatred of Thummer. All his grudges against life, his size, his name, his chickens, were directed at Thummer, and his days were spent in subtly plotting the downfall of everything that was Thummer Nite.

For twelve years Arthur had woven his intricate plots around his bulbous target, but for twelve years he had met with continuous failure. For twelve years Arthur could not understand the miraculous escapes. He put it down to superior intellect and vowed to concoct a masterpiece that even Thummer could not outwit. All his plans had anticipated that Thummer would react in well ordered, natural ways to particular stimuli. If Arthur had mixed more, socially, he would have realised that this sort of response was as unnatural to Thummer as washing. In fact any response was as unnatural to Thummer as washing!

This morning, Arthur had leapt from his bed as the crashing of Thummer's gun had instantly dispelled any remnants of sleep. He was through the kitchen door, into the back yard, around the henhouse and poised with gun across his garden fence within ten seconds. This response and the stimulus which alerted it was as natural as the rising of the sun and almost as inevitable. His gun was a blunderbuss. The days when, the hideous weapon had actually been activated were long past, however, as the whole chain of events, Thummer's rising, his wife's entrance and Arthur's response, happened with such precision that Arthur was no longer 1eft with a target. This fact can only be attributed to Lillee's speed of arrival, but Thummer's survival would probably have been ensured even without his removal as a target. Arthur was a notoriously bad shot.

In the early days when motivated by his loss of cockerels, eggs and sleep, Arthur had acquired his cannon, he had disposed of far more of his own chickens and neighbours' property in one day than Thummer could in a week. His short-sightedness could only be blamed partly for this. The main reason for this virtual desolation of anything within twenty yards of himself was his stature. The first time he had fired his cannon the hail of nuts, bolts and nails had issued from the barrel in an arc of some forty degrees, virtually obliterating his garden fence. Arthur had been rocketed backwards, crushing his unfortunate cockerel between himself and the henhouse and giving himself a headache for a week, not to mention a dislocated shoulder.

It was a month before he plucked up the courage to fire the thing again, but this time not without preparation. On the reconstructed fence he had built a special rest for his monster and fashioned, with the aid of the mattresses from his bed, a soft absorbent backrest. This together with a generous shoulder pad had induced him to try again. As far as damage to his person and property were concerned the precautions worked admirably, but it took him a long time to convince the owner of the cottage two away from Thummer’s that the perforation of all his South side windows, the locust like destruction of his prize apple tree and the aeration of his wife's best bloomers were not all deliberate. It took him even longer to remunerate the irate neighbour.

His aim had improved. Not quickly enough that Lillee didn't realise the danger that her husband might be subjected to. At first she debated whether the demise of Thummer might not be advantageous, but on consideration she had adopted her now well practiced tactic. This was not through any misguided thoughts of love or concern, but merely because she realised that if Thummer was little use alive then dead he would be none at all. Her actions had frustrated Arthur who had countered by moving his bed nearer to the back of the house. His aim was still imperfect, although Thummer’s house was now the one to suffer, but by the time he had found the window, Lillee had accelerated her entrance and the target had disappeared. So it had continued until Arthur, now sleeping in the kitchen, could not improve on his performance without actually sleeping in the henhouse.

He had tried waiting, poised for the cock to crow, but both the cockerel and Thummer were uncooperative. Either the cock did not crow or Thummer did not appear on every occasion. He had tried timing the morning call but every time the cock crowed too early. And so Arthur, Thummer, Lillee and the cockerel had reached the point of maximum efficiency, having perfected a scene with a timing any film director would have found impossible to better. And so it continued, each member of the cast reluctant to relinquish their role and each now acting more by instinct than design.

But Arthur continued to plot.

SHERBERT

It might reasonably be expected that this dawn chorus would shake some semblance of life into Bottom, but the inhabitants had long since realized that to rise at this hour would have only incurred a three hour wait until opening time. Lulled by the stupor left hovering from the previous night's revelry they slept on.

All but one. Sherbert Spike rose every morning on the signal of Thummer's gun. Not that he was any less lulled than the average, but he had acquired the art of rising and commencing his work without actually awakening. He was oblivious of people, weather or anything else, and required no breakfast prior to his labours. Nothing seemed to detract from the efficiency with which he went about his work. He was a fisherman. Perhaps his methods were unusual but no one could argue that they weren't effective.

Sherbert had two drift nets about two hundred feet long. One of these lay in the back of his sixteen foot pulling boat, moored on a frape underneath his riverside cottage. Every morning he would descend the ladder over the sea-wall, climb into his boat, row out to a buoy anchored some twenty yards below the low water mark and attach one end of the net. He would then continue directly across the estuary to a similar buoy the same distance from the opposite shore and exactly two hundred feet from the first, there attaching the other end of the net.

By means of a series of cork floats and lead weights the net was constrained to hang vertically to a depth of eight feet below the surface. Sherbert would then detach the end of his second net from the same buoy and, pulling it and its catch inboard as he went, would propel his boat back towards the first buoy by pulling on the net, there untying it and continuing to the shore. Here he would unload his catch into buckets and thence to a large salt water tank at the back of his cottage, leaving the net neatly folded ready for the next trip. Then he returned to bed.

Now, straightforward as it may seem, this task could be hazardous, dependent largely on the weather, and Sherbert was apt to become somewhat damp. He had taken to sleeping in an oilskin and wader boots as the alcoholic stupor of the night made sleep possible in anything; anything that is except a sou'wester. Sherbert always claimed that he had a particularly sensitive head and refused to be without a soft woollen covering. At first he had worn a nightcap at night and a woollen bobble hat by day, but the changeover became rather irregular, and now a pale yellow nightcap never left his head. Perhaps it is hardly surprising that Sherbert never married!

In fact, Sherbert had been dogged by bad luck from the start. He had shared the distinction of having been Christened by the same vicar as Thummer. The vicar, this time complete with teeth, had arrived at the point of the service when he quoted, Name this child, this moment happily coinciding with a liquid trickle on the inside leg of an older cousin and this cousin's noisy protest. Sherbert's mother's request for silence, the cousins name of Herbert and the vicar's inattention had combined to leave the would be Marline Spike to follow in a seafaring tradition with the name Sherbert.

Sherbert had many times considered changing his surname to Fountain, if only to match his nightcap, but complete apathy and the fact that everyone called him Fumble anyway had combined to ensure that this never came about. The nickname seems inapt in the light of the efficient performance of these morning duties, but it must be remembered that Sherbert was still asleep at this time. When awake it could easily he assumed that the common meaning of the word fumble was a direct derivative of everything that was Sherbert Spike

DOTTY'S

The only thing that moved was the tide. The sun made every effort to shirk behind every available cloud; the wind, produced such acrobatics to avoid the dusty village that Michael Fish would have had a field day. Any vagrant water vapour contrived to produce rain only when the inhabitants were later safely established in some convenient public house. If the women did not like it this way then none of them was prepared to say or do anything to disturb their sleeping partners. And so it continued, until 10.25 a.m.

The clock on the village church had long since overcome the urge to display the correct time. Its hands rested at 4.25 and had done so for as long as anyone could remember. The same clock had not been allowed to cease its function completely. It had tried once but such was the torrent of assorted abuse and missiles hurled at it when the men of the village were five minutes late for opening time that it had since performed twice a day its musical repertoire, a tune not unlike Little Brown Jug. The first performance was at 10.25 a.m.

Only twice a day throughout the year was there such a concentration of activity in Bottom. The first occasion entailed the simultaneous arising of some two hundred male inhabitants, all over the age of fifteen; the simultaneous donning of assorted, rarely practical clothing; the mass exodus from near identical cottages leaving some two hundred doors swinging open, and the radial convergence on the six public houses of the village. Bottom had been built around these six establishments and they had become as the centres of six daisies in a bunch, the idea being that each man would have a direct route from his house without the hazard or inconvenience of turning corners. As a consequence the properties nearer the pubs were of greater value and these within the petals of the daisy surrounding the 'Widow’s Cauldron' were the most desirable of all.

The 'Widow's Cauldron', known more commonly as the Chamber Pot or affectionately as Dotty's Potty as a result of the landlady's name and the bizarre sense of humour of the sign painter, was THE pub. It was almost a matter of graduation to achieve entry, not to mention recognition, in the Potty. This was no ordinary tavern, and the clientele can only be described as extraordinary. Anyone who was anybody frequented Dotty's.

At exactly 10.30 every morning the doors of Dotty's, as of every other pub, would open and the male population of Bottom would flow into the long bar to find awaiting them, each in his own individual receptacle, a quantity of the local brew. If these definitions seem rather vague it is because 'receptacles' varied from china flower vases to cast iron mugs, the 'quantity' could be as much as three pints but never less than one, and the brew varied from season to season depending on the apple crop and the variety of supplements deemed necessary to fulfil the recipe. When 'fulfil' can safely be interpreted as 'fill' then if the apple crop was poor the additives, which varied in nature from potatoes to dead fish, were copious and the brew made little attempt to resemble the cider it might once have been. The degree to which this variety altered the toxic effect of the brew has never been measured and has never been considered important, everyone being quite prepared to consume the beverage until the desired euphoria resulted. No money was involved at all. The village as a whole was almost a commune and the use of money was restricted to trade with the 'outside world'. As long as someone made the effort to produce the brew, Dotty would serve it and the men would drink it. Everyone had their function and Bottom had survived for a century without any fundamental changes.

Every morning then, the men would engage in the drudgery of getting themselves into a state of incontrollable intoxication. At 2.40 p.m. they would stop. Their bodies had, it seemed, a built in mechanism which ensured that the required state was achieved at exactly that hour, at which time they would propel themselves through the door, there, more often than not, to collapse in inebriate bliss until the church clock performed, its second musical rendition at 5.25 p.m.

THE MAKE

It must not be supposed, however, that the entire adult male population exhibited such religious dedication to this daily ritual. Arthur Pint, as we have already seen, was one of a handful of abstainers, known affectionately to the faithful as 'dyls'. This fact is one of great significance as this handful alone among the males were responsible for the continued existence of Bottom. Even in Bottom life could not flourish without certain necessary raw materials and the lot of organising and distributing a regular supply of such materials fell on the heads of the dyls. At the disposal of this stalwart band was a regular army of women, at least three times the number of adult males, and it was the women of Bottom who were the labourers. Their labours were chiefly agricultural, the village being more than self-supporting, and any additional materials and manufactured goods were obtained from the 'outside world' by barter. The most valuable commodity for barter and, partly in consequence of this, the most valued product, was the 'beverage’ already mentioned, which was produced in far greater quantity than the apple crop allowed. Despite the aforementioned additives, this was bartered under the deceptively innocent label of cider.

Although the women tended the apple crop with an attention approaching reverence, the actual concoction of the beverage was a hallowed ritual involving only an elite few, the secrets having been handed down from father to son over countless generations

The 'Make', as it was locally known, lasted for four days. These four days in the year were the only days on which the pubs closed. The elite few were not themselves dyls, but it can be clearly seen that the very existence of Bottom depended on these abstainers. There had been occasions in the past when their numbers had dangerously dwindled and drastic action had been necessary. Men had been appointed dyls as a means of punishment, perhaps for not drinking enough or being late at opening time, and had been condemned to 'the long dry', a life of abstinence. This had not happened in living memory as more recently more humane methods had been adopted. Fatherless boys, or less healthy specimens, had been directed to a life of abstinence long before any opportunity to actually try the beverage, and problems were thus overcome.

The produce of The Make was always left untouched for a year after the barrels were sealed, until the day after the conclusion of the following year's Make when the kegs were tapped and the four days of  abstinence were erased from all memory on the 'Day of First Taste', or ‘Leryn Day', after the most famous of Bottom's citizens. This particular day, heralded as seen by Thummer's explosive dawn, was to be the most significant Leryn day in all of Bottom's history, since of course the first such occasion. The reasons for such significance, whilst to a certain extent being intangible and certainly becoming more so as the day progressed, in retrospect have been accredited to the brew that was unveiled. To say that '69 was a good year is the kind of understatement that could only be made by the few sober enough to say anything at all. To say that it was beyond comparison might perhaps have been affirmed had anyone really been able to remember what other years had been like before, but there is no doubt at all, in considering the drastic changes that have occurred in Bottom since, that '69 will never be bettered

'69

Plopp!!

The explosive emergence of the cork should have been the first sign. As was the custom, heralded by Town Crier in full ceremonial splendour, the mayor, Rainy Day, on a rostrum outside of the Potty, took the first measure. The ceremonial 'Tasting Cup' held some three pints and the mayor's duty was to drain it in one action or resign on the spot. Rainy, who had held office for eight years and was generally reckoned to have the constitution of a sponge, made light work of the task, raised the chalice skywards and fell flat on his back!

Bugger me! was the cry emitted simultaneously from five hundred throats, and, as if to echo the sentiment, the church clock struck 10.30 for the first time in living memory. The whole crowd in an instant disappeared in varying directions to fill the six taverns of the town to bursting, it being the only day of the year when the women were permitted into such establishments before 8.00 p.m.. Rainy Day remained alone on his rostrum, his face to the sky, having rediscovered those contours of contentment it had last known on the day of its first contact with the beverage some twenty four years previously.

To say that the fate of the mayor had proved any discouragement to the audience couldn't have been further from the truth. Even the usual enthusiasm had been doubled and the town set about the new brew as if it had to be finished by the next day.

Others, at varying intervals, went the same way as Rainy, but the events of the day were no more spectacular than usual, even if the brawls were more fiercely contested. The great significance of the day was that, for the first time in history, on this day of the year when the bars were open all day, not a drop was consumed after the hour of 9.00 p.m.

Only two adult male inhabitants, other than the dyls, remained conscious. Thummer, for the first time in his life perhaps, could safely be said, in comparison with his companions, to be conscious. The other was Rusty Nail, probably the most notorious drinker in the village, but neither proved capable of consuming more.

Bugger me! blubbered the layers of flesh surrounding Thummer's mouth. Bugger, bugger me!

He had made this noise, almost incessantly throughout the day. Rusty was no less articulate. The pair stood propping each other and the bar room wall up, muttering stanzas of ecstatic disbelief, until at exactly 11.10 p.m., official throwing out time, they collapsed on the floor. Rusty had the misfortune to be the first to the ground, followed ponderously by the sickening bulk of Thummer. A sound like a gigantic blancmange, falling to the floor, boded ill for Rusty, who suffered permanent disfigurement of the spine. The laconic wit who jibed on some future occasion that he should be renamed Rusty Staple was not far from the truth!

That day was to herald a year that would climax and change dramatically the whole history and nature of Bottom.

THE DREAM

That night Thummer had his dream. This in itself was unprecedented. Never before had Thummer had a dream. It could be argued that this was not in fact true, as dreams are products of the subconscious, and as Thummer had seldom been known to be actually conscious it might be claimed that the majority of his existence was a dream. Even his subconscious, however, had until this time failed to penetrate the comatose state inadequately, in Thummer's case, described as sleep. Indeed, Arthur's cockerel had been the only phenomenon capable of achieving this other than the chiming of the church clock.

It is clear that only exceptional circumstances could have caused this dream. It had been shown in the past that monumental personal disaster and pain had failed to penetrate even the outer layers of our hero's repose, so this was something very special. Not a twitch, for example, was observed when the room had been swept by a fire ignited by a lingering spark from Thummer's gun. He had only escaped death by melting due to the superhuman efforts of Lillee, and had remained inert until the tell tale song of the clock had done its job. Nor had a troubled toss or tumble ensued on the occasion his instincts had deserted him and he had grasped his gun, barrel first, aimed the stock at his feathered quarry and blown his right ear off. He had returned to bed in the usual way, bled, all over the pillow, and only after his fourth beverage later that day did he notice that he couldn't hear a thing from his right hand side. This explains the establishment of his own personal stool at the extreme right hand end of the long bar, as his hearing never returned. Neither, for that matter, did his ear!

The stimulus behind his dream must then have been of major significance and perhaps the future of Bottom might well have been happier had anyone been prepared to realise this. Thummer dreamed about the Day of First Taste '70.

The dream did not go into details, just a few fleeting images, cast on the screen of Thummer's mind, of Rainy Day, having tapped every barrel in an effort to perform the traditional ceremony, in a state of twitching