The Blue Pen: Six individuals come in contact with a magical blue pen that changes their lives forever

By Charles Beagley

Melbourne author Charles Beagley has written a childrens book of subtle twists and turns and daring times. The story is woven with events and memories of his own childhood and life of adventure and these snippets have been cleverly woven together to take the young reader on a rich journey across the world.

The Blue Pen is an intriguing sto

• Language: English
• Publisher: Accentia Design
• Release date: Apr 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780648007050

Charles Beagley

As a child in the London blitz, Charles Beagley distracted himself from the horror of his family's situation by making up stories or drawing. His eventual training was at Art School, which equipped him for the many years he spent working in advertising and design. He lived in London initially, did two years National Services in the RAF, worked in Ireland and Belgium and then set up and successfuly ran a Design Consultancy back in England for twenty years. He married and had two sons whose futures concerned him, as things were grim economically in 1982 England. He jumped at the opportunity to move his family to Australia when he was offered a managerial position in design. During his years in England, his writing developed as he wrote promotional text and an occasional short story. Since coming to Australia he has honed his skills, writing over twenty fictional stories, mainly mysteries. To date six of his books have been published with more to come.

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First published 2018

Publishing Partner: Accentia Design

©2018 Charles Beagley

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved.

Without limiting the rights under copyright restricted above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the Author’s imagination, or if real, are used in a fictitious context.

Typesetting & Prepared for Publication by: Accentia Design

A Cataloguing-in-Publication record is available from the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 978-0-6480070-4-3 (Paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-6480070-5-0 (ePub)

Thank you Michelle

for bringing this book to life

in difficult times.

PART ONE

-

Billy & Janet

The North East of England

1939

CHAPTER 1

At five o’clock on any given morning, 26 Deacons Road is the only house with its lights on. At that time in September it is still dark, and before the residents of the small cobbled street stir from their sleep, a small hunched figure dressed in a heavy woollen cardigan, baggy trousers and tartan slippers, noisily unbolts the front door of his corner newsagent shop; unaware that this day will awaken his greatest fear, and change the face of Europe forever.

Isaac Cohen waits for the delivery van to drop-off his bundle of morning papers, and depending on how thick the fog may be cloaking the river Tyne at this time of the year, the van usually makes the trip from the presses in Newcastle, across the Tyne Bridge and onto Gateshead high-street in no more than twenty minutes.

Time enough for Isaac Cohen to step out onto the pavement in front of his shop; stand for a moment or two to see what sort of day is dawning; take his pocket watch out of his cardigan to check if the delivery man is running late and finally turn for one last look up the road towards the High-Street. Then, with his usual grunt of satisfaction, he will step back into his shop to prepare for the arrival of his three most important employees; his only employees in fact: his young paper boys.

Before long, as if sensing the delivery-van’s nearness, Isaac Cohen returns to the front door, looks back up the steep incline of Deacons Road and waits to receive his bundle by hand. Not tossed onto the pavement as the young lad does with all the other newsagents: breaking the outer wrapping on impact and damaging several papers inside. Papers Isaac Cohen could ill afford to waste.

At that early hour, except for the anonymous cry of a baby waking for its first feed, the streets in lower Gateshead are silent, and there is a distinct chill in the air. However, Reg Ferry will not allow the fog to delay him. He is a nervous man set on a frantic deadline, barely tall enough to see over the steering wheel he is leaning across, attempting to wipe his fogging breath off the windscreen in front of him. A pointless recurrence, yet not distracting enough to force him to roll his window down and create a freezing through draft from the open back of the van.

Poor young Jacko, the lad who tosses the papers onto the pavement, is huddling amidst the bundles, being jostled and bumped about as he hangs onto the rope lashed around his waste to stop him from falling out. While Reg checks on him now and then in the rear-view mirror as the van trundles along the wet cobbled streets leading to Mr Cohen’s shop, he has to shout at Jacko to keep him from falling asleep. It is early for a ten-year-old, and so easy to nod off as he nestles in the small niche he has created behind Reg’s seat to keep himself warm.

Reg pulls down hard on the steering wheel of the old Austin as it skips around the corner of the High Street into Deacons Road. He has to go steady on the wet cobbles, as Mr Cohen’s shop is at the far end of an incline that ends abruptly at the narrow lane running alongside the Tyne.

It was once a lane carrying horse-drawn carriages that serviced a riverside settlement, and like most of old Gateshead by the river, the settlement was demolished in the early 1900’s; now the lane is no more than a riverside walk, servicing a warren of red-brick Victorian terraces.

Reg spots the bright streak of light crossing the wet cobbles from Mr Cohen’s shop, and the impatient silhouette of the old man waiting for his papers.

Jacko, Reg cries out, Jacko… are you awake?

Why aye man… I’m awake. What is it?

Here’s the old Jew’s shop… so don’t throw his papers out onto the pavement. We don’t want him complaining again.

I know, Reg, Jacko called back stretching his stiff arms into the air, You don’t have to remind me… the old bugger has enough to say.

Jacko heaved Mr Cohen’s bundle onto the small flap hanging out from the back of the van on two chains, while Reg pressed his boot down on the break. He wanted to keep the wheels turning, even if only slowly, to prevent the engine from stalling on him; the last thing he wanted was to be hand cranking the wretched thing at that time in the morning. It was a tricky manoeuvre at the best of times; the reason why they preferred throwing the bundles onto the pavement.

Mr Cohen was standing with his arms outstretched waiting for them, and reached out to collect the bundle from Jacko as he swung it off the back.

Good morning, Jacko, Mr Cohen called out to the small youth hanging onto one of the chains, bundled up in an assortment of old clothes and a woolly balaclava.

Morning, Mr Cohen, Jacko replied in a squeaky voice, before he swung back into the van on the taut rope and grabbed hold of the back of Reg’s seat.

Without a word, Reg let off the brakes and the van careered around the corner of the shop into the lane before the old man had a chance to say thank you.

There was a pungent smell of exhaust fumes in the air as Mr Cohen’s knees buckled under the weight of the heavy bundle, and skipping the few paces to his front door, he stepped inside and shuffled along the counter, passed the raised flap at the end and through into the back room.

It was just as dimly light, no point in wasting money on brighter bulbs, and he dumped the bundle down on the end of a long trestle table where he grabbed the scissors and cut into the binding cord.

It was now five-thirty, he only had fifteen minutes to separate the papers into three piles, ready for the boys to number and fold into a size fit enough to slip easily into the waiting letterboxes on their routes. He then removed a small pile for the counter sales to the early morning workers and put out the billboards before the paper boys arrived.

Like clockwork, he could hear Mrs Cohen stirring. She always got up around five-thirty to get ready to make a hot mug of tea for the boys before they set off on their rounds; she thought it would set them up for the day. It was always appreciated; especially when she included a chocolate biscuit or two.

Nothing passed between them after his early rise, it was their forty-second year together and words seemed hardly necessary any more, so he finished sorting the papers. After checking his pocket-watch, he then turned to his next duty; the billboards. There were two of them: one for Deacons road, and the other for the gable end on the lane facing the river.

They were stored in the outhouse next to the toilet in the back yard. They were difficult contraptions, made up of a plywood backboard, a metal frame laced with criss-cross wires to hold the poster in and a tripod leg at the back.

Mr Cohen preferred to lean them against the sill of each shop-window attached to a hook to stop them falling over. When he first used the tripod to stand them up in a prominent position on the pavement, they kept falling down; a waste of time, he thought, and never did it again.

Once outside, he would set them up for the passers-by to notice. It was a busy corner, especially the lane side, as he called it, where the terraces early male risers would cycle passed on their way to the factories and gas-works further down the river.

Mr Cohen’s shop was the only newsagent on the lane for some distance and it was a favourite stop for their morning paper, a pack of ten Woodbines and a box of matches. It never varied, and he arranged his papers on the counter with the cigarettes and matches on top, so that the men could be in and out in a matter of seconds; and just as predictable, they always had the right change.

With the first shift cycling off into the dawn, Mr Cohen stood in the light of his doorway sniffing the air: the Tyne was particularly rich this morning, and turning down-stream, away from the disappearing red tail lights, he gazed into the darkness for the first of his boys. A screech of squealing brakes reverberating along the riverbank heralded the arrival of Billy Barnes: his number-one paper boy; a small blonde-haired, scrawny lad, with an anaemic complexion. Hardly the stuff of champions; yet, what he lost in stature, he made up for with enthusiasm.

The screech of Billy’s brakes had distracted him for the moment, before he turned his attention back to the billboards. It was usually only a cursory glance to make sure he had positioned them correctly, and they were both standing the right way up, and then, squinting his eyes, he would familiarise himself with the news.

It was as much of a necessity as it was his interest. His customers had a tendency of wanting to know what had happened in the world before they had even cast a glance over the front page. However, this morning was different. Mr Cohen was so mesmerised by the unusually bold print of the headline, he could hardly read what it said, and Billy’s cheerful greeting passed over his head like some distant voice on a foggy night. He just continued to stare at the large black words.

His unshaven jaw dropped, and his mouth opened slowly, but nothing came out. He paused, expressionless, and then his mouth opened again for an inordinate period as the impact of what the headline meant, sunk in.

Then it came out. Something Billy had never heard Mr Cohen say before.

Mien Gott! It came out as a fearful, guttural exclamation, followed by a lingering extension of the last syllable. In his shock, Mr Cohen had reverted to his native tongue and with a shaking hand spread out on either side of his jaw, and arthritic fingers pointing upwards, he let out a long sigh.

Still sitting on his bike, Billy was bewildered. He sat with one foot resting on a pedal, and the other on the pavement. He had never seen Mr Cohen like this before; never seen him anything other than cheerful. They were in a free country; that was what he always told Billy. But now, staring down at the billboard, his body slumped; the old man looked as if the world was coming to an end.

Billy inched forward on his bike and read what it said on the billboard next to him. It made no sense until he remembered what Mr Cohen had told him about the lunatic that drove him and his wife out of their home.

Billy stared at the black words that read; ‘Hitler Invades Poland’. They were just words to him. He knew who Hitler was, everyone was talking about him, calling him a jumped up little foreigner, but this looked different somehow.

They looked important; like the giant letters on Mr Flanagan’s window, telling everyone who passed how cheap his fish was today. However, like Mr Flanagan’s fish, the message meant nothing to him.

Those three words meant everything to Mr Cohen. His eyes went cold and blank as he shuffled passed Billy back into the shop, as if Billy was invisible. His mind was preoccupied, and his first thoughts were for his wife, not the papers.

He had seen all this before. He knew what was coming, and his thoughts turned to what happened the last time a dictator went mad in his homeland.

CHAPTER 2

Mr Cohen’s reaction to the billboard had broken Billy’s routine. Usually, on any normal morning Billy’s mum would get him up at five-thirty, slide a thick slice of bread under the gas grill and put the kettle on for his mug of sweet tea. In the meantime, Billy would slip into the clothes his mum had left on the chair by his bed, followed by a quick wash behind his ears.

She always checked there first, as he bit into his toast and washed it down with the tea he could barely drink. By five-forty, she would wrap a thick woolly scarf twice around Billy’s neck, help him on with his grey duffel coat and give him a big hug before he jumped on his bike and set off for Mr Cohen’s shop.

He would always be waiting for Billy with a warm, cheerful greeting, and Billy would lean his bike up against the window on the lane and follow him inside. They would make their way through the shop to where the small passage was and directly ahead into the back room, where the papers would be set out on the trestle table in three neat piles.

Mr Cohen would always stop on the post of the stairs, where he would look up to the lighted apartment above and call out to his wife Leah. ‘Billy’s here, Leah,’ he would say. It was her sign to get the tea and biscuits ready. However, this morning was different. Mr Cohen suddenly dashed off and left Billy standing outside.

Billy lent his bike up against the window and slowly made his way through the empty shop and into the back room, but no Mr Cohen. Billy retraced his steps and stopped at the bottom of the stairs to listen. He could hear Mrs Cohen crying, it was a pitiful sound: long gasping breaths, followed by a series of short sobs; while all the time Billy could hear Mr Cohen trying to pacify her.

It can’t happen here, Leah, he kept saying.

Then another noise distracted Billy. It was his friend Gordon arriving, all wrapped up in a thick black overcoat, a khaki balaclava, his school trousers and Wellingtons. He was a stocky lad, twice the size of Billy, with a cheerful freckled face, chipped teeth, from his many scraps and unruly ginger hair.

Why are you wearing Wellingtons? Billy said, turning into the back room.

Mum said it was going to rain, and I only have my plimsolls. My shoes are at the cobblers, he mumbled behind the thick woollen balaclava. Where’s old Cohen?

He’s upstairs with his wife. She’s not well. We better get started ourselves.

Just as Gordon was removing his gloves and stuffing them into his overcoat pocket, Fitzy came in blustering something about dick-head Gordon had left his light on. Gordon let out a gasp and rushed off. Fitzy started laughing, and Billy suspected it was another of his spiteful jokes.

I wish you wouldn’t say things like that to Gordon, Billy said.

What are you going to do about it? Fitzy turned and crowed.

Oh forget it, Billy snapped, get on with your papers.

Where’s the old man?

He’s upstairs with his wife.

I suppose that means no tea and biscuits?

Billy picked up his pencil and started marking his papers.

My light was off, you little turd, Gordon shouted as he burst into the room.

Fitzy dropped his pencil and moved to the other end of the table.

Billy grabbed Gordon, Stop it, Gordon. He’s only trying to stir you up. Here’s your pencil, now get on with your papers, or you’ll be late for school,

Billy had almost finished his pile. He knew every house off by heart, but Gordon was struggling. He was staring at the piece of crumpled paper Mr Cohen gave him, listing all the streets and numbers on his route. Billy had to help him, just as Mr Cohen did, and Fitzy sniggered.

Fitzy needed no help; he was as shrewd as they come. A thin, spiteful, looking individual that was always shouting his mouth off about something or other; just because he had four big brothers to look after him. The Fitzgerald’s were a large Irish family, none of whom appeared to do any work, yet, were never short of the good things in life.

Billy’s mum always said; ‘The Fitzgerald’s of this world, could buy you at one end of the street, and sell you at the other,’ whatever that meant. However, Billy was not slow at getting the drift himself.

What made Billy Barnes the enterprising nine-year-old he was, had to do with something his mother told him just before his seventh birthday; she was explaining to him the possibility that he may not get a birthday present this year because his father had left them. She told him, ‘He was the man in the house now,’ and that meant he had to help in the home. He had to grow up fast, and learn to be a survivor.

While his mother worked all day, barely bringing in enough to support them, he had to be there, doing the things his mother had no time for. Instead of enjoying childhood things, Billy’s life had to have a purpose. While delivering papers was extra pocket money for his friends, what Billy earned went straight into the kitty: a blue tea caddy on the mantelpiece. There was little time in Billy’s life to be a child. He quickly had to become a nine-year-old, going on twenty.

Running late, Gordon and Fitzy stuffed their papers into the large canvas bags Mr Cohen left hanging on the end of the trestle table. They slung them over their shoulders, struggling with the weight until they reached their bikes, and balancing them on the crossbar between their legs, they pushed off into the dawn: Gordon up towards the High Street and Fitzy turning right along the lane.

Billy left his bag on the end of the table and walked over to the bottom of the stairs. It was quiet now, and he called up to Mr Cohen.

The old man quickly lent over the banisters, his coarse mop of grey hair flopping loosely either side of a central parting. He looked terrible, hanging onto the banister with one hand and shaking a long finger in front of an open mouth. He looked as if he was miming something to Billy, but Billy just shook his head with a look of astonishment on his pale face.

Still shaking his hand wildly in front of himself, Mr Cohen tiptoed down the stairs and, taking Billy by the elbow, escorted him into the shop. Billy broke free and dashed back for his bag, and on returning, set it down by the counter.

Mr Cohen was still standing where Billy left him. He looked old, as old as Billy’s grandpa, and his distant green, watery eyes looked sad. They were usually kind eyes, ‘Sympathetic eyes,’ Billy’s mum would say. ‘Eyes you could trust.’

What’s wrong, Mr Cohen? Billy asked.

The old man stroked Billy’s head, You’re a good lad, Billy. Thank you for getting the boys away and explaining why I wasn’t there to help them. You had better get off yourself. It’s nearly six, and you’ll be late if you don’t get on.

But what happened? Why did the billboard upset you?

It’s a long story, Billy. I’ll tell you later, Mr Cohen reached down for Billy’s bag and swung it over his shoulder, Go on lad… get onto your route.

Billy grabbed hold of the weight of his bag and smiled back at the old man. Then as he passed the pile of papers on the counter he stopped and turned, Don’t forget the next lot of workers… they’ll be in soon.

Billy stepped outside, balanced the bag on his crossbar, turned his bike around and peddled off along the lane. Mr Cohen returned to his usual place behind the counter, glanced at his watch, and started laying out the packets of Woodbines, matches and a paper for the men coming along the lane.

His wife Leah called down, What about the boys’ tea Isaac?

Don’t bother now dear… they’ve left.

Beyond the waterfront, from St Mary’s church, at the end of the Tyne Bridge, and spreading out from the commercial area of Gateshead High-Street, is a grided mass of red brick, featureless terraces, that made it easy for the local newsagents to allot their areas to a mass of highly competitive, under-aged boys with bikes.

It also made it easy for Mr Cohen to divide his area into three blocks, with each sector outlined on a large map of Gateshead on his back room wall: One named Billy, another Gordon and the third Fitzy. This was Billy’s idea, so that there would be no confusion as to whose territory was whose. This was important, because Billy had the best route; he earned it, working for Mr Cohen for the longest period. Not to mention all the time he put in working in his shop after school and weekends.

Billy’s route was nicknamed the ‘Royal Route’, because all the streets were named after kings and queens, and Billy liked to think it was special; but in all truth, each boy’s route was allocated because he lived there, and everyone knew him.

Billy Barnes had the most papers to deliver: sixty-seven in all, covering seven streets. He lived down by the river, where each street of terraces stopped abruptly on the small lane that ran for several miles alongside the water’s edge. Billy’s route started on Richard Street and ended at the top of George Street.

After eight months, Billy knew every street intimately, and the peculiarities of every letterbox: the one with the vicious spring that snapped at his fingers when he let go of the paper, the one that was so small he had to fold the paper twice and the one that growled at him when he lifted the flap. He knew which street old Mr Brent, the night watchman, would be on that week. Guarding the council’s latest hole, that seemed a never-ending circuit around Billy’s route.

They had become good pals, Billy and Mr Brent, and Billy would always slip a paper in his bag for him, and in return the old man, gripping his burnt-down pipe between his brown teeth, would always have a pot of tea on the brassier for Billy. And as soon as he heard Billy’s squeaky brakes, he would jab a thick slice of bread onto the end of his toasting fork and hook it over the hot coke.

It was a distraction for Billy, but after a mug of warming tea and buttered toast, he was off again. Off on yet another distraction in Victoria Street, in particular, number nineteen. That was where Janet Sutherland lived. When he pushed the paper through her letterbox, he would deliberately allow the flap to snap shut with a loud clatter that would echo all the way up the stairs to the flat above. Then he would zigzag his bike back on the pavement and look up at the window above the front door. The curtain would flutter at first, then Janet’s pale face would appear at the window, and she would wave down to him.

Waving down to him was the sum of Billy’s infatuation with the most wonderful girl in the world. He had never spoken to her, never averted his eyes or gestured to her at school; his love was anonymous. Apart from the skiting remarks, Gordon and others constantly bombarded him with; there were the two tomboy escorts that never left her side.

CHAPTER 3

Billy always finished his route on the lane at the bottom of James Street where he lived and would cycle up the back alley between the terraces and through his back door into the small concrete yard where he parked his bike.

The light was on in the scullery and he could see his mum ironing near the window. She must have heard the back door as it made a loud rasping sound when it scraped across the uneven concrete.

She looked down at him, smiled, and left the window to open the kitchen door.

Get in quickly, she said; rubbing his hands, you look frozen. I’ll put the kettle on for a nice hot mug of tea.

Mr Brent gave me one not so long ago and some buttered toast.

He’s a nice man, Billy’s mum said, turning on the gas under the kettle, You’ll miss him when the council move onto another neighbourhood.

Yeah… I will. I was thinking about that when I sat in his tent-thing eating my toast. He said there’s going to be a war.

Billy’s mum finished making his tea, then looked up at the clock and deciding she had time to have one herself, she poured another. She looked puzzled.

Where did that come from? she said, passing Billy his mug.

I told him about Mr Cohen.

Still puzzled, she said, I think you had better start at the beginning.

Billy gulped down two big mouthfuls then started telling her about Mr Cohen’s reaction to the headline on the billboard.

That happened yesterday, she said, it was on the radio late last night.

Billy scrunched his eyes in thought, and then answered.

The Cohen’s go to bed early, so they must have missed it. But if it happened yesterday, why is it today’s news, and why did Mr Brent say that about a war?

I gather no one knew about it until late. Too late I imagine for it to go into the papers, so this morning would be their first opportunity. What did it say?

Hitler Invades Poland, Billy recited.

Yes… it’s the same news.

Does that mean we’re at war? Billy asked, taking his duffel coat off.

Not yet. But I don’t think it will be far away.

Billy’s mum looked sadder than she usually did. She had to go to work at Mr Robinson’s grocer shop, and she turned back to her ironing. She had little patience with herself, not like some of the other women in the street, so any bad news always made her look worse.

The last two years had been difficult since Billy’s dad left, leaving her with little interest in make-up, not that she could afford the luxury anyway, and it suited her to comb her straight, light-brown hair back across her head, where it was tightly held back in a short ponytail behind her neck, with a tortoiseshell clip. Billy liked to watch his mum get ready, even if it was only for work.

Mrs Cohen was crying… and she didn’t make us any tea and biscuits.

Was that after Mr Cohen was upset by the headline?

Yes. We hardly saw him. He was looking after her, Billy said. Why should that make Mrs Cohen cry?

Billy’s mum stopped ironing for the moment and stared back at him, wondering how she could explain their fears. Well…I don’t really understand how they do things in Germany but…I gather this man called Hitler doesn’t like Jews very much, and a lot like the Cohen’s left Germany in 1930. That’s all I know.

So that’s why Mr Cohen told his wife, it wouldn’t happen here?

Is that what he said?

He told me he would explain later. Billy continued.

Well don’t pester him… promise me?

Okay, Billy answered.

Billy’s mum finished ironing her blouse and stood shaking it in the air for a moment to cool it down, then started to get ready for work. In the meantime Billy knelt down by the black-iron fireplace and started to disassemble the grate so that he could clean the previous day’s ashes out before he remade the fire.

His mum bent down, and taking hold of his head, she then brushed his ruffled hair back in place, kissed his head, and grabbed hold of her bag to leave.

Billy suddenly started giggling and his Mum looked surprised, I told Gordon to hurry up in case he missed school… I forgot it was Saturday.

It would be after lunch before Billy saw his mum again, and he prayed that Mrs Cohen