Voices from the Wasteland and Other Stories

By Brian Crane

VOICES FROM THE WASTELAND and other stories.

Showcase……………………………….a weekend for entertainment agent trouble-shooter Ronnie
Littlewood, that does not go according to his well thought through
planning, in this third story about the ex-comedian.

The Box…………………………………..is a Kodak box Brownie Camera that holds a dark, sinister secret for
its owner. But it is his loyal friend who takes on the task to unravel
what it all means.

The Park Bench……………………….is a refuge, a place of solace and tranquillity for one woman to
contemplate where her life has led her. It is also a place where she
finally come to terms with her situation.

Voices From The Wasteland……began as a Theatre In Education Project inspired by a cutting in a
Manchester newspaper under the heading ‘body of an unidentified
man found in alley’. From there it became a musical and then a
fourteen track album. However, it has always been the wish of
the author to write it as a story and now with many of the lyrics from
the original musical interspersing with the narrative, his wish has
come true.





Cover illustration.

‘Winter Moon On Canal’
By R S Gardner.
Courtesy of Clark Art Ltd

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 23, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664117761

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Copyright © 2022 by Brian Crane.

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.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 05/20/2022

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823857

DEDICATION

To Sue as ever.

CONTENTS

i. Dedication

ii. Voices

SHOWCASE

i. Gate Crashers

ii. Laura

iii. One Bad Apple

iv. The Cheque

v. On Reflection

THE BOX

i. Dyfroedd Tywyll

ii. Washing Lines

iii. Mrs Parfitt

iv. Decisive Action

v. Dark Waters

vi. The Letter

vii. Conclusion

THE PARK BENCH

i. The Bench

ii. The Penny Drops

iii. Resolve

VOICES FROM THE WASTELAND

As the narrative to ‘Voices’ is continuous, there are no chapter headings. However, below are certain lines of lyric to allow the reader to identify specific moments within the story.

i. ‘Minutes pass so the hours can flourish.’

ii. ‘She never had a reason to follow a dream.’

iii. ‘A life without hope.’

iv. ‘Many times I’ve opened up my heart to you.’

v. ‘We’ll move like a snake.’

vi. ‘Alone.’

VOICES

                          Rain like veil,

                          Floats the browning leaves

                          Like ships before the wind.

                          Through the city streets

                          The new day begins,

                          There are no birds left here to sing.

                          I am what you see,

                          Just a shadow lost

                          Within a dreamless sleep.

                          Across the weeping sky

                          The dawn slowly creeps,

                          But it’s not me that it will greet.

                          Child on the run,

                          It’s just not true to think

                          That living is so much fun.

                          Time is like a rock

                          We all fall upon,

                          It scars you deeply then moves on.

                          I am what I am,

                          Just a speck of dust

                          Upon a sea of shifting sands.

                          For I am lost with

                          No hope of being found,

                          There’s no one here to take my hand.

                          And the voices I hear,

                          Are the voices from

                          The wasteland of my years.

                          I’m but a watercolour

                          Painted with tears,

                          I stand alone amidst my fears.

                          The rain like a veil,

                          Now fills the gutters

                          Like the memories fill my mind.

                          When all I want now

                          Is to seek a place to hide,

                          And leave my demons far behind.

……………

SHOWCASE

i.

Gate Crashers

Ronnie Littlewood stood in the recessed rear doorway to the Prestcott Working Mens Social Club and breathed in a deep sigh of relief from the cool night air, as the double fire doors behind him were locked with a heavy click. Slowly he crossed the dark, badly lit expanse of the empty car park towards the one remaining vehicle, his own rather ancient Ford Escort Estate that sat looking somewhat lonely and forlorn in the one corner.

Reaching it he opened the driver’s door, but instead of taking his place behind the steering wheel he stood and leant heavily with one arm on the roof of the car and the other on the open door. Now comfortably supported, he lit a cigarette and drew in the much needed smoke as he dragged his mind back over the evening and the sickening disturbance inside the concert room earlier and tried to rationalise all the cloying images that were now raising themselves in his mind’s eye.

From the outset he had been somewhat anxious about the atmosphere inside the club, for after most of his adult life playing this kind of venue his instincts were fine tuned as to how a Saturday night in a club, full with its drinking members might progress.

The first inkling that all was not well had been made apparent to him the moment he had first stepped over the threshold into the small entrance foyer of the Prestcott to be greeted by two members of the committee arguing with a tall, well built man in his mid twenties. From what Ronnie could gather, as he stood as far apart from the ensuing heated word play as he could get, the young man had seen his estranged wife enter the club with her new boyfriend and his family. It seemed he had insisted on confronting her but the committee members, sensing trouble had refused him entrance and had managed to lead him, reasonably peacefully out of the concert room and into the foyer where Ronnie had become a spectator. From there he had watched the animated exchange, until the young man had chosen discretion the easier option for the moment and with a few well chosen expletives, he had made his way out of the main doors and into the front car park, before disappearing amongst the mingling, evening strollers along the brightly lit, shop fronted high street.

Well Ronnie! Jack Hargreaves, the club secretary had smugly stated as he watched the young man fade into the night. That’s the last we’ll see of him!

And yet, Ronnie’s antenna had been vibrating with a different conclusion, for he had seen it all before in his life time of working the club scene as a comedian in his desperate efforts to make it to the big time. But all he had ever achieved was one appearance on a television talent show, which had been the highlight of his career and a moment of glory which he had never aspired to again. As a result, it had merely signalled his long sad decline to its somewhat ignominious finale when the repeat bookings he had relied on had dried up and he was in effect rejected by the agencies with the epitaph that his act was literally ‘old hat!’ and ‘dated!’

The result being his whole future had looked worse than bleak until a local, but prestigious entertainment entrepreneur by the name of Charlie Baxter of CB Entertainments International had recognised Ronnie’s abundant experience in the business, coupled with his wide range of contacts with artists and committees and had taken him on as his agencies link with the clubs and the artists.

From that point on, a mere two years ago now and just after the millennium Ronnie had not looked back, for with the confidence that this stroke of good fortune had endowed him with he could once again hold his head up in the environment that he knew and loved and which he also realised was the only one in which he could possibly survive in.

And it was that life times vast and varied experience, which was not only a fundamental part of his valued position with Charlie Baxter’s organisation but it also dictated that the most tactful course of action in a difficult situation was to keep your trap shut. So it was that Ronnie had not replied to Jack Hargreaves rather over optimistic remark, but had merely smiled and said....

I’m here to see Bobby and Clive.

Bobby and Clive, fondly referred to as ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ by their friends in the business and there were many including Ronnie, were in reality Roberta and Clive Patterson, a typical husband and wife duo, still bashing out their three chord renditions of classic country and western standards that they had been pleasing their audiences with for the past twenty years. With their quaintly colourful cowboy and cowgirl outfits and their easily recognisable choice of songs, coupled with their gentle between song patter they were a popular diversion for the mildly interested gatherings that they played to.

For with Bobby and Clive both alternating on the lead vocals and harmonies and with Clive also on guitar, their simple philosophy on their form of entertainment was completely without ambition but was merely formulated for enjoying themselves in the pleasure they gave others. And this simplicity of approach seemed to flow over onto the regular backing duos of keyboard and drums in most of the venues they worked, purely because they were so familiar with Bobby and Clive’s easy to follow musical arrangements that they did not need the dots that the couple provided.

And yet, what happened later was nothing less than an utter travesty for the two truly genuine and nice people.

Ronnie’s initial intention had been to have a friendly chat with them in the first bingo break, merely to confirm their future bookings and to some extent to touch base and answer any worries or queries, as was his habit with all his artists. Saying that, in Bobby and Clive’s case they very rarely raised any issues that needed a remedy and so it would have been easy for Ronnie to make his excuses and leave before their second set started. But by that time Ronnie had been forming serious misgivings about the unhealthy ambiance he was sensing in the long, narrow smoky concert room with its low oppressive ceiling. As a consequence, he had reluctantly decided to forego his intended next visit of the evening to a club in a neighbouring town just a few miles away.

What had caused the niggling buzz that things were not quite right for Ronnie, had been during Bobby and Clive’s first set when, from a raised vantage point at the side of the stage he had managed to make an uninterrupted assessment down the whole expanse of the room. The outcome being he had been able to judge the general mood by having a clear sight above the heads of the hundred or so seated drinkers, right to the far end and the busy bar. And it had become quite obvious to him by all the hunched shoulders at each table, rather than the usual relaxed chatting and laughter that something of a worrying nature was being anticipated by everyone there.

Indeed, it is a very strange phenomenon that Ronnie had noticed before, that a calm and relaxed atmosphere in a crowded room can change at the drop of a hat to a sense of apprehension and even foreboding. Sometimes it can be caused by the simplest ill-timed word or gesture, which then generates an adverse energy that filters through to each individual without any of them actually knowing or understanding what has marred the overall air of good natured cordiality.

On this occasion it had been the earlier unpleasantness between the two committee members and the young man in the foyer, which had quite simply made Ronnie’s nose for trouble begin to twitch like a bloodhound. For in his opinion, gained from his long experience working the club circuit the young man had taken his exclusion from the Prestcott a little too readily and the resulting tension that this unfortunate interaction had caused had drifted like a virus throughout the large concert room.

Of course, Ronnie had not mentioned any of this to either Bobby or Clive during the first bingo break for fear of upsetting their usually quiet, restrained temperament. And so it was that Ronnie had chosen to merely make it quite plain to them that he had just wanted to see how they were and to add to that the pleasure of catching up on their two sets of forty minutes.

In the event it had been during the last twenty minutes of the duo’s second and last set, with Bobby powering out the familiar Tammy Wynette favourite ‘Stand By Your Man’ that things had turned from the good to the bad and then to the downright ugly, when the swing doors at the far end of the room had been flung wide open and half dozen, worse for drink young men had burst into the room swearing and shouting out the name ‘Shirley’.

Obviously pinpointing the table where the said lady was seated the young men had then crashed their way towards her and in an instant the harmless, if somewhat restrained mood in the room had been overturned, along with a number of chairs and tables and their contents of glasses and bottles, not to mention many of the helpless members of the audience.

Ronnie had instantly and without thinking rushed onto the stage and had hustled Bobby, who was now in a very frightened and tearful state and Clive with his expensive ‘Gretsch’ guitar off the stage and into the small dressing room, before returning to help the backing duo Dougie and Melvin to clear their equipment down into the side passage. And it had been only just in time, before several brawling men had spewed onto the small platform stage, where just seconds before Bobbie and Clive had been working so hard to please them. All this had taken less than thirty seconds but it had been enough time for the whole room to fall into a chaotic uproar of crashing bodies and furniture and the swearing and screams of the partisans from both camps of the argument as they entered the affray with fists flying along with anything else that came to hand.

The resulting melee had lasted only minutes with Ronnie standing guard at the edge of the stage, a wooden chair leg in his fist and poised ready to discourage any potential breakthrough into the sanctity of the back stage area. And it had been with a sense of relief when the sirens of approaching police cars could be heard over the cacophony of noise from the main room.

Even so the aftermath had also been a very unpleasant and disturbing experience for all concerned with the police being confused by whom they needed to arrest and handcuff and with the ambulance crews tending to the shocked and the walking wounded, for it was fortunate indeed that no one had actually been seriously injured.

Then there was the committee, each one of them had blamed the other for ever allowing what had happened to happen and it had fallen on the somewhat ego bruised Jack Hargreaves to confront Bobby and Clive and Dougie and Melvin and tell them that they were only being paid half their fees because they had only fulfilled half their contracts.

On hearing that a rather unusually angry Ronnie had then pushed his way between his artists and the pumped up club secretary and in no uncertain terms and still with the table leg clasped menacingly in his fist, he had turned to face Jack Hargreaves and had made no bones about what he had wanted to say and how forceful he was going to say it.

Don’t get any ideas about deducting a single penny from these people Jack! Ronnie had growled somewhat out of character. If you hadn’t been so damned cack-handed....in the way you dealt with that drunk at the door earlier on....this wouldn’t have happened....The door should’ve been locked as soon as you’d got rid of him....It was obvious....even to me....that he’d come back....and with his mates!

At that point Ronnie had begun to move forward ominously, thus causing the shrinking club secretary to stagger backwards towards the dressing room door.

So Jack! Ronnie had continued. Play fare with these people....it’s not their fault they couldn’t finish the night....pay them what they’re due....or I’ll get Charlie Baxter to black list this club....and you know that the other agencies won’t have anything to do with you....So be warned Jack!

But now with the welcome chill of the early hours on his cheeks, Ronnie took one more long pull on the remains of his cigarette and with a determined gesture flicked it away into the night sky, before dropping wearily into the driver’s seat of his car. He fervently disliked this kind of acrimonious end to a night and he had seen his share over the years. But on this occasion, he had been right about sensing when a problem was developing that could get out of hand and he had also been right by saying that the club should have kept its doors locked. He knew of many clubs that locked their doors well before the entertainment or the bingo started, for all it needed was for the committee members to work out a rota and to take it in turns to have a seat in the entrance lobby, in case any genuine latecomer needed admitting but particularly to keep the unwanted out.

In fact, Ronnie was a great believer in the old proverb of ‘sods law’, if it can happen it will, and drink can be too much of a master in the wrong hands, as had been proven earlier. Therefore, it made sense to take all the precautions necessary to prevent something from happening. But enough was enough for Ronnie and now all he wanted to do was to forget all about the distressing scenes of the last few hours and escape to the sanctuary of his little flat.

ii.

Laura

Ronnie opened his eyes to the bright morning sunlight blazing in between his partly closed curtains. Silently he swore to himself for not making sure that they had been pulled tight together before diving between the embracing sheets and duvet of his bed just a few hours earlier. It had been nearly four o clock before he had returned to his one bedroom flat and even then, he had found it necessary to creep up the stairs to avoid disturbing anyone else in the house.

He had been lucky in many respects for his landlady Mrs Moira Lambert, a middle aged widow of some twenty years or so was a kindly lady who had helped to see Ronnie through those dark days of his decline into the obscurity that every performer dreaded above all else, whether in the clubs, television, stage, films or whatever. For no matter how good they believed themselves to be and no matter how good they believed their adoring public believed them to be, it is the fickleness of that adoring public that inevitably becomes their judge and jury and finally the executioner of all that they had hoped and dreamed of for themselves, as Ronnie knew all too well.

But it had been Mrs Lambert and her understanding nature, who had maintained a quiet but supportive lifeline for him over the ten years that he had been her tenant. And the fruits of her tenacity of empathy and concern for her lodger were now proving to have been worthwhile, for every time she had contact with the reborn Ronnie Littlewood, self confident and smiling and much more the Ronnie that she had hoped to see one day, she felt a mild glow of satisfaction in her truly Christian heart

And although Ronnie could freely admit that his eternal gratitude should belong to Mrs Lambert, there was also Charlie Baxter to thank for his trust and faith and for seeing something of worth in the failed comedian. But for that sense of humanity that these two very different people possessed, Ronnie could never have stepped clear of that self imposed bleak abyss of drink, heavy smoking, snatched irregular meals and sleep and most of all deep, deep despair.

Saying that, whenever Ronnie allowed his mind to drift back over that long dark fall from grace, that could have ended so differently to what it has done, it simply went to remind him that somewhere a guardian angel had been watching over him all these years and it did not take much to then place the kind, compassionate Mrs Moira Lambert into that saintly role.

But now washed, shaved and with a breakfast of coffee and toast inside him, but also with a silent cheery whistle on his lips he stepped out of his room and onto the landing and without the necessity to lock his door he made his way down the stairs to the hallway, where he deposited his black plastic bag of washing by the hall stand. And knowing full well that Mrs Lambert would already be seated in her favourite pew in the local Chapel, he refrained from calling out his ‘good bye.’

His first stop was to pick up Laura Cox, one of Charlie Baxter’s office girls who had volunteered to help Ronnie with the day’s event. This was to be an area showcase he was organising at the Ollernby and District Community Centre and Social Club, whereby up and coming and even more experienced acts were given a ten minute spot in front of an invited audience of committee members from the many venues on Charlie Baxter’s books. This arrangement worked well in many directions for it helped Ronnie sought through the wheat and the chaff of the local talent by not only seeing them perform, but by judging the reactions of the assembled gathering. It also served its purpose with regards to it being high profile and well talked about within the club fraternity and by giving them and their committee’s a real sense of importance and involvement, a feeling that they were a part of it all.

But most of all it was a chance for the