This Town

By Sean McSweeney

This themed collection is set in a fictitious new town. These 'new' (some are seventy years old now) settlements present an accelerated version of certain social developments in modern Britain; to examine them is to understand what we are becoming. Today it would be possible for a person to be parachuted in blindfold to any such development and not know which part of the country they were in, nor whether they were in one of the new towns or in a more recent estate in an old town.

The first and last stories ('Neil' and 'Deborah'), first-person accounts, are linked reminiscences. A boy and girl who attended the same primary school never see each other again after the 11-plus separates them. The other stories, set in various recent decades, explore new and old cultures, and general themes of society through various narratives. In 'Another Bit Gone', an unsettling experience means a worker in a printing unit on the outskirts of the town can no longer feel free to do as he wishes in his lunch break. In 'How to Feel Stupid', a day full of small humiliations for the protagonist, who has limited access to his son, is capped by an unpleasant shock when he tries to help a victim of violence. 'Matthew (not Matt) and Andrew (not Andy)' concerns two young professionals working in the newly built science park and their awareness of their social distance from the old town inhabitants. 'First Day Out' is essentially a portrait of a young man, hard-nosed and resilient, who is very much at home in both the new and old environments of the town.

 

'The Same Soil' is the longest of the stories, the most contemplative and most discursive, and is the heart of the collection. The 1970s childhood and adolescence of George Court coincide with the development of his home town as a satellite settlement for London's overspill population. This period of his life is largely portrayed through his relationship with his grandparents. While he is able to take the changes in his environment in his stride, for them it is a more difficult matter. We then meet him in the early 21st century, an established academic in his chosen field of ecclesiastical architecture, returning briefly to his home town. The cemetery in which he sits while eating his packed lunch backs onto the house in which his grandparents used to live. Here is the link to the narrative that is the core of the story.

            As his grandmother approached her death (when George was sixteen), she was particularly distressed to learn that there were to be no more burials in this cemetery, which had housed the coffins of her family members. Moreover, the purchase of a plot by her husband and herself was not to be honoured. Instead they would be offered an alternative site in the proposed cemetery in the new town. However, relatives, friends and officials have other ideas. The chronological sweep of the story allows several themes to be explored: dislocation; identification with place and tradition; the inevitability of miscegenation, social and geographical mobility, and change; immigration and notions of racial purity; and, less seriously, the misunderstandings to which childhood and youth are prone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: MacTales
• Release date: Mar 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224015139

Sean McSweeney

Sean McSweeney was born in London and spent his formative years in a nearby new town, and now lives in East Anglia. He has had short stories and flash fiction published by CUT (https://www.cutalongstory.com), and has been involved intermittently with professional theatre over the years. For more information, events, readings and Sean's blog, go to: www.seanmcs.co.uk For Sean's CUT publications: www.cutalongstory.com/writers/sean-mcsweeney/1129.html         Cover design: Séamus Cussen

Book preview

NEIL

There were all my brothers and sisters, and all of his as well, quite a few siblings in total, and then there were our other friends; and there were countless occasions when we were all together, playing, going on trips, squabbling, watching Doctor Who outwit the Daleks. But when I look back the focus is inevitably narrow, like a laser beam picking out me and Neil, just me and Neil.

We saw each other every day. You’d think little kids would tire of each other, but we never seemed to. We would step outside our front doors in the morning and there we were: ready to go to school together. And when the bell rang at half three we raced our bikes home, or else walked, scuffing our shoes on the stone we kicked ahead of us. At weekends and during the holidays we were off and out. Whatever grief we might occasionally have brought home, at least our parents didn’t have to make much effort to keep us busy.

It’s only much, much later, as an adult, with children of one’s own, that it is possible to view those crowded days from the perspective of our life-weary parents. They had survived one great watershed, the war, and now were living through another, the sixties, which must have unsettled them almost as much as rationing and air-raids. In addition, there was the move from busy, familiar London to this small rural town which had had huge new estates cemented onto its periphery.  For me, at the age of six, that move opened up my life. No longer did I have to stay indoors because of the frightening outside world of traffic and menacing strangers. Not only had I moved to a new life, I had, by some miracle, moved next door to Neil, the one person in the whole world it made sense for me to get to know. How had that happened? But whereas I loved the freedom this new town presented to me, my parents found no meaningful signposts there; the topology made no sense. Yes, London had been noisy and dirty, with lorries snorting, the hydraulic brakes on buses sneezing, rag-and-bone men with their mournful cry rising and trailing off against the deathwatch clip-clop of the horse’s hooves. There were still smogs, although they were officially called something else. Dust collected in the crow’s feet around sleep-deprived eyes, limbs ached during journeys home on the crowded tube trains. Street lights and neon signs radiated coldness; winter was a long, long season, with chilblains and hands warmed too quickly at two-bar heaters; bathrooms and bedsheets held the icy cold, which high-ceilinged rooms sucked in through the buckled metal window panes. Everyone was making their way somewhere and they didn’t have much time. Compassion was dealt out begrudgingly in barked comments which waited for no response. But once installed in the new town, my parents missed the huge parks, the local pub, the dance halls, the trolley buses (soon to be retired), the bustling high streets with stoic cinema queues and imposing department stores. There used to be evenings with bottles of beer around someone’s house, maybe with someone on the piano, more likely a radiogram. That had all gone.

London was Mum singing along to Perry Como and Sam Cooke. Suddenly it was the radio alone – the tingling harmonies of the Beatles, the guitar riffs of the Rolling Stones, electrifying yet strangely unsettling. My mother shook her head and my father jeered, and Neil’s parents claimed to be authoritative on the lack of hygiene amongst the new breed of pop-star. When I was seven the generations parted.

Another person from those primary-school days jumps into my mind; as sudden and as unexpected as a spring shower. Dragged reluctantly (not even pretend-reluctantly) into a game of kiss-chase, I had slowed and speeded up my running to taunt her; she was laughing breathlessly as we found ourselves alone at the bottom of the playing fields, but there was a determined look in her eye. What was her name again? Deborah. Deborah Locke. She had long white legs, hanging string-like from her blue and white school dress, sandals on her feet, and with a sudden lengthening of her stride she caught me unawares. She tumbled me onto my back and sat astride me, pinning my arms down to claim her prize. That’s it, I said, you’ve got to let me go now. But she didn’t. She didn’t say anything either, just shook her head and stared at me with a lop-sided smile. Blue-green eyes, a splash of freckles across the bridge of her nose; her long dark ringlets hanging in my face, tickling my nose. She was still recovering her breath, and there was a pulse I could feel where she sat on my navel. I could feel her fragility and life where her legs joined. She just stared at me, without speaking, and I stopped protesting. Even when the bell went she wouldn’t let me up straight away so that we had to run again to make it back in time for afternoon registration.

One day, we must have been about eight, Neil and I had his house to ourselves. His father was at work and his mother had taken the rest of the kids down town shopping (both Neil and I were the eldest). Look at this, said Neil, opening the door to the toilet off the hallway. A shiny red fire extinguisher hung from the wall.

I stared at it, impressed. How does it work?

We dislodged it and took it into the hall to give ourselves some room. There was a pin, which clearly had to be removed, and that proved simple enough – but the apparatus then resisted everything else we tried. We were both gripping onto it, pushing and pulling at various parts of the head, when suddenly it took off. The thrust from the jet sent us backwards; we clung on, but it was out of control, spinning in all directions like an abandoned hosepipe with the tap full on, dragging us in its train. Eventually one of us hit the right bit and it stopped. We looked around, horrified. Instead of water, which we had expected, or foam, the extinguisher had discharged a fine white powder like talc. It was everywhere: on the black lino tiles, the papered walls, the lower part of the staircase, the four doors which led off from the hall (front entrance, toilet, kitchen, living room).

Ever practical, Neil got out a hoover and dustpan and brush and we got to work. We didn’t know how long it would be until his mother was likely to come back. We were in a race but had no idea where the finishing line was; in a countdown without knowing how far off zero was. Despite our best efforts, a thin layer of white powder remained. We got a bucket of water, cloths and a sponge. Before long we were looking at a shining wet surfaces. Everything was the colour it should be, but wet. It’s quite hot today, said Neil, it’ll soon dry off. Giggling nervously, we put the extinguisher back on its bracket and went into the living room, got out paper and crayons and drew robots and spaceships. It would surely be dry by the time his mum came back. The only evidence of anxiety was Neil making more sound effects than usual as he coloured in his laser guns. After some time we went back in the hall to check. It had dried all right, and with the lack of moisture the ghostly white tinge was back to haunt us. Frantically we washed out the cloths and sponge and set to again, rinsing them afresh every few wipes. Miraculously this time we succeeded and it even dried in time for the return of the family. His mother came in, dragging children and shopping bags, issuing orders and reprimands, until she took a look at us, smiled, and gave us a packet of Rolos to share. We dashed into the garden, twitching in all directions, and laughed hysterically as we shared the sweets.

When adults moaned about the never-ending winter of 1962–3, we heard their reasons and understood the words; we noticed the mumbled curses as they hopped about in stockinged feet at the back door, knocking the snow off their boots against the jamb in the early evening dark and muttering into the merciless wind. Yes, it took them ages to get anywhere; yes, the standpipe was frozen and there was no water for tea at work; yes, the bus didn’t come, the post didn’t arrive, the milk froze in the bottles on the doorstep. At one level we got all that. But really, what was everybody complaining about? The harsh winters of that decade were a miraculous gift to us kids. You could guarantee the man-made pond in the main park would freeze over. No one owned skates, but you could move around pretty niftily if your shoes were smooth soled or if you put football socks over them. One winter afternoon – almost certainly a year or two after the Big Freeze – a paving slab was lobbed onto the centre of the ice; the jagged radiating cracks appeared just as cartoons promised they would, but a few feet from the edge a mini-continent broke free and tipped up, sending one kid into the black water. He uttered a scream that pierced you like an icicle. Neil’s swiftness of thought and action was amazing. Whilst I just stood there, he picked up the pole the boatman used and stretched it across the water to the struggling boy. When it didn’t reach he knelt on the ice then spread himself flat, instinctively understanding the principle of distributing the load, and gained the extra distance that way. I held onto Neil’s feet, but it was only an attempt to get in on the act, very much an after-thought.

I still have the press-cutting from the local paper with the photo of Neil and the scraggy specimen he had saved. Neil has a strangely puzzled expression as if unaware