| Billy Part 21 - Angel |
1967
Elizabeth ran down Market Street and turned into Cotton Row. She needed to be quick -– super quick. Her mother knew exactly how long it should take her to do the errand. Even if there was a queue in the Co-op it should not take more than twenty minutes, any longer and she would be straight after her.
She looked up at the grey stone building. All the previous times she had passed it she had never paid it much attention. Funny that, because the building looked just like something out of a fairytale. It was so easy to imagine Rapunzel sitting at the turreted window.
From where Elizabeth stood, she could clearly see two entrances. She much preferred the grand entrance with the door that looked as though it belonged to a castle, but her granddad had specifically said that she should go in the side one.
Elizabeth was fascinated by the stained glass in the window of the side entrance door. She could make out angels, flowers and animals. She wished she had the time to look at it in more detail but she didn’t have a second to spare. Breathless she rushed inside.
Elizabeth stared hard. The man standing before her looked like a real live angel! He even sounded like tiny chimes; she was positive that the vague tinkling she could hear was coming from him. She studied him closely. His long blond hair fell loosely to his shoulders, like Prince Charming in her storybooks at home. This must be the “Tash fellow” her granddad had told her she might see. She continued to stare wide eyed and panic started to rise in her. There was no way she was going to get the words out in time, make it to the shop, and make it back home again. There was no way!
“Don’t be frightened,” Tashriel said, walking towards her. I don’t bite. He smiled and Elizabeth continued to stare. She felt him touch her on the shoulder.
“Is that better?”
“Yes, thank you,” she heard herself say, gasping for breath. “I’ll have to be quick, I’ve only got ten minutes to tell you and I have got to get to the shop and back home. I think I’ve used nine minutes already! My mum will go mad if I’m late back and...,” she stopped for breath as he raised his hand.
“No need to worry, Elizabeth, there is plenty of time. I promise you that you will be home with minutes to spare.”
Elizabeth blinked several times and continued staring. He really was very pretty.
“So, now that we know why you are here, and...”
“But I haven’t told you yet!” Elizabeth interrupted. “I’ve got a message for you from me granddad and...”
“Yes I know,” Tashriel replied softly. “I knew what your message was as soon as you came in and I asked a friend of mine to go and fetch your granddad and meet us both here. We’ve been searching for your granddad for a long time and now he has found us again. He’s waiting for us with my friend Stanley in another room. Come with me.” He held his hand out to her and Elizabeth placed her small one within it. “Let’s go and join them and have some tea.”
***
Lady Mabel Theawicke watched as the child and Tashriel left the red reception room at RoYds.
“It will be for the best if you stay away from Elizabeth from now on,” she remarked, looking sternly at the man sitting in front of the fireplace with Stanley.
Billy nodded. He could still feel the weight of the child on his lap where she had been sitting earlier. It was almost like she had left a little imprint on his presence. He sighed. He liked the kid, she had done him a big favour, but he didn’t need her any more. Besides, he had to go back before midnight. That was the bargain with Annwn and he had no choice but to stick with it.
“So, you have no idea what happened to your body, only that it’s somewhere in the dell?” Stanley asked, passing Billy a cigarette and lighting it for him.
Billy inhaled deeply.
By heck that’s grand
“Should imagine so,” replied Billy offhandedly looking off into space and then back at Stanley. “I’m not mithered, you know. It makes no difference to me. Unless some freaking hopper’s running about in it! I shouldn’t imagine it though? You would have heard about that by now if they was, wouldn’t you?”
Stanley nodded.
“Well then, best it stays where it is. It’s obviously well hidden. I’ve no need for it either. I suspect after all these years the earth has already reclaimed it. Best thing all round if you ask me.”
“So,” Stanley said, sitting forward in his seat. “This Gorgeous George bloke knocked you on the side of the head with some kind of object and that was it? No light, eh? And the next thing you know you are wandering around the dell twenty years later?”
“That’s about it,” Billy answered, taking a final drag on his cigarette and throwing it into the fire.
“He died in an accident if I remember correctly,” Lady Mabel looked across to Stanley for confirmation.
“Yes, he did. Car crash I think... Obviously, we took a great deal of interest in that outfit after your disappearance, Billy. We knew something had happened to you and that the answers lay with the Living. Never able to get to the bottom of it, mind you. The conclusion was that you had gone directly into the light.”
“Aye, well who knows! Probably would have done, given half the chance! Anything would have been a damned site better than that place I ended up in!” Billy shivered and gazed blankly at his knees. Stanley reached out and patted his shoulder.
“I remember he married Cora Woods and they had quite a handful of children. They seemed to be a good match as far as I could,” announced Lady Mabel as much to herself as anyone else.
“Well, thankfully all that’s over now and a new dawn has begun.” quipped Stanley cheerfully.
Billy looked up and directed his question at Lady Mabel. “Elizabeth told me that...my...Anne died in 1952?”
“Yes, that’s correct,” replied the Lady Mabel, walking over to him, her long grey skirts rustling.
“Did she...did she ever marry again?”
The mask of Lady Mabel’s normally emotionless face cracked a little and her cornflower blue eyes held those of Billy’s firmly. “No. Anne never loved any man but you, Billy.”
Billy wiped away budding tear drops from his own eyes with the back of his hand.
“Aye. I loved her and all that,” he sobbed and then faded away.
PrevLabels: 1960s, Billy, Elizabeth, Refuge of Delayed Souls, Web Fiction |
posted by Miladysa @ 15:40  |
 |
|
|
|
| Billy Part 20 - Worms |
1967
Billy watched idly as the little old woman continued to laboriously bend and pick up the few dry birch twigs that were scattered around the clearing. Each stoop seemed to require twice as much effort than the last. So far, her daily foraging did not look to have been very successful. He looked up to the sky; the morning was quickly drawing in, he doubted that she would have the quantity of firewood she required to see her comfortably through the next day. Billy looked towards his own pile. It had taken a strapping bloke like him half the night to come up with a bounty like that. She had no chance!
Billy watched as she struggled to tie her small bundle together. Her hands were chapped, the fingers knotted with age. He tensed as the bushes around him rustled and a little white terrier with one red ear emerged from the undergrowth and padded up to him. He bent down to pat it and delighted with the dog’s enthusiastic response, continued to make a fuss of it.
“Calm down now, lad,” he said playfully, and stood up fully again. The dog reminded him of his own dog, Monty. He hadn’t seen Monty since...he couldn’t remember when.
He looked over to where the old woman had been scavenging. She had moved on a bit, although her bundle of twigs had not grown any larger. Billy had seen the old woman on many occasions but he had never seen the dog before.
“Best get gone now,” he ordered the dog. The dog splayed out on his belly and wagged his tail. Billy smiled despite himself. “What’s up with you? Eh...soft lad,” he said, unable to resist bending down and making another fuss of it.
The old woman had turned around and was catching up the distance between them. Billy noticed a dejected air about her and sighed. Grabbing a large amount of his own prized firewood, he ran over to her, the dog following behind.
“Here,” he said, cheerfully thrusting the wood in the old woman’s direction. “Yer may as well ‘ave this lot as well!”
***
“See that tree?”
Elizabeth looked over to where her mother was pointing and squinting through the sunshine, and peered closely at the very boring tree situated in the tiny garden beyond the graveyard they were standing in. Elizabeth nodded.
My dad planted that tree when I was not much bigger than you are now. In fact, I might have been even younger. He took the pip from an apple I had eaten and planted it in the garden.
“‘One day,’ he’d said, ‘There’ll be a tree here even bigger than the house.’ And we both laughed. Every time I see that tree I think of my dad. Some people believe that as long as a person is remembered, they never die.” Margaret smiled down at Elizabeth and ruffled her hair.
Elizabeth looked at the colourful flowers carefully arranged in the vase beside the black marble headstone and the names carved upon it. 1952, that was in the olden days! Her mother must have been very young when her mum had died. Elizabeth felt sad thinking about it.
“We’ll call in there and have a nice cup of tea with Mrs Bibby, shall we? See how she is?” Margaret said encouragingly to Elizabeth. “If you’re a good girl, we can call and have a toasted teacake for tea at the Myna Bird Cafe!”
Elizabeth smiled brightly and skipped along the cobbled rake leading down from the graveyard and into the town square.
***
Elizabeth concentrated on not staring at the grey whiskers on Mrs Bibby’s chin. It would be such a disaster if she missed out on a visit to see the Myna bird. “Why don’t you go and play outside, dearie? It’s such a lovely day and plenty of juicy apples have fallen off that tree today. Have a look and see if any of them are worth taking home with you!”
“Yes, Mrs Bibby,” she said in her best voice and skipped out of the tiny kitchen into the garden beyond.
Most of the apples had tiny worms in them. Elizabeth giggled to herself; the worms always looked so funny wriggling about. Her dad always told her it was because apples were used to make cider and the worms were drunk. The warmer the day, the drunker the worms! These ones were steaming.
Nobody likes me Everybody hates me
“I think I’ll go and eat worms!” Elizabeth sang out.
Big fat juicy ones Eensie weensy squeensy ones
“See how they wiggle and squirm!” Elizabeth giggled.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers!” Elizabeth pouted at the man sitting on the grass beside her.
“I’m not really a stranger.”
Elizabeth tilted her head to one side. “Well, in that case, if you’re not a stranger, you tell me my name!” she said cheekily.
The man laughed.
“You got me there! Is that your mum in there? I think that’s your mum in there because that’s my girl -– that’s my little girl...Maggie.” He answered looking through the kitchen widow and gazing into the room beyond.
“Not so!” Elizabeth said standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “That’s my mummy and her name’s Margaret, NOT Maggie!” She stuck her tongue out at him and then screwed up her face. “So there!”
The stranger also got up onto his feet. “Margaret is her Sunday name but she was always my Maggie. See this tree here?”
Elizabeth nodded wide eyed.
“Well, I planted this tree when it were a little tiny seed like this one here,” he said, picking up another apple and plucking the seed from it. “If you want, we can plant this seed over here and when you grow up it will be bigger than this house!” He walked over to the far corner of the garden and waited for her to join him.
“My name is Elizabeth,” she announced gaily. “What’s yours?”
“Billy. You can call me granddad if you want.”
Elizabeth smiled and nodded.
“Elizabeth’s a Sunday name. How about I call you our Bess?”
PrevLabels: 1960s, Elizabeth, Refuge of Delayed Souls, Web Fiction |
| posted by Miladysa @ 09:35 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
