Read Online The Crime of Huey Dunstan by James Mcneish - Free Book Online
Authors: James Mcneish
Ads: Link
Tom and me, my mother’s parents and an uncle and aunt and three of their children because they were out of work. If anyone lost anything, a piece of string, a tobacco tin, a scullery knife, I was always the one who found it. My nose may have come into the world a bit bent (people think it’s broken but it isn’t), but I was always a good looker.
One of my sharpest memories is of my grandfather’s pocket watch which he brought home from the pawnshop every Friday. It had a silver case with a spring escapement and a second hand, and a lever under the edge of the dial at the one o’clock position. I was allowed to set it and wind it before it went back into pawn on Monday morning.
The other memory is of my brother Tom shouting at me one night when the sirens sounded and I refused to go down to the air-raid shelter, “What’s ’t matter? Are yer deaf?” “Not ’arf as deaf as you. Na listen,” I said, “what’s worse. Not hearin’? Or not seein’?” Tom said, “I’d rather go blind than deaf.” “I wouldn’t,” I said. “If you can’t see, you might as well be dead.”
Looking back now, I can see myself coming home on winter afternoons, running from street lamp to street lamp with a book in my hands, straining to read the print on the page; I can see myself coming indoors from the street and screwing up my hands to make tunnels against the light and making fists of my hands and rubbing the eyelids up and down and from side to side, wondering what was obscuring my vision, and trying to get the kitchentable and chairs into focus, and standing there listening to my heart beating until the outlines of the table and chairs and the scullery door became solid and clear once more. Yet try as I might, I cannot identify a single moment or incident that prompted me to think anything was wrong. Coming indoors out of the sun and struggling to adjust my eyes to the changing light, I thought this was what everyone did. I thought it was normal, just part of growing up.
One day I came home from school and found my mother standing in the kitchen with a bemused expression on her face. “Look what’s come,” she said. On the table was a small parcel. It had brown wrapping paper and was stamped “HM Royal Mail”.
“It’s come, son,” she said. “The postman brought it.”
My mother gave a little skip and one shoe fell off, showing her ankle. “Open it,” she beamed. “Go on.” It was a book she had ordered by post. I undid the string and the wrapping and watched her take off her apron and sit down at the table in front of the book. Slowly she turned the pages. She wrinkled her lips and her eyes grew big with wonder. The book was entitled Home Law and the Family . She had saved up the tea coupons. It was probably the first book ever to come into our house, after the Bible.
Thereafter Home Law and the Family became her bible. It had a blue cover made of calico and a stiff binding. She went through it section by section, poring over it, her finger pressed to the page. At night I would hear her discussing itwith my father, after I had gone to bed. My father was in work just then.
“Have you got your ruler there?” she said to me one day. She had reached the section in the book that dealt with overcrowding. I opened my satchel and took out my twelve-inch wooden ruler. She snatched it from me and began measuring the kitchen. I thought she’d gone off her rocker.
“What are you doing?” I said. I followed her into the next room. Same thing. She was on her knees in the front room, measuring the floor. She went upstairs. “Oh son,” she said, coming down again. “It says here…”
She put down the ruler and leaned on the table with her arms extended and her head turned towards the scullery with a quick nodding and shaking movement. Her lips were working.
“Son. I think we’re overcrowded.”
We were not overcrowded. In addition to the kitchen and scullery, there were two bedrooms upstairs and a front
One of my sharpest memories is of my grandfather’s pocket watch which he brought home from the pawnshop every Friday. It had a silver case with a spring escapement and a second hand, and a lever under the edge of the dial at the one o’clock position. I was allowed to set it and wind it before it went back into pawn on Monday morning.
The other memory is of my brother Tom shouting at me one night when the sirens sounded and I refused to go down to the air-raid shelter, “What’s ’t matter? Are yer deaf?” “Not ’arf as deaf as you. Na listen,” I said, “what’s worse. Not hearin’? Or not seein’?” Tom said, “I’d rather go blind than deaf.” “I wouldn’t,” I said. “If you can’t see, you might as well be dead.”
Looking back now, I can see myself coming home on winter afternoons, running from street lamp to street lamp with a book in my hands, straining to read the print on the page; I can see myself coming indoors from the street and screwing up my hands to make tunnels against the light and making fists of my hands and rubbing the eyelids up and down and from side to side, wondering what was obscuring my vision, and trying to get the kitchentable and chairs into focus, and standing there listening to my heart beating until the outlines of the table and chairs and the scullery door became solid and clear once more. Yet try as I might, I cannot identify a single moment or incident that prompted me to think anything was wrong. Coming indoors out of the sun and struggling to adjust my eyes to the changing light, I thought this was what everyone did. I thought it was normal, just part of growing up.
One day I came home from school and found my mother standing in the kitchen with a bemused expression on her face. “Look what’s come,” she said. On the table was a small parcel. It had brown wrapping paper and was stamped “HM Royal Mail”.
“It’s come, son,” she said. “The postman brought it.”
My mother gave a little skip and one shoe fell off, showing her ankle. “Open it,” she beamed. “Go on.” It was a book she had ordered by post. I undid the string and the wrapping and watched her take off her apron and sit down at the table in front of the book. Slowly she turned the pages. She wrinkled her lips and her eyes grew big with wonder. The book was entitled Home Law and the Family . She had saved up the tea coupons. It was probably the first book ever to come into our house, after the Bible.
Thereafter Home Law and the Family became her bible. It had a blue cover made of calico and a stiff binding. She went through it section by section, poring over it, her finger pressed to the page. At night I would hear her discussing itwith my father, after I had gone to bed. My father was in work just then.
“Have you got your ruler there?” she said to me one day. She had reached the section in the book that dealt with overcrowding. I opened my satchel and took out my twelve-inch wooden ruler. She snatched it from me and began measuring the kitchen. I thought she’d gone off her rocker.
“What are you doing?” I said. I followed her into the next room. Same thing. She was on her knees in the front room, measuring the floor. She went upstairs. “Oh son,” she said, coming down again. “It says here…”
She put down the ruler and leaned on the table with her arms extended and her head turned towards the scullery with a quick nodding and shaking movement. Her lips were working.
“Son. I think we’re overcrowded.”
We were not overcrowded. In addition to the kitchen and scullery, there were two bedrooms upstairs and a front
Similar Books
