He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1)

by Barbara Arnold

  ‘Of course … I never meant …’ I began backing out of the room. Mrs Munn could be fearsome when she was upset. ‘I think I’ll go into the city,’ I said, grabbing my coat from the hallstand and fleeing out the door, past the fretwork butterfly and down the path.

  Today, I would try another row of shops. I’d just about given up on the libraries. Anyway, the librarians were becoming wary of me combing the aisles of books without appearing to be looking at any. And, of course, I could only do the churches on Sundays.

  Where else could I look for Fred and Lori? I couldn’t live in Christchurch without scouring every inch of the place for them. If they were still in New Zealand, and I had to believe they were, Christchurch was just the sort of place they’d live.

  It didn’t feel like a city, at least not like London. Here you could wait all morning for someone to walk past the window. I knew it wasn’t a glitch in my memory or some sort of mental conjuring trick when I remembered people passing our flat in Blountmere Street all through the day and well into the night.

  Here, the buses were never full, nor were the shops, nor was the swimming pool nor the library. And although I had never been to an English beach, I couldn’t imagine so few people on them, especially on days when the sky pulsated blue and the sun patterned the sea.

  A bell jangled as I opened the door of a shoe shop. A young girl in shoes that were so pointed and high I wondered she could walk in them at all, asked, ‘Can I help you?’ in a bored sing-song voice.

  ‘Have a man with sandy colour hair, and probably wearing navy blue and a woman with frizzy hair and a long scarf been in here?’

  The girl scrutinized my sturdy brown shoes from Old Man Witchery’s last shipment only ten years ago. ‘I’ve got some winkle pickers that would suit you.’

  ‘Um … no thanks. I just wondered if you’d seen these people. They’re my … family. We’ve lost touch over the years, and I’m trying to find them.’

  The girl gave my feet another disparaging glance. ‘How old would they be?’ I wasn’t sure if she meant my shoes or Fred and Lori. I’d never thought of Fred and Lori having an age. ‘Middle age. Well, perhaps a bit older than that.’

  ‘Sorry, can’t recall anyone who fits that description.’

  I shrugged. ‘Thanks.’ It seemed all but impossible. I made my way to the next shop. There was nothing much else to do except study and attend lectures and tutorials.

  I was enjoying university and doing well, but with my letter to Paula having been returned and with no address for Angela, finding Fred and Lori seemed my best opportunity. At least they lived in the same country as me, and this place didn’t have a lot of people living in it. I had to find out what had happened to Mum and Angela – what had happened to the whole of Blountmere Street, for that matter. I knew I would never be able to move on until I did. The Millards might consider me family, but neither Jack nor Peg had ever called me son, like Fred had. I’d forgive him everything for that.

  In my first lecture at university, I’d sat next to Pete. Now at lectures, we usually saved each other a place. Like me, he was in the first year of a Bachelor’s degree majoring in English literature. To begin with, we mainly met on the university campus. When we did, we stopped to have a chat, usually about inconsequential things such as our lodgings or rugby. Sometimes we became more serious and talked about an essay we were writing or our latest assignment, but I never told him anything about being a child migrant or about my quest to find Fred and Lori. He told me his father owned a factory in the North Island somewhere. As soon as he’d completed his degree, he was off, he said; as far away as he could get from the factory and before he could be dragged into the business.

  I completed another eight shops without success, and made my way to the university. Tomorrow, I’d be able to fit in at least another half a dozen more enquiries before my lecture.

  Pete caught up with me a few minutes before we arrived at the university.

  ‘Is that all you do, mooch about the city?’ he asked.

  ‘That and study,’ I laughed.

  ‘You’ll never make friends that way.’

  ‘Perhaps not.’ Over the years, I’d become accustomed to my own company.

  ‘Look, there’s a few of us who meet in the pub most afternoons for an hour or so. Why don’t you join us? It’ll do you good. You can’t stay cooped up studying all the time.’ He sounded like Peg and I smiled. ‘I’ll think about it.’

  ‘Do more than that. Come with me later this afternoon. You’ll enjoy it.’

  ‘Well, I don’t … ’

  ‘We’ll go straight after the lecture. No excuses, right?’

  The group of undergraduates who met in the pub most evenings weren’t much different to the Gang - four blokes and a girl (there was a difference there, of course) sitting around talking big talk that mostly led nowhere. A jug of best Canterbury bitter replaced the ubiquitous Tizer, and the chill fog of the bombsite had been exchanged for a warm smoky fug.

  Mike, our self-appointed leader, wiped the beer froth from his mouth with the sleeve of his sweater. It was the same colour and in about as ragged a state as the one Dennis used to wear. It was the only thing about Dennis and Mike that was alike. ‘As far as I can see, we don’t have any alternative. We have to do something to draw attention to the evils of nuclear weapons.’

  Had Mike always been this serious about life, or had the enormity of it descended on him when he entered the hallowed environs of the university, I wondered?

  ‘So you think five measly people in a place thousands of miles from anywhere will sway world governments?’ Linda asked as she flicked her hair back over her shoulders.

  ‘At least we’d be doing something, not sitting on our backsides like the rest of humanity waiting for the planet to be blown to pieces.’

  ‘You’ve got a point. We could stand in The Square.’ Pete began.

  ‘Demonstrate, Pete, demonstrate,’ Mike interjected.

  ‘Demonstrate in The Square?’

  ‘What d’you think, Tony?’ Geoff asked.

  I took another sip of my beer. ‘Why not? As Mike says, at least we’ll be doing something.’

  ‘You’re right, Tony, I suppose it is the best way to go,’ Linda’s knee brushed mine.

  ‘We’ll carry banners, shout slogans; you know the sort of thing,’ Mike brought the conversation back under his direction.

  ‘Very effective, I don’t think! Five undergraduates shouting slogans that nobody can hear.’

  Pete told me Linda and Mike used to date, but their relationship had cooled. He thought Linda had been on the verge of leaving the group until I turned up. “Changed her mind when she saw you, mate,” Pete had winked.

  ‘I can get hold of a loud hailer and a couple of orange boxes.’ Mike appeared not to notice Linda’s sarcasm. ‘And if five university undergraduates can’t come up with some pithy slogans, who can? As I see it, we’ve only got a couple of years left at varsity. Let’s take the opportunity while we can.’

  ‘If you’re willing, I am,’ Linda moved closer to me.

  ‘Right, that’s it. Let’s meet, same time, same place tomorrow to discuss the details. Anyone got a lecture or a tutorial?’ Mike eyed each member of the group except Linda.

  ‘Right, tomorrow it is. Drink up, there’s a few minutes to go before six, so we’ve got time for one more before throwing-out time.’

  ‘If you’re walking home, I’ll come with you. I’m going in the same direction.’ Linda linked her arm through mine, ignoring Geoff’s wink to Pete and Mike sullenly staring into his beer.

  Mr Munn called from his shed, beckoning to me in a gesture of secrecy when I arrived back after having walked with Linda to the flat she shared with three other students.

  ‘Come and look at my latest.’ Mr Munn ushered me into his shed. He was practically the same shape as his wife. However, his most striking feature was his head: pink, shiny and devoid of a single hair.

  Inside on shelves neatly p
laced and labeled was row upon row of cigarette lighters.

  ‘I’ve just got a new one. Look at this little beauty,’ he chuckled. It was made in the shape of a guitar. Mr Munn pretended to play it. He looked like a pipe cleaner figure that was about to become untwisted.

  ‘You must have had a win at housie,’ I said.

  Mr Munn covered his mouth with his hand to suppress a spluttered laugh. He was like a mischievous child. The only time Mr Munn added a lighter to his collection was when he won at housie. They were both hobbies of which Mrs Munn disapproved, and she watched tight-lipped as her husband cycled off each evening to a housie night in a different part of the city. “Housie and cigarette lighters!” She grumbled. “Tools of Satan! Why couldn’t it be Scrabble and match boxes?” Mrs Munn usually followed her displeasure by patting my hand. “Such a comfort, such a comfort,” she murmured, patting a few more times.

  ‘I suppose you haven’t ever seen an elderly playing housie? He’s got sandy colour hair, and she’s got frizzy hair and wears a long scarf.’ I asked Mr Munn. As usual, when I enquired about them, I clenched my hands and bit my lips together.

  Mr Munn rubbed his hand over the shininess of his pate and closed his eyes in concentration. ‘Not that I can remember. Wait a minute, though, there was once a couple who came. He had sandy hair and hers was frizzy.’

  I bit deeper into my lip.

  ‘No, no, they were hippies. Your couple were older, you said? No, afraid not and there’s not many who escape my attention at housie.’

  Inside, I sagged with disappointment.

  ‘Family are they?’

  ‘Just a couple of acquaintances, that’s all.’ I was a liar as well as a hypocrite. They were my family, my precious family!

  Mr Munn fingered his latest cigarette lighter. ‘Sure you don’t want to share a pipe with me?’ he asked.

  ‘Not tonight, perhaps tomorrow.’ I couldn’t stomach a pipe tonight.

  ‘I have to say I’m disappointed a God-fearing young man like you should get involved in this ridiculous ban the bomb stuff. Making a spectacle of yourself in front of all those people.’ Mrs Munn’s eyes were thinner than ever.

  ‘There were only about a dozen there.’

  Mrs Munn ignored me. ‘Associating with a lot of young hot-heads and getting carried off by the police.’ She covered her eyes with her hands to obliterate the image.

  We hadn’t actually been carried off. When the police approached, we simply collected our placards, orange boxes and megaphone and sloped off. Next time, we wouldn’t be so compliant. We would hold our ground and wait to be carried away. This had merely been a dress rehearsal, Mike said.

  The next time, rain kept all but two spectators away, and the police didn’t bother to turn up.

  ‘It needs a march, like the Aldermarston one. That’ll put the wind up Prime Minister Holyoake. Who’s in for it?’ Mike asked during one of our pub meetings.

  ‘Just the five of us?’ Linda was scornful.

  ‘There’ll be a lot of students who’ll be interested if we let them know.’

  ‘When, where, how?’ Linda asked in a monotone.

  ‘We’ll stick something in the university rag, and we won’t limit our protest to the city centre. We’ll make our presence felt and march round the suburbs where the people are. Christchurch might not be a huge metropolis, but its voice will stretch beyond the Pacific,’ Mike declared.

  Linda snorted, ‘Spare us the oratory, Churchill! Anyway, if you’re not all too high and mighty for such things, who’s in for the pictures tomorrow?’

  ‘Great,’ Geoff replied, but Linda stared at him and mouthed the word, ‘No’.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve just remembered I can’t make it,’ he complied.

  ‘And you, Pete?’

  ‘Um … got a date … with an old friend. Sorry.’

  ‘What about me?’ Mike asked.

  ‘You’ll be too busy organizing the march.’ Linda pressed into me. ‘Looks like it’s you and me, then.’

  Linda was already outside The Savoy Picture House when I arrived. She was wearing a yellow skirt that finished well up her thighs and long white boots.

  ‘Sorry I’m late. I had to help my landlady move some furniture. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’

  ‘Just got here.’ Linda flicked her hair back over her shoulders, in the way she had, using both hands in one synchronized movement. It revealed her breasts pointing from a tight black sweater.

  Since I’d arrived in Christchurch, I’d resisted going to the pictures. I wanted to preserve my memories of the Gang and Saturday Picture Club. I wasn’t altogether certain how I came to be here now. Linda had a way of arranging things so that it seemed as if it had been all my idea. And I couldn’t divulge my fear that my memories would be overlaid by new images. I was more than sure she wouldn’t understand.

  Inside, The Savoy wasn’t much different from The Majestic, with its ceiling mouldings and dusty carpet. Like The Majestic, we passed beyond a black curtain, guided by an usherette’s light and into the darkened picture house, which had always been for me both exciting and frightening.

  The Gang always sat near the front so that they could throw whatever missiles they had to hand with a reasonable chance of hitting the manager. He usually spoke before the films, ineffectively threatening eviction for bad behaviour. Sometimes our ammunition was aimed at kids who sang or recited. On occasions, we even flung things at the screen itself if the film wasn’t to our liking. Now, Linda and I sat at the back. Sitting any further forward, she said, gave her a migraine.

  I had no need to fear my recollections of Saturday Picture Club would be marred. It was difficult to concentrate on the film at all with Linda so close. Her head gradually sank on to my shoulder. Her legs were tucked beneath her, so that even in the dark, I could sense her skirt had risen an inch or two. Her perfumed skin touching mine was an utter distraction. She was in my arms before I was aware how she got there. I’d never taken so little notice of a film. It wasn’t the least like Saturday Picture Club.

  ‘Ban the bomb and save the world!’ ‘Nuclear armament is an abomination!’

  People tending their gardens straightened and stopped to watch the group of about fifty striding along the streets, carrying our banners aloft. Others stood at their front doors. Children followed, aping us, chanting.

  The air was heavy with the scent of spring. Kowhai and magnolia vied with each other. Tulips still in bud would soon open to sudden maturity, then in one last and desperate effort, they would spread their petals in a glorious death. I lifted my voice and sang, “We shall not be moved”. How could we let all this be destroyed? Lifting my banner higher, I smiled at Linda. It was a noble thing we were doing, marching for the future of the planet and what better place to find Fred and Lori, if they were here.

  Linda grinned back and shouted, ‘Groovy, eh!’

  Back in Cathedral Square, Mike made an impassioned speech calling for an end to the Cold War and for nuclear disarmament, while a contingency of three policemen listened with their arms folded. Afterwards they too, like the rest of the marchers, melted away.

  ‘Pity it fizzled out at the end,’ Geoff observed later in the pub.

  ‘At least we did something.’ I defended the march, even though I hadn’t found Fred and Lori and I fought to keep the disappointment from my voice.

  ‘It might not have been Aldermarston or Hyde Park.’ Mike, still flushed from his oratory, set jugs of beer in front of us. ‘But we’ve made our voices heard.’

  ‘So what next?’

  ‘We’ll wait for our message to reach the Russians and for them to absorb it. Then we’ll march again.’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll be quaking in their boots!’ Linda’s earlier euphoria had flattened like the top of her beer. ‘Get serious, Mike! How d’you think they’re going to hear about a piddly little march on the other side of the world. And, if by some miracle they do, they won’t care two figs about it.’

 
‘Don’t under-estimate the power of the people wherever they are.’ Mike retorted.

  ‘Sounds a lot of pompous rhetoric to me. Anyway, who’s for an afternoon on the beach?’ Linda asked, glaring at each of the others in turn.

  ‘Sorry, we don’t seem to be able to make it,’ Pete spoke for Geoff and Mike, as well as himself.

  ‘Oh well, Tony, that leaves you and me.’ Linda flicked her hair back. ‘Sorry you blokes can’t come.’

  The spring sunshine was warm on our faces as Linda let sand run through her fingers. She was so different to Gaylene and Merrin, and, come to that, to Paula and the girls I had known in Blountmere Street. Linda was intelligent and forthright, unafraid of what others thought. Yet she possessed a vulnerability I found alluring. She brushed her hands free of sand and traced a pattern on my face with her finger, laughing.

  ‘What’s funny?’

  ‘I was thinking that although you’ve been protesting all morning you don’t seem to be doing too much of it now.’

  ‘None at all.’ The smell of kowhai and magnolia lingered about her as I took her in my arms.

  That evening after his housie session, Mr Munn and I perched on wooden boxes in his shed and rammed tobacco into our pipes. He rose to select a cigarette lighter and chose a cat. He flicked its tail alight and bent it towards my pipe. I sucked and puffed. I hadn’t had much success in mastering the art of smoking a pipe, but I knew Mr Munn looked forward to our times together in his shed when he returned from housie. As for me, it was a break from my studies and somewhere to relax and mull over the day after I’d been out with Linda.

  ‘Not been protesting about the bomb lately?’ Mr Munn made smacking noises against the mouthpiece of his pipe.

  ‘We’re letting things settle a bit,’ I said, quoting Mike. ‘Anyway, with Christmas coming, there won’t be much going on. Best wait until the start of the new term.’

  ‘I thought you might have lost interest in it now you’ve got this young woman goggle-eyed about you. A man can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time, especially when a woman starts to put the pressure on.’ Mr Munn took his pipe from his mouth and spluttered a laugh. ‘And there’s not too many women who don’t. They’re subtle about it. A bloke’s hooked before he knows it. Take me and Mrs Munn. She was a beguiling woman if ever I saw one. A bloke couldn’t resist her. Got her own way at every turn.’