The Game of Shepherd and Dawse

by William Shepherd

  The only scruffy house in Shepherd Road was the house on the end where an unsavoury character by the name of Phil Duckley lived. A scruffy character who lived in a scruffy house, the scruffiest on the street. The residents of Shepherd Road had renamed him 'Dickie Duckley', as in Phil 'the Dick' Duckley, because he was such a dick.

  Most of the children on Shepherd Road were in on the joke and took great delight in calling him Dickie to his face. The joke was on him though and poor Dickie wasn’t even aware of it.

  Dickie Duckley had black scruffy hair and his clothes weren’t much better. He was the sort of person no one naturally gravitated toward and on the rare occasion someone would encounter him, Dickie would make some stupid comment trying to be funny, though he never really made anyone laugh. His social skills had deserted him many decades ago. One minute Dickie would appear polite and cordial and the next he would give out a glaring look as if to say 'Don’t mess with me'. He had a dark energy about him and even to the untrained eye, you couldn’t help but notice and feel uneasy about him.

  Dickie Duckley was Dawse through and through and had little else going for him. Shortly after taking up residence on Shepherd Road, Dickie decided to buy a couple of pet snakes. One reason he did this, twisted little soul that he was, was because he loved to throw the small animals in at feeding time to watch them suffer in fear. But there was another reason Dickie opted for snakes rather than a more conventional pet like a dog or a cat, a more sinister reason. Dickie’s house was situated exactly where many of the school children crossed the road, courtesy of the lollypop lady, who the council had hired to stop accidents from happening. Most days, Dickie would watch the children coming home from school in the hope that he could lure one of them into his house to have a look at the snakes and goodness knows what after that.

  Fortunately for the unsuspecting children, Dickie’s house stunk to high heaven. A mixture of cigarettes, uncleanliness and the foul smell of the snake cages that were never cleaned meant no child ever stepped foot in his house. Every so often if the wind was blowing right you would get a great big waft come from that direction – so much so that Gladys, the long serving lollypop lady, moved her position to the other side of the road. Gladys never did have a strong stomach, even at the best of times. This annoyed Dickie greatly as he would now have to keep his watch from a little farther away.

  At the other end of the spectrum on Shepherd Road was a man whose house was as immaculate as the man who lived there. He was a true gentleman of the highest order, a real kind-hearted soul with an inner strength that very few possess. He lived at number 74 and went by the name of Joe Sadsoul. The correct pronunciation of his name was more like 'Sa-sewell', though at some point since the name's origination, it had picked up a silent‘d’ which no one ever registered. Over the years, Joe had become so fed up with trying to correct people on its pronunciation that he'd come to accept people would always know him as Mr. 'Sad-soul'.

  It may have been because of this that Joe was one the happiest chaps you were ever likely to meet – for the last thing he wanted was to be known as was sad. The only two people who did say his name in the correct way were his good neighbour and friend, Mrs Bottal, and his good friend and surrogate grandson, Charlie Clark.

  Charlie Clark was eight years young and lived with his mum, Angela, at number 68, a few doors down from Joe. Shortly after Charlie was born, Charlie's father had a change of personality. Up to that point, Aiden had been the perfect partner - always helpful and supportive, charming and on the odd occasion even downright romantic. All of Angela’s friends and family liked Aiden. To look at him you would have thought he was the perfect gentleman. But after Charlie was born, Aiden slowly began to change and not for the better.

  The change was subtle at first, but as time went on his behaviour became increasingly aggressive and domineering, though he would only show these tendencies while he and Angela were alone and never in front of her friends or family. The process was so subtle that even Angela didn’t notice at first what was happening. Once Charlie was born though, Aiden felt he had a hold over Angela and that brought out the darker side of him. It wasn’t until the day Angela’s mother – more by chance than anything else – caught a glimpse of this dark side of Aiden’s personality and things came to a head.

  Pam had decided to pop round that day and seeing the door open, she let herself in. At first it didn’t appear anyone was home, so she looked out the back window to see if Angela and Aiden were in the garden. What Pam saw next shocked her to the core. Aiden had Angela pinned against the wall by her throat, but what was truly disturbing was the look of pure evil and pleasure she saw on his face. Just as Aiden went to raise his fist, he noticed Pam watching and pathetically tried to pass it off as some kind of game. He foolishly believed he could hoodwink a loving mother, but there wasn’t a chance of that happening. Pam had only to take one look at Angela’s face to know exactly what was going on and that it had been going on for some time.

  Her mother’s discovery was lucky for Angela as it allowed her to escape the situation. Given much more time, Aiden would surely have gotten his dark claws into Angela even further – enough to have had total domination over her. Aiden, of course, was a Dawse, and in fact, he was a Dawse of the highest order.

  He had camouflaged himself so well that he had managed to play the long game and given enough time, he surely would have destroyed Angela. Needless to say, it took Angela a while to get over her experience of living with Aiden. After being so duped by this man she had come to love and trust so much, it’s fair to say there would always be a part of her that would have a certain distrust for men.

  After splitting with Aiden, Angela moved as far away from him as possible and once settled into their new home, Charlie and his mum were a happy little family again. They didn’t have much money and the shifts Angela worked at the crisp factory only just about made ends meet. Angela could have stayed at home all day and lived on hand-outs. She was actually worse off by working than she would have been on benefits. But Angela always believed that you got nothing for nothing in this world and if you did get something for nothing, you would have to pay it back sooner or later. Plus, she wanted to teach Charlie the value of putting in a good day’s work.

  It was Mrs Bottal who had found Angela the job at the crisp factory, just before she retired from working there. Mrs Bottal had been there for donkey’s years indeed. She had started working there during the war when it was a munitions factory and she’d carried on after the war when it began making crisps.

  Charlie and Joe Sadsoul became fast friends when Joe offered to look after Charlie while his mum was at work. They were a funny pair to watch those two, as Charlie brought out the kid in Joe and Joe brought out the adult in Charlie.

  One day, when Angela was taking down the washing from the line and Charlie was sitting along the wall swinging his legs, he asked, “Do you ever wish you earned more money, Mam”?

  “Not really, Charlie”, she said as she folded a bed sheet and tucked it neatly in her basket. "In order to earn more money, I'd have to work longer shifts which would mean I'd get to see less of you, my handsome little lad”. Angela blew him a kiss across the billowing flat sheet as she unpinned its last corner and started to fold it.

  Charlie always beamed from ear to ear when Angela called him that. He liked being her handsome little lad.

  “And besides”, she continued, picking up the basket and resting it on her hip, “we have enough to get by on. And you well know, if you can’t be happy with a little...” (At which point Charlie joined in) “...You can’t be happy with a lot”.

  This made them both giggle. This was something Angela would often say to Charlie because what she was really trying to teach him was that happiness comes from within and not from the amount of personal possessions one may have.

  By any standards, Charlie was a real cutie. He was a bit smaller for his age than the other kids, but then again his mum was only five foot two and very slim.
Charlie had short black hair and a handsome little face. He wasn’t the sort of child who craved for love because his mother made sure he had enough of it with all the love she would shower upon him. Angela so enjoyed it when Charlie was right in the middle of something that made his face intense with concentration. At these times she would go to him, lift his little chin with one finger and gaze into his big brown eyes with so much love. The smile on her face would cause Charlie to just melt. Every time would be the same. He just couldn’t hold the gaze and would look away and with a little giggle in his voice and would say “Aww, Mummy”. It worked every time. It was as if she had just tickled his soul and because of things like this he was just so naturally cool, you couldn’t help but love him.

  His mum wasn’t short of good looks herself. In fact she was quite a little stunner, especially when she had her hair down and wasn’t in her work clothes. She was never much of a one for skirts, as she always wore either jeans or jogging bottoms – despite the sexy little figure hidden underneath. Angela never did know where Charlie got his hair colouring from, as she was blonde and so was her ex-partner. When Charlie asked her one day why she had blonde hair and he had black hair, she just replied, “Because opposites attract, my darling”, and tweaked his little nose. Charlie didn’t really know what she meant, but it made Angela smile and that made Charlie smile too.

  When Angela moved to Shepherd Road, she didn’t know anyone who lived there, as she had moved a long way to escape from her ex. In this new location, Angela had no shortage of would-be suitors. It seemed all the single males, and some of the married ones for that matter, took an interest in her. She never returned their advances though, as there was only one man in her life and that was her little Charlie boy. Angela chose it to remain that way until Charlie would be old enough to fend for himself, and she found it quite amusing how so many of the singletons in the area thought she was a helpless single mother and therefore must be desperate for a lover.

  Dickie Duckley was the first to try his luck with Angela. There didn’t seem be a moment go by when he wasn’t trying to pester her in some sort of way. Most of the time, Angela would just be as polite as she could and shoo him away. Sometimes other people would chip in with, “Leave the poor girl alone! She’s not interested!!” for which Angela was eternally grateful.

  It all came to a head one afternoon, when Charlie and Angela were standing outside their flat, soaking up the last of the day’s sunrays before the sun disappeared behind the rooftops. Angela was leant up against the gate pillar which was only slightly shorter than herself, and Charlie was leant up against the other pillar telling his mum about the next school trip that had been planned.

  Without seeing him coming, Angela felt a sharp pinch in her waist area, in a manner much more familiar than she appreciated. She appreciated it even less when she spun around to find Dickie Duckley laughing himself silly because of the great joke he thought he’d just pulled.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing”?!! Angela said sternly, as she slapped his hand away and took a step to the side. While she did this, she never once lost eye contact with Dickie and gave him as much of a glare as she could muster. Charlie stood frozen just a foot and a half from Angela. He had never seen his mum act like this or talk like this before and it made the little hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

  “Ooooooh, I see someone’s on their time of the month againnnn”, Dickie retorted back in his juvenile way.

  “Oh sod off, will ya”? Angela replied in hopes he would get the message.

  But Dickie never got these kind of messages and instead decided to move on to his Plan B. Dickie stepped into the space between Angela and Charlie, purposefully separating them, and bent down so his face was level with Charlie’s.

  He paused a moment, staring into Charlie’s eyes, and then said in the most pathetic and almost nasty way, “You alright then, little Charlie boy”? Charlie could feel the heat of Dickie’s breath on his face, mixed with the smell of stale cigarettes and general uncleanliness. Charlie quickly ducked his head when Dickie tried to muss up his hair in the way a father figure would.

  That was it.

  That was the moment when Angela suddenly turned from polite, happy, beautiful lady into feisty, nasty, protective Momma Bear. Dickie suddenly felt someone’s hands grab the back of his hair and yank him backwards. For a split second Dickie thought some guy had just stepped in, but it was no guy. It was a furious, almost demonic, Angela grabbing his head back as hard as she could and screaming as loud as she could into his face.

  “DON’T YOU EVER GO NEAR MY BOY AGAIN! DON’T TALK TO HIM. DON’T TOUCH HIM. DON’T EVEN SO MUCH AS LOOK AT HIM! NOW SOD OFF AND LEAVE US BOTH ALONE!! GOT IT” ??!

  Only after her last words had echoed out, did Angela release her grip on Dickie’s hair and push him back, whilst still glaring into his shocked and angry face. Dickie’s inner rage started to rear its ugly head and no doubt he would have attacked Angela if it hadn’t been for the five neighbours who had suddenly appeared from nowhere, as if by magic. Joe and Mrs Bottal were two of them plus three other men, who came out of their houses for various different reasons.

  Dickie stood there momentarily, half thinking in his Dawsey stupidity that everyone would think he was the victim and come to his aid. But they all knew what an idiot he was and they all knew how much he had been pestering Angela ever since she had moved there.

  “Go on, you heard her. PISS OFF”! Was the first reply that came from Mrs Bottal, as she came out from her gate to comfort Angela. in her very well-spoken English accent, it was quite possibly the first and last time that anyone had ever heard her swear, being the very well-spoken lady that she was. Joe didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. He just glared into Dickie’s eyes and right into his soul as though to say “Don’t even think about it, you scum bag. I’ll eat you for breakfast”. Joe may have been in his eighties, but he had one of those looks about him that always looked strong.

  The so-called big hard Dickie Duckley had been outgunned by an old lady, an old man and a petite little woman protecting her son. So when James Harries, a big lump of a lad who really was hard as nails but also as decent and kind as he was hard, started to make his way over from number 62 as well, Dickie didn’t even mutter a word in defence of his actions and just made for the safety of his stinky little house, walking as fast as he could without it looking like he was actually running (minus, of course, the clump of hair that was still in Angela’s hand).

  It was Dickie Duckley who had been mildly assaulted and quite verbally battered by Angela, but Joe, Mrs Bottal and James all made sure that she was ok. They all knew in their heart of hearts that this was a lady who had quite frankly had enough, if only by the way that Angela had reacted. There was no question about who the real guilty party was.

  Angela kept her composure and remained cool while they all chatted, each enquiring if she and Charlie were ok. She was ok on the outside, but was still absolutely fuming about this vile little creature trying to wedge his way between herself and Charlie.

  After the drama calmed down Angela, Charlie, Joe and Mrs Bottal went inside Angela’s flat and put the kettle on. They chatted and laughed about various different things without so much as speaking a word about Dickie Duckley. It changed the mood and lifted the vibration back to where it had been before the encounter and Angela was feeling much better now, almost like it had never happened.

  Mrs Bottal decided that her work here was done now as she had her own chores that needed attending. She left in a very casual way so as not to reignite the drama in Angela’s mind at all. Joe decided to stay on and chat so Angela would have a male presence in the house to keep her at ease, should she get any thoughts that Duckley may try and knock her door.

  They chatted well into the evening while Charlie got on with some of his school work and gave them their space. They chatted so much that Angela had forgotten to even make any dinner for her and Charlie, which suddenly put her in a bit of
flap. But Charlie wasn’t that hungry anyway as his school work had tired him out and he was just thinking he was ready for bed.

  “Ooooohhh, I’m so sorry Charlie”, Angela said, looking at him tenderly, as soon as she remembered. “I completely forgot about dinner. Let me do you a quick snack or something, ok”?

  “No, really. Its fine, Mum. I’m more tired than hungry. I’m just going to go to bed, I think”, Charlie said as he ‘ka-thunked’ his text book shut and gathered up his papers. Angela walked over toward him.

  “Well, all right then. I’ll see you in the morning, handsome”, Angela said, leaning over to kiss him on the forehead and giving him the biggest loving smile that she could.

  Charlie yawned his way into his bedroom as Angela went and sat back down with Joe.

  “He’s such a little angel, that one. I’m so blessed”, she said to Joe, with a sense of appreciation on her face.

  “Very old soul, that one”, Joe replied with an equal look of appreciation on his face.

  It was at that moment that a tear started to roll down Angela’s face. The day’s events and the thought of anything happening to Charlie was just too much. Her hand started to shake a little and some fear started to creep in about what if’s and what may be’s. Memories of her experiences with Aiden started to flood back too. Joe picked up on this and reached out and held her trembling hand and looked her straight in the eye. He could already sense what was going through her mind.