Skeusen: A London Boy to a Cornish Man

It was a wrinkled photograph by now, browned and blotched in places, creased from years of opening and closing. He held it, staring aimlessly in front of him. There was a certain familiarity found in the faces smiling back at him, especially the little boy, sprawled in the arms of a woman. 

He stretched his legs out, nestling himself further into the sandy-coloured armchair. It was his favourite place to sit, right by the big windows so he could look out at his garden, which overlooked the sea. Today was a good day for his hibiscus plants, he decided, warm and bright. The sunlight caught his cheek, casting a soft glow across the photograph, creating a perfect arc across the strangers’ faces. 

It was the machine that hung on the wall in front of him which irritated him the most, its high shrill overpowering the usual quietness. There were always so many colours and figures on the wall, which quickly moved around each other. The room seemed to get louder the more he thought about it, wrapping him up in the sounds and the colours and the people he didn’t know. 

“Somebody turn that sound OFF!” he yelled out, panic lodging in his throat. He had to get out of here, there were so many gardens to look after, and he’d never finish them all if he didn’t leave soon. A lady dressed in blue came running into the lounge, startling him.

“Now come on Albert.” the Blue Lady said, her arms outstretched as she approached him, as if to steady him. “Where are you off to? You have visitors coming here today to see you!”

He remembered the Blue Lady. He liked the colour blue. It was sea blue. How he missed the sea. 

He sighed, frustration building. “I want to leave here, please. It is too loud, and too bright. I want to go and do my gardening.”

“You’ll have your visitors to see you soon! Why don’t you stay and have a cuppa? You could—”

“Visitors?”

“Yes, dear! You’re very popular. Bea and David come every week.”

There was a silence, and the room seemed to enclose around him. His living room looked different to what he remembered. His side table was no longer stacked high with books, but now covered in small, white boxes neatly piled around a small glass of water. And where were the pictures of Jean? 

“JEAN?” he shouted, his knees wobbling. He fought for the strength to stand up and escape.

In front of him, the photograph floated to the floor, caught in the midst of his attempted escape. The unknown faces continued to smile back at him. The Blue Lady bent down slowly, gently picking up the photograph. 

“Is this you?” she asked. He stared blankly at her, before continuing to search frantically for his belongings. He needed his big coat, scarf and gardening shoes. 

“WHERE are my shoes?”

“Come on Albert. It’s okay! How about you spend a little time with David and Bea, and then you can go and do your gardening.” she said soothingly, laying her hand on the small of his back. Just like Martha used to. 

“Why don’t you tell me about this photograph. Is that you and your mum?” the Blue Lady asked, guiding him into bed and covering him with a blanket. Handing him the photograph, he stared back at it blankly. 

He grasped the picture tightly to his chest, a tear trickling down his cheek. A sharp wind prickled the tips of his ears, turning the end of his nose a soft crimson. Wiping his nose with the back of his hand, he jumped off the wall, kicking a rock across the sand. Ahead of him, the tide moved in a constant rhythm, moving backwards and forwards. 

* * *

He could see the date, sprawled in black ink. 10th November 1939. He didn’t recognise the handwriting, but it was much better than his.

It was not often he got anything sent to him in the post. But then the brown envelope, written to Mr. Albert Wing came, hidden underneath a letter from Martha’s sister up in Yorkshire. 

“You’ve got a letter young man.” Martha said when he came home from school. It was like a birthday. Scrambling to grab the envelope, he snatched it from the table in excitement, and made for the front door. He would savour this moment for as long as he could. 

“Goodbye Martha!” he shouted as he ran. “I’ll be home before the sun goes down!” There was a spot that he would go to, where he could sit and open the present, his feet dangling from the wall as he sat there. 

The photograph was enclosed within a letter from Ma. He sat silently for a little while, running his finger over the photograph in front of him. A three-toothed little boy with light-coloured hair grinned back at him, a half-bitten biscuit in one hand, his arm wrapped around his mother’s neck. He had no idea who this was, or where this was, or anything about himself when he was that big. Only that Martha had started looking after him when the city became too unsafe for the city children.

The crack of a wave, vast against his slim frame. Ahead, a Border Collie charged towards him. Her fur was slightly matted, stained from wet sand, leaving a trail of salt water as she ran. Her owner, Robert Coleman, ambled behind her, wrapped up in a trench coat. 

“Evening young man,” he rasped, slightly breathless. “Are you on your way home? Martha will be worried if you’re any longer!”

“Yes sir, sorry sir. I didn’t realise the time you see.”

Mr Coleman smiled, one tooth poking through his thin chapped lips. He was a kind man, despite his haggard appearance, which often scared the children. There was no protesting against Mr Coleman, especially when he knew all of the Mas and Pas around the village. 

“What have you got there?” Mr Coleman asked, pointing towards the letter with his cane. “It’s not very often that little boys get letters.”

Albert remained silent, folding his hand around the letter inside his pocket, clasping it into his palm. The wind had become stronger, attacking his raincoat with great force.

“I have to go home now Mr. Coleman. Have a lovely evening sir.” he said, anxiously nodding farewell. He sprinted home across the seafront, as if to compete with the setting sun, the chilled breeze nipping at his cheeks. 

“And where have you been?!” Martha said, wiping her hands on her apron. “What was that letter you ran away with?”

Slowly taking the photograph out of his pocket, he remained silent. He would get to London when he was older, and find Ma.

* * *

He bid farewell to the coast, leaving with his brown satchel full of clothes, books, and his flask. There was a bittersweet pang, as the train sped by, the coastline and the fields gradually disappearing behind him. But it was not an emotional goodbye, which was just what he wanted. 

Though he was grateful for Cornwall, he had outgrown it. He had been desperate to get to London from the second he got the photograph: a lingering curiosity that never quite shifted. The brown satchel had been with him since the day he left London, packed up with his teddy, and the last of his mother’s savings clasped tightly in his hand. It was strung over his shoulder as he was ushered onto the train by the Church Lady, a cardboard tag worn like a necklace. He was too small to look out of the windows then. 

It was to be his first experience away from the coast. The air felt thicker as he approached the city, the buildings growing taller and taller. He felt himself shrink as they approached. Next to him, the photograph lay, tucked into one of Ma’s old books. It was as if somehow, turning the yellowed pages one by one, he was connected to her. The journey was different now, since she was caught in the bombing. The bitterness lay in his stomach even twelve years later. Martha was unsure of his leave, warning him of the overwhelming rush of the city, vast against Cornwall. It was when he reached the train station that he began to understand this: the rush of people against the screeching trains, almost swallowing him whole. He fought the urge to climb back into the carriage and return to Cornwall. This is what he had waited for, from those long nights spent staring at the photograph. To experience London. 

The next three months were a blur of new places, people, sights and sounds. Though a part of him longed for the peace of the coast, he found himself looking for reasons to stay: finding different jobs in trade, and gardening for neighbours on weekends. 

His reason became more permanent three weeks after his twenty-second birthday. At their local diner, she was playing with the thin gold bracelets on her right arm, her hair styled neatly into a pleat. She looked up, smiled, dimples forming either side of her mouth. 

“I’m Jean,’ she said. ‘It’s good to meet you.”

She was all he could have ever wanted. He wasn’t sure of the exact moment he fell in love with her, but he was sure of the moment he felt at home. The first time she visited his flat, as she stood by the gramophone, picking the next record. She loved Frank Sinatra. 

She had moved to his selection of books and art, piled on top of each other in disarray. They laughed together, as they flipped through endless newspaper clippings, letters from home, bundled together with string. She was silent when she saw it, as it slipped out the cover of a photo album. 

“Who is that?” she asked suddenly, cocking her head to the right to view the photograph better in the light. 

“That’s me, and my Ma. When I lived in London,” he replied, cautious of her response. He hadn’t told her that he was born in the city. She believed he was a country boy. He told his story then. Of leaving Ma, Cornwall, Martha, his desperation to return to London to connect with where his Ma lived. How she had gone before he had known her. She sat quietly, huddled on the window seat, resting her chin on her knees.

There was something so gentle about her affection, that stirred a sense of belonging in him. They were married six months later.

* * *

“Look Dad, I’ve made a castle!” David exclaimed, jumping out of a cardboard box head first. Next to him, Beatrice squealed with laughter, lavishly dressed in a queen costume, clutching a plastic wand, a fabric rabbit cushioned neatly under her arm. She had Jean’s dimples when she smiled: a contagious, toothless grin. 

“And you must be…” he paused, causing a further outbreak of laughter. “Ah yes! King David and Queen Beatrice!”

David scrambled out of the box, clutching his plastic crown to his head. “Yes Dad!” David giggled. “You have to bow down though.”

He bowed down, David’s smile spreading across his face. It was impossible not to smile back at him. 

The so-called castle stood amongst towers of boxes labelled Kitchen, Bedroom, Bathroom, ready to be moved. The new house had large gardens, meaning he could return to gardening after all these years. The city was special to him, in all its vastness. But it wasn’t home. 

“Right then, who wants to help Daddy pack up the last few things?”

“ME!” David yelled, running to the remaining pile of items to be packed, which stood in the corner. 

There was a part of him that wanted to avoid this pile, full of old books from his childhood. Though those books were attached to fond memories, there was something about reliving them that felt uneasy to him. He felt guilty for not returning to Cornwall, especially now Martha was dying. She had been his mother, and yet his own children had never even met her. 

As they reached the final few books, he noticed a red photo album, crammed full of photographs and newspaper clippings. Opening it, he flicked through photographs of Cornwall, a glimmer of excitement in his stomach. 

“Look, you two!” he said, bending down to show the children. “This is where we’re going to be living. Your new home.”

There was a silence as he turned to the final page, his eyes scanning the photo tucked into the back, instantly recognising the handwriting on the back. The folded edges, slightly browned from journeys spent tucked into books.

“Is that me when I was a baby in the picture? It looks like me!” David said with a puzzled expression across his face.

Taking the photograph, he sighed. It did not deserve to be tucked away behind the other photographs. It needed to stand proudly in the new home. To remember Ma. “That’s me, David,” he said. “That’s me before I left for Cornwall.”

* * *

“Dad?” a young woman came into view, her dimples creasing as she smiled. She had tears sprinkled across her face. “Can you hear David? Do you remember now?” She brushed his hair back softly. The rest of the room was still a blur of colour and noise, as it shifted into focus. He stared blankly at the woman that stood over him. A man stood up and came towards him, grasping his hand. 

“We’ve been here to see you, Dad!” he said, rubbing his thumb along his father’s fingers. He wasn’t sure why these people kept calling him Dad. His name was Albert. Albert Wing. He was not Dad. From the other side of the room, a lady appeared with two mugs, laying them carefully on the small table by the machine on the wall. He knew her, he saw her often. Perhaps she was one of Jean’s friends. “We’ve been learning all about you Albert!” the Blue Lady said. “Can you sit up for me? It’s time to take your medication.” As the Blue Lady spoke he tried desperately to identify the people standing next to him, moving back and forth between their faces. He stared at the woman’s dimples as she smiled, then at the man’s straw-coloured hair, perfectly messy at the front, but neatly kept at the back. He knew them. He must. 

“It’s David and Bea, Dad,” the man said, though his voice squeaked a little. “You know us. Don’t you?” The man called David handed him a photograph of a smiling boy, clutching a half-bitten biscuit in one hand. He pointed at the child, staring back at David with a blank expression. 

“Do you remember the photograph Dad? It’s been everywhere with you!” Bea asked. He smiled. David and Bea. 

“Where’s Jean?” He asked, craning his neck to look outside the door. “We need to finish the garden.”