Encouraging Words!

Indulgent prose; my own, of course. For all you wannabe word grinders:

Some, as great forest trees stand well above the rest; men and women of courage and forethought, those who start with little and often die with less – those of us who dare to dream.

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Back to, An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa:

... The headmaster, a Mr Wood, from behind his glasses peered myopically at my mother and Aunt Ann. I was just sort of there, between them, apparently invisible.

‘I shall put him in Standard Four and see how he gets on.’

Mother and Aunt Ann peered back at him and nodded compliantly, then, obviously pleased with their successful first attempt at child disposal, disappeared. I had been abandoned to the care of ‘old Woody’ and was just as quickly despatched to the relevant classroom. That same day, on my way back home from school I experienced my first mango fest.  I returned home covered in yellow mango juice and toting a sore belly. Dad said that I wasn’t used to different fruit, but not to worry because the ‘squirts’ didn’t last more than a couple of days. So I had the squirts quite often and then one day they stopped – I was mango-proof.

That Sunday night it rained, I mean, really rained. Not like English rain; this was like getting slapped all over – drops the size of plate pies. Three would have filled a fish bowl. Half a dozen would ‘drown the dog’ my Dad said, and I believed him.

I knelt on a chair by the window and watched the sky light up. Here, the rain sneaked up on you – bit like a cat sneaking up on a mouse. Before the storm broke, the wind dropped. Lightning slashed the sky and I counted, ‘one, two, three...’ before I heard the bang. Each separate count represented ten miles so we were safe for the next half-hour.

Thirty miles away the storm had scrubbled the clouds into a tight and angry ball; it rolled them over dark valleys and in an instant, parched riverbeds ran bank-high with chaotic walls of whitewater. When it reached our driveway the thunder bellowed so loud that I jumped backwards off my chair. Everyone laughed and Aunt Ann threw peanuts at me and said I was soft.

The roof was made of galvanised iron zincs, that’s what people called them out here; corrugated iron sheeting to anyone living elsewhere in the world. The zincs were always painted red or green and when the sun went behind a cloud the zincs made funny pinking sounds.

The first drops were wet socks thrown at the landing window; sort of sideways on at an angle. Dust mixed up with the rain and ran down the glass like red tears. On the roof the first drops must have been bigger up there; fat frogs flapping against the zincs – then the flaps joined up as one, continuous roar and I hardly heard my mother shout for me to close the window.

Dad opened the fire escape door (we lived in the top half of the old nurses’ quarters) and stood out under the awning. He waved me over and side by side we watched the rain. I shivered when the cold air touched me; my Dad was smoking, I could see the cherry-red end of his cigarette. The sky had gone – the ground had gone – just the light from a neighbour’s bedroom window made it through to where we were standing.

‘So much water!’ I shouted over the noise and dad put his arm round me. Nothing could touch me now, not the rain the lightning nor the thunder. Then the rain stopped and like a grumpy old man the storm sulked away to the south-east.

Now I could see the street lights and the warm air came back, pleasantly moist and sort of musty-smelly – like the smell of an English potting shed in early autumn. I leaned in closer, not wanting my Dad to take his arm away. Not ever...

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A Slight Twist in the Road!

Hi – here’s the promised bumf on ‘Feeders’, my latest addition to an ever-growing e-book fraternity. Feeders knocks out at £0.99 in English money, $1.39 in good old US greenbacks – an ideal commuter read, a great forty minute run-in with witches ‘n werewolves and splendidly written (my tiny bit of self praise!).

As is made obvious by the cover, Feeders has been published under my pen name, Enoch Gray. Keeping things separate from, Sons of Africa which is soon to be followed by its younger sibling, Empress Gold; a runaway thriller that will fry your brain cells. It’s that good – believe me, or wouldn’t put my name to it.

Try out the Feeders ‘look inside’ option on Amazon; my little genre diversion just might float your boat. Here’s an excerpt. Have a gander:

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... Jack stood at the window until the Defender’s headlights disappeared, the night outside still wildly unpredictable. Taller hedgerows bent and whipped like shirt tails, wind hissed and howled as wolves hunting the dark slopes of Pendle Hill. He crossed the room and felt inside the bottom drawer of an oak writing bureau.

The photograph had been shot in black and white; to a background of high moor, rows of orphaned children stood statue-like for the camera. Ranked along both sides were the austere images of their guardians. The children’s names were listed at the bottom – from left to right and again, all were neatly aligned in corresponding order. The grey patina of age dulled the text.

One by one, Jack read off the names, remembering those that had stuck in his mind. Some had faded completely, all of those wan and sickly children, like himself, discarded by a malicious society. Most were already long dead.

Habitually, he traced the print with his fingertip, settling it over his own likeness. The fire licked and crackled excitedly; driven by the oncoming storm, the wind howled inside the chimney pot.

On the photograph’s sombre moorland, hidden from the casual onlooker by cloud shadows, a woman had stopped to catch her breath; looking back through the rain it seemed as if she resented the presence of the picture-taker. Her limbs were crippled with age and a veil of poverty and terrible hardship hung about her. Jack nodded his head, the smile on his face now thin with malice. He spoke with slow deliberation, the voice coming out from his mouth not his own...

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It's Africa That Does It!

Hi, lots of interest in the little boy story so here’s another chunk – I’m amazed by the number of readers who still empathise with Africa in the fifties. Good days. Oh, almost forgot – this week, will (under a Pen Name) be putting up ‘Feeders’, the threatened short booklet of horror on Amazon Kindle. Different, but thoroughly enjoyed the genre change. Hope you do too. My next blog will reveal all so stay with me...

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Another extract from An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa;

... The bottles and glasses clinked together because the waiter’s hands were shaking and the tray jumped up and down. He lined up the drinks on the table, big brown bottles of Lion Lager beer – ‘bombers’, Uncle Ron called them because they were quarts instead of pints. I think they had two drinks inside them instead of just one. Mother and Aunt Ann had gin and tonics with ice and lemon slices, but they weren’t bombers. Aunt Ann smiled a lot now and her eyes sparkled. I had a coca-cola in a bottle with a straw stuck in it, my second coke in all my life; and a packet of crisps, which I later learned were called chips in Africa. Real chips were called that as well but everyone knew what you meant. Hilda had the same as her husband – a bomber. She was really thirsty. I could tell because she’d gone really quiet and her eyes were getting smaller.

Apart from Ron’s wife, everyone talked really fast now. The waiter brought some more bombers and gin and tonics. Aunt Ann tipped the ice and lemon out of her old glass into the new one and mother did the same, I think she was learning what to do in Africa, so now she had two ice and lemons in one glass and looked really pleased with herself; she chased a pip round the glass with her finger, but couldn’t grab it. I got another coke but no chips. The waiter nodded his head and smiled when Uncle Ron tipped him a sixpence. He dropped the sixpence inside his jacket pocket then went and stood at the other end of the veranda, watching for someone to put up there hand for some more bombers and gins. Maybe I would get another packet of chips. Maybe my friend with the white teeth would get a shilling next time. I smiled at him and he smiled back. I learned a lot from the old man – how to watch and judge the moment; how to listen without being watched. Say nothing, but hear everything. Unless he looked at me his eyes seldom left the table.

Even the veranda’s covered over bit was getting hot now. Uncle Vince said the hotel man liked the sun because it made people buy more drinks and he put out bowls of salted nuts – all for free to make them thirsty. Sometimes they would stay there all night because their legs wouldn’t work, or the road moved when they drove and made them go in the bushes. Bombers and gins made them talk fast; some couldn’t talk at all and they wobbled when they walked. Some lay down on the grass outside and slept, but nobody cared and for years later my Dad would try desperately to educate the non-believers; ‘it’s Africa that does it,’ he would pontificate, then, with stronger, punitive words he would curse the heat and kick up clouds of ‘red sour earth’ from beneath his feet. Beer helped him feel better, helped him forget, but sometimes he still looked sad. I think he missed England. Mother just smiled and conversed on a daily bases with compliant, nodding flowers in her garden. She loved Africa, it was always warm, the sun big and yellow, gin and tonics plentiful and her Matinee cigarettes, a shilling a box of thirty; but she coughed more now – Aunt Ann said it was the dust.

Those who chanced a drunken arm at driving home took to the road as a weaving, erratic convoy, the kids now frightened into a state of total silence; dead quiet on the back seats – mothers, fearful of their husband’s wrath said nothing. Not all of them reached their destination. My Dad was right, I think the sun and too many bombers made people crazy. Most people in Wankie were crazy because it was so hot and the only things that stopped you getting hot were bombers and gins. But you still went crazy, because that’s what white people did, in Africa...

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Back To The Fifties!

Hi – blog time again; hope I haven’t confused everyone by posting another excerpt from An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa. From Travel to African Adventure to Werewolves and back to Travel – hopefully, not too diverse. Another random insight to my time in the fifties, see it for what it is; a small piece of a bigger story which, as usual, is in a constant state of flux. However, despite the confusion and much shaking of heads, most of you are still here and I thank you for that...

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From;  An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa:

... ‘Thought you were asleep?’

Shook my head and grinned at my mother. Dad was snoring.

‘Too excited. Don’t want to miss the coal mines. The man said seven o’clock so we can’t be far away from the station.’ I slid off my bunk and muscled in close to the window.

‘Hopefully, your aunt and uncle will be waiting for us. A friend of theirs is bringing his car to the station; a shooting-brake I think? Lots of room for our luggage.’

The carriages rocked against their couplings, as a child’s wooden snake our train hinged its way round bends and clattered through cuttings.

I looked down – at the ground alongside the train. Maybe I would see some animals.

‘Are there schools in Wankie?’

‘I should imagine so.’

‘What if they all speak African?’

‘What if you start making sense, Jeffrey.’

To me, it was sense. African kids, seeing as they were from Africa would surely speak and write in African?

‘Why not, English kids speak English?’ How would my mother know? She lifted up the table and secured the strap. The stainless steel wash basin with its single, cold water tap leered up at me. I was being punished for my cheek. Sounds from under the train came up through the plughole. Mother dropped my toothbrush and tube of Colgate into the basin. They rattled round like pebbles then settled at the bottom. There was still some toothpaste on my brush from last night.

‘Clean your teeth and have a wash before we reach the station. Rinse the flannel out when you’ve finished and put the soap back its container.’

There were hardly any trees now, just short bushes and dried out elephant grass. Clicks and clacks over points and joints in the rails – further apart as our speed slackened. A road had been built alongside the railway line. A black Morris Minor drove on it; sunlight flashed off its chrome bumpers, our doctor had a car just like it. On the ground all the rocks were black – the soil, if that’s what it was, was black as well. A black man on a yellow bike smiled and waved to me. I thought about my cat back in England, then the memory went all fuzzy and I forgot about it. Coal dust – everything was covered in glittering lakes of black, Wankie gold.

Mother saw them first. ‘There they are!’ she chirruped and leaned out through the window. Their friends were with them; Ron and Hilda, originally from the same town back in Blighty – scrutinising every incoming carriage window for familiar faces. Uncle Ron (not my real uncle) and my uncle Vince were both decked out in beige safari suits and floppy hats – Ron, tall with a big belly, my uncle, shorter; also with a belly, but not as big. Tweedle Dum and Dee-like they just stood there on the platform, grinning. Hilda, roofed over by a sun-battered pith helmet and dressed in khaki shirt and Rupert bear pants stood compliantly behind her man. For whatever her reasons, like some myopic owl she stared at me through thick, coke-bottle glasses. Aunt Ann was as I remembered her in England in the summer time; done up with bright red lipstick, flowery cotton frock and trademark straw hat. A little unsteady on her feet; the excitement of new arrivals, the heat and the eternal lure of the gin bottle had convinced her to seek out early solace. Her arms were brown and covered in freckles.

Mother waved the end off her cigarette. Dad, with sweat patches springing out between his shoulder blades and a curse from between his lips, set to the arduous task of dragging suitcases down from the spare bunk. The rest of our chattels were locked away in the baggage car; cabin trunks, crammed solid with our belongings, four feet long and still covered in ‘not-needed-on-the-voyage’ travel stickers. Besides bedding and towels and four sets of second-hand curtains, mother’s treasures were in them – clocks that didn’t work and her plethora of knitting gear, brass knick-knacks and family hand-me-downs her sisters had been keen to get rid of.

Father’s bête noir was the dreaded sea chest; a wood and metal abomination held together with leather straps, big catches and brass locks. Weighing in at a couple of hundredweight it would grin demonically at all who tried to lift it. As some possessed, pirate’s plunder box, gleefully it waited for him in the dark confines of the baggage car.

A hand came in through the window and dragged me over for a welcome to Wankie kiss. I suffered my Aunt Ann’s full repertoire of ‘haven’t you grown’ remarks before being released. Like my mother, aside from gin and tonics, Aunt Ann’s first love was cigarettes. Permanently haloed in smoke and juniper fumes she swore to them being her only successful defence against mosquitoes and dengue fever.

Our suitcases, cardigans and assorted paper bags were fed through the window, then we trooped off the train and for the next five minutes were set upon by huggers, kissers and hand shakers.

Dad hugged back and nodded his head, sweat trickled down from his hairline; already his white, English face was streaked with coal dust. There were blue lines under his eyes, painted there by fatigue and worry; the meagre sum of money we had left England with had almost run out, his clothes now permanently scrummaged up from living out of suitcases. Another rag-tag migrant family had come to Wankie to make a living from digging out coal – tricked from our green and pleasant land by his brother’s promise of an African paradise we had slipped to the very back of nowhere. Now, instead, we were gathered in murderous sunlight, standing inside of what my father saw as the hottest, blackest valley in all of Africa’s hell.

Uncle Vince grinned up at his brother. ‘You made it then. The heat’s not so bad, you’ll get used to it.’

I thought my dad was going to hit him, then, calmed by mother’s silent plea for temperance he sweated out a matching grin and shook his brother’s hand. A year apart had healed their last sibling rift, enough for them to share a house and smile at one another, a situation that filled my mother with trepidation, but we had no choice; sleeping outside in the veld with lions and coal would never have worked...

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Writing - My Obsession!

Hi everyone – being pestered, albeit pleasantly, to finish putting An English Boy’s Wanderings in Africa together as a completed book, so getting to it – in my spare time. Maybe I just love writing, or I’m obsessed – whatever. For me, the perfect indulgence is in watching filled pages roll of the screen, new adventures take shape. Be they Africa’s rough and tumbles, horrors or funnies, I love them all; the urge to produce the perfect story is constantly at my shoulder.

Preparing Feeders for my next Kindle upload, here’s another sneak peek at one of four stories: Wolf Slayer. Good one, this – way back in the seventeen hundreds.

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Extract from Wolf Slayer:

... Where the forest opened, lakes of moonlight flooded in. Still hung with drizzle, ancient trees trembled under the weight. DeLacy’s eyes tricked with the shadows; through his own rampant imaginings, grotesque shapes rose from the earth as living beasts to run alongside him.

‘Keep your eyes well peeled, lad and your sword to hand. You’ll find neither man nor beast of good intent abroad on nights such as this one.’

Swayed by the roll and yaw of the Suffolk warhorse, the silver cage of his sabre nuzzled against his hip. Strapped diagonally to the mare’s left flank, the black, double-handed hilt of a claidheamh mòr, the Great Sword, leaned from its scabbard. Lifted by his father from the Scottish battlefield of Killiecrankie, the double-edged blade was lavishly inlaid with silver, the steel itself honed to a fine edge. Like that of DeLacy’s sabre the pommel was cast of solid silver; the head of a grey wolf was the shape of it – set with those narrowed searching eyes and bared fangs of the mythical beast.

DeLacy slowed his mount and waved the boy alongside him. Up with the Suffolk mare, the boy’s horse stood four hands shorter, though her step was lively and her ears were pricked for every sound.

‘Are you of an open mind, lad?’

‘I like to think so, squire. Though separating the truth from what is unreal can sometimes prove troublesome.’

DeLacy smiled at Jack’s honesty. Though barely sixteen the boy stood almost as tall as his master, his outlook more that of a grown man and with a quick eye and loose limbs he could place the point of his sword faster than most.

‘The beast of Bowland, lad, how do you see it; truth or fable?’

The youngster took his time in replying. ‘I should say truth, sir. Too many men have died in these forests; I know of five good souls who have perished here. Their womenfolk still search for them but find nothing.’

‘So you say the beast is real?’

‘Wolves are killers, squire. If a man is foolish enough to walk the forest alone, then as would the deer or the sheep he might well fall prey to wild beasts.’

‘I have seen it, boy. Believe me; not far from where we are now.’

‘The wolf, squire?’

‘That I did Jack, but only once mind, and no ordinary wolf was this one. Though many have laughed at what I told them.’ Instinctively he reached across for the great sword and drew it half way out from its scabbard. In the moonlight, the blade fired out with lights of brilliant silver; the icy fingers of superstition reached beneath his cape and for a moment he struggled to quell the fear that followed them. ‘Six feet high at the shoulder, Jack, from that day onwards nothing has frightened me more than the sight of that hellish creature walking beside me.’ He sensed the boy’s uncertainty. ‘Like a man, Jack; not on all fours but straight backed and upright, its forelegs hung as arms and its jaws, though shorter than a wolf’s were filled with fangs; some, as God be my witness, were long as my fingers.’ DeLacy paused for a moment and drew his cape closer in to his throat. ‘But the eyes, Jack; they were the worst of any man’s nightmares, yellow in the moonlight, the eyes of Satan, those of Lucifer himself...’

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Warriors to Witches!

Hi – as the title suggests, big change this week. Sticking my neck out, posted the cover of my imminent addition to Amazon Kindle as well as an excerpt from one of its four scary stories. Have wanted to do this for months – I find cross-genre-ing keeps my mind sharp and the adventures varied, though leaving it to weekends only – sandwiched between writing attacks on Empress Gold.  The swing from Africa to a spooky Old England has proved enlightening and refreshing. The writing, as always, is as good as it gets; short, but never boring, a concise and interesting read before bedtime, or to ease the morning grind between home and work. And the price is fair – less than a pound for ten thousand hard won, entertaining words. So here’s a piece of Feeders, my half-hour-horror quartet – enjoy the extract. Now back to work on Empress Gold...

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... Scarf-like, the drizzle wrapped about his neck; Moresby shivered, for the cold had come upon him as a curse. The sounds that came from the dark were neither animal nor human, but somewhere in between. It was then he felt the first, tiny insects of dread scuttle beneath his shirt. He reached for the sword and with the heavy blade unsheathed, forced himself to step inside the hovel.

‘Show yourself, Device and keep your witches’ spells for the judge at Lancaster.’

‘There’ll be no judge, squire Moresby and forewarned you are.’ Like glass on steel, Device’s voice keened through the darkness. ‘What you do this day will not go unrewarded. Look to the boy, Moresby, or have you left him there alone with that horse o’ yours! See the beast, Moresby! Black as Satan’s eyes for is it not so that you yerself ‘as named him Lucifer!’

With a ventriloquist’s skill she flung her voice back and forth across the room; behind and then in front – from the floor and up inside the soot-covered eaves above his head; that of a girl then that of the harridan. From a deep, bell-like bass to an effeminate, reedy tremble, winsome then fey her voice wavered.

‘Look to the boy, Moresby.’ Now the voice of a man, but deep and hideous – that of Satan himself it echoed about the room. ‘What mortal fool would stand alone in the company of Abaddon and Barghest?’

‘Save your tricks for the children, Device. Your witches’ voices hold no threat for me.’

‘Not so for the lad!’ Now the voice of a girl, without substance, flimsy as the mist and fine rain it flew about his ears.

 The hag has been marked by the devil, the boy had told him, and it was then that Moresby felt the grasping, leaden hands of superstition drag at his legs; when he heard the cry, he spun on his heels and ran outside.

The lad’s eyes were wide open, those that had glimpsed beyond the edge of hell itself. The stallion stood over him; its great neck arched – the veins along its throat were black snakes beneath the skin, the beast’s eyes blacker than a Pendle night. An inch behind his left ear, the boy’s skull had been stove in. Moresby swung the sword underhanded; the sound it made was that of a falcon’s wings at a full stoop, less than an inch from the stallion’s throat.

Like an addict freed of the opiate’s veil the stallion quietened and stepped away. Now, with soft eyes it watched its master cover the terrible wound with the boy’s own cape – the animal’s breathing steadied – the evil had left it...

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Thumb Talk!

Hi – Friday last; dentist’s waiting room for half an hour – read the one and only dog-eared golf mag and a tired old Geographic – almost fell asleep. The chair was deep and warmth from the gas fire unavoidable. Diagonally across the room, a young woman dipped inside her bag and unleashed her mobile phone. Her shoulders drooped, mouth fell open and with that faraway look of the opium addict she energised her thumb.

Never in all my life have I seen a thumb move so independently of its stable mates. Like a digit possessed it flew at all angles, racing over the touch-pad, until the ‘send’ button was stabbed and a message about whatever winged its way through the ether. I pictured the same, though not so young lady thirty years on; thumb past its ‘best before’ date, wrapped in cartoon, crepe bandage – bunny-ears and safety pin, joint totally shot with arthritis and repetitive strain stuff. Beats me how the world managed without mobile phones. Beats me even more when I try to comprehend this cool, obsessive need to talk with your thumb... Hello thumb two, this is thumb one, do you read?

Maybe there’s more to this thumb-talk than I realise, maybe I should give it a go and join the droves of cool thumb-talkers; maybe thumb-one’s thumb would talk back and we could spend thumb quality time together, stabbing at text buttons.

Gotta go – my phone’s beeping...

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