The Winding Lane

Joyce Beumelburg

Joyce's development as a writer
Joyce Beumelburg, successful short story writer and poet, was praised for her stories when she was at school in Greymouth in the 1930s.

Over the years she had the occasional story published in newspapers and magazines, but then she became very busy running a nursery specialising in bonsai. Then she heard about the International Writers' Workshop (I.W.W.) and became an enthusiastic member. In 1981 she published a small book called My Affectionate Father and Others. The late Barry Crump was a speaker at the I.W.W., and took away a copy of Joyce's book. He read excerpts from it over Radio Pacific's Bush Telegraph session. One morning he rang Joyce at 5 am and told her that her book was "a bloody sight better than mine". Joyce then tried writing poetry and her poems and limericks have been published in Canada, America, Germany, Switzerland and Australia. Her work has continued to be published in New Zealand magazines. In 1997 Joyce was one of the South Pacific winners in the BBC Commonwealth Short Story Competition. The Winding Lane, a collection of stories, articles and poems, was published in 1995. Joyce has sent NZine the title story.

Read it and be encouraged to record your own ideas.

Editor

The Winding Lane

'How long since your last confession my child?'
'Saturday week.'
'Father.'
'Father.'
'And what sins have you committed since then, might I ask?'
'Not many. But I did tell sister Agatha she's a stupid old cow.'
'What!'
'Well, I thought about telling her, and that was just as bad.'
'Shame on you, Brigid Riley. Anything else?'
'I called Mr. Jackson a silly bitch last Monday.'
'Ho! And how did he take that?'
'He just laughed and called me a cheeky little bugger.'
'You were lucky. Anyhow, men can't be bitches - only women. That wasn't a nice thing for a little girl to call anyone, let alone a grown man.'
'Well, I heard Aunty Maggie say that Mrs. Lynch was a silly bitch for falling down her back step. So when Mr. Jackson tripped over his rake, that's what I called him.'
'That'll take a lot of forgiving I'm afraid. Now for penance you're to say two decades of the rosary - sorrowful mysteries mind you - and recite the creed with true...'
'I won't! That's not fair!'
'I wish you'd remember to call me Father, You know I can't absolve you unless you do your penance. Tell you what. Bring me the biggest glass of milk you can find and we'll call it quits.'
'Righto.'
Brigid unravelled herself from behind the front room confessional curtain, wandered to the kitchen and completed her penance with grace. Her brother, seated in their father's old armchair, accepted the glass with both hands, raised his eyes heavenward, and swilled the contents with unpriestly gusto. 'Gee, that was great. The best I've had today.' He smacked his temporarily moistened lips in satisfaction. 'You're free to go and sin no more till next week. What'll we do now?'
The two children, Brigid aged eight and her brother Bob fourteen, regularly practised confessing. Since she'd made her first confession in St. Pat's late last year, Brigid was forever complaining that she couldn't think up enough sins to interest Father Moriarty, so they decided that once a week they'd have a dummy run when no-one else was home. The result was that Brigid discovered many new interesting sins and Bob had a forbidden drink of his beloved milk.
Brigid didn't understand it all, but because of some health problem Bob was strictly rationed with his daily input of liquid. All members of the family had been warned not to give in to pleas, demands or threats received out of hours, so to speak, but Brigid, being cleansed of her sins, reckoned this time it didn't count. After all, it must be rotten to be always thirsty, and who would miss the milk? Certainly not the provider, the cow.
It was summer 1930, a truly West Coast summer, with the cicadas clacking their castanets and the sharp outline of the Southern Alps promising yet more fine weather. School holiday time. Also depression time so they were told. Many families were without even the necessities life. No money for fresh bread, or shoes for growing children. No money because so many men had no work.
Groups searched regularly along the railway line parallel to the Riley house, filling sacks with lumps of coal fallen off the loaded rail waggons. Brigid and Bob joined in sometimes - the coal was so black and shiny - and brought it home triumphantly to augment their own meagre supply for the kitchen range. Their gentle mother explained that other families were far worse off; fathers were out of work and couldn't afford to buy coal whereas their own father was in a steady job. It didn't bring in much, but it was enough.
So they left the black gold to perhaps clamber up the hill behind their house, where hidden in the long waving grass away from their mother's ire, they played poker for matches. Or perhaps they'd sneak into the brick works next door and carve their initials in the soft clay shapes waiting to be baked in the kiln. Or perhaps they'd gorge themselves on the produce of the roadside blackberry hedges, arriving home eventually with sorely scratched hands and colourfully stained faces.
The two children were close friends despite the age difference. Their smallness had much to do with it though they were unaware of that, or it might be more correct to say that Brigid was unaware. She didn't pause to think of Bob's age - just to be with him and join in his madcap schemes was sufficient.
He was slightly built, much smaller than his peers, with stick like legs barely capable of supporting him at times. Straw coloured hair with silky sheen, vivid blue eyes with unfairly long gold-dusted lashes darker than his hair, strong white teeth hidden behind lips which though full and wide, were always dry and cracked and constantly being licked. Apart from his smallness, his outstanding feature was his ears which jutted sharply from the blond head. At any mention of 'jug ears' or 'flap' his eyes would narrow and a sibilant whistling would issue from between clenched teeth - a sure warning of imminent fireworks. He might be puny, but his knuckles could temporarily paralyse an offender's arm.
Brigid was also slightly built and a fraction smaller than Bob, with a fragile needing-to-be-cared-for look about her. Her hair was a mass of blonde curls and her eyes a beseeching brown. Being the youngest of five, three of whom were practically grown up, she felt entitled to be a nuisance to them all.
Because she was smaller than Bob, he accepted her more than he did the others and taught her how to use her knuckles on any tormentor. With him she felt safe. They shared their most sacred secrets. He was going to be a famous author and was in the process of writing a book about life. He said it was to be a tragedy. Four chapters were already completed and he was now awaiting further inspiration. Brigid was also going to be an author but not of tragedies - she wanted to make people smile and be happy. She'd read in one of Bob's books that laughter was the best medicine. Because Bob was a terrible speller Brigid was commissioned to check in the tattered old Collins dictionary such words as incorrigible, bicycle or even tragedy. Bob promised he would dedicate his first book to her.
'What's dedicate?'
'Look it up in the Collins.' She did and was delighted.
Bob handed back the empty glass. 'Well, what'll we do now I asked?'
'Let's go over to the cemetery.'
They could spend hours over there, examining the headstones, trying to pronounce all the foreign names of those who had come to the Coast during the gold rush period. After calculating the difference between dates of birth and death, they considered that anyone who lasted till thirty had had a good innings in the game of life. Besides, they knew exactly where to find the biggest and best mushrooms clustered around certain graves facing the Tasman rollers, and in the season made regular forays, never forgetting a swift 'eternal rest' for the occupants. They always came home with their containers full.
Bob stood up and stretched. 'Can't be bothered. Too hot. Think I'll hop on the grid and see what Jimmy wants to do. Nothing too strenuous I hope.'
'Can I come?'
'Nope. Man's talk. Not for little girls.'
'You could double me up there and I'll walk back.'
'Don't feel like doubling you today.'
'It's not far - only to South Beach. Don't be so rotten mean.'
Brigid dearly loved her brother, as a good convent girl should, but she coveted his bike and seized every chance to have a ride on it. It was half size, just right for them both and it was her dream that when Bob grew too tall, she would have it. It stood to reason.
But he'd had it over a year now and still wasn't too tall. Added to her nightly pleas to God for no earthquakes, tidal waves or spiders in the bed was the request that Bob would grow - quickly. Sometimes he doubled her to the beach where they played shipwrecks on the remains of a partly buried ship called the Lauderdale. Sometimes to the cemetery for their history lesson, and sometimes to see Our Gang at the Opera House on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes even to confession. Wherever he took her on the bike, she loved it.
But her aim was to eventually own it.
Once she had been allowed to ride it to school and was told by the nuns that she was a cause for scandal. Imagine a convent girl cocking her leg over the bar of a boy's bike! No trouble with something to interest Father Moriarty that week.
'Come on.' she pleaded.' I got you that drink of milk. I'll get into trouble for that, I bet.'
'That was your penance.'
'Well, this can be your penance for making me do it. After all it was a bribe or whatever it's called. And that's a sin.'
'Alright then, but you have to walk back straight away. Get the grid out.'
Brigid skipped through the house and out the back door. She grabbed the small bike from its resting place against the chimney and with one foot on the pedal propelled it to the gate. Duly ensconced, they set off. Brigid, protected by her brother's arms, slumped against his chest and relaxed. She felt quite royal. The slight breeze fanned her cheeks and lifted her curls. Bliss.
Gradually she became aware of a heavy thumping against her backbone. Fast and irregular. Too fast, too jumpy. Bob's heartbeats. She'd never noticed that before. And his breath was panting against her cheek.
'You're puffing a lot.'
He didn't answer immediately, then gaspingly; 'Well, you're getting heavier.'
'I am not!'
Silence till they reached Jimmy's place. Bob manoeuvred the bike against the high fence and stayed seated while Brigid slipped down from the bar and headed for home as promised. At the end of the lane she turned to wave. Bob was still sitting on the bike propped against the fence. He waved back. Brigid hummed happily to herself. She was pleased she had Bob for a brother. He was so clever, and concocted all sorts of entertaining pastimes such as the merry-go-round which, with her help, he had erected in the back paddock. This consisted of a solid plank bolted in the middle onto the stump of a decapitated tree. It looked rather like a seesaw except that it couldn't go up and down - only round and round. It was operated by a volunteer pushing it in circles until it gathered quite a momentum, prevented from flying off into space solely by this enormous bolt. For the privilege of a few turns on his invention, Bob charged everyone outside the family threepence, but the volunteer got to have a free ride by lifting his legs as the speed increased and they whirled dizzily round and round. Sometimes three youngsters would be hanging on like grim death at each end, shrieking with ecstatic fear and then two volunteers were necessary. The merry-go-round became quite famous in the neighbourhood and was a great financial success until the day the bolt came loose and everyone came to grief. It had been grand fun despite the fact that mad old Mary Bellamy managed to break her arm. Now there was a silly bitch.
Then there was the rough sledge on which they would hurtle down the hill, collapsing in muddy heaps at the bottom. A stop was put to that entertainment too as on one occasion Bob's backside was inadvertently pierced by a large nail and he had to be conveyed, kneeling, in their father's wheelbarrow to the nearby hospital for repairs.
Or they would take off on foot with miniature swags on their backs, pretending they were tramps. They saw many of these unfortunates coming to their door, never to be turned away by their compassionate mother.
'Where are we going?' Brigid would ask.'
'Round the end of the bend where you cannot see,' would be the reply. It was a line from his favourite poem, or rather monologue, called "The Winding Lane". He had won first prize at the recent Competitions Festival with it. There he was, up on the stage of the Town Hall all by himself, looking so tiny and breakable. And there were all these people listening to his clear voice reciting with perfect intonation:-

Of all the walks a child can go,
A winding lane is best, you know.
For you always wonder what can be
Round the end of the bend where you cannot see.

Brigid was allowed to go that night, and sat proudly on her father's knee. Everyone clapped enthusiastically, including Brigid; her father blew his nose several times, trumpeting in staccato rhythm, and her mother had tears in her eyes. Brigid couldn't fathom it at all. He'd won hadn't he? He'd beaten all those great big grown men. Brigid was also allowed to attend Bob's school break-up ceremony where he was given a lovely red book, leather-bound and with its name in gold, Boyhood Stories of Famous Men. That was for being the most popular boy. She almost burst into bits with pride.
Bob let her read about the young Mozart, Verdi and an Italian called Stradivari who, according to their father, had made the actual violin on which he played wild Irish jigs. She was fascinated as she'd never considered that famous people started out in life as children like themselves. Yes, Brigid was intensely proud of her clever brother. He was liked by everyone, young and old. His thin frame and weak legs prevented him from taking an active part in games of football, tennis or cricket, but he made an exacting umpire, and woe betide the player who questioned his decisions. His repartee could be annihilating, but young as they were, his friends understood that this was a result of his frustration and sense of physical inadequacy. They admired and loved him for his cheerful public face, his clever wit and his sheer guts, and each unconsciously realised he was a better person for having known this boy.
Mrs. Riley was busy preparing the evening meal when Brigid walked in, to be embraced in all the warmly familiar kitchen smells.
'Where did you get to, my lovely?'
'Up to Jimmy's with Bob. He doubled me and I walked back.'
'Her mother wiped her hands down the apron front and gave her a hug. 'You're getting too big for Bob to push on that small bike.'
'That's what he said today - that I'm getting heavier. I'm not getting heavier!'
'Maybe not, but he's not strong enough these days. I think it's time to stop the famous doubles. Bob won't grow much now.'
'That means I'll never get the bike! He'll have to grow.' The brown eyes flowed.
Her mother gave her another quick hug. 'Yes you will - one day. Be patient child, and don't pester your brother about it.'
Brigid's prayers that night included an urgent request for Bob to start growing immediately. For the next few days Brigid went about her own business and left Bob to himself. No mention was made of tramps down the winding lane, and the bike stayed propped against the chimney. One sunny morning both children were sitting on the back steps; Bob was whistling between his teeth and staring into nothingness so Brigid wisely kept quiet. Suddenly he spoke sharply:-
'Get's a drink.'
'No. You know I can't.'
'Get's a drink. I'll give you a ride on the grid.'
'I can't,' Brigid wailed.'Mum'll see me.'
'She's out at the clothesline. Go on - quick!'
Brigid stood up, hesitated and then sat down.'
'I can't. It's not fair!'
Bob shrugged and started whistling again.
'If you get me that drink, I'll bequeath you the bike.'
'What's bequeath?'
'Look it up in Collins, but be quick.'
She did. 'It says to give by will.'
'Right. I'll leave the bike to you in my will if you get that drink.'
Brigid gazed at him in horror. 'But only dead people do that! Uncle Charlie had a will and he's dead.'
'We all have to die sometime don't we? You know that. It's the winding lane - it comes to an end sometime. Is it a deal?'
'No it's not. How can I tell that to Father Moriarty?'
She flung the Collins down and they both stood up, facing each other in rage, their eyes on a level.
Level!
For seconds Brigid was transfixed. She was as tall as Bob! Then she jumped off the step, raced to the only private place she knew - the outside privy - and sobbed her heart out. Now she'd never get the bike. He refused to grow and she was growing too fast.
That evening they were in the throes of their usual argument about the dish-washing chore when Bob began to slowly fold like one of those Chinese lanterns used for Christmas decorations, gently subsiding to the kitchen floor to lie on his back, knees bent.
Brigid began to giggle - he looked so comical - but their father leaped from his chair at the table, scooped the small frame up in his arms and carried him to his room.
Brigid stopped giggling. She had seen tears squeezing out from the shut eyes. Her brother crying! Her invincible brother!
He never left his bed again. The house was hushed, and people came and went - the doctor, the priest, neighbours. Although she was so young Brigid knew Bob was going to die. She accepted death as part of life but considered God was being a bit unfair as Bob hadn't really started to grow yet; she hoped the dummy-run confessions wouldn't be held against him.
There was always someone keeping watch in the sick room; Brigid was allowed to sit beside the bed for short intervals but forbidden to speak as Bob was fighting for every breath. She would concentrate on the gold-dusted lashes fanning the white cheeks and will him to look at her. Just once. On her third visit the vivid blue eyes looked straight at her. He grinned his old cocky grin, gave the semblance of a shrug and in the merest thread of a voice quoted:-
'The winding lane is winding still.'
Brigid leaned over and gazed deep down into his eyes.
'Can't you see round the end of the bend yet?' She was really interested.
'Nope. Will soon though. Wonder what I'll strike?' He tried another grin, his lashes fluttered down, and that was that.
Brigid never went mushrooming in the cemetery or played poker for matches again, and she outgrew the bike within months. But she still has the trusty Collins dictionary, Boyhood Stories of Famous Men, and best of all, the unfinished tragedy dedicated as promised in his spidery scrawl:-

THE WINDING LANE
To my little sister Brigid,
with greatful thanks for her littery help.'