Read an Excerpt
Lalla
A Charming Story Inspired by the Character of My Best Friend
By Stu Stevens iUniverse
Copyright © 2015 Stu Stevens
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4917-5924-0
CHAPTER 1
Like Calls Unto Like
Annesley is a place where people pretty well knew one another. One such person would have been the headmaster of the local primary school for thirty years. He grew to love the place and just stayed on after retirement. After watching the children he taught grow, he would sometimes comment that some grew well and others not so well. And I suppose he learned more about the people after his retirement than he ever knew about them before.
But there is one story he related of a lad from Annesley, one among many whose colorful biography one might find of particular interest. Going back toward the end of World War II, there was this chap called Lalla Bond. Who knows why they called him Lalla. Some say his name was Lance and others say Lenard. But Lalla he became, and Lalla he stayed.
Annesley folk reckoned Lalla was like a wild horse. He galloped free, he was differential to no man, and he was a fearsome foe when roused. He was a man of the earth all right. He knew every badger's set, foxhole, and stream, and he could, if one asked him and he was in the mood, talk for an hour on the wildlife of a common ditch.
He was almost on speaking terms with the kingfishers perching in the hedges and dove to catch sticklebacks in the shining water. Nothing moved or grew but what Lalla knew of it. He poached and led the gamekeepers on a dance, and he was never caught, for he had the stealth of a trapping Indian. He once sent the local land-owning squire a postcard, inviting him to his ramshackle place for a supper of jugged hare.
Until he was forty or so, he worked at the pit until the claustrophobic darks could no longer cage his restless spirit. One day, he marched into the manager's office and asked for his cards. And from then on, he worked when he felt like it. He had saved a bit to convert an old ruin of a cottage, which just about satisfied the local authority. Then he worked on farms cutting, threshing, sowing, reaping, turnip tagging, and doing anything and everything.
He talked to the horses as friend to friend, and local folks swore they heard horses talking back. Lalla, patched, unkempt, irreverent, and as restless as a tomcat, had a back like a gorilla, hands like pit shovels, and a heart of a lion. He was a wild, raging, brooding hell of a man! But here's a strange thing. In the shambles of his living room, there were many books, great soaring heaps of tomes scattered, as if some mighty wind had blown them into the house and settled them there in a crazed confusion. And apart from a tale of cowboys and pirates, there were books of Shakespeare, Keats, Byron, of course, and a large, well-thumbed Bible.
Sometimes in the local, Lalla would sit brooding in a corner, never joining in the local gossip. Then suddenly without warning, he would launch into a Shakespearean recital. Heads would turn, but smiles would be very carefully concealed.
Lalla would "have his bout out" as the locals expressed it. And then just as suddenly as he began, he would stop, get up, and stalk out of the pub. He would go back to his lair and passers-by would hear him reciting poetry or gently plucking his guitar, an instrument as rough and weathered as its owner. And Lalla would sometimes sing, playing little tunes in a reedy voice that took one to dark marshes or windswept heaths.
Well now, there was this lad, Willie Pearson. As soon as he walked into school, the headmaster's first thought about him was of Lalla. For here was another wild, untamed creature, if ever there were one. Local folks said his ancestors were gypsies and that, two or three generations back, gypsies had camped in the parkland. They'd eventually been driven off, but one or two had stayed and put roofs over their heads.
Willie was a "gypo," or so the locals said. He was a ragged, tattered, little whelp with a face as brown as a konker (chestnut) and eyes as proud as a prince. His hair stuck up like hedgehog quills, and he also appeared at school as if his route had lain through a hawthorn bush.
He lived with his stepfather, Ben Garrity. Talk had it that Ben kicked Willie upstairs at night and downstairs in the morning. Of course, it had to happen—like calls unto like and deep unto deep—Willie found Lalla to begin a strange story that still has not ended.
Lalla, with stick in hand and dog at heel, made strides for the woods. Ambling along the path that leads to the river's bend, he became aware of another presence nearby.
As he looked around his shoulder, he frowned as he called to a small spy. "Hey, what ya want?"
The dark-eyed child stopped in his tracks and looked at Lalla. A small scarecrow faced a large one.
"Eh! Get going!" a stern Lalla resounded.
The boy stood his ground.
Again, Lalla called out, "I said, get going!"
The boy still stood his ground.
Lalla approached within striking distance and waved the stick in a threatening motion. "Want some of this?"
The young boy remained silent.
"Are you deaf, or has cat gotcha tongue? Now, are you going, or have I got to shift you?" asked a gruff Lalla.
The boy still stood his ground. The small head went back as the eyes stared unflinching at the man.
Lalla eyed the small, proud figure. "My God! You've got some brass on your face, ain't ye?" He pointed with the stick and waved. "Off with ya!"
Clearing his throat, the little voice retaliated, "I can walk in these woods, same as you. Anybody can."
Lalla lowered the stick and regarded the lad with even more interest. He snorted at his challenger. "Oh ya can, can ya? Well, let me tell you something, me lad. You don't follow me. Nobody follows me." He advanced on Willie, who retreated not an inch. Lalla towered over the boy and glared down. Then after a long pause, Lalla spoke.
"What's your name, cock sparrow, eh?"
"Willie," the boy replied.
"Willie? Willie what?" asked Lalla.
"Pearson," said Willie.
Lalla digested this. "Ben's lad?..... Ben Garrity's lad?"
Quickly, Willie snapped, "He's not me dad! Me dad's dead!"
Acknowledging, Lalla growled, "Umpf. Well, don't follow me."
Willie suggested, "All right, I'll walk with you then. That's not follering, is it?"
A fazed Lalla puffed, "Good God! And if I don't want you with me, what then?"
The boy lowered his eyes. The leaves rustled as the wind reached the outstretched branches. Lalla grunted, shuffled, and finally reached for his pipe. He crumpled twist into the blackest bowl pipe in Nottinghamshire and lit up with a studied veracity. Willie watched in awe.
Lalla coughed and worked the pipe laterally. He spat expertly, grunted, and emitted the most extraordinary cackle of a sound. "Humph, well, I dunno, bugger me. Merff, I dunno, ssffee, arrrr." He suddenly removed the pipe from his mouth. "Come on then, but do as you're told. If ya gemme any trouble, I'll kick your arse straight back to Annesley Lane." Without waiting for a reply, he stalked off with the dog at his heels.
Willie, still stone-faced, trotted by his side. Lalla slowed down and glanced quickly at the boy. There was an almost imperceptible softening of the glance.
The pair became a part of the local fauna, two patched scarecrows running free. It was an odd alliance of age and youth bound by a mysterious common bond.
After that first day, Willie would go into the woods with heartfelt anticipation, seeking out Lalla. As the days passed, Lalla and Willie became close, like friends of a kind that was as wholesome as it was intriguing for a young lad of Willie's age. Nobody at home missed the boy when he was gone. It was almost as if he did not exist, and in fact, that truly was pretty much the case in his stepfather's eyes.
One day at the river, Lalla and Willie rested by the water. Lalla puffed contentedly at his pipe. Then he removed it, spat, and looked at the sky. "It's getting black over Bill's mother's. We ought to be making a start." He glanced down at the small figure by his side.
The child was fast asleep. The dark-faced lad was at rest. Lalla was about to shake the boy when he thought differently. Gently, he raised the lad in his arms and carried him. Still, the boy slept. Lalla reached his lair, pushed open the door, and gently deposited Willie on the couch.
Lalla looked down at the small sleeping form.
CHAPTER 2
At the River
The two faces peered into the headwater of the river. Lalla, unshaven and encased in a coat of many patches, stared intently into the river. Willie, if anything brown and more disheveled than Lalla, looked at the tiny forms cutting through the glistening water.
Responding to Willie's curious expression, Lalla replied, "Minnows." He laid down for a closer look.
The boy followed suit.
Softly, Lalla pointed. "Look at 'em."
The boy looked. He was held in total fascination as the small live forms glided and wheeled through the translucent of the stream.
"Another world, idn't it?" remarked Lalla.
The two continued to stare at the minnows.
Keeping his gaze on the watery world, Lalla asked, "Know what family they're in?"
Willie shook his head.
Still staring at the water, Lalla replied, "Carp. They're carp, the littlest in family. Look." He pointed. "See, no scales on his head. Them buggers survive. They eat plankton. Know what plankton is?"
There was another head shake from Willie.
Lalla explained, "Tiny eversa bit of life animal and plant." Lalla, still wondering at the world beneath his eyes, said with a noted sense of feeling, "Ah, they survive. They get where no big uns can't get." Willie glanced at Lalla's excited face as Lalla continued. "Ahhh ahhh."
Slowly, Lalla rose and stretched. Willie followed suit. The two tattered figures stood for a last look at the river, the algae-covered stones, the clumps of mudders and liverworts, and the tiny minnows siding through the gravel, a quest for food and life never ending.
Lalla produced an ancient tin and cramped twist into the bowl of his pipe. His horned thumb prodded the black links deep into the bowl. From subterranean depths of his coat, Lalla unearthed matches. The match scratched harshly. Lalla shielded the ardent flame with his large, broken-nailed hands. His cheeks caved in as he sucked the tobacco to acrid life. Willie, wide-eyed, watched a now familiar and well-loved ritual. The pipe, now well lit, belched forth its fumes.
"Awwwuummphh," Lalla grunted in satisfaction as he turned to Willie and winked.
"Didn't ya like pit, Lalla?" Willie asked inquisitively.
Lalla slowly drew the pipe across his mouth. With a slight cough, he collected a tight knot of spittle and fired it at a drooping elder. It hit the rough trunk with a small crack. Willie's eyes widened.
"I like it up here," said a grinning Lalla and looked up at the sky blue but now dappling with small puff balls of white. With menacing darker shapes looming from the brown fields on the distant horizon, he surveyed the hills. "Look at that."
Man and boy looked. Lalla moved on. Dog and boy followed. They stopped to watch the work of a farm. The splendid brown shires dragged the tardy plow along the field. Rich brown lumps of earth squirmed from the cutting edges of the blades.
Once again eyeing the sky, Lalla remarked, "Gonna rain."
Willie looked skyward.
"Want some tea?" Lalla gruffly invited.
"Naw, I just have to go on," replied Willie.
Lalla inclined his head. "I'll see ya."
Moving closer to Lalla, Willie asked, "Are you going in the woods tonight?"
Lalla eyed Willie reflectively. "Aye, but you're not coming."
"Why not?" asked Willie.
"Never mind why not. Go on get your tea," said Lalla.
Willie still stood.
Lalla eyed the lad. "Go on. I'll be seeing you." Then he moved away. Walking slowly down the village street, Willie arrived home that evening. A stout built figure of a woman, Mabel Bellamy, appeared in a doorway.
Dressed in hat, coat, and gloves, she called to Willie as he entered, "Dontcha want me tea?"
Willie hastened somewhat. He passed the woman as she went out.
Seated in shirtsleeves at the table, Ben Garrity glanced up as Willie entered and snorted, "Where you all been? With that Lalla again? Here's a note for you." Then he turned back to the newspaper he was reading. "There's some tomatoes and some bread."
Willie silently helped himself to the food.
Ben turned again from his newspaper and said with a commanding voice, "And when Mrs. Bellamy comes and gets your tea, be on time."
Silently, Willie munched bread. He dipped a tomato into a small mountain of salt and thrust it into his mouth.
Ben, addressing his newspaper, spoke, "I'm going out tonight, and you'll stop in."
Willie responded, "I want to go out."
"You'll stop in," Ben repeated. "Do as you're told. You can tidy the house up."
Willie chewed morosely. "When's me mom coming back?"
Lowering the paper onto the table, Ben snapped, "I don't know when she's coming back. I don't know if she's coming back, and I don't care. She were no good to me."
With hot tears rising, Willie insisted, "She were then."
Ben sighed sardonically. "Haha, she were?" Now laughing cynically, he said accusingly, "Hahaha ahh, she were a good'un. She buggers off. You'll notice she didn't take yous with 'er, huh? Huh? How 'bout that?" Ben sniffed. "Sssnneefff huh. She were a good'un alright. When your dad died, she hooked me good and proper. What she weren't gonna do? Worse day's work I did ever, clapping eyes on 'er."
"I bet you she sends for me as soon as she's settled." Willie became almost distraught with bread, tomato, and mental anguish warring with each other.
Ben picked up his newspaper and clucked morosely. "You're lucky I'm keeping ya here. Some folks would had ya in home sharpish. So ya oughta get down on your bended knees and thank God I put up with ya." He picked up an envelope. "I've just been reading your skill report. God, I were no scholar, but I'd be ashamed to show that to anybody. And they've noticed what a damn scruff ya are. You and that Lalla's a tidy pair." He dropped the envelope. "Right, I'm gonna get washed. Then I'm going out. And you're stopping in."
"What for?" Willie asked.
Ben raised his voice. "'Cause if you goes out and get into bother, it's me that has to deal with it. Fine for trespass and fine for damage."
"I were only building a den," Willie recounted.
"Ahh, with next door's fence! You're stopping in," Ben ordered.
Willie went upstairs. Staring from the small window, his eyes took in the distant woods of Annesley, stretching over the hazy horizon toward Newstead and Hucknall.
From downstairs, Ben called out, "I'm off. You'll stop there. You can practice your spelling. It needs it." The door slammed. Willie watched a spruced-up Ben walking down the street.
In the velvet dusk, Lalla stood motionless by the water. His ears, sharpened by long years of escapades, caught a slight sound. He glided silently into the shadow of a tree. A boyish figure emerged softly from the shadows opposite Lalla.
Lalla stared at Willie's profile. The boy looked anxious as the dark eyes scanned the riverbank. Lalla stepped quietly to the boy's side.
"I thought you were a keeper, a Robin Hood or somewhat. I told you not to come."
A startled Willie was silent.
The man's eyes searched the boy's face. "Erh, now you're here. Keep still."
Curiously, Willie asked, "What you after, salmon?"
Lalla grinned. "You don't tickle salmon. Trout."
Willie watched as Lalla waded gently into the water with his slow bodily movements of arms, hands, and trunk. Lalla dragged a fish onto the bank. Willie watched mesmerized as Lalla gently stroked the fish's side.
With a sudden darting movement, Lalla was able to grab the trout by the gills. The fish was netted into the bag with lightning speed. Lalla again repeated the operation until he was satisfied with the night's catch. He returned, squelching, to the bank.
Lalla jerked his head in the escape direction. He placed a finger up to his lips to enjoin silence. He pointed with the forefinger to show Willie where to tread. The two shadows glided to safety. Lalla stood statue-like as he approached the lane where his cottage lay. He looked carefully in all directions, and then with another head jerk, he signaled the all-clear.
Once inside the cottage, he dropped the trout into the sink. He turned to the boy and grinned. "Supper." He dropped into a chair. The pipe appeared as if by magic, and twist fumes soon clouded the room.
Willie coughed.
Instantly, Lalla waved away the fumes with his large hands. "Ever eat any trout?"
Willie shook his head.
"Like some?" Lalla asked invitingly.
Willie remarked to Lalla, "Our teacher recons it stealing."
Lalla retaliated, "Teachers don't know ewt."
Testing, Willie asked, "Is it stealing?"
In his reasoning manner, Lalla quipped, "Where does river's lean go?"
Willie was puzzled.
Lalla said, "No? Don't know? It winds everywhere: Bestwood, Hucknall, Bulwell, Nottingham, under the castle, through God's fields and meadows winding, winding, God's air, God's land, God's water, Lalla's trout."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Lalla by Stu Stevens. Copyright © 2015 Stu Stevens. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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