Historical Short Story: Count Your Blessings

HISTORICAL SHORT STORY BY KARLA SMITH

In this story, set in the 1970s, Family could be embarrassing, but I wouldn’t change them for the world…

John, put your winker on!” Gran’s words, shouted above the wind and rain, almost make me smile. Almost, but not quite.

Partly because I’m sixteen now and smiling at the word “winker” would be juvenile.

Partly because I’m so het up I doubt even Ken Dodd or the Two Ronnies could make me smile at the moment.

Gramps stirs the gearbox, finds one he likes, as Dad would say, and eases his foot down on the throttle.

We leave the junction behind and the speedometer climbs to a leisurely 35 mph, Gramps’s preferred speed, even in a 30 limit.

He claims this averages out fine legally, given the number of times when he could do 60 and doesn’t.

“Did you hear me, John?” Gran yells. “I said . . .”

“’Tis on, Norrie,” Gramps interrupts.

“Well, I didn’t hear it,” Gran says.

“I did,” Gramps says firmly.

I have to say, I didn’t hear it, either. In better weather, you can easily make out the movement of the little orange flag outside the car.

Rising to the horizontal with a groan when Gramps turns it on; crashing down with a thump when he turns it off again.

If he remembers to turn it off. Luckily, he’s got Gran to help him with that.

Personally, I don’t think it matters very much if the flag is up or down.

Surely most other road users won’t expect to see an indicator sticking out of a door frame?

They’ll be looking for it somewhere near the bumpers, like on Mum and Dad’s Cortina, the blissfully unremarkable car I should be travelling in, had it not failed to start for Mum tonight.

It’s kind of Gran and Gramps to give me a lift down from the farm but we’re running very late.

Mainly because of Gran, indulging in a dusting of face powder and a dab of scent before tying on a head scarf, tucking the tails into the front of her second-best coat.

Poor Gramps has only got one “going out” coat: a tweed jacket, differing from those he wears around the farm only in the fact that it’s cleaner, and not held together with baler twine.

He’s wearing it now, along with his best trilby, rammed on his head, making the tops of his ears stick out.

Finally, we’re all in the car, a funny little bubble of a thing which pre-dates me by ten years, its registration having occurred in 1951 and my own in ’61.

According to Dad, if Gramps had waited another few years before buying his dream car, it would have come with self-cancelling indicators.

Which would have put Gran out of a job, and her nose out of joint.

I’d like to say the Morris Minor is eating up the miles towards town and my school disco, but it’s more like spoon-feeding a reluctant baby.

Still, if I’m late, everyone else should have already gone into the gymnasium and my arrival will go unnoticed.

I’m particularly anxious that it should go unnoticed by Jed . . .

I touch my hair, fancying it’s still warm from the curling tongs wielded by Mum in an effort to create a sleek pageboy from a wild and rebellious bob.

I could do with a mirror. I’ve got a little one in my handbag, along with a pencil torch.

Well, it’s Mum’s mirror really, and Mum’s torch. Mum’s handbag, too, come to that.

“Stop fiddling with your hair!” Gran bellows from the pitch darkness of the front seat, proving that she not only has eyes in the back of her head, but infrared vision as well.

“It looks a treat, Kate,” she adds warmly.

You’ll be the belle of the ball.

“Thanks, Gran,” I call back, “but I’m not going to a ball, remember? It’s just the seniors’ disco.”

“The belle of the disco, then,” she replies. “But whatever is it, I’m sure your dance card will be full all night.”

I sigh. Gran reads far too much Georgette Heyer.

But surely even Gran can’t confuse one of Ms Heyer’s elegant 19th-century heroines, in yards of chiffon and lace, with a 1970s teenager in a tie-dye midi dress, platform shoes and a duffel coat?

At last, we reach the
A road, and the outskirts of the little town.

Streetlights give colour and substance to the shoulder-to-shoulder couple in front of me.

Gran’s copper-coloured headscarf is resting on the collar of her camel hair coat. Gramps’s checked trilby lightly brushes the roof.

Looking ahead to the end of the road, I can see what looks like a smudge of glitter around the double doors of the gym.

Fairy lights, I imagine, making the square, modern block stand out against the darkness of the much older main building.

I can’t see if there are any kids outside. It’s unlikely, surely, in the pouring rain? Still, better safe than sorry.

“You can drop me here if you like,” I offer, whilst we’re still some way from the school entrance.

“I could do with the exercise, and I’ll dry off fine inside.”

I know this won’t really wash because I’ve already done a ton of exercise, feeding my ponies, rabbits and Boadicea the pig in between getting home from school and setting out for the disco.

“Tut! Show me the beau who wants to waltz with a drowned rat!” Gran says.

“Pull up down there, John,” she adds, pointing ahead to the school gates.

Gramps obeys, parking the Moggie in clear sight of a little group of people, just inside.

Sixth formers, by the look of them, but no sign of Jed, thank goodness.

I scramble clear of the little car, thanking Gran and Gramps as quietly as the howling gale allows.

As they trundle off, I make a dash past the group, clutching Mum’s handbag and feeling slightly sick.

In the gym, disco lights hung from the climbing frames strobe the dancers so that they either have stripy faces or no faces at all, depending on where the light is.

Appropriately enough, “Tiger Feet” is playing as I weave my way through the crowd of fourth, fifth and sixth formers.

The floor jumps as a couple of hundred teenagers stomp in time to the beat.

I smile to myself, thinking of Gran and her genteel waltz.

“Something funny?” a voice asks over the music.

I look up and there’s Jed, towering by my side, grinning down at me.

I’m not about to say I’m thinking of my grandmother because that seems childish.

Instead, I shout back that this song, “Tiger Feet”, reminds me of home.

Jed guides me to the side of the room, where it’s easier to talk.

You don’t keep tigers at that farm of yours, do you?

he asks, eyes twinkling.

“No,” I reply. “But we’ve got plenty of mud!”

It’s a feeble joke, but Jed chuckles and I find myself relaxing for the first time since leaving home.

The heavy beat of Mud’s classic single fades, and the frantically flashing lights steady for a moment.

In the pause I see a couple of my fellow fifth formers milling in the mêlée, and my friend Sian waving as she catches sight of me standing with Jed.

“I’m glad you came,” Jed says. “I wasn’t sure you would.”

I wasn’t sure I would, either. I’m not a big one for dancing and dressing up.

But it felt very grown up to be asked to the disco by Jed and before I knew where I was, I’d said yes.

“I’m glad I came, too,” I say, thinking how well he suits the casual look.

We’ve been chatting for weeks, in and around school, but I’ve never seen him in “civvies” before.

He’s wearing bell-bottomed jeans with a pair of cowboy boots peeking out from under the hems and a hand-knitted jumper over what looks like a school shirt.

It’s all topped off by a faded but really cool leather jacket – definitely not part of our uniform!

The next record comes on, triggering the disco lights and mercifully distracting the ever-inquisitive Sian.

She’ll want all the details during half term, that’s for sure.

This number is slower. Jed hovers awkwardly.

“Wanna dance?” he asks finally.

I glance around the packed gym. There are very few other couples.

The girls are gyrating in pairs or small groups, and such boys as have taken to the floor are clowning about in big, ragged circles.

It’s brave of Jed to suggest we dance together. Mentally putting a first tick on my card, I walk into his arms, and the gorgeous scent of leather.

You live quite a way out, don’t you?

he asks as we shuffle an area of the floor the size of a door mat.

I nod ruefully.

“Back of beyond.”

“How did you get down tonight?”

It’s a simple question but it catches me unawares. I don’t want to tell him I came with my grandparents in a Morris Minor as that doesn’t sound remotely cool.

“Oh, I caught a cab,” I say breezily instead. Then I freeze. What on earth possessed me to say that?

I feel Jed’s chin rise from my hair and imagine his puzzled face as he grapples with my answer.

There are no taxi firms in Pentre Meurig and even if there were, no driver would waste petrol cruising for a fare between where I live and the town.

I manage a laugh.

“Only joking. I got a lift down with my grandparents.

“Mum’s car wouldn’t start so they offered to bring me and take me back. They live with us, you see.”

The truth feels much better, and I realise there’s no need to mention the Moggie at all.

“What’s it like?” Jed queries. “Having your grandparents living with you?”

“OK, I suppose,” I say doubtfully, thinking of Gran’s constant fussing and Gramps’s silent acceptance; the way they’ve muddled along for decades, chuntering and bickering and making mountains out of molehills.

“You know what oldies are like. So irritating at times.”

“I don’t, actually,” Jed says.

“Don’t what?”

“Know what oldies are like.”

I smile into his leather jacket.

“Count yourself lucky, then!”

All too soon the evening draws to a close.

Apart from a brief break in the music for the head to wish us all a happy half-term, it’s been a great opportunity for us kids to let our hair down on school property without fear of reprimand from the staff.

Instead, we’re under the watchful eyes of the second-year sixth prefects who’ve had their work cut out, breaking up a scuffle between two lads and nipping a burgeoning Conga in the bud.

Jed and I have danced together some of the time and also with our friends.

But in a peculiar parody of “Cinderella”, I’m starting to feel anxious about the time.

I have no illusions about my coach turning into a pumpkin because it never stopped being one. I’d just prefer not to have an audience when I clamber back into it.

I say a quick goodbye to a rather surprised Jed and run to the changing rooms for my coat.

The muted beat from the disco is going round and round in my head as I survey the crowded coat hooks. I can’t see my coat!

Or rather, I can see too many that look exactly like mine.

It seems I’m not the only one to have worn my regulation dark blue duffel to the disco.

Panic sets in as growing numbers of pupils stream through the changing room, plucking coats from hooks and heading for the front doors.

Finally, I find mine on the floor at the far end and realise practically everyone else has now left the building.

Out on the road, the little Morris hogs prime position, bang in front of the school gates.

Gran probably badgered Gramps into getting here early, so they could bag the “pull in”, which is Gran-speak for a parking space.

Because the car has only two doors, she has to get out in the rain to let me into the back seat.

Luckily, the other stragglers from the disco are running, heads down, for their lifts.

No-one takes any notice as we eventually ease away from the kerb, sandwiched between a Ford Capri and an Austin Allegro.

The Capri leaves us standing but we stay ahead of the Allegro, whose driver is probably sticking to the speed limit while Gramps sails along five mph over it.

Gran is agog to hear about the “dance”. I tell her about the music, our DJ who also moonlights as a physics teacher, and the various friends I saw.

Then, with studied nonchalance, I mention Jed.

She isn’t taken in for one minute, demanding more details of my “beau” and mentally, I’m sure, starting to plan the wedding.

“He’s tall,” I say. “Taller than any boy at school. And he has long, wavy, auburn hair.

“Oh, and he has a leather jacket, which he doesn’t wear to school, of course, but he looks –”

“A bit like this chap?” Gran interrupts, gesturing at the road ahead.

I haul myself between the front seats to peer through the rainy windscreen.

Sure enough, there’s Jed, walking rapidly along the narrow pavement, leaning into the wind.

“Um, yes,” I say. “That could be him. He lives this way, right on the edge of town.”

To my dismay, Gran immediately tells Gramps to pull over.

Well, we can’t have this, can we? And toot! Toot sweet, in fact . . . as sweet as you like!

Gran roars with laughter at her joke as Gramps peeps the horn and applies the brakes.

Gran flings open her door, narrowly missing Jed, and hurls herself out into the weather.

I can only sit here as I hear my name mentioned and a familiar face appears at the back window, grinning in recognition.

Next thing, the front seat goes forward and suddenly there’s Jed, squashed alongside me, shaking his wet curls like a Irish setter, spraying us all.

Delighted as I am to see him, I’m dreading Gran reminding Gramps about the winker at any stage of the journey.

I reckon we have about three turns to make between here and Jed’s house.

Sadly, I’ve forgotten that Gramps needs to signal right now, to pull away from the kerb.

“John, put your winker on!” Gran yells before I can gather my wits, to a delighted guffaw from Jed.

In the darkness my face glows with embarrassment, but Jed seems really interested in the indicators and the car in general, chatting away to Gramps, who’s in his element talking about his pride and joy.

I hear the word “classic” a few times and “British engineering”.

Predictably, Gran then takes over, quizzing Jed about his background and home life in the last few minutes before we drop him off.

I discover a few things I didn’t know. Like the fact that Jed lives with his mum and never sees his dad, since his parents divorced.

Their home doesn’t sound particularly cosy, being a rented upstairs flat in much need of repair.

He rarely sees either set of grandparents and has only limited time with his mum, who works nights in a local nursing home to enable Jed to stay on for his A-levels.

As we turn into Jed’s road, Gran and Gramps are too busy bickering about finding a “pull in” to worry about Jed and me, cramped in the back seat.

Jed turns to me.

“Your folks are fantastic,” he says in a low voice.

“Well, Gran’s a bit of a character, that’s for sure,” I whisper back.

“I can’t say she doesn’t embarrass me, though, from time to time.”