H. A. MANHOOD

 

H. A. Manhood's stories were compared by one contemporary critic to old brandy: 'One lingers over their fragrance, rejoices in their smoothness, tastes and re-tastes every drop.' Manhood had a seemingly limitless range of character and invention and a constant freshness of approach. He wrote of the countryside and country people, condensing and distilling the very flavour and character of life into his brief, vivid, unusual tales with an immediacy which made his world almost violently alive.

Apart from a single novel Manhood published seven collections of short stories as well as numerous uncollected stories. He lived much of his life in a converted railway carriage with his wife in Small Dole near Henfield in the Sussex countryside.  Many of his short stories touch upon the supernatural whilst others are firmly rooted in a realistic mode. In 2009 The Sundial Press plans to issue a distillation of his best work in a single volume.

'He observes life afresh ... he has a style as to whose fundamental excellence there can hardly be two opinions ... he has a genuine, an appealing, a touching sense of beauty, and his imaginative power is sometimes simply tremendous. Read the book. I guarantee that it will shake you out of the rut of indifference.' ARNOLD BENNETT writing in the London Evening Standard.

Nightseed ~ Brotherhood ~ The Peach Tree ~ A Simple Tale ~ The Unbeliever ~ The Black Apron ~ The Cough ~ Fear ~ Apples by Night ~ Beauty ~ Devil in Church ~ Apple Women ~ Wilful Murder ~Change Partners ~ Bread and Vinegar ~ Crab-Apple Jelly ~ Crack of Whips ~ Three Nails ~ Paradise Lost ~ Love Thy Neighbour ~ The Holly Tree ~ Juggernaut ~ The Island of The Saint ~ The Black Angel ~ Doctor Solo~ A Long View of Nothing ~ Shall we Ghost? ~ The Big Snore ~ Stardust ~ Merchant Princes ~ Fairweather Ending ~ Heart in Hand ~The Gooseberry and the Rose ~ Penny a Minute ~ Wings for a Mouse ~ The Gift of a Garden ~ Whisper a Wish

Read Manhood's  short story: LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

H. A. Manhood  A SIMPLE TALE

A SIMPLE TALE

 I came upon the cottage quite unexpectedly, as one might a picture in a book. It was set in the curve of the Bay like an uncut and solitary gem in a crescent brooch. Approach was possible either by way of the beach, or along a blackberry-beaded path which had split on reaching the crumbling garden walls to branch on either side and unite again, as would two bent bows laid string by string, a divergence suggesting that perhaps half of the few wayfarers had lacked either courage or desire to pass the cockle-roofed porch. Three tall chimneys projected from the roof like the legs of an upturned stool, a viny wisp of smoke waver­ing above one of them and bird-sown oats sprouting from another, the tall stems nodding as if marking the rhythm of a divine waltz. The slates seemed to have ripened in sympathy with the few apples yet clinging to the two trees crouched together at the rear. A great iron X supported the blind and flaking side wall; rusty-tears had dripped from its two lowermost points with such persistency as to make it seem as though the X was fitted with stilts and simply propped against the wall. A single poppy and a clump of mallow, St. John's wort and flowering currant shrubs sheltered as best they could behind the breached walls, the poppy leading a futile prayer against the wind that never ceased to rake them with scalding sand.

It could not be said that the cottage faced the sea; rather did it look sideways at it, a little patronizingly, it seemed, perhaps because it was aware that it was beyond the reach of the highest tide. An upturned boat lay in the bleached grass fringing the beach, its seams gaping hungrily, despite the efforts of countless spiders to stitch them together; a name was visible on the gunwale in letters so worn as to seem no more than the idle scribblings of a snail — ‘Michael Swan — Port Anne’, a reposeful combination. Nets were draped "between four bearded piles, forming an amphitheatre in which two butterflies pirouetted before an inatten­tive audience of flies. A remarkable calceolaria bloomed before the one window that could be said to view the sea with all attention, a mass of yellow bubbles rising waist high, suggesting that a huge and wonderful crab had chosen to sun itself by the white­washed wall. An oar had been clamped to a corbel so that the blade jutted in the manner of an accusing finger, and upon it was burnt the single, almost threatening word 'Tea'.

I opened the wicket, and the gatekeeper, an almond white cat curled in a mouldering lobster pot, awoke and stared intently, as through a barely open door, sinking again into sleep before I had crossed the cobbled, yard. The kitchen was full of clotted sunlight and smelt faintly of eucalyptus and new bread. Blue flames licked each other's wounds in the grate. A scorched blanket was spread over the table, and a thin little woman with high rolled sleeves was working backwards and forwards, goffering a petticoat. So energetically had she been handling the iron that her blouse had escaped from her waistband, and was rippling petal-wise above the black lily of her skirt. Her thin hair was drawn tightly back, the coiled knot resting in the nape, a parting running over like a path across a grey moorland. Her lips were puckered as if the taste of a bitter medicine yet lingered in her mouth. She started as I knocked with the luck-stone hanging from the lintel, turning, her blue-grey eyes hard with astonishment. I offered explanation.

 'Milk?' she echoed soberly. Replacing her iron upon an upturned basin, she hurried across to the dresser and lifted the saucer capping a great jug, stroking her lips thoughtfully. 'Yes, I've enough and to spare. An egg and some vinegar? Why yes, I can manage that too ... If you'll just be stepping this way and taking a seat. . .' She unlatched a door and led the way into a brooding parlour. 'You must be excusing the litter — the house is so small, we've hardly room for our souls.' She seemed to settle her soul more firmly, as one might dispose a child in a cradle. With nervous haste, she swept a folded suit and a foot-square Bible from a horsehair armchair, dusted the seat with her apron, and rearranged the antimacassar. Til not be keeping you many minutes,' she said, and went from the room, her skirts caressing divers chair legs, causing them to smile faintly through the film of dust.

It was impossible not to feel chilled in that room. Gazing at the rock-crystal crucifix propped upon the mantel, it was not difficult to imagine that I sat in a relic-strewn chapel. A quaint little harmonium drowsed in one corner; had I squeezed a hymn from it, the nameless Methodist parson guarding the door­way, Lord Nelson, the Prodigal Son, Florence Nightin­gale, and the host of hour-glass and barrel-shaped nonentities staring from their wormy frames, would have opened their mouths and sung lustily. Their concentrated gaze was vaguely terrifying. I counted thirty-three pairs of eyes and the single one of Lord Nelson centred upon me, and was almost moved to declare my innocence. The arms of the horsehair chair were like prickly leaves to the touch, a fortunate peculiarity, since by maintaining a firm grip I was able to view the remaining furnishings without awe. The vast number of shells disposed about the room led me to suppose that a feast of shellfish had taken place there at an early date, the debris being only partially removed. There were souvenirs enough to stock a bazaar. A parched fern drooped helplessly over a bottle of Jordan water; dust had mellowed the tints of a pyramid of wax fruits; vases and candlesticks stood like beggars at street corners. Volcanic eruptions seemed to have taken place inside the couch and chair seats. The wallpaper was faded into the likeness of columns of Ethiopic script, corners everywhere hang­ing down as if marking the place of a student. Some­thing moved in the chimney from time to time — memories perhaps — causing little showers of soot to rain upon the paper flowers filling the fireplace. Curtains hung like crucified saints. One object only held the attention by its beauty. Upon the window-ledge was a model of a fifteenth-century galleon, a perfect piece built of some smoky wood, with sails bellying as if under wind pressure. A tall, knife-bladed cactus flanked the model; the calceolaria beneath the window rose like a sandstone bluff; beyond, was the sea, a great blue-green paten with a boat resting like a fallen leaf on the rim — the galleon might have been skirting a tropic coast. . . .

Splashes of sound came from the kitchen before the survey was done — the mellow chiming of glassware commingling with the profound grumbling of a tray and a brittle waterfall of music from a dropped spoon. The little woman entered suddenly, unfolding a table­cloth starched to the stiffness of buckram. With quick, fluttering movements, she cleared the trembling table of ornaments and spread the cloth as carefully as if she were dressing an altar, staring fixedly as I commended on the arrangement of the folds.

'Indeed they are,' she murmured thoughtfully. 'Just like wings, gulls' wings, as you say — a pair at each corner of the table.' She was silent for a moment, soft eyed, contemplating something deep within her soul. 'My son, he was used to say things like that,' she said, very slowly, and hurried away, returning almost imme­diately with a laden tray. 'My son, he always used to say that spiders' webs were the ghosts of wheels, of old-time shields and baskets . . .' Her thin hands trembled as she set jug, glass, egg and cruet within reach.

'A keen comparison that surely is. I should like to meet — to talk with your son. There are few who walk with open eyes. . . .'

Her hands came together and held each other tightly, and I wished the words unsaid.

'My son, he is buried over the hill.' She watched the words diminish and vanish, grown suddenly very old. 'Buried over there he is . . .' She pointed un­certainly. 'So quiet — no one knows but me.' Words seemed to form against her will. 'You're a stranger, but no matter. Sometimes I feel it is too much for just one to know. Yet who can I share a soreful secret like that with? There's only Michael — my husband Michael — and he must never know — his heart would surely shrivel. . . .'

Her lips moved on, but no words came. Her eyes wavered round the room from face to face, as if she sought permission to shell her secret. Rising suddenly, she moved across to the window-ledge, lifting the galleon with great care, a fleeting, broken smile lighting her face, as a candle lights an empty room. She stood the model before me, and sank into a chair like one exhausted by a great labour.

'My son, he made that — he'd clever hands. His head was full of beautiful growing things. He saw things with his soul. He'd tell Michael and me of wonders he'd seen in his travels, things that no one but him would notice. It was like reading the Bible to listen to him. It wasn't fair that he should die — he loved too well — God ought to have seen . . . But I mustn't say such things. John, he always used to say that to die was better than being born — he knew.'

She stroked the flowing shape of the galleon, wan­dering beyond her grief. Her voice became very low; she might have been talking to herself, each word a primrose laid upon a grave:

'It was natural he should want to be a sailor — sea salt was in his blood. When he was a wee spillikin, he used to talk to the waves as though they were his brothers. Call them by name, he would — Kalehead, Eight-Tooth, Lazer . . . He'd sailed all the seas of the world before he was twenty-five. He was second mate — he'd worked his way up so quietly. Each time he came home I could see a difference — he was more grown up, more sure of himself. Looking at him, I'd say, "Nothing can disturb our John", and nothing human could. He'd a way with him — a way of looking at you that scraped away all the muck in your brain. . . .

'He made this beautiful ship on his last voyage. I can see him now, coming home and mounting it on my floury pasteboard. "There, Mum," he said. "Your ship's come home at last", and he laughed like a true son of God, and told us to unload. Tucked away inside, Michael and me found a packet of money — enough to keep us afloat for five years — with some tobacco for father and a fine brooch for me. Rare dreams we had that night. Three weeks he was home, laughing and singing and saying things so beautiful they hurt. And then it was time for him to go. He went one morning, and we went with him as far as Portsdown. He told us to look out for his ship as she passed down Channel in the early morning, told us how she'd be dressed, how soon he'd be home again. It was all too true. On the day he sailed, a terrible storm broke — the winds were right out of temper, you could hardly hear your­self speak. Father and me, we told ourselves every­thing would be all right with our boy. We watched for the ship — the Spinning Cloud it was named — but not a sign could we see. We thought all was well — Michael still thinks so.

'A handful of days went by. On a Saturday, it was, that I noticed how excited the gulls at Kinsey Point were. All morning they screamed and squabbled, flying high like bits of paper in a wind. I'd my work — I didn't think what they could be at. Just after noon, two young stranger men came and asked for a plank and some sailcloth — they'd found all that was left of a drowned man out at the Point. They took what they wanted. Presently they returned, all mucked with sweat and a little sickened, and laid their find in the outhouse. I hung some flypapers over it, for the flies were ravenous that year. A rag of shirt dragged like a torn wing. When they'd gone, I screwed myself to lift the cloth. I knew that shirt, for I'd washed and stitched it so few days before. Our John had come home again. I picked the limpets from his boots, and thought of father, praying to God to help me keep the secret. He heard me . . . There was nothing to tell that it was our boy, except the shirt, and Michael wouldn't be remem­bering that — he's not a remembering man.

'I met him when he came home, and told him some poor sailor had been taken by the sea and washed ashore. He looked — I'll never forget how he looked — but he didn't know it was our John. I was fearing the news of the shipwreck would come to him. I wrote to the agents, asking for a true word, and they told me all was well, naming the ports the Spinning Cloud had already called at—I've the letter somewhere — it was nicely put. I knew then that our John had been washed over­board, perhaps when he was trying to sight home. Somehow the news hadn't reached the agents. They and Michael wouldn't know until the ship came home with a new mate. But God was kind, for she never came home again. She was wrecked in a foreign sea, thousands of miles away, everyone being saved, so they said. The crew scattered. Michael thinks John is trying his hand at a job out East, that he's doing well, and won't write until he's made a fortune. Please God he may always think that. ..."

The ears of the white cat twitched irritably as I passed out of the yard, but it did not wake. It knew all, but affected to know nothing. The Bay was empty. The boat seen earlier on the rim was now drawn up on the beach, very like a dead whale with the harpoon yet projecting. Michael Swan was fettering a skepful of lobsters. I crossed and he nodded distantly. "Dafternoon to you. Ay, 'tis a pretty day.' He chipped the words off very deliberately. He was a big man, grey as a badger, and with curiously gentle hands. His eyes were so deep set that looking at them was like looking down twin corridors into velvet hung rooms. A priest would have found it a difficult matter to interest him. A torn angler fish lay in the bottom of the boat. He picked it up, and, noting my interest, made slow comment:

'God do father some queer shapes, to be sure. It was caught in one of the pots — its jaws broken and its fishing rod gone. I killed it as quickly as I could . . .' He seemed to be apologizing to Someone unseen.

I spoke of a similar fish met with in the Caribbean Sea, and he eyed me thoughtfully, piling words, like so many bricks, before speaking. His jersey had been darned in many places with a bright blue wool. His gaze visited the neat patches as systematically as a bee visits flowers in a garden.

'She've been mentioning our boy, haven't she?' He nodded towards the cottage. 'Aye, I could tell by the model being moved from the sill. She's that proud of 't. She've likely been telling how he's making headway out East, maybe asked you to inquire of your friends for news of a John Swan? I'm thanking you, but you needn't be bothering. Our boy's home already, but she — the wife — don't know it. She's only a weak little body, and if she but knew that John was lying over the hill in the Strangers' Corner, she'd not be long for this earth. He was washed overboard on the outward voyage nigh on two years ago. The tides played with him and flung him on the Rocks below the Point. I found him in the early morning and took everything that proved who 'twas — buttons, tabs, everything — and went straightway to Portsdown, meaning to have him carried there. But, while I was gone, two young­sters found him and brought him home. She never knew 'twas her own flesh and blood lying out there. She greeted me sadly enough: "Some poor fellow has been washed up ... We must do all we can to find out who he is ... his mother will be wearing her heart away for news. . . ." '

Copyright © The Estate of H.A. Manhood 2008

Harold Alfred Manhood (1904-1991)

Read another Manhood short story: LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

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2008