Read by Carrie Cohen
The boot gleams in the firelight, its worn leather restored to black. Not dull black, like seaweed baked too long in the sun; no, today the boot’s blackness is rich and deep. Margaret lifts it closer to her face; inspects one side, then the other. That’ll do.
She sets it gently on the newspaper sheets in front of her — rows of type talking of politics and people she cares nothing for — and tightens the lid on the polish. Kiwi: the distinctive tang couples with the scent of men whose boots have lined the hallways of her life. Grandfer, Dad, her own Sid. This boot, one of Sid’s finest, is now the only one that calls on her labour, and she’s not done badly with it at all.
Resting her hand on the fireplace, Margaret eases herself up from her wooden dining chair and shuffles the few steps to the window. Away from the coals’ warmth, her breath causes the glass to mist: outside, spring is still tussling with the end of winter, and evening darkness has brought a crisp chill. At the end of the street, the gaudy lights that mark out the Ship and Swan sway wildly. The shrub they cling to strains in the wind.
Margaret checks her watch. Eight thirty: she should be heading over soon. She thinks momentarily of her grandchildren, 300 miles away in London; Andrew and Joanne will be trying to get them off to bed. Or at least, Andrew will. Her daughter-in-law, she has long suspected, is more after her own heart: holidays, Easter included, are a time for rules to be broken, clocks to be stopped.
On Andrew’s last visit to Looe, made as usual the first weekend in March (‘Best I come down early if you want to see the kids, remember that year you had snow in April?’), Margaret had watched his hand clench when Joanne asked if she would join her neighbours at the Swan on Easter’s eve. She always expected some disapproval — it is one of the joys of age to be disapproved of by your offspring — but the bluntness, the ignorance, of his interruption had forced blood to her sallow cheeks.
‘That new barman,’ Andrew had said loudly, dismissively — as if he hadn’t been in there himself drinking till the bell both nights of his stay, scrutinising the propriety of the man he knew full well was the new proprietor. ‘That new barman will want to do things his own way, Mum. He’ll have craft beer, bookings, an indie classics playlist. He’s not going to want to be serving you and your random friends that bloody moonshine. And that’s a good thing, Mum. You shouldn’t be out when it’s dark. Learn to leave things in the past.’
Margaret had replied that there was as good a chance she wouldn’t go as there was of a month’s worth of snow blockading the south-west in the run up to Good Friday. Andrew didn’t seem to enjoy the response nearly as much as she did.
Shuffling back towards the hearth, Margaret reaches next to the fireplace for the other half of her soon-to-be instrument — another reason, alongside what Andrew so daftly termed moonshine, for her son’s exasperation. A long, wooden stick, as tall as herself, small silver bells tied to its gnarled frame with red ribbon. Margaret strokes one, its rust-spattered surface coarse even to her callused fingertips. Evening, old friend. The bell clinks a tinny reply.
Margaret places one end of the stick inside the shiny black boot, and drags the whole contraption over to her chair. Bending as low as she can, she pads the boot with handfuls of newspaper, making sure the stick is upright. Next she works the laces, lashing them around the base to fix it in place. She lets go; the wood remains still. Not lost the knack.
Margaret turns to the mirror above the fireplace. Her hair is pulled into a small silver-white bun, held in place with a black velvet clip. She pats it gently; a stray wisp brushes over her cheek. She takes her lipstick from the shelf and lightly runs it over her chapped lips, its redness covering the cracks. Done, she pulls her padded coat over her best purple cardigan, grasps her jangling, newly reborn instrument, and shuffles out into the night.
The walk to the Swan is only a few hundred yards, but to reach the pub takes Margaret longer than she would like anyone to know — Andrew in particular. The night air is heavy with moisture brought in by the sea, and the pavement, already uneven, is starting to ice. The wind tugs at her skin, and she pulls her coat around her tiny frame. More than once, her footing is lost and she clings to the stick for balance, Sid’s boot thudding gently against the ground.
The fiddle is first to reach her: long, wavering notes that meander along the empty street, brushing past her and out into the dark sky. Tom’s proper enjoying ’imself, would ee listen to that now. Another few steps and there is the soft beat of a snare, pulsing a slow waltz.
The door is ajar, and as Margaret nudges it open more sounds from the side room tumble towards her: flute, guitar, harp. The man she takes to be the new owner, sporting a fleece to protect himself from such sudden blasts of air, looks up from the pint in his hand.
‘Margaret — it is Margaret, isn’t it?’ She opens her mouth to reply, but this one is clearly a talker. ‘They’ve been wondering if you'd show up. Come in, if you’re coming, I'm not paying to heat the bloody street.’ He eyes Sid’s boot for what seems to Margaret like an unnecessarily long time. Then: ‘Can I tempt you with a drop of something?’
Behind him, bottles line the wall on deep oak shelves; some, at the end furthest from the till, are thick with dust. Margaret tilts her head at one of these, a dark brown flagon with a faded red and gold label. ‘Not just now, thank ee, but I'll ’ave a splash of spiced rum come midnight.’
The owner mutters something. Seeing Margaret still in front of him, he jabs his arm in the direction of the side room. ‘Go on, then. The rest of the rum crowd will be missing you.’
Margaret eyes the man. Andrew had said he was pretty young, ‘down from Knightsbridge. Marriage blew up apparently, he’s had to start again somewhere cheaper. Passing it off as reinvention.’ Youngish he may be, but the creases tugging at his eyes seem to run almost as deep as her own.
Compared to the bar, empty save the marriage-crisis owner, the side room is flooded with life. The musicians, such as they are — Tom, Bob, Grace and her brother Frank — have a combined age of more than 300, and the song they are playing is even older, but its haunting melody swells against the peeling walls. Margaret knows the lyrics as well as she knows her own hands.
‘But long may we grow close together,
Oh, lily-white rose, cling to me...’
Margaret nods at the room and edges her way towards the far corner, next to Frank on the snare. She allows herself a quick glance at the photograph behind Frank’s grey ponytail. Seven young fishermen, posing on the quayside with a full net, Sid in the centre. No ‘indie classics’, if such things exist, and, at least for now, no tourist-friendly driftwood pictures.
‘I will always remember you darling,
When I gaze on that lily-white rose.’
Margaret takes her seat, and with a loud beat from Frank, the song ends. He leans over, and whispers, ‘Tha’s just in time, love.’ His voice is gruff and warm, borne of tides and tobacco.
Bob drags on his harp, then takes a breath. ‘Ready, Margaret? Still recall who’ll be coming round tha’ there mountain?’
Margaret frowns in mock indignation. She looks to Bob, raises her instrument, and slowly brings it down, striking Sid’s boot against the floor. On cue, Tom raises his fiddle and slides the bow across.
As the song builds, Margaret keeps a steady rhythm with the boot, banging it against the ground. Thud, jangle, thud, jangle. As the bells sound, her heart lifts. She looks around the faces in the room — her neighbours, the friends caught in faded prints, Sid — and feels some lost part of her returning.
The musicians run through a dozen songs, and are trying to settle on another when the owner clatters open the door, carrying a flagon with a red and gold label.
‘Sorry to interrupt,’ he says, with a haste that implies he isn’t. ‘But it’s five to midnight, and I’ve brought your drinks. Lord knows how long this stuff’s been there.’ He glances at Bob. ‘Maybe you do, though, sir.’
Without waiting for a laugh — which is a blessing — the owner pours shots for Margaret and Grace. He passes the flagon to Tom, and nods at more glasses on a tray. ‘You gents can sort your own.’ He steps back into the bar. After a second or two, his voice is back. ‘You’ll pay for what you have, obviously.’ Tom swigs from the flagon and hands it to Frank. He drinks, and passes it to Bob, who does the same.
The spices — ‘Looe’s bestest blend’, the neighbours call it — hit Margaret in a dizzying rush: cinnamon and ginger, oranges and tobacco. As she raises her glass, they mingle with the lingering scent of boot polish on her fingers. She glances coyly at the photo of Sid as she takes her first sip.
The rum is stronger than she remembers. Her cheeks flush. She sips again and, seeing the clock on the wall is showing two minutes to midnight, drains the drink. Bob raises the flagon in the air.
‘Ter friends and lovers, always.’
He sounds a low note on the harp. Margaret doesn’t need to be told the song; it will be ‘My Bonnie’. Remembrance and reunion. The musicians take up their instruments, but this time, there is no fiddle, no flute, no snare. Each man and woman holds a long wooden stick, on the ends an assortment of boots and shoes. Worn, faded, but each, in the pub’s low light, shining.
Frank clears his throat and begins, in a low baritone, ‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean—’
The reply comes from Grace:
‘My Bonnie lies over the sea,’
And Tom:
‘My Bonnie lies over the ocean—’
And Margaret's soft voice, wavering, yearning, ‘So bring back my Bonnie to me.’
The musicians raise their sticks. As they start the chorus, five shoes are brought down on to the pub’s wooden floor, sending clouds of dust into the air.
‘Bring ... back—’ Thump. ‘Bring ... back—’ Thump. ‘Bring back my Bonnie ...’
With each round, the chorus quickens, the shoes beat faster, stronger. Margaret no longer feels the weight of the stick she is holding. When she looks down at her hands, they are soft, smooth.
‘Bring back, bring back—’
Next to her, Frank’s tangled dark hair falls across his face as he sways in time to the beat. Bob is smiling a wide, perfect smile.
‘Bring back—’
The room is drowning in sound, a storm crashing against rocks. Rising above the beat, scores of voices join in song.
Margaret raises her hand to her hair and pulls away the clip, sending a rush of curls down around her shoulders. In the corner of the room she sees him, holding out his hand.
(c) Sarah Richardson, 2020
Sarah Richardson recently started writing short stories, helped along the way by evening classes at City University and Goldsmiths. She works as a journalist and editor covering higher education, and has an MA in English from Newnham College, Cambridge. She grew up in Essex and lives in south London.
Carrie Cohen’s theatre includes Sandra in Tick Tock, Penny in Blackstar (both at Arcola Theatre), SLAMinutes at Pleasance & Mrs Tarleton in Misalliance (Tabard). Recent film includes the lead roles of Grace in Just Saying and Rose in Skeletons. Radio includes lead role of Ziggy in Retribution for Write Hour drama podcast. Full CV, showreel and Spotlight link at: www.CarrieCohen.co.uk
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