from Box of Tricks
By Jeff Phelps
from
Box of Tricks
Jeff Phelps
I was hooked. It is a nostalgic 1960s seaside tale with a set of endearing characters in a coming of age story that drew me straight in -- Sarah Broadhurst ― The Bookseller
ONE
The first thing we heard was laughter, then the slamming of taxi doors. So it was pretty obvious they’d finally arrived – the Rodney Cooper Light Opera Company. From inside Vi’s boarding house I could tell it was like they were the opera, even if they weren’t actually doing it at the time. You could hear the noise following them round. I wouldn’t have been surprised if an orchestra had come out of the taxi with them.
My Auntie Vi, who was in the kitchen, walked down the hall when she heard them, trying to take her pinny off as she went. But somebody had already pushed the front door open and was standing in the hall singing, ‘Coo-ee’ at the top of her voice. ‘Coo-ee. Vi? Anyone at home?’
This was a pretty stupid question. There was always someone at home in Vi’s boarding house, the front door was open and there was Vi coming down the hall. Even my cousin Ray had crawled out of his pit and come to the top of the stairs rubbing his eyes. Quarter past eleven on his day off was early for him.
I stood in the hall like someone waiting to be overwhelmed by a giant wave. The Coo-ee woman had a fake fur coat and bangles that slid up and down one elegant, freckled arm when she talked. ‘Oh, my god, Vi, you look fantastic. What have you been doing with yourself?’ she said. She squeezed her and let her go again like she was a sponge.
This was hard to take because Vi was only a little woman and her face was tight and screwed up from years of scrubbing floors and shopping and cooking and looking after the place with only a bit of help from her mother, Nanny, and a lot of hindrance from Ray. To me she always looked the same. She still had that ingrained smell of disinfectant and spud peelings.
Then the rest of them were in the hall, filling it up. I counted five not including Vi, and an increasing flow of luggage. It was as if they were on a stage that was too small for them, jostling for the middle in case they fell off it. There were two youngish women called Maisie and Irene and, hovering near the door, a bloke with winkle picker shoes and a pleasant face. He reached through and shook Vi’s hand. ‘Alastair,’ he said and laughed nervously.
Charles was at the front, of course. Auntie Vi kept a framed photo of Charles on the sideboard in the kitchen. In the photo Charles was done up as Koko out of the Mikado. It was a real close-up of his face. It had been powdered white. His lips were dark and his eyes had been extended with slanted pencil lines. He had his hair pulled back under a little hat and wore a tunic with a Chinese collar. Handwritten in the bottom corner of the photo were the words, ‘To Vi with love as always’ and a squiggle which said ‘Charles’ and three neat kisses, all in black ink. So I recognised Charles as soon as I saw him. Except for his hair. Now there was no hat to restrain it, it sprang up round his head like a halo, the colour of a baby orang-utan. It contrasted with his bushy grey eyebrows.
Charles waited until the noise had died down before he held his arms out to Vi. She came and put her arms inside his coat which he had draped round his shoulders in a way that made me think he was just waiting for someone to take it off for him – some dresser or whatever they had in theatres. ‘How are you, my Violet?’ he asked in a voice as sharp as a gramophone needle.
‘Glad to see you, Charles. At last. Just pleased to see you all.’ She only came up to the level of the purple handkerchief in the top pocket of his shirt.
Box of Tricks (Tindal Street Press) is available as an e-book from Amazon or from World of Books & other online book stores.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Box-Tricks-Jeff-Phelps/dp/095564769X
