‘Aunt Lucy’s Last Stand’

(With apologies to Michael Bond and friends!)

Aunt Lucy snapped back the brim of her  favourite black hat, then looked very hard and cross at her reflection in the mirror.

“This won’t do”, she said. “Things may not be good in darkest Peru. But - my word - they’re much worse in London!

“So while I’m far too old to go gallivanting, when I learn that my favourite nephew is in need of ‘parental guidance’, I know that I have no choice”.

So without further ado, she wrapped her grandest shawl around her shoulders; pushed her feet into wellington boots left unworn since she’d become resident at the Home for Retired Bears, and double-checked the contents of her outsized reticule:

• Half-dozen 16oz jars Darkest Peruvian Vintage Coarse Cut Marmalade (suitable only for persons aged 18 years and over, not to be supplied to anyone below that age)
• Two score and ten bars 70% extra-bitter, plain chocolate (suitable only for persons aged 15 years and over, not to be supplied to anyone below that age) 
• Three dozen clean pairs unmentionables in case of accidents (please don’t ask!)
• Assault rifle and floor plan for use at Natural History Museum, London (violent content warning)

At last Aunt Lucy felt she was ready to leave for her arduous journey. But native good manners made her reach for her telephone to make an urgent call.

It took her a few minutes to find the correct number. But with help from a  gentleman at international telephone enquiries, whom she discovered was a distant cousin and spoke excellent Spanish plus an array of minor Amazonian languages, she was connected to  a line in London.

A friendly voice answered almost at once.

“Hello, Paul King here. May I ask who’s calling?”

“Hello, indeed!”, said Aunt Lucy, sounding most imposing. “If you don’t know who I am, what could happen next doesn’t bear consideration”.

“Oh, Aunt Lucy, said King, his voice oozing like melting butter on hot toast. “I thought you’d be with us by now. You know that our bio-pic, Paddington,  devoted entirely to the exploits of your wonderful nephew, is due to open this week. We do hope you can join us. It’s going to be so much fun”.

”I don’t know how you can say that, Mr King. I understand you’ve – well – given my bear ideas above his station. Up to now he’s always led a sheltered life; first with me; then with the Browns in their quiet suburban house. I don’t know whether I want him mixing with Hollywood riff-raff. I find it all highly irregular”.

“But, Aunt Lucy. I – er, I mean we - ”

“Please don’t interrupt, Paul, there’s a good boy”, said Aunt Lucy, using his first name as her patience began to fray. “I really can’t bear that sort of behaviour. It’s not seemly of a film director and writer.

“I simply want to speak to you before I arrive in London as I don’t think we’ll have a chance for serious conversation amid all the razzamatazz. What I must emphasise is that I don’t want ‘Paddington’ - as all you British folk insist on calling him – to be exposed to any dangerous behaviour, threats, sex references or bad language. No matter that it’s all ‘mild’. The word’s very subjective and as I must keep reminding everyone, he’s still very unworldly for a lad who was born in 1958. I  suppose it was the era as much as anything. But never mind that, now”.

“Please don’t worry”, said King, relieved to get a word in. “There’s no ‘sex’ – just ‘innuendo’; the bad language is only infrequent and anyway, everyone says the film is bloody marvellous”.

“That’s what I mean”, said Aunt Lucy, exasperated. “I think this is the real reason why that Colin Firth chappie said – what audacity – ‘he simply doesn’t have my voice’. Surely, Mr Firth means that he doesn’t have my nephew’s voice. But never mind. This is what happens when people lose track of who they are. In my day, there were places for everyone and everything, with all in their proper place. Now, while I’m in the mood, I’d like to speak to Michael Bond. He’s got my bear into a terrible scrape here and I want to know why. Mr King – Paul – are you still there … ?”

-----------

Author’s Note: Paddington opens in London on Friday 28 November 2014 with a ‘P.G.’ – ‘Parental Guidance rating.

It premieres in Israel with the title הדב פדינגטון  (literally, The Bear Paddington) on 26 March 2015 with a Universal rating.

------------

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,#Flash Fiction,#Natalie Irene Wood,#PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,#Aunt Lucy's Last Stand,#Paddington.#film,#Michael Bond

Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 24 November 2014)

‘Still Breaking News’

‘Arbeit macht frei’

10 November 2014

Today I was astounded to receive a letter from Hilde Herrmann.

I was thunderstruck as I had neither seen nor heard from her in more than seventy years.

The very sight of her signature was so shocking that I began to tremble quite violently and when I picked up the glass I’d used at breakfast, it fell from my hand and smashed into the kitchen sink.

The last of a set that I’d  used since Mummy died, it now lay scattered in a thousand champagne-coloured shards, an apt finale to what had been a terrible chapter in family lore.

Hilde Hermann – together, her names mean  ‘battle warrior’ – stormed into our lives for six weeks from early January 1940.

She was brought to England during the Children's Transport rescue scheme that helped youngsters escape Nazi Europe. But she was not the underfed, docile waif delivered to other willing foster families.

Not Hilde! Then aged 12, she had supposedly been orphaned well before the war and was somehow manoeuvred on to a convoy leaving Berlin. But she was like a cuckoo in a nest, much taller than average and enormously fat.

To begin, my mother enjoyed watching  her fairly demolish everything on the dinner table. But  she had to keep an eye on our wartime rations and more than once, discreetly asked her to leave something for everyone else.

Hilde suffered disturbed nights and from the first, we heard her moaning endlessly in her sleep, then waking and prowling the landing by the half-hour.

The Kindertransport authorities either were unaware or refrained from advising my parents that Hilde had long endured far more than the fear and ritual humiliations heaped on German Jews during Kristallnacht on 10 November 1938.  Uncommon for the times – especially in the Jewish community – she had not only been conceived out-of-wedlock but had been abandoned soon after birth.    

My darling, sweet-natured father intended that she would become a sister for me, his spoilt, precious only child. But it was not to be. Instead, she scared me witless; shouting, pulling, sometimes hitting me when we were supposed to be playing quiet ‘girls’ games’.

Matters grew darker when items in the house began to disappear. First, went the loose change on the hall table that Daddy always removed from his overcoat when he returned from work. Then he couldn’t find his mother of pearl cufflinks and Mummy’s carefully hoarded stash  of sweeties vanished without a trace.

But worse was to come and Hilde’s continuing antics frightened even my parents:

Next, the night-time prowls became goose-stepped stomps up and down the stairs. “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil,” she’d chant just loud enough for us to hear.

Then one night – no, two nights together – I peeked from my bedroom doorway as she strutted down the stairs, out through the front door and slammed it behind her.

Despite the freezing winter air and wearing nothing but her nightdress, she remained  in the front garden for some time before banging  on the door with a broken brick, demanding to be let back in.

My parents were kindly, gentle people who rarely raised their voices, even in a crowd.

“But”, said Daddy in Yiddish after the second and most desperate night, “genug ist genug – enough is enough”.

After he’d run down stairs to rescue her and gently coaxed her back between the covers, he returned to his own bed hoping for a few hours’ rest before the alarm clock rang.

But Hilde did not stay in bed for long and started shuffling about, scraping the bedroom stool in front of the three-winged dressing-table mirror.

I was now so anxious that I plucked up enough courage to creep out of my bedroom, push her door barely ajar and kneel on the floor watching what she did.

“Bad girl! Wicked girl!” she hissed at her now seated reflection. Then,  her face contorted with rage, she rose, leaned across  and wielding the  rear-side of Mummy’s silver-backed hairbrush, began hitting the three  glass panels with all her might and main.

I’m still awe-struck when I recall Hilde’s hysterical accuracy and precision. She smashed each part in turn. First in half; then quarters, then eighths, smaller and smaller, screaming louder and louder until her work was done.

As everything went quiet, I realised that Mummy and Daddy had been standing behind me as Hilde’s  performance raged on.

Then they motioned me to go back to my room, somehow propelled Hilde into their bed and went downstairs for what remained of the night.

Everything else that happened became a blessed blur. I believe Daddy contacted the Kindertransport authorities early the next day and Hilde was sent away.

She must have had an amazing cure because, so Mummy reported,  soon after the war a large, carefully wrapped parcel arrived at the house.

It was a gift of glassware with a brief note attached inside:

“Dear Mr and Mrs Selwyn

“I’m feeling a lot better now and want to thank you for your kind hospitality when I first came to England. It’s true, you know. Work really does make you free.

Best wishes.

H. H.”

And the letter I received from her today?

It was to say that she’s returned to North London after a peripatetic life; has discovered I still live in my parents’ house and would like to get in touch.

But the very  idea appalled –frightened -me afresh. So I took the paper; folded it in half, quarters,  then eighths and tore the pile to shreds. It’s still lying on the table next to me as I jot this note.

Perhaps later, when I feel less fragile, I’ll go into the garden and make a bonfire. Like Hilde said, work can make you free.

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,#Flash Fiction,#Natalie Irene Wood,#PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,#Still Breaking News,#Kristallnacht,#Kindertransport,#Arbeit Macht Frei,#Nazism,#Holocaust

Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 11 November 2014)

‘When Wee Willie Winked’

‘Only connect’ – E M Forster

 

Wee Willie winked as he 

shoved Ann away.

What a thrill; such joy:

the stabbing, the plunging

in the back and neck –

seven times one.

Something which in ancient days

only Brutus would have done.

 

So fine and dandy:

the hacking, the gloating,

the getting caught.

In prison he’d be clothed,

fed, never have to work or study –

especially Spanish –

‘Yo también! – same here!’ -

a language he’ll loathe

forever – or so he’ll tell

his victim in the

never-never.

 

----------

 

Gennady’s smile was grim.

So strange that he, a

modern Jewish Caesar,

should share the reaper’s nod

with England’s newest

saint on Yom Hashoa –

Israel’s Holocaust Day.

 

Et tu, Bruté? Who betrayed

him with a kiss?

 

Bare hours before Ann fell dying,

a nameless gunman shot Gennady,

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s mayor,

as he made his morning run.

 

A great job; money well won,

grunted the nameless, faceless

killer, striking his target’s

back, lungs, liver.

 

But as he scythed the flimsy

silence of the mild April hour,

he, the cold professional,

could not fight the frenzied

wails of a multitude of

frozen infant souls, now

seventy-three years gone.

 

But not quite forgotten:

Nazi giants, seeming

seven-foot tall, had thrown

the children headlong,

kicking, screaming

into nearby pits;

hoarding, with banal bureaucracy,

precious ammo for far

bigger things.

 

 

This is how our

worlds collide: a ceaseless

dissonance of bangs.

Then come the whimpers.

Technorati Tags: #fridayflash,#Flash Fiction,#Natalie Irene Wood,#PerfectlyWriteFamilyTales,#When Wee Willie Winked,#William Cornick,#Ann Maguire,#Gennady Kernez,#Holocaust,#Dark Souls II

Natalie Wood

(© Natalie Irene Wood – 07 November 2014)