The mouth organ. (Short story)

SHORT STORY

As the angry rain battered the window like hailstones, she knew she couldn’t go out to play. Frustrated and bored, she noticed a shiny object on the mantelpiece.

        ‘Papa, what’s that?’ Libbee asked.

Smiling at the wonder in my great-granddaughter’s eyes I replied,        

        ‘It’s a mouth organ sweetheart’, as, looking at it, my mind drifted back to another time, another place, fifty years earlier… 

        The ambient waters of the Indian ocean, like a glass carpet, split as the sleek grey hull cuts through them like a band knife. We stand smartly ‘at ease’ lining the upper deck as sunrise on the horizon sends a tunnel of warmth across the saline swell. Mesmerised by a silhouetted school of flying fish, the chilly February streets of home seem a distant past as we glide into port to the backdrop of Mombasa’s giant elephant tusks on Moi Avenue. I’d seen them before in a library book we had in the kids’ homes and used to dream about escaping the wretched place one day to go off and see the world; the pyramids, table mountain and of course those elephant tusks. Now, here I am. 

        Able Seaman ‘Rip’ Porter, formerly Leading Seaman, having lost his rank due to ‘behaviour unbecoming’, was my closest friend. A cheeky cockney, who worked alongside me in the catering department, he’d been to Mombasa before and knew all the bars. 

        ‘I’ll take you to see the tusks. You can take a photo then we’ll go for a few ‘Vera Lynn’s’ in a place I know’, but before I could answer, a familiar voice called out my name,

        ‘Dixy!’. 

        Even before turning round I knew it was Cates, the Chief Caterer; he’d christened me that the day I changed my surname on my eighteenth. A portly man, pushing forty in his twentieth year at sea, I’d never forgotten the day I met him, bursting into song pompously belting out: ‘I am the very model of a modern Major General!’ from the Pirates of Penzance. I’d never met an eccentric before, I just thought he was a bit bonkers. But from that day on he captivated me. I liked him; even more so because he liked me, and as time went on I grew to love him like a dad. 

        ‘Dixy, the skipper wants to see you’

        ‘Am I in trouble?’ I asked.

        ‘No, but he wants you now; I’ll come with you’.

        Standing in front of the Captain felt like meeting the Almighty. Twice my size in every dimension, forearms encircled by four gold rings and chest laden with medals, he appeared a sharp contrast to the young, skinny boned sailor shaking, terrified before him.

        ‘Stand easy Dixon’; his voice was gentle, quieter than I’d imagined.  

        ‘I’m sending you home’. 

I heard nothing more after that; in a split second the best time of my life had suddenly become the worst. 

        On the upper deck, Rip lit two cigarettes and passed me one as Cates sat and joined us.

        ‘I’m sorry about your dad Dixy. Skipper’s granted you two weeks compassionate leave which, as we’re under sailing orders, means you’ll rejoin the ship in Kuwait. Rip will help you pack a bag then take you ashore for a few hours’. As he gave me a hug, he glanced at Rip, then continued,

         ‘On second thoughts, I’ll come too’.

        During our last stop in Cape Town, Rip had been arrested for being drunk, hence his demotion, leaving me to get back to the ship alone. I’d climbed into a taxi marked ‘Non Blanc’ thinking it meant ‘not black’ but in Dutch Africaans, it meant ‘not white’. Within seconds it was surrounded by people rocking the car telling me to get out. Frozen in fear I’d locked the door and it wasn’t until police arrived that I was taken to safety but the experience had never left me. Cates had been furious with Rip.

        Standing beneath the tusks I looked up in awe as the heat of the midday sun on my face was tempered by the cool breeze from the sea, bringing with it the aromatic smells of strange spices I had never smelled before. All along the street, food vendors plied their multicultural cuisines of Asian, African and Arabic dishes as wafts of biryani, grilled seafood and samosas invaded my senses. Just for a moment, as though in a dream, I closed my eyes. 

        I don’t remember the journey home, it seemed so instant. But as I opened my eyes, along with the car door, I felt as though I was stepping out of Doctor Who’s Tardis into a nightmare. It wasn’t just dad in hospital. It was Mam as well.

        The smell of damp ashes mixing with the cold air coming down the flue felt like walking into hell from heaven. A familiar saucepan, burnt brown around the base, sat melancholic on the cooking range, cold and dormant like the half empty coal bucket on the hearth; a half-drunk cup of tea exacerbated the already eerie silence. On the mantelpiece, in a moment captured in time, an unframed photo propped up by an old mouth organ transported me back to happier days. Dented from when it fell out of my pocket, the tarnished instrument brought memories flooding back of learning to play all the songs from ‘Sing Something Simple’; particularly ‘Moonlight and Roses’ for Mam. But it was more than just a mouth organ. Ever since the kid’s homes I’d hated all social workers. I had somewhere to sleep, something to eat and should be bloody grateful; an attitude that continued even after being fostered, by the self-important autocrats going through Mam’s cupboards on their monthly accusatory visits leaving her feeling less-than before even saying a word. I hated them all. Except for one. The one who gave me that mouth organ and took the time to teach me how to play it.

In the hall, the sound of the letterbox flapped, as another newspaper joined the ever growing pile on the floor, making my stomach sink; I needed to see my parents. 

        Dad was in Mansfield General hospital, Mam was in Nottingham City. We’d moved south to Ollerton in the sixties when the pits shut in the North East and I’d never settled; neither had Mam. Looking around from the bus stop nothing had changed in the past ten years; row upon row of grim looking terraced houses still belched out clouds of acrid smoke from their coal fires as depressed looking people went about doing exactly what they’d done ten years earlier. It was as though an L.S. Lowry painting had come to life. 

        Sitting up in bed, dad appeared vacant; eyes glazed. Looking thin, and older than his years, his heavy drinking and smoking seemed to finally have caught up with him but then having worked underground since he was fourteen I wondered if I would’ve been any different. We’d never been close, but he was my dad, and the concern on my face hadn’t gone unnoticed by a nurse.

       ‘He’s suffered three strokes which have paralysed his left side and affected his speech. His recovery will be slow but you must not tell him his wife is ill or he may suffer a further stroke’.

After spending an hour with him not recognising or acknowledging me I decided to move on to see Mam and return to see him daily at visiting times. 

        On the bus to Nottingham my emotions were spaghetti as reality began setting in; even before knowing why mam was in hospital, life as I knew it had gone, replaced by a frightening hole of unknowing. An hour after leaving dad’s bedside I sat at mams. For some months she had been losing her voice which had now reduced to a whisper. but with every word she went to great lengths to minimise things to ease my concerns. Yes, it was cancer, she said, but tomorrow she was having a tracheostomy operation and the doctors were positive. 

        The few hours I spent with her that day were a blessing as sadly she didn’t survive the operation, a loss that would impact me for years; but for now there was no time to grieve. Dad’s sisters had decided he would return to the North East and be placed in residential care which meant the Coal Board wanted the house back. 

Clearing the house and arranging mam’s service was hard, in the middle of which a knock on the door piled on the pressure. The Military Police wanted to know why I hadn’t been on the plane to Kuwait and not before hours of grilling did they grant an extra week’s leave. Since the ship had moved on, I was to rejoin her in Singapore. 

        Following mam’s service felt like a full stop. After packing my few personal effects I did a final check of the house; it was as though we had never lived there. Putting my mouth organ in my pocket l left.

        The Tardis to Singapore was an RAF Hercules rammed with a noisy platoon of pongos who, when they found out I was a sailor, were merciless in bantering me over the 24 hour flight. Strangely, it was like a lifebelt being thrown to a drowning person because on landing at Changi Airport, and being shoulder-lifted off the plane, I felt almost normal.

Walking through security the alarm rang but after staff had inspected my mouth organ I was waved through where Rip and Cates grabbed me in a sandwich hug.

        ‘Is that a mouth organ in your hand?’, Cates asked.

        ‘Yes Cates’, I smiled.

        Fifty years later, my mouth organ sits on my mantelpiece, very much treasured.

        ‘Can I play with it Papa?’ asked Libbee, a child also very much treasured.

        ‘Yes of course sweetheart’. 

After blowing a note she beamed, delighted,

        ‘Papa! Where did you get it?’