Tales from the Wood – Chapter 1
Daisy Chains
Spring 1974
‘Just down to the corner?’
‘Okay, darling, but be careful with her. Don’t go too fast. And don’t cross the road.’
‘No, Mum.’
Pauly took a firm grip on the handle of the little cart and pushed. The solid-tyred wheels rumbled over the uneven paving stones of the footpath. Jenny cackled in glee as her carriage picked up speed, the laughter coming in hiccups with the bumpy ride.
At the corner of Elizabeth Road and Hillside Crescent there was a square of grass bisected by the footpath. Pauly stopped and caught his breath.
‘Want to make daisy chains?’
The grass was sprinkled with little white-and-yellow flowers. If you split the soft green stalk with your thumbnail, you could thread the next daisy through – until at last you had enough to make a bracelet, a crown or even a necklace.
Two-year-olds don’t have patience for that, though. Jen tired of waiting for her big brother to thread the daisies, and in no time they were throwing flowers and grass at each other. Pauly let Jen put some in his hair, where they got tangled in the curls, then made a fuss of pulling them out: ‘Owwww!’
‘Playing with his little sister. Aww, how sweet.’
Pauly squinted up at the speaker. A tall boy. Despite the sun in his eyes, he made out a freckled, pale face framed by short, red hair. Where had he come from so suddenly?
‘So what?’
‘Speak when you’re spoken to, sissy-boy.’
‘You did speak to me, and I ain’t a sissy.’
‘Look like one to me.’
Pauly tried to scramble to his feet, but was pushed sprawling by a foot on his shoulder.
‘Oi! Get off of me.’
Giggles from Jen, oblivious to the seriousness of the situation.
‘You made my trainer dirty.’ The boy waggled his shoe in Pauly’s face. It was worn and smelled pungently of sweat.
‘Didn’t.’
‘Don’t talk back. Sissy-boy. Polish it.’
‘Get lost.’
‘Say that again and I’ll kick your teeth in.’
‘Just leave us alone. Please.’ He hated that scaredy-cat whine in his voice.
‘Polish my shoe, then you can go.’
Pauly was horribly aware of the houses all around. Blank windows staring at him. Who was behind the net curtains, witnessing his shame?
What would Biggles do? Fetch the Hun a solid right to the jaw. Tom Sawyer would square up to the rapscallion and give him a lickin’. Sir Harry Carey would whip out his rapier and …1
‘I haven’t got anything to polish it with.’
‘Your shirt, sissy.’
Pauly looked down at his clean T-shirt.
Ridiculous, humiliating, but he would have to play along. Jen’s face had clouded over. She’d cottoned on that her big brother was frightened and she was going to start bawling. Any second now he’d have a wailing toddler to contend with, as well as this shithead.
His tormentor soon tired of the pathetic, futile attempt at scrubbing the dirty old trainer clean.
‘Enough. What’s your name?’
‘Pauly. Paul.’
‘Well, Pauly Paul, I’m Jack Arnold, and this is my street. I rule here, got it?’
‘Yeah. Got it.’
Then Jack Arnold was gone, as suddenly as he’d appeared. Pauly picked up Jen, none too gently, and plonked her in the cart.
‘We’re going home.’
‘Nooo. Don’t wanna.’
‘Tough shit.’
Elizabeth Road had seemed a happy, safe place a few minutes ago. Now their new home was laden with menace. The windows stared in contempt as he trudged by.
He’d changed too.
He wasn’t a happy, confident big brother, playing with his baby sister. That person no longer existed.
Life had tested him, and he’d been found wanting. He wasn’t who he thought he was. Not the hero of his tale after all.
He was the irredeemable coward.
The twenty-minute walk home from school could be stretched to half an hour with no questions asked – an hour when Nan was looking after Jenny – and varied in many interesting ways.
Take that narrow lane off Catterick; peer through cracks in fences into back gardens with lawns and neat vegetable beds, suspicious dogs and lines of washing; walk down past the always padlocked, silent garages … and you were on the strip of grass and bushes above the Brook.
The current eddied around half-sunken shopping trolleys and bike frames festooned with crisp packets. Murky pools were home to tadpoles, newts, dragonfly larvae and maybe a minnow or two. Water boatmen skimmed across the surface.
They’d done a project at school, with nets and jars.
Take another route, east along Aycliffe past Leeming Road with the pet shop on the corner and the fishing tackle shop, and there were open scrubby fields to your right through a holey chainlink fence. Up through the bushes to the high ground of Thirsk Road, and you had a good view across town, all the way to the wooded ridge above Elstree.
Careful on Aycliffe, though. It was home to a rival middle school. Campions kids weren’t really rated by his schoolmates at Hazeldean, being neither brave nor vicious. They didn’t even turn up to the school fight organised for their benefit.
Still, you never knew who you might run into. There was no hiding the school you went to, with your dark green Hazeldean tie and jumper and your black blazer with the crest.
So you might have to leg it.
Nearly home, and there was the green at the end of Elizabeth Road, a sloping rectangle of grass shaded by tall oak trees and dotted with dogshit landmines. At the bottom of the slope, overgrown hawthorn hedges hid the grounds of the primary school. The thick, spiky brush was a network of mysterious passages and leafy caves, a treasury of interesting rubbish.
During the long, long weekends of late spring and early summer, there was even more time to wander. And you weren’t wearing a target, so as long as you were watchful for older boys hanging around or playing kick-ups in the street, you were alright.
Erratic as snail trails on a window, the roads, crescents, ways, avenues and closes spread out across the hillside, facing southwest towards Canterbury House, his old home. That slender seventeen-storey sentinel was the centre point of the sprawl of low-rise brick houses which made up the greater part of Borehamwood.
The shallow valley had once been a forest, through which Plantagenet and Tudor kings had ridden in pursuit of wild boar. Long before, grim-faced Roman legions had marched north through those same woods, on Watling Street.
They’d learned all about it at school.
He became obsessed with his cartographic discoveries, navigational connections, tiny feats of exploration.
If you went further up Gateshead, you came to a footpath and flight of steps, an odd little patch of grass behind the garages. It took you back down to Elizabeth Road. Or you could leave the path and sneak past back gardens on both sides: through the bushes, past discarded mattresses and rusted motorbike frames, improvised swings dangling from tree boughs, abandoned camps and the charred circles of last year’s Guy Fawkes bonfires to the next path … and the next.
The possibilities for escape, evasion and reconnaissance were endless.
Carry on right to the end of Gateshead or Elizabeth and you were on Green Street, the very edge of town and the road to the legendary village of Shenley, where all the mental people were kept. His classmate Glen was from Shenley and seemed relatively normal.
Though he did play the trumpet.
Happiest in his own company, Pauly eventually made acquaintanceships and even friendships, swapped gossip, traded rumours and bartered reputations.
It turned out that Jack Arnold, the ‘ruler’ of Elizabeth Road, was a wanker. He was only one year older than Pauly, and not even a good fighter. Besides, he was a carrot top.
Yeah, what a wanker, agreed Pauly.
Author’s note:
Tales from the Wood tells the story of Pauly Bullen. It is intended to be read alongside Lizzy May, the story of Pauly’s grandmother, but each may be read separately with no ill effect. Some names of people and streets have been changed, but the places mentioned are real and the events may have happened. Or they may just be the product of a boy’s overactive imagination. Who knows?
I’m sending out this first chapter to all my subscribers, as a ‘sneaky peek’ at the Friday Novella – paid subscription US$5 per month. The subscription also gives you immediate access to the Friday Novella archives: two years’ of writing, comprising several novellas and a novel, Black Spur.
At Pauly’s age I loved the Carey Family historical children’s novels by Ronald Welch. Harry Carey was a fictional Elizabethan privateer. I learned from him all I know about arming a private man-o’-war with sakers, culverins and demicannons. This knowledge has yet to prove useful, but I live in hope.
That moment when the world feels a little less safe and you’re forced to confront who you really are—that hits deep. Pauly's journey from playful big brother to someone dealing with fear and self-worth feels so relatable. It's amazing how quickly our sense of safety can change, and how we adapt, even if we don't like what we see in the process.
Thank you for sharing Steve - Have a good week ahead.
Brilliantly written as usual! Do I know Jen? Xx