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Copyright Oggbashan January 2017
The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.
This story is set in a mythical area of coastal England during 1956 and 1957.
Although this is a Valentine's Day Contest entry the mention of Valentine's Day is only incidental. It is a Romance.
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It was pointless to call the dog back. He was a hundred yards away on the tidal flats bounding along with an effortless stride chasing seagulls he knew he'd never catch.
He rushed along the wet sand towards a group of seagulls who lazily lifted into the strong wind before landing again as soon as he had passed. I didn't mind. Durante is a large dog who needs plenty of exercise, and this Saturday exercising him was a pleasure. Eventually he would turn and look at me, pleadingly. He'd come back if I signalled to him but he hoped I wouldn't, not yet. There were hundreds more seagulls to play with.
Durante, full name Jimmy Durante, is a massive mongrel weighing about 200 pounds. He had been intended to be a guard dog but he failed because he is slightly deaf. He is also too soft hearted. He'd rather slobber all over an intruder instead of biting them. His owner, Mr Jefferies, thought that Durante had a mix of St Bernard and Irish Wolfhound in his ancestry. Durante was large enough, but his other most distinctive feature was his large nose -- hence his name.
Durante hadn't noticed another dog sitting on the hard on the other side of the estuary. If he had, he would have rushed across the sandbar, swimming if necessary, to greet that dog. Most other dogs find Durante's greetings a trial because he is the largest dog for miles around.
The other dog was watching someone working on a small boat pulled up by the work shed. I thought I knew who it was but at this distance I couldn't be sure. That hard is the only local place where a boat can land at any state of the tide.
I pulled my fob watch out of my pocket. It was inscribed for the 1951 Festival of Britain and had been a present from my grandfather for my 18th birthday that year.
I didn't need to look at it. Durante knows that means the end of his seagull-chasing. He chased one last group of seagulls and came bounding back, splashing through the wet channels in the sand. I'd have to hose him down before letting him into Mr Jefferies' kitchen where Durante would curl up in front of the Aga cooker to wait for his master's return.
Durante stopped a few yards short and shook himself violently before coming to my side. We set off together to walk back to the house, turning away from the estuary on a short cut that would be impossible later in the year. The marshland would be flooded by October.
We had just reached the edge on my father's third best orchard when I heard Emma shouting. She seemed to be shouting at Don. That was a mistake. Don is slow. Shouting at him makes him more confused. I broke into a run and Durante kept up with me easily.
Just inside the orchard Don was facing Emma Simkin. She had calmed down a little, perhaps because she heard us approaching. She was telling Don to put a knife away. He was standing about six feet from her with a small penknife open in his right hand.
Durante rushed up to Emma, his tail wagging furiously. She stroked him, trying to keep her full skirt away from his wet fur. Durante walked across to Don and sat down in front of him. Don closed the knife, put it in his pocket, and kneeled down to give Durante a hug. Durante's tail and rear end were wagging so fiercely that both of them nearly fell over. I would have watched more but Emma was giving me a bear hug.
"Thank you for coming, John," she said. "Don was upset. I don't know why. Something about I shouldn't have seen him and that was bad. He was waving the knife around. I didn't know that he was trusted with knives and I was worried he might hurt himself."
"But not you?"
"Don? Don't be ridiculous. Don wouldn't hurt anyone. You know that."
"I do. But does Don?"
"Yes. Look at him with Durante. They trust each other..."
Emma seemed to be about to add more but had stopped, looking intently at my face.
"...as much as I trust you, Emma?" I said cautiously.
"No. As much as I trust you, John."
Emma's hand stroked my cheek.
"Let's sort this out," I said, disentangling myself from Emma's hug.
"Don?" I asked. "What was the knife for?"
"To try an apple. Me Mam said to cut a piece and eat it. If it was not sweet, that's the sort she wanted. No one was to see me. But Emma did. That worried me."
"Emma's a friend, Don. That doesn't count. She's not no one. Nor am I. What your Mum wanted was cooking apples. We'll get some for you to take to your Mum. OK?"
Don was looking relieved. If friends didn't count, he hadn't disobeyed his Mum.
"Emma? Can you go to Mr Jefferies' stables? There are some cardboard boxes in the first loose box. I think we need one about this size."
I held my hands about a foot apart.
"OK, Alan. Back soon."
Durante was still trying to knock Don over, an impossible feat even for a dog that large. Don is a giant, a friendly amiable giant, but a man mountain. He works at our local coal merchant, loading and unloading sacks of coal. He earns his living and gets more money doing heavy work around the village. As long as the task was simple, preferably repetitive, and needed a good strong lad, Don was ideal.
Durante and Don were rolling around on the grass in a mock fight. Only someone as strong as Don would do that. They were enjoying each other.
As I waited for Emma I looked around the orchard. My grandfather had intended to grub out all these old overgrown trees and plant new ones. He had thought that 1940 would be a good year to do it, but the war, and particularly Dunkirk, had wrecked his planning. After Dunkirk the orchard was full of Army tents for the soldiers retrieved from the beaches. The Army hadn't finally handed back the land until three years ago, 1953, a year after my grandfather had died.
Sorting out grandfather's will and renovations elsewhere on the more productive areas of our farm had taken the next couple of years and too much money. Maybe next year we could replace the trees? But would we? The market for apples wasn't great and this orchard wasn't best placed to grow good quality apples. It flooded once or twice a decade, and apple trees don't like that.
Mrs Simkin's bungalow was a hundred yards away behind the wharf built during the First World War. It had been the Harbour Master's base when this area had been a 'Secret Port' for supplying the Western Front. We owned the land behind that bungalow but it was littered with abandoned railway tracks, foundations for Army huts and cracked roadways. It would take a substantial amount of money and time to clear that land to make it productive again. Like this orchard, it had never been prime farmland. It had been summer pasture for cattle.
The wharf extended along our frontage to the estuary but was useless there. The estuary had required constant dredging during the First World War. Now our part of the wharf had a depth of no more than two or three feet of water at high tide.
The wharf by Emma's house was scoured by every ebbing tide and was still usable for small coastal ships. None came because other nearby ports had better facilities. During the last few months a large motor yacht had used the wharf several times. The villagers had been curious about it. Mrs Simkin said the owners were considering whether it was possible to develop a yacht station.
All the local seafarers were dubious about such a development. Yacht owners wanted facilities and what did we have? The village Post Office with its small store and the local spit and sawdust Public House, The Wildfowler, were our only businesses. Neither would be attractive to yacht owners. The nearest railway station was five miles away.
Navigating from the sea into the estuary was tricky. Sand banks moved after every storm. Only locals knew the safe channels since the dredging had stopped in 1920, resumed for a few short weeks during 1940 during the Dunkirk evacuation.
Emma returned with a small cardboard box.
"This do, John?" she asked.
"Ideal," I replied. "We'll just fill it with cooking apples for Don's Mum..."
I hesitated.
