Being Attached
Midnight and I was in the street with my mum banging dustbin lids. Our neighbours were there too with whistles, rattles and tin cans, and adding a bass section to the nighttime hullabaloo were all the ships in the nearby docks blowing foghorns. Everyone in London was bashing, blowing or blasting a welcome to the new decade – the sixties. It was looking good, I was not far off leaving school, the adults' memories of war were fading and we were on the point of entering a new era. With such a fanfare, I felt sure that New Year's day would bring with it a shiny new world.
But the only difference the next morning was that the milkman tripped over our dustbin lid, startling his horse and making all the bottles in the milk cart jingle. Then he shouted at his horse for being noisy. All of which woke me up early.
Raymond, our milkman, had a horse that fascinated me. She knew all the houses that wanted milk and stopped outside them waiting for Raymond to get the bottles off the back of the cart, put them on the doorsteps and walk to the next house. However, Raymond wasn't satisfied with his talented horse and was always muttering under his breath, complaining about something or other. The horse would whinny and shake her head, as though she understood but disagreed.
My mum told me that Raymond and his horse started squabbling towards the end of the Second World War. The cause of the quarrel was the house at number 132. Mrs Gotobed lived there until a flying bomb blew it up. Doodlebugs everyone called them. They travelled faster than the speed of sound. If you heard one coming, you were probably safe because it would be going somewhere else. Mrs Gotobed never heard her doodlebug coming and it blew her, and number 132, sky-high. Raymond's horse learnt quickly which houses were not having milk, but she never came to terms with houses exploding overnight and every time she reached number 132, she stopped. It drove Raymond crazy.
'Stupid 'orse! 'ow many times do I 'ave to say it, 'don't stop at number 132! Can't you see, there's no blooming house there, it's grass, a bombsite, an empty space. I'm putting in for one of those new fangled 'lectric carts and sending you to the knacker's yard.'
As did most people in that part of London, we lived in a terraced house with a tiny front garden barely big enough to keep a bike in, let alone grow anything like a garden. The appearence of occasional gaps in the endless rows of yellow brick houses, courtesy of the luftwaffe, provided playgrounds for the masses of post-war children that would otherwise kick dustbin lids along the streets all day. In the summer the bombsites were covered with wormwood forests big enough, it seemed as a child, to hide all the outlaws of Sherwood from mum at bedtime. For those children who did not have television or comics and read fairy stories the waste spaces produced meadows of flaming crimson fireweed, their floating seeds creating billowing flocks of gosamer winged fairies.
I said to my mum, 'Maybe, it's because the horse is surrounded by bricks and concrete most of the time, when she suddenly gets a whiff of Mrs Gotobed's flowers on the bombsite, some long faded memory of wide-open prairies drifts across her.'
But mum said, 'You've got an over active imagination; that horse stops at 132 because every day during the war Mrs Gotobed gave it a biscuit each morning. She must of had some special arrangement with Mr Marshall because no one else had enough ration coupons to get biscuits for themselves, let alone give them to horses.'
When I started a newspaper delivery round, on some mornings I finished as Raymond was on his way back to his depot and he would give me a lift. I was thirteen years old but felt like a real grown-up sitting up there in the cab next to Raymond.
'Your horse must be pretty clever, how does remember which houses to stop at, Raymond? '
'Clever? I've never met such a stupid 'orse. She ain't clever, lad. In fact, it'd be a lot easier for me with a 'lectric cart. I wouldn't 'ave to get up in the middle of the night and feed the bag of bones before we came out on the round, for one thing, and I wouldn't 'ave to calm the stupid thing down every time there's a rumble of thunder in the air, and I wouldn't have to tell her every single day that number 132 no longer wants a half pint of milk.'
What little knowledge I did have about horses, I had gained from films and television. I thought that the heroic adventures of Champion the Wonder Horse were the everyday sort of things horses did. If Raymond was ever tied to the nearby railway line by a gang of outlawed milkmen, I thought that he would only have to whistle and his horse would be there, rearing up on her hind legs scattering the baddies to all parts of London. Then she'd bite through the ropes just in time for Raymond to roll free as the 3.10 to Liverpool Street came thundering by. I knew that at that moment I should have stood up for the horse, she was the smartest animal I knew, but I was only thirteen and was overwhelmed by being in Raymond's milk cart and part of the grown-up world, so I agreed the horse was pretty stupid.
'What's her name?' I asked.
'Name? She ain't got a name, lad. She's just 'orse. You see, it wouldn't do to give an 'orse a name, lad, you'd end up getting attached to it, then where'd you be?'
I nodded but I couldn't imagine what was wrong with being attached to a horse. Ricky was attached to Champion and he manages all right but I didn't want to spoil the chumminess of the moment by disagreeing, so went along with Raymond again.
When I started work proper, I'd wait for Raymond and his horse to trip by each morning and I'd know it was time for work. One morning I awoke with a start. I thought I was still dreaming because I could hear the sound of galloping hooves. I jumped out of bed and looked out of the window just in time to see Raymond's horse come galloping down the road. Past 132, past our house, the milk cart swaying from side to side, and bottles flying off the back leaving a wake of white splodges all down the road. Then, as she had for the previous twenty years, she turned sharp right, into Oban Road and out of sight. There was a moment of silence followed by a crash like a milk cart full of milk bottles falling from the sky. Then Raymond came running down the road, red faced, his moneybag streaming out from his shoulder.
At Marshall's corner shop, the milk cart was on its side and the horse, still in the shafts, lying in the road. Raymond was kneeling amongst the broken glass in a pool of spilt milk, holding the horse in his arms, as best he could hold half-ton of horse in his arms. The horse's eyes were wild, nostrils flaring and she was making a sort of crying noise from deep inside. Raymond had tears in his eyes as he said 'Stupid blooming 'orse!' Mr Marshall put his hand on Raymond's shoulder, 'I've sent a message to the knacker’s yard, leave her now Raymond, they'll sort things, there's nothing you can do.'
But Raymond just repeated, 'Stupid blooming 'orse.'
Mr Marshall left Raymond with his horse. 'Terrible thing son,' he said to me, 'he's been with that horse, since before you were born, through all the air raids and bombing, they never missed a day.'
'Do, you think there was a storm in the air?' I asked, 'Raymond said thunder sometimes scared her.'
'No, son, after all this time ... I reckon she just couldn't take it any more.'
The last time that I saw Raymond was about a year later. He was walking down our road, looking older and lost without his hat, moneybag and horse.
'You never did put in for an electric cart then Raymond?' I asked.
'No, lad, I took one out for a trial but… well...'
He stopped and paused staring at the new smart house that had been built at number 132, he shook his head, 'stupid blooming 'orse,' he muttered under his breath.
He continued, '…you see lad, the thing is… I couldn't see myself ever becoming attached to a 'lectric cart.'
When we reached my gate I said goodbye and watched him continue down the road. He stopped by Marshall's corner shop, turned and called back,
'Juliet!'
'What?' I said.
'Juliet! The 'orse. That was 'er name.'
Then he walked down Oban Road.
Now, every time I hear bottles rattle in a crate, or catch the sound of hooves on the road early in the morning, it all comes flickering back down the years: the squabble breaking out at number 132, two pints of milk clinking on our step and off down Oban Road. I suppose, over the years, I've become attached to Raymond … and his horse.
