Granda's Message

Grandas Message 
By Paul McCann

It was another cold day in the Brickyard Flats and not much was happening anywhere . It looked just like a vacant lot with winter grey clouds filling the sky and not a shadow left to chase after the sun until the end of the day .Around the Millie Dam where a swam once swam , there was a wind that blew papers and plastic bags up into the air . Around a gravel football pitch at the foot of the Marrowbone hills there was the eerie echo sound of croaking frogs and crying cats that pierced the silence of  the bog . Through Kingston and Havana streets the electric milk lorry run with its last deliveries to be done for the day . Maggies Walker’s cornet shop had a few people going in and out for a bits and pieces to put inside empty cupboards   An old man stood outside his front door with a clay pipe in his hand and started to shout out in a creaky voice,

“Here, wee Johnny ,Come on over . “

Wee Johnny was sitting on the corner on the spare ground playing marbles with a few boys and one of them said

 “ Johnny your Grandad’s calling you . Best you go and see what he wants .”

Johnny scooped up his marbles and said  .

“ Aye , lucky for all of you . I was about to skin you of all your wee marlies . I’ll have to leave it for another day .”

Johnny went over to his Granda’s front door and said,  

“Is everything ok Granda”:

His Granda said

“ Can you do me a message son ? .“

“What message and where am I going Granda ?”

Johnny replied  .

“Get me a tin of Old Sailor pipe tobacco in the wee shop near that new girls school that’s being built . “ 

“Awh not again Granda , Its getting late and my Ma will have my life if I get home late for dinner “   Johnny said .

“Boys a dear sure Johnny , don’t you worry about your Mammy . I’m just about all done out of tobacco again and your Mammy won’t mind if she knows your doing a favour for your Granda . “.

“All right then Granda ,  I’ll go over and get you some pipe tobacco. “

“Listen son , I’ll choke if I don’t get a smoke soon so don’t be long .”

“You’re a joke Granda ..”

“Am I laughing son , hurry up now ?”

The old man out a ten shilling note into Johnnys hand and with the other hand he  took out a handkerchief and blew his nose. Off Johnny went with the wind in his face , chilling his cheeks until they turned red . Johnny pulled his collar up covering the nape of his neck and continued across the bog to the wee road that run up to the old brickyard . The new girls school was being built and there were slabs of concrete scattered all over the place . Johnny made his way to the where old the brickyard was and it was rough going . He leapt from rocks and concrete slabs like a sure footed deer on a mountain top .

He was agile on his feet and unknowingly new his way from stone to stone,  delicately on the balls of his feet , to the edge of a wall there that, surrounded the building site . Johnny stopped dead in his tracks , Then he remembered the old story about the headless horseman of the hill , He was so scared that he almost thought he heard horses hooves a galloping  

‘Oh no he’s coming after me now and he’s looking for my head to put on :”

He ran as fast as he could up the wee road where he saw a wooden ladder laying upright against the side of a wall . He took the option and climbed up with an urgency to get away out of sight from where he was . Rung by rung up the ladder he went, higher and higher and faster and faster until he was at the top . He looked down over to the other side of the wall and saw some items  piled up . With the tenacity of fear and an urgency that fuelled a panic he heaved up the ladder and threw it down on the other side of the wall where no one could follow . He dropped down to the ground and began to look through the pile of stuff in the pile . There was relics from the past  and photographs  of people and other memorability of the lives of Mill workers from the old linen mills .  Then there was a published article on the front of a newspaper that had been placed behind glass inside a picture frame . It told the story of Mr Thompson the owner of a linen Mill who was decapitated in an accident by the guillotine that was used to cut the linen sheets. After his death Mr Thompsons fortune had gone missing and was never recovered . Eager to go on searching through the stack of boxes he pulled out a white cotton sheet that had been wrapped around something .       Then as he began to remove the linen sheet he heard footsteps approaching .

Johnny froze in fear and sat there motionless , like a rock .

He never flinched an inch or made any sound , The footsteps then went in another direction . So who ever it was had gone on another path .

Johnny was relieved and took a deep breath and then he muttered .

“ Jeazus , Granda’s pipe tobacco “

Immediately he rushed back to where the ladder was nut on the way there he saw a some red bricks and a pile of new window frames.  At that point he noticed a newly built classrooms and some other buildings . He went over to have a look and opened up the door and went inside a classroom where he found another room that was attached to room by another door that took him yo a hallway with some more doors and into some more classrooms  . Outside one of the classrooms there was a doormat with the words

“Welcome Home Johnny “:

Johnny run like hell with no idea where he was running to . He leapt over anything that was in his way and pushed over things that stood before him . In a panic stricken run for his life he heard a voice screaming after him  ,

“You shouldn’t have come in here Johnny,  Now you’ll never get out “

Johnny opened up another door and found himself standing under an archway shaped hall with a door . He opened the door and on the other side was big doorbell button , He pushed the button and the door opened by itself where Johnny was standing on a road opposite the shop where he had to get the pipe tobacco . For the first time in his life he felt as though he had died and come back again . Then he knew exactly what he had to do and where he had to go . He run over to the shop and asked the shopkeeper for a tin of old sailor pipe tobacco . Then he told the man in the shop what had happened .

The shop keeper said it was probably all in his imagination and the only people who could be over there in the new school development were security guards .

“It was more than likely a security guard who chased you out of the construction site because you shouldn’t have been in there”

Johnny wanted to believe the shopkeeper but knew different , So he paid him for the tobacco and left the shop . He took the tobacco back to his Granda’s house and told him about what happened .

His Granda tried to listen and pretended that it was all just nothing but his imagination playing tricks on him . But he never told Johnny about all the stories about what the local people had seen and heard ever since the new school was being built . Johnny went home for his dinner and his Granda was happy to get his pipe tobacco .

Sadly news came the following day that Johnnys Granda had passed away in his sleep . Johnny was devastated and immediately went to the church to say some prayers for his Granda .

That night Johnny looked out  the window of his bedroom and noticed that the moon shone extra bright in the sky and as he closed his eye he said ,

 “Thanks for everything .I love you Grandad.”

THE END