Monday 23 November 2020

THE MUSEUM OF JOHN AND MARY MASTERS--A SHORT STORY

Pleased to have a short story published November 2020 in the latest edition of Postbox Magazine.  In some fine company indeed as you can see below.



My only wish was to honour my father and mother.  I have been invisible my whole life and like it that way.  I had no burning desire to come into view. 

You bury your parents then return to the everyday world to wait your turn. The way of things, as John Masters, my father, would say. My father died two weeks ago and the world did not stop.  The traffic lights on the way to the graveyard turned red like any other day.  No-one paused their day to stop and bow their heads.  My father died and like the unexpected collapse of an immense monument that dominated my landscape, it left dust and confusion, and rubble strewn across my life.

I don`t remember when the thought first entered my head. Maybe as my father was lowered into the grave and my mother`s name on the headstone suddenly huge, and the aching thought that my father`s name will be added to the cold stone.

I was an orphan, and I needed to re-build my own monument to them both.

My father`s silent house.  Bin bags of his clothes ready for the charity shop, the boxes I was taking with me already in the car, the rest of my mother and father`s life in the skip across the street. All it took was to lay the first brick was a photograph of my father and me walking with the crowds on the way to the football. My father behind me shielding me from the raucous and unpredictable crowd.  I am looking directly at the camera and I feel I should be a ten-year old afraid in this world of adult giants.

I am not.  I am safe.  I have my own giant`s hands on my shoulders guiding me.    

Who took the photograph?  It must have been one of my Uncles. Going to the football was a family affair. 

Uncle John, a man of enthusiasms that burst and lit up his sky like fireworks, and then fell to earth forgotten.  Soon to be replaced by another display.

Photography was one of those sudden and short lived enthusiasms. I hated, and still do, getting my photograph taken.  I am scowling in the football photograph.

Suddenly I have three shoe boxes of his photographs before me and feel bad that I am scowling in almost every photograph. 

In one of the rare ones where I am smiling we are somewhere I don`t recognize.  A group photograph of the aunts, uncles and cousins. We are in a museum and standing before a display case.  I can`t make out what it is displaying but it must have something interesting to the cousins and me since we are not fidgeting and carrying the look of wishing to be elsewhere.

My Uncle John is in this one, so someone, a member of staff maybe took this photo, someone that couldn`t work the zoom to catch what was being displayed.

My father is there.  The lover of museums.  I touch his smiling face.

Bin bags emptied, boxes emptied, skip retrieved.

Like being guided by those giant hands I began to design the Museum of John and Mary Masters.

First thing is the sign.  I commission that from the local sign maker Kennedy and Son.

` A museum for your father? ` Says Old man Kennedy. 

` Father and mother. ` I reply on the verge of asking him for quotes.

` On the house. ` He replies.

I tell him no, this is a proper museum.  Old man Kennedy smiles.  ` You tell me what you want and I`ll tell you the price. `

We nod in agreement.

Next is John Masters work shoes.  Black, always black, scuffed and the sole beginning to say goodbye to the rest of the shoe.  When the glass cabinets arrive I place the shoes in one with a quote from John Masters himself.  ` A few miles left in them yet. ` Every day he walked to the factory.  For many years I assumed he built every car that passed us on the road.

Next a bookcase with a glass front.  Inside on the top row and arranged in alphabetical a series of Under the Bonnet manuals from the cars he owned over the years.  Starting with the Austen Allegro and finally the Zephyr

On the next two shelves below were the Tom Murphy Western Novels, and under them the Readers Digest magazines going back to nineteen sixty nine

I fill one wall with a chronological arrangement of photographs starting before I was even born.  Father and mother caught by a Glasgow street paparazzi when they were `walking out together. ` Father serious as if `did you ask permission for taking that? ` Mother smiling. ` The man`s only doing his job Johnny. ` I inscribe under that photo `Like Bogart and Bacall. `

I struggle to remember what my mother looked like.  Dead when I was five, she seems a stranger in the photo. 

I continue the photographic story across all four living room walls.  I do this by year, some years more filled that others. 1975 has one photo.  The year my mother died.  

I order a rope barrier for the bottom of the stairs with the legend attached. ` Staff only. `

January 1975.  The only photo from that year was my mother making a mock annoyed face while clearing out the ashtrays after the Hogmanay party.  

Other cabinets include scraps of letters from John to Mary, and from Mary to John.  I name them their courtship letters.

` Missing you. `

` Didn`t mean to stand on your toes. `

` Smile John, it won`t hurt your face. `

` Three weeks Mary, three weeks. `

They lived across the street from each other.

I am hammering the Open/Closed sign in the garden when the lady from the council arrives.

Summary of conversation.

`You’re not allowed. `

` Why not? `

` You can`t just open a museum in a council house. `

` Why not? `

` Health and safety for a start.  You can`t have visitors if…`

` We had visitors, family and friends for years.  Are you saying their safety wasn`t important? `

She left to fight another day.

I did not charge for entry.  I opened on the Monday and waited.   A few curious neighbours but no-one ventured in the front gate.

The council lady came and went again.  Less questions, or slower questions as she wanders around.  Once she mutters to herself as she stared at the courtship letters. ` My dad was never one for letters. `  

A week goes by and you can count the visitors on one hand. Drop ins who had been passing and took a chance.

None of the neighbours until Mrs Rowan from number seventy two.

She has a photo with her. ` Your mum and me at the bingo. Up at the Parish Hall.  That`s Father John, the Bingo caller. ` She glances at 1975.  ` I thought you might have a space or two.  I have others if you like? `

` Thanks. `

The rest of the street arrives over the coming days.  The kettle is never off.  Most come bearing gifts.

Photos, an old football, a lawn mower my dad had loaned but had never been returned.

The museum fills.

Then Mrs Rowan died and I close out of respect.

A week after her funeral I am woken by hammering across the street.  Pulling back the bedroom curtains Angela, daughter of Mrs Rowan, is with difficulty hammering in a sign.

The Museum of Jennifer and George Rowan.

I realise I hadn`t known Mrs or Mr Rowan`s first name.

I hesitate to help, I don`t want to seem patronising.

` God, yes help. ` Says Angela.  ` My arms falling off trying to get this thing in. `

When it`s done I say. `A fine sign. Your mother would have approved. `

` I hope so. ` Says Angela.  `Fancy a coffee. `

` Don`t mind if I do. ` I say. ` I`ll just turn my sign to `back in a while. `

` I`ll have to get one of those. `

` Tons of them online. ` I tell her. 

I have never been in Mrs Rowan`s house, just like Angela has never been in mine.  Just like my mother and father had never been in the Rowans and vice versa. 

` Do you think they`re annoyed at us for doing this? ` Asks Angela.

` Your mother gave me the photo. ` I say.  `She came into the house.  I think they always wanted to but…For a coffee like this. But different times. `

Her living room is filled with photos, and pride of place a cabinet full of trophy`s and medals.

` Your mum did country dancing? ` I say.

`Scottish Country dancing don`t you know. ` She indicates a photo.

`My mum as well?!`

Angela nods.  ` I hardly have anything of my dad. `

` You have more about my mum than I do. ` I say.  `Still have boxes to look through mind.`

` Do you think they`ll close us down?`

` Probably. ` I say. ` The council lady said to me.  `But your mother and father are not even famous?   I`d told her I wanted the museum on their tourist trail. `

` Good for you. What did you say? `

` Who decides what stories to tell? `

 Angela suddenly stands up.  ` Somebody`s stopped. `

A couple coming up Angela`s drive.

` We heard about it on Facebook. ` The man says.

` We`re orphans now as well. ` The woman says.

` Brother and sister? ` I ask, and they nod.

` We have nothing left of our mum and dad. ` Says the man.

They stay at Angela`s for over an hour, and then they come to me.  As they leave another car draws up, and another couple get out.  Both couples stand talking at the road edge then the new arrivals come up my drive.

` A friend told us about this place. Can we come in? `

` Of course. ` I say.  ` And there`s another great museum across the road.`

` The couple were saying. ` says the man.

They stand in the middle of the living room and stare around. The man takes the woman`s hand.  She squeezes it tight, and says.  ` I`m an orphan now. `