The Doughnut Man Read online

  Title Page

  THE DOUGHNUT MAN

  A Fiction Novel For Children

  By

  Paul Kelly

  Publisher Information

  The Doughnut Man published in 2011 by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

  Copyright © Paul Kelly

  The right of Paul Kelly to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Synopsis

  This is the story of a little boy who wanted to become a man . . . Only a simple wish, you might think, but when you are impatient for something to happen and time goes ever so slowly. . it seems as though you will never ever get what you want. Joe Osborne was this little boy and this is his story as he remembers it . . . and as it was told to me.

  Chapter One

  London, 1954

  “I wish I was six foot tall . . . I wish I was a millionaire . . . . I just wish I was a man, instead of . . . .”

  Freddie studied himself in the long mirror in the hall, twisting his face to see the freckles and his hated ginger hair. It wasn’t the image he wanted at all, but he knew there was absolutely nothing he could do about it as he sighed and put out his tongue at the face that stared back at him.

  “I wish I was just different . . . that’s all,” he complained.

  “That you talkin’ to yourself again, Freddie? Often wonder what you get to talk about. I dunno.” Uncle Joe took his cap from the hallstand and smiled as he passed his nephew on the way out to his all night shift at Frankham’s. It was nearly eight o’clock and he was already late in starting. “It’ll soon be your birthday, Freddie . . . won’t it? Got any ideas what you’d like me to get you? Well, your aunt Maggie and me, that is . . .?”

  Freddie looked away from the mirror and hung his head in shame. He hated anyone looking at him for the way he was. He hated ginger people. . he hated freckles. . and he just hated everything. That was the mood he was in as he answered his uncle’s question.

  “There’s so much . . . that I haven’t got Joe . . . but maybe when I get to be a bit older an’ bigger . . . perhaps . . .I’ll be able to think clearer ‘bout birthdays and things. Maybe when I grow up an’ get a job. . an’ that, eh?” Joe smiled.

  “Oh dear! It’s so difficult being nearly ten, isn’t it Freddie,” he added as he pulled his scarf around his neck.

  “Well, it’s just impossible . . . I’m neither one thing nor the other, am I? Wish I was a man.”

  “You’re wishing your life away, young ‘un. Wish I was ten again . . . wish I. . . There now, you’ve got me at it.”

  Freddie laughed and felt better, as Joe pulled his cap down around his ears.

  “Wait till I get home in the morning and we’ll have a good talk about it, eh? Meanwhile, think what you’d like for your birthday. It’s on Tuesday, isn’t it?”

  “Yes Joe . . . wish it was all over.”

  Joe slapped his nephew playfully on the shoulder with his cap.

  “There . . . you’re at it again. Just try to be what you are, at this moment. You’ll grow up soon enough, I can tell you. You ask your auntie Maggie an’ she’ll tell you the same,” he said, but Freddie scoffed and looked annoyed.

  “I bet she wouldn’t want to be ten again,” he snarled as he looked into the mirror . . . but there was no change and auntie Maggie came strolling through the lounge. “Would she?” he added quickly, dodging a second slap from his uncle as he went through the front door and out into the garden.

  “You ask her at supper and you might get a big surprise, old chap,” he called out as he closed the door quietly behind him. It was a fine evening and the reddening skies blazed across the horizon as Joe Osborne started to whistle contentedly on his way to work and shoved his cap into his coat pocket... but he remembered. Oh! yes, he remembered alright. . only too well. . the occasion of his own tenth birthday when that thing had happened to him. Would he ever forget it??

  He clocked in at the factory gate as the day shift was coming out.

  “Evenin’ Joe. Missus O.K?”

  Sam Goodright passed him as he clocked out.

  “Yes Sam . . . we’re fine. Yours O.K?”

  Sam grinned, showing his two front buck teeth. “I’d be better if they gave me a rise, that’s for sure. Wish they would. . you see, Bertha an’ me. . well we’re expecting another little one soon an’ I could do with a few more hours’ overtime, if I could get it.”

  Joe sighed . . Another one wishing his life away, he thought, but his sympathies were with his friend who already had four kids. Sam had a nice wife and a lovely family, so what more did he want from life? Well a few bob more might help thought Joe but he knew he was being petulant. He and Maggie had wanted a family from the earliest days of their married life, but they had been unsuccessful and it was something that Maggie very much regretted as she loved children.

  Joe got into his overalls and stuffed his lunch bag into the steel locker with his works number scrawled across the door in red paint and marched into the factory floor to his post at the bolts machine. He never ever really understood what great contribution he made to the factory or to the vast giants of Frankham’s motors since he only put a few bolts into sheets of metal and got to wear a mask to do a bit of welding. That was the extent of Joe’s working life, but it paid well enough and kept the wolf from the door, so he was reasonably content. Not a lot in the bank though, he thought as he lifted a box of bolts onto the work bench . . but then, who had these days? Well, that is if you worked for Frankham’s.

  He smiled as he thought of young Freddie again. The boy had been orphaned from the time he was two and Maggie had taken him into their home because Freddie’s mother had been Maggie’s younger sister and they always had something between them, ever since they were at school. It was something more special than most sisters shared, until Clare had been killed in an accident after her husband had been reported missing in the desert. He had fought in the battle of El Alamein. Freddie had been an only child and Maggie and Joe loved him as they would have done, had he been their own little boy. Freddie was the apple of their eye.

  Chapter Two

  Freddie sat at the table eating his supper of baked beans on toast. He always had a good appetite, despite the many other ‘deficiencies’ in his young life and Maggie looked at him with total devotion as he ate; her chubby arms folded across her ample bosom and her round pink face beaming proudly. Maggie was no debutante and she knew it, but neither did she have any regrets on that score. Joe was her second husband since number one had taken off only a few weeks after their marriage and nobody ever knew where he went or what had happened to him . . He just went without a bye your leave. . . .is how Maggie described his parting, when asked. She was a little on the plump side, perhaps. Wholesome as Joe described it. He had always maintained that he liked a lady who was substantial . . . and not one of ‘them skinny, skeleton types . .’ They had been married for just over three years, when they adopted Freddie, who was nearly five by that time and Joe was then a handsome young stripling of . . . well, she was never quite sure of his age, onl
y that he said he was a little younger than her. They never argued about that subject, but Maggie was convinced that Joe was ten years older than he professed to be. . . for reasons that confused her at times, for Joe wasn’t the least bit vain and certainly not about such a trivial matter as his age. He said he was twenty four when they had got married, since he thought he was twenty-four then and Maggie never disputed that . . even when she saw his birth certificate one day in a drawer in the bedroom, under the drawer lining. But that was another story . . and Maggie’s only regret was that she had no children of her own. . . . . .

  “Will you have ice cream for ‘afters’, Love. It’s your favourite flavour . . or would you prefer a nice slice of lemon meringue pie?” Maggie smiled at her little soldier. “Oooh! watch it Love, you’ve just spilled some beans on the carpet, look! Never mind. It won’t show when I’ve washed it off, will it? Oh look, there’s some more on the table, near your plate.”

  Freddie scooped the beans back onto his plate and murmured his choice of ‘afters’ with his mouth full of toast, before he sat back complacently and folded his arms, as Maggie strolled into the kitchen in her usual carefree manner to get her pride and joy the banana flavour ice cream that he liked. Freddie watched her carefully as she returned to the table; unfolded his arms and toyed playfully with his fork..

  “Would you like to be back at school again, Maggie? . . I mean, . . well, would you like to be young again?” he spluttered and Maggie beamed with a broad smile as she plunked the dessert down before her dream-boy.

  “Well now . . I’m not ancient exactly, am I? I’m only . . twenty-something “ She said quietly, raising her eyes to heaven for forgiveness and blushed as she thought of Joe when she said that, “And you wouldn’t call that old now, would you?”

  Freddie licked the ice cream from his spoon before he answered.

  “ I would . . “ he replied curtly and somewhat jealously as he pushed his bean plate to the other side of the table.

  “Well now . . thank you very much, I must say. You’ll go far in life young man, when you grow up, especially with the ladies, I’m sure,” she said but Freddie continued to eat his ice cream undeterred.

  “Joe told me his school days were the best days of his life and he’s going to tell me more about it tomorrow, when he gets home from work,” he went on as Maggie lifted the discarded bean plate and stared at the dog as she passed him, where he lay sprawled across the mat in front of the gas fire. She watched him open one eye and sniff hopefully.

  “Nothing left for you here, Sammy. The man of the house has eaten it all,” she giggled as

  Freddie sucked his teeth and pulled a face.

  “He can have a spoonful of my ice cream, he murmured reluctantly as if that gesture would save the situation and re-establish his fond, if somewhat strained relationship with his mongrel friend. Sammy whined and wagged his tail, lazily as he folded his pink tongue over his wet, black snout. “Joe says he would love to be back at school again, Maggie. Do you think he’s having me on?”

  Maggie pondered, still holding the supper plate in her hand.

  “I don’t think so Freddie. I don’t think he has ever left school, really . . well, not altogether . . he’s still a little boy at heart. I’m sure he has never ever really grown up . . your uncle Joe.”

  Maggie retired to the kitchen and Sammy followed her enthusiastically, but her thoughts were not as light as they seemed. There was a mystery about her beloved husband that she could never really fathom. It was a mystery of ten long years that no-one could recall in Joe’s life. He had just vanished into thin air . . or so it seemed . . from the orphanage where he had lived all his childhood life and re-appeared suddenly when he was twenty. Of course, he never talked about that time of absence and nobody ever asked any questions, least of all Maggie, although she had tried often enough, but there was a certain law of silence . . . and that was all there was to it.

  Chapter Three

  Joe put the last few bolts into the raw bonnet part of the car before it went into the Paint Shop and left the Plant to wash his hands before he sat down to his own supper of corned beef sandwiches, with mustard. A tomato rolled out of his plastic container as he lay the box on the seat beside him. He never liked the canteen meals and besides, they were getting too expensive and the canteen was always closed for the night duty staff anyway.

  As he munched contentedly, dreamily gazing through the windows in the factory roof at the shimmering moon outside, he smiled as he thought again of Freddie and of his yearnings to leave school and be a man. . . Were they not just the same thoughts and ambitions he had himself when he was a lad? Didn’t every . . . or at least most boys want the same? But then . . . not every boy had met the Doughnut Man . . . had they? . . . and then Joe remembered...

  ***

  It was way back in 1936, on a cold and wet afternoon in November that Joe had stood for hours in the rain, soaked to the skin, waiting patiently to get into the football ground to see his favourite team play. The Sandforth Wanderers were playing a home match and he had managed, with great effort, to get a ticket for the game that afternoon.

  ‘Doughnuts . . . Hot, fresh doughnuts.’

  Joe pulled his collar up around his neck and his cap down over his eyes. There was nothing to see anyway as he waited in the queue of three abreast, being pushed and shoved about any and everywhere. The rain dripped from his cap to his nose, compelling him to take his hands out of his warm pockets to scratch it. He remembered that day well . . He would never forget it. It was just three days after his tenth birthday.

  ‘Doughnuts . . . fresh doughnuts.’

  He heard the voice again. He heard and saw the old man ply his trade in his stained velour hat with the brim tied to his head with a faded tartan scarf to secure it from the strong wind that was blowing up. His tattered raincoat was belted around his thin waist . . a coat that reached only to his scrawny knees and his shoes squelched as he trudged along the line of fans with his barrow covered with an old tarpaulin canopy to keep the rain from splashing into the boiling fat, in his deep, red-hot galvanized pans. The dough sizzled as he squished along in the fast running gutters.

  Joe had seen that old man several times before when the weather was better and he was surprised that the old fellow would even attempt to sell his doughnuts in such wet and storm conditions, but then . . that was his trade, he supposed. That was his way of making a living. . . or whatever he liked to call it . It certainly wouldn’t suit Joe . . he was sure of that.

  I don’t suppose he would have taken much notice of the old vendor if it hadn’t been raining so hard . . and he felt sorry for him. It must have been difficult, he imagined, to manoeuvre that old tub around in the best of weather, let alone on a rainy day . . and a wild one at that. The tarpaulin beat against the side of his trolley and it would have over-balanced if the old man hadn’t suddenly applied his squelchy brakes. The fat bubbled and sizzled as he moved, crackling and spluttering in defiance of the rain . . or perhaps because of it . .and the old man screwed up his weather-beaten face to show a thin dark line of a mouth, where there should have been teeth.

  He passed very near and Joe could see his striking blue eyes piercing and narrow in the wind, staring directly into Joe’s, whilst he chewed something in that thin slit of a mouth that made his sharp chin touch his long thin nose in the absence of his dentures. The silver stubble on his chin was in contrast to the deep underlying tan of his hard skin and his hair shot out unruly in the same colour tufts, from under the brim of his old velour hat.

  ‘Doughnuts . . . doughnuts. Lovely fresh doughnuts.

  He called out in a hoarse and ragged voice as he rubbed his hands together with the heat from the bright coke-fire brazier under his old barrow and puffed the flames to life occasionally with a weathered old set of leather bellows with dull brass surroundings, when the flame appeared to be extinct.
r />   Joe could recall his actions vividly as he munched away at his corn beef sandwich . . with the mustard spread, that Maggie had prepared for him with tender and loving care . . .as he lay, sprawled out on two packing boxes with his legs crossed gazing at the moon as she disappeared from sight in his window vision. It seemed like only yesterday and not so long ago and he wondered whatever had become of that old man who tried to make a living in such an arduous and painstaking way, when surely he could have chosen some other.

  “But that could be said of all of us,” he said aloud . . . as he went back to his memories.

  ***

  The thunder clapped and the lightning streaked her rays across the stadium as the weather vein burst into flames of electric sparks and crashed its way to the ground, just a few feet away from the doughnut cart, which shook violently and toppled over on its side as the fat bubbled and spat into the air, spewing across the street, making a cloud of heavy blue smoke. The young men in the queue ran away, shouting and waving their hands with excitement . . Some of them slid around in the oil that had mixed with the rain and cursed the old man as they picked themselves up to join their friends who had already given up all idea of watching a football match. A sign had appeared at the turnstile which read, ‘Match cancelled owing to the inclemency of the weather. Tickets refunded or exchanged.’

  There were screams and wailing cries fading into the distance as the angry crowd dispersed. People zigzagged in an effort to avoid slipping on the fat, skidding and sliding as they went and cursing the old man for being so idiotic as to cause so much trouble with his seemingly innocent and inoffensive trade. Some shook their fists at him and he stood in fear, unable to control the accident that had already happened.