The Giveaway

excerpt from the novel Fabric

Words by Pauline Sewards

Art by Yaleeza Patchett

Adults say that Charlie can’t possibly remember the day he left Alnwick fen. The more he talks of that day the angrier they get. Charlie realizes years later that the anger is based on anxiety. It is very important for adults to believe that a small boy can have no memories, has a mind like a ‘clean slate’. Charlie knows that a slate can never really be clean—all the slates he comes across in school are crisscrossed with tiny scratches, marks from every child who has painstakingly learned to read and count.

Charlie remembers every detail of his life. Until the day when his memory and brain go spinning into free-fall. But that is much later. Let’s begin where Charlie begins.

1900 Alnwick Fen, Lincolnshire, UK. 

Slap of gray mist meeting sky. Damp air, soaking clothes and lungs. Charlie’s family live in the pub, the only part of the village that has life and color. During the day the pub is cold as the ashes in the fire grate of the snug. At night Charlie sneaks downstairs and puts his ear to the door, where light leaks underneath. He hears voices, harsh and high pitched. Sometimes he looks through the keyhole, feels safer if he can see the crowd making the sounds.

Charlie has many brothers and sisters, all older than him. Connie is the only one who has time for him, but her attentions are not entirely positive. She drags him around, cuts his hair, paints his face with mud. When he complains she tells him “Shut up, you’re only a busted, you’ve no right to make a fuss.” He doesn’t know what the word busted means, senses it isn’t good. 

One day Connie points to the snip rug in front of the fire in the snug and says, “That’s where you were born. Not in a bed. On the floor.” The rug has uneven edges, like the hide of a dog ripped from its body and laid out flat. It’s made from rags, is messy looking and Charlie knows that there is something very wrong about being born in front of the fire. He hopes it isn’t true.

When Aunt Violet arrives, she brings sunshine with her. Everyone says so. Charlie still feels cold in his short trousers. “Be nice to your Auntie Violet” his mother says. “Be a good boy.”

Unlike most adults, Aunt Violet pays him lots of attention. She goes on at him a bit like Connie—wet-combs his hair, measures his arm span and height. She asks him what kind of foods he likes, quizzes his mother if he is “regular”. Violet seems to find most of his words and actions “funny” or “adorable”. Charlie slips away from her, but his father catches him and gives him the biggest hiding of his life so far, whipping the back of his knees with the dog lead. Afterwards he warns him not to tell anyone about the beating.

Violet and his mother find Charlie sitting on the back step of the pub. He is crying so much that snot runs out of his nose. He wants his mother to comfort him, but she only blows his nose for him. Violet is the one who wraps her arms round him. 

“What a poppet, like a little chimney sweep. I could take him home.”

“You can ‘ave him,” his mother says.

The Pub is called the Vine. It has a sign, repainted every summer, of a bunch of black grapes with a man’s face behind it. The man has a beard and a pair of neat horns on his head. Charlie learns years later that this is the god Bacchus. The village is called Carlton Magma to distinguish it from the much smaller village; Carlton Minor. Carlton Magma has a village hall and a huge church and cemetery, but the railway station is in Carlton Minor. On the day Aunt Violet leaves a horse and cart is ordered to take her to the station. Charlie is dressed up in his Sunday suit with a gabardine mac on top. His coat is tight, and he has difficulty bending his arms. 

Violet’s train is due to leave in the evening so there is time for her to have a “gin and it” first. For once Charlie is allowed into the bar and he is surprised how much notice people take of him. He is given five sixpences and a sugar mouse and, less welcome, lots of spitty kisses. The pub women with rouged cheeks and feathery hats and the pub men with stern faces and flat caps all tell him to be a good boy. His father punches his ear with his fist, softly. Connie gives him a toy milk van with three wheels missing. He nearly tells her to stuff it but then says “I’ll race you later—bet I win!” Connie doesn’t say a word but stares at him unblinkingly. She has blue eyes, like everyone else in the family, but his are brown. Muddy eyes he’s been told. He wonders why his mother has his little duffle bag with her. 

Violet takes a long time to say goodbye to the pub. “For goodness sake make haste” his father says in the end and then Charlie and his mother and Violet are off on the ruler-straight fen road. Charlie loves riding on the horse drawn cart and looks forward to the journey home.

At the noisy station the porter helps with the luggage. Charlie notices that his duffle bag goes into the train, along with Violet’s cases. “That’s wrong” he wants to say but his mouth feels all dry and the words won’t come out. 

His mother picks him up. “Give me a big kiss,” she says, “and now one for your Aunty Violet.” Quickly she passes him like a parcel into Violet’s arms. Violet who is standing inside the train, as the guard closes the door, and the train pulls out of the station. 

About the author

Pauline Sewards currently lives in Brighton; she worked in healthcare for many years and writes about history, landscapes, and music. She has two published two poetry collections: This is the Band (Hearing Eye 2018) and Spirograph (Burning Eye Books, 2020) she is a member of Bristol Novelists writing group. Find her on Facebook as Pauline Seawards.

About the artist

Yaleeza has been creating illustrations since the moment she was able to pick up a pencil. Through her artistic journey she became well versed in the mediums of graphite, ink and acrylic. Recently she has begun to further exercise her artistic skill in the realm of dark macabre, pagan, and blackwork illustrations. Through this she has found meaning and new love for her artwork. Yaleeza currently resides in the Southside of Indianapolis, Indiana with her husband Jon, her bloodhound Jojo, and her two cats, Boogers and Finn.