The Tall Tale of Carniggy House.
Prologue 5.
Tom in a northern town… 5.
I make a decision in that moment to always care for my child, probably its paternity rising in me for the first time, and also some sort of spell cast upon me on finding out that I have a beautiful baby girl. A beautiful baby girl, whose eyes are wrinkled up in a smile just for me, and I suddenly understand why men are so protective of their daughters. I sit on the couch by Autumn, holding our baby, Autumn seems to be asleep, so I’m guessing that the journey here has been as arduous for her as she has just told me. When next I think, I realise I been asleep on the couch, and as I slowly wend my way back from sleep, I see that once again Autumn appears to have left, it’s then I think of the baby, and realise she has taken Cora with her.
I panic for a moment as I sit there on the couch listening to the silence of the house, I’d just found out I have a daughter, and already I’ve lost her, it’s then I think I hear a noise from above me. I slip out to the stairs, and at the bottom I stand and listen, but hear nothing more, so slowly, and making plenty of noise myself, I climb the stairs. At the top I once again take time to listen carefully, and just as I think I’ve been imaging things again, there’s a slight chuckling sound from the bedroom. The bedroom door is ajar, and so I walk across, and give it a gentle shove, the first thing I see as the door opens, is Autumn lying propped up on the bed, and she’s obviously just fed Cora, whose gurgling contentedly. I tear my eyes away from my new daughter, and catch her mother’s eyes, whose hazel depths have me lost for words.
It’s Autumn who speaks first, and she asks me if she could have some herbal tea, and also do I have any vegetables in the house? I warn her that I shall have to go out, as I have nothing of what she wants, Autumn then asks me what I eat myself, and I reply,
“Baked beans mostly, bread, and sometimes sausages..”
“That’ll have to change, but I can cook, and you look as though you need some feeding up.”
Autumn replies, and I ask her if she is staying then, and quite simply she tells me, that we have a child to bring up now.
I slip out of the bedroom, down the stairs and out of the front door, it’s only a two minute walk to the corner shop, where I select a lot of different vegetables, carrots, potatoes, parsnip, and swede to name a few. I then rifle through the tea section, and to my vast surprise, I find they actually do have herbal teas, so I add some boxes of various flavours to my shop. When I arrive at the checkout however, the local woman whose known me since I was a boy, takes a look in my basket, then takes a hard look at me, before laughing and saying,
” Come over all weird have you pet, where’s your usual beans, or have you gone and got a woman at last..?”
I feel myself blush, she’s laughs again and then bags up my items, and I’m off out into the street before she can inquire as to if I actually do have a woman. There will be plenty of gossip as it is, without fuelling it further now, I mean I don’t know if Autumn is going to stay myself, and then add a baby, my baby to the equation, and I’ll the talking point of the street for several months..! Back at the house, I’m not sure what to do with the vegetables, or even what she might do with them, I personally cannot see the point of cooking, and not when there’s a good chippy just two streets over. I put the kettle on, and whilst it starts to boil, I read the instructions on the side of the first fruit tea box I pick up. ‘Black currant’, I remember my mum making me hot Ribena, and knowing how much I enjoyed that, I set out two mugs, and drop the sweet smelling tea bags in, one each in each mug, followed by the now boiling water. I leave the teabags to brew for about four minutes, and whilst I’m standing idle in the kitchen as the time ticks by, my eyes are drawn to kitchen window which looks out over the back garden, there’s movement out there, damn it, have I got some pesky kid in the garden again! The kids around here seem to think my garden is some sort of assault course, and I’m always chasing them out of it.
From beneath the Duvet 