Shena Mackay
Born in Edinburgh on D-Day, Shena Mackay (b.1944) grew up in Hampstead, Kent and lived much of her life in Surrey and south London before moving, in 2008, to Southampton. She first published a book aged seventeen, when her novellas Dust Falls on Eugene Schlumburger and Toddler on the Run were published in one volume. Her novels have won countless awards and, recently, Heligoland was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Novel Award and the Orange Prize. The Orchard on Fire was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1995. A selection of her stories was published as The Atmospheric Railway. She was once described as “the best writer in the world today.”
There were two sisters, Norma and Dolly, christened Dorothy, who lived in a seaside town. Norma and her husband, Eric, resided in a large detached house in Cliftonville Crescent, while Dolly’s caravan was berthed at the Ocean View Mobile Home Park, on the wrong side of the tracks of the miniature steam railway. Norma and Dolly’s elder brother, Walter, was the curator of the small Sponge Museum founded by their grandfather.
Eastcliff-on-Sea was a town divided. The prizewinning municipal gardens overlooked Sandy Bay where all the beach huts had been bought up by Londoners wanting traditional bucket-and-spade holidays, and as their offspring watched the Punch and Judy show while eating their organic ice cream, or played a sedate game of crazy golf, they could see the lights of the funfair winking across the tracks, and hear the shouts of less privileged children on the rides and smell their burgers, doughnuts and candyfloss drifting on the breeze from the ramshackle plaza that was Ocean View.
Norma had five children and fourteen grandchildren, thus ensuring that she had somebody to worry about at any given moment. One particularly hot summer night, she lay awake fretting at the news that a giant asteroid was on course to hit the earth sometime in the future. She groped for her bedside radio and switched it on low so as not to disturb Eric. Her finger slipped on the dial and out of the radio came the squawk of a gull, followed by a voice singing “All you hear is Radio Gannet, Radio gaga, Radio Gannet. Greetings, all you night owls, this is Radio Gannet taking you through the wee small hours with Joanne and The Streamliners and their ever-lovin’ ‘Frankfurter Sandwiches’.”
At the female DJ’s voice, Norma sat bolt upright, hyperventilating. Over the music came the spluttering of fat in a pan, and a muffled expletive. It was the indisputable sound of her sister Dolly having a fry-up. “Whatever happened to the good old British banger?” grumbled Dolly. “Answers on a postcard, please.”
Norma sat transfixed, picturing Dolly at the Baby Belling with her tail of grey-blonde hair hanging over her dressing gown, slipshod in downtrodden espadrilles, in that terrible caravan with its tangle of dead plants in rotting macramé potholders, Peruvian dream-catchers, etiolated things growing out of old margarine tubs, the encrusted saucers left out for hedgehogs by the door, the plastic gnomes bleached white by time. The budgie. The cat. The slugs.
She hadn’t seen her sister since their father’s funeral, when Dolly had grabbed the microphone from the vicar and launched into “Wind Beneath My Wings”. Dolly was dressed in frayed denim, cowgirl boots and a kiss-me-quick cowgirl hat.
In the morning Norma dismissed the radio programme as a bad dream. She was taking a brace of grandchildren to buy their new school shoes for the autumn term. It was one of those days when people tell each other that “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity”. In the shoeshop they were served by an apathetic girl with a film of sweat on her upper lip who showed little enthusiasm for measuring the children’s feet, gazing ahead as if watching a procession of Odor-Eaters marching into eternity. Music played in the background; a common family was creating havoc with the Barbie and Star Wars trainers. Norma looked fondly at her grandchildren. Their legs were the colour of downy, sun-kissed apricots in the sensible shoes she was insisting on. Suddenly, there it was again, the squawking gull, that idiotic jingle.
“This is Radio Gannet coming to you on – some kilohertz or other, I can never remember. Kilohertz – what’s that in old money, anyway? I blame the boffins in Brussels, myself. This one’s specially for you, all you metric martyrs out there: “Pennies from Heaven” – hang on, a road traffic report’s just coming in. It’s Mr Wilf Arnold ringing from the call box on the corner of Martello Street where a wheelie bin has overturned, shedding its load …”
As soon as she had paid for the shoes Norma hurried the children round to the Sponge Museum to consult her brother. Walter’s nose had grown porous with the passing years; it was an occupational hazard.
“Great Uncle Walter, have you ever thought of making the museum a bit more interactive? You need a hands-on approach if you’re going to compete in the modern world,” said Matilda.
“Yeah, like Sea World. With octopuses and killer whales and sharks. Everything in here’s dead,” agreed Sam.
“There’s far too much of this touchy-feely nonsense nowadays in my opinion,” said Walter. Norma nodded agreement, imagining herself in the wet embrace of an octopus.
“Go and improve your minds,” Walter told them. “And if you behave yourselves, you can choose a souvenir from the shop. How about a nice packet of Grow-Your-Own Loofah seeds?”
When they had slouched away, sniggering, Norma told Walter what she’d heard, recounting how Dolly had signed off, saying, “Keep those calls and e-mails coming, and as always, my thanks to Mr Tibbs, my producer.”
“Mr Tibbs? Isn’t that her cat?” said Walter.
“Exactly. She’s totally bonkers – remember the spectacle she made of herself at the funeral? I wouldn’t have said that Daddy was the wind beneath Dolly’s wings, would you, Walter?”
He considered. “Well, he did sponsor her for that bungee jump off the pier, and he made her that fairy dress with glittery wings for her birthday.”
“It was my birthday,” said Norma.
“Yes, I’m afraid our father always indulged Dolly,” admitted Walter.
“Well, look where it’s got him. I hardly think even Daddy would approve of her latest venture. We can only trust that nobody we know will tune into Radio Gannet.”
Walter’s Rotarian connections and Norma’s aspiration to serve as Eastcliff’s Lady Mayoress hung unspoken between them.
“Radio Gannet, eh? How appropriate.”
Walter remembered a plump little fairy flitting about the table at a children’s party, touching cakes and jellies with the silver star at the tip of her magic wand. Norma thought about her sister’s three helpings of tiramisu at her youngest son’s wedding. She’d turned that into a karaoke too. Then the sound that she and Walter had been half-listening out for, that of a display cabinet toppling, recalled them to the present.
“Where is this so-called radio station to be found?” asked Walter.
“Oh, at the wrong end of the dial. Where you get all those foreign and religious programmes.”
“But is she legal? I mean, do you think she’s got a licence to broadcast? It could well be that our dear sister is a pirate, in which case something can be done to put a stop to her little game. Leave Dolly Daydream to me, Norma.”
It was time for a weather check at Radio Gannet. “Let’s see what Joey the weather girl has in store for us this afternoon. Over to you at the Weather Centre, Joey.”
The Weather Centre was the budgerigar’s cage which hung in the open doorway with strips of seaweed trailing from its bars. Dry seaweed denoted a fine spell, while when it turned plump and moist, rain was in the offing.
“Pretty boy, pretty boy,” said Joey.
“Pretty dry – good news for all you holidaymakers, then. Uh oh,” Dolly stretched out to touch a ribbon of kelp and found it dripping. The caravan park was shrouded in grey drizzle. “Joey says better pop the brolly in the old beach bag, just in case.”
Joey was popular with the listeners. A recent beak problem had brought sackloads of cuttle-fish and millet from well-wishers, many of them students. “I’m only sending this ironically,” one of them had written. Dolly was flattered; she knew that students do everything ironically nowadays; watch kids’ TV, eat Pot Noodles; they even iron their jeans ironically. She placed her 78 of “Any Umbrellas” on the turntable, put her feet up and reached for the biscuit barrel.
Dolly was truly happy, having found her niche at last in public service broadcasting. Her Send a Pet to Lourdes campaign was coming along nicely and the coffers were swelling with milk-bottle tops and unused Green Shield stamps; the jigsaw swapshop was up and running, and the day care centre had asked her to put out an announcement that they had exceeded their quota of multi-coloured blankets. That Unravel Your Unwanted Woolies and Make Something Useful wheeze had been a triumph; the charity shops were full of its results. But fame, Dolly knew, came with a price. Like every celebrity, she had attracted a stalker. Hers had staring yellow eyes and a maniacal laugh. He tracked her through the plaza on pink webbed feet, he snatched ice lollies from her hand in the street, and chips from her polystyrene tray, tossing them aside if she hadn’t put on enough vinegar. He brought a whole new meaning to “take-away” food.
Radio Gannet went off the airwaves altogether when Dolly had to go down the shops; at other times listeners heard only the gentle snoring of the presenter and her producer Mr Tibbs.
“Coming up – six things to do on a rainy day in Eastcliff, but now it’s paper and pencils at the ready, for Dolly’s Dish of the Day. And it’s a scrummy Jammie Dodger coffee cheesecake recipe sent in by Mrs Elsie Majors of Spindrift, Ocean View Plaza. For this, you’ll need four tablespoons of Camp Coffee, a large tin of condensed milk, a handful of peanuts for the garnish, and a packet of Jammie Dodgers, crushed. And here’s a Dolly Tip for crushing the biscuits: place them in a plastic bag, tie securely, and bash them with a rolling pin. If you haven’t got a plastic bag handy, the foot cut off an old pair of tights will do just as well …
“Thanking you kindly, Elsie,” she concluded. “Your pipkin of Radio Gannet hedgerow jam is winging its way to you even as we speak.”
Or will be, as soon as Dolly has soaked the label off that jar of Spar Mixed Berry and replaced the lid with one of her crochet covers.
In Cliftonville Crescent Norma and Eric were listening in horror as the programme continued.
“This one’s for all you asylum seekers out there – ‘They’re Coming to Take Me Away Ha Ha’. That ought to get the politically correct brigade’s knickers in a twist. Which reminds me, don’t forget to text your entries for the Radio Gannet Political Correctness Gone Mad competition. ‘Fly’s in the sugar bowl, shoo fly shoo,’” she sang. “‘Hey hey, skip to my loo …’” and Radio Gannet went temporarily off the air.
“Dolly inhabits a parallel universe,” said Norma, scarlet with shame.
How it rained. Pennies from heaven. Stair rods. Cats and dogs. In the museum the sponges trembled and swelled in their glass cases, great sensitive blooms and castles and honeycombs saturated with the moisture in the air. Walter listened glumly to “Seasons in the Sun” on Radio Gannet. He’d been in touch with the authorities. Yet, like the man in the song, the stars that he’d reached were just starfish on the beach. His only visitors had been a couple of Canadian tourists on the Heritage Trail. Apparently they’d been misled by something they’d picked up on their hotel radio and were expecting an exhibition of sponge cakes through the ages. From King Alfred to Mr Kipling.
Dolly’s voice broke into his thoughts.
“Joey at the Weather Centre has handed me a severe weather warning. ‘How high’s the water, Mamma? Six feet high and risin’ …’”
Walter rushed out to check his sandbags.
That night a tremendous crash brought Norma and Eric leaping from their bed to the window. Norma had lain awake worrying about an asteroid hitting the earth. Now she was about to experience the collision of two worlds. Cresting a tsunami was her sister’s caravan and then the whole parallel universe was deposited in Cliftonville Crescent. It was like a scene from a Stanley Spencer Resurrection; the entire population of Ocean View Mobile Home Park were struggling out of their caravans in their night clothes, clutching plastic bags doubtless filled with old Green Shield stamps and unwashed milk-bottle tops, and there was Dolly splashing through the debris with her producer Mr Tibbs, Joey the Weather Girl, and a herring gull perched on her head.