Like Calls Unto Like

Annesley is a place where people pretty well knew one another. One such person would have been the headmaster of the local primary school for thirty years. He grew to love the place and just stayed on after retirement. After watching the children he taught grow, he would sometimes comment that some grew well and others not so well. And I suppose he learned more about the people after his retirement than he ever knew about them before.

But there is one story he related of a lad from Annesley, one among many whose colorful biography one might find of particular interest. Going back toward the end of World War II, there was this chap called Lalla Bond. Who knows why they called him Lalla. Some say his name was Lance and others say Lenard. But Lalla he became, and Lalla he stayed.

Annesley folk reckoned Lalla was like a wild horse. He galloped free, he was differential to no man, and he was a fearsome foe when roused. He was a man of the earth all right. He knew every badger's set, foxhole, and stream, and he could, if one asked him and he was in the mood, talk for an hour on the wildlife of a common ditch.

He was almost on speaking terms with the kingfishers perching in the hedges and dove to catch sticklebacks in the shining water. Nothing moved or grew but what Lalla knew of it. He poached and led the gamekeepers on a dance, and he was never caught, for he had the stealth of a trapping Indian. He once sent the local land-owning squire a postcard, inviting him to his ramshackle place for a supper of jugged hare.

Until he was forty or so, he worked at the pit until the claustrophobic darks could no longer cage his restless spirit. One day, he marched into the manager's office and asked for his cards. And from then on, he worked when he felt like it. He had saved a bit to convert an old ruin of a cottage, which just about satisfied the local authority. Then he worked on farms cutting, threshing, sowing, reaping, turnip tagging, and doing anything and everything.

He talked to the horses as friend to friend, and local folks swore they heard horses talking back. Lalla, patched, unkempt, irreverent, and as restless as a tomcat, had a back like a gorilla, hands like pit shovels, and a heart of a lion. He was a wild, raging, brooding hell of a man! But here's a strange thing. In the shambles of his living room, there were many books, great soaring heaps of tomes scattered, as if some mighty wind had blown them into the house and settled them there in a crazed confusion. And apart from a tale of cowboys and pirates, there were books of Shakespeare, Keats, Byron, of course, and a large, well-thumbed Bible.

Sometimes in the local, Lalla would sit brooding in a corner, never joining in the local gossip. Then suddenly without warning, he would launch into a Shakespearean recital. Heads would turn, but smiles would be very carefully concealed.

Lalla would "have his bout out" as the locals expressed it. And then just as suddenly as he began, he would stop, get up, and stalk out of the pub. He would go back to his lair and passers-by would hear him reciting poetry or gently plucking his guitar, an instrument as rough and weathered as its owner. And Lalla would sometimes sing, playing little tunes in a reedy voice that took one to dark marshes or windswept heaths.

Well now, there was this lad, Willie Pearson. As soon as he walked into school, the headmaster's first thought about him was of Lalla. For here was another wild, untamed creature, if ever there were one. Local folks said his ancestors were gypsies and that, two or three generations back, gypsies had camped in the parkland. They'd eventually been driven off, but one or two had stayed and put roofs over their heads.

Willie was a "gypo," or so the locals said. He was a ragged, tattered, little whelp with a face as brown as a konker (chestnut) and eyes as proud as a prince. His hair stuck up like hedgehog quills, and he also appeared at school as if his route had lain through a hawthorn bush.

He lived with his stepfather, Ben Garrity. Talk had it that Ben kicked Willie upstairs at night and downstairs in the morning. Of course, it had to happen—like calls unto like and deep unto deep—Willie found Lalla to begin a strange story that still has not ended.

Lalla, with stick in hand and dog at heel, made strides for the woods. Ambling along the path that leads to the river's bend, he became aware of another presence nearby.

As he looked around his shoulder, he frowned as he called to a small spy. "Hey, what ya want?"

The dark-eyed child stopped in his tracks and looked at Lalla. A small scarecrow faced a large one.

"Eh! Get going!" a stern Lalla resounded.

The boy stood his ground.

Again, Lalla called out, "I said, get going!"

The boy still stood his ground.

Lalla approached within striking distance and waved the stick in a threatening motion. "Want some of this?"

The young boy remained silent.

"Are you deaf, or has cat gotcha tongue? Now, are you going, or have I got to shift you?" asked a gruff Lalla.

The boy still stood his ground. The small head went back as the eyes stared unflinching at the man.

Lalla eyed the small, proud figure. "My God! You've got some brass on your face, ain't ye?" He pointed with the stick and waved. "Off with ya!"

Clearing his throat, the little voice retaliated, "I can walk in these woods, same as you. Anybody can."

Lalla lowered the stick and regarded the lad with even more interest. He snorted at his challenger. "Oh ya can, can ya? Well, let me tell you something, me lad. You don't follow me. Nobody follows me." He advanced on Willie, who retreated not an inch. Lalla towered over the boy and glared down. Then after a long pause, Lalla spoke.

"What's your name, cock sparrow, eh?"

"Willie," the boy replied.

"Willie? Willie what?" asked Lalla.

"Pearson," said Willie.

Lalla digested this. "Ben's lad?..... Ben Garrity's lad?"

Quickly, Willie snapped, "He's not me dad! Me dad's dead!"

Acknowledging, Lalla growled, "Umpf. Well, don't follow me."

Willie suggested, "All right, I'll walk with you then. That's not follering, is it?"

A fazed Lalla puffed, "Good God! And if I don't want you with me, what then?"

The boy lowered his eyes. The leaves rustled as the wind reached the outstretched branches. Lalla grunted, shuffled, and finally reached for his pipe. He crumpled twist into the blackest bowl pipe in Nottinghamshire and lit up with a studied veracity. Willie watched in awe.

Lalla coughed and worked the pipe laterally. He spat expertly, grunted, and emitted the most extraordinary cackle of a sound. "Humph, well, I dunno, bugger me. Merff, I dunno, ssffee, arrrr." He suddenly removed the pipe from his mouth. "Come on then, but do as you're told. If ya gemme any trouble, I'll kick your arse straight back to Annesley...