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    In Prior's Pocket
    In Prior's Pocket
    In Prior's Pocket
    Ebook135 pages1 hour

    In Prior's Pocket

    By David McRobbie

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    About this ebook

    Teenager Bill Fields and his father move into a new but old house, which is one of four identical dwellings in Prior’s Pocket. For Bill, the place takes some getting used to; it’s old and spooky, especially in the daytime when he comes home to an empty house.
    One day, he finds the place has an attic and discovers up there a model house. Bill sets about restoring the model, cleaning and reconditioning to make it good as new. His father points out that the model is a representation of the place they now live in, so maybe it was an architect’s model to show how the houses would look once they were built.
    There is a family occupying the model house, tiny life-like figures — father, mother and teenage daughter. Bill gives them names and as time goes on, he becomes more and more absorbed in the life he has created for them. Before long, he finds himself actually inside the model house and back in the year 1927.
    But more than that — the family he meets are in crisis and they look to Bill to help end their agony.
    This is a time-travel mystery story.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid McRobbie
    Release dateJul 3, 2014
    ISBN9781311130655
    In Prior's Pocket
    Author

    David McRobbie

    David McRobbie was born in Glasgow in 1934. After an apprenticeship he joined the Merchant Navy as a marine engineer and sailed the world, or some of it. Eventually he worked his passage to Australia, got married and settled down for a bit only to move to Papua New Guinea where he trained as a teacher.Subsequently he found work as a college lecturer, then a researcher for parliament. Back in Australia in 1974 he joined the Australian Broadcasting Corporation as a producer of radio and television programs for young people.In 1990 he gave up this work to become a full time writer for children and young adults. He has written over thirty paperbacks, mainly novels, but some are collections of short stories, plays and ‘how-to’ books on creative writing.Three of his novels were adapted for television, with David writing all of the sixty-five scripts — the first being The Wayne Manifesto in 1996, followed by Eugénie Sandler, PI then Fergus McPhail. These shows were broadcast throughout the world, including Australia and Britain on BBC and ITV.The BBC adapted another of David’s novels for television — See How They Run, which became the first BBC/ABC co-production.At the age of 79, David is still at work. His most recent paperback novels are Vinnie’s War, (Allen & Unwin) published in 2011, about childhood evacuation in the second world war. This was followed by To Brave The Seas, in 2013, a story about a 14-year-old boy who sails in Atlantic convoys during WW2. Both books are available online.

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      Book preview

      In Prior's Pocket - David McRobbie

      In Prior’s Pocket

      David McRobbie

      In Prior’s Pocket

      David McRobbie

      Copyright © 2014 David McRobbie

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only and may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book, please purchase an additional copy for each person with whom you intend to share it. If you're reading this e-book and did not purchase it, then you should buy your own copy.

      Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      Cover image: Alice-Anne Boylan

      Contents

      In the beginning …

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      About the Author

      Other Books by David McRobbie

      In the beginning …

      My name is Bill, actually William Fields, but for some reason, and along with all the other Williams in the world, I got called Bill. It was my Dad’s idea to give me that first name. According to Mum, when I was born he was so excited about having a son he said, ‘We’ll call him Bill, It’s a manly name and if ever I saw one, and he’s going to be a real man. Look at the todger on him.’

      My mother, who was a bit out of it, what with just having had me, said, ‘That’s not his todger, it’s the cord.’ Mum would never say a word like that, so she must have been doped to the eyeballs. Anyway, Dad got his way and I became William, also known as Bill.

      I was their first-born, and as it turned out, my parents’ only-born. Dad was Rory Fields and Mum was Angela.

      In the maternity unit, while I got on with some serious sleeping, Dad went off to buy a football. He was keen that when I grew up and was able to walk, totter and maybe run a bit, his ambition was that we’d do rough and tumble sports stuff together.

      Even at an early age I could sense Dad’s disappointment in me. I didn’t like ball games, either playing them or watching them. You get hit with a dirty ball, so you cry. It hurt; it always hurt. I could never see the point of doing the same thing over and over, of watching big, burly guys dashing around with a ball and getting muddy or carted off in screaming agony.

      I began to like classical music, because my mother had the radio on during the day as she tapped away in front of her computer. She was pleased when I recognised a piece and could pronounce Tchaikovsky’s name and tell her the music was his without waiting for the announcer. And so I grew up that way, liking the quiet life, keeping my room tidy and caring for my toys so that when I grew out of them they were passed on to a younger kid in the neighbourhood.

      ‘Oh, they’re so new looking,’ some grateful mother would say. ‘Hasn’t your Bill looked after them?’

      Primary school days were the same, only I was expected to ‘join in’ with games and exercise, and do running around. No one wanted me on their team so I was always last to be picked. Even better were the times they’d make me linesman at soccer. I liked that. Being on your own with a cool job. Authority without responsibility. I didn’t even have to touch the ball. That was the players’ job.

      I looked for a peaceful life, which is how I grew up.

      Chapter One

      Dad got our house in Prior’s Pocket for a decent price, because the previous owner had died and didn’t have any relatives to inherit his stuff. It was a big old place, one of four, standing around a dead-end road that was a circle where cars could drive in, then turn to go back out again. All four houses looked the same as the one we’d bought, except for the gardens, the curtains at the windows and front door paint. That sort of thing. I asked, ‘Who was Prior, Dad? And how come he got a pocket named after him?’

      ‘Dunno, Bill. The place was always called Prior’s Pocket. Long as I can remember. These were posh houses in their day. I was a paper boy down this way. Delivered glossy magazines as well as the dailies. Very upmarket.’ Dad fiddled with a ring of keys, looking for the right one for our new, but old, front door. All around behind the circle of four houses was a wide field of grass with a couple of ancient horses in it.

      ‘Great place for flying a kite,’ I remarked. ‘Or one of my planes.’ Model aeroplanes were my hobby at the time, as well as writing stories. My planes were made out of balsa wood and tissue paper, except I couldn’t find the money for one with an engine. As for radio-control, forget it. Best I could afford was a glider.

      ‘There won’t be any kites or model making for a while,’ Dad went on. ‘Because Bill, my boy, we’ve got to get this house licked into some sort of shape, right?’

      ‘Yeah, right, Dad. Make it a home, eh?’

      ‘And when I carry Angela over the threshold, the place has got to be really nice.’ Dad found the right key, opened the front door and we went to check out our new property.

      When my father mentioned carrying Mum into the house, he wasn’t being romantic or traditional, the way husbands go on with their brides when they’re first married. The reason is my mother wasn’t able to walk. Something to do with what the doctors called ‘secondaries.’ It’s like there’s a disease that starts in one place, then affects other parts of the body.

      We inspected the house: upstairs there were four bedrooms and a bathroom with a separate toilet. None of the rooms would do for Mum, unless we put in one of those chairlift things so she could get up to it. The largest room was at the front and had wide windows so that outside we could see the circular dead-end road.

      Dad let me pick one of the other bedrooms as mine. We decided to make the third one into a study where we’d put my computer and maybe a work table so I could build my dream model aeroplane, when I got around to it. It was to be a radio-controlled Cessna with a 2.5 cc diesel engine, which I’d had my eye on for some time. Only my eye, not a down payment.

      On the ground floor there was a big, living room with a fireplace in it and off to one side was a second toilet and the kitchen, which is where the back door was. Next to the living room was a smaller room that had empty wooden bookshelves all around the walls.

      ‘Library,’ Dad explained. ‘Nothing sadder than a library with no books. Still, we can fix that, eh, Bill?’

      ‘Yeah, Dad. Or we could make it Mum’s bedroom.’

      ‘Your Mum, and books,’ Dad agreed. ‘That’s what we’ll do with it. Angela loves a good read. We’ll surround her with books. If we can afford them.’

      ‘Afford’ was a big word in our lives. So were phrases like: ‘manage to pay for it,’ and ‘come up with the money,’ as well as other sayings that people use. I mean hard up people.

      Before any of that kind of organising stuff could happen, there was the business of moving our own things in — beds, sideboard, dining table and chairs as well as a kitchen full of pots and pans. It took about a week to get everything sorted out and the telephone connected along with cable for our computer. It was still summer and I’d already enrolled at my next school and checked the place out. It was only three streets away. There was still a couple of weeks holiday left so I could pitch in and help with the work.

      After all our effort, things were a bit more homely, what with our own curtains hanging at the windows and some of Mum’s favourite ornaments and pictures around the walls. In the library, Dad hung two of Mum’s framed newspaper headlines with her Angela Fields by-line on them, stories she’d worked on in her younger days before I came along to tie her down. She’d been a journalist; won a few awards. Dad put Mum’s trophies and certificates on an empty shelf and we looked at them, remembering, thinking our thoughts.

      Despite all our work, the place still wasn’t a hundred per-cent cheerful because the last owner had been an old guy who hadn’t done any decorating for fifty years or so. Instead of paint there was ancient wallpaper with a pattern of faded roses and other kinds of flowers that Dad said were peonies. I took his word for it. They could have been tulips for all I knew.

      ‘Whatever they call themselves,’ Dad said, ‘they have to come off.’ So we got stuck in with scrapers, then paint for the walls and ceiling. It took a whole day of sore elbows, then we stood back to look at the effect of such a lot of labour. Spick and span, was how Dad put it. Span and spick.

      I approved. ‘Mum’s going to like it.’

      Dad puffed his chest at the brilliance of our handiwork and said, ‘She sure will.’

      Life went on. Neither Dad nor I called the place home, because that takes time and a house has got to earn the name. Then one afternoon, with Dad at the hospital, visiting Mum,

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