Into the Unknown. Joy Dunicliff

said Joe.

      “It was walking along those crowded narrow unlit streets, lit only by a light here an there from a window or alleyway” Alfred explained.

      “So what. I often do it.” was Joe’s reply.

      “There are so many undesirables around, ‘women of the night’, pickpockets, knifers those who thought that we might be worth killing for things we might have in our pockets, or use us to sell for dissection at one of the teaching hospitals. I do wish however that it was daylight, and I could have seen the larger commercial ships in port, some in full sail and also those famous Thames barges which work so hard. I hear about them, but have never really seen our docks working. I never want to go there again” Alfred confided.

      Alfred looked around him again. He had seen what he thought was one of the now numerous shacks, so often found in scattered in remote areas. They were the abandoned huts of the earlier settlers, who had now moved on, to other areas or other jobs. They were very useful places for an odd night’s stay.

      After their evening meal, cooked on the primitive stove within, the two men sat talking about this and that, when Joe asked Alfred, how he felt after his father and Charlton had sailed for England. Did he feel abandoned?

      “No, I had been left with uncle, that was OK.” The remark surprised Joe so he asked “but then what?”

      “I was free, free of parental control; free to make my own decisions, after all uncles are there, for when things go wrong. You know I have not really thought about how I felt at that time. The one thing I really did miss, and that was you. We have always been on the same wave length, you know, someone I could moan to, disagree with, argue with, and suddenly I had no one. The people I did try to talk to, or exchange a view, always ended up lecturing me. I think I am over that now, I have to be.” Alfred proudly replied.

      “How did you get yourself into those scrapes, driving cattle and other jobs?” asked Joe.

      “Again, I fell upon them” was Alfred’s reply.

      “How?” asked puzzled Joe “I went around asking people if they knew of any jobs going until I found someone who could tell me where there was work.” This remark did not sound silly to Alfred only to Joe.

      “How did you feel then?” Joe was pushing Alfred, “Why? How did I feel, did I have any real feelings,” could he remember? Alfred had not analyzed his life in this way before, and his feelings surprised him.

      “I was excited, I was going to able to support myself, I would have money to spend, and a great deal of fun. I suppose, I had a degree of euphoria, but at the same time, I was scared. You know I have never admitted that before. Why do you want to know?”