Boy Number 26

by Tommy Rhattigan

  “Can I see it again? Please, sir.” I was pretending to be amazed by the trick, clever as it was, but I was sure I saw the tiniest piece of a biscuit crumb (which must have fallen from his moustache) suddenly vanish off the table top just as the cigarette moved.

  “Once more and that’s it,” he said, going through the same routine to summon up the magic to his podgy fingers. “Keep your eyes on the cigarette.”

  “I’m watching, I’m watching.” Was I feck! I was keeping my beady eyes on his lips.

  I was right. “You blew it!” I was all excited, having sussed him out. “I saw you, sir.”

  “Get out of my office.” Lilly’s face, like magic, had suddenly turned red.

  “But sir, I was clever, wasn’t I?”

  “Out!” His face had turned scarlet.

  “Can I still be your assistant?”

  “Get out!” He threw the packet of cigarettes at me, missing the side of my head by a whisker and I did a quick disappearing act.

  A Bang on the Head

  I had a swollen eye and a bit of a sore head after being whacked in the face a couple of days previously. I didn’t remember much about what had happened, it was that quick. I’d hurried into the outside toilet block but was unable to have a pee because Allen Jarvis was standing at the latrine, peering over at me. His face was already messed up, with two black eyes and a bruised hooter, the handiwork of Allan McGowan (one of the Geordie lads), who had beaten Jarvis up after he had given McGowan the come-on in the bathhouse.

  I could tell Jarvis wasn’t having a lag because the drain was down my end and there was no pee heading in my direction. So, taking a quick peek, I’d caught him peering at my privates. Worse still, he could see I could see him, and yet he stood there flashing his dick at me, with a grotesque grin spread across his face. Lost for words, for once, I just laughed at him and hurried out of the toilet block.

  The next thing I remember is the pain, as my brain exploded into millions of shooting stars, and the sudden darkness. It reminded me of the time, back in Manchester, when I’d decided to walk along the top of a high wall and lost my balance, falling off and landing head-first on the pavement. Left with a lump the size of a duck egg protruding from my forehead, I remember having a constant headache along with this strange, ripple-effect mist, hanging in front of my eyes for days on end. I’d been fortunate my brother Martin was with me at the time, so he was able to guide me around the streets, keeping me safe. I’d vomited a few times, which Daddy had ignored, while Mammy blamed it on something I must have eaten, “with the shite yah pick up off the streets every day”.

  I so missed Martin. I still recall the agony I’d felt the moment I’d realised we were to be separated from each other. I had cried so much and I could feel the physical pain of a broken heart, which was so bad I thought I was going to die. The night times were always the worst. I would lie in my bed, unable to sleep, constantly thinking about those happier times when we were so free and together, roaming the streets of Manchester without a fear in the world because we had each other for protection. Not that we had too many worries about needing protecting from the streets we’d once roamed. They were relatively safe and good to us. Knowing Manchester like the back of our hands, we were always confident. Perhaps at times too confident for our own good.

  I remember when we were once searching through a bombed bakery shop a few streets away from where we lived. I was out in the backyard, twisting a piece of lead piping away from the wall, when I noticed a sudden movement from the corner of my eye. It was only slight, but it had been enough to tell me that the roof was about to cave in at any second. And then it did.

  “The roof!” I screamed at the top of my voice, as I ran backwards away from the building, just managing to get out of the way in the nick of time, as the whole roof collapsed in on itself, sending plumes of dust skywards. “Martin! Martin!” I’d dashed over the debris through the blinding cloud of dust in my desperation to find my brother. Most of the back part of the roof and ceiling had fallen in and down into the ground floor of the shop, where the floorboards had been ripped out.

  “Martin!” I’d frantically called his name time and time again as I scrambled, half blind, over the grey slates, my caked eyes streaming with tears and a mouth full of grit.

  “Give us a hand, kid.”

  “Martin!” He was alive. The joy I’d felt that day when he’d called out to me is beyond description. How my heart had skipped as I looked down to see his dirty face peering up out of the coalhole, his big smile spread from ear to ear.

  “I’d seen it before yah shouted ta me.” He’d spoken so calmly, as if it were no big deal. And I suppose at the time it wasn’t such a big deal, especially to him. “There’s some coal down here!” he declared.

  Back then, we had no fears or thoughts for our own safety. But now, no longer having each other to watch out for, I constantly worried about him. I was always afraid something bad was going to happen to him and I wouldn’t be there to protect him. It was so frustrating, but what could I do except continue praying for his safety and keep wishing we could be together again.

  I wanted to know who had whacked me in the head and why. Norman Butler told me Johnny Johnson had told him that his friend Paul O’Connell told him he’d seen the two Welsh cousins, Hugh and Peter Williams, rushing around the corner of the toilet block seconds after I’d came staggering around, holding my face. Not having had any run-ins or any contact with the two Welsh cousins in the past, I was finding it difficult to believe they had anything to do with it. Unless someone had put them up to it? Walters? Possibly. But then again, he always wanted to be involved in his own dirty deeds, provided he had his back covered by his goons.

  There was only one person I knew I’d recently upset: Mr Lilly. Could he possibly have bribed someone to hit me? I’d heard little Gary Percival bragging to some of his friends about the fact he’d been chosen by Mr Lilly to be his assistant for the Christmas show. The pair of tosspots! I was already thinking of ways to ruin their little act.

  If there is one important lesson to be learnt in life, it would have to be, See Nowt, Hear Nowt, Say Nowt. And certainly, never let on to anyone that you know their secrets. Just as importantly, never let your friends know your secrets. That way, if things go tits-up, you only have yourself to blame. As well as putting together a plan of action to spoil Mr Lilly’s act, I thought I might also have come up with a way to get information from the two taffy cousins.

  In the later part of the afternoon, Mr Alston took 12 of us for choir practice. He had been hoping for at least 20 volunteers but couldn’t muster up any interest, no matter how much he’d threatened. He’d eventually had to throw out three of the choir – Donkey being one of them – after telling them they couldn’t sing a full note in the right key if their lives depended on it. It was true of course, they were awful. Especially Donkey. Jaysus, it was bad enough him being a beat behind the rest of us, singing the last word to every line a split second after we’d already finished it, but he would also elongate the last feckin’ lyric.

  It was funny at first, but it didn’t take too long for it to become a distraction to the rest of the choir. Donkey was upset to be told he was no longer needed, and I had felt sorry for him. As it turned out, he was soon cheered up when Mr Alston offered him an alternative role in the show, telling Donkey he could stand on stage alongside him, and turn the sheet music while Mr Alston played the piano.

  Not long to the show and our timing was still a little out, though the difference in our performances without the tone-deaf loonies was miraculous. But nothing is ever perfect in life – there is always a downside. Mine was the fact that Brian Walters was one of the chosen 12. Worse still, I’d been picked to duet the Christmas carols “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Silent Night” with him.

  “That’s good.” Alston looked up from the piano as the pair of us practised. “Keep t
he harmonies like that. Don’t try to out-sing each other and it’ll be great.”

  Out-sing each other! It was Walters trying to out-sing me, as usual. And I wasn’t going to let the tosspot get away with it. I’d cursed him in the hope that his voice would break, which would put an end to those comparisons between him and a singing angel. There was no way that fecker was ever going to heaven!

  The sight of him gawking at me while I was singing and shaking his head at me with a big smirk all over his face really got up my nose. Cowardly feck! He was too afraid to say anything to my face because he didn’t have any of his mates to back him up. I felt so angry and had a sudden urge to rush at him and push him off the stage. With a bit of luck and a shilling on the side, it wouldn’t be his voice breaking but his scrawny neck…

  On second thoughts, rushing at him would only mean me out of the show and him being the star and getting all the plaudits (not to mention sympathy if he ended up in a wheelchair), which he would have loved and milked for all it was worth. No. I would bide my time. So help me. I would get him.

  “Right boys! Let’s have you all singing ‘Distant Drums’!”

  “We’ve no drums, sir.”

  “You will just have to make some drum sounds for now. Drums and tambourines will all be here tomorrow. Ready? After three.”

  “I hear the sound (dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum), Of distant drums (dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum), Far away (dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum), So Far Away.”

  “Da-da-da-da-da-da-daah!” I improvised.

  “What’s that racket all about, Rhattigan?”

  “It’s a bugle, sir.”

  “Bugle? It’s a bloody racket. Just stick to the drums. Okay, that’s all for today. Final rehearsal tomorrow.”

  A Bellyful of Bangers

  At tea-time, I stood at the back of the queue as it slowly snaked its way up along the side corridor and through to the serving area. Two sausages, a large spoonful of home-grown peas, a dollop of watery mashed potatoes (without the eyes) and two thin slices of bread was our ration. Matron came around the tables pushing the tea trolley in front of her. She filled our plastic half-pint mugs from the large metal tea urn on the trolley, which she always left at the other end of the dining room, for any of us to help ourselves if we wanted a refill.

  I had no idea why I was doing it, but I was staring at Peter Loss’s plate, wishing for his peas to scatter everywhere. He was getting on my nerves, talking with his mouth full and spraying bits of food everywhere. To my amazement, as he cut through his sausage, his knife suddenly slipped, causing most of his peas to fly off his plate. Jaysus! I was filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. If I had the power to do that, just think what else I could do!

  My eyes followed Mr Lilly’s short, stubby legs, as they slow-marched up and down the middle of the polished dining room floor. I was concentrating all my thoughts, willing his legs to fall off, leaving him to support his stumpy body on his arms. But he marched past me without a second glance, before doing a regimental about turn and walking back the way he’d just come.

  “Who’s taken me feckin’ sausages?” I looked up from my plate to see the gormless Dave Given, sitting directly across from me, almost choking on a mouthful of food as he attempted to quickly swallow it down his scrawny neck.

  The other lads sitting around the table thought it was hilarious. The guffaws from Carl Winner, sitting opposite Given, reminded me of a snorting pig. He had tears of laughter streaming from his eyes, so I let him have a handful of my hot, watery potatoes, straight in the eye. But he just wiped off the mess with his hand and ate it.

  “Sir!” I raised my hand in the air.

  “Yes.” Mr Lilly stopped slow-marching.

  I was about to tell him my sausages had suddenly vanished off my plate, when I felt something sticking into my ribs. 12-year old Gordon Turner (one of the other Geordie lads) had his fork pressed into my side. He said nothing to me – he didn’t have to. The madness in his eyes had already said what I needed to know. And knowing he was a mad bastard, I changed tack.

  “I need ta go to the toilet, sir.”

  “Why didn’t you go before you came into the dining room?”

  “I didn’t need to go then.”

  “Well, you’ll have to wait.”

  “It’s popping out sir.” I deliberately made my face go red to emphasise the point. “I don’t think I can hold it back, sir.”

  “You’ve two minutes. Get out.”

  I didn’t need a second invitation. I was out of the dining room, doing a good impersonation of Groucho Marx as I squeezed the cheeks of my backside together and held a hand behind me at the ready, as if I was expecting something to drop out at any minute.

  Hurrying down the slope and past the toilets, I stopped at the entrance to the serving area and took a quick peek inside. I could see Matron through the glass partitioning dividing the serving area and the dining room. She was busy at one table chatting to the boys, pretending she was interested in how they were getting along, when it was common knowledge to all of us she only wanted to give them a flash of her cleavage as she leant forward. Anyway, you couldn’t even see all the way down her blouse.

  Deciding to make my move, I scurried across the floor on all fours towards the hotplate. A quick peer over the top of it and I homed in on the nine sausages. Yummy! I greedily grabbed all of them in my hands. They were boiling hot, but I was prepared to put up with the pain rather than drop them. Pulling up the bottom of my jumper into a fold, I dropped the sausages into it before scurrying back the way I had come. Making my way up to the toilet block, I sat happily on the bog and scoffed down the lot, before heading back into the dining room.

  “Those of you for seconds, raise your hands,” said Mr Lilly.

  That’ll be a miracle! I sucked the last remnants of sausage from my teeth as I watched Matron head off into the serving area. She reappeared seconds later with a bemused look on her face, making her way to Mr Lilly, she stood on tiptoe to speak into his ear.

  I may not have had the power to make Mr Lilly’s legs fall from underneath him, but I did feel good, sitting there, smiling on the inside, with my hand raised high in the air, along with 47 other hands. I was the only one, besides the two of them and God, who knew what she was probably whispering in his ear. And with all hands raised high in the air, he was unable to single out a possible culprit.

  “You can all put your hands back down,” snapped Lilly, while his shifty eyes gazed out at us. But I kept up my hand, as I saw the chance to carry out my plan on the two taffy boys.

  “What is it now, Rhattigan?”

  “Can I get some more tea please, sir?”

  “Get on.”

  “Thank you, sir.” I slid a small portion of my sloppy mashed potatoes off my plate and hid it in the palm of my hand, before taking my plastic mug down to the urn and filling it with hot tea.

  On my way back, just as I reached the table where the Welsh cousins were sitting, I dropped the potato slop on the floor and pretended to slip on it, throwing my tea over Peter Williams’ lap. Jaysus, talk about quick! In the blink of an eye, he was up out of his chair, pulling his trousers and underpants down around his ankles, giving everyone a good laugh.

  “Sorry sir, I didn’t mean it, sir. I tripped on that sir.” I pointed down to the potato skid.

  “Blithering idiot.”

  “I didn’t see it, sir.”

  “Get back to your seat.”

  “Can I get some more tea, sir?”

  Mr Lilly said nothing. Instead, he raised his eyebrows and glared at me. Taking that as a no, I quickly moved off, back to my chair.

  “Come with me,” said Matron and Williams shuffled off after her, with his hand cupping his private parts.

  “Pull those pants up, you buffoon!” bellowed Lilly.

  That evening, I managed to
collar Hugh Williams in the small recreation room. To my surprise, and without me having to utter a single threat, or give him any clue as to my suspicions about him and his cousin, he spilled the beans.

  Admitting it had been him, he was quick to point out it had, apparently, all been a terrible case of mistaken identity. A lad called Chris Holland had told them to give Jarvis a beating, with threats of dire consequences if they didn’t. I couldn’t understand how they could have mistaken me for that beanpole Jarvis. Williams went on to explain that it was his cousin who had thrown the punch, not him.

  “I was watching out in case anyone came around the corner, honest. We didn’t know it was you ’til it was too late.”

  “I thought Holland and Jarvis were bum-chums?”

  “They were, ’til Holland caught Jarvis with Martin Flanagan. We’re really sorry.”

  “Yeah, I believe you.” I was happy to accept Williams’ apology.

  “Are you going to get your own back on us for that?” he said, pointing to my swollen eye.

  “Nah, yer alright.” It was Holland I blamed for starting the whole thing, and I was already forming a devious plan to give him his comeuppance.

  Later that evening, I collared Jarvis in the small playroom. He was getting thrashed by Michael Flynn in a game of chess. Flynn, without question, was one of the better chess players in the school, even if he did come across as an eejit. I remember the first time I’d challenged him to a game, with us putting up 10 football cards each as winnings. At the time, I had genuinely thought I was good enough to beat him, especially having thrashed all the other idiots who’d challenged me previously. Finn had only just managed to beat me, in a tough, tense game that had taken us just over an hour to play.