The Pink House at Appleton

by Jonathan Braham

  They found Mr Burton in his little shop surrounded by bales of cloth. Black and white pictures cut from Life and Ebony magazines of men in suits hung from every wall. The shop was cosy and amber with lamplight. A Telefunken radio crackled on a low shelf.

  ‘You are very welcome, suh,’ Mr Burton said. ‘Step into the shop, this way.’ He led them into an adjoining room where two young men sat behind ancient Singer sewing machines, their glossy black and gold paintwork long faded. One of the young men was Mr Burton’s nephew, Edgar. He seemed fastidious and vain. They had only been in the room a few minutes but he had already combed his sideburns and reshaped the hair above his forehead twice, in swift, slick movements. The action was like someone flourishing a switchblade knife.

  ‘You know mah nephew,’ Mister Burton mumbled, waving a hand in Edgar’s direction and shaking his head.

  Papa nodded in Edgar’s direction and said, ‘Young people.’

  ‘Tailoring is not in his plans,’ Mr Burton said. ‘No young man of today wants to do tailoring. They only want to work in accounts, as clerks or some such, pushing paper. He’s looking for a job at the factory.’

  Edgar rose, yawned and sauntered out of the room. He must have gone straight to the Telefunken radio because moments later, Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On filled the room.

  ‘Tun the radio down,’ growled Mr Burton. Then in his normal voice he said, ‘That young man needs to put his hands to something useful. He’s helping with the sailor suits. And I am surprised with how he is so quick to visit the school to make a delivery. Before I took him to meet Sister, he never show a ounce of interest. Now he can’t wait to get over there. Young people of today, you cannot figure them.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Papa said, furrowing his brow and letting his eyes rest on Boyd. Young people of today was very much a Papa preoccupation.

  ‘Let me measure up your boy, suh. I give you a good price since you are a big man at the factory.’

  Papa laughed. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Yes, suh.’ Mr Burton took his measuring tape from around his neck while the quiet young man sitting behind the battered sewing machine sprang to his feet with pencil and an opened notebook. Boyd felt himself being manhandled, an unpleasant feeling, especially as Yvonne stood around staring pitifully at him.

  ‘Anything going at the factory, suh?’ Mr Burton asked casually.

  ‘What’s that?’ Papa hadn’t heard him.

  ‘Any small job opening at the factory? Young Edgar can do it. He knows accounts and figures and has a good fist. He has the best writing hand I ever see.’

  From the other room came the sound of new music, a bouncing, thumping tune and girlish voices. Edgar had turned up the volume again.

  ‘It’s The Bobbettes,’ Yvonne whispered excitedly, ‘Mr Lee.’

  ‘I’ll make the suit as a gift, suh, you are a gentleman,’ Mr Burton suddenly said. ‘Your son will be the best dressed sailor boy in H.M.S. Pinafore. You leave it to Burton’s Tailoring Establishment, suh.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ Papa said, slightly embarrassed.

  ‘Ah do, suh, ah do,’ Mr Burton repeated, spinning Boyd around and patting him on the back. ‘All done, young gentleman.’

  Mr Lee still came thumping in from the radio in the front room. Mr Burton rolled his eyes and Boyd noticed the other young man immediately hurry out the door to remonstrate with Edgar. After a brief, hushed exchange, the volume went down and Edgar strolled casually back into the room.

  ‘Uncle,’ he said, ‘I want to take the finished costumes over to the convent. Save you a trip. And I want to know if Sister will let me help with the lighting work for the concert.’

  ‘What you know about lighting? That is a job for the electricians.’

  ‘I know plenty.’

  ‘Heh, heh, you know plenty all right,’ Mr Burton said mockingly.

  ‘I try me hand at everything,’ Edgar said, glancing at Papa sitting at a low desk, observing Sister Margaret Mary’s drawing of a sailor suit on the piece of paper in front of him but clearly listening to the conversation.

  Mr Burton waved to Edgar dismissively. ‘Alright then. But tek care you don’t damage the suits and I don’t want you stopping at Carty’s bar on the way.’

  ‘See you later, alligator,’ Edgar said, grabbing a huge brown paper parcel from a table and stumbling through the door.

  ‘After a while, crocodile,’ the other young man called after him.

  When Edgar had gone and the other young man seated himself at the front of the shop listening to the radio, Boyd and Yvonne wandered off to join him. They got within a few yards of him before he knew they were there. He was speaking quietly to someone in another room through a partly opened door. The other person was shy-looking, with soft eyes. Boyd saw a familiar face, sniffed distant DDT, savoured Paradise Plums and remembered someone who had gone away. The face behind the door was none other than that of Mr Jarrett, the sprayman, although now sporting a smart moustache. Seeing who had just entered the room, he vanished like a shadow, the door closing quietly. The young man by the radio, sensing the children’s presence, moved away too.

  In the other room, Papa turned to Mr Burton with his hands in his pockets.

  ‘All young people need is an opportunity,’ he said, aware of Edgar’s reputation. ‘I’ll see what I can do at the factory.’

  ‘God bless you, suh,’ Mr Burton replied, overcome with gratitude, thanking Papa again and again as he left the shop.

  But it wasn’t long before Edgar’s notoriety rocketed. People were talking about him at the club, at work and over their dinner tables.

  ‘All those men living at the Bull Pen, with one or two exceptions, are up to no good,’ Mr Moodie said at dinner one evening. ‘Take that new feller, Edgar. His uncle threw him out of the house for all his shenanigans with the young girls at Balaclava. Now he’s spreading nasty rumours about the poor man.’

  Boyd had been to the Bull Pen once with Vincent. The place smelled of young men – sweat, cigarettes and cheap cologne. The older men there spent their time playing dominos and doing the football pools in the hope of scoring a big payday. Men walked about in stripy underwear and sleeveless, white merino vests. Women were not allowed there, but on the day they visited, Boyd caught sight of a young woman, scantily dressed, being pulled into a doorway. Vincent had winked.

  ‘Nasty rumours, I tell you,’ Mr Moodie continued. ‘That man Burton is a good tailor. He makes all my trousers and your suits, Harry, so you know. He doesn’t live with a woman – so what? I don’t live with a woman myself and no one would dare say I’m a, you-know-what. I love women.’ Mr Moodie winked at Papa, who gave him a hard stare. Mama pretended not to hear.

  Papa kept quiet. But he might have said he was shocked at Edgar’s blatant ungratefulness, his indiscipline, his sheer fecklessness.

  * * *

  Edgar made his way gingerly up the hill towards the convent with brown paper parcels under his arms as the H.M.S. Pinafore songs floated down. Miss Casserly appeared at the door. When she saw who it was, she took the parcels hastily, coquettishly, and left Edgar standing on the doorstep. Boyd, seated under the apple tree in the school yard, saw this and wished that Susan would come to the door of the pink house, sit with him in the warmth and silence on the verandah, breathing and feeling each other’s presence.

  * * *

  That Friday evening, he saw into the Mitchison’s house, and it was full of music and party things. Pretty girls in pretty frocks and shiny hair were there. A large table was heaped with cakes and puddings, candy, ginger beer and Kool-Aid. Ann Mitchison dashed about, her hair flashing, welcoming everyone and serving ice cream.

  ‘Hello, hello,’ she said. ‘Come in, come in. How is Mummy and the new baby?’

  ‘Fine,’ Yvonne said, not believing that she’d been invited to the party too.

  Susan, dressed in a frilly white frock with pink ribbons, red strap shoes and pink socks, served cake from a small tray. She w
ent round to all her friends, girls he did not know (obviously come up from Monymusk and Mandeville) but also Ann-Marie and Dawn Chin and Adrian’s sisters, Ann and Carol Lees, who lived on the estate. When she came near, birds sang in the garden.

  ‘Are you the boy from next door?’ he thought he heard her say.

  He nodded and noted that she had small, moist, quivering, strawberry-red lips. Her eyes – turquoise, like his marbles – fell upon him like a caress, the kind only Mama was capable of. Her eyes conveyed delicate, intimate questions. Boyd’s chest pounded. He wanted her alone in the bedroom, or in the garden where there was silence.

  Adrian Lees came over to blow a party whistle in his ear, shattering everything. Then they ran off outside to gasp and chase about. They tried to catch lizards, using stalks from long grass at the bottom of the garden and inadvertently frightened a small girl who ran off bawling, the whites of her eyes shocking. Then they ran to the back of the house bathed in red sun, not talking, only feeling.

  ‘They’ll be cutting the cake soon,’ Adrian said, throwing a stone over the garden fence and into the road. ‘Let’s get back.’

  The sun went down and it grew dark. Lights came on in the house and children were singing, Happy Birthday to yoo, Happy Birthday to yoo, Happy Birthday to yoo-whooo, Happy Birthday to yoo. Then it was quiet as Susan cut the cake, her hair falling into her face. She searched for him with soft eyes and a pouting mouth. As she cut the cake, there was a crescendo of claps, hoorays and giggles. And Ann Mitchison was again among the throng, a robust reassuring adult presence, handing out more cake.

  Then it was over. He was standing in the garden with a crashing headache from too much cake and ice cream and from running about with Adrian. Ann Mitchison was on the front verandah saying goodbye to the parents. And then the house was silent except for the discreet sound of Evadne collecting the cutlery and glass. Yvonne and a small girl were playing hopscotch on the patio and creating quite a scene. Susan was nowhere to be seen. Then he glimpsed her, gliding through the drawing room. She came to the window seeking him out. But someone was already there with her. It was Adrian. He was standing behind her, pulling at her hair so that she moved back into the room out of sight, not wanting it. The curtains trembled. Boyd ran forward gingerly, the movie music rising in him, Technicolor writing dripping treachery. He ran to the window and peeped in. And he saw them. Adrian was on the bed with Susan. Her shoes were off. He saw her pink socks and her reluctant eyes. He backed away into the gloom. Reaching the garden fence, he went through it and into the arms of Mavis.

  ‘Where’s Yvonne?’ Mavis asked.

  He darted away up the road in a panic and dashed through the little green gate. He made straight for the chintz armchair by the Mullard radio, where the music lulled him into delicious, cruel melancholia.

  CHAPTER 32

  The following Monday, Susan attended the Balaclava Academy for the very first time. As he entered the school bus that first morning and saw her, Boyd went into shock and had not been able to look at her, and neither could he do it in the classroom. On that day, the sun was like Babycham. It popped and shimmered and sparkled. Yellow plums, hanging heavy in the trees by the stone fence, scented the air.

  When the bell for the lunch break went, Boyd bounded out into the schoolyard, out in the sun where his dreams preceded him. He burst with fledgling passions. Every movement of Susan’s head in his direction, every sight of her, every toss of her hair, every flutter of her eyelashes caused the most dramatic impact, so much so that during the game of marbles with Adrian after lunch, he lost all his best marbles.

  The fight took place in the dust next to the water tank outside the lunch room, beside the barren orange tree. Someone shouted, ‘Fight!’ long after it started. It was just after lunch, in the heat of the afternoon, when colourful parakeets screeched high in the pimento tree. He and Adrian grappled and tumbled about on the ground while black pimento berries rolled beneath them, Robert Jureidini trying to pull them apart. Fists were flying, hearts bursting, heads thumping while the big boys chanted, ‘Go, Little Brookes, go Little Brookes!’ And the girls in their bobby socks and brown loafers were enjoying it too – all except one girl standing close to the steps in the sun, in her new uniform. She caught his eye then lowered her eyelids and turned to Ann-Marie sitting next to her. She seemed to disapprove. After that, Boyd’s fists flew, wild, desperate, as the big boys whooped, as the dust flew, as his shirt came out of his trousers, as he was deaf to the music.

  It was a devastating moment when their eyes met for the first time. He tasted his own blood, salty and hot, like the blood of the heroes in the books on his bed – the Knights of the Round Table and Larry Red King in The U.P. Trail – and a sudden madness overcame him. In an instant, he had Adrian on his back in the dust; prairie dust, on the street of Laredo, women and children watching from the hardware store, hard men in black observing from the saloon.

  Miss Robb appeared on the scene in an instant, dark arms gleaming and a ruler in her hand. She hauled them off to stand outside Sister Margaret Mary’s office in the hall by the stairs, where the big brass bell lay on the heavy mahogany table. They waited, standing on one leg, next to a pink statue of the Virgin Mary, hands on their heads, the punishment stance. The smell of melted candle and brass polish hung heavy in the corridor.

  Sister Margaret Mary came out into the hall, and while they trembled, she looked deep into their eyes. Boyd tried to look away but had nowhere else to look but into her. He saw himself trapped forever in the fierceness and horror of Dante’s Inferno.

  ‘You human being,’ Sister said. ‘You little human being.’

  Boyd tied himself into knots and wept. He would never be perfect. He was just a human being. Sister said so.

  ‘You stand right there and don’t move,’ Sister said. ‘I shall deal with you later.’ And she walked off, deep blue habit sweeping the floor.

  Despite being damned, Boyd felt released of his pent-up anxieties. Still trembling, he grinned self-consciously at Adrian. Tears stained their faces. Adrian grinned back, his face apple-red, and drew closer so they could whisper together. Boyd was elated. His blood had been spilled. It was drama and adventure. And Susan had witnessed it.

  He did not understand why the game of marbles had ended in such violence. All he knew was that Adrian had been able to do the things he could not, the very things his entire being begged him to do time and time again. He could not say the words. If only he’d had the note that was swept away by the wind at the club during the summer. That morning, Susan’s first day at the school, Adrian had spoken freely to her, spoken endlessly in animated conversation, laughed out loud, made faces, even pulled her hair. Boyd had hung back as strong emotions took hold. Even during lessons, Adrian had continued his chatter, joking, touching and making her blush. Susan always seemed put out. Just before lunch, Adrian had pulled her hair again. Susan seemed distressed but said nothing. It was in that instant that Boyd felt the mysterious rage, feelings that got the better of him. During their game of marbles, every marble he lost fuelled his rage. And his fantasies became reality. Adrian had been playing with Susan on the bed at her birthday party. She did not want Adrian to. She wanted Boyd. Just before the bell went, when there was no hope of winning back the special grey-eyed marbles, marbles that were her caressing eyes, marbles that now belonged to Adrian, he had lashed out.

  As they stood waiting apprehensively, all they could hear was Sister Margaret Mary’s angry rosaries, the swish of her garments and the whistle of the cane as she tested it. Two little boys whimpered as Sister returned. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are the meek, for they shall… Blessed are the meek.

  That afternoon, as the statue of the Virgin Mary looked down upon the class, softly, serenely, small pink fingers across her breast touching a glorious heart dripping in blood, the rain came down. Intense feelings were let loose in Boyd in the classroom of ten small desks. He imagined them, Poppy, Susan and hims
elf, in the orchard in the rain, hot and excited. When Sister told the class to put their heads on the desk, the rhythm of the raindrops like heavenly music, he looked across the room and met Susan’s eyes, briefly. They were heavenly eyes. She did not turn away. In the rain it was just their eyes, not a single word spoken between them. The rain did not stop. It played a gentle, continuous drumming rhythm on the roof and Boyd breathed the virgin scent that was in the room and loved school. It rained and they rained too, casting quick little looks over their hands on the desks at one another, wishing that the rain wouldn’t stop.

  CHAPTER 33

  The rain didn’t stop. Boyd left the school bus wet and happy that afternoon, enchanted by Susan’s lingering presence and definitive scent. He remembered her in the school bus, in the classroom, every image of her: the hem of her dress as she rose from the chair, the buckle of her shoes and rolled down socks as she walked out the door, the back of her knees, the shape of her neck as she turned, her white blouse so different to the other girls’. He would see her that night, and in the morning, and in that place again in the classroom where they would relive the moment they’d shared.

  But that night, Papa did not go out. He said he had never known it to rain so. Lightning razed the sky and horrendous thunder rolled. At the first thunderous explosion, followed by a ripping yellow tear in the fabric of the sky, Poppy ran whimpering under the house. The next morning, the roads were blocked and flooded. School closed.

  Just before midday, Papa looked out the factory window, away from the litmus paper and test tubes on his desk. He had seen the grey sheet of water in the valley suddenly darkening everything and felt the wind, chilly, threatening, fluttering the litmus paper. He saw the frightened birds flying uncertainly, their cries like those of infant children. Papa knew that at such a time his place was with his family, not in a laboratory stinking of sulphuric acid.