He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1)

by Barbara Arnold

  ‘She’ll need to sleep for hundreds of years, then’ Angela sniggered as Miss Selska walked into the scullery.

  ‘You shouldn’t be so rude,’ Mum told Angela mildly.

  ‘Why not, I hate her guts, the horrible old dragon.’

  ‘So do I.’ I loathed her face and hair and her smarmy smile, her voice with its stupid accent and her parroting on about health. Most of all I hated her for taking Fred’s place.

  Since Fred and Lori had left, I preferred to stay at the Dibbles’ place, where a fire flickered in their fireplace. It smelt of Mrs Dibbles’ baking, and I could get away from bossy Angela. Even though Mrs Dibble treated me like an orphan, and Old Dibble never spoke except to grunt when he wanted something, it was better than having Angela telling me what to do all the time.

  On a particularly dismal afternoon after school, when I called at the Dibbles, Paula was sitting at the kitchen table writing. She dipped the nib of her fountain pen into blue-black ink and lifted the lever at the side to fill it.

  ‘Are you doing your homework?’ I asked. Since Fred had gone, I didn’t do mine, even though Mrs Colby gave me lines every time I missed it.

  ‘I’m writing a letter to Fred and Lori. I thought you might like to write one as well. Then we could send them in the same envelope.’

  I shrugged. I wouldn’t have come down if I’d known all we were going to do was write stupid letters to stupid Fred and Lori.

  ‘Don’t you want to write one?’ Paula asked.

  ‘Nope.’ I had brought my Biggles book with me to read. I was beginning to get fed up with it, but since Fred had gone, the library had become the boring place it had been before he came. I didn’t go there anymore.

  ‘I thought you might like to drop them a couple of lines to thank them for the postcards they sent you.’

  They had been sent from South Africa, some other fancy place in Brazil and the latest one was from New Zealand. It had a picture of sheep on it with snowy mountains in the background. I liked my postcards better than the Boys Own Annual Fred and Lori had bought me for my birthday. My postcards were a way I could follow them. I carried them with me everywhere in my jacket pocket. When I thought no one was looking I rubbed them, especially the one from New Zealand.

  ‘Couldn’t you write a little bit? I’ve got another pen here and you can use my fountain pen. It makes your writing look much better. And I know Fred and Lori would love it if you were to write to them.’

  ‘No thanks, I’ve bought my book to read.’

  ‘You’d like using my fountain pen.’

  I’d only used a fountain pen once when I’d pinched Mavis Dodd’s pen when she wasn’t looking. I liked the way it sort of glided over the paper, the way Bert and Bertha had on the crater pond.

  ‘I’ve got a dictionary to help us with our spelling.’

  I knew she didn’t mean “us” but “you”. I wasn’t much cop at spelling. I wasn’t much cop at knowing where the full stops and commas went either.

  ‘Go on,’ she held out her fountain pen to me, then placed a couple of pieces of paper in front of me. It was mauve and smelt of violets.

  ‘It’s pretty paper, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yeah, nice.’ It was girls’ stuff. I took hold of the pen as if it was as fragile as an egg. I sat there staring at the paper.

  ‘Aren’t you going to begin?’ Paula started scratching at her writing paper.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’ It was the first letter I’d written in my life.

  ‘Have you got their postcards with you?’

  ‘No,’ I lied. ‘I’ve chucked ‘em away. Anyway, how d’you find things to say?’

  ‘I write whatever pops into my head. At the moment I’m telling them about how we’re getting ready to sit the Eleven Plus examination.’

  I shuddered. The last thing I wanted to write about was the Eleven Plus exam.

  I supposed I could say something like I thought of them when I listened to the wireless and when I played with Brian. It didn’t give too much away. I began, biting my lower lip, and tried to concentrate. I wished the words would bounce and tumble across the paper like they seemed to for Paula, then I could really be truthful. I would write to them about how our lives had changed since they’d gone. About Mum’s legs and the pain she was in, and the way she lived in her head most of the time. I’d tell them how she hadn’t once mentioned them since they left. Instead, when we spoke about them, she stared in front of her as if she didn’t know who they were.

  I wanted to tell them that the the money they left was running out, and it wouldn’t be long before I went back on “The Poor List”. But I didn’t have the words, only unspoken longings and paralysing fear.

  ‘Do you want to blot it?’ Paula asked. Her letter was two pages long in comparison with my four lines. She had finished hers, “Love Paula” with a row of crosses after her name. I continued biting my lip. There was no way I was going to send them my love or put any kisses in my letter. When Mum got letters, mostly bills they ended, “Yours faithfully”.

  ‘How d’you spell “faithfully”?’ I asked.

  ‘Here you two, have a cup of tea and a ginger nut. But you’d better eat your tea, young man, or I’ll be in trouble and that goes for you, too, Paula.’ Mrs Dibble said as she came into the kitchen carrying a tray.

  Not everything had changed. The Dibbles were still the same: Paula, gentle and genuine, Mrs Dibble, bustling, always fighting time, Old Man Dibble, grumpy and silent. Even so, I knew I couldn’t depend on them. One day Paula might smile her innocent smile and say they were moving. “San Fairy Ann, pal, we’re off.” I wouldn’t let the safety of the Dibbles’ place make me feel too good inside.

  As soon as I opened our front door, the stink of ulcers punched me in the face. It was sweet and sickly but not nice sweet, rotting sweet, going bad sweet. The stench was like a blanket that threw itself over the pongs of paraffin and camphorated oil.

  ‘It stinks in here,’ I said, as soon as I opened the kitchen door.

  I went straight to Brian’s cage and took him out. ‘What’s for tea?’ I demanded sitting in a corner with Brian on my lap, as far away as I could from Mum and her stinking legs.

  ‘I’ve made us some jam sandwiches.’ For once Angela didn’t come back with a smart crack or boss me around. Her face was red and sweaty and I noticed her dress was dirty.

  ‘Blinkin’ jam sandwishes. I want Spam.’

  ‘That’s enough.’ Mum replied. ‘Your sister’s doing her best and you’re to come straight home from school every day to help her.’ Mum talked in little gasps and I noticed her legs jerking, as if she couldn’t keep them still. ‘Now put Brian back and make me and your sister a nice cup of tea.’

  I scowled and poked my tongue out at Angela, but instead of coming directly back at me, she looked as if she was going to cry. She turned away, and went to sit beside Mum and patted the sweat from her forehead with a piece of rag.

  ‘I reckon you should go to the doctor. That’s what Lori would have said.’ Angela didn’t seem to mind the pong. She moved closer to Mum and spoke really softly to her

  ‘She didn’t know everything. I’ll be all right in a couple of days.’ Mum took some deep breaths. As I put Brian back in his cage, I noticed her clenching her lips together.

  The next morning Mum wasn’t up as she usually was to see us off to school.

  ‘Mum’s not well so I’m staying at home to look after her,’ Angela said, being her usual bossy self. ‘She wants to see you before you go to school so you’d better get into her bedroom.’

  ‘All right, all right.’

  I took my time eating my toast, putting off going into Mum’s bedroom. Even the thought of it gave me a queasy feeling. When I eventually forced myself in there, Mum’s face was the colour of a primrose, which was all right for a primrose, but not Mum’s face. Her eyes had sunk into black hollows in her head. Drops of water were shining above her lip and Angela was dabbing her forehead with a p
iece of rag, like she had yesterday, while Mum blew out her breath in short spurts. I didn’t know what to do or say, and I stood at the foot of her bed tapping the iron bedstead with my fingernails making ringing sounds.

  ‘You’d better be off to school.’ Mum said in a hiccuppy voice. ‘Now come and give me a kiss.’

  I edged round the bed and bent over her, but my lips hardly touched her skin, before I fled through the door.

  Relieved to be out of the room, I left the house before Angela could give me any more orders.

  Outside I took deep breaths of thick smokey air. At least it didn’t smell of ulcers. Inside me, though, I felt more afraid than I’d ever felt.

  I knew Mum had asked me to go straight home after school but I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing her like she’d been that morning and I went to Herbie’s place to borrow some comics. I stayed there reading them for half an hour. Although I told myself I wasn’t frightened of Angela, I knew I’d be in for trouble when I got home, though I didn’t expect Mum would say much. For some reason, that made me feel bad.

  I ran from Herbie’s flat, and took a shortcut, skirting a wall on the corner of Whitely Square. Someone had chalked, “Betty Grable’s got legs like a table” on it. The smokey atmosphere made it difficult to breath, but I kept running, reciting in my head what I would say to Angela. I would get the first words in. I’d tell her she wasn’t going to order me around like she did Mum. I’d go where I liked; when I liked.

  As I came into Blountmere Street. I could make out Angela racing towards me. Inside, I quaked. I thought of hot-footing it back the way I had come, but instead I slowed my pace, put my hands in my pockets and began whistling. Angela kept hurtling towards me until I could hear her shouting my name. I slowed my steps even more.

  ‘Tone, Tone,’ she called and I knew something wasn’t right. Angela only called me “Tone” when she was in a good mood, or wanted to borrow something, the same as when I called her “Ang”.

  As she got closer, even through the murk, I could see she was crying. Without meaning to I began running.

  ‘Tone, they’ve put Mum in hospital, and they’re taking us away.’ She sobbed in a little voice, and her tear-smeared face touched me somewhere deep inside.

  ‘Taking us away? Who’s taking us away? No one’s taking me.’

  ‘They’re putting us in a home ‘til Mum gets better. They’re coming for us soon.’

  ‘They can’t do that. We can look after ourselves.’

  ‘They say we can’t. They say we’re too young and we’ve got to go into an orphanage. Old Selska can’t have us ‘cos she works all day.’

  ‘What about the Dibbles? Can’t they look after us?’

  ‘They haven’t got room. When the doctor said Mum had to go in hospital, Mrs Dibble said she thought she could have us, then when old Dribble came home for his dinner, she said they didn’t have enough room. I hate him, I really hate him. If we knew where Dad was perhaps …’ Angela began really crying, and I turned away and tried to talk tough.

  ‘Well, we don’t know where he is and who cares? Anyway, he wouldn’t want us.’

  I wished Fred was here. He would have known what to do. Who were they and them, anyway, and who said they had the right to take us from our home, and order us about, without even asking us what we wanted? I clenched my hand into a fist and smashed it into my other palm. I hated they and them.

  ‘Lock the door,’ Angela said as soon as we reached our flat. We climbed the stairs into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table not knowing what to do. After a while, I said, ‘Look, Ang, I’m going to have to go out again.’ I couldn’t see any way round it. I had to go to Herbie’ place.

  ‘Don’t you dare go away and leave me,’ Angela gripped my arm so hard she made a red blotch on it.

  ‘I’ve got to go to Herbie’s. If I can get his old woman to let me stay there, Mrs Dibble and Paula might be able to persuade Old Man Dibble to change his mind and let you sleep in Paula’s room with her.’

  Angela took a shuddering sob and blew her nose on the piece of rag she had dabbed Mum’s head with. It made me think of Mum and how ill she was, and of the ulcers’ smell.

  ‘I’ve got to do it, Ang. I won’t be long. I promise. While I’m gone you can make us some grub.’

  Grudgingly, Angela let go her grip on me. ‘Be quick then. I’ll make us some jam sandwiches.’

  ‘That’ll be smashing,’ I said. This time I managed to jump four stairs at a time to the bottom.

  When I opened our front door, I saw a man and woman walking up the path. Beneath the light of the street lamp outside our place, they looked like black ghosts.

  ‘Tony Addington?’ The man asked in a gravelly voice.

  ‘What if I am?’ I tried to close the door, but the man wedged his foot between the door and the door frame.

  ‘We’ve come to take you and your sister to be looked after for a while.’ Pushing me in front of them the couple began climbing our stairs.

  ‘Blimey, there’s a stench in here,’ the woman said, holding her nose between her fingers.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ Angela stood in front of them with her hands on her hips. I knew she was trying to look fierce and scary, although I could tell she wasn’t far from crying. ‘Clear off. We don’t need to go into any home. We’re all right as we are.’

  ‘Our orders are to take you both to orphanages.’

  ‘I told you, we can look after ourselves.’

  But the pair ignored her. Opening the large shopping bag she carried, the woman brought out two brown paper bags which she shoved at Angela and me. ‘Put your stuff in these. I’ll come with you. Where d’you keep your things? You’ll have to move a bit sharpish, your carriage awaits,’ she said trying to be funny.

  ‘I’m not going and I’m not packing anything.’ Angela refused to move.

  ‘In that case, I’ll have to do it for you.’ The woman began opening and shutting doors until she came to our room. ‘This looks like your bedroom; it’s got two beds in it, at any rate.’ She moved to our rickety chest of drawers and emptied the few things we had in it into her bag. ‘It’ll be your hard luck if something gets missed,’ she said.

  ‘Right, down you go.’ Approaching the top of the stairs, the woman pushed Angela and me in front of her.

  ‘I’m not going,’ Angela shouted, clinging to the stair rail, while the woman struggled to prise her fingers from it, and called the man to help her.

  ‘Why can’t you be sensible like your brother and come quietly?’ The man asked, trying to undo her grip.

  Angela sneered at me. I could tell she thought I was a coward.

  Eventually the man loosened Angela’s hand from the rail, and half dragged, half carried her down the stairs.

  ‘You filthy pigs,’ she screamed. ‘Filthy rotten pigs.’

  ‘I’m letting go of her to open the door, so you’d better hold on tight,’ the man ordered the woman.

  ‘I’m not going, I tell you.’ Angela bent her head and bit the woman’s arm.

  ‘You little bitch,’ the woman slapped her hard across Angela’s face, causing blood to spurt from Angela’s nose, and I had to stop myself from running to her.

  Outside I walked obediently down the path towards a blue van waiting under the street light.

  ‘Help! Please help us, someone!’ Angela called shrilly into the empty street, causing the woman to clamp her hand over Angela’s mouth.

  ‘You just stay where you are while I help with your sister,’ the man commanded me, and slipping his hands under Angela’s armpits, he began dragging her backwards towards the van.

  ‘Help me, Tone, please help me!’ Angela pleaded.

  ‘I can’t, Ang, not yet,’

  If I was going to escape, now was the time. If I tried knocking at the Dibbles’ front door, the man would reach me before they answered. Going to Herbie’s was still the best idea. I was sure I’d be able to outrun this man. He was old. At least thirty. He
rbie’s old man might be home from work. He’d come back with me and explain everything. I began haring along Blountmere Street.

  ‘Oi, come here,’ the man chased after me, calling to the woman, ‘Tie the girl up if you have to, then lock the door.’

  I sprinted in the same direction from which I had recently come. Crossing a rough patch of grass, I turned out of Blountmere Street, my breath swirling in front of me. Shinning the Betty Grable wall, I stumbled and righted myself. I could hear the man’s footsteps a little way behind me. My lungs felt as if they were filled with sand but I kept sprinting. I rounded the side of the bombsite we didn’t often play on and then into Whitely Square, past the tenement buildings where quite a few of the kids at school lived. It was tea time and there wasn’t anyone in the street. In the misty darkness, the street lights appeared like hazy stars. I pushed myself on, until I could see the lighted windows of the block where Herbie lived, but the man was gaining on me.

  ‘Come here, you little sod,’ he panted. I fled across the road. I had to keep going. In the distance I could see the blurred outline of The Perseverance and hear the smoky voices of early customers heading in for a pint or two on their way home from work.

  ‘Hey, help me,’ I shouted, but my voice was weak from running and the black blanket of night wrapped my words in it and smothered them.

  I pushed myself onwards until I was unable to carry on any longer, and I stopped and bent to get my breath back, uncertain what to do next. I knew I would never reach the pub without the man catching up with me. Just the same, there was still safety to be had with Herbie. He would let me in. But I’d taken too long and the footsteps were coming closer. I darted into the entrance of Herbie’s building, kicking a rusty corned beef tin out of the way, then scaling the stairs three at a time. Only one more flight and I would be outside Herbie’s flat..

  I swung myself up the final few stairs. When I reached Herbie’s front door, I banged the door knocker over and over again, shouting, ‘Open the door. Please, please open the door.’