by Alan Watts
But instead she embraced him in silence and held him for a long, long time.
Five
The next day, Robert didn’t want to go to school; not for any reasons of laziness or neglect, but for genuine ones of worry. His father hadn’t come home, but it wouldn’t be long before he did, and there was no telling what he might do.
Sergeant Sharp’s threats were only any good in the very short term. As soon as his dad’s fear of him wore off, his old habits would be back.
“What did I say last night?” Lil asked him, as they heard the work whistles piping shrilly through the cold morning air.
“That you want me to be good. That’s what I’m tryin’ to be, by protectin’ you.”
“You have goodness in you already,” she assured him, as she stood at the sink washing the breakfast dishes, “but it will find better expression through your schooling. And in view of that, why did I see Mrs O’Brien taking you away last night?”
She continued scrubbing, not looking at him, her equivalent of an angry dog’s bark. Robert looked at the side of her face, shocked. He’d been certain she couldn’t have seen anything, or cared less, such was the state she had been in.
“Er… well, she was tryin’ to get me away before I got hurt.”
“Don’t give me that. She had a face like thunder.”
She turned suddenly and grabbed his shoulders with soapy hands, making him jump.
“You’ve been teasing Molly again, haven’t you? You and those little hooligans you hang around with.”
“No!”
“So what did you do?”
He was a hopeless liar and saw no sense in further bluff, so it all spilled out. She nodded several times, though if he thought any sympathy would come his way over the hair-brushing, he was sorely mistaken.
“If you play with fire you get burned, and for what you did, you’re lucky that this time only, I’m content to let it be. You know how the Irish are with their dead. Now off you go to school and learn how to behave.”
Just as he was about to leave, she produced a thruppenny bit from her dress pocket and said, “Bring me back a newspaper, and with the remainder, buy yourself a sweet.” He grinned and pecked her on the cheek.
***
As he was leaving, counting his blessings, he didn’t see his near-sober father loitering across the lane, in the thin alley that ran between the O’Briens and the O’Driscolls.
Bob Smith wanted a drink. Damp and miserable from a night spent half comatose in a neighbour’s back garden, after fetching up against a wheelbarrow, and taking the skin off one knee, he was watching his front door through the workers trooping past.
He knew exactly the moment when he would make his way across, and sure enough, ten minutes later, it came.
He saw the door being pulled open, and a moment later, out she came, with the small table she used for her fortune telling.
She placed it in front of the window, before going back inside, and reappearing presently with two stools. These she put either side of the table. Then, as she was going back in to fetch her crystal ball, he nipped across and was in.
She jumped, startled, as his arms were suddenly around her, crushing her breath, his filthy hands groping her breasts, pinching her nipples.
“Where’re yer pennies?”
“Get off! What pennies?”
“Don’t give me that shit. The ones you get from…”
“That’s all money to pay bills. Now get off me!”
His body odour made her gag. She was struggling, more frightened with every second, knowing this would end in one of two ways. He would either beat her up, or rip off all her clothes and rape her on the floor.
“I said get off me!”
“Yer me woman, ’an you’ll do as I sez, an’ you’ll shag when I sez. Now where’re the…”
She brought her heel down hard on his foot and he screamed, letting go.
“You’re not having any,” she told him, nipping over to the other table, by the fireplace, where she kept the ball. “We need it to pay the bills.”
She grimaced against the pain in her breasts and added, “Unless you want asylum with the King brothers. Then you’ll never sup again.”
Enraged, he made to hop towards her and reached out to grab her dress, missing her by inches.
She picked the ball up, and seeing his eyes flicking towards the open door, where he knew anybody might be eavesdropping, she knew that this time, he would leave her be.
“And you’ll not have me either, until you can wash first, and learn a few manners.”
She was tempted to say more, like telling him to report for work, for instance, but knew, that as she was ahead for once anyway, it was senseless provoking him further.
Mumbling, he hobbled to the door and after giving her an acid stare, skulked off.
She spent the rest of the morning sitting one side of the table staring into the heavy ball, seeing nothing but hundreds of tiny bubbles and an inverted image of the punter, always a woman, sitting opposite.
Many a time, she had drummed into Robert the evil of lying, yet lie she did, on the one hand hating herself for it, and on the other, watching the pile of precious pennies steadily growing, knowing that any other income, was at best, tenuous.
With her clients, some of whom were regulars, her lies were never too incredible, as they would be seen through, but as everybody around here was as desperate for a bolt hole as she, they drank in the fiction, rather like the one peddled to Nigel Boakes, Dick Morgan, and Lenny Chapman, by Robert, as they sat at their desks in the classroom, though his tale was at least half true.
Six
Mr Myers walked along the rows of boys slowly, tapping his heel with his cane. It was hidden mostly beneath his gown, but everybody knew from painful experience that as a cutlass, it could appear in a flash.
He was slightly deaf though, so when he was beyond eyesight, the whispering went round.
“Nah, don’t believe yer,” Dick whispered, trying his best to smirk, “anyway, she lays a finger on me, my dad’ll give ’er a black eye.”
“’ow?” Lenny said. “He’s in the nick.”
The others laughed and Lenny added, as he looked at the sketch of a daffodil before him, “God, this is borin’!”
“But she did,” Robert insisted, “I’m tellin’ yer. She yanked down me pants first. Bare arse. An’ Big Molly ’eld me in a head lock while she did it, so’s I couldn’t get away. I was screamin’ an’ screamin’. Fought I was gonna be sick, it hurt so much. An’ you’re all gonna get the same.”
“Bollocks!”
“What a loada shit!”
“She wouldn’t dare.”
“All right, if you don’t believe me, we’ll go in the bog at lunchtime, an’ I’ll drop me drawers an’ show…”
Whack!
Four pairs of eyes were standing out on stalks at the sight of the wicker, stretched over Robert’s desk. It had missed his fingers by scant inches, but shattered the stencil he had been sketching with. Bits flew around like shrapnel.
“Have you something to say to the class, boy?”
“No, Sir.”
They looked up at the long thin face, upon which the mouth could barely be seen through the moustache.
He looked around the four waxen faces, as he flexed the limber rod, and said, “Do you want two cuts apiece on each hand?”
“No, Sir.”
Mr Myers closed his eyes and stuck his nose out towards the blackboard. “Morgan, what is a stamen?”
“Er… don’t know, Sir.”
“Boakes, what is a petal?”
“Oh easy, it’s a…”
“Shut up, you stupid boy! Any fool knows what a petal is. It is the intricate you must study. Only that will assure you ease in life. You boys will study, and study hard, or by God, you’ll be in the poor house, with pinched bellies and oakum raw fingers. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He looked around the clas
s, lest others needed caution.
“Now get on with it!”
They carried on sketching, this time in silence.
***
In Rice Lane, Lil watched the O’Driscolls lining up on the other side of the street, along with the occupants of all the Irish houses, as a horse-drawn hearse pulled up outside the O’Briens’. They were dressed in a motley collection of black, and each sported a black armband. It amused her, in spite of the occasion, that they always seemed to arrange themselves in order of height, with their mousy mother at one end.
Four pallbearers came out the O’Briens’ door, carrying the coffin from which her son had tried to take the pennies, with Mrs O’Brien and Molly following. They were arm in arm, snivelling, dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs.
Mrs O’Brien held rosary beads in one hand, while the O’Driscoll sons and everybody else doffed their hats, which ranged from flat caps to bowlers that had seen better days.
As the coffin was being loaded into the back, Mrs O’Brien burst into tears, and at a prompt from his mother, Benny O’Driscoll ran forward to steady her.
Lil stood out of respect as the procession moved off, with big Michael O’Driscoll winking at her as they passed. She knew it was he who had saved her from a much worse beating the night before.
Her legs felt wobbly as she watched him, seeing his powerful arms, that she could imagine enveloping her and taking her away, and his dark face, smudged here and there with traces of blood from the cutthroat razor. She hoped her hot flush wasn’t too obvious.
When they had passed, she carried on, and by the time the whistles were piping dismissal from work, she had amassed nearly five shillings, and felt quite pleased with herself. She normally averaged no more than three.
***
Fighting Bob was feeling rather smug too as he felt the heavy jingle of coins in his pocket, purloined from the upturned cap of the old soldier who stood outside the Mission in Pudding Lane, wearing blacked-out spectacles, selling laces for a farthing a throw.
Bob had bided his time, to make sure nobody was looking, before shoving him over, kicking him and taking his money.
Until now, he had been increasingly fidgety through alcohol withdrawal, but now, the world was his friend, as he stood in the Dog and Duck among his cronies and the welcoming thick smoke and said, “Six pints o’ Porter.”
Seven
Robert was scared of what he might find, when he arrived home from school, but heard his stomach rumble after Lil opened the door. He smelt roast lamb, potatoes and thick gravy. There was mint too, unless he was mistaken.
The fire was lit and Lil greeted him with a warm smile and an embrace, as she took the newspaper from him, her crowning glory piled up once more.
He grinned as he thought of Lenny, Dick and Nigel, who had still been sceptical of his tale, ’til, with a little sadistic glee, he did as promised. He had taken them into the school toilets, and lowered his pants to show them the red welts and purple bruises from Mrs O’Brien’s hairbrush. He could almost hear the gulps of fear.
On their way home, Lenny and Dick had picked another route, rather than pass her house as they usually did, and Nigel had even suggested they get Sergeant Sharp onto the case.
Now, Robert didn’t care a jot, as he sniffed the air again and asked, knowing this sort of fare was a rare luxury, “Where’s Dad?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bet he’s in the pub.”
Annoyed at his cheek, but knowing he was probably right, she said nothing for a minute as she started carving, before saying, “I doubt it. He has no money to speak of. Perhaps he reported for work.”
Robert wondered who she was trying to kid, him or herself, as he watched her pouring gravy, while over in the Dog and Duck, Bob looked at the landlord as though he’d come from another planet.
He couldn’t believe his ears. He had refused to serve him.
Eight
Ted Baker was a weedy-looking man, with drooping skin, spaniel eyes and sagging shoulders, but he knew bad money when he saw it. He was one of those men who had the rare gift of knowing how to deal with the likes of Fighting Bob, without shouting, threatening, or ending up on his back, holding his nose.
Six pints of porter, at sixpence a time, normally comprised six coins in his hand, if they were sixpences, or thirty-six at the most, if they were pennies.
By the time a little mountain, mostly of farthings, stood on the bar before him, a process that had caused the activity in the pub to first slow, and then stop, Ted had become suspicious. The rumour had already got round that an unwritten rule had been broken; namely, that an old soldier had been turned over.
A dozen sets of eyes were watching as he got to the seventy-fifth little coin, counting them out quietly, when Ted asked, “Where’d you get this money, Bob?”
“What d’ya mean?”
“They’re nearly all farvings.”
“So?”
He resumed his counting and stopped at eighty-four. “I asked you where you got this money.”
“Earned it, didn’t I?”
He turned, grinning, but although his chums were anticipating their drinks, none were laughing. Some were looking away, while others were conveniently lighting cigarettes and pipes.
An elderly man at the back, with a brick red face, permanent grin and medals on his chest said, over his pewter tankard and stick, “We all knows where yer fathins ’ail from, young ’un. You go put ’em back, an’ we’ll say n’more.”
He leaned back, nodding earnestly.
There were grunts of agreement all around, so Bob rasped, “I said I earned it!”
“Oh yeah?” said another voice, “I work in the same factory as you. You been gone this past week an’ more, an’ rumour ’as it yer sacked.”
Murmurs of agreement followed.
Bob looked around, glaring at the obstinate faces. Seeing it was no go, and feeling horribly sober, he rasped, “If you buncha shits ain’t gonna gimme any ale, I’ll find some bastard who can. You can rot in ’ell!”
He swept the coins into the air with his forearm and they tinkled as they fell around like brass confetti.
Somebody mumbled, “Arse’ole!” as he stormed out, kicking the door open.
It wasn’t until the cigarette smoke was replaced by that of hundreds of coal fires and cold, dank air that the words “Yer sacked!” echoed through his mind.
He thought too of what Lil had warned him, of going into the workhouse, where he would “never sup again.” He wasn’t so far gone that the tales about these terrible places had gone unheeded. On top of unremitting toil, there would be no booze either, ever again. Daily prayers only. God, he would never bear it…
He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He needed a drink to make the horror go away and for that he needed money. Lil had money.
As he was pushing the front door open, wondering if perhaps a new tack was required, such as appealing to her for it, across town Mr Flint was standing once more before the wooden plinth in the workhouse, top hat before him.
***
Flint was silent, as the man with the monocle regarded his references more closely, while to his side, Horace was muttering something to Alistair behind his back.
At last, Sir Rupert looked up, and said, “Before we make our final decision, why was your employment as headmaster of this school terminated so abruptly? The reasons you give are rather vague.”
“It’s quite simple,” Flint replied, sensing he was among sympathisers, “in these days of mounting, namby-pamby social reform, my ways are regarded, by some, as too austere. I confess that I am an advocate of the very severest forms of punishment, those to which only the underling and the simpleton will respond, the very types, if I may be so bold, to whom board and lodging are extended here.”
The six heads nodded and muttered to each other in agreement.
“I was removed for reasons deemed by the Board of Governors, as… well…”
He trail
ed off, as he racked his brains for a more acceptable synonym.
“Wanton cruelty?” Sir Rupert asked, as his monocle dropped.
Flint looked aghast.
“Good Heavens, no, Sir! I merely believe in getting results and see the means of so doing as immaterial. There is no impropriety in my method whatsoever. The rod is, and should be, as a last resort only, though its application should be, I’m sure you’ll agree, with zeal, or not at all.”
He failed to mention that his dismissal had come about as the result of a ten-year-old boy in need of having a brace of cuts stitched at Bow infirmary.
He was about to continue, sure he had failed the interview, when Sir Rupert held up his hand and began conferring with the others.
At last he said, “You are hired, Mr Flint, for a probationary period of six months. Please report for duties at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, sharp.”
He tinkled the bell once more and Flint smiled, withdrawing gracefully.
***
Somebody who certainly wasn’t smiling was Fighting Bob. Not only had his wife, to whom he believed he had selflessly devoted God knows how many years of his life, eaten without him, leaving his share on a plate to get stone cold, but she had also refused point blank to give him any money.
He had been certain that asking for it, rationally, would bear fruit.
“I have told you,” she said, “we need the money to pay bills.”
“Just a few bob. A few pints. Ain’t gonna make much diff.”
She folded her arms.
“’Arf a bar then.”
“No!”
She stared at him, even though her knees were trembling, and added, “And where are your wages?”
He looked sheepish.
“Dunno.”
“If we are unable to pay the next rent, we’ll be out.”
