by Julian Gloag
He picked up an egg cup and scraped away the remains of the yolk with his fingernail. He couldn’t do it all, though. The whole family to feed, and the house to clean, and the shopping to do. He laid aside the egg cup and rinsed a plate. If only Elsa would help. If only …
He turned off the hot water. Only ten minutes ago—he glanced up at the clock—he had promised himself to be a man and now he was thinking of ifs. “If” is the silliest word in the English language.
“I ’spect,” he said reluctantly, “I ’spect we could have some cake. After all, it’s nearly Friday.”
If only he could talk to Mother properly. There, he was at it again. But this was different—Mothertime was real. Mothertime was the only thing they had left really. He rinsed the china toast rack. If only Dunstan weren’t there—listening, listening. He didn’t mind about the others.
“Come on, Jiminee, give us a hand with the drying.”
As each plate was dried Hubert put it back in place on the kitchen table. It was the easiest way—not to have to bother with putting the things in the cupboard and taking them out again. He turned down the light under the kettle as it began to whistle. The puffs of steam that pouted reluctantly from its head made the kitchen seem warmer. Hubert started to cut the bread, spreading each slice with a thin layer of margarine before it was sliced from the loaf.
“Jiminee, get the cake tin out.” He measured the width of a slice carefully—the slices he cut were neat and accurate—and drew the knife steadily back against the hard crust Saw, don’t push.
“Okay, Hu.” Jiminee lifted the half of the cake that was left onto the table.
“Cut it like this,” Hubert said, running his finger to demonstrate a thin wedge. “Put them all on the willow plate.”
He went back to the loaf, keeping an eye on Jiminee.
Spreading and cutting, cutting and spreading. It was a hot job. He stopped for a moment. The curtains across the windows were undrawn and the blackness of the garden outside looked coldly in. It would be at least three weeks before they could have the stove lit in the kitchen—November first. It would be winter then. It almost was now. And they’d need coal, for the cellar was pretty well empty. Hubert wondered if the coalman just brought it automatically, or if you had to tell him to come. Elsa would know—if she would tell him. Yes, of course she would. Elsa wasn’t spiteful.
He cut into the loaf again, not thinking what he was doing, and the slice was ragged. He laid it on the plate with the others. Waste not, want not. He’d eat that one himself.
“Finished, Jiminee?”
Jiminee ran his finger along the blade of the knife, gathering a small pile of yellow cream and crumbs. He put the finger in his mouth and pulled slowly; it popped as the finger came out. Jiminee grinned.
“Finished?” Hubert felt unreasonably angry.
“Oh—yes.”
“About time too.” He deliberately looked away from his brother. “You’re such a slow coach,” he said. Stupid, stupid, stupid—why was Jiminee such a fool? Couldn’t he do anything by himself? He thought, what’s he going to do when he grows up? To absorb his irritation, he counted the pieces of cake that Jiminee had cut.
“Jiminee!”
Jiminee smiled tentatively. “What’s wrong?”
“There are seven—you’ve cut seven bits!”
“I’m s-sorry.”
Hubert reached over and put a piece of the yellow cake on his palm. “How could you?” he shouted. Suddenly he was beside himself. He thrust the cake under Jiminee’s nose. “How could you?”
Jiminee blinked. “But—b-but—”
“But what?” He pushed the cake at Jiminee, so that the breath from the younger boy’s nostrils dislodged crumbs of cake and blew them onto the floor.
“But it isn’t what you th-think.”
“You forgot, didn’t you?”
“I d-d-didn’t—I d-d-didn’t.” Jiminee’s lips fluttered. “I didn’t forget. It wasn’t that. It was for Willy’s b-b-black wife!”
Hubert lowered his hand. His anger was gone. He put the slice back onto the willow-pattern plate. He was ashamed. It was he who had forgotten—forgotten Willy’s black wife.
He wanted to apologise. “I’m so—”
“And b-besides,” Jiminee added, “besides—there might b-be somebody else who’d like a p-piece of c-c-cake, mightn’t there?”
Like the hour hand gone mad, a wild swing of hope spun within Hubert. “Who?” he whispered. Perhaps He had arrived—hiding behind the chair, waiting to jump out. He glanced round the room. A surprise.
“S-someone,” said Jiminee, smiling.
There wasn’t anyone in the kitchen. In the garden. Perhaps He was in the garden. “Who?” he cried.
Jiminee flinched at his shout. And suddenly Hubert knew there was no one.
“S-somebody,” said Jiminee, his smile wavering, “just some-b-b-body.”
There was no one. For a moment the looseness within almost overcame Hubert. Then he shook his head. Ask a silly question, get a silly answer. He sighed.
He went slowly back to the table and picked up the bread knife.
“Go and call the others,” he murmured. “I’ll finish cutting the bread.”
When Jiminee was gone, he glanced up at the black winter windows, which were beginning to steam up with the warmth of the kitchen.
Perhaps, he thought, perhaps the letter will come tomorrow.
21
The postman came up from the direction of the park. He didn’t have a bicycle. He liked to walk. He was a small man, precise in his movements. His free arm swung straight at the elbow and he held his head so high that the peak of his cap cast a shadow halfway down his nose. He whistled as he came, always the same abrupt series of notes that must have made a melody somewhere in his mind. He had four medals from the War.
He halted in front of number 36, shifted three letters from his left to his right hand, clicked open the gate and marched up the path.
From the window of his workroom, Hubert watched.
Back down the path came the postman. Gate open, gate shut. Pause, then whistle and march again. As he approached number 38, Hubert leaned forward at the window.
The postman stopped. He looked down and shuffled the letters in his hand. He looked up, then down again for another quick shuffle. When he raised his head once more, the whistling ceased. He examined the house, and Hubert thought their eyes must have met. But it was hard to tell because of the shadow over the postman’s face.
Suddenly he cocked his head on one side. After a minute his right arm straightened, he turned smartly, and with head straight and erect, he stepped out towards the Halberts’. As he passed the dividing line of the front gardens—the ragged yew of number 38 and the trim box leaves of number 40—he started to whistle again.
He halted in front of number 40 and began to sort through a thick sheaf of white envelopes. Hubert thought, he’s made a mistake, in a moment he’ll come running back with the letter.
But this postman never made mistakes. He went up the path of number 40 and the front door opened for him.
Through the clarity of the autumn morning, Hubert heard his greeting. “It’s a nice day again,” the postman said.
There was no letter.
22
They had got up the steps at last.
Somebody had forgotten to turn on the porch light. The two boys stood quite concealed by darkness. The white fountains of their breath did not reach beyond the shadow of the house.
The sounds of the park road at the end of the terrace fluctuated gently. It was misty now. In a few hours it would turn to fog. The boys held hands.
“It’s quite safe. I p-promise it is.”
As he spoke, Jiminee felt the hand in his tighten.
They waited again, looking down into the street. Nobody passed. Anyone going to the pub would have been there long ago. The last post had gone.
No sounds came from inside the house.
Jiminee
’s feet were frozen. He did not feel them. All he felt was the other hand in his. It didn’t move, except to tighten and then slowly relax. Once it had wriggled so that their fingers interlaced.
“All right? I’m g-going to knock now.”
The fingers clamped hard against his.
“It’s all right.”
He didn’t have far to reach. He lifted the knocker and let it fall once. The flat sound was buried immediately in the mist.
“It’s all right. It’s all right.”
It was a long way from the kitchen. At last they heard the footsteps hesitating in the hall.
The door opened with the sound of perished rubber pulling free. Hubert’s head appeared.
“Jiminee? Where you been?”
Jiminee let go the hand and moved into the light from the hall.
“Where have you been?” Hubert was whispering. “It’s nine o’clock.”
“I kn-know.”
The mist was caught by the light as it was slowly pulled into the hall by the warmth of the house.
“Well?” said Hubert. “Come on. It’s cold out here.”
“I got someone with m-me.”
Jiminee moved back and took the hand in his again. Already it was cold. It held hard to his.
He half pulled the little boy into the hall with him. “Shut the door, Hu.” He turned to his companion. “It’s all right, we’re in. G-go on, Hu.”
Hubert put his back against the door and it shut. He stared at the other boy. “Where have you been?”
“Walking.”
“Who’s this?”
“This is Louis.” Jiminee smiled. “It’s all right. Nobody saw us. The whole way from school. D-did they, Louis?”
The boy looked at Hubert. His large eyes never blinked. He tightened his grasp on Jiminee’s hand.
“There you are!” said Jiminee.
“What’s he doing here?”
Jiminee’s smile widened as he glanced from Hubert to Louis and back again. “Louis has c-come to live in our house.”
Hubert turned his eyes away. The mist was still faintly visible in the hall. Unpolished and letterless, the silver tray lay on the table.
“He can’t stay here,” he said briefly.
They said nothing.
Hubert wouldn’t look at them. He wouldn’t. He had thought Jiminee had been run over, or kidnapped. But instead, Jiminee had kidnapped someone else. You can’t just kidnap somebody and expect no one to find out.
He said, “You kidnapped him.”
“I d-didn’t k-k-kidnap him. He wanted to c-come—didn’t you, Louis?”
Hubert couldn’t keep it up. He looked at Louis. Louis stared back. He wasn’t the sort of kid you’d notice much, really. His face was very thin, and it made his eyes seem huge. They were brown eyes. What would his mother and father do when they found out? He was like a deer at the zoo. He had the same big nose.
“Have you had any supper?”
“No,” said Jiminee. “Can Louis stay?”
Hubert gave the door a final shove with his back to make sure it was closed.
“You better come and have some supper,” he said, taking a step towards them. Louis flinched back, pulling Jiminee with him.
“It’s all right,” Jiminee said quickly.
Hubert stopped dead. He took a sharp breath and suddenly the smell of the mist was very strong in the hall. Somewhere under his feet was the scar on the floor board, but he hardly thought of that now. There was a turbulence of mist from which the little boy, backed against the table and half hidden by Jiminee, stood out as though cut with a fret saw. There was a look on Louis’ face … perhaps it had been a stranger in Hubert’s cup that morning, not a letter after all. Louis reminded him of someone, of … he closed his eyes against the mist and for a fraction of a second he saw Louis lying wounded on the carpet…
Hubert shook his head and opened his eyes. The mist was gone. He raised his hand as gently as if it held the letter of relief. “Yes,” he murmured, “it’s all right.”
They stood silent. Upstairs a door opened.
Hubert walked to the door to the basement. “Come on,” he called over his shoulder.
One by one, each of the children had come down to the kitchen, as though summoned. Each had asked and been answered.
“Louis. He’s going to stay with us.”
“Louis—Louis Grossiter.”
“Louis has come to live with us.”
Through it all, Louis sat straight against the chair back, his fists clasped tightly on his knees. He looked mostly at Jiminee, only occasionally at anyone else. He hadn’t said a word.
“Where did you get him from?” Hubert asked.
“He’s in my form,” said Jiminee. “He sits at the b-back.”
“How old is he?”
“Eight.”
“I know everyone in your form,” said Dunstan. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“He’s n-new. He doesn’t come from here.” Jiminee glanced at Louis. “He c-comes from M-M-M-Manchester.”
“Manchester,” Hubert murmured. That was hundreds of miles away. Hundreds. No wonder Louis was—it must be like a foreign country to him.
“Why doesn’t he eat anything?” Willy asked.
The plate of biscuits lay untouched in front of Louis. The mug of warm milk already had a thick crinkled skin on top.
Elsa moved round the table to be beside Louis. He turned his head to look at her. She reached down and touched his hand.
“He’s cold,” she said. “The poor little thing is almost frozen to death.”
She rubbed his hand for a few moments and then lifted it and, carefully uncurling Louis’ clenched fingers, put it round the yellow mug. “Hold it,” she said quietly. “You’ll soon be warm again.” She smiled at him. “Isn’t that better?”
Louis didn’t answer. His thin fingers were hooked awkwardly round the mug.
Hubert stood up. “Elsa!” He had been sitting on the edge of the chair, watching the children watch Louis and trying to think of something to do. “Elsa!” He called again, yet he didn’t know what he wanted to say.
Her head was turned to him enquiringly. From the momentary animation with Louis, her white peaked face had returned to its customary expression of—nothing.
Hubert searched in his mind for something to say, as she waited in the calmness of the numb for him to speak. He felt himself blushing. He knew it was tremendously important, if only … then suddenly it seemed to burst inside him.
“We’ve run out of coal!” he shouted.
It was a shout. He hadn’t meant it to be. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dunstan’s startled jerk.
He hadn’t meant to shout. He tried again. “We’ve run out of coal.”
The children remained still as if they had been struck by lightning.
“We’ve run out of …” It was no use. They didn’t understand, they didn’t …
Elsa turned back to Louis. “Is that better now?” she asked, touching his finger with her own.
As she spoke the children moved.
“We should have a fire, if Louis’s cold,” Jiminee said.
“A fire!” Willy cried.
“A fire!”
“It’s too late for a fire,” said Elsa, without glancing up.
Her decisiveness silenced them.
It isn’t too late to have a fire, Hubert thought, it’s too early. We never have fires before the first of November. Anyway, we haven’t got any coal.
He said, “What are we going to do with him?”
“He’s got to go to bed—we’re going to put him to bed, that’s what we’re going to do,” said Elsa.
“But Else—”
“Can he sleep in our room?” asked Willy.
“But, Else, we’ve got to decide what to do with him.” Hubert’s voice was urgent. “We can’t just keep him. His mother and his dad will be looking for him and—”
“Hubert’s right,” said Dunstan.
“Hubert’s right. Of course he is. Not everyone’s like us. How do we know he isn’t a traitor?” He darted a finger at Louis.
“But that’s not what I meant,” began Hubert, “I meant—”
“It doesn’t matter what you meant.” Dunstan stared at Hubert and suddenly something started to move in Hubert’s mind.
“Dun—” he said.
“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Dunstan repeated. “just ’cause we found one traitor out, doesn’t mean to say there aren’t more.” He brushed a flap of black hair from his forehead. “Anyone can be a traitor.” He looked only at Hubert. “Anyone. Him—how do we know he isn’t a traitor—a traitor in the gates?”
Diana reached out and touched Dunstan’s arm. “We’ll find out, Dunstan. We’ll ask Mother.”
Dunstan’s rigidity relaxed. He nodded. “Yes. That’s what we’ll do.”
“Mother will tell us,” Willy asserted.
“Mother will tell us,” said Diana.
“I don’t mean that—I don’t mean it.” Hubert banged the table.
“We mean it,” Dunstan said calmly.
“Don’t you see it doesn’t matter? Supposing he is all right. Just supposing—what about his mother and his dad? They’re going to be looking for him, of course they are. And the police—do you think they won’t tell the police their little boy’s gone? And then they’ll all be looking for him. They’re bound to find him in the end. How’s he going to come back from school without people finding out where he’s going?”
“He won’t g-go to school then,” said Jiminee.
“Don’t be silly. Of course he’s got to go to school.”
“Why?”
“Because—because we all go to school. That’s why and what’s more …” Hubert glanced at the faces around him and he knew at once that he wasn’t convincing anybody. “Elsa!” he said. But Elsa didn’t seem to be listening even.
He sat down and lowered his head. “They’ll find out about us too,” he murmured, almost to himself.
There was nothing more to be said.
Diana spread her hands. “Come, children. Let’s go and ask Mother.”
