Just Henry

by Michelle Magorian

  Henry stared at Pip and Jeffries, who were almost bursting with suppressed frustration.

  ‘That’s why she wanted to talk to your mothers!’

  ‘Ssssh!’ they responded in unison.

  ‘Because I see great ability,’ said Mrs Beaumont, ‘and I know from what her great-aunt has told me that you are both busy people. Living in the same road would make coming to my house for lessons extremely convenient . . . Yes, of course you must discuss it with Mr Forbes-Ellis . . . Yes, of course . . . Thank you so much. And I do apologise for waking you up. I’d forgotten the difference in time . . . Yes. Good after- Goodbye, Mrs Forbes-Ellis.’

  Henry heard the clunk of the receiver being replaced, followed by approaching footsteps. They just had time to sit nonchalantly on the kitchen chairs as Mrs Beaumont opened the door.

  ‘You were eavesdropping, weren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Pip.

  As Henry drew closer to his street, the sinking feeling in his stomach returned. Why would Gran do what she did? The moment he stepped into the hall, he heard her call out to him. He took a deep breath and opened her door.

  ‘Now, sit down,’ she said. ‘I know you must be starvin’, but I’ve hardly seen you this week. You’ve been keeping yerself to yerself.’

  ‘Course I have, Gran.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ she said, looking alert.

  ‘Christmas, Gran. On Sunday. Only four days to go.’

  ‘Silly me!’ She laughed. ‘So have you just come from Mr Jenkins?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s very busy now. Is Molly in bed yet?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I can’t risk wrapping anything up, then.’

  ‘You can wrap in here.’

  ‘Then you’ll have no surprises.’

  ‘I’m too old for surprises.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ said Henry.

  ‘You go and get something to eat. But give yer old gran a kiss first.’

  He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek. Maybe she had meant it for the best, he thought. Maybe she didn’t realise that what she had done was wrong.

  The kitchen was empty. He cut himself a slice of bread and spread some jam on it. He was on his way out when his mum came down the stairs.

  ‘Now you come straight home after the film, won’t you?’

  He nodded.

  She took him by the arm and drew him in front of an old mirror on the wall.

  ‘You’ve grown some more,’ she said. ‘I can rest my head on your shoulder now. Look.’

  Henry smiled at his reflection. With any luck he would be taller than Uncle Bill and then he could look down on him.

  ‘See you later, Mum.’

  She yawned.

  ‘I don’t think so, love. I’ve some sleep to catch up on. This little one has started to kick and is keeping me awake nights.’

  Henry turned away quickly. He didn’t want to hear about the baby.

  When Mrs Beaumont’s front door swung open, Grace was standing there.

  ‘Grace!’ he yelled. He suddenly had the urge to fling his arms around her but, overwhelmed with shyness, he just stood and grinned. ‘Are you staying?’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she cried, and she took hold of his jersey and dragged him in.

  Jeffries and Pip were hovering behind her in the hallway, both beaming.

  ‘And I’m going to school here in this house,’ she said. ‘My parents have agreed. And I won’t see them till the spring.’

  ‘And Mrs Beaumont is going to teach you?’

  ‘Yes and no. She will, but she’s told me she won’t be like the teachers in school. Mrs Jeffries is going to teach me ballet and dressmaking, and Mrs Morgan is going to do arithmetic with me, which will be mostly about money. Mrs Beaumont says she’s an expert at how to make every penny go a long way. And your mother is going to teach me how to knit and type. I hope she’s patient.’

  Remembering how his mother was with Molly, he nodded.

  ‘Very patient.’

  ‘Oh, good. And Mrs Beaumont is going to see if the lady who gives Pip piano lessons can teach me some new songs. But the best thing of all is that I am going to do no reading, no writing and no homework. She has forbidden it. She’s going to read to me and choose programmes on the wireless for me. Isn’t it wonderful? I don’t have to go to school and be hated by teachers. And Mrs Beaumont doesn’t believe I’m a lost cause.’

  ‘Good, isn’t it?’ said Pip.

  ‘And I’m joining in,’ said Jeffries.

  ‘You’re leaving school?’

  ‘No, but when I come home I’m doing ballet with Grace.’

  ‘Ballet!’ yelled Henry. ‘Ballet’s for girls.’

  ‘No, it isn’t, you chump. There were men in my mother’s company.’

  ‘I’m doing it too,’ said Pip.

  ‘You’re not!’ said Henry.

  ‘I think it’s a good idea.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘So I can be with Grace.’

  ‘Pip!’ chorused Jeffries and Henry.

  Henry then found them staring at him.

  ‘Oh, no,’ he protested, ‘I am not doing ballet.’ And then he grinned. ‘But I can take photographs.’

  ‘I have a little surprise for you,’ said Mrs Beaumont as they walked to the Apollo. ‘I’m taking you to see Holiday Inn on Boxing Day. Henry, your stepfather is going to look after Molly so that your mother can come with us. I thought of asking your grandmother, but your mother didn’t think she’d be interested.’

  Henry swallowed.

  ‘No,’ he said, but his voice came out in a croak.

  ‘You lucky things,’ said Grace dismally.

  ‘Won’t you be here for Christmas?’ asked Jeffries.

  ‘No. My great-aunt has to go away so I’ll be with two of my other aunts.’

  ‘Which brings me to my next piece of news,’ said Mrs Beaumont. ‘I’ve had a word with your great-aunt and she has agreed to let you stay here and spend Christmas with me, if you want.’

  ‘Oh, Mrs Beaumont! Yes, yes, yes!’ Grace cried, and she flung her arms round her.

  Pip proceeded to do a strange whirling dance in the road, much to the amusement of people heading for the queue.

  ‘And I’m treating you to ice creams today. I think it’s a time to celebrate, don’t you?’

  The air of Christmas was infectious. By the time their part of the queue had reached the doors, they could hardly hear themselves speak above the chattering crowd of excited people in the decorated foyer. Henry took the camera out. With any luck there would be enough light to take a photograph.

  ‘Why do you like taking photographs of people you don’t know?’ asked Jeffries.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Henry. ‘I just do.’

  ‘You’re a people-watcher,’ said Mrs Beaumont.

  ‘Is there such a thing?’ asked Grace.

  ‘Oh, yes. On the Continent people sit outside cafés and watch people for hours.’

  Henry looked through his viewfinder, swinging it slowly round the foyer, past a placard announcing that the cinema was changing its name to the Essoldo, and then on to the front of the queue. And that’s when he spotted him – the man from the photographs. He was at one of the box offices handing over money. Henry snapped him and then quickly turned away. Could it just be another coincidence that he was here at the same time as Mrs Beaumont?

  ‘There aren’t any bulbs powerful enough, you see,’ he heard Pip telling Jeffries, ‘so to make light, you need two sticks of carbon.’

  ‘Pip!’ interrupted Jeffries.

  ‘And Mr Hart said that one was negative and one was positive. And he touched them with this handle.’

  ‘Can you tell me about it later?’ pleaded Jeffries.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Pip happily. ‘Then I can tell you about the lamp house. You have to look at the flame through this window of dark blue glass. That stops you hurting your eyes, see?’

  ‘Pip!’ protest
ed Jeffries.

  ‘I watched Stan, the second projectionist, adjust the carbons,’ he said, turning to Henry. ‘He had to work out exactly how far apart they had to be and then suddenly voomph, they gave light!’

  Jeffries gave a groan and Henry smiled at him. An usherette took their tickets and another one swung a torch down towards the cheapest seats.

  ‘The carbons slowly burned away during the twenty minutes the first reel was being shown on the screen,’ Pip whispered, following Jeffries between a row of seats, ‘and then Stan re-adjusted them in the lamp glass so that there was enough carbon left to do the next twenty minutes, for the next reel.’

  Pip only stopped talking when the B film began, and Henry returned to thinking about the man he had seen in the foyer. Suppose the man just liked going to the cinema? After all, the first photograph had been outside the Plaza, but then why would he be outside a ballet shoe shop in London? Maybe he was Christmas shopping. He wouldn’t have been able to find a shop like that in Sternsea. Henry looked back up at the screen and began to relax.

  Immediately the film ended, a spotlight from the projectionist’s window swung down on the usherette selling ice creams. Grace leapt up to bag a place in the fast-forming queue.

  She’s going to need another pair of hands, thought Henry, heading up the aisle. Within seconds Pip had joined them, money from Mrs Beaumont in his hand.

  ‘So when it had finished burning,’ Henry heard Pip say to Grace, ‘he had to release the clamp and wind right back here,’ he added, spreading his arms, ‘so he still had all that amount of carbon to use.’

  ‘Gosh,’ she said, handing Pip two of the ice creams to hold.

  ‘Then he clamped it up again so there’d be enough carbon left for the next twenty-minute reel.’

  ‘Pip,’ said Henry.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Grace, ‘I don’t mind listening.’

  ‘But do you know what he’s talking about?’

  ‘Not really,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘And then he had to do the same thing with the negative carbon. Oh, I forgot to tell you how big the carbon is. It’s about the size of a pencil.’

  ‘The ice creams are melting,’ said Henry.

  ‘You’re right,’ said Pip, and he moved quickly back to their seats.

  Henry and Grace came down the aisle with the rest of the ice creams. Henry noticed the man again in one of the rows. He had removed his hat and was staring up at the screen. Henry quickly looked away. This was no coincidence.

  The man was sitting in the row behind them.

  4. Present hunting

  HENRY COULDN’T SLEEP. EVERY TIME HE CLOSED HIS EYES, HE would see the man sitting there in the crowded cinema. Being cold didn’t help. He tucked his pyjama trousers into his socks and flung his old raincoat over the bed, but he was so tense that even rubbing his feet together to warm them made no difference. He envied Molly, sleeping peacefully.

  He kept thinking back to the previous evening over and over again. Throughout the second film he had kept an eye on Mrs Beaumont, ready to protect her should the man make a move towards her seat. But nothing happened. As soon as the closing music filled the auditorium, people stood up and blocked his view. By the time he had reached the aisle, the man had disappeared.

  Henry wanted to tell Jeffries as soon as they were back at Mrs Beaumont’s house, but once there, a paraffin heater was lit in the study and Grace and Pip began to mess around with tunes, Grace singing, Pip finding the notes. One look at Jeffries’ smiling face and Henry knew that wild horses wouldn’t have dragged him away. He would have to wait.

  That night he had hardly drifted off to sleep when his mother was calling him to get up. Being the day before Christmas Eve, suddenly everyone was beginning to do their Christmas shopping and Mr Jenkins needed the extra help. When he arrived at the shop, piles of neatly wrapped packages were already stacked on the left-hand counter and a long queue of women were shivering outside in the crisp half-light.

  Henry had brought the camera with him. As more light began to seep into the sky, he looked into the viewfinder. At first the women smiled and waved at him or turned away protesting, but after a while they grew uninterested in the protruding lens and returned to chatting or staring vacantly into the distance or battling to hang on to their small children, and that’s when Henry took a photograph.

  His mother was out when he returned home. Only his gran was in the house.

  ‘Yer mum’s taken that girl to some Christmas party,’ she said. ‘And I’m hungry. Why don’t you make me a nice cuppa and keep me company. That man has been driving me round the bend. You’ll never guess what he’s gone and done now.’

  Henry dreaded the thought of listening to hours of complaints about Uncle Bill, and he was desperate to tell Jeffries about the man who was following Mrs Beaumont.

  ‘I’m going to the Pictures,’ he lied, stoking up Gran’s fire and adding a few lumps of fresh coal. ‘Mum’ll be home soon.’

  Grace dragged him excitedly into Mrs Beaumont’s hallway.

  ‘Max and Oscar are here,’ she said. ‘They’re in the sitting room putting up the Christmas tree.’

  Suddenly Henry heard a high-pitched squeal coming from downstairs.

  ‘Is Molly here?’ he asked, surprised.

  ‘Yes. She’s helping make decorations.’

  ‘I thought she was at a party.’

  ‘Did you?’ Grace shrugged. ‘Well, I suppose it is a bit like a party downstairs. Come and see.’

  He found his mother and Molly sitting at the table with Mrs Jeffries and Pip, surrounded by coloured paper chains and lanterns, a bowl of glue standing in the centre. Sweet smells were coming from the range and Mrs Morgan was pulling out a tray of ginger biscuits from the oven. Molly was engrossed in cutting a strip of coloured paper, her tongue curled round her upper lip.

  ‘Hello!’ exclaimed his mother. ‘Does Gran know you’re here?’

  ‘I told her I was going to the Pictures,’ he admitted guiltily.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she said, ‘and I’m no better. I lied too. Have you seen the tree?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Mrs Morgan removed her jacket from the back of the door and slung it on. ‘See you all tomorrow,’ she said gaily.

  Pip followed her into the hall.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ asked Henry, puzzled. ‘The shops will be closed.’

  ‘She still cleans offices at night,’ said his mother. ‘But at least she knows Pip has company now.’ She dangled a paper chain in front of him. ‘We need all the help we can get. Paper chains or lanterns?’

  Already Grace was sitting beside Molly, chatting to her and making encouraging noises, and Molly was beaming up at her.

  ‘Lanterns,’ Henry said, ‘but you’ll have to show me what to do.’

  Mrs Beaumont appeared with the gramophone and put it on the dresser.

  ‘Grace, why don’t you choose something upbeat and cheerful, like the music at the jazz club.’

  ‘Molly, you’re putting glue all over the table,’ said Henry.

  Molly presented the end of her paper chain and as he helped her put glue on it, he glanced aside at his mother. She was happier than he had seen her for years. He guessed it was because she was away from Uncle Bill, and he wished he could be out of their lives for ever, but there was no hope of that ever happening. Molly worshipped him and he worshipped Molly. The knowledge that his mother was stuck with him caused Henry to feel so angry that he had to get out of the room.

  ‘I’ll go and help with the tree,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘Good idea,’ said Pip.

  ‘Me too,’ said Jeffries, following them.

  Leaving the warmth of the kitchen made the rest of the house seem freezing. In the sitting room, they found Max and Oscar wearing scarves and gloves, hopping up and down in the middle of the room.

  ‘Hello, there,’ said Max. ‘What do you think?’

  Standing solidly in half a wooden barrel filled wit
h earth was the tallest fir tree Henry had ever seen. On a nearby table Henry noticed boxes of tiny glass ornaments.

  ‘Stupendous!’ Jeffries exclaimed.

  ‘We’re leaving the fragile decorations to Ma. But we can shift some of the furniture out of the bay window to make room for the tree.’

  ‘Want any help?’ said Henry, eager to do anything that would take his mind off Uncle Bill.

  Strains of jazz could be heard coming from the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, please, but let’s nip downstairs and thaw out first.’

  As Max and Oscar darted out of the room, Henry hung back. Pip was already by the door. This was his chance to tell Jeffries about the man.

  ‘Jeffries!’ he whispered urgently.

  ‘Yes?’

  Pip turned and smiled at them. A wave of laughter came from the kitchen. It was the wrong moment.

  ‘It’s good that Grace can stay here for Christmas, isn’t it?’ Henry blurted out.

  ‘It’s good for us too,’ said Jeffries. ‘Mother says she’s going to have to learn how to cook again. She’s so used to using one gas ring, she’s forgotten what to do with an oven.’

  ‘I’ve never had Christmas dinner in a house,’ said Pip.

  Jeffries looked puzzled.

  ‘But you lived in a house.’

  ‘Yes, I know. But we never had Christmas dinner there. We had it in a British Restaurant. Mum saved up for it.’

  ‘We had tinned ham,’ said Jeffries.

  ‘Us too,’ said Henry. ‘Do you know what you’re having this year?’

  ‘Chicken!’ they chorused and they headed for the hall.

  ‘Done your Christmas shopping, then?’ asked Mr Jenkins on Christmas Eve.

  ‘No, Mr Jenkins.’

  ‘Good job I only need you this morning, then. You can do it this afternoon, eh? And those chocolates you want for your mother you can have at half price.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Jenkins.’

  ‘And I’ve found a box which I think will be right for your sister.’

  Henry’s mother had told him that she and Uncle Bill were giving Molly a doll for Christmas. Observing how everyone enjoyed Molly’s company at Mrs Beaumont’s house had made Henry think differently about her. She seemed less annoying there. He had always thought of her as a nuisance, but not any more. For the first time, Henry wanted to give her a present, but had decided to keep it a secret from Gran. A doll, he had told Mr Jenkins, would need a bed. Mr Jenkins produced a heavy slatted wooden box that had previously been filled with precious oranges and it was in good nick. It already almost looked like a cot. Henry was so pleased with it he couldn’t speak.