‘Did you tell her I’d got a job lined up for you?’ his father asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘She’s all for it.’
‘But you still want to do what yer mum says?’
‘Yeah, but I think she’s coming round to the idea. She just wants to know where I’d be living and the name and address of the man who’s giving me the job.’
‘I’ll sort that out.’
Oh, yeah? thought Henry.
‘Do you want me to tell Gran where we meet?’ Henry asked carefully.
‘Not a good idea, son. She might throw her arms about me and anyone passing might see. I’ll sort something out, don’t you worry. Seeing as I’ll be telling your mum where I live, you’d better tell me where you live.’
He lied so easily. He had even forgotten that he had already told Henry he had seen the number of the house in the newspaper photograph.
‘Number 6. It’s the street round the corner from the Plaza.’
‘Number 6,’ he murmured to himself. ‘That shouldn’t be hard to remember. P’raps I could pop round when your Mr Carpenter is out. We don’t want to upset him, do we? After all, it ain’t his fault that he ain’t married to yer mum. I’m sure once me and your mum have a nice little talk we can sort it all out.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ he managed to mutter.
There was an awkward silence.
‘Once we’re on our own in London we can have a proper chat. Eh?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Chin up, son,’ and he turned and looked at him out of the corner of his eye, giving one of those convincingly friendly smiles. ‘I’m like the Mounties. I always get my man.’
Henry forced himself to return the smile.
‘We’ll meet same time next week,’ said his father, stubbing out his cigarette on the wall.
‘A bit later,’ said Henry. ‘I’m going to the Rex to see an Italian film.’
‘An Italian film?’
‘It’s got subtitles.’
‘That’s handy.’
‘So I’ll be here about an hour later.’
‘I’ve a train to catch.’
‘I’ll try and get out earlier.’
‘You do that, son.’
But Henry could see that he was rattled. And he was so pleased, so very pleased.
‘March nineteenth, then, Dad.’
‘Getting close to April,’ his father pointed out tersely.
Henry felt he had gone too far and he kicked himself.
‘I’m really looking forward to that, Dad,’ he said with all the strength he could muster and he forced himself to smile again. ‘I can’t wait to be a clapper boy.’
His father gave a nod and moved past him towards the steps. Henry watched his back and quickly followed him. He stayed at the top. His father’s head was lowered. He could see Charlie looking over Lily’s shoulder. Henry indicated his father and he and Charlie gave each other a nod. Swiftly Henry returned to the bridge.
Lily was carrying the rucksack and a box-shaped parcel covered in colourful wrapping. As the train approached she handed them to Charlie and gave him a kiss. They waited while his father got into one of the carriages. Charlie got into the one next to it and sat by the window. As soon as the train pulled out Henry ran down the steps. He needed to see Mrs Beaumont as soon as possible.
It was Jeffries who opened the door.
‘Hello!’ he said, surprised.
Immediately Mrs Beaumont appeared behind him.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Henry,’ she said, winking over his friend’s shoulder, ‘your mother and Molly left some time ago. Have you just come from the Troxy?’ she asked casually.
‘No. The railway bridge. I saw an old friend of mine, Charlie.’
‘Oh, yes?’
‘And I thought I’d wave him off. He’s engaged now to one of the usherettes at the Plaza. She was with him and I thought they’d want to be alone so I waved to him from up there. She gave him a present,’ he added.
‘How lovely,’ she exclaimed.
‘Yeah. He’s going to have to carry it all the way back to his unit and it sticks out a bit.’
‘Oh?’ she said curiously. ‘Why is that?’
‘Because of the wrapping paper. She must have saved it from Christmas. It’s red, green and gold.’
‘That will stick out,’ she said, winking.
‘Roger!’ called a voice from upstairs. ‘Your turn.’
‘Bath,’ explained Jeffries.
‘Oh, yes, me too. I’d better get back,’ Henry said quickly.
Mrs Beaumont was already dialling a number on the telephone. They caught one another’s eye and Henry let himself out.
It was difficult to concentrate on lessons. At midday he could only swallow a forkful of the school dinner and had to sit at the table for the remainder of the break until he had finished. After school he walked to Mrs Beaumont’s house with Pip and Jeffries. She was waiting for him.
‘I’m so glad you popped round, Henry,’ she said. ‘You left your rucksack here,’ and she handed it over to him. ‘And the camera’s in it. You must have been wondering where you’d put it. I hope you don’t mind, but I had a look and you’ve nearly finished the film. Only one more snap left. I’m really looking forward to seeing what you’ve taken,’ she added meaningfully. ‘When do you think you’ll be able to develop it?’
‘Soon,’ said Henry. ‘I’ll go and take the last photograph now. See you tomorrow,’ he said to Pip and Jeffries.
He caught a bus to the church where he had attended his father’s funeral, walked through the graveyard and took a photograph of the gravestone with Alfred Dodge written on it.
It wasn’t until Wednesday evening that Henry watched the first images emerging in the developing tray. Immediately, he could see that the photographs had been taken by an expert. Whoever Max’s friend was, he must have taken a lot of risks. The first picture was of open suitcases filled with coupons. The second photograph had been taken through ceiling rafters. It showed his father in a brightly lit warehouse watching a young boy, not much older than Henry, pouring petrol through a gas mask into a metal container.
The third photograph was of his father standing next to a man with a craggy face, wearing a light-coloured coat with a dark collar. They were both smiling. In the background were a row of petrol cans and some dark machinery.
By half past six he had six prints pegged out to dry on the line. He planned to come into school early to remove the London photos before Mr Finch spotted them. He would leave the two other photographs he had developed so that there would be something hanging there for him to see.
‘Mr Finch has given me permission to come in early before school,’ he told Sergeant when he handed back the key.
It was only when he reached home that he realised he had left the negatives behind.
The following morning when he entered the darkroom to retrieve them, the smell of the developing fluid was still strong and he was alarmed to find the room still warm.
‘Oh, no!’ he cried. ‘I must have left the heater on all night.’
But it was still unplugged, just as he had left it. He checked the prints. To his relief they were dry. He took down the three taken by the professional photographer and the one of his father’s gravestone. The latter had come out quite well. In the photograph a shaft of late afternoon sun appeared like a spotlight on the gravestone. Mrs Beaumont had given him an envelope with some stiff card in it to protect them. Carefully, he slid them inside it and put it in his rucksack. He was about to leave when he noticed that the positioning of the aperture on the enlarger was set at maximum, as though he had been cropping and framing. He stared at it, puzzled. He could have sworn he had left it halfway down. It was almost as if someone had been in the darkroom after he had left. But that was impossible. He had handed the key to the caretaker. Henry stared at the enlarger, completely perplexed. Eventually he shrugged it off. He must have accidentally moved it when h
e was clearing up. He slipped out, locked the door behind him and swung the KEEP OUT notice hanging from the doorknob to the blank side.
When he returned to the darkroom in the dinner break, Mr Finch was waiting for him.
‘I thought I’d take a look at your prints,’ he said, gazing up at the two Henry had left pegged on the line.
‘I’ve got three more to print, sir. Four of the negatives didn’t come out so I threw them away. I must have got the light all wrong, or over-exposed them. Anyway, sir, I’ve got a new roll of film,’ he added hurriedly.
‘Who’s this couple?’ Mr Finch asked.
‘That’s my friend Charlie. The girl is his fiancé.’
‘They look very happy. You could crop this one and enlarge their faces.’
To his relief, Mr Finch asked no questions about the missing negatives. He suggested he bring the camera in the following day.
‘I’d like you to put the film in yourself,’ he said. ‘I’ll stand by in case you have any problems.’
As soon as he arrived at Mrs Beaumont’s house, she suggested they go up to the room where he and Jeffries had stored the furniture so that she could look at the photographs in private. Once the door was closed, Henry whipped them out.
‘There’s no doubt he’s involved in some kind of criminal activity, is there?’ she murmured. ‘See that boy pouring petrol through a gas mask? Any idea what he’s up to?’
‘No.’
‘I do. He’s removing the pink dye in the petrol. I’ve heard about this sort of thing from Oscar. Clear petrol is much easier to sell on the black market. Your father is obviously mixed up in all this. I would do everything you can to steer clear of him.’
‘But he could have Molly and the baby taken away!’
‘Not if your mother divorces him.’
‘He won’t let her. He’ll use the doctor’s reports to say he’d lost his memory and that it wasn’t his fault he didn’t come back.’
‘I think these photographs might persuade him. Do you still have the negatives?’
‘Yes.’
‘Give them to me. I’ll keep them in a safe place.’
‘But what about Mum? She’ll never divorce him.’
‘She might. If you can persuade her.’
Suddenly Henry felt so sad that it hurt.
‘You don’t want her to, do you?’ Mrs Beaumont said quietly.
‘I do,’ he whispered, swallowing back the tears.
‘But I can see it’s upsetting you.’
‘He’s not my dad, see,’ he said, struggling to explain. ‘I mean he is, but . . . ’
‘He’s not the imaginary father you’ve been living with for years.’
Henry nodded.
‘I don’t like this one. I feel . . . ’ But he couldn’t find the words.
‘You feel that the imaginary dad has died all over again and you’re missing him?’
‘Yeah. I used to think about him a lot and now I can’t. Does that sound stupid?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Anyway,’ he said briskly. ‘He’s gone now and I don’t want this one to be around Mum. But how can I get her to divorce him?’
‘I don’t know. But I can remove one obstacle. She’ll need money. I’ve been to see my solicitor and he says that I can sell the furniture as long as I hand the money from the sale over to him. That money can go towards paying his firm’s legal costs should a friend of mine, your mother, choose to divorce her husband. It can be my wedding present to her when she remarries your stepfather.’ She looked at Henry intently. ‘Which she will probably do if she divorces your father, you do realise that, don’t you?’
Henry shrugged.
‘I can take it.’
She smiled.
‘We’ve a long way to go yet. I can work behind the scenes. The rest is up to you.’
9. Breaking it to Mum
‘HELLO, LOVE!’ SAID HIS MOTHER. ‘I THOUGHT YOU WERE AT THE Cinema Club.’
Molly was sitting on her lap sucking a piece of toast. Henry stared at her nervously. Mrs Beaumont had planned that he should have a chat with his mum on Saturday morning while Mrs Jeffries and Mrs Morgan were out shopping and his friends were at the Pictures.
‘Come on, Molly,’ said Mrs Beaumont, stretching her arms out. ‘Let’s go and play on the piano.’
‘That sounds nice,’ said Henry’s mother, rising.
‘Henry wants to have a private word with you.’
‘Does he now?’ commented his mother suspiciously.
They sat in silence until they heard the study door close.
‘Henry, if it’s about you going up to London, don’t waste your time. My word is final.’
Henry gazed back at her speechless. Suddenly he didn’t have a clue how to begin.
‘Oh,’ she said suddenly and her face softened. ‘I think I know what this is all about. It’s those bad dreams you’ve been having, isn’t it?’
Henry was taken aback.
‘You know about them?’ he said.
‘I’ve sometimes heard you yell out in the night and looked into your room to make sure you’re all right, and Uncle Bill told me you were having nightmares.’
‘Did you come in and kiss me when I was asleep?’
She nodded.
‘I wondered when you were going to tell me. I suppose you didn’t want to worry me. Is that it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Uncle Bill told me they started the night I saw those photos.’
‘Yeah, but that’s not what I want to talk to you about.’
‘I think you should while Molly’s out of the way. Get it off your chest.’
‘But I don’t get them so often now.’
‘But you still have them?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What sort of nightmares are they?’
He hesitated.
‘You screaming, Mum, from downstairs. Sometimes it don’t feel like a dream at all. But then I wake up and it’s all quiet again. So I close my eyes and the screaming starts again, only in the next dream, there’s crashing and banging and shouting.’
His mother looked frozen.
‘I don’t want to upset you, Mum.’
‘I’m fine, you go on.’
‘And I’m at the top of the stairs and there are these loud footsteps and I know they’re coming for me. And I hide. And they get closer and closer. And there’s a strange smell coming from the mouth of this enormous shadow and the shadow grips me so hard it hurts and my face is pushed into a mattress. And the mattress is wet. And I can’t breathe. And I think I’m going to die.’ It was then that he noticed that his mother was shaking. ‘Mum, what’s the matter?’
Her eyes were brimming.
‘I thought you’d forgotten,’ she whispered. ‘You were so little.’
‘Forgotten what?’ Suddenly Henry had a horrible suspicion. ‘Mum, this isn’t a dream, it’s a memory, isn’t it?’
She nodded.
‘And you screaming?’ And then it dawned on him. ‘Mum, did my dad ever hit you?’
‘I’m so sorry, love . . . ’ and she stifled a sob.
‘Did he, Mum?’
‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘He was a brute. Especially when he came home late from the pubs.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked angrily. ‘Why did you let me believe he was a hero?’
‘Because I thought he was. Because I thought for once in his life he’d done something worthwhile. And you were so happy. And you didn’t talk about it so I thought you’d forgotten it all and we could start fresh. Then when your gran moved in . . . ’ She hesitated. ‘How could I tell you then, after all the wonderful things she said about him?’
‘Mum, don’t let him frighten Molly the way he frightened me.’
‘Of course I won’t. I won’t let him near her.’
‘But how will you stop him if you’re still married to him?’
‘What are you saying, Henry?’
‘Mum,
you’ve got to get rid of him.’
‘That’s easier to say than do.’
Henry stared at her,
‘There is one way,’ he said slowly.
‘What do you mean?’ And then she gasped. ‘You want me to divorce him, don’t you?’
Henry nodded.
‘Do you know what I’d have to do? I’d have to stand up in court and say that I’d been living with another man while I was still married, that I’d committed . . . ’
He could see she couldn’t bring herself to say the word.
‘And go to the police,’ he added firmly.
‘You don’t know what you’re saying!’
‘I’ve taken a photograph of the gravestone with his name on it, to show them that you and everyone else believed he was dead. And I’ve developed it so we can take it to the police station with us.’
‘Us?’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘I can’t, Henry.’
‘Mum, if you don’t tell the police, he can still blackmail you, can’t he? And anyway it might go in your favour if you tell the police first, before they find out.’
She took a sharp intake of breath.
‘But I can’t afford to get divorced.’
‘You could do extra typing. Mrs Beaumont could ask that Mr Hale if the publishers need more people to type for them.’
‘Maybe. But you’ve forgotten your father. He’s used to getting his own way. He’ll hoodwink the judges and refuse to let the divorce go through.’
‘Not when he sees these,’ said Henry, and he spread the photographs out in front of her.
‘Oh, my goodness!’ she gasped, ‘So Bill was right. Did you take these? Oh, Henry, you’re not mixed up in this, are you?’
‘No. I’m not that good a photographer. I got someone to follow him with the camera. So, will you do it now?’
She nodded, almost crying with relief.
‘I’ll be a divorcee, you realise that, don’t you?’
‘Only until you get married to Uncle Bill again.’
‘Give us a hug,’ she said, laughing.
They sat nervously by a wall opposite what looked like a counter. Henry’s mother had left Molly with Mrs Beaumont but had decided not to tell Uncle Bill until after the visit to the police station was over. If she were put in a cell, Mrs Beaumont would let Molly stay overnight at her house.
Just Henry Page 31
