White Boots

by Noel Streatfeild

  Alec went into the kitchen; it was a very neat, tidy kitchen, evidently whoever looked after Mr Pulton did it nicely. He found the cupboard easily, and he brought the bottle of ginger wine and a glass back to the sitting room. Mr Pulton nodded in a pleased way, and pointed to the chair opposite his own.

  “Sit down, boy… sit down… help yourself. Now tell me about your sister Harriet.”

  Mr Pulton was an easy man to talk to; he sat sipping his toddy, now and again nodding his head, and all the time his interested blue eyes were fixed on Alec. When Alec had told him everything, including how difficult it was to make the shop pay because of Uncle William eating so much, and how Dr Phillipson thought he could get Harriet into the rink for nothing, he put down his glass of toddy, folded his hands, and put on the business face he wore in his paper shop.

  “How much does it cost to hire boots and skates?”

  “Two shillings a session.”

  Mr Pulton gave an approving grunt, and shook himself a little as if he was pleased about something.

  “Morning and evening rounds. Good. The last boy I had would only do mornings, no good in that, never get into my ways. I pay ten shillings a week for the morning round, and four shillings for the evening round; there’s not so much work in the evenings, mostly they buy their papers from a newsboy on the street, nasty, dirty habit. Never buy papers from newsboys. You can have the job.”

  Alec was reckoning the money in his head. Harriet would only go to one session of skating a day, that meant for six days, for there would be no skating on Sunday, which would cost twelve shillings. That would give him two shillings over for himself. Two shillings a week! Because of Uncle William’s mixed and irregular supplies to the shop, it was scarcely ever that he had any pocket money, and the thought of having two whole shillings a week made his eyes shine far brighter than Mr Pulton’s candles.

  “Thank you, sir. When can I start?”

  “Tomorrow. You said your sister was starting skating tomorrow. You’ll be here at seven and you’ll meet my present paper boy, he’ll show you round. You look pleased. Think you’ll like delivering papers?”

  Alec felt warm inside from ginger wine, and outside from the fire, and being warm inside and out gives a talkative feeling.

  “It’s the two shillings. You see, Harriet will only need twelve shillings for her skates, and you said fourteen.”

  Mr Pulton had picked up his hot toddy again.

  “That’s right. What are you going to do with the other two shillings?”

  In the ordinary way Alec would not have discussed his secret plan, the only person who knew it was Toby; but telling things to Mr Pulton was like telling things to a person in a dream; besides, nobody had ever heard Mr Pulton discuss somebody else’s affairs, indeed it was most unlikely that he was interested in anybody’s affairs.

  “I’ve no brains. Toby has those, but Dad and Mother think I’ll go on at school until I’m eighteen, but I won’t, it’s a waste of time for me, at least that’s what I think. I’d meant to leave school when I was sixteen, and go into something in Dad’s line of business. You see, it’s absolutely idiotic our depending on Uncle William. Dad doesn’t see that, but of course he wouldn’t for he’s his brother, but you can’t really make a place pay when for days on end you get nothing but rhubarb and perhaps a couple of rabbits, and one boiling hen, and then suddenly thousands of old potatoes. You see, Uncle William just rushes out and sends off things he doesn’t like the look of, or has got too many of. Now what I want to do is to get a proper set-up. I’d like a pony and cart to go to market and buy the sorts of things customers want to eat. What we sell now, and everybody knows it, isn’t what customers want but what Uncle William doesn’t want. I think knowing that puts people off from buying from Dad.”

  Mr Pulton leant back in his chair.

  “It’d take a lot of two shillings to buy a pony and trap.”

  “I know, but I might be able to do something as a start. You see, if I put all the two shillings together, by next spring I’d have a little capital and I could at least try stocking Dad with early potatoes or something of that sort. We never sell new potatoes, Uncle William likes those, so we only get the old ones. If the potatoes went well I might be able to buy peas, beans, strawberries and raspberries in the summer.”

  “You never have those either?”

  “Of course not, Uncle William hogs the lot.”

  “You’d like to own a provision store some day?”

  “Glory no! I’d hate it. What I want is to be at the growing end; I’d give anything to have the sort of set-up Uncle William’s got. There’s a decent-sized walled fruit and vegetable garden, where you could do pretty well if you went in for cloches, and there’s a nice bit of river and there’s some rough shooting.”

  “How does your Uncle William send his produce to your father?”

  Alec looked as exasperated as he felt.

  “That’s another idiotic thing, we never know how it’s coming. Sometimes he has a friend with a car, and we get a telephone message, and Dad has to hare up to somebody’s flat to fetch it; mostly it comes by train, but sometimes Uncle William gets a bargee to bring it down; that’s simply awful because the stuff arrives bad, and Uncle William can’t understand that it arrived bad.”

  Mr Pulton had finished his toddy, and he got up.

  “I am going to bed. Don’t forget now, seven o’clock in the morning. Not a minute late. I can’t abide boys who come late.” He was turning to go when evidently a thought struck him. He nodded in a pleased sort of way. “Stick to your dreams, don’t let anyone put you off what you want to do. All these…” he swept his hand round the horses, “were my grandfather’s and my great grandfather’s, just that hunter belonged to my father. When I was your age I dreamed of horses, but there was this newsagency, there’s always been a Pulton in this shop. Where are my dreams now? Goodnight, boy.”

  Chapter Three

  THE RINK

  OLIVIA WENT TO the rink with Harriet, for the more Harriet thought about the girl on the poster, standing on one skate with the other foot high over her head, the more sure she was that she would be shy to go alone to a place where people could do things like that. Dr Phillipson was very kind, but he was a busy, rushing, tearing sort of man, who would be almost certain merely to introduce her to the manager by just saying, “This is Harriet,” and then dash off again. This was exactly what happened. Dr Phillipson called for Harriet and her mother just after lunch, took them to the rink, hurried them inside into a small office in which was a tired, busy-looking man, said, “This is Harriet, and her mother. Mrs Johnson, Harriet, this is Mr Matthews, the manager of the rink. I’ve got a patient to see,” and he was gone.

  Olivia took no time to make friends with Mr Matthews. She heard all about something called his duodenal ulcer, which was why he knew Dr Phillipson, and all about how Dr Phillipson had taken out his wife’s appendix, and of how Dr Phillipson had looked after his twin boys, who were grown up now and married, and only when there were no more illnesses left in the Matthews’ family to talk about did Olivia mention skating.

  “Dr Phillipson tells me you’re going to be very kind and let Harriet come here to skate. He wants her to have exercise for her leg muscles.”

  Mr Matthews looked at Harriet’s legs in a worried sort of way.

  “Thin, aren’t they? Ever skated before?” Harriet explained she had not. “Soon pick it up, I’ll show you where you go for your skates and boots. Cost two shillings a session they will.” He turned to Olivia. “I’ll have a word with my man who hires them out, ask him to find a pair that fit her; he’ll keep them for her, it’ll make all the difference.”

  The way to the skate-hiring place was through the rink. Harriet had never seen a rink before. She gazed with her eyes open very wide at what seemed to her to be an enormous room with ice instead of floor. In the middle of the ice, people, many of whom did not look any older than she was, were doing what seemed to her terribly difficul
t things with their legs. On the outside of the rink, however, there were a comforting lot of people who seemed to know as little about skating as she did, for they were holding on to the barrier round the side of the rink as if it was their only hope of keeping alive, while their legs did the most curious things in a way which evidently surprised their owners. In spite of holding on to the barrier quite a lot of these skaters fell down and seemed to find it terribly difficult to get up again. Harriet slipped her hand into her mother’s and pulled her down so that she could speak to her quietly without Mr Matthews hearing.

  “It doesn’t seem to matter not being able to skate here, does it, Mummy?”

  Olivia knew just how Harriet was feeling.

  “Of course not, pet. Perhaps some day you’ll be as grand a skater as those children in the middle.”

  Mr Matthews overheard what Olivia said.

  “I don’t know so much about that, takes time and money to become a fine skater. See that little girl there.”

  Harriet followed the direction in which Mr Matthews was pointing. She saw a girl of about her own age. She was a very grand-looking little girl wearing a white jersey, a short white pleated skirt, white tights, white boots, and a sort of small white bonnet fitted tightly to her head. She was a dark child with lots of loose curly hair and big dark eyes.

  “The little girl in white?”

  “That’s right, little Lalla Moore, promising child, been brought here for a lesson almost every day since she was three.”

  Olivia looked pityingly at Lalla.

  “Poor little creature! I can’t imagine she wanted to come here when she was three.”

  Mr Matthews obviously thought that coming to his rink at the age of three brought credit on the rink, for his voice sounded proud.

  “Pushed here in a pram, she was, by her nanny.”

  “I wonder,” said Olivia, “what could have made her parents think she wanted to skate when she was three.”

  Mr Matthews started walking again towards the skate-hiring place.

  “It’s not her parents, they were both killed skating, been brought up by an aunt. Her father was Cyril Moore.”

  Mr Matthews said “Cyril Moore” in so important a voice that it was obvious he thought Olivia ought to know who he was talking about. Olivia had never heard of anybody called Cyril Moore but she said in a surprised, pleased tone:

  “Cyril Moore! Fancy!”

  At the skate-hiring place Mr Matthews introduced Olivia and Harriet to the man in charge.

  “This is Sam. Sam, I want you to look after this little girl; her name is Harriet Johnson, she’s a friend of Dr Phillipson’s, and, as you can see from the look of her, she has been ill. Find boots that fit her and keep them for her, she’ll be coming every day.”

  Sam was a cheerful, red-faced man. As soon as Mr Matthews had gone he pulled forward a chair.

  “Sit down, duckie, and let’s have a dekko at those feet.” He ran a hand up and down Harriet’s calves and made disapproving, clicking sounds. “My, my! Putty, not muscles, these are.”

  Harriet did not want Sam to think she had been born with flabby legs.

  “They weren’t always like this, it’s because they’ve been in bed so long with nothing to do. It seems to have made them feel cotton-woolish, but Dr Phillipson thinks if I skate they’ll get all right again. I feel rather despondent about them myself, they’ve been cotton-woolish a long time.”

  Sam took one of Harriet’s hands, closed it into a fist and banged it against his right leg.

  “What about that? That’s my spare, that is, the Japs had the other in Burma. Do you think it worries me? Not a bit of it. You’d be surprised what I can do with me old spare. I reckon I get around more with one whole leg and one spare than most do with two whole legs. Don’t you lose ’eart in yours; time we’ve had you on the rink a week or two you’ll have forgotten they ever felt like cotton-wool, proper little skater’s legs they’ll be.”

  “Like Lalla Moore’s?”

  Sam looked surprised.

  “Know her?”

  “No, but Mr Matthews showed her to us, he said she’d been skating since she was three. He said she used to come in a perambulator.”

  Sam turned as if to go into the shop, then he stopped.

  “So she did too, had proper little boots made for her and all. I often wonder what her Dad would say if he could come back and see what they were doing to his kid. Cyril Moore he was, one of the best figure skaters, and one of the nicest men I ever set eyes on. Well, mustn’t stop gossiping here, you want to get on the ice.”

  “Mummy, isn’t he nice?” Harriet whispered. “I should think he’s a knowing man about legs, wouldn’t you? He ought to know about them, having had to get used to having one instead of two.”

  The boots, with skates attached, that Sam found were new. He explained that new boots were stiffer and therefore would be a better support to Harriet’s thin ankles. Sam seemed so proud of having found her a pair of boots that were new and a fairly good fit that Harriet tried to pretend she thought they were lovely boots. Actually she thought they were awful. Lalla Moore’s beautiful white boots had made Harriet hope she was going to wear white boots too, but the ones Sam put on her were a nasty shade of brown, with a band of green paint round the edge of the soles. Sam was not deceived by her trying to look pleased.

  “’ired boots is all right, but nobody can’t say they’re oil paintings. If you want them stylish white ones you’ll have to buy your own. We buy for hard wear, you’d be surprised the time we make our boots last. Besides, nobody can’t make off with these.”

  Olivia looked puzzled.

  “Does anyone want to?”

  “You’d be surprised, but they don’t get away with it. If Harriet here was to walk out with these someone would spot the green paint and be after her quicker than you could say winkle.”

  Olivia laughed.

  “I can’t see Harriet walking out in these. I’m going to have a job to get her to the rink.”

  Sam finished lacing Harriet’s boots. He gave the right boot an affectionate pat.

  “Too right you will. I wasn’t speaking personal, I was just explaining why the boots look the way they do.” He got up. “Good luck, duckie, enjoy yourself.”

  If Olivia had not been there to hold her up Harriet would never have reached the rink. Her feet rolled over first to the right, and then to the left. First she clung to Olivia, and then lurched over and clung to a wall. When she came to some stairs that led to the rink it seemed to her as if she must be killed trying to get down them. The skates had behaved badly on the flat floor, but walking downstairs they behaved as if they had gone mad. She reached the bottom by gripping the stair rail with both hands while Olivia held her round her waist, lifting her so that her skates hardly touched the stairs. Olivia was breathless but triumphant when they got to the edge of the rink.

  “Off you go now. I’ll sit here and get my breath back.”

  Harriet gazed in horror at the ice. The creepers and crawlers who were beginners like herself clung so desperately to the barrier that she could not see much room to get in between them. Another thing was that even if she could find a space it was almost certain that one of the creepers and crawlers in front or behind her would choose that moment to fall over and knock her down at the same time. As a final terror, between the grand skaters in the middle of the rink and the creepers and crawlers round the edge, there were the roughest people. They seemed to go round and round like express trains, their chins stuck forward, their hands behind their backs, with apparently no other object than to see how fast they could go, and they did not seem to mind who they knocked over as they went. Gripping both sides of an opening in the barrier Harriet put one foot towards the ice and hurriedly took it back. This happened five times. Olivia was sympathetic but firm.

  “I’m sorry, darling, I’d be scared stiff myself, but it’s no good wasting all the afternoon holding on to the barrier and never getting on to the ice.
Be brave and take the plunge.”

  Harriet looked as desperate as she felt.

  “Would you think I’d feel braver if I shut my eyes?”

  “No, darling, I think that would be fatal, someone would be bound to knock you down.”

  It was at that moment that Olivia felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned round. Behind her sat an elderly lady looking rather like a cottage loaf. She wore a grey coat and skirt which bulged over her chest to make the top half of the loaf, and over her tail and front to make the bottom half. On her head she wore a neat black straw hat; she was knitting what looked as if it would be a jersey, in white wool.

  “If you’ll wait a moment, ma’am, I’ll signal to my little girl, she’ll take her on to the ice for you.”

  “Isn’t that kind! Which is your little girl?”

  The lady stood up. Standing up she was even more like a cottage loaf than she had been when she was sitting down. She waved her knitting.

  “She’s not really mine, I’m her nurse.”

  From the centre of the ring the waving was answered. Harriet nudged her mother.

  “Lalla Moore.”

  Lalla cared nothing for people who went round pretending they were express trains, or for creepers and crawlers; she came flying across the rink as if she were running across an empty field.

  “What is it, Nana?”

  “This little girl, dear.” Nana turned to Harriet. “You won’t have been on the ice before, will you, dear?”

  Harriet was gazing at Lalla.

  “No, and I don’t really want to now. The doctor says I’ve got to, it’s to stop my legs being cotton-wool.”

  Nana looked at Harriet’s legs wearing an I-thought-as-much expression.

  “Take her carefully, Lalla, don’t let her fall.”

  Lalla took hold of Harriet’s hands. She moved backwards. Suddenly Harriet found she was on the ice.