Matty Doolin

by Catherine Cookson

  Matty liked Curly. You could talk to Curly, at least as much as you could talk to any schoolmaster, for schoolmasters were like dads, and most mams, they were nearly always old, and they weren’t with it. There were some who tried to be with it, like Joe’s mam, but they only made themselves look silly and got talked about.

  ‘Sit down, Matty.’

  Matty sat down.

  ‘Well now.’ Mr Funnell folded his arms on the desk and bent his body over them in the direction of Matty, saying as he did so, ‘Well now, have you done any more thinking?’

  ‘No, sir. Well, I mean things are just the same; I’ve got no further.’

  ‘Why don’t you make your mind up to go into the shops? If you put your mind to it you’ll swim through, once you get interested in it. And you’ll still be at school, sort of, half-time.’

  Matty looked down at his joined hands and said quietly, ‘But I’m not interested, sir, and I know I’ll never be, not in the docks.’

  ‘Well.’ Mr Funnell drew himself upwards and there was now a touch of sharpness in his voice as he said, ‘You could do much worse. You’d be learning a trade, and later on you’d have some sort of security. Whereas, standing from where I see you now, you’re going to end up as a labourer . . . Perhaps that’s what you want?’

  ‘It isn’t.’ The retort came so definitely that Mr Funnell was surprised.

  ‘No?’ Mr Funnell leant back in his chair; then added, ‘Well, it’s evident that you have something in mind; why don’t you tell me what it is?’

  ‘Because it’s no use.’ Matty’s chin was working overtime now, thrusting itself upwards as if to emphasise the hopelessness of the situation.

  ‘Leave me to be a judge of that. Just come into the open and tell me what’s on your mind, eh?’

  Matty’s chin stopped working, his head drooped, his eyes once again looked down at his hands, and he said, below his breath, ‘I wanted to be a vet. I always have.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was a small surprised sound that Mr Funnell made, but when he again said ‘Oh,’ it was more solid sounding as if it meant business. ‘Well now,’ he went on, ‘why haven’t you brought this up before? If you knew what you wanted to be, why haven’t you got down to it, and worked and got your GCE? I’m sure you could have done it. But . . . but now it’s a little late in the day . . . ’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Matty’s head was jerking again, but he was looking straight across the table towards the master. ‘It was no use going into it, sir, because me dad wasn’t for it. He said it would take five or seven years to train for it, and even if I did get a grant I’d still need money and clothes and things, and he hadn’t it.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I see. But still it isn’t the end of the world in that line. I take it by all this that you’re interested in animals?’

  ‘Yes, sir; very much, sir.’

  ‘Very well then, you could train for the PDSA, you could run a pet shop, or better still, to my mind, you could work on a farm. And who knows, one day you might have your own. It isn’t an unheard-of thing . . . ’

  ‘It’s no good, sir,’ Matty put in.

  ‘Don’t keep saying that, Doolin.’ The master’s tone was sharp. ‘Of course it won’t be any good if you don’t make a fight for what you want.’

  Matty, whose eyes had again been cast down, raised them and said quietly, ‘You don’t know me dad, sir.’

  The master returned Matty’s gaze; then said quietly, ‘No, I don’t. Is there trouble at home?’

  ‘Trouble?’ Matty screwed up his face. ‘No, no. Not that kind of trouble, sir.’ He shook his head. ‘Not between me mam and dad, or anything else like that. No, no.’ His voice rose higher. ‘It’s . . . well, it’s just that he’s stubborn, set-like, can’t see beyond his nose. I told him I wanted to work on a farm, and he said don’t be daft, where are the farms around here? He said the nearest one was miles out in the country, and when I said I knew that and what about it, for if I got a job I’d be living in, he said I was going to do no living in, me mam wouldn’t hear of me leaving home when I was fifteen. And so that was that.’

  ‘Do you think it would do any good if I had a word with him?’

  Matty shook his head slowly. ‘No, sir, I don’t, not with me dad.’

  ‘Is he against you going into the yard as an apprentice, like Joe Darling is going to do?’

  ‘In a sort of way yes, sir, for he keeps saying, start at the bottom and you’ll get there. If there’s anything in you you’ll get there. But I keep tellin’ him, you can’t get any place the day unless you have certificates and things. Not that I want to go on the scheme, I told you, Mr Funnell. But me dad just wants me to get a full-time job and start earning good money straight away. He’s in the docks himself, you see.’

  Mr Funnell shook his head. Then leaning across the table towards Matty, he said, ‘As I see it, your best plan is to keep pegging away at this farm idea, and if you can bring your father round to your way of thinking I might be able to help you here. You know, there’s a YMCA scheme. It takes boys like you, in your position, and gives them an eight weeks’ training. You don’t get any pay, just five shillings pocket money. It’s an intensive course. And then they find you a job on a farm where you live in and work under the direction of the farmer, or his manager, and you learn all there is to know, and the keener you are the better it is for you. This scheme operates all over the country. I could set about making enquiries for you, that is’ – he smiled – ‘if you can bring your mother and father around to see it your way.’

  ‘It sounds fine, sir.’ Matty was smiling now, and the smile took the solemn, bored look from his features and gave to his face a brightness and a particular attractiveness that could not have been guessed at from his usual expression. But like a cloth being wiped over the blackboard to erase the chalk, Matty passed his hand over his face, and his smile was gone.

  ‘They’ll never let me,’ he said.

  ‘Keep on trying. There’s three weeks before the end of term, a lot can happen in three weeks. Come and see me next Friday. Go along now.’ Mr Funnell smiled at him, and Matty, getting to his feet, stood looking down at the master for a moment before he muttered, ‘Thank you, sir, it’s kind of you to bother.’

  ‘I’m paid for it.’ Mr Funnell chuckled deeply, and Matty turned from him and left the room, thinking, Aye, they’re all paid for it, paid for teaching, but some do it different to others.

  It was as Matty, accompanied by Joe, left the school side gate and walked along by the wall that a head popped up from its hiding place and a falsetto voice cried, ‘Nighty night, Doolin Darlin’.’

  This interplay with their names was like a red rag to a bull to Matty. Joe might be able to stand it but he couldn’t. With a bound he was over the low wall and on top of Bill Cooper. With one arm he pinned Bill’s shoulder, with the other he did his best to bring his fist into contact with Bill’s nose. But Bill Cooper was a match in strength for Matty, and the next moment it was Matty who had his back to the pavement and Bill who was on top. But only for a second, for Matty’s fighting spirit was being fanned by his burning indignation against this big hulking boy, who usually did his fighting with his tongue, and then made a run for it.

  It was at the same instant that Matty felt his coat sleeve ripping from his left shoulder that he swung his right arm, fist doubled, and had the sweet satisfaction of feeling it making contact with Bill Cooper’s face. Also he knew for a certainty that he was winning, and this gave him the power once more to free his arm with the intention of repeating his punch. But this he never achieved, for his arm was gripped in mid-air and he was borne backwards, and there was wrenched from him a cry of agony that blotted out the face of Mr Borley.

  ‘Get up!’

  Matty struggled to his feet, then stumbled across the yard.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Matty did not answer, he just wanted to lean against the railings for he was sick with the pain in his arm. He did not as yet
know what damage Bill Cooper’s fists and feet had wrought on him, but he did know that Cooper had inflicted nothing to equal the wrench that Mr Borley had given to his arm.

  ‘Get up, Cooper. Who started this?’

  ‘He did, sir.’ Bill Cooper pointed a shaking finger at Matty. ‘He jumped on me from behind the wall.’

  ‘What have you got to say, Doolin?’

  Matty blinked his eyes tightly before stretching them and looking at Mr Borley. He wished it was the end of term. He wished he had left school. He knew what he would say to him then, but now he said, ‘Yes, I jumped on him.’

  ‘Oh, you did, did you?’ Mr Borley did not seem at all pleased at Matty’s straightforward answer. ‘Well, my brave man, you’ll be at the head’s office at nine o’clock on Monday morning and you’ll see how high he can jump on you and how hard he can come down with the stick. It’ll be a pleasure to see you get your deserts, Doolin. Now get off before I attempt to take the law into my own hands.’

  Matty continued to look at the master, and he wished from the bottom of his heart that Mr Borley would give way to his temptation.

  ‘Get going.’

  Slowly Matty turned away, with the thought uppermost in his mind at the moment that it was funny that Bill Cooper should be on report with most of the masters except old Bore. The saying ‘Birds of a feather’ surely fitted there.

  ‘Are you feelin’ all right, Matty?’ Joe was walking by his side now, and he poked his head round to the front and looked up at his friend as they left the vicinity of the school.

  ‘Aye, I’m all right.’

  ‘Your coat sleeve’s had it at the back.’

  ‘What?’ Matty looked towards his shoulder. Coo! This would set his mam off. She had bought the coat for him only a few weeks ago because he had grown so fast out of his other one. Oh lord! She would go round the bend. The thought made him spurt forward, and Joe, trotting to keep up with him, exclaimed, ‘What’s the hurry now? You’ll likely get it when you get in.’

  ‘I want the worst over afore me dad comes in from work. If me mam has cooled down by then she’ll deal with him.’ He paused; then added, ‘You needn’t come back with me.’

  ‘But, but I want to.’ The two boys stood looking at each other for a moment. Then Matty, biting on his lip, hurried on once more. Of course he knew Joe would want to come home with him, for there would be nobody in his house until six o’clock. His mother had stopped giving him the key after she found out he took his mates in and made them tea.

  The boys now went past the Dean’s Hospital, then turned into Stanhope Road, past the Park, then along the road where Matty turned off into his own street, Brinkburn Street.

  Matty had lived in Brinkburn Street for eleven of his fifteen years; he could remember no other home. Up till recently he had liked Brinkburn Street. It mightn’t be as posh as Talbot Road, or any of the other roads that ran off Stanhope Road, but because it was where his home was he had liked it, and at times he felt called upon to defend it. But he had to admit to himself that his liking for his home and the street had faded a little during the past months. He could almost go back to the day when the process began. It was one Sunday during last Autumn when Mr Tollet, who lived across the road and whose higher social status was marked by his car which was parked every night opposite his front door, had taken his mam and dad and himself for a ride into the country, the real country, miles away. And for the first time he had seen fells, and hills as big as mountains, and great stretches of water, so clean and clear that the sky showed deep down in them and never seemed to touch bottom. It was from this day that the brightness of his home and the excitement of his street began to dim. Even the fascination of the ships crowding the jetties and filling the docks, and sailing out between South Shields and North Shields piers into the stark, bleak North Sea faded. Even living in a town that offered the excitement of great stretches of sand, of fantastic rocks, of a big football ground, of dog racing, lost its appeal . . . He could think of nothing but the country, for in the country there were animals. He wanted to work with animals, tend them, help them, care for them. He did not think ‘love them’, because that would be sissy, but there was a feeling in him that searched for a word that implied the same as love.

  The process of finding out what he really wanted to do had been painful to Matty. His thinking had been confused; he even felt frightened at times wondering why he couldn’t be like the other lads, like Joe, and Willie Styles, his other pal, and go and serve his time. He knew he looked tough; and he sounded tough, except when he was talking to his dad. He knew better than to sound tough then. So this strange feeling for animals and the country and open fields did seem a bit odd. There had been a period when he made a valiant effort to make himself see sense and act normal like the other lads. That was until Nelson appeared on the scene.

  Nelson had come into his life one night after school when his mother had sent him with a message to a friend of hers in Eldon Street. He had gone down the Dock way, and it was as he walked by the Dock wall that he saw the dog limping along the gutter. There was something wrong with one of its front paws, also one of its eyes looked blurred. He bent over it, and without hesitation, because he was quite unafraid of dogs, he put his hand on its head and spoke to it. The dog had started, in an odd kind of way, as if to avoid a blow. Then it had turned its head right around and looked up at Matty; and when he touched its leg it yelped but made no attempt to snap at him. The dog was without a collar, and Matty knew this could mean one of many things. Perhaps it was old, or had become a nuisance, and the people had thrown it out, or perhaps they wouldn’t pay the licence, or couldn’t feed it; or likely they just didn’t want to be bothered with it when it was hurt. There were people like that.

  This wasn’t the first time that Matty had handled stray dogs, but it was the first time that he had felt as angry about one, and that peculiar painful emotion, that as yet he could not define as compassion, had swamped him as he looked on this dog that was both lame and half-blind.

  On this occasion Matty knew he had to do something. But what? If he took the dog home he knew what the result would be; he had tried that before. Yet he couldn’t leave the poor beast here; anything could happen to it. If a gang of roughnecks got hold of it, it would be sport for them. It was this last thought that made him decide to chance taking the dog home. He would hide it in the shed, and tomorrow, being Saturday, he would take it to the PDSA and have it put to sleep. He did not think of taking it to the police station. If the police took in all the stray dogs in the town there would be no room in the lock-up for anyone else, he knew that.

  So it was on this night of Matty’s decision to befriend a stray dog that the course of his life was set.

  ‘Come on,’ Matty had said to the dog. But the animal had no need to be bidden to follow its new owner, for he, too, had made a decision; he liked the feel of the hand that had stroked him; moreover, he liked the smell of this boy. He would go wherever he went.

  Matty and his newly acquired friend duly arrived home. But his hope of hiding the dog in the shed at the bottom of the yard proved fruitless, for after leaving the animal with a warning to be quiet, he had hardly got through the kitchen door before a high-pitched wail followed him.

  Matty’s memory did not dwell on the tussle that followed against the combined force of his mother and father. Solely because of the fact that the dog was to be there for one night only, before being taken to its peaceful end on the following day, did they allow it to be kept in the shed.

  Of course there are always two sides to everything, and Mrs Doolin had grounds for her opposition towards the dog, for over the past years she had found many strange animals, not only in the shed, but kept under her son’s bed. Mr Doolin, on the other hand, was opposed to keeping animals on the principle that you shouldn’t keep an animal unless you had room for it.

  But it was Mr Doolin who gave the dog its name. Because of its infirmities he had immediately named it Nelson, and he se
emed amused by his choice. Matty, taking advantage of his father’s attitude, forgot to take Nelson to the PDSA the following day, although his mother threatened what his father would do to him when he got in.

  The day being Saturday, his father was slightly mellow when he came in from work; also it being Saturday, the one day in the week he had a bet on, his mellowness did not evaporate after the last race when his horse won. These were the small events that reprieved Nelson, at least temporarily.

  All might have gone smoothly if Nelson had been content to stay in the shed all day, but Nelson, after tasting the warmth and comfort of the kitchen, and the smells and titbits forthcoming there, found the shed, in spite of the packing case and old blankets, a very dreary place; and being a really intelligent animal, he discovered how he could bring about his release almost instantaneously. He had only to sit back on his haunches, lift his head and let rip a great howl from the elongated depths of him. But what Nelson didn’t understand, and what Matty tried to impress upon him, was that his howling would bring about the end of him . . .

  It was as Matty now approached his street that the faint, but unmistakable eerie wail halted his step, and that of Joe. The boys looked at each other for a moment; then simultaneously they dashed up the back lane. As Matty neared his own back door the intermittent wailing became louder, and when he burst into the backyard it caused his face to screw up in protest. But when his hand touched the latch of the shed the wailing stopped; and there to greet him when he opened the door was Nelson.

  Nelson was undoubtedly an old dog. He was also, unmistakably, a mongrel, as his parents had obviously been. He was neither labrador, collie, spaniel, nor bull terrier, but a little of each. But Matty’s attention to him, coupled with good feeding over the past few weeks and his own overwhelming love for this new master whose touch was soft, had brought back to him what seemed like a second childhood.