The Kingdom by the Sea

by Robert Westall

  But it was a glorious evening, and they walked to the sea. Lindisfarne lay low and golden. The sea was in, and the two refuge-towers stuck out of it. They stopped to admire the view, and Harry managed to get his breath back. Then he said, “We nearly drowned, coming back from there. That’s why everything got so wet.”

  “I thought it might be something like that,” said Mr M. He didn’t seem all that interested. “Look, there’s a fulmar. He comes every evening, about this time, and flies round and round this bit of cliff. Exactly the same pattern every time. I think he’s just showing off.”

  It was almost a joke. And he did seem a little calmer. And the longer they walked, the calmer he got. He seemed to know a lot about birds and plants and explained about them, in a way that was eager, and not at all show-off. It was a bit like going for a walk with Artie, only Mr M. knew longer Latin names for things. There were still silences, but they didn’t drill into your brain, like they did in the house.

  Only one odd thing happened, as they walked back through the village, having come off the cliffs. There was an old man, standing smoking at his cottage door.

  “Evening, Mr Murgatroyd!” His tone was kind, but there was that same kind of weary pity in it. Again, as if Mr M. had a wooden leg, or was deformed or something…

  “Evening, Sam. How’s your lad?” There was a sudden tightness, as of pain, in Mr M.’s voice.

  “Doing fine,” said the old man. “Making fourteen pound a week, in that Vickers factory at Newcastle. Churning out tanks like cans of beans they are, every hour God sends. He hardly has time to write. He’s still keen to do his bit for his country. But he’s in that controlled occupation.”

  For a moment, the old man sounded ashamed. Then he said, “Nice to see you with a young ‘un, Mr Murgatroyd. Like old times, eh?”

  The sudden, silent cold was back. Harry, glancing at Mr M., thought he looked ten years older, all of a sudden.

  Then Mr M. just said, “Goodnight, Sam,” and walked on.

  “Everything’s dry now,” said Harry. Then he screwed up his courage and said, “Can I sleep in your barn tonight?” He didn’t know what else to say. It was getting dark outside, and he had to make some arrangements.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” said Mr M. “There’s a bed upstairs for you, if you want it. First room on the left. And if you want a bath, there’s plenty of hot water. Bathroom second on the right. Now I must go and fasten up the geese.”

  And he was gone again, before Harry could say thank you.

  So all Harry could do was go upstairs, taking his dried things with him.

  The bed was neatly turned down, and there were striped pyjamas laid out ready for him. Again they were a bit big for him; but they were certainly far too small for Mr M.

  And a towel, and a half-used bar of soap, and a half-used tube of toothpaste.

  It was strange, having a hot bath again, and even stranger getting into somebody else’s worn pyjamas, twice in three nights.

  But the bed was soft, and he soon fell asleep.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Harry was awakened by the rattling of a cup and saucer outside his bedroom door. It was a really terrible rattling, as if Mr M. was shaking himself to pieces.

  Then there was a long, long pause, and that same terrible silence. When Harry felt he couldn’t really take any more, and almost called out, the door opened.

  Mr M. stood there, fully clad. He had the cup and saucer in one hand, and a bundle of clothes under his other arm. That much Harry saw through the lashes of his near-closed eyes, for he felt it was wiser to pretend to be still asleep.

  Mr M. stood looking at Harry a very long time. At first, a slow smile crept across his face. Then, slowly, it faded; Mr M.’s face grew sadder and sadder, until Harry almost cried out again, just to stop it getting worse.

  At that point, Mr M. crossed the room on tiptoe, put the rattling cup on the bedside table and draped the clothes over a chair. There were corduroy trousers, a check shirt, vest and underpants and socks. And last, a blue jumper. Mr M. arranged the clothes with little tugs, and then rearranged them again. Satisfied, he tiptoed to the door, and looked at Harry’s face again. With a stare so intense that Harry felt he was being eaten, alive. Then he made a dash for Harry’s old clothes, where he had dropped them carelessly on the floor. He snatched them up, avidly, and vanished from the room. Calling as he went, suddenly, “Wakey wakey. Rise and shine.”

  Feeling rather shaky himself, Harry swung his legs down to the floor, and drank the cup of tea. It had three sugars in. When he whipped out to the loo, there was the smell of frying bacon, coming upstairs. So he thought he’d better get washed and dressed quickly.

  Mr M. seemed to have finished his breakfast. He was stuck behind the morning’s Times. He said, shortly, “Your breakfast’s in the oven.”

  It was bacon and eggs again, but Harry wasn’t grumbling. After what he’d been through, he could eat bacon and eggs like that forever. He even mopped up the greasy plate with bread.

  “There’s toast there,” said Mr M. in a tight voice. Harry munched his way through a lot of toast and marmalade. Then he felt guilty again, because of the rationing.

  “Is it all right if I finish it up?”

  Mr M.’s face appeared fleetingly. He smiled, as if he was really pleased. “I like a boy who eats a good breakfast,” he said. “You need feeding up.” Then his face vanished again.

  Harry stared at the large headlines of the paper. There had been a victory in the Western Desert, at a place called Alam Haifa. Field Marshal Montgomery seemed to have destroyed a lot of Rommel’s tanks.

  “Monty’s given Rommel what-for then!” said Harry.

  Mr M.’s hands tightened on the paper. “I never discuss the war,” he said, in a very small voice. Then he seemed to relent and lowered the paper and said, “We’d better go down and see how your dog’s getting on.”

  The car rattled and creaked along. And Mr M. rattled on non-stop about what a marvellous vet Mr Harper was. How animals loved him, how cats twined round him, purring, even when he was giving them injections. So it was a bit of an anti-climax to find, when they arrived, that Mr Harper was out on his rounds. They were shown into the back area by a bad-tempered woman in an overall, who seemed to regard them as a nuisance. Don was in a pen, on a bed of old blankets. He seemed sleepy, and didn’t get up, though his tail beat against the floor. They both went in and stroked him. Harry thought again how good Mr M. was with animals, and how bad he was with people.

  “He’s all right,” said Mr M., still stroking Don. “He’s just sleepy after the anaesthetic.” Don’s paw was tightly and neatly bandaged, but Harry was a bit worried that there was a little blood seeping through the bandage.

  ‘“Saright,” said Mr M. “Harper knows what he’s doing.”

  Then they were back in the car, with the silence growing between them, and the whole empty sunny day stretching ahead with nothing to do.

  Harry thought hard. He was getting increasingly nervous about what Mr M. wanted him for. All adults wanted something. Joseph had wanted help with beachcombing; the old lady had wanted to… well, Artie had wanted things fetched from the NAAFI.

  “Can I help?” he said diffidently, not looking at Mr M., just staring through the windscreen at the little silver dial on the bonnet.

  “Help?” said Mr M. He sounded most surprised. “Help with what?”

  “I could do the washing-up,” said Harry. “I helped my mam with the washing-up. I didn’t break anything…”

  “Bless the boy,” said Mr M. to nobody in particular. “Yes, you can do the washing-up if you like…”

  “And can I help you with the farm… with the animals?”

  “It’s not a farm,” said Mr M. “I’ve only got four acres. Goats, hens, geese. But you can help if you like.” He seemed happier. He rattled on in great detail about goats, hens, and geese all the way home. It was as if Harry had opened a floodgate.

  Mr M. was right. I
t wasn’t a farm; it was more like a zoo. There were three she-goats, and Harry had a go at milking Emily, the quiet one. There was also a very nasty billy-goat who spent all his time getting behind your back, so he could butt you.

  “He hasn’t got a very nice nature,” said Mr M. “But he was born here, and I couldn’t bear to send him to market. He’s got a right to live, like anything else. I’m against Death.” He said it as if Death was a person, to be outwitted. And he was so against Death that he spent ten minutes in the hen-cree with a jam jar, trying to catch a wasp so he could put it safely out of the door.

  “I just swat wasps,” said Harry. “But I’d never swat a bee.” He remembered spending ten minutes rescuing a bee in their kitchen at home, with a jam jar, in just the same way.

  “Never kill anything you can’t create,” said Mr M. “Who gave you the power of life and death?”

  “What about germs?” asked Harry. Mr M. was silent for a long time after that, and Harry was sorry he’d been so smart-aleck. But it was a happy day on the whole, because they worked side by side, never looking each other in the face. Mr M. never looked people in the face. But he talked non-stop to make up. Harry could see that he really was a teacher. And he had given all the animals names. Not just the four cats, but every goose; even every hen. He knew everything about them.

  “That hen hurt her leg one night, when I left her out of the cree by mistake. She can stand on two legs, but she only hops on one.”

  “That black cat is the black and white one’s kitten. He never left home. She still washes him every night, though he’s twice her size. But she gets fed up with him sometimes and bites him on the neck when he’s lying asleep.”

  It was as if it was a kingdom of animals, and Mr M. was the king.

  On the third morning, Harry, coming downstairs, heard a woman’s voice in the kitchen. His hand was on the kitchen door-handle, when he heard the woman’s voice say, shrilly, “You can’t do that, Mr Murgatroyd! It’s not right! It’s downright wicked!”

  Mr M.’s voice was too low to make out what he said in reply.

  “He must have a mother and a father somewhere! Who must be worried sick about him!” said the woman.

  Harry stayed frozen, silent. They were talking about him.

  Mr M.’s voice murmured.

  The woman’s voice rose higher. “You know what happened the last time. The police warned you. You coulda lost your job. You coulda gone to prison.”

  Murmur, murmur.

  “I’ll not stay in a house with such wickedness. I’m giving my notice. I’ll not be a party to it.”

  There were the sounds of movement. Just in time, Harry fled back upstairs. From the top of the stairs, he watched the woman storm out, buttoning up her coat. Timidly, he went downstairs again.

  Mr M. sat with his head in his hands, unmoving. Harry just stood, watching. He seemed to watch forever. He had never seen anyone sit like that.

  In the end, he said timidly, “Are you all right?”

  Mr M. looked up, as if he did not know where he was. He was holding a photograph in a frame. Silently, he held it out to Harry.

  It was a photograph of a boy, laughing. A boy a bit older than Harry.

  But he was wearing a checked shirt, a blue pullover, corduroy trousers.

  The clothes Harry was wearing now.

  Harry looked up.

  Mr M. had his head in his hands again.

  “Who was he?” asked Harry. But he knew; the boy looked so much like Mr Murgatroyd.

  “He was fourth-top in his year at Dartmouth. He nearly won the sword of honour. He was only eighteen. Eighteen, five months and four days. He was a midshipman. George Frederick Murgatroyd. His friends called him Freddy. He was on the Repulse. You know what happened to the Repulse?”

  “I remember,” said Harry.

  “They never even reached their target. Sheer waste. Sheer bloody waste.”

  Then, tight-lipped, he took the photo off Harry, and put it back in the cupboard and locked the door. “Must go and see to the hens…”

  “What did you nearly get put in prison for?” Harry didn’t think it was the right time to ask. But he had to know.

  Mr Murgatroyd sat down again. “There was a boy. I was fond of him. He came here often. He was miserable at home. His father hit him a lot. One night, he came to me; he was all bleeding. He said he wouldn’t go home any more. I said he could… stay here. His father came for him… I threw the drunken sot out of my house…”

  “Yes,” said Harry feelingly, “yes.”

  “The parents came back with a policeman… they accused me of enticing the boy… trying to steal their son. I had to let them have him. I could’ve lost my job. I could’ve gone to prison. It’s a crime, you see, enticement.”

  “Yes,” said Harry.

  “Why did they want him,” said Mr M., “if they hated him so much? Don’t they realise how precious sons are?” He said it softly, but it was like a scream.

  Harry took a deep breath, and said, “My parents are dead. They were killed in the bombing. I haven’t got nobody.”

  “It’s no good,” said Mr M. “That woman… Mrs Cleve… my cleaning lady… she’ll gossip. I’ll be the talk of the village. Somebody will tell the police… villages are like that.”

  “Couldn’t you talk to her…?”

  “She won’t listen to me.”

  Harry got up. “Perhaps she’ll listen to me. Where does she live?”

  Mr M. told him, in a low voice, then put his head back in his hands. He seemed to be beyond caring.

  Harry knocked on Mrs Cleve’s front door and waited. He knocked again, but there was still no answer. But he wasn’t in any mood to go away. So he barged round the back, and found Mrs Cleve hanging out washing, her mouth full of clothes pegs.

  They stared at each other. Harry thought Mrs Cleve didn’t have an unkind face; just a worried one. And, like Mam, worry would make her hasty. She would do things in a rush and be sorry after. Mrs Cleve needed slowing down.

  “Please,” said Harry. “Can I have a drink of water? I feel faint.”

  Mrs Cleve bustled him into the kitchen, and sat him in a chair, and made him put his head between his knees. Harry didn’t mind. She wouldn’t just chuck him out of her kitchen like she might have chucked him out of her garden. After a little while, he said he’d stopped feeling faint. Pleased with herself, Mrs Cleve said, “I’ll give you something better than water,” and went and brought a glass of home-made lemon barley. Harry sipped it slowly, playing for time; waiting for Mrs Cleve to finally get out of her flap and start to feel nosy. His dad had always said that all women were nosy.

  Finally he said, “This is lovely. Just like me mam used to make.”

  “Used to?” Mrs Cleve was on to that like a flash.

  “Me mam’s dead.” Harry watched the look on Mrs Cleve’s face change. He was no longer in any danger of being thought an impudent young pup, or a damned young nuisance. He was now, in Mrs Cleve’s mind, “that poor wee bairn”.

  “Your mam can’t have been any great age?” said Mrs Cleve cautiously.

  “She was killed in the bombing. On Tyneside. Two months ago.” Careful, don’t rush her.

  “So you and your dad’ll be managing on your own?”

  “Me dad was killed too. By the same bomb.” And while Mrs Cleve’s face crumpled up with horror, he added, “And me little sister.” Was it terrible, to use their memories like this? But you had to survive. Mam and Dad would’ve wanted him to survive.

  “How did you escape?” asked Mrs Cleve, a tinge of suspicion still in her voice.

  “We was down the shelter. Me an’ me dog. We always went down first, to get things ready.”

  “Haven’t you got nobody?”

  “Just the dog.” He wasn’t going to mention Cousin Elsie. Cousin Elsie would be a very bad mistake. “Mr Murgatroyd was very kind when the dog hurt his foot. He took him to the vet’s. He’s still there, till his foot gets better.”
/>   “How’ve you managed?” Mrs Clever was really hooked now, her eyes wide as saucers, her mouth slightly parted.

  “Sleeping rough. Till Mr Murgatroyd found me. He’s very kind.”

  “He’s too kind for his own good,” said Mrs Cleve, her voice softening. “He’s never been the same since that lad of his was killed off in Malaya.”

  “What happened to him?” asked Harry innocently.

  And Mrs Cleve was off… Mr Murgatroyd’s long sufferings, the death of his wife five years ago; bringing up the boy on his own; the boy’s death; the other boy, the trouble with the police… And all the time Mrs Cleve’s voice got softer, and several times she paused, to wipe her eyes on her flowery pinafore. Harry did nothing but sigh and look incredulous. For hours and hours. In the end, she stopped.

  Now was the crucial time. The idea must come from Mrs Cleve…

  “I must be going,” said Harry. “Thank you very much for the nice lemonade.” He got up.

  “Going? Going where?” said Mrs Cleve.

  “Back on the road. I mustn’t get Mr Murgatroyd into any more trouble.”

  “But how will you manage?”

  “I’ll manage. I managed before.”

  “But you’re only a bairn… there should be people looking after you.”

  “They’d put me in a home,” said Harry. “And they’d put my dog to sleep. And the dog’s the only thing I’ve got left. Goodbye. Thank you for the lemonade…”

  Mrs Cleve looked bewildered. She passed a hand across her face. “Eeh, it doesn’t bear thinking about. Little bits o’ bairns… here, sit down while I put my thinking cap on. I’ll make you a cup of tea. And there’s some seedy cake left. Eeh, have some tea while I gather me wits…”

  Harry sat and let himself be fed, while Mrs Cleve bustled about saying things like, “I don’t know what the world’s coming to!” and “Hitler and his bloody Germans!” Finally she announced, “We’ll have to go and talk to Mr Murgatroyd. Hang on a minute while I put on my coat and hat.”

  Harry waited, and was content to wait. Mrs Cleve was in the conspiracy now, up to her neck.