A Son of War

by Melvyn Bragg

  There were to be five performances. The first and second were on Friday and Saturday and, uniquely, the children’s Saturday matinee was to be switched to an afternoon performance to draw in some adults at adult prices. Snow White would oust Kit Carson, the Three Stooges, even Zorro.

  Joe could not bear to wait for the Saturday afternoon matinee.

  It’s the same price on Friday night first house.’

  ‘You’ll want to go to the matinee as well,’ Ellen said.

  'I won’t. I promise. I won’t! Please.’ A deep breath. ‘Please.’

  His face was red with the urgency of it.

  ‘What does your daddy say?’

  Sam was in what now looked like an allotment. The light northern nights were lengthening deep into the big hours. He could do his evening work for Henry and, if there was no hound trail, spend a couple of hours in the garden in the steel evening light, sufficiently alone, a cigarette. He had a yen for a pigeon loft, partly because it might have teased Joe in. He was too impatient a gardener himself to be much good at drawing the boy into the allotment, hard, over-hard as he sometimes tried. So far, the council had set its face against pigeon lofts on the estate.

  ‘Mammy says I have to ask you.’

  ‘What’s the rush?’

  Every reason. Every disaster and tragedy the boy could think of. None of which he could articulate. But the longing to go had by now, this Thursday, Joe having raced back from choir practice with the one aim burning his mind, been transformed into a physical ache.

  If you say I can go, she’ll say I can go.’ It was a stab.

  ‘Did she say that?’

  Joe made a noise that was not a word but undoubtedly signified yes.

  'It’s the same price as the matinee.’

  ‘You’ll still want to go to the matinee.’

  ‘I won’t!’ His sincerity was emphatic. ‘Please.’

  Sam was a touch disquieted at the child’s vehemence. But it was not a big deal. ‘Toss you for it,’ he said.

  Joe nodded, not trusting himself to speak. His throat suddenly constricted.

  ‘Your call.’

  ‘Tails.’

  Tails always luckier. Tails always better. Tails always.

  The sixpence flew from Sam’s thumb and spun in the air, landing on his palm, he glanced. Heads. He slapped it over on to the back of his hand. ‘You win,’ he said, and handed over the sixpence.

  By eight o’clock on the Friday evening when the first house was let out and filed down Meeting House Lane past the queue for the second house, Joe knew all the songs by heart and the film had possessed him. He went down to his aunt Grace’s house singing ‘Heigh-ho, heigh-ho’ at the top of his voice and entertained them with three of the songs before climbing on to the pillion of Ellen’s bicycle and holding on to her waist as she swooped down Western Bank to Greenacres. 'I’m wishing,’ he sang, as he splashed in his Friday bath before bed and from the bed itself Sam and Ellen heard the umpteenth reprise of ‘Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, It’s off to work we go’. Such force of happiness.

  ‘Sixpence well spent,’ said Sam.

  Ellen smiled. She did not want to talk. She wanted to listen to Joe’s singing, as chirruping as any bird in a gilded cage, she thought.

  The next day after tap dancing he sought out Colin in the stables up Court Yard. Joe saw the afternoon performance large and compelling before him and the need to go had grown on him from the moment he woke up.

  Colin was harnessing a ginger pony to a small neat trap. One of his better ‘bit-jobs’ (Leonard’s phrase) was delivering bread and cakes for Grainger’s on Saturdays. Joe loved the treat of it, the frisky little pony, Colin teaching him how to click his tongue and give a light toss of the reins at the same time. Colin was good with animals: even Blackie would sit on Colin’s lap where she would spurn others. It proved that there was something about him, Grace maintained to a disillusioned Leonard, who saw an irredeemable sponger, a menace.

  ‘They tell me somebody was singing his head off last night at Aunty Grace’s.’

  Joe flushed. Colin always caught him on the hop.

  ‘Come on then. Give us a sample.’

  The words fled. The music was stoppered. Outside the nicely stinking stable in the old cobbled yard with other doors half open to the poking heads of town horses, there seemed no space for Snow White.

  He tried. He wanted to please Colin. Colin demanded to be pleased. He did not know whether pleasing Colin pleased him or it was the fear of displeasing that was stronger. Colin could get angry. Colin could hook him and play him and pull him in and throw him back. But it was all right because his mammy thought the world of Colin. Colin told him that many times over.

  ‘Whistle it then.’

  Joe had a very poor shot at whistling ‘Heigh-ho’ and dried up before half-way.

  ‘Give me a cowboy picture,’ said Colin, ‘any day of the week.’

  He hoisted Joe into the seat, gave him the reins and led the pony down the street. He liked that. It was giving Joe a treat, it was showing what a generous fellow he was, it was sharing in Joe, the town’s deep knowledge of Joe, Sam’s lad, Ellen’s boy, it was an eye-catcher, Colin glowed.

  They put the neatly white-bagged orders in the back and set off for Station Hill, down King Street, into Station Road, trotting on the level stretch beside Sam’s factory, which belched out the rank chemical fumes that gave Wigton its distinctive smell, under the railway bridge, past the stone bust called Belted Will the Luck of Wigton, which was bedded into the high sandstone wall, and up to the superior, grand houses cresting Station Hill, factory managers, solicitors, substantial, looking loftily over the roofed huddle of the town to the serene mountainous skyline of the Lake District.

  Colin stopped. Joe took the package. Trotted up the path. Knocked on the door. Handed it over. That was the routine. On such a June morning, the mildest of west winds, clouds high and light and scurrying almost apologetically under the summer canopy of blue, the few people in sight seemed to have all the time in the world. It was so very different from the crushed certainty of the town or the bare building on the estates. Joe looked forward to it as if he were going to the seaside. The boy had picked up its particular atmosphere at other times, but this morning was dominated, dominated increasingly as time ran out, by the transferred matinee and the date he was not allowed to keep with Snow White. He had asked at breakfast if he could go again but there was no yield at all.

  The best part came when the deliveries were finished and Colin steered the pony round on the very top road where houses stood in their own grounds. He handed the reins to Joe. He had taught him carefully over the weeks but Joe still felt the slight shiver of nervousness, still saw runaway covered wagons, still failed to achieve the ease of full control. He would never have admitted it but he was a little frightened of Ginger, much as he liked to nuzzle against him and stroke his long blond mane. He had seen the pony flare up once or twice when Colin had been putting the harness on him and the sudden high temper had alarmed him.

  On this morning, though, it was as good as it got and as he clicked his tongue and flicked the reins and urged the fine pony into a spirited trot along the dappled country road, he liked the way he must have looked - though no one but Colin was looking - and even Snow White, who looped and looped again inside his mind, faded just a little.

  ‘That’s the boy. We’ll have you in the Kentucky Derby before they know it. Bring him to a walk now. Careful. Not so hard. Good lad. And turn him round, to the right, that’s it. We’ll have another couple of laps.’

  The manoeuvres were completed well enough. They turned to see coming towards them a young woman high on a fine grey mare.

  ‘Walk,’ Colin commanded.

  The woman stopped. Colin took the reins and halted alongside.

  She was in her early twenties, in full bloom, flushed cheeks, long blonde hair falling down from her jet hat, jodhpurs taut over slim high-booted legs, sports jacket open to lush soft brea
sts ill-concealed under a thin cotton shirt.

  ‘How are we today, Colin?’

  ‘Well enough, Miss Tomlinson.’ Colin looked up at her almost beseechingly.

  ‘And Joe?’

  ‘Joe’s well as well, aren’t you, Joe?’

  Joe nodded, unaware of his own attraction towards Miss Tomlinson, but a touch conscious of Colin’s doggy lust.

  ‘He’s got the hang of it now,’ she said, and Joe rather cringed at the compliment because it was not quite true.

  ‘We’re taking him over to America for the Kentucky Derby.’

  ‘Smart little pony,’ said the goddess as she waved her crop, tapped her heels and walked on.

  Colin set Ginger in motion then handed the reins back to Joe, who began to click the pony into a trot.

  ‘Walk!’ Colin’s tone was curt and Joe knew better than to contradict him.

  The fun drained out of it.

  At a signal from Colin, he turned the pony and trap and faced the direction taken by the young horsewoman. She had gone.

  'I call her Miss Tomlinson,’ Colin brooded. ‘Miss, see. She calls me dirt. That’s how they get you. Snobs, Joe. I’m not good enough. Flaunting her knockers. I know what I would like to do to her. And she’d like it; and she’d like it.’

  Joe dared not look at him. The tone was savage. He had no idea what had brought it on, nor could he decipher any of Colin’s complaint, but he said nothing. Colin’s sulk lasted until they went under the railway bridge and passed by the factory.

  'I bet she wears Passion Killers,’ he said, and he cheered up as if a problem had been solved. ‘Her sort does. You can trot this bit, Joe, up to Harry Stamper’s.’

  He took the reins from the boy as they came up Station Hill and Joe instantly and deeply plunged into images of Snow White, letting ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’ sing unheard in his mind.

  ‘What about the football then?’ as they turned into King Street. ‘Score again?’

  ‘Just one,’ Joe muttered.

  ‘Just one! You’ll have to do better than that if I’m going to get you that trial for Carlisle United.’

  Joe did not elaborate as sometimes he felt compelled to do under the pressure of Colin’s interest. It was the pressure, perhaps, that had caused him to lie in the first place. They did not play football every Friday afternoon at the primary school. They kicked a bald tennis ball about in the playtimes but there was no formal game. No game, no goals, no glory. He had lied to please, to impress, to live up to Colin’s steep expectations. It had been thrown off, just a little fib, just an inconsequential untruth. Colin had seized on it. Joe dreaded the questions. He flinched inside as he spun the lies that grew heavier by the week. He would certainly go to hell. He was terrified that Colin might come to the school one Friday afternoon to see this invented game. He even kept the game going out of season so afraid had he become of crossing Colin. ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’ pulsed weakly as the shame of the lie rippled through him.

  Ginger was stabled and they walked down the sun-shining High Street, canopies shading the bare window displays in the line of small shops, alleys gapping the formation every few yards, neither car nor horse in sight, only three cyclists and the eddy of midday late shoppers stocking up before closing time. Colin led the way around into the narrow funnel of Duke Street, underneath rooms that had been flung across the upper space, suspended like bridges. It always gave Joe a thrill, that walk under people’s floors.

  They went through the open door of the bakery and although the ovens were cooled down by this late hour, the smell of bread was powerful. Joe sucked his lungs full, let the dense warm breadiness line his mouth, felt he was eating the air itself.

  There were a few butterfly cakes scattered on the central table. Colin could see that they were rejects. In proprietorial fashion he took one, bit off half and passed the other half to Joe, who gobbled it, hiding the evidence. Near the cakes were two pennies, unguarded. At the matinee there were wooden seats downstairs at the front which cost fourpence. Half-way. Colin noted the longing glance.

  ‘Look at that spider on the ceiling,’ he said.

  Joe looked up.

  When he looked back, the two pence were gone.

  Colin winked.

  ‘Finders keepers,’ he whispered and he held out a closed fist. ‘I’ve always told him not to keep that back door open. No telling?’

  ‘No telling.’ The words just made it through Joe’s parched lips.

  ‘Cross your heart.’ Joe did so.

  The clenched fist hovered over his outstretched palm for a moment.

  ‘Hope to die?’

  Joe nodded, trembling at the wrongness of it.

  ‘Say it’

  ‘Cross my heart and hope to die,’ whispered, croaked, through a strangled throat.

  The two pennies dropped heavily into his palm.

  Now he had to get the other two pennies.

  He could not ask Colin, nor could he ask his aunty Grace or uncle Leonard with whom he had dinner because they would ask what it was for and then his daddy would get to know and Joe knew that he would not like that at all.

  He had to get the other twopence by two o’clock.

  He had an hour and a half. He trawled the gutters outside the shops in King Street and High Street. Speed was sometimes lucky there. He was not. He could have gone to Henry Allen’s front room, which doubled as an office, and offer to run a message but his daddy would be there. He went into the Co-op, to the counter in the back of the shop where Isaac Pape worked. Mr Pape had been at school with his mammy and was always very friendly. He compelled himself to go through with it.

  ‘What can I do for you, young man? Be sharp. We’re closing in a few minutes.’

  ‘Do you? I want. Can I run a message?’

  ‘I don’t have a message.’

  Joe felt oppressed. What did he do now?

  ‘Sorry, Mr Pape.’

  ‘Hasn’t your mammy got a message for you to run?’

  Joe nodded and scuttled away, not hearing Mr Pape’s ‘Joe!’ as it dawned.

  The boy was panicking badly now.

  He went to the Fountain where the men stood in the sun, backs against the railings, smoking, spitting, passing the occasional remark, hands in pockets weighing coins that would take them to the King’s Arms, the Lion and Lamb or more than a dozen other pubs for the one careful midday drink.

  ‘Can I have a penny, mister?’

  ‘What for?’

  Joe shook his head and moved around the square of railings that guarded the memorial monument.

  ‘Have you got a penny, mister?’

  The panic seemed to turn to tears inside his head, making it heavy so he had to bow it and it was a great effort to look up.

  ‘Have you got a penny, mister?’

  By now there was an awful turmoil inside him. He could not be seen crying. But he badly wanted to cry. Snow White would start -soon - there - he stood and looked down Meeting House Lane. There was already a small queue. People with enough money. If it had been Christmas he could have sung carols and got a few pennies but you could not sing to a queue outside of Christmas. There was his uncle Leonard. He would be going to the betting shop. Joe turned away. He had told Colin he was going back to Greenacres.

  ‘Have you got a penny, mister?’

  He stood outside the Crown.

  Then he remembered that Speed had said sometimes if you went to the back of pubs they would have left out crates of empty lemonade bottles. You could nick them and take them back to other pubs to claim the penny on the bottle.

  Nothing behind the Crown: could not get behind the Kildare or the Half Moon: nothing behind the Lion and Lamb and no empty crates behind the Hare and Hounds, the Royal Oak or the King’s Arms. He passed the post-office clock. Ten to two. By now he was badly upset; panic began to possess him.

  ‘Have you got a penny, Mr Diddler? Please,’

  ‘What does Sam’s lad want with a penny now, tell me
that?’

  Joe had to risk everything.

  ‘I want to go to Snow White,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t enough.’

  ‘If I give you twopence can we both go?’

  Joe looked up in agony. He did not understand the joke and the face he saw was unpromising, bleared by midday booze and sun.

  ‘Here.’ Diddler flushed out a penny. Snow White it is,’ he said, and lurched on.

  The queue was beginning to move down Meeting House Lane. At the bottom of the lane was the Salvation Army Hall where you could go on Wednesdays even if you were not a member and play all sorts of games, see slide shows, listen to the band. In the yard next to it was the Salvation Army man who ran the club. Joe liked him. He hurtled past the moving queue and into the yard and knocked on the door.

  Eventually a girl appeared. She was little older than Joe but an adult seriousness was already established on her slim, solemn face.

  ‘Is the Captain in?’

  ‘I’m sorry, no.’

  No? It could not be no. He had to be in. He would help. Joe knew.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He’s with the band in Maryport.’

  Joe was adrift now.

  ‘He won’t be back before two o’clock, will he?’

  The solemn face swung from side to side and the door slowly closed.

  Joe came out of the yard and began to climb the steep hill up the lane, lurching, tacking a little, not unlike Diddler.

  He stopped at the picture house and watched until the last person went in. The tiny foyer was empty. Drawn by a line from which he had no means to unhook himself, he went in.

  Mrs Hurst was cooped in a ticket office inadequate for her bulk, which may have been one of the causes of her permanent irascibility. The counter was just above Joe’s head but when he stood on tiptoe he could see in.

  ‘I’ve only got threepence, missis. Sorry.’

  ‘So am I’

  ‘Can’t I go in for just a bit of it?’

  "Fourpence.’

  You were not allowed to cry.

  'I’ll bring the extra penny next Saturday.’

  ‘Away with you.’

  ‘I promise, missis, I really do promise. I really promise, missis.’