Thunder and Lightnings

by Jan Mark

  Victor was in Paston House, though if they were winning it wasn’t due to Victor.

  Watching him in event after event, Andrew understood for the first time what ‘Lacks concentration’ meant on a school report. It often appeared on his own but he was certain that he had never lacked as much concentration as Victor did.

  He changed feet in the pole vault and direction in the high-jump. In the long-jump he seemed to hover in the air while deciding where to land which was never far enough from the take-off. His triple jump was a quintuple jump at the very least and his javelin twirled in the air like a drum major’s baton, before landing, point up, behind him. Andrew waited to see him take off someone’s head with a discus but when his turn came to compete, he was wandering about with his head tipped back, watching the fighters up above. No one told him: perhaps they were playing safe.

  Andrew began to wonder if he were doing it on purpose. Wearing only a singlet and shorts, Victor looked unprotected, as if he had gone into battle without his armour. Possibly he felt unprotected too. Anyone who habitually went about wearing four or five layers of clothing was bound to feel at a loss when he took them off. If he was allowed to compete in his usual clothes he might sweep the field, winning every event, if he weren’t earthbound by the weight.

  Then the mile race was announced.

  It was an open race, the last on the book. Anyone who still had the strength to put one foot before the other was free to take part. The head boy himself was there, in spiked shoes, doing flashy heel-and-toe exercises on the sidelines. Then Andrew heard friendly jeering and was startled to see the pale and ribby figure of Victor doing similar exercises out on the track. Andrew, in company with the rest of the spectators, thought that Victor’s starveling flanks could never carry him round the first lap, let alone the last three. He was ashamed to look as the competitors lined up and the starting pistol was fired. Then he was ashamed of feeling ashamed and made himself watch.

  For three laps Victor was at the back of the field, trotting in the rear with a mad, blank look on his face. Two boys behind Andrew were betting each other that Skelton would simply lie down and die before the end of the race. Andrew began to pray, not to God but to Victor, that he would at least stay on his feet.

  On the last lap many of the runners began to fail. The order of the day seemed to be that if you were going to lose you lost spectacularly. People meandered from one side of the track to the other, collapsing decoratively among the crowd like marathon runners entering the Olympic Stadium. Victor opened his eyes, skipped nimbly round the bodies of the fallen, passed the head boy and came in third. The winner was in Nelson House but Andrew leaped up and down, cheering Victor, and was jumped on from behind by a Nelson supporter.

  The mile was the last race so Victor came and sat sweatily with him during the prize-giving. The trophies were distributed by the Headmaster’s wife and announced by the Headmaster with a megaphone, since the public address system had howled itself into silence. The wind was now so strong that his words were blown away behind him and several people walked off with the wrong prizes. There was a little fight at the back between the boy who had won the high-jump and the boy who had been given the cup.

  Andrew watched long enough to see the winner win again and then turned to Victor.

  Victor had hunched himself into a sweater and his anorak and was looking more at ease.

  ‘Did you see those aircraft?’ he said. ‘I reckon they’d come to watch us.’

  ‘How come you were third in the mile when you were so bad at everything else?’ said Andrew.

  ‘That take a long time to run a mile,’ said Victor. ‘I had time to think.’

  ‘What did you think about?’

  ‘I thought about how they were all expecting me to come last. They thought that was a joke, me running a mile,’ said Victor. ‘Old Skelton’s soft in the head. Nothing between the ears. Brains in the feet. So I have, though, if that’s what make me run.’

  Andrew looked sideways at him and saw that his everlasting grin was a little fiercer, a little less amiable, than usual. ‘Were you angry, then?’ he asked.

  ‘I suppose I was.’ said Victor. ‘That’s a good fuel, anger.’

  6. Flight Deck

  Walking home at the end of the afternoon Victor said, ‘Break-up tomorrow. You know we finish early?’ Andrew hadn’t known. ‘Well, we do. We have lunch and the end-of-term service and we go home about half past two. My mum said you could come over for the afternoon, if you like. Stay to tea, if you like.’

  ‘I would like,’ said Andrew. ‘My mum says you can come round to us any time you want.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask me, then?’ demanded Victor.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d want to come.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I like other people’s houses, especially if they’re dirty,’ said Victor. ‘Our house is too clean.’

  ‘Ours isn’t dirty,’ said Andrew.

  ‘I thought you said that was.’

  ‘Untidy,’ said Andrew. ‘I said it was untidy. I didn’t mean it was dirty. Well, it is, a bit. But it’s not absolutely filthy.’

  ‘I like houses a bit dirty,’ said Victor. ‘They smell nice and warm.’

  Andrew thought that this was rather an odd remark, until he arrived at Victor’s house on Friday afternoon. Friday morning was spent in tidying up, and the end-of-term service was soon over. It was easy to spot the people who were leaving. The girls wore a lot of make-up, collected autographs and cried in the cloakroom. The boys went round shaking hands with all the teachers they disliked most and lit cigarettes before they were out of the gate. Victor gave Andrew a lift on the back of his bike and they wobbled to a halt outside his gate just before three o’clock.

  Victor parked the bicycle and went into the conservatory, making a great deal of noise wiping his feet. Andrew thought it wise to do the same. From the doorway, Victor’s house had an unpleasantly shiny look about it and smelt like a dentist’s waiting room. He began to see why Victor liked dirty houses.

  Victor’s mother was in the kitchen. She didn’t say hello, she said, ‘Don’t make a mess on the floor, I’ve just cleaned it.’

  Victor said, ‘We’ve wiped our feet. Mum, this is Andrew Mitchell.’

  Andrew said, ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Skelton.’

  Victor’s mother said, ‘You can’t play in the lounge, I’ve got the vacuum cleaner in there. Mind where you’re walking. I’ve just polished that bit.’

  The kitchen floor was laid with white tiles. There were a few black ones, here and there. Andrew thought that it might have been better the other way round.

  ‘I came third in the mile,’ said Victor.

  ‘Not in those shoes, I hope,’ said his mother. ‘You’d better go on up to your room. I’ll call you when tea’s ready.’

  Victor set off across the kitchen, using the black tiles as stepping stones. Andrew followed him. The black tiles were a long way apart.

  The lounge carpet was also white with a little bit of linoleum round the edge. They sidled round the lino like Ancient Egyptians and reached the door into the hall. Andrew was glad to see that the hall was tiled dark brown. There was a mat in it, but that was brown as well. He trod hard on the mat with both feet, although it wasn’t in his way, and went upstairs, after Victor. Victor was going up bow-legged with his feet on the wooden bit at the side of the stair carpet. Andrew took off his shoes and walked up the middle. Victor’s door was opposite the stairhead. With a mighty leap he cleared the landing and touched down safely in his own room.

  ‘Shut the door,’ said Victor. ‘Nobody come in here, except me. I can do what I like in here.’

  It was just like walking into a spider’s web. Dozens of pieces of cotton hung from the ceiling and on the ends of the cotton were model aeroplanes. Andrew found himself nose to tail with a big Lancaster. Its rear guns were poking in his eye. He stepped back and charted a course across the room to where Victor was already stretched out on his back, half under t
he bed, staring up at a dog fight near the ceiling; two Spitfires and a Messerschmitt. Another Messerschmitt was sneaking round from behind the lampshade, but it seemed to have its sights set on a Hercules transport which was hanging from the light fitting itself. Andrew shoved his feet under the bed and lay down beside Victor. They stayed there, without speaking, for about five minutes, gazing at the aircraft.

  From shoulder height, upwards, the walls were painted with stormy clouds, dark and choppy against an angry yellow sky. A crack in the plaster had been filled in white to make forked lightning. Andrew thought of Victor’s awful fish pictures and asked, ‘Did you paint that yourself?’

  ‘Not the sky,’ said Victor. ‘That was there already. That was the wall. But I did the clouds myself. Sort of. I copied them.’

  ‘Out of a book?’

  ‘No, out of the window,’ said Victor.

  ‘I wouldn’t call that copying,’ said Andrew. ‘It’s real painting if you do it from real.’

  ‘You ought to see that at night,’ said Victor. ‘I put the light on – bomber’s moon – and open the window so that they all blow about. You get great big shadows on the wall. I lie in bed and make the right noises.’

  ‘What noises?’

  ‘Oh, machine guns and ack-ack and bombs dropping. Then my mum, she bang on the ceiling downstairs and I have to pack up.’

  ‘Do you do that every night?’ asked Andrew. ‘Don’t you ever read in bed?’

  ‘Can’t read by that light,’ said Victor. ‘That’s only fifteen watts. Anything else would be too bright.’

  Andrew was thinking sadly of Victor, alone in his room, night after night, with only a fifteen-watt bulb. Then he understood. ‘Too bright for a bomber’s moon?’

  ‘Too bright for any moon,’ said Victor. ‘Look.’

  He reached up and pulled the cord that was hanging by the bed. The light came on. The shade was a white glass globe, and it shone with a moony glow, even in daylight.

  ‘See those dead flies at the bottom,’ said Victor. ‘Craters.’

  Andrew found he was kicking something papery under the bed. He craned his neck to see what it was and saw dusty piles of magazines and comics.

  ‘My library,’ said Victor, scrabbling under the bed and pulling out two bales.

  One was old copies of the Airforce Review, the other was comics. The front page of all of them dealt with the exploits of Steve Stone of 777 Squadron. Steve Stone flew Hurricanes and had two friends who also flew Hurricanes, though not so well as Steve did. The friends were called Bob Fisher and Tubby Smith. Bob had the kind of moustache that parrots could perch on and rarely said anything other than ‘Bang on!’ Tubby Smith looked as if he was drawn with a pair of compasses and had to be levered into his Hurricane every week.

  The man who illustrated Steve Stone could draw aeroplanes but not people. All the men of 777 Squadron seemed to have been sawn off just below the knee and wore their feet where you might reasonably expect their shins to be. This might not be a bad thing, thought Andrew, after looking through half a dozen episodes. Steve and Bob spent many flying hours clambering about on the fuselage or dangling from the landing gear. Having such short legs must lower their wind resistance considerably. Tubby, of course, had to remain jammed in his cockpit.

  ‘Do you believe all this?’ asked Andrew, pointing to a picture of Steve Stone flying his Hurricane under the Eiffel Tower.

  ‘Of course not, but I bet you could. I bet you could fly a Hurricane under Yarmouth pier, if you tried,’ said Victor. ‘Have you seen Mitch Mulligan, the Wellington Wizard?’

  He passed over a second heap of comics entitled Action, the name printed in exploding yellow letters on a red background. Andrew flipped through the top one, looking for someone in gumboots and a pointed hat. He found, however, that Mitch Mulligan was the ace mechanic of 999 Squadron who did such amazing things to the Wellington bombers in his care that they flew upside down, landed safely in deep water and even took off like Harriers from small vegetable gardens in Occupied France.

  Mitch was drawn square and squat, because he was a mechanic. His neck was wider than his head and his hands were bigger than his feet. He always carried an adjustable spanner, even when he was doing delicate work in the instrument panel.

  ‘I’d like to be an aircraft mechanic, if I couldn’t fly,’ said Victor.

  ‘You’re the wrong shape,’ said Andrew. He was looking at a picture of Mitch leaping, like an agile toad, from the wing of his bomber. ‘He looks like the Dambusters’ bomb. I wonder they don’t drop him, by mistake.’

  ‘That’s a terrific film,’ said Victor. ‘I could watch that over and over again. That and the Battle of Britain. All those little Spitfires whizzing about. Haven’t you got any aircraft?’

  ‘I’ve got racing cars,’ said Andrew. ‘Enough for a proper Grand Prix, but I can never find enough space to lay out a track.’

  ‘Have you got them hanging up?’ said Victor, not attending.

  ‘They’re cars, not aeroplanes,’ said Andrew. ‘What would be the point of hanging them up?’

  ‘Don’t you ever see any aircraft in Kent?’

  ‘Sometimes, but you have to go looking for them,’ said Andrew. ‘They aren’t all over the place like they are here.’

  Victor’s mother looked in at the door and said, ‘Tea’s ready. Don’t you bring any of that mess downstairs,’ and went away again.

  ‘I never take any of my stuff downstairs. Wouldn’t dare, that might get clean. Come on, then,’ said Victor, pushing his library back under the bed. He stood up and removed his anorak and one sweater, in preparation for the meal to come. Andrew withdrew his feet, picked the fluff off his socks and replaced his shoes. They tiptoed down.

  The Skeltons did not eat their meals in the kitchen. There was a special room for that. Victor’s father was home and sat at the head of the tea table, reading the paper with a frown that went up and down his forehead like a venetian blind. He took no notice of Andrew and Victor so they sat down and said nothing themselves. It was very difficult to talk with Mr Skelton in the room. While the tea was being poured, Victor attempted to make conversation.

  ‘I came third in the mile,’ he said.

  ‘You told us that yesterday,’ said his father.

  ‘I thought you didn’t hear, yesterday,’ said Victor.

  ‘He beat the head boy,’ said Andrew. ‘The head boy was fifth.’

  ‘When you’re head boy perhaps you’ll come first,’ said Victor’s father to Victor. Clearly, this was the only kind of congratulation he was going to get.

  Nothing else was said all through tea. It was a good meal, judged purely as a meal and not as a pleasant way of passing the time. At home, Mum, Dad and Edward would be having their tea, all over the kitchen and probably half way up the stairs as well. Andrew thought it was a nice change to have a meal with everything laid out on a table where you could see it, and on a cloth, at that; but he did wish someone would speak. The only sound was of jaws closing on food.

  ‘Can we help with the washing up?’ asked Andrew when it seemed as though everyone had finished eating.

  ‘No,’ said Victor’s mother.

  ‘Thank you,’ she added, some seconds later. She began to clear the table. Victor’s father stormed out of the room as though someone had insulted him, though Andrew didn’t see how it could have been done as no one had spoken. He and Victor crept from black tile to black tile, across the kitchen and out of the back door. He noticed that Victor wiped his feet going out as well as coming in.

  ‘Do you want to come back to my place?’ said Andrew.

  ‘Won’t your mum mind?’

  ‘Why should she?’ said Andrew. ‘She might be surprised if you didn’t.’

  ‘Just for half an hour, then,’ said Victor. ‘I’d better be back before my dad go out.’ He said something else as well but Andrew didn’t hear what it was. One of the fighters roared over the house, drowning every other sound. It was the same kind that Andrew
had seen on the day they moved into Tiler’s Cottage. He turned to the expert.

  ‘What was it?’ he asked, as soon as he could make himself heard.

  ‘Phantom,’ said Victor. ‘Haven’t you seen one before? They’ve been over a lot, lately.’

  ‘I’ve seen enough of them, but I didn’t know what they were,’ said Andrew. ‘Why do they fly here so much?’

  ‘Maybe they like the view,’ said Victor. ‘There’s usually four of them together.’

  As he spoke, two more Phantoms, in muddy camouflage, swooped overhead.

  ‘Wait for it,’ said Victor. ‘Here he come.’ The last Phantom followed the first towards the coast, trailing a fat cloud of filthy smoke.

  ‘I can hear a Lightning coming,’ said Victor. Andrew could only hear the Phantoms going. ‘Up there,’ said Victor, pointing skywards. A little smudge of a plane was cruising between two clouds.

  ‘How can you tell what it is?’ said Andrew. ‘Have you got telescopes in your head?’

  Victor laughed. ‘I can tell by the engines. Lightnings have Rolls-Royce Avon turbo-jets. Phantoms have General Electric turbo-jets. They’re American planes actually – made by McDonnel-Douglas. The Luftwaffe have those as well.’

  Andrew stared at him, wondering how someone who pretended to be such an ignorant slob could possibly know so much or reel it off with such ease.

  ‘Haven’t you noticed how they howl?’ said Victor. ‘The Phantoms, I mean. The F-III sounds a bit like that as well. That’s got turbofans; Pratt and Whitney. You don’t see them so much round here and they never fly as low as the Phantoms.’

  ‘What’s an F-III?’ said Andrew.