Shoddy Prince

by Sheelagh Kelly

  ‘She didn’t leave me.’ Nat looked around so that he would not have to meet that gaze. The room was as he remembered it, warm and welcoming, with Granny Maguire looking as if she had been sitting in this position since last he had been here. Indeed Nat had never seen her on her feet. ‘Sep took her away.’

  ‘But you’re on your own in the house?’ pressed Mrs Maguire.

  Nat admitted that he wasn’t living in a house and briefly told them the facts. They were horrified. ‘Why haven’t ye come to us before now, child?’ Mrs Maguire removed her shawl and shook the rain from it before hanging it on a hook and putting the kettle over the fire. Wet wool became the perfume of the hour.

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether you’d send me back to that school.’

  ‘Would we do that?’ demanded Mr Maguire. ‘Didn’t we take y’in to live with us before?’

  Nat nodded, inventing an excuse. ‘I don’t want to be no trouble.’

  ‘Trouble?’ cried Bright’s mother. ‘Won’t you be doing me a favour? I’ve a pair of Eugene’s boots that he’s outgrown. They’re too small for Patrick an’ not quite good enough to sell. I’ve been keeping them in case they’ll fit somebody. You’re just the ticket! Come on now and grab a piece o’ the fire.’

  7

  So, Nat had a family at last. The trouble was, it was difficult to believe this was true. He lived in a house full of people, it vibrated with humanity, yet being amongst them sometimes he could feel incredibly lonely, and when he went to sleep at night he feared that he would wake up to find it had all been an illusion. One could not just wave a magic wand and be part of a clan; the others forgave each other’s sins because they were flesh and blood, but would they forgive and defend him?

  This fear was compounded when the school board official finally caught up with him. He had visited the Rawlinsons, Nat’s supposed foster parents, and had been told that he had run away. The police were alerted and soon discovered Nat’s whereabouts. To the boy’s great relief Mr Maguire told them that he was prepared to act as Nat’s guardian and make sure he finished his education. A place was found for him at a nearby school. ‘And ye’ll have to go, Nat,’ Mrs Maguire told him in a gently persuasive tone – he had never seen her lose her temper. ‘Cause if ye don’t then Mr Maguire and me’ll be in serious trouble, an’ ye wouldn’t do that to us, would ye?’ Nat shook his head and went off to school with the best of intentions, which did not endure. In only a matter of days he regressed into truancy. Naturally the Maguires were informed by the school. Bright’s mother was mortified that he had put them in this position. Her husband was less judicious. ‘Look, the lad’s almost twelve, ain’t he?’ demanded Mr Maguire. ‘I can’t see the sense in making him go to school for a couple more months if he’d rather work. Sure, he’d be more use to us paying board, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘But what if the authorities…’

  ‘If they want to make an issue of it, let them! We’ve done our duty by sending him off to school. Tis not our fault if they can’t keep him there, but if he won’t go to school then he can work!’ Mr Maguire fixed a dark warning eye on Nat. ‘Tell ye what, get Pat and Gene to take ye down to the ironworks tomorrow morning.’ His youngest sons had acquired employment there.

  ‘Er, no, it’s all right!’ The Maguire boys, though not unkind, were a bit rough for Nat’s liking. Besides, he had vowed that he would have no master but himself. ‘I’ve already got plenty of work lined up.’

  Maguire showed surprise. ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Odd jobs, selling scrap – you can make good money out of it.’ Nat chose to omit that he also shovelled dogmuck, having to resort to this less frequently now.

  ‘Well, I do admire a little enterprise. So long as you can put your cash on the table on a Saturday with the rest of us, and it’s earned by honest means, then that’s fine by me.’ And Maguire’s consent marked the end of Nat’s schooldays.

  * * *

  Bright loved him being here, though his insistence on meeting Denzil and the gang every evening confused her. ‘If I live to be a hundred I’ll never understand the English.’ Mr Maguire’s quotations were a great influence on Bright, as was his example. ‘What d’ye want with them when ye’ve all this company at home?’ Mr Maguire only ever went out on a Saturday night to the pub and even then he took his sons with him. His family was everything to him, and all he wanted to do was relax in their midst.

  Nat found it hard to explain that he was different from Bright’s father, that sometimes he found the Maguire household claustrophobic, that quite often he found their dialogue incomprehensible when they talked of ‘going home’ some day when they already were at home, that he needed to be with different people. ‘They’re my pals,’ he told her.

  ‘So am I.’

  ‘Well, I play with you an’ all don’t I?’

  ‘Only between school and teatime.’

  ‘I don’t have to play with you all the time.’ Nat turned to go.

  Undeterred, Bright skipped after him. ‘Can I come with ye?’

  He wanted to say no but was too cowardly, so gave a half-hearted, ‘If you want.’

  When Nat turned up with a girl the others jeered. ‘He’s brought his sweetheart!’ Nat warned them to shut up but they paid no heed, in fact Denzil took immediate action. ‘We don’t allow lasses in t’gang.’

  Hurt, Bright retorted, ‘I don’t want to be in your stupid gang! I only came to be with Nat.’

  ‘Well you’re not allowed on our territory,’ announced Denzil.

  ‘And you’ve got muck under your chin,’ accused Spud.

  Bright was contemptuous. ‘Tisn’t muck, it’s a mole.’

  Denzil poked her in the chest. ‘Just bugger off.’

  Bright wheeled away, head down, hoping that Nat would follow. Feeling responsible for her, he turned an agonized face to the others. ‘I’ll have to take her home.’

  ‘What for?’ asked Denzil. ‘She isn’t your sister is she?’

  ‘No, but I live with her mam and dad. I’ll have to go…’ Nat ran after Bright.

  ‘You big lad-lass!’ bawled Denzil, and threw stones at them. Furious with all of them, Nat did not speak to Bright until she had spoken to him first, and even then was morose.

  Happy that he had placed her friendship above all others, Bright overlooked his sulky features and tried to make him feel better with a denunciation of the gang. ‘Stupid boys, you’re too good for them – anyway you don’t need anyone else, I’ll be your friend forever.’

  ‘Thanks,’ muttered a dismal Nat, wondering how he was ever going to retrieve membership of the gang, the taunts of lad-lass still burning his ears.

  The next day, when Bright left school, he wasn’t there to meet her. When he failed to come in for tea Mrs Maguire said she would save him some, but her husband decreed that if he couldn’t be at the table with everyone else he could go without. Of different mind, Bright filched a slice of bread to give to him later.

  * * *

  Jeers of ‘Lad-lass!’ were the only welcome Nat received when he approached the gang’s meeting place in Patrick Pool. He tried to defend his action. ‘I had to take her home! Her dad’d thump me if I didn’t.’ He couldn’t imagine Mr Maguire ever thumping anyone and was glad that none of the boys could guess that he was lying.

  Denzil parleyed with the others, asking if they should take him back into the gang.

  ‘We don’t want anybody who plays wi’ lasses,’ said Gunner.

  Nat beheld him with scorn. ‘You’re a big daft lass yourself.’

  Gunner advanced with menace. ‘I’m gunner thump you.’

  Denzil egged him on. ‘Come on then, Gunner, thump him!’

  ‘Aye, mug him one!’ chorused Spud and Roger, and all began to prod Gunner into action.

  Encouraged, he raised his fists like a prizefighter, towering over Nat.

  Nat held himself at the ready and tried to remember Clem Giblet’s line of defence. He began by jabbing Gunner in the middle. The big
body, soft as a slug, doubled over immediately. Nat’s confidence grew.

  ‘Hit him again, Nat!’ Denzil had changed sides.

  Nat smashed his fist into Gunner’s mouth. It was the most revolting thing he had encountered in his life, the feel of soft flesh splitting under hard knuckles, the sight of Gunner’s teeth edged with blood, and yet…

  ‘Go on, gob him, Nat!’ Denzil exhorted him.

  Gunner was on the floor, rolling about, hands over his face with the boys in a tight circle over him. Nat prayed for him to stay down while Spud shouted, ‘Get up you big fat cissy!’

  Gunner scrambled to his feet. Nat keyed for attack, poised to strike again, but there was no need. Gunner barged through the jeering circle and ran away.

  The others gathered round Nat, dealing congratulatory thumps to his shoulder and welcoming him back to the gang. The lust for blood was up. A wild-eyed Denzil pronounced, ‘Let’s go kill some Irish bastards!’ The excited search began for weapons. Staves were cut. Denzil pulled the gang’s standard from his pocket – a dirty piece of linen with a skull and crossbones daubed on it – and tied it to the end of a pole. He pronounced Nat the standard bearer and gave orders to march for Walmgate. Then suddenly Nat remembered, ‘Eh, I live near there.’

  It was no obstacle. ‘All right, we’ll go down here instead,’ announced Denzil. ‘I know where there’s an enemy hideout.’

  The troop embarked down Church Street, pausing only to giggle at a display of corsets in a shop window. A lady held her dress aside so that it might not be soiled by the ruffians. Her gentleman companion raised his stick at them. They dodged him and went on to ambush the small group of Irish boys who were on their way home from altar service. The battle was brief. Encumbered with the standard Nat barely had time to throw a few flailing punches when Irish reinforcements appeared, forcing Denzil’s squad to fall back. Denzil bawled for them to retreat and all fled back to the safety of their own territory, where Denzil waved his prize triumphantly – a prayer book, which later they burned as a symbol of contempt. The standard was used to mop each boy’s blood – though Nat didn’t actually have any – and was reverently folded back into the general’s pocket until the next battle.

  When he got near home Bright was waiting for him on Foss Bridge. ‘It’s time for bed! Me dada’s sent me to look for you. Where’ve ye been?’

  ‘I had things to do,’ he told her.

  ‘I bet you’ve been with them lads!’

  ‘I can if I want to! Just ’cause I live in your house doesn’t mean I have to be with you all the time.’

  ‘Right then!’ Infuriated, she dug into her pocket and flung the piece of bread at him. ‘I was saving that for your supper ’cause you missed tea, but you can stick it up your bum, mean bugger!’ She ran off towards home, tears in her eyes.

  Ashamed and hungry, Nat picked up the bread, dusted it off and ate it before going home to meet the consequences of Mr Maguire’s wrath. Would he be homeless once more? However, it appeared that Bright had made no complaint and after a mild rebuke about his non-appearance at the tea table Nat was treated to a cup of bedtime cocoa.

  Grateful for his friend’s lack of spite, Nat decided to reward her by donating more of his time and was there to meet her the next afternoon when she left school. ‘There’s a load of dead wasps in that trap I made.’ He had filled an old jam jar with water and left it on the outside windowsill. ‘Do you want to come and count ’em?’

  Bright was quick to accept and skipped along with him to examine the jar which held a lot of dead wasps and a few live ones still trying to swim. Using a stick she raked them out onto the yard. The live ones made a bedraggled attempt to sting her. ‘Let’s cut their heads off!’ proposed Nat.

  ‘Ooh, aye! That’s what they did to the French kings and queens. We’ve been learning about the Revolution. I’ll get a knife.’ Bright ran into the house.

  ‘What d’ye want with a knife?’ asked her mother and, when told, uttered, ‘What have I given birth to? Disgusting child! Take that old thing there and don’t cut yourself.’

  Bright seized the knifeblade with no handle and ran outside to apply it with glee to the insect. But the ligature was amazingly tough and no amount of rigorous sawing could decapitate the wasp.

  ‘Here, gimme a go!’ Nat took over, but his efforts were no more successful. ‘This knife’s rubbish. Anyway, it’s a bit boring. Away, let’s do summat else.’

  ‘You always want to do something else,’ scolded Bright. ‘Twas you who suggested the game.’

  ‘I’ve just changed me mind, that’s all,’ replied Nat.

  ‘I’ll bet ye’ve even changed your mind about marrying me,’ Bright tendered out of the blue.

  Nat reddened. ‘No I haven’t.’

  Bright turned all coy, examining her nails. ‘How old d’you want to be when you get married?’

  Nat thought upon it. ‘About… seventeen.’

  ‘I think I might like to wait till I’m twenty-five,’ mused Bright.

  ‘That’s ancient!’

  ‘Tisn’t,’ replied Bright. ‘Our Michael was twenty-three when he got married. Gabriel is twenty-two an’ hasn’t even got a fiancée. Anyway, I wouldn’t be able to be a teacher if I was married.’

  ‘Teacher?’ Nat was aghast. ‘I’m not marrying a teacher.’

  Bright sought to explain. ‘I’ve just said I wouldn’t be a teacher if I was married.’

  Nat was adamant. ‘Well, I’m getting married when I’m seventeen. I’m gonna buy my own house.’

  ‘Oh, where?’ Bright grew excited.

  ‘Anywhere you fancy,’ bragged Nat. ‘I’ve already got quite a bit of money put by.’ He faltered, wondering if he had made a mistake in telling her; she might find his cache under the loose floorboard upstairs.

  ‘From collecting scrap?’ Bright had not known it was so lucrative. Nat turned dark. ‘Well, not from robbing churches if that’s what you mean!’

  ‘I didn’t! You don’t have to do that sort of thing now, do ye?’

  He shook his head. ‘Scrap collecting’s a good enough job for me.’ There was to be little scope for this occupation in the following weeks. October brought floods of such magnitude that the streets of York became as Venice. There had been constant rain for two days. On Thursday the fourteenth the level of the river was six inches above normal. Between Friday evening and Saturday noon it rose at a rate of six and a quarter inches per hour. On Sunday morning it had risen to sixteen feet at Lendal Bridge and on Esplanade, only the tops of trees were visible. Built at the top of an incline the Maguire’s house just escaped, but those who were unfortunate enough to live where the road dipped into Walmgate found the Foss lapping around their parlour walls. Part of Bright’s journey to school had to be undertaken by rowing boat. Looking out from her bedroom window her heart was filled with rapture at the sight. In Nat it produced the total opposite. Just as he had gazed upon the sea at Scarborough, the encroaching waters made him feel inexplicably desolate, raising thoughts of his mother, thoughts he had kept buried deep inside. After her abandonment of him, he had sworn never to think of her ever again, yet even in moments of fun, when he and the gang built a raft and paddled around the flooded streets pretending to be Indians, her memory lurked beneath the surface.

  Maria’s unbidden presence was also revived when Nat suffered his usual bout of bronchitis during the winter months. In contrast to her maternal tolerance, his incessant coughing was nothing but a source of irritation to his room mates.

  ‘Every time I’m just falling asleep he starts!’ complained Eugene at the breakfast table, his eyes ringed with dark hollows from the lack of sleep.

  For once the brothers showed unity. ‘Aye, he nearly blasts us out o’ bed,’ added Gabriel. ‘Shouldn’t he be sleeping by the fire to keep his chest warm?’

  ‘Granny’s bed’s by the fire,’ pointed out his mother. Old Mrs Maguire slept on the sofa.

  ‘She won’t mind, will ye, Gran?’ called Thomas to the ol
d lady, who responded with an abstracted nod.

  ‘He’d have to sleep on the floor,’ said Mrs Maguire.

  ‘Who cares? Anyway,’ Eugene jabbed his fork at the ceiling, ‘doesn’t he sleep on the floor up there? It’ll be more comfy for him down here.’

  A wan-looking Nat came downstairs.

  ‘Oh Christ, do we have to listen to it over breakfast an’ all?’ muttered Gabriel. Shoving two rashers of bacon in between two slices of bread he rose. ‘I’ll eat mine on the way to work. Tis no good, I’ll have to find meself a wife.’

  ‘I can’t help coughing,’ objected Nat as others joined the exodus.

  ‘We know that.’ Even Mr Maguire was irritable. ‘But, well, tis a dangerous bark…’

  Nat endorsed this with an imitation of a Gatling gun.

  Maguire closed his eyes. ‘Jesus, Mary n’Joseph… Gabriel’s right, you’d be better off by the fire.’

  ‘He’d be better off on the fire,’ muttered Eugene.

  ‘You’re all mean!’ scolded Bright, when Nat had gone outside to the closet. ‘Instead of complaining we should be looking after him and taking him to the doctor.’

  ‘Sure we haven’t got half a crown to spend on the doctor, darlin’,’ said Mr Maguire.

  ‘Well, we could buy him some medicine at least!’ exploded Bright. ‘I’ll buy it. I’ve got some money saved up.’ She had been given a few pence on her First Communion and for errands she had done for people after school. It had been meant to pay for a birthday present for Nat, but medicine was much more practical.

  ‘Suit yourself.’ Her mother showed signs of weariness. ‘Go down to Nurse’s and she’ll give ye the right jollop.’

  As it was Saturday there was no school. Immediately after eating her porridge Bright departed to buy the medicine. On her return she made Nat sit by the fire, opposite Granny Maguire, wrapped up in a shawl, and pampered him all day long. During the following week she ran home from school in order to nurse him. The illness ran its course but Nat thoroughly enjoyed the rare coddling and when he was well enough to go out he felt rather guilty at abandoning Bright in favour of the gang. Thus he told her, as he wrapped up warm this February evening, ‘You can come if you like.’