Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  *

  Red petals of the hawthorn lay in the dry dust of the road, the lilac began to turn rusty, little green apples with brown bows at their throats were to be seen among the leaves of the apple trees in the garden. There were lots of little shiny green cherries, too, and what Jessie called goosegogs, which were hard and hairy. None of them were nice to eat, so after the first handful hidden on the ledge under the table, with a mince pie taken when no one was looking, Phillip did not collect any more goosegogs.

  Uncle Hilary went away and came back wearing clothes not looking like his clothes. Phillip asked him why, and Uncle Hilary said his kit had turned up at the club. Phillip saw the kit as something with a tail and a head like Dick Whittington’s cat in the pantomime Mummy and Aunty Dorrie had taken them all to, and the club was held over its shoulder with a bundle of clothes for Uncle.

  Phillip did not cry for his mother any more. He was brown of face and hands. He was more like what a boy ought to be, thought Victoria. What a change from the wild, staring creature who had come a fortnight before with Isabelle! As for Mavis, she was a good little thing, very sweet-tempered now that her brother was not so selfish with her. At first, he had tended to push himself before her, as though afraid he might miss something—a tendency that had confirmed Victoria in her belief that the Turneys were Jews.

  Victoria as a young girl had heard her father saying, often enough, that the Jews were getting more and more a hold on England, behind the scenes; and everything Father had said was unquestioned. It was noticeable how, with firm but kind treatment, the boy’s trait of selfishness had tended to decrease.

  One morning Phillip came to her and said he was “very incited”. She explained that he meant excited. The cause of excitement was the arrival of the day of which he had heard so much. Jessie had told him of it, as well as Uncle Hilary and Aunty Bee. Jessie and her father, the gardener, said it was the Durby, while Uncle said it was the Darby. Phillip imagined the gardener’s dirty hands, and Jessie’s little brother had a dirty face, so they said Durby. But he was clean, and Master Phillip, so he would say Darby. He told Jessie that her brother Tom was “darty”. Jessie told him not to be cheeky, or he’d get no more cigarette cards.

  “Fag cards,” said Phillip.

  “I will tell your Aunty!” said Jessie, stiff white cuff’d and collar’d over her grey jacket, bought specially for her temporary duties of afternoon mail-cart pusher.

  “You would not dare!”

  “Yes, I do dare, then!”

  “I’ll tell about the soldier!”

  “Hur. There’s nothing to tell. See?”

  “I saw him kiss you.”

  “That you didn’t!”

  “That I did! Ugh! he spooned with you.”

  Spoon was a word learned from Aunt Victoria. Once he had heard her tell Uncle George that Hilary and Bee were spooning in the summer-house in the garden, and it was not very nice with the gardener nearby.

  “Well, what of it if he did kiss me? What’s wrong with that?”

  “Spooning is not very nice.”

  “Well, it wasn’t that kind of spooning, see? I don’t come from a back street, let me tell you, Master Phillip.”

  “I come from near the Hill. My father is the best man there, let me tell you.”

  “Yes, and your ma’s coming for you soon, but you’ll be sorry when you leave Jessie, won’t you? There now, let’s not be cross, shall us?”

  “No,” said Phillip. “Let’s make it up.”

  “There’s a good boy. Now master and mis’es be getting ready for the Durby.”

  Phillip was not allowed to go outside the gate, because there were lots of bad men about, said Jessie, who would cut your throat from ear to ear as soon as look at you. And there were the gipsies who would steal children and dye them dark-brown all over and take them away in a wooden house on wheels. They would steal Joey, too, and eat him if they got a chance. Phillip imagined the gipsies with red faces and jagged teeth and black hair half over their eyes, like the giant in the story book. So he carried a switch, taken from the gardener’s bundle of faggots, to fight the gipsies with if they came after him.

  Everyone was dressing up. Phillip stared at his aunt’s silks and satins, at the hats with feathers and flowers, the frilly parasols, and wondered why Uncle George had a grey hat and Uncle Hilary a black one. Both uncles had flowers in their button-holes, and talked about them before taking them out, saying perhaps they ought not to wear them in wartime. Aunty Bee was more rustling shiny-black than before, with a big bow across her throat as she stooped down and put a cornflower in the blouse of his sailor suit, which had been washed and ironed. He hoped this might mean that after all they were going to take him. Aunty Bee said, “I don’t know which is the deeper blue, this cornflower or your eyes, my pet.” Oh, if only she would take him where she was going to the Darby!

  Phillip dared to utter his longing to Aunty Bee. Could he ride just a little way only, on the box of the coach that was coming to fetch them? Didn’t little boys go to the Darby? Only grown-ups were going this time, said Aunty Bee. He might be lost, she said.

  “I will be ever so careful, and keep ever so close to you, if you will let me come, Aunty Bee. I will fight the gipsies with my switch!”

  Aunt Bee called him her pet and kissed him, saying he must look after Mavis.

  “Jessie can do that, Aunty Bee. And the soldier will look after Jessie.”

  “Oh, Jessie has a soldier, has she? Have you seen him?”

  “Only a long way away, Aunty Bee. I didn’t see him kiss Jessie, Aunty Bee!”

  “You pet,” said Bee, laughing, and kissing him again.

  “Then can I come, Aunty Bee?”

  “I am afraid not, darling. But I will tell you all about it when I come back.”

  The coach came down the road, and there were smiling people on it, and a coachman in a big coat and shiny hat with a thing like a squashed black beetle on the side of it, and a whip, and another man who had a long bright horn. And he held up the horn and blew it, and the noise was bright like the horn and the grey horses liked it for they jingled away.

  The gate was left open, and Joey came in to see him. Phillip told Jessie about the squashed beetle thing and she said, “Fancy thinking Mr. Jones had that on his shiner! Why, it’s a cockade, Master Phil! My uncle’s a coachman too, and has one like that.”

  Phillip still thought of it as a beetle, like the one that smelled nasty-sweet when it cocked its tail, and you squashed it.

  Left alone with Joey, Phillip thought he would like to run away and be lost. He went round the path, and stood against the brick wall of the house feeling that he would like to be lost in the woods. The robins would cover him with leaves, and Joey would go home alone to his dinner at Lady Catt’s, and forget all about him. He would never come back any more, but be dead under the leaves.

  Jessie came out to find Phillip a few minutes later, and tell him that his cocoa was waiting for him. She called his name, searched in the garden, then ran back to the kitchen breathlessly crying, “I can’t find Master Phillip nowhere, Mrs. Powell. Do you think the gipsies have took him?”

  In the midst of the agitation the house-parlourman of Lady Catt’s came round, in his yellow-and-black striped vest and white sleeves, to ask if Joey were there, for he must come back for his luncheon.

  They came to the conclusion that the boy and the dog had gone on another picnic.

  “I’d lay a strap across his backside if I had my way,” the servant complained.

  Needless to add, he had been often treated that way in his boyhood.

  “It’s my ’alf-day off, too, and my lady and bloke have gone to the races, and what’ll ’appen if Joey don’t come back I wouldn’t like to say.”

  Phillip and Joey were in the woods, looking for Goldilocks and the Three Bears. They passed the pond stocked with rainbow trout which had been rolling up after mayflies during their first visit. There were no fish visible now. The sated trou
t were lying on the bottom of the gravelly shallows, in the shade of waterside trees. Instead of the fish, there was a big grey bird crying Squar-rk! Joey said Wuff! and Phillip exclaimed Oh! as he watched with wonder the bird’s yellow beak and black bootlace on its thin head, as it flapped up and beat away over the trees.

  Suddenly something very strange and frightful happened. There was a bang! The grey bird tumbled and fell down. Phillip half-believed that it was shot by a bad man who would cut his throat, but he thought it was the Keeper who had fired the gun. But it might be gipsies! He ran away with Joey from the place of the bang, in case the Keeper pointed his gun at them and killed them. As he ran he thought that he would never put flies in spider webs again, if only God would save him.

  He came from the path to a wider ride. The grass of the ride was marked with hundreds of big nailed boot marks. Joey began to sniff them and to wag his tail. Then Joey turned over and rolled, showing his pink tongue and saying Huff huff huff, for known to Joey, but not to Phillip, the golden Labrador bitch had been with the Keeper on his rounds.

  Phillip thought that if he went backwards from the boot marks he would be going away from the Keeper with the gun, and so the Keeper would not see him and perhaps shoot him. His one idea now was to get back to Jessie and Mavis. He was lost, but there were men shouting and horns blowing the way he was going, so he ran on. When Joey would not come he stopped and clutched himself with fear, and wanted to go back and whip Joey for being a fool. Then Joey came, sniffing the ground, and Phillip gave him a flick of the switch, but as this made Joey wriggle, and want to roll more, he whipped him. Joey looked sad, so he stroked him, and told Joey he was sorry, and afterwards Joey followed him properly down the path.

  A bird like a hen’s husband flew up with a long tail saying Kock-koch-karr! and its wings hit the twigs and the leaves. This was probably a rich stockbroker bird, who owned the wood. He remembered Uncle George saying to Uncle Hilary, A queer bird has taken the shooting, a stockbroker, I hear.

  Phillip and Joey got safely out of the wood. There were a lot of people, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, over the grass where the wood ended. There was a hard-wire fence, with sharp, grey spidery spikes on the wire. Phillip lay down and wriggled under the lowest wire, slowly because of the spikes, and triumphantly reached the grass. There was a rope fence over the grass, and pieces of wood with rope loops over their squashed tops, and this fence was easy.

  Beyond were wooden houses on wheels. An old woman smoking a little black pipe upside down sat on the steps of one house. She had a brown face and dark hair like Uncle George’s. There were lots more people. Several thin dogs with tails curving under them ran at Joey. Joey stood still wagging his tail and saying ee-ee-ee as the thin dogs sniffed him. One big dog pulled the fur on Joey’s neck with his teeth. Joey lay down and held up his bent legs. When the dogs had sniffed and wee-ee’d on Joey they ran away. Joey stood up again and came beside Phillip and stayed close to him until they were under the other rope.

  And there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of peoples, men shouting, with paper boards on them, men with pearly buttons on their coats and trousers, and hundreds more. The grass was trodden flat like on the Hill on Band Night when all the poor people came there to hear the band playing and Mummy told him not to speak to the poor children. Poor children were rude and nasty, and now Phillip did not speak to them. An old woman with a basket gave him a toffee apple on a stick and he said “Thank you” before she could say “What do you say?”, and the old woman said, “What a dear little gentleman you are, and what blue eyes you have. What’s your name, dearie?”

  She had a brown wrinkled face, so she might be a gipsy. Frightened, Phillip replied, “I’m Mr. Cornflower.”

  “Well well, fancy that now. Are you with anyone? Where’s your mummy?”

  Phillip did not know what to say, so he said, “My mummy is dead,” and when she looked at him sadly and said “O-oh!” he believed that Mummy was dead after all.

  “Are you all alone, ducks?” she said, holding his hand, which made him very afraid, for now he was sure she was a gipsy to steal him.

  “My mummy isn’t in heaven really, she’s only in Quarantine.”

  “And where’s that, ducks?”

  “Near Brighton next week, I think.” Then raising his cap he said “Good-bye” to the old woman, and hurried away, before she could find out he was not Mr. Cornflower at all, but Phillip Maddison.

  When he looked back, she and two other ladies were looking at him. He hurried on, to hide behind peoples. When he looked back again, the first old woman waved her hand. He waved back. She thought he was Mr. Cornflower, ha ha!

  No one would know his real name was Sonny, no one could steal him now he was Mr. Cornflower! He found a piece of string, and to make himself look not like a boy who had run away, he tied it to Joey’s collar, then he could say he had come to get back Joey who had run away from Lady Catt.

  Hardly had Phillip devised the excuse when Joey was pulling him on the string, as though he, Joey, had come to get back Phillip. The reason was soon apparent. There by a big yellow, red, and black coach was Lady Catt, smiling. Joey wagged his tail and Phillip raised his sailor cap, the new black round one with H.M.S. Brittania on the band. He said, “I found Joey, Lady Catt.” Lady Catt smiled, and her teeth looked like Joey’s teeth, yellow.

  So Phillip’s day at the races turned out to be a good one, after all. Lady Catt let him stand on the box with Mr. Lady Catt who was called Sir Alfred, and he saw very thin horses running all together, their hoofs thundering. There were men in caps and coloured clothes, leaning on the horses, as though they were talking to the horses’ ears, but they could not hear if they were, as everyone was shouting. Then the horses were gone and a lot of bits of earth were in the air behind the horses. And men spying with telescopes.

  Phillip remembered best the lovely sandwiches to eat, and the sweet cold lemonade to drink. Mr. Lady Catt Sir Alfred took him to a place behind a big sack on sticks and there was an ever so big hole in the grass full of yellow wee-wees and he widdled into the hole and did not wet his trousers. When they got back to the coach Lady Catt said, “Haven’t you got a whistle? I will buy you a whistle, and a lanyard, to wear with your sailor suit.” When he said “Thank you, Lady Catt,” she kissed him and said he was the best-mannered boy she had ever known, a perfect little gentleman, and he felt very good and quiet.

  Aunt Victoria shook her head when he was taken home, and Lady Catt had said good-bye. Aunt Victoria said he was nothing but an anxiety, and no wonder his father was unable to do anything with him. And when next day Lady Catt called to give him a whistle Aunty was very nice and smiling to Lady Catt; but afterwards she said he did not really deserve it, for worrying everybody so.

  “I shall not tell your mother this time,” she said, sitting at the table in the hall, her eyes wide, “but really, you know, you must try not to be so tiresome. It is perfectly plain to me that you have been indulged, given your head too much, and that is not good for either young horses or children, Phillip. Do you do as you please when you are with your mother? Do you take advantage of her kindness to you? If so, it is not playing the game, you know, old chap. Do you understand what I am saying, Phillip?”

  “No, Aunt Victoria,” said Phillip, staring at her.

  “No, I do not suppose you do, you funny boy,” said Aunt Victoria, with a faraway laugh. “And what’s more, if you did understand, I do not suppose it would make any difference to you, would it?”

  Phillip did not know what Aunt Victoria meant, but her tone of voice indicated that he must say No, so he said “No, Aunt,” and continued to look up into her face in such a way that she smiled, in spite of herself. And she said, as she stroked his hair, “You’re a pickle, Phillip, that’s what you are. Now run along and have your cocoa, and for heaven’s sake, boy——” But Victoria by this time had forgotten, if she had ever known, what she was going to say. On impulse she kissed him; which perhaps
was the best thing to do. He was much nicer a little boy after that, and came and told her things; but, oh Lord, he did not seem to have the slightest idea what was fact and what was fiction.

  Chapter 15

  HETTY MEETS HER IN-LAWS

  WHEN she was out of quarantine, Hetty and her mother had a week together by the sea at Brighton. Hetty felt better than she had done for a long time. She loved Brighton, having spent several holidays there as a child. The fishermen, the cobs with their brown sails, the capstans by which they were hauled up the shingle out of the battering waves, the brown nets hanging out to dry, and the dim green Aquarium, with fishes swimming in the tanks; the strange Pavilion, with its domes and Eastern-looking architecture, the sea-front and the groins, the spray shooting up and falling over the road in a gale; the electric railway by the sea, the piers, and the theatres! Doctor Brighton was the best doctor of all.

  The day approached when she would be returning home, and fetching the children from their aunt at Epsom. Hetty was a little apprehensive whenever she thought of her husband’s relations. After some discussion on the subject of Etiquette with her mother, she wrote a letter to her sister-in-law, fully conscious that she had never met her. She hesitated many times over the question of whether to begin Dear Victoria, or Dear Mrs. Lemon, and after spoiling three sheets of writing paper, finally got something finished.