Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  “Tell me why you don’t want to see Mummy, Phil?”

  He shook his head.

  “Never again?”

  “No, Aunty Bee,” and then he broke down and sobbed. Beatrice, who had hoped he would say that he wanted her, and was prepared, thereafter, to plead for Hetty, to her surprise found she was crying too. With tears running down his cheeks he stared at her tears, before pulling his handkerchief from his pocket so that she could wipe her eyes. The compass fell out, and she saw it. She recognised it as belonging to Hilary, but said nothing for the moment. The business of wiping tears away must be gone through first. Afterwards:

  “That’s a nice compass, dear,” she said, opening the case. “Where did you get it? Did Uncle Hilary give it to you?” She felt mean, asking a question of which she knew already the answer.

  He stared at her, his eyes wide open.

  “I expect you borrowed it, for a long long journey, didn’t you, dear?”

  “Yes, Aunty Bee.”

  “But now you are going home again with Mummy, you won’t need it, will you, dear?”

  “No, Aunty Bee.”

  “Then shall we put it back?”

  “Yes, Aunty Bee. And the cocoa, too. And the bread.”

  Beatrice laughed. Light came in the boy’s face again. “I was naughty, wasn’t I, Aunt Bee?”

  “Aunty Bee doesn’t think so. But some people might call it stealing, so perhaps it is best not to take any more things, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, Aunty Bee.”

  “Well, I’ll put the compass back. Look, RAT PORTAGE is scratched on it. I wonder what it means. ‘Portage’ means travelling in the backwoods, while ‘Rat’ may be the name of a river. I think Uncle went on a fishing adventure once, in Canada, where he saw lots of Indians, with canoes, who lived in painted tents called wigwams. And just think, this little compass showed him all the way there, and all the way back again! Perhaps he will take you one day, when you are bigger. Won’t that be fun?”

  “Yes, Aunty Bee! And per’aps I’ll see the Three Bears!”

  “You pet! You’ll find a Goldilocks one day, but she will never never never love you so much as I do!” and Beatrice picked him up and, to his embarrassment, kissed him in a way he had never been kissed before.

  “All gone tears, my pet?”

  “Yes, thank you, Aunty Bee!”

  They went into the house. Phillip went upstairs, and put the compass back where he had found it. Aunty Bee washed his face. He sat next to her at the table, while Mummie sat on the other side with Mavis.

  It was lovely, with nice pink fish and cucumber with yellow sauce, and strawberries and cream.

  When they were leaving, Aunty Viccy gave him the biggest money he had ever seen for his moneybox, a yellow one with a man on a horse killing a dragon, a new one, said Aunty, with the year 1900 underneath. The cab was waiting; he did not want to leave, but hid his face in Aunty Bee’s shirt, and Uncle Hilary laughed and tickled the back of his neck. He cried as they drove away. In the train he was sick, and lost all his strawberries on the floor. Mummy took them into another carriage where he lay down and went to sleep, thinking of Indians and fishing, and clutching the big money, tied in a corner of his handkerchief, in his hand.

  Chapter 16

  DAME SCHOOL

  THERE WAS a dame’s school near the end of Charlotte Road, run by two sisters named Miss Fanny and Miss May Whittaker. To this school one September morning came Hetty, dressed in her Sunday best, holding Phillip by one hand and Mavis by the other. The boy had the fixed anxiety of the unknown in his face. He wore a new suit, which his mother had bought him from the new big shop in the High Street, Rindman’s of the Arcade. She had been saving up all the spring and summer for his first boy’s suit. It had a little jacket with a belt, in the Norfolk style, with knickerbockers buttoning below the knee. She had waited for the end-of-summer sales, when it had been marked down from twelve and eleven three to seven and eleven three. She had tendered four florins in payment, and the farthing change had been given to Phillip. With this coin he purchased an ounce of aniseed balls, which Hetty told him he must not bite with his teeth, in case he broke them. He had already broken a molar trying to crack a brazil nut.

  To make the entry into school easier for the children, Hetty took them first to the end of Charlotte Road, pointing out the house which was St. Catherine’s Kindergarten as they passed, and declaring that it was just the same as any other house. She was going to take the children first to the Bon Bon, a sweet-stuff shop round the corner in the High Road. Hetty hoped that the familiar scene would be reassuring to Sonny, who had hardly spoken since leaving the house. He held her hand tightly.

  The Bon Bon was one of a row of little shops comprising a greengrocer’s, a haberdasher’s, a corn chandler’s, a furniture shop, and Leo the chemist’s, whose front held two big bulbous glass jars containing respectively red and blue liquids. A ha’penny stick of Fry’s chocolate purchased at the Bon Bon and divided between them was to be the reward for being good children.

  Having watched that his sister did not have more chocolate than he received, Phillip walked back past the other shops holding his mother’s hand, while clasping in the other two and a half inches of chocolate bar half an inch thick. If he sucked it slowly, then he would be with Mummy longer. He was frightened of going into the house Mummy had shown him, behind the shut door. Father had told him of how little boys who were not truthful often grew up to be bad men, who were put into prison behind big iron bars. Father had said, “You do not want that to happen to you, do you? Then be a good boy, and do not tell any more fibs.” Cousin Ralph had told him, when he and Jerry and Ralph had galloped over the Hill on their steeds, using their switches to make them gallop, that at school if you didn’t do your lessons properly you had to hold out your hand and swoosh! didn’t the master cut down the cane, and didn’t it hurt. But, said Cousin Ralph, if you get a black horsehair and put it in your hand, when they give you the whack, it will split the cane right up to the top and sting the master’s hand. Also your knuckles were rapped on the lid of a desk, or they copped you one with a round black ruler. In school they gave you lines to write out while the other boys played in the playground after school, and they stood you in the corner if you talked or laughed in the classroom.

  “Come on, Sonny, eat up your chocolate, there’s a good boy,” said Hetty. “Look, Mavis has eaten hers up already.”

  “Father said to suck sweets, not to bite them, Mummy.”

  “Now, Sonny, don’t be merely annoying, dear. Miss Fanny Whittaker will expect us to be punctual. I loved going to school when I was your age, it was the happiest time of my life.”

  Hetty was talking out of her own nervousness. The children had been with her, except for the period of scarlet fever, since they were babies, and she grieved secretly that already they were old enough for school. She felt the coming separation more than she dared admit to herself, and certainly could not reveal to Richard. The old days were already gone, when Sonny, with his curls on his shoulders, would run to her with such keen delight and cry “Ning-a-ning man, Mummy, ning-a-ning man come!” and wait so eagerly for the penny from her purse, to run and give it to Carlo. What had happened to Carlo and his little girl with the tambourine? The monkey had died long ago of pneumonia. One Thursday Carlo had not come; nor the next. No longer was the barrel organ to be seen, hauled up the road in a series of zigzags from curb to curb, Carlo with his rounded bowler hat straining between the shafts, and all for Sonny’s weekly penny; nobody else in Hillside Road had ever given the Italian anything. “Gone! Gone!” Sonny had cried, when the ning-a-ning man had come no more.

  Yes, she would miss Sonny in the house, helping her to dry the spoons and knives and plates after washing up, bringing in the bread from the baker, and opening the door to the tradesmen who called for orders from Randiswell. She would miss, too, his strange and sudden statements. Hetty had recorded some in her leather-bound Log Book, which she had used
for her Diary when she had gone to Canada, nearly ten years before, with Papa to visit Charley learning to farm in Manitoba. She had been looking at the book before she left with the children for the Kindergarten that morning.

  I must be quick and put this bottle’s head (cork) on, it may catch cold.

  How does God put our skins on? Does he sew them on with needle and cotton?

  Do tell Mavis to be quiet, she keeps interrubbering me so.

  Does God keep our skins in a box? He does our toe-nails, because I have seen them.

  After the Epsom visit she had noticed a change in the boy; at times he did not appear to be the little son she had known. She had taught him the elements of writing, he could copy letters and figures in his spidery hand, with pothooks and strokes; but he had actively disliked his lessons. She thought perhaps it was because his brain worked too quickly. He could not sit still or concentrate for more than a few moments. She did so hope he was not going to grow up to be a difficult boy.

  Hetty’s mind was set on getting her son a presentation to Christ’s Hospital, popularly known as the Bluecoat School. She had learned that the Canon of Westminster Abbey, who had a presentation in his gift, was an uncle of Roland Tofield, with whom, before her marriage, she had made friends on the French Riviera at Hyères, and who later had been instrumental in getting Dickie a billet in the Moon Fire Office. She had not spoken to Dickie of this future plan of hers, nor had she ever told him of her part in his appointment, because he was of such a jealous disposition.

  One of Hetty’s secret griefs was that her husband persisted in believing that she cared more for the children than for him. It was not true, but he often behaved, and indeed spoke, as though it was. And now Sonny had got the idea from what his father had once said. She had not written Sonny’s remark in her Log Book, for very shame, and also because, should Dickie see it, he would very likely regard it as confirmation of his thoughts. But Hetty remembered the exact words of Sonny on that occasion.

  “S’posin’ you had to choose between me dying, or Father dying, who would you choose, Mummy?”

  “You should not think, or even say, such things, Sonny. I love your father and my children equally, you see.”

  “But s’posin’ you had to choose, who would you choose? S’posin’ there was a red-hot fire everywhere, who would you save?”

  “I would save you all, Sonny, if I could, with God’s help.”

  “But Mummy, s’posin’ God had set the fire alight, as a trial and tribulation, who would you save first?”

  “I will not answer such a question, Sonny. Of course I love your father just as much as I do my children. Now be a good boy, and polish the fire-irons with emery paper for me, and I will give you two jamjars to take in the basket down to Hern’s and you shall have the penny from them for your money box.”

  If the mother, always so aware of the fleetingness of life and the moment’s impermanence, concealed her sadness that her little ones were partly to be lost to her now they were about to enter another world, there was no such reticence in the demeanour of Phillip. He stared with wide eyes and pale face at the black board on the post with its lettering in gold-leaf.

  ST. CATHERINE’S SCHOOL FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

  WITH KINDERGARTEN

  Miss Frances Whittaker, Honours Diploma,

  University of London,

  Headmistress.

  Miss May Whittaker, L.R.C.M.,

  Assistant Mistress.

  There was a snail stuck on the lower edge of the black board, which had a thin greenish mould growing on it, as had the post.

  The house faced north, with the usual thin hedge of privet rising above the cast-iron railings on top of the wall. Phillip pointed to the thin silver trail, by which the snail had travelled upwards at the end of summer, and exclaimed “Ugh! It’s a snaily old place!”, and nothing would induce him to enter the gate. His mother had to leave him there.

  When Miss Fanny Whittaker came out, a tall, spare woman with grey hair, sad brown eyes, a little beard, and a silver cross on a chain round her neck, to speak kindly to him, Phillip gripped the cast-iron railings and refused to budge. Hetty pleaded with him, but he would not let go his grip.

  Miss May Whittaker came out, while the Headmistress went back into the house to look after the class. Miss May was short, with a round dimpled face, her chin was covered with thinner, softer hairs, and her eyes had a less faraway look in them. She spoke to Phillip, inviting him to have a ride on the rocking horse, Dobbin, inside; but no, he held on to the railings. When his mother said she would have to go away, he began to cry. This made Mavis cry. She hid her face in her mother’s skirts, while Hetty tried to soothe her in vain.

  Appeals to Phillip to set a good example, endearments and promises of reward, exhortations about his manhood by Miss Fanny, coupled with a plea from Hetty for him to be a good boy and think of his little sister, were all unavailing. So Hetty took Mavis in, as there was nothing else to be done.

  Inside the school, Miss Fanny suggested to Hetty that she should pretend to take him home, and see what happened. This, she did; and fifty yards or so up the road he stopped crying, and said, “Why isn’t Mavis coming, Mummy?”

  “Because she is happy with the other little boys and girls, Sonny.”

  “But they will beat her, Mummy.”

  “No dear, of course they won’t. She is going to play with beads, and learn to draw with crayons all sorts of lovely things. Then she will have a nice dinner, and I shall bring her home in time for tea, with dripping toast. And she will learn to play the piano.”

  “But they will hit her, Mummy, I know they will. I saw them hitting other little boys and girls.”

  “You imagined it, Sonny.”

  “They will hit me, I know they will. Ralph said they would.”

  “He has been frightening you, the silly boy. He likes to frighten others, I know. He is very naughty. I have half a mind to tell his mother.”

  A few minutes later, Phillip returned to St. Catherine’s School. Hetty knew by the way he held her hand that it was an ordeal for him, but once started, he went into the house, and sat down beside some other boys of his own age on a bench before a table, and appeared not to mind when she left.

  Paper, pens, inkwells were familiar things, and he could write his name in capital letters on the top of the foolscap like the boy on his left side had done. There was a blackboard and they had to copy figures from it, two rows of them, and then draw a line under them with a thin yellow ruler. Miss Fanny said, “Add them together and write your result below the line. And when you have done that sum, copy the figures again, and subtract the bottom row of figures from the top row, again writing down your answer under a ruled line.”

  Not knowing what Miss Fanny meant, Phillip looked at the next boy’s paper. The boy had written the word EXAMEN on his paper, so Phillip wrote EXAMEN on his. Then he copied the figures from the blackboard, and drew a line with the ruler. But a blob came out of the inkwell on his nib, and before he could stop drawing the line the blob had made it very thick with ink. So he blotted the ink with a piece of blotting paper which already had a lot of upside-down writing on it, and so did not suck up the ink, but squashed it everywhere. He dipped his pen again in the inkwell and a drowned black fly came out. An inspection of its corpse gave him an interest for a while, before he blotted it to see what would happen. It looked so thin then that he put it back in the inkwell, after which he jabbed about with the nib to see if there was anything else interesting inside it. By this time sundry smears had somehow surrounded the sum to be done on the paper. So he returned to the puzzle, finding it instantly insoluble.

  He copied, for his answer, the top row of figures in reverse, under the line. By the same method the subtraction sum was decided by copying the lower row of figures backwards, under the new line he had drawn, bloblessly, with the ruler. It was a nice line, with only a little smudge at one end, like Zippy’s fur when he had had a cold bath.

  Father st
ill had cold baths, so did he, in the mornings. Only he never got in the water, but waggled his hands about, as though splashing, then wetted the towel to make it look as though he had got in, and wetted his feet to make marks on the cork mat.

  After the exam, he learnt that he was in Form Two. This was higher than Mavis, who was in Form I, which was indistinguishable from the kindergarten.

  At the end of the week Phillip was used to going to school in the morning, eating his sandwiches in the other room for dinner with a glass of milk poured out by Miss May, and returning with Mummy and Mavis in the afternoon. He liked school, chiefly because of the play in the back garden. He had learned, among other things, that by holding up his hand, and saying “Please Miss Fanny, may I leave the room”, that he could stay in the lavatory and look at a comic for as much as five minutes before pulling the plug, as though he had done something, before going back again. Nobody could find out, after he had pulled the plug.

  One morning, when he had put up his hand to go to the lavatory, he went round all the pockets of the coats in the cloakroom to find out what was in them. With excitement he found quite a lot of pennies. What a wonderful discovery! He put them all in a glove, and the glove in his pocket; and after waiting in the lavatory to pull the plug, he returned to the classroom, where Miss May was telling how William Rufus was hunting deer and was shot by an arrow and a charcoal burner took him on a sledge in the New Forest in eleven hundred. He was writing down the letters 1100 when Miss Fanny came into the room and spoke to Miss May and by the awful feeling he had in his stomach he knew it was about the pennies. So he thought he would get the glove out of his pocket at once.

  His desk was near the stone slab of the fireplace. The fire was not lit; the stone was clean, its hearth-stoned surface untouched by foot and unsoiled by cinder. Paper, wood, and coal lay within the iron grate, ready for a match on the first cold morning of autumn.