Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  It was finished at ten minutes after seven. The clock ticked on. Richard sat on the stairs, and read The Daily Trident, waiting for the little lilac spark to leap, like a kiss, between the short steel hour-hand of his clock and the thin brass strip on the rim. At twenty past seven, exactly, the liaison was made: the alarm rang.

  There is no satisfaction like that of creative achievement. Richard went for a walk on the Hill, remaining to see the golden showers, the silver plumes and coloured balls arising from the Sydenham ridge in the first Brock’s Firework Display of the season at the Crystal Palace. Somehow the scene had lost its former glamour; the shrill cries of children sitting on the grass, were infinitely pathetic to his way of thinking. What were they born for, but to whiten with marble greater areas of the ossuaries in London’s yellow clay? Conscious of his extreme loneliness, Richard returned down the broad gully, hearing with some comfort the bells of the wethers in the fold beside the grammar school. Sheep still grazed on the Hill in spring and early summer.

  He was not entirely alone, however: the inside pages of The Daily Trident remained to be read. His newspaper, folded, awaited him upon the inner ledge of the window by the front door, held there by the brass arm of the extension fastening. The arm was never moved, for the window was never opened, to be a temptation to thieves. There the Trident waited for him, beside the clothes brush, companion of the armchair.

  That evening he sat in the front room for a change, and played several discs of the Polyphone. His favourites were Over the Waves, the Radezsky March, the Austrian National Anthem, and the Witches’ Dance from “Macbeth”.

  After his soirée musicale he went down to the sitting-room, and smoked a pipe. While he was reading the Trident he heard, faint and far away, the sounds of a violin. Hugh Turney was playing in the corresponding room next door. Later, when he went into the dewy garden to look for slugs and snails on his new lettuces, Richard heard the remote throb of a harp from the house below, where Mr. Bigge was dreaming that he dwelt in marble halls.

  Richard thought, with a tinge of self-scorn, that once he, too, had had musical ambitions. The violoncello now stood against the brick wall under the sitting-room floor, lowered there through the trap-door in the floor of the lavatory. And there it would lie for ever, so far as he was concerned, a thing of the past.

  He longed for his family to be home again; but as he longed, his heart also was heavy. It would have to remain so, he reflected, until things changed in his home.

  The next evening he set about his third task, that of making the table for the parrot cage. His tool chest and bench were in the workroom next the bathroom; and here he worked during the succeeding nights, happy in his creation. The exercise was beneficial; life glowed in his whole body, revealing his true self in the gentle, kindly expression of the face. He was thinking of the pleasure the parrot would give to the children. There was nothing to disturb him as he cogitated, measured, marked, sawed, gouged, tapped, and fitted. The act of planing seasoned oak brought a pleasant sweat upon the pores of his skin, releasing nicotine and salts which had been burdening the stream of blood within, and thereby his mind.

  When the table was finished he took it out in the garden to rub it with sandpaper before feeding the wood with linseed oil. He stood it near the elm tree, which as a sucker had arisen in four twigs from the ground, and now grew four-boled like two interlocked heads of an Exmoor stag, one trunk higher and straighter than the rest. It was strong enough to support one end of the hammock.

  The wooden fence shutting off Mr. Bigge’s garden was low from the prospect of the upper garden; since all the gardens, and indeed the foundations of the houses, of Hillside Road were made in a series of terraces. Mr. Bigge’s Virginia creeper covered his side of the fence, including the posts and wires of the extension. Behind his lattice of green and ruddy leaves he worked in his garden without being overlooked.

  Josiah Bigge was glazing a small greenhouse at the bottom of his garden. He had recently bought it second-hand from a shop in Randiswell, which had an outside stall covered by a tattered awning. The shop was kept by a gipsy named Nightingale, a sweep by trade and a general dealer of old things, which he collected, and delivered after re-sale, in a shallow drawn by a donkey. Usually his trade was done in the lesser streets of the district.

  Mr. Bigge, as he passed by the shop one day, had stopped to examine a notice on a sooty dog-eared card stuck in the window.

  SMALL

  GLAS SOUSE

  FOR SALE

  AST WITHN

  CHEAP

  Mr. Bigge had asked within, or rather, since he had a dread of fleas, upon the threshold. Mrs. Nightingale, feather-hatted, and clad in purple, green, and black silks, had taken him to the garden of an old wooden cottage, standing at the corner of a new row of brick houses. The weatherboard cottage was to be pulled down, the old couple owning it having died. Already the damson trees had been cut down; they had been the last of their kind to be seen from Randiswell Road.

  Mr. Bigge had bought the glass-house for five shillings, on condition that the sweep took it carefully to pieces, and reerected the frame in his garden for a further half-crown. Mr. Bigge made a further condition of sale. It was not to be delivered in the donkey shallow. Mrs. Nightingale had quite understood; a donkey shallow was not respectable in a high-class road like Hillside. She said that her old man would borrow a coal cart and ’oss, the same cart what took coals up Hillside, and deliver the glas souse on Sa’erday ar’ernoon.

  Politely concurring, with little incipient sucking and bee-like noises coming from his bearded lips, Josiah Bigge, in frock coat and top hat, had gone on his way to his business in the High Street, his eyes shining with thoughts of the potted plants he would grow in his new conservatory. There would be philodendron cordatum, the house vine; sansevieria, the bow-string hemp, called vulgarly mother-in-law’s tongue; tradescantia, the wandering Jew; the rubber plants, ficus decora, and its sister benjamina; cissus rhombifolia, the grape-vine ivy; and best of all, the Lilies—arum, ricardia, and callas.

  The following Saturday afternoon a coal cart had crunched up the flinty surface of Hillside Road, driven by the well-soaped sweep, a clean bandanna round his neck, in his best suit of whipcord, flap pockets to jacket, stove-pipe trousers crenellated from knee to heel. By tea-time the little framework had been erected at the bottom of the garden of “Montrose”; by six o’clock Josiah Bigge, green baize apron round his waist and gardening hat, a varnished straw with turned-down brim, upon his head, was busy with the putty knife. He had beside him, in addition to the boxes of clear glass panes cut to measure, a smaller box in which were a number of blue and red lengths of glass, thin slips of waste from the stained glass windows of the new brick church which had been built in Charlotte Road, on ground that had been allotment holdings for half a century. With these lengths of coloured glass, Mr. Bigge intended to adorn the lower borders of what he called his Plantarium.

  On the higher side of the fence Richard was busy, that Saturday evening, with sandpaper and linseed oil rag. Mrs. Bigge, looking down from the window of an upper room, watched the two men busily at work. Like two boys, she thought approvingly. A hobby kept a hubby out of mischief. Now would it not be a neighbourly thing to invite Mr. Maddison in for a cup of tea or cocoa after his labours? And might it not lead to a more neighbourly relationship? Mr. Maddison was, she considered, a man who kept himself far too much to himself. Every man needed the company of other men at times, to keep him from brooding.

  Mrs. Bigge’s motive did not, she told herself, arise out of mere curiosity, but from consideration for Hetty who, poor little woman, had much to put up with. Had Hetty not told her how she dreaded the nightly games of chess her husband expected of her—games that she could never win, to Mr. Maddison’s exasperation? Josiah, on the other hand, was a good player of chess, one usually forced to play against himself, since he had no one else to play with. Again, Mr. Maddison had a fine tenor voice—she had heard Hetty accompanying him
for The Arab’s Farewell to his Steed—and St. Mary’s Church in the High Street needed new men in the choir.

  Mrs. Bigge had a natural inclination towards benevolence; she tried to make the world a little better than she found it. If the two men could be friends, she was sure it would help matters for Hetty. Josiah needed taking out of himself in some ways; he felt he had missed some things in life. Only the other day Josie was saying he had never learned to fly a kite, and now he feared it might be too late to learn.

  Animated by good intentions, Amelia Bigge arranged her hair in the spotted Chippendale looking-glass standing on her chest of drawers. By the looking-glass stood a Chelsea china ring-stand, a long thin hand-painted porcelain box for hat-pins, her mother’s two vinaigrettes, and a pin-cushion. Having tidied up, Mrs. Bigge went downstairs, and out into the garden to the steps, made of old railway sleepers, under the arch of entwined honeysuckle and yellow ivy, which led down to the path at the end of which her hubby was working, quiet as a solitary bee. Whisperings ensued.

  Josiah’s gentle “Yes my love,” and frequent noddings, indicated that he agreed with everything Amelia suggested. If ever two minds thought as one, they did between this husband and wife. Nevertheless a problem was presented: who was to ask Mr. Maddison in? And what would be the most suitable time to ask him? And should the invitation be spoken directly over the garden fence, thus revealing that they had known he was on the other side of the screen of Virginia creeper? If that were to be done, might it not be an affront to privacy, the purpose for which the creeper was planted in the first place? Perhaps Mr. Maddison would not like to be addressed in that manner? Would it be more fitting to write him a little note, and slip it through the letter box? And supposing, my love, that Mr. Maddison does not really want to know us? Yes yes, yes yes, we must not be too precipitant.

  Four years before, when Mr. Maddison’s little wife had had scarlet fever, Mr. Maddison had shown a distinct friendly side, and Mrs. Bigge had spontaneously been able to suggest to Mr. Maddison that she would be only too pleased to hand him two meals a day over the garden fence; but since that time, Mr. Maddison had gradually closed up, and there had been nothing beyond a bow, a “How d’you do” and the weather.

  The whispering and bee-sipping noises ended in Amelia Bigge’s plan to wait by the fence up above, by the back door of the conservatory, and from there to pop up, or rather out, and, as Mr. Maddison was walking up with his table to the open french windows, she would invite him in.

  There she waited, and thence she popped a few minutes later. Richard bowed, and agreed that it was a fine evening, before modestly qualifying Mrs. Bigge’s remark that he had made a very nice table.

  “Oh, it will be sufficient for the purpose, Mrs. Bigge.”

  Mrs. Bigge restrained herself from asking what was the purpose; instead she said, “I have some cocoa on the stove to heat, Mr. Maddison, and Josiah and I were wondering if you would care to come in and have a cup with us, and perhaps a game of chess with my husband afterwards, or are you too busy?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bigge, I shall be delighted to come. I will just wash my hands, and shall be ready in say, ten minutes, if that is convenient?”

  “That will do very nicely, Mr. Maddison!”

  Richard was feeling content with life. He had made his table without committing a single mistake, and the wastage of wood had been of the minimum. The sawdust had been carefully swept up and put in a paper bag, for use on the bottom of the cage when the parrot should arrive. He put his tools back in the chest, after smearing the steel parts with a thin film of oil to preserve them against rust. He was pleased that he had done what he had planned to do. The varnished steel-engravings on the wall above the stairs had settled down against the varnished wallpaper; old and new together giving a feeling which each, by themselves, had lacked before. His patent electric clock alarum operated without fault.

  He had been up in the attic earlier that evening, carrying a candle; he had thought to unpack the bull’s-eye lantern from its place in the Japanned uniform case, but his hands had been dusty from his work, and he had not wanted to spoil the uniform within. This, since Richard had come to know his dead father through his journals, had become almost sacred to him. He now had a sympathy denied to him during his father’s life. He realised now, through his own experience of being married, that his father had had quite a lot to put up with from a wife who had not really been able to share his life, but had thought only of the children. Why, if his own Mother had not shown such a preference for himself, had not wanted to shelter him so obviously from Father, he might have been able to give Father the affection he needed!

  This change of view, or emotion, had affected other earlier feelings. Nowadays Richard, seeing himself as hopelessly middle-aged and done for in life—he would be forty in two years’ time—often felt himself critical of his mother. Her presence in his mind was a dissolving figment, somewhere near Hetty.

  The visit to No. 10 was at first pleasant to Richard. Everything in the room looked new and alive to him, after the energetic use of his body in the polishing of the table. He thought that Mrs. Bigge’s daughter was a jolly young woman, and when it was suggested that he should sing a song—“You have such a nice voice, you know, Mr. Maddison”—he returned with alacrity, after only the least protest, back to his house to get the sheet-music from on top of the piano in the front room. An impulse to carry in the Polyphone as well came upon him; he hesitated between the wish and the thought that they might consider him to be taking advantage of their kindness. Besides, the weight of the thing, together with the steel discs, was too much to carry. Anyway, he must not stay long, as tonight there was an evening newspaper, The Pall Mall Gazette, to be read as well as the Trident, before going to bed.

  As on previous occasions, the Arab said farewell to his Steed in a wave-like series of throaty tenor sounds, to the piano accompaniment of Miss Bigge’s licenciate (Royal College of Music) playing. The Steed in Richard’s mind was not wholly equine; it was a mixture of horse, old Starley Rover, and new, magnificent, all-black, gold-lined Sunbeam with Little Oil Bath, which he had admired and desired at the Stanley Cycle Show in the Agricultural Hall of Islington the previous November. He had half a mind to buy one next year. It would last a lifetime. Farewell to the Starley Rover!

  Afterwards, Mr. and Mrs. Bigge sang their favourite duet, O that we two were Maying, by Gounod. They stood behind their daughter, the Long and the Short of it, thought Richard. He did not know the feeling that they felt to flow between them, as it had flowed steadily, almost sedately in its own assurance, since the first meeting at the Band of Hope garden party in St. Mary’s vicarage grounds in the golden days of the Rev. the Hon. Legge, who had been the first to congratulate Josiah Bigge and Amelia Tidy on their betrothal.

  After the singing, Norah Bigge played The Lost Chord, followed by her best test-piece, Chopin’s Polonaise Militaire, concluding, as was suitable on Saturday night, on a quieter note, Beethoven’s Farewell to the Piano.

  As the lid was quietly closed Mrs. Bigge beamed with pride at her accomplished daughter, remarking that the world would be a happier place if all children could learn the pianoforte when they were young. This remark put Richard on his guard, lest it lead to a more direct suggestion in regard to Phillip and Mavis.

  But nothing of that nature was to follow. Chess was suggested, and the well-brought-up Miss Bigge murmured about some letters to be written, as an excuse to retire to her own room. The chess-board was set out, and Mrs. Bigge prepared to follow her daughter upstairs, with a more direct “I’ll leave the gentlemen to their game now, and may the best man win!” At the door she said,

  “I do hope that Mrs. Maddison and the children are well, Mr. Maddison, and enjoying themselves? Oh dear, I quite forgot to enquire before. How are the little dears?”

  Richard replied that Hetty was well, and had written that they were enjoying themselves.

  “That’s right! They will be coming back soon, I expect
.”

  “Yes,” said Richard, “they are to return at the end of next week.”

  “The country air will do them all so much good, Mr. Maddison. I was telling my hubby here the other day, that I thought at first they were off to Scotland, little Phil wearing that old deerstalker hat,” went on Mrs. Bigge, happily. “He was so excited at the prospect of getting a bat to stuff, for his museum, he said. He looked rather like a bat himself, his little face over the fence, with those big flaps tied over the crown of the hat.”

  Then observing Mr. Maddison’s face, she realised that perhaps Phillip had taken the hat without his father knowing anything about it; and with a discreet loud cough she left the room, to hurry upstairs to Norah and confide in her daughter the fears that possessed her.

  Mr. Bigge won the game easily. Soon afterwards, having thanked Mrs. Bigge for a most pleasant evening, Richard left the house and returned to his own. He locked the music of his song in his desk in the sitting-room, feeling that he wanted never to sing it again. Then he climbed through the trap-door in the bathroom ceiling and, finding that neither the hat nor the lantern were in the uniform trunk, his face became set in a reserve of suffering, that he could never, never, never trust anyone in his family.

  Chapter 22

  RICHARD’S RIDE

  ON THE following Monday Hilary Maddison arrived before the sign of the silver moon hanging over the doorway in Haybundle Street and, entering through the massive mahagony double swing doors, found himself in the Town Department, with its long mahogany desk curving round the corner. He saw Richard immediately, working with others at a long double desk with its ground-glass screen between the two rows of writing figures.