The minute he got back to the Buildings, David started work on his drawing. He was glowing with excitement and inspiration and he couldn’t wait to get started. His exhilaration was infectious. Aunty Dumpling was bubbling with it and his parents were beaming and Aunty Rivke and Uncle Ben and his three grown-up cousins, who’d never seen him draw anything before, were huge-eyed with admiration as they pulled their chairs up to the table to watch him. Aunty Dumpling spread a large sheet of grey sugar paper reverently across the table while he ran to collect his gear, the paintbox he’d bought from the money he’d earned running errands, brushes, pencils, clean rags, eggcup full of water
He worked at speed, before the vision could fade, using three brushes and three colours for the first rapid outline: Prussian blue for the huge pram shape of the landau, with a long mudguard curved over the high back wheel and just the suggestion of a lamp at the front; scarlet lake for the wheels and the shafts and the beginning of the reins, grey for the cream horses; and right in the middle of the paper the first smudgy outline of the old Queen with her white parasol high above her head and her dress spreading out from her shoulders like a bell. He talked as he drew, in short staccato phrases, as quick as his fingers, ‘Skirt – so – no – a bit more on that side, I think, – face – little hat – too much – that’s better.’ And his family watched him, proud and impressed.
‘An artist in the family ve got,’ Uncle Ben declared, hooking his thumbs into his waistcoat pocket and giving his head a little sideways nod of satisfaction.
‘A boy vid talent, don’t I tell you,’ Aunty Dumpling beamed.
‘That’s the ol’ Queen to the life,’ cousin Becky said. ‘How d’yer do it, Davey?’
David neither knew nor cared. It was enough that it could be done and that he was doing it, tumbling his vision onto paper as quickly as he could, scowling with concentration, his face dark with pleasure. When the women went off to the scullery to prepare supper, he worked on, forgetting that they needed the table, racing against the fading light. It took the clunk of a penny into the gas meter, the scraping of matches and the sudden glow of the gas to bring him back to the ordinary world.
‘Ve got a scholar at our table, Emmanuel,’ Aunty Dumpling said, giving her brother’s arm a loving pat.
‘A table is not blessed unless it has fed a scholar,’ Emmanuel said, happily quoting the old proverb. ‘Alvays providing the scholar take time from his vork to eat. Sit down, sit down, all the family. Ve got plenty chairs. Ve got plenty food. Ve even got the table back. Now ve celebrate, nu?’
His long face was creased into its gentle smile, and there was no rebuke in the tone of his words, but David nevertheless suddenly felt ashamed. He’d been so absorbed in his painting he hadn’t given any of them a thought. He’d forgotten about supper and how hungry they must be, and he hadn’t offered to help his mother, and worse than all that he’d kept everybody waiting. ‘I’m sorry, Father,’ he stumbled, his cheeks flushed. ‘I should’ve … I mean, I’d have stopped long ago. I wish you’d said, see.’ He was clearing his things away as he spoke, working awkwardly, wishing he hadn’t been so thoughtless.
‘Vhat a boy!’ Aunty Dumpling said lovingly. ‘Of his family he thinks. In the midst. An edel boy, don’t I tell you!’
At such a very high compliment, David blushed more furiously than ever. Then they were all caught up in the cheerful ritual of the meal, and his embarrassment passed. But twenty-four hours later he was back at the table, brushes in hand, and had again forgotten all about them.
Hymie Levy came back with him every day from school, just to see how it was progressing, and the two boys spread the painted sheets all over the table, arranging the procession in order, remembering and re-savouring.
‘You oughter put this up on old Torrey’s wall,’ Hymie said, when the ninth sheet was finished. ‘It’s ever so good.’ Mr Torrance was gathering a display of work to pin on the main wall of the assembly hall, compositions and samples of handwriting inside a border of newspaper cuttings. He called it ‘our visual celebration’ and made daily appeals at assembly for more contributions.
‘Take up a lot a’ room,’ David said, trying to find reasons against the idea because he liked it so much and it was making him feel so proud.
‘’E wouldn’t mind,’ Hymie said. ‘A wall that size! It could go in the middle. Be a real centrepiece then.’
‘Well …’ David said, picturing his huge painting in the middle of the display, and wanting to see it there more every second. ‘Only if you tell Sir.’ And then, just in case he was appearing too eager, ‘Bet ’e sez no.’
But ‘Sir’, their class teacher, Mr Williams, was very taken with the picture and had it put up immediately, even in its unfinished state. ‘It’s very good, Cheifitz,’ he said. ‘I never knew you had a penchant for Art.’
‘’E draws all the time, sir,’ Hymie said with immense pride. ‘Got a great stack a’ drawin’s at ’ome.’
‘Really?’ Mr Williams said vaguely. ‘A great stack you say? Well, well.’ And he made a mental note that he must tell the headmaster that this Cheifitz lad had talent. ‘When do you think you’ll finish this drawing, Cheifitz? Mr Torrance wants the wall covered by the end of next week.’
‘By Thursday,’ David promised. And by Thursday it was.
On Friday morning the last sheets of sugar paper were trimmed and pinned to the wall and the drawing was complete. It caused a stir. ‘You seen what Cheify’s done? Ain’t ’alf good.’ Groups of boys gathered all day, to inspect and tease and secretly admire, and even the teachers told one another it wasn’t ‘half bad for a nipper’.
But David was miserably and perversely ashamed of it. He’d wanted to capture the emotion he’d felt as the Queen passed by, that glorious uplifting sense of affection and pride and tribal power. And he hadn’t done it. He’d painted a pattern, that was all, and not a particularly good one. The horses were all unreal, their legs stiff and square like toys, and the carriages were too big, and their occupants distorted, and the crowd looked like rows of pink balloons. Oh, it was horrible! He was overwhelmed with shame at how bad it was. And now everybody was looking at it, and everybody knew he’d painted it, and he wished the ground would open up and swallow him from sight.
‘What’s up?’ Hymie said at his elbow.
‘It’s so bad!’ he said, still looking dolefully at his creation, all his splendid pride in it deflated into shame.
But Hymie was too thrilled to recognize his disappointment and thought he was fishing for compliments. ‘It’s a bit of all right, Davey,’ he said, banging his friend between the shoulder blades, ‘an’ that’s a fact.’
But the facts were otherwise, David thought, oblong of fetlock, balloon-faced, grotesque and clumsy and inadequate. His terrible sense of public failure cast a gloom over the rest of the day, and even when school was over and they all went running home ready for Shabbas he felt no lifting of the spirit, not even when the candles were lit and the room grew golden in their haze. He ate the ritual meal, silent under the babble of talk from his Aunt Rivke and his Uncle Ben and his three loud cousins, and on Saturday he dressed in his Shabbas best and went for his usual walk with his parents, dutifully answering their questions, behaving properly, as a Jewish child should. And all the time he was carrying his failure about with him like a great stone in his chest.
Why hadn’t he seen how bad it was when he was painting it? Then he could have hidden it away and altered it later maybe when he felt a bit better about it, instead of parading it in front of everybody on that awful wall. How could he have been so stupid? But he knew the answer to that question and it was a very uncomfortable one. It was because he’d been so full of his own importance, David Cheifitz the artist, wanting praise and applause, feeling special and set apart. It was because he had been proud.
He could have worked that out for himself, even without the Shabbas to point the way. But the reading from the Torah that Shabbas seemed to have been chosen specially for him and he listened to it with a sinking heart, recognizing his faults, and hearing them named. ‘Lord, my heart is not haughty nor mine eyes lofty: neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me.’ Who was he to imagine that he could draw the Jubilee? His prayers stuck in his mind, mere words that wouldn’t rise, and the stone filled his chest, dragging him down and down.
By Monday morning he was quite bleak with shame. And the picture was still there, right in the middle of the wall, awkward and inadequate and exposed. He couldn’t bear to look at it and he certainly didn’t want to talk about it, even though all his friends were full of teasing admiration, and every teacher he met, all through the day, made a point of passing some comment upon it. By the end of the afternoon his shame had become a triple-headed rage, against himself and his stupid pride and his ugly picture. And a plan had formed itself alongside the rage. A dark, hot, angry plan. He would sneak back into the school that night, as soon as it was dark, and tear the wretched thing off the wall and destroy it.
The school always emptied immediately the last bell went, but it was early July and the weather was still warm and the skies still clear, so he had to wait for more than four hours before it was dark enough to return. And even then the sky above the school building was still distinctly blue even though the first pearly stars had risen. He was just about to sneak into the playground when he saw the dark shape of the school keeper outlined against one of the upper windows. Now what? he thought, irritably. Silly old fool! What’s ’e doing, wandering about in the dark? The place should a’ been empty! Now he’d have to wait even longer, hours and hours probably, because he’d never known the school keeper hurry for anything. Nebbish!
So he hung about just outside the gates, scowling with impatience and suppressed anger, while that steady gentleman made his nightly inspection. It was a very long time before the side door finally opened and his shadowy figure emerged to cross the playground and crunch home to his house and his supper.
Heart pounding like a hammer, David ran across the asphalt The cloakroom window was still open, just as he’d left it, and just about wide enough for him to squeeze through. Which he did, feeling adventurous despite his anger and scratching his knees on the sill.
It was surprisingly dark inside and looked unfamiliar with the pegs all as empty as meat hooks on a Monday, and only the faintest flicker of light to show him where the door was. The uncanny absence of sound made his footsteps ring and echo. Daunted by the noise he was making, he took off his boots, tied their laces together and hung them round his neck. Then he tiptoed out of the shadows of the cloakroom into the comparative brightness of the Infants’ hall, where chairs stood in dark rows against the walls and the moon dropped pools of white light onto the polished parquet. It looked strange and enormous, and it made him aware that school was really rather a forbidding place. But there was no turning back now.
Up the stone staircase. Silently, in his stockinged feet. Along the corridor between the classrooms where the enclosed air smelled of sweat and dirty clothes and wax floor polish. Gently through the squeak of the hall doors. And then he could see his target, and his anger rose swift as a flame in a furnace and he ran, forgetting the need for caution, and threw himself at the wall and ripped the first sheet away from its restraining pins and threw it on the floor. Then he stretched for the second, his hands moon-white and eager, and a quiet voice spoke behind him. ‘What are you doing, boy?’
He was startled but he didn’t stop, because he couldn’t. His rage was extreme now, too hot and fierce to be doused by a voice, even though the voice belonged to Mr Torrance, and somewhere in a deeper part of his boiling mind he knew it and knew he should obey it. He tore the second sheet from the wall, shaking with fury, and then a solid body was wedged behind him and iron hands were gripping his wrists and he was being pulled backwards, sobbing and struggling, ‘I ’ave ter do it. I ’ave ter! I can’t bear it!’ And then, somehow or other, his legs were walking in a perfectly reasonable way, and he was in Mr Torrance’s room where the gas was lit and the curtains drawn. The headmaster was lowering him into a chair, as gently as Aunty Dumpling would have done. He began to feel that perhaps he was asleep and dreaming, because nothing felt real any more. His spine was stiff with arrested fury, and his fists were clenched and the scowl was set on his face, but there was nothing in his mind to move him on to the next thought or the next sensation.
‘Now then,’ Mr Torrance said mildly as he walked to his seat behind the desk, fumbling into the sag of his chalk-lined pocket for his pipe and his matches and his tobacco pouch. ‘Let’s have a look at you, young man. You’ve got some explaining to do.’ And then, when David lifted his head and looked straight at him across the desk, ‘Why bless my soul, it’s Cheifitz!’
For a few seconds neither of them could think of anything to say, David because his mind seemed to have turned itself off, Mr Torrance because he was still coping with surprise. Catching a vandal in the act was nothing new in Deal Street, but to discover that this particular vandal was young Cheifitz put such a strain on his credulity it made his head ache. For a start, he quite liked the boy. He always looked clean and well cared for, and that was invariably a good sign. Not well-fed, of course, because none of his pupils could really be considered well-fed, but wholesome at least, and well-formed. Quite a handsome lad, in fact, especially now that he’d lost the babyish look he’d had when he came up from the Infants. Fine brown eyes, quite honest looking, really, and you noticed them more now that his eyebrows were thicker. And then of course a well-defined nose made such a difference to a boy’s face, even when he was scowling. No, he’d always considered young Cheifitz as one of their better boys, and when Mr Williams told him about the painting, he’d really felt quite gratified. And now here he was actually destroying it. What on earth had got into him?
‘You were tearing down your own painting,’ he said, and the word ‘painting’ was quite shrill with disbelief. ‘You were, weren’t you?’
‘Sir,’ David said, using the word in the customary expressionless way, like all boys in the presence of an accusing teacher, even though the scowl was still chiselled between his eyes.
‘I don’t understand it,’ Mr Torrance said, filling his pipe. ‘Your own work.’
‘Sir.’
‘I ought to cane you,’ Mr Torrance said, but his tone was still reassuringly mild. He was packing tobacco into his pipe, comforted and pleased by the rough strands under the ball of his thumb, and the familiar pungency his pressure was releasing. ‘What made you do it?’
‘Weren’t no good,’ David said, wincing and looking across at the teacher as though he was squinting into sunshine.
‘Ah,’ Mr Torrance said, settling his pipe between his teeth and reaching for the matches.
The room was very calm and very quiet, so that the slightest sound became significant and musical. Between them the gaslight was burning in rhythm, throbbing and purring like a cat, and when Mr Torrance scraped his first match and began to draw its fire down through the tobacco, the sharp suck, plop, suck of his breath was like the sound of eggs breaking. To David it was as if they were both suspended in some other world, quite apart from home and school and family and friend. A world without time where emotions didn’t exist.
‘I thought it good,’ Mr Torrance said. ‘Tell me what was wrong with it.’
The scowl dissolved into earnestness. ‘I vant to show vhat ve felt, sir. It vas in my head, so clear. I knew vhat it vas,’ he said, speaking quickly and forgetting to be careful about the way he pronounced the words. ‘It didn’t come out, you see. Not the vay it vas.’
Why, the boy’s an artist, Mr Torrance thought, drawing the smoke into his mouth as David detailed all the deficiencies of his painting. ‘Things rarely come out the way they were,’ he said when the catalogue was finished. ‘You would need to be a very great artist to achieve that. And training of course.’
Smoke columned out of his nose while they both considered this.
‘Would you like to be trained as an artist?’ Mr Torrance said.
In normal circumstances it would have been a question beyond comprehension or consideration. Boys from Deal Street didn’t leave to become artists. Tailors, yes, or cutters, porters, dockers, street sweepers, labourers, burglars, drifters but never artists. But now, in this odd peaceful limbo, David knew at once that that was exactly what he wanted to be.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. ‘I would.’
‘Very well,’ Mr Torrance said, ‘we will start by restoring your painting to its pristine condition. Then you will gather all your drawings together and we will put them in a folio. Then I will see your parents, and if they are agreeable I will enter you for secondary school.’
It was a dream come true.