To reach the Greengate district in Salford, Billy and his mam had to cross Cheetham Hill Road and pass by the terrifying towers of Strangeways Prison with its massive twenty-foot walls.
‘Our Jim said this is where they hung that fella for cutting up his missus and her maid,’ said Billy.
‘He’s not the only one that’s been hanged here. Not by a long chalk.’
‘I hope his ghost isn’t still hanging about,’ Billy said with an involuntary shudder. ‘I don’t think we should hang about neither. Come on. Mam, let’s hurry up!’
Over Great Ducie Street and past the assize courts they walked, passing street after street and row after row of shoddy back-to-back houses - every one the same - criss-crossed by a pattern of foul-smelling back entries and mean, squalid little courts. There were no green fields in Greengate, not even blue skies - a permanent half-fog drifted over the place. The smoking, huddled houses were dominated on all sides by dark, gloomy factories - notably the Greengate Rubber Works - and the services which attended them: the goods depots and the gasometers. The viaducts interweaved with the railway lines and with
the canals below, and here and there they passed a church or a Methodist chapel, whilst at every street corner there was the inevitable dingy little pub.
At last they reached Cable Street, where Auntie Cissie and her brood resided. At number 11, they found the front door already wide open, so Mam called down the lobby.
‘Cissie! Are y’in? It’s Kate! I’ve come to see you!’
The voice which responded was so strident, so piercing, it could have shattered glass or bent steel.
‘Chuck thy cap in, Kate, and come inside!’ Auntie Cissie screeched. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered!’
Reassured by this warm welcome, Billy and Mam went down the lobby and into the living room. Cissie was an extraordinarily thin, scrawny woman. It was difficult to understand how such a loud, shrieking sound could have emanated from such a bony frame. She was about forty- five years of age and obviously overjoyed to see her sister, for she clasped her in a long, affectionate embrace. Then she turned her attention to Billy and said:
‘Hasn’t he got big? I’m sure he’s grown another foot since I last seen ’im.’
Billy looked down at his shoes.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Still got only two.’
‘I can see we’ve got a bloody comic in the family and all,’ she said. ‘Anyroad, I won’t kiss him, ’cos I know little lads don’t like to be kissed.’
Billy was truly grateful for this omission, especially as Cissie’s three young daughters - Rose, Violet and Iris - were busy sniggering at something. He saw that they were pointing in the direction of his genitals from the corner of the room where they had been engaged in dishing out tea to their numerous dolls. Their dog, Scamp, appeared to be part of the conspiracy as it began nuzzling his crotch.
Seated by the fireside was Uncle Ernie, Cissie’s husband - a morose, grumpy-looking individual who was engrossed in raking, poking and rearranging the coal on the fire. Billy could have given him a few pointers. Ernie acknowledged their presence and existence with a typical Lancashire greeting which was brief, economical and to the point.
‘ ’Ow do,’ he said, and spat a great wet gozzler into the fire.
‘You’ll put t’bloody fire out doing that!’ Auntie Cissie squawked.
Mam and Auntie Cissie retired to the kitchen for a private, sisterly chinwag, and Billy, not wishing to be left alone with the taciturn, expectorating Ernie, the giggling girls and the perverted dog, followed them.
He didn’t understand much of their whispered conversation and confidences but he caught intermittent snatches:
‘We’ve had some right times, you and me, Kate, since we was in service together.’
‘We have and all, Cissie. A few heartaches and a few laughs.’
‘That’s all life is, isn’t it? But how’s Tommy treating you, Kate?’
‘Mustn’t grumble, Cissie. He doesn’t ask for it much, if y’know what I mean. He’s earning good money in the market, gives me thirty-five bob a week - so it’s not so bad. We manage. We keep our heads above water. I even bought a new three-piece t’other day at the Co-op. What about Ernie in there?’
‘He’s all right. A bit of a miserable bugger but, like Tommy, he’s not alius wanting to have it off like some men do. He gets good money at the rubber works but he doesn’t half stink when he comes in at night! But
never mind him. How’s your Flo and Polly getting on nowadays?’
‘Not so bad, Cissie. Our Polly’s walking out with a very nice young man - well-off and a very posh talker. But I hope she settles down soon, ’cos she’s a bit of an awkward bugger. Our Flo’s lovely, but no prospects as yet. There’s plenty of time, though; she’s only twenty-four. She might as well enjoy herself while she’s still young - that’s what I say.’
‘You’re right there, Kate.’
Cissie adopted a conspiratorial tone and whispered:
‘Eh, whatever happened to that there Bridget Sharpies who lives in your street - the one who. . .’
She glanced over in Billy’s direction, but he was absorbed in a copy of the News of the World which had been left lying on the kitchen table. He was reading the various headlines: Sex-crazed choirmaster tells his story;‘They tempted me,’ claims vicar; Climbed into nudist colony - lost his trousers.
‘. . . the one who, you know, had that illegible baby?’ said Auntie Cissie, trying in vain to keep her voice down.
‘That wasn’t her first, you know,’ Mam whispered. ‘She’d had another one by another fella, about three year ago.’
‘Tut-tut-tut. Get away. Just goes to show, a slice off a cut cake is never missed, eh?’
‘You’re right there, Cissie. They say you don’t open t’oven door for just one loaf.’
‘You’d think a girl like her would have used one of them contraspective things.’
‘Aye. But I’ve heard that they put a hole in ’em every so often to keep the population up.’
‘Tut-tut-tut. It’s this here bloody Baldwin gover’ment. You can’t trust the higher-ups, can you?’
‘It’s alius been the same, Cissie. They’re all in a click and they’re all twisters.’
‘And what about your Billy, there? They say he’s the brains of the family, eh?’
‘Eeh, I tell you, our Cissie - he comes out with some things for his age. I get that worried, I do. I’m sure his brain’s gonna burst one day!’
‘You want to be careful there, Kate. You want to make sure that all the goodness of his body doesn’t go into his head, ’cos then it can come out in his hair, specially if it’s too long like it is now. You should alius make sure he gets a good haircut or y’might find his body goes weak and then he’d get poorly very easy.That’d be my advice t’you.’
‘I think you’re right there, Cissie. I’ll have him at the barber’s tomorrow. Anyway, I think we’d better be off now. We’ve got two more visits to make - to me mother’s and to our Eddy’s.’
‘Eddy’s!’ said Cissie. ‘You’ll find they’ve got problems there all right. Mona’ll tell ya. I won’t keep you, but it’s been right nice seeing you - just like old times.’
As they made their way down the lobby, Mam called out, ‘Ta-rah, girls! Ta-rah, Ernie!’
When they reached the front door, Auntie Cissie shoved a shilling into Billy’s hand, and in his mind’s eye, his yacht hove into view.
Grandma McGuinness lived in a little two-up, two-down in Viaduct Street, opposite the railway goods yard. Mam knocked on her door and a voice in the house croaked:
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Kate, Mam. I’ve come to see how you’re getting on,’ Mam shouted through the letter box.
‘Hang on! I’m coming,’ Grandma said.
The door was eventually opened by an old lady who
was swathed completely from head to foot in black, with a simple cameo brooch at her neck; she was the image of the old Queen Victoria in mourning for her beloved Albert. They returned to the sitting room where Grandma sat down heavily in her rocking chair and returned her attention to the glass of stout she had been nursing.
‘Take your coats off, and if y’want a cuppa tea, Kate, y’know where the stuff is. And bring this lad here that there bit o’ roast beef left over from me dinner. He looks to me as if he needs feeding up. Why, he’s just a bag o’ bones.’
‘S’all right, Mam,’ Kate bawled in Gran’s earhole. ‘We’ve only just finished our dinner and we’ll not take our coats off ’cos we can’t stop. We’re going over to our Eddy’s.’
‘I don’t know why y’bother coming if y’can’t stop. But bring that bloody bit o’ beef for this here lad anyroad and stop arguifying.’
Billy was presented with a large piece of beef covered in fat and gristle. His stomach heaved.
‘Get that down you and shurrup,’ his gran said. ‘And as for you, our Kate, you spoil yer kids, y’do. They won’t eat this and they won’t eat that. Not like our Hetty’s kids - they’ll eat anything.’
Billy looked round frantically for some way out of the impasse, searching for, as Jim would have put it, an opening. Mam pointed to a boat-shaped teapot on the mantelpiece.
‘I notice you’ve still got your Coalport teapot, Mam.’
Grandma’s gaze was momentarily diverted towards her most valuable possession, which had pride of place amongst all the ornaments. Billy seized his chance and, with the speed of a Joe Louis, thrust the fatty beef into
her aspidistra plant-pot. Jim would have been proud of him.
‘That’s proper porcelain is that, Kate, and it’s stopping where it is. As you well know, it belonged to me grandmother, Mary Molly McGinty, and it was given to her by her father, Sean McGinty, as a wedding present in Dublin in 1815.’
‘Have you ever had tea in it. Gran?’ asked Billy.
‘I have not, young man,’ she answered haughtily. ‘It’s a family heirloom is that and not for drinking tea out of. When I’m kicking up daisies, Kate, it’ll come to you as me eldest daughter.’
‘I’m sure I’ll take care of it as you’ve done. But don’t talk like that, Mam. That day’s a long way off, I’m sure,’ Kate said. ‘Anyroad, we just come over to see if you’re all right and if there’s anything you want.’
‘That’s right; you just leave me ’ere. I dare say I won’t be troubling you all that much longer. And there’s nothing I want. I can look after meself. I like to be independent, I do. But tell our Eddy when y’see him that I’m very upset with him. I don’t like the way he’s knocking and bashing Mona about. If he can’t behave himself and start looking after her, ’e needn’t bother coming to me funeral. I don’t want him there weeping over me coffin. Just tell him from me to think on. Oh, aye, and tell him I’m running out o’ stout and to get me a drop in when he goes to the boozer tonight.’
Mam washed up a few dishes for Gran, including the one which had borne the vanished beef. Billy’s brothers, when faced with dollops of Gran’s inedible blubbery beef, had opted for the same solution. One day, somebody would clean out that plant-pot and discover a new species of meat-bearing aspidistra which shed steak instead of leaves.
Eddy, who lived appropriately - by either accident or design - in Brewery Street, facing Boddington’s, was a rough diamond and a bully of the first order. All his life he had worked at tough jobs - as railway carter, market porter, slaughterman and meat packer. For Billy, however, his most remarkable feature was his right hand, which was missing a couple of fingers severed at the top joint some time previously in mysterious industrial accidents. He constantly bullied and badgered his wife, Mona, for her inability to provide him with offspring, with the result that she had developed not only a nervous tic but a high- pitched, plaintive whine.
Mam knocked on Eddy’s door.
‘Anybody in? It’s Kate come to see you!’
The door was opened by Mona, a short, dark-haired woman on whose face was etched a permanent expression of anguish and apprehension, as if she was expecting to be struck a blow at any moment. Grimacing a painful smile, she said sorrowfully:
‘Come in, Kate. It’s so good t’see a friendly face again. Eddy’s out at the moment - at the boozer as usual. I think he must have hollow legs; I don’t know where he puts it all, I don’t.’
‘How do, Mona,’ replied Mam. ‘How are things with you?’
‘Not so good, Kate. Not so good. It’s your Eddy. He’s all right when ’e’s sober - he can be charming - but he’s terrible when he’s had a drop.’
‘Why, has ’e been knocking you about again?’
‘He has that, Kate. Something terrible,’ she whimpered. ‘Only yesterday he come in and . . . Hey up! He’s here!’ Mona cringed visibly. ‘I better get his dinner out of the oven,’ she wailed.
Eddy appeared obviously the worse for drink. He was
swaying and his eyes were bloodshot.
‘How do, our Kate/ he said drunkenly. ‘What’s this bleeding woman been saying about me? Where’s me bleeding dinner, you? Yer bleeding useless get!’
‘Here’s your dinner, Eddy. It’s a bit dried up now from being in t’oven so long,’ Mona stammered, placing his meal on the table.
‘I’ll show you what I think of yer bleeding dried-up dinner,’ he bawled. Taking the plate, he flung it against the wall. The plate shattered into a thousand pieces and the amorphous mess slithered slowly down the wall.
‘Oh, Kate,’ Mona sobbed. ‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’
‘Go on, cry, you stupid bitch, cry! You’ll piss less,’ Eddy snarled.
It was time for Mam to act.
‘Look you, you drunken pig!’ she bawled at him. ‘I won’t have you using that dirty language in front of our Billy here. I’m ashamed of you as a brother. Now get to bed!’
Through his alcoholic haze, Eddy noticed for the first time that Billy was indeed in the room, witnessing his drunken, barbaric behaviour. Eddy nodded stupidly at his older sister and mumbled:
‘Sorry, our Kate. I didn’t see him there. I’ll get meself off to bed. But she's no bloody use to nobody. Neither use nor ornament.’
Eddy stumbled off to bed, almost falling on his face as he went through the bedroom door. The three of them were left alone. Mona and Mam began cleaning the dinner from the wall.
‘It’s not my fault that I can’t have kids, Kate,’ wailed Mona. ‘He’s no right to treat me like this.’
‘He’ll be back to his charming self when he’s slept it
off/ said Mam. ‘But I wouldn’t stand for it no more. You can either set the cruelty man on to him or you can leave home. If it were me, I’d leave.’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Mona.
‘Well, Mona, I’ve got to be getting back to make the master’s tea. But think on what I’ve told you.’
On the way back, Mam said to Billy:
‘You know, your father’s not so bad really. You see, it’s his work; they’re a rough lot in the market and they all drink. He could be a lot worse!’
Mam turned the key in her own door.
‘Eeh, I’m right glad to get back to civilisation!’
Billy fully agreed with her, for after that to-do at Uncle Eddy’s, his own home and his own family really did seem like civilisation.
In the scullery, they found that Dad had already half- prepared the high tea which they had on Sunday nights: a magnificent salad - as befitted a Smithfield Market worker - consisting of lettuce, spring onions, tomatoes, radish, cucumber and beetroot, with a wide choice of condiments like pickles, piccalilli and chutney, plus, of course, the obligatory mayonnaise. In addition there was usually boiled ham or corned beef, but this Sunday, seeing there was a guest, there was a delicious middle-cut of West’s red salmon - though it was for the adults only. To mark Sunday as something extra special, the bread was sliced diagonally into thin triangles instead of the customary weekday rectangles.
It wasn’t long before young Sam and Les - prompted, no doubt, by healthy appetites - came in looking for food.
‘The only time we see you two,’ Mam said, ‘is when you’re hungry. I’m not kidding. You use this house like a Blackpool boarding house. What do you get up to in
that Honeypot Street gang of yours?’
‘We’re collecting wood for Bonfire Night,’ replied Les.
‘Glory be t’God! Not already! It’s three months off!’
‘Aye. But we’re gonna have a bigger blaze than Derby Street this year,’ said Sam.
Shortly after that, Jim returned from his romantic boating expedition, and a little later Steve and Polly arrived looking as if they’d just flown in from Australia.
‘Hello, Steve,’ said Billy. ‘When are you going to give me a ride on that motorbike of yours?’
‘We’ll see,’ replied Steve. ‘One of these days. I don’t know when. But we’ll see.’
That seemed pretty vague to Billy and so he didn’t pursue it. He’d only been trying it on, anyway.
‘Good evening, Mr Keenan. . . Steve,’ said Mam, in her posh voice. ‘Would you care for a little swill?’
‘A swill, Mrs Hopkins? Sorry, I don’t. . .’ Steve said, glancing anxiously towards the table, which had been set out for tea, then quizzically towards Polly for a translation.
‘You know, a wash, like.To freshen up,’ explained Polly.
‘Oh, that would be lovely, Mrs Hopkins,’ said Steve, looking distinctly relieved. ‘Is it upstairs?’
‘No,’ replied Polly apologetically. ‘You have to use the slopstone in the scullery. Sorry.’
‘No problems,’ said Steve. ‘That’s fine.’
The great man went into the scullery for a swill and then joined the family at the table.
‘Why can’t we have salmon?’ complained Sam.
‘Because! That’s why!’ replied Mam. ‘Eat what you’re given and shurrup!’
‘What d’you do for a living, Steve?’ asked Dad as he made a large butty of salad and salmon - much to the embarrassment of Polly, who had raised her eyes to heaven in supplication.
‘I’m an engineer at Avro Ansons, Mr Hopkins. We make aeroplanes/ answered Steve modestly.
Billy had always suspected that Steve had something to do with the aviation business.
‘That’s very useful/ said Mam.
‘It will be if there’s a war/ said Jim.
‘I don’t think there’s going to be no war/ said Polly. ‘Not according to that Hitler in Germany.’
‘There’ll be a war all right/ said Dad as he poured his tea into his saucer, blew on it and slurped it noisily. ‘Mark my words! I wouldn’t trust that bloody goose-stepping Hitler fella as far as I could throw him.’
‘I’ll get the dessert/ said Polly, now looking pale and drawn.
The Sunday dessert was usually pineapple chunks, but today, in honour of the important guest, there was tinned peaches and cream as well, but once again, for adults only.
‘Why can’t we have peaches too?’ asked Sam, always the disgruntled one and a bit of a socialist to boot.
‘You be happy with them chunks/ said Mam. ‘A family in Africa’d be glad o’ them.’
‘But that’s where they come from!’ said Sam.
‘Will you stop being so obstroculous/ Mam said. ‘And while we’re about it, let’s change the subject as well/ she continued. ‘All that miserable talk about war! Have you visited a picture house lately, Steve?’
‘No, Mrs Hopkins. Not lately. I’m waiting for the picture house to visit me. It will one day.’
‘How d’you mean?’ asked Jim.
‘The BBC have started transmitting the first talking pictures/ said Steve, ‘on something called television.’
‘Get away/ said Jim. ‘Never. S’not possible.’
‘Oh, it is/ replied Steve. ‘The first broadcast covered
OUR KID
only a distance of ten miles from Alexandra Palace to Olympia, but it worked, though we’re told in the paper that the announcer, Leslie Mitchell, looked as if he had two black eyes.’
‘Isn’t it marvellous what they can do nowadays? What will they think of next?’ said Mam. ‘Pictures in your own home. But I don’t think I want one of them big screens and one of them projectiles in our front room.’
‘You won’t have to,’ said Steve. ‘Your set will be no bigger than that wireless there.’
Up to this point. Dad hadn’t said a word, because he didn’t understand the concept of television. He was also busy removing a piece of tomato skin from his upper denture, which he had taken out of his mouth to facilitate the operation. Polly had turned a funny colour. But now, when he had cleared the irritation, Dad felt it was time to deliver his opinion.
‘It’ll never work,’ he said. ‘Not in a month o’ Sundays!’
Billy was sure he was right. Dad always was.
After tea, the family formed the usual big half-circle round the hearth, with Dad in the big chair near the wireless where he could operate the controls. In deathly silence, they listened to the news, which was all about Adolf Hitler recognising Mussolini’s occupation of Abyssinia, King Edward opening a memorial on Vimy Ridge and England winning the Davis Cup.
‘There’s nowt else on,’ Dad said. ‘Not on a Sunday night. Nowt but religion! And that Mr Middleton and his bloody garden!’
If Dad said there was nowt on, there was nowt on. For when it came to judging wireless programmes, there was none better. Performers were either ‘in’ or ‘out’. If somebody was awarded the accolade of a thumbs-up,
he’d say: ‘He’s a good ’un!’ or, alternatively, ‘He’s a good turn!’ But if the thumb was turned south, he’d mutter, ‘Bloody rubbish!’ or ‘Should be shot!’ Henry Hall, Grade Fields, George Formby, Arthur Tracy and Robb Wilton were all ‘in’, but Vic Oliver, Jack Warner, Harry Roy and, most especially, the languid, public-school Western Brothers with their ‘Keep it up, chaps! Keep it up!’ were definitely ‘out’.
Dad switched the wireless off and the family was allowed to make conversation. Billy was the first to seize the opportunity.
‘I met David Priestley today and he wants me to go on the altar with him.’
‘Oh, aye,’ Mam said. ‘That’ll be nice, but it means you’ll have to get up early every morning.’
‘That’s all right. He also said he’d passed his scholarship and was leaving St Chad’s to go to another school called Damian College.’
‘That’s a very good school,’ said Steve. ‘He must be a clever lad.’
‘Oh, he is and all,’ said Mam. ‘I was talking to his mam after church this morning and she says he wants to be a priest.’
‘D’y’ever fancy going to a higher school, our Billy?’ asked Polly.
Dad responded for him.
‘No, that’s not for the likes of us. I believe in doing right by the lads and getting a good trade in their hands.’
‘You mean like yours,’ asked Kate contemptuously.
‘No, not like mine. I never had a chance. But I’ll tell you this, Kate - I’ve worked hard all me life and can look anyone in the face.’
‘And look what you’ve got to show for it,’ Mam snapped back. ‘Nowt! If our Billy’s got brains, he should get the
OUR KID
chance to make something of himself.’
‘Book-learning never did nobody no good,’ replied Dad. ‘Are they any happier, these bloody clever dicks, with their heads full of nowt but theories?’
‘Education can lead to a better-paid job,’ said Steve. ‘Besides that, you know what they say: “Don’t hide your talent under a bushel.” ’
‘I don’t want none o’ my kids getting above themselves, being lah-de-dah and giving themselves airs and all that. A good apprenticeship at the Wallworks is worth more than all that book rubbish they learn ’em at them stuck- up schools.’
‘That’s what I want to do,’ said Sam, chipping in. ‘Billy’s not the only one in this house with brains, y’know. But I want to start earning good money, not waste me time at one of them daft schools.’
‘Me and all,’ added Les.
‘Y’see, Steve,’ went on Dad, ‘I want me kids to be nice, friendly people who can get on with others and not to be thinking about money all the time.’
‘I agree with you. Dad,’ said Polly, looking pointedly at Steve. ‘I don’t think it’s right to try and alter people. You’ve got to take people as you find ’em.’
‘Money isn’t everything, I know,’ conceded Steve. ‘But just the same, the very top jobs, the interesting jobs, the well-paid jobs go to those who are well educated.’
‘I think the big pay,’ said Jim, ‘the really big pay, goes to those at the very top of the tree, like our champion boxers - Jock McAvoy, Benny Lynch, Eddie Phillips. But I don’t know what we’re arguing about here, ’cos Billy’s only eight and it’s at least another three years before he can even think about scholarships and all that. A lot can happen in three years.’
How right he was!
★ ★ ★
The family discussion broke up when Dad said:
‘I think I’ll just slip out to Capper’s for an hour and a game o’ crib.’
‘I thought you’d stopped drinking,’ said Mam.
‘Just a quick one,’ said Dad. ‘I won’t be late as I’ve got to be up early again tomorrow.’
He went into his getting-ready-for-Capper’s routine - a performance which the family always watched with fascination.
He went to the slopstone and soused thoroughly, snorting and snuffling and splashing water in all directions like an elephant. Next came the ritual dressing. He rolled up a brown silk scarf into a long sausage, put it round his neck, crossed it in front and secured the ends in his braces. He did not wear a tie. That was for Saturdays. Instead, he closed the top of his striped woollen shirt with a collar stud. On with his jacket, and then the final touch. He warmed his cap at the fire and placed it carefully on his head. Grooming completed, he went out. There was always a sense of relief when he left.
Jim also went out - in his case to some unknown destination, probably more games of pitch-and-toss, since it did not get dark at this time of year until after ten o’clock.
With Jim gone, things went dead for Billy.
‘I want to go to the pictures, Mam,’ he announced.
‘ “I want” doesn’t get,’ replied Mam automatically. ‘Besides, it’s Sunday and there are no pictures, except maybe Jewish ones.’
‘Then I wanna go to the Jewish pictures,’ he whined.
‘They’re in Yiddish, so you won’t understand ’em.’
‘It don’t matter. I WANNA GO!’
Steve picked Billy up and hung him by his braces on
the coat hook on the living-room door.
‘I suppose you think you look like Christ on the cross/ said Sam.
‘Why have y’put me up here, Steve? Come on, don’t keep me in suspense!’
‘Right,’ said Steve. ‘You’re up there for being cheeky to your mother. What’s the fourth commandment?’
‘Honour thy father and thy mother.’
‘OK, remember that, and also that the most important people in the world for you are your mother and father and your family. Always show respect to them and you won’t come to any harm. With your brains and your talent, you could get to the top one day, but you won’t get anywhere if you give cheek. Got it?’
‘Oh, no! Not another sermon! That’s the third I’ve had today. From up here, I feel as if it’s me as should be giving the sermon,’ said Billy, laughing. ‘Come on, Steve, let me down!’
‘Only if you promise to behave yourself.’
‘OK, OK,’ replied Billy. ‘I promise to behave if you promise to take me for a ride on your motorbike!’
‘This brother of yours is a real wheeler-dealer,’ said Steve to Polly. ‘OK, Little Lord Fauntleroy. It’s a deal! But we leave the date open.’
Steve took him down.
‘He’s learned all this bargaining and making deals,’ said Mam, ‘working amongst the Jewish people on Sat’day morning. Maybe he should go into business.’
There was an hour before bedtime, and the three younger lads settled down to scanning their comics avidly, as if they might find the answer to the riddle of the universe in one of them. The Rover , the Hotspur , the Skipper and the Adventure were passed around from hand to hand whilst Mam turned her attention to the ‘Bullets’
competition in John Bull - not that she’d ever won anything. Steve and Polly retired to the front room for a bit of courting.
Around ten o’clock, the three young lads were given their marching orders, and together they trooped out. Before going up the stairs, they paused outside the front room to eavesdrop on the courting couple, making mock kissing and hugging gestures as they did so. Through the door, though, they could hear Steve and Polly talking earnestly, and, judging from the sound of it, there was an almighty row brewing.
‘You’ve got to live and let live, Steve. You can’t change human nature,’ Polly was saying angrily. ‘You’ve got to remember that it takes all sorts to make a world.’
‘I’m not trying to change you. I’m just saying that everybody can improve themselves - me included.’
‘Yes, you may have opinions about that, but you’re always pushing ’em down people’s throats - like y’did with me dad tonight.’
‘I did nothing of the sort. We were having a friendly discussion, that’s all.’
‘I think you look down on us, y’know. The way me dad eats, the way I speak and the way we live. You’re always correcting me! I think you just turn your nose up at other people. And another thing. I didn’t like the way you hung our Billy up on that door tonight.’
‘It was just a bit of fun, that’s all. I think you’re just talking rubbish.’
‘Oh, rubbish, is it. . .’
The three lads fled up the stairs as it suddenly sounded as if the lovers were coming out of the room. From the top of the stairs they heard Polly storm at Steve:
‘Go and find someone who speaks proper. And you
can take your lousy ring back. I don’t want to see you again!’
‘There goes me motorbike ride!’ said Billy.
They heard Polly run up to her room, and the sobbing which followed. Poor Steve left quietly by the front door, and a few moments later they heard his motorbike roar off down Honeypot Street.
As Billy lay in bed, he couldn’t help reciting quietly to himself: ‘ This is the man all tattered and tornJThat kissed the maiden all forlorn . . . ’
But his thoughts soon turned to happier things - to a beautiful, graceful yacht gliding across Queen’s Park lake. And tonight there was added a second dream: he saw himself going up on to the school stage at St Chad’s to the applause of all his teachers, friends and family to be told by Mr Thomas that he had passed the scholarship to - what was the name of that school again? - Damian College. Then he was asleep.