Harold

by Catherine Cookson

  ‘Oh yes he has, he likes you. He talks about you when you aren’t here.’

  ‘If it’s in a similar vein to that of the last exchange it’ll be no compliment, and if I know anything about that young gentleman, he’ll make that tea, pour it straight out, and it’ll be here within seconds, and just one cup, you’ll see.’

  ‘He’s just a child. He’s had a rough upbringing. He’s learning.’

  ‘He’s a very old child.’ Tommy’s face was solemn now, his voice flat.

  And I agreed with him in my mind: yes, Harold was an old child. Since his mother left him when he was three years old, he’d passed through the testing care of his father’s girlfriends to the stern and ear-slapping guidance of my dear Janet and the colourful vocabulary of his five uncles and his Grandfather Flood, not to mention his Grandfather Stoddart with whom he had lived for a time. And so of course he was an old child. But he was a loving child and a child that needed loving, and he was my child. Yes, from now on he was really my child, and he must be my first consideration. There was no question mark in my mind about loving him.

  Two

  It was on the Sunday morning, and we were both ready to go to church. Yes, we were going to church. I felt duty bound to see that from now on he attended church.

  A month ago I’d been lucky enough to get him into a church school which was quite near. It was a small primary school. I had always thought it was a Roman Catholic school, and so no thought of sending him there had entered my head, for one stipulation of the adoption made by his father was that he would remain Church of England; not that the father followed any denomination, he had merely wanted to stress his authority and this seemed to be one of the easier ways of doing so.

  But having discovered the school was C.O.E. I approached the headmaster. I told him the circumstances through which I’d come into the possession of a son and he was so understanding that I took a liking to the man straight away. Of course, there was the unspoken agreement that Harold would become a practising Christian. So here we were ready to attend not only the main church service but also the short children’s one that would follow.

  It had been evident from the beginning that Harold did not take to either the main service or the children’s service. He had summed up his first visit with one word, ‘Tripe.’ The second visit had elicited a longer comment, ‘’Cos I don’t know what he’s talkin’ about.’ The third visit had resulted in a question. ‘If God’s everywhere why doesn’t somebody see him some time?’ … Good question. And also, if he was up in heaven why didn’t we see his feet when he was walking about in the sky? Answer that one.

  We were about to walk across the hall when the lift opened and out stepped Mrs Beckingtree-Holland.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘Good morning.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve come at a wrong time; I see you are about to leave.’

  ‘No, no; I have a moment or two. Can I help you in any way?’

  ‘Oh’—the doll-like head moved from side to side—‘it was just the remark I overheard you make, or your friend make, when we got out of the lift yesterday.’

  I narrowed my eyes at her and waited.

  ‘About a babysitter.’ She now looked at Harold, and as he stared back at her, I gripped his hand, warning him not to speak. If he had it would have been, ‘I don’t want a babysitter, ’cos I ain’t no baby.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Would it be possible to speak to you in private?’

  I was flustered for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, yes. Now you stay there, Harold; I won’t be a moment. Come in, Mrs … er?’

  ‘Beckingtree-Holland.’

  ‘Mrs Holland.’

  In the inner hall she said, ‘This is a very delicate matter. You see, I … I like to occupy my time and … er, I … well, where it is necessary I give lessons in deportment, and of course oblige people like yourselves by sitting with their children should they wish to go out in the evening.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. I understand.’

  And I did understand. This delicate, refined, ladylike person wanted payment for her obliging. Well, wasn’t it natural that she should? Yet, a person of her appearance and definite position … What position? She gave it to me the next moment by saying, ‘The Captain, my husband, had to leave the service because of his health. He has a small pension, added to which we had naturally our savings. But as you yourself know things have changed and what at one time afforded us a most pleasant way of living scarcely affords us existence now. It is rather humiliating, but nevertheless—’ She shrugged her thin shoulders. ‘Well, that is the situation.’

  I wetted my lips, searched quickly for the right words, then said, ‘I’d be pleased to avail myself of your services from time to time, Mrs Beckingtree-Holland.’

  I sounded as correct as she.

  ‘That is nice of you. Then I won’t keep you any longer. Are you going out for a walk?’

  ‘We are going to church.’

  ‘Oh, to church. How civilised.’

  We returned to the hall to find the lift had gone, and so had Harold. I glanced at her and she at me. The red light showed it had reached the ground floor. I pressed the button and as the lift ascended my companion said, ‘I suppose he is what is known as a handful.’

  ‘He is a boy.’ My voice was stiff now.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Well, I’m sure we’ll enjoy looking after him. My husband will teach him to play chess. He is a very good chess player.’

  ‘That would be nice.’ The gates opened and there was Harold. I did not say, ‘You should not have done that, Harold’; I just stepped in, Mrs Beckingtree-Holland followed and we descended to the next floor where Mrs Beckingtree-Holland got out, smiled, inclined her head towards me and disappeared as the lift went down to the ground floor.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that, Harold.’

  ‘I don’t like standin’ about.’

  ‘You’ll have to learn to stand about.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Don’t start that this morning. And hold your head up and walk straight.’ He did as he was bid, and we made our way to church.

  The service was, as usual, dull. The parson was a nice man but nice men can be boring when let loose in a pulpit. The children’s service proved to be much better and very enlightening to me, because for the first time I heard my boy sing.

  ‘Good King Wencelas looked out on the Feast of Stephen, Where the snow lay round about deep, and crisp, and even.’

  There he was in the front row singing his head off and the sound that came from his throat was unbelievable.

  ‘Away In a Manger’ followed; then, ‘Once In Royal David’s City’; and Harold Leviston, as he was now, sang all the carols word perfect.

  The service over, the headmaster, who was also the Sunday School teacher, came up to me and said, ‘He’s got a fine voice.’

  ‘I didn’t know he could sing.’

  ‘You didn’t? Well, well. I told the choirmaster about him and he would like him in the choir.’

  I, too, now said, ‘Well, well.’

  As we walked back home Harold was unusually quiet. This often happened when he was waiting for me to put him on the spot about some misdemeanour. But this wasn’t a misdemeanour.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you could sing?’

  ‘You never arst.’

  ‘Asked.’

  ‘A … sked. Well, you never did.’

  ‘But why should I have to ask you? You haven’t to be given permission to sing.’

  It was some seconds before he answered, ‘’Cos they said me voice was funny, like a girl’s. Me Uncle Max used to do me, make game like, an’ it sounded funny, so I stopped.’

  ‘Don’t say “like” in the middle of a sentence. I’ve told you, like is a word that has its own meaning.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Harold.’

  He was, to use his own words, having me on. He had done so before. Oh, those uncles! Especially
Max, the jolly one, the one who could supposedly, by the boy’s past accounts, take off all the television characters.

  I said, ‘It was very wrong of your Uncle Max; you’ve got a nice voice and you must go on singing. And you must practise; you heard what the headmaster said, you can get into the church choir.’

  ‘I don’t want that.’ The statement was very emphatic.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’re cissies; they wear long frocks an’ they sing like this—’ he pulled his mouth into an elongated ‘O’. Then laughing, he said, ‘I did sing once in the kitchen, but Sandy started to howl an’ I had to roll on the floor with him to stop him.’

  Laughing at the memory, he leant his head towards me and I pressed him to my side. Then he darted off, taking leaps along the pavement and punching the air as he went. It was an expression of joy. I laughed out aloud and the sound that I made was also an expression of joy.

  Three

  Christmas had come and gone. It had been a traumatic time; Harrods had been bombed. Only an hour before the explosion I had been shopping in the store, accompanied by Harold. I was visibly shaken when I heard the news, policemen and policewomen dead, others terribly wounded. Good will to men.

  For the remainder of the week London was on its toes but defiant: as it was said, if the Blitz didn’t get them down there was little chance of the I.R.A. accomplishing it. Yet, there was no doubt about it, there was an underlying fear that no place was safe. But such is the tenacity of Londoners, the first day of the sales there they were, a little late because most of them couldn’t come into the city by car, but they came by bus and train from all parts.

  During the holidays Tommy and I had taken Harold to a pantomime. And twice within the last twelve days, our neighbours had babysat for us and Tommy had taken me to see two shows. Unlike Nardy’s his taste didn’t run to opera.

  I couldn’t quite get over the fact that the babysitters were definitely, as Gran would have put it, of the class, but the lady, I had found, had no qualms about discussing terms: £2.50 an hour with light refreshments being left. She had suggested the necessity for the latter in a very polite way, but it was nevertheless definite.

  The first evening we were out six hours. When I handed her the two ten-pound notes, she did not say, ‘You’ll want some change,’ but smiled sweetly, murmuring ‘Thank you so much,’ and the Captain had made noises in his throat, causing me to wonder for a moment if he too wanted payment. I later recalled exactly what he had said to me about Harold that first evening. ‘Interesting little chap, isn’t he? Certainly of the rough and tumble, cockney to the marrow and with all their wiles. I don’t envy your job of chipping off the rough edges.’

  I didn’t care very much for the Captain, nor did I care much for his wife, yet at the same time I felt sorry for them both, that people of their standing could find themselves in such a plight. I also remembered his remarks as he was leaving after the second babysitting session. ‘You have very good taste, Mrs Leviston.’ I didn’t bother to tell him that nothing in the flat was of my choosing except one or two pieces of furniture that I’d brought from my old home.

  Tommy found the couple very amusing. They were, he said, of the type that sometimes visited the publishing house practically demanding that their memoirs should be published. They would often put themselves over as the only people who had travelled through the jungles of Africa, or across Russia, or lived in India during the time of the White Raj.

  The couple must also have amused Harold, for after that first evening of being ‘babysat’ he, following in his Uncle Max’s footsteps, ‘did’ the Captain and even his genteel wife. And I had great difficulty in chastising him, for when attempting her voice he minced towards Sandy and, bending over him and patting his head, he said in a voice that was quite a good imitation of the lady’s, ‘And now, little boy, it’s to beddie-beds,’ and then prancing about and in a voice very much like that of his Uncle Max’s ordinary tone, he had ended, ‘Up the apples and pears!’

  ‘That’s enough of that!’ I said, but I was crying with laughing, and when he flung himself against me I hugged him.

  It was Friday. I didn’t like Fridays: all unpleasant things seemed to happen to me on a Friday. But Friday apart I’d had an unpleasant week, at least at nights, for on three occasions I had woken up with dreadful pains in my stomach and a queer ill feeling; yet in the morning the pain had gone, as had the feeling.

  But this particular Friday was the last in the month and tomorrow Harold’s father would be calling to take him for the weekend. It would be his fourth such visit. The more I saw of the man the less I liked him; and, strangely, this seemed to be shared by his son, for on his return from the very first outing Harold said he didn’t want to go out with his father again.

  The arrangement was that Harold would see his father on both the Saturday and Sunday, but that he would sleep here because his father’s girlfriend had always objected to him; and, anyway, Harold’s two older sisters, Doris and Gloria, were now back with their father, and consequently they were short of room.

  Friday too was the day I phoned Gran in Fellburn. This should have given me a great deal of pleasure: we should have laughed and joked as we used to, but since her visit following Nardy’s death, when she became jealous of Janet and had caused a scene, things had changed between us. She would give me her news about the family, and I would give her mine, but we didn’t laugh together any more. Even when at odd times I spoke to her son, my stepfather George, it wasn’t the same: he still said, ‘Hello Pet,’ or ‘How’s my best girl?’ But I was no longer his best girl, and of course I understood that, for he had, with his second marriage, adopted a family of four. The only one who remained the same over the distance of time was Mike, Doctor Kane, the man who really created Hamilton the imaginary horse that had been my friend during those lonely years. My weekly visits to Mike’s surgery had been as a lifebelt to me over that long dark period, and I thank God that at least he had remained the same …

  Mr Brown, the caretaker, had been up to take Sandy for his first walk, and after he had given me the rundown on the weather outside he asked if I would be kind enough to stop the young man, as he called Harold, from ringing his emergency bell every time he passed through the hall.

  Oh, I didn’t know Harold had been doing this, I said; I would certainly see to it. And I did.

  ‘What’s this I hear about your ringing Mr Brown’s bell?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Stop that; you know what I mean.’

  There was a shrug of the shoulders, pursing of the lips, a sidelong glance up at me before he said, ‘It’s only a bit of fun.’

  ‘It’s no fun having Mr Brown running up those stone steps every time you happen to pass through the hall. One of these days when there is really something wrong he won’t bother to come, he’ll think it’s you playing up again. Now it’s got to stop. Understand?’

  ‘All right,’ he said, and then sighed before making the statement: ‘I don’t ’ate ’im; ’e’s hall right, ’e does bug me though.’

  ‘Oh well, I’m sure he’ll be glad to know you don’t hate him, but he’d be more pleased if you restrained the urge to press the button.’

  He now laughed up into my face and put his hand out and pushed me gently in the waist, saying, ‘You know, you sound funny when you talk like that.’

  I pressed my lips together, then blinked before I said, ‘I had no intention of appearing funny, and you know it.’

  Another sigh. ‘Yes, hall right.’

  ‘All right.’

  He grinned, ‘As you said, hall right.’

  I drew in a long breath, ‘Keep your scarf tucked in and your cap on straight and don’t lose your gloves today. Now where are you going?’ I said as he darted from me towards the kitchen.

  ‘Just to say so long to Sandy.’

  A minute later he was back, saying, ‘’E’s lazy; ’e won’t get out of ’is basket.’

  ‘It’s because he’
s tired; he’s had his walk,’ I said.

  ‘I’m tired an’ all.’

  ‘Go on with you.’ I pushed him into the outer hall, opened the lift doors; then bending down I kissed him, and, his arms coming round my neck, he hugged me to him for a moment. Then having to have the last word, he stepped into the lift, saying, ‘Look, you’ve knocked me cap for six.’

  ‘Be a good boy now, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, all right,’ he said, and as his grinning face disappeared from my view I sighed happily and turned back into the house, the while thinking, He’s learning, and quickly.

  This period in the morning between Harold going to school and Janet’s arriving seemed the loneliest time of the day; even more so than at night after Tommy had gone, for there was never an evening passed but he called in; and although very often he stayed too long, I had to admit I was glad of his company. But he having gone, I would go straight to bed and pray that I could sleep, only of late to be woken up by this weird pain.

  I thought of the pain now and did what I had promised myself to do in the middle of last night: I went to the phone and as I was a private patient I asked if I could make an appointment to see my doctor that morning. When this was arranged, it being Friday morning, I phoned Gran.

  I always found myself hesitating before ringing her number these days, wondering what her attitude would be. However, there was the number ringing.

  ‘Hello, Gran.’

  ‘Hello, there.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Oh, not too bad.’

  There was a pause, then she said, ‘I’ve got news for you, you’re in the papers again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re in the papers again.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Stickle.’

  The very name caused my heart to thump against my ribs. ‘What do you mean, Gran? Explain.’ My voice was sharp.

  ‘Well, there seems to have been a fight in the prison: he went for another man; the fellow’s in hospital.’