An intense prayer groaned itself out of him: “Oh, heaven, heaven above, help me ...!”
Fluting high above the frightful crescendo of noises was the Skaters’ Waltz. And in a sickening reality there came to Corky the prophetic words of Ginger—hammering into that lilting message of the organ, “Pride goeth before a fall....”
Suddenly the music stopped. The organ grinding twanged to a quiet. The Skaters’ Waltz was gone.
And Prim suddenly faltered, and as suddenly came to a halt.
She stood. She looked around, like a pony coming out of a dream. She saw the crowd, heard the words of Corky, felt the bits of china under her feet. Her proud head made a pathetic stoop.
The people moved in. Corky was deaf and speechless to the bumble of questions that buzzed at him.
Corky somehow got down from the cart. Went to the bowed head of his pony. He was oblivious of the facetious comments from onlookers.
“Oh, Prim,” he moaned brokenly. “What were you thinking of? Didn’t you hear my voice? Oh, Prim, why didn’t you heed me!
She made a humble muzzle into his jersey, and Corky gulped.
“I’m supposed to take your name and address for traffic obstruction. It’s a very serious offence——”
“All right, sir,” he said to the policeman. “Take it, take anything——”
“Naw, I can’t. Me book’s full up, see. And I ain’t got time to go back for another. An’ the point’s gone on my pencil. So the best thing you can do is scram ...! Fast as you can. Off with you. An’ remember, I haven’t even seen you, let alone spoke to you!”
Corky understood. He leaped to the cart, and they were off. Prim wasted no time. She was glad to break into action. “I’ll turn down the nearest side street,” decided Corky. He pulled into it. Three cars abreast were coming at him. There was a screech of brakes.
“Can’t you see it’s a ‘One way street’?” bawled a red-whiskered face.
“I’m only going one way!” Corky bawled back. But higher up the street he spotted a blue figure, and thought it wisest to turn.
Corky never quite knew how he drove back to Crater’s. He feared the worst. But the story of Prim’s performance had reached the stables before him and he found himself the butt of all the wits. This he didn’t mind—he even loved it—once he realized that he was still a pony boy. The insurance company, not he, would carry the can.
“But keep Prim away from barrel-organs in future,” roared Bill Posk.
14 Off to Hyde Park
Amos and Prim were calmly carrying on
in animal patience, Amos accepting all
buns and chocolates that were offered
him, Prim accepting only chocolate.
As the days went on, stacking themselves up into a huge pile of weeks and months, Corky found an all-round growing taking place in himself. He became fascinated by his picture in the looking glass as he was having his morning and evening ‘sluice’ under the cold water tap in the kitchen.
“It can’t be my imagination—these muscles are surely swelling out! And the old chest is getting bigger and bigger. Not only can I see it, but I have proof—the buttons on my waistcoat don’t even fasten! ‘Course it might be that the cloth is shrinking, but I doubt it. Why, I’m getting as strong as a lion, I am. Just wish I could have the world’s champion boxer, wrestler, fighter, or whatever he is—in this kitchen for two minutes! Oh, what a life! Who wouldn’t be a pony boy!” And with that he howled as the cold water splashed his warm body, grabbed a towel, and rubbed himself to a tingling glow.
“Coo, I feel like I’ve been hibernating all those long years, and have just woke up. What were all those lessons I had at school—square roots, composition, fractions, genders, dictation, and algebra with all its little Y’s and X’s? Blimey, they’re practically all of them unknown quantities to me now. Seeing and meeting all the sights of London town, all the larks and capers of people around the streets, all the jobs and adventures, and earning my own keep—they’ve made school thoughts vanish away. Except some of them.
“Cushy little job for you two this ah’ternoon,” Mr Crater popped his head over the boskin, as Corky and Ginger were chatting after bedding down their ponies.
“What—Saturday!” exclaimed Ginger. “Man don’t live by bread alone, guv’nor.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
“All work and no play puts Jack off his hay,” piped Corky in support of his mate.
“Oh, if that’s the way you look at it,” retorted Mr Crater, “I can get a couple of boys to step into your shoes. But there’s one point—I shall need Amos and Prim.”
“Nay, don’t say that,” said Ginger. “Not just when they’re ready to hit the old straw. Old Amos knows when weekend comes just the same as you do. An’ he don’t need a calendar. Look at him now, see how he’s marking time over his proven’, he knows he’s got a few hours to eat it in.”
“As it happens, he ain’t!” remarked Mr Crater. “It’s a bit late in the day, I’ll admit, but they only just sent word through on the blower. And she’d such a sweet little voice, I couldn’t find it in my heart to refuse.”
The two boys looked at each other.
“Come on, out with it,” said Ginger.
“It’s this way,” began Mr Crater, “there’s a bit of a garden party and fête in Hyde Park today.”
“What are we supposed to do? Judge the baby show?”
“Turn it in,” said Mr Crater. “What do you think I’m sending Amos and Prim for, a beauty competition? Naw, they’re going to give rides to the kids.”
“You don’t mean to tell me,” said Corky, “that you’re sending our two little ponies up there, after the week’s graft, just to carry fat kids about—and make a bit of extra money?”
Mr Crater shook his head in fed-upness: “You get on my wick, you two do, with all the why’s and wherefore’s you trot out. You’d send a Philadelphia lawyer off his nut. Now listen, I don’t make a sausage out of it. It’s all for charity.”
“What charity? The ‘Bairns and Babes’? You the bairn, and us the babes, and a thousand a year for the chairman!”
“I just about had enough of your sauce,” declared Mr Crater. “Are you going or staying?”
“Going,” spoke the boys together.
“It’s in aid of crippled children,” said Mr Crater. “Sum’dy rang me up to see if I could spare a couple of ponies, and grooms to go with them. Giving kids rides at a tanner a time there should be a nice little bag of takings at the end of the day.”
“Y’oughter have come out with that in the first place,” said Ginger, “and we’d have been halfway up Park Lane by this.”
“We’d better get ready,” said Corky.
“Ginger, you don’t want to be seen in them old togs at a charity affair,” said Bill Posk, who had just come up. “Lumme, your tea-an-sugar’s sticking out.”
Ginger gave a casual glance behind him and carefully tucked back a piece of blue-striped shirt tail that was dangling and flapping from a rent in his trouser seat.
“It’s me own shirt flap,” he replied.
“I ain’t arguing about whose it is,” said Bill Posk. “I only fancied it’d look out of place on somebody setting hisself up to collect for charity.”
“You might have to climb a back gate with a sharp nail on the top yourself one day!” remarked Ginger.
“You’d better nip off home, boys,” urged Mr Crater, “and change to your Sunday suits.”
“I’ll put me blue ’un on.”
“I’m going to wear flannels and a white shirt,” said Corky. “Won’t the blue serge be a bit clammy a day like this, Ginger?”
“It’s all I’ve got. Or, I don’t know,” he scratched his red mop, “I could draw a quid or perhaps thirty bob, out of the Post Office Savings Bank, and buy meself a little cricket shirt and grey flannels.”
“Good idea, Ginger.”
“Well, it’s no use being ‘Money-an-misery’,” remar
ked Ginger loftily. “I got three poun’ eleven in, and if you ask me, a man should enjoy his wealth.”
“Every time,” agreed Corky.
“Will you get off home for your clobber!” yelled Bill Posk. “And buy some coloured ribbons from Woolworth’s on your way back, an’ I’ll pretty your ponies up——”
“I’ll do me own pony,” Ginger shouted from the door. “You do Prim for Corky.”
“You can do the lot.”
“Naughty, naughty, Willie,” cheeked Ginger. “Come on, Corky,” and up the street he went on, “I’ll show you how to turn a pony out in a fashion that’ll bring old Crater’s eyes out of his head.”
“All weighed, all paid,” sang Ginger. “Coo, don’t old Amos look a treat. Not that the style of Prim wouldn’t gladden a pony lad’s heart. Come on, Corky, I’m ready for the road.”
“I trust Hyde Park will be suitably impressed,” said Corky. “Whither direction, worthy henchmate?”
“Make for ye York Road, turn right by ye olde Tannery.” Ginger held his nose between finger and thumb. “By Halidon, ye stench clogs up ye olde nostrils.”
“Thy nose be too near thy body! Ye factory be shut down for ye week-end.”
“Friend Corky, thou tryest my patience.”
“Forsooth, this even’ thou shalt try mine. Fourpence a time, penny back on the bottle.”
“Westminster Bridge Road, the Bridge, Birdcage Walk, Constitution Hill, Hyde Park Corner.”
“Tarry, for by Harry, thou takest a long route?”
“Be it so, Brother Corky, ye denizens are of high breeding, and will not our journey make ill-felt by rude starings.”
“Thou has consideration for my feelings, Sir Ginger. Merci boko.”
“Call next week, me mother’s gone to the wash house.”
“Let’s on our way.”
Prim and Amos exchanged glances, and went patiently on.
A crop of small troubles sprouted at the start. Some children refused to get on the pony, after the queueing and being paid sixpence for. Others would not get off when their ride was over. Corky was inclined to coax them. Ginger was not.
“I know how to handle them,” he said. “I’ve had enough experience.”
He simply whispered in the naughty child’s ear. Instantly it went quiet.
“What do’you promise ’em,” asked Corky, “that they go so mild?”
“A good tanning,” said Ginger. “I don’t make any fuss over these namby-pamby kids.”
It was Ginger’s flannel shirt that caused him some perturbation. Children would clutch at it with their sticky, choco-latey fingers. Finally he took it off and strutted about with bare chest, straining to catch the sunshine, and make gleam the three golden hairs he had recently acquired.
He had one or two skirmishes with a certain type of mother who feels her own child should have extra favour, and who unfortunately urged Ginger to give a longer ride.
“What d’you expect for your tanner, lady?” Ginger would ask, “—a gallop round Rotten Row?”
But after a time the job settled down nice and comfortable. Prim and Amos seemed quite happy at being fussed over by the children. However, Corky and Ginger began to feel a bit weary in the leg. And they were very glad to get away, after finding two schoolboys who volunteered for the duty of leading the ponies.
“Let’s go to the marquee,” suggested Corky, “and get some ginger ale.”
“Tea for me,” said Ginger. “I’ll just give you an exhibition of getting through the crowd to the counter.”
He did. He dodged down and ferreted between lots of legs. Corky had difficulty in following. The rather harassed man behind the counter tried for a time to ignore Ginger’s, “One tea, one ginger beer, and a plate of beef sandwiches!” But the insistent piping order, with a, “Make it snappy, guv!” thrown in, got him down. It erased more substantial orders from his mind.
Finally he pushed a cup of tea, a ginger ale, and two thin sandwiches before Ginger.
As Corky was turning to place the drinks on the table, there was a sudden “Ow!” as he bumped into somebody.
“Oh, I’m sorry!——” his apologetic outburst cut off, for there before him was a face he knew well, a picture he had visioned often in his lonely dreaming moments. Weakly he piped:
“Hello, oh hello!”
“Blimey,” Ginger’s voice swept in. “If it ain’t the Mellerows! Hello, Pat! Hello, Angy! How’s your Gran keeping these days?”
Pat and Angela looked up from their ices.
“Oh, hello, how nice to see you!” cried Pat.
“Hello,” said Angela.
“Get it down on the table, Corky, don’t stand there dithering.”
Ginger began to eat.
“Now tell us what’s been happening to you. And what are you doing here?”
“Oh, we’re just here. What are you doing?”
“We’ve got our ponies here, Amos and Prim,” stammered Corky, his voice all out of control. “Would you like to see them?”
“Oh, I’d love to,” said Pat.
Amos and Prim were calmly carrying on in animal patience, Amos accepting all buns and chocolates that were offered him, Prim accepting only chocolate.
The two girls watched as Corky and Ginger took over and settled the next two riders in the saddles, then they walked along with them.
“Do you come here every year?” Corky asked Pat. (‘How daft I sound.’)
“Is that a date?” asked Pat.
She was there beside him, the most rare, the most lovely flower, but a flower that had life and laughter. ‘She is the most beautiful girl ever on earth’, was his thought. ‘I’m not fit to look on her, not worthy of holding one tiny thought of her within me.’ But Corky did embrace a crazy wish, ‘If only I could see her alone, go by her side for a walk, just hear the silvery words fall from her lips, if only for one full minute, I could know that happiness, life would be worthwhile.’
A footstep hurried.
“I say, Pat, I say,” a well-modulated voice broke in, “we must be awff.”
“Roger, meet Corky and Ginger.”
“How d’you do.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Corky.
“Hi’ya,” said Ginger.
“Ready, Angy?” Roger called to Angela.
Corky just looked up, he glanced at Roger’s spotless nails, the white smooth skin, the long unmarked fingers. Then he looked down on his own grubby and calloused hands, blistered from much brushwork, two discoloured nails, and a stubbed finger-end from chopping firewood.
“Come, Pat,” Roger was saying, taking her arm.
’A worker’s two hands,’ the thought flashed through Corky; he, Corky; he held back the words that were near his tongue.
“—We must cut short the goodbyes,” said a voice.
Corky realized they had gone and Ginger was saying: “Blow me, he don’t half talk ‘cut-glass’, don’t he!”
Corky, through the marquee entrance, could see the three figures hurrying away, and caught sight of the golden glint of sunshine on Pat’s lovely head. At that moment an ugly despair tore through him: the first awareness of a distinction in the world, between that to which he belonged—and that to which he did not.
“I say there ain’t no need for nobody to talk like that,” Ginger went on.
“I suppose he talks the way he was brought up to talk,” said Corky in a dry calm voice.
“Then there ain’t no need for him to be brought up that way,” said Ginger. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll bet he don’t talk to his Mum and Dad in that voice! It certainly don’t impress me!
“I don’t suppose the way we talk impresses others.”
“We don’t want it to. We talk the only way we know how. Am I right?”
“You’re right, Ginger, and you’re wrong.”
“You’re a gom, Corky—always trying to see two sides to everything. That don’t get you nowhere.”
“I don’t want to go nowhere.”
“You’ve got to——”
“I ain’t got to,” retorted Corky savagely. “And if you want to make something out of it—stick up yer mitts!”
Ginger shook his head, and spoke in a sad, superior voice:
“While I admire your pluck, Corky, I deplore your rashness. Straight up I do. You know what I am! You’ve seen how I knock them about, haven’t you?”
“Don’t lord it over me,” snorted Corky, “get ’em up.”
“You’d have been better to have said that to the Roger fella,” remarked Ginger, “but anyway, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Get yourself set.”
Ginger thrust out a left fist before him, and curled his right out of sight behind his back. Crouched, but at the same time poised on his toes, he gave the impression of some strange warrior. Corky, in spite of the feelings that had him, burst out laughing.
“Oh, you think it’s funny, eh—you’ll not when I connect with my sledge-hammer right!”
So Corky laughed off his confused feelings. What still remained was a deep longing to have just one brief hour of the adorable Pat’s attention.
15 The Sack
Ginger’s left fist shot straight out...
crack!... clean in the eye.
“HUH, I wonder what’s the matter across there?” grunted Corky, cocking an eye across the stable, where he spotted the stiff little figure of Mr Crater, and heard a couple of snorts from Amos: “I expect old Ginger is getting lectured over being late,” he muttered to himself. “Silly beggar, he ought to know by now that this being late for work is never worth all the dash and upset. H’mm, it’s not for me to pick and pike at him—if I had to wait my turn at the tap in a line of fourteen, I wouldn’t be in till night.” And ceasing his little thoughts he turned again to his brushing of Prim’s legs.
A few moments later he heard a scutter from Ginger’s stall followed by growls and threats. The guv’nor had gone out of the stables, and so Corky decided to go over and learn what was troubling Ginger.
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