Johnny Swanson

by Eleanor Updale

  Winnie’s voice had a note of sarcasm now. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult for you. After all, you know her better than I do.’

  ‘Who? I don’t know, Mum. Tell me. Don’t make me guess. I can’t think of anyone.’ His mind raced through the women they knew, but none of them ever came inside the house, let alone to tea. Could it be someone important? One of his teachers perhaps? Please, no. Not that. Mrs Slack? Or worse, Miss Dangerfield? Was Winnie trying to make peace with her?

  Winnie stood still, stern and smouldering. Then she snatched the cake from Johnny and slid it out of its wet paper bag straight onto the table. She picked up the bread knife and thrust it towards him so hard that for the first time in his life he thought she might really want to hurt him. ‘You cut it,’ she spat. ‘Does she like cake? How much does she want? You decide. You’re the one who knows all about her.’

  With a blow of physical horror, Johnny realized why his mother was so angry. A few days before, in the shop, Hutch had named the sensation that Johnny was experiencing now. They had been quietly unloading a delivery when Hutch had stopped dead and clapped his hand to his mouth. Johnny had wondered if he was ill, but Hutch explained that he wasn’t unwell, he had just had a terrible ‘clong’. A ‘clong’, he said, was ‘a rush of cold sick to the heart’. It was what happened when everything was going well, and you suddenly realized that you should be somewhere else, or had let somebody down, or were about to be found out. For Hutch, that day, the clong came when he recalled a promise to provide refreshments for the Mayor and Mayoress as they paid an official visit to the Chamber of Commerce. The event had already started, and Hutch had done absolutely nothing about it. It had slipped from his mind completely. Until the clong.

  Now Johnny felt that same chilly, electric sickness. There was a metallic buzz in his joints, and his body seemed to be gearing up to run, though his feet were too heavy to move. He could feel his brain lurching to invent explanations, but failing to find even two coherent words. He wished he was still outside, with that wonderful expectation of how happy his mother would be to hear about the lights at the Langfords’, and to see the wonderful cake. But there was no chance of happiness now. Because before his mother spoke again, Johnny knew what she was going to say:

  ‘Go on, Johnny,’ she shouted, with a catch of hysteria in her voice. ‘Cut her a slice. Go on. Cut a nice slice of cake for your Auntie Ada!’

  Chapter 17

  THE ROW

  ‘How could you?’ cried Winnie. ‘What were you thinking of? How could you make me look so …’ She couldn’t find a word for the humiliation she had felt when she’d run into Hutch in the street, and he had asked after her invalid sister. ‘I didn’t know what he was talking about.’

  ‘He didn’t tell me that he’d met you when I did the papers after school,’ Johnny mumbled.

  ‘Well, let’s hope that means he doesn’t know you’re a liar. But he must have thought I was terribly rude.’

  ‘What exactly did he say?’

  ‘He said that Ada’s needlework seemed to be selling very well. I just stood there, wondering who Ada was. Then he said how good I was to take my sister in when times are so hard. I thought he’d mistaken me for somebody else.’

  Stupidly, Johnny seized on that as an opportunity to try to wriggle out of trouble. ‘Maybe he had. Maybe there’s someone else with a sister called Ada—’

  ‘Someone else! Someone else who also has a son called Johnny who delivers Hutch’s papers for him? Oh, and who also, I hear, sends letters for this Auntie Ada, and deals with all her money.’

  Johnny stuttered out the beginning of a limp explanation: ‘It’s not … I haven’t … It’s just …’

  His mother kept talking. ‘I just stood there. What could I say? Thank goodness it was raining. In the end I rushed away, pretending I was cold. How could you, Johnny? How could you lie like that?’ She didn’t wait for an explanation, but carried on. ‘Do you think for one minute that I would have stayed in this town if I’d had family somewhere else? Do you think I would have let old Mr Bennett put me in this cheap house if I’d had relatives to help me pay my own way properly? Oh, I wish I’d had a sister – or anyone to help me out when your dad was gone. Now everyone will think I was turned out by my own family. They’ll think you’re a …’ She paused and wiped some spittle from her mouth. ‘They’ll think I had you without being married at all. They’ll think that’s why I’m on my own.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Johnny weakly. ‘I was trying to help.’

  ‘Help? How does it help to invent an extra person? What were you trying to do? Did you make up this story to get Hutch to give you all that food you’ve been bringing home from the shop?’

  ‘No!’ Johnny was outraged at the idea that he’d been begging for charity. ‘Not that. Hutch hasn’t …’ He was about to tell her that he’d been buying the extra food. But then he realized that would mean revealing another lie – about the adverts and the money he’d been making. Instead, he tried to explain how the myth of Ada had come about. ‘It just got out of hand. I needed a postal order—’

  ‘A postal order? What would you need a postal order for?’

  How could Johnny explain it all? How could he tell her about sending off for the Secret of Instant Height? About stealing from the Peace Mug? About telling Hutch that the money was for Auntie Ada’s ticket to visit them? How could he account for all the other postal orders, or admit that, for more than three months, he had been placing trick advertisements in newspapers all over the country?

  His mother kept on at him. ‘What does a postal order have to do with this “Auntie Ada”?’

  ‘It’s just … It’s just … It’s just I said to Hutch that we needed to send her some money, so she could get a train and come to stay, because she was ill. And stamps for the letter. He wouldn’t have opened the post office specially if it was just for me.’

  ‘Opened up specially? What on earth did you need the post office for anyway? You’re a child, Johnny! Children don’t need postal orders and stamps. What were you up to?’

  Johnny decided to tell part of the truth. ‘I needed to place an advertisement,’ he said.

  ‘A what? You? You needed to place an advertisement?’

  ‘A personal message. I’ve seen them in the papers. It’s how people get in touch with each other when they don’t have an address.’

  ‘But why would you want to send a personal message?’ She changed her voice to make ‘personal message’ sound la-di-dah.

  ‘To find the Langfords,’ said Johnny. ‘I asked them to contact us. Langford. Contact Swanson. Worried. It cost me a shilling.’

  ‘A shilling of your own money?’

  Johnny, his heart pounding with guilt, stood still, staring at his feet, letting her believe it was.

  ‘And you told Hutch it was for this auntie – this Ada?’

  ‘Yes,’ muttered Johnny, still not looking up.

  Winnie thumped the table. ‘Well, you shouldn’t have. You mustn’t tell lies, Johnny. I’ve always told you that. It only leads to trouble.’ She was still cross, but she was calming down. ‘First thing tomorrow you’re going to put this right. You’re going to tell Hutch what you’ve done, and you’re going to apologize. Do you understand?’

  Johnny sniffed. ‘Yes,’ he said, though he had no idea how he would find the words to untangle everything. ‘I was only trying to help. I thought if the Langfords came back you could get your wages and have your job with them again. I’m sorry.’

  Winnie picked up the knife and fork she had set on the table for Ada. She turned to put them back in the drawer. ‘Well, perhaps you thought you were doing your best,’ she said. ‘But it hasn’t worked, has it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The advertisement. The Langfords haven’t been in touch?’

  ‘No.’ Johnny slumped down into a chair.

  Winnie took the seat on the other side of the table. Her voice was almost normal now. ‘I’ve been trying to f
ind the Langfords too, you know. When I ran into Hutch today I was on my way back from the sanatorium. I went there on the bus after you’d gone to school.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me you were going,’ said Johnny, hoping to switch the blame and make Winnie feel guilty now.

  ‘I wasn’t sure I would go until the last minute,’ she said. ‘I thought they’d just turn me away and say I was being nosy if I asked if they knew where Dr Langford was. But then I had an idea. I had that letter of recommendation from Mrs Langford. I could pretend I was going to see if they had any cleaning jobs.’

  Johnny stopped himself pointing out to Winnie that what she’d done was a kind of lying. ‘Did they know where the Langfords have gone?’ he asked.

  ‘No. In fact, they hadn’t even noticed that Dr Langford was away. He doesn’t have any work there just now. That case he was helping with … well, I’m afraid the little baby’ – she paused, and tried to break the news kindly – ‘passed away.’

  Johnny felt another blow to his stomach. ‘It was Olwen’s baby sister, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Johnny, but I think it must have been.’

  ‘Does Olwen know? What about her mum and dad? They’re in the sanatorium too, you know.’

  ‘I wasn’t going to ask about them, was I, Johnny? I don’t even know them. Neither do you. I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with them. You only talked to that Olwen once, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but I liked her. She was nice to me. We could have been friends. And it must be horrible for her, worrying about her family, all alone and far away.’

  ‘At least she won’t be ill, if they got her away in time. But listen, Johnny. I’ve got something else to tell you. It turned out that I didn’t have a wasted journey.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, as it happens, they do need cleaners. I’m going to start work at the sanatorium tomorrow.’

  Johnny was horrified. ‘What? You can’t!’

  Winnie began to sound enthusiastic. ‘You should see it, Johnny. It’s a really nice place – huge wards, and workshops, a library, a gymnasium, gardens. And it’s good money. They have to pay well there. People are too frightened to go.’

  ‘Of course they are! And they’re right. It’s dangerous. Dr Langford as good as told me that himself. He told me not to visit. You might get their disease. Phthisis. It’s TB – consumption. You might die. Olwen’s sister died!’

  ‘I’ve got no choice, Johnny. The rent goes up in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘But I can get us money,’ said Johnny, desperate to tell her about the advert scam, but terrified of making her as angry as she had been before.

  ‘You? How? Don’t be silly. I’m the one who should be providing for you.’

  ‘I won’t let you go to the sanatorium,’ Johnny insisted, throwing in his own bit of news. ‘And anyway, what if the Langfords are back? You can work for them again. Remember? I told you. I saw lights up at the house tonight.’

  Now Winnie was angry again, with a rage that had been buried by the fury over Auntie Ada. ‘That’s another thing!’ she yelled. ‘You shouldn’t have gone there. You promised you wouldn’t.’ She was almost crying. ‘Oh, Johnny, what’s happening to you? You’ve lied to Hutch. You’ve invented this silly aunt. You’ve disobeyed me. Don’t we have enough troubles without all this?’

  They were both weeping now, and both furious. Johnny picked up the cake and threw it against the wall. His mother jumped to her feet, knocking over her chair. She grabbed her coat from the hook on the back of the door.

  ‘I’m going out,’ she said. ‘I’m going to look for those lights of yours.’

  ‘I’ll come too,’ said Johnny, reaching for his jacket.

  Winnie pushed him back. ‘Oh no you won’t. I want to be by myself. I may be a while. You get off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  She slammed the door behind her, and strode into the storm.

  Chapter 18

  WINNIE’S WALK

  Winnie stomped up the hill. The wintry rain was even harder than before. In her rage, she’d forgotten her hat and gloves, and she was soaked and freezing before she reached the Langfords’ house. Water was cascading from a gutter above the drainpipe that Johnny had pulled away from the wall nearly a month before. The windows were still tightly shuttered. Winnie rang the bell and thumped the door with her fists; then she went all round the house banging on windows, rattling the back door and peering though the misty glass of the conservatory. She shouted the Langfords’ names, yelled hellos and, as she was overtaken by tears, gave out animal wails of anger. But there was no one there. She wandered aimlessly down the other side of the hill, away from home, towards the shops. She slipped on some mud and landed awkwardly, hurting her wrist as she tried to save herself. Back on her feet, she pushed wet strands of hair out of her eyes, smearing dirt across her face.

  There was no one on the streets. They were all warm and snug in their homes – those who weren’t in the pub, of course. Winnie could hear the tinny plink of the piano before she turned the corner and saw the lights. She never went to that pub. She saw enough of the one she worked in, on the other side of town, and she couldn’t afford to be a drinker anyway. But tonight she had a little money in her pocket – the change from her bus fare to the sanatorium. She was cold and unhappy. She pushed open the door. She recognized most of the faces, though she knew none of the people well. Everyone stopped speaking as Winnie walked to the bar, muddy and dripping. Mr Murray from the school was there. Winnie tried not to stare at his hideous wounded face, but she didn’t want to seem repelled by it either.

  He was equally thrown by her wild appearance. ‘Good evening, Mrs Swanson,’ he said awkwardly.

  Winnie couldn’t reply. She was too shaken by the argument, and too embarrassed by the knowledge of what she must look like, to engage in conversation with one of Johnny’s teachers.

  The pub chatter gradually got going again, and the pianist restarted his tune. Everyone ignored Winnie as she huddled in a corner, sobbing, and struggling to make one little drink last for the rest of the evening.

  Johnny went to bed in tears, and listened out for his mother’s return. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was, and he decided that if she wasn’t too angry when she got back, he would try again to stop her going to the sanatorium. If that meant coming clean about the adverts and the money in the rabbit, he would have to do it. He tried to stay awake, but somehow he missed the click of the front door and Winnie’s soft steps on the stair. Very early next morning he was woken by his mother’s voice outside his bedroom.

  ‘Johnny, I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘Don’t be late for your paper round.’

  It took him a moment to wake properly and get out of bed. By then she had left. He thought she must still be angry. He couldn’t have known that she didn’t want him to see her setting off for her new job looking pale and dishevelled, in a wet and muddy coat.

  Chapter 19

  NEWS

  The rain had stopped, and Johnny made it to the shop in good time, prepared to be brave and to apologize to Hutch about Auntie Ada. But Hutch was cheery. He didn’t mention his conversation with Winnie the previous day, and Johnny decided that it must have made much less of an impression on him than it had on her. He decided to leave his explanation until the evening, when the shop was shut and Hutch wasn’t so busy. He got his deliveries done and went to school, where he spent the day mentally rehearsing his speech to Hutch, and thinking of ways to make peace with his mother. By the end of the last lesson, he felt ready to come clean.

  As soon as he was outside the school gates, he knew that something strange was going on. There were groups of women gossiping in the street. No one was ever collected from school by their parents, but today Mrs Taylor was there, waiting for Albert and his little sister. She took them aside and started talking in a frenzied whisper. Albert looked alarmed, but excited. Johnny tried to listen in, but he couldn’t make out any details before Mrs Taylor
pulled her children further away. What had happened? Hutch would know. The shop was a great place for news, and as it was early closing day, he would have time to talk. Johnny ran all the way there.

  A car was parked outside. Johnny had never seen it before. He peered through its windows. The back seat was covered with clothes, messy papers, maps and empty cigarette packets. Hutch came out. He put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

  ‘I was only looking,’ said Johnny.

  ‘That’s all right, son,’ said Hutch, in a tone that was meant to reassure him, but was so kind that it gave Johnny a jolt of panic. Hutch steered him towards the shop. ‘Come inside,’ he said. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

  A man in a brown suit and a soft hat was leaning half in and half out of the wooden telephone booth, just inside the door. He was lighting a cigarette. Johnny noticed it was the same brand as the ones in the car.

  ‘May I have another word with you, Mr Hutchinson?’ the man called as they went past.

  ‘I’ll be back with you in a moment, sir. This is my delivery boy. We just need to sort a few things out.’

  Johnny didn’t understand. The bag of newspapers was always ready for him, behind the counter. Why was Hutch taking him through to the stockroom?

  ‘Sit down,’ said Hutch, pointing to a tea chest. ‘Johnny, lad, I’ve got some bad news.’

  ‘Mum?’ cried Johnny, terrified that something had happened to her at the sanatorium.

  ‘No, Johnny. I’m sure your mother is all right. It’s Dr Langford, Johnny. I’m very sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I’m afraid Dr Langford has died.’

  ‘Where? How do you know?’

  ‘He was found up at his house a couple of hours ago. Miss Dangerfield called the police when she noticed a window had been broken. She thought there might have been a burglary. But when the constable got in to have a look, he discovered the doctor’s body.’

  Johnny buzzed with shock, excitement and indignation. ‘So Dr Langford was in there, dead, all this time, while everyone thought he was away? I told you. I said—’