Every Friday night they go window shopping. Mum puts her arm through Dad’s arm and they walk along looking at furniture and such like in the closed shops. They talk about what they would buy if they had the money. Chairs and curtains and things. They hardly know that I am there. Kate often stays at a friend’s house so I follow like a forgotten dog that goes off and sniffs around on its own.
Kate has plenty of friends even though she is a Pommie like me. A Pommie is what Australian kids call someone from England. They say we talk funny. But for some reason it doesn’t seem to matter to Kate’s friends. They get together and play with their dolls and cane hoops. They put the hoops around their waists and wiggle so that the hoops spin around and don’t fall to the ground. I sometimes try the hoop out in the back garden where no boys can see me.
I must be the only boy in the world who cannot stop thinking about naked ladies. All the others probably just dream about cricket and fishing and Biggles books. They are normal. I have been born very bad. I just can’t help it. I have to get my mind on to something else.
Once again I see the grave and the skull in my mind. It seems to be calling me. I slap the side of my face to drive away the thought.
What I need is some friends to keep my mind off things. I am a dreamer and that is a problem – everyone says so. I will see if I can team up with Ian Douglas and his gang. Then I can muck around with normal boys and keep myself from thinking too much.
It will be worth it even if I have to do some terrible dare.
4
signing the pledge
IT IS SUNDAY and we all go to Church in the morning. I don’t really like it much. The singing is all right but the sermons seem to go on and on forever. Also I don’t really like wearing my best clothes. My shoes are shiny and my short pants have sharp creases in them. I have to wear a tie and long socks with elastic garters to hold them up. I hate garters because they are tight around your legs. I have to keep pulling up my socks when Mum is around or she will know that I’m not wearing garters. Kate wears a dress and short white socks. Dad is in a suit and Mum wears a very smart black dress and a matching black hat.
For children best manners are compulsory. If any of Dad or Mum’s friends ask me how I am, I have to smile and say, ‘Very well, thank you, Mr Brockhouse’ (or whoever it is). I am not allowed to say more than that unless asked.
My father often says, ‘Children should be seen and not heard.’
After Church comes Sunday School. This is not so bad but it’s not as good as climbing trees, fishing, swimming, exploring drains and doing whatever you feel like. Sunday School is like real school except the teachers are not proper teachers and the classes are smaller and all about Jesus. Today I have been told that Rev Carpenter wants to talk to me after Sunday School. I am nervous about this because sometimes when he looks down from the pulpit he stares straight at me and I’m sure that he can read my mind. I feel as if he knows all about my wicked deeds. Maybe he knows I have been tracing over Blondie’s breasts and drawing her in the nude. I give a shiver. I don’t want to go. Being faced with such a terrible sin is almost as scary as looking into a grave.
Everyone has gone home and I am alone in the Church Hall with Rev Carpenter. He is the curate. He has big white teeth. They are just as white as the dog collar he wears around his neck. All his clothes are black and so is his thick hair. Blackest of all is his Bible which is large and has little letters and numbers cut into the sides of the pages. He can fan out the sides by bending the book and then he can find the spot of any bit he wants.
The Church Hall is an ancient wooden one which was brought out from England on a sailing ship in the old days. So many people have walked over its floor that the wood has been worn right down. The knots stand up like stones poking out of hard ground. In some places the knots have fallen out and left holes. Cold draughts are blowing in.
Rev Carpenter smiles and shows his big teeth. He is very serious but he’s kind.
He puts one hand on my shoulder and stares at me seriously.
‘Do you want a new friend, Hedley?’ he says.
Wow. I can’t believe this. It’s not about breasts.
‘A faithful friend who will never let you down?’ says Rev Carpenter.
My mind is smiling at his words. A faithful friend. Not a rat-bag like Ian Douglas. A boy who will always stand by you. Even when you are called a Pommie.
Rev Carpenter knows I am lonely. He is going to fix me up with a friend who I can play with. I hope this new friend goes to our school.
Fantastic. I won’t have to do a dare. I don’t really want to join Ian Douglas and his gang. One special friend will be much better than that lot. I nod my head like crazy.
‘Yes,’ I say happily. ‘I really do.’
Rev Carpenter looks pleased. He flips open his Bible.
‘Hedley,’ he says. ‘Read this aloud.’
The page has lots of passages with lines under them. In the margin he has scribbled comments in his own handwriting. I read the passage he is pointing to:
‘All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.’
‘Do you know what that means, Hedley?’
I know that I have to say something or his feelings will be hurt.
‘Everyone has done bad things?’ I say.
‘So that means you,’ he says. ‘And me.’
Oh what? He knows. He knows about Blondie’s breasts. I am dead. This is not working out the way I thought.
‘Now read this.’ He turns to another page.
‘The wages of sin is death.’
Rev Carpenter nods slowly and says, ‘What does that mean?’
‘You get killed for being bad.’
‘No, no, no, Hedley. It means eternal death. Being separated from God forever. That is what awaits us. No Heaven. Eternal night. Hell.’
He quickly flips to another verse and this time he reads it out himself.
‘Unless you be born again, you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’
‘Have you been born again, Hedley?’ he says.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I can’t even remember the first time.’
Rev Carpenter smiles patiently. ‘It means you have to give your heart to Jesus. You have to open the door of your heart and ask him in. Everyone who asks Jesus into their life goes to Heaven. Those who don’t, will go to …’ he doesn’t seem to want to say the word ‘… Hell.’
I just look at him. Some questions are stirring in my mind. What about savages and cannibals who can’t even read or don’t know anything about the Bible? How can they ask Jesus into their heart when they have never heard of him?
I don’t say this, though. What do I know? I am just a boy. He is a minister. All the adults sit and listen to him and after the sermon they put money into the collection at Church. He stands out the front and holds out this enormous gold plate. The vestry men (my father is one) take up the collection and then walk out to the altar and put all the money on the gold plate. Rev Carpenter holds it high above his head and offers it to God.
Sometimes I imagine that this gold plate belongs to me. It would be worth millions of pounds for sure. I imagine getting on the bus and I have no money but I have the plate. The bus driver would say, ‘Hedley Hopkins, you are the richest person in the country with that plate. You can travel for nothing.’ I often have this little daydream. I also have one where I am Superman.
In the Superman daydream I am flying through the sky and everyone points up and says, ‘Look, that’s Hedley Hopkins. Amazing.’
My favourite daydream is the one where I am walking along the street and a big black car pulls up. A man with a cigar says, ‘That’s him. That’s the kid we need to star in our new picture.’
I go to America with this man and take Mum and Dad and Kate with me. We all become rich and famous because I am a film star like the boy in Lassie.
Rev Carpenter brings my mind back to the present. He is very enthusiastic.
‘Listen to this, H
edley. This is marvellous. This is wonderful.’ He reads from the Bible in a deep voice:
‘Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man hear my voice and open the door I will come in to him and sup with him and he with me.’
Rev Carpenter lays a hand on my shoulder and looks deeply into my eyes. ‘Jesus wants to be your friend. He is standing at the door of your heart. Will you ask him in, Hedley?’
I feel embarrassed. I am not going to get a new friend at school. But I know I can’t say ‘no’ to Rev Carpenter so I nod.
‘Repeat after me,’ he says. We both kneel down and he says a prayer. He stops at the end of each sentence and I repeat it. A knot in the floor is sticking into my knee but I don’t mention it.
‘Dear Lord Jesus I am a sinner.’
‘Dear Lord Jesus I am a sinner.’
‘Please forgive me and come into my heart.’
‘Please forgive me and come into my heart.’
‘I will be your faithful servant for ever and ever.’
‘I will be your faithful servant for ever and ever.’
‘Amen.’
‘Amen.’
Rev Carpenter springs to his feet with a big smile. He shakes my hand. ‘Congratulations. You now have eternal life. Wasn’t that easy?’
I nod once again. It was embarrassing but it was easy. He put all the words into my mouth. I just had to repeat them. Like an echo.
‘The next bit is not easy,’ he says. ‘Now you must go forth and tell others. Never deny that you are a Soldier of Jesus. Win souls for Christ. Tell everyone what you have done. Don’t be like Simon Peter who denied Jesus just as the cock crowed.’
I don’t say anything. It’s okay for Rev Carpenter to tell people about Jesus. But it is not something I want to talk about at school. I have a feeling I will be like Simon Peter and keep my mouth shut.
He nods to the door and I go forth into the sunshine where my parents and Kate are waiting in their Sunday best in our Morris Minor. I can hear the Church choir practising a hymn. The gentle sound floats across the gravel car park.
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sins and griefs to bear.
‘What was that about?’ says Dad as he puts the car into gear. ‘What did he want?’
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘Did he ask you to sign the Pledge?’ says Mum.
‘What’s that?’
‘You have to promise not to drink alcohol for the rest of your life.’
I think about this. I’ve had a couple of sips of Mum’s sherry and it is awful. Dad’s beer is even worse. I just don’t want anyone to know about me being a Soldier of Jesus so I say, ‘Yes, I signed the Pledge.’
Mum seems glad. Dad seems sad. He likes his glass of beer on a hot day. For a moment I wonder if one day he would like me to have one with him. But he doesn’t say anything.
It’s funny – I’m in the car with three other people but I still feel lonely. As we drive down the street my mind starts to wander. Maybe I could trace over Betty in the Archie comics.
I wonder what she would look like in the nude?
5
the dare
THE NEXT DAY I drift around the playground at lunchtime like the first autumn leaf blowing across Hyde Park back home in England. I need someone to talk to. Kate is in the girls’ part of the playground jumping a skipping rope with two other girls. But even if she wasn’t I couldn’t be seen playing with my little sister.
I am not quite sure why I don’t have any friends of my own age. Is it just because I am a Pommie? I’m working on talking like the other kids at school. I can already say ‘G’day’ and ‘How’ya goin’, mate?’ Sometimes I say ‘Fair dinkum?’ but not often. My mother says I am starting to sound common.
Common people include ladies who wear earrings and paint their toenails. Boys who swear and have dirt under their fingernails are also common. I like common people – they are interesting. Mum says the Dunny Man is common. He comes once a week to collect the poo from the outside toilet. He heaves our enormous can of filthy poop and pee on to one shoulder and takes it out to his horse and cart in the street.
Every boy in the school has a story about the Dunny Man tripping up and sending the contents of the stinking pan flying all over the lawn. I have never seen this happen and I do not believe it. Ian Douglas boasts that he once tripped the Dunny Man up but no one believes this either.
The Dunny Man fought in the War. If your father fought in the War you get to wear his medals on Anzac Day at school when we remember the dead soldiers. If your father did not fight in the War it’s not as good as if he did. My father did not. He was the foreman of a factory that made aeroplanes in England. So I don’t get to wear any medals but I wish I did.
The Dunny Man sometimes sings rude songs from his days in the army. One of them makes me laugh and the boys at school sing it when there are no teachers around. I know it off by heart.
Hitler has only one brass ball.
Rommel has two but they are small.
Himmler has something similar.
But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.
Other common people are those who do not speak English. Our street has a lot of people from Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia and Poland. My mother calls them ‘foreigners’.
‘They’re always kissing each other,’ she says. ‘And they eat garlic. You can smell it on them for days.’
In our family we do not kiss each other. I can’t remember ever having been hugged by my father or mother. English people do not show how they feel. And they do not eat garlic. We have roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, gravy and boiled vegetables.
‘We are foreigners, too,’ I said one day.
‘No,’ said Dad in a cross voice. ‘The foreigners don’t even speak the Queen’s English. They come out here for the jobs. They don’t belong to the British Empire. What do you see in the Australian flag? Our flag, the Union Jack, that’s what. If you are English, you are Australian as soon as you put your foot on the shore.’
But this is not what the children here think. Over here I am a misfit.
I have to take action.
I have to make something happen so that I have friends.
Ian Douglas and his friends are in the boys’ toilets. They are probably smoking. Everyone knows they smoke in the toilets. Even the teachers know. But no one can catch them. They have a lookout on the door. It is usually Mouse because he gets asthma and can’t smoke. That’s what he says anyway. The others sit on the toilets with their trousers down and cigarettes dangling out of their mouths. If a teacher comes, Mouse shouts out and all the gang members drop their cigarettes between their legs and flush the toilets quicker than you can blink. All that is left is a bit of smoke drifting around and no one can say where it came from.
The teachers could sniff the breath of the gang members if they wanted to but for some reason they never do. To be perfectly honest I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t sniff Ian Douglas’s breath. Not for all the tea in China.
I don’t really like these boys much although Mouse is probably all right. He is only little. His dare was to blow up Mr Cordingly’s letterbox with a handful of penny bangers. He got caught and taken to the Police Station. The whole school knew about it because he had to apologise in front of everyone. Ian Douglas had to let him join the gang because he did the dare. That is the rule.
I go into the toilets to talk to Ian Douglas. I feel sick. It is not because the boys’ toilets stink of pee – which they do. It is because I am putting so much effort into looking normal and trying not to shake like a jelly. Ian Douglas takes a puff of his cigarette and looks up.
‘Look who’s here,’ he says in a sarcastic voice. ‘Whadda ya want, Hopkins? Come in for a bog, have ya?’
‘Well, a little turd like him would, wouldn’t ’e?’ says Henderson who is sitting in the next cubicle with the door open.
‘I want to be one of your gang,’ I say quickly.
‘Do you hear t
hat, Kelly?’ says Ian Douglas. ‘Hopkins wants to hang out with us.’
Frank Kelly has his back to us. He is seeing how high he can pee up the urinal. He can almost reach the window.
‘Piss weak,’ says Henderson. ‘Just like little Hopkins.’
‘Let’s see you do better, Henderson,’ says Kelly. ‘You couldn’t hit your own boot.’
‘Now, now, boys,’ says Ian Douglas. ‘What’re we gonna do about little Hopkins ’ere? I think we should give him a chance. He might have enough guts.’
‘Never,’ says Henderson.
They are talking about me as if I am not there. I search around for words that will make me sound tough.
‘I bloody do have guts,’ I say.
I can’t believe that I just said this swear word.
‘We don’t like bloody Pommies,’ says Henderson.
‘Why not?’
‘Because they’re whingers,’ says Frank Kelly.
I feel like running away. You just can’t win with these boys. But somewhere inside I find a bit of courage.
‘What about the Queen?’ I say.
This has got them. Four years ago the King died. I came down to breakfast one morning and my parents were sad. They had the wireless on and every station was playing funeral music. There was no Air Adventures of Biggles. Every hour the music would stop and the man reading the news would tell everyone in England and the Commonwealth what had happened. He would finish by saying, ‘The King is dead. Long live the Queen.’
How Hedley Hopkins Did a Dare... Page 2