by John Boyne
“What are you doing?” he asked his mother that night when everyone had gone home again. Margie was sitting by the gaslight with a basket of clothes and she was holding a shirt close to her face as her sewing needle went in and out and in again.
“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m sewing.”
“Whose clothes are they?”
“Not ours, that’s for sure. Have you seen the quality of them?” She held the shirt up for Alfie to feel, but he shook his head.
“Whose clothes are they?” he repeated.
“Oh, you don’t know her,” she said. “Her name’s Mrs. Emberg. She’s a friend of Mrs. Gawdley-Smith’s. Very well-to-do. She said she’d give me a shilling for every basket I do. Every ha’penny helps, Alfie.”
“So you’re working day and night as a Queen’s Nurse, you’re taking in laundry, and now you’re doing sewing for some rich lady too,” said Alfie.
“Oh, Alfie.”
“Mum, where’s Dad?”
Margie dropped her needle on the floor and it made a tinny sound as it hit the stonework of the fireplace. She didn’t have a shift at the hospital that night; she’d swapped with one of the other girls for Alfie’s birthday.
“You know where he is,” she said. “What do you want to go asking a silly question like that for?”
“Tell me the truth this time.”
Margie didn’t say anything for a few moments, but she picked up her needle and held the half-finished shirt in front of her. “I’ve to finish six of these by the end of the month,” she said, shaking her head. “This one’s not bad, is it? I told you I always wanted to find something I was good at. Maybe this is it. I’m in a race with Granny Summerfield. Do you know, she knitted thirty pairs of socks last month! That’s a pair a day. And with her bad eyesight! I sometimes wonder if she puts it on for effect.”
“Mum!” said Alfie, tugging at her sleeve. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s away at the war, isn’t he?” she snapped, turning on him now, her voice growing cold. “He’s away at this blessed war.”
“He never writes anymore.”
“He can’t at the moment.”
“Why can’t he?”
“Because he’s fighting.”
“Then how do we know?”
“How do we know what?”
“How do we know that he’s all right?”
“Of course he’s all right, Alfie. Why wouldn’t he be all right?”
“Maybe he’s dead.”
And then something terrible happened. Margie threw down her sewing, jumped out of her seat, and slapped Alfie, hard, across the face. He blinked in surprise. Neither Georgie nor Margie had ever hit him in his life, not even when he was very small and acting up. He put a hand to his cheek and felt the sting there but didn’t make a sound. Nothing like this had happened since that monster Mr. Grace had made him hold out his hand six times for Excalibur and smiled while he was beating him, the purple veins in his great drinker’s nose pulsating with pleasure.
A moment later, Margie burst into tears. She threw her arms around him and pulled him to her, and he could feel the dampness of her face against his shoulder. “Oh, Alfie,” she said. “I’m sorry, love. I didn’t mean it. I was upset, that’s all. I didn’t mean it, honest I didn’t.”
“Where’s Dad?” he asked again, and Margie pulled away, holding him by the shoulders and looking him directly in the face. The flames from the fire showed the streaks of her tears along her cheeks.
“What?” she asked.
“I want to know where Dad is,” he said. “I want to know why he hasn’t written in almost a year.”
“Of course he’s written, Alfie,” said Margie nervously.
“Then where are the letters? You used to keep them under your mattress, but there haven’t been any new ones since—”
“What are you doing looking under my mattress?” cried Margie. “Snooping in my things? Honestly, Alfie, I should—”
“If he’s written, then where are the letters?”
Margie shrugged and looked as if she were trying to think of a good answer. “I don’t know,” she said eventually. “I must have lost them. I must have thrown them away.”
“I don’t believe you,” shouted Alfie. “You wouldn’t do that. I know you wouldn’t. Tell me the truth! You keep talking about a secret mission but you never explain it.”
Margie dried her face and sat back on her chair. “All right,” she said at last. “He’s not fighting anymore, you’re right. But he doesn’t have time to write. A man from the War Office came to see me. He said that your dad was one of the bravest soldiers they’d ever seen, so they gave him new orders. He’s doing what he can to put an end to the war.”
“What kind of mission is it?” asked Alfie.
“He wouldn’t tell me,” said Margie. “But I’m sure it’s very important. Anyway, the point is that until it’s finished, your dad isn’t allowed to write to us.”
Alfie thought about it. “When did he come to see you?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The man from the War Office.”
Margie blew her cheeks out a little and looked away from him. “Oh, I can’t remember,” she said. “It was months ago.”
“And what was his name?”
“I don’t remember. What does it matter anyway?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that he came?”
“Because I didn’t want to worry you. I know how clever you are, Alfie, but you’re only nine. And you were only eight then. There are some things that—”
“Did you tell Granny Summerfield?”
“No, of course not.”
“But she’s a grown-up.”
Margie looked flustered and stood up, shaking her head. “Alfie, I’m not going to continue with this conversation. You asked where your father is, and I’ve just told you. He’s on a secret mission. Now can we please just leave it there?”
Alfie was happy to leave it there. There was no point asking any more questions because he was absolutely certain that she wouldn’t tell him the truth anyway. No man from the War Office had ever called at their house; there might have been lots of secret missions going on but his father wasn’t part of any of them, and wherever he was, Margie knew but wasn’t willing to say. But Alfie was certain that he would figure it out eventually if he just put it all together one piece at a time.
Between then and now, however, he hadn’t got much farther in his investigations. No more letters had arrived, and whenever Alfie caught his mother and Granny Summerfield deep in conversation, they always stopped talking and began discussing the weather or how difficult it was to get fresh apples these days.
In fact, Alfie came no nearer to understanding where his father might be until that day at King’s Cross when he polished the shoes of the military doctor and his papers got scattered across the concourse.
EAST SUFFOLK & IPSWICH HOSPITAL
Summerfield, George.
DOB: 3/5/1887.
Serial no.: 14278.
And that was the moment Alfie knew he had been both right and wrong in the things he believed. His dad wasn’t on a secret mission. But he wasn’t dead either. He wasn’t even in France anymore.
He was back in England.
In hospital.
CHAPTER 7
HELLO, WHO’S YOUR LADY FRIEND?
Margie was surprised to find Alfie sitting up in bed reading when she opened his bedroom door, but he’d already been awake for almost an hour.
“Are you all right?” she asked, checking his forehead for a temperature. “You’re not coming down with something, are you?”
“I’m fine,” said Alfie. “I just woke up early, that’s all.”
“Well, what’s seldom is wonderful.” She looked around and sniffed the air with a frown. “Why does it always smell of shoe polish in here? It makes no sense when your shoes are always so scruffy. Anyway, your breakfast is downstairs on the table. I’m going to pick up a bit of
chicken for our supper this evening. I heard of a butcher on Pentonville Road who might be getting a delivery today. That’s the whisper anyway. He’s the brother of one of the Queen’s Nurses down on Surgical Two, and he’s promised to put a bit aside for us.”
“Chicken?” asked Alfie, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “Doesn’t that cost a lot of money?”
“There was a bit more in my purse this morning than I expected,” said Margie, giving him a quick wink. “Funny how that’s always happening to me. Do you know, I managed to pay almost all our bills and the rent this week? And the good news is that I’m not working tonight, so we can stay in, just the two of us, and eat together.”
Alfie frowned. On any other day he would have been pleased by this news, but today he wasn’t sure if it was for the best. After all, he didn’t know what time he would be home. He had plans. Serious plans. A secret mission of his own.
“Oh,” he said, looking away so Margie would not be able to tell that he was lying, “but I told Granny that I’d go over to her house for supper.”
“She never mentioned it.”
“Maybe she forgot. Like when she forgot to tell you that she liked that new dress you wore last week.”
“That wasn’t forgetfulness,” said Margie, rolling her eyes. “She said that I shouldn’t accept charity from Mrs. Gawdley-Smith, but if she was going to throw it out and was happy for me to take it, then why shouldn’t I have it? I can’t go round in rags forever, can I? Anyway, beggars can’t be choosers.”
“We’re not beggars,” said Alfie.
“That’s what your granny said. But we’re still perilously close to penury, Alfie. Perilously close to penury.” Margie seemed to love this phrase. “Anyway, can’t you tell her you’ll go another day? It’s not often I’m here in the evening.”
“I’ll ask her,” said Alfie, pulling the sheets back now and getting out of bed. “But if I’m not here when you get home, it means that she got upset and I had to stay.”
“All right then,” said Margie. “Well, do your best and hopefully I’ll see you later.”
She left the bedroom and Alfie heard her sweeping the hallway before leaving for work. He felt a bit guilty for making her sad but it was for a good reason, he was certain of that. He ran out to the landing, charged down the stairs, out to the privy at the end of the garden, then back inside before the cold could freeze his fingers and toes off, and upstairs to his room, where he took his bag of coins from the back of the sock drawer and poured the contents out onto the sheets.
He counted his money. He’d been saving ever since becoming a shoeshine boy and there was almost eight shillings there now. Eight shillings! He’d never counted it before because he worried that if he knew how much he had, then he might go a bit mad and spend it all. But he’d always felt that the day would come when he would need this money; he just didn’t know when that day might arrive, or why. And the day was finally here.
Downstairs, he ate his breakfast, had a quick wash at the kitchen sink, and made sure that his hair was neatly combed. There was less chance that anyone would stop him if he looked like a respectable little boy. Satisfied, he put his shoes on, slipped a handful of change into his pocket, and left the house.
As he walked down Damley Road he noticed Joe Patience smoking a cigarette in his doorway just as an army van came round the corner. Alfie froze. He glanced over at Joe, who looked back at him with an empty expression, but then his eyes, like Alfie’s, watched the car as it began to slow down and all the curtains along the street started to twitch. In a moment, the doors opened one by one and the women came out, looking at each other in fear, their faces pale and white as Joe stepped back into his hallway, the door still open, but out of sight of his neighbors.
Not me, they were all thinking.
Please, God, not me.
Not today.
The car stopped in front of Alfie, the window rolled down, and an officer stared at him as he pressed himself back against the wall.
“Is this Damley Avenue?” the man asked, and Alfie gave a sigh of relief. He only wanted directions.
“Damley Road,” he replied, the words getting caught a little in his throat.
“What’s that, son?”
“Damley Road,” he repeated. “For the avenue, you need to go down the end of the street, turn left, then take the first right. You can’t miss it.”
The man nodded, rolled the window up again, and the car drove off as the women went back inside, leaving only Alfie and Joe Patience looking at each other.
“We live to fight another day,” said Joe, smiling the kind of smile that wasn’t a real smile at all. Alfie noticed that one of his front teeth had been knocked out and he had a black eye that wasn’t really a black eye at all; it was more of a purple, green, and yellow eye. “All right, Alfie?” he asked.
“All right, Joe.”
“You wanna know, don’t you? You wanna know what they done to me? My own fault for answering my door after dark.”
Alfie stared at him. He didn’t know what Joe meant, but he didn’t have time to find out. He had a busy day ahead of him. He shook his head quickly and ran down the street, turned right, and made his way toward King’s Cross.
He got there more quickly than usual because he wasn’t weighed down by his shoeshine box, which always seemed to grow much heavier halfway between home and work, and when he reached the station he glanced toward his usual spot, which was empty now, but standing next to it looking around was Mr. Podgett, the banker whose son Billy hoped that the war would never come to an end. He was looking at his watch, probably waiting for a shoeshine, but a moment later he gave up and disappeared into the crowd. Alfie marched over to the ticket counter, which was higher than his head, and waited his turn.
“How much to Suffolk?” he asked, unable to see the person behind the counter.
“Who’s that?” came a woman’s voice, and he repeated his question.
“Lad wants to know how much for a ticket to Suffolk,” said the man in the queue behind him. “He’s too short to see you, isn’t he?”
“Thru’pence one way, fivepence return, open all day,” said the disembodied voice, and Alfie reached into his pocket, carefully took out one penny, two ha’pennies, and twelve farthings and reached his hand over the top to drop the money in.
“Saints alive,” said the woman’s voice.
Still, she swept the money up and he heard the sound of a machine twisting into action; a moment later a ticket fell into the slot and he reached in to take it.
“You want to grow a little taller, sonny,” said the man behind him as he turned away. “It makes it all easier in the end.”
Alfie felt like sticking his tongue out at him but decided against it; that was the kind of thing children did, and today he was not a child but a grown-up. On account of the fact that he was going to do a very grown-up thing.
He looked up at the station information board but couldn’t find any train whose destination was Suffolk. But then he saw one going to Ipswich, leaving from platform two in a few minutes’ time, and he made his way over there and stared at it, uncertain whether or not he should risk it. But the hospital, after all, was called the East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital.
“On or off?” said a conductor, tapping him on the shoulder as he glanced at his watch. “Look lively, lad. She leaves in a minute or two.”
“On,” said Alfie, taking a chance and jumping aboard.
Alfie had never been on a train before, and despite the importance of his mission—his secret mission—he couldn’t help but feel a bit excited to be sitting in a carriage waiting for the conductor to blow his whistle and the train to get moving. He remembered his dad telling him how he had thought about working on the trains himself before he got his job in the dairy, and he wondered whether things might have been different if he had. He had read in the newspaper one day that some “essential service people” were allowed to escape conscription if they provided “valuable support on
the Home Front,” and he knew that train drivers and conductors were part of this elite group. But then he remembered that his dad hadn’t been conscripted—he’d volunteered—so it wouldn’t have made much difference in the end.
A few minutes later the train started to move, and Alfie watched out of the window as it picked up speed and made its way along the track. It was, he decided, the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him—ever, in his whole life. He watched the scenery moving past for a long time, until his neck started to hurt, and then he turned around, noticing for the first time the young woman in the carriage with him. She was sitting across from him, but not by the window, reading a book called The Extraordinary Nature of the Human Mind by Dr. F. R. Hutchison. Alfie wasn’t sure how the second word in the title was pronounced and tried sounding it out with his lips. After a moment the young woman turned and stared directly at him.
“Are you quite all right?” she asked.
“Yes, thanks,” said Alfie, turning away in embarrassment and looking out the window again. He could feel her eyes boring into him.
“Don’t you have something of your own to read, or are you just going to stare at my book for the entire journey?”
Alfie said nothing. He wished that he had brought Robinson Crusoe with him.
“Are you traveling alone?” she continued after a moment.
He turned back to her, swallowing nervously, and then nodded.
“Astonishing,” she declared. “What age are you anyway, ten?”
“Nine,” said Alfie, flattered beyond his wildest dreams. She thought he was ten! That was an absolute triumph.
“And they let boys of nine travel the railways alone, do they? It wouldn’t have happened when I was a girl, let me tell you. I remember my brother Will ran off on a train one day and—” She stopped herself and shrugged her shoulders. “Yes, well,” she said. “That was all a long time ago now. I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it.”
“How old was he?” asked Alfie.
“How old was who?”
“Your brother. When he took the train alone?”