by Ross Welford
After a year or two of knowing him, Jack started to wear long trousers. A year or two after that, he grew a wispy moustache, and his voice became deeper.
So far as he knew, I came to visit my ‘aunt’ most weekends. I had several periods when I said I was recovering from a mystery illness, which required longer stays to benefit from the sea air, and there were always the summer holidays.
Jack would even come to our house in the woods. Mam liked him but she was wary. She was not keen on anybody getting too close.
‘It will end badly, Alve,’ she would warn. I did not want to believe her. Jack would be different, I was sure of it.
If Jack thought it odd that I did not grow taller, or grow hair on my legs, he said nothing. Not so his mother, though.
‘Ee, Alfie Monk, your mother not feedin’ you or summin’?’ Mrs McGonagal said to me one day in the shop. ‘Look at ye! There’s more growth on a mouldy cheese.’
‘Ma!’ said Jack, but he was laughing too. I don’t think he intended to be mean, but, when he laughed, I shrivelled inside because I’d seen it all before. The suspicion, the mistrust, the gradual – or sometimes sudden – withdrawal of friendship from the strange boy who does not get older.
Not long after, I heard them talking about me. I had come into the shop; the tinkling bell that normally announced a customer’s arrival was broken, so nobody knew I was there.
I heard Jack in the back room of the shop. He was repeating his mother’s joke from before in his new, deeper voice.
‘… more growth on a mouldy cheese, I tell you!’
‘Come on, Jack. Don’t mock the afflicted. He’s prob’ly got some growth condition or summin’.’ The voice was a young woman: Jean Palmer, whom Jack had started courting. I had met her once or twice. She was pretty.
‘Alfie’s different. It’s not right,’ said Jack. ‘He’s not changed in five years. Five years! And have you heard how he talks? Reckons he’s from Hexham. Well, I know Hexham, and they don’t talk like that out there.’
By now, I had moved from my position by the counter and was sort of crouched down behind a stack of cardboard boxes. I did not want them to come out and see that I had been listening.
‘Aye, he does talk funny, I’ll give y’that,’ Jean Palmer said. ‘But I like him.’
‘He’s not right, Jean. And his aunty’s not right, either. Never looks you in the eye when she’s talking to you. Living out in the woods like that – with a goat of all things. Old Lizzie Richardson told Ma she used to know her years ago, in North Shields, when she had a son of her own, and he was called Alfie as well. That’s odd, isn’t it?’
‘Lizzie Richardson? She’s over eighty.’
‘That’s what I’m saying, Jean. And, if Mrs Richardson knew her back in Shields, that puts that Mrs Monk at sixty-odd if she’s a day.’
‘Well, she’s lookin’ good on it is all I can say.’
At that point, another customer came in and shouted, ‘Hello?’ and hardly noticed as I scuttled out. I cycled home, despondent.
This was how it happened, again and again, although this time was quicker than I was used to.
You see, it is simply not possible to get no older and expect nobody to notice. People talk; people gossip. You can often get away with it for much longer than you might expect, but eventually people behave just like, well … people.
They make up reasons to explain the inexplicable, and Mam and I helped them, creating a little confusion. Was I Mam’s son, for example, or was I her nephew? Mam would often encourage people to think that her own mother lived in the same house.
And old people with long memories, like Lizzie Richardson, eventually die and take their suspicions with them, and those that are left conclude that they were the ramblings of an ageing mind because the truth is just too unbelievable.
But you cannot fool everyone. Not forever.
By 1939, Jack was sixteen: a tall young man with a lopsided grin. I had bought him a packet of cigarettes for his sixteenth birthday because that was what you did back then. He offered me one, but I had tried tobacco before, years ago. I knew I did not like it, so I said no and he gave me a sneering look.
One day in the summer I went round to the shop in Eastbourne Gardens. It was a few weeks after I had overheard him talking in the back room. Mrs McGonagal shook her head.
‘He’s not in, son. He’s very busy these days. He’s helpin’ in the shop a lot, so he cannit come out.’
Well, which was it? I thought. Is he not in, or is he in and unable to come out? I knew she was lying.
‘Shall … shall I come back tomorrow?’
‘No, son. I think it’s best if you don’t. Like I say, he’s busy in the shop.’
‘W-will you tell him I was here?’
‘Aye.’ Her attention had already switched to the next customer. ‘Mrs Abercrombie. How’s your little Queenie? Ee, have you heard the news about Mr Hitler? There’s going to be an announcement later.’
Then I heard it: a girl’s laugh, a giggle, from the back room. The door to the back was closed, but not shut tight and the noise came through easily. So did the smell of cigarettes.
I knew then, just as you know now, that they were laughing at me. That Jack was there with Jean, and I understood.
He did not want to hang around with a boy who looked like he was eleven. A boy who would not be allowed into dances, a boy who did not smoke, a boy who was not interested in girls, a boy who was just, well … a boy. A strange boy: that was me. Is me.
I swallowed hard and took a deep breath. It had happened before, but I was still angry.
I was outside when Jack and Jean came out of the shop door and went in opposite directions.
I watched him walk off up the street, my cheeks burning with shame. Centuries of staying in the shadows, of not causing a fuss were cast aside and I ran to catch up. ‘Hey!’ I shouted. ‘Hey, Jack!’ He turned.
‘Oh. Hello, Alfie.’ I could see he was blushing.
What should I say now? I had not worked this out. For a moment, we stood facing each other: me still a boy in shorts, he a young man. He took a languid drag on his cigarette and looked down at me. He was much taller. There was no point in pretending.
‘I heard what you said. To Jean. The other week. About me not being right.’
‘Ah. Hmm.’ He chewed his bottom lip and looked away before exhaling a plume of smoke.
‘I thought you were my friend.’
‘I am, Alfie. I am, only …’ His eyes flicked to the side. He was embarrassed but I did not care. ‘Look, shall we sit down?’
There was a low wall and we sat. He unbuttoned his jacket, and hitched up the knees of his trousers before sitting. It was all so … grown-up.
‘The thing is, Alfie …’ and he paused. I do not think he quite knew what ‘the thing’ was. I spoke in the pause.
‘I embarrass you – is that it?’
He hesitated before saying, ‘No, Alfie!’ but the truth was in the hesitation, and it told me everything I needed to know. I could feel my throat tightening with emotion.
‘I do not have to be like this, you know!’ I said, my voice getting louder. ‘I can reverse it!’
‘You can reverse it? Reverse what?’
I had said more than I had intended, so I kept quiet, but I was panting.
‘Listen, Alfie,’ Jack said, getting to his feet. ‘You’re a good boy. You were a good friend. But … well, people change.’ He ground the cigarette under his shoe.
And that was it. He turned and carried on up Eastbourne Gardens, and once again I tried to swallow the lump high in my chest.
I did not tell Mam: it would only upset her. That evening I milked Amy, and turned the cheeses in the little cheese pantry as usual. All the while, I had the same lump in my throat that I could not swallow.
Mam and I listened to the wireless. Mr Chamberlain, the Prime Minister, announced that we were at war with Germany again, and we both agreed that it only seemed like yesterday t
hat the last war had finished.
Finally I cried. Sitting there, in front of the fire, I felt a fat tear roll down my cheek and the sob broke over my heart like a wave over a shipwreck.
Mam thought I was crying because of the war, but I was not. I longed – for the umpteenth time – to grow up, to be like Jack, like all the boys I had ever known who had grown up.
Could Mam read my mind? It certainly felt like it sometimes. She got up and came over to me, sitting on the side of the chair and rubbing my back. I traced the two little scars on her upper arm with my fingers as I had done countless times before, while she sang a mournful, low tune. The words were in the ancient language we shared, and Mam’s wavering voice deepened my sadness so that I wept like a small child with my head on her lap.
I thought then that I would not see Jack McGonagal again, and that this war would probably end the world.
I was wrong on both counts.
We had known many wars, Mam and I, but this one was different. In all of the other wars, the fighting was nowhere near us. It took place in battles, fought by soldiers or navies, and we were not involved. The closest I had ever been was all those years ago when the tribe from beyond the Roman Wall had sailed up the Tyne and we had fled.
We had once had to travel past the fields where a huge battle had taken place weeks before, where the smell of war and unburied soldiers still lingered in the air.
But, with this one, it was the bombs that made the difference. Now the enemy came to us, and it was all one battle, all the time. Again and again, in 1940 and 1941, the German planes would fly over us. Usually it was at night; sometimes it was in the day.
The bombs were aimed at factories in Newcastle, or at the shipyards in Wallsend and North Shields. But their aim was poor. Mam came back from the shops one day and sat down heavily in the chair in the back room.
‘Nearly a hundred souls, they reckon, Alve. Sheltering from the bombs, they were. The shelter took a direct hit. And Mr McGonagal from the shop was in there.’
Poor Jack. His dad.
(When they had counted every body, there were 107 dead from one bomb, which had hit the lemonade factory in North Shields with the air-raid shelter beneath it.)
Before the war started, I had been worried that gossip would begin about Mam and me. It only needed one person to start talking. As the wartime months turned to years, however, we found – as we had found before – that it was comparatively easy to go unnoticed.
If you keep your head down, and cause no trouble, officials will ignore you. They have more important things to worry about, especially during a war. A woman and her ‘nephew’ living a quiet life could safely be ignored.
So, for a year or more, we stayed put. There were forms to fill in for obtaining foods that were rationed. Mam was good at that: she had birth certificates and official deeds that would convince almost anyone.
Thanks to our chickens, we ate a lot of eggs, because meat was in short supply. We would also eat chicken now and then, when a bird stopped laying and we killed it. That was usually my job. It was what I was doing when Jack called round in his uniform.
Not a soldier’s uniform, though – he was still too young. He was a War Reserve Constable: part of the police force.
Jack’s War Reserve Constable uniform looked just like a policeman’s uniform, except ill-fitting, with the sleeves touching his knuckles, and the trousers exposing his socks, but I could tell he was very proud to be wearing it.
I had not seen him in more than a year, and he was even taller and more grown-up-looking than before. He must have been nearly eighteen, and I felt the familiar heart-wrench of sadness that I experienced seeing someone that I knew grow older and leave me behind.
He was cheery enough – cocky, even – when he let himself into the backyard where I was stalking an elderly chicken.
‘Good morning?’ he called. Mam turned first to see him in his uniform and tin helmet.
‘Hello, Jack, love,’ she said, although there was a wary note in her voice. ‘Ee – look at you in your WRC stuff. He looks so grown-up, eh, Alfie?’
I grunted a reply. I was not so pleased to see him. Mam, though, was very good at being ‘normal’.
‘Have you cycled all the way here in this heat? Would you like a glass of water?’
‘Yes, please, Mrs Monk.’ He avoided looking at me but I knew something was up. He was being too formal.
‘And you can take your tin helmet off. I divvent think Mr Hitler will be bombing us today.’
We sat in the backyard, looking up at the dense trees on the hill, and Jack drank his water, stealing glances at me.
‘We were so sorry to hear about your father, isn’t it, Alfie?’ Mam said. I nodded. Jack said nothing.
There was a long, tense moment before Mam broke the silence again.
‘So what brings you out here, Jack? Have you just come to say hello? We’ve not seen you in so long.’
I could tell from Mam’s voice that she thought something was wrong.
‘Well, as a matter of fact, Mrs Monk …’ and that is when I knew. Nobody uses that phrase ‘as a matter of fact’ when it is going to be good news.
‘… as a matter of fact, I have some enquiries of an official nature. If I may?’
Mam used to say that a uniform could make someone a better person or a worse person, but never the same person. Jack turned to me as he took a notebook out of his oversized tunic.
‘How old are you, Alfie?’
And so it began: an interrogation of me, Mam, how long we had lived here, why official documents (which Jack said he now had access to) did not seem to match up, and more.
Mam remained calm. ‘I’m sure it’s just a clerical mix-up, Jack, love. As you know, Alfie has a growth deficiency. Markandaya’s Syndrome type three.’
This was a lie that had worked well in the past. A mysterious illness which ‘ran in our family’ to account for my unusual appearance. It was not working on Jack.
‘Ah, well, I remember you saying this before, Mrs Monk. I’ve checked with Dr Menzies in Whitley Bay and he knows of no such illness.’
‘Well, it is very rare,’ I said, but I came over as defensive, and not believable. Jack ignored me. At that moment, the chicken I had been pursuing before Jack’s arrival came close to me, pecking at the ground, and in one swift movement I darted out my right hand and grabbed it by the neck.
‘Take its legs,’ I barked at Jack as the chicken flapped around. ‘Go on – quickly!’ Jack was flailing around, timidly trying to hold the squirming chicken’s legs. ‘Right, hold tight and pull towards you.’
As he did so, I pulled down sharply on the chicken’s head until I felt a soft snap and the bird went limp. Its wings flapped for a bit and then stopped. The whole thing was over in seconds.
‘Is … is it dead?’ Jack had turned pale and was shaking a little. Heaven help him if he ever goes into battle, I thought.
‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘Because we are going to eat it.’
Mam stepped forward and took the dead bird from me, placing it in Jack’s upturned helmet.
‘No, Alfie. This is for Jack. Take it home to your mam, love. Come back in a month for another one, eh? But erm … do not worry yourself any more about those mix-ups, eh? It happens all the time. I am certain a WRC has got far more important things to worry about.’ She brushed a chicken feather off Jack’s shoulder and patted him on the chest.
And so Jack cycled off, his upturned tin helmet slung over his arm like a shopping basket, containing the dead chicken.
‘It is war, Alve,’ said Mam, shaking her head when he had gone. ‘It does the strangest things to people. You would think we had enough trouble fighting Hitler.’
For the next six months, Jack came back. He would always let himself in the backyard, and once Mam found him in our house, looking at our bookshelves. It was only years later that we discovered one of our signed Dickens novels was gone – A Tale of Two Cities. We always thought Jack might have
taken it, but there was no way of knowing.
‘He’s prowling,’ said Mam. ‘He’s looking for something.’ Each time we gave him a chicken, until we had only three left.
Then he stopped coming and Mam heard he had been called up to serve in the air force and had been sent for training to Scotland.
We did not see Jack for many years.
But then I met his son.
It was 1962, and the memory of the war that had killed so many people and caused so much misery worldwide was beginning to fade.
It had been more than twenty years since I had last spoken to Jack McGonagal. The shop in Eastbourne Gardens had changed hands and Mrs McGonagal had – according to Mam – moved to the country. And then I saw Jack on the beach.
It was a day in early summer and back then, before foreign holidays were affordable, the beach at Whitley would get packed with day trippers, and holidaymakers from the shipyards in Scotland.
Mam loved a crowded beach. It was a thirty-minute walk along the wooded path and then down the main road until we got to the coast road, with the lighthouse at one end and barely enough space on the sand for our blanket. Mam had made herself a short-sleeved blouse, and only that morning had finished a pair of shorts for me, in rust-coloured corduroy with deep pockets.
We sat on the beach in our sunglasses and blended in perfectly: ‘Hidden in plain sight,’ was what Mam said.
I read my latest library book, and we ate sandwiches, and we went for a plodge in the sea, and Mam laughed when I splashed her. Then a man approached me as I was coming out of the shallow water.
‘How, son – we’re short of a goalie. You want to go in goal?’ He looked a friendly sort. His trousers were rolled up to his knees, and he indicated a patch of the beach further up, where there were fewer people, and a gang of boys and a couple of dads were marking out a small football pitch in the sand.
Mam started to answer, ‘Oh, I do not think …’
‘Yes!’ I said, and, before Mam could argue, I was following the man towards the group. I told him my name and he told the others: ‘This is Alfie.’