by Rumer Godden
Like Tip, Lovejoy had to appear in the Juvenile Court—“But not once, twice,” said Lovejoy. The second time the chairman had come straight to the point.
“This is a very sad thing that has happened to you,” he said, “but it has happened. Now we have to find someone kind and careful who will look after you.”
“I can look after myself,” said Lovejoy.
“Not at eleven years old,” said the chairman gently. “Tell us, is there anyone to whom you would like to go?”
“I’ll stay with Mrs. Combie,” said Lovejoy.
“I can’t do it,” said Mrs. Combie. She had been sitting just behind Lovejoy; now she started to her feet and came to the table, the table that was covered with all those papers. Lovejoy had been frightened by the papers, the school report, the doctor’s report, and the mysterious things that were written about her in Miss Dolben the Probation Officer’s report. “They knew all about me,” Tip was to say proudly; it did not make Lovejoy feel proud; she felt as if she were suddenly made public and she quailed.
“I couldn’t do it, sir, madam, sir,” said Mrs. Combie, looking from one magistrate to the other. “Not with Lovejoy, not whatever they pay.” She spoke so quickly it was difficult to hear. “I don’t mind for a little while till things are settled, but I couldn’t take the responsibility. It’s not that she’s not a good child, sir,” said Mrs. Combie, coming back to the chairman. “She is, but she has ideas.” Mrs. Combie spoke as if that were a disease.
“She seems a sensible little girl,” said the chairman. “She knows that things have changed.”
“Still, I couldn’t,” said Mrs. Combie again.
The chairman picked up the typed sheets Miss Dolben had put down, and looked inquiringly at her. “Mrs. Combie has difficulties of her own at home,” said Miss Dolben.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Combie, breathing loudly. “Why should I take Lovejoy?” she asked. “Just because I let the room? Why me more than anybody else?”
“I know it’s not your responsibility,” said the chairman soothingly. “It’s only that she had become fond of you.”
“Because she doesn’t want to go into a home,” said Mrs. Combie.
Lovejoy did not want to go into a home. “They’ll make you wear uniform there,” Cassie had said.
“The children at the Compassion Home don’t wear uniform,” said Lovejoy, but the thought of walking two by two in a crocodile as she had seen them in the Street made her feel sick.
Now as Lovejoy stood in front of the bench, though Mrs. Combie was sitting down again behind her, she knew there was no one. She did not count Miss Dolben, in the tweed coat and skirt, with the red veins on her nose, though Miss Dolben was taking a great interest in her. “She’s kind,” Lovejoy told Vincent, “only you don’t want to look at her very much.” There were plenty of pretty probation officers, and Lovejoy, looking at the row of them at their desks, thought, I wish I had a pretty one. She said that afterwards to Mrs. Combie. “You think too much what people look like,” said Mrs. Combie for the hundredth time, but Lovejoy could not help it; she had condemned Miss Dolben’s coat and skirt the first time she saw it, and averted her eyes from the veins, though there she had tried to help Miss Dolben. “There’s a clinic you can go to for that nose,” she had told her.
“You’re a rude, ungrateful little girl,” Cassie had said.
“Isn’t there anyone else?” the chairman asked Lovejoy.
“Yes, Mrs. Combie.” She went on saying it while the magistrates told her to stand back a little so that they could confer together. Lovejoy stood back, but, straining her ears, she could still hear.
“Miss Angela Chesney, who was concerned in the case about the boy, is on the Committee of the Home of Compassion,” she heard the chairman say. “She has told Miss Dolben she could get the child in there. There’s a vacancy, and Miss Dolben thinks that a good idea—isn’t that so, Miss Dolben?”
Miss Dolben came up to the table. “It wouldn’t mean going right away,” said Miss Dolben, “and Lovejoy could keep on at the same school, which she likes. Now I have the supervision order, I could visit her there and . . .”
So it was settled while Lovejoy stood in the middle of the court with all the heads bent round her; all the people were busily writing or looking at their watches—or their nails, thought Lovejoy, her eyes on the head of a woman policeman who was quietly buffing hers. Then Miss Dolben and Mrs. Combie and Lovejoy went outside and Miss Dolben got some money and gave it to Mrs. Combie for Lovejoy’s keep—“Pending,” said Miss Dolben, and Mrs. Combie took Lovejoy away.
“What’s ‘pending’?” Lovejoy asked Vincent in an effort to read her fate.
“Waiting till it, the thing you’re waiting for, happens,” said Vincent.
“Then it’s going to happen?” asked Lovejoy.
“It must,” said Vincent, white-faced. Lovejoy looked at him; he was not talking of her but of himself.
They had come and taken away the refrigerator, before even the first instalment was paid. “Mrs. Combie asked them to,” said Vincent, but he was not angry. The restaurant kept open, but Vincent did not go to Mortimer Street any longer; he bought a few things in the High—not even Driscoll’s, noticed Lovejoy—and carried them home in a netted bag. There was only one vase of flowers in the restaurant and only little meals were cooked, for one or two of the flats people perhaps, or for Mr. Manley.
At night, when Vincent stayed late in the restaurant, he did not open his books or write menus; he sat at his desk, his chin on his hands. “What is he doing?” asked Mrs. Combie. Lovejoy knew what he was doing, waiting—“Pending,” said Lovejoy.
She made one more attempt on Mrs. Combie. It was in the kitchen, when Mrs. Combie was sitting at the table having one of her cups of tea; tea was the only thing that kept her alive, Mrs. Combie said. Lovejoy came and stood by her, holding the edge of the table. “I’d work for you,” said Lovejoy hoarsely. “Even when I’m grown up. I’d work and give you all the money.”
“Shouldn’t we think of the story of the good Samaritan?” Mrs. Combie had asked Cassie, and Cassie had said, “In the story of the good Samaritan Lovejoy would have been the thief.” Mrs. Combie stirred her tea and looked firmly at the tablecloth, but in spite of Cassie a great lump came in her throat.
“Please keep me,” said Lovejoy.
“We can’t even keep ourselves,” said Mrs. Combie incoherently and she burst into tears.
Lovejoy did not know how long this fortnight was, but it might have been twenty years. It went quickly and yet the days were long; they seemed all daylight, white and mercilessly bright. It was a hot spell and cruel as all hot spells were in the Street. The house bricks and the paving stones baked in the sun, and when the babies were put out to sleep in their perambulators they cried because the heat from the pavements burned their tender skins. The road smelled of hot tar and from the open windows, open as wide as they could go, as if the rooms were gasping for air, came a stale smell of dirt and sweat and old gas and refuse from the dustbins that smelled strong; the Street was extraordinarily noisy too, because with the open windows all the radios could be heard from top to bottom of the houses. The whole Street seemed more crowded and more hopeless. The mothers let the children do as they pleased—except Tip, thought Lovejoy bitterly—but the children were too listless to do much; only if the municipal water cart came by they rushed out to get under the sprinklers. The ones at school did better; they went to the swimming bath and would come chattering along the pavement, refreshed, with their bathing suits rolled in their towels.
On the stalls there was a smell of rotting fruit and the fish, or the horsemeat for the cats went bad before Mrs. Cleary or Miss Arnot could cook it; Istanbul had a touch of heat eczema and the children were warned not to touch him. Everyone boiled the milk as soon as it came, but it still soured, and everyone had swollen, aching feet. Mrs. Combie could hardly get on her comfortable felt slippers. “Rest your feet, Ettie,” Vincent would say. “What
’s the use of working now?” But Mrs. Combie could not stop working. Lovejoy had foot trouble too; she had come through her plimsolls and her small toes showed through the fray; she had tried to go barefoot, but the heat hurt the soles of her feet. In the bomb-ruins, among the weeds, the earth showed great dry cracks. Everything was cracking apart. “I need Tip badly,” said Lovejoy. “I can’t water the garden.” She had to fill a jar at a time, hide the cider bottle, climb down and empty the jar, place it in position again, climb up, unearth the cider bottle, and pour enough for another jar. She went up and down, backwards and forwards, till she ached, but she only managed to keep the pansies moist—“and Jiminy Cricket, of course, Jiminy Cricket is first,” said Lovejoy; the mustard and cress was turning brown. It would have done this in any case, its crop was over, but Lovejoy did not know that; she thought it was the heat and the dryness, and the absence of Tip. The absence of Tip went on and on.
Twice she had a sign of him; on each Monday morning Lovejoy found a piece of cotton hanging over the wall and, tied to it, an old envelope in which was half a crown. On the envelope was written, From Tip. Tip dropped them over on Sundays when he went to Mass; on Sundays, of course, Lovejoy had no chance of getting over the wall, but when she went on Monday the half-crown was there. I can do that anyhow, Tip had thought. Lovejoy did not know it but he had been fighting many battles for her.
The rumour had run round the Street that Lovejoy’s mother had gone to Australia, Canada, Africa, and no one could get her back. “Mum, couldn’t we have one more child?” asked Tip.
For a moment Mrs. Malone thought he meant one more after Terry, the youngest Malone, who was crawling in the area gutter; then she knew he meant Lovejoy.
“No thank you,” said Mrs. Malone promptly.
“Mum, I wish you would. I’d work for her. I’d keep on with Sid and give you the half-crown. When I leave school I can work all day. I’ll give you every penny.”
“Now listen, Tip Malone. That’s not a good child, or a nice child . . .” But Tip was deaf. In a way that was mysterious, Lovejoy seemed to be more important to him than his family, which was staggering because, to the Malones, the Malones were the whole world.
“He didn’t want to like me but he did,” Lovejoy told Father Lambert.
“That’s the best way to be liked,” said the Father.
Lovejoy had Father Lambert’s permission now to go in and out over the wall, and he often stopped her and spoke.
“Tip asked me about you,” he said. “He sent you his love.”
“If he was seventeen or eighteen I’d say he was in love,” Mrs. Malone told Father Lambert. “I can’t get her out of his head.”
“She’ll cry, Mum,” said Tip.
“Well, what if she does?” said Mrs. Malone. As she had divined, Tip was feeling a pang that was far older than himself, and he turned away from her and buried his head against the roller towel on the back door. “The soles are coming clean off my feet with worry,” said Mrs. Malone.
“I wonder,” said Father Lambert, “if you and his father wouldn’t consider accepting the admiral’s offer?”
When Tip had come up in court it had had another consequence for him. His case had been defended—Mrs. Malone had seen to that—and Angela, who had pressed the admiral into going with her to the court, had been called as a witness. As they sat waiting in a room outside the court, the admiral had had a chance to look at Tip. “He seems a manly, open boy,” he said.
“He’s a little liar,” said Angela.
The admiral did not answer. He went on studying Tip.
As the long, slow morning dragged on—“The time one has to wait!” said Angela—the admiral got up to stretch his legs in the passage outside, and, while he was there, Tip and another boy came back from the lavatory. “’S nothing to be afraid of,” the boy was saying. He was whispering because of the policeman in the passage, but the admiral had sharp ears. “You stuff ’em up,” said the boy. “I don’t know what you done but tell ’em you seen it on the pictures. They’ll let you off.”
“They’ll have to,” said Tip, and he said it aloud, policeman or no policeman. “I done nothing.”
When they came back into the waiting room the admiral had gone across to speak to the Malones. “Isn’t there anything you would like to do?” he had asked Tip. “Learn a trade, be useful, instead of getting into trouble like this?”
“I’m goin’ into the Navy,” growled Tip.
“Ever since he saw the St. Vincent boys at the Tattoo,” said Mrs. Malone, “he’s lived and dreamed the Navy, sir.”
“The Navy, heh?” The admiral was pleased. He thought for a moment and then asked, “Got his name down anywhere?” Mrs. Malone looked blank. “Is he a bright boy?” the admiral went on. “Good at lessons?”
“They’ve got his school report in there,” said Mrs. Malone bitterly. “There’s nothing they didn’t poke their noses into.”
The admiral spoke to the probation officer who took Tip’s case, and after the hearing the officer spoke to Mr. and Mrs. Malone. “If you would like it,” he said, “Admiral Sir Peter Percy-Latham has offered to nominate your boy for the Arethusa, the training ship. They might not accept him, of course, but on his school records and the admiral’s recommendation . . .”
“But he seems such a small boy, Father,” said Mrs. Malone now.
“He isn’t,” said Father Lambert, “and”—he smiled—“one could say this business has aged him. The usual age is thirteen. The admiral would recommend it, and I could get Mr. Whittacker Adams—the gentleman on the trust—to speak a word.”
“The rich young gentleman?” The Street knew all about Charles and Liz.
It was a few days later that Mrs. Malone said to Tip, “Dad’s taking you for an interview for the Arethusa next Friday.”
“The Arethusa? The Arethusa training ship?” For a moment Tip was quiet and rigid; then, “I’ll go,” said Tip, “if I can tell Lovejoy.”
“You’ll go?” Mrs. Malone was so astonished that her voice shrilled through the whole house. “Glory defend me, isn’t that what you’ve been aching and fighting for all this time?” (“I thought he’d whoop and rush all over the house,” she told Father Lambert, “or give me a hug at least.”) “Of course you’ll go, my young gentleman,” she said.
“If you’ll let me tell Lovejoy,” said Tip.
In the end Mrs. Malone knew she was beaten. “But you’ll only see her for half an hour,” said Mrs. Malone, “and you’re to have Father Lambert with you.” As if Lovejoy were a small incarnation of the fiend she added, “I’ll ask Father Lambert to stay with you and she’s to have a grown-up too.”
“But I haven’t got a grown-up,” said Lovejoy when Bridgie brought the message.
It was no good asking Mrs. Combie and Vincent anything these days; they looked at Lovejoy with strange, abstracted eyes and did not pay attention. Cassie, of course, was unthinkable; Mr. Isbister would not have moved. Kind Miss Dolben would certainly have come, but, “I couldn’t tell her about Tip or the garden,” said Lovejoy, shrinking. She had to say, “I haven’t got a grown-up.”
“Then you can’t come,” said Bridgie smartly. “I’ll tell Tip.”
“I’ll come,” said Lovejoy. “I’ll get one.” It was a blind promise. She did not know how she could.
There was one grown-up, just one, whom she would not have minded asking to take her to Tip and the garden. I wouldn’t mind her seeing it, I’d even show her, thought Lovejoy, and that grown-up was the ugly dark lady, Olivia, in the Square. Could I ask her? Would I dare? thought Lovejoy. What about the one with the blue wings, the Angela one? That one would be angry, Lovejoy knew that, but she also knew that if she did not dare to ask Olivia she would not see Tip.
Olivia had been up and dressed for five days—but still going between a chair and her bed, still finding the stairs a struggle; “You don’t try, Olivia,” said Angela—when Angela brought her a note. “Someone pushed it through the letter box,” s
aid Angela. “It must have been a dirty someone; it’s got finger-marks on it.” Lovejoy had been careful to keep it clean, but Bridgie had delivered it.
It was addressed to Miss Olivia, Number Eleven, The Square. Lovejoy had taken a long time to write it; she had asked Vincent about the spelling, but, as the letter showed, he had not always been listening.
Olivia read it twice and passed it to Angela.
“She’s asking you to act as a go-between,” said Angela, amused.
“Yes,” said Olivia.
“Abominable sauce.”
Olivia was so pleased that she was silent. She, Olivia, had been asked, actually asked, to join in something by a child—something very real, thought Olivia; it was to her as wonderful as when Lovejoy had put out her hand. “It seems to me a compliment,” she said shakily.
“But you’ll say you’re not strong enough,” said Angela, and with a patient sigh she said, “I suppose I could fit it in, though I have a terribly busy day. All right, I’ll go.”
“You are not asked,” said Olivia.
•
From the moment she stepped into the restaurant Olivia knew something was wrong. “It will be a horrid dingy place,” Ellen had said. “Let me come with you,” but, “Dingy!” said Olivia and she was standing—as Charles and Liz had done—looking round her in surprise and pleasure, when a little pale man rose from a desk and held up his hand. “Please don’t,” he said. “Don’t look at it.”
Olivia obediently tried to detach her eyes from the warm brown and apricot colours, the snow-clean linen, the glass; to ignore the scent of flowers and fruit—there were roses in a vase, a dish of peaches. Vincent had promised to stop buying but while the restaurant was still there he bought a little. The roses are the day before yesterday’s, he could have told Olivia. There are only four peaches. Still, they were something. “Let’s at least go down with our colours flying,” Vincent had said. Olivia’s response, even while he stopped it, was balm, until, “Are you Mr. Combie?” she asked.