by David Nobbs
Ada waved until she was just a speck.
‘It had ten wheels,’ said Henry on the way home. ‘Two little ’uns and three big ’uns on each side.’
‘Oh aye?’ said Auntie Kate, who was determined not to give him too good a time, so that he would miss his mother. ‘Now remember what our Ada said. Be a good boy.’
The summer term began. Miss Candy asked them about their experiences in the holidays.
‘My dad’s been injured in t’ war,’ he said proudly.
‘My grandad was hurt in t’ Dardanelles,’ announced Henry Dinsdale.
‘Does anybody know where the Dardanelles are?’ said Miss Candy, ever the improviser.
‘Just above the knackers,’ said Jane Lugg. Everybody giggled.
‘That’s a bit silly, Jane,’ said Miss Candy. ‘And it’s not the sort of thing we laugh at.’
Miss Forrest entered the classroom without knocking, which irritated Miss Candy, because if she had ever entered Miss Forrest’s classroom without knocking there would have been ructions.
‘Your great-uncle’s here to see you, Ezra,’ said Miss Forrest.
Uncle Frank stood in the corridor, in his battered green tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. He was twisting his hat in his hands. His face was as old as the hills and as dry as a stone wall. He put his hand on Henry’s shoulder and led him out into the playground. It surprised Henry that the sun was shining.
So his father had died! He couldn’t really feel much. He had almost forgotten his father.
Uncle Frank led him towards his car. Pleasure motoring was forbidden now, but this journey had not been for pleasure.
His father got out of the car with difficulty, and hobbled to meet him. His left leg was in plaster. He looked gaunt and old.
‘She stepped straight in front of a bus,’ he said. ‘She never knew what hit her.’
*
His father’s injuries had healed. He was going back to the war. Henry was glad, although he knew that he must never say so.
They sat beside the infant Mither. It worried away at its stones. Three months of its ceaseless efforts had passed since Henry had learnt of his mother’s death.
They had so little to say to each other, father and son. It was nearly harvest time, and the sky promised rain again. There was to be bad weather for the harvest of 1943, although the hay crop had been good, and prices for sheep and calving cows had been good all year.
Henry dived off the top board of the pool of silence that separated them.
‘Why does God kill people?’ he asked.
Ezra had longed for, yet dreaded, some question such as this.
He would never tell Henry about the funeral. She’d gone to Bristol, on her way to Plymouth, to visit his sister, who had married a bus driver, and to arrange for them to break their journey there on the way back. She’d gone shopping. Perhaps she’d been dreaming of his return. The driver hadn’t stood a chance.
His sister and her husband had gone to Plymouth to meet him. Her husband had said, ‘I’m only glad it wasn’t my bus.’ They hadn’t been churchgoers, and there had only been three mourners at the funeral. Ezra, his sister and her husband. The harassed vicar had referred to Ada as ‘our dear departed brother’. They hadn’t told anybody at Rowth Bridge, because they might have felt obliged to come, and there was no point, and it was best that Henry should be told by his father.
‘He doesn’t kill people,’ said Ezra at last. ‘He lets them get on wi’ things, and if they happen to get theirselves killed, well, that’s it. He looks at them, and if they’ve been good, he takes them to a better place.’
‘Was my mam good?’
‘Aye. Very good.’
‘Has she gone to a better place?’
‘Oh aye. Happen.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Up there. In heaven.’
Henry looked up at the scudding clouds. Sometimes the sky was blue and you could see that it was empty. He found it difficult to believe that his mother could be up there.
He felt a spot of rain.
‘Is rain t’ people up there crying?’ he said.
‘I don’t reckon so,’ said Ezra. ‘They’re happy up there.’
‘Doesn’t she miss us?’
‘Oh aye. She misses us. But she hopes she’ll see us one day. That’s why it’s so important for thee to be good.’
Ezra was quite proud of that, and also a little ashamed.
‘Tha’s a lucky lad to be wi’ Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate,’ said Ezra. ‘I doubt this war’ll go on while next Christmas or more. Owt can happen to me, tha knows. Look at it this road. Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate, they’re thy parents now.’
‘I don’t reckon there is a God,’ said Henry. ‘If there was, he wouldn’t have killed me mam.’
Henry exchanged a big mother and a small father for a small mother and a big father, and life went on. At first, the nights were the worst times. His bed, which had been a womb, had become a prison. Perhaps, when your mother had died, you could no longer go back to wombs.
One day, not long after it had happened, he saw Simon and Patrick Eckington waiting for him, on his road home from school, and his blood ran cold.
Patrick Eckington’s freckled face was blazing. He thrust a brown paper parcel into Henry’s hands.
‘Peace offering,’ he mumbled.
Henry took it as if he had been handed a bomb. He opened it cautiously. It was a book about birds and animals. On the fly-leaf, there was written, ‘To Henry, from his friends Simon and Patrick.’
‘Thanks,’ said Henry.
‘Are we friends again, then?’ said Simon.
‘Happen,’ said Henry.
One day, Henry and Simon climbed Mickleborough. On the way up, they saw a peregrine falcon. At the top they knighted each other. First Henry knighted Sir Simon Eckington of that Ilk (they knew now it wasn’t Ilkley). Then Sir Simon knighted Lord Pratt of Mitherdale (Thurmarsh was forgotten) and explained that he had never wanted to be beastly to his chum, but had been forced to, owing to the threats of his elder brother, Sir Freckle de Fish-face, who had regarded Lord Pratt of Mitherdale as a filthy swot, and a silly twerp to boot. Sir Simon apologised. Lord Pratt accepted. They became friends again, a little awkwardly at first perhaps, never quite the same again perhaps, but friends.
Miss Candy gave Henry special attention without the other children realising it. Even Jane Lugg and Pam Yardley declared an unspoken, uneasy truce. Lorna Arrow made passes at him. (Can it be that our podgy hero is going to turn out to be attractive to women? Women are strange in these matters. We have seen on what dross the lovely Turnbull sisters threw themselves away.) Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate no longer felt that they had to hold back to avoid stealing a mother’s love. Not that they spoilt him. Food wasn’t too short up here. You had your own pig, and you used every bit bar t’ squeak. But thrift was still the order of the day. Auntie Kate put a bottle of borax by the wash-basin to add to the water in order to use less soap (even if at the cost of using more borax, a perfectionist might complain). She washed plum and prune stones, cracked them and retrieved the kernels. She made buttons out of small circles of calico. She encouraged still greater effort in the saving of scrap metal and waste paper. (Luckily she never knew that Jackie kept all her love letters and bound them with elastic bands.) Nevertheless, they treated Henry now as if he was the son they had never had. Love and attention were not spared. And the welcoming wireless thundered on. Gwen Catley singing. Sandy Macpherson at the theatre organ. Felix Mendelssohn and his Hawaiian Serenaders. ‘Hi, Gang’ with Bebe Daniels, Vic Oliver and Ben Lyon. ‘The Happidrome’ returned with Ramsbottom, Enoch and Mr Lovejoy, and guests with magical names like Flotsam and Jetsam and Two Ton Tessie O’ Shea. He loved them all, utterly without discrimination. He had loved his mother, but he was eight years old, and gradually it became like trying to commemorate a drowned woman by preserving a hollow in the ocean where she had plunged. Life closed slowly over Ada’s head.<
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The United States were leading the allies’ effort now. In the Dandy and the Beano, more stories had American settings. Big Eggo was as likely to catch a Jap as a Hun, and Musso the Wop had long since been put on-a-da scrapheap, his propaganda value exhausted. The allies’ shipping losses were plummeting as the battle against the ‘U’ boats took a ‘U’ turn. It was permissible to talk about eventual victory. Men’s minds turned to thoughts of the kind of world that victory would bring. Sir William Beveridge was planning for universal social security. Poverty and mass unemployment were to be things of the past. R. A. Butler was preparing his plans for equal opportunity of education for all. Was it too much to hope that this time men would get it right after the war?
‘“I feel a bit of a frost, Mr Barrett – always catching colds and letting the office down,”’ read Henry. He had developed the habit of reading aloud from the newspapers, to prove how proficient he had become. Today it was the turn of the adverts. ‘What’s “a bit of a frost”, Auntie Kate?’
‘Somebody who lets the side down,’ said Auntie Kate. ‘Like tha’ll be if tha doesn’t go to Leeds with Miss Candy.’
Miss Candy wanted to take Henry to Leeds on Saturday. He didn’t want to go. It wasn’t what schoolteachers did. There was bound to be a catch in it.
‘Why does she want to take me to Leeds?’ he asked.
‘Happen she reckons thee,’ said Auntie Kate.
He agreed to go. He could hardly refuse after they’d said he could go to Troutwick on Jim Wallington’s bus on his own.
He loved every minute of the bus ride, on that morning of Saturday, November 14th 1943. Mist clung to the hillsides. A black-market pig squealed under the back seat.
Miss Candy met him off the bus. She was wearing a brand-new utility skirt and jacket. Her grey hair was piled up on top of her head in a fearsome Victory Roll.
The train was late. On the platform opposite, the adverts stated ‘Dr Carrot, your winter protector’, and ‘The navigator swears. By Kolynos, of course.’ Henry read them out loud. He read everything out loud.
He’d never been on a train before. He’d only watched them disappearing into the distance, while he waved at vanishing parents.
The smoke from the engine poured past the window. Sheep ran away across the sodden fields, as if this was the first train they had ever seen. People got on at every station, many of them in uniform. By the time they reached Leeds, the train was jam-packed. Miss Candy chatted easily about the things they saw, and he completely forgot that he hadn’t wanted to come.
They went to the British Restaurant and had Woolton Pie. Then they caught a bus to Elland Road, to see Leeds play Bradford, in the Wartime League North. There was only a small crowd in the large, windswept stadium.
Henry enjoyed the game, which was the first football match he had ever seen. Miss Candy was rooting for her native Bradford. ‘Other way!’ she shouted angrily at the ref, and flat-capped men turned to look. There weren’t many women present, and certainly none with booming, posh voices, three chins and a moustache. Henry wished Miss Candy wouldn’t draw attention to herself.
Leeds took a well-deserved lead through HENRY and HINDLE. Miss Candy was a picture of dejection, and Henry, who had begun by wanting Leeds to win, because they had a player called Henry, who, to Henry’s delight, scored, found himself switching his allegiance after Leeds had gone 2–0 up.
‘Where’s your white stick, ref?’ shouted Miss Candy.
In the last twenty minutes, Bradford equalised through STABB and FARRELL, who netted from the penalty spot. In fact Bradford might have snatched victory, had Butterworth not kicked off the line with the goalkeeper beaten.
They went back into the City in a state of physical well-being. Henry was particularly thrilled, because although it had been a two-all draw, the team he had been supporting at the time had scored all four goals.
The train to Skipton was crowded, and slow, and there was nothing to look at. The blinds were drawn. A dim bulb gave a light too faint for reading.
At Skipton they caught a local train. The only other person in their compartment was an airman, who was fast asleep.
Henry had felt sure that there would be a catch. There was. It came now, on the rattling, blacked-out little local train.
‘Henry?’ said Miss Candy. ‘I want you to tell me what people say about me.”
‘Tha what?’ said Henry.
‘The children say things about me. I must know what they say,’ said Miss Candy.
Miss Candy had given him a nice day. She didn’t tell him that she had delivered her part of an unspoken bargain, and now it was his turn. She didn’t need to.
‘I won’t be upset,’ she said. ‘And I won’t be angry. But I must know.’
‘They say tha used to ride in a circus,’ said Henry. ‘They say tha loved a Yank, and he went home and left thee broken-hearted. They say…’
He hesitated.
‘Go on,’ breathed Miss Candy.
If only the airman would wake up. But he snored deeply, as if to reassure them that it was safe to continue.
‘They say tha drinks a bottle of a gin a day,’ said Henry. ‘They say tha has a pet wolf. They say…’ He hesitated.
‘Go on,’ breathed Miss Candy.
‘They say tha’s got a special tube so tha never has to go to t’ lav.’
‘Go on,’ breathed Miss Candy.
‘They say tha used to be a stripper in a club in Wakefield,’ said Henry.
‘Really?’ said Miss Candy, amazed. ‘It must have been the masochists’ club.’
‘Tha what?’
‘Never mind. Go on.’
‘They say…’
‘Go on. I won’t be cross.’
‘They say tha has great tufts of hair hanging down from thy nipples.’
There was silence. The train rattled on. The airman groaned and his head lolled.
‘What an amazing woman I must be,’ said Miss Candy.
Christmas came and went. Strikes were frequent. The British and Americans landed at Anzio. In the Far East the war was fierce. The Rowth Bridge knitting circle knitted its two thousandth woollen garment. Every Sunday evening, Henry listened to ‘Variety Band Box’. Then Albert Sandler and the Palm Court Orchestra played ‘a programme of the kind of music heard in the Palm Court of your favourite hotel in the days before the war’ and Henry, who had never been in the Palm Court of any hotel before the war, listened, because it was there.
One day, towards the end of May, 1944, he received a letter from his father, who was now in…and hoping that by Christmas he would be in…he was well, and he loved Henry very much. And Henry realised, with a shock, that the letter had come as a shock. He was happy here. Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate were his parents now. There wasn’t any room for his father. And then he felt guilty about that, because he knew that you were supposed to love your father. That afternoon, after school, he saw one of the five-year-old boys crying. His name was Sidney Mold. He came from Five Houses, which was a tiny hamlet of six houses on the Troutwick road. He had to walk three miles on his own, and the previous day Simon Eckington had offered to escort him, but halfway home, Simon Eckington had dug his nails into him viciously. Henry sympathised. In fact he was shocked that his friend Simon could have done that. He offered to escort Sidney Mold home in good faith, but halfway to Five Houses he dug his nails into him viciously and made him cry.
In school the next day, Henry wondered if Miss Candy could see what he had done, and he felt guilty. He looked at Simon and felt shocked by Simon’s cruelty more than by his own, and he wondered if Simon was thinking the same. He wandered home slowly. The weather was humid. He felt tired and nasty.
It is easier to cope with the shame of yesterday than with the shame of years past. Henry suddenly recalled the last time he had ever seen his mother. The last words he had ever said to her were, ‘It’s got ten wheels. Two little ’uns and three big ’uns on each side.’ He could cope with the guilt of knowing that
he had dug his nails into Sidney Mold and probably would again, much as he didn’t want to. He couldn’t cope with the guilt of his neglect of his mother.
He trudged towards the head of the valley, nine years and two months old, his chubby white legs still in short trousers, his shoes scuffed, his shirt grubby and hanging outside his trousers, a tiny, leaden figure in the great, natural bowl of Upper Mitherdale, and he vowed that from now on his heart would be a shrine for his mother, and he would be a loving son to his father, for his mother’s sake.
Then he remembered that Uncle Frank and Auntie Kate regarded him as their son now. They wanted him to stay with them. He wanted to stay with them. He wanted to take over Low Farm, when Uncle Frank retired. He wanted to keep the shorthorn cattle, the Dales pony, Billy the half-wit, and other endangered species.
Where did that leave his father?
Had Henry not been in such a state, he might have made a better show of resisting Lorna Arrow. She was sitting on the dry-stone wall, swinging her long, thin legs, smiling her toothy smile.
She led him to one of the field barns, on Kit Orris’s farm, at the back of the village. It was full of animal fodder. It smelt steamy and warm.
One of the best-known facts of human life was that girls were useless and soppy, yet Henry liked being with Lorna Arrow. He liked her husky voice, with the slight lisp. It made him tingle strangely. Why? He knew that grown-ups liked women. He knew that he was advanced at all his school subjects. Who could blame him, during the Lorna Arrow summer, if he deduced that the explanation was that he was advanced for his years?
The allies landed in northern France. The weather was wet, and Uncle Frank had great difficulty in gathering his hay. In the school sports Henry came second from last in the Sack Race, thus exceeding his achievements in the Hundred Yards, the Four-Forty, the Egg and Spoon Race, the High Jump, the Three-legged Race and the Potato Race. Yet Lorna Arrow did not desert him. He kept her apart from Simon. Some days were Simon days. Others were Lorna days. On Lorna days, they sometimes went to the field barn and he read her the comics. She didn’t like reading. It made him feel good to read them, because he read well. Her favourites were Desperate Dan, Our Gang and Merry Marvo and his Magic Cigar. She laid her fair, toothy head against his chest, and he tingled as he read the exploits of Zogg, who turned Nick Turner into the Headmaster of his Old School!, and of Wun Tun Joe, whose bones were so heavy that he weighed a ton. ‘“Come here, Chink,” snapped the bully,’ he read, ‘“No savvy,” chirped Wun Ton Joe.’