by Rodney Hall
‘we shall not let this spoil our Christmas’ Mum tells us all,
‘is Mike going to jail?’ i ask,
Mums nose is red,
‘Michael was sticking up for you’ she says ‘and dont you forget it’
i love this moment because its morning but Mikes still asleep over there with his back to me and a Christmas stocking down near his feet, and i reach to get mine and pull it in under the eiderdown and already i can feel a ball down in the toe, but the first thing is a Dinky toy MG sports car and i wish Uncle Ralph was here and i get some coloured pencils and a twist of bullseyes and some Cadburys chocolates and some walnuts in their shells and i get my old grey socks back with the darning done so i can wear them again, but its not a ball at the bottom its a real orange thats heavy and too bright for anything, and i put it on my pillow right up against my nose and this is the first time i ever smelt an orange or had one in my hand, and the skin has pores,
and next thing Di comes racing in with her plaits flying and Mikes up now and hes got a knife that he sticks into his orange,
‘Joan showed me how’ he says,
so he cuts a square hole just the right size to fit a lump of sugar,
‘you put your mouth here’ he says ‘then you squeeze and suck’
and Di looks at him over the top of her orange,w
and i look at him over the top of mine and suddenly sweet juice spurts into my mouth and its the best thing,
and i get given a wooden pencil box with a lid that rolls itself away like magic when you open it,
im going to set up the biggest railway ever and our toy-chest is full of railway things that are mostly rails because Mike was given two big sets before i was born, so i begin pulling out useful parts like fork lines and level-crossings, and one set has black sleepers and one set has silver sleepers, but you can mix them up because theyre the same gauge, and each length of rail has pins and slots for fitting them together, but sometimes the pins are bent or missing so i pick out the good ones and this is a bit of a scramble because Di joins in and she says shes going to beat me and i tread on a couple of the straight tracks she has already put down,
‘you did that on purpose!’ she shouts,
‘i did not’
‘what did he do?’ Mike asks,
‘nothing’ i say,
‘yes you did’ and she holds up the bent pieces,
and i hate her,
‘try to be more careful’ Mike tells me,
and he goes back out into the passageway to finish building a branch line that loops round towards Mums bedroom, so im going to lay mine in a circle thatll fill the whole lounge room with two stations and four signal boxes! and now its a mad scramble to get enough pieces before anyone else,
the sewing chair in Mums bedroom is an old-fashioned thing with funny little legs and drawers under the seat that swing out on hinges where Mum keeps her scissors and her cotton reels and little skeins of silk and spare zips and lots of buttons and pinking shears that Di likes to use when she cuts zigzags in her old blouses, but what im poking around for is a darning needle,
‘wheres Mike?’ i ask,
and Mums up and powdering her face at the dressing-table mirror,
‘dont worry me, darling’ she says ‘just go and look for him’
i tiptoe into the lounge where im going to try out my experiment and hes not here so i get busy, i force the eyeend of the needle into the seat of an easy chair till the point sticks up about half an inch,
‘Mike!’ i call ‘come and explain this!’
and Mike wanders in with a pencil and drawing pad in his hands,
‘what? im busy’
‘but it wont take a moment’ i tell him,
‘what?’
‘you have to keep watching that spider up there on the picture rail, and then just sit in this chair’
so Mike shuts his pad and rolls his eyes and he does as hes told,
‘YOWWW!’
and hes right up in the air with his arms out wide and the pad and pencil go flying,
i make a dash ‘help!’ for Mums bedroom,
‘Mum!’ i yell,
‘ohh!’ she cries and her hands flap and the powder goes everywhere,
so i dive under the bed to keep her between me and the door,
but Mike charges in,
‘im going to kill him!’
‘out you go! you know ive got a splitting head!’ says Mum ‘whats the matter with you? oh you boysll be the death of me!’
‘but he—’ Mike yells,
‘out!’ Mum screams,
and that stops him,
but im watching from under the bed and what terrifies me is his white face and the tears in his eyes,
its Palm Sunday and Gran wangles things so we can go to church with her and when the organ stops the priest gets up to tell the story of Jesus walking into Jerusalem but ive heard it all before and i already know the donkey is the best part, but the other good thing is that we are given crosses to take away and each cross is made with a dry reed cleverly folded, so we take an extra one for Mum and i show her when we get home and she puts her thriller down to take hold of it,
‘how nice, dear’ she says,
and i carry mine into the bedroom, but out of the corner of my eye i catch her throwing hers on the fire,
at last its spring and Patterson says i can come back to see my garden and its been ages so i know the whole thing will just be weeds that have to be pulled out,
‘im afraid your dad might catch me’ i tell him,
‘he wont mind’ he says,
so i creep in,
Mrs Patterson is at the kitchen window and she waves to us and she looks the same as before but the window is open,
‘do you boys want a glass of lemonade?’ she says,
so im wondering if Patterson told a fib, because i cant hear a baby crying and his mother even comes out with the drinks and some scones and jam, and her fingernails are all cracked and her spectacles are dirty,
‘did you plant these lupins?’ she asks me,
and now i see them for the first time and there are three plants with flowers and one with no flowers and everything is looked after,
‘yes’ i say ‘im sorry’
because i can see that Pattersons marrows are already big as sausages,
‘the flowers are so pretty’ she says ‘you must pick one for your mother’
and i dont know what to say,
‘take her the blue one’ Pattersons mum says ‘and leave the pink ones here for me so i can see them when im washing the dishes’
and i pop a scone in my mouth,
she says ‘thats my homemade strawberry jam’ and she pats my head,
and lupins are my favourite,
i go in to see Mum in the bedroom but the curtains are drawn and shes lying down so i give her the blue lupin and she opens her eyes to look,
‘where did this come from?’ she says,
but i cant tell her the truth in case she makes me take it back, or even worse she may go round to talk to Mrs Patterson and then she will see their place for herself and their bathtub on the wall and she wont let me go there to play,
‘its a lupin’ i tell her,
but she doesnt take it and instead she holds her face in both hands and i watch her lips,
‘youll be the death of me’ she says ‘when will you boys stop stealing things?’
so i stay there by her bed holding my lupin and waiting to see what she will say next,
but she doesnt say anything,
‘then can i keep it?’ i ask,
and now she digs her fingers into her hair,
‘i suppose the damage is done’ she says,
in the middle of the night im woken by such golden light that i cant believe what im seeing because the walls are glowing and the cupboard is glowing and shadows flutter like big wings across our room and everything leaps around, so i wake up properly and kneel on the bed to look out the window w
here a sheet of flame swishes across the black sky and someone thumps at our back door and voices are shouting and i can hear Mum cough while shes on her way to answer it and next thing Mikes standing stiff beside his bed and huge strangers come barging in and one of them grabs his hand to hoist him out,
‘hey!’ i yell,
and i dive under the bedclothes to hide,
but some other man snatches me up, blankets and all, and gets me and carries me though i struggle like mad but i cant stop him and the whole house is full of men and its too late to scream and in the kitchen one of them has Diana up in his arms while she kicks her legs and Mums there too looking desperate while she buttons up her dressing-gown, so the strangers run through our flat hurling things out of their way like chairs and slamming the doors open, and they never say a word but the whole place is full of their swishing coats and thudding boots and a wind blowing a gale through the house,
‘its alright, darlings’ Mum says ‘these are kind men’
so now i know we are being rescued after all,
the man carrying me joggles me when he stumbles and hes holding too hard and it hurts my ribs and a large black hand swoops across so i cant see,
‘what is it?’ i yell,
the cold air grabs my feet and now my ears are cold and the wind in the sky is filled with flames,
‘what is it?’ i yell,
our rescuers crowd in the yard because they dont know where they are or which way to run or escape so they bump against the walls to hurry us through the night past the skylight where i once cut my tongue and now im being carried i look down seeing the skylight glass shine red while above me a fountain of sparks rushes up high above the roof of the covered stairway,
‘has something happened?’ i say because im not so afraid now,
‘the Gerries hit the shed out the back’ says the man ‘bullseye with an incendiary’
he is rough and smelly and downstairs we plunge inside the sloping tunnel of corrugated iron and im scared he might trip and drop me so i clutch at my trailing blanket to help, but worst is the whole place is chock full of heat so hot i cant breathe, down, down we bump and stumble while Mums calling out the whole time telling us we are going to be safe, and we burst through the bottom door into the lane flying through the air where the night roars and embers swirl and flaming bits of wood patter on the ground and one lump races over like a comet and my man comes to a stop, so i look at his face and there are flames behind his head and behind his bristly hair and he turns his head on his neck and his necks all bristly and he shouts and the flames glint on his teeth and fill his open mouth and then he looks down at me with tiny flames in his eyes,
he says ‘you okay, son?’
the old brick shed is whats been hit because we come to it and watch the flames gushing out and i remember a bird we once found there floating in an open drum of oil with its wings spread, and a cloud of thick smoke leans away over the railway lines and the heat whacks us, so my rescuer grabs a corner of my blanket to cover his head and i cover mine and he makes a dash for it because he has to rush me along scraping me against the brick wall and i catch a glimpse of Diana up ahead in the arms of her man already jogging around the corner and safely away, and now we are in the open street and all this light is the same glare in the shop windows,
‘whooo!’ and ‘blimey!’ the rescuers gasp and they let out whistles.
and Mike lets out a whistle just the same,
and i count six and theyre all still choking on smoke and brick dust but some of them begin to laugh and this is so amazingly stupid and theres an old woman with us too, though i dont know how she thought she would help so maybe she just wanted to poke her nose into our flat,
‘sorry, old son’ says the man carrying me ‘did i squash you back there?’
and hes panting,
what i can see is some wooden chairs standing out on the pavement in front of the fish shop where they are not supposed to be and i get put down on one, and the men stand round with their hands on their hips or slapping the embers that glow on their sleeves and Mum sits near me and we watch them stamp their boots and their faces are still bright with the glare from the fire,
‘and this is my first night home on leave!’ my rescuer tells his friends,
so hes a soldier in civvies! that explains it!
now Di comes over to me and gets up on my chair too and we huddle together while we listen, all the while looking back the way weve come,
‘me and my wife had just got going’ he adds ‘after being that long separate and bingo the fire alarm goes off and all’
others come up and pat him on the back and grin in his face and shake his hand, but he doesnt ever say where he got going to,
‘are you alright, darlings?’ Mum says and shes shivering in her dressing-gown,
‘yes, Mum’ we say,
and someone lights up a cigarette and the burning shed keeps roaring and popping and crackling and now we see searchlights like fingers in the sky and the fire brigade arrives with men in helmets and uniforms that drag long hoses, and a lady with her hair in curlers is sobbing and reaching out to take hold of Mum,
‘good night and thank you’ Mum says getting out from between her arms, and even when we go sloshing back in along the lane when the flames have been put out im still frightened by the smoke,
‘are we snobs?’ Michael asks on our way upstairs,
‘no, darling’ Mum says ‘snobs are people without refinement’
we all stand in a patch of sun looking at the burnt-out shed that belonged to the garage but now it has no roof and its full of lumps of charcoal as big as trees,
‘incendiary bombs’ Mike explains to me ‘are small lightweight bombs, because the idea is to start fires rather than blow things up’
theres a cleaning lady and her name is Mrs Beckett but she tells us to call her Becky now shes started coming to clean our place for one hour a week and she smiles at me so i see her broken teeth and then she rolls up her sleeves like a workman and gets down on her hands and knees with a stiff brush to brush the carpet, and she does whole rooms like this though i tell her the flats already clean because we cleaned it last Saturday still i have to admit she gets up lots of stuff i didnt know was there that she sweeps into a dustpan and then takes out to the bin, and she whacks the furniture and scrubs the bathroom, and shes an old woman with horrid stringy arms and i hate looking at her when shes working but i cant help myself,
lupins dont last long and my pink ones are finished too and i watch them die and i watch them shrivel up, but i still havent tried out Pattersons bike, and i dont play with him much at school because hes got other friends, and i dont know whats gone wrong,
‘hey, Allan’ i call,
‘Patterson to you’ he says,
Mabels here and playing whist with Mum and theyve put up the card table with folding legs and theres two other friends of Mums and theyve all got their elbows on the green top and they smoke and drink beer from our tall glasses and while im colouring in i listen just because thats what i generally do,
‘you and your singing, Dods!’ says one with her back to me,
‘to think i turned down a contract with the Transatlantic Opera Company!’ Mum says ‘those were the days’
and Mabel says ‘who are they, dear?’
‘they tour between South Africa and South America’ says Mum,
‘that sounds exciting’
and i get busy with green to colour in some trees,
‘though i took the Birmingham offer instead’ Mum says ‘because Dick was there’
‘so you never thought of going back to the stage’ says Mabel ‘after?’
Mum shrugs her shoulders,
‘with three children?’ she says,
‘we are going to live in Australia’ i tell them,
and they all turn to look at me,
‘after’ i explain,
halfway down to the canal we stop at the old house that was bombed out at
the beginning of the war to see what we can find in the rubble though the front of the house is just a heap of old bricks and you have to poke around and we dig out a broken doll and a rusty pair of scissors, but yesterday Pam told me she found a watch in this ruin, the lucky thing, though it didnt work, but it was a mans watch so thats why i wanted to get it off her,
suddenly everybody is out in the street and kissing everybody, all the doors are open and flags hang out of the upstairs windows and Mrs Harris is walking with Gran while church bells on the radio ring out and you can hear them from the open windows of offices and shops and now the real bells of our church begin to ring too swinging up in the steeple, and we all walk around with nowhere to go and even Mr Higgins rushes out of his shoe shop and Roger Sawyers father starts crying for goodness sake, and here comes Olive wearing her goggles looking hot and bothered with her horrible mother hobbling along behind,
‘its Olive’ i shout,
and straight away Olive comes up to hug me and she wont let go because she has to keep showing me how happy she is and her face is all messy with tears,
‘weve won the war!’ she keeps saying ‘weve won the war!’
and i know that already of course,
‘now will Uncle Ralph come back?’ i ask,
‘oh, but your Uncle Ralph has forgotten about me!’ Olive wails,
‘no he hasnt’ i say,
but Mum gives me a LOOK,
‘i shall be taking the children up to London to see the victory parade’ Mum tells Olive ‘as soon as we know when its going to be’
but now Olives mother Mrs Freestone catches us up,
‘good afternoon, Mrs Freestone’ i say,
‘is that child here?’ says Mrs Freestone,
and a whole lot of cheering begins but its nothing to do with us,
‘the children are going to have a treat’ Olive tells her mother ‘because Dods is going to take them to see the king’
‘what they deserve is spanked bottoms if you ask me’ says Mrs Freestone,
but Mum gives her a kiss on the cheek just the same and suddenly shes smiling too and thats amazing because it cracks her face open,
‘we shall have to find out when its going to be’ Mum says ‘but itll give them something to remember for the rest of their lives because therell never be another victory parade like this’