Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  There was a poor boy in Standard Four named Cranmer, who sat in the front row. He lived in Skerritt Road, nearly opposite the boys’ playground. Hetty had forbidden Phillip ever to go down Skerritt Road. It was a slum, she said. The people living there were the lowest of the low. Cranmer certainly looked as though he could hardly be any lower. He had no boots or stockings on his feet, which were always dirty. His trousers flapped about him, having been made for a man. They were ragged below the knee. His jacket was too big, like his trousers. He had no shirt or vest underneath, the jacket being tied across his middle with string. His white flesh was sometimes visible when the string slipped.

  Cranmer was often caned by Mr. Twine, for he could not learn anything, and Mr. Twine said he did not try, but he would show him who was master; so Cranmer’s face was permanently stained with tears, wet and dry. Cranmer had a cropped head, some of his teeth were all rotten in front. He wriggled a lot in his seat, when his face was not lying in his arms on the desk. Sometimes he grinned at the other boys, and at the girls on the far side of the class. When he smiled at the girls, and was found out, Cranmer was always given the cane.

  Mr. Twine pulled him out of the desk by his jacket. Cranmer cried out not to be caned, but Mr. Twine made him touch his toes out in front of the class. Mr. Twine hit with all his strength, the cane swooshing down. Cranmer burst into tears and seemed to drop all of a heap on the floor. Sometimes Cranmer prayed to Mr. Twine not to hit him any more, on his knees on the floor, but it made no difference.

  Mr. Twine made Cranmer stand up, he never pulled him up; once he was out in front of the class, he made him stand up, then said, “Bend down again!” and swoosh! he brought down the cane again with all his strength, his eyes fierce and angry, and his jaw clenched tight. Twiney would give Cranmer eight or nine like that, standing well away from Cranmer and, on his toes, hitting with all his strength.

  For the rest of the morning Cranmer would cry at his desk, his cropped head in the arms of his ragged coat, and in the afternoon he would play truant, and perhaps not be seen at school again for several days. Phillip once saw Cranmer raking in a dustbin, and eating crusts of bread wet with tea-leaves, out of the dustbin. He felt no pity for Cranmer, as Cranmer was not like other boys, for he lived in Skerritt Road, and was one of the lowest of the low.

  Sometimes Mr. Twine, while the boys were writing or otherwise working in their exercise books, called a boy out in front to watch for any boy talking while Mr. Twine was taking the girls on the other side of the glass partition. The partition ended at the front row of desks, so that those boys in the lowest seats could sometimes exchange glances with the girls who sat in the front row, level with them. Cranmer was the only boy in the front row who dared to smile.

  Mr. Twine’s manner towards the female half of Standard Four was in sharp contrast to his attitude towards the male. He was gentle, often smiling, and soft-spoken with his “little women”, as he called them. Always neatly dressed in a blue serge suit, with brown boots polished, and tall starched linen collar clean, Mr. Twine was determined to raise the standards of behaviour and intellect among the working classes, from which he himself had arisen. This could only be done by the spreading of knowledge through education, and the principle that cleanliness was next to Godliness; both were to be served only by an effort of the will, of discipline. Cranmer was a perpetual manifestation before this idealist of what was not to be tolerated.

  The boy, called out to stand in front to watch for delinquents, was, of course, himself nervous and uneasy, since he shared the massed fear of Mr. Twine. There were no reprisals against him afterwards; the fear of “Twiney” was too deep to permit of any particular thought about it. The boy, whoever he was, picked to detect any movement of lip, or even eye, was impersonal, to himself, to the other boys, and to Mr. Twine.

  Phillip knew that he must never catch the boy’s eye. If this were to happen, a sort of helplessness might extend between them, to be broken only by the mention of a name, his name, Maddison. What would he be able to do if Mr. Twine looked at him for the cane? He could not contemplate it—beyond the incipient thought was a flash, a disintegration, the end of the world.

  So Phillip kept his eyes downwards, sometimes upon his work of Sums, Geography, History, or Composition, but more often upon the small two-column print of a Pluck, a Union Jack, or a Boy’s Life. Under the open desk was a small ledge, where you were allowed to keep your things, such as pens, pencil box, cap, scarf, and even a roller skate if you were lucky enough to own one. Here, instantly, could be placed, without movement of upper arm or guilty glance upwards, and certainly without rustle, the illicit literature. If Mr. Twine asked what you were doing, if you said, “Thinking, sir”, Mr. Twine never said anything back, for only by thinking, Mr. Twine often said, could man better himself in all directions.

  The pens used in Mr. Twine’s class, at least in the male section, had one characteristic in common, in addition to the stains of ink upon these brown wooden fluted holders of steel nibs, property of the London County Council. Their tops were bitten to shreds by little boys whose only other escape (apart from the illicit reading of “bloods” under the desk) in the classroom from the unspeakable problems confronting the mind was by chewing the uneatable. At least, a reformer of the type of Theodora Maddison would, and did, see in the frayed top of her nephew Phillip’s pen such an implication; while another, such as Thomas Turney, would, and did, dismiss such an advanced theory with the remark that chewing of wood by the young of homo sapiens denoted only the need for a harder, more natural diet in an age of increasing softness and “spoon-feeding”.

  Chapter 28

  FAMILY DISTRACTION

  THE SUNDAY walks to Cutler’s Pond, with Father and Mavis, by way of Randiswell, over the bridge and down the path through St. Mary’s churchyard, and up the High Street, were some compensation for winter and the general dullness of life during that time of fogs and rain. In the long evenings there was nothing to do except to sit in the sitting-room and do homework, afterwards to play draughts with Father, or dominoes, snakes-and-ladders, halma, and tiddlywinks with Mavis and Doris. The front room piano might resound on occasion, Hetty playing the Highland Schottische, or any accompaniment for one of the children’s songs. The fire was lit only on Sunday afternoons, so that Father might have the sitting-room to himself, and what he called a snooze if he wanted one.

  Richard’s Sunday afternoons were sacred, as far as the sitting-room was concerned. There must be no entry into what he called his sanctum; no noise from any other part of the house must penetrate there during the hours between Sunday dinner and Sunday tea. It was the only time of the week he could be sure of the room to himself, except the half hour of peace and quiet he allowed himself every night, after Hetty had gone up to bed. Then he could lie in his armchair, slippered feet to the fire, and think his own thoughts: or lighting a pipe, read his newspaper in self-expansiveness.

  On Sunday afternoons he read The Weekly Courier, a newspaper which was reputed to be the oldest of its kind in Britain. The columns of the Courier carried a minimum of scandalous news of the kind which Richard considered was debasing the public, the gutter press with its pandering to the lowest instincts of the people: police court reports of rapes, seductions, child violation, and other sexual offences. Richard did not agree with the printing of that sort of thing, so, just to make sure, every Sunday when The Weekly Courier came through the letter-box, about half past nine in the morning, he put it away for Sunday afternoon perusal, out of reach of Phillip. When Richard had read it, and seen nothing injurious in its pages, then the boy might have it.

  Richard had a secret book hidden in the sitting-room, a book of which it was unthinkable that Phillip should ever get so much as one glimpse. It was a quarto, entitled The Parisian Artists’ Sketch Book of Models, printed on glossy clay paper in Paris and exported specially for the London market.

  Richard, alone in the sitting-room late at night or on Sunday afternoons, would som
etimes unlock his roll-top desk and take out The Parisian Artists’ Sketch Book of Models, and fancy himself among its young and sylph-like females in the nude, posing in various light-hearted attitudes permitted by the law of Britain, in the sense that a common informer, alleging that the British public, through him, had been obscenely libelled, would not have won his case. The Sketch Book was not pornographic; Richard drew the line at that; once he had been revolted by a photograph shown to him by a colleague in his early days of Doggett’s in the Strand.

  Richard had been surprised that such an apparently gentlemanly young fellow should, without the slightest reason, fail to keep his distance. The Parisian Artists’ Sketch Book of Models—all of them drawn by black-and-white artists in London, though Richard was not to know that—was itself a model of decorum, as far as the habituées of Leicester Square were concerned. In that rather wicked place, seeing the book in the window of a bookseller, Richard had purchased a copy. On sudden impulse one Saturday, after leaving the Moon Fire Office, Richard had decided not to hurry for the 1.35 from London Bridge, but to walk westwards.

  Pleased with himself that he had broken away from habit, he had gone past St. Paul’s, down to Ludgate Circus, and so to Fleet Street and the Strand, remembering every detail of the last occasion when he had been that way, on the never-to-be-forgotten-ride in Hilary’s Panhard et Lavassor. With a sense of the adventurous, he had gone into a strange A.B.C. teashop, and eaten a bath bun with a glass of milk; and thus fortified, had begun to enjoy the sights of Trafalgar Square, wondering why he had not done this sort of thing more often in the past.

  From Trafalgar Square, with Nelson high up on his column—renewing boyhood regrets for the Navy—Richard had strolled up St. Martin’s Lane, and then through narrow courts and by-ways to the centre of London’s gay life, where stood the Empire with its Promenade, the Alhambra, and the pigeon-splashed statue of William Shakespeare. There was not, however, complete freedom for the mind here; for already upon the streets and on the seats under the plane trees of the railed-off Square itself, were some of the women of whom he had a deep instinctive fear. It was this fear which was the basis of his dislike, of more than dislike, his dread and horror, of the presence of his brother-in-law, Hugh Turney, who had locomotor ataxy.

  While he was wandering aloofly past the Alhambra, wondering if he dared? if he ought to? could he afford it?—should he go in and see a matinee?—no, if Phillip failed in the scholarship, as he obviously would, there would be school-fees to be considered. No, theatres were not for him: a poor man could not afford such luxuries. There was no harm, however, in looking at the photographs before the theatre.

  While he was passing on from a scrutiny of the unattainable, Richard saw that his boot-lace was undone. He stooped to do it up, and a young woman walking past slowly said, “My word, if I catch you bending!” while continuing on her way, her skirt held up to show her ankles.

  Richard ignored the obvious solicitation, though he had been attracted by the pleasant voice, with its faint Scots accent. Rising to his feet, he saw that she had red hair, like Miranda MacIntosh, of Amazonian memories at St. Simon’s Tennis Club. Nothing was further from his thoughts, he told himself as he rose upright, than that he should ever speak to such a personage. Even so, she was dashed attractive! He was wondering whether there could be any harm in, at most, passing her again, and merely exchanging the time of day, when a familiar figure walked by, without recognising him. It was George Lemon, the husband of his sister Victoria. What was he doing all by himself in Leicester Square?

  Richard was soon to know. George raised his silk hat to the red-haired one; and after a brief conversation, the two walked slowly away, side by side. George Lemon, the respectable member of a firm of Lincoln’s Inn solicitors!

  When Richard arrived home that afternoon at tea-time, The Parisian Artists’ Sketch Book of Models was concealed under his coat. Thereafter it remained under cover of the roll-top desk, the secret sharer of his dreams and longings—and of his son’s too, since Phillip had discovered that one of the keys on his mother’s bunch fitted, and opened, the lock of the roll-top desk.

  *

  For Richard Maddison, the allure of the nude young women, whether leaping (back turned), stretching arms gladly to the sky (profile), or sitting sideways on floor, couch, settee, or edge of bed, was as recurrent as their figures were ideal. They smiled, they offered bliss unattainable by sedentary, respectable, metropolitan, Faustian man: their winsome attitudes, their tip-tilted breasts, their charming hair, foreheads, noses, and chins, the gentle feminity of their shoulders, mid-riffs, flanks, and feet, stirred deep longing for subliminal dissolution in maternal gentleness, safety, and peace.

  Yet contemplation of the unattainable, a wishful secret sharing by imagination of the delights of love, of unreserved abandon to the cave-man’s instincts, brought reaction in moods of self-despising, and after each occasion of frustration, a determination to burn the book. Shiny clay-paper, however, burned dully and with an offensive smell; so back it went under the slatted curve of the desk: the keys jingled; normal life resumed itself, with reflections upon the wretched isolation of his life, his every impulse to make things in his home better being baulked by the weakness and indifference of his wife. She did not want him as a husband; his pride prevented him from appealing any more to her, while thinking himself into a small boy, as though he were but substitute for her son!

  Richard thought of himself as turned of forty—the current phrase too old at forty often came into his mind with an accompanying physical sigh. If only he had had the good fortune to have married an intelligent and vital woman, such as Mrs. Gerard Rolls who lived at the top of the road, or Miranda MacIntosh, who since the death of Mrs. Mundy had married Mr. Mundy. No wonder the vicar of St. Simon’s was always in such a happy, hail-fellow-well-met frame of mind, though he was turned of sixty! If he had not married Hetty, as he now realised, for her maternal qualities, being caught on the rebound from his mother’s death—he would not now be the failure he was.

  Oh well, thought Richard, as he took up The Weekly Courier.

  That Sunday afternoon, towards gas-lighting time, it being nearly five o’clock, Hetty came down from the front room and opening the door of the sitting-room quietly, in case he was asleep, peeped round the jamb. Seeing him awake, she went in, and putting on a cheerful air, which was not hard to do, as she had been happy for the past two hours with the children (who for once had not squabbled), she asked him if he was ready for her to lay the tea.

  “Why do you not get the children to do it? It’s time they did something to help you, instead of lazing about, expecting everything to be done for them.”

  “They do help, Dickie, quite often. They have their Saturday chores; and Sonny is working for his scholarship so hard. I can do it just as easily, in fact, to tell you the truth, I prefer to do it.”

  “There you go, making excuses, as usual. You are a slave to that boy of yours. What’s he doing now?”

  “I left him quietly reading, dear.”

  “One of his penny blood and thunders, I expect. I suppose he thinks I don’t know when he reads them, when he is supposed to be doing his homework?”

  “He is learning his Collect, Dickie. And tonight he is coming with me to St. Simon’s; he likes to hear the anthem.”

  “Oh well, we’ll see how he shapes in that precious scholarship examination. But don’t blame me if he fails to pass.”

  “Would you like bloater paste with your toast for tea, Dickie, or some of your favourite patum peperium?”

  “If there’s any left after your best boy has been at the pot, you mean. Anyway, the fire here is not good enough for toast. What is it like in the front room?”

  “It’s a bit smoky yet, I am afraid.”

  Richard did not approve of using the gas for toast when there was a fire in the house. Economy was to be practised for its own sake, quite apart from the threatened rise in income tax to a shilling in the pound if the
Liberals got in at the forthcoming general election.

  “You might at least have seen to it, while I have my only rest of the week, that there was a decent fire for toast,” complained Richard. “Well, we shall have to have bread and butter, that’s all. This fire will do for the kettle, anyway. Send Phillip in with it, will you?”

  “Yes dear, certainly.”

  Phillip obediently carried the kettle from the kitchen. Richard set it on the hob, after poking the fire to make a vent for the gas to turn into flame.

  Back in the front room, Hetty asked Mavis to fetch some cut bread from the kitchen. Dickie liked hot toast for his Sunday tea, and the front room fire might, if the bread were held to one side, well clear of the smoky flame, be suitable after all, for toast.

  Mavis was entrusted with this task, while Hetty carried down the tea tray. Richard had resigned himself to bread and butter and pa turn peperium; it was just as nice, really, indeed it was a better flavour on bread than on toast. Richard had taken down a book from his shelves for re-reading, Captain Cook’s Adventures in the South Seas.

  It was a slight shock for Richard to find, twenty minutes later, a plateful of toast brought to the table by Hetty, who was hoping that her little surprise would please him.

  In her haste to get the tea, to be ready to start at six o’clock for the walk over the hill for evening service at St. Simon’s, she had forgotten to wipe the bottom of the plate. A slight black, or rather grey, ring was imposited on the tablecloth. Richard had the observant eye that he had passed on to Phillip. When Hetty put the plate on the cloth, and it was lifted again to be offered to him, immediately he saw the slight mark.