Donkey Boy

by Henry Williamson

  The consequent conversation, or monologue, only added to Richard’s sense of grievance when fed by Hetty’s conciliatoriness. The final exasperation arose when the toast was found to be tainted by coal tar; and the whole tea, to which he had so looked forward, was spoiled. Richard’s disappointment became the more vocal, based as it was on his recent sense of guilt. Did not such practice impair the brain?

  Phillip was sitting at one side of the table, perched upon his old wooden horse on wheels. This had been a birthday present from his grandfather two years previously. It was a special Sunday tea privilege to be allowed to sit on the horse instead of a chair, and to read a book. Sunday tea was thereby a pleasurable occasion to look forward to, for Father usually read his book as well, and if the toast was well made, and no rings or tea-stains made on the tablecloth, it usually passed peacefully.

  On the other side of the table sat Mavis, next to her father, and Doris next to her mother. Phillip was sitting on Dobbin, who had a knot on his wooden barrel, from which in the past the boy had declared he could extract cocoa. While Father was going on at Mother, Phillip was waiting with his usual dull quietude for Father to stop; the boy was deeply sensitive to his Mother’s distress, and being young and overshadowed, was able only to endure silently in the hope that it would soon cease.

  The previous Sunday Father had gone on like that, because during the afternoon Uncle Hugh had come into the front room. Father had been angry, saying he had again and again ordered that Hugh Turney was not to be allowed in the house where there were young children. Phillip did not know what this meant; nor did he wonder about it; he accepted it as being part of his life.

  Perched quiet on Dobbin, Phillip saw that Mother was trying hard not to cry. He could only look with desperate challenge at Mavis, the silly fool who had allowed the black smelly moustache of the coal flame to touch the toast on the fork. He had warned her of this in the front room, but all she had said was “Mind your own biz, Donkey Boy”. If the sitting-room door had not been open, so that Father would hear if she yelped, he would have pinched her hard for saucing him. So the smoky toast was her fault, and not Mother’s. But Father would never blame Mavis, who was his favourite, often sitting on his knee while he stroked her hair, and kissed her. He never kissed Doris, who did not like him at all.

  Father went on about the dirty plate, and the smoky toast, until Mummie was crying.

  Suddenly Doris said a very strange thing, and hearing it, Phillip looked up in a kind of terror at Father’s face turning round in the armchair to stare at Doris. For Doris, who was round-faced and always following Mummy about the house, looked at Father, pointed her finger at him, and said, slowly:

  “If you make my Mummy cry, I will kill you. I have been meaning to kill you for a long time. I have a long knife hidden to kill you with.”

  Father jumped up in a rage. He smacked down Doris’s finger and got hold of her and turned her up in her chair, so that her new white drawers were uppermost as she hung head down while Father held her legs under one arm and beat her hard with his other hand on her behind, hitting her again and again, before lifting her up and sitting her down again, and shouting at her: “How dare you speak like that to me! Hetty, this is your doing!! You have set the child against me!! I shall inform the police if you do not at once say you are sorry, young woman! Do you hear me?”

  Phillip sat still and void. Doris, who had never once cried out when Father had beaten her, though her face was very red, would not say she was sorry.

  Phillip knew Doris had not got a knife to kill their father but was only saying it to protect Mummy. But Father believed it, else he would not tell the police. Father stood over her and shouted in a rage:

  “Say that you are sorry this instant, or I will punish you some more!”

  Pointing her finger at him, Doris said slowly:

  “You—leave—my—Mummy—alone.”

  Mother cried when Father smacked Doris some more. But Doris did not cry even then. Doris never cried. Once when she thought a burglar was in the house, hearing movement overhead when she was in her room, Doris had cried out in a deep voice “You had better be careful, and go away at once, Mr. Burglar, for I am a big strong man!” The noise was only himself exploring the loft over the trap-door in the bathroom ceiling, but Doris had thought it was a real burglar. Phillip wished he was brave like Doris, who was only five. Doris held herself like someone holding breath, and would not say to Father she was sorry.

  “If you do not say you are sorry, I shall not answer for the consequences!” cried Father, so loud that Mother said, “Oh, Dickie, please, please! They will hear you next door!”

  “Let them hear me!” snouted Father loudly, his face like a very thin lion’s face. “Let them know what your daughter has just threatened me with! Unnatural child, unnatural wife! What sort of a life have I here in this blasted household?”

  Phillip had never heard Father swear before, and it shocked him, as it also surprised him to hear what Father was saying to Mummy.

  “If I had had any sense I would have left years ago, instead of remaining in a completely false position! Yes, that is what I feel about it! What sort of people are you Turneys, to insult a man as I was insulted in the past? Who then seek to insinuate themselves into his home, with never so much as an apology, never a hint of any regret for the disastrous effect of caddish behaviour towards me years ago? I know very well who was at the back of the loss of my billet at Doggett’s years ago! What was my crime, can you answer me that? I was a young fellow making my way in the world, and you yourself encouraged me in my suit! Therefore, as is usual and honourable in such circumstances, at least among my own sort of people, I presented myself to Mr. Turney to ask his permission to pay my addresses to his daughter! And what was the result? Disgusting insinuations, unbearable insults! And then that laughter from an upper room in the house as I left it, from your youngest brother! That’s the sort of people you are! Now you know what I think of you all!” and Father went out of the room. Soon afterwards they heard the front door shut.

  *

  Hetty’s surprise at this outburst stopped her flow of tears. She had always admired her husband for his restraint in the matter of the way he had been treated by Papa. She had always been ashamed of Papa’s behaviour, but had tried never to show that she was ashamed. She had always been conscious of the difference between the Maddisons and the Turneys, and from the very first had realised that gentlemen to the manner born, like Richard, had a power of restraint denied to other men who had not had their advantages in upbringing and education. Now she was shocked to realise there was little or no difference. All the time Dickie had been keeping back his real feelings! She could see now that he hated Papa, and Hugh, and all the others, except perhaps Mamma, whom nobody could very well dislike, as she never affronted another living soul. Did Dickie hate her, as well, his wife who had devoted her life to him and to the children? At least it seemed clear that he no longer loved her, if he had ever done so. He was an unhappy man, always had been and always would be; and it was her duty to continue to try, always, to do her best to please him, for the sake of her little children.

  Mavis and Phillip were now crying. Hetty said to a stoical, or frozen, Doris:

  “You are a naughty girl, Doris, to say such wicked things to your Father. After all, he is your Father, you know! Wherever do you get such ideas from, about long sharp knives? I am sure you don’t hear of them from me.”

  “You can’t sharpen a knife, Mummy, can you?” said Phillip. He was the anxious small boy again, talking to attract her away from grief. “You don’t know the proper way to use the steel, do you? You take the edge off! Only Father knows how, doesn’t he?”

  “Mummy, Phillip told Doris and me a story about a robber with a long knife, with which he disbolled his victims! That’s where Doris got the long knife from. It’s those Plucks Phillip reads all the time!”

  “Huh, fool!” retorted Phillip. “Any fool knows the Pluck Library is Jack
Valiant and Co. The long knife story was out of Chums if you want to know. So sucks to you, you dreamy filthy toast-maker!”

  “Sonny! Phillip I will not have you speaking to Mavis like that! I have told you before!”

  “Children, children, please; we have had enough quarrelling for one afternoon——” replied Phillip, imitating his mother’s voice.

  Doris was sent to bed for a punishment by Hetty. The stoical five-year-old went up without a word, and put herself to bed. There, in some safety with her doll, she cried without a sound, after refusing to speak to her mother.

  When Richard returned, he was induced to eat some bread and butter with patum on it. Hetty cleared the table, with the help of a docile Phillip. Mavis remained in the room with her father, engaged with her paint-box upon a friend’s Confession book, both laid on an old sheet of newspaper. Richard settled down with Captain Cook’s Adventures.

  Hetty and Phillip got ready for church, and departed. They sat in the left-hand gallery, their usual place. Mr. Mundy, thought Hetty, preached a beautiful sermon on tolerance, which was a quality, he said, based on the endurance of all trials and tribulations. The sermon restored her faith; while the anthem O, for the wings of a Dove gave her back her hope. Oh, things would be better when Phillip had won his scholarship!

  *

  It was something to look forward to after church, to go to supper with Gran’pa, though Gran’pa had one bad habit in Phillip’s eyes—a habit of suddenly putting on his plate a snippet held between knife and fork off his own plate which Gran’pa could not chew himself, owing to his teeth, he said. Why should he have to eat anyone’s left-overs? There was no need to eat these tough bits, with the cat waiting for them under the table; still, it was not nice to be told “Eat that,” off anyone else’s knife and fork. But then, Gran’pa was a Turney.

  There was wine for supper on Sundays, with water of course, but this though red was never sweet. Phillip was given it for his health as his grandfather said he was too pale. Port was nicer, but boys were not allowed any; so if he wanted any he had to take a swig out of the decanter after supper, when no one was looking.

  Father never came in to supper, though Grandma always included him in the invitation, said Mother; but he never came, which was a good thing. It was always much nicer without Father. Gran’pa never stopped you doing anything, though you had to be quiet while he read Shakespeare afterwards, but Shakespeare was better than Psalms or Collects.

  Sometimes Uncle Hugh played his violin, or a cigarbox one with a brass horn sticking out of it. This made sad music, nice to listen to when you could think about old times, so long as you hid your face in case Mavis would taunt and say “Look, Phillip is crying, there is a tear in his eye!”

  Sometimes cousin Ralph came to supper, and Gerry, then there was some sport afterwards in Uncle Hugh’s room, where they all smoked Ogden’s Guinea Gold cigarettes or Player’s Weights, and talked of the things they would like to do. Ralph was soon to leave the school on the Hill, to go to work in London. He would have to sleep with other apprentices in the top of a building in High Holborn, where there were many beds in a row. It was a big shop of many floors underneath, where he would have to work in the daytime selling clothes and other things to customers, and so work his way up, said Gran’pa, who had shares in the business, to be a director.

  Hell to that for a tale, said Ralph, he was clearing out to join Uncle Charley in the goldfields of the Rand as soon as he could save up passage money.

  Hell to London life, said Gerry, he was going to sea as soon as he could. Phillip thought of the Redskins of Fenimore Cooper, the pirates of Ballantyne, the white hunters of Rider Haggard, and as soon as he had saved up enough pocket money he too would be off.

  Hell to Twiney and Mildenhall! He thought of thinking hell to Father, too, but shied away from the idea, for he was wicked even to think of nearly thinking it of Father.

  *

  Sunday was always a dull day, because you had to wear your best clothes and be very quiet, though going for a walk with Father in the morning to Cutler’s Pond was better than going to church. All sorts of interesting things were to be seen on the walks of Sunday morning, when it was fine. Along the main road into Kent were traps, dogcarts, brakes, occasional coaches and cabs, and, sometimes, a coster’s cart driven by a man in pearl button’d cap and coat, and his wife in many feathers. In the morning all were going one way, to booze in the pubs, said Father.

  Passing the horse-pulled vehicles were different sorts of motorcars, driven by men with caps turned round the wrong way, with goggles in case there was dust, though in winter the grey road was usually moist, or at least damp. Phillip, ever since the ride in Uncle Hilary’s Panhard, had been interested in motorcars. Some drivers wore fur coats, and ladies with them wore such coats too, with hats covered with veils, and fur gloves. One morning he found a big nut in the roadway, and Father said someone in a hole, or a tight corner, might be very pleased to give half-a-crown for such a thing, should he, Phillip, be in the right place. Phillip put the nut in his pocket, wondering how he could find the right person in a hole, or a tight corner; but though he carried it with him for several Sundays, he never found such a driver, and thought of trying to disguise the nut in a conker, to be the champion at school with it.

  There was a police trap along the road, hidden, said Father, from ordinary mortals like themselves, and not affecting them, since they were pedestrians; but if Phillip kept his eyes open, he would see the signs of it when next a motorcar passed by them at that particular stretch, where the trap was.

  They waited, and when an old Mors motorcar rattled along, a man standing beside the road held up a white dinner plate high above his head, then saluted the motorist, who saluted back. The man with the white dinner plate looked like a soldier, for he wore a khaki uniform, and Father said he was warning the motorist of the trap. There were hidden policemen with stop-watches, timing the speed of the motorcar; and if it exceeded twenty miles an hour, they would stop the driver and fine him a lot of money for being a road-hog.

  “That old Mors couldn’t do twenty miles an hour, I bet!” said Phillip; and certainly it passed through the trap, wheezing away.

  *

  One Sunday all the empty shops in the High Street were seen to be filled with posters, for, said Father, there was soon to be a General Election. Phillip understood that one side was decent and right, and told the truth, while the other was disreputable and wrong, and told lies. On the way home they counted the shops with the truthful and lying posters in the windows, from the Bull Inn to St. Mary’s Church, on both sides of the High Street. There were nineteen altogether. You could tell which were the liars by colours. The right party colours were purple and primrose. The wrong party was so obviously wrong, for the right posters showed them up for what they were. Their Free Trade, for instance, meant free food, and this in turn meant that in China pigs were fed on human corpses—there the pictures were, showing great gaunt hogs eating dead men in a waste land—and the hogs became bacon which was sold by the Free Traders in shops like those in Skerritt Road. Tariff Reform, said Father, would put that right. The Unionists, or Conservatives had been in power for many years, and they ought to be put back, to stop tainted bacon being dumped in England. They were all the same, the Radicals, whether they called themselves Progressives, Liberals, or Free Traders, it was the same old evil of Radicalism, said Father. And later in some of the windows of Hillside Road there appeared cards with a photograph on them of the only decent man to vote for, Major Coates. Father said that as the ballot was secret, it behoved people to keep their choice to themselves; that’s why he had refused to put one in the window.

  Along Charlotte Road lived inferior people who put the other candidate’s photographs in their windows. There was only one thing to do, said Gerry, on the way home from school, to teach them a lesson; to knock down Ginger on every one of them.

  Gerry showed promptly what this meant. You crept up to the front door, gave th
e knocker a tremendous bang, then ran away. In the flats in Charlotte Road you could, by being quick, knock a group of four knockers at once, and you would be well away on your charger before anyone could give chase. It was wonderful fun, much better than setting fire to the Backfield, for if you got away no one could prove anything, said Gerry.

  One morning on the way home to dinner Phillip knocked down a ginger and almost at once the door opened and a saturnine man appeared. He might have been a criminal by his face, which was thin, dark, and with a thin black moustache, and a bowler hat on top. He gave a snarling cry. The flat was one near the new church of St. Cyprian, and there being a path up to the Hill opposite, Phillip ran up it, arriving puffed at the top by the grammar school.

  Something told him that the man would come after him. Crossing to where Father used to fly his kites, he ran down it and was about to climb over the hurdles, and so down through the thorns above the gully, when he saw the thin man rapidly walking up the gully, darting his head to left and to right like a snake’s. He wore a straw hat. On seeing him crouching behind the hurdle, the man who looked like one of a disguised gang of criminals, cried “Ah ha!” in a sinister voice, and immediately started to climb the low railing.

  In fear, Phillip ran towards the Backfield, meaning to climb over the spiked railings at the boundary of the Hill. You had to be careful doing this, first jumping up, then kneeling, then carefully putting a foot between the spikes, which were flattened half-way down, making it treacherous if you jumped and your boot caught there, for then you might break your leg and hang down and perhaps bleed to death.

  The man was sprinting over the grass, having leapt the hurdles, as Phillip had seen in a terrified backward glance. He must be an athlete. Phillip wore his winter coat. Trembling, he sprang up with his hands on the top of the fence. He must be steady: with beating heart he told himself to be calm, and not to think of the man running to catch him. He got over without mishap, and plunged down through the long grass, wondering if he should drop into one of the big cracks down the slope, and hide, or run on down past the red ballast heap to the fence behind the gardens of the new road. He decided to do this, and jumping over the cracks, splashed through the level plashes below, and so to the fence. Here he paused, and saw with relief that the man was standing on the other side of the spiked railings. He was safe.