A Wise Child

by A Wise Child (retail) (epub)

  He liked to drink with his mates when he was ashore but Tom felt sure he never looked at any other woman than his wife. Perhaps Mum was right and the illness was the cause of Dad going, thought Tom.

  He had sat so long staring into space and thinking that Harry came across.

  ‘Bad news, Tom?’ he asked.

  Tom started. ‘No, good news really. A wedding in the family. Just got me thinking.’ He hastily gathered up his other letters. ‘I’ll have to read these later.’

  He wrote the same night to congratulate Bob and Jean and wish them well and wrote a long letter to his mother. He had made up his mind that he would write a few lines to his mother every night and send them twice a week so that she would know he was always thinking of her.

  He also decided to find out as much as possible about his father on his next leave and start some enquiries about him, perhaps even write to the British Embassy in New York. America was not yet at war and someone there might at least tell him where to look for his father.

  Chapter Thirty

  Sam had no clear plan of what he would do when he left the ship, only that he must get away from the places where he had been tricked and humiliated and make a fresh start. America was supposed to be the land of opportunity but Sam had no great ambition or desire for success.

  He only wanted to earn enough for food and lodgings but he soon realised that he had chosen a bad time. America was in the grip of the Depression and he saw lines of gaunt and ragged men and women standing in line outside a soup kitchen and roaming the streets.

  As night drew near he realised that his good boots and the bag he carried were being eyed hungrily by some of the desperate men and he changed his mind about sleeping in a lodging house. He began to make his way back to the waterfront and the Seaman’s Home, confident that he could look out for himself until he reached there.

  He was unprepared to turn a corner and to be pushed against a wall with a knife to his throat. Three men surrounded him, but Sam kept his eyes on the knife holder and his head still and suddenly kicked out with his heavy boots. One man yelped with pain and fell back and Sam kicked and punched the other men, at the same time shouting at the top of his voice, ‘George, Buck, Tommy. Over here.’

  The men ran off and Sam hurried away keeping to the middle of the road and darting glances all around him until he reached the Seaman’s Home where he managed to get a bed.

  Later as he lay on his bed he thought over the incident. The way those names had come to his tongue! George, Buck, Tommy. He thought of his old mates George and Buck and wondered where they were and what they thought of him.

  ‘I suppose me name’s mud in the Volley, he thought, for what I done going off with that one. I’ll be a laughing stock too after Ellie fetching that other fella in. And Tommy. I shouted for him too, me posh son that turns his nose up at me now.

  Suddenly he was struck by the thought, never far away, that Tommy was not his son. Couldn’t be. He groaned and rolled over burying his face in his pillow. Ellie, Ellie, how could you do this to me? he thought, then close on came another thought.

  If only he had never seen that doctor or he’d kept his bloody mouth shut. I could’ve gone on not knowing, being happy and seeing me lad grow up. He clenched his fists. That new fella had better treat Tommy right or he’d have him to reckon with.

  Images from the past filled his mind and invaded his dreams when he briefly slept then woke again. Ellie as a ragged barefoot child looking trustingly at him as he shared out the food she had been given or he had bought. The rare treat of fish and chips when in spite of everything they had been happy.

  His homecomings to the cosy kitchen with his chair with Woodbines and matches beside it and savoury smells filling the air.

  Tommy as a baby standing on his knee with his soft cheek against his face and his little arms around his neck. Later holding Ellie in his arms, making love to her gently, afraid to hurt her because she seemed so fragile and innocent. Innocent. He groaned aloud and pounded his fists on the pillow in frustration and despair and the man in the next bed leaned over.

  ‘Stow it, mate,’ he said ferociously. ‘Fellas are trying to sleep.’

  Sam mumbled an apology and eventually slept.

  The next morning he left early, still determined to turn his back on his past but uncertain which way to go. A man was approaching the Home as he left it and they stopped in mutual recognition.

  ‘Chancer!’ Sam exclaimed.

  The other man said, ‘Samson!’ which had been Sam’s nickname at Heswall.

  Chancer turned back and they strolled along together catching up on the years since they had been boys together in the reformatory.

  Sam talked of his experiences during the war and the ships he had sailed in since but he said nothing about his wife or Tommy.

  ‘I’ve knocked about all over the world,’ Chancer said frankly. ‘In the war I was torpedoed twice and in an open boat. The second time I was put ashore at Nova Scotia, in a bad way, but I got all right. I’ve never settled anywhere long though.’

  ‘Been here long – New York?’ Sam asked.

  ‘No, only just come. Me longest spell was in Chicago. I done well out of Prohibition but it’s on its last legs now,’ said Chancer.

  ‘That why you left there?’ Sam asked and Chancer laughed.

  ‘No, there’s Prohibition all over,’ he said. ‘No, it got a bit too hot for me. Too many people thinking I’d look better on a slab.’

  You couldn’t look much worse, Sam thought, glancing at Chancer and thinking that his looks had not improved with time.

  His ginger hair, close cropped when Sam had last seen him, now was a tangled mane and he had acquired a broken nose and a scar which pulled down the corner of his eye and gave him a sinister expression. Probably useful, Sam thought, as they seemed safe from attack.

  They were getting away from the most slummy area now and by common consent they turned into a comparatively clean eating house.

  ‘Can’t get over this, Samson,’ Chancer said. ‘D’yer know, you’re the first Heswall lad I’ve met again in all these years.’

  ‘I met a couple during the war. None since,’ Sam said.

  They began to reminisce about the reformatory, the harsh discipline, the floggings, the spartan diet.

  ‘Nothing seemed as bad after,’ Sam said. ‘Maybe that was the idea.’

  ‘When you think of it, bread and a pint of tea was all we had between midday dinner and the next morning,’ said Chancer.

  ‘And the other meals weren’t up to much neither,’ Sam said. ‘I remember me first ship. When I seen what the cook give me and the lad to take to the fo’c’sle I couldn’t believe me eyes. Bacon and eggs, bread and butter, coffee and the crew were moaning about it.’

  ‘Same with me,’ Chancer said. ‘I was mess lad and when the cook was ladling the bacon and eggs into this great big dish I thought he was never going to stop.’

  ‘I bet they didn’t all reach the fo’c’sle,’ Sam said.

  Chancer grinned. ‘I scoffed five eggs between the galley and the fo’c’sle,’ he said, ‘an’ shoved some bread up me gansey too but there wasn’t no need to pinch food on that ship.’

  ‘You never got six cuts like we got at Heswall for pinching a slice of bread,’ Sam said. ‘When you think of it. Mind you, I was only there in the first place for pinching a jar of jam. You pinched bread or spuds many a time and got away with it, didn’t you? No wonder you got the name Chancer.’

  ‘Aye, but then I’d get six cuts for nothing,’ Chancer said indignantly. ‘“Looking insolently at an officer,” for God’s sake. Not even opening me mouth to him.’

  They finished their meal and left the eating house and Chancer asked about Sam’s plans. Sam shrugged and Chancer asked if he fancied shipping on a coaster.

  ‘I know where one’s taking on,’ he said. ‘Have you got your book?’

  ‘Aye. What about you? You’d swallered the anchor, hadn’t you?’

>   ‘I’ve got a book,’ Chancer grinned. ‘For this voyage I’m James Huron.’

  ‘If we get on,’ said Sam.

  ‘Just leave it to me,’ Chancer said confidently.’

  Sam left him to do all the talking when they reached the coastwise ship and they were both signed on.

  Sam found Chancer a good companion and a staunch friend. He still had the ability to acquire items and manipulate situations to make life more comfortable, which had earned him his nickname, and he ensured that Sam benefited too.

  The crew were of many nationalities but they got on well together and the food and the crew’s quarters were reasonably good. The officers were more easy-going than British officers and Sam and Chancer had time and opportunity for many long talks together.

  They usually discussed the ships they had known and the voyages they had made and found that at different times they had sailed in the same ship.

  ‘Dirty old scow, wasn’t it?’ Chancer said. ‘And the grub was bloody putrid.’

  ‘Aye, I was almost glad when I was too sick to eat it,’ Sam said with a grin. ‘God, I was bad that trip. I was like as though I was on fire and me neck all swelled up. I was like something out of a sideshow.’

  ‘Maybe you got poisoned with the grub,’ Chancer said.

  ‘I don’t know what it was,’ Sam said. ‘But me neck! I couldn’t swallow – couldn’t hardly speak.’

  ‘Sounds like mumps,’ Chancer said.

  ‘No, that’s only for kids,’ Sam said. ‘I was twenty-one, twenty-two. First voyage after I was married.’ He stopped, realising too late what he had said. Neither he nor Chancer had spoken of their personal affairs but Chancer made no comment now and Sam hurried on. ‘I had two real good mates with me, Buck Madden and George Adams, and they looked after me great. The rest of the lads were good too, carried me, like, till I got all right again.’

  ‘Nothing like a good mate,’ Chancer said quietly. They were leaning on the ship’s rails, smoking, and he hurled his cigarette stub over the side. ‘I’ve just lost a good mate,’ he said.

  ‘Hard lines, mate,’ Sam said quietly.

  Chancer lit another cigarette and they smoked in silence for a while. Then Chancer said, ‘That’s another reason I left Chicago. He stopped a cop’s bullet there.’

  ‘Were you together long?’ Sam asked.

  ‘About nine years,’ said Chancer, ‘We split up once or twice. Had a dust-up and split but we soon got back together. He watched my back and I watched his. The Professor, I called him. Clever fella.’

  ‘We used to call George the Professor because he was always reading,’ Sam said.

  ‘Ah, but Spence really was a professor,’ Chancer said. ‘From a university, but he told me once he got fed up with the scheming and the backstabbing, trying to get on by treading on someone else. He said there had to be more to life and he took to the road.’

  Sam felt that he owed it to Chancer to be as open with him.

  ‘My wife,’ he said. ‘She’s in Liverpool. It’s all over.’

  Chancer nodded. ‘Any kids?’ he asked but Sam shook his head.

  ‘Have you?’ he asked.

  ‘Probably,’ Chancer said. ‘Scattered round, like, but no wife.’ He grinned at Sam. ‘I can still get the girls, you know, even with this kisser. A few have tried to pin me down but I ducked out. Mind you, I was thinking of going home, settling down, until I bumped into you. That’s why I was going in the Seaman’s.’

  ‘Some girl’s had a narrow escape,’ Sam said.

  He had never known Chancer well at Heswall but now he found that the more he knew of him the more he liked him.

  Chancer seemed to understand when a black cloud of misery descended on him and how to lift his spirits. It was good to be with someone who had known him as a lad, Sam felt, and he knew that Chancer felt the same.

  When the ship paid off they stayed together, going wherever their fancy or the available work took them. Chancer was too restless to stay long in one place and Sam drifted along with him, taking each day as it came and trying to avoid thinking of the past or the future. As Chancer had said of his previous mate, they ‘watched each other’s back’, and this was important. The roads of America were dangerous at this time, roamed by the hungry and the dispossessed, but together they could deal with any danger.

  Chancer could nearly always find work for them, enough to provide food and lodging, or a dry barn to sleep in and a chicken under his coat to be cooked for their meal when they were away from the farm.

  He had his own peculiar code and though he would never steal from a fellow unfortunate anyone else was fair game and they usually lived well. Sam was too indifferent to care one way or the other.

  Months slipped into years as they wandered, working on farms or in canning factories, sailing on ships trading along the coast or on the Great Lakes, working on railways or in logging camps.

  Wherever they wandered Chancer would always manage to pick up a girl and this was the only point on which they disagreed.

  ‘What have you got against dames?’ Chancer would demand. ‘Are you a monk or something, Samson?’

  Soon after they met, Chancer had reminded Sam that when they were at Heswall Sam had told the lads that his mother had warned him not to go with women in ports.

  ‘We thought you was mad,’ Chancer had laughed, ‘we was all only waiting for the chance.’

  Now he often reminded Sam of this when Sam had refused to join him on his hunt for a girl. ‘Your old lady done a good job on you,’ he would say in disgust. ‘She might as well have got a knife and chopped them off for you.’

  Sometimes he pretended to be afraid to sleep near Sam. ‘Am I safe?’ he would say. ‘Fellas that don’t fancy dames sometimes fancy fellas,’ but whatever he said Sam refused to take offence and only grinned and smoked silently.

  His violent temper, once so easily aroused, seemed to have been damped down with the rest of his emotions and he only fought if it was necessary to protect them and never with Chancer.

  Gradually over the years his perception of Ellie had changed. Now he saw her not as a woman who had tricked him but as a victim of circumstances or of people more crafty than herself. The mental picture that had troubled him, of her cringing away from him in terror and her bruised and swollen face, had gradually faded.

  Now when he thought of her he saw the white face and huge eyes of the starving child or the busy happy wife and mother, serving the meals and watching proudly as they were enjoyed. He thought of his days ashore, going to the market, with Nellie’s hand in his arm and her face smiling proudly up at him.

  All too often that memory was followed by another, of him raging jealously at Nellie because a stallholder spoke to her. Of his time ashore spoiled by rows caused by Charlie West and people like him. Why had he listened to them? Why had they picked on him? Because I was an easy mark, he would think.

  They knew that I would take notice to them and they done it for a laugh. A laugh! And the life I used to lead Ellie because of them tales. Because I was a sucker, a jealous fool that wouldn’t trust me own wife.

  These thoughts seemed to occur most often when he and Chancer were sitting peacefully beside a camp fire and he would get up and fling away, tramping for hours, exhausting himself but unable to escape from his thoughts.

  Chancer never said anything when he got back, only brewed up a dixie of coffee for him in wordless sympathy. He never asked questions and Sam said nothing of his reasons for misery or gave any details of his wife and son.

  In turn Sam respected Chancer’s silence about his family. He knew from talk in the reformatory that Chancer had been placed there by his father who complained that he was out of control, and that the father held a good position, but Chancer never volunteered any information about his early life and Sam never asked for it.

  It was in the Fall of 1937, when their wanderings had taken them to a ship on the St Lawrence and from there to Prince Edward Island, that Sam first spoke o
f Tom to Chancer. They had seen many beautiful sights during their wanderings but never anything like the glorious colour of the maple leaves.

  ‘My God, my lad would love this!’ Sam exclaimed.

  For a moment there was silence then Chancer said calmly, ‘An artist, is he?’

  ‘No, he just loved anything colourful, like,’ Sam said. He hesitated then said awkwardly, ‘I didn’t tell no lie when I said I never had a child. He wasn’t mine but I sort of helped to rear him.’

  ‘So he’d be like your own,’ Chancer said. ‘I wish I could paint this but I’d never get these colours right. No one would.’

  They had been hired to saw wood and all day as they worked Sam’s mind was filled with memories of Tommy. Tommy as a baby, as a toddler strutting proudly beside him, of playing football with Tommy or teaching him to box.

  At the end of the day as they relaxed after their meal he was unable to resist talking about him to Chancer.

  ‘He was real clever, you know, Tommy. Even when he was a little tiddler the questions he used to ask! Never got tired of hearing about places I’d been or things I’d seen.’

  ‘How old will he be now?’ Chancer asked.

  ‘Let’s see. He was born November 1920. God, he’ll be seventeen very near,’ Sam said amazed. ‘A young man. I never realised.’

  Suddenly like a dam bursting the whole story poured out. Ellie as a child, of their wedding after Janey had waylaid him outside the Volley. The night Tommy was born. The taunts of his so-called mates.

  Chancer listened in sympathetic silence as Sam sat with his head bowed and his clasped hands between his knees, words pouring from him. He spoke of Nurse McCann saving Tommy’s life and how tiny he had been. ‘But he come on. Got real strong. The times we had. I learned him to box. Wanted him to be able to look after himself. He was a bit small like his mam but he was strong. She used to wash him in scenty soap when he was a baby, always kept him nice. Always a new gansey and boots for me coming home.’