Children of the Archbishop (56 page)

“Where to?”

“To … to a job,” Sweetie answered. “And I shan't never see you again. Or Margaret. I shan't never see anybody I know.”

Ginger paused.

“That's rotten,” he said at last.

Sweetie was staring up at him, pleadingly.

“But what can I do?” she asked.

Ginger paused again.

“Dunno,” he said. “Better go, I s'pose.”

“I thought p'raps you could help me.”

“Can't,” Ginger told her. “I'm being sent off meself, termorrow.”

It was this piece of news that was too much for Sweetie. She just laid her head upon her arm, up against the brickwork of the wall and began crying again. Then, quite abruptly, she stopped.

“I won't go,” she said slowly. “I'll kill myself.”

Ginger was aware of a strange emotion inside him. He had never seen another human being quite so distressed before. Certainly never seen a girl like that. And he wanted to jump down off the wall and put his arms round her.

But it was too late. Already through the gathering dusk he could hear Nurse Stedge calling. Her voice was shrill and anxious-sounding.

“Sweetie,” it was saying. “Sweetie. Are you there? The bell's gone, Sweetie. Sweetie! Sweetie!”

“Good-bye,” said Ginger.

There was no answer at first. Then Sweetie spoke slowly and distinctly.

“Good-bye,” she said. “Good-bye for ever. I shall be dead by the morning.”

Nurse Stedge, however, was coming nearer.

“Sweetie,” she kept on calling. “Is that you, Sweetie? Can't you hear me? Sweetie! Sweetie!”

Ginger was lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. Chopping up bits of meat! Taking the skins off rabbits! “Good-morning, madam. Half a pound, madam. Certainly, madam. One and sixpence, madam. Your change, madam. Send it round this morning, madam. Certainly, madam. Good-day, madam …” that wasn't the sort of life he meant to lead: it wasn't like life at all, all this barmy madaming. Just thinking about it made him want to have a go at madam with the chopper.

And there was something else that made him feel miserable, too. It was Sweetie. She kept coming back into his thoughts just when he thought that he had forgotten about her. And he resented her.

“It's rotten enough already having to be a butcher when you could be looking after cars,” he told himself for the fortieth time. “Rotten enough, without Sweetie bothering me. Wot's she think I can do to help her? Wot's the use of asking me? If I could help anyone, I'd help meself, wouldn't I?”

He followed this line of thought for some time. But there was another complication that he hadn't reckoned on. For he now found himself not only remembering Sweetie, but seeing her. She was so clear that it was as though he were still on top of the wall looking down on her. And every time he saw her that same, strange she-wouldn't-feel-so-bad-if-only-I-put-my-arms-round-her sort of feeling came over him again. But he wasn't going to do anything about it. He'd got himself into quite enough trouble already, because of Sweetie.

“
She
won't kill herself,” he decided. “Not 'er. Killing yourself's potty. Bet she only said it to make me feel sorry.”

And with that piece of consolation in his mind, Ginger rolled over and went to sleep.

He had not been asleep for more than half an hour when he woke suddenly. Really suddenly. So suddenly, indeed, that he sat bolt upright in bed all in one jerk.

He was being soft, that's what he was being. For the last couple of years he had told himself that he was going to run away, and here he was just waiting to be kicked around. It wasn't good enough. He wasn't going to stop there any longer. He'd run away good and proper this time—somewhere right away where Dr. Trump
and the Hoxton butcher and the police would never find him. He'd be able to get on all right. He wasn't worrying.

But money! That was the first problem. The trouble was that he hadn't got any. And that two-day jaunt to Poplar had taught him the cost of things outside the Hospital. Then he remembered the half-crown that Canon Mallow had given him, the one that Dr. Trump had taken away again. If he'd had that, everything would have been right. And why shouldn't he have it? he asked himself. It was his, wasn't it? It had belonged to him. And he reckoned he could get at it once again if he tried properly. No difficulty there. It was only in a wooden box with a padlock on it. And if the padlock wouldn't give way, he could prise it open. Bust up the hinges, and get at his half-crown that way.

“I'm goin' ter do it,” he resolved. “Git me 'alf-crown, and clear out for good.”

Because this was serious, not like the other times he had gone off, he didn't say anything to Spud. He just started dressing. He had no very clear plans in his mind as to where he was going once he had left the Hospital behind him. The important thing was simply to get as far away as possible. Into some quite different part of the country, so that when he began looking for a job, people wouldn't connect him with the boy who was missing in Putney. And as a final master stroke of concealment, he decided that he would even change his name.

“Yus, that's it,” he told himself. “I'll change me name. Then I'll be somebody else and they won't never find me.”

When he had put on the last of his climbing clothes, he paused for a moment to look round the sleeping dormitory.

“Bet Spud won't half be sick when he wakes up in er morning an' finds me gone,” he reflected. “Bet he won't half be sick.”

But getting at the half-crown wasn't so easy as he had anticipated. For a start the Hospital collecting-box was in the open corridor leading to the hall. And, even in the dead of night, it seemed a pretty public sort of place in which to go rifling a treasure chest. Someone might walk through at any moment; and, if anyone did come, Ginger would be for it. That was because there was a lamp-post just outside the Archbishop Bodkin wall and the rays from it shone in through the Gothic windows almost like daylight. The box, too, was a strong one and the padlock had been made specially to prevent the sort of thing that Ginger was up to. There was nothing for it eventually but to break the hinges. And he had
to use a poker out of the big fireplace in the entrance hall before he could make them even budge.

But, when they did go, they went abruptly. And with a bang. They made such a noise, indeed, as the thick iron bands came clean out of the woodwork that Ginger was afraid that the whole Hospital would wake up. He just stood there waiting while his heart went
dub-dub-dub-dub-dub
inside him.

The real difficulty came, however, when he looked inside the box. It contained three separate shillings and a piece of silver paper. That was awkward. If he took only two of the shillings, that would leave Dr. Trump with sixpence that wasn't his by rights. And if he took all three of the shillings, that would be stealing. But, in the end, he decided that for the moment he needed the odd sixpence more than Dr. Trump did.

“I'll only borrer it,” he told himself. “I'm not goin' er keep it. When I git a job, I'll post it back again. An' I'll pay for smashing up the box when I git me job. I'm only taking what's mine by rights.”

And then, suddenly, Ginger remembered Sweetie. It seemed rotten going off like this without even saying good-bye to her. There was nothing, however, that he could do about it: he didn't even know which was Sweetie's dormitory any longer. But she was a soppy sort o' kid, he remembered. She'd probably been back at her place on the wall waiting for him ever since lights out. And, even if she weren't, he'd feel better about it somehow if he went along just to see. The three shillings safely in his pocket, he therefore started off round the Colet Block for a final check on Sweetie's stupidity.

He was still wondering whether he weren't being just as stupid about it himself, when he heard a noise—half hiss, half whistle—just above him. He started. Then he looked up. There was Sweetie on the wall already.

“I thought you'd come,” she said in a whisper when he got near her.

“Did yer?” he asked lamely.

“I was sure of it,” Sweetie answered. “Why are you wearing those clothes?”

“I'm runnin' away,” he told her. “For good this time. I just come to say good-bye.”

“That was nice of you,” Sweetie said. “I'm glad you came because I wanted you to do something for me.”

“Did yer?” Ginger whispered back. “Wot was it?”

There was a pause. Only a slight one. But it was enough to warn Ginger that something important was coming.

“I wanted you to take me with you,” Sweetie answered.

Then Ginger regretted that he had ever come at all. It showed that Sweetie was really barmy. Only somebody as barmy as Sweetie would ever have suggested it.

“You can't,” he said firmly. “You're a girl.”

“Girls are all right,” Sweetie answered. “They're as good as boys.”

She had raised her voice above the whisper of the rest of the conversation as she said it, and Ginger was alarmed.

“Shut up, can't yer,” he said. “Somebody'll hear yer.”

But Sweetie did not seem to be impressed.

“If you don't take me, I'll scream,” she threatened. “I'll scream so loud that everybody hears. Then they'll find both of us. I will, if you don't take me.”

She wet her forefinger and drew it across her throat as she was speaking. Ginger didn't like the look of that: it meant that Sweetie was in earnest.

“And I'll start screaming when I've counted three,” she went on. “Go on Ginger?
One
. I won't be any trouble.
Two
. Please, Ginger. Will you take me?
Thr
…”

“Oh, orl right,” said Ginger. “Come on.”

Now he was in a mess. A real mess. He'd be copped for certain if he had a girl tagging along with him. And what's more he'd just remembered that he hadn't got any plans, any real plans, even for himself.

Hadn't the slightest idea, in fact, which way to turn once he had got outside the Hospital.

“Wot you goin' er wear?” Ginger asked when Sweetie had come slithering down off the wall and was actually standing there beside him.

“What I've got on,” Sweetie answered.

Ginger looked. It was the regulation uniform of the Hospital that Sweetie was wearing.

“Too reckernisable,” he said briefly.

Then he began to think. There was only one pair of flannel trousers in the whole Hospital, and he had got them on. But there was a blue boiler suit that Sergeant Chiswick used when he was doing the stoking. It was a bit on the large side, but Ginger
reckoned that he could manage with it. And it would look businesslike, too, when he came to go after his job.

“You wait here,” he said.

When he came back he had changed into Sergeant Chiswick's boiler-suit and was carrying the flannel trousers over his arm. He passed them across to Sweetie.

“You put these on,” he said.

Politely, he turned his back on her as she changed.

The only thing that upset him was Sweetie's hair. It was soft and shining and wavy. Obviously a girl's hair. So long as Sweetie looked like that he need not have troubled about the flannel trousers. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to give her his cap as well. He resented that. The cap was part of his running away costume and he felt incomplete without it. But there was no other way.

“You put this on,” he said. “An' shove all yer hair right up into it. Don' leave any bits showing.”

“I won't,” said Sweetie.

Ginger came close and inspected her. She looked better that way. Much better.

“Now you shut up, and do what I tell you,” he commanded.

“I will, Ginger,” she promised quietly.

Having got her own way, she was now meek, obedient, even humble.

It was a dark night and there was not much fear of meeting anyone in the courtyard. Ginger therefore took the quick route back across Colet and down towards the laundry. There was no point in climbing down drain-pipes when you could just open a gate by pulling the bolts back. Half a minute later, the two of them were standing in Ryecroft Gardens—free.

“You are clever,” Sweetie said to him. “I wouldn't have thought of that way out.”

But more to show that he was master of the occasion than for any other reason, Ginger ignored the compliment.

“You shut up,” he said again. “We gotter get moving.”

There aren't many people about at three o'clock in the morning. Cities are as dead as tombs at that time of night. The streets might be river-beds on the moon, and the buildings are just so many rock
faces, blank and cold and unseeing. Sweetie had taken Ginger's hand by now and the two of them walked on together, not even talking. The main problem was Ginger's. He still hadn't got any idea of where they were going.

It was the coffee-stall at Hammersmith that gave him his first idea. Just to show how familiar he was with things like coffee-stalls, he led Sweetie straight up to it.

“You leave this to me,” he said. And, in as loud a voice as he could manage, he gave the order.

“Two cups er coffee,” he said. “An' er peecer cake.”

He gave the piece of cake to Sweetie, shrugging his shoulders as he did so.

“I'm not hungry,” he said.

It wasn't true. But he'd got his eye on those three shillings. He knew from last time the way money goes if you don't look after it.

While they were sipping their coffee, a lorry drew up. It was a big lorry with a row of double wheels at the side, and a thing like a caravan hitched on behind. When the driver climbed down from the driving seat it was like a man getting out of a first-storey window. Ginger stood there for some time admiring both the lorry and its driver. Then he happened to overhear what the lorry-driver and the coffee-stall proprietor were talking about. The lorry-driver seemed to be called Dave, and the conversation was about someone who lived up in Doncaster. When the coffee-stall proprietor asked to be remembered to him, that was the clue for which Ginger had been waiting. It meant that the lorry-driver was going off to Doncaster. And it meant that Doncaster was where he and Sweetie were going, too.