Goodnight Mister Tom (7 page)

‘Good,’ muttered Tom. The boy’s beginning to think for himself, he thought.

Willie smiled nervously and leaned with his back against the counter to look at the other materials. There were crimsons and ambers, turquoises and sea greens, materials of every shade and texture.

Tom leaned down and Willie found himself being fitted for braces.

‘I’ll have these,’ he said, placing them on the counter.

Willie continued to gaze at the materials. He loved the reds but Mum said red was a sinful colour.

‘I’ve to go to the bank,’ he heard Mister Tom say, ‘so I’ll give you a deposit, like.’

‘No ’urry, Mr Hoakley, I’ll be ’ere hall day.’

The draper chatted about rising prices, ’itler and the price of butter while Tom grunted in acknowledgement.

‘Called hup this morning,’ Willie heard him say, ‘so if you know anyone who’d be looking for a job let me know. I’ll heeven take a young girl,’ he said, ‘if she’s bright…’

He wrapped the material in sheets of brown paper. Willie longed to touch it but it was put under the counter and he quickly followed Tom back through the dark tunnel of materials and out into the daylight.

Next door was a shoe shop. It was packed with people buying up stout shoes. After a wait in the queue Tom at last managed to get served.

‘Boots,’ he said, indicating Willie’s feet.

Willie sat on a chair as his feet were placed into a measuring gauge.

‘Leather’s a bit stiff at first,’ said Tom as Willie stood up in a solid pair of brown ankle-boots. ‘But we’ll get some linseed oil to soften them up.’

A huge lump seemed to burn Willie’s chest. It slowly rose into his throat.

‘Are they fer me?’ he asked.

‘Well, they ent fer me,’ answered Tom shortly.

The assistant put them in a paper bag and Tom handed them to him.

They stepped off the pavement outside and crossed over to another group of shops that curved around the square. Two men were building a warden’s post with sandbags by a shop selling corsets and combinations. A large poster hung above them advertising A.R.P. outfits. Tom stopped at the corner where the shop stood and looked across at the Fire Station. It stood next to the Town Hall. A queue of men were standing outside, soberly reporting for duty.

A trickle of sweat rolled down the side of Tom’s face. He mopped it with his handkerchief. The heat was stifling. There was no hint of a breeze anywhere. He felt a tug at his trouser leg.

‘What is it?’ he grunted.

Willie was pointing to a tiny shop down the small road they had just crossed. It was on the corner of a cobbled alleyway off the road. The front of the shop was unpainted varnished wood with faded gold lettering above it. In the front window was a display of paint-brushes which were arranged in a fan. Tubes and coloured pots and boxes were scattered below.

Tom’s heart sank. He hadn’t been in the shop since the day after Rachel had died. It was her favourite place. For forty years he hadn’t been able to bring himself to venture into it again. There had been no reason anyway. He didn’t paint. He remembered how pleased she would be at the mere thought of a visit.

‘Paint has a lovely smell, ent it?’ she’d say, ‘and a lovely feel,’ and he would laugh at her soft, nonsensical way of talking.

‘What about it, William?’ asked Tom quietly. ‘You wants to take a look?’

Willie nodded feverishly.

‘Only in the window, mind. I ent got time to dally inside.’

Willie gazed at the shop dreamily as he crossed the road. A car hooted at him.

‘Mind where you’se goin’!’ yelled the angry driver.

‘Boy’s in a daze,’ murmured Tom.

Willie peered in the window and wiped away the mist his breath was making on the glass.

There were boxes of coloured crayons and wax, lead pencils and paints in colours he never knew existed. Large empty pads of white paper lay waiting to be filled in. He looked lovingly at the paint-brushes. There were thin elegant ones for the most delicate of lines ranging out to thick ones you could grip hard and slosh around in bold, creamy-coloured strokes.

Tom stood behind him and stared over his head into the shop. He remembered how Rachel used to spin with delight in there. Her long black hair, which was always tied back in a knot at the nape of her neck, would spring constantly outwards in a curly disarray whenever she was suddenly excited. She could look at a row of colours for hours and never be bored.

‘If I painted the sky,’ she had said one day, ‘I could go through life paintin’ nothin’ else for it’s always changin’. It never stays still.’

He looked down at Willie, who was making shapes with his finger on the misted window.

‘What you doin’?’

‘Drawrin’,’ said Willie. ‘It’s one of them brushes.’

Tom peered at it.

‘Humph!’ he retorted, ‘Is it?’

He turned abruptly away and Willie followed him up the lane and back on to the main street. They passed the corset shop, a butcher’s and a hardware store and stopped outside a library.

‘Best join,’ said Tom, ‘if you’se goin’ to stay, that is.’

They opened the door and entered a large expanse of silence. Someone coughed. Willie tugged at Tom’s trouser leg.

‘What is it?’ he whispered in irritation.

‘Mister Tom,’ he hissed quietly, ‘why is it so quiet?’

Tom sighed in exasperation. ‘So’s people can hear theirselves read.’

They walked up to a large wooden table covered at each end with a pile of books. A tall, thin angular woman in her thirties sat behind it, her long legs stretching out from under it. She wore spectacles and had fine auburn hair that was swept back untidily into a bun. She looked up at them and allowed her glasses to fall from her nose. They dangled on a piece of string around her neck.

‘I’ve come to join him up,’ said Tom indicating Willie. ‘He’s with me.’

Miss Emilia Thorne gazed at Willie, stared at Tom and then took another look at Willie.

‘With you?’ she asked in astonishment. She seemed to articulate every consonant as she spoke.

‘With you!’ she repeated. ‘But you’re…’ She was about to say, a bad-tempered, frosty old… but she stopped herself.

‘I’m what?’ asked Tom.

‘You’re… so busy.’

Too busy, she thought. He never helped or joined in any of the village activities and had ignored all the signs that a war was approaching. She leaned over the table and gasped. They were both carrying their gas-masks. She blinked and looked again. There was no mistaking it. The buff-coloured boxes were hanging over their shoulders. Mr Oakley, of all people, was carrying a gas-mask!

‘We ent got all day,’ said Tom sharply. ‘I’ll leave the boy here. I got shoppin’ to do.’

Willie paled. Tom took a look at his face and groaned inwardly. How had he allowed himself to be landed with such a sickly, dependent boy, but Willie was sick with excitement, not fear. Even though he couldn’t read, the sight of books thrilled him.

‘’Ow many’s he allowed to have?’

‘Three,’ answered Miss Thorne.

‘Let him choose two with pictures and…’ He paused for an instant. He never liked asking anyone favours.

‘Yes?’ said Miss Thorne.

‘Choose one that you think would be suitable for me to read to him, like. He ent learnt yet. And I’ve forgotten what young ’uns like, see.’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘One has to do one’s dooty, don’t one?’

‘Yes, of course, Mr Oakley,’ she replied hastily. She watched Tom leave the library.

‘Now,’ she said, producing a pale blue card, ‘What’s your name? Your address I know,’ and she beamed wickedly at him.

Meanwhile, Tom stepped out of the coolness of the bank. It was ominously close. People were still huddled in groups in the square, talking anxiously. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some wirelesses in a shop window. He paused in front of them.

‘Echo,’ he read, ‘Bakelite.’ There, on display, was a small ten-by-four-inch wireless. It was run on batteries that had to be recharged. Ideal for someone like him who had no electricity. It was made of light wood with two large circular openings, one with a fretted front, the other fitted with a dial. Something to think about if he had to leave the boy on his own like. Lot of money, though.

‘I must remember to get some Number Eights,’ he muttered to himself. Torch batteries were being bought up at an alarming rate. ‘And some underwear for the boy.’ He peered down at Mrs Fletcher’s crumpled list. ‘Wool,’ he read.

Tom stopped at the corner of the small road near the corset shop and glanced down at the tiny alleyway where the artist’s shop stood. He hadn’t time, he thought, and he set off briskly towards the blacksmith’s, his rucksack and his bags already bulging. He had also a box of groceries to pick up and some wooden and cardboard boxes that he thought would be useful for Willie’s room.

Within half an hour he was back at the library. He peered through the glass at the top of the door. Willie was kneeling on a chair absorbed in books, his elbows resting on a long wooden table. Miss Thorne towered beside him, pointing at something on one of the pages. Tom hesitated for a moment and then walked hurriedly on to the small road back towards the artist’s shop.

‘Forty-odd years,’ he muttered, staring into its window. ‘Is that how long it is?’

He pushed the door ajar. It gave a loud tinkle. Even the same bell, he thought. He paused for an instant and then stepped inside.

Willie felt a hand touch his shoulder. It was Tom. He was carrying a parcel.

‘Ready to go now,’ he said quietly.

Willie had his finger on a large letter. ‘That’s an “O”, ain’t it, mister?’ Tom bent down to look. The book was filled with pictures of a marmalade coloured cat. ‘That’s right,’ said Tom. ‘You knows yer alphabet then?’

‘I nearly knows it.’ He looked up quickly. ‘Mister Tom,’ he asked timidly, ‘will you help me?’ He looked down at the book, clenched his hands and held his breath. Now he’d be for it. Don’t ask help from anyone, his mum had said. He waited for the cuff around the ear.

‘Yes,’ said Tom. ‘I expect I can talk to Mrs Hartridge or whoever’s your teacher and ask what you need to practise.’

Miss Thorne interrupted him. ‘Don’t go working him too hard. Looks like he could do with some of our country air.’

‘He’ll git plenty of that,’ snapped Tom. ‘There’s veg to plant and Dobbs to look after, and weeding.’

Miss Thorne said no more. Poor boy, she thought, away from his loving home and now dumped with an irritable old man.

Tom picked up Willie’s three books and gave them to him to carry. The one Miss Thorne had chosen was Rudyard Kipling’s
Just So Stories
.

‘It’s not very educational, I’m afraid, Mr Oakley.’

‘Did I say I wanted somethin’ educational?’

‘No, Mr Oakley.’

‘Then don’t put words in my mouth.’

‘No, Mr Oakley,’ and she suppressed a smile.

After they had left, she stood in the doorway and watched them walking down the main street past the square.

‘What an odd couple,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Wait till I tell May!’

‘Run,’ roared Tom, and he and Willie tore down the pathway to the cottage. They were only just in time. The sky gave one almighty shake and split open. Rain and hail bounced on the tiled roof with such venom that Tom and Willie were quite deafened. They had to shout to make themselves heard. Sam growled and barked out of the front window.

Tom put the blacks up, lit the lamps and began unpacking the parcels.

‘These are pyjamas, William,’ he said, lifting up two blue-and-white striped garments. ‘You wear them in bed.’

‘Pie-jarmers,’ repeated Willie copying Tom’s way of speaking.

‘That’s right. Now,’ he said, ‘you going to sleep in the bed tonight?’

Willie looked startled.

‘Bed’s for dead people, ain’t it?’

Tom stood up.

‘Come with me.’

Willie followed him across the passage to Tom’s bedroom. He hovered in the doorway.

‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Don’t dally.’ Willie took a step in. ‘See this here bed. I’ve slept
in
it fer forty yer or more and I ent dead yet, and that basket at the end is Sammy’s bed, when he’s a mind.’

They returned to the front room and, after a light tea of eggs and toast, Willie changed for bed and positioned himself by the armchair, next to Tom. The rain continued to fall heavily outside rattling the windows unceasingly.

‘I’ll have to fairly shout this story,’ yelled Tom above the noise.

Willie sat in his crisp new pyjamas. It had felt strange the previous night going to bed without wearing his underpants; but this odd suit felt even stranger.

‘Mister Tom,’ he said. ‘Ain’t you goin’ to read from the Bible?’

‘Didn’t you like it from me head then, like last night?’

‘Yeh,’ said Willie, ‘yeh, I did.’

‘I shouldn’t think you’d understand all them long words anyways.’

‘No, Mister Tom,’ said Willie, feeling deeply relieved at not having to pretend any more. ‘Can I have
Noah’s Ark
again?’

Tom related the tale for the second time and followed it with the daring exploits of Pecos Bill from the comic Willie had chosen.

After a cup of cocoa Willie brushed his teeth over an aluminium bowl and then dashed out into the garden to the little wooden outhouse, wearing his mackintosh and a new pair of gumboots while Tom sheltered him with an umbrella.