He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1) (5 page)

The sound of a knock at the door interrupted what looked as if it was going to be one of Angela’s outbursts.

I jumped down the stairs three at a time – my record – I was aiming for four, but I hadn’t quite made it yet.
 
The last time I tried, I ended up in a pile at the bottom and Mum was certain I’d broken my ankle.
 

Paula Dibble was at the door hovering from one foot to the other.
 
As usual, the pleats in her skirt stood to attention, and her blouse was snowy against the
greyness
outside.

‘The ducks are swimming on the crater now.
 
Have you seen them?’
 

‘Course we have.’
 
Angela was close behind me down the stairs.
 
She looked as if she was about to bite Paula.
 

Paula stepped backwards, saying, ‘I’d better go, I’ve got to finish packing my satchel ready for school.’

‘Thanks for last night,’ I said.
 
‘Angela’s upset because Mum won’t let her take the day off school to look after her precious ducks,’ I explained.

‘Blabbermouth!’

‘I’m sure the ducks will be ...’

‘I’ll stay at the bombsite for the day and look after them,’ I said, beaming at the suddenness of my idea.

‘And how d’you propose doing that, clever clogs?’

‘I’ll bunk school.
 
Mum didn’t say
I
couldn’t have the day off.’

‘But won’t people see you?’ Paula seemed unsure.

‘I know just the right place to hide.’

‘Well, I s’ppose you could.’
 
Angela looked like she was considering it.
 
‘You’ll need a note for Mrs Colby, though.’

Paula took us by surprise when she offered to help.
 
‘That’s easy, I’ll write one.
 
They might suspect something if it came from you, but I’m good at forging other people’s handwriting.’

‘You!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re always such a ...’

‘When Mum’s not looking I’ll put a couple of pieces of writing paper and an envelope in my satchel.
 
I can write the letter in the alley next to Jack Moody’s yard, then you can give it to Mrs Colby.
 
I’ve already packed my fountain pen.
 
I’ll say Tony’s been up all night vomiting.
 
You’ll have to tell me how your mother signs her name.’

‘That sounds all right.’
 
The word vomitting impressed me.
 
I would have said spewing or chucking it up.

‘You’d better hurry up if you’re going to write the note and go to the ducks.
 
Mornings are the most dangerous.’
 
Angela still wasn’t completely out of her bad mood, but, then, when was she ever!

‘Nobody’s going to find out.
 
Who’s going to suspect me?
 
It’s quite fun, really.’
 
Paula smiled at me and I smiled back.
 
It was smashing sharing a secret, even though Angela had to be in on it.
 
It was probably the first time in her whole life that Paula Dibble planned to lie.

The mist that had made the bombsite appear so eerie the night before had melted away and the place didn’t seem half so spooky.
 
I settled myself in a dug-out behind an ancient fireplace.
 
It was the best hiding place I knew.
 
I used it a lot when we played ‘Can’t Be Found’ with the Gang.
 
From there I could see everything that was going on all around, without anyone seeing me.
 

I wrapped Angela’s blanket around me which was still damp from the night air and smelt of cats’ pee.
 
Paula had managed to sneak two queen cakes from her mother’s tin.
 
I stuffed them into my mouth whole, wishing she’d brought me more.

Further along Blountmere Street I could see Vic Newnham delivering coal. His face was as black as Paula’s cat, Betsy.
 
A couple of women from further down the street passed by, wheeling their prams.
 
I heard one threaten to give her toddler a “good hiding”.
 
Mrs Dibble was on her way to clean the bakers.
 
She raced along as if a cheetah was chasing her, with Ma Barker having to gallop by her side to pass the time of day.
 

Just as my legs were going numb and I was considering climbing out of my spy hole, Fred and Lori sauntered by, arm in arm.
 
They stopped to look at the ducks.
 
I lowered myself deeper into my hiding place as the skuffing of stones told me they were getting closer.

‘Goodness, I don’t know how these kids play over here without injuring themselves,’ Lori seemed to be struggling to get her breath.

‘I’m sure you did it once,’ Fred laughed.
 
‘At least we can tell Angela we’ve been to see her precious ducks. Have you got the bread?’

There was a rustling of paper, then a short silence, followed by a plop, a splash, a quacking and swift movement of the water as the ducks paddled towards the bread.

‘She’s obsessed about them,’
 
Lori continued.

‘From what you’ve told me, it seems to have something to do with that kitten they had.’

‘It’s amazing how small children remember things.
 
Mind you, who could forget it?
 
I know I’ve never been able to.
 
It was awful.
 
As usual, Ted Addington was the worse for drink and … he kicked it down the stairs, then trampled on it.
 
I helped Dolly clear up the mess and Mr Dibble next door buried it in his garden.
 
We told him a car had run it over.’

They strolled away, with Fred saying, ‘That poor girl.
 
She’s probably sitting at school worrying about her ducks now.’
 
Their voices trailed into the distance and I wriggled further up and saw them rounding the bend into The High Street.

I wondered where exactly our kitten had been buried.
 
Then, trying to get rid of the pictures in my head, I tugged the copy of
The Girl
Paula had left me from my pocket.

The ducks were still swimming around the sides of the crater.
 
I supposed they were hoping there would be more people to throw them bread.
 
I guessed it must be dinner-time.
 
Suddenly I realised I had missed a school dinner.
 
What a waste!
 
I imagined the gang tucking into shepherds pie, which was what we usually had on a Wednesday.
 
I wished I hadn’t eaten the queen cakes in one go.
 
I was tempted to leave my hideout and sneak back home.
 
Only thoughts of what Angela would do to me if she found out kept me huddled there, cold, stiff and hungry.

The first thing Angela said when she got back from school was, ‘Those ducks been all right?’
 
She was breathless from running straight from school, and her hair was hanging in strands over her eyes.
 
Two of the buttons on her blouse had come undone.

‘Course they have.’

‘What they been doing?’

‘What d’you think they’ve been doing?
 
What ducks always do – swimming, stupid.’

‘All right, keep your hair on.’

‘What about the letter?
 
Did you give it to Mrs Colby?’

‘Course I did.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She said to tell you, she hopes you get better soon, and some claptrap about Mum being a sensible woman making you stay at home’

‘And what about Paula?’

‘She acted all innocent, a right Goody Two Shoes.’
 
Angela stretched her arm down to help me out of the hole.
 
‘You can go now I’m here.’
 

She was ordering me away as if I’d enjoyed myself all day.

‘I’ll go when I’m good and ready.’

‘What’s the matter with you, grumble guts?
 
I thought you might want to go home to Fred or meet your chums, now I’m here to look after Bert and Bertha.’

‘Bert and Bertha?
 
Who are they?’

‘The ducks, of course.
 
You can’t spend all this time with them without giving them a name.’

‘But you don’t know if they’re a boy and a girl and, anyway, who’s the boy and who’s the girl?’

‘That’s the boy,’ she said pointing a finger blue-black with ink at the duck closest to us.

‘But how can you tell?
 
I can’t see any difference.’

‘Of course
you
can’t, but
I
can,’ Angela was her usual snotty self.

‘Well, I think they’re daft names,’ I sneered, needing to have the final word.

Three days later, the ducks had gone.
 
Angela scoured every inch of the bombsite but she didn’t find Bert and Bertha.
 
I could tell by the red circles around her eyes she’d been crying.
 
I was glad she hadn’t done it openly in front of everyone.
 
That would have been too embarrassing for words.

‘I did tell you, didn’t I, that one day they might take flight.’ Fred said in a soft voice.
 
‘In all probability they’ve returned to the ponds on The Common.’

‘But didn’t they know they were safe with us?’

‘They obviously didn’t know where they were well off.’
 
Fred smiled, backing out of the kitchen and into the scullery.
 
‘But perhaps these young fellows will recognise their good luck.’
 
He walked back into the kitchen carrying a cage.

‘They might make up for losing the ducks.’
 
He placed the cage on the table.
 
‘Go on, open it.’

Angela undid the catch on the door.
 
She reached into the cage and took out one of two hamsters.

‘They’re lovely, really beautiful.’
 
Angela passed the first hamster out to me, before coaxing the second one into her hand and stroking it with her still inky finger.

‘Now you have a pet each,’ Fred said, looking from Angela to me, and back to Angela.
 
‘They’re a present from Miss Lorimore and me, with your mother’s blessing, of course.

I peered into the cage.
 
‘They’ve even got a wheel to run on.’

‘And they’re really ours?’
 
Angela queried.

‘They’re your pets.’

I nuzzled the little creature against my face.
 
‘I’m going to call mine Brian.’
 
It seemed as good a name for a hamster as any.
  
Brian Bamfrey at school was the best one in the class at leaping over the vaulting horse.
 
Anyway, we’d had another pet once whose name had begun with a B.

‘That’s a stupid …’ Angela began, then, ‘ Benjy.
 
Mine’s going to be Benjy.’

‘Do you think you’ll be able to tell them apart?’
 
Fred asked.

‘Mine’s got a patch on his ear,’ I interrupted before Angela could say she would know Benjy anywhere, without saying why.

We stroked and stroked them until at last we put the hamsters back in their cage, to their wheel running and to a much safer world than Berry had known.

‘Morning, sonny.
 
Does a Frederick George Stannard live here?’

I stared at the policeman on our doorstep.
 
What would a copper want with Fred?

‘Well, does he?’

‘Yeah, I’ll fetch him.’

‘Good lad, and while you’re getting him, what about letting me stand inside.
 
There’s nothing like a copper on the doorstep to set tongues wagging.’
 
The policeman glanced behind him at the group of kids already gathered on the pavement outside.

‘What’s the problem, Constable?’
 
Fred asked, entering the hall, at the same time unrolling his shirt-sleeves.

‘Frederick George Stannard?’

‘That’s right.’

I looked at Fred, but his face didn’t look any different – not guilty or frightened.
 
He looked just the same as he did every morning after he’d shaved.

‘Is there anywhere we can talk privately, sir?’

Without answering, Fred led the policeman to his room, and I zoomed to the kitchen as if I was on a spaceship mission over on the bombsite with the Gang.

‘A copper’s here for Fred.
 
He’s in his room now.’
 
I told Mum and Angela, even before I had fully opened the door.

‘What’s he want him for?’
 
Angela asked, swallowing a mouthful of toast.
 
She looked like a goldfish gulping air.

‘How should I know?
 
I told you, he’s in his room now.
 
D’you think Fred’s committed a crime?
 
I mean, he wouldn’t have stolen anything, would he?
 
Not Fred.’

‘He’s probably murdered someone,’ Angela answered, as if it was nothing.

‘Don’t be silly, Angela,’ Mum said.

‘The way Tony carries on, you’d think Fred was Jack The Ripper.’
 
Angela spoke through the piece of toast in her mouth.

‘That’s enough, Angela,’ Mum reprimanded.
 
‘I expect we’ll know what it’s about soon enough.’

‘You don’t think he’ll be taken to prison, do you?’
 
I didn’t know how Angela could go on eating as if nothing was happening.

‘I told you. We’ll know when Mr Stannard is ready to tell us.’

As if hearing what Mum had said, Fred opened the door and walked into the kitchen.
 
His face had white patches where the light brown usually was.
 
His shoulders seemed to have drooped.
 
‘I suppose Tony’s already told you that it was the police knocking at the door.’ Fred’s voice had lost its up and downness.
 
‘I hope it won’t cause you any embarrassment,’ he said to Mum.

What people in Blountmere Street thought had never been important enough to bother Mum.
 
I suppose she thought what was another policeman on the doorstep after all the rigmarole there used to be with the police and the Old Man when he was boozed.

‘Unfortunately, he came with the news that Eileen, my wife, has been killed in a bus accident.’
 
Fred stared at the floor and I wanted to put my arm around him, although inside I was relieved he hadn’t been arrested.
 
I felt that if I were to let go of the chair I was holding on to, I might float to the ceiling.

Mum took a breath, I think to say how sorry she was, but Fred held up his hand and said, ‘As you know, my wife and I were estranged.
 
But this has come as a bit of a shock.’
 
He pulled a chair away from the kitchen table and sank on to it.

Suddenly my appetite came back and I pinched a piece of Angela’s toast while she wasn’t looking.
 

Straight after telling us, Fred popped next door to let Lori know about his wife’s accident.
 
While we were putting our coats on in the passage, Angela said, ‘I wonder if that bus squashed Fred’s wife flat like the hedgehog we saw in The High Street, but with a lot more blood.’

‘How should I know?’

Angela’s talk of blood and people being squashed, straight after breakfast was disgusting.

‘I wonder if Fred’ll marry Lori now?’ She continued.

‘Dunno.’
 
I couldn’t imagine Fred wanting to marry again when he had us.

‘What was Old Flat Feet doing at your place?’
 
One of the crowd of kids asked as soon as we opened our front door.
 
‘Your Old Man in trouble again?’

‘No, their Old Lady’s done him in,’ another boy shouted.

‘It’s none of your business.’
 
Angela shot a warning look at me.
 
She needn’t have bothered.
 
Having a secret made me feel important.

Now that the warmer weather had come, the Gang began visiting our camp in the evenings after school.
 
Although we met practically every day, we hadn’t noticed the changes in each other until we got back to the camp.
 
Herbie was the only one who didn’t seem to have grown, as if his bones had refused to get any longer and couldn’t take the weight of any extra flesh on them.
 
The stones Dennis and I perched on last year now needed us to draw our legs right up to our chins to squat on.
 
Dobsie had grown so tall, he needed another stone, a bigger, flatter one that took him a whole evening to find and lug back to the camp.

Both Dennis and Dobsie now smoked as if they’d been doing it since they were babies, bringing crumpled packets of Woodbines with them.
 
Dennis’s stealing had become a hobby.
 
Dobsie’s parents had been paid out from the thrift club and had bought him a train set.
 
He boasted the train was just like a real one.

Our camp was now bordered on every side by prefabs, each one enclosed by a square fenced-in garden.
 
Having people living all around us took away some of the mystery of our stone circle, although our camp was still hidden behind the jagged wall.
 
It made The Common a more attractive place to act out our adventures, especially on a Saturday afternoon after a morning at Saturday Picture Club.

The Common might not belong solely to us, but going “Up The Common” was highly rated by the Gang when it came to having adventures.

“Up the Common” was the most grass and trees we had ever seen.
 
“Up The Common” the ponds were like oceans.
 
“Up The Common” was the best playground in the whole universe.
 
“Up The Common” was a smashing place to be on a spring day when the wind was blustery and the sun shone through silver clouds.

‘Race you,’ Herbie shouted to the three of us, as he began running towards the horse chestnut trees, heavy with pink and white candles.
 
The other three of us were quick to follow him, at the same time curving and swerving in a game of “
It
”.

‘Where we going now - over the Spinney?’
 
Herbie asked, as we leaned against tree trunks getting back our breath.
 
The Spinney was the most thickly grown part of The Common.
 
Although it covered a fairly small area and the trees themselves weren’t as tall as the ones we were resting against, The Spinney was the ideal place for playing
Tarzan.

I beat my hands on my chest, shouting, ‘Me Tarzan,’ and Dennis, swinging on a branch, yelled back ‘Me Jane’.

‘Swing upside down, Den, like Tarzan does.
 
It’s easy.’
 
Dobsie shouted.

‘If it’s so easy, you do it.’

‘I would if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.’

‘If you two are going to argue, let’s play something else,’ Herbie suggested.
 
‘What about pirates?’
 

Using hollows in the trees as ships, and twigs as swords and daggers we sailed around the world a dozen times, bringing back treasure which we fought over.
 
We killed each other and simply came back to life, ready to set sail again for faraway places.
 
It was Saturday afternoon at its best.

‘What about riding the lizzies?’
 
Dennis suggested when we were beginning to tire of shouting, “Ho, ho, ho and a bottle of rum”, and “Aha, me hearties”.

“Up the Common” the playground didn’t have one lizzie, but two, and riding the lizzies the way we did wasn’t for cowards.
 
The last time we had ridden them we’d frightened a group of stupid girls into screaming.
 
The playground attendant called us nothing but a bunch of hooligans, and banned us from the playground.
 
‘I’ll have you for trespassing if you so much as set a toe past the gate.’
  
He had poked his finger into each of our chests.

‘You know we’re not allowed,’ I replied.

‘It’s all right, the attendant’s not here.
 
I’ve just had a look.
 
Gone home to his missus, I reckon,’ Dennis said.
 
‘So we can ride the lizzies in a bit of peace and quiet.’

I grinned.
 
There was nothing peaceful or quiet about the way the Gang rode the lizzies.

We jostled each other through the gate, Dobsie spitting his usual glob of saliva into the sandpit as he walked past.

‘Oi, you filthy little whatsit, you stop that,’ an angry mother shouted, picking up her toddler.

Both lizzies were in use, gliding backwards and forwards.
 
They were going so slow, the half a dozen or so riders on each hardly needed to hold on to the iron handles.

With sneering looks, the Gang watched the girls at either end of each lizzie driving them, each girl clutching two vertical bars, while they worked the rollers with their feet.
 
They swung the lizzies backwards and forwards, at the same time lifting the lizzies higher.
 
They weren’t riding them like the Gang rode them.
 
When we rode them they went so high, it was like flying and my stomach turned over and almost came out of my mouth.

‘Call that riding the lizzie,’ Dobsie shouted.
 
‘You’re a lot of lily livers.
 
Now scarper.’
 
He picked up a stone and shied it. ‘Anyone of you got the guts to ride with us?’
 
He yelled, but already the lizzie was slowing and losing height.
 
The children riding it were preparing to flee.

‘Hop up then,’ Dobsie ordered when the previous riders were already on the other side of the playground.
 
‘Tell you what, let’s race each other like they do in the Boat Race.
 
Den and Herb, you’re both Cambridge, so you can go on either end of that one.’
 
He pointed to the first lizzie.
 
‘And ‘cos Tone and me are Oxford, we’ll take this one.
  
You’d better watch out.
  
We’re going to give you the hiding of your lives.’

We began cranking up the lizzies, at the same time taunting each other.

Dobsie shouted, ‘We’ll beat you, just like we beat you in the Boat Race.’

‘Beat us!
 
You couldn’t knock the skin off a rice pudding.
 
Oxford are a bunch of nancy boys,’ Dennis yelled back as we worked the rollers and the lizzies swung higher.

‘Oxford’s stronger than Cambridge.’
 

‘Cambridge is cleverer than Oxford.’
 

‘We’re winning.
 
You’re sinking,’ I shrieked as we worked the rollers and the lizzies swung like sky boats. ‘Swing high! Swing low!’
 
I chanted inside my head. ‘Swing high! Swing low!’
 

Gradually the lizzie rose.
 
Dobsie and I were definitely higher than Dennis and Herbie.
 
Up and up we went, and I had to arch my back and grip the vertical bars really tight.