Like a Charm (8 page)

'I know you didn't,' I went on. 'Tell me.'

Finally, he looked at me, the whites of his eyes big and round. 'It was a good night,' he said. 'One of the best. I enjoyed our talk, the whisky. I always enjoyed our talks. You treated me like a human being.'

I said nothing, could think of nothing to say.

'It was a fine night outside. Hot and humid. It reminded me a bit of home, of Louisiana, and I was walking along thinking about all those years ago when I was a kid fishing off the levee, hooking the bracelet. When I got to the park I heard some sounds, stifled, as if someone was being gagged. It was dark, but I could make out two figures struggling, one on top of the other. I'm not a fool. I knew what was happening. When I got closer I could see that he was . . . you know, thrusting himself in her and beating her face. I grabbed him and tried to drag him off but it took all my strength. The girl was nearly unconscious by then, but she managed to lash out and give me that scratch. Finally I pulled him loose and he ran off into the night.' Cornelius shrugged. 'Then I went back to the base.'

'Did you recognize him?' I asked.

For a moment, he didn't answer, just carried on smoking, that faraway look in his eyes.

'Yes,' he said finally. 'I recognized him.'

'Then why the hell didn't you say so?'

'What would have been the point?'

'The truth, Cornelius, the truth.'

Cornelius smiled. 'Richard, Richard, my friend.' He always called me Richard though everyone else called me Dick. 'You have the white man's trust in the truth. It's not quite the same for me.'

'But surely they would have investigated your claim?'

'Perhaps. But the man who did it is a really bad man. People are scared of him. The morning after it happened, even before you came to see me, he made it clear that he wasn't going to take the blame, that if I tried to accuse him everyone in his hut would swear he was back on base when the attack took place.'

'What about the guards on the gate?'

'They can't tell us apart. Besides, they don't even pay attention. They just sit in their gatehouse playing cards.'

'So he's just going to let you die instead of him?'

Cornelius shrugged. 'Well, I don't imagine he's too keen on dying himself. Would you be? It doesn't matter anyway. What happens to him. That's between him and God.'

'Or the Devil.'

Cornelius looked at me, a hint of the old smile in the turn of his lips. 'Or the Devil. But even if he hadn't managed to get it all fixed, they wouldn't have believed me anyway. They'd have simply thought it was another trick, another desperate lie. They had all the evidence they needed, then I came up with some crazy story about trying to save the girl. What would you think?'

'I know you wouldn't do what they accused you of.'

'But they don't know me. To them I'm just another no-good nigger. It's the sort of thing we do. If I'd given his name, it would have been just one more nigger trying to lie his way out of his just deserts by pointing the finger at another.' Cornelius shook his head. 'No, my friend, there's no way out for me.'

He lifted up his sleeve. 'At least I got my bracelet fixed and they let me have it back,' he said. 'No longer evidence, I guess.' Then he unfastened the clasp and handed it to me. 'I want you to have it,' he said. 'I know I said it was going to be for my girl, but I never did find her. Now I'd like my friend to take it.'

I looked at the bracelet resting in his palm. I didn't really want it, not after everything that had happened, but I couldn't refuse. I picked it up, feeling an odd sort of tingle in my fingers as I did so, and thanked him for it.

That was the last time I saw Cornelius Jubb. The morning they hanged him I walked and walked the length and breadth of the city, feeling as if I was the one living in a foreign country, and when I came to the biggest bomb site in the city centre I took out Cornelius's charm bracelet and threw it as far as I could into the rubble.

DOWN AND DIRTY
Fidelis Morgan

My mummy always tells me to keep out of trouble, and when I go on a train I know I must be very careful. I should always go into a crowded compartment, she says, and if there aren't any then I must pick one with a lady in it, especially after dark. I must never go in a train carriage on my own with a man.

This is because men sometimes hurt people on trains, and stuff their bodies under the seats behind the heater, although I have looked down under the seats sometimes and do not think there is enough room there for a dead body. Ladies do not murder people, especially on trains. Ladies only poison their husbands sometimes, and that was usually in the old days when ladies wore long skirts. As strangers, ladies make safer travelling companions, my mummy says.

But not all ladies are nice. I will not tell her about the lady I met on the train yesterday, because she was not very nice at all, and said some horrible things about both Mummy and Daddy.

My daddy is a war hero. He flew planes during the war at a special airbase for the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment at Sherburn-in-Elmet in Yorkshire. He is a test pilot now, a wing commander, at Boscombe Down. The planes he flies are not for passengers, but for battles. It is the most dangerous job a pilot can have, because no one knows whether the plane he flies will stay in the air, and sometimes they go very fast and explode in the sky. He has been testing a plane called the TSR2, which was in the newspapers, so I suppose he is quite famous compared to most people's fathers.

Mummy is a housewife. This means she organizes the staff (a cook, a cleaner and Daddy's secretary) and has her hair done a lot. Sometimes she has migraines and has to go to bed in the daytime. On those days I have to be quiet and not play the gramophone. But I prefer playing with my trains to listening to pop music anyhow.

I like trains very much. At home in my bedroom I have a train set. It's a Hornby, 'O' gauge. Most boys have 'OO' electric trains, but the 'O' trains are bigger, and you have to wind them up with a key. I don't like electric trains. I like steam.

Every week I go on the train. Wednesday is my mummy's day for beauty treatment, so I use my pocket money on that day, buy a ticket and go somewhere on my own.

I like to go to Eastleigh to see the engine shed. I sometimes go up to London. I know the London trip well because whenever my mummy goes shopping I go up to town with her. She goes first class and always eats breakfast in the restaurant car on the train, where she has coffee poured from a silver pot with a neck like a swan by a waiter called Ginger who wears a red short jacket, and in London she likes to go to Harrods and buy things. When I go with her we go in a black taxi where two of the seats face backwards and pop down out of the wall. I like taxis. We do not have taxis like that in Salisbury.

Once I made Mummy laugh in the taxi. We came over a bridge across the River Thames and passed a big black building with a tower and a clock. Mummy says everything in London is black because of the Germans. They dropped a lot of bombs and the smoke from the bombs made everything in London black, just like the inside of the chimney. But that was almost twenty years ago now, so I wonder why the rain has not washed all the soot away?

I recognized the building with the clock because there is a picture of it on the HP sauce bottles, so I asked Mummy if it was the sauce factory.

She thought this was very funny. It is really a place called the Houses of Parliament and some people call it Big Ben, though I think
that
is pretty funny. Whoever thought of calling a house by someone's name?

When I said that thing about the sauce factory Mummy ran her hand through my hair and smiled at me. Her smile sometimes looks quite sad when she looks at me, and sometimes she even has tears. But anyway I think she shouldn't do that thing with my hair anymore, because I am not a child.

The lady on the train touched my hair too. But I don't like to think about it.

When I have been to London I have seen some very famous trains. I have seen
The Golden Arrow
which goes to France, and
The Royal Scot.
I wish I could see
Mallard.
Its number is 4468. It is blue and it broke the record for the fastest train at 126 miles per hour. In America the trains are huge, and I would like to see them. I am saving my pocket money because if I went to America I would go to Disneyland. Perhaps when I was there I would also see Superman or Batman. I like the Justice League of America very much. The Americans are lucky. I wish we had superheroes in England too. It's funny though, because they did not come and save President Kennedy, even though he saved the world from the atom bomb and the Communists. I think Dan Dare is probably better than Superman, even though he has to use a plane to fly.

In Swindon, which is very famous for railways, I saw
Hereward the Wake
and
Shooting Star.
These are sister trains. They are 7P6F 4-6-2 class with the numbers 70037 and 70029. I collect train numbers and write them down in a little black book. Mummy gave me the book. It has a leather cover with a gold line round it. When I get home I take my ABC books out and underline all the trains I have seen. I also write down the names of special trains, like the
Winston Churchill, Tintagel
and
Boadicea,
and also Pullman carriages. Pullmans are special passenger cars for very rich and posh people. They have a brown and cream livery and little fancy lights on the tables. I would like to go on a Pullman but I think I will never have enough money for that. The Pullmans are divided into kitchen cars, brake cars and parlour cars. I have seen
Agatha, Evadne, Lucille, Philomel, Ursula
and
Sheila.
One day I would like to go on
The Brighton Belle
or the boat train to Southampton, but when I got to Southampton I would not go on the boat because I am frightened of the sea.

The lady on the train was called Rosemary, which is also the name of a Pullman parlour car. She was wearing a bracelet, and that was what started the trouble. I do not believe what she told me about that bracelet. Mummy says that because people think I am simple they sometimes make things up and I do not have to believe everything a person says even if they are grown-ups, because grown-ups do not always tell the truth. And also she says that sometimes grownups do nasty things to people like me. Like that Rosemary in the train. But I don't want to think about her. She is a nasty piece of work.

As long as I remember my manners and am polite Mummy says I will always be all right, because I am quite handsome. I am tall and have dark hair. It is cut in the usual way for a man. I would like to have long hair like The Beatles, but I go to the barber with my daddy and the barber always uses the electric razor up the back of my neck. Daddy says The Beatles are like pansies.

I wish Daddy liked me a bit more, and I could play cricket with him or even football. Daddy does not like me to call him Daddy. I tried one day calling him Dad instead but he says there is no need to call him anything in front of people. Most people call him Bill, which is short for William. No one I have asked knows why Bill is short for William, but you would think Bill was short for Billiam, which would be a stupid name.

I don't know why Daddy doesn't like me very much. He is usually very friendly with men. He goes to the Red Lion with them and plays darts and drinks beer. But he never takes me with him. Even though I am over eighteen.

I can remember when I was still practically a child and he'd come to my bedroom in the night and read me stories by the nightlight, which was a red and white mushroom. When he thought I was asleep he would talk to me, saying horrid things in a hissing voice. One day he spat on my bed. But I didn't tell Mummy about that, even though I was frightened that she might think it was me who spat on the quilted counterpane. I am more scared of Daddy than Mummy. He has got very strong hands. Daddy whispered in my ear one night that I was not his son, and one day he told a lady in a shop that I was bitten by a monkey when I was a baby, but I cannot believe that this is true because whoever heard of monkeys living in Salisbury except when the circus comes? I am not saying that I think my daddy is a liar, though perhaps he was confused because he might have had a drink in the pub at lunchtime or something. I don't like being alone with him very much, and I told Mummy this but she says I must always remember how brave Daddy is, and how he risks his life every day to put the food on our table, although I have never seen him do this. Cook usually puts the food on the table. Daddy's work sometimes means he has to go away for a few days and sometimes he stays out till very late at night and comes in shouting because he is drunk. Sometimes this makes Mummy very sad, and while we are sitting watching the television I can see that she is crying, even though we might be watching something funny like
Steptoe and Son
or
Benny Hill,
or the comedy bits in the
Black and White Minstrel Show.