No Friend of Mine (9 page)

“Overlook it!” retorted Mary. “You needn’t think—”

“Mary,” said Mum. “That’s enough. Let’s get Lennie home. He needs his tea.”

All the way home, Mum, Mary and Phyl chattered and exclaimed over Lennie’s head.

“We told the bugger! And that stuck-up Mrs Martin. I wiped the floor with her.”

Phyl laughed. “I think he thought you’d just stand there, Mum, and take it, while he gave you a lecture on child-rearing.”

“I love the way he says, ‘I don’t want my wife involved.’”

“And the dust! Oh, Mary, your clayey shoes all over that carpet! It was a joy to see!”

Lennie couldn’t share in their exuberance. He was thinking about Ralph. He had believed that Ralph was his friend, but Ralph had betrayed him.

“You can’t trust the nobs. They’re no good. They’re all the same.”

That was Mary’s verdict. And Dad’s. “Best if people keep to their own sort,” he said.

Lennie sat silent, closed in on his misery, while they talked around him. At least they were all on his side; none of them had criticized him, except for having chosen the wrong person for a friend – and he didn’t need telling that.

“What a thing to do, though,” said Phyl, who was washing up while Mum dried. “To drop your friend in it to save yourself.”

“He was no friend of yours, Lennie,” said Mary.

Doreen was sitting on the hearthrug, listening.

“I
liked
Ralph,” she said.

Lennie felt a rush of affection for her.

Yes, he thought, so did I.

It was all very well Dad and Mary going on about the bosses and keeping to your own kind; he’d liked Ralph, and Ralph had liked him – surely he had? It wasn’t phoney, like Mary said. So why had Ralph caved in and let Lennie take the blame? I wouldn’t have done it to him, Lennie thought.

Mum said to Doreen, “Time you were in bed, my girl.”

“Oh, Mum!”

“This is none of your business.”

“But it’s interesting.”

“It’s all right, Doreen,” said Lennie. “I’m going too.”

“I’ll help you get your bed out, love,” said Mum.

“No. I can do it.”

It was a relief to go into the front room and shut the door on the family’s concern for him.

He made up the bed and got into it, but sleep would not come. Over and over again his mind replayed the events of the afternoon. Over and over again he heard Ralph say, “No. I never gave them to him.” It was dawn before he fell asleep, and yet he woke at his usual time to the sound of his mother riddling the fire in the kitchen.

He got up, packed the bed away, and opened the curtains, letting in a grey cold light. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and was gratified by the pale face and dark-shadowed eyes he saw there. If he’d been wronged, he thought, he might as well look the part.

He pulled out from behind the settee the stack of comics Ralph had given him:
Dandy, Beano, Hotspur
. From their paper bag he took the complete set of bird cards and the letters Ralph had written him from school. He piled all the things in the middle of the floor.

Mum came in.

“Can I borrow a shopping bag?” Lennie asked.

“Why? What are you up to?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s no answer. I’m taking Doreen to chapel soon. Why don’t you come?”

Lennie looked at her.

She sighed, and brought a hessian shopping bag. Lennie began putting the pile of things into it, aware of her anxious gaze.

He was relieved when she went upstairs to rouse Doreen. Picking up the bag, he left the house, heading for Love Lane.

The cottage was deserted, as he’d known it must be. Ralph was probably under lock and key.

He tore pages from a comic, screwed them up in the fireplace, and put a match to them. They lit instantly. He ripped more pages and fed the fire. Yellow flames leapt up. He watched as Dan Dare turned brown like toast, curled over slowly, blackened and crumpled.

The fire went out. He lit it again, adding branches from the store he and Ralph had made under the window ledge. He fed the flames alternately with sticks and paper until they roared and crackled and made a wall of heat.

He began tearing pages faster and faster, screwing them up and tossing them on the fire. All his anger against Ralph went into the furious ripping and tearing.

He stood back and watched the pyre. It was burning well now, and smoke was rising in a thick column full of ash and paper. He threw on the bird cards and the fire seethed and red worms wriggled in it and red-gold sparks flew upwards. Last of all he burned the letters. Ralph’s handwriting showed briefly before slipping into the red heart.

When everything in the bag was gone he crouched by the fire and watched it burn down. The branches were damp, and once the brief flare from the paper was gone the flames died quickly, leaving blackened branches and a pile of powdery black and grey fragments.

Lennie stood up and kicked the ashes, kicked away the stones that formed the hearth, kicked the dead branches. He found his tin by the wood stack. In it were pencils, marbles and conkers. He picked out the marbles he had won from Ralph and hurled them, one by one, into the undergrowth. Then he put the lid on the tin and dropped it into the hessian bag.

He looked around the cottage. He had finished. He would go home and never come here again.

Love Lane was cold. The bare branches of the trees rattled in a cold wind. A single leaf drifted down, a hazel, pale yellow, perfect, the sort of leaf that invited you to keep it. It lay before him, glowing like sunshine on the path. Deliberately, Lennie trod on it and ground it under his heel.

He walked on. As he approached the Red Lion he heard boys’ voices raised in excitement – the football crowd. They had been playing, as usual, in the field behind the Rose and Crown, and were heading home for their dinner.

Lennie shrank from the thought of encountering them. Things had been better at school lately, but he would never be part of this group, and today, especially, he felt isolated. It was too late to turn back; as he reached the wall of the Red Lion’s yard – the old ambush place – they swung around the corner into the street and spotted him: Bert Haines, Reggie Dean, Alan Revell, and about a dozen others, whooping and yelling, with muddy knees and hands and faces red with cold.

Lennie tried to slip past, but Bert stopped him. He lolled with his hand against the wall, blocking Lennie’s way. “Here’s little Lennie, the bosses’ friend!” he said.

“I’m not!” retorted Lennie, with more feeling than usual.

“Been to see your posh friend, have you?” sneered Bert. “Down the woods?
We
know where you go.”

“He’s not my friend,” said Lennie, trying to push past.

Reggie snatched the bag from his hand and shook it upside down. The tin hit the ground and burst open, scattering its contents. Hands began grabbing. Alan got most of the conkers. Someone else pocketed the matches.

“Leave him alone,” remonstrated a boy at the back of the crowd. “Don’t pinch his stuff.” But Lennie saw from the eagerness in most of the faces around him that they were hungry for a fight. He panicked, ducked under Bert’s arm, and ran. It was all they needed. They charged after him, yelling, surrounded him, and pinned him against the wall.

Bert stuck his fist under Lennie’s nose. “Bosses’ friend,” he said.

Lennie felt Bert’s knuckles bruising his lip and smelt the earth of the football field. He struggled. “Let me go.”

“Had plenty of money to spend at the fair, didn’t you?” said Bert. “We saw you, going on all the rides, flashing your money about. Where did you get it, arse-licker?”

“Ralph gave it to me,” said Lennie, and immediately wished he hadn’t spoken.

“Oh, Walf gave it to him!” said Bert, and the cry was taken up, “Walf! Walf!”

“Walf Wilding!” sniggered Alan.

“Our posh fwend, Walf!”

“He’s
not
my friend!” exclaimed Lennie furiously.

Bert pushed his face into Lennie’s. “Lennie Dyer is an arse-licker. Say it.”

“No!”

Bert seized Lennie’s arm and twisted it behind his back. “Say it.” He pulled harder, and Lennie winced. “Say it, Dyer.”

“No,” gasped Lennie.

Bert pushed forward, and Lennie fell on his knees. Before he could get up, Bert had jumped on him and grabbed his hair, pulling his head up. “I said, say it.”

Lennie kept silent. He knew that whatever Bert did, he wouldn’t say it. Nothing could make him. He might have to die, but he wouldn’t say it.

Bert pushed Lennie’s face into the dirt. Lennie felt grit in his mouth; a stone cut his lip and he tasted blood.

“Say it!” Bert snarled, pushing down on Lennie’s head.

“Say it! Say it! Say it!” chanted the mob.

And while they chanted, Lennie was thinking, desperation sharpening his wits.

He grunted.

“He’s saying it!” cried Reggie. “Let’s hear him, Bert.”

Bert released the pressure.

Lennie lifted his head and brushed stones from his face. “All right,” he whispered, licking at a trickle of blood. “I’ll say it. Let me get up first.”

“Get up, then.”

He got to his feet. His legs shook. He drew breath and looked around him, made sure of their attention. Into the waiting silence he said, “Bert Haines is a gorilla.”

A ripple of nervous laughter went round the crowd. Bert’s face darkened. Then someone at the back of the crowd jumped up and down, arms dangling, and scratched his armpits. The caricature was taken up and copied, laughter bubbled and broke free, and soon everyone was laughing and play-acting at being a gorilla and making grunting noises and pretending to swing from trees. Alan and Reggie joined in with gusto.

Bert turned on Lennie and hit him. The blow sent him staggering against the wall. A second blow smashed into his cheek and nose and he felt blood flowing fast. Lennie thought, this is it; he’ll finish me now. But Bert had lost his supporters. The others called out, “Here, that’s enough!” “Give him a chance, Haines.” “It’s not fair!”

And then a door opened along the street and a woman shouted, “What’s going on over there?” and they ran, all of them, Bert included, and Lennie was left wiping the blood from his face and smiling.

Lennie manoeuvred his bicycle out of the shed and wheeled it down the back garden path. Dad was hoeing between rows of radish and spring greens.

“Off to work?”

“Yes,” said Lennie. He had a delivery job at the butcher’s now – Saturday mornings and an hour after school. This week, summer half term, he’d been helping out in the shop as well.

He paused by the pigeon loft. “I’ll take the young birds out for a toss this afternoon if you like. Martin’s taking his out to Hazeley; I said I’d go with him.”

“Good idea.” Dad was better, but not fit enough for an eight-mile cycle ride; and Mary had a boyfriend; so these days it was usually Lennie who took the birds on the longer tosses.

He wheeled the bicycle out of the gateway and cycled down the lane. The grass verges were bright with dandelions and the air was summer sweet. It was going to be a warm day.

In the High Street he passed Reggie Dean, and called hello. Reggie was all right now; a bit of a dope, but friendly enough. There was no one at school Lennie didn’t get on with these days except Bert Haines, and Bert never bothered him any more – he kept out of Lennie’s way. Bert had lost his hold over the other boys since the gorilla incident; he had only to start throwing his weight around and someone was sure to be loping about with hunched shoulders. What with that and the school pantomime, Lennie had gained a reputation as a joker. Growing two inches taller had helped, too.

Martin Reid was outside the grocer’s, loading up his bicycle. He did deliveries for Mr Greening.

“Coming this afternoon?” he called.

Lennie’s reply was drowned by the shattering roar of a plane, close overhead. Another followed it, then three more in quick succession.

Lennie stopped cycling. People had come out of the shops to stare up at the sky.

“My dad says there’s definitely going to be a war,” said Martin. “My brother wants to join up.”

“So does my sister,” said Lennie. “She wants to fly.”

“They won’t have women flying planes.”

“Mary says they will – says they’ll have to.”

He thought it sounded daft, too. And yet if any girl could get into the Air Force and fly a plane, Mary would.

“I’ll come round after dinner,” he said, and freewheeled down to the bottom of the High Street.

Mr Lee, the butcher, was ready with his parcels.

“I’m hoping you can take some extra today, Lennie? Ken’s mum just called in; seems he’s poorly.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.” Mr Lee pushed several parcels to one side. “Those are your usuals. You’d better do those first and then come back. These others are up the top end, mostly – I’ve written the addresses on; that one’s Dale House, Miss Ingram; and that’s The Hollies, Mrs Wilding.”

“Mrs Wilding?” Lennie’s heart began to race.

“Up Bridge Road, Woodend.”

“Yes. Yes, I know where it is.”

“Good. Off you go, then.”

Lennie filled the basket on the front of his bicycle.

Wildings. He was angry with himself for being so disturbed. The incident with the gloves was over, forgotten; no one had done any more about it, not even Dad. Dad said chances were the Wildings knew their son was untrustworthy and guessed Lennie was probably telling the truth. Ralph had written to Lennie after Christmas, saying he was sorry, asking Lennie to write, but Lennie had thrown the letter away. It all seemed a long time ago. Lennie was twelve; he had a job; he had other friends; he had forgotten Ralph – almost.

He left the Hollies till last. It was furthest out, anyway, further by road than it was from the woods off Love Lane. He cycled out of Culverton and along a country road between banks of hazel and wild garlic.

He had never approached the Wildings’ house from the front before. As he wheeled his bicycle round the side of the house he saw the gardener bent over a flowerbed and felt his legs trembling. He had to force himself to knock at the familiar back door.