A Song for Joey (12 page)

The summer reached its zenith; the days were balmy, easy, dreamy. On one occasion,
we were sitting on a bench beside the boating pool, watching the little paddle boats going
round and round. It was mid-afternoon, the sun was a flaming torch, and we had found a
little bit of shade under a canvas canopy. I had been deep in thought, and heard his voice
float in on the breeze.

"Don't look so glum, Bell, show me those 'amsteds." His face appeared before me, a grin
in his lips.
"'amsteds?" I asked, puzzled.
"Yeah, it's rhyming slang, comes from 'amsted 'eef. Means teef, see?"
"What's an 'amsted 'eef?"
"No, silly, it's not a what, it's a place, in London. Ain't you 'erd of 'amsted 'eef?"
"It's a funny name for a place. What does it mean?"
He studied my face. "Are you pullin' my leg? You know really, don't you?"
"No, honest, darlin', I'm confused."
"An 'eef is like a big field, wild, like a prairie, wiv bushes and stuff."
"Oh, you mean a heath."
"Now I know you're 'avin me on! Yeah, that's what I said, a neef. So yer 'amsteds is yer
teef - rhyming slang, see."
I laughed. "Is that how they talk in London?"
"Sometimes, yeah. There's lots of 'em. 'Apples and pears' is 'stairs'; see, it rhymes.
"Plates of meat' is 'feet'. 'Frog and toad' is 'road'. It's all done so the Bill doesn't know what
we're talkin' about."
"What's the rhyming slang for ... I looked around ... 'duck'?"
"There's not a rhyme for every word, silly." He laughed. "Cor blimey, you're 'ard work
sometimes."
I giggled. "I love you, Joey."

So the summer drifted by comfortably, lulling me into a sense of well-being. I should
have known that it would not last, of course; life is not meant to be simple. It follows a
pattern: a spell of happiness, to make you think that the worst is over and things will be
good from now on, then it is snatched away.

The change arrived insidiously. The little cough that had crept into Joey's vocabulary
became more pervasive and worrying. At first, he laughed it off, blaming it on the dogends he sometimes smoked, but by September I could tell that it was bothering him, too.
His breath was wheezy and laboured, his speech was frequently punctuated with long
hacking spells, and sometimes he fell into awful spasms that took all his breath away and
made his eyes flood with tears.

Worse was to come, when I noticed that he was wiping blood from his mouth
afterwards.
Anxious to nurse him, I persuaded him to stay with me "for a little while." I hoped that
the improvement in his environment would cure him, but his condition continued to
deteriorate, no matter what I did.
On a cold morning in November, he had a bad bout and passed out on the floor.
Desperately, I ran to find a phone box and dialed 999 for an ambulance. It soon arrived in
a cacophony of bells, and the crew lifted his tiny body onto a stretcher.
I begged them to let me accompany him. At first they refused, but Joey had taught me
that, to survive - to get what you want - you sometimes have to decide when to be truthful
and when to lie. So I told them he was my brother, and they relented.
I waited in the hospital for an hour while they examined him, then someone, a nurse,
came to fetch me. "I'm sister Andrews, " she said. "Joey is on the ward now. You can see
him, if you would like to, but he is weak and mustn't be agitated, ok?"
"I promise."
"Right then, this way. Follow me." She led the way and I trailed behind, through
echoing corridors, onto a ward and to his bedside, feeling eyes following me from every
bed. There was a card on the wall over his head saying 'Joseph Bellini.'
He looked awful. His skin was pale and appeared almost translucent, as though it was
made of candle wax, and his eyes were deeply sunk, with dark circles around them. His
hair lay damp and straggly on the pillow. He was conscious, and tried one of his cheeky
grins, but it was lopsided and forced.
"What you doing, getting me in this place? Blooming doctors pulling me about, anyone
would think I was ill." He stopped, panting, drawing shallow, noisy breaths. Then his eyes
slowly closed, like a blind being pulled down, and he fell asleep.
I turned enquiringly to sister Andrews, who said, quietly, "He has tuberculosis."
I had heard of TB, that it was killing thousands of people, and I asked, desperately,
"What will happen to him?"
"You're his sister, Belinda, is that right?" She asked.
I nodded. "I'm all he has now." That much was true.
"Where are your parents?"
I remembered Joey telling me how Charley had lost his parents; for some reason, I didn't
want to tell them about Joey's father. "Our daddy never returned from the war, and mother
killed herself two years ago."
Frowning, she took my hand. "Will you come with me, please?" She led me to a small
office at the end of the ward, with 'Sister Drake' on a little sign.
Once inside, she closed the door. "Belinda, I'm afraid the disease is at an advanced
stage. We are giving him all the latest treatments, but he is very ill."
"Will he ... die?" I found I could hardly force the last word out.
She gazed at me in silence for a moment, as though unsure how much to tell me. She
was a tall woman, stoutly built, with blonde hair, wearing a neatly-pressed, blue and white
uniform, topped with a cap like a paper crown.
"Most people who reach this stage don't survive," she said, gravely. "Are you both living
rough?"
I shook my head. "I've got a flat, but Joey preferred to stay on the streets".
"That hasn't helped him. If he pulls through, we could get him into an orphanage, if you
like, Belinda. It's not good to be living like he has been."
"He would never agree to go into a home." The words shot out, without hesitation. And
there was another thought in my mind. I had heard about the things that went on in some
of those homes: children starved, beaten and locked in cupboards, or even disappearing
forever, and vivid memories of Grainger were all I needed to warn me that other terrible
things could happen.
"If he gets better, I will take care of him," I whispered.
"I understand, Belinda, but he would very likely need constant caring. I wish you would
let me help you." I could see from her face that she was sincere, genuinely concerned for
me.
"Thank you, I know you are being kind, but we have learnt to take care of ourselves."
Whatever happened from now on, I would trust only myself. The world is a cruel place,
the way to survive is to be strong, make your chances, take what you want.
She shook her head slightly, but said no more.

Joey never regained consciousness.
I sat by his bed for two days, dozing on a chair; eating food brought to me by the
hospital staff, oblivious to the passage of time or my own welfare. For me, at that time,
nothing existed in the world but the tiny body beside me; the only thing on my mind was
that my best friend was dying, and I couldn't prevent it.
I brushed the lank, black hair from his forehead and dabbed at the beads of perspiration
with a cool towel; I held his hand and talked to him constantly while I was awake; the
nurses told me that I continued talking to him when I was asleep, urging him to keep
fighting the disease that had no right invading his body. I was with him when he died,
heard his last, painful breath escaping, felt his hand go limp in mine. I sat, silently
weeping, until a nurse came and took me to the cafeteria. All I could think of was that
there was no-one to arrange a proper funeral for him.
"What happens next?" I asked the young nurse.
"The hospital notifies the Registrar of Births and Deaths," she said, gently, "and the
local council, who will arrange a simple burial."
"What about a church service, and a gravestone?" Suddenly it was important that he was
buried properly.
"I don't know much, I'm afraid. I think there's a simple blessing by the vicar, but as for a
stone, sorry, you would have to ask at the town hall."
My eyes thanked her, as my mouth had ceased to function. After a little while, she had
to get back to the ward, so I sat alone for a while, maybe a long while, I didn't know.
He had been a vital part of my life for eight months, and now that he was gone I didn't
know what to do. I remembered his voice, with its musical, sometimes comical, London
accent, chirping on, telling me about his life, advising me in mine, encouraging me. I
heard, again, as he told me what I was to do with my life: "
Belinda Bellini, you should be
a pop star, making records
," he had said.
It was up to me, wasn't it? The only person who could make things right for Joey, and
for myself, was me. I made up my mind, as I sat in the empty cafeteria, that I owed it to
him to do my best for both of us. I stood up, left my cup of cold cocoa on the table and
strode out of the hospital with a new purpose.
As I emerged into the grey, November afternoon, I paused to look around, to breathe in
some fresh air, and to think.
My world had changed in less than a year, and I had changed with it. A new, harder,
Belinda had emerged, street-wise and self-sufficient, driven by a new determination.
"
I can make it as a singer
," I chanted silently to myself.
Thoughts about music reminded me that the band had been booked for a big
performance in Norwich the previous night, at which Bruce had heard there might be a
record producer from London, looking for new talent. I found a telephone box and tried to
ring Bruce, to apologise for not being there, but he was out. I shrugged my shoulders, no
doubt I would see him later.
I headed for the town hall, to find out about burials. There I encountered a sullen,
officious clerk who, peering over tiny spectacles like a character from the pen of Charles
Dickens, grudgingly told me that I would have to talk to the vicar of a church if I wanted
to know what to do. I thanked him brusquely and walked out, heading southwards beside
the river, swirling grey at full tide, then across town to the only church I knew: St John's,
where Gran had taken me to Sunday School.
The vicar was out visiting parishioners, but his wife was there. Over a cup of tea, I
explained the situation to her, and she listened intently.
"Well," she said when I had finished, "first let me tell you the details, then we can work
out what to do. Is that all right?" I nodded, and she smiled.
"Right. All burials take place in the municipal cemetery attached to St Nicholas Church
in the town centre. If there is no-one to pay for a plot, a place in a common grave will be
allocated by the church, and we will hold a simple Christian service here, and at the
graveside."
She saw that my face had fallen at the mention of a 'common' grave. It sounded like
'pauper's grave', a sign of destitution, a stigma.
"A Common Grave is not as bad as it sounds," she continued. "Joey will have a proper
burial in his own plot, in a specially set-aside part of the graveyard. But there will be no
gravestone, and the grave is only kept for one year, then it is re-used."
I sat quietly, considering what she had said, ideas forming in my head. "If I had some
money," I began, hesitantly, "could I pay for a proper plot with a gravestone?"
She smiled. "Yes, of course, but do you have enough? What you would be buying is the
right to bury Joey, and for a stone to be erected. It can be expensive: about seventy pounds
for the grave, plus the cost of interment. Then there's the headstone; that can run to thirty
or forty pounds, maybe more, by the time you pay a stonemason to carve an inscription.
Can you afford that?"
So much! I shook my head, feeling a wave of helplessness break over me.
"It's not all bad news," she continued, seeing my disappointment, and reaching out a
hand to touch my arm reassuringly. "I think Joey was only twelve years old, wasn't he?" I
nodded. "Well, that means there's no internment fee. And we can help you a bit with the
plot. Instead of buying it outright, you can pay a yearly amount of ten pounds to hold it
until you can afford the bigger amount. Would that help?"
Could I find fifty pounds or more? My mind raced. I desperately wanted to give Joey a
dignified burial and a proper grave, but it seemed out of reach.
I had some money: the rent for my flat for the next week was due, and I had saved my
earnings from singing to cover it, so that was three pounds ten shillings. I also had the
money I had been putting away in my Post Office savings account, about nine pounds.
That gave me twelve pounds ten, and I would be homeless again. Maybe I could hold off
the landlord for a week or so while I made some more, and perhaps Bruce would give me
an advance. But where could I get another forty pounds?
There was one last hope, my Aladdin’s cave, Gran's jewellery hidden in my case. I
would sell the jewels and raise enough to take care of everything.
"I think I can do it," I said firmly, rising from my chair to leave. "How long do I have?"
She shrugged. "A week or so,normally, but we can delay it a little, if necessary. I will
inform the hospital and the registrar that we are working with you on it."
"Right, thank you," I said, determinedly, "I will be back with the money as soon as I
can."

"How much?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
The little man in the jewellers shop shrugged. "Sorry love, most of them are worthless,
they're just bits of tat. They look expensive, but there's not an ounce of precious metal in

them, and the stones are all glass. The only piece that's worth anything at all is the
wedding ring, and that's only nine carat gold. If I melt it down, I'll be lucky to get two
quid for it, maybe four quid if I can sell it as it is."

"No, I don't believe it. You're ripping me off. I'm not letting you have them for that."
I snatched them up and stormed out. But the story was the same at the next jewellers,
and the next. "Honest miss, I'm doing you a favour at that price," became a phrase I heard

several times. In the end I had to accept what was offered, a total of just thirty shillings.
Joey's gravestone had become an impossible dream.
Mrs Potter, the vicar's wife, was sympathetic when I returned to see her. "Come in love,