Barefoot and Lost (44 page)

      They have been to Parksid
e shopping centre before and kno
w their way around, when I asked them to show me the post office Billy wanted to know why, I told him to post a letter
.
Billy said, ‘Who you got to write to?’ I didn’t like,
to
say my girlfriend, so said,

     ‘My foster mum’
Clive
looked at me a bit puzzled,

     ‘If you’ve got a foster mum what are yer doing here in this dump?’

     ‘My foster dad is sick and she can’t look after me.’

     ‘Bloody hell, a foster dad as well; it’s alright for some.’ That is the most I have heard
Clive
say, before or since. After my letter was posted, we spent the next hour mooching around,
Clive
once again silent, having crawled back into his shell.
Billy
never shuts up, with me only understanding half of what he says. I did however, find out he came from a place called Strabane, in
Northern Ireland
, wherever that is. 

     I have been here just over two weeks, nobody pays any attention to me in school; I’m sitting on my own at the back of the class. They are doing revision, so if something comes up that I don’t know, I write in my book. If I do know, I never put up my hand to answer.

    So far not one teacher has asked me anything, or involved me, I have decided to say nothing until exams next week. When I asked if I ca
n take the exams, I was told of course,
what else would
you be
doing?
If I fail it is what they expect, maybe I’ll pass, who knows?’

     On Saturday it will be my thirteenth birthday, I
wonder what I will be doing, it certainly w
o
n’
t a surprise trip to London like last year,
That trip
was fantastic,
first it was my first long trousers,
the
n the
taxi ride with Gran and June around all the sights of London, the lunch at Lions corner house,
with all that jelly and Pop joking about the fire brigade when they lit the candles on the cake,
and then
the ride on the trolley bus
to the hospital to see Michael, I can’t believe he was okay then, and looking forward to going home
and now he is dead, a lump rises in my throat as I think of him.
Billy said we usua
lly have a party in the
cottage that
will be nice I don’t expect that there will be any presents for me, nobody knows me.

    
Although Billy is nearly two years younger than me we have become quite good friends, he is a great joker and has me splitting my sides with some of his antics, especially when he mimics the teachers. I am surprised he is so happy all the time, he has no one; he has been in homes since he was four, and he doesn’t remember his parents, doesn’t know what happened to them, but thinks they were killed by a bomb in the shipyards. He was in a home in
Belfast
until the
bombing got really bad. He was
then moved
to
a home in
Devon
where he stayed for a couple of years
and
then came to Parkside
. I asked him had he ever been fostered. ‘Twice nearly, but I didn’t like the look of them so I bunged on my accent.’

     ‘What happened?’

     ‘I think they changed their minds, didn’t want no bloody foreigner as their kid; suited me, I’m happy here, I want to stay until I’m old enough to go to sea school, then I want to be a sailor.’

     ‘What’s sea school?’

     ‘It’s a school w
h
ere Barnardos send you when you are fourteen, if you are good enough to learn to be a sailor.’

     ‘My dad was a sailor; he got killed by the Japs.’        

    
‘Billy, what happens here when you have a birthday?’

     ‘Ye
r
get a bleeding year older that’s wot
.’

     ‘Ha, ha very funny, you know what I mean, like, do we get birthday cards, or have a party?’

     ‘I told you, Chalky usually manages to get a cake with candles and we have a bit of a sing song here in the house, but I dunno about birthday cards, I‘ve never had one, well, not really. Four years ago for my seventh birthday, some kids made me one, none of us has anyone to get cards from, that’s why we’re here, because we have nobody, we’re bloody orphans haven’t you caught on to that?’

     ‘I just thought I might get one, that’s all.’

     ‘Who from; anyway, when is your birthday?’

     ‘Tomorrow; I thought my foster mum might send one.’

     ‘Phil, I don’t understand you, why the hell are you here if you have a foster mum, or do you mean a foster mum that used to be and now can’t be bothered with you?’

     ‘No, she wants me, but can’t look after me because my foster dad is sick.’

     ‘Yer, I believe you, sounds a likely story to me, lots of kids have been slung back here because the foster mums can’t cope or can’t be bothered, they do it because they can, if they were their own kids they’d have to keep them, that’s why I don’t want to be fostered, you can’t trust them, the only one I trust is me.’

     ‘I just thought that’s all.’

     ‘You wanna stop doing that.’

     ‘What?’

     ‘Thinking, it’s bad for yer brain; go and ask Chalky if he has any cards for you, who knows yer may get one from the King or Winston bloody Churchill or the Queen of Sheba, who knows?’

   
‘
Thanks
Billy
, you really do have a knack of making someone feel miserable.’

     The exams have been easy, each time I seem to finish before anyone else. I went back over them in case I had made a mistak
e, but I don’t think I did, the
time I spent in private school
has
helped me so much. Here the school concentrates on working with your hands, carpentry, sheet meta
l, shoe making where, I am told
I will be going during the school holidays, to learn how to repair shoes. I’m not too happy about that but, if
Billy
is wrong, I will be back with
June
in a few months. I’m glad I’m not a girl; they do laundry, cooking, housework, training to be housekeepers, how terrible I think
Rachel
must be doing something like that, because she said in her letter she was learning to cook.

     ‘
Mr.
White
, is there a card for me this morning?’

     ‘Happy birthday
Phil
; no nothing yet, but the post doesn’t get here until about ten
so ask me again at lunchtime.’
I know I’m not going to get one, I think
Billy
must be right. If nothing arrives I’m going to write to Awful and post it this afternoon, when we are in town, I wish I knew if he was getting my letters, why doesn’t he reply?

     The morning has been horrible, I have spent three hours in the shoe repair workshop, being shown how to use a pair of pincers to pull the ol
d soles off
smelly shoes, and then pull out all the nails, making them ready for the shoemaker to fit new soles. My hands are sore, to think this is what they want me to do during the school holidays, and then for the rest of my life, if that is all I have to look forward to I hope I die young.

     ‘
Mr.
White
is-------’

     ‘Sorry
Phil
, nothing at all, not a sausage, no letters not even a card.’ I don’t know why I feel so disappointed, I didn’t really expect anything,
and I
just hoped that’s all.
Billy
is right, people tell you things that they think you want hear, but don’t really mean it. I just wish
June
had told me the truth she said she loved me but her love for me wasn’t enough, she loved Reg more. As I head upstairs Chalky calls me ‘
Phil
, where are you off to?’

     ‘I’m going to up to my room to write a letter; why?’

     ‘I would like you to come to the sitting room before you do that.’

       Turning around on the stairs I follow Chalky into the sitting room, the curtains are drawn on a table in the middle of the room is a cake with candles burning, their flames weaving in the draught, lighting the faces of the kids seated around it as they sing Happy Birthday. I need two puffs to blow out the candles; I can hear
Billy
’s voice asking me, do I need the fire brigade? Placed in front of the cake is an envelope, my heart leaps, my hands are trembling as I open it to reveal
a birthday card, then my stomach sinks as I read, it is from Mr. White and the staff at Barnardos, underneath is a folded paper, printed across the top is Happy Birthday Phil, inside it is signed by everyone in Rainbow cottage.

      ‘Thanks everyone that was a nice surprise.’

      ‘Sorry it wasn’t the card you wanted
Phil
; it may not be because they don’t want to, but maybe not being able to send you one, don’t think badly of them, try to give them the benefit of the doubt.’

     ‘Yes okay, I will, perhaps it will come next week.’

     ‘Here is a small present for you, not much, but you will find it will come in handy.’ Wrapped up in a bit of brown paper is a tin of black, Cherry Blossom shoe polish and a brush.

     ‘Phil, get in the habit, if your shoes are shining people will see you as someone that takes pride in himself, they will then take a shine to you and help you to get on and do well in life.’

     ‘Thanks
Mr.
White
, I’ll do that.’

     School broke up yesterday it is now six days since my birthday and still no cards or letters. I have written to Awful, I’m going to post it tomorrow. I have spent another three hours mending shoes and I hate it. I’ve asked to go to the woodworking workshop with
Billy
but they do not have any place for me, therefore I have to mend shoes and wait tables in the evening for the whole of the school holidays. Some kids are going to
Norfolk
on holiday, but
Billy
, me and a few others are not included, he is very put out about it, telling me this is the first time he has not gone on holiday. I asked Chalky why we had been left out he replied, ‘I think they have something better in mind for you and
Billy
.’ When I pushed him he said he didn’t know and got annoyed when I pressed him, so we will just have to wait and see. Billy says that he heard that all families with big houses were going to
be made, by the government, to f
oster kids that
a
re orphans and we have been chosen to go to that bloody great big house at the end of the Mall in
London
. He had me crying with laughter when he said, ‘Do you think we will have to call them, Uncle
George
and
Auntie
Liz
or Mum and Dad?’

     ‘Mum and Dad I expect, will you bung on your accent?’

     ‘Yeah
, I’ll talk real all La –di- da like one of them fellas on the BBC.

    
‘
Australia
? No, that is not right, Orville wants me to go to America to be his son, he told me so; not Australia, he doesn’t live in Australia, he is an American officer, why would he want me to go to Australia?’

     ‘Phillip, calm down, I have no idea who you are talking about, it says nothing here about an American officer, what it does say is that a Mr. and Mrs. Barton in Victoria, Australia, have selected you to be their son, to be a younger brother to their son Aubrey, they are farmers and good Christians.

‘How can they choose me, they don’t know me, what about June and Reg what will they say when they find out I’m in
Australia
? I’m not going, I don’t care if they are Christians, I do not believe in God anyway. He has been horrible to me, he’s killed my Mum and Dad, let my Gran die when I needed her most,
and made my best friend so sick he died, God
has done nothing but horrible things to me, and I’m not bloody going.’

     ‘
Phillip
, do not swear; you have no say in the matter, you are a minor, we make the decisions for you. As for your thoughts about God, he could have realized that he has treated you badly and this is his way of putting things right. God moves in mysterious ways, we are at his call to do whatever he wishes, and right now, he wishes you to go to Australia and that is all there is to it. You will be sailing, with many other children on a ship, on the fifteenth of August that is in two weeks, so get used to it and accept Gods wish.

     ‘But------’

     ‘No more discussion Phillip, our chat has finished, I am very busy, goodbye.’ I have never seen this man
before, who said his name was Finch,
the
women beside him who had no name and did nothing
but smile, how
they can
send me to the other side of the World,
and
I
do
n’t even
have a say in what happens to me. 

     As I stand to leave they look at a list in front of them, the woman rises from h
er seat behind the desk,
and passing
me
she holds
the door open and says. ‘Would you please come in
Helen
,’ a skinny girl with dark short hair looks up with a scared expression,

     ‘Ave I done something wrong Miss?’

     ‘No, of course not, we are going to give you some very good news.’

     ‘You’ve found my Mum,’ her face lights up, ‘I knew she weren’t dead I knew it all the time.’

     ‘No, I’m afraid it is nothing like th
at, but good news just the same, come
in
side
so we can tell you all about it.’ Helen’s face slowly slides back to her scared look, the door closes behind her.

     In the dorm
Billy
is sitting on his bed looking down at his hands, he looks up as I come in, a forced smile on his face. ‘
Billy
are you going to
Australia
?’

 
   ‘Yeah
, are you
,
bloody great aint
it? All them
s
kangaroos and bush rangers, it’ll be fantastic.’

     ‘I don’t know, I’m being adopted by a farmer and his wife, how can they want to adopt me, they don’t even know me, what about you, where are you going?’

     ‘Don’t know what it’s called, but it is a new home which is being built in
West Australia
, wherever that is.’

     ‘I wonder why you’re going to a home and I’m going to a family, even got an elder brother, never had one of them before; might not be so bad after all?’

     ‘Suits me to go to a
n ‘
ome, I don’t want to get mixed up with no family, they may be shite and then I’m stuck with them, at least in a
n ‘
ome, when they kick you out
you can please yourself what yer
do; no, a
n ‘
ome is best.’

     ‘I think I prefer a family, you’ve never had a family so you don’t know what its like to be part of one.’

     ‘Yeah
, expect you’re right, families are great, that
’s why you’re back in a bloody ‘
om
e, yours really looked after yer
, didn’t they?’

     ‘Don’t care what you say, maybe third time lucky and, if it’s not, then, when I’m old enough, I can just walk away.’

     Chalky sticks his head around the door,
‘You’ve both been told, we
ll,
how do
you feel about
Australia
then?’

     ‘I don’t know; these people want to adopt me, how can they want to do that, they have never even seen me?’

     ‘Well, they have in a way, they will have seen your photograph and read all about you, and will have deduced that you are a very intelligent young man. You don’t look that bad either, and fits what they consider the qualities for a son, and someone they can offer a stable home to; what about you
Billy
?’

     ‘I think its fantastic, always wanted to see a kangaroo, will you miss us
Mr.
White
?’

     ‘Nope, will you miss me?’

     ‘I will, you’ve been great to me, yes I’ll miss you.’

     ‘No you won’t, because I’m coming with you.’

     ‘How come you are going?’

  
  ‘Well, they offered me to go
as an escort, with a job in the home if I want it. I have nothing here to hold me, no family, no dependents so why not?
Australia
is a growing country; I believe it is a great opportunity for all of us.’

     ‘
Mr.
White
, do they speak English in
Australia
or will we have to learn another language?’

     ‘You might
Billy
, you’ll have to learn English, your version is a bit hard to comprehend at times.’

     ‘No
Billy
, they speak English, we had a man staying at the guest house, he was Australian, and he sounded a bit like an American.’

     ‘How many of us are going, are there others that are being adopted like me?’

     ‘There are twenty two children, me and,
Christine
from Fairy. She will be looking after the girls from here but I believe there are more than two hundred altogether from all over
Britain
.’

     ‘Hell, it must be a very big ship to hold all those people.’

     ‘It is Billy, I think it carries over one thousand five hundred passengers; yes, the S.S Asturias is a very large ship, and you will be very much at home on her, she was built in Belfast, so you both speak the same language.’

     The last two weeks have been taken up with medical checks, packing, getting fitted with new clothes, writing to June and Pop to tell them where I’m going, they might not care but I’ve told them anyway, and reading about Australia, which wasn’t a lot, it was mostly history, about the prisoners that were sent there in the last century, there was nothing I could find about modern Australia.

     I haven’t slept all night, afraid that I would oversleep which is stupid because Chalky wouldn’t let that happen. The light goes on, Chalky shouts, ‘Wakey, wakey rise and shine, its five o clock and the morning is fine, come on out of bed today is Friday the fifteenth of August, this is the first day of the rest of your lives.’ How can he be so cheerful so early?

    After a hurried breakfast we are counted, all twenty two of us, onto the coach. Someone calls from the back ‘
Mr.
White
how long before we get to
Southampton
?’

     ‘About four and a half hours, but don’t worry Nigel, we will be stopping for you to have a pee,’ we all laugh, silence then takes over, even Billy sitting next to me is silent, all I can hear is the rumble of the engine and the rattle of the door as we go over potholes. Looking around me, everyone has their eyes closed, either sleeping, or deep in thought like me, about where we are going and what is to happen to us.

    
Billy
didn’t stay quiet for long, he started to sing, and he really has a very good voice. Strangely, when he sings, you can hear every word, there is no sign of an accent, and
Chalky reckons he should sing all the time, to make himself understood.

      Our coach joins five others already pulled up in front of a large building. Hundreds of people, most carrying suitcases, are jostling each other; two uniformed men are attempting to make them form a queue. An Army lorry stops alongside, blocking my view, soldiers jump out of the back. Chalky has left our coach;
Christine
is standing in the doorway watching our driver unload our suitcases on to a trolley. The soldiers march away in line with their kitbags on their shoulders, the kitbags have names painted on them that I find difficult to read, how do you pronounce a C and a W together, most of the names end in SKI they can’t be English? The lorry moves off. I can now see Chalky returning to our coach, there are so many people he has to weave in and out of them. The army lorry is replaced by another one; more soldiers with unpronounceable names get off.

     ‘Right, listen up, as you can see there are a lot of people so you must stay close to me, take all your belongings off the coach, you don’t need to worry about your suitcases they are being taken care of. We are going into the terminal, it is important we stay as a group while I get our travel papers checked, we will then go aboard as a group; is that understood?’ No one answers, I think everyone is, like me, overcome by the noise and bustle of so many people, all trying to do the same thing and not quite knowing how they should go about it, so if Chalky says that is what we are doing then he must be right.

     On board we are directed,
to
our cabins on E deck, I’m surprised to see our cases have beaten us here. Arranged on three walls are two tier bunks, with a further double deck bunk in the centre. There is a scramble to get a top bunk. Chalky shouts, ‘Hold it, I will allocate the bunks; to make it fair we will draw lots, okay?’ Chalky takes his pen from his pocket, tears a page from his note book then tears it again in to eight pieces and with his pen he numbers each piece, after folding them he puts them in his hat, ‘Okay who wants first dip?’

     ‘
Mr.
White
, don’t you think we should number the bunks first?’

     ‘That’s a damn good idea
Billy
, why didn’t you think of that?’

     ‘I thought I had.’ Chalky walks around the cabin touching each bunk in turn, counting as he goes,

     ‘Seeing as it was your idea Billy, you get first dip.’ Billy selects four, I get six, Chalky is under me, and Nigel gets one. The other four boys I have never seen before, two are
Billy
’s age, they get two and three, the other two are about nine years old,
and they
get seven and eight.

    
‘Now, let us all introduce ourselves. I am
Mr.
White, but, in this cabin or in private, I want you to call me
Chalky, like those here who
know me
, call me, behind my back
’ The two older ones introduce themselves as Ben and Clive; the other two are Malcolm and Kevin.

     ‘How did you know we called you Chalky?’

     ‘Because I have always been called Chalky by everyone that has known me, it is a nickname that goes with White; now I suggest that we all go up on deck because we are about to sail.’ 

An announcement comes over the Tannoy, ‘
All ashore those that are
going ashore, this is the
final
call.’

Up on deck people are crowding over the rails, Billy and I find a bit of a gap behind a group of girls, some have streamers which they have thrown to people on the shore, at least sixty feet below. The gangways have been removed, there is a deafening blast from the ships horn and the gap between the ship and the shore slowly widens, the streamers tighten and then break, the contact between
England
, and our future on the other side of the World, feels final. I’m excited, but sad, to be leaving everyone I have ever known, that is except for
Billy
and Chalky of course. The girls are chattering as they turn away from the rails being ushered by two nuns to wherever they are going.