Children of the Archbishop (57 page)

“Give us a lift, guv,” he said just as the lorry-driver was preparing to mount into that first-storey driving cab of his.

The lorry-driver scarcely paused. He was used to these pick-ups at all night coffee-stalls, and he was suspicious of them: they usually spelt trouble. And he had no patience with people who just wanted to go anywhere. So he tried his stock question.

“Where d'you want to go to, son?” he asked.

“Doncaster,” Ginger told him, adding in the sort of voice that clinches things. “My mate lives there.”

The lorry-driver looked across again at Ginger's mate. He had been watching them out of the corner of his eye as they had stood at the coffee-stall, and he had noticed the way the smaller one broke the slab of cake up into small pieces before eating it and didn't
simply take bites the way a man would have done. Girlish, he reckoned, it was; and where Dave came from they didn't like boys to be girlish.

On the other hand it was a long run from Southampton to Doncaster, and if he had someone to talk to it would be easier to keep awake. That was Dave's whole trouble with night driving. Whenever he got to one of the straight stretches where he could really let her rip, the need for sleep always came over him. He'd been clean through a hedge once and carried away a telegraph pole as well just because he had dozed off for a moment through not having anything to think about. And rather than drive alone, he would have taken a parrot with him if only he could have been sure that it would talk.

“Okay,” he said finally. “Get in. But no monkey-business. If there's any monkey-business I puts you out. See? Puts you out wherever we are. See?”

“I see,” said Ginger and motioned to Sweetie for her to climb in.

Then he restrained himself. On the whole, he reckoned that it would be better if Sweetie didn't sit next to the driver. He had just noticed Sweetie's hands. It was the same trouble as with her hair. They were so obviously a girl's hands.

Looking back on it afterwards, Ginger couldn't remember anything that he had ever enjoyed more than that all-night drive. He enjoyed it so much, in fact, that he kept forgetting that there was anything else that mattered, kept forgetting that he was running away at all. The driving-cab itself was so fascinating that it satisfied him completely. There was a speedometer with a little light just over it, and ampmeter and a radiator thermometer. It was best when Dave changed down to third. Then the engine sent vibrations like electric shocks all up his spine. Merely to be perched up there on the slab cushion was to have the sensation of privilege and purpose and effortless, inexhaustible power.

And it was even better outside. Dave had wormed his way through London at last. He had left the lamp-posts and the traffic-lights behind him, and was cruising down the main channel of the Great North Road. This was the real stuff, this was. They were
alone now. Behind them lay London, all tucked-in and sleeping. And, in front, was blackness—plain inky blackness. It might have been on a journey into outer space that they were going. A trip into the heart of night itself. The lorry was all that mattered now. Inside, it was noisy, warm and rather fumey; outside was simply rushing, ebony air. The speedometer showed thirty-five, forty, forty-five …

“Go on talking,” Dave said sharply. “I was nearly dropping off just now.”

Not that Dave was taking things too hard. There were no grand endurance tests about his style of driving. He'd got something wrong with his stomach, he confided. It was the sort of stomach that needed a lot of food, and it needed it often. That was why he kept stopping. And his stomach seemed to know all the right places on the way—Charley's Bar, Eddie's Pull-Up, Cosy Café, the All-Night Tea-Rooms and Sandy's. The lorry drew up automatically at all of these.

They were pretty exciting sort of places. There were a lot of other lorries moored in a kind of little cinder-strewn harbour outside; and, inside, there was the smell of food and the noise of voices and the chink of slot-machines. They were all the same, too, Ginger noticed. It was as though Charley and Eddie and Sandy and all the rest of them had got together into one tremendous combine to supply meals after midnight. The furnishings were the same—the same cut-outs of big smiling girls, with pearly white teeth and open, inviting bosoms, the same shiny tops to the tables, the same bentwood chairs a bit too small for the customers that had to sit on them. And the food was the same as well—the same nut-brown, burst-open sausages and the same hot, greasy, slightly green-looking coffee. Even the customers were the same, a rather tired, sagging lot of men with shiny bottoms to their trousers from sitting all their lives in the driving-seat; and they all had Christian names only, no surnames—just Sid and Bill and Frank and Pat, and all the rest of them.

Ginger was only sorry that Sweetie was missing it all. But she didn't seem to mind: she was fast asleep whenever he went out to look at her. Had gone to sleep on his shoulder almost as soon as they had started, in fact. In the end, indeed, the very placidness of her sleep got on his nerves rather. He looked down at her all crumpled up on the slab cushion of the driving-cab, with his cap pulled down over her ears, and he pondered.

“She's takin' it pretty calmly, I must say,” he reflected
resentfully. “Just like a girl, leavin' it all to a fellow. She's takin' it calmly all right.”

It was the same, too, in between the stops. Just the road and the blackness and the rushing air. Dave had only two remarks that he ever made. One was when he came on the red rear-light of another lorry in front of him. Then he would tighten up and thrust his chin out towards the windscreen. A new urgency would take possession of him, and he would start muttering. “Cor, you'd think 'e'd bought the whole flippin' road, the way 'e's flippin' well driving,” he would begin. “Better git past him. That's the only thing to do with that flippin' sort of driver. Git past 'im.” Down would go Dave's foot, and the eight-wheeler would begin to rock and sway as the engine roared under him. The other remark was kept all ready for whenever something passed him. He would tighten up in just the same way, but he would draw his chin back instead of thrusting it forward. “Silly flippin' bastard,” he'd say, “‘e's arsking for it. That's what 'e's flippin' well doing—arsking for it. …”

Ginger must have dozed off for a bit himself because, when he woke, it wasn't dark any longer. Not really inky stuff. There now was a slate grey light over everything, and he could see hedges and haystacks and the telegraph poles alongside them.

Sweetie woke up, too.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Her voice sounded more than ever like a girl's, and Ginger was worried. But Dave didn't seem to notice that there was anything wrong.

“Can'tcher see?” he asked. “We're nearly there. Putcher darn inside the 'alf-hour.”

That made Ginger sit up. Doncaster was important. It was the place he was going to look for work. Then he frowned: he'd just remembered something. He'd have to get a room in Doncaster, a room for him and Sweetie. But it was too late to worry about that now. The thing to go after was a job. And Sweetie would have to go after one, too. It wouldn't matter if she had to live in. They could still see each other on her half days, if that was what she wanted.

Then just as Dave was putting them down, Sweetie spoilt everything.

“Where's Doncaster?” she asked.

That made the driver suspicious.

“I thought you said he lived 'ere,” he remarked.

“So 'e does,” Ginger answered. “‘E's forgettin'.”

“Sez you,” the driver answered. “I could tell you was on the run as soon as I see you.” He brought the lorry to a standstill as he said it. “Now you 'op it, both of yer. If anyone asks yer 'ow you got 'ere, you don't remember, see! I don't wanner get mixed up in nothing funny, see! Take care of Sissy.”

The driver pursed up his lips as he said it and made a rude sort of sound. That rather upset Ginger. It seemed a pity that such a nice, friendly man could have turned so unpleasant at the end of it. But he soon stopped worrying.

The one thing that mattered was that he and Sweetie had got there, and that no one knew who they were.

It was too early to start looking for a job straightaway, and Ginger and Sweetie spent the next hour or so hunting for a place to get breakfast. Not that Ginger really wanted it. With all those sausages and cups of coffee inside him, he had a full-up feeling already. It was Sweetie who wanted it: she had the appetite of a healthy schoolgirl. But it was too early even for breakfast. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to walk up and down the streets. They had one piece of luck, however. Right under their feet, too: in fact, Ginger nearly stepped on it. He saw suddenly something lying there and bent down to pick it up. It wasn't anything very much, just a gilt shamrock brooch with the single word “MOTHER,” on a scroll across the bottom, but it was good luck finding it. Ginger cleaned it on his sleeve and examined it carefully.

“It's gold, I reckon,” he said when he had completed his examination.

“Then we ought to give it to the police,” Sweetie told him. “Gold's valuable.”

Ginger looked at her contemptuously. “Don't be potty,” he said. “I ain't goin' near no policeman.”

He put the brooch in his pocket, and they walked on side by side in silence. When they reached the next street, however, Ginger took the brooch out again. The pin on the back needed
straightening and Ginger used his teeth on it. Then when the brooch was wearable again he passed it over to Sweetie.

“You can 'ave it,” he told her. “An' if anybody arsts yer say it was a present. Then they can't arrest yer, see?”

“Thank you very much,” said Sweetie.

She was still thanking him when, for the second time, she nearly ruined everything. Just as they were passing the station she tugged at his arm.

“I want to be excused,” she said.

It was only at the last moment that Ginger realised what she was doing: she was making for the LADIES.

He darted after her.

“You can't go there,” he said. “An' you can't go in my side, either. You gotter wait.”

Then he relented.

“Gimme my cap an' shake yer ‘air out,” he said. “Then you'll look more like a girl. Only don't ferget to put it on again. It's a boy and a girl people'll be looking for. That's why we gotter be two boys when we're togevver so they won't suspec' nothing.”

“I'll remember,” Sweetie promised.

While she was away, Ginger stood there biting his lip.

“I knew it'd be harder bringin' a girl along,” he told himself. “I knew it was potty.”

They had breakfast at an open bar by the bus-stop. It was another and poorer version of the cafés of the night before: same sort of customers, but no pictures and no slot-machines. The man behind the counter looked decent enough and, in his position, he certainly ought to know Doncaster.

“D'you know where I could get a job?” Ginger asked.

The man pursed his lips.

“Got yer card?” he asked.

“Wot card?” Ginger asked him.

“That means yer ain't got one,” the man replied. “No good trying round 'ere. You'd better go along to the Labour Exchange.”

“Will they gimme a job?”

The man behind the counter shook his head.

“Say, was you born yesterday?” he began.

Then he was interrupted. Two teas and a coffee with ham-rolls turned up, and he couldn't spare any more time on Ginger.

Seen in broad daylight, Doncaster looked a pretty grim sort
of place, Ginger reckoned. Hard and gritty, it had a pace and a purpose about it that didn't make it look as though jobs were easy to pick up there. But he was glad of that tip about the Labour Exchange and he decided to try it. He found the Exchange quite easily. But what he wasn't prepared for was the long queue of men already standing there. They were grown men, too: quite old, some of them. And he wasn't sure about Sweetie. There might be difficulties if they offered her the wrong kind of job, a man's job. So he told her to go down the road and wait for him.

“S'pose I've got to earn enough money for two of us,” he thought gloomily. “Got to at first anyway until they stop looking for us.”

The queue was a slow one. It was half an hour before he even got to the counter. And when he did get there he wasn't prepared for all the questions they asked him: he had been expecting something much simpler—just a slip of paper giving the name and address of someone who wanted a job of work done.

“Got your card?” the clerk asked.

“Wot card?” Ginger asked again.

“Third counter down,” the clerk told him. “They'll see to you there. And don't stand here blocking everything up.”

“No, sir,” Ginger answered.

The clerk seemed a pretty important person. Ginger didn't want to do anything to offend him. And the clerk at the other counter was important, too. He scarcely looked at Ginger.

“Name?” he asked.

That was a stumper. If he said “Herbert Woods” the police would be on to him at once. He'd have to invent something. So he gave Mr. Dawlish's name.

“John Dawlish, sir,” he said.

“Address?”

“I ain't got one, sir,” he explained. “I only just got here.”

“What was your last address?” the clerk asked.

Again the same problem.

“ 'Ammersmith,” he said: he'd seen the name Hammersmith above the coffee-stall on the night before.

“What road?”

“‘Ammersmith Road.”

“London?”

Ginger nodded.

“Number?”

“Twenty … twenty-three,” Ginger told him.

“First job?”

“Yus, sir.”

“What school were you at?”