He Called Me Son (The Blountmere Street Series Book 1) (11 page)

‘Tone, they’ve put Mum in hospital, and they’re taking us away.’
 
She sobbed in a little voice, and her tear-smeared face touched me somewhere deep inside.

‘Taking
us
away?
 
Who’s taking us away?
 
No one’s taking me.’

‘They’re putting us in a home ‘til Mum gets better.
 
They’re coming for us soon.’

‘They can’t do that.
 
We can look after ourselves.’

‘They say we can’t.
 
They say we’re too young and we’ve got to go into an orphanage.
 
Old Selska can’t have us ‘cos she works all day.’

‘What about the Dibbles?
 
Can’t they look after us?’

‘They haven’t got room.
 
When the doctor said Mum had to go in hospital, Mrs Dibble said she thought she could have us, then when old
Dribble
came home for his dinner, she said they didn’t have enough room.
 
I hate him, I really hate him.
 
If we knew where Dad was perhaps …’
 
Angela began really crying, and I turned away and tried to talk tough.

‘Well, we don’t know where he is and who cares?
 
Anyway, he wouldn’t want us.’

I wished Fred was here.
 
He would have known what to do.
 
Who were
they
and
them,
anyway, and who said
they
had the right to take us from our home, and order us about, without even asking
us
what
we
wanted?
 
I clenched my hand into a fist and smashed it into my other palm.
 
I hated
they
and
them.

‘Lock the door,’ Angela said as soon as we reached our flat.
 
We climbed the stairs into the kitchen and sat at the kitchen table not knowing what to do.
 
After a while, I said, ‘Look, Ang, I’m going to have to go out again.’
 
I couldn’t see any way round it.
 
I had to go to Herbie’ place.

‘Don’t you dare go away and leave me,’ Angela gripped my arm so hard she made a red blotch on it.

‘I’ve got to go to Herbie’s.
 
If I can get his old woman to let me stay there, Mrs Dibble and Paula might be able to persuade Old Man Dibble to change his mind and let you sleep in Paula’s room with her.’
 

Angela took a shuddering sob and blew her nose on the piece of rag she had dabbed Mum’s head with.
 
It made me think of Mum and how ill she was, and of the ulcers’ smell.

‘I’ve got to do it, Ang.
 
I won’t be long.
 
I promise.
 
While I’m gone you can make us some grub.’

Grudgingly, Angela let go her grip on me.
 
‘Be quick then.
 
I’ll make us some jam sandwiches.’
 

‘That’ll be smashing,’ I said.
 
This time I managed to jump four stairs at a time to the bottom.

When I opened our front door, I saw a man and woman walking up the path.
 
Beneath the light of the street lamp outside our place, they looked like black ghosts.

‘Tony Addington?’
 
The man asked in a gravelly voice.

‘What if I am?’
 
I
 
tried to close the door, but the man wedged his foot between the door and the door frame.

‘We’ve come to take you and your sister to be looked after for a while.’
 
Pushing me in front of them the couple began climbing our stairs.

‘Blimey, there’s a stench in here,’ the woman said, holding her nose between her fingers.

‘What d’you think you’re doing?’
 
Angela stood in front of them with her hands on her hips.
 
I knew she was trying to look fierce and scary, although I could tell she wasn’t far from crying.
 
‘Clear off.
 
We don’t need to go into any home.
 
We’re all right as we are.’

‘Our orders are to take you both to orphanages.’

‘I told you, we can look after ourselves.’
 

But the pair ignored her.
 
Opening the large shopping bag she carried, the woman brought out two brown paper bags which she shoved at Angela and me.
 
‘Put your stuff in these.
 
I’ll come with you.
 
Where d’you keep your things?
 
You’ll have to move a bit sharpish, your carriage awaits,’ she said trying to be funny.

‘I’m not going and I’m not packing anything.’ Angela refused to move.

‘In that case, I’ll have to do it for you.’
 
The woman began opening and shutting doors until she came to our room. ‘This looks like your bedroom; it’s got two beds in it, at any rate.’
 
She moved to our rickety chest of drawers and emptied the few things we had in it into her bag.
 
‘It’ll be your hard luck if something gets missed,’ she said.

‘Right, down you go.’ Approaching the top of the stairs, the woman pushed Angela and me in front of her.

‘I’m not going,’ Angela shouted, clinging to the stair rail, while the woman struggled to prise her fingers from it, and called the man to help her.

‘Why can’t you be sensible like your brother and come quietly?’
 
The man asked, trying to undo her grip.
 

Angela sneered at me.
 
I could tell she thought I was a coward.
  

Eventually the man loosened Angela’s hand from the rail, and half dragged, half carried her down the stairs.
 

‘You filthy pigs,’ she screamed.
 
‘Filthy rotten pigs.’

‘I’m letting go of her to open the door, so you’d better hold on tight,’ the man ordered the woman.

‘I’m not going, I tell you.’
 
Angela bent her head and bit the woman’s arm.

‘You little bitch,’ the woman slapped her hard across Angela’s face, causing blood to spurt from Angela’s nose, and I had to stop myself from running to her.

Outside I walked obediently down the path towards a blue van waiting under the street light.

‘Help!
 
Please help us, someone!’ Angela called shrilly into the empty street, causing the woman to clamp her hand over Angela’s mouth.

‘You just stay where you are while I help with your sister,’ the man commanded me, and slipping his hands under Angela’s armpits, he began dragging her backwards towards the van.

‘Help me, Tone, please help me!’ Angela pleaded.

‘I can’t, Ang, not yet,’
 

If I was going to escape, now was the time.
 
If I tried knocking at the Dibbles’ front door, the man would reach me before they answered.
 
Going to Herbie’s was still the best idea.
 
I was sure I’d be able to outrun this man.
 
He was old.
 
At least thirty.
 
Herbie’s old man might be home from work.
 
He’d come back with me and explain everything.
 
I began haring along Blountmere Street.

‘Oi, come here,’ the man chased after me, calling to the woman, ‘Tie the girl up if you have to, then lock the door.’

I sprinted in the same direction from which I had recently come.
 
Crossing a rough patch of grass, I turned out of Blountmere Street, my breath swirling in front of me.
 
Shinning the
Betty Grable
wall, I stumbled and righted myself.
 
I could hear the man’s footsteps a little way behind me.
 
My lungs felt as if they were filled with sand but I kept sprinting.
 
I rounded the side of the bombsite we didn’t often play on and then into Whitely Square, past the tenement buildings where quite a few of the kids at school lived.
 
It was tea time and there wasn’t anyone in the street.
 
In the misty darkness, the street lights appeared like hazy stars.
 
I pushed myself on, until I could see the lighted windows of the block where Herbie lived, but the man was gaining on me.
 

‘Come here, you little sod,’ he panted.
 
I fled across the road.
 
I had to keep going.
 
In the distance I could see the blurred outline of
The Perseverance
and hear the smoky voices of early customers heading in for a pint or two on their way home from work.
 

‘Hey, help me,’ I shouted, but my voice was weak from running and the black blanket of night wrapped my words in it and smothered them.

I pushed myself onwards until I was unable to carry on any longer, and I stopped and bent to get my breath back, uncertain what to do next.
 
I knew I would never reach the pub without the man catching up with me.
 
Just the same, there was still safety to be had with Herbie.
  
He would let me in.
  
But I’d taken too long and the footsteps were coming closer.
 
I darted into the entrance of Herbie’s building, kicking a rusty corned beef tin out of the way, then scaling the stairs three at a time.
 
Only one more flight and I would be outside Herbie’s flat..

I swung myself up the final few stairs.
 
When I reached Herbie’s front door, I banged the door knocker over and over again, shouting, ‘Open the door.
 
Please, please open the door.’

‘Gotcha, sonny.’
 
A hand encircled my leg, yanking me to the ground.
 
‘Thought you could get away from me, did you?
 
I ain’t a footballer for nothing.’
 

I struggled to get free, but the man pressed his knee hard into my chest.

‘You’re not getting away this time.’
 
Standing and hauling me to my feet, he rammed his knee into the small of my back, urging me forward into the darkness.

‘Herbie!’
 
I yelled.
 
‘Herbie!’
 
But the doors to the tenements stayed closed.
 
My voice struck the walls and echoed back at me.

I saw Paula and Mrs Dibble standing outside as the man pushed me towards the van.
 
I noticed a torn piece of Angela’s dress caught in the van door.

Paula rushed towards us.
 
‘Where are you taking them?’
 
She took hold of my arm.
 
‘Where are they taking you?’

‘We’re not at liberty to tell you that.’
 
The man said, still panting.

‘You can’t take them like this.
 
If you wait, perhaps we can work something out.’
 
I could see Mrs Dibble was agitated.

‘We’ve got our orders.
 
Anyway, a home is the right place for these two hooligans.’
 
The man indicated to the woman to open the van door and shoved me inside.
 
‘Don’t move a muscle, or it won’t just be your head that’s cut.’

‘I’ll write, I promise,’ Paula called into the van.
 
‘I’ll find out where they’re taking you and I’ll write.’

Inside Angela was weeping loudly.
 
It was a horrible sound.

‘Shut up.’
 
The woman shook her.

‘Leave her alone.
 
When we get to where you’re taking us, we’ll report you.
 
Just wait.’

‘We’re really frightened, aren’t we, Jim,’ the woman laughed.
 
‘Anyway, there won’t be any “we”.
 
Brothers and sisters are separated.
 
No, Sunshine, you two are going to different orphanages.
 
That should cool you both down a bit.’
 
The woman pulled her collar up and around her ears.
 
‘Hurry up and get this thing started, Jim.
 
The sooner we get rid of the pair of them the better.’

Chapter Ten

‘
Pass the glue,’ Joe called, lifting the tangle of paper chains further over on to the work bench.
 
I swore his hair was more orange than the marigolds in old Dibble’s garden, and his face was polka dotted with freckles the same colour as his hair.
 
I handed him the paste pot and brush.
 
We had made the paste from flour that cook had grudgingly measured out.
 
She had grumbled that if we weren’t careful, there wouldn’t be enough for the dumplings to go with the stew we were having that night.
 
If the dumplings tasted like the stew smelt, wafting into the orphanage recreation room in overpowering waves, the flour was best used to glue together paper chains.

‘We must have miles of them here, enough for Balham High Street.’ Joe picked up another armful and dumped them on the floor.
 
‘There’s enough for the whole of the blinkin’ orphanage, and Matron’s allowing us to hang ‘em in our rooms, as well.’

I shrugged.
 
Who cared? I didn’t give a tinkers about paper chains or the Christmas tree Monica the housemaid said was coming today.
 
She had already begun to moan about the needles it would drop.
 

‘These decorations’ll finish off our room nicely.
 
We’ll drape them round our beds, because they’re next to each other, then loop them up and hang them over Micky’s and Tom’s beds.
 
It’s a marvel only having four of us in that great big room.
 
At our dump at home, there was six of us in an attic the size of a pea.
 
Packed in like cockroaches we were, and there were plenty of
them
about, too.
 
And fancy having carpet in your bedroom!
 
I still can’t get over it.’
 
The polka dots on Joe’s face seemed to expand and join each other in orange splodges.

‘So what!
 
We had carpet everywhere in our place at home.
 
Angela and I had a bedroom each, with our own bedroom suites,’ I lied.
 
I couldn’t understand how Joe actually seemed to like this place.
 
‘Don’t you care you’re not allowed to write to anyone, even your old lady, and that they don’t let you get letters either?’
 
I asked.
 
‘Monica told me, they don’t even tell your family where you are.
 
Not that it bothers me,’ I added.
 
It didn’t do to show your feelings to anyone, not even your friend.

‘My old lady can’t read, nor can any of the family, not much at any rate.
 
They don’t want me.
 
I’m one less mouth to feed.
 
They’ve probably already forgotten about me.’
 
Joe finished pasting the last green circle, linking it to an orange one.
 
‘Anyway, we’re best pals, ain’t we?
 
We both came here on the same day.
 
We sleep next to each other and I know The Common a bit.
 
In my book, that makes us closer than family.’

‘Yeah.’
 
I liked Joe.
 
We stuck up for each other, and he’d once been “Up The Common,” but he didn’t take the place of Mum and Angela, even Paula.
 
And the rooms might be warm and the mattresses springy, not like the ones Ang and I slept on, but this place would never be like our flat in Blountmere Street, especially when Fred had lived with us.

All I wanted was to hear from Mum, so she could tell me how she was, and how Ang was doing in her orphanage.
 
I remembered Paula writing Christmas cards, sitting at the Dibbles’ kitchen table, drawing holly leaves in the corners and stars on the envelopes.
 
If only she'd send me one.
 
She said she would write to me when we were taken away.
 
But how could she when she didn’t know where I was?

On Christmas Day, Father Christmas arrived early at the orphanage recreation room with two sacks.
 

‘It’s bleedin’ daft having Father Christmas.
 
Anyone would think we were babies.
 
Anyway, it’s the gardener,’ Joe whispered.
 
‘He’s still got mud on his boots.’

Matron had fixed a piece of mistletoe in her wiry grey hair and Father Gardener Christmas kissed her full on the lips.
 
Then he plonked himself onto a chair covered with a piece of frayed red satin.
 
‘I hopes you’ve all been good child-ren,’ he said in his strange country accent.
 

Matron said she was sure we had.
 
Holding the register, she began calling out our names.
 
It reminded me of Mrs Colby and the school dinner lists.
 
Because my surname began with an A, I was one of the first to walk forward to Father Christmas’ throne.
 
‘How old be you sonny?’
 
Father Christmas asked.
 
His front teeth were rotten and his neck was ridged with dirt.

‘Eleven,’ I answered.
 
He gave me the willies, dressed in a tatty robe that smelt of last year’s Christmas dinner, and wearing a beard that looked as if mice had nested in it.
 
He delved into his sack and brought out a box.
 
He shoved it at me, before waving me away with a grimy hand.
 

I walked back to my place next to Joe.
 
‘What you got?’
 
Joe asked, helping me tear the paper from the box.
 
Even when I was tearing paper from a present, I was noticeably slower than him.
 
As the strips came off, it became obvious it was a puzzle.
 
The picture on the front was of a large lady sitting outside a cottage, knitting.
 
The corners of the box were crushed and there was a white label at the top which read “To an Orphan.
 
Two pieces missing.”
 

‘I had a Meccano set once and a suit with long trousers,’I said to Joe, sucking the tears back down my throat.
 
I wished I could put my foot on the box and flatten it and the woman knitting.

‘
I swear you ain’t smiled once all day, and it’s Christmas,’ Joe walked across to me after we’d eaten our Christmas dinner, as I sat at one of the work tables in the recreation room picking up puzzle pieces and putting them down again.
 
‘And what d’you reckon about the turkey and Christmas pud.
 
It wasn’t bad, was it?’

‘I s’ppose.’

‘Is it ‘cos you’re worried about your old lady?’

‘Course I’m not.
 
Why would I be bothered about Doll?’
 
Recently I had begun calling Mum, “Doll.”
 
It sounded tough to call your mother by her first name.
 
‘Do you think I’m soft, or something?’

‘Well, if you wanted to get in touch with her, I’ve thought of a way you could do it,’ Joe continued, ignoring what I’d just said.

‘How?’
 
I tried to sound as if I wasn’t interested.

‘You could write the address of this place on a bit of paper.
 
Send it to one of your friends and ask them to get it to your old woman.’

‘And how am I supposed to post it?’

‘Ask Monica to do it.
 
You know she’s got a soft spot for you, always calling you her curly haired angel and all that carry on.
 
I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t snitch to Matron.’

‘I’ll think about it, not that I care one way or the other.’
 

‘You’ll get me hung, drawn and quartered, you will,’ Monica said when I handed her the envelope addressed to Paula.
 
If I sent it to Dennis or Herbie, it would probably end up in a puddle.
 
Anyway, I didn’t know their exact addresses.

‘But you’ll do it?’
 
I asked, wiping my hand across my face so that she couldn’t see my eagerness.
 
‘I haven’t got a stamp.’

‘Buying a stamp won’t break the bank, but you’re to keep it to yourself.
 
I can’t afford to lose my job.
 
I’ve got a sick mother at home to keep.
 
I would have handed in my notice years ago if it wasn’t for her.
 
I’m too kind hearted for this sort of place and always being at the beck and call of that dried up prune of a matron.’
 
She ruffled my hair, which was something she did a lot when she came into our room.
 
It embarrassed me when she did it in front of the others.
 

‘You understand you won’t get a reply, or if you do, it won’t be given to you.’

‘Yeah, I know.
 
It’s just that I want Mum to know where I am, in case they haven’t told her, then when she’s better she’ll know where to come to get me out.’
 
I liked saying Mum instead of my Old Woman or Doll, and Monica said, ‘Your Mum’s a lucky lady.
 
I’d have loved a boy like you.
 
A bit late now, though.’
 
She took a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose.
 
Tucking the handkerchief back, she patted the pocket of her apron where my letter, or more accurately a scrap of a paper bag in an old envelope, was hidden.
 
‘Let’s hope it does the trick, eh?’

‘If you stand at that window any more, you’ll become a blinkin’ statue and stay there forever,’ Joe vowed as I gazed at the gravel drive below.
 
I’d done it every single day of January, willing Mum to limp along the path on her way to collect me.
 
Instead, the gardener trundled his wheelbarrow along it, still gathering dead leaves, delivery vans drove to and fro, orphans walked in crocodiles on their exercise walks, the vicar cycled twice a week to see matron, but Mum’s shabby navy blue coat and hat never appeared in the distance.

Clumps of what Joe said were snowdrops peeped through the grass and around the trees.
 
Midway through February, it snowed and smothered the snowdrops.
 
I knew then that Mum wouldn’t come, not for a while.
 
She would wait until spring came fully.
 
I would see her walking down the gravel path edged with daffodils, or on a warm summer’s day, dabbing her forehead with a handkerchief.
 
Although I tried to silence it, a voice inside me kept whispering that she might not come at all.
 
After all, like Joe, I’d only be another mouth to feed.
 
If she had to choose between who should go home with her, it would be Angela.
 
At least Ang did things around the place, made herself useful, and it wouldn’t be long before she could get a job.
 
That’s when I stopped staring out the window.
 
I wouldn’t even let my eyes wander to it, no matter how much I wanted to look.

I hated Saturday afternoons.
 
I hated every single minute at the orphanage and at school, but I hated Saturday afternoons the most, because we had to make a model for Sunday School the next day.
 
Although I’d made models with Fred, now I could never get mine right, and I was slow, much slower than Joe.
 
I seemed to be slow at everything these days.
 
Perhaps it was because I didn’t sleep or eat much.

‘What’s that supposed to be?’ Joe asked, pushing his hair back to reveal even more marmalade splodges.

‘The whale that swallowed Jonah, what d’you think it is, Scotch mist?’

‘It looks like a bit of cardboard you’ve painted grey.’

‘And what’s wrong with that?’

‘I’ll give you a hand.
 
I’ve finished mine.
 
I’ll just pop over to the workbench and get what we need.’
 
Joe darted across the room.
 
He was getting quicker while I was becoming slower.

Without meaning to, I glanced up and out the window.
 
Ribbons of cloud tied up the sunshine, making the landscape look as empty as I felt.
 
Remembering my promise to myself not to look, I directed my gaze back to the table, but something red flickered at the edge of my vision.
 
Immediately I looked up.
 
A girl in red was walking slowly past the window.
 
Her coat was open, and her short brown hair blew around her face.
 
Just as quickly as I had seen her, she disappeared.
 
I remained staring in front of me.
 
It was probably only seconds, but it seemed minutes before she returned, peering in the window, shading her eyes with her hand.
 
I put my hand up to wave, then dropped it.
 
This girl wasn’t real.
 
I was dreaming, like I sometimes did when I eventually fell asleep.
 
Then a gust of wind blew her coat open, and I saw her pleated skirt.