Johnny Swanson (2 page)

‘Yes, but that would have been taken after the army cut off his golden curls.’ Hutch ran his fingers roughly through Johnny’s springy hair. ‘You’re his boy, all right, even if you are a bit of a shrimp. Now be off with you. There’s folk out there waiting for the racing results.’

Johnny preferred the evening paper round. Not many people took two papers a day, and the bag was lighter than in the morning, when he visited almost all the houses nearby. He ran from one to another, trying to get his job done as quickly as he could. At the last house, Miss Dangerfield’s, he pushed the paper through the letter box, and in his haste he let it clang shut.

‘Can’t you do anything quietly?’ Miss Dangerfield shouted.

Johnny stood on tiptoe and opened the letter box to apologize. A musty, ‘old lady’ smell wafted from inside. He could see Miss Dangerfield advancing along the hallway to pick up the paper: muttering, dressed all in black as ever, and leaning on her walking stick. As she approached the door, Johnny could see how her hair had thinned almost to baldness on the top of her head. She straightened up and caught him looking at her. She was furious.

‘Get out of it,’ she yelled. ‘You’ve no business spying on me!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Johnny meekly.

Miss Dangerfield lifted her stick and shook it at the letter box.

Johnny pulled away, and let the flap snap shut
again. ‘Sorry,’ he cried once more. ‘It’s just that your letter box is so high up …’

But his voice was drowned out by her shouts. ‘Blooming children. Nothing but a menace. And I suppose you’ll leave the gate open as usual.’

He shut it carefully behind him, just as he always did, and ran down the hill.

Back at the shop, Hutch was closing up. ‘I’m chucking out these old biscuits,’ he mumbled, without looking up. ‘They’re stale.’ He scooped a handful of soggy custard creams onto a piece of old newspaper. ‘Interested?’

Johnny sensed from his awkward manner that Hutch felt bad about teasing him earlier. ‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘I really am sorry I was late.’

Hutch waved Johnny off without another word.

Johnny took his time going home. He would have to go past Miss Dangerfield’s, and he wanted to give her a chance to calm down. He stopped and sat on the low wall of the graveyard to eat the biscuits. He couldn’t help reading the paper they’d been wrapped in. It was last Wednesday’s
Stambleton Echo
; a boring page, full of advertisements. People were selling old gardening tools, baby clothes, prams and books. Then
one advert caught his eye. It was set apart from the others, in a little frame, and said:

Johnny read and re-read the advertisement. The Secret of Instant Height. It was just what he needed. But where would he find two shillings and sixpence? He didn’t even have enough money for the stamped addressed envelope. Still, he tore the advert out of the paper and put it in his pocket. By the time he got home he had made up his mind to do anything to get the money, and to send away to Box 23 for the answer to all his problems.

J
ohnny’s mother, Winnie, was already at home. The front door led straight into the kitchen – the only downstairs room – and as soon as Johnny opened it he could see that she was ironing. She was pressing sheets: crisp white sheets quite unlike the ones they had on their own beds.

‘They’re Dr Langford’s,’ Winnie explained apologetically. ‘They weren’t dry enough to iron while I was there cleaning. Mrs Langford let me bring them home to finish them off. I’d hoped to get them all done before you got here. Tea will be a bit late, I’m afraid.’

‘I thought the Langfords sent all their stuff to the laundry,’ said Johnny. ‘I’ve seen the van outside their house.’

‘If you ask me, they’re having to cut down on that sort of thing since Dr Langford retired,’ said Winnie. ‘Mrs Langford asked me if I would do the bed-linen, and I couldn’t really say no. We don’t want them getting rid of me too. There’s plenty of people looking for
cleaning jobs these days. They wouldn’t have any trouble finding a replacement.’

Johnny took one end of a sheet and helped his mother stretch it out, ready for folding. They had to kick the furniture to the edges of their tiny kitchen to make enough space to pull it tight. ‘Are they paying you extra for this?’ asked Johnny, walking forward to hand over his end and pick up the fold at the bottom.

‘Well, I tried hinting,’ said Winnie, ‘but Mrs Langford didn’t seem to want to get the point. I didn’t want to embarrass her – or myself. It must be hard for her. She’s used to better things. She’s from a posh French family, you know.’

They passed the sheet to and fro between them, giggling as one or the other dropped a corner, or wrongly guessed which way to turn next. Johnny thought his mother worked quite hard enough cleaning the Langfords’ house every day without doing their ironing too. But he liked the smell of the clean linen hanging to air in front of the hearth. And it was good to have an excuse for the fire to be lit.

‘How was your day?’ asked Winnie, patting the neat rectangle of folded cloth. ‘It must have been nice to be out of the classroom and up on the field for a change?’

Johnny didn’t tell her about how he had been laughed at, nor about Olwen, Miss Dangerfield, or the biscuits; nor about the advertisement for the Secret of Instant Height – which was really all that was on his mind now. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It was good to be outside. But it was a bit cold.’

‘Well, come and sit in the warm,’ said his mother, shifting the clothes horse to make room by the fire. She caught her arm on the hot face of the iron, and stifled a curse. ‘Oh, how stupid of me to have left that there,’ she snapped, licking at a red mark on her skin. ‘Get me down the ointment. It’s on the top shelf.’

Johnny climbed on the arm of a chair and reached up to where his mother had kept all the dangerous and delicate things since he was a toddler. There were a couple of dusty jars of pills; a fine china mug decorated with flags and the word PEACE, which had been given out at the end of the war; and a flat round tin with elaborate writing on the top:
Dr Sampson’s Patent Ointment for Cuts, Burns and Stings. A Soothing Solution in All Situations
. The lid was going a bit rusty at the edges, but he managed to prise it off, revealing a block of pungent brown cream, with a trace of the last finger that had scooped out a little, months
before. His mother dipped in again, and started rubbing the oily mixture onto her burn.

‘You’d better put it back straight away,’ she said, ‘so that we know where it is next time. Make sure you put the lid on tight or it will dry up.’

So Johnny climbed on the chair again. And while he was up there, and Winnie had her back to him, sorting out the ironing things, he took a look inside the china mug. He’d always known that his mother kept money in it: special secret bits of change that she felt she could spare to save up for Christmas – and he’d always known that he mustn’t touch it. But he could see that there were coins inside – most of them coppers, but some of them silver.

He knew he shouldn’t even think of taking the money, but for the rest of the evening he planned what he would do when his mother was asleep. So in the middle of the night he crept downstairs in the chilly dark, and tipped the money out of the mug and onto the table. Although it was cold, his hands were slippery with sweat. He dropped a penny. The coin rolled and then spun on the stone floor. It seemed ages before it came to a stop. Johnny froze, certain that his mother must have heard it; worried that she
might even be able to hear his breathing, which sounded appallingly loud to him. He had no idea how he would explain what he was doing if she came in, but he wanted the Secret of Instant Height so much that he had to take the risk. There was no sound from her room. He counted the money. It came to nine shillings and sevenpence. He only needed two-and-six, with a few pence more for the envelopes and stamps.

He gathered up three shillings, and carefully put the rest back in the mug. The level of money had obviously dropped. Never mind: tomorrow he would get some stones to put under the cash, so that the theft didn’t show. But surely it wasn’t theft? It was borrowing. He promised himself that he would replace the coins, little by little, with the money Hutch paid him for delivering the papers. He wouldn’t spend it on sweets or comics. By Christmas there would be nine shillings and sevenpence in the mug again. His mother would never know that any had been missing. And in the meantime, Johnny would have the Secret of Instant Height. That was all he cared about now.

T
he next morning, Johnny left the house earlier than usual to help his mother carry the basket of sheets back to the Langfords’. On the way Winnie stopped off to check on their neighbour, Mrs Slack. She was an elderly widow who looked pretty healthy to Johnny, but always complained that she was ill. Winnie had mentioned once that she had ‘trouble with her nerves’.

‘Shall I do this washing-up for you, Mrs Slack?’ asked Winnie, rolling up her sleeves and putting the kettle on to boil.

Mrs Slack waved her arm weakly in the direction of the sink. ‘I just couldn’t face it last night,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s come over me. It’s all I can do to raise a teacup to my lips. Heaven knows how the floor will ever get cleaned.’

Winnie took the hint and asked Johnny to find her a bucket; then, while Winnie mopped, Mrs Slack listed her symptoms. Johnny tried not to listen. There
were a lot of references to ‘down below’. Mrs Slack kept pointing at Johnny and then mouthing words silently. ‘I’d see the doctor,’ she said, at full volume, ‘but I don’t like to trouble him with my little problems.’

Johnny’s mother knew that she meant she couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pay. ‘Dr Langford’s retired now,’ she explained. Johnny could tell from her voice that she had said this many times. ‘But I could have a quiet word with him if you would like me to. It would save you going to that new man across town.’

‘No. No need to put yourself out,’ said Mrs Slack, in a tone that even Johnny recognized as meaning the exact opposite.

‘Well, we’ll be off then,’ said Winnie. And they left Mrs Slack tucking in to a boiled egg and moaning about how she would be on her own all day.

‘Poor soul,’ sighed Winnie as they started off up the hill, each of them holding one handle of the washing basket.

‘Do you think she really is ill?’ asked Johnny.

‘Maybe. Maybe not. But she doesn’t have much of a life, and someone’s got to take care of her. If my mother was still alive, I wouldn’t want her to be all
alone like that. I’d hope someone would drop in and make sure she was all right. It’s the least I can do.’

Dr Langford’s house was up on the hill, directly opposite Miss Dangerfield’s. The doctor was leaving as Winnie and Johnny arrived. He was much older than Johnny’s mother, tall and spry, with wisps of grey hair at the back of a big bald patch. Johnny was fascinated by the way the structure of the doctor’s skull showed through the thin skin on his head. There was a prominent vein to one side that looked like a river on an ancient parchment map. You could see it throbbing when he was excited. Sometimes it seemed almost ready to pop. Today, Dr Langford hadn’t shaved properly, and there were clumps of stubble under his chin. His smart trousers were gathered into bicycle clips at his ankles.

‘My goodness, Doctor,’ said Johnny’s mother. ‘You’re up early.’

‘Yes, Winnie,’ said Dr Langford. ‘I had a call from the sanatorium at Emberley last night. I’m helping them with an emergency case. A little baby and her parents.’

‘Oh dear, the poor people,’ said Winnie.

‘It’s a shame,’ said the doctor, ‘but I have to admit
to a certain excitement. It’s good to feel wanted even when you’ve retired.’ He bent down and pinched Johnny’s cheek in the way that adults think is playful, but actually hurts a lot. ‘And where are you off to so early, my boy? Surely it isn’t time for school yet?’

‘He has his paper round,’ said Johnny’s mother. ‘It gives him a bit of pocket money, you know.’

‘Of course,’ said Dr Langford. ‘I’ve seen you pushing the newspaper through the letter box. I’m sorry ours is so high up. It must be quite hard to reach.’ There was another painful pinch of the cheek. ‘You must eat up all your food, son. You’re a growing lad … or should be. How old are you now? Nine? Ten?’

‘Eleven,’ said Johnny, embarrassed, and all the more determined to get the Secret of Instant Height.

‘Well, I must be off,’ said the doctor, climbing onto his bike and adding, with a wink to Johnny, ‘I’ll give you a ride to the shop, if you like.’

He lifted Johnny up and helped him balance on the crossbar, then swung himself onto the saddle and started to pedal. The bike rocked unnervingly, and Johnny wished for a moment that he had turned down the offer. Winnie waved, but Johnny didn’t dare take his hands off the handlebars to wave back. The bike looped in a circle, but then steadied and picked
up speed as the doctor’s bony knees pumped harder. Seconds later, they were zooming down the hill. Johnny loved the rush of the wind against his face, and whooped with delight as they sped past the church and pulled up, wobbling again, outside Hutchinson’s General Store and Post Office. Dr Langford helped Johnny down and rode away.