Love Fifteen (11 page)

“I'm sorry, Mrs. Hampton, we had no idea you were up there all alone.”

She joined the group on the raised pavement and stared into the night sky at a burning attic a few stepped roofs up the hill. The front door there was open and fire-fighters in helmets were running up the stairs inside with stirrup pumps and buckets. Whistles were blown and anyone with nothing else to do shouted about lights.

In general, she had no time for superstition or coincidence but couldn't help wondering if this fire-bomb had fallen like a bolt from heaven, a moral meteor, warning her to end this before the world's opinion caught up and brought scandal to them both. A new clean spirit would come in time, of course, no-one seriously doubted that, but till it did the old rules still applied. She was a soldier's wife, a teacher. The boy was barely fifteen. The only blessing she could find was that she had no children, nor the likelihood of any. They'd been lucky but mustn't push that luck. God, she had to somehow come to her senses. Not the senses that still held her lower body in thrall, longing for the bliss they'd nearly achieved again that night, not that but
common
sense.

And
moral
sense
.

Theo stood giddily in the rear gardens for half a minute while the raid went on all around. A minute or two later he stumbled up the back lane, barging into a dustbin or two and finally making the open park. A great burst of gunfire came from the detachment on the hill, making him cry out with alarm. He turned left and came to the top end of Hazel's street. When he'd first seen them by day, the houses with their iron balconies and lamp-brackets had reminded him of fuzzy old photos of New Orleans, of street parades and Buddy Bolden. One day he and Hazel and Geoff would go there together, in his own private airplane from California.

He sat on a bench and lit a cigarette. The first breath of nicotine made him swoon. Or was it the frustration from nearly coming into her? Both maybe. He stayed there awhile with head between knees before sauntering down on street level, looking up at the burning top floor and all the tenants standing about in front. She had her back to him, chatting to her neighbours, and didn't turn.

*

“Where's young Theawl?”

Tilda, confused, sat on the rexine sofa at Villa Borghese, a cup of tea in one hand, a tot of rum in the other. Young Kay was across the other side of the electric fire that had that glowing coal bit in front that seemed to be burning, though Tilda'd heard young Theawl say it was a disc that got turned by warmth off the red light. Or sommat o'that. He wasn't here, that she could see.

“We've already told you, Mother,” Rose answered from near the window, “we don't know. You'd think he'd have more consideration.”

“If he
does
get home safe,” that stuck-up husband of hers said, from where he was crouching by the gramophone, “this is the last time he goes to that damned Film affair. Have I made myself clear, Rose?”

“How can I stop him? He takes no notice of me.”

“A mad-gaming loobie,” Tilda said.

“I think you'll find this is the last meeting anyway,” said young Kay in that Sneed Park voice she'd started talking in lately.

“What?” Fred said, half turning.

Kay had seen an announcement in
The Evening World
and now guessed they used the meetings as an alibi. She wished she hadn't spoken, shook her head and luckily Mum said:

“They only meet on Sundays anyway, when you're home, so it's not down to me to stop him. That tea must be cold, Mother. D'you want another or is the rum enough?”

The old woman looked from cup to glass without seeming to recognise either.

“What d'you mean, the last meeting?” Fred asked. As Kay was thinking of an answer, he held up one hand like a policeman. A plane hummed overhead.

“Oh, no, not them German swine again!” Tilda moaned, spilling the tea as Rose tried to take the cup. Kay quickly came and embraced her grandma.

“Don't worry, Gran. It's one of ours.”

“Wait till our boys get over there,” the old woman went on, “they'll give that bloody Kaiser what-for.”

“Dear oh Lord,” said Fred. He heard the front door being opened and went out to the hall.

“There, there,” said Kay, rocking Tilda like a baby.

“Where's Sister Harriet?” the grandma asked.

“She's alright, their house wasn't hit,” Rose said, “they're safe at home where you'd expect.”

“Then where am I? Bain't I at home?”

“No, you're here at our house. Me and my husband Fred's house. Remember him ?”

“Didn't I yer someone say it's Sunday?

“Yes.”

“So why am I yer of a weekend when your blessed hubby's home?”

Fred returned with the boy.

“Where've you been? We were frantic,” Rose told him, standing up.

“The raid started during the film so we had to take shelter for a time. Soon as there was a lull I walked home. What's Gran doing here on a Sunday?”

“Her house had to be abandoned when a bomb hit a gas-mains in the street,” Fred said.” I drove down to see if she was alright. She was in her sister's place. Down Mina Road way it's bedlam.”

Theo came across and crouched by his Grandma.

“What did they say?” she asked, “I was in where?”

“Aunt Harriet's. You alright now?” the boy asked.

“I was just saying, they bloody Doughboys will be coming in too late like last time, saying they've won the war. We don't want them over yer, do we?”

A burst of explosions stirred the heavy black-out curtains and shook the sash windows in their frames.

“She was wandering about till one of your aunts spotted her and took her in. The whole street was lit like Guy Fawkes night.”

“The house she had her flat in has gone. She'll have to stay with us.”

Bad news for Fred, who would be even more outnumbered in this domestic war of attrition. But Kay and Theo were glad, because for them Tilda was an entirely good and lovable person. She wore a crossover pinnie, a broad-brimmed felt hat and odd shoes with holes cut in to ease the bunions that plagued her but which also served as useful barometers to forecast every change in the weather. Her first-floor flat among the poor streets, now destroyed, had been full of furniture that smelt and felt even older than herself. When she stayed overnight at Villa Borghese – to help soothe Rose's nerves and help with the housework – she slept on a feather mattress and, going for a drink in the local, wore a small animal round her neck with a pointy snout and beady eyes. A switch of brown hair, cut off when she was young, was usually pinned to the sparse grey strands that remained.

When ack-ack turned to bomb-bursts, Fred ushered them all into the cupboard under the stairs. He himself put on his grey fibre helmet like a cross between a pudding-basin and chamber pot, and went out to watch the rampage. Rose said this would make those blessed Cockneys eat their words and she hoped they'd choke.

When the all-clear sounded after midnight, Tilda said she'd just pop in next door to see if her sister Harriet's family were unhurt. With a good deal of winking and eye-rolling, Rose said they'd do it in the morning.

“Best not to confuse her,” she said to them in an aside.

“Confuse her?” Theo murmured to Kay, “she's been talking about Zeppelins. How much more confused can she get?”

His sister raised one eyebrow and gave him a quizzical look like Myrna Loy's. He'd tried but still couldn't manage that. Both eyebrows went up together and made him look more startled rather than aloof.

They helped Tilda to her bedroom next to his. The rest of the night was quiet. He slept well, after getting the jack again by thinking back to Hazel's bare backside with the orange sky behind as the city centre burned. Now he enjoyed a poor imitation of the climax that hadn't happened, trying to keep the bed still in case the noise woke Gran in the next room and she thought it was another Zeppelin raid.

Theo looked up from the page at old Jimmie, who had reached the back wall of the class and now continued from there.

“Thank you kindly, Mister Light, effectively read, as always.”

“Sir.”

“But understood? I ha'e me doots.”

Was that meant to be a Scottish accent ?

“Sir, he means that some bod who falls in love, sir –”

Jimmie paused for the chorus of groans and lecherous sounds from the sprawling class and clapped his hands.

“That's enough farmyard imitations. Mister Light, of course, weaned on a diet of movie-mags and
Woman's Weekly
, can think only of lurrrve… but may not a less obvious, less banal sentiment be drawn inferred from these lines?… Mister Morton?”

“Sir, does he mean it's better to suffer than just kind-of get through your life without – you-know-sir – any sort-of struggle, sir, or pain?”

“Better reach for the stars and fall short than aim low and achieve a petty ambition? That what you think he's inferring, Mister Swift?”

“Yessir.”

“You sure?”

“Think so, sir.”

“D'you think he's inferring anything, Mister Light?”

“No, sir. More likely implying.”

“He implies, we infer, yes. And would you agree, Mister Cox?”

“Sir!”

Cox turned from staring into the playground where Sergeant was drilling a platoon of their Officers Training Corps. Lunceford came up the aisle from behind and cuffed his head with
The Poet Speaks
.

“Dreaming of we-wot-not-what, as is your wont.”

The sleepy class stirred itself to laugh with their favourite master but without too firmly taking sides against Cox for fear of later reprisals.

“Rather be out there on the square, would you?”

“No, sir.”

“Do we believe him?”

“No, sir!”

“Being almost sixteen, though idling your time away through a second year in 3B, Mister Cox, you have only two more before you may join those poor fellows in earnest, given that Mister Hitler holds out that long. And you may dream of a D.F.C., a D.S.O., even a V.C. and end up an N.B.G., peeling spuds on fatigues. Is this the poet's point? Or Mister Light may aspire to write the novel of our century and get as far as doing bubbles for
Comic Cuts
.”

“Sir,” Cox protested, “he doesn't want to write, Sir, he wants to be a film producer.”

He had wanted a laugh and got one, a peal of howling mockery directed at Theo, whose blush showed his rage and shame.

“Director, you brawny twerp,” said Jake, coming to Theo's rescue.

“You wait, Swift. I'll get thee after.”

Lunceford hurled his chalk at Jake.

“In which case,” he went on, “he may set his cap at Hollywood only to find himself taking snaps on the front at Weston-super-Mare.”

Through the uproar of cheers and derision, Jimmie moved to the blackboard. Theo returned his smile.

The bell rang. Desks were opened and poetry books slammed shut like doors.

“Who said move?”

Jimmie waited while they settled and reopened their books.

“And should you happen along the afore-mentioned esplanade, Mister Cox, to scoff or deride, Mister Light may riposte with some justice – and also with Lord Tennyson – Tis better to have loved and lost –”

He raised both hands like a conductor and cued the chorus with his head.

“ – Than never to have loved at all.”

“Off you go.”

During dinner-hour, after they'd eaten, Jake and Theo dodged Cox and his gang by lurking behind the Fives Courts. They knew he'd seek revenge for Jake's crack about brawn. Brainless bods always wanted to prove how brainless they were by beating you up if you called them brainless. They collected their books from Jimmie's form-room then charged through the corridors to Double Biology, keeping well ahead of Cox and his hoodlums from 4D who all looked like Lon Chaney Jnr as the great dumb ox in
‘Of Mice and Men
'. The staff-room door was opened as they passed, letting out a terrific cloud of smoke as though it had been hit by incendiaries. The teacher coming out shouted back some words in Spanish and someone laughed inside. One little gang of men had been in the Civil War and could always be shunted on to a sidetrack from something hell's-boring like Turnip Townshend's rotation of crops if you asked what that particular conflict had been about. One walked with a limp, one soon got breathless and another, if you were late, said something Spanish about cow's tails which meant you were all behind. They had come back to replace younger teachers who'd joined up. The boys soon sorted which were strict, which past it and which were only doing this as a cover for their real occupations as German spies. No-one could make head or tail of the Spanish war except that their dictator Franco was an ally of Hitler's and Mussolini's so anyone who'd been fighting there could have been a Nazi, though Swift said it depended whether you were for or against the government and he was a Jew so his gen could be relied on for anything religious or political.

Dolly Grey loitered outside the art room looking for boys he could enshroud for a few happy moments under his gown. He wasn't the only one who usually wore one. Some found them useful as a duster, especially Shaw who often threw the wooden one with the felt strip at someone early in the lesson. The only wartime recruit who never wore one was old Sparrow. Swift reckoned he wasn't entitled, having failed School Cert at some agricultural college in 1820. He was always in a country bumpkin's suit with bulgy pockets, a fishing hat with feathers in the band and sometimes muddy Wellingtons. On one occasion he'd passed his jacket round the class so they could all experience the fragrance of Harris Tweed. The first four bods had done a brilliant swoon, falling off their desks and lying like gassed Tommies; others had rushed to open windows, shouting for air like Ralph Richardson dying of thirst in ‘
Four Feathers
'; that oik Cox had made farting and plopping sounds, which earned the contempt of Theo's gang but a few sissies laughed for fear they'd be beaten up if they didn't. Theo was the first to put on his gas-mask. Then everyone did the same and, when old Artie Shaw came in to read out a message about choir practice, he found old Sparrow waffling away about tadpoles to what-looked-like an invasion of thirty Martians. The bakelite eye-pieces soon misted over unless you smeared on some of the grease his dad said was a very good line, selling even better than the stuff you painted on windows to stop the glass being smashed by blast. Artie said nothing at the time, so as not to shame old Birdie Sparrow, but later on he kept the whole class in till five and Theo missed seeing Margo Carpenter on the 21.

The usual confusion was under way when they reached the lecture theatre where they had double Biology. This whole scientific corner of school stank like the men's bog in St. Andrew's Park or the bathroom at Villa Borghese after anyone old had been in there, and then you knew one of the classes had been doing the experiment with copper sulphate and iron filings. From the teacher's wide desk or table with its bunsen burner and sink, fifteen benches rose steeply to the back where a magic lantern was locked inside a box that reminded Theo of the one that held the projector he'd carried through the library when he'd first had the jack for Hazel.

To one side of the desk a life-size skeleton was suspended on a stand. Through the glass fronts of cupboards could be seen jars, retorts and stuffed rodents. Above the blackboard, which was hinged like the pages of a book, hung a panorama of the night sky. The first arrivals grabbed coloured chalk and drew a load of birds, like ostriches, penguins and pterodactyls, with ‘Bird' in French, German, Latin and Greek. A few were rummaging through the desk-drawer or trying to prise open the locked cases. Theo and Inky found places in the back row. At the end of term this room would become for one glorious hour the theatre for Theo's sketches and impressions, a twenty minute show that had to be given a second house at once to meet popular demand. So far his shows had been mostly polite and affectionate. By the time he left, at seventeen, honed by maturity, they'd have become scurrilous.

A look-out ran in from the corridor.

“Cavee Sparrow!”

The sketch-artists finished off their work while everyone found a place to sit. Twittering bird-song began at the rear and grew to a chorus. Late as usual from committing some criminal outrage, Cox came in and was cheered. He gave the two-finger V-sign and, seeing Jake, made for his bench and grabbed him by one arm.

“Shut it, Cox!”

“Okay, now who's brainless?”

“I never said you were. I said brawny.”

“That's the same to thee, innit ?'

Jake was twisted till he had to go down on the floor between their bench and the back of the one in front.

“Let him go, Cox.”

“You bloody keep out of it, see, Light, or I'll bloody do thee and all.”

He was fighting off Theo with his spare arm as Sparrow entered the room.

“Morning, boys.”

“Afternoon, sir.”

“So it is.”

Each one specialised in a different bird. Hoots, fluting songs, caws, cock-crows and quacks filled the room as the teacher closed the door to keep the sound from disturbing nearby classes.

“Yes, yes, alright. I think we can safely take it my name's Sparrow. Joke over, yes? Now – the register. Right – answer your names. Alexander?”

Old Alexander did his brilliant trilling whistle like a blackbird.

“Do I take it that means you've perched here for awhile in the course of your long migration and want to be ticked?”

He read the register as far as Swift.

“Sir!” answered Theo, as Jake was still kept on the floor by Cox.

“Ooo – Sir!”

“What is it, Cox?”

“Swift's not a Jewish name, is it?”

“Better ask your Classics teacher.”

“So why is Swift a Jew?”

“Is he? Are you, boy?”

“Yessir,” said Theo in Jake's voice.

“We've seen him in gym, sir. His whatdyoucallit's got a bit missing, sir, more like a knob.”

“Ah well. Circumcision is not confined strictly to our Hebrew friends, is it, Swift?”

“No, sir,” said Theo.

“Which is where Friend Hitler's had a little trouble trying to sort the sheep from the goats. Did Swift answer his name ?”

“Let him up,” Theo whispered, trying to free Jake by wrestling Cox's right arm but Cox was stronger.

“Sir!” called Theo and did Jake's well-known hen-laying-an-egg to prove authenticity.

“Thank you.”

There was never any question. You never sneaked, even on a dirty filthy schweinhund like Cox. Theo had often wondered why. Someone had said something about not letting your side down. Even if you hated someone and knew he was wrong and everyone agreed, you never ratted. It was one of the rules of war. You held out even under Gestapo torture. He had a brief flash of Miss Poland's proud breasts as she refused to betray her comrades. But, leaving out the big war outside, there was the little one here where the enemy was the staff, even though you liked one or two of them. You could probably even get to like Germans if you knew any. But Theo felt he wouldn't hold out long before he betrayed Cox and hoped Cox would give in even sooner, grovelling on the floor to his persecutors like James Cagney at the end of ‘
Angels With Dirty Faces'.
Somehow he couldn't quite believe he would, more likely be a hero. He was just that sort.

After calling the roll, Birdie cleaned the blackboard of its aviary to a chorus of boos and cries of ‘Oh, Sir!'.

“And, by the way, whoever drew that cock should check the real thing more carefully next time.”

Instant uproar told him what he'd said. By the time he'd restored some sort of order, most of the thirty were limp from laughter. He half-filled the sink.

“Sir, pterodactyls were dinosaurs, weren't they, sir, not birds?”

“Same thing, son. The only dinosaurs still with us are the birds. Today, however, we're on amphibians.”

Sparrow wrote the word.

“And one in particular.”

He added the word ‘axolotl', turned to the desk, reached into his pocket and brought out a live newt about six inches long and let it make its slimy way across the desk before flopping into the sinkful of water.

A brief description of the Mexican salamander followed while Sparrow took a hard-boiled egg from his other pocket, sprinkled it with sodium chloride from the drawer and took a bite.

“Make that one more hard-boiled egg!” Theo gabbled as Groucho and, when Jake honked from under the desk, “and one duck-egg.”

“Settle down,” said Birdie. The axolotl, he explained for the umpteenth time, was a thoroughly bad example to chaps of their age. Why, anyone?

Sir! Because he's sexually premature, Sir.

And?

And remains capable of reproducing his own kind till the end of his life.

Then, with a comprehensive glance at the class, “God forbid, eh, Swift?”

“Yessir!” shouted Theo in Jake's voice.

“Sir, shouldn't you be finding him a mate?” another bod suggested.

“I've got one on order. Then there'll be some fun and games, eh?”

As he settled with the rest to sketch a frog's anatomy, Theo wondered if he himself was sexually premature. He reckoned only one other bod in the class had done what he had and that was Coxie who might just have shagged one of those common tarts who hung about the fish market in turbans and snoods, rubber boots and aprons, smoking and jeering at anyone who passed by. But even that wasn't certain. The marvel of Hazel was that she'd made it so easy.