Love Fifteen (8 page)

BOOK: Love Fifteen
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“Real little boy scout.”

“No, I was a cub but never took to it… What d'you mean?”

“Being prepared.”

He must not tell her he'd actually been prepared for Margo Carpenter. In the half-dark, he blushed at the memory, then smiled. He was pretty sure
she
was still a virgin. Next time he'd ask for a half fare in a loud clear voice and give her a knowing grin. Silly kid.

There seemed to be no after-effects of this momentous event, only a slight odour like mushrooms and a stickiness down there.

“Have you got a baby?”

“Can you see one?”

“I thought it might be somewhere else. Such as with your parents?”

She shook her head.

“How long does it take to have one?”

“Don't teach you much at that expensive school, do they? Not about the Slave Trade, no, and not about babies.”

He knew the answer was roughly a year but had thought this a polite way of asking how long Geoff had been away. About eight months, she said, since his embarkation leave. In other words, she'd have known some months ago if she
was
expecting.

He crawled on all-fours to his sports coat and returned with the crumpled Gold Flake packet. They shared the last, sitting with backs against the wall while a new fall of fire-bombs was signalled by the ack-ack that was trying to see the bombers off.

He tried Kay's trick with the smoke she'd done in the Regent café but it went the wrong way and brought on a bout of coughing. Gin, sex and tobacco. Not to mention all that going on outside. He wished he'd kept up the diary he'd dropped in February, like he did every year from having nothing to write down.

A five-star day by any standards.

*

Part of the time they talked. Or she did and he listened. Starting with Free Love, she explained that only when life's resources were shared could a decent world be achieved. And people were the most valuable resource of all. Love must be freed from the false values that had in the past turned so much marriage into legalised prostitution. She took Geoff's photo and kissed it, telling Theo how much he'd taught her. His clear vision of the future was of a world without class, a society where the wealthy had to be saved from their own cruelty, by force if necessary. Apart from being unfair, inequality was stupid and wasteful. But the people who had the least to lose and most to gain were still scared to change things. Working people got the smallest share of what their labour created. Theo said it sounded a helluva lot like Capra except that the people in his films mostly didn't work and were all pretty crazy. But no, she told him, that was only democratic anarchism based on economic privilege. Heaven on earth could only be achieved through Communism, ultimate liberty only through initial discipline, such as this war was now imposing even on the better-off. Or at any rate those who hadn't bolted to America. Hollywood, she said, offered an illusion of liberty. It was Bakunin to the real promise of Marx. Theo inevitably gabbled some dialogue from Groucho and she patiently waited and smiled and explained about Karl, who was the greatest mind of modern times, along with Freud who had freed us from the sexual fetters of the past. And they were both Jews and so was Groucho and that was reason enough for this war, even though Churchill didn't care about that and was probably an anti-Semite himself. So what exactly, Theo wanted to know, was an anti-Semite?

EIGHT

Fred drove him to school next morning so Theo missed his chance to gloat over Margot Carpenter's virginity. Kay stayed home to comfort Rose. Today no forged excuse-note was needed. When Fred gave a lift to two middle-aged crones queueing for the 21, he saw there was a new excitement about these familiar figures. After years of living death, they were almost skittish, animated by the raid, telling stories of
their
blitz. Fred told his too, how last night he'd helped prevent the spread of fires from a local car showroom and Salvation Army drill hall that had been hit by sticks of incendiaries. And when he'd at last reached home after the midnight all-clear, Rose had made him get out the Morris from the garage and drive down to the poor streets to see if Grandma Tilda's house was one of the fires that had lit the sky. Several streets around hers had burned and she was frightened but unhurt, seeing out the raid with her sister's family of two lugubrious daughters, a brother-in-law and simple-minded son Stan. Theo whiled away family visits to their house by noting the way they spoke their predictable opinions in unison like a chorus from that Greek play the swots of 6A had done once in the Victoria Rooms. The Great War, his aunts had chanted, at least stayed abroad where it belonged. If Tilda's two boys had survived the Somme, they'd be wondering whatever they'd given their lives for. Fred listened, nodded and refrained from pointing out the illogicality of this, consoled them, looked at his watch and left to drive farther into town, partly to see the destruction, also on the chance of meeting his son who'd had to shelter in some teacher's place.

The phones were cut off, power lines broken, so Theo was walking home, a bit surprised to find so many streets untouched, and came upon Fred and the Morris where Jamaica Street joins Stokes Croft. Wartime policemen turned them back from the part that had caught the worst, by which time they'd both seen enough anyway. When they reached home, a neighbour, excited beyond control, shouted that there wasn't one stone left standing on another in the city centre.

“Really?” Fred said.” That's strange because my son got caught after attending a meeting at the Central Library and had to spend much of the night there and what d'you say it's like, son?”

“Quite bad but mostly fires, at least that I could see.”

“So you'd say from your personal observations that stones do still stand one upon another, given that there have been few high-explosive bombs and that fires alone consume only wood and furniture and do not send stone walls flying?”

“Alright,” the neighbour broke in, “I was only reporting what I heard.”

“Careless talk costs lives,” Fred said.” It's just that sort of wild surmise that undermines morale. We get enough of that with German radio.”

In the usual way Theo would have inwardly groaned at the self-righteousness but today he was glad to see the neighbour so put down. Overnight Theo had grown a good deal closer to his Dad and felt he was about to join the men. Or had already.

By daylight the damage was disappointing. Only a few gutted smouldering houses between Villa Borghese and the corner of Elmdale where Fred dropped him later on, before driving off to his week of merchandising in South Wales. At the last moment, as Theo pushed the chromium handle to open the passenger door, Fred put a hand on his flannelled knee.

“While I'm away, son, look after your mother and sister,” he asked him, “soothe their nerves if there's any more bombing. It's not very nice my having to go away and leave them but this is my way of doing my bit while others are giving so much more.”

Theo had become the man of the family, a moment of self-regard that faded when he imagined trying to impose his will on Rose or Kay. Both had been singing over breakfast about the last time they saw Paris. The shameful lack of air raids was a thing of the past. Perhaps now, Mum told Kay, those blessed Cockneys would stop boasting about their blessed blitz and saying the Lights were lucky to live in a safe area.

As Fred drove off, dropping Theo near school, his son ran the few yards down to the main road to check Broadcasting House. No damage there either, he was glad to find, so his favourite shows would still go out. Back at the corner, he met Inky, climbed on to his bike and sat balancing on his crossbar. Inky purposely teetered, twisting the front wheel, doing the sound-track screech of cornering tyres.

“Hey, man, the Quasis aren't half funny today,” Theo said, then in the neighbour's voice: “They reckon the whawl city's like it was after the San Franciscawl earthquake, theest know.”

“From what I yeared,” Inky said in this mode, “it bissn't there at all no more.”

“What, hawl burnt down?”

“No. Disappeared in a huge crater. An enormous hawll.”

They normally spoke, like everyone in the city, in a local accent noticeable to strangers but they were also objective, somewhat apart, aware like people from elsewhere – of the difference between Hall, Whole and Hole.

“What, the hall place?”

“Gone!”

“In a hall?”

“H'all that's left is a youge hall.”

Though enjoying this routine as much as always, Theo longed to boast about last night but Hazel had left him in no doubt how serious it would be for them both if anyone knew. Especially for her. Not only would she never be able to teach again but would probably go to jail for corrupting a minor and get reported in
News of the World
. That's what Society was like, a long way yet from the perfect selfless harmony of share-and-share-alike. She made him swear not to tell a soul. So Inky was only told, as the family was, that he'd been caught in town and taken refuge with an old teacher who wore glasses.

The air smelt charred and black fragments floated high on warm currents. Thin smoke drifted against the grey November sky. Word was passed back through the tide of boys making one way along Elmdale that these promising signs came from the school itself. Those in front hurried for their first glimpse of the burnt-out wreckage. Inky straightened the handlebar and pedalled hard.

“It's a pile of ashes… ruined…” said Rumour in the form of other boys, even a few titches.

“What, even the Great Hall?”

Despite themselves, Theo and Inky felt this must be true. What other building thereabouts was big enough to cause such smoke and floating ash? Long before they reached the crossroads they saw hoses rising from holes in the road, entwined like boa constrictors among black standing pools and burnt timbers. Some scorched desks and benches had been dragged clear. Firefighters with sooty faces were drinking tea.

Word came back from the first arrivals, before they saw the awful truth for themselves, “the prep!… only the prep's gone…” and soon they saw the gutted junior school, roof caved in, walls charred but standing, empty holes that had been pointy windows. And beyond it, higher up the slope, huge and unscathed, the main building. A chorus of lamentation swelled as the arriving seniors took this in and trudged towards the gates. Theo groaned as loud as any and, though it
was
disappointing up to a point, he hid a feeling of relief. A new school in another place would have been too great a change, along with all the others he had to somehow cope with. He'd agreed with Hazel that life now was about alteration. Still, he'd had more than enough for the time being.

Wardens and firemen shouted at the boys not to stand or jump on the hoses or otherwise interfere. Don't, don't, don't. Couldn't they see all that No Trespassers stuff was done with now? Things To Come were already here.

Across the tarmacked playground Sergeant's voice yelled: “Light! Hands in pockets again? You'll be going blind. Pity you can't find some other sport but pocket billiards to amuse yourself with, you horrible object, what are you?”

“Horrible object, Sarge.”

So they'd all be pretending nothing had happened. Business as usual. We can take it. Turnip Townshend. The War of Jenkins' Ear. The Treaty of Tilsit.

Some teachers who'd been his masters (and mistresses) in the distant past were marshalling titchy prep kids like confused sheep into files near the bike-sheds.

“God, what hell, man!” Inky said, as he wheeled his Raleigh forward, “look, my kid brother! Jammy wretch. Might get off school for the rest of the war.”

“Bet you he won't. Old Hines and his lot will have to find somewhere to put them. Up here probably.”

“Oh, no, man!”

“Bet you they will.”

“Anything but that!” Inky moaned, abjectly slumping over his handlebars, “I can't stand it, I tell you!”

“For God's sake, man, pull yourself together,” Theo told him between clenched teeth, “don't you think we all feel like that sometimes? Don't you think we all long for it to end? But you've taken the King's shilling and now you're blubbing like a damn girl. Pretty rotten sort of bargain, wouldn't you say ?”

“Sah!”

Inky straightened up and made off to the bike-sheds, Theo to the main door where Sergeant stood, short cane twitching, eyes on stalks, ready to erupt into an earthquake of offence whenever some oik broke one of his crazy rules.

“Sarge, those prep titches aren't coming here, are they?”

“Ask no questions you'll be told no lies.”

“So you don't know? Nobody's told you ?”

“Where d'you expect them to go now their school's burnt down? And I seem to recall it's not that long since you yourself were a prep school titch with a little voice all up there somewhere. Just because it's dropped a bit, along with one or two other things –”

“Two, Sarge-”

“-doesn't mean you're a great big man –”

“Oh, aren't I?” he thought but didn't say, only dodging the cane that was aimed vaguely at his behind in passing.

“Through the night of doubt and sorrow

Onward goes the pilgrim band,

Singing songs of expectation

Marching to the promised land.”

Theo tried singing an octave lower but had to compromise in harmonic growls, while far above piped the titches in timid treble, awed by the vast hall, the thundering of Artie's diapason and the baritone roar of about nine hundred seniors.

“Clear before us through the darkness

Gleams and burns the guiding light;

Brother clasps the hand of brother,”

– and Inky did his Dracula-with-the-garlic face across at him at the very thought of clasping his own titch's snotty mitt-

“Stepping fearless through the night.”

A good few hadn't been there at register. Jimmie said many bus-services were disrupted and some families in the city and outside may have been bombed out so numbers would be depleted for a day or two. At prayers, Hines had asked them all to close up, making room in the hall for the titches to sit in rows right in front, near the swots, and the smallest of all, eight-year-olds like Inky's 's kid, sat cross-legged on the floor looking at Hines as if he was old Charles Laughton doing Captain Bligh.

“The morning's hymn was chosen with the past hours in mind. For have not we all come through a night of doubt and sorrow? Not merely those of us here assembled but all our fellow townspeople, many of whom will have lost their homes in last night's heinous atrocities. These younger boys ranged before me are themselves without a school. Let us hasten to console them: room will be found. They will be housed here among us as a mere expedient until some other recourse be arrived at.”

Heinous atrocities, expedient, recourse, wrote Theo in the margin beside Hymn 678.

Hines turned his gaze on the juniors.

“Expedient,” he went on, “means For The Time Being or Not For Long.”

The swots responded with their usual audible smirk but the head was in solemn mood and frowned them to silence. He settled into his own version of Their Finest Hour and how long would be the journey ahead but that right would prevail, meaning ‘our side will win the war', which none of them ever doubted anyway.

Theo stared up into the hammer-beams as Quasimodo nimbly scrambled to his favourite spot above the dais. He pulled back his filthy tights, positioned his hairy arse, studded with dried clinkers, and dropped his load, a direct hit on Hines's forehead and, like Alfred the city's famous turd-hurling gorilla, gave a satisfied grunt and scampered off.

Theo turned from that to work his flickergraph and saw the bod in grey flannels safely climb the ravine's cliffside, reaching the scantily-clad Maureen O'Sullivan, taking her in his arms. Only a few days ago he hadn't known what would happen next, what the bod did when he'd taken off her tunic of animal hides to reveal her own soft flesh beneath. He had no intention of trying to complete the sequence. His drawing wasn't up to it, for one thing. If he tried, the marvellous treat he and Hazel had given each other four times between alert and all-clear would at best resemble gymnastics. More likely a plate of toad-in-the-hole. He longed to do it all again tonight but she'd said no, he must stay away, unless he wanted them to be found out. They couldn't afford to take chances, Society being what it was. Society to Hazel was like God was to people like Hines, a reason for everything. Yet her idea wasn't submission but change. As the hymn reckoned, the object of our journey, the faith which never tires, brightened all the path we tread.

He longed to tell Sister Kay that he'd come of age. And Inky Black, Swiftie, Margo Carpenter and, most of all her accomplice Gale Sondergaard the conductress on the bus… anyone who'd listen. But he felt even deeper pleasure in
not
telling. He saw now why everyone reckoned those braggers like Coxie were probably liars too. But how long could he wait before he was with her again? Tomorrow night? Two days? Hell's tool, man!

“Oh, God, our help in ages past” followed Hines's speech. Rose would have called this dirge ‘cheerful'. Anything to do with hymns or church brought the sort of shudder she gave to spiders in the bath or a mouse in the larder. Theo changed the course of his thoughts, hoping his jack would soon go down, reflecting that at least he always enjoyed the hymn-singing. Not exactly real music of Dad's sort, but – like jazz – a terrific noise. If the bombs had fallen here, a hundred yards from the prep, there'd have been no more of that, the great echo-chamber and its beamed roof would have gone, along with old Artie's thunderous organ. Or perhaps those firemen and volunteers had let the prep burn so as to save this one? Had they stood in a phalanx between the two, hoses ready to put out fires that started near the big school ? That sort of choice would have to be made now that so much was going up in smoke. Every building and every person couldn't be saved. But old Hines's sermons would never admit that.

BOOK: Love Fifteen
11.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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