Miss Purdy's Class (48 page)

‘Cup of tea?’ Lily said after a while, about to move away.

‘Yes – I’d love one. But I wanted to ask you – have you heard anything more about that boy – Joey Phillips?’

Lily bit her lower lip and shook her head. ‘No. Poor little scrap. That was a very sad case.’

Gwen had moved out of Millie and Lance’s flat at the beginning of September. Ariadne welcomed her back with enthusiasm, a newly repainted room and a meal which was almost edible and which they ate alone because, Ariadne said, ‘that young trollop’ upstairs had announced she wasn’t eating any more meals in the house because – and here Ariadne almost pulsated with affrontery – the food was only fit for the pig bin!

‘Oh dear, what an awful thing to say,’ Gwen said, trying to suppress the powerful sense of fellow-feeling she suddenly developed with the hip-wiggling Miss Hines.

‘No gratitude or consideration,’ Ariadne said. But she gave a genuine smile at Gwen across the singular stew they were eating. ‘But it’s lovely to have
you
back. Like having a daughter come home, almost, dear!’

Gwen was startled at this, but also touched. Never could she have imagined anyone less like her own mother, but she knew Ariadne was genuinely pleased to see her.

‘Thank you for making my room look so nice,’ she said. Ariadne had had it painted a pretty shade of green, and had hung new curtains at the window.

‘Well, it was getting so shabby. I thought it would brighten life up for you.’

Gwen hadn’t been quite sure whether Ariadne was pleased or disappointed when she told her that Daniel had turned out not to have betrayed her after all and that they were as close as ever. Ariadne didn’t say much, but gave her a look as if to say, ‘You just wait.’ But she had said she was glad Gwen was happy and indicated that a blind eye would be turned to Daniel visiting the house.

Those early weeks of the Michaelmas term were very happy ones for Gwen. She was busy at school and spent spare time when she could in the evenings and at the weekend working for the party, which was also a way of seeing Daniel. He barely ever stopped, but in the snatched times they did have together things felt good between them.

One night in late September they were walking, arms wrapped round each other, through the smoky evening. There was a nip in the air.

‘They’re closing the parks early now,’ Daniel was complaining. ‘Means we can’t stay on late of a weekend. We’re having to have meetings on street corners, village greens and all that. Bit of a pity.’

‘Never mind – it’s going well.’ Gwen squeezed his arm. ‘Think how many copies of the
Worker
we’ve sold already this month!’

‘Any chance of smuggling a few into the school?’ Daniel asked, teasing.

‘Oh, I don’t think so. There’s a couple would be sympathetic – to some of the others it’d be a proper red rag to a bull!’

Daniel shook his head, as if unable to understand anyone who was not a Communist.

‘I had another letter from Billy today,’ Gwen said. ‘He’s already read
Les Misérables
and was pleased to get the other books I sent. He writes a good letter.’ Despite his confined life, Billy wrote fluently and Gwen had found herself laughing at some of the descriptions of life in Aberglyn perceived from Billy’s wheelchair.

‘He’s a gifted lad,’ Daniel said wistfully.

‘Perhaps he should be writing stories himself?’

‘Well – you suggest it. It’d come better from a woman.’

‘Why?’ Gwen laughed.

‘Well, not very manly, is it?’

‘But Billy can’t do man’s work!’

‘You suggest it, anyway.’

‘I will!’ she said. ‘Honestly, I’ve never heard anything so daft.’

‘I must get down there,’ Daniel said. ‘There’s so much energy going on Spain now – we’ve got to make sure we keep up our solidarity with the miners instead of leaving them to the struggle on their own.’

‘Are you going to go? Can I come with you?’

Daniel turned to take her in his arms and kissed the side of her neck.

‘Oh, I think I might let you!’

Forty-Four

They were on the road again, between fields where the corn stubble had been burned black and the air smelled of ash. The hedgerows were full of haws and berries and Joey gorged himself from the brambles and damson trees. That day, as they walked, in the red curtain slung over John’s shoulder, were stashed orchard apples and pears. But this was food that did not satisfy for long. It made their stomachs gurgle and churn and turned their bowels to water. Every hour pain clenched Joey’s innards and he had to hurry into a field or wood. He walked mutinously behind John’s black figure. John’s hat was always worn at the same angle, his pace never varied, and he seldom spoke.

Joey didn’t want to be with John. He wanted to be back at Elm Tree Farm. The morning after the fire in the oatfield and the fight with Frank, John woke him long before dawn, shaking him hard.

‘Ow!’ Joey yelped. It was pitch dark.

‘Shurrup!’ He recognized John’s whisper in the darkness. ‘Get up – we’re going.’

‘Where?’

‘Just going – come
on
, will yer?’

Joey could hear from the faint clanking sound that John had their little bundle of belongings already gathered into the curtain.

‘Bring that coat – don’t leave it.’

Joey obeyed automatically. He just went where John went and that was that. He felt round for his boots and pulled them on, shook out the coat, hearing rats scuttle away over the straw, and pushed open the barn door.

There were still stars outside, and the moon, high and thin. As they crossed the dark yard, Molly set up a barking and came running out.

‘Christ,’ John muttered. ‘The hound’ll wake the lot of them. Shurrup, yer fuckin mutt!’

‘Molly!’ Joey called softly to her and she came and nuzzled at his outstretched hand. He stroked her head, fingering the soft spot between her ears. Feelings welled up in him. ‘Can we take her?’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ John said. ‘Another mouth to feed. She won’t come anyhow – she wants to stay here. C’m’ere – get moving.’

‘Where’re we going? I want to stay here.’

John took his arm and dragged him to the farm gate.

‘Bloody get moving!’

Joey did not fully realize then that John was leaving for good, that this was the end of their time at Elm Tree Farm. They walked out as they had walked in and kept moving into a grey, mild day. It was only later, when he was exhausted and hungry, that Joey knew it was all over. He had had a glimpse of wonder and now it was snatched away. On the road into Warwick he flung himself at John’s back, clinging on and kicking him in the backs of the knees, overcome with sobs.

‘I want to go back to the farm! Why’ve we come here? I’m hungry and I hate you. I don’t want to come with you!’

‘Get off, you little fucker!’ John reached round and wrenched him off, dropping the curtain bundle with a clunk as he did so. He seized Joey’s hands. Close up, Joey noticed afresh the matted state of John’s beard. His eyes burned into Joey. They were stony grey.

‘I hate you!’ Joey shouted. ‘I want my dinner!’ All the other things he longed for stayed locked inside him. He had no words for loss, or for safety, comfort, kindness. For the feel of a soft spot between a dog’s ears.

‘There won’t be dinner there no longer soon . . . They’ll finish with us and we’ll be on the road again. And I ent staying with that mad bloody Irish fucker no longer.’ John yanked on Joey’s arms as if there was a switch in them that would silence him. ‘Just shut it. Right?’

In Warwick John used some of their earnings from the farm to put new soles on their boots. Then they left the town again. John didn’t like towns. The boots felt hard and rigid for a time but now they didn’t let so much water in when it rained. The summer was waning, sunlight slanting across the fields onto the red-flecked hedgerows, picking out each fading leaf on the trees. In the morning there were drenching mists and the apples began to fall and rot. Every day they walked. They asked for work at another farm soon after leaving Elm Tree Farm, but the woman there was not round and comforting like Mrs Belcher. She looked thin and crabby.

‘You can collect the eggs today as my boy’s not here. Long as you don’t go stealing them.’ She had a pointed, suspicious-looking nose. ‘Then you can be on your way. I don’t want the likes of you hanging around.’

They collected all the eggs they could find, John slipped four of them into his pockets and the lady gave them half a crown. She looked as if she wanted to search John for stolen eggs, but he was too revolting.

‘Go on now,’ she shooed them. ‘Away from my door. And don’t come back.’

The nights were spent in hedges and haystacks again. The hay was new and sweet smelling. Sometimes Joey asked where they were going, but he never received an answer. Then he stopped caring where they were headed. The days passed.

One evening, at dusk, they were close to the railway. They slid down into a siding where John had spotted an old railway carriage left to rust at the end of the track. They were approaching it, boots crunching on the stones by the edge of the sleepers, when a head appeared through the open door. In the gloom, Joey saw a man in a cap looking down at them. They could see the glow of his cigarette.

‘Looking for a kip?’

John nodded. The man had a rough, gravelly voice.

‘Thought you was trouble for a mo’ there. Who’d come out ’ere poking about I don’t know, but I thought you was it. Come on up – it ain’t bad. Blimey – this is a young nipper you got ’ere. Running away to sea, are you, chum?’

Joey didn’t know what to say so he said nothing.

‘Is it just you here?’ John asked cautiously. John did not trust people.

‘Yep – just me, chum. I ain’t the first to kip down in ’ere but there ain’t no one but myself ’ere now.’

The man was stocky and bandy legged, and rocked from side to side as he walked. His face looked as if he’d had plenty of punches in his time and he had a rough beard. He led them into the first compartment. The seats that were left by the window were in a terrible state and the rest, nearer the door, had all been ripped out leaving only the metal frame.

‘There’s places a-plenty to kip down out the wet. I’ve been ’ere a couple of nights, resting up. I’ll be moving on tomorrow or the next day.’

The man told them his name was Bob Barron and he was from Catford.

‘That’s London to you, chum.’ He laughed with a chesty wheeze and slapped John on the back. John sat woodenly. Joey knew the man had made a mistake. He shouldn’t have touched John. But Bob didn’t seem to notice the hostility of John’s reaction.

‘If we’re careful we can have a little fire this side – no one can see. Got any grub? I’ve got a bit of bread and a couple of eggs . . . There’s a farm over there – easy as winking to get in of a night and get a handful of eggs. Nothing to it. Even got water from the butt . . .’

As Bob and John built the fire, Joey explored the railway carriage. He’d never been on a train before. He forgot his rumbling stomach and sat in the compartment at the far end, where there was a seat on one side, half tilted off the frame. He thought about the noises the trains made as they went across the fields by the farm. He thought about the railway bridge by Ron Parks’s house in Winson Green. He saw Ron’s face suddenly, his black-toothed grin and the classroom, up close, like a picture. Thinking of that gave him feelings, so he got up and ran down the corridor and jumped out into firelight.

‘Where’s the fire?’ Bob asked, then laughed his wheezing laugh. ‘Blimey – look at them.’ His gaze took in Joey’s enormous trousers. ‘Sure they’re big enough for yer?’ When Joey just stared, he said, ‘It was only a joke, chum. Ain’t you got big eyes, an’ all? Like saucers, they are.’

They ate eggs, bread and potatoes and waited an age for the water to boil for tea. Bob had a billycan, which sat well on the fire. Joey saw John staring at it. Bob drank from a bottle of something and passed it to John. The nights were getting cold and Joey pulled the scratchy brown coat round him. Bob tried asking John questions, but didn’t get anywhere until he mentioned that he’d been on the dole and sent to one of the camps to work, which set John off again about the camp in Brechfa, in Wales. Bob was just as scathing about it.

‘The Labour Exchange made us sit through some bleeding picture about going there and what a cushy time we was going to have.
On the Way to Work
, it was called. Right bloody laugh. I ended up digging with a load of blokes – the underground. End of the Piccadilly line. Stuck it for a couple of weeks and I threw my pick down and I was off. Bugger that. I thought I’d be better off on the road – and I have been. Reckon it’s three years now. Got everything I need, I have. Don’t need nobody, me. How long you been on the tramp?’

‘Just lately.’

‘Been in the spikes?’

John shook his head. ‘Not going in them.’

‘Some of them’re not bad. The Sally Ann – alleluia stew and all – better on me own, though, if I can. Some nights though, I’ve been in a spike or two.’

Joey knew John had a horror of the hostels, all of which he regarded as workhouses, offering a roof for the night for work in the morning. He remembered John saying to Christie once, ‘I ent never going in one of them places. They took me mother in one and she never come out.’

‘You want to get kitted up better if you’re staying on the road in the winter,’ Bob said. ‘Need a reefer, mate – that jacket of yours’ll let the cold in. Get some bacon fat on your boots – keep ’em supple . . .’

Joey was beginning to shiver as the two men talked on. The moon was rising. It was almost full, and its light poured down so he could see the railway track and the pewter-coloured fields stretching to their left. He went inside and fell asleep in the third compartment. Next thing he knew, John was shaking him awake again.

‘Don’t make a noise, right? Out of ’ere – now.’

Bob was asleep in the second compartment, snoring gently.

John’s whiskery lips came close to Joey’s ear. ‘Go and get his stuff – that billy of his.’

Joey crept in, stepping round the man’s body. But as he bent over to pick up the billycan, Bob Barron leapt up in a second and was on him. Bob didn’t say a word, but Joey felt himself caught in two immensely strong arms, one round his neck, pulling tighter so he was soon fighting for breath. He struggled frantically, hearing himself gag as the man’s forearm gripped his throat. In those seconds he became aware that John was there in the darkness with them, and there were thudding sounds, blows behind him and a grunt, and at last the arm loosed round his throat. Joey pulled away and heard the man slump down behind him, unconscious from John’s blow. They took Bob’s things: billycan, matches and the rest of the bread, and put them all in the curtain. A few moments later they were up the bank and away across the fields.