Pure as the Lily (23 page)

“We’ll get in the front way.

Your wife will let you in. Even if they’ve closed the door, she’ll. she’ll open it. “ Hobbling still, and his teeth now rattling like castanets, he stumbled towards the end of the lane, and round the corner, and his feet had just touched the smooth ice coldness of the pavement when the light flashed over them.

“Well! an’ what do you think you’re up to? What’s this?” The light showed the constable a man, naked except for a pyjama jacket, and a woman in a skin-tight dress with a low neck, a blonde.

“What do you think you’re up to?”

“It’s all right, con ... constable, the ... the back door was locked, we couldn’t get in.” Lally was gabbling.

“How did you get out?” He was addressing Jimmy now. You’ve forgotten something, haven’t you?

What’s your name? “

“I tell you it’s all right, constable.” Lally’s voice was high, and there was a note of fear in it.

“I’m speaking to him. What’s your name?”

Jimmy couldn’t answer for a moment because of his chattering teeth, and then he said, “Look, they were having a prac ... practical joke.”

“A practical joke! What kind of a practical joke? A naked man and a woman in the street at this time of the morning! Where’s the practical jokers? I can’t see any.” He swept the torch from one side of the road to the other.

“What’s your name?”

Oh! dear God. Oh! dear, dear God. There was a voice crying from the depths of him, as if in prayer, for help out of this situation. He stammered again: “It’s ... all a mis ... mistake... con ... constable, they...

“ Stop warning. What’s your name? “

“Wal ... Walton.”

“Where do you live?”

“Sev ... seventeen Haydon ... this street.”

“Well, we’ll go to number seventeen.”

The door into the hall was open but the doors on each side were closed. Jimmy went to turn the knob of his door and found it locked and he shook it vigorously, angrily. And now he yelled on a stammer:

“Be ... Betty! Betty! Op ... open the door, Betty.”

“I... I live across there.” Lally was pointing now “Oh yes!” said the policeman.

“Yes!” she barked back at him now, then went and tried the door. But this, too, was locked; and now she was yelling. ‘you, Albert! you, Albert! you rotten swine you! open the door. “ But still there was no sound, not even a drunken giggle. Then she turned and looked at the policeman in a sort of mute desperation.

Suddenly Jimmy’s door was opened and there stood Betty in a dressing-gown, and when she saw her husband trying vainly to hide his nakedness she gave a girlish gasp as if she had never seen him bare before, and she cried plaintively, Oh! Oh! “

‘you know this man. Missis? “

“Know this man!” She turned her head to the side as Jimmy pushed past her and went into the house.

“Can you account for him being in the street naked at this hour of morning?”

“No, I can’t.” She now glared across the dim hall towards Lally.

“Nor can I account for her being with him.”

So that’s how it was.

“May I come in a minute, Missis?”

Betty’s head rolled from one side to the other, but before she could speak Jimmy was back at the door buttoning up a pair of trousers, and he barked now, “No, you can’t come in for a minute. Whatever details you want you can have here. My name’s Jimmy Walton; you know my address; you know how you found me, so make what you like out of that.

Get inside! “ He turned and thrust Betty into the room; then, with the door in his hand, he pointed to his bleeding nose and i73

cheek, and his scraped feet, and said, “I’ve been having fun, look. I was stripped and put in a dustbin and rolled down the back lane. Put that down in your little book. You won’t believe it, but put it down because that’s my story.” And at this, he banged the door in the policeman’s face, and the policeman turned to the blonde woman standing leaning against the door as if she were half drunk, and said, “And what have you to say to all this?” And her defiant answer was, “Just what he said word for word.”
Chapter Six

it caused a great laugh; after the horror of the bombing such an incident was welcome. The poor fellow was unlucky; it said so in the papers. He wasn’t accident prone, he was just dirty-trick prone. This was the same man, it was said, who had been brought up and bound over for leading half the populace of Shields in a dance round the Market Square to the strains of the Salvation Army band just before Christmas. Now the poor fellow, through no fault of his own, gets caught naked in the street. He had got up at half past three in the morning to quieten a party that was going on in the flat opposite and the revellers had taken him out, stripped him, put him in a dustbin and rolled him down the back lane. Now that kind of trick could be done on a young lad, but when you do it on a six-foot-three man there’s bits of him bound to protrude, and Mr. Walton’s protrusions had become very sore points for days the reporter had a great sense of humour.

Although the incident was very funny, the reporter went on to say it might have been less funny for Mr.

Walton, who it must be remembered

was bound over to keep the peace for twelve months, if it hadn’t have been for Mr. Barney Skel—ton, who had taken part in the practical joke. They were all a bit tight and it had just been done for a bit of fun, nobody had anything against Mr.

Walton. Mr. Skelton had pressed that Mr. Walton was a decent chap, he was sorry for what had happened and yes, it was true they had locked the back door and locked Mrs. Briggs out of her front door as well.

The magistrate had commented that he considered the members of the party had a warped sense of humour and he thought it was a pity that the old rule ‘an eye for an eye’ did not still maintain. He wondered how Mr. Skelton and his friends would like to be put naked in dustbins and rolled down a cobbled back lane at four o’clock on a winter’s morning. And did Mr. Skelton and his friends realize that there was still a war on, and did they, the magistrate had asked pointedly, stay away from work the following day because they had thick heads? It was a great pity, he considered, that the men concerned weren’t in the armed forces; men were dying at the present moment for people like them.

When Barney Skelton had come out of the court room he had said to anyone who had a mind to listen

“That’s what you get for doing the right thing; I was the only bloody fool who came forward....” The Headmaster could do little about this. He did not send for Jimmy but Jimmy was aware it was another black mark against him. The effect of the practical joke on him had been much worse than the business of the Market Place. He had come out of that affair with some dignity, at least he hadn’t been aware of the entire loss of it, but now he felt a butt, a fool; he knew if he had any gumption he’d pack up and leave.

But where would he go? There wasn’t a place in England where he could go these days and not be traced through either his identity card or ration book. Oh yes, if it was the last thing she did she would trace him and make him keep her. The only solace he had was Mary. No, that wasn’t true; there was one other that could be of solace to him, great solace. But he couldn’t go to her; as much as he wanted he couldn’t go to her. Funny how you got to like people, and from liking to loving them; the most unusual people, people who weren’t your type, so others would say.

When he went along to Mary’s he said airily, “Well, seen the papers?” and for answer she said, “Oh Jimmy! Poor Jimmy!”

“Aye, poor Jimmy.”

She stared at him lovingly and said quietly. You know, when the war’s over you want to get yourself away from here; you want to go far away. “

“Not a bad idea,” he said.

She looked out of the kitchen window on to the roof tops opposite, where the slates were of different shades showing the patchwork after blast damage, and she muttered, “That’s what I want to do, get miles and miles away.” She turned her tear-washed eyes on him now and said, “Your da’s in the front room, go and have a word with him.”

“How is he?”

“Oh, just the same. He’s like a child; so grateful for what you do, it hurts. Remember when he used to take me to the allotment from when I was small. It was like having little holidays to escape to the allotment; and it’s odd, but in a way I feel I’m back in those days, except that ... that the tables are turned. You know what I mean? It’s me taking him by the hand now.”

“He’ll likely pull himself together now he’s with you.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Are you keeping him for good?”

“What can I do, where else can he go?”

“Aye. Yes, that’s the question, where can he go? It’s going to be hard on you.”

“I don’t mind.”

She said she didn’t mind, and for most of the time she didn’t, but there were moments when she could see herself going right down the years burdened with one after the other of them. She wouldn’t mind anything if only she had Ben back. Oh, if only she had Ben back, She was so lonely, lost, empty without Ben. Ben. Ben. Oh Ben.

Jimmy was saying, “I know how me da feels, as never before I know how he feels, because, like him, I’ve been stripped of dignity. I remember when I was about thirteen seeming to see him for the first time. He was standing at the corner with a bunch of other men and I thought, He’s humpty-backed, grey, skinny, and I felt ashamed of him. But just for a moment, for then I realized that all the others were stooped, grey and skinny, and they all had their hands in their pockets. I started to look at the men after that. There were groups at every corner and they all looked alike and they all lacked one thing. I couldn’t put a name to it then, but it was dignity. That’s what they lacked, dignity. Some of them have regained it, since the war gave them work, but not me da. And so I know how he feels.” Don’t talk so, Jimmy. Look, pull yourself together, face up to it. You were the victim of a joke; nobody’s going to think the worse of you for that. “

“No, no,” he said; ‘they won’t think the worse of me, they’ll only see me with me pants off; particularly five hundred pairs of young eyes in the school hall looking at Lanky Walton with his pants off. “ He turned from her and went into the sitting-room.

She looked out of the window again and startled herself when she whispered, I will! I will! As soon as the war’s over I’ll get away, just Annie and me. I’ll put me da in a nice little house, and Cousin Anniewith him. They could look after each other for a time. And I’ll travel, and perhaps I’ll see some part of the country I’d like to settle in, some place softer, less harsh, where I wouldn’t have to look out on roof tops.

The door opened and Cousin Annie came in. She was limping more than usual and she flopped on to a chair, saying, “Oh, me leg’s playing me up. They said I’d have to have the hip joint seen to, and it’ll likely come to that in the end. I would have had it done ages ago only I was afraid it would stop me walking altogether. But I’ve got to face up to that I suppose. Are you making a cup of tea, lass?” ia i77

“Yes,” said Mary.

“Yes, I’m making a cup of tea.”

“And I’ll have a scone and butter,” said Cousin Annie.

“We’ll have marge the day,” said Mary.

If an unexploded bomb had dropped in the kitchen Cousin Annie couldn’t have looked more startled.

“Why?” she demanded, her small body bristling.

“Because, Annie, it’s about time we did.”

“Time we did?” queried Cousin Annie.

“But you’re not short of butter?”

“No, but we should be. We should just get our rations like everybody else.”

“Oh!” Cousin Annie wagged her head.

“It’s going to be like that now, is it?”

“Yes, Annie, it’s going to be like that.”

Mary hadn’t known when she would make the stand about the rations, but ever since her particular bomb had dropped, she had as it were, become conscious that there was a war on. Itwas 1944 and she hadn’t really felt the war up till now. It had laid waste various parts of the town but had caused them nothing but inconvenience, such as blackouts and working late at night with coupons. It had, on the other hand, made them quite a bit of money even with the restrictions on foodstuffs; as for their table it had been no different from what it had been in 1939.

Her new moral outlook was going to make her very unpopular, she knew that. Mr. Gregson would cut down her meat. Well, let him. And then there were the clothing coupons. Well, she could do without those.

They would say she was turning into a holy Joe. They’d have to say that.

It wasn’t only the day or yesterday that she had been vitally aware that there was too much fiddling going on, but she hadn’t been able to do much about it because they were doing their share of it. Now, however, she felt forced to take a stand. She couldn’t really explain why except that in a minute way it would help to get back at those who had killed I lie four people dearest to her.

Cousin Annie was hobbling from the room as she said, “It’s going to be a poor look-out for the lot of us if you’re going to turn sanctimonious. I would have thought you could have put your mind to better ends. “

She mashed the tea and ignored the remark; then went down the stairs, across the yard and into the shop, and there, calling Teresa into the storeroom, she said, “I’ve made a cup of tea. Go up and get it; I’ll see to things. And by the way, Teresa, in future just weigh up Mr.

Gregson his rations. That also includes the Richardsons, the Browns and the Gonnellys; if they want any explanations tell them that’s your orders and to come to me. “ Teresa screwed up her eyes and looked at Mrs. Tollett, but she didn’t immediately say anything, she just thought her employer must be going a bit funny, the bombing business had turned her head. Then she muttered, “As you say, Mrs. Tollett, as you say.”

Mary had been serving in the shop for about five minutes when the door opened and a tall man entered.

She hadn’t put the light on yet and the shop was dim with the blackout covering most of the windows, but she sensed he wasn’t one of the regular customers. When he stepped further into the shop she saw it was Hughie Amesden.