Touched by Angels (5 page)

He grinned as he thought of Lenny, Dick and Nigel, who had still been sceptical of his tale, ’til, with a little sadistic glee, he did as promised. He had taken them into the school toilets, and lowered his pants to show them the red welts and purple bruises from Mrs O’Brien’s hairbrush. He could almost hear the gulps of fear.

On their way home, Lenny and Dick had picked another route, rather than pass her house as they usually did, and Nigel had even suggested they get Sergeant Sharp onto the case.

Now, Robert didn’t care a jot, as he sniffed the air again and asked, knowing this sort of fare was a rare luxury, “Where’s Dad?”

“
I don’t know.”

“
Bet he’s in the pub.”

Annoyed at his cheek, but knowing he was probably right, she said nothing for a minute as she started carving, before saying, “I doubt it. He has no money to speak of. Perhaps he reported for work.”

Robert wondered who she was trying to kid, him or herself, as he watched her pouring gravy, while over in the Dog and Duck, Bob looked at the landlord as though he’d come from another planet.

He couldn’t believe his ears. He had refused to serve him.

Ted Baker was a weedy-
looking man, with drooping skin, spaniel eyes and sagging shoulders, but he knew bad money when he saw it. He was one of those men who had the rare gift of knowing how to deal with the likes of Fighting Bob, without shouting, threatening, or ending up on his back, holding his nose.

Six pints of porter
, at sixpence a time, normally comprised six coins in his hand, if they
were
sixpences, or thirty-six at the most, if they were pennies.

By the time a little mountain, mostly of farthings, stood on the bar before him, a process that had caused the activity in the pub to first slow, and then stop, Ted had become suspicious. The rumour had already got round that an unwritten rule had been broken; namely, that an old soldier had been turned over.

A dozen sets of eyes were watching as he got to the seventy-fifth little coin, counting them out quietly, when Ted asked, “Where’d you get this money, Bob?”

“
What d’ya mean?”

“
They’re nearly all farvings.”

“
So?”

He resumed his counting and stopped at eighty-four. “I asked you where you got this money.”

“
Earned it, didn’t I?”

He turned, grinning, but although his chums were anticipating their drinks, none were laughing. Some were looking away, while others were conveniently lighting cigarettes and pipes.

An elderly man at the back, with a brick red face, permanent grin and medals on his chest said, over his pewter tankard and stick, “We all knows where yer fathins ’ail from, young ’un. You go put ’em back, an’ we’ll say n’more.”

He leaned back, nodding earnestly.

There were grunts of agreement all around, so Bob rasped, “I
said
I earned it!”

“
Oh yeah?”
said another voice, “I work in the same factory as you. You been gone this past week an’ more, an’ rumour ’as it yer sacked.”

Murmurs of agreement followed.

Bob looked around, glaring at the obstinate faces. Seeing it was no go, and feeling horribly sober, he rasped, “If you buncha shits ain’t gonna gimme any ale, I’ll find some bastard who can. You can rot in ’ell!”

He swept the coins into the air with his forearm and they tinkled as they fell around like brass confetti.

Somebody mumbled, “Arse
’ole!” as he stormed out, kicking the door open.

It wasn’t until the cigarette smoke was replaced by that of hundreds of coal fires and cold, dank air that the words “Yer sacked!” echoed through his mind.

He thought too of what Lil had warned him, of going into the workhouse, where he would “never sup again.” He wasn’t so far gone that the tales about these terrible places had gone unheeded. On top of unremitting toil, there would be no booze either, ever again. Daily prayers only. God, he would never bear it…

He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He needed a drink to make the horror go away and for that he needed money. Lil had money.

As he was pushing the front door open, wondering if perhaps a new tack was required, such as appealing to her for it, across town Mr Flint was standing once more before the wooden plinth in the workhouse, top hat before him.

***

Flint
was silent, as the man with the monocle regarded his references more closely, while to his side, Horace was muttering something to Alistair behind his back.

At last, Sir Rupert looked up, and said, “Before we make our final decision, why was your employment as headmaster of this
school terminated so abruptly? The reasons you give are rather vague.”

“
It’s quite simple,” Flint replied, sensing he was among sympathisers, “in these days of mounting, namby-pamby social reform, my ways are regarded, by some, as too austere. I confess that I am an advocate of the very severest forms of punishment, those to which only the underling and the simpleton will respond, the very types, if I may be so bold, to whom board and lodging are extended here.”

The six heads nodded and muttered to each other in agreement.

“
I was removed for reasons
deemed by the Board of Governors, as… well…”

He trailed off, as he racked his brains for a more acceptable synonym.

“
Wanton cruelty?”
Sir Rupert asked, as his monocle dropped.

Flint looked aghast.

“
Good Heavens, no, Sir! I merely believe in getting results and see the means of so doing as immaterial. There is no impropriety in my method whatsoever. The rod is, and should be, as a last resort only, though its application should be, I’m sure you’ll agree, with zeal, or not at all.”

He failed to mention that his dismissal had come about as the result of a ten-year-old boy in need of having a brace of cuts stitched at Bow infirmary.

He was about to continue, sure he had failed the interview, when Sir Rupert held up his hand and began conferring with the others.

At last he said, “You are hired, Mr Flint, for a probationary period of six months. Please report for duties at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, sharp.”

He tinkled the bell once more and Flint smiled, withdrawing gracefully.

***

Somebo
dy who certainly wasn’t smiling was Fighting Bob. Not only had his wife, to whom he believed he had selflessly devoted God knows how many years of his life, eaten without him, leaving his share on a plate to get stone cold, but she had also refused point blank to give him any money.

He had been certain that asking for it, rationally, would bear fruit.

“
I have told you,” she said, “we need the money to pay bills.”

“
Just a few bob. A few pints. Ain’t gonna make much diff.”

She folded her arms.

“’
Arf a bar then.”

“
No!”

She stared at him, even though her knees were trembling, and added, “And where are your wages?”

He looked sheepish.

“
Dunno.”

“
If we are unable to pay the next rent, we’ll be out.”

“
Yeah,” Robert added, ducking back slightly, “an’ you know what that means.”

“
So where are your wages then?
I expected them, yes…”

She didn’t get any further. Bob grabbed Robert round the neck, with one arm, and the carving knife with the other and growled, as he held the blade to his throat, “Now get them coins, now, or I’ll fillet the little runt!” His eyes glinted madly.

Lil had frozen solid
and, seeing the terror in her son’s eyes, rasped, “You harm a single hair on his head, they won’t
have
to hang you, I’ll…”

He pressed the blade even harder, eyes glowering, and she was backing off slowly towards the fireplace. She turned and lifted one of the tiles on the hearth, reached inside a hole underneath and pulled out a small leather bag. It was bulging with coins, more than a week’s worth. With a seething and terrified look in her eyes, she tossed the bag to him, and it chinked as it struck the boards.

Bob grinned as he shoved the boy away. He picked it up; it was deliciously heavy. He tossed it up and down a couple of times and whacked the knife into the table, where it stood quivering. He headed for the door, feeling as though he’d struck gold.

Bob stayed away all the rest of that day and the next, and it was pretty obvious that by then, every penny had gone on booze.

Lil had a deadline to aim for.
March 25th, the day when King would be along for the rent.

By that time, she not only had to scrape together the two pounds for it, but enough to feed them too, for it also became more clear with every passing day that Bob really had been sacked from the factory.

She knew something else too, that if the worst came to the worst, he would conveniently be out of the way when the knock came and she would never see him again.

The day she and Robert were taken into the workhouse, they would be separated, as it was deemed inappropriate that parent and offspring should work together, in case of sentiment impinging on their productivity.

If that happened, her life might as well be over.

The days began to blur into one, with that terrible day looming ever closer, and every so often, Bob
did
turn up, but only for money, food or sex.

A sort of nerve war
ensued, where he would demand payment, knowing she had been sitting at the ball from dawn to dusk. He beat her up on three occasions, the last time raping her on the parlour floor when she refused him, and knocking one of her back teeth out.

After this, and by now in fear of hers and Robert’s lives, she started hiding about two thirds of the money in one place, and conveniently letting him ‘find’ the rest, after an often violent tussle, so as to dampen his suspicions.

And then, before she knew it, there was just one day left to go.

Today was March the 24
^th
, a Sunday, and she had not managed to scrape the money together. She had only amassed about three quarters, and short of stealing the rest, had no idea how to get it. People would take a very dim view if she sat outside with her ball on the Sabbath; not that she would earn enough anyway.

Bob had staggered home from the Dog and Duck at midday, so drunk he could barely stand up and had stood outside the front door, shouting in each direction that he would take on any man who could fight.

Nobody obliged and most laughed. He had been sick, reeled indoors, and fallen asleep in one of the armchairs, where a bomb wouldn’t shift him.

Lil had gone to church, where she sometimes sang solo, and taken Robert with her. She had worn her best dress for the occasion, and a floral bonnet, though both had nourished the moths. She had felt her cheeks flush as she saw Michael O’Driscoll watching her, trying hard to avoid his gaze.

Determined her
only son would be a credit to her, Lil had dressed Robert in a clean, pressed shirt, and trousers, and combed his hair just so.

His shoes, old as they were, were polished, and he had found his weekly dip in the tin bath that hung on the back door, a more harrowing ordeal than normal, made worse by the fact that he increasingly couldn’t see much point. After all, you only got dirty again.

He had pointed
this
out, and the fact that Lenny only washed about
once a month
,
and she had told him to be quiet, as she had used a scrubbing brush on his back, which had set his teeth on edge, and said that now his skin tingled as if it were alive. Lil laughed and squeezed his hand gently.

His face had turned crimson when Lenny, Dick and Nigel saw him, an effect heightened by the white of his shirt. They had started taunting, calling him a drip, a pansy, a flower, and every other insult they could lay their tongues to, with a lady present, until Lil told
them
to shut up, and
him
, to ignore them.

T
hey had run off laughing, sticking two fingers up at Mrs O’Brien, who was cleaning her windows.

Lil and Robert
came back at two to find Bob still asleep, with dried vomit down his shirt and trousers. She’d done again a lot of thinking whilst in church, and was determined her only son would not end up like him.

***

Robert
was therefore soon sitting at the table, looking down at an open Bible, trying hard to ignore his father’s disgusting excesses.

“
David and Goliath,” his mother told him, “from the Book of Samuel in the Old Testament. I want you to read it and tell me what you learn, for it will have a bearing on your future life.”