Young Phillip Maddison (43 page)

Overcome by the prospect, Phillip yawned. The snow and the exercise had made him sleepy. It would be so nice to be in bed, wiggling his toes like a fish’s tail. The thought of Christmas presents made him perk up though he knew what most of them were.

All the snow echoed with church bells as they walked home; while from the lighted frowsty windows of the pubs came singing. Outside the Railway in Randiswell some children were waiting, holding hands, waiting for their parents inside to take them home. They looked very cold. It was very sad, said Mother, as they walked up Hillside Road, having said goodnight and Merry Christmas to the Cakebreads, but they must all look on the bright side.

Phillip fell behind, wanting to think his own thoughts, which were also sad, like the grey snow, and the loneliness of birds freezing on leafless branches, and children dreaming of Father Christmas outside the pub, and Grannie lying with her head on one side in the dark grave. He wished he had not always tried to get money out of her; but it was too late now.

Father, as soon as they got back, complained that Mother had kept the children up too late.

“Look at the boy’s face, he looks as though he had seen a
ghost! He’s had a week of exams, and gone up past his bedtime every night for the past fortnight. And all this emotional Roman Catholic business is bad for young people, in my opinion. Come now, my boy, off with your boots! Then straight up to bed. Hetty, Doris has been nearly hysterical in your absence—in the end I had to speak firmly to her. Please do not leave me alone in the house with her again.”

Richard had read the last story of Sherlock Holmes, where he fell to death with Professor Moriarty in the Alps, with four interruptions from the disconsolate Doris; and reflecting in the armchair afterwards of the selfishness of his wife in leaving him alone with a wailing child on Christmas Eve, memories of his own childhood had drained him of energy.

Phillip went to bed without having kissed his Mother—he had deliberately avoided it—and without hanging up his stocking. Soon tears were running onto his pillow. Outside snow was falling, in the silence of a reborn world; and in the morning all was white, when he looked out. And there was a filled stocking, hanging on the bottom rail of his bed.

He had been asleep when Richard had crept down, to hang it there.

*

The traditional Christmas morning walk was to Cutler’s Pond, and back, while Mother cooked the turkey at home. Phillip had never remembered Mother coming with them to the Pond, or on any other walk, except upon the Hill, which did not really count.

Gloved, overcoated, and correct, Phillip walked on the outside, while Mavis and Doris walked with Father. Gone were the elms beyond the extension of houses on either side of the road; there seemed no trees anywhere, only heaps of snow-covered bricks, scaffolding, and tarpaulins tied down upon piles of wooden planks and posts. Wooden blocks had replaced the old grey road, which was now wide with kerbstones along the sides, and iron-grilled drains at regular intervals. The great new red brick ’bus depot covered more than two acres, said Father, who told them again about the snipe and herons he had seen in the meadows beside the Randisbourne when first he had come to live in the district.

“Every other man seems to be smoking a new pipe,” he said. “It does not need a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that this is Christmas morning.”

Cutler’s Pond was frozen over, and covered with stones and sticks flung on the ice. Some boys were venturing upon its black and white-bubbled surface near the bridge. Richard told them about boys in his young days who had fallen through the ice of a reservoir, and been unable to climb over the edge of the ice, as it had broken under their clutch; and all had been drowned.

“A warning to you, my boy, not to venture on any more thin ice!” laughed Richard. Phillip ignored Father’s joke. He was thinking of the party in Gran’pa’s that afternoon, and hoping that Father would not come, although he had been invited, and so spoil the fun.

He hoped, too, that Father would not grumble if the turkey was not cooked to his liking. Last Christmas Mother had cried, because he had found some small smuts on one of the plates. Father wore spectacles to find the smuts, but Mother had not got any, though her eyes were not so strong as they had been. She always tried to be cheerful, though Father was beastly to her.

All three children had one thing in common agreement: Father’s beastliness to Mother. They were now imbued with resentment, dull as it was silent, towards Father; and this resentment at times rose in Phillip to active hatred. His world was entirely detached from that of his Father’s, since affection, or love, had been denied in the forming early years. This had also happened with Doris, who had never, unlike Phillip as a small child, known her Father’s affection. As for Mavis, she too was sealed off from her Father.

Standing by the pond with their Father in the bright exhilarating air of a white Christmas, each child was as a prisoner, its true self shut away in solitariness.

Cutler’s Pond had a new brick high wall above it, raised to the new road level. There was a spiked iron railing above the brickwork. It looked rather beastly, said Father, but such things were deemed necessary in the cause of progress. Phillip understood that it was all due to that little Welshman, Lloyd George, who did not even know that pheasants did not eat mangold-wurzels, said Father.

*

Back home again, the girls went to help Mother bring in the dinner. The sprouts were a little watery, explained an anxious Hetty, owing to the frost. She did so hope the bird was cooked to his satisfaction. Phillip, who carried in the hot plates in a
cloth, saw that they were clean. Father had the yellow-grey eye of a heron, peering down to inspect them. Phillip winked at his Mother. All was well.

The Christmas plateful had to be eaten with due regard to its rarity. A forkful of potato went into Phillip’s mouth first, then a little bread-sauce. Then half a sprout, after inspection lest an old shrunken caterpillar be found in it. (Father had once found one in a sprout on his plate). Even spiders did not like caterpillars. Then a sip of water, to continue the dullness. More potato, while pretending there was no turkey. Then some sausage, and a bit of chestnut stuffing. Having mortified his taste, Phillip then put a slice of white breast on his fork, with potato in gravy, some more sausage, and some sprouts. This was the first real mouthful; and looking round at Mother with approval, he started to wolf his Christmas dinner.

Afterwards, into the front room, while Father had a sleep alone in the sitting room. On the front room table were plates of tangerines, raisins, peeled almonds, and Carlsbad plums; and a pile of old
Strands
on the wickerwork table to read.

Before a blazing fire, Phillip examined his presents carefully. There was a wooden model aeroplane, with steam-twisted propeller, driven by elastic. The wings were of thin varnished wood, and the bigger wing was at the back. He would keep it until the snow was gone, lest water warp the dihedral angle.
Flight
was now regularly studied in the Public Library, with
The
Autocar.
Phillip knew all about nacelles, under-carriages, elevators, rudders, and skids. Players Cigarettes had a series on Aeroplanes, from Montgolfier to Santos-Dumont, Paulham, Bleriot, the Wright Brothers, Lilienthal, and the Curtis biplane. Balloons were now a thing of the past.

Good! they were going to have tea next door!

*

Gran’pa had a new housekeeper, called Miss Rooney, a small, sweet-faced, white-haired Irish woman who had been one of the hundreds replying to Mother’s advertisement in the
Daily
Telegraph.
Mother presided at tea next door, while Miss Rooney looked after everybody. Uncle Joey was staying there, with Aunt Ruth and cousin Arthur, and Arthur’s two smaller sisters. Uncle Charley had sent a telegram of good wishes to all, from Brighton. Gran’pa looked cheerful, as always.

After tea the children played games, all over the house.
Phillip and Gerry became rowdy, and a wild chase took place. Cushions were hurled, until a vase crashed and the fun was stopped. Then they went into Uncle Hugh’s room, and opening the stained glass window, shot peas at the opposite window, behind which Father was sitting. Phillip was a little anxious about this, although he had not shot any peas at the window. Seeing his face, Gerry said that perhaps they had better not do it any more.

“Uncle may think it was sparrows,” he suggested.

They went back to the front room, where the table was being laid for supper. There was a ham, a cold turkey, mince pies, pressed beef, a pork pie, and many other things including cakes and jellies, and a huge dish of fruit, with grapes and nuts, bonbons, everything. There was red wine, with water, for the boys, ginger and raisin wine for the girls, claret and port for the men. They ate in candle-light, with paper caps on their heads. The Christmas pudding came in flaming, and contained many bright silver shillings, with the new King’s head on them. Where had Gran’pa got them from? He-he, said Gran’pa, that’s a secret. He had a friend at court, said Mother. In the Mint, you mean, don’t you, Aunt Hetty? asked Hubert. Hubert wore a new suit, with a man’s high collar.

They drank to absent friends, including Ralph, who was at sea, and Charley and the others at Brighton. Phillip managed to swallow two glasses of port, unseen by Mother.

Snapdragon! Hubert went outside. Candles were put out. The room was lit only by firelight. He came in with the big dish, leaping with blue flames. Raisins were under the flames. You had to pick one out, and eat it while the blue flame played on your fingers and ran over your nails, but did not burn them if you blew quickly. Dare he do it?

“Wait a minute, boys, let our respected Patriarch speak his lines first!” cried Uncle Hugh.

Gran’pa began to sing, in his throaty voice, a song Phillip had not heard before.

“Now, everyone, all together next time when we come to Snip! Snap! Dragon!

followed by the laughter of all but Phillip. He was listening to the words.

The party ended disastrously for him. When the others had gone down into Uncle Hugh’s room, for the clearing of the table, Phillip slipped back, and raising the empty snapdragon dish on high, drank the spirit lying in the gravely-bowl at one end. It tasted raw and nasty, rather like bullaces or wild plums at Beau Brickhill on the hedges, but he had swallowed an egg-cupful before he tasted it. It burned his inside. Half an hour later, after he had been very sick, and was shuddering with cold, he went home with Mother to be put to bed, clutching a hot-water bottle. He was sick again and again, all froth; but Richard said nothing, as he returned to his chair by the fire. He thought, however, of his Father’s death from alcoholism, and wondered if Phillip, now at the age of adolescence, had inherited that fatal trait.

T
HE
great titmouse sang its gay bell-like notes about the nesting boxes Phillip had put up in his elm tree at the bottom of the garden; while the louder ringing of the muffin-man, wares on
head in the tray covered with green baize cloth, gave some interest out of gas-lit school. On one Wednesday afternoon, when the ground was too hard for football, Hetty and her Papa took Phillip up to London to look round the premises of the Firm. The thought of finding Hubert there made the idea less unattractive than it would have been had the prospect been only of dull streets and houses, poor people working in the large rooms of the tall dreary building, and Mother and Gran'pa to talk to.

They went by tram, by way of Camberwell—“Father and I were married here, dear,” whispered Hetty, while Gran'pa, muffled and wrapped in a thick dark long coat to his ankles, was talking to someone else on the seat beside him; and “Oh,” replied Phillip laconically. They rode over the river by Westminster Bridge, then along the Embankment, past Cleopatra's Needle, to alight by Blackfriars Bridge, with its view over the river of tugs and barges, and a great effigy of Johnnie Walker about to stride over the rim of a tall factory chimney, apparently having drunk too much of his own whisky, said Gran'pa, he-he'ing at his joke.

Having crossed over Ludgate Circus, Phillip with Gran'pa and Mother went along Farringdon Street, to the steps up to High Holborn, and so to Sparhawk Street. Phillip thought of the old days of real trees and green fields, of sparrowhawks keeping down the pigeons. He would like to get a couple of young ones next year, tame them, and let them go early one morning in front of St. Paul's. With lots of hawks about, London might be a little more interesting, if he had to come and work in it. The sight of a hawk flying over would be a link with the past.

The offices of Mallard, Carter & Turney, Ltd., were in a tall brick building several stories high. The impression was of dinginess and many dirty glass windows, and flocks of sparrows in the road outside, on which drays and vans moved behind drivers with peaked caps, and small boys standing on the tail-boards, holding to ropes from the hooded roofs.

They entered by an iron-studded door, and there in front was a glass-partitioned office lit by two gas lights, not even mantles, but old jets, like Father had in the bathroom under the ring, to keep the little can of washing water warm for the morning. The ring at home was nearly worn out, by the fumes of all the years. Ever since he could remember, it had been there.

Phillip was introduced to a perky old gentleman with a bald head and fluffy bits of white hair as though stuck on its sides. This was the Secretary. Then to “Young Mr. Mallard, who is our Accountant,” who had a cold clammy hand. Then to a fat man called Hemming, the General Manager, who smiled fatly and hurt his hand when shaking it.

“Pleased to meet you again. You don't remember me, do you? Now tell the truth and shame the devil. Do you remember me, eh?”

Phillip looked up at the fat smiling face, and thought that he did not like him. He did remember him chiefly because he had hurt his hand last time when he had shaken it. He did not know what to say, so he said nothing.

“Come come,” said Mr. Hemming. “This will never do. If you come to join us one day, you must find your voice, you know. Customers don't like travellers who wait for them to speak first, otherwise they say to them ‘Nothing this time'. Eh, Mr. Turney? Pleased to see you looking so well, sir.”

While he had been speaking, Mr. Hemming was doing up some buttons on his waistcoat.

Gran'pa wanted to talk with Mr. Hemming, so Phillip and Mother went into the printing works, accompanied by “young Mr. Mallard”. There were men in leather aprons and rolled shirt-sleeves, setting lead type with tweezers, picking out letters almost as fast as a woodpecker licked up ants on the ground with its long tongue. Further on, printing machines were moving backwards and forwards, while other men laid on sheets of paper, which they whisked away when the lever was raised and the inky roller passed over the type again. These were posters for a Sale by Auction, the foreman said, wiping his hands on his apron.

Upstairs they saw Hubert, and “young Mr. Mallard”, who looked quite old and constantly stroked his chin, and hardly spoke at all, left them to return downstairs.

Soon afterwards Mother said she had to keep an appointment with the dentist, and would be back in an hour's time.

“Now be a good boy while I'm gone, and don't get into mischief,” she whispered. “Look after him, Hubert.”

“Oh rather, Aunt Hetty,” said Hubert, laying his arm affectionately on Phillip's shoulder.

Hubert took him into the Lithography and Marbling Room.
The lithographic stones were yellow, and men were painting patterns and pictures on them, like making transfers, to be pressed on paper afterwards. But it was the Marbling which interested Phillip. There were many shallow troughs standing on three legs on the floor. The men liked the tripods, said Hubert, as they were steadier than four legs on the old uneven chestnut-slab floor. The liquid lying in the troughs was size, made of gum tragacanth dissolved in soft water; and upon this layer the paint, in various colours, was flipped and shaken, or straked and laid, according to the pattern that was wanted—they used five main patterns for the end-papers of the Firm's ledgers and account books, said Hubert. Some customers preferred Comb, other Snail, Peacock, Hair-veining, or Turkish.

One of the men showed how Comb was made. First he skimmed the size, to remove the film caused by evaporation. Then he took some brown paint on a small, soft-haired brush, and strewed it in a broad line upon the size. Next, some yellow paint with another brush, then blue, and finally vermilion. With the “master comb” he drew wavy lines through the paints, which stayed wavy when the comb had been lifted out.

“The colours don't run into one another, like they might if there wasn't no ox-gall mixed in wi' the paints,” he explained. “The gall also helps the colours to marble, you see.”

“What does marble mean?” asked Phillip.

“The paint spreads like, you see, an' 'olds the marble to isself like.”

“It gives the paint a sort of coat, doesn't it, like gelatine?” Hubert enquired of the man, very politely, Phillip thought, although he was Gran'pa's grandson.

“That's it, sir, you've got it, you got my meaning all right.”

“What's Snail like, Hubert?”

“Well, like snail shells, Phillip. You get that effect by tapping the side of the trough, don't you, and shaking drops on the size?” he asked the man, as though he did not know already.

“That's right, sir,” smiled the man. “Then I makes the whirls with a goose-quill, see, like this.”

He made some drops of all shapes and colours lie on the size, like moon and planets floating in space, then with the quill made them whirl about one another, but never in one another.

“The quill's the master, the colours follow it,” said Hubert.

“And the ox-gall keeps them apart, like a sort of force of gravity,” said Phillip. Hubert smiled at him.

“Jolly good simile, old man.”

“But how do you get the colours off the size?” Phillip asked the man, imitating the manner of Hubert.

“I'll soon show you, sir.”

The man got a length of paper, and held it before him.

“This sheet is wetted a day afore it's used, you see, and put wi' others in the screw press. Then, ten minutes afore it's used, my mate washes them sheets in alum water, to earth the pattern. I'll show you.”

He laid the sheet in the Snail trough, pressed it down, gently and evenly.

“Now watch the tray carefully,” he said. “An' you might see somefink strange.”

Lifting up the sheet, the man said “Hey Presto!” and peering intently, Phillip saw only the liquid size, like barley water, lying in the trough. There was not even a speck of colour left.

“Where's it all gone?” he asked, pretending to be mystified. Of course, it was on the paper the man was holding in his hand.

“I forgot to put in the magic drops,” said the man. “Look!” He turned over the paper. It was a blank. Phillip was now genuinely puzzled. It was a trick, of course, but how had he done it? Ah, he and Hubert had changed papers while he had been looking at the trough!

The pattern looked very shiny and bright on the paper. The man explained that now it would be dried, when it would be ready for glazing. That was done by the master marbler, on the table in the centre of the floor. He had been doing nothing else for over fifty years, Hubert explained, as they moved away, after thanking the man, who said, “It's quite all right,” in a pleased voice.

The dry marbled sheets were smeared with a film of bees-wax, heated on a gas ring in a gummy iron pot, then polished with the swinging calendar. This calendar was a heavy block of white marble, with a polished under-surface, bolted to the end of an iron arm hanging from the beam in the ceiling. It swung down loosely, enabling the old man to use it like an iron, judging the weight to within a hundredth of an inch, said Hubert. The final gloss to the papers was given by an agate stone, which was kept in a wash-leather bag, to prevent dust and grit getting on it.

Upstairs were the binders, some of them girls, working at benches. Some were stitching the sheets with treadle machines, using fine white cord which Phillip thought would do for fishing, if it were dyed first. A man was cutting edges with a thing like a little guillotine. The girls kept glancing at him, some smiling, but Phillip pretended not to see them. They were probably bad, like those in the Randiswell Rec at night. Why else should they smile that sort of cunning smile?

Poor people were associated in Phillip's mind with bad people: white faces, many of them covered with pimples, some with scowling expressions, or blank looks, dull looks; all in shabby clothes. Poor people were quite different from ordinary people. Even Cranmer was really different, although he tried hard not to appear different. He thought that quite ordinary things were unusual, such as forks.

When Hubert spoke to one of the girls working at the bench, she giggled and looked round at the others, before giving Hubert a sort of scared look, and calling him “sir”. Phillip had read in many magazine stories how women were inscrutable, mysterious, unpredictable (the dictionary gave this word a disappointing meaning when he looked it up, hoping to find in it a clue to Helena Rolls' nature). He kept well away from the benches, pretending to be preoccupied with some thought. But on leaving, he glanced back, and three girls waved at him as he went through the door. Greatly daring, Phillip waved back, then quickly retreated, his footfalls clanking down the fretwork iron stairs.

“Well,” said Thomas Turney, “What d'you think of it all, eh?”

“Oh, it's all right, Gran'pa,” replied Phillip; and wondered why Mr. Hemming laughed.

After tea in an A.B.C. shop Thomas Turney said to Phillip, “Your Mother tells me you met Sir Wilfred Castleton, proprietor of ‘The Daily Trident'. Well, m'boy, his offices are only just across the street. We pass that way to the Embankment. You've got a bent for writing, how about calling on him, what d'you think? I've met 'im, he's a pleasant sort of man, he's Irish, like me mother. You'll be leavin' school in a year or so. It might lead to something, you never know. No time like the present—what d'you say?”

“No thanks, Gran'pa,” replied Phillip immediately, in panic at the thought of having to leave the life he knew.