Bill Bailey's Lot Read online

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Aye, I did. And we had an up an’ downer and she came out and she went on and she lost her hair yellin’ at me and him, an’ she yanked him inside. She’s a starchy bitch.’

  ‘Careful! Careful!’

  ‘Well, she is. As me da says, our old girl’s not much good but there’s worse, and she’s worse.’

  Bill curbed the urge to take his hand and swipe the little beggar back into the middle of the daffodil border that he had only recently left. But then he saw something that stopped him: the boy’s chin started to knobble; his lips were drawn in between his teeth, his eyelids were blinking rapidly. And then he turned, not only his head, but his whole body away and kicked at the offending daffodil once more. ‘Have you any brothers or sisters?’ Bill asked quietly.

  ‘No, none.’

  ‘What…what does your father do?’

  ‘Nowt. He’s on the dole.’

  ‘Does your mother go out to work?’

  The face came round to him, the look in the eyes almost fierce now as the boy said, ‘Not any more. She did off. She’s always doin’ off.’ Another kick at the daffodil and a mutter now as he ended, ‘But she comes back. She always comes back. Me da says, wait long enough an’ she’ll come back. An’ she always does, she always comes back.’

  He was nodding his head now as if reassuring himself. But when Bill’s hand came swiftly out to catch at his, he tugged away from him, saying, ‘I’ve done nowt. I didn’t throw it. I’m not goin’ to any pollis station.’

  ‘Shut up! Who’s talkin’ about pollis stations? You wanted to come inside, didn’t you, and see what it was like? Well, come on.’

  The boy swayed back on his heel and looked up at Bill and said, ‘Eeh! no. She’ll pepper me if I go in there. She told me I hadn’t to come back here any more, else what she would do.’

  ‘What did you do to make her say that? Did you hit Willie?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t. It was the language I suppose. That’s what she said, using bad language.’

  ‘Did you use bad language?’

  ‘No, I only said, f…’

  Bill turned his head sharply away; his eyes closed for a moment. But when he again looked at the boy and spoke his voice was low and it conveyed horror to his small companion as he said slowly, ‘No wonder she nearly lost her hair. That’s a very, very bad word. And her son, I mean our son, never uses words like that.’

  ‘Well, he did. He shouted it back at me, he yelled it. That’s what brought her out.’

  Bill’s shoulders heaved with the breath he drew in. Aye, yes; it would bring her out if Willie came out with that particular four-letter word. Oh my! But anyway, he had asked the youngster in and in he must come, and for more reasons than one.

  ‘Well, let’s go and face the music,’ he said.

  The boy said nothing more but kept pace with Bill at a run as he strode up the drive, round the side of the house and into the kitchen.

  Fiona turned from the stove, her mouth in a slight gape, but the mouths of Mark, Katie, and Mamie were wide open. Mr Bill, or dad, as he was, had brought in that boy who was the cause of Willie being walloped. He was the one that used language; they had all heard the language, and both Mark and Katie had been warned that if they ever said such a word what would happen to them. As for Mamie, she wasn’t sure of what she had heard; and she wasn’t very interested in words in any case. But she was interested in Willie. She loved Willie, and she had just stopped crying because he had been sent to bed. And Mama B, as she called Fiona, had warned her that she’d be sent to bed too if she didn’t stop her howling. So they all gaped at the boy whom their dad was holding by the hand.

  ‘Hello, hello, Mrs B.’ Bill looked towards Fiona, and what she said, and with emphasis and meaning, was, ‘Bill!’

  ‘Yes, Mrs B?’

  ‘Bill!’

  ‘Yes? I heard you.’ He looked down at the culprit, saying, ‘That’s my name…Bill.’

  The boy made no reply. He did not even look at him; his eyes were fixed on the tall young woman who was staring at him.

  ‘You’re lucky, you know’—Bill now nodded towards Fiona—‘he intended to put a brick through your window. Didn’t you?’ Again he looked down at the boy. And now the boy, glancing sideways at him, gave him what could be called a deprecating look and kept his silence.

  ‘Anyway, all he wanted was to see inside your house, Mrs B, ’cos it’s such a nice house. He asked Willie if he would bring him in but apparently Willie said he didn’t think you would like him to. That isn’t true, is it? You’d like him to see your house, wouldn’t you, Mrs B?’

  Fiona turned towards the stove. Her shoulders were slightly hunched and Bill, allowing his gaze to drop to Mark, conveyed by his look a need for co-operation. And in answer Mark gave him a little grin.

  Bill was now divesting himself of his coat, but as he did so he looked towards the boy again, saying, ‘Sit down,’ and indicated the chair by a motion of his head.

  ‘Don’t wanna.’

  For the second time in their short acquaintance Samuel Love was picked up by the collar, and when his bottom hit the hard kitchen chair with a resounding smack he lay back against the rails and gasped. Then Bill’s attention sprang on Katie, saying, ‘And don’t you dare move away along that table.’

  Her face now puckering itself into primness, Katie said, ‘I wasn’t moving along. Anyway, I’ve finished my tea; I was just going to get up.’

  ‘Well, you can leave your departure for a little longer. Sit where you are; he hasn’t got fleas. Well, he doesn’t look as if he has…Have you got fleas?’

  ‘No, I ’aven’t got fleas.’ The voice was indignant, and to it was now added, ‘I get a bath every Friday. Me da sees to it, he stays in…Fleas!’ The word held indignation. ‘And I ’aven’t no dickies in me head neither, or nits.’

  Bill turned away; his Adam’s apple was jerking quickly in his neck. He made his way towards the sink where Fiona was standing and, pressing his shoulder to hers, he looked down into the soapy water as he muttered, ‘Go easy on him, love, he puts me in mind of somebody you know, but I’ll tell you more about him later.’

  But when she showed no sign of complying with his mood, he played on the mother instinct. Taking his finger and whirling it around the suds, he muttered. ‘He’s from Bog’s End. Apparently his mother goes off and leaves him. The fact that Willie has a mother and lives in a nice house has drawn him like a magnet. Besides, it would seem our Willie has cottoned on to him an’ all. So come on, lass, give him some tea.’

  ‘What!’ The word was hissed. ‘If you had heard him, the language.’

  ‘Oh aye, I know all about it. But down that quarter it’s just like God bless you.’

  ‘Oh, be quiet!’

  ‘Dad.’ Mark’s head was pushed between them and they both looked at him as he whispered, ‘I…I think he’s crying.’

  They turned and looked at the small figure sitting on the kitchen chair, head bowed, and as Bill took a step towards him the head came up and the voice bawled at him, ‘I ain’t cryin’. I never cry. It’s just me nose runs.’

  ‘By! lad, you’ve got hearin’ as good as mine and I’ve got a pair of cuddy’s lugs on me. No, of course you’re not cryin’, but if your nose runs use your hanky.’

  It was evident within the next few minutes that the boy didn’t possess a handkerchief, and it was Katie who, slipping from her chair and going to the wall at the side of the fireplace, pulled a paper square from a roll; then, turning to the visitor, she stood a good arm’s length from him as she offered it to him.

  There was a moment’s hesitation before it was taken; then there followed the sound of sniffles and a long blow.

  ‘Do you drink tea?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What have you in the name of eats, Mrs B?’

  Bill looked towards Fiona, and she, going to the fridge, took out a small plate on which there were a number of sandwiches covered with clingfilm, a
nd on the sight of them Mamie piped up, ‘That’s Willie’s tea, Mama B!’

  ‘There’ll be plenty more for Willie.’

  Taking the cover off the plate, Fiona now placed it in front of the boy and forced herself to say, ‘Do…do you like egg sandwiches?’

  He stared up into her face. This was the wife who had yelled at him, told him to get away and never to come back near her house nor her son. ‘Go back where you belong,’ she had yelled, ‘you dirty-mouthed little urchin!’ He remembered all her words, and here she was asking him if he liked egg sandwiches. His mind presented him with two answers. One was to say, ‘No!’ and throw the plate of sandwiches into her face; the other was to say, ‘Ta, yes.’ He decided to choose the latter, but just because he liked the fella that had brought him in. He had a big mouth but he seemed all right.

  ‘Ta, yes.’

  ‘Well, eat them up.’

  He took up one of the sandwiches and bit at it almost delicately because he was under surveillance from three pairs of eyes, not counting the bloke and his missis. Then of a sudden everything changed; the big bloke was yelling again: ‘Come on you three, scram! Upstairs with you and get on with your homework. And I don’t want to hear anything from you until I’ve had my tea.’

  ‘I don’t see why we can’t have our tea in the dining room an’ all.’

  His hand outstretched, he made a dive for Katie’s bottom, but she was out of the door, giggling now, and with Mark following, pushing Mamie before him.

  Bill hadn’t asked where Willie was, but he knew where he’d be after that fracas. And so, slipping out of the door, he pulled Mark to a halt, saying under his breath, ‘Tell Willie I’ll be up shortly.’

  ‘OK’ then, under his breath, Mark said, ‘He looks a rip,’ and jerked his head back towards the kitchen. ‘There’s a lot of them about, Mark, more’s the pity,’ Bill answered.

  Back in the kitchen, he noticed immediately that the sandwiches had gone from that plate on which there was now a piece of fruit loaf, and although he purposely took no notice of the boy, nevertheless, he noted the swiftness with which this, too, vanished.

  When presently Fiona placed a bowl of red jelly in front of him, the boy looked up at her for a moment but didn’t speak; nor did he touch the spoon that was stuck in the jelly until she went into the pantry and the fella followed her. Only then, the kitchen to himself, did he pick up the spoon. But he didn’t use it straight away to ladle up the jelly but looked at the handle. It was like one of those his granny had in a box: she always brought back a spoon from a day trip. On one it said, ‘A present from South Shields’, on another ‘A present from Scarborough’, and she had one ‘A present from The Isle of Man’. She’d had to go to Liverpool and get a boat to go there, and all that week his ma kept saying she was praying for storms and shipwrecks. He hadn’t understood what she meant at first ’cos the sun was shining all the time, until his da called his ma a vindictive bugger and reminded her that his mother was a good swimmer although she was sixty, which was dead old.

  This spoon hadn’t any writing on it; well, not writing that he could read, but it had things like two crossed swords and some letters in between them.

  He gobbled up the jelly. It was nice. This was a nice house. A nice kitchen, warm and bright, theirs was pokey. His ma used to be always on about the pokey kitchen, but then she was always on about every part of the house. When she kept on about it his da used to sing, ‘I Never Promised You A Rose Garden’. His da could be funny.

  ‘Have you finished?’

  It was the fella again. He jerked in the chair as if coming out of a dream. His hand came out of his pocket and was laid flat on the table, the fingers spread.

  Bill said, ‘Well, your one aim was to see inside the house, wasn’t it? Don’t you want to look round now?’ and held out his hand, and the boy slid from the chair. He didn’t take the proffered hand though, but looked at Fiona standing next to Bill. But his question was put to Bill: ‘She let me?’

  ‘Well, if you’re not sure you’d better ask her.’

  He didn’t, but stared at Fiona until she forced herself to say, ‘Well, if you want to see the rest of the house you’d better come along, hadn’t you?’ and she moved towards the door, leaving Bill to indicate with a jerk of his hand the boy should follow her.

  In the hall, Bill, spreading an arm wide, said, ‘The Baronial Hall, sir. It isn’t as big as some I’ve seen but it’s nicer than most.’

  Sammy did not look around the hall as one might have expected, but down at his feet and the carpet over which he was walking. But when they entered the sitting room his head came up and, after gazing from one thing to another, his disappointment was evident in his voice as he said, ‘You ain’t got no telly?’

  ‘Oh yes, we have, sir; it’s behind those closed doors there.’ Bill pointed to a cabinet in the corner near the fireplace.

  ‘Coloured?’

  ‘Yes, of course it’s coloured.’

  He did not ask for proof of this but turned his gaze on the window and the long pink velvet curtains topped by a French pelmet.

  Fiona was walking towards the door again, and once more Bill piloted the boy after her and into the dining room.

  Here, it was evident the boy was immediately impressed, for his gaze travelled swiftly from the silver on the sideboard to the china cabinet, then to the long table running down the middle of the room with its accompanying eight chairs, his gaze coming to rest on the far end of it, which was set for a meal.

  Turning to Fiona and his head bobbing, he said, ‘We’re gonna have a big house someday, we are.’

  For the first time Fiona looked fully at the boy and her voice was soft as she said, ‘Yes, I’m sure you shall.’

  ‘And a gardin.’

  ‘Yes, and a garden too. Yes, a garden.’

  She turned abruptly from him now and hurried from the room, and as she made for the stairs she pointed along the passageway, saying in an offhand manner, There’s a room along there; it’s my husband’s study. It isn’t very interesting.’

  ‘What do you mean, it isn’t very interesting? It’s the best room in the house…Go on. Up you go!’ Bill pushed the boy towards the stairs. And when they reached the landing Fiona, still leading the way, did not turn round as she stated, ‘We won’t do an inspection of the bedrooms; I think you might just like to see the playroom.’

  When she pushed the playroom door open, Mamie wriggled her plump body down from the old couch and ran towards her, while Katie and Mark, sitting one at each end of the work table, both looked at their mother in not a little amazement. But she stared hard back at them, defying them to make any comment on her apparently altered attitude.

  ‘There now, what do you think of this? It’s the busiest room in the house.’ Bill looked down on Sammy; but Sammy didn’t look at him nor speak, he was once again gazing from one object to the other in the room, taking it all in yet not believing what he saw: the big doll’s house in the corner, the battered rocking horse, the train set taking up part of the floor under the sloping roof in the far corner of the room, the long bookshelves holding two rows of books, the bottom row seeming in order, the top row all topsy-turvy; and then, hanging from a peg in the wall near the window what he took to be a great long puppet of a Chinaman.

  ‘You going to stay with us?’

  Sammy turned and looked into the round bright face of Mamie and he repeated, ‘Stay with you? No, no; I’m goin’ home. I’m late as it is.’ He now turned quickly about and, looking up at Bill, he said, ‘He skelps the hunger off me, me da, if I’m not in.’ Then, walking past Bill and Fiona, he turned a half-circle and made for the door, only to find he was looking into a cupboard.

  When there was a burst of laughter from Katie, Mark, and Mamie, he turned on them, crying, ‘Think you’re clever don’t ya, think you’re clever buggers. Me da’s right, yer all a lot of nowts up here, a lot of nowts.’

  Before Bill could bawl a reprimand Mark rose swiftly from the ta
ble and, moving towards the boy, he said, ‘We didn’t mean anything. I mean, we do that, daft things like that, and we live here. We are always doing daft things, aren’t we…Dad?’ he turned to Bill, and Bill said, ‘You’re tellin’ me. I had no notion at all what a daft lot you were when I took you over. If I’d had an inkling of it I’d have run a mile.’ He now nodded towards Sammy. ‘I haven’t been here all that long, you know. I’m their stepfather, but you’ve got a real dad, so you say.’

  Sammy was definitely nonplussed at this change of front: the big-mouthed fella said he wasn’t their father but their stepfather. Stepfathers were terrible; his ma always said that. You don’t know you’re born, she would say; you should have had a stepfather like me. He thinks too much of you, she used to say; and that was after his da had belted him. He couldn’t understand his ma, he couldn’t, but he wished she’d come home. He wanted to get out, away from this swanky house and these people. He turned from Mark and made for the right door this time, and Bill, signalling to Fiona to stay where she was but beckoning Mark to follow him, escorted his visitor downstairs.

  Sammy made straight for the front door which he found difficult to open, and as Bill unlocked the door he said to the boy, ‘By the way, where do you live?’

  ‘Rosedale House in River Estate, flat fourteen.’

  Rosedale House, River Estate. Bill pursed his lips as he looked down on Sammy. That estate was deep in Bog’s End, a good distance from here. ‘That’s some way,’ he said. ‘Have you got money for your bus?’

  ‘I can walk; I’ve got legs.’

  ‘You’re so sharp you’ll be cuttin’ yourself one of these days, lad.’ Bill was yelling again. ‘I can see you’ve got legs, and any more answers like that, and in that tone, you won’t be standing on them but sitting on your backside. You understand me?’

  From the look on Sammy’s face he understood, but said nothing. And when Bill put his hand in his pocket and brought out a ten pence piece and offered it to the boy, Sammy just stared at it; but then he jerked backwards when Mark grabbed the coin from Bill’s hand and, thrusting it at him, said, ‘Look, take it. Come on.’