Harold Read online

  ‘No, I’m not in a tizz, but you’re in a temper … aren’t you?’

  He now dropped onto his hunkers and began to stroke Sandy as he muttered, ‘It’s cold out, awful.’

  ‘I thought you were tough,’ I said quietly. When he turned his eyes up towards me and with a look almost of disdain at my stupid response, I was saved from saying anything further by the sound of the bell ringing, and I cried, ‘Here he is! Come on.’ And I took hold of his hand and tugged him down the room, across the inner hall and into the lift hall, just in time to see his father stepping from the cage. The man was smartly dressed if somewhat showy. He greeted us by saying, ‘All ready and waitin’.’ Then looking directly at me, he said, ‘It isn’t very nice weather for taking a day out, more fitting to sit by the fireside. What d’you say?’

  What I said was, ‘Harold is ready and waiting as you can see.’

  ‘Oh, I can see that.’ He put out his hand and screwed Harold’s cap around, only for the child to jerk himself away and straighten his cap again.

  ‘I’m a bit late but I can stick it on the other end, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, if you wish, but as you say the weather is rough and I don’t suppose you want him to stay out longer than four o’clock.’

  ‘Well’—he shrugged his shoulders—‘it all depends on what we decide to do, isn’t it, laddie?’ He now looked down on Harold who stared back at him without speaking. Then looking beyond me to the inner hall he said, ‘It’s bitter out. The first thing we’ll do is to go and have a hot drink, I think.’

  I did not take up the suggestion but said somewhat tartly, ‘Well, that will fill in some of your time.’

  He gave me a hard stare before swinging round towards the lift again, saying to Harold, ‘Come on you!’

  Harold, pausing for a moment, looked at me; and I bent down to him, saying, ‘Be a good boy. I’ll see you later,’ and gave him a little push towards where his father was waiting, his hand now hovering over the lift button.

  Looking at the child through the grid, I thought for a moment he was about to cry. I smiled at him and waved; then he was gone from my sight, and I turned and walked into the hall, where I stood looking around for a moment.

  The place felt empty; in fact, it screamed emptiness. I felt I had to talk to someone and so, remembering my resolution in the night to contact Mike, I rang his number, forgetting that he would likely be in the midst of surgery at this time. Miss Price answered the phone, her polite tone enquiring who I was and what I wanted, and when I told her my name she said, ‘Oh, you, Mrs Leviston. Oh, I’ll tell the doctor. He’s got a patient with him but I’ll tell him. Just hang on. Just hang on.’ It was another two minutes before I heard Mike’s voice saying, ‘Well, hello there.’

  ‘Hello, Mike.’

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I don’t really know, in a bit of a quandary.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘As I said I don’t really know. I … I’ve been having strange pains.’

  ‘Have you seen Doctor Bell?’

  ‘Yes, but he seems to think I’m imagining them.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘His attitude. You know I’m very good at picking up the aura of doctors.’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky. Where’s your pain?’

  After I had tried to describe the pain he said, ‘And you don’t feel it so much in the daytime?’

  ‘No. That’s strange; I feel tired in the daytime, not well, but no pain.’

  ‘How early does the pain start?’

  ‘Oh, sometimes around six, or seven.’

  ‘And it’s never after two in the morning?’

  ‘Well, as far as I can recall, no.’

  ‘I’m afraid your Doctor Bell could be right then.’

  ‘Oh, Mike.’

  ‘Never mind, Oh, Mike. Now if it keeps on you go to him again and ask for a thorough examination.’

  ‘What kind of an examination?’

  ‘Well, how do I know unless I examined you? Get a hospital examination, there’s a method now of putting a light inside, they can see everything.’

  ‘How nice for them.’

  ‘And for you if they find out nothing’s wrong.’

  ‘Except with my mind.’

  ‘Could be. Could be.’

  ‘You’re very comforting, I must say. Anyway, I thought of coming up to see you.’

  ‘I would like nothing better than to see you, but before you come you go to your own doctor and ask him for an examination. Now do you hear me?’

  ‘All right. But I must say you haven’t been much comfort.’

  ‘I never was.’

  I did not answer for a moment, then I said softly, ‘You know that’s not true. Anyway, how’s Jane?’

  ‘Thinking about getting a divorce as she never sees me.’

  ‘I don’t blame her.’

  ‘Anyway, there’s one thing you can be thankful for, you’re not at this end of the country at the moment, there’s hardly a chimney left on any of the houses, and I’ve had three in this morning almost decapitated with slates. The roads are blocked, there’s been a blizzard raging for the last two days. But I suppose living in your sunny south you’ve listened to it complacently on the news.’

  ‘Sunny South ended, it’s enough to freeze you here this morning. But nevertheless, snowbound or not, I wish I was up there at this moment.’

  ‘How’s Tommy?’

  ‘He’s very well.’

  ‘Still paying attention.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why don’t you marry him?’

  ‘Oh, don’t start that, Mike, I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment.’

  ‘What, sorry you adopted the barrow boy?’

  ‘No, I’m not sorry I adopted the barrow boy. And he’s no barrow boy, he’s an intelligent boy who will surprise everybody shortly.’

  ‘Well, from what I saw of him that wouldn’t surprise me. I must go now; I’ve got another lunatic outside ready to attack me.’

  ‘Sorry I kept you, Mike, but I just wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘I understand, lass. I’m always here, and the phone’s handy, ring whenever you like. Bye now.’

  ‘Goodbye, Mike.’

  I leant my elbows on the telephone table and dropped my face onto my hands. I was fortunate to have someone like Mike, oh yes, very fortunate. And I’d do what he said about an examination and that light because I was becoming worried about the way I was feeling.

  Five

  It was towards the end of February and I’d had the examination and I had known it. It had been preceded by a wash-out which almost knocked me out completely. Within two hours I was in the theatre, no anaesthetic, and the light certainly showed the doctor what was inside me, and I let him know it by the yell I gave. Then followed a barium test. What was left of me after that Tommy almost carried to the car; and I remained in bed the following day.

  The result of the examination was there was nothing really wrong, perhaps a slight touch of diverticulitis, sort of a loose or weak bowel, so I was given to understand, which at odd times might cause pain, but nothing like the pains I described.

  So Doctor Bell had sat back in his chair, put his fingertips together once more and said, ‘What more can I say? You’re healthy.’ He had paused before adding, ‘Physically, you’re healthy.’

  ‘Then I’m imagining this?’ I said.

  ‘Well, if you’d like to put it that way, Mrs Leviston … Is there anything worrying you?’

  ‘Not a thing.’ And I could say this for Harold had seemingly reformed at school: I’d had a very good report from Mr Binn last week concerning him. No, I could say there was nothing worrying me.

  ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you should go away for a rest, a holiday.’

  I didn’t want to go away for a holiday, at least not yet, and I told him so.

  What I did was to go back home, look in the mirror and say, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ Then
glancing from side to side, I said, ‘Hamilton, where are you? Please tell me what’s the matter with me.’ But Hamilton did not appear.

  Then one Saturday morning about the middle of March I found something to worry about. I found another four pound notes, this time in one of Harold’s drawers. I waited for him to return from taking Sandy down the road and immediately, even practically before he had his coat off, I pulled him into the bedroom, opened the drawer, took out the notes and said, ‘Where did you get these other notes from?’ He didn’t answer for a moment, then said quietly, ‘From the same place what I got the first one from.’

  ‘Don’t be cheeky, Harold; I asked you a question: who gave them to you?’

  ‘I promised not to tell.’

  ‘You are going to tell me. You won’t go out of this house again until you do tell me, nor will you get anything to eat. You’ll stay in this room until you do tell me, and I’ll stay with you.’

  He backed from me now and dropped down onto the edge of his bed. Then, his head down, he muttered something.

  I bent over him: ‘What did you say? Who?’

  ‘The Captain.’

  ‘The Captain?’

  ‘Yes, the Captain. He gave them to me after we played cards, or chess, even when I didn’t win, he said not to let on.’

  I stared down into the boy’s angry countenance. I knew that the Captain did not like Harold—all his hail-fellow-well-met was a pose—he, I think, considered him on the same level as the Mohican, scum, and it puzzled him why I should want to adopt such a child. So why should he want to give him money? Especially when they were so hard up that his wife had to babysit.

  A few minutes later I slipped a coat on and went right down in the lift, rang the Captain’s bell, then came up again onto the first floor, to be greeted by them both standing in the hallway, with a surprised look on their faces, and the lady greeted me, saying in her highfalutin voice, ‘We wondered who it was; we so seldom get visitors. But come in, my dear, come in. What can we do for you? Do you need us this evening?’

  ‘No, no, it isn’t about that I’ve come; I wanted to ask the Captain something.’

  ‘Go ahead then, lady, go ahead, ask.’ He was smiling.

  ‘When you give Harold money why do you ask him not to tell me?’

  I watched him turn his head and look at his wife, and she at him, before they both turned back to me when he said, ‘Me, give Harold money?’

  ‘Yes, five separate pounds.’

  ‘Huh! Huh!’

  Now he was huh-ing towards his wife: ‘Did you hear that, me dear? Me giving five pounds away! Oh, Mrs Leviston’—he was addressing me again—‘would I allow my wife to go babysitting in order to supplement our income if I had it in my power to give away five pounds to a little boy?’

  I was sick to the pit of my stomach and my voice was small as I said, ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t.’ He again looked at his wife who was staring at him. Then she looked at me and said, ‘He said that the Captain had given him this money, really?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Her face took on a sad expression and she bit on her lip; then she asked, ‘Where else do you think he might have got the money?’

  Before I could make any comments the Captain said, ‘What about his father? That fellow seems to be pretty warm, the little I’ve seen of him, the way he comes swaggering in here.’

  ‘Yes’—I nodded—‘it could be his father.’

  ‘Oh’—the Captain jerked his chin upwards—‘it’s amazing where boys get money from: they do exchanges, sell bits of things. I shouldn’t let it worry you. Then of course there’s his family, you must remember that, East Enders, a rough crowd, and some of those barrow boys have money to burn. That’s likely where it came from.’

  ‘But why would he say that you gave it to him?’

  The answer came from his wife. ‘I suppose the child is looking for respectability,’ she said.

  There was no way to answer this; it was a statement that would have to be gone into, argued over. When I muttered, ‘Thank you very much. I hope you don’t mind my coming down,’ they both exclaimed, ‘Oh, no! Not at all.’ And as they accompanied me to the door the lady said, ‘I will use the old phrase of making hay while the sun shines, my dear, so if you want to go out in the evenings I would take advantage of us over the next week or so; you see, my relative is returning sooner than she expected. Her husband is being transferred back. She had fully understood they would be away for a year. We’ll be sorry to leave, it has been so pleasant here.’

  I merely nodded, then turned from them and went towards the door, accompanied by the Captain. As he saw me into the lift he said, ‘Not to worry, children get up to all kinds of tricks, especially those from the quarter from which your ward sprang. You’ve got to expect it.’

  I actually did feel sick, so much so that I could have retched. After I had closed my door I stood gripping the knob for a moment while staring at the blankness of it. I was up against something I had never considered possible. My charge had always appeared frank but now he had been proved a liar, and more, and facing up to this fact was what being a mother entailed. All the laughter, fun and games he had brought into my life sank beneath this latter vice, because stealing was a vice, acquired as the Captain had just intimated because Harold had been bred in the lowest end of the city; he had been brought up in a rough atmosphere. But enough of that! What was I talking about? There was not a more honest person on this earth than Janet, and her family might be roughcast but each one of them, I’m sure, would have been the first to pull Harold up for lying … or stealing by trading.

  I turned from the door. What was I thinking about? I’m sure Harold wouldn’t steal; he was too straightforward, he …

  He was a liar. Hadn’t he told me that the Captain had given him this money? Was that not a barefaced lie?

  Indignation now carried me forward at a rush into his room. He was still on the edge of the bed, but lying on his elbow now. ‘Stand up!’

  He stood up, but not quickly.

  ‘You told me the Captain had given you that money, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ His head was up, he was looking straight at me.

  ‘You were lying.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Never mind “what”; you heard what I said, you were lying.’

  ‘No, I bloody well wasn’t!’

  ‘Don’t you dare swear at me.’

  He stepped back from me, crying loudly now. ‘I bloody well wasn’t lying. He did give it me, five times he give it me.’

  ‘Harold.’ It was almost a scream. ‘I have just spoken to the Captain. He said he never gave you any money, and why should he when his wife and he have to babysit with you to earn extra money, so he can’t afford to give pound notes away.’

  I watched him dash round the bottom of the bed, stare at me from the other side; then, bending over, he punched his fists into the counterpane, and screaming now, he cried, ‘Bugger! Bloody hell! Hell! Hell! Hell!’

  I wrenched him upwards and shook him almost fiercely. When his head stopped wagging, I said, ‘Don’t you dare use that language in here!’

  The tears spurting from his eyes, he cried back at me, ‘I will! I will! He did, he did give it me. He’s a rotten bloody liar. If he says he didn’t, bloody, bloody, bloody liar!’

  ‘Stop it! Stop it this minute.’

  My own heart was racing, thumping against my ribs like a hammer. I pushed him away from me and I sank onto the edge of the bed and from there I stared at him. His face was screwed up, the tears were raining down his cheeks. I could swear that he was telling the truth. But the Captain?

  The bell rang. I pulled myself up from the bed, saying, ‘Stay there!’ only to be thrown the answer, ‘Won’t. Goin’ to Gag’s. Gag’ll believe me. Goin’ to Gag’s.’

  ‘You will stay there!’

  Just in case he should carry out his threat I took the key from the inside of the door and locked
it, and as I did so his fist battered on it and he yelled, ‘I’m goin’ to Gag’s. I’m goin’ to Gag’s.’

  I almost fell into Tommy’s arms as he entered the hall.

  ‘What is it? What is it, dear?’

  Spluttering and almost crying myself now, I gave him a brief outline of what had happened.

  He did not interrupt me, and after I had finished he still remained silent for a while. Then looking along the corridor, he said, ‘I’ll have a word with him.’

  ‘You’ll have to turn the key; I’ve locked the door.’

  I went into the kitchen now and sat down by the table. Why had this to happen? Why? Things would never be the same between us again, trust had been broken. And he wanted to go back to his grandmother’s; not to his father, I had noticed. Once outside I was sure he would make straight for Janet’s. I’d … I’d better phone her and explain, I thought. Oh dear God! What next? I went into the hall again, got through to the corner shop and asked if they would be kind enough to ask Mrs Flood to come to the phone. I would hang on.

  It was almost four minutes later when I heard Janet’s voice say, ‘What is it? What’s wrong? What’s wrong, ma’am?’

  ‘There’s a little trouble, Janet. I’ll … I’ll try and be as brief as I can.’

  I finished with, ‘Once he’s outside he’ll make straight for you. I don’t know what I’m going to do, Janet.’

  ‘Mrs Leviston, ma’am, I’ll say this before I see him or hear anything more, if he said that man gave him the money I’d swear on my last penny that he did. There’s one thing about that child, he has every fault under the sun, but not lying; he always took a pride in standing up and facing things. I’ll be round as quick as I can.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Janet.’

  I don’t think she heard because the phone was banged down.

  As I rose from the chair Tommy came into the hall. He took my arm and led me into the drawing room and there he said, ‘That boy’s telling the truth. And I’ll tell you something; I’ve never cared for the Captain; there’s something … well, I don’t know what it is, but I’ve met a number of his type, too much surface talk. I’ll believe Harold any day before him, and I think you had better go and tell him you think the same.’