Just Henry Read online

  His mother shot him a pleading look as if to say, Don’t you start too. She scooped Molly from her father’s arms and handed her a wooden spoon. ‘Come and do some stirring for me, Molly.’

  By now Henry was fighting down the urge to smile. He knew that the letter would upset his mother but it was worth it to see his stepfather put in his place.

  Uncle Bill took the envelope down and stared at it as though it was an unexploded bomb.

  ‘Do you want me to . . .?’ began his mother.

  He shook his head and tore it open. He unfolded the letter and sat down slowly.

  Trounced, thought Henry.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Uncle Bill murmured shakily.

  But I do, Mister High and Mighty, thought Henry. Now Mum will see you for what you really are.

  ‘Bill?’

  ‘I’ve done it. I’ve got the Higher School Certificate. Advanced French. Advanced History. Advanced English.’

  ‘Oh, Bill!’ she cried and she stepped over Molly and flung her arms round him, her eyes filling.

  Henry froze. It must be a mistake. His stepfather was stupid. He couldn’t have passed the examinations. He was all talk. Had ideas above his station. That’s what Gran said.

  There was a loud hammering at the front door.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ said Henry, needing to escape, and he stumbled into the hall.

  Through the long windows at the top of the door he saw a bald head bobbing up and down. He had hardly opened it when a short portly man in a threadbare tweed suit and bow tie rocketed past him and flew into the kitchen.

  ‘Mr Cuthbertson!’ his mother exclaimed.

  Uncle Bill stood up.

  ‘Don’t keep me in suspense, man,’ he said.

  Speechless, Uncle Bill handed him the letter.

  ‘By heaven, you’ve done it!’ he exclaimed. ‘I knew you would. Doors will be opened to you now.’

  Uncle Bill gave a weary smile. ‘Don’t mention university again,’ he began.

  ‘No, no, no! Not university, old chap. I’m talking about teaching. Because of the shortage of teachers, there’s an Emergency Training Scheme. It only takes a year to train and you are more than qualified.’

  ‘I’m a railwayman,’ protested Uncle Bill.

  ‘Smoke! Smoke!’ yelled Molly, pointing to the potatoes which had begun to make a crackling sound.

  ‘Oh, no!’ gasped his mother. As she grabbed the saucepan handle, Mr Cuthbertson suddenly dashed out of the kitchen crying, ‘Stay there!’ over his shoulder.

  Minutes later he re-appeared, flanked by two pasty-looking men. A cigarette was dangling from the mouth of one man and his companion was carrying a camera.

  ‘Sternsea Evening News,’ the photographer announced.

  ‘Is that the letter?’ asked the one with the cigarette, glancing at it on the table.

  ‘The very one,’ said Mr Cuthbertson and he handed it to him. ‘He’s been to classes with me, studied between shifts.’

  ‘You’re right, Mr Cuthbertson. It is a scoop. Working-class man up there with the grammar school lot.’

  ‘I’ll take a shot of him outside the front door with the family,’ commented the photographer.

  ‘But I’m still in my overalls,’ protested Bill.

  ‘That’s good. Now let’s get outside into the light. And put your cap back on.’

  As they walked through the hall to the front door, Henry tried to linger behind.

  ‘What’s going on?’ said Gran, opening her bedroom door. ‘Oh, hello, Mr Cuthbertson. Come to commiserate have you, dear?’

  ‘Not to commiserate,’ said Mr Cuthbertson, wiping his glistening head with a handkerchief. ‘To celebrate, Mrs Dodge. To celebrate!’ And he dashed out of the doorway.

  Her face fell.

  ‘He’s got it,’ said Henry numbly.

  ‘What! He never has?’ she whispered.

  Henry nodded.

  At that moment Henry’s mother appeared, carrying Molly. ‘Henry?’ and then she spotted Gran.

  ‘I’m not coming out without Gran,’ said Henry firmly.

  ‘I thought you were having a nap, Mrs Dodge. I didn’t want to disturb you,’ and she reddened. ‘I expect Henry’s told you the news.’ And she darted outside.

  Gran took his arm.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We Dodges will show ’em, eh?’

  Henry smiled. His gran always made him feel better.

  They found his mother and Uncle Bill huddled by the front door, holding Molly’s hands between them like gingerbread men.

  ‘If you’d just close the door,’ said the photographer cheerily.

  By now the next-door neighbours had appeared and Henry was so embarrassed he wanted to disappear.

  ‘Hold the little girl in your arms,’ said the photographer to Henry’s mother and he placed Gran next to her.

  ‘And if you could just stand next to your dad,’ he said, waving at Henry.

  ‘He’s not my dad!’ Henry said fiercely.

  ‘His dad’s a hero,’ said Gran. ‘Gave up his life to save another man’s life. Pushed him aside during a bombing raid and took the blast. He should have been decorated.’

  ‘Henry is my stepson,’ Uncle Bill explained.

  ‘Righti-ho,’ said the photographer, ‘so, if you could stand next to your stepfather.’

  A short dumpy woman, who lived next door at Number 8, suddenly appeared with a collection of clothes pegs wedged in her mouth, a bundle of nappies in her arms.

  ‘What’s goin’ on, Maureen?’ she asked, through the pegs.

  ‘Bill’s passed some examinations, Mrs Henson.’

  ‘All eyes on me and cheese!’ interrupted the photographer. ‘And move a bit closer.’

  They shuffled awkwardly towards one another.

  ‘Cheer up, Mrs Carpenter,’ he added, winking at Henry’s gran.

  ‘I am not Mr Carpenter’s or Mrs Carpenter’s mother,’ she snapped.

  ‘Mrs Dodge is my previous husband’s mother,’ explained Henry’s mum hurriedly. ‘She moved in with us when she was bombed out.’

  ‘And then he moved in with his grand ideas,’ Gran said.

  ‘Give me strength!’ Henry heard the reporter murmur.

  ‘Cheese again!’ sang out the photographer, at which point Molly suddenly stretched an arm upwards and laughed. ‘That’s my girl!’

  Afterwards his grandmother escaped into her room.

  ‘He’ll make our lives even more of a misery now,’ she complained.

  Uncle Bill strode back in, smiling. Henry wanted to hit him.

  ‘I see there’s a Dick Barton film on at the Gaiety,’ he said jovially.

  ‘I know,’ murmured Henry, looking away.

  Henry was annoyed to see his mother placing three tiny glasses filled with sherry on the table. His mother only brought out the sherry at Christmas. She handed one to Uncle Bill.

  ‘Congratulations, love.’

  ‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ he said, beaming.

  Henry clenched his fists, remembering how he and his mother had to keep Molly away from him so that he could study upstairs in peace. Suddenly the door swung open and his gran stood there, her face rigid. Henry picked up the third sherry glass and handed it to her.

  ‘And about time,’ she said, her lips pursed. ‘I wondered if you’d remember, Maureen.’

  ‘Of course I remembered you. That’s why I poured you a glass.’

  ‘I’m not talking about me. You do know what day it is today, don’t you?’

  There was an uncomfortable silence.

  She had forgotten, thought Henry bitterly. But he wasn’t surprised. All she ever thought about now was his sissie stepfather.

  ‘Seems not,’ said his gran. She flung her head back dramatically. ‘Had he lived, it would be the birthday of Henry’s father.’ She raised her glass, ‘To my beloved Alfred. Lest we forget,’ she added pointedly.

  2. Escape

  ‘AT LEAST I TALK ABOUT
HIS FATHER. YOU HAVEN’T FOR YEARS.’

  ‘I leave that to you, Mother.’

  ‘I’ve had to put up with a strange man moving into the house . . . ’

  ‘A strange man! How can you talk about Bill like that? If it hadn’t been for him . . . ’

  Henry was sawing wood in the old air-raid shelter the following afternoon when he overheard his mother and Gran in the kitchen.

  ‘Well, what man spends all his time with books? Not like Henry. He’s always doing odd jobs, deliveries, sawin’ up wood, scavenging. Out in all weathers.’

  ‘As is Bill at work,’ added his mother, ‘and he pays the rent and puts food on the table.’

  ‘P’raps you don’t talk about Henry’s dad because you feel guilty. You married pretty quickly after his death.’

  ‘I was a widow for five years!’

  ‘Five years is nothing.’

  Henry didn’t like being around when they argued. He slipped out of the shelter, bolted through the door at the back of the yard and along the alley behind the houses, climbed over the pile of bricks next to Number 18 and headed for the bombsite opposite. Aside from a motorbike with its sidecar outside Number 14 and a few kids sitting on their front steps in their Sunday best, the road was deserted. He made his way to the Plaza to see Kind Hearts and Coronets.

  Hovering at the foot of the cinema steps he watched the queues grow. He hated having to ask an adult to take him in to see an A film. Asking favours from anyone was embarrassing and he was shy of strangers. His attention was suddenly caught by a thin woman in her thirties who was waiting with a boy in his form called Jeffries, a boy whose company he had done his best to avoid for years. He recognised her instantly. She was Jeffries’ mother. Why couldn’t they leave Sternsea? No one wanted to know them so why did they stay? Why didn’t they get the message? Gran said she thought Mrs Jeffries had sent her son to Henry’s school out of spite and it did seem that way. He moved further away from them and spotted a short middle-aged woman wearing glasses, her hair pinned back into a dishevelled bun under a wide-brimmed hat. She was absorbed in an orange paperback. He watched her absently scooping strands of hair behind her ears so that they trailed along her shoulders. He hesitated for a moment and then slowly drew nearer. He was about to speak when she turned a page with such speed that he changed his mind. It was obvious she had got to the exciting bit and wouldn’t want to be interrupted. It was then that he noticed Charlie heading towards the back of the stalls’ queue. He waved frantically.

  ‘Will you take me in?’ he called out.

  ‘Yeah, ‘course.’

  Henry sauntered towards him, relieved.

  ‘So, spill the beans,’ said Charlie when he had reached him.

  ‘About what?’ asked Henry puzzled.

  ‘Come on, mystery boy, everyone’s talkin’ about it. The Sternsea Evening News?’ And he pulled a half-smoked cigarette out of his pack of Woodbines.

  ‘Oh, that.’

  ‘Yeah, that,’ he said, lighting the stub.

  ‘It’s my stepfather,’ said Henry wearily. ‘He’s been learning from these books and going to classes between shifts.’

  ‘And?’ said Charlie, taking a drag from the stub.

  ‘He’s just passed some exams.’

  ‘What sort of exams?’

  Henry sighed.

  ‘Higher School Certificate,’ he said, putting on a snooty accent.

  Charlie gave a long, low whistle.

  ‘He must be really brainy!’ he said. ‘Like you.’

  ‘I am not,’ Henry protested. ‘I’m nothing like him. I’m like my dad.’

  ‘You should have gone to the grammar school.’

  ‘I’m happy where I am.’

  What Charlie didn’t know was that when Henry had taken the eleven plus examination for the grammar school, he had written his name, put down his pen and folded his arms. He was determined to show in whose footsteps he was going to follow. His mother had been upset but his gran had understood.

  ‘Henry’s going to grow up to be a proper man who goes out and does things,’ she had said. ‘Not someone who reads about it in some book. He’s his father’s son,’ she had added proudly.

  ‘Is he goin’ to leave the railways, then?’ asked Charlie.

  Henry shook his head.

  ‘So why did he take the examinations?’

  ‘Because he’s stupid,’ Henry muttered.

  As they reached the bottom step, Charlie asked suddenly, ‘Do you mind if we sit apart?’

  ‘No, course not,’ said Henry, minding a lot. He liked being with Charlie, in spite of his awkward questions. ‘Is it because of my stepfather getting this certificate?’

  ‘Nah,’ laughed Charlie. ‘It’s . . . ’ He hesitated. ‘It’s a girl, see. One of the usherettes.’

  ‘Do I know her?’

  ‘Yeah. She lives in our street. Lily Bridges.’

  Henry knew all about Lily Bridges. She was nineteen and divorced.

  ‘You know she’s . . . ’

  ‘Divorced? Yeah. And I can hardly get two words out of her.’

  It was all the talk of the street. Henry’s mum said she didn’t know how she could bear it. She would rather put up with anything than end up as a divorced woman.

  ‘Don’t you mind?’

  ‘Nope. She married someone who didn’t deserve her. And now she’s shot of him. And one day she’ll marry me. But don’t tell her that. She’s scared enough of people as it is. All I want to do right now is to make her smile.’

  Halfway up the steps, Henry was just sorting out his ticket money when he spotted the middle-aged woman with the hat by the foyer doors. But she was no longer alone. The girl with the black plaits he had heard asking about the Cinema Club choir was with her. She had such a clear voice that he couldn’t help overhearing their conversation.

  ‘It’s her first film,’ she was saying excitedly.

  ‘But why did you want to see it three times?’ asked the woman.

  ‘To hear her sing It’s Magic.’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘Doris Day.’

  ‘Here,’ he said, turning to Charlie and handing him a handful of coins.

  Not long now, he thought, and he could forget about the argument he had overheard at home.

  As Kind Hearts and Coronets began, he felt disappointed. It looked like one of those films where posh people laughed a lot at things he didn’t find the least bit funny, but before long he was enjoying the story. He smiled as a man called Mazzini methodically bumped off every member of his mother’s snobbish family, out of revenge for them letting her die in poverty because she had married his Italian father. If he was Mazzini and his stepfather was a snobby D’Ascoyne, how would he kill him? He grinned. He would remove a nail from one of his stepfather’s bookshelves and the whole shelf would tumble on his head and knock him out for good.

  When he left the cinema, the girl with the black plaits was walking down Victoria Road with the middle-aged woman, still chatting to her non-stop. He couldn’t help watching her. There was something about her that caught your attention. Suddenly it struck him as odd that she had to hunt for an adult on her own. Unlike him, she looked like the sort of girl who would have lots of friends. Not that someone like her would ever be friendly with him. She was too posh.

  ‘Now tell me all about it while you have your bath,’ said his mother. ‘I want to know every detail.’

  Henry gazed down at the murky water in the tub in front of the range.

  ‘Yes, I know everyone else has been in it but once I top it up with hot water,’ she said, lifting a large iron kettle from the range, ‘it’ll be lovely.’

  ‘If I keep my eyes shut.’

  She laughed.

  He could hear Bandbox on the wireless coming through the wall from Gran’s room.

  ‘Uncle Bill’s upstairs reading a story to Molly,’ said his mother, noticing him glance round the kitchen. ‘Now tell me all about it.’

  ‘Th
ere’s this actor called Alec Guinness,’ said Henry, pulling off his plimsolls, ‘and he plays eight parts.’

  ‘Eight! But how could you understand what was going on?’

  ‘He walks and speaks and looks different when he plays each one. He’s really funny.’

  ‘Are you going to see it again?’

  ‘Yeah! Why don’t you come with me?’

  ‘I’d love to but what with Molly and . . . ’ She paused, ‘One day soon, I promise.’

  Henry nodded. It was Uncle Bill who stopped her but she wouldn’t let on. He could see he’d better change the subject and then he remembered something else.

  ‘I saw Jeffries and his mum in the queue.’

  They looked at one another for a moment.

  ‘Did they see you?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It won’t be for long. Just three more terms.’

  ‘Why does she stay? She can’t believe Private Jeffries will come back now.’

  ‘Well, obviously she still does.’

  ‘But even if he did turn up, why would they want to have anything to do with him after what he’s done? And what about us?’

  ‘We’ve managed so far. Don’t tell Gran you’ve seen them. She’ll only get upset.’

  He placed the clothes horse with his towel on it round the bath tub to give himself privacy and his mother turned her back on him so that he could undress.

  ‘You’re early!’ Mr Jenkins said, unlocking the shop door on Wednesday morning,

  Henry noticed he was already wearing his white coat.

  ‘Come on in, lad.’

  Behind Henry two men were wheeling large sacks of flour and sugar on grocery trolleys. Henry stepped out of their way and leaned against the wooden counter on the left where the shelves of tinned food, biscuits, Oxo cubes and large squares of green soap were stacked. The men lifted up a section of the counter facing them and pushed the two sacks through to the room at the back.

  ‘There’s dog mess on the pavement,’ said Mr Jenkins. ‘You know the drill. Chuck a bucket of soapy water over it and sweep it all down. You can clean the brass plate on the door as well. And after you’ve done that and washed your hands,’ he continued, ‘I’ll need those dozen jars I mentioned yesterday filled with pickling vinegar and then you can help Miss Moira with the weighing and bagging up.’