Goodnight Mister Tom (14 page)

They all settled down to eating while Willie, amidst all the chatter and laughter, found himself an object of praise. After tea, there were more presents. A jigsaw from the twins, coloured pencils from Zach, sweets from George and some small cakes from Lucy.

‘She baked them herself,’ said her mother.

Lucy gazed up at him. She was bursting with adoration. Willie didn’t know how to treat her. The cakes were lovely, though.

‘Ta,’ he said awkwardly, and she gave him one of her voluminous smiles.

After playing several party games, everyone finally returned home. Tom and Willie stood outside and watched them leaving. They turned back into the sitting room and closed the door.

‘Mister Tom,’ said Willie touching his sleeve. ‘It’s the best… it’s the best,’ but he never finished. The excitement and food simply welled up inside him and he gave a short gasp and vomited all over the carpet.

10
The Case

During the next seven weeks the leaves floated and twirled from the trees, and a light hoar frost covered the fields in the early mornings.

Matthew Parfitt, who was in the reserves, had been called up and May Thorne, to the surprise of everyone, volunteered to deliver the post. She unearthed an ancient bicycle from some forgotten shed corner and proceeded to ride it from cottage to cottage, her sackful of letters stuffed compactly into a basket in the front.

‘I thought that they were extinct,’ Zach had said on first seeing her riding it. ‘Looks like a fossil on wheels. I am, of course, referring to the bicycle frame and not Miss May,’ he added.

Michael Fletcher, who had signed up in September, had, at last, after much impatient waiting, also been called up. He and John Barnes travelled into Weirwold together to catch the train.

Mrs Miller had been rushed into hospital with concussion after having walked into a tree in the pitch dark. When news of the event reached the graveyard cottage Willie had overheard Tom muttering something to the effect that it was a wonder the tree didn’t have to be taken too.

Meanwhile, the Government had asked for a money contribution from the parents of evacuees. Since many parents were miserable at being separated from their offspring and it would be a struggle for some to pay money for their misery, they finally decided to have them home again. Half of the evacuees in Little Weirwold and the surrounding area had already left. This meant that the classrooms were not so crowded, but there was still a shortage of paper and pencils. Willie longed desperately to be in Mrs Hartridge’s class even though he had since grown quite fond of Mrs Black.

Every day before and after school he faithfully practised reading and writing and occasionally when Emilia Thorne returned from the library she would pop round, when Tom was out on Fire Duty, and sit with him. She soon discovered that he had a remarkable aptitude for learning words, especially if he liked them. She started to teach him rhymes and poems and then she would write them down on scraps of paper so that he could follow the letters through when he was on his own.

By now Tom had related the whole of Genesis to him and had read the
Just So Stories
twice. He and Willie were now in the middle of Exodus and had just begun
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
.

Willie and Zach managed to see each other every day as well as weekends and odd evenings and they, the twins and George would walk and play in the fields together.

One dull afternoon, on the last day of October, he and Willie were kneeling on the window ledge in the sitting room of the Littles’ cottage. A slow icy drizzle of rain splattered and ran in tiny rivulets down the window.

Zach squinted through the glass and wiped his breath away from the pane.

‘Where is he?’ he moaned. ‘He’s taking an age.’ He turned despondently from the window. ‘It’ll soon be dark and then we won’t be able to see him coming at all.’

He was cut short by a loud knocking at the front door.

‘Yippee! Wizzo!’ yelled Zach, leaping up and running out of the kitchen, ‘Calloo, calloo, calloo, callay.’

He switched the hall light off, stumbled to the front door and flung it open. His face fell. It was George and the twins.

‘There’s a welcome,’ said Carrie.

‘It ent arrived, has it?’ said George as they stepped into the dark hall.

Zach slammed the door behind them in a disgruntled manner and turned the light on.

‘We can only stay for an hour,’ said Ginnie.

Mrs Little leaned against the kitchen doorway, a freshly-lit cigarette in her hand.

‘You’ll have to take them upstairs, Zach. First Aid begins in fifteen minutes.’

Zach groaned.

‘Unless, of course, you want to volunteer to be a body.’

‘No, thanks,’ said Zach hurriedly. ‘Quick, let’s go.’

The five of them scrambled up the narrow carpeted stairway.

‘And don’t forget to put up the blacks,’ yelled Mrs Little after them. ‘I don’t want Charlie Ruddles wagging his finger at me again.’

‘I won’t,’ answered Zach.

Zach’s room seemed more like a study than a bedroom. One wall was filled to overflowing with medical books and against the back window overlooking the Littles’ straggled but unsuspectingly organized garden stood a large rolled-top desk and chair. Along the wall opposite the bookcase was a bed and under the front window which looked out over the tiny arched lane and fields, was a small table with a photograph of a young dark-haired woman and a slightly older man with large penetrating eyes and a broad grin. They had an arm around each other. On the floor besides Zach’s bed was a small pile of books.

The twins perched themselves on the bed, Zach sat on the chair by the desk and George and Willie sat cross-legged with their backs leaning against the bookcase. Carrie picked up some of the books.

‘
To Save His Chum
,’ she read aloud, ‘
Stalky and Co, The Golden Treasury of Verse, Great Actors I have Known
, what an odd mixture!’

‘Not at all,’ exclaimed Zach.

‘Well, I think it’s odd.’

There was another loud knocking from downstairs. Zach leapt from his chair.

‘It’s Mister Tom,’ said Willie suddenly, and he flushed at having betrayed his excitement so openly.

Zach gave out a yell, threw the bedroom door open and almost flung himself down the stairs. The others clattered on behind him.

Tom was standing in the hallway, his cap and overcoat covered in a thin layer of drizzle.

‘I’ve tried to keep it dry,’ he said, indicating a large battered suitcase by his feet. ‘Best to wipe it, though.’

He looked at Willie.

‘S’pose you’ll be wantin’ to stay fer a bit, eh?’

‘Yeh, can I?’

‘I’ll collect you in thirty minutes. Mind you come immediate, like.’

Zach and George dragged the case up to the bedroom and laid it on one side. It was a brown leather case with two straps that buckled upon either side of the handle. The leather was soft and faded with age. Both sides of it were covered in labels of all colours and shapes with the names of towns and countries on them. Two thick pieces of cord were tied horizontally and vertically around it.

‘Has you bin to all them countries?’ asked George.

‘My parents mostly. They used this when they were one-night-standing and eventually they gave it to me.’

‘One-night-standin’?’ repeated Willie.

‘Yes. There are some companies that perform in a different venue every night.’

‘Venyew? What’s that?’

‘A place. A place where a show is going to be performed. Usually the show is already booked in advance. Anyway,’ continued Zach, ‘my parents kept their ordinary clothes in one suitcase and their costumes and make-up in another.’

‘Does your father wear make-up?’ asked George.

‘Sometimes,’ answered Zach, still struggling with the cords. ‘Gosh, they certainly did a good job on this.’

‘Do you mean like a lady?’ said Willie.

Carrie burst out laughing.

‘Here,’ said Ginnie, ‘I’ll help you,’ and she knelt by Zach who was by now hot with frustration. He leaned back on his heels and looked at Willie.

‘Haven’t you ever seen a show?’

Willie shook his head.

‘Me Mum ses that theatres and pitcher houses are dens of sin.’

‘Rot,’ exclaimed Zach. ‘I was practically born in the theatre. I was breast-fed in theatre dressing-rooms.’

Willie blushed.

‘That’s swearing,’ he said.

‘I learnt to walk and talk in theatres,’ said Zach. ‘And I’m not sinful, am I?’

‘You’re just an angel, ent you,’ said Carrie, her hands clasped.

‘And you’re cracked,’ said Zach. ‘Come on, let’s open this beastly case.’

At last the stiff damp straps were unbuckled and the two large clips unfastened. Zach threw back the lid in triumph and the twins and George gathered round to look at the contents. Willie hesitated.

‘Come on, Will,’ said Zach, seeing him hang back. ‘I want to show off to everyone.’

‘When do you stop?’ remarked Carrie.

Zach gave her a withering glance but it was so overdramatic she and the others burst out laughing. He gave up and looked inside the case. An envelope with Zach written on it in bold lettering was stuck to the inside of the lid. He tore it off and ripped open the envelope.

‘It’s from Mummy and Daddy,’ he yelled.

‘Surprise, surprise,’ said George. ‘Come on. We’ve to go home soon. You can read that later.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Zach, stuffing it into his pocket.

The case was packed very tightly. He peeled off a large piece of newspaper from the top and unwrapped five small parcels, inside which lay several home-baked cakes.

‘I ent never seen cakes like that afore,’ said George.

‘My grandmother taught my mother to make these when she was a girl.’

Underneath were two jars of pickled herrings and three bars of chocolate.

‘Wizzo!’ he yelled, pulling out an assortment of much-loved and battered objects. ‘Books!’

‘What you want with those?’ said George. ‘Thought you’d have enuff of that at school.’

Carrie began to flick through them. Willie tapped Zach’s shoulder but he had already read his mind and he handed him a couple.

The words were laid out in a strange manner.

‘It’s all talkin’,’ said Carrie. ‘There ent no description.’

‘There’s some in the dialogue,’ explained Zach. ‘The words have to set the atmosphere, you see. They’re plays.’

‘How d’you play wiv ’em?’ asked Willie, his curiosity aroused.

‘You are an ass, Will. They’re theatre plays. Scripts,’ and he pointed to the lines. ‘See here, that’s that character’s lines and that’s the other person answering. Actors learn them off by heart and then they rehearse them masses and masses of times until it sounds as if they’ve just thought of them.’

George held up one thick battered tome.

‘
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
. Ugh!’ and he dropped it in disgust.

‘How dare you!’ cried Zach, picking it up hastily. He looked at Willie, sensing that he wouldn’t have heard of him. ‘William Shakespeare was one of our greatest playwrights. A playwright is a man who writes plays like the one in your hand, only he wrote plays nearly four hundred years ago and people still go and see them being performed.’

‘William Shakey,’ said Willie quietly to himself.

‘Shakespeare!’ hooted Carrie.

‘William Shakespeare,’ he repeated, ‘William.’ So he had the first name of somebody famous.

The next article that Zach dragged out was a stiff black circular object. He shook it and in one second it became a shiny top hat.

He placed it on his thick wiry hair and cocked it slightly to one side. Everyone was terribly impressed. He then pulled out a small black suit. The jacket of the suit curved in at the waist and at the back were two buttons above a pair of tails. There was a stiffwhite object called a dicky. It was a collar and bow tie and the front of a shirt. Dangling from it were two thin cords to be tied at the back. Zach put it on and when the jacket was done up it looked as if he was wearing a proper dress shirt. Imitation white cuffs were attached to the ends of the jacket sleeves.

‘Proper job,’ remarked George.

Ginnie examined the whole suit very closely. She turned back the sleeves to see exactly how the cuffs had been sewn in.

Zach unwrapped a pair of objects wrapped in newspaper.

‘My taps!’

He held up a pair of shiny black patent shoes. On each sole were two pieces of metal, one at the tip and one at the heel.

‘What kind of shoes is they?’ asked George, puzzled.

‘Tap shoes. You’ve seen Fred Astaire dance, haven’t you? Well it’s…’ He stopped. The others were all shaking their heads from side to side.

‘I’ve heard of Fred Barnes,’ said George. ‘He owns the Big Farm up at…’

‘Will. You’re a Londoner. You must have seen him at the pictures.’

‘I ain’t allowed,’ emphasized Willie. ‘I don’t do that sort of thing.’

Zach was astounded. He thought the whole world had heard of Fred Astaire.

‘Well, there’s only one way to explain tap.’ He moved the case to one side, rolled back the carpet and told the others to sit by the bookcase. He then put the shoes on and laced them up. He did look strange in the elegant black shoes, darned woollen socks, threadbare shorts, top hat and tails.

‘Now this is what’s called a tap spring,’ and he lightly tapped his right foot along the floor boards and hopped neatly onto it, leaving his left leg raised slightly behind him. Carrie smothered a giggle. He glared at her.

‘If you don’t want to see what it’s like I shan’t bother wasting my time.’ Ginnie gave her sister a dig in the ribs.

‘Come on,’ said George. ‘Take no notice of her.’

If it hadn’t been for Willie’s attentive expression he would have stopped.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘Here goes. And a one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,’ and with that he danced around the room, his shoes tapping rhythmically on the floor springing and twirling around and, as he tapped and stamped, he yelled out, ‘Shuffle hop, Cramp roll, Buffalo.’