Stay Where You Are and Then Leave (15 page)

“I'm very sorry.”

“No, you misunderstand me,” said Margie quickly. “He's not dead. He's in hospital.”

“Wounded?”

“Not physically.”

Another pause. “Then in what way?” he asked.

“They're calling it shell shock, aren't they?” said Margie, and Alfie's eyes opened wide now. That was the word that Marian Bancroft had used on the train.

“Ah yes,” said Mr. Lloyd George. “Yes, that is indeed what they're calling it. Mr. Asquith has spoken to me about this—it's difficult to know what to make of it.” Alfie couldn't believe how ridiculous this conversation had become. Mr. Asquith had talked about shell shock? Now he'd heard everything. “When a man has his legs blown off, the evidence is there before one's eyes. When he says that his mind is destroyed, well…” He trailed off.

“You think these men are lying?” asked Margie, the steel evident in her voice. “You think they're cowards? That they don't want to fight?”

“Not at all,” he replied. “I don't know enough about the condition, that's the truth of it.”

“Then perhaps you should find out.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Lloyd George. “Yes, perhaps I should.”

Margie glanced at her watch. “I better go,” she said. “I'm visiting my husband in hospital.”

“Which hospital is he in?”

“The East Suffolk and Ipswich.”

“That's a fine place. I wish him a swift recovery.”

“Do something,” said Margie, leaning forward now, so close that if she had just glanced to her left and a little down, she would have locked eyes with her son. “Do something to end it. Please.”

And with that, she turned away and marched toward the ticket booth, opening her bag as she did so and taking out her purse.

“A distraught woman,” said Mr. Lloyd George, sitting down again with a sigh. “There are so many with loved ones who have been lost or wounded. Tell me about your family, boy. You have brothers? A father?”

“I don't have any brothers,” said Alfie.

“And you never had any?”

Alfie frowned; this seemed like a strange question to ask. But then he realized what the man meant and shook his head. “No,” he said. “It's always been just me.”

“And your father?” continued Mr. Lloyd George, a note of apprehension creeping into his voice. “He is keeping well?”

“He's in France,” said Alfie, lying. “He's over there doing his bit.” A phrase he had heard Old Bill Hemperton say on a hundred occasions.

“I hope he stays safe,” said the prime minister. “You must be proud of him, yes?”

Alfie said nothing, just nodded his head and continued cleaning the prime minister's shoes. He looked over toward the ticket booth and twisted a little so he was less visible to his mother if she turned around again.

“Are you really the prime minister?” he asked after a moment.

Mr. Lloyd George nodded. “I am, lad, yes. If you can believe it. Don't I look like a prime minister, then?”

Alfie considered it. “I don't know,” he said. “I don't know what a prime minister is supposed to look like.”

“Picture a man,” said Mr. Lloyd George. “About six feet in height. With a mustache and a pipe. Give him a friendly smile and a Welsh accent. And there you have it. The very model of a perfect British prime minister.”

Alfie smiled.
Welsh!
Of course, that's what his accent was.

“I have a friend who wants to be prime minister,” he said after a moment.

“Oh yes? And what's his name, then?”

“Kalena Janá
č
ek. And he's not a he, he's a she.”

Mr. Lloyd George burst out laughing and shook his head. “Don't you mean she'd like to be
married
to the prime minister?” he said, and Alfie frowned.

“No,” he said. “She wants to
be
the prime minister. Herself.”

“Well, it's a radical idea,” Lloyd George replied, thinking about it and puffing on his pipe for a moment. “But we live in an age of radicals, Master Summerfield, so I wouldn't rule anything out. You may tell her that I said that.”

“I don't see her anymore,” said Alfie.

“Why not? Did you have a falling-out?”

“You took her away,” said Alfie. “Her and her father. They were sent to the Isle of Man.”

The Prime Minister nodded and considered it. “Janá
č
ek—that's what you said, isn't it? Austrian, were they? Polish?”

“English. She was born three doors down from me.”

“A curious name for an English girl.”

“Her father came here from Prague.”

“So half Austro-Hungarian, half English, then.”

“She wasn't a fraction.”

Mr. Lloyd George frowned and looked at the boy with a concerned expression on his face. “You're a bright one, aren't you?” he said after a long pause. Alfie glanced toward the ticket booth again; Margie was now first in the queue and speaking to the man behind the counter.

“How do they look, sir?” he asked, sitting back and letting the prime minister examine his shoes.

“Excellent job, my boy,” he said. “I'm very grateful. I have an appointment with His Majesty in about twenty minutes, and it's important to look one's best when courting royalty. They have the most curious obsessions.” Alfie's eyes opened wide; he found it hard to believe that he had just shone a pair of shoes that would soon be standing before the king. “Of course, the king's own shoes are always sparkling,” added Mr. Lloyd George. “I think he has a boy on the staff to do it for him. Or a fleet of them. I think he breeds them in-house. Now wouldn't that be a fine position for a lad like you?” he added, smiling, and Alfie felt himself beginning to laugh. It was a fantastical idea. “Anyway,” he said after a moment. “How much do I owe you?”

“A penny, sir,” said Alfie, and the prime minister reached into his pocket and threw three pennies into Alfie's cap. “One for you, one for your mother, and one to keep your father safe from harm,” he said. “Ta-ra now, Alfie. Thanks for the shine.”

As he headed back toward his companion, Margie turned away from the ticket counter and Alfie watched as she stared directly into the prime minister's face. He was accustomed to being stared at, of course, so he didn't look away but gave her a polite bow and a tip of his hat as he walked on. Alfie moved behind the pillar and watched her as she stared, before shaking her head and walking over to platform two to board her train. Only when she was safely out of sight did Alfie run around to the information chart to find out where her train was going.

He wasn't surprised by the destination he read there: Ipswich.

*   *   *

It was later in the afternoon than Alfie usually stayed by his shoeshine stand, but he was determined to wait, for the man usually showed up on Tuesday afternoons. The time passed slowly, but finally his patience was rewarded when he looked up to see the doctor from the East Suffolk and Ipswich Hospital (the same one whose papers had blown around the concourse a week before) marching toward him. He stared at him and swallowed.

“Shoeshine, please,” said the man.

Alfie nodded and sat up straight, arranging his materials once again as the man sat down and put his foot on the footrest. “I remember you, don't I?” he asked. “You were here last week.”

“I'm here every week, sir,” said Alfie. “The name's Alfie.”

“Dr. Ridgewell,” said the man.

“Are you a soldier, sir?”

“Of a sort. I was a consultant physician before the war. Now I work in an army hospital.”

“I'd like to be a doctor someday,” said Alfie, even though he had no interest at all in being a doctor. But he knew that grown-ups liked it when boys his age pretended to be interested in their jobs.

“Is that right?” Dr. Ridgewell asked, looking pleased. “Well, I suppose everyone has to start somewhere. Believe it or not, I used to earn my pocket money by making deliveries for our local fishmonger every Saturday. Of course, I was fortunate. My father was a doctor too. As was his before him. But there's a chap at the hospital, Dr. Morehampton, and his father was a coal man, if you can believe it. And another, Dr. Sharpely, who's the son of a greengrocer. So it takes all sorts, I suppose. What does your father do?”

“He's in the army.”

“Well, of course he is. Quite right too. But what did he do before that?”

“He worked at the dairy down Damley Road,” said Alfie. “He drove a milk float.”

“A good honest job,” said Dr. Ridgewell, nodding, satisfied by the response. “And I dare say he'll be back at it soon. This war will be over by Christmas, you know. There's no doubt about it now.”

Alfie said nothing.

“What sort of doctor are you?” he asked after a little while, finishing one shoe and switching over to the other.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you look after people if they have a cold? Or if they've broken their leg?”

“It's quite complicated,” said Dr. Ridgewell. “Are you sure you want to know?” Alfie nodded. “All right then. I deal with the medicine of the mind. Chaps who've gone a bit doolally, if you know what I mean. Fellows who aren't playing with a full deck anymore. Men who can't see the wood for the trees. Do you see what I'm getting at?”

“I can't say I do,” said Alfie, having no idea what any of that meant.

“Mad men,” explained Dr. Ridgewell. “You know what it is to go mad, don't you?”

“Yes. Sometimes I think I might be going that way myself.”

“Well then, you know what I'm talking about. I look after those whose minds have gone a bit befuddled.” He tapped the side of his head with his fingers. “There's a lot of it about these days, of course. These chaps who come back from the trenches. The ones who come back alive, I mean. It's not easy for them, you see. They've seen a lot of terrible things, experienced an awful lot of trauma. It can play havoc with the old reasoning functions.”

“And what happens to them?” asked Alfie, stopping his polishing now and looking up.

“Differs from man to man,” replied Dr. Ridgewell. “Some can't get out of it at all. It's too early to say, of course, but there are some who are probably lost for life. Others might take years to recover. Some just need a good talking to in order to pull them back to their senses. As I say, it differs from man to man. There's no hard-and-fast rule.”

“Does anyone die?” asked Alfie, frowning.

“Oh dear me, no,” said Dr. Ridgewell. “It's not that sort of disease, you see. Although I suppose there are some who might say it's a living death. Chaps who've gone through so much bombing and shelling and shooting and witnessed so many terrible things that their minds just pack up on them and say to their owners, ‘You go your way and I'll go mine.' It's a rotten business. But anyway, that's what I do. I try to put these fellows back together again. How are we getting along there? All finished?”

Alfie nodded and took his dusters away. “As good as new,” he said.

“Capital job too,” said Dr. Ridgewell. “You really are very good at this, you know. If you decide to go into medicine someday it'll be a great loss to the shoeshining business!” He stood up and threw a penny into Alfie's cap. “Well, good-bye for now. See you next week, I expect.”

Yes,
thought Alfie as he walked away.

Perhaps.

 

CHAPTER 10

HUSH, HERE COMES A WHIZBANG

The green paint on the front door was beginning to crack, and Alfie could make out scars of red peeping through from underneath. He stood before it nervously, uncertain whether or not this was a good idea, but before he could decide, the door opened and there he was, standing before him. Joe Patience. The conchie from number sixteen.

“Alfie,” he said in surprise. “I thought I heard someone out here. I was starting to get worried. I'm glad it's only you.” He looked outside for a moment, glancing up and down the street to make sure that no one else was there, before stepping back into the hallway.

“Hello, Mr. Patience,” said Alfie.

“Mr. Patience? It's Joe, you know that. What brings you here anyway? It's a long time since you came knocking on my door.”

“I wanted to ask you something. I need your help.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. The bruising around his eye had got a little better over the last few days; the different colors had settled into a single shade of light blue and it didn't look as tender as before.

“I didn't know who else to ask,” continued Alfie. “I'm on a secret mission, you see. Well, I
was
on a secret mission, but now I'm on another one.”

Joe frowned and seemed uncertain what he should do, but finally he stepped aside and ushered Alfie in. “Well, you'd better come in, I suppose,” he said. “I don't like leaving my front door open for too long anyway.”

It had always seemed strange to Alfie that whenever we went into anyone else's house on Damley Road it felt like being in his own home, only there were so many subtle differences. The rooms were all the same shapes and sizes, the corridors all led in the same directions—or in the mirror images of those directions—but while he was familiar with every stick of furniture in his own house and everything that he, his mother, and his father owned—their ornaments, their knickknacks, their cushions—the things he saw in other people's homes were completely alien to him.

He looked around now, and the first thing he noticed about Joe Patience's living room was the number of books on display. The walls were lined with shelves and every spare space was taken up with hard-covered volumes, some in languages that Alfie didn't even understand. Joe saw the way Alfie was staring around in amazement, his mouth hanging open, and smiled.