‘Where to?’ he asked again.
‘Home,’ she said. ‘We’re going home.’
Except it wasn’t home to her any more, if in truth it ever had been, she sighed to herself as they climbed aboard another horse bus, and she hadn’t yet thought through the next plan. She’d left over ten years ago and had never been back. Every year, just before Christmas, she had sent studio photographs, bought with money she could ill afford to spend: one of her, though not in stage costume, and one of her son so that her parents could see him as he grew from an infant to a handsome boy of ten. She always sent a forwarding address but not once had they written back to her. It was as if she didn’t exist and they could be dead for all she knew, and she’d never find out because no one, not a single person, knew where she was.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘This is our stop.’ She lifted her skirt so that it didn’t trail in the mud, for this was not a wholesome area, although considered semi-respectable by stage performers who couldn’t afford to be choosy. ‘I just hope she’ll take us,’ she murmured.
‘If we’re going to Mrs Andrews’, she said last time that I couldn’t stay again,’ he reminded her.
‘I know,’ his mother answered. ‘But don’t take it personally. She doesn’t take any children, not just you.’
A brisk, severe-looking woman answered to her knock on the door of the terraced house. ‘Yes? Ah! Miss Delamour.’
His mother stared at her as if she had just remembered something. Delia Delamour. Her real name was Dorothy Deakin, but she never used it.
Mrs Andrews looked down at the boy. ‘I thought I said that you couldn’t bring the lad again. It’s not that I don’t like children but it’s not a suitable environment for them, unless of course they are performers themselves.’
‘I know you did, but could you make an exception just this once?’ She hated pleading with the old hag, but it had to be done. ‘It’s only for tonight. I’m taking him home, you see; we’re catching a train tomorrow morning and … just need a bed for tonight.’ Her voice fell away. She was desperate. What would they do if the woman refused?
Mrs Andrews drew herself upright. ‘It ain’t right for a boy to share a bed with his mother and I don’t have any spare singles.’
‘He’s only nine, Mrs Andrews,’ she pleaded, knocking a year off his age, ‘and as I say, I won’t bother you ever again. We’re heading north, you see.’
‘North!’ the landlady spluttered as if she had just heard of the last place on earth. ‘You’d better come in then.’
Jack bounced on the bed in the shabby but almost adequate bedroom. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘will there be icebergs?’
‘What? What are you talking about?’ She was wrapping a warm scarf round her neck. It was freezing in this top-floor room with the draught whistling in through the window.
‘You said we were going north.’ He threw both arms above him towards the ceiling and pronounced, ‘Now is the winter of our discontent.’
His mother sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Oh, Jack,’ she said, half laughing and yet wanting to cry. ‘Whatever am I going to do with you?’
CHAPTER TWO
The next morning they caught a train going north. His mother had told him there wouldn’t be any icebergs, even though it would be much colder than here in the south of England, and they would be near an estuary like the one at the end of the Thames. They were on their way to a town called Hull.
‘Kingston upon Hull, to give its proper name,’ she told him. ‘But all the locals call it Hull.’
‘And are we staying there? Have you got a booking?’
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘We’re not staying there; we’re going into ’country.’ She gave a silent laugh. How easily she had slipped into the local dialect.
‘Listen, Jack,’ she said. ‘Going back might be a bit difficult. We’re going to visit my parents; they live in a place called Paull. It’s a village near the estuary I told you about – the Humber estuary.’
He frowned. ‘Paul is a person’s name,’ he objected. ‘It’s not a place!’
‘It’s a different spelling. It’s double l. It was called Paghill in ’olden days.’
He grinned. ‘Double ’ell! Not a nice place to be, then?’
‘Be serious.’ She closed her eyes for a second, anxiety threatening to overwhelm her. ‘We might not be welcome.’
‘At your parents’ house, do you mean? Why not? And why are we going if we’re not welcome?’
‘We fell out. I can’t explain; it’s … complicated.’
‘Cos of me, you mean? Cos I haven’t got a father?’
‘You have got a father,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Everybody has a father. It’s just that … I can’t say. I’ll tell you one day.’
He sat back and contemplated, and then said, ‘Why did you call me Jack Robinson instead of Jack Delamour?’
‘It’s your name,’ she said abruptly, knowing that she was lying.
‘I don’t like it. Folks laugh and say Before you can say Jack Robinson if something or other is going to happen, as if it’s the first time it’s ever been said.’ He screwed up his mouth jeeringly. ‘It’s not funny. Not when you’ve heard it a thousand million times. And it’s always grown-ups who say it.’
‘It’s a common enough name.’ She shrugged. ‘Change it if you don’t like it.’
‘Romeo, doff thy name.’ The boy thought of Arthur Crawshaw. He’d miss him if they were going to
