I kept away from the McCarthys because I did not want them to know about Mother. Like a fugitive, I kept out of everyone’s way.
*
It was one week since Mother had gone away, and I had settled into a precarious habit of living which I neither lamented nor enjoyed. My major concern was the landlady, for if Sydney did not return, sooner or later she would have to report me to the parish authorities and I would be sent again to Hanwell Schools. Thus I avoided her presence, even sleeping out occasionally.
I fell in with some wood-choppers who worked in a mews at the back of Kennington Road, derelict-looking men who worked hard in a darkened shed and spoke softly in undertones, sawing and chopping wood all day, making it into halfpenny bundles. I would hang about the open door and watch them. They would take a block of wood a foot square and chop it into inch slices and put these slices together and chop them into sticks. They chopped wood so rapidly that it fascinated me and made the job seem attractive. Very soon I was helping them. They bought their lumber from demolition contractors, and would cart it to their shed, stack it up, which took at least a day, then saw the wood one day and chop the next. On Friday and Saturday they would sell the firewood. But the selling of it did not interest me; it was more clubby working together in the shed.
They were affable, quiet men in their late thirties, but looked and acted much older. The boss (as we called him) had a diabetic red nose and no upper teeth except one fang. Yet there was a gentle sweetness about his face. He had a ridiculous grin that exposed prodigiously his one tooth. When short of an extra teacup he would pick up an empty milk-tin, rinse it and, grinning, say: ‘How’s this for one?’ The other man, though agreeable, was quiet, sallow-faced, thick-lipped and talked slowly. Around one o’clock the boss would look up at me: ‘Have yer ever tasted Welsh rarebit made of cheese rinds?’
‘We’ve had it many times,’ I replied.
Then with a chortle and a grin he would give me twopence, and I would go to Ashe’s, the tea grocers on the corner, who liked me and always gave me a lot for my money, and buy a pennyworth of cheese rinds and a pennyworth of bread. After washing and scraping the cheese we would add water and a little salt and pepper. Sometimes the boss would throw in a piece of bacon fat and a sliced onion, which together with a can of hot tea made a very appetizing meal.
Although I never asked for money, at the end of the week the boss gave me sixpence, which was a pleasant surprise.
Joe, the sallow-faced one, suffered from fits and the boss would burn brown paper under his nose to bring him to. Sometimes he would foam at the mouth and bite his tongue, and when he recovered would look pathetic and ashamed.
The wood-choppers worked from seven in the morning until seven at night, sometimes later, and I always felt sad when they locked up the shed and went home. One night the boss decided to treat us to a twopenny gallery seat at the South London Music Hall. Joe and I were already washed and cleaned up, waiting for the boss. I was thrilled because Fred Karno’s comedy Early Birds (the company I joined years later) was playing there that week. Joe was leaning against the wall of the mews and I was standing opposite him, enthusiastic and excited, when suddenly he let out a roar and slid down sideways against the wall in one of his fits. The anticipation had been too much. The boss wanted to stay and look after him, but Joe insisted that the two of us go without him and that he would be all right in the morning.
The threat of school was an ogre that never left me. Once in a while the wood-choppers would question me about it. They became a little uneasy when the holidays were over, so I would stay away from them until four-thirty, when school was let out. But it was a long, lonely day in the glare of incriminating streets, waiting until four-thirty to get back to my shadow retreat and the wood-choppers.
While I was creeping up to bed one night the landlady called me. She had been sitting up waiting. She was all excited and handed me a telegram. It read: ‘Will arrive ten o’clock tomorrow morning at Waterloo Station. Love, Sydney.’
I was not an imposing sight to greet him at the station. My clothes were dirty and torn, my shoes yawned and the lining of my cap showed like a woman’s dropping underskirt; and what face-washing I did was at the wood-choppers’ tap, because it saved me having to carry a pail of water up three flights of stairs and pass the landlady’s kitchen. When I met Sydney the shades of night were in my ears and around my neck.
Looking me over, he said: ‘What’s happened?’
I did not break the news too gently. ‘Mother went insane and we had to send her to the infirmary.’
His face clouded, but he checked himself. ‘Where are you living?’
‘The same place, Pownall Terrace.’
He turned away to look after his baggage. I notice he looked pale and gaunt. He ordered a brougham and the porters piled his luggage on top of it – amongst other things a crate of bananas!
‘Is that ours?’ I asked eagerly.
He nodded. ‘They’re too green; we’ll have to wait a day or so before we can eat them.’
On the way home he began asking questions about Mother. I was too excited to give him a coherent account, but he
