Barry Walsh - The Pimlico Kid

She has run out of Bournvita. ‘Very kind Billy and that’s for you,’ she says softly, and hands me a threepenny bit extra. Like Ada, she tips in advance. Mum encourages me to be especially polite to Miss Rush because she’s a ‘lady’. Whenever neighbours indulge in raucous behaviour or use bad language, Mum says, ‘What will Miss Rush think?’ But Miss Rush doesn’t seem to mind and she’s the only tenant who manages to stay on good terms with everyone. She isn’t all that genteel either because she reads the Daily Mirror and calls lunch ‘dinner’. She’s old, clean and speaks quietly. It doesn’t take much to be a lady in our street.

‘Won’t be long Miss Rush.’

Before closing the door, she nods towards the rope blocking off the stairs to the second floor and the empty top flat. ‘Terribly sad.’

Old man Fay died of TB and his flat is waiting to be fumigated before it can be re-let. He was ‘a right stinker,’ according to Ada, who could have run him a close second. Mr Fay rarely washed and he had a strong smell, even out in the street. He was also deeply religious and did weird things, like laying crosses made of two matchsticks on the pavement and asking people to mind where they walked.

Our landlord, Mr Duffield, found him lying naked in bed, eyes open, staring in terror along an outstretched arm to where his fingers curled around a large wooden crucifix. Scores of empty matchboxes were piled in the corner of his bedroom and matchstick crosses dotted the floor like tiny Christian land mines that had failed to protect him. When they took him away, the sooty outline of his body was stained on the bedclothes. Mr Duffield joked that, unlike the Turin Shroud, Mr Fay’s sheet bore only a rear impression.

It’s exciting to have known someone who has died and I’ve been embellishing Mr Fay’s death with tales of strange noises coming from his empty flat at night. When John hears these stories, he shakes his head but, like most of our friends he wants to believe that spooky things can happen in our street. For the little kids, Old Man Fay is becoming a bogie man.

Mum and Dad are desperate to move to a flat on the new estate by the Thames. However, they’re a long way down the waiting list. The home they want most of all is on the back of Shredded Wheat packets. The Swedish-style ‘dream house’ stands bathed in sunshine above a sloping lawn. By the garden gate, a man, his wife and a boy are waving while a younger girl crouches to pet a Scottie dog. They’re all smiling, even the dog. The house could be ours if we can come up with a winning description for a Nabisco breakfast. Mum has had several attempts, each one sent off with its three packet tops and a catchphrase. She thinks her latest try is a potential winner: ‘Shredded Wheat, your morning treat’. We’re not holding our breath.

If this one doesn’t win, Mum says it will be her last try and she’s already eyeing the matching kitchen cabinet, table and chairs that are up for grabs on the back of the Corn Flakes packet.

Dad is an even more committed competitor and he’s convinced that sooner or later he’ll predict eight draws on the Football Pools. When he does finally line up his ‘Os’ against the right games in the coupon’s little squares, he says we’ll all be on the pig’s back and able to buy the Swedish house outright – Scottie dog and all. Mum tells him to get away with his nonsense but pays secret attention when he checks the results in the Sunday paper.

Back in the street, I run into John who is bouncing a tennis ball on a cricket bat as he makes his way home.

‘Where you going?’

‘To get stuff for the old girls.’

‘Sharesy.’

‘Yeah.’

We share whatever is earned from running errands. It’s one of Dad’s rules that covers most things we do, even when there’s no real money at stake. We’ve never finished a game of Monopoly because as soon as one of us runs out of money, the other lends him enough to carry on.

‘Watcha Billy.’

‘Watcha Josie.’

Josie Costello is sitting on the ‘Big Step’, a foot-high terrace of black-and-white tiles that surrounds Plummer’s corner shop.

‘What are you doing?’

I hold up the string bag.

‘Been to get stuff for Ada Holt and Miss Rush.’

Josie sits a lot to ease the strain on her callipered leg – the result of what she calls her ‘brush with polio’, which she cheerily tells everyone is better than being swept away altogether. Even in summer, she wears a heavy brown shoe to match the clamped boot. When you meet Josie, you have to cope first with her face, and the purple stain that rises on one cheekbone and spreads down to thicken part of her top lip. A smile-wrecker, but it doesn’t stop her smiling. When she does, she raises a hand to stop you seeing the birthmark’s flat weight tugging at her face. She would look ashamed if her eyes dropped at the same time, but they resist and look straight at you.

‘How’s your breathing?’

‘Pardon?’

She’s talking before I’m listening. Her face no longer shocks, but it takes time not to notice.

‘Your breathing.’

‘Oh, fine.’

She’s asking about my asthma. At primary school, it had often meant having to stay in the classroom at playtime. Josie would be there too, with her bronchitis. While I wheezed, she coughed, which made her face go red and her birthmark turn dark blue. Those who stayed in, with anything from a sty to a broken arm, had Josie for company. Even when she wasn’t ill, she preferred being inside to loneliness in a crowded playground. In class, she sat at the front to one side with her birthmark close to the wall, so that when she turned around the rest of us saw only clear skin. She was always the last to leave the room.

Being asthmatic has set me apart and gets me quite a bit of sympathy. When I get one of my ‘attacks’, there are small white pills to take and vapour to breathe from an asthma pump. These help my breathing but they’ve also become props for my role as ‘plucky Billy’, an image I try to portray with subtle references – at least I think they’re subtle – to what I manage to do in spite of being out of breath so often. Truth is that on the days when my breathing is OK, I’m no different to any other kid. Josie doesn’t have ‘good days’. Aunt Winnie says that, like Josie’s disabilities, asthma is my cross. It’s also a bit of a crutch.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask.

‘Oh, just waiting. Christine and Shirley are going over the park this afternoon; I might go too.’ She pats the tiles next to her. ‘Want to sit here for a bit?’

I don’t think so. Being seen talking to any girl guarantees piss-taking from mates, even though we talk a lot about girls and, especially, tits. Some even claim they’ve done more than talk about them, but clam up when asked for detail. However, no one talks about Josie, even though she’s well endowed in the chest department.

If I don’t sit down, I’ll hurt her feelings. Most kids find it easy to say no to Josie, or to leave her company when there’s something better on offer, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I sit down where she beckons me, on her good side.

‘Where did you go on holiday? Scotland, wasn’t it?’

‘No, Carlisle. It’s in England.’ This has sounded harsh. ‘But it is near Scotland. What about you?’

‘We’re going to Ireland again in a couple of weeks. Mum says we might visit some holy place where sick people get cured, and this,’ she flicks a hand up to her face, ‘might …’

‘Oh … that would be great.’

‘Yes, but it only works for a few people. You have to have faith you see, really believe that Jesus will help you.’