Melanie McGrath - Hopping

Harold wasn’t particularly keen to join it. He loved his father and his brother very much but he couldn’t help thinking there was something a little dishonourable in selling drink to desperate men. On the other hand, it was difficult to see what he would do. At school he had proved himself a diligent student, good at numbers in particular, but who would take on a boy with an affliction such as his when there were crippled war heroes tramping the streets half starved? Nonetheless, as 1916 turned into 1917, and the time neared for him to leave school, he knew that he would have to find something. No one could make a living selling second-hand programmes and singing songs to half-cut women.

A week or two before his fourteenth birthday, when he was expected to leave school, the headmaster, Mr Stuart, took Harold aside for what he called his ‘demob’.

You’ll not be following your brother Jack into the West India when you leave here, I take it?

No, sir .

You’re bright enough, but it won’t be easy to place that wooden leg , you see? So what do you propose to do?

It ain’t the leg what’s wood, sir , Harold said, feeling the need to explain himself, it’s only the caliper .

Mr Stuart nodded slightly.

Harold expressed his intention to find an apprenticeship until he was old enough to sign up – if the war was still going on.

Mr Stuart tried not to smile.

Well now, listen here , he said. That’s all well and good, but in the meantime, take this . He scribbled a few words of recommendation on to a piece of paper, named a handful of factories and suggested Harold go to see the foremen there.

So that was exactly what Harold did. At Keiler’s jam and pickle works he was asked to sit and wait for a Mr Taylor, who failed to appear. At Venesta’s a bulky, flustered man took one look at him and said they wouldn’t be taking on any crippled boys. Deciding he might fare better in a shop, Harold presented himself with his letter of recommendation to one establishment after another along the Commercial and East India Dock Roads, then down Poplar High Street, but no one had any positions open for crippled errand boys and he returned home empty-handed. For a while, he rather reluctantly helped out his father and brother, and his mother’s cousin gave him work delivering clean laundry, but when someone complained that the corners of their sheets had been dipped in mud on account of Harold’s lurching gait, his mother’s cousin said she couldn’t afford to have him ruin her business and he would have to go on his way. He continued selling programmes, and added to his portfolio by picking up horse manure and selling it to the tenants of the new allotments which had begun being dug all over the East End, and sweeping coal dust to sell to those who could not afford lump coal. In the afternoons, May would send him off to fetch the evening tea. So long as he didn’t expect them to employ him, the local shopkeepers were often sympathetic and would slip him an extra rasher or two or a couple of eggs, shaking their heads and saying:

Your poor mother .

It was on one of these expeditions, as he was making his way home with a slice of jelly brawn and some potatoes, that Harold spotted a cardboard sign propped up in the window of Spicer’s Grocers and Purveyors of Quality Goods on the Commercial Road. The sign read:

Honest boy req’d .

Tucking the brawn and potatoes down his trousers, which, being Jack’s hand-me-downs, were also very big on him, Harold pushed open the shop door and entered. The place was deeper and larger than it had appeared from its frontage. The walls were lined with dark green shelves on which sat tins of treacle, jam in ceramic jars and tea in penny packets. Beneath the counter were four large floor cabinets, two containing bandages, starch, soap, packages of Carter’s and Beecham’s pills, worm cakes, flypapers, hairnets and all manner of pharmaceuticals and haberdashery. On the counters above the cabinets slabs of butter and cheese were laid out, and behind these were rows of biscuit tins and jars containing honeycomb, toffee and liquorice. Hearing the bell, a plump man with thinning hair, who was arranging piles of kindling, turned to see who had entered and said:

Yes?

Harold felt the man’s gaze alight on his caliper.

It’s about the position , Harold said, trying to sound bold. The man took a breath and, introducing himself as Mr Spicer, flapped his hand, motioning Harold to approach. Harold did so, aware all the time that Mr Spicer was appraising his leg.

You always been a cripple?

Harold shook his head and gave his usual answer. He’d had an accident, he said. He preferred to remain vague about the details.

Rickets too?

Mr Spicer leaned back slightly and rubbed his chin.

Can you ride a bicycle? I wonder. For deliveries, I mean .

Oh yes , Harold said, though he’d never been on a bicycle and had in fact only ever seen one at close quarters when the air-raid policeman had left his lying in the street while giving chase to a boy who had popped him with his catapult.

Well , said Spicer, sucking his teeth and waving Harold closer, come round the back and we’ll see what your learning’s like .

Harold followed him through a hessian curtain at the back of the shop, then down a damp, dark corridor into a small, draughty room filled with a large oak table at which sat a gaunt woman with a lavender scarf tied around her neck. Beside her, on a stand, a sleek mynah bird swung in a small wire cage. For a moment, everyone looked at one another.

He’s come about the position, Mrs Spicer , Mr Spicer said to his wife.

Oh, he has, has he? Mrs Spicer said, though not unkindly.

Give him something to read, Mrs Spicer . Mrs Spicer rummaged for a moment then drew out a single broadsheet. It was an invitation to attend a meeting on votes for women in Limehouse, tea and biscuits served. Harold read without a stumble. As he finished, Mr Spicer coughed and raised his eyes to heaven.

Here, then, Mrs Spicer , he said. Give this boy one of them accounts books . Spicer waited until Harold had taken the leather-bound book. Well, open it then , said Mr Spicer, and add up all them numbers in the right-hand column and give me an answer quick!

Twenty-seven shillings and tenpence ha’penny . Mr Spicer took the book and began to scan the column, mouthing the numbers to himself. After a short while he passed the book to his wife and said:

Here, you check this .

While Mrs Spicer made her way down the column, Harold fixed his gaze on the mynah.

They’ll speak, you know, if you train ’em , said Mr Spicer. Which is just as well since they ain’t much to look at .

Yes , Harold said. He explained that the Baker family had a similar bird and that it, too, wasn’t much to look at.

Mrs Spicer confirmed Harold’s figure. For a moment Spicer stood fiddling with his moustache, thinking, then he said:

Got family what served, sonny?

Harold explained that his father had been invalided out and that his older brother had worked in the docks for most of the war. Spicer listened with apparent concentration, then tapped the bars of the cage and began to sing ‘Laddie Boy’:

Goodbye and luck be with you, Laddie Boy, Laddie Boy .

After a little while, the bird began to join in with the chorus and even managed a bit of one of the verses.

Ha ha ha, see? Spicer shook with laughter and wiped his eyes with a mucky sleeve. Mrs Spicer sighed and began very quietly drumming her fingers on the table.