Jane Gardam - Last Friends

‘Oh, it’s about the same thing,’ she said.

‘This boy’s parents are both living. He means everything to them.’

Terry was examining the chocolate slot-machine, empty since sweet-rationing, with its metal drawer hanging out. The priest watched, hoping that Terry had heard.

Terry was still dazed and unnerved by Florrie’s absence.

She’d stood at the door steady and confident as a sergeant-major. Hand on latch had said, ‘Well now. Got everything then? Got the cake? Stamps? You’ll need one when you write home tonight from Liverpool.’

She — and Terry — knew that he would never say ‘Aren’t you coming as far as the train?’ That she would never kiss him in front of anybody. He had moved his feet on the step, looking to each side of her, marking time. The shadow of his father crawling back to the bed, skirting the chamber-pot, moved behind her. In a minute his father’s pointed knees rose like Alps inside the snowy counterpane.

‘You’ve got one of your socks going to sleep inside one of them shoes,’ said Florrie. ‘That won’t suit Canada. It’s a good fault though, too big. No doubt they’ll wash them in too-hot water. It’s good to see you in long trousers. I’ll send a second pair. Now, you’ll remember to write tonight . And watch your manners.’

That was when she had gone in and shut the door behind her.

When the train steamed in, it gathered the children in to itself, the parents’ flustering, faces against windows. Few children cried. Some looked unconcerned, and remote, blank as the dead. Some of the parents on the platform tried to wave little paper flags.

Inside their carriage the Fondles were talkative and encouraging as with their entourage they set off across the world to safety.

Terry had a corner seat in the Fondle’s first-class carriage but as the train gathered speed he stood up, opened the window by its leather strap and leaned forward to push his head out into the blowy day. At one blast he was caught into the slide and clatter of the train, the sudden, knowing hoot from the funnel. He watched the strings of coarse red council houses, the gaunt chimneys of the iron-works above them. At his back were the Cleveland Hills where Mr. Smith lived with his sick wife and little Fred. Behind the chimneys, in front of Terry and invisible, rolled in the sea towards the mine-fields of the sand-dunes and the barbed wire and Mr. Parable. All his life’s landscape was passing out of sight. Here was the long fence at the end of the grounds of Mr. Fondle’s school. There was a For Sale notice up, facing the train, beside the open Fives Court.

Pressed up against this fence, arms outstretched before her towards the running train, mouth gaping, face yearning, eyes blank and terrible and blind, stood his mother.

Then the train had swished and trundled by and Terry stood at the window until Veronica Fondle twitched at his coat and told him to close it, and sit down.

He never knew if his mother had seen him passionately waving.

A mile or two inland and over sixty years later, old Fred Fiscal-Smith was deep in some gleaming, bubbling ocean. Seaweed trailed in it and there were soft, gulping bubbles, tropical ripples and gentle waves. Java, perhaps? Wonderful case there in the seventies. Faulty refrigeration plant, junior to Veneering. And to Filth.

But Fiscal-Smith’s forehead seemed to be resting now on a smooth glass, globular surface, and he was a baby again. More alarmingly he was gazing into a wide mouth with bright lips turned inside out like a glove, opening and shutting, moving tirelessly, eyes staring with disbelief. Ye gods, it was a gold-fish and he was slipping off the edge of the bed!

Where’d she gone? The Madame?

A bang and a rushing figure, and she was back. It was morning in the best bedroom of The Judges’ Hotel and the curtains were being drawn back. Her voice rattled on. And on.

‘Now then, Fred. Thermometer. Straighten yourself out before we’re gathering up the gold-fish off the floor. They’re meant to soothe the guests, not frighten them. My own idea. Copied from dentists. It’s raining and right cold this morning — almost afternoon. You’ve slept twelve hours, Fred. You’ll be right in a day or two and you’d best stay here till you are.’

‘No, no. I must get home.’

‘I’ve told him, your so-called “ghillie”, I call him Bertie as I call you Fred, Fred, when we’re alone. Since Herringfleet school—.’

‘Tell Bertie—’

‘I’ve told him. Returned from one of his memorial services, I said, with the flu. Staying here. Told him to bring down any post, except that, knowing him, he won’t. Bone idle. Here’s the paper. More about the Service. What a mob of double-barrels!’

‘Do go away. I’m not awake. Home—.’

‘Now don’t tell me Lone Hall’s ever been home, Fred. Just as Fiscal-Smith’s not the name you were baptised. You and I hailed from Ada Street first, just as his high-and-mighty hailed from Muriel Street. It was your Dad fancied the Hall up here long since and now you can’t get rid of it. Smith was your name.’

‘I’d never try. I’m denying nothing about Ada Street. I’ve come back up here. In the North. Might never have left Hong Kong. I’m faithful.’

‘Breakfast. Here. Eat it. They’ve done you eggs and bacon.’

He munched, his back against the pillows. Beside him on the table the gold-fish hung in their blob of ocean, then shrugged and shimmered away into some ornamental pebbles and ferns.

‘You’re kind, Margaret. You’d never order me out. I’ll stay a day or so for old time’s sake. I can’t really afford—.’

‘You’re worth millions, Fred. Shut up. What happened down there? Something’s upset you.’

‘Oh — didn’t know many people. Didn’t feel very welcome as a matter of fact. Old friends change. Or die. Or both. Thinking of Hong Kong — I was Sir Edward Feathers’ best man there you know — and, well, rather aware that nobody has ever, exactly, wanted me. And the obituaries were full of mistakes. Terry Veneering’s “childhood in Russia”. Old Filth’s “uneventful life”! Ha!’

‘Come on, get your own life, Fred.’

‘Bit late now, Margaret. Everything’s getting right dim, now.’

‘You said that like a local, Fred. Go back to sleep.’

‘Aye. And put a cloth over them bloody fish,’ he said in a voice that would have been unrecognisable in The Temple. As he fell asleep he said, ‘Remember Florrie Benson? Terrible business that. Terrible world.’

The huge four-decker cruise ship stood like a city in Liverpool Dock and the faces looking down from the upper decks were dots. Gang planks stood robust and heavy. Rows of lifeboats, all tested and passed, hung like fruits.

There had been a last-minute delay and now the date of embarkation would be tomorrow, Friday the thirteenth. Normally no big ship would have risked such a date, but there was a waiting group of convoy ships and Liverpool was being heavily bombed and more bombardment expected. There was a sense of urgency.

The ship was carrying around a hundred children mostly the East End of London poor, homeless, and some orphaned already in the Blitz. National newspapers had been carrying photographs of dead children laid out in rows. Churchill had not yet vetoed these evacuations by sea but, there was serious lobbying about patriotism for one’s country being the noblest place to die; and also suggestions, since the sinking of a similar ship carrying children less than a month earlier, of nervousness.

Most of the London children had said goodbye to their parents at Euston Station and continued by train to Liverpool where the delay had meant a stay of two nights in rat-infested hostels. Some had cried, a few fallen ill — there was a case of chicken-pox (this boy was taken home) — but most of the rest were noisy and excited and looking forward to the six days of crossing the Atlantic to a new life. None of them mentioned the partings from home. They had transformed themselves into a new, intimate community consisting only of each other.