At the end of the lesson Henry was slow to put his books away. He watched Mr Finch tidy up, but instead of following the others out, he remained seated.
‘Out you go, Dodge,’ said Mr Finch.
‘Sir,’ Henry began quickly, ‘can you put me with another group?’
‘I’m quite happy with the groups I’ve chosen. Now off you go.’
‘But I can’t be put with Jeffries, sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s family business, sir.’
‘You’re going to have to tell me more than that, Dodge.’
Henry took a deep breath.
‘My dad saved his father’s life, but his dad never even turned up to my father’s funeral. And he’s a deserter.’
‘And this happened when?’
‘Nine years ago.’
‘And did Jeffries fail to report to his unit?’
‘No, sir,’ said Henry puzzled. ‘He was only five, sir.’
‘Exactly. In other words whatever his father is guilty of, he is not guilty of the same crime.’
‘But my grandmother would be upset.’
‘I’m sorry about that, Dodge.’
‘And we don’t talk to one another.’
‘Perhaps it’s time you started.’
Henry couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘Is that all, Dodge?’
‘No, sir. There’s Pip.’
‘Pip?’
‘Morgan. We don’t mix with boys like him.’
‘Oh? Why is that?’
‘It’s just one of those things. No one does.’
‘Does he have impetigo?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Or any other infectious disease?’
‘No, sir. It’s just my grandmother says that because he was born on the wrong side of the blanket it means . . . ’ he paused. ‘Well, he’s unlucky and if you’re seen with him, you’ll be unlucky too with jobs and things.’
Mr Finch stared silently at him for so long that it was unnerving.
‘Do you know what being born on the wrong side of the blanket means?’ he said eventually.
Henry felt indignant. Of course he knew.
‘It’s the way you’re born, sir. It’s like a superstition.’
‘Ah.’ He gave a weary sigh. ‘I think it’s about time someone told you.’
‘But I know, sir!’ protested Henry.
‘No you don’t. Being born on the wrong side of the blanket means being illegitimate.’
‘You mean he’s a bastard?’ said Henry, shocked.
‘I believe that is the term. Unfortunately it often means that children like Morgan are stigmatised. But that will not happen in my form. I chose you to work together because you all have an interest in the cinema. Morgan is a pupil in my class and as such he will be treated equally. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, Mr Finch,’ Henry murmured.
‘Now go along with you.’
As soon as school was over Henry ran home, head down. ‘I’m not hungry!’ he yelled when he burst into the kitchen.
‘Take it with you,’ his mother said, holding out a slice of bread and jam.
He snatched it from her, avoiding her eyes.
‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’ she said.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ he muttered and fled out into the yard.
Fists clenched, he sprinted down the back alley to the street, crawled under his gran’s window so that she wouldn’t call out for him to come in and have a chat, and headed for the Plaza. The queues were already round the corner and halfway down the next street. If he was quick, he might make it to the Apollo. The first feature film began just before four o’clock. He started running again, praying he would find an adult willing to take him in. Both films showing at the Apollo were A films.
Five minutes later, yards from the Apollo, he spotted the middle-aged woman he had seen queuing for Kind Hearts and Coronets stepping out of the Kings Theatre. She turned and walked on ahead of him to join the queue at the Apollo. Breathless and with no time to think, Henry gasped out, ‘Please would you take me in?’
The woman beamed. ‘Of course,’ she said.
He’d heard her talk to the girl with black plaits and knew she was well spoken, and her blue-green eyes seemed amused by something. He nodded his thank you between gasps, his shirt now glued to his body with sweat.
‘And, yes, I am going for the cheaper seats,’ she said, reading his thoughts, ‘though you take your life in your hands sitting in them here. And don’t believe them when they tell you they’re all broken. They just want you to pay the extra for the next price up.’
Henry nodded again and handed her his collection of coins.
After the usherette had torn their tickets in half, she pulled aside the curtain and they entered a world of dust, disinfectant and carbolic soap. Silently they followed another usherette to the front of the stalls. She shone her torch along the floor of the second row and Henry and the woman excused their way past the packed seats in an effort to find ones that were safe to sit on. She had ignored one perfectly good seat so Henry understood that she meant him to take it. She chose a seat at the end of the row, well away from him. Relieved, he sat down, grateful to be alone.
The Third Man was like nothing he had ever seen before, yet it felt unnervingly familiar. It was about an American writer called Holly who had travelled to Vienna to look for his friend, Harry Lime, only to discover that he had just missed his funeral. As Henry watched Holly try to find out what events had led to his friend’s death, he was drawn into a night-time world of dark empty squares and alleyways and wary faces peering out of shadowy doorways. It was a world of police and black marketeering, of late-night bars and coffee houses and murder.
Much later, when Henry stumbled out of the cinema, he was so lost in his thoughts that he didn’t hear the woman speak to him at first.
‘So what did you think of it?’
He whirled round.
‘He was evil!’
‘Harry Lime?’
‘Yeah. But that man Holly was his friend. How could anyone want to be his friend? I don’t understand it. And that Miss Schmidt.’
They began walking.
‘The one who loved Harry Lime?’
‘Yeah. She seemed really nice but . . . ’ He struggled to find the right words.
‘You can’t understand why she still loved him even after she’d been told about the terrible things he’d done?’
‘No.’
Suddenly he realised why the film was so familiar to him. It was Mrs Jeffries. She was waiting for Private Jeffries to return, even though he was a deserter, even though he hadn’t turned up to the funeral of Henry’s father – the man who had saved his life.
‘There’s a saying that love is blind,’ said the woman.
They passed the Kings Theatre and headed in the direction of the police station.
‘Yeah,’ said Henry thoughtfully, ‘you could say that about my mother.’
‘You’re not that bad are you?’ remarked the woman.
‘Not me,’ he said. ‘My stepfather. He thinks he’s Lord Snooty. And he stops my mother going to the Pictures.’
‘That’s sad.’ They crossed the road. ‘Do you ever go back and see films again?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘I’m going again, tomorrow. First show. I’ll take you in if you want.’
Henry felt embarrassed.
‘This boy Charlie used to take me into A films all the time. He already looked sixteen when he was my age. But he’s in the Army now.’
‘I take it that’s a roundabout way of saying yes, then?’
Henry couldn’t help smiling. He nodded.
‘Thanks.’ There was a brief silence. ‘I saw you the other day,’ he said, ‘outside the Plaza.’
‘Kind Hearts and Coronets?’
‘Yeah. I was going to see it again but I left it too late so I went to the Gaiety.’
&nb
sp; ‘To see Dick Barton Strikes Back?’
‘Yeah.’
Henry was astonished at how easy he found it to talk to her. They chatted amiably about films until she stopped outside one of the enormous Victorian houses in Victoria Road.
‘This is where I live,’ she said.
She must rent a room there, thought Henry. It was too big for one person.
‘I presume you’ll be scouring the Sternsea Evening News tomorrow for next week’s films. Let me know if there are any A films you want to see. If I’m going to the same ones, I can look out for you.’
Henry felt awkward.
‘And no, I’m not a lonely old dear who wants you to sit with me,’ she said. ‘Once we’re in, you do what you like. Agreed?’
He grinned.
‘Agreed.’
‘And my name’s Hettie, short for Henrietta, but you might be more comfortable calling me Mrs Beaumont. And your name?’
‘Henry.’
‘Same as mine!’ she said smiling. ‘Well, almost.’
The next day they met as arranged outside the Apollo. She was only yards from one of the box offices when he ran up to her.
‘Quick! Tell me what you want to see next week before we separate,’ she said.
‘Train of Events,’ he panted. ‘It’s four stories about four different people on a train but they don’t know one another and they’re all on the train for different reasons. And there’s a crash.’
‘Is next Saturday matinee the best time?’
‘Yeah.’
Once inside the Apollo, Henry was impatient for The Third Man to begin. As soon as he heard the strange zither music he could feel his back straightening. His senses alert, he found himself once again being sucked into the murky world of racketeering and blood money.
And still the film disturbed him. Try as he might, he still could not understand the loyalty of Miss Schmidt for Harry Lime. Neither could he understand Mrs Jeffries’ loyalty for her cowardly husband.
He slipped into the crowd of people leaving, keeping his head lowered in case any of the usherettes spotted him and cottoned on that he had stayed to watch two programmes for the price of one ticket. Outside, he was about to cross the road when someone caught his eye. Walking briskly down a small road which broke off from Princes Road, he saw the back of a figure he recognised, this time unaccompanied by his mother. Henry realised that he must have seen the film too.
It was Jeffries.
4. The presentations
ON MONDAY MORNING HARDLY HAD HENRY REACHED THE SCHOOL playground when Pip appeared, skipping along beside him and waving his arms around. This was what Henry had been dreading. Not only did he not want to speak to Pip but he didn’t want to be seen with him either.
‘Good idea, eh?’ Pip said.
‘What’s a good idea?’ Henry snapped.
‘If I see how a projector works, then I can . . . ’
‘No projectionist is going to let you anywhere near him.’
There was a moment’s silence.
‘You’re right,’ he said brightly. ‘He won’t.’
Suddenly Pip spotted Mr Finch and ran off to join him.
Embarrassed, Henry glanced round quickly to see if anyone had seen them together but no one had even noticed he was in the playground, let alone who was with him. He waved at a group of boys in his class but it was as though he was invisible. He put on a smile. He was back in the world of school, where only teachers noticed him.
In the lessons, Henry was even more conscious of the empty seat beside him. He missed Woods. The time dragged slowly because he always finished his work before anyone else and had usually covered up the fact by swapping exercise books with Woods and doing his work for him. Now, after his usual ploy of deliberately making a few mistakes so that he wouldn’t look too clever, he had to resign himself to staring at the blackboard or out of the window or at the dreams inside his head.
Henry wasn’t the only one who finished early. Pip did too. One afternoon Henry made a surprising discovery. Someone had accidentally knocked Pip’s jotter to the floor during Geography. Henry could see that the margins on the exposed pages were filled with intricate drawings of machinery. They looked like plane engines. It was then that he remembered countless incidents when the teachers had thrown Pip’s jotter back at him complaining about the mess in them. Maybe the ‘mess’ was his drawings.
As soon as the bell rang he moved briskly out of the classroom and slunk away from everyone to the corner of the playground. He was still afraid he would be approached by Pip. He knew he would be safe from Jeffries. Jeffries knew better than to come anywhere near him. In desperation he hit on the idea of asking Sergeant, the caretaker, if there was a job he could do for him at break times. Sergeant, an ex-Army man with a neat white moustache, stared at him in astonishment.
‘You must be a mind-reader, Dodge. Are you sure you want to help?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Sergeant took him to a tiny room at the corner of the school where he struggled to open the door. Under a bare light bulb, stacked almost to the ceiling, were assorted boxes of every size, old discarded gas masks, tin helmets, a paraffin stove and battered textbooks. It looked like a salvage drive that had been abandoned.
‘I have to empty this room out completely. Still willing to help?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Once it’s clear it needs to be scrubbed from top to bottom. After that we’ve got to find out if the tap buried under that mound,’ he said, indicating a pile of boxes balanced precariously in the sink and on the wooden draining board, ‘still works. Then I suppose I’ll have to get hold of some black paint.’ At this point he scratched his head. ‘Where I’m goin’ to find black paint, I don’t know, but I’ll worry about that later.’
‘Why do you need black paint, sir?’ Henry asked.
‘For the walls and ceiling. Didn’t I tell you? It’s to be a darkroom.’
‘For developing photographs in?’ exclaimed Henry.
‘That’s right. It’s for you lot. Getting photographs developed is expensive, Mr Finch says, so he reckons it’s a good idea for you to learn to develop your own. Your science teacher is all for it too.’
Henry had to suppress a strong desire to leap into the air.
‘When can I begin?’ he asked enthusiastically.
‘Before we look at the kind of work children in Victorian times were expected to do, I’d like to know how you’re all getting on in your groups.’
Henry quickly looked down at his desk. This was the lesson he had been dreading all week.
‘So,’ Mr Finch said, rubbing his hands together, ‘let’s start with group one. Cowboys.’
There was an embarrassed mumble from the back.
‘We’re going to see a cowboy film, sir,’ said one hesitantly.
‘What’s the film?’
‘The Dead Don’t Dream, sir,’ muttered the first boy, ‘it’s a Hopalong Cassidy film, sir.’
‘It’s about a gold mine,’ added his friend. ‘And murder.’
‘Well, it’s a start. I take it he’ll round up the villains.’
The boys laughed and Henry could tell it was with relief.
‘He don’t mind us goin’ to the Pictures!’ he heard Davis whisper from behind. ‘Now that’s the kind of homework I like.’
‘Ever heard of Zane Grey?’ Mr Finch asked.
Henry had. In The Third Man the American who was searching for Harry Lime had mentioned Zane Grey. He noticed Jeffries’ arm was up.
‘Yes, Jeffries.’
‘He wrote westerns didn’t he, Mr Finch?’
‘That’s right. Maybe you boys should get hold of one of his books from the library.’
The boys were shaking their heads.
‘We don’t go to the library, sir.’
‘Why not?’
‘We’re boys, sir,’ said the boy called Riley.
‘We’d be laughed at, sir,’ said his friend.
‘Called a
sissie, sir,’ said Daniels, a boy in the aeroplane group.
He looked directly at Jeffries, who had a history of having books he was reading surreptitiously under his desk confiscated.
‘Zane Grey is a man,’ said Mr Finch, ‘and is usually read by men.’
‘Is he, sir?’ said Riley, astonished.
‘I’ll get hold of one of his books for you to borrow and you can make up your own mind. Now for group two. Weddings.’
There was an awkward silence as Mr Finch gazed at three girls in the front row.
‘Ethel?’
‘We didn’t have time, sir. We have to help out at home and we’re always being sent out to the shops.’
‘Yeah, Mr Finch. Sometimes I’m in a queue for two hours,’ added her friend Glenda.
‘Notice any old people?’ he asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ they chorused, looking puzzled.
‘Who can work this out?’ he said, looking at the class. ‘If someone was twenty-five in 1899, how old would they be now?’
Before Henry realised what he was doing he had raised his arm.
‘Yes, Dodge.’
‘Seventy-five, sir.’
Mr Finch turned back to Glenda.
‘Ever noticed anyone in the queues in her seventies?’
‘Sometimes, Mr Finch.’
‘Hands up the group doing sweets?’
Three girls raised their arms.
‘A ten-year-old customer in 1899 would now be . . . ’
‘Sixty!’ chorused half the class.
‘So look out for anyone who is sixty.’
‘Why, sir?’ asked Ethel.
She was immediately nudged by Madge.
‘Don’t be soft, gel.’
‘Madge, why do you think I’m talking about people’s ages?’
‘We can ask them questions, sir.’
‘Exactly. So when you find yourself stuck in a queue, always have a pencil and paper on you.’
‘Please, sir, we don’t have that at home,’ said Glenda.
‘You can take your jotters home.’
‘But isn’t that homework? Only grammar school swots do homework.’
‘Haven’t you seen a reporter use a notebook? That’s what I’d like you to be. Interview them. Be polite and write down what they say. You may even find that your wait in the queue is less boring.’