A Kid for Two Farthings (5 page)

7

The morning the spring came, Joe woke up in a circle of sunlight with a breeze blowing softly upon his face. Lying still with his eyes wide open, he listened to his mother’s breathing, like the sea in the distance, a ship going to Africa. But because it was the spring, Joe agreed it was only a dream, and jumping out of bed ran downstairs without his slippers on to see if Africana had noticed the welcome visitor.

Africana was indeed awake, and so full of beans, you would never guess he didn’t enjoy the best of health. In view of the weather perhaps it wasn’t surprising, because with the sun you always feel full of beans and it’s a pity to go to bed because you will never sleep. With the sun up in the sky, ripe and heavy like a solid gold water-melon, everyone feels it will be a wonderful day, and sometimes it is.

In the yard, the stones already felt warm. The rotten wood fencing, which oozed in wet weather like a crushed beetle, was dry as if washed up on a beach somewhere, near pirate treasure. A weed had grown in a minute of the night on the small patch of bare ground, which in the sunshine was earth not dirt any more. It might grow into a palm tree.

Africana, awake in his house, scratched at the walls, eager to play. When Joe lifted the hook on the door he at once ran out. There wasn’t time for a complete game, however, because Mr Kandinsky came into the yard in his carpet slippers and quilted dressing-gown, blinking, his eyes still creased up from sleeping. He sent Joe up at once to get dressed, and put Africana back in his house until after breakfast at least. As he ran upstairs Joe felt his own face just below the eyes, but there were no creases. He guessed Mr Kandinsky had more skin to work with.

Joe’s mother’s boss, Madame Rita, was quite right: there was more work going in the millinery once the worst of the winter was over. Before the spring arrived, women, like the crocuses in Itchy Park, felt it near, and began to peep round at hats. They were already, during the short spells of sunshine, looking into the window of Madame Rita’s shop and saying that it wouldn’t really suit me, Sadie, it’s for a younger woman, and Sadie was saying but it would, Ada, it’s just your style. The next stage was, they came into Madame Rita’s and tried on the hats. They tried twenty hats with the brims up, then down, then sideways, then without the trimming, then with more trimming. Madame Rita watched them, his hands on his large belly, a soft smile on his face, a small black cheroot between his teeth. As they tried one hat after another, with or without trimming, he made little soft cooing noises. ‘Pardon me, lady,’ he would say eventually, ‘the brim up is more your style.’ With a push here and a push there he made the hats suit the faces they had to sit over. In the end the ladies sometimes bought the hats.

Consequent upon there being more work in the millinery, Joe’s mother was kept busier and busier at Madame Rita’s, putting on more and more trimming as fashion demanded, and though this is tiring, it is just what the doctor ordered for piece-workers. But they have in consequence to hurry over breakfast. The day spring came, Joe and his mother had boiled eggs, and before she had her coat on, Joe kissed her good morning and ran down to the yard so you can tell how he hurried if his mother hadn’t even left yet, and she in such a hurry as well.

The reason why Joe was in such a hurry that morning was that in his sleep he had thought of a new game and wanted to see if it would work. One of the things about games is that unless you keep adding to them and working out new ideas, they get dull – not the games really, but you get dull in the games, and then they seem dull. And games like the game called Africa are worth keeping fresh, you must admit, so no wonder Joe didn’t bother about such things as turning his egg-shell over and smashing the other side of it. Sometimes there are more important things to do in life than just playing about with egg-shells, and things like that have to give way to Africa. Anyhow, you can smash egg-shells anytime, but you don’t get a new idea every night you sleep.

When Joe’s mother was leaving, she looked in to Mr Kandinsky’s workshop to say good morning to him and tell him that she might be late, and not to worry. Mr Kandinsky pointed to the back window and nodded. Looking out, Joe’s mother saw Joe talking to Africana, and waving to someone a long way off. She thought how the back of his neck was still like a baby, delicate, with a little gentle valley down the centre, because he was, after all, almost a baby with everything yet to come. How much they had to learn, what a terrible lot they had to learn. She ran away to Madame Rita’s to trim spring hats for those who had already learned what suited them.

All that morning Joe and Africana played together in the yard, which, due to the dry rotten fencing, had become a ship, with old wooden walls. Joe was the captain and Africana on one occasion mutinied. He ran to the other end of the yard frightened by Joe shouting out, ‘Fasten your jibs and loosen your mainsails, you lousy lubbers,’ which is only what captains do say. That nearly spoilt the game, but they went on, after a pause for Africana to eat a cabbage leaf. They visited the South Sea Islands, where Joe drank coconut milk, which is quite like ordinary milk. Mr Kandinsky brought it out for him in an enamel mug. They found pirate treasure just under the lavatory door, a small black pebble which, when properly cut and polished, would be a black diamond. Then at last they came to Africa and had a few adventures there, but suddenly Joe felt like a talk with Mr Kandinsky. Africana’s sniffle had started again so they hurried on to the lost city, met Africana’s parents and Joe’s father, and came home quickly. By air, as a matter of fact, the unicorns growing large wings like geese for the purpose.

The reason why Joe felt like a talk was that though it was a nice thing to have a unicorn, Africana often didn’t seem very interested in playing. Sometimes he sat down in the middle of a game and just chewed, which was certainly irritating, even if he did have a cold. Joe was worried too because Africana still wasn’t growing much and his horn was so tiny it couldn’t even grant small wishes yet. Joe once wished on it for his mother to come home at three o’clock and take him to the pictures, and instead she came home at turned six and cried because there was no letter from his father.

Whilst locking Africana up, Joe practised talking and spitting at the same time. It was a question of holding the spit loose round the tip of your tongue, which you kept between your teeth, and blowing when you spoke. With a little more time, Joe would have it perfect; but where did they get those sandwich boards from? Joe went into the workshop.

‘Where do they get those sandwich boards from, Mr Kandinsky?’ he asked.

‘Where?’ answered Mr Kandinsky. ‘A question.’

‘From the kingdom of heaven?’ suggested Joe. ‘Only the religious ones,’ Mr Kandinsky said.

‘From the agency near the arches,’ Shmule said, without looking up from a turn-up he was turning up. ‘I know, because Blackie Isaacs has got six of them going round with me on them versus the dreaded Python Macklin at the Baths next Saturday night. No wonder I’m worried.’

‘Shmule,’ Mr Kandinsky cried, ‘you never said nothing.’

‘Can anyone get sandwich boards near by the arches?’ asked Joe.

‘You fighting the dreaded Python so soon?’ Mr Kandinsky went on. ‘How come you are fighting him? Him next to the champion and you a new boy in wrestling almost.’

‘Look,’ Shmule said, ‘Python is warming up, see. He’s near the crown five, six year. Already he fights the champ five times. Four times he loses, once he draws. Now he wants plenty of fights, get into form and knock off the champ, who is boozing too much anyway, quick. Afterwards, plenty exhibition bouts with big money for a couple year, and buy a pub in Wapping. So with the shortage in class wrestlers, Blackie does me a favour. Also knocking off the Turk and Bully didn’t help me. I’m a gonner.’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Mr Kandinsky said, ‘to think in my workshop a future champion. Wonderful.’

‘Wonderful,’ Shmule replied. ‘I got trouble, so by you it’s wonderful. I’m a gonner, I tell you.’

‘What kind of spirit is this?’ Mr Kandinsky asked sternly. ‘A nice carry on. I’m ashamed.’

‘You’re ashamed. You should have the worry and you wouldn’t have no time to be ashamed.’ Shmule threw his needle and thread down. ‘That bloody Python is going to break my bloody neck.’

‘Think how proud Sonia will be of you,’ Mr Kandinsky said.

‘Sod Sonia; let her fight the Python and I’ll be proud,’ answered Shmule, and he picked up his needle and got on with his sewing.

‘The sandwich boards, Joe,’ said Mr Kandinsky. ‘The sandwich boards is an interesting case.’

‘Sod the sandwich boards,’ said Joe. ‘That bloody Python.’

‘Go to the corner and get three rolls,’ shouted Mr Kandinsky in a voice of thunder, and Joe ran out. ‘A fine attitude to life,’ Mr Kandinsky told Shmule, his mouth turned down at the corners, which was always a bad sign.

When Joe came back he found that Shmule and Mr Kandinsky were not on speaking terms, except for essentials like ‘Pass the black thread’ and ‘Give me the shears.’ Joe couldn’t break the ice by talking about what was on his mind before he thought of the sandwich boards, because he couldn’t remember what it was, so after dinner he went out and spent the afternoon helping Mavis in the shop. At least Mavis always thought it was a wonderful day. She let him serve Mrs Abramowitz with a pound of Granny Smith apples, of which she was very fond. Of course Mrs Abramowitz managed to pinch his cheek, sod her.

8

The day before Shmule’s fight with Python Macklin, the workshop was closed. Shmule was getting into top shape down at Isaacs’ Gymnasium and Blackie was giving every assistance, including sending out of his own pocket a case of bad whisky to Python, because even if it would be hell for the stomach ulcers, who can resist the gift of an unknown admirer? Mr Kandinsky did have, to tell the truth, a couple of things he could have got on with, but instead he spent the morning at Shafchick’s vapour bath. By permission of Madame Rita, Joe spent the morning down at the milliner’s with his mother, which certainly made a change from all the bad temper and arguments in Kandinsky’s workshop. Furthermore, the girls at Madame Rita’s gave you sweets all the time, and had a completely different kind of conversation.

Joe’s mother was the trimmer, and there was another girl called Sophie who was learning the trimming from her. There was the machinist, Mrs Kramm, who was old and had a chest, and a pretty assistant from the shop named Ruby but called Lady R. Ruby was very nice to Joe, but she treated the others, even Joe’s mother, a bit haughty. As soon as she went out of the workroom they talked about her.

‘What a fine lady, I don’t think,’ said Sophie. ‘Some lady, I should say, and what was she before? – a little snot-nose giving the boys eyes the whole time,’ wheezed Mrs Kramm.

‘She’s very pretty,’ Joe’s mother said, picking up a small bunch of artificial cherries. ‘And good at her job.’

‘That you can say again,’ Mrs Kramm said. ‘That job she can do all right, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy, such a job as she can do so well.’ She pressed the treadle of her machine so that the thread shot through the needle like lightning.

‘Mrs Kramm,’ Joe’s mother said, looking towards Joe, ‘I’m surprised at you. After all, it’s only a rumour.’

‘Oh no, it’s not, Becky,’ Sophie said quickly. ‘I’ve seen him after her behind the gown rail carrying on something terrible.’

‘Sophie,’ Joe’s mother said, ‘the child.’

‘Here you are, Joe,’ Sophie said; ‘I’ve found a caramel in silver paper for you.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Joe, because they were the soft kind with a nut in the middle, although he would rather have heard some more about Lady R and Madame Rita. But it was just as well Sophie stopped when she did because while he was taking the silver paper off the caramel carefully so as not to tear it, who should come in but Lady R herself.

‘Becky dear,’ she said to Joe’s mother, ‘could Joe go an errand? Would you go an errand, Joe sweetie, for Auntie Ruby, dolly?’

‘Certainly he could,’ Joe’s mother said, though Joe didn’t as a rule run errands for dollies.

‘Will you, dolly?’ asked Lady R, bending down and putting her face right close to his. ‘For me?’

‘All right,’ Joe said. Lady R smelt nice at least, and she had large brown eyes and a smooth dark skin and oily black hair very smooth and curled into a bun.

‘Bless you, baby,’ Lady R said, and suddenly she gave Joe a fat kiss on his cheek, which though better than a pinch is still a nuisance.

The errand was to go round the corner and collect Lady R’s genuine French calf handbag which was having its clip repaired. When he was coming back through the shop with the handbag, which was a sack of coal over his shoulder, he saw Madame Rita and Lady R behind the gown rail, and what Sophie said was true. Back in the work-room his mother got out her handkerchief and licked it and rubbed off Lady R’s lipstick, which meant that it had been on his face all the time and he didn’t know, which proves you shouldn’t go errands for dollies.

‘Don’t lick me,’ Joe said.

‘Keep still, Joe,’ replied his mother.

‘If you lick me clean, you should lick Madame Rita, too, because his face is even worse.’

‘Oy,’ wheezed Mrs Kramm, ‘the cat is in the bag. What goings on. For a respectable woman it’s terrible.’

After Joe had been cleaned up he went down into the cellar, where there were a whole lot of old dummies, coloured crepe papers, and boxes. Although he got filthy, it did allow the women to talk about Lady R, which is all women want to do, anyway. For his part he got down to a serious game of Club Row.

He was being an Indian fortune-teller with a green remnant round his head, when he had a happy thought. He thought how the women wanted to talk about Lady R, and how Shmule wanted to win another fight although he had already won two, and how Mr Kandinsky still wanted a patent presser, and how his father hadn’t sent for them yet.

So, Joe thought, everybody is always saying I wish, I wish, and always wanting things. And straightaway he improved being a fortune-teller by having Africana with him. Africana wasn’t very much bigger, but his horn was coming along nicely, just big enough for, say, five or six wishes. Joe set out four boxes, on which he made drawings with a piece of flat chalk he kept in his pocket for emergencies. One of his mother in a hat, one of Mr Kandinsky, one of Shmule and one of everybody else, including Sonia and Mavis. Then he led Africana, the wish-maker, to each box. After what was necessary was explained to Africana, he was very glad to bend his head so that his horn touched the drawing on each box. And that was how the wishes were granted. All this took a good deal of work, so it was not until Sophie came down to the cellar to call him for dinner that the job was done. When he went upstairs he still had the green remnant round his head. Lady R, who was eating a saltbeef sandwich, waved a pickled cucumber at him and called him the Sheikh of Araby dolly. If Joe didn’t find something to do in the afternoon she would spoil everything, because she was that type. It was good luck that Mr Kandinsky called in while Joe was eating his second jam sandwich. As Mr Kandinsky had spent the whole morning at Shafchick’s vapour bath in Brick Lane, he looked very pink and scrubbed, but he wasn’t angry about Moishe, which was unusual. He said to Joe’s mother, ‘That Moishe, the cap-maker, went too far today. He got cooked.’ And he giggled and asked Joe if he would like to come round with him to the Tailors’ Union; he had to tell them about how Moishe was cooked.

Moishe, the cap-maker, had a huge belly and was an old friend of Mr Kandinsky. They argued all the time, and always met on a Friday at Shafchick’s, where they would argue their way through the hot room, then the hotter room, then the hottest room in the world, and even while they were being rubbed down by Luke, the Litvak masseur, who only used the Russian massage whether you wanted it or not. Luke carefully made up his own bundles of twigs, holding them high in the steam to pick up the heat. He gave you a rub-down like an earthquake, then shook hands and said ‘Good health, Reb.’ He was a big man with a huge belly, and when he and Moishe stood together you could drive a pair of cart-horses between them. They carried the argument through whilst they drank glasses of lemon tea to put the moisture back into their systems, although they had just gone to all that trouble to get it out.

As they walked over to the Tailors’ Union, Mr Kandinsky giggled most of the time, and once or twice he stopped dead, looked down at Joe and laughed out loud.

‘How that Moishe was cooked,’ he giggled. ‘What a hot-pot.’

The Union was in Whitechapel Road, and in the week there were not many tailors there, but on Sunday mornings they filled the room and spread out into the street, chatting in their long coats about this or that, small groups of them for a hundred yards up the Whitechapel Road. Sometimes a master-tailor would come up and say, ‘Have you seen Chaim? I got three days’ work for him,’ and everyone would shout out, ‘Where’s Chaim? Here’s work for him.’ The Union room itself was dirty, with dusty windows on which someone had written with a finger, ‘Up with,’ but they couldn’t decide who, so there was no name. The wooden plank floor was smeared with rubbed-out cigarette ends, and the only decoration on the walls was the black-and-red poster which said, ‘Wrestling Saturday Night,’ with pictures of Shmule and Python Macklin on it. A young coat-maker who happened to be temporarily unemployed was making up a small book at a table below the poster.

At one end of the room there was a trestle table with a big brown enamel teapot stewing on it, a quart bottle of milk, and a plate of rolls and butter. Behind the trestle Mrs Middleton, the caretaker, stood, cutting rolls, pouring tea, and talking Yiddish with some old tailor who, like Mr Kandinsky, looked in to hear what was happening in the world.

At another trestle table, which had benches along both sides, two men were playing dominoes. As Mr Kandinsky and Joe came in, they finished a game, and the bones clicked as four hands smoothed them over for the next, for domino games go on for ever. Two other men drank tea from big chipped enamel mugs they carried in their overcoat pockets.

‘So white gold is by you cheap stuff, rubbish?’ one said.

‘Who says rubbish?’ the other replied; ‘platinum is better, that’s all.’

‘Platinum is good enough for you,’ said the first; ‘you’re sure?’

‘Another cup tea, Missus,’ the other said.

‘You didn’t pay for the first two yet,’ Mrs Middleton answered.

‘You short of platinum maybe?’ the first said, putting sixpence on the counter.

Mrs Middleton filled the cups up with black tea, and sloshed milk on top. ‘Why, Mr Kandinsky,’ she said, ‘what a surprise.’ She always told her friends that Mr Kandinsky was a real gentleman.

‘Mrs Middleton, my dear,’ Mr Kandinsky said, shaking hands with her; ‘what a pleasure to see you. So well you look; ten years younger. How’s the boy?’

‘He’s in the sign-writing now,’ Mrs Middleton said proudly.

‘A good trade,’ one of the men said.

‘Very artistic,’ said the other.

‘You know,’ Mr Kandinsky said to the men, ‘that boy when he was twelve could draw anything you like: a pound of apples, a couple oranges, a banana anything.’

‘Maybe he should have gone in the fruitery,’ one of the men said.

‘No,’ replied Mr Kandinsky, ‘people as well, the King, politicians.’

‘Bastards,’ the other man said.

‘A nice cup of tea, Mr Kandinsky?’ asked Mrs Middleton.

‘By all means, with pleasure,’ replied Mr Kandinsky, ‘and a glass of milk for the boy.’

‘Your grandson?’ asked Mrs Middleton. ‘Bless him.’

‘Nearly,’ Mr Kandinsky said, ‘bless him.’

While they drank their tea and Joe sipped his milk, which was a little dusty, Mr Kandinsky asked the men how was business, and they said he meant where was it, it was a thing of the past, tailors were two a penny if you were throwing your money away because in a couple of months the tailors would pay you to let them work. Mr Kandinsky said it was terrible, he was feeling it bad, but what could you do? And the men agreed, what could you do?

All the time Mr Kandinsky was on edge to tell them how Moishe was cooked. He was leading up to it by saying how well he felt after a vapour bath at Shafchick’s. One of the men liked vapour baths very much, but the other one thought they were bad for the system, like lemon tea, tasty but rotting to certain organs of the stomach.

‘You,’ the other man said, ‘with a barrel organ in your stomach, you couldn’t make more noise, such rubbish you talk. Vapour baths is proven by the best medical authority to be the best thing in the world for the system. Lords and ladies are paying fortunes to go to foreign parts, and why? – because they got vapour baths. And here we got in the East End one of the finest vapour baths in the world, where for practically nothing you can go and sweat first or second class all day long to your heart’s content. He isn’t satisfied. It’s rotting the organs from his stomach, Mr Platinum here.’ He spat on the floor.

‘Manners,’ warned Mrs Middleton.

‘Anyhow,’ continued Mr Kandinsky, annoyed at the interruption, ‘who’s telling the story? You know Moishe the cap-maker from Cable Street?’

‘The one who married his son to the daughter of Silkin, the wholesale grocer?’ one of them asked.

‘No, no,’ the other said. ‘Moishe is the one with the big ears who goes to the dogs.’

One of the men playing dominoes looked up and grunted.

‘You know,’ he said. ‘Everything you know.’

‘You know better?’ the man replied.

‘You know,’ the domino player said again.