After the Storm (24 page)

One boy slipped out of the line leading into Mr Thomas’s room.

‘You all right, man?’ It was his friend Ben. They were to start in the pits together in February. ‘Has he seen you yet?’ His blond hair had a centre parting and was cut very short.

‘Awa’ with you Ben. If I’m held up here, tell me Auntie May I’m at the library.’ It was a lie she would easily believe. His aunt was used to him catching the worms in that book place, as she would say, and he would laugh as he always did and say that one day he’d bring her one home, a book worm that is. And she’d shriek and say he’d get a dose of liquorice if he ever did that and Davy, his cousin, would wink and grin.

Ben nodded. ‘What’ve you done, man?’ he asked.

Tom shook his head. The corridor was empty now. ‘Nothing, I’ve been painting all morning. Get along with you Ben or you’ll be here next.’

‘Take care now, lad, he’s already thrashed Sam today,’ Ben said and scooted back into his classroom.

The headmaster was a cruel bastard, Tom thought. It was no wonder some had looked sideways at him as he sat here. It was said he’d been sent back from India after he’d lost his position at a mission school or that’s how Green had put it to another teacher when Tom had been busy in the art cupboard. The sun had addled his brains which was why he was so short-tempered. The man hated it in the North, Green had said, the cold, the squalor, and blamed everyone but himself for having to be here.

It was quite silent in the corridor now, not even the murmur of the teachers’ voices from behind the doors and then the headmaster’s door opened and Mr Wainwright called, ‘Get in here, boy,’ in a voice as cold as the wind that whistled through the town when it was coming in from the east.

All Tom could see was a yellowed hand on the door and a starched cuff. Well, our Mr Wainwright, he thought, you’ll need to soak that hand in vinegar for a while if you’re ever going down the pit, but then you’ll never do that like the rest of us, will you?

He stood up and walked into the study, his boots clumping on the wooden boards, until he reached the square of patterned carpet, and then becoming silent. The headmaster was sitting
behind the desk now, and his paintings were spread out before him. He said nothing to Tom, just sat there looking at him.

Tom stood still. Yes, he thought, even this way up they’re good. It’s the colour. Maybe he wanted to put them up in here? The room was certainly dull and needed some brightening. Even the carpet which had once been many-coloured was a mixture of browns except for the beige thread which broke through to the surface where feet had worn a path. The walls and the wooden filing-cabinet were brown also and there was not even a brass fitting to relieve the monotony, only a wooden handle.

Tom looked back to the pictures, then to the man behind the desk. He sat back in his chair, his hands steepled under his chin. His eyes were a pale slate-grey from which it seemed all feeling had been washed long ago. They were sunken in dark hollows. There were deep lines that ran from his nose to the corners of his mouth and his lips were set in a thin line. Behind him, Tom could see the deserted playground through the window. A ball was caught in the corner where the tall wall ended and the railing began. The sky was clouding over, making it look colder than it was. He looked back again to the headmaster, waiting for him to speak, but he just sat on, looking Tom up and down, his face twisted with distaste and Tom wondered again why he was here. And then the man moved. He pointed a long finger at one of the paintings.

‘What have you to say about this then, boy?’ His voice was cold and his face barely moved as he spoke.

Tom thought, the man’s gone daft, can’t he see it’s a bloody painting. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s a painting. Mr Green asked me to do two for the class wall.’

‘And this is what you produced, is it?’ He paused. ‘How dare you.’

Tom felt confusion stir within him, overriding the churning darkness of Annie.

‘Don’t you like it, sir?’ He looked at the painting again. It had been done from the heart, for her, and he thought it was the best he had ever produced.

He saw the headmaster rise and lean forward, resting his weight on his hands. ‘Don’t take that attitude with me, boy.’ Pink was beginning to tinge the sallowness of his cheeks, spittle settled on the desk.

Tom kept his face still. Thank God he missed the painting, Tom thought, but these silent words were just a device to gain time for some understanding and he found none. He looked at the man who stood across from him and did not know what he meant.

‘I don’t understand you, sir. Is something wrong?’

The man picked up the painting, shaking it at Tom. The paint had dried hard and thick and a flake fell off. Tom jerked forward, his hand outstretched but the headmaster pulled away from him. All Tom could see was what he had painted. A small child on a freezing cold playing-field holding its hand towards a girl with a tray of steaming pies. She was holding back a pack of men, their breaths clouding the air, whilst she gave them to the child.

‘This is what is wrong, Thomas Ryan.’ The headmaster was holding the painting with one hand and pointing with the other.

Tom felt his thoughts become disjointed, broken up. There was nothing wrong with the picture that he could see, the colour was good, the perspective correct.

Wainwright’s face was jutting towards him, ugly in its anger.

‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten I had your cousin Davy Moore here at school before you and had nothing but trouble from him and now I see it rearing its ugly little head from your direction.’ His eyes had narrowed and his forehead was etched with deep horizontal lines.

Davy, thought Tom, he’s been in the pits for four years now, what’s he got to do with anything?

‘What is, sir, what’s rearing its head?’ Tom was confused. Davy didn’t paint, never had done. He was good at his work though but even better as a union man. But he wasn’t a painter.

Wainwright was talking as though he was a river in full flood. ‘… I shall stamp it out boy. I shall stamp it out.’

Tom watched the reddening face of the headmaster and felt at a loss.

‘You and your kind will try to bring the country down to your level if you can. Marx, Engels, don’t think I don’t know what you rant about in your lodges and your halls. Kier Hardy is your idol and it should be God! God!’ He was shouting now. ‘God and Empire!’

Tom just stood there, listening but not following, his mind a
maze of images that wouldn’t stand still. The man was moving too fast and Tom did not know in what direction he was going.

‘Well I hear your cousin has just been thrown out of another pit for his rabble-rousing and so now you think you can try it here, do you? Well, not in this school, you don’t, not in this school.’

The headmaster was still shaking the painting and minute flakes of paint were lying on his desk, on his papers; one had fallen on the covered inkwell. Tom saw that the man’s fingers were grey from the paint where he was holding the paper.

‘I can see what you’re trying to say, boy, say all over my walls. Well, you won’t, see. This is seditious propaganda, a dirty bolshevik slur.’

Tom looked at his painting again; he could only see Annie on a cold bleak day.

‘It’s people like you that have driven people to ruin, driven people like me to ruin. Given natives ideas above their station. Louts, that’s what you all are, louts.’ His voice was vicious now and his eyes were staring and then he stopped abruptly, breathing heavily. He wiped his hand across his face leaving a grey trail. ‘I demand an apology from you.’ His face was hard, his words clipped and loud.

Tom stood quietly, he looked again at the painting and wondered how far Annie was from Wassingham now and how far Wainwright was from bursting all over the room. He was pulsing with rage and Tom still did not know why. He shook his head at the man.

‘I can’t apologise for painting that,’ he said, feeling tired and miles from this room.

Wainwright seemed to stop breathing as he looked straight at him and slowly tore the painting through once, then twice, then again.

Tom swung back to this room as the pieces scattered on to the desk and one fluttered to the floor at his feet. Blood filled his face, his eyes, his ears. That was Annie who had been torn and she had been torn enough. He moved one step forward.

‘That was my sister you tore,’ he said, his breathing rapid now and his hands bunched. He wanted to smash his fist into that yellow face, into his ribs and belly. ‘It was only a picture about sharing, about something that happened a long time ago.’

Wainwright moved round the desk towards him. He was bigger than Tom and he was shaking.

‘That picture,’ he snarled, ‘was of a seditious nature, an encouragement to revolution which I will not have in my school. I’ve heard your cousin’s call for redistribution of wealth and he’s put you up to this. I know your type, Tom Ryan, and I don’t like them. I’ve been watching you, waiting for you to start, like he did.’ His breath was sour in Tom’s face.

Tom drew back but Wainwright held him fast.

‘It’s about a girl and a few bloody pies, man. That’s all,’ he hissed.

And now the headmaster pushed him over towards the chair in the corner.

‘It’s about far more than that, don’t take me for a fool. But I’ll sort it out, don’t you worry, like I wanted to do with David. Bend over that chair.’

The headmaster was rolling up his sleeves now, grunting as he did so, grinding out these words, ‘You can tell Davy Moore from me that I don’t want his bolshevik propaganda in this school. There is no room for anything but the Empire here, boy, and I want you to remember that.’

Tom gripped the back of the chair as he felt the first searing stroke across his back; up high, near to his shoulder blades.

Christ, he thought, what the hell is happening here? What the hell has happened today?

Tom felt the next and the next. ‘I still don’t know what the bloody hell you’re talking about,’ he hissed, turning his head.

‘Another five for lying and another five for swearing.’

The pain was like a knife slicing across Tom’s back. He could hear the stroke land and feel it through to his belly. And then the fury came again, pushing aside the shock and he rose and wrenched the cane from Wainwright’s hand. The headmaster was red in the face and sweating. His sleeve had half rolled down.

‘If I knew what you meant I could answer you, man,’ said Tom, his voice not much more than a whisper. ‘But I’ll find out what it is that is ranting through your crazy mind and tearing up my pictures. I’ll find out and then I’ll do something about it.’

They were both panting, facing one another. Tom broke the cane over his knee and threw it into the corner, then moved to
the door. He heard his feet clump as they hit the wooden boards after the silence of the carpet. He could feel his shirt sticking to his back and knew he was bleeding. He left the room and shut the door quietly. He didn’t know whether Wainwright had tried to stop him, he couldn’t hear him, or anyone. He walked to the art room and painted the scene again. He would need it when he arrived home and asked Davy to explain to him what there was to a painting about a girl giving a child a pie.

The front door of Aunt May’s house was open as it always was when the weather was mild but Tom slipped down the back alley and in through the yard gate. He could hear Davy in the wash-house and knew that Wainwright had spoken the truth when he said Davy was out of the pit again. The afternoon shift was still underground.

He hesitated by the door; he could hear the water run off Davy’s body and on to the floor and the clang as he put the empty bucket down.

Then he saw May standing in the scullery.

‘Come in here, lad, and have a piece of bread.’ She waved him into the kitchen where there was bread on the table and blackberry jam which she had made from the overflowing buckets that he and Grace had picked with Annie and Georgie.

The fire was blazing in the hearth, cooking the stew for tea and heating the irons for May. She had moved to the far end of the table by the pile of linen and her face was red from the heat of the fire. She spat on the iron and thudded it into the stiff white clothes, rubbing backwards and forwards with all her weight.

He loved the smell of heat on linen and sat down, careful not to lean back against the chair while he spread the jam straight on to the bread. It had set something splendid this time, he thought, and wiped a drip off the jar with his finger and sucked it, not thinking of the pain; easing himself back into this room which he loved.

It was naturally dark in here with the small window and the stairs which spiralled straight up from the corner to the three bedrooms upstairs but it was dotted about with vivid patchwork cushions and rag rugs. Brass reflected the fire which shone warm on the fender and on the horse brasses which hung down the walls. The cat was sleeping on Uncle Henry’s chair
and some of its ginger and white hairs had already settled on his trousers.

May changed the irons on the hot plate, holding them in a thick white cloth. She looked at him as he poured a mug of tea.

‘One for me, boy,’ she said, ‘or don’t you think ironing’s hot work?’ She threw the cloth at him and he caught it with one hand but the pain from his back snagged as he began to laugh so he just poured the rich stewed tea and added a drop of milk. There were no brown sugar crystals today, which definitely meant Davy was out of the pit again. Sugar always went back into the cupboard when they were one pay-packet less; to make sure there was some for Christmas, May would always say.

He looked up at her and she pointed with her head to the sideboard. ‘Put it on there, bonny lad.’ She watched as he rose and walked with care round the table and put the mug on the wooden mat he had painted for her.

He knew that she was watching him and wanted her to ask, not to have to tell. He always thought May should have been a farmer’s wife. She was as big as his mother, her sister, but not pale and flaccid as she was. May was firm and pink with the same blue eyes as his, the same eyes as Davy, though the other boys, Sam and Edward were brown-haired and brown-eyed like their da. May’s hair was like the corn, but with white shot through it. He had once said how pretty she was, how few lines she had, not like his mother and that was the only time she’d slapped him. It had been a real slap too. I would have them if I’d had your poor mother’s life, she had said. But Tom had turned away from her. His ma had given him and Annie away so she wasn’t his ma any more.