Nobody Came (3 page)

J
ohn had been taught to swim by some older boys, and that summer he decided to teach both Davie and me – not in the sea but in what was left of a huge man-made tidal pool on the beach. It was the remains of a horseshoe-shaped swimming pool that the Germans had built during their occupation of Jersey in the war. When the tide came in it filled up and the water in it remained calm whatever was happening out at sea. John said it was safer for swimming lessons than the sea and he produced the rubber inner tubes of old car tyres cadged from my mother’s Saturday uncle.

‘How did you get them?’ I asked.

‘Told him I needed them to teach you two to swim. Said Saturday was the best day. That did it,’ he said with a grin. ‘Silly codger couldn’t wait to help out if it meant we would be out of the house when he comes round. Told me he would still give me those half crowns and all, but not to come to his garage in the daytime again. Can go round Friday night when he’s locking up. He was nearly shitting himself in case his wife saw me there.’ John laughed at the memory. And I, not really understanding his meaning, grinned back at him anyhow.

John threw me an old tattered pair of shorts that he had long ago grown out of. I donned them, then we helped Davie off with his clothes and into an old pair of pants.

The orange inner tubes went round our bodies twice. Once John was satisfied they were firmly secured he raced us across the sand for our first swimming lesson. That day we gambolled in the pool, splashing, kicking, laughing, swallowing water, spluttering and laughing again. After a week our shoulders had turned pink and our noses were peeling, but we could stay afloat without help. By the end of the summer we had all turned a dark golden brown. John’s thick blond hair was bleached nearly white and Davie and I were proudly swimming without the aid of those orange tubes.

We found a discarded bucket left on the beach by a visiting tourist and purloined it with glee. When we were not in the water Davie and I used it to scoop up sand and build sandcastles. John considered that activity was strictly for babies and preferred us all to play the games he made up. ‘Castaways’ was the most popular. Influenced by the story of
Treasure Island
, which John had listened to at school, it involved answering to different names, searching the rock pools and beach for food and driftwood, and lighting a bonfire with a box of forbidden matches.

‘I’m Long John Silver and you, Robbie, are Boy Friday,’ John informed me.

‘Who’s me?’ Davie asked.

‘The bloody parrot!’ John shouted, laughing, but then, seeing Davie’s face drop at being teased, he quickly ruffled his hair to show it was only a joke.

As castaways we wanted to be on the beach the whole time. We would have built a shelter and lived there if we could. As soon as we woke we tried to make our escape from Gloria. Unless she had chores lined up for John, such as running to the shops for cigarettes or lemonade, she mostly looked relieved at having a peaceful day in front of her.

But even she demanded that we ate some kind of breakfast before we left.

‘Hey, John!’ she yelled through the bedroom door in what might have passed for maternal concern. ‘Get you and your brothers something to eat before you go out. And make a brew for me while you’re at it. You can bring it in here. I’ve got to get more sleep; I’m bleeding tired.’

John dutifully put the kettle on, poured cornflakes into three bowls and sniffed the milk bottle to check if the contents were sour before pouring it into the bowls and sprinkling them with heaped spoons of sugar. He cut the loaf of bread into thick slices, spread it with butter and strawberry jam and poured milk into plastic mugs for Davie and me, then made enough tea to have a cup himself after taking one in to Gloria. Davie and I gobbled our food down and, once the last bite had been swallowed, clothes were hastily pulled on and our hands and faces wiped on a shared facecloth. We saw no need for more than that; after all, we were going into the sea.

‘Bye,’ we called out to Gloria. Sometimes, if she was in a good mood, she would call out, ‘Hey, John, pass me my purse. Suppose you lot better get some chips to eat later on.’ She would give us the money carefully counted out. Sometimes if she was feeling generous there was enough for a fruit juice or lemonade as well. John always said that was so we didn’t need to return home to eat lunch, and I realise now that was true. When the money was pocketed and the word ‘thanks’ muttered, she had a few last words to say, which seldom varied: ‘Don’t want that old biddy bothering me, so you mind you’re quiet on the bleeding stairs,’ she would shout after us before she flopped back onto her makeup-stained pillows.

We assumed whenever we thought of her that baby Denise had been fed earlier. The tin of Cow & Gate formula milk was open on the kitchen table amidst the debris of dirty feeding bottles, dummies and overflowing ashtrays. Sometimes we heard her cry in the night, but usually when we left the house she was asleep. I suppose Gloria must have been taking care of her somehow when we weren’t around.

Once out of the house we ran down the road as fast as we could. We wanted to reach the beach before local families and holidaymakers carrying deckchairs, baskets of food and protective floppy sun hats put in an appearance. When the beach was empty we could pretend that it was ours alone.

Once there, the first thing we did was to jump into the pool. Afterwards we lay on the warm sand and let the sun’s rays dry us off. John would go and buy us lemonade – he always had some money left from the last visit of the Saturday uncle if Gloria hadn’t given us anything that morning – and then it was time to play the game.

‘Castaways,’ John told me, ‘have to be able to find their own food.’ All we needed, he assured us, was a packet of salt, an old baby’s bottle with its teat intact and a bucket.

‘Come on, Robbie,’ he said impatiently. ‘I’m going to show you what real castaways do.’ Picking up my clothes and the bucket I followed him, with Davie bringing up the rear, to where he told me there were plenty of razor fish to catch. Then he informed me that not only was there food under the sand but winkles could also be found between the rocks. We could get those later, once the beach became busier.

First I was given the task of filling the baby’s bottle with water and stirring in lots of salt until it had dissolved. When that was done John showed me how easy it was to catch the razor fish.

‘See those little bumps with holes in the top?’ he said, pointing to a strip of beach that was pitted with tiny bumps. ‘Them little bleeders are in there. See?’ He took the bottle, squeezed the teat and aimed the mixture on to the tiny hole.

‘Here it comes,’ he said – and sure enough, something that looked a bit like Stanley’s cut-throat razor was poking out of the sand.

‘Now we have a little tug of war,’ he said grinning. ‘You do it, but pull gently mind or you’ll just end up with its bleeding shell.’

I placed my hand tentatively on it, did as John instructed and pulled gently. There was a feeling of suction as it resisted me and then with a sudden plop it was in my hand. I had done it! I felt a grin split my face almost in two as I looked at my brother with astonished delight.

‘It’s easy!’ I said nonchalantly.

‘Good. You can fill the bucket up then.’ John turned to saunter over to his friends, who had appeared on the beach.

‘Hey, Robbie!’ they yelled. ‘Make sure you get enough for us and all, will ya?’

With their challenge ringing in my ears I made sure I got the hang of catching those fish that first afternoon. Flushed with success, I squirted that salty water down every hole I could see. Crouched on my haunches with the sand trickling warmly between my toes and the sun beating down on my neck and back, I waited impatiently for them to appear, which they always did after a few seconds. Davie squatted beside me, his mouth forming an ‘oh’ every time he saw the tip of the razor fish appear. He would squeal with delight when I successfully dropped one into the bucket. Deep in concentration, my tongue resting on my lower lip, I squirted and pulled until the old bucket that John had filled with fresh seawater was overflowing with the browny-grey shells of my catch.

‘That keeps them alive until we are ready to eat them,’ John had explained when he put the bucket next to me.

Later we looked in the crevices between the rocks for winkles. Even Davie helped pull them out and put them in our makeshift cooking pot – an old tin filled with water.

As Boy Friday, my tasks were extended to collecting firewood and I enlisted Davie as my helper. Anything that would burn we picked up. Bits of paper, twigs and pieces of driftwood were collected and placed in a pile in the quietest spot we could find. Then John made the bonfire; it was always him who was in charge of the matches.

When we got bored with the beach we wandered down to the port to look at the boats that were moored there. In the fifties it was mainly fishing boats and, of course, the ferries that went to English and French ports. The big, rugged, sunburnt fishermen worked on deck or sat on the quay mending their nets. To pass the time they would watch our trio. Maybe to them it seemed strange that we were out on our own with only an eight-year-old boy in charge. Whatever the reason for their interest, they were friendly and kind towards us. They showed us around the boats, bought us cakes and squash from the nearby café and, once satisfied that we had a home to return to that night, asked few searching questions of us.

When John explained our game of Castaways to them, good-natured, deep, male laughter erupted and they contributed a piece of newspaper filled with shrimps, the tiny ones that were too small to sell but tasted just right to us when we boiled them and added them to our Castaways meal. John always cooked this on the beach as far away from the other holidaymakers as possible. We rarely took anything home. Without putting it into words, we knew Gloria liked the rooms to herself and her male friends. That was why she was happy to give us money for chips. But we also knew that if she discovered how adept we had become at feeding ourselves, her limited generosity might have ceased.

After our meal was finished we walked home, pushing the pram with a sleepy Davie inside, staggered up the stairs and made our way to bed. There was rarely any sign of Gloria when we returned. Her bedroom door would be firmly closed.

All too soon the long, warm, sunny days grew cooler, twilight came earlier and one by one the last days of that summer slid seamlessly away. I wanted them to last for ever and ever, but they didn’t.

I have sometimes asked myself whether it was wishes mixed with memory that created those perfect golden days in my mind. Did that combination heighten the warmth of the sun, paint butterfly wings brighter, make birdsong sweeter and laughter ring out more joyously?

And was it the sheer force of me wishing the last summer of my childhood to be perfect that lessened the force of Gloria’s blows as she became more temperamental and unpredictable, camouflaged Stanley’s deepening depression as he became virtually invisible in our lives, disguised Denise’s constant cries and grizzles of hunger and distress, and made our stomachs fuller?

I don’t know, because whenever I look back to that time, all these years later, I see it through a haze where even the dust motes were tinged with gold and every day was idyllic. I remember the women in bright cotton dresses, the blueness of the sky, the white horses that tipped the sea’s azure waves, the tangerine sun and on those rare days when small puffs of cloud marbled the sky even the rain was perfumed with the scent of flowers.

But I also remember that once that summer ended an insidious feeling of disquiet entered our home; a warning I didn’t hear that soon our lives were going to change forever.

S
eptember arrived and I was due to start at the local primary school, a subject that hadn’t been broached by Gloria right up until the day before I was due to enrol. For once, she told us not to leave the house. Didn’t John have to sort his school things out? Didn’t she have to find something for me to wear? Didn’t she have enough to do as it was? Hadn’t the bleeding baby kept her awake all night? We were not to go anywhere and that was that. After that tirade she spent the entire morning rummaging through cupboards pulling out cardboard boxes and muttering words such as ‘Where are the bastard things? Bleeding Ķbrats. Ah! Here they are!’ Then with a cigarette clutched in one hand, a pile of clothes tucked under her arm and a scowl on her flushed face, she marched into our room.

Her search had evidently been successful. She had found some old school clothes of John’s, ones that he had outgrown, which she deposited in a crumpled heap on the bed. A pair of black lace-up shoes was thrust at me. At her instruction I tried them on and found that not only were they very scuffed at the toe and heel but also that my feet stepped right out of them.

‘They’re far too big!’ I cried plaintively.

‘Oh, just put two pairs of socks on and some newspaper in the toes,’ mumbled Gloria in exasperation. She took a deep drag on her cigarette, blew smoke in the air and squinted at me through resentful, half-closed eyes.

‘Money don’t grow on trees, ya know, so don’t think I’m going to waste it on buying stuff you’ll grow out of before the year is out. These will do ya, and Davie too when he goes to bleeding school.’

‘Hey, John,’ she said turning her attention to him. ‘Get some of Stanley’s shoe polish out and give those shoes a good clean, seeing Robbie’s so particular and all. Clean yours while you’re at it. And sort that stuff out for yourselves, will ya? I can’t do everything round here.’ She pointed to the pile of tatty garments scattered on our bed.

One by one I picked up each piece of clothing and looked at it with something approaching dismay. At five years old I had not reached the age where clothes or style were important to me, but I was already nervous about starting school the next day and when I saw the sloppy grey jumper worn thin at the elbows, the frayed collars and cuffs of the shirts, the short trousers that due to John’s tree climbing had a rip on one pocket, and a number of ill-matched long grey socks with holes in the heels or toes, I knew that I was not going to look the same as the other boys on their first day of school.

‘Ah, come on, Robbie,’ said John when he saw my downcast face. ‘I’ll get those shoes shiny for you. You’ll look all right tomorrow.’

For the first time John’s voice failed to console me; I knew I wouldn’t.

The next morning when we got ready for school, Gloria was still in bed so we crept round our room as silently as possible. Neither of us wanted to bump into her. I dressed in what John and I thought were the best of the clothes she had given me, hastily ate some cornflakes, and gulped down a glass of milk, then, standing at the sink, I wiped my face and hands with a damp cloth and damped my hair down, copying John’s early morning ablutions. I was ready to leave for my first day at school. John grabbed two apples, some cream crackers and a lump of cheddar cheese from the pantry cupboard and stuffed them into a pocket.

‘That’s our lunch,’ he told me. ‘They give us milk at school. Come on, let’s go.’

I felt a pang when I saw Davie’s sad little face watching us silently from the bedroom door and gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile; he looked completely desolate at our departure. His eyes filled with tears and his lower lip trembled at the thought of being left all alone in the flat – well, as good as, for Gloria was likely to sleep in until lunchtime unless Denise’s hungry wails woke her sooner.

A wave of nausea overcame me as I followed John down the stairs. In an attempt to reassure me he explained how classes were made up of children all around the same age so I already knew I would not be sitting with him. I was bothered when I was told that I would be in a section called the Infants whilst he was in the Juniors and wondered miserably just how far away from me he would be.

‘Cheer up,’ he said. ‘They don’t eat ya, ya know.’ He gave my arm a brotherly pat. But I still fretted, wondering what the day ahead was going to bring.

The school was a sprawling, single-storey building, its entrance in one road and the exit in another parallel to it. As we approached I saw children of all ages were standing in groups in various parts of the large tar-covered playground. I heard a buzz of high-pitched conversation, shrieks of laughter and, over the general clamour, my brother’s name being called.

‘John, over here!’ called one of the boys I recognised from the park.

‘See ya in a sec, got to do something first,’ John yelled back.

Suddenly I realised that he wanted to be with his own friends, not shepherding me, his little brother, about.

John walked with me to where a pretty young teacher was dealing with the new arrivals.

‘Miss, this is Robbie, my brother,’ he said by way of introduction.

And he left me there.

My heart sank.

The teacher told me her name was Miss Darby. She smiled and put her hand gently on my shoulder. I knew she was trying to be nice. I heard her ask me a question, something about what I liked doing, but all I wanted to do was run after my brother. Out of the corner of my eye I watched him saunter away.

Would he at least turn and give me that special smile?

He didn’t. Instead, without a backward glance, he rushed up to a group of boys his own age who were gathered on the far side of the playground. They were boys I knew from the park and on the beach but instinctively I knew that it didn’t matter how often those bigger boys had played with me during the holidays; they were not going to accept my inclusion to their group here within the school grounds.

I felt a swift pang of desolation, a sense of loss that increased when, looking around me, I realised that I was the only child there on his or her own. The Infants area was full of mothers delivering their small offspring. Mothers bent down lovingly and shoelaces were tied yet again, crisp white collars were straightened and ties were gently adjusted. I watched them kissing bandbox-clean children a quick reassuring goodbye, heard them say words like ‘darling’ and ‘be good’ and ‘love’ then saw them stop at the gates to turn and give one last final wave, wiping their eyes and digging for a handkerchief to blow their noses. A lump came into my throat as I remembered the times in the park when children such as these had held their mothers’ hands or been pushed on the swings by a caring adult and for the first time in my life I think I had an inkling of what a mother really should be like.

The teacher clapped her hands and twenty pair of eyes turned to look at her. She told us to form a neat line and follow her into the classroom. We fell into line and, backs straight as brooms, we formally entered the education system.

She led the way into a light, airy room furnished with tiny wooden desks with low seats attached to them, each meant for two people. She told us to sit. There were hesitant movements as small children, some flushed with excitement, others tearful and woebegone, chose who they wanted to sit next to. Little girls in grey pinafore dresses or pleated skirts and blue jumpers sat next to other neat, clean little girls. Boys wearing blue blazers and short grey trousers sat next to freshly scrubbed ones who were their mirror image. Before the day was out best friends would be made – friendships that would perhaps endure for years to come. Little girls would hold hands and talk about their dolls and little boys would select ‘boys’ toys’ from the box in the classroom and choose someone to play with them.

Nobody sat next to me.

Our names were called and our teacher looked down at a book in front of her and ticked when we answered ‘Here, Miss,’ as we had been instructed.

That first morning she gave us books with big letters of the alphabet and pictures. I recognised them. John had shown me letters when he had read to us from the comics. I also knew what one and one was. I had learnt that from running errands for Gloria and buying ice-cream. I already knew that shopkeepers were unhappy if I asked for more things than I had money for.

‘Good, Robbie,’ she said when I got my first question right.

I began to feel less nervous about being at school.

Later that morning, she produced a wooden clock painted in bright colours and decorated with small white ducks, which she stood on her desk. She placed the hands on a 3 and a 6 and asked if anyone knew what time that was. I knew. John had taught me, using the clock in the kitchen at home. It was so that I would know when he was due back from school.

‘Very good, Robbie,’ Miss Darby said with another smile.

I began to feel even better.

She passed out crayons and paper. ‘Draw whatever you want,’ she said when one little girl asked what she should do with them. My hours of drawing when I had to amuse Davie paid off. I drew a house and placed stick figures of a man and a woman next to it. Then I drew four smaller ones. And lastly with the dark brown crayon I made a large oval with a smaller one on top and lines representing legs and pointy ears.

‘That’s my family,’ I told the teacher.

‘And is that where you live?’ she asked, but my silence told her it wasn’t. She didn’t ask if we had a dog.

‘That’s very good, Robbie,’ she said instead.

I decided I might like school after all.

We had a break and gold-topped bottles of milk with straws in them were given to us. Then we were sent into the playground and that was when my burgeoning enjoyment of school abruptly ceased.

I had forgotten that I looked different from the other children. Nor had I had time to learn what could happen to a child that doesn’t fit in. I just walked out into that playground and started heading towards the far end of it with only two thoughts in my head: the teacher had liked me and I wanted to tell John about my successful morning.

I felt the hands on my back before I had a chance to see who they belonged to. They gave me a push that sent me staggering and at the same time I heard a jeering voice.

‘Stinky!’ it said.

I tried to look round but I only saw a blur of faces. They seemed to be surrounding me. Then another boy, a couple of years older than me, pushed me hard in the chest. My arms flew out as I staggered backwards, trying to keep my balance.

‘Yer Ma’s a Jerry bag,’ he hissed, ‘and you’re a stinky Kraut.’

What on earth did he mean? I hadn’t heard those expressions before.

The first boy pushed me in the back again and suddenly there were pushes coming from both sides and I was staggering backwards and forwards with the sound of their mocking laughter ringing in my ears. I knew the laughter was not just from them for a crowd of boys had gathered and seemed to be egging them on.

I heard a shout in the distance, running feet, and then my brother’s voice rang out.

‘Leave him alone, you bleeding creeps!’ he shouted.

I saw his arm go out and connect with one of my tormentors’ heads and almost simultaneously he spun sideways and kicked out with his foot.

‘Break it up now!’ I heard a man’s stern voice say and looking up I saw the flushed, angry face of the headmaster. He’d popped into our classroom that morning and Miss Darby had told us all who he was.

‘Might have known it was you, Garner,’ he said crossly, looking at John.

Then he looked at me and I noted the expression of distaste that flitted across his face.

‘Oh, another one of your family. Robbie, isn’t it? So now we’ll have more trouble, I suppose.’ He turned to the watching crowd. ‘Get to your classrooms, boys. The bell has just gone. And you, little Robbie, just remember I’ll be watching you. Your brother’s nothing but trouble and it looks as though you’re cut from the same cloth.’

He strode off, leaving John and me standing alone. One of his friends came over. ‘Let’s get that lot later,’ he said, but John just shook his head. ‘Ah, leave it.’

‘John, what’s a Jerry bag?’ I asked.

‘Shut up, Robbie,’ he said and the anger in his voice shocked me into obedient silence. ‘Go back to your bit of the playground. And stay there on your breaks. Stop looking for me all the time.’ Offering me no comfort, he abruptly turned his back on me and joined his friends. Dragging my feet I unwillingly walked up to where my teacher was herding her charges together and followed them in.

The Infants broke up half an hour earlier than the Juniors but I hung around on the street outside waiting for my brother to come out. He looked irritated instead of pleased to see me when he came out of the school gates but within a few moments his good humour had returned.

‘So how was it?’ he asked, without any mention of the fight.

‘All right,’ I answered, but I refused to be put off asking the questions that had been spinning around my head all afternoon. ‘John, what’s a Jerry bag?’ Gloria might not have been a good mother but she was the only one I knew and I had understood from the tone that that word wasn’t just an ordinary insult but something very bad.

My brother sighed. ‘Someone who likes Krauts,’ he said at last.

‘What’s a Kraut?’

‘A German soldier. A bleeding Hun, that’s what.’

I went quiet then, for even at five I had heard the stories of the German occupation of Jersey during the war and I knew that they had been our enemy.

I had never heard of anyone being friends with one.

‘That’s why she hates going out,’ John blurted before turning to me. ‘Stanley’s your dad, Robbie, and mine – mine was an American.’ His pale grey eyes looked into mine as though daring me to contradict him.

But how could I when I didn’t know what he meant?