September Starlings (25 page)

Ginger-head dug me in the ribs. ‘That’s Tommo – ’e goes to my school.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Ginger sighed. ‘Th’ altar boy – yon lad givin’ stuff ter t’ priest. That’s Tommo in our class. ’Appen ’e knows yer mam.’

Two people in front ‘shushed’ and we went through the rest of the service in silence. It was weird. They rang tinkly little bells and bobbed about a lot, but at least nobody screamed about hell. Every time one of the altar boys went past the middle of the elevated table, he knelt on one knee, bowed his head, then got up and walked the rest of the way. If he wanted to come back from where he’d just been, he had to do the same thing all over again.

The plate was passed along our row beneath the eagle stare of the collection man. I had no money, Enid and Irene had none, and Buck Teeth put a brass button in the dish. The button clanked about and sounded nothing like money. Ginger saved our bacon, flourished a threepenny bit, whispered to the man, ‘That’s fer all of us, me mam said’, before clattering the coin in amongst the others. There followed an embarrassing episode while Buck Teeth retrieved his button, then we settled back for the rest of the mass.

Ginger had been up for some bread, had shown us the white disc melting on his tongue. He carried his Catholicism with a strange mixture of pride and contempt, bowing his head some of the time, breaking loud wind during moments that were particularly tedious. Irene or Enid looked adoringly at their leader, then whispered to me, ‘’E can blow off any time ’e wants. Sometimes, ’e even does a tune.’

This statement prompted me to double over with unseemly mirth. Really, I was terrified of what I was doing in the house of God, yet the fear served only to increase my hysteria. It was a truly terrible thing, but I could not control myself. The thought of Ginger and his built-in set of bagpipes provided me with some imaginings that were not appropriate in a Catholic church. In the end, they dragged me outside and propped me against the wall. Ginger looked at me with affected disdain. “Ave yer got no self-control?’

This made me worse. His self-control was masterful – he could even get his body to make noises, could explode to order and, furthermore, he managed an air of total nonchalance every time he broke wind. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘It was so funny.’

Buck Teeth chose this moment to give voice to his views on the matter. ‘It’th not funny, thomebody fartin’. It’th thometimeth theriouth, ith bad wind in the gut. Me granny were a martyr to wind, me mam thayth. Me granny thuffered all ’er life an’ at the finish, they ‘ad to thtick a tube up ’er arthe to let it out. The ‘ole thtreet were nearly gathed with it. It’th not a laughing matter.’

The lad’s explanation nearly killed me. I wondered if it might be possible to die laughing, because the pain in my belly was acute and my lungs were starved of oxygen to the point where one of the twins said, ‘’Asn’t ’er gone a funny colour?’ That poor, unfortunate buck-toothed boy had a lisp that tickled not just my ears, but my eyes too had been suffering from hysteria. Every time he attempted an S, his tongue poked past the terrible tombstones that pretended
to be teeth, and I could scarcely bear to look at him for another second. My sides ached with cruel stitches and the tears poured down my cheeks. I had never laughed like this before. It was a wonderful way of releasing tension, yet I still pitied that ugly little boy.

‘It’s a shame,’ said Irene or Enid (whose complete twin-ness was causing me even more uncomfortable glee). ‘’Er wants ’er muther. An’ we was just sat there in t’ church doin’ nowt.’

The other twin compounded the felony. ‘Ginger were doin’ summat. I’ve smelt sweeter pongs round t’ back end o’ t’ muck cart on a Friday.’

Ginger, wearing an expression of mild hurt on his battle-scarred face, came to stand next to me. Fortunately, he seemed to have suspended his musical interlude for the moment. ‘We’ll wait fer Tommo,’ he announced. ‘Tommo’ll know what’s best fer t’ do. ’E’s bin an altar boy three month.’

The church door opened, and members of the congregation hurried past, gave us an unnecessarily wide berth, I thought. Then after a few more minutes, a smaller back door shot open and four boys were propelled, by an unseen hand, onto the pavement. While they sorted out their tangled limbs, a disembodied voice found them. ‘If I catch you lot smoking again, I’ll cane your backsides.’ It was the priest, I suddenly realized. His bobbing and scraping altar boys were being threatened with actual bodily harm. Mind, they looked a rough lot without their white blouses. Three of them clattered off in iron-soled clogs, while the fourth, a boy with impressive pinkish hair, sauntered towards us.

The priest poked his head into the street. ‘Bernard Thompson?’

‘Yes?’ The pink head did not turn towards the priest, as its owner was coming towards me.

‘Have you stuck this chewing gum on the Immaculate Conception?’

‘No, Father.’

‘Then who did?’

The boy’s shoulders shrugged and he made no reply.

Within ten seconds, the man of God was upon us. ‘Did you hear me, boy?’

‘Yes.’ After a short pause, ‘Father,’ was appended to the curt answer.

‘Look.’ The priest was white with anger, looked strange in his proper clothes, black trousers, a black top with no sleeves and hardly any back, just strings fastening the cloth to his chest. The back-to-front collar wasn’t anchored down, so it hung like a hoop that had been thrown at a prize on a fair stall. ‘There’s boot polish all over the chair in the vestry. You are a wicked boy, Bernard. What would your father say if I told him? And there’s two more bottles of unconsecrated communion wine missing from the cupboard.’

At last, Tommo rewarded the priest with his full attention, the main part of which was a winning smile that displayed perfect teeth. ‘Father, there’s mischief afoot. The choir was out of tune during Benediction last Sunday. Perhaps some of them had been drinking?’ He talked nicely, wore decent clothes.

The priest was still fuming. ‘Listen, Thompson. It took my cleaning ladies two hours to get the candle wax off the Sacred Heart the other day. Since you started serving, St Patrick’s has gone to the dogs.’

Tommo shook his head slowly, sadly. ‘In that case, Father, I shall remove myself from your church and I shall not darken your door again.’

A twin nudged me. ‘’E reads books,’ she whispered. ‘Proper books with ’ard backs, not like wot you buy at t’ paper shop. ’E can do right big words, Tommo.’

The reverend father clouted Tommo round the ear. ‘You are a menace, boy. I have always believed, or have tried to believe, that a human being is not born bad. In your case, however, I have to admit that you may be the exception which proves the rule. In time, you will no doubt go to prison.’ He cast an eye over the rest of us. ‘As
for you, stay away from this boy. Unless you want to spend your days in trouble, of course.’ He marched off, stopped when his collar dropped off, bent to retrieve it.

Tommo rubbed his ear. ‘I should sue him,’ he grumbled. ‘He always goes for an ear. I could finish up deaf or brain damaged.’ He moved his eyes over me. ‘New girl?’

‘Yes.’ I felt shy, embarrassed.

Ginger pushed himself forward. ‘This ’ere girl got stole when she were a babby.’ A filthy thumb jerked itself in my direction. ‘’Er’s bin brung up wi’ folk wot keeps ’er locked up. In t’ will, ’er grandad said about ’er ’avin’ fer t’ go an’ be an ’Oly Mary. So we’re lookin’ fer ’er mam.’

Tommo walked round me, bored into my spine with his gaze. ‘That, in my opinion, is a load of my eye and Betty Martin. This young lady is having you on.’

‘Don’t ’e talk luvely?’ asked a twin. No-one bothered to reply.

Ginger confronted me. ‘Is ’e reet? Is Tommo reet? ’Ave yer bin pullin’ our legs?’

Something about Tommo made me straighten my skirt and push the hair from my face. ‘Of course,’ I answered sweetly. ‘It was a joke.’

Several emotions did a procession across Ginger’s face, then he grinned hugely. ‘That were a good un,’ he yelled. ‘D’ yer want fer t’ be one o’ t’ gang? There’s me an’ Art,’ he pointed to the buck-toothed boy, ‘an’ t’ twins an’ Tommo. We’ve a few more, but they jus’ cum part time, like. Are you in wi’ us?’

In? I would have donated an arm and a leg just to hover on the edge of it all! ‘Yes, please.’

‘What’s yer name?’ asked a twin.

‘Laura.’

‘We’ll call ’er Lo,’ pronounced Ginger.

‘I shall call her Laura,’ said Tommo. ‘It suits her.’ He raked his eyes over the church. ‘He can’t be allowed to get away with that. The bloody priests have no right to hit us and knock us about.’

Art grabbed Tommo’s sleeve. ‘What yer goin’ fer t’ do, Tommo? Thmash a winder?’

Tommo grinned, but his face was cold. ‘No. I shall just leave my mark.’ From his pocket, he took a crumb of chalk. Then he strode to the large double doors of the church and wrote, THE PRIEST HERE IS A BIG F. A hand shot out of the porch and dragged Tommo inside. There followed several moments of silent tension, the twins clinging together in mortal fear, Ginger chewing his lip, Art doing his best to hide behind a street lamp.

Tommo emerged, his face red, the lower lip bleeding. With amazing coolness, he finished off his written message, then joined us on the corner.

‘Yer mouth’s bleedin’,’ cried a twin.

Tommo leered at her. ‘He’s in a worse state than I am, Enid. He’ll be afraid to put his face out of the presbytery for weeks.’

‘Why?’ Ginger’s eyes were saucers. ‘Whar ’ave yer dun?’

Tommo whistled under his breath. ‘Remember that vicar up Chorley way – it was in the paper last year? He liked little boys, didn’t he? Liked them a bit too much?’

Everyone looked as puzzled as I felt, but Tommo continued unabashed. ‘Father Sullivan will have to watch his step. I told him I’d go to the police and accuse him of interfering.’

‘Oh.’ Art seemed satisfied with this, nodded a few times, kept saying ‘Oh.’ ‘They alwayth interfere, grown-upth. ’Appen he’ll thtop interferin’ now, Tommo.’

The worldly wise boy hooted and shook his pink curls. ‘Where shall we go now?’ he asked.

Ginger grabbed my arm and dragged me off, beckoned to the rest of the group. ‘Cum on, we’ve a bob an’ fivepence.’

It was the first happy day of my life. No matter what happened from now on, I would have the gang. No-one would take my special new friends away from me. And the most special of them all was the boy called Tommo. He
had hair of a gentler shade than Ginger’s, a colour that I would learn to call strawberry blond. His real name was Bernard Thompson. Bernard Thompson was to have an effect on me that would last for ever. But on that day, he was Tommo, just another ally.

Tommy-gun left our school soon after my first encounter with Tommo and the gang. It was strange that I should lose one person and gain another with a similar name. Sister Maria Goretti could see that I was pretending not to be upset after the farewell assembly. She cornered me under St Francis of Assisi, who seemed a nice chap, because he actually smiled and was surrounded by animals. ‘Laura, she’s getting on in years and she needs to retire.’

‘I know.’

The young nun took my hand when all the other girls had disappeared. ‘Look, she’s away back to Ireland in a day or so. She’s very fond of you. Would you like to come into the convent and say a private goodbye?’

The emotion of it all would have been too much for me. Since meeting the gang, I was tense, excitable. Saying goodbye to Tommy-gun could well turn out to be the last straw, and I didn’t want to show myself up by weeping and gnashing my teeth. ‘No, Sister. I’ve got to finish my story.’

‘Ah.’ The other hand went up to touch the pin on top of her head. For a nun, Confetti was a rather harum-scarum type, with a veil that was often off-centre and a black skirt that always looked as if it needed ironing. ‘You’ll win.’

I shrugged. ‘I won the school prize, but there’s only two classes in our year. In the whole of Bolton, there’ll be hundreds of kids entering.’

‘But you’re talented.’

No-one at home had ever said that I was talented or clever. Auntie Maisie had always loved me, Uncle Freddie
had often said that I was a nice good girl, but even Anne treated me as a very ordinary soul. If I turned out extraordinary, then I would be the most surprised of all. ‘I just like stories,’ I said.

Confetti put her head on one side and the top pin tumbled to the floor. I retrieved it, tried not to flinch as she skewered the headgear to her skull. ‘Does your mammy read your stories when you carry them home from school?’

‘No.’

‘And your father?’

I shrugged. ‘He’s busy inventing things.’

‘So they don’t know that a budding author resides in their midst?’

‘No.’ I tended to ignore Confetti’s enthusiasms. She reckoned that Norma Wallace was the next Madame Curie, that Lizzie Boardman would be the greatest nurse since Nightingale, and that I might well finish up in libraries like Shakespeare and some fellow called Dickens for whom she carried the brightest of her many torches. ‘I’m just Laura to them,’ I said. ‘Not a budding author or anything much. Well, Dad calls me Laurie-child, and that annoys my mother.’

She nodded, looked pensive for a moment or two. ‘Are you … are you unhappy at home?’

‘No.’

She coughed. ‘Happy, then?’

‘No. I’m just all right.’

‘Do you get punished often?’

The third degree did not please me. ‘Sometimes I get smacked. Not as often as I used to.’ My first outing with the gang had been expensive. It had cost me 1s 8d and a battering from Mother, but it had been worth every penny, every blow. And I wasn’t getting too many hidings lately, because Mother was out a lot, doing good deeds with Mr Openshaw from the chapel, taking food parcels to the poor and helping out with big families. This new behaviour of Mother’s had opened my eyes slightly, had
made me look at her differently. Perhaps she had found her good side, perhaps she liked some people and I wasn’t one of the people she liked. ‘I go out more now, Sister. I’ve got friends.’

‘Ah. And which school do your friends attend?’

Again, I lifted a shoulder. ‘Different ones. Some go to Peter and Paul’s, some go to Derby Street.’ I didn’t tell Sister Maria Goretti that I’d met these friends while I was trying to find sufficient courage to run away from home.