She's Leaving Home (41 page)

‘Being in Britain has given me another perspective.’ Michael was cautious as he sipped his cold beer. ‘Some of the drinkers in the Pelican pub served in Malaya and Burma. They reckoned you can’t beat an insurgency unless you persuade the people you’re fighting for them. If the foreign force seems to be propping up an unpopular regime, villagers will go over to the other side in droves.’ He let the comments sink in. ‘Let me put it their way. The Limeys say we’ll get a bloody nose in Vietnam – they think we’re going about it totally wrong. There’s not a man-jack of them wants to see any British troops involved.’

‘Well, the French got more than a bloody nose in ’54,’ his father mused. ‘Trouble is, we have to work with the leadership that’s in power. South East Asia is hardly a breeding ground for democracy. So we are stuck. In the end, the army bosses will decide who’s in charge in Saigon.’

‘Which army – ours, theirs or the Viet Cong?’

‘Hush – not so loud.’ His father smiled ruefully. ‘Don’t kid about it. When Ike retired we had under two thousand men in the country. Now we’re up to sixteen thousand, though that’s not trumpeted about. If the situation deteriorates you could find yourself in pilot school whether you choose or not. They’re short of crews for the big ’copters. Guns mounted on the struts – vicious buggers.’

‘You don’t care for that line, Pa, do you?’

‘I do not. I hear the flexing of muscles and the crack of knuckle-joints too often. We are being drawn into something we cannot control and it costs lives – thirty-two US boys dead in the last two years and eighty wounded. Your Limey pals are right. I counted twenty-seven Americans with the rank of General currently in Saigon, and d’you know how many have attended the counter-insurgency course at Fort Bragg? Not a single one.’

The two conversed sombrely for a while then ordered sandwiches and more beers. To eat more formally in the dining room would have required ties and jackets. Michael reached hungrily for the food.

‘I do love a BLT,’ he munched. ‘Nobody in England has heard of them. When I suggested putting a little mayo in what they call a “bacon butty” they thought I was mad.’

‘Learned to like the ale yet?’

‘No, sir.’ Michael grinned and pulled a face. He wiped his fingers. ‘So: I’m here till Labor Day. What gives?’

His father considered. ‘I should steer clear of southern cities during August if I were you. Go stay with your grandma in the Berkshires – Massachusetts is superb in summer and she’d be pleased to see you.’

Michael honed in on the warning remark at once. ‘Why steer clear – what’s going on?’

His father sighed. ‘Because the Negroes have stopped listening when we say “Wait”. Trouble is in the air – tangible, almost. Dr King and non-violence, and his friend Roy Wilkins with his insistence on the rule of law, are under attack, not only from racists this time but from their own brethren. King was pelted with eggs last week.’

‘It was going to happen sooner or later, I guess.’

‘Maybe. Fact remains that in the south still hardly any Negro children attend school with whites, whatever the Supreme Court might rule. And in the north we got
de facto
segregation – as James Baldwin claims, the Negroes are segregated but nobody did it. Life can be desperately tough in northern cities like Pittsburgh and Chicago or New York – there are no support mechanisms, family or church. Dr King is not a product of a Harlem slum. He and his wife and children come from the Southern Baptist Conference, and it shows.’

‘Who’s making waves – is it these Black Muslims?’

‘Are they bad news! I’m not a literary man as you know, but I like to keep up with what’s talked about around Washington dinner tables. Have you read
Negroes with Guns
? Robert F. Williams, came out this spring. He’s done a bunk to Cuba but it’s being quoted everywhere. Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, who is from Harlem, says the white man is afraid. I’m not, but some are.’

Colonel Levison’s brow furrowed. ‘The Attorney-General is determined to stay with these shifts of opinion. I was privileged to attend a session with Baldwin at Bobby’s apartment here in May. Private, but I know you won’t gossip. Lena Horne and Harry Belafonte were there, and several writers, and Professor Clark of City College of New York, Assistant Attorney Burke Marshall plus Jerome Smith, the young freedom rider who got beaten up so badly. It gave me quite a start, I tell you, to see so many intellectuals with black skins – maybe the dearth of educated Negroes in high office is something we can tackle. But the atmosphere was not good.’

Michael waited. His father needed only an audience.

‘Smith started by telling Bobby that being in the same room with him made him want to puke. Nice guy. He should not have to plead, he said, for rights to which he was entitled as an American. And as long as Negroes were treated so – dogs set on them, beaten up, denied access to schools – he felt no moral obligation to fight for the USA in war.’

‘Christ. They don’t believe in asking politely, do they?’

‘Exactly. Though in their place I might feel the same.’

The Colonel offered his son a cigar, lit his own and puffed for a moment. ‘Most of the guests backed Smith’s line. It got increasingly hysterical. They stood and ranted, they cursed, they wept. They were not interested in any practical points or any declarations the President had made. It was absolutely terrible. Bobby Kennedy sat there for three solid hours and took it but he was badly shaken. And d’you know what? Two of those present contacted him later and thanked him for his efforts. When he asked why they’d not spoken up, they said they could not speak in front of the others or they’d have lost credibility.’

‘All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing – as the Brit Edmund Burke might have said.’

‘And how. So we have a new Civil Rights Bill sent to the Hill with no assurance of an easy passage, even as the potential beneficiaries sneer. I think that’s why the President has decided to tour the southern states this fall – partly to prepare for the election, but also to suss out who’s where on this issue.’

‘It can’t improve the President’s popularity.’

‘God, that’s true. The Harris poll suggests four million white voters have turned against us. National approval of the President has fallen from sixty to forty-seven per cent in a few months. We have a new phrase here, “White Backlash”. But what’s so great about the Kennedys is that they don’t give in. They see no alternative to prevent the isolation of moderates like Dr King. Expectations have been aroused and must be met. Somehow.’

‘I wish I could help. I feel so out of it in Lancashire.’

The Colonel laughed. ‘Oh, you kids.’ He thought for a moment. ‘If you’re in Washington on 28 August, you might stroll over to the Lincoln Memorial. There’s to be a peaceful march organised by Bayard Rustin and old Philip Randolph – they’re hardly revolutionaries. The leaders are worried that it won’t be well attended. You could show your face, but take care.’

‘I might do that,’ said Michael thoughtfully. He looked out of the window. ‘And now if we don’t get a move on, somebody will pinch our boat. Shall we go?’

Back in Liverpool there were no yacht rides for Michael’s lover, and no brilliant sunshine either. In a home where money was short her spare time was spent in paid work. A summer job as shop assistant and official first-aider at Boot’s Chemist in Allerton Road filled the bill. It gave Helen a hefty discount off cosmetics, clean surroundings and polite companions – all a distinct contrast to Feinstein’s Famous Deli, where the atmosphere had become distinctly frosty since Nellie had announced her departure. Plus she had time to think in the quieter moments, and an improvement in her bank balance. Suddenly it had become important to save.

Michael was away: it seemed like a distance of a million miles and ten light years. She could not phone him and had resorted to pre-paid airmail letters, her handwriting as tiny as possible to cram in her news and ideas. One had come in return for her to the Post Office near school, but he was not as easy a communicant as she. Only in person could he express himself well.

He was the right one. Of that she was sure. The right one for her at this time, anyway, and for what they had been doing. She had not lost her virginity: she had given it away, made a precious gift of it, and carefully chosen the recipient. Their consummation was a benediction bestowed on them
both. The memory filled her with delight, and with frissons of sheer sexual electricity. It felt as if Michael had been sent to her for exactly that purpose.
Michael, Michael, Michael
. Adored and wonderful. A man, who had created her a woman.

With a jolt she came back to the present: the small back room off the pharmacy, and her task as the shop’s first aider.

Before her stood a small child. The little girl’s face was wet with tears but she made not a sound. Her narrow shoulders heaved with mute sobs. One arm, hand twisted inside, was clutched to her abdomen and cradled by her other hand. She was trembling violently.

Helen sat the child on the chair and motioned the mother to crouch at her daughter’s side. There was only one other chair and she needed it herself. Her mouth felt dry but it was important not to let them know she was almost as scared, when she was supposed to be the epitome of professional efficiency.

It was her own fault. The first-aid certificate framed on the office wall was no fantasy but had been obtained years earlier. A Red Cross cadet troop, left over from the war, met in a church hall near Harold House. The commandant, a broad-beamed matron in a blue uniform, had offered to train the Youth Club members. Helen had become adept at triangular bandages and how to place bodies in the foetal position. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a relatively new technique, had caused much embarrassment. What she was trying desperately to remember, however, was the safest way to remove splinters.

‘Come on, now, let me see. I won’t hurt you,’ she lied.

The child opened her mouth and gagged. ‘I c-c-c-can’t –’

Next to her the mother, her hat askew, gloved hands clutching a leather carry-bag, began to argue. ‘I told her not to play with that rubbish but she took no notice. My back was turned talking to Mrs Jarvis. Oh, you are such a naughty girl.’ The woman made as if to cuff the child, who cringed.

‘Would it be easier if your Mam was outside?’ Helen whispered. The child nodded. The mother, protesting, was firmly shown the door. Helen washed her hands nervously at the pharmacist’s sink and collected the implements from the cupboard.

‘Now then. It has to come out, you know. You can’t go round with other people’s property in your finger.’

The little girl sniffed but her heaves subsided. Very slowly she uncurled the afflicted joint and showed the angry red finger where the black sliver had entered under her nail.

Helen breathed a sigh of relief. The thought of poking around to find the offending object had terrified her. ‘Well now, that’s easy.’ She lifted the child’s chin. ‘And do you have a name?’

‘Lucy,’ muttered the child. ‘I hate my name. What’s yours?’

‘I’m Helen.’ As the child gazed fixedly into her face, with a quick tug of the tweezers Helen had the splinter out and held it up triumphantly. ‘There you are!’

‘Ow!’ Lucy yelped.

‘Hush! You want your Mam to think you’re smart and clever, don’t you?’

A deadened look came into the girl’s eyes. That their home was a miniature war zone was more than apparent. It occurred fleetingly to Helen that Colette’s might have been similar when she was a small child and her mother still lived there, though her friend never talked about it.

‘Then I’ll check there’s nothing else in there, put some antiseptic cream on it and give you a bandage. Big or small?’

‘Big,’ came the decisive answer. ‘Then she’ll feel sorry for me and we’ll have sausages for tea.’

The conspiracy was concluded. The child, dwarfed by a balloon of white net over the injured digit, emerged into the shop. Helen had debated whether to include a sling but suspected the woman would have difficulty paying for it. As it was she grumbled at the shilling for the bandage.

Helen slid back to her place on the hair products counter. It was the second year she had worked at Boots. The store was light and airy, the toilets and staff areas spotless, their white coats were laundered at no charge, and her boss Mr Clay the pharmacist was a gentle-mannered man at the mercy of his staff.

There was no possibility of going away for the summer. Where would she go? Relatives? Three weeks in the spare bedroom at Aunty Becky’s did not appeal. Butlin’s was not kosher so she could not get her parents’ permission to go there. And who would she go with? Their families would have been scandalised at the idea of a bunch of teenagers sleeping unchaperoned in adjoining chalets. Anyway, nobody had a car. Only Jerry could drive. Maybe next year after the exams were over Harold House should organise a week on a camp site at Pwhelli in North Wales. If Yehudah Siegel were officially in charge, the Minister’s son, surely nobody could object.

She sighed at the project’s bleakness. It was grim enough to be young and penniless without the additional strictures of Judaism. No wonder youngsters skipped off to Israel on the free ticket: on a typically damp day like this, its sunny beaches and orange groves had enormous appeal to a British youngster. And not come back, either. Life in the kibbutz did not sound particularly onerous. No shopping, no individual cooking. All done collectively. Children were cared for in nurseries so that their mothers could work. She suspected that Lucy for one would regard that as paradise. So might the child’s mother.

Mr Clay the pharmacist emerged from his dispensary. ‘Well done. You dealt with her beautifully.’

‘Thanks. She was a sweet kid.’

He peered over his spectacles. ‘You going to train as a nurse, Helen?’

‘Heavens, no. I’m not the type. Not good at taking orders or making beds.’ The possibility had entered her head briefly in a careers discussion. It was one of the few professions dominated by females and with equal pay. It had been as quickly dismissed.