Shoes for Anthony (23 page)

‘That's enough, now!' he yelled, standing over Alwyn, fists poised and ready.

Alwyn shook his head and rolled over onto his side. Pushing himself up onto his knees, he pounced up, grabbed a glass from an adjacent table and smashed it on the back of a chair. Thrusting the broken glass, Alwyn moved forwards. The big American dodged sideways but was trapped against Gwennie and her collapsed dance partner. There was nowhere for him to go.

‘No, Alwyn!' I cried, but the darkness was in Alwyn's eyes. He raised the glass, ready to grind it down. I felt a cold terror surge through my chest and then, suddenly, Piotr appeared from nowhere and struck the glass from Alwyn's hand with his walking stick.

‘Never do something you'll regret, my friend,' he said, as Emrys and Alf jumped forward to grab him. ‘Emrys, help get him out.'

‘I bloody hate you, Alwyn Jones,' shouted Gwennie Morgan, who was now crying. ‘Always ruining everything! That's all you ever do!' She bent down to push the hair out from the small American's eyes.

Above us, the bandleader clicked his fingers. ‘Excitement's over, folks!' he shouted. ‘Let's dance.' A small cheer went up, music rang out and everyone about us resumed dancing as if the short, violent interlude had never happened.

‘Help me get him into van,' said Piotr, as they bundled Alwyn out from the building.

‘Let me finish him!' yelled Alwyn, still struggling.

‘For Christ's sake, man!' shouted Emrys. ‘Pack it in, will you? What the hell were you thinking? Glassing someone? You could have been bloody killed. One of you versus two hundred of them? Are you bloody mad?'

‘Where are the girls?' said Piotr, looking over his shoulder. ‘Andrew? Robert?'

‘It's all right,' said Alf, who had Bethan and Gwennie in tow. ‘I've got the girls. The boys are coming up behind.'

‘Gwennie,' said Piotr, as they bundled Alwyn into the back of the van. ‘If you can bear it, sit in the back with him and try and calm him down.'

‘I'll calm him down with the back of my hand!' cried Gwennie, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. ‘Evening ruined! Making a show of me in front of all those people! All I did was have a dance with the man! And he'll probably be dead in a fortnight,' said Gwennie. ‘That's what he told me!'

I cast a quick look up towards Alf, who caught my eye and shrugged.

‘Off to France, he said,' Gwennie continued. ‘Crossing the Channel, fighting the Germans, expecting massive casualties on the first day, he said. Told me I'd probably be the last girl he ever kissed. And he was a virgin.'

‘Gwennie!' yelled Bethan.

‘Well,' cried Gwennie. ‘It's wrong to send those boys off without letting them be men. I'd sleep with all of them if I could.'

‘I'll kill 'em all!' screamed Alwyn, kicking at the side of the van.

‘Right. That'll do,' said Bethan, her voice hard and stern. ‘Get in the back of the van. You've made a right show of us, Alwyn. I can only apologise for my brother,' she added, looking towards Andrew and Robert. ‘When girls are involved, he loses his mind entirely.'

‘Don't worry,' said Andrew, jumping in and sitting next to Alwyn. ‘We're from Texas. If we ain't brawling over women, we ain't Texan.'

I followed Bethan and climbed up into the front passenger seat with her. Alf started the engine and before anyone could come out from the town hall after Alwyn, he drove off and out towards the mountain pass back to Treherbert. There were no streetlights and the night sky was as pitch as molasses.

‘The last time it was this dark,' said Bethan, staring out, ‘Piotr crashed into the mountain.'

I looked over my shoulder towards Piotr in the back. He said nothing.

I didn't want to go back to school. I had no interest in it, none of us did. There was too much going on: Americans training up our mountain, wagons, the excitement of something building, something big. We wanted to sit on a rock and watch it all pass before us. Instead, we had nit inspection.

‘There shall be no discussion about this,' barked Miss Evans, hands firmly on hips. ‘You will all line up against that wall and nobody is to move until Nurse Blevin says so.'

Nurse Blevin, the dreaded nit nurse, was a mean-faced woman who came from the other side of the valley. She experienced no joy whatsoever from being in the presence of children and, armed with nothing more deadly than a toothcomb, instilled terror into our very depths. She was fleshy, squeezed into a dark-blue serge uniform, with a small, starched white paper hat pinned into her tightly wound hair. She bore the expression of a large, bored dog and rumour had it she had once found a child so infested with head lice, she'd put him in a sack and thrown him in the river. I don't know if I believed that. But looking at her, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Her method was startling and efficient: grab a child about the neck with the crook of her elbow, shove head into armpit, drag metal comb across scalp. It was as far removed from the notion of gentle nursing as you could get.

‘It's like when they shear sheep, innit,' Fez said, edging along the side wall.

If you got the all clear, you were released and shoved away. If you were infested, you were pressed firmly up against the wall and handed a white card to be taken to your parents for your shame to be declared. Your head would be shaved then smeared with a mysterious ointment that left your scalp covered in purple spots. From that point on, you were the butt of all future jokes. In short, it was the very worst thing that could happen to you. The very worst.

‘Have you been up behind the dip yet?' said Ade, who was lined up next to me. ‘Massive great tent up b'there. It's where the Yanks have their tea, like. All the food comes in on a wagon. They haven't even got rationing!'

‘Get away,' I said, casting a look down the line. Bozo had his head clamped into Nurse Blevin's armpit. He was pulling a strained, agonised face. ‘I had some chocolate off one a few days back. It was proper horrible. Piotr said it's cos it's made not to melt.'

Ade nodded. ‘I got some gum off one. We all did. Where've you been, man? Haven't seen you up the street or the mountain, like.' He stopped and looked at me, properly. ‘What's the matter with your hair?'

I ran a finger through the front of my fringe. It was matted with three-day-old pomade and had taken on a strange, solid quality that I found mildly alarming.

‘Emrys gave me a pompy,' I said. ‘We went up the dance in Porthcawl on Saturday night. Alwyn had a fight. Lamped an American cos he had his hands on Gwennie Morgan.'

‘Every lad in the valley's had his hands on Gwennie Morgan,' said Ade, running the back of his hand across his nose. ‘Least, that's what my Mam says.'

‘There was a proper band and everything. They were doing this crazy dancing. And I saw a black man.'

‘I saw some proper black men 'n' all. They drive the trucks. I asked them. They're in the Eighty-ninth Quartermaster Battalion Mobile Transportation Corps. That's a long name, innit?'

I nodded.

‘They're in charge of delivering supplies. I asked them that 'n' all. Then I told 'em all our fathers have black faces so we're not put off by 'em, like. Mam says it's best to put people at their ease. So I did.'

‘Adrian Jenkins!' said Miss Evans, who was sitting, perched on the edge of her desk with her arms folded. ‘Are you a wireless?'

Ade frowned. ‘No, miss.'

‘Then there is no need for a constant stream of chatter, is there?'

‘No, miss,' replied Ade, screwing his mouth sideways.

‘That reminds me,' I whispered. ‘Me and Piotr went up the den. We found a radio. Piotr fixed it.'

‘I know. We saw it up there,' said Ade, out the side of his mouth. ‘Couldn't figure it out, though.'

‘I can show you,' I whispered. ‘We can go up later.'

‘It's not there now,' muttered Ade, behind his hand. He was pretending to pick something out of his teeth.

‘What do you mean it's not there?' I said, frowning. ‘We left it on the bench. What you do with it?'

‘Nothing,' said Ade. ‘Went up yesterday and it's not there. I thought you'd taken it, like.'

I shook my head.

We looked at each other, puzzled. ‘Well, who's …?' began Ade.

‘Adrian!' barked Miss Evans. ‘Move away from Anthony, please. Or you can stay late and do lines!'

‘
He
was talking to
me
, miss!' protested Ade as he squeezed himself between Gwyn and Fez. ‘I was only being polite and answering!'

‘Not another word from either of you! Would you like a visit to the headmaster's office?'

No, we would not. I put my hands behind my back and leant against the classroom wall. Someone up the line was crying. I glanced up. Thomas Evans. He'd been given a white card.

‘Now he'll catch it,' muttered Fez. ‘He'll have to sit in the seat of shame and have himself scalped.'

‘He's already in the seat of shame,' whispered Ade, nodding towards his wheelchair.

I suppressed a giggle.

Ade was tapping his foot against the back wall, his expression set and concentrated. He shot a quick glance towards Miss Evans. She was dealing with Thomas, filling out his white card. He leant forward and caught my eye.

‘Eh, Ant,' he said, ‘you reckon it's been nicked, like?'

‘Who by?' I mouthed.

Ade shrugged then quietly thumbed towards Gwyn Williams. ‘Maybe?' he mouthed.

I shrugged back. It had happened before. Gwyn Williams had been caught a couple of times snaffling stuff out our den. My heart sank a bit. Challenging him would mean scrapping him. My nose had only just stopped hurting. I didn't fancy another scuffle.

Ade had reached the head of the queue and was grabbed by Nurse Blevin, his thin, stick-like legs dangling down as she hoisted him into her armpit. Ade had wispy, fine hair and he gave out a small, pained yelp as she yanked the metal comb across his head.

‘You're fine,' she growled, dropping him to the floor. ‘Next!'

Gwyn Williams was before me. I really hoped he wasn't the culprit. I'd had no more trouble with him since I nicked the banana, so that was all squaresies. We hadn't seen him around much over the school holiday: Fez had heard his dad wasn't too clever, healthwise. When your life was underground, the lungs could only take so much dust and damp. When folk were dying, people retreated indoors. You didn't see them from one day to the next. You had to sit by the dying, stay with them, till the last breath. I didn't know if Gwyn Williams' father was long for the world or not, but all the same, I decided I wouldn't fight him just in case he wasn't. It didn't do to be squabbling when there was death in the air.

Gwyn got the all clear. My turn. I felt the tight clamp of the nit nurse's arm. She may have been as rough as an old pony, but she smelt of carbolic soap, all scrubbed clean, and her chest, my head squashed into it, was as soft as a pillow. ‘What in the name of God's green earth have you got in your hair?' she said, trying to get her comb through my fringe.

‘My brother put Brylcreem in it, miss,' I said.

‘Brylcreem?' she said, in mild astonishment. ‘Whatever for? It's like wet wool stuck in gorse. I can't get my comb through it, it's that matted.'

She stabbed at my parting with the teeth of her comb, the metal needles sharp and biting. It hurt so I bit my lip and clamped my eyes shut. Her breath was warm on the back of my neck. It was like being far too close to a cow, quietly huffing and tutting, her irritation coursing down through the comb. She gave a long, heavy sigh and then, her grip on me loosening, grumbled, ‘I've done my best. No nits. Away with you. And next time, no Brylcreem.'

I slid away from her. Ade, who was standing, arms folded, legs spread slightly apart, shot me a wink. We were all right.

As first days back go, it hadn't been too bad. After the nit nurse, Miss Evans had handed out paper and we got to do some drawing. We had to do something that had happened over the holiday, so my picture was of Piotr and me up the mountain: Piotr was pointing up into the sky towards the red kite as it circled, while I stood next to him. I wasn't that good at drawing hands but it wasn't too bad if I had people pointing. I put his other hand inside his pocket.

Ade had drawn a picture of the plane crash. Most of the other boys had too. Bozo had drawn a rather gruesome tableau of the lined-up dead men. Fez had chosen to draw a packet of American gum.

‘How's your Polish house guest?' asked Miss Evans. She'd asked me to stay back and help her pack away the crayons during break. ‘Is he better? I heard he was hurt.'

‘He's all right,' I replied, dropping some pencils into a pot. ‘He had a twisted ankle. But I got him a stick so he's getting about fine now.'

‘We should ask him to come and give a talk,' she said, pinning some of the better pictures up onto the wall. ‘Tell us about his wartime experiences. If they're not too gruesome, that is. I expect he's well travelled.'

‘He's been everywhere, I expect,' I said. ‘Even Africa.'

‘Africa? Goodness. Can you tell me where Africa is on the map, Anthony? Pass me up that picture. It's too far to reach.'

I picked the top picture on the pile and handed it up. Next to her, on the wall, there was a faded world map that hung on a red rope.

‘Africa's there, miss,' I said, pointing to the continent.

‘Long way away, isn't it?' said Miss Evans, pressing a pin into the corner of the picture. ‘And where's his home? Can you point that out?'

‘It's there,' I said, pointing upwards. ‘Or at least, it was there. Before Hitler moved in and made it German.'

‘It must be a great comfort that he has found such a friend in you,' she said, turning to look at me. I felt myself blushing. She placed her hand against the wall and stepped down from the chair. ‘Have you thought any more about that chat we had, Anthony, the one we had with your mother?'