Shoes for Anthony (9 page)

It was often commented on, with surprise, that she had returned to Treherbert at all after such worldly experiences, but she always gave the same response. ‘I'd miss our mountain,' she'd say, and then look up at it the same way I did.

‘You gone soft?' said Ade, nudging me as we followed her into the schoolhouse. I shook my head. I couldn't explain why I hadn't fought back.

‘Is it cos he's bigger, like? He did play dirty. Jumping out. All same, you'll have to do something. Show 'em you're not chicken, like.' Ade stared at me and reached into his pocket. ‘Bung this up the left one,' he said, holding a bit of mangled cloth towards my nostrils. ‘You're still dripping.'

The schoolhouse had once been the village chapel, but following a fire and a religious relocation, the building was reborn. It was a drafty building with an odour of wood polish, chalk and ink. Our classroom was towards the back end, where the windows looked out towards our mountain. I sat halfway from the front, sharing a double desk with Ade. We'd tossed a coin for the window seat and I'd won, so I carved my name into the windowsill to show I'd always be there.

‘Right,' said Miss Evans, back turned to us and writing on the blackboard. ‘Sphagnum moss. Who knows what it looks like?'

I cast an eye around the room. No hands up.

‘What colour do you think it might be?' said Miss Evans, turning towards us. ‘Fester, cigarette cards away, please, and tell me what colour sphagnum moss is.'

Fez squirrelled his tin into the front of his desk and sat stock still in concentration, staring at the ceiling. ‘Is it blue, Miss?'

‘No, Fester, sphagnum moss is not blue. What colour is normal moss?'

‘Green, Miss.'

‘Correct. And so is sphagnum moss. Now, does anyone know what's special about sphagnum moss?'

Everyone shook their head.

‘Do you all remember how we went up the mountain and gathered wool from hedges for the war effort? We've been asked to do the same with sphagnum moss.'

‘What do they want moss for, Miss?' asked Ade.

‘It's got medicinal properties. It helps dress wounds and also makes them heal quicker. Sphagnum moss is going to be sent to look after wounded soldiers. So this morning, instead of writing, we're going up the mountain and we're going to find as much sphagnum moss as we can.'

A great cheer rang out.

‘Now, so that we know what we're looking for,' said Miss Evans, reaching into a hessian bag, ‘I gathered some this morning. So I want you all to come up and have a look at it.'

There was a surge towards her. ‘Desk at a time!' shouted Miss Evans. ‘And no pushing.'

I shoved my chair back and joined the queue. Bozo was in front of me. He turned round. ‘Why didn't you fight Gwyn, man?' he asked, frowning. ‘Everyone's calling you chicken, like. You're going to have to do a forfeit, or something.'

‘Forfeit will sort it,' said Ade, behind me. ‘Do a forfeit.'

My nose was still sore from the punch, and I dabbed at it with Ade's cloth.

‘Ant,' said Ade, again, ‘for serious, man. You have to do one.'

‘All right,' I said, staring down at another drop of blood. ‘I'll do a forfeit.'

Bozo tapped Fez on the shoulder. ‘Ant's up for a forfeit. To prove he's not chicken, like.'

Fez nodded and passed it on. One by one, everyone ahead of me turned and looked at me.

‘It's an acidic moss,' I heard Miss Evans explaining. ‘So it stops bacteria growing.'

‘Who's deciding the forfeit?' I asked Ade, with a sniff.

‘It'll have to be Gwyn, wannit? He's the one that's called you chicken. You'll have to do what he says.'

My heart sank. Forfeits were to be avoided at all costs, let alone ones set by Gwyn Williams. My father's words rang in my ears: ‘It's better to do what is right rather than what is popular.' No chance of that now. The class would be baying for blood.

Gwyn pushed his way up the line towards me. ‘You gonna forfeit, like?' he said, fixing me with his small, black eyes. I nodded. ‘Right, then. You gotta steal Mrs Reece's banana.'

Bozo gave a short gasp.

Gwyn spat onto his hand and held it out. I stared down at the thick sputum in his palm and felt Ade nudge me in the back. I had no choice. I placed my hand in his. The forfeit was on.

My pockets were filled with moss. Behind me stood fifteen children. Ahead of me, Scott Street. Someone, somewhere, had found something to bake. Smelled like Welsh cakes. Perhaps some sugar had come in, down the shop? My mind raced. Mrs Reece's house was ten doors up from mine. What if Mam came out looking for me and saw? What then? What if Mrs Reece caught me doing it? I looked over my shoulder. Gwyn Williams was standing with his arms crossed. Ade stood squinting, the noonday sun beating into his eyes. I looked up towards our mountain. Somewhere, in its depths, my father and brothers would be working. Stealing wasn't right.

‘Hell of a forfeit,' said Thomas Evans, sitting in his wheelchair. His left leg was in plaster up to his knee. He was all right if he was on the flagstones – cobbles, not so much. Mind you, he'd already broken his ankle once this year. He was a dab hand.

‘Window's open,' said Gwyn, nudging his head upwards.

I stared into the cool shadows of Mrs Reece's front parlour. There was the display table. The lace cloth. The fancy plate she'd brought from her dresser. And there, on top, resplendent, glorious: the mighty banana. All I had to do was reach in and take it. Nothing difficult. Just put my arm in through her open window and quietly remove the banana from its pedestal. That was it. I felt as if I were putting my arm into a den of vipers.

The curtains either side of the window fluttered gently outwards, licking up the side of the outside wall. I thought about the cigarette card, the couple running away from the poison, and I thrust my arm in, grabbed the banana and ran.

‘Away!' yelled Ade, clattering down the street after me.

I didn't look back. I glanced down into my hand. I stuffed the banana into the top of my shorts, skidded round the corner and ducked into the back alley behind the houses. I leant up against a wall, my chest bursting. Like a swarm of bees, the others appeared and surrounded me.

‘He's bloody done it,' said Ade, banging me on the shoulder. ‘He took the banana. He's done the forfeit.'

A sea of hands came pattering down, but one hand, flattened and facing up, stuck stubbornly in front of me. ‘Let's have it, then,' said Gwyn. ‘Give me the banana.'

‘It's his, man!' said Ade, frowning. ‘Fuck off!'

The others muttered. Gwyn fixed me with a stare. I stared back at him. An ugly boy. Squashed and lopsided, like a face pressed up against a window. His was a face you could imagine floating up out of a peat bog: primitive, base, barely formed. He curled his lip. He had no more cards to play. He'd demanded the forfeit and it was done.

‘Bloody bastards,' said Thomas Evans, the wheels of his chair squeaking up behind us. ‘What's wrong with yers? Nobody giving me a bloody shove. I've had to crank meself all the bloody way.'

‘Sorry,' we all said, a little sheepishly.

‘You gonna eat it, then?' Thomas said, nudging his head in the direction of the banana, his chest still heaving with effort.

‘Dunno,' I said, fingering the top of it where it poked up from my shorts.

‘Well, take it out your knackers, at least,' said Thomas. ‘Or no one'll want a bit.'

‘Anthony!' My mother's voice rang across the fences. I looked sideways to see her head poking over the back gates. She was standing on a stool, hanging out the washing. ‘What are you all up to?'

‘Nothing, Mam!' I yelled back.

‘Nothing, Mrs Jones!' the rest behind me chimed in.

My mother's eyes narrowed. ‘When boys of a certain age tell me they're doing nothing, they're clearly doing something. Get in for your lunch! All of you!'

Nobody needed telling twice, and the boys dispersed like dandelion seeds on the wind. I was left, standing, Thomas Evans behind me.

‘Christ alive,' he yelled, looking over his shoulder. ‘They've all naffed off again.
Diawl
, man. I'm bloody knacked.'

‘I'll push you home,' I said, and, taking the handles, I twisted him round.

I ran straight up the stairs. Taking the banana from the top of my shorts, I reached under the bed for my shoebox. I could hide it under
The Dandy
. That way, even if someone looked, they wouldn't see it. The skin was a darker yellow than I had remembered, and it had an odour, a bit like a pear, but deeper, odder. I crouched by the bed and wondered if I should eat it there and then, have done with it. Raising it to my nose, I sniffed it again: such an unfamiliar smell. I let the tip of my tongue touch it: bitter, weird. I threw the banana into the shoebox and covered it with my comic. I'd work out what to do with it later.

‘Anthony!' I heard my mother calling.

‘Coming!' I shouted back.

‘Bread and jam,' said Mam, gesturing towards the kitchen table. I looked out of the window towards the washing line. The wind was picking up. Father's shirts looked like they were trying to escape. I picked up my bread and bit into it. I liked to save the crusts till last, so I ate into the middle and then bent out the slice so I could finish off the centre.

Mam bent down to the veg box. ‘Don't think much of my crop this year, do you?' she said, holding up a few wizened carrots. ‘Need some more compost. Mind you, there's hardly anything to make a compost with. I put it down, it gets eaten.'

‘Has Emrys been home yet, Mam?' I asked, licking some jam from my finger.

‘Came in, got changed, went off to pit. I don't think he's slept. They spent most of the night catching rabbits. Look b'there. He's brought me three.'

Three dead rabbits were lying by the sink.

‘Did he say he was still after me, like? About Ade and the boys and the sheets?'

‘He asked where you were,' said Mam, running some muddied potatoes under the tap. ‘And then he said something about melting you down for glue …'

I swallowed a mouthful of bread.

‘But I've got something else to tell you. Your teacher, Miss Evans, wants to see me. She's sent me a note.'

I stopped chewing and stared up. ‘Why?'

‘I dunno. You done something rotten?' She turned and raised an eyebrow at me. ‘You better not have. Remember what Bopa told you …? If you do something wrong, bad things happen.'

I said nothing, my face frozen.

‘If you have, you best tell me now, Ant,' Mam said, putting the washed potatoes into a bowl and wiping her hands on the bottom of her housecoat. She fixed me with her pale-blue eyes.

I stared down towards my plate, my fingers clutching the elongated crust. My mind raced. It can't be about the banana. Miss Evans couldn't know about that. It would be about the fight with Gwyn. ‘I had another scrap with Gwyn, Mam,' I said. ‘But I didn't start it. Honest.'

Mam nodded. ‘I believe you,' she said, unbuttoning her housecoat and slipping it off. ‘All the same, I'm to come up to school with you. No doubt Gwyn Williams' mother will be there, too. So we shall have to deal with that. Bopa had a run-in with her last week. The woman shoved in the queue at the butchers, took the last of the sausages. Bopa said there was almost a fight. A bag of parsnips got knocked over. Finish that bread up. I'll spruce myself into something presentable.'

She hung her housecoat on the hook by the back door and stood in front of the kitchen fireplace. There was an old mirror that hung above the mantelpiece, a rare find in a back alley. Thrown-away treasure – just like the one-handed clock – that's what she called it. It was a mottled old thing, covered in dark black spots, as if the glass was slowly dying. Mam stared into it and began to tidy her hair into a topknot. She had long, dark-brown hair with a natural curl, but it wasn't often we ever saw it down. I watched as she deftly pinned it up into a swirling bun, pouting her lips without thinking, as she always did when she was staring into a mirror. It was the only time she ever concentrated on herself. Her face was lived in, every line a testament to the endless effort of her life: her hands were red raw from scrubbing, she was as thin as a whippet, her demeanour scuffed about the edges. She might have been attractive if life had led her down a different path. I could imagine her on the arm of a swanky fellow wearing those Regal Brogues. What would she look like in a fancy frock, a fur wrapped about her shoulders, a cigarette at the end of a holder?

‘Right, then,' she said, reaching for her overcoat. ‘You done? Fetch my handbag and let's get this over with.'

It was a portent of something deep and terrible to be seen walking with your mother towards the school. The only time mothers were seen anywhere near the gates was when there'd been an accident at the pit, or you were in dire trouble. ‘We'll go the long way round,' said Mam, shifting her hat to sit more comfortably. ‘I don't want to go past the shop and be seen.'

I felt anxious. Kids were starting to make their way back, having had lunch, and their glances were boring into me. We had to cross the playing area in front of the schoolhouse, girls sectioned off to the right, boys to the left, and my mother swept through the centre, a maternal Moses cutting a swathe through a sea of small jumpers. I was lagging behind, trying not to look as if I was hanging on to my mother's apron strings, but Mam stopped and pressed her palm into the middle of my back to hurry me up. She had better things to be doing, and I knew it.

I stopped. Mam reached for the door into the schoolhouse signposted for girls. I couldn't be seen going through that, so I hung back again, not quite sure what to do. ‘Mam,' I said, with some urgency. ‘I'm not allowed in b'there.' I pointed towards the sign carved into the stone above the doorway. She glanced upwards.