Tom All Alone (2)

       "Wait 'til his dad gets home," nan said.  "He'll have something to say."

...

       Those were the words that scared him more than any.  More than the scolding.  More than the anger and upset.  Because dad would decide the punishment.  He would pass the final judgement.

       The women fixed the damage as best they could.  Mum stood on a kitchen chair and knocked the screws back into the wall while nan vacuumed up the mess - pulling the nozzle hard across the carpet, like she was trying to suck up the pattern, too.  At least Skipper was alright, he saw - cleaning himself up after his recent shock, his cage now back up on the stand.  The curtains were brushed off and the rail slipped back in place - delicately, in case those supports fell out again.  Then mum turned to him.

       "You stay away from that window in future.  Do what your nan tells you when I'm out." 

       Then, still in her coat and boots and headscarf, she picked up her shopping bags and took them to the kitchen.  Nan went with her.  She filled the kettle and put it on the stove while mum lit the paraffin heater.

       The day settled back to order.  Things carried on as they normally would.  The sense of upset remained, though - marked in the edges to the women's voices as they talked in the kitchen.  The door was pushed to - against him, it seemed.  He sat on the landing, looking at the patterns in the lino - the brightly-coloured dots and dabs against the black background, like brilliant stars in the night sky.  He laid on his front with his face to the lino, until it filled his eyes.  He pretended he was an astronaut, falling through space, falling through those stars and into nothingness.

*

       In the afternoon, he sat in the bedroom playing with his soft toys - Pig, Baa-Lamb, Bear, Duck, and his Sooty and Sweep puppets.  He sat them in a circle on his bed and told them a story that he'd made up.  It was a story about going away on holiday, and where they were going to go. To a big caravan somewhere, he said. Then he told them about Guy Fawkes night, and watching the fireworks.  And then Christmas coming, and what presents they were getting.  He was still talking when Russell came in from school, but he stopped then.  Russell looked at him with a grin on his face.

       "Talking to yourself again."

       "Leave me alone."

       "Why?  You going to cry?"

       Tom said nothing - waiting for his brother to leave.  He watched Russell take off his blazer and hang it on the wardrobe door-handle.  He saw the big golden badge sewn on the top pocket.  It was supposed to be a lion, but it didn't look like the lions in Tom's picture book.  It didn't have the big furry thing around it's neck, like mum had on her big winter coat.  And it was standing up on its back legs, walking like a man.  One of its paws was sticking out in front, with a claw showing, like it was going to scratch someone - like Tansy, the cat next door, who sometimes walked along the back yard fence.  It had a big tongue sticking out.  He didn't like the lion.  He thought it was more like a dragon, and the tongue was a flame coming out of its mouth.  If he had to wear one of those when he went to school, he knew he wouldn't like it very much.  It was a sign that said 'school' in his head, and what 'school' was all about.  That was why he didn't want to go there.

       Russell sat on his bed on the other side of the room and took his shoes off.  Then he opened his satchel and took out some books and a pen, which he took with him as he went out again.  Before he shut the door behind him, he pushed his bum back into the room and blew off.  Tom laughed at that.

       He heard Russell go up the stairs - the creak of each stair as he went, up into the sounds of mum cooking dinner in the scullery.  He got up from the bed and went and turned the blazer around, so that the lion-dragon was no longer staring at him with its one dark eye.

       In a while, he laid the toys back on his pillow, kissed them each three times in turn, then went upstairs to ask mum if he could watch the cartoons.  He could see Russell sitting at the table in the kitchen, doing some school work. The scullery was full of light and noise as mum worked at the sink, peeling potatoes.  She didn't turn from what she was doing.

       "I don't know if you deserve it after what you've done," she said.

       His lower lip dropped.

       "Please, mum."

       She sighed and put the knife down.

       "If it'll keep you quiet," she said, softly.

       They went up to the sitting room and he knelt on the floor in front of the telly.  She switched it on and he stared at the screen as it warmed up, waiting for the picture to come through.  When it did it was hazy, with a bar flicking down,.  Mum turned a knob on the back and moved the arms of the aerial, until it was right.

       "Now, sit still and watch it," she said.  "And don't touch anything."

       She went back down to the scullery.  He knelt there in the room, watching the flickering grey images on the screen.  A little later she came back and lit the fire with a match, drawing the flames up the chimney with a sheet of newspaper.  Nan came in then and sat in an armchair with her darning basket.

       "I'll keep an eye on it, Cath."

       She put some coal on the flames and pushed a poker in, then sat with her darning - the brightness of the telly flashing off her spectacles in the gathering gloom.  The fire sparked and spat, so she put the guard in place.  Tom just knelt there quietly, watching.

       Soon the flames were gushing up the chimney.  The heat pushed out into the room.  Mum came up again and sat in the other armchair, facing nan.  She lit a cigarette, elbows on her knees as she looked at the fire.

       "Where's Russell?" said nan.

       "Doing his homework.  He's alright."

       They sat there - mum staring into the flames as she smoked, nan working her needle in the light from the standard lamp.

       "You don't mind looking after them tonight, mum?"

       Nan spread her hand out inside the stocking, checking the strength of the darn.  "I'll be alright."

       "We won't be late, anyway."

       The fire snapped.  Mum moved the guard and put a couple of pieces of coal on.  Shadows hulked up the walls and the women's faces were tricked out of the firelight.  The mantel clock ticked away, like the mechanism running their lives, moving them forwards.  Half-past five.

       "Where're you going?"

       "Coat and Badge, I expect.  There's a singer in The Half-Moon.  Probably be crowded."

       Skipper suddenly started chirping - his bell tinkling as he leapt from perch to perch.  They all looked up at the cage.

       "I'll swear that bird's psychic," said mum.  She finished her cigarette and threw the end into the flames.

       "Can you hear him coming, duck?" said nan to Skipper.

       Mum got up and went back to the scullery.  The smells of cooking wafted up behind her.

       Tom felt the fear like a stone in his stomach.  He heard the key go into the front door lock, heard the door open, heard the key pulled out, heard the door close again - that final thud, and the click of the latch.  The measured, heavy boot-steps on the stairs.  Dad's voice, loud and chirpy along the hallway.  The conversation they were having.  The silent pause.  He waited.

       He heard the boot-steps come up the short flight to the top landing and approach the door.  The door opened and dad was outlined in the light from the hall, and the smell of him was instantly there: the sweetness of hay, the tang of tobacco smoke.  Tom pulled himself into the shadow of the sofa as dad came into the room

       "Hello, mum."

       "Alright, Dan.  Busy day?"

       "Pretty much."

       He sat in the armchair opposite her.  He laid out his newspaper on the floor and slipped off his boots, sighing with each one.  He tipped the chaff and grit out of them onto the paper, then stood them aside on the carpet.

       "Been down to Lewes today."

       "Not far from where I was born.  Nice down there."

       "Yeah.  Long way."

       Carefully, he picked up the paper and shook it out onto the flames.  The pieces of chaff caught against the sides on their way up the chimney, glowing like tiny orange stars.  He refolded the paper and tucked it down beside his boots.  He took a cigarette packet from the pocket of his shirt, put a cigarette between his lips, lit it with a match.  He tossed the match into the flames and watched it twist to a cinder.  Then he turned to look at his son.

       "Mum's been telling me about your behaviour."

       Nan glared at Tom quickly from her darning, then back again.

       "He's a perisher."

       The tears stung in Tom's eyes.

       "I hope you said sorry to your mum and your nan."

       He didn't speak.

       "Did he say sorry, mum?"

       "I don't remember hearing it."

       Dad's face was stern now - like the face of a demon etched in the firelight. Waiting.

       "S... Sorry, nan."

       "I should think so," she said.

       Dad continued to look at him for a moment.  Then he turned his head and faced the flames again, blowing smoke into them.

       "It's fireworks night coming up soon," he said.

       Tom knew what was coming.

       "Any more of this and there won't be any fireworks."

       Then he turned and glared down at Tom again.

       "Do you understand?"

       He nodded.  "Yes, dad."

       "Good."

       From the scullery came the sound of a spoon, tap-tap-tapping on a plate.

       "Now, go and sit at the table for your dinner.  After dinner, it's wash, pyjamas, bed.  Do you hear me?"

       "Yes, dad."

       "Alright."

 

       There were fireworks, though.  A huge box of them, brought home by dad after work on Bonfire Night.  Tom and Russell looked at them, nestling there like lucky dip prizes in their secret chemical smell.  After dinner, dad let them off in the back yard while the two brothers stood by the door - done up in their coats and gloves, watching the coloured stars and crackling showers of sparks, and the rockets that whooshed across the face of the night like knife-tears through velvet.  And when it was over and the box lay empty, and the genies of duff squibs had been set off in puffs of pink and green smoke, dad took them down to the river by Putney Bridge, where a huge bonfire blazed on the foreshore - a cone of flames, cracking and leaping in the night.  For a time they stood there, staring into the orange-white depths, feeling the smart of the heat on their faces, in their eyes, seeping into them, while around them strange human shapes danced and lurched in the shadow-play against the backdrop of the river, and faces faded in and out of the dark like lanterns, or phantoms glimpsed in a dream.

       Later, they walked back along the tow-path and stopped at the pub, where the boys stood in the doorway with Cokes and crisps, swapping stories on the best spectacle of the night - their faces still tingling with afterglow - while dad sat there with his mates at the bar, huddled together in the light and smoke, fetching them glances every now and then as they waited for him to drink up and take them home.

(continued) https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/tom-tom-turnaround-3