The Ashton Road Gang Chapter 2. February.

Chapter Two.

 

Finnegan.

 

          Stew and I were working on my bike in the back yard. The chain kept slipping off so it needed tightening.

"Billy, take this note round to your Granny Jones's" It was my mother.

"Can Stew come with me? I asked.

"Yes, but don't be too long," she replied.

Neither of us minded going to my Granny Jones's. She owned a small general shop of the kind found on most street corners in those days. She was generous with treats for small hungry boys sent on messages. We went there the quickest way through the back alleys and delivered the note. We decided to come back by a different route to make sure that we had finished the sweets before we reached home.

Between Granny Jones's and Ashton Rd was an area of the town that was very much scruffier and run down than where we lived. Crumbling terrace hoses opened straight out on to the cracked and uneven pavements. Half the widows were boarded up, even in the occupied houses. Those window frames still with glass showed little evidence cleaning or paint on the woodwork. Ragged clothed children played in the gutters. Old women gossiped on the door steps. All seemed to view passers-by with suspicion and dislike.

          At the top of one of these slum streets my bicycle chain came off again. Stew did not hear me shout and kept going.

Hurriedly I fixed my machine. I did not want to hang about on my own in that part of the world. As I raced after Stew, a huge, flaming-red haired figure leapt out of a door way. He grabbed Stew and pulled him from his bike and on to the floor.

I must have had a brainstorm. I did not stop to think of the possible consequences. I pedalled hard and accelerated until I was almost level with the red-haired thug. There was no time to apply the brakes. His foot was drawn back to kick Stew. With a scream of rage, I launched myself, head first and scored a direct hit in his midriff with both fists. The lout collapsed in a heap with me on top of him.

"Gerrup and scram"! I screamed at Stew as I scrambled up. Seconds later, before the would-be thief could get his breath, we were pedalling for dear life.

We did not stop until we were safe at home. Flinging down his bike Stew puffed "What was that all about?"

"That!" I said now trembling with reaction. "That was Finnegan."

"Who's Finnegan when he's at home then?"

"Finnegan is the biggest, nastiest meanest bully anybody could ever have the bad luck to meet," I told him with a nasty sinking sensation in my stomach.

"How do you know him then?" Stew wanted to know.

"He is in the fourth year at school," I said miserably. "And he's got a gang nearly as horrible as him."

"Oh! Do you think he recognised you?" Stew asked.

I nodded.

"You've had it then, haven't you? Stew said sympathetically.

I did not need to be told that. On Monday morning Finnegan and his cronies would be waiting for me. They would beat me to a pulp and then kick the pulp into a smear on the playground.

"It's all right for you," I told Stew. "You're a Catholic, you go to a different school."

"Sorry! What are you gonna do?

"Heaven knows. I'll have to think of something." I was very worried.

"I am awful sorry, but thanks for saving me," said Stew.

I was wishing that I had gone off quietly round the corner and waited for a battered and cycle-less Stew to arrive. We could have gone to the Police. I did not tell Stew that after all he was a friend.

"I'll have to go, said Stew, "See you on Monday night?"

I was not allowed to play out on a Sunday. "If I am still alive,"

I sighed. I went in and started work on getting out of going to school on Monday morning All Sunday I tried. I was sick. I had a headache. I was dizzy. I cried, I pleaded, I begged, I beseeched, all in vain.

"I don't know what you are up to my lad, but come what may you are going to school on Monday. I am not having you under my feet when I am doing the washing," said Mum.

I got a smack for being cheeky when I sniffed, "You care more for clean sheets than you do for me."

M

y Dad asked, "Why don't you want to go to school?"

I found that I could not tell him that his only son was a coward. There are some truths that parents should never find out.

At 8.40 am. on Monday morning I was stood at the bus stop with Dad and Mary. This going to school with Dad was nothing to do with my Finnegan troubles. It was as a result of a letter from Mary's teacher. Mary used to take me to school at one time. She had been arriving with a rash of bruises on her shins. Nobody believed me when I claimed self-defence. I had no evidence. Her hair pulling left no marks while my boots did. Still, it meant that at 8.45 am. Mary and I got off the bus near to school.

"Can I walk with you?" I smiled sweetly art her. She might have hated me, but no one else was allowed to thump me when she was around and if anyone could handle Finnegan it was Mary.

"Get lost yer little pest." Her fists were already clenched. I dropped back and walked ten paces behind her. She kept turning round and glaring at me. I did not care.

When she turned to go in through the Girls’ entrance there was still another unprotected fifty feet or so, for me to walk. I hung around outside for as long as I dared, but being late for school was a sending to the Headmaster offence. On balance I think he scared me more than even Finnegan did. Salvation came in the round shape of Mr. Peach my class teacher.

His loud voice made me jump. "What are you hanging about for. You should be in the yard by now."

"I was just thinking, sir," I replied, not really thinking.

"Hummph! The day you start thinking my lad we'll put the flag up."

"One day," I thought. "All the things you would put flags up for will come true and the school will have more bunting on it than the town did for the Coronation" I did not say it out loud though. I am not a complete idiot.

I allowed myself to be shepherded into the yard by Mr. Peach, past Finnegan and his gang who were waiting just inside. Fear stopped me from enjoying their frustration. I followed Mr. Peach until we reached the toilets. I dashed in and locked the door. I was safe for a little while. When the whistle went, I waited for a few seconds, then I sprinted into my line just before Mr. Peach came to lead us in.

"You are up to something, my lad," he said, looking down at me puffing at the end of the line." I shall be keeping an eye on you."

I prayed that he would, a very close eye, but there was no depending on it.

In the cloakroom, my school friend Rob said, "I hear Finnegan is after you."

"You heard right," I said and told him the story.

"Oh boy, are you in for it?" He thought for a few moments. "Er, I, erm, think I'll play with someone else for a while. I'm sure you understand."

"Great friend you are." I was not really surprised. I would have done the same thing myself had the positions been reversed. After all personal survival came before friendship.

My next concern was Playtime. There would be a teacher on duty, true, but there were plenty of dark corners where I could be dragged. If the whole school knew Finnegan was after me there was nowhere to hide. Some cowardly rat would go and tell. I could not stay in the toilets. The duty teacher would soon haul me out and ask awkward questions.

It never entered my head to complain to the teachers. It was just not done to tell tales. If I had gone in after play, battered and bloody they would have asked, naturally, but I could not have told them. The whole school would never have spoken to me again. Even death at the hands and feet of Finnegan was better than being an outcast.

The solution to my playtime problem came to me in the middle of Morning Assembly and nearly got me into trouble with the Headmaster. The idea arrived during his talk and without thinking I exclaimed "Got it!" Then I realised and quickly turned to look at the boy behind me, pretending it was he who had spoken. The Headmaster shouted at him He was a Fourth year and a softy so it did not matter if he glared at me.

What I had decided to do required perfect judgement. I had to give Mr. Peach just enough trouble for him to keep me in at playtime, but not so much that he caned me and sent me out. Mr. Peach did not believe in giving two punishments for the same crime. The morning began with Arithmetic. I was not very good at that. It is far more difficult to get a sum deliberately wrong than to get it wrong by accident, but I managed it.

Rob, who shared my desk whispered. "You've got number two wrong, its nine hundred and seventy-three."

"Shut up traitor, I know." I whispered back fiercely.

He looked puzzled. When I took my book out to be marked Mr. Peach was not pleased with my efforts. He leant down from his high desk. "You definitely are up to something and I don't like it. I think you had better stay in at playtime and do these again, properly."

I could have reached up and kissed him. I was so relieved that I started to say "Thank-you," but managed to change it to a cough. He raised one eyebrow and pointed to my seat. I sat down in what I hoped was the manner of a bitterly disappointed child. In reality my heart was singing.

"Clever!" whispered Bob.

"Shurrup, he'll guess if you carry on."

Getting the sums right at playtime was no trouble. When Mr. Peach went out of the room for his cup of tea I looked at the answer book on his desk.

Dinnertime was easier. Finnegan stayed for school dinners while I went to my Granny Jones's. School dinners were served at exactly 12 o clock With any luck Granny Jones could be persuaded to let me stay off school for the afternoon. Mr. Peach was suspicious of my offer to collect in the books at lunchtime. He had to let me do it though, nobody else wanted to and I had got all my sums right in the end. By the time I got out the school dinner people were in the canteen eating.

My mother had obviously been round and talked to Granny. Just as I was about to start feeling sick, Granny got her hat and coat and said, "I am going to the Market. I'll walk down to school with you."

I knew that was just an excuse. She never ever left Grandad Jones in charge of the shop. My shoe laces came undone. I looked in every shop window. I dawdled and lagged behind, but it made no difference. Granny slowly led me to my doom.

Terror and near panic, forced me to plan a desperate and dangerous escapade. At the corner of the road I said, "OK. Granny, I promise to go into school."

"Well, you know what happens to people who don't keep their promises?" She looked at me over the top of her glasses.

I nodded, "Don't worry I am going into school."

"All right son Have a nice time."

I watched her go off down the main road. As I explained before, the Girls Entrance was nearer to the corner than the Boys Entrance. But and this was the big snag, the Girls Entrance was guarded by a dragon of a Dinner Lady. Her job was to stop anybody getting in, except the girls of course. There was a way from the girls’ yard into the boys’ yard, not an official route, but possible if desperate.

I waited until a large group of girls demanded entry. Quietly I sneaked behind them, through the gate and past the Dragon. I was in. A quick dash across their playground took me to the wall that separated their yard from ours. By now I had been seen and the girls were squealing and screaming.

The wall was eight feet high. I swear that I hurdled it. I do not remember climbing up it nor dropping down the other side. Luck or something must have been on my side. Nobody on the girls' side seemed to have recognised me and no body on the boys' side saw me at all.

The whistle went almost immediately. The look on Finnegan's face when he saw me lined up with the rest of my class was one of pure baffled rage. It made my blood turn cold. I was finding out the hard way that cowards die many times before their death. I was also beginning to realise that sooner or later I would have to face Finnegan. I wanted it to be a lot later.

In my fear I had forgotten that Monday was games day. There was no afternoon playtime. The School did not have its own playing fields so the whole of the third and fourth year boys were taken by bus to a set of fields a few miles away.

Finnegan was the star player of the Schools rugby team. They normally played separately from the rest of us. Not on this afternoon Mr. Peach announced that the rest of the third and the fourth year were to provide a team to play against the School team. I noticed that he did not mention this until after I was already changed. If I had known, I would have lost a boot.

We all lined up. Mr. Peach walked down the line choosing players. I may have been a third year but I was wider and heavier than most of the fourth year. I was selected.

"You can play at prop forward against Finnegan. He needs some weight against him." Mr Peach said. He moved on before I could get my voice working to protest. There would have been little point. Mr. Peach was in a bad mood. Some naughty boy had been seen in the Girls' playground at lunch time and nobody would own up to being the guilty party.

I could see from the gleam in Finnegan’s eye that he thought that his chance had come. We lined up for the kick off. Right opposite me Finnegan stood, flexing his muscles. I decided that under no circumstances whatsoever was I going to tackle him or give him the chance to tackle me.

The school team kicked off. The ball gently travelled the ten yards that it was supposed to and landed, plop, in my arms. In great surprise I stood and looked down at the ball then up at the opposition.

This great, huge, hairy monster, like something out of a Spanish Bullring was charging at me. I could almost see the stem coming from his nostrils and he was definitely snarling.

I panicked. Instead of throwing the ball away, anywhere, I began to run. Not as you might think away from Finnegan, but towards him Years of being taught that you ran at the opposition guided by uncontrolled legs.

Fear is a marvellous thing. Without really knowing what I was doing, I side-stepped Finnegan's mad rush, ducked under his flailing arms, handed off another would be tackler and set off the down the field. When Finnegan managed to stop, he turned and gave chase. I ran like a scalded cat. Now not only was he the best Rugby player in the School he was also the School Sprint Champion. As much as fear lent me wings and with a good fifteen yards start, he soon began to catch up.

To gain speed I must have shut my eyes. I could still feel and hear him getting nearer and nearer. I opened my eyes just in time to see the goal post no more than a pace away. My last ounce of nervous energy was just enough to dodge the post and put the ball down over the line for a try.

I turned as the whistle went meaning safety and was just in time to see Finnegan run head first into the goal post and collapse.

Unfortunately, he had a hard head and the base of the post was well padded. Still, it was a good five minutes before he could return to the game.

Mr. Peach, grudgingly I thought, congratulated me on my try. My team mates were very pleased with me. Mr. Peach tore a strip of the School team for allowing me to run through then so easily. They all glared at me as if it was my fault

When Finnegan returned to the game, he still looked a bit dazed. He cheered up a bit when the whistle went for a scrum. Mr. Peach fussed about showing the second-row forwards how to pack down properly. Finnegan glared at me from a yard away.

Rob who had also been chosen, was standing next to me. He was at scrum half.

"What's it gonna be then, a knee in the groin...a swift uppercut... or a head butt?"

He grinned.

"Shut up you traitor. "How nice it was to have sympathetic friends.

Finally, Mr. Peach was satisfied and down we went. Fortunately, he decided to put the ball into the scrum himself to check on how the forwards were playing. He would have certainly seen any foul play by Finnegan and punished it severely. It did not stop Finnegan from whispering in my ear, "I'll kill you!" His teeth were too close to my ear for comfort.

The ball came in and we all pushed. Finnegan was so busy threatening me that he was caught off balance. He lost his footing on the muddy field. My second row gave another really hard push and I lurched forward. Somebody shouted "Ball gone" and I found myself kneeling in the middle of the field, on my own while the rest of the players chased off down the field after the lad with the ball.

Well, I was not quite alone and it was not mud or grass that I was kneeling on. It was, in fact, a head. Moreover, the head was covered in dirty, flaming-red hair. I did not wait for Finnegan to push me off. I got up and ran. I was going to spend the rest of the game stood as near to Mr. Peach as possible. The scratch team had just scored another try and Mr. Peach was fuming.