Tom All Alone 19 (i)

Final Chapter - in 2 parts.

 

The following Saturday, Auntie Pat and Uncle George came over to visit, bringing Keith and Brendan. All had been quiet until they arrived. Then it was like an invasion. While the adults sat upstairs, Keith and Brendan came down to Tom's bedroom, where he'd been playing with some of his soft toys. Keith laughed when he saw them.

"Where's your other toys? Where's your cars?"

Tom pulled a big cardboard box out of the corner, which had his car collection and his Lego set in it. Keith tipped it up and everything came out in a heap on the carpet.

"I've got more than this. I should have brought some of mine."

He started playing with a few of the cars - speeding them around and crashing them. Brendan seemed more interested in the Sooty and Sweep. Tom sat on the bed, just watching, wishing they would go.

"Don't break them, Keith."

"I won't. I'm just playing."

Keith quickly got bored with the cars. He saw one of Tom's teddy bears on his bed and grabbed it by a leg, swinging it around. Tom tried to snatch it back.

"Put it down, Keith. You'll pull his leg off."

Keith kept swinging it higher and higher. Finally, it hit one of Russell's aeroplanes on the ceiling and knocked it down. One of the wings snapped off.

"Stop it!" Tom yelled. "Put it down! Stop it!"

Just then the door opened and Auntie Pat was there - eyes wide, fuming. She lunged at Keith and grabbed his arm as he threw the bear back on the bed.

"I've 'ad just about enough of you, my lad."

Still holding him, she slapped him on the back of the leg and dragged him out of the room. Tom and Brendan heard him shrieking as she took him back upstairs with her.

Tom looked at the mess - cars under the bed and all across the carpet, bits of Lego everywhere, the broken plane. He picked the plane up and tried to fix the wing back in place, but it kept falling out.

"Is it broken?" Brendan said.

"Yes. Russell will be angry with me now."

"Tell him it was Keith."

"It won't make any difference."

He put the plane on Russell's bed, then started to collect up the other things and put them back in the box. Brendan helped him.

"Is Keith always like this?" Tom asked.

"Yes," Brendan said. "He gets on my nerves."

They finished and Tom put the box away. Then he sat with Brendan, who'd gone back to playing with the Sooty and Sweep.

"I like your toys, Tom," Brendan said. "I liked it when you came over. I wish you was my brother."

 

It wasn't long afterwards that things began to happen very quickly. One night, after dinner, dad announced that he had something to tell the boys. Mum cleared the plates away and came and sat at the table, too.

Dad sat in his shirtsleeves, looking at the boys' expectant faces. Tom felt anxious, not knowing what was coming. Mum and dad both seemed cheerful, though.

"How would you like to go and live in a nice new flat, like your Auntie Pat's and Uncle George's?" dad said.

They just carried on looking at him.

"Where?" Russell said at last.

"In Battersea."

"Where's Battersea?" Tom asked.

"It's not far away," mum said. "A bit further than Auntie Pat's, but not far."

Tom turned his eyes to mum. She was smiling, but he wasn't reassured by it.

"Why can't we stay here?" he said.

"Because dad's going to try and get a new job. It's like Uncle George's. He'll be a caretaker in a block of flats. Keeping the flats clean and tidy. Looking after everyone there."

Tom thought about that for a moment.

"Don't you like being a bus driver, dad?"

"I want to do something different from driving," he said. "It's a good job and I'll be home a lot more if I get it. And we'll have a nice new flat to live in. A nice fresh start for all of us."

"Will it have a bath?"

"Yes," said mum. "So you'll be able to have a proper bath every night instead of sitting in the sink. You'll like that, won't you?"

Tom nodded. But he still wasn't really sure about it.

"It's got central heating as well," said dad. "So it'll be warmer than here. And you'll each have your own bedrooms, too."

That wasn't so bad, Tom thought.

"What about nan?" Russell asked. "Will she come with us?"

"No, she'll stay here," mum said. "But she'll be alright. We can come and see her every week, and she can come and visit us."

Tom wasn't so happy about that. He liked having nan downstairs. He liked seeing her. And there was something else, too.

"What about my school?"

Mum smiled at him. "You can go to a new school. There's one near the flats. Wouldn't you like to go to a new one?"

Tom didn't really like it at school. But he was used to it now.

"You'll be going into your new class anyway soon. After the holidays. So you could go into the new class at the new school."

"What about my school?" said Russell.

"You'll need to come over on the bus. The school will give you a bus pass. Tom's too young, though. And you'll be leaving next year, anyway."

Russell seemed happy with that. "Great!" he said.

Tom felt bewildered, though. He liked where he lived. He liked being near the common, and going down the High Street shopping with mum, and going to the park by the river. He liked standing in the bay window upstairs, alone, and watching the people go by and the aeroplanes fly over. Then there were the other children in the street that he knew - though he didn't play with them quite so much now.

Mum patted his hand.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Dad hasn't got the job yet, anyway. Let's wait and see what happens first."

"It's just something for us all to think about," said dad.

 

But dad did get the job. So one Saturday they all got on the bus and went to Battersea to look at the flat. It seemed like a long bus journey, Tom thought - a long way past Auntie Pat's stop.

They got off on a busy main road and crossed over to a little side street with houses on one side and a building site on the other - closed in by a corrugated iron fence. At the end of the street Tom could see two very tall buildings with windows all the way up.

"That's ours," dad said, pointing to the first one. "Penge House."

Tom's mouth dropped open. He'd couldn't believe that this was where they were going to live. He kept looking at the top of the building as they walked along the street towards it - his head tilting back further and further.

"Fifteen floors, I've counted," Russell said.

"That's right," said dad.

"Which floor is ours on?"

"The third. You can see it on the corner there."

They went through a dark entry way underneath the block, where there were some lifts. Tom had only ever been in a lift once before, when they went to the big stores at Christmas. Dad pushed a button and the door opened. They got in.

"Going up!" he said, pushing the button with 3 on it. It was 3 the same as he'd written it that time in the classroom, when Miss Farnham said it was wrong.

The door closed and they started moving. For the first time, Tom began to feel a little excited.

 

The flat was huge - much bigger than the space they had at home. Even the small bedrooms - Tom's and Russell's - were each almost as big as their one at home.

"Look at all this room you'll have, Tommy," mum said, standing in the middle and turning around, her eyes wide and smiling.

She went to the window.

"And come and look at that view."

He went and looked over the windowsill. He could see all over the rooftops of the houses, and the traffic going along the main road. People walking along, too. And the men working on the building site, with their diggers and cranes. There was much more to see than from the window at home.

They went through to the living room, which was brilliantly lit in the sunshine. The windows ran all along two walls. Then there was the bathroom, with a big bath and wash basin - something else they'd never had before. Everyone washed in the scullery sink at home. The kitchen was smaller than theirs, but had cupboards everywhere. Mum was overjoyed.

"So much space," she kept saying.

Tom hadn't seen her looking so happy for a long time. He felt his own excitement building, too. But then he noticed something wrong.

"Where's the fireplace?"

"It doesn't have one," dad said. "It's got central heating."

Tom shook his head, worried now.

"How will Father Christmas get in?"

Mum and dad both laughed together.

"Don't worry about that," dad said. "On Christmas Eve, he'll land up on the roof instead. So I'll go up and let him in that way."

It was like flash bulbs going off in Tom's head now. All these new things. A lift. A bath. Father Christmas landing on the roof. All the things he could see from his window - in his own bedroom, all to himself. It was hard to believe any of it.

Before they left, dad took them up to the top floor, where they went out to the window area on the landing to look at the view. It was like when mum had taken Tom up the Monument once on a trip out. It seemed to show the whole of London, right there in front of them.

"There's the Post Office Tower," said Russell. "And St Paul's Cathedral. Wow, this is amazing. When will we be moving, dad?"

"Soon. The next few weeks."

On the bus back, Tom felt all kinds of things stirring up inside - so many feelings that he didn't really know what he was feeling. He knew he would miss their old house, and nan being there all the time, and the places they used to go. But then there were all these new things to look forward to. Nothing as big as this had ever happened before. It was like this huge new adventure that was starting in his life. A wonderful thing that was now about to happen.

 

In the last week before the move, mum and dad started to get things ready, packing all their stuff away in boxes and cases and stacking them where they could - on the landing by the scullery, in the hallway, in odd corners of the rooms. It was strange having all these things that Tom had always known suddenly not being there - seeing the shelves empty, and the walls become bare as pictures were taken down, leaving bright marks on the wallpaper like a ghost of where they had been.

As the time got closer, Tom's excitement waned a little. He began to have a strange feeling - like the feeling he had before he started school, or when holidays or Christmas were coming to an end. But this seemed much bigger - much harder to accept in his mind. Some nights, he went to bed and cried himself softly to sleep, thinking about all the things he was leaving behind, trying to reassure himself that new and better things were coming. Trying to look forward, but constantly being drawn back. The thought of a new school, too, was always there. But at least it wouldn't be until after the summer holidays.

"You'll soon get used to it all, once we're settled in," mum kept telling him. "It's a new thing for all of us. It's a big change, but it'll be alright. Things will be much better for us."

One thing he knew, at least, was that mum and dad were much happier now. The arguments and moods had stopped. So that was positive. Maybe it would all be alright.

 

Tom could sense, though, that nan was not looking forward to it. Mum and dad had lived upstairs since they got married, so it was a long time - longer even than Russell had been alive. Sixteen years, nan said - just after grandad had died and she was alone. Now she would be alone again - at least until some new people moved in.

During those final evenings, Tom went down and played cards with her, and had a cup of tea and a piece of cake, just like they'd done before.

"For old time's sake," she said. "Auld lang syne."

A few times he saw her put her fingers behind her glasses and rub her eyes.

"Will you be alright, nan?"

"Yes, love. Don't you worry about me. I've seen change before. Remember I told you when I went out to Canada? All that long way from home, and I wasn't much older than Russell is now."

He always loved that story. And he felt like, although it wasn't far away across the sea like Canada, this was a bit like that adventure. Going somewhere different, doing new things. Making some new friends, perhaps. Maybe it would be better at the new school, with none of the others knowing about his problems with Miss Farnham. Even so, he still felt unsettled. A big part of his life wouldn't be there any more - the home he'd grown up in.

Bobby was also upset by all the moving around and the change. He was restless, and kept hiding under the sideboard or in one of the wardrobes when he was indoors. If Tom tried to put his hand down to stroke him or coax him out, Bobby would spit and snarl, and lash out with his claws. So Tom would sit there and talk to him, telling him all about what was happening - echoing what mum and dad were saying.

"We're going to be in a new home, and you'll have lots of space to run around in and sunny windows to sit in. You'll like it, Bobby, don't worry. We'll soon all be settled again."

He could see Bobby blinking his eyes while he spoke. He hoped he understood what he was saying.

(continued) https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/tom-all-alone-19-ii