Chrissie's Children (23 page)

Later, in the Frigate, he told Fannon, I’ll do it.’

Three weeks later, hidden away in a dark gully between two deserted engine sheds down by the river, he fought his first bloody and bruising bare-knuckle contest by the light of two paraffin
lanterns. His opponent was a seasoned fighter from Hartlepool called Brannigan. At the end Peter could see the other man was out on his feet, so he stood back and looked appealingly at the referee,
who waved impatiently at Peter to fight on. Peter hit Brannigan again, more a shove than a punch, but it laid him on his back and he was counted out.

As Peter pulled on his shirt he saw Gallagher and McNally standing by Fannon, who – so Peter understood – had set up the fight. Peter faced the three of them but addressed the
bookie: ‘You didn’t tell me these two were in this with you.’

‘They aren’t in it with me,’ Fannon replied. ‘Except that I need them on account o’ carrying a lot o’ money about, like I do at these fights. They work for me
just the same as you do, that’s all.’

Peter answered, eyeing the two, ‘Just you keep them away from me.’

Now McNally jeered, ‘You should ha’ finished him quick instead o’ waiting for the ref.’ Peter ignored that and McNally got Gallagher’s elbow jammed in his ribs.

Fannon said with an oily smirk, ‘Here y’are, lad.’ He gave Peter a pound note, his payment for winning the bout.

‘Thanks.’ Peter tucked it into his trousers pocket, shrugged into his jacket and walked away.

When he was out of earshot McNally complained, ‘What was that dig in the ribs for? He should ha’ laid Brannigan out when he was wide open, but he hasn’t got the belly for the
job.’

‘You’re too soon,’ Gallagher told him. ‘I’m going to want you to get him riled, but not yet. He needs a few more wins under his belt first so he’ll have
plenty o’ fellers willing to back him when the time comes – plenty o’ backers, plenty o’ money.’

‘Ah!’ Now McNally saw the point. The three grinned at each other.

Gallagher said, ‘You’ll get your chance at him soon enough.’

McNally gloated, ‘I’m looking forward to knocking his head off.’ So they left him alone.

Peter fought every two or three weeks after that, and every time Gallagher and McNally were there, and acting as if they were no more than the employees Fannon claimed they were, serving as
bodyguards and helping to organise the clandestine fights. In fact Gallagher was the moving spirit, but he never spoke to Peter. Fannon was Gallagher’s mouthpiece.

Pamela Ogilvy led Matt, hand clutching hand, into the summer house. There was a moon, and by its light Matt spread his raincoat over the couch made of cushions. Pamela
whispered, ‘I expect you’ll be starting at the yard soon.’

Matt grumbled, ‘You’ve said that every week for the past month,’ but it was said mildly because he had fallen for Pamela since that first night in the summer house.

Pamela prattled on, ‘I’m sure you’ll like it after you’ve settled in. You’ll be an assistant manager for your father in no time.’ Mrs Pamela Ballantyne. She
thought it had a ring to it. Or would it be Mrs Matthew Ballantyne? But no matter; one would do as well as another.

‘No, I won’t. I’m bloody sure I won’t,’ Matt said with some force.

It shocked Pamela into contradicting him: ‘My father says you will.’ He had delivered his judgment: ‘Young Matt will soon buckle down to it. He’ll see where his bread is
buttered.’ Pamela bit her lip now but the words had been said.

Matt retorted, ‘He doesn’t know anything about it.’ Then it sank in what Pamela had let slip and he accused her, ‘But he does know, doesn’t he? When I told you what
my father said – that I had a year to make good at the art college and if I didn’t then I would have to go into the yard – that was just between you and me, nobody
else.’

They were still standing by the couch and now Pamela put her arm around him and tugged him towards it. ‘I only told my dad.’

Matt resisted and suggested astutely, ‘And your mother.’

Pamela admitted, failing to move him, ‘Well, yes, she was there. But I’m sure they wouldn’t tell anyone.’

‘I’m not.’

Pamela sighed, growing impatient. ‘What does it matter who knows? You’ll have to go into the yard anyway. All the other chaps we know are studying for careers or already working at
them. And you say yourself that you won’t make an artist. Only last night you said, “I can’t do that for a living.”’

Matt might have said that a lot of ‘chaps’ they didn’t know, young men living in the narrow streets down by the river, did not have jobs, let alone a career. He knew this and
was afraid he might become one of them, but still insisted, ‘I’m not spending my life in the yard, either.’

‘Then what are you going to do? I was talking to Charlie Baines and he said his dad had got him a job in the bank. He’ll be a manager one day.’ Matt voiced his opinion of
Charlie Baines, a burly, hugely confident, fleshy-faced youth. Pamela said stiffly, ‘We can do without that language, thank you.’ But Matt only glowered mutinously, snatched up his
raincoat and stalked out of the summer house.

‘Matt!’ Pamela called after him.

He only turned his head to answer, ‘I’ll be seeing you.’

Pamela started to run after him, then calculated that was the wrong tactic. ‘Suit yourself. You’ll be sorry.’

She was right and he was sorry already, but stubbornly tramped home. It was only when he went to hang up his raincoat in the hall that he realised his gloves were not in the pocket and that they
must have fallen out in the summer house. He was not perturbed because it provided him with an excuse to go back to Pamela’s home.

He went there the next night after dinner, but hesitated before the front door. He wondered if Pamela would answer the bell when he rang it? Suppose her father came instead? Matt did not want to
ask him for the gloves left in the summer house – or explain how they came to be there – so he decided to seek them himself and then try to see Pamela. He walked around the side of the
house, careful to stay off the gravel and treading silently on the grass. He pushed the door wide and the moonlight entered ahead of him, shaped by the doorway into a long rectangle of pale light.
It showed him Pamela’s face, eyes wide and lips parted. Then the head of the young man with her turned and Matt saw the broad face and thick lips of Charlie Baines.

Matt stood still on the threshold, gaping and shocked. Then Charlie scrambled to his feet, fumbling at his clothing, and Matt’s shock turned to fury. It was a wild blow because he had only
the training of a few hours with the games master at school and the experience of the usual playground fights, but he was enraged and Charlie was equally ignorant of defence. After only a few
seconds he was lying on the cushions again with his face in his hands. Matt shouted at him, ‘Get up!’ Charlie did not move, too dazed to hear or understand. Pamela had screamed once and
now was whimpering.

Matt blundered away. Now he knew how the cushions in the summer house happened to form a couch. He had not been the first. He knew he had hurt Charlie and terrified Pamela. He walked home
exulting but went to bed heartbroken.

A few days later he saw Charlie, face bruised, with Pamela. They looked happy and did not see him. He remembered what Sophie had said long ago, that Pamela would put him ‘through the
mangle’. He lost interest in the art college. Instead of attending he took to wandering about the town or along the sea front with a book in his pocket. He would find a sheltered spot and
read to his heart’s content.

Two weeks after breaking with Pamela he saw her again with a boy who was a stranger to him. This time he could grin.

Then he met Jimmy Younger. It was a meeting that changed the course of Matt’s life and almost ended it.

Jimmy Younger was ten years old and dreamed of being another Raich Carter, the Sunderland football star. He was kicking his ball about near the home of a schoolfriend in
Charles Street, near the river. Jimmy’s own home was in a wealthier part of the town. This was a street where the long terraces of houses had steps up to their front doors like wedges of
cheese – one end thicker than the other – because the street ran down steeply towards the river.

As Jimmy and his friend played, a lorry swung into the kerb and parked there. Its driver got down and headed for an office where he had business. Just then Jimmy booted the ball and held his
breath as it missed the windscreen of the lorry by inches, then vanished through the open window of the driver’s door into the cab. Jimmy let out the held breath in a sigh of relief that no
damage was done and called to the driver, ‘Can I have my ball back, please, mister?’

The driver, already late, threw him a harried glance and told him, ‘Aye. Get in and fetch it. And
don’t
put it in there again!’ Then he disappeared into the office.

Jimmy climbed on to the running board, opened the door of the lorry and stepped into the cab. The ball had fallen into the well on the passenger’s side and lay by the door. Jimmy trampled
across the seats to get it and the door swung shut behind him with a solid
clunk
! Then as he stood on the handbrake he released it. He felt the lorry jerk but took no notice because he was
intent on reaching down into the well and grabbing the ball. It was only when he straightened up and turned to tramp back across the seats that he realised the lorry was moving. Parked on the steep
incline, once the handbrake was released it started to roll downhill.

His friend cried out, ‘Jimmy!
Jimmy!
It’s
moving
!’ The warning had come too late. Jimmy fell against the steering wheel and clung to it, terrified, the ball
dropping into the well again, forgotten. His clinging to the wheel kept the lorry from swerving off the road and smashing into the houses that lined it, but did nothing to slow it down. It
accelerated rapidly. Jimmy shrieked in panic and glimpsed a tall, thin youth with a mop of sandy hair gaping at him from the pavement. Then the lorry had flashed past and the youth was gone.

Matt had seen the big vehicle start to roll and stared in horrified disbelief as he realised there was only one small boy in the cab. The shriek and his brief sight of the boy’s face, open
mouthed and wide eyed with fear, spurred him into action. He ran after the lorry and reached for the door handle but missed. Instead he caught hold of the steel framing of the open window. Pain
tore at his fingers from a rough edge and he was forced to let go. He tried again and this time seized the handle and swung up on to the running board. As he yanked the door open he looked ahead
and saw the street ran down to a T-junction and the lorry was headed for a brick wall.

He half fell into the cab and shoved in on top of the boy. He snatched at the wheel with one hand while he hauled on the handbrake with the other as the boy screamed and cried. That was nowhere
near enough to halt the runaway but slowed it sufficiently to be able to swing around the corner at the bottom of the hill. The lorry rocked over on to the wheels on one side and for a second Matt
thought it would capsize. He saw the wall frighteningly close as he and the boy were tossed about inside the cab. The boy clung to Matt, who hung on to the wheel. Then the lorry slammed down on to
all four wheels again with a crash that shook the teeth in their heads.

It still careered on but Matt managed to shove the boy to one side so he could plant his boot on the footbrake. He stamped on it hard, long legs and long body rigid with strain. The lorry
skidded, first one way then the other, then crashed broadside against a streetlamp and came to rest. For some seconds there was comparative silence. Matt and the boy sat in the cab, Matt pale as he
suddenly realised how close he had come to death, and little Jimmy weeping. Then the street came to life.

Housewives ran out from their doors, and men, either old or unemployed, ran from the groups on the street corners. The first to arrive was the driver, his chest pumping from his run, white faced
as Matt in his fear. He fell up against the side of the cab and gasped out, ‘Are ye hurt?’ He was reassured by Matt’s nod of the head, but seeing the boy, cursed him feebly:
‘Ye little bugger!’ Then he turned away and vomited from his reaction.

A woman, large but quick footed, in a flowered apron and ancient slippers, took the driver’s place and demanded of Matt, ‘Are ye all right, hinny?’

A neighbour of hers, thin as a rake with hair in curlers, accused Matt sourly, ‘Ye shouldn’t be driving this thing wi’ that bairn beside ye. Yer not much mair than a bairn
yersel.’

The driver straightened up from his retching to say weakly, ‘Give over, woman. If it hadn’t been for that lad somebody wad ha’ been killed. He risked his life to turn that
lorry away from the wall and stop it.’

A policeman had arrived, pacing steadily, and a shining black Morris 10 motor car had stopped and its driver had got out. He and the policeman both heard the lorry driver’s defence of
Matt. They listened as he went on to tell how he had seen Matt leap aboard the runaway to prevent a fearful crash and to save the boy’s life. The policeman wrote it all down slowly in his
notebook.

When the lorry driver finished there was a murmur of applause. Matt decided it was time he got away and started to climb down from the cab. The large woman peered past him at the boy and
declared, ‘That lad should go to the hospital.’

The thin woman, with a sudden change of heart, put in, ‘And the young feller. He’s bleeding.’

Matt found it was true. He had torn his hand reaching for the door handle and now it dripped red. As he wrapped his handkerchief around it the driver of the Morris 10 volunteered,
‘I’ll take them to the hospital. I’m a commercial traveller and I have to make a call up that way.’

The policeman had finished writing down the lorry driver’s account, and now he said, ‘I’ll just have your names and addresses first.’

Matt murmured his details so only the policeman could hear. He glanced up from his notebook at the name ‘Ballantyne’ but made no comment. The boy said, ‘Jimmy Younger . .
.’ Matt didn’t hear the rest because the commercial traveller urged him into the car. The boy’s name was familiar to Matt for some reason he could not remember, but then Jimmy,
grimy face streaked with tears, joined him in the car and it pulled away.