Young Phillip Maddison (4 page)

W
ITHIN
the past few years the Free Library had been built along the High Road, where now the wayside elms were but a memory to Phillip. Electric trams droned up and down the smooth and regularised way, to the Crystal Palace and beyond. Usually on Friday nights Phillip entered the swing doors between seven and half past, passing the scarcely-noticed bronze plaque of Andrew Carnegie upon the wall, and with the subdued air of a diffident small boy when grown-ups were about, approached the desk where books were returned.

*

He was one of several hundred boys in the neighbourhood who came, more or less regularly, to the Free Library. The subdued expression on his face was characteristic of many children of the district in the first decade of the twentieth century: a remote look in the eyes, as though the living scene were generally being evaded; a pallor upon cheek and brow, due to long hours of sunlessness in school, and to existence in a smoky, often foggy atmosphere during half the year; and on a diet the main food of which was bread whose composition lacked the beneficial germ, or “sharp”, of the wheat berry, being made of the interior filling whose whiteness had been enhanced by chemical bleaching.

Some of Phillip’s secondary or final teeth were already decayed in several places, though visits to the dentist had, supposedly, arrested the decay; while frequent exhortations by his Father, that he clean his teeth without fail before going to bed, and
again when in the bathroom of an early morning, were generally ignored by the boy, who had come to regard all monitive and didactic utterances of grown-up people—except those whom he liked—to be avoided in so far as this could be done without punishment. The avoidance of all matters of what was insisted upon as his duty was not—except with his mother—accompanied by defiance; on the contrary, he was both timid and fearful, with only the least resistance to pain, or its threat, whether mental or physical. He cried as easily and as frequently as he was disobedient; truth in his life was subordinate to fear. Indeed, lying was, as his father Richard Maddison had often declared, second nature to him. That second-nature—to use the term of the period—was accompanied by occasional boasting and bullying, and an enhanced idealism centred upon an eleven-year-old girl, daughter of a near neighbour in Hillside Road.

While not, perhaps, a typical product of a lesser London suburb of the Edwardian age, Phillip Maddison bore certain characteristics of those who were being brought up in a district where the living soil had been partly suppressed by an industrial civilisation. His chaotic inner living, direct reflection from his environment, was apparent upon his features, in the melancholy cast of the countenance in repose, particularly in the drooping corners of the wide mouth, and the sad expression of the eyes.

*

At the moment of approaching the assistant librarian’s desk, to await his turn with the fair-haired young woman wearing
pince-nez
eye-glasses which added to the lifeless expression of her prim face, a more immediate fear was in Phillip’s eyes. His feelings were verging upon panic, arising out of guilty terror. He was quivering inwardly, struck with fear that the assistant librarian would open the book he was about to return, discover what he had written upon some of the pages, and report him for having a “depraved appetite”. That would mean only one thing—the police. He had recently looked up the meaning of the word
depraved
in the dictionary at home. “A state of corruption; viciousness, profligacy; perversion, degeneracy”—the words were familiar enough, from Father’s condemnations.

The
Birds
of
the
British
Isles
was a weighty, quarto volume illustrated with coloured plates. Phillip, having it with him in the kitchen while supposed to be doing his homework during the preceding days of the week, had read beyond his interest limited
to those birds with which he was familiar; and out of boredom, and a sense of fun, had composed extra verbal descriptions of those larger birds which had seemed to him to be sinister or grotesque as he regarded their portraits in colour upon the various plates.

Using a broad relief nib in his wooden pen-holder, he had added various alliterative epithets to the formal descriptions; and to disguise his writing, had penned them in large capital letters. Thus a big black bird had become the RAPSCALLION RAVEN; a thin, tall stilted wader, the HUNGRY HERON; a sea-diver with beak of several colours the PAINTPOT PUFFIN; a common grey and white sea-bird, the GOLLOPING GULL. Thereafter his fancy had taken a cloacal turn, inspired by the portrait of what to him was a rather foolish-looking fish-eating bird squatting above the sea upon a black rock almost completely whitened by its own droppings.

The bird had a narrow beak and head, with a little tuft of feathers on its crown, looking like untidy hair. Its black wings, iridescent with sheens of purple and green, were extended in an effort to gulp down into its crop various fishes, including an eel, whose tails stuck out of its open beak. Phillip had read that the upper mandible of the SHAG’S beak was hooked, the better to pierce and hold its prey seized in submarine hunting. With sudden daring, and a suppressed chuckle, the boy, seated at the scrubbed deal table with his undone homework scattered before him, had boldly limned the appropriate alliterative adjective of six letters; and several heavy blots shot off his nib around the coloured plate had followed, to show his scorn of the greedy, dirty bird, which was described by the author of the book as an enemy of fishermen.

If it had seemed frightfully funny at the time, it seemed now frightfully bad, as, trying to control his feelings, Phillip stood by the librarian’s desk, uttering a voiceless, wordless prayer to Saint Anthony, the saint most frequently evoked by his mother when she was trying to find something she had lost.

The book was taken; the date stamp examined at the front of the volume; a card swiftly sought in the index and slipped into the envelope at the back. His library ticket was returned, to his silent-shouted relief.

“Thank you,” he managed to say, raising his school cap, with its badge sewn on the front, as he bowed slightly to the young
woman. She looked up a moment in surprise, wondering if he meant to be sarcastic, then decided to take no notice, in case he was. Like most people, not of the looked-down-upon working class, in the district, she bore herself usually with reserve, enclosing a feeling of superiority to most other people living in the neighbourhood. Behind the reserve was a defensive touchiness, at times showing itself in hauteur.

Tremulous with relief, Phillip turned away. He hesitated before going into the Reading Room.

A tram-bell clanged loudly outside in the street as the main swing-doors opened to admit an old man entering with a cold gust of air, its effect heightened by the livid colour of his face revealed above the black breathing-pad held across his mouth by black tapes fastened at the back of his hair. Phillip had often seen him, a figure inspiring mild fear. Laboriously with a stick the apparition tapped towards the reading-room doors; but before they had swung-to behind his entry, as he was making for the only unoccupied seat, Phillip darted past him, and snatching a copy of the
Automotor
Journal
from a table, seated himself in the vacant place. Safely there, he looked at the library ticket concealed in his hand, while exulting that now there was no proof that he had made the blots and written the awful word about the shag. Now he really would be better! His prayer had been answered! He swore he would turn over a new leaf!

Taking out his note-book, he began to write the name of a motorcar upon a page which already held a list of several makes, with their numbers and descriptions. The collection of motorcar numbers was one of the local boys’ current hobbies; but unlike most other boys, Phillip did not confine himself to numbers. He had ridden in a motorcar but once; his interest was, by that experience, more technical. There was a common saying among boys that one day a big prize would be given for the biggest list of registration numbers, though who was to give the prize, and where it was to be got, was never stated.

In Phillip’s book were recorded, in his laboriously neat hand—with its immature resemblance to his father’s—the following details.

1. 15 h.p. Panhard et Lavassor, 4 seater, my Uncle Hilary’s motor. I was one of the first passengers.
   
2. 5½ h.p. Peugeot, a voiturette. Tall and tiny, with curving radiator. Seen by Cutler’s Pond.
   
3. 4.9 h.p. Pick, tiny 2 seater. In Wetherley’s coach works.
   
4. Hurtu, an old broken down crock. Pulled by horse near Obelisk.
   
5. Lutzmann, with 4 carriage wheels. No radiator, but cooling tanks, and spoon and ribbon brakes. Seen in blacksmith’s yard in High Street. No good.
   
6. Lanchester. Seen by cousin Gerry.
   
7. Oldsmobile, an American. Seen by Father who passed it (while boiling) up Brumley hill on his 3-speed Sunbeam. (The motor was boiling, not Father).
   
8. Locomobile steam-car. Outside Green Man, Cutler’s Pond.
   
9. White’s Steam car. Seen by Harris, in my form at school.
   
10. Arrol-Johnstone dog-cart, old-fashioned veritable old-iron, slow and panting. Seen by Cutler’s Pond.
    
11. Mercedes, very sporty and fast, brass snake-like exhaust pipes on one side. Seen in Wetherley’s coach works. Not for sale, he told me.
    
12. Mors. Spidery. Mors is Latin for death. It looked like it, said Father. Seen on Sunday, two men pushing it.
    
13. Darracq, French make. Seen in
    Daily
    Trident
    photo, so can be half claimed as seen by me.
    
14. James and Brown, London built. Think I saw one, but am not certain (must not cheat too much).
    
15. Siddeley-Deasey. Stopped on way up hill to Heath. Man said make-and-break spring was broken.
    
16. Fafnir motor-bike, German. Father told me Fafnir means dragon. Yellow and black, more like wasp. Seen on Brumley road, Sunday.
    
17. Star. It passed fast through Fordesmill, and very likely fell into police trap along Brumley road to Cutler’s Pond, Father said.
    
18. Royal Enfield, “made like a gun”. It certainly made bangs in silencer box. On Sunday walk to Cutler’s Pond with Father.
    
19. de Launy-Belville. Going down Stumps Hill. Seen by Father, who reported it to me.
    

Phillip was writing the latest entry, 20.
Wolseley,
seen
in
Automotor Journal
in
Free
Library,
when the old man stopped by his chair, and staring down at him with red-rimmed eyes that held a fixed expression of misery, pushed up the black pad and said, wheezily, “That is my cheer yar sittin’ in. I seed it fust, d’n I tho.”

The chair was next to a hot-water radiator. The old man had come in to get warm. His own house, in Skerritt Road nearby, was fireless.

“Well, I got here first,” said Phillip in a whisper. He pointed at the SILENCE notice on the wall. “But I won’t be half a mo.”

He pretended to be looking at the periodical; but the old man’s presence took away all thought, all life from him. He stayed an uneasy minute longer, then remembering Cranmer, got up and, pulling back the chair, offered it to the old man, with a mock bow, and a sweep of his hand. Then catching a whiff of the strong, acrid smell emanating from the dark, creased clothes of the old man, Phillip’s nose wrinkled up, and he stared at the ceiling.

“You cheeky young limb,” growled the old man, fixing Phillip with his ruined eyes.

“‘A year ago I used Pears’ Soap, since when I have used no other’,” murmured Phillip, half to himself. The words were from a well-known advertisement, originally a drawing in
Punch.
It showed an unkempt, bearded man, short clay pipe in mouth, writing a testimonial for the soap. Phillip and his mother had a private joke about the picture; they pretended that it was Father.

The old man lowered himself slowly into the chair, while Phillip waited to be thanked. After all, it was
his
seat, and he had unselfishly given it up. When the old man uttered no word, Phillip said sarcastically, “What do you say?”, but meeting only the same miserable stare from the eyes, turned away to examine a newspaper, one of many flat on the sloping stands around the walls. Its turning edges were frayed and dirtied by many wetted fingers and thumbs. Glancing back at the seated figure of the old man, Phillip saw that he was holding a page of the
Automotor
Journal,
while staring at a picture, and rolling the edge of the page between his finger and thumb, preparatory to turning it over.

“H’m,” muttered Phillip, in contempt. “One of the dog’s ear brigade.”

Recently the boy had been checked by his father for doing the same thing. A book or magazine, said Richard, should be respected. Its pages should be turned lightly, not held as though they were a dog’s ear, to be rubbed.

There was no interest in the newspaper—nothing about Birds or Motorcars—and remembering that he was due to meet Cranmer at seven, with a glance at the clock Phillip walked between the rows of drab-dressed people sitting silent except for frequent coughing and throat-clearing; and passing through the swing-door, went to the shelves of books in the lending department. Here, before volumes ranged in alphabetical order of their classified contents, he stood hesitant, facing the word ANTIQUITY.

Phillip knew that Antiquity was rather like History, which was utterly dull and uninteresting. Antiquarianism was about things like tombstones in old churchyards, dark old buildings, churches and cottages with moss and lichen on their roofs—all very interesting to Mother, who often talked with Mr. Mundy on the Hill. Perhaps Mother would like a book on it? For he must leave NATURAL HISTORY alone for a bit. If he took home an antiquarian book, it might put the librarian off the scent; also, it would help to put Father in a favourable mood.

Phillip took a volume from the section, and opening a page, saw a photograph of the High Road before the elms had been cut down. There was Pennison the barber, standing outside his sweetstuff-shop near the corner of Comfort Road. Across the road was Sprunt’s pawn shop, with the three golden balls hanging over it. Sprunt’s where once he had bought a horse-pistol, and fired it off too, with black powder—a wonderful weapon!