21 Stories

  The next time the gang became aware of Mr. Thomas was more surprising. Blackie, Mike, and a thin yellow boy, who for some reason was called by his surname Summers, met him on the common coming back from the market. Mr. Thomas stopped them. He said glumly, "You belong to the lot that play in the car-park?"

  Mike was about to answer when Blackie stopped him. As the leader he had responsibilities. "Suppose we are?" he said ambiguously.

  "I got some chocolates," Mr. Thomas said. "Don't like 'em myself. Here you are. Not enough to go round, I don't suppose. There never is," he added with sombre conviction. He handed over three packets of Smarties.

  The gang were puzzled and perturbed by this action and tried to explain it away. "Bet someone dropped them and he picked 'em up," somebody suggested.

  "Pinched 'em and then got in a bleeding funk," another thought aloud.

  "It's a bribe," Summers said. "He wants us to stop bouncing balls on his wall."

  "We'll show him we don't take bribes," Blackie said, and they sacrificed the whole morning to the game of bouncing that only Mike was young enough to enjoy. There was no sign from Mr. Thomas.

  Next day T. astonished them all. He was late at the rendezvous, and the voting for that day's exploit took place without him. At Blackie's suggestion the gang was to disperse in pairs, take buses at random, and see how many free rides could be snatched from unwary conductors (the operation was to be carried out in pairs to avoid cheating). They were drawing lots for their companions when T. arrived.

  "Where you been, T.?" Blackie asked. "You can't vote now. You know the rules."

  "I've been there," T. said. He looked at the ground, as though he had thoughts to hide.

  "Where?"

  "At Old Misery's." Mike's mouth opened and then hurriedly closed again with a click. He had remembered the frog.

  "At Old Misery's?" Blackie said. There was nothing in the rules against it, but he had a sensation that T. was treading on dangerous ground. He asked hopefully, "Did you break in?"

  "No. I rang the bell."

  "And what did you say?"

  "I said I wanted to see his house."

  "What did he do?"

  "He showed it me."

  "Pinch anything?"

  "No."

  "What did you do it for then?"

  The gang had gathered round: it was as though an impromptu court were about to form and to try some case of deviation. T. said, "It's a beautiful house," and still watching the ground, meeting no one's eyes, he licked his lips first one way, then the other.

  "What do you mean, a beautiful house?" Blackie asked with scorn.

  "It's got a staircase two hundred years old like a corkscrew. Nothing holds it up."

  "What do you mean, nothing holds it up. Does it float?"

  "It's to do with opposite forces, Old Misery said."

  "What else?"

  "There's panelling."

  "Like in the Blue Boar?"

  "Two hundred years old."

  "Is Old Misery two hundred years old?"

  Mike laughed suddenly and then was quiet again. The meeting was in a serious mood. For the first time since T. had strolled into the car-park on the first day of the holidays his position was in danger. It only needed a single use of his real name and the gang would be at his heels.

  "What did you do it for?" Blackie asked. He was just, he had no jealousy, he was anxious to retain T. in the gang if he could. It was the word "beautiful" that worried him—that belonged to a class world that you could still see parodied at the Wormsley Common Empire by a man wearing a top hat and a monocle, with a haw-haw accent. He was tempted to say, "My dear Trevor old chap," and unleash his hell hounds. "If you'd broken in," he said sadly—that indeed would have been an exploit worthy of the gang.

  "This was better," T. said. "I found out things." He continued to stare at his feet, not meeting anybody's eye, as though he were absorbed in some dream he was unwilling—or ashamed—to share.

  "What things?"

  "Old Misery's going to be away all tomorrow and Bank Holiday."

  Blackie said with relief, "You mean we could break in?"

  "And pinch things?" somebody asked.

  Blackie said, "Nobody's going to pinch things. Breaking in—that's good enough, isn't it? We don't want any court stuff."

  "I don't want to pinch anything," T. said. "I've got a better idea."

  "What is it?"

  T. raised eyes, as grey and disturbed as the drab August day. "We'll pull it down," he said. "We'll destroy it."

  Blackie gave a single hoot of laughter and then, like Mike, fell quiet, daunted by the serious implacable gaze. "What'd the police be doing all the time?" he said.

  "They'd never know. We'd do it from inside. I've found a way in." He said with a sort of intensity, "We'd be like worms, don't you see, in an apple. When we came out again there'd be nothing there, no staircase, no panels, nothing but just walls, and then we'd make the walls fall down—somehow."

  "We'd go to jug," Blackie said.

  "Who's to prove? And anyway we wouldn't have pinched anything." He added without the smallest flicker of glee, "There wouldn't be anything to pinch after we'd finished."

  "I've never heard of going to prison for breaking things," Summers said.

  "There wouldn't be time," Blackie said. "I've seen housebreakers at work."

  "There are twelve of us," T. said. "We'd organize."

  "None of us know how—"

  "I know," T. said. He looked across at Blackie, "Have you got a better plan?"

  "Today," Mike said tactlessly, "we're pinching free rides—"

  "Free rides," T. said. "You can stand down, Blackie, if you'd rather...."

  "The gang's got to vote."

  "Put it up then."

  Blackie said uneasily, "It's proposed that tomorrow and Monday we destroy Old Misery's house."

  "Here, here," said a fat boy called Joe.

  "Who's in favour?"

  T. said, "It's carried."

  "How do we start?" Summers asked.

  "He'll tell you," Blackie said. It was the end of his leadership. He went away to the back of the car-park and began to kick a stone, dribbling it this way and that. There was only one old Morris in the park, for few cars were left there except lorries: without an attendant there was no safety. He took a flying kick at the car and scraped a little paint off the rear mudguard. Beyond, paying no more attention to him than to a stranger, the gang had gathered round T.; Blackie was dimly aware of the fickleness of favour. He thought of going home, of never returning, of letting them all discover the hollowness of T.'s leadership, but suppose after all what T. proposed was possible—nothing like it had ever been done before. The fame of the Wormsley Common car-park gang would surely reach around London. There would be headlines in the papers. Even the grown-up gangs who ran the betting at the all-in wrestling and the barrow-boys would hear with respect of how Old Misery's house had been destroyed. Driven by the pure, simple, and altruistic ambition of fame for the gang, Blackie came back to where T. stood in the shadow of Misery's wall.

  T. was giving his orders with decision: it was as though this plan had been with him all his life, pondered through the seasons, now in his fifteenth year crystallized with the pain of puberty. "You," he said to Mike, "bring some big nails, the biggest you can find, and a hammer. Anyone else who can better bring a hammer and a screwdriver. We'll need plenty of them. Chisels too. We can't have too many chisels. Can anybody bring a saw?"

  "I can," Mike said.

  "Not a child's saw," T. said. "A real saw."

  Blackie realized he had raised his hand like any ordinary member of the gang.

  "Right, you bring one, Blackie. But now there's a difficulty. We want a hacksaw."

  "What's a hacksaw?" someone asked.

  "You can get 'em at Woolworth's," Summers said.

  The fat boy called Joe said gloomily, "I knew it would end in a collection."

  "I'll get one myself," T. sa
id. "I don't want your money. But I can't buy a sledge-hammer."

  Blackie said, "They are working on number fifteen.

  I know where they'll leave their stuff for Bank Holiday."

  "Then that's all," T. said. "We meet here at nine sharp."

  "I've got to go to church," Mike said.

  "Come over the wall and whistle. We'll let you in."

  2

  On Sunday morning all were punctual except Blackie, even Mike. Mike had had a stroke of luck. His mother felt ill, his father was tired after Saturday night, and he was told to go to church alone with many warnings of what would happen if he strayed. Blackie had had difficulty in smuggling out the saw, and then in finding the sledge-hammer at the back of number 15. He approached the house from a lane at the rear of the garden, for fear of the policeman's beat along the main road. The tired evergreens kept off a stormy sun: another wet Bank Holiday was being prepared over the Atlantic, beginning in swirls of dust under the trees. Blackie climbed the wall into Misery's garden.

  There was no sign of anybody anywhere. The loo stood like a tomb in a neglected graveyard. The curtains were drawn. The house slept. Blackie lumbered nearer with the saw and the sledge-hammer. Perhaps after all nobody had turned up: the plan had been a wild invention: they had woken wiser. But when he came close to the back door he could hear a confusion of sound, hardly louder than a hive in swarm: a clickety-clack, a bang bang bang, a scraping, a creaking, a sudden painful crack. He thought, It's true, and whistled.

  They opened the back door to him and he came in.

  He had at once the impression of organization, very different from the old happy-go-lucky ways under his leadership. For a while he wandered up and down stairs looking for T. Nobody addressed him: he had a sense of great urgency, and already he could begin to see the plan. The interior of the house was being carefully demolished without touching the outer walls. Summers with hammer and chisel was ripping out the skirtingboards in the ground floor dining-room: he had already smashed the panels of the door. In the same room Joe was heaving up the parquet blocks, exposing the soft wood floor-boards over the cellar. Coils of wire came out of the damaged skirting and Mike sat happily on the floor, clipping the wires.

  On the curved stairs two of the gang were working hard with an inadequate child's saw on the banisters -when they saw Blackie's big saw they signalled for it wordlessly. When he next saw them a quarter of the banisters had been dropped into the hall. He found T. at last in the bathroom—he sat moodily in the least caredfor room in the house, listening to the sounds coming up from below.

  "You've really done it," Blackie said with awe. "What's going to happen?"

  "We've only just begun," T. said. He looked at the sledge-hammer and gave his instructions. "You stay here and break the bath and the wash-basin. Don't bother about the pipes. They come later."

  Mike appeared at the door. "I've finished the wire, T.," he said.

  "Good. You've just got to go wandering round now. The kitchen's in the basement. Smash all the china and glass and bottles you can lay hold of. Don't turn on the taps—we don't want a flood—yet. Then go into all the rooms and turn out drawers. If they are locked get one of the others to break them open. Tear up any papers you find and smash all the ornaments. Better take a carving-knife with you from the kitchen. The bedroom's opposite here. Open the pillows and tear up the sheets. That's enough for the moment. And you, Blackie, when you've finished in here crack the plaster in the passage up with your sledge-hammer."

  "What are you going to do?" Blackie asked.

  "I'm looking for something special," T. said.

  It was nearly lunch-time before Blackie had finished and went in search of T. Chaos had advanced. The kitchen was a shambles of broken glass and china. The dining-room was stripped of parquet, the skirting was up, the door had been taken off its hinges, and the destroyers had moved up a floor. Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the seriousness of creators—and destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of imagination had seen this house as it had now become.

  Mike said, "I've got to go home for dinner."

  "Who else?" T. asked, but all the others on one excuse or another had brought provisions with them.

  They squatted in the ruins of the room and swapped unwanted sandwiches. Half an hour for lunch and they were at work again. By the time Mike returned, they were on the top floor, and by six the superficial damage was completed. The doors were all off, all the skirtings raised, the furniture pillaged and ripped and smashed -no one could have slept in the house except on a bed of broken plaster. T. gave his orders—eight o'clock next morning—and to escape notice they climbed singly over the garden wall, into the car-park. Only Blackie and T. were left; the light had nearly gone, and when they touched a switch, nothing worked—Mike had done his job thoroughly.

  "Did you find anything special?" Blackie asked.

  T. nodded. "Come over here," he said, "and look." Out of both pockets he drew bundles of pound notes. "Old Misery's savings," he said. " Mike ripped out the mattress, but he missed them."

  "What are you going to do? Share them?"

  "We aren't thieves," T. said. "Nobody's going to steal anything from this house. I kept these for you and me -a celebration." He knelt down on the floor and counted them out—there were seventy in all. "We'll burn them," he said, "one by one," and taking it in turns they held a note upwards and lit the top corner, so that the flame burnt slowly towards their fingers. The grey ash floated above them and fell on their heads like age. "I'd like to see Old Misery's face when we are through," T. said.

  "You hate him a lot?" Blackie asked.

  "Of course I don't hate him," T. said. "There'd be no fun if I hated him." The last burning note illuminated his brooding face. "All this hate and love," he said, "it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things, Blackie," and he looked round the room crowded with the unfamiliar shadows of half things, broken things, former things. "I'll race you home, Blackie," he said.

  3

  Next morning the serious destruction started. Two were missing—Mike and another boy whose parents were off to Southend and Brighton in spite of the slow warm drops that had begun to fall and the rumble of thunder in the estuary like the first guns of the old blitz. "We've got to hurry," T. said.

  Summers was restive. "Haven't we done enough?" he said. "I've been given a bob for slot machines. This is like work."

  "We've hardly started," T. said. "Why, there's all the floors left, and the stairs. We haven't taken out a single window. You voted like the others. We are going to destroy this house. There won't be anything left when we've finished."

  They began again on the first floor picking up the top floor-boards next the outer wall, leaving the joists exposed. Then they sawed through the joists and retreated into the hall, as what was left of the floor heeled and sank. They had learnt with practise, and the second floor collapsed more easily. By the evening an odd exhilaration seized them as they looked down the great hollow of the house. They ran risks and made mistakes: when they thought of the windows it was too late to reach them. "Cor," Joe said, and dropped a penny down into the dry rubble-filled well. It cracked and span among the broken glass.

  "Why did we start this?" Summers asked with astonishment; T. was already on the ground, digging at the rubble, clearing a space along the outer wall. "Turn on the taps," he said. "It's too dark for anyone to see now, and in the morning it won't matter." The water overtook them on the stairs and fell through the floorless rooms.

  It was then they heard Mike's whistle at the back. "Something's wrong," Blackie said. They could hear his urgent breathing as they unlocked the door.

  "The bogies?" Summers asked.

  "Old Misery," Mike said. "He's on his way." He put his head between his knees and retched. "Ran all the way," he said with pride.

  "But why?" T. said. "He told me..." He protested with the fury of the child he had never been, "It isn't fair."

&
nbsp; "He was down at Southend," Mike said, "and he was on the train coming back. Said it was too cold and wet." He paused and gazed at the water. "My, you've had a storm here. Is the roof leaking?"

  "How long will he be?"

  "Five minutes. I gave Ma the slip and ran."

  "We better clear," Summers said. "we've done enough, anyway."

  "Oh, no, we haven't. Anybody could do this—"

  "this" was the shattered hollowed house with nothing left but the walls. Yet walls could be preserved. Façades were valuable. They could build inside again more beautifully than before. This could again be a home. He said angrily, "We've got to finish. Don't move. Let me think."

  "There's no time," a boy said.

  "There's got to be a way," T. said. "We couldn't have got thus far..."

  "We've done a lot," Blackie said.

  "No. No, we haven't. Somebody watch the front."

  "We can't do any more."

  "He may come in at the back."

  "Watch the back too." T. began to plead. "Just give me a minute and I'll fix it. I swear I'll fix it." But his authority had gone with his ambiguity. He was only one of the gang. "Please," he said.

  "Please," Summers mimicked him, and then suddenly struck home with the fatal name. "Run along home, Trevor."

  T. stood with his back to the rubble like a boxer knocked groggy against the ropes. He had no words as his dreams shook and slid. Then Blackie acted before the gang had time to laugh, pushing Summers backward. "I'll watch the front, T.," he said, and cautiously he opened the shutters of the hall. The grey wet common stretched ahead, and the lamps gleamed in the puddles. "Someone's coming, T. No, it's not him. What's your plan, T.?"

  "Tell Mike to go out to the loo and hide close beside it. When he hears me whistle he's got to count ten and start to shout."

  "Shout what?"

  "Oh, 'Help,' anything."

  "You hear, Mike," Blackie said. He was the leader again. He took a quick look between the shutters. "He's coming, T."

  "Quick, Mike. The loo. Stay here, Blackie, all of you till I yell."

  "Where are you going, T.?"