19. TWO SCHOOL LEAVERS

With their school days over, the two teenagers have to consider tomorrow.

Mr Tewkbury stood in front of his science class, smiling.

“I’ll bet you’re as pleased as I am to see the end of this term,” he said quietly. “And for you all it’s the end of your school careers and I want to give you a piece of advice, one that was given me when I was your age. And that advice was to remember your schooldays as the best days of your lives because, and here’s the rub, they might not be!”

“But sir,” protested Penny Ashton, “wasn’t it you who told us when we had our first science class...”

“That these days would never be bettered?” smiled the teacher, “of course I did! I told you the same old lie that I was told, and I did it for the same reason: to make you appreciate what you have because the future might contain days and years that might not always be so easy to live through. I was a lad before the war, and when the war came along it was a hideous thing that stole lives with unprecedented violence. I lost good friends in it, friends i thought would share my days for ever. My schooldays, though sometimes awkward if i got punished for something i hadn’t done, were certainly better than that! Then the war was over and we had a period of calm before Korea… Now we’re all dodging invisible bullets in what they call the cold war… But the future is yours, your generation’s. And I pray you can find a better way of settling arguments than by sending your young men to die in battle, or by repeating Hiroshima… Now go forth into the world and try to make it a better place, and if you do that then when you’re old and grizzly like me it might cross your mind that, after all, your schooldays were not actually the happiest days of your lives after all...”

He timed this last talk well because as he uttered his final word the bell rang for the end of the day and the children, now at the last moment of their schooldays and more like young adults than children, made their ways out of the classroom and into the big brave world outside it.

“That was not like Tewkbury at all,” said Penny to Innocent Umbago, “he kind of made me think.”

“What he said made sense,” agreed Innocent, “look, there’s Pratchett in front of us. Have you two fallen out, or something?”

“Or something might cover it,” she replied, “there are more boys in the world that Wallace Pratchett, Innocent, nice boys, decent boys who know how to appreciate what a girl does for them.”

“So you’re still … you know what?” asked Innocent, “I mean, at it for money,” he added, just to make it plain what he meant.

“I earn my pocket money,” grinned Penny, “and I don’t mind if the boys who come to me want to treat me to a few shillings! Why, Innocent baby, do you want a few minutes of my time … if you can afford them, that is.”

“I’m with Wallace,” Innocent told her, “I think it’s beneath you, and I reckon in the end no good will come of it. A bit of fun’s one thing, but I read the Sunday papers, you know, I know what causes so much grief to a lot of people, and it stops being fun, you can take my word for that!”

“High and mighty are we, Mr Black Innocent!” snapped Penny, but the look he gave her made her pull back from a full throated attack on him. Instead, “you’d best catch up with your boyfriend then,” she said acidly.

“She’s gone right off the rails,” muttered Innocent to Wallace when he finally caught him up.

“You’re telling me,” growled Wallace, “and to think I thought, once upon a time...”

“You thought?” queried Innocent.

“I thought … yes, blast it, I thought I loved her! Then I found out how she got so much pocket money and … and I reckon it’s true, how love can turn to hate in the twinkling of an eye!”

“I’m with you there, mate,” said Innocent, “I’m not having much to do with Sarah any more. It’s nothing to do with the sort of thing that Penny’s up to but, well, her folks they’re the sort who think they’re a cut above me and my family just because I’ve got African blood in my veins.”

Wallace nodded, “that’s bad,” he murmured, “some people are so, so, so … evil!”

“And I heard Freddie Barnard boasting about what he did with Penny,” said Innocent quietly, “and it came out all filthy, like it would from an oaf like Barnard!”

“What did he say?” asked Wallace, pausing for a moment, then continuing before Penny could catch them up.

“Oh, he’s the boasting sort and I don’t believe much of what he says, but he reckons she let him do it to her, you know, go the whole way, and that he’s going to do it again and he doesn’t intend to hand over any ten shilling notes for the pleasure because he reckons she’ll have to let him do it for nothing or he’ll tell her folks, and she won’t like that!”

“The filthy...” almost exploded Wallace.

“I know how you feel, mate, but it’s she who started it. She who took that damned camp bed down to the cellar and she who made up a price list for her body!”

“What are you up to tomorrow?” asked Wallace, changing the subject.

“My folks are taking me away for a couple of weeks, to a place they know that’s cheap and cheerful. At least, that’s what they say it is! One of them there caravan camps where there are things to do if the weather’s bad.”

“Two weeks? That’s a good holiday!”

“It may be my last if the bomb drops,” muttered Innocent darkly.

“I try not to think of it,” confessed Wallace.

“But I’ll be back soon enough! I’ll call on you when that is. Until then why don’t you find a lass to mess around with? Not like Penny does, but you know what I mean. No payment for services rendered. Just you and a pretty lass and things to do…?”

“And ice creams on the park,” sighed Wallace, “I’ll be thinking of you lording it over creation in your caravan while I let the ice drip down my face and off my chin! And who knows, while you’re away you might find yourself on the same beach as a sweet little lass who’s looking for a dark and dangerous young man!”

“She’d have to be good to be better than Sarah McGivven,” whispered Innocent almost to himself, “but her folks… they’re plain unreasonable. You know why I’m here, at this moment, with you, Wallace? I mean here in this country? Because a call went out for folks like my parents to come here to work, plenty of jobs they were told, and good pay. Then they got here and found that not every Englishman is decent and honourable. There are those who don’t like us, call us dirty and stuff like that! And that’s the McGivvens all over.”

“I know, mate,” said Wallace sadly, “but you’ll find a decent girl with decent folks, I know you will because, well, because you’ve been a good mate to me over the years. I know you have. When you come back we’ll do up our air-raid shelter, make it safe and bomb proof … and maybe invite the odd wench down there on wet winter days, to while away the time, and maybe give us a kiss and a cuddle!”

“And kick Penny Ashton out,” said Innocent, meaning it, “there’s no room in my world for that sort of lass.”

“I know,” sighed Wallace, regretfully, “nor in mine.”

© Peter Rogerson 23.06.19