evening round; there’s not so much work in the evenings, mostly they buy their papers from a newsboy on the street, nasty, dirty habit. Never buy papers from newsboys. You can have the job.”
Alec was reckoning the money in his head. Harriet would only go to one session of skating a day, that meant for six days, for there would be no skating on Sunday, which would cost twelve shillings. That would give him two shillings over for himself. Two shillings a week! Because of Uncle William’s mixed and irregular supplies to the shop, it was scarcely ever that he had any pocket money, and the thought of having two whole shillings a week made his eyes shine far brighter than Mr Pulton’s candles.
“Thank you, sir. When can I start?”
“Tomorrow. You said your sister was starting skating tomorrow. You’ll be here at seven and you’ll meet my present paper boy, he’ll show you round. You look pleased. Think you’ll like delivering papers?”
Alec felt warm inside from ginger wine, and outside from the fire, and being warm inside and out gives a talkative feeling.
“It’s the two shillings. You see, Harriet will only need twelve shillings for her skates, and you said fourteen.”
Mr Pulton had picked up his hot toddy again.
“That’s right. What are you going to do with the other two shillings?”
In the ordinary way Alec would not have discussed his secret plan, the only person who knew it was Toby; but telling things to Mr Pulton was like telling things to a person in a dream; besides, nobody had ever heard Mr Pulton discuss somebody else’s affairs, indeed it was most unlikely that he was interested in anybody’s affairs.
“I’ve no brains. Toby has those, but Dad and Mother think I’ll go on at school until I’m eighteen, but I won’t, it’s a waste of time for me, at least that’s what I think. I’d meant to leave school when I was sixteen, and go into something in Dad’s line of business. You see, it’s absolutely idiotic our depending on Uncle William. Dad doesn’t see that, but of course he wouldn’t for he’s his brother, but you can’t really make a place pay when for days on end you get nothing but rhubarb and perhaps a couple of rabbits, and one boiling hen, and then suddenly thousands of old potatoes. You see, Uncle William just rushes out and sends off things he doesn’t like the look of, or has got too many of. Now what I want to do is to get a proper set-up. I’d like a pony and cart to go to market and buy the sorts of things customers want to eat. What we sell now, and everybody knows it, isn’t what customers want but what Uncle William doesn’t want. I think knowing that puts people off from buying from Dad.”
Mr Pulton leant back in his chair.
“It’d take a lot of two shillings to buy a pony and trap.”
“I know, but I might be able to do something as a start. You see, if I put all the two shillings together, by next spring I’d have a little capital and I could at least try stocking Dad with early potatoes or something of that sort. We never sell new potatoes, Uncle William likes those, so we only get the old ones. If the potatoes went well I might be able to buy peas, beans, strawberries and raspberries in the summer.”
“You never have those either?”
“Of course not, Uncle William hogs the lot.”
“You’d like to own a provision store some day?”
“Glory no! I’d hate it. What I want is to be at the growing end; I’d give anything to have the sort of set-up Uncle William’s got. There’s a decent-sized walled fruit and vegetable garden, where you could do pretty well if you went in for cloches, and there’s a nice bit of river and there’s some rough shooting.”
“How does your Uncle William send his produce to your father?”
Alec looked as exasperated as he felt.
“That’s another idiotic thing, we never know how it’s coming. Sometimes he has a friend with a car, and we get a telephone message, and Dad has to hare up to somebody’s flat to fetch it; mostly it comes by train, but sometimes Uncle William gets a bargee to bring it down; that’s simply awful because the stuff arrives bad, and Uncle William can’t understand that it arrived bad.”
Mr Pulton had finished his toddy, and he got up.
“I am going to bed. Don’t forget now, seven o’clock in the morning. Not a minute late. I can’t abide boys who come late.” He was turning to go when evidently a thought struck him. He nodded in a pleased sort of way. “Stick to your dreams, don’t let anyone put you off what you want to do. All these…” he swept his hand round the horses, “were my grandfather’s and my great grandfather’s, just that hunter belonged to my father. When I was your age I dreamed of horses, but there was this newsagency, there’s always been a Pulton in this shop. Where are my dreams now? Goodnight, boy.”
OLIVIA WENT TO the rink with Harriet, for the more Harriet thought about the girl on the poster, standing on one skate with the other foot high over her head, the more sure she was that she would be shy to go alone to a place where people could do things like that. Dr Phillipson was very kind, but he was a busy, rushing, tearing sort of man, who would be almost certain merely to introduce her to the manager by just saying, “This is Harriet,” and then dash off again. This was exactly what happened. Dr Phillipson called for Harriet and her mother just after lunch, took them to the rink, hurried them inside into a small office in which was a tired, busy-looking man, said, “This is Harriet, and her mother. Mrs Johnson, Harriet, this is Mr Matthews, the manager of the rink. I’ve got a patient to see,” and he was gone.
Olivia took no time to make friends with Mr Matthews. She heard all about something called his duodenal ulcer, which was why he knew Dr Phillipson, and all about how Dr Phillipson had taken out his wife’s appendix, and of how Dr Phillipson had looked after his twin boys, who were grown up now and married, and only when there were no more illnesses left in the Matthews’ family to talk about did Olivia mention skating.
“Dr Phillipson tells me you’re going to be very kind and let Harriet come here to skate. He wants her to have exercise for her leg muscles.”
Mr Matthews looked at Harriet’s legs in a worried sort of way.
“Thin, aren’t they? Ever skated before?” Harriet explained she had not. “Soon pick it up, I’ll show you where you go for your skates and boots. Cost two shillings a session they will.” He turned to Olivia. “I’ll have a word with my man who hires them out, ask him to find a pair that fit her; he’ll keep them for her, it’ll make all the difference.”
The way to the skate-hiring place was through the rink. Harriet had never seen a rink before. She gazed with her eyes open very wide at what seemed to her to be an enormous room with ice instead of floor. In the middle of the ice, people, many of whom did not look any older than she was, were doing what seemed to her terribly difficult things with their legs. On the outside of the rink, however, there were a comforting lot of people who seemed to know as little about skating as she did, for they were holding on to the barrier round the side of the rink as if it was their only hope of keeping alive, while their legs
