I was sorry that I had done that when he began to walk around the room looking at our efforts. I did try to cover it up with my hand. And then his hand was under my chin as he tilted my head back.
‘Well, well, young man, you certainly know where you are. I wonder, are you as certain where you are going. Are you?’
‘No, sir,’ I replied. Perhaps it was at that moment that something happened. Suddenly I was looking into the bluest eyes I had ever seen. I tried to turn away but he held my head tight.
‘You’re the one that likes to climb things, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Ah, I think I can give you plenty of things to climb. Plenty! I can promise you that!’
The little street where I lived was a real rag-tag and bobtail of a place. Most of my friends lived here. The triplets were amongst our best friends and whenever the kids were playing in the street, it was pretty certain that if Bombom the black goddess wasn’t looking after them, then I was.
The triplets were Millie’s younger sisters. Their real names were Billie, Leslie and Josephine, but nobody ever called them that. We all called them Ready, Willing and Able. Something had happened to them. They were strange. I suppose modern medicine would be able to give whatever had happened to them a name. In those days some people simply called them daft or soft in the head. Perhaps now we might be more kindly and call them mentally handicapped. But if three kids could be truly called angels, it was Ready, Willing and Able. Without a husband their mother struggled hard to bring up five kids. The little street was always very protective, and it was no rare sight to see one or other of the women bearing down on number 12 with some steaming left-overs from their own meals. None of the other kids were beyond snitching the odd cabbage, potatoes or, if they were lucky, an apple or two from the Market. PC Laithwaite was quite aware of these acts of pilfering and, under May’s leadership, many of the stall holders in the market place were always studiously looking somewhere else when the raiders were about. So all in all they didn’t do too badly. After all, the alternative was the Workhouse and nobody in their right mind would wish that on anybody, not even their worst enemy. Things like money for the rentman, the coalman and the gas meter made things more difficult to deal with. Money was in very short supply down our street. On very rare occasions somebody had a few bob to spare and we all knew where that had to go.
So far as Millie was concerned there was only one thing to do and she did it. She joined the big house at the top of the street with the other girls. We all knew why Millie was ‘on the game’ as it was called, but to begin with we had no idea why the rest of them were at it and certainly nobody was going to condemn them.
Danny and I had more fights over those girls than we ever did for our own pleasure. We were like a couple of knights even though our armour was fairly rusty, but woe betide anybody who said anything about the girls.
One of us would say, ‘it’s my turn, you thumped the last one’. Wallop. ‘That’s another one who won’t say that again.’ When PC Laithwaite called on us with some complaint made at the local by some man who didn’t understand what the situation was, all he asked was, ‘How many times did you hit him?’
‘Once, of course, why? With this, of course,’ said Danny, holding up his fist. ‘What else?’
‘Nothing, I suppose. Just wondered. Well, don’t do it again then.’
‘Won’t,’ said Danny, ‘it’s Fynn’s turn next.’
Both of us had spent a night in the lock-up. Not that we were really locked up, because Danny had spent his time playing Twenty One with the sergeant. I spent mine reading The Police Manual and drinking tea. We were both home in time for breakfast. This fact about Millie and the girls up at the top was something that neither John nor Arabella – the spinster sister who lived with him – knew about and none of us was going to tell them. Eventually it was PC Laithwaite who told them. I’m sorry to say that they understood much better than the Rev. Castle did. Maybe he was just too concentrated on souls, but he needn’t have worried because Danny and I had fixed them up with a place to pray in, and even though the Vicar had said an altar was out of the question. Well, the flowers were ‘by courtesy’ of the local park.
I don’t know when, or how, I came to like John D. I never thought I would, but it wasn’t all that long before I found it a real pleasure to be with him. It could have been – possibly – that as my father had died so long ago Old John was coming to be important to me. Whatever the reason might be, it always gave me great pleasure being with him, even though he always seemed to be having a dig at me in one way or another. I know that I had never met anyone like him before. He could hardly utter a sentence without being sarcastic, but his dry manner of giving a lesson was something that excited me. I just liked listening to him. Even the dreaded ‘persuader’ didn’t bother me. It didn’t hurt all that much, and after a minute or two it was as if nothing had happened at all.
I was just about to make my way home from school when he called me over to his car and first introduced me to his sister Arabella.
‘One of your friends has just changed the tyre for my sister,’ he said.
‘I wonder who that was,’ I began to say.
‘His name was Danny Sullivan.’
‘Good old Danny! He’s my fighting mate.’
‘So,’ he continued, ‘you are the one they call Fynn, are you? I’ve heard about you. I understand you have other things you like doing. Other than fighting and climbing impossible walls.’
I nodded.
‘And may one ask what else young Fynn likes doing?’
‘Mathematics mostly. I guess I like that most of all.’
‘The art of the mind.’
‘What?’ I asked. ‘I don’t understand that.’
‘The art of the mind,’ he said once again. ‘Mathematics.’
That idea was a new one on me.
‘Have you many books on the subject?’ he asked me.
‘Not many,’ I said, ‘they are all falling to bits and I reckon they are a bit out of date now.’
‘Maybe. If you would care to come to my study after school is over, I’ll see if I can find anything for you. We mustn’t let our finest brains suffer from lack of books, must we?’ The sarcastic old so and so!
‘Who knows,’ he went on, ‘we may even manage to kindle some spark in that head of yours, but please keep it away from walls until I am able to see if there is anything inside! I doubt it. I doubt it very much, but it is just possible!’
The next day after school had ended I went to his study. Away from the classroom he was a different person altogether. He was still dry, sarcastic as ever and never missed any opportunity to trip me up, but he asked me many questions. He handed me a bundle of books.
‘Here
