you. If you ever need a friend your Aunty Ivy will always be here. Come on, cheer up. She’s a pretty woman, your mother. Only natural she’d take up with someone one day. Nice young man he is too – works in a bank, he tells me. A woman doesn’t want to stay a widow all her life – believe me, pet. She should get married again. Only natural.’
And that’s just what happened only a few months later in St Cuthbert’s. They had the reception in the church hall afterwards. Harry was there, lost in the legs of the wedding guests. ‘Are you happy for me, Harry?’ his mother asked him. She was wearing the brown suit, but the winged brooch wasn’t there any more. Harry nodded.
‘Doesn’t look very happy to me,’ said Bill, bending down and ruffling his hair. ‘I’ll be looking after you both now, Harry.’
‘Give us a smile, Harry dear,’ his mother said through her tears. Harry smiled, but just to please her. She kissed him and whispered, ‘It’ll be all right, you’ll see.’
But it was not all right. Nothing was ever to be all right after that.
*
‘Harryyyy!’ Harry started out of his dream too late and the ball rolled past his outstretched foot and through a hole in the fence behind him. They were all shouting at him, Peter Barker amongst them. ‘What’s the matter with you, Harry?’ he said, rushing up to him. ‘You didn’t even try. We just lost and it’s all because of you. You’d better fetch the ball, and quick. The bell’s going any second.’
There was a system for getting the ball back if it went through or over the fence into the bomb site. Everyone knew it was absolutely forbidden to go in there. Mr Quigley, the headmaster, had told them often enough – the walls were dangerous and there could even be unexploded bombs. Of course no one really believed that. A dozen or more children gathered around the hole in the fence to form a protective screen so that no one could see what was happening from the school windows. ‘But why me?’ asked Harry.
‘You let the goal in, didn’t you?’ said Peter Barker. There was no answer to that.
‘Anyone about?’ Harry asked, looking for any lurking teachers on playground duty.
‘All clear,’ said Peter, turning Harry towards the hole and pushing him downwards.
Harry scrambled through and had just grabbed the ball when he heard the bell. He turned quickly and was crawling back when he felt his jumper catch on the fence. He looked up and called for someone to help free him. They had all gone, every last one of them, and Miss Hardcastle was striding across the playground towards him, the bell in her hand. Harry felt his jersey tear, and then his trousers, as Miss Hardcastle took him by the shoulder and dragged him back through the hole.
Miss Hardcastle was known to everyone as The Dragon, and with good reason. To get caught by any teacher in the bombsite was bad enough. It usually meant a dressing-down in Mr Quigley’s study as well as several hundred lines and a letter to take home; but to get caught by The Dragon was always a deal more painful. She dealt with things herself and in her own special way. When The Dragon hit you she meant to hurt you. Harry knew that only too well as he was marched along the corridor and into the classroom.
They were all sitting there in awed silence, guilty witnesses of what was about to happen. Not one of them dared to look him in the face except Peter, who shrugged his shoulders and apologised with his eyes. Harry dreaded the ritual but he was determined not to show it. He held out his hand, praying fervently it would be the flat of the ruler across the open hand this time.
‘How many times have you been told, Harry Hawkins, that the bombsite is out of bounds?’ Harry said nothing. It was better that way, over with quicker. You didn’t argue with The Dragon, not if you knew what was good for you. ‘You do know the bombsite is out of bounds, I suppose?’
‘Yes, Miss.’
‘Then why did you go in there?’
‘To fetch the ball, Miss.’
‘So you quite deliberately broke a school rule, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, Miss.’ The worst bit was the waiting. Harry’s mouth was dry with fear and the backs of his legs were sweating.
‘Deliberate defiant disobedience.’ The Dragon was working herself into a temper with every word. She grabbed his fingers and turned his hand over, knuckles uppermost. He knew now he had to expect the worst. ‘Perhaps this will persuade you to do as you’re told in the future.’ And she reached for the long ruler from the top of her desk. ‘And there’ll be a letter to take back to your father.’
‘He’s not my father,’ Harry said quietly.
‘What did you say?’
‘He’s not my father. My father’s dead.’
‘Oh yes, of course, I forgot,’ and her lips curled with acid sarcasm. ‘We all know Harry Hawkins’ father, don’t we, the great war hero, the great fighter pilot. You’ve told us often enough, haven’t you?’
‘He wasn’t fighter pilot, Miss. He was a navigator in a bomber and . . .’
‘Are you arguing with me?’ Her lips were tight with fury. ‘Are you?’
‘No, Miss.’ Harry knew he was stupid to have started it, but he would not let anyone call Bill his father, not even The Dragon. He winced in spite of himself as she tightened her hold on his wrist and pulled his hand out. He saw her tongue gripped between her teeth and watched the ruler swinging upwards. He did not try to pull away. He’d done that before. She just added another stroke every time he’d tried. His fingers curled involuntarily as the ruler came down, sharp edge first. With the hollow crack came the pain shooting all through him. ‘Maybe this!’ Again the ruler came down, again and then again. ‘Maybe this will teach you. And this! And this!’ Harry looked at her, his eyes hard with defiance. She dropped his wrist. ‘And don’t you dare look at me like that, Harry Hawkins, else there’ll be more.’ But Harry had no choice. His mouth and his eyes were full of tears that he must not let out. To blink would have been to release them. So he glared up at her, his huge eyes pools of dark anger. Miss Hardcastle seemed suddenly troubled and looked away, muttering to Harry to go and sit down and that he must come to pick up his letter from the staffroom before he went home. It was over.
The last thirty minutes of school were spent writing out in loopy writing, ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ in their copy books. Harry’s hand hurt so much that he could scarcely hold the pencil. He could not see for the tears in his eyes, tears that despite all he could do dropped from time to time onto his copy book. He would wipe them away before they had time to soak into the paper and hope that no one had noticed, but everyone had. It was a strange thing, but after you’d had a beating from The Dragon, everyone was sympathetic but no one came near you, no one said anything. It was as if you’d suddenly caught an infectious disease of some kind. Harry was grateful for it, though. It meant he didn’t have to talk to anyone. He knew he’d find it difficult to talk and not to cry. He waited until he was alone in the cloakroom. Then and only then he cried. Holding onto the coat pegs, he cried up against the wall and kicked it until there were no more tears left inside him.
Miss Hardcastle was waiting outside the staff-room for him. ‘Haven’t got all day,’ she said, and she handed him the letter. ‘Go straight home now,’ she called after him, ‘and mind the traffic. It’s foggy out there again.’ He was surprised by her concern, by the gentleness in her voice, and looked back at her. For just a flicker of a moment as they looked at one another down the corridor Harry found himself almost believing she was trying to tell him she hadn’t meant all she had said, all she had done; but then the moment passed and he hated her again. ‘Go on, go on,’ she called out, ‘and mind you give it to your stepfather. I’ll be asking him when I see him.’ At least she had called him his stepfather. That was something.
He tied his scarf around his mouth as he stepped out into the smog of the playground. He ran out of the school gates and down the road towards the flashing orange beacons by the pedestrian crossing.