never from her, always from Bill or Bill’s mother, Granny Wesley, who had a face like an ancient crow. She was always at home these days. She had come to help Harry’s mother out – that was what she said. Harry could see it now. He could hear it now. She’d take one look at his torn jumper and his ripped trousers: ‘No tea for you tonight,’ she’d say. ‘Thoughtless child. How could you, and with your mother in the condition she’s in! Thoughtless.’ Or it could be worse still. Maybe it had already happened. They’d said it could be any day now. Perhaps it was today. He couldn’t go back home and face that, not yet.
He walked on past the Belisha beacons and made for the park. It wasn’t far. Maybe there would be a cigarette packet or two in the wastepaper bin by the bench, always a good place, that, for cigarette cards. It was worth a look, he thought.
Harry found the park gates more by luck than anything else. You could hardly see more than a few yards in front of you, the smog was that thick now. Shadows coughing in the gloom passed him by, and cars and buses crawled along the road, but headlights were all you could see of them.
Harry didn’t see anyone in the park, not until he reached the bench by the duck pond. Someone was sitting there, a man who seemed to be talking to the ducks perhaps, or to himself. ‘Ocky, Ocky. You come out of there, you hear me. It’s dirty. Why you always have to find the dirty places, eh?’ He spoke with a strong foreign accent and then seemed to give up English and broke into a different language altogether. Harry could see the man better now. He was dressed in a long overcoat with a fur collar and he wore a wide-brimmed black hat. When he sat back laughing on the bench he was shaking his head. Harry moved a little closer. There was something rustling in the wastepaper bin beside the bench, but he still could not make out what it was. ‘Ocky! Ocky! I think there’s somebody here,’ the man whispered, leaning forward and peering through the gloom at Harry. ‘You better come out of there, Ocky, before they see you.’ A head came up first out of the wastepaper bin, the head of a black monkey with a pink face and large pink ears that stuck out. And then the rest of it came out and scampered along the bench to sit on the man’s lap. The monkey had a cigarette packet in one hand and a newspaper in the other, and was looking directly at him. Harry wasn’t sure, but it seemed as if the little eyes that stared back at him were flashing yellow.
CHAPTER TWO
‘IS THERE SOMEBODY THERE?’ THE MAN SAID, AND Harry stepped forward. ‘Come closer.’ The man beckoned him towards the bench. ‘Don’t you worry, she won’t hurt you.’ The monkey squatted stock still on the man’s lap, lips pursed, eyes studying Harry as he approached. Harry came as close as he dared. ‘Who is it?’ the man asked.
‘Me,’ Harry said, not taking his eyes off the monkey.
‘Ah, it’s just a bambino.’ He sounded relieved. ‘I don’t see so good in this fog.’ The monkey hooted softly. ‘She want to make friends with you,’ he said, and he laughed. ‘But first I got to introduce you. You got a name?’
‘Harry Hawkins.’
‘Ocky, this is ’Arry ’Awkins. ’Arry ’Awkins, this is Ocky,’ said the man. ‘You got a little something for her, have you? She like the fruit, any kind of fruit. And sweets, she like the barley sugar, ’umbugs. Anything you got.’
Harry fished in his coat pocket. ‘Haven’t got much,’ he said, and produced the only thing he had, an old apple core from the apple his mother had given him for school only yesterday. He held it out, but too fast and the monkey screeched and shrunk back, clinging to the man’s coat.
‘’Arry, you got to be more slow,’ he said. ‘Ocky’s a chimpanzee, and chimpanzees they’re a bit like you and they’re a bit like me. They got to be sure you’re a friend before they like you. So, you got to show ’er you like ’er first. What you got there?’
‘Apple core.’
‘S’good. She like the apples. So you ’old it out, but gently now, and don’t look at her in the eyes. She don’t like it when people look at ’er in the eyes.’ Harry looked deliberately at the waste-paper bin at the end of the bench and offered the apple core, more cautiously this time. He understood then why the chimpanzee’s eyes were flashing yellow, because the wastepaper bin was too – it was the light from the Belisha beacons in the road behind him. It must have been a minute before he saw the chimpanzee move and then she only scratched herself on her shoulder with the cigarette packet. She shifted on the man’s lap and looked up into his face uttering faint whimpers.
‘Va bene, Ocky, va bene,’ said the man and he stroked the chimpanzee on the head. ‘It’s just a bambino. You take the apple, Ocky. It’s a nice one.’ A long black arm stretched out slowly towards him – it was longer than Harry expected – and snatched the apple core. She smelt it first and then bit it in half. It didn’t last long and she seemed disappointed there was no more. She searched avidly in the man’s lap and in her fur for any last bite of apple she might have missed.
‘Say thank you, Ocky,’ said the man, taking the chimpanzee’s hand and holding it out towards Harry. ‘Say “grazie bene”. She got to learn the good manners. You take ’er ’and now, ’Arry. She don’t mind, she’s your friend now.’ The hand felt like soft, cold leather, and it clung now to Harry’s bruised hand with a grip that hurt. The strength of it surprised him. Before he knew it and before he had time to feel alarmed the chimpanzee had swung herself up into the crook of his arm and settled there, an arm around his neck. She was breathing into his ear and had taken the cap off his head.
‘She’s got my cap,’ said Harry, trying to control the fear in his voice. Chuckling, the man on the bench got up and lifted her off him. He handed Harry back his cap.
‘She like to play games, don’t you Ocky?’ he said. ‘You’re a thief, a terrible thief. That’s no way to treat a friend. Now you take me ’ome, Ocky; we got to catch the bus. We got a show tonight, remember.’
‘A show?’
‘Circus, Blondini’s Circus. You never been to the circus before, ’Arry?’
‘No,’ said Harry.
‘So you come, eh? We have all the animals, it’s like Noah’s Ark. We got the horses, we got the dogs, we got the sea lions, we got the elephants and we got the clowns. We got lots of clowns. You like the clowns ’Arry? But best of all we got Ocky – she’s the big star, aren’t you Ocky?’ The chimpanzee reached out again for Harry’s cap but Harry ducked away smartly. ‘You come, eh, bambino? I, Signor Blondini, invite you personally to my circus, and you bring along your friends. You got plenty of friends, eh? I got to go now.’ He coughed and patted his chest. ‘I don’t like this fog, is bad for me. You can’t see so well in it either, but that don’t make no difference to us, does it Ocky? We got each other, eh? We find our way ’ome all right. Look, ’Arry, she’s giving you her cigarette packet. Special present from the wastepaper bin. She like you. She like everyone who is nice to her, all of the animals at the circus, too; but not the dogs. She don’t like the dogs. I don’t know why, but she go crazy when she see the dogs.’
Harry took the offered cigarette packet and then held out his hand slowly. ‘Thanks, Ocky,’ he said. Ocky reached out and touched his hand gently. Then she smelt his fingers, looking all the while into Harry’s eyes, a deep, penetrating stare that forced Harry to look away.
‘Arrivederci, bambino,’ said Signor Blondini lifting his hat. Harry saw then that his hair was silver white. He was a lot older than Harry had imagined from his voice. ‘Andiamo, Ocky, let’s go.’ Ocky took his hand and they walked away together. The chimpanzee turned to look back at him once over her shoulder and Harry saw that she had a cigarette card in her hand. Then they were swallowed in the dark of the smog. Harry looked down at the cigarette pack in his hand and opened it. It was empty.
When he got home Bill and Granny Wesley were sitting in the kitchen. He took his coat off. His tea was waiting for him on the oven, corned beef hash. He hated corned beef hash and said so.