second thought I think it best
To stow it away in the old oak chest.
‘Boo, boo, boo!’ Mrs Quick responded as before.
‘When yous two has stopped acting the goat,’ Mrs Phinn cut in with clearly enunciated superiority.
Her two helpers leaned over the tea-chests, laughing as only fat women can. That Mrs Phinn had no joy in their turn increased theirs. Mrs Quick wiped her eyes with her duster.
‘Well, come on, Jessie,’ she wheezed. ‘We can tell him this is a’ the old concert costumes and he can burn it or date whit he likes wi’ it.’
‘Shove them up against the wa’, Maggie,’ said Mrs Mann. ‘The three o’ them. Then we can tell him they’re a’ the gither.’
Mrs Mann kept the top hat. If she couldn’t pawn it Noddy might be able to use it when he dressed up for Hallowe’en. It would maybe earn him a few extra coppers round the doors or on the street. She was always thinking about money.
‘We could tell some o’ the weans there’s a lot of good stuff down here for when it’s Hallowe’en.’
‘Aye, they could get some rare fancy clobber here,’ Mrs Quick agreed, thrusting the top layers of the chests down hard to make them look tidy.
‘I don’t suppose it matters there’s no false-faces,’ Mrs Phinn muttered. ‘Your Nicky wouldny need one.’
‘Ho, ho,’ Mrs Mann replied, pushing the third of the chests alongside its mates. ‘Very clever, I must say.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Percy was the first to see the cellar had been entered. He came down by the chute on Sunday night, making his usual visit to what had become a sanctuary to him, and stopped at once when he reached the floor. He thought he was going to faint. For the first time in his life he understood what it meant to get a shock. Something seemed to have hit him in the midriff, his heart went vaulting and then tumbled, his legs were paralysed, his head was a clamour of alarm bells, his eyes were in a mist one moment and as sharp as an eagle’s the next, his palate was parched and his tongue was stuck to it, his brow felt chilled, and he nearly wet himself.
When he recovered from the seizure he galloped over to the chests, almost tripping himself on his splay feet in his excitement. His torso was so far ahead of his legs that he seemed to mean to get there by bodily extension rather than by running. He saw the concert props and costumes weren’t quite as they had been left. Some that had been in different chests were now in the same chest, some that had been underneath were now on top. He leaned over the first chest, pulled out skirts, hats, jackets, trousers, cardboard capstans and festoons of coloured paper, and delved to the bottom. The money was still there. And so with the other chests. Whoever had been in the cellar and swept it out and moved the chests hadn’t disturbed more than the top layers. The transistor, the tape-recorder and record- player, the TV and the uke and the guitar were still safe against the farthest and darkest wall of the cellar, the rats’ wall, behind a faç ade of planks, pails and the barrel of washing-soda. So much for the thoroughness of the cleaners’ cleaning. He knelt beside one of the chests with his hands clasped and said a sincere prayer of thanks.
‘Oh, blessed El, I thank thee for not allowing thyself to fall into the hands of the ungodly,’ he panted, his mouth against his finger-tips.
He thought of moving the money, but he didn’t know where else he could put it. If it had survived one attack in the cellar it could survive another. The cellar still seemed the safest place for it, and the proper place too, since it had been found in the cellar. He was unwilling to find a new site for what had always been safe in the place where it was discovered. The cellar seemed its natural and even sacred place because that was where El had chosen to reveal himself. Even the distribution amongst three chests had a mystical meaning to him. He couldn’t bear to tamper with fortune by shifting anything.
He called an extraordinary assembly at once, held a special service, and declared an extra dividend in thanksgiving for the safety of El. The Brotherhood didn’t mind the special service, they liked singing together, and they took the extra share-out gladly enough. But looking down from his throne Percy noticed signs of a strange uninterest here and there, an air of forced swallowing. There came to him suddenly the memory that he had helped the woman in charge of the dinner-school once when he was a boy, and she had given him a double helping of ice- cream after the diners were all gone. He took it eagerly. It was three or four times as large as the largest ice he had ever had before. Then she gave him a second plateful, just to be nice to him, and he got through it only because it was impossible to refuse ice-cream. But he was sick afterwards, and it made him think less of ice-cream in the future.
‘It was only the cleaners, ye know,’ Savage explained wisely after the service. ‘The way you talk you’d think it was evil spirits had raided the place.’
‘Maybe you don’t believe it, but the world’s full of evil spirits,’ said Percy.
‘Oh aye, I believe that,’ said Savage with flippant solemnity.
‘I know it was the cleaners was in,’ Percy tried again. ‘I’m perfectly well aware of that, but the point is what made them come down here. Nobody’s ever been down here before. If that wasn’t the promptings of evil spirits, what was it? Go on, you tell me! And what’s more it’s a miracle they didn’t find anything. That shows we’re being looked after. You’ve got to believe in destiny, ye know. Kismet. Kay Sarah, Sarah.’
‘It was wee Noddy was telling me his maw was in here Saturday afternoon,’ Savage answered conversationally, refusing to ask who Sarah was. He knew Percy was just dying to explain it to him. ‘He knew by the Saturday night everything was okay. His old girl never mentioned a thing. Your maw was down as well. Did she no’ tell ye? Jees, that would have had ye worried stiff if she’d said to ye, I’m going down the cellar to clean it out!’
Percy snubbed him silently. He hadn’t known his mother was in the cellar on Saturday. He had missed her in the afternoon, but he hadn’t asked where she had been and she didn’t tell him. It made his head ache to think of the danger they had been in. His headaches were becoming a daily plague, and he blamed them on the strain he was under, being responsible for the safety of thousands of pounds and the welfare of a horde of ungrateful boys. And so it would go on till something happened. Something was bound to happen. But he couldn’t imagine what it was. He lived in fear of a knock at the door. Every time he passed a policeman he felt nervous. He dreamt nearly every night of the stranger who had accosted him in Tulip Place, and waited patiently for his bad dreams to come true. The stranger must reappear. He knew there was no escape from him. He felt all alone and powerless. It came back to him that he had wanted to have a lot of money so that he could get peace. And now he had less peace than ever. He had the money, but his mind wasn’t free to write poetry. But would Shelley have written any poetry if he had to look after a street-gang? He made up his mind to start tomorrow and organize his life better, so as to find time and peace to begin writing a poem. But it was always a case of starting tomorrow. He groaned, sitting on Miss Elginbrod’s chair, and put his head between his hands, his elbows on his knees.
‘Headache?’ piped Savage brightly in a commercial TV voice. ‘Be good to yourself! Take a Scrunchy-Lunchy. Six good points for sixpence. Makes you one shade lighter. Scrunchy-Lunchy’s good for weans, puts an end to aches and pains. Take a Scrunchy-Lunchy tonight and tomorrow you’ll—’
‘Oh, shut up, you!’ Percy snarled at him, turning on his Chief Claviger, taking his hands away to reveal a frustrated face with big bewildered eyes. He hated vulgarity. It added to his distress that he was coming to hate Savage, yet once he had liked him. He had meant to polish a rough diamond, and now he hated the look of it.
Savage was delighted. He had got Percy really annoyed.
‘Aw, keep the heid,’ he said amiably, and went away.
Drunk with power at having got the better of Percy he caught up on the other members of the Brotherhood at the corner of Tulip Place and entertained them