The Boy Who Was Afraid of Butterflies - Chapter 5

Chapter 5 Living Up to Expectations

During the long summer holidays of 1949, I quietly reassert my former routines and to all appearances, rebuild my confidence. The nightmare of the Secondary Modern School is over, an aberrant episode in an otherwise charmed life. Once it is known that I have passed the 11+ and will not be coming back next term, both teachers and classmates lose interest in me and let me plough my own eccentric academic furrow, ready to humour me as some weird alien mascot. Saturday mornings at my grandparents are supplemented by afternoon forays into Kingston to fit me out with my new uniform. Snaps are taken on the old Box Brownie in the garden. I am squinting under my peaked cap, blazer tightly buttoned, short trousers ram-rod creased, grey socks neatly trimmed just below the knee.

On my dressing table, in pride of place, I have taped the single sheet of paper, embossed with the school’s emblem, in which I am welcomed by the new headmaster, authentic signature no less, ‘honoured to receive the first son of a former pupil’. For my father had been one of the first graduates of the new Grammar School in 1926 and now here am I, a piece of living history in the making. On the first day of the September term, in the vast assembly hall, in front of six hundred pupils, I am being singled out, called to the stage, while the headmaster delivers a heartfelt speech and the local newspaper journalist takes flash photos of me on my own, then posing with the Head and his phalanx of senior masters, some of whom had actually taught my father.

I welcome this ‘homecoming’ in marked contrast to my reception at the Secondary School and revel in the constant competition that is fostered and imposed in all matters academic. Every Monday morning, average marks of each class are read out in Assembly by the Head and those pupils who have achieved an overall A or A- for the week - or those who fell below C+ - are singled out for naming before their peers. I receive a full A in my very first week and do not fall below A- during September or October, receiving the weekly accolade with a mixture of pride and relief. My form-master, Mr Bolt, takes great personal interest in his charges, encourages us, and does not display the flashes of unsettling temper that disturbed me at the Secondary Modern School. The only eccentricity is displayed by the maths master who holds forth on algebraic equations from the depths of a swivel chair with his size 13 boots firmly planted on the desk, the sole vision of his authority. But I forgive this nonconformist behaviour on account of the fact that he is said to be a Welsh Rugby international.

Once a month we devote an afternoon to sport. The school has no local ground so the excited noisy band of boys overruns a red double-decker bus for twenty minutes and pours into the pavilion to change into rugby gear. My lack of expertise at rugby doesn’t seem to bother anyone here. Each week I don my emerald green jersey and navy blue shorts and at the end of the game, I carefully fold them, still spotless, ready for next month. In two whole years of rugby, I touch the ball four times. Being slight of frame, I’m banished to the sidelines on the extreme flank of the wing three-quarters and our Welsh international, being a perfectionist to boot, sees that the ball never completes a series of passes to penetrate the wastes where I hang about, before he blows a piercing whistle and shows us - in his intense way - how it should have been done. It doesn’t worry me. It means I can remain anonymous in my mediocrity, without comment. Once, some-one fly-kicked the ball and it came swirling at me high out of the clear blue sky; I could not avoid it, but it spun out of my clutching arms into touch. For a moment I thought I was going to be target of Watkins’ sarcastic tongue, but the international saw no great potential in me and didn’t bother to show me up in front of the others. Sometimes one of the other boys would make a comment about the cleanliness of my kit when everyone else trooped in, muddy and scuffed, to the steaming communal baths. I prefer it when it rains, because the rugby field floods and this ritual is replaced by a cross-country run, at which - to my surprise - I find I can turn in a quite creditable performance.

In a sense, this ability comes quite naturally. I am thin, actually skinny, and I live off my nerves and always go everywhere in a desperate hurry; I never walk except when ordered to do so. I wouldn’t call it training or practice, but every day I leave home at the last minute and have to run a mile to the station where I pick up the electric suburban train for the two station journey to Surbiton where my school sits on the edge of a deep cutting, some five minutes‘ walk away. Each morning my mother chivvies me from beneath the sheets, tries to get me to eat more than a cursory bowl of cereal or piece of toast; then she helps me strap my satchel to my back, before I set off, impatient, crossing the main road where the double-deckers thunder past my home, down the suburban residential avenue under the overhanging lilac and laburnum trees. Next I reach Tudor Road, half a mile long, and straight as a die, with chestnut trees every twenty yards like telegraph poles, their ancient roots cracking the asphalt of the pavement. I fix my eyes on the small clear circle of light at the end of the tunnel of trees and pound relentlessly towards that goal, the satchel hammering on my back in time with the rhythm of my feet.

Sometimes, if I am early, I overtake Miss Chatterton, teacher of the girls in the Sunday School. She works somewhere in London and catches the same train, although I always avoid her at the station and seek an empty compartment, so that I can uncurl the strap and drop the window, letting the air knock the breath from my lungs. When I catch sight of her familiar silhouette, I often slacken my pace so that I don’t need to overtake her; have to make polite conversation for a moment or two, until I feel I can rush on, breathing an inner sigh of relief that I can revert to my impenetrable daydreaming.

One morning I see her shape ahead but another person is with her. Trotting alongside, with a satchel nearly as big as she, is a young schoolgirl, neatly dressed in navy and scarlet uniform, with a small-brimmed navy hat firmly placed upon her brown bobbed hair. At first I’m inclined to hang back, but that means walking for nearly the whole length of Tudor Road and I am physically incapable of that forbearance. I burst into a run, intending to pass them with no more than a curt word of greeting, but Miss Chatterton calls out to me, and when I hesitate, she smiles and says:

“This is my friend, Suzanne. She sometimes walks with me to the station, don’t you , dear?”

I don’t know quite what to say to this, so I just say “Hello.”

The girl smiles at me with her big brown eyes and nods. She is a year or two younger than me. We fall into step, the adult in the middle, and walk the rest of the way to the station together. Then the girl peels away to walk over the riverbridge to attend a private school nearby. From that day onwards, I quite often join the pair, half-way down Tudor Road. The girl isn’t always there; then I feel strangely disappointed, though I let myself be walked with, and talked to. When Suzanne is there, she never says very much. Miss Chatterton always takes the lead. But it seems easier to talk to the adult when the girl is there; I don’t have to concentrate or answer every question.

Each morning, at my destination station, I take the side exit and walk up the pathway that climbs to the top of the cutting, behind iron railings that protect railway land. At the top, opposite the school entrance, is a clearing of rough ground overlooking the railway where I meet a couple of other boys from my class. We hang around, waiting for the whistle to echo round the playground opposite, before making a dash across the road, because, each morning, two trains always pass each other moments before the school start time. Firstly, from the left, under the high arches of a bridge, sidles an express from London, black smoke curling from the wide chimney as the train slows to stop at the junction platform, before continuing its journey to a South Coast holiday resort. Then, even as we note that engine’s number in our Ian Allan ABCs - the trainspotters’ bible - there is a shrill scream as another train belts through the station and comes swaying down below us, wheels and rods flashing in the morning sunlight, the big green locomotive bearing the name of some sea-faring hero.

When school finishes for the day at four o’clock, I amble with two of my friends down the path to the station for the twenty minute wait for my train home. This is the best bit of the day for these twenty minutes coincide with much railway activity. Standing on the platform, near the passenger overbridge, I peer at the shimmering rails, waiting for the signals to clear. From the west, far in the distance, a low howl heralds the thunderous passage of the sleek blue or green streamlined pacific, sparks shooting high in the air, as the green coaches flash by with exotic roofboards bearing the names of Bude, Padstow, Ilfracombe. I am left in the wake of swirling brown smoke drifting in the breeze left by the rapidly departing train now already tearing up the tracks to London. I squint towards the lofty arch of the bridge outside my school. A couple of minutes pass, then a cloud of billowing white cumulus appears while the greyness of the dirty locomotive blurs into the background. I watch with rapt fascination as the great snorting hulk rocks in slow-motion anguish, exaggeratedly striving to keep its four paltry carriages moving at a barely respectable speed. It makes one final lunge for the overbridge and its whoofling smoke explodes thickly downwards, ricocheting off the platform, wrapping itself round lone figures like a sea-mist swirling in at change of tide.

I and the other boys dance a jig on the platform. “A Paddlebox!” we shriek at one another while mystified bystanders stare in puzzlement at the receding object of our outburst. A porter casts us a jaundiced eye, then selects a wooden destination board and slots it into the platform indicator with a clatter. We begin to chant at one another the familiar refrain,

“…………….the rear four cars for…………Liphook, Liss, Petersfield, Rowlands Castle, Havant, Bedhampton, Fratton, Portsmouth and Southsea.”

With a final cackle of laughter, two of my friends sweep their satchels from the platform and heave themselves onto the high running boards of the dull green electric train now clucking fussily into the station. A final banter of insults, see you tomorrow, and they are gone.

I’m left alone on the platform, and cast my eyes once more in the direction of the overbridge. Which will come first, my own electric or the milk train? On this occasion the two appear together on adjacent lines like Siamese twins until the rails swing apart and my train begins to brake. I watch the dull glowing orange patch on the advancing steam engine’s smokebox and recognise immediately the old faithful ‘Torrington’, this engine a fixture on this menial duty for the past six weeks, daily showing the evidence of its mechanical decline. The regular clatter of the six wheeled empty milk tanks on the rail ends, exacerbated by loose fishplates, and the pungent aroma of Welsh coal still fill my senses when I realise that my train has come to a halt; I awake jerkily from my reverie and slam the door on the empty compartment, hanging out of the open window until I’m sure that we won’t catch the milk train up.

Christmas came and went. My first end of term report was glowing in its fulsome praise. It did not snow that year until late January and then it did not last, turning quickly to brown slush that schoolboys kick at one another. I am well into my second term and growing confidence daily.

On this particular day it had been raining. I come up the alleyway hopping over the puddles, burst through the backdoor and fling my satchel on the kitchen chair. I bend to stroke the cat which rubs itself against my legs, until it realises I have no titbits to offer. The living room is strangely quiet. The fire glows dully in the fading light, but the electric light has not been switched on and I realise that only the diminutive figure of my maternal grandmother is waiting for me.

“Where’s everyone gone? Where’s Mum?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” is all my grandmother will say. It seems an odd response, lacking her usual warmth and it disturbs me. Instead of diving for the sideboard and begging a biscuit before tea, I kneel awkwardly on an upright wooden chair by the window and peer nervously down the garden path, drawing a face with my finger in the condensation.

I stare morosely through the leafless cherry tree that stands over the grassy mound of the now derelict Anderson shelter down to the large apple trees at the bottom of the garden, where the alleyway to Nanna’s house runs in front of the fence that obscures the weed-filled abandoned tennis court. I let my eye wander absently over the outhouse where the copper and mangle are kept, and the coalhouse and outside toilet are overrun by the bare scarred stems of the climbing rose that is the garden’s crowning glory every summer. The gutter on the corner is loose and I watch the rainwater drip steadily, monotonously, onto the stone border of the Begonia bed. My eyes flit back to the path leading from the hinged gate to the backdoor. My father has recently cemented it and I held the length of wood with which we made angular patterns, attempting to simulate crazy paving. When I bowl the tennis ball against the backdoor, I pretend I’m Ramadhin or Valentine, exerting a wily spell over the English batsmen, because, from time to time, the ball spins off one of the artificial ridges in the concrete and turns into a violent off- or leg-break, although I never know which to expect.

I am roused from my musing by the click of the gate and look up to see my mother. Her short stature is emphasised by the shawl she wears that keeps her naturally bouncy hair flat across her forehead and she is wearing her old gabardine raincoat, buttoned against the drizzle that has started once again. I am disturbed by the break in the routine, there is something about my mother that doesn’t look right. In a flash I bound off the chair into the kitchen, so that I am right in front of her as she opens the door, shakes the raindrops away and painstakingly shuffles her shoes against the doormat to brush off the mud she has picked up in the alleyway.

At first she doesn’t say anything. I look desperately into my mother’s face, searching for an explanation, and notice amid the droplets of rain shining on her cheek, that her eyes are watering.

I begin nervously, “Why?”

My mother doesn’t answer, but seems to be searching for words that will not come. I try again.

“What is the matter? Where is everyone? Where is Jill?”

“She’s with Auntie Doris.”

My mother pauses again, then takes a deep breath, brushes a tear from her eye and looks me in the face.

“I’ve got some bad news for you, David. Grandma was taken ill this morning and I’m afraid that she has died.”

I am stunned. I knew something was wrong but was unable to imagine what. For a moment in the stillness, I flounder for meaning, hoping against hope that I have misunderstood.

“What do you mean? My grandma?”

“I’m very sorry, David, yes. I’ve just been with your grandpa now, looking after him, trying to get him to rest.”

The tableau breaks. I suddenly crumple and uncharacteristically let go, bursting into tears. It has been a long time since I have allowed myself to be hugged or kissed, but I make no sign of protest when my mother takes me in her arms and clasps me against her wet raincoat. We stand there for ages, motionless, while I release the pent-up emotion that lies within me, as though this grief has unlocked the cell in which I have been imprisoned for many a year. I sob until my body shakes and mother gently eases me into the living room and sits me down, drying my eyes with her own handkerchief. My other grandmother fetches a glass of water and hovers solicitously around me. It is odd, I think. Last time someone died, it was my granddad, but that was many years ago. I remember vaguely feeling puzzled at the time, I did not relate the event to myself at all until I’d seen my nanna crying. That is what upset me most.

Then I begin to picture my grandmother, her dumpy figure, her double-chin, her smile, her eyes that twinkle behind the thick lenses of her spectacles, her elaborate hats with flowers and feathers in the brim, and I won’t see her again. This overwhelms me again and the tears start to flow once more. I lay my head in my arms and slump over the table.

I feel exhausted, curiously flat and drained, when the others begin to come home. Jill is returned by Aunt Doris near bedtime, dry-eyed, but subdued. We just look at each other, without saying anything. My dad comes home for a short while, but only to fetch an overnight bag, as he’s going to stay with grandpa. He is too busy, too preoccupied, to say much; he has a private conversation with mum in the kitchen, then he’s gone again.

That night, when it was time to say my prayers, I sit bolt upright in bed while mother settles on the eiderdown.

“How old was grandma?”

“She was only sixty-two, David.”

“How did it happen?”

“She had a stroke. That’s a sort of illness that paralyses the mind, it comes very suddenly. Some people who have a stroke live on, but they cannot move parts of their body or talk properly. It was a bad stroke, David, it was probably as well that she died, because if she had lived, you would not have recognised the grandmother you knew and loved.”

“When did she die?”

“This morning. She was at the hairdresser’s. It happened very suddenly; before they got her home she was dead. They sent for grandpa to come quickly, but she was unconscious by the time he arrived.”

A strange feeling comes over me. I think back over my day. As my grandmother lay dying, Uttley and I were joking about Mr Watkins’ shoes perched on the desk, showing every sign of having walked through dog dirt fairly recently. I think of my excitement when I ‘copped’ the ‘Paddlebox’ and underlined ‘30446’ in my ABC of Southern Railway locomotives. If I’d known my grandma was already dead, what would I have felt like then?

What do I want to pray for? Prompted by my mother, I ask God to look after and comfort grandpa and dad. And that makes me look at mum with anxiety. My father has lost his mother. What if I lose mine? Does that happen? Do people die young? I know my parents are both only thirty-six, younger than those of most of my classmates. We had compared that information recently.

After mum has gone downstairs, I begin to wonder what will happen on Saturdays now. Will I still go to help grandpa in the garden? Who will take me shopping in Kingston? Does it mean I shan’t have to run through butterflies next summer?