Tom All Alone (4)

      The days had a routine that he liked.  Get washed and dressed and have his Corn Flakes or Ready Brek for breakfast.  Dad had already gone to work, and after breakfast Russell went off to school.  On mornings when mum wasn't working, he'd play in the sitting room.  Crayoning in his colouring books, or lining up his cars or his plastic soldiers while mum bustled around in the background, dusting, vacuuming, boiling the washing.  He'd listen to her singing along to a tune on the back room wireless, catch glimpses of her going to and fro - her dark curls, the silver-glint of her earrings, the flash of a smile through red lips if she looked along the landing and saw him.

      On those mornings, too, they'd walk along the side roads, past the Mission and the new flats, and over Quill Bridge to the Co-op for the shopping.  At the checkout, he'd watch the woman type in the numbers in the big till, then mum pay from her purse and take the receipt with the little blue stamps that he'd help her later to stick in the book she kept in the kitchen cabinet drawer.  On the way home, they'd stop for a few minutes on the corner of the path by the railway line, then look along to the tunnel at the station and wait to see the train.  Sometimes it would seem like ages to wait, and they'd get cold if it was a winter morning, and he'd stand there looking at that dark tunnel mouth, like the mouth of a huge monster, until at last the yellow face of the train emerged from the darkness.  It was gathering speed as it went past them, and he'd have to hurry to count the carriages - the faces inside them blurs in the grey. 

      Or they might cut through to Woolworth’s in the High Street if they needed anything the Co-op didn’t have.  He was dazzled by the size of the store, like a huge cavern of glass and lights and voices, the ringing of tills, the goods arranged in massive glass cabinets, or on stalls like at the market.  The bustle of people with their baskets and trolleys and pushchairs, counting coppers from their purses.  The women standing behind the counters, like nurses in their pink pinafores and caps, fetching things, weighing things, tipping him a wink or a smile.  Mum used to get the biscuits there because they were cheap – the loose ones from broken packets: jam centres, Bourbons, Custard Creams, Malted Milks, Digestives, Lincolns with the knobbles all over that he liked to scrape off with his teeth.  Nice biscuits covered in sugar – his favourite to dip in tea because they’d always break off and leave some biscuit porridge at the bottom of the cup, which he could spoon out.  She’d get him some loose sweets, too – lemon sherbets or aniseed twists, scooped into a small white bag and twisted at the corners, and he’d crunch them all on the way home.

      The afternoons were quieter.  She might make some cakes in the scullery, mixing the ingredients together with a wooden spoon and giving him the bowl afterwards to spoon up the scrapings.  Or if it was sunny, they’d take a walk down to Leader’s Gardens by the river, where he could play on the swings while she sat by and smoked a cigarette.  She’d have a bag of stale bread, which they’d feed to the birds that would flap down around them – the pigeons and sparrows and thrushes. He giggles at them as they babble and squabble around, jabbing at the pieces and at each other – their underwings the colour of cinders and ashes, their little broken-stick legs, their beaks peck-peck-pecking at the ground.  The wonder as they erupt into flight at a sudden movement or sound – a honk from a river barge, some people walking along the path, the swing of his arm as he throws a piece.  When the bread is gone, they walk along by the railings to the park gate, and he looks through at the river - the great brown wash of it, flowing past the banks and slipways towards the bridge, taking drift and leaves like patches of scab past the hollow hulks of the barges.  The bridge itself there, looming grey against the sky - the traffic moving across it like tiny animals.  The double-deckers, their passengers like insects frozen in glass.  Further upriver still, on the iron bridge, a silver train clatters across and is swallowed in the valley of buildings on the far side.  The river licks and laps on the piers and abutments, rippling through in bright flashes where the sun catches it - flicking between the railings like frames from a slow-moving film.

      “Old Father Thames,” mum says, swinging his arm in rhythm with each word.

      They stop for a moment and she stoops to do up his top coat button and pull the scarf around his reddening cheeks.

      “Time to go home for a nice hot cup of tea,” she says, smiling.  She takes out her handkerchief, dabs it on her tongue, then uses it to wipe the corners of his mouth, and he squirms.

      “You’ll do, love,” she says, and they start walking again, through the gate, then along and up to the main road home.  He looks back and catches a last sight of the river, the wintry sun sparkling on it like glitter on a cake – a million tiny glints, like fishes glimpsed in the grime.

Nan would usually pop up when they got back and the two women would sit and have a natter over a cup of tea and some biscuits by the fire.  The weather.  The news.  The neighbourhood gossip.  The two of them sitting there, watching the flames over the rims of their cups as the spoke between sips.

      "Vera Holt's laid up again with her chest."

      "George said she wasn't too good yesterday.  She does suffer with it."

      "Not surprising, the blessed draughts through these windows.  I must get Dan to look at the one in my back room.  It comes in around the pane.  Rattles like a trolley bus."

      "We've got some putty in the cupboard.  I’ll mention it when he gets in."

      Mum re-filling their cups from the pot.  Nan spooning a sugar into hers and giving it a good, ringing stir.

      "I'll bring that Christmas pudding up later. You can all stir it."

      "That's the next thing to think about."

      The magic word.  Christmas.

      "When's Christmas, mum?"

      "Someone's got ears.  Not yet awhile."

      "Not too long, love."

      "Can we go up to the shops and see Father Christmas?"

      "He won't be there yet.  When he's there."

      "I want a Batman outfit for Christmas."

      "You'll have to behave yourself, then.  He'll ask you if you've been good, don't forget."

      The snap of the fire.  Mum throws her cigarette end into it and blows out a stream of smoke.

      “I must write to Uncle Sid.  See if he still wants to come for Christmas.”

      “We’ll pop down and see him sometime, one Sunday.  Get the Green Line.”

      “He doesn’t get about much now, poor Sid.  He’ll need help if he’s coming.”

      “Dan can fetch him.  It won’t be a problem.  Be nice to have him with us.”

      The two of them silent, then.  Sipping their tea.  Watching the flames.  The only sounds the flames burning, the coals settling.  Skipper tinkling his bell.  The mantel clock ticking away the minutes.

      And then the spell would be broken.  The women moved.  The things were washed up.  Russell came in from school.  Dad came in from work.  Mum started dishing up.

      After dinner and the clearing away, mum would sit him on the draining board in the scullery, his feet in the sink, and give him a strip wash with soap and a flannel and hot water from the Ascot.  His favourite part was when she put the warm flannel over his face and rubbed it in, and he could smell the soap and feel the warmth.  He knew the soaps by their smell.  His favourite was Wright’s Coal Tar, with Pear’s as a second.  He liked the way that he could see through the Pear’s bar, and would hold it up to look and get soap in his eyes.  Sitting like this, his chin came level with the scullery window sill and he could see across the back yard to Mr and Mrs Holt’s window, and he’d sometimes see them at the sink doing their own washing up.

      After he was washed and dried down with the towel, it was into his pyjamas then up by the fire to watch Crossroads before bed.  Sometimes, as he got older, he could stay up as late as Coronation Street, which nan would come up to watch when it was on – sitting in the armchair nearest the fire, her shoe heels digging into the carpet as she sat hunched forward with her elbows on her knees and her hands clasped together as if in prayer.  When the adverts came on, mum would nip out to put the kettle on and go to the toilet and dad would poke the fire and put some more coke on to build it up.  When the end music came on, Tom would crouch himself up quietly on the settee and hope they didn’t see him or forgot about him.  But mum would get up then and hold down her hand.

      “Come on.  Bed.”

      In bed, she would have to wait while he made sure the pillow was in the dead-centre at the top of the bed.  He’d measure it first with his hand width.  Then he’d look from left to right, left to right, swinging his head – left, centre, right, centre – to make sure.

      “Come along, Tommy,” she’d say.  “It’s alright now.  You’ve got to go to sleep so I can get back upstairs.”

      Eventually he would be satisfied.  But then he might spot a moth fluttering around the light bulb, and that would set it all off again.  She’d have to pretend to kill it.  Or wait until it had settled somewhere where he couldn’t see it.

      “They won’t hurt you.  They drop to the floor when the light’s off ‘cos they can’t see without it, same as you can’t.”

      The process would often take ten minutes, and he’d string it out as long as possible.  Asking for a story, which she’d have to make up.  But then finally it was time, and she'd put her hand against his forehead and kiss him.

      “Nu-night, darlin’.  God bless.”

      “Dob-less,” he’d repeat.

      And then she’d be gone, and all was darkness.

(continued)  https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/tom-tom-turnaround-5-i