plastic tray. He took it up. It read:
Be OK soon.
Your best friend, George.
And Charlie smiled. Then he laughed. Then he wept. And the stripes of light on the ceiling, of steel-barred window, snuffed out like a light.
The week dragged by. But it went. And the reduced food rations Charlie was on proved to be one of the reasons why the time dragged: because a kid could think of hardly anything but food. Starving. Every minute of the endless days he was starving.
(But I survived.)
Getting out it wasn’t like the last time, when he was first in this hellhole, and freedom was experienced as a relative thing. Not something fixed in your mind as meaning being back home, after school, messing around with your mates. Relative. It was a relative thing. And so was the food. For Charlie discovered that he could hold himself back when it came time to eat; unlike the other boys who were always getting told off for being “animals!” by a housemaster at meal times. Not Charlie. Not any longer. He felt above that.
He was in the punishment squad for an unspecified period. As if the cell confinement wasn’t enough. Right then, Charlie feeling this strength in his mind he didn’t know, or wasn’t quite sure existed.
(I can take it.)
Morning started with him being got up with the two kitchen workers. They got to have a shower, he didn’t; for him it was straight to work in the kitchen peeling spuds forthe evening meal, buttering piles of bread for school sandwiches, with Mrs Rosser in his ear at every turn, shrieking, “Faster! Butter that bread faster!” Wiping the drops of her spit from his face, hating her, but still knowing she wasn’t going to break him. Or he hoped not.
After breakfast it was out in the gardens with Mr Weston. The big bull of a man roaring his every command as if a boy was deaf, do this do that, and being told the day long he was a “confounded, blithering idiot!”.
Maybe I am, Charlie thinking. But’d rather be what I am than what you are: I can see you’re not happy with the world, that you don’t feel your life has gone as you wanted. Or why else’d you be always yelling at boys who’d secretly like to know you, to hear your cop stories, if only you’d relax?
Digging. It was always digging with Mr Weston. Hands sore and bleeding, back killing a boy, every muscle aching at the end of a day. And still punishment squad duties didn’t finish.
Dishes every night. You’re the drier, was Mrs Rosser’s command. And she watched his every move, waiting for one small bubble of soap to be missed on a plate and she was grabbing a pile of dried and stacked plates dumping them back into the water — “Again.” Looking at him through those thick-lensed glasses that made her look even uglier. And Charlie wondering about all of them, the Home staff, why so many seemed unhappy. Wondering, too, if it wasn’t just him, his eyes not seeing them straight because of what was happening, what had happened. Getting the chance one evening when Miss Eccles was on duty to ask about his observations.
She did not look surprised.
“Charlie,” she said, “Your eyes tell you too much. Truth, that is. But it’s part of being an adult. Part of being of the times, I don’t honestly know. For Mr Davis, for example, he had — well, he has problems just like you or I. Mr Weston, he’s from another era when kids were seen and definitely not heard. Also, he was once a policeman, and from the days when a policeman was a big man in the community. That’s why he finds working here as just a gardener so difficult.”
“Fair enough on Mr Weston,” Charlie agreeing. “But why does he have to yell at everyone?”
“Power, my dear. He misses having power.”
“So what’s he like with you, Miss Eccles?”
“Very nice.” She took a boy by surprise.
“What, all the time?”
“Yes, all the time. You see, it’s a different face he feels he has to give to children, or young men as you almost are. Nor has
Be OK soon.
Your best friend, George.
And Charlie smiled. Then he laughed. Then he wept. And the stripes of light on the ceiling, of steel-barred window, snuffed out like a light.
The week dragged by. But it went. And the reduced food rations Charlie was on proved to be one of the reasons why the time dragged: because a kid could think of hardly anything but food. Starving. Every minute of the endless days he was starving.
(But I survived.)
Getting out it wasn’t like the last time, when he was first in this hellhole, and freedom was experienced as a relative thing. Not something fixed in your mind as meaning being back home, after school, messing around with your mates. Relative. It was a relative thing. And so was the food. For Charlie discovered that he could hold himself back when it came time to eat; unlike the other boys who were always getting told off for being “animals!” by a housemaster at meal times. Not Charlie. Not any longer. He felt above that.
He was in the punishment squad for an unspecified period. As if the cell confinement wasn’t enough. Right then, Charlie feeling this strength in his mind he didn’t know, or wasn’t quite sure existed.
(I can take it.)
Morning started with him being got up with the two kitchen workers. They got to have a shower, he didn’t; for him it was straight to work in the kitchen peeling spuds forthe evening meal, buttering piles of bread for school sandwiches, with Mrs Rosser in his ear at every turn, shrieking, “Faster! Butter that bread faster!” Wiping the drops of her spit from his face, hating her, but still knowing she wasn’t going to break him. Or he hoped not.
After breakfast it was out in the gardens with Mr Weston. The big bull of a man roaring his every command as if a boy was deaf, do this do that, and being told the day long he was a “confounded, blithering idiot!”.
Maybe I am, Charlie thinking. But’d rather be what I am than what you are: I can see you’re not happy with the world, that you don’t feel your life has gone as you wanted. Or why else’d you be always yelling at boys who’d secretly like to know you, to hear your cop stories, if only you’d relax?
Digging. It was always digging with Mr Weston. Hands sore and bleeding, back killing a boy, every muscle aching at the end of a day. And still punishment squad duties didn’t finish.
Dishes every night. You’re the drier, was Mrs Rosser’s command. And she watched his every move, waiting for one small bubble of soap to be missed on a plate and she was grabbing a pile of dried and stacked plates dumping them back into the water — “Again.” Looking at him through those thick-lensed glasses that made her look even uglier. And Charlie wondering about all of them, the Home staff, why so many seemed unhappy. Wondering, too, if it wasn’t just him, his eyes not seeing them straight because of what was happening, what had happened. Getting the chance one evening when Miss Eccles was on duty to ask about his observations.
She did not look surprised.
“Charlie,” she said, “Your eyes tell you too much. Truth, that is. But it’s part of being an adult. Part of being of the times, I don’t honestly know. For Mr Davis, for example, he had — well, he has problems just like you or I. Mr Weston, he’s from another era when kids were seen and definitely not heard. Also, he was once a policeman, and from the days when a policeman was a big man in the community. That’s why he finds working here as just a gardener so difficult.”
“Fair enough on Mr Weston,” Charlie agreeing. “But why does he have to yell at everyone?”
“Power, my dear. He misses having power.”
“So what’s he like with you, Miss Eccles?”
“Very nice.” She took a boy by surprise.
“What, all the time?”
“Yes, all the time. You see, it’s a different face he feels he has to give to children, or young men as you almost are. Nor has
Similar Books
