Read Online The Kingdom by the Sea by Robert Westall - Free Book Online Page B

thosehundreds of years ago. The feller who comes from Newcastle gave me five bob for that one. They usually make women’s beads out of them. But that one wi’ the fly was special. It was sent to a museum in America.” Then he said, “Not much of a morning. They’ve not been bombing these last few days. No fish. Come on and I’ll give you some breakfast.”
    They staggered up the beach, carrying loads of charred wood, as well as full bags of sea-coal and slank.
    He learnt to live with Joseph; learnt when to stand up for himself, and when to bend.
    Joseph had moods. In the morning, he was as cruel and savage as a gull. If the dog got in his way, he would kick it, with those grey iron-hard bare feet. If Harry got in the way, he would kick him too. There was no arguing with Joseph in the mornings; he would get hysterical, screaming at you, so that his spit landed on your face. He would tell you to pack your bags and go.
    In the afternoons, especially if it was sunny, he would sing to himself, the old songs of a whole war ago.
    “Keep the home fires burning…”
    If he found something good in the afternoons, he would caper around like a boy. The afternoon they found the whole keg of butter, three-quarters buried in the sand, hegrabbed Harry and waltzed with him half down the beach, working out how many radio batteries the money from the keg would buy.
    At the end of the working day, after a mug of the vile tea, he would get dressed up in an old shiny black suit, and even boots, and cycle on his old butcher-boy’s bike up to the town of Amble, with his carrier laden with loot for the grocer’s and the second-hand shop. It was the only time he ever wore anything on his feet; and a collar and tie as well. He looked almost normal. When he came back, he would get the supper, and tell Harry word for word what he had said to the grocer, and how he’d put one over the secondhand dealer. That was the time to ask him favours. He would even give you things, without being asked. Sometimes the things were useful, like a clasp-knife with blades honed down till they were like sickles. Sometimes they were useless, like a photograph of a little girl in a Victorian sailor-suit.
    Later in the evening, he would drink from black bottles, and put his arm around you, and tell you the story of his life, or philosophise.
    “Everything’s good for something, Harry, everything’s good for something. A dead fish has no use for its body, but the seagull that finds it has. A wrecked ship’s no good to a sailor, but it’s good for firewood. This war’s bad for sailors,but it’s good for me. I find dead ‘uns, you know. Drag ‘em above high water, and go for the coastguard. They pay me a pound for every dead ‘un. An’ when I die, I hope I go on the beach. Good for the fish, good for the gulls. I don’t want to lie in no dark hole when I’m dead.
    When he started to talk about being dead, it was time to retire to the shed for the night. Lie cuddled up with Don, and listen to Joseph shouting at himself, and at his dead mother, and at God.
    And then it was morning again.
    You never asked what you were eating with Joseph cooking. But the funny thing was, it always tasted good. And you never got ill. And you learnt so much; it was like being back at school again.
    Until the day the bombers came. The British bombers.
    They hadn’t been on the beach more than two hours, when the first bomber came. Hard up the coast, at zero height, skirting Beacon Point and the Scars: a mutter, a roar, a scream of engines. Tiny bombs dropping from its yellow belly, at the yellow markers floating so peacefully in Druridge Bay. It was a strange bomber to Harry; not one out of the war magazines or aircraft-recognition booklets his dad had had. It had a little solid pointed nose, and two pointed engines, and an oval tailfin. Must be a new sort.
    The tiny bombs exploded, sending up plumes of whitefoam, and banging Harry’s ears painfully But Joseph was dancing