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Authors: Alison MacLeod
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secret.
Orson was nearly two years older than Philip. While most boys from the Grammar walked home every afternoon to Hove, these two both descended the hill to Brighton, and Orson seemed not to mind if they walked together, with Philip pushing his bicycle, even though he was only eight. But that spring day, out of the blue, something happened. Orson said, ‘Come over to mine.’
*
Upstairs in Orson’s room, Orson was on the rug on all fours with his head under the bed where even Ivy wasn’t allowed to look, he said. As he eased the secret out from under the bed, Philip’s jaw went slack.
Orson said he’d made it himself from a second-hand inductor, a crystal detector, and plates he’d stolen from his deaf grandmother’s set. ‘It even picks up Radio Bremen.’
‘Lord Haw-Haw …’ said Philip.
Orson nodded. ‘Lord Haw-Haw.’
An oatmeal box held the inductor in place. A bit of gauge wire made the connection. In metalwork class, he’d soldered earphone connections to the base. Then he’d strung aerial wire along the picture rail in his bedroom and down the outside wall, where he fixed it to a pipe he’d found at the bottom of Hal’s wardrobe. He’d dug a hole in the ground, packed it with soot, as the science master advised, then plunged the pipe in, earthing his connection. The case was plywood and parcel string. A semicircle of paper marked the positions of the stations. The tuner was a knob from the dead-specimens cabinet.
Orson had defied the quiet of his house.
Sometimes Philip wished he was also two years older and ten years smarter, but that afternoon, he felt only grateful that Orson had entrusted his secret to him. Besides, Orson could always be counted on to have something no one else had: a pen that wrote in invisible ink, a stink bomb for Assembly, a code-cracking book, tin cans on a long string, and now, best of all, a home-made secret wireless through which Lord Haw-Haw would speak.
‘With rare honesty, the English Prime Minister revealed his true goals to the world when he declared a war of destruction on Germany.Even neutral observers were surprised at how brutally he rejected the Führer’s peace offer. No one in the past months, years and decades has worked harder at unleashing a European war, with the goal of destroying Germany, than England!’
Philip sighed and slipped out from beneath the headset they shared, an earphone apiece. They’d already listened for almost two hours but Lord Haw-Haw had said nothing, not a single word more, about Brighton.
‘I have to go now, Orson …’ Outside, the sky above The Level had bunched into a fist of dark cloud. Lightning flashed like faulty electrics.
‘Not yet.’ Orson reached for Philip’s satchel and pulled out the cornet of sweets. ‘Because today our subject is “Hitler at the Royal Pavilion”.’ He popped a bull’s-eye into his mouth.
The air was sticky. It needed to rain. ‘No, really. I’m off.’
‘I’ll begin.’ On a shelf above the bed, a German helmet gleamed. Hal had brought it home for him, Orson said; his trophy of war. Now, he lowered it on to his head and seemed to meditate on the line of his school tie against the roll of his belly. In the corridor outside, Orson’s mother crept past. The thought of her out there made Philip nervous and he sat down again.
Orson adjusted the helmet’s chinstrap. ‘After Hitler does all his work at his Pavilion HQ, he likes to take a break and paint outdoors. He carries an easel into the garden and sticks his thumb in the air and makes his eyes into slits. Sometimes he puts on a smock and a beret.’
Philip reached for a humbug in the cornet and sucked ruefully. ‘What does he paint? Flowers?’
‘Not flowers .’
‘People?’
‘He never paints people, you donkey. He’s not interested in people .He paints the Pavilion because that’s what he can see, and because he has liked it ever since he saw it on a postcard.’
‘Who in Brighton sent him a
Orson was nearly two years older than Philip. While most boys from the Grammar walked home every afternoon to Hove, these two both descended the hill to Brighton, and Orson seemed not to mind if they walked together, with Philip pushing his bicycle, even though he was only eight. But that spring day, out of the blue, something happened. Orson said, ‘Come over to mine.’
*
Upstairs in Orson’s room, Orson was on the rug on all fours with his head under the bed where even Ivy wasn’t allowed to look, he said. As he eased the secret out from under the bed, Philip’s jaw went slack.
Orson said he’d made it himself from a second-hand inductor, a crystal detector, and plates he’d stolen from his deaf grandmother’s set. ‘It even picks up Radio Bremen.’
‘Lord Haw-Haw …’ said Philip.
Orson nodded. ‘Lord Haw-Haw.’
An oatmeal box held the inductor in place. A bit of gauge wire made the connection. In metalwork class, he’d soldered earphone connections to the base. Then he’d strung aerial wire along the picture rail in his bedroom and down the outside wall, where he fixed it to a pipe he’d found at the bottom of Hal’s wardrobe. He’d dug a hole in the ground, packed it with soot, as the science master advised, then plunged the pipe in, earthing his connection. The case was plywood and parcel string. A semicircle of paper marked the positions of the stations. The tuner was a knob from the dead-specimens cabinet.
Orson had defied the quiet of his house.
Sometimes Philip wished he was also two years older and ten years smarter, but that afternoon, he felt only grateful that Orson had entrusted his secret to him. Besides, Orson could always be counted on to have something no one else had: a pen that wrote in invisible ink, a stink bomb for Assembly, a code-cracking book, tin cans on a long string, and now, best of all, a home-made secret wireless through which Lord Haw-Haw would speak.
‘With rare honesty, the English Prime Minister revealed his true goals to the world when he declared a war of destruction on Germany.Even neutral observers were surprised at how brutally he rejected the Führer’s peace offer. No one in the past months, years and decades has worked harder at unleashing a European war, with the goal of destroying Germany, than England!’
Philip sighed and slipped out from beneath the headset they shared, an earphone apiece. They’d already listened for almost two hours but Lord Haw-Haw had said nothing, not a single word more, about Brighton.
‘I have to go now, Orson …’ Outside, the sky above The Level had bunched into a fist of dark cloud. Lightning flashed like faulty electrics.
‘Not yet.’ Orson reached for Philip’s satchel and pulled out the cornet of sweets. ‘Because today our subject is “Hitler at the Royal Pavilion”.’ He popped a bull’s-eye into his mouth.
The air was sticky. It needed to rain. ‘No, really. I’m off.’
‘I’ll begin.’ On a shelf above the bed, a German helmet gleamed. Hal had brought it home for him, Orson said; his trophy of war. Now, he lowered it on to his head and seemed to meditate on the line of his school tie against the roll of his belly. In the corridor outside, Orson’s mother crept past. The thought of her out there made Philip nervous and he sat down again.
Orson adjusted the helmet’s chinstrap. ‘After Hitler does all his work at his Pavilion HQ, he likes to take a break and paint outdoors. He carries an easel into the garden and sticks his thumb in the air and makes his eyes into slits. Sometimes he puts on a smock and a beret.’
Philip reached for a humbug in the cornet and sucked ruefully. ‘What does he paint? Flowers?’
‘Not flowers .’
‘People?’
‘He never paints people, you donkey. He’s not interested in people .He paints the Pavilion because that’s what he can see, and because he has liked it ever since he saw it on a postcard.’
‘Who in Brighton sent him a
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