Novel 5.

Chapter 5

Loneliness.

At the bottom of their fairly long garden, was a wall. This was the rear, or the side, if you want to be pedantic, of some kind of office building and showroom, and if they came out of Finbar's garden gate and turned right, passed the other three houses, in the group of cottages, they would reach the lane which led to the street.

They called that 'the lane' and Finbar always thought that he was the little boy who lived down the lane, as in the nursery rhyme 'Ba Ba Black Sheep. ' . . . three bags full: one for the master, one for the dame and one for the little boy who lives down the lane.'

All his life he would identify with that little boy; the little boy who lived down the lane.

At the top of the little lane, the main road led south to the left, and right to almost the centre of Birmingham - a mile and a half away.

The cottages were, obviously, workmen cottages: in the nineteenth century, this area was farm land. Either that or something to do with the railway, although the company who owned the showroom, also owned the four cottages.

Every week, Finbar would be entrusted to deliver the eight shillings, and eleven pence (8/11d) rent at the front office.

The opening of the lane was wide enough for a motor car and at the end of the lane, passed Finbar's house on the way up, behind a fence, was a railway line and an embankment up to it.

Finbar didn't know where the train led to but it went into Moore Street Station, in the city centre, to accommodate trains from London.

When the Callaghans moved there first, they had to get used to the noise of the trains passing, and in the summer times the embankment would, invariably, catch fire as the steam trains passed, so the fire brigade had to arrive down the lane and douse the fire.

When Finbar was off school, weekends and bank holidays, he played in the garden by himself. Once in a while he ventured up the lane to the street: to the right, the big Victorian houses, where the school teacher lived, and to the left the way to school.

He lived a little more than a mile from his school, which was for the Infants and Juniors who were due to leave at the age of eleven, and go to the senior school till they left school altogether at fifteen.

Then off to the scrap heap of a factory, a building site or the army. Anybody born before around 1938 would have to serve two years, at least, in either the army, navy or air force.

It was too far for any of his friends at school to come and play so nobody did.

The nearest child who lived fairly close by was Gillian Murdoch who lived half way up his lane, which was the rear of a posh shoe shop on the main road. Gillian went to a private school, somewhere, and she didn't play with him very often.

Most days Finbar stood at the end of the garden, pathetically looking back over the gate, and his parents would see him standing there, not knowing what to do.

Once in a while they took him for a long walk to Cannon Hill Park, which had beautiful gardens, and other times they went to another park which was mostly asphalt and a hard tarmac surface.

There was a display there, for a while, maybe a post war tour from the government, of a jet aircraft, with some tanks, and his parents took him to that. He loved sitting in the cockpit of the Hurricane, and he also sat in the tank, which impressed him enormously.

But most of the time he was in the garden by himself.

They rented a television set, which was common practice in those days, from a shop at the bottom of Balsall Heath Road, which was opposite the lane where they lived. It broke down sometimes and the owner of the shop came to fix it for them.

They didn't have a television in time for the coronation of The Queen, but they saw that at the cinema, in fact that was where they saw the news and also sporting event highlights which was usually football and boxing.

Turning left outside of the garden gate, led to the lavatories. On the left of those was a wash room where previous residents communally did their laundry.

None of the current crop bothered with the washhouse but in any case the other three cottages were occupied by very old people.

There was another door, which faced the lane and that was to a small storage space. On that door was a little sign 'Sheriff's Office; Finbar Callaghan.

Finbar had nailed that notice on the door; it was the outside of his wooden pencil case which he had used, and written the copy in crayon. That was when he played cowboys; by himself.

Sometimes, after paying the rent, he sat outside on a very low window ledge and watched the world go by.

In those days, that part of his world attracted a lot of West Indians, mainly Jamaicans, and he loved to see the men walking in their double breasted suits - especially the powdered blue ones – and they usually had fairly tight bottoms to the trousers which would balloon out slightly as they walked; and could they walk.

Across the street was a pub, 'The Wagon and Horses, which his dad frequented at weekends and that was on the corner of Balsall Heath Road.

To the left, the other side of the showroom, was another bigger pub, The Castle and Falcon, which was next to an opening to the rear of the shops.

All shops and businesses, a doctor's surgery a little shop and then a Protestant church.

He knew that doctor's surgery as his mother knew the 'live in' caretaker who was a sixty year old woman from Limerick, Ireland.

All shops and businesses; not a child in sight.

Maybe a couple of hundred yards north, was an orphanage for boys. They walked past him once a day, if he was sitting there, and the appearance of the boys made Finbar think about his mammy and daddy, and how much he loved them. But at least the boys had somebody to play with. He played at school, with his friends, but they rarely came to see him at home. The orphans wore long grey stockings, pulled right up and big black boots. A big women led them who had very short hair and a long black rain coat and a loud hawty voice.

Almost opposite the little window ledge, where he was sitting, was Vincent Street, and on Saturdays he took Vincent Street to Saint George's Convent.

In the first shop doorway, he had seen something that he remembered for the rest of his life: an advertising card which read 'Room to let: No Blacks, no Irish and no Dogs.

One day a new boy came into class. His name was Shamshad Khan and he came from a new country called Pakistan. He palled up with Finbar as they both were from some other country.

The only foreign thing people could tell from Finbar was his accent, which faded by the day but there was no hope that the colour of Shamshad would fade, not that he wanted it to fade – ever.

Other boys in the class had probably never seen a person of colour and Shamshad was from a city called Lahore and he told Finbar of a 'Fair' in Lahore and the kite flying.

Finbar had seen kites in his comic books and one day his dad Patrick made a kite and they took it to Cannon Hill Park and sometimes it would fly; his daddy ran along with the kite and nine times out of ten it dropped and poor old Patrick dragged it along on he ground

Of course he had other friends at school and a highlight was swimming at Moseley Road Swimming Baths.

Finbar, with his class, went there once a week for swimming lessons; the shallow end which was around three feet deep; the middle of the pool was five feet and the deep end, with the diving boards, was six feet three inches.

Shamshad Khan never went swimming and no matter how hard Finbar tried to get him to come he would refuse.

His excuse was that he had no swimming trunks and Finbar told him that he could get a slip; a slip is all it was as it was just a piece of thin cloth to tie around your waist with a piece of string which was attached; it looked a bit like a baby's bib.

The class walked from School, up Clifton Road itself and onto Moseley Road and to the swimming baths building which was situated on the west side of the street; it took a lot of supervision by the teachers getting the children across busy streets and the walk took about fifteen minutes or so.

After the swim the children were allowed to buy Wagon Wheels or other pieces of chocolate.

After a lot of nagging from Finbar Shamshad Khan finally decided to go and they trotted on their usual route; Finbar was delighted that his friend was coming along.

When they arrived, Finbar shared a cubicle with Shamshad; the cubicles went the length of the pool with the boys changing rooms on the left and the girls on the right.

Finbar and Shamshad's cubicle was by the deep end and Finbar quickly got changed and ran to the shallow end to join everybody else; they started with the same exercises every week which consisted of holding on to the bar, which encircled the pool, and kicking their legs out at the back to simulate swimming, by kicking their legs, furiously, splashing and getting splashed. They did this for quite some time and soon everybody was in the pool and having great fun; except Shamshad Khan.

Finbar got out of the pool and went to the cubicle to sort him out.

When he got there Shamshad was still in his socks, but couldn't sort out the slip. He couldn't undo the previous knots, and after Finbar tried to help him for a while he had to go back to the pool.

The teacher looked at Finbar and wondered where he had been as he continued splashing.

A few minutes later Finbar looked back towards the cubicle and saw Shamshad jumping into the deep end; he had his hands in a kind of dive position with his palms flat and as he hit the water there was an enormous splash; Finbar wondered what was going on and when he didn't see him come up he shouted to the teacher “Shamshad Khan has jumped in to the deep end.”

“Don't be silly” the teacher said and started to supervise some children at the other end of the line telling them to kick harder.

Finbar looked back up to the deep end and saw Shamshad's head bob up and then disappear again.

“Look sir! Look!” he shouted.

The teacher looked up as Shamshad’s head came up again – then disappeared.

All were ordered out of the pool and the teacher ran towards the deep end; the children kind of wandered up there too.

Why didn't the teacher or a member of the baths staff just get in and pull him out?

Shamshad kept coming to the surface and then he would go back down and it was obvious to everybody, that he was drowning – but nobody got in.

A grown up found a big hook on the side and tried to hook him but he went back down again under the six feet of water; the next time he came up he reached with his hand outstretched; he might have seen the hook, and was reaching for it, but all the children saw was his hand, with the fingers outstretched and it was an image the kids would have in their minds for the rest of their lives. Then they saw it go down to the depths of the deep end again and Finbar thought it was for the last time as there was a look of finality about it – they were kind of shooed away.

They did get him out but the children didn't see it happen.

Finbar got back to the cubicle and saw Shamshad's clothes pathetically lying on the floor; he thought it was his fault for persuading him to come swimming when he could have been back in the safe warm school.

When they were dressed and ready to go back to school, Finbar saw Shamshad sitting behind a desk with towels and blankets wrapped around him; he was breathing very deeply and he could see his very frightened brown eyes staring ahead like a wounded fawn that had been rescued.

Chapter 6

The Liberties.