Like A Charm

DOWN AND DIRTY by Fidelis Morgan

My mummy always tells me to keep out of trouble, and when I go on a train I know I must be very careful. I should always go into a crowded compartment, she says, and if there aren't any then I must pick one with a lady in it, especially after dark. I must never go in a train carriage on my own with a man.

This is because men sometimes hurt people on trains, and stuff their bodies under the seats behind the heater, although I have looked down under the seats sometimes and do not think there is enough room there for a dead body. Ladies do not murder people, especially on trains. Ladies only poison their husbands sometimes, and that was usually in the old days when ladies wore long skirts. As strangers, ladies make safer travelling companions, my mummy says.

But not all ladies are nice. I will not tell her about the lady I met on the train yesterday, because she was not very nice at all, and said some horrible things about both Mummy and Daddy.

My daddy is a war hero. He flew planes during the war at a special airbase for the Airborne Forces Experimental Establishment at Sherburn-in-Elmet in Yorkshire. He is a test pilot now, a wing commander, at Boscombe Down. The planes he flies are not for passengers, but for battles. It is the most dangerous job a pilot can have, because no one knows whether the plane he flies will stay in the air, and sometimes they go very fast and explode in the sky. He has been testing a plane called the TSR2, which was in the newspapers, so I suppose he is quite famous compared to most people's fathers.

Mummy is a housewife. This means she organizes the staff (a cook, a cleaner and Daddy's secretary) and has her hair done a lot. Sometimes she has migraines and has to go to bed in the daytime. On those days I have to be quiet and not play the gramophone. But I prefer playing with my trains to listening to pop music anyhow.

I like trains very much. At home in my bedroom I have a train set. It's a Hornby, 'O' gauge. Most boys have 'OO' electric trains, but the 'O' trains are bigger, and you have to wind them up with a key. I don't like electric trains. I like steam.

Every week I go on the train. Wednesday is my mummy's day for beauty treatment, so I use my pocket money on that day, buy a ticket and go somewhere on my own.

I like to go to Eastleigh to see the engine shed. I sometimes go up to London. I know the London trip well because whenever my mummy goes shopping I go up to town with her. She goes first class and always eats breakfast in the restaurant car on the train, where she has coffee poured from a silver pot with a neck like a swan by a waiter called Ginger who wears a red short jacket, and in London she likes to go to Harrods and buy things. When I go with her we go in a black taxi where two of the seats face backwards and pop down out of the wall. I like taxis. We do not have taxis like that in Salisbury.

Once I made Mummy laugh in the taxi. We came over a bridge across the River Thames and passed a big black building with a tower and a clock. Mummy says everything in London is black because of the Germans. They dropped a lot of bombs and the smoke from the bombs made everything in London black, just like the inside of the chimney. But that was almost twenty years ago now, so I wonder why the rain has not washed all the soot away?

I recognized the building with the clock because there is a picture of it on the HP sauce bottles, so I asked Mummy if it was the sauce factory.

She thought this was very funny. It is really a place called the Houses of Parliament and some people call it Big Ben, though I think that is pretty funny. Whoever thought of calling a house by someone's name?

When I said that thing about the sauce factory Mummy ran her hand through my hair and smiled at me. Her smile sometimes looks quite sad when she looks at me, and sometimes she even has tears. But anyway I think she shouldn't do that thing with my hair anymore, because I am not a child.

The lady on the train touched my hair too. But I don't like to think about it.

When I have been to London I have seen some very famous trains. I have seen The Golden Arrow which goes to France, and The Royal Scot. I wish I could see Mallard. Its number is 4468. It is blue and it broke the record for the fastest train at 126 miles per hour. In America the trains are huge, and I would like to see them. I am saving my pocket money because if I went to America I would go to Disneyland. Perhaps when I was there I would also see Superman or Batman. I like the Justice League of America very much. The Americans are lucky. I wish we had superheroes in England too. It's funny though, because they did not come and save President Kennedy, even though he saved the world from the atom bomb and the Communists. I think Dan Dare is probably better than Superman, even though he has to use a plane to fly.

In Swindon, which is very famous for railways, I saw Hereward the Wake and Shooting Star. These are sister trains. They are 7P6F 4-6-2 class with the numbers 70037 and 70029. I collect train numbers and write them down in a little black book. Mummy gave me the book. It has a leather cover with a gold line round it. When I get home I take my ABC books out and underline all the trains I have seen. I also write down the names of special trains, like the Winston Churchill, Tintagel and Boadicea, and also Pullman carriages. Pullmans are special passenger cars for very rich and posh people. They have a brown and cream livery and little fancy lights on the tables. I would like to go on a Pullman but I think I will never have enough money for that. The Pullmans are divided into kitchen cars, brake cars and parlour cars. I have seen Agatha, Evadne, Lucille, Philomel, Ursula and Sheila. One day I would like to go on The Brighton Belle or the boat train to Southampton, but when I got to Southampton I would not go on the boat because I am frightened of the sea.

The lady on the train was called Rosemary, which is also the name of a Pullman parlour car. She was wearing a bracelet, and that was what started the trouble. I do not believe what she told me about that bracelet. Mummy says that because people think I am simple they sometimes make things up and I do not have to believe everything a person says even if they are grown-ups, because grown-ups do not always tell the truth. And also she says that sometimes grownups do nasty things to people like me. Like that Rosemary in the train. But I don't want to think about her. She is a nasty piece of work.

As long as I remember my manners and am polite Mummy says I will always be all right, because I am quite handsome. I am tall and have dark hair. It is cut in the usual way for a man. I would like to have long hair like The Beatles, but I go to the barber with my daddy and the barber always uses the electric razor up the back of my neck. Daddy says The Beatles are like pansies.

I wish Daddy liked me a bit more, and I could play cricket with him or even football. Daddy does not like me to call him Daddy. I tried one day calling him Dad instead but he says there is no need to call him anything in front of people. Most people call him Bill, which is short for William. No one I have asked knows why Bill is short for William, but you would think Bill was short for Billiam, which would be a stupid name.

I don't know why Daddy doesn't like me very much. He is usually very friendly with men. He goes to the Red Lion with them and plays darts and drinks beer. But he never takes me with him. Even though I am over eighteen.

I can remember when I was still practically a child and he'd come to my bedroom in the night and read me stories by the nightlight, which was a red and white mushroom. When he thought I was asleep he would talk to me, saying horrid things in a hissing voice. One day he spat on my bed. But I didn't tell Mummy about that, even though I was frightened that she might think it was me who spat on the quilted counterpane. I am more scared of Daddy than Mummy. He has got very strong hands. Daddy whispered in my ear one night that I was not his son, and one day he told a lady in a shop that I was bitten by a monkey when I was a baby, but I cannot believe that this is true because whoever heard of monkeys living in Salisbury except when the circus comes? I am not saying that I think my daddy is a liar, though perhaps he was confused because he might have had a drink in the pub at lunchtime or something. I don't like being alone with him very much, and I told Mummy this but she says I must always remember how brave Daddy is, and how he risks his life every day to put the food on our table, although I have never seen him do this. Cook usually puts the food on the table. Daddy's work sometimes means he has to go away for a few days and sometimes he stays out till very late at night and comes in shouting because he is drunk. Sometimes this makes Mummy very sad, and while we are sitting watching the television I can see that she is crying, even though we might be watching something funny like Steptoe and Son or Benny Hill, or the comedy bits in the Black and White Minstrel Show.

Rosemary, the lady I met on the train, was like the girls in the Black and White Minstrel Show. They all wear sparkly dresses and twinkling top hats and smile all the time. They are called the Television Toppers and I think they are all six foot tall, the same height as me. But this lady was much smaller than that, although she was very pretty with that kind of yellow hair, all fluffed up, like Marilyn Monroe before she killed herself.

Her jumper was very tight for a lady. It was pink. She also wore a tight skirt and had a shiny patent leather handbag. She was in a compartment without any men, which was why I went and sat with her, although I wish I had not. After the guard took our tickets I saw that we were both going to Salisbury. I had been up to Vauxhall, which is a good station for trainspotting as all the trains coming out of Waterloo go through it. I saw quite a few Q1s. The Q1 locomotive weighs 51 tons and 5 cwt and its driving wheel is 5 foot 1 inch in diameter. But mainly I saw diesels and electrics, which are not much fun. Electrics don't even look as though there is a locomotive, just a row of boring passenger cars. Soon I believe there will be no more steam trains and that will be the beginning of the end for the railways. And a man called Doctor Beeching is planning to give many stations and branch lines the axe. In my opinion doctors should stick to looking after people, and not waste their time fiddling about with our trains.

After Basingstoke (shed number 70D, Southern Region) nearly everyone got off the train. We were travelling on 80031, a standard 2-6-4, 88 ton 10 cwt locomotive with a 5 foot 8 inch driving wheel. When I boarded the train at Waterloo I went to the buffet and treated myself to a sandwich and a cup of tea. I like the tea on trains, but most people do not.

When I was finished I moved along and sat in a crowded second class slide-door compartment. But at Woking all the ladies in the compartment got out, and I was left on my own with two men in bowler hats, so I moved along and found one near the back of the train with only two women in it.

Rosemary, in the pink pullover, was reading a magazine about pop music. Every time she turned the page her gold bracelet jangled. I couldn't take my eyes off the bracelet because it was all gold charms, and one of them was a wonderful train. It was a very early locomotive, maybe even a model of Stephenson's Rocket. There were other charms on the bracelet but I wanted to look closely at Rocket. One day I will go to the Science Museum in London and see Rocket, maybe even touch it if there is not a fence in the way.

The woman Rosemary sighed when she saw me watching her and pulled at her jumper, so I looked down at my lap. I had bought myself a copy of The Eagle at Waterloo, and read that, trying to sneak glimpses at the charm over the top of the comic. Dan Dare, pilot of the future, was as usual in a good adventure, fighting the Mekon.

The lady who was sitting beside me on the window side started to make a noise like tch tch. She was quite old, probably about thirty-five, and fat, and wore a tweed suit like Daddy's secretary wears, but Daddy's secretary is even older and fatter than this woman. The fat lady was staring at The Eagle, so I thought maybe she wanted to look at it. I held it out to her and said: 'Perhaps, madam, you would like to read it when I am finished.' But she made a noise like a steam locomotive when it comes to a station stop, and turned her back to me. Rosemary giggled when the fat lady made this noise and gave me a wink, so I winked back and pulled a face to show I knew I was in trouble with the fat lady. Rosemary rolled her eyes in a conspiratorial kind of way, and then returned to reading her pop magazine.

I did not think that Rosemary would turn out in the end to be so horrible. If anyone was going to be unpleasant I would have thought it was the fat lady, but the fat lady got out at Basingstoke.

I think Rosemary is what Mummy would call a common little tart.

As the train pulled out of Basingstoke station it started to rain. The windows were grimy, and the water came down in clean lines cutting a diagonal pattern in the dirt.

I shuffled along into the fat woman's place near the window and started to look out. Sometimes at Basingstoke there are some good locomotives waiting in the sidings, sometimes even rows of Pullman cars.

'Perhaps you'll let me read your comic,' said Rosemary, out of the blue. I handed it to her.

'I like the train on your bracelet,' I said. 'Is it articulated?'

She pulled her sleeve down again, almost as though my mentioning the bracelet made her feel she had to hide it. Perhaps, I thought, she took me for a jewel thief or a robber who would overpower her, rip the bracelet from her petite wrist and leap from the train with my ill-gained booty.

She turned the comic over and started to read the back page. It was a special cut-out article on the TSR2. She seemed to be very interested.

'Do you like planes?' I asked. 'I live near Boscombe Down.'

'My boyfriend is a pilot there,' she said. 'He's been working on this plane.'

'So does my daddy.' I clapped my hands together with excitement. 'Do the wheels on the train move?'

'I should bloody hope so,' said Rosemary, 'or we'll never get home before Late Night Line Up.'

I laughed and she smiled as she fiddled again with the bracelet. I think Late Night Line Up is a boring programme, and after it the TV shuts down for the night so I am usually in bed anyway.

'It's pretty, isn't it?' She rolled her fingertips along the wheels and I could see them moving, but I could not see whether the wheels pushed the connecting rod in and out.

'Did you buy it?' I couldn't take my eyes off the wheels. I wanted to touch them too.

'My boyfriend gave it to me,' she said. 'He was stationed up north during the war. Leeds. He found it while they were clearing up after some Nazi bomb which almost blew up the flat he lived in. No one claimed it so he hung on to it.' She pulled up her sleeve, held her arm out and jangled the bracelet. 'He used to keep it in the cockpits with him as a lucky mascot, but when these new planes came in, reaching such high speeds, he said it was a liability. He was frightened it would fly off the hook and knock his eye out, so then he kept it in the flight office. Until he gave it to me, anyhow.' She handed The Eagle back to me, then pulled her sleeve down, folded her arms and edged nearer to the window. 'How quickly it gets dark now. It'll be Christmas before we know it.' She chewed the inside of her cheek.

The sky was dark grey with rain clouds and the sun had dipped below the horizon. You could see little cream coloured lights in people's houses, and parallel lines of yellow street lamps as we passed through Overton. We were on the fast train so we didn't stop at the station.

'Perhaps your boyfriend knows my dad.' I called him Dad because I didn't want her to turn all funny like Daddy does on me sometimes when I am with him and he meets people who work at the base and I call him Daddy. 'He's a test pilot. He specializes in down in the dirt manoeuvring. Low flight, you know. Down and dirty. He's very brave. He's got medals.'

'Maybe.' She didn't seem interested and went on staring out into the dark. 'What's his name?'

So I told her, and I remembered to say Wing Commander. Mummy does this in shops and then people are very nice to her and start bowing and scraping. I said Bill, too, rather than William. I wanted Rosemary to think I was very casual with Daddy, as though we go down to the Red Lion for drinks together every weekend.

'What's your name, then?' She had knotted her eyebrows together and was peering at my face.

'Tommy,' I said. 'Tommy Birkenshaw.'

'Tommy?' She pursed her lips, her eyes went sort of slitty and she crossed her legs, one over the other. 'You're rather good looking.' She sounded surprised. 'I thought…' Her voice drifted off, and she suddenly clicked open her handbag and pulled out a compact and lipstick. 'What's your mummy like, then?' She was swiping the lipstick back and forth across her lips as she spoke. It was a pale coral pink, like a peeled shrimp.

'She's very nice,' I said. 'Very kind. Can I see the train on your bracelet?'

'Yes, yes. Of course.' She wiggled her lips together and thrust the lipstick back into her bag, wiping each end of her mouth with her fingertip. 'Is she pretty, your mummy? How old is she?'

'She's forty. I think she looks like Sophia Loren.'

'Are you a mongol?' She was fidgeting with her hand inside her handbag, as though she was looking for something. 'You don't look like one. You look normal.'

'I'm just a bit slow, that's all. Mummy says…'

'Your mummy is a domineering cow,' she said, almost as though she was spitting at me. I was frightened of her now, and wanted her to stop talking and just show me the bracelet. 'And your daddy is an ungrateful bastard, and you can tell him Rosemary said so.'

I tried to get her talking about the bracelet again. 'Does the rod go in and out of the piston cylinder?'

She opened her mouth and laughed in a loud way, like men laugh in the pub. I could see her uvula go up and down at the back of her throat. 'In your father's case, deary, it does that rather too often for his own good.'

I had barely noticed that the train had stopped. We were at Andover, and I prayed someone would get in, or that Rosemary would get out. But the platform was deserted, and I knew her ticket was for Salisbury, like mine.

The whistle blew and the train puffed out into the dark countryside.

'I might go to the buffet now,' I said, getting up.

'No. Stay!' She grabbed my wrist and the train rattled and swayed as it crossed some points. She pulled me down beside her. 'Tell me more about your daddy. Is he working late much at the moment?'

'Dad always works late.' I could feel the spiky pieces on the charm bracelet pressing against my leg as she pushed her hand down, narrowly missing my flies.

'Well, he's not been working late with me this last few weeks, that's for sure. Does he smell of scent?'

'Of course not.' I was trying to pull away from her, but she was stronger than you'd think and I didn't want her to think I was being rude. 'Dad's a man. Men don't wear scent.'

'Why don't you kiss me?' Her hand was rubbing now, up and down my thigh. It made my trousers feel uncomfortable. 'Go on, Tommy. Give me a nice snog. And when you get home you can tell your dad all about it.'

'It's all right, thanks,' I said. 'I'd better be off now. We'll be there soon.'

She pushed me back and I fell along the seat. She sprawled on top of me, wriggling and slobbering. It made me feel quite dizzy and frightened.

'It's all right,' I said again. 'Perhaps you can show me your bracelet now, Rosemary. That would be nice, wouldn't it?'

She was tugging at my belt and unfastening my fly buttons. I grabbed at her hand to make her stop, but her bracelet got caught up in my watch-strap and my hand was trapped beside hers as she slid her fingers into the front of my pants.

'Please…' I tried to sit up. 'The guard will come…'

'The guard never comes after Andover, you silly bugger. Not unless people get on.' She was pulling on my willy, making me feel all strange and hot.

'Please can I get up now, Rosemary?' I said, staring up at my mac in the nets for luggage. 'I think I have to go to the toilet. Please can I go to the toilet?'

Her face loomed above me and she planted her lips on mine and started putting her tongue into my mouth. I think she was a bit mad, because whoever would do such a thing as that?

'Give it to me,' she moaned, sliding her mouth over my lips. 'Give it to me.'

I didn't know what she was talking about, and kept wondering what Mummy would think if she saw me with all this pink lipstick Rosemary was smearing all over my face.

'Come on, come on, come on… Put it in. Put it inside me…' Her hand was right inside my pants now. I tried to pull it away, but my own wrist was bound to hers by that darned bracelet. So I yanked my hand away very hard and the bracelet sort of snapped and was hanging from my watch-strap.

That stopped her all right.

She glared down at my arm and started shouting at me. 'What do you think you're playing at? You've gone and broken it.'

She snatched towards the bracelet, but I pulled my arm back and she lurched forward because the train was braking for the signals at Idmiston Halt.

She tumbled down on to the floor as I pushed her away from me. As she hit the ground her head caught on the edge of the seat and there was this cracking noise, like when you snap a twig or bite into a Ryvita.

Rosemary didn't move, she just lay curled up on the floor between the seats. Her head was twisted right round on her neck, like a doll.

The train made a sound like a gasp and moved slowly forwards.

I sat down and fiddled with the bracelet, which still hung from the catch on my watch-strap. I could not remove it.

'Rosemary?'

She was still on the floor. She looked as though she was asleep.

The yellow rows of streetlights outside showed that we'd be arriving in Salisbury in a few minutes' time.

'Rosemary, I can't seem to get this bracelet off.'

She didn't reply.

Her eyes were still shut and the train was slowing down. We'd be home in a few moments.

So I did something terrible.

I just yanked at the thing until it was free, snapping one of the links.

We were passing the Scats Seeds factory now. Any second the train would pull in at the station.

'Rosemary?'

But she was still fast asleep.

I didn't know what to do.

Castle Street. The train was really slowing down, clouds of steam puffing past the window in the yellow light.

I couldn't take the bracelet with me. That would be stealing. But if I just left it on the seat – well, anything might happen to it. What if a passenger bound for Exeter got in and pinched it? Rosemary would lose the bracelet and it would be my fault.

I knelt down and tried to get to her handbag, which lay on the floor beneath her. But she was pressing the bag against the radiator grille and I didn't want to break that too. Imagine! To break both her bracelet and her bag in one day!

I could see that her skirt and jumper didn't have any pockets.

Her skirt was high up her legs. Because it was a mini skirt I could see her pants.

Maybe…

Well, it seemed as safe a place as any.

I pulled the opening of the pants towards one leg, and managed to slip the bracelet into her knickers, but my fingers were all slippy. I just couldn't make it stay still. The dratted thing just kept wriggling out of my hand on to the floor as if it was alive. 'Put it in,' she had said, when she was messing about with my flies. 'Inside me.' I gripped the bracelet and shoved it hard into the bit between her legs until it seemed safely tucked away.

It might be a bit uncomfortable when Rosemary woke up. But that would teach her for calling Mummy and Daddy names, and for playing about with my pants.

I stood up, brushed myself down and straightened my hair in the mirror on the wall under the luggage rack. There was a little bit of that pink lipstick on my cheek so I made sure to rub it off with my finger. I wiped my fingers clean with a tissue and put it into the waste bin, like Mummy says I always must.

I knew I ought to try to wake Rosemary up again. But if she went sailing on to Yeovil and Exeter St David's, so what? It would serve her right. She could catch the next train back, even if that was the milk train.

I took my mac from the luggage rack and stepped over her, being careful not to tread on her hands, which lay in my path.

Before leaving the compartment I patted my pocket, making sure my train-spotting book was still there before I slid the door closed after me.

After all, I'd seen quite a few Q1s today, and also noted down a string of Pullman cars on the boat train.

How awful if I'd had a wasted day.