Page 5 of Strangers in Time

After a cup of lukewarm tea and bread with margarine and jam and perhaps a slice of fried Spam, she would be off to her job at a bakery shop one jarring bus ride away from here.

He firmly shut his eyes when she opened his door and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead, which she always managed to do despite her rheumatism. She touched his head and then brusquely cuffed him on the ear.

He sat up, annoyed. “Eh, what wasthatfor, Gran?”

“Wet hair, Charlie,” she exclaimed, looking very cross. “You’ve been out again. Tell me, and no fibs now.”

“Had lice in my hair and ran the tap to get ’em out,” he said defiantly.

“Lice!” she gasped. Her fingers automatically started to search his head. “I best get the Lysol then.”

“It’s okay, Gran. The matron at school give me somethin’.”

He was pleased with this lie, since it not only explained the wet hair but also reinforced the equal untruth about his still attending school.

Her fingers left his hair as she straightened and looked down at him. “You worry me, Charlie. If only I could keep up with you. If only I weren’t so…old!”

“You ain’t soveryold, Gran,” he replied kindly.

“Even if we do win this bloody war, there’s so much out there that can hurt you.”

“I’m strong, Gran.” He made a muscle with his arm.

“If you were fed proper, you’d be stronger still.”

“We’ll get by, Gran, we always do.”

She rubbed absently at her mouth where he knew she’d recently had a tooth out. She didn’t have the shillings necessary for the gas or cocaine used by the dentist to dull the pain. They pulled teeth for free so long as you could endure the trauma of having them forcibly yanked.

“You deserve proper parents, luv.”

Charlie’s still forming Adam’s apple quivered at this unexpected comment. “Well, I ain’t got none, whether I deserve ’em or not.” Before she could reply to that he added, “You’ll be late, Gran. And me too. Workin’ on some mathe-matics at school.Veryinterestin’.”

She looked him over. “You’re growing ever so tall, Charlie, like your father was, while your mum was such a wee thing.” She eyed the diminutive space. “This cupboard—you need something bigger.”

“Why, it’s more space than I know what to do with, really. And we got a kitchen, and a loo all to ourselves. We’re practically rich.”

“Well, you can thank your granddad for that. Many around here respected him. And we got this flat because of that respect. Your dad’s people lived in Whitechapel with six families to two rooms and no loo. Lord, I don’t know how they did it. Now, you’re quite sure you didn’t go out last night?”

The way she looked at him—a bit mournfully, he thought—took all the fun out of his lying.

He eyed her squarely. “Thin’s are different, Gran. They just are. And we need to do what we need to do to keep goin’. And I’m almost grown now.”

“No, you’re still a boy, and providing for you ismyjob.”

Charlie’s defiant look melted into an even grimmer one. “I ain’t been a boy for a long while now, Gran. And I can leave school when I turn fourteen next year.”

“No, Charlie, education is too important. You need to stay in school, luv.”

“We need to eat too,” he replied. “And if the war keeps goin’, I can join up.”

“They can’t conscript till you’re eighteen,” she countered, her expression full of dread.

“They didn’t have to make Dad go, did they?” retorted Charlie, making Gran’s lips quiver. “And I hear boys are fakin’ their ages. They carry the rifle at seventeen, maybe sixteen. Bet we’re still fightin’ the Germans when I’m sixteen.”

“No, Charlie. Pray to God the war’s over long before then. There’ll be nothing left of us. And you’re all I do have left.”

His expression softened and he touched her hand. “See here, Gran, the Yanks have got the Jerries on the run, ain’t they?”

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