Cuckoo in the Nest. Michelle Magorian

said Harry suddenly interested.

      ‘Barmy,’ said Elsie.

      ‘Mum, what about tonight?’

      ‘He’ll be that mad.’

      ‘I don’t mind him being mad with me, as long as you don’t get hurt.’ And he leaned over and touched the cut on her forehead. She blushed again.

      ‘I slipped.’

      ‘I don’t want you “slipping” again,’ said Ralph, not believing.

      ‘He wouldn’t hurt me for the world, Ralphie, honest. But it’s difficult with your Auntie Win here and . . .’ She stopped.

      ‘She says males give you headaches,’ said Harry.

      Ralph laughed. ‘I can believe it. Look, Mum, if I do this job, it’ll mean I’ll be out of the way part of the evening. That’ll give him more time to cool down.’

      ‘Not if he knows where you are.’

      ‘I don’t know what he thinks is going to happen to me. I’m not suddenly going to turn up for breakfast in silk pyjamas, a Chinese dressing-gown and a cigarette in a long cigarette holder, am I?’

      ‘You try telling him that.’

      ‘At least it’ll show I’m trying to look for work.’

      ‘That’s true. But even if you did get it, what about the rest of the week?’

      ‘I’ll find something.’

      She gave a nod. ‘I better get a move on. If I don’t queue up at the butcher’s soon we’ll have carrot stew again.’ She picked up his empty mug and plate and left him to scour the paper.

      Searching the advertisements, everybody seemed to want girls, either to be trained as nurses or child nurses or as maids or cooks. There were a few light engineering apprenticeships going but he would only come up against the same problem. Slowly he looked down the small ads again. His eye fell on the word ‘Winford’. Another ‘housemaid wanted’ ad probably. ‘Gardener and odd job,’ he read out surprised. ‘Youth wanted.’

      The yard door gave a slam and was followed by the whirring sound of a bicycle chain. There was only one other person who had a bicycle. His father. ‘Come on, Harry!’ said Elsie, folding the comic and rising.

      ‘What you doin’?’ he protested.

      ‘We need some fresh air.’

      ‘You gone daft?’

      ‘Out!’ she ordered.

      ‘Don’t boss me!’ he started.

      ‘I ain’t.’

      ‘Yes you are.’

      ‘I’ll be Snowy White again.’

      His eyes lit up. ‘You’re on.’

      ‘Not that way,’ she said grabbing his darned sleeve. ‘We’ll go out the front.’

      ‘We ain’t visitors,’ he said. Just then they heard the sound of hobnail boots stomping up the yard. ‘Oh yeah, I get. Good idea, Elsie,’ Harry stammered and he and Elsie fled out of the door.

      A sick feeling crept into Ralph’s mouth. He looked down quickly at the paper and read: Trained and untrained mental nurses and attendants. Male and female required. ‘Now there’s a possibility,’ he murmured attempting to make himself laugh. He didn’t think his father would find it amusing though.

      The back door slammed.

      ‘Is his lordship out of bed yet?’ he heard his father demand.

      ‘He didn’t get back till this morning.’

      ‘He shouldn’t have been out. Ruddy pansy.’

      ‘John. Don’t say that.’

      ‘Where is he, then?’

      ‘In the kitchen. Looking for jobs in the newspaper.’

      ‘He don’t want work. He just wants to lay about reading pansy books.’

      By now Ralph’s fear had disappeared. Anger had replaced it. The door was flung open. His father attempted to tower in the doorway, his stocky frame stretched to its ultimate.

      ‘This is between him and me, Ellen,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘No more hiding behind his mother’s apron.’

      Ralph rose furiously to his feet. His father slammed the door shut. ‘Don’t think you’re too old for a hiding, lad.’

      ‘Go on then. Hit me. But I’ll hit you back.’

      ‘You what? I could wipe the floor with a little toe-rag like you.’

      ‘And that’s what you’d like to do, isn’t it? You’ve been dying for an excuse to do it ever since I came back home. So why don’t you get on and do it?’

      ‘That’s a lie. I’ve gone out of my way to help you. I got you a job for life. Steady, stable, with one of the best companies around. Good hours, good pay and a pension scheme. But oh, no, that’s not good enough for you, is it? Well, I wash my hands of you now. You’re on your own. You find your own work.’

      ‘I didn’t resign, Dad. They fired me.’

      ‘I know they fired you. For reading a pansy book.’

      ‘No!’

      ‘You answered back.’

      ‘I answered, that’s all. I forgot I was supposed to keep it secret I could speak French.’

      ‘Don’t give me that. You wanted to show off.’

      ‘No. Funnily enough, this week was the first time in months that I started to feel more relaxed. That’s why I was off guard.’

      ‘Relaxed! You’re there to work.’

      ‘In the lunch break.’

      ‘Dinner! We don’t need your lah-di-dah names round here.’

      ‘Dinner then,’ he said exasperated. ‘I tried to hedge round it, but in the end the foreman got it out of me, that I had School Cert.’

      ‘Clever enough to get a ruddy book exam, but not clever enough to keep your trap shut.’

      ‘I was shocked too, Dad. My work was as good as anyone’s. I worked hard. They just had it in for me.’

      ‘I wonder why,’ he said sarcastically. ‘You must think I was born yesterday. I heard what you said to him about it being the happiest day of your life.’

      ‘He asked for it. He looked so smug when he gave me my cards. He said that the manager didn’t think it fair that someone with my qualifications should take an apprenticeship away from someone who hadn’t. And I’d only cause trouble later on when I got bored. He was delighted, Dad. That’s why I said it to him.’

      ‘You didn’t have to dance around.’

      ‘I had to, to make it convincing, otherwise he would have thought it was sour grapes. I wanted to make sure I rubbed that satisfied smirk off his face.’

      ‘You did that all right. Everyone knows now that I’ve got a rotten apple for a son.’

      ‘I’ll find a job.’

      ‘You’d better, because if you don’t pay your keep, you don’t eat here. You don’t sleep here. Joan’s been paying her way for three years now. She ain’t going to carry you, sonny. Neither am I or your Auntie Win. And I know that you’ve already spent part of your last pay on that pansy theatre of yours. That’ll have to stop too.’

      ‘If I work hard, I’m entitled to spend some of it on something I like, or is there one rule for everyone else in this house, and another for me?’