His Name Was Walter Page 2

  Lucas, still sitting at the table, was heard to sigh deeply. This seemed to make up Mrs Fiori’s mind. ‘That’s a great idea, Grace,’ she said warmly. ‘Much better than passing the book around. We don’t want to damage it.’

  ‘Can I go first?’ Grace begged, practically jumping up and down. ‘It was my idea!’

  She sounded really childish, and her eagerness should have been annoying, Colin thought, but somehow it wasn’t. He was getting to know Grace Leslie a bit better now. Grace wasn’t really pushy and conceited, as he’d thought watching her laughing with her friends and ignoring everyone else. She was just very enthusiastic, and so full of energy that she mostly did and said the first thing that came into her head.

  Mrs Fiori smiled. ‘No, Grace. Colin found the book. He should read first.’

  Colin swallowed, appalled. This was like his worst nightmare. ‘Oh — no — um — I’m not a very good reader,’ he blurted out.

  ‘You’ll be fine, I’m sure,’ Mrs Fiori said firmly, and he knew she’d shaken off the spell of the book and returned to brisk teacher mode. She’d made up her mind to give the quiet new boy from the country a place in the sun, and the new boy from the country had no chance of getting out of it.

  ‘We’ll sit at the table. Just shut that drawer again, will you, Colin, before we start?’ she added, glancing at Grace as if she didn’t trust her. Grace opened her eyes very wide, but it was true that her attention had strayed back to the open drawer as soon as she realised she wasn’t about to read.

  Colin did as he was told. ‘What can’t be cured must be endured.’ That had been one of his grandfather’s favourite sayings. Grandad would say it when there was drought, when the rains came early and wrecked the wheat, when a bill was bigger than expected, when the hens didn’t lay, when there was no marmalade left for breakfast. The old man’s voice was echoing in Colin’s head as he carried the book to the table feeling as if he were walking to the gallows. He could dimly hear Mrs Fiori ordering Tara to come and sit down between her and Colin, ordering Lucas not to get up, ordering Grace to leave the desk alone and hurry up, this was her idea …

  Colin sat down at the table and waited stolidly for Grace to sit down. Then, his ears on fire, he opened the book, showed the picture of the baby outside the hive, and began, haltingly, to read.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Once upon a time,’ Colin read, ‘in a dark city far away, there lived a boy called Walter who had nothing but his name to call his own. A name does not sound much, but it was everything to Walter, because only he knew what his real name was.

  Does this sound strange? Perhaps it does, but it is true. It happened this way—

  Lucas muttered something under his breath. Colin faltered and stopped.

  ‘Be quiet, Lucas!’ snapped Mrs Fiori. ‘If you’re not interested in the story, don’t listen! But don’t spoil it for everyone else! You can leave the table if you want to, but stay where I can see you, if you don’t mind.’

  Lucas looked at her impassively and didn’t move.

  Mrs Fiori thinks he’s got a computer or a phone stashed away somewhere, Colin realised suddenly. When she took Grace’s phone on the bus, and asked if anyone else had anything, Lucas just kept quiet and looked just like he’s looking now. That’s why she’s picking on him. That’s why she made him stay with us instead of walking to town — so she could keep her eye on him.

  Suddenly he felt quite sorry for Lucas Cheah. If computers were what Lucas loved, and what he was good at, why should he be forced to be bored out of his mind by having to go along with someone else’s idea about what was important in life?

  ‘Go on, Colin!’ Mrs Fiori said.

  Colin cleared his throat, allowed himself another quick glance at the painting of the baby on the hive doorstep, and began reading again.

  One night, a newborn baby wrapped in a black shawl printed with red roses was left on the porch of the giant beehive that was the city’s Home and School for Orphans. That baby was Walter. He was found at sunrise by a wizened old worker called Ida, who carried him inside to the Matron.

  The Matron looked down at the sleeping infant without a smile and with no surprise. It was not the first time a baby had arrived at the hive in this fashion, and it would not be the last.

  Pinned to the red-rose shawl was a lock of brown hair and a note in weak and straggling writing. The note meant nothing to old Ida, for she had never learned to read, but the Matron could read it well enough. It said, His name is Walter.

  It so happened, however, that there were two other Walters in the beehive already, so when the Matron made out the child’s official papers she gave him a name of her own choosing, to avoid confusion. In the Matron’s stern opinion, the baby’s mother had given up the right to name him when she left him to be cared for by others. And it could not matter to the child. Later that day, in fact, casting a practiced eye over the new arrival lying so quietly in his cot, and seeing how feeble he looked, the Matron wondered why she had bothered to give him a name at all. He would probably die in a day or two, anyway.

  But Walter did not die. Old Ida, who for her own secret reasons took special charge of him, somehow coaxed him through those early weeks. He did not thrive, but somehow he clung to life. When he was less than two months old a great plague came to the city, carried, it was said, by soldiers returning from a foreign war. The plague swept through the hive and many were struck down, the stern Matron among them, but Walter survived. So did Ida, and whether this was a good thing or a bad one for Walter, the reader will have to decide at the end of this tale.

  In the years that followed, Walter was treated no better and no worse than any of the other orphan boys who lived in the hive. The food he was given was tasteless, but enough. The bed he slept in was hard, but safe. The clothes he wore were rough, but kept him warm. School lessons were dull and droning, but gradually he learned all that the bees thought it right for him to know. He was quiet and obedient, so he largely escaped the beatings dealt out to rowdier boys for the sake of their souls. The name he was called was not his own, but he did not know this, so answered to it perfectly well.

  He was constantly told by the bees that he should feel grateful for all he was given, but in truth he did not feel much gratitude. He did not feel very much of anything, for in babyhood a protective shell had begun growing around his tender heart, and by the time he was seven years old, it was complete. He was rarely very happy, but rarely very sad either. The workers who cared for him knew their duty, and most did all that was proper, but he never heard a loving word or saw a loving face. He was never alone, but he was always lonely. He lived in a beehive, but he had never tasted honey.

  At night, when the other boys in his dormitory had gone to sleep, Walter thought he could hear the close darkness humming with ghosts. The ghosts of lost boys. The ghosts of the numberless bees who had lived, worked and died in the hive. Sometimes, though not very often, he thought of his mother. Had she been too poor to keep him? Had she been forced to give him up? Or had she simply longed to be rid of him? He had no way of knowing one way or the other. And after all, what did it matter? The result was the same.

  And so Walter lived, and grew. Since he is the hero of this tale, it would be pleasant to be able to say that he grew up tall, strong and handsome, but he did not. Some of the orphans who swarmed around him were perfect pictures of healthy young manhood, and were much admired. Some were plain, cheeky mischief-makers who made the other boys laugh. Some were hulking bullies who were hated and feared. But Walter was too quiet and undergrown to be either admired or feared, and his face was too delicate to be thought handsome in those days, and in that place. He had a few friends who were as quiet as he was himself, but the threads that held the group together were frail, spun by loneliness rather than by real affection. They broke easily and without pain, as Walter found with only mild surprise when his fourteenth birthday came and it was time for him to leave the hive and begin working for a living. r />
  There was a long silence when Colin reached the little bird picture that finished the page, and stopped reading. He looked up, carefully not meeting anyone’s eyes. He became aware that lightning was flickering outside the kitchen window, that the thunder was much louder. The window pane was streaming with water. Rain was pelting down. He hadn’t even noticed it begin. He supposed he’d read very badly, though strangely enough he didn’t feel as if he had. The time seemed to have gone very quickly, the words had slipped easily from his eyes to his tongue, and after the first couple of sentences he hadn’t stumbled at all.

  ‘That’s the end of the section,’ he said awkwardly.

  Grace, sitting opposite him, gave herself a little shake as if she were tossing cobwebs out of her eyes. ‘It’s awful that he had to start working full-time at fourteen!’ she said.

  Mrs Fiori stirred. When she spoke her voice sounded a bit slurred, and Colin wondered if she’d been asleep. ‘It seems young to us now, Grace, but it was once quite normal. And of course, in lots of other countries of the world, right now, children start work even younger. You know that, surely!’

  ‘Yes, but the writer shouldn’t have made Walter do it!’ Grace retorted. ‘It’s not fair! And I hate the way that Matron changed his name!’

  ‘It’s just a stupid fairytale!’ muttered Lucas, and even Grace was so surprised to hear him speak that she fell silent.

  Colin felt a timid hand on his sleeve. ‘Read some more,’ said Tara Berne.

  ‘Yes, Colin, keep going,’ Mrs Fiori urged, a bit too obviously delighted that Tara had ventured out of her shell.

  So Colin turned the page, and at once was transfixed by another illustration.

  This picture was dark and gloomy. It showed a dim cave filled with rows of high desks where mice wearing eyeshades and white shirts with stiff collars sat chained to tall stools, their heads bent over their work. At the far end of the cavern, on a raised platform, a hawk in a business suit brooded, surrounded by boxes of gold coins.

  Just looking at the painting made Colin feel trapped. He could almost smell the cavern — he could smell the ink, the dusty paper, the dank, stuffy air and the greasy hair of the chained mice. He could almost hear the scratching of pens and the scuffling sound of bats flapping in the shadows.

  ‘Oh dear, that’s not very happy-looking, is it?’ said Mrs Fiori, glancing anxiously at Tara.

  ‘It’s probably just how it seemed,’ said Tara, who looked quite composed. ‘To Walter, I mean.’

  ‘Let’s see!’ Grace begged. And reluctantly Colin turned the book around to show her. She looked at the picture and made a face. ‘Are those bats in the corners? Erk! I hate bats!’

  ‘How many do you know?’ asked Lucas, and she made a face at him.

  And at that very moment there was a mighty crash of thunder directly overhead and the lights went out.

  Grace screamed. Tara whimpered. Lucas swore. Mrs Fiori groaned. Colin, thinking loftily that he’d obviously lived through a lot more blackouts than these city people had, turned in his seat and felt for the torch he’d put in an outside pocket of his backpack.

  He flicked the torch on, and everyone exclaimed with relief. It’s such a little light, Colin thought, holding the beam steady. It shouldn’t make such a difference. But, he had to admit, he felt better, too.

  ‘There’s a candle on the sink,’ said Lucas. His voice was a bit shaky.

  Colin turned the beam of the torch towards the sink. On the draining board, sure enough, was a long white candle stuck to a cracked saucer, with a box of matches beside it.

  ‘I suppose this happens quite a bit out here,’ said Mrs Fiori. Her voice was shaky, too. She got up, lit the candle, and brought it back to the table, placing it carefully right in the centre. Colin switched off his torch. Flickering yellow light played on the faces of the people sitting on the benches. Behind them, shadows crawled. For some reason the room seemed much quieter, so that they all became aware of the subtle sounds of the house — creaks, little scuffles and taps, and the soft whistling of the wind through every gap and crack.

  Grace glanced nervously over her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sure the lights will come on again soon,’ Mrs Fiori said, determinedly cheerful. ‘In the meantime, Colin, why don’t you read us another chapter? Use your torch — I don’t want you to strain your eyes.’

  Colin flicked the torch on again. Beneath his fingers, the painting of the cave leaped into startling life. The mice seemed to tremble on their stools. The hawk’s eyes seemed to glare straight into his. He turned to the text beside the picture.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Because he was tidy and good with figures, Colin read, as steadily as he could, Walter was sent to work in a counting house where gold was bought and sold. He was told to be grateful for his good fortune, for jobs were few in the city in those days, and hungry spectres haunted the darkest alleyways.

  The counting house was a long, echoing cavern where bats flapped among papers stacked in shadowy corners. Its door was large, but its windows were small and striped with iron bars. It was ruled by a hawk with a cruel beak and piercing eyes, who brooded on a raised platform at the end farthest from the door, surrounded by chests of gold.

  The rest of the cavern was filled with rows of high desks where mice chained to tall stools sorted coins into piles and copied figures into thick account books with scratchy pens and watery blue ink.

  Walter had been told that one day, if he worked hard, he too could have a high stool and a chain. For now, from eight till six five days a week, and eight till twelve on Saturdays, he polished the gleaming brass name plate on the cavern door, swept the spotless floor, filled inkwells, ran errands, filed papers in their proper stacks, and did a thousand and one other things too boring and trivial to mention.

  The mice never spoke to Walter except to squeak a word of thanks when every morning at eleven and every afternoon at four he took each of them tea in a thick, white cup with one plain biscuit in the saucer. The hawk was too proud to speak. He merely nodded when Walter brought his tea, which was made in a different pot and served in a flowered cup and saucer with two cream wafer biscuits on a matching plate.

  When it had grown almost too dark to see in the cavern, the hawk paced the rows of stools, unlocking chains with a large golden key so that the mice could scuttle home. Then, after the desks had been scrubbed clean of ink, sweat and tears, Walter was free to walk back to the rabbit warren where he had been given a bed. By order of the King, the warren was to be his home until he was judged old enough to fend for himself.

  The hive had been a stuffy, humming prison. The warren was a rambling maze of dim, narrow passages where unseen creatures burrowed and scuffled in the walls. In other ways, the two places were very much alike. Both ran by rules, bells, bars and locks, and privacy was unknown. Both relied on the labour of the orphans for help in the kitchen, vegetable garden and laundry room.

  Like the Matron and her workers, the Warden of the warren and his spies were ever-watchful. Noses twitching, they pounced on rule-breakers and pounded down signs of rebellion. They paid little attention to bullying or thieving done out of their sight, but it was the work of their lives to make sure that the orphans in their charge cleaned their nails, kept their rooms spotless, did not swear, completed their allotted duties, ate what they were given and said their prayers.

  Instead of doing lessons, the young men went out to work, but this made little difference to them. The Warden took their wages in return for their bed and board, giving back just enough for fares and a few modest treats with as much ceremony as if he were presenting a prize he had paid for out of his own pocket.

  The walk between the counting house and the warren took well over an hour, and the way’s dark places were infested with groaning spectres, but Walter did not mind. The coins he saved on fares went into a knotted handkerchief he carried with him everywhere, but saving was not the reason he chose to walk. In the street he was just an
other trudging figure, a face in the crowd. It gave him a dizzying sense of freedom to know that while he was walking no one was watching him.

  So Walter lived for full two years, and might have gone on living for some time after that if late one Saturday afternoon he had not been called from laundry duty to the Warden’s office to hear some surprising news.

  There had been a message for him from the hive. Ida, the old worker who had nursed him through his babyhood, was dying, and had asked urgently to see him. Wondering what on earth Ida wanted of him, Walter set off.

  The hive seemed smaller when he reached it at sunset, but once he was inside, its dull, busy hum and stuffy smell were only too familiar. He was bustled up to the cell where Ida lay on her narrow bed, withered as a dry, grey husk.

  ‘Him. Alone,’ Ida rasped when Walter bent over her, and, murmuring anxiously, her attendants left the room.

  When the door had shut behind them, Ida raised a trembling hand and pointed to the chest that stood at the end of the bed. Realising that she wanted something from the chest, Walter went to it and looked inside. At first it seemed to contain nothing but neatly folded clothes, worn thin and very plain. But right at the bottom there was a shoebox tied up with string.

  Carefully, Walter pulled out the box. It was very light. He showed it to Ida and she blinked and inclined her head, very slightly.

  Walter untied the string and opened the box. Inside was a folded length of soft, black cloth printed with red roses.

  He stared down at it, not knowing what it could mean, then looked up at Ida.

  ‘Yours,’ Ida croaked. ‘The shawl you were wrapped in when you came to us. I took it … for myself. I said it was lost.’

  ‘But why?’ Walter burst out. He stared down at the dusty black of the shawl, the blood-red roses, not knowing how he felt.