Johnny Swanson (29 page)

‘I don’t know,’ said Johnny. ‘I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe I’ll open a shop.’

As the reporter took his leave, Hutch started marking up the papers for the evening delivery round, feeling a glow of almost paternal pride.

A
fortnight later, the new doctor visited again.

‘I think it’s time to send you back to school, old chap,’ he said breezily. ‘You’ll be glad to see all your friends again.’

Johnny tried to look pleased, but he was dreading returning to the playground bullies.

On his first day he deliberately took longer than usual over his paper round, and arrived at school just as the bell was ringing. Mr Murray was standing by the gate, waiting to catch latecomers.

‘Another lucky escape, eh, Swanson?’ he snarled as Johnny ran to his classroom.

Mrs Stiles called the register: ‘Morrison, Noble, Parker, Roberts, Swanson …’

She shushed the titter that ran round the room at the sound of Johnny’s name. ‘That’s enough. Welcome back, Johnny,’ she said, dipping her pen in the inkwell. ‘It’s good to be able to tick you off again. Taylor, Tompkins, Venables …’

At break time, Johnny dawdled into the yard with his head down and waited for the first taunts. To his amazement, he was quickly surrounded by children asking questions about the murder. He had never been so popular.

Albert Taylor broke through the crush and strode towards him. Johnny tried not to flinch, but he expected Taylor to lash out, verbally at least. Taylor reached for his pocket. What would it be? A knuckleduster? A catapult? A knife?

It was a bar of chocolate. Albert broke off a square and offered it to Johnny. ‘Here, Detecko. Take it.’

Detecko
. A new nickname – short for detective – a name that played on Johnny’s strengths at last. Taylor didn’t need to spell it out to the others. From now on, anyone caught calling Johnny ‘Quacky’ or ‘Swingson’ would be for it. It was time to let Johnny join in their games.

In the weeks ahead, one of those games got quite nasty, and Johnny was far from proud of his part in it, even though it was exhilarating to be admired by Taylor’s gang. The ill-will against Winnie had found a new home. It was redirected towards Miss Dangerfield. The old lady had never been liked, but now she was not even feared. Johnny did nothing to
stop the boys who had once taunted him throwing bricks through her windows and painting
LIAR
across her front door. Her walking stick was found floating in the duckpond.

‘Poor woman,’ said Winnie as she and Johnny sat over their tea one night. ‘I know what it’s like to have the whole town turn against you. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.’

Johnny pretended his mouth was too full to reply.

In the Easter holidays, a
FOR SALE
sign went up outside Miss Dangerfield’s house just as a
SOLD
notice was taken down by the new owner of the Langfords’ across the road. The young doctor had moved in. It was the last straw for Miss Dangerfield. He was unmarried, had a motorbike, and left his bathroom window open. She let the vicar know exactly what she thought of her new neighbour:

‘If I stand on the stool in my bedroom, I can see him with his shirt off when he’s shaving,’ she said. ‘It’s too bad.’

On the day the removal vans came, Johnny climbed the tree in the doctor’s garden to watch – just to make sure that Miss Dangerfield was really going. She was belligerent to the last, haranguing the
moving men as they manhandled her furniture across her front garden.

‘Mind that radio-gramophone!’ she squealed. ‘It’s a Lissenola New Era.’

But she had lost her power. The men shrugged, and bumped the wooden cabinet against the gate.

Johnny ran down the hill to the shop to collect the papers for his evening delivery round. He was surprised to find his mother sweeping the floor.

‘Hutch has offered me a job,’ she said. ‘He says I can help out here.’

Hutch looped the bag of papers over Johnny’s shoulder and steered him out onto the pavement. ‘I hope you don’t mind, son,’ he said. ‘You can still do bits and pieces for me too, but I knew your mother needed the work. That doctor asked her if she wanted her old job back at the Langfords’ place. I think we should keep her away from there, don’t you?’

So through the summer, Winnie spent her days at the shop, and sometimes Hutch came round for supper at Johnny’s house. Then, while Johnny did his homework, Winnie and Hutch would go out for walks, or to the pub, where Winnie was now a celebrity, not an outcast. School was better too. Even Mr Murray, seeing that Johnny was growing taller and
stronger, included him in teams, and started picking on someone in the year below.

Every now and then Johnny got a new idea for an advert, but he managed to stick to his promise never to place one again. The poet still wrote regularly. For a while Johnny just sent his postal orders straight back, but the man pleaded with him for guidance on his writing, and so Hutch told Johnny that he could reply, so long as he never charged for his advice.

‘Think of him as a pen-pal,’ said Winnie. And that’s what Johnny did.

Olwen wrote to Johnny too. She was still at Craig-y-Nos: stuck there, miserable, living on charity until her uncle was found.

‘Can’t we do something for her?’ asked Johnny over supper one night.

‘I’ve been looking into it,’ said Hutch. ‘I’ve had quite a correspondence with that Professor Campbell of yours. I didn’t want to talk about it in case it all came to nothing, but I think I can tell you now.’

‘What does he say?’ Johnny asked.

Hutch took Winnie’s hand. Johnny blushed at his tenderness and tried not to look. ‘Well,’ said Hutch, ‘it may be possible for me to give Olwen a new home.’

‘That’s wonderful. Will she come back to Stambleton to live with you?’

Winnie answered. ‘With us, Johnny. With all three of us.’

‘You mean …?’ said Johnny, guessing the answer but still wanting to ask. ‘You mean you are going to get married?’ Halfway through the question his voice cracked and swooped into a different register.

‘Well, that’s the end of Auntie Ada,’ laughed Hutch. ‘She won’t be making any more telephone calls!’

‘Do you know, I’m rather sorry to see the back of her,’ said Winnie. ‘She may have caused a lot of trouble, but in a way she brought us together.’

‘Yes,’ said Hutch. ‘We’re going to be a real family, Johnny. You, Winnie and Olwen will come and live with me over the shop.’

Johnny thought for a moment, imagining his new life. ‘Does that mean I’ll be Johnny Hutchinson?’

Winnie glanced across at the picture in its tortoiseshell frame, and Hutch answered for her. ‘No, Johnny. I couldn’t do that to your dad. He might never have known you, but he would have been proud of you – of all your funny schemes and scrapes, and of the hard work and bravery that saved your mother’s life. I
couldn’t take away his name from the last, and best, thing he left behind.’ He patted Johnny’s golden curls. ‘Dear boy. I swear that in the years ahead I will love and care for you as if you were my own child. But I promise you, because I think it is the right and proper thing, that whatever happens, you will always be Johnny Swanson.’

In 1929 British money worked in a different way:

The smallest coin was a farthing.

Two of those made a halfpenny (pronounced haypny).

Two of those made a penny.

There was a small silver coin worth three pennies, called a threepenny bit.

The sixpence was a slightly bigger silver coin.

Two sixpences made one shilling (worth twelve pennies, or 5p in modern money).

The two-shilling coin was called a florin.

A large coin, called a half-crown, was worth two shillings and sixpence.

A crown was worth five shillings.

After that there were bank notes, worth ten shillings (50p in modern money), one pound, five pounds, ten pounds, and so on.

One pound was worth twenty shillings, or two hundred and forty pennies.

Sums of money were written like this:

A daily paper cost 1
d
. A weekly comic cost 2
d
. (less than one penny in our ‘new’ money.)

In an age when very few people had bank accounts or chequebooks, sending even small sums of money through the post was impractical and insecure, not least because the coins were so heavy. For this reason, postal orders were popular. You paid the money in at your local post office, and received an official coupon which the recipient could cash in at their post office, or use again to send to someone else.

Without postal orders, Johnny Swanson would never have been able to run his business.