Arthur & George Read Free Page B

got to.
    This presents George with a problem. He knows it is wrong to get a schoolfellow into trouble. But he knows it is worse to tell lies. His father is quite clear about this. Once you start telling lies you are led into the paths of sin and nothing will stop you until the hangman slips a noose around your neck. No one has said as much, but this is what George has understood. So he cannot lie to Mr Bostock. He looks for a way out – which is perhaps bad enough anyway, the start of a lie – and then he simply answers the question.
    ‘Sid Henshaw knocked me and took it.’
    Mr Bostock leads Henshaw out by the hair, beats him until he howls, comes back with George’s tie, and gives the class a lecture about theft. After school, Wallie Sharp stands in George’s path and as he steps round him says, ‘You’re not a right sort.’
    George rules out Wallie Sharp as a possible friend.
    He rarely feels the lack of what he does not have. The family takes no part in local society, but George cannot imagine what this might involve, let alone what the reason for their unwillingness, or failure, might be. He himself never goes to other boys’ houses, so cannot judge how things are conducted elsewhere. His life is sufficient unto itself. He has no money, but also no need of it, and even less when he learns that its love is the root of all evil. He has no toys, but does not miss them. He lacks the skill and eyesight for games; he has never even jumped a hopscotch grid, while a thrown ball makes him flinch. He is happy to play fraternally with Horace, more gently with Maud, and more gently still with the hens.
    He is aware that most boys have friends – there are David and Jonathan in the Bible, and he has watched Harry Boam and Arthur Aram huddling at the edge of the yard and showing one another things from their pockets – but he never finds this happening to himself. Is he meant to do something, or are they meant to do something? In any case, though he wants to please Mr Bostock, he is not especially interested in pleasing the boys who sit behind him.
    When Great-Aunt Stoneham comes to tea, as she does on the first Sunday of each month, she scrapes her cup noisily across its saucer and through a wrinkled mouth asks him about his friends.
    ‘Harry Charlesworth,’ he always replies. ‘He sits next to me.’
    The third time he gives her the same reply, she puts her cup noisily back in its saucer, frowns, and asks, ‘Anyone else?’
    ‘The rest of them are just smelly farm boys,’ he replies.
    From the way Great-Aunt Stoneham looks at Father, he knows he has said something wrong. Before supper, he is called into the study. His father stands at his desk, with all the authority of the faith shelved behind him.
    ‘George, how old are you?’
    This is how conversations often begin with Father. They both of them already know the answer, but George still has to give it.
    ‘Seven, Father.’
    ‘That is an age by which a certain intelligence and judgement may reasonably be expected. So let me ask you this, George. Do you think that in the eyes of God you are more important than boys who live on farms?’
    George can tell that the correct answer is No, but is reluctant to give it immediately. Surely a boy who lives in the Vicarage, whose father is the Vicar and whose great-uncle has been Vicar as well, is more important to God than a boy who never goes to church and is stupid and also cruel like Harry Boam?
    ‘No,’ he says.
    ‘And why do you call these boys smelly?’
    It is less clear what the correct answer to this might be. George considers the matter. The correct answer, he has been taught, is the truthful one.
    ‘Because they are, Father.’
    His father sighs. ‘And if they are, George, why are they?’
    ‘Why are they what, Father?’
    ‘Smelly.’
    ‘Because they do not wash.’
    ‘No, George, if they are smelly, it is because they are poor. We are fortunate enough to be able to afford soap, and fresh linen, and to