Matty Doolin Read Free

master.
    On knocking upon the door and being told to enter Matty did as he was bidden, and was greeted from behind a paper-strewn desk by a tall, thin man with a face that spread upwards over the top of his head, which, but for the merest fringe behind his ears, was devoid of hair, which earned him the obvious nickname of Curly.
    Matty liked Curly. You could talk to Curly, at least as much as you could talk to any schoolmaster, for schoolmasters were like dads, and most mams, they were nearly always old, and they weren’t with it. There were some who tried to be with it, like Joe’s mam, but they only made themselves look silly and got talked about.
    ‘Sit down, Matty.’
    Matty sat down.
    ‘Well now.’ Mr Funnell folded his arms on the desk and bent his body over them in the direction of Matty, saying as he did so, ‘Well now, have you done any more thinking?’
    ‘No, sir. Well, I mean things are just the same; I’ve got no further.’
    ‘Why don’t you make your mind up to go into the shops? If you put your mind to it you’ll swim through, once you get interested in it. And you’ll still be at school, sort of, half-time.’
    Matty looked down at his joined hands and said quietly, ‘But I’m not interested, sir, and I know I’ll never be, not in the docks.’
    ‘Well.’ Mr Funnell drew himself upwards and there was now a touch of sharpness in his voice as he said, ‘You could do much worse. You’d be learning a trade, and later on you’d have some sort of security. Whereas, standing from where I see you now, you’re going to end up as a labourer . . . Perhaps that’s what you want?’
    ‘It isn’t.’ The retort came so definitely that Mr Funnell was surprised.
    ‘No?’ Mr Funnell leant back in his chair; then added, ‘Well, it’s evident that you have something in mind; why don’t you tell me what it is?’
    ‘Because it’s no use.’ Matty’s chin was working overtime now, thrusting itself upwards as if to emphasise the hopelessness of the situation.
    ‘Leave me to be a judge of that. Just come into the open and tell me what’s on your mind, eh?’
    Matty’s chin stopped working, his head drooped, his eyes once again looked down at his hands, and he said, below his breath, ‘I wanted to be a vet. I always have.’
    ‘Oh.’ It was a small surprised sound that Mr Funnell made, but when he again said ‘Oh,’ it was more solid sounding as if it meant business. ‘Well now,’ he went on, ‘why haven’t you brought this up before? If you knew what you wanted to be, why haven’t you got down to it, and worked and got your GCE? I’m sure you could have done it. But . . . but now it’s a little late in the day . . . ’
    ‘I know, I know.’ Matty’s head was jerking again, but he was looking straight across the table towards the master. ‘It was no use going into it, sir, because me dad wasn’t for it. He said it would take five or seven years to train for it, and even if I did get a grant I’d still need money and clothes and things, and he hadn’t it.’
    ‘Yes. Yes, I see. But still it isn’t the end of the world in that line. I take it by all this that you’re interested in animals?’
    ‘Yes, sir; very much, sir.’
    ‘Very well then, you could train for the PDSA, you could run a pet shop, or better still, to my mind, you could work on a farm. And who knows, one day you might have your own. It isn’t an unheard-of thing . . . ’
    ‘It’s no good, sir,’ Matty put in.
    ‘Don’t keep saying that, Doolin.’ The master’s tone was sharp. ‘Of course it won’t be any good if you don’t make a fight for what you want.’
    Matty, whose eyes had again been cast down, raised them and said quietly, ‘You don’t know me dad, sir.’
    The master returned Matty’s gaze; then said quietly, ‘No, I don’t. Is there trouble at home?’
    ‘Trouble?’ Matty screwed up his face. ‘No, no. Not that kind of trouble, sir.’ He shook his head. ‘Not between me mam and