The Forgotten Story Read Free Page B

gaze and smiled. ‘You’d do the same for me. Tea in ten minutes. Don’t wait for someone to shout, will you?’
    She ran off down the stairs humming.
    Tea was the one meal at which Joe Veal consented to sit down and partake of food in the bosom of his family. He never ate breakfast, and dinner and supper were served to him on a little table behind the counter of the shop where he could supervise the orderings and preferences of customers. But the café was usually empty about tea time; the trip-bell was set to work over the shop door, and Joe and his pipe came down into the kitchen to tea.
    Anthony ate buttered scones and drank several cups of hot tea, and absorbed all the newness about him and glanced diffidently but candidly up at the faces of this family into which fate and unfair bereavement had suddenly thrown him. Two months ago he had been at school at Nuncanton in the Vale of Exmoor; he had taken his home and his existence for granted, accepting it as unthinkingly as he drew breath. Now he was here among this family of strangers – related to him perhaps, for Uncle Joe was his mother’s brother-in-law – but still strangers, of a quantity and quality unknown.
    Anthony instantly took a liking for Perry, Uncle Joe’s brother. Uncle Perry was bigger and younger than the other man and had a jovial, rollicking air. He had strong black hair which he wore rather long, and a lock of it was inclined to fall across his forehead when he laughed. He had a plump fresh-complexioned face and roving black eyes. It was a face which might have belonged to a buccaneer.
    Joe made very little of the boy by way of greeting. He took his strange square pipe from a corner of his mouth and said, ‘Well, Anthony,’ and shook hands with a jerky gesture like someone turning the handle of a door, then put his pipe back in its corner. Anthony thought he looked not unkind but over-busy about his own concerns, which was natural in a man with a restaurant to supervise. Anthony felt that he ought to offer some thanks for the hospitality which was being extended to him, but by the time he could muster a sentence the opportunity had passed.
    Uncle Perry’s greeting was different. He said, ‘ Houd vast , now; so we’ve taken another hand aboard. Greetings, boy! I could do with a second mate.’ He laughed as if he had made a joke and thrust back his hair and looked at Aunt Madge and laughed again.
    And Aunt Madge, earringed and small-featured and monumental, went on pouring tea.
    After the meal Anthony was left to wander about the building and to make himself at home. The building was old and ramshackle and as smoky as Joe himself. From the shop one went down five steps into the lower dining-room or up five steps into the one above. Both were square rooms with windows looking out upon the bay and very low black rafters which made tall men instinctively bend their heads. The one kitchen served both rooms by means of a manually operated dumb waiter. The family lived and fed mainly in this kitchen, but Mr and Mrs Veal had a private drawing-room next to their bedroom on the second floor. Besides these there was an office into which Joe retired from time to time and smoked his curious pipe and counted his gold.
    As the evening advanced customers began to come in. Fat brokers from the town who knew where there was a good meal, Chinese dock hands, captains of casual tramp steamers, sailors out with their girls, passing travellers, local clerks and apprentices, Belgian fishermen. They varied from week to week as one ship left the port and another put in.
    Anthony watched the rooms fill up in some astonishment. Everyone smoked, and very soon the atmosphere was thick and blue. Everyone talked and argued, and presently a man with one leg came in and sat in a corner and began to play an accordion. He did not play it loudly and the sound only just emerged from among the sea of voices, but there was something in