Johnny Swanson - Eleanor Updale [62]
‘Oh, my boy. What are you doing alone here in the dark?’
‘Nothing. I was just thinking about Mum. How is she?’
Hutch sighed. ‘As well as can be expected, I suppose. She’s worried about you, though.’
‘She doesn’t need to be, Hutch. I hope you told her that. I can look after myself.’
‘I told her you were in fine form. But she told me something too – something I should probably have guessed for myself.’ Hutch paused, and looked away. Johnny wondered for a moment if he was about to hear a horrible revelation about the court case. But it was a different thing entirely. Hutch took a breath and announced: ‘Johnny, I know about your Auntie Ada. Your mother has told me all.’
Johnny was caught between relief that the pretence was over and fear that he was in deep trouble. He couldn’t bear the idea of losing Hutch as well as everyone else. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t know how.’
Hutch felt sympathy for the boy, but also outrage at how he had behaved. He tried to stay calm. ‘I have to say, Johnny, that I’m shocked. Shocked and disappointed that you have lied to me for so long. In any other situation, I might look for a way to punish you, and I won’t put up with being deceived again.’ Johnny bowed his head, and Hutch continued in a more friendly tone. ‘But what matters now is that you shouldn’t be here on your own – especially at Christmas. I’d never have let you come back here every night if I’d known. I’ve agreed with your mother that you will come and live with me until this business is over.’
‘Until after the trial you mean,’ said Johnny. ‘They’ll let her out then, won’t they?’
‘Yes,’ said Hutch, trying to sound convinced. ‘It will all be finished then. Now, you run along and get some things together.’
Johnny was back in a trice with a few underclothes tied up in a shirt. Hutch was touched to see that he clung to a toy rabbit as if he would never allow himself to be parted from it. ‘If there’s anything valuable in the house, you’d better bring that too,’ he said. ‘Just in case anyone breaks in while you’re away.’
Johnny put down his things and climbed up to get the Peace Mug. He went up to Winnie’s room, lifted a loose floorboard, and took out the box in which his mother kept his father’s medals and important family papers. There was nothing else he wanted to take. Except his father’s photograph, of course. But that had already gone.
Chapter 30
AT HOME WITH HUTCH
Johnny had never been in the flat above the shop. Compared with his own home it was luxurious, with electric light, lino on the floor, and an indoor bathroom with hot and cold water on tap. At Hutch’s suggestion, Johnny had a bath as soon as he arrived, using expensive soap he had stacked in displays but never seen out of its box. Hutch went downstairs to the shop and got Johnny a toothbrush and some of the newest tooth cleaner, which came as a paste in a tube, and bubbled into a sweet minty foam in his mouth.
Afterwards, Johnny found his way to the kitchen. Hutch was mashing potatoes. The room was quite bare, with lots of empty shelves. ‘I use the shop as my larder,’ Hutch explained. ‘I only bring things up here when I need them.’ Like the bathroom, the kitchen was full of steam. Hutch had speared two holes in the top of a tin of stewed steak and was heating it up in a pan of boiling water on a trim little gas stove. He had pudding ready alongside: a can of pineapple chunks and a tin of condensed milk. Johnny had seen it advertised in the paper.