The Credit Draper Episode 27

The lamplighter pushed his cap further back off his forehead and chuckled. “Must be off, lad.” He patted Avram’s shoulder as he passed. “It’s good to win. But savour it right, because ye could lose the next time.”

Avram walked on, thinking that if he couldn’t be a footballer, he wanted to be a lampie. He would like to join them where they congregated around their depot near Tolcross, bantering and smoking, with their poles stacked against the storehouse wall, ready to fend off the darkness around Jerusalem.

“You look like the cat that got the herring,” Celia said as he entered the kitchen.

Her sleeves were rolled up and she had one hand deep in a blackened pot on the stove. He saw the skin of her forearms raw and reddened like Mary’s.

“We’re through to the final. At Hampden Park. Scouts from Celtic will come to see me play. To see me. Avram Escovitz. An immigrant boy from Russia.”

Excitement

He wanted to pick her up, twirl her around in his excitement. But instead he told her all about the game and as he spoke, she stopped her scrubbing, took a seat by the kitchen table.

With elbows on the surface, she clamped her chin between the palms of her hands and listened.

He warmed to her interest. By the time he had personally triumphed over Ginger Dodds and scored the winning goal her eyes were lit up in a shine he hadn’t seen for a long time.

“You are my hero, Avram Escovitz,” she said smiling. “Now can this immigrant boy from Russia get cleaned up before Papa gets home?”

He wanted to tell her more. He wanted to tell her that this sitting here now, talking like this in the kitchen, was like a time before. Before the war, before Madame Kahn had been taken away, before Celia had become different, before he was a nothing. But suddenly Mary strode into the room.

“Nathan needs attending to,” she told

Celia.

“I’m in the middle of cleaning the pots.

You do it.”

“You’ll do what I say. I’m in charge. I’m yer mam now.”

“No, you’re not,” Celia snapped back at her. “My mother’s not dead. She’ll be back.”

“That may well be, young lady. But she isnae here to look after you now.”

“She’ll be back. Then you’ll be back too. In your proper place.”

“I dinnae want to hear none of yer nonsense,” Mary snarled. “Nathan needs attending to. Leave the pots and go see to him. And when yer finished, wring out the washing and hang it up on the pulley. Go on. Go on.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Celia shouted, as she got to her feet. “You’re only a servant.”

“That’s where yer wrong, child,” Mary spat back. “With Madame away, yer faither put me in charge. I’m no a servant. I am the housekeeper.

“So you does what I tell you. You can ask yer faither when he gets home. You can ask him if I’m lying.”

Shock

“I will.” Celia stamped her feet as she spoke. “I will.”

“Yer brother needs seeing to. Like I said.” “I’m going. But I’m going because I want to. Not because you told me. You bloody servant.”

Mary raised her arm quick, sent a slap sharp across Celia’s face, the sound of flesh upon flesh snapping across the room. Celia stood frozen in the shock of what had occurred. Mary stared curiously at her own palm still inches away from Celia’s reddening cheek.

Eventually Celia lifted her hand to her face as if to check she had really been hit. She dabbed her fingers against the tender marks on her flesh in confirmation, then pushed Mary’s hand aside and fled from the room.

Avram had been numbed by the shock of the slap as much as Celia. Now he felt his own anger rising but Mary turned on him quick with her green eyes blazing.

“Now see you. You listen to me. There are no bleeding hairbrushes anymore. Just me. In charge.”

She pushed him backwards, throwing the boots from his shoulder. He tried to fend her off with flailing fists but she still managed to grab the flesh of one cheek between two of her knuckles and twisted tight. “See! Mary’s in charge.”

“Get your hands off me,” he shouted, wrenching her hand from his face.

“So, we’re starting to fight back, are we? Well, I’m going to make yer life a bloody misery.”

“See if I care.”

“You’ll care.”

“No, I won’t.”

“You think yer so damn clever. You’ll care, all right.”

“There’s nothing you can do to hurt me.”

“Yer mighty wrong about that.”

“What then?”

“Football.”

“What... what about it?”

“There’s to be none of it.”

“You can’t forbid me to play.”

“Aye, I can. I’m in charge. No more football for you, d’you hear? From now on, you come straight home after school. There’s work to be done. Same on Sundays. No more football. The Master agrees.”

Festival

That evening was the first evening of Hanukkah. The Festival of Lights. The Festival of the Rededication of the Second Temple.

“We are here to celebrate the miracle of the oil,” Papa Kahn said to Avram and Celia. He had taken the menorah into Nathan’s bedroom so that his son could also witness the lighting of the first candle.

“The miracle of the oil when Judah and his Jewish warriors, the Maccabees, defeated the armies of King Antiochus and reclaimed their temple. There, in the profaned sanctuary, the Maccabees found only one small jar of purified oil.

“It was enough to sustain the Ner Tamid, the Everlasting Light, for just one day. But the oil miraculously lasted for eight days until a fresh supply could be found. That is why...”

“… we celebrate Hanukkah,” interrupted Celia. “By lighting a candle for each day of the miracle.”

Celia stood frozen in the shock of what had occurred. Mary stared at her own palm still inches away from Celia’s cheek

More tomorrow.

The Credit Draper is the first in a trilogy by J David Simons. He has written five novels and is published by Saraband. His work can be purchased at saraband.net