Free The Toll Bridge by Aidan Chambers Page A

can without a lid. Or a coffin, depending on your mood. You see them in old photos of working-class houses, where they’re usually hanging on the wall outside the back door.
The Road to Wigan Pier
through D.H. Lawrence country. The toll-house tub was kept in the basement, had to be carried up to the living room when needed, where it had to be filled by using a length of hosepipe from the only hot tap in the place, which was at the kitchen sink.
    There was an immersion heater in a tank in the roof above the sink, but as I had to pay for the electricity out of my piffling wage, I used it as little as possible. An electric kettle was enough for ordinary purposes, or, better still because it cost nothing if the fire was in, an old iron cauldron Bob Norris had given me, which I kept simmering on the hearth.
    Two or three times during my pre-Adam weeks Mrs Norris took pity and persuaded me to have a bath in their house. ‘I’m sure it’s easier than all that palaver, and you can give yourself a good soak,’she said and, laughing, ‘You must look like a man half drowned in his coffin sat in that affair.’ I’ve always liked Mrs Norris. She has the knack of being kind without making you feel obligated or done good to.
    If I hoped all the palaver of bathing would put Adam off staying more than a night I was wrong. He revels in it like a kid in his play pool. And makes about as much mess.
    While I clear up the painting gear from where he’s dumped it (labourer now even to my own labourer, I grumble to myself), he prepares a place in front of the fire, lugs the tub up from the basement, strips, then ponces about with the length of hosepipe, obscenely camping up a weird song which he’s learned from God knows where.
    â€˜Old Roger is dead and gone to his grave,
    He, Hi, gone to his grave.
    They planted an apple-tree over his head.
    The apples grew ripe and ready to drop,
    He, Hi, ready to drop.
    There came an old woman of Hippertihop,
    He, Hi, Hippertihop,
    She began a-picking them up,
    He, Hi, Hippertihop.
    Old Roger up and gave her a knock,
    He, Hi, gave her a knock.
    Which made the old woman go hippertihop.
    He, Hi, Hippertihop.
    He . . . Hi . . . Hip . . . hip . . . hippertee . . . hop!’
    Funny, raunchy, lightly done – I can’t help watching and I can’t help laughing. Even though a part of me wants to stop him – for I didn’t like the way he was taking my place over, turning it into a kind of theatre for himself.
    Of
himself would be more accurate. What fixed me was, yes, his energy and the comedy of his randy send-up of this silly song (which I only discovered afterwards is a nursery rhyme – God, the things we stuff into children’s heads!). He’d make an amazing actor, the kind who compels attention all the time, not just because of his talent, but because of his unpredictable personality, the game he plays of pretending to act a part which is actually a disguise for revealing a truth about himself.Yet at the same time he’s so crafty in displaying the disguise that the audience are never quite sure whether they’re seeing the character who belongs in the play or the actor himself.
    It was then, that evening, that I was won over by Adam. Won over
to
him I mean. Yes, sure, for a while I kept up a pretence of not wanting him around, but it was only pretence. Another pretending, this time as self-protection. From that evening on he fascinated me. As I watched him perform I felt he was ruled by some deeply hidden, risky secret. And I wanted to know what it was.
    7
    When he’s done, and we’ve cleared up the mess he’s made and I’ve cooked beans on toast, we sit either side of the table, Adam’s skin still glowing.
    â€˜Look,’ I say, ‘there’s some things we better sort out.’
    â€˜Like what?’
    â€˜Like I don’t know anything about