Shoes for Anthony by Emma Kennedy Read Free Book Online

let my arm drift upwards and span my palm to face the ceiling. Mam turned away, her hand resting on the mantelpiece behind me, and Bethan cast her eyes towards the floor. I looked up into Father’s face, stern, furrowed. There was no animosity. We’d just get this done. I braced. His arm went up, and down it came, the bent-over leather thwacking onto my skin. I winced. Four more times, the only noise in the room the leather slicing through the air, biting into my flesh, and short, tiny grunts from Father. I didn’t look down at my hand. Instead, I focused on Father’s face. No pleasure lay there, and for all the times I’d had this done, I was always left with the overwhelming sense that I had hurt him, not the other way round. It was the disappointment I couldn’t bear. That was the real wound.
    As the last blow sounded, Mam’s shoulders relaxed. ‘Get him something cold, Bethan,’ she said, quietly.
    My hand burned, prickly and painful red welts swelling across my palm, and as Father turned away, I cradled it and blew into it.
    â€˜No more going underground,’ he said, quietly, as he pulled his clothes off. ‘No matter who offers to take you down. Now come and shake my hand.’
    I held out my good hand and he took it, a shake, a small firm nod, and he was back to taking his pit clothes off.
    â€˜What’s the matter with your eye?’ said Alwyn, casting me a glance as Father lowered himself into the tub. ‘You been in a fight with another girl?’
    Emrys snorted. ‘Fighting and sneaking underground? Christ, man, you know how to get yourself in trouble, innit?’
    â€˜Leave him be, you two,’ said Bethan, handing me a small, wet rag. ‘He was sticking up for Ade. Got punched by Gwyn Williams. That boy’s a thug.’
    â€˜Then bloody punch the bugger back!’ said Alwyn, reaching on top of the mantelpiece for a pair of cigarettes. ‘That’s how a boy becomes a man.’
    â€˜He’s only eleven,’ said Bethan. ‘He’s got plenty of time to be a boy yet.’
    â€˜He’d have done well to remember that this morning. Come b’here, Ant,’ said Father, gesturing towards the front end of the tub.
    I went and stood in front of him, my hand wrapped in the cold cloth. Father had one foot in his hands and was working the coal dust out from between his toes. ‘Did he hurt you?’ he asked.
    â€˜He did, Father,’ I replied.
    â€˜And did you hurt him?’
    â€˜I did, Father.’
    â€˜Well, then. You’re all even. Boys will take tumbles and knock heads and tangle fists. It’s what boys do. But always shake the hand of the man you’ve tangled with, especially if you were the better man.’
    â€˜I wasn’t the better man, Father. He beat me. He was too big for me.’
    â€˜Did you stand back up and accept it?’
    I nodded. ‘But I didn’t shake his hand, though. He ran off.’
    â€˜That wasn’t right of him. Always do what is right rather than what is popular, Anthony, and you will never fail. Something you forgot to do this morning.’
    â€˜Load of bloody rubbish,’ grumbled Alwyn behind me, striking a match against the mantel stone. ‘If I was you, I’d jump him up the back alley. Right when he wasn’t expecting it.’
    â€˜Don’t give him ideas,’ said Emrys, taking one lit cigarette from his brother’s mouth. ‘He’s already obsessed with those gangster films. What’s that film you keep talking about?’
    â€˜
Double Indemnity
,’ I said. ‘It’s dead good.’
    â€˜Hang on,’ said Mam, laying out three piles of clean clothes. ‘How have you seen that? That’s not a film for children.’
    â€˜They all creep in the side door on a Wednesday, Mam. It’s when Gwennie Morgan is ushering. Wednesdays are when the magazines come into the post office. She just