Read Memoirs of a Dance Hall Romeo for Free Online Page B

me out, my two friends at the wall had a smaller boy between them and were twisting an arm apiece.
    ‘Varley!’ roared Mr Carter. ‘How many times have I told you?’
    The ginger boy ducked expertly and the headmaster’s fist connected with his companion’s face. He drove them towards the stairs, striking indiscriminately at each head, including that of the wretched little boy who had been the object of the bullying.
    They disappeared into the gloom below and he turned and said solemnly, ‘Grand lads, Mr Shaw. Grand lads, really, all of them.’
    He shook hands and disappeared back into his office.
    The woodwork instructor was standing at his open door lighting a pipe when I went downstairs. He looked at me enquiringly and I held out my hand.
    ‘I’m joining you Monday.’
    ‘God help you,’ he said ignoring my hand and went back inside the woodwork room before I could introduce myself.
    There was a small transport café on the other side of the street. I ordered a cup of tea and sat at the window staring across at the school, hoping, in some strange way, that if I looked at it long enough I might get used to it.
    I heard the four o’clock bell quite clearly. The first person out of the entrance was the woodwork instructor, in shabby raincoat and trilby, clutching a briefcase. Within seconds, a steady stream of boys boiled after him, with here and there an adult or two bobbing helplessly, presumably other teachers.
    Finally, Mr Carter himself appeared, a grey topcoat over his arm. The yard by then was quite deserted and he looked relaxed and happy as he went through the gate. I checked my watch. It was exactly five minutes past four.
    I went into town the following morning to get some new clothes. There were no difficulties, clothes rationing had ended earlier that year. A pair of flannels and a Donegal tweed sports jacket seemed the right sort of thing for Khyber Street. For more formal occasions, I chose a double-breasted suit of dark-blue worsted in the new drape style, the latest import from America.
    It really looked rather well as I dressed that evening before leaving for the Trocadero. I adjusted the Windsor knot in my tie, gave my hair a final comb, and went in search of Aunt Alice to settle my few debts with her.
    I found her in the drawing room, in company with a large Teutonic-looking gentleman with hair like a brush top. He wore pince-nez and stood up and clicked his heels when she introduced him.
    ‘This is Herr Nagel, dear, he’s doing your horoscope.’
    I was not particularly dismayed at this item of news for Aunt Alice usually had some such creature in tow, and although she had a particular penchant for mediums, astrology was an old love. He shook hands, exposing gold-capped teeth in a frozen smile, before sitting and returning to his labours. He was, as I discovered later, a German Jew who had got out of Berlin by the skin of his teeth just before the war.
    She asked me where I was going and when I told her she shook her head, a serious look on her face. ‘Oh, dear, that’s bad. Isn’t that bad, Conrad?’ Here she appealed to Herr Nagel who glanced up dutifully. ‘Oliver’s going dancing,’ she explained.
    ‘So what?’ I said.
    ‘Is that wise in view of what you said about his relations with the opposite sex?’ She patted my hand. ‘It’s in your map, you see, dear.’
    I turned enquiringly to Herr Nagel as enlightenment dawned on his face like a sunburst.
    ‘Ah, vimmen!’ he said. ‘Now I understand.’
    He got up and walked about the room, his pince-nez in one hand, the other under his coat-tails, grinding his teeth together, speaking slowly and with considerable drama in a manner which, coupled with his accent, would hardly have disgraced Erich von Stroheim playing the Gestapo Chief.
    ‘Amongst your aspects, young man, you haff Venus squared mit Mars, which means that you will meet with more than your fair share of unkindness from the opposite sex.’ He paused to savour that