***Chapter 5***

But it's Kate who comes out into the yard, to throw a shovelful of soot into the dustbin, and she's sniffling still, head bent, her thick dark hair falling like a curtain over her face. Deep in thought, she looks up, startled, when her brother calls her name, dropping both shovel and dustbin lid, which clang metallically as they hit the flagstones, causing grey clouds of dust to fly upwards.

"Silly Sis," he says fondly, using the pet name he's always had for Kate, emptying the shovel of the remains of its contents and slotting the dustbin lid back into place, his heart lurching at the sight of her swollen red eyes. She's the only one who has ever cried for him. And she doesn't need to, she doesn't, he's learnt long ago to build a wall of indifference around himself.

"Tom, Tom the clockmaker's son, stole a clock and away he run," she teases back, with a rhyme she used to taunt him with back in the days when Mam was still alive and they were arch enemies by mutual consent because nothing other than heated squabbles over toys and games troubled their knee-high view of the world when they were very young, and a sympathetic tear rolls down her cheek despite her smile and her poor pretence of being angry at having to dust the soot from her apron.

"Don't be daft, Silly Sis Kate," he says gently, playfully tugging one of her plaits. "All kids get smacked now and then. No use us whinging over it, is there?"

"But it's not just now and then, Tommy!" She flicks her hair out of his grasp, folding her arms to brook no argument and raises her chin defiantly. "And it's not just a smack like other kids get, it's getting worse and worse. I love Dada, I do, but when he's drunk I'm scared he's going to...(she swallows a sob) Ben never gets clouted, you know it."

Thomas shrugs with the false bravado he's perfected over the years. Of course he knows it. He's known ever since Dada caught him playing with Kate's doll, that his younger brother is William Barrow's favourite. It had been, at the time, no more than mere curiosity; he was as likely to play with Kate's dolls as he was to play with the wooden train set an eccentric elderly customer had found in his attic and solemnly presented to Thomas, together with a neatly folded copy of The Times and an ounce of tobacco, as a birthday gift upon hearing it would be his sixth birthday in four months' time (and which The Monster later declared to be Ben's), he was as likely to try on Kate's Sunday bonnet and gloves – as he did one happy Sunday afternoon - as he was to wear his own shirt and trousers. He never could understand why there has to be dividing lines between boys and girls when he has always felt he is somewhere in between. And his father must have somehow sensed that Thomas had always known he was different, had always felt he was on the outside looking in, because that was the very first time he struck him. Not too hard back then, though hard enough to leave both sting and mark, but the blows have become much more severe with the passage of time especially, like Kate says, when he's three sheets to the wind. As have the insults. Because when he was only five or six, he didn't understand what words like deviant and queer meant even when preceded by a colourful expletive.

Still, he can't be too unhappy. The sun is out, a morning rainbow smiled down, and he and Paul have arranged to meet at their special place near the canal. He sneezes once or twice as he consoles his older sister with a hug, and as she always does, Kate fusses, chiding him that he needs to take more care of himself or he'll never shake off that summer cold, and where on earth is his hanky?

He laughs at her, at the very idea a working class lad of thirteen would even contemplate carrying a cotton handkerchief like some toff, at her fretting and fussing over him like a mother hen albeit loving her all the more for it, teases her that's what sleeves are for while making a great show of wiping his nose on his shirt sleeve, then teases her a little more over being sweet on Fred Lacey, till she blushes and laughs and slaps his arm affectionately, reminding him to take the zig-zag route down Victoria Crescent, along Brougham Way and cutting through "the little prince streets" (so nicknamed due to their being named after Queen Victoria's sons) via Hunters Lane and Parker Way, lest the other boys follow them again. It's happened twice already that they've been ambushed, and while Paul's mother naively believes her son's cuts and bruises to be no more than the usual rough and tumble fights, sighing "boys will be boys" as she tends to his injuries, Thomas thinks by the glint in his father's eyes when he arrives home bleeding he would gladly pay them sixpence apiece to beat him again, although, convinced he's seen an end to their friendship, he little suspects Paul is different too

He gives his sister a quick peck on the cheek as they part, she in better spirits now, to prepare the family's evening meal, Thomas to finish his work before running his allocated errands and spend time with Paul. She worries too much about him. His throat is sore, but it has been since yesterday and a summer cold is soon gone.

He thinks no more of the sneezes.

XXXXX

They take the quieter part of the tow-path, over the old humpback bridge to the farmer's field, and away from the hustle and bustle of the men working on the barges. The shouting of boatmen, the crash of boxes and barrels being unloaded, the clip-clop of hooves and snorts and whinnies of the cart horses, all fades into the distance as the music of birdsong plays just for them, the sun sparkles merrily on the water below, and free at last from prying eyes, with shy smiles, they hesitantly reach for, and then firmly clasp, each other's hand. They know they have little time to spare together, and yet still they stroll, lost in each other and talking of inconsequential matters, how they both could, or so they claim, live forever on nothing but hot buttered toast, how cosy the patter of rain sounds when one is abed, whether the chicken or egg came first, if a man could, should and ever, ever would land on the moon, or even travel into outer space, all is pondered and debated with due gravity or much levity, as if all the time in the world is theirs to spare.

The summer cold has made Thomas's voice hoarse, and Paul laughs teasingly whenever he speaks, or tries to, until his friend stoops to snatch a handful of damp grass to throw over him. Squealing with laughter, dusting the grass from his golden hair and neatly buttoned jacket, Paul runs on ahead, seizing his chance, when far enough away, to throw grass and soil back at his companion in return, and thus the play-fight ensues with much laughter until Thomas stops at last to catch a breath.

"This bloody cold, gone and knocked the bloody stuffing out of me," he wheezes, and scowls as they hear the University clock from in the cenre of the town chiming the hour. "Clocks!" he growls. "Don't you just hate the people who make 'em? Like that b*****d Bill Barrow?"

"He didn't make the University clock, did he?" Paul gasps in awe.

Thomas laughs hoarsely. They are the same age – in fact, his friend is two months older – but, being taller and more of, as he considers himself, a man of the world than Paul, who, unlike Thomas, is much cherished and cossetted by his only parent, he often feels older. Especially now his father has pulled him out of school with the excuse he was starting his son on an apprenticeship (ha!) while Paul still drags himself reluctantly through the imposing gates of St Martin's Boys every weekday morning, to have his knuckles rapped for the smallest of transgressions and his left hand tied behind his back to "defy the devil" although his right-hand penmanship remains as yet a spidery scrawl.

"'Course he didn't, you ninny! As if they'd have asked that stupid pie-eyed b*****d to make University clock! Anyroad, it's the old lunatic asylum building, they'd have had to keep him in." A sudden bout bout of coughing, as he laughs at his own wit, steals his voice and he speaks the last few words barely above a whisper.

"Tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock," Paul croaks teasingly, doubling back on his tracks to tap his sweetheart's neck in time to each syllable, but it's only half an effort to croak; he thinks he night have caught Thomas's cold, he says, blowing his nose, to Thomas's amusement (and not a little envy; while he'd given short shrift to Kate's suggestion because working class lads don't, as a rule, carry such pretentious accessories, it would be nice if he could) on a startlingly clean white handkerchief, doubtless tucked into his pocket by his over-protective Mama.

And, loath as they are to part, it's probably best they head back home, they agree, as they fling themselves on the ground, using the bridge as a back rest to sit for a short while.

"Couple of old crocks, ain't we, Tom?" Paul sighs.

"Couple of old clocks, more like." Thomas replies, and Paul shakes his head in mock despair at his companion's poor joke and smiles his magic smile. A magic that somehow creeps into the air. A magic that wakes and breathes and waits.

That knows.

Because the question in Paul's eyes is surely mirrored in Thomas's own. And it is Paul who answers first, leaning in towards him, as their arms fold instinctively around each other, their lips meeting in song unknown to dance together in perfect harmony.

Their kiss is as chaste and innocent as their first, and yet this kiss is no snatched, uncertain kiss to be half regretted, half wondered at in idle moment. It has a beauty all of its own and claims it with silent promises of forever. It lasts. Even after it ends, it lasts. It leaves its taste, its smile, its touch, its memories and its dreams. Its memories and its dreams. Always.

Thomas smiles and returns their secret wave as Paul pauses briefly atop the hill to turn his cap in three clockwise circles. And then, being already late, they part company to avoid suspicion and he runs speedily towards the town without another backward glance.

Little dreaming he would never see his friend again.