Billy Rags by Ted Lewis Page A

all right.”
    â€œHow much do you think there’ll be?” Johnno asks.
    â€œHe doesn’t cash up till tomorrow. Wednesdays and Saturdays he stacks it away. So if we go tonight there’ll be two days’ worth in the till. A chemist . . . Could be anything. He’s got four staff on so he’s doing all right. Won’t be less than two ton. Four could be nearer the mark.”
    Johnno whistles.
    â€œChrist,” he says. “A ton each. Just think of it. Up West with a ton in your pocket.”
    But I’m not thinking of the money. I’m thinking of the climb, the drop, the actual job.
    The cage door opens and in walks Tony Jackson, all suited up and ready for some kind of action. He comes over to our table and sits down.
    â€œWhat’s on, Tony?” Johnno asks. “Who is it tonight?”
    â€œSharon Cross. Three hours of finger at the Essoldo. And tonight she’ll really be a goer now she’s got her results.”
    â€œResults?” I say.
    â€œYou know. School Cert. She got all she went for so she’ll be chuffed to NAAFI break tonight.”
    â€œWhen did they come through?” I ask.
    â€œThis morning. Didn’t you get yours, then?”
    I shake my head.
    â€œGot mine. Sharon told me. They posted them up at school. As expected, one hundred per cent successful.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    â€œDidn’t get any.”
    I want to ask him if he knows what my results are. But I don’t want to seem interested in front of Johnno and Howard. Not that I’ll have done any good. I deliberately threw the exams. They weren’t important any more. But now the evidence of my failure will be public. I feel de-pressed with shame. I can’t help thinking of the waste, knowing what I could be like. But it was a choice, deliberate and calculated. And tonight, climbing to the roof of the chemists shop, the choice will be vindicated by the way I’ll be feeling then. But right now, all I can think of is the dusty sunny exam hall, and the way Mr. Bradley kept looking at me as I sat back and watched everybody else scribbling away. The feeling then was good, and afterwards everyone clustered round my boldness. But now the feeling is different. The scene has gone sour.
    I look at my watch. Six hours to the job. If only the crowd from school could be around to admire this one.
    On the third day, the Home Office showed up. They sent up a man called Hepton. This was good news in more ways than one. First it meant that the Home Office had concluded that Moffatt wasn’t up to getting us out. Which made Moffatt look bad and us feel good. Second, Hepton was straight, according to Terry, who had known Hepton when he’d been a Governor. Straight, principled, and fair. So the Home Office were worried, worried enough to ease us out with someone we’d tumble to.
    When Hepton appeared Terry was elected spokesman. The rest of us stayed in the office and listened to the dialogue. Hepton’s words were the best we could hope for; while he wasn’t prepared to bargain with us, he’d read our statement of grievances and he assured us they’d be given very serious consideration. He hinted that the longer we stayed in the less serious the consideration would be. But everything about Hepton’s words and the way he said them pointed to what we already knew: they badly wanted us out, whatever the terms.
    When Terry came back from the barricade we all had a parley.
    â€œThe way I see it,” I said, “if we go out under Hepton where Moffatt failed, then we’ll have made Moffatt look bad. We wouldn’t be going out under threat or by Hobson’s choice. We’d be going out reasonably and rationally, in fact behaving the dead opposite to the way Moffatt’s behaved to us. This can only improve whatever chances are going at the Home Office as far as them looking into Moffatt’s policies are concerned. And