“Anyway, down to business, lad,” said the man. “A nice shiny tip, if you please, take the dust off the sides, and something to get rid of the scuffs on the heels. Don’t be shy with the polish either.”
Alfie nodded and took out his brushes and jars, settling the man’s left shoe on the footrest.
“Perhaps I shouldn’t ask this,” the man said after a moment, “but shouldn’t you be in school today? Or maybe all the London schools have closed down and no one has had the good grace to tell me!”
“I was sick, sir,” said Alfie.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I mean, my teacher was sick. So we were given a half-day’s holiday.”
“I don’t believe a word of it. But we won’t fall out over a little white lie. At least you’re here earning a living for your family and not wasting your time on the streets doing nothing. You do give your earnings to your mother, I hope?”
“I do, sir, yes,” replied Alfie, neglecting to mention that he had kept some of it back for his secret mission and was keeping even more back now for secret mission part two, which was going to take even more planning than the first one but was infinitely more important. And considerably more dangerous.
“Good boy. You give a quality shine too, I’ll give you that,” the man added, looking down at the way Alfie’s hands moved quickly over his shoes, adding just the right amount of polish here, clearing a bit of dirt away there, the dusters and brushes moving as if independent of his hands. “You must have been at this awhile. A right little professional, aren’t you?”
“Thank you, sir,” said Alfie, tapping the tip of the left shoe with his fingers to indicate that it was done. The man took his foot down and replaced it with the other one, and Alfie got to work again.
“My cousin Thomas used to shine shoes at the train station in Llanystumdwy,” said the man, taking a pipe from his pocket and lighting it up, waiting a moment to allow the flame from the match to connect with the tobacco in the bowl. “Funny fellow, he was. Wouldn’t get a haircut on account of the fact that he was afraid of the barber’s scissors. Believed he had nerve endings in his hair, see. That was a long time ago now, of course. It’s pleasant just to sit here, though. I don’t get a lot of time to sit around doing nothing.”
“You have a job then, sir?” asked Alfie, who assumed the man was unemployed if he could afford to stand around train stations in the middle of the day, making a show of himself.
“Oh, I do, I do,” said the man.
“Giving speeches?” asked Alfie.
“Amongst other things. Politics should be about doing things, though, not just talking about doing things, don’t you agree? But if you don’t get out among the people, then they start to think that you’ve forgotten them and they look around to see whether someone else might do a better job. Do you know who told me that?”
“No, sir.”
“The king,” he replied with a smile. “He makes the occasional remark that’s worth remembering. There was one last year too. I wrote it down somewhere. He’s due another any day now. We live in hope, anyway.”
Alfie stopped what he was doing and looked up in astonishment. “Have you really met the king?” he asked.
“Of course. Many times. I see him two or three afternoons a week at least. I have a meeting with him in about half an hour, as it happens.”
Alfie smiled and shook his head. He came across all sorts of strange folk in this job, and even though the man seemed respectable enough, he was obviously mad or delusional or both. He glanced over toward the station entrance, where a group of men in suits were all standing, smoking, and chatting, and then, to his horror, he saw a woman stepping through the center of them and looking around the station as if she were lost.
The very last person Alfie expected to see today.
His mum, Margie.
“Work here every day, do you, lad?” asked the man, and Alfie looked back up at him and blinked.
“I beg your pardon, sir?” he asked.
“I wondered whether you work here every day. You can tell me the truth. I won’t be reporting back to the cabinet on it.”
“Four days a week,” said Alfie, who felt somehow that he could trust him not to report him to the headmaster. “Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. I go to school on Mondays and Thursdays.”
“And Sundays?”
“I take a rest on Sundays,” said Alfie. He glanced around again and watched as his mother searched in her bag for something; when she looked up, he picked his cap up off the ground, emptied his earnings into the bottom of Mr. Janáček’s shoeshine box, and pulled it low over his head so there was less chance of his being seen.
“You’re not the first to do that,” said the man. “What I wouldn’t give for a rest on a Sunday! I would think all my Christmases had come together.”
Alfie dared to look around once more; now his mother was standing in the center of the concourse staring up at the information board before turning her head to glance at the clock over the ticket booth. And then, before he could look away, she stared in his direction. He looked down quickly, pulling the cap lower still as he continued with his shining. Peering around only a little, his heart sank when he realized that Margie was walking directly toward him, looking as if she couldn’t quite believe the evidence of her own eyes. Alfie shook his head, devastated, and waited. He’d been caught. Everything would come out now.
He would never get to complete his secret mission part two.
Georgie would be condemned to that horrible place forever.
“I don’t believe it,” said Margie, standing over him now. “I saw you over here and wondered whether my eyes were playing tricks on me.”
Alfie reached up to take his cap off, but before he could do so, the man had spoken.
“If you are wondering whether I am who you think I am,” he said, “then yes, I am.”
“I thought as much,” said Margie. “I recognize you from the newspapers.”
“David Lloyd George,” said the man, extending his hand.
“Margie Summerfield,” said Margie.
“It’s a pleasure, madam.”
Alfie held his breath. Could it be that she had not seen him after all? She was standing right over him, but his cap was pulled well down over his face. She wasn’t even looking at the shoeshine boy.
“I wouldn’t have thought that the prime minister could sit around having his shoes shined in the middle of the afternoon,” said Margie. “You do know there’s a war going on, don’t you?”
“I do, Mrs. Summerfield, yes,” said the man, his voice growing a little deeper now. “But even prime ministers are allowed a few minutes to themselves.”
Alfie could scarcely believe his ears. The prime minister?
“I’m sorry,” said Margie. “That was rude of me.”
“It’s quite all right.”
“I’m just so tired.”
“Please,” he insisted. “I took no offense. We live in stressful times.”
“May I ask you something?”
“You may.”
Margie didn’t hesitate. “When will this blessed war be over? And please don’t say by Christmas. Give me an honest answer. Even if it’s not the one I want to hear.”