Alfie liked Joe Patience, and he thought it was funny that his name seemed to be the opposite of his character because he was always getting worked up over something. After he painted his front door red, three of the men, Mr. Welton from number five, Mr. Jones from number nineteen, and Georgie Summerfield, Alfie’s dad, went over to have a word with him about it. Georgie didn’t want to go, but the two men insisted, since he was Joe’s oldest friend.
“It’s not on, Joe,” said Mr. Jones as all the women came out on the street and pretended to wash their windows.
“Why not?”
“Well, take a look around you. It’s out of place.”
“Red is the color of the working man! And we’re all working men here, aren’t we?”
“We have yellow doors here on Damley Road,” said Mr. Welton.
“Whoever said they had to be yellow?”
“That’s just the way things have always been. You don’t want to go mucking about with traditional ways.”
“Then how will things ever get better?” asked Joe, raising his voice even though the three men were standing directly in front of him. “For pity’s sake, it’s just a door! What does it matter what color it is?”
“Maybe Joe’s right,” said Georgie, trying to calm everyone’s tempers. “It’s not that important, is it? As long as the paint isn’t chipping off and letting the street down.”
“I might have known you’d be on his side,” said Mr. Jones, sneering at him even though it had been his idea to ask Georgie to join them in the first place. “Old pals together, eh?”
“Yes,” said Georgie with a shrug, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Old pals together. What’s wrong with that?”
In the end, there was nothing that Mr. Welton or Mr. Jones could do about the red door, and it stayed that way until the following summer, when Joe decided to change it again and painted it green in support of the Irish—who, Joe said, were doing all they could to break off the shackles of their imperial overlords. Alfie’s dad just laughed and said that if he wanted to waste his money on paint, then it was nothing to do with him. Granny Summerfield said that if Joe’s mother were still alive, she’d be ashamed.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Margie. “He has an independent streak, that’s all. I quite like that about him.”
“He’s not a bad fellow, Joe Patience,” agreed Georgie.
“He’s his own man,” repeated Old Bill Hemperton.
“He’s lovely looking, despite everything,” Margie said. “Helena Morris is sweet on him.”
“She’d be ashamed,” insisted Granny Summerfield.
But other than that, the people on Damley Road always seemed to get along very well. They were neighbors and friends. And no one seemed more a part of that community than Kalena and her father.
* * *
Mr. Janáček ran the sweet shop at the end of the road. It wasn’t just a sweet shop, of course—he also sold newspapers, string, notepads, pencils, birthday cards, apples, catapults, soccer balls, laces, boot polish, carbolic soap, tea, screwdrivers, purses, shoehorns, and lightbulbs—but as far as Alfie was concerned the most important thing he sold was sweets, so he called it the sweet shop. Behind the counter stood rows of tall clear-glass containers crammed full of sherbet lemons, apple and pear drops, bull’s-eyes, licorice sticks, and caramel surprises, and whenever Alfie had a penny or two to spare he always went straight to Mr. Janáček, who let him stand there for as long as he liked while he made up his mind.
“Sometimes, Alfie,” he said, leaning over the counter and taking off his spectacles to clean them, “I think that you enjoy deciding what to spend your pennies on more than you do eating the sweets themselves.”
Mr. Janáček had a funny voice because he wasn’t English. He was from Prague, and although he’d come to London ten years before, he had never lost his accent. What came out as vat. Sweets as sveets. Kalena didn’t speak like him because she’d been born in their house at number six and had never been outside London in her life.
“You’re the luckiest person I know,” Alfie told her one day as they sat together on the edge of the pavement, chewing on a licorice allsort and watching the coal man deliver a bag into Mrs. Scutworth’s at number fifteen. The coal man’s face and hands were completely black with soot, but he must have just rolled up his sleeves before he arrived because his forearms were pale white.
“Why do you say that?” asked Kalena, carefully peeling the skin off a banana.
“Because your dad runs a sweet shop,” he replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “There isn’t any job in the world that’s better than that. Except maybe working on the milk float.”
Kalena shook her head. “There’s lots of jobs better than that,” she said. “I’m not going to run a sweet shop when I grow up.”
“Then what will you do?” asked Alfie, frowning.
“I’m going to be prime minister,” said Kalena.
Alfie didn’t know what to say to that, but he thought it sounded very impressive. When he told his parents over tea that night, they both burst out laughing.
“Kalena Janáček? The prime minister?” said Georgie, shaking his head. “I’ve heard everything now. Pass me the carrots, love.”
“A prime minister’s wife, more like,” said Margie, reaching for the dish.
“Well, I’d vote for her,” said Alfie, defending his friend. He didn’t like the way they thought this was so funny.
“You’d be the only one,” said Georgie. “She wouldn’t even be able to vote for herself, so how she thinks she can get the top job is beyond me. Bit chewy, these carrots, aren’t they?”
“Why can’t she vote for herself?” asked Alfie.
“Women can’t vote, Alfie,” said Margie, cutting another slice of beef from the roast and putting it on his plate with an extra potato. (This was in the days when they were able to eat things like beef and potatoes for supper. Before the war broke out.)
“Why not?”
“It’s the way things have always been.”
“But why?”
“Is a letter that comes between x and z,” said Margie. “Now eat your supper, Alfie, and stop asking so many questions. And there’s nothing wrong with them carrots, Georgie Summerfield, so mind you eat them up too. I don’t spend my afternoons cooking just to clear away a plate of leftovers.”
Alfie didn’t think any of these answers explained anything, but he thought it was a good thing that Kalena was ambitious. Later that night, he lay in bed and thought about all the things he could do when he grew up. He could be a train driver. Or a policeman. He could be a schoolteacher or a fireman. He could go to work on the milk float with his dad or be a bus conductor like Mr. Welton. He could be an explorer like Ernest Shackleton, who was always in the papers these days. They all seemed like good jobs—but then inspiration struck and he nearly jumped out of bed in excitement at the idea.
The following afternoon, he marched into Mr. Janáček’s sweet shop and waited until Mr. Candlemas from number thirteen had counted out a handful of change for his tobacco before sitting down on the high stool next to the counter and staring up at the jars of sweets.