Chrissie's Children (9 page)

‘Out!’ Matt tossed the reply over his shoulder without pausing or turning his head, then he was gone.

Chrissie drove Jack to Ballantyne’s yard in the Ford. He said, ‘I know I shouldn’t have lost my temper, but—’

‘I don’t blame you,’ Chrissie cut in. ‘I did too.’ She sighed. ‘The pair of them worry me sick.’

Jack said wrily, ‘Well, now we can go to work and worry about something else,’ and he kissed her.

‘Jack!’ Chrissie was scandalised. ‘We’re driving through the town!’ Then she realised she was giggling and he was grinning.

‘That’s better,’ Jack said.

Chrissie set him down at the gates of the yard and drove back to the Railway Hotel. She had barely settled at her desk, her mind still recalling the angry scenes over breakfast, trying to put
them behind her, when Sarah Tennant tapped at the open door of her office. Chrissie managed to smile at her, then saw that the thin, pale face was drawn, the soft brown eyes red with weeping.
‘What is it, Sarah?’

Sarah had worked at the hotel for almost a year now. She had proved to be quick to learn and hard working, cheerful and willing. She was not cheerful now. Her voice husky, she asked, ‘Can
I have some time off, please, Mrs Ballantyne? I mean, could I have one or two days of my holiday now and I’ll work them in the summer?’ Then she explained, ‘You see, my
mam’s died and I have to see to the funeral.’

Chrissie thought, Oh, dear God. She had been Sarah’s age when she arranged the funeral of Bessie Milburn, who had been more of a mother to her than her own. She went to Sarah and put her
arm around the girl. ‘Come and sit down. When did it happen?’

Chrissie listened, wiped the tears and heard of the coughing that went on night and day. Sarah said simply, ‘It was the consumption, you see. The ambulanceman said Mam coughed her lung up
on the way to the hospital. She was dead when she got there.’ She shivered.

Chrissie drove Sarah to the undertaker’s. The girl knew what to do and had obviously helped her mother on similar occasions. From there they went on to the two rooms she had shared with
her late mother. There were sympathetic neighbours to welcome the girl, but before Chrissie left she took the girl aside and asked, confirming, ‘Will you be living here on your own
now?’

‘Yes, Mrs Ballantyne.’

‘If you like, I’ll find room for you at the hotel and you can live in. You don’t have to make your mind up now . . .’ Chrissie left the offer hanging but guessed from
Sarah’s face what the answer would be.

The young girl was in no position to make a dispassionate decision. She had watched her mother’s steady decline through the winter. Isabel Tennant had spent all winter in that back
kitchen, looking out on a yard, black roofs and smoking chimneys. There was not a blade of grass to be seen, let alone a flower. And coughing, coughing.

Sarah had shut her eyes to the obvious, afraid of it, and was still shocked by her mother’s death. Her thoughts were in turmoil. She grieved for her mother and she had taken no thought for
the future; it was too soon for that. Emotions made the decision for her. Later she would see that she would no longer have to find the rent – nor face Fannon to pay it – but now she
could not think of staying here without her mother, would look for her every time she walked in at the door.

So Sarah said, ‘I’d like to do that, please, Mrs Ballantyne,’ and managed to smile for the first time that day. Chrissie hugged her.

When Sophie cycled home from school she had Helen Diaz for company, come along to borrow a book needed for homework. As they turned into the drive of the Ballantyne house,
Sophie braked, back wheel sliding on the gravel, and Helen stopped alongside her.

‘Here comes Matt.’ Sophie pointed and Helen saw him trudging up the pavement under the trees that spread their branches over the road. Sophie laughed. ‘I wouldn’t be in
his shoes.’

Helen asked, ‘Why?’ and Sophie told her of the row at breakfast that morning. Helen was not amused as Sophie seemed to be, and said, ‘He ought to have some idea of what career
he wants.’ She thought Matt was lucky to have his opportunities. She made no secret of her intention to become a nurse, though she told no one of her greater ambition.

Matt came up scowling and growled, ‘What’s so funny?’

Sophie’s grin stayed in place as she answered, ‘Mother was wild. You’ll catch it tonight. And serve you right.’

Matt kept on walking past them. ‘I don’t care.’

‘Yes, you do. And I took your side, remember? But how could you walk out the way you did? That was daft!’

Matt paused and turned to grumble, ‘Dad keeps on at me about going into the yard, or studying for this, that or the other. I don’t
know
what I want to do. It’s all right
for Tom; he loves the yard, always has, couldn’t wait to get into one, and he’s counting the days until he can start work with Dad. It’s all right for you; you’re a girl and
nobody minds what you do as long as you grow out of this barmy idea to go on the stage.’ That wiped the grin from Sophie’s face. ‘But I don’t want to go into the yard. I
don’t
want
to do anything much. And I’m fed up with this place.’ He walked on up the drive.

The two girls followed, pushing their bikes, Sophie fuming over his remark about her ‘barmy idea’. Helen realised that he had looked through her as if she didn’t exist.

Chrissie sought out Matt in his room when she got home that evening and spoke her mind, finishing, ‘Don’t you dare answer me like that again!’

Matt muttered, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,’ and he was miserable because he had hurt her. ‘I just get fed up – with school and people wanting me
to do this and that.’ He shrugged, still glumly rebellious.

Chrissie said, ‘Your father’s not a fool and if you listen to him you’ll learn a lot. Now will you apologise to him?’

Matt sighed. ‘I’ll tell him I’m sorry.’

So Chrissie waylaid Jack when he returned from the yard and pleaded Matt’s case: ‘He is sorry. He’s young and he just doesn’t
know
, Jack.’

Jack grumbled but listened and later told Matt, ‘Before you start airing your views on world politics you need to study some of the people involved.
I
don’t want another war;
the last one was bad enough.’ Matt apologised and they all sat down to dinner. It was an uneasy truce.

Next morning Sarah opened the door to the dealer. He was in his fifties, wearing a greasy jacket and a shirt fastened at the neck with a brass collar-stud, but no collar. His
grey flannels had a hole in the knee and his toes poked out of his plimsolls. He looked over the two rooms with their few sticks of furniture, all of it cheap and old. He came from the next street,
knew Sarah and her mother and Sarah knew him, so he made her a fair offer: ‘I’ll give you twenty-two and six for the lot.’

Sarah took the crumpled pound note and the half-crown from him and he called in his mate who waited outside by the horse and cart. Together they loaded the furniture on to the cart, rolled up
the mats made out of clippings of rags and the old and cracked linoleum, and took all of those as well. Then they climbed up on top of the load and the horse hauled it away. Sarah was left with two
rooms empty but for a bucket, an iron-hard block of carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush. Her mother had told her, ‘Always leave a place as you’d like to find it.’

The key was in the pocket of her apron. When she was finished she would take it upstairs and leave it with her neighbours. They were out now but she would shove the key under their door and they
would give it to Fannon. Her own possessions, all she wanted to keep from this place, she had taken away the night before. She had also cleaned out the fireplace and hearth, and for hot water had lit a fire under the
boiler in the washhouse across the back yard. Now she dipped the bucket in, hauled it out nearly full and started in the bedroom.

When Sarah had scrubbed out the bedroom and most of the kitchen, she climbed wearily to her feet. It was time to throw away the dirty, soapy water and take one last bucketful from the boiler.
She picked up the bucket, turned to the door and saw Fannon standing there. She wondered how long he had been watching her as he was now, wet lips drawn back in a smirk that showed yellow teeth.
And she remembered she was alone in the house.

Fannon moved towards her and she took a step back. He reached out for her, looming over her, and she retreated another pace, panic gripping her as one of his hands seized her shoulder.
‘Just a bit o’ fun, lass. I’ll make it worth your while . . .’ he started, then the contents of the bucket hit him full in the face. He recoiled, gasping and spluttering,
wiping at his eyes as the scummy water ran down from his hair to drip off his chin. He swore, blinking, reaching out again, but then Sarah jammed the empty bucket over his head, scurried round him
and out into the passage.

She pulled the door shut behind her and fumbled for the key in her apron pocket. She slotted it in the lock and turned it. She heard the
bang!
and
clank-clank
as Fannon threw the
bucket aside, then he rattled the door and hammered on it with his fists. ‘Open this door or I’ll . . .’ he bellowed, but by that time she had run down the passage and was out in
the street, his threats fading into unintelligible bawls, sounding like some distant bull.

Jack came home for lunch silent and abstracted. Chrissie sat opposite him at the oval table and asked, ‘Something wrong?’

He sighed. ‘The Greek contract we were negotiating fell through. We had a letter from them this morning.’

Chrissie said, ‘Oh! That’s bad news,’ and knew it was very bad.

They fell silent a while as Betty Price, the fresh-faced maid, entered, pushing a loaded trolley. She served them with chops and set the tureen of vegetables on the table. Chrissie said,
‘Thank you,’ and the girl left.

Jack went on, ‘It’s mostly bad news these days. Last year – 1935 – was the best since 1930: we built eight ships on this river, totalling 31,000 tons. But ten years ago
we were averaging over
131,000
tons! That’s how good this “best year” is.’ He paused and eyed Chrissie grimly, then finished, ‘If we don’t get a contract
for another ship we won’t be able to keep the yard open through next winter. We’ll have to lay everybody off.’

‘
Everybody!
’ Chrissie said with her face creased as if it hurt, and it did. She knew what that meant to the men and their families who made their living from building ships.
It meant the dole and the Relief, ragged clothes and empty bellies.

Jack said heavily, ‘There’s still time to find another contract, but it’s getting short.’

He looked up as Matt wandered into the dining-room and slumped into a chair at the oval table, his long legs stretched out. Chrissie said absently, still shaken by Jack’s news,
‘Matt, you have oil on your face.’

‘I’ve been working on the car.’ He held up his hands. ‘I did wash.’

Jack glanced at him and said brusquely, ‘Well, clean your face as well, there’s a good chap.’

Matt grumbled, ‘What’s the point? There’s no one here but us.’ Sophie ate lunch at school.

Chrissie intervened quickly. ‘Please, Matt.’

‘Oh, all right.’ He sighed and slouched out. When he returned he muttered, ‘Chops again?’ and helped himself from the trolley. As he did so, he said, ‘I think this
chap Churchill is a warmonger. He says we should fight Hitler.’

Jack answered curtly, ‘He’s been down this road before. I think he knows what he’s talking about.’

A shriek came distantly from the back of the house, followed by the crash of breaking glass or china. Chrissie jumped up from her chair and hurried out. That kind of sound coming from a kitchen
always rang alarm bells for her.

She found the cook and Betty Price mopping up a broken dish and a steamed pudding that had spread across the floor. The cook wailed, ‘Sorry, Mrs Ballantyne! I was lifting it out o’
the pan wi’ the clout and it shot out o’ me hands!’

Chrissie saw the pan on the gas cooker that had replaced the old, black kitchen range. She said, ‘No one hurt, then?’ When they confirmed this she sighed her relief. She had worried
that the shriek came from someone scalded having known too many such accidents when she had worked in kitchens. ‘Never mind. We’ll have some fruit for dessert.’

She left to return to her lunch and the cook muttered, ‘ “Never mind,” she says? I was looking forward to having a bit o’ that pudden meself.’

Betty Price commiserated, ‘Me an’ all,’ then added, ‘There’s a row goin’ on in there, atmosphere you could cut wi’ a knife.’

As Chrissie approached the door to the dining-room it flew open and Matt charged out. He paused to shout back at Jack, ‘You treat me like a kid!’ then almost ran along the hall on
long legs, slamming the front door behind him.

Chrissie looked at Jack and he glared back at her. She did not speak and after a moment his glare faded and became a frown of irritation. He growled, ‘He came out with some more of his
half-baked claptrap, about warmongers like Churchill – and me.’

‘
You!
’

Jack nodded wrily. ‘That’s right. It seems I want a war to make business for the yard.’

Chrissie bit her lip. ‘Oh, Jack. That’s awful. I’m sorry.’ She went to him and put her arm around him.

He gripped her hand. ‘I suppose I blew up because there’s an element of truth in it. I don’t want a war – God forbid! – but it would bring orders for ships and
he’s right about that.’

Chrissie kissed him. ‘He’s wrong to accuse you of hoping for a war and he knows he is wrong. He’ll come back and apologise. He’ll be sorry.’

Matt was sorry already. He strode aimlessly along the road under the trees and wondered, How could I say that? He had missed his lunch but didn’t care about that because he knew he would
be fed whenever he showed his face in the kitchen. The cook doted on him.

Peter Robinson was still waiting for lunch. He had gone down to the seashore early that morning, collected a load of driftwood that filled the bogey and hauled it back to his
home. In the back yard he chopped the wood into sticks and bound them in bundles with odd lengths of string. Then he set out to haul them around the streets looking for buyers. He now knew it was
no use offering them in Monkwearmouth where he lived because people there couldn’t afford to buy, or they found their own firewood where they could. He towed the bogey back to the sea-front
houses of Roker and Seaburn where some people had money to spend. However, that still did not mean they would buy.