So Kathy’s return to school was made easier for her than she had feared. At some time or other, almost every member of the class found a moment to whisper that they were so sorry to hear of her father’s death, but since no one embarrassed her by dwelling on it she was able to get through the day pretty well. When the bell sounded to announce the girls were free to leave, she realised that she had enjoyed her day and that she liked almost all her classmates, though Ruby and Isobella were the ones to whom she felt closest.
Making her way home that afternoon, she thought about Ruby. She was a plump, fair-haired girl with lazy grey eyes and a mouth constantly curved into a smile. She had read through the notes with Kathy and had assured her that she would give her a hand any time she needed one, but at the end of the afternoon she told Kathy that she did not think much help would be necessary. ‘You were at Daisy Street School, weren’t you?’ she had said as the two of them made their way towards the cloakrooms. ‘My Aunty Anne is a teacher, and she says the Daisy Street School give their children an excellent grounding in all the basic subjects.’ She smiled at Kathy. ‘So were you happy there? I’ve been at this school right from the start. It must be hard to come to a new place when you’re as old as thirteen, especially when it means leaving all your pals behind.’
‘I was very happy there, but it’s not so bad for me as it might be for some,’ Kathy said, taking her hat and blazer off their hooks. ‘I live in Daisy Street, you see, so when I get home there are all me old pals waiting to greet me. Janey O’Brien’s been me bezzie since we were old enough to toddle, so when I—’
Someone brushed past her, reaching up for a coat on the peg next to hers and speaking as she did so. ‘Well, Cynthia, I was wrong and I admit it! I never thought a certain person would come back at all, not after what happened. But clearly my luck is out. Still, perhaps it’s just for the one term, you never know.’ The girl put on a deliberately broad scouse accent. ‘
I’ve gorra bezzie, her name’s Jane
. . . if Miss Beaver could hear that, perhaps she’d listen to my father when he tells her that the riffraff want to pull us down to their level instead of coming up to ours.’
It was, of course, Marcia, and despite herself Kathy felt a hot flush rise to her cheeks. She would have liked to hit out, to say something really biting back, but knew that her best course was to ignore the other girl, so struggling into her blazer she said conversationally to Ruby: ‘We’ve a good deal of homework, haven’t we? I shall do mine before visiting the hospital, because my brother’s not well enough to come home yet.’ She was looking at Cynthia as she spoke and was gratified to see the other girl glance away quickly as hot colour flooded her cheeks. Marcia, however, continued to talk about scholarships and scholarship girls, actually raising her voice as Ruby and Kathy walked out of the cloakroom so that there was no possibility of their not hearing her words.
‘You did well to say nothing,’ Ruby said approvingly as the two girls left the premises. ‘Marcia Montgomery is a real cat, but her father is Chairman of the Board of Governors. He’s wealthy and influential but clearly not very bright since he believes every word his horrible daughter tells him. You’ll find that people are very anxious not to get into Marcia’s bad books. No one likes her though, not even the teachers. They know she’ll tell tales on them just as she does on us, and of course their jobs depend, to an extent, on Mr Montgomery’s good opinion.’ Ruby sighed deeply and pushed her felt hat to the back of her head. ‘I wish she wasn’t in our class – she shouldn’t be, she’s a year older than the rest of us – but I’m afraid we’re stuck with her. She had a year off when her father was working in the United States for twelve months and when she came back she was so behind the rest of her class that they kept her down a year.’
‘Oh, I
see,
’ Kathy said, light dawning. ‘No wonder she doesn’t like scholarship girls. I suppose she thinks we’re all laughing at her behind her back because she’s older. And – and she’s not terribly clever, is she, Ruby? She talks as if she is, but Isobella said she was bottom of the class in the English test last week.’
‘That’s true. But let’s not waste our breath talking about Marcia,’ Ruby said, glancing diffidently at Kathy. ‘To tell you the truth, we all wondered whether you would be able to come back. Most of us guessed that you would try to do so, but – but losing your father must have made things difficult. I know you’ve got the scholarship, but my mam and dad are always grumbling about the cost of extras, so it will come hard on your mother, won’t it? The teachers will do their best to help you over books and equipment, but next year, when you’re fourteen, and able to work . . .’
‘I’m going to stay on just as long as we can manage it – right up to matriculation, I hope,’ Kathy said firmly. ‘It was what my father wanted more than anything.’
Ruby nodded understandingly and turned to smile with evident pleasure at the other girl. ‘That’s grand news,’ she said joyfully. ‘I’ll do everything I can to help you so if you’re in a puzzle over work or need someone to hear French verbs, then just say the word.’ The two girls were now on Netherfield Road and Ruby drew Kathy to a halt as they reached the corner of Roscommon Street. ‘I go down here until I reach the Scottie. You live further out than me so I suppose you’ll want to catch a tram. Which way do you usually go?’
‘The same way as you, I think,’ Kathy said. ‘I don’t get a tram; I can walk easily enough. Where do you live, then?’
‘Burlington Street.’
‘I’m on Daisy Street, off the Stanley Road,’ Kathy said, as the two girls began to walk once more. ‘Do you have brothers and sisters, Ruby?’
Ruby replied that she was an only child, and for the rest of the walk to Burlington Street their talk ranged over a number of subjects. Just before they parted, Ruby suggested that Kathy might linger on the corner of Burlington Street next morning, on her way to school, so that they could walk the rest of the way together. Kathy felt a warm glow at this evidence of friendship and agreed eagerly that she would arrive at the rendezvous no later than eight o’clock. She waved Ruby goodbye, not waiting to see into which house she disappeared, and set off for home feeling far more cheerful than she might otherwise have done. She liked Isobella, but during the week which Kathy had missed, Isobella had grown friendly with another girl, and at first Kathy had thought, with a sinking heart, that she was going to find herself either making an uncomfortable third or having to put up with a rather solitary existence. Now, however, Ruby had made it clear that she wanted them to be friends. She and Kathy had spent their lunch hour reading through the notes of the schoolwork which Kathy had missed and had found themselves immediately in accord. She can never take Jane’s place as my bezzie because we’ve known each other for ever, Jane and me, but I do believe Ruby will be my best school friend, Kathy told herself, as she opened the back door. She knew that things would not be easy, that she and her mother would have a struggle to make ends meet, but she was confident that they would do so. Once Billy is out of hospital and back home with us, we’ll be able to make plans, she told herself, beginning to get the ingredients for a simple meal out of the pantry. I suppose I’ll have to give up things like visits to the cinema and ice creams on a hot day but it won’t kill me to do without. After all, Dad had a real struggle just to get himself a decent job and he and Mam have worked hard all their lives, but we were all really happy until the accident and I’m sure Mam and Billy and me will be happy again.
It was Christmas Eve and freezing cold. The lamplight shone down on frosty pavements and scurrying shoppers, for every housewife knew that there would be bargains to be had late on Christmas Eve. This year, Christmas Day fell on a Wednesday and since school had only broken up the previous Monday Kathy and Jane had been hard pressed to buy such small gifts as they could afford in the time at their command. The O’Briens had acquired an ancient and ramshackle pram into which Jane had piled Tommy and Teresa, and Kathy had been happy to sit Billy between the two small O’Briens, for though he was out of hospital he was still not used to walking far and she usually ended up carrying him.
Now, however, they both had a long list of messages, and were heading for St John’s market where Mr O’Brien worked, since the stallholders there were friendly and apt to lower their prices for the children of one of their own. Kathy was fond of both Jane’s parents, though she knew her mother thought that Mr O’Brien did not pull his weight within the home as her own husband had done. Jane’s father was a tall, heavily built man with crisp blond hair and grey eyes. Kathy thought he must have been handsome once, but now he was running to fat. He was always willing to help a neighbour and was renowned for his easygoing nature, but he was inherently lazy and though he used his considerable strength to good effect whilst working at the market he spent most of his time at home snoozing in a chair by the fire in winter, and on the front steps in summer. He loved his children, but it would not have occurred to him to take them on outings or play games with them, although he often handed over a ha’penny for sweets or gave Jane and Tilly tuppence to go to the Saturday rush at the local cinema. Kathy knew that Mr O’Brien expected whoever had received the tuppence to let the rest of the family into the cinema through the fire door, thus saving him a great many pennies. Her own parents would never have dreamed of doing such a thing, saying it encouraged dishonesty in the young, but Kathy privately thought it was fair enough. Unless the older ones obliged, the others would never see heroes like Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin or Laurel and Hardy.
‘I reckon we ought to visit the butchers first,’ Kathy said. ‘I’m after a nice piece of pork. It isn’t worth getting a bird just for Mam and me, because Billy don’t eat enough to cover a sixpence. If there’s a bacon joint going cheap I’ll get that an’ all, and Mam says to get bones for stock because she doesn’t think folk’ll be buying bones, not with Christmas so near.’
‘Aye, you’re right there, and pork’s a deal cheaper than goose or chicken,’ Jane said sagely.
Kathy knew that her friend must have realised, from her messages alone, how much harder life had become for the Kelling family in the past few months. Before her father’s death, they had lived comfortably, always having a joint or a fowl at weekends, and often eating meat during the week as well. Kathy had felt sorry for the O’Briens with their perpetual diet of damaged vegetables and the cheapest cuts of meat the butcher could supply, but now it seemed the roles of the two families were reversed; it was the Kellings who bought end-of-the-day meat and fish, and that only as a special treat. Vegetable stews were nourishing, soups made with bone stock more so, and one filled in the chinks with thick slices of home-baked bread and a smear of margarine. Kathy was never hungry, though she often yearned for a particular food which no longer graced their table. Pickles were one small luxury which had disappeared, though mainly because her mother had no time now to skin and prepare onions and cabbage for pickling. ‘When I’ve got meself sorted, I’ll make pickles again, and cook cakes and puddings for the three of us,’ she had promised her daughter only the previous week. ‘But now I’m workin’ full time in the café, it means I’m so tired it’s all I can do to cook ordinary stuff. But you’re a good girl, Kathy. I’ve never once heard a grumble from you.’
Kathy tried very hard not to grumble, but she did miss her school dinners. For what had once seemed a small sum, she had had a proper cooked meal followed by a pudding every day, enjoyed in the company of friends. Now, she was one of the small number of girls who brought in a packed lunch to eat in an empty classroom, the girls – all from different years – demolishing their food as quickly as they could in order to get into the playground before the dining room emptied. Kathy’s lunch was almost always bread and jam and an apple, and she was often dissatisfied by this repast, largely because of the tantalising smells of cooking coming from the school kitchen but also because her lunches rarely varied. Her mother continually urged her to take cheese in her sandwiches or to buy herself an orange, but she was far too conscious of the speed with which her mother’s wages disappeared to take advantage of the offer. Kathy had noticed her mother getting thinner and paler as the days passed and had told her, only that morning, that she really must begin to take better care of herself.
‘Where would Billy and I be without you?’ she had scolded, eyeing her mother’s plate upon which lay only bread and margarine. ‘Porridge isn’t expensive, Mam, and you make Billy and me eat it each morning. I’m sure it would be better for you than bread and marge – it’s hot for a start.’
Mrs Kelling had been hurrying round the kitchen, getting herself ready for work. She had changed her job at the corner shop for a better paid one as manageress of Dorothy’s Tearooms on the Stanley Road but, because it was full-time and she worked from eight in the morning until eight at night, she was often hard pressed. She had smiled affectionately at Kathy’s words and paused to take a drink from the mug of tea standing beside her plate. ‘I know it’s hot and nourishing, but I can’t eat porridge as I rush around getting ready for work and I can eat bread and marge,’ she said cheerfully. ‘The truth is, Kathy luv, that I’m not used to such a long working day and that’s why I’m losing a bit of weight. In the corner shop I sat around a lot, but when you’re in catering you scarcely get the chance to stand still for a moment, lerralone sit down. Don’t forget, I get two good hot meals a day at the café, only because I’m new and keen to make a good impression I jump to me feet every time a customer comes in instead of letting the waitresses deal with them. Once Christmas is over, and we’re not so hectic, I’ll take advantage of the good food and begin to get on top of the job.’