i e6a2876c557e1281 (7 page)

I stopped dead, my eyes stretching upwards, my mouth stretching downwards, even my ears seemed to be stretching out of my head.

"You dont believe me?"

"No, I dont." I backed from her as if she was the devil himself.

"You're wicked. Priests dont kiss people, not girls. Eeh! Cissie Campbell."

"He did, I tell you, and I run away."

"You're lying and I'll tell Mam about you. He's... he's holy. My dad says he is the best priest in the world."

"You promised not to say anything."

I didn't. "

"You did." She was advancing on me now.

"If you dare tell your mother do you know what I 'll do ?"

I backed again, staring at her all the while.

"I'll tell your mother what you and Don Dowling do down by the river."

"D ... D ... Don." I was spluttering now, and a little fear was creeping like a thread through my body, vibrating on a memory from the past.

"I've never done anything with Don, never."

"Yes you have, he told me. And I'll not only tell your mother but I'll go to Father Howard and tell him. And you won't half get it from him if I tell him all Don Dowling told me, so there."

The many dangers that involved me through Don was security enough for Cissie, but as I watched her stalking away up the hill, her bottom wobbling, I wasn't thinking so much of Don and what he had said about me, but of Father Ellis, and my mind kept repeating, "He didn't do it, he wouldn't do it."

The Sunday following this incident my father came into my room very early in the morning and whispered, "I'm off to mass. Your mother's going to have a lie in this morning, she's not feeling too good.

Wouldn't you like to get up and get the breakfast under way? "

I got up and went downstairs and into the front room. Mother was sitting up in bed and she gave me a warm smile as I entered.

"Youbad'Mam?"

"No," she said.

"I took some medicine last night and I've got a pain in my tummy, that's all."

"Oh." I let out a long sigh of relief, Epsom Salts always gave me a pain in my tummy.

After getting dressed I set the table for breakfast and then did the vegetables for the dinner, and after Dad came back and breakfast was over I washed up and did the kitchen. With all this I was too late for the ten o'clock mass, the children's mass, so I went to eleven o'clock.

The church was different at eleven o'clock for it was full of grown-ups and all the men seemed to stand at the back while there was still some empty seats at the front. I was sitting behind a pillar and the only way I could see Father Howard was when I craned my neck, and I did crane my neck as he began his sermon, for without any leading up he yelled one word at the congregation.

"Immorality," he yelled, and then there was such a silence that you could hear people breathing. I did not understand anything of what he said at first until he began to talk about the girls and women of the parish.

"Babylon isn't in it with this town," he cried, 'and I'm not referring to the prostitutes in Bog's End. They carry out their profession in the open, they dont hide behind religion, nor have they the nerve to come to mass and the sacraments with blackness in their hearts that even they would be ashamed of. This parish has become such that it isn't safe for a priest to walk the streets at night. "

I knew without names being mentioned that the priest Father Howard was referring to was Father Ellis. There was another priest younger than Father Ellis, called Father James, but he did not have a nice face nor a nice voice like Father Ellis. And I also knew that Cissie Campbell had wanted the priest to kiss her and she wasn't the only one, for lots of the grown-up girls were always hanging round him.

When the mass was over and I was going up the side aisle I saw my Aunt Phyllis walking in the throng up the centre aisle; her head was high but her eyes looked downwards, and she had the appearance of someone wrapped around with righteousness. When she saw me outside she seemed surprised and asked, "Have you been to this mass?" And when I said

"Yes' she said, " Ah well, I hope it's done you some good. "

Later the whole town was talking about Father Howard's sermon, but neither Dad nor Mam asked me anything about it.

The following year, nineteen-thirty-five, our Ronnie and Don Dowling left school and both started at the Phoenix pit. Dad said it would not make much difference to us as they would dock it off his dole, and they did.

There hadn't been much laughter in our house for some months until one night, sitting at the table, I began w eat slowly, toying with my food, my whole attention concentrated on the thought that had been coming and going in my mind for some long time past. And now, being unable to contain myself any longer as to the truth of Aunt Phyllis's remark, I suddenly raised my eyes and, looking across at Dad, said, "Have I really got a silly laugh. Dad ?"

They all stopped eating and stared at me, then one after the other they began to laugh. My mother first, her body shaking before she would let her laughter loose, Ronnie's mouth was wide and his head back, and Dad, with his two

hands clasped on the table, leant across to me I was now laughing myself and shaking his head slowly he said, "It's the best laugh in the land, hinny. Never let it fade ... never."

That night Ronnie came into my room. I dont know what time it was, I only know that a hand on my shoulder startled me into wakefulness, and I couldn't see anyone in the dark. But then I heard Ronnie's voice whispering near my ear, "Ssh! it's me."

I turned on my side in an effort to get up, but his hand kept me still, and I asked, "What is it? Is Mam bad?"

"No," he murmured, "I only wanted to talk to you."

I screwed my face up in the dark, then said, "Talk to me? What about?"

"Oh, lots of things," he whispered.

"I miss you, Christine, now that I'm at work, and we never seem to go anywhere without Sam or Don." He paused, and although I could only see the dark outline of him I knew that we were staring into each other's eyes. Then, with a little gurgle of merriment in his voice, he asked,

"Have you been worrying about what Aunt Phyllis said that night about your laugh?"

"No," I lied; 'only I would stop laughing if I thought it was silly.

"

"It isn't silly, it's as Dad said, you've got a lovely laugh. And you know something', what I heard the day?"

"No."

"It was when we were on the wagons. Harry Bentop you wouldn't know him but he's seen you. Well, he said, " By, your sister's not half a smasher, she's going to be the prettiest lass in Fellbum. " How d'you like that?"

The? "

Huh, huh. "

I hadn't thought about being pretty. I knew that I had nice hair, everybody said so, but pretty. It was nice to be thought pretty, it was something that I would have to think about, really think about. So went vague thoughts in the back of my mind, but what was bringing me into full wakefulness was a puzzling, bemusing thought, a thought that was there and yet wasn't. It was more of a feeling, and the feeling said that my mother wouldn't like our Ronnie to be here talking to me in the middle of the night.

"I'm sleepy," I said and, turning abruptly round with a great flounce, I faced the wall.

Some seconds passed before I heard him padding across the room, and although I strained my ears I didn't hear the opening of the door, but knew he was gone by the relieved feeling inside of me.

I could not get to sleep now. Was I going to be the prettiest girl in Fellbum? Did the lads in the pit talk about me? But most of all my mind was groping around the question of why Ronnie had come into my room in the middle of the night to tell me this, why hadn't he told it to me in the kitchen, when Dad and Mam weren't there?

That week-end Ronnie brought home a puppy. He said its name was Stinker, that he would pay the licence and it could live on scraps.

This last was to assure mother that it would be no bother as regards food. And lastly he said it was for me. My delight in the gift overflowed from my body and filled the house, and as I took Stinker into my arms, a love sprang up between us that was to make us inseparable until the day he died.

When I was fourteen I asked my mother if I could go to the baths. A number of the girls from school had joined a swimming club, and I had a great urge to learn to swim. I remember she considered thoughtfully for a moment before saying, "No, Christine, I dont think it wise."

"But why?" I asked, 'all the girls go, and I'm the only one that can't swim. Ronnie, Don and Sam can swim like ducks and there's me, I have to pledge on the edge. Oh, Mam, let's. "

Again she bowed her head as if considering, then said, "Not yet awhile, hinny, leave it for a year or so."

A year or so. In a year or so I'd be old and working, and not wanting to swim. But I didn't upset my mother with my pleading, for she wasn't herself these days, she spent a long time sitting in the lavatory at the bottom of the yard, and when she came into the kitchen she would huddle dose to the fire and her face would look grey and drawn. But sometimes for weeks she would be all right, and I would get her to walk in the wood with me, and draw out her laugh with the fantasies I made about the trees. I would point out the oak

and say, "There it goes making its bread crumb pudding again." This was when it threw its brown, crumbly flowers out in the spring. Or I'd bring in a spray of horse chestnut, and day after day give a commentary to her on its unfolding. When from its scaly brown cloak there peeped a pale reddy-brown nose, I would turn from the kitchen window where it was stuck in a jar to cry, "Look, Mam, it's turned into a ballet dancer." And she would come and stand near me and look at the silver down-engulfed thing straining away from the brown cloaks that endeavoured to keep it covered. When on the next day the ballet dancer would be gone, leaving only two deep olive green leaves, one dangling in folds from a stalk where the down disappeared at the touch of a finger, so fine it was, I would continue my story. But she wouldn't, I noticed, look so much at the wonder of the opening chestnut bud as at me. In the middle of my narrating, if I turned and looked up at her it would be to find her eyes riveted on my head, and the soft, warm, comforting light in them would bring my attention wholly to her, and I would fling my arms around her waist and lay my head on her shoulder now I could do that, for I was tall for my age.

On such days as these I was wrapped around in a warm comforting glow.

When some months later I again put the plea of learning to swim to her, she shut me up quickly with a snapping reply, and I went out and down to the lavatory and had a good cry. When I returned to the scullery I knew that my father had come in, and that she had been telling him, for I heard his voice saying quietly, "Don't be afraid for her. God has a way of looking after his own," and I stood in some bewilderment. What was she afraid of? Why should she be afraid for me just because I wanted to learn to swim? Other girls learned to swim and their mothers weren't afraid for them, at least, I didn't think so. It should be the other way round; she should be afraid because I couldn't swim and would likely drown in the river if I fell in. Her attitude to this matter was very puzzling. Then one Saturday morning, when I was wrapped around with the warm glow again and the smell of baking in the kitchen, she began to talk to me. Not looking at me, she told me that I mustn't go off on my own with any boys.

"But I dont go around with boys, Mam, you know I dont." I was slightly huffed.

"Only with Don and Ronnie and Sam."

There was a long pause, before she said, "Well, never go out with Don on your own, always see that Ronnie goes along."

I didn't want to go off with Don on my own, anywhere, or at any time, but did this rule apply to Sam? So I said, "Not with Sam, either, Mam?"

"Oh." She straightened her back.

"Oh, Sam is just a boy." And she turned and looked at me and smiled warmly at me as she added, "Sam's all right."

Well, what was there to worry about? I didn't want to be alone with anybody, only perhaps Stinker when we went over the fells or into the wood. There were times when I was happier with Stinker than with anyone else I could think of. With Stinker as my sole companion I felt free; the closed-in feeling that I had in the company of Ronnie and Don fled and I felt lighter, able to run or sit if I wanted to without the restricting touches of their hands or contact with their bodies.

I had a sense of guilt when I felt that our Ronnie's presence, too, was irksome to me, for I had a nice feeling for him, at least during the day. But not at night when he came creeping into my room and woke me up because he wanted to talk. This had happened twice since that first night, when he told me I was pretty.

Then one day I went to the wood to take, so I told myself, my last walk, for on the morrow I was starting work. This business of starting work held no joy for me, for I was going into Mrs. Tumbull's draper shop. Father Ellis had got me the job. I was to start at quarter to nine in the morning, and four evenings a week I would finish at seven o'clock, but on Saturday it could be eight or nine, all according to custom, Mrs. Tumbull had pointed out. Wednesday I finished at one o'clock. Mother comforted me by saying it might lead to better things.

What, I couldn't see, as there was only another girl and Mrs. Tumbull in the business. And the other girl was new, too.

Aunt Phyllis said I was lucky to get a job at all when there were dozens of girls with 'something up top' who would have jumped at the chance, but there, was nothing like finding favour in the priest's eyes. And now, she had added, and this was in the absence of my mother, I might stop acting like a wild thing and grow up and have some sense. I knew

5i

she was referring to Don and Sam following me about, and I wanted to say to her that I didn't want anybody to follow me about, I would rather be on my own, but I had strict orders from mother never to be cheeky, not to anyone, but particularly not to Aunt Phyllis. When speaking about Aunt Phyllis my mother always finished with, "She has enough on her plate."