Authors: Helen Forrester
I soon gained strength again and, through long days, slid silently between the patient, smelly clients, carrying cups of tea or files or messages. Sometimes I felt like advising the quietly courteous interviewers that our funds would do as much good if they were simply scattered in the back streets and left for the inhabitants to pick up. In large areas of Liverpool there was barely an inhabitant who was not in distress. Workless, half-starved, they were packed into deteriorating houses lacking proper toilets or running water. They were often shiftless and stupid, many spent their money on drink and some on drugs, but their need was blatantly manifest to anyone who cared to walk down the long treeless streets and through the narrow courts. Born and bred in such shocking conditions, who
could blame them for seeking at every opportunity the garish warmth of the public houses on almost every corner?
It was pathetic to watch the clients doing their best not to use coarse language before the gently-bred ladies of our organisation. Their usually loud voices were lowered to the whispers of the confessional, as they hesitantly chose words that would please, not offend. They never laughed.
In fact, nobody laughed, except the shorthand typists in their isolated nest on the top floor. It was not an environment calculated to raise the spirits of a sad and sick fifteen-year old.
Grandma had, however, taught me to read out of the Bible, and I believed firmly in miracles. I had also not yet totally lost my belief in fairies, particularly Robin Goodfellow, a wicked sprite who sometimes snatched cups from my careless fingers and smashed them on the floor or who lost my pencils and dropped the hairpins out of my hair.
When the Presence sent for me one sunny May morning, therefore, I was expecting to be upbraided for the breakage of a cup and saucer, Robin Goodfellow having been rather busy the previous day. Instead, she performed a miracle.
I stood humbly before her desk, blue overall
crumpled and splashed, greasy hair untidily knotted into a bun at the nape of my neck. Fortunately, she was too busy to look up at me.
She had a letter in her hand and she announced, as she read it, that I was entitled to two weeks’ holiday that summer and had been granted a free holiday in a place called Kent’s Bank. Mr Ellis would tell me when I could go, and a train ticket would be sent to me by the charity concerned. It did not strike me at the time that she might have asked me if I would like to go. I was ordered to depart for Kent’s Bank on a date to be arranged.
Beside myself with excitement, I thanked her and fled back upstairs to the kitchen, where I stood quivering in front of the sink. A holiday! An undreamed of luxury. A miracle.
Later, I cautiously inquired of one of the filing clerks if she knew where Kent’s Bank was. She looked derisively at me for a moment and then sniggered. That little choking laugh told me that a recipient of charity was contemptible, and that she knew why I asked.
‘It’s on Morecambe Bay,’ she said, and turned superciliously back to her file sorting.
Terribly hurt, I slunk back to the kitchen.
As I ate potatoes and cabbage and gravy, saved for me from the hot meal Mother had made at tea time, I told her about the holiday.
‘It’s all free, Mummy. Even the train ticket. Except I think I would simply have to have a nightgown and some walking shoes – if you could get them, Mummy.’
‘I can’t afford them,’ said Mother simply. She was sitting in the easy chair, Edward on her lap, and smoking a cigarette.
‘It is time you provided things like that for yourself, now that you are at work.’ She took a slow pull at the cigarette and exhaled the smoke through her nostrils. ‘You must have had a rise in salary since you started. You have been working for over a year now.’
Startled, I blinked at her. I had hardly given a thought to pay increases. I had concentrated solely on retaining my job.
‘No, Mummy. I’ve never had a rise – only a reduction the first week. I’m still the office girl.’
Mother’s eyebrows rose. ‘That’s absurd. You must have had an increase.’
‘Honestly, Mummy. I haven’t. I would have told you if I had.’
Her lips twisted and she stared hostilely at me. It was clear that she did not believe me.
My throat constricted. Then I said stiffly, ‘I don’t cheat, Mummy.’
‘They don’t have money to give increases,’ interjected Father, looking up from his book, laid on the table in front of him beside a half-drunk cup of tea. ‘Helen should go. She still doesn’t look well. Perhaps we could get a one pound cheque to buy the things she needs. Try. See what you can do.’
While they argued and Mother fretted about the peremptoriness of the Presence, who had obviously not considered that my help might be needed at home, I rescued Avril from a fight on the front pavement and put her and Edward to bed. Avril always wanted to be included in the boys’ games; and this time they had not allowed her to join in a game of marbles and she was in a howling tantrum over it. She transferred some of her furious frustration to me, as I hauled her into bed and told her in true sisterly fashion to shut up.
It was a further miracle which found me standing on the doorstep of a fine stone mansion in Kent’s Bank run as a guest house by an organisation which used its profits to provide free holidays for the less fortunate. The June sun warmed my back and the clear, sharp smell of the sea wafted round me. In my hand I held a brown paper bag containing a clean blouse and panties, a nightgown and a
toothbrush. On my feet I wore a second-hand pair of boy’s shoes. Fiona had volunteered the loan of her raincoat which was a little short on me, but made me look quite neat. All the children had been delighted that I was to go on a holiday, though it was clear from their wistful faces that they wished they could come, too.
In answer to my timorous knock, a middle-aged man, swarthy and black-haired, ushered me in and up a fine, well-carpeted staircase, to a large bedroom containing six single beds.
‘You are the first arrival, so choose whichever bed you like,’ he said with a cheerful grin. ‘You can put your toilet things on the dressing-table there and clothes in the wardrobe.’ He gestured towards two enormous pieces of shining Edwardian furniture.
‘I’d enjoy being by the window,’ I replied shyly, pointing to the furthest bed which stood close to a tall light window draped in white net curtains. Through the window I could see pine trees waving in the breeze and a dazzling glimpse of the sea.
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Come downstairs to the lounge and have some tea, as soon as you are ready.’
I smiled my thanks and he went away.
Feeling very nervous, I put the paper bag in the wardrobe, and then like a cat in a new place I walked round the room, examining the peerless
white pillows on the beds, looking down at the highly polished linoleum on the floor, and finally stopping to wash my hands in a tiny basin in a corner. I combed my hair and redid my bun in front of the spotted dressing table mirror, and then cautiously opened the bedroom door and ventured downstairs.
The lounge was full of chattering men and women, who all seemed much older than me, and I hesitated in the doorway while the scene came into clearer focus.
An elderly gentleman was sitting on a settee directly opposite the doorway. When he looked up from his teacup and saw me, he smiled, and evidently realised that I was feeling very shy. He motioned me to come over and sit by him, which I did, perching nervously on the edge of the settee.
He had a large, grey moustache and heavy black eyebrows under which bright blue eyes twinkled merrily. He took a pipe out of his mouth and said, ‘Just arrived?’ I nodded, and he put down his teacup. ‘I’ll get you some tea. Do you take milk and sugar?’
I assented with another shy nod, and he went to the tea table and returned with tea and three biscuits. He pulled a small table forward and set the cup in front of me.
‘There we are,’ he announced. His voice was deep, with a pleasant Welsh sing-song to it. He sat down beside me and took up his own cup again. He had put his pipe away in the pocket of his finely cut tweed jacket.
‘My name is Emrys Hughes,’ he said. ‘And that’s my brother, Gwyn, over there.’ He gestured towards the mantelpiece against which leaned a tall, thin man, also grey-haired, talking to a lady in a green dress. ‘What’s your name?’
I told him, and, while I sipped my tea, he asked where I came from and whether I was still at school. Each question came out in such a breezy, cheerful manner that I was soon relaxed and laughing with him. He told me that he and his brother owned two big drapery shops in North Wales, that he himself had had a heart attack at the beginning of the year, so he had come to Kent’s Bank for a holiday. He had prevailed upon his bachelor brother to come with him, and they had left the business to the tender mercies of managers.
The teacups were removed, and still we gossiped. For the first time for many years, I was among people who knew nothing about me and judged me by what they saw. Gwyn brought the lady in green over to us. She proved to be a school teacher, who had already been at Kent’s Bank for a week.
Emrys looked at a heavy gold pocket watch which he took out of his top pocket, suggested that we all go for a stroll in the grounds and then eat dinner at the same table. So, much to the amusement of the older people, I spent a happy half hour running about among the trees, trying to get close to one of the many squirrels, and arrived at the dinner table glowing with the fresh air and the happy anticipation of an adequate meal.
The staff who served the meal seemed to be accustomed to very hungry people, and I ate my way through three plates of meat and vegetables and two of pudding. Emrys, who had to keep his weight down, he said, leaned back in his chair and watched me speculatively, while Gwyn and Margaret, the school teacher, chipped me about how such a small person could find room for so much food.
Having lived so much with Grandma, I felt quite at home with older people. I lost my nervousness completely, my usual gauche manners gave way to the good conduct instilled in me as a child, and I felt so happy I thought I would explode. Emrys had a way of sitting quietly and giving complete and careful attention to what was said to him. He would run his tobacco-stained fingers through his thick, grey hair, worn rather longer than was then
the fashion, and smile, and comment or argue carefully on any subject discussed with me, as if I was an adult whose ideas were important to him. I was unused to anyone giving me their full attention and if I had been less innocent, I might have been troubled at such affability. But as I responded to his good-humoured teasing I knew only a great gaiety and lightness of heart. A liveliness I did not know I had began to emerge.
The first two days of the holiday were taken up with long, organised walks in the countryside, broken in the middle by a picnic lunch. The guests were divided into two groups, those who could take very long walks and those who preferred easier ones. Since both Emrys and I had been ill, we chose the easier walks and Gwyn and his school teacher came along with us.
I now shared the bedroom with five mill girls from Rochdale. All of them had been ill and said frankly that they, too, were enjoying free holidays. They all had several changes of clothing and enough money to buy tickets for the bus trips, later in the week, and to purchase endless sweets and ice cream cones from the village shop. They ignored me, and kept up a raucous conversation amongst themselves. Though I had often heard foul language in the streets of Liverpool, I had
never lived with people who used it, and I was frequently shocked and sickened by them. They also came on the easy walks, but fortunately stayed within their own group.
I danced along beside Emrys, through forest glades dappled with sunshine or along the sides of fields waving silvery green with growing oats. Occasionally, Gwyn would make us stop, while Emrys sat down to rest. He carried a piece of macintosh in his pocket and when a convenient wall or bench did not present itself, he spread the macintosh on the ground and sat on that. While he regained his breath, I would cast around, picking wild flowers or small sprays of fresh green foliage, which one of the staff would put in a vase on the dining table for me. Emrys did not know the names of many of the plants, but I had learned their names from Edith and was able to identify them for him.
Though I had handed to Mother three weeks’ salary paid in advance, she had not seen fit to give me any money. I had only a few pennies in my purse, because I had spent most of the three weekly shillings on stockings. This made it impossible for me to buy tickets for the coach tour arranged for the third day.
Emrys and Gwyn had not yet come down to breakfast, so I ate the meal rather soberly in the
company of Margaret and another middle-aged lady. Margaret was herself convalescing after a dose of influenza and we compared our respective illnesses and then talked about books.
‘See you later,’ she said gaily, and I nodded. I went up to the empty bedroom and wondered how to employ the day. I heard the arrival of the motor coach and the bustle of departure, as I sat with a copy of Lytton’s
Last Days of Pompeii
in my lap. I had already read the story twice and this seemed to hold true of all the books in the lounge downstairs. Finally, I tossed it aside. I would have a bath. I had tried several times since my arrival to do this, but the bathroom had invariably been occupied. Today, however, all the other guests had gone out so I could take my time about it.