Pigeon Summer (2 page)

Mary, wanting to make things right again, said, “Dad, we’ve got a squeaker! Lavender and Lenin’s. I found it when I got home. And Dad, the hens are flying so well—”

“Mary!” her mother exclaimed, swinging round on her. “Your dad’s got more important things to think about than pigeons!”

But Dad’s eyes had brightened, as Mary hoped they would. She shot her mother a look of triumph.

“That’s good, Mary,” said Dad. “I’ll go down later.”

Mum ladled out soup for herself and Dad – a few spoonfuls for her, a bowlful for him.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

Mary knelt on the mat by the fire, watching her mother and Phyl clearing the table and putting the dishes in the sink. All through the meal Mum had talked, in a low anxious voice, about the expenses they faced: shoes for Lennie and Phyl, medicine for Doreen’s cough, the rent going up next month…

Dad still sat at the table. He hadn’t said anything, but Mary guessed that he had come to a decision, even before he reached home. He stood up, scraping his chair on the floor, and everyone turned to look at him.

“I’ll have to go and look for work,” he said. “Up Stafford way. Plenty of pits there. I’m sure to find something. Then I can send money home.”

“So it’s come to that,” Mum said.

“It won’t be for long. Things are sure to pick up around here soon. We’ve got a Labour Government now—”

“Labour!” Mum clattered the dishes in the sink. “The pit bosses will do what they want, Labour or no Labour.”

“Things will change,” said Dad. “It’ll take time.”

“They won’t get time,” said Mum. “They were out in eight months last time. What good did that do?”

There was silence. They had had this argument before.

Then Mum said, “How will you live, while you’re looking for work? Where will you sleep?”

“I’ll find somewhere.”

“Doss-houses.”

“Most like, yes.” He turned to the girls. “You must help your mother while I’m away.”

Phyl said, “But, Dad, I’m going away, too, remember?”

Phyl was leaving home on Saturday and going into service as a maid at a big house out in the country, eight miles away. It had all been arranged several months ago.

“I
hadn’t forgotten,” said Mum. “Oh, Phyl, I’m glad you’ve got a job, but I could have wished you’d got fixed up at the china works or in a shop – something local. It would have been a help, to have you here.”

Meaning I’m not a help, thought Mary.

There were times when Mary resented Phyl. Phyl was her mother’s girl. She even looked like Mum: thin and quick moving, with straight dark hair and grey eyes. Phyl always managed to do the right thing: always noticed when the baby needed changing or the washing bringing in. She wrote neatly and could sew with neat, fast stitches. Mary’s sewing invariably ended up dirty, uneven and spotted with blood. Mary had once overheard Mrs Lloyd, next door, saying of Phyl, “She’s a little treasure around the house, that one.” She wondered what people said about her. They wouldn’t call her a little treasure. They might say, “That Mary that’s always round the pigeons” (disapprovingly, because girls weren’t supposed to like pigeons) or, “That big dreamy lump – you’d never think she was Phyl Dyer’s sister”.

Mary said, in an aggrieved tone, “I can help.”

Mum looked at her. “You’ll certainly need to buck your ideas up once Phyl’s gone.”

Mary glowered.

Her mother sat down and began unpicking the hem of a dress. It wasn’t her own; she did alterations and mending to earn a few extra shillings.

“Leave that now, Lina,” Dad said.

“I can’t. Mrs Miller wants it tomorrow.”

Dad looked irritated. Mary knew he hated her having to work.

“Well, Mary,” he said, “let’s go and see that squeaker, shall we?”

Much later, when Mary and Phyl were upstairs in bed, they heard their parents talking, the talk rising to an argument. The voices were sometimes clear, sometimes muffled, as they moved between the two downstairs rooms.

Phyl sat up. “Listen,” she said.

But Mary couldn’t catch the words, only the feel of what they meant: her mother’s voice, sharp, accusing, her father’s defensive rumble.

Phyl got out of bed and padded barefoot to the stairs. Reluctantly Mary followed her. She didn’t like to hear her parents arguing, but Phyl never wanted to miss anything; she had to know.

Phyl was crouched on the bend of the stairs, just out of sight of the kitchen.

“And how long?” came Mum’s voice. “How long will this go on?”

“I don’t know, Lina. I don’t want it, any more than you do.”

“That Union,” said Mum, spitting the word out like a swear-word. “If only you’d stayed out of it.”

“We’re all in the Union, Lina.”

“Not like you!” she retorted. “Running things, speaking out, organizing. They won’t forgive you for that, Tom.”

Oh, Mum, leave him alone, thought Mary.

“It was a time to speak out,” said Dad.

“But not – not always at the front of things. A ringleader. Your picture in the papers…” Her voice cracked as if she were on the brink of tears.

Mary glanced up at the picture on the wall at the top of the stairs. It was a newspaper photograph, yellowing now, but preserved in a glass-fronted frame. It showed a group of miners outside the pit. Several held banners. The biggest banner read, NOT A MINUTE ON THE DAY: NOT A PENNY OFF THE PAY. One of the men holding it up was Dad. Underneath was a date: 4TH MAY 1926.

Four years ago, almost to the day. But now that pits were closing and work was scarce, the bosses hadn’t forgotten the General Strike, nor who the local leaders had been. Most of the men laid off in Culverton last year had found work in other pits, but not Dad.

The voices became indistinct again. And then came the sound of someone making the fire up. That meant they were coming to bed. Mary tugged at Phyl’s arm. Phyl strained to hear more, but when the voices drew nearer the stairs she gave in to Mary and they scuttled back to bed.

Neither could sleep. They whispered for a while, till Dad called out from across the landing, “Go to sleep, you girls.” Then each lay silent with her thoughts.

Mary wondered what it would be like at home without Dad or Phyl, just Mum and the little ones. She was always in trouble with Mum over one thing or another, but Phyl would cover up for her and defend her. She’d miss Phyl. And Dad. She’d enjoyed the time he had been off work; they’d spent a lot of it in the loft, looking after the pigeons.

Well, we’ve got a few more days all together, she thought.

But Saturday soon came. Phyl was up early, too nervous to eat breakfast. She pulled back her hair into a knot on the nape of her neck, and put on a dress of dark blue cotton with a white collar and pin-tucked front. Aunty Elsie, Dad’s sister, had made her two dark blue dresses and two white aprons and had found her a hat with cherries on it and trimmed it with a blue ribbon.

Mary sniffed the new cotton of the dress. She was jealous. She’d never had a dress that wasn’t an old one of Phyl’s with the waist let out, or one of Aunty Elsie’s cut down. And the hat! Phyl put it on, and was transformed into a grown-up.

Mary said, “Oh, Phyl! Can I try it?”

She took the hat and darted into her parents’ room to look at herself in the flecked mirror. Mary’s face was rounder than Phyl’s, and her hair was a lighter brown and sprang about in curls. The hat hovered on top of them.

“It’s too small,” said Mary. But the ribbon was silky, and the cherries trembled as she turned her head. She felt beautiful.

Phyl took it back and minced around the room. Mary put on a gentrified voice. “Phyllis! Bring in the tea things!” They both giggled. “Some chance!” said Phyl. “I’ll be scrubbing the passage, more like.”

Mum called up the stairs, “Phyl! Do come and eat something, love. You’ll be an hour on that bus.”

At ten o’clock they were all at the bus stop in the square: Dad, Mary holding Lennie’s hand, Mum carrying Doreen wrapped in a shawl, and Phyl holding a brown paper parcel of spare clothes and a purse with her bus fare in it.

Her employers had sent the bus fare with a letter saying that someone would meet her off the bus at Wendon. Dad would have liked to go too, to make sure she arrived safely, but there was no money to spare for the journey.

The bus was already quite full when it arrived. Dad took Phyl’s parcel and settled her in a seat, and then they all watched and waved as the bus pulled away and Phyl craned to look back.

Mum was a bit weepy, and Mary felt tears coming too. She wouldn’t see Phyl for at least a month; Phyl would get every other Sunday off, but she wouldn’t want to squander her wages coming home every time.

And tomorrow Dad was going, and no one knew for how long.

That evening Dad went to the pigeon loft with Mary to say goodbye to his birds. A deep, soft, comfortable cooing came from within as they approached.

“I’ll miss that sound,” said Dad.

He went along the row, talking to all the birds. The Gaffer flew down and perched on his shoulder.

Monday’s squeaker was growing big, and Lavender’s other egg had hatched.

“Number Fifty-eight’s will be next,” said Dad, pointing out a sitting hen.

“Queenie’s,” said Mary.

“Queenie. That’s right.” Dad smiled.

Dad would never have bothered with names if it hadn’t been for Mary. Mary insisted that the birds should all have names as well as numbers. When she asked Dad to choose names his mind went to politics, as usual – to his favourite political figures, his heroes. So they had Bevin and Lenin and Ramsay Mac and Mrs Pankhurst. Mary thought Dad’s names were silly; she liked to choose a name that suited each bird. She was especially pleased with Speedwell, the blue chequer hen, whose name had a double meaning: the blue of the speedwell flowers that grew wild in the garden, and the hope that the bird would fly fast.

Dad was handling Speedwell now, stretching out her wing with its long dark-tipped feathers.

“She’s a lovely bird,” he said. “Lovely condition. I wish I could be here to race her this summer.”

“I can race her,” said Mary.

“No. We’ll just have to miss a year.”

“We won’t!” exclaimed Mary, startling the Gaffer, who flew up on to a high perch. “I can race her, Dad! I know how. And Uncle Charley would help me.”

“Oh, he would,” agreed Dad. “But it’s a big job, Mary, studying the birds, working out which ones are on form, and which one to send where, and when. It’ll be enough for me if you just take good care of them – keep them exercised.”

Mary felt hurt. Why didn’t he believe she could do it?

“It’ll be a waste,” she said, “if she doesn’t race this summer.”

“There’s always another race, another year,” said Dad.

Another year. That sounded like eternity to Mary. They said no more about it, but Mary had made up her mind: she was going to look after the birds
and
race them. Dad would be proud of her. Even Mum would, if she got some winnings. She visualized the coming summer as a pale blue line growing bluer through May and June till it reached a deep sapphire colour in late July. And in the midst of that deep blue was a place she knew only from maps and her imagination: the south of France.

“You’re bursting out of that frock already,” said Mum. “I’m sure I was never so big at eleven.”

“I’m nearly twelve,” said Mary.

“Pity you’re not nearer.”

Mum was thinking of money. At twelve Mary would be able to get a part-time job – an hour after school helping in a shop. Phyl had helped at the draper’s. She had sold elastic, ribbons and pins, but she hadn’t been allowed to cut lengths of cloth.

“Don’t you want to?” Mary had asked, picturing Mrs Coleman’s scissors shearing through the width of the material; rayon was the best: a swift, swishing cut. “I’d want to cut cloth.”

Phyl had shrugged, not understanding the question. She wasn’t allowed to, and that was that.

Mary thought she’d like to do a delivery round: milk or groceries. But it was always the boys who got those jobs. The bicycles they used were designed for boys, with a straight crossbar that was awkward if you wore a skirt.

Dad had a bike like that, with a basket on the front like a delivery boy’s. He used it for taking the pigeons on training tosses, and when Mary was smaller she had often gone with him, sitting in front on the crossbar, bumping along the lanes, past pits and quarries and spoil-heaps, out to the countryside.

I’ll get the birds out there somehow, thought Mary, if I have to walk. You could send them by train, but that wasn’t the same. When you took them yourself you had a sense of how far they had flown. She remembered the bright air, the big sky, the fields stretching out, the quiet; and then the rush of wings as the pigeons took off, circled a few times, and made for home.

Dad had gone on his bike to Stafford. He had taken True Blue with him in a basket and released the bird when he arrived; he had no money for postage stamps, and True Blue was quicker. So they knew Dad had arrived safely, but they had heard nothing since – not for nearly three weeks.

“Mind you,” said Mum, “he’d have to find a job, then work a week before getting paid, and then it’d be a day or two, wouldn’t it, getting the postal order and sending it off? I wonder if that maroon one Aunty Elsie gave us would do for you?”

Mary was used to her mother’s thought processes. They were back to Mary and the too-small frock. Mary remembered the maroon frock and winced. It was dark and droopy with an old-ladyish look about it.

Mum had whipped out a tape-measure. “Hold out your arm. Stand still… You know, it might do. Cut down.” She tut-tutted. “You’ve got your Aunty Elsie’s figure, and no mistake.”

Mary visualized Aunty Elsie. Her figure was not much in evidence since she usually wore shapeless cardigans over skirts that had not yet risen to the fashionable shorter lengths. But there was an impression of solid bosom, thick waist and sturdy legs. Very different from Mum.

She looked across at a photograph on the mantelpiece. It showed Mary’s mother as a young woman: a studio portrait with a backdrop of painted trees. Her mother wore a high-necked lacy blouse and a long narrow skirt and she carried a parasol. A hat with roses on it was balanced on top of her piled dark hair. At the bottom of the photograph was her name, neatly printed: MISS ADELINE HILL.