‘Come on, son, you must be wore out,’ his father said at length, getting to his feet. ‘Ah, here come them Army lasses . . . let’s be on our way.’
‘What Army lasses?’ Brogan said as he and his father pushed their way through the crowds of revellers towards the open door. ‘Do you not like them, Daddy?’
‘They’re harmless enough; they take their magazine, the
War Cry
, round the pubs and use the money for the poor,’ Peader shouted above the confused babble of sounds around them. ‘See them, shaking their tins? They’ll be making a Christmas dinner for them as wouldn’t get one otherwise, so I’ll pay me whack as we pass. Come on, lad, you’re asleep on your feet and we must be up for early Mass tomorrow.’
Brogan looked at the bonnets bobbing along through the crowd of drinkers and grinned. ‘Oh,
that
army! I’ll put a copper or two in the tin as well if I can get near enough.’
But he couldn’t reach the tin so he handed his loose change to the nearest drinker and had the satisfaction of hearing it going from hand to hand, hearing a soft, sweet voice raised in thanks as the money clattered into her tin.
‘We don’t want the paper, Miss,’ Peader roared above the din. ‘It’s a contribution, that’s all.’
‘God bless you, friend,’ came back the answer, and then they were out of the pub, the doors swinging to behind them, and under the frosty stars.
‘We’ll not be up too early tomorrow,’ Peader remarked as he unlocked the front door and swung it wide. ‘Eight o’clock Mass is early enough, I fancy. We’ll go to St Mary’s; it’s not far.’
Brogan agreed; he would have agreed to anything which meant that he could get to Snowdrop Street sooner.
‘You’ll forgive me, Daddy, if I leave you, in the morning?’ he said as they climbed into their beds, for Peader had borrowed a folding bed for his son’s brief stay. ‘Only I’d like to go round and see a friend for an hour or two. I’ll be back for me dinner.’
‘Fine,’ Peader said. ‘I’ll have a crack wit’ me pal Barney up the road. Or I might give a hand wit’ the dinner.’
His landlady, Mrs Burt, was a friendly soul who encouraged her lodger to come into the kitchen and ‘potter about’, as she put it. Peader, a domestically minded man, enjoyed this very much better than a more formal lodger-landlady relationship and agreed with his son that good lodgings could make all the difference.
So, satisfied that his father would be happily occupied whilst he himself went on his visit, Brogan very soon settled down to sleep.
Next morning he awoke with a glow of anticipation such as he had not experienced since he was a child. He was going to see Sara, and this time he would tell her what was on his mind and not sit with his mouth open and no words coming out.
He went to Mass with his father and afterwards they exchanged small gifts and ate a hearty breakfast – bacon and egg, fried bread and a good deal of toast and marmalade. Mrs Burt then set Peader to cleaning sprouts, sitting on a stool in the doorway and chatting to his friend Barney, who had popped in, he said, to wish everyone the compliments of the season.
‘Dinner’s at one o’clock, no later,’ Mrs Burt called jovially after Brogan’s disappearing back, and Brogan shouted that he’d not be late and continued to stride purposefully down the road.
It was a sharp morning but the sun was out. Brogan whistled as he walked. He’d enjoyed his breakfast and he was looking forward to his dinner, but the best part of the day was almost upon him.
Sara!
He reached Snowdrop Street and felt his heartbeat increase. What would she be doing? Cooking dinner, with a smut of flour on one cheek and her hair curling in damp tendrils on her cheeks because of the heat from the fire? Or sitting before the fire with her gran, opening a present, or . . . or . . .
He had reached number three. He hesitated for a delicious second, then knocked.
A moment later he knocked again, fear replacing the anticipation in his heart. Where on earth was she? She would have gone to church by now, surely, and come back to prepare the dinner? But there was no sound in the house and when he peered through the front window the fire was either damped down or out, he could not tell which.
He was about to knock again when the front door of the next house opened and a young woman in her early twenties appeared on the doorstep.
‘Mornin’,’ Brogan said politely, touching his cap. ‘Can you be tellin’ me what’s happened to the ladies of this house? I’ve come round to wish them the compliments of the season but I’ve had no answer.’
‘I ’eard you knock, so I thought I’d best come an’ tell you they’ve gone out,’ the girl said. ‘Went off ever so early, all three of them.’
‘Three?’ Brogan said questioningly, his heart doing a nosedive down into his boots. ‘But I thought . . .’
‘Oh, aye, but there’s three of ’em livin’ there now, you know. There’s Mrs Prescott, Sara, who’s Mrs P’s granddaughter, and this Boote person.’
‘Boote? Who’s he?’
‘Boote is Army – cor, I made a joke – an army boot,’ the girl said, grinning to herself. ‘Me mam said that’s where they’ve gone, to the Barracks or whatever they calls it. I ask you, on Christmas Day – what a place to go for your dinner! Oh, that Boote . . . the two of you ain’t met, then?’
‘No,’ Brogan muttered. ‘No, we’ve not met.’
‘Oh. Well, Sara’s very thick wi’ the Boote, I don’t mind tellin’ you. Off they go, the two of ’em, on bikes during the week and on foot at weekends, ’eads together, laughin’, talkin’ all sorts. Me mam says it’s nice, but I ain’t so sure. We’re all good Catholics in this street, we’ve none of us ’ad no time for the Army. Still, there you are, it’s young Sara’s choice, ain’t it?’
‘Y-yes, I suppose . . .’ Brogan stammered. ‘Sara’s really fond of this Boote, then?’
‘Oh, aye, rare fond,’ the girl confirmed. ‘They’ll be back teatime, though, if you’d like to come round later. All three of ’em, mind.’
‘Thanks,’ Brogan said. He turned away. ‘Thanks very much. I’ll come back later, then.’
But as he made his lonely way back across the streets to Walton Road, he knew he would not be back later. There was no point. He would not go back again.
By the time mid-January arrived Sara was convinced she would never get another job which was as much fun as that of a bread-delivery girl. But she knew she must work at something, so when Miss Boote told her that there was a vacancy in the laundry, she applied.
The laundry was not a particularly pleasant place. When she went for the interview Sara had to cross the main washing room where row upon row of immense earthenware sinks were filled with steaming hot water. Women, in suds to their elbows, stood in front of the sinks, beating the washing with dolly-pegs. When they thought the sheets were clean they would hook them out of the hot water with wooden tongs, dump them on the slimy wooden draining boards whilst they drained off a bit, and then carry them over to the opposite side of the room, where the rinsing was done in different sinks.
The women in this room were mostly in their middle years so far as Sara could judge; the younger girls were employed in the ironing room and in the packing department, where the job vacancy was. The clerk who had brought Sara across for her interview explained that here you had to be very smart because every garment, particularly the shirts, had to be folded in a special way and pinned, too, so that even the sometimes rough handling of the delivery staff would not unfold them.
‘What matters is that when the customer unfolds the shirt, the collar and the dickie part are uncreased, and the cuffs, too,’ the clerk said. ‘Remember that when you do the test.’
‘I will; did you say delivery staff?’ Sara said, immediately interested. ‘I’ve been doing delivery for the Coop bakery. Only over Christmas, of course,’ she added truthfully.
‘We use vans, and boys,’ the clerk said. ‘But our packers is all women. He smiled at Sara. ‘Packing ain’t so bad, the gals seem to like it awright.’
The supervisor who conducted Sara’s interview was a sour-looking spinster with sharp eyes behind tiny gold spectacles. She knew Sara wasn’t like most of the girls who worked in the laundry, Sara guessed, but could not quite decide precisely why that was. So she sent her down to the packing room for a test to see whether she was what she termed ‘neat-fingered’ and, forewarned by the clerk, Sara made a good attempt at the folding of two shirts, two enormous sheets and a pile of handkerchiefs.
‘You’ll do; start Monday,’ the supervisor said almost grudgingly. ‘Be here by eight o’clock sharp.’
‘I will,’ Sara said. ‘You didn’t mention the salary . . .’
‘The wage,’ the supervisor corrected. ‘It’s paid weekly, on a Saturday night, and it’s ten shillin’ a week for the first three month, risin’ to fourteen shillin’ and sixpence if you give satisfaction an’ remain with us.’
‘I see. Thank you very much,’ Sara said, thinking that whilst ten shillings a week was dreadful, fourteen and six was not to be sneezed at. She turned to leave the office, hoping against hope that she would be able to find her way back to the main gate, for the laundry was immense. It included a huge courtyard criss-crossed with rope clothes lines, for in the bad old days the clothes had been hung outside, and a modern drying room where blasts of hot air from the furnace which heated the water dried the clothes in a surprisingly short space of time.
‘You’ll get your uniform on Monday . . . best be here by seven-thirty, so’s you’re ready for work by eight,’ the supervisor said, stopping her in her tracks just as she reached the door. ‘Did you see the uniform?’
It was the ugliest uniform imaginable, Sara thought sadly, but there you were. What was that quotation?
Better a dinner of herbs where love is
. . . Well, in her case it was better an ugly uniform and hard work where love was than coldness and a beautiful home.
Not that she expected to find much love in the laundry! The supervisor did not look the sort of woman who enjoyed much – probably her chief enjoyment, in fact, would come from bawling out those under her. No, the love would be provided by Gran, and for friendship and a sense of purpose, there was Clarrie Boote and the Army.
‘I’ll send for a clerk to show you out,’ the supervisor said sourly as Sara’s hand began to turn the door-knob. She walked over to the door, pushed past Sara and called out to the young man who had accompanied Sara across to the offices earlier. ‘Mr Brown, take this person to the main gate.’
‘No
please
from the old bat, you notice,’ Mr Brown said ruefully as he accompanied her. He was a young man of about Sara’s own age with red hair, freckles and a decided squint for which he wore large tortoiseshell-framed glasses. ‘Did she introduce herself? Thought not, that’s like the old bat. She’s Miss Bateman, actually . . . the old bat to you and me now, Miss. And I’m Peter Brown – Pete to me pals.’
‘I’m Sara,’ Sara said rather shyly. She doubted that she would have much to do with someone as important as a clerk, though. Miss Bateman had made it pretty plain that packers were the lowest of the low. ‘Will I work directly under Miss Bateman, Mr Brown?’
‘You’ll see ’er from time to time, but she ain’t in the packin’ room,’ Mr Brown said reassuringly. ‘Miss Todd is over you . . . she’s awright is Miss Todd.’
Sara worked hard at the laundry for three months, from mid-January to mid-April. She found the work tiring and exacting – at least on her delivery bicycle she had been able to sit down on the saddle as she made her way from one part of the city to another – but she soon discovered that whilst her hands were busy her mind could be anywhere. Dreaming, in fact, made the job bearable. And also the fact that, after three months, her wages would considerably increase. Sara wasn’t greedy by any means, but she found it very hard to manage on what the laundry paid her.
‘It’s not wharr I wanted for you, queen,’ her grandmother had said when she returned on Saturday night after her first week, ‘but I can’t deny the money’s a help. What are you doin’ this evenin’?’
‘I’m going along to the Barracks, with Clarrie. I’m joining the Songster Brigade and we’re having a rehearsal. Remember Clarrie saying that Miss Gotts was in hospital and too ill to take part in fund raising and so on any more? She’s been most awfully kind to me, Gran. Clarrie and I visited her in the Stanley last night and she’s given me her uniform. We’re roughly the same size and she said, if I could make use of it . . .’
‘Oh, flower, does that mean you’re a Salvationist, now?’ Mrs Prescott said, looking distressed. ‘But you’ve always gone to church!’
‘I went to church because my parents took me, and when I moved in with you I went to chapel, because that was where you went. But I’m going to the Barracks for myself,’ Sara said gently. ‘I’ve never seen the point in a religion which simply paid lip-service to fairness and goodness. The Army don’t do that, Gran. They work very hard for what they believe, and they sing hard too, and laugh hard!’
‘Yes, I remember. I enjoyed my Christmas Day more than I’ve done for years,’ Mrs Prescott admitted, a smile curling her lips. ‘That Major . . . he’d ha’ made a cat laugh!’
‘I know. I love going to the services as well as to the singing,’ Sara said. ‘Why don’t you come along sometimes, Gran?’