Authors: June Gadsby
‘I’m sorry, but Mr Harper wouldn’t have me back, and I don’t want to go back. He’s horrible, Mam. I feel sorry for that poor wife of his. None of the girls is safe with him. He can’t keep his hands to himself.’
‘So it’s true what they’re saying about young Maggie Brown? She won’t say who planted the bairn inside her, but the rumours suggest it was some fella at Harpers. I never thought it would be Mr Harper himself.’
Maggie Brown had worked on the haberdashery counter until recently. She left in a cloud of shame to have a baby and there was no man involved, or that was what she tried to tell people. As if they would believe that the pregnancy had happened all on its own.
‘And she’s not the only one, either,’ Mary said and her mother rounded on her, skidding on the soapy floor and sitting in a puddle, untold horror registering in her plump face.
‘Eeh, our Mary! He’s not had his way with you, has he? You’re not … you know … so-so … are you?’
‘Of course I’m not, Mam.’ Mary bit her lip to stop from laughing, for Jenny West looked so funny sitting there, her eyes popping and her mouth hanging open. ‘I wouldn’t let any man touch me. Not like that, anyway. And especially not Mr Harper. What do you take me for?’
‘Well, this war seems to be affecting everybody. There’s no telling what could happen. I just don’t want you to do anything that would shame your dad and me. Now, promise me, girl. You’ll not do it … not even with Walter. You haven’t already, have you, please God?’
‘No, Mam, I haven’t.’ Mary gave her mother a grimace. ‘I’m saving myself for when the time is right.’
Mary averted her eyes because she could see herself in the mirror above the mantelpiece and something in her expression was a little too honest. The fact was, the time never did seem right when she was with
Walter. This was something that had been bothering her for some time, which was why she had to give some thought to breaking off the
engagement
.
‘Well, I’m glad to hear it.’ Jenny heaved herself up by the corner of the scullery bench and emptied the dirty water down the deep stone sink. ‘Walter’s a nice boy. I’m sure he respects you.’
‘Yes, Mam,’ Mary said, quickly changing the subject. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d go to the employment exchange tomorrow and see what there is. Iris Morrison’s just got herself taken on by the War Pensions Office.’
‘Oh, goodness, where’s that then? In London? I’m not having you go traipsing down there, love. It’s too far away from home. And dangerous.’
‘It’s not in London, Mam.’ Mary watched the tense twitching of her mother’s back as she refilled the bucket with clean water. ‘It’s down near Saltwell Park in Gateshead.’
‘Is it now? Well, that’s far enough. She’ll spend half her time travelling to and from work.’
Mary shook her head. Her mother was the limit, she really was, but then her life had been filled with marriage and raising children. She had left school at thirteen and gone into service until she got married at twenty-one, which had been pretty normal in her day.
‘Where’s our Helen?’
Mary was suddenly conscious that her sister was missing and so was the baby that kept them all busy from morning till night. Helen and her husband lived at home with Jenny and Frank West while they saved for a place of their own. The trouble was, Trevor was expecting to be called up at any minute, him being in the Territorial Army and a reservist.
‘Oh, don’t ask. She’s off somewhere with that poor bairn and I don’t know what to tell Trevor if he gets home from the factory before she’s back.’
‘But where did she go? Didn’t she tell you?’ It wasn’t like Helen to go off on her own and stay out beyond black-out time.
‘Aye, lass. She’s trying to get herself a job.’
‘She’s what?’
Jenny heaved the bucket out of the sink, poured in a few drops of
vinegar
, wrung out a floor cloth in it and started wiping down the linoleum so that it shone bright and clean.
‘She’s got some bee in her bonnet about being independent. Says she’s bored. Wants more out of life. I ask you.’
‘But what about the baby?’ Mary was concerned for the well-being of
her little niece though she could appreciate how her sister was feeling.
‘As I say, don’t ask. Only …’ Jenny’s backside stopped swaying and she sat back on her heels and heaved a heartfelt sigh. ‘She just went off saying she was desperate to do something more than just sit at home
knitting
. As if looking after her husband and our little Carol isn’t occupation enough. I know they’re a bit strapped for cash, like, but she says it’s not that.’
‘Then what is it? Oh, you don’t think there’s anything wrong, do you … I mean, between Helen and Trevor?’
Mary had heard muttered arguments filtering through the dividing wall between her tiny box room and theirs. She could understand the difficulty of their trying to live a full, married life, jammed as they were upstairs in this cramped miner’s cottage. That was one of the reasons she had not wanted to rush into marriage with Walter, when the only place they could possibly live in was the flat above Walter’s shop, with his parents. Walter’s dad was all right, but his mother was a difficult woman. Mary didn’t think she could cope with having the woman breathing down their necks twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Walter, being their son, couldn’t see the problem. He’d have two women running around after him and seemed quite pleased with the idea.
Jenny threw her hands in the air. ‘Eeh, I don’t know, our Mary? You young people seem to have a lot more complications than people of my generation ever had. We just got married and got on with it, taking the good with the bad.’
There wasn’t a lot Mary could say to that. Whatever she said on the subject would probably upset her mother, and everybody avoided getting Jenny emotional, because she did tend to go overboard and make
everybody
else miserable with her.
‘Did you get your gran’s medicine?’ Jenny asked as they were sitting over a cup of tea half an hour later.
‘Yes,’ Mary nodded and her mouth clamped tightly shut, because she was about to laugh and she knew her mother didn’t like anything that resembled mockery, especially where her grandmother was concerned. ‘I made sure she took some straight away and tucked her up as best I could.’
She had called in at her gran’s house two doors away and found the place deserted. Fortunately, she had a key and was able to let herself in. It was then an easy business to go through to the back of the house, where she found her grandmother locked in the air-raid shelter that had been built in the yard next to the lavatory. Nothing short of Hitler’s army would have winkled the old woman out of her hiding place, even though
it was freezing cold and as dark as a dungeon.
There was old Annie, muffled up to the eyeballs, sucking on a precious orange, dribbling the juice down her chin and demanding to know if the war was over yet. Poor old soul, she was as deaf as a post and so scared that she wouldn’t hear the siren wailing to forewarn her of an enemy attack, she preferred to camp out in the shelter on a permanent basis, coming out only at meal-times, when she joined the family.
‘Dear God,’ moaned Jenny. ‘It’s to be hoped the war ends soon, so your gran can get back to normal.’
‘I can’t help feeling that she’s going to have a long wait,’ Mary said, thinking of the long wait they had already had. ‘Do you think she’s all right, Mam? I mean, in the head … you know?’
Jenny gave her a scathing look. She lifted her head at the sound of a latchkey grating in the lock of the front door.
‘That’ll be your dad,’ she said.
It was indeed Frank West, back from making sure the good folk living over the old Cube Pit area of Felling were following all the rules of
security
. He looked almost blue with the cold, banging his hands together to get the circulation going, but he smiled broadly on seeing Mary.
‘By gum, it’s parky out there th’ night,’ he said. ‘Hullo, love. Finished early, have you?’
‘Just finished, Frank,’ Jenny answered for her. ‘That rotten boss of hers has given her the sack.’
Frank’s eyebrows shot up, then he gave a shrug.
‘Oh, aye? Well, I always said you were too good for that place. You’ll find another job without too much bother, I bet.’
‘Thanks Dad,’ Mary said and placed an affectionate kiss on his frozen cheek.
‘What did I do to deserve that, then?’
‘Nothing at all, Dad.’
He looked at her curiously for a second or two, then settled himself in front of the fire with his
Evening Chronicle
to wait for his tea. Jenny had a cauldron of chicken broth and dumplings bubbling merrily on top of the stove and the whole place was filled with its delicious aroma.
Another rattle at the front door announced the arrival of Helen and she appeared with the sleeping, six-month-old Carol in her arms. She looked worn out, but radiant.
‘Well, that’s that settled,’ she said, collapsing into the nearest chair as soon as her mother took charge of the infant. ‘I’ve got some good news and I can’t wait until Trevor gets back, so I’m going to blab it all out now.’
‘Oh, aye? What is it then, this news of yours?’ Jenny rocked back and forward, her granddaughter clamped tightly to her chest, kissing her until the child stirred, opened sleepy eyes and gave a whimper of complaint.
‘I’ve found us a place of our own,’ Helen said, a trifle breathlessly. ‘Well, not exactly our own. It’s just two rooms in a house at the top of Watermill Lane. Two rooms and a kitchen and we share a bathroom with the owner. She’s a widow and the place is too big for her to manage, so she agreed a low rent if I’ll help with the housework.’
‘You’re going to leave us?’ Jenny’s eyes immediately filled with tears. ‘Aw, hinny, you don’t have to do that. You know you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like.’
‘I know that, Mam,’ Helen said, ‘but it’s best this way. And … I’ve found a job. The new munitions factory down on Sunderland Road. I’ll be helping to make bits for the aeroplanes. You know, the ones that’ll win the war.’
‘But you hate the very idea of work,’ Mary said, half teasingly. ‘What’s brought this on?’
‘Aye, our Helen. I think you’ve got some explaining to do, young lady. And what I want to know is what’s going to happen to this bairn of yours when you’re at work in this munchings factory, or whatever it is.’
‘Munitions, Mam, and it’s very important. Don’t worry about Carol. Mrs Greaves, our landlady, loves children. She’ll be more than happy to look after her. Isn’t that wonderful?’
‘Wonderful,’ said Mary, positively bemused by her sister’s
unprecedented
behaviour.
‘Well, I don’t think it’s wonderful at all,’ Jenny muttered. ‘Did you hear that, Frank? Our Helen’s leaving us and some stranger is going to take care of Carol.’
‘Oh, aye?’ came the reply from behind the newspaper. ‘Well, at least you’ll be able to get your front room back to normal for Christmas.’
‘Oh, men!’ Jenny shook her head and dabbed her glistening eyes with the edge of her pinny. ‘They never understand. Oh, well, at least it frees the room for you and Walter, doesn’t it, our Mary?’
Mary didn’t say anything. She curled up on the clippie mat in front of the hearth and stared into the flames that were leaping up the wide
chimney
. Her eyes found the hole at one side where they raked out the soot. She used to put her Christmas wishes in there when she was a little girl. It was a magic place and, she truly believed, a place where dreams came true. In her imagination, she wrote a short note now, the invisible child in her flicking it into the small aperture.
Then she sat back from the heat and laughed softly to herself. Tomorrow, or the next day, her mother would rake out the soot, not knowing that Mary’s dream was there among the powdery blackness. Dreams were for children, after all, and she was all grown up and didn’t believe in magic any more.
After a busy evening clinic, Alex Craig was sitting at one end of the dining-room table, bringing up to date the notes of the patients he had seen that day. It seemed as though the war and the gruelling harshness of the winter weather that year were taking their toll on the population. He and his uncle had handed out prescriptions as if they were on some sort of production line. There had hardly been time to write more than a few salient words as he went along.
‘Do stop doing that, Alex,’ his wife snapped out, impatient with the monotonous drumming of his fingers. ‘You’re being very irritating this evening.’
‘It’s been a long, hard day, Fiona.’ He glanced across the room to where she was sitting staring into the glowing elements of the gas fire. The book she had been reading was discarded, open and face down on her lap as if she had suddenly become bored with it. ‘Why don’t you take up something to occupy yourself with? Knitting, perhaps. Embroidery? My mother gets a lot of pleasure out of embroidery … oh, and tapestry. Now that’s something you could do, surely?’
‘I am not your mother, Alex. Please don’t patronize me with suggestions that I take up such domestic pursuits. You’ll be suggesting next that I should make cakes and jam and I can’t think of anything I would rather do less.’
‘Well, after all, you are a member of the local WI. Isn’t that what they do?’
‘Oh, that bunch of old hens. I only joined for the contacts, but apart from Penelope Beasley and, at some stretch of the imagination, the vicar’s wife, there is absolutely nobody of any note within their ranks.’
‘I hear they’re doing an awful lot towards the war effort. Why aren’t you down there now with them, helping out? You know, doing your bit.’
‘Knitting mittens and balaclavas and making bandages from old sheets? Having coffee-mornings? Really, Alex.’
‘Perhaps …’ He hesitated fractionally, unsure whether or not to broach the subject that had been uppermost in his mind for so long. ‘Perhaps things might seem better, Fiona, if we had a family.’
Then he saw it, that same outraged expression, and knew that it had been a mistake.
‘Oh, not that again, Alex! There’s plenty of time yet. Besides, I’m not even sure I want to be a mother. All that sick and dirty nappies and lost sleep. No, thank you.’