Authors: Sandra van Arend
Ever since she could remember, from the time she was a toddler, she’d been Stephen’s shadow. She had even followed him to school until finally they had let her attend, even though she was still considered too young (the baby class at St. Wulstan’s). There seemed to be no way to stop her, short of tying her up. There was no one in the world like Stephen! Not even her dad and she loved her dad. But Stephen was different! He was good and kind and the best brother any one could ever have, in spite of his occasional bad temper (like now).
Leah placed the closed sign on the front door of the shop. She locked and bolted it and then let herself out the back way, banging the door shut behind her. She walked down the lane and onto the Square. Fred Stokes was picking up litter round the Mercer Clock. Every now and then he would stop and itch. He must have them, too, she thought. There seemed to be such a lot of people with nits lately.
Every now and then there would be an outbreak of lice and she was horrified that she, and especially the children, would get them. They spread like wild fire and if it was one thing she couldn’t abide it was the thought of little animals running around in her hair. She shivered with revulsion. She was scrupulously clean and thought thankfully of the lovely bathroom they now had at Belmont Road. But her children, they were another matter. They could catch them from anyone at school and she had a sudden vision of hundreds of lice jumping joyfully from a dirty head to the clean heads of her children and she shivered again…uh…horrible!
She looked at Fred for a moment longer as she put her umbrella. It had begun to rain, again! Fred was like a walking clock! At twenty past five he would arrive to pick up rubbish and at five thirty on the dot he would look at his own watch and check the time on the clock. He made sure the clock kept good time. At ten each morning he would get the correct time from the Post Office and then check again in the evening. He was meticulous about this even though he might not be about his personal cleanliness!
Leah glanced around the Square as she set off for home. It was almost deserted. It looked dreary and the constant drizzle added to the gloom. The rain trickled down the shop windows and she gave a sigh. She felt dreary, too. She shouldn’t because the shop was doing well, in spite of the worsening economic conditions.
She had, in fact, been thinking of opening another shop in Accrington. She had good clientele there and even as far as Blackpool. But she’d been dithering about it because Paddy wasn’t keen on the idea. She gave one last look in the window where her latest creation was tastefully arranged: a black taffeta dress on which she’d hand-painted large pink roses down one side of the skirt. She’d got the idea out of a magazine. That dress had taken her an age, but had been well worth the effort. She had so many orders she could hardly keep up with the demand. If only other things were going as well, she’d be happy!
She hurried across the Square because the rain was now pelting down, hard as pebbles and pinging loudly off the umbrella. It was cold, too, and she shivered in her mac, her high heels filling with rain. She should have brought her Wellington’s but she’d forgotten in her rush to get Christine and Stephen ready for school, then her usual morning dash down to the bottom of the road with Julia where the car waited to take her to the nursery a few streets away. It was all rush, rush, rush lately and sometimes she felt so tired she wanted to sell the shop, not buy another one. Her tiredness, however, was not only due to her workload. She was depressed lately, increasingly so, mainly due to Paddy.
She’d known their marriage wouldn’t be heaven made, but had been optimistic they could make a go of it. Unfortunately, things hadn’t turned out that way.
The early part of the marriage had gone smooth enough, but gradually, because she’d been incapable of returning Paddy’s ardour, his had cooled. The years had crept by, they were busy with work, with the children and then other insidious factors had crept in. One of these was drink! Her mother had tempered stories of her father with humour, had kept to herself the terrible toll, which being married to a drunkard had taken. In spite of Emma’s attempts to make light of her life with Harold, Leah had been repulsed by drink, or not so much the drink, for she would have one herself occasionally just to be sociable, but the over indulging.
It had been the last thing in the world she’d expected of Paddy. Like her, he’d seen his own father have one too many. For a long time he drank, as she did, only on social occasions. As their marriage had gone from bad to worse he had started to drink. Now he was almost totally dependent on alcohol. She didn’t blame him entirely. It had been her failure to respond at the beginning to his passion, to his tenderness. She’d tried but he hadn’t been fooled for a minute, drawing away from her, at first in sorrow and then anger. He’d known how she felt when she married him, she thought angrily. He must have the same weakness as his father, although unlike Shamus, Paddy got nasty with drink.
The worsening unemployment was another factor, especially after the General Strike in 1926. Paddy had been out of work now for two years. Eventually it had demoralized him, eating hungrily into his male ego, especially as she continued to go from strength to strength with the shop.
Leah crossed the Square to Belmont Road. Their house was right at the top at the end of the new housing estate. The rain was still coming down in torrents, the wind almost turning the umbrella inside out. She struggled to close it and, head down and the hood of her mac well over her face, she plodded on, her mind jumping from one thing to another.
Nineteen twenty-six conjured something else which had happened at the time. She remembered Kathryn bursting into the shop, tears streaming down her face.
‘He’s dead, he’s dead,’ she kept repeating.
Leah was altering a hem for a client, who stood on a small stool in front of her. Leah had her mouth full of pins (a bad habit of hers) and at the unexpected and noisy intrusion she almost swallowed them (it had cured her of doing this!)
‘Who’s dead,’ she said after she’d got rid of the pins, thinking it must be Kathryn’s father, who had recently had a heart attack.
‘It’s Rudy, Leah, Rudy’s dead.’ Rudolph Valentino! Leah was shocked. What a terrible waste, she thought, but was unprepared for the affect it had on Kathryn. She seemed demented! She stared in consternation as Kathryn went into some kind of fit, howling and spluttering. Even the lady on the stool, Mrs. Dewhurst burst into tears. Leah watched them sniffling and sobbing in surprise. They blubbered for well on ten minutes during which time Leah became more and more exasperated. She’d never get finished at this rate!
That was how she remembered 1926 and here it was 1931 and things in Britain had not improved much since then and from what was in the newspapers it wasn’t only England. Look at America and the Wall Street crash! People jumping out of buildings because they’d lost all their money, so she should just think herself lucky that she was still doing all right.
The nobs from Park Lane complained as well about hard times, but they still seemed to have money to fork out on nice clothes, thank goodness. Kathryn’s marriage to a cotton magnate in Manchester had helped. She had orders from as far away as this city and her reputation as a dressmaker was spreading further and further afield.
‘
It’ll be Paris, next,’ Kathryn had said.
‘Get on with you.’
Paddy wasn’t going to be pleased if she did open another shop. She knew it would be worth the initial expense. She would have to buy a car, but this didn’t worry her. It was Paddy! He would resent this expansion because it would be further proof of his failure and her success. His male ego would be dented, again, and it would be like rubbing salt into a wound because this seemed to be the story of their life so far. She didn’t want to hurt Paddy. How she wished that he could find some worthwhile employment, but the longer he went between jobs the less inclined he became to stir himself.
The children were also becoming something of a problem. It was strange, but now that Stephen was growing up Paddy was becoming more antagonistic towards him. Yet he’d doted on him as a baby and all through his early years, but it seemed that as his ardour for her had cooled, his opposition to Stephen had grown.
To be fair Leah knew that the situation with Stephen wasn’t all one sided. Stephen tended to be as stubborn as Paddy and with adolescence and all its problems both he and Paddy seemed to be at constant loggerheads.
When their daughter, Christine was born, a year after their marriage, Paddy had gradually switched his affection to his daughter, who he pampered and spoilt quite shamelessly. Leah finally lost her temper and they had a flaming row. It hadn’t made much difference because Paddy insisted that Christine have the best of everything and if her daughter hadn’t been such an even- tempered and placid child she would have been an insufferable little brat. As it was she was the most sunny-tempered of children; but in spite of Paddy’s adoration it was Stephen who Christine idolized. Perhaps this was the reason she remained unspoiled. Stephen, although fond of his sister, put her in her place in no uncertain terms.
Leah hurried the last few yards, pushing open the gate, thankful to be home. The wind had risen and her feet were so wet and cold she could hardly feel them. She hoped that Stephen and Christine had not been late picking Julia up from the nursery. Julia had an uncanny sense of timing and even if they were only a few minutes late Sister Agnes said that she set up such a wailing she upset all the other children.
Three children to look after, she thought, no four really, because lately that was what Paddy was like, another responsibility, just like the children. She hadn’t wanted any more after Christine but unfortunately she’d fallen again. That was another thing to add to the growing list of problems. Paddy’s lovemaking! He had always seemed gauche and awkward after Stephen and she was unable to stop comparing, even after all these years. Paddy sensed this from the beginning and naturally had been resentful and angry, eventually drowning his bitterness in drink.
She was shivering as she stepped onto the porch, so dreadfully tired that she could hardly get the key out of her bag. It should be Paddy returning from work, not her. She would be waiting for him with a good dinner ready and a fire roaring up the chimney. Instead, it would be the usual scene. She’d walk in, tired, miserable, the prospect of making dinner, the children quarrelling most probably because they would be hungry and tired, and Paddy would be sat, as usual with his beer, a sullen look on his face because she was late.
She was fed up: fed up of the never-ending work and responsibilities, which seemed to fall more and more heavily on her shoulders. The injustice of it and the selfishness of men! When she worked so hard Paddy should make the dinner and do the housework. That was the least he could do! But this didn’t seem to fit into his idea of what men should do. It was just another little nudge down the ladder of his male ego. The truth of the matter was that he hardly lifted his hand. She had to really control herself at times or she would flare at him and then it would be on again: the ranting, the raving, accusations, verbal cruelty, which left her completely devastated for days after. It upset the children as well, especially Julia. She really must try to stay calm, but it was getting harder, especially when she was cold and tired and she often wondered if it had been a good idea to buy this house so far from the shop.
The new housing estate had been developed more than a year ago. Most were semi-detached houses, with a bay window at the front, quite large rooms compared with terrace houses and the most appealing thing about them, was the indoor toilet and beautiful bathroom ( what absolute heaven, Leah had thought at the time – no more long drop). She went to look at them when they were half built. The last in the row had been the one. The kitchen window had a view onto the fields and in the distance, Pendle Hill.
Paddy had been dead set against it. Probably because she wanted it! Contrary with her all the time, putting his spoke in if he could, just to annoy her. She’d stuck to her plan though and now they’d been in the house three months. She loved it. The airy brightness of it after the small, poky flat and the terrace house in Glebe Street. The bathroom was an absolute joy. Just thinking of soaking in that huge pink bath lifted her spirits.
The curtains at the bay window were closed. The light was on in the room and she could see through a chink. No one was in there and she sighed in exasperation when she saw the fire hadn’t been lit. She slipped her key in the lock and stepped into the small hallway, taking off her mac and shaking it outside the door. She took off her wet shoes. She’d put newspaper in them and let them dry in front of the fire later.
‘
I’m home,’ she called. The kitchen door was closed, but at her call there was a scurry of feet. She was surrounded immediately by Stephen and Christine, and behind them, swaying unsteadily on her chubby legs, Julia.
‘
When are we going to have tea, I’m starving?’ Stephen said, pulling at her arm.
‘
Tell Stephen he’s mean because he won’t lend me his story book. He’s not reading it so why can’t I have it?’ Christine whined.
‘
Let me get in, for heaven’s sake,’ Leah said, bending down to hold her arms out to Julia. ‘Come on, love.’ Leah picked her up and hugged her. She went down the hallway showering Julia with kisses followed by Stephen and Christine pushing and shoving to get near her, to hang on to her.
As she had surmised Paddy sat in the kitchen. It was a mess. Dirty dishes still lay piled on the sink where she’d left them that morning, with a few more added. Anger surged and she struggled to check it. He could at least have washed the dishes! Paddy watched her, aware of her reaction. He looked belligerent, defiant, what Leah called his Irish bulldog look. He seemed to be willing her to voice her thoughts so that he had the excuse to let fly. Instead, rather than giving him the satisfaction of knowing she was annoyed, she detached Julia from her and placed her on the floor.