Women on the Home Front (103 page)

The girl pointed outside and then at his sandwich.

‘Your name's Kathleen, isn't it?'

‘Kathleen Murphy,' she said in a lilting accent.

She pointed again at his sandwich but Chris could tell she was either too polite or shy to ask outright for it.

He rummaged in his lunch box and got out a fresh one and offered it. ‘Take you home now,' he said.

She moved towards him for the food, wincing as her tiny feet stepped on grit.

Swinging her up in his arms he said, ‘Now, Kathleen, I think we should find your mum.' He felt her cold little body beneath his palms and automatically rubbed at her legs to warm them.

Kathleen grabbed at the sandwich and immediately took a bite out of it.

‘Hello … Mrs Murphy … you in?' Chris had stopped at the bottom of some stairs in a musty hallway to yell out.

A moment later he heard the sound of a baby's cries followed by its hacking cough. He started up the stairs, carrying Kathleen.

Before he reached the top a woman appeared, looking harassed. She halted, gawping at him and turning pale. Chris could tell she'd no idea her daughter had gone missing.

‘Kathleen … ?' Noreen gasped. ‘What … where has she been … ?'

‘She came down the road and into the house we're working on,' Chris explained. ‘No harm done,' he reassured her when a look of mingling shame and embarrassment transformed Noreen Murphy's shocked expression.

‘Sorry about that … I thought she was playing out here on the landing … that's where she was …' She indicated a doll discarded on dirty bare boards.

‘No harm done,' Chris repeated and set the girl down next to her mother. ‘She seems a bit cold … and hungry.'

Again the woman's face flushed guiltily and she lowered her eyes. ‘I was just going to do us a bite to eat.' Noreen knew that for a lie. She'd been waiting for her husband to come home with some groceries, but if Kieran hadn't managed to find Declan O'Connor, and get his wages from the tight-fist, he'd be back with nothing for them to eat.

‘What's going on?' Kieran Murphy's voice sounded soft and suspicious as he started up the stairs towards them.

Chris could tell straight away that Mrs Murphy didn't want her husband to find out one of their children had been neglected, and could have got hurt. But he didn't see any way to avoid telling the truth. The last thing he wanted was Kieran jumping to the conclusion that he was making a play for his missus while he was out looking for work. And Noreen was a good-looking young woman despite her dishevelled appearance.

‘Your daughter was just outside, I brought her in,' Chris said succinctly.

Kieran's eyes darted to his wife's face as he took the remnant of sandwich from Kathleen's fingers, making her whimper and try to snatch it back.

He thrust the food at Chris then the next moment was roughly steering his wife into their room and dragging his daughter behind him by the hand.

Before Chris had reached the bottom of the stairs he could hear a violent argument in progress and two children crying.

‘Done a good job there, hasn't he?'

Pamela glanced up to see Gladys Rathbone strolling towards her, inspecting her new gate. Unable to speak, she nodded and removed her hand from where it had lain, curved softly about the top rail.

‘Got a few bits 'n' bobs myself need doing,' the woman added. ‘If I wait for Charlie to put me up a few more shelves in the pantry, I'll be waiting for evermore. Perhaps I might give your fellow a call, see if he'll give me a quote. When I spoke to him earlier, he said he does reasonable rates.' She slid Pam an enquiring look, hoping to find out what she'd paid for the job. ‘I will say, he's a very handsome young man …' She chuckled dirtily and prodded Pam's arm.

Pamela raised her head at last and her neighbour saw her bloodshot eyes were glistening.

‘Don't mind me having a joke about your builder,' the woman apologised with a frown. ‘You're thinking of your Stan, aren't you, Pam … 'course you are. I should've known that getting a new gate would bring back sad memories for you. I'll leave you in peace. But come over a bit later, if you feel like it, and we'll have a cup of tea and a bit of Battenberg before my Charlie gets home.'

Once she was alone, Pamela latched the gate carefully, noting how easily it snapped into place, how well it swung on silent hinges. She turned and went inside to stare at the scrap of paper she'd found on her doormat that afternoon. It now lay on the hall table and, picking it up, she reread for the hundredth time the message neatly written on a page that had been torn from a cheap notebook.

I was going to paint it but don't know what colour you like. Anyhow you might get wet paint on your clothes. You don't owe me anything. Christopher.

A sob swelled in her chest and she sank to sit on the low table clutching her son's note to her heart.

‘So it's all back on with you and him, is it?'

‘I'm going out with Chris again, if that's what you mean,' Grace confirmed, continuing to brush her hair. As she pinned a section of sleek blonde hair back with a gilt clip she noticed, at the corner of her eye, her mother still hovering by her bedroom doorway. Grace felt like also saying she was sick of hearing Christopher called
him
when Shirley knew his name perfectly well.
But she bit her lip, waiting for her mother to leave her in peace, so she could finish getting ready to go out. Unfortunately, her mother seemed content to settle back against the doorframe to watch her, so Grace got up from the little dressing-table stool and picked up from the bed the navy-blue wool-crepe dress she'd got out of her wardrobe earlier. She stepped into it then approached her mother and turned her back for her to do her up.

Her mother jerked up the zip then fiddled with the hook and eye at the collar. ‘You need long sleeves on now the weather's got so cold,' Shirley lectured, eyeing her daughter's bare arms. ‘You'll need a cardigan on over that if you're not going to catch your death.'

‘I'm getting one out of the drawer in a minute,' Grace replied, relieved her mother seemed to have turned her attention away from Chris.

‘Your nan tells me that you've taken him round there with you a couple of times.'

Grace muttered beneath her breath and bent down to look for her shoes under the bed. ‘Yes, I have. We went for tea and were telling her all about the plans for the Coronation Day party in Whadcoat Street next June. Nan likes Chris; I expect she's told you that.' Grace sat down on the edge of the mattress and misted her wrists with perfume, rubbing them together to fire the warm spicy scent.

Shirley hurrumphed. ‘She wouldn't though, would she, if she knew a bit more about him. You're lucky I've kept her in the dark about what sort of family he comes from or he wouldn't get past
my
mother's doorstep.'

‘You're wrong about that,' Grace said calmly. ‘Nan does know his family were once very hard up because I told her. And when we were there she was talking to Chris about his wicked grandfather Jimmy 'cos once she and Granddad met him. We had a laugh about it. Luckily she's not as prejudiced as you are.'

‘I'm not prejudiced! I just don't think he's good enough for you.'

‘Why can't you just leave him alone!' Grace swivelled about on the edge of the bed. ‘He's done nothing to you!'

‘What's he done to you, eh? That's what I want to know, my girl.'

‘Oh, here we go again …' Grace muttered wearily.

‘Yes, miss, here we go again, and with your attitude, and if you're not careful, I can see you ending up just like your cousin Celia …'

‘Please … not the cousin Celia story,' Grace sighed. ‘Don't tell it to me again, Mum. I can recite it off by heart.'

‘Good! 'Cos if that doesn't put the fear of God into you, I don't know what will.'

‘Well, it's certainly put the fear of God into you, Mum!'

‘I don't deny it!' Shirley thundered. ‘It's enough to scare the wits out of any decent mother! Do you think I want a daughter of mine ending up in a sanatorium?'

Grace raised her eyes heavenwards. One of her cousins – on the Coleman side, naturally, her mother ensured she made that clear to anybody she recounted the tale to – had ended up in an unmarried mother's home after her parents threw her out, and the baby's father did a runner.

A policeman had got Celia pregnant, then resigned from the force, and joined the navy in the latter half of the war, to escape being tied down. Rumour had it he'd come back as hale and hearty as when he'd left, and had moved up to Cumbria without contacting Celia. But by then, with no family willing to help her, the baby had been forcibly taken from Celia for adoption, and the poor girl had attempted suicide twice.

At regular intervals Shirley would remind her daughter of Celia's disgrace, stressing the stupid girl had only herself to blame for giving it away to a rotter before she'd got the marriage lines tucked away in a drawer.

‘Where are you off to, then?'

‘Just out …'

‘Where?'

‘For God's sake, give over! We're not going to a hotel, and even if we were, it's none of your business.' Grace glared at her mother with a mixture of pity and annoyance. ‘Just because you and Dad never had a kind word to say to each other doesn't mean couples who get along want to be at it like rabbits …'

‘What do you mean
never had a kind word to say to each other
!' Shirley interrupted in a bellow. ‘That's a wicked thing to say! We might not have been lovey dovey, but we had
respect
for each other. And your father would never have dreamed of taking liberties with me before he'd paid for his fun with a wedding ring.'

Grace sighed. Her mother obviously had on her rose-tinted spectacles. Sadly, she could bring to mind numerous occasions of bawled insults flying between her parents when mutual respect had been nowhere to be seen or heard. But it hadn't just been a case of Wilf being browbeaten by Shirley's withering looks and sarcasm. Grace had felt sorry for her mother, too, married, as she was, to a man whose passions in life seemed to be a pint of bitter, a game of darts, and the racing pages in the
News of the World
.

Obviously, they'd felt close enough, on at least two occasions, to produce her and her brother, Paul. But, Grace couldn't recall any instances of her parents being openly affectionate. The only time she'd seen them in each other's arms was when they'd danced a waltz at her brother's wedding in the back room of the Red Lion pub in Guildford.

‘So let's have a little less backchat from you, my girl …' Her mother's nagging was penetrating Grace's reflection. A moment later a loud knock on the front door brought Shirley's lecture to a close, and Grace fully to her senses. But her mother was already heading for the stairs, and was halfway down them before Grace had even collected her handbag.

‘Oh, it's you, Christopher,' Shirley said as though his arrival was a surprise. ‘Come in; Grace is still upstairs. You've been going out a while now, haven't you, and Grace has introduced you to some of the family.' She immediately launched into the speech she'd rehearsed in her mind. ‘Her nan tells me you've been round there for tea. Well, I think it's time for me to say that, as Grace's dad has passed away, you're welcome to speak to me about anything … intentions … anything like that …'

‘Mum!' The single word was heard as a suffocated, silencing groan issuing from the landing.

‘Evenin', Mrs Coleman,' Chris responded with studied courtesy. ‘Thanks for that, I'll bear it all in mind.' Slowly he lifted his eyes, brimming with sultry amusement, to Grace, hovering at the head of the stairs. She'd swung about on the top tread as though she might disappear, then turned slowly back to give him a frown that was, at one and the same time, ashamed and apologetic.

He shook his head slightly, biting his lip to suppress a smile, hoping he'd indicated he wasn't at all bothered by Shirley's pushy behaviour.

With a deep, calming breath Grace descended the stairs, yanked her coat off the peg, and tonelessly said, ‘Bye, Mum.' She was halfway down the front garden path before she allowed Chris to help her into the garment. Despite it being dark, and a cold and foggy November evening, she'd simply wanted to get out of the house, and away from her mother, as soon as she could.

They had driven for a few minutes in unbroken quiet before Grace burst out, ‘I'm sorry … she's so embarrassing … I've not said anything to her to make her think …'

‘I know,' Chris said, slanting an amused look at her profile. ‘Since that idiot you were engaged to slunk off, I suppose she thinks all men are the same. She's just looking out for you, Grace,' he added reasonably.

‘She's looking out for herself, more like!' Grace returned. ‘It's not just about protecting me, it's about her not wanting to be shown up or gossiped about, like Celia's lot.'

‘Who's Celia?'

‘My cousin.'

‘Got herself in trouble, did she?'

Grace studied her hands while giving Celia some proper thought. ‘It is a very sad tale, actually,' she admitted. ‘It's just I'm sick of hearing about it.'

‘What happened to her?'

‘She's more my brother Paul's age than mine, so I never really knew her well,' Grace started. ‘When she was nineteen or twenty she got pregnant by a policeman who wouldn't stand by her. So, against her will, her baby was taken away for adoption … it sent her mad.' She glanced at him, wondering if it was the sort of thing he'd shrug off, or perhaps he'd applaud the copper's deviousness, being as he was, in his own words, a man who liked to push his luck on a Saturday night.

‘What happened to the copper?'