At the table Mrs Gallagher handed Katie a cup of tea, and she asked, ‘D’you take sugar?’ And Katie replied, ‘No, thank you.’ But she watched the little woman spoon four large spoons full of sugar into the next cup, give it a stir, and hand it across to her husband, who took it without any remark about the tea, but continued as if he hadn’t been checked by his wife about describing events in the steelworks. ‘I was strong in those days, miss,’ he said. He was holding the cup and saucer almost under his chin. The steam from it was wafting over his face, in Katie’s eyes covering the red marks and blue blotches on his skin. And through the mist she glimpsed him as he might have been in his youth, a strapping young fellow, proud of his strength. She wondered why he was in this condition now? But only for a moment, for he was now telling her.
‘I could lift a bar in those days,’ he said, ‘that would take two or three of the skinnymalinks these days to even move. And I was well known. Oh, yes, miss, I was well known. I was a steel man.’ And then after a longer drink from the cup he enquired of her, ‘Does your dad drink?’
‘He likes a glass of whisky.’ She smiled at him again. ‘He comes foaming in at times after a busy day, and if my mother or Nell, she’s our friend, asks if he could do with a cup of tea he answers, sometimes very scornfully, “Tea! No, I want something harder than tea.” So he has a whisky, sometimes two.’
‘Lucky man. Lucky man. One who can take it and know when to stop. But’—he wrinkled his nose—‘luckier still one who has it there when he needs it. Me now, I used to be able to down six whiskies and chasers, that’s a pint after, you know, and not turn a hair. But…well, since I had me accident things have been different. Your body changes, you know, after an accident.’
When a voice mumbled, ‘Yes, he tried to swim,’ the man made a movement as if to rise from his chair, and again his wife spoke, not to him this time but to her son, and her voice was harsh as she said, ‘That’s enough of it, Mike. I’ll talk with you later and you’ll be able to hear me voice, you will that.’ Then looking from Katie to Willie and Sammy, she said in a different tone, ‘We know your names but you don’t know ours. Well, the one I’ve just been addressing is me eldest, that is me eldest here. Me real eldest is John, and he’s in Australia. And me eldest daughter, Lucy, is away too. And then there’s Frank.’ She pointed to the other card player. ‘As for those two layabouts,’ she had swung round now to where the earlier occupants of the couch were sitting on the front-room chairs, and she grinned at them as she said, ‘these two layabouts are Sep and Harry. And Sep,’ she nodded at Katie now, ‘is starting work on Monday, and if I’m to believe what I hear through Daisy, your dad is Mr Bailey, the contractor, isn’t he?’
‘Yes. Yes, he is.’ Katie now turned and looked at the young man who was smiling shyly at her, and she said to him, ‘Who are you going to be under?’
‘I…I don’t know yet, miss. I just met a Mr Ormesby. He comes into the club, you know, and he says he’ll have me set on. I’ll have to do odd jobs at first, run around, you know.’
‘Tea boy.’ This came from Mike.
‘’Tisn’t tea boy, Mike. I won’t be a tea boy. Mr Ormesby said I could be apprenticed, either carpentry, or bricklaying, whichever I’m needed on most. You—’
‘Now, now, Sep.’ His mother waved towards him; then swung round on her elder son, crying, ‘I’ll slap your mouth in the open for you one of these days, I will that. Why don’t you get yourself to hell out of it and look around? But no, you’re too big for your boots.’
The young man now turned on his mother, and in a voice as loud as hers, he yelled, ‘I was apprenticed, Mam, don’t forget. Three years I was apprenticed, and look at me. For two years I’ve been going the rounds, and the big boots are worn out. Well, I’m going round no more. They can bloody well keep me.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry about this.’ The little woman was nodding towards Sammy and Willie now. Then turning to Katie, she muttered, ‘I am indeed, miss. I’m sorry about this. Family rows should be kept for private times. But…but apart from being bone idle, some of my lot are bone ignorant, and it’s me that says it.’ She now put her forearm under her high breasts and heaved them up, before ending in a softer tone, ‘Drink your tea, lass.’
Katie was about to take a drink from the cup when she gulped on it as Daisy’s voice, from behind her, said, ‘I told you, didn’t I? I told you.’
Katie now laid the cup and saucer down on the table in such a way that the tea spilt over from the cup. And turning on Daisy, she said, ‘Yes, you told us. Well, I can say the same to you when you come and visit us, because as Sammy’s father would have said, “There’s often the divil’s fagarties,” if you know what that means, Miss Gallagher. And it goes on in our house, I know. I’ve got an adopted sister, much younger but she causes ructions. Willie there…well, when he starts, he doesn’t know when to stop. As for my dad. Oh!’ She turned from glaring at Daisy now and, her gaze and voice softening, she looked at Mr Gallagher again as she said, ‘As I said, as for my dad, I bet you couldn’t hold a candle to him when he gets going. Bawling Bill Bailey, they call him at the works. And Bawling Bill Bailey he is at home at times. But there’s another one of us, and that’s my brother who is now in London, studying to be a doctor. And all I can say about Mark is, God help his patients, because he hasn’t patience with himself or with anybody else. Willie and he’—she now thumbed over her shoulder—‘used to go at each other’s throats. So, you see’—she looked about her now—‘it’s nothing new to us, family get-togethers. As for myself, in my time I think I have caused more ructions than all of them put together.’ She gave a little laugh. Then, turning to Sep again, she said quietly, ‘If Mr Ormesby recommended you, you’ll be all right. And you’ll get on like a house on fire, if you’re willing. All dad’s foremen on the different jobs want young lads who will work for them. He’s very loyal to those who are loyal to him. Anyway, we would all like to know how you get on.’
‘Thank you, miss. Thank you.’ The pale-faced boy nodded towards Katie as he asked, ‘D’you know Mr Ormesby well, miss?’
‘Oh, very well. Yes, very well.’
Sep nodded at her; his eyes were bright. And when his mother said, ‘There you are now, there you are. It’s good to have friends at court,’ Daisy put in, ‘Especially in the police station.’
Only Mike did not join in the ensuing ripple of laughter. He was standing near the window staring out into the street. Then the family’s attention was on their father again, because he was having a bout of coughing which sounded as if it were tearing his chest. And, as if apologising for the bout, he looked towards Katie as he tapped his chest, saying, ‘I hate the bl— winter and dark nights.’
‘Oh, now, now.’ His wife gave him a sharp tap on the shoulder as she passed him on her way to the fire. ‘You’re lucky to be alive. Many a less strong man would be in his grave the day.’
The placating tones of his wife seemed to have a soothing effect upon the man, and Katie couldn’t imagine her ever throwing a dinner in his face, as Daisy had described.
Len now nodded at Katie again, saying, ‘Six hours, I was, in the freezing water of that dock afore they got me out. Almost stiff, I was. Well’—he tossed his head to one side now and grinned at her—‘I’d had a good night out, you see, miss, I was bottled up to the eyes.’ He was saying this now as if it were something to brag about; and she realised he thought it was, as he went on, ‘I could carry it in those days. Boy! I could carry it. But it was the wind; it lifted me clear off me feet and over I went into the dock. And I was never any swimmer. In fact, to tell the truth I hated the water. I abhorred people who even put it in their whisky.’ The little woman who had now seated herself next to Katie, put in, ‘Pneumonia, he had. Bad. Very nearly croaked.’ She nodded towards her husband who was sitting with his eyes cast down, his fingers drumming on the table edge as if he were beating out a tune, and she went on, ‘A solid year it was, before he was on his feet. So, I say ’tis lucky
he’s still alive.’
‘I don’t know so much. I don’t know so much.’ Len’s head was up again and he was nodding. ‘It gets me gall up when I think of that bloody steelworks going bust, but more so when I think of those buggers who had only been there not even ten years being given golden handshakes. Set some up for life it did. Others, it turned their heads. But there was me, fifteen years I had worked there, and what did I get? Not a brass farthing.’
‘Oh, but’—his wife was looking at him again—‘you know you couldn’t have gone back there; of course, you do. And it was three years later when the steelworks went bust. But anyway, I don’t envy any one of them that got the money. Although it went to some of their heads, to tell the truth, money, too much of it, can be a curse in some cases. Oh, yes, it can. It can break up a family.’
‘Oh, for the curse to drop on us.’ It was an intoned voice as if coming from an altar, and on it Mike Gallagher turned from the window and marched out. And no-one spoke until they heard a door bang.
On this, Daisy drew up a chair and sat down next to her father and, nudging him with her elbow, she said, ‘Just you wait, Da, till me coupon comes up. We’ll show them.’
The look he bestowed on her, Katie could have termed, was one of love; and his voice was soft as he said, ‘Aye, that’ll be the day, lass. We’ll show them. We’ll show them.’
‘Oh, listen to that! The rips have come back,’ Mrs Gallagher suddenly burst out. ‘I wonder what they’ve got this time. They’re beachcombers, you know, miss. They’re me youngest, they’re twins. They’ll likely have been picking things up from the shore. They’ll likely come in as black as sweeps…What did I tell you?’
Two small figures, a boy and a girl, had appeared in the doorway, their hands black and their faces not much cleaner, and their mother cried at them, ‘Just look at your coats!’ And the little girl cried back at her, ‘Aw, Mam, shut up! Just look what we’ve found.’ She held out one of her hands and her brother did the same.
‘Put them on the table here. And look, we’ve got company; say hello.’
The two children stared wide-eyed at those sitting on the couch, then at Katie, and they said together, ‘Hello, yous.’ And Willie, Sammy and Katie simultaneously replied, ‘Hello, you two.’
‘This is Jean,’ said Mrs Gallagher, pointing to the small girl; ‘and this is Dan, devil-may-care Dan,’ she added as the young lad grinned back at her. Then, looking at Katie, she said, ‘Did you ever see two human beings that represented imps, and them all of eleven years old?’
‘What have we here?’ Len Gallagher was looking at the shell, and the small girl said, ‘We washed it in the river, Da. It’s pretty, isn’t it?’
‘Aye, it is that. It looks like mother-of-pearl. Look at that, Annie!’ He handed the shell to his wife. And she, after examining it, said, ‘It is mother-of-pearl, and it’s a bonny piece. But what have you got in the box?’
‘We don’t know. We found them both together. We couldn’t open the box.’
‘Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!’ Practically all the family were around the table now.
‘Hand me a knife,’ said the father, and when a knife was thrust into his hand he tried unsuccessfully to wedge it under the lid.
Presently he said, ‘It’s locked. Now you don’t lock a box, do you, unless you’ve got something good in it? Well! Well! Well!’ He looked at the last great effort of his life and the two children returned his look eagerly, and the little girl said, ‘Danny said that, Da, you only lock things up that are good, I mean worth something.’
‘You’ve said it there, my dear, you’ve said it there. Well, we haven’t any spare keys round here small enough to get into this, so what’s the general opinion? Shall I force it?’
There was a chorus of, ‘Oh, yes. Yes, Da. Go on. Go on, man.’
Len did not immediately carry on with the operation, but he looked at Sammy and Willie who had joined the throng, and said to them, ‘What kind of thing would you put in a box and lock away, young men?’
‘Money,’ said Willie without hesitation. ‘I do that when I’m saving up for anything.’
‘And you?’
Sammy thought a moment, then said, ‘It could be jewellery. Yet, on the other hand, it could be a will or a document of some kind.’
‘Yes. Yes.’
It seemed to all of them round the table watching the man handling the box that he was putting off the moment of revelation as if he were savouring it. Then he said, ‘Mind, whatever it is, it’s the youngsters who found it. And if it’s share and share alike, they get the biggest cut.’
‘No, Da, you get the biggest cut.’ It was the little girl speaking now. ‘’Cos you’re the biggest, so you should have the biggest cut.’
‘Get on with it, Da, for God’s sake!’ Daisy’s voice expressed the impatience of them all; and so the knife was thrust into the box, and there followed the sound of breaking wood. It came like the cry of a small animal. Then the lid was loose and when Len lifted it, they all strained to look down at the contents.
For some seconds there was no sound at all in the kitchen, until Len Gallagher dropped his head onto his hands and let out a deep, choking laugh, which acted as a signal to the rest of the family and the visitors.
‘Who would put hairpins in a box like that, and so many of them?’
Mrs Gallagher looked at Daisy, saying, ‘At one time, lass, even when I was young, people still wore their hair up. And it took a lot of hairpins to keep a lot of hair up, if you know what I mean.’
‘But there must be hundreds there, Ma,’ Daisy cried.
‘They could be covering something up. There might be something else of value underneath.’
All eyes were on Sammy now, and it was Mr Gallagher who nodded towards him, saying, ‘You’re right, lad, you’re right. We’re just sitting here like stooks, thinking the hairpins’ll get up and tell us their history.’ At this, he took the box and tipped it upside down, spilling the contents onto the table.
But there was nothing in the bottom of the box. He now brought it close to his face, then moved it away again as he said, ‘There’s a name been burnt in the bottom of it though. Me eyes aren’t very good.’ He passed the box over to Katie, and she had to look closely at it before she read out, ‘This box is the property of Eliza Fair…child’. And she repeated the name, ‘Eliza Fairchild. Born, 1841.’
‘Is that all it says?’
She nodded from one to the other. ‘But 1841, that’s last century.’
‘It doesn’t say when she died, miss?’
Katie looked at Sep, and said, ‘No, Sep, it doesn’t say when she died. But she herself must have burnt that in because if somebody else had done it they would likely have said when she died.’
‘It’s a very nice box.’ Sammy was now holding it. ‘I…I think it’s teak. It’s a pity the lock’s broken, because, perhaps, it could have been of some value. People collect things like this, you know.’
‘Collect boxes?’
Sammy nodded towards the man at the other end of the table now, saying, ‘Oh yes, they collect all kinds of things. But because her name’s been burnt in, it would make it valuable, I think…well, of some interest to somebody.’
‘Mr Slater, in the junk shop, you know, Da, he’s good at fixing things. He used to be a joiner or something at one time. We could take it down there and see what he says. And he sells all bits of things an’ all.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Frank.’ His father was nodding at him. ‘We’ll do that. But whatever it goes for, little or much, and I should imagine it’ll be little, it’s the bairns’. You understand?’
‘Oh, aye, Da. Oh aye. I’m not out for anything. Aye, it’s theirs.’
‘I think the shell could be worth something.’
The attention was on Willie now. And Daisy, looking at him, said, ‘What makes you think that?’
‘Because of the mother-of-pearl, I’m sure. Some people collect shells, as others do coins and stamps. What
d’you think, Sammy?’ He now handed the shell to Sammy, and he said, ‘Well, I don’t know very much, in fact, I know nothing about mother-of-pearl, only that when you do hear it mentioned, it seems it could be expensive. I wouldn’t take it to any junk shop. I would give it another good wash and get somebody…well, say you yourself, Mrs Gallagher, to go to a jeweller’s and ask its value.’
‘You think so, lad? It may be…’
‘I don’t know. But as Willie here said, Mrs B…’ he smiled now, ‘that’s what I call his mother, she has a trinket box inlaid with the same stuff. I’ve seen it. What d’you think, Katie?’
‘Yes, Mother has a mother-of-pearl trinket box. But I wouldn’t know its value. I’ve never taken much notice of it. She keeps odds and ends of brooches and earrings and things in it.’
‘Well, I can tell you from experience,’ again Sammy had their attention, and he went on, ‘what I know of Mrs B, she wouldn’t have anything cheap on her dressing table. So, I’d have that valued.’
‘Oh, well then,’ Len Gallagher drew in a long breath. Then, putting his hand out, he patted first his young son and then his daughter, saying, ‘Your journey has not been in vain.’ Bending down to the two smiling faces he went into a sort of rhyme and song, singing,
‘He raced across the open space,
But never reached the end,
For he fell down a cliff
And was found there stiff,
For he forgot to take the bend.’
The two children had joined him in singing the last line; and, again patting their heads, Len turned from them and looked at Katie, who sat staring at him.
‘It’s like a lot of us, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘We forget to take the bend, and although we’re alive, we lie stiff at the bottom of the cliff.’ He smiled wryly now and, jerking his head towards where his wife was thrusting the two children into the scullery, he said, ‘They like that one. They don’t know what it means, but they like the sound of it.’ Then, his eyes in turn scrutinising her, he said, ‘It’s been a funny afternoon. Just afore you came I thought to meself, what else is there for me but to go and lie down? But in you three come; hauled in by the wife of the demon barber.’ He jerked his chin to where Daisy appeared to be in deep conversation with her brother Sep. ‘She’s a star, that one, you know. But she’s got principles and she sticks to them. She says what she means. I often feel like telling Father Hankin he should come and take lessons from her, for if ever there was a two-faced bugger, he’s one. He hunts with the hounds, the moneyed ones, but doesn’t even walk with the hare. D’you know him?’
The Bondage of Love Page 8
