Christmas on Coronation Street
Page 9
Fay was sitting by the bed while her mother slept and she stood up as soon as she saw Elsie. She flung her arms round her sister and burst into tears.
‘The doctor had to come. He said … he said … the baby was … the baby was already dead inside her,’ she sobbed.
Elsie felt the sharpness of her sister’s shoulder bones through the flimsy shawl she wore. She held her while they both wept.
‘Where’s Dad? Does he know?’ Elsie said eventually.
Fay shrugged. ‘He didn’t come home last night and he’s not shown his face here all day.’
Elsie’s jaw clamped tight shut for a moment. ‘Do you know what the hardest bloody thing is?’ she said at last.
Fay shook her head.
‘When he does eventually turn up, he won’t sodding care either way. It’ll be same as it bloody always is. Like it’s nothing to do with him.’ Elsie was breathing hard, her mouth twisted, her fists clenched. ‘One of these days, I swear I’ll bloody swing for that man.’
Fay was staring at her, her eyes wide with fear. ‘Oh, Else, don’t say that.’
Elsie hugged her and tried to smile. ‘Don’t worry, lass. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.’ She gave a grim smile. ‘I suppose we should try to look on the bright side of all this.’
Fay looked up eagerly. ‘And what’s that?’
‘At least we won’t have another mouth to feed.’
At this Fay burst into a fresh bout of tears. ‘Oh, Elsie, I hope it’s not wicked to think that, I were thinking the same thing,’ she said.
‘How can it be wicked to spare a kid the misery of coming to live in a dump like this?’ Elsie looked about the wretched room and it was as if she was seeing it for the first time, even though she had lived there her whole life.
The house was supposed to have been part of the slum clearance after the Great War, she knew that, but somehow they had stopped the demolition work when they got to Gas Street and Back Gas Street. Suddenly, it seemed, such houses were desperately needed for large families to live in who couldn’t afford to be housed elsewhere. So they were patched up, made barely habitable and people like her gran who had twelve children and nowhere to live, had gladly moved in. It was that or going to one of those institutions that had replaced the old workhouses – and she knew which one she preferred.
But not all of the houses were in fact habitable, even then. Especially theirs. Most of the other houses in their block at least had an inside tap with cold running water in the downstairs room. The Grimshaws had not been so lucky. So not only did they have to go out through the front door and walk all the way to the back in order to get water from the pump in the courtyard, but they still had the lead sewer pipe leading directly on to the street, making the sanitation of the whole block questionable. Inside the house, they had a fireplace but the door was hanging off the oven and there was no storage tank or boiler for cold or hot water. They could only cook on old grindstones in front of the fire or boil water in an old black cauldron that hung over the grate.
Elsie remembered her gran well. A strong, spirited woman, she had not let the awfulness of the house get her down. She had papered the walls in the downstairs room herself. She’d got some gaudy-coloured rolls of paper off the rag-and-bone man and tried to cheer the place up. She’d done a good job at the time. The torn remains of it still clung to the damp walls in some places. After Elsie’s gran had died, all her children moved away except for Arthur, who seemed happy to live there with his wife and two young children. And when the family had grown, the house had become more and more neglected. The only wonder was that all of the children, apart from a few miscarriages, survived. And now they shared it with the rats and mice that ran freely across the courtyard and used it as their second home.
Elsie sighed. She had lived her entire life in such squalor and she honestly believed she had become immune to the diseases that had carried so many young children off. The mildewed damp that had long been running down the walls – removing much of the plaster and wallpaper in the process – didn’t help her perpetual cough, but she had learned to live with it and tried not to let it get her down. But she was never happy at the thought of bringing a new baby into such a filthy existence, and that was why she had such mixed feelings now.
Fay pulled away from her sister’s embrace. ‘Well, we won’t have to worry about that ever again, according to the doctor. He said there’ll be no more like this one. No more miscarriages. No more babbies. She’s all buggered up inside now.’
Elsie was shocked and stared at Fay. ‘He said that to you?’
Fay shook her head. ‘Not to me directly. But I heard him telling Mam and Mrs Wiggins.’
‘Well, all I can say is, I’m glad for her sake and Dad won’t care so long as he can have his way.’ She looked across at her mother, her brow creased.
‘Yes, me too. But I bet our mam won’t be so quick to tell him that.’ Fay wiped her nose with her shawl. ‘It was sad though. He was a tiny scrap. I held him in my arms for a few minutes, you know.’
‘It was another boy?’
‘Yes. You could see his little willie. There were nowt wrong wi’ ’im. He looked just like he were asleep. Only the doctor said he was never going to wake up.’ She began to sob, loudly this time, her entire body shaking. ‘I held him in my arms, but the poor little mite was cold. And he was quite blue. He was already gone, Mrs Wiggins said. I couldn’t save him.’
‘Of course you couldn’t. You’re not a doctor. Even the doctor couldn’t save him.’
‘It all seems so unfair.’
‘Unfair? Maybe. But then again, maybe it’s for the best. I’m sure he wouldn’t have wanted to come and live in a midden like this, and I can’t say as I blame him.’
Elsie felt tears flowing, only hers were silent. She could almost feel the baby in her own arms and she shivered. Then she reached out and touched Jack’s face once more, relieved to find it was still warm. He opened his eyes and began to whimper and she gathered him into her arms, rocking him to and fro. It was the closest she had come to understanding her mother’s pain. It was for a moment as though she was holding her own child in her arms. And Jack would probably be the last baby of the family, thank goodness. Until she started having babies of her own.
Her father didn’t come home until the following day, and when he did, late in the evening, he acted as though nothing had happened. He didn’t lift a finger to help when Alice dragged herself from her bed to tend the meagre fire, and he said nothing other than to complain when she produced only bread and dripping. It was as if she had never been pregnant. As if she had never suffered the agonies of a stillborn child. And when Elsie had climbed the stairs and fallen into bed exhausted from her full day of work, she felt a surge of roiling anger at her mother when she heard the familiar rhythmic creaking of her parent’s bed downstairs.
Chapter 13
Apart from the discomfort of having to share her bed with all her sisters, Fay was surprised to find she quite liked having their new lodger Harry around the house. He helped her with her chores, even though he only had the full use of one arm. He carried buckets of water and found much larger chunks of coal than she was usually able to unearth. He rinsed off the dishes and one morning after he had cleared up the sink she found him washing his sheets. Later that day, she noticed he’d somehow managed to make up his bed. He washed himself daily at the pump in the courtyard and took a razor to his face. He no longer smelled like he had on that first day. In fact, when he was freshly scrubbed, he looked quite handsome with his slicked-back blond hair and his piercing blue eyes. She caught herself whistling softly as she went about her chores and realized it was something Harry did all the time. He didn’t talk much about his experiences in Spain, except when she asked him a specific question.
When Elsie was around, Fay avoided the subject of Harry completely. Her big sister seemed suspicious of his motives: ‘First bloke I’ve seen rolling his sleeves up to help with the ’ousework.’
Elsie gave her sister an old-fashioned look. ‘Just be careful he’s not looking for you to show your thanks in return, if you know what I mean.’
Fay frowned. ‘You’re just miffed that you’re not the centre of attention for once.’
‘What, you think I’d want ogling by that scruffy layabout? No fear!’ Elise scoffed.
Harry did so much to help Fay that when he asked her shyly if she could possibly change the dressing on his wound, she didn’t feel she could refuse.
She had never fancied the idea of being a nurse because she was squeamish, so she wasn’t sure how she was going to react at the sight of blood. Harry took off his sling and Fay stared down at the old dressing, not sure where to begin. There was some dried blood showing on the outside of the bandage and she didn’t know what she would find as she unwrapped it hesitantly. The old gauze dressing was stuck to the wound but Harry bravely ripped it off himself. He gave a shout and visibly winced but it was over quickly. To Fay’s relief, what looked as though it had been a nasty injury was obviously now healing well.
‘It’s wonderful to be able to move my arm freely,’ Harry said, swinging his arm in circles.
‘So long as you keep it well wrapped up,’ Fay agreed, ‘and don’t knock it, then it should be fine in a few weeks.’ She discarded the sling and found some clean rags to wrap it up again.
‘I can see I shall have to call you Fay Nightingale,’ Harry quipped. Fay blushed. ‘Is that what you want to be when you grow up?’
‘I’ll have you know I am grown up,’ Fay responded, more tartly than she’d intended. She stood up quickly.
Harry laughed. ‘You may not have the red hair in the family, but you’ve got the temper that goes with it.’
At this Fay laughed too.
‘Thank you for your help. I can see that I’ll be fully healed very soon.’
‘And for your information, I’ve no intention of ever being a nurse.’ And she told him of her dream of becoming a secretary.
‘That sounds like a noble ambition,’ he said.
‘Now you’re making fun of me,’ Fay said, her face serious.
‘Not at all. I mean it. And I hope you get what you want.’
‘I will if I can work out how to pay for the lessons.’
‘What about your sister? She’s got a job. Can’t she help you?’
‘Elsie has to give everything she gets to me dad. He’d flay her alive if she didn’t.’
‘I saw her down at the Butcher’s Arms, working behind the bar.’
Fay was stunned, but she reasoned that someone was bound to see Elsie there at some point. ‘Me dad doesn’t know about that. She only gets tips, not a proper wage. Promise you won’t tell him.’
‘I suppose she must do quite well down there for her tips, good-looking lass like her.’
‘I don’t really know. She has to be careful – if he found out, he’d not only take them off her, but he’d give her a good thrashing too for being deceitful.’
Harry flashed her a reassuring look. ‘Don’t worry Fay, her secret is safe with me.’
‘Thanks, Harry.’ Fay smiled gratefully.
‘Now, about those lessons,’ he said. ‘That’s easily sorted. You go to the college and ask them for a job.’
‘But I won’t be qualified.’
‘I meant a job as a cleaner. You could clean their offices before anyone else gets there in the morning and then instead of wages they could let you stay on for free lessons.’
Fay clapped her hands with delight. ‘What a great solution! I think I’ll try that. I may as well get some benefit from all the cleaning I do. It’s not like anyone here is ever going to pay me.’ And she grinned.
Harry waved his arm in the air. ‘And I’ll also be able to look for a job soon.’
‘It must be frustrating, having been handicapped for so long,’ Fay agreed. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him how he was managing to pay the rent without a job but she decided that seemed too rude.
Not everyone in the family liked Harry’s presence. He had been in the house for a week when Fay realized Phyllis had not come home for three nights in a row. Always the wild one with the same wild flame hair as Elsie, she had taken to staying away overnight sometimes. Elsie had told Fay what Phyllis had told her about being determined to get away from their father, and they had both noticed that her absences had increased of late. When Elsie had mentioned it to Phyllis, she had been mysterious, just saying that she had made new friends and was perfectly entitled to do whatever she pleased. But when Fay realized Phyllis had hardly been home much at all that week she thought it best to alert Elsie when she came in for her tea. Her mother had popped out to have a natter with a neighbour in the backyard and they had the downstairs room to themselves for once while the other children were out at school.
‘Do you think we should tell our mam?’ Fay was anxious to share her concerns.
But Elsie wasn’t so sure. ‘What will she do, apart from tell Dad?’
‘Are you suggesting that we should tell him, then?’ Now Fay felt positively afraid.
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Elsie said. ‘Perhaps we don’t need to tell anyone yet. After all, no one in this madhouse would have noticed, ’cept us. And probably nobody will.’
‘She didn’t take kindly to Harry coming to lodge with us. She was the one who most hated us all having to share the same bed,’ said Fay, remembering the day Harry had first appeared with her father.
‘True enough, but is that any excuse to run away? We’re all in the same boat, after all.’
‘Where does she go when she goes missing for the odd night or two?’ Fay asked, knowing that Elsie was closer to her lookalike than she was.
Elsie shrugged. ‘I don’t think anyone knows.’ Phyllis had always been a tomboy and could give as good as she got with any of the local bully boys. She was tough as old boots, but she was still barely into her teens. Anything could happen to her.
Suddenly Elsie jumped out of her chair and went to pick Jack up from where he was playing with his teddy on the floor. She gave him a fierce hug and rocked him back and forth.
‘At least we know where you are, don’t we? All the time, thank goodness. But then you would never do anything like Phyllis, would you? You’d stick with your Elsie and always tell her where you were going, ’cos you know I’d worry otherwise.’
Jack responded with a loud ‘yes’ and then ‘no’, but not in the appropriate place. Elsie didn’t care, she rejoiced in the warmth of his little body as she held him close, and the love she felt when she hugged him tightly and he hugged her back. Maybe no one had done that with Phyllis – or with any of them, come to that. Maybe Phyllis was craving love too and had decided to flee the nest in search of it, earlier than any of them. Who could blame her? Elsie certainly intended to get out as soon as she could.
If Phyllis’s absence was not noticed by her parents, it was certainly noticed by the teachers at school. A week after her disappearance, a letter came through from the headmaster of the school. Unfortunately, it was addressed to her father and as Phyllis herself was not there for a beating he took it out on all the sisters instead.
‘Are you trying to tell me no one in this family knows where she is?’ He swiped out with his arm, each girl jumping back in turn as he looked for the next one to hit. Their mother fretted about where Phyllis might be, but only in her usual half-hearted fashion. Neither of them remained interested for long and within a few days it was as though Phyllis had never existed. Only Elsie and Fay worried about her. They had looked everywhere they could think of, asked the other children in the courtyard and in the surrounding streets. Elsie even went down to her school. But she seemed to have disappeared leaving no trace.
Fay found Harry’s presence comforting and they took to having a walk most afternoons. She really enjoyed talking to him.
He was full of big ideas and encouraged her to talk about her plans and her dreams. He oozed a certain strength. Despite his weakened arm, she felt she could lean on him and he wouldn’t break. She told him about Phyllis, not mentioning that she feared he might have been the cause of her disappearance. But he had no idea where she might be. Fay feared she was getting quite fond of him and didn’t know what to do. She had never had feelings like this before and wasn’t sure how to behave. Was this the way Elsie had felt about Stan, she wondered. She resolved to ask her big sister about it when they were in bed later that night. When Harry had finally admitted that his dream was to join the navy so that he could travel the world, she was really disappointed.
‘I’ve had a taste of living overseas, even if it wasn’t in ideal circumstances. It made me realize I wanted more.’
‘So you won’t look for a local job?’ She felt sad.
‘No, not now. I worried at first my arm might become infected, but now I know it’s healing well I can think about getting a job aboard ship.’
She believed he would do it, though she knew how much she would hate to see him go. She could sense he was getting impatient for his arm to heal and then for her it would all be over.
Chapter 14
Elsie was missing Stan more than she would have thought possible. She had hoped that maybe he might write to her, but her hopes were in vain. She even thought of writing to him but she didn’t have an address. There wasn’t a day went by that she didn’t think about him and wish she could have taken back her harsh words. She only hoped he would come home alive and then she could tell him herself.
Even with Stan gone, she was still enjoying her job in the pub and the freedom it gave her compared with the repetitive and boring work she did at the factory. At the Butcher’s Arms she got to meet and talk to different people, and for once she found that how she looked really seemed to matter to the customers she engaged with. At the factory it was important to cover her hair to keep it out of the way of the dangerous machinery. She was also required to cover up her clothes. Even when she was wearing her oldest of rags she needed to prevent them being completely ruined by contamination from the cotton waste and fibres that came flying off the looms.