by Anne Bennett
Early in January, with the schools not long back after the Christmas holidays, Isobel took Ben into Birmingham to the town hall so that he could sit the first part of the eleven plus. She had offered to do this, knowing that Joe hated missing time from work. Molly was too near her time to go far from home at all, and Aggie was reluctant to leave her.
Isobel was quite glad it had fallen to her because the more she had to do with Ben, the better she liked him. He was waiting for her and they set off into the raw, bleak day. The skies were gunmetal grey with thick oppressive clouds and they both shivered as they hurried to the tram stop.
‘Tell you one thing,’ Isobel said a little later as they boarded the tram, ‘after the exams are over, we will go out for a slap-up lunch, or at least what passes as a slap-up lunch in war-torn Birmingham.’
‘Haven’t I got to go back to school then?’ Ben asked, knowing that if his father had brought him, he would have delivered him back to school as soon as he could so that he could get back to work.
‘Not at all,’ Isobel said. ‘Goodness me, no. After an exam like that you need feeding up. And in weather like this that means something that sticks to your ribs.’
Ben grinned at her. The day was already sounding better.
‘How are you feeling?’ Isobel asked.
‘All right, I suppose.’
‘You do want to go to grammar school, don’t you?’ Isobel asked. ‘It’s not something that you have been forced into?’
It had been a concern of Isobel’s and yet she knew that she hadn’t any right to express an opinion about it. Ben, however, allayed her fears straight away. ‘No, I really want to go. In fact, I can’t wait.’
‘You have to pass the exam first.’
‘I know, but the teacher said I had a good chance,’ Ben said. ‘And I have done extra work, more than the others mostly.’
‘How many are taking it then?’
‘Just one other boy and two girls from our school,’ Ben said. ‘They’re all right. It’s not them that I have problems with.’ Ben gave a gasp as he realised that he had said the words aloud. He could have bitten his tongue out. What an idiot he was.
Isobel glanced at Ben’s red, agitated face and said, ‘So who do you have problems with?’
Immediately it was like there was a shutter across Ben’s face. ‘No one really,’ he muttered.
Isobel knew Ben was lying but didn’t pursue it. He had enough on his plate for now, but she stored the subject away for later.
Ben had never seen so many desks as were in that hall that morning. He was told they were arranged alphabetically, which meant that his desk was probably in the last row. He hadn’t noticed that his shoes had a squeak until he walked almost the length of the room and then up and down the rows, searching for his name. The desks were all singles, he noted, and each one far enough apart from its neighbour to ensure there could be no copying. As he took his seat the teacher began laying out the papers face down on the desks. He knew what they would be because his teacher had explained about the verbal reasoning tests, and before Christmas they had practised these over and over, as they had the English and arithmetic tests, which he knew would follow.
When Ben first turned over the paper, for a moment the words swam before him and he was gripped by panic. He couldn’t do this. He would make an utter fool of himself. He told himself not to be so stupid. This was the day he knew would come, that he had been working towards for months, and he picked up his pen and began.
After the exam, the candidates were sent into the reception area to meet up with the people who had come with them.
‘That your mum?’ a boy asked Ben, pointing his finger at Isobel, who had spotted him across the room and was waving.
Ben didn’t know how to explain Isobel. It sounded strange to say that he was a friend of his Uncle Tom’s. ‘I haven’t got a mom. She’s dead. That’s my Aunt Izzy,’ he said as she approached.
Isobel heard what Ben said and wasn’t surprised, because it was far better for him to say his mother was dead than to say that she had run off with someone else. So she made no comment, but instead just said, ‘You survived it then?’
‘Just about,’ Ben said. ‘And I’m starving.’
‘Me too,’ Isobel said. ‘Let’s go.’
A little later they were studying the sparse menu in the city-centre restaurant.
‘Spam fritters, mashed potato, swede and carrots,’ Isobel said. ‘It’s not quite the banquet I had in mind, but never mind. It will probably be better than poor man’s goose, which I happen to know is liver, or Lord Woolton pie.’
‘Ugh, I’ll say,’ Ben said with feeling. ‘And at least we know what Spam is.’
‘Oh, I dispute that,’ Isobel said with a laugh. ‘No one knows what Spam is. All we can say is that it is edible and we know of no one who has died from eating it.’
‘It’d better be Spam then,’ Ben said with a resigned sigh.
A short time later, as they attacked the meal, Isobel said, ‘Do you want to talk about the exam or not? I don’t mind either way.’
Ben laid down his fork and said, ‘You know, Aunt Izzy, you are the oddest grown-up I know.’
Isobel smiled and said, ‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’
Ben nodded. ‘You’re not full of questions like lots of grown-ups.’
‘Well, I think that sometimes people have to get things fixed in their own head before they want to share it with others,’ Isobel said. ‘And some things they might not want to share at all, and then I don’t think they should be forced to.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ said Ben. ‘And really there isn’t much to say about the exam. It was hard as I expected it to be, but I did my best and I hope that I did enough to pass, but we will have to wait and see and that’s all there is to it.’
‘Right,’ Isobel said. ‘That’s the exam dealt with. Anything else you want to talk about?’
‘Y … yes,’ Ben said hesitantly. ‘You probably won’t answer, though.’
‘Try me.’
‘Are you going to marry Uncle Tom?’
‘No, I’m not, Ben, but what made you ask?’ Aggie said.
‘Well, you are friends with him, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, I am,’ Isobel said. ‘And proud to be because he is a lovely man. But he is just that, a friend.’
‘Will you ever marry again?’
‘I’m not looking for anyone else in my life,’ Isobel said. ‘I had a lovely marriage to a wonderful man, and I really think that there is no way that that could be repeated. But I’m not against marriage for other people.’
‘Uncle Tom used to say that he wasn’t the marrying kind.’
‘No,’ Isobel said. ‘He is happy single. He told me he has never been happier nor more content than he is at the moment, and Paul said he took to factory work like he had been born to it.’
‘He likes working for your brother,’ Ben confided. ‘He told me that.’
‘Paul’s a kind man,’ Isobel said. ‘He owes your family a debt because if Molly’s father hadn’t crawled in to save him that time in the First World War he wouldn’t be here today.’
‘Molly told me about that,’ Ben said. ‘And Kevin said a bit. Must have been brave, their dad, mustn’t he?’
‘I’ll say he must have been,’ Isobel said. ‘Two of my brothers, both older than Paul, had already been killed, and with each one I saw my parents age a little more. Mind you, we didn’t know our brothers much because my sister and I were so much younger, and then when they were eight they were sent away to school.’
‘I wouldn’t like that much.’
‘It’s how it was,’ Isobel said. ‘No one ever questioned it. There are seven years between Sarah and Paul and so she was only about a year old when he went to join his brothers. I am two years younger again and they always seemed quite grown up to me. Anyway, that was all a long time ago and there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. I know something far
more interesting from your point of view.’
‘What?’
‘I happen to know that they have apple pie and custard on the menu for once. Have you room for it now you have cleaned your plate?’
‘Are you kidding?’ Ben said with a grin. ‘For apple pie and custard I would always have room.’
‘Well, you’re better than me then,’ Isobel said. ‘Because I haven’t the smallest space left, but I will buy it for you with pleasure. I love to see a boy with a good appetite.’
Ben tucked into the pudding, which he described as delicious, with gusto, and Isobel let him enjoy it.
He had almost finished when she suddenly said, ‘Is someone bullying you at school, Ben?’
There was no lead up to the question and so Ben was taken completely unawares. He was about to make an emphatic denial when his eyes caught the concerned ones of Isobel and he lowered his head and mumbled, ‘Yeah, a bit. How d’you know, anyway?’
‘Something you said before the exam. What’s it all over?’
Ben shrugged. ‘Anything and everything.’
‘Why don’t you tell someone?’
‘That’s a daft thing to say,’ Ben said. ‘You know I can’t do that. And I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was one to one, but there are three of them. The others join in sometimes, but I think they only do it because they are scared that, if they don’t, they might start on them next. But none of them are sitting the eleven plus and so if I pass, they won’t be able to bully me any more.’
‘They should be taught a lesson before that,’ Isobel said. ‘Bullies are nasty people and usually cowards. We have fought a war for five years now because of a bully.’
‘Maybe someone will bully them in the secondary school,’ Ben said. ‘It would serve them right. And you know what? I’d laugh if I got to hear about it.’
‘And so would I,’ said Isobel.
Just over a week after this, Molly gave birth to a baby girl that she called Nuala in memory of her mother. Ben was very impressed with the baby. He had never had much to do with babies and had no idea that they were so small, or helpless, or so perfect. He could quite understand Kevin’s pride in her, which was almost as great as Mark’s.
Ben was ticked pink when she was laid in his arms, and he held the little child as gingerly as if she was made of delicate bone china. He noted the fine down on her head, the slightly pink cheeks and the baby-blue eyes trying so hard to focus that a pucker had developed between them, and he envied Kevin being her uncle.
‘Well, you’re her cousin,’ Kevin said, when Ben said this.
‘Am I?’ Ben asked. ‘I thought I was your cousin.’
‘You are,’ Kevin said. ‘That’s how it works. You’re my cousin and Molly’s, and because of that you are the baby’s second cousin, but still a cousin.’
‘I’m glad,’ Ben said, ‘because she is lovely, isn’t she?’
‘She isn’t half,’ Kevin said. ‘Molly said she can see that Nuala will be able to twist me around her little finger before she is much older, and you know what? I wouldn’t mind that a bit.’
‘I won’t mind either,’ Ben said.
‘I am glad, though, that I will be out at work soon,’ Kevin said. ‘Molly and Mark shouldn’t have to provide for me now that they have a baby to see to.’
‘I won’t be working for ages,’ Ben said.
‘If you get to grammar school you won’t,’ Kevin told him. ‘When do you hear if you passed that exam or not?’
‘The teacher said we will be sent the results by early March,’ Ben said. ‘If I have passed the first part of the exam, the second part is taken at my first choice of school.’
‘St Philip’s?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It’s over the other side of the city.’
‘Only just,’ Ben pointed out. ‘Anyway, I had to put a Catholic grammar school as my first choice and that is St Philip’s. Aunt Izzy can’t understand it either.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t,’ Kevin said. ‘She’s not a Catholic.’
‘Neither are you.’
‘No,’ Kevin said. ‘Not now I’m not, but I still sort of know how it works.’
‘Aunt Izzy says Bishop Vesey’s in Sutton Coldfield is a good school,’ Ben said.
‘She’s nice, isn’t she, Aunt Izzy?’ Kevin said. ‘I wonder if she will ever get together with Uncle Tom.’
‘She says not.’
‘Don’t say you’ve asked her?’
‘Yeah, I did,’ Ben admitted. ‘The day of the first exam. I didn’t think she’d answer but she did. She said that she is very fond of Tom and proud to be his friend, but she isn’t looking for anyone else and neither is he.’
‘Ah, but you know what grown-ups are,’ Kevin said. ‘They don’t always tell the truth, do they? I mean, they often tell us what they think we’d like them to say instead of being totally honest, which we would prefer.’
Ben nodded his head. He knew exactly what Kevin meant.
Just over a fortnight after little Nuala was born, Ben was in his bedroom settling to do his homework when his father came into the room. ‘Can I talk to you, Ben?’
Ben was wary. ‘What about?’
‘Your mother.’
‘No.’
‘Ben …’
‘No. I don’t want to hear anything that she has got to say.’
‘Look, Ben,’ Joe said sternly, ‘I know your mother ran out on you and I understand it was hard, but it was really me that she was leaving, not you. She has not suddenly developed two heads, or even stopped loving you.’
‘Huh!’
‘Ben, she’s written to you every week,’ Joe said, and saw his son’s eyes widen in astonishment. ‘I have kept all her letter – unopened, of course – just in case you want to have a read of them some day.’
‘Small chance.’
‘Listen, Ben,’ Joe said, ‘this morning she wrote to me saying she had a feeling that you weren’t getting the letters because she had never got a reply. She accused me of keeping the letters from you, which I had been doing in a way, and asked that you at least be told the latest news.’
‘And what’s that, as if it matters?’
‘Your mother has given birth to a baby girl,’ Joe said. ‘She was born a week ago and they are calling her Rebecca Norah. She is your half-sister, Ben.’
Ben felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. Somewhere in that vast continent of America his mother had had a baby, his sister that he would never see, or hold, or learn to love. He knew he would get to know Molly’s baby much better than the one his mother had had. It wasn’t right, and it was just one more thing to blame his mother for.
‘Good job I didn’t go with her when she said she wanted me to,’ he told his father. ‘There will be no place for me in her new life now.’
‘Love isn’t like that, Ben,’ Joe said. ‘You don’t have just so much of it so if you love someone you have no love left for another.’
‘How d’you know anything about love anyway?’ Ben demanded. ‘You told me that you still loved Mom when she went away. And why are you being so reasonable? Anyone else would be hopping mad.’
Joe wondered about that himself. Whatever she had done, though, for her sake and Ben’s he didn’t want her totally to lose the son he knew she still loved.
Children, however, view the world as black and white. In Ben’s world his mother had been bad running away from them in the first place, and then made it worse by having another baby. ‘It’s all disgusting anyway,’ he said. ‘And I want no part in it.’
‘Can you not write just a short note to your mother?’ Joe asked.
Ben shook his head. ‘No. Why should I? I don’t care about some baby that she has had in America. She might be my half-sister but I’ll never know her. She will be like a stranger to me and so will Mom in the end, and I don’t care.’
Joe knew that Ben cared very much – his anguished eyes spoke for him – but he knew that it would do no go
od to try to reason with him because he was too hurt to listen.
Isobel, whom Joe confided in, agreed with this. ‘Did you have any idea that Gloria might be pregnant when she left?’ she asked.
‘I didn’t think she could,’ he said. ‘I mean, there had been years before we had Ben, and nothing since.’
‘There is no possibility that the child could be yours?’
‘No. None whatsoever,’ Joe said. ‘Sex between us was just a distant memory for months before she left. And even though I guessed that she was having some sort of affair – though, I didn’t know how far it had gone – with Gloria’s problems I would never have imagined that it might end up with her being pregnant.’
‘So it was a shock for you?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘So how much more of a shock must it have been to Ben?’
‘Immense. I see now.’
‘And you expected Ben to be delighted with the news?’ Isobel asked with a wry smile. ‘To clap his hands with delight and write a letter to his mother congratulating her on the birth of his baby sister that he probably won’t even see for years.’
‘Put like that it is ridiculous,’ Joe said. ‘So what should I do, do you think?’
‘With Ben, nothing, I would say,’ Isobel advised. ‘Time, as they say, is a great healer. Let Ben come to the realisation that though his mother has a new life and family in America, she still wants contact with him.’
‘And you think he will do that in time?’
‘I have no idea,’ Isobel said. ‘But it is the only thing to do. At the moment he is one angry and hurt boy. If you want to do something then you write to Gloria.’
‘I have always avoided that.’
‘Yes, I know. And I accept what Gloria did upset you a great deal, but it cut Ben to the quick. You should put aside any resentment you still have clinging to you for the sake of the son you share. If Ben won’t write to her then you write. Tell her how he is, his likes and dislikes; tell her about the exams he is taking for the eleven plus. Paint a picture of the child she left behind so that when she does write she has some idea of the person she is writing to. Oh, and remember Ben is only a boy. I know he has your strength of character and will not be won over by showering him with goodies but he does need to know that his mother is thinking about him. Maybe she could buy him something really nice for his birthday, for he had virtually nothing at Christmas, like many more in this country at this time.’
