A Hopscotch Summer

by Annie Murray

  Em picked out a giant gobstopper for Sid, and decided that since he wasn’t doing anything else to help, that would do for him. She and Joyce spent ages deliberating over sherbet dips and liquorice and toffee, while the Miss Prices smiled like benign gargoyles. In the end Em chose her favourite: a fistful of liquorice laces.

  ‘Made your choice, have you?’ Miss-Price-with-the-mole said, taking the pennies to the big till.

  ‘Yes, ta,’ Em said politely. She had been brought up to be respectful to adults and do as she was told.

  ‘I s’pect our mom’s had the babby by now,’ Joyce said once they were outside, sticking her finger into her little twist of yellow kali. She transferred it rapturously to her mouth.

  Em grinned, sucking the sweet liquorice from round her teeth. ‘Let’s go back and play hopscotch!’

  They skipped back along the road, full of the joys. It was the holidays, the sun was shining, they had long, free days to play and their dad had promised that this weekend he would show them how to make a kite. To crown it all, Mom was about to give them a new brother or sister and Em, the big sister, had taught Joycie to play hopscotch. What could be better?

  Two

  ‘Christ Almighty, woman – how much longer’s this going on?’

  Bob Brown crouched like a coiled spring at the edge of his chair beside the range, sleeves rolled up his thick, muscular arms, the remains of a cigarette nipped between finger and thumb. On the floor between his feet a saucer contained the blackened remains of many more, and near it what had been a full jug of ale.

  This was not a quick birth. It was almost dark, and still the agony was going on and on.

  ‘I can’t tell yer how long, I’m afraid,’ Mrs Hibbert said. Each time she came down she looked more exhausted; there was a sheen of sweat on her skin and her soft curls now hung straight and lank. She went to the scullery for a cup of water and drank thirstily, then came in to speak to him again, resting the blue and white cup against her hot cheek. ‘She’s having it hard this time. You can’t hurry Mother Nature.’

  ‘Well, she’s a brute!’ Bob sprang to his feet. He was a broad-shouldered man, hardened to physical labour, with wavy brown hair and a gentle, large-featured face, his wide mouth tending towards a smile. He was good natured and popular in the district, but now his blue eyes, so often full of twinkling laughter, were flinty from the tension of waiting.

  ‘It shouldn’t have to be like this.’ In his powerlessness he ranted at the very source of life. ‘My poor Cynth. If I could do it for her!’

  He sank back down, wiping his forehead and patting his breast pocket in search of another cigarette. There was nothing to be done. Another thin wail came from upstairs.

  ‘Will ’er be all right?’ His voice was pleading.

  ‘I hope so, bab,’ Mrs Hibbert replied. ‘She’s a strong’un, but she’s taking it hard this time. I must go back to her. You keep those kettles on the boil.’

  Em, Sid and Joyce had all come in as the hot day faded, and sat at the table, their frightened gaze turning to the ceiling at every sound from upstairs. Dot, calling in to see how things were progressing, had taken them all next door once they’d had their tea.

  ‘No need for them all to sit listening,’ Dot said quietly to Bob. ‘I’ll have them round at mine. Come on, little’uns, you can go up the wooden hill in my house tonight!’ They went eagerly, the girls excited about bunking up with Nancy, who was the same age as Joyce. And when they woke up the next morning, Dot told them, there’d be a new brother or sister.

  Bob took out the last Woodbine from the packet, which he chucked into the fire. It might be the last but he bloody needed it. He sat hunched into the little lead fireplace, arms resting on his knees, so tightly wound up he could never have sat back and relaxed.

  He breathed in a lungful of smoke, let it out, clouding the air with it. It seemed strange and quiet without the kids about. Cheeky little bleeders, he thought fondly. Specially that Joycie. Something about her made him feel fiercely protective. She was like a tiny version of her mother and Cynthia made him feel protective too, always had. He’d lit the fire in the bare front room to keep out of Mrs Hibbert’s way and be further from the noise of birthing. There was just the chair, a stool, and a peg rug by the grate. Cynthia liked the idea of a front room, but they couldn’t afford to furnish it. Mostly they lived round the range at the back.

  Another long groan came from upstairs and Bob winced, shaking his head. He couldn’t bear her distress and forced himself to look on the bright side.

  ‘God, when will it be over?’ He addressed the question to the wide, sweet face of the woman looking down at him from a frame on the mantelpiece, with a shawl softly arranged round her shoulders. It was the only trace he had of his mother, who died when he was a boy. She seemed to look down reassuringly at him. Soon it would be over and Cynthia was having their fourth child. It was marvellous, course it was, even with the daily struggle to make ends meet. It seemed like a miracle to him, that he had this life and family after the start he’d had, he and his brothers left to grow up in the Boys’ Home, where they were nothing to anyone. He looked up at the other precious picture above his head, their wedding photograph. April 1922 they’d married, and Cynthia caught for Em almost straight away.

  ‘Nine years,’ Bob said to himself. ‘Already!’ What a picture she looked, in her pretty frock, flowers in her hair and her eyes twinkling out of the picture. And he beside her, hair slicked back, suit on and boots blacked, smiling at her as if he was about to burst with pride.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ he murmured, reaching down to flick ash from his cigarette.

  She was his missis and that was that. The sight of her still got him going, oh yes! Ever since the first time he’d laid eyes on her on the tram down on Nechells Park Road, he’d felt just the same. He’d seen those lively brown eyes peeping across at him from under her curling fringe, her sweet, shy smile. He couldn’t help noticing her left hand, scarred by falling in the fire when she was an infant so that the skin was shiny and puckered. And she just seemed to call out to him, not with her voice or anything, she wasn’t forward like that – quite prim and correct, in fact – but something of her, her body, the way she moved. As if he recognized her. His desire for her had never died. And when there was a babby – Christ, she was lovely, milk coming from her, oh boy, that was bliss! It was life. He felt a strong pulse in his groin just thinking about it. Women were something, that they were, and she was his woman. Nothing better. The only things that came close were a win for the Villa and a pint of Ansells with his pals. But they didn’t measure up the same, didn’t touch it, not when you came down to it.

  ‘Nothing like it.’ He found himself speaking out loud again. ‘Me and my missis and the kids, that’s the thing, more the merrier.’

  He looked up as Cynthia gave a cry which faded to a wail, and clenched his fists.

  ‘That’s it, wench, you can do it. That’s my little woman!’

  It was ten past four before Cynthia managed to push out the child. Bob heard the muffled cries of pain and gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles almost cracked. When he heard the baby’s dry wail he lay back in the chair and, to his bewilderment, felt panting sobs of relief rising in him.

  ‘Thank Christ it’s over!’ he whispered. ‘What a business. What a bloody terrible business.’

  When he heard Mrs Hibbert coming downstairs, he hurriedly wiped his eyes with the back of his hands and stood up. Her face sagged with exhaustion.

  ‘You’ve got another little wench.’ He couldn’t tell if the flatness of her tone was worry or just tiredness.

  ‘Cynth?’ He stepped forward.

  ‘She’s all right. Knocked out, of course, after all that. And the babby’s very small. I don’t know if . . .’ She trailed off, sorrowfully.

  He hesitated. ‘Should I go to her?’

  She stood back, smiling faintly. ‘Go on, then.’

  Em’s rag doll with yellow hair and pink
embroidered features on her grubby face was called Princess Lucy. Em had her tucked under her arm that morning as she led the others, creeping upstairs, to see their little sister, and they found their father sitting by the bed, the baby in his arms. Em’s hand went to her mouth,

  ‘Oh – she’s tiny!’

  ‘She is that,’ Bob said, looking down at her with tired, yet excited eyes. ‘She’s had a tough time, her and your mother, but she’s a fighter, you can see. But you’ve all got to look after your mom. She needs to get her strength back.’ He loosed his arm for a moment and laid a hand on his wife’s head.

  Cynthia looked terribly pale and ill and had barely found the strength to smile as her three children came tiptoeing into the room. Even cheeky Sid, with his dark hair and prominent ears like his father’s, looked overawed. Joyce crept close and touched the baby’s cheek, very nervously at first as if she might bite. Bob laughed.

  ‘You’re all right, our Joycie. The babby won’t hurt yer!’

  Em propped Princess Lucy up nearby to watch, then had a turn at stroking the velvety little cheek with her finger. She was surprised how warm it felt, how much life seemed to be in this tiny creature. She felt like a friend already.

  ‘Her name’s Violet,’ Bob said, ‘after your mom’s mother. Violet Ivy.’

  The three of them all said, ‘Violet’, trying the name out on their tongues.

  ‘Well,’ Sid said disgustedly, after considering the squashed little face of the sleeping baby – yet another sister. ‘She ain’t going to be any good at playing football neither, is she?’

  Three

  ‘Are you coming to play out, Em?’

  Katie O’Neill stood on the front step, a tall, skinny girl with soft black hair tied in plaits which swung almost to her waist. Her face was long and pale, her eyes deep blue and dancing, as if she was trying nervously to keep a watch on everything at once. When Em hesitated, she came back with, ‘Don’t you want to, then?’

  ‘Yes, I do, only . . .’

  Em glanced back into the house. It was a week since Violet’s birth and Em was taking Bob’s words very seriously: she was to look after Mom and the others. Cynthia was still knocked back by the birth. She lay in bed, with hardly the will to smile and her face was white and drawn. Em was doing all she could to help, but everything was quiet just now. Joyce and Sid were playing out the front and the baby was fast asleep on her soft white blanket in the drawer next to Mom’s bed. Em, ever biddable, had felt very grown up being asked to help, but now it was the last week of the summer holidays and she craved being out with her friends. She just wanted Mom to be up and back to normal.

  ‘S’pose I could – for a bit.’

  ‘Can I see the babby again?’

  ‘Not now – she’s asleep in Mom’s room.’

  Katie had already had a glimpse of Violet on her second day in the world. She’d looked with big eyes into the tiny, puckered face and sighed, ‘Oh you’re so lucky, Em!’ Katie didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Her mom was a widow and Katie lived only with her and with her dead father’s brother, Uncle Patrick, who, by all accounts, was odd and unpredictable.

  ‘He’s got the doolally-taps,’ she’d heard Bob say when they mentioned him, and he usually rolled his eyes and tapped his temple when he said it even though he didn’t speak unkindly. She never said anything, but Em knew this was why Katie never invited anyone home to her house. Mrs O’Neill lived in a front house, three rooms stacked one above another, back to back with a house on a yard, whereas Em’s family had a two-up, two-down house, with a tap in the scullery, and there was a proper family life going on.

  ‘My mom doesn’t like visitors,’ Katie said airily. ‘She likes a bit of peace and quiet.’ By now Em never gave it a thought. It was long taken for granted that if they were going to play out, Katie would call round. So she only ever saw Mrs O’Neill in the street, and she was a remote, cold-seeming woman.

  Em had been delighted when the O’Neills moved into the street a year ago and Katie came to Cromwell Street School. Two of Em’s other friends had moved away and Katie arrived in time to fill the gap. Everyone wanted to be her friend. Katie was one of those girls who had a magnetic effect. She was pretty and commanding, as if surveying the world from a height, and when she picked her friends – and she was the one who picked, not the other way round – she lit on Em. Em felt honoured, and happy to be in Katie’s orbit. Both of them were top of the class, they played out together and lately they had begun to go every week to the chapel round the corner where they were cadets in the Girls’ Life Brigade. Em was proud as anything, going off in her uniform with Katie.

  With a last glance behind her, she closed the door quietly and hurried thankfully along the street with Katie. She caught sight of Joyce’s blue hair ribbon bouncing up and down among a group of other girls from the street, playing hopscotch again.

  ‘Oh, I see old pongy-drawers is hanging round again,’ Katie said spitefully, spotting Molly Fox at the edge of the group.

  ‘I s’pect she’s got chalk,’ Em said. It was so much better if they could get hold of chalk, if someone had filched a bit from the classroom when the teacher had her back turned. But they hadn’t been to school for weeks, so Molly couldn’t have got it there. ‘She says she’s got a whole packet of it!’

  ‘Bet she stole it,’ Katie said, wrinkling her nose.

  Molly was watching the two of them come along the road. She was a large-boned girl, with a head of thick, blonde hair, tied back today with a grubby yellow-rag ribbon that had seen better days. As usual, she was dressed up like a fourpenny rabbit. Barely any of the girls in the street had ever possessed a new frock, but wore hand-me-downs or women’s dresses cut down to size. Molly’s frock, although not new and very grubby, was an odd, fancy item in red with frills on the bodice and sleeves trimmed with red ribbon. It was far too grown-up for her and made her look ridiculously overdressed. It must have been a party dress from the Rag Market.

  ‘You coming to play?’ Molly boomed at them from afar. As soon as Em appeared she always made a beeline for her.

  ‘Might be,’ Em said, heart sinking. Molly was like her flaming shadow! She was forever sucking up to Em and Katie, offering them sweets, begging to tag along. Katie was downright nasty to her, but Em couldn’t bring herself to be like that. Molly was smelly, it was true. There was always a stink of wee about her, and she drove you mad, always keeping on, trying to buy favour. But Em, who had always made friends easily, felt sorry for Molly because no one wanted her. And because of what she’d seen that one time she went to Molly’s yard.

  ‘You can come to my house,’ Molly had said, hauling Em by the arm. They’d just come home from school, shortly after Molly’s family had moved into the yard, a few months before Katie arrived. Molly had fixed on Em straight away, as she was one of the most popular, good-hearted girls in the class.

  Em didn’t want to go. For a start she was scared stiff of Molly’s mom. Iris Fox was a huge, fierce woman who wore her black hair scraped up high in a bun on top of her head and always seemed on the point of bursting out of her dresses, especially over the bust line. Bob said she looked like a prizefighter and on top of that she had a voice like a foghorn. Cynthia was always warning her children off the place. The yard Molly lived on was just along the road, reached by a narrow entry which never saw the sun, and although she’d lived in the same street all her life, Em had never ventured into the yard until that day.

  ‘You just keep out of there,’ Cynthia had instructed. ‘You’ll catch summat – there’s dirty people there.’

  When she went along the entry, Em felt she was venturing somewhere foreign and forbidden. The walls oozed green slime and the yard, overshadowed by the high wall of the Cycle Finishing Works, was dark and smelly. Three of the six dwellings squeezed round it were built right up against the works’ wall, and Molly lived in one of them, number four. Opposite her house was a wall on which dripped the tap shared by all the houses, none of which had ru
nning water. Nearby, a wavering plume of smoke rose from a heap of stinking rubbish which someone had tried to set fire to. A lamp in the middle of the yard had been knocked askew so that it looked as drunken as some of the yard’s inhabitants, and there was a little building at the end called the brew house, which housed the copper for heating water for washing. Close by were three stinking toilets, their doors left swinging open.

  Molly dragged Em along the yard, and Em wrinkled her nose at the stench of the place. It was a drizzly day and Bert Fox, backside hanging out of his shorts as usual, was out in the yard messing with the mangle. When the girls went closer he showed them he was feeding worms between the rollers and flattening them. He came running at Em, thrusting a handful of writhing pink and grey worms into her face.

  ‘There you go. These’re for you!’

  ‘Ugh!’ Em thought she was going to gag and she nearly tripped over backwards trying to get away.

  ‘Stupid, sissy girls,’ Bert snarled viciously. He had his mother’s bullish face and narrow, calculating eyes and Em loathed him. She just wanted to run out of the horrible yard, back to the friendly games of the street.

  The house was one of the most cheerless places Em had ever seen. There was no covering of any sort on the bare floorboards or on the table and everything looked dirty and uncared for. On the table stood a milk bottle, with the dregs of black tea in it, a stale heel of bread and sugar and other spills all over the surface. The whole downstairs room – and there was only one room with a tiny scullery – was dominated by the presence of two old men, or at least they seemed old to Em, camped either side of the range on two tatty chairs. One of them, who had greasy, grizzled hair and mutton-chop whiskers, kept staring at her all the time over the bowl of his pipe, and the other, who had his back to Em, simply sat hunched, staring ahead of him as if there was no one else there. His hair was brown and thin, with a bald patch at the back, pale as an egg. Later she was to learn that the grizzle-haired man with the pipe and whiskers was Molly’s grandfather, and the other was Molly’s dad. He’d been shell-shocked in the war and couldn’t do anything much now, his nerves had given way over the years.