by Annie Murray
‘Don’t hurt her!’ Iris mocked her daughter, her face creased with malice in a way that made Em’s blood turn cold.
‘No – don’t, don’t, Mom!’ Molly shrieked as her mother strode over to the wall where the yard tap was dripping into a fetid puddle. Iris turned the tap on and thrust the limp little body underneath until it was a pitiful soaked rag of fur, mewling in terror.
‘Right – let’s see the back of yer, yer little rat!’ Iris swung her arm back and lobbed the pathetic, bony body over the wall.
Molly and Em were both sobbing helplessly by now. Iris turned to them in contempt.
‘What the ’ell’s the matter with you whining little buggers?’ And she stormed away like a great battleship, into her house. A few seconds later she opened the door and shouted, ‘And don’t you go next door looking for the ruddy thing. I’ll drown it next time.’
Molly was crying pitifully. ‘My little cat,’ she wept. ‘My poor little Sooty . . . What d’yer ’ave to go and do that for?’ she yelled in her mother’s direction. ‘Why d’yer do that? I hate yer . . .’ Her hands went over her face. ‘I hate yer,’ she cried brokenly, her voice shrinking to a despairing whimper. ‘I hate yer so much, I just hate yer.’
Em didn’t know what to say or do. She squeezed Molly’s arm for a moment, then fled out of the yard.
‘Mom?’ She ran into number eighteen, just wanting her own kind, sweet mother, forgetting she was poorly, forgetting everything about the rest of the day. Iris Fox’s cruel brutality drove everything out of her mind.
Neither Sid nor Joyce was there. She ran up the stairs to look for Cynthia in her bedroom and burst through the door. The bed was empty.
She ran halfway down the stairs. ‘Mom?’
There was no reply. No one was in the house. Sinking down onto the staircase in the silent house, she could hear the distant voices of the other children playing outside. She was shaking all over.
‘Your mother’s gone away for a few days.’
The three children stood looking up at their father, round-eyed with shock.
‘Where?’ Em asked. ‘Why’s she done that? Where’s Violet?’
‘Her sister, your aunt Olive, said she could stop there for a bit, with the babby,’ Bob said brusquely. ‘Until she’s feeling better.’
‘Is Mom coming back tonight?’ Joyce asked, her lower lip beginning to wobble. This had never, ever happened before, Mom not being at home.
‘No – I’ve just told yer,’ Bob snapped. ‘I don’t know how long she’ll be away. Till she gets better, that’s what I told her.’
Joyce burst into tears and Sid was beginning to snivel as well.
‘I want Mom and the babby!’ Joyce cried. ‘I don’t want our mom to be poorly.’ She sank down on the floor, rubbing her knuckles in her eyes.
‘Neither do any of us,’ Bob said, trying to cheer them along. ‘We’ll just ’ave to make the best of it. You’ve got me.’
‘I don’t want you,’ Joyce said mutinously. ‘I want our mom.’
Em could feel a lump rising in her own throat but she could see her father’s temper was on a knife edge and she swallowed hard and went to kneel next to Joyce.
‘Come on, dry your tears, Joycie. We’ve all got to be brave, and our mom’ll soon be back.’
Then Sid came to her and she put her arm round his solid little body. Sid rested his tired head on her shoulder.
‘Want our mom,’ he sobbed.
‘For God’s sake, pack in that racket!’ Bob erupted, his nerves fraying even further. ‘None of us like it – we’re all just going to have to make the best of it and help out. Em – you’re going to have to keep house. Mrs Wiggins’ll help and she’ll mind Joyce. But you’ll ’ave to stop home till your mother gets back – school ’ll have to wait.’
He glanced wearily at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘It’s too late to start cooking tea now – we’ll have chips tonight. I’ll go out and get ’em if you set the table. But from now on you’ll have to do the cooking again, Em. You’re the woman of the house now.’
Eighteen
Em opened the front door a crack, wide enough to look warily up and down the street, then ran across to Mrs Button’s shop and waited for the woman in front of her to be served.
Mrs Button surveyed the scene from atop her stool behind the counter, on which lay a lovely fresh array of buns and doughnuts. Em looked up at her kindly face with a wan smile and nodded. It was nice to come out to Mrs Button’s shop and get away from the house where she felt as if she had become almost a prisoner. She could have gone out more when there was time, but she was in such a state of nerves she was constantly afraid of forgetting to do something. And she felt distant from the other children now, as if she was not quite one of them.
Once the other customer had gone, for a few moments Em was the only one in the shop and Mrs Button turned her full attention on her.
‘Hello there, Em. How’re you getting on today, then? How’s little Joycie, and that cheeky Sid? I ain’t seen them in here in a while. And how’s yer mother getting on? And your dad?’
Not sure exactly which question most required an answer, Em said shyly, ‘All right.’
‘She getting better, then, is she? I gather she’s gone for a little rest at her sister’s.’
Em nodded, feeling her face go red. More people were coming into the shop now and queuing behind her in the little passage, listening to every word. She realized Josie Donnelly was behind her, and a couple of other sharp-tongued gossips. Sweat broke out on Em’s palms and she rubbed them on her skirt. Why had Mom being poorly become something shameful? But that was how it felt. And she could hardly tell the truth about the huge, stormy tantrums Joyce had starting throwing, about Sid wetting the bed every night now, or about Dad’s drinking.
‘Your poor father,’ Mrs Button lowered her voice just a fraction. ‘You can’t help feeling sorry for him, but I s’pose it’s for the best. I don’t know what my Stan would’ve done . . . He’d’ve gone to pieces without me. But I s’pose your mother’ll be back soon.’
‘Can I have a tin loaf, please,’ Em said, aware of all the ears flapping behind her. As Mrs Button at last got round to handing her a loaf, Em saw another customer join the back of the queue, dressed in a black coat, her dark hair tucked under her hat. Last time Em had come to Mrs Button’s this lady had queued just in front of her. She was a neat, curvaceous person and, close up to her, Em had noticed that she had a nice clean smell, and a scent of flowers about her. Em had seen that pinned to the lapel of her coat was a sparkling diamanté brooch shaped like a small rosette. She had not been able to stop staring at it, it was so pretty.
The lady had asked for her purchases in a quiet voice and paid with a faint smile, not quite looking anyone in the eye though nodding politely enough at the others who were waiting as she left. Mrs Button had watched her go.
‘Well, she’s a dark horse that one.’
‘That’s Flossie Dawson, ain’t it?’ the woman behind Em had said. ‘She’s moved in round the corner from me. There’s a daughter, but I don’t know where the husband is.’
‘They say she’s a widow,’ Mrs Button had said. ‘Though she ain’t one for letting on much herself so far as I can tell.’ She’d spoken in a slightly affronted way, as if she thought Flossie Dawson was putting on airs.
Em had seen the lady go up and down the road a few times, but never talking to anyone. She seemed to keep herself to herself. Em noticed her, though, because she always looked so pretty and nicely dressed.
‘There yer go, bab.’ Mrs Button handed Em her loaf. ‘Don’t go eating it all at once! ’Ere – ’ she reached to the side where there was a plate of leftover cakes from the day before – ‘I’ll throw in a couple of doughnuts. You share them with yer brother and sister, eh?’
Em departed gratefully from the shop and Mrs Button stared after her.
‘Poor little thing, look at her. Thin as a pin, and the state of ’er clothes!’
> ‘Well, what would you expect, with the mother taking off the way she has,’ Josie Donnelly said. ‘Leaving the poor child to keep house. That front step hasn’t seen a scrubbing brush for days – and Dot Wiggins is in and out of there having to take it on, as if she hasn’t got enough on her plate! It’s disgraceful, carrying on like that.’
Josie, with her eight children and a work-shy gambler of a husband, had always felt inferior to Cynthia, so now she welcomed an opportunity to crow.
‘Well, it’s that little ’un I feel sorry for,’ Mrs Button said. ‘She were always a nice little thing, sunny somehow and happy-looking. The state of ’er now you’d hardly know she was the same child. Even her freckles have gone pale.’
Em carried the loaf and cakes home and as soon as she was inside the door she pulled one of the stale doughnuts out of the bag, perched on the back step and bit into it ravenously. She always seemed to be hungry these days. Sid and Joyce would have to share the other one. The doughnut was delicious and she finished it in seconds, enjoying the sugar and jam tastes lingering in her mouth.
Nursing her sore hands under her armpits, she stared dully at the bits of washing she’d hung out earlier. Her hands were red raw and cracked from water and harsh soap and constant drudgery. She had to wash out Sid’s sheet every morning since Mom had gone. And her brother was so subdued. He didn’t go out hanging about with Bert Fox and the other toughs any more and at night he kept wanting to come into bed with her and Joyce. Em had taken to getting in with him and waiting until he was asleep before going back to Joyce. She didn’t want to wake up and find all three of them soaking wet.
Mom had left ten days ago and already it seemed as if she’d been gone for months. Em didn’t go to school; she stayed at home and did her best to keep house, with Dot popping in as often as she could and Joyce running between the two houses. She struggled with the heavy load of washing on Monday, heating up the copper as Mom had done. Bob helped with that before he went to work. She never managed it without getting most of the water all over the floor. She tried to keep the house clean, getting down on her hands and knees and taking the scrubbing brush to the floor, sweeping, dusting, wiping. Then there was the food. Quite often Dot cooked for all of them, or she gave Em advice about how to cook things and Bob would help when he got home. If he came home in time. He was still frequenting the pub quite often but, under constant vigilance from Dot, he did try to get home early most nights. When he was there, though, he was so unhappy, so silent and angry that Em and the others were frightened of him. Even Joyce, the apple of his eye, could not get through to him.
Em tried and tried to do her best, to be good like Mom always said she was, but even when she struggled hard all day everything seemed to go wrong and get in a mess. Sid’s mattress was never dry and it stank, the house was becoming infested with bugs and silver fish and she knew they should stove it to get rid of them. She would have to ask Dot to help. Sid and Joyce didn’t seem to understand or want to lend a hand with anything.
‘Come out and play,’ Joyce kept on every night, but Em always had to say, ‘But I’ve got to get the dinner.’ She knew Bob would be furious if she was out when he came in.
That afternoon she sat day-dreaming on her lonely step, eyes closed, leaning her head back against the door frame. Her one dream was always of having her mother home, well and happy the way she used to be. One day soon, Mom would just walk in, back to her old self after her stay with Auntie Olive. She’d call out ‘Coo-ee!’ the way she and Dot always did when they popped into each other’s houses, Violet would be in her arms, and she’d come and cuddle Em and tell her what a good girl she’d been and how well she’d done. Mom and Dad would be happy like they used to be when they had laughed and joked together, Mom would never go away again and Em would go back to school, everyone would be pleased to see her and she’d be top of the class. It would happen soon, any day now, Em was sure it would, if she was good and did her best. All she had to do was make sure everything was right for Mom when she came home. She opened her eyes again and smiled out from under her fringe, gazing across the brick yard with the sheet flapping in the breeze.
Her dream was pierced by a tap at the door. She got up stiffly from the back step, and went to the front to find Katie outside. Her heart leapt. Katie had come to see her, at last! Maybe she’d fallen out with Lily Davies and wanted to say sorry and make friends!
But Katie’s expression froze the smile on Em’s face.
‘I’ve come to pass on a message from my mom.’ Katie didn’t sound her normal self. Her voice was stiff and formal as if she was talking to a teacher and someone had told her what to say.
‘Thing is,’ she went on, staring down at the doorstep, which Em saw to her shame was covered in soot and dirt, ‘I can’t play with you no more. Mom says she doesn’t . . .’ Here, Katie at least had the decency to stumble over her words. ‘She doesn’t want me having anything to do with you. She says it ain’t right, the way your mom’s gone and left you. She says your mom’s not right – you know, in the head – and that I’m not to be friends with you.’
A burning flame of hurt and rage flashed through Em. She clenched her fists. How dare snooty Mrs O’Neill say things like that about her mom! All her hurt feelings boiled over.
‘Why d’you think I care?’ she yelled. ‘You’re a rotten, stuck-up little cow, and I don’t wunna play out with you anyhow!’ And she slammed the door in Katie’s face before crumpling to her knees, curling up until her forehead rested on the floor and bursting into tears of exhaustion and fury.
Nineteen
‘Coo-ee – Em?’
Dot’s face appeared round the front door on a wet, windy November Monday when Em was alone, having waved Sid off to school and Joyce next door only just a few minutes ago. But Dot came bringing a sulky-looking Joyce back again.
‘You’d better keep her at home today, bab. I’ve got our Nance down with the measles. I don’t know if it’s too late.’ She eyed Joyce. ‘She might already be brewing with it. But she’d best stop at home to be on the safe side.’
Joyce flung herself mutinously into a chair and sat scowling.
‘You all right, love?’ Dot asked Em, her dark eyes full of concern. It wrung her heart to see these children left without their mom, and poor little Em trying to cope. She missed Cynthia enough herself. ‘I’ll look in when I can.’ She lowered her voice slightly. ‘You heard from yer mother?’
Em nodded. She went to the mantelpiece and brought a flimsy piece of lined blue paper, with Cynthia’s careful writing on it.
Dear family,
Just a line to say I hope you are all well and looking arter one another and helping your father. I am doing well and hope I can come home soon. Am missing you all.
From
Your loving Mother
‘Oh – that’s nice, then!’ Dot cried, her thin face lighting up with relief. ‘When did that come?’
‘Sat’dy,’ Em said, with slight upturn of her lips. The little note had lifted her spirits no end and had brought a smile to her father’s face.
‘There yer go, I told yer a bit of a rest would sort her out,’ he’d said. It was the first time she had seen him look light-hearted in many weeks.
‘I’ve got a bit of leftover stew you two can have for your dinner,’ Dot offered as she headed out of the door. ‘I’ll bring it in later. Must go now, though – but you know to come and knock if you want any help, don’t yer, bab?’
Em nodded, strengthened by Dot’s kindness. She knew they’d never have survived without Dot. The sight of Joyce’s sulky face could have brought her close to losing her temper, but she took a deep breath and said, ‘Come on, Joycie. We’ve all got to be big and brave for our mom. Come and help me – there’s work to do.’
‘When’s our mom coming ’ome?’ Joyce asked, for the umpteenth time.
‘Soon, I s’pect,’ Em told her. She was suddenly filled with energy. ‘Now come on – you can be a good girl and help me sweep o
ut the bedrooms.’
‘I’m not emptying the po’!’ Joyce said in horror.
‘No,’ Em sighed. The brimming po’ under her father’s bed was one of the day’s tasks she dreaded the most. Now he was drinking more, she was forced to deal with the consequences.
The two girls set to, Em getting Joyce to help her make the beds and soak the middle patch of Sid’s sheet once again, before hanging it by the range. It was too wet outside for it to dry in the stinging wind. Em swept the dust into little piles for Joyce to pick up with the old tin dustpan. When they’d finished, Joyce said, ‘I’m hungry. I want my dinner.’
‘It’s only half past ten!’ Em said. ‘Come on, you can have a drink of milk and a crust off the loaf to fill you up.’
Both of them had some milk and shared the crust off the loaf with a scraping of margarine. Em made Joycie sit at the table to eat it and afterwards they started playing one of their old games, ‘Mrs Maud Mayberry and her maid’.
Neither of them knew where the name Mayberry had come from, or Maud for that matter. Em had probably made it up, but Mrs Maud Mayberry was a very, very rich and fine lady who wore exquisite dresses and spoke in a quavering, cut-glass voice, which was the way the girls imagined very rich ladies must speak. Em always played Mrs Maud Mayberry, preening and walking back and forth across the room swishing her imaginary silken skirts and sticking her nose in the air as befitted a lady. Her maid was called Miss Susan and Joyce nearly always had to play her. But she was a very clever and beautifully dressed maid who wore a starched uniform and always brought every item requested by Mrs Maud Mayberry on a silver platter.
‘Ay think ay’d lake may brush and comb, please, Miss Susan,’ Mrs Maud Mayberry pronounced, stretching her face and bringing out the best upper-class vowels she could muster because that was how grown-ups talked when they were taking off posh people. She extended her arm to take the comb in the languid manner Em imagined true to all rich ladies of leisure. ‘May hair is looking truly fraytful . . .’
