A Hopscotch Summer

by Annie Murray

She raised her eyes to him, blushing. Heat rose in him. God, yes – things had got out of hand the last few days.

  ‘I won’t hold it against you, though. I don’t want to come between man and wife. I shall miss you, of course, but you must do what you think is right.’

  ‘Oh . . . well, I’m . . .’ he stuttered, astonished, even a little wounded by her chilly calm. ‘That’s very . . .’

  ‘Just do one thing before you go – just give me a kiss to remember you by.’

  She leaned forward so that he could kiss her cheek. The sweet lily smell of her made him catch his breath, but before he knew it he was on the step again, the door closing behind him.

  He had done it! He shoved his hands in his pockets and made his way back, his gaze fixed on the ground. He could hardly believe it. It had been far easier than he’d imagined! His chest heaved, as if he might start crying and he pushed the feeling away, horrified. Flossie had been his lifeline and he had just cut it loose. He had to go home now and face whatever came – and he hardly knew whether he had the strength.

  Forty-Six

  ‘How’s your mother?’ Jenny Button asked a few days later when Em went over to collect the bread. ‘She settling back home all right?’

  ‘Yes, ta,’ Em said. So far as she could see that was the truth of the matter. Except for what had happened over Violet, but she didn’t want to tell Mrs Button about that. Dot said it would all get sorted out and they mustn’t worry.

  There were a couple of other people just coming into the shop, so Jenny Button leaned over the counter so far that she almost toppled off her stool. Em could see from her eyes how upset she was.

  ‘You heard anything?’

  Em shook her head sadly. There had been no word from Molly, and no sign of any of the Foxes. They all wondered if Molly would run away again, but Em’s hope of this was fading. Knowing Iris, she’d got Molly tightly under her thumb.

  Jenny Button tutted. All the glow that had come over her while she was looking after Molly had faded away and she looked pasty-faced and sad.

  ‘It’s a scandal, that’s what,’ she said. ‘That poor little girl.’

  Em missed Molly too. It wasn’t the same without her around, and she felt so sorry for Mrs Button. She had seen how happy it had made her having Molly live with them. But at the moment Em was too happy to give it more thought than that. All that mattered was having Mom home and feeling as if things could go back to normal.

  Dot had gone with Cynthia to fetch Violet. Cynthia was very nervous of facing her sister. She felt weak and vulnerable in front of her after what had happened. Olive was already bossy enough. Now she owed her for looking after her baby when she hadn’t been able to do it herself. As well as aching to have Violet back, Cynthia also hoped it would make things right with Bob again. He was so distant from her still, wary, as if he was afraid of her, and she knew he was frightened – she knew he could not trust her yet to be well, to come back to him and be his wife. She was afraid too, that she might slip away again into the black cave of her depression, yet she was very determined. Once they were all together and could get back onto a normal footing, she would make things right. She had to.

  They went one morning, once the kids were off to school, Dot leaving Nancy with a neighbour. It was a happy morning for Dot, being able to walk out with her old pal again, even if their errand was a difficult one. Cynthia was still very thin, but her hair was already beginning to grow back and curl more at the edges. Soon she’d look more like her old self.

  ‘You excited?’ Dot asked, as they sat side by side on the tram.

  ‘Yes, but I’m scared stiff!’ Cynthia said. ‘I mean I’ve missed such a lot of her already – she’s getting on for seven months old. I might not even recognize her!’

  ‘Don’t be daft, course you will.’

  ‘But she’s only really known Olive as her mother,’ Cynthia was close to tears suddenly. ‘What if she doesn’t want to know me?’

  ‘Look, you’re her mom. She’ll soon get used to you again.’

  ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Dot,’ Cynthia said tremulously. ‘I feel sick just at the thought of having to deal with Olive.’

  ‘Yes, she ain’t exactly all sweetness and light, your sister.’

  ‘You can say that again.’ Cynthia managed a quick twitch of the lips, almost a smile. ‘She thinks I’m no good to anyone, I s’pose.’

  ‘Let her think. Don’t you fret, Cynth. I’ll deal with her.’

  Dot expected Olive to be disgruntled and sarcastic, to demand money for her pains in looking after Violet. She certainly didn’t expect anything like what happened when they arrived.

  Standing outside the house, both of them thought they could hear a baby crying inside.

  ‘That must be her!’ Cynthia gasped, a hand going to her throat. ‘Oh my word, Dot, I do feel queer.’

  Dot saw her stagger and lean an arm against the wall, and she hurried to help steady her friend.

  ‘Ooh, there were lights dancing in my eyes then,’ Cynthia said, closing them for a moment. ‘I’m all right now, though.’

  ‘Oh dear, you are in a state, aren’t you?’ Dot said, taking her arm. ‘Come on, love, you’ll be all right. Let’s get it over with, shall we?’

  She rapped on the door and they waited. Eventually it opened and Olive’s sharp-featured face peered out. She looked mightily put out when she saw who was there.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Let you out, did they? Huh – don’t suppose that’ll last. What d’you want?’

  ‘I—’ Cynthia began faintly.

  ‘We’ve come to collect the babby,’ Dot said, trying to sound patient and reasonable. ‘You’ve been very kind looking after her but Cynthia’s back home now and the little’un needs to be back with her family.’

  ‘Huh!’ Olive said again, folding her arms aggressively. ‘Family! That’s a good one. You don’t think I’m going to hand a child over to her, do you? The way she goes on she’s not fit to look after a dog let alone a baby like our little Margaret. D’you really think she’d want to come and live with you in that slum when she can be here having a proper upbringing?’ She gave a mocking laugh.

  ‘She’s not called Margaret, she’s my Violet!’ Cynthia cried, quickly growing distraught. ‘You can’t just take her away and change her name!’

  A nasty, sly expression came over Olive’s face. ‘What makes you think she is yours anyway? And who’s going to believe you any more – you’re nothing but a mental case. You might say anything!’

  Even Dot was silenced for a few seconds by the sheer wickedness of this.

  ‘You evil scheming cow!’ she erupted as Cynthia began weeping weakly beside her. ‘You can’t keep her. She ain’t yours. They’ve got the birth certificate and everything – we’ll have the law on yer!’

  Olive smirked. ‘You do that, then. Let’s see yer.’ And she slammed the door shut.

  Dot turned to Cynthia. She was prepared for her to be falling to pieces, since she was vulnerable even before this, but though Cynthia had tears rolling down her cheeks she was staring at the hostile black front door with a suddenly steely expression.

  ‘I always knew she was vile,’ she said, ‘but I never thought she’d do summat like this. She can’t just keep her, can she?’ Her eyes widened in terrible appeal.

  ‘No, course not,’ Dot said.

  It was as if something hardened in Cynthia in that moment. Dot could see it happening. Even her face changed, losing its lost look in a thunderous frown.

  ‘She can’t do that to me, to us. She can’t.’

  ‘No,’ Dot said grimly. ‘She can’t, but short of breaking the bloody door down there’s not much we can do now. We’ll have to go home and think what we’re going to do.’

  All the way home Cynthia grew more and more angry and when Dot asked what she was going to say to the kids, who were all expecting Violet home, she launched into a speech, not caring who heard her.

  ‘I’ll bloody tell ’em what sort o
f an auntie they’ve got, that’s what I’ll do!’ she burst out. ‘Why should I pretend she’s some kind soul when she’s anything but, the evil bitch? She always pretended to be such a goody two-shoes after Mom died, with our stepmother and that. Always sucking up and getting me into trouble.’ Her voice did sink then, to an emphatic hiss. ‘They beat me because of her sneaking and snitching when things weren’t my fault. Years of misery I had off her. It was bad enough that’d we’d lost our mom but she made it a hundred times worse. I hated her for it and she hasn’t changed at all. She wasn’t looking after Violet out of kindness, she just wanted her for herself because she’s barren as a dead twig in winter. You wait till we tell Bob . . .’

  Dot, startled by the strongest outburst of rancour she’d ever heard from Cynthia, said doubtfully, ‘Well, yes, Bob won’t be pleased.’

  ‘Ha – pleased! You just wait and see!’ Cynthia gave a wild laugh and Dot feared for her sanity for a moment, yet at the same time she could see something was being released in her friend and that she was suddenly full of spirit. ‘Bob can’t stand the woman. Never could. He’ll soon go and get Violet out of there, you just wait and see.’

  He was calm at first. Truth to tell, Bob had not given a lot of thought to Violet over these months. Other than a deep-down, barely acknowledged discomfort that his family was scattered and everything was wrong, he had had too much on his plate to miss another mouth to feed.

  When he came in from work, Cynthia and the children were all waiting expectantly. Cynthia sat him down, gave him a cup of tea and told him what had happened.

  ‘She slammed the door in your face?’ he was incredulous at first. What really got through to him was that this woman, this bossy, sour-faced, snooty, sister-in-law, had renamed his child. He didn’t hesitate.

  ‘Right.’ He downed his tea, put his hat and coat back on and went to the door. ‘I’m not having this,’ was all he said, before disappearing into the fading light.

  The family all looked at each other.

  ‘Is Dad going to give her a good hiding?’ Sid asked hopefully.

  ‘I don’t know what he’s going to do,’ Cynthia said with relish. ‘We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?’

  Bob was away for what seemed an eternity. It was a long way there and back. Cynthia tried to behave calmly, even though she was almost beside herself wondering what was going on. Would Bob even make the last tram back, with or without the baby? As the evening wore on she insisted that the children got ready for bed.

  ‘But I want to see Violet!’ Em wailed. Of all of them she seemed to remember Violet the best and had missed her.

  ‘Well, it won’t make any difference to Violet whether you’ve got yer day clothes on, will it? Now go and get ready, like I told yer.’

  ‘Can we stay up?’

  ‘Well, it depends . . .’

  ‘You’ve got to let us!’ Em insisted. ‘I’m not going to bed without Violet.’

  Cynthia was taken aback by the urgency in her voice. Her shy, biddable little girl had been developing an iron will of her own in the last months.

  ‘You can stay up for a bit,’ she agreed.

  Their eyelids were beginning to droop as they sat by the fire waiting, undressed for bed, with their jumpers over the top. As soon as the door latch lifted they were all on their feet.

  ‘Bob?’ Cynthia’s voice held a note of hysteria, then rose in amazement as he came into the room. ‘Oh my God! You’ve got her! Is that . . . ?’ She hardly dared believe it. ‘Is that her?’

  He was grinning. ‘Course it’s her, d’yer think I’d run off with someone else’s babby by mistake?’

  ‘Oh, let me hold her!’

  Tears of joy coursed down Cynthia’s cheeks as she cradled her baby, after so many months. ‘Oh, ain’t she bonny! I’d hardly know her, but it is her – there’s that little pink mark in her forehead. Oh, she’s lovely! Come and say hello to your brother and sisters, Violet.’

  They all crowded round. Em kissed and kissed her baby sister’s cheeks, laughing with delight.

  It was only when the first hubbub had died down that Cynthia said, ‘What did you do? How did you get her?’

  ‘I kicked the door in,’ Bob said matter-of-factly, as if he kicked a door in every day. ‘I ain’t having that dried-up bitch telling me what to do. She tried turning me away and I wasn’t having it.’

  Cynthia was laughing, hardly believing it. ‘You mean you actually . . .’

  ‘She shut it in my face an’ all, so I booted the bloody thing open.’

  He sat down with the dignified air of a man who’s done a good day’s work.

  ‘Can I have my tea now, d’yer think?’

  That night was the first time he dared turn to her properly, to ask her to be his wife again. The first nights he had lain beside her, cautious as if she were porcelain. He was afraid of her, and it felt so strange after lying with Flossie. In his confusion and guilt he had urged her to sleep, told her she needed to get well properly. Once, he had half woken in the night to find her cuddled up against his back and he ached with longing. It was a sexual ache, but not just that – it was a longing for her, for the rightness of what he had once taken for granted. He knew he had spoiled it and hardly deserved to have it back again.

  Tonight, Violet was back in their room, seeming quite undisturbed by the changes around her. Careful not to wake her they tiptoed their way to bed in the candlelight. On every other night Cynthia had turned away and closed her eyes, as if exhausted, her thin body curled away from him, and he had taken it that she did not want him. This time she lay on her back looking upwards and let out a long, apparently contented breath.

  ‘All home,’ was all she said.

  Bob lay with his head on the pillow looking at her. Compared with Flossie he realized Cynthia was beautiful – more homely, and especially before, when she had been more rounded – but real and herself. He looked as if for the first time at her profile, the strong, high cheekbones, her nose more rounded, not like Flossie’s upward tilting one, her full lips with those square, widely spaced teeth, which somehow made her laughter more infectious.

  Very gently he lifted his hand and laid it on her stomach, feeling the yielding warmth of the place where each of their four children had pushed her out into tight roundness. She turned her head and they looked each other in the eye, fully, for the first time in many weeks. Then he thought of Flossie and couldn’t hold her gaze.

  ‘Are you back, love?’ he asked shamefully, looking down at the pillow close to her head.

  ‘I hope so,’ she whispered.

  ‘Can I – you know?’ The very words made him erect. His hand moved over her breast.

  And slowly, tentatively, she inched across the bed towards him.

  Forty-Seven

  Now Easter was over it really felt as if spring had begun, mild enough for doors to be left open all along the street. The warm, still air was thick with the sulphurous smells from the gas works and chemicals from factories as Em sat on the front step one afternoon, idly playing with her old cat’s cradle string and looking dreamily about her. It was still the school holidays but she wasn’t in the mood for playing out, like Joyce, Nance and Sid. Joyce and Nancy, both with March birthdays, had just turned five and were making the most of their freedom before starting school. They were all too young for Em. She missed Molly and just felt like staying quiet where she was. Cynthia was sitting feeding Violet from a bottle in the back room and Em could hear a wonderful, miraculous sound: her mother softly humming a lullaby that she had sung to all of them as babies. Em sat drinking in the familiar notes and suddenly found she couldn’t see the string wound round her hands for tears.

  ‘All right, bab? Nothing the matter is there?’ She hadn’t seen Dot coming, checking that Cynthia was all right as she so often did. Em shook her head, smiling despite her watery eyes. Dot patted her head.

  ‘Good girl. Thought I’d pop in and see your mom.’ She stepped in past Em. ‘Coo-ee, Cynth
! It’s me again! You don’t get rid of me that easily!’

  Soon the two women were talking in low voices in the back room and Em heard the sounds of the kettle being put on the stove and cups clinking. She drank in the feeling of life returning to normal. She heard Violet gurgling cheerfully after her feed which made her smile, but then a cold, hard feeling grew inside her because Mom was crying. She did cry sometimes when Dot came and Em hated it. It terrified her.

  ‘It’s all right, love,’ she heard Dot saying soothingly. ‘It’s not like that. Just give her a chance to settle in again. She knows you’re her mother . . .’

  There was more muffled talk, then Em heard Cynthia saying, ‘I’m scared Dot,’ in a high, frightened voice. ‘Sometimes, the way Bob looks at me, I know he’s waiting for me to do or say summat that’ll make him think I’m . . . I don’t want to go back there again.’

  ‘You’re not going back there, Cynth. You’re doing ever so well.’

  ‘But it’s Bob . . .’ She lowered her voice a little. ‘It’s not the same. It’s not that he’s unkind – he’s falling over himself to help and that. But he’s not right, as if he’s keeping summat from me and I can’t get through to him properly. Not like it used to be.’

  ‘Give him a bit of time,’ Dot advised. ‘It’s been hard for ’im. I expect he’s scared you’ll get bad again. You need a bit of time and you’ll feel more yourself again. I know it ain’t easy for you.’

  ‘Now I’ve got this little one back, I’m never giving her up again, or the others. I never want to leave my kids again.’ Her voice sounded stronger suddenly. ‘D’you know, when I was in the asylum, once I could think about anything I kept thinking about our mom. I don’t know why, it was as if it all came back to me again after all these years, how it was when she died and everything. It was a terrible time, Dot, and I’d never given it a thought since, never wanted to go back over it, I s’pose. It all came flooding back and I kept having a weep about it. I couldn’t seem to stop for a bit. Funny really, isn’t it?’