by Katie King
She looked a bit lost and confused, and was clutching tightly before her a shopping basket into which she had presumably folded a few spare clothes. Her clean but slightly tatty coat and hat didn’t really look up to the job of standing up to the brisk Yorkshire weather.
Barbara extended a hand for Mrs Kennedy to shake, and then took the basket from her in order that she could carry it as a gesture of welcome, as she said, ‘Good evening, Mrs Kennedy. I trust your journey here wasn’t too tiresome?’
Peggy, who was just behind Barbara, dug her sister in the ribs to tell her to stop trying to sound more posh than she was.
Undeterred, Barbara continued, ‘I am Barbara Ross, Connie and Jessie’s mother, and this is my sister, Peggy Delbert, who has been evacuated along with the children to Harrogate from Bermondsey and so is now living up here. We telephoned the hospital not long ago and Angela is sleeping; the doctor seems pleased with how the operation went, although Angela’s condition will be clearer for them to assess tomorrow. We’ll take you now with us back to the rectory, Tall Trees…’
Peggy couldn’t resist an upwards roll of her eyes, aimed at making Barbara talk a bit more naturally. Barbara ignored her sister.
Angela’s mother seemed overawed by what was happening, although she did manage to stutter out a thank you to Barbara, and say next that could everybody please just call her Ethel?
Peggy saw how rheumy Ethel’s eyes looked, and she noticed that she was very thin. She didn’t seem to be in the best of health, and now that Angela was so poorly, the unfortunate woman looked to be overburdened with care and concern.
Peggy understood, perhaps properly for the very first time in her life, which she felt was odd considering how much time she had spent around children either as a teacher or doing aunt-ish things with her niece and nephew, that being a loving parent could exact a terrible price.
Children could be little imps at times, and so it was easy to forget how vulnerable they could be, and how easily life could be extinguished. But one look at the dejected demeanour of a frantic mother such as Ethel Kennedy, and there could be no mistaking how grave the responsibility of being a parent was.
Barbara was adept in situations like this, though, and while Peggy found herself tongue-tied as she felt cautious as to what would be the best thing to say to Ethel, Barbara soon got her talking about home.
It wasn’t a comforting picture that Ethel described, however – the Kennedys already had one disabled child, an older girl called Jill who’d had a severe case of polio when Angela had been only a few weeks old. Jill was now so crippled she couldn’t walk, and in fact she could no longer attend school, and evacuation along with the other local children hadn’t been appropriate for her.
Peggy thought back to little Maggie with the leg calliper, also as a result of polio, who had been standing in line with them patiently waiting to be picked for a billet, and although her heart had gone out to Maggie at the time, now she felt that Maggie was fortunate not to have had a much worse outcome.
Ethel’s sister was stepping in for a couple of days to look after Jill so that Ethel could go to Angela’s bedside, but Ethel didn’t feel she could be up in Harrogate for too long as it was a lot to expect a relative to look after a doubly incontinent youngster.
In addition, Ethel’s husband, who was quite a bit older than her, had sustained severe shell shock during the Great War and his condition had recently deteriorated to the point that now he was unable to work, and so Ethel was the sole earner for the family. The medical costs of Jill’s polio and medicine for the husband’s seizures had wiped out the family financially, meaning they had been reduced to now living in two tiny rooms on the ground floor of an extremely run-down rented house that was so damp as to have black mildew on the walls, and the family had to share the outside privy and the cold water tap in the garden with the two families squeezed in above them – there was no bathroom or kitchen for any of the families.
Both Barbara and Peggy looked across Ethel to each other as she spoke, and they thought how very difficult Ethel’s life must be at the best of times, and what a burden it was for her that Angela had had such a horrible but unnecessary accident.
Peggy felt very queasy upon hearing of the grave extent of Ethel’s hardships. She’d known money was tight for the Kennedy family, but now that seemed as if it was the least of Ethel’s problems.
Peggy’s head was pounding and her ankles and fingers were uncomfortable, but she felt such a charlatan to be railing against these minor complaints, compared with Ethel who was facing much more serious problems.
Peggy felt powerless as there was so little that she or Barbara could actually do to help Ethel. What Ethel needed was a clean and suitable place for her and her family to live, and a decent amount of money coming into the family’s coffers each week, but that was without doubt a pie-in-the-sky pipe dream.
Luckily they had now arrived back at Tall Trees, where Mabel knew exactly how to deal with a situation like this. While Barbara showed Ethel the room she would be sleeping in and where the bathroom was, Peggy filled Mabel in as to the dire situation that Ethel was in.
By the time Ethel was back in the kitchen, her eyes glistening at the mere fact that Barbara had gone to the effort of putting ironed sheets on the bed and a clean towel out just for her own use, Mabel had made some tea and had warmed and plated up a generous portion of the leftover cottage pie and put it waiting on the table.
She said to Ethel that while of course she would be very anxious to see Angela, as any mother would be in her situation, the best thing for Ethel to do would be to refuel herself first, as ‘Angela needs you to be strong, and you won’t be if you don’t ’ave something to eat – you might not feel like it, but make yourself finish it, love, as you’re doing it for her.’
Once Ethel had started to eat, she discovered she had a bit of an appetite and it wasn’t long before the plate had been emptied and then wiped clean with a thick slice of Mabel’s bread.
As if on cue, Roger came into the kitchen and had a good wash at the kitchen sink. He said hello to Ethel, but didn’t make too much of it, instead talking to Mabel about how he and the twins and Tommy, who was going to come back to Tall Trees tomorrow, it had been decided, were going together to whitewash both of those two attic rooms.
Peggy and Barbara agreed that was a very good idea, and the fact it was something that was useful was an added bonus.
Meanwhile, behind Ethel’s back Roger had immediately sensed Ethel’s reduced state, and as he washed his hands he and Mabel kept up a silent conversation of raised eyebrows, mouthed words and nods, that culminated in Roger giving a final decisive nod.
This clearly wasn’t the first time that the husband-and-wife team had had to use a wordless semaphore to signal to each other the story behind somebody else’s need.
‘Not so green as he’s cabbage-looking,’ said Mabel proudly, as she passed Roger his coat and scarf, so that he could take Ethel over to the hospital, and then she whispered to Peggy and Barbara that she was sure that she and Roger would be able to think of a way of helping Ethel at least a little bit.
Chapter Thirty
On Friday afternoon Roger drove over to Mabel’s mother’s and collected Tommy.
Not too long after he left, everybody began to congregate in the kitchen at Tall Trees, as they knew they were having fish and chips from a chippie not too far away. The Braithwaites had never done this before, and Peggy and all the Rosses, and Gracie too, were looking forward to the meal as Gracie had been boasting how good the Harrogate chippies were.
Ethel was preoccupied and didn’t seem to notice much of what was going on around her and so she sat by the range with her cardigan unbuttoned but wrapped tightly round her, and everyone let her be. There had been no change in Angela’s condition, despite her having had what was deemed by her surgeon to be a successful operation.
Because there was no ‘give’ in Angela’s skull bones, a bleed inside her head caused by the
collision with the car had put the brain under undue pressure, a pressure that had needed to be urgently reduced. Now that the skull had been opened and the blood drained, it was a waiting game, but Ethel was trying to decide how much time she could be in Yorkshire for. Aside from worrying about how Jill and her husband were managing without her, she was very concerned that her job might not be held open for her, and it would be a disaster if she were to lose that, seeing as she was the only source of the family’s meagre income. Mabel patted her shoulder in comfort at one point, and Ethel looked at her and tried to smile, at which Mabel patted her again and Ethel went back to staring at the range.
Although the fish and chips for everybody was Barbara’s treat, as she wanted to give the twins a timely reminder of the old Friday fish suppers at number five Jubilee Street, it was going to be Roger and Tommy who would stop off at the chippie on the way home to collect what everybody was going to eat. Barbara had asked Roger to make sure that he and Tommy remembered mushy peas, as well as a selection of pickled eggs and pickled onions and, if they had any, some wallys and, most definitely, a bag of the greasy leftover little bits of batter from the fryer that she and Peggy had grown up calling scribbles but Gracie insisted were called scraps.
Roger’s brow crinkled in confusion at the word wally and so Peggy explained that this was a pickled cucumber, and then she begged to ask for something for Bucky as most chippies had something they couldn’t sell but that a cat would find tempting, and if everyone was having a Friday night treat, then it was only fair that Bucky had one too.
‘Soft’ was what Roger was heard muttering good-naturedly about Peggy’s request as he left to go and get Tommy and the food.
Mabel had sliced and buttered a whole loaf, meanwhile, saying that if they were gannets and could get through all of that, then she had another loaf in the bread bin and so nobody was to leave the table hungry. The large teapot was warming on the range, ready for a brew to be made, and there was some fresh homemade lemon drink for the children, with Gracie having provided the lemons from the greengrocer’s, and with Mabel having made it quite sweet, saying they’d better make hay while the sun shines as come the new year sugar would likely be in short supply.
What felt like a very long time later a frisson of excitement trembled across the room as the sound of Roger’s car drawing up outside could clearly be heard, and Peggy heard both Connie and Jessie breathe in deeply and look up from the game of cards that they were playing with their aunt. They must have mixed thoughts about seeing Tommy again, Peggy thought.
Not too long after that, Roger and Tommy walked into the room carrying two large packages wrapped in newspaper, one for the hot food and the other for the pickled accompaniments.
Tommy’s hair had recently been dampened down with water and neatly combed, and his clothes were pressed; he looked pale and chastened, and, Peggy could see, a far cry from the rather boisterous boy of not too long previously.
Mabel stepped forward to take the fish and chips, giving Tommy a smile and a wink, but no hug. Deliberately, she was behaving as if it was just as if he had only popped out for an hour or two, rather than almost two weeks.
‘Come on, everyone,’ said Roger. ‘Time to—’
‘Miaow!!’ yelled Bucky with impeccable timing, having clearly got wind of the fish in the kitchen, making everybody laugh. Immediately the atmosphere lightened to something pleasantly convivial.
The ice broken, Tommy was told to sit between Gracie and Mabel, the women having worked this out in advance, with the twins on either side of Barbara at the far end of the table.
Although the conversation around the kitchen table was slightly mannered to start with, being just a little too often of the adults-talking-about-the-latest-war-update-from-the-BBC variety, as if that was all they were interested in, soon it loosened up and after a while the children were encouraged to join in too.
They’d all been quiet and subdued at first, and although they had looked questioningly at each other after a while, neither Connie nor Jessie had said anything directly to Tommy, nor he to them, but the adults had decided not to force things too quickly and to let the children adjust to one another at their own pace.
After a while Peggy got Connie talking about some of the lessons she had had while Tommy was away and some of the things that had gone on at school, and then Jessie described a football match in the playground with teams picked from each school, and then Mabel got Tommy telling everyone about what it had been like dealing directly with Mr Walton, who had apparently missed most of Tommy’s spelling mistakes. (Despite his reputation for being a right stickler in the academic sense, Mabel’s ancient mother had noticed them, despite her heart condition and the cataracts in her eyes, and then she and Tommy had looked up the correct spelling in a dictionary.)
This got Roger on to one of his pet topics of conversation, people who were supposed to be good at their jobs and weren’t, and Gracie had a bit to say about this too from what she’d seen at her work at the greengrocer’s.
Peggy talked about June Blenkinsop, saying that people thought running a café would be easy, but now that she herself had had first-hand experience of what went on behind the scenes, she was very much in awe of how June made everything she did look so easy and as if anyone could do it.
Then as the empty plates were being cleared, Roger pulled a rabbit from his hat. There was a surprise!
While everybody’s attention had been occupied with Tommy’s return, Roger had sneaked in behind their backs and placed in the scullery a huge steel bucket of ice cream that must have held about two pints in its inner container, ice and salt having been placed between that and the outer shell to keep the ice cream cool and firm, and so everyone had a pudding of thick creamy ice cream with some melted chocolate on top and a sprinkling of crushed roasted hazelnuts. Tommy had kept up the subterfuge but now he and his father smiled at each other that nobody had cottoned on to their ruse.
The Nut Sundae – or Sunday as Mabel insisted it should be spelt, bearing in mind Roger’s profession – à la Tall Trees quickly proved to be a rip-roaring success, although when Peggy offered Bucky a little on the tip of her spoon he made a horrified face with his mouth wide open at the shock of the cold sensation that made everyone roar with laughter, causing Bucky to stalk away with an affronted flick of his fluffy tail at being the butt of the joke.
Ethel offered to do the washing-up but Mabel told her to get off back to the hospital, Gracie walking over with her to make sure she didn’t get lost, while everyone else just piled up all the used crockery and cutlery on the draining board to be attended to later, as there was something more important to do: a sing-song around the piano.
As before, a selection of favourites both old and new were sung, and then Tommy finished off the musical part of the evening with another solo rendition of ‘Danny Boy’.
Once again Peggy had a lump in her throat at the beauty of his singing. In fact, his singing was so lovely that Jessie and Connie both clapped enthusiastically at Tommy’s performance without prompting from their mother or their aunt.
Later, over in the bedroom above the stables, once Connie had nodded off (she was sharing Barbara’s bed, as Gracie was to have hers now that Tommy was back), Barbara and Peggy agreed that the whole evening had proved to be very enjoyable, and an excellent way of re-introducing Tommy back into the family fold.
The three children had seemed to take it in their stride and there had been no hiccups; Barbara pointed out that children could be very resilient and were often better at adapting to situations than the adults around them gave them credit for.
Peggy told Barbara that she had been heartened when she had crept upstairs to listen in at the other side of the door to the boys’ bedroom to hear that they seemed to be chatting together quite naturally and with no underlying animosity as they rummaged through Tommy’s collection of toy soldiers. She then heard them discuss the trials of their toy bears, Neville and Chocky, as when Jessie and Tommy had
returned to their bedroom it was to discover that Connie had pinned pink satin bows to the heads of each little bear, one grey and one brown, as a joke, with Jessie saying, ‘We’ll have to get her back when we’re doing the whitewashing of the attic tomorrow.’
It seemed that Connie had come up with a gesture that got the boys talking together very naturally, and so Peggy said to Barbara that she was very proud of her niece – Connie clearly had inherited her mother’s skill at dealing with tricky situations, although when the children were whitewashing the attic rooms she was very likely to end up with a dab of paint on her nose for her troubles.
Quite early the next morning, once the children had breakfasted and were busy upstairs with the whitewashing that Mabel was supervising, as Roger had been called to the bedside of an elderly and failing parishioner, Barbara went with Ethel over to the hospital, and they sat by Angela’s bed.
The little girl looked a shadow of how Barbara remembered her. She seemed to have shrunk somehow, and so she appeared very small and vulnerable lying there in a big hospital bed that could easily accommodate a man of over six feet, with her head bandaged and her cheeks sunken. Both her eyes were black and bruised, but Roger had warned Barbara about this beforehand as it was a consequence of the operation. There was a tube going into her mouth and another into her arm.
Barbara thought that somehow these tubes managed to look very basic yet also somehow highly sophisticated, and that she didn’t know how she would have borne it if she were looking down at either Jessie or Connie lying there in front of her in the same way.
Ethel seemed of sterner stuff, though, as she was sitting beside her daughter with an impassive look on her face.
