by Annie Murray
‘Well, get your bleedin’ arses out the road then.’ Joey squared his shoulders as if waiting for them to come for him, striding along with his eight-year-old swagger. Insults followed him along the road.
‘Got more important things to do.’ He put his head down, clamping his jaws tightly so they didn’t chatter in the cold. This was money-making weather all right. Fetching coal from the wharf for the people in the bigger houses up the street was one trick. Sometimes he hired a barrow for a penny to carry it. And selling firewood. He could beg a few boxes from a greengrocer he knew among the shops along the Flat and sell them broken up for a penny a bundle. However long it took, he was going to get enough to buy a bowl of hot faggots and peas for Mom tonight. That’d help make her better.
‘Good food – that’s what you need, Dora,’ Mrs Simmons was always saying. And she did her best helping out, bringing round broth or leftover pease pudding when she could. ‘You want to get some flesh on those bones.’
Joey wrenched his mind away from the rumbling of his own stomach. The watery scrag end he’d had for dinner seemed a long time ago, but it was more than Mom would have eaten all day.
‘You gorra penny, Joey?’ Lena said longingly, slowing as they passed the huckster’s shop on the corner of Mary Street. There was nothing Lena loved more than the boxes of cheapest sweeties at the back of the shop behind the shelves of matches, gas mantles, needles and string: sweets two for a halfpenny, liquorice laces and imps and gobstoppers.
‘No,’ Joey roared. ‘Where would I’ve get a penny from? And if I had I wouldn’t give it you, would I?’
It felt as if night had arrived in the entry, between the black walls of houses. In the yard the drain was blocked and a scummy puddle of water lay round it. Lena tiptoed along the edge, watching the water lap at her boots. Impatient with her, Joey strode across to the house.
‘Mom?’ He thrust open the door, full of his plan to go straight out, earn the coppers to get them their tea.
He recoiled, hurling himself out into the yard, slamming the door with all his strength.
‘Fuck! Fuck it!’ Frantically scanning the blue bricks at his feet he reached down and found a lump of something and hurled it at the door. It turned out to be a soggy cabbage stump and the impotent thud it made only enraged him further. Lena was coming across the yard and he went over to her and yanked her hand.
‘Ow, Joey – that hurts, you pig! Stop it!’
‘You’re not going in the house! Go to Mrs Sim-mons’s and stay there till I get back.’
‘But Joey!’ Lena’s eyes widened under her scruffy thatch of hair. His tone made her obey. Mouth trembling, she went along to number five.
Joey tore along the yard, his body taut with an electric energy, so highly wired that it was almost out of his control. He wanted to run and run for ever, spend himself, do anything to wipe out the sight in his mind of the bed, the dark bulk of a man jerking up and down on top of his mother.
Gwen sank down on her bed after tea with a long, miserable sigh. What a day! She lay back for a moment across the rough sheen of the eiderdown and closed her eyes under the light with its tasselled shade. Her head throbbed. Faces swirled behind her eyelids: the rows of new children she had met today, the teachers . . . Her mind was a mass of names which she could barely attach to faces. The one face that stood out was that of Lily Drysdale. There was something so alive about her eyes.
She groaned and sat up. Don’t think about school! Kicking her shoes off, she rolled her stockings down, wriggling her toes. She peered at her legs. She was filthy! The Birmingham air was impregnated with soot. What she would have liked more than anything was a good hot bath, but Ariadne (‘the spider’ as Gwen had begun to nickname her since she always seemed to be lurking about in the hall) was very strict about all that.
‘I really favour the male lodger,’ she had said when Gwen first arrived. ‘They don’t indulge in so much electricity.’ Baths were strictly rationed to two a week, and there was a piece of wood in the bathroom with a line marked on it to measure how much water they were allowed.
That evening there had been a fire burning in the back room as they ate. Ariadne had a woman come in to do a bit of cleaning. It was all she could afford, she said, now she’d ‘lost George’. George observed them eating from his frame on the mantelpiece. He had a military bearing and a grand moustache. With the blue velvet curtains closed and the fire burning, the room should have felt cosy. Instead, Gwen felt trapped, like a bluebottle stuck in a jar. The food didn’t help: chops tonight, with lumpy gravy and tired-looking cabbage.
Ariadne Black positioned her chair close to Mr Purvis’s. The night before Gwen had thought this was by chance. Ariadne was wearing rouge and a black lacy shawl over her dress. Her heels were so thin that she wobbled as she walked.
‘Did you have a satisfactory day, Harold?’ She tipped the gravy jug over his plate as if dispensing nectar from the gods. The dark liquid bulged forward under its skin, then broke through and glooped out in a rush. Mr Purvis murmured that yes, his day had gone very nicely, thank you.
‘I’m sure we’re both looking forward to hearing you play you music.’ Ariadne glanced at Gwen, as if grudgingly including her. As they got up at the end of the meal, Gwen saw her stroke Mr Purvis’s arm.
Oh Lord! Gwen thought. What have I got myself into here?
It was a relief to be away upstairs, although now she was on her own she felt restless and lonely. She had tried to make the drab white room as pretty as she could. Her picture of Amy Johnson was arranged on the dressing table. She had draped a scarf over the mirror and arranged a colourful crocheted blanket on the chair, but the room still seemed bleak.
She took her writing case from the chest of drawers and sat under the eiderdown with her legs folded beneath her to keep her toes warm.
I must drop a line to mother, she thought. And Edwin, of course. Unzipping the worn leather, she took out two plain postcards and wrote the addresses on each of them: to Mr and Mrs Purdy and the Rev. Edwin Shackleton.
She sat chewing on the end of her fountain pen and twiddling the ends of her hair. It all seemed such a bother. She felt gloomy tonight but she certainly wasn’t going to tell them that. She sighed. Amy seemed to be watching her.
‘Not terribly brave or glamorous coming here, is it?’ she said to her. ‘Hardly in the same league.’
Her stomach turned with dread at the thought of going back to Canal Street School in the morning, to those drab, alien streets and to the smell of unwashed clothes, to those pale, scratching children who looked as if they came from some of the poorest human stock. But that’s what she’d said she was going to do and she was going to have to stick it out.
She was about to begin writing when a melancholy tune drifted along the passage. Of course – Mr Purvis’s trumpet! He was playing a twiddly melody that she half recognized, but could not place. He played it, haltingly, several times through, then stopped.
She picked up one of the cards and turned it over. In her shapely copperplate handwriting she began.
Dear Edwin,
First day in my city school – finding my feet, but a simply marvellous experience so far. You would find it very interesting. And you should meet my landlady . . .! Will write properly soon.
Love to all, Gwen x
Night had fallen by the time Joey got back to the yard in Canal Street. The house was dark. His pockets full of coal and a dish of hot food in his hands, he pushed the door open.
‘Mom?’ Though he didn’t know it, his voice was high, little boyish.
There was no reply. The room was deadly cold. Joey put the bowl down on the table and groped to find matches and a candle. He saw his mother lying curled on her side in the bed. He frowned. He often saw her sleeping – she seldom had the energy for anything but lying down these days – but she looked different. In the dim light he could see the blanket pulled up, almost covering her, only the top of her head with its lank hair visible above, and she was c
urled round, her knees pulled right up as if she was in pain.
‘Mom?’ His breath condensed in the air. He moved closer with the candle. Slowly, reluctantly, Dora unfolded herself and pulled the cover away from her face. Her expression was terrible, her eyes blotchy from hours of weeping. The sight of her son set her off again. At the sound of her weak, defeated sobbing, Joey’s face darkened. His fists clenched in his pockets.
‘What’s up?’ He meant to speak gently but couldn’t.
Dora Phillips sobbed all the more, setting off her cough, which racked through her, stealing her breath. She clamped a rag over her mouth, then drew it away carefully, folding it to conceal the bloodstained phlegm. He could hear the crackle of her lungs. With a struggle she pushed herself up in the bed.
‘Come here, bab – sit down. Mrs Simmons brought our Lena back. ’Er’s asleep.’
Joey perched on the side of the bed, folding his arms, elbows jutting out as if to protect himself.
Dora’s face was sunken. Although not yet thirty, the sickness and suffering of her life had worn her and she appeared twenty years older. In the gloom her eyes looked huge and dark in her face and, hard as she tried, she couldn’t stop them filling with tears.
‘I’m poorly, you know that don’t you, Son?’
Joey gave a fierce nod, his face a scowl. ‘I’ll look after you. I can help you get better. Look.’ He showed her his bulging pockets. ‘I’ve got coal. And there’s faggots and peas for you . . .’
‘Whose bowl is that?’
‘Someone borrowed it me.’ He wasn’t going to tell her the truth, that he’d whipped it from the pawn shop when the man’s back was turned.
Dora was overwhelmed with emotion, hearing the intense determination in his voice, pride covering up the fear and grief of a small boy. She reached out her hand to try and pull him nearer to her, but he didn’t budge. Slowly she shook her head.
‘Joey.’ She spoke softly. ‘Your mom might not be able to get better. It’s the consumption. You know that’s bad, don’t you, bab? I can’t hide it from you any longer. My boy’s too grown up for me to hide things from him.’
Joey’s frown deepened and he stared down at his boots, his jaw clenched.
Dora was taken by another fit of coughing. Once she had recovered, she went on. ‘I’m not much of a mom to you in this state.’ Her face puckered. ‘Never have been.’ She fought to control herself. ‘Mrs Sim-mons’ll help us all she can, but she’s got so much on her plate already. I can’t even manage to get a fire lit for you, let alone feed you right . . .’ Her voice cracked again.
‘I can feed us, Mom!’ Joey burst out. ‘You know I can! If I daint have to go to school, I could feed us easy. I don’t do nothing at school!’
‘You’ve got to go to school.’ Dora raised her hand to stop him. ‘Learn to read and write and do your sums, or you won’t get nowhere.’ She took his hand in hers. ‘Listen to me, Joey. Listen carefully. You know that’s why your dad left us, don’t you? Because I was poorly and he said he couldn’t stand to see me getting worse by the day . . .’ She had to believe that. Wanted Joey to believe it, in spite of all he’d seen. The truth was too cruel. How could she say it to her son? I ruined a good man because I can’t help myself. I’m carrying another man’s child, spawned for the comfort of it . . . And now I’ve done the worst thing a mother can do . . .
‘Now he’s gone I’ve got no one in the world to help me except for Mrs Simmons and God knows why she bothers with me when the rest don’t. So –’ she choked over the words – ‘I’ve had to let Polly and Kenny go to be looked after for a bit.’ Tears running down her cheeks, she looked into her son’s uncomprehending face. ‘The lady came for them today to take them to the home. She’ll be a sort of . . . auntie to them. Just until things get better. Only I couldn’t manage – not with all of you . . .’
Her head sank to her chest, her whole body shuddering.
‘She ain’t coming for me!’ Joey leapt to his feet.
Dora looked up quickly. ‘No, not you. Course not. Nor Lena. Not unless . . .’ She shook her head, her face creasing with pain. ‘No – you’re staying with me. And she said we can see them, sometimes.’ She was weeping again. ‘Now and then.’
Joey scarcely seemed to hear her. Staring at the flickering candle, he made no movement. On the table the faggots and peas went cold.
Four
‘Well, I never!’
Ariadne Black peered long-sightedly at her newspaper, moving a finger along the line of print as she read.
‘The ferrets and dogs of Henley-in-Arden Rat Club killed 435 rats this week – on one farm! What a thing!’
Gwen, distracted from wondering how Ariadne could make such an incredible burnt offering out of a rasher of bacon, looked up, unsure how to react to this latest piece of information. Ariadne often regaled them with snippets from the newspaper. Gwen exchanged a glance with Harold Purvis, who gazed back at her so soulfully from above his tightly buttoned collar that she wished she hadn’t.
‘Don’t you think, Harold’ – Ariadne leant towards him and laid a hand on his arm – ‘that rats are, well . . . vermin?’
‘Er, yes, I suppose they are,’ Mr Purvis agreed, his plump face colouring. He edged his arm away and picked up a slice of limp toast.
Gwen sighed and downed the last of her tea. Meals at the table with Ariadne made her sympathize with how a fly must feel caught in a cobweb, though in fact Ariadne more or less ignored her: it was Mr Purvis she was spinning her thread round and round. But Gwen felt more uncomfortable than ever after what happened last night. Or at least, what she thought happened.
Ariadne served tea at six-thirty sharp. Gwen left her room and started off down the murkily lit stairs, assaulted by the depressing smell of boiled swede. Mr Purvis appeared at the bottom and started up the stairs with surprising energy. She saw his bald pate moving towards her through the gloom. He looked up, suddenly noticing her, murmured, ‘Oh! Sorry!’ and flattened himself to one side to let her go by, but as she passed him he began to turn again, too quickly, to continue up the stairs. They all but collided and as they did his hand closed over her left breast, just for a second, so that afterwards she was left wondering if she had imagined it. Yet she knew she hadn’t. She kept her eyes on her plate and ate up her singed bacon as fast as possible. Ariadne wiped her full lips with her hanky and complained about the cold.
Gwen prepared herself hurriedly for school – a deep blue ribbon in her hair today – and rushed out, screwing up her eyes against the sudden bright sunlight. She knew now exactly the right time to catch the tram and could get to Canal Street on time in order not to incur Mr Lowry’s fury.
Two weeks had passed in a blur. Each night she came home to the house in Soho Road exhausted, washing herself in a basin of water and sinking into bed early, not even kept awake by the sound of Mr Purvis’s trumpet. After a time it had become clear that Mr Purvis’s repertoire consisted only of one tune, which he told her was ‘I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marble Halls’, a piece of information which just about helped her to recognize the trumpet’s wandering vagaries. At least it didn’t stop her sleeping. It was a struggle even to stay awake long enough to write to Edwin, though she did manage it twice a week, sending him cheerful letters full of the doings of school, and receiving equally jolly ones from him about his life in the parish. He always signed off his letters, ‘Look after yourself, old girl. Much love, E.’
She was getting used to Canal Street School’s routines, and the sheer size of it compared with the tiny church school in Worcester – the high ceilings and windows, the ominous groans of the plumbing, the smell of disinfectant and the ragged, grubby state of the children. As the days passed the mass of faces began to settle into individuals, and she learned their names and, gradually, their characters: the naughty ones; the ones like Joey Phillips and Ernie Toms, who always had the elbows of their jumpers out and holes in the seat of their pants; the little boy who scratched and scratched all day, his skin en
crusted with the last stages of impetigo; the tooth-decayed grin of Ron Parks; and the vague, slow-witted look of the blonde girl, Alice Wilson.
And there was Lucy Fernandez. Lucy stood out, with her long, dark-eyed face and thick hair, and her lurching gait, hampered by the caliper on her leg. She was a timid child in class, and during Gwen’s turns on dinner duty, she watched Lucy hugging the edges of the playground, obviously trying not to attract attention to herself, keeping out of the way of the able-bodied girls as they flung themselves about with their hoops and skipping ropes. The others called her the ‘cripple girl’. This was not usually meant unkindly, just as a statement of fact. The only one who started to hang about at Lucy’s side was Alice Wilson. Gwen found this strange to begin with as Lucy was clearly a very intelligent child who picked up everything straight away, whereas Alice, though having neat handwriting, hardly seemed to be able to follow the work or complete anything properly in her exercise book.
That morning, though, the class were all to discover something else which made Lucy Fernanadez different. Gwen was standing by the blackboard, writing up long multiplication sums. 643, she wrote, adding x 46 underneath it. Light poured in through the long windows, sunbeams dancing with dust. The class fidgeted, longing to be out playing.
‘Now.’ Gwen pointed at the chalky numbers with a ruler. ‘Who can tell me the first thing we have to do?’ She moved the ruler between the six and the three. ‘Alice?’
Alice Wilson squinted at the blackboard. A desperate expression came over her face and she blushed in confusion. Some of the others had their hands up and a couple sniggered at Alice’s discomfort, but Gwen persevered.
‘Quiet, the rest of you! Come on now, Alice – six times three? Surely you know that by now?’
A light dawned in her face. ‘Eighteen, Miss,’ the child whispered.
‘Yes. Good. Now – what do we do next?’
Before anyone could answer there came a little clattering noise from the middle of the room. The children all craned round to see what was going on, then started giggling, staring at the floor. In the last fortnight Gwen had established her authority over them, but they knew she was not so fearsome that they couldn’t afford the occasional laugh in class.
