Miss Purdy's Class

by Annie Murray

  She sank to the floor, as if all her energy had gone.

  ‘Do what you like,’ she said pitifully.

  Christie went to the door. Before going out he turned and said quietly, ‘He deserves to have the Church at the end.’

  John went over to Siobhan.

  ‘I’ve got some biscuits,’ he said sweetly to her. They’d bought broken biscuits in the Bull Ring.

  ‘Have you, John?’ There was a deadness to her voice. She stared into the fire. John laid the food they had brought beside her like an offering.

  ‘Did you bring me a drop of anything, darlin’?’ Her tone was wheedling now. Joey, crouched at the edge of the hearth, felt himself tighten inside. He hadn’t seen John buy anything, but he hated it when she even asked. He didn’t know why John did it, making trouble. He might offer to go out again, down to the Outdoor to fetch it for her . . .

  ‘No, Shiv. Sorry,’ John said abjectly. ‘We didn’t make very much today.’

  ‘Never mind.’ Her voice was sad, but she patted John’s arm. ‘You’re sweet to me, John, so you are. Come here and give me a kiss.’

  John didn’t move any closer. He froze, kneeling bent over the bag of potatoes they had bought. Instead, Siobhan had to move, leaning over to kiss his cheek. Then she looked into his face. John looked woodenly back.

  ‘Sure, you’re a funny one. D’you not want me, John? D’ye not need a woman?’

  John stood up. ‘I’m going to get some water.’

  The potatoes were boiling over on the fire when they heard footsteps in the hall. Siobhan froze.

  ‘In here, Father,’ they heard. ‘I’ll just get us a light.’

  ‘There’s a powerful smell on him, all right,’ a voice said.

  As the door swung open, Joey saw that Christie was accompanied by a thin, dark-haired man in glasses.

  ‘He was very bad when we woke this morning.’ Christie spoke in a low voice, as if not wanting to wake Micky up. ‘But he’s holding on. Pass us a candle, John.’ The priest squatted down by Micky’s body. Joey saw him react, just a fraction, to the pungent stench.

  The priest took a little bottle from his pocket. He tipped it up, then touched Micky’s forehead. He hesitated and reached down for Micky’s wrist. Then he looked solemnly up at Christie.

  ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Has he?’ Christie sounded startled. ‘It must have been just in the past few minutes.’

  ‘Well, he’s dead, sure enough.’ The priest murmured some words which Joey couldn’t understand. Christie was standing with his hands clasped. He said, ‘Amen’, and made the sign of the cross. Joey heard Siobhan say ‘Amen’ very quietly as well.

  The priest stood up and looked round, and Siobhan shrank closer to the wall.

  ‘What is this place? Sure, you’re not living here?’ His tone was gentle. Joey did not feel afraid of him. ‘Have you all nowhere else to go?’

  ‘We haven’t,’ Christie pleaded. ‘We’ve no other home. When my sister and I came over we were on the road, dossing down in the spikes – we were separated and she was in with all kinds of people . . . It’s not good for her, Father. We’re getting along nicely enough here if we’re left alone. Please don’t tell anyone we’re living here, will you?’ Joey almost thought Christie was going to kneel down in front of the man he sounded so desperate.

  The priest nodded, seeming to agree. ‘Where’re you from back home?’

  ‘Tipperary, Father.’

  ‘My grandmother’s country. Myself I’m from County Mayo.’

  ‘Are you, Father?’ Joey could hear Christie’s nervousness in the quick way he spoke, the way he wasn’t really listening to what the man was saying. ‘I wouldn’t have come bothering you if it wasn’t for Micky there.’

  The priest was silent and seemed to be thinking. After a moment he nodded.

  ‘I can think of a couple of fellas I can get to help move him out of here. They’ve a handcart – we can keep it quiet. God knows, you’ll not be wanting to live with this any longer.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. He’s no family that you know of?’

  ‘No, Father. Not over here.’

  ‘Will we move him out of the room? The smell on him’s terrible.’

  Between them, they lugged Micky’s body into the hall. Once the priest had gone, Christie brought a can of water and he and Siobhan scrubbed with a rag at the stain on the floor where Micky had lain.

  A couple of hours later, when they’d eaten the thin stew, they heard movements at the back of the house. Everyone tensed. The tiles in the hall clinked and rattled. Christie went to the door.

  ‘Don’t trouble – it’s only myself.’ Joey heard the priest’s voice and followed Christie curiously.

  Two strapping men were squeezed into the hall by the back door. They touched their caps, saying, ‘Evening to you,’ and looked round bewildered. ‘You can smell the fella, anyway,’ one said.

  Joey heard the priest say to Christie, ‘They won’t say anything. We’ve a handcart out at the front.’

  The two men hauled Micky up, taking an arm and leg each.

  ‘God now, he’s a weight,’ one of them groaned. And they took Micky away. Christie followed them out. Joey went back into the room.

  Siobhan seemed to uncurl, as if a great danger had passed. ‘God rest him,’ she said tenderly. ‘That was a hard life he lived.’

  Thirty

  ‘Lance? The least you could do is answer me – I said d’you want it boiled or poached?’

  Millie’s complaining voice drifted to Gwen through her bedroom door, mingled with the smell of toast. Gwen heard a brief, languid reply from Lance. She frequently felt an urge to get hold of Lance and give him a good shaking. Compared with Daniel’s burning, physical energy, he was like a soggy dishcloth. No wonder Millie was turning into such a nag!

  Turning over onto her stomach in the warm bed, Gwen decided to stay there a while longer. It was Saturday. There was no hurry: Daniel was away. At the thought of him she felt a kind of inner lurch, her whole body seeming to long for him, like a deep hunger. Sometimes she could scarcely believe herself: she had given herself to a man without being married! And her life was caught up in politics which she knew it was wisest on the whole to keep quiet about.

  And there was Edwin. For a moment the shimmering bubble of joy and excitement in which she existed was ruptured, leaving her with a terrible sense of doubt. Every week brought a more angry and insistent letter from her mother, ordering her to come home. And, of course, many of the things she said were true. Whatever had Edwin done to deserve this? Even his letters had begun to sound a little put out, but Gwen knew Edwin well enough to realize that he would blithely assume everything was all right.

  She made herself think about all the happiest times she could remember with Edwin: walks in the Malverns, moments when he had come smiling into her classroom in Worcester, how pleased she had been to see him. She had loved him, surely? But then she thought of Daniel and the effect he had on her. With Daniel she was alive: with him she flew instead of merely walking. It was as if he set something free in her, and it was inconceivable that she could forget it and go back to what she had been, even though she felt less safe with Daniel, less sure.

  ‘I’ll always be back, you dafty, you know that,’ he said, with his easy grin, after returning from a trip away without telling her.

  She’d reproached him gently. ‘It’s not very nice of you – just going off without a word. How do I know where you are or when you’re coming back?’

  There – she was getting just like Millie! She’d seen it even at the time and stopped immediately. A nagging housewife was not what she wanted to be. It would just have been nice to feel as if he considered her feelings, that was all. But she’d told herself she was being trivial and little-woman-ish. Bourgeois. There were such big things to consider – the class struggle, the revolution. Where were her feelings in all that?

  There was nothing to h
urry for so she took a long bath. Their landlady was less of a tartar about hot water than Ariadne had been, but the chance of a hot bath was still rare because of the temperamental nature of the boiler. The pipes groaned loudly as the water ran in. Lying in the bath, she thought guiltily about Ariadne. She’d promised to go and see her and so far she hadn’t. In fact, she rather missed Ariadne hovering about when she came into the house, filled with some emotion or other and fussing over her. That’s what she’d do today – go and see Ariadne.

  ‘Oh!’ Ariadne gave a great cry on opening the door, as if Gwen was a long-lost relative returned from years in the goldfields. She laid her hand on her heart and closed her eyes for a moment. As usual her eyelashes were laden with mascara.

  ‘My dear, how very nice to see you. I thought you’d deserted me for ever, like that dreadful Mr Purvis.’

  She led Gwen along the hall, tottering on her heels, as ever. She was wearing a deep purple frock, with fussy frills round the neck. The house felt chilly after the warm afternoon outside and held its usual dubious cooking smells, but there was a new, sickly aroma mingled with them. Ariadne was clearly aware of it. She paused, holding up one ring-encrusted finger.

  ‘That,’ she said accusingly, ‘is Miss Hines. Simply douses herself in it. I hope you’re going to have a cup of tea with me? I can’t begin to tell you how much you’re missed in this house, Gwen dear.’

  ‘That’d be nice,’ Gwen said, remembering that tea was the one reasonably safe item in Ariadne’s culinary repertoire.

  Ariadne settled Gwen in the back room, where she had so often taken meals with Harold Purvis. As usual, there was a newspaper laid open on the table. Gwen eyed it while she waited. A photograph in the middle showed a truck with a tent-like contraption on the back. ‘Travelling gas chambers,’ the caption said. ‘Training for gas attacks.’ The report beside it said that the whole of Spain was cut off from telephonic communication, for what were believed to be ‘serious political reasons’.

  Ariadne carried in tea and arrowroot biscuits and one cream horn on a plate. ‘I was going to treat myself, but you must share it with me.’

  ‘Oh no, Ariadne, you have it. The biscuits will do me very well.’

  Ariadne beamed at her. ‘You always were such a polite girl. Not like that one.’ She rolled her eyes ceilingwards. ‘Proper little piece she is. Calls herself a secretary, but all she is really is a little typist from the pool. And the way she walks! You’ve never seen anything like it!’

  ‘Does she have a lot of admirers?’ Gwen asked, nibbling one of the musty biscuits.

  Ariadne gave a fastidious shudder. ‘I don’t like to think about it. None that are allowed in here, I know that much.’

  Gwen thought of herself and Daniel creeping up the stairs past Millie’s landlady. She realized Ariadne was looking at her intently.

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, dear, but you don’t look quite as . . . well, feminine as you did.’ She eyed Gwen’s old navy skirt and unadorned hair. ‘I don’t like to pry, but is everything all right? Your fiancé? And your wedding plans?’

  ‘Yes thanks, Ariadne.’ Gwen smiled, but a blush seeped into her cheeks. She had been on the point of talking about Daniel. He was so much a part of her life now that it seemed normal to her. But of course she couldn’t! Ariadne still thought she was engaged to Edwin. And, she remembered with another jolt, Edwin still thought of her as engaged to Edwin as well.

  ‘I’m doing very well,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I’m enjoying my job, and I’ve grown ever so fond of some of the children. Coming here has really made me realize how much I like being a teacher. Anyway,’ she added, ‘what happened to Mr Purvis in the end? Do you hear from him?’

  Ariadne’s lips tightened into a hard line and she sat straighter in her chair, on her dignity.

  ‘No, I do not hear from Mr Harold Purvis. And I’m not party to any information about his whereabouts. In fact, Mr Purvis is a subject I’d rather not talk about at all, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Gwen said quickly. She wasn’t exactly bursting to talk about him either.

  Instead, Ariadne was far more interested in talking about June Hines, the ‘little number’ upstairs, towards whom she seemed to harbour almost unlimited resentment.

  ‘If I could find someone else, she’d be out on her ear, I can tell you,’ Ariadne declared, teasing a fluffy dot of cream from her upper lip. ‘She stinks like a polecat! But I haven’t even found anyone else to fill the other room since that fly-by-night Miss Polensky took off.’ She sighed. ‘George would be mortified if he knew how I was having to get by these days.’

  Gwen never got to the bottom of what it was that irked Ariadne so much about Miss Hines, but she left to pleas that she come back and rent a room with her again.

  ‘I’d welcome you with open arms, dear, if you’d consider it.’

  ‘Well, that’s very nice of you,’ Gwen said as they parted. ‘I’m all right where I am at the moment. I’ll bear it in mind, though.’

  Ariadne waved from the step and Gwen felt a little sad turning away from the house. Perhaps she should move back. Mr Purvis was gone, at least. But would her digestive system stand it? And, anyway, for the moment she was trying to be a good friend to Millie and not spend every single night at party meetings. But her heart sank at the thought of another evening in with Millie and Lance and the wireless.

  Oh, Daniel, she thought crossly. Why aren’t you here?

  He was back the next day, full of fervour for the Welsh NUWM protests about the unemployment regulations.

  Gwen caught up with him on Sunday afternoon. When she reached the Fernandez’s house, everyone was at home, him included.

  ‘Hello there!’ Daniel didn’t touch her, not in front of his mother and siblings, but his eyes glowed at the sight of her and Gwen felt her spirits rise and swoop with happiness. He had caught the sun and looked even darker and more handsome.

  ‘Sit down and have a cup of tea, Miss Purdy,’ Theresa said comfortably. ‘We’ve not seen you in a while. Oh, by the way, I called on Alice’s mother, Mrs Wilson. A couple of times I went. I can’t say I felt welcome. She’s very closed in on herself, isn’t she? Very miserable.’

  ‘Thank you ever so much,’ Gwen said. ‘I’m sure she appreciates it really.’

  ‘Poor soul.’ Theresa carried the big teapot to the table. ‘Daniel – sit, for the love of God. You’re like a dog with fleas today.’

  ‘I can’t sit, Mam!’ Daniel laughed. ‘I’m too worked up!’ Gwen could feel the fire coming from him. His whole body was electric with energy.

  Lucy sat by the table smiling, overjoyed to have her brother back and her beloved teacher there too.

  ‘Have you been back home?’ Gwen smiled, already infected by his huge enthusiasm.

  Daniel nodded. ‘Came back last night. I managed to hitch a lift on a truck full of sheep. Bound for slaughter all of them, and I’m sure they knew it – they didn’t half make a racket all the way, I can tell you!’ He compromised on his mother’s request by turning a chair round and straddling it, back to front, arms resting on the rail and rocking it to and fro.

  ‘Daniel, stop that – you’ll break it! You’re like a great big baby!’

  ‘So, what’s the news?’ Gwen said.

  ‘Unity’s coming.’ Daniel spoke urgently. ‘You can almost smell it in the valleys. Down there they’ve got leadership – and real comradeship. You can feel people rising to it as every week goes by. My God, the state of things there!’ His voice rose. ‘Auntie Shân said they’ve knocked eight shillings off Billy’s disability payment now, what with Uncle Anthony on the dole. They’ve hardly a farthing between them for food.’ He sucked his breath in, hand clenched. ‘If it wasn’t for us being able to help them . . . Jesus, it makes you want to . . .’ The fist hovered over the back of the chair.

  ‘It’s a wicked, cruel system,’ Theresa agreed quietly. ‘But blaspheming won’t bring it to an end – nor you getting arrested.’ She
sipped her tea. ‘Nor you breaking up our chairs, Daniel bach.’

  Daniel unclenched his fist and his gaze burned into Gwen.

  ‘Next weekend’s the big demonstration – at Tonypandy. The party is calling on workers from all over the valleys to come together in full strength, show them what we think of the means test! Come with me? Come and see it happen?’

  His excitement poured into her. She could feel herself glowing, and beamed back at him. ‘In a sheep wagon?’

  Daniel’s slow grin met hers. ‘I was thinking more of a train.’

  Throughout that week news gradually trickled out from Spain. There had been coordinated uprisings by the right and the landowning classes against the recently elected left-wing Popular Front government. Franco’s garrisons in Morocco joined in the insurrection and Franco himself led the troops who took over Las Palmas.

  The party meetings that week were in a ferment with the news. Spain was under threat of fascists overthrowing the government! The republican groupings were struggling to defend a people’s government of justice and democracy against the tyranny of military force and capitalist aggression! The party had to respond! What instructions would come from the headquarters in King Street, in London? They must act immediately, get on to the streets and outside factory gates, to raise support and funds for the republican fighters.

  Gwen went with Daniel to every meeting that week. The news, as it came in, was at once exhilarating and terrible. Germany, Italy, the Blackshirts at home and now Spain: the urgency to act in the face of fascism was infectious, heady, but at the same time the threat of it seemed to move closer, like an evil cloud.

  Another cloud was Esther Lane. The party was working ever closer now with the Birmingham Council for Peace and Liberty. Esther was involved in the council as well, and there she was at every meeting, her face set tightly in concentration as she listened to speakers in halls all round the city as they tried to rally support. And she was close to Daniel at every opportunity, and always, Gwen felt, ready to belittle her. Daniel laughed when she complained, said she was imagining it. He always talked about ‘old Esther’ as if she was somehow amusing and not to be taken seriously, in her outlandish clothing and with her posh, hooting voice. She wasn’t Daniel’s type – even Gwen could see that – but she could see what was in Esther’s eyes when Esther looked at Daniel and it frightened her.