A Girl Can Dream

by Anne Bennett

  ‘Typical man, then,’ Joy said. ‘And I will say it again. I think you are a poor cow.’ She glanced at her watch suddenly and said, ‘I have to get back; I’m only on my lunch hour. Nice to see you again.’

  Oh, yes, it was nice, Meg thought. She missed her old school friends and envied them as she saw them tripping down the street arm in arm, sharing confidences or else laughing and joking together as they made their way to the pictures or a dance somewhere.

  But her life was totally different from that of most girls her age, and money was a constant problem. She watched Joy threading her way through the stalls in the Bull Ring and turned regretfully to continue her shopping.

  She didn’t bother telling any of the others about meeting Joy, and anyway, Terry had news of his own. He announced he had taken on a paper round.

  ‘A paper round?’ Meg repeated. ‘Who gets their papers delivered around here?’

  ‘It’s not round here,’ Terry said. ‘It’s Neil’s uncle’s. You know Neil Drummond.’

  ‘Drummond Stores,’ Meg said. ‘His sister, Claire, was in my class. She said it’s at the far end of Bristol Street.’

  ‘It is,’ Terry said, ‘not far from where the big houses start – and that’s where they deliver papers, the big houses.’

  ‘It will be one hell of a trek for you,’ Meg said.

  Terry shrugged. ‘Don’t care about that,’ he said. ‘It’s half a crown a week, Meg.’

  Meg lifted the baby from the pram and started to feed her as Terry went on, ‘As long as I can get a decent amount of money from Dad before he blows it in the pub, the money I earn will help to pay off the rent arrears.’

  Meg’s sigh of relief was audible – she hated to be beholden in any way to a man like Richard Flatterly. ‘It will be a godsend, right enough,’ she told Terry. ‘But you must have something for yourself.’

  Terry shook his head emphatically. ‘Don’t want nothing,’ he said. ‘I ain’t done it for that.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘Meg, we need every penny,’ Terry said earnestly. ‘I want no money for myself, but what I do want is for you all to keep quiet about this to Dad. And that goes for all of you,’ he said, his eyes raking the table. All the children nodded soberly.

  ‘He’ll get to know, Terry.’

  ‘How would he?’ Terry asked. ‘I am out before him in the morning and I’ll be done and back home before he finishes work. He works most Saturday mornings, and him getting up early Sunday is a thing of the past.’

  Meg knew that was too true; it saddened her that her father had become such a drunk. She hadn’t a clue how to stop him and to help him revert to the father they all remembered. But her priority had to be the children and keeping them fed and clothed and warm, she wanted to give no excuse for the Welfare to get involved, and she knew that even with the rent arrears paid off, Terry’s paper-round money would come in very useful.

  The holidays were drawing to a close and Meg would miss the children when they returned to school; they had been a great help to her and there was always someone available to run an errand, or mind the baby, or take her for a walk. She had been able to avoid Flatterly who had come in person to collect the rents till the arrears were fully cleared by giving the rent to one of the children when he called. Meg found his blatant salaciousness hard to cope with and his lewd, lustful eyes ogling her with such intensity. She thanked God that the arrears were paid off in full before the end of the holidays and it was the nice Vince O’Malley knocking the door on Friday morning.

  She was glad that Billy wasn’t old enough for school yet because he was quite good at amusing Ruth and he seemed able to do it for hours which was how long the washing seemed to take and most of it was all down to her, though Jenny came to help before she had to make breakfast for the others and get them off to school.

  She knew May would help her if she needed her, but she was getting on now and Meg hated to put on her, but when she said this the following Monday, when they met in the brew house, May dismissed her age.

  ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle,’ she said. ‘And well used to it – I’ve been at it years. You’ll have the hang of it eventually, but for now if you want a hand you shout. All right?’

  ‘All right, and thanks, May,’ Meg said. ‘There is so much washing with four children and the baby, who has a wash load of her own, plus my clothes and Daddy’s.’

  ‘Aye, there will be a fair bit of it,’ May agreed. ‘And the nappies alone will fill one line.’

  ‘I know, and the ironing takes care of Tuesday.’

  May chuckled. ‘A woman’s work is never done.’

  ‘I’m beginning to see that,’ Meg said.

  She wasn’t the only one working hard, for Terry was finding the paper delivering job heavy going. He had a notebook with the roads and numbers and what each house had delivered each day marked down. The houses he delivered to were not squashed together like back-to-backs, but spaced out and hidden behind walls and privet hedges, with sweeping drives, so that it was hard to see the numbers until you were up close.

  The first week he was very tired, especially when school reopened, but he never said a word about it. His paper-round money, however welcome, was a fraction of what was needed to run the house though, so he still went to meet his father from the tram on Thursday evening. His uncles were there again so Charlie didn’t protest or bluster, and later Terry was able to deliver three pounds ten shillings into Meg’s hand. She was delighted with such an amount and she put it in a tin box that she’d hidden in the false bottom of the baby’s pram.

  The next day she set out for the Bull Ring again, with Billy holding the handle of the pram till his legs got tired, and though she hoped to see Joy, there was no sign of the girl that day. Still, Meg was well satisfied because she’d managed to end up with a pram packed with vegetables and fruit for the family, and she had plenty of money left for the groceries.

  As she lifted the baby out of her pram when they’d reached home, Ruth gave her a huge smile that seemed to split her face in two and set her eyes dancing.

  The doctor at the hospital had warned Meg that Ruth might be later meeting her milestones as she had been a month premature, but here she was smiling away when she was just over seven weeks old. The smile that she bestowed on Meg made up for the exhaustion of the first few weeks, the night feeds and the fractiousness; it caused a lurch of pure love in Meg’s stomach that took her by surprise because it was so powerful. She gave a cry of delight and hugged her tight.

  Now that Ruth had got the hang of smiling, she seemed to do a lot of it; Billy was trying with her all afternoon and Meg told the other children about the smile when they came home from school and they were as delighted as Meg had been when she smiled at them too, but her father only grunted when he was told. Meg refused to let her father’s reaction pull her down or prevent her feeling more positive about the future; she told him that as Ruth only woke once in the night now and was much easier to settle, she would move back into the attic. She knew her decision would be a popular one with everyone – her father would like his own bedroom back and the children would be glad because he would often wake them up when he came stumbling in at night, and Terry said he took up the lion’s share of the bed and snored loudly once he had fallen asleep.

  So, life began to fall into a pattern. Meg still found washday hard, but the worst washdays were when it was wet and the washing couldn’t be hung on one of the lines festooning the yard, raised up on gigantic poles to flap in the sooty air. On wet days the washing would be draped around the house, the nappies airing over the fireguard so that everything smelled and felt damp. Sometimes it wasn’t always dry by Tuesday, so the ironing would hang over to Wednesday.

  Often May came in to help Meg a bit while she dealt with the baby’s needs. Her aunt Rosie called around regularly too, usually armed with a casserole or a pan of stew, and Meg was glad of this because she was able to save a little money, now that the arrears were paid off ful
ly.

  She knew the money would be needed soon to buy coal for the fires and for boots for them all. Maeve had had a new pair of lovely warm lined boots that Meg remembered her father buying the Christmas before, just as she had begun to suspect that she was pregnant, and she had kept them for best so they were like new. Meg’s boots, on the other hand, were worn and shabby and had begun to pinch her feet; yet she hesitated to use any of her mother’s things and all her clothes still hung in her wardrobe or were packed into the drawers.

  ‘Is it awful to think of wearing things that once belonged to my mother?’ she asked May one day when she popped in for a cup of tea.

  May settled herself on the settee and put the tea down on a small table in front of her before saying, ‘How could it? I would call that sensible. What else would you do with them? Give them to the rag-and-bone man?’

  ‘Well, no, I suppose not,’ Meg said. ‘But I feel awkward about it.’

  ‘Don’t see why you should,’ May said. ‘You could do with the things, couldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Meg couldn’t deny it. In the past year or so her dresses had become extremely short and difficult to fasten over her growing breasts. ‘Mom thought so too,’ she said. ‘She said she would buy me new clothes and shoes for starting work.’

  ‘There you are then,’ May said. ‘She wasn’t able to do that, so you adapt her things to fit you now. You’re good with the needle. And there’s something else to think of.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your father,’ May said. ‘I imagine he finds it hard to see his wife’s clothes and shoes still there in the bedroom as if she had never died at all.’

  Meg had not really thought about that, but she saw now that May was absolutely right. ‘He’s never mentioned her clothes or anything to me,’ she said to May.

  ‘Probably hurts him to speak of it,’ May said.

  ‘I suppose,’ Meg said, and gave a sudden sigh. ‘I don’t half miss her, May.’

  May leaned forward and squeezed Meg’s shoulder. ‘I know, and, God knows, I miss her too,’ she said. ‘But what can’t be cured must be endured, as my poor mother would say.’

  She took another sip of her tea as Meg said, ‘It might upset me, but Mom’s things have got to be taken out of that room, haven’t they?’

  ‘They have,’ May said firmly. ‘You shouldn’t do it all on your own, though. I’ll give you a hand if you like.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘I would and gladly,’ May said. ‘And I say no time like the present.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Why not?’ May said. ‘Little Ruthie is asleep, Billy’s out playing and I have nothing pressing, so come on, let’s strike while the iron is hot.’

  Afterwards, Meg was so glad that May was there with her ready banter to keep misery away, for every garment she lifted from the wardrobe, or drew from the chest of drawers evoked poignant memories of her mother.

  But at last all was done and packed away in two tea chests, which Meg got from the attic; a cardboard box that May produced took all the combs, brushes and creams and so forth that littered her dressing table.

  Meg was apprehensive about their father’s reaction, but she needn’t have worried. When she asked him to go upstairs to see what she had done, he went straight away and stood for a moment in the doorway.

  ‘You … you’ve cleared out Maeve’s things,’ he said to Meg.

  ‘Yes,’ Meg said. ‘Only as far as the attic, though, in case you want to keep anything.’

  ‘I don’t need a keepsake to remember Maeve. She will be in my heart for ever,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m glad, relieved that you cleared her things away. I couldn’t bring myself to do it and I thought it would be too upsetting for you.’

  ‘It was a bit,’ Meg admitted. ‘But May helped me.’

  ‘She’s a good neighbour, that May,’ Charlie said.

  ‘None better,’ Meg agreed, and then took a deep breath. She didn’t know how her father would take to the idea of her wearing her dead mother’s clothes. ‘The point is, Daddy, what do you want me to do with Mom’s things now?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Well, Mom was going to buy me some new things for starting work,’ Meg said. ‘The ones I have now don’t fit too well.’

  Charlie looked at his daughter and saw that she was right. Her skirts were far too short and her buttons were strained across her bodice. He was ashamed that he hadn’t seen these things for himself.

  ‘My boots pinch my feet too,’ Meg said. ‘But if you wouldn’t mind me adapting Mom’s clothes to fit me, Jenny could have my things and Sally have Jenny’s and it will only be the boys who will have to have new things for the winter – and Ruth, of course.’

  Charlie drew in a deep breath. ‘I don’t say that it won’t cut me to the quick to see you in Maeve’s things, but if she were beside me this moment she would berate me for being stupid. She has no need of clothes and you have, you all have, so take what you need and I will learn to deal with it.’

  Charlie’s eyes were like pools of pain and Meg cried, ‘Oh, Dad, are you sure?’

  Charlie shook his head. ‘I’m not sure of anything much anymore, Meg,’ he said. ‘But I do know that it’s the sensible thing to do. Oh, Meg, Meg, I’ve been little help to you these past weeks.’

  ‘Oh, Dad, don’t,’ Meg said, embarrassed.

  ‘I know I’ve been selfish,’ Charlie said, ‘and I don’t blame you looking like that. My brothers have both been on about how I was behaving, but somehow I couldn’t see any way forward and drinking blurred it a bit. I missed your mother so much, and then the child … every time I looked at her, it brought it all back.’

  ‘I know, Dad,’ Meg said. ‘I feel Mom’s loss too, but it isn’t Ruth’s fault.’

  ‘I know that really,’ Charlie said, ‘but somehow I can’t feel for her the way I do about you and the others.’

  ‘Oh, Dad.’

  Charlie looked at the tears sparkling in his daughter’s eyes. ‘Don’t take on, old girl,’ he said. ‘I’m doing my best and I’m determined to change. I reckon I have wallowed in grief long enough. Time to take up the reins again.’

  Meg was delighted to hear her father’s words; if he meant them, their way forward would be easier. She thought of saying more about Ruth, but in the end said nothing. If he didn’t spend all the time in the pub and saw more of her, Meg thought he was bound to fall under Ruth’s spell, as the others had. Until that happened, she didn’t want to rock the boat. One day at a time, she told herself as she mounted the stairs to the attic.

  FIVE

  Billy had his fifth birthday and there was a little tea party for him with all the delicacies that he liked. May had helped her to make a cake with five candles on it and had also given Billy a couple of toy cars that he was thrilled with. Meg bought him a small blackboard and a packet of chalks that she had seen in the Market Hall at a very reasonable price. Billy’s attention had been taken at the time with the animals at Pimm’s pet shop, so he hadn’t known a thing about it. ‘You can practise for going to school.’ She told him. ‘Only you’ll have a slate there, but it’s more or less the same thing.’ He unwrapped it and gave a cry of delight.

  Billy’s fifth birthday seemed to bring the thought even closer that he would soon be a school boy and Meg realized that she would miss his company though Ruth would miss him more because they had become very good friends. And every Friday morning after paying the rent, rain or shine, she would push Ruth in her pram to the Bull Ring to shop for the bargain vegetables and meat. It was a hefty walk for little legs, so Billy would usually be hoisted up on the end of the pram for part of the journey there. He could sometimes hitch a ride back too. It would depend on how much produce Meg could pack around Ruth, or stuff into the large bag she had hanging from the pram handle.

  Meg loved going to the Bull Ring now that she didn’t have to hang about to be given meat and vegetables no one else had wanted, but could buy from the costers, like
any other respectable person. She seldom went to the Bull Ring without remembering her meeting with Joy. She knew it was unlikely she would see her again but, Joy or no Joy, the Bull Ring was an exciting place. Meg liked the noise, the riotous energy of the place, the special smells that rose in the air and the banter and cries of the costers.

  Billy was always as good as gold on these trips because he knew that if he behaved himself there was a chance Meg would take him into the Market Hall to play with the animals in Pimm’s pet shop and see the clock strike. It was the highlight of his visit, and willing hands were always around to whisk the pram up and down the steps to the Market Hall, as if it weighed nothing at all. While Meg scrutinised the prices of the various goods on sale, Billy was entranced by the twittering canaries, the colourful budgerigars and the squawking parrot that called out incessantly, ‘Who’s a pretty boy, then?’ He also liked the fish swimming endlessly around their bowls and the baby rabbits and guinea pigs, but best of all were the mewling kittens and the playful boisterous puppies that nipped at his fingers.

  When the clock chimed as a prelude to striking the hour it drew everyone’s attention. A sort of hush came over the place as the figures of three knights and a lady struck the bell denoting the hour.

  Billy always gave a sigh when it was over. ‘I love that clock.’ he’d say nearly every week as they made their way home. Meg could have said she liked the clock too, for waiting for the clock to strike was the only time in the day that Billy stopped chattering for two minutes at a time.

  Though Terry had been doubtful that his father would change that much, he had been pleasantly surprised. He no longer slipped into the pub on his way home on a Thursday, when one swift drink would turn into half a dozen in the twinkling of an eye, but instead brought his wages home to Meg as he had done to Maeve and took out some pocket money for himself that would pay for his ciggies and beer.