I dedicate this work to the memory of my little sister Susan Mary Nixon
Susan died 25 August 2000 in Hamilton, New Zealand, aged 52 years.
Saturday’s child works hard for a living.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
1952
One
Few people spoke to Nellie Hulme.
For one thing, she hadn’t cleaned and stoned her step since the turn of the century, while the inside of her house was reputed to be worse than Charlie Entwistle’s rag-and-bone yard. Lily Hardcastle, who suffered the questionable fortune of sharing party walls with Miss Hulme, was inundated with mice, silverfish, cockroaches and some little brown things for which no-one could discover a name.
Lily was worn out with it all. She felt like bringing in the sanitary people, but she couldn’t quite persuade herself to do it. There was something sad and pitiable about the lonely woman next door, that shambling figure that made its way from home to shop, from shop to library, out of the library and back home to squalid isolation.
Another reason for avoiding Nellie Hulme was that she stank like old books, aged sweat and, for some strange reason, over-boiled cabbage. According to theory, she never cooked, living instead on chip shop meals, pasties, pies and the odd sandwich on a Sunday when shops were closed. As cabbage was not a part of this odd equation, the folk in Prudence Street guessed that some ancient vegetable matter had found its resting place beneath piles of newspapers and rat droppings.
Whatever, the old lady was a disgrace, while her house should have been condemned years ago – even the bombed-out properties in the street were in better condition than number 1. Yes, the first house in Prudence Street was a festering boil, and something should have been done about it years ago.
Lily Hardcastle, who was scrubbing her step and her ‘first flag’ – decent people always scoured the slab just outside their front entrance – stopped the movement of brush and sandstone when Nellie Hulme’s door opened. Even now, out in the so-called fresh air, Smelly Nellie’s aroma tickled Lily’s nose. The woman was a disgrace. Soap and donkey-stone cost nowt. Nellie had enough old clothes in that house to swap for a hundred scrubbing stones off a passing rag cart. Should Lily have another go at getting through to Nellie? Did she have the energy for such a confrontation?
Lily sat back on her heels. It was no use; there was no point in going through all that mee-mawing again. Nellie Hulme was deaf and dumb. To communicate with her, a person had to enunciate each syllable and match the words to invisible drawings produced by hands waving about in the air. Lily was fed up with carrying on like a windmill. It was all right for everybody else in the street, because Nellie’s house was an end one, so poor Lily was the only one who suffered the constant smell and the frequent invasions by wildlife of many denominations. ‘Mucky owld bugger,’ she said under her breath. ‘House wants burning down, everything in it and all. Aye, the lot needs shifting.’
Lily’s youngest, an urchin named Roy, joined his mother in the doorway. ‘Her ashpit’s got maggots in it,’ he declared, ‘loads of them. I reckon I could sell them to people what go fishing. I wonder how much I could get for ’em?’
Lily clouted him across a leg with her floorcloth. ‘Get out of me wet,’ she ordered, ‘mind me donkey-stoning. Any road, you’re supposed to be in bed, lad. Have you been scratching them spots? What have I told you about that, eh? If you keep digging away like that, your gob’ll be smaller than the pox.’
Roy was not a thing of beauty; his freckle-spattered face was topped by a bright red thatch, and his skin was not improved by several bloody pits from which he had dug the pustules of chicken pox. ‘You’ll be marked for life,’ chided Lily. ‘Get back inside before I clout you again. And I hope you’ve not been poking and piking about over yon.’ She waved a chapped hand in the direction of next door. ‘It’s trespassing, is that. One of these days Nellie Hulme’ll get the police on you, me lad.’
Roy went back inside. He had ‘gone over’ once more, even though Mam had told him to stop. She had told him so often that his backside had stung from many a slapping, yet he could not resist climbing the yard wall to have a dekko through Nellie Hulme’s scullery window. It wasn’t easy, either, all that muck inside and outside the panes, but he had scraped a bit off and now wanted to tell somebody about the tree. It wasn’t every day a lad found a tree growing in a scullery.
Mam came in, her body bent sideways by the weight of a bucketful of water. ‘You’ve been and gone and done it again, haven’t you?’ she asked. ‘After all I’ve said, you’ve been hanging about in that filthy midden next door.’
He nodded mutely.
‘You’ll catch summat. You’ll catch the back of my hand and some terrible disease and all if you keep going over that back wall.’ She clattered the bucket onto the flagged kitchen floor. Curiosity overcame her. ‘Well?’ she asked. ‘What did you find this time? More maggots? Rats as big as cats?’
‘There’s a tree growing in the sloppy,’ he said.
‘Dirty owld bugger,’ muttered Lily. ‘In the slop-stone? It’ll be an onion. She likes raw onions on her cheese butties, or so I’ve heard. What else?’
The thin lad raised a shoulder. ‘I saw a mouse eating some bread. Well, I think it were bread and I think it were a mouse – could have been a small rat. Tins everywhere, milk gone green, newspapers on the floor. And the kitchen fire’s been raked out all over the place, ashes everywhere.’
Lily leaned against the table. She was getting wearied to the back teeth with Miss Nellie Hulme. Here she was, doing her best against all odds, three lads, a husband who liked his ale, a tuppence-halfpenny job at the Prince William, not a decent rag to her back. And at least half her day was taken up by fighting this losing battle against Smelly Nellie. ‘I’ll have to fetch the town,’ she declared. ‘Because it’s not right – we shouldn’t be living next to all that. She should be cleaned up and moved out. We’ll all be coming down with some sort of a plague – you mark my words.’
Roy picked at another itchy spot on his forehead. Mam was always going on about how everybody should mark her words.
‘I said mark my words, not your face. Now, give over doing that – I’ve told you,’ yelled Lily. ‘Scarlet fever’ll get into your system through them holes what you keep digging. Mithering about round ashpits while you’ve got open wounds – have you got no sense at all?’
Roy sighed. He didn’t know what to do with himself, because he didn’t feel ill, yet no-one was allowed to come near him until he had stopped being infectious. Although he disagreed with the theory that education was a necessity, he had to admit that school was a damned sight better than being stuck here with Mam, washing, ironing, cooking and scrubbing. He couldn’t even go next door. Nellie Hulme didn’t seem to mind; she had seen him, had made no effort to chase him off. ‘I’ve nowt to do,’ he moaned, wishing immediately that he could bite back the words. ‘I can find summat,’ he added hastily, ‘I could read in me bedroom or . . . or I can make sums up, practise, like, for when I can go back to school.’
Lily skewered him with a hard look, handed him the Zebo and some rags. ‘Get that grate shining,’ she ordered. ‘Use plenty of leading and elbow grease. No finger marks, no dull bits and wash your hands when you’ve finished.’
‘But Mam—’
> ‘You heard me, so shape.’
‘The heat makes me spots itch,’ he moaned, ‘and I’m still not well. See, I’ve got a fever, all sweaty and . . . and . . .’ His voice died. The expression on his mother’s face declared that all negotiation was fruitless, that there would be no treaty, no quarter given. ‘All right,’ he mumbled. He smeared Zebo on the oven door and wished with all his heart that he had kept his mouth shut, because Mam often found work for idle hands, declaring that she would use them before the devil did. That was yet another of Mam’s sayings – the one about the devil and idle hands.
Lily stood in front of the dresser mirror and looked at the reflected stranger. She was only thirty-eight. Her eldest was seventeen, her middle one fourteen, her youngest, now making a feeble effort to shine the oven door, was nine. ‘I suppose I’m a lucky one,’ she mouthed. After all, Sam wasn’t at her all the time, wasn’t forcing her to have a baby every year. And there were ways and means, methods unavailable to the hordes of Catholics across the street. Aye, things could have been a damned sight worse, she reminded herself yet again.
But she looked so tired, so faded. It was a toss-up, she supposed, between poverty caused by too many children, or the same produced by a man who drank half his wages, thereby rendering himself incapable of procreation most nights of the week. Well, she would try hard to be grateful, she really would. The inner voice wore a sarcastic edge.
Lily wanted more than this, more than a life that had become a fight against many kinds of filth. Even thinking about the men’s lavs at the Prince William made her gorge rise, all those deposits left everywhere, vomit, faeces, phlegm. And some of it was likely Sam’s, as he was one of the ne’er-do-wells who frequented that particular hostelry. Yes, she hated cleaning that pub. She was meant for better things, for a decent home, a pleasant life . . . wasn’t she? Was any member of her generation going to step outside these mean streets with their soot-coated walls and ill-tasting air? Where was there a decent life? Where should she go to seek it out? God, she had no idea what she was thinking about.
She’d been a bonny girl in her time, apple-cheeked, auburn-haired, straight of spine, strong in wind and limb. But now . . . She stepped closer to the speckled mirror. She could have been any age over forty, just a white face whose definition had become blurred by the fatty deposits from a poor diet, faded hair that was almost mousy, tired eyes, a forehead lined by care.
‘Mam?’
‘What?’
‘Do I have to finish it?’
Lily swallowed. Marriage finished it every bloody time. She thought about the friends she’d had at school and in the mill, every last one of them worn down by motherhood, poverty, some by abusive husbands. That was the other good thing about Sam – he had never lifted a hand to her or the kids . . .
‘Mam, I’m tired.’
Aye, they were all bloody tired, all pale-skinned through living in narrow alleys supervised by mill walls, mill chimneys, mill smoke. There had to be more than this, she told herself. The best she could expect was a chara ride to Blackpool once a year, some visits to and from relatives, a cigarette when she could afford one. There was no point in expecting new frocks and decent shoes, no sense in dreaming about a hairdo or a lipstick. And the idea of a better, cleaner life had to be the product of a disturbed mind. She had to accept it, live with it, just like everybody else . . .
‘Mam?’
‘Oh, leave it, Roy – you’re getting on me bloody nerves – and that’s swearing.’ Not one of her sons could be described as either use or ornament. Like their father, they were selfish, thoughtless, feckless. No, that wasn’t true, because Danny sometimes looked at her sideways before handing her an extra shilling.
‘Mam?’
She rounded on him. ‘Go,’ she said, her tone dangerously quiet. ‘Go and look at her next door’s tree, her maggots, her green milk. I’m past caring, Roy. I’m past all of it. Only don’t come running to me when you catch the scarlet.’ She was tempted to add, ‘Because I might not be here’, but motherhood held back those words.
Roy studied his mother for a few moments. She had a temper as red-raw as any Irish Catholic’s, but there was something a lot worse than temper in Lily Hardcastle. She had a cold place, a part of her that sat way below ordinary anger. Perhaps that was because she wasn’t a Catholic. Catholics lived on the other side of the street. They were noisy, ill-kempt and full of fun. When he grew up, Roy Hardcastle was going to become a Catholic. They had singsongs, tunes played on a melodeon, fights, dramas.
He went outside and thought about climbing over the wall, but the excitement had gone now that he had Mam’s permission; things weren’t half as exciting when adults approved. He scuffed clog irons on yard flags, kicked a stone about, admitted that chicken pox was not a good idea. He missed having people to talk to – even teachers were better than nothing at a pinch.
Lily sank into a fireside chair. She was in a funny sort of mood, one she couldn’t quite get to grips with. Her thoughts were all over the place, darting about like a butterfly on a hot summer’s day. And how many butterflies had she seen this year? How many chances had there been to look for a butterfly? Week after week, she went from posser to clothes line, oven to table, cleaning to ironing, the only change in routine a three-hour shift as dogsbody at the Prince Billy. Had she cleaned the ashtrays, did she know they were nine beer glasses short, when was she going to scrub the floors? And it would likely go on like this for ever.
‘Thirty-eight,’ she said aloud. ‘Thirty-eight and bloody finished. Well, it’s either me or them, and it’s not going to be me. I’ve got to get out of here before I turn daft.’ An inner voice told her that she couldn’t go, but she shushed it, her tongue clicking impatiently against her front teeth. A door opened to let folk in and to allow others out. Surely stepping away would be easy?
She looked at the Home Sweet Home sampler above the fire, glanced at a few blue-and-white plates on the old dresser. Whatever was she thinking of? She had three sons, one down a Westhoughton pit, one ready for leaving school, Roy still a little lad. Then there was Sam, who was not the worst husband in the world. She noticed how she kept processing the same thoughts, the same excuses and reasons. She was staying put because things could have been worse, was trying to prevent herself from looking for better. This might be 1950, but women were still not allowed to wander. They could vote, could run a country while men ran about with guns, but they remained morally tethered to their duties.
She saw Roy through the window, knew from the noise that he was sparking his clogs against the flags. Normally, she would have berated him for wearing out his irons, but she couldn’t be bothered any more. Something had ended today. What, though? What was different about today? What was suddenly so wrong? Perhaps she was having the change of life early.
There was usually enough food on the table; even when Sam drank his way through five bob, they managed to have sufficient to eat. But bellies were topped up by Lily’s Prince Billy money. By rights, Prince Billy money should be saved for Christmas, for days out, clothes, kids’ birthdays. He wasn’t pulling his weight, wasn’t Sam. He had never pulled his weight, come to think.
She tapped her fingers on the edge of the fireguard. Agitated on the surface, she was experiencing an inner calm that was almost frightening. It was ten minutes to one. Danny, her eldest, would be back from the pit at about six o’clock. She had a soft spot for Danny, who helped out as best he could when it came to money. Aaron, the fourteen-year-old, would be leaving school in a couple of months. That left Roy, nine years old and as much trouble as a barrel of monkeys. He was too young to be abandoned. Had she stopped loving her children, then? Was she one of those women who lacked true maternal feelings? Questions, questions, no bloody answers, no way of escaping the eternal circle.
And where the bloody hell did she think she was going, anyway? Buckingham Palace? ‘Excuse me, King George, but I could do with a job – oh – and can my Roy go to school with the little princesses
?’ No, the princesses weren’t young any more – the older was married with a baby son of her own. Lily was losing her mind . . . or was she? A note to Danny – please look after Aaron. Aaron. Daft name, that. But Sam had insisted on it, as Aaron had been his grandfather’s name.
Perhaps that was the answer – she had never been allowed much of a say in anything. Sam went to work, brought in the wage – after it had been depleted by his drinking – so he ruled the roost. Men ruled. They were in charge, which was why the world was for ever at war. ‘I’ve got to do it,’ she explained to herself. ‘I have to get myself off out of here before it kills me.’ But there was no certainty in the words, no conviction. It was a dream.
‘I’m going,’ she announced firmly. She would not run to her family. She was determined not to become a burden to anyone. So first, she had to find herself a job, somewhere to live, a new school for Roy . . . Raising her head, she looked at him once more. He was hanging over the wall that separated the Hardcastle family from the disgraceful house next door. Roy adored his father. Lily could not discuss her half-formed plan with a nine-year-old. Born after his father’s enlistment for war, Roy had made a hero of the man who had returned with a scarred face and one finger missing.
‘I can’t say a word to you until the last minute,’ she whispered at a disappearing pair of legs. ‘And if you don’t want to come, I won’t force you.’ This was like a fairy tale, something out of a book with big coloured pictures inside. She wove the story, wished with all her heart that she dared to live the fable.
She took a deep breath. The twentieth century was half done and the war was long over. Some items were still rationed, many things were hard to get, and there was a restlessness in people, a feeling that things should be better after a five-year ceasefire. They had suffered deprivation beyond measure, had endured hardship because the country had needed to ‘pull together’ in the face of the enemy. Where was the reward? Where was the compensation? War widows existed on pensions too paltry to feed a cat, a few wounded heroes sat on doorsteps waiting for life to begin again. As for herself – Lily Hardcastle had lost two stone since the birth of Roy, had directed all rations at her children, had become old.
Saturday's Child Page 1
