Agnes Owens

by Agnes Owens

  ‘What circumstances?’

  ‘Don’t you work?’ the headmistress asked pleasantly.

  Mrs Sharp sagged. She had a presentiment of doom. Her husband had never liked her working. ‘A woman’s place is in the home,’ he always said when any crisis arose – despite the fact that her income was a necessity.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Of course,’ said the headmistress, her spectacles directed towards the top of Mrs Sharp’s head, ‘I understand that many mothers work nowadays, but unfortunately they are producing a generation of latch-key children running wild. Far be it for me to judge the parents’ circumstances, but I think a child’s welfare comes first.’ She smiled toothily. ‘Perhaps I’m old-fashioned, but –’

  ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me a woman’s place is in the home?’ asked Mrs Sharp, through tight lips.

  ‘If she has children, I would say so.’

  Mrs Sharp threw caution to the wind. ‘If I didn’t work George wouldn’t have any uniform to go to school with –’

  She broke off at the entrance of an agitated tangle-haired young woman.

  ‘I’m sorry Miss McHare,’ said the young woman, ‘I didn’t know you were with someone –’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said the headmistress. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s George Sharp again.’

  ‘Dear, dear!’ The headmistress braced herself while Mrs Sharp slumped.

  ‘He was fighting, in the playground. Ken Wilson has a whopper of an eye. Sharp is outside. I was going to send him in, but if you’re engaged –’

  The headmistress addressed Mrs Sharp. ‘You see what I mean. It just had to be George again.’

  She turned to the young teacher. ‘This is George’s mother.’

  ‘Good morning,’ said the young teacher, without enthusiasm.

  ‘How do you know George started it?’ asked Mrs Sharp, thrusting her pale face upwards. The headmistress stiffened. She stood up and towered above Mrs Sharp like a female Gulliver. Mrs Sharp pointed her chin at a right angle in an effort to focus properly.

  The headmistress ordered, ‘Bring the boy in.’

  George Sharp shuffled in, tall and gangling, in contrast to his hunched mother, who gave him a weak smile when he looked at her blankly.

  ‘Now,’ said the headmistress, ‘I hear you’ve been fighting.’

  George nodded.

  ‘You know fighting is forbidden within these grounds.’

  ‘Ken Wilson was fighting as well,’ he replied hoarsely, squinting through strands of dank hair.

  ‘Ken Wilson is a delicate boy who does not fight.’

  ‘He kicked me,’ George mumbled, his eyes swivelling down to his sandshoes.

  The headmistress explained to no one in particular, ‘Of course George is not above telling lies.’

  Mrs Sharp rose from her chair like a startled bird. ‘Listen son, did that boy kick you?’

  ‘Yes Ma,’ George said eagerly.

  ‘Where?’

  He pointed vaguely to his leg.

  ‘Pull up your trouser.’

  George did so.

  ‘Look,’ said Mrs Sharp triumphantly, ‘that’s a black and blue mark.’

  ‘Looks more like dirt,’ tittered the young teacher.

  ‘Dirt is it?’ Mrs Sharp rubbed the mark. George winced.

  ‘That’s sore.’

  ‘It’s a kick mark. Deny it if you can.’

  ‘Come now,’ said the headmistress, ‘we’re not in a courtroom. Besides, whether it’s a kick mark or not doesn’t prove a thing. Possibly it was done in retaliation. Frankly I don’t see Ken Wilson starting it. He hasn’t got the stamina.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Mrs Sharp. ‘I know Ken Wilson better than you, and he’s no better than any other kid when it comes to starting fights. He’s well known for throwing stones and kicking cats –’

  The headmistress intervened. ‘In any case this is beside the point. I brought you here to discuss George’s behaviour in general, and not this matter in particular.’

  ‘And bloody well wasted my time,’ retorted Mrs Sharp.

  The headmistress’s mouth fell open at the effrontery. She turned to the young teacher.

  ‘You may go now, Miss Tilly,’ adding ominously to George, ‘You too, Sharp. I’ll deal with you later.’

  George gave his mother an anguished look as he was led out.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she called to him.

  The headmistress said, ‘I don’t know what you mean by that, because I think your son has plenty to worry about.’

  Mrs Sharp stood up placing her hands on her hips. Her cheeks were now flushed.

  ‘You know what I think – I think this is a case of persecution. I mean the way you carried on about George fighting just proves it. And all this guff about him distracting the class – well if that flibbery gibbery miss is an example of a teacher then no wonder the class is easily distracted. Furthermore,’ she continued wildly before the headmistress could draw her breath, ‘I’ll be writing to the authorities to let them know how my son is treated. Don’t think they won’t be interested because all this bullying in school is getting a big write-up nowadays.’

  ‘How dare you talk to me like that,’ said the headmistress, visibly white round the nose. ‘It’s your son who is the bully.’

  Mrs Sharp jeered, ‘So now he’s a bully. While you’re at it is there anything else? I suppose if you had your way he’d be off to a remand home.’

  ‘No doubt he’ll get there of his own accord.’

  The remark was lost on Mrs Sharp, now launched into a tirade of reprisal for all injustices perpetrated against working-class children and her George in particular. The headmistress froze in the face of such eloquence, which was eventually summed up by the final denunciation:

  ‘So if I was you I’d hand in my notice before all this happens. Anyway you’re getting too old for the job. It stands to reason your nerves are all shook up. It’s a well-known fact that spinster teachers usually end cracking up and being carted off.’

  The change in their complexions was remarkable. The head-mistress was flushed purple with rage and Mrs Sharp was pallid with conviction.

  There was a space of silence. Then the headmistress managed to say, ‘Get out – before I call the janitor.’

  Mrs Sharp gave a hard laugh. ‘Threats is it now? Still I’m not bothered, for it seems to me you’ve got all the signs of cracking up right now. By the way if you lay one finger on George I’ll put you on a charge.’

  She flounced out of the room when the headmistress picked up the telephone, and banged the door behind her. The head-mistress replaced the receiver without dialling, then sat down at the desk with her head in her hands, staring at the open notebook.

  Outside Mrs Sharp joined a woman waiting against the school railings, eating crisps.

  ‘How did you get on?’ the woman asked.

  Mrs Sharp rummaged in her plastic bag and brought out a packet of cigarettes. Before she shoved one into her mouth she said, ‘Tried to put me in my place she did – well I soon showed her she wasn’t dealing with some kind of underling –’

  The woman threw the empty crisp packet on to the grass.

  ‘What about George?’

  Mrs Sharp looked bitter. ‘See that boy – he’s a proper devil. Wait till I get him home and I’ll beat the daylights out of him. I’ll teach him to get me sent for.’

  Commemoration Day

  Molly strolled through the gates of the big city park possessed by a mild sense of adventure after she had cashed her giro and purchased twenty cigarettes instead of her usual ten. She walked over the grass to the pond and watched children throw bread at the ducks but the wind blowing over the water was too keen for comfort. She moved onwards, tightening the belt of her skimpy yellow raincoat that clung to her lumpy hips like orange peel. A stone thrown by one of the children skimmed close to her fat legs. When she reached the protective shrubbery of the gardens she allowed her
self the luxury of a few puffs. She studied tags tied to foreign-looking plants and was none the wiser. When she pulled on a bud about to bloom into some mysterious flower, the stem broke. Guiltily she threw it down. Following a side path in the hope of finding someone to chat with, even if only about the weather, she almost collided with a young man running hard towards her. As they stood, nearly eye to eye, she saw he looked as startled as she felt, but when she stepped aside to let him pass he asked harshly, ‘What’s the time missus?’

  ‘Half-past two,’ she said, glancing at her watch and not liking the word ‘missus’ or anything else about him.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘My watch keeps good time,’ said Molly coldly.

  ‘Got a match on you?’

  ‘I have not.’ A right ignorant one, she thought, with his spiky hair and hollow-cheeked face. He stroked his chin nervously and she noticed a jagged cut on the back of his hand. She said, ‘You’ve a bad gash there.’

  He looked at it. ‘Must have caught it on barbed wire.’ He stared behind him.

  She said, ‘Better get it seen to,’ and added, ‘Where does this path lead?’

  He put his damaged hand in the pocket of his crumpled jacket. ‘I wouldn’t go up there if I was you.’ His voice was threatening.

  Molly retorted, ‘I can go wherever I like. It’s no business of yours.’

  ‘Please yourself, but the north lodge is closed to the public. One of the upper crust, Sir Peter Carlin himself, is exercising his horses, as if the old bastard didn’t have anything else to do.’

  ‘Perhaps he hasn’t. Anyway,’ she added suspiciously, ‘how come you were up there?’

  ‘I wasn’t. They chased me.’

  She softened at the information. ‘Oh well,’ she laughed, ‘no doubt the rich have got their troubles, like the poor.’

  ‘Not quite the same though.’

  ‘Trouble is trouble, no matter who you are.’ She looked him over considering he was a poor-looking specimen, but that was the style of them nowadays, seedy and ill-mannered.

  ‘True.’ He nodded his head.

  ‘And I’ve had mine, I can tell you.’

  ‘How’s that,’ he asked, twisting his head backwards.

  ‘When you’ve lost a husband and a son in the space of a year, there’s not much left to worry about.’ She was aware this fellow wasn’t all that interested by the jerky look of him, but she was glad of the casual way she could say this now.

  ‘Hmm,’ he muttered, then, ‘God, I wish I had a match.’

  She searched in her bag and threw him a box. He lit a half-smoked cigarette and returned the box, grunting something which could have been thanks.

  ‘Better get that seen to.’ She touched his hand.

  ‘It’s only a scratch.’

  Fumbling again in her bag, she brought out a neatly ironed handkerchief. ‘Tie that round your hand anyway. It will keep it clean.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, backing away.

  Molly shrugged and shifted about to ease her aching legs. The young man drew fiercely on the butt end of the cigarette then stamped it into the ground and shivered violently. ‘Do you feel all right?’ she said.

  ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘You look cold. I just wondered –’

  ‘I had a dose of the flu recently. It’s left me dizzy. Is that OK with you?’

  ‘It’s no concern of mine,’ she said coolly and made to move onwards.

  He tugged at the sleeve of her coat. ‘Sorry missus. No offence meant. It’s just that I’ve had a rotten day.’

  She studied his thin hard face. If Tommy had lived he would have been about this fellow’s age, otherwise there was no compari -son. Tommy had been fresh-faced and handsome, though not at the end.

  ‘That’s all right. We all have our off days,’ but she kept on walking.

  ‘You haven’t a fag on you?’ he asked, catching up.

  She stopped and gave him one. He accepted it without any kind of thanks. His hand shook.

  ‘Not in trouble are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Trouble?’ he repeated.

  ‘It’s not unusual nowadays.’

  He regarded her with a blank expression, then smiled crookedly. He put the cigarette in his pocket.

  ‘Aren’t you going to smoke that?’

  ‘Later.’

  Like a mother and son on an enforced outing they continued to walk together back along the path leading out to the open park.

  ‘Working, are you?’ Molly asked by way of conversation.

  ‘No.’

  ‘That’s the style of things nowadays –’

  ‘I expect I’ll get something soon,’ he said. ‘I hate all this hanging about. It stinks.’ He mumbled this as if he was speaking to himself rather than her.

  ‘I can understand.’

  ‘Can you?’ he said bitterly.

  Molly wished she was back home with a pot of tea on the boil. This young man’s presence was worse than none at all. She’d be better off listening to the news on the radio, and that was bad enough.

  ‘I don’t think you do,’ he added.

  ‘Listen,’ she said, stopping short, ‘don’t talk to me about understanding. I’ve had enough of that. My husband and my son used to say, “Keep out of our affairs – you just don’t understand.” Well they’re both gone. One died for nothing and the other from drink, and here I am, still not understanding.’ She quickened her footsteps out of anger but he kept pace with her easily.

  ‘Sorry missus,’ he said.

  ‘It wasn’t only the drink though,’ she said, turning to her companion, ‘I’ve no doubt his heart was broken, my husband’s I mean, after Tommy was gone.’

  ‘Tommy?’

  She sighed. ‘I don’t want to talk about it any more.’

  They walked on in silence. Molly judged that in another ten minutes she would be out of the park and on her way home – a pity the excursion had done nothing for her at all, and by the look of it, this one at her side was no happier than she was – poor sod, at his age too.

  ‘I suppose you young ones have a lot to be bitter about – no work, no future, nothing to do,’ she said giving him a sidelong glance.

  He shrugged, looked behind him, then asked again, ‘What’s the time now?’

  ‘Twenty to,’ she informed him, adding, ‘Meeting someone?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  She thought possibly he wasn’t all there in the head. People like that sometimes had a passion for wanting to know the time as if there was nothing else to care about.

  ‘They might be looking for someone in Maloney’s bar. If you like I’ll put in a word for you. I used to work there. Maloney would listen to me.’ After a pause she added, ‘He liked my Tommy.’

  ‘I’ve heard of Maloney,’ he said, without enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s good money and free drink, within reason.’

  ‘I don’t drink.’

  ‘It’s not a qualification.’ Molly considered with the face he had, as sour as piss, he’d as much chance as a snowball in hell with Maloney, then she tripped over a stone embedded in the grass.

  ‘Watch out!’ he said catching her elbow.

  She laughed to cover her distaste at the touch of him saying, ‘Swollen feet, that’s my problem.’

  ‘Hold on to my arm,’ he offered.

  Amazed at his decency she complied, but when she discovered she was being led towards the duck pond she said, ‘I’d rather go home now, if you don’t mind. I can manage fine.’

  ‘Wait a minute. I’ve a fancy to see the ducks,’ but he looked backwards as if he’d more of a fancy to see what was behind him. They reached the pond before she could think of the right words to allow her to head for the gate. It was deserted except for the ducks bobbing up and down in the water like plastic toys. Straightaway the young man turned his back on them and looked over to the park gate, breaking her hold. ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Nearly ten to.’ There was
definitely something wrong. He was either mad or – her mind swivelled away from other possibilities as she knelt down and dipped her handkerchief in the edge of the water. Avoiding his face she stood up. ‘Wipe that cut. It’s starting to bleed.’ He wiped his hand carelessly and threw the cloth into the water as if its crisp whiteness offended him.

  ‘Did you have to do that?’ Molly said, angered by the sight of the spreading piece of linen with the blue initial T embroidered on the corner attracting the ducks, which turned away fastidiously on closer investigation. His face remained pointing towards the gate like a dog that smells wind of a rabbit.

  ‘I really must go,’ she snapped.

  ‘No, don’t.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I?’

  ‘You’re Tommy’s ma, aren’t you?’

  Molly held her breath. Her head swam and she felt sick, a sure sign of blood pressure. She closed her eyes until the nausea passed. ‘My son is dead.’

  ‘I know.’ His thin face appeared less harsh, almost sympathetic.

  ‘What has he to do with you?’ She wanted to strike the insinuating look from him.

  ‘I never knew him really,’ he explained with his half-smile, ‘but we are keeping faith with him. You might say this is his commemoration day.’

  A spasm of fury shook her. ‘Commemoration day?’ she shouted. ‘Dear Christ, will it never end!’ She looked upwards for a second then faced him steadily. ‘I’ll tell you something. I don’t want no commemoration for Tommy from you or those others. As far as I’m concerned he wasn’t my son at the end, dying the way he did – poisoned with hatred and half mad, just like you.’

  His face was hard again. ‘I’m sorry you think that way missus, but it’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Nothing to do with me? You knew who I was didn’t you, else why have you clung to me like a limpet, talking about com -memoration day.’

  The young man’s eyes swivelled to the gate then back to her. ‘I hadn’t a clue who you were. I only needed you for the time on your watch. I lost mine climbing over the barbed wire and I have to be at the gate on the hour to get picked up, otherwise I’m done for.’ His voice harshened. ‘So, what’s the time now missus?’