A Sister's Duty

by June Francis

  ‘Do you know the number?’

  ‘No. But Babs said the house is called “Eden”. It’s interesting, isn’t it? It’s out of the Bible. Mrs Baxendale next door read the story to me. It’s where Adam and Eve lived.’

  ‘Hmmph!’ The bobby wrote down the name, thinking all had not been lovely in the Garden of Eden either. Then he got up. ‘You staying?’ he asked the WAPS woman.

  She shook her head. ‘I’m whacked. I think the girl can cope with making porridge and getting them off to school.’

  They left the house together, he to visit the next-door neighbour to ask her to keep her eye on the Kilshaw children before making the house called ‘Eden’ his next port of call.

  Chapter Two

  Amelia Needham checked the standard measures on the back of the NH card against the side of the bottle and handed it to the woman on the other side of the counter. ‘That’ll be tuppence.’

  ‘Tuppence?’ she exclaimed, sounding scandalised as she reached for the bottle. ‘My husband’s supposed to get this free. It was Lloyd George who said—’

  ‘I don’t care what Lloyd George said. You know what the tuppence is for, Mrs Rothwell,’ said Amelia, holding the bottle of cough mixture just out of reach. ‘Your husband might be on the panel but if you don’t want to pay the tuppence again, bring the bottle back next time.’

  ‘It’s a bloody disgrace,’ muttered the woman, fumbling in her shabby purse. ‘Tuppence! I could put that in the gas meter.’

  Amelia remained unmoved, wishing not for the first time she could afford to give the darn bottles away but knowing that if she did, none would ever be brought back, and bottles had to be saved. Counting the cost of the war was something the whole country still had to do.

  The elderly woman pressed a penny and two ha’pennies into Amelia’s palm and almost snatched the bottle from her. Turning away, she collided with a younger woman. ‘Watch where yer going!’ she snapped before hurrying out.

  ‘Tess, are you all right?’ Amelia came out from round the counter and steadied her friend.

  ‘Don’t fuss, Lee!’ Tess’s voice shook as she thrust a prescription into Amelia’s hand.

  She glanced at it. ‘What’s this? Sleeping pills?’ Amelia had known Tess Hudson since they had attended college in Blackburn Place thirteen years ago to study the theory part of their secondary certificate in pharmacy. She noticed that her friend’s lipstick was smeared halfway up her thin cheeks and the metal-framed, thick-lensed spectacles needed cleaning. Her auburn hair dangled untidily and the buttons of her coat were fastened through the wrong holes so that it hung lopsided.

  ‘It’s getting worse, isn’t it?’ said Amelia, guiding her to the chair used by customers needing a rest. Tess was a diabetic and had ulcerated feet. Amelia wondered if she was eating properly and taking enough insulin.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ muttered her friend, dropping her head.

  Amelia’s face tightened with concern. ‘I wish I could help you. Are you worrying about Peter?’

  Tess avoided her eyes. ‘If he had gone to Burma, maybe, but we worked out a code and he’s in Norway. The war’s as good as over there.’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  Tess clasped her hands tightly in her lap. ‘You should know,’ she said wearily. ‘I can’t keep up with the twins and the place is always a bloody mess. I can’t see well enough to do anything properly – and I can’t bloody sleep!’

  ‘But you’ve got Chris. He’s a good lad, and he’s got a job now. His wages must help? Although I never thought Peter would agree to his working on the land.’

  ‘Why not? Besides, have you forgotten? Chris isn’t his son.’

  Amelia bit her lip. ‘I had. Peter’s always behaved like a father to him and I put what you told me all those years ago out of my mind. Have you ever heard from the real father?’

  ‘No. And it’s unlikely I ever shall. He married someone else.’

  ‘You never told me that.’ Amelia slanted her a puzzled glance.

  Tess made a queer little noise in her throat which could have been a laugh, before saying in a breathless kind of voice, ‘I don’t think he even loves his wife. Listen, Lee, are you going to give Mr Brown that prescription or not? I haven’t got all day.’

  ‘Of course, keep your hair on.’ Amelia squeezed her shoulder, hating to see her friend going downhill so fast. ‘I wish I could help you more,’ she repeated, about to add that what with the shop and the house to see to, she didn’t get much of a chance for anything else.

  Tess lifted her head. ‘Do you mean that, Lee? Do you?’ There was an almost hysterical note in her voice. ‘That you’d really like to help me?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Tess smiled, the smeared lipstick making her face appear clown-like. ‘Now, that prescription, if you don’t mind?’

  ‘All right! I’m going, I’m going.’ Amelia returned her smile and went into the dispensing room to the rear of the shop.

  It was a place she had always loved ever since her father had first brought her here when she was only a child just after the Great War. When old enough, she had started her training as a dispenser but had never completed it because her mother had died and her own life had been turned upside-down. ‘Be quick with this, Brownie. Mrs Hudson’s waiting for it,’ she said to the man her father had trained before her.

  She returned to the shop, only to be brought up short by a navy-blue-uniformed figure. Of Tess there was no sign. Amelia wondered where she had gone.

  ‘Can I help you, Constable?’ she asked, raising well-shaped eyebrows interrogatively.

  ‘You are Miss Amelia Needham?’ he said solemnly.

  ‘Yes. That does sound official.’

  ‘Perhaps you’d like to sit down, miss?’ There was gingery stubble on his chin and where he had taken off his helmet she could see a red mark caused by the strap.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, heart beginning to thump.

  His expression was compassionate. ‘Your sister – I’m afraid she’s met with an accident.’

  Amelia gripped the counter with both hands. ‘Iris! Is it serious? But no—’ Uncertainty appeared in her face. ‘They wouldn’t tell me like this. Iris is in Canada.’

  ‘It’s Mrs Violet Kilshaw who’s dead,’ he said heavily.

  Amelia stared at him, shocked. But almost instantly she was remembering the last time she had seen Violet, could hear the harsh words echoing in her head. Now all that defiance, all that vitriol, was wiped out. Violet was dead. She thought of the pain and suffering they had all gone through after Violet had stormed out with her daughters, and the memory left a sour taste in her own mouth.

  ‘Are you all right, miss? Do you want to sit down?’

  Amelia stiffened and flung back her head, pale green eyes as hard as glass. ‘I’m perfectly all right, and I’m not going to shed any crocodile tears if you expect that! Thank you for telling me. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.’

  His expression was one of disbelief. ‘But what about the children?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your sister’s children. They’re all alone. They need you,’ he said urgently.

  ‘I don’t know my sister’s children.’ Amelia’s voice was dismissive. Yet she was remembering a girl’s face pressed to the window, gazing in just as Father had suffered his stroke. ‘My sister kept them away from us. She let my father die without ever seeing him again.’ Amelia’s voice was passionate. ‘Don’t expect me to grieve for her!’

  ‘That’s as may be, miss,’ he said, looking uncomfortable. ‘But the children . . . they need someone.’

  ‘Then find someone,’ she urged, leaning across the counter, cheeks flushed. ‘Someone else!’

  He looked shocked.

  There was silence broken only by the voice of the pharmacist. ‘Miss Needham, prescription’s ready.’

  Amelia turned and took the drugs from Mr Brown with a murmur of thanks, and then she
did what she should have done earlier and filled in the prescription book.

  ‘Excuse me, miss, but you don’t really mean that, do you?’ said the constable.

  ‘I do.’ Amelia’s voice was carefully controlled now, though her heart was pounding painfully.

  ‘But they’re all alone and there’s a funeral to arrange. You can’t expect them to do that.’

  Amelia plucked the eldest girl’s name out of the air. ‘Rosie – how old is she?’ she said, glancing up from the book.

  ‘Fifteen. Sixteen in a couple of months, so the neighbour said.’

  ‘Almost a young woman.’

  ‘Aye. But not old enough to cope with this kind of thing. Doesn’t want to believe it’s happened. That’s how it can take people. Throws them right off their stride.’

  Amelia finished writing and fixed him with a stare. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything about grief, Constable. It’s only a year since my father passed away, and my mother died in childbirth when I was eighteen, along with the baby boy we’d all been hoping for. I had to break off my engagement and my studies to take care of my father and younger sister, who was eight at the time. Violet, the eldest, decided she had her own life to live and left me to pick up the pieces while she waltzed off with her latest boyfriend, marrying him against my father’s wishes.’

  ‘Aye, well,’ he murmured, looking even more uncomfortable. ‘I’m sure you have your reasons for feeling the way you do, but are they good enough to split up the family and let your own kith and kin go into a home? Because that’s what’ll happen to the younger ones if you can’t help out. I mean, where’s your conscience?’

  ‘You take too much on yourself, Constable!’ Her voice was like a whiplash. ‘There’s nothing on my conscience. I’ve done my duty by my family. Who’s with the children now? What about their father’s mother?’

  ‘Don’t know anything about her. Never mentioned her. A neighbour’s with the one they call Dotty but the other three went to school. You can’t really expect a neighbour to see to the funeral and everything. That’s family business, miss,’ he said firmly. ‘So are you going to come?’

  A heaviness seemed to descend on Amelia and she felt chilled to the bone. She did not need a cocky little policeman to tell her where her duty lay. Duty was what had killed all her hopes and dreams; her romance with Bernard, which in the end had turned sour on both of them. It was as if once more Violet was mocking her for doing what she had, except this time instead of across a table it was from beyond the grave. ‘Where’s your sense of duty now, Lee?’ She could almost hear her sister saying it.

  Well, she wasn’t going to have it! Why should she have to look after Violet’s children? Why? It wasn’t fair! Then she caught the policeman’s eye and knew she would at least have to make the funeral arrangements.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she said, resentfully. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve work to do.’

  He thanked her and turned to leave the shop. Tess collided with him on her way back in and he begged her pardon. She waved him away and headed for the counter. ‘Is that prescription ready, Lee?’

  ‘Yes.’ Amelia brought her thoughts back to the job in hand. ‘Give me your bag and I’ll put it in. But you’ll be careful with these sleeping tablets, won’t you? Don’t ever take more than two.’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ Tess went to hand her the money.

  ‘No. This one’s on me,’ said Amelia, folding her friend’s fingers over the coins.

  Tess gave a twisted smile. ‘You’re very good to me, Lee. Thanks for everything. Goodbye.’

  ‘I’ll see you soon,’ called Amelia. Then she turned and went into the dispensing room to tell Brownie he was going to have to hold the fort for the next few days.

  It had been a difficult day for Rosie. School had seemed so normal that despite the painful stitches in her face and aching ribs where she had fallen against a seat on the tram, she had wondered several times if she had dreamt the policeman sitting in the kitchen saying her mother was dead. She wanted it to have been a nightmare. She certainly felt strange, limbs leaden and head woolly, as if she had just woken from a deep, deep sleep. Stupidly, she pinched herself, knowing all the time it was no dream.

  A gust of freezing wind blew up the skirts of her school mackintosh and, shivering, she broke into a run, humping the satchel of books over her shoulder.

  ‘Hey, Rosie!’ A delivery bicycle came to a skidding halt in the gutter beside her. ‘Give us your satchel?’ said its rider, balancing his heavy machine with one foot set against the kerb.

  ‘Is that a joke?’ She gave him a hostile stare. Davey lived next door, Mrs Baxendale’s only remaining son, the eldest having been killed in the war. She had always been kind to the Kilshaw children but Davey had been the bane of Rosie’s life for as long as she could remember.

  ‘I’m trying to be neighbourly,’ he drawled, flicking back the curling lock of dark hair that dangled over his forehead. ‘I’ve heard about your mam.’

  ‘And that’s supposed to make me trust you? No, thanks!’

  ‘Give us a break.’ He drew together eyebrows like sooty slashes, slanting upward at the outer corners. ‘Worms turn. So do leaves.’

  ‘Leopards don’t change their spots, though.’ Rosie’s tone was scornful.

  ‘You’re cutting off your nose to spite your face,’ he warned, a mite impatiently, stretching out one hand. ‘Give us it here, I’ll drop it off at yours. Then you can go straight off and do your paper round. No need to worry about the kids. I dropped in on Ma and she tells me your aunt’s there.’

  Rosie’s heart felt as if it had suddenly taken a ride on an helter-skelter. She decided to take a chance on him, dumping her satchel in the wicker basket at the front of the bicycle. ‘I can’t afford to replace those books, you know. So don’t be losing them. Or else!’

  ‘Trust me.’ His sky-blue eyes were guileless as they met hers. ‘Anything else I can do for you, you only have to whistle. See yer!’ He pushed off from the kerb and cycled away.

  Rosie watched him a moment before hurrying in his wake. Davey was a year older than she and from the moment he had pushed her off their front step when she was a toddler, grazing her knees and dirtying her frock, he had infuriated her. He had pulled her plaits, dragged off her ribbons, stolen her sweets, and mimicked people with such wicked talent she had laughed until it hurt. He’d taught her card tricks and diddled her out of the few ha’pennies she had ever possessed. He’d tickled her unmercifully until giggles turned to tears. He had sung alongside his mother in the C of E local church choir until his voice broke, but he was definitely no angel.

  Could she trust him with her satchel? She broke into a run, praying he would not dump it in some garden and then drop exasperating clues as to where she could find it. The thought worried her as much as the idea of one of her aunts waiting at home. But she had to do her paper round first because she needed that money.

  When she was finished, Rosie found Babs keeping her eye on Harry, who was sliding with some other small children on the icy road. Their cheeks were flushed and eyes bright with enjoyment until they saw her. Then Harry and Babs left the others and came plodding towards her in their too-large wellies, faces solemn now. ‘Aunt Amelia’s in the house. She told us to scram,’ said Babs.

  ‘What’s she up to?’

  ‘Nosing in the sideboard.’

  Rosie swore under her breath. Harry tugged on her mackintosh. ‘I showed her me engine and told her about me birthday but she didn’t give me anything.’

  ‘She just looked at him dead hard,’ said Babs. ‘Like this!’ And she fixed Rosie with a basilisk stare before relaxing her features and wiping her nose on her coat sleeve. ‘I don’t think she likes kids.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’ Rosie set her jaw and marched into the house. Babs and Harry followed, stepping in unison and leaving wet footprints on the linoleum. But Rosie did not find Amelia in the kitchen, where a covered pan simmered on the trivet, nor in the
scullery.

  ‘Where is she?’ Rosie demanded of Dotty, who was sitting in front of the fire, singing ‘We’ll Meet Again’ in a melancholy voice.

  ‘In the parlour,’ she whispered, wriggling her stockinged feet on the brass fender. ‘I didn’t know what to say to her. She frightened the life out of me, asking questions I didn’t know the answers to and searching through everything.’

  ‘What about Aunt Iris?’

  ‘She doesn’t live with her any more.’

  ‘What?’ said Rosie in dismay.

  She left the kitchen in a hurry, trailed by Babs and Harry. The parlour was as cold as an icebox. Only at Christmas was a fire lit in its tiled and cast-iron grate. A faint smell of gas issued from the meter cupboard next to the bay window, and in front of the sideboard, opposite the fireplace, knelt a woman.

  She was wearing a thick tweed coat and plain green felt hat, rather like a man’s trilby. The hair that curled in a roll beneath it was golden-brown. She glanced over her shoulder and Rosie caught a glimpse of a high-cheekboned profile with a short tiptilted nose and skin the pale colour of ice cream. The fact that she was not ugly as Violet had always said did not make the girl feel any warmer towards her.

  ‘What are you doing nosing around in there? That’s where Mam keeps her private papers.’ Rosie’s voice was taut with suppressed anger and nervousness.

  ‘Exactly why I’m looking.’ Amelia put her head down, continuing to root through the contents of the narrow pullout compartment between the cupboards. ‘Do you always get home from school this late, Rosie? A youth dropped off a satchel. I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, flirting with boys when everything is in such a mess at home. You’re just like your mother.’

  Rosie was about to deny any flirtation vigorously but changed her mind. ‘Why shouldn’t I be like my mother? I am her daughter.’ Her tone was defiant and laced with dislike.

  Amelia straightened up. ‘You’re stating the obvious. I suppose you have no sense of responsibility either where your younger brother and sisters are concerned?’