Christmas is for Children

by Rosie Clarke

  ‘Is that for the window?’ Flo asked. ‘They look delicious and that is a lovely combination – coffee icing on the biscuits and rum truffles.’

  ‘I put a little Jamaican rum into the mixture as well as the essence,’ Honour said as she pushed a little plate forward. On it were two biscuits and two rum truffles. ‘These are for us to try…’

  ‘I’ve been looking forward to these.’ Flo picked up the freshly made truffle and bit into it, her eyes rolling as the flavour washed over her tongue and filled her mouth with its exquisite softness and taste. ‘Oh, they are lovely, Honour. You’ve got the balance just right. I think these are the best you’ve ever made, love.’

  Honour picked hers up and bit into it. She moaned with delight as she swallowed. ‘That is so lovely,’ she crooned. ‘I think we shall get asked for a lot of these… Roy is coming in tomorrow to buy a box of treats for his mother. She is an invalid and lives in a nursing home… His father died when he was a boy and they lived with his mother’s brother. Roy couldn’t look after his mother, because he is in the army so when she became paralysed they put her in this home. Roy says it isn’t too bad… not like some, which are awful, but it’s expensive and he couldn’t afford it if his uncle didn’t help. Roy visits as often as he can and takes her presents. He says I can go with him one day…’

  ‘He seems a pleasant young man,’ Flo said.

  ‘He wants me to go for a walk this afternoon… can I?’

  ‘As long as you’re back for tea,’ Flo agreed. ‘I must go to the phone box and ring the infirmary and ask Nurse Mary to visit Millie Waters – and I’ve promised to visit her later, and I can’t leave Dad alone here…’

  ‘I don’t see why he can’t look after himself,’ Honour said. ‘I caught him using the commode himself early this morning. He grumbled at me and claimed he’d been callin’ for us, but that was a lie. I wasn’t asleep and I would have heard him.’

  ‘I’ve thought he can get out of bed alone if he wants,’ Flo agreed. ‘He won’t admit it, because it suits him to have us runnin’ after him – but he lies easily. Even so, I couldn’t leave him all alone…’

  Honour looked at her in silence for a moment, then, ‘What would happen if I wasn’t here all the time? How would you cope on your own?’

  Flo felt an icy tingle at her nape, because she didn’t want to think about the day Honour left home. ‘That won’t happen just yet – unless you don’t want to work here with me?’

  ‘It isn’t that, Flo. I’ll always be here for you and I can probably work some of the time – but I… might want to get married and then you’d be on your own with him.’

  ‘Honour! You can’t be serious? You hardly know that soldier…’

  ‘He has been comin’ in the shop askin’ me out for ages now – but he says he thinks the world of me, Flo. He says he knows it’s too soon, but he wants me to marry him one day…’

  Flo stared at her, heart pumping. This was what she’d dreaded! ‘Be certain he’s serious – and be sure how you feel, love.’

  ‘I know he makes me want to smile and walk barefoot in the park in the dew,’ Honour said and her eyes lit up. ‘I dreamed about a cottage in the country and us living there with two little children…’ She blushed and laughed. ‘You must think I’m daft, but I get so fed up with our life here, Flo. I hate looking after Father and I know he hates me. I don’t want to desert you – but I can’t waste my life the way you have…’ A shocked look came to her eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Flo. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded…’

  Flo felt the hurt strike deep, but she couldn’t blame Honour. Of course it must look to her as though the woman she thought of as her elder sister had wasted her life.

  ‘I know you didn’t mean to hurt me,’ she said, her throat restricted. She wanted to cry but held back the tears. ‘You’re right, of course, but I had you to care for – and besides, there was no one I wanted…’

  And that was a terrible lie, because she had someone, loved him so much that her sixteen-year-old-heart had behaved like a giddy spring lamb. She’d sneaked out to meet him that summer night when her parents were sleeping and they’d gone to walk by the river. Flo remembered that she’d taken off her shoes and stockings and walked barefoot, not in the morning dew but in the evening-damp grass.

  ‘I love you so very much,’ he’d whispered, though he was barely a year older. ‘I want us to run away and be together forever…’

  So many sweet words as they lay together on his jacket and kissed, touching, exploring each other’s bodies. Flo hadn’t really understood what was happening when they loved and she didn’t think he knew much more; it was a funny, fumbling, sweet attempt to make love. Strange then, that the consequences should have been so overwhelming, to her life – and her mother’s. Flo’s mother had protected her young daughter when she realised she was in trouble, though she called her a fool and many worse things. Flo knew her mother had suffered at the hands of her husband, because he’d never believed that Honour was his and when he returned from months away in the north, he’d accused her of being unfaithful and lashed out in the only way he knew, with his fists…

  ‘Oh, don’t cry,’ Honour begged as the tear slid down Flo’s cheek. ‘I love you so much. You’ve been everything to me; sister, mother, friend – please, don’t cry…’

  ‘You didn’t make me cry,’ Flo said and reached for her hand. ‘It was an old memory, because there was once someone who made me feel the way Roy makes you feel, my dearest. It was a long time ago and it was over before it started…’ Though it could never truly be over because of what had happened that summer night.

  Honour stared in surprise. ‘Why – did our father make you give him up?’

  ‘Dad never knew,’ Flo told her. ‘My… my friend just went away and I never saw him again…’ But that was a lie too, because she had seen him years later, when it was too late. He’d had a wife and child and now he had two, and she was a prisoner of the life she’d forged for herself one beautiful wonderful night, though she could never regret having Honour.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Flo,’ Honour said and hugged her. She wiped the tear from her cheek. ‘Roy loves me, I know he does. He wants to get a ring and get married, but I told him Dad wouldn’t allow it. If I’d permit him, Roy would visit Dad and tell him we want to marry, but I know he wouldn’t let us. Roy says we could get engaged anyway…’

  ‘You would still need permission,’ Flo reminded gently. ‘I know it sounds hard, Honour, but you hardly know this young man. Wait for a while – six months – and then I’ll find a way for you to get what you want…’

  Flo mentally crossed her fingers. She was Honour’s mother, she’d insisted her name was on the birth certificate, even though the world thought of them as sisters, and she could sign the permission for her daughter to wed, but that would mean telling her the truth and there was a part of Flo that shrunk from doing that… Besides, marriage meant she would lose her and although it might be selfish Flo dreaded the thought of her life without her.

  ‘Oh, you’re wonderful!’ Honour hugged her again. ‘Roy doesn’t expect us to marry before next summer. He will have done his time in the army by then and he wants to find us a house and a little shop not too far from you. His father and his uncle were both tailors by trade and Roy wants to follow in his father’s footsteps, but he’s going to tailor-make women’s clothes…’

  She showed Flo a magazine that she’d been looking at earlier, with women wearing smart lounging pyjamas and an article saying that capes were the fashion this winter because of the backless gowns everyone was wearing.

  ‘Roy gave me this magazine. He says I’ve got good taste in clothes…’

  ‘He sounds just right for you,’ Flo said, because it was the truth. Honour loved smart clothes and had a flair for them. Sometimes, she sketched what she wanted and made up a pattern for herself. She could be a real asset to the man she’d chosen – but it was all too soon.

  Flo’s eyes watered but
she blinked the selfish tears away.

  ‘I’ll be good,’ Honour promised. ‘Roy is going to buy me a ring for Christmas and we’ll be engaged – and get married next summer. I thought in August, on your birthday, Flo. Then it will always be something we can celebrate together – the three of us…’

  ‘Yes, that will be lovely,’ Flo agreed. She heard the thumping from upstairs and sighed. ‘I’d better go upstairs and see what Dad wants…’

  She left her sister dreaming as she mixed another batch of truffles, carefully weighing the ground almonds and the icing sugar, cocoa and essence before starting to mix the delicious soft paste and rolling them into balls.

  Flo’s heart was heavy as she went into the bedroom that smelled of her father despite all the polishing she did to keep the room sweet. He refused to have the window opened even a little, which meant there was always a faint tang of sweat and urine.

  He was sitting on the edge of the bed, about to put his feet to the floor. She watched as he straightened and hoped he would use the commode without her help, but he’d sensed she was there.

  ‘What are you waiting for, girl? Do you want me to mess myself and make more washing?’

  ‘No, Father,’ she said and went to him, taking his arm to steady him as he pulled up his nightshirt and sat on the wooden commode seat. The smell as he opened his bowels was pungent and made Flo want to turn away, but compassion made her hide her feelings. It was hardly his fault that he’d had a stroke and needed so much help to perform the everyday functions of life, even if she suspected that he could do more than he let on.

  Walking to the window, she looked out, waiting until he’d finished.

  ‘Take that mess away and then bring me some water. I want a wash,’ he grunted. ‘And my shaving things…’

  ‘Yes, Father,’ Flo said dully, because she was past resenting the way he ordered her around. Once, she had rebelled inside and many times she had dreamed of escape, but this was her house, her business and it was Honour’s inheritance. Flo was damned if she was going to let him drive her away, because then he would win and she’d have nothing to pass on to her beloved daughter one day. ‘I shall be out this afternoon for a while. I’ll clear up but please don’t ring after I bring the water. I have work to do…’

  She left without waiting for his reply. Anger was there inside her, because Honour was right. She had let that man waste her life. If she’d had the courage to make him leave, she could have brought Honour up on her own, perhaps employing a little help in the shop, but he’d always held that power over her – the threat of exposing her as a whore and a woman of no morals. He had no proof of it, because Honour’s birth certificate was well hidden, but he’d hinted that he knew – and he had stolen all her mother’s documents: the deeds to the property, the copy of the will and other things that Flo needed. He pretended that he’d never seen them, but Flo knew that everything was hers, because the lawyer had told her; it had been a provision of her maternal grandfather’s will that the shop should pass to Mrs Hawkins’ first-born and not her husband – and yet she’d never had the courage to throw her father out.

  When he’d been fit and strong, she’d been afraid of him. He’d used his strength to bully her mother and he’d threatened Flo with a good hiding if she defied him – and yet he’d never done more than pinch her arm and say nasty things to her. She’d seen her mother’s bruises and knew what he was capable of, and at first she’d been afraid of what he might do to her and Honour. If he’d destroyed the will and hidden the deeds, he might be able to take what was rightfully hers and her daughter’s.

  Over the years, Flo had grown stronger. She’d stood up to him more and then, one day, when he’d bullied Honour and made her run from the room crying, she’d finally told him that unless he mended his ways he could go.

  ‘This is my house, my business,’ she’d said angrily. ‘Talk to Honour like that again and you can leave. I’ve let you stay here and I’ve given you a share of the profits because you’re my father and I thought it was right you should have something – but I shan’t tolerate you mistreating my sister.’

  ‘Your sister?’ he’d sneered and something in his eyes told Flo that he knew. Yet how could he know for certain? She and her mother had been so much trouble to hide it from everyone. ‘If I revealed your dirty little secret to the world how long do you think it would be before you had to shut up shop? All the customers who smile at you would cross the street to avoid a dirty little slut like you…’

  His words had cut deep, but she’d lifted her head and looked at him proudly. ‘You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,’ she said. ‘You’re a liar and no one likes you – they wouldn’t believe you. Especially when I tell them how you hit my mother and hastened her death…’

  ‘Bitch! That’s a lie. It wasn’t my fault that she had a weak heart…’

  ‘No, but you made her life wretched,’ Flo answered bravely seeing the way his fists clenched as if he was itching to hit her. ‘Who do you think people will believe – you or me?’

  Her father had slammed out of the room in a temper. That night he’d had his first stroke. Only a slight one, and after a short stay in the infirmary he’d come home, seemingly back to normal. Yet he’d never been as strong again and one of his hands wasn’t quite right, because things slipped through his fingers, which was why he’d lost his job at the docks.

  He’d blamed her for his illness. Said she’d upset him and demanded she give him more of her profits, but Flo had refused.

  ‘I shan’t throw you out,’ she’d told him. ‘But just remember that I could if I wished…’

  He’d glared at her, but Flo knew she’d won a small victory. Her father wasn’t the man he’d been before the stroke. He understood that he would find it impossible to find permanent work; other, better men than he were standing on street corners now. Flo had given him enough money for himself and she’d paid all the household bills, but still he insisted he was due a share of her profits. She knew it rankled that her mother had left the shop to her rather than her husband. Flo supposed it had hurt his pride, but she gave him a few pounds and let it go.

  What she wouldn’t put up with was him hurting Honour. If he did that, she would ask the doctors to take him into the old people’s infirmary. It was a horrible place and, despite his spite, his temper and the mess he made, she would be reluctant to do it – but he wasn’t going to destroy Honour’s life as he had hers.

  Yet Flo knew that wasn’t quite the truth. Her father had had a hand in making her life unhappy, but she’d shaped her own life when she lay with a charming young man who promised to love her and then ran away when she’d whispered to him a few weeks later that she thought she might be with child…

  Tears ran down Flo’s cheeks as she emptied the chamber pot, rinsing it before returning to the bedroom with water for her father to wash and shave. She brushed her tears away first, because he must never see just how vulnerable she was inside.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said when she settled him back in the bed comfortably after his wash. ‘You’re a better daughter than I deserve…’

  Flo looked at him, hardly believing what she’d just heard. She shook her head at him and took the used water away to tip it down the sink. He’d never said such a thing to her before and she didn’t believe he meant it – he was just trying a new tack but she wouldn’t be fooled.

  Downstairs, Honour had changed into her best skirt and twinset. Her coat was ready and she looked at Flo uncertainly as she entered.

  ‘Are you off already? Don’t you want anything to eat?’

  ‘We’ll have something out if we’re hungry,’ Honour replied. ‘I’ve made a sandwich for you, Flo. I’ll be back in time for you to go out…’

  ‘All right.’ Flo went to kiss her cheek. ‘Have a lovely time, dearest.’

  Honour glowed as she shrugged on her coat and went out of the side door that led through the little passage to the street. As it shut behind her with a small thu
d, Flo shuddered. The house suddenly felt empty and she knew that was how it would be when Honour married. She would have the business she’d worked so hard to keep going, but somehow that would mean nothing when Honour was no longer a part of it.

  For a moment, despair swept over her, but Flo fought it. She would manage somehow and she had so much more than many others. She thought of Robbie’s children and the way their little noses pressed up against her window as they looked at the cakes and sweets. And then there was Millie Waters lying sick in her bed, while her elderly husband tried to cope alone.

  Rolling up her sleeves, Flo did what she always did when she was upset or lonely. She began to measure flour, sugar, butter and dried fruit; she would make a light fruit cake with a few cherries in it for the couple she was going to visit, despite her father’s objections, the very minute her sister returned from her day out…

  7

  Robbie put the fish paste sandwiches on the table in front of his children and turned his back as they reached for them and started to eat. He made a cup of tea for himself, feeling wretched. Was this what he’d come to – the best he could do for his children’s Sunday dinner was fish paste sandwiches?

  He’d planned on buying them all some meat this weekend, but he’d lost that wretched card game and been left with ten pence by the time he’d bought them all a drink. Of course they’d all asked for a pint, but Robbie had refused; the stakes were a half-pint of bitter each and that’s what he’d bought, despite the jeers and the moans that he was stingy. It was money his kids ought to have had and he felt bad about it.

  He was a rotten father. Madge had told him what a useless father and husband he was several times in the weeks before she died. He’d still been on half-pay then, but she hadn’t accepted that everyone had been put on to half what they normally earned. She’d blamed him for having a drink on his way home. Her nagging had driven Robbie to the pub more often, because he didn’t want to go home to a sick wife who never stopped complaining and children who looked at him with sad eyes. After her death, he’d tried so hard to look after them – and sometimes he managed to put a proper meal on the table, but that happened less and less recently.