A Mother's Choice

by Val Wood

  ‘Could he come to see the show, do you think?’ she asked Jenny when they met for an early lunch at the Maritime one Saturday before Delia left for a matinee performance. The hotel had become their regular meeting place. ‘Am I asking too much of you?’

  ‘I was thinking the same thing, as a matter of fact,’ Jenny murmured. ‘Except that I was thinking of all my nieces as well.’ She paused and looked at Delia. ‘They’ve never seen a pantomime. I suppose Robin has seen many?’

  Delia shook her head. ‘Not all that many as I don’t play in them, but sometimes if he was given complimentary tickets he would go off and see them on his own.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes he was rather scornful about them and said they were far too childish for him; and besides, he knew how all the special effects worked!’

  But then the implication of what Jenny was saying made her hesitate. ‘Would Robin still be able to keep our secret if the girls came, or would he be tempted to tell them who it was who was singing?’

  Jenny got up from the table to put on her coat. ‘I don’t know,’ she confessed. ‘But I wondered too, in all seriousness, Delia, just how long you are going to keep this secret? Is it fair to Robin? Is it fair to my parents? And shouldn’t my brother be told? He sees Robin most days, though he doesn’t have a lot to do with him. Nor with his daughters either, for that matter. He doesn’t interact with them as our father did with us. Da was unusual, I suppose, for not all fathers do, certainly not the fathers of the children I teach. It’s always the mothers who have to find a solution if there’s a problem.’ She sighed. ‘Like many people who don’t have children of their own, I have views on how parents should be involved with their offspring.’ She gazed at Delia, who appeared to be totally unprepared for such a conversation. ‘And I believe that the most important thing of all to teach a child is truth and honesty.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘I’ll tek you out in ’boat tomorrow,’ Aaron told Robin one Saturday morning as they were having breakfast.

  Robin drew in a breath. ‘Will you? Really? Oh, thank you.’

  ‘You’ll have to do everything I say,’ Aaron went on. ‘Fishing can be a dangerous business.’

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Robin said earnestly. ‘I’ll sit perfectly still unless you tell me to do something.’

  Molly was spooning porridge into her mouth. When she had swallowed, she said, ‘I’m coming as well.’

  Robin turned to look at her with a question on his lips, but Aaron said, ‘No, not this time, Molly. I can’t look after two of you.’

  ‘I don’t need lookin’ after,’ she maintained. ‘I’ve been in ’boat before.’

  ‘You have,’ her grandfather said patiently. ‘And now it’s Robin’s turn.’

  ‘That’s not fair.’ She clattered her spoon into the empty dish. ‘I want to.’

  ‘Now then,’ Peggy said, having heard the conversation from the scullery. ‘What’s all this din? I want doesn’t get. I thought you were a grown-up girl, old enough to go to school?’

  ‘I am a grown-up girl.’ Molly defiantly folded her arms in front of her. ‘And that’s why I’m going fishing as well.’

  ‘Not this time,’ Aaron said. ‘So no arguing. You can go another day, mebbe when ’weather’s better, and I’ll tek you to Paull Creek.’

  Molly pouted and sulked, but neither of her grandparents gave in to her. She had not been well behaved since her night at Foggit’s farm or whilst she was there either, and Peggy was inclined to think that both Jack and Susan had given in to her just to pacify her.

  ‘Perhaps you could practise your reading,’ Robin suggested. ‘Won’t the schoolmistress be surprised if she finds you can read before she has had the chance to teach you?’

  The suggestion seemed to appeal to Molly, and after asking to be excused from the table she rushed off to find her reading book. When Robin had finished his breakfast he asked Aaron if he could help him to feed the pigs.

  ‘Pigs have been fed already,’ Aaron told him. ‘You’ve to be up early when you keep animals, Robin, but you can clean out sties and then you’ll know whether or not you’d like to be a farmer.’

  Peggy smiled. She recalled when Jack was told the same thing at about the same age and he couldn’t decide whether to be a fisherman or a farmer, but two trips out on the Humber in the shrimp boat on squally days had decided him. He would be a landsman, to his father’s disappointment and his mother’s relief. She watched as Robin climbed into his rubber boots and warm coat and wondered which he would choose. Of course, he might not choose either; might not even be given the choice, since it was his mother’s decision whether he stayed with them or left. She felt the pull of her heart strings and knew this wouldn’t do. She was becoming very fond of the boy and it wouldn’t do at all. He wasn’t hers.

  Sunday morning Robin was up early and by seven o’clock was fully dressed and had finished his breakfast and was ready to go out. Peggy had left socks and gloves, a flannel vest, a woollen jumper and cord trousers in front of the range so that they would be warm to put on.

  ‘We’ll be back by dinner time,’ Aaron told her, kissing her cheek.

  ‘With some shrimps,’ Robin added eagerly.

  ‘Aye, well mebbe.’ Aaron grinned. ‘Or a whiting or two.’

  ‘See if you can catch a joint of beef and we’ll have that wi’ Yorkshire pudding,’ Peggy answered back.

  They were halfway down the track to the village with Betsy pulling the trap when they spotted a familiar figure coming towards them carrying a sack over his shoulder. Robin immediately hunched down so as not to be seen.

  ‘Sit up, lad,’ Aaron told him. ‘You’re not to be afraid of him. We’ve had a few words. He’s been warned. He’ll not touch you or any other bairn again.’

  Robin glanced at Aaron. ‘How did you know it was him?’ His voice was low, even though the man was not yet near enough to hear them.

  ‘Onny by description. And there’s no other man in ’village who’d strike anybody else’s bairn.’

  As they drew near, Aaron pulled over slightly to let the man pass, and Davis Deakin scowled and nodded, glancing at Robin before looking away again.

  ‘I’ve forgotten his name,’ Robin said.

  ‘Deakin,’ Aaron said. ‘Davis Deakin. He lives in ’cottage next to Foggit’s farm.’

  ‘We’ve got his dog!’ Robin said nervously.

  ‘Aye.’ Aaron whistled through his teeth. ‘So we have, but ’dog’s not fastened up. He can go back any time he wants.’

  ‘I think he’d like to stay in the house.’

  ‘I expect he would, but he can’t. If he’s stopping he’s got to earn his keep and keep foxes out of ’henhouse. Besides, we’ve made him that fine kennel, haven’t we?’

  ‘We did,’ Robin said proudly. ‘That’s the first time I’ve ever helped to make anything like that.’

  The day after the dog had followed Aaron home and had apparently decided to stay, Robin and Aaron had gathered some wood and felt together and built a sound, rainproof kennel, and even before Peggy had found an old rug and blanket to put inside it the dog, whom Robin had named Charlie, stepped inside and claimed it as his own.

  ‘I’ve never had a dog before,’ Robin told Aaron now. ‘Well, I know he’s not mine, but I mean I’ve never lived beside one.’

  ‘I see,’ Aaron said thoughtfully. He pulled into the main street, glanced at the estuary and turned old Betsy’s head towards the creek. ‘Well, to mek him yours, you have to be responsible for feeding him and giving him water and teaching him to come to heel, that kind o’ thing. A dog has to be taught just ’same as bairns have, otherwise how can they learn?’

  Robin pondered. ‘So could I do that?’

  ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t,’ Aaron said. ‘It’d be a job less for me.’

  ‘But I think you’d always be special to him, cos you rescued him.’

  ‘Well, mebbe we’ll share him then, shall we? How would that be?’

  ‘Splendi
d!’ Robin enthused. ‘My mother will be so surprised when I tell her!’

  Aaron didn’t answer, but only nodded. From the manner in which Robin had answered, it almost seemed as if he was expecting to see his mother fairly soon. He wondered if there was something he didn’t know.

  He told Peggy later that he would have said that Robin had taken to sailing like a duck to water, but that the expression was overused by everybody who lived by a river.

  ‘It’s ’fishing that’s important,’ he had told Robin. ‘Aye, you’ve to know how to handle a boat and keep yourself safe, but you still need that knack of knowing where shrimps or fish are and you have to watch out for ’signs.’

  ‘What kind of signs?’ Robin had asked. He kept his hand on the bulwark to keep himself steady but he was sailing the boat; Aaron had shown him how whilst they were still in the creek, just to get him used to the feel of her. He’d told him that the back of the boat was the stern and if he looked forward the left side was the port side and the right side was starboard.

  ‘Starboard comes from ’old Viking ships, so I’m told,’ he had said. ‘They called it steerboard.’

  ‘Perhaps they steered their ships from the right side?’ Robin suggested. ‘And what’s the front of the boat called?’

  ‘That’s the bow.’

  ‘Oh, I know that word,’ Robin said excitedly, and he felt the exhilarating pull of the wind on the sails as they reached the estuary waters. ‘That’s what performers do when they’ve finished their act on stage.’

  Aaron glanced at him; he knows such odd things, he thought as he strode over to help him. ‘Keep her steady,’ he said.

  ‘What kind of signs?’ Robin asked again. ‘In the water, do you mean?’

  ‘Aye,’ Aaron pointed. ‘Look for ’shimmer on top of ’water. That way you’ll know that there’s fish about.’

  ‘But not shrimps?’

  ‘Not shrimps because they stay well below and feed from ’bottom, but then so do cod and halibut and eels. That’s why we use trawl nets for catching shrimps, so that we can scoop them up. I’ll show you how another time. But for now, do you fancy a sail down ’Humber as far as Spurn?’

  ‘Oh, yes, please.’

  Aaron had told him that the shrimp boats were easy to use and the smaller ones like his could be handled by one man. ‘We can boil ’shrimps on board and ’boat will still remain steady.’

  ‘You can boil the shrimps? Do you mean whilst you’re out on the water?’ Robin was astonished.

  ‘Aye, it saves time, you see, especially if you’re selling shrimps commercially like some of ’shrimpers do. Then when you get back to shore you can send them off straight away to the buyers.’

  ‘And do you still do that, Aaron?’ Robin was keeping his eyes on the water for signs of fish.

  ‘Nay,’ he answered on a sigh. ‘Not any more. I keep ’boat for recreation or bringing summat home for supper. I’m a landsman now. A farmer. But sometimes I’ll go out for a day with my brothers.’

  ‘I don’t know which I’d like to be,’ Robin said abstractedly. ‘It’s a hard decision to make, isn’t it?’

  Aaron nodded and smiled. It had been for him, but in the end there was only one choice; he’d been young and he loved Peggy and if it meant pleasing her parents and receiving permission to marry her he had thought then so be it; and there had been no regrets, except for the odd time when he had seen the sails of the shrimp boats heading down on the tide towards the Humber mouth and had drawn in a deep breath of the salty sea.

  ‘So do you think you’ll be stopping, then?’ he asked Robin.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Robin answered, and Aaron grinned at his expression. ‘I think so,’ Robin went on. ‘I feel as if I belong here.’ He pressed his lips together. ‘That’s if you and Granny Peg don’t mind. You see, before I came here, Aaron, I didn’t know where I belonged. I felt as if I came from nowhere.’

  When they arrived back at midday, Robin was full of enthusiasm for sailing and fishing too, except that they had only brought home two whiting and two flounder. Then, triumphantly, he held up the bag that contained the fish and took out his prize.

  ‘Look, Granny Peg,’ he crowed. ‘Look, Molly. Look what I caught.’

  Molly lifted her head from where she was crayoning a picture at the table, and then looked back at her drawing again. Peggy turned her enquiring gaze to him. ‘Salmon?’ she guessed.

  ‘It’s like a small salmon,’ Robin told her from his new-found store of information. ‘But it’s called a smolt. Aaron says it’s a juvenile salmon and tastes just as nice.’

  ‘So would you like to have it for your supper whilst it’s fresh?’ Peggy said. ‘We’re having roast beef for dinner.’

  ‘I know, I can smell it.’ Robin slipped off his coat. ‘I’m starving, but I’d better get washed first.’

  ‘You’d better,’ Peggy agreed, ‘especially as we’re expecting company. We don’t want you stinking of wet fish. And then later on I’ll show you how to take the head off the fish and fillet it.’

  He screwed up his face, but didn’t object. ‘I suppose if I’m going to be a fisherman I’ll have to learn how to do that sort of thing. I’m learning such a lot.’ He continued the conversation as he scrubbed his hands in the scullery sink whilst Peggy put the fish on a cold slab and covered it with muslin.

  ‘When we were coming back in the cart, a man in Paull touched his cap and said, “Ow do, Aaron?” I asked what it was he’d said and Aaron told me he’d said how do. I didn’t understand it until Aaron told me that it means How do you do?’ He put his head back and laughed. ‘And then Aaron touched his forehead and said back to him, “Awright, Fred, ’n’ you?” It’s much friendlier here, isn’t it? And as soon as I learn the language, that’s how I shall speak.’ He rinsed his hands and face and asked as he dried them, ‘Who’s the company that’s coming for lunch, Granny Peg – I mean dinner? Do I know them?’

  Peggy’s mouth twitched. ‘Yes, indeed you do, Master Robin. It’s a company of little girls.’

  And before she could say more the back door opened and Louisa, Emma and Rosie burst inside, and Robin felt as happy as he had ever been in his life.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  It was just the girls who had come for Sunday dinner. Jack and Susan were still making the farmhouse more comfortable and Susan had asked Jack to paper the parlour with mock flock wallpaper with a red floral design. He hadn’t liked the pattern and said it was difficult to match, but Susan had insisted and said it would cover up some of the cracks in the walls. Her mother had had her parlour papered in a similar pattern and she wanted it too. She had also bought thick red woollen material to make a curtain to hang from a pole over the door to keep out any draughts and had also made some dark red curtains for the window. The curtains that Peggy had given her were going on the upstairs windows.

  ‘It’ll look like a damned bordello,’ Jack had muttered to his father a few days earlier.

  ‘Eh, eh! What?’ his father had demanded. ‘What do you know of such places?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Jack grunted. ‘Never been in one, but I can imagine!’

  ‘Well, you’d better not let your ma hear you talk about them as if you have, or you’ll get a warning shot across your bows.’

  Jack scoffed. ‘I’m not a little lad any more, Da. I’m a grown man; I know about ’em, even if I haven’t ever visited one.’ Then he added, ‘Are you going to offer to help me wi’ papering on Sunday?’

  ‘No. I’ve promised to tek young Robin out fishing.’

  ‘He’s got his feet well under ’table, hasn’t he?’ Jack commented. ‘Somebody must know who he is and where he’s from.’

  His father had nodded. ‘I think you’re right, Jack; I expect I’ll find out sooner or later. There’s some reason why it’s such a big secret and if your ma knows she’ll tell me eventually.’ He’d put his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘Good luck wi’ the decorating!’

  Aaron walked the girls back home across the
field to Foggit’s farm after dinner and lifted them over the fence, reminding himself that he must make a gate so that they could come and go as they pleased.

  The house was quiet when he came back and he asked Peggy where Molly and Robin were.

  ‘They’re in ’parlour. Robin is trying to teach her to read ready for school tomorrow. I’m a bit bothered about her,’ she admitted anxiously. ‘I hope she’ll be all right; she doesn’t take easily to other people telling her what to do. I hope ’schoolmistress and ’headmaster will understand her.’

  ‘They’ll be used to children’s behaviour,’ he said calmly. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to worry.’ He sat down in one of the fireside chairs. ‘Come and sit down,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you summat, Peggy love.’

  Peggy knew that coaxing voice well and cautiously sat down. He was always so patient, always prepared to wait for the right moment to ask a question that she knew would eventually come.

  ‘It’s about Robin,’ he said. ‘It’s ’way he talks about his mother. As if he knows where she is. Does he? And do you?’

  Peggy took a deep breath; she knew that she couldn’t keep this from him any longer. ‘I don’t know where she is, Aaron, except that she’s somewhere in Hull, and you know I’d never lie to you; but I now know who she is, and it’s a sad story.’

  ‘Go on then,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘Do you remember Jenny’s friend from when she was onny little?’

  He lifted his chin and his eyes to the ceiling as he cast his mind back. ‘I onny recall Jenny ever having one close friend and that was ’Deakins’ daughter. Dorothy, wasn’t it? They went to school together and came home together, and she sometimes came here but never had time to play and allus had to rush off home.’ His forehead creased. ‘Where did she go off to? I think I asked you a time or two back if she’d gone into service.’

  ‘Aye.’ Peggy nodded. ‘I think we all thought that, but of course neither of ’Deakins ever spoke to anybody, and now I come to think of it there was talk at ’post office wi’ folk trying to guess where she might have gone.’ She gave a slight shake of her head. ‘She could’ve been dead for all we knew, but none of us thought to tek it any further; shame on us!’