by June Francis
‘That’ll be nice,’ said Lily, carefully wrapping the eggs in tissue paper before coming round the counter and placing one in each pocket of his jacket. She gave him his change and opened the door, thinking that May and Ronnie should be up by now if they were to get to school on time.
May was already awake, lying on her back with the patchwork quilt worked by her maternal grandmother up to her chin. Her long flaxen hair, freed from its plaits, spread like crinkled paper on the pillow. Since she was a tot she had refused to set foot in the shippon. She hated dirt and dust and the smells that issued from the bottom of the yard. ‘I don’t think I’ll go to school today,’ she declared gruffly. ‘I think I’m getting a chest.’
‘You’re going,’ said Lily determinedly.
‘But I don’t learn anything!’
‘You know it all? You know the capital of Spain and your five times table?’ Lily wrenched the quilt from her grasp and the rest of the covers followed.
‘Two fives are ten and Madrid’s the captial of Spain,’ chanted her sister, hunching her knees inside her nightie.
‘The capital of Australia?’
‘Sydney!’
‘No. Canberra.’
‘Why do I have to know?’ grumbled May. ‘I’m never going to go there. Now if you’d asked me the name of a Red Indian tribe I could have told you the Sioux. They were in a cowboy film at the matinee.’
‘Sorry, no go.’ Lily hid a smile as she dragged her struggling sister off the bed.
She left May dressing and went into the bedroom her brothers shared. The room was a mess but that was because she had been asked to leave everything where it was. Recently Ronnie had taken up whittling and was forever making whistles and selling them to anyone who had a halfpenny. He was also football mad as were most boys in Liverpool. He was up now and kicking a football around the double bed that had come from their uncle’s farm.
‘Dad’ll have you if he hears you.’ Her face softened as she watched him.
‘He won’t hear me, though, will he?’ His expression was far from childlike in his thin face. ‘He’s drunk and snoring like a pig.’
‘That’s enough of that!’ She kicked the ball from beneath his foot and under the bed. ‘I just hope he’s put his leg in a safe place.’
‘His leg was on the landing.’ Ronnie licked the palms of his hands and smoothed his hair back with them. ‘I thought he might fall over it so I hung it by its straps on the door. It’ll make a lovely noise when he opens it.’ He grinned as he bounced out of the room. ‘I’ll make me own toast,’ he shouted from halfway down the stairs.
‘Thanks a lot, and use a comb for your hair in future,’ called Lily, going along the landing to her father’s bedroom.
A pink-painted wooden leg dangled from the brass door knob. She opened the door and immediately the smell of rum mingled with the stale tang of tobacco to assail her nostrils. Her father had told her soldiers had been given rum sometimes before going over the top. She placed the heavy leg on a chair by his bed and picked up the trousers flung on the floor, glancing at the tuft of white hair showing above the old army blankets. There was no sign of him stirring. She left the room, convinced that it would be hours yet before he made an appearance downstairs.
It was three hours later that Albert Thorpe entered the kitchen. Lily was ironing and dreaming of her tall, dark and handsome hero who would take her away from it all, and didn’t really want to be disturbed, but she put down the flat iron and stared at her father. If the photograph in a drawer was anything to go by he had been handsome once. It was hard to imagine now. Only forty-seven, he looked much older. His rumpled clothes clung to his gaunt frame and his cheeks were the colour of his tobacco-tinged moustache. The pale blue eyes seemed to be saying they wished they had not bothered to open that morning.
‘I don’t know why you do it to yourself, Dad,’ she said, putting on the kettle and reaching for a packet of Golden Stream tea. ‘Where did you go this time?’
‘Only Bootle.’ He sat at the table and wiped his hands over his face. ‘Fred would have been forty-four. Sometimes I see him dying over and over in my mind.’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I spoke to his widow. Nice woman.’
Lily shook her head. ‘You can’t go on torturing yourself for ever.’
‘Lest we forget, girl.’
She experienced a mixture of irritation and pity. ‘Why can’t you remember the good things?’ She picked up a loaf and pot of home-made rhubarb and ginger jam; the bacon had vanished and she guessed where. Still, her mother had always said when someone was low give them something sweet to eat. She placed a steaming mug of tea and a plate of bread and jam in front of him and considered how best to cheer him up.
‘Nothing to eat, girl.’ Albert cradled the hot mug in his hands.
‘Tell me what it was like when you met Mam,’ said Lily, hoping to change the direction of his thoughts. She sat opposite him and reached for a slice of bread and jam.
‘What’s the point in remembering? It just makes me sad thinking of the way she went.’ His tone was glum.
Lily persisted. ‘It was at a fair, wasn’t it?’
He groaned and put a hand to his head. ‘Aye! But it was a long time ago now.’
‘So was the war but you haven’t forgotten that! Don’t you think you owe it to Mam to keep her memory alive as much as that of those soldier friends of yours?’
He made no reply and she felt angry and irritated. She stood and placed the flat iron on the fire. She felt like a bottle of fizzy pop about to explode. He would mope around the house all day. There would be no escaping him. She needed something different and suddenly remembered Mrs Draper’s words about the missionary and India. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad? She was interested in India. It was better than nothing and cheaper than going to the pictures.
May wriggled free of Lily’s hold and unbuttoned the top of her coat. ‘That’s too tight and you scratched me!’
‘If you’d kept still I wouldn’t have,’ she retorted, glancing at her own reflection in the lobby mirror as she dragged on gloves. The dark curly hair which she considered her best feature was crammed beneath a snappily brimmed blue velour hat trimmed with a feather. Her eyebrows were sooty arches. She raised them and smiled, wishing she had Carole Lombard’s looks for her own mouth was too large – and as for her chin! It was much too determined-looking in shape to be thought delicately pretty. She pulled a face and caught sight of Ronnie in the mirror. ‘Don’t forget your balaclava. You don’t want Jack Frost freezing your ears. And, May, wear your bonnet.’
‘I will! I like this bonnet,’ said her sister, fastening the pink plaited ties. ‘It’s better than Betty West’s new one.’
‘I’m glad something pleases you.’ Lily gave her reflection one last scrutiny before hurrying the children out of the house.
She ran them down the street until they came to one of the wide entries that divided the long rows of terraced houses into three blocks, enabling them to take a short cut into the next street. Lights blazed from the begrimed red-bricked mission hall squeezed between houses which had been built during the last century like so many others in the city.
Inside all was bustle and the rows of folding wooden chairs divided by an aisle up the middle were filling quickly. On stage a large screen had been set up. Centre back there was a table on which stood a lantern slide machine, near which several men were grouped in discussion.
As Lily brushed past them, holding the children’s hands, one of them looked up. She did not immediately recognise him until their eyes met and held. Then she tore her gaze away and passed swiftly by despite the fluttering somewhere beneath her ribs. She led the children to seats next to the inner aisle and sat between them.
‘I’d like to sit at the front,’ said May, getting up almost as soon as she sat down.
‘You can’t.’
‘I’m not going to see anything here.’
‘Sit down, May, or I’ll take you home again,’ said Lily.
May sat but in such a way that the seat tipped up and her behind got wedged in the space at the back. ‘Help!’ she yelled.
‘Trust her,’ groaned Ronnie, ducking his head and glancing about furtively. ‘Always having to make people notice us.’
‘I’ve a good mind to leave you there, causing trouble when we’ve only been here two minutes,’ hissed Lily, standing up.
‘Need a hand?’
She would have recognised the voice anywhere and felt the colour rise in her cheeks. ‘Thanks a lot.’
They tugged and May was free. She looked mournfully up at her rescuer and said, ‘I didn’t mean to do it. It really was an accident.’
He raised one eyebrow. ‘Are you sure?’
She gave him a puzzled look. ‘I’ve seen you before.’
‘That’s right.’ His gaze shifted to Lily’s face and he held out a hand. ‘I’m Brother Matthew of the brotherhood of St Barnabas. I’m an Anglican priest.’ There was laughter in his eyes. ‘I know for sure we’ve met before! Something to do with a kipper.’
Lily smiled. ‘You look different without the habit.’
‘So I keep getting told but it’s too Catholic for a meeting like this,’ he said ruefully. ‘You’d be surprised, though, how warm and comfortable it is for outdoor work.’ He released her hand. ‘I’ll have to go. I hope to see you later.’
Lily murmured agreement and watched his black-clad figure go to the front of the hall. There was nothing tall, dark and handsome about him but he definitely had something and she could agree with Mrs Draper about the voice. She was looking forward to hearing him speak.
First, though, they had to suffer the singing. A woman began to bash out music on an upright piano. ‘Jesus died for all the children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white …’ Several sang louder than the preacher but Lily could pick his voice out. There were two more hymns and then Richard, the curate from the mother church, welcomed them all before introducing their visitor as a man who had been doing God’s work in southern India. There was an expectant hush.
Matt Gibson stood on stage and opened a black leather-covered Bible. ‘Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing …’
His voice had risen and Lily felt a delicious shiver run through her. This was sheer poetry! ‘And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor – and give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing …’ His tone was impassioned and had speeded up. ‘Charity suffereth long, and is kind, it beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things.’ His voice dropped to a silken whisper. ‘Faith, hope, charity … but the greatest of these is charity.’
His reading had set the mood and there was a breathless silence as he closed the Bible.
‘Is your neighbour hard to love?’
‘Not ’arf!’ exclaimed someone. ‘Him and her are always going at each other, fist and tongue!’
‘Shush!’ said several people.
Matthew smiled. ‘Well, sister, if you can’t love them I’m wasting my time here because you won’t be able to care for those in India.’ He paused. ‘India is a vast, beautiful country which has a population that runs into many millions. Many are poorer than any you might meet in the filthiest court in Liverpool. There are actually people called the Untouchables.’ He paused. ‘These are as much your neighbours as the person living next to you.’ His gaze reached out, seeming to touch them all, met Lily’s. She smiled without thinking and one corner of his mouth lifted. ‘Our Lord Jesus would touch them just as He did the lepers in with rags and sores. But He has passed into the heavens and we are his hands and feet on earth. It is our duty and privilege to take hope to others.’ His voice softened. ‘Which is why I am here to tell you how the church is doing just that in India.’ He jumped off stage. The lights dimmed.
He talked of the past and the Syrian church taking the gospel to India hundreds of years ago, just as the Jews took Judaism – and of the present, of Indian Christians taking over the leadership of the churches as the country strove for independence. His enthusiasm and knowledge stimulated interest and excitement but he did not forget the children and slotted in slides of monkeys, tigers, and elephants bathing. He spoke of Rudyard Kipling, telling funny stories that not only made the children laugh but the adults too. There was information about Hindu and Moslem ways of birth, marriage and death. It was all highly entertaining and when the collection plate came round it was obvious he had not wasted his time. He was thanked and clapped and it was over.
Lily did not move. Here was a different world, a different man. She glanced in his direction. He was surrounded by people. There seemed little chance of the pair of them getting to speak.
‘Well?’ Mrs Draper popped up beside Lily, her eyes sparkling beneath the brim of a black straw hat. ‘Wasn’t he wonderful? Didn’t he bring India alive? I could almost feel the heat and the flies!’
May opened her mouth but Lily clapped a hand over it. ‘I don’t want you saying anything about flies and dirt. You and Ronnnie go and wait by the door.’ For a moment she watched them dart among groups of chattering people before turning to the old lady. ‘Where is he staying? Will he be preaching on Sunday?’
‘He’s in great demand and so is off somewhere else. It’s not often you manage to get a speaker from India. Africa, now, that’s more common.’
Lily tried to conceal her disappointment. ‘I would have liked to hear him speak again.’
‘A treat, my dear. What a pity you missed him in church last Sunday.’ Mrs Draper moved towards the exit and Lily had no choice but to follow if she was not to appear rude. ‘He could be back,’ added the old lady. ‘His father was from Liverpool and he wants to trace an aunt.’
‘Can Anglican brothers marry?’
‘I think they can, my dear. Although most choose celibacy and dedicate themselves to God.’
Lily glanced over in Brother Matthew’s direction but there was a number of women crowded round him. No hope for her, she thought wryly, and made for the door where May was hopping about just inside and people were having to dodge around her.
‘Can’t you behave for five minutes?’ Lily seized hold of her and cast a last glance the preacher’s way.
Mrs Draper chattered all the way to her front door but Lily hardly heard a word. Her thoughts were in India. The sight of Daisy dancing in the street with a young man brought her back to the present. ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ She eyed the young man who hastily removed his cloth cap.
‘We haven’t been here long, Lil,’ said Daisy. ‘Cyril just brought me home from dancing class and we were practising the foxtrot.’
‘This isn’t the Grafton, you know,’ she said with mock severity to the young man. ‘Don’t keep her out here long or she’ll catch her death.’
As Lily and the children entered the kitchen Ben lifted his dark head from a book. ‘Dad’s gone out. Frank Jones came to see you and they went out together.’
The magic of the evening evaporated and Lily slammed her handbag on the table, her mouth tightening. ‘If he comes in drunk, I’ll have Frank! If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a dozen times that getting round Dad won’t make a pennyworth of difference to me! I’m not at my last prayers and I’d rather go out with a toad than him!’ She shrugged off her coat, put on the kettle and took a nightdress and a pair of pyjamas from the cupboard next to the fireplace, hanging them over the fireguard. ‘You didn’t tell him where we’d gone?’
‘Dad did and they both agreed they didn’t want to go and listen to any prissy-voiced missionary.’ Ben yawned. ‘Their words, Lil. Was he any good?’
‘You’d have found it interesting,’ she said blandly.
‘We saw elephants,’ said Ronnie, rub
bing his hands on the warm fireguard. ‘They were spouting water from their trunks. He’s ridden on one.’
‘What’s prissy?’ asked May, pushing Ben’s book aside and climbing on his knee.
‘Hard to explain, Maysie. Your face is cold.’ He hugged her to him. ‘Did you like the elephants?’
‘I liked him. His voice was nice. Sometimes it reminded me of bells and sometimes water. It rose and fell and sometimes stayed in one line.’
Ben caught Lily’s glance as she spooned cocoa into a jug. ‘He’s made a convert.’
‘Probably made more than one.’ Her voice was offhand. ‘He’s been shot at, caught up in a riot and nearly trampled to death.’
‘Sounds an adventurous life for a missionary.’
Lily caught the envy in his voice and she said hurriedly, ‘You wouldn’t go off like some and fight in Spain just for a bit of adventure, would you, Ben? Thousands have died out there.’
He yawned. ‘Not on your life! I get all my excitement in the Territorials. Besides, how would you cope without me?’
‘I couldn’t!’ Lily kissed the top of his head, wondering if he ever resented taking on the job that had been their father’s. Albert was still supposed to handle the reins for Ben, making the job of carting foodstuffs for cattle and horses easier, but too often he was left alone to cope. ‘What did Uncle William say about Dad not turning up again?’
‘Made allowances for him as usual.’ He put on a deep voice. ‘Can’t be much fun having one leg, lad. Tell him the horse is missing him and that should get him here.’
‘And did you?’
‘He brought out a photo of a horse and cart all decked up for the May Day celebrations. Quite cheerful for him for once. Not that it lasted. Next moment he’s going on about this horse he’d seen drown in mud at Passchendaele.’
‘I hate mud,’ chipped in May, her voice drowsy. ‘And sand down me drawers.’
‘Shush,’ said Lily, easing her sister to her feet. ‘Ben, did you put the oven shelf in?’
He nodded as the door opened and Daisy entered, bringing a breath of cold air with her. ‘He’s gone.’
