A Place To Call Home

by June Francis

  She watched him walk away and told herself that she mustn’t read too much into the look in his eyes but she was in no mood to garden anymore. So she sat on the step, watching the children who were still playing out, some whipping tops into frenzies. She imagined being young and carefree, remembered games of Catch the Girl, Kiss the Girl and imagined being kissed by the young Harry. If she had met him first, instead of Sally, would it have made a difference?

  Sally had been desperate to have a man in her life as soon as possible. Strange, considering she and her mother had been deserted by Mr Hardcastle and his sons. But maybe that was why Sally had grabbed Harry, having recognised a good’un when she saw him. There was a yearning inside Rene that refused to go away.

  ‘Hello, girl! Making the best of the warm evening, are yer?’

  Rene didn’t need to look up to know who it was. ‘Looks like it. How are you, Mrs Hardcastle?’

  ‘Can’t complain.’ Cissie lit a cigarette and rested a plump shoulder against the door jamb. ‘Did Greta tell you I’ve been to see an old flame today?’

  ‘No!’ Rene looked up at her in surprise. ‘But then it has been a strange kind of weekend.’

  ‘You can say that again! What with Harry doing his hero act and young Alex turning up. I take it you know about his looking for his mother and sisters?’ She cocked an eye in Rene’s direction. ‘An unnatural mother in my opinion! I could have put my lot into a Home if I wanted but I was in one meself for a while, so I wasn’t going to subject my kids to what I suffered. I said that to our Sal and maybe that’s why the lad was put away but not the girls. Although, you can’t always trust men wherever you are.’ Her voice trailed off and she stubbed out her cigarette and went indoors without even a good night.

  Rene wondered what had happened to Cissie in that Home but guessed she would never find out and decided to call it a day, too.

  A few hours later Harry arrived back. ‘What took yer so long, Dad?’ asked Greta, looking up from the game of cards she was playing with Alex. ‘I was about to send out a search party.’

  Harry hung up his jacket and sank thankfully into the chair opposite Cissie. ‘Where’ve yer bin?’ she asked.

  ‘Greta didn’t tell you?’ He scrubbed his chin with his fist and yawned.

  ‘Tell me what?’

  ‘I went to post a few notes of sympathy. I ended up getting caught in the act in Great Mersey Street. Mrs Cox asked me in. I said I didn’t want to intrude but she insisted on making me a cup of tea. It was hard to get away.’ Harry thought about the woman and her two daughters, who had plied him with so many cups of tea that he’d felt awash with it. She had shown amazing self-control but he had suspected that tears weren’t far away. One of her daughters had shown no such restraint, had obviously loved her father very much and been sent out of the room with her sister because she couldn’t control her grief. He had wanted to rail at God on their behalf … that’s if he’d believed in a deity … instead he had promised that he would do his best to be at the funeral. It would help to take his mind off that exchange with Rene earlier. He had sensed undercurrents that had belied their sensible behaviour. He needed to put some distance between them or, one day, he would be tempted to grab her and kiss her … and that’d give the neighbours a field day.

  6

  Edith Cox smoothed her skirt over rounded hips and then adjusted the collar of the jacket. The black gabardine costume fitted snugly and did wonders for her figure. She tried to look miserable but couldn’t and instead smiled at her reflection in the sideboard mirror. She tucked a newly touched up strand of blonde hair into place beneath the narrow rim of the black felt hat and carefully unpinned the veil and let it fall over her face. She looked the part now and reckoned she could fool anyone into believing that she was a grieving widow.

  Her mourning weeds were the first new clothes she had spent out on in a long time. Thank God, Rodney had kept up with his life insurance payments. Although, he had been tight-fisted at times, unlike Mr Lawrence Macauley, the brother of Mrs May Dunn, her employer when she had been in service. He had been so good looking and generous with presents that she would have done and forgiven him anything, and had, but she had probably done the right thing in leaving when she did although, she still had her regrets.

  She thought of her husband crying poverty when she asked for money for new clothes for herself or the girls. Although he never did without his baccy or his pint at the Heriot Arms, where he was a regular for the last couple of hours every evening. Not that he ever got falling down drunk. In fact the only time she had known him worse for drink had been the evening she had taken advantage of him. She doubted he had ever suspected that she had tricked him into marriage. The last few years, though, it had been difficult to believe that he had once been passionate about her.

  At the beginning of their marriage, she had certainly been grateful towards him and determined to be a good wife, but such ambition had lasted only a few years and she had grown bored with him. Perhaps she hadn’t disguised her feelings enough and that’s why he had become so mean in their latter years together.

  Money! She had always had to worry about it. Fortunately both her girls were in work, although they only earned buttons. Joyce, her elder daughter, was a trainee machinist at Brown’s ship repairers down Sandhills Lane, not far from Huskisson Dock, and Winnie, her younger daughter, worked at Jacob’s biscuit factory. Edith would have liked more for her girls but life hadn’t worked out the way she wanted. Her spinster sisters had died just when she had thought she could rely on them to help her out.

  Always headstrong, she had been the youngest in the family, believing she could make life go her way. She had been a starry-eyed innocent when Lawrence said he was mad about her and would marry her if she got into trouble. Well, he had lied but that had not really surprised her. It was his widowed sister who had all the money.

  Still, thinking about those far off days was not going to get her anywhere. She had to look to the future and find a job. For a moment panic seized her. She was thirty-nine and the only thing she knew was how to keep house. She had loved the one where she had been in service. It had been conveniently situated near the railway station one stop up from Crosby, which meant she could be in Liverpool in no time. So many rooms in the house and such lovely furniture and beautiful crockery, ornaments and pictures. Unlike this dump!

  She gazed about the small room with its yellowing cream walls, adorned only with a mirror and a couple of plaster plaques, one of a thatched cottage and another of a black and white collie. The shabby sideboard, sofa and fireside chairs had belonged to Rodney’s father, who had rented the house before him.

  How she would love to return to that house near Hall Road, but she would not be a servant again, having her every action controlled by other people, getting her hands filthy, cleaning out fires and polishing brass and silver, as well as a dozen and a half other piddling jobs. At least when Rodney had been at work, her hours had been her own to fill and as soon as Winnie had been old enough she had passed the really dirty jobs over to her, but she would have to find some kind of work now or they would go hungry.

  Edith clasped her hands tightly together and tapped her knuckles against her teeth. Keep calm, keep calm! The insurance would tide them over the next few weeks, although she had spent more on the funeral than was sensible. That was because she had wanted to impress the neighbours by giving Rodney a good send off. In her ignorance, she had believed there would be compensation for the accident but the other families were of the opinion that the bosses would worm their way out of paying them anything.

  Dear God, Rodney had looked terrible, like someone out of a horror film. She shuddered, and wished she had not seen him like that. The memory would be with her for the rest of her days.

  Her thoughts were disturbed by Joyce entering the kitchen, a sparkle in her eyes. ‘Mum, the hearse is here and it’s pulled by two black horses. It’s really fancy! And you should see the carriage we’ll be going in. If it
wasn’t all black and shiny brass, it could pass for Cinderella’s coach like we saw in the pantomime the other year.’

  Edith pulled herself together. She was proud of this daughter. A blue-eyed blonde with a heart shaped face, a straight nose and a cupid bow mouth, Joyce had inherited her parents’ good looks. ‘Good!’ she said firmly. ‘We want the best for your father, don’t we?’

  ‘Yes. Gosh, Mum, you look smart.’

  Edith smiled, knowing she could always depend on Joyce to say the right thing. With a finger and thumb, she removed a long blonde hair from the girl’s shoulder. ‘You look smart, too. Black suits you. Do you like the pleating on the bodice?’

  ‘Yeah!’ Joyce glanced at her reflection in the mirror. ‘But it would have been nicer with a bit of lace to pretty it up. I know it had to be all black so I’m not complaining, Mum.’

  ‘Yes, Joyce, not yeah … sound your words properly. Perhaps in a few months’ time we could add some lace.’ Edith stroked her daughter’s silky hair. ‘But now we’ve got to get through this funeral without any of us breaking down, so fetch your sister. She’s been down that yard for ages. Tell her no more tears. Your father would expect no displays of emotion. You know how he hated it when the pair of you cried during weepies. I’ll go and speak to the undertaker.’

  She had refused to have Rodney’s body brought home, not wanting either of her daughters to see his face and get even more upset. She knew that hadn’t pleased some of the neighbours, who had known Rodney for donkey years and had expected to pay their respects here in this house, but she hadn’t allowed them over the threshold.

  Joyce paused in the doorway, a hand on the doorjamb. ‘I’ll tell Winnie what you said, Mam, but you know how she hates being told to do things by me.’

  Edith frowned. ‘You tell her that she’ll make me angry if she doesn’t pull herself together and get in here.’

  ‘OK.’

  Joyce went down the yard to the lavatory near the bottom. The door was slightly ajar and she peered through the gap. Winnie was sitting on the wooden seat, her face miserable, her button nose pink, and her eyes swollen and red. Short tendrils of brown hair clung damply to her plump face.

  ‘Mam said you’re to stop crying or she’ll belt you one,’ called Joyce through the gap.

  ‘Get lost!’ said Winnie, and leaning forward pulled the door towards her, scraping Joyce’s cheek as she did so.

  ‘You bitch!’ Joyce’s hand went to her face. ‘It’s what she said, not me! That wasn’t fair! You don’t want to be upsetting Mum. You know her temper. I’m sad, too, but us being miserable isn’t going to bring Dad back.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have died!’ Winnie’s voice cracked. She rose from the lavatory seat and smoothed the skirt of the black frock, which, although fashioned in the same style as her sister’s, was too tight under the arms and looked stretched across her breasts. She was fourteen and hated her body, wishing she could be a child again. Her father had been so much nicer to her when she was a young girl. She had danced for him in the kitchen, pretending to be a fairy or a dandelion clock, imagining she was as light as air and could fly. Then she had developed a bosom and her hips and stomach had swelled, and she just knew there was no sense in pretending she was anything other than the heavy lump of dough that a boy up the street had called her.

  She opened the door and gazed at her older sister, who was sixteen with an enviable thirty-six, twenty-four, thirty-six inch figure. ‘It’s all right for you,’ she said sullenly. ‘You’re Mum’s favourite!’

  ‘If you tried harder to please her and were less miserable then she wouldn’t have it in for you so much,’ said Joyce, her expression bored. ‘We’re all going to have to pull together if we’re to get by.’

  ‘But it’ll be me that’ll be given all the lousy jobs in this house if Mum goes and gets a job. You’ll get the easy ones!’ The thought of the unfairness of the treatment her mother meted out to her made Winnie so angry that she reached out, grabbed a handful of her sister’s blonde hair and pulled hard.

  Joyce screamed and slapped her sister’s arm. Then she pushed her so that she fell backwards onto the lavatory seat. Winnie jarred her elbow on the lead pipe that ran up the wall behind the toilet and yelped.

  ‘What the hell do you think the pair of you are doing?’

  Neither of them had heard their mother’s footsteps and both jumped visibly. Edith’s face was tight with annoyance. She grabbed Joyce’s arm and pulled her out of the way and then seized Winnie’s shoulder and heaved her up and out of the lavatory. She slapped her across the face. ‘Now no more nonsense!’ she said coldly. ‘Into the house and get your hat on! It’s time to go.’

  ‘It’s not fair!’ wailed Winnie, a hand to her scarlet cheek. ‘Why did you hit me and not her?’

  ‘Because you’re moping about feeling sorry for yourself. Now come on!’ Edith marched up the yard. The sooner she got this funeral over with, the better she would be able to decide their future.

  As Edith entered St Aidan’s church, she was gratified to see that her efforts to put on a good show had not been wasted. She had expected the church to be full as the deaths of her husband and the other men had roused a lot of sympathy for their families. She had received several letters of condolence, one from a man who had been among the rescuers. He had actually called at the house. Having still been in shock, she had had a rather awkward, yet soothing, conversation with him. She’d appreciated his call and, in fact, had not wanted to let him go. He was the first man to really attract her since Lawrence. His black hair and blue eyes were an unusual combination and, being recently widowed himself, he proved a sympathetic listener. He’d even promised to try and come to the funeral. Would he be there?

  As Edith followed the coffin, to the strains of Bach on the organ and flanked on either side by her daughters, she was conscious of heads turning. A lot of the people she knew, at least to say hello to on the street, but when she saw him, pent up breath escaped her. He wasn’t what one would call exactly handsome but his craggy face was terribly attractive and she remembered he had good teeth. Rodney’s had been false and didn’t fit properly and would make peculiar clicking noises when least expected.

  In an attempt to ignore Winnie’s weeping, Edith thought about Harry Peters for the rest of the service. When it was over, she stood at the church door, shaking hands with people and thanking them for coming and supporting her and her girls in this their darkest hour. In such a way he could not leave without having to speak to her.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Mr Peters.’

  ‘You remember me!’ His surprise was obvious.

  She smiled as his large hand swallowed up hers. ‘How could I forget the man who rescued my husband. You were so kind to drop by that evening after the accident.’ She thought that sudden smile of his was enough to make her lust after him. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come to the house for something to eat after the burial,’ she asked.

  He was apologetic. ‘I’ve got to go back to work. Sorry.’

  Disappointed, she responded lightly, ‘Another time perhaps. I know you understand what I’m feeling right now. You know what it’s like to lose someone you love.’ A muscle tightened his cheek and she wondered for a moment whether she had gone too far. He hesitated and she thought he was going to agree but, instead, he just nodded and walked away.

  On the way to the cemetery Edith found herself wondering what line of work Mr Peters was in. He had looked smart in a dark suit but it hadn’t been fashioned with the best of fabrics and the style was dated. Even so, she was in no position to sniff at a working man’s wages and besides, she reckoned he would be good in bed. It was years since Rodney had tried to please her. Their sex life had consisted of a quick coupling on a Saturday night and that was it for the rest of the week. She could only hope that Harry Peters would not forget her and consoled herself with the thought that at least he knew where she lived.

  Greta paused in her task of polishing the brass threshold and sat bac
k on her heels and looked up at her father, shading her eyes from the sun with her hand. ‘How did the funeral go, Dad?’

  Harry paused on the grid to the coal cellar. ‘She gave him the works. Fancy carriage drawn by black horses with plumes and a full service with four hymns!’ He removed his cap and wiped the sweat from his brow. ‘The church was crowded and one of the daughters cried throughout the service. Poor kid! But Mrs Cox took the time to thank everyone on the way out.’ His dark brows knitted in thought.

  ‘What is it? You’re not wondering whether you can do something to help them, are you?’ asked Greta alarmed, remembering her mother saying on more than one occasion that Harry was far too soft-hearted for their good. He made no answer. She wiped her dirty hands on her apron and scrambled to her feet. Stepping down from the lobby, she clutched his arm. ‘Dad! I know you feel sorry for them but if Mrs Cox can afford a fancy carriage and black horses, then she can’t be hard up.’

  He removed his cap and cleared his throat. ‘It’s not always money a person needs at these times, luv. It’s someone who understands what you’re going through, who’s been there before you.’

  She had a sudden sense of foreboding and that made her voice sharp when she spoke. ‘Then you and Mam should have talked more after Alf and Amy died, not only to each other but to me! And when Mam died, we should have said how we were feeling! But no, we had to keep it buttoned up!’

  Anger burst from Harry. ‘Your mam did talk to me just before she died! She’d been keeping things from me! Now I wish she’d kept her mouth shut. Talk won’t change things so what’s the point, girl, of raking up the past?’

  She opened her mouth to say that she would like to know what her mother had said, that she’d like to talk about the things they’d done as a family, the happy times, that it might make her feel better, but he brushed her hand from his arm and stepping over the threshold went inside. She stood as still a statue. His outburst had brought her near to tears and she wanted to run after him and ask what sort of things Sally had kept from him.