by Melvyn Bragg
Joe shook his head. The kitten was almost inert in his hand, calm, not trembling at all. Joe took strength from it.
‘They won’t, Mr Kettler. Promise. They won’t. They won’t.’
They couldn’t. The tears that pricked his eyes told him the truth of it. They wouldn’t.
‘All right then,’ said Kettler, with a big sigh of reluctance. ‘Just tell them if they can’t cope, then Kettler’ll deal with it. What’ll you tell them?’
‘If they can’t cope,’ said Joe earnestly, fervently, not understanding, ‘then Kettler’ll deal with it.’
‘Say it again.’
Joe obeyed.
‘Away you go. It needs a bit of milk. In a saucer. Put a bit of water with it, mix it together – and keep it warm till your Mammy gets back.’
Wild-eyed at his good fortune, Joe darted across to his house, holding the kitten in front of him as if it were a bowl brimful of precious liquid.
Kettler sluiced the water from the bucket and tied up the dead in the blanket. He would take them along the Lonnings to the tip and stay for a word with the pigeon men, sure of a fag or two there, maybe a bit of a job, back for opening time.
Bella was now squatting in the corner worn out, sobbing noisily, her dress wide open, dangerously strewn up her fat adolescent thighs.
‘Get yourself decent, Bella,’ said Kettler, as he swung the knotted blanket over his shoulder. ‘You clueless tart.’
His joy had transmitted itself instantly to Ellen, who thanked Kettler for this unexpected benison – why had she not thought of it? Blackie was the perfect lightning conductor for the turbulence of Joe’s feelings. She brought a box from Eves’ the Chemist and lined it and put it in Joe’s room, pretending that Blackie would treat it as a kennel, knowing that Joe sneaked the kitten into bed and knowing, too, that Blackie had a mind foreign even to the besotted commands of a child and would soon walk free and alone.
Joe loved with the eye of passionate indulgence. He stood now, immobile, to watch it play with the material at the bottom of the easy chair, stab at it with tiny spindly paws, light as fluff.
‘We have to go or we’ll never get back.’
‘Will Blackie be all right?’
‘He’ll be fine.’
‘He won’t get hurt?’
‘There’s no fire on. We’ll shut the door. He won’t get hurt.’
Still staring at the kitten, he backed to the door and watched carefully while Ellen over-elaborately pulled it tight shut.
‘Can I stroke Blackie, Mrs Richardson? Can I, Joe?’
‘Not tonight,’ he said and then, because his mother was there, ‘Sorry, Bella.’
‘Tomorrow then, Joe?’
‘Yes,’ said Ellen. ‘You can stroke Blackie tomorrow, Bella.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Richardson.’
And she let them pass. Since the adoption of Blackie, Joe’s terms with Bella had altered dramatically. The promise of a stroke of the kitten or a holding of him (very rarely granted) was enough for safe passage to and from the lavatory and the threat of withdrawal of the favours secured liberty in all other journeys.
It was a summer’s evening in the middle of the school holidays and the town was largely full of children. The weather had not been kind – rain, light rain, intermittent rain, but still, rain most days. Now there was a break and mother and son put their raincoats over their arms as they set off for more water at the Town Baths.
This was a handsome sandstone building in a lane at the bottom of the field behind the main auction. Ellen had been a competitive swimmer as a girl and Joe had already been taught. He could manage a couple of breadths and provided he stuck to the shallow end he was safe.
Ellen played with him for a while, saw that he was settled enough – there were half a dozen others of his age, the inner tubes were in the pool, there were no adolescent boys exercising a reign of terror – and swam a few lengths, feeling as she always did the sensuous freedom of water, her movement through it, the body flowing and fluid. She lay on her back and floated for a while and let the feeling of lightness penetrate her. Her body lost all weight and her mind seemed to follow and lose all care. It was truly a world of her own as the gentle eddies of the pool lapped her. While Sam had been away, over those years, this, in a way she could not explain, was the closest she had been to him. She floated voluptuously, consumed with the luxury as long as she could until she was forced to come back and remember how little time she had. Then she went for a bath.
The zinc bath they had been given by Grace did well enough, but once a week Ellen had to have the full treatment. The dream was the bubble bath of Hollywood with all the trimmings of glittering taps and carpeted floors, a chaise longue, gilded mirrors, perfumes, space, lamps, an orchestra in the background. The reality was a plain white bath in a raw narrow room, a thin towel, a wafer of soap and a time limit for your ticket. Still, once stretched out with hot water brimming up to the chin, the rubber bathing cap still stuck on tight, there was real pleasure in it. If she levered herself up even very slightly on the pads of her finger tips, she could seem to float again.
So when would she tackle Sam? How would she say and do what she wanted without making it worse? How could she make it better, like it was before? Before he went away. Before he changed. Perhaps she too had changed but that thought was no more than a flicker on the margin. He was the stranger.
Joe was there, a boy, seven years old in a few weeks, and she knew that Sam found him a check, even an obstacle between them: how to right that? And to reach Sam – it seemed less possible by the moment. After that first confluence, their streams had diverged and the gap was widening. The only way was to act. It would not change by wishing. Neither of them seemed capable of those easeful confessions which can bring reparation. It was by action alone that this rift, this wholly unexpected, strange, unacknowledged, unseen, unforeseen rift between them could be mended.
The attendant knocked on the door. Her time was up.
Joe was hopeless at drying himself properly and Ellen went into the blue-doored cubicle to rub him down as he shivered back to warmth.
The rain, more drizzle, was waiting for them, but they buttoned up the raincoats and stepped out. Ellen felt buoyant and optimistic, as she so often did after a visit to the Baths. She had Joe take her arm and they sang, softly, ‘It’s a Long Way to Tipperary’ and ‘Goodbye Dolly’ and other marching songs from the First World War, as they followed the narrow wending path back into the centre of the town.
Time had sweetened the songs. Joe had picked up the words and loved them, because they were sung by his mother, because they were so cheerful and the names so big and ripe and meaningless. And it was good to be alone, unchallenged, with his Mammy.
‘Goodbye, Piccadilly, farewell, Leicester Square,
‘It’s a long, long way to Tipperary
‘But my heart lies there.’
Sung on the way to the Somme and Passchendaele and by men still active in the town.
‘Goodbye, Dolly, I must leave you,
‘Though it breaks my heart to go.
‘Something tells me I am needed
‘O’er the hills to fight the foe.’
Joe, his arm linked with his mother, dreamed of fighting the foe as he stepped out with this troubled, attractive young woman, his mother, believing her to be immortal and unchangeable.
They skirted Vinegar Hill. Ellen had never liked it. Although Joe had hovered around its edges and shivered at the stories that came from the place, he too was glad to avoid it. Most people did.
The fine rain settled on them like a gentle net. It glistened on Ellen’s dry hair and wiped Joe’s face with its pleasant soft moisture.
They found Lizzie and her sister in Scott’s Yard, oblivious to the drizzle, beside themselves with excitement. ‘We’ve got one, Mrs Richardson! The one what we wanted.’
Joe glanced at his mother to see if he had to stay and listen to this. The urge to see Blackie was almost a lust.
A gesture released him and he arrowed down the narrow runnel, flew past a flailing Bella and into the house to find the kitten on the table scratching the dark green cover so vigorously that the heaped-up material almost buried it.
‘We went up last week,’ said Lizzie. To Brindlefield, the new estate.
Her sister, younger by a year, watched Lizzie carefully, checking every word for its amazing truth.
‘And we picked one out. That we wanted. Didn’t we, Mary-Jane?’ A measured nod. ‘And I said – that’s ours – didn’t I? I said – that’s ours, Mrs Richardson – and it is!’
The pinched girl’s face creased in such joy that Ellen felt her heart lift.
‘It is!’ and the tone rose up the scale almost to a squeak of pleasure. ‘Number Eleven. And – and – the Graveses -’ their neighbours in Scott’s Yard, ‘Graveses is next door. Next door!’
Mary-Jane nodded with vigour.
Ellen felt her smile matching that of the delirious girls.
‘It’s got,’ said Lizzie slowly, ‘three bedrooms. Every one bigger than all our downstairs. It’s got a front room, a back room and a kitchen and another little room downstairs. And,’ here she paused and stared, knowing that the next revelation lay beyond belief and yet desperate to be believed, ‘and it’s got a room with a bath and sink in and an indoor lavatory.’
Her face became quite solemn.
‘Indoor lavatory,’ echoed her sister. ‘I had a sit on it.’
Lizzie was silenced by the thought of the splendour that would soon be hers. Ellen wanted to give them each a sixpence but did not quite know why and felt a flush of shyness – men gave money away -and so the moment passed.
‘Well, you’ll all be very pleased. I’m very pleased for you.’
‘And two gardens,’ said Mary-Jane, nudging her sister. ‘One at the front and one at the back.’
‘Daddy says he’ll build a shed.’
‘It sounds like a palace,’ said Ellen and she heard the wistfulness in her tone. ‘When will you move?’
‘In less than a month,’ said Lizzie, promptly.
‘Well,’ Ellen repeated, ‘I’m very pleased for all of you.’
‘Water Street is on the move our Mammy says.’ Mary-Jane liked that idea and issued her first smile. The hardness of life which had produced an inextinguishable zest in Lizzie had crushed her into a premature but permanent cringe of anxiety. Happiness was a rarity.
‘It will be,’ said Ellen.
And already she saw the handcarts with the few bits of furniture strapped on with baling twine, the prams full of clothes and knick-knacks, cutlery, crockery, the small accumulation of a lifetime drawn along the back streets as they would be until forced into the main Southend road and then up the hill which led to Brindlefield, the new Council estate, crowning the southern rim of the town and looking out clear towards the mountains of the Lake District. Her confidence drained away as she saw the people draining away. They had proved, as she knew they would, decent neighbours, decent people, despite her own and Grace’s foreboding, and who would take their place? She shivered in the wet cool air. Would squatters come? She saw the Water Street houses empty. She had heard talk of them being boarded up. She had read reports of people desperate for any roof over their heads. Who would the squatters be?
‘You can come and see us, Mrs Richardson,’ said Lizzie boldly, ‘whenever you want. And you can bring Joe.’
‘Well then, I will. Thank you, Lizzie. I’ll do that.’
Joe was lying on the floor encouraging Blackie to box with him. Ellen tidied up the tablecloth. The house felt damp and confined. More than anything, she wanted to get out of it, get out and somehow start again. But how could you start again? She heard Lizzie and the girls chanting a skipping song and nodded to herself. All it needed was the determination.
‘Blackie’s hungry,’ said Joe, ‘aren’t you, Blackie?’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Leonard was not a religious man nor was he a musical man but he had taken to the new song ‘Money Is The Root Of All Evil’. Once he had grasped the tune he would hum it or whistle it but most of all he liked to sing it aloud, not very loud but audibly, which he did morning, afternoon and evening, even on the streets, cheered by the repetition of that single sentence ‘Money is the root of all evil’. Dead right, he would mutter to himself, bang on the button.
He weighed up Grace in the light of that line. She was pouring tea from a teapot inherited from his mother but owning it now as she did all the inheritance so hard accumulated. Grace had been a smasher, a bit of a pin-up in her way, and Leonard had been unashamed to throw the inheritance into the balance. It had worked. She was still a handsome woman and since they had got the car she had become more responsive again. It was all, he thought, that really made her tick. The house, the family chattels, the car – the tune hummed inside his head clear and free floating. He wondered that Grace could not hear it.
Mr Kneale was sitting beside Joe catching up, it seemed to Leonard. After all, for nearly three years he had been in close contact with the boy and he had sometimes seemed to make a well-meant attempt to take Joe over. Leonard had observed Ellen’s anxiety and occasionally felt a proprietorial pang of his own over the fatherless child with the attractive young solitary mother.
The schoolteacher was reading to Joe from the local newspaper: ‘“Business Announcement. Rose-hips will provide much needed Vitamin C for children and invalids next winter.” Vitamin C is the source of life, Joe. It’s in apples.’ He waited for a response, but Joe kept quiet. He did not want to join in with Mr Kneale this time. After a disappointed pause, the teacher continued.’ “Almost every town and village in the North has a depot where threepence a pound will be paid for rose-hips freshly picked when red or turning red. Collecting Rosehips is a Healthy way to Contribute to the National Health.” Now that,’ said Mr Kneale, patting Joe’s head, ‘is a worthwhile way to make some pocket money.’
‘Nobody can beat me at collecting rose-hips,’ said Sadie, who had crept into the kitchen uninvited and stuck there regardless. It was true. Certain of the poorer women and the tinker women were expert at hoovering the hedges of rose-hips, blackberries and wild strawberries, bringing overflowing baskets to King Haney’s in Water Street. I’ll take him with me next time.’
‘I was thinking to taking him myself, Sadie.’ Mr Kneale’s accent was in itself a criticism of broad-speaking Sadie and the implied reproof was unmistakable.
‘Sorry, Mr Kneale,’ she said.
‘I was thinking of going round by the Syke road,’ he said.
‘That was stripped long since,’ said Sadie. ‘Sorry.’
‘Longthwaite?’ said Mr Kneale.
‘As long as you’re prepared to walk on.’
‘We’ll find some, Joe, won’t we?’
No you won’t, thought Sadie, with satisfaction.
‘If we do decide to go around the Syke,’ said Mr Kneale, in a tone which Ellen recognised as condescending and Sadie enjoyed as pique, ‘then 111 take the camera. You can get some unusual views across the Deer Park.’
‘I saw them deer,’ said Sadie.
‘Really? I thought they were all disposed of after the bankruptcy.’ Mr Kneale was growing icy towards her.
‘That bankruptcy as you call it,’ said Leonard sharply, ‘was brought on poor Mr Banks by the citizens of Wigton. If they had bided their time they would all be millionaires by now.’
‘And there would still be the Big House,’ said Ellen.
‘They must have kept the deer on, then, because I saw them,’ Sadie persisted. She enlisted Ellen. ‘So did you.’
‘Yes.’ Ellen felt it was almost a disloyal confession and glanced apologetically at Mr Kneale. ‘The deer were there when I was a little girl. The Storeys had the Big House after the Banks left and they kept the deer on for a time.’
‘Poor little Mr Banks was drummed out of Wigton,’ said Leonard, indignantly. ‘And see what he did for the town. He built the Baths.
He built the Kildare because Wigton needed a good-class hotel. He maintained the church. He built that Italian tower – a landmark, a monument for miles around. A true gentleman.’
Mr Kneale cocked his round and curly head, indicating that he needed to be filled in, but did not care, in this company, to admit ignorance.
‘Mr Banks had agreed to invest some money in shares for Wigton tradesmen,’ said Leonard. ‘They came to him. He didn’t seek them out. He had been very lucky on the stock markets of Europe.’ Leonard almost sighed with the pleasure that exotic and gilded phrase, that image of distinguished, unimaginable wealth brought him. ‘Finally he gave in and invested it for them. But in 1917 there was some sort of crash and the tradesmen of Wigton wanted their money back quick. You see, he’d given them guarantees being the gentleman. But he couldn’t find it quick. To sell – so I’ve heard quoted – was lunacy -and he was right – if they had held on—’
‘They would all have been millionaires,’ concluded Grace, reverently.
‘So he paid up.’
‘Like a gentleman.’
‘And he was bankrupted. He left the town by train and when he drove through the town in a carriage, they said he was jeered at.’
‘He was just a little sort of a man,’ said Grace. ‘Beautiful clothes. Beautiful manners. Smoked with an ivory holder.’
‘They followed him to the station and saw him on to the train.’
‘Broken-hearted.’
‘He died soon after in a London club.’
‘He never came back to Wigton.’
‘Leonard feels it,’ said Grace, ‘because his father did some work for Mr Banks and Mr Banks took something of a shine to Leonard and used to give him a silver threepence when he saw him.’
‘He was a real gentleman,’ said Leonard, firmly.
Mr Kneale nodded, sympathetically.
‘There’s never been a house like that,’ Sadie announced, drawn into the tragedy.
Ellen nodded and while the conversation about Mr Banks continued, she slipped into a reverie about the Big House on High-moor.
