Walking My Baby Back Home

by Joan Jonker

  Dot could feel herself weakening and turned away. ‘Go out and play with Danny while I make me shopping list and work me money out. If I can wangle it, I’ll take yer.’

  ‘And Mr Kershaw?’

  ‘Ay, come off it! I’m not asking him, and you’re not to, either. It always ends up with him paying, and it’s not fair – makes me feel like a scrounger.’ Dot sat at the table with a piece of paper and a stub of pencil. Life was a bit easier since Katy started work but they weren’t well off by a long chalk; she still had to count the pennies. But she had sympathy for her son. With having no dad, he missed out on a lot of treats his mates got. ‘I’ll see what I can do, son, and I’ll let yer know when I’ve sorted meself out.’

  Colin had the sense not to push it. He had detected the note of softness enter her voice and thought he was in with a good chance. So when he rejoined his friend he said, ‘I’m probably going to the Broadway meself tonight, Danny, so I’ll see yer there.’ He knelt down in the gutter, his multicoloured ollie ready to play. ‘Ay, what d’yer think ye’re doing? It’s my turn!’ The good-natured argument was nothing new to the two lads. That’s what a game of ollies was all about, trying to cheat on your opponent without him noticing. Mind you, if you gave a good flick and knocked his ollie away, you got accused of cheating anyway.

  ‘That’s two games I’ve won,’ Colin said, with the air of a victor, ‘so by rights, you owe me an ollie.’

  ‘You can go and jump in a lake, mate,’ Danny told him, with the air of a bad loser. ‘Yer only won both games because yer cheated.’

  ‘I never did!’ Colin saw a familiar figure walking up the street and quickly changed his tune. ‘OK, we’ll call it quits, eh? The two games were a draw.’

  ‘I bet I win the next one.’ Danny was being very optimistic because everyone knew Colin Baker was the best player in the street. ‘I’ll go first, this time.’

  But Colin was already on his feet. ‘No, I’ve got to go now, Danny, but I might see yer later in the pictures. Look out for us.’ With that the boy crossed the cobbled street and ran towards the man who, next to his mam, Katy and his grandma, was his very favourite person. ‘Hello, Mr Kershaw.’ He fell into step beside the big man and lost no time in putting his plan into action. ‘What d’yer think, Mr Kershaw, me mam said she might take me to the Broadway tonight, to see Mutiny on the Bounty.’

  The piece of news had John slowing his pace. This sounded like a situation where he would probably need the boy’s help. ‘Did your mother mention me coming with you?’

  ‘No, she just said if she had enough money she’d take me. She must have forgot about yer, Mr Kershaw, ’cos she wouldn’t stop yer from coming with us, would she?’

  ‘I find your mother a complex person, Colin. Very lovely and adorable, but complex. So I think you and I are going to have to play our cards right. What say I go in first, then after a few minutes you come in and ask if she’s taking you to the pictures.’ John looked down on the animated face, little knowing that the boy was way ahead of him. ‘I’m not teaching you to be deceitful to your mother, because that would be wrong. But we’re doing it in a good cause, helping two nice people,’ he grinned, ‘your mother and me. She doesn’t get out very often, in fact hardly ever, so she deserves a treat. And for myself, I’ve heard such a lot about Mutiny on the Bounty, I’d really like to see it.’

  And so it was that John went in first, to find Dot with her basket on her arm and a shopping list in her hand. ‘You certainly pick a fine time to call,’ she said. ‘I’m just on me way out to the shops. I’m late getting out because I called into the O’Connors’ when I was passing, to see what was happening with Mary.’

  John sat down, ignoring the fact that she was ready to walk out of the door. He’d keep her there until Colin came in, even if he had to do a flying tackle at her legs. ‘Oh, and what is happening with Mary? Has she gone home?’

  Dot rested her hand on the table but remained standing. ‘The O’Connors have talked her out of leaving today; she’s going on Monday instead. The queer feller won’t be there, so she’ll have time to settle herself in without having him yelling and bawling his filthy language down her ears.’ She fitted the basket into the crook of her arm, saying, ‘I’ll have to scoot, John, so why don’t yer go and sit with Mary for an hour?’

  Colin came bouncing in on cue, his timing perfect. Another minute and Dot would have been on her way down the street. ‘Hello, Mr Kershaw, I saw yer passing when I was playing with Danny. Have yer heard, me mam might take me to the pictures tonight? That’s what yer said, isn’t it, Mam?’

  ‘I’m sorry, son, but it’s too much of a rush. By the time I get back from the shops, our Katy will be home and ready for her meal. After working all day she needs some food inside her.’

  ‘Can I make a suggestion?’ John asked. ‘Why don’t we all go to the pictures – we three and Katy and Billy? We haven’t been for weeks, Dot, and I’ve heard it’s a very good film.’

  ‘Ooh, yeah, Mam, that would be the gear!’ Colin’s eyes lit up. ‘Go on, say we can.’

  John could see Dot was between the devil and the deep blue sea. The idea didn’t appeal to her but she didn’t want to disappoint her son. So John pressed while the iron was hot. ‘You could buy a meat pie while you’re at the shops – that would keep Katy going for a couple of hours. We’d be home about half-eight.’

  Dot’s eyes rolled from one to the other. ‘You two have got me boxed in, haven’t yer? If I refuse I’ll be the worst misery-guts in the world.’

  ‘I’ll come to the shops with yer, Mam, and carry yer bags. Yer’ll be round the shops in no time with me to help yer.’

  John tried not to let his pleasure show. This courting business wasn’t going at all to his liking. Dot treated him like a brother she was fond of, and she was at ease in his company. But he didn’t want to be treated like a brother. He wanted her to look at him and see him as a man who had very strong feelings for her. He didn’t mind the waiting, if only she would give some sign that perhaps in time she would return his feelings. ‘I’ll call into the sweetshop and see if Molly will let Katy finish a quarter of an hour early,’ he said now. ‘I’m sure she won’t mind. And I’ll give Billy a knock.’

  ‘Yer’ve got it all worked out, haven’t yer? The pair of yer have stitched me up good and proper. And I know there’s no point in me wasting me breath arguing with yer, ’cos I don’t stand a chance, not when there’s two against one. But if it’s all the same with you, John, I’d like to alter yer routine a little.’ Dot’s face was the picture of innocence as she bent to put the basket on the floor. ‘If you’re both so keen on going to the pictures, then yer won’t mind doing all the running around, will yer? Our Colin knows which shops I go to, John, so he’ll help yer out there. And as yer’ve got to pass Billy’s house and the sweetshop on yer way, it won’t be no trouble to stop off and give those little messages, will it?’

  John gave a hearty chuckle. ‘I might have known you wouldn’t give in so easily. What you’ve done is lull me into a sense of false security, then you’ve hit hard. But shall I tell you something, D.D.? I’d much rather you got mad and were your usual, delectable self.’

  Dot kept the smile off her face when she put her hands on her hips and let her head drop sideways. ‘If this is what yer want, Mr Kershaw, then I’m only too happy to oblige.’ She leaned forward and stared into his face. ‘Just because you and my son want to go to the flicks, and neither of yer like not getting yer own way, yer think I should run the feet off meself to please yer. Well, yer can just sod off, because the sooner yer both learn that when a woman comes home from the job she gets paid for, it’s to start the job she doesn’t get paid for, the better! And that’s looking after a home and family.’ She straightened up and nodded her head sharply. ‘So now yer know, and yer can put that in yer pipe and smoke it.’

  ‘Beautifully delivered, D.D.’ John clapped his hands. ‘No one has the knack of putting someone in their place like you do. An
d even if they did, they wouldn’t look as pretty as you while they were doing it.’

  ‘Well, now that’s out of the way, I’ve got a couple of hours to meself this afternoon, something that has never happened before. So I’m going to get the tram into town and take me time buying new dresses for me and me daughter!’

  Colin had been listening to all this in silence. Now he said, ‘Get a blue one, Mam, ’cos yer don’t half suit blue. Don’t yer think so, Mr Kershaw?’

  ‘Your mother looks pretty in whatever she wears, Colin. Even a coal sack would look good on her.’

  ‘Even if it was still filled with coal?’ Dot asked dryly. ‘I wish yer wouldn’t keep flattering me, Mr Kershaw, it’s embarrassing.’

  ‘There’s a difference between flattering and paying a compliment, Mrs Baker. I do not flatter you, I pay you well-deserved compliments.’

  Dot threw her hands in the air. ‘I give up! There’s no talking to you, ye’re as stubborn as a ruddy mule. Anyway, I’m off to spend a couple of wonderful hours on me own. You two behave yerselves, d’yer hear? I’ll see yer later, ta-ra, now.’

  ‘Where does the sugar go, son?’ John asked, looking around the tiny kitchen. ‘In one of these cupboards?’

  ‘No, the sugar and tea go in the sideboard cupboard, ’cos it gets damp out here.’ Colin was smiling to himself. Mr Kershaw had called him ‘son’ again, and it didn’t half make him feel good. ‘The potatoes and veg go in the pantry under the stairs and the bread goes in that bread bin.’

  ‘Your mother was right when she said it’s no joke going around the shops. And how she manages to carry such a heavy load I’ll never know.’

  ‘Me mam works hard, Mr Kershaw, always has done. But yer never hear her moaning and she never really gets in a temper. She’s the best mam in the whole world.’

  ‘I wonder where she’s got to?’ For John, there was something missing in the house when Dot wasn’t there. ‘I thought she’d be back by now. I hope she’s found a dress she likes and is on her way home.’

  ‘Have yer ever told me mam that yer like her?’

  ‘No, I haven’t, but she must be blind not to see it.’ John lowered his head to look into the boy’s face. ‘And you mustn’t tell her, either. When I talk to you, it’s man-to-man talk and not to be repeated. Is that understood?’

  ‘I won’t tell no one what we talk about, Mr Kershaw. I’m nearly thirteen now, I’m not a kid any more.’ Colin frowned. ‘I wonder why me mam can’t see that yer like her? I can see it, and so can our Katy. And I know me Auntie Betty and Mary can, ’cos I’ve heard them dropping hints.’

  ‘Everything takes its course, son, so we’ll just have to bide our time. Who knows, one day your mother might look at me and say, “I like you, John Kershaw”.’

  The boy’s face creased in a broad smile. ‘Yeah, that’s what’ll happen, I bet.’

  John ruffled his hair. ‘How about you and me making some sandwiches for when she comes home? It’ll save her the trouble and be a nice surprise for her.’

  The sandwiches were made and the table set when Dot came in. She took one look and grinned. ‘I’ll have to get in a paddy more often, won’t I? The table looks good, thank you very much. Now I could murder a cup of tea.’

  Man and boy stood by the table, reluctant to move. ‘Did you manage to find a dress you liked, D.D.?’

  Dot held a bag aloft and waved it in their faces. ‘Success! One for me and one for our Katy. I feel really pleased with meself.’

  ‘Are yer going to put it on to go to the pictures, Mam?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so, sunshine. That would look as though I’m showing off.’

  ‘Dot, you’re the last person in the world anyone could accuse of showing off.’ John couldn’t understand why anyone with Dot’s looks could be so modest. ‘If you were to wear it tomorrow, would you still be showing off?’

  ‘No, ’cos I’d be in me own house then, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘That’s daft, that is.’ Colin moved closer to John. They were going to fight this together, side by side. ‘I want yer to wear it tonight, and so does Mr Kershaw.’

  John nodded his head solemnly. ‘Once again it’s two against one, Dorothy, and the majority wins.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right, Mam, it’s two to one,’ Colin said, looking all grown-up. ‘We want yer looking nice to take out, don’t we, Mr Kershaw?’

  Dot smiled in spite of herself as she saw her son looking up at his hero. She had to admit that John had been good for Colin. The boy was better behaved and more sensible. ‘If one of yer will put the kettle on, I’ll go upstairs and get changed, just to please yer. And the dress is staying on whether yer like it or not, ’cos I ain’t getting changed twice. You asked for it, so ye’re stuck with it.’

  Colin did a little dance as he followed John into the kitchen. ‘We did good there, Mr Kershaw. And me mam must like yer or she’d have told yer to get lost.’ His eyes narrowed in thought, his forefinger played with his bottom lip, pulling it forward and then letting it spring back to make a plopping sound. ‘D’yer know me friend, Danny? Well, his brother’s got his eye on a girl but she’s giving him the runaround, and Danny said she’s playing hard to get. D’yer think that’s what me mam’s doing with you? Playing hard to get?’

  John roared with laughter as he poured the boiling water into the teapot. It wasn’t so much what the boy said that made him laugh, but the fact that it was a schoolboy saying it to him. Here he was, forty years of age, being taught the wiles of women by a twelve-year-old. His mother had made sure he had a good education, and he was grateful to her for that because it meant he would never have to worry about money. But throughout his education there’d never been one lesson in how to deal with women who, to use Colin’s words, were playing hard to get.

  John put the lid on the teapot, a smile still on his face. ‘Tell me, does Danny’s brother have a way of dealing with this girl he’s got his eye on? The one who’s playing hard to get?’

  ‘If he has, it’s not working, is it?’ Colin’s chuckle joined John’s laughter. ‘Otherwise he wouldn’t be getting the runaround, would he?’

  ‘That’s the logical assumption, I suppose. So really, there’s no point in me going to him for advice, is there?’

  ‘I didn’t understand the first part of what yer said, Mr Kershaw, but ye’re right about it being no good asking him for advice. Danny’s brother is tuppence short of a shilling.’

  ‘What’s all the laughter about?’ Dot stood framed in the doorway. ‘I could hear yer from upstairs. Let me in on the joke.’

  ‘Oh Mam, yer look lovely. The dress doesn’t half suit yer. I bet that ye’re the prettiest mother in the whole of Liverpool.’

  ‘That’s stretching the imagination a bit, sunshine, but thank you for the compliment.’ Dot glanced at John. ‘Does it meet with your approval, Mr Kershaw?’

  The dress was in a pale blue cotton, with a buckled belt and a flared skirt. It had a shirt-like collar with three pearl buttons which Dot had left unfastened, showing off the smooth skin of her neck. ‘You look as pretty as a picture, D.D. – a woman any man would be proud to have on his arm and in his heart.’

  ‘Blimey!’ Dot was pleased but embarrassed. ‘All that for a cheap dress from TJs. I wonder what yer’d have come up with if I’d gone to Henderson’s and paid a fortune for one?’

  ‘If you’d paid a hundred pounds for a dress, Dot, it wouldn’t look any nicer on you than that one. It’s not the cost that makes the dress, it’s the person wearing it.’

  Colin eyed the big man with admiration. When he was older, he was going to learn to speak like Mr Kershaw. Not just speak nicely like him, but use all those big words he knew that suited every occasion. Then the boy had a brainwave, remembering something his hero had said last week. ‘Those are my views entirely.’

  The small kitchen nearly burst at the seams with laughter. Dot was bent double and John was holding his head in his hands. And as the boy looked on he wondered why h
is mam couldn’t show she liked Mr Kershaw. Just look at them now, they got on really well together. What she needed was a little push in the right direction. The trouble was, if his mam knew she was being pushed, she’d dig her heels in. So he’d have to be sly so she wouldn’t notice. And tonight would be a good chance to start, when they went to the pictures.

  ‘On yer own today, Mrs Williams?’ Katy asked. ‘It’s not often we see you without Mrs Armstrong.’

  ‘I’m not on me own, queen, Dolly’s gone next door for a reel of cotton.’ Rita Williams turned when the shop bell tinkled. ‘Here she is now.’ She waited until her friend was standing beside her, then laid a hand on her arm. ‘Yer see before yer the only woman I know who can tell one mutton chop from another.’

  Molly, serving the other end of the counter, overheard the remark and called, ‘Don’t say another word until I get there.’ She quickly counted her customer’s change into her hand.

  ‘There yer go, sweetheart, tuppence-halfpenny change. Don’t go mad and spend it all in the one shop.’ She waited until the woman reached the door before making her way to stand next to Katy. ‘Go on, Rita, what were yer saying?’

  Dolly Armstrong gave her friend a dig in the ribs and a dark look. ‘She wasn’t saying nothing, was yer, Rita?’

  ‘I bloody-well was! You made a holy show of me in the butcher’s, now it’s my turn.’ Hitching her bosom and striking a haughty pose, Rita said, ‘She asked the butcher for two mutton chops, and when he was weighing them, soft girl here said, “I don’t like the look of that one, will yer change it?” Now can yer imagine it, Molly, there’s two chops on the scale, as alike as two peas in a pod, and my friend here takes a dislike to one of them.’

  ‘Perhaps one had more fat on than the other?’ Molly suggested, hoping she was wrong because she could just do with a good laugh.

  Rita shook her head while her friend gave her looks to kill. ‘Spittin’ image of each other, they were. I’d defy anyone to know one from the other. And everyone in the shop was of the same opinion, except for Tilly Mint, here. She insisted she didn’t like the look of the flamin’ chop and asked Bob to change it. By this time we were all feeling heartily sorry for the poor bleedin’ chop – I mean, it had never done no one any harm.’