John was still enthusiastic about cricket and Greg, who had been a useful bowler at school, had begun to coach some of the boys in the team John had formed. They had also decided to replace the crystal cat’s whisker wireless set that they had built together with a set with a loud speaker so that all the family could listen, instead of just the one who had the headphones. Cathy was pleased to see Greg and John with their heads together poring over blueprints and fiddling with valves and other parts.
Greg put up a shelf for the loudspeaker and bought a bakelite panel for the front of the set. Soon dance music began to sound from the loudspeaker. Greg and John were delighted although to Cathy it sounded as distorted as the sound from the crystal set, and there were as many whooping sounds and howls coming from it.
‘Only oscillation,’ they assured her. She was too pleased to see such harmony between them to complain further.
Cathy’s only remaining worry was about money and particularly her debt at the corner shop. She fancied that Mrs Cain had become cool with her and worried in case she was about to ask for the debt to be repaid. Sometimes she felt that she would have to share the worry with Greg, but always she drew back before the words were said.
She knew that Greg would blame himself because his wages were so poor, and she was ashamed that she had allowed the debt to mount up. Her mother had never owed a penny, even when she was desperate for food, and Cathy had been trained to think that it was better to go without than get into debt.
I’d die of shame if Mam knew, she thought, but she could see no hope of paying off the debt. She knew that she never wasted a penny yet the battle to feed and clothe six of them on Greg’s wages was becoming impossible.
There was no chance that she could get a job herself. Married women were not employed in shops or offices, nor in factories or workshops, and cleaning jobs were rare and jealously guarded. A woman who lived in Norris Street had gone to clean an office even while she had shingles rather than risk losing the job to someone else while she was ill.
It was galling, while she was so worried, to go to her mother’s house and see another parcel from Fortnum and Mason’s and to read another letter from Mary. Again there was a snapshot in it, this time of Mary and Sam standing outside a log cabin. “How do you like our holiday cabin?” Mary had written. “One of Sam’s business friends and his wife have a cabin too and we have splendid times there, although Sam is so busy it’s hard for him to get away.”
‘They seem to be doing well,’ Cathy said, handing back the letter. I don’t envy Mary, she told herself, not while I’ve got Greg and the kids – but I wouldn’t mind some of her money!
Aloud she said to her mother, ‘More quails, eh, Mam?’
‘I haven’t unpacked it yet,’ Sally said. ‘I was hoping you’d give me a hand, but I suppose it’ll be the same as last time.’ They began to unpack the hamper of luxury foods, and Sally looked worried.
‘I don’t care how well they’re doing, I don’t like them wasting their money like this. I know it’s lovely food but it’s not what suits us, is it?’
‘I meant to ask you, Mam – did you ever give that stuff to Peggy Burns?’
‘Yes. She said Ritchie wouldn’t touch it – he’s more faddy than his dad – but Jimmie enjoyed it, and so did Meg.’
‘Meg did?’ Cathy said in surprise.
‘Yes, well, poor child, she doesn’t know what she’s doing half the time,’ Sally said with a sigh. ‘I was glad it wasn’t wasted but I felt a bit uncomfortable about it, you know, Cath.’
‘Why, Mam?’
‘Well, Peggy didn’t say anything, but you know she didn’t think much of our Mary and I could sense her thinking it was showing off, sending this posh food. You see, I’ve never told her about the money Sam sends because she wouldn’t understand why your dad won’t use it, and so she might think Mary’s not thinking what would be best for us.’
She was standing turning a small jar round and round in her hand as she spoke. Cathy said gently, ‘I think you’re worrying about nothing, Mam. I’m sure Peggy doesn’t think all that. You think she thinks that Mary should have sent you money instead, but I’ll bet Peggy was just glad to get the food and thought no more about it.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Sally said with a smile. ‘I know I worry over nothing.’
‘I don’t really know why Dad won’t use that money, you know, Mam.’
‘I do though. I know Dad always seems lighthearted, but he feels things very much, Cath. We had a bad time when you and Mary were young and it’s still there, deep down within him. He said once that it does something to a man to see his family going short and not to be able to do anything about it, no matter how hard he tries.’
‘But what’s that got to do with the money?’
‘It’s his pride. He was so thankful when he got a job and could provide for us, and he wants to go on doing it, so he won’t take anything from anyone while he’s able to work. Do you understand, love?’
‘I do, Mam,’ Cathy said, giving her mother a quick kiss. ‘But I don’t know why these hampers worry you.’
‘I don’t like waste,’ Sally said. ‘And I’m ashamed when I look round the way people are these days and think the price of this could keep a family for a week.’
Cathy said nothing but still looked puzzled. Her mother said suddenly, ‘To tell you the truth, love, it’s all to do with what I was just saying – about how your Dad feels. He doesn’t like the idea of food parcels, as though we’re hungry. Neither do I, for that matter.’
‘Oh, Mam, Mary doesn’t think you’re hungry, I’m sure!’ Cathy exclaimed. ‘You know her. She probably likes the idea of ordering from Fortnum and Mason, or else one of her friends has done it so she thinks she’ll do the same.’
‘You’ve probably hit the nail on the head,’ Sally agreed. ‘But I think I’ll write to our Mary and tell her not to send any more. Say the food’s too rich for us.’
Sarah and Mick had arrived home from school and Sally gave each of them a slice of bread and jam. Mick rushed out immediately with his trolley but Sarah sat down by her grandmother to eat the bread, then took a ball from the cupboard and went into the backyard.
‘The kids have more toys here than they’ve got at home,’ Cathy said. ‘Mind you, I’m glad, because I don’t like them playing out in our street.’
Sarah suddenly reappeared. ‘Mam, Grandma, come quick,’ she whispered. They followed her but she paused by the door into the yard. ‘Look.’
Flagstones had been lifted in the yard to make a tiny garden. Mint and parsley, mignonette and snapdragons grew there. A butterfly hovered over the tiny plot. It was larger than the cabbage white butterflies which sometimes came to the little garden, and its velvety wings carried russet and cream markings.
They all watched entranced as the butterfly settled on a flower and folded its wings then opened them to their fullest extent. It rose in the air and fluttered above the flowers for a moment, then flew up and away over the backyard wall.
‘Wasn’t it lovely?’ Sarah said, looking at her mother with shining eyes. ‘It was like Auntie Mary.’
Cathy looked surprised then she laughed. ‘The colours, you mean, love. Like her red hair – or Titian as she liked it called – and her brown clothes.’
Sarah said nothing. Even to her mother she found it hard to explain what she meant. The butterfly, exotic and beautiful, fluttering into their lives, alighting briefly then leaving, had reminded her of the time her beautiful and wealthy aunt had suddenly arrived a few years earlier. After charming them and showering them with gifts, she had departed for life in America with her new husband.
A little later Cathy and the children left. Kate sang to herself but Sarah was silent. Cathy too was thoughtful. At first she thought briefly of her sister in America, then she remembered her mother’s words about her father’s pride and the reason for it. Who would have thought he was influenced still by such bitter memories when he always seemed so carefre
e? And Greg’s pride, which she was afraid to wound by telling him about her shop debt, and his reluctance to assert himself… That’s because of the life he had with that damned old mother, always criticizing him, she thought angrily. I suppose we’re all like icebergs with only the tips showing.
She herself was determined that her children would have only happy memories of their childhood, so she concealed her money worries from them and somehow managed to find coppers for anything that was required at school, meanwhile devising as many small treats as possible.
In the school holidays she took them out, sometimes with her friend Freda and her family from the next street, and sometimes with her childhood friend, Josie Mellor, now Mrs Meadows, who had five children but still lived with her mother in the house in Egremont Street opposite Sally’s.
Sometimes the three mothers combined families to go to the park, and the children all played noisily and happily together. On one such occasion Cathy and Josie, with their children, went to Freda’s house to call for her. Her mother was sitting on a chair at her front door. She laughed heartily at the sight of them.
‘I always say I’m like an ould hen with me chickens around me, but youse look like a Sunday School treat with all the kids.’ She took her shabby purse from beneath her apron. It opened out like a concertina and she took sixpence from it and gave it to Freda.
‘Ee are, girl. I can’t go round all this lot but you three girls get a cup of tea for yourselves. The big girls can look after the little ones while you have a rest.’
They thanked her and the convoy moved off, but Josie said to Freda, ‘You’re lucky having a mam like that. And I know your mam’s good to you, Cathy, but mine! She never stops finding fault and trying to stir up trouble, and the older she gets the worse it is. Remember my old Gran, Cathy?’
‘I do,’ she said, laughing. ‘I remember a clout she gave me one day for going near her foot. I thought I’d been sent for.’
‘I got plenty of those clouts too,’ Josie said. ‘And now me mam is going just like her.’
‘But you’ve got good neighbours, though, Josie,’ Cathy said. ‘That Mrs Parker in our street is a horror. Greg said, when he was off that time, she was like a spider sitting at the centre of a web. Women are going in and out of her house all day but I’m sure it’s not because they’re fond of her. In fact, they seem afraid of her.’
‘That’s because she’s a moneylender,’ Freda said.
‘A moneylender!’ Cathy exclaimed. ‘I must be thick, living opposite her and I never knew.’ She suddenly remembered Mrs Cain’s words about getting in the clutches of a moneylender and almost blurted them out, but Josie was speaking again and Cathy was able to keep her debt secret.
These were happy days. The children rarely quarrelled and Cathy was happy to see how much Sarah and Mick and Kate enjoyed themselves. Quiet Sarah screamed as loudly and raced about as much as the others and Mick was in his element playing leapfrog and tumbling about on the grass in mock battles with the other boys. Kate joined in the games but she always looked as neat when they finished as when they started, unlike Sarah and the other girls.
John considered himself too old to go with his mother, but Cathy never worried about him as he had a wide circle of friends now because of the cricket, and seemed to enjoy his days. He still spent some time with his grandfather, who was often off during the day because of shift work, but Cathy went to her mother’s house at some time most days and it seemed to her that John and Lawrie talked more about ships than about politics. They had travelled to Seaforth on the Overhead Railway and Lawrie had told John about the ships in each of the docks they passed, so another of her son’s sudden enthusiasms had been born and he could talk of nothing but ships.
Greg was now writing to various firms asking to be considered if a vacancy arose but the replies were discouraging.
The children had been back at school for several weeks and the weather was warm and humid when two such replies arrived one morning before he left for work.
‘Never mind, love. At least you’ve got a job, and a secure one,’ Cathy consoled him when he silently handed the letters to her, but Greg looked downcast when he left, and she worried about him during the day.
It was only one of several anxieties, the chief of which was as usual money. It was a Friday and payday. She had been without a penny in her purse since the previous day. The insurance man was due but she would tell him she would pay double next week, she thought. She had potatoes and dripping but no money for gas and no fire to cook on.
She could do as many people did and buy chips and fish when Greg arrived with his money but that would put her further back the next week. Sarah and Mick rushed in from school and announced that they were starving. Cathy cut thin slices from the heel of the loaf and spread them sparingly with jam.
‘Can I have a butty?’ Kate said, and Cathy had to pare another slice from the loaf. Why are they always most hungry when I’m short? she thought. She was determined not to get another loaf on “tick” from the corner shop, but her head ached with all the planning and she longed for a cup of tea.
John arrived next, wearing a beaming smile. He had been returning from school when he saw a stout old lady trying to carry a Gladstone bag up Eastbourne Street.
‘I’m blowing for tugs, lad,’ she gasped when he offered to carry the bag.
John put the bag on his shoulder and with the old lady clinging to his arm they soon reached the top of the steep street. Then he took her to the corner of the street where she lived.
She was still puffing, but said, ‘That’s far enough, lad. I’ll take it to the door meself.’
‘Will you be all right?’ he asked. She winked.
‘Me son should’a met me. I’ll tell him I carried it up the broo meself.’ She laughed wheezily and gave John a threepenny piece, and he went running back to the sweet shop and bought a pennyworth of stickjaw toffee for himself and a penny bar of Fry’s chocolate for his mother.
He gave the chocolate bar to her. ‘I carried a bag for an old lady and she gave me threepence,’ he said, smiling broadly and handing her the remaining penny.
Cathy flung her arms round him and kissed him.
‘Oh, John, that’s a godsend,’ she exclaimed. ‘The gas has run out and I was waiting for Dad’s wages to have a cup of tea. My head’s splitting.’
John looked at her in dismay and her face grew red. She had always concealed her money worries from her children but relief at receiving the penny had made her incautious. Now she felt ashamed, but John, always sensitive to her feelings, turned away tactfully, saying, ‘I’ll put it in the meter then, Mam.’
He stayed in the back kitchen and made the tea and when he brought it in, told Cathy about the old lady and the trick she intended to play on her son. They were laughing together when Greg walked in, carrying an evening paper.
John glared at him. Spending money on a newspaper, he thought, and Mam not able to have a cup of tea for want of a penny. Greg could see no reason for John’s hostility but it was unmistakable. Greg’s temper rose all the more when Cathy said innocently, ‘John got money for carrying a bag and he bought me this chocolate.’ John’s face was turned from her, so she was unable to see his expression and was surprised at the result of her words.
They had been meant to show Greg that John was a good son, but her husband said furiously, ‘That sort of thing is easily done. It would be more to the point if he worked hard at school and justified the expense of leaving him there.’
Cathy stood amazed at the suddenness of the attack, but before she could speak, John said loudly and impudently, ‘My fees are paid by the scholarship, and I do work hard – for Grandad’s sake.’
‘Then why am I informed that you’ve been punished for slovenly homework? Not by you, of course. You’re too sly for that.’ Greg raised a finger and shook it in John’s face, ‘If you can’t be trusted, from now on you’ll do your homework there, on that table, where I can watch you. I’ll put a s
top to all your gadding about, too.’
Cathy stood looking from one to the other, bewildered by the storm her innocent words had provoked, but she saw by the way John stood with his head thrust forward that he was about to answer back, and said quickly, ‘John, go and call Sarah.’ She gripped his arm and drew him to the door.
He was scowling but she said, ‘Hurry, son,’ and smiled at him so warmly that his scowl faded before he ran down the street.
Cathy turned back into the kitchen. Greg had put his wage packet on the dresser. She picked it up and walked through to the back kitchen, too angry to speak to him. John can do nothing right as far as he’s concerned, she thought. He doesn’t deserve such a good son.
Sarah came running in but John stayed in the street. ‘Our John said you wanted me, Mam.’
‘Yes, I want some messages,’ Cathy said, taking money from the wage packet. ‘Get a loaf from Cain’s then go to the chippy.’
‘Why couldn’t our John go?’
‘Because I’m telling you to go.’
Greg had sunk down wearily into the chair, regretting his angry words and overwhelmed by depression. It had been a disastrous day for him. He had been unable to sleep the previous night in the stifling heat of the tiny bedroom, feeling suffocated by the nearness of so many people and by the small houses crowded close together, and worrying about his failure to provide a better home for his family.
He had lain sleepless for hours while his thoughts turned this way and that, desperately seeking some way of improving their lives. All his efforts to find another job or a better house seemed hopeless. Finally he had decided that his only chance was to ask about his prospects for promotion or for a rise in pay, but exhausted by his sleepless night he had been tempted to postpone the ordeal.
It had needed great fortitude for Greg to overcome his natural diffidence and make his request and he had been humiliated by the attitude of the office manager.
The man had kept Greg standing before him while he lounged in his chair and told him contemptuously that there was no reason why he should have either a rise or promotion.
There is a Season Page 9
