Her voice was loud and there were cries of dismay from the other relatives. Cathy felt that they all looked at her reproachfully as they went away without seeing their children.
‘I’m sorry, Sister,’ she said. ‘I’d no idea he had it. Is he all right?’
‘As well as can be expected,’ Sister said austerely, then she caught sight of a nurse without her cap and set off after the luckless girl like a ship in full sail.
There was nothing that Cathy and Sally could do but turn away as the other visitors had done, but a cleaner who was wiping down paintwork slipped round the corner after them.
‘Are youse belonging to the lad with the broken arm?’ she hissed at them urgently.
‘Yes, but we can’t see him,’ Cathy said tearfully. ‘Have you seen him? Do you know how he is?’
‘He’s all right. She cudda let yer see him, the old cow. He’s in a little room on his own, and he couldn’t have give the others the chicken pox neither.’
‘I couldn’t even ask if he could have this cake and sweets. She went off so quickly after the nurse,’ Cathy said.
‘Bloody old mare,’ said the cleaner, peeping round the corner. ‘Here, give it to me and I’ll slope it to him. He’s a case, isn’t he? Should’a been on the stage.’ She put the parcels beneath her voluminous sacking apron, and with a parting wink slipped away.
‘I feel sorry for the other children and their mothers,’ Sally said later. ‘It doesn’t sound as though there was any need to close the ward.’
‘Chicken pox!’ said Cathy. ‘Trust Mick to get it just at the wrong time. Still, I’m glad that was the reason for his temperature, so long as he isn’t too ill with it. I wish we could have seen him, even for a minute.’
‘You and Greg will have to try again on Sunday,’ Sally said. ‘And try to see that cleaner too, I’ll make a cake for you to give her.’
Cathy walked home, thinking of the woman’s words that Mick should have been on the stage. Could Greg have been right? It seemed unimportant though. If only they could have seen Mick! But at least he would know that they had been to the hospital, and the cleaner might be able to give him the cake and sweets.
Lawrie was indignant when they told him what had happened. ‘It’s a damn disgrace,’ he said. ‘Those Sisters have too much power. I suppose no one will bother to tell the kids that their mothers came to see them and got turned away. Mothers should be allowed to see their children every day when they’re sick – it’s the time they need them most.’
‘Every day?’ echoed Sally. ‘They’d never allow that, Lawrie. None of the hospitals would, unless the children were on an urgent note and we don’t want that for Mick.’
‘Aye, when a child’s dying and doesn’t even know his mam and dad, then they’ll let them in to see him. It’d do the kids good, and help them to get better, if they could have visitors every day.’
‘Sister doesn’t even like twice a week visiting, one of the women in the queue told me,’ Cathy said. ‘She says it upsets the children and makes more work for the nurses, and it makes the ward untidy too.’
‘It’s a pity about her,’ Lawrie said. ‘I suppose a tidy ward is more important to her than the poor kids who must think their mothers have dumped them there.’
His face was flushed and he was gasping for breath. Sally went into the back kitchen and came back with a glass of water.
‘Drink this. Why do you always work yourself up about everything, lad?’ she scolded him. ‘All these impossible dreams, trying to set the world to rights single-handed.’
He managed a smile but was too breathless to reply. She put her hand to his forehead. ‘You’re burning hot. Do you feel all right, Lawrie?’
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ he said, but leaned back in his chair as though weary. Cathy kissed him and went home, leaving him to recover quietly.
‘I’m nearly as worried about Dad as I am about Mick,’ she told Greg later. ‘I’ve never seen him like that.’ She went over again later but her mother told her that her father had insisted on going to work.
‘He’s worried about having so much time off sick in the winter,’ she said. ‘He says he can’t stay off in the summer as well. He had a couple of hours’ sleep and didn’t seem so bad when he went.’
The next morning when Lawrie came home his body was covered in a rash. ‘Shingles,’ Sally told Cathy. ‘I thought it was, and Peggy said the rash was the same as their Michael had.’ Cathy went up to see her father who greeted her with a smile though he looked ill.
‘How do you feel, Dad?’
‘Glad to be home in bed, to tell the truth, love,’ he said. ‘Mind you, I was glad to see the rash in a way. I felt so bad and didn’t know what was wrong. At least now I know why.’
‘Have you got a lot of pain?’ Cathy asked.
‘No. I’ve had some of Mam’s jollop,’ he said with a grimace.
‘Never mind, she’s got some good remedies. She’ll soon get you right, Dad.’
‘Aye, I’ll be getting back to work to get away from them,’ Lawrie said, but he was plainly tired, and Cathy left him to sleep.
She inquired every day at the hospital lodge about Mick but the reply was always “Comfortable” or “As well as can be expected”. Sally was unable to leave Lawrie so Cathy went alone on Wednesday afternoons and on Sundays with Greg, but several visiting days passed before they were allowed to see Mick.
He seemed quiet and subdued but the attack of chicken pox had fortunately been slight. He whispered to Cathy that the boy in the next cubicle had been badly burned and screamed every time he heard the nurse approaching with the dressings trolley.
‘He’s only four, Mam, but he screams awful loud,’ Mick said. ‘I can’t stop thinking about him, ‘specially when I can’t sleep at night.’
‘Can’t you get to sleep, love?’ she said, tenderly stroking back his hair.
‘I get to sleep but I keep waking up,’ he said. ‘When can I come home, Mam?’
Greg went out and braved the Sister to ask about Mick’s progress. She was unexpectedly gracious.
‘Michael is a good patient and the bones seem to be knitting well, Mr Redmond. Of course, he is strong and well nourished.’
‘When will he be discharged?’ Greg asked. ‘I know you need the beds, Sister. Could he be nursed at home?’ Mention of the need for beds had softened the Sister, and she said that she would ask Doctor on his next visit and Michael might be discharged on Friday.
Greg thanked her and returned to tell Mick that he might be coming home “fairly soon”.
‘Sister said you’d been a good patient, son. Mam and I are proud of you.’
‘I’m proud of myself,’ said Mick, smiling at them. What a handsome little boy he is, thought Cathy. The chicken pox had not marked his skin permanently, and although he still bore scars from various accidents, his face was fresh and clear and his teeth had grown white and even, in spite of all the mishaps with his baby teeth. With his deep blue eyes and fair curls, he showed signs of the handsome man he would become and Cathy watched him with pride.
They had taken him a comic to read. Greg’s head was close to Mick’s as they laughed together at the pictures. Cathy felt a pang as she watched them. Why was it that Greg was so different with John? He’s so close to the younger ones, she thought, and yet with John, I never know when the next row will break out over nothing. I suppose Greg would reply he treats them all alike, if I said anything, and blame John for the rows.
When they left the hospital, Greg told Cathy that Mick might be discharged on Friday. ‘Friday? Why didn’t you tell him? It would’ve cheered him up.’
‘But excitement might have sent his temperature up, and then he’d have been kept in.’
‘I wouldn’t have thought of that. I’d just have blurted it out,’ she said. ‘Mind you, I don’t suppose she’d have told me as much.’
‘She said she’d ask the doctor tomorrow, but I think she has the last word really,’ said Greg.
&nb
sp; ‘I hope so. Oh, Greg, wasn’t it awful having to leave him there? Did you see the tears in his eyes when we were leaving, real tears, not like when he’s just yelling about something?’
‘He cheered up when you gave him the jigsaw,’ Greg comforted her. ‘It was a good idea to keep that until we were leaving. We’ll just have to hope he’s only got two more days there.’
Mick was discharged on the Friday and seemed thoroughly to enjoy the fuss that was made of him on his return home. Cathy found him an unexpectedly good patient, docile and obedient. Before long she put a cushion on the step for him to sit on and watch the other children playing, after making him promise not to join in their games. Fear of returning to hospital made him keep the promise.
Cathy felt that she got to know Mick much better during the weeks he spent safely at home, instead of rushing out to play all day.
‘I didn’t realize how much he knows,’ she told Greg. ‘He’s really clever.’
‘Yes, there are unsuspected depths in Mick,’ Greg said with a smile. And in you, thought Cathy. Since the day in the hospital she had seen more clearly how close and loving the relationship was between Greg and the younger children.
It annoys me that he doesn’t behave like that with John, she told herself, refusing to acknowledge that the twinge she felt was jealousy. It gave her an excuse to devise small treats for John to make up for his father’s imagined neglect, without feeling that she was being unfair to the other children.
But there was little margin now for any extras, Cathy found. Her feeling of affluence when Greg first earned higher wages had soon vanished and she was dismayed to find that she was again barely stretching the housekeeping money from Friday to Friday.
Cathy talked freely to Josie about her problems, knowing that she had the same worries.
‘I thought I was on Easy Street when Greg got this job, and it is better, but honestly, Josie, I don’t know where the money goes. The rent’s not much more here than Norris Street but it seems to cost more for coal and gas and cleaning stuff.’
‘I know,’ said Josie. ‘It’s the clothes that get me down. I don’t know what I’d do without our Mary helping me, but she never gives anything without a dig at Walter.’
‘I suppose you can understand it,’ Cathy said. ‘I can remember that time when she had the stillborn baby and that awful husband.’
‘Yes, but all fellows aren’t the same,’ Josie said indignantly. ‘Walter wouldn’t hurt a fly and she talks about him as though he’s a monster.’
‘Mam does a lot to help me,’ Cathy said. ‘She gets clothes from that wardrobe dealer and cuts them down for the kids.’
‘But you’re handy with a needle yourself, aren’t you, Cath? Not like me,’ Josie said. ‘Have you ever thought of taking in sewing like your mam used to do?’
‘I couldn’t,’ Cathy said. ‘There’s barely enough work for Queenie and she keeps her and her mother with her sewing.’ Queenie was a tiny woman with a club foot and a hump and Josie agreed that she needed the work.
‘I’ve got half a promise of a few weeks’ cleaning,’ Josie said. ‘Bella’s cousin cleans those offices at the corner of Dale Street. She’s lost three babies and the midwife says she got to give up the cleaning for a month before she has this one, so she spoke for me. It’ll only be for about two months but it’ll be a godsend – if I get it.’
‘I hope you do,’ Cathy said. ‘I’ll look after the baby, if you like.’
‘It’s all right, thanks all the same,’ her friend said. ‘It’s before the kids go to school and after they come home, and our Edie’s very sensible.’
‘See if anyone else has got a midwife like that,’ Cathy said, laughing. ‘Then you can speak for me.’ Then, more seriously, she said, ‘I’m ashamed, Josie, that I can’t make ends meet, or at least that I’ve got to scheme for things. I wish I was like my mam.’
‘You’re more like your dad, and money always burned a hole in his pocket, didn’t it? I had many a penny off him. He’s a lovely man.’
‘He’s not picking up after the shingles. He’s not himself, really quiet and miserable.’
‘It takes time,’ Josie consoled her. ‘Your mam will soon get him right.’
Chapter Eleven
Josie obtained the cleaning job which lasted for eight weeks, but before it finished she heard of another job as a part-time waitress.
‘Walter doesn’t like the idea of me working,’ she told Cathy. ‘I think the other fellows say things, and of course my mam is always stirring it. Saying he should be ashamed he can’t keep his family.’
‘Take no notice. Your mam’s gone very moody, hasn’t she?’
‘She’s gone like me old grandma used to be. Remember her, Cathy? The first word was a blow with her. Mam’s the same with my kids.’
Cathy told her mother about Josie’s job and old Mrs Mellors’ comments about it. ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Sally said. ‘Walter’s a good husband, but he doesn’t get much as a baker’s roundsman. All credit to Josie for trying to make something to help out.’
‘She says she’ll keep her ears open for a job for me,’ said Cathy. ‘So you wouldn’t say anything if I got it, Mam?’
‘No. Growing children take a lot of keeping,’ Sally said calmly.
Josie started the new job just before the summer holidays and was too busy to go for outings in the park with Cathy and the children. During the previous bitter winter Freda’s husband, who worked on the roads, had caught a cold which developed into pneumonia from which he died.
Freda’s family had closed ranks around her to comfort her and care for the children, but Leslie had been a loving husband and father and Freda grieved deeply for him. Cathy still saw her taking her children to school, but she was a sad, withdrawn figure with no heart for outings.
John was often studying, and when he was free went with a group of friends to camp on Seaforth Sands. They had acquired a small tent, and John begged an old pan from Cathy in which they cooked weird concoctions on the fires they made from driftwood.
Sarah and her friends preferred going for tram rides now, although they were happy to go to the park when pennies for the tram fare were not available. When they were, the girls could buy a ticket which gave them four rides, although the tickets were known as penny returns.
Sarah, and Edie Meadows, and another friend Lucy Ashcroft, were all considered capable, responsible girls, and the mothers thankfully handed over younger children to be taken on these days out. They usually took Meg Burns too. Meg’s real name was Smith as she was the child of Peggy Burns’ dead daughter but she had been unable to understand why her surname was different and had been distressed about it, so her name had been changed to Burns. Peggy usually kept her close, but was happy to put the backward Meg into Sarah’s care.
The children gathered by Cathy’s step and it amused her to see Sarah, whom she had always considered timid, firmly organizing the noisy group, and gently restraining Meg as she danced about, wildly excited at the outing.
They always came back dirty and hungry, but happy and full of stories about their adventures. Only Kate was never untidy. Among the motley throng of children with dirty faces and tangled hair, with hems coming down on their dresses and socks round their ankles, she looked as neat and clean as when she had set off in the morning.
‘Why can’t you keep yourself tidy like Kate?’ some of the mothers scolded, but the older residents of the street told each other that she was the model of her Aunt Mary. ‘The same temper and all,’ they said, because Kate was ever ready to throw a tantrum when thwarted. But these were quickly over, and she was a favourite with most of the neighbours.
Sally had made her a dress for Sundays of spotted material, with a full skirt and deep white collar, similar to one worn by Shirley Temple. Kate believed that she was very like the film star. She had a sweet singing voice and had learnt to tap dance a little from one of Sarah’s friends, and was always ready to perform.
Cathy took h
er to show Josie her new dress when it was finished. Josie’s mother was there, a shapeless mass filling the armchair from which she rarely moved. Her beady black eyes were bright with malice.
‘You’ll have to watch her, Cathy,’ she said. ‘She’s the spitting image of your Mary, and your mam had her share of worries with that one.’
‘Your dress is lovely, Kate,’ Josie said hastily. ‘Your grandma’s very clever, isn’t she?’ But old Mrs Mellor ignored the interruption.
‘Always chasing lads, your Mary, and didn’t think none of them good enough for her. I always said she’d come to a bad end.’
‘Then you were wrong,’ Cathy said angrily. ‘She’s got a good husband and a lovely home in America, and two automobiles.’
She was not sure whether the automobiles had been replaced but was not going to admit that to Mrs Mellor.
‘And it wasn’t Mary chasing lads, Ma,’ Josie said. ‘It was the other way round, and no wonder. She was so beautiful. Put us in the shade, didn’t she, Cathy? But, never mind, we done all right for ourselves. We’ve both got good husbands and good children.’
She walked down the lobby with Cathy and Kate, and took a penny from her pocket. ‘There you are, love. I think your dress is beautiful – just like Shirley Temple’s.’
To Cathy she said in a low voice, ‘Take no notice to me mam. She found out that our Frank was head over heels for Mary and she wouldn’t have him, and that’s why she’s saying all that.’
‘Poor Frank,’ said Cathy. ‘I thought he was lovely when I was young. Remember those parties? Frank was the first one I knew who was killed in the war.’
‘Plenty followed him,’ Josie said with a sigh. ‘Either drowned like Frank and our other lads, or killed in the trenches. Lovely lads, all of them.’
They stood in silence for a while, their faces sad as they thought of those who were gone, then Josie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Ah, well, no use brooding, I suppose. Thank God these kids won’t go through what we had to.’
‘Yes, the lads didn’t die for nothing,’ Cathy said. Mick was outside, walking down the street with a rolling gait, and Josie laughed. ‘Look at him,’ she said. ‘D’you think he’ll be a sailor? He’s got the walk.’
There is a Season Page 14
