She’d never noticed it before, Cathy marvelled, yet John’s headstrong, reckless nature showed in the thrust of his jaw and the stubborn set of his lips.
But then, she told herself quickly, he’s just impulsive and it’s natural for a young man. Maybe Greg’s too quiet and diffident. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with either of them, she thought, and at least now there’s peace between them.
But she soon found that it was a fragile peace. The fire that had burned between them was not out but only damped down, and speedily flared up again.
Chapter Thirteen
Sarah was the innocent cause of the row between Greg and John. She had a school friend whose family shared a house in Plumpton Street with another two families. Maisie Doyle’s family lived in the basement kitchen and had two bedrooms in the basement. All the family were unhealthy. When Sarah went down the basement steps to call for Maisie she hated to be asked into the kitchen to wait for her, especially in the summer.
A thickly encrusted fly paper hung in the window, and more flies crawled on the American cloth covering the table and swarmed round the open tin of condensed milk which stood on it. The room was crowded with furniture, including a large dresser with a carved eagle above it. Maisie’s sister’s hat and various caps hung on its outspread wings.
One day when Sarah was there, Vera Doyle took down her hat then flung it away from her with a scream as a large cockroach scuttled from within it.
Mrs Doyle was a pale, exhausted-looking woman who seemed to be in constant pain, and one boy of the family was in Alder Hey Hospital with a suspected tubercular spine while another had been sent to Heswell Children’s Hospital on Miss Margaret Beavan’s recommendation.
One night when Sarah was at home with her mother and father and John, she remarked that Mr Doyle said that the reason the family got sick was because they lived in the cellar kitchen.
‘He says germs fall out of the air, and with them living below ground all the germs go in their kitchen.’
‘Rubbish!’ John exclaimed roughly. ‘The man’s a fool.’
‘Don’t speak like that about your elders,’ Greg said sharply.
John laughed scornfully. ‘Germs falling from the air – did you ever hear anything so stupid?’
Before her father could speak, Sarah said quickly, ‘Mrs Doyle went to Copperas Hill to ask the people there to speak for them for a corporation house, and she told them what Mr Doyle had said about the germs. He told her to, but she said they all laughed. Mr Doyle said, “They can laugh their B legs off as long as they get us a house!” And I think they might be getting one.’
‘So, the man’s not such a fool, is he?’ Greg said tauntingly to John. ‘He’s a lot smarter than a know-all like you, evidently.’
‘I don’t call that smart – making yourself look a fool to get something you should have anyway. I’d be ashamed to degrade myself like that.’
‘That’s not degrading yourself. I admire a man who’ll go to those lengths to get a better home for his wife and family, and so would anybody with any sense. But of course you’re like the smart guys in Copperas Hill who laughed and felt superior and didn’t see that he was outsmarting them,’ Greg said with contempt.
‘I’m talking about a man having to sacrifice his principles,’ John said angrily. ‘But I wouldn’t expect you to know what I’m talking about.’
Sarah and Cathy stood silent with shock, Sarah at the effect of her innocent words and Cathy at the suddenness and venom of the quarrel.
Greg and John were both on their feet now, breathing heavily. At John’s last words Greg made a lunge towards him with his arm raised. Cathy stepped swiftly between them.
‘Greg, John!’ she said in horrified tones, then burst into tears and sank on to a chair by the table with her face in her hands.
Sarah plunged to her side and put an arm round her. ‘Now look what you’ve done!’ she cried. John snatched up his jacket and dashed out of the house and Greg went to put his arm around Cathy, who shook it away.
‘I’m sick of it, sick of it,’ she wept. ‘I thought all that nonsense was finished.’
‘I’m sorry—’ Greg began, but she interrupted him.
‘And so you should be! You started that.’
‘I did?’ he exclaimed. ‘I suppose you think your precious son should air his views about everything and no one must correct him?’ Sarah looked from one to the other of their furious faces.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she said desperately but they ignored her. She went into the back kitchen anyway, but she could still hear them. Her mother seemed to have forgotten her tears and was saying angrily, ‘Of course John can’t do anything right as far as you’re concerned, and don’t think I don’t know why.’
‘And what does that mean?’ Greg demanded. ‘I know you’ve got some bee in your bonnet about him and I’d like to know what it is.’
‘It’s because I brought him up on my own while you were in the Army, and of course you could see all the things I’d done wrong while I didn’t have a clever fellow like you to tell me what to do,’ Cathy sneered. ‘You started finding fault with him as soon as you came home and you’ve never stopped.’
Greg’s face was white and he sat down as though he had received a blow. His anger seemed to have gone, driven away by the shock of her words.
‘You can’t mean that, Cathy,’ he said. ‘You’re saying it because you’re in a temper, but you can’t believe it.’
‘I do believe it,’ she cried. ‘You think Mam and Dad and I spoiled him. You never loved him like you loved the others.’
‘You think that of me?’ Greg said in a dazed voice. ‘That I could be so petty and small-minded? That I could love him less…’ Sarah could see his face as she stood near the door and tears spilled down her cheeks at his expression. She longed to go to him, to put her arms around him and blot out her mother’s voice. How could she say such things?
Cathy had raised her head. She looked at Greg’s stunned expression. ‘There’s no need to look so shocked,’ she said. ‘You’ve said yourself he’s been spoiled and that Dad is a bad influence on him.’
‘I didn’t say he was a bad influence – I said he didn’t allow for John’s being so reckless and headstrong. I know your father would teach him nothing but good principles, but John distorts what he’s told and goes overboard about everything.’
Cathy was silent, recognizing the truth of what he said and already regretting some of her remarks.
Greg went on, ‘I do think he’s spoiled, and I can take the blame for that partly. I should have been firmer with him but – I was afraid to annoy you, I suppose.’ Suddenly the gas went out with a plop. Sarah had slipped out of the back door a few seconds earlier and for a moment they sat in the faint light of the fire. Then Cathy stood up.
She had intended to go to put a coin in the meter but had heard the hurt in Greg’s voice and instead went to sit beside him on the sofa and put her arms round him. ‘Greg, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said all that.’
He held her close. ‘No, Cath, I’m to blame. We should have had this conversation a long time ago.’
‘No, it was only a vague idea. It sounded worse than it was when I put it into words. That sounds muddled, but you know what I mean.’
‘I do,’ he said. They both found it easier to talk freely in the half light. Cathy said quietly, ‘If I face facts, Greg, I have always been on the defensive about John, resenting it if you criticized him.’
He kissed her gently. ‘And if I face facts, I’ve got to admit it’s not true that I didn’t check John for fear of vexing you. It was a much meaner reason, I can see now. I wanted him to love me more than he loved Lawrie.’
‘Oh, Greg, he loves both of you,’ Cathy said.
‘I’m not proud of myself for it, Cath, but it’s the truth. That’s the real reason I drew back from chastising him, and now we’re seeing the fruit of it.’
‘I don’t think we’ve anythi
ng really to worry about,’ Cathy said quietly. ‘I don’t think there’s anything wrong with John that time won’t cure.’
‘That’s true,’ he agreed. ‘You can’t put an old head on young shoulders. What’s that quotation? “When a man’s sixteen he thinks he knows everything, and when he’s thirty he realizes he knows nothing.” We’ll have to remember that when we’re dealing with John.’
The front door crashed back against the wall and they heard Mick’s loud voice. ‘What’s up? Haven’t you got a penny for the gas?’
Cathy hastily drew away from Greg and he stood up.
‘We were waiting for you to provide it,’ he said as Mick appeared in the doorway. The boy grinned.
‘Hard lines,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You’ll have to stay in the dark.’
‘There’s a penny on top of the meter,’ Greg said. ‘Put it in, Mick, while I light the gas.’ He stood in the centre of the kitchen beneath the light fitting, and when the penny had been inserted and the gas came through he lit the gas mantle.
The light dazzled their eyes for a moment. Cathy quickly turned her tear-stained faced away from Mick, but he seemed to notice nothing.
‘It was the gear in the club tonight,’ he said. ‘I won the darts then I won the table tennis match. I saw our John in the gym.’ He laughed. ‘He wasn’t half battering at the punch bag! Good job it wasn’t somebody’s head.’ He went through to the lavatory in the back yard, whistling cheerfully, and Cathy and Greg exchanged a look of relief.
‘I’m glad to know where he is,’ she said. ‘I was worried about him.’
‘Thank God for the Boys’ Club,’ Greg agreed. ‘He can work his temper off there.’
Mick had come back and was washing his hands at the sink as Cathy prepared supper. ‘No need to drown everyone, Mick,’ she exclaimed as he splashed water in all directions, but she looked at him with affection. Thank God for Mick, too, she thought, cheerful uncomplicated Mick. I’m sick of all these complicated people – and yet, perhaps there were hidden depths in Mick too. She would not have suspected that at this stage of their lives she would discover unknown depths in Greg. And in myself too, she admitted honestly, so I can’t be sure about Mick.
All the family except Cathy were in bed when John arrived home. She made no reference to what had happened earlier, and neither did John. He seemed a different person, warm and affectionate as he always was with his mother, gently teasing her when he opened a cupboard and several items fell out.
‘Didn’t you win a prize once for a slogan about tidiness, Mam?’
‘I think I won it under false pretences,’ she laughed. If only he was always like this, she thought, remembering the surly aggressive boy of a few hours earlier. He’ll grow out of these moods though, she told herself with her usual optimism.
Cathy watched her husband and elder son closely during the following weeks and could see that Greg often ignored behaviour by John that could easily have led to a row between them. She realized that Greg was prepared to let some things pass until John learned more sense, and was relieved.
John had managed to avoid his father for a few days after the quarrel about the Doyles, but on the Saturday he was in the kitchen when Greg came downstairs wearing his St John’s Ambulance uniform. He was on duty at the Everton Football Ground and Mick was delighted. ‘Hey, Dad, will you look up at the Boys’ Pen and wave to me?’ he said excitedly.
John looked his father up and down, making no attempt to hide the sneer on his face, but Greg blandly ignored him and smiled at Mick.
‘I will, son,’ he said. ‘And if Everton score, I’ll wave twice.’
‘They’re bound to,’ Mick boasted. John would normally have argued with Mick about football, but he turned his head away and took no part in the conversation.
After several attempts to provoke Greg failed, John seemed to realize that his father’s attitude was a deliberate ploy and stopped trying to aggravate him.
Occasionally he tried to talk to Mick about politics or the causes he found so interesting, but his brother only grinned. They were in their bedroom one day arguing on the subject when Mick said airily, ‘Why worry? All be the same in a hundred years.’
‘Yes, it will, if everyone is as selfish as you,’ John said in exasperation. ‘We should be fighting to make things better for everyone one day, a more equal sharing of the country’s wealth.’
Mick only smiled and took a copy of the Magnet from beneath his pillow.
‘Hey, that’s mine, you little turd!’ John exclaimed ‘Give it here.’ Mick held on to the comic so tightly that it would have been torn if John had tried to pull it away, so he cuffed Mick’s head instead. ‘Give it here,’ he said again.
‘Thought you believed in sharing everything,’ Mick said cheekily. ‘Different when you’ve got to part with something, isn’t it?’ He suddenly ducked under John’s arm and clattered away down the stairs, laughing merrily.
John was fuming, but suddenly he was struck by the justice of his brother’s remark and found himself laughing at Mick’s cheek.
John tried to arouse Sarah’s enthusiasm for his views but she only quoted her grandmother’s remark about doing what was next to hand. ‘Grandma does that,’ she said. ‘She helps anybody who needs it. She looks after people when they’re sick, and helps people with food and clothes, and looks after families when their mam’s sick.’
‘That’s all right for old people,’ John said in unconscious imitation of his mother’s response to Sally’s views many years before. ‘We should be getting things done, young people like us.’
‘Mam always says life will be better when Parliament passes the Family Allowance Bill,’ Sarah said.
‘But it’s only scratching at the problems, not getting to the root of them,’ John cried. She stubbornly refused to be convinced.
Christmas 1932 was happy for all the family. For several weeks before Christmas Cathy received at least three “Please be at’s” each week, and the extra money provided more food and treats for everyone. She helped Kate make three handkerchiefs for Josh and embroider them with his initial, and the old man was delighted.
John had saved from his pocket money to buy gifts for all the family. A doll in a bath for Kate, a puzzle for Mick, a tiny bottle of scent for Sarah, and five De Reske Minor cigarettes for his father. For his mother he had been paying coppers every week at Clarkson’s for a large glittering brooch that cost two shillings. A book for his grandfather and sweets for his grandmother completed his purchases, and he looked forward eagerly to distributing his gifts on Christmas Day.
Sarah had also managed to buy small gifts, mostly sweets, from her pocket money of twopence a week and coppers she had been given for running messages or by her grandma. But she said wistfully to John, ‘I wish I could buy proper presents. I can’t wait till I leave school this time next year.’
‘Don’t be in too much of a hurry,’ he advised. ‘Make the most of this year, Sar. I often wish I was back at school.’
‘Yes, but you don’t like the office. I’m dying to work at Elsie’s.’
Sally and Lawrie were happy because a long letter had arrived from Mary and Sam, with photographs of a luxurious house.
‘It’s like that feature film me and Peggy saw at the Majestic about film stars’ houses,’ Sally said.
‘Mary sounds made up with the weather there,’ Lawrie said. ‘And she says the house has all sorts of gadgets.’
‘And Sam’s working hard,’ Sally said. ‘He must be to have them back on their feet so quickly.’
‘He certainly must, and seeing something for it,’ Greg agreed as he looked at the photographs of the house and of Mary lounging on the beach. He sighed.
‘I think it’s a place where you’re right up or right down, lad,’ Lawrie said. ‘I think we’re better off on the middle road, Greg.’ He looked at his father-in-law with deep affection.
‘Yes, Liverpool suits me,’ Cathy agreed. ‘I’m glad they’re doing so well, but I woul
dn’t want to change places with them.’ She smiled at Greg and he bent and gave her a swift kiss.
Although John had made no friends in the office, he had made many among the office boys who thronged the top floor of Harry Petty’s dining room, and had asked them to tell him if they heard of a vacancy anywhere. Early in January one of the boys told him that there would shortly be a vacancy for a junior clerk in the shipping office on the floor below his present employers.
‘I’d apply for it myself,’ he said, ‘but I’ve got the chance to go into a bicycle shop as a trainee repairer, and that’s what I want to do. It’s the coming thing. I’ll learn to repair motor cars too.’
John immediately applied for the position and was taken on at a wage of twelve shillings a week.
He heard later that his reference from the fruit importer’s office was so bad that his new employers suspected that they were unwilling to lose him, so the spitefulness of the senior clerk misfired.
John settled very happily into his new job. He found the work interesting and liked the young men he worked with. Their work often concerned the destination of ships and Lawrie was interested in hearing about it.
‘I knew all those ports when I was a seaman,’ he told John. ‘Mind you, that’s all you see of a country when you’re a seaman – the ports. I often thought I’d like to get to know the countries, but still – I have through these.’ He nodded at the books in the bookcase Greg had made for him.
Most of the books reflected Lawrie’s interest in politics and he and John still held discussions on the state of the country, although with less hope than they had previously felt.
‘1931 was the watershed, lad,’ Lawrie said bitterly. ‘The bankers caused that crisis and the government could have sorted it out, but they panicked. Montagu Norman wanting to print ration books in case we had to go back to barter – that’s the kind of cool head we had to depend on! Talk like that from the Governor of the Bank of England!’
There is a Season Page 17
