There is a Season

by There is a Season (retail) (epu

  Cathy hugged her. ‘I’m proud of you, love,’ she said. ‘This is going to be a good help to me, and I’m sure you’re going to be happy there.’

  ‘I am, Mam,’ Sarah said eagerly. ‘I like the shop and the customers, and Mabel’s awful nice and so is Mrs Dyson.’

  Cathy handed Sarah two shillings for her pocket money and then took another florin from the packet.

  ‘Grandma got you the job, love, so run down to the shop and get some sweets for her, just to say thank you.’

  ‘I’ll get them from my own money, Mam,’ Sarah said. ‘I’d rather do that, honest.’ Her mother agreed and Sarah dashed down to the sweet shop.

  She bought half a pound of Sally’s favourite peanut toffee, a quarter of sugared almonds for her mother, a pennyworth of stickjaw toffee for Mick, and a sherbert dab for Kate. She added five De Reske Minor cigarettes for her father and a quarter of mint imperials for John and a bar of chocolate for her grandfather.

  ‘You’ll have nothing left of your pocket money, love,’ Cathy said, noting that Sarah had bought nothing for herself and smiling at her fondly.

  ‘I’ve still got sixpence ha’penny left,’ Sarah said. ‘And I’ve got no fares or anything.’

  ‘Take some of these cakes over to Grandma’s, too,’ Cathy said. ‘She won’t want any bread. She baked this morning.’

  The shop was a busy one, especially at lunch time when people from other shops and offices, as well as housewives, came in for the succulent meat pies for which the shop was famous. They were brought through on trays by the bakehouse lads and placed piping hot on a side counter. Soon Sarah took responsibility for serving the continuous stream of pie customers while Mabel dealt with the customers for bread and cakes.

  ‘We make a good team, don’t we?’ she said one day when Mrs Dyson came through from the bakehouse and stood watching for a while.

  ‘You do,’ the owner agreed. ‘Whose idea was it to hang bags by the pie counter instead of coming round for them every time?’

  ‘It was Sarah’s,’ Mabel said generously. ‘I told you she’d got a good head on her.’

  In this encouraging atmosphere Sarah’s confidence grew. She had grown tall and slim, and had managed to coax a wave into her shining chestnut hair. Her blue eyes, clear skin and quick, shy smile made her very attractive, and the young men who came to the counter all tried to flirt with her.

  She soon learned to look out for one in particular, a bank clerk who always let others be served before him so that he could spend more time looking at Sarah, smiling at her whenever their glances met. He always held her hand as he gave her his money, and again when she gave him change, and the other young men soon realized what was happening.

  ‘Don’t trust him. He’s got a girl in every shop,’ one said, and another told her that he was only flirting because the bank wouldn’t allow him to marry until he was twenty-six.

  ‘You’d be far better with a well set up fellow like me who can please himself,’ he told her, and young men from other shops and offices told her the same. It was all lighthearted and Sarah only smiled and blushed, but when Dennis from the bank had finally gone she happily wove dreams about him as she worked.

  To Sarah, everyone seemed happier at this time. Peggy’s daughter Chrissie certainly was. Her twin sons left school at Christmas and both obtained jobs, Jimmie delivering bread from a handcart and Johnny in a butcher’s shop.

  ‘Best of all though,’ Chrissie told Sally, ‘Arthur’s got a job labouring so we’ll feel the benefit of the lads’ money. If we were still on relief, they’d have taken off as much as the lads earned.’

  Peggy’s daughter-in-law Molly had obtained work at Tate and Lyle sugar works so she was now spared the weekly ordeal of applying for relief.

  ‘Things are better for everyone, aren’t they?’ Sarah said happily to her grandmother. Sally smiled but said nothing to spoil Sarah’s happiness, and lost in her dreams the girl failed to realize how worried her parents and grandmother were about her grandfather’s health.

  The winter had been a bad one with snow falling at Christmas and bleak days to follow. Lawrie’s bout of bronchitis in early January was a slight one, but although he was quickly back at work and as cheerful as ever, it was clear that much of his strength had gone.

  When he reached home after work he seemed thankful just to sit in his chair for a while and recover from the effort of walking home. He worked days now so Josh reached home at the same time, and Sally had a quiet word with the old man.

  He readily agreed to wait for half an hour for his meal and sit chatting to Lawrie while he gathered his strength.

  After the meal Lawrie would sit and read the newspaper for a while, but he was rarely without a visitor. Greg came often to talk about the allotment and about current affairs, and Cathy and the children came every night to see him briefly, but the visits that meant most to him were from John.

  John never failed to call in to see him, even if it was late and Lawrie was already in bed. They were as close as ever and Lawrie enjoyed hearing the news of meetings and deputations that John brought him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  John carefully edited the news he gave to his grandfather, and told him nothing about the revolutionary views of some of his new friends or the times when they disrupted meetings by political opponents, in case he worried.

  Grandad would do this sort of thing if he was younger, John told himself. He’s just too old to realize that this is what’s needed now.

  At half-past ten Sally always came up with a cup of cocoa for Lawrie and a shovelful of slack to damp down the fire.

  ‘Five more minutes,’ Lawrie would plead jokingly, but Sally was always adamant. ‘No, you need your rest. Your cocoa is ready downstairs, John.’

  ‘I won’t get a fire in the room if I don’t do as I’m told,’ Lawrie joked, but he always drank the cocoa obediently, knowing that it was partly Sally’s care for him that kept him alive.

  One fine day in April Greg hired a taxicab to take Sally and Lawrie, Cathy, Sarah and Kate to the allotment. He was there waiting when they arrived. He had placed some chairs in a patch of sunlight and told Lawrie that he needed his advice.

  It was his first visit to the allotment for several months and he was delighted to see it looking so well.

  ‘You’ve worked hard, lad,’ he said to Greg.

  ‘Mick helped with the digging,’ Greg said. ‘And Sarah’s been a good help too. She’s inherited your green fingers but we need some advice about crops now, don’t we, Sass?’

  ‘I pulled up some weeds,’ Kate said.

  ‘Yes, you did, love,’ Greg said. ‘Everyone helped.’

  Everyone but John, Cathy thought. He took no interest in the allotment now that his father was in charge of it, so they were all surprised when he suddenly appeared some hours later.

  He was carrying the Brownie camera which had been his present from his parents on his eighteenth birthday.

  ‘You were saying you’d like to send some snapshots to Auntie Mary, Grandad,’ he said. ‘I thought this might be a good occasion to get some of all the family. Here’s Mick. I told him to meet us here.’

  ‘Look at the state of him,’ Cathy exclaimed. ‘Oh, John, why didn’t you tell us? We could have put our best clothes on.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you. It’s much better like this,’ he said.

  He took photographs of his grandparents sitting side by side on the chairs, after Sarah had objected when Lawrie sat on a chair and Sally stood beside him with her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘That’s old-fashioned, Gran,’ she said. ‘Now the lady sits down and the man stands beside her.’

  ‘Votes for Women,’ Lawrie laughed. ‘Has your mam been getting at you, Sarah?’ But Greg placed the other chair beside Lawrie. A man from another allotment came and offered to take all the family together, then John took several other snapshots and Greg took one of John and Lawrie standing together.

  All the snapsh
ots were clear and John was delighted that they had all come out, but Cathy was struck to the heart at the appearance of her father in them. She sat looking at them again when she and Greg were alone.

  ‘I never realized,’ she said in a low voice, ‘Dad – he looks so frail. Seeing him every day—’

  ‘They might be a shock to Mary and Sam,’ Greg agreed. ‘Do you think it would be wise to send them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Cathy looked again, not at the family group but at the picture of Lawrie and Sally. In their youth sitters had not been allowed to smile while their photograph was being taken. They were both staring fixedly into the camera.

  Sally’s shoulders were stooped. Her face bore a look of anxiety and lines from the pain she suffered from arthritis. Lawrie’s face looked gaunt, his eyes sunk deep in hollow sockets. His thin shoulders were bowed as though with weariness, and his hands on his knees looked transparent.

  In the second photograph John had urged them to smile and they both looked better, although old and worn.

  The snapshot of John and his grandfather was the one that upset Cathy most. The contrast between John, young and strong, shoulders back and head high as he smiled confidently at the camera, and the figure of his grandfather, smiling bravely but looking bent and old, made her tears flow.

  ‘I never realized – I always thought of Dad as looking like that, like John is,’ she wept. ‘He looks a frail old man.’

  ‘It was just a bad time to take the snapshots,’ Greg consoled her. ‘He was tired after being there for a couple of hours. John should have warned us and we’d have arranged things differently.’

  Cathy put the snapshots together and stood up. ‘John did it on an impulse when he remembered what Dad said about sending some to Mary,’ she said stiffly. ‘Dad’s pleased with them anyway.’ Greg’s lips tightened but he said no more.

  The day at the allotment seemed to have been good for Lawrie and with the coming of summer his health gradually improved, but in June the whole family was shocked by the sudden death of Jimmie Burns.

  He had continued to work and to drink brandy to dull the pain in his back. Coming home late from the public house one night, he fell and damaged his ribs. He was helped home by a passer-by and Peggy put him to bed and called the doctor.

  ‘He should have been going to the doctor for the pain,’ Michael Burns said to Sally. ‘He’s on the panel being as he’s working, and it would have cost him nothing, but it suited him better to drink brandy for it.’

  ‘Your mam’s the one who should go to the doctor,’ Sally said, deciding to ignore his comments about Jimmie. ‘She’s taking bicarbonate of soda by the minute for her bad stomach. I’m sure it’s not good for her, Michael.’

  ‘Women and children should be able to go to the doctor free as well as men,’ Lawrie said. ‘Not be dosing themselves because they can’t afford to pay the money.’

  ‘That’d be the day, Mr Ward,’ Michael said. ‘Where would the money come from?’

  ‘From what they’re saving on defence, if they’re telling the truth about Disarmament,’ Lawrie replied. Michael looked at Sally and shrugged eloquently. When he had gone, Lawrie smiled at her.

  ‘That lad thinks I’m soft in the head,’ he said. ‘But all these things will come, Sal. The trouble is, they’re not coming quick enough.’

  ‘Well, widows’ pensions have come, and old age pensions and sick pay,’ she said. ‘You’ve got some of what you’ve fought for, lad.’

  ‘Aye, and John and lads like him will carry it on,’ Lawrie said. ‘That’s been my greatest happiness, Sal, having John growing up like he has.’ He leaned over and patted her knee and winked at her. ‘Barring times only we know about, eh, girl?’

  ‘Go on with you,’ she said, blushing and bending her head over her knitting.

  Only a few days later Jimmie developed pneumonia, and within two weeks he was dead.

  Rob, as the eldest son, took charge, helped and advised by Sally and Lawrie. Cathy had taken Meg to stay with her while Peggy’s house was full of mourning relatives. Her respect for Peggy grew as she took her turn to struggle with Meg’s wild swings of mood and sudden tantrums, when she lay on the floor and refused to move except to drum her heels and bang her hands on the floor.

  Cathy was relieved when Sarah and John returned from work in the evenings. Meg would do anything for John, and Sarah could make her go to bed by promising to go with her.

  During the days after Jimmie’s death Peggy had clung to Sally, but after the funeral she recovered her strength and courage. ‘Our Michael’s the one who’ll take it hardest,’ she told Sally. ‘I never let on to anyone but he hasn’t spoken a civil word to Jimmie for months. You know he’s always been the one closest to me, our Michael, and he thought Jimmie wasn’t treating me right, spending on the brandy.’

  ‘The young ones don’t understand,’ Sally said. ‘Jimmie was trying to manage the pain the best way he knew and didn’t realize it was leaving you short, he was that muddled with the pain and the brandy.’

  ‘He done his best. Our Robbie said after the funeral, when he was young he thought Jimmie never had no feeling for them when they were kids, but now he’s a father himself he sees it different. Jimmie fed and clothed them and gave them their Saturday penny, and now Robbie said he appreciates that Jimmie was hard with himself as well.’

  ‘It’s the times we’ve lived through, Peggy,’ Sally said. ‘Jimmie and Lawrie – they’d go to their work sick or well. I’m worried to death about Lawrie very often, going back to work when he’s hardly able to stand up, but he won’t be told. He seems easy going but about that he’s so stubborn.’

  ‘It’s their pride,’ Peggy said.

  Sally looked at her in surprise and Peggy said bitterly, ‘They take a pride in keeping their families and being someone in their own house, because to anyone else they don’t count.’

  Tears ran down her face and she wiped them away. ‘I wasn’t going to tell anyone but a fellow came from the Railway. He hummed and hawed and beat round the bush, then he said what he’d come for.’

  Peggy’s tears flowed again and Sally patted her hand in silent sympathy.

  ‘You know it was a Friday night Jimmie fell?’ Peggy said. ‘He’d been paid, and so he’d got the Saturday morning he wasn’t in. This fellow come to ask for it back. Four shillings and threepence, Sally.’

  ‘Never!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘As true as I’m sitting here. The years he worked for the Railway, and hurt his back there, and still dragged himself there, and that’s how much respect they had for him. To send while he lay in his coffin for four and threepence overpaid.’

  ‘My God,’ Sally said. ‘Listen, Peggy, that didn’t make any the less of Jimmie, that they behaved like that.’

  ‘It wasn’t the money, Sally. It was – they thought so little of him that they’d do such a thing. He wasn’t a man to them, just a number on a time sheet,’ Peggy wept.

  ‘Then that shows what they are, not fit to lick Jimmie’s shoes!’ Sally exclaimed. ‘The man that worked it out and the creature that came for it, they’re not worth another thought, Peg. Try and put the whole thing out of your mind. Jimmie had a family and plenty of friends who respected him, so you don’t have to worry about creatures like that.’

  ‘Don’t tell anyone, will you?’ Peggy said, drying her eyes. ‘I’m glad I told you but I wouldn’t want anyone else to know.’ She tucked her handkerchief away and gave Sally a ghost of a smile. ‘I’m glad I’ve got you for a neighbour, Sally. You’ve been a good friend to me always.’

  ‘And you have to me, Peg,’ Sally said. ‘I don’t make friends easily. All these years you’ve been my only real friend, and a good one.’

  ‘Nearly twenty-four years since we came to this house and never a wrong word between us,’ Peggy said.

  In all their long friendship they had never spoken so freely before and were both suddenly self-conscious, but Sally said with a laugh, ‘I had plenty of wrong
words with Mrs Kilgannon who was there before you. She was a right faggot. The trouble she caused here, and then at the finish she went queer, running round the streets naked, so her daughter took her to live with her.’

  ‘I hope we don’t go like that,’ Peggy said. She glanced down at herself. ‘You wouldn’t look so bad, being thin, but me! I’m like a cottage loaf. I’d soon collect a crowd.’

  Sally wondered how Peggy would manage without Jimmie, but she surprised everyone with her energy and resourcefulness. She cleaned through her house like whirlwind and reorganized the sleeping arrangements. Michael was moved into the third bedroom formerly occupied by Meg, Peggy and Meg moved into the second bedroom, and Peggy prepared the main bedroom and the parlour for a lodger.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised really,’ Sally said to Cathy. ‘Peggy has always been one for hard work. Dad says this is her way of managing the shock of losing Jimmie.’

  ‘Greg says he should have had compensation because he injured his back at work,’ Cathy said.

  ‘Dad told him that but it seems he didn’t report it right away,’ Sally said. ‘Anyway, it’s too late to worry now.’

  Peggy soon found her lodgers. ‘Two brothers, respectable lads. Their mam and dad are dead and a sister’s been looking after them, but she’s getting married and going to live in Manchester,’ she told Sally. ‘They’ll suit me down to the ground. I didn’t want girls who’d be in and out of my kitchen, or a young couple, but the lads will have their meals with us and I’ll do their washing.’

  ‘That’s worked well for us with Josh,’ Sally said. ‘I hope these lads are as easy as he is.’

  ‘I don’t think our Michael likes the idea but he’s very meek these days,’ Peggy said. ‘He’s upset because he fell out with Jimmie so often, but I told him lads often fall out with their fathers. It’s usually eldest sons, like with Greg and John, but Michael’s the eldest one here now.’

  Sally said nothing but later she told Lawrie about the conversation. ‘I got the shock of my life,’ she said, ‘but Peggy just rattled on as if it was something everyone knew – that John and Greg are at odds sometimes. I’m sure I’ve never said anything to her, Lawrie.’