There is a Season

by There is a Season (retail) (epu

  One of the letters Cathy received was from an old friend, Norah Benson, who had married Greg’s friend Jack Carmody. Jack was a Catholic and Norah a Protestant, and both their families had opposed their marriage on religious grounds.

  Cathy had sometimes wondered if this opposition had driven Norah and Jack together, and if they were really suited. They had married during the war when Jack had been wounded and Norah had gone to the hospital in London where he had been taken. Later they had made their home there.

  Cathy had lost touch with them, and was sorry to learn that the marriage was now over.

  “We had no children so they needn’t have all been carrying on about how they’d be brought up. When it came to living down here with only ourselves to rely on, no old friends or relations near, we realized that we were totally different from each other and not suited at all. Jack is now working in Ireland and I have a live-in job in this boys’ school. I often think of our happy days with the Mersey Wheelers, Cath,” Norah wrote.

  She also said that she shed tears when she heard of Lawrie’s death, as he was her ideal of what a man and a father should be. “I envied you for many things, Cath,” she wrote, “but most of all for your happy home and loving parents. Tell your mam I will pray that God will comfort her in her great sorrow.”

  Cathy cried when she read Norah’s letter. After Greg had read it, she said to him, ‘We won’t have to make that mistake with Sarah, Greg. If we don’t like anyone she goes out with, we’ll have to be very careful not to be so much against him that it drives them together, like Norah and Jack.’

  Greg agreed but said that he had always felt that Jack and Norah were not suited. ‘They were both great characters individually, but together they didn’t seem right.’

  ‘Norah said once that they had gone out a few times, they might have carried on courting or might not, but with the way the families carried on they had to make up their minds whether they wanted to get married before they really knew each other,’ Cathy said. ‘We’ll have to be very careful with Sarah.’

  She said nothing more about Michael to her daughter and Sarah seemed glad to avoid the subject. The family clung together, helping each other come to terms with their loss.

  Only John drew no comfort from the family. He went out as soon as he had eaten his meals. Cathy and Greg were laying careful plans for their treatment of Sarah, but neither realized that Greg’s opposition to John’s friends was driving him closer to them and making him even wilder and more reckless.

  He had moved from associating with the younger group at the club to the older and more experienced men, and they found him a willing listener to their stories of clashes with the police and impatience with the established order. He said nothing of this at home and his mother, immersed in her own grief and worries, was unsuspecting.

  It seemed to Cathy that every time she went into her mother’s house she found Peggy Burns there with her, sipping the inevitable cup of tea as they talked in low voices, or simply sitting together in quiet companionship.

  ‘I can understand how your mam feels,’ Peggy said to Cathy when they met in the street. ‘No one understands how a widow feels except another widow.’

  Cathy made some reply, and escaped into her own house. She was upset to be told that Peggy could share her mother’s grief better than the family who loved her, and were themselves grieving for Lawrie.

  She resented too the loss of her father being classed with the loss of Jimmie Burns, and when Greg came in told him of the conversation.

  ‘I think Peggy Burns had a cheek to say that,’ she said indignantly.

  ‘I don’t know, Cath, she may be right,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘We try to understand how Mam feels but I suppose no one can really understand, except another woman who’s lost her husband after years of marriage.’

  ‘It’s our loss though,’ Cathy insisted.

  ‘I know, love, and Mam needs us, but perhaps she needs Peggy too,’ he said. ‘Anything that can help her – I think we should welcome it.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Cathy conceded. ‘But I still think it’s a cheek to compare losing Dad with losing Jimmie Burns. He was a different sort of man altogether, and it was a different marriage too.’

  ‘I agree, Cath, but I don’t suppose Peggy sees it like that,’ said Greg. ‘And after all, they’d been married a long time.’ Cathy still felt hurt and confused but he put his arms around her and kissed her.

  ‘No one can come between you and your mam, love,’ he said gently. ‘It’s just a bit of extra help for her, that’s all.’

  Cathy clung to him. If I lost Greg… she thought. No, I can’t bear even to think about it. She lifted her head and kissed him passionately.

  The next day she was alone with her mother, both pottering about the kitchen, when Cathy opened a cupboard and saw a cap belonging to her father on the shelf. She snatched it up and pressed it against her cheek, then burst into tears. Sally came up beside her and they clung to each other, weeping bitterly.

  Memories of Lawrie wearing the cap were in both their minds. They remembered him, the cap at a jaunty angle on his curly hair, striding down the street, whistling cheerfully, and the thought that they would never see him again nearly broke their hearts.

  ‘Oh, Mam, Mam, how can we bear it?’ Cathy sobbed as their arms tightened about each other and tears poured from their eyes.

  Sally murmured brokenheartedly, ‘Lol, Lol.’

  When the first violence of their weeping subsided, Sally patted Cathy’s back and said, ‘There, there, love,’ as she had done when Cathy was a baby.

  Cathy kissed her impulsively. ‘Oh, Mam, I should be comforting you,’ she said, her voice rough with tears.

  ‘We’ll have to help each other,’ Sally said. ‘But, Cathy love, what will we do without him?’ They sobbed again, but again Sally was the first to recover. She dried her eyes and straightened her shoulders, and Cathy wiped away her tears, fortified by her mother’s quiet courage.

  Gently she laid the cap back in the cupboard. ‘We’ll have to do something about his clothes,’ Sally said. ‘But not yet.’ They went to sit by the fire, each drawing strength and comfort from the other.

  ‘How’s Mick?’ Sally said presently.

  ‘A lot better. I’ve kept him in bed and given him aspirins and a blackcurrant drink,’ said Cathy. ‘It’s this awful weather. Sarah’s full of cold too.’

  ‘I haven’t seen John,’ Sally said. She hesitated. ‘Is he all right, love?’

  Cathy pressed her hand. ‘I think so. We hardly see him ourselves. He just bolts down his tea, hardly says a word, and then he’s up in his room or out. With Mick in bed now, he usually goes out somewhere.’

  ‘Is he still seeing that Hanson lad?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mam. Greg asked him and John snarled at him. There’s no other word for it. Greg was livid. He let it pass but said afterwards he felt like knocking John down. Still, we’ve got to make allowances just now.’

  ‘Poor lad, he’s brokenhearted,’ Sally said with a sigh. “Nobody knows what John meant to Dad, Cathy. From he was a baby in this house, he brought that much happiness.’

  ‘Yes, they were always close,’ Cathy said. ‘And John loved his grandad more than anyone.’

  When the evening meal was over at Cathy’s house that night, John rose from the table and went into the lobby. Cathy followed him. She laid her hand on his arm as he started to walk upstairs. ‘Grandma was asking about you, son. Try to go and see her, John.’

  ‘Is she all right?’ he asked gruffly.

  Cathy sighed. ‘You know Grandma. She doesn’t say much, but she needs us, love.’

  ‘I know, Mum. I’ll go over a bit later on.’

  Cathy went back to the kitchen where Sarah was clearing the table and they took the dishes into the back kitchen and began to wash up.

  ‘I’ll go over to Grandma’s when these are done,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ve got some sweets for her.’

  Cathy turned from
the sink. ‘Will you leave it for a bit, love? John’s going over. He hasn’t been for a while and Grandma was asking about him.’

  She expected some protest from Sarah, but her daughter only said quietly, ‘I don’t think John can bear to go in the house, Mum, without—’ Their eyes met in the shaving mirror above the sink and suddenly Sarah’s filled with tears and she turned into her mother’s arms. Cathy held her and stroked her hair.

  ‘It’ll get better, love,’ she said gently. ‘It’ll be easier to bear in time.’

  ‘But I don’t want it to, Mum,’ cried Sarah. ‘I don’t want to forget Grandad.’

  ‘I understand, love,’ Cathy said. ‘I remember when I was a bit younger than you and Mrs Malloy died. I thought I was being disloyal if I wasn’t miserable all the time, but Grandad took me for a walk and talked to me. He said Mrs Mal would have given me a right telling off, what she called the rounds of the kitchen, if she knew I was moping about because of her. And it was the truth, Sar. Grandad would feel the same.’

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘He told me one day – we were talking about Rupert Brooke – and Grandad said if no one ever died, there’d be no room for others to be born. The earth would be full and we’d all be slipping off the edge.’

  Cathy smiled fondly. ‘That was Grandad,’ she said. ‘A joke about everything. That’s what we should remember, love, the happy times, and there were plenty of those with him, weren’t there?’

  ‘Yes, and the things he said like: “To everything there is a Season. A time to be born and a time to die.”’ Sarah’s voice wobbled slightly as she said the last word, but John came to the door of the back kitchen and she smiled at him.

  ‘I’m going over to Grandma’s, Mum,’ he said. Cathy took a clean apron that was folded on the sideboard.

  ‘Take this, will you, son? I forgot it when I took the ironing.’ John took it, and when he had gone Sarah looked at her mother in surprise.

  ‘That was your pinny, wasn’t it, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, but it’ll give him something to say when he first goes in,’ Cathy said. ‘Grandma won’t let on it’s mine.’

  When John went in to Sally’s kitchen she was sitting in her usual chair by the fire and Josh had turned his chair away from the table and was sitting smoking. He stood up immediately and greeted John, then said that he would go and have a look at his newspaper.

  John held out the apron to Sally. ‘Mam sent this, Grandma.’

  Sally said calmly, ‘Thanks, love. Just put it on the dresser.’ As he turned back from the dresser she stood up and pushed Lawrie’s chair nearer the fire. ‘Sit close, lad. Did you ever know such weather?’

  Her calm assumption that John would sit in his grandfather’s chair removed any awkwardness he might have felt, and she went on talking about the weather as he sat down.

  ‘Peggy put some sheets to soak in the dolly tub last night, she told me, and she had to break ice on the top of the water this morning, and the tub was in the back kitchen overnight.’

  ‘The worst weather for thirty-five years, someone in the office was saying.’

  ‘Mick’s chosen the right time to be sick,’ Sally said. ‘Trust him.’

  John smiled. ‘You should see him. He’s got a jersey on over his pyjamas, and mitts and a woolly hat. You know, Grandma, the kind you see on foreign sportsmen skating or skiing. I don’t know where he got it from, but he’s a nasty sight when I wake up in the morning.’

  Sally stood up to make cocoa and John watched her covertly, looking for signs of change in her, but he could see none. Her spare figure was dressed in a black dress and her hair was in the usual neat bun on the nape of her neck. Her face was pale but as calm as ever, and only a slight tremor in her hands betrayed how much she had suffered. They spoke of trivial matters, storm damage and events in the street, and it was not until John was about to leave that they spoke of Lawrie and then only indirectly.

  John put his arms about his grandmother and kissed her and she held him close. ‘Don’t stay away, lad. I love you too, you know, and – he’d have wanted it.’

  John found his eyes full of tears and swallowed rapidly. ‘I know, Gran,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ He kissed her again and hurried away down the lobby, then walked around for a while before going back into his own house.

  Sarah had been watching from the parlour window and had seen him come out. She went over to see her grandmother and take her the sweets. She helped Sally to fill two hot water bottles and put them up in her and Josh’s beds, then took coal up for the fires which Cathy had lit in both bedrooms.

  ‘I didn’t ask John to take the coal up, love,’ Sally said. ‘I thought it was a bit too soon for him to face going in the bedroom, but you’ve been up there often.’

  ‘D’you know, our parlour window is thick with ice on the inside because we’ve had no fire there,’ Sarah said. ‘Just shows what the bedrooms would be like without the fires.’

  ‘Aye, I always say money for coal is money well spent,’ Sally said. ‘Especially in weather like this.’ As they worked, they spoke without constraint about Lawrie.

  Sarah felt that she could talk about Michael, too, to her grandmother. Sally said nothing, and kept her eyes on her knitting as Sarah spoke about her disappointment in him. ‘He mumbled a few words the first time I saw him after – then he said nothing more. Then he asked me to go to the pictures! He just doesn’t care about how I feel, Grandma.’

  ‘Don’t be too hasty, love. He’s only young and some people can rise to the occasion better than others,’ Sally said. ‘Don’t fall out with him. Just let things take their course.’

  ‘Mabel says he’s just shy, but Anne says he’s as limp as a wet Echo and I can do better for myself.’

  ‘You’re the one who knows how you feel, love, not Mabel or Anne, although I suppose they mean well. Just wait and see. You’ve got plenty of other things to interest you.’

  Sarah smiled gratefully at her grandmother and touched her hand briefly. Both reserved and undemonstrative, they understood each other perfectly, and drew even closer in the weeks after Lawrie’s death.

  Cathy was frequently employed by the catering firm during these weeks, and welcomed the arrival of the “Please be at’s”. Her spirits were lifted by working in lively company and the women she worked with, most of whom had known bereavement, were kind and considerate towards her.

  The first time she worked after her father’s death, Cissie gripped her arm. ‘You’ve lost your da, girl, haven’t you?’ she said. ‘He done a lot of good in his life but his time had come. Better to go like that than lay for years, a trouble to himself and everyone else.’

  ‘Cissie’s right,’ another woman said, ‘be thankful he didn’t suffer much, Cathy. Not like that poor man in our street. They’ve give him so much morphia that it doesn’t have no effect now, and the screams out of him are terrible.’

  Even Mrs Nuttall, perpetually busy, took time to say to Cathy, ‘I’m sorry about your dad, girl. You’ll miss him, but hard work’s the best cure, I found. I’ll see you get plenty of jobs.’

  She was true to her word and the postcards arrived for Cathy three or four times a week. This meant she worked sometimes with different women, but she liked all she worked with and was confident now about her own skill.

  The extra money was very welcome and Cathy found that she was able to put a few shillings in a Post Office account nearly every week. Her pride in being able to save without having to rely on her mother to help her made her feel more mature and helped to deaden the pain of her loss, although her father was never far from her thoughts.

  She liked best the jobs where Josie and Freda were also called for, and this happened quite frequently because they were young and strong, in addition to being willing workers. Cissie was also on most of the jobs, in spite of her free and easy comments.

  Cathy’s first job after her father’s death was a Masonic dinner, and she was moving down the room serving vegetables when suddenly she
thought of Lawrie and she stood still, her eyes filling with tears.

  A red-faced man rapped on the table. ‘Come along, waitress, come along,’ he ordered.

  Cissie was serving nearby and immediately said loudly, ‘Are you all right, girl? He just can’t wait to paddle.’

  Mrs Nuttall, ever vigilant, swooped down on them. ‘Give me that dish, Cathy. Go and get a drink of water.’ To Cissie she hissed, ‘More roast potatoes on the other table.’

  The man was now purple in the face. ‘What did she mean? What did that woman mean? I won’t have impertinence.’

  ‘She thinks the other girl needs a holiday,’ Mrs Nuttall said glibly. ‘A little more cauliflower, sir?’ Cathy and Cissie had moved away, and the man nodded grumpily.

  ‘I’m not satisfied with the service, not satisfied at all,’ he said, but Mrs Nuttall had moved on to serve his neighbour.

  Cathy drank some water and composed herself then took a full dish of vegetables and went back, murmuring ‘Sorry’ as she passed Mrs Nuttall with the empty dish.

  There was no time for further speech as the rest of the dinner was served, but later Cathy said to Cissie, ‘I didn’t get that, Cissie, about paddling.’

  Cissie cackled. ‘He did though, didn’t he? That’s why he got such a cob on.’

  ‘You’ll go too far one of these days,’ Mrs Nuttall said. ‘It took me all my time to calm him down.’

  ‘Agh, they make me sick,’ Cissie said. ‘I seen that same fellow strutting round town one day and I thought to meself, “I know what you get up to, lad.”’

  ‘Don’t forget they pay your wages though,’ Mrs Nuttall said. ‘You could get us all into trouble.’

  She went out and Cathy asked Cissie again: ‘What did you mean, Cis, about the paddling?’

  ‘He’s a Mason, isn’t he? I seen them one night, and if you’d have seen the cut of them! Their chests showing and their trouser legs rolled up. That’s why I said that about the paddling when I heard him barging at you because you’d stopped for a minute. Bloody bully. Thought I’d let him know I knew what he gets up to.’

  ‘But how did you see that?’ one of the women asked. ‘They always lock the doors.’