The Doorstep Child

by Annie Murray

  As soon as Christmas was over Ken had turned up at work and wanted to see her every moment possible. They had already been out for a few more drinks and Ken was waiting for her to have a whole Saturday off.

  ‘Then we can go somewhere, can’t we? Into town, or out somewhere nice.’

  She kept waiting for it all to go wrong, for him to see the bad in her. He couldn’t really want to be with her. But they’d been out to the pictures – Ken adored Westerns – and for a few drinks and she had enjoyed it. Ken seemed to adore her and being adored was a heady novelty. As she walked into the house that evening, she forgot to wipe the smile off her face quickly enough.

  They were all there, round the table with the fire going and a proper fug up of sweat and beer and fags – Mom and Dad, with Shirley at one end of the settle. Next to her were Rita and skinny Conn, ginger-haired, pale as a fish, forever under Rita’s thumb.

  Mom was in her finery – a scarlet dress, red lipstick and nails to match. Rita and Shirley each had their best dresses on, Rita in yellow and black stripes. Just right for her, Evie thought – like a wasp. Shirley looked classier, in a moss-green dress, her dark locks curving down round each side of her face. She sat with her cheek resting on one arm, looking down at the table, and only raised her eyes to look at Evie. Shirley was good at being quiet and mysterious. The real mystery, Evie thought, was why, of the two of them, it was Rita who had a steady boyfriend.

  They all turned to stare at her, except her father, who was knocking back his beer from a glass he must have walked off with from the pub. It felt as if their eyes were scraping over her. She could feel them, as always, waiting to get at her in some way.

  ‘Where you been then, eh?’ Rita demanded, smirking at Conn. ‘Dirty stop-out!’

  ‘Just out,’ Evie said, avoiding her eye. ‘With a mate from work.’ Although she had been out with Ken quite a few times since Christmas, she had not breathed a word about him. She had invented a girlfriend who she was suddenly pally with instead.

  Evie thanked God she hadn’t brought Ken back with her. What would he think of this place – the smell, the litter of cups and crumbs and fag ends on the table? His own mom and dad sounded prim and proper, all kippers and curtains and embroidered tablecloths, no doubt.

  ‘Oh, a mate again, eh?’ Rita went on in her spiteful way, finding anything she could seize on. Rita would pick a fight with her own shadow and Evie usually took the place of that shadow, however much she didn’t rise to the bait. ‘And who might that be then?’

  Evie perched on the bottom step of the stairs to slip off her work shoes. They were black court shoes, nothing fancy, but the best she had to keep the cold out. Even so, her feet were blocks of ice. She rubbed them, feeling the tingle of a new chilblain, trying to ignore Rita. Her father, who had been splayed in his chair, sat up abruptly and gave a rasping belch. Everyone sniggered.

  ‘Don’t cowing laugh at me!’ he said, but could not be bothered to make an issue of it and sank back again.

  ‘Cat got yer tongue, has it?’ Rita was still on at her. ‘Who d’yer go out with?’

  ‘Babs,’ Evie lied, not even knowing anyone called Babs. She wanted to tell Rita to mind her own sodding business but it wouldn’t make things any better, especially in front of Conn. Rita always showed off more when he was there. And what a prat he was, Evie thought. He must get a thrill out of being bossed around.

  ‘Oh, Babs!’ Rita cried mockingly, looking at Conn and waiting for him to join in with the laughter. Shirley was giving her a sly smile. ‘Who’s Babs then? You frightened to bring ’er home, are yer? ’Fraid of what we might say to ’er? ’Ere, you ain’t one of them lezzies, are yer, Evie?’ She roared with laughter at her own joke and Mom and Shirley joined in.

  Mom gave a belly laugh but added, ‘Don’t be stupid, Reet.’ She sobered for a second. ‘How d’yow know words like that? We ay got any of that, not in our family.’

  ‘Leave ’er, Reet,’ Conn said, feeble as usual.

  ‘What d’yer mean, leave ’er?’ Rita snapped. ‘Whose sister is she anyway? Don’t you tell me to leave ’er.’

  Conn subsided, folding his long arms across his skinny chest in its bright blue jersey.

  ‘Don’t you tell me to leave my own sister!’ Rita pulled herself bolt upright, the wasp attacking now, wanting the one-sided fight to go on.

  ‘I never,’ Conn protested, even more limply.

  ‘Shurrit, the pair of yer,’ Mom said, leaning forward to fill up her cup with ale. Her feet, in stockings, bulged out of her red shoes. Evie badly wanted a cup of tea but did not wish to draw attention to herself. The teapot was probably cold by now – they had moved on to the beer. So she knew the only way she could get one. She’d have to play servant – as usual.

  ‘Anyone want a cuppa?’ she asked, moving over to fill the kettle.

  ‘A lezzy cuppa!’ Rita snorted and then laughed loudly at her own joke.

  ‘Shut it, Reet,’ their father put in.

  ‘We oughta have a telly,’ Mom said. ‘When’re we gunna get a telly, Ray?’

  Dad grunted, making no commitment.

  ‘Go on, when are we?’ Mom persisted.

  ‘Don’t need a cowing telly, yer daft cow.’ Evie saw her father give one of his sudden grins of charm. ‘Yer got me to look at, ain’t yer?’

  ‘Huh,’ Mom snorted. ‘Yow’m like the back of a bleeding bus.’

  ‘Go on, Dad!’ Rita nagged. ‘Go on, get us a telly. You never get us anything. I wanna watch Opportunity Knocks. And everyone else’s got one . . .’

  ‘No they ain’t.’ Dad bestirred himself to sit straight again to contradict her, then flopped back as if worn out by this exertion.

  Another ding-dong ensued. Evie quietly made the tea, relieved that this had distracted them from her. She stood by the stove thinking about Ken and the look in his eyes when he had kissed her goodbye. Her lips tingled with the kiss. It was nothing like that kiss she had had with Gary, so awkward and . . . It had not felt right at all. A pang went through her. Ken was lovely, he really was. But she was still hurt by Gary and she missed him.

  She saw Gary now and again, but usually only by chance. And then he was usually with Pete.

  The Knight family muddled on from year to year. The oldest boy, David, was married and lived not far away with his wife and two daughters. The second boy, Tony, who was nineteen, had disappeared a couple of years back, saying he was going to Liverpool, and nothing had been heard since. Everyone said he must have gone to sea. The others muddled on, leaving school and getting work in local factories. Frankie, fourteen, was the next one due to leave.

  Gary had told Evie that he met Pete when he came to the garage to get his motorbike fixed. He lived in Edgbaston, and the pair of them could often be seen roaring round the neighbourhood, Gary riding pillion behind Pete, whose face was always stern and tense looking, his arms braced as they slewed round corners. Evie had never once seen Pete smile.

  She had not put two and two together, not by then, even though there was gossip and speculation.

  ‘What’s that lad want with our Gary? Posh lad like him?’

  Gary, at seventeen, still looked young for his age even though he was tall. There was something defenceless and childlike about him even now. Pete must be eighteen, Evie guessed.

  She’d come across them a few times in the neighbourhood, not on the bike, but going along the road. Pete, in his Ted clothes, quiff of hair, drainpipes and jacket, striped tie and tiepin. He walked with a loose-limbed strut, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other with a fag wafting round. And Gary copied him like a spaniel – the fags, the clothes, which never looked anything like as smooth on him because Gary, crab walking along as ever, just wasn’t smooth.

  He would greet her cheerfully, trailing smoke as he waved.

  ‘All right, are yer, Evie!’

  ‘All right, Gary,’ she’d say. They’d stop now and then but couldn’t seem to get further than ‘How’s the family? How’s Carly?�
�� these days. She’d tried talking to Pete but he seemed snooty and he couldn’t meet your eye. What did he want with Gary? She had to admit, he was nice looking, or would have been if he wasn’t forever scowling, but he couldn’t find anything to say to her and she soon gave up trying.

  If that was what Gary wanted, well, that was that. And he did look happy, she thought, hurt at this realization. He had always been a laugh, Gary had, managing to find the funny side of things. But now she could see something new in him. He stood taller, walked differently, with more confidence. He looked more like a man.

  Fifteen

  Over those first weeks of walking out with Ken, Evie slowly gave in to the idea that he actually wanted to be with her. He was with her every moment he could be. Often she stepped out of work at the Tower Ballroom quite late but still found him waiting outside, wanting to walk her home.

  ‘You don’t have to stand out in the cold for me!’ she said sometimes. But Ken insisted there was nowhere on earth he would prefer to be.

  ‘Why d’you like me?’ she asked him one night. She was not fishing for compliments, just baffled by him seeing anything in her.

  ‘Why?’ They were walking along in the dark, his arm around her. ‘Well . . . ’cause you’re pretty and . . . oh, I don’t know.’ He squeezed her shoulders. ‘I just do. You’re everything a girl should be, that’s why.’

  ‘That’s what you think,’ she said, elbowing him playfully. Suddenly, full of devilment, she broke away from him and ran off down the street. ‘Catch me then!’

  She couldn’t run fast in her work shoes and Ken was soon upon her.

  ‘See?’ he said, pinning her by the arms.

  ‘See what?’

  ‘That’s why I like you. ’Cause you’re full of life.’

  And she did feel full of life. She felt herself blossoming with Ken, falling for him despite feeling that it was all a dream and could not last. His sweet devotion was gradually breaking through to her. He kept looking at her as if she was a miracle, sang songs to her – ‘why am I so starry-eyed?’ – as he gazed deep into her eyes.

  ‘When can I see you again?’ was always the question he asked when they parted, after a visit to the pictures, when they’d sat holding hands in the Lyric or the old ‘Ledsam’ in Ladywood in front of a weepy – Ken didn’t mind weepies as Evie was sure some boys would – or one of his Westerns. Whenever they were galloping about on the horses he couldn’t keep still and kept jiggling in his seat until she nudged him and mouthed, ‘Stop it!’, grinning at him. He longed to ride a horse, to own a horse. Ken seemed to have been born in the wrong place. His dream, strange as it seemed to her, was to go to agricultural college and live on a farm.

  ‘It’s just what I’ve always wanted,’ he told her one night, over another drink. ‘Mom and Dad aren’t keen either, but they say that if I still want to go after I’ve held down a “normal” job, as Dad calls it, for a couple of years, they’ll help me – once I’ve turned eighteen.’

  ‘Oh.’ Evie couldn’t imagine this. ‘Where would you go?’

  ‘I dunno yet,’ Ken said. ‘I’ll have to look into it.’ He pushed his hair out of his eyes and gave a lopsided smile. ‘I s’pose I should get on with finding out. Mom always says I’m one to let the grass grow under my feet.’ He grinned. ‘I s’pose that’s what farmers do!’

  Evie found herself hoping that the grass would grow long. Surely if Ken went to college he’d go away from her and never come back? Already that felt unbearable.

  They tried going dancing at the Tower, on one of her evenings off, but Evie didn’t have much experience of dancing herself and Ken was hopeless. They stood in the crowd of Rock Around the Clockers and Ken attempted to do the moves with such a grim expression of concentration and such a hopeless result that soon Evie was in fits of laughter.

  ‘Come on,’ she shouted, pulling him to the edge of the jostling, sweating crowd. ‘Let’s have a drink instead.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Ken was very downcast. He looked down at himself despairingly. ‘I think my arms and legs are longer than they were meant to be. I’ve no coordination.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Evie said. And she really didn’t mind. She preferred times when she and Ken were alone, when he held her close and they kissed and he whispered sweet things to her. You’re my baby, you are . . .

  One night, as they stood kissing goodnight in the winter shadows of Inkerman Street, Ken drew back from her a moment and said in a rush, ‘Oh Evie. I think I love you. I know I do.’ His voice was full of feeling and she felt a fizzing explosion inside her of amazement and happiness. He loved her! For the first time in her life someone loved her and had said so!

  ‘I love you too,’ she said solemnly, hardly knowing what it meant, but it felt so exciting to be able to say it. It felt as if life had begun at last.

  And now she was hooked on Ken, on love. She could not get enough of sitting close to him, of cuddles and kisses and laughter – anywhere they could find. As the spring came and the evenings lightened, they walked until they could find a park – the reservoir was a favourite and Summerfield Park if they had time. All she wanted was Ken, him and no one else, his arm round her as they walked under the trees, him pointing out birds and squirrels. He knew the names of all the birds. And kissing her, wanting her and her alone. It was bliss.

  But inevitably they could not stay in their own world together forever.

  ‘I want you to come and meet my mom and dad,’ Ken said, when they had been walking out for a couple of months.

  ‘Not yet,’ she begged him. She had a terrible fear that Ken’s parents would think she was not good enough for their son.

  ‘They won’t bite, you know,’ Ken said, guessing her fears. ‘They’re very nice. They take everyone as they are. And when you come down to it, I’m no great shakes myself. They’d have liked me to go to the grammar school, but I made a mess of the eleven plus.’ He rolled his eyes but she could see he minded. ‘I think they thought I’d be a doctor or something brainy like that – fat chance!’

  Evie laughed, pleased that Ken had not got into the grammar school otherwise she probably would not have met him.

  ‘Anyway, apart from that I want you to meet Molly.’

  Molly was Ken’s dog. A cocker spaniel, he had told her. Brown, with the softest of ears. Evie was much more keen to meet Molly than Mr and Mrs Heaton.

  He kept asking her about her own family, but the thought of Ken, Mom and Dad all in the same room filled her with horror and shame. She could already imagine the snide remarks Rita would make and how rude Mom would be. It would be like throwing Ken into a tank of man-eating sharks.

  ‘Why won’t you let me meet them?’ he kept asking. This time it was on a cold February afternoon when they were walking home. It was one of the rare Saturdays Evie had off work. They’d been in town, to a coffee bar called El Sombrero in Horsefair, sitting in the steamy warmth, sipping coffees, the jukebox playing the latest hits. ‘Are you ashamed of me?’ He was teasing but she could hear the doubt in his voice.

  ‘Not ashamed of you,’ she said. She longed for a family she could be proud of, who would welcome Ken, with good manners. To have the kind of mom who would bake a cake. A mom like Mrs Waring. Or like some of the neighbours who had been so kind to her in Aston, Mrs Booker, Melly’s mom, and that pretty Italian lady, Mrs Morrison.

  ‘Look, your mom and dad sound like nice people. Mine just aren’t very . . .’

  She watched her feet move along the blue bricks of the pavement as she struggled to find the words. Suddenly she wanted to pour everything out, how Mom always fell out with everyone, how loud and rough she was, how she had locked Evie out at night, several times when she was small, to sleep on the step . . . My Mom doesn’t like me . . .

  Thinking about saying it, for the first time she knew how clearly it was true. She doesn’t like me. She never has. Mom has always loathed me. In those seconds without expecting it, she was choking with sadness. When the tears came it was with d
eep sobs. She had not cried for so long, she scarcely knew what was happening.

  ‘Hey!’ Ken, moved, pulled her gently into his arms. It was only a moment, like a small gush from a tap where the pipes are air-locked. But after this brief outlet of emotion, she was wiping her eyes. She never could seem to cry much.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Ken said, seeming disturbed. She was usually the one joking and being light-hearted about everything.

  ‘I didn’t know I was going to do that.’ Feeling a bit stunned, she looked into his eyes, which were full of tender emotion, and tried to smile and lighten up. ‘They’re just . . . Not everyone’s mom and dad are nice, that’s all. I don’t know if I want you to see, that’s all. I want to get away from them and never go back.’

  Even as these words poured out, they astonished her. Was that what she wanted? Yes, it was! She wanted to walk and keep walking.

  ‘Oh Evie!’ Ken was half laughing now, hugging her. She could tell he didn’t believe her. He thought she was exaggerating and making a drama. ‘Nothing can be that bad! I bet they’re nice really – ’specially as they had you! Look, maybe we should just go and see them and get it over with.’

  Frustrated, she pushed him away and looked up at him.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do yer?’ She was almost shouting at him in the street. ‘You don’t know what they’re like! I’m serious, Ken. You just think everyone’s nice like you.’

  Ken looked shocked at her tone, and hurt. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I . . .’

  ‘Never mind.’ She turned and walked on, furious – both with him and with herself for letting this be a cause of her falling out with Ken. He caught up with her, looking upset. ‘Evie, I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ She forced a smile. ‘Just take my word for it, will you?’

  A week later, she went for tea with Mr and Mrs Heaton.