The Doorstep Child

by Annie Murray

  Ken lived in what seemed to Evie a very big house, three storeys high, in Stirling Road, Edgbaston. As they walked there that afternoon, she realized with a pang that it was only a few streets away from Mrs Bracebridge’s house. For a moment she ached with regret, recalling the lady’s hurt, shocked expression that day. Imagine if she had really gone to live with loving, sweet Mrs Bracebridge. What would her life have been like?

  She didn’t let herself feel nervous about Mr and Mrs Heaton. She pushed the feelings away, walking beside Ken like someone with all the confidence in the world.

  When the door opened, Ken’s parents were standing there almost as if they had been waiting behind it. As Evie took in Mr Heaton’s tall, thin appearance rather like Ken’s and his mother, a small, dark-haired, attractive lady, there were outbursts of furious barking in the background which made them all smile as they said nervous ‘hello’s.

  ‘That’s Molly, wanting to meet you,’ Mr Heaton said in an over-jolly sort of way. Evie noticed that he spoke differently. Ken had told her that his father was from Lancashire. He laughed. ‘There’s no stopping her. Ken, you’d best go and let her out before she takes all the paint off the door.’

  ‘Hello, dear,’ Mrs Heaton said, smiling. ‘We’re very pleased to meet you. Come on in. I hope you don’t mind being at the back? The parlour takes such a lot to heat up – we only use it in the summer.’

  Evie suddenly felt desperately shy and awkward. She knew she must be on her very best behaviour and talk nicely, the way Mrs Bracebridge had tried to teach her. ‘No . . . that’d be very nice, thank you.’

  As she followed the Heatons along the tiled hall to the back room, Ken rushed ahead. A door opened and a moment later a bounding, jumping, writhing Molly appeared, tobacco coloured, with a silky coat. Evie couldn’t help laughing as the dog leapt at her, licked her hands, hurled her body at Evie’s legs and generally made a racket.

  ‘Well, I hope you like dogs?’ Mrs Heaton said.

  ‘Yes.’ Evie smiled, stroking Molly’s silky ears as she calmed down. ‘I do.’

  ‘You couldn’t not like Molly,’ Ken said. As he and Evie sat down in two armchairs, the dog leapt into his lap, then into Evie’s, then back again and she laughed, delighted.

  Mrs Heaton bustled in and out fetching little plates of sandwiches – fish paste and egg – and filling the teapot. Everything felt very formal to Evie. There was a fruit loaf on the table, a sponge cake dusted with icing sugar and a pile of pale green plates and little tea knives beside them. Evie looked at it all with astonishment. So much food! Her mouth was already watering at the sight of the cake with its seam of jam in the middle.

  She had two slices when it came to it and said to Mrs Heaton, ‘Could you give me a recipe for that? It’s lovely.’ She spoke softly, very politely, desperately wanting Mr and Mrs Heaton to think well of her.

  Mrs Heaton looked surprised. ‘It’s only a simple Victoria sandwich, dear,’ she said. ‘I’m surprised you’ve never made one? Does your mother not bake?’

  Bake? Evie thought. She almost laughed.

  ‘Oh . . . I didn’t realize,’ she corrected herself quickly. ‘It tastes so nice I thought it must be something different.’

  As they drank tea from the pale green cups and saucers and passed the food round, Evie took in the room. The fireplace was surrounded by pretty flower-patterned tiles with a dab of red in them and of course there was the glow of the fire, but everything else – the chairs and curtains, the rug by the hearth – were all in some shade of fawn or pale green.

  Mr Heaton sat on an upright chair with his long legs braced apart. Ken had told her that his father worked in the offices of an engineering firm ‘doing the books’ as he put it and was also a Methodist lay preacher. He seemed a nice man, she thought, but she found his attention rather overwhelming.

  ‘So, young lady,’ he said, ‘why don’t you tell us about yourself? What does your father do for a living?’

  Evie, with a mouthful of bloater sandwich, could not utter a word for several seconds.

  ‘Dad,’ Ken protested. ‘Leave her be. Let her finish eating at least!’ Evie noticed Ken sounded different with his mom and dad. More proper, sort of, as if he was trying to please them.

  ‘Sorry, lass,’ Mr Heaton laughed, sitting up again. ‘Didn’t mean to rush you.’

  Evie felt panic rising in her. Ken was smiling encouragingly but she really did not know what to say.

  ‘He works at Docker’s,’ she managed.

  ‘Ah, yes, the paint people,’ Mr Heaton boomed. ‘A good firm. I remember the night they were bombed – about ’42 I think it was . . .’

  ‘Our Ken tells us you live in Inkerman Street?’ Mrs Heaton said.

  She nodded, wondering nervously what other questions might be coming. But in the end, Ken and his parents supplied most of the conversation, about Ladywood and the Tower Ballroom and then about Ken wanting to go to agricultural college and about Mr Heaton’s preaching, which he seemed to be able to talk about almost indefinitely. Evie begin to relax – it was clear she would not have to say anything. Every so often Ken looked across at her from his armchair and gave her a smile or an encouraging wink. He seemed so happy that she was there, as if there was no better place to be. And after a while, Molly slid off Ken’s lap and came and sat gazing adoringly at Evie.

  ‘You’ve made a friend there,’ Mr Heaton laughed.

  Gratified, she stroked the dog’s head and she rolled onto her back to have her tummy tickled. It was all very strange and rather stiff, but they were all right, she told herself. Was this what it meant to have a proper family?

  Afterwards, as Ken walked her home in the dusk, he seemed happy. ‘They’re so nice, my mom and dad, aren’t they?’ he said proudly.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed. She didn’t feel his enthusiasm. Truth to tell, she’d found so much attention a bit oppressive, and the feeling that she must watch her manners. It was not what she was used to. But she could see they had meant well and the tea had been lovely. ‘They’re very nice,’ she added.

  Ken was so happy. ‘They liked you – I could see straight away,’ he said, drawing her into his arms.

  Sixteen

  A few days later, it was Rita’s turn to cook tea – one of her watery stews. Mom hardly ever cooked if she could help it. The new telly, bought on HP, was nattering away on the side. Rita suddenly dashed from the room, a hand over her mouth.

  Evie had the sense to stir the stew instead of letting it stick to the bottom of the pan. Just as Blue Peter was ending, Rita came back in looking pasty and unwell.

  ‘Shove it,’ she snarled, elbowing Evie out of the way. ‘You’ll only burn it.’

  Evie stepped aside. There was no point in saying anything. Rita stood glowering into the saucepan. Evie knew better than to ask. If it had been Shirley, she might have done. At least Shirley was halfway human sometimes. But when it came to Rita, she didn’t really care what was the matter with her.

  When Shirley and Dad got back in, Rita almost threw the food at everyone and once they had a plateful, she slammed the spoon down. Her pale face wore an odd expression.

  ‘Right,’ she said, standing over them all. ‘I’ve got summat to tell yer.’

  Everyone looked at her, narrow-eyed, whippet-like, at the end of the table. For a second Evie felt sorry for her. Rita had hardly ever been nice to her, but she could see that she didn’t have much of a life either. She was even more at Mom’s beck and call than the rest of them.

  ‘Spit it out then, wench,’ her father said, through his first mouthful of the stringy cagmag beef.

  ‘Conn and me, we’re getting wed,’ she said defiantly. She paused for effect, then leaned back slightly, a hand stroking her belly. ‘I’m in the family way and Conn says that Mrs Hennessey says we’ll ’ave to do it proper, ’im being Catholic, like.’

  Mom’s head shot up. ‘Yow dirty trollop!’ But it was half-hearted. There was a wedding on the way.

  Rita leaned over t
he table, glaring at her. ‘I’m getting wed, ain’t I? And Mrs Hennessey says—’

  Conn’s mom was a thin, browbeaten-looking lady and a fierce Catholic.

  ‘Yow may be getting wed, but yower still a dirty wench,’ Mom said, scraping marg onto her bread. ‘Whatever that Irish cow says.’

  ‘Oh, leave off ’er,’ Dad said. ‘’Er said they’re getting wed.’ Then he looked suspicious. ‘Who’s gunna pay for that then?’

  ‘You are, Dad,’ Rita said and started laughing so much that even Shirley cracked her face and the rest of them couldn’t help joining in at the sight of his stricken expression. ‘Father of the bride.’

  ‘Shotgun wedding more like,’ he retorted. ‘Well, yer won’t be getting much out of my ribs, wench. Quick in and out and down the pub – none of that church carry-on.’

  ‘It’s a quick in and out’s got ’er in this mess in the first place,’ their mother observed, guffawing loudly at her own joke, her belly shaking.

  ‘We’ve gotta go to church,’ Rita argued. ‘If you’re Catholic, you gotta do it.’

  ‘Some Catholic ’e is,’ Mom sniffed. ‘Still . . .’ She changed her tune. ‘If ’e’s gunna marry yow, after getting yow in the family way . . .’

  ‘No more’n you was yerself, Irene,’ their father remarked. ‘As I recall.’

  Their mother opened her mouth to retort but for once thought better of saying anything and instead filled it with a scrap of bread.

  Evie thought about Mr and Mrs Heaton, imagining them listening in on this conversation, and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. It was all just impossible!

  ‘’Ere, Evie’s gone all red,’ Rita crowed. ‘Dain’t you know where babbies come from yet then, Evie?’

  ‘We’re still trying to work it out,’ their father said and he and Mom laughed like drains. Evie looked down at her plate.

  ‘What about you, Evie?’ Rita needled her. She seemed very pleased with herself now. She was getting married. ‘You gunna marry old Gary then?’

  ‘What? That Nancy boy?’ her father snorted. ‘Can’t see ’im marrying any wench!’

  Evie looked up, startled. She had heard other mutterings about Gary, since Pete had been around, people seeing them roaring up and down the street on Pete’s Norton. But even now it was only just beginning to dawn on her. Did that mean . . . ? Was Gary . . . one of those? Those people who were called nasty names? Gary and Pete . . . Gary was certainly besotted. But she was only just beginning to realize what that might mean. The thing she had not wanted to recognize and the reason why Gary was just . . . different.

  In a way she didn’t want to know. And she didn’t want to hear anything her family might say – about any of it. With a bursting sense of oppression, she thought, me and Ken should just run off together – where no one would ever find us.

  A few days later she was just setting off for work in the late afternoon when someone overtook her, walking at a furious pace, and she saw it was Gary. He wasn’t looking to his left or right and had his head down, his legs working like pumps in his black drainpipe trousers.

  She watched for a second, in two minds, then called, ‘Gary!’

  He glanced behind and gave her a stricken look before turning and marching onwards again. Evie saw from his look that he wanted her to follow – or at least would not object if she did.

  He hurried on along the street and with a glance – the old habit – turned into the entry they always used for the shelter. It was an age since they’d been there and Evie was certain other kids must have taken it over by now.

  Though she needed to get to work, she went after him, along the back lane with its weeds and rubbish. Gary had already disappeared into the shelter.

  Heart pounding, she stepped into its gloom, and the old familiar damp smell. There was a sharp, burnt stink as well – more kids making fires in there perhaps – but she was not interested in looking round. She wanted Gary, wanted him to talk to her. He had been so distant for so long, so caught up in Pete, but she had a feeling that now he wanted her.

  He was standing a few feet away, his back to her, shoulders hunched. She could see the backs of his arms, bent up as if his hands were over his face. Then she made out that his shoulders were shaking.

  ‘Gary?’ she said softly. ‘It’s me. What’s up?’

  He let the sobs come then, bent over, distraught.

  ‘What the matter?’ As there was no reply she dared to touch his shoulder, wanting him to straighten up so she could see his face.

  To her astonishment he righted himself in a sudden, thrusting movement and flung his arms round her. He lowered his head so that his forehead rested on her shoulder and as her own arms tightened round him, she could feel all of his thin body shaking with emotion.

  ‘Hey, Gary!’ She stroked his back, letting him cry for a few moments, touched that he had turned to her to let out his feelings. Dear old Gary. ‘It’s all right,’ she murmured to him. ‘That’s it. You have a cry if you want.’

  Eventually he raised his head, seeming stunned. His face was red and wet, his specs all steamed up, and he took them off to wipe his pink-rimmed eyes.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, pulling away and wiping his sleeves down his cheeks. Now he was embarrassed.

  ‘S’all right,’ she said, trying not to think about the time ticking by and about where she ought to be. ‘What’s up, Gar?’

  His face crumpled again. ‘It’s Pete. He’s . . .’ He shook his head as more tears came, but more gently this time. He struggled to find the right words. ‘He’s . . . I mean, I’d never . . . I’m true to ’im, like that . . .’

  Evie felt unusually grateful to her father for his blurted words. Nancy boys. So yes, she was beginning to have an idea what like that truly meant for Gary.

  She tried to look calm, as if all this didn’t disturb her, men with men and all that, even though she had barely begun to know it and believe it. But this was dear old Gary, so heartbroken and vulnerable in front of her. She knew deep down, from a host of memories and impressions, that Gary did not want girls, had never wanted them. She thought of his kiss, the way he had seemed to be forcing himself and it feeling all wrong. Well, if that was the way he was . . .

  ‘D’you mean he’s got someone else?’ she asked.

  Tears welled and rolled down Gary’s thin cheeks. ‘’E says it wasn’t anything, it dain’t matter, that sort of thing. Not as if it’s gunna give anyone a babby, is it? he said to me. But that ain’t the point!’ Gary was full of hurt and outrage. ‘If you love someone, you love ’em, don’t yer? You don’t just go off with someone else just like that.’

  Evie couldn’t help hoping Pete was gone for good. She had never liked him. Ever since Gary was with him she had felt shut out and abandoned, even though she now had Ken.

  ‘But,’ she said, trying to get to the bottom of this. ‘You mean he’s left you?’

  ‘No, he hasn’t gone. But he just likes . . .’ Gary drew in a long breath through his nostrils, raising his head as if against a horrible thought. ‘He likes playing about – having a lot of . . . having a lot of other blokes . . . I can’t stand it, Eves.’

  Evie stared at him, unsure what to say. It sounded horrible. Pete was horrible, she thought. Why didn’t Gary just tell him to get lost? She felt out of her depth and clueless in all this. But poor Gary – she didn’t want him to know her real thoughts.

  ‘But he wants you still, does he?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘Yeah,’ he conceded, looking down then, so sadly that she wanted to hug him again, but that moment had passed.

  ‘Well,’ she said, knowing she must go and get to work. ‘That’s all right then, ain’t it? He still wants you?’

  ‘But I want him to want just me,’ Gary said desperately.

  She searched for something comforting to say. ‘P’raps he will. P’raps he just needs to grow up a bit.’

  Gary looked back into her eyes then. ‘D’yer think?’

  She nodded. ‘Yeah .
. . well, could be, couldn’t it?’ she offered, not really having a clue.

  He sniffed and gave his lopsided smile, looking more like the old Gary. ‘Ta, Evie.’

  ‘S’all right. I’ve gotta go, though – got to get to work.’ She wanted to say that it was nice to see him, why couldn’t they meet up more, or something, but he was wrapped up in his own feelings and as they parted at the end of the entry, all he said was, ‘T’ra, Evie.’

  Cheerful as she could manage, she said, ‘Tara-a-bit, Gary.’

  Seventeen

  April 1960

  She saw Gary a number of times in the next few weeks, but only in the distance. Whatever had happened with Pete, they must have made it up. A couple of times he waved at her, beaming from the back of Pete’s roaring bike. She was glad for him, but it still gave her a pang because she did not trust Pete. She felt that he was bad for Gary, who she had lost again after those moments of him confiding in her.

  At home, all anyone could think about was Rita getting married. Conn’s family took over the arrangements which – whatever Dad thought about it – meant a proper Roman Catholic wedding at St Peter’s and a dress that would prevent Rita from showing. The whole thing was arranged in a big hurry and soon they were all traipsing into the church, Mom and Dad dressed to kill and on their best behaviour. Evie wore her best dress, a pale blue one with pink flowers on it and a nicely shaped bodice. She was frozen all the way through as the April weather was still chilly, but people kept saying how nice she looked.

  Rita wore a long white dress with a frothy net skirt ample enough to have hidden most things. She looked as pretty as she was ever going to look and seemed to get away with it. And Conn stood looking gawky and delighted in a stiff suit. They processed in on a wave of fag smoke from all the men waiting outside until the last minute and swept out on a wave of incense, as Mr and Mrs Hennessey. Evie, watching their departing backs, smiled at the thought that Rita would now be leaving home.

  The weather warmed and Evie and Ken spent every spare moment they could together. All the time she was making excuses as to why he should not come home with her, though she’d been to his house a few more times. Ken had shown her his childhood trainset. Mrs Heaton always made a nice tea and she had taken to laying out a jigsaw puzzle. The latest one was called ‘Happy Days at Work’, showing a group of women in coloured frocks next to a double-decker bus in a pleasant street with a church. It was easier than just sitting there talking and there was Molly to break the ice as well. But Evie much preferred seeing Ken away from the house. Usually on her evening off they would go to town, to the pictures or to a park if the weather was good enough, where they could walk arm in arm and have a kiss under the trees.