Family of Women

by Annie Murray

  She showed Carol to the door and smiled. ‘God bless you, Linda. It was brave of you to come.’

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  The first time he came into the bakery was late one afternoon.

  He brought with him a waft of the autumn smell of smoky mist from outside as the door closed behind him, tingling the bell. Linda was wiping over shelves in the window and didn’t take much notice to begin with.

  ‘Hello, duck!’ Mrs Richards’ tone was very warm. ‘You ain’t been in for a bit, have you?’

  Linda turned to see a boy not much older than herself, dressed in a baggy blue sweater and grey flannel trousers. His hair was unusually long, dark brown and tousled by the wind, his face thin, with striking grey eyes. There was an intensity about him, as if he was deep in thoughts which Mrs Richards had interrupted.

  ‘Afternoon,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘You all right, Alan? How’s your mom these days?’ Mrs Richards leaned towards him, speaking as if his mother’s health was in some way a secret. She gave a meaningful nod of her head. ‘She having a spell in there again?’

  The boy nodded abruptly, not meeting her eyes. For a moment he glanced across at Linda and she felt her pulse speed up, caught in his gaze, just for a second. ‘Yep.’

  ‘Oh, I am sorry, duck. That why you’re not at school, is it? Here – what did you want today? We’ve not got much left, but there’s Eccles cakes . . .’

  ‘I’ll have four of them – and a white tin, please.’

  His voice when he asked for the cakes was low, and well-spoken. There was something about him that intrigued Linda. As Mrs Richards fetched the bread and cakes, Linda kept taking little glances at him. The boy was tall and slim, and he stood with one arm resting on the counter, tapping his foot nervously. For a moment he looked round at Linda again and his eyes met hers with some curiosity, then he turned away and she was glad he did because she felt herself blushing at this frank look.

  ‘Thanks, Mrs Richards.’

  He handed over his coins and was gone with an impatient tug on the door.

  ‘That’s Alan,’ Mrs Richards said. ‘Lovely lad. Clever. Went on to the grammar school, he did. He was in here a lot at one time – last time his mother was in the . . . you know, the asylum. She suffers with her nerves. No brothers or sisters to keep him company, poor thing. There’s only Alan and the father.’

  Linda stared after him, seeing him for a few seconds through a patch of glass between the window shelves. She felt sorry for him. His life sounded sad and lonely, yet he did not look downcast. Instead, he had that energy about him which had drawn her to look at him. Any mention of the grammar school always hurt, though. She wanted to say to Mrs Richards, ‘Did you know, I went to the grammar school as well?’ But what was the use? It had only lasted a year, after all. One dreamlike year of bliss, which seemed like another life now.

  The next time Alan came into the shop he was in school uniform, obviously on his way home. She didn’t recognize him instantly because he’d had a haircut and was wearing a blazer. Her eyes were drawn with longing recognition to the emblem on his blazer pocket. A King Edward’s boy. There were a number of King Edward’s foundation schools across the city.

  ‘Ooh, hello, Alan!’ Mrs Richards greeted him.

  Linda busied herself behind the counter, though her attention was fixed entirely on trying to overhear anything that was said.

  He replied with a distant politeness, asking for the bread and cakes he wanted.

  ‘Partial to an Eccles cake, your father, ain’t he?’ Mrs Richards said, in a conspiratorial way. Then, in almost a whisper. ‘And how’s your poor mother, Alan?’

  ‘All right.’ Linda saw his shrug out of the corner of her eyes. She could also see his discomfort at being questioned and wished Mrs Richards would leave him alone.

  ‘I haven’t actually seen her,’ he added.

  ‘No – course you haven’t. And these things take time, don’t they? Can’t rush anything.’

  ‘Could I have a couple of jam tarts as well, please?’

  ‘Course you can, my duck – Linda, bring the young gentleman a couple of those tarts!’

  Linda bagged a couple up and reached out to give them to him. She felt very self-conscious. For the first time in a long time it seemed to matter how she looked. Wearing her hair tied back in a ponytail in the shop had helped her spots clear up, but she still felt scruffy, and frumpy in the white work overall.

  ‘Are they strawberry?’ Alan asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Richards assured him.

  ‘No – they’re raspberry,’ Linda said. ‘They’ve got pips in.’

  ‘Course they are,’ Mrs Richards said. ‘Silly me. Trust you to get it right.’

  Linda saw Alan’s eyes focus appraisingly on her for a moment. She tried to hold his gaze, but looked down, blushing.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘This is Linda,’ Mrs Richards said. Linda felt her cheeks burn even redder and she was forced to look up and meet his gaze. ‘She’s ever such a clever girl.’

  ‘Hello,’ Alan said. He looked about to say something else, but moved awkwardly away. Linda saw that he was embarrassed too. She was furious with Mrs Richards. Why couldn’t she just keep quiet? Someone like him wasn’t going to be interested in her, was he?

  She tried to have nothing to do with him when he came in the next few times. But she couldn’t help thinking, trying to guess. Was he one of the ones who had gone to the grammar school whose family didn’t take that sort of thing for granted? She wondered what sort of house he lived in, whether he was ashamed to take people home the way she had been. Could he be in any way like her?

  One afternoon he came in with another boy wearing the King Edward’s uniform. Alan, however, was not dressed for school.

  ‘All right lads?’ Mrs Richards said, with the slight air she put on of greeting royalty. ‘You not been to school today, Alan?’

  ‘No.’ His tone was abrupt and he looked away, putting Mrs Richards off asking him any more. Linda hovered in the background, trying not to look interested in them. In a few moments they were gone.

  Seeing them made her feel miserable. She knew, somewhere in herself, she was their equal. But why would they take any notice of her, a shopgirl who lived in one of the scruffiest houses on the estate and had just left the secondary modern with no qualifications to her name?

  ‘He doesn’t have a happy life, that lad, for all he’s from a good background,’ Mrs Richards observed. ‘His father’s a doctor. They’ve got one of those nice houses in Handsworth Wood. Young Alan’s been coming in here for years.’

  Linda let this information sink in, gloomily. Not like her then. He was another Lucy after all. Someone from another kind of life. Angrily she tried to push away the fantasy that she had barely even admitted to herself, that Alan Bray might ever want to take any interest in her.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  She always went with Violet to visit Carol in St Gerard’s on Sunday afternoons. Now and then Joyce would come as well, full of herself with her belly beginning to show and talking as if she was a seasoned married woman who had founts of wisdom to impart to Linda.

  ‘Nana’s made me two matinée coats,’ she would rattle on. ‘And Danny’s mom’s helping me get my layette together. You have to make sure a new babby’s kept nice and warm, you know. Danny’s just bought a new heater for the bedroom to make sure. He’s worried about the way the windows let a draught in. Thing is, Linda, if a young babby catches just a cold it can be fatal when they’re that small . . .’

  But this time it was just her and Mom. It felt very peculiar. These weeks were the first time in her life she’d ever had any time with her mother on her own. At first she didn’t know what to say to her.

  ‘Remember those hamsters we bought, first time we ever went out there?’ Violet said with a smile as they sat on the bus.

  Linda’s lips curved up for a moment. ‘Didn’t last long, did they?’

 
‘You wouldn’t think something so small could be so savage, would you?’

  There was a silence in which she looked at Linda, at her old navy slacks and threadbare jersey, the tired green of old dry herbs.

  ‘Look at the state of you! How long’ve you been wearing that jumper for?’

  Linda shrugged. ‘Dunno.’

  Violet fingered one of the loose threads. ‘One pull and the whole thing’ll just fall to pieces! Why d’you go about looking such a mess? Anyone’d think you did it on purpose. I mean, your hair! You know Rita’d cut it for you – I’d cut it for you. We’ll do it when we get back. What’s up with you?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  But she felt angry and tearful. Being looked at was hard. It was easier in a way to carry on feeling invisible. That way she could hold on to her angry feelings and didn’t have to answer for herself. All the hurt and disappointment in her which she usually directed at her mother was hard to keep up when they were just there together, side by side on the bus, and she could see Violet’s tired face. That was when she would realize Mom was just a skinny girl who’d got bigger and older but still didn’t know all the answers about how to deal with her own domineering mother or what to do when she’d been saddled with almost more illness and misfortune than she could manage. And it twisted Linda’s heart so she could hardly bear it.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she snapped. ‘Just leave it.’

  But it got worse because Violet’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘I’ve not been much of a mom to you. All of you – but you especially, Linda.’

  Linda didn’t say anything. She wanted to smash her hand through the window of the bus and jump out and run away.

  ‘We’ll go shopping, shall we? Just you and me?’

  She shrugged. ‘If you want.’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to be like that . . .’

  ‘I said, didn’t I?’ She turned sulkily away. ‘If you want.’

  As they walked along the ward of sick children, she could see Carol’s face turned towards them, alight with excitement. She was still lying almost flat, in the plaster cast, facing the long doors at the other side which opened on to the garden. It was too cold for them to wheel the beds outside today though.

  ‘Guess what!’ she cried, almost before they’d reached the bed. Her brown eyes were full of joy. ‘She came! Sister Cathleen came today – just to see me!’

  Linda smiled, watching her mother kiss Carol’s cheek. She could tell Mom didn’t want to hear about Sister Cathleen.

  ‘She came specially for me! She said you’d been to the convent to find her Lin – ’

  Violet’s head snapped round, astonished. ‘Did you?’

  Linda nodded, smiling at Carol’s delight.

  ‘When the hell did you do that?’

  ‘A while ago – when she first came back.’

  ‘Well, blow me – you’re a dark one.’

  ‘They said she could come over – her superior nun said. And she came and took me to the chapel to Mass . . .’

  ‘Oh, did she?’ Violet said, folding her arms tightly. ‘So that’s what she was after!’

  ‘Mom!’ Linda protested. Why did she have to be jealous when Sister Cathleen had such a kind heart?

  ‘Well, how did you do that when you’re flat on your back?’

  ‘They’ve got these special beds in the chapel – sort of stretchers. They lie you on them at the front and you can see the priest and everything. And Sister Cathleen sat on one of the chairs behind me. Oh, and it’s so pretty in there. They say I can go again next week if I want.’

  ‘I brought you some comics,’ Violet said, and out of her bag she fished Girls’ Crystal, Beano, Girl and a little book of Amazing Stories. ‘That keep you going for a bit?’

  Carol beamed. ‘Thanks, Mom. Least I’ve got my hands free – not like before.’

  Linda thought of Mom’s description of the iron lung with a shudder.

  ‘Here’s some sweets for you.’ Secretively, as if it might not be allowed, Violet slipped some mints and Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut on to the bed. Sweets had been off the ration for months now, so they could treat her.

  Carol seemed very happy. Once more Linda was humbled by her sister’s patience. She liked the girl in the next bed very much, she said. Her name was Bernice and she had had polio as well. Her mother was a lovely-looking, dark-haired woman who had smiled at them as they walked past.

  ‘Guess what – Mr Bum’s got a new car,’ Linda told her. ‘It’s parked out the front and he has fifty fits every time we go anywhere near it.’

  ‘I don’t know what he thinks we’re going to do to it,’ Violet said indignantly.

  ‘He’ll be out there carrying on if a bird messes on it,’ Linda giggled.

  ‘Linda!’ Violet hissed, but she looked reassured to see her laughing.

  ‘How’s my dad?’ Carol asked.

  For a second Linda saw a strange register of emotion in her mother’s face, as if someone had probed a hidden scar.

  ‘Harry? Not very good, is he, Linda? He’s not been out for days now. Says he just hasn’t got the strength. I mean the doctor’s been in and that – a few times . . .’ She stopped herself pouring out all her worries. This was not the place. She could do that to Rita, about how she didn’t know how Harry kept going at all, the way he was, and Rita would say, ‘He’s a strong man with a strong will, love, that’s what it is.’ But she shouldn’t burden Carol with it. ‘I s’pect he’ll pick up – he always does,’ she finished, brightly.

  They left Carol at the end of their visit, delighted with her comics. As they left the ward and turned to wave, Violet suddenly said, ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve her, that I don’t.’

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  It was closing time, a week later.

  Mrs Richards told Linda she could go and get the early bus. It was already dusk, and quite foggy, when she closed the shop door behind her. Everything seemed sunk in grey except for the red lights on the back of cars, and she liked their scarlet glow, slightly fuzzy in the moist air.

  ‘Hello!’

  She was a good way along the road when the voice called out. Her thoughts were on whether she’d make the bus, and wishing she had some gloves, because the sleeves of her skimpy gaberdine were too long to pull down over her hands. She was hungry, and it was cold and raw out there, but at least it wasn’t wet. She had bits of cardboard in both her shoes to cover holes in the soles.

  ‘Hello – Linda, is it?’

  Alan came hurrying up behind her and she stopped, cheeks burning in confusion. At least he wouldn’t be able to see – it was too dark. Why on earth was he coming after her? He was huddled up in a duffel coat and scarf and under one arm was what looked like his usual parcel of bread and cake. He smiled at her in the gloom. She smiled back.

  ‘She said you’d gone, so I thought . . . I don’t know . . .’ He laughed. He was talking quickly, obviously nervous. ‘I thought it’d be nice to talk to you, but when she’s there you can never get a word in, can you?’

  Linda liked the way he spoke. His voice was deep and smooth. ‘No. She’s all right though.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I didn’t mean she wasn’t. D’you live far?’

  ‘I have to get the bus.’ She found she didn’t want to tell him where she lived. ‘It’s quite far.’

  ‘Well . . .’ He seemed at a loss. ‘Would you like . . . I mean, if you’re not in a hurry we could try and find a tearoom, or if you like you could come back to my house? It’s only down there and – there’ll be no one else. My father won’t be in.’ He waved the bag. ‘I’ve got Battenberg!’

  ‘What – me?’ she said stupidly.

  He laughed. ‘Yes – you! Only if you’d like, though.’

  ‘But . . .’ She couldn’t think of a but. There was no Carol at home. Mum got in before she did these days and there was nothing at all to get back for. No homework – nothing.

  ‘Yes, all right,’ she said, not quite bel
ieving she was saying it, and added, ‘please.’ And thought afterwards she should have said thank you, not please, but it was too late now.

  Why have you invited me? she wanted to ask. You must know all sorts of interesting girls. Then she told herself off for being silly. He’d only asked her for a cup of tea. Perhaps he even felt sorry for her, seeing how boring things looked in the shop? Or maybe he was the sort of boy who was always asking girls home for tea?

  They walked side by side along the road. The shops were shutting up as they passed. Alan’s walk was bouncing, energetic, as if he was full of barely curbed energy and she was having to walk abnormally fast to keep up. His nervousness gave her courage.

  ‘D’you do all the shopping then?’ She nodded at the parcel under his arm.

  ‘Well, no. We have a woman in to help a bit. We muddle along, you know.’

  ‘Yes.’ She did know, exactly. ‘Sounds like our house.’

  ‘Oh – does it?’

  He was quiet again for a moment. She liked him for not questioning her too much, for just letting things be.

  ‘You been at school today then?’ she asked. She wanted to ask him how old he was, but if she asked too many things he’d think she was nosy.

  ‘No.’ There was an awkward silence. ‘As a matter of fact, they’ve kicked me out.’ He swung his foot at a lump of something dark on the pavement and sent it skittering. It was a beer bottle. With venom, he added, ‘Bastards.’

  She gasped. ‘What – the grammar school?’

  Alan nodded. ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he said quickly. But she could hear that it did. Somehow it made her spirits lift. Someone else who’d had it taken away! Someone who would know how it felt!

  ‘But why?’

  He reached out and touched her arm for a minute, steering her.

  ‘We need to cross here . . .’ He released her again. ‘School? I was never there anyway. Hardly ever, anyhow. What’s the point – all that algebra and Latin . . . Bores me to death. Won’t be of any use to me, not where I’m going.’