by Mary Hayward
He seemed startled and held out the bag of Fish and Chips, and then, shoving the bag at me, he gestured for me to take one. I can’t remember if he just said nothing or he was simply overwhelmed by my outrage and the onslaught of my attack.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I shouted at him again, louder than before—and then—I hit him again with my fists. But he just looked down at me, taking no notice of the blows raining down on him, and holding me off with his long arms.
“I’ve been all over the place looking for her! You bloody sod!”
“Shorry.” The stench of Rum and Blackcurrant caught me full in the face. “Thought you might like some Fish and Chips.”
He lurched toward me, and then tipping two packets of Smiths Crisps and two wrapped parcels of hot newspaper onto the kitchen table, he shuffled off into the living room with his meal still wrapped up. Jane and I were left to our own devices to unravel the newspaper and get ourselves a drink. We plonked ourselves down at the kitchen table and wolfed the food down, picking up the hot chips with our fingers.
We sat there and tucked into it. I could never resist the sweet smell of vinegar on hot newspaper. It always wafted through the house and seeped into every room. It was proper food, it was hot and I certainly wasn’t going to wait for it to cool down. I was so grateful for the food. I was starving hungry and it was such a treat. We both relished the moment, filling our tummies until we were fit to burst.
He must have won ‘on the dogs’, and had some money for once. Rum was expensive in comparison with a pint of bitter, less than a shilling, and he would only have a ‘Rum and Black’ when he was flush with money, and the only time he had money, was when he won on the horses or dogs.
Fish and Chips was a fairly easy food to be able to afford if you were very poor, but it didn’t seem to work that way in our house. For some reason it was a very rare treat and I can’t remember very many times that it happened.
This was just the first week and we had fish and chips. Dad told me that mum would be in hospital for three months. That left eleven weeks of ‘missing Mum’ to go before she would be home. I wondered if we would have fish and chips every week until then.
I hoped that things would get better. Perhaps Mum had asked someone to look in on us, or Dad had asked Auntie Alice to help us—I didn’t know, but lived in hope. Hope... that I could rely on Dad.
11
Hunger
WE LIVED ON DAD’S COOKING for the first two weeks after Mum had gone, and that was okay. But night after night, it was always the same old thing. Dad had stopped giving me any money for school dinners; he knew I didn’t like them much, but now I found my diet consisted almost entirely of mashed potato and cheese.
I would come home and find him in the kitchen mashing potatoes in a big heavy saucepan that he sent back from Germany during the war. He would be there, thumping away at it as if he was beating up someone. I didn’t mind him mashing up the potato because he was quite good at that. It was much better than the lumpy stuff we had at school.
“Is that our dinner—mashed potato?” I asked. “Is that it?”
“Yeah, there’s a piece of cheese in the cupboard.” He nodded at the larder. I fetched the cheese and he started to grate it over the top of the potato ready to put in the oven. I wouldn’t mind, but he grated all the green mouldy bits into it as well.
My stomach churned at the thought of all that green mould mixed with the potato.
“Ole, Dad, you just grated all the mould into the potato. Look at it.” I retched at the sight of it.
“So, it doesn’t matter.”
“It’s revolting.” I peered into the pot. “It’s revolting. I can’t eat that.”
“It’s all right, you won’t notice it when it’s all mixed up.” He reached over and smothered it with salt.
“Why can’t I have a steak and kidney pie, or Spam, like Mum used to bring in?”
“Well, you can’t.”
“Why not?”
“We can’t afford it, so that’s it. Now shut up about it—you’re getting this.”
“Why not? I’ll cook it myself if you like.”
“No, you’ll have the same as what I’m doing. I’m not mucking about just for you. Now get the table ready and the knives and forks from the drawer.”
“Why don’t you give me the money? I’ll do the cooking for you, then.”
“No, and that’s it.”
“I don’t want this. I want housekeeping money like Mum, so I can get proper shopping. You know, like bread and milk, steak and kidney pies, carrots, and peas. It’s no good dishing up potato mash all the time and then giving us porridge for a change.”
I stomped my feet. I wanted to beat the pulp out of him and wake him up, but somehow I just didn’t have the strength. He knew very well what I was talking about.
He silently looked up: bewildered.
My fingers curled around the plate as I sat down to eat. I could taste bile rising. Tears pooled up in the corners of my eyes, but I didn’t say any more.
He rarely fought back when I was angry and I got the impression I was dealing with a wet fish. Although what I found really strange, was that whilst he was more than eager to give Mum or Les a black eye, he never raised his hand to me. It was always Mum who slapped me.
The very next day he came home earlier than usual and disappeared into the kitchen. I thought he had made an effort and things would be different, and that we might get Spam or corned beef. I crept down the stairs, with my stomach reeling.
With eyes wide with expectation, I peeped round the kitchen door. I half expected him to be struggling with the oven. Not a bit of it! There was nothing, not even a loaf of bread or jam. No. He was making porridge! I just looked at him, boiling with rage. After all my nagging and shouting yesterday, I thought that we might get a change. But it wasn’t like that at all.
Each day for Dad was like a goldfish going round the bowl. Each lap of the bowl would be the start of the day again, afresh, and it didn’t seem to matter what I said or did, it had no effect. It was like the lights were on, but there was nobody at home. I knew the drink used to make him silly, but I couldn’t understand why he didn’t do anything to help us; after all, he was the adult and although I would soon be twelve, I was still a child!
He was simply out of his depth. Perhaps mash was the only thing he knew how to cook, and the drink had caused him to forget or perhaps he simply couldn’t be bothered to bring in anything else. Whatever the reason, we had to have porridge made with water yet again. I didn’t know what the truth of it was and I didn’t really care, so long as the cooking improved and we had something to eat.
I found myself pleading with him. “Come on, Dad, we need to eat more than just porridge. Can you bring in some proper food tomorrow? I’ll cook it; if you get some potatoes and carrots, steak and kidney pies, or Spam or something? Pleeeeeeaaaaaassssse!”
I asked him nicely and hoped that I could appeal to his caring side.
The next day I came home from school with hope and optimism, and waited anxiously for him to come home. He ambled in at 6 o’clock with nothing again.
“Not again! I don’t believe it!” I shouted at him and beat him with my fists as hard as I could. I lost it completely, jumping up and down and banging my feet against the table with such force that it toppled over and crashed against the cooker. I pulled it back up and set it straight, before picking off the splintered wood in the hope of calming myself. But it was no use—I was just as annoyed, my rage just as furious, and I stood and screamed at him.
“Why haven’t you brought us anything to eat?” I swung at him, but he just put his hand up and held my arm, and in the scuffles that followed I knocked off his glasses, sending them spinning across the kitchen floor. He walked over and picked them up and then he just sat there, in the kitchen, and looked at me like a little child lost.
“I am so sick of potato and cheese! Why can’t we have proper food?” I punched and kicked him, but he
just got up and pulled down a packet of porridge oats, thumping it down on the kitchen table.
That was it. He had had enough. He simply lurched out of the kitchen, collapsing into his chair in the living room, and closing his eyes to the problem.
I followed him, grabbing hold of his jacket. I went right up to his face, and exploded with an onslaught!
“I want to see Mum, I want to see Mum up the hospital—and if she dies—if she dies, it will be all your fault!” I spat in his face, and this time I was determined not to let him go to sleep and fob me off. “Give me some money for the bus fare,” I said, but he just lay there in his drunken stupor.
I was determined I wouldn’t be beaten and so I went through his pockets, finding old betting slips and bits of fluff, until eventually I found a shilling (ten pence). But it wasn’t as if that was the end of my dilemma, because, although I now had some money, it wasn’t much.
What do I do with it? It would buy a loaf of bread or a pint of mild ale for Dad, or some school dinners for Jane. Her dinner money was half a crown a week. Do I spend it on the bus fare to the hospital?
“Oh! What should I do? What should I do?” Pacing up and down, I started to argue with myself. “What was best?” I needed someone to help me decide—but there was no one. I was all alone—just Jane and me. I put the shilling on the table and looked at it.
It didn’t help.
Should I pay Jane’s dinner money? At least I wouldn’t have to worry about her for another day, and that would be one less problem for me. With any luck I could scrounge the rest of her dinner money from Dad tomorrow. All I had to do then would be to feed myself.
“Yes, that’s it.” Decision made.
I rushed to give her the money for the morning, so that I didn’t have a chance to change my mind. I wrapped it in a note and gave it to her, and told her to put it in her coat pocket for the morning. Then I got myself to bed.
Each day after that I would go through Dad’s pockets until I found some money. It was no good nagging him as it seemed to have no affect once the drink had got to him. I didn’t have the option of catching him before he got to the pub because I had to pick Jane up from school. So there really was nothing more I could do.
I lived hand to mouth, eating sometimes, and then not at others, most of the time living on porridge and the free milk I got from school. Sometimes I had a thrupenny bit. It was a funny twelve-sided brass coin worth about 3d (one penny today). I would buy a packet of Spangles with it. They were boiled sweets, about half an inch square, the thickness of a beer mat. Each sweet was individually wrapped in paper, and then the collection wrapped to make a stick about two and one half inches long. I would suck one and let the flavour explode on my tongue. It was a waste of money, in the sense that it didn’t contribute to a meal, but if I didn’t have the energy or feel good enough myself, then I realised we would both be done for.
Sometimes Dad would be home at six, seven o’clock, or much later, after I had gone to bed.
I decided on a new approach. Getting Dad to do something didn’t work. It simply didn’t get anywhere at all. His mind was so screwed up with the drink it was like dealing with a baby. I made the decision to do everything myself. I would do whatever it took to feed myself, and little Jane. I was not going to depend on anyone anymore. I wasn’t a quitter and I wasn’t going to let them win. It wasn’t just the anger at my Dad because I started to realise my Mother was just as bad. Why hadn’t she arranged something with some of the family? There was enough of them living in London at the time—Auntie Alice, Uncle Les, Uncle Ron, Auntie Hilda, Uncle Tommy, Uncle Bobby, Uncle Alfred. Where were they when I was alone?
Perhaps it was because of the way I had to stand up for myself, or perhaps it was the sheer fright that I might lose my Mother to TB, I didn’t know. It was now several weeks since she went into hospital, and after an awful lot of nagging and rummaging through Dad’s pockets, I finally managed to get the bus fare.
Every day I was coming home to an empty house, laying the fire, getting the coal in, getting the shopping, making the dinner, and then finally doing the washing up.
Teachers asked for my homework. Homework? By the time I had got Jane to bed my day was done; I was exhausted and had no trouble sleeping, no matter how cold it was.
I started to wonder when Mum was going to come home. I couldn’t live like this any longer, and besides, the food that Dad was giving me was playing havoc with my tummy. I had to find out. I couldn’t wait any longer.
I brought Jane home from school, and finding Dad home early I took the opportunity to tell him I was going to visit Mum. With the money I had managed to scrounge out of his pockets, I left Jane with him, ran up to Fore Street, and caught the bus to Seven Sisters Road. It took me to St Ann’s Hospital in time for visiting. I got off the bus just outside the hospital and, following the signs through the maze of old corridors, I managed to find the ward for ‘Infectious Diseases’. I grabbed one of the nurses and asked where my Mum was. She took me to the desk, and I waited whilst she searched through a list of names. Finding my mother’s name on the list, she quickly showed me into her room.
Gingerly I poked my head round the door, worried that she might tell me off for coming on my own. But despite my fears, she was very pleased to see me.
“Hello Mum.”
“Oh, hello love! You on your own?”
I let the question go unanswered.
She kept asking how I was getting on and if I was getting enough money for food and the electric meter. I didn’t tell her exactly the problems I had getting Dad to give me any money, and I thought it best not to tell her what really was going on. I wanted her to get better and I thought that if she worried, it would stop her coming home early.
She was in a room all alone in her old iron framed hospital bed. Apart from the side cabinet and some newspapers on a chair nearby, there was nothing else. I sat on the bed.
“How are you then Mum?” It was a silly question as she looked very pale. Her hair was lifeless, like her eyes. No shine. Then I realised that she wasn’t wearing her glasses. I reached over to the side cabinet and put them in her hand and she put them on.
“Thank you love, that’s better.” She held a hanky over her mouth as she spoke.
“Are you getting any better?” I had to ask. She looked worse to me.
“Yeah, they’ve started me on this gold treatment, very expensive they tell me.”
“So when are you coming home?” I didn’t spare her feelings with chitchat. I wanted to know.
“I don’t know. They talk about three months in all,” she said, reaching for her drinking glass. It was empty, so I filled it for her and waited whilst she took a sip.
“Three months?” I felt my little shoulders slump. “How many weeks is that?”
“About December, I think.”
“Yes Mum, I know, but how many weeks? How many, Mum?” I desperately wanted to know so that I could count them down. I felt like a castaway, as if I had to cross off the weeks to keep me sane.
“Well, I don’t know.” She started counting on her fingers. “About thirteen weeks, isn’t it?”
“Thirteen weeks. So we have about ten to go then?” I felt as if my head had sunk down to my boots. The time was too long. I stifled a tear, pushing it down and turning away for a moment to hide my face from her. I didn’t know if I could last that long.
“Yeah, I guess it is.”
I recomposed my face, hiding my fear. “Won’t they let you out earlier if you do well?”
“No love, they won’t let me out because other people will catch it.”
She reached over for her glass again, almost tipping it over me in the process. Irritated, I took it from her and got a tray from the side cabinet nearby, setting it down on her lap. She put down her hanky, and took a little sip of water before looking back up at me.
“Does other people mean...?” The glass clattered back down on the tray, interrupting my thoughts. “Could I, or Jane
catch it?” I asked.
“Well yeah, that’s why Dad has arranged for you to have a vaccination.”
“What’s a vaccination?”
“It’s an injection the doctor will give you.”
“Well, no, he hasn’t.” I shook my head from side to side. Now I knew for sure. It would be up to me to fend for myself from now on.
“What do yer mean?”
“I mean that he hasn’t done anything. That’s what I mean!”
“You should have had a letter to make an appointment at the doctors.”
“Well, I haven’t. So what should I do?” I raised my hands as if to show them empty.
“You better remind Dad to do it when you get home. All right?” She grabbed a notepad at the side of her bed. “Do yer want me to write it down?”
I nodded. “Yes Mum.”
She scrawled a note, folded it up and gave it to me.
“Thanks Mum,” I said. “I have to go now. I promised I would get back to do Jane’s tea.”
“All right,” she said. “Bye love. Nice to see you.”
I made the excuse and left. I had found out how long I had to wait for her to come home, and now I knew it was going to be a long time. It made me realise more than anything else, life was going to get tougher than it already was.
In my innocence I still didn’t realise how long she would be away. For some reason I thought that if I didn’t tell her about Dad, she would be home sooner and things would return to normal.
On reflection, perhaps that was a mistake and I later realised I should have told her earlier—I didn’t know—but I didn’t understand just how bad it was to get.
12
Desperate Times
LIFE CARRIED ON OKAY for another week after my visit to Mum, and I thought that things would return to some sort of normality. I gave Dad the note that Mum had given me, but nothing happened and I guess that it got forgotten.
I had managed to get Dad to give me half a crown on a regular basis. Nagging at him for food money seemed to work for a while, and I was so happy that the episode of hunger was finally behind me. I would go and get some food from Lee’s corner shop, which was situated a few blocks up from where we lived in Langhedge Lane, usually fish fingers or Fray Bentos steak and kidney pie. Sometimes I would get Spam or corned beef; anything that didn’t need cooking. I didn’t know how to do proper cooking, but I knew enough to cook tinned carrots and peas and heat up a tin of Fray Bentos in the oven.
