A Mother's Duty

by June Francis

  She replaced the photograph and gazed unseeingly across the room. It had been terrible saying farewell to the keen-eyed youth she had loved when he went off to war but it was even worse when he returned. That farewell had really been goodbye because the man he became had been so ill, so weak, had found it such a struggle to breathe sometimes that there had been days when she could not bear going into the room where he lay because it hurt so much. Of course she had gone but it had torn her apart watching him suffer, slowly dying in front of her eyes. It had been a relief when the influenza took him from her.

  The tears rolled down her cheeks and she picked up her pen again and dug it into the blotting paper. She remembered what Jimmy had said about Michael being weak and told herself fiercely that was not true. Yet as she sat at the table she felt miserably unconvinced. He could have been more of an emotional support to her and the boys, but everything involved in their rearing had been left to her and her mother. What would her life have been like now if Michael had not died? He had been surprisingly demanding in bed and how would she have coped if there had been another child, with him being no help at all? She longed for someone strong to lean on, to replace her mother and Jimmy. A man who would be able to do all the jobs necessary but control her boys. He would need to have a sense of humour and plenty of patience, to have seen a bit of life. It would also be useful if he knew something about the internal combustion engine because Teddy had a growing interest in engines. Mick, on the other hand, enjoyed reading, writing and listening to the radio, acquiring knowledge on any subject under the sun. Whilst Ben – he was into everything! But John McLeod knew that and still he had said she was attractive. He must feel something for her whilst she …

  Kitty pulled herself up short. What on earth was she thinking of? He had left and she did not know where he had gone. It would be best if she stopped thinking about him altogether.

  Chapter Four

  Ben was up early the next morning and after breakfast sat himself on the area steps, despite having been told by Kitty he must never sit on stone. By ten o’clock there was still no sign of the big Scottie and he was getting restless and thinking of going to look for him.

  Annie appeared with a bucket of steaming water. ‘You get up off them steps,’ she ordered, ‘or you’ll end up with piles.’

  Ben did not know what piles were and could not have cared less but he went down the steps and indoors anyway. There was no one in the basement so he went up to the kitchen where he found Mick and Kitty.

  ‘He hasn’t come,’ he said, standing next to Mick’s chair and resting his chin on the newly scrubbed table.

  ‘Who hasn’t come?’ murmured Mick, not looking up from his book.

  ‘Little John. I want to see Joey and the white mice again.’

  ‘Hard luck,’ said his brother.

  ‘I want to see them.’

  There was no response from Mick but Kitty, who had known exactly who he was talking about, said, ‘He probably has something else to do, son.’

  ‘He said he’d take me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ She knew Ben could convince himself something was true when it was not. Although she had not forgotten that Mr McLeod had said he would fix it for Ben over the monkey but, of course, that had been before yesterday evening.

  ‘He said maybe,’ said Ben.

  ‘That’s not definite.’

  ‘It almost is.’

  ‘It isn’t! And that’s enough,’ said Kitty, getting to her feet. ‘You’ve already blotted your copybook, my lad, so you just be careful. No wandering off on your own. Why don’t you go down the Pier Head with Mick to watch the boats? Then when you come back we’ll have something on toast by the fire downstairs and play Snakes and Ladders.’

  Ben considered the suggestion and tugged his brother’s sleeve causing him to spill some milk. ‘Eejit,’ said Mick without rancour.

  ‘Let’s go now,’ insisted Ben.

  ‘Go where?’

  ‘The Pier Head like Ma suggested. Please, Mick,’ he said coaxingly.

  Mick sighed and closed his book. ‘What’s the rush?’

  ‘I want to get there.’

  Kitty smiled as she watched the pair of them. ‘Go on, love. I could do without him under me feet.’

  Mick drained his cup and led the way out of the kitchen, not averse to an outing but wishing it was not always him that was chosen to look after Ben. He wondered what had gone on between her and the big Scottie after they had gone to bed. Perhaps nothing, he thought hopefully. Otherwise Ma would have said something about him calling round later for Ben.

  Mick put the two adults out of his mind and began to work out which way to go down to the river. He liked a bit of variety so considered taking a different route than normal. He would go along Ranelagh Street and Hanover Street to the Custom House in Canning Place, then Strand Street, past the Goree Piazzas where it was said negro slaves had once been put up for auction and then on to the Pier Head.

  But they were only halfway along Ranelagh Street when Ben tugged his sleeve. ‘Not that way.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Mick. ‘What’s on your mind now?’

  ‘I want to go the pet shop.’

  Mick groaned. ‘No dice! Forget mice and monkeys and think on ships. It’ll be more exciting down by the river.’

  ‘You’ll like the mice, Mick,’ said Ben earnestly and smiled beguilingly. ‘And I think I can find the way.’

  ‘You only think?’

  ‘More than think,’ said Ben, knitting his brows. ‘We go across St John’s Gardens and up the road that way. It’s straight along.’

  ‘Is it far?’

  Ben hesitated. ‘Not too far. I walked it and your legs are longer than mine.’

  Mick stared at him, not trusting Ben’s estimation and wanting no complaints from him that his legs were getting tired, which meant he would end up having to give him a piggyback. ‘Couldn’t you be happy with the puppies at the back of the market?’ Ben gave him a reproachful look. ‘OK, OK!’ said Mick. ‘Puppies are too ordinary for you but I’m telling you if we get lost you’re in it, kid.’ Mick had a horror of getting lost ever since he had been swallowed up in a crowd in New Brighton as a toddler. He had only vague memories of it now but there had been a big, bluff policeman who had towered over him and frightened the life out of him. He had wanted his mother and his gran, who had always been there when he needed them.

  Ben beamed up at him. ‘I knew you’d say yes. You’re the best brother in the world.’

  ‘You don’t have to give me any soft soap. Just don’t get us lost or we’ll be late for lunch and Ma’ll get cross.’

  Ben swore that he knew where he was going, but when they came to St Anthony’s Church on Scottie Road he could not remember in which street the pet shop was situated. Everything looked different in daylight with the pavements busy and women doing their weekend shopping. He stopped on a street corner and gazed about him.

  ‘You’re lost, aren’t you?’ said the exasperated Mick.

  ‘We went up one of these streets.’

  ‘That’s a great help.’ Mick glanced up at a pub sign. ‘What about this place? Do you recognise it?’

  ‘There was a pub.’ Ben’s expression brightened.

  He began to walk up the street but Mick grabbed his shoulder. ‘Hang on! Are you sure this is the right one? There’s a pub on every corner along Scottie Road.’

  ‘We’ll have to try every street then.’

  ‘You’re a noggin,’ muttered Mick, thinking he must have been daft to agree to come.

  ‘I’ve got us this far,’ said Ben, thrusting out his chin. ‘Let’s go right up one and then down the next and I bet we find it.’

  Mick decided to throw his natural caution to the wind, because deep down he admired his younger brother’s determination to get what he wanted. ‘OK! But if we do find it we won’t be able to stay long because Ma’ll start worrying if we’re late for lunch. Have you got that, our kid?’

  Ben
nodded.

  There was no sign of a pet shop on the first street but at the other side of Great Homer Street there was a street market. Mick’s face lit up and he felt in his pocket for the shilling his mother had given him for the work he’d done that week. He hurried across the cobbled thoroughfare.

  ‘Hey! Wait!’ cried Ben, doing his best to slow his brother down by hanging on to the tail of his overcoat. ‘Where are you going? We’re suppos-edd-ly looking for the pet shop.’

  ‘We will in a minute,’ murmured Mick, pushing his way through the crowds with a bony shoulder and dragging his brother with him. He was heedless of the feet he trod on. Up one aisle and down another he went in search of secondhand books. At last he found what he was looking for and began to browse.

  Ben looked up at him in disgust, knowing that once his brother got his head in a book then they could be there for ages. He rested his elbow on a row of books which slowly fell on their sides like a row of dominoes. A girl stopped the end ones from sliding to the ground and the stallholder rapped the back of Ben’s hand with his knuckles and told him to beat it. Ben tugged on Mick’s pocket but his brother only flicked a page.

  The girl smiled at Ben. She was a lot bigger than him with long dark plaits, freckles and a wide smiling mouth. ‘I’ve seen you before,’ she said. ‘I’m Celia from the pet shop. You freed some of our mice and we had the devil’s own job trying to catch them. Ma reckons a couple are still missing and perhaps have gone behind the skirting board.’

  Ben’s face lit up and he pulled hard on Mick’s pocket, until eventually his brother said in a vague voice, ‘Stop it, Ben, or I’ll belt you.’

  ‘No, listen, Micky! This girl’s name’s Celia and she’s from the pet shop.’ Mick ignored him so Ben pinched his arm.

  ‘Ouch!’ The book slid from Mick’s grasp and his hand caught Ben on the side of his face. ‘What the heck did you do that for?’ He rubbed his arm.

  Celia frowned at him. ‘There was no need to go and hit him like that. He’s littler than you.’

  ‘He pinched me!’ cried Mick. ‘Besides it was a reflex action me hitting him. Anyway I don’t see what it’s got to do with you. You should mind your own business.’

  The girl flushed. ‘He’s already been in trouble with Mr Elias but you were too wrapped up in a book to notice.’

  Mick glanced down at his brother. ‘Trust you! I suppose we’d better shift.’

  ‘Let’s go the pet shop,’ said Ben, turning towards Celia and slipping his hand into hers. ‘You’ll show us the way, won’t you? I’m Ben. He’s Mick. Will we find Little John there? You were funny last night calling him that ’cos he’s big.’

  Celia smiled. ‘There was a big fella like him in the story of Robin Hood and he was called Little John.’

  ‘If he’s going to be there, I’d rather not go,’ said Mick.

  ‘Why not?’ asked Celia pushing her way through the crowds.

  Mick made no answer. He could not have put his feelings into words but he had felt uncomfortable seeing his mother kneel in front of the Scottie last night. The way she had taken his hand and spoken so gently to him had been in such contrast to her former anger in the road that it had confused him. He could not understand why he should feel like this. His mother was more nice to people than not. It was part of the job she had once said, and he knew she liked meeting people and looking after them or she wouldn’t be doing what she did.

  ‘He’s OK, you know,’ said Celia earnestly. ‘I know he’s big and that can be a bit threatening-like but he’s really a gentle giant. Although—’

  ‘Although what?’ said Mick, pouncing on the word. ‘What’s he done wrong?’

  She shrugged slender shoulders. ‘I’ve seem him punch Charley – but that fella deserved it. He was destroying things and threatened to cut all the puppies’ throats. He slashed right through a sack of pigeon feed with a knife!’ She shuddered. ‘We was terrified until Little John came in with his fiddle like an avenging angel sent from God.’

  ‘You should have sent for the police and they’d have clapped him in jail,’ said Ben with relish. ‘They do that to bad men.’

  Celia shook her head. ‘He’s too canny for that, little fella. Anyway, Charley hasn’t been back and hopefully he never will be. We heard on the grapevine that his boss has left Liverpool, but I doubt whether she’s gone for good. She has her finger in too many pies round here.’

  ‘Little John’s still around, isn’t he?’ said Ben anxiously.

  She smiled. ‘At the moment he is but sooner or later he’ll be moving on. He was a friend of me dad’s. Not that I remember me dad because he was killed just after I was born.’

  Silence fell. It was broken by Mick. ‘What do you know about this Little John? I mean besides him being a tough guy, a friend of your dad’s and a busker.’

  ‘I know he’s got other friends in Liverpool. Rich friends but money don’t mean nothing to him. He’s me godfather and that’s why he comes and sees us every time he’s in Liverpool. Him and me dad met at some field hospital during the war. They were both in the medical corps with Scottish regiments.’

  ‘Was your dad a doctor?’ asked Ben.

  ‘No!’ said Celia, smiling. ‘Would I be living round here if he had been? Me gran said he could have done better for himself if he’d had the education but Ma doesn’t believe that. She says Gran fantasises, but she never says that in front of her because she wants her to leave her savings to us when she dies.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘I told Ma I’d rather have me gran than her money and she said I was like me father – daft!’

  They came to the pet shop and the two boys gazed at the puppies in the window. Celia went inside saying that her mother would have a face on her if she was any later. Mick barely noticed her going because he was gazing at a white puppy with a black patch round one eye. He had always wanted a dog but knew Ma would not countenance one in the hotel. She had told him several times that dogs brought fleas and needed looking after almost as much as a child did.

  Ben tugged on Mick’s sleeve and they went inside. Celia was tying on a large white apron. There was no sign of the big fella and her mother barely glanced their way before flinging a knife on the counter. ‘You can carry on with this horsemeat, Cissy. It fair turns me stomach cutting it. I’m going for a lie-down.’ She disappeared through an opening at the back of the shop.

  The girl picked up the knife and spoke to the shabbily dressed man in front of her. ‘How much do you want, Mr Lang?’

  The man murmured something and Ben nudged his brother. ‘Let’s go and look at the mice,’ Mick followed him over to the cage and he had to admit the mice were cute. ‘Wouldn’t you like one?’ whispered Ben. ‘You’ve got money. We could go shares. I’ve a ha’penny.’

  ‘Ma wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘She doesn’t have to know. One could live in your pocket or mine and it wouldn’t eat much, not something as teeny as a mouse.’

  Mick looked at him askance. ‘And how do you think you’re going to keep it from Ma?’

  ‘I’ll hide it.’

  ‘Mice make dirt and if I was going to spend my money on an animal it’d be a dog. Forget it, Ben.’ He moved away from the cage and over to the window to look at the puppies once more.

  Celia came over and asked did he want to buy one. He looked with longing at the one which had captured his heart but he shook his head and left the shop. Ben joined him a couple of minutes later and Mick told him to hurry or else Ma would start to worry.

  Kitty was not worrying about them at all. She had just been shopping in St John’s market and was now loaded up. She was thinking about National week in a few weeks’ time when her hotel was bound to be bursting at the seams despite the Depression. The punters would come from here, there and everywhere and she would need more help, especially where shopping was concerned. In the past Jimmy had used the sledge stored in the outhouse to carry all that was needed, and she supposed Mick and Teddy could do the same, but she would not be
able to trust them on their own to get the right price and to recognise the good cuts. Really she needed a man she could train who could take the chore of shopping off her shoulders. Her thoughts turned to John McLeod. Then as she passed the fur shop on the corner into Ranelagh Street she heard the strains of a violin.

  He was standing outside Central Station, a little way up from where several Mary Ellens were selling flowers. For a moment Kitty was undecided what to do, then she made up her mind and walked towards him. She dropped a penny in the plaid bonnet held by the monkey and John acknowledged her offering by elevating an eyebrow.

  ‘I know I owe you more than that,’ she said with a smile. ‘But if you want your money you’ll have to call for it. I don’t have more than threppence on me.’ John made no answer but fiddled away as if his life depended on it. He was wearing his kilt and his tweed jacket, and gloves with the fingers cut out of them. An involuntary sigh escaped her. ‘You don’t want to call?’

  He lowered his violin. ‘Don’t sound like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like I’ve disappointed you,’ he said roughly. ‘I’ve disappointed enough people in my life.’

  She was silent, uncertain what to say. She could fib and say she was not disappointed but she had been brought up to believe that fibbing often got you into more trouble than telling the truth; although there were ways of skirting round the truth. ‘I don’t like being in anyone’s debt, Mr McLeod, and that’s the truth. I still owe you for helping me out.’

  ‘I don’t want your money.’ He flicked back a hank of nut-brown hair which he wore unfashionably well past his ears, and began to play again. A woman avoided looking at him but her child dropped a penny in his hat. He thanked her.

  Kitty stared at him indignantly. ‘You’re busking!’ she said loudly. ‘You could be moved on by a bobby! You must need money, so what’s wrong with mine?’