A Mother's Duty

by June Francis

  She knew how he felt. It was wonderful to get away from people, including the boys, to be just the two of them. Not that they had not enjoyed themselves so far, taking in the pleasures of Blackpool’s Central Pier before going on to the fair; once they discovered that neither of them had ever been to a fun fair in their lives before. They had acted like a couple of juveniles, riding on the bobby horses and swings. He had tried to win her a prize on the rifle range and she had thrown rings on the hoopla stall, both of them without success but nevertheless they had enjoyed being part of the happy, bustling crowd. Never before had she felt so carefree and wished the feeling could last for ever, but they only had one night in Blackpool and tomorrow it would be back to work.

  John carried her over to the bed and they kissed a little longer before, by unspoken agreement, they began to undress. As she struggled with the fastenings on her new corset, he said, ‘Want some help with that?’

  She smiled. ‘Please. But be careful. My savings are tucked inside.’

  He laughed. ‘I suppose it’s as safe a place as any.’

  ‘Ma always thought so … and talking about money, love, I wondered—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about money.’ He flung the corset on the floor and his hazel eyes were questioning as he knelt on the floor in front of her to cup her breasts and kiss them. She folded her arms around his head and crushed him against her, overwhelmed by her emotions. It seemed an age since a man had roused her in such a way and she sighed with pleasure. He lifted her in his arms, laying her in the centre of the bed, and gazed down at her for several minutes before leaving her to switch off the light. When he came back he rammed her body against his, causing excitement to soar inside her until she realised he still had his pyjama bottoms on. She couldn’t understand it. There was she panting for him one might say, but it appeared he didn’t feel so hot about her. Yet – yet he must do, because she could feel him hard against her through the fabric. He began to kiss her in a way that made her think he was going to swallow her up and his hands were all over her body. After what seemed at least ten minutes of such behaviour she was so pent up waiting for them to unite that her teeth began to chatter, which was something they did when she became too emotional.

  ‘What is it? Are you cold?’ His voice sounded raw.

  She shook her head, wanting to cry out, ‘Do something!’ But the next moment he was turning away from her and her mind was screaming out, ‘You’ve made a mistake, Kitty. This man doesn’t want you after all. He’s a tease.’

  Then he was back again and within seconds they had merged into one and were galloping away to a panting finish that left her gasping, but not particularly with pleasure. ‘What have you done?’ She almost choked on the words.

  John did not answer immediately because he was out of bed and at the sink, running water. ‘I was protecting you.’

  ‘You used something!’ She sank back on the bed wanting to drum her heels against it. ‘Why?’ she cried.

  ‘I don’t want you getting pregnant.’

  Kitty felt stunned. ‘But it’s wrong to use such things,’ she stammered. ‘Where did you learn about them? During the war? I suppose you went with – with whores and that’s how—’

  He turned on her and said harshly, ‘I thought you knew me better than that! I learnt about them when I was doing medicine. I told you I don’t want you getting pregnant.’

  ‘You – you don’t want a child?’ Here was something she had not taken into consideration in her daydreams. He was silent as he came and sat beside her and suddenly she realised the truth. ‘You’re scared I’ll die! Because your first wife died you think—’

  ‘If it happened I couldn’t bear it.’ His lips brushed the edge of her eyebrow and he held her so tightly she could scarcely breathe.

  ‘Ease up,’ she gasped as relief flooded through her. He might never have said he loved her but he must care for her a lot. She placed a hand on his shoulder and gazed up into the shadowy contours of his face. ‘I’ve given birth four times and I’m still here.’

  ‘And you told me you lost a baby! You work so hard, Kit, and you’re not as young as you were.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ she said in a frustrated voice. ‘I might be getting on but I’m strong.’

  He stared down at her and touched her cheek. ‘We never think it can happen to us.’

  Kitty’s eyes were suddenly damp as her emotions seesawed again. ‘You must have loved her very much.’

  There was a silence before he said, ‘I didn’t want Margaret to die because of something I’d done.’

  ‘It’s a risk people who love each other take,’ she whispered. ‘A child to carry the seed of what we are into the next generation.’

  This time he was silent a lot longer and he moved away from her before saying, ‘It’s a risk I won’t take. Goodnight, Kit.’ He switched off the light, got into bed and turned his back on her.

  She wanted to weep. To cry out, ‘But I want your baby! I want your daughter!’ Instead she did neither of those things but lay back and began to think. It was her mother who had taught her that sometimes acceptance was the only way to cope with disappointment, but she had also shown her that with enough determination some setbacks can be overcome.

  When the McLeods returned to Liverpool, it was to discover that Annie had already packed her brand new suitcase and was about to leave a city that was cock-a-hoop over Everton winning the FA Cup.

  ‘Couldn’t you stay just a week longer until I can train someone else to take your place?’ pleaded Kitty.

  ‘Sorry, Kit.’ Annie refused to meet her eyes and set her pointed little chin. ‘If I do that then I might never leave. I’ve got to go now. You just keep yer eye on Hetty, that’s all. Relative or not, I wouldn’t trust her as far as I could throw her.’

  ‘She’s not a worker that’s for sure,’ sighed Kitty.

  ‘At least yer’ve got the big fella but yer can’t expect him to make beds and empty the pots.’ She added indignantly, ‘That little madam downright refused to do the pots and threatened to leave! They’re all the same these young ones. They don’t want to dirty their hands with domestic work anymore. Factory and shop work is what they’re after. Some of them are real bolshie.’

  ‘I’ll ask the boys,’ said Kitty, who was in no mood for an argument with Hetty of the sallow skin and limpid dark eyes. In the meantime she would draw up a work roster and tell everyone just what was expected of them.

  It was Teddy she approached first after they had finished supper the following evening. ‘Me empty the chamber pots!’ Teddy’s expression was one of distaste. ‘I have the shoes to do, Ma. I can’t fit that in. Ask Mick.’

  ‘Mick wouldn’t have the time,’ put in John, who was reading the newspaper. ‘He has further to go to school than you and he has to give the dog a run before he leaves. You’ll have to do it until your mother finds a new maid.’

  ‘I still don’t see why it should be me,’ argued Teddy. ‘It’s time our Ben helped out.’

  John leaned across the table towards him. ‘The slop bucket would be too heavy for him. Don’t argue. Just accept you have to do it for the moment.’

  Teddy stared at him sullenly, wishing one of his brothers was there so he could have had a go at him, but Ben was in bed and Mick had taken Nelson for a walk. ‘What about Celia?’ he muttered. ‘She was looking for a job.’

  ‘She has a job,’ said John.

  Kitty glanced at him. ‘You didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I only found out today. When I took those posters Mick did to Green’s shipping office. Becky found it for her.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Rodney Street. It’s with a Dr Galloway.’

  ‘I know Dr Galloway,’ said Kitty in surprise, smoothing the sheet of paper on the table in front of her. ‘He attended Michael in his last illness. He’s a widower and was in the Liverpool Scottish during the war.’

  ‘He also has a daughter who’s a bit of an inva
lid, according to Daniel. The doctor wanted someone young and cheerful who had a bit of nous about them to be company for her. One who wasn’t too proud to help out in general about the place. But what clinched it for Celia was that Dr Galloway remembered her father, Andy, who was in the medical corps with the Liverpool Scottish.’

  ‘That was useful,’ murmured Kitty. ‘It’s as they say. It’s not always what you know but who you know.’

  ‘I wonder if our Mick knows she’s working there,’ said Teddy.

  Kitty and John stared at him and he flushed, saying belligerently, ‘He is friendly with her! She did bring him Nelson.’

  John nodded. ‘You’re right. They have become friends but there’s nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘As long as that’s all it is,’ said Kitty, getting to her feet and beginning to clear the table. ‘He’s too young to be forming attachments.’

  She looked at Teddy. ‘Right, son, you’ll do the pots then?’

  ‘I suppose I’ve no choice,’ he muttered and getting up he walked out of the room.

  Kitty stared after him. ‘I wish I hadn’t had to ask him.’

  ‘It won’t do him any harm for a short while. Perhaps Mick can do it at the weekends, give Teddy a break,’ said John.

  She nodded. ‘I hope Teddy’s wrong about Mick and Celia.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about them. Attachments at that age come and go. Say nothing about it and it probably won’t turn into anything.’

  Kitty piled crockery on a tray. ‘I hope you’re right. I met Michael at Celia’s age and ended up marrying him.’

  ‘Would you have, though, if there hadn’t been a war?’ He opened the door for her.

  She paused with one foot on the bottom step and flashed him a teasing smile. ‘Probably. He was a bit of a charmer and had a fascinating Irish accent. I’m a sucker for an accent. What about you? You were only young when you married Margaret.’

  ‘She was verra pretty,’ he said, putting on his Scots accent, which came and went according to his mood and to whether he was wearing his kilt or not. ‘I married her for her face and carried her photo with me everywhere. I used to take it out and show it to the other blokes and boast about how pretty she was. After a while, though, I had to look at it to remind me that I really did have a wife. I’d stare at her picture, trying to work out what she was really like underneath because I barely knew her.’ He took the tray from Kitty. ‘When I was wounded she came out to see me. She stayed for a while, having volunteered for the Red Cross. Then she realised she was having the baby and came home.’ He paused and his eyes were sombre. ‘I never saw her again – never visited her and the baby’s grave. I was too wracked by guilt for that.’

  ‘Did you get to know Margaret? Did you really love her?’ said Kitty in a low voice.

  ‘I told myself I did. It made her death more bearable somehow.’

  Kitty stared at him, trying to work out what he meant by more bearable if he loved her. Surely a death was easier to cope with if you didn’t love the person? But then perhaps a lack of love made the guilt worse? One thing was sure, she no longer felt jealous of Margaret. Instead she experienced a sort of grief for John’s dead wife and baby girl whose lives had been cut off so tragically, just like Michael’s and her own daughter’s. ‘If I was a Catholic,’ she said abruptly, ‘I’d want a mass said for Margaret and your baby. Did she have a name?’

  ‘I didn’t hang round long enough to find out.’ He shrugged. ‘Now it’s too late – and besides does it matter anymore?’ He carried on up the steps and she followed slowly, trying to see a way forward so they could have their own little girl.

  The next few weeks passed swiftly and if it had not been for Teddy’s obvious resentment towards John, Hetty’s habit of disappearing just when she was needed, being overworked and her longing for a daughter, Kitty could have been happy.

  Elsewhere in the world there was trouble and unrest. In America a tornado wreaked havoc. In India Gandhi was fasting and drawing attention to that continent’s dissatisfaction with British rule. Whilst in Germany people were burning books and parading tanks, troops and bombs. The actions of the Germans bothered her more than anything. She just would not be able to bear it if there was another war.

  Kitty glanced across at her husband, who was peeling potatoes, and wondered what he made of events in Germany, but she did not ask him because she did not want to trigger any nightmares about the Great War. It was at such times he was vulnerable, and she wanted a strong man. So she kept silent, just as she did when he went out without saying where he was going. She did not want him to feel caged, just in case he suddenly took off and went wandering again because he missed his freedom.

  Hetty’s disappearances were a different matter. ‘I wonder where that girl is? I’d give her the push if I had the time to train someone else,’ she muttered.

  ‘You definitely need another maid.’ John lifted his head from his task, his long gold-tipped eyelashes sweeping up as he gazed at Kitty.

  She nodded and said abruptly, ‘Becky offered me Hannah for a week. They’re going on a Mediterranean cruise – supposed to be a working trip – and apparently Hannah hates the thought of going and staying with her brother in Gerard Street even for a week.’

  ‘Take Becky up on the offer. At least Hannah’s a worker.’

  The kitchen door opened and both their heads turned, expecting to see Hetty, but it was Mick and he had on his best jacket. ‘I’m going out, Ma.’

  ‘Where?’

  He lifted shoulders which had broadened somewhat in the last few weeks. ‘Just out.’

  ‘Where?’ she repeated. ‘I like to know where you’re going. There’s been too many reports in the papers lately about bandits and people being held up.’

  Mick grinned. ‘They’d have to be desperate to hold me up!’

  ‘Some people are desperate,’ said John, dropping a potato in water.

  The boy glanced in his direction and muttered, ‘I don’t have to be told that. I haven’t forgotten Charley or him pinching Ma’s money.’

  ‘There’s no need to mention Charley,’ said Kitty firmly.

  ‘Sorry.’ Mick shrugged again. ‘Anyway, I don’t know why you should be worrying about me when our Teddy’s been out all day and you haven’t gone looking for him.’ It was Saturday.

  ‘He’ll be at that engineering yard.’ Her brows knitted and she felt dissatisfied all over again with Teddy’s fascination with engines. She would have preferred him to be doing something else with his free time but knew that there was no way of stopping him going to the yard without keeping a watch on him twenty-four hours a day.

  ‘You don’t know that for sure,’ said Mick.

  ‘Then where else could he be, smartie pants?’ murmured John. ‘Come up with a good answer or I’ll give you a clip round the ear for arguing with your mother.’

  Kitty and Mick stared at him and he stared back. ‘I mean it.’

  Mick swallowed. ‘All right! He probably is at the yard but he could be down at the Cassie. He goes fishing there sometimes with his mates.’

  John glanced at Kitty. ‘What and where is the Cassie?’

  ‘It’s the Cast Iron Shore, out Dingle way,’ Mick answered for her.

  ‘You get the train from Central to St Michael’s station and walk down to the shore. You need to watch the tides, though. There’s sandbanks and the water comes sweeping in really fast,’ added Kitty.

  ‘Do you fish?’ John asked Mick.

  Mick shook his head. ‘I never learnt. Can I go now?’

  John nodded. ‘Be in by nine at the latest. It’s your turn for the supper drinks.’

  Kitty turned to her husband as her son disappeared through the doorway. ‘You let him go without us finding out where he was going or who he’s meeting.’

  ‘I think you can trust Mick,’ said John, placing his knife on the table and putting an arm around her.

  ‘You surprise me.’ She rested her head against his chest ‘I thoug
ht you were against him.’

  ‘Only against him giving you cheek. Teddy bothers me much more. He always has since the day I set eyes on him. And Mick’s right. We do only have Teddy’s word for it that he’s at that yard.’

  Kitty was about to say, a little indignantly, that her son’s word was good enough for her when the back door opened and Teddy entered.

  ‘I’m not late!’ he said before they could speak.

  ‘You’re filthy, though, and you stink of petrol!’ cried Kitty.

  ‘It’s what we use to get the oil off our hands. It can’t be helped,’ said Teddy.

  She frowned. ‘That’s no excuse. You shouldn’t be round at that yard. I presume that is where you’ve been?’

  ‘Where else?’ he said, going over to the sink.

  ‘The Cassie,’ said John, picking up the potato knife.

  Teddy cast him a quick look, then lowered his eyes to the sink. ‘That’s for Sundays. I prefer being at the yard whenever I get the chance.’

  ‘It beats working here, you mean,’ said John.

  Teddy shot him another glance. ‘It’s real man’s work, not like what you’re doing.’ The words were out before he could recall them.

  Kitty looked at her husband and saw that the muscles of his face had gone rigid. She felt a tinge of fear. She acted swiftly and went over to Teddy. She nudged him in the ribs and hissed, ‘Don’t let me hear you speak to the big fella like that again. I won’t let you round that yard if you’re going to come home giving cheek.’

  Teddy acted like he had not heard her but his ears had gone red. He dried his hands and hurried out of the kitchen, whistling under his breath.

  John threw the potato knife on the table and said grimly, ‘I wondered how long it would take.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have said it.’

  ‘No, he shouldn’t have because I won’t forget it.’

  She slipped a hand in his arm. ‘He’s only a boy. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

  ‘He’s old enough to have some manners – and he did mean it’

  Kitty knew that John was right. ‘I did tell him that if he speaks to you like that again it’ll be the end of his going to the yard.’