Chrissie's Children

by Irene Carr

  At Ballantyne’s yard Peter offered up his plea to a foreman called Gallagher, muscular but beer bellied, with a veined nose and narrow eyes that glared out of a red face. He shoved Peter aside and jeered, ‘Get out o’ my way! If there was a job going I’d want a man, not a skinny lad! Now bugger off!’

  Peter started forward, fists clenched, ready to avenge the insult, but another man was coming up behind Gallagher, bigger and broader, with a cropped head, bent nose and scarred face. He put a hand on Peter’s chest and sent him staggering to the ground. The hungry crowd growled its disapproval, and Peter was scrambling up again, outraged, when a stranger stepped between him and the other two. He held Peter back and snapped at the big man, ‘That’s enough, McNally. You should pick on somebody your own height and weight.’

  He was a man into his fifties, slight and a head shorter, but McNally did not shove him. He muttered sullenly, ‘He should keep his lip buttoned up, Joe,’ and slouched off after Gallagher.

  The little man turned on Peter, who was still bristling. Peter demanded, ‘What did you shove your nose in for? Who d’you think you are?’

  The other held on to him and said mildly, ‘I’m Joe Nolan.’

  Memory stirred in Peter of talk he had heard. He said, ‘You used to be a boxer.’

  Nolan’s reply was an ironic ‘Aye.’

  Peter eyed him with new respect. He looked a quiet, inoffensive man, with thinning ginger hair and a face not scarred, a nose not bent. Peter said, ‘You were a champion, a professional, fighting for money.’

  Nolan shrugged. ‘I was a champion around here and I made some money, but somebody else finished up wi’ it.’ He was not complaining, just stating a fact. He went on drily, ‘You’re either brave or barmy, wanting to have a go at McNally. He’s a nasty bit o’ work, a bare-knuckle fighter, and he’s half killed a few men at that game.’

  ‘Aye? Never mind, I’ll see my day with him.’ Brave talk, but Peter took pause as another thought struck him. One day Gallagher might have a job to give and Peter still need it. He had his mother and little half-brother to think of.

  The little man saw that Peter’s anger had cooled and let him go, saying, ‘You’ll need to learn to control a temper like that or it’ll get you into trouble when you’re older. Ever thought of boxing?’ When Peter shook his head Nolan went on, ‘I run a class for a few lads in the club.’ Peter opened his mouth to refuse, but Nolan could read his mind as he had read others, and got in first: ‘We’ve got all the gear needed at the club so none o’ you lads have to bring anything.’

  That was different. Peter said, ‘Aye? Well, I’ll think about it.’

  Nolan settled for that because he was sure the lad would be there. Peter sauntered off, having had his first encounter with two mortal enemies.

  One morning, a week before Christmas 1935, Sophie left her room in the Ballantyne house and ran lightly up the stairs of the tower. She stopped at the open door of the room at the top and peeped in. It was simply furnished, with two leather armchairs before the fire, a thick rug on the polished floor and pictures of Ballantyne ships on the walls, and smelt of leather and polish. A desk was set under the window so that anyone who worked there could look up from their papers and out over the trees and the town beyond, to the distant river and the sea. Years ago a ship’s captain had called it the ‘crow’s nest’.

  Sophie’s father was collecting papers from his desk where he had worked the evening before and shuffling them into a briefcase. He looked up as Sophie tapped on the door and entered. He grinned and teased, ‘You’re up early. I thought you were on holiday.’

  ‘I am. But I have to ask a favour.’ Sophie took his arm and rubbed her face against it. ‘I need some money.’

  Jack buckled the straps on the case. ‘You’ve had your pocket money for this week.’

  Sophie nodded. ‘Yes, thank you. But this is an awkward time of year, Daddy. I’ve been to a lot of parties and to the pictures, and there are all sorts of little things that add up. I don’t want you to give me anything and I’m not asking for a loan. Only, if you could advance me a couple of bob from next week’s pocket money I could go out, instead of hanging about the house all of the holiday.’

  Jack lectured her on economy and the value of money all the way down the stairs, but at the door he fished in his pocket and handed her a florin. ‘And that is an advance. So don’t expect all your pocket money next week.’

  ‘Thank you, Daddy. You’re a sweetie.’ Sophie kissed him and waved as he climbed into the Ford beside Chrissie and it rolled away down the drive.

  Matt had brought the car round to the front door. Now he said, ‘Well, you got it like you said you would, but how will you manage next week?’

  Sophie grinned at him. ‘I’ll ask for another advance.’

  Matt shook his head admiringly. ‘You cheeky monkey.’

  She ran upstairs, laughing.

  Jack dropped Chrissie at the Railway Hotel then drove over the bridge and through the last narrow, terraced streets of houses to Ballantyne’s yard. This was the festive season but the weather was not made for rejoicing. A cold sea wind sweeping in up the river brought with it a fine, driving rain that sluiced down the windscreen of the Ford. In the last hundred yards he passed a youth, head down as he plodded into the wind, towing a bogey with a length of rope. It was no more than an orange box mounted on four wheels from an old pram. Jack saw some of these every day and took no notice of this one. He drove on through the gate into the yard and parked the Ford outside the office block. He unfolded his tall figure from behind the wheel and stepped out.

  One of his foremen, his rank marked by the trilby hat he wore, smirked and put a finger to the hat in salute. ‘Morning, Mr Ballantyne.’

  Jack recognised Gallagher, red faced and burly, and was not sure about him. He got the work done by the men under him, but Jack thought there was a fawning insincerity about Gallagher. However, you could not sack a man for that, let alone the mere suspicion that it existed. Jack replied, ‘Good morning,’ and strode on into his office.

  Peter Robinson trudged on, towing the bogey along the street. His patched jacket was buttoned up against the wind which still cut through him. He wished he had an overcoat.

  His mother had suffered a miscarriage after hearing of the death of her husband. Peter had no regrets about the loss of Hackett – except for the money he sent, little as it had been, as there was no work to be had.

  The bogey was filled with bundles of firewood. He had begged some empty boxes from a market stall, chopped them up and tied the sticks in bundles with string. He hoped to get a penny for each bundle, or a ha’penny at any rate, and he had to sell them all before the week was out. If Peter could sell all the firewood he would have a few shillings to buy a piece of pork to roast for the Christmas dinner, and maybe a few luxuries like an orange or a bar of chocolate for young Billy’s stocking. He was doomed to disappointment.

  He knocked on the hundredth door and asked the old woman who opened it, ‘D’ye want any firewood, missus?’ He sold none at all.

  ‘Aquí!’ Paco Diaz came out of the bedroom carrying his shoes in one hand and beckoned his daughter where she sat reading a book in a chair by the fire. He had come home from his job as nightwatchman, eaten a huge breakfast and slept for an hour or so. He had catnapped frequently during his night on duty, as always, and now was refreshed.

  Helen was fifteen years old now, quiet and thin, her black hair scraped back tightly into plaits. She put the book down quickly and went to him. ‘Yes, Dad?’

  He looked past Helen to her mother, Lizzie, busy ironing the first of a pile of washing on one end of the kitchen table, and told her, ‘We go to buy new clothes for Juan. You will dress, please.’ Now he turned his gaze on Helen: ‘You will iron. Then cook dinner. But first—’ he held out the shoes – ‘clean these.’

  ‘Juan’ – Helen’s eighteen-year-old brother John – worked nightshifts on a maintenance gang in the yard where his father was watchma
n: Paco had got him the job. John had inherited his father’s colouring and stance, dark and haughty. Now he was washing in an enamel bowl set on the other end of the kitchen table from where his mother was ironing. He reached for the towel and said, ‘Clean my shoes as well.’

  Helen was about to object but Paco said, ‘Si,’ and her mother caught her eye, warning her.

  The girl shut her mouth and took the shoes. ‘Yes, Dad.’ She smiled at him but he was already turning away to talk to John, ignoring the females. Elizabeth put the iron back on the fire to heat, put her arm around Helen and squeezed. ‘There’s a good lass.’ Then she whispered, ‘He loves you.’ She lied because she wanted Helen to believe it – and Helen believed it because she wanted to.

  Paco had always wanted a son but not a daughter. John had been one of twins, but his twin sister, Helen, had died within days despite the efforts of the nurses. It was because of those efforts that Lizzie determined that her own daughter would be a nurse. Paco scarcely mourned the death of the child because he was totally absorbed in his son. His celebrations were muted when another girl was born three years later, but she was the daughter Lizzie yearned for. Because this child seemed to be a replacement for the one she had lost, she also named this little girl Helen.

  Lizzie loved her husband as strongly now as she had when she first fell for the handsome young Spaniard. She was not blind to his faults, but was prepared to ignore them or live with them to keep him.

  ‘He loves you.’ Lizzie had said it and Helen accepted that it was true despite evidence to the contrary over the years. She told herself that it was just that her father was . . . different. She boasted to the other girls, ‘My father says this’ or ‘My father does that.’ There was something romantic about him being a Spaniard and her having a family in Spain. She knew there was nothing romantic about herself.

  She would boast to the other girls, ‘Look! Those are my aunties, uncles, cousins . . .’ She showed the photographs, posed studio portraits of black-haired women in flounced skirts, lace and shawls, men in tightly fitting suits staring into the camera with wide, dark eyes. Helen yearned to meet those distant relatives, but her father had only once saved enough money to go back to Spain for a holiday. He took Juan with him and left his wife and daughter behind. Helen had wept in her bed that night – and hugged him when he came home. He would cause her to weep again.

  Helen cleaned the shoes then took up the iron and set to work. The rest of her family left the house to board a tram and cross the bridge into the town. When the pile of ironing was done she turned to cooking. She made a meat pie from some leftovers, peeled potatoes and prepared a panful of cabbage. All the while she worked she kept her schoolbook propped up beside her so she could read a line or two in snatches.

  Helen had never needed encouragement to study. When she had passed the examination for entrance to the grammar school, Paco Diaz, predictably, was against her going, but for once Elizabeth stood up to him and won her fight. Her mother urged her, ‘You want to get a good education so you can be a nurse when you grow up.’ It was Elizabeth’s dream that her daughter would one day become a nursing sister, member of a respected profession. It was a dream Helen shared – although secretly the dream did not stop there.

  The pie was cooked and Helen took it out of the blackleaded oven alongside the fire and set it aside to cool. She left the pans of vegetables in the hearth, ready for her mother to put on the fire to cook when she returned. A glance at the clock on the mantelpiece told her she would just be in time. She shrugged into her coat as she hurried along the passage and out into the street, into the biting wind and driving rain. She followed the trail of the others ‘ower the watter’ into the town.

  ‘Have you been running?’ Sophie Ballantyne grinned at Helen.

  She panted, ‘No, but I had to hurry. I thought I might miss you.’ She had walked across the bridge, deciding to save her tram fare for later.

  ‘I nearly went off with a lad a minute back,’ Sophie teased. Helen wondered if there might be a grain of truth in that, knowing Sophie. She took Helen’s arm. ‘Come on, we’ll get in out of this rain.’

  The window of Eade’s music shop in Fawcett Street was filled with instruments: trumpets, trombones, accordions . . . there was also a display of sheet music and gramophone records. The last two were on sale at the back of the shop and Sophie had come to see them. The girls spent a happy hour browsing through the sheets. Sophie was known there and they listened to records played by the youth behind the counter at her request. She finally bought a record and sheet music ‘Anything Goes’.

  ‘Come back to the house,’ said Sophie. They took a tram, each paying her own fare, and then walked to the Ballantyne home. After three years of friendship Helen was no longer overawed by the size of the house and its staff of servants. She and Sophie had met on their first day at the grammar school, sitting side by side because their names fell together alphabetically. They were different, but went together like two halves of the same coin.

  ‘Let’s have this one,’ said Sophie.

  ‘And this,’ added Helen.

  They sat on the bed up in Sophie’s room and wound her gramophone, played the records that were stacked up by the dozen. Sophie’s wardrobe doors stood wide open as she had left them that morning, showing the dresses hanging ranked inside. Sophie sang and practised stances and gestures, lifting her skirt with one hand, watching herself in the mirror.

  ‘Don’t look like that,’ ordered Sophie as Helen pursed her lips in disapproval. Sophie pouted, mimicking, and Helen had to laugh.

  ‘You really ought to study for another career,’ Helen chided. She knew Sophie was determined to be a singer, but did not take her seriously. She did not believe this girl who had grown up alongside her for three years could be an entertainer like those who appeared on the stage of the Empire Theatre in the town. Helen had only been there once, to a pantomime. She had thought it a world of magic, but not real. Now, nursing, that was a worthwhile profession, demanding dedication and commanding respect.

  ‘Now we’re into the New Year things might look up.’ Jack said it with more hope than confidence. He struggled with the stud on his winged collar and grunted with satisfaction as it slid into place, then he tweaked his black tie into a neat bow.

  Chrissie smoothed the printed velvet evening dress over her haunches and picked up her stole to cover her bare shoulders. ‘Who’ll be there tonight?’

  ‘All people you know.’ Jack slipped his dinner jacket off its hanger and worked his wide shoulders into it. He went on, ‘Except one. That’s Tourville, Randolph Tourville. He’s boss of an oil company. He’s up this end of the country because he has a tanker building on the Tyne. Davenport’s invited him because Tourville does a lot of business with Davenport’s bank. He thinks he might get him to do some more with one of the builders on this river, but he’s wrong.’

  Chrissie picked a shred of white cotton from his jacket and told him, ‘Don’t be pessimistic.’

  Jack grinned. ‘I’m not. I just know Randolph. He’s a devil for the women and he never changes his mind. He’s happy with the ships he gets from the Tyne and he won’t move.’ He slid his arms around her and kissed her. ‘You’re gorgeous.’

  Chrissie detached his hands and said firmly, ‘We’re going out for the evening.’

  They sat down to dinner a full score, all couples except for Tourville, the bachelor. The men were in business, most of them shipbuilders like Jack Ballantyne, and their host was Davenport the banker, chubby and urbane. Chrissie was the only businesswoman. Tourville was partnered by Davenport’s daughter, pretty, unattached and in her twenties, obviously smitten by him.

  He was a man who looked taller than he was and walked with a self-confident, straight-backed strut. Handsome in a square-jawed, hard-eyed way, he could grin to show strong, white teeth. Chrissie thought that in anger that mouth could probably also close like a trap.

  No places were marked, except that the chairs at the head an
d foot of the long table were left for Davenport, the host, and his wife. Tourville sat directly opposite Chrissie.

  Conversation was general. Davenport twice steered it gently round to ships and the need for orders on the river. Tourville equally gently turned it away. The third time Davenport attempted this, halfway though the meal, the oilman looked the banker in the eye and told him with a smile, ‘I always go to the Tyne for ships and always will.’ The message was clear and Davenport got it. He did not try again.

  Chrissie glanced at Jack and he lowered the lid of one eye in a wink that said, ‘I told you so.’ He addressed Tourville: ‘I looked over one of your other interests a week or so ago.’

  The oilman’s brows lifted a fraction. ‘What would that be?’

  ‘A Tourville film. I believe you are a major shareholder as well as managing director.’

  Tourville laughed. ‘I hold most of the shares, it’s true, although it’s not so much an interest as a distraction. Tourville Films Ltd makes the films, but when I go to the studios it’s as a spectator. I like backing a man and an idea, and that’s all I do: put up the money. The films are made by a lot of other people.’

  Davenport put in, ‘That’s a bit of a gamble, though. Suppose people don’t like the film and don’t pay to see it?’

  Tourville gave him the tolerant smile of the wealthy man who could afford to lose. ‘I find it profitable. And more fun than backing horses.’

  A little later Chrissie realised that while Tourville was talking in turn to his neighbour on either side, one of them being Davenport’s infatuated daughter, he was always watching Chrissie. He saw the dawning of that realisation and smiled at her. She felt the flush rise to her face and bent her head over her plate, although she was no longer hungry.