The Golden Lion

by Pamela Haines

  The room was divided in two by blackboards. On the other side were the eight-year-olds and upwards – the Big Wans. Helen was in the five to sevens. Three rows in front, she could see her brother Billy. They’d let him start school early, because of Mam being ill and their having to live with Auntie Winnie and Uncle Arnold. Father Casey had been really kind, Mam said. Except that they hadn’t reckoned with Billy not being dry. Wet every night and much worse since Mam came out of hospital, wet at school every day.

  ‘Miss Creedon will tell you about packed food,’ Father Casey said. ‘Enough for two meals, and do not forget your gasmasks. We shall write out our own labels this afternoon and thank Almighty God for a day well spent.’

  Long, long hot day. She yawned all afternoon. Billy had his hands between his legs – she was afraid the priest would notice and say something dreadful about him touching himself. She knew he wanted to wet. She willed him, ‘Billy put your hand up,’ But nothing happened, so she called out, ‘Please, Father, Billy Connors wants to leave the room.’ The others laughed and she went red. Ronnie Tibbs blew off. He smelled of cabbage both ends. She was glad he wasn’t her brother.

  There were just the two of them, Helen and Billy. And Mam, of course. Her dad – she couldn’t remember. He’d been a steeplejack and died in an accident. When Mam was brought the news, it made Billy be born early. She thought she remembered Dad at the top of a very high building, in some town she didn’t know. Standing and waving his arms about. But Mam said that couldn’t be. The other memory was sad because there was so little of it. A door slammed, there were footsteps, someone said, ‘It’s her dad’s in.’ She ran to the arms of someone with scratchy clothes and a red friendly face. And then – nothing.

  Until last year she’d at least had Mam. Until the illness. TB they called it – in her mind it joined with RI and PT. Auntie Winnie never spoke of Mam’s TB. She called it always ‘Your Mam’s complaint’, which puzzled Helen. Complaining meant making a fuss and that was the one thing Mam never did. ‘I’m sorry, pet,’ she’d say to Helen, ‘I’m a nuisance to everyone with me blasted cough.’

  Her cousins were all older. Frank was sixteen and had already gone to sea. Alan and Leslie, eleven and thirteen. Valerie was ten and though she went to the Elementary School down the road, Mam explained that she hadn’t been given everything she should (‘God kept some back, you see’), so she didn’t always understand when she was spoken to. Helen had to share a bed with her. There was a real crush in the flat, which was a two-bedroomed council one. Auntie and Uncle had one room. In the other there was a double bed for Alan and Leslie and a truckle-bed which Helen and Valerie were squashed into. Billy was meant to be the third in Alan and Leslie’s bed but because he wet, he had a mattress made up underneath. It was terribly cramped – you could see the springs sagging right down when Alan and Leslie jumped in.

  And then just two days ago, Mam had been turned out of the hospital because they’d need the beds when the war started. So it was back to her sleeping in the living-room, only now she was in bed for most of the time, and Auntie said it was really embarrassing when visitors called, having to explain that an invalid was behind the cardboard screen Dr Atkinson had got for them.

  ‘When will you get better, Mam?’ She didn’t like to keep asking, especially as Mam seemed to be getting worse. She had this horrible little dish she had to spit into. Even though it was kept covered up, sometimes Helen saw into it. ‘Don’t,’ Mam said, ‘don’t look. I can’t help it, you see. If it wasn’t for you and Billy … I’m just a nuisance to everyone. I wish God would take me, I do, Helen.’ Helen asked, ‘If He taked you, will that make you better?’ ‘Of course,’ Mam said.

  Mam didn’t eat much, although sometimes she would say she was hungry. ‘I could eat a carthorse,’ she’d say, but then when Helen had asked Auntie, and brought her a plate of bacon scraps or some nice black pudding, after perhaps only two mouthfuls she’d say she’d no space for anything, and Alan or Leslie could have it. But Auntie said none of the family was to eat anything Mam had touched. Mam had her own glass, knife, fork, spoon and plate. To Helen it was all a frightening fuss, especially as half the time the family didn’t use knives and forks at all. Meals were often just bread and marge or a bit of bacon dripping, or send out for a chip supper, with fish if they were lucky. When they did sit down to eat, the tablecloth was the Northern Echo or the News of the World.

  Mam had always used red and white check cloths which she boiled up in the copper on washday. In those days, when Helen and Billy still lived with Mam, because Mam worked there’d been enough to give Helen some pocket money. Now there was none. Mam whispered, ‘You understand – I’ve to ask Winnie for everything I need. And what the Council gives, that’s for her. It’s only right, when she’s taken us in.’

  Of course it was right. Except that once upon a time she had had one whole penny every Saturday. It bought her a Milky Way bar which, if she ate it sliced up, lasted as much as four days. Sometimes she spent it on misshapen sweets sold cheap: liquorice wrongly twisted, sugar mice without heads, a flattened Palm Toffee bar. She longed for sweets now with a dreadful longing.

  ‘And now,’ Father Casey was saying, ‘let us finish with a Hail Mary. Hands together, please. Hail Mary, full of grace …’

  She had said her night prayers and was trying to sleep. As she lay there, a train hurtled by. The whole building shook. Perhaps this was what the raids would be like?

  Dear Our Lady, don’t let there be a war. She prayed to Our Lady because she was RC. Roman Catholic. Alan and Leslie called her and Mam ‘Roman Candles’ (they didn’t call Billy anything except ‘Pisspot’ – he wasn’t just rotting the mattress, they said, but the floorboards too: in the morning, they held their noses before jumping out of bed). She didn’t have Sunday school like Valerie, but two evenings a week after school. There had been extra teaching this summer because of making her First Confession and Communion. She had a lot of Catechism to learn.

  ‘Helen Connors, what is Grace?’ (Who is Grace? she’d thought. Grace Swarbrick was in the same class, and had impetigo and nits worse than Helen’s. And ringworm and all her hair shaved off last summer.)

  Helen went to Mass each Sunday, because she’d promised Mam when Mam was taken into hospital that she’d go whatever. She quite liked it once she was there. No Alan and Leslie to tease her, no Valerie to throw tantrums, no tellings-off. Afterwards she always visited the statue of Our Lady in the little chapel. It was surrounded by a circle of flickering candles. They cost a halfpenny or a penny depending on the size. Helen had no money for one unless she kept back her collection penny, but she always lit one for Mam to get better soon, and hoped no one would see and tell on her. Our Lady had long dark hair to her shoulders, roses in her cheeks, a half-smile on her face, and a long white dress which flowed over her body, with a pale blue sash. Mary, Queen of Heaven, standing with her arms open as if to love and hug all the world.

  Sometimes she took a bottle with her to fill with holy water for the pink china stoup which hung by Mam’s makeshift bed. They splashed themselves with it night and morning. But the most precious water was the Lourdes water Father Casey had given Mam. (If you couldn’t go to Lourdes, you could use the water, and you might still be cured.)

  It had been a horrid day at school. The only thing she was good at was sums. Fifty-four divide by six, eighty-one divide by nine. Her hand shot up. But writing out the sums was difficult – the nib was scratchy and split open, leaving great blobs of black ink. She was always spoiling her copybook too. Father Casey, when he inspected, held hers up: ‘Here’s someone should be ashamed …’ Two pages of proverbs to practise joined-up letters: ‘The fox may grow grey but never good. Life is not all beer and skittles …’

  Another train hurtled by. She was certain Mam must be lying awake. She wanted to go to her but had promised not to. Billy whimpered in his sleep. Leslie snored steadily. Other noises too, and smells. Valerie beside her was damp with sweat.


  A rattling sound: the last tram clanking its way to the terminus. Soon it would pass the gasworks, then the stretch of canal where dead rats floated bellies upwards. She counted the parish church clock: ten, eleven, twelve. She knew she would never sleep.

  She got out of bed. Quietly – warm feet on the gritty linoleum, hand ever so gently on the door knob.

  ‘Mam, Mam – it’s me, I heard you cough. Mam, can I come in?’

  It was all right, after Mam had protested and told her off (‘Whatever will Winnie say?’) She sat on the floor beside the camp bed, pulling her skimpy nightgown over her knees. The screen was folded back at night, and Mam had a nightlight in a saucer. It had a peculiar smell – something to do with her medicine.

  ‘Can I turn big light on? Mam, can I do yer medicine for you?’

  Mam’s voice was thin and croaky, and trying to be angry. ‘Helen, pet, you oughtn’t – why didn’t you fetch your coat in with you, pet?’

  ‘But it’s hot – that’s why I couldn’t sleep. Mam, Father Casey says we’re to be vackies… But we’ll not have to go, say we’ll not have to, Mam.’ Her voice came out like crying. She was crying. It was all terrible. Perhaps on Monday when they had the practice, it would turn out to be the real thing and they’d all go – without saying goodbye.

  ‘What if I don’t go, Mam? What’d they do if I don’t go, Mam?’

  ‘Pet, we’ve all to do as we’re told –’

  Mam was coughing and coughing. Helen thought she’d never stop. There was the bitter-sweet smell of Mam’s medicine, and then the disinfectant smell that Alan and Leslie were rude about.

  ‘Where’ll they send us? They’ve not said where they’ll send us –’

  ‘They’ll have it arranged, pet. You’ll be somewhere nice, with cows and sheep and green grass –’

  ‘I don’t want cows and sheep, silly daft things. I want you, Mam, why can’t you come too? You’ll come and see us, promise, Mam?’

  ‘Pet, I can’t promise – not when I’m so poorly, like. I’ll write. Winnie’ll help me. Or one of the lads.’

  ‘They’re away too. They’re going with their school.’

  ‘I forgot. Well, I forgot,’ Mam said in a small voice. And then she too was crying.

  ‘Mam, I’d like to sing for you, Someday my prince will come. I do it really well, don’t I? Only it’d wake up Auntie. And, and …’ She had her arms tight round Mam. She could hardly bear the boniness of Mam’s shoulders, jagged points through the thin nightie.

  ‘Now you must go back, pet …’

  The train was very crowded. Alan and Leslie’s school had joined the same party. Most of the children had their parents to wave them off, and hug them tight before the train left. Helen and Billy had had what was left of Uncle and Auntie’s love, which wasn’t much. Mam had spoken of coming to the station but Auntie Winnie had said angrily, ‘And if you give yourself a turn, who’s to look after you, Evelyn? Answer that now.’

  Billy pulled at her best brown coat, his face pinched and white. She whispered gently, ‘Billy, you want the lav?’ but he shook his head. She knew he was upset like she was, but there was nothing to do about it. It wasn’t the sort of pain that crying helped.

  There was a lot of running about and horse play, though St Aidan’s was very well behaved. Father Casey saw to that. There was one little girl in a blue coat with a velvet collar and a velvet-covered hair slide to match. She was clutching a soft toy, a Bambi deer, with lovely big eyes and white spots dusted on its back. She looked all the time as if she had a bad pong under her nose. Helen christened her Ermintrude after the heroine in a story they’d had read to them.

  A lot of people were eating: pieces of orange peel lay under the seats and their smell was mixed with the sooty train smell. Helen stopped Billy from opening their parcel. What’d they do if their sandwiches were gone and they were still miles away?

  Both her and Billy’s belongings had fitted into one small suitcase. Their gasmasks were in cardboard boxes. When they’d practised with them at school, there was the smell and taste of rubber and the misting up of the celluloid eyeshield, but worst of all the rude noise it made every time you breathed out. The Big Wans got the giggles but Helen was ashamed and wanted it to stop.

  They would be for ever in the train. Still, no one knew where they were going. Miss Creedon and Miss Fairlie came round the carriages to see they were all right. Out in the corridor some boys sang The Lambeth Walk. Helen waited each time for the OY! Yesterday she’d sung Little Sir Echo for Mam as a goodbye present. Her voice was really good, Mam said, but Alan and Leslie put their hands over their ears. They said it was like an air raid siren.

  The train, blowing steam, whistling, rushed into a tunnel. Darkness suddenly. Helen’s arms went round Billy. From the corner seat came high-pitched screams: Ermintrude. When at last they came out blinking into daylight, she was still screaming, her face all scrunched up. The velvety Bambi on the floor with the orange peel. Miss Fairlie rushed in and even though Ermintrude wasn’t a St Aidan’s child, she slapped her face hard. The noise stopped at once.

  The food was all gone and Helen and Billy panting with thirst (she’d finished their water bottle), when the train stopped and a porter called out, ‘Middlesbrough, Middlesbrough!’ Motorcoaches were waiting for some of them. She caught a glimpse of Alan and Leslie going off.

  They changed trains now. Ermintrude, clutching Bambi, was one of those in the new one, which was small and without a corridor. Helen knew at once that Billy should have gone to the lav. ‘You can’t now,’ she hissed. He whispered that he wanted Number Two. ‘You can’t.’

  The view out of the window was nothing like home. Great hills covered in purple, green fields, woods. The train kept stopping. Each time a group would be called out. It was after the third or fourth station that Billy had his accident. Helen thought she would die of shame. Oh dear Our Lady help us, the smell was dreadful. The two boys sitting near, she knew they knew. In the end one of them spoke up. ‘He’s messed his pants, dirty beggar.’

  In the empty school hall the WVS lady, who was called Mrs Carter, said, ‘Helen is it?’ peering down at the label. ‘Helen then, and Billy, come with me.’

  Outside, they crossed the road, then after a little stopped at a shop, its window full of sweets in tall jars. Helen thought: She’s going to buy us a bit of toffee or something. She pulled at the lady’s sleeve: ‘Our Billy likes jelly babies, and I’m not fussed.’

  Behind the counter was a small woman with tight corkscrew curls, an upturned nose and large spectacles. When she saw the WVS lady, she put her hand to her mouth.

  ‘Oh my, we never come down, did we? Father’s away to Doncaster for supplies. It went right out of my mind –’

  ‘You said you’d take in a child, Mrs Bolton. Here’s little Helen Connors. But Helen must stay with her brother.’

  Mrs Bolton, leaning over the counter, picked up a Mars Bar and handed it to Helen. ‘There you are, love … I expect we can, Mrs Carter. We’ve the room spare.’

  Mrs Carter explained about being RC, but it didn’t seem to matter. ‘I’m used to those,’ Mrs Bolton said, ‘I’d a sister turned.’

  ‘A sweet shop, isn’t that nice now?’ Mrs Carter said to Helen. ‘The others will be envious.’ She checked then that Helen had her stamped postcard, ready to write to Mam her new address. ‘You can write, dear?’

  ‘I’ll help her,’ Mrs Bolton said, her mouth full of liquorice allsorts. She had just passed some to Billy.

  ‘Our Billy doesn’t eat them ones,’ Helen said. ‘Thanks, missus.’

  ‘Auntie Hilda, love. You’ve to call me Auntie Hilda. And now, let’s shut up the shop, and make ourselves a nice tea.’

  At first it was all right. Or would have been if she hadn’t been homesick and worried about Mam. Every day she hoped for a card or letter, but in the end when one came – with Mam’s ‘capitals’ writing on it because she’d never learned joined-up – it only said that Mam missed her and Bill
y a lot and was glad they were with nice kind people.

  The first evening Auntie Hilda had given them a big meat tea. The next day the same, and the next. The table groaned with food. Oatmeal porridge with thick cream, bacon, eggs, fresh new bread, roast lamb with mint sauce, apple pie, gingerbread parkin, curd tart, treacle tart, griddle scones dripping with butter. Cream and more cream. She had never in her life seen so much food, let alone eaten it.

  And it wasn’t just Auntie Hilda feeding them up. Mr Bolton (Uncle Jack she was to call him) told Helen she was ‘very small for seven years old’, and needed a bit of fat on her bones. He himself was plump like his wife and had a small sticking-out stomach. He squeezed her hard to him, which she didn’t much like, and breathed tobacco on her.

  She saw some of the other vackies when school started a week or so later. There must have been some mix-up because she could see no one from St Aidan’s. From what she heard, some vackies hadn’t been nearly so lucky. One girl said she’d had a little saucer of cold baked beans to her tea, with the rest of the family eating thick slices of ham. Another had no furniture in her room, and her clothes on a nail which she had had to put up herself. Helen had a lovely little wardrobe with transfers of Snow White and the Dwarfs which Uncle Jack had stuck on for her. She’d hardly any clothes to put in it, but Auntie Hilda was taking her into Whitby to buy some.

  Ermintrude was very unhappy. Her real name was Audrey, Helen learned. She cried almost every day, and when not doing that, she would stamp her foot and look haughty. She said the work in class was too easy. One day she had hysterics just like when the train had gone through the tunnel. This time she had cold water thrown on her. Another time the Vicar came into the schoolroom and he and the teacher pointed to Ermintrude and spoke in hushed voices.