Honour Thy Father

by Honour Thy Father (retail) (epub)

  Before long Rosaleen was also in trouble. The girls were allowed to bring games or favourite books to school on Friday afternoons and Rosa brought her current craze which was a hula hoop. At playtime she was demonstrating her skill with it, having tucked her dress into her knickers for her more elaborate contortions, when she was suddenly pounced on by Miss Mixley.

  ‘Disgraceful,’ she panted. ‘Adjust your clothes at once and come with me to Sister Mary Angela.’

  The headmistress had been watching from a window and was waiting for them with a grim expression and her hands tucked into the sleeves of her habit.

  ‘How dare you?’ she began. ‘I will not have such vulgar and unladylike behaviour in my school. You are a bold, immodest girl.’ Rosa stood with her mouth open in amazement as the tirade went on, with Miss Mixley supplying a Greek chorus in the background.

  The nun concluded by saying, ‘I know you have good Catholic parents who will be as shocked as I am at such behaviour. I can only think you must have been mixing with bad companions.’

  ‘She’s very thick with that impudent girl, Laura Redmond, Sister,’ Miss Mixley said ingratiatingly.

  ‘Indeed. Then they must be separated,’ the headmistress ordered.

  ‘But she’s my cousin,’ Rosa said indignantly.

  The nun ignored her and Miss Mixley said meekly, ‘I’ve done what I can, Sister. I don’t allow them to sit together.’

  ‘I will speak to the class later,’ Sister Mary Angela said and the teacher hustled Rosa back to the classroom.

  There was no opportunity for Rosa to speak to Laura but shortly before the class was dismissed the headmistress swept into the classroom and called Rosa to her.

  ‘Rosaleen Fitzgerald today disgraced her class and her school by immodest behaviour in the playground. I know you were all scandalised, girls, and worse than that she has shown a bad example to the younger girls.’

  She paused impressively and Laura was about to start forward and shout her indignation but her deskmate gripped her arm and hissed, ‘Don’t.’ She bent her head and scarcely moving her lips she said, ‘Don’t play into the old cow’s hands. You’d only make it worse for Rosa.’

  Amazement kept Laura silent and rooted to the spot. In the eighteen months that she had shared a desk with Mary Morgan the girl had hardly spoken and had seemed to live in a world of her own. Now she gave Laura a quick wink and before Laura had recovered it was all over and Rosa was saying ‘Sorry’ airily and returning to her desk.

  ‘Do you mean Miss Mixley – the old cow?’ Laura whispered under cover of the headmistress’s stately departure.

  ‘No, the nun. Do you think I’ll be struck down?’ Mary asked with a smile.

  ‘No, but she should be,’ Laura said indignantly. ‘She must be bad-minded to tell Rosa off just for showing her knickers.’

  Neither Laura nor Rosa told their parents about their troubles at school, and Rosa was unconcerned about the reprimand from the headmistress but Laura was still indignant on her behalf. One day when she was sitting with her great-grandmother she confided in her about it. ‘I think it was terrible, a nun making a show of Rosa like that,’ she said.

  ‘My father was never one for organised religion and neither was Lawrie, so I feel the same,’ said Sally. ‘I don’t know much about nuns but they’re spinsters the same as that teacher so they’re bound to be narrow-minded. Don’t you worry about Rosa, child. It would be like water off a duck’s back to her.’

  Laura was wide-eyed. ‘But aren’t you a Catholic, Grandma?’

  ‘No, love. It was Greg your grandad who turned Catholic after the Great War on account of a Catholic man he admired named John Savage. Your nana went with him and it’s been a comfort to both of them but I was happy the way I was. Of course your mam’s family have always been strong Catholics.’

  ‘I never knew,’ said Laura. ‘I knew you didn’t go to Mass but I thought that was because you were old.’ She smiled at Sally, thinking that there was no end to the surprises she could tell about the family.

  Laura had not intended to tell anyone about the way Miss Mixley treated her but suddenly she found herself telling Sally about the incident with the blackboard. ‘Honestly I wasn’t trying to be clever like she made out, Grandma,’ she said. ‘I just thought it was a mistake and she’d be glad I told her.’

  Laura’s eyes were full of tears and Sally said gently, ‘Don’t take it to heart, girl. She was just trying to cover her own mistake by turning on you.’

  ‘That’s what Rosa said,’ Laura murmured. ‘But the other girls—’

  ‘Don’t bother about the other girls,’ interrupted Sally. ‘If they’ve got a brain in their head they’ll see through her the same as Rosa. Try to be more like Rosa, love. Let it all run off you like she does.’

  ‘I wish I could, Grandma, but I can’t stop thinking about things like that. Anyway, Miss Mixley is always picking on me so I can’t forget it.’

  ‘Aye, people go on about respect for teachers but I say people have got to earn respect,’ said Sally. ‘If she starts again, love, don’t answer back but just think to yourself she’s a narrow-minded woman who doesn’t know any better.’

  Laura impulsively kissed her and Sally held her close. ‘Eh, I enjoy talking to you, love,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’ Laura was warmed and comforted by these words and often thought of them when she was troubled.

  Laura had gone home when Cathy returned and Sally told her daughter of Laura’s troubles, knowing that Cathy was always discreet.

  ‘It’s strange,’ mused Cathy. ‘Most people would think that Rosa was the most sensitive of that pair because Laura’s so outspoken. Yet she feels things far more than Rosa does.’

  ‘She does,’ agreed Sally. ‘It’s just that she comes right out with things. It’s not that she doesn’t care about other people’s feelings but she doesn’t stop to think. Like our John.’

  ‘I know, Mam. And she worries if she has offended someone,’ said Cathy.

  ‘She’s got a lot of feeling, Cath. Look at the way she comes to see me to keep me company. I’m sure she gives up many a jaunt because she thinks time might lie heavy for me now. And God knows I love the bones of that child, Cathy.’

  ‘Yes, she’s got a loving heart, especially for you, Mam. It’s just that she’s too honest for her own good.’ She sighed. ‘And Rosa’s too pretty for hers. Our Sarah worries about her. With Rosa’s looks and her character she can see trouble ahead.’

  ‘No use crossing your bridges before you come to them, girl,’ Sally said. ‘Plenty of time yet before Sarah needs to start worrying and the girl’s been well-reared.’ She slipped suddenly into the easy sleep of old age and Cathy gently tucked a rug round her before going quietly away.

  It was obvious to everyone that Sally was daily becoming more frail but only Cathy and Greg knew how much pain she endured because of the arthritis. She said nothing of this to the family who all visited her frequently even Mick and Gerda, travelling from York to see her. They heard nothing from Kate in America but Sally had always liked her least of Cathy’s four children and was only distressed because Cathy and Greg were upset about it.

  Sarah called every day and John was a frequent visitor. Although Laura was her favourite, Sally enjoyed the visits of all her great-grandchildren. She had never been a reader and now her hands were too twisted to support a book but she enjoyed the stories that David read aloud to her and Gerry could always make her laugh. When he formed a skiffle group he brought them along one night to play for her and Sally laughed until she cried.

  ‘Whatever next?’ she gasped. ‘A tea chest, a brush handle and a rubbing board. Eh, it’s a long time since I laughed like this, lad.’

  Gerry was not offended. ‘My dad got me the tea chest and the brush pole, Grandma,’ he said. ‘And he took me to this old lady’s house to get the washboard. You should have seen the stuff in the cellar. Dolly tubs and dolly pegs, Dad said they were, and every size
of washboard hanging up even a tiny little one she said was for collars. She used to have a washerwoman.’

  Sally’s eyes met Cathy’s but they said nothing until the group had gone, then Sally said, ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when the lad said that about our John. I thought he’d be keeping Gerry’s nose to the grindstone with schoolwork.’

  Cathy agreed but when they spoke about it on John’s next visit he said, ‘He might as well enjoy himself. All the kids are crazy about skiffle now. I think I was too serious when I was his age.’

  ‘That won’t ever be Gerry’s trouble – being too serious,’ Sally smiled. ‘Eh, we did laugh, didn’t we, Cath? But the lads didn’t seem to mind.’

  ‘Do you know where they practise? In the Fitzgeralds’ old house in Magdalen Street. That tall, dark lad, Peter Taylor – his family live there now. You know how Anne’s dad did the cellars up for an air-raid shelter? That’s where they practise,’ said John.

  ‘Anne’ll be pleased to know that,’ said Sally. She sighed. ‘They had happy days, the houseful of them there, and now they’re all scattered and their father and mother dead.’

  ‘Yes, but they all keep in touch and they’ve got happy memories anyway,’ Cathy said. ‘And we’re lucky. John’s got a good wife and our Sarah a good husband from that family and we think the world of Anne and Joe.’

  Just before Christmas the news came that Sally’s other daughter Mary had died suddenly in America where she had lived for many years. Sally received the news calmly. ‘Better this way,’ she said. ‘Sam’s a good husband, none better, and he’s waited on her hand and foot. She’d have been lost if he’d gone first.’

  Cathy nodded. ‘He says that in his letter. Says he’s glad he was spared to look after Mary to the end and that she went without pain or a long illness.’

  ‘Aye, he’s a good lad. It was a lucky day for our Mary when she met him again on that ship.’

  ‘Poor Sam,’ Cathy wept. ‘I remember the way she treated him when they were young but he always loved her. What will he do? And no children to comfort him either.’

  ‘He has his work,’ Greg soothed her. ‘That will be his lifeline and knowing that Mary is safe. She won’t be the one left alone.’

  Sally looked at Greg cradling Cathy tenderly in his arms. Did Sam ever know? she wondered. Did Greg realise? No, she thought. It was only me and Mary knew her secret. That she had hungered for Greg all her life and would have stolen him from her sister if she could. She’s taken her secret to the grave and no one will ever hear it from me. Sally closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  She was now almost completely bedridden. Daily she seemed to become smaller and her limbs more twisted but she clung tenaciously to life. She had a loving and gentle nurse in Cathy, helped by Greg and the rest of the family and Laura spent even more time with her.

  One day when Laura arrived Sally was propped up in bed with a number of faded photographs spread about the quilt.

  ‘I’ve just been looking out a photo of our Mary,’ Sally said. ‘I lost most of my photographs when my house was bombed but luckily I had a few in my handbag.’ She handed a photograph to Laura of Mary wearing a cloche hat and a coat with a huge fur collar, standing beside a large limousine.

  ‘Was she very rich, Grandma?’ Laura asked.

  ‘Aye. Sam always made sure she had everything she wanted. Even after the crash in twenty-nine he started up again and she had all she wanted, houses and servants and big cars. She always had big ideas even as a child and I worried about her but she got what she wanted and a good man as well. She was always lucky.’

  She picked up another photograph. ‘I’d have been broken-hearted to lose this,’ she said. It was of her wedding day and showed her standing beside the seated figure of Lawrie with her hand resting on his shoulder. Both of them stared unsmilingly at the camera.

  ‘Why didn’t you smile, Grandma?’ Laura exclaimed. ‘Although he looks as though he’s going to smile.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to smile in those days,’ said Sally. ‘Although, mind you, Lawrie could never keep his face straight for long.’ She gazed fondly at the photograph. ‘Eh, he was a merry-hearted lad.’

  Laura picked up a snapshot of Cathy and Greg standing beside their bicycles. Cathy was laughing with her head thrown back and her hands on the handlebars and Greg stood close to her, his right hand on his own bicycle and his left hand covering Cathy’s. He was smiling down at her and Laura said with surprise, ‘Nana and Grandad haven’t really changed, have they? They still smile the same way.’

  Sally agreed, thinking that it was Greg’s smile that had caused the damage with Mary. As Peggy Burns once said, it would turn your blood to water but luckily he never realised the effect it had.

  She picked out a faded sepia snapshot. ‘That was in my handbag,’ she said. ‘It’s the only one I’ve got of my father.’

  Laura studied the photograph carefully. It was of a group of men in working clothes wearing flat-buttoned caps, except for the foreman who wore a bowler hat. The group of men looked awkward and self-conscious but even in the faded photograph Matthew Palin stood out. He was standing a little apart with arms folded and head flung back, staring challengingly at the camera.

  Cathy had come to look at the snapshot and she laughed. ‘The other men look nervous,’ she said, ‘but he looks as though he didn’t give a damn.’

  ‘Aye, that’s how he was as a young man,’ Sally said. ‘He had his own ideas about what was right or wrong and he wasn’t afraid to speak out, no matter who he offended. That was taken when he worked at Cammell Laird’s.’

  ‘I remember him chiefly when he was a sick old man in the parlour,’ Cathy said.

  Sally sighed. ‘He was a fine big man before he had that stroke. He worked at the shipyard right up to then, but he had to trim his sails a bit as he got older, let things pass sometimes that he thought were wrong, for the sake of his family, in case he lost his job. He was always a good father to us, but a strict one, mind you.’

  ‘You’ve had your share of men speaking out and getting into trouble for it, Mam,’ Cathy said. ‘Dad told me once that your father was in trouble with his boss on one occasion at least and I know you had a hard time when Dad lost his job for trying to form a union.’

  ‘And I grumbled about it,’ Sally said. ‘I was always sorry afterwards that I did, because I realised it was the only way men could get any justice by standing together. I thought Lawrie should put us first, but as he said, it was better him taking the risk. He only had two children and I could do a bit of sewing. Most of the other fellows had big families in them days. Still, it’s all water under the bridge now and I did back Lawrie up in the end.’

  She looked up at Cathy with a twinkle in her eye. ‘What do you mean anyway – the men in the family? What about you and your suffragists?’ Cathy laughed and Sally said to Laura, ‘Your nana was a real firebrand when she was young. Going to meetings and giving out leaflets about votes for women.’

  ‘Did you go to gaol, Nan?’ asked Laura.

  ‘No, love, it was the suffragettes who did that,’ said Cathy. ‘We campaigned by peaceful means but we made a lot of fuss and I think we did as much to get the vote as the suffragettes.’

  ‘And now here’s your son marching and carrying on,’ said Sally. ‘And I think our John’s the worst of the lot.’

  Laura was amazed. ‘I didn’t know we had such an interesting family,’ she said, and the two older women laughed.

  ‘Aye, not much chance of a quiet life in this family,’ said Sally.

  Chapter Six

  In March 1960 Sally was eighty-seven years old, still clinging to life, and still able to greet her visitors with a smile and an inquiry about their family or themselves. Bodily she grew ever more frail but her mind was as sharp as ever and often her dry wit flashed out.

  It was a beautiful spring day when Greg summoned all the family to Sally’s bedside. ‘It’s her heart,’ he explained. ‘The d
octor says the strain of the arthritis pain is too much for it and it can’t carry on.’

  Sally was lying propped up in the bed on pillows arranged to give her least pain but she did not seem to be suffering now. Her eyes were closed at first then she opened them and looked at the family gathered round her bed.

  ‘Eh, I’m a lucky woman,’ she said. ‘I had a good father and the best of husbands.’ She smiled round at them. ‘And a lovely family. God has been good to me.’ Her glance rested on Laura at the foot of the bed and she tried to lift her hand. Cathy drew Laura to sit beside Sally and touch her hand and she stayed there when the other children were sent from the room.

  The room was quiet except for the shallow breathing of the dying woman and the soft fall of ash from the fire. Sally seemed to have drifted away again but her hands moved restlessly over the quilt. She had slipped down in the bed and Cathy gently lifted her against the piled pillows.

  Sally seemed to rouse again briefly and in a thread of a voice she said again, ‘Yes, a good life.’ She looked up into Cathy’s face. ‘But I’m glad to go, girl. He’s waited a long time, my poor lad.’ She drifted off again, restlessly plucking at the quilt and murmuring, ‘Lawrie lad. Oh, Lol.’

  Finally her hands were still and her quiet breathing ceased. Cathy bent and kissed her then drew Laura forward.

  ‘Say goodbye to Grandma, love,’ she said gently. Bemused, unable to realise what had happened, Laura kissed Sally’s soft lips then Cathy drew her away and held her in her arms as the rest of the family said goodbye to the indomitable old lady who had meant so much to them.

  For Laura the following days passed in a blur. Afterwards she could remember little of them, not even the funeral except the smallness of the coffin and the crowds of people who attended it. A brief notice had been placed in the Liverpool Echo and the family were amazed at the response.

  ‘I knew Mam helped people,’ Cathy said, ‘but I never knew there were so many and that they would still remember and be grateful. The number of people who’ve been here to tell me how kind she was to them and the ways she helped them. I can’t get over it.’