Where the Heart Is

by Glenice Crossland

  ‘He does! Well, I thought he did.’ Pat looked so downcast that Enid felt sorry for her daughter then.

  ‘Well, you bloody well won’t be seeing him again if I’ve aught to do with it!’ Bernard very rarely swore. ‘Surely you’ve made friends at yer new school?’

  ‘Yes, but not living round here. They all live in Cragstone.’

  ‘But you knew that’d happen, surely. You worked really hard to get to that school. Nobody made you go.’

  ‘I know, but I didn’t think about it, I suppose. I didn’t realise I’d be left out of everything here in Millington. Anyway, I don’t want to be part of a gang who are as crude as that. From now on, I’m going to spend my time working. I really want to do well, Dad.’

  ‘Well, it won’t be as bad for you in summer. You’ll be able to go into Cragstone to meet your friends and invite them here,’ Enid said. ‘Do you know what I think, love? I think the Millington School lot are just jealous.’

  ‘Maybe, but that’s no excuse for acting cheap,’ Bernard growled.

  ‘I’m sorry, Dad. It won’t happen again. I’m going to work from now on, and I’m going to find a drama group and join that.’

  Bernard laughed. ‘You’ll be lucky to find owt like that with a war on!’

  ‘Well, I’m going to try. I really want to work in the theatre.’

  Bernard frowned. ‘I doubt if there’s much of a future in that. But you work as hard as yer can, and we’ll see.’

  ‘I’m off to bed now. I’m going to school tomorrow, even if I’ve to walk it.’ Pat hoped the roads would be clear so that the buses could get through. She didn’t want to fall any further behind with her lessons.

  She didn’t know what qualifications she would need to work in a theatre, but whatever they were, she would work until she got them. She didn’t want to perform, the stage wasn’t for her. She wanted to organise things, or even work in the booking office. Pat just liked the atmosphere of a theatre: the sound of the orchestra tuning up; the audience in all their finery; the swish of the curtains as the lights dimmed; the applause. She wanted to be part of it all.

  Pat Cartwright had chosen her career, now she must work towards achieving her aim and forget about the so-called friends who’d tried to distract her. She wound up her alarm clock determinedly. Mustn’t be late in the morning.

  Raids over Sheffield were less frequent as the year wore on. On only one occasion was Millington in the firing line, when three cottages in the west end of the town were hit by incendiary bombs. Joe Denman and John Thomas put out the fires and helped a deaf old lady escape from her damaged property. Fortunately no one was hurt.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Charlotte’s eyes narrowed as she watched her husband pack a small overnight bag.

  ‘London.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Myself. The Town Hall won’t pay two men’s travelling expenses when one can do the work.’

  ‘I don’t believe you! You’re going with a woman.’

  ‘Well, if that’s what you choose to think, there’s not much I can do about it.’ Much as Mark detested his wife these days, he couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. She was nothing but a bag of nerves, jumping at the slightest sound. Then there were her constant nightmares about dogs.

  He studied Charlotte’s face. The black smudges beneath her eyes stood out in contrast to her sallow, wrinkled skin. She really did seem ill.

  ‘Look, Charlotte, you need to see a doctor. You look awful,’ he told her.

  ‘Thank you very much.’ Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears.

  ‘No! You’ve got me wrong. I mean, you look ill.’

  ‘I don’t need a doctor. I need you to get rid of those pictures and the clocks!’

  ‘And I’ve told you … when you feel better, I’ll get them out and we’ll ask a valuer in to price them. You’re in no condition for all that just now. You’d only go and say something to make them suspicious. Go to the doctor and get some sleeping pills or something for your nerves. Make an appointment for Tuesday and I’ll go with you, I promise.’

  ‘You mean, you won’t be back before then?’

  ‘No, I won’t. I’ve an appointment tomorrow and another on Monday.’

  ‘But I can’t stay here on my own for five nights, I shall go mad!’

  ‘Charlotte, my love, you already are mad.’

  Mark picked up his case and his overcoat and placed his trilby on his head. Then he gave his wife the obligatory kiss and gladly left.

  ‘Right then, what’s on the agenda for today?’ Sally still felt uncomfortable in Ida Appleby’s presence, and decided there and then to have it all out in the open, regardless of the consequences.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’m sorry for the things I said on that awful day. Perhaps it’d be better if I didn’t work for you any more?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t blame yer for wanting to leave. Who’d want to work for somebody who lied and talked about everybody the way I did? And me an unmarried mother too. I should think you’d be ashamed to be seen coming ’ere.’

  Sally interrupted the woman before she could say any more. ‘Oh, no, I don’t want to leave. Only I thought that after the things I said … And why should I mind coming here? Having a baby is nothing to be ashamed of, especially when you brought your son up alone. I should say that’s something to be proud of. I mean, you could have had him adopted … though that would have been much worse, in my opinion.’ Sally went to fill the kettle. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’

  When she came back Ida was wiping her eyes, her face red from crying.

  ‘Come on, drink this. Oh, I am sorry for the things I said!’ Sally went to fetch her a clean handkerchief.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Ida told her. ‘I want to explain to you. Oh, but what must you think of all the lies I’ve told? Lie upon lie. I never was a housekeeper – I was a skivvy at the White Hart. That’s where I met Doug Fletcher. He said he loved me. I suppose he did, in a way. The trouble was, he loved his wife as well but I didn’t know that. I didn’t know he was married with children. Well, he didn’t look much older than me … I don’t think he was, really, except that I was immature for me age, and innocent. I just thought he was wonderful. Oh! What must his poor wife have thought of me?’ Ida began to cry again and Sally took the woman’s hand in her own.

  ‘Well, if it’s right what Mrs Simms says, I shouldn’t think she’d have blamed a young girl.’

  ‘Even so, it was wrong what I did. Even if he hadn’t been married, it was still wrong. I couldn’t seem to resist ’im, though. It was Easter. He bought me a dress of blue crêpe-de-Chine, he called me Ida Blue Gown when I put it on, and took me to Scarborough for the day. There we were, at the Grand Hotel! He bought me a gin and orange, then another. They made me feel all warm and lovely inside. I felt so grown-up in me blue dress. Then he said we’d missed the train home so we would have to stay the night. If I’m truthful I didn’t care, after the gin and oranges.

  ‘Then we came home, he to his wife, and me to discover I was pregnant. I didn’t know what to do. It was a sin in those days … well, it still is … to have a baby out of wedlock. Me mother gave me two choices. Either go away and ’ave the baby adopted or pretend it belonged to someone else. She sent me to stay with a cousin of hers who made my life a misery all the time I was there.

  ‘Well, you heard the rest from Emily. I couldn’t part with Donald, I loved ’im too much, but me mother said if the other kids found out he was mine, they’d call ’im a bastard and I couldn’t ’ave that. I tried to make it up to ’im, worked like a horse to give ’im the best. Oh, but if only I could once ’ave heard ’im call me Mother, instead of Aunty.’

  ‘Come on, I bet you feel better now you’ve told me?’

  ‘I can’t say I feel any better, but I am relieved it’s all out in the open. Oh, and that poor woman across the road, too. I’m so ashamed of all the things I said!’

  ‘Yes, well, we all make mistakes. If you only knew what I said
the other night! I said that if anybody would go to their grave an embittered old virgin, it would be Miss Appleby. I’m so glad you proved me wrong!’ Sally giggled. ‘In fact, I like you much better now I know you’re human. Come on, Miss Appleby, cheer up, it’s not the end of the world.’ She cleared the cups away and washed up. Then she got out the carpet sweeper and began wheeling it back and forth. She could hear Miss Appleby speaking to her above the squeaks.

  ‘You’d better start calling me Ida. If everything’s going to come out into the open it won’t seem right me being a Miss, not with grandchildren to consider.’

  Sally smiled to herself. Things were looking better already.

  ‘Do yer think they’ll forgive me, when I explain to them about being their grandma? I’m going to write to them today and send them a ten-shilling note to buy something for themselves.’

  ‘If you slip them a few shillings, they’ll forgive you anything if they’re like most kids. Anyway, they’ve probably guessed already, children don’t miss much these days.’

  Ida got up from her chair and went to the drawer for a writing pad and pen, never once complaining about her legs.

  Betty was subdued after Clarence went back. Letters passed between them almost every day.

  ‘That young husband of Betty Butler’s must idolise her, with all the letters he sends her,’ Nellie passed the word at every house in the rows.

  Amy looked much better now that the ulcer on her leg was healing nicely. She told her daughter she would mind little Ernie if she wanted a night out. ‘But not dancing in the city!’ she said. ‘I can’t go through that worry again at my age.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be going dancing. Why should I want to dance with anybody except Clarence?’

  So Betty and Doreen went to the pictures. Sometimes, if the film was suitable, they would take Daisy with them, to prove to Amy that they were behaving themselves. They scrutinised the newsreels closely, hoping to catch a glimpse of Clarence or Doreen’s husband, but of course it was like finding a needle in a haystack. With little Ernie to care for, her dinner lady work and an occasional night out, Betty Hayes had never been so happy, but she would be even happier when Clarence came home.

  Daisy was writing a story to tell to Charlie Barker. It was about a magic horse that could fly anywhere in the world. It could even swim beneath the sea, and the boy on the horse, who was called Charlie, had all kinds of adventures. Charlie usually liked books with lots of pictures in but Daisy’s story seemed so real to him that the pictures formed in his head without him needing to look at them.

  ‘Where are we flying to today, Daisy?’ he would ask in a language only a few children like Daisy seemed to understand.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ Sally asked Charlie’s father as they watched him jabbering on to Daisy.

  ‘Don’t ask me.’ Mr Barker said, shaking his head sadly. ‘Ask your little lass, she seems to know.’

  Daisy was happiest when she was writing, and now she was in the big class Miss Clarke came in every Friday to give them a spelling test. Miss Clarke was extremely strict about spelling and anyone who got a word wrong had to write it out correctly fifty times, over the weekend. Daisy rarely needed to correct any of her spellings but some poor kids might have five or six mistakes and would need to spend hours over the weekend, writing endless lists.

  One day Miss Williams said, ‘This week, instead of correcting spellings, I want you all to write a poem. I shall read them on Monday morning.’

  Daisy was busy that weekend, going to visit Uncle Jack and Aunty Jane. It was almost bedtime when she decided to write her poem.

  ‘Where’s the writing pad?’ she asked Sally.

  ‘In the drawer.’

  ‘No, it isn’t. I’ve looked.’

  ‘I used the last page when I wrote to Uncle Jack,’ Jim put in.

  ‘Well, I need some paper to write my poem for school.’

  ‘I’m sorry but we haven’t any. You should have thought about homework before this time on a Sunday night.’

  Daisy searched in all the drawers and cupboards but there was no sign of a scrap of paper. In desperation, she took one of Jim’s Woodbine packets, opened it up, and wrote a poem about a garden, in writing so small even she could hardly read it. The next morning she placed the cigarette packet with the other poems on the teacher’s desk.

  Miss Clarke came in as she normally did, but this time to read the poems. When she saw the cigarette packet, she said, ‘I don’t know who’s written this but you’d better come out and read it to me because I certainly can’t.’

  Daisy hated being the centre of attraction but she had no option but to stand in front of the class and read the six verses off the tiny packet.

  When she had finished Miss Clarke said, ‘Come with me.’ Daisy thought about the cane hanging on the wall over the headmistress’s desk. She didn’t know anyone who had ever been caned and hoped she wouldn’t be the first.

  ‘Daisy,’ Miss Clarke said, ‘your poem is very good – exceptionally good, in fact, for someone of your age.’ She went to a shelf and found a new blue exercise book. ‘Now, I want you to spend the rest of the lesson copying out your poem into this book. Then I want you to promise me you’ll write another every week. Will you promise me that?’

  There was nothing Daisy would enjoy more.

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ she said eagerly. She loved new exercise books and couldn’t wait to begin writing in hers!

  ‘If you keep producing writing of this calibre, you will go far,’ Miss Clarke told her.

  Daisy went back to class, determined to keep her promise. She had told Charlie Barker she would write a book one day, and she would.

  Normally Whit Monday meant new dresses for the girls and new suits or shirts for the boys, but this year the beginning of clothes rationing meant make do and mend for most families. Except for the children of people like Sally Butler, who had taken a leaf out of Miss Appleby’s book and prepared for the future. She had bought a few dress lengths of material from Norfolk market and Daisy was dressed as smartly as ever, in a Shirley Temple-style dress in white with a blue pleated panel running from collar to hem. When Whit Monday arrived Daisy was up with the lark and couldn’t wait to be dressed in all her finery. ‘I want to go and show Mrs Firth and Aunty Enid and Mrs Porter,’ she said excitedly. She set off along the row where Norah and Pat were ready and waiting, eager for once to go to Sunday school. Everyone in the row came out to admire the children in their glad rags, and to give each child a few pennies for the pockets of their new clothes, even Miss Appleby.

  Then they were off, each carrying a plate and a spoon which would be left in the chapel lecture room, where lunch would be waiting for them following the Whit walk.

  When they were all lined up, four abreast behind the chapel banner, each child was given a hymn sheet. Daisy carried hers proudly, and waited with the others in line. Suddenly the sound of the Millington Band reached them, adding to their excitement. Following the band up the hill were the congregations from the Primitive Methodist Chapel and the Mission.

  ‘Hail, Smiling Morn’ the band played, smartly dressed in their navy blue uniforms. The members this year mostly consisted of men in their fifties, together with a couple of youths still too young to have been called up.

  The chapel members joined in behind. Daisy could see Grandma Denman waving them on their way. Grandma would no doubt have been in the procession herself had she not volunteered to help with the lunch. Off they went like a trail of ants, wending their way along the main road. Pavements were lined with proud parents and grandparents. Aunties and uncles all turned out to wave to the children, glad of an excuse to sport their own Sunday clothes. One mother ran into the procession and wiped her boy’s nose; another came to pull up her son’s socks. Daisy was glad her mam didn’t show her up like that.

  At the bottom of the Donkey Path, the children from the Parish Church joined in behind. Waiting, too, was the Salvation Army, with their own band ready to play. T
he Methodists were next, and by this time Daisy’s new, black patent shoes were pinching her toes and Norah was developing a blister on her heel. Both girls were relieved when they reached the point where they would pause for their first hymn.

  ‘I’m thirsty,’ Daisy told her cousin Pat, but there was nothing Pat could do about it. So Daisy told the Sunday school teacher, ‘I’m thirsty, Mrs Smith.’

  ‘You can have a drink when we get back to Sunday school,’ the woman promised Daisy, but they had to walk all the way back before then! Outside St Joan’s the crowd was enormous. Voices swelled as they sang. Daisy wished she could sit down and take off her shoes but she didn’t want to dirty her new dress. She began to think Whit Monday wasn’t quite as interesting as she had expected. Being so little, all she could see was the legs of the taller people.

  The crowd began to move on the second lap of the journey. The sun was hotter now and the journey uphill, all the way to the sports field where prayers would be prayed and more hymns sung. Daisy noticed none of it. All she could think of was the white ice-cream van parked outside the tall wooden gates. She felt up her dress to the pockets of her knickers to see if her pennies were still there.

  ‘Norah!’ she shouted to make herself heard above the singing of ‘Sound The Battle Cry’. ‘Norah, I want a cornet.’

  ‘So do I,’ Norah said. She clutched Daisy’s hand and pushed her way through the crowd until they reached the van where one or two other impatient children were already being served. The ice-cream was delicious and they were so busy trying to avoid messing up their clothes that they became hopelessly lost in the crowd.

  ‘We’re lost, what are we going to do now?’ Daisy worried.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Norah consoled her cousin. ‘I can still see our banner. All we have to do is join in behind and hope Mrs Smith doesn’t notice our cornets.’

  By the time they reached the chapel, Daisy’s lovely new dress was stained all down the front, her bonnet strings stiff from hanging in the ice-cream. Even her socks were dripped on. However, the procession was over for another year so no one would care, and now for potted meat sandwiches and a yummy iced bun, followed by jelly – not quite set – and custard. By the time lunch was over no doubt a few of them would be feeling rather sick, Daisy included, but it was Whitsuntide so nobody cared.