A Little Learning

by Anne Bennett

  ‘He’ll be all right.’

  ‘Betty doesn’t like him out in the dark,’ Mrs McClusky said. ‘They get up to all sorts of mischief, she says.’

  Bert thought of Duncan and his mates and knew that Betty had a point. ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said, and added, ‘Our Janet’s not out there too, is she?’

  Sarah McClusky chuckled. ‘Not her, she’s too sensible for that gang of hooligans. She’s in the kitchen, doing homework.’

  Bert frowned. He had no desire for his daughter to be running wild around the estate, especially with Duncan and his pals, but she was a little too sensible for his liking. It wasn’t normal.

  ‘She’s an odd kid all right,’ he said.

  Sarah had a soft spot for her granddaughter, much as she loved her grandsons, especially the two rips named for her dead sons. She also loved Breda’s little girl Linda, cheeky monkey though she was, but between her and Janet there was a special bond.

  It had grown with the resemblance she’d had to her mother as a small child, when Sarah had looked after the children so that Betty could do her ARP work during the war. Sarah was aware very early of Janet’s ability to listen and absorb. She’d sit for hours and listen intently to her gran recounting an incident from her own childhood, or Betty’s. Sometimes she’d interrupt with a question, but most times she’d stay still and quiet.

  She’d been able to read before she went to school, because Sarah had read to her often and she’d picked up the words. They’d chosen books together from the public library in Erdington village, but though Sarah had told Betty about the trips there, she never let on that Janet could read. She told Janet to keep it to herself too, for she had an idea the teachers wouldn’t like it. She hadn’t been as surprised as her daughter when the teachers had commented on Janet’s intelligence, but she’d said nothing. She wasn’t certain now that the grammar school was the solution for Janet, and was of the opinion that men didn’t like girls who were too clever. But she wouldn’t let anyone put her granddaughter down either.

  She looked at her son-in-law now over the top of the glasses she held on the tip of her nose in order to see the stitches on the needles, and said:

  ‘She’s all right, your Janet, a good lassie. Just because she finds no pleasure in running wild doesn’t mean she’s odd.’

  ‘I didn’t mean odd exactly,’ Bert said, uncomfortable under Sarah McClusky’s unfriendly scrutiny. ‘Just different.’

  And she was different, he thought, as he opened the door to say good night. She was bent over her books so intently she hadn’t heard the click of the latch. Brought up as she was in a house with a brash elder brother and two younger ones prone to yelling and screaming their way through the day, she’d learnt to cut herself off from everyday noises that could distract.

  So Bert had to speak before Janet jerked up from the exercise book she’d been writing in. Her eyes held a note of impatience, he noticed, and it annoyed him. But he made an attempt to try and understand this young daughter of his, who somehow held herself away from him.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked.

  ‘English,’ Janet answered shortly, and then, because she knew that had sounded rude, she went on, ‘We have to write an essay and then I have an exercise in maths.’

  ‘Why didn’t Duncan have homework like this when he was at Paget Road Primary?’ Bert asked, genuinely puzzled.

  Janet shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t want homework,’ she said.

  ‘Want it! Do you mean you don’t have to do it?’

  You do if you want to get into grammar school, Janet could have said. She could imagine the explosion that would cause. Anyway, her mother had told her she’d handle it, so she just said:

  ‘You can have it if you like.’

  ‘And you like, do you?’ Bert shook his head. He couldn’t understand an attitude like that.

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’

  What could he say to that? He patted his daughter’s head self-consciously. ‘Don’t work too hard then,’ he said, ‘and bed by nine.’

  ‘I know,’ Janet said impatiently. She didn’t understand why her dad was suddenly so interested. Her gran would tell her it was time for bed if she were to get immersed in something and forget the time. Her father was seldom at home at bedtime, but she knew if she wasn’t in bed when her mother came in, she’d catch it.

  ‘Well, good night then,’ Bert said uncomfortably. He was aware that his daughter was just waiting for him to go. She was regarding him as an intrusion, he thought suddenly, and had only spoken to him to be polite. All the time he’d been in the kitchen she’d remained bent over her books, with her pen poised, waiting to continue.

  Bert banged the kitchen door behind him angrily. Janet had got under his skin, but there was nothing in her manner of speaking to him that he could tell her off for. It was just a feeling he had.

  Mrs McClusky looked across at him and said, ‘You go slamming doors like that, I’ll have the two rapscallions awake again.’

  Bert glared at her. He longed to tell her to shut her mouth, but didn’t dare. Instead he made his way out of the front door, deliberately banging it loudly behind him. He called out to Duncan to get himself indoors, in a voice that brooked no argument, then hurried through the cold, dark streets to the club, where he always found congenial company.

  Janet heard her mother come in, and the murmur of voices between Mrs McClusky and her daughter. She heard her grandmother leave. In fact, so alive were her senses, she imagined she heard her mother filling the kettle, and the pop of the gas.

  She lay and gazed at the ceiling in the smallest bedroom, which she had all to herself. She wondered if she would be able to work up here – that was, of course, if she was ever to get to the grammar school. She had a wardrobe and a chest of drawers in the room, and Mom had said she’d get her a mirror to sit on top of the chest so it would be like a dressing table. But really she needed a desk. She wondered if she could use it for homework if she cleared the top off. But it was rather high – at least it was for the plain wooden chair which was the only other thing in the room. Then there was no place to put her legs, they’d have to dangle to the sides. And then it could be very cold up there in the winter. She’d have to wear her overcoat to work up here. But she was seriously worried about working in the kitchen if she got into the grammar school and had the masses of homework Miss Wentworth had told her about.

  Duncan came in every evening filthy dirty and starving hungry. Gran or Mom would make him wash at the sink and he’d splash water everywhere. Then he’d make great wads of bread and jam, smearing the table and leaving the sticky knife lying there. Or he’d make cocoa, stirring the sugar in so vigorously that the brown liquid slopped all over. Janet’s books had already had more than one lucky escape from Duncan’s attempts at preventing himself from starving to death.

  Then there were the twins … Janet wasn’t aware how they did it, but their hands were nearly always sticky, and ranged from merely grubby to filthy. She shuddered at the thought of them handling her things. They were messier than Duncan and twice as clumsy, and what if they were to get hold of a crayon and scribble over her work? No, somehow, she decided as she closed her eyes, she had to work in her bedroom.

  She was jerked suddenly awake and lay for a moment wondering what had roused her. The louder buzz of voices from the living room told her that her father was home; it was him coming in that had probably woken her. It had happened countless times before, and Janet had always turned over and gone to sleep again. She prepared to do this now. Her bed was warm and she was cosy, but she couldn’t rest.

  She wondered if her mom would broach the subject of the eleven-plus to her father that night. Miss Wentworth had told her that the first exam was soon, and that she needed extra tuition. She knew her mother couldn’t wait indefinitely, and she also knew that Mom tended to tackle things straight away, head on.

  She’d loved to have heard what they were saying, but although she could hear the drone of v
oices they weren’t distinct enough to make out the actual words. She wondered if she should get out of bed. She’d never listened at doors before, but this was her future they were discussing.

  The cold made her gasp as she stood on the freezing linoleum in her bedroom, and her bed looked very welcoming. She turned her back on it, slipped a jumper over her head and old shoes on her feet and tiptoed out to huddle on the stairs.

  Bert and Betty were having a cup of cocoa before bed. Bert had had enough to drink to make him view the world with a rosy glow, and his earlier bad mood was forgotten.

  Betty was glad that her husband had reached that mellow point, because she had to get this business of Janet and the exam cleared up. Her daughter and the teacher were keen enough, and she wanted what was best for Janet. She knew that speed was essential. It was also essential for another reason, but no one knew about that but Breda.

  ‘Not again!’ she’d exclaimed as Betty whispered her suspicions to her sister that evening.

  ‘Ssh,’ Betty cautioned. They’d been in the canteen, and Breda’s voice carried.

  ‘Well, I mean, Bet, really,’ Breda said, though she lowered her voice considerably. ‘What you trying to do? Populate the whole of the bleeding British Isles by yourself?’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Betty said. ‘It just happened.’

  ‘Don’t you be daft,’ Breda retorted. ‘It doesn’t just happen. You know what causes it, for God’s sake. Didn’t he take any precautions?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come on, girl, you weren’t born yesterday. Don’t he wear a johnny? You know what they are.’

  Betty couldn’t believe that such words were coming out of her younger sister’s mouth.

  ‘I … I’ve never … I couldn’t … Bert wouldn’t.’

  Breda looked at her sister with pity. ‘You couldn’t even bring it up with him, could you?’

  Miserably, Betty shook her head. ‘Then you have to get yourself seen to,’ Breda said. ‘As soon as this is over, I’m taking you up the clinic.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘I thought you knew all about it, our Bet,’ Breda said in amazement. She shook her head sorrowfully. ‘It’s like you were born yesterday. Look,’ she went on, ‘there’s this little rubber thing that you shove up inside you and it protects you, you see.’

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Betty said.

  ‘Course you could,’ Breda retorted. ‘I do. Anyway, Bet, the choice as I see it is, either you use this cap that your old man don’t have to know anything about, or you tell him to keep his bloody hands to himself when he reaches out in the dark.’

  ‘He was away six years,’ Betty said, somewhat stiffly.

  ‘I know that. So were countless others, like my Peter. Doesn’t give him the right to try and populate the universe single-handed,’ Breda said. ‘Anyway, our Linda’s one body’s work, and I certainly don’t want no more.’

  Betty stared at her sister. Breda knew as well as Betty did that it was wrong to plan one’s family. The priests were telling you that all the time.

  Neither of the sisters went to church very often now, but they’d been brought up as staunch Catholics and the Church’s teaching went deep. Betty had been a regular attender when she was younger, and even when she was first married, and Duncan had been down to go to the Abbey Roman Catholic school, just outside Erdington village, and a short bus ride away. When war broke out, however, and Betty joined up as an ARP warden, Duncan was enrolled in Paget Road, just round the corner from where they lived, and Janet followed him there.

  The priest had called to see Betty after her prolonged absence from church had been noted, but by that time, Mrs McClusky was beginning to curse the God who had taken her son from her, and was short with the priest. He came back later, when Betty was at home. ‘I have to send the children to school somewhere,’ she cried when the priest appeared to judge her by his very silence, ‘and it’s too much for Mom fetching them from the Abbey.’

  ‘I understand it’s difficult for you at the moment,’ the priest said soothingly.

  ‘Do you?’ Betty burst out angrily, suddenly enraged that the priest was seemingly untouched by a war that had ripped their family apart. ‘Do you really? My husband’s overseas, one brother’s dead, the other two are still fighting. My parents haven’t time to grieve, they’re too busy looking after Duncan and Janet so I can work as an ARP warden. In our own small way, we are doing our bit to win this war, and you are concerned about where my children go to school.’

  The priest never came back, and Betty felt as if she’d scored a small triumph. Yes, she’d had her moment of rebellion, but a sin was still a sin.

  She hesitated to broach the subject with Breda, certain that her sister would mock, but her conscience troubled her. She had to try.

  ‘Breda, don’t you worry about saying things like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘You know, planning your family.’

  Breda stared at Betty. She couldn’t understand her sister. All that carnage of war, all those people mutilated and killed, and she still believed in God and was terrified to do what the priests said was wrong. How the hell would they know anyway? she thought.

  Aloud she said, ‘Don’t tell me you believe it’s a sin, or I’ll fall about laughing.’

  Betty was silent.

  ‘You do, don’t you?’ Breda cried. ‘How can it be anyone else’s business how many children people have?’

  Betty didn’t know. She was hazy over the reasons why the Church was against birth control; she just knew they were. The hooter went before she could think of an answer. Break was over and it was back to work for the rest of the shift, her thoughts whirling in her head.

  She was on the capping machine and so was working on her own, with no opportunity to talk to Breda, or anyone else either. It was as they walked home together that Breda suddenly said:

  ‘What did your Bert say when you told him?’

  ‘I haven’t told him,’ Betty said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve only just missed. I mean, it could all be a false alarm.’ But she knew it couldn’t be. This would be her fourth pregnancy, and the bodily changes, though minimal so far, were definite enough.

  ‘Is that the real reason?’

  Betty hesitated, and then said, ‘Part of it. I want to keep it a secret a bit longer anyway. I mean, he’ll hardly be pleased. We have enough of a struggle to manage now, and there’s this business of our Janet wanting to sit the eleven-plus.’

  Breda was impressed, but not totally surprised. ‘Mam mentioned something about it,’ she said. ‘Your Janet always was bright, though.’

  ‘The teacher thinks so too,’ Betty said. ‘And she thinks Janet has a good chance of getting through the exam, but …’

  ‘Bert’s not keen,’ Breda put in.

  ‘He doesn’t think it’s necessary,’ Betty said.

  ‘Course it isn’t necessary,’ Breda said sarcastically. ‘Not for him it’s not. As long as he has someone to cook his dinner, wash and iron his clothes, clean up after him, look after his kids and be ready to accommodate him in bed, he’s happy. He goes to work, and on Friday he tips up the amount of money he thinks you should manage on, and if you can’t it’s your fault. The rest is his, to spend at the club, or betting on a horse, or going to football, or any other bloody thing he likes.’

  ‘He’s not like that,’ Betty protested. ‘He’s a good man, he cares for us.’

  ‘He is like that,’ Breda replied, ‘but it’s not his fault. It’s been that way for years. Your Bert’s not used to any other way, and he’s better than many. But do you think Janet will be happy with a life like that?’

  Betty knew she wouldn’t be. Breda didn’t need an answer; Betty’s silence spoke for her.

  ‘You needn’t wait for men to change things and fight for an independent life for women. It’s women have got to do it for each other, or condemn our daughters to looking no furt
her than the kitchen sink and having a baby every year.’

  ‘It’s down to me, then, to fight for our Janet?’ Betty said.

  ‘Too right,’ Breda replied. ‘But don’t waste your ammunition. Don’t fire till you see the whites of his eyes.’

  ‘You are a fool, Breda,’ Betty said, but even in the dark, Breda could tell she’d made her sister smile, and she was glad. She was sorry Betty was pregnant again. She really had enough to do now. The birth of the twins had really dragged her down. She’d not been the same since. She should have put her foot down long ago, as Breda had done with Peter.

  Peter hadn’t believed his luck when Breda agreed to marry him after the war. He’d adored her before he went, but she’d kept him at a distance and he hadn’t even felt able to ask her to write to him. On the rare occasions he was home on leave, Breda always seemed involved with another man. But when he was demobbed, he came home to find her still single. He couldn’t understand why no one had snapped her up. She even seemed pleased to see him, and told him how glad she was he’d survived the war.

  In Peter’s opinion, she was the most stunning-looking woman for miles, with her mane of auburn curls cascading down her back and her flashing green eyes. When she insisted that he tip his wages up every Friday and they’d work out a budget for everything – personal pocket money for each of them and a bit saved – it seemed sensible. When Linda was born and Breda said that one was enough, Peter agreed that since she’d carried the baby and given birth to it, and had the major job of bringing it up, it had to be her decision. He wasn’t keen on taking precautions himself, but was quite prepared for Breda to go and get something. He also appreciated the fact that she left his dinner ready, just to heat over a pan, when he came home from work. First, though, he fetched Linda from the neighbour who looked after her for them, and put her to bed. He always had the tea mashed and a snack meal in the making for Breda when she got in. He said it was only fair.

  Breda knew that Betty had a different life, because she’d seen Bert’s chauvinistic attitudes. He was typical; it was Peter who was different. Breda knew it would be the next generation of women who could change things for the majority.