by Anne Bennett
‘It wasn’t hard,’ Janet said. ‘They are cowards like most bullies.’
‘They were right about one thing,’ Ruth said. ‘I am Jewish, and we’re an easy target to pick on.’
‘In Germany maybe,’ Janet said, ‘but not here, not in England, surely?’
Ruth gave her a pitying look. ‘Everywhere,’ she said. ‘There are ruthless, cruel people in every land who like a scapegoat to blame. So far, the Jews have fitted the bill for many countries. These girls picked on me today because I am a Jew.’
‘I was picked on last year because I was a scholarship girl,’ Janet said.
‘I’m also a scholarship girl,’ Ruth said. ‘They have two angles on me.’
Janet’s eyes opened wide in surprise. She’d never have believed that Ruth was at Whytecliff on a scholarship; she could have sworn that her family had money to pay for her place. But the fact forged a bond between them and they became friends. No one bothered Ruth after that day, but no one, Janet noticed, rushed to be friends with her either. She was a Jew and therefore not totally acceptable, and Janet realised that the aloofness, that she had thought of as unfriendly and haughty, had in reality hidden deep unhappiness and loneliness.
They’d been friends just two weeks when Janet broached the subject of meeting at the weekend. ‘We could go for a ride somewhere one Saturday,’ she said, having established the fact that Ruth also had a bike.
‘Not … not a Saturday.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s our Sabbath,’ Ruth said. ‘It starts with the first three stars visible on Friday and ends with the first three stars which appear on Saturday evening.’
Janet thought that with the smog and cloud around in the Birmingham skies, it would be difficult to see stars at any time, but she said nothing. She’d known that the Jewish Sabbath was on a Saturday instead of Sunday, but didn’t realise that that would make any difference.
‘It’s a day of rest,’ Ruth said gently, when questioned.
‘All day?’
Ruth gave a brief nod.
Janet sighed. She couldn’t imagine anything worse. ‘You just sit around all day then?’ she asked.
‘Not exactly,’ said Ruth, with a smile, but she didn’t elaborate further.
Janet studied her friend for a moment as they sat on the steps leading to the gymnasium. She’d thought she knew all about Jews, but she realised she’d never asked Ruth much about her Jewishness, which was obviously a major part of her life and important in a way Janet found hard to understand.
Janet’s gran went to mass most Sundays but her grandad said he could worship the good Lord just as well at home. ‘Don’t they tell us God is everywhere?’ he demanded when Gran challenged him. ‘Well, I’ll chat away to Him in my own house and garden. I don’t need all that bleeding carry-on at church done by prattling hypocrites, and the priest mumbling Latin mumbo-jumbo no one bloody well understands.’
Janet went with Gran quite often. Sometimes Auntie Breda accompanied them, and her mother often said she’d like to go if just to get one hour to herself, but she didn’t because Bert liked his lie-in on Sunday. Besides, Janet knew her mother would hesitate to leave him with the three little ones to see to.
‘When they’re older I’ll go maybe,’ she said.
Janet thought that religion sat very easy on the women in her family and touched the men not at all. She listened astounded as Ruth told her of the synagogue and the area that men could go into, and the women’s place. ‘Good job it’s not like that in the Catholic religion,’ Janet said. ‘The men’s area would be near empty.’
They laughed together for a minute, and then Janet asked a question that had bothered her for years. ‘Why didn’t Adolf Hitler like the Jews, Ruth?’
Ruth spread her hands helplessly. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Who knows what went on in that crazy man’s little brain?’
Janet knew what Ruth meant. Hitler had been crazy, and personally she thought he resembled Charlie Chaplin. Her father told her he was only a small man too, and she found it almost unbelievable that a large country like Germany should have followed him so slavishly.
‘Did you come from Germany?’ Janet asked Ruth.
‘No,’ Ruth said. ‘Russia.’
‘Russia?’ Janet repeated, amazed.
‘I didn’t,’ Ruth went on to explain. ‘My grandmother did. I was born here. My grandmother’s family were wealthy until the Cossacks ransacked the towns and villages, massacring the people. My grandmother fled with her two brothers and her mother. My great-grandmother had seen her husband cut down before her eyes. She never really recovered and died in the first English winter. My grandmother married a man called Otto Heineman who had a small clothing factory. It was just before the First World War.’
Janet saw the faraway look in Ruth’s eyes and realised she was recounting a tale she’d been told many times.
‘They made a lot of money at first sewing uniforms. My father, Joseph, and my Uncle Saul were both small and despite the fact that Grandmother’s brothers had enlisted, life was good. And then the factory was attacked and they were threatened. The last attack almost burned them to death in their beds and destroyed their business.’
‘But why?’ Janet asked.
‘Because their name was Heineman. They only changed it to Hayman later,’ Ruth explained. ‘People thought they were German. Grandmother was pregnant with my Uncle Aaron; she and her husband were interned in a camp for their own safety. My Aunt Rachel was born in the camp and by the end of the war my grandmother had lost her two brothers and her business, her husband was a broken man and she had four children to bring up. Then, in the last war, Aaron was killed and Saul injured.’ Ruth shrugged. ‘So she is bitter,’ she said.
Janet thought for a little and then said, ‘But she might not have survived in Russia at all. I think bitterness burns you up inside, it’s really destructive. Many people suffer unfairness or unhappiness, but life has to go on, hasn’t it?’
Ruth looked at Janet, quite startled. Clearly the Travers way of looking at life was not her grandmother’s. ‘She has high hopes of the new state of Israel now,’ she said. ‘My grandmother, I mean. She says all Jews must stick together and the greatest sin a Jew can do is marry out.’
‘Marry out?’
‘Marry a goy, a non-Jew,’ Ruth said. ‘A gentile. Jews believe they are the chosen race.’
‘Catholics believe theirs is the one true religion, descended from St Peter,’ Janet said. ‘Dad says religious differences have caused more wars than anything else and people should learn to live in peace.’
‘He should maybe talk to my grandmother,’ Ruth said. ‘The big family secret is that my aunt wanted to marry out once. My grandmother not only wouldn’t let her, but produced a Jewish man of her choice called Moishe to marry her instead.’ She shrugged again and added, ‘It’s not a good marriage. I think your father talks sense. I really hope there will be peace eventually.’
‘Me too,’ Janet said fervently.
‘I’d like to meet your family one day,’ Ruth said, almost shyly. ‘You talk about them all the time.’ She’d hesitated to ask Janet to her house in case she refused. She wasn’t quite sure how Janet felt about Jews. She might feel it was all right to be friends with one at school, but not want to socialise outside, or perhaps her parents would object to her having a Jewish friend to their house.
Ruth couldn’t have been more wrong. Janet knew from Ruth’s bearing and demeanour and her lack of an accent that she was in a different social class from herself. She wasn’t ashamed of her family, or of their council house in Pype Hayes with the bathroom off the kitchen and the toilet outside the back door, but she had the feeling Ruth might feel it to be rather primitive. At school it didn’t matter and they were equal.
With Claire it was different; she was her friend. When Janet had bumped into her at the library the previous Saturday morning and told her about her Jewish friend Ruth, she said she’d like to meet he
r and invited them both round to tea the following Sunday. ‘You can meet my family later if you like,’ Janet told Ruth, ‘but Claire has asked us to tea. Would you like to go?’
‘I don’t see why not.’
‘Claire was in the library reading up on children like Chloe and finding out how to stimulate them,’ Janet said. ‘There’s exercises and things she can do, apparently. She said she’d show us when we go.’ But Janet spoke without enthusiasm, feeling sure Claire was just clutching at straws. She knew it must be hard to admit that your daughter was mentally handicapped and would never be good for anything. It would be especially hard for Claire, who was a born teacher but would never be able to help her daughter learn any bloody thing.
Sunday was cold and damp with a blustery wind, and Janet and Ruth were glad to reach Claire’s. She opened the door in just a thin top and trousers and the heat in the living room hit them like a furnace when she led them into it. Chloe, wearing just a nappy, lay on her back on a towel. She smiled when she saw Janet. ‘I’ve just finished massaging her muscles. It’s what the books recommend you do first. It helps relax the child,’ Claire said. ‘Now I’ve got to start on the exercises I told you about.’
‘Can we help?’
‘Of course, I’d hoped you would,’ Claire said. She bent and turned Chloe on to her stomach. ‘Her neck muscles need to be strengthened,’ she said. ‘Her head still tends to be a little floppy.’ Claire showed Ruth how to stand above Chloe and wave something bright or clap her hands to gain her attention so that she would raise her head from the towel. Later Janet helped Claire teach Chloe to roll over. ‘She will have to be taught a lot of the things that come naturally to someone without a mental handicap,’ Claire said, ‘but in America, where studies on mongol children have been pioneered, many children like Chloe have happy, fulfilled lives.’
Chloe was a beautiful, very placid child who gurgled and smiled whatever was done to her, and Janet felt it was almost a privilege to help her. The short winter day sped past and Chloe eventually became tired and a little grouchy.
‘She needs her bottle and bed,’ Claire said. ‘If one of you would like to feed her, the other can help me prepare the tea.’
Ruth fed Chloe and got her ready for bed while Janet and Claire made sandwiches and cut cake in the kitchen. ‘Can we come again?’ Ruth asked as they sat around the tea table. ‘I’ve really enjoyed myself.’
‘Please do,’ Claire said. ‘It can get lonely on my own and I can achieve far more with help.’
‘Claire,’ Janet said, suddenly needing to know, ‘where’s David?’
‘He … he’s gone, Janet.’
‘Gone?’
‘Left,’ Claire said, and added, ‘We’re getting divorced. He’s met someone else.’
Janet was shocked; no one she knew had got divorced. She felt a surge of anger – how callous and unfeeling David must be – and an incredible sense of sadness for Claire. ‘Oh, Claire,’ she said.
‘Don’t be bitter Janet, it will only destroy you,’ Claire replied. ‘He couldn’t accept Chloe and eventually she would have sensed it. It was better this way.’
Janet could only marvel at the way Claire accepted it. ‘She’s all on her own,’ she told her family later, ‘except for her mother of course, but Claire said she gets so upset over how Chloe is she can be more of a hindrance than a help, and she really was grateful for our help, mine and Ruth’s, so can I go and give her a hand?’
‘I think,’ Betty said, ‘it’s only right considering how she helped you. But a child like that can’t really learn anything.’
‘Claire doesn’t think so,’ Janet said. ‘It’s based on studies from America.’
‘America,’ Bert said disparagingly. ‘Nothing good comes from that place.’
‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Bert,’ said Breda, who’d slipped round for a chat. She smiled and added, ‘What about nylons and GIs?’
Janet wasn’t sure that Ruth would be allowed to go to Claire’s on Saturday, it being her Sabbath, but Ruth said her father had spoken up for her. ‘The family is all-important to Jewish people,’ Ruth said, ‘and Dad was shocked that Claire’s husband couldn’t accept his baby. When I told the family what Claire said about being advised to put the baby in a home, everyone was upset and angry. Dad says God has touched children like that in a special way.’
‘I bet Claire often wishes He hadn’t bothered,’ Janet said with a wry smile.
‘Oh, Janet, what a thing to say,’ Ruth exclaimed, appalled at Janet’s audacity. ‘We shouldn’t question the ways of Almighty God.’
‘Don’t see why not,’ Janet said, unabashed, ‘but anyway, I’m glad you can come to Claire’s with me. It will be more fun together.’
Sometimes, it seemed they took one step forward and two back, but Chloe eventually did learn to hold up her head and to roll. Later she was able to crawl and clap her chubby little hands, pound a peg in a hole, and pull herself up by arms strengthened by exercises and balance on wobbly legs. Claire told Janet and Ruth as they worked with her daughter about the specialised unit called Oakhurst being built in the UK as a pilot scheme in which Chloe would almost certainly be offered a place when she was three. As the months and years went by, they were to hear more of the unit’s work, and about the later one, Ferndale, that was being developed from the first. They were also to hear of the Montessori apparatus and method of teaching, and the unit leader, Richard Carter, who believed that children like Chloe should not be shut away but helped to reach their potential. Claire, as she observed Chloe’s achievements, came to believe in Richard’s philosophy too.
Just a month after the first visit to Claire’s, Ruth was invited to the Travers’ for tea. Bert and Betty cared not a jot that she was a Jew and liked the pretty, well-spoken, polite child Janet had befriended, and Janet noticed that even Duncan had smartened himself up. He’d scrubbed his hands, face and neck, his fingers were free of the ingrained grime that usually lodged there and his golden curls were slicked back with Brylcreem.
Ruth liked Janet’s family. She’d met Sally already, as she’d accompanied them twice to Claire’s house, and she found the twins’ antics funny and Duncan quite presentable. She was unnerved by the noise around the table and the way they could yell at each other one minute and burst into gales of laughter the next. But she hid her discomfort, knowing that Janet’s family were very important to her, and Janet was pleased it had seemed to go off so well.
‘Your dad and I liked young Ruth,’ Betty told her that night. ‘Pretty girl too.’
‘Isn’t her hair lovely?’ Janet asked. ‘And so long.’
Betty smiled at her. ‘What are you getting at, my girl?’
‘Oh, let me grow mine, Mom,’ Janet burst out. ‘Please. I’m not likely to get nits from Whytecliff High, am I now?’
Betty didn’t answer, but she didn’t say a definite no either, so Janet pressed, ‘Please, Mom?’
Betty had combed Duncan and Janet’s hair with a nit comb over a sheet of newspaper every Friday night since they started at Paget Road School. Nothing was ever found, but sometimes Betty had covered their hair with foul-smelling lotion anyway, ‘to be on the safe side’, and they had to keep it on till they had their weekly bath on Saturday. Once they left primary school, she’d not been so diligent, and was now attacking the twins’ hair with gusto instead. Janet would take a bet no nits would be found on them either. Any sensible flea would find a safer location to lay its eggs than between the hair strands of a Travers child, she often thought, but even so, she had never been allowed to let her hair grow, ‘just in case’.
But she was growing up. Betty smiled and said, ‘You’ll have to see to it yourself, I have enough to do.’
‘I will, I will,’ Janet promised.
The next week Janet went to visit the Haymans for the first time. Geographically they were not far apart, but socially there was no comparison, because Ruth Hayman lived in a small road off Penn’s Lane in Sutton Coldfield, as differe
nt from Janet’s estate as it was possible to be. The house itself was detached and set back from the road, with a high privet hedge and wide lawns to the front and side of the house. One path led to the front of the house, while another, smaller one swept through a small side gate towards the back. There were white steps to the Haymans’ front door, and lions on pillars on the lower posts. The door itself was dark brown and studded, and had a brass letterbox, door handle and bell.
It was a road of silence, for no babies cried, no children screamed or laughed, no dogs barked, no wireless belted out the Home Service, no neighbours chatted amicably on their doorsteps. It was ominously quiet and the Haymans’ bell seemed to jangle loudly.
The lady who stood in the doorway was a replica of Ruth, though her skin glowed with colour. Janet guessed it was from cosmetics, like the blue eye shadow and coral lipstick she wore. Her dark hair was swept back into what Janet later discovered was called a chignon at the nape of the neck. She wore a dark-blue woollen suit with a peach blouse, a peach and pale-blue scarf at her neck, black court shoes and nylons. As she bent to welcome Janet and show her in, Janet smelt perfume and remembered with a pang that Betty had waved her off wearing a shapeless dress covered with an apron, her feet encased in an old pair of socks of Bert’s and thrust into downtrodden slippers.
The Haymans’ hall was as large as the Travers’ living room and had a polished wood floor cluttered haphazardly with cream sheepskin rugs. Janet glimpsed the start of an imposing wide staircase with decorated mahogany newel posts. Naomi Hayman opened a cream panelled door to her left and said, ‘Do come in.’
Janet’s feet sank in the thick beige carpet. A gold brocade suite was situated around the ornate fireplace, where a small fire burned in the grate. A unit stood to one side with a wireless on top of it, a bureau of some kind to the other. To Janet’s left there was a china cabinet filled with ornaments, and a man sat writing at the desk in the bay window overlooking the garden.
At Janet’s entrance, he got up and extended his hand. ‘I’m delighted to meet you at last,’ he said.