by Cathy Sharp
Mary Ellen’s home stood out from the crowd, because until these last few weeks, when she’d got so ill, Ma had kept her doorstep scrubbed and her curtains washed despite the constant struggle against the filth of the East End of London. Mary Ellen had scrubbed the step herself this morning, and Ma told her it looked lovely, but the soap had stung her hands and her knees hurt where she’d grazed them on the stone. Yet Mary Ellen would do it again tomorrow, because Ma had been used to better and her pride made her battle against the poverty and wretchedness of her surroundings.
Hunting for the right kind of stone, Mary Ellen was set on playing a game of hopscotch to while away the hours until Rose came home as she’d promised, and it was time to go in for her tea. Maybe one of the other children in the lane would come and play with her, though because Ma kept herself to herself, her neighbours thought they were stuck up and the other kids often refused to notice the O’Hanran girl.
‘Who does she think she is, with her airs and graces?’ their mothers whispered to each other when Ma put her spotless washing out to dry in the back yard. Hair in wire curlers peeping out beneath their headscarves, they made faces at the woman whose hair shone like silk and wore no apron over her dress when she came into the street. ‘Just because her father owns a shop over the river she needn’t think she’s better than the rest of us.’
Mary Ellen bet some of them were gloating to see her mother’s pride tumbled in the dust and tears of anger stung her eyes when she thought of what was going to happen when Rose came home. She knew where she was going, because she’d passed St Saviour’s on her way to visit the park with her school, St Mary’s. There she’d seen the St Saviour’s girls, all dressed in grey skirts, white blouses and dark red coats.
The other kids at St Mary’s laughed and pointed at the orphans, calling them the ’Alfpenny kids, because that was the name of the street the home was in, and now Mary Ellen was going to be one of them. The idea filled her with dread.
Why couldn’t she stay at home? Rebellious thoughts filled her head, though sometimes, her mother looked so pale and fragile that Mary Ellen grew frightened. When she saw the blood on the handkerchief that Ma tried to hide, she prayed to that God in the sky her father had impressed on her was there to save them, especially little children.
‘Ah, whist, me darlin’,’ Tom O’Hanran would say, as he sat her on his knee and stroked her head, his breath always smelling faintly of good Irish whiskey. ‘Sure, Jesus in His heaven and Mary Mother of God will smile on you, my Mary. You’ve the charm of the Irish and the smile of an angel, and no one could help but love you.’
‘Now then, Tom O’Hanran.’ Ma would smile fondly on them. ‘Don’t you be spoiling her with your daft stories. Mary Ellen has to learn that life does not always flow smoothly for the likes of us.’
Mary Ellen still missed her father. Sometimes it hurt so much that it was like a big hole in her chest, but Ma didn’t talk about him so she had to keep her grief inside.
Ma was English, not Irish, and in the opinion of her shopkeeper father she had disgraced herself by marrying a wild Irish Catholic, who would, he prophesied, ruin her. Ma had been in love with her handsome husband in those days, and she’d even converted to his faith at the start, though after his death she had lapsed and no longer sent her children to the Catholic Church. Ma seldom went to church at all, but when she did, she chose the Methodist one because the minister did not scold her for changing her mind over the matter of religion. In a huge city teeming with people of all faiths, the minister had long grown used to accepting those in need, whatever their denomination, and did what he could to help the poor of the area, regardless of whether they attended his church.
Ma’s father had disowned her when she married, and he had not relented when she became a widow, even though he could have helped her to stay in the nice little cottage she’d gone to when she wed. Mary Ellen’s elder sister Rose said that Grandpa would’ve given Ma money if she’d grovelled and begged him, but Ma was too proud to beg. Instead, she’d been forced to come here to this slum and fight her battles against an encroaching illness and the tide of dirt that threatened to engulf them.
Rose still attended the Catholic Church, not out of devotion but because, she said, they had allowed her to take a scholarship under their aegis that had enabled her to enter nursing college. Rose was determined to better herself, to make a good life, and her only way of getting the chance she needed had been to take advantage of being a good Catholic. Father Joe had been a friend to all of them and he took an interest in Rose’s future, telling Ma that she should be proud of her daughter’s hard work.
‘You’ve a good daughter there, Mrs O’Hanran,’ he’d said when he came to visit. ‘Respectable and devout, she’ll make a wonderful nurse.’
Ever since she was Mary Ellen’s age, Rose had dreamed of becoming a nurse one day, and the recent terrible war which had ended only two years earlier had made her even more eager to take up the profession.
‘When I see men fresh home from the war, with legs missing and awful scars, some of them so weak that they will never recover, I want to help them,’ Rose had told her young sister. ‘I only wish I had been old enough to go out to the Front – somewhere the fighting was at its worst – to help nurse the men. I could never work in an office or a dress shop when there is something more worthwhile to be done. Hitler is beaten, and London will recover from the Blitz in time, but the injuries some of those men received will never be healed.’
Rose wanted to help sick people, but she hated the slum area they’d been forced to live in after Pa died, and Mary Ellen knew she wanted to become a nurse so that she need never come back here. She was ashamed of their home and wanted something better. Mary Ellen didn’t care about such things, she just wanted to be at home with her mother … but after today she would be sent away and she wouldn’t be able to see or touch Ma …
Mary Ellen had often sat unseen on the stairs in the evenings and listened to her mother and sister talking in the kitchen. At nights, Ma lit the gas lamps and made a pot of tea, which they drank together, discussing subjects that they considered her too young to comprehend, but life hadn’t been easy since Pa died, and Mary Ellen understood grief all too well. She heard things that worried her, though she often made sense of only a fraction.
Yet she knew that Britain was still struggling to pay back its war debts and there were not enough decent jobs for able-bodied men, let alone those who could not do a full day’s work.
Everyone had hoped rationing would end with the war, but instead it seemed that every month they were told there would be less of something else. ‘Only one ounce of bacon per person per week now, and three pounds of potatoes,’ Ma complained when Rose came home with whatever she could find. ‘We shall all starve before they’ve done – and what was it all about, that’s what I’d like to know.’
‘Governments falling out like spoiled children,’ Rose said in a harsh tone. Ma sometimes complained that Rose was becoming a radical and too critical of politics and things that were best left to men, but that just made Rose toss her head and retort, ‘You’ll see, Ma. Women are going to have more to say in the future. It’s time ordinary people had enough to eat and decent homes to live in – it’s time women were equal to men, in wages and everything else.’
Ma would laugh and warn her that pride came before a fall, but Mary Ellen thought that her sister was right. Why shouldn’t women have more say in their lives? And it wasn’t right that people went hungry. Yet when she said so both Ma and Rose told her she was too young.
‘It’s not really the Government’s fault,’ Ma said. ‘There isn’t enough of everything to go round and things haven’t got going yet after the war.’
‘And who is to blame for all the shortages, the way the shops are empty even though the war has been over for months and months; more than two years? Who says we have to go on being rationed? No one has enough to eat, Ma. I can’t even buy a decent pair of shoes for work. What di
d all those men fight for if it wasn’t to make life better for us all? If those fat idiots in Westminster stopped rabbiting on and sorted things out perhaps we shouldn’t have to put up with all this austerity. With a country to rebuild there should be plenty of work for everyone and money to live decently – but it’s still hard to find work for most of the men, even though it may not be as bad as it was after the first big war.’
Mary Ellen sort of understood, because she was good at listening to people talking and because she was small and quiet they didn’t always realise she was there. She heard Mr Jones the butcher talking about the fact that he couldn’t get supplies of lamb from his usual suppliers.
The big freeze in January and February had made it seem that life in Austerity Britain could not get worse. And the floods in April with the resulting catastrophic loss of livestock, with millions of sheep drowned and arable crops flooded, had only aggravated the situation.
Yet here in the East End, which had taken much of the damage during those terrible nights of war when waves of bombers flew like great birds of prey over the city, disease and poverty still haunted the streets. Life had always been hard for these people and somehow they endured, though they never stopped moaning about the bloody Government. Moved by the pity and despair she saw in the faces of wounded men, returned to a life without work and precious little to eat, Rose was fired with a zeal to do what she could to put things right, to make life better for others as well as herself. A nursing career was the only way she knew to leave the poverty of the East End behind her and find the kind of life she wanted: a way of forgetting the drabness of life in Austerity Britain.
Mary Ellen admired her sister. Rose was dark-haired and beautiful, with her pert nose, full red lips and firm chin. She was also one of the most determined people that Mary Ellen had ever come across.
Mary Ellen finished chalking the squares for her game of hopscotch and then selected a flat stone from amongst the filth in the gutters. Her chores finished for the day, she’d come out to play while Ma had a rest on the bed, and they waited for Rose to return home from work with food for their tea.
Mary Ellen threw her stone into the first square and hopped into the one after it. She was preparing to perform a hop, skip and jump before turning to go back and pick up her stone when a voice spoke from behind her and made her start and lose her balance.
Turning, she saw a boy of similar age to her own. He was a little taller, dressed in long trousers that had been cut down from an old pair of his brother’s, a washed-out shirt and scuffed black boots. His dark auburn hair was tousled and unwashed, his nose red and dripping and there were streaks of dirt on his face where he’d rubbed it with his filthy hands. As she watched he wiped his nose on the back of his hand and then, to her disgust, slid his hand down his trousers. Ma might be ill and they might be poor, but Mary Ellen was clothed in an almost clean cotton pinafore skirt and blouse her mother had made before she became ill, and she had better manners than to wipe snot on her dress.
‘That’s rude, that is, Billy Baggins,’ she said. ‘What did you make me jump for? I shall have to start again now.’
‘I didn’t mean to, Mary Ellen,’ he answered meekly. ‘Can I play?’
‘You’ll have to find a stone,’ she said, looking at him curiously but without malice. Billy Baggins had no mother and his father had recently been killed in an incident on the Docks. Mr Baggins had been a bully with a loud voice, who hit both his sons whenever he was drunk, but at least he’d kept the family together and they hadn’t starved. Since his death, Billy’s elder brother had cleared off to no one knew where, and Billy had been collared by the authorities who had said he was going to be put into care.
Mary Ellen had felt sorry for him, because he might look unkempt and his manners were rough, but she knew he was kind and generous. When her own father had died, Billy had been the only one who understood how she felt, sharing his sherbet dip with her as they sat on the doorstep and she battled with her tears. He was her one real friend in these lanes and she’d missed him when he’d gone off to stay with his nanna. She knew how bad he must feel now that his own father was dead and all he had was an old lady and his rogue of a brother. ‘I thought you’d gone away?’ she said now.
‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve been stayin’ with me nanna in Whitechapel, but she was taken into hospital sudden and I came home ter see if Arfur had come back.’
‘Has he?’ Mary Ellen asked sympathetically, but with little expectation of a good outcome. Everyone knew that Arthur Baggins was a bad ’un.
‘Nah, didn’t fink he would’ve,’ Billy said. ‘Came ter make sure ’cos the bloody council bloke will ’ave me in a home afore you can sneeze if I don’t watch it.’
‘That’s bad, that is,’ Mary Ellen said, feeling her eyes sting with tears she would never dream of letting Billy see. They weren’t just for him, because it was going to happen to her too – and she hadn’t got anyone else she could go to, because her grandfather hadn’t even opened the door to them when Ma had tried to tell him she was ill. She hated the thought of leaving her home and being with people she didn’t know, and her voice wobbled as she asked, ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said and pounced on a stone with glee. ‘This is a good ’un, this is.’ He showed it to Mary Ellen, who nodded her agreement. Because she was feeling sorry for him, she told him he could have first go. He grinned, showing a gap in his bottom set of teeth. ‘You’re the best friend I’ve got. I wish I could stay wiv you and your ma.’
‘Ma’s not well.’ Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed, because she was afraid of what was going to happen to her. ‘She’s got to go away … and that means I can’t stay here.’
‘Why ain’t your Rose ’ere then, if yer ma is bad?’
‘She’s going to be a nurse. She’ll work in a hospital and live in the home for nurses. She’s too busy to look after me, she said so.’
‘That’s bad fer yer then, Mary Ellen.’
‘Yes,’ Mary Ellen agreed unhappily, moving from one foot to the other. ‘Rose said they’re going to put me in St Saviour’s. I heard them talking about it the other night. I think Ma might go away to the hospital … somewhere a long way off …’
‘That’s rotten luck,’ Billy said. Then he threw his stone, did the feet-apart jump and the hopping motions, as he went up the squares and down again to retrieve his stone without a fault. ‘I reckon that’s where they might send me, St Saviour’s. I wouldn’t mind being sent there if I thought you would be there an’ all …’
‘No,’ she replied doubtfully, watching as he threw for the next square and set off again. He performed the actions perfectly. She wasn’t going to get a turn for ages at this rate. ‘What do you think they do to you at that place? Is it a house of correction? I don’t know what that is but I heard someone say they ought to send your Arthur there when they thought he broke into the corner shop …’
Billy looked anxious, because his brother had been in trouble with the police over that years ago, but no one could prove he’d done it and so he’d got away with the crime.
‘Nah,’ he said and threw his stone, which missed. He swore, a word that would have earned him a cuff round the ear from Mary Ellen’s mother. ‘It’s your turn. Proper put me off, that did – but St Saviour’s ain’t a punishment house. Those places are for bad boys, not orphans. Not that you’re an orphan, yer ma is still alive. Still, sometimes they put yer in a home even if both of ’em are still around. I heard as they’re all right at St Saviour’s – not like some places where they treat yer rotten. Nanna told me I should go there. She warned me she was too old to have the care of a young lad, and I reckon it’s the worry of it wot’s made her bad.’
‘I put you off; you can throw again,’ Mary Ellen offered, because he looked worried about his nanna, but he insisted it was her turn. She threw, hopped up the squares and executed a perfect turn, coming back to balance on one leg as she picked up her stone. ‘I
reckon we’d be all right there together – it wouldn’t be as bad as if we were on our own and didn’t know anyone.’
‘All right,’ he said and gave her a wide grin. ‘If they say that’s where I’m goin’ I’ll let them put me there. I can always run orf if I don’t like it.’
‘Where would you go?’
‘Don’t know; I’d probably just hang about the streets until I could find Arfur. There’s plenty of bombsites wiv ’ouses half standin’ where you can hide. Me bruvver won’t have left the East End and he might let me stay wiv him if I asked,’ he said hopefully.
‘It would be better than living on the streets alone, I suppose.’ Mary Ellen didn’t much like Billy’s brother. He was mean and vicious and made her feel nervous when he looked at her. ‘Besides, you’re nine, aren’t you? How long can they keep you at places like that?’
‘If Dad was alive I should’ve gone to work down the Docks as soon as I was twelve, that’s wot he told me. I ain’t sure if it was legal but he said he’d be damned if he kept me any longer than me twelfth birthday. He was an old devil but I wish he was still around.’
‘You’ve only got three years until you can work then,’ Mary Ellen said with a sigh. ‘I’ve got ages more before I can train to be a nurse like Rose.’
‘Work’s a waste of time if yer ask me,’ he said, watching as she completed a second turn. ‘Arfur says he can earn more in one night than me farvver made in a month.’