by Cathy Sharp
Rose had warned her of what their lives might have been like if she hadn’t been taken in here and Rose had been left to manage alone. She’d told her to be careful of men she didn’t know, even if they seemed nice at first.
‘If I had to work all day you would be on your own, at the mercy of strangers – men who might try to harm you. I couldn’t have looked after you properly, Mary Ellen, because sometimes I have to work nights. In a few years you will be older and I shall be earning good money. I can pay someone to look after you at night if I can’t – but until then you have to stay at St Saviour’s. You don’t know how lucky you are to have a place there … some of these homes … well, you hear bad things whispered about what happens to the children in them.’
Rose was wrong to think that Mary Ellen didn’t know how lucky she was. She’d rebelled against Sister Beatrice and her rules, but now she knew they were there for a purpose, and she’d made up her mind to obey them – and if Billy were allowed to stay she would make sure he did too. St Saviour’s wasn’t a bad place to grow up if she couldn’t go home to her mother. Her throat tightened with grief, but she didn’t cry. Ma was in heaven with Pa and the angels, and not suffering any more. Rose said she had suffered and they had to be glad for Ma’s sake that she was at peace now so Mary Ellen would try to be, even though it hurt so bad.
‘Come on,’ she said to Billy, offering him the last two biscuits. ‘One each, and then we’d better go up to the dorms or Sister will have our guts for garters.’
‘She will if she ’ears you say that,’ Billy retorted and grinned. ‘She ain’t all bad, you know, Mary Ellen. I reckon it’s time I pulled me socks up. I want to get somewhere when I’m older and if that means doin’ as I’m told for a bit and learnin’ things – well, I don’t mind, as long as they let me stay here.’
‘Well, that is good news,’ Father Joe said and lifted his glass, which contained not the usual sherry but a drop of the good Irish whiskey Mark Adderbury had provided with his compliments of the season. ‘Sure the lad is a tearaway, but he’ll calm down. After what he’s been through in his short life ’twas only to be expected he would kick a bit.’
‘Yes, I think I agree with you,’ Beatrice said and sipped her sherry. She didn’t care for the taste of whiskey despite Father Joe’s claims that she would change her mind, if she once tasted the Irish variety. ‘He was inclined to rebel when he first came here, but I think that business with his brother sorted him out. I do not think we shall have any real trouble with him now.’
‘Mary Ellen is a good girl. She’ll keep him on the right track now that she’s settled in herself. It was a sad thing that she lost her mother – and so close to the Lord’s birth.’
‘Yes, I’m afraid she is going to have to stay here for several years. Her sister is set on becoming a nurse and that takes years of training. Even when she has her certificates she may find it isn’t easy to find work that allows her to live independently. Many of the hospitals still require their nurses to live at the home provided.’
‘Unless she came here?’ he suggested with a provocative lift of his brow. ‘You might be more flexible, I think?’
‘Perhaps.’ Beatrice was feeling mellow. She couldn’t remember having a better Christmas, not even when she was a girl at home. Her parents had never been short of money, but there was no warmth in their home for they loved neither each other nor their daughter. Had they cared for her she might never have suffered so much grief and her life might have been very different. ‘Yes, I should welcome her here if I had a place for her.’
‘We none of us know what’s round the corner – except for the dear Lord and He’s not telling. Look at the troubles we’ve been after having this year, and haven’t they all resolved themselves?’
‘Yes, most of them have. Angela has done a wonderful job of raising money. I understand we’re to have some of it towards the extras the children need and the rest may be used for improvements. I’m relieved she has decided to stay on, because we should miss her now. I can’t do everything myself.’
‘Of course you can’t and that’s why Adderbury asked her to come, because he didn’t want to lose you. You are everything this home and the children need and Adderbury knows it.’
Beatrice looked at him, feeling surprised and touched by the compliment but then she knew he was right. Adderbury did appreciate her values. Sentimental tears pricked behind her eyes. She’d been a fool to feel threatened. Her work here was valued and appreciated. She might not always agree with Angela but they could manage to get along well enough if they both tried a bit harder.
‘Yes, we’ve come through pretty well when you think about it,’ she said and lifted her glass to salute him.
Beatrice realised that she’d learned to bend a little in the past few weeks, to see things in a different light. Her old-fashioned notions about children being kept in their place seemed to have become less important. Billy and Mary Ellen had shown her that they were strong characters and both honest and fearless. Had it not been for their courage and the combined efforts of the three friends, St Saviour’s might have been burned to the ground.
Because she did not believe in making too much of things, she’d thanked them and sent them to bed, but in her own mind they were heroes. Perhaps it was time that the individual was encouraged, and she would tell Angela on her return that she backed her all the way with the idea of team leaders and monitors. It was time to give the children more responsibility and to trust them to behave rather than threatening them with strict rules.
‘Here’s to 1948 and let’s hope it is the start of better things for all of us: the people, the country and most of all St Saviour’s and our children,’ she said and sipped her sherry.
‘I’ll drink to that,’ Father Joe said with his lazy smile – and he did.
Read on for a gripping extract of the next novel in the Halfpenny Street series, coming in spring 2016
Nancy stared out of the kitchen window at the piles of rubble across the street, where six houses had once stood. Due for development soon, weeds grew between the cracks in the concrete, giving it a desolate air that echoed the feeling in her young heart. Every one of those terraced houses had been bombed during the Blitz that had decimated the area around her home. Poplar and Bethnal Green had caught it as much as anywhere, because of their close proximity to the Docks. Other people said it was a miracle that the houses on this side of the street had escaped the bombs, but Nancy wished that her house had been destroyed that terrible night the incendiaries had demolished so many houses in the lane. Perhaps then she wouldn’t be here, living in fear and misery, waiting for Pa to return from his job in the machinery works down by the Docks.
Christmas and the New Year celebrations were over, not that it had made any difference in this house. Nancy had received no presents from her parents and the only small gift her brother had was the colouring book and crayons she’d bought with the few pence she’d taken from the housekeeping pot. Nancy felt no guilt for taking the pennies she’d spent buying him a gift and some sweets. If she hadn’t walked all over the market to save money buying their Christmas dinner of scrag end of lamb, which she’d made into a tasty casserole with root vegetables, there would have been nothing left – and if she hadn’t spent it on Terry, her mother would have taken it for drink.
Tears stung her eyes, red from the soda she’d put in the water to soak Terry’s sheets, but she rubbed them away with the back of her hands. He’d wet the bed again the previous night and if Pa came home and smelled stale urine he’d belt Terry, Ma and Nancy – no, he’d reserve a different kind of punishment for Nancy; one that turned her stomach sour and made her burn with anger and shame. What Pa did to her wasn’t right, for all he claimed it was his due for feeding and housing them all.
‘Any other man would put that useless slut out on the street and her brats with her. Think yourself lucky that I let you stay, and that idiot brother of yours,’ Pa had sneered when Nancy protested at his beha
viour the previous night.
‘Terry isn’t an idiot.’ Nancy defended her brother fiercely. ‘He might be a bit odd sometimes, but he can’t help that …’
Pa leaned in close so that she caught the stink of beer on his breath. ‘You listen to me, and listen good, girl. Breathe a word of what goes on to anyone outside this house and I’ll have him put away somewhere he’ll never see the light of day again.’
His threats terrified Nancy, because she knew he didn’t care for any of them, not even his wife. She glanced across the kitchen to where her mother sat nursing a bottle of beer, clutching it to her as if it meant her very existence, her lifeless hair hanging about her face in greasy strands and her eyes dead as they stared into nothingness. She’d been like this since the night of the bombing – the night they’d lost all their nearest and dearest.
Nancy shivered as she recalled the night they’d hurried through the dark streets, the sound of the sirens already loud, fleeing for the shelter. The drone of the planes heading up the river was terrifyingly near. Ma was carrying Terry, who was not yet four, and Nancy was running to keep up with her, Bear the much-loved teddy that had once been hers clutched to her chest and a bag with a flask and sandwiches over her shoulder.
‘Hurry up, Nance. If they start droppin’ them bloody bombs we’ll be caught like rats in a trap.’
Nancy had run and run until her chest hurt, hurtling into the shelter after all the other frightened people, and almost tumbling down the last of the steep stone steps. She and Ma had huddled together as the raid went on for what seemed like hours, Terry whimpering and grizzling. She’d given him a drop of sweet tea in his bottle and he’d quietened, holding his chubby arms out to her.
‘Nance cuddle,’ he’d said and she’d taken him in her arms, crooning a nursery rhyme softly against his ear as she waited for the all clear.
It had been morning before they were finally allowed to go home … and when they did everything had changed. The sound of fire engines and ambulances screaming through the streets assaulted their ears, and the sky was red, flames still shooting skyward. When they approached their home, where two rows of terraced houses had stood facing each other across a narrow lane, only one row still stood intact. All the others had been damaged in some way or another and the three opposite that had housed Gran and Grandda, Auntie Freda and Uncle Jim and their two young sons and Auntie Molly were gone, nothing left but a pile of rubble. Smoke was still drifting from the blackened rubble into the sky, though the firemen had put out the flames.
Ma had run at one of the men pulling at bits of wood and bricks in a fruitless attempt to discover anyone under the rubble, hitting at him in her terror, her eyes wild with fear and grief.
‘Where are they? Where did they take them? They said they were coming to the shelter just behind us …’
He shook his head sadly. ‘If they were in the house when the bomb dropped they’ve had it love. No one could survive under this lot. They took a couple of direct hits – the bloody Bosh Bastards! Why can’t they drop ‘em on the Docks or the factories and leave the poor bloody people alone for a while?’
Ma had staggered away, her face ashen. She stood staring at the piles of rubble that had housed her parents, her sister’s family, and her best friend Molly as if she couldn’t take it in. Feeling cold and wanting her breakfast, Nancy pulled at her mother’s arm.
‘Come away, Ma. If they find them they’ll tell us …’
‘Go inside and see to your brother …’ Ma said furiously. ‘Leave me be can’t you?’
Nancy had never known her mother to be like this before. She’d always been cheerful, out in the street as soon as her chores were done, chatting to her friends with her hair in wire curlers and a headscarf. Now she looked like a wild creature, blonde hair flying in the breeze, her children forgotten as she mourned all those she’d lost. It was to be the first of many changes.
‘Ma, hadn’t you better get the tea on?’ Nancy said now, trying to rouse her from her brown study. It didn’t do to dwell on the past, even though she missed her Gran and her aunts, particularly Aunt Molly, who hadn’t truly been an aunt. If Molly Briggs had been alive Nancy could have talked to her about what was happening. She would have given Ma a good shake and told her to pull herself together.
‘You’ve still got your children and a home, Sheila Johnson, so think yerself lucky!’ Nancy could hear Molly’s voice challenging her mother but it was only in her head, because Molly had died in the rubble of her home.
Ma was still sitting there, just nursing what was probably an empty beer bottle. Nancy took the wet sheets out to the yard at the back and threw them over the line. She just hoped her father wouldn’t notice when he came back for his tea.
When Nancy got back to the kitchen she discovered that Terry was home from school, or wherever he’d been – more likely down the Docks, helping out with casual jobs. He stood eating a bit of bread and dripping; he’d cut a doorstep of bread himself and was getting the dripping all over his chin and down his jacket, which was second-hand off the market but the best Nancy could get for the money her mother gave her from her meagre housekeeping.
‘Ma!’ Nancy shook her shoulder. ‘You need to get Pa’s supper on or he’ll be angry when he gets back. I’ve got all this ironing to do and the bedrooms need a turn out.’
Ma lifted hopeless eyes to hers. ‘You can do the bedrooms tomorrow, Nance. Get your Pa’s tea like a good girl. The chops are in the pantry and there’s some cabbage and cold tatties you can fry up. I don’t feel well … I think I’ll go up and lie down.’
‘I’ve got tests at school tomorrow,’ Nancy said as her mother left the room but Ma didn’t answer.
What about me? Nancy wanted to shout and scream after her. She was trying to look after her brother, get the shopping, go to school and clean the house and her mother did nothing but sit around all day in a daze. Pa would be furious if the house looked dirty or if his tea wasn’t to his liking, and the thought of her father in a temper made Nancy shake with fear. Terry would get a thrashing, and Ma would get a black eye … and she would be made to suffer his hateful touch again and again. Even the thought of it made her want to vomit.
It had started when Pa came back from the war. Before that he’d been a bit rough sometimes, but he had never hit any of them that Nancy could recall. When he came back and found the way Ma had changed he started to lose his temper with her and then with Terry. He’d not taken much notice of Nancy at first, but then, when she was nearly eleven, just a couple of days before her birthday, he’d entered her bedroom and found her standing there with nothing on in front of the mirror.
Nancy had wanted to see if she had breasts yet. Her friend Janice was only three months older and she’d started to have breasts, but Nancy could see only a slight rounding and she was staring at herself in disappointment when Pa walked in.
‘What are you doing, girl?’
‘I was just going to have a wash …’ Nancy grabbed a towel and covered herself, not liking the way Pa was staring at her. ‘Let me get dressed, Pa.’
‘No need for silliness, girlie,’ he said, a little smile curving his mouth. ‘I hadn’t realised what a big girl you’re getting … almost a little lady, aren’t you?’ He’d moved closer to her, reaching out to pat her bottom as she scampered to the bed to grab her underclothes and pull them on. ‘You don’t have to be shy with me, Nance. I’m your father. It’s all right for me to look at you like this … and to touch you, see. It wouldn’t be right for you to let a stranger see you naked, but I’m your dear old pa and you know I wouldn’t hurt you … not you …’
‘Go away, Pa!’
‘All right, I’ll go but I shall come back soon. You’re nearly old enough to know what it’s all about. I’ll teach you things, sweet, secret things – and if you’re good I’ll buy you something nice. What would you like? Sweets or some ribbons for your hair?’
‘I don’t want anything …’
Nancy had known ins
tinctively that it wasn’t right for Pa to look at her when she had no clothes on, and she didn’t like what he was saying or that funny way his mouth went loose and wet. It made her shudder inside. She’d been innocent then; she hadn’t realised what a beast he really was inside.
Nancy felt the acrid taste of vomit in her throat as she remembered what he’d done to her the previous night.
‘Nance …’ Terry came to her, his bread and dripping finished, the only evidence the grease on his chin. ‘What was Pa doin’ to you last night? I heard you call out and I wanted to come and stop him, but your door was locked.’
‘Nothing, love. You mustn’t come even if I scream out, all right? If you interfere, Pa will thrash you – and I don’t want you to be hurt. Please promise me you won’t do anything silly.’
Terry looked at her strangely, and for a moment his eyes seemed to glaze over. He put out his hand to touch hers.
‘I hate Pa,’ he said. ‘He hurts Ma and me – but if he’s doin’ bad things to you I’ll hurt him. I won’t let him make you cry any more, Nance. You’re the only person in the world I love – except Ma, but she don’t know I’m here much.’
‘Ma doesn’t know anything much,’ Nancy said and bent down to hug him, inhaling the boyish scent of him, soap from where she’d washed him that morning, and his own special scent; a clean decent smell, not like Pa’s … not like that salty sweet stench that he reeked of.
She wished she could take Terry and run away, somewhere they would be safe and Pa would never find them – but how would they live? She hated her father, wished that he would have an accident at work and never come home. Why hadn’t he been killed in the war like so many soldiers? Why did he have to come home and make all their lives a misery? It would have been better if one of them V2 bombs had fallen on the house and killed them all than to live this way.
If there was only some way she could make them all safe …