Martha's Girls

by Alrene Hughes

  ‘But sure you love all the fuss and the preparations. Remember last year when Daddy said not to bother yourself with Christmas pudding and trifle? And you said: Christmas comes but once a year and didn’t Jesus’ birth warrant a bit of effort.’

  Martha spoke softly, ‘And now Daddy’s gone, what kind of Christmas are we to endure without him?’

  Now Sheila understood.

  Martha went on, ‘What are we to do? Put on paper hats, pull crackers and sing carols round the piano without him?’

  ‘Yes.’ Sheila held her mother’s damp hands. ‘Yes, that’s exactly what we’ll do and we’ll imagine that Daddy’s here somewhere at home with us, smiling and watching everything we do. And he won’t be sad when he sees us. He’ll be happy that we are living our lives and his dying isn’t hanging over us like a black cloud.’

  Martha looked at her hands clasped in Sheila’s and not for the first time she was taken aback by the eloquence of her youngest daughter. ‘But it’ll be so hard.’

  ‘That’s why you have to make up your mind to do it. You have to show us how to behave; how to deal with the fact that Daddy isn’t carving the turkey or leaning on the piano singing ‘Oh, Come All Ye Faithful’. We’ve got through these last few months because you’ve shown us how.’

  ‘Aye that’s as maybe, but there’s something else. I didn’t want to tell you girls … I kept hoping something would turn up.’ Sheila heard the hard edge to her mother’s voice.

  ‘What is it, Mammy, what’s happened?’

  Martha crossed to the high mantelpiece and felt for the brown envelope she’d hidden there. Without speaking, she handed it to Sheila who removed the white sheet of paper. The typing was sparse and in capital letters, full of its own importance. Beneath the heading ‘Royal Victoria Hospital’ it read ‘Reminder’, followed by ‘Unpaid Invoice’. Sheila had never heard the word invoice before, but a quick scan of the remaining words and the total £5/10/- at the end made the letter’s purpose clear.

  ‘Why do we owe all this money?’

  ‘We have to pay for the penicillin that saved Irene’s life and the advice of the consultant who wanted to remove Irene’s hand which, thank the Lord, we didn’t take!’

  ‘Do we have to pay it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so and within five days.’

  ‘Why can’t we just ignore it?’

  ‘Because, Sheila, you have to pay your debts in this life, for sooner or later they’ll catch up with you and twice the size they were.’

  ‘But have we got the money?’

  In reply, Martha again stood on tiptoe, took the coronation tea caddy from the mantelpiece and emptied the contents on to the table. ‘There’s nearly four pounds there in change; I’ve been saving a little each week since last Christmas. Lately I’ve had to dip into it, but I thought four pounds wisely spent would make Christmas a bit more bearable. Now it’ll have to go towards paying the bill.’

  ‘Ach, Mammy, sure we don’t need special things at Christmas. A plate of champ will do rightly. We can make our own entertainment like we always do. It’ll be fine, so it will.’

  Martha breathed deeply and wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron. ‘Aye, well it’ll have to be, won’t it? I’ll go down town tomorrow to see what I can pick up cheap at the last minute before the shops close. Now promise me you won’t say anything to your sisters about this.’ She replaced the bill on the mantelpiece. ‘Especially not Irene.’

  ‘Of course I won’t. We’ll manage, I know we will and I’ll take a run down to the McCracken’s this afternoon; they’re putting together people’s orders for tomorrow, they might pay me a little bit to help. Should I put the kettle on for a wee drink of tea before I go?’

  ‘Thanks, you’re a good girl. I’ll just get a breath of fresh air.’ Martha went out the back door and into the garden.

  Sheila busied herself with cups and saucers, but images of a bleak, miserable Christmas flitted in and out of her head. So too did the realisation that her mother had shared her worries with her as though she was a grown up, an equal. While the kettle boiled, Martha made a tour of the garden, stopping to check on some staking then turning to look back at the house from chimney to doorstep. Sheila, at the window, raised the teapot and Martha acknowledged it with a wave of her hand.

  *

  The days had grown steadily colder as Christmas approached. Outside the City Hall flower sellers supplemented late autumn chrysanthemums with sprigs of holly and mistletoe, and the man who played the saw offered carols in return for loose change. But Peggy’s routine was unchanged. She sat on the bench under Queen Victoria’s statue in the gardens and seethed at the sight of meat paste on her sandwiches.

  ‘You’ve a bake on ye like someone who’s lost a ten bob note an’ found a ha’penny!’

  She turned away from the voice and studied a flock of starlings lifting off the lawn into the deepening grey sky.

  ‘Cat got your tongue, again?’

  She felt the slats under her shift as he sat down, sensed the slide of his arm along the back of the bench and his weight leaning into it.

  ‘You got home all right then the other night?’

  ‘No thanks to you!’ she screamed in her head.

  ‘Peggy, Pet … I don’t know what to say. I had something important to do … just couldn’t get out of it.’ He laughed then, a quick nervous laugh. ‘More than my life was worth.’

  The starlings wheeled in a wide arc and disappeared behind the green dome.

  ‘I’m sorry, Peggy, really sorry. Do you think you could give me another chance?’ The slats shifted, his arm moved further along the bench. ‘I’ve got tickets for the big Christmas Eve dance tomorrow at the Plaza Ballroom. Like gold dust they are.’ He rushed on, promise following promise. ‘We’ll go for a meal, drink champagne. What do you say, Peggy?’

  The starlings reappeared, stretched to a streak of black, then regrouped to swoop low towards the lawns again. It seemed to Peggy that something else had also lifted and settled with subtle shifts imperceptible to all but her. She turned to Harry. ‘On Christmas Eve I’ll be at home with my family, not gadding about the city with the likes of you.’

  *

  Martha spent the afternoon mopping the oilcloth and washing down the paintwork with a damp cloth dipped in carbolic. Around four, Betty rapped on the kitchen window and, with a wave of her arm and a tilt of her head in the direction of her house, invited Martha to join her. At Betty’s back door lay a bundle of glossy green holly tied up with twine.

  ‘That’s for you to take home. Jack cut it this morning. Best crop of berries in years he says and you know what they say about berries on holly?’ Martha looked uncertain. ‘It’ll be a long, hard winter! As if it won’t be bad enough with a war on, shortages of food and, Lord bless us, maybe bombs too, without being up to our oxters in snow as well!’ Betty’s tone changed. ‘I’ve a wee treat for you, so I have.’ On the table was a tray set with two tiny glasses. ‘Will you have a glass of port with me?’

  Betty was already pouring when Martha exclaimed. ‘Oh no I couldn’t, sure you know I don’t drink.’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t normally myself, but my brother bought it for me and it is nearly Christmas.’ She handed Martha the glass and, as there was hardly more that a tablespoonful in it, Martha took a small sip.

  ‘Were you doing a bit of sewing there, Betty?’ A man’s shirt lay on top of a needle work box on the table.

  Betty pulled a face. ‘Never much of a sewer at the best of times and here I was tryin’ to turn the collar on Jack’s favourite shirt. Sure the whole thing was frayed and the shirt itself as good as new. I got the collar off all right, but getting it back on the other way around has me beat!’

  ‘Let’s have a look at it.’ Martha had given many of Robert’s shirts a new lease of life by turning the collar and it wasn’t long before she’d unpicked the clumsy stitches and started again with new thread in a smaller needle and a copper thimble on her finger. As Martha wor
ked, Betty relaxed, sipped her port and chatted about Jack and his vegetable garden. Around five Martha finished the collar. ‘There you are, Betty. Good as a ten shilling new one from Spackman’s!’

  ‘Oh you’re a marvel, Martha, right enough! Hang on a wee minute. I’ve something for you.’

  Irene was the first to arrive home. She bounded up the stairs two at a time shouting ‘Mammy’ at the top of her voice. Martha was getting the good tablecloth out of the hot press.

  ‘I see you’ve got some of your energy back today.’

  ‘I have and something else as well. Close your eyes.’

  ‘Ach come on, Irene. What is it?’

  ‘No. You have to close your eyes.’

  Martha played along.

  ‘Now hold out your hands.’

  ‘Irene, what—’

  ‘No, you have to do it.’

  Martha’s squeezed her eyes tight; her hands shook a little in anticipation. She felt something being placed across her palms and waited for the instruction.

  ‘You can open them now!’

  The notes were grubby and crumpled, but their value unmistakable. Five one pound notes. A fortune.

  ‘Irene, where did you get—’

  ‘I pawned the sari.’

  ‘What!’ Martha looked from the notes to Irene. ‘Why?’

  ‘I know about the hospital bill. I found it on the mantelpiece … I couldn’t let you pay it.’

  ‘But we’d have managed.’

  ‘Not at Christmas, Mammy. It’ll be hard enough as it is.’

  Martha hugged her eldest daughter. ‘You’re a good girl, Irene. We’ll find a way to get you your sari back, I promise you. Now come downstairs and I’ll show you what Betty’s given us.’ Martha opened the cool cupboard under the sink to reveal carrots, sprouts and potatoes, the latter still caked in earth. ‘That’s two gifts today,’ she laughed. ‘I can’t wait to see if there’s a third on its way!’

  *

  The sitting room was cosy and festive by the time Sheila arrived home. Peggy, wearing an old pair of leather gloves, had trimmed and shaped the holly and hung it in graceful boughs from the picture rail. Irene had begged a branch from the spruce in the McKee’s garden and she and Pat were decorating it with baubles.

  Sheila stood in the doorway, giving off the chill of the outside air. Her navy nap coat was buttoned right up to her collar. They hardly looked at her, intent as they were with the decorations. She smiled uncertainly and carefully untied her headscarf. Pat stepped away from the tree and turned to choose a bauble from the tin. She froze. She stared. The warm languid air was instantly charged as each of them turned to the stranger in their midst. She was much younger, her eyes huge, ears tiny and perfectly shaped so close to her head. Her hair was darker and cropped like a boy’s. Martha was the first to move, instinctively knowing what had happened and why. Sheila held out a tin of biscuits. ‘The McCrackens sent you these, Mammy.’ Martha took them from her, set them down and began unbuttoning Sheila’s coat.

  Peggy was the first to speak. ‘What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘Cut it.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Pat. ‘You had lovely hair.’

  ‘Just cut it.’

  Martha was removing her coat as one would for a child: lifting each arm upright; pulling the sleeve off; then peeling it from her shoulders. Sheila didn’t help; didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘Never mind it’ll soon grow again,’ said Irene.

  ‘Course it will,’ said Martha, ‘and in the mean time it shows off your lovely face.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us you were going to do it?’ Peggy was never one to understand the value of silence. ‘We could have persuaded you—’

  ‘That’s enough now, all of you.’ Martha took control. ‘I think Sheila looks really tired. You’d best get off to bed, love. Have a good night’s sleep. It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.’ Martha led her youngest daughter away from all the questions upstairs to bed. Downstairs the speculation continued; each sister trying to imagine the circumstances in which they would part with their own long hair and all agreeing the chances of them ever doing so were remote. Upstairs, it seemed Sheila had just enough strength to reach her bed and close her eyes, but moments later as Martha was hanging up her coat, she spoke.

  ‘In my coat pocket, Mammy, there’s money. Four pounds they gave me for my hair … said it was thick and strong. And five shillings from the McCrackens; a Christmas bonus, John said, and Aggie gave me the biscuits.’

  Martha stroked her daughter’s shorn head. ‘Sssh, go to sleep now. We’ll talk about it in the morning.’

  ‘I’m sorry it’s not quite enough to pay the bill, Mammy. But it’ll help won’t it?’

  ‘Yes Sheila, it’s a big help.’

  ‘And we won’t tell Irene, will we?’

  ‘No love, Irene will never know.’

  Chapter 13

  Martha did not begrudge a penny of the money she paid over the counter at the offices of the Belfast City Health Board. Irene had been a whisper from death and although sound reasoning would have it that the penicillin had caught her in time, Martha didn’t doubt that God had heard her in St Peter’s for, after all, what was penicillin, but God’s latest work in the field of medicine.

  One debt paid; two more to go.

  Smithfield Market covered half an acre in the city centre, tucked away behind the pretentious shops that lined the best streets, like some wide-boy who might not be entirely honest in the eyes of the law, but who never knowingly cheated a poor man in search of a bargain. She had memorised the name on Irene’s pawn ticket, assuming she might have to ask directions but, as luck would have it, she emerged from Kelly’s entry and within yards picked out the three gold balls high above the shoppers’ heads with the name ‘Blumfeld’ swinging underneath.

  Coming in from the chill December wind, the shop was a warm fug of dusty air and the unmistakable smell of paraffin. In front of Martha was a low wooden counter and, stretching up from it towards the roof, a strong metal grill. Beyond this were racks and racks of clothing and shelves piled high with an example of every possession known to be worth a few shillings to the desperate. The man behind the counter was as exotic to Martha as the inside of his shop. His complexion was sallow emphasising the whiteness of his teeth as he smiled a welcome.

  ‘Good day to you, missus, how may I help you?’ He turned slightly and swept his hand to indicate all the goods in his keeping. Martha noted the small black cap fastened to the back of his head and the strings hanging below his tight waistcoat. ‘Are you here to pawn, redeem or to buy?’

  ‘Perhaps all three, depending on the arrangement we come to,’ said Martha.

  When she emerged from the pawn shop twenty minutes later, Martha’s opinion of Jewish businessmen, already strong as a result of her dealings with Goldstein, had been further enhanced by the honesty and charm of Jakob Blumfeld. She was delighted to have, safe in her bag: a large parcel; a very small parcel; a new pawn ticket and in her mind the thought that two more debts had been repaid.

  From Smithfield she made her way to St George’s Market, a large red brick building with a corrugated iron roof, where the sound of noisy Christmas bargain hunters and pushy stallholders shouting their wares soared into the rafters to join the squawking and chirping of the birds who made their home there. Martha held her shopping bag tight and her purse even tighter not daring to open it to find the list she had made. No matter, she could remember everything on it. From a fruit stall she bought four oranges and half a pound of mixed nuts. The box of dates with the lid showing a caravan of camels crossing the desert was more expensive than last year, but at sixpence was still worth the treat.

  She already had a present for each daughter. At Easter time she had seen a new modern pattern for a jumper in the wool shop and started knitting right away. The lady who owned the shop had laid aside the wool, a different colour for each girl, and Martha had paid a little each week towards the cost. The jumpers h
ad been finished for over a month, but she had still to add three small buttons across each shoulder. At the haberdashery stall the range of buttons threatened to overwhelm her. How to choose? In the end she decided on small clear ones with a pattern like cut glass. Three buttons per daughter, times four daughters made twelve buttons, at tuppence a button, came to two shillings.

  There was a long queue at the butchers. She had never bought from the market before, always preferring Carson’s closer to home, but lately his prices had risen steadily. Martha watched as each customer on reaching the counter entered into a discussion, then some kind of haggling, before meat was finally produced from under the counter and quickly parcelled up.