Morgan stood by the fire. ‘You’ve got a nice place here.’
He’s keeping the heat from the rest of us. Burton nodded at the remark. Had they expected to come back to a slum?
‘I suppose you’ll be joining up next,’ Morgan said to Harry the barman. ‘You can’t be a day over thirty.’
‘They’ll have to fetch me.’ He upended his empty glass. ‘I must get back to work. There’s still plenty of men clamouring for their pints, and some women as well, these days.’
A suitable guest, who drank and went. Burton nodded again, while Morgan turned to Tom. ‘Shall you be joining up?’
‘I will if you come with me. I’ve got children to look after. Kitchener’s bleddy eyes don’t frighten me. He wants to get in the trenches himself.’
‘That sort never do,’ Burton said, a hard look at Tom who was on his second glass of beer.
Ivy combed Rebecca’s long hair, which Burton considered wrong behaviour at such a time, though didn’t speak, which would have made it worse. At least they weren’t crying. He gave Emily a hard look for biting her nails. The girls had always gnawed them to the quick, and he’d told them about it many a time, but they never took a blind bit of notice. Sabina the other day was going so greedily at her fingers you’d think she didn’t get enough to eat. He clipped her ear, but knew she would do it again as soon as his back was turned. Such a detestable habit looked ugly on a young girl. Mary Ann said she used to do it, till her mother threatened to dip her hands in vinegar.
She sat unable to speak, a cup of tea and a ham sandwich undrunk and uneaten, as if a brick wall loomed an inch from her eyes. There would never be eight children again because she was too old to have any more, but at least she’d had them. Burton said that if she’d had another man instead of himself there might not have been such trouble between him and Oliver, who could therefore have been with them still, though he would probably have gone off to the army, with the daft notion of changing his life. When I said that God had taken my favourite he told me you shouldn’t have any favourites among your children, they’re all precious and equal. And so they are, I said, but any child of mine God took would be my favourite, whatever you say, and Oliver was always special, just like he was for you – which he didn’t deny.
She cried again. Would she ever stop? Could she? If she couldn’t it was easy to understand, because he was crying, the linings of lungs and stomach turning to salt. Last night he had woken up feeling torn and bloody from a dream of wrestling with Oliver, a bitter and inconclusive bout in the dark, but he couldn’t say anything to others because you never told your dreams. You could only be on your own at such a time, knowing that a day would never come when you could be as easy again as before your son had died. He wasn’t soft enough to hope for it. You go on, day by day, and if you live until tomorrow you’ll have lived forever, though on going to sleep at night he hoped he wouldn’t wake up again, and was sorry in the morning that he had, but you never revealed such things, nothing to be done about what was eating you with steel teeth.
Ivy opened the door of the parlour to show in Mr Brown from the sawmills. Bowler hat in hand, he held the other out to Burton, who pressed reluctantly, while Mary Ann folded it with both of hers. ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t get to the church,’ he said. ‘We’re working full tilt making planks for trench supports. The army nags us morning noon and night for all we can give them.’
Mary Ann stood, to pour a whisky.
‘Just a small one, Mrs Burton. We were so upset to hear about Oliver. He was such a fine man. My wife cried when she read it in the paper. She couldn’t believe it.’
‘Neither could we,’ Burton said. ‘But we had to.’
‘He was the best man I ever had, but I was very proud when he enlisted so readily.’
‘It was the worst move he ever made,’ Burton said.
Brown sipped his drink. ‘Young men have to go.’
The veins at Burton’s temples twitched. ‘They don’t.’
‘It’s for King and Country. I don’t know where we’d be if they didn’t go.’
‘Just where we are now.’
‘Even young Sid Camb’s gone. He went the other day to join the Robin Hoods. Told them he was eighteen, and he’s only fifteen. But they took him. He couldn’t wait to get in – a brave young lad.’
Oswald took a sandwich from the plate Sabina held before him. ‘They were wrong to take him.’
‘I can only pray for his mother,’ Mary Ann said.
‘Oliver wasn’t shot by the Germans,’ Burton said. ‘He was killed by a horse, and it could have happened anywhere. But before this war’s over,’ choosing the first large number that came to mind, ‘there’ll be a million killed.’
Brown looked at his watch. ‘I don’t know what it’s like to lose a son, Mr Burton, and I hope I never do. But my eldest went last week, into the Flying Corps, to be a pilot. He’s just turned eighteen.’ A sense of foreboding filled the cottage. ‘As I said, I’m sorry. It’s a terrible time. I must be going now.’
Rebecca showed him out. ‘If he’d stayed much longer,’ Burton said, finishing his whisky, ‘I’d have knocked him down. Him and his “King and Country”.’
‘He means well,’ Mary Ann said.
‘No he doesn’t. People like him know nothing. They were born grasping the wrong end of the stick, and they’ll die that way.’
‘I wanted to scratch his eyes out.’ Edith handed her father a sandwich. ‘I ain’t heard from Tommy for a while, and I’m worried to death.’
Ivy put the slide into Rebecca’s hair. ‘Well, they can’t kill everybody.’
‘No, but they’ll try,’ Burton said. ‘That’s the trouble. But Tommy will be all right.’ Edith had to take what comfort she could from that, yet he knew she looked for more, which he gave, knowing he might well be sorry if the worst happened: ‘He’s a good sort. He’ll come back.’
Mary Ann couldn’t stop her tears, and Edith went to her, and when she also wept Rebecca cut a piece of cake and passed it across, at which she wiped her face to eat. Burton put a hand on Mary Ann’s shoulder, and looked towards Morgan and Tom, who, feeling the burn, said they had to be going, put their glasses down, and went out together.
The wake was over, as far as he was concerned. He was glad Alma hadn’t drummed up the gall to come. Considering how easy it had been to get the brazen girl to bed at Matlock, she would certainly have called if she’d wanted to. He roused himself from thinking about scenes that weren’t appropriate.
The best way to take everyone’s mind off death was to set them working. ‘Thomas! Oswald! Get changed. We’re going to the forge. There’s a lot to catch up on. We can put a few hours in before tonight. You girls can help your mother. She’ll need it more than ever now.’
He was glad that people had come to wish Oliver goodbye, but on his way upstairs to get into working clothes he felt better now they had gone.
Part Three
1916 Onwards
TWENTY
Mr Walker, superintendent of the local Sunday Schools, walked down the street, and she thought he might need to speak to her. ‘Children, I want you to go in now, because it looks as if we’re going to have some snow, so find your places quietly, and I’ll be in in a minute. Emily, you’re the eldest, so help to settle everybody down.’
Her brown hair, parted in the middle, was pulled back to show more pale forehead. Darkly dressed, a woollen coat covered a thinness Lydia complained about, as if losing weight was a crime. But it gave a look of endurance, and tiredness from working at the lace, fingers so much faster than her aunt’s that they earned enough to keep their small family going.
With Baby Oliver nearly a year old and already weaned, she helped again at the Mission Hall. She had thought of applying for work at Chilwell Depot filling shells, with thousands of other women. ‘You get twenty-five shillings a week, so I’d be a millionaire on that!’
‘Chilwell’s a terrible place,’ Lydia said. ‘You should see
the women coming home at night. Most have such yellow faces from the gunpowder they look like canaries. I heard that one of them died of it.’ The argument that decided her not to go was that she would see so little of Oliver, whereas by staying at home she could be with him all the time. ‘You don’t want him to grow up looking only at a crabby old witch like me, do you?’
Clouds turning the weather raw were grey in their fluidly mapped outlines, like cauliflowers fit only for pig food. Burton came to mind at times for no reason she could think of, and she was glad to hear Mr Walker say: ‘We’ll step inside the doorway, to be out of this wind.’
Seventy if a day, he wore no overcoat, and a small Bible bulged from a pocket of his Norfolk jacket. He wiped a dewdrop with a large white handkerchief. ‘You’ve heard, I suppose, Miss Waterall, that Will Jones had been killed in action? And then that foolish young boy Sidney Camb was also killed.’
‘I saw his mother yesterday,’ she said, ‘and she told me that one of Sidney’s elder brothers has enlisted as well, and that if he got killed she would throw herself off Castle Rock. I tried to comfort her, but you can hardly expect to.’
‘I’m sure you did your best. But Will Jones was a good teacher, and we’re losing so many we can’t be particular as to who we take on anymore. Didn’t that girl Emily Burton lose her brother?’
She wanted to go inside, and quell the noise before beginning her lesson. ‘He was a shoeing smith with the Hussars.’
He seemed to be saying a silent prayer, and perhaps he was, as many must these days, when the world had become so changed from two years ago. The war influenced everything, people only daring to live from day to day, and praying when they could for it to end.
‘We fully realized what we were doing in taking you back instead of casting you out,’ he said, ‘and you’ve been such a good influence on the children of this area. It’s rare for attendance to be so high, and in such capable hands.’
Well, she knew all that, and wondered what he was coming to, because his seriousness was never without a point.
‘The thing in my mind, Miss Waterall,’ he said, ‘and it’s been there for some time, is that we might eventually find you a post in some school, teaching full time. Everything is very unorthodox these days, as you know. You’re not the only young woman who has been left in the lurch because of this dreadful war. I wonder whether there’ll be any young men alive when it’s finished. My wife and I pray every night for the safety of our soldiers, but God seems to move in more mysterious ways than we could ever have imagined. Of course, you’d have to go to Newark for your teaching practice, though I’m sure we could arrange a small stipend. But would you be able to manage, with your present responsibilities?’
She put up a hand to soften the beating of her heart, its rhythm hard to keep in bounds, at sensing a possible turning in her life. Working at heaps of lace with Lydia, and looking after Oliver, she set aside an hour each day to read books from the Free Library. ‘I’d like to go. I’d manage somehow.’
‘I’ll put your name before the committee, and do all the persuading I can.’ He took her warm hand, as if to bring life into his own freezing fingers, then drew a hand away to reset his glasses. ‘I’ve already mentioned what an outstanding teacher you’d make.’
A warmth spread at her face as she followed two late children inside. He closed the door and stood at the back, pleased at how all became quiet when Alma went before them.
‘This afternoon I’m going to tell you a story about the infant Moses, who was hidden among the bulrushes of the River Nile. The Pharaoh who ruled over Egypt gave orders that all Hebrew baby boys were to be killed, because he was frightened of their power and skill when they were grown up. I’ll go on to read about how the Chosen People escaped from such wickedness, and safely crossed the Red Sea, while Pharaoh’s soldiers pursuing them were drowned in the mighty waters.’ She opened her Bible at the well-known place. ‘And then we’ll say a prayer and sing a hymn. And I shall want each of you to come out and read a few verses aloud.’
Audible grumbling at such a task, beyond the capability of some, made her smile and, looking over their heads, she saw that Mr Walker had gone, satisfied that she could finish the session, unable to know her anxiety while being watched, or how much she loved the children for being so attentive.
Coat drawn tight over a woollen shawl, she hurried to get home, the first snowflakes floating across her eyes. Men’s laughter from a pub on the main road tempted her to go in for a warming drink, but Mr Walker’s assumption that she would one day become a teacher gave more than enough heat to resist. Aware of every penny, she wouldn’t go into such a place anyway. Such pothouse noises reminded her of Burton, whom she fought to forget, trying not to blame him for all that had happened to her, and more fatally to Oliver. Many other Hussars had died on service overseas since then, and no doubt still more would be lost. It was impossible to pick up a newspaper without seeing numerous photos of the dead.
She hurried home to be with Oliver. He would soon be walking but, as she told Lydia, he would never be a soldier. Lydia replied that he would only become one over her dead body, adding that she however would be dead before he was old enough to think about it.
They talked in the kitchen when at work. Time went faster and the labour was lighter with two to get it done. Oliver, a lively soul when he wasn’t sleeping, looked on as if to make sure their fingers didn’t slacken. They laid him well swaddled on bundles of lace, no more comfortable place for an angel to be.
Alma often trembled for him as he lay before her, as if the world he had come into was hostile to all human life. What would become of him if she and Lydia left him one day with a neighbour when they had to go out together and they were struck dead by lightning or fatally run over by a motor omnibus whose brakes had failed? A terrible life he would have, starved and abused in an orphanage, and growing up in utter misery.
The haunting picture didn’t let her forget that children were in any case susceptible to measles, whooping cough, diphtheria, tonsillitis, the croup, and scores of other furtive sicknesses which if too virulent could bring on death. He was strong, healthy and big for his age, the only reason to be glad that a man like Burton was his father. Whatever she thought now, he had been conceived in love, and was more likely to survive because of it.
She hadn’t seen Burton since the funeral, and hoped never to do so again. She supposed he would walk straight by her, as she would pass him without a word of recognition. To make sense out of her life you had to assume that both had got what they wanted, and as for Oliver growing up without a father, maybe it was better that way, because those who did have fathers invariably ended with more bad habits than if they only had a mother. When Lydia said she ought one day to think of getting married so as to give the child a father, Alma replied that she would never marry for such a reason. There’ll be no men left to marry by the end of the war, anyway.’
‘But you might not relish being an old maid when I’m dead and gone,’ Lydia said.
She stepped into the small warm house, renewed by seeing Oliver clutching the bars of his crib and laughing at the face Lydia was making to amuse him. She took a plate from the oven, and cut two slices of bread. ‘Come and eat this by the fire, and warm yourself up. The Baby Mikado will scream his little honeyguts out if you touch him. You’ll turn him into an icicle.’
She was hungry for the potatoes and black pudding. ‘It’s all I could get,’ Lydia said. ‘The shops will be out of business soon. I heard they’d be selling horsemeat next, and I couldn’t stomach that.’
‘If we’re starving we’ll have to,’ Alma said.
‘I expect we would. A couple of years ago I couldn’t afford bananas, and now we can there’s none in the shops. I’d like to see Oliver’s face when I can show him one. I mashed some potato with a drop of milk just before you came in and he gobbled the lot from a spoon.’
‘You love to spoil him.’
‘If we don’t, who will? Maybe s
poiled children grow up to be better people.’
She held Oliver, in paradise when so close, till he went to sleep. ‘Mr Walker said he might get me taken on as a pupil-teacher in a few months.’
Lydia took up the scuttle, and filled it with coal from under the stairs. ‘Is that what you want?’
The tone said so. ‘More than anything. I’ve wanted to change my life ever since I was born.’
‘Well, I’ve always supposed that. I never thought you’d live in a place like this forever.’
‘It’s not that. I can still be a teacher and live here. Unless you get fed up and chuck me out.’
‘Oh, I shan’t do that.’ Oliver’s blue eyes opened from milk-white dreams. ‘I’ve got used to you, and to this little bundle as well.’
Ivy had started work at the tobacco factory, and Rebecca at Hollins’s Mill in New Radford. Burton got them out of bed at five every morning in time to go down the lane at six with packets of sandwiches Mary Ann had made the evening before, holding hands because they were nervous at going under the long bridge in the dark. It was no use Burton telling them there was nothing to fear, and that the more frightened they were the worse it would get, because he secretly believed they enjoyed it that way.
As soon as she was thirteen Sabina would sign herself on at the same place as Rebecca, so that with eight shillings a week from each the house might seem more prosperous. As for daft Emily, she would never bring a farthing into the house. She’d been sent to school but, like Thomas, could neither read nor write. Perhaps being the last born had made her backward, Mary Ann as well by that time worn out.
With one girl married and two at work she had more to do in the house, not a bad thing if it diverted her mind from Oliver, though she knew that nothing ever would. The postcard-sized photograph taken after he had enlisted hung in the kitchen hugely enlarged and framed, so he was always looking down, willing them not to forget. He watched whatever was being done, a presence Mary Ann felt even when her back was turned. Burton noted his old familiar expression of not much caring to know what was going on, lips slightly pursed as if to begin whistling a tune, something he would occasionally do in life, a piercing melody to make more space around him in the crowded house. Burton sometimes thought he knew more about him than when he had been alive, but supposed that was because he was more on his mind now that he was dead.
A Man of his Time Page 25