A Hopscotch Summer

by Annie Murray

  Jenny Button’s head popped up again and she stared in consternation at the anxious child before her, fully aware of the fragile state of the Brown family.

  ‘You mean that mother of hers doesn’t know where she is? Well, I can’t say I blame the child, the state of that woman. I shouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of her even when she hasn’t had a skinful.’ Mrs Button’s eyes narrowed. ‘So where is she? Iris Fox, I mean?’

  ‘Aston, Molly says.’

  ‘And she doesn’t want to go back?’

  Em shook her head. Jenny Button’s mind seemed to be going through a process that Em didn’t understand at all. She was surprised that she had not told Em to send Molly home straight away. She thought that was what any grown-up would do. Instead she stood balanced on the stool, hands on hips, scratched her head, then said, ‘Well, now, what’re we going to do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Em poured out all the worries that had kept her awake half the night. ‘She can’t stay on with us cos our dad won’t have it, and I don’t like to ask Mrs Wiggins . . .’

  ‘Well.’ Jenny Button decisively wiped her floury hands on her apron. ‘You can tell Molly to come over here. There’s only the two of us and there’s plenty of room upstairs, so she can stay here, that she can, and welcome. And if I get any trouble . . .’ she finished darkly.

  Em gaped at her. ‘You mean Molly can live with you?’

  ‘Send her over here and we’ll see how it goes. But I could do with some young life about the place and she needs a place to go – so, Bob’s yer uncle.’ She grinned, realizing what she’d said. ‘Well, yer dad in your case, bab!’

  Forty-Two

  For a few days there were questions.

  ‘What’s that Fox girl doing here?’

  ‘Isn’t that Molly Fox? Where’s the rest of ’em, then?’

  Some of the neighbours recognized Molly and wanted to know what was what. Others didn’t particularly care, and very few had any time for Iris Fox.

  ‘She’s just stopping here for a bit,’ was all Jenny Button said in explanation.

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t blame her for running away,’ one customer observed. ‘How anyone could live with that harridan Iris is a mystery. Poor old Joe Fox ain’t nothing but a wreck. I dunno what done ’im in worst – the war, or living with her!’

  Quite soon everyone got used to Molly living with Jenny and Stanley Button. She went back to school, played out in the street and soon the ripples of gossip settled down.

  Jenny Button was in her element.

  ‘We’ll have to get you some clothes sorted out,’ she told Molly. As soon as she had time she was off down the Rag Market, selecting a few things to alter for Molly. Her old treadle sewing machine click-clicked away in an upstairs room while Stan watched her eagerness, both amiable and sad. He had never been able to give his energetic wife a child and he saw the passion with which she turned to looking after Molly.

  ‘Poor little wench,’ she confided in Stan one morning when Molly had gone to school. ‘’Er bed’s wet every night, soaked through, and at her age! There’s summat not right there.’

  ‘Living on her nerves,’ Stan commented kindly.

  ‘Hmm,’ Jenny said grimly. ‘Well, whatever’s been going on, at least we can feed her proper and teach her some manners.’

  Molly, shy and awkward at first, began to blossom in the peace and kindness of the Buttons’ home. It was rough and ready, but compared to what she was used to it felt like the lap of luxury. Jenny Button had even stitched her a couple of cotton slips to go to bed in – something Molly had never known before. She was so ashamed of the fact that each morning they were almost always drenched in urine. She would try and wake herself and get up onto the po’, but as often as not she was fast asleep and when she woke it was too late. Jenny Button didn’t comment or ask questions. If it went on, she thought, she’d take Molly to the doctor, but for now she saw to it that the sheets were washed through and a clean one put on the bed every day.

  ‘D’you miss your mom and dad?’ Jenny asked her after a few days.

  Molly thought about it. ‘A bit, I s’pose. But it’s quieter here and I like it.’ So far she’d been as good as gold, going off to school and coming back after playing out with the others and eating her tea. Apart from the sheets and having to get her to hold her knife and fork properly, not to wipe her nose on her sleeve and to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’, Jenny and Stan Button had no major complaints. The three of them even sat and played cards of an evening sometimes and Stan was teaching Molly to play dominoes as well and was glad of the company in his slow life. Molly had settled in miraculously well. But there was always a nagging worry in her mind, and now her round face creased with anxiety. ‘What’m I going to do if our mom comes?’

  Jenny Button’s curranty eyes looked kindly at her. ‘Well, bab, we’ll ’ave to cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  ‘Our mom’s coming home for a visit tomorrow,’ Em said excitedly to Molly, ten days after Molly’s arrival. The two of them were walking home from school together.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Molly said as they turned the corner into Kenilworth Street, dodging round the lamp post which was being used as a swing by two boys.

  ‘Watch it!’ they yelled.

  ‘You watch it yerselves!’ Em shouted back. She realized she wouldn’t have done that before. Even Molly looked surprised.

  Em was in really good spirits. Molly’s coming back had cheered her up, the weather was becoming more spring-like now February had turned to March and there were daffodils and crocuses in the parks. Best of all, it looked as if Mom would be back at home for good. Em had a spring in her step now.

  ‘’Ere, let’s have a game,’ Molly said, producing a frayed, grey piece of string from her pocket. The marbles craze had given way to a rash of hand-clap games and cat’s cradles for the girls, while the boys were tearing round with whatever they had in the way of footballs, even if they were made of newspapers tied with string.

  The two of them were soon involved in their cat’s cradle game, with furrowed brows, hands burrowing into the twists of string, groaning when it didn’t come right. Em was absorbed with her fingers nipping the string when she felt Molly jump violently.

  ‘Oi, don’t!’ Em protested, but Molly was pulling the string off her hands in a desperate panic.

  ‘That’s Mom coming, I heard her!’ Her face was white with fear.

  Another shout from the end of the road confirmed it.

  ‘Quick, she ain’t seen me yet!’ Molly tore off along the street and disappeared into the Buttons’ house almost before Em had turned round. She squinted, then made out the looming shape of Iris Fox in her big black coat. Everyone was turning to stare. Her voice, slurred with drink, boomed unmistakably along the street. Iris was tanked up and raging furious.

  Em’s legs went weak but she managed to dash along the street to her own house, grabbing Sid along the way.

  ‘Get inside, quick!’

  ‘Ouch, Em, you’re hurting! What’re yer doing?’

  ‘Just do as I say,’ Em hissed urgently, pushing home the rusty bolt which was hardly ever used. ‘That’s Molly’s mom carrying on down there.’

  Sid’s eyes widened. ‘No one’d better tell ’er!’ He and Joyce had been sworn to secrecy about where Molly was living.

  The two of them waited, trembling, kneeling on the floor behind the front door as they heard Iris bawl and curse her way up the road. There was a brief quiet when, by the sound of things, she had disappeared into the old yard to look into the house, which soon led to an outburst of shouting between her and her old neighbours, then Iris erupted out of there again in full voice.

  ‘You— stinking heap of— bastards . . . !’ More curses followed as she wove her way across the road.

  Sid’s eyes bulged. ‘Is she coming here?’

  ‘Sssh, I dunno, do I?’ Em snapped, frantically. The two of them curled up into frightened little balls on the floor, coveri
ng their heads as if Iris was an imminent explosion.

  But the hammering on the door came anyway.

  ‘Open this— door! Come on – open it, you . . .’ Her voice fell to a mumble for a moment. ‘Molly! Molly, come out! I know yer in there! I’ll knock this cowing door down if I ’ave to.’

  She gave up shouting then and just banged and kicked at the door like a crazed bull, grunting and muttering.

  ‘What the bleeding hell d’yer think you’re doing?’ They heard Dot’s voice outside. Dot wasn’t afraid of anyone. ‘Just pack it in! You’ll knock the door down going on like that.’

  ‘They’ve got my Molly,’ Iris whined. ‘I know she’s in there. She’s got to come home with me. Don’t want her living with no bloody loonies like ’er.’

  ‘She ain’t in there – I can tell you that for nothing,’ Dot said, holding on tight to her temper.

  ‘Yes she is!’ Iris started hammering again.

  ‘All right,’ Dot said, ‘I’ll show yer. Em, Sid – open the door!’

  Em scrambled up and wrestled with the bolt again. Quivering, she opened the door to Iris’s mountainous figure topped by her swollen, angry face and bloodshot eyes. She was like a walking volcano in full eruption.

  ‘Molly!’ Iris barged in, knocking Em against the wall. ‘I know yer ’ere – it’s no good hiding from me. You got to come ’ome with me.’ She wheezed her way up the stairs. ‘I’m ’er bloody mother,’ they heard. ‘Taking people’s kids from them. I’ll ’ave the rozzers on yer . . .’

  ‘Best if she looks for herself,’ Dot said, rolling her eyes. ‘There’s no reasoning with her.’

  They heard Iris lumbering about upstairs, cursing and searching under beds and in the cupboard in Bob and Cynthia’s room. There was a crash as something fell to the floor, but eventually she had to admit defeat and came roaring down the stairs again.

  ‘Where is she?’ Em thought for a moment she was going to punch Dot but instead she stood swaying and the whining tone came back. ‘You’d better tell me. In your ’ouse, ain’t she, you smug cow you, stealing people’s kids . . .’

  ‘You can look in my house if you want,’ Dot said. ‘But you won’t find anything. You ought to take better care of yer own daughter, that’s all I can say.’

  This produced another outburst of language from Iris. She stormed her way through Dot’s house, then out into the street where she marched up and down for some time shouting and demanding that Molly come out and be handed to her. An audience gathered to watch the performance, some shouting back at her, telling her to clear off. Of the people who knew where Iris’s daughter was staying, not one gave Molly away, not even meddling Josie Donnelly.

  ‘She’s a bloody disgrace,’ Josie said to Dot as Iris raged up and down. ‘I wouldn’t hand a dog over to her, so I wouldn’t.’

  Eventually Iris’s rage blew itself out and she had to give up, finally leaving with threats that she’d be back with the police.

  ‘I should think there’s a few questions they’d like to ask that shower,’ Dot said.

  Em and Sid finally dared to come out of the house as Iris departed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Dot said. ‘She ain’t found her little skivvy – not yet.’

  Forty-Three

  It was a Monday and as had become their habit, Em and Dot were doing the washing together at number eighteen. Joyce and Nancy were in the house, and every so often the sound of them squabbling floated out to the yard and Dot tutted.

  ‘Pass me over that sheet of Sid’s, bab, and then we’re done,’ Dot said, waiting by the mangle in the yard.

  Em pulled the sheet out of the maiding tub, twisting water out of it and passing one end to Dot, and holding the other off the ground.

  ‘Ta, love.’ Dot wearily pushed her hair out of her eyes and fed the sheet between the rollers of the mangle. They’d both been working hard, almost in silence, doing the main body of the work, but now Dot looked across at her.

  ‘Your mom was looking better, wasn’t she?’ Em didn’t notice the cautious tone in Dot’s voice. She was still feeling excited after Mom’s visit on Saturday. It had been the third time, and now they were talking about her coming home soon – to stay!

  Em nodded, smiling happily, pulling on the sheet as it emerged from the mangle.

  ‘Mom’s all right now – she’s better, isn’t she? When will she come home?’

  ‘Soon, bab. They didn’t say. In a week or two, I think. They want to make sure she’s really properly better.’

  Dot had, as usual, helped the family through the day visit, but seeing Cynthia’s still frail state she couldn’t help fretting about how it was all going to be if she was allowed to come and live at home. And what was Bob up to? He was all right with her when she came – quite gentle and helpful, the way he could be when he put his mind to it. But Dot knew he wasn’t seeing any less of Flossie Dawson than he ever had. When was he going to face up to things, she wondered angrily. A moment later, as they were pegging out the sheet across the yard, she said, ‘Where does that Daisy Dawson go off to – you know, when you see her mooching off on a Sunday?’

  Em removed a clothes peg from her mouth. ‘To her auntie, I think. So she says.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, that’s nice – that she’s got some other family about. You’d think her mother’d get her a nicer hat, though, the way she dresses herself up.’

  Em’s face clouded. ‘I hate Daisy,’ she said.

  The afternoon of the previous day had been drizzly. Bob and Flossie lay side by side in her bed after making love, or what passed for it, Bob thought bitterly. Despite Flossie’s inventiveness, getting himself all worked up and then having to withdraw for the crowning glory of it was not his idea of proper love-making. He lay there feeling sticky and somehow humiliated. It would be different if they were together properly, he thought, instead of all this creeping about, having to be so careful, in bed and out of it. He turned towards Flossie. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, the sheet arranged so that he could see tantalizing glimpses of the soft cleft between her breasts. He looked at her profile, the dark hair and crescent of her lashes, the sweet, upturned nose, her strong neck leading down to her sturdy, pale body. He loved it when she was like this, hair in disarray, naked, loose somehow, when normally she was a neat, prim-looking person. And it was for him, he who saw her like that. God knows why; she could have done better, surely? He moved his lips close to her ear.

  ‘If we was living together, regular like, we wouldn’t have all this, would we? We could do things properly.’ He dared himself to say the words, almost playing with them.

  Sleepily she opened her eyes, turning her head slightly.

  ‘What are you saying, you naughty boy?’ He loved this archness. It made him feel young and daring. And he could tell she liked to portray herself as wicked. It was another of the things that made her so desirable. ‘Are you asking me to marry you, or live in sin with you? Just remember – ’ she tapped his nose playfully with her finger – ‘you’re a married man. You’d have to get a divorce first.’

  He drew back. Her words punctured his fantasy like pins. This was how it was. He lived in two separate worlds, as if there were two paths possible for him all the time. When he was with Flossie he imagined his future with her, the two of them living in his house, making a life with her, untouched by anything outside. When his mind followed this path his real life, home, wife, children, ceased to exist. Daisy was also conveniently removed from it. It was a new beginning which left him free. Her words forced him back to reality. Flossie was not living a fantasy. There were things she wanted.

  Real life bludgeoned him again. Cynthia had been home yesterday. The thought of her, back in their house where she belonged, flooded him with a sense of longing, and of terrible guilt and fear. Her being there felt right, yet so painful and difficult. It knifed him with feelings, tore him apart. Here, things were simpler. He was besotted with Flossie, enslaved by her, flattered by her attention. Th
e fact that he had still not wholly possessed her drove him on. He knew it had to end, that he had to tell her so – but he could not bear the fact or let it go.

  ‘Bob?’

  ‘Umm?’ This time it was he lying with his eyes closed.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question.’ She was half playful, half serious.

  Tell her. You’ve got to tell her . . .

  He opened his eyes, and saw her raising herself onto her elbow. He caught a whiff of her body, the juices of love-making mixed with sweet talcum powder. Flossie looked down at him, and her teasing expression contained a calculating edge which he both saw and chose not to see.

  ‘I thought you were serious, you naughty, handsome boy.’ She traced her finger round his face, along the length of his nose, over his prominent cheekbones and the two bridges of his eyebrows. The tickling sensation irritated him. ‘Coming and taking advantage of a poor widow woman, running away with her feelings. That’s not very nice, is it?’

  ‘Divorcing my wife wouldn’t be very nice either, would it?’ He spoke more harshly than he intended, as his two worlds collided.

  Her finger stopped moving over his face. ‘I thought she was . . . Well, she’s not right, is she? That’s what everyone says.’

  ‘Oh, do they?’ He found himself coming hotly to Cynthia’s defence. These days he never knew what he was going to say next. ‘There’s always bloody wagging tongues ready to say the worst. It was just after the babby, that was all. It can happen sometimes.’

  ‘Ah well,’ she withdrew, coldly, lying back down, ‘that’s right, defend her now. A bit late, though, don’t you think? I might have known you were only using me, goodness knows . . .’ She was working herself up now, with tears in her voice. ‘It’s been like that ever since my Arthur died. My hopes raised, hopes of safety and security and love – then dashed again, cast away like a piece of rubbish . . .’

  She turned her back on him, her shoulders shaking with sobs.