Emma Sparrow

by Marie Joseph

  She had closed her mind against the pathetic, drooping, gasping little man, with his pyjama jacket buttoned up to his chin, and his brown hair sticking up at the back in an untidy tuft. How could she possibly love this weak, snivelling little man who lost one job after another? A father who spent money that should have gone on food and clothes on cigarettes and drink? How could she retain the slightest feeling for him, let alone experience this abiding love that sometimes ached through her body like a physical pain?

  ‘Why did they give you the sack, Dad? You’ve not been pinching again? You wouldn’t be such a fool, would you?’

  With one eye on the alarm clock ticking away, she still had to ask that.

  His glance shifted away from her. ‘Too long a story now, love. I’ll tell you about it tonight, eh?’ His eyes followed hers to the clock. ‘You’ll have to buck up if you don’t want to be late. That clock’s a good five minutes slow, and you know what the buses are like this time of a morning. Come when they feel like it. They have card schools down at the depot, that’s why there’s two come together with long waits in between.’

  ‘Oh, Dad….’

  Emma pushed the wayward strand of hair behind an ear and reached for another blouse. He really thought he was being kind and considerate reminding her it was time to get off to work. He took it for granted that when he opted out, she would be the breadwinner.

  And why had he lost another job? There had been something in his face … shame she would have called it if she hadn’t known him better. The usual reason was that the job was too demanding, too hard, too shut in, too heavy. But this time he had not been asked to do long-distance trucking. This time, because of the letter from the Welfare, the work had been local, light and reasonably well paid. So why? With one fine, and one suspended sentence behind him. Surely? No! He’d promised, with tears in his eyes.

  ‘We do the blouses on the machine, and with dresses and suits we use the stripping machine for edgings and finish the bound buttonholes off by hand.’

  Harry Gordon’s voice startled her so that her fingers were stilled for a moment.

  ‘Emma. Show Mr Martin how the new stripping machine works.’

  Turning her head, Emma stared straight into the dark eyes of the man directly behind her. And for a moment Simon saw that she was struggling to make the transition from some far away place. He saw the intelligence in the amber-flecked eyes, and felt again the illogical urge to stretch out a hand towards her.

  ‘If you will come over here, sir.’ Emma led the way to the first of the round machines, and began to explain how it worked.

  ‘Do you enjoy your job here, Emma?’ He could at least ask that.

  ‘It’s a job, sir.’ Emma sat down in front of the circular machine and picked up a jacket.

  ‘But that’s all?’

  She took a length of silk braid, her head lowered as she fed it into the machine.

  ‘It brings in quite good money.’

  ‘And that is all-important?’

  ‘As a matter of fact, it is, sir.’

  ‘But what about job satisfaction?’ He was making a fool of himself. He could feel the other machinists watching them carefully. ‘Surely these days…?’

  ‘If you will watch me now, sir.’

  Emma Sparrow was deliberately ignoring him, and Simon stepped back as smartly as if she had slapped him across the face.

  Two

  ‘YOU’LL HAVE TO tell me some time, Dad, so why not now?’

  Emma had sent a pair of grumbling boys off to bed, stood at the bottom of the stairs as they fought a rearguard action on every step, shouted in vain through a locked bathroom door at Sharon who had been ensconced inside for almost an hour, and washed the tea things before giving the kitchen floor a swift wipe over.

  ‘I’ll tell you summat, our Emma. You go more like your mother every day.’ John Sparrow shifted in his chair, then got up and turned the television sound up as if to show that what his daughter had to say would fall on deaf ears.

  Goaded beyond endurance Emma immediately switched off the set and stood with her back to it.

  ‘It’s no good, Dad. I’m the one who balances the budget, so I have a right to know. An’ saying what you’ve said won’t help. I know all about my mother. You’ve told me often enough.’ She sat down in the chair at the other side of the glowing electric fire. ‘She left you when I was not much more than a baby. But why did she do that? Why did she go off with somebody else? You forget to say you had more or less moved Mam in with you. An’ the man my mother went off with didn’t want to start married life with a baby, and Mam, being the way she was, didn’t mind taking me on. I wish you would tell me something good about my mother for a change.’

  ‘Her own flesh and blood.’ John Sparrow pulled at this lower lip, then lit a cigarette. ‘What woman could leave a babby scarcely out of nappies? An’ why did I take up with someone else? Because I couldn’t stand her nagging, that’s why. Like a bloody gramophone she was, an’ now it seems we’ve come full circle.’ He drew deeply on the cigarette and started to cough, a deep cough that brought tears to his eyes. ‘I’ll tell you something, lass. That lad of yours won’t be hanging around here much longer if you keep on. There are some women who can’t help it, you know. Nag, nag, nag. Just for the sake of it. It’s enough to drive any man to drink.’

  ‘That’s why you lost your job, isn’t it?’ Emma tried to keep careful control of her voice, knowing that if she once gave in to her feelings she would scream at him, ranting and raving like the woman next door. ‘You got the sack because you had been drinking. Even though you know that drinking on a driving job means instant dismissal. You knew that, and yet you did it. Why?’

  Her father leaned over in a paroxysm of coughing, clutching at his chest, the veins on his forehead standing out. ‘A little nip,’ he muttered, when he had found some semblance of control. ‘Just a little nip to keep out the cold. We had to hang about the depot waiting for some stuff to come in, and I felt me chest coming on again, so all I did was warm meself up a bit.’ He thumped the front of his much-washed sweater. ‘It was that so-called supervisor copped me. Had it in for me right from the beginning, he had. Walking about with his clipboard and acting like God Almighty. What does he know about driving on icy roads, and being booked for bloody parking? All he does is sit on his backside in his bloody office with a fan heater blowing out warm air to keep him snug. He’d wipe the manager’s arse for him if he was asked to. That’s the sort of man he is.’

  ‘Did they give you a reference, Dad?’ Emma heard Sharon clattering her way down the stairs on her too-high heels, and her voice rose higher. ‘Dad! We’ve got to get this family in some sort of order, an’ we can only do that if you try. Did you get a reference, this time? Well?’

  Ignoring them, Sharon walked straight through the living-room into the kitchen, the collar of her black coat pulled up high so that only the made-up eyes and the tip of her nose showed above. Emma followed, and heard the television blare into instant ear-shattering sound. She rubbed at her eyes like a child. ‘Sharon? This is three nights now on the trot. Sharon! This is a family house, not a boarding house. I’ve just been trying to talk to Dad, but it’s hopeless.’ She watched as Sharon took a final peep at herself in the round shaving mirror over the sink. ‘Did you know that he lost his job through drinking? Do you even know how much the rent is now?’ To her dismay Emma heard her voice break on the verge of lost control. ‘Alan’s gone through his shoes again, and the last pair was twelve pounds! Twelve pounds for a pair of shoes for a boy of ten. And I don’t know what the electric bill will be next time. Dad keeps all three bars on all day when he’s at home.’

  Sharon turned from the mirror, her small face anxious above the ridiculous highwayman’s collar. ‘Emma? You’re not going to cry?’ She rummaged in the small plastic shoulder-bag and took out a crumpied five pound note. ‘See, I don’t need much spending money, not when I’m going out with Ricky. Take this and I’ll give you extra w
hen I give you my whack on Friday.’ She came close so that Emma was engulfed in a wave of cheap scent. ‘It’s not fair on you, our Emma. I know that, but things will work out; they always do.’

  She gave Emma’s arm a little shake. ‘Why don’t you go out a bit more? What about that Ben who was always round? He never looked as if much bothered him. You don’t get enough laughs, that’s what’s wrong.’ She lifted her head in a listening gesture. ‘Did you hear a horn just then? I’d better be outside when Ricky comes. He’s like one of them heroes in a love story. Must be the boss, or else.’

  Planting a quick kiss on Emma’s cheek, she rushed out through the living-room, round the back of her father’s chair, into the square of a hall, banging the door behind her. As Emma walked back slowly into the living-room she heard the roar of an engine, fading away until everything was still once again.

  ‘I’m going to wash my hair, Dad.’

  Through a haze of cigarette smoke John Sparrow nodded without slewing his eyes a fraction to either side. Emma walked slowly upstairs, heard laughter and ominous thumps coming from behind the boys’ bedroom door, and resolutely turned her back on it.

  She stared round the bathroom in dismay. It was a mess; highly-coloured bath salts littered the vinyl floor like scented crumbs left from a cake, Sharon’s work sweater and skirt drooped over the plastic dirty-linen tub, an unsqueezed flannel had wedged itself into the plug-hole of the bath, and a tube of tooth-paste without its cap lay in the washbowl next to a pair of eyebrow tweezers.

  Emma picked up a damp towel, wiped the mirror with it, and saw her face. It was shiny, pink and devoid of make-up. Her eyes looked enormous and were ringed with strain. Even her nose looked pinched, and her mouth was set into a grim line. That was her face. She was twenty years old, and she was turning into a pasty-faced shrew, a nagger, like her father had said. A spoiler of joy, a penny-pincher, a tired drab. And what was it that Mr Martin had said that morning? ‘But what about job satisfaction?’

  She pulled the restraining ribbon from her hair with a fierce tug. Oh, Mr Boss’s son Martin. What did he know about job satisfaction? Standing behind her in his dark suit and his oh so white shirt. She had thought he was nice, kind even, but Ben was right. Oh yes, Ben was sometimes right. They saw you, the bosses, looked straight at you even, but they weren’t really seeing you. To Mr Martin she was just a number, a bottom on the seat of a buttonhole machine. Emma ran the taps and bent her head over the washbowl.

  ‘But, please God, don’t let me natter too much. I do it, I know. I can hear my voice going on in my own head over and over.’ She poured some of Sharon’s yellow lemon-smelling shampoo on to her head and began to lather it in. But perhaps if someone listened to her, she would not need to nag. The boys, well they were just ordinary boys, telly-mad, scruffy, fighting and rolling over the floor when their energy had to be expended inside the house. Sharon … she was just all out for a good time and honest about it. There was no real harm in Sharon.

  Emma rinsed, then applied more shampoo.

  And her dad … she could never decide whether it was his weak chest and constant bronchial setbacks that made him so helpless, or whether he had been born dead lazy. She groped with tightly shut eyes for the attachment for the taps. It never had fitted properly. Her mother, her own mother, must have been goaded beyond endurance to make her leave the house and the town with a man who flatly refused to take a small daughter. What kind of woman was she, for heaven’s sake? Emma tried to imagine herself deserting a child of her own – tried and failed.

  She brushed and dried her long hair into a drape of brown silk turning slightly up at the ends and swinging towards her face. If she tried the same reasoning powers on the family that she used on herself, instead of trying to force them into cooperating, maybe they would all benefit.

  This time the mirror showed her a smooth face with shining hair framing it. Even her mouth seemed to be a better shape. Emma smiled and wrinkled her nose at herself.

  ‘Positive thoughts,’ she said aloud. ‘Sweet reasoning, and no more yelling. Okay?’ then she went downstairs to put up the ironing board in the living-room so that she could watch television with her father as she worked.

  ‘Good play, Dad?’ Her voice was determinedly cheerful as she tried to live up to her resolution right away.

  ‘Rubbish. Nowt but bloody rubbish. Don’t know who writes the things, nor who puts them on. I can tell now that it’s going to be one that finishes when you think it’s only halfway through. Nowt solved, nowt decided. Rubbish!’

  ‘Then why watch it?’ Emma laid a shirt over the board and did the lap, giving the iron a chance to hot up. ‘Switch it off and talk to me.’

  ‘What about?’ John Sparrow turned in his chair and regarded her with suspicion. ‘I’ve told you, it was through me having the smell of drink on me, that was all.’

  For a brief second Emma’s hand was still as she forgot she was holding an iron. Then she snatched it away from the shirt and laid it down on the asbestos mat at the side of the board. She had heard that whining note in her father’s voice before and always, always when he was in some sort of trouble.

  Closing her eyes she reminded herself of the conversation she had held with herself upstairs. Because of circumstances the papers would have said were beyond her control, she was never able to be really herself. It wasn’t in her nature to be constantly suspicious of her own family. From the look on her dad’s face right now it would seem that he was almost afraid of her, and sometimes when she yelled at the boys upstairs they would exchange glances as if to say ‘here she goes again’.

  And yet there was this pricking at the back of her neck, a warning prickle telling her that her dad was keeping something from her, something he was willing himself to tell.

  ‘There’s a can of beer in the fridge, I think. Shall I go and get it for you?’ She smiled. ‘And I’ll have a drop of it myself. Ironing’s thirsty work.’

  ‘It wasn’t just the drink,’ John said, turning away so that his voice came from the back of his head. ‘I’d got some bits of things in the back of the van, and with that mealy-mouthed bloke sending me straight off there wasn’t the chance to put them back.’

  ‘Put them back where?’ Emma put a hand over her mouth in a childish gesture.

  ‘In the stores.’

  ‘What were they, Dad?’

  ‘Boxes of spare parts. Small bits, but worth a bob or two, being hard to come by.’ Her father started to cough, beating his chest and gasping for breath.

  Patiently Emma waited until he had finished. ‘You mean you’d pinched them, Dad? Pinched them to sell again? Oh, dear God! And they’re bound to be found?’

  ‘Unless one of me mates gets there first, but knowing what I know they’ll be found all right.’ He blew a cloud of smoke which rose like ectoplasm above his head. ‘I did it for you, lass. I know what it’s like trying to feed and dress them two upstairs decent, and Sharon hardly pays for what she eats. I was going to save the money I got and not tell you, then maybe this summer we could have gone away for a few days.’ He started to cough again. ‘It was no skin off their nose. There’s more stuff wasted than what I nicked. I was only taking the same as what the bosses take.’ He turned round in his chair. ‘What about them with their company cars and their business lunches? We don’t get no perks, not my sort. Bleed you dry, they will, then give you the sack as easily as brushing a fly off their rice pudding.’

  ‘Dad!’ In spite of her resolution Emma’s voice came out like a bark from a sergeant-major. ‘I’m not your judge and jury, so stop trying to justify what you’ve done.’ She bent down and pulled the plug from the skirting board. ‘Where will that van be now? Right now? It’s prison this time, Dad, you know that.’

  John Sparrow blinked twice. ‘Why? What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Where will it be?’

  ‘At the depot, of course. In the sheds with all the rest.’

  ‘And will there be anyone there now? Anyon
e working nights? Any of the maintenance staff? Any of the mechanics?’

  He rubbed his chin. ‘There could be, but I doubt it. Since they had to cut costs there’s not much night work done … nay, I doubt it. Why? Why, lass?’

  But Emma was already running upstairs for her coat, tying a headscarf round her newly-washed hair, calling out to her father that she would be back, that if she were lucky there might still be time ….

  The bus was just trundling away from the stop, but the Pakistani driver, with a grin to match his ebullient nature, stopped and opened the doors to let her in.

  ‘You training for the Olympics, ma’am?’ he took Emma’s fare, then waited to start the bus until he saw she had found a seat, quite unperturbed when she returned his smile with a vacant stare that dismissed him as if he were not there.

  ‘Takes all sorts,’ he told himself in a Lancashire accent at variance with his dark skin. ‘But that face was meant to smile, weren’t it?’

  ‘It was all locked up and in darkness,’ Emma told Sharon, who came in at just after midnight, glowing and happy with her lipstick smeared and her hair mussed. ‘He’s gone to bed, but he says it will mean the police.’ She followed Sharon through into the kitchen. ‘He doesn’t seem to realize that it could mean prison. He seems to think he was only taking what was his due.’

  ‘The stupid bugger!’ Sharon lit the gas and put the kettle on. ‘The stupid ignorant bugger. Course he’ll get prison this time. Oh, God, and Ricky and me talked about getting engaged tonight.’ She dropped a tea bag into a mug. ‘Now you know why I wouldn’t bring him in. Ricky’s father’s strict Chapel, so how could I bring him in to meet our dad sitting there cough ing and spitting? Oh, God! Fancy having a gaol bird for a dad.’ She poured a stream of boiling water on to the tea bag and stirred it round with a spoon. ‘I expect we’ll have to go and see him and talk to him through a grille like they do on the telly. Well, if he thinks I’ll go he’s got another think coming.’