'Robert Greene.' Frank smiled at her. 'Fifteen eighty-nine. Menaphon.’ There was a boyish, eager look in his eye. 'Greene lived at the same time as Shakespeare. But it was Will who paraphrased Greene when he wrote, in The Merchant of Venice, "It's a wise father that knows his own child.”
Frank got up from the bed and fished for pencil and notebook in his jacket pocket. Then he came back and said, as he wrote it for her, ''Wise are the Children in these dayes that know their owne fathers, especially if they be begotten in Dogge daies when their mothers are frantick with love...” He tore out the page and handed it to her.
Elsie took it, read, looked up and said, 'What are dog days?'
He put an arm about her bare shoulders and brushed his mouth against her cheek. 'They are the long, hot days of summer. When the dog-star rises before the July dawn.'
Elsie turned her head so that he could kiss her mouth. 'That's how it was when our Lil..’
'And you were frantic with love,’ he said, as she pulled him down on to the bed again.
Chapter Seven
Mam said, 'You're going to elocution lessons.'
'Why?' Lily suspected it was because she now spoke with two voices. Her school voice was loud, and heavily accented.
'I want you to talk nicely. So you'll marry well.'
'Is that all it's for? So I can marry someone posh?' Lily was horrified at the thought. 'I can speak properly when I want to.'
'Nobody will marry a girl who yells and shouts in the street, Lil.'
'When I marry, I'll marry a good dad, I'm going to live in a big house in the hills, and have dozens of children. And I'm going to eat delicious food. Bacon and bananas every day.'
'Then you will need to marry a rich man,' said Mam.
'No, Mam.'
But she had to go - and she hated elocution; the teacher standing at one end of her parlour listening as the other girl and Lily recited by turns, 'Be goo-ood, swee-eet ma-id. And le-et who wi-ll be clairvah!' Every inflection was false and rehearsed and made a mockery of the poem. She did want to be a good, sweet maid but she did not want to speak that way.
'Enunciate! Enunciate!' the old spinster called out as Lily tried to speak deliberately and roundly. But at the end of the one term she vowed she would not go back. She discovered that Mam was at it again - paying for her lessons by sewing for the teacher. She had recently been shamed at the dancing class. The highlight of her week was Miss Sidebottom's Saturday morning Ballroom, Ballet and Tap for Girls class. It cost sixpence for an hour of sheer delight, practising ballet positions and partnering one another in the waltz and two-step. They had half an hour of clattering tap-dancing, and before going home the session ended with the modem dances like the Charleston and the Black Bottom that churchmen were calling 'a return to the jungle.'
On Saturday mornings all the little girls queued in the entryway of the big house on Roe Street where the class was held. Lily never spoke to anyone because she only knew the others by sight and they were all paired off. Once inside she would be in a lather of excitement; the very sight and smell of the dancing shoes in the changing room made her heart beat faster. Gold and silver kid pumps, satin ballet slippers and red leather tap shoes with red ribbon ties were set out in rows for the children, of whom she was one, who did not bring a shoe bag with their own dance shoes.
But first she had a palm-sweating charade to go through. The girls in front of her slapped down on the hall table their sixpenny pieces or their six heavy pennies, and the lady pianist let them through. And Lily was not to put anything down because Mam 'did a bit of sewing' for Miss Sidebottom in place of payment. She would slide past the table with her head high, bright red with embarrassment, hoping nobody would see that she had no money. Then one day it was not the lady pianist at the table. When Lily reached her, the new woman demanded her name before shouting over her shoulder, so everyone could hear, 'Is it Lily Stanway who doesn't pay?'
After that, Mam said she would never embarrass her again, yet here she was making her go to elocution, up to her old tricks. Lily determined to tackle her. When she did, Mam turned the tables on her, saying, 'You are always on the want. You want to learn everything that's going. I want! I want! That's all I hear.’
'Like what? What do I ask for?' She seldom asked for anything, knowing she wouldn't get it.
'Music lessons. Swimming lessons,' Mam said. 'Only last summer, all at once walking was not good enough. You wanted a bicycle. You begged me to buy you one.'
'I was hoping. But I didn't get one.' In fact Lily prayed for one every night. Every morning she ran outside, first thing, looking down the entryway to see if God had left her bike.
Mam was sharp. 'You'll have to earn money then, for a bike.’
'I wish I could.' There was nothing she wanted more than to have enough money. 'How?’
It was like a red rag to a bull, arguing with Mam. Anyone would think something else was wrong with Mam and she was taking it out on Lily. Mam said, 'How? You've a cheek. our Lil! There are girls younger than you going out cleaning to fetch a bit of money into the house.'
Lily did not answer, and Mam went on, 'The world's going to the dogs. American money's worthless. A stock-market crash on Wall Street. Mills closing. People with no work!' She was red with shouting. 'We'll never get out of it at this rate! I work my fingers to the bone and you expect me to spend hard-earned money on bicycles and dancing lessons!'
At any second Lily expected to feel the weight of Mam's hand across her·legs, but she did not flinch. 'Why don't you pay me for all the sewing I do?' She spend hours at night, treadling the machine and threading needles for Mam, since the gas light was bad for Mam's eyes.
Mam's hand came up. She was going to hit her. 'I had to sew for your lessons! I’m not made of money. Don't look like that!'
The coldness left Lily at once. Love for Mam flew out of her mind and, just as she had been when she fought Doreen, she burned to get her own back. She thought of a clever, sarcastic answer, put her shoulders back and stared Mam out. Then, with a sneer on her face, in a loud, flat Macclesfield accent she said, 'No money? How do you pay for yer booze at the Angel, then?' She saw the shock in Mam's eyes, but she did not stop. 'If you don't sew for booze, what do you do for it?'
There was a moment's silence before Mam smacked her over the head, harder than she had ever done. Lily overbalanced and fell to the floor. 'Don't ever question your mother,' Mam shouted. 'If it was not for you, I'd have finished up a lady.'
Lily would not put up with another minute of bullying. Not from Doreen and not from Mam. A flaring, reckless urge, a 'to hell with the consequences' impulse would come again and again to plague her, but this was only the second time in her life it had happened and she had not yet learned to recognise the loss of self-control that could make her insides boil with fury.
As she scrambled to her feet, she saw the shock in Mam's eyes and heard the stinging slap as she delivered it, right across Mam's face. She loved her Mam more than anyone in the world - her own lovely, beautiful Mam. And she hit her hard and heard herself crying, 'Don't blame me for the way you've finished up! If you are a drunken fool it's not my fault! I'll never, never, never pick you up off the floor again! Next time you fall down drunk, you can stop where you lie!'
Mam's blue eyes filled with tears but she made no retaliation. She went back into the shop, in silence.
Afterwards Lily was ashamed but could not say sorry. But she could pray that Mam had not turned against her for ever, and that Mam wouldn't tell Nanna and Grandpa about it. She tried to make amends, cleaning the house from top to bottom, opening the windows to air the rooms, closing the doors when the rooms were done, then scrubbing the stairs until the varnish was all but gone.
And Mam told Nanna and Grandpa. She must have said not to say anything, but Lil saw disappointment on Grandpa's face when he took her aside and in a voice deep with disappointment said, 'It's come to something, Lil. It's come to something when a girl lifts her hand against her moth
er.'
Not until then had it occurred to Lily that Mam was Grandpa's first concern. He was Mam's father. Mam came first with him and always would. Lily hung her head, knowing in her heart that it was right that Grandpa was chiding her. He loved Mam best and Lily knew the awful emptiness of having no father to champion her.
A few days later Mam said, 'If you want to earn a bit of money, why don't you make up a few pairs of camiknickers? You can keep your profit once you have paid for the material.'
Lily thought for a minute. 'What should I make them in? Celanese or silk?' Celanese, a rayon material that was said to be doing the silk mills out of business, was all the rage. They printed it at Chancellor's, tiny rosebuds on peach and pink and pale green. 'Will you teach me?'
'Yes, I'll teach you to be a dressmaker, if you like.’
‘Will Mr Chancellor let me have a few yards of Celanese?'
Mam thought for a minute, then she laughed. 'His father-in-law is dead. Frank's in charge now. Yes. I'll ask him. I am sure he'll do it.'
He did. After he had marked up the rent book he gave Lily one of his affectionate taps on the face and said, 'Well, our Lil! You are a resourceful young lass.' Then he laughed and said, 'Good lad, little 'un! Pay me when you've sold everything.'
Lily did not want him to say 'Good lad, little 'un' any longer. She kept her face straight. 'I have two shillings,' she said. Mam's jaw dropped. Lily had been saving her milk halfpennies - hiding them behind a loose brick in the lavvy. 'I'll consider what you have.' She might have been offering to buy one of his alehouses. 'I can put down two shillings. For good faith.'
The camisole sets, in flimsier styles and materials than Mam's, were gone within two weeks and Lily paid for the material and bought, for two guineas, a lovely bicycle that was shiny black all over, with a carrier on the back and a deep basket in front. And not content with one success now that she could make a little money, from that day on she always had something for sale in the shop -a pair of cami-knickers with matching shift, or a nightdress and peignoir. She would put them in the window when they were done – and there were hours of hand-sewn shell-edging in those sets - and within a week or two Mam would sell them. Mam kept a bit of money back, suggesting that they save it towards the day they could send her to St Bride's. Lily snorted in derision. 'I'm not going there! I love Beech Lane.'
Mr Hammond opened a savings account for her at his bank, and she gloated over the little red passbook. She was earning her own money at the age of eleven. It would be she who would save Mam and herself, get them 'out of it'. And at last she could pay for piano lessons, which she took at Lindow on a Saturday morning.
It was late November. Country men were predicting that 1930 would be the coldest winter ever, and it was bitterly cold at the back end of the year. Doreen's mother came for a fitting, and Doreen and Lily were sent outside to the back yard.
Lily was pleased with herself because Mr Chancellor had sent an invitation. She said, 'I've been asked to Chancellor's party.'
'You're going?' Doreen said, incredulous. 'It's only for the workers' children. Why have they asked you?'
The party was an annual affair. Every year there were photographs in the paper of a line of smiling, happy children clutching gifts.
'Why shouldn't they?' Lily said with a cocky air. It was the first time she had been invited.
Doreen said, 'My dad's the chief clerk. I go every year.'
'WeIl?' Lily tipped her head back' and looked down her nose.
Doreen’s mouth was working itself into a twist, then holding. 'You'll have to sit with the orphans,' she said. 'On the bottom table.'
Lily pulled her coat tight. 'I'm not an orphan. I have a Mam.'
'But you haven't got a dad. Never did have one.'
'I did. He was a hero.'
Doreen sniffed loudly and then flung over, in the taunting way she had, 'I bet you're no good at games. Postman's knock and that.'
Lily was good at playground games. She always won at hopscotch and tenzie against a wall with a tennis ball, where you had to do twisters and bouncers and under-the-Iegs. She hated team games and relieve-oh. But she had not heard of this one. 'What's postman's knock?'
Doreen looked pleased by this extra proof of her ignorance. Tomorrow she would jeer, 'Silly Lily can't play postman's knock.'
'I've never played postman's knock,' Lily said. 'How d'you play?'
Doreen gave one of her sly smiles. 'They give you a number, and if a boy calls it, you have to go outside with him and kiss him on the lips.'
Lily felt heat come into her face, spreading up from her neck, bathing it a shameful red. Doreen was making it up. There would be horrible boys at the party; boys who fought with girls and pulled their hair. She had to think up a clever answer. 'I won't tell anyone my number.'
'Ha! Ha!' Doreen jeered. 'They pin the number on you when you go in. You're blushing. You great baby!'
Lily tried to appear nonchalant but…it couldn’t be true. Could it? They couldn't make you kiss a boy…-could they? 'I don't like kissing. I don't want to kiss a boy...'
'You would like it if you practised,' Doreen said, full of experience.
'I would not.' She would die of fright if a boy kissed her.
Doreen was looking far away into the distance. 'If Ray Chancellor kisses you, you'll like it.' She leaned against the wall. 'I wish he'd kiss me. I saw him kissing Mollie Leadbetter up our alley. She liked it.'
Mollie Leadbetter was only ftfteen. Girls who went about with boys had to watch out or they'd get a bad name. Lily said, 'I would not like it. And I don't think Ray Chancellor would kiss Mollie Leadbetter.'
'He'd kiss anyone,' Doreen said. 'He says I'm pretty. I went to the mill with my dad, and when my dad wasn't looking Ray tickled me round the waist and said I was the prettiest girl in Macc.'
'I am not kissing anyone at the party: Lily said.
'You'll have to. If you don't want to kiss the boys you have to tell Mr Chancellor. You can't refuse to go.'
The thought of telling Mr Chancellor that she did not want to be kissed was worse than suffering a kiss from a boy. But she was saved. Mrs Grimshaw came to the back door, calling ·out for Doreen.
'Isn't that right, Mam?' Doreen looked back at Lily as she sauntered towards her mother. 'You have to kiss the boys at the mill party?'
Mrs Grimshaw gave her clucking laugh, like Nanna's hens after an egg was laid. 'It's only a bit of fun. Silly girl.'
Lily had to say something before Doreen spread it all over school that she was a baby. 'I'm particular!' she shouted across to them both. 'I am particular who I kiss!'
'Well, you don't get that from your Mam!' Doreen called back. 'My Mam says that your Man's been kissed by every man in Macc.' She turned her head then, and began to say, 'Isn't that right...l' but Mrs Grimshaw was setting about Doreen's head and face, slapping and shouting, 'You are a wicked girl, our Doreen! I don't know who teaches you such things!' She took Doreen roughly by the shoulder and dragged her, protesting, into the house.
Lily was spared the ordeal of the Christmas party. Mr and Mrs Hammond were giving a children's party on the very afternoon of the mill party, the Saturday before Christmas. The invitation had arrived and been accepted for her by Nanna, though neither Nanna nor Lily could have foreseen that the three young men she would fall in love with would all be at the wonderful Christmas party at Archerfield.
The day of the party was bright and sparkling with sun and frost. When it was light Lily dressed and ran down the stairs, past the kitchen door where Nanna was raking cinders from the range. The garden wall was high, so, putting the toe of her boot into a crack in the wall, she heaved up, looking along the lane. The sky was pale blue, the grass at the edges of the roadway was stiff and starchy white, and through the open gateway she saw the rhododendron bushes, dark and rimed with silvery frost. The only sound was the water of the brook tumbling over its stony bed, until slowly this sound became overlaid with a growing mechanical noise. In a noisy gear a
taxi cab was climbing the hill.
It reached the top and with a crashing of gears picked up speed. Lily was only a foot or two from them but none of them saw her: a man wearing a tweed cape and huge checked cap, a dark-haired young man, and a girl a little older than herself who was wearing a coat and beret of rich red tartan. On the flat luggage place sat two great trunks, fastened about with address labels and pasted-on stickers.
She ran into the kitchen. 'Nanna! I've just seen a taxi. Going to Archerfield. Full of Scotch people.' Nanna laughed. 'Scotch is name o't whisky. People are Scottish.'
'Are they Magnus's cousins? The ones I've never met?'
'Yes. They are here for Christmas this year. Hammonds are going to Scotland for New Year.' Today she was going to her very first party. And she was going to meet Rowena and Ian Mackenzie. Magnus and Sylvia had talked about their cousins for years. Lily's stomach was churning with excitement.
At two o'clock on the day of his thirteenth birthday party, Magnus stood before the washbasin in the bathroom and carefully placed a dollop of Father's brilliantine into the palm of his left hand. This was how it was done. He glanced into the big mahogany-framed glass over the basin and, pleased with what he saw, rubbed his palms together quickly and ran sticky hands over his blond, flyaway hair. Next he rinsed his hands and took from the shelf Father's two silver-backed hairbrushes and wielded them about his head, trying to get the action right, the way he'd seen Father do it. 'OK. OK .. OK...' he said as he laid the brushes down and carefully made a very straight parting with the tortoise- shell comb he kept in his breast pocket. Then he gave a little frown into the glass, practising his expressions. He was a man. Well, from the neck up he was. There was the misshapen ankle that the last of the knocks had left him with. But his shoes were specially made to correct the slight shortening of his left leg and the in-turned foot. He stared at his reflection and tried the sardonic smile of the hero in that romance he had read. He had asked the kitchen maid to lend him her book. The hero was blond and he had a limp and a sardonic smile.
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