by Maggie Hope
Alf opened his eyes. Sister was at the bottom of the bed.
‘My wife cannot be coming right down here, Sister,’ Alf replied. ‘She has two bairns.’
‘Catterick is not the end of the world, Private,’ Sister replied before giving him two codeine tablets, smiling dismissively and moving on to the next bed.
It might as well be, thought Alf, as he closed his eyes again and waited for the pain to ease.
When the postman brought the letter from Catterick, Sadie stood with it in her hand, staring at it. She dreaded what it might tell her: that Alf was sentenced to prison for years, that he might even be going to die. Her heart thudded in her breast and her hand trembled.
‘Is it from Daddy?’ asked Cath.
‘No, it’s from the army,’ said Sadie. The address was typewritten and the envelope a coarse brown paper. Sadie hated brown envelopes; they were usually bad news, like a bill or telling of a cut in the rations. But this was from the army, and they might have stopped his pay because he was in such trouble.
‘I’ll open it if you like,’ said Cath and held out her hand. But Sadie slapped it away with such a sharp blow that Cath’s hand stung.
‘I’ll open it myself,’ cried Sadie. ‘Mind your own business, you sly little cat.’ Cath rubbed at the red mark that had come up on her hand.
Sadie opened the envelope and took out the single sheet. She read it through slowly, mouthing the words like a little child. Then she read it again as though she hadn’t believed it the first time, and smiled.
‘Is Daddy coming home?’ Cath ventured. Please God, let it be that Daddy was coming home. She clutched Annie, who had come to her and was leaning against her leg with her thumb in her mouth.
Sadie opened her arms and grabbed at them both and danced around the room with them, laughing. ‘They think it was an accident, a real accident!’ She cried and laughed and hugged the two children. ‘I can go to see him tomorrow.’
‘Is he all right? Is he better, Mam? Can we go?’ Cath asked breathlessly when the wild careering round the room stopped.
‘No, you can’t go, it’s a long way is Catterick. Any road, I couldn’t afford the fare for you an’ all. And I don’t think they let kids in. You’ll have to stop at home and mind the bairn.’
Cath was crushed. She sat down and tried to hide her disappointment. Annie was still laughing with her mam, though she wasn’t quite sure what it was all about.
‘Aw, don’t look so bloody miserable, our Cath,’ Sadie snapped. ‘You look like a wet week. Hadaway down the store and get a packet of biscuits, I’ve enough points left on the ration card. We’ll have a bit of a treat after our dinner. Then you can mind the bairn while I go out this afternoon.’
She was going out with that Keith Armstrong, Cath knew it. Even though her daddy would be coming home soon. She walked down to the shop and stood in the queue with a sixpence clutched in one hand and the ration card in the other. The store had custard creams and the jammy biscuits with a hole in the middle, and Cath dithered for a moment before choosing custard creams.
Mrs Holmes looked at her ration card when it came to her turn. ‘You can have half a pound,’ she said. ‘If you have the money, that is.’ She grinned knowingly at the women waiting in the queue. They all knew Sadie Raine and her spendthrift ways.
Cath handed over her sixpence, her face burning, but she spoke up for herself. ‘Half a pound for fourpence ha’penny, that’s what it says. That’s three ha’pence change.’
‘Well,’ said Mrs Holmes, ‘so long as it hasn’t to go on the slate.’
Cath ran back with the bag of biscuits, through the rows to Smith Street. Mam had made a sort of stew with corned beef and onions, carrots and potatoes and even put in a few dumplings. The dumplings were lovely, though a bit hard to chew because Sadie was unused to cooking much since Alf went away and she had no suet; but still, she added a bit of margarine and the meal was lovely. She saved half the custard creams to take to the hospital for Alf.
‘I have to take something, haven’t I?’ she said, and Cath nodded. ‘Can I get some sweets with the change? We’ve plenty sweet coupons,’ she asked. ‘It’s only three ha’pence.’
Sadie was in such a good mood that she nodded. She was putting on her eyebrow pencil at the time, standing near to the fire to look up into the mirror over the mantel, and it took all of her concentration to get the line straight.
It was a lovely day even though Cath couldn’t go to see her daddy. After her mam went off on the bus from the end of the rows she and Annie walked back to the shop. They went along the short cut on the play field between the sandpit and the clay hole and along by the trenches the Home Guard had dug to practise in. Annie ran about and jumped and Cath warned her not to fall in one of the trenches, and then they were out on the road. It was hot and tar bubbled up at the sides of the tarmac, black and shining in the sun.
They bought two ha’penny sherbet dips and a ha’porth of treacle toffee and wandered back home sucking at the sticky toffee. Cath thought about her daddy coming home, and it was as good as the day when Russia came into the war and everyone was happy about it because Russia was so big and now she was on their side.
Sadie walked up the ward towards Alf and every eye in the ward was turned to watch her. She practically bounced rather than walked; she had touched up her hair with peroxide and it fell on her shoulders like Veronica Lake’s, and she wore a Robin Hood hat with a jaunty feather sat over one eye. She had seen it in Doggart’s window in Auckland and gone into raptures over it, and of course Keith had bought it for her. That was before she told him that Alf was coming home.
Keith had been in a terrible temper after that. He’d said he wouldn’t give her up and he would come round to the house and tell that damned coward what he could do about it.
‘Oh, go to hell,’ Sadie had told him. She almost threw the bag with the hat in at him but reconsidered just in time. Anyway, it had given her a good excuse to finish with him altogether. ‘I mean,’ she said to herself, ‘look what Alf did to himself, and all for me.’
All this went through her mind as she walked down the ward, smiling at the patients on either side. And there was Alf, her lovely man. Though he didn’t look very lovely at the minute. Pale and wan he looked, and there were lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
‘Eeh, Alf, pet,’ she cried and flung herself on him, kissing him over and over and leaving red smudges on his face from her lipstick. ‘How are you feeling? I knew you didn’t do it on purpose, I knew you didn’t!’ She took a hankie from her handbag and rubbed at the marks. ‘Sorry, pet, you’re all lipstick,’ she laughed.
In spite of everything that had happened Alf felt a surge of feeling for her: the sexy smell of her, the sight of the tops of her breasts as she leaned forward and her blouse fell open showing the white skin.
‘Gerroff, man,’ he said gruffly and pushed her hand away. ‘Don’t make a show of me!’
‘Aren’t you glad to see me, Alf?’
‘Yes, of course I am, it’s not much fun lying here on your own when all the others have visitors,’ he replied. Sadie’s big blue eyes filled with tears.
‘You don’t care any more,’ she said.
‘Aye I do, just don’t take on, like,’ said Alf. He patted her hand. ‘I’ll be coming home next week, the doctor said I could.’
‘Will you be going back, Alf?’
Sadie’s mood changed quicker than the weather now she had Alf’s reassurance.
‘Depends on the foot,’ said Alf. Now he’d had time to think, he regretted having done what he did. The fact was, he missed the lads of the DLI, and now they had landed on Sicily and were advancing he wanted to be part of it. As if to remind him that this wasn’t likely now, his foot started to throb. ‘They won’t want anything to do with me now, any road,’ he said glumly. ‘Not me marras, like.’
‘I don’t want you to go, Alf,’ said Sadie. ‘The bairns miss you an’ all.’
‘Aw
, don’t be so soft,’ Alf replied. ‘Some of me marras have been away for years. How d’you think their women cope? They do, that’s all.’
‘I know that, Alf,’ said Sadie. She cast around in her mind for a good reason why it was worse for her and found one. ‘I think I might be expecting another bairn, Alf.’ She looked at him sideways through lashes thick with mascara.
‘You what?’
‘It’s true, Alf. I told you to be careful, didn’t I?’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Alf. ‘And are you going to get rid of this one? Sell the poor little bugger, will you?’
‘No, Alf, I wouldn’t!’
‘Not if I’m at home you won’t,’ said Alf and grasped her wrist hard so that she squealed.
‘Let go, you’re hurting me!’
‘I’ll hurt you all right,’ Alf said savagely. But he let go of her wrist and lay back on his pillows. He had always boasted that he had never hit a woman but by, she brought him close to it, she did.
‘Is it mine? Tell us the truth, now.’
‘Why aye it’s yours, who else’s would it be?’ Sadie opened her eyes as wide as they would go and gazed at him. ‘You know you were there all right, don’t you?’
Alf stared back at her. Her expression was open, she looked outraged. Below the line of the bed her fingers were crossed. He couldn’t see them but he knew it. He knew her through and through.
An orderly came to the door of the ward and rang a bell.
‘Time!’ he shouted.
‘Oh, Alf,’ Sadie whispered, her blue eyes filling with tears. ‘I won’t see you till next week now.’ She leaned over the bed and kissed him on the lips. Her full breasts brushed against his arm and he felt a surge of desire despite the ache in his foot. He glanced around at the other men to see if anyone had noticed her display of affection but they all seemed to be occupied with their own leave-takings.
‘I might be home by then,’ he said, pulling his arm away from her.
Sadie stood up straight. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ she asked. ‘This bairn is yours, Alf.’
‘Aye well,’ said Alf, his tone noncommittal.
After she’d gone he found the packet of Woodbines in his top drawer and took one out. He lit it with the lighter made from a rifle bullet and took such a long drag at it that the cigarette burned halfway down, the tip glowing brightly. He held it with the lighted end turned inward towards the palm of his hand, automatically hiding the glow from any enemy.
Another bairn, he thought. He had to stay now, and when his foot healed he would have to go back down the pit. But by heck, Sadie would have to behave herself after all he had been through; she would an’ all.
Chapter Five
‘I told you not to come back any more.’
Cath was pulling handfuls of the long grass which grew behind the rackety old shed where Marina’s dad kept his hens. At least, he used to keep his hens there before he went off to the Middle East, but now old Mr Peart from West Row came up and looked after them. The grass was for the rabbits that her dad kept in the yard. He’d just got the rabbits this week and they were small, with lovely black and white fur, and Cath loved to feed them.
She paused now and looked towards the corner of the shed where the voice had come from. Her mam’s voice it was, and she sounded a bit panicky.
‘I had to come, Sadie,’ a man’s voice said, and Cath felt her heart beat rapidly in her chest. It was the Canadian airman.
Cath glanced over her shoulder at the path that led up at the bottom of the gardens where the old wagon way used to be. Supposing her dad came up that way from the club?
‘Well, you can just go back to Darlington,’ said Sadie. But she didn’t sound angry or anything. Not like she did when Cath went somewhere she wasn’t supposed to go. It was very quiet except for the clucking and scratching of the chickens in the wire-enclosed dirt run.
‘Sadie, I can’t forget you,’ said Keith. ‘I was on a raid last night and all I could think of was getting back and seeing you again.’
‘Don’t be daft, Keith,’ said Sadie. ‘I’m married.’
‘So you were before,’ said Keith. ‘Look at him, will you, honey? He’s a cripple for God’s sake! He’ll never amount to anything.’
‘Don’t you say nowt about my Alf,’ said Sadie, her voice sharper now. Cath peeped around the corner. They were standing close together, the man with Canada strips on his shoulders and her mam. She pulled back quickly and held her breath as her mam turned her head and looked towards her. But Mam must not have seen her for she carried on talking.
‘You’ll have to go, Alf will be coming home,’ Sadie said. ‘Go on, and don’t come back.’
‘I’ll go,’ Keith said. ‘But I’ll be back, I promise you. I’m not going to give up.’ Cath shrank against the wall as he strode away along the path to Coundon. After a moment Cath heard the engine of his MG roar into life and then fade into the distance. He must have left it where the path met the top road.
‘Now, madam, what are you doing hiding behind there? Waggling your ears again so that you can tell your dad? You sneaky little bitch, you’d better not or I’ll swing for you, I will, I’m telling you.’
Cath had been wrong, Mam had seen her; she must have done, for she bent over her and grabbed her forearm in a painful grip and pulled her to her feet. Bits of grass floated to the ground as Sadie swung her arm back and fetched Cath a blow across the ear that made her head ring. For a minute the pain was blinding and Cath closed her eyes tight and dug her teeth into her top lip, but she didn’t cry.
Sadie bent until her face was close to Cath’s. ‘You’d best keep your mouth shut, hadn’t you, my lass? Never saw a thing, did you?’
Cath shook her head, more to clear it than in answer to Sadie. Opening her eyes, she saw the figure of her father in the distance, walking up the dirt path of the old wagon way.
‘Mind what I said now,’ Sadie warned. She went up the garden to the house and Cath squatted down with her head bent over. She started to pull at the grass and stuff it into the sack.
‘Is that for the rabbits? You’re a good lass,’ her father’s voice came from just above her, and she sat down on her bottom and looked up at him. ‘Have you been crying?’ he asked. ‘Your ear looks red.’
‘I fell and bumped it on a stone,’ said Cath.
‘Aye well, no need to weep over it,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen many a man in the desert with worse than that and he hasn’t blared about it.’
‘I’m not blaring,’ said Cath. She gazed up at Alf. His foot was out of plaster now and he walked with a stick but she wouldn’t have said he was a cripple. ‘Is your foot going to get better altogether, Dad?’
‘I expect so,’ Alf replied. ‘I’ll be good as new in a week or two. Are you coming back to feed the rabbits now?’
‘In a minute. I want to dig up some worms for the hens first.’ Cath watched as he limped up the garden path. It wasn’t much of a limp, she thought; he wasn’t a cripple! She went over to the wire netting enclosing the hen run and began digging outside it for worms. The hens clucked excitedly and came over to her. She found a few worms and pushed them through the netting and the hens scrambled for them. But then she began to wonder what it was like for the worms and stopped. Might as well go back and feed the rabbits, she thought. She rubbed her ear absent-mindedly as she trailed the sack up the path, around to the end of the row and into the back yard to the rabbits.
‘Cath? Howay in, lass, there’s news,’ Alf called from the back door. He was beaming as he disappeared back into the kitchen. Cath dropped the sack by the rabbit hutch and brushed bits of grass off her dress before following him in.
‘Who’s a clever clogs, then? Winning a scholarship to the grammar school!’ Sadie greeted her. The letter was on the table, a page of paper headed DURHAM COUNTY COUNCIL. It was lying on the American oilcloth among the dirty plates from dinner time.
She picked it up and read it through. It was true: the council was offering
her a scholarship to Bishop Auckland Girls’ County School. Elation flooded her; she could hardly wait to get back to school to see who else was going with her.
‘Well, don’t get too excited,’ said Mam.
‘What do you mean?’ Dad demanded.
‘Well, she can’t go, can she? We can’t afford it for a start. Not with you on the sick, like.’
‘Aye, she’ll go,’ said Dad. ‘I’m not going to be on the sick for ever, am I? An’ I’ll get my discharge from the army and go back down the pit. There’s plenty of pit work. Why, they’re crying out for hewers. And the pay’s not so bad now.’
‘They might decide you can go back to the army,’ said Mam.
Cath looked from one to the other. They seemed to have forgotten her as they argued.
‘If they do you’ll get your allowance, won’t you?’
‘Such as it is,’ said Mam, her tone scathing. ‘She would have to have a uniform an’ all. Where’s that coming from?’
Sadie turned to Cath as though the necessity for the uniform was the decisive argument. That was it, she couldn’t go to the grammar school. ‘Wash the pots up, Cath, and be quick about it. It’s nearly time for our tea.’
Cath gazed at her dad imploringly. He was looking at her mam as though he hated her. But she knew it would be her mam who made the final decision and it looked as though she had already done so. She brought the washing-up bowl and poured a ladle full of water in it from the boiler by the side of the fire and added Rinso and washing soda, swishing it around before washing the plates and cups and putting them on the tin tray which served as a draining board. She dried the pots and put them away and took the dirty water to the sink in the yard and poured it away.
‘I’ll talk to her, Cath,’ said her dad. He was squatting on his hunkers by the coal-house wall smoking a Woodbine and watching her.
‘It won’t do any good,’ said Cath dully.
‘Yes, it will,’ he replied. ‘It’ll be all right. Any road, at least you know you were good enough to be picked. That’s something, isn’t it?’
‘Dad!’