‘An idea?’
‘Aye, lass. Now Caleb tells me you’ve got the chance of a job as receptionist in a hotel in Roker, not far from where you’ve been staying. Is that right?’
Esther nodded. She had seen the job advertised in the Echo and taken herself along to the hotel in question, to find out more about it and how to apply, not knowing if she would even be considered for the post, never having worked in a hotel before. As she had been talking to the present receptionist, who was leaving to have a baby within the month, the manager of the hotel had passed by and heard the conversation. Pausing, he had hovered for a minute or two and then made himself known, asking Esther if she would like to accompany him to his office.
Mr Dimple was a wily individual, and had immediately seen the advantage of having someone who spoke and conducted themselves like Esther, in the front of the hotel. She was a cut above, he told himself, and the impression that guests would receive – either over the telephone or speaking to Esther in person – would do the reputation of his establishment no harm at all. After a kind of interview, he had offered her the position then and there, at a starting wage of three pounds per week until she was fully trained: three shillings more than she had been earning in the last year as a member of the Land Army, after the powers-that-be had raised the wages to two pounds and seventeen shillings. Of course, at the farm her bed and board had been provided, and there had been no nursery fees for Joy. Nevertheless she had accepted the position gratefully, telling herself that she’d manage until she completed the training. The next day she had come across the room in Ripon Street and, because of the awful state of it, the landlady, Mrs Birch, was only asking three shillings a week, and had offered to cook a hot meal ready for the evening, if Esther provided the ingredients, which would be an enormous help.
‘I’ve no doubt you’ll be robbing Peter to pay Paul over the next little while,’ Eliza went on. ‘I had years of that, when the bairns were young.’ Not that she could compare her circumstances with that of Caleb’s poor lass. ‘Now Stanley’s home and earning again, an’ Caleb an’ all, my days of hiding from the rent man are over, thank the good Lord. But to tell you the truth, lass, I miss them times now, in a funny sort of way. I used to have to take in washing to make ends meet, and I was on me feet from dawn to dusk with the little ’uns an’ the house to look after, but now’ – she paused to take a breath – ‘the days stretch on and on when the menfolk are at work.’
Esther stared at Caleb’s mother. She had no idea where this was leading. Remembering her manners, she gestured towards the one small armchair the room contained, which she’d purchased when she had bought a new single bed that she and Joy would share. She and Caleb had got rid of Mr Mason’s bed and chair. They’d stunk of urine and other unmentionable things. Then they’d scrubbed the walls and ceiling and floorboards with carbolic soap to get rid of the smell, before Caleb had whitewashed the ceiling and painted the walls. She’d made curtains for the window and a matching cover for the bed. Then Caleb had fetched the bed and chair and a fairly new and clean clippy mat for the floor, with the help of one of his pals, while she had gone out for bed linen, towels, a kettle and a few other essentials. It had all bitten a hole in her precious nest egg, but it couldn’t be helped. Caleb had tried to press some money on her, but she had refused so strongly that he hadn’t tried again.
‘What I’m trying to say, lass,’ said Eliza, ‘is that I reckon we can do each other a good turn. I could look after the bairn while you’re at work, and that’ll save you paying out; and I’ll have company in the house again. A bairn is always a pleasure, and your little one took to me straight off, didn’t she?’ She sat down in the armchair, which was placed at an angle to the little blackleaded fireplace in which a coal fire was burning, as they both glanced to where Joy was snuggled up fast asleep in the bed she shared with her mother. A month off her third birthday, the little girl still needed a long nap for an hour or so each afternoon or there would be tears before bedtime.
Esther perched on the end of the bed facing Caleb’s mother. Not mincing her words, she said quietly, ‘Did Caleb ask you to do this, Mrs McGuigan?’
Eliza smiled. ‘Would it be so terrible if he had, lass? But no, as it happens, he knows nowt about it. I wanted to see you meself first, and get your take on it.’
The wind taken out of her sails, Esther didn’t know what to say. ‘It’s very kind of you, but . . . ’
‘No, no buts; an’ it’s not kind, not really. I’ve told you how it is and I’m not soft-soaping you.’ Eliza didn’t mention here that she hadn’t told her husband of her intentions, either. She’d had to do a lot of work on Stanley when he had found out that Caleb’s lass wasn’t white – however she looked on the outside – and that Esther had a black bairn; furthermore, she was a married woman and in the process of seeing about getting a divorce. Stanley had been angry and upset, stomping about the house and saying all sorts of things she’d known he’d regret later, and the upshot of it all had been father and son having a row that had rocked the house to its foundations. It was only when Caleb had begun to pack his things, saying he was moving out, that Stanley had seen reason. It was Caleb’s life, she had told Stanley, and they couldn’t live it for him. He was big enough to make his own decisions and, although she had felt exactly the same as Stanley at first, once she had met Esther and the little bairn she’d changed her mind. And he would too. Stanley had given her a look that had said it’d take hell freezing over before that was the case, but at least he had said no more and an uneasy peace had descended on the household. He had yet to meet Esther, but she’d told Caleb not to force the issue. Now that the lass had moved to the district, it would happen in good time.
‘So, lass, what do you say?’ Eliza smiled at Esther. ‘You could drop the bairn off in the morning an’ I’ll have her ready when you call by, come evening.’
‘I . . . I couldn’t ask you to do this, Mrs McGuigan.’
‘You’re not asking me. I’m offering.’ Heaven knew what the neighbours would say, but if Caleb was serious about this lass – and she knew her lad well enough to know that his heart and soul were set on her – then the busybodies might as well start their gossiping sooner rather than later. That la-di-da lass had been right: she could have lost her Caleb over this, and she didn’t intend to let that happen. Family was everything, and the scandalmongers could go take a running jump. This line of thought prompted Eliza to say, ‘Your friend – Priscilla, wasn’t it? Has she finished at the farm too?’
‘She was getting ready to leave a few days after me.’ Esther did not elaborate, but in truth she was worried about Priscilla, who had been beside herself as the time had got closer for her to leave Yew Tree Farm. Kenny had not spoken one word about a future for the two of them. Although the Battle of Britain had ended his participation in the war, a longer and more harrowing battle for Kenny had begun the night he was burned beyond recognition, and no one was more aware of this than the man himself. He never complained, even after one of his many agonizing operations, but his true opinion of himself surfaced in jokes, and his wit then was savage and caustic. With this in mind, Esther had taken Priscilla aside the evening before her departure from the farm and given her some advice. ‘Cilla, I know you see him in a different way, but you have to think about how he sees himself. Those jokes about gargoyles and such are only part of it. He must be worried about how he is going to earn a living, with his hands still so bad, and you know how proud he is. He’s not going to ask a lovely young woman to commit her life to him, however much he loves her – or maybe because he does love her so much. The asking has to come from you.’
‘Me?’ Priscilla had looked at her, horrified. For such a modern, feisty young woman, she could be very traditional at times.
‘Yes, you.’ Esther had smiled gently. ‘If you love him and want to be with him, ask him to marry you.’
‘Esther, I couldn’t.’
‘Then you will lose him, because he loves you too much to ask yo
u. Think about it, okay? And, besides his injuries, don’t forget he’s a working-class man and you are up there in the higher echelons of society. When it comes to keeping you in the manner to which you are accustomed, he doesn’t stand a chance, does he?’
‘But Kenny knows I don’t care about all that.’
‘Cilla’ – Esther had put a compassionate hand on her friend’s arm – ‘perhaps he cares.’
She had been hoping to have word from Priscilla over the last few days, after she had sent a postcard with the address of her bed-and-breakfast establishment, but to date there had been nothing, and this morning she’d posted off her new address.
Shaking her mind free of Priscilla and Kenny, she now said to Eliza, ‘I’ll make us a cup of tea, shall I?’
‘That’d be nice, lass.’
Eliza sat and watched as Esther filled a small black kettle from a large jug of cold water and then placed it on the hook that hung over the fire from an iron bar fixed to the wall. At the side of the fireplace was a small steel shelf on which reposed the kettle and a saucepan, and on the opposite wall a long wooden shelf held mugs and plates and utensils. Under the bed she could see a wooden trunk, and she assumed that was where Esther stored their spare clothes and linen. It was a sparse set-up, Eliza thought, and for a lass who’d been used to servants and what-have-you it must be hard. Mind you, Caleb had said it was no picnic at this farm where the lass had worked – like the Dark Ages, he’d remarked – but the food had been good and plentiful, unlike in the towns and cities. Likely that’d be an added burden for the lass now: rationing, with all its frugality. No one had expected rationing to be done away with immediately, but now the government seemed to be saying things were going to get worse, and not better. It was a rum do.
Once the tea was mashing and Esther was sitting on the end of the bed facing the armchair, Eliza said quietly, ‘Well, lass, what say you?’
Esther looked at the round, homely face. This woman was Caleb’s mother and dear to him, and if she and Caleb were ever to have a future together, then her relationship with his mother had to start off on the right foot. And the right foot was total honesty. ‘Mrs McGuigan, it’s incredibly kind of you, but . . . ’ She paused, biting her lip.
‘What? Spit it out, lass.’
‘You know my story and it’s true – every word of it – but to the world I look like a white woman who has clearly misbehaved with a black GI. Having Joy all day when I work would cause problems for you with your neighbours and friends, or at the very least awkward moments. I . . . I don’t want to cause trouble for you, and I don’t think you’ve thought this through, much as I appreciate the offer. And I do, I really do.’
Eliza, her head leaning back against the armchair, looked at Esther, and at this moment her feelings were mixed. If she were to speak the absolute truth, then she would have to admit she would have preferred her lad to pick a lass with whom it would have been plain sailing. But he hadn’t. And in spite of herself, she’d grown accustomed to the idea. And she liked the lass, and the little bairn was as bonny as a summer’s day. If things went the way she thought they might, Joy would be calling her Grandma sooner or later, and Stanley, Granda.
Leaning forward, she put out her hand and Esther reached out hers. ‘Look, lass, you and the bairn are part of our family now, that’s the way I see it. An’ folk can say what they like. While they’re talking about us, they’re not pulling some other poor blighter to pieces. An’ when you’re free to wed our Caleb – an’ if the good Lord blesses you with bairns – then folk’ll see the truth, won’t they?’ It said a lot for Eliza here that no hint that this was the thing driving Stanley up the wall came through in her voice. But as she had said to him the night before, when they were lying in bed discussing the situation for the umpteenth time, he was a bigoted so-an’-so and she was having none of it. He had fought a war against the Nazis because they thought exactly like he was thinking now: that the colour of someone’s skin, or the stock they came from, or whether they were physically or mentally all there mattered. There would come a day, she had hissed at him, when the world would be a melting pot of different colours and races all mixing together, and it couldn’t come soon enough for her, and he ought to be ashamed of himself.
‘Any bairns of a mixed marriage – be it race or religion or what-have-you – have it hard, Eliza. You don’t need me to spell that out for you. Is that what you want for our lad’s bairns? Is it?’
She had known he was glaring at her in the darkness, even though she couldn’t make out his face.
‘No, truth be told, I would have liked it easy for him,’ she had retorted, ‘and his bairns, but Caleb has chosen what and who he wants, and that’s that. And what are you saying at heart, Stan? That Catholic and Protestant should never mix, or black and white, Arabs, them Chinese folk and the rest? Love don’t take account of such things; only hate does that. And fear.’
He’d grunted, then muttered, ‘You’ve changed your tune. When Edith Ryland’s lass got mixed up with that lad from the Arab quarter, you were as against it as anyone in the street.’
‘Aye, I was, an’ I’m not proud of it,’ she had replied. ‘But that was nigh on seventeen years ago, an’ folk were more set in their ways. I was more set in me ways, I admit it. But the war’s changed everything and it’ll keep changing, you mark my words. And Stan’ – she had turned on her side towards him – ‘if you’re right and there’s stormy times ahead for them, Caleb is going to need us in his corner more than ever. Edith and Leonard didn’t stand by their Constance; threw her to the wolves, they did, and it’s them that has missed out. Their Cedric got killed in the war, and him with no children and Constance their only other bairn. I hear she’s got five lovely bairns now, but Edith’s never seen them. I couldn’t bear that.’
He’d grunted again and then turned his back on her, but she had lain awake for a long time praying that he would come round to her way of thinking. It would be different if he would meet the lass, she was sure of it. And the bairn could charm the apples off the tree.
Looking at Esther now, she squeezed the hand in hers as she said, ‘So, it’s a deal then? When do you start at the hotel?’
‘They wanted me on Monday, but I said I’d let them know, because of Joy.’
‘Well, you tell ’em the bairn is settled, all right?’
‘But I must pay you, Mrs McGuigan.’
‘Wouldn’t hear of it. You’re family now, lass.’ And then, as Esther’s eyes began to fill up, Eliza murmured, ‘Now, now, no tears, and no more worrying about the bairn. We’ll be as happy as pigs in muck, me an’ her.’
‘You . . . you’re so kind. I don’t know how to thank you.’ Esther felt like a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders by this little woman, and it went some way to easing the hurt of her estrangement from Rose. Not that they had actually fallen out. No, it had been very civilized, the parting of their ways, but Rose hadn’t hidden her disapproval regarding Caleb, and had been icy-cold and tight-lipped about Esther’s decision to send Monty away on Christmas Eve. Nancy Holden had hugged her on the day she and Joy had left the farm for Sunderland, whispering in her ear that she mustn’t worry and that Rose would come round in time. It was only because Rose wanted the best for her that she was so upset, Nancy had murmured. Esther hadn’t replied, but had simply hugged the farmer’s wife and left it at that. There was no point in saying she was amazed that, knowing how Monty had behaved when Joy was born, Rose could seriously think he was the best for her. It wasn’t even as though he had had a change of heart on the fundamental issue. But Rose stubbornly refused to see this, and Esther had got tired of banging her head against a brick wall. In the last few weeks she had realized that her old relationship with Rose was over, and she had mourned its passing. Then she’d accepted it and looked to the future. It was all she could do.
Esther and Eliza sat and drank their tea without saying anything more, and a quietness settled on the little room, but it was a comfortab
le quietness. The sleeping child in the bed, the glow from the small fire and the howling from the wind outside the house all added to the feeling of peace that slowly seeped over Esther’s tired mind. She had Caleb, and now she had an unexpected friend in his mother. It was more than she could have hoped for. Very soon, now that she was in the town, she would have to set the wheels in motion regarding the divorce, but for the moment it was enough just to sit here and know that she and Joy were not alone in this strange new world she was entering.
Chapter Twenty-One
The next weeks were more difficult than Esther could have imagined, and she had a constant ache in her heart when she thought about the farm and Priscilla, and especially Rose. She was still rising at five o’clock, as she had done every day in Yorkshire, but now it was to wash and dress Joy and get herself ready, before they had a breakfast of bread toasted over their small fire with the long-handled toasting fork she had purchased, the toast spread with a scraping of butter or, if the ration of two ounces per week was used up, margarine. Babies and younger children had an allowance of concentrated orange juice and cod-liver oil from the local welfare clinic, together with priority milk, and she made sure Joy always started the day on a full mug of warm milk and ended it with her juice and oil.
Breakfast over, they would dress for the bitter outdoors and make their way on snow-packed pavements to Caleb’s house, where Eliza would be waiting. After a quick cup of tea with Caleb and his parents at the kitchen table, Esther would leave for work and arrive just before seven o’clock. She had settled into the job quicker than she had expected and she knew that Mr Dimple was pleased with her progress, because after four weeks he had increased her wage to three pounds and ten shillings. She still had to be very careful at managing her money, because their room needed to be kept warm for Joy and the little fire ate a surprising amount of coal, and with food to buy and other expenses every ha’penny was precious, but she was getting by – just. Rationing, something she had never really come into contact with at the farm, she now realized, was a total headache. Two ounces of butter, cheese and tea per week didn’t go far, nor did the allowance of four ounces of bacon or ham and eight ounces of sugar. One packet of dried eggs per month and one shell-egg per week – if available – made her think longingly of Mrs Holden’s wonderful breakfasts, and although the monthly points system allowed the odd luxury of one can of meat or fish, or two pounds of dried fruit, it didn’t go far. She was enormously grateful to Mrs Birch, who seemed to be able to magic an appetizing dinner for herself and Joy from the meagre ingredients she gave the landlady each day; and the fact that Eliza insisted on feeding Joy from the family’s rations at lunchtime was a great help. But most days she found herself lunching on the bread and dripping she took in to work with her.
The Colours of Love Page 26