Keeping My Sister's Secrets

by Beezy Marsh

  At least while the teacher was busy writing on the blackboard Kathleen was able to spend some time gazing out at the playground below and dreaming of her future up in the theatres of the West End. The tall buildings on the other side of the water were silhouetted against the darkening sky of a winter’s afternoon but she knew that over there, up in the West End, was where her future lay. She would get a starring role, yes, she would. She’d been getting Eva and Frankie to do cartwheels and tumble turns while she worked on her role as the main attraction, the Sheikh of Araby. The question was, would she be able to borrow Mum’s best tea towel and show Gladys from down the road her new act, without getting into trouble?

  ‘Stop daydreaming, Kathleen!’ shouted Miss Price, bringing her back to reality and the main exports of the British Empire. ‘Pay attention or you won’t be playing piano in assembly tomorrow!’

  Kathleen sat bolt upright. She lived to play that piano, once a week. It was a big old thing, standing in the corner of the hall, and it made her feel special because she was the only one of the children who was allowed to touch it. It had ‘John Broadwood and Sons’ written on it in gold lettering above the keyboard and it was really quite old. The ivories were worn and cracked but she didn’t mind about that. She even forgave it for going a semitone out of key in the hot weather.

  Kathleen copied in her exercise book, in her best handwriting: ‘Oil in the East and sugar in the West Indies, gold from Africa, rubber from Malaya and copper from Burma.’

  As she finished, she couldn’t help noticing that George Harwood was staring at her.

  When Kathleen got home, a cart was pulled up outside, with a horse snuffling in its nosebag of oats, while the tallyman drank a cup of tea in the scullery. His hair was slicked back, revealing gaunt cheekbones, and his yellowing teeth were visible as he sipped. Kathleen couldn’t help staring at him. He pulled his wares from his special suitcase which seemed to have hidden pockets stuffed with surprises. Mum bought some clothes pegs and was admiring two crisp white tea towels.

  ‘But I can’t afford them, so don’t tempt me,’ she said, pouring him another cup.

  ‘Oh, come now, Mrs Fraser,’ he said, his little brown eyes dancing with delight. ‘You know I can put it all in my little book and hubby need never find out.’

  He tapped his nose with the side of a slender nicotine-stained finger. Mum smiled. The tallyman seemed to be the only visitor to their home who could bring a smile to her face. Kathleen noticed that it made her look years younger. He pulled a stubby little pencil from the breast pocket of his waistcoat, which was buttoned up tight and straining slightly, and licked it before writing down everything she had bought in his little red notebook. And, more importantly, what she owed. The tea towels, meanwhile, had found their way, as if by magic, into the drawer of the kitchen table.

  To Kathleen their whole life seemed to be attached by invisible strings to these male visitors with their little books whom she had known since she was a baby: the insurance man, the rent man, the tallyman. All of them came and went when her father was not present and she never talked about the men in front of him. It wasn’t that Mum had told her not to; it just didn’t seem right or as if he needed to know, in fact. It was an unspoken thing: that her mother could trust her not to say anything.

  Eva came hurtling through the door into the kitchen, with Frankie in hot pursuit.

  ‘You two,’ said Kathleen, ‘have got work to do with me!’ She ushered them out into the yard and after ten minutes’ rehearsal they came back into the kitchen, where Mum was spreading some margarine on slices of bread for their tea.

  Kathleen put her hand to her throat again. It was still painful but she wasn’t going to let it ruin her big moment. She didn’t feel much like eating either. While her mother’s back was turned, she whipped one of the precious new tea towels from the kitchen drawer and fastened it around her head.

  ‘Ta-da!’ she chimed, announcing the start of her show.

  ‘Oh, my good Lord! Whatever next?’ Mum cried, in fake surprise. Of course she’d known from the start that Kathleen was up to something, but she played along because she knew how much it meant to her to perform.

  Kathleen began to sing, shimmying across the scullery: ‘Well, I’m the Sheikh of Araby and your love belongs to me . . .’

  Frankie dashed in and turned a cartwheel, narrowly avoiding the kitchen table and Eva chose this moment to follow him and jump down into the splits. With the tea towel slipping down over her eyes, Kathleen continued: ‘At night, when you’re asleep, into your tent, I’ll creep . . .’

  But she didn’t get any further because she tripped over the giggling mass of legs and arms on the scullery floor.

  Mum applauded wildly. ‘Oh, that was lovely! Wait till Nanny Day sees that. She’ll have you sold off to the circus.’

  ‘It would be better if we had music,’ said Kathleen apologetically, taking a deep bow.

  Margaret was still humming the tune to herself as she tucked the children up in bed that night. Kathleen complained that her legs and arms were hurting now. Margaret muttered to herself that she should have gone to the chemist and got her a tonic at least, but she said a prayer over her. As she made her way downstairs, the guilt of not getting Kathleen to the doctor weighed on her. It was just the cost of it all. Later on, she checked the girls and then fell into a fitful sleep but was woken in the small hours by Eva standing at her bedside.

  ‘It’s Kathleen. She’s gone and wet the bed,’ said Eva, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Everything is soaking.’

  Kathleen was twelve and her bedwetting days were long gone. Margaret sat bolt upright. James was still sleeping soundly next to her. He was so dog-tired after a day in the factory that it would take an earthquake to wake him. She lit a candle and ran upstairs and found Kathleen thrashing about in a heap of bedclothes. She put a hand to her forehead. It was burning up. She ran back downstairs into the scullery and plunged one of her precious new tea towels into a bowl of cold water standing in the sink. Margaret brought it upstairs, laid it on her daughter’s burning forehead and said three Hail Marys. Kathleen opened her eyes and croaked: ‘It hurts everywhere.’

  There was nothing for it. James would have to fetch the doctor. They had paid into the Friendly Society for basic medical care from the doctor when they needed it but this would cost extra, being a night-time visit. James, still in a sleep stupor, pulled on his clothes and his boots and went off into the night, returning half an hour later with the doctor, carrying his big, black leather bag. The doctor was a tall man, so tall that he had to stoop to avoid banging his head on the lintel over the doorway to the little bedroom. He pulled out a stethoscope and listened to Kathleen’s chest before taking her temperature, which he said was very high indeed.

  ‘It’s the fever, Mrs Fraser, rheumatic fever most likely,’ he said. ‘We will get her moved off to hospital at first light. Just try to keep her cool for the next few hours.’

  Eva had no idea what the rheumatic fever was but she no longer cared that she’d been woken up by Kathleen and regretted that she had ever found her annoying or tweaked her plaits as she slept because she was so pretty and it wasn’t fair. Eva only cared about her sister and whether she would ever get better. And when she did, she would be the best sister to Kathleen. In fact, she made her mind up there and then: she would get her a piano so she could sing all her favourite songs and have music and be in a show up in the West End.

  4

  Eva, March 1932

  First it was her little brother Frankie, now it was her big sister Kathleen. Eva didn’t ever want to get ill. She knew her sister was so sick that she probably didn’t mind being away from home for weeks but Eva hated the idea of not being with her family. And then there were the rules. She hated the rules even more. No sitting on the bed, no touching the patient, no bringing in food (she ignored that rule and sneaked jam sarnies in for Kathleen), only two visitors per bed and don’t even think about turning up a minute early o
r that old dragon of a ward sister will chew your ears off.

  Kathleen lay back on her pillow, the dark circles under her eyes making her look much older, her beautiful curls all greasy because she was too ill to have a bath yet. When she smiled, she was still Kathleen but when she coughed it scared the life out of Eva because her whole body seemed to shake. Sister appeared at the end of the bed and rang the bell to signal the end of visiting time.

  ‘Well, Kathleen,’ said Mum, kissing her on the forehead, ‘you just keep your spirits up, chicken, and we will have you home very soon.’

  ‘Can Frankie come to visit, and Jim?’ she asked.

  Eva nodded. Frankie and Jim were off with Old Uncle Dennis, Nanny Day’s brother, watching the Arsenal play, but she would make sure one of them came in her place next weekend. The Royal Hospital for Children and Women was only a stone’s throw from their house but, with its grand, red-brick front entrance and echoing wards, it was a world away from their little terraced home. What if Kathleen got used to having a bed all to herself and never wanted to leave? Eva stifled a sob.

  ‘Chin up, Eve,’ said Kathleen. ‘I might be allowed onto the balcony soon for some fresh air and I bet I will see you and Frankie playing out in the street!’

  That balcony, with its columns, overlooking Waterloo Road, was like something out of a fairy tale. Eva felt a pang of jealousy and then reminded herself that Kathleen was only trying to find something to look forward to. Eva had overheard Mum telling Dad that Kathleen might always have a weak heart because of the rheumatic fever and it could take months to get over it.

  Nanny Day was threatening to come up to the hospital with her special bone broth to make Kathleen better, just as she had with Uncle when he came back from the Great War with tuberculosis. The nurses at St Thomas’s Hospital would wheel all the soldiers out for fresh air in their beds by the river Thames because that was how you got better from TB. So Nanny Day would come along and bring a big bowl of her bone broth and ladle that into Uncle Dennis as he lay there, coughing. The nurses knew better than to try to stop her. She’d give them a look, as if to say, ‘What are you going to do, then?’ and they would retreat, with a rustle of starched uniforms. Now Nanny Day was talking about coming up to nurse Kathleen herself and Eva wished she could be there to see the look on the ward sister’s face when she did!

  Later that afternoon, as Nanny Day helped to press some shirts in the scullery, she made her intentions clear. Mum took in a bit of laundry from the hotels to help make a few shillings more when she could and Nanny Day was always willing to lend a hand.

  ‘It’s been too long, Maggie, two weeks now and no improvement. They are not feeding her right. She needs my broth,’ she said

  ‘Please, Ma, I don’t want to upset the doctors,’ said Mum.

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Nanny Day, pulling some coins out of her purse and handing them to Eva. ‘Go up to the Cut and see what bones the butcher can spare you and if he hasn’t got much, give him those to change his mind.’ She grabbed an onion and a potato from the side and began chopping with such vigour that Eva was pleased to beat a hasty retreat up to the shops.

  Eva walked along Lower Marsh, past the barrows at the side of the road. A brewer’s dray horse plodded past. Someone had parked a motor car and it was attracting attention from the kids from Ethelm Street. ‘Eat’em Street’ was what Eva and Frankie called it. It was so rough that the police would only walk down it in pairs.

  Eva crossed over Waterloo Road and into the Cut – a bustling thoroughfare running from Waterloo Road to Blackfriars Road, a cut through from one street to another. It was an exciting place to be. She preferred it to their little world in Howley Terrace, although they did have the muffin man and the tallyman, who might throw them a penny when the kids chased him, shouting ‘throw out yer mouldies’. The Cut had proper shops and was full of life: the butcher, the grocer, the barber, the hardware store and Peacry’s, the general dealer, which was her favourite because things hung on rails and hooks outside and it was like Aladdin’s Cave in there. The banter that went on in those shops was something she loved to hear, although she didn’t understand most of it. Everyone knew she was Nanny Day’s granddaughter and all the shopkeepers had time for her nan and her mum.

  The butcher was busy when she got there. People were buying their meat for Sunday – the one day when families like hers tried to have a full roast with meat, two veg and gravy. Whatever beef they had left after would be minced up on Monday and used to make a pie or given to her father cold, to keep him going. Mum never seemed to eat much. She made sure that Dad and the kids were all fed first before she would help herself to the smallest piece of meat.

  Eva came away with a packet of beef bones, wrapped in newspaper. The butcher didn’t charge her because he knew Old Uncle Dennis well. They had served together in the trenches in France during the Great War. Eva noticed that the butcher’s hands didn’t shake like Uncle Dennis’s did, though. He was steady as a rock as he wielded that meat cleaver.

  She still had her pennies from Nanny Day, which she would give back to her. As she passed the grocer’s shop, some juicy oranges caught her eye. Wouldn’t it be good if she could get one for Kathleen? She turned the coins over and over in her pocket. Nanny Day couldn’t really afford it. Anyway, she had told Eva to get bones, not fruit, and Eva didn’t want to risk her wrath. But she did want her sister to get better.

  She wandered around in front of the shop for a few moments, waiting for a customer. A woman from Tenison Street came along and got into quite a discussion with the shopkeeper about the price of his apples, which had come all the way from Kent and were probably the juiciest this side of the river, or that was what he said. While they were debating the price for a pound of his finest, she crept alongside the crate of oranges, snatched two and tucked them under her parcel of bones. Her heart stopped for a second when the shopkeeper glanced over. She smiled at him, turned and skipped off, pleased with herself.

  When she got home, Mrs Avens from down the road had installed herself at the tiny table in the scullery. Eva put the parcel of beef bones down on the table but held the oranges behind her back while Mrs Avens prattled on.

  ‘I only went to the Poor Law because my Johnny can’t find work and I’m struggling to make ends meet,’ she was saying. Mum nodded sympathetically. Nanny Day harrumphed loudly over the ironing board. She’d seen that Johnny up at the Feathers Tavern in the Waterloo Road more times than she’d care to mention. Mrs Avens ignored her and carried on.

  ‘Well, that nasty little man, Mr Pemberton, do you know what he said to me?’ she said. She didn’t wait for a reply: ‘He said “That’s a nice sideboard, Mrs Avens, how come you can afford that, then?” Well, you know it was my mother’s. She was given it by a grand old lady who lived over by Hyde Park, in her will. She served her thirty years, she did. And more than earned that bleeding sideboard, I can tell you.’

  Eva knew only too well how Mrs Avens’s mother had earned her mahogany sideboard. Her mum said she’d heard the story so often that she felt she had cleaned the parquet floors and polished the bannisters in that house over and over herself for the last ten years.

  ‘And that ain’t all,’ Mrs Avens went on. ‘He was looking at my table linen and everything. When he found out I had a war pension from my late Arthur, well, that was it. I wasn’t going to qualify. And he asked me if I really wanted to work. Well, you know I do, but my legs aren’t what they were. My Johnny has fairly worn himself out looking for a job.’

  Mum nodded again. Johnny was possibly the biggest good-for-nothing in the whole of Lambeth. Nanny Day opened her mouth to speak but Mum shot her a look. Eva knew that look well and it meant hold your tongue. She could almost hear her mother’s thoughts: this was her street, her neighbour, and Nanny Day would not have to live with the consequences of any falling out.

  ‘Oh that is terrible, yes,’ said Mum. ‘But I must be pushing on now. You’ll have finished your tea?’

  She swept th
e little cup away from Mrs Avens’s grasp before she could ask for a top-up and headed for the front door to show her out. Nanny Day, meanwhile, inspected the parcel of bones which Eva had brought and patted her on the head.

  ‘What have you got there, Eva?’ said Mum, as Eva produced her two oranges, which looked so juicy and delicious.

  ‘Grocer gave them to me when I told him Kathleen was sick,’ she lied.

  ‘Well, thank the Lord for his charity,’ said Mum. ‘We’ll have one with our tea and I’ll take one up to the hospital tomorrow.’

  ‘With my soup,’ said Nanny Day, sploshing the bones into a big pot of water on the stove.

  Mum sighed and raised her eyes to heaven. She knew when she was beaten.

  ‘Yes, Ma, with your soup.’

  Eva went out to play with Frankie, who was having the best fun building a big mountain with the other kids, using old crates and bits of wood they found lying on the ground up near the London Wastepaper Factory. They put it all in a big pile in Tenison Street, while some of the women, led by that gossipy Mrs Davies, looked on and nodded their approval.

  As dusk fell, Mrs Davies disappeared for five minutes and then marched back around with a large rag doll figure, with a mop for hair and a stuffed cushion for a head, dressed in an old overcoat. She had pinned a piece of paper to it. It read ‘SLAG’. The rag figure was plonked on the top of the pile. Eva didn’t know what that word meant but the big boys started running around and around that pile of wood and crates, shouting it, much to the amusement of Mrs Davies and the other women. One of the bigger boys came running along with a bottle of paraffin oil and poured it on the crates. Then someone struck a match. The whole thing went up with a ‘whoosh’ and the flames shot six feet into the air. People came out of their houses and stared at the bonfire. Some of the women stood with arms folded. The men huddled away at one end of the street and the children darted up and down, shrieking with laughter.