by Maisie Mosco
“But it won’t make any difference, will it?” Sarah replied kindly.
Marianne got up and left the room. Martin, who had been seated beside her reading, followed her as everyone knew he would. They had been following each other that way since they were toddlers.
Sarah sighed and sent Arnold after them with a plate of cakes; food was always a comfort. She would have sent Shirley, handing round food was a girl’s place, but her younger granddaughter might say something to make Marianne feel worse. The way they seemed to dislike each other was a source of distress to Sarah. “Marianne’s upset about removing to Salford,” she told the family.
“I wish that was all I had to be upset about!” Bessie snorted.
“You can’t expect a child of ten to understand why it’s necessary,” Sarah answered. “If she didn’t have to change schools before she sits for the scholarship she’d feel better. But what can you do?”
David stopped musing about his Sanderstyle label and thought of all the adult things his mother had expected him to understand and accept when he was a child: like working in Mr. Radinsky’s store every night to earn fruit and vegetables and having to leave school to slave in Salaman’s sweatshop, when he’d hoped to be a solicitor. But thank God the children in the family didn’t have to sacrifice themselves for economic reasons any more.
“Why can’t Marianne stay where she is until then, Mother?” he asked. “Travelling to Cheetham by tram every day isn’t going to harm her.”
“Esther and Ben think she’s too young to do it.”
“I’ll have a word with them about it,” David said as if the result was a fait accompli.
“Isn’t it up to them to decide what’s best for their own child?” Nathan asked curtly.
David helped himself to a slice of the Viennese Sachertorte Miriam brought every week and bit into the rich, chocolate confection without replying.
Sarah could feel the animosity bristling between them, but Rebecca went on sipping her tea and seemed unaware of it, though she was seated beside Nathan. God forbid that lovely girl should ever find out she’s the cause of it, Sarah said to herself. If Nat had had his way, a shiksah would have been sitting in Rebecca’s place. But the danger had passed. David had not let it happen. Sarah would have known nothing about it if she hadn’t found a snapshot of a Gentile girl wearing nurse’s uniform in Nathan’s pocket when she was pressing his jacket. David had wanted to protect her from even the knowledge and she hadn’t told him or Nat that she knew.
“I don’t think it’s for you to interfere, David,” Nathan persisted.
“What you call interference, I call advice,” David said calmly. His young brother’s rancour was hard to take, but he would not make things worse by allowing himself to be provoked. “We’ll just have to agree to differ, won’t we, Nat?”
Further exchanges were prevented by the doorbell and a chorus of “Good Shabbos, Zaidie Sigmund!” from the lobby as the children opened the front door.
Carl Moritz put down his Manchester Guardian and rose to his feet nervously. Abraham and his sons had risen, too. But it was left to Sarah to bridge the awkward moment when Sigmund escorted his lady friend into the parlour.
“Welcome to my house, Mrs. Fish,” she said hoping her stiff smile did not belie the greeting.
“Call me Gertie. I won’t be Mrs. Fish much longer,” the bride-to-be responded coyly.
“With Gertie’s looks, it’s a wonder she’s stayed a widow until now,” Sigmund declared after he had introduced everyone to her.
The family surveyed the dumpy little person clinging to his arm and remained silent.
“She reminds me of Mary Pickford,” Sigmund added confirming his besotted state.
Young Ronald Sandberg’s gaze moved slowly from the lady’s too-short pink coat to the black patent bar-strap shoes on her chubby feet before turning contemplatively to the fat, golden curls below her powder-blue, halo hat. “You mean Shirley Temple, don’t you, Zaidie?”
David and Bessie exchanged an embarrassed parental glance. But Mrs. Fish preened herself as if she had received a compliment and Sigmund chuckled and pinched her rouged cheek.
Had he gone blind – or mad? his nearest and dearest were asking themselves. Lizzie had described his companion in the park as “mutton dressed up as lamb” and the family had envisaged an ageing woman trying to look like a young one. This elderly-little-girl travesty was a shock. Ronald had spoken the brutal truth, as usual.
Mrs. Fish sat down by the fire and took a mirror from her handbag to check that the lipstick cupid’s bow she had added to her tiny mouth was still there. “People in Sheffield nicknamed me Dolly,” she revealed whilst admiring her reflection.
Sarah was not surprised. The painted dolls with stuck-on yellow hair that David had given to Shirley and Marianne Chanukah were what Mrs. Fish resembled. How could a man as clever as Sigmund Moritz also be so stupid? But everyone knew that men who were getting on could sometimes be foolish about women, even intelligent men. Hadn’t the Sandbergs’ old and respected friend Rabbi Lensky just taken a girl younger than his own daughters for his third wife? Sarah cast a surreptitious glance at her husband to see how Gertie had affected him and was relieved that he was carefully not looking at her.
“My brother-in-law Maxie Radinsky sent you his regards,” Mrs. Fish said while Sarah poured tea for her and Sigmund.
It did not strike Sarah as strange that his wife had not done so. Mrs. Radinsky had never addressed a friendly word to the impoverished housewives who shopped at the store but had sat smugly behind the counter recording their purchases in an account book, licking her indelible pencil between one entry and the next as if it tasted of gold. With the same false smile on her long face that was on her twin sister’s round one now. Alike in appearance they weren’t. But they were peas from the same pod and Sarah noted that Gertie’s ready smile did not soften her china-blue eyes.
She shooed the children out of the room. The way they were gaping at Gertie was setting her on edge.
Sigmund went to sit on the arm of his beloved’s chair. “So, let’s make the wedding arrangements, while everyone is here.”
“I’ve already spoken about it with my sister,” Gertie declared. “The reception will be in her house.” She smiled up at Sigmund. “We’ll be married the first Sunday in November.”
“As soon as that?” Sarah said before she could stop herself. November was next month, there wouldn’t be enough time to talk Sigmund out of it.
Mrs. Fish’s smile disappeared as if she had flicked a switch to remove it from her face. “For what reason should we wait, Mrs. Sandberg? You’ve got a friend of yours up your sleeve for him to marry instead of me?”
Sarah wished she had. “A nice sense of humour you’ve got, Gertie,” she countered with a chuckle, though she knew the woman had not been jesting. Sarah had in fact summed her up as having no sense of humour whatsoever.
“Like Gertie says, what is there to wait for?” Sigmund demanded scanning the doubtful faces of those who cared about him.
Mrs. Fish put her hand on his. “A home we don’t need to fix up.”
“We’ve got two to choose from,” he endorsed.
“And mine is where we’ll live,” she informed him.
Sigmund looked taken aback. “You want me to move into that flat above your shop?”
His son and daughters shared a hopeful glance. Their father had evidently not yet discussed such practical matters with his lady friend and was fond of his own home. There could be a difference of opinion about it.
“All of a sudden you don’t like my flat?” Mrs. Fish challenged him.
“It’s very nice,” he said placatingly, though he found the over-furnished living-room claustrophobic and the sound of the main-road traffic intrusive. “I’ll have to think about it, Gertie.”
“When we’re on our own, the Viennese comes out in him, he calls me liebchen,” she confided archly, stroking his fingers. But she could sense the sudden
doubts filtering into his mind. She held up her left hand for everyone to see and indicated a small cluster of diamonds on the third finger, which looked lost among the large ones she was wearing on the others. “You’ve seen the engagement ring he gave me?” she said to remind him and them that a contract was a contract.
Sarah heard Miriam and Helga gasp. To remarry was natural, but to plight his troth with their dead mother’s ring! How could Sigmund have done such a thing?
“He took it out of his pocket and showed it to me one day and I said how I’d always wanted one like it,” Mrs. Fish said, supplying the answer. “But that’s how my darling is. He can’t deny me anything.” She patted Sigmund’s blushing cheeks. “What is there to think about, Siggie? You’ll move in with me and help me in the business. There’s no need to kill yourself with work being a tailor anymore.”
Sarah watched her gaze into Sigmund’s eyes and saw the mesmerizing effect it had upon him.
His next words confirmed it. ’Whatever you think is best, Gertie my dear.’
Miriam found her tongue. “Hasn’t my father told you his earnings pay most of the household bills, Mrs. Fish? My brother only gets a small wage. Bookshop assistants don’t get paid very well.”
“Your brother should have found a job where the money is better.”
“He’s happy where he is, and Father’s never minded,” Miriam replied.
“My Siggie is too soft-hearted. But when he’s married to me, I won’t let people take advantage of him. I will be his only responsibility,” Mrs. Fish declared, and any pretence of affability left the atmosphere.
Two bright spots of colour appeared on Miriam’s pale cheeks and Sammy got up to put a restraining hand on her shoulder.
David recognized the danger sign, too. Carl and Helga would not raise their voices, it wasn’t in their natures to do so, but Miriam would not contain herself much longer. He sat cracking his knuckles in the uncomfortable silence, longing for a cigarette but unable to light one in his mother’s house on Shabbos, wanting to tell the dreadful woman a thing or two himself. But Miriam might order him to keep out of it. He’d have to leave it to her to try to stop Sigmund from putting his head in the noose.
Sigmund was staring down at the carpet, aware of his godson Nathan watching him and his old friend Abraham fidgeting with his moustache as he always did when upset. The family’s disapproval of Gertie was very evident, but it was he who was lonely, not them. Why couldn’t they understand? Realize the things she’d just said meant she cared for him?
“It’s disgraceful how his grown-up children have sponged on him all these years,” he heard Gertie declaim. But her soft hand on the back of his neck stopped him from saying it wasn’t like that.
Sarah was fingering her brooch and almost crushed the delicate filigree as her anger mounted. “Sponging isn’t a word we use in this family,” she said sharply.
“Me, I believe in calling a spade a spade,” Mrs. Fish retorted.
Miriam brushed off Sammy’s hand and leapt off the sofa to confront Sigmund. “Can’t you see what’s happening, Father? Are you going to let a conniving woman cut you off from your children who’ve loved and respected you all their lives?” She eyed Mrs. Fish with undisguised contempt. “That’s what she’s trying to do, and she hasn’t even got you yet!”
Sigmund glanced hesitantly at his son and his other daughter, whose faces were stiff with humiliation.
Then Mrs. Fish produced a sob and a square of white lace to wipe away a crocodile tear. “The way your Miriam speaks to you, Siggie darling, I’m glad I never had any children. Me she insults also.”
“Look how you’ve upset Gertie!” Sigmund flared, quelling his inner conflict and glaring at Miriam. “And nobody is cutting anybody off! Marriage arrangements always get everyone rubbed up the wrong way. When Nat married Rebecca, half the shul committee fell out with the Sandbergs because they weren’t invited to London for the wedding.”
“It’s true,” Abraham sighed unable to bear the furore taking place in his home, wanting only peace.
Sigmund clutched at the slender straw his friend had held out to him. “It’s always the same, Miriam. People say things they don’t mean at times like this. Your father-in-law agrees.” He placed a comforting arm around Gertie who was still sobbing. “Afterwards, we’ll all be friends and the way your mother brought you up, you’ll show respect for your stepmother,” he told his children.
“Like my own I’ll treat them,” Mrs. Fish promised glibly switching on her smile again now she had won.
There isn’t a motherly bone in her body, Sarah thought grimly. Or a grandmotherly one, either. She had barely glanced at Sarah’s lovely grandchildren; not even at Martin, who was Sigmund’s grandson, too.
“Come, Siggie darling. It’s time we went,” the interloper said as if he were already her husband.
The family watched him follow her out like an obedient schoolboy.
“It’s on his own head!” Miriam stormed after they had gone.
“At least Helga and I won’t have to live in the same house with her. It’s as well Father’s agreed to move into her flat,” Carl said with relief.
David waited for him to add that he would leave the bookshop and find a job that would support him and Helga. If this didn’t jolt Carl from his disinterest in money, nothing ever would.
But Carl said nothing more, as if what happened to himself and his sister were not his responsibility and neither Helga nor Miriam suggested to him that it was. They knew he would not be happy doing any other kind of work and to them this was all that mattered.
David controlled the urge to say something to Carl. Doing so would bring Miriam’s wrath upon his own head. The Moritzes had always been the same, satisfied with the proverbial crust, with no desire to better themselves. But Carl seemed unconcerned about where even the crust was to come from, though his earnings would do little more than pay the rent.
Sarah’s thoughts were similar to David’s. How wise she had been, years ago, to advise Esther to break her engagement to Carl. And David had been right to do likewise with Miriam. A wife who had no respect for ambition was fine for Sammy but would have been disastrous for his elder brother.
“Helga and Carl will manage,” she declared breaking the contemplative silence. But Carl did not ask how, and she wanted to give him a good shaking. Nobody had the right to be that complacent! “You’ll do what we did in the old days when money was tight, Helga,” she said, recalling the numerous transients who had lived in her Strangeways house. “You’ll take a lodger.”
“But how could Father put them in this position?” Miriam exclaimed.
David thought of the hundreds of times her green eyes had blazed at him that way and was thankful he did not have to suffer her passionate outbursts anymore. Even though he sometimes had to suffer Bessie’s.
“There’s no fool like an old fool,” Bessie quoted.
“And everyone knows why your father didn’t behave like one,” Miriam said acidly.
“What do you mean by that?” Bessie flashed.
“I mean you wouldn’t let him. Every time he met someone he fancied marrying, you said you’d finish with him if he did. Saul heard you say it and told us, when we were kids. But I don’t doubt you held that threat over him till the day he died.”
Bessie touched her wig, Miriam’s stare was piercing enough to see through it, and glared back at her.
Sarah held her breath. The old hatred between these two had surfaced the way she had hoped it never would again.
“To make sure nobody else got his money,” Miriam added cruelly.
“You’ll have to forgive her, she’s upset, Bessie,” Sammy apologized for his wife.
“But there’s no need to take it out on me, is there? Did you hear what she said to me, David?”
David took her hand in case she doubted whose side he was on. “You’d better say you’re sorry, hadn’t you, Miriam?”
Miriam smiled contemptuously. He and Bess
ie were a good pair! They worshipped money the way some people worshipped God. She had lost respect for David a long time ago and wondered how she could ever have been in love with him. She saw Sarah eyeing her pleadingly and knew she must make some sort of apology for her sake. With Sarah, her relationship had been the opposite. The longer Miriam knew her, the more she respected her. And Sarah wanted peace in the family.
“All I meant was I wouldn’t finish with my father for any reason,” she shrugged. “Or even threaten to. No matter what he did I’d stand by him.”
“Then you’re the one who’s a fool,” Bessie told her witheringly.
“We’ll all stand by him, of that there’s no question,” Sarah interceded hastily. “So, if anyone’s thinking of not going to his wedding, let them forget it,” she pronounced in the voice she sometimes used that made people wonder how such a tiny woman could possess such strength. She sat down in the chair Mrs. Fish had vacated and stared at the flickering flames in the grate, fidgeting absently with the heavy, silver bun at the nape of her neck, her aquiline profile regal in the firelight.
“If Ma wore a crown, she’d be just like the pictures of Queen Victoria,” Miriam remarked.
“The way she lays down the law, also!” Abraham endorsed.
Sarah responded with good grace. “Somebody has to, or where would we be? And if we turn our backs on Sigmund now, how will he be able to come to us when that Fish woman makes him miserable?”
“For goodness sake, Ma!” Rebecca exclaimed. “Why meet trouble halfway?”
It was the first time she had spoken, and everyone turned to look at her.
“By the time it reaches you, it could be too late,” Sarah replied.
Rebecca rose from her chair, her lovely face puckered with weariness. “But like Miriam said, it’s on his own head. I’ve never spent such a dreadful afternoon! My relatives don’t get themselves worked up about everything. In our family, if someone won’t listen to good advice we reckon its their lookout.”
“That must be because your family’s so English,” Nathan said snidely. “All those generations they’ve been here.”