by Anne Bennett
‘Stand? Begod, it’s a fine thing when a son tells his father what to do,’ Brendan yelled. ‘I give the orders in this family, I’ll tell you.’ He turned to Maeve and pointed his finger at her. ‘This is your doing. You have made them like this,’ he said.
‘It’s nothing to do with Mammy,’ Kevin said, crossing in front of her because he saw her limbs begin to shake as Brendan shouted at her. ‘None of this is her fault. It’s how I feel, that’s all.’
‘It’s still your mother’s fault,’ Brendan said. ‘If she’d not sent you away, I’d have seen you kept a civil tongue in your head.’
‘By the power of the belt, I suppose,’ Kevin sneered, ‘and by starving me half to death into the bargain?’
Maeve could see the tic working at the side of Brendan’s face that showed her he was controlling himself with difficulty, and his big hamlike hands were balled into fists. She knew she had to try to diffuse the situation. ‘Come on away to the table, Brendan. I have your tea ready,’ she said, and Kevin hated the conciliatory tone in which she’d spoken to his father and the slight tremor in her voice that showed her fear of him.
‘I have potatoes on the boil in their skins,’ she went on, ‘and butter to have with them, fresh eggs and thick ham you’ve seldom seen the like of.’
Despite himself Brendan’s attention was diverted as any person subjected to rationing for six years would be. He glared at his son but said nothing more and fell upon the heaped plate of food that was put before him as if he hadn’t eaten for a week. Everyone breathed a little easier.
Kevin was a hero in the eyes of Bridget and Jamie, for not only had he stood up to his father, he also didn’t seem the least bit afraid of him. They knew Grace was scared; they could both recognise it because they both felt the same way.
And Grace was scared. She’d forgotten how truly terrifying her father was and it came as an unpleasant shock that being a young lady of twelve years was no defence against it.
Brendan finished his meal, scraping his knife across the plate over and over in a way that set Maeve’s teeth on edge. He then looked across at Kevin and snapped, ‘You haven’t heard the last of this. You don’t call the tune here, whatever you were allowed to do in Ireland, and the sooner you realise that the better.’
Kevin didn’t answer. He had nothing further he wanted to say. Maeve, watching him, knew whatever he said and however much he protested, if Brendan wanted him in the brass foundry then that’s where he’d end up. She tried explaining this to him later, after Brendan had taken himself off to the pub and the small children had been put to bed.
‘Mammy, I’m not stupid,’ Kevin replied. ‘With all the servicemen returning, work in a brass foundry might be all that’s on offer and I would be daft altogether then to give it up, but I’ll do it on my own. I don’t want a job on the say-so of a man I despise.’
‘Kevin, the man is your own father,’ Maeve said.
‘Some father!’ Kevin cried. ‘I never remember him saying a pleasant word to any of us all the years of my growing up. The life I led at his hands before you took me to Ireland destroyed something between us that will never be repaired now, and I can’t pretend feelings for the man that aren’t there.’ He covered his mother’s poor, work-roughened hands, with the swollen and misshapen knuckles, with his own large weathered ones and felt suddenly protective towards her. ‘Don’t fret,’ he said gently. ‘I don’t care what I do as long as it brings in some money to benefit you all.’
Maeve considered telling him she’d hardly have chance to see the colour of anything he earned but decided to let him keep his dream a little longer.
‘As a matter of fact, I’ll look for something in the next few days,’ Kevin went on. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in me going to school for just a couple of months. It would be better for me to look around for something to earn a few coppers until then.’
‘Have a wee rest first, though,’ Maeve urged.
‘I’m not used to being idle,’ Kevin protested. ‘Grandda used to say that a farm carries few passengers. Both Grace and I had our jobs to do from the start.’
‘We didn’t mind it though, Mammy,’ Grace put in, anxious that her mother should understand that. ‘Kevin especially enjoyed it.’
‘I did that,’ Kevin said, and Maeve heard the sadness in his voice and guessed given the choice he’d be back there tomorrow.
But then I suppose I would myself, Maeve thought, but in this life we can’t always have what we’d like, and she gave a sigh, and neither Kevin nor Grace had to ask what the sigh was for.
FOURTEEN
Brendan spoke to the foreman about setting his son on the day after his arrival, but the man had shaken his head. ‘More than my job’s worth, Brendan, to take the lad on when he’s not fourteen.’
‘He’s as near as makes no bloody difference.’
‘Aye, and what if he should injure himself before he is? God, the company would be for the high jump.’
‘Perhaps you should have left him in Ireland another few months,’ added a workmate who was no friend of Brendan Hogan’s. ‘You could have had him travel back on his birthday and then he could start here the next day.’
‘Shut your gob.’
‘Aye, I will. I’ve said all there’s to say on the matter,’ the man said, and though Brendan longed to take a swing at him, he didn’t dare. He risked dismissal doing that, so he had to curb his temper at work.
Anyway, there was no way round it: like it or lump it, Brendan had to wait another few months to get money out of his son. That knowledge made him surlier and more bad-tempered than ever and he clouted Maeve about a bit when he got home that night, but, she noticed, not on her face, where Kevin might see.
Brendan never mentioned the brass foundry again and though Kevin thought it odd, he wasn’t going to bring the subject up. He never spoke to his father if he could help it. Maeve knew Brendan’s plans had been thwarted in some way because he was so bad-tempered, yet he could only go so far, for he felt Kevin’s eyes watching him all the time. He never raised his hand to any of them in Kevin’s presence and if he gave Maeve the odd clout or punch in the privacy of their bedroom, she was sensible enough not to make a song and dance over it. But Kevin often felt the man’s violence simmering just beneath the surface and he always felt better when he was out of the way, at work or at the pub.
Kevin himself felt very unsettled in the small cramped house, and the endless grey streets and pavements depressed him, but his goal of getting a job in just a few days eluded him. He knew too, despite the family allowance his mother had told him about, he and Grace would eventually be a further drain on Maeve’s meagre resources.
By the end of the first week, he’d tried most of the shops he considered might have work in the area around his home, and had also tried towards the city centre and the markets where he thought he might pick up casual labour, but always the answer was no. It was hard not to get despondent about it. Maeve, in fact, was just delighted to have the two children back home again and didn’t want Kevin rushing to find a job, but Elsie could understand the boy’s frustrations.
‘Let the lad be,’ she advised Maeve, and added, ‘The chances are he’ll not find a job at all, for they’re not easy to get.’
It certainly seemed that way as the days passed. The holidays drew to a close, and Grace and Bridget returned to school. Kevin was more lonely and bored than ever. Most of the lads his age were still at school and those a little older were working. He missed Ireland and the farm so much some days, he felt he could scarcely bear it.
He was in this frame of mind one morning and he snapped at Jamie. He’d thought him asleep in bed when he’d crept out of the attic after hearing his father leave the house. He wanted some time to himself before the house was astir and he badly needed some space on his own. However, he’d barely set the kettle on the gas before Jamie came down the stairs asking, ‘What you doing, Kevin?’
Kevin turned, his face red with anger
. ‘For Christ’s sake, will you leave me alone?’ he cried.
He saw Jamie’s face crumple and felt bad about it. He told himself he was no better than the father he hated, yelling and bawling at a little boy who’d done nothing wrong.
‘I’m sorry, Jamie. I’m out of sorts today,’ he said.
Jamie drew his fist across his face, wiping the evidence of tears away and said, ‘’S all right,’ and he smiled a watery smile, and Kevin felt even worse. But below the surface he still felt impatient with the child, with everybody, and he knew he’d have to leave the house early and walk the bad humour out of him.
This time, though, he decided to go away from the city centre and he strode along Bristol Street towards Belgrave Road. His uncle and his family lived that way, but he had no intention of visiting them. He didn’t mind his uncle, though he considered him a poor specimen of a man not to look after his mother better and see what manner of man it was she’d married. His mother always said it wasn’t Uncle Michael’s fault; that Brendan could be charming if he chose. Kevin doubted it. He’d never seen evidence of any charm.
But at any rate, he’d visited his uncle’s house just once since he and Grace had arrived home. They’d never been frequent visitors before they left and had few recollections of it. Their cousin Jane, who’d come to meet them, was now married and the mother of a three-year-old and they had little in common with her. Kevin thought he might have got on better with Billy, but he was still awaiting his demob from the navy.
Altogether it was a stiff, uncomfortable visit and not one that either Kevin or Grace was anxious to repeat. They wondered why they’d been asked at all, for their aunt seemed positively hostile and her mouth seemed set in a permanent sulk.
Both children thought if their Uncle Michael wasn’t exactly afraid of his wife he certainly seemed cautious of rousing her temper, and perhaps with reason. They were glad that, though he’d called at the house a couple of times later to see how they were getting on, he didn’t bring his wife, or issue another invitation to his own house.
Anyway, invited or not, Kevin had no intention of going that morning or any other, and he stood for a moment or two deliberating whether he should make for Calthorpe Park. But the feel of grass beneath his feet and the smell of the earth in the flowerbeds would only increase his frustration.
Instead he made his way up Wellington Street, past the police station. A little way along the road he came to a small line of shops. He studied the first one from the outside. One side of it sold papers, magazines, chocolates, sweets and cigarettes, while the larger area comprised a sizeable grocery shop. He scanned the adverts in the window as he always did. This one was advertising for a paperboy, he noticed, with the first stirring of hope he’d had in days. He was sure he could push papers in the doors as well as the next man and he squared his shoulders and opened the door.
Syd Moss of Moss’s Select Stores was an unhappy and embittered man. Often he was loath to wake up in the morning, for once he opened his eyes he was reminded almost immediately of the fact that his only child, Stanley, would not be returning with the demobbed servicemen, as his body was lying under foreign soil somewhere. The news that the Mosses had received the previous year had caused Syd’s dear wife, Gwen, who’d worked by his side for many years, to take to her bed. Even now she seldom left it.
Syd tried to be strong for her sake and also for the good of the shop, though sometimes he wondered why he bothered. But he’d been born in the rooms above it and knew nothing else.
Syd had little time for most of the modern youth. He’d seen the decline of moral standards over the war years. With many fathers away in the forces and mothers engaged in war work, the children had often been left to run wild. He’d seen girls, not long out of the schoolroom, dressed in tight skirts and skimpy tops, their faces plastered with make-up, tottering on high heels and draping themselves indecently over servicemen. And he had to admit they seemed to have had a preference for the American servicemen, the ones the British Tommies claimed were oversexed, overpaid and over here.
The young boys growing up without their fathers’ influence appeared completely undisciplined. Syd found most of them rude, cheeky and totally lacking in any form of respect. That very day he’d had to sack his paperboy for dipping his hands in the till. It wasn’t the first time either. He’d suspected it had been going on for months. Cigarettes had disappeared too when Syd’s back had been turned. The lad hadn’t shown the least bit of remorse or regret, except for the fact that he’d been found out. Syd felt bitter that his son – respectful, polite and as honest as a die – had given his life for the likes of the dishonest paperboy and the flashy-looking girls.
He was in no mood then for the young lad who stood facing him. He wasn’t sure either that he was a lad. He was tall and well-muscled, almost a man, Syd would have said, and he wondered morosely why he wasn’t in uniform. Every other bugger seemed to be.
The scowl he turned on Kevin wasn’t welcoming, but what odds? Kevin thought. He already knew he’d not get the job, but he might as well try now he was here. He stared at the man steadily and said, ‘Good morning, sir. I’ve come about the job advertised in the window.’
Syd stared at him. He liked his manners. He’d not been addressed as ‘sir’ for some years. The second realisation was that his voice was deep and had an Irish accent. Syd didn’t like the Irish generally – load of papists the lot of them, having babies they couldn’t afford to keep because the bloody Pope said they had to. Made no bloody sense to Syd. And light-fingered wasn’t in it; he had to watch them like a hawk in the shop. The last paperboy had been Irish and look how he had turned out. He frowned at Kevin, who shifted his feet uneasily.
But what was it the lad said about a job? The only job advertisement was for a paperboy that Syd had put in himself. Surely he was too old to want to take that on.
He screwed up his eyes. ‘What age are you, boy?’
‘Thirteen, sir.’
‘Thirteen!’ That shook Syd. He’d have said the boy was eighteen, or at least seventeen. ‘Then why aren’t you at school?’ he barked.
This question had been asked everywhere else Kevin had applied, but he tried not to show any exasperation as he explained, ‘I’m not long returned from Ireland, where I spent the war years. My mother didn’t think it was worth my going to school for just a couple of months.’
‘So when are you fourteen?’
‘November.’
‘So if I give you this job, you’ll up and leave me in a month or two?’ But even while Syd snapped at him, he was sizing up the situation and wondering what the alternative was if he were to send the boy away. He’d been worrying all morning how he was going to do the evening paper round when he had the shop to see to.
He couldn’t afford to offend the affluent customers in the big houses who were the only ones who had their papers delivered. They were the people with money in their pockets, not like those in the mean streets around the shop, who mainly lived on tick. If he looked after the richer customers now, then when the war was just a memory and a thing of the past, these people would be the big spenders and he’d like his to be the shop they spent their money in.
Even now most of them took a great many papers and magazines in the week, and coming to pay for their papers on a Saturday morning brought them in to buy more. When rationing was finally over, he’d make sure his shelves were well stacked. But if he should offend them now by not being able to offer a delivery service for their papers, they’d buy them elsewhere and a sizeable chunk of profit would go down the drain.
And somehow that still mattered to Syd. It was the only thing he had. The shop was once everything to him and Gwen. They’d bought the shop next door to them when it became vacant in the late thirties and enlarged the grocery side of the business. As each shop had a flat above it, they’d got an empty flat too next to their own. Gwen was as pleased with the flat as she had been acquiring the shop. She thought Stanley would be able to have hi
s own place when he left the army if he wanted, and could still be near them. The blitz of Birmingham had put paid to her plans and over the war the three-bedroomed place was home to many destitute frightened families bombed out of their own homes.
Syd, however, was proud of the enlarged shop, though looking after it single-handed was hard and he couldn’t deliver the papers morning and evening as well. He decided he’d take on the Irish boy who looked and spoke like a man, but only because he was in a fix. Woe betide him if he turned out to be light-fingered too or, big as he was, he’d be out on his ear with Syd’s boot in the seat of his pants helping him. But if he was good enough, it would give him a breathing space, a couple of months to get a decent lad from a good home to take on the paper delivery.
Kevin knew nothing of Syd’s thoughts as he studied the man in front of him. He was smallish and slight, and his hair was greying at the temples and going slightly thin on top, but it was his long mournful face with the mouth in a constant droop and the brown eyes without a spark of life in them that betrayed his age most.
Kevin watched the man’s face working as Syd let his mind wander. Kevin thought he’d reject him like all the others. He only wondered why he was taking so long over it. He was surprised when Syd said, ‘You ever done work like this before?’
‘No, sir, never,’ Kevin said. ‘But it can’t be that difficult.’
‘Not difficult, no. But you have to keep your wits about you,’ Syd said stiffly. ‘Nothing riles folks more than having the wrong paper at breakfast or not getting a copy of the magazine they’re following a serial in. Have you a bike?’
‘No.’
‘It will be some hike.’
‘I’m used to walking, sir,’ Kevin said, but he knew it might take him some time at first, because he didn’t know the area at all, but he knew he couldn’t show any nervousness.