A Christmas Wish

by Lizzie Lane

  Suddenly aware what he’d said, he looked embarrassed and apologised again.

  Aunt Bridget took the oilskin bundle from him.

  ‘A few Hail Marys will do as well as a coffin for my poor man,’ she said, her voice cracking as though she were about to break down.

  ‘A good thought, Mrs Brodie. A good thought indeed.’

  Bridget’s breasts heaved in a big sigh prior to looking at him and chancing a weak smile.

  ‘Would you care to come in for a cup of tea whilst you’re here, or a little of something stronger. I can soon send the girl up to the offie to get us something to drown our sorrows with.’

  Bridget’s manner couldn’t have been clearer. One man was gone, but here was another she might be able to get her claws into.

  The seaman spluttered his apologies but declared he had a ship awaiting his return before setting off to Venezuela.

  ‘Uncle James is dead?’

  Magda was saddened; no more jellied eels, no more dog racing when the only sum won had been by virtue of half a crown that Aunt Bridget had stolen from her husband’s pocket.

  ‘Ah yes,’ murmured Bridget, impatient fingers loosening the ties of the oilskin parcel the man had handed her. ‘But he’s left me a bit, so I won’t be destitute, what with you leaving school and bringing a bit in too. Yes, I shall be fine, though as a widow I can always do with a bit more …’

  Magda recognised the conniving look that came to her face. Bridget was planning something.

  She didn’t know quite what until she discovered a brand new writing pad with a couple of pages missing. Her aunt had written to someone, but who?

  The most obvious possibility was to James’s brother, Joe Brodie, her father. But letters took a while to catch up with a man at sea.

  The other possibility was some other relative she knew nothing of. Not grandparents. Aunt Bridget had assured her they were dead.

  Asking her would do no good. She would simply deny ever writing anything.

  But Aunt Bridget rarely told the truth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Twins 1932

  It was the middle of June 1932 when Bridget’s letter arrived in Ireland. There were two armchairs set to either side of the kitchen fire at the farm near Dunavon, funny-shaped old things with hoods over the top and stout little buttons holding the upholstery in place.

  It was to these chairs that Dermot Brodie and his wife retreated after a hard day’s work and mostly after the girls had gone to bed.

  Molly Brodie had wept when she’d heard of Isabella’s death and had been more than willing to take in the twin girls, Venetia and Anna Marie. She’d also suggested to Dermot that they take in the eldest girl and the boy too, but he’d rejected the idea.

  ‘’Tis up to Joe to arrange. They’re his responsibility and however they turn out as a result of his actions, is down to him and him alone.’

  It was to one of these chairs that Molly went now, sinking into its nest-like comfort, though feeling no comfort at all.

  She had read the letter from her daughter-in-law, Bridget, stating that James had been drowned. The first reading had not been enough, and nor had the second. She read it for a third time.

  The letter had been delivered to the village post office. The postmaster, a Welshman, an aloof but dutiful man, had forwarded it on via a boy on a bicycle; hence it had not arrived until they were sitting down to supper.

  She’d informed her husband that they’d received a letter. He’d instructed her to place it behind the clock on the mantelpiece until they’d eaten. He did not approve of reading at the table. Neither did he wish an audience whilst he read. He would read it first before passing it to his wife, seeing as it was addressed to the pair of them.

  It was now gone nine o’clock. The girls had gone to bed without argument.

  Dermot had reached for the letter, opened it and read.

  His face had gone white.

  He read it a second time before passing it to Molly.

  As Molly cried, Dermot sucked on his pipe as though it was lit, when as yet it was not.

  His teeth still gripping the pipe, he put his thoughts into words, aiming his voice at the glow of the fire grate.

  ‘Them and their dreams of seeing the world. They should have stayed here, the both of them. On the land where they belonged.’

  He drew once more on his pipe then spit into the fire where it sizzled and vanished.

  ‘A disappointment. The pair of them.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Magda 1935

  Magda bubbled with excitement as she told Winnie all about the interview at Queen Mary’s Hospital for the East End.

  ‘I still can’t believe I’ve got this far.’

  ‘And you’ll go much further,’ said Winnie. ‘You’re a bright girl and we need more women doctors in this country. Women understand women’s ailments better. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t become one.’

  ‘There is one thing that might stop me, Winnie. It costs money to attend the medical school, money I haven’t got.’

  ‘Can you not write to your father?’

  Magda shook her head.

  ‘Have you grandparents?’

  Magda sighed. ‘According to Aunt Bridget, they died years ago.’

  Winnie looked intensely at the young woman she’d become so fond of. Was she being silly thinking her own daughter would have looked like her? Possibly, but seeing as it soothed her long-standing heartache, did it really matter?

  ‘Magda, what would you say if there was somebody to sponsor your studies? How would that be?’

  ‘Wonderful, but I can’t see …’ She paused, hardly daring to hope and overwhelmed by Winnie’s generosity. ‘I couldn’t possibly pay you back. You’ve done so much for me already.’

  ‘Oh yes you could. In the best way of all. I would sponsor you, Magda. You remind me of the daughter I lost. Like your mother, she might have survived if there’d been a doctor around.’

  Magda stroked her heated brow, the room seeming to spin around her. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Nothing. Leave it with me, Magda Brodie, and you’ll be a doctor yet.’

  All that night, Magda barely slept, her mind reeling at her good fortune and the prospects for the future. It would be two months before she actually entered the hallowed portals of Queen Mary’s and she needed to do something in the meantime. Money wouldn’t just put food on the table, it would put clothes on her back. She couldn’t possibly present herself at Queen Mary’s in clothes that had been unpicked, let out and let down; childish clothes, clothes that no longer properly fitted the young woman she had become. And she would not accept any more of Winnie’s generosity. She had to do something for herself.

  She had the luck to be taken on by Mrs Skinner, a woman of wide proportions and a huge laugh that rippled all the way down to her belly. It was she who had taken over the pitch Danny used to run with his father.

  Warm thoughts came to her when she thought of Danny, wondering how tall he was now, how much more of a man than the last time she’d seen him.

  Working for Mrs Skinner turned out to be a godsend.

  For the first time in her life, Magda had money of her own. She also had more than one young man trying to catch her eye.

  ‘I’m not ready for that,’ she’d said to Mrs Skinner who fancied herself as a matchmaker. ‘I’m not rushing into anything. Not until I’ve made my way in the world.’

  It turned out the customers in the market liked Magda’s dark good looks and friendly smile, the way she could be as bawdy as the worst of them or as politely spoken as the best.

  Though Mrs Skinner couldn’t pay her too much, she had enough to buy food and a few decent clothes from the secondhand clothes stall.

  ‘Voila! I have a nice green jumper here,’ said Jean Claude, the Frenchman who ran it. He’d come over after the Great War having fallen in love with an English nurse. ‘And a skirt. It is silk. Lovely for the evening. And a
jacket. Tweed. Ideal for the winter I think.’

  He also found her a slim coat in lovely silver grey astrakhan with a fetching fur collar.

  ‘I can’t afford this as well,’ Magda had said to him whilst nuzzling her chin and nose into the fur. ‘Mothballs,’ she said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘The balls of the moth will vanish,’ Jean Claude responded in his inimitable way. ‘Talcum powder. Or lemon juice brushed through it; no more balls of moth!’

  ‘But I can’t afford …’

  ‘You can pay me weekly.’

  He leaned into her, his black moustache almost tickling her cheek.

  ‘Most of my customers look like sacks in these beautiful things. You will look beautiful. You must always wear beautiful things.’

  Magda accepted his judgement and his generosity.

  It was rumoured that Jean Claude had once worked in a top fashion house in Paris, but had given it all up for the love of his nurse. Her name was Irene, a serene woman with pale blonde hair and blue eyes set in a heart-shaped face. They had three children all of whom interspersed their Cockney accent with words that were definitely French.

  ‘Now all you need is somebody to take you up west in that finery,’ said Mrs Skinner after Magda had proudly shown her what she’d got. ‘Somebody with a few bob to spend. Take my advice, Maggie my girl. It’s better to be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.’

  Magda laughed. ‘You are a one, Mrs Skinner. You definitely are a one.’

  The next day she was in the square as usual, joking with the passers-by and accepting their compliments about how nice she looked.

  ‘How about I take you out tonight, sweetheart. We could go dancing. How would that be?’ The man offering had a silver tongue and the most successful pitch in the square. He also had a wooden leg and was rumoured to be a bigamist.

  ‘I need to stay home and do some knitting,’ Magda responded.

  ‘Can’t imagine you knitting.’

  ‘Can’t imagine you dancing.’

  ‘Can’t imagine you even owning a pair of knitting needles.’

  ‘You’re right. I’ve only got one needle.’

  ‘Can’t knit with that.’

  ‘And you can’t be much of a dancer with only one leg!’

  Loud laughter from a crowd of onlookers followed.

  Magda exchanged a wink and a grin with Mrs Skinner.

  ‘You’ll be breaking a few hearts with your good looks, Maggie darling,’ said Mrs Skinner. ‘You’ll make as lovely a blushing bride as I was, ain’t that right, Jack?’

  Her husband Jack smiled and nodded. ‘You was indeed, my darling. Slender as a reed at seventeen.’

  Magda hid her smile. Mrs Skinner was now as wide as a door, her chins resting one upon the other.

  ‘Well. What have we here? If it isn’t the lovely Magdalena.’

  The instant she heard him use her full name, Magda knew who it was. Bradley Fitts.

  She pretended to concentrate on tipping three pounds of potatoes from the scale scoop and into the canvas bag of a woman with three kids hanging around her skirts.

  ‘Ninepence, love.’

  Bradley moved so he stood beside the woman, his hand resting on one of the children’s heads.

  ‘Ain’t you going to say hello, Magdalena? Ain’t you glad to see me?’

  The woman handed over the money. Magda turned away, all fingers and thumbs as she placed the coins in the wooden cash box. Hopefully he would be gone when she turned back.

  He wasn’t. There he was standing between her and the queue of customers that had formed.

  ‘How about you come out with me tonight? We make a pretty pair, we two. You know I’ve always liked you. Tasty you are. As tasty as they come. How about it?’

  The thing she’d learned about the likes of Bradley Fitts was that it didn’t do to show fear. Show fear and he would work on it, a mix of charm and intimidation until the object of his bullying was totally in his power.

  ‘I’m not a pie,’ she retorted, pushing her hair back from her face.

  A puzzled expression came to features that were too coarse to be handsome.

  ‘Did I say you were?’

  ‘You said I was tasty. In which case I don’t want to go out with you. You might bite me.’

  ‘Now there’s a thing,’ chuckled Mrs Skinner.

  ‘There’s nothing funny, Missus,’ snapped Bradley, not amused by Magda’s comment and throwing her a warning look.

  Mrs Skinner was about to ask him who he thought he was, when her husband whispered Bradley’s surname into her ear.

  Bradley’s gaze travelled back to Magda, smiling as though he were charm itself.

  ‘I’ve no time to argue. Business before pleasure. Another time, Magdalena.’

  He rolled his tongue around her name as though he could taste it or her on his tongue.

  ‘If she don’t want to go out with you, she don’t have to,’ declared Mrs Skinner.

  Without warning, his hand shot out, grabbing one of Mrs Skinner’s chins.

  ‘Just mind your tongue, Missus.’

  Small and skinny as he was, Jack Skinner stepped forward.

  ‘Take your hands off my wife.’

  Magda heard the trembling in his voice and saw the threat in Bradley’s eyes.

  Bradley made a move towards Jack. Magda got in between the pair of them.

  ‘All right. I’ll go out with you. Just leave Mr and Mrs Skinner alone. Please.’

  Bradley’s eyes flashed to her face and for a moment the air was electric with tension. He pushed Mrs Skinner back so that she almost flattened her husband.

  His last look was for Magda.

  ‘Be here when I get back.’

  ‘Get off,’ hissed Mrs Skinner once he was lost in the crowd. ‘Get on home before he comes back.’

  ‘What if …?’

  ‘We’re off too. We’re shutting the stall early.’

  Mr and Mrs Skinner began speedily sorting out the stall, throwing everything into a chaotic mess so they could wheel it all away before Bradley Fitts came back.

  Magda hurried home feeling more scared than she’d ever felt in her life. It was with great relief that she gained the poor sanctuary offered by the scruffy house in Edward Street, using the key she now had to get in.

  Magda locked the door and slid the bolt across. Like a cornered mouse, she cowered down in the dark, waiting for the tell-tale sound of footsteps.

  Laying her head on her knees, she waited. It was getting dark outside and feeling frightened had tired her.

  She closed her eyes and didn’t hear the approaching footsteps or see the gloved hand raised above furtive eyes that scoured the interior of the dark room.

  The sound of somebody trying the lock followed by an insistent hammering sound jolted her awake. Her heart flew into her throat. Again a fist hammered on the door.

  ‘Magda! Let me in this minute. I’m catching me death out here. Open this bloody door or I’ll lay into you so hard; I’ll take the skin off your back!’

  Magda leapt to her feet. Her aunt fell into her arms, her breath heavy with the stink of stale beer.

  She looked totally dumbstruck when Magda held onto her in the only hug that had ever happened between them.

  ‘What’s this all about? What you been up to?’

  Magda pushed back from her.

  ‘Nothing, Aunt Bridget. I was dreaming it was the bogeyman hammering at the door, but it wasn’t. It was you.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  Magda

  It was the last Saturday before Christmas. The stall had been busy all day and at the end of it, Mrs Skinner made sure that Magda had plenty of food to take home with her.

  Mr Skinner, as skinny as the greyhounds she’d seen at the White City, arrived just in time to give his wife a hand wheeling the barrow home.

  ‘Maggie my girl. This is for you.’

  A plucked chicken was pulled out of a sack and dangled in front of her face.
<
br />   ‘A little bonus from us,’ Mrs Skinner laughed on seeing Magda’s surprised face.

  Magda thanked them. They were kind-hearted people who’d worked hard all their lives and the only people she never corrected when they called her Maggie.

  Off she went home, burdened with the lovely things she’d bought from Jean Claude, plus the fruit, vegetables and chicken the Skinners had given her.

  A skipping rope was stretched across the pavement.

  There’s somebody under the bed. I don’t know who it is, I feel so jolly nervous …

  The girls turning the skipping rope laughed when Magda jumped through it and she laughed with them. Her exuberance vanished on noticing the black car parked outside Winnie’s place. Bradley Fitts was the only person she knew who owned a car.

  A couple of street urchins who had been climbing over the car were clouted off by Emily.

  ‘Get off you little perishers.’

  She chased them round the car and it was difficult to know who was enjoying it more – the kids or Emily.

  ‘It’s not your car,’ one of the boys shouted.

  ‘It’s the doctor’s car. Now get off before I tan yer asses!’

  Magda breathed a sigh of relief that it wasn’t Bradley Fitts, and then worried why the doctor was there.

  ‘Is Winnie well?’ she asked Emily.

  ‘Winnie’s well enough, though ’er leg keeps playing ’er up. But there. She’s over fifty. What else can you expect at that age? Anyway, what’s it to you?’

  ‘I just wondered …’

  ‘The doctor’s for Gertie. She can’t bring the baby. It’s too big.’

  A spine-chilling scream came from inside the house.

  Standing as stiff as a statue, Emily folded her arms and flashed her eyes into the house.

  ‘Poor cow. She’s ’avin’ a pretty bad time of it. Still. That’s it. She’s a woman. She’s expected to give birth in pain. Says so in the Bible.’

  More screams.

  ‘Can’t he do something? The doctor?’

  Emily shrugged. ‘How would I know? I’m not a bloody doctor!’

  ‘Isn’t there a midwife living close by?’