A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin

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A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin Page 13

by Helen Forrester


  Patrick turned back to deal with the chaos in his own home. ‘Lucky devil,’ he muttered.

  Mary Margaret listened to the noise, trembling with weakness.

  ‘What am I going to do, Mam?’ she asked Theresa frantically. ‘Eight weeks before I see a penny from him!’

  In the failing light of the guttering candle Theresa looked down at her daughter, her lips folded in over toothless gums. Her forty-nine years weighed upon her. She had outlived most of her friends, and she was tired of the constant struggle to stay alive. She said dully, ‘I’ll get a job, and you can sew your hankies – you could get Dollie on them, too. She can hem.’

  ‘She won’t like that – and neither will the old goat from the school.’

  ‘Ach, we’ll think of something to tell him. And she’s got to learn to like it. It’s time she worked.’

  At these words, Dollie paused, a piece of bread halfway to her mouth. Stay at home all day in Martha’s room, stitching and stitching? Not bloody likely. Unless she was paid, which was unlikely.

  She glanced up at her stony-faced grandmother, her mouth open to protest. Then she had second thoughts; Gran was a real tartar. She could still deliver a cutting blow to girls who queried what was said.

  If she had to stay at home, she would bargain later with her mother about getting some money for her work.

  She finished her piece of bread, and then sidled out to visit Bridie Connolly and go out to play in the street, before her grandmother or her mother could order her to do anything else.

  SEVENTEEN

  ‘What Do You Think Girls Is For?’

  October 1938

  On the Saturday on which Thomas told him about his finding a berth, Patrick collected half a week’s pay. Despite a huge row, Martha had been unable to squeeze all his wages out of him. She decided, therefore, to accompany him to the Coburg that evening to help him spend the portion he had withheld.

  First, however, it was vital that she go down the street to pay John O’Reilly at the shop, out of the money her husband had given her. She knew that she must do this; otherwise she might never get credit again.

  Then she had to wait for Jock, the rent collector, popularly known as Satan Hisself, to come bicycling into the yard to do his round. She was already paying off arrears at the rate of a shilling a week and dared not miss another week.

  If rent remained unpaid, Satan Hisself’s employer had the power to call in the bailiffs to sell the contents of their room, and put the family out of the court: they would be left sitting on the pavement, with little hope of finding local accommodation.

  It would be worse than being condemned to Norris Green; at least, if she was moved there by the City, a roof would be provided for them.

  Contentedly aware of his threatening nickname, Jock arrived in the late afternoon at Court No. 5.

  Martha paid him unsmilingly. She was very weary from the fight she had had with Patrick. The sound of her screams of rage demanding money for plimsolls for Tommy and Joseph had been heard throughout the house, as Patrick woodenly refused. He had a fixed idea that she could conjure up other essentials from her own earnings or from charities.

  ‘I give you the rent and O’Reilly’s bill, plus a bit. You do the rest,’ he had snarled.

  Fearing that he might beat her if she insisted further, Martha was silenced. She was seething with quiet rage, however, as she turned to Kathleen. The girl had finished gulping down her bread and cold tea, and she ordered her to take Martha’s own share upstairs and deliver it to Mary Margaret.

  ‘With me love, don’t forget,’ Martha instructed her, as she gathered up Number Nine’s leftovers, some of them strewn on the floor, and stuffed them into her own mouth.

  Later, Kathleen came slowly back downstairs. Auntie Mary Margaret had accepted the little newspaper-wrapped bundle with suitable thanks.

  Martha’s room was nearly dark now, lit only by the distant rays of the lamp at the court’s entry. It was also cold. Her mother seemed to have forgotten that they had no coal and that, consequently, the fire was out.

  ‘And, being Saturday, they’ll go out tonight,’ the girl lamented to herself. ‘Then they’ll come back home, the pair of them, so drunk they’ll hardly be able to stand on their feet.’

  She wondered what it would be like to sit a whole evening in a really warm place like a pub, and get drunk. When she had asked Helen O’Brien whether pubs were warm inside, she had been assured that, indeed, they were. It had sounded most enjoyable.

  One night, Helen O’Brien had given her a sip of her evening glass of gin, before the sisters set out on their evening amble in search of seamen just paid off. As usual, they both had their hair done up in neat buns and their faces garishly painted. To Kathleen, they seemed ghostly in their floured whiteness.

  The gin had been bitter beyond words, and, on an empty stomach, it had made her feel a little light-headed.

  Helen had said, ‘We always has a glass of gin afore we starts.’ She did not say why they always went out in the evenings: she did not have to because Kathleen, though lacking exact details, already knew what some grown-up women did for a living. According to hints from the nuns at school, they would burn in hell for it.

  She did not, however, understand the significance of the glasses of gin, which were only the first of many, judging by their drunkenness when they returned; gin was supposed to protect them from pregnancy.

  Kathleen had hardly groped with her toe for the bottom stair, when Martha ordered her to look after the five younger children while her parents were out during the evening.

  ‘I’ll be going down the road with your dad for a glass of Guinness,’ her mother told her.

  ‘Why can our Brian take off for his boxing and it’s always me what stays with the kids?’ Kathleen yelled in sudden revolt.

  Martha jumped at the unexpected objection. She turned and pushed her face into the face of the angry girl, who was nearly as tall as she was. All the wrath subdued by Patrick’s stubborn denial spurted forth.

  ‘Brian’s got to work and you know it. You stay ’cos you’re a girl – and don’t you forget it. What do you think girls is for?’

  Kathleen was silenced, partly by her mother’s ferocity and partly because of the surprising question. She did not know precisely what girls were for. In dumb acceptance of life, she always shifted through her days as best she could, propelled by circumstances over which she had no control: she had never considered what her future might be.

  Girls became mams and had babies, didn’t they? But, in the meantime, why couldn’t they have fun like boys did? She hadn’t had even a game of hopscotch since Lizzie went into service; and Lizzie didn’t think service as a kitchen dogsbody to a grand lady in Upper Canning Street was much fun either.

  She turned, and flounced out of the room to sit on the front step to consider the question. It was nearly dark and the cold of the step struck through her faded cotton dress to her naked bottom. As she burned inwardly with resentment, she pulled her knees up to her chin to keep herself a bit warmer and tucked her dress tightly round her to cover her nakedness.

  Her unhappiness was added to when, in the half-dark, a young man paused to grin knowingly at her. He was the son of a neighbour in the next court, just home from sea, and, judging by his unsteady stance, was already fairly drunk.

  Suddenly engulfed by another fear, she started up and whipped inside. Acutely aware of her budding womanhood, she had seen that grin on other male faces, and sensed uneasily that it meant trouble; other girls had told her that men put their you-know-what inside them, and it hurt.

  She believed that this might mean babies: the nuns at school had said as much in their muddled, vague warnings about the dangers of men.

  What did they really know about babies? the girl wondered, as she stood shivering in the tiny hall of the house. Wrapped in their black habits, nuns were safe from such threats, weren’t they? But Kathleen had once seen a baby born in the courts and dreaded going through s
uch an ordeal herself. And what would the Sisters have said if she had turned up at school with a big round tummy?

  She knew. They would have verbally torn her to ribbons and called in the priest, and what a to-do that would have caused. Even now that she was older and working, her father would beat her if she ever became pregnant, if only to show the priest that he was a caring father. She might even be sent to a home. It would be hell on earth, never mind hell in the hereafter.

  In the house in which she lived, she felt fairly safe. There were enough women around most of the time, watching with interest every move of their neighbours, ready to tell your mam – or even the priest – what they had observed. Men knew this and it acted as a brake on them; except for her father, who, when at home, made her very uneasy these days by touching her in a way which made her tingle strangely. It frightened her, and she was keeping out of his sight as much as possible.

  She wondered if she dared tell her mother, and decided that Mam would not believe her and that she might be beaten for trying to cause trouble.

  She continued to stand in the tiny hall and shiver for a few minutes, even when the young man had staggered on up the court to the latrines. Then she re-entered the Connolly room to face her mother again.

  Martha said immediately, ‘Here, take Number Nine,’ and thrust the little boy into her arms. ‘I got to cut the bread and cheese for tea.’

  His bare bottom was icy on Kathleen’s arms, but he gurgled with laughter at the sudden transfer, and stuck his finger in his mouth.

  Instinctively, she grinned back at him. Aye, he was a little pet: not like Joey and Ellie, who were forever whining, or Tommy who always seemed to be out, even when she herself was supposed to be looking after him; or Bridie who was a little bitch.

  Her grin turned to a glare as, over the baby’s head, she caught her mother’s eye.

  Martha felt the need to reinforce her earlier remarks. ‘And don’t forget to watch Ellie,’ she warned. ‘She’s gone in a flash these days.’

  Kathleen did not reply. Except for Number Nine, she did not care if all her siblings fell through a grating and down a drain, followed closely by her mother.

  She dropped her eyes, lest Martha see the vicious rage she was in, and then she turned away, still holding the baby close to her.

  Patrick clumped down the stairs from seeing Mike Flynn in the attic. He accepted a thick hunk of bread with a lump of cheese on it thrust at him by his wife, and stood eating it while Martha doled out bread and jam to the children. Then he went to the latrine.

  On his return, he put his head through the doorway; he felt it judicious to inquire, ‘Are you coming, Martha?’ He did not want another row. He was still feeling resentful about the previous shouting match. She had screamed something about plimsolls for Tommy, blast her: maybe he’d give her something for them. But he’d make her wait: and she could bloody well pay for her own drinks tonight, seated separately with the other women, as she would be, on a bench in the hallway.

  Paying for her own drinks did not really bother Martha: on her weekly trip to town she had sold every white rag she had, some at the Pier Head garage and the rest in the market. Even after buying bread, cheese and jam for the family, together with a pint of milk for Number Nine, she still had a whole shilling left.

  She flung her black shawl over her shoulders, and signalled to Patrick over the heads of her quarrelling toddlers that she was coming.

  She left a forlorn Kathleen who was still hungry: in her fast-growing years, the girl yearned for food, lots and lots of it. She had spent most of her time in school thinking of it – and of having pretty clothes and her hair curled, like the young women she saw on her rare visits to the city centre.

  Sometimes, oblivious to Sister Elizabeth’s notes on the blackboard, which she was supposed to copy into her exercise book, only a slap across her ear would bring her back to the dreary routine of the classroom.

  Then she would once again pick up her nub end of pencil and laboriously form the letters for words which she barely knew; yet Sister Elizabeth was the only person who ever gave her a word of encouragement, telling her that she had brains and should use them. ‘If you can read, girl, you can learn anything.’

  Learn anything? For what? To have babies? To do what you’re told by your parents? The priest called the latter ‘honouring them’. And he was another one who had to be obeyed. Reading seemed a useless skill: her mother never seemed to need it.

  As she stood cuddling Number Nine, Tommy pushed past her and, without a word, went out. She really envied Tommy his freedom. Mam didn’t seem to care what he did. It was as if he was free to do anything, she considered enviously.

  He was an amiable boy and she rarely quarrelled with him. Nice-looking, he was, fair-haired with bright blue eyes. And what’s more, she considered, as she absently separated Joseph and Ellie, whose quarrel was rapidly becoming a fight, he earned a lot of pennies, more than he ever told their mam about. She had seen him buy himself a bun at Mr O’Reilly’s on more than one occasion.

  When she asked him, he always said he got his money from the carters who thronged the dock roads with their drays drawn by huge Belgian horses. If an animal was not particularly well trained or the drayman expected to be absent for some time while doing a delivery – or went into a pub for a drink or a pee, a boy would, for a penny, hold the horse’s bridle and keep the animal calm. He would also raise the alarm if a thief tried to steal part of the load.

  She had in the past wondered, idly, if Tommy ever dared to drop his shorts for the many paedophiles who haunted the narrow alleys across the street, alleys which were playgrounds for Hide and Seek or Cowboys and Indians. Boys did sell themselves on the streets: she knew that from friends at school; but boys didn’t have babies, the girls always pointed out with sheepish giggles. If boys could endure whatever it was they did to them, men would give them a silver threepenny bit or some sweeties.

  She did not envy Brian: she felt that, now he was at work, he was no longer really part of the family. He had pocket money. Also, he took his boxing seriously and that took up his free time; when he was full grown, he wanted to be a professional boxer. Lucky him. In contrast, she had to babysit, in addition to going to work. And had all her wages taken by their mother, she thought resentfully.

  Mams were much more suspicious of what girls got up to, she considered, with a sigh. Mechanically, she ordered Bridie to stop going through the food box to see what was left.

  ‘Mam’ll kill you if anything’s missing,’ she threatened. ‘Just you keep your hands out of there. You’ve had your tea.’

  ‘I’ll do what I like,’ came the muffled reply, as the younger girl stuffed the heel of a loaf into her mouth.

  Kathleen slipped Number Nine to the floor, and sprang like an angry Alsatian over Ellie and Joseph, who were locked in friendly combat.

  She seized a handful of Bridie’s hair and forced her head back, while she grabbed the bread protruding from her mouth.

  Bridie grinned, let the bread go and bit her sister’s wrist.

  Kathleen cried out, let go of the hunk of bread and clutched the girl by the throat. She pressed hard until Bridie choked. As she fought for breath, Bridie fell backwards.

  Kathleen let go of her throat and, with one bare foot, kicked her hard in the stomach.

  Bridie screamed.

  Kathleen ignored her, while she rescued the half-chewed piece, which had fallen to the floor, and threw it back into the box.

  ‘If you go near that box again, I’ll kick you till you have to go to hospital. Mam’ll give you what for, anyway, when I tell her.’

  A furious Bridie was saved from further threats, because Helen and Ann, on their way to their own room at the back, unexpectedly walked into the candlelit Connolly room. They had been to the corner store and were laden with bursting cotton shopping bags.

  The children immediately ceased their noise at the sight of the friendly faces.

  The women were taking a respite
after a very busy week, and they paused to smile at Kathleen with easy good humour.

  ‘Now, there, what’s to do?’ Helen asked the younger children. ‘It sounds like Lime Street Station on Cup Final day, it does.’

  Bridie immediately pointed an accusing finger at Kathleen. ‘She kicked me!’ she shrieked, and clutched her stomach. Keeping one eye on the two prostitutes to see the results of her dramatic presentation, she continued, as if in terrible pain.

  For a moment, Kathleen wished that her big sister Lizzie was there to help her. Lizzie was big-built and a full year older than she was, with the same commanding voice that Martha had. When she had been in charge, all the children had quailed before her.

  Kathleen stared helplessly at her neighbours. She did not want to explain how the racket had come about. All she wanted to do was to walk out of the door and leave the children to rot.

  While the newcomers laughed at Bridie’s histrionics, Ellie and Joey caught at the prostitutes’ skirts, their playful altercation forgotten. Fearing that they might be blamed for the noise, they began a steady frightened whimper.

  Number Nine got up off the floor, and clutched at Ann’s flowered apron. He raised his eyes to her, and asked, ‘Butties?’

  He often received tiny bits to eat from the women, and, since he had not eaten much dinner or tea, he, like Kathleen, was now hungry.

  Unwilling to open up her shopping bags to such an avaricious collection of children, Ann answered him, ‘I don’t have no butties, but I got a toffee – I think.’

  Smiling at the child, she dug into her deep skirt pocket and a wrapped toffee was produced. Number Nine laughed and toddled away with it, while Ellie and Joey stopped whining and looked expectantly up at the giver.

  ‘I don’t have no more,’ Ann told them regretfully. ‘Maybe next time?’

  Her sister produced a box of matches, and then unlocked their door. A match was struck, a candle lit to illuminate their windowless room. Then the door was shut, and only a dim line of light at the bottom of it and soft murmuring voices indicated that they were home.

 

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