‘He’s been thinking about it for a while,’ Cathy said. ‘A lot of Liverpool lads are going, he says.’
‘But what about his job?’
Cathy shrugged. ‘I don’t know what’ll happen about it. It all seemed to happen so quickly. I didn’t have time to ask him many questions.’
‘You’ll miss his wages,’ Josie said. ‘And I don’t suppose he’ll be sure of his job when he comes back, will he?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cathy said, mentally adding fearfully, ‘If he comes back.’
Josie was still thinking about John’s wages. ‘Still, I suppose at his age he could have been getting married and you’d still have been at the loss of his wages, wouldn’t you?’
‘Marriage is the last thing on our John’s mind.’
‘The years you’ve got to keep them,’ Josie went on, ‘then they’re earning for a few years, and the next thing you know they’re off, married or something.’
‘You can’t stop young people getting married,’ Cathy said, pleased to turn the conversation away from John.
‘Our Edie’s fallen out with Harry again,’ Josie said. ‘They were talking about getting engaged, she told me, and the next thing they were having a row.’
‘They always make it up though, don’t they?’
‘I hope they do. She’ll never find anyone else who can turn those sort of wages up to her,’ Josie said. ‘Five pounds a week. No wonder they say you need a letter from the Holy Ghost to get a job as a printer.’
‘I’m sure they’ll soon make it up,’ Cathy consoled her. ‘He’s a nice lad, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but I don’t want them to get married too soon. The expense of a wedding, and then losing her wages before we’re properly on our feet.’
‘It’s a pity girls can’t stay on at work,’ Cathy said, but Josie looked offended.
‘Crawford’s don’t employ married women,’ she said. ‘Anyway, Harry wouldn’t let her. He’ll be able to keep her.’
When Greg came home, Cathy told him that she had told Josie about John’s plans. ‘She saw the card and started asking questions, and I had to tell her. He’s safely away and she was more interested in how I’d manage without his wages anyway.’
‘I’d warn her not to talk about it when you’re at that job tomorrow,’ Greg said.
‘I never thought of that,’ Cathy admitted. ‘Snowy White asked Mam about John, you know.’
‘Snowy White did?’ Greg exclaimed.
‘Yes. He might just have been trying to be polite,’ Cathy said. ‘You know the little boy who got knocked down – Mam was with his mother, and Snowy White was there and asked her how her grandson was doing, but I don’t suppose it means anything. He’s only the copper on the beat, after all.’
Greg looked thoughtful. ‘What did he say exactly?’
‘He asked how he was, and Mam just said, “He’s fine,” and Snowy said lads have these wild spells and get over them.’
Greg looked relieved.
The following morning Cathy went to see Josie’s mother who had become more and more infirm, and was now confined to bed. She took a baked custard which Mrs Mellor said she would enjoy. ‘I always relished me food, Cathy,’ she sighed. ‘But now I can’t fancy nothing, hardly. I think I’m done for, girl.’
‘Don’t say that, Mrs Mellor,’ Cathy replied. ‘You’ve got to see your granddaughters married, Edie and Bella’s girl.’
‘You’re a good girl, Cathy,’ the old lady said. ‘Like your da. I miss your da, you know. I always felt safe while he was here to sort things out.’ Josie had come into the room, and Cathy helped her to change the sheets on the bed and make her mother more comfortable and Mrs Mellor drifted off to sleep.
Josie and Cathy went downstairs and Josie said with a smile, ‘You were always a favourite with Mam, Cath, and she thought the world of your dad. She broke her heart crying when he died. She said he was the only man she ever knew who was good through and through.’
Tears filled Cathy’s eyes and Josie wept with her for a moment. ‘Your mam has always made me welcome here,’ Cathy said. ‘There’s been some good “do’s” here, haven’t there?’
‘Yes,’ Josie said, and laughed. ‘She always hated your Mary though. Mam reckoned she was the favourite with your dad.’
‘Dad didn’t make favourites,’ Cathy said indignantly. ‘He was very proud of Mary, but he never made any distinction between us.’
‘I know. Makes me laugh when I think the way Mam makes a favourite of our Mary, who never does nothing, and never says a good word about me who does everything for her.’
‘I’m sure she appreciates you really,’ Cathy said. ‘Listen, Josie, I wanted to ask you – will you keep it quiet about our John going to Spain? He might get into trouble about it.’
‘Yes, sure,’ Josie said. ‘I’ve kept our Dolly off to look after me mam. She’s gone for the messages now. She’s only got another couple of months before she leaves school, anyway, and I’ll be glad to get out for the job, to be honest.’
Cathy thought that she too would be glad to go out and forget her worries for a while, but she knew if she said that to Josie it would lead to too many questions so she said nothing.
For years, although she always seemed cheerful and happy, the worry about the conflict between Greg and John had been constantly in her mind, sometimes lying dormant when things went well between them, but always recurring at the first sign of friction.
Since John had appeared in court, the tension had eased between him and his father and there had been no arguments between them. Cathy had lost the sensation of living on a volcano which might erupt at any moment, and this had been a reason for happiness to offset her sadness at her father’s death.
It seemed hard that now there was a fresh cause for worry, about John’s safety, just when things had been going so well. She lay awake for hours at night, wondering where he was and what was happening to him, and praying for the night to end though she was worried during the day too.
Particularly when she was ironing, Cathy’s mind seemed free to range over dreadful possibilities, and she pictured John blinded, or with limbs missing, or taken prisoner, and sometimes the most dreadful possibility of all – his death in action.
It was a relief for her to meet Josie, and take the tramcar to Mount Hall where she was pleased to see Cissie too. She was such a good worker that she made the job lighter for everyone else, and could always be relied on to provide amusement, whether intentionally or not.
The occasion for the dinner was a reunion of middle-aged men who seemed very pleasant, and the menu was simple so the work was easy. Cathy was following Cissie, serving vegetables. She was delayed for a moment. When she caught up with Cissie, she was bending over a man who had turned to look up at her.
‘Don’t you worry, lad,’ she was saying. ‘My girl had my heart scalded, but she’s settled down now as good as gold. They turn out all right in the long run.’
She moved on and Cathy was relieved to see that the man was smiling and his next-door neighbour was saying, ‘There you are, Jim. The next time you write, tell Nigel he has your heart scalded, but don’t waste time battering him.’
Later, when the rush was over, Mrs Nuttall said to Cissie, ‘What was all that in aid of with that fellow?’
‘Ah, poor bugger. He was telling the other feller he was worried about his lad, so I told him: “Girls is worse. I battered our Daisy but it never done no good.”’ She sighed theatrically. ‘We all has our troubles, don’t we?’
‘Yes, and you’re mine,’ Mrs Nuttall said. ‘You’ll get me hung before you’re finished.’ Cissie went on to tell them that she had been ironing when she saw a cockroach run along by the skirting board in the kitchen. She threw the flatiron at it just as Bert came in the door and he had run out again into the entry. ‘He kept shouting up the yard, “What was that for? I never done nothing.” Laugh! I nearly wet meself,’ Cissie said.
Cathy came home in a much more ch
eerful frame of mind, deciding that she would look on the bright side and refuse to let her imagination conjure up any more horrors about John.
‘I’m glad of the four shillings,’ she told Josie, ‘but I’d do the jobs for nothing as long as Cissie was there.’
Sarah missed John and worried about him, but she had too many other interests to brood about him very much. The unsatisfactory affair with Michael still dragged on. He asked her out about once a fortnight, always to see a film, and always when he took her home simply said goodnight and walked away.
‘I don’t know why he bothers. He obviously doesn’t care about me,’ she said to Anne.
‘It’s the queerest courtship I’ve ever heard of,’ Anne agreed.
Often Sarah told herself that she would refuse to go out with him, but always she agreed, hoping that this time it would be different. She felt that she knew as little about him as when he first came in the shop, although Anne was able to tell her that he attended her church, and her sister Maureen saw him sometimes at Benediction.
‘Maureen says he looks as though he should have a laurel wreath round his head, and I agree,’ Anne said. ‘He looks like “the noblest Roman of them all”, doesn’t he?’
Sarah nodded. She felt that she had only to close her eyes and she could instantly recall every detail of Michael’s appearance. His dark blue eyes fringed with dark lashes, his straight nose and firm chin, and his dark hair in close curls over his head. It was true that his profile was that of a coin, and he was tall and muscular too.
No wonder I love him, she thought, but evidently he doesn’t love me. Then a doubt entered her mind. Do I love him really, or do I just love his looks? I don’t know, but I’m going to try to forget him.
Her visits to Anne’s home and outings with her family helped to ease her heartache, and then she and Anne discovered another interest. They joined an Irish dancing class being held in a parish hall. Both slim and light-footed, they soon learned the steps and became excellent dancers. They began to spend most of their evenings at ceilidhes held at various church halls and clubs.
Anne with dark hair and brown eyes, and Sarah with blue eyes and light chestnut hair were a contrast in colour, but both usually looked quiet and serious. At the dances, excitement made their eyes sparkle and gave colour to their cheeks, and young men rushed to claim them as partners as soon as the music started. They were usually escorted home and asked for dates.
‘I’m going out with Joe Hammond on Wednesday, and to the pictures with Ronnie Riley on Friday,’ Sarah said to Anne, ‘but I’m not going to get serious with anyone.’
‘Neither am I,’ declared Anne. ‘Matt Doyle said I was a two-timer, but I told him there’s nothing wrong in going out with two fellows at once if they know about each other. If he doesn’t like it, he knows what to do.’
Eventually the day came when Michael asked to take Sarah to the cinema and she was able to tell him that she already had a date for that evening. She hoped to provoke him but he only said calmly, ‘Another time then,’ and smiled at her before moving away.
Sarah escaped to a small store room and shed a few tears, but then she became angry. That’s that, she told herself. Now I’m really going to forget him. I won’t go out with him again.
On December the second the Bishop of Bradford made a reference to King Edward VIII in a sermon, which gave the newspapers an excuse to open the floodgates of speculation about the King and Mrs Simpson.
People were bitterly divided, some condemning the King for consorting with a divorced woman, others saying that he had the same right as other men to fall in love, but all were united in detesting Mrs Simpson. Even children sang, ‘hark the herald angels sing, Mrs Simpson’s pinched our King’.
Edie Meadows was in tears about it and told Sarah that all the girls she worked with loved the King.
‘These old men who are against him don’t know what they’re talking about,’ she wept. ‘He’s a lovely man.’
Sarah agreed with Edie in supporting Edward VIII.
‘He’d be a good King,’ she said that evening at home. ‘Look at the interest he took in the miners. He said something must be done about their conditions.’
‘He also said he was going to cut away a lot of dead wood in the Royal Household and make various other reforms,’ Greg said. ‘I’m afraid he’s stirred up too many hornets’ nests, and they’ll get him out on one pretext or another.’
‘What do you think of Mrs Simpson, Dad?’
‘I think she’s a determined woman, but she’s underestimated the strength of the opposition.’
Sarah laughed. ‘Sometimes you sound like Grandad,’ she exclaimed. ‘The way he always had a different slant on things.’
Events were moving swiftly and on December the eleventh the King abdicated after a moving speech on the wireless. Mabel Burroughs was in a state of constant distress about it, and bitter in her condemnation of Mrs Simpson, and her dislike of the new King and Queen.
‘I believe she’s a Tartar,’ she told Sarah and Anne. ‘Goes round the house with white gloves on, looking for dust, and him with a stammer like that! What sort of a King will he be?’
‘That’s unkind, Mabel,’ Anne protested. ‘I’m sure he didn’t want to be King, but was pushed into it.’
‘No, but she wanted to be Queen, the Duchess of York,’ Mabel said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that about his stammer. I think he’s a good man and he’ll do his best, but it should never have happened.’
Sarah soon lost interest in the affairs of Royalty. She could only think that Christmas was approaching, and compare it with the happy holiday of the previous year when her grandfather was still with them and John was at home, and when she had been so happy and hopeful because she had been out with Michael and he had given her the topaz brooch.
A week before Christmas he came into the shop and waited until most of the pie queue had been served before approaching Sarah and asking if he could see her that evening. She was about to refuse when he said quietly, ‘I want to talk to you, Sarah. Explain something. I thought we might go to a café and talk.’
She agreed and arranged to meet him, puzzled by his serious manner and wondering what he needed to explain.
They found a table in a secluded corner of the café and Michael waited until they had ordered and eaten a simple meal, then leaned over the table and took her hand.
‘I think what I’m going to say will be a shock to you, Sarah, and I think perhaps I haven’t been fair in not mentioning it to you before this,’ he said. ‘I’m hoping to become a priest.’
‘A—a priest!’ she stammered.
‘Yes. I’ve thought for a long time that that was what I wanted. That I had a vocation. I’d almost decided to apply last year when I met you and was attracted to you, Sarah. It raised doubts in my mind and I thought this might be God’s way of showing me that I hadn’t a true vocation.’
‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘You’ve been asking me out all year.’
‘I know. I’ve been wrestling with the problem all this time. I felt so drawn to you, I thought I was falling in love with you, yet something seemed to hold me back. I kept hoping for some sign to show me the way, then when you told me that you were going out with someone else, that was it.’
Sarah shook her head. ‘I still don’t understand. How could that—?’
‘It showed me that I wasn’t being fair to you, for one thing, and for another—’ He hesitated and said gently, ‘Don’t misunderstand me when I say this, Sarah. I knew that I should have felt distress and jealousy when I thought of you with someone else, but I didn’t. Don’t be hurt. The lack was in me.’
‘I’m not hurt,’ she said slowly. ‘I’m glad you’ve told me. It explains such a lot. You know, Michael, I always felt that there was something wrong. I thought at first it was that we were both shy, but then I realized it wasn’t that, but couldn’t work out what it was.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said.
&nb
sp; ‘Don’t be. I’m relieved. I’d begun to think that there was something wrong with me.’ She smiled.
‘I’m glad I haven’t upset you, Sarah,’ he said. ‘I’ll always value your friendship.’
The café was almost empty. They left and walked slowly back to Egremont Street.
Michael told her that he had talked with his parish priest and the first steps had already been taken for his entrance to a seminary to be trained for the priesthood.
‘Will you pray for me?’ he asked. ‘A late vocation isn’t easy.’
‘I will, and I’m sure you’re doing the right thing,’ she said. ‘I mean, I’m sure you truly have a vocation, Michael.’
He smiled. ‘Time will tell,’ he said. ‘I’ve a long way to go yet.’ And he bent his head and gently kissed her goodbye.
It was a brotherly kiss, and as Sarah left him and went indoors she thought ruefully, I waited a long time for that kiss, and it could have come from John or Mick!
Chapter Twenty-Eight
At the beginning of December another letter had come from John, this time from Lyons. ‘That’s about three hundred miles from Paris,’ Greg said. ‘He’s getting nearer to the Spanish border.’
John wrote that he was with a small group, all from very different backgrounds but all united. “It’s a wonderful experience to meet these fellows, all different types and from such different backgrounds yet all wanting to fight for a world where all men are equal, and people have an equal chance in life.”
‘Well, he seems happy enough,’ Cathy said. ‘And still thinking the same way. I was afraid he would get there and find he’d made a mistake.’
‘If that was the case, he’d be able to pay for his journey home, anyway,’ Greg comforted her.
Just before Christmas two more letters arrived from John, one written from a town twenty miles from the Spanish border, and the second from the Spanish town of Figueras. In the first letter he said that so far they had been travelling by train and sightseeing, but now the real part of the journey would start.
In the second letter he wrote exultantly:
There is a Season Page 35