by Betty Burton
Having gone the length of the garden, they stood up, Ted rubbing the small of his back as he always did when he straightened his spine; not because it ached, for he spent many hours of his adult life stooped over one or another of the Roman’s Fields crops. Leaving the night’s catch beside the compost pit into which it would be consigned tomorrow, they ambled amiably back towards the house, Ted to write up his daybook, and May to get Gabriel his supper and turn down his bed.
* * *
Although Lu could hardly remember her father, the photo on the mantelpiece at Lampeter Street taken before she was born (Mum holding baby Kenny, Ralph standing by Dad in his Navy uniform against a picture of the sea and a sailing ship) shows that Dad and Uncle Ted look quite alike, except that Dad is younger and his hair is cropped right off, the horrible baldy, short at the back and sides that Navy men have to have done.
Gran said she always liked Arthur best. Arthur was always a bit of a lad. He likes his grog. Always one for the girls. He throws his money around like a sailor. Children whose fathers are on the railway always have better things, and it isn’t so essential for their mothers to have to work in the clothes factories. Lu has often wished that she had a railway dad like Kate Roles did. Aunty Vi said Kate Roles was spoilt, but Lu didn’t think so; Kate was pretty and happy and came to school with a red bow in her yellow hair. Lu wonders whether she will be allowed to wear her diamond star. It is an exciting prospect. Lena Grigg would be jealous as anything.
She hears a murmur of voices coming from below her window, and creeps out of bed to look. Aunty and Uncle are going round the garden with a torch picking something. She can’t imagine what must be picked at night; she can only think it might be mushrooms which Ray sometimes went out to pick at night, but she really doesn’t know about mushrooms. Now that she is out of bed she leans on the windowsill and looks out at the night. There is a line of orange on the horizon and it occurs to her that it might not be night, but Aunty and Uncle are ‘up and about early’,,as they said they would be. This reminds her that Ralph is on early turn, and she watches him again rubbing Brylcreem into his hair to make it stop down. She wonders why he doesn’t just let it be its own crinkly self. But then it might grow like Uncle Ted’s, which is a frizzy bush.
Lu is struck by the slow, easy way they walk, quietly talking. She has never seen people behave like this. The whole scene has the same contented but a bit anxious feeling she gets from reading her only book, the Rupert Bear annual. Their voices are too low to reach her. Ted is saying, ‘Is that a face up in Pa’s old room?’
‘Oh, poor child, she must feel strange not having any houses round her. I’ll take her a drink of milk.’
‘You had your turn at fussing her, let me go up.’
Lu is now back in bed. The bedroom door is not closed; she hears a quiet humming in time to the slow, light tread on the stairs. Uncle Ted seems to hum and whistle a lot of the time, so she knows that it is him when she hears a quiet knock on the door.
‘All right if I come in, Lu?’
‘Yes, Uncle.’
She is leaning on one elbow looking anxiously towards the door. Uncle Ted is carrying a mug in his ordinary hand and a book under his arm, the arm that doesn’t work properly hangs down swinging slightly. At supper she had found the arm fascinating. It was thin and looked as though it belonged to a different sort of person from Uncle Ted, who was strong and brown. She thought it looked as if, although his hand could remember what to do, his arm couldn’t. If he wanted to pick up his fork or cup, his right hand would have to put his left hand in place before it could do so; then it was all right.
He stands uncertainly just inside the room. ‘Can’t sleep then?’
‘I was asleep, then I woke up and I didn’t know if it was morning.’
‘I dare say it seems a bit dark without any streetlights.’
‘It was quite nice. You get ever such a lot more stars here than we do.’
‘Your Aunt May thought you might like a bit of a drink of warm milk, but I thought a story.’ He approaches, puts down the mug of milk on the night-table, then perches on the bedside chair. ‘Could you manage both?’
Lu gives a little smile and nods. ‘Ralph used to read to me at night when I was getting over the Dip.’
‘What did he read then? Go on, drink it whilst it’s nice and warm.’
She tastes, then drinks. ‘Rupert Bear. It’s the only one I got, but it’s my favourite. Ralph bought it for a present when I was four.’
‘I’m afraid we haven’t got Rupert the Bear. Only one I could find was this. I don’t know whether…?’ He turns the spine to face her, and she reads, aloud, ‘The Children’s Golden Treasure Book – Brimful of Joyous Entertainment. That’s a thick book. What is in this milk?’
‘Nothing except milk. Don’t you care for it?’
‘Yes, but it’s sort of sweet and thick.’
‘Ah, that’ll be because it came from a cowslip.’
Lu gives a little smile, showing that she knows that this is a joke.
‘Cowslip’s the name of May’s little Jersey cow. When you’re feeling up to it, I dare say she’ll take you down at milking time. May was going to put in some honey, but decided best not in case you don’t like it.’
‘I never had none of that. Isn’t it what bees have?’
She’d never had no honey? Best not tell May that or she’d be on about ‘poor little mite’ again, and that wouldn’t do the girl much good; she really don’t realize there’s much amiss with her.
‘True, it is what bees have, but we has a share with them… Well, no, they share it with us, but in return we give them a bit of sugar in the winter. But it rightly belongs to them, the honey. I reckon it’s the best sweet taste in the world.’
Ted remembered the lump of raspberry drops she had offered round, looking pleased when he and May took one and May popped one in her father’s mouth. ‘Well, maybe you’ll think your sweets are better, but I promise you the honey has more goodness. Country people put it on wounds, and sores. It’s a gift from the bees us humans don’t always deserve. I’ll tell May to give you some on toast in the morning, see if you like it.’
‘Is there bees’ seeds?’
Ted frowns. ‘Bees’ seeds? Not that I ever heard.’
‘Oh.’
‘What are they supposed to be?’
‘I don’t know, only people say “mind your own bees’ seeds”.’
His eyes smile as he recalls his Pompey boyhood. ‘You mean like kids say to each other when they’m being a bit assy with each other? Like “Clear off you, mind your own bees’ seeds”?’
Lu nods vigorously. ‘Yes.’
‘I always took it to mean “mind your own business”.’
‘Yes, but why bees’ seeds?’
‘You got me there, Lu. I’ll have to sleep on that one. Now, where was we? What shall it be then, a lucky dip? Go on, you just open the page, any page, and we’ll see what comes up.’
‘Start at the beginning.’
‘So we shall. I come by this in a box of books I bought at a house sale. I never thought to read it, so it will be a mystery tour for me and all.’
When he opens the book and turns the pages, Lu is at once reminded of Ralph, who turns pages one by one, gently flattening them along the stitching with the tip of one finger.
‘Right then, if you can’t drink no more, you could put the rest of your milk on the night-table if you like, in case you get thirsty during the night; lay back comfortable on your pillow.
‘Here we go… “Candida’s First School” by Katharine L. Oldmeadow. “Chapter One – Enter Candida. The Dresden china clock on the mantelshelf struck three little silvery strokes, and Miss Elizabeth Wymer put down her pen with a sigh of relief, for at three o’clock she had promised herself a cosy rest near the fire before tea, with a new number of Punch as companion.
‘“The room in which she sat was oddly unlike the usual sanctum of a busy schoolmistress… ”’ He reads on
to the bottom of the page, looking up as he turns over and sees her large, overbright eyes absorbed in this Miss Wymer getting herself comfortable in her chintzy room before a glowing fire on a dreary January afternoon. The doorbell rings in an ill-bred way and the Candida of the title arrives on the scene… ‘“tall for her age, and was extremely thin. Her little oval face was very pale, her eyes were so darkly blue they seemed almost black, and deep shadows of weariness lay beneath them. Masses of thick black silky hair, unconfined by ribbon or plait, hung to her waist in a dark cloud…”’ Again he glances up and receives a wide smile that shows in her eyes. Ted gives her a little friendly wink.
‘Uncle Ted? Would it be rude if I went to sleep now?’
‘No, my dear, it would make me and May very happy if you did.’
Lu let out a deep sigh and wriggled her head into the pillows and was almost asleep before Ted had put a marker in the page and placed the book beside the mug of milk. She had gone to bed in knickers and a sleeveless vest; he felt he should cover her stick-like arm that lay on the plump eiderdown, but was afraid she would be disturbed.
He stood looking down at that arm which reminded him of his own first night under this roof. A damp, foggy night, like many he had experienced here since that one. It was the first time in his life that he had slept on two pillows, and each with a clean pillow-cover. As he listened to Lu’s heavy breathing, he reached over and cradled his own damaged arm. He had learned to forgive the man who’d done this to him, Gabriel had taught him that. But he would never be able to forget the injustice and indifference that came after – his dreams still reminded him. But then neither could he forget the altruism of Clara and Gabriel Strawbridge. Now, here was the second of the Wilmott tribe to feel the balm of a family whose motto (if they had ever been so vain as to think of such pretentiousness) would be ‘I am my brother’s keeper’, and who lived by it.
Downstairs, he said to May who was standing ironing sheets on the table, ‘She got a lot better manners than I had at her age.’
May said, ‘She seems to have a nice nature altogether… Ah, but so pathetic, those great dark eyes sunk in like that: she makes my heart bleed. I’ll say this, even though Arthur’s your brother, Vera and young Ralph have made a better job of making his baby into such a nice little thing than he’d have made himself…’
‘Young Ralph was always a nice sort of lad… and a course so was Vera nice. Nobody thought she’d stick to our Arthur – he was the roughest of all of us brothers.’ May, changing flat-irons at the range, pecked him on the cheek. ‘And who was the best?’
Ted shook his head. ‘Not Ted Wilmott in his younger days, that’s for sure. It took a man like Gabr’l to smooth down the rough side of me.’ After a few minutes gazing inwardly, he said, ‘You know Vera don’t get an allowance from the Navy, don’t you?’
‘Don’t get an allowance? Why shouldn’t she? Your Arthur’s signed on for twenty-five years.’
‘He isn’t married to Vera.’
May put down the flat-iron and stood smoothing the warm sheet. ‘Not married?’
‘No.’
‘Lord’s sake, Ted, then it’s high time he was.’
‘That’d make him a bigamist. He got a wife somewhere up the north of Scotland. Got married at Gretna Green when Arthur was under-age.’
‘I can’t hardly believe what I’m hearing.’
‘It’s true.’
‘Why haven’t I heard about it then?’
‘I don’t know… I suppose when it happened, you and me hadn’t got together… He said he’d made this terrible mistake and he couldn’t talk to anybody else in the family.’
‘What about her then, his proper wife?’
‘Arthur reckoned she got fed up as quick as he did, but she was from one of them strick churches they have in Scotland. Her father was something like equal to a vicar, so there it was.’
‘Is she still alive then?’
‘Don’t ask me. No reason why she shouldn’t be; she was only about ten years older, so she’d only be about my age.’
‘So what about Vera?’
‘I tackled him about it – he says she knew.’
‘But they had a wedding and everything?’
‘No, they never. When they was supposed to have gone off and had a run-away wedding down in Devonport, they never. They had a photo done, with Vera in a white frock and flowers, and one of Arthur’s shipmates, but that’s all the wedding amounted to. It was all done because Vera was expecting Ralph, and she didn’t come from that side of the tracks where a girl can go home and tell her mother she’s got herself in trouble. She thought it was better for everybody if they thought she was married.’
May spat on a reheated iron, then waited for it to cool down. Ted sat fondling May’s fat black half-bred Persian cat, which rumbled with pleasure. ‘Why haven’t you ever said anything?’
‘Because I said I wouldn’t. They didn’t want none of the families to know… can you imagine how the Wilmotts would have treated Vera – at least Arthur had sense enough to understand that. Vera didn’t want her family to know; it was bad enough for the Presleys having a daughter who they expected would marry a middle-class chap running off with a Pompey matelot. You can imagine what it would a done to them if they knew they wasn’t even married.’
She was hurt. ‘I suppose saying you wouldn’t tell anybody, included me?’
‘You’re the one who’s got the scruples here, May.’ As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. ‘Well, now I’ve told you.’
May laid out a flannelette sheet, and ran back and forth over the same piece. ‘So you have, but you waited a long time.’
‘What would have been the point?’
‘We might have helped Vera, is the point.’
‘It’s all very well to say that, but Vera’s just as proud and independent as you are, May. Put yourself in her shoes. Would you have wanted to live amongst the Wilmotts having them look down on you? They never liked her much as it is, her talking proper and being to college… wouldn’t they a just loved taking that out of her. I knows my own, May.’
‘Then why have you chose tonight to decide to come out with it?’
‘I should a thought that didn’t want much fathoming. The plain fact of Arthur’s irresponsibility is upstairs asleep. It wasn’t until I stood looking at her, lying there like some little waif, that I saw in the flesh the depth of his wickedness. You can’t blame Vera.’
‘What for?’
‘Well… I suppose for having two more children even after Ralph.’
‘Blame Vera? Your Arthur could twist her around his little finger. She gave up everything for him. What do you reckon he gave up?’
Having finished the sheets and pillow-slips, May put them on the airer, then pulled it up to the ceiling above the range. Ted sat silently petting the fluffy, fat cat under its chin, making it squirm with pleasure until May took it from him and dropped it unceremoniously on the floor, and sat on the kitchen footstool close to Ted. ‘There’s bound to be things husbands and wives don’t tell each other about, and I suppose it don’t matter whilst they remain in ignorance; but when it gets out it hurts… No, no, let me finish. You were right, you said you’d keep it to yourself, and it wasn’t anything that affected me. And as for Vera, she fell for a Wilmott same as I did, and I don’t suppose I’d have acted much different in the same circumstances.’
‘The thing is, May, I hope you wouldn’t have had to. I thought more of you than to deceive you the way Arthur deceived Vera.’
May squeezed his good hand, without looking at him. ‘I know that.’ The cat insinuated itself on to May’s lap. ‘Poor old thing, I haven’t fed you yet.’ She draped the cat on her shoulder and picked up its bowl. ‘What about the other one? Do you know if she had any children?’
‘I don’t know. I never thought about it.’
‘Well, at least she’s entitled to the Navy allowance.’
‘I never even really thought about her as bein
g real.’
‘Best leave it like that. Don’t do any good to turn over too many stones.’
Ted, thankful that May was closing the door on the incident, helped to change the mood. ‘I’ll just go along and see if Gabr’l wants a bit of supper then.’
‘No, leave him. I took him something whilst you were upstairs. He’ll probably be asleep by now.’
* * *
In another downstairs room, because sometimes, in cold weather, climbing stairs gave him chest pains, May’s father, Gabriel Strawbridge, could not sleep for several reasons.
Firstly, it had been another unseasonably warm day, and his room was stuffy. May would insist on shutting his windows at night, a thing he had never been used to in his life until this last year or two. He had had a bad bout of bronchitis and had gone along with May about keeping out the night air, but he was well now, and they were being blessed with an early spring. When he heard them go up to bed, he would get out and let in some fresh air.
Secondly, there was a lot of talk going on tonight: first Ted’s voice coming through from up above, then the both of them out in the kitchen talking for ages; they probably didn’t even notice that they had the wireless on. May had done a lot of creeping around late at night lately. One night she even distempered the walls after midnight. ‘I hope I didn’t disturb you, Father, but I’ve been doing out your old room. Pale peach, it’s for Ted’s little niece; she’s had diphtheria, so I thought we could get her here for a week or two to recover her health.’
Thirdly, and this was what kept him wakeful, he could not put out of his mind the feel of the child’s young hand when he held it for a moment after she had been prompted by May to shake hands with him. The hand was not just small, it was wasted: cold, dry bones in a thin covering. He had held it briefly, moved by what it told him. Had it not been for the strong life-force he felt within it, he could easily have believed it was the pathetic hand that Ted had reluctantly pulled from his pocket twenty-five or more years ago. Perhaps when she knew him better, the child would allow him to look at her through his large, old-fashioned magnifying glass. His left eye had the beginnings of a cataract, and the vision in the other was now dimming, so that he had not been able to see her face clearly. She appeared tall for her age; May had described her eyes as ‘brown as new chestnuts’ and her hair ‘like copper in need of a bit of a polish’. But such a bag of bones. So many were… so many are… so many had been over the many years and in the many places his wanderings had taken him. And himself an old man who did not need the nourishment, given meat and bread at every meal, and milk and eggs in plenty.