by Anne Bennett
He found Rocky Lane that Len had spoken of and went down it to stand at the side of the oil-slicked torpid water that smelt a little. But the canal’s smell only mingled with the other smells. He was to find out later that the slightly vinegary one was from the sauce factory; the malty one from the brewery, the slight whiff of rubber was from the Dunlop factory that he’d passed in Rocky Lane, and the hot metallic smell came from the foundry.
So much was going on here and he ached to be part of it. He stood and watched as the area came to life. He was totally surprised by the colourful boats that ploughed up and down the canal, which he later learnt were barges. He fervently hoped his future, such as it was, lay in Aston.
‘So what’s this cook like?’ Annabel asked her brother the day before she was due to arrive.
Henry shrugged. ‘Just a cook, you know?’
‘No I don’t know,’ Annabel said. ‘And I think it very bad of you not to say more than that. I mean, is she thin or fat and old or young for example?’
‘Oh she’s definitely plump,’ Henry said with a slight laugh. ‘If she hadn’t been I might have engaged someone else.’
‘Why?’ Celia asked.
‘Have you never heard the saying, “Never trust a thin cook”?’
‘Well I hardly would hear that, would I?’ said Celia. ‘I was never familiar with houses like these. I mean, cooks and housemaids and parlour maids and lady’s maids were not part of my world.’
‘No,’ Henry conceded. ‘But they do say that, because if you have a plump cook it looks as if she likes her food and is likely to be a better cook than some skinny miss.’
‘I would have thought references a better indication,’ Annabel said. ‘I can’t see Mother engaging someone because of their physique.’
‘I took references too,’ Henry said. ‘To tell you the truth, I was on the lookout for one who looked a kindly soul. Some cooks can be the very devil and I wanted one who didn’t scare the living daylights out of Celia.’
Celia was very pleased to hear that and she said, ‘So how old is this plump woman?’
‘In her forties I would say,’ Henry said. ‘Her hair’s brown and sort of frizzy though I couldn’t see much of it because she had a hat on, but I did see that it was short. Actually she drew my attention to it because she said she wore it short on purpose because she thought it was more hygienic in the kitchen and it meant her cook’s hat fitted better. Anyway, you’ll see her for yourself tomorrow.’
And they did of course and Celia found there were things Henry didn’t mention in his sparse description of the cook, like the fact that her blue eyes were kind-looking and the two rosy cheeks in her wide open honest face made her look friendly.
However, Sadie the cook had worked in a great many establishments before this one and privately she found it an odd set-up, for the sister of the master spoke with that strange Irish accent and seemed nervous about giving orders as if she was unused to it while her friend was much better at it. But for all that, they were pleasant enough girls and she felt quite motherly and protective towards them, especially the one called Cissy, widowed so young, and she was tickled pink there would soon be a baby in the house.
Henry was relieved the cook was installed for, despite the enveloping coat he’d bought, Annabel’s little bulge was becoming more noticeable. As they sat around the table digesting the first evening meal made by Cook, Henry said, ‘Now Cook is here, there is no need for you to go to Erdington for Cook will probably have most things delivered. In fact I wouldn’t like you to leave the house much now, for it wouldn’t do for you to be seen by anyone who knows you, for your pregnancy is beginning to show.’
Annabel nodded for she knew that, and so did Celia and she said, ‘I do see what you mean, but the doctor suggested a walk every day.’
‘Make for Pype Hayes Park then,’ Henry said. ‘That’s even closer than Erdington Village and you will be safe there apart from Saturdays and Sundays. Give it a miss on those days. But mind, Annabel, I don’t want you overdoing it.’
‘Henry, I feel perfectly well.’
‘You look perfectly well,’ Henry said. ‘And that is the way we want to keep it.’
Celia wondered how Annabel could possibly overdo things when she had nothing to do with her days but lie about, for she had someone else doing the housework and now another doing the cooking and soiled clothes sent out to the laundry and Celia herself did any fetching and carrying needed.
So, though they were going to be allowed to walk in the park every weekday, there were still hours to fill. Celia was not used to being idle and she didn’t think it would do Annabel any good at all either and so she said, ‘We will have hours to fill now that Cook is doing what we used to do, so what do you think about making a few things for the baby?’
Annabel looked at Celia as if she couldn’t believe her ears. ‘I have no feelings for this child, Celia. I thought you knew that.’
‘Well whether you have feelings for the child or not, he or she will need clothes.’
‘Well they can be bought nearer the time, can’t they?’
‘I suppose they can,’ Celia said. ‘But every woman I know would make the little vests and nighties that they wear in the early days and would usually also hem the muslin and terry squares that they use for nappies and sometimes embroider the edges of the baby’s blankets or bedspread. Your governess must have taught you to sew?’
‘She did,’ Annabel said and her voice was wistful as if she wished she were back in the schoolroom and none of this had happened and she hadn’t got an unwanted baby growing inside her.
Celia caught Annabel’s unhappy tone and she saw Henry had noticed too and their eyes locked together for a moment as Annabel went on, ‘She said I had quite a neat hand.’
Henry knew what Celia was trying to do and he said, ‘There you are then. And I’m sure you’ll enjoy it once you start.’
‘D’you really think so, Henry?’
‘I do, my dear,’ Henry said. ‘And I’ve just thought of another occupation for you. The pair of you were probably too intent on shopping when you visited Erdington Village to notice but opposite that green is a public library that’s virtually spanking new.’
‘What’s a public library?’ Celia asked. ‘I mean, I know a library is something to do with books but …’
‘It is to do with books,’ Henry said. ‘But these books you can take home and borrow for two weeks and then take them back and get some more out.’
‘And … And they don’t mind you doing that?’ It was Celia who asked the question but Annabel was looking at him quizzically too.
‘No, they want you to do that,’ Henry said assuredly to both girls. ‘That’s what it’s all about and why it’s called public.’
‘Golly, I’ve never had a book to just read before,’ Celia said. ‘Just ones for school that were usually bits of books that you had to answer questions about. Not that I had the time to read much then anyway.’
Annabel watched the pleasure on Celia’s face with amusement. She was no stranger to libraries for she had grown up with one and she’d always thought it as dull as ditchwater. It was dark and oppressive for the only light in it came from one large window at the end of the room and all the desks and chairs arranged around the room were dark too. The shelves were full of dusty tomes with uninspiring titles that she seldom lifted from the shelves. It was the province of the men and her father, Henry and any visiting male would often be ensconced in there. She wasn’t exactly forbidden to go into the library, and on the odd occasion boredom had driven her in there to find something to read. If her father was there already, or came in while she was perusing the titles, he always seemed irritated by her presence and so she had used the library less and less.
She doubted she would be allowed to go to this public one anyway because Henry had said she was not to go to Erdington Village, but Celia could go and choose books for both of them. It was true though that if she couldn’t shop and cook, whic
h she had seen as a great entertainment, time might hang heavy. That would give her time to think and she didn’t want to do much of that for what she thought about in bed at night was how the child growing within her was changing her body. She hated her thickening waist and she was terrified of the birth itself, so maybe as well as reading she might do as Celia suggested and Henry endorsed and sew some clothes for the wretched child she was carrying.
TWELVE
Celia had more to concern herself with as the summer progressed for Henry would read snippets out of the newspaper he brought home with him. Celia and Annabel would usually be at their sewing after the evening meal and Henry seemed quite worried about the violence in Ireland at the time.
‘Seems to have intensified since these Black and Tans were sent over,’ he said to Celia one day as July was drawing to a close. ‘Did you have anything much to do with them when you came over first?’
Celia shook her head. ‘Not where we were in Donegal. I mean we knew they were there and all. They came to Ireland sometime in March, I think. A lot of the trouble is in Belfast and sometimes Derry, which isn’t far from Donegal, but it didn’t affect us that much.’
‘Good job,’ Henry said, ‘for no good can come of it. Mind you, it is bad that more than seven thousand Catholics were forced from their jobs in the shipyard in Belfast. No one should have been allowed to get away with that and the fact that they have done, well it was more or less inevitable that there would be reprisals and rioting.’
Celia nodded in agreement for the sectarian killing and reprisal attacks went on from one side or the other till it seemed Ireland was a very unsafe place to be. And she wished she could write to her parents and make sure they were all right, but she doubted they’d even read a letter she wrote, let alone answer.
But really her main concern was to care for Annabel who was growing more agitated and she was eating far less than she had been, which was a worry, and yet she grew more cumbersome as the summer drew to an end and so, despite the news from Ireland, Celia had to push any worries to the back of her mind.
Annabel was very tired at that time and spent a lot of time resting, which meant that Celia too had time on her hands and she didn’t like that because it gave her too much time to think. Celia often wished she was busier for thoughts of Andy McCadden would sometimes flit across her mind unbidden and then she would feel the pang of loss for the tentative love they had shared, and she often wondered where he was and what he was doing.
If Celia had caught sight of Andy she might not have recognised him, or at least not initially, for after weeks on the streets he was nothing like the man he had been when he had won Celia’s heart and brought her to England. Now he was dirty and unkempt and by necessity had a shaggy beard and he knew that looking as he did, the prospects of any sort of decent job were zero, though he was desperate to take anything going and for the least pay.
Previously Andy had never tasted real hunger, for there had always been enough to put food on the table, however basic it might be. Even when he was a hireling man he had been given three solid meals for Fitzgerald’s wife, who was a better cook than his mother, had always maintained that no man could work effectively with an empty belly.
He would have to disagree with her now, because if he was ever given a chance of any sort of employment he worked as hard as he knew how, even when his stomach yawned ceaselessly with desperate hunger and his head was dizzy from lack of food.
Once he worked all day, moving furniture, for a loaf of bread and when he had been given it, he barely waited until he was secreted behind a bush at the edge of the park before he attacked it with as much gusto as a wild animal might. He hadn’t eaten for two days and he was too hungry to save any of it and so he began tearing great lumps off it and shoving them in his mouth until every crumb was gone.
However, so much food reaching his stomach that had been without for so long caused it to react. He left the park walking slowly to try and still the rising nausea, but he was unsuccessful and vomited up the whole loaf into the gutter and lay spent on the pavement, hungrier than ever. He lay there for some time, too despairing and weak to get up. A patrolling policeman spotted him and gave his stomach a slight kick with his hard-capped boots and that caused Andy to cry out and curl into a ball as the policeman told him that if he didn’t get up and be on his way, he would find himself in the cells for the night.
Andy’s head swam and his stomach cried out with emptiness and, with a desperate sigh, he stumbled to his feet and stood there swaying slightly on legs that shook and wondered if it was worth knocking the policeman’s helmet off. Then he might be hauled away to spend a night in the cells, which would be no bad thing: it would be warmer for a start and drier than many a place he had laid his head previously and he might even be fed too. His mouth watered at the thought but then he considered that such an action would perhaps give him a criminal record and make an enemy of the police, which was not a sensible thing to do when you live on the streets anyway.
‘Go on,’ the policeman barked. ‘On your way.’
‘That might be easier to do if I had some place to go to,’ Andy thought as he lurched away. But he said nothing. What was the point?
He was glad that Celia didn’t know how low he’d sunk and his future with her seemed further away than ever. In this mood he wandered down to the canal and was hailed by Billy Brown, one of the boaties, plying his barge up and down the canal. He was only young for a solo boatie, Andy thought, about the same age as he was, and he had an open, honest-looking face with a mouth that was turned up at the sides so it looked as if he was constantly good humoured. He was dressed like all the other boaties in a moleskin jacket over a muted check shirt, cord trousers, heavy boots and always a cap that covered his light brown hair.
His barge, like all the others, was decorated beautifully with castles and roses and was pulled along by a shaggy-footed horse he called Captain and he reminded Andy of the horses on the farm that used to pull the plough. Most of the boaties had no time for townsfolk who used to look down their noses at them and call them ‘river gypsies’.
Andy had neither the right nor inclination to look down on anyone and in fact he often felt alienated himself from the English who were annoyed that there had been no conscription in Ireland. Many thought the Irish, particularly the Catholic Irish, had a nerve coming over to England now the war was over, chasing the too few jobs that should by rights go to those who had risked their lives.
Andy could see their point but he had to eat too and it was hard to have factory gates slammed on him sometimes as soon as he opened his mouth and feel the animosity amongst some of the unemployed he met. The boaties were not a bit like that and so Andy felt drawn to them and picked up casual work fairly often, particularly from Billy, and he had soon learned to ‘leg’ the barge through the tunnel, which involved lying across the barge and pushing it through the tunnel using his legs on the tunnel sides.
The first time he had done this, he had thought his legs were going to drop off and they shook like mad when he had straightened up on the towpath. He had become used to it, however, and he had also found out how the locks worked and helped Billy operate them and they got on well together.
And even if Billy wasn’t around many of the other boaties could find a job for him even if was just leading their horse around the tunnel and securing it on the other side. The good of the barges was that though they were a slow form of transport, they could carry heavier loads than the carts, or even the petrol-driven vans, so most of the barges were loaded down with heavy machinery or bulky heavy foodstuffs. Sometimes coal tenders were attached to them, though never to Billy’s because he worked alone, so any work he had was spasmodic. The first time Andy was asked aboard it was because the delivery Billy had to make would involve negotiating several locks, and that was when he had his first glimpse of below deck.
It was very clean and tidy and had to be for it was extremely small and when Andy remarked on this Billy
told him it measured ten foot long and just six wide and he showed him how the table folded to the wall so that the bed that his parents had used could come down.
‘So where did you sleep?’
‘Here,’ said Billy, crossing the small space to a bench on the opposite wall. ‘It opens out, see.’
As Billy unfolded it and Andy saw the mattress inside it he said, ‘Oh that’s like the settles we had at home. They were for unexpected guests really and it was where the children slept, so that adults could have the proper bed. In the daytime, covered with cushions, it doubled as extra seats. Used to be a bit squashed in there as I remember.’
‘I remember that too,’ Billy said and Andy saw the shadow pass over his face, but he said nothing more then and they went back up to the top and Billy stayed there to steer the craft and Andy jumped onto the towpath and walked alongside the horse.
Andy had never been this way before and he looked about him with interest. They passed an inn that seemed to be doing a roaring trade and a blacksmith’s before Billy swung the barge away from the bank slightly and they went forward slowly as he searched for the wharf he needed, and once found, he steered the craft in with ease.
Once the delivery had been made, Billy said to Andy, ‘Do you fancy faggots and peas and some chips for your dinner? I reckon we both deserve it.’
Andy felt the saliva in his mouth at even the thought of such delicious food. ‘I’d love it,’ he said. ‘But where?’
‘The hostelry we passed does that and more,’ Billy said. ‘Unshackle the horse because I’ll be turning here where the canal is wider.’
Andy did as he was bid and watched Billy turn the barge and then he refastened the horse and they were on their way again before Billy said, ‘There’s a stove below and Ma used to cook some great grub on it, but I don’t bother just for me. Anyway they have facilities at the back for the horses here as well and we can have a pint with it, but I seldom drink more than the one, two at the outside. Some of the boaties drink far more but Dad used to say it was madness. He always said drunkenness and deep water were not good partners.’