by Annie Murray
Seeing that Tommy was eating happily she glanced quickly round at Wally Morrison again. His blonde hair was slicked back and he stood more upright since the army, a swagger to him. He was all right, Melly told herself. But he wasn’t Reggie. Reggie was quieter, kinder.
Around her was all chat and laughter. She could hear Mo’s voice from down the other end of the table. Someone had rolled out a keg of beer and Mo, legs braced to hold his barrel-like body, was handing round cups, glasses, jam jars of it. Her mom leaned over to cut the cake. There was a pink seam of jam through the middle.
‘Hold your plates out,’ Mom said. ‘One at a time!’
Mo worked his way along. ‘Here yer go – a toast to Her Majesty!’
They were in the midst of drinking and cheering on the new Queen when an all-too-familiar figure came zigzagging along the road, staggering into walls and out again across the pavement.
‘Oh, look who it isn’t,’ Dolly said loudly, as Ray Sutton tripped into the gutter and almost fell. ‘The ruddy Lone Ranger.’
‘He’s getting worse.’ Gladys stared along the street. Melly knew that Auntie did not approve of swearing or bad manners or drinking to excess. ‘When’s he ever sober?’
Melly only half-heard what they were saying. The other half of her was dreaming about Reggie, imagining that he was here, that he would come and sit next to her and gaze deep into her eyes . . . She only looked up when there was a horrified outcry from around her. Ray Sutton was lurching along the road close to them, bashing into people who were shouting and telling him to get out of there, the state he was in.
‘Wench!’ he yelled, seeming able to focus at least on the fact that the ample woman in red was his wife. His voice was so slurred they could only just gather what he was saying. ‘Get in the *****g house!’ He staggered and nearly fell.
‘Using the soldier’s word – when you’ve never been near a uniform,’ someone sneered.
Ray wasn’t listening to anyone else. ‘What’re yer doing out ’ere . . . ? Showing yerself off . . . Yer filthy trollop.’ He weaved round the end of the table towards Irene.
‘Ray!’ Irene shrieked, as he started to manhandle her. Other voices were shouting at him to get off her.
‘Knock it off, Ray!’ Melly heard her father shout. ‘Look at yourself – what’re you doing?’
‘Oh my God, here we go,’ Rachel said contemptuously. ‘Wouldn’t you know it?’
‘It’s a party!’ Irene shrieked. ‘For the new Queen. Come on, Ray – come and have a—’
But Ray managed to grab Irene’s hair, poking a finger into her eye as he did so. She screamed with pain and continued to scream as he dragged her along by her blonde locks and up the entry towards the house.
‘Bloody disgrace!’ Melly heard, amid other shouts after them.
Her own heart was thumping. Now she was older, she had become aware of the fights between Irene and Ray, the shouts and screams late at night. Behind closed doors was one thing, but this was horrible to see. Rita and Shirley were hanging their heads. Melly looked at Evie. She was staring ahead of her, her pale hair hanging in sheets each side of her sweet, blank face, her eyes seeming fixed on nothing, as if she wasn’t there at all.
Six
‘God Almighty,’ Dolly said, appearing at their door one Saturday morning a few weeks later. ‘Did any of you lot get a wink of sleep last night? I had to stop Mo grabbing the poker and going round to knock the pair of ’em out.’
Melly had heard them last night, the yells and crashes. Ray Sutton and Irene had had one of their worst-ever fights, starting after the pubs closed and going on for what felt like most of the night.
‘Those two deserve each other,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s Evie that worries me.’
‘Come on – no time for canting, you lot,’ Gladys said.
The Booker family were preparing to go to market, sleep or no sleep. There were piles of clothes on chairs. Gladys was rolling them into bundles.
‘You know why, don’t you?’ Dolly said, propped importantly against the door frame, blowing smoke from her Gold Flake into the morning air.
‘Why what?’ Gladys said. ‘Spit it out if you’ve got summat to say. We’re running late as it is.’
‘Kynoch’s let him go yesterday. Take your wages –’ This had been a wage packet that you couldn’t bend – it had his cards in it. ‘On your way. He keeps turning up at work so kalied he’s bouncing off the walls. They’ve had enough of ’im.’ She took another satisfied drag on her cigarette. Dolly always liked to be first with the news.
‘It’s a pity that one survived the cowing war,’ Rachel muttered, cutting a piece for Tommy. She spread a film of Stork on it. ‘Someone should’ve dropped a bomb on him and had done with it.’
‘Rach!’ Gladys said. ‘That’s no way to talk!’ She glanced round at the children who were all listening avidly.
Tommy did a soaring motion with his good arm and made a droning sound through his lips like a passing bomber aeroplane. Melly and the others laughed.
‘That’s it, son!’ Danny chuckled and Melly saw her mother’s face lighten at his approval of Tommy. Kev and Ricky both cackled loudly, even though neither of them really got the joke.
‘Heaven help them now,’ Gladys said, putting her bags by the door. ‘They’ve been dodging the rent man for weeks, even with a wage coming in.’ She straightened up. ‘Ready, Danny?’
‘You coming with me today?’ Danny leaned over the table to Melly. ‘You and Kev?’
She looked up into her father’s eyes. Hers were so like his, everyone said. Big and blue. She swallowed her mouthful of bread. Against her will, she nodded, knowing she was pleasing him. Dad liked nothing better than taking her and Kev to work beside him and Auntie on the Rag Market, now they each had their own stall.
‘All right . . .’
‘There’s no need to say it like that,’ Danny cajoled, mock hurt. ‘What’s happened to my girl – you’ve always been at me to take you to the market!’
Melly didn’t want to tell Dad how much she wanted to stay at home today. There were coils of excitement in her belly as if she’d swallowed a snake. Reggie Morrison was home! She’d just caught a glimpse of him crossing the yard in his khaki, his hair cropped shorter than she’d ever seen it. It made his face look thinner. If she stayed home she might have a chance of seeing him.
Gladys was already waiting, a bag in each hand. Dad was hustling Kevin along. ‘Come on, mate – and we’ll get us a comic, after, eh? What d’yer fancy – the Beano – or Eagle?’
‘Beano!’ Kevin cried. He knew it was Dad’s favourite as well. Danny drew copies of the characters as well as making up his own. And Kevin liked going to the market. He hurried after his dad on his skinny legs. Almost as an afterthought Danny turned and patted Tommy’s head.
‘Ricky – c’mere. You can’t go!’ Rachel said, grabbing him as he started to crawl towards his father. Ricky started wailing loudly. He was quite a placid boy normally but he adored Danny and wanted to be with him wherever he went. ‘You can go when you’re bigger,’ Melly heard her say as they all trooped out.
‘Ta-ra, son.’ Danny threw the comment to Tommy as an afterthought. ‘We’ll bring you a comic an’ all, won’t we, Kev?’
Melly saw her brother try to smile and pretend he was happy always being the one to stay behind.
The house fell quiet, once Rachel had managed to pacify Ricky and sit him on the floor with some of Kev’s cars. Tommy watched her as he sat by the table in his chair, still eating long after everyone else had finished.
He was acutely sensitive to his mother’s moods. As she straightened up from settling Ricky, a pinner over her old cotton dress, he could see the tiredness in her face, her thin arms and pasty skin. If only he could take Mom somewhere warm and nice like in one or two of those plays he had heard on the wireless, where she could eat everything she wanted and not have to work all the time. And where she could be free to come and go.
Because Tommy felt, all too pa
infully, that he was the reason for the dull, defeated look in his mother’s eyes. The reason she was always stuck here, could never go anywhere much, and that neither of them could see an end to it. She was his world, his mom was, with her kind eyes and dark brown hair which was pretty when she got the time to curl the ends and dress it up a bit. She was fiercely protective of him. Although he was only coming up to ten years old, he could read her sadness and sense of defeat, as if her life was just passing her by in a round of weary toil. It made him ache inside that he could do so little to help or to free her. Though he could not quite have put all this into words, it was a burden he carried along with all his physical difficulties, with feeling left out of life.
He dipped his crusts in his tea one by one, to soften them. There was a niggling ache in his left hip and shoulder but he said nothing because the pain was a part of his life. Managing to cheat his thrusting tongue he took a mouthful. As he had grown older his control over eating had improved, his muscles strengthening, but today the food clogged his mouth as a lump rose in his throat. He coughed and spat it out.
‘You all right, babby?’ Mom rushed over from where she was washing up. ‘You choking?’
He looked down at the soggy ball of bread on his plate.
‘Just – coughed,’ he said, with difficulty. Each word was a challenge for him, a contortion. He looked up at her and tried to smile. He did not want Mom to see in his eyes the swelling frustration and helplessness inside him. He knew his mom would do anything in her power for him – but what more could she do?
Day after day, all his life, he had watched the other children running about, moving easily in a way never possible for him. That terrifying morning when the boys attacked him, jeering and trying to tip his chair over, had given him a shock that burned into his soul. He knew he was different, he had always known that. He had heard comments from the grown-ups when they went out, though then he had been too young to understand most of them. But in the yard people had been kind. The Morrison boys always played with him and made him one of them and he had always had Melly to look to – and Cissy when she was about.
But Dad . . . He had been five when Kevin arrived. Old enough to understand that Kevin was the son their father had always wanted, one who could run and jump, not a cripple stuck in a chair. And then came Ricky, who was now walking as well.
‘Mom?’ He kept his eyes down on his plate, searching for the right words. With all those hours Mom and Melly had spent encouraging him to talk, he knew he could get them out when he wanted, with someone patient enough to listen.
‘Umm?’ She had moved away again, preoccupied as ever.
Tommy forced the words out, his mouth twisting with each word. ‘When Dad – left . . . Was it – cos of – me?’
There was a silence. He heard her moving close to him again, leaning across the table, the pale green cotton of her apron level with his eyes.
‘What?’ Her tone was sharp, appalled, but she instantly realized that she did not want to have to force him to say it again. ‘Tommy – I don’t know what you’re asking me.’
He looked up then, into her face, and saw her sad, guarded expression. She did know, he could see. Her face already gave him the answer.
‘Cos I – couldn’t – walk?’
His mother folded her arms and looked at him, head on one side. Then she pulled out the chair and sat opposite him.
‘Tommy – that was a very long time ago. You were only a babby then. Who told you your dad went away? Was it Melly? Is that what she said?’
‘No!’ He hurried to correct her. ‘She never – she just – said – he left . . .’ It felt as if he was crying inside but he kept the tears and his silent sobs from the outside. He didn’t want to make it worse for Mom.
‘Your dad did leave – for a little while.’ Her voice was gentler now. ‘Only for a few weeks. He was . . . You know, it was only months after the war ended, when when he’d first come home . . . A lot of the men who came back were in a state . . . Didn’t know what to do with themselves . . . And Danny, your dad – it was just that he had to go off for a while, that’s all. Because of how he felt. It wasn’t you, son. It was just, being away and the army and everything. And then he came back to be with us – because that’s where he wanted to be.’
He tried to smile. He felt that she was lying. Or half lying, or something. He didn’t know. But he knew Dad wished he was different, or that he wasn’t there at all. It was an abiding feeling.
‘Now –’ His mother leaned forward and ran her hand over his hair. He lowered his head, sniffing. ‘Never mind all that – it was a long time ago. You’re my boy – eh? And it’s Saturday. You can go to Dolly’s and watch your programme later.’
Tommy brightened. His favourite: The Quatermass Experiment.
His mother stood up. ‘What shall we do while they’re all out?’
He looked up at her. ‘Paint – the town – red?’
‘Oh, Tommy!’ Mom laughed. ‘Tell you what – I’ll just clear up a bit and then we’ll look at some of those books Melly’s been reading with you, eh? And we’ll have the wireless on.’
Melly felt the usual swell of excitement as the tall gates of the Rag Market swung open, come one o’clock. Outside the road was full of carts and cars and the crowds surged in, some pushing old prams, others holding bags, jostling and eager for bargains. She had been brought to this market all her life. It felt like a part of her.
‘Come on, wench – help me hang these up!’
She ran to help her father. He had his own stall now – a proper one, not like in the old days when they sold from pitches on the floor. There were wooden tables with metal frames round them that you could hang things on. He was dealing in second-hand gents’ clothing: suits and shirts, hats, coats, shoes, ties. And he had got hold of some new sets of braces and some cufflinks and collar studs.
Kevin, who at four was only just about as tall as the table, passed him up shoes and small items. Melly handed him the suits and shirts and Danny arranged them along the metal racks. She felt proud, working next to her nice-looking, energetic dad and seeing people greet him and share chat and jokes.
‘What’s this?’ Bent over, he frowned, opening a bag which had ladies’ hats inside. ‘This lot’s Auntie’s, not mine – take ’em over to her, Melly, will yer?’
Melly hauled the bag along to where Gladys had her stall, in a prime spot at the back of the Rag Market. Between them, covering ladies’ and gents’ clothing, they were doing very nicely. Several of the other stallholders called a greeting to her as she passed. Melly knew all their faces. The market felt like a family.
‘Thanks, bab,’ Gladys said, as she arrived. She pulled a little bag from the pocket of her dark green skirt. ‘Want one of these?’
Melly reached in for one of Gladys’s favourites – mint humbugs.
‘Take your dad one. And tell him to get over here – he’s left me with the float. The Toby Man’s on his way round.’ The Toby Man was in charge of collecting the rents, from the regulars who always had stalls, and the casuals who signed up to get one when they could.
Melly did as she was told. Dad’s stall was up and running now and he went to collect the money which he kept in his jacket pocket. Melly saw that Kevin was under the table for the moment playing with a handful of marbles.
Melly stood by the stall and the noise about her faded. Much as she loved the markets, all the chatter and noise of the stallholders round the edges pitching their wares, the excitement of all the different things for sale – crocks and bedding, clothes and ornaments and the mouth-watering smells of food from the stalls and cafes around the market – her mind took her off into another place. . .
She walks slowly along the yard in Alma Street in her best, dark pink frock . . . He appears out of the Morrisons’ house. She slows her walking to a dawdle.
Reggie stands for a moment, hands in his pockets and in that second he catches sight of her with amazement. Who is that pretty girl?
She walks closer to him and they stand face to face and—
‘Eh, bab – you deaf or summat?’ Melly surfaced from her sweet imaginings, which were very like a drama she had seen on Dolly and Mo’s television . . . Two women stood before her, clad in bulky coats despite the summer warmth. ‘I said ’ow much is that pair of trousers?’
That evening, as she walked into the yard with her father and Gladys, every nerve in Melly’s body was alive with expectation. Would she see Reggie now? But the first person she saw was Evie, walking up the yard as if coming from the lavatories. She walked with her eyes lowered as usual, but as they passed, she looked up into Melly’s face and gave her a vague half-smile.
‘All right, Evie?’ Melly said.
Evie stopped. ‘Mom says . . .’ She was speaking as if in a rush. She looked fearfully at her own house and at that moment Irene appeared at the door.
‘Evie – gerrin ’ere – now!’
Evie lowered her head and hurried over to the house.
That night, it was quiet, despite being Saturday.
‘No wage coming in, I s’pose,’ Rachel said.
‘P’r’aps he’s got his feet up by the fire, having a nice cup of cocoa?’ Gladys suggested and they all laughed at this unlikely thought.
The next morning, when she left the house to go to church, the door of number four was wide open. The downstairs room was empty, the house silent. The Suttons had taken their few frowsty possessions and done a moonlight flit – though there had been no moon to speak of.
Seven
All that hot August weekend Melly was full of an aching longing for Reggie to notice her. She was aware of him, wherever she was or wherever he was, in a way which made the hairs stand up on her arms.
On the Sunday afternoon all the kids were outside in the yard. She could hear the television coming from Dolly and Mo’s. It felt strange and quiet without anyone in the Suttons’ house. Even though she never liked the Sutton girls much, Melly felt unsettled at the change. Cissy was staying over, though, so she had company to take her mind off it.