I turned and asked in surprise, "Art school? What do you mean?"
"Art school, stupid. You know, when you got the scholarship."
"Scholarship? I've never won a scholarship."
Alan looked at me as if I had lost my reason. "Don't you remember—you sat for it when you got caught and had to go back to school."
"Oh, that. I didn't get it. I never heard anything about it, after Mr. Piper entered my name for it."
"But—but—" stammered Alan, "Mr. Browning—the headmaster—asked me only the other day how you were getting on. If you got it, why didn't you go to art school? It would have been wonderful for you."
The episode in the street had left me rather trembly, and I sat down suddenly as a horrible suspicion went through my head.
Had I indeed won the scholarship? If I had, my parents would have been informed of it. Had they reftised it on my behalf? They were perfectly entitled to do so—schooling was not compulsory after the age of fourteen.
This idea was so repulsive to me that at first I could not accept it. Surely, my parents would realize that it was a wonderful opportunity for me. Surely, they would have my interests at heart. It must be a mistake—I could not have won.
Yet if Alan's headmaster said I had won, won I had. He would not forget that one of the few scholarships available had been awarded to his school.
"If I won, ' I said through clenched teeth, "I was never told about it."
"How queer," said Alan, and Fiona's enormous eyes widened even farther. "You'd better ask Mummy or Daddy, " she said.
Such a rush of pain went through my skimpy body that I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned my head nearly down to my knees. In little gasps, I said, "I don't think I want to ask them. I don't think I can bear to."
"I'll ask," said Alan stoutly. "I'm not afraid. "
"Oh, no, Alan," I said. "You will only be told that it's none of your business—and the whole family will be upset."
He knew I was right and was silent.
I was almost certain in my mind that my parents had simply not told me because my attendance at school would have compounded their difficulties.
I rocked myself backward and forward, as my touching belief that my parents, even if they did not love me much, would do their best for me, died. I was in agony. Research into the ruthless exploitation of the eldest child was still far in the future, and there was no explanation to console my childish despair.
Two bony pairs of arms were quietly wrapped around me, and two young heads came close to mine. "Never mind, Helen. Please don't cry. What's a silly old scholarship, anyway? You got it. You're clever. You'll get another one someday. "
I did not cry. I could not. Gently, I told Alan to go to bed.
I pushed Fiona quietly toward our pile of newspapers laid on top of the old door; the papers had an irritating habit of spreading themselves onto the floor as well. I laid myself down on them, facing the wall, and pulled my knees up tight like a baby in the womb. If I took little breaths and lay perfectly still, perhaps the pain inside me would go away.
I slept little, but felt calmer in the morning. The children were dispatched to school. Mother went out. Father hurriedly prepared to go down to the labor exchange. As he strugged to neaten himself, I asked him diffidently, "Did you ever hear anything about the art scholarship I sat for?"
He looked at me abstractedly. "Art scholarship?"
"Yes. You remember—the one I sat for while I was at school—just before my birthday. "
He was quiet for a moment and sat staring at his shoelace, which had broken. "Yes, " he said at last. "We did hear something about it. It couldn't be awarded to you. "
"But did I win? " I asked in a whisper.
"You did. However, when we said that you were bom in Cheshire, we were told that you were ineligible and should never have been entered for it. Cheshire comes under a different education committee. "
"Why didn't you tell me about it?"
"There seemed no point—children get upset about these things."
I nodded. I could not speak because my teeth were chattering so much. I hugged Edward to me, while Father seized his battered trilby hat and departed. I could hear the loose sole on one of his shoes flipping on each step.
All that morning, I thought about the scholarship. In the tiny grocery store, I had a long wait. By the time it was my turn to be served with the twopennyworth of rice I wanted, I had come to the conclusion that I must accept my father's explanation, despite the fact that the school had known my place of birth.
TEN
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Dully, sulkily, I continued to look after the children through the winter, trying to dry their rags when they came in rain-soaked, trying to buy with pennies enough food for nine, living in a world where handkerchiefs, toilet paper, hot water, and soap ranked as unobtainable luxuries. Fortunately, the stomach can become accustomed to very little food, and the children did not now cry very often that they were hungry, as long as they had bread and potatoes.
In an efibrt to make sales and increase their profits, even the more reputable local shopkeepers now cut margarine into quarter pounds, though it cost only fourpence to buy a whole pound, and opened pots of jam to sell at a penny a tablespoonful—bring your own cup. This resulted in a very high price per pound—but if one has only a penny, one has little choice in the matter.
In the city council, a stout, outspoken Labour couple tore bitterly into the mayor, aldermen, and councillors on behalf of the unemployed, the homeless, and the aged. Mr. and Mrs. Brad-dock—our Bessie, as Mrs. Braddock was known to many— started a lifelong battle on behalf of the poor of Liverpool. On the docks, the Communists made inroads among the despised and ill-treated dock laborers, the results of which are still apparent forty years later.
City health officials looked in despair at horrifying infant-mortality rates and at a general death rate nearly the highest in the country. Nobody, of course, died of starvation—only of malnutrition.
The Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England continued to build themselves a cathedral apiece and solicited donations. It was frequently said that the Roman Catholic one was built by the Public Assistance Committee, donations having been pressed out of those drawing public assistance. Even now it is not known as "the cathedral," but as "The Mersev Funnel."
My parents at about this time seemed to have given up all hope of any real future and struggled on from one day to the next, too dulled by hunger and privation to plan how they might get out of the morass they were in.
My father tended to sit silently indoors now, only going out to visit the labor exchange and the public-assistance committee, because he was more ragged than the most poverty-stricken tramp. My mother still made valiant efforts to keep up her appearance so that she could apply to shops and offices for work.
One sunny Sunday in March, however. Father decided he could stand the rank atmosphere of the house no more, and he and Brian went for a walk in the town, which was fairly deserted on Sundays. Father always feared being arrested for vagrancy.
Two hours later, a petrified Brian cam rushing up the stairs and into our Iving room, where I was rocking Edward to sleep in his Chariot. He buried his face in my shouder.
"Daddy's been arrested," he cried.
I jumped up in alarm. "Oh, Heavens! Whatever did he do?"
Brian continued to sob in my arms in sheer fright.
"Tell me, Brian. What did he do? Did he steal some cigarettes?"
I felt Brian shake his head.
"Well, he must have done something^ I knelt down and hugged Brian close. "Come on, love, tell me."
Brian's sobs reduced to sniffs, and with all the maddening long-windedness of children, he said, "Well, we walked down into the town, and we looked in Cooper's and MacSymon's windows at all the lovely food—they had peaches in brandy in Cooper's. And then we looked in the furniture stores, and Daddy s
howed me a jade idol in Bunney's, at the comer of Whitechapel. Then we walked up Lord Street, and looked at the tailors' shops. ..."
"Yes, yes," I said impatiently.
"Well, then Daddy wanted to look at the gentlemen's shops in the arcade in Cook Street—and that's where we saw this strange man."
"What kind of a strange man?"
"Well, he was big and nicely dressed with lovely polished boots. Daddy said he was a plainclothes policeman. We were both
scared, but Daddy said to keep on walking as if there was nothing wrong." Brian wiped his nose on the cufFof his jersey. "So we did, and this man started to walk up behind us."
"What did you do?"
"We started to walk faster and faster, and when we got to Castle Street and turned the comer, we ran like anything, and the man ran after us. Daddy pushed me into a doorway by a pillar and told me to stay there, and he went on running. When the policeman had passed me by, I peeped out—and the policeman had his hand on Daddy's shoulder." Brian burst into tears again. "So I doubled back down Cook Street and came home," he wailed.
"Never mind, Brian. I'm sure Daddy will be all right. It's probably a mistake. We'll tell Mummy about it. You just wait here a minute. "
Mother was taking a little nap in the bedroom, and I was very afraid that, if I woke her with Brian's story, she would have one of her periodic outbursts of hysterics, but she sat on the edge of the old mattress while she considered it, and then said quite sensibly, "I don't think we can do anything except wait. We don't know which police station he's in. I expect they'll let us know what he is charged with."
Her calmness calmed Brian and me, and he went ofiPto play with Tony, while I went back to my book. I could not read, however. I realized suddenly how much officialdom Father coped with on our behalf. Without him, we were defenseless against those who would put us in the workhouse.
I began to shake with fear, fear for my father and terror at the inhumanity of the workhouse.
Edward had been put to bed, and Mother and I sat on our two chairs staring out of the window, united by our worry over Father. Occasionally, there was a steady clang-clang and flashes of electricity from tram cars. The irate whip-whip-whip of a naval vessel making its way upriver competed with the local noise, and, in the far distance, the railroad shunting yard lent a background of clanking. No cars passed—the district was too poor. A boy came by on a bicycle, and two giggling girls paused to gossip under the gaslight.
A car drew up outside our house so quietly that we were at
first unaware of its presence. Someone got out. "Good night, and—thank you very much."
It was Father. His voice was unmistakable.
We jumped up as the front door slammed. We could hear Father's laborious step on the stairs. He was whistling "It's a Long Way to Tipperary."
Never had the old tune sounded so welcome. If he could whistle, things were not that bad. We ran to the top of the stairs, six small gray ghosts and one adult, and peered over the banisters.
"Hello, children. Is Brian safely home?"
"Yes, " we chorused. "What happened to you? "
Father emerged from the darkness of the stairwell. He was smiling broadly, and his step was jaunty.
"It's a long story. Come in, and I'll tell you. "
He even smiled at his wife, I noticed, and I could see in the small light from the street the sudden, unreasoned hope spring in Mother's eyes. He led us, like the Pied Piper, into the living room.
"Tell us, " we implored, hunger, filth, misery forgotten.
Father made the most of his moment. He settled himself in a chair and took Avril on his knee. He was still beaming. He cleared his throat.
"I expect Brian told you about our walk."
"Yes," we said impatiently.
"What happened when the policeman caught you?" demanded Brian.
"He wanted to see my tie."
"Your tie? " exclaimed Mother.
"Yes, my All Saints tie. I thought he was mad, but I was afi-aid to do anything else but pull it out and show it to him."
Avril shoved herself around on Father's lap and pulled out the sad remains of his old school tie. It looked the same as usual.
"When he saw it, he opened his own overcoat, and he was wearing the same tie—I mean a nice, new version of it. "
Alan whistled.
"He asked me how I came to be down and out. 'It's a long story,' I told him. Suddenly, my legs began to give under me—I get faint very easily these days. He saw that I was feeling ill, and said it didn't matter. 'Come and sit in the car for a few minutes,' he
said. 'I have to wait for a colleague who has business in this building here.'
"I was thankful to get into the car and sit down. Almost immediately his colleague came, and my friend of the tie put the car into gear and said that we were going to the police canteen.
" 'Don't get the wind up,' he said to me. 'I think you can do with a meal.'
"I felt too weak to care what happened to me, but a meal sounded a wonderful idea. So away we went to the police station and through to the canteen." He paused reminiscently, and then went on, "He stood me a full meal—stew and steamed pudding."
"Delicious," we murmured enviously.
"And when I had finished, he gave me a cigarette, and he seemed such a decent sort that I told him about everything that happened to us.
"He did not interrupt me once—and his friend sat and watched me. At the end they looked at each other—and mulled over what I had said.
"He asked me quite a lot about our school, and then said he remembered me. He left All Saints the year after I was sent there, but he recollected that blow on the head I got from a cricket ball; it caused a lot of talk at the time."
"Childhood episodes do stick in one's mind, " said Mother.
I looked at her in surprise. It had never occurred to me that she understood the world of children. Nanny was the person who did that.
Father continued, "He said he thought he could get me a job with the City."
"Really? " queried Mother, fi-ank disbelief in her voice.
"Yes. I told him that I had made every endeavor to obtain employment—but now I was so shabby it was impossible. I said frankly that the rags he saw me in were all I had, that I had not even soap to wash myself with.
"And do you know what he said then? It was most unexpected."
"No?" we breathed.
"He said the school would undoubtedly outfit me from their benevolent fimd—I used to subscribe to that, you know, but I never thought of it in connection with myself. He is going to write
tonight to ask for immediate help. Meantime, he is going to talk to the City about me."
"How wonderflil," Alan cried.
"Yes, it is," said Mother.
Fiona began to cry slowly, tears of relief. Her illness had left her with practically no stamina. She was a great contrast to her noisy younger sister, who now said unsympathetically, "Oh, shut up, Fiona. You're supposed to be glad!" And cuddling up to Father, Avril inquired, "Shall we be able to have a roast joint?"
We all laughed, and afterward, we sat up late while we discussed every detail of this miraculous encounter. Even Mother was quite excited and animated about it.
The days dragged by, however, and nothing happened. Father stood in his queues; Mother got two days' work, looking after a special photography display in a store which found that cameras were a slow-moving item amid the general penury in the city. We ate fish and chips one night as a result of this windfall, and Mother was able to buy some stockings and makeup so that she could look more respectable and, therefore, more employable. We always despaired about our lack of simple articles, like scissors, combs, hair pins, things one takes for granted in a normal home.
At last, when we had given up standing on the fi-ont steps waiting for the postman, the plainclothesman called in person and clumped up to our evil-smelling den.
Father was out. Mother received him with her usual grace and sat down
on one chair, while he, in response to her invitation, lowered himself cautiously onto the other. Most of the children were at school; Avril, Edward, and I, however, stood in a group and stared goggle-eyed at our savior.
All Saints School, the visitor said with a friendly grin, had made a grant sufficient to outfit Father completely, provided he shopped carefully. He stopped, his beefy face showing some concern. "Er—the school has asked me to administer the grant— and—er—I hate to say this—they want me to go with your husband to shop. Now, I don't mind in the least—but I hope he won't be offended."
"I am sure he won't, "said Mother with unusual briskness. "However, you will appreciate that he is in no state to go out with
you—or enter a decent shop. " Her voice broke, and she looked as if she was going to weep. She recovered herself, however, and said as she studied her chapped, unmanicured hands, "Do you think the grant committee would mind giving enough money first to buy some soap for a bath—and a haircut?"
The plainclothesman leaned forward and patted her hand.
"I am sure that would be all right. I do understand—you know, in my job I see a lot of things." He thought for a moment, and then added, "The public swimming pools also have places where you can take a full bath—I think it costs sixpence—and they provide soap and towels, as well."
I marveled that a man whose life had obviously been comfortable should understand that it was likely we had no towels.
"Oh, how lovely, " I said impetuously, only to be silenced by an icy look from Mother.
I could hear Father dragging himself slowly up our endless staircase, and, picking up Edward, I ran to meet him and whispered about the visitor.
When Father entered, the man rose courteously and held out his hand. Father clasped it. I doubt if anyone had felt that his hand was worth shaking since our arrival in Liverpool.
Father's fatigue fell away fi*om him. It was arranged that the policeman would buy some underwear and bring it to us. He also said gently that, if Father would accept them, he could bring a pair of flannels and an old tweed jacket from his own home, so that Father could go into a store without embarrassment to choose a suit and raincoat.
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