by Joan Jonker
‘Will you show me, Mam?’
‘Of course I’ll show you. And there’s method in my madness, love, because when you’re good at it you can have the job every morning.’
‘Only until I’m well enough to go back to school, Mam.’
‘Yes, sweetheart, only until you’re well enough to go back to school.’
There was much talk and laughter around the dinner table that night. The two girls were making the most noise, their father the least. George was quite content to sit and watch his family being more animated than he’d ever seen them. Under normal circumstances his wife would have put a stop to the chatter, by telling them they couldn’t talk and eat at the same time. But tonight she was as excited as they were. And according to what Tess had said, it wasn’t only the holiday that had brought about the change. His younger daughter had been in high spirits, the words tumbling from her mouth, when she told of the trip to her Auntie Milly’s, the peeling of potatoes and the plaiting of her mother’s hair. He wouldn’t have thought these things possible even yesterday. There had been a definite change in the relationship between mother and daughter, a closeness that had been missing before. And it could be seen in Tess’s face as she chattered fifteen to the dozen, in between eating her dinner.
‘You’re very quiet, George,’ Ann said. ‘Or is it us being too noisy and not letting you get a word in edgeways?’
‘Ann, it’s lovely to see so much happiness around the table and I’m more than content to sit and take it all in.’
‘Maddy, do you know what elusive is?’ Tess asked, her eyes bright and her usually pale cheeks showing some colour. ‘D’you know what it means?’
Her sister pulled a face. ‘I’ve heard it, but I couldn’t explain what it means. Why?’
‘I know what it means,’ Tess grinned, ‘and I know three things what are elusive.’
Ann shook her head. ‘No, love, it’s “I know three things that are elusive.”’
Tess lowered her head so they couldn’t see the devilment in her eyes. ‘Oh, you know three things as well, do you, Mam?’
George chuckled. He couldn’t get over the change in his daughter. He hoped it wasn’t a flash in the pan, but a real sign that Tess was at last going forward. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d think that you and your mam had been drinking on the sly. Auntie Milly didn’t give you a bottle of milk stout, did she?’
‘Don’t be silly, Dad! It was two bottles, wasn’t it, Mam?’
Maddy feigned disgust. ‘I don’t know, here’s me doing my ten times table, and you’re out having the time of your life. I think I’ll give school a miss tomorrow and go to the park with you.’
‘You’ve only got two more days to go, Madelaine, then you’re off for seven weeks. There’ll be plenty of time for visits to the park.’ Out of the corner of her eye, Ann saw Tess lay down her knife and fork and push the plate away. She’d eaten three quarters of her dinner, which was unheard of. ‘You’ve done well, Theresa, and I’m pleased with you. What say you, George?’
‘I’m beginning to think I’m in the wrong house! My younger daughter doesn’t drink milk stout, and she doesn’t know three things that are elusive! Ann, are you sure you brought the right girl home with you?’
Ann went along with him. ‘Well, she had Theresa’s dress on. But there could be another girl with a dress that looks the same. It’s possible my mind was distracted and I took hold of the wrong hand outside the butcher’s.’
‘And what was I doing while you did that, Mam?’ Tess asked, looking very serious. ‘I might be slow, but I’m not so slow I’d let a strange girl walk off with my mother.’ A pink tongue appeared for a second. ‘So there!’
Maddy didn’t care how the change had come about, all she knew was that her sister had colour in her cheeks, her nose wasn’t running and she was happy. That was enough for Maddy. ‘Ay, when we’re playing schools, I’m going to be the pupil and you can be the teacher. Then you can teach me the three elusive things you have in your head.’
‘I’d like to know them now,’ George said. ‘If you won’t tell me, Tess, I’ll have to get them off your mother.’
‘You’d have a job, love, ’cos I don’t know them.’ Ann gave him a gentle kick under the table to warn him not to ask. ‘Well, I know one, but the other two are in Theresa’s head.’
‘I’ll tell you, Dad, but you’ll kick yourself, ’cos they’re easy. The first one is fresh air, and we all know you can’t get hold of that. And when your purse is empty and you’re skint, money is very elusive then. The last one you gave me yourself when you said about the happiness around the table. You can feel it and you know it’s there, but you can’t touch it.’
George rubbed his forehead, his emotions running high. This was the girl who the headmistress of the local school had said was too backward to be in the juniors, she would have to go with the infants. In his mind, it was the headmistress who was backward for not seeing the potential in his daughter and helping her to develop it. Yes, she was slow with writing and arithmetic, and she couldn’t put down how she felt. But her mind was quick and active, she’d just proved that. Her dreams and hopes were all there, she just wasn’t capable of putting them on paper. ‘Sweetheart, shall I tell you something? One day you’ll be so clever you’ll knock spots off everyone.’
‘I keep telling her that!’ Maddy had her arm across her sister’s shoulders. ‘She’s a marvellous story-teller, Dad, honest! She can make up better stories than I can.’
‘Then you must help her write those stories down, Madelaine,’ Ann said. ‘Who knows, we might have an author in the family.’
Tess giggled. ‘If I did make any money, Mam, d’you know the first thing I’d buy with it?’
‘No, love, I don’t. And don’t ask me to guess because you know I’m hopeless at guessing games.’
‘I’d buy a cot for the lamb we’re going to pinch when we go to Wales.’
While George and Maddy doubled up with laughter, Ann was soft enough to walk into a trap. ‘Not the lamb we’re going to pinch, Theresa, the lamb we’re going to steal.’
‘That’s naughty, that is, Mam.’ The girl’s face was as innocent as a babe’s. ‘You’ve always told us it’s a sin to steal.’
Ann spread out her hands. ‘I give up! Outsmarted by my own daughter.’
‘I wasn’t being cheeky, Mam, I only wanted to make you laugh.’ Tess picked up her sister’s plate and put it on top of her own. ‘I’ll help clear the table and me and Maddy will do the washing-up.’
‘No, I’ll do it, love. You go upstairs with Madelaine and practise how to play school. There’s a notebook in the drawer.’
There was a mad scramble for the door. ‘I bags being teacher first,’ Tess called, elbowing her sister out of the way. ‘And our mam said as we haven’t got a cane, I can use the poker. So you’d better get your sums right.’
Ann’s mouth gaped. ‘Did you hear that, George? I never said any such thing!’
They could hear shrieks of laughter coming from upstairs and exchanged smiles. ‘That is the best tonic she can have,’ George said. Then, twirling the ends of his moustache, he asked, ‘Did you really let her take your hair down?’
Ann nodded. ‘And a right mess I looked. I asked Theresa if I reminded her of the witch in her book, and, God love her, she said I didn’t look like a witch but I could do with a haircut.’
‘You should have left it down, I would have liked to have seen it.’
‘Oh, don’t you start, love, it’s bad enough my daughter being at me. I like my hair the way it is, neat and tidy.’
‘And I like it when you take it down at night to go to bed. So I’m on Tess’s side on the subject of your hair.’
Ann tutted. ‘George, the bun and the hair clips stay. I refuse to wear it long or to have it cut.’ Then she softened. ‘For the time being, anyway.’
‘Good morning, Ann!’ Next-door neighbour Maisie Wilkins was on her knees scrubbing the front step when Ann closed the
door behind her and Tess. ‘Taking advantage of the nice weather, are yer?’
‘Yes, we’re going to the park for an hour. It’s too nice to stay indoors.’
‘Ye’re not kidding, it’s sweltering! I should have done this earlier before it got so warm, the sweat’s pouring off me.’ Maisie pushed back the mobcap which had slipped down to her eyebrows. ‘The flaming elastic has gone on this and I keep forgetting to see to it.’ She grinned at Tess. ‘And how are you today, love?’
‘I’m fine, Mrs Wilkins. Coming on like a house on fire.’
Maisie sat back on her heels and threw the scrubbing brush into the bucket of water. ‘I’m glad to hear it. I just wish I could say the same about my two. Holy terrors they are, always in trouble. The only thing that stops me from strangling them is the thought that I’ve put up with them at their worst, I may as well hang on until they both leave school and start work.’
‘Nita is thirteen next month, isn’t she?’ Ann asked. ‘The same as Madelaine?’
‘Yeah, they’ll both be leaving school next summer.’ Maisie, fair-haired and blue-eyed, was a friendly woman, and a good neighbour. Many was the time Ann was glad of her help when Tess wasn’t well enough for her to leave and her neighbour was only too willing to get her shopping in. ‘I’ve been scrubbing away here, consoling myself with the thought that in one year and two days Nita will be leaving school and getting herself a job. As I’ve said to my Will, I won’t know meself with a few extra bob a week coming in.’ When Maisie laughed, the whole street knew about it. ‘I might even get meself a maid, instead of getting housemaid’s knees.’
‘I don’t know why you have to scrub the step every morning,’ Ann said. ‘I don’t, and neither do any of the other neighbours. Once a week is plenty.’
‘I have thought of that, Ann, but if I don’t do it, what the hell am I going to moan about to my feller? He thinks I work me fingers to the bone, scrubbing the step, washing the windowsills down, dolly tub of washing every day and slaving over a hot stove.’ Again her laugh echoed down the street. ‘He’s very sympathetic, is my Will. He insists I put me feet up for an hour on the couch every night while he brings me a cup of tea. Now, I’d have to want me bumps feeling to tell him I go to a matinée at the Carlton twice a week, wouldn’t I?’
‘Will’s not only sympathetic, he must be generous as well,’ Ann said. ‘I couldn’t afford to go to a matinée at the Carlton twice a week.’
‘It’s only tuppence, I don’t go in the best specks. And Will has his pleasures, so why shouldn’t I? He wouldn’t miss his Friday and Saturday pint for all the tea in China. And I’m damned sure he doesn’t only have the one pint either. Yer know what men are like if they’re with mates, they have to buy a round each. And yer can’t tell me that that doesn’t cost more than my fourpence a week for the flicks.’
Ann grinned and reached for her daughter’s hand. ‘You keep telling yourself that, Maisie, and you won’t feel guilty.’
Tess had a view on this, and as her mother began walking away she said, ‘And you don’t tell Mr Wilkins that you don’t go to the pictures, so you haven’t told any fibs.’
‘My sentiments exactly, love,’ Maisie called. ‘Enjoy yerself at the park and make sure yer have a few turns on the swings, because yer won’t get near them next week with all the kids being on holiday.’
Tess turned and waved. ‘I’ll have three turns on the swings, and three on the seesaw.’
With their hands joined and swinging between them, mother and daughter reached the end of the road. ‘Let’s go to Aintree Park, shall we?’ Ann asked. ‘And we can look in the shop windows along Walton Vale.’
The lovely weather had brought people out and the Vale was bustling with activity. It was a good shopping area at any time, but with the good weather the shops seemed to be doing a roaring trade. But there were many who had come out to feel the sunshine on their faces as they window-shopped. It wasn’t a pastime that Ann enjoyed, believing if you didn’t have the money to buy there was no point in looking. But she allowed her daughter to pull her to a halt at the various toy shops, and windows where women’s clothes or shoes were on display.
‘Look at the heels on those shoes, Mam.’ Tess had her nose pressed against the window and was pointing to a pair of black patent-leather court shoes with very high heels. ‘When I’m grown up, I’m going to wear shoes like that.’ She sighed. ‘Aren’t they lovely?’
‘Yes, they are,’ Ann agreed, while thinking privately she wouldn’t be seen dead in them. ‘But I wouldn’t wear them because I’d be afraid of falling over.’
‘No you wouldn’t, Mam! Look at Elsie Parson in our road, she wears heels that high.’
‘Elsie doesn’t walk, love, she totters. Whenever I see her I hold my breath, thinking she’s going to fall flat on her face any minute.’ Ann felt herself being pulled to the next window where ladies’ dresses and blouses were on display, and she made all the suitable noises when Tess went into raptures over a pink blouse. ‘I think we’d better put a move on, love, otherwise it’ll be time to go home before we get to the park.’
They carried on walking until they came to the confectioner’s shop, which was noted for its home-made bread and pies. The mouth-watering smells had Tess sniffing up and rubbing her tummy. ‘Yum, yum, that smell doesn’t half make you feel hungry.’
Ann took her arm and pulled her on. ‘We’ll have some sandwiches when we get home. That’s if we ever get home, the rate we’re going.’
‘It’s not far to the park, now, Mam, and I’ll be glad to get there ’cos my legs are beginning to feel tired.’
‘That’s because it’s so hot.’ Ann put a hand to her daughter’s forehead and was concerned when it felt clammy. ‘There’s nowhere to sit until we get there, so no more window-shopping, love, let’s go straight there and find a tree we can sit under until you cool down and feel better.’
There weren’t many people in the park, just a few mothers pushing their toddlers on the baby swings. ‘There’s an empty bench under a tree, let’s sit there until we cool down.’ Ann, always concerned about her daughter’s health, led her to the iron bench. ‘There, that’s better, isn’t it?’
Tess nodded. ‘It is cooler, but I shouldn’t have put my singlet on, Mam, ’cos that’s making me sweat.’
‘That’s my fault, I told you to put it on. But you know our house never gets the sun, it’s always dark and you can’t tell what it’s like outside.’
They sat in silence watching the young children in the baby swings being pushed by their mothers. Their chuckles carried on the air and brought a smile to Tess’s face. ‘Babies are lovely, aren’t they, Mam? Was I lovely when I was a baby?’
‘You were lovely then, and you’re lovely now. Your father and I have always been very proud of you. I can remember when you were a baby, your dad used to wheel you to the park, with Madelaine toddling beside him holding on to his jacket. And when she was tired, he used to sit her up in the front of the pram, making sure she was well away from your feet and fussing over you both like a mother hen.’
Tess began to swing her legs under the bench, her face alive with pleasure. ‘Me and Maddy are lucky, aren’t we, having such a lovely dad?’
Ann knew her husband came first in the girls’ affections; she’d always known that. But it was only now she realised why. George spent his time giving them the attention they needed, showing how much he loved them, and was openly affectionate. While she’d been busy making sure they didn’t get their clothes dirty, that they never sat at the table without washing their hands first, that they knew the alphabet off by heart and spoke correctly. No slang words were allowed in her presence. So she had clean, well-mannered daughters who always treated her with respect. But recently she’d been craving more than that. She wanted to share her husband’s place in their hearts.
‘I’m the lucky one, with a husband and two daughters I love very dearly.’
Tess stopped swinging her legs, and tilting her hea
d she gazed at her mother. The one person who had not been mentioned in the talk of love. And her caring nature made her ask herself how she would like it if she’d been the one left out. ‘We all love you, Mam, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course I do!’ Ann gave her a hug. ‘Now how about a swing? Do you feel up to it?’
‘Just the one, then can we go home?’ Tess rubbed her tummy. ‘I’m all right, but if I have too many swings it might make me sick.’
Because her daughter didn’t often complain about feeling sick, Ann didn’t linger after Tess had been on the swing for a few minutes. Holding on to each other’s hand, and keeping to a leisurely pace, they began the walk home. It was when they reached the confectioner’s that Ann came to a halt. ‘I’ll get you a pie for your dinner, love, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Mam, I’ll have what everyone else is having.’
But Ann had made up her mind. If it was a pie the girl fancied, it would do her more good than eating something she had no appetite for. ‘You stand here, I won’t be a minute.’
There was steam coming from the bag when Ann stepped down on to the pavement. ‘This is lovely and hot, so you can have it instead of sandwiches.’ She glanced at her daughter’s pale face. ‘If you find yourself running out of puff, let me know and we’ll stop until you get your breath back.’
Tess walked with her head down, determined to get home without stopping. She had pains in her chest and her legs felt wobbly, but she kept on. She hated being like this but couldn’t help it. She’d do anything to be able to play rounders with the other girls in the road without losing her breath after two runs. But they wouldn’t let her play with them now because no one would have her on their team. So she had to stand and watch.
Ann slid the key into the lock. ‘You go and change your dress while I put the kettle on and make you a round of bread and butter to eat with the pie.’