‘Your dad’s taking us to see her.’
‘She’ll probably be discharged soon, and then you’ll have something else to contend with. Drop Alfie off at your uncle’s on the way back, and get Pam home. I love you, Marie, and I don’t want it all falling on you.’
‘I love you, too.’
‘Well, remember what I’ve said.’
‘I will.’
‘Bye, then, sweetheart. Is Mum there?’
‘I’ll drive you to the hospital,’ Mr Elsworth said, as his wife took the receiver.
‘Don’t you dare say anything about what happened in Bourne while we’re there, Alfie,’ Marie warned him. ‘Mam’s too poorly to be worried about all that.’
‘What do you take me for?’ Alfie demanded. ‘I’m not silly.’
‘Alfie, it’s Sunday tomorrow. Come round, and we’ll go and have a look round Hull together,’ Danny said.
‘All right.’
‘Hold on.’ Mrs Elsworth put her hand over the receiver, and smiled at Alfie. ‘In that case, since Marie will be at work, you’d better come to lunch here, Alfie.’
Marie smiled her thanks. There was a turn-up, but all to the good as far as cementing family relationships went. Mrs Elsworth obviously didn’t believe Alfie was as black as he’d been painted, or she wouldn’t have invited him.
Alfie cocked his head on one side and gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Are you a good cook?’ he asked.
Their mother seemed much clearer mentally than the last time Marie had seen her. Marie didn’t go into the details of why Alfie was at home, but let her mother believe he’d only come back for the funeral.
Mrs Larsen kissed him, and cried over him, and then said: ‘Our Pam didn’t come, then?’
‘No. She was frightened of the air raids,’ Marie said, voice raised.
‘She was always nervous, our Pam,’ their mother said. ‘She should stay away.’
‘Uncle Alfred’s offered Alfie a home for the duration,’ Marie said, after her mother had heard all about the funeral.
‘Dunswell’s not far enough away. I want you right out of it, Alfie.’ She tore her eyes away from Alfie to look at Marie. ‘They’re sending me home soon. Poor lass, everything dropping on you. But don’t worry, I’ll look after myself.’
‘You can’t possibly look after yourself, Mrs Larsen,’ a staff nurse cut in as she passed the bed. ‘You might be able to wash and dress yourself and do a bit of dusting and peel a few vegetables, but you’ll be surprised how tired you’ll get just doing that.’
Their mother looked directly at Marie. ‘Don’t you worry, Marie. I won’t be a trouble. I don’t intend to be a burden on anybody.’
‘You heard what she said, Mam. You’ll be tired even waving a duster about. You’ll have to take it easy at first.’
The nurse caught up with Marie as she and Alfie were leaving the ward and out of their mother’s hearing. ‘Have you got anyone to help you look after your mother? You’re going to have to leave work if not.’
‘When will you be sending her home?’
‘In a week or so, all being well.’
‘Well, it’s a bit sooner than I thought,’ said Marie.
‘Go and see the Lady Almoner. She might know of some help you can get.’
‘I will, but we’ll manage. My sister will have to come home.’
The words conjured a vision in Marie’s mind of Pam in her pretty Robin Pearl jumper, leaving beautiful Bourne and her piano playing to come back to bombed-out Hull and slave over the stove and the wash-tub.
Chapter 10
‘Alfie arrived home yesterday, Mr Stewart,’ Marie said, speaking from the Elsworths’ house with Alfie beside her. ‘We found him after Dad’s funeral, much too late for me to telephone you. He was in the Mortons’ house both times you went, as it turns out. They kept him off school because they’d given him such a thrashing he was covered in bruises, and they didn’t want anyone to see him. Anyway, I’d just like to say thank you for everything you did.’
‘You’re very welcome, but I’m surprised at what you say about the Mortons. No, that’s an understatement. I’m shocked.’
Marie had the feeling that Mr Stewart doubted what she was telling him. She repeated the news to Pam, when Mr Stewart had recovered enough from his shock to hand her the receiver.
‘Shall I go and tell Mrs Morton he’s come home?’ Pam asked.
‘If you like. And while you’re at it, you can tell her I’m having him examined by the school doctor, and she’ll most likely get a summons for child cruelty, depending on what he says about Alfie’s bruises. And another thing: I’m just going to the hospital to see Mam, and I’m expecting them to tell me when she can come home. I’m sorry, Pam, but your days in Bourne are numbered. You’ll have to come home and help look after her. I can’t do everything.’
She cut Pam’s protests off with a curt ‘Goodbye’.
‘Stay for tea,’ Mrs Elsworth invited them, still in her WVS uniform. ‘Come and see us on your way home from St Vincent’s sometimes, if you like, Alfie,’ she said, much to Marie’s surprise. ‘It’s not very far out of your way.’
Marie got home from the hospital to find a letter from Charles on the mantelpiece the following Tuesday, along with a summons of her own, to attend the police court for breaching the blackout. Alfie was already in bed. She went up to him.
‘What? What are they talking about?’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve never done anything of the sort. I’ve never breached the blackout. There must be some mistake.’
He looked at the summons, and then at her, with guilt written all over him.
‘You know something about this, don’t you?’
‘Sorry, Marie. The ARP warden came knocking at the door on Sunday night. He said a woman down the street had reported us, and when I switched the light off for him he said it was all right. I didn’t think they were going to send you a summons. It was only the bathroom.’
‘Only the bathroom? Only a day wasted going to court, and a fine THAT WE CAN’T AFFORD! You’ll have me wishing I’d never let you stay at home, if you go on like this. And you—’
Alfie went pale. ‘It wasn’t me. It was a friend, and it was a mistake. I’ll be careful in future. I’m sorry, all right?’
‘A friend? Who was the friend? I told you not to have anyone in the house when I’m not here.’
‘Not really a friend. Just that nipper from down the street. She was outside, waiting for her mother to come home, and she came to talk to us when the other little uns had gone in. I felt sorry for her, on her own, so when my pals had gone home as well I let her come in for an hour before I went to bed and gave her some pickled beetroot in a sandwich.’
‘Has this kid you let in got a name?’
‘Jenny. I’m sorry, Marie.’
‘Not half as sorry as I’ll be when I’m standing in front of that magistrate,’ Marie said, her expression grim. She had a summons, and Jenny was the one who had managed to get it for her. Hannah would be crowing, if she knew. Maybe she did know . . . She was probably the one who reported them, Marie thought. One up to Hannah, if that was the case.
Charles’s letter made depressing reading when she got back downstairs. It was full of dire warnings about ‘getting lumbered’ with ‘that little so-and-so of a brother of yours’ and included the line: ‘If you want my opinion, he probably richly deserved the thrashing he got.’
She folded it and put it back on the mantelpiece, thinking of her coming court appearance. ‘If only you knew,’ she murmured.
‘You’ll have to leave school. You’re nearly fourteen so you’d be leaving for good in a month, anyway. You won’t be missing much,’ Marie said, standing with her back to the window in the Stewarts’ beautiful drawing room at eleven o’clock on the first Sunday in May.
Not trusting Pam to come back to Hull on her own, Marie had told the Elsworths she was going to Bourne on the next available evacuation excursion to collect Pam, with all her things. Mr Elsworth
had insisted on driving her and was now sitting waiting in his car, just outside the house.
‘If Pamela were to stay, we would keep her in school,’ Mr Stewart said. ‘Perhaps send her to music college.’
Marie felt strong disapproval emanating from the Stewarts. ‘I have to work,’ she insisted. ‘They’ve been very good at the hospital, about letting me have time off to deal with everything I’ve had to deal with since Dad was killed, but they can’t do it for ever. Mother’s due for discharge tomorrow, but it’ll be a long time before she’s properly better. Someone will have to look after her, and the only person who’s free to do it is Pam.’
‘Is there absolutely no other way?’ Mrs Stewart asked.
‘If there were, I wouldn’t be here. Pam’s first duty is to her mother.’
That was the argument to cap all other arguments. After that, all opposition ceased.
Throughout the conversation Pam had been silently running her fingers over the French-polished piano. She looked at ‘Auntie’ Morag and ‘Uncle’ Alec, and burst into tears. The Stewarts looked just as upset.
With her shoulders stooped, and looking a picture of dejection, she picked up her battered old suitcase, and a new one Mrs Stewart had given her, and followed Marie to the door. There Marie waited while Pam and the Stewarts exchanged kisses, said anguished goodbyes, and made fervent promises to keep in touch. She barely answered Mr Elsworth when he greeted her. They drove for miles, with only an occasional stifled sob to break the silence. Marie felt like a criminal.
At last, red-eyed and with a face full of resentment, Pam said: ‘I’d have loved to go to college to study music, and Auntie Morag and Uncle Alec would have sent me. I might as well be dead now. I might as well be blown up as well as Dad.’
‘Don’t you dare say that near Mam,’ Marie warned. ‘You say anything like that, and it might be the end of her. She’d just give up and die.’
‘No, she wouldn’t. She’s as tough as old boots.’
‘Was tough,’ Marie stressed. ‘She’s not tough any more, so let me hear you’ve said anything to upset her, and you won’t need any music college because you won’t be playing any more pianos. I’ll chop your bloody fingers off.’
‘That’s rather extreme,’ Mr Elsworth protested.
‘It’s not extreme enough,’ Marie said, wishing she’d avoided getting into a dispute with Pam in front of him.
‘Why can’t Alfie look after her?’ Pam demanded. ‘He’s there anyway.’
Marie’s jaw dropped. She was astounded at the very idea of a boy doing that. Impossible. An idea so ludicrous, it didn’t merit consideration. ‘Anybody but you, I suppose, Pam,’ she said. ‘Fine daughter you’ve turned out to be.’
‘Oh, it’s so nice to be home,’ their mother kept repeating, when they brought her back. ‘Home, sweet home.’
She was home, but it was a different mother from the one they had known. Her pleasure at being among her own familiar things was heartbreakingly childlike. An ugly, deep purple gash scarred her forehead and it was plain that Pam could hardly bear to look at her. Marie’s hope that her mother’s mind had stopped its wanderings was soon dashed. She had to be told three times that Dad was dead, and then: ‘Ah, yes. I’d forgotten,’ she said, with the same look of desolation and perplexity. She suddenly seemed so old. It all made Marie very apprehensive about going back to work.
‘Put that landing light out, Bert,’ her mother called, an hour after she and Pam had helped her to bed.
The sisters looked at each other. Pam’s resentment seemed to have burned itself out, or turned into despair. ‘This is a sad house, now,’ she said.
Never in her life had Marie imagined that she would ever have to undergo the excruciating embarrassment of asking for time off to answer a summons to court. Matron had granted it very disapprovingly, with the proviso that she report back on duty as soon as her case had been dealt with. So here Marie sat, down at the Guildhall, feeling like a criminal fish out of water, clueless about what was going to happen and very anxious.
A man she often saw around her own neighbourhood came out of the courtroom just before she was due to go in. ‘You’re Bert Larsen’s lass, aren’t you?’ he croaked, through a rattling smoker’s cough. ‘I was sorry to hear about your dad. And your mam’s in hospital, isn’t she?’
‘Not any more. She came home yesterday.’
‘How is she?’
‘You know what they always say – “as well as can be expected”. Truth is, it’s knocked the stuffing out of her. She’s got a terrible scar running right across her forehead. You’d hardly recognize her now.’
He grimaced. ‘Bloody shame. She was a real good-looking woman, your mother. Bloody Germans. So what are you here for, a good lass like you? You’ve not turned into one of these young looters who burgle people’s houses as soon as they’ve gone down to the shelter, are you?’
‘Don’t be daft. I’m carrying the can for our Alfie,’ Marie said. ‘He let a light show through our bathroom window, and the ARP warden copped him.’
‘Showing a light. Same as me. These bastards treat people like bloody criminals. I got fined two pounds five shillings.’
The shock must have shown on Marie’s face.
‘The five bob was for foul language, though,’ he reassured her. ‘I gave them a right bloody mouthful. They knew what their bloody mothers were before I came out of there. But you be polite, and you’ll get off with less.’ He gave her a hint of a smile.
Marie was appalled. Using strong language to a magistrate was something that would never have occurred to her, but even without the language, Alfie’s escapade might still cost her two pounds! She’d never be able to hand Charles his ten pounds back at this rate. Not that he’d begrudged it, but it was a question of pride. She prided herself on her independence and would have liked to be able to say: ‘Look, here’s your money. It was nice to have it to fall back on, but I managed all right. Thanks anyway.’ The chances of that nice little daydream becoming a reality was fast disappearing. What was worse, she might not even be able to keep her head above water. She might have to spend more of Charles’s money, and if it ran out . . .
‘Miss Marie Larsen,’ the usher called.
She went in, with her heart in her mouth. High in their seats of judgement and reeking of authority, with an imposing coat of arms at the back of them, the three magistrates looked down on her, their faces like granite. When the preliminaries of name and address and guilty plea were over, the one in the middle fixed her with an unfriendly stare and began: ‘There are still far too many of these incidents and they deserve to be very severely dealt with. Since you choose to be irresponsible, and endanger the lives of all your fellow citizens . . .’ Marie listened in fear and trepidation. When asked what she had to say for herself she could hardly separate her tongue from the roof of her mouth, it was so dry. She did not protest that she was not the culprit, in case they started asking awkward questions about Alfie’s being in the house unsupervised. That might have resulted in proceedings against her for some other horrible crime, like child neglect, for example. The thought scared her witless. She managed to croak out her apologies, and must have looked sufficiently contrite and terrified even for these grim judges.
‘Very well,’ the chief magistrate said, looking slightly mollified. ‘Take more care in future, young woman, and see that you do not appear before us again, or we shall have to deal with you very severely.’
She got off with thirty shillings, and came out thinking herself quite lucky.
Marie walked home from the hospital under a brilliant bomber’s moon, humming a quickstep to keep her weary legs moving along, anxious to know how her mother was, and how Pam had coped in her absence. She heard the piano being played in the front room as she got to the door, the first time she’d heard Pam play since she’d gone to the Stewarts. And it had to be said, she was good.
‘This piano needs tuning,’ Pam told her, when she popped her head round the door
.
The place was a shambles, with dirty cups and saucers dotted about, clothes dropped, shoes kicked off, books, magazines and sheet music strewn all over. It looked as if Pam had dragged as much stuff as she could out of the cupboards to throw it all over the room.
‘We’ve got a lot more to worry about here than tuning the piano,’ Marie rasped. ‘I really don’t give a tinker’s cuss about the piano. What does Mam need? That’s more to the point. Has she had anything to eat?’
‘She didn’t want much.’
‘I don’t suppose she would, if she knew she’d have to disturb your piano playing to ask you to get it for her. Where is she?’
‘In bed,’ said Pam, idly fingering the keys. ‘She said she was tired.’
‘I know how she feels,’ Marie said, and went through to the kitchen to put the kettle on. Every surface was littered with things that should either have been put back in the cupboard, or washed up. The floor was half mopped, and the mop bucket stood in the middle of the kitchen floor, full of dirty water.
Too tired to be angry, Marie went back into the front room and swept the hearth, then began picking things up. A wave of despair engulfed her.
Pam slammed the piano lid down with a mighty crash. ‘There’s no need to sulk. You only had to ask.’
Marie’s tired eyes widened. ‘Have I got to ask for every plate and cup to be tidied away, every surface to be dusted, to ask every time the hearth needs to be swept? I’ve been on my feet for twelve solid hours. Can’t you see for yourself things need doing, Pam?’
‘Don’t look at me like that. I have been doing things, only every time I start, someone comes to the door, or Alfie wants something, or Mother. It’s impossible to get on with anything without constant interruptions. Anyway, I shouldn’t have to do this! You’re the nurse, not me.’
‘Nobody’s asked you to be a nurse. Mam doesn’t need nursing now; she looks after herself. You’ve been asked to wash, and make a meal every day, and do enough to keep the place clean, because there’s nobody else in the family to do it. Mum needs help, and you’re the only one that’s free to give it.’
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