‘My mam wants to see you,’ she said to Amy once they’d exited the back lane and begun the walk to the tram stop. ‘She’s got something for you for your birthday.’
‘Really?’ Amy gave a little skip and a hop, curbing the impulse to pivot round two or three times as she was wont to do when the peculiar joy of living filled her. Anything could cause these brief explosions of sheer happiness - a beautiful sunset, the blackbird singing his heart out at twilight on the brick wall at the end of the yard, even the sight of newly fallen snow when it glittered like diamond dust - but since the incident with Eva in the summer she hadn’t felt the inexpressible emotion welling up until it filled every part of her. Until now. She caught hold of Kitty’s hand, her voice shy as she said, ‘I love you, Aunt Kitty.’
‘And I love you, hinny.’
‘I wish ...’
‘What?’
‘Oh, nothing.’ How could she say she wished Aunt Kitty was her real aunty and that she lived with her and Mr and Mrs Price in their little house in Deptford Road? Kitty might tell Mrs Price and she might let on to Gran and then her gran would be upset. Her gran thought the world of Uncle Ronald. But when she was with Kitty and her mam and da she felt . . . normal. They liked her. Just as she was they liked her. ‘I just wish it could be Saturday every day of the week, that’s all.’
They stood with arms linked until the tram came. The journey was just a few minutes and when they alighted, Kitty said, ‘We’ll go in and see your gran first, shall we? And then Mam before we go to Binns.’
Amy nodded. Much as she liked Kitty’s mother, she couldn’t wait to see her grandma. Every Saturday when she had to leave her for another week she had a physical ache in her chest that didn’t go away all the rest of the evening.
Muriel’s eyes were fixed on the door when Amy and Kitty entered the front room. The four walls had enclosed her world since the stroke twelve years before. Although she had recovered her speech after a while, her heart had been severely affected. From the time she had left the infirmary she had remained virtually bedridden, moving only from the single bed which had been brought downstairs from Bess’s room to the large leather-covered commode which also served as a chair for any visitors. She knew her neighbours and friends pitied her and she could understand it - most folk in her condition would find life a trial. What they could never understand because she could never tell them was that the last twelve years had been the happiest of her life in some ways. Of course she still grieved for Bess, there wasn’t a day went by when she didn’t have a little tear, but each day since she’d come home from the hospital had been an extension of the two nine-month periods when Wilbur hadn’t touched her. Then it had been because she was carrying a child, now it was the fact that he found any sort of illness repulsive. If only she could have had Amy living with her she would have been the happiest woman alive, but it was a comfort to know her Ronald was bringing up the lass with his bairns. Young folk needed other young folk.
‘Hello, me bairn.’ Muriel held out her arms and Amy ran to the bed and kissed her grandmother before perching beside her while Kitty seated herself in the leather chair.
‘Has he gone?’ Kitty asked quietly.
‘Oh aye, over twenty minutes ago.’ Muriel smiled at them both. ‘It’s just the three of us.’
Amy wriggled her contentment. When she was with her grandma like this she often wished she could stay nestled into her side for ever. ‘Look what Aunt Kitty gave me.’ She had been pulling off her coat and scarf as she spoke and now lifted up the little cross which was lying in the hollow of her throat. And then, because she knew it would please her grandmother, she added,‘And Uncle Ronald gave me a whole shilling for my birthday to spend however I like.’
‘Fancy.’ Muriel smiled at the light of her life. ‘Well, I’ve got somethin’ for you an’ all now you’re all grown up an’ about to leave school.’ She didn’t dwell on this. She knew the lass had wanted to go to the secondary school, bright as a button Amy was, but she could understand Ronald and May’s reasoning that if their lads had had to leave at fourteen and work, it was only right that Amy should. Mind, Ronald’s bairns didn’t have as much up top as Amy did from what she could make out. Not that she saw much of any of them. Still, she shouldn’t complain. At least Ronald came once a week to see her.
‘Go across to the fire,’ she said to Amy, and when Amy slid off the bed and did as she was told, she added, ‘Now pull the rug back a bit.’
Amy turned with a questioning look on her face but Muriel, enjoying herself, said, ‘Go on, go on, it won’t bite you, lass.’
The shop-bought rug was a leftover from the days when the room had been Muriel’s pride and joy, a mausoleum for only the most honoured visitors. It covered half the bare floorboards which once had been polished to perfection.
Amy knelt and pulled the thin fringed material to one side. ‘There’s nothing here, Gran.’
‘That’s what folk are supposed to think. See that floorboard with the little chip out of it? Put your finger in there an’ lever it up. That’s right, go on. There’s summat wrapped in a bit of old sacking an’ a little bag beside it. Bring ’em here, hinny.’
Beside herself with excitement, Amy brought the square package and little dusty pouch to her grandmother, laying them on the eiderdown. Muriel leaned back on her pillows for a moment or two, her gnarled, veined hands resting on the sacking as she caught her breath.
Kitty hadn’t said a word during the proceedings but when Amy glanced at her she raised her eyebrows, expressing curiosity and surprise.
‘Now you’re not goin’ to be able to tell anyone about this in case it gets back to your granda, all right?’
Amy nodded, and when Muriel turned her gaze on Kitty the younger woman said quietly, ‘You know me, Mrs Shawe. I won’t say nowt.’
‘I know that, Kitty. By, I do. You’re a good lass and no mistake. What I would have done without you an’ your mam the last few years since I’ve been in this bed I don’t know.’ The two women smiled at each other before Muriel lifted the item wrapped in the sacking and said to Amy, ‘Take a look at this, hinny.You’re goin’ to have to hide it for the time being’ - she didn’t say until she had passed on but that was what she meant - ‘’cos the roof nearly went off this house when your mam gave it to me for me birthday. She was sixteen when she had it took.’
‘Oh, Gran.’ Amy stared down at the photograph of her mother, a shiver of sheer wonder vying with the lump in her throat. This was her mam, her mam. Her grandma and Kitty had described her mother to her but it wasn’t the same as seeing her. Before now there had only been the picture of her mam as a little baby lying on a sheepskin rug, the same as her grandma had had taken of Uncle Ronald when he was a bairn. These were on her grandma’s mantelpiece - her eyes flashed briefly to them - but they just looked the same as any baby to her. This was different. She gazed into the large dark eyes in the photograph. They looked dreamy, soft, and the bow-shaped mouth was half smiling. This was her mam when she was only two years older than she was now, before she met the man who had hurt her so badly. Amy never referred to him as her father, not even in her mind. Suddenly she burst into tears.
‘Ee, come on, me bairn.’ Muriel’s voice was gentle but it held a gratified note. ‘I knew you’d like to see her proper. I was goin’ to keep the picture till you got wed or somethin’ but . . .’ Her voice trailed away. She couldn’t say that there were more and more days lately when she doubted she’d still be alive to see that occasion; she didn’t want to upset the lass by speaking of her death.‘But I thought you were old enough now not to let on to your granda,’ she went on. ‘He said it was a waste of money, your mam havin’ it done for me. Said she’d got ideas above her station, her goin’ to a fancy photographer in town an’ all. On an’ on he went till I put it away for safe keepin’.’
‘She’s beautiful, isn’t she, Gran?’ Amy’s eyes, luminous with tears, met her grandmother’s.
Muriel stared into the gre
at blue pools. Her Bess had been bonny, she had taken after Wilbur in her colouring and thick curly hair and had turned heads from the minute she’d been born. But bonny as Bess had been, she wasn’t a patch on Amy. There was something about her granddaughter’s face, a delicacy, a fragility - oh, she didn’t have the learning to know the words to describe it. And the bairn’s eyes, she had seen blue eyes before but never the vivid violet shade looking at her so tenderly now.
Men would want her. Panic brought her hand fluttering to her throat, her heart undergoing a number of rapid palpitations.
‘You’re goin’ to be leavin’ school soon, hinny.’ Muriel leaned forward and touched Amy’s arm, bringing her granddaughter’s gaze from the photograph. ‘An’ not everyone out there in the world is what they seem on the surface. You’ll have to be careful, you understand me? You know what happened to your mam an’ she wasn’t bad, far from it, but she was gullible. An’ some men see a bonny lass an’ have to have them, right or wrong.’
Gran was talking about him. Amy stared at her grandmother, her face growing pink. She blinked. ‘Don’t worry, Gran.’
‘But I do, hinny.’ Muriel’s breathing was laboured. ‘Your mam was a sweet trustin’ soul an’ look where that got her.’
Amy didn’t know what to say. Her grandmother had never spoken like this before. In all their conversations about her mother she had only related incidents from Bess’s childhood or things her mam had said and done which illustrated how loving and considerate she’d been. It had been Kitty who had told her about Christopher Lyndon. She was glad he was dead. It was not a new thought. After what he’d done to her mam, he hadn’t deserved to live and be happy.
Amy laid the photograph carefully on the bed before placing her hands on her grandmother’s, which had been pulling agitatedly at the eiderdown. ‘I’m not like Mam in the trusting people sense, Gran,’ she said quietly. ‘All right?’
She could see her grandmother was surprised but Amy couldn’t find the right words to explain further. She just knew she would never let a lad take her down without their being wed. The way her Aunt May and Mr O’Leary and especially her granda looked at her sometimes wouldn’t let her for one thing. Her mam hadn’t been bad and neither was she and one day she would show the lot of them. Quite what she’d show them she wasn’t sure, but she’d make it happen. And it would be for her mam as well as for her.
‘You’ve got a level head on your shoulders, hinny, that’s for sure,’ said Muriel, somewhat reassured. ‘Just you make certain some canny lad with the gift of the gab doesn’t turn it, that’s all I’m sayin’. Silver-tongued, some of ’em are. Isn’t that right, Kitty?’
Kitty smiled, a smile which was rueful but without rancour. ‘To be truthful I haven’t had too many spinning me a line, Mrs Shawe, but rest assured if one tries he’ll be up the aisle and standing in front of the priest with me clothed in white afore he can blink.’
Muriel and Amy laughed, as Kitty had meant them to, but as Amy looked at her mother’s best friend, she thought, The lads hereabout must be mad not to see what a lovely person she is; she’d make anyone a wonderful wife.The echo of Eva’s spiteful remarks about Kitty came to mind and impulsively Amy said, ‘Whoever gets you will be the luckiest lad in town, Aunt Kitty.’
Kitty’s lids blinked rapidly; she swallowed and moistened her lips before she said, ‘Thanks, lass, but I’m not holding me breath. Happen I’ll carry on as I am and that doesn’t seem a bad thing on a Sunday afternoon when all our lot come for tea with their bairns. Bedlam it is.’
She didn’t mean it. There was something in Kitty’s eyes which pained Amy and she turned from it, saying quickly, ‘What’s in the little bag, Gran?’
‘What? Oh aye. Here, take a look.’ Muriel thrust the velvet pouch at her granddaughter.
Amy loosened the drawstrings and peered inside before tipping the contents on the bed. Three pound notes fluttered onto the eiderdown.
‘This was goin’ to be for a bit of a do when your mam got wed,’ Muriel said softly. ‘I started savin’ the odd penny or two from me housekeepin’ on the sly from when she was born until I ended up in this bed twelve years ago. Me own weddin’ was a pauper’s affair an’ I wanted me lass to have a nice dress an’ a knees-up. I knew your granda wouldn’t agree but I’d got in mind for Bess to say to the young man, whoever he was, that it had come from his pocket. I’d got it all worked out.’ She smiled a watery smile, her lips trembling. ‘Course sometimes there were weeks when I couldn’t put anythin’ away. Your granda’s always had to know the ins an’ outs of old Meg’s backside an’ I swear he could add up what I’d spent down to the last farthin’. Mean as muck, Wilbur was, unless it came to tickets for the footie or money spent on his baccy and beer.’
‘But I can’t take this, Gran.’ Amy was staring in awe at the notes.
‘You can an’ you will, hinny. Put it away in one of them post office accounts or summat an’ no one will be any the wiser. Kitty’ll go with you to set it up, won’t you, lass?’
‘Aye, yes. We could go this afternoon,’ said Kitty.
‘There you are then, it’s settled. It’ll be a weight off me mind to know you’ve got it an’ your mam’s picture, bless her heart.’
‘Oh, Gran.’ Amy suddenly laid her face against her grandmother’s, and when Muriel hugged her close with a strength which belied her frail frame the two of them clung to each other for long moments.
Chapter 5
By the time Amy and Kitty left the warmth of Binns later that day after a delicious tea of wafer-thin sandwiches and cream cakes, it was quite dark outside. Fawcett Street was still thronged with Saturday shoppers despite the snow which had begun to fall thickly again, but the bright lights from the shops and the hustle and bustle all added to the magic of a perfect afternoon.
On leaving her grandmother’s house they had gone next door to Mrs Price. Kitty’s mother had presented ‘the birthday girl’ with a beautifully knitted scarf and gloves in bright red wool, along with two lace handkerchiefs in a little box.
After talking the matter over with Kitty and Mrs Price, Amy had decided to leave her precious photograph safely tucked up in Kitty’s bedroom until there came a time when she could have it herself. Sharing a bedroom with Eva, Harriet and the twins meant nothing was private at home. For the same reason she had left the little passbook which the post office had given her after she had deposited the three pounds with them in Kitty’s care too.
‘Well, lass, it’s been an unusual sort of afternoon.’ Kitty grinned at her as they made their way to the tram stop, the snow already coating their hats and shoulders. ‘Fancy your gran having that money hidden away all them years.’
Amy smiled back but said nothing. To be truthful, the contents of the little pouch hadn’t thrilled her a tenth as much as the photograph of her mother. She had stared and stared at it all the time she was in Kitty’s house and it had been hard to part with it when they had left. But it was for the best to leave it where it was. She gave mental confirmation to the thought. Not only would her grandma be in trouble with her granda if it was discovered at home but for years now any little items she possessed had a tendency to go missing or get spoiled. The mother-of-pearl hairbrush her Aunt Kitty had bought her for her eleventh birthday had lasted a week before she’d found it smashed at the bottom of the stairs; items of clothing tended to get snagged or torn, hair ribbons went missing, the Bible she’d been presented with at Sunday School had deep grooves in its cover and several of its pages were loose. The list was endless.
‘I have to say you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw what your gran had got. I didn’t—’ Kitty stopped abruptly, clutching hold of Amy’s arm as she said in some surprise, ‘Isn’t that Perce standing at the tram stop? It is, I’m sure of it.’
At that moment the tall broad youth turned to face them, a smile spreading across his face and his voice jolly as he called, ‘Well, well, well! What are you two doing in this neck of the woods?’<
br />
‘Just been to tea at Binns, no less.’ Kitty’s voice was equally gay as she replied, the small pause when she had waited for Amy to speak swallowed up as she went on, ‘And you? I thought football was the order of the day on a Saturday afternoon for you and the rest of Sunderland’s male population?’
Perce laughed. He waited for them to reach him before he said, tapping his finger against the side of his nose, ‘I had to see a pal in town about a spot of business he’d got going down. I left Da and the others at the match, they’ll tell me what happened and the score.’
All this time Perce hadn’t once looked at Amy, he had kept his eyes fixed on the woman at her side. Now his gaze turned to his cousin. ‘You on your way home?’ he asked easily.
He had known she was finishing the afternoon with Aunt Kitty by having tea at Binns. He had probably heard her tell his mam earlier or something but he had known. She had never been more sure of anything in her life.There had been no pal, no business. She felt suddenly weak and sick, all her half-formed fears and misgivings of the last months coming together to tell her Perce liked her - in that way. The way a lad likes a lass. She forced herself to nod. ‘Yes, I’m going home.’
The Rainbow Years Page 7