Fenwick Houses

by Catherine Cookson

  Blinking, I turned, blinded with colour, to see just a few feet away from me Father Ellis. He was standing looking at me, and I cried joyfully, "Oh, hallo. Father." But he didn't speak, he just took my hand and turned away and we walked homewards. I thought he was vexed, somebody had vexed him, yet he didn't look vexed, and then he said in a voice which he only used in confession and never on the fells,

  "Christine, how old are you now?"

  "Eleven, Father. I was eleven on April the twenty-sixth. You know I was born the day the Duke and Duchess of York were married. It was a nice day to be born, wasn't it?"

  I looked up at him and he smiled and said, "There wasn't a better."

  And then he went on, "But now, Christine, you're a big girl and you must give over dreaming." He gave a little gentle wag to my hand.

  "You must do practical things. You understand what I mean?"

  "Yes, Father," I said, but I wasn't quite sure in my mind.

  "You must help your mother with the housework and things in the home, for she works very hard."

  "Oh, I do. Father. I do the brasses every Saturday morning, and the fender oh, the fender, Father." I smiled up at him.

  "It's awful to do and takes so long to get bright."

  "Yes, I know you do things like that, but you must do even^ more. You must learn to cook and do all the housework, and" sew, and always keep busy. "

  "I'm a good sewer. Father, but I dont like patching."

  He laughed now and said, "No, you wouldn't like patching." Then he stopped, and looking down at me again with a straight face, he said quietly, "But you'll remember what I said and try to put your mind on everyday things?"

  Yes, Father. "

  I knew what he meant I was always being told to pay attention and stop dreaming. But I liked dreaming, I liked to lie in bed and float away out of the bed. Not that I didn't like my bed and my little room, and not that I didn't think our kitchen the finest kitchen in the world, but I just wanted to go off somewhere. Where, I couldn't have explained, it was just somewhere. I came near to a vague understanding of this feeling the following spring.

  Following the hot summer it was a hard winter, there was a lot of snow, with high winds and great drifts and thaws and freezing, and this pattern seemed to go on for ever. I wasn't very fond of the snow, for my hands, even with gloves on, would become very cold while playing snowballs, and I hated to be rolled in the snow. Our Ronnie knew this and never pushed me into it, nor did Sam, and Sam could have be cause, although he wasn't tall, he was strong. But Don, at every opportunity, pushed me down and tried to roll me in the snow. This often ended in a fight between Ronnie and him.

  One day the fight became grim and Sam joined in, not to help his brother but to help Ronnie, and later that evening I heard Sam getting a walloping and knew Don had told on him. It was during this bitter cold time that I first noticed my mother walking slower. When she came up the hill she would stop once or twice, and as soon as she got in she would sit down. This was unusual, for she never sat down unless it was in the evening. She would never let me carry the bags of groceries, saying they were too heavy for me, nor had she ever let anyone else carry them. But one day she came in and Sam was with her, and he was carrying the big bass bag. It was nearly as big as himself and when he dumped it on the table she looked at him with a smile and said,

  "Thanks, Sam." And Sam's reply was an unusually lengthy one for him, for he said, "That's all right. Aunt Annie, I'll always carry your bags for you if you like."

  My mother's smile broadened, and she patted his back and said, "Go in the pantry and cut yourself a shive."

  He turned eagerly away, but then quickly looking back at her said, "I didn't do it for that, Aunt Annie."

  "No, no, lad, I know that. Go on and dont be so thin- skinned."

  Christmas came but it did not seem so happy this year. The eons of time passed until one morning I knew it was spring. The sun was hard and bright; I had run up to the edge of the wood and there through the trees I saw a wonderful sight. There had been no snow for weeks, but sprinkled around the roots of the trees was something that looked like snow. As far as my eye could see there was this sprinkling of purity white, each drop separate from its fellow and divided within itself, and each part shining. I took in a great gulp of air. I wanted to share this wonder with someone, someone who needed wonder, and who needed wonder at this moment more than my mother, for she was tired.

  And so, dashing back down the street, I flew into the kitchen where she was on the point of lifting the big black frying pan from the fire, and clinging on to her apron I cried, "Mam, come up to the wood and see something, it's beautiful. It's been snowing in the wood."

  She turned very quickly and looked down at me with a surprised, almost frightened expression. Then she said sharply, "Don't be silly, child, it hasn't snowed for weeks."

  Now I laughed at her and said, "It has, Mam." I turned my head to where Dad had come out of the scullery, his shirt neck tucked in and soap on his face ready for a shave, and after looking at my face for a moment he said to my mother, "Go on, lass. Leave the pan, I'll see to it."

  "What!" she exclaimed.

  "Don't be silly."

  Now my dad came forward looking as if he had grown old overnight, for the soap had formed a white beard, and taking the pan from her hand he whispered, "Keep it up." Then nudging her, he added,

  "Go on."

  She looked at me impatiently.

  "Oh, come on," she said, straightening her apron and clicking her tongue.

  Her attitude didn't dampen my spirits and I danced before her up the street and into the wood. Then from my vantage point I stopped, and when she came and stood by my side I pointed and she looked. Then her hand came slowly round my shoulder and she pressed me to her.

  And as we stood like this, gazing spellbound at the first sprinkling of anemones, I said, "They seem glad to be out, Mam, dont they?" Her hand drew me closer and she said, "Yes, hinny, they're glad the winter's over." Then much to my surprise she didn't turn homeward but walked quietly on into the wood, her arm still around me.

  At one point she turned and looked back, and I did, too, wondering what she was looking for. Then she did a strange thing. She went down on her hunkers like my dad did and, taking me by the shoulders, she gazed into my face, her eyes moving around it as if looking for something, like when I've had a flea on me, and pressing my face between her large, rough hands she exclaimed softly, "Oh, me hairn."

  Then she said a thing that was stranger than her kneeling, yet not so strange, for I understood in part.

  "Keep this all your life, hinny," she said. And she ended with something which contradicted a daily statement of hers, for she said,

  "Never change. Try to remain as you are, always."

  Now that was a funny thing for her to say for she was for ever at me to

  "Stop dreaming' and forever saying " Come on, pay attention'. And hadn't Father Ellis too said that I would have to pay attention. But now she was telling me never to change.

  The tears were rolling over the red part of her cheeks and dropping straight on to the grass, and I was crying, too. But it was a quiet crying. Then getting quickly to her feet, she wiped my face round with her apron, then wiped her own and, jerking her head up, she laughed and said, "Eeh! that frying-pan. Your dad makes a mess of everything.

  Come on. " And she took my hand. But we didn't run out of the wood, just walked quietly.

  The spring got warmer and warmer, and everything was beautiful, until I came up the hill one day with Cissie Campbell. She had left school now and had got a job in Braithwaite's the big grocery shop on the High Street that supplied most of Brampton Hill, and she had got very swanky all of a sudden and spoke down her nose. It was just after we had crossed over the bridge and one or two of the men had called, "Hallo there, Christine," and I had said, "Hallo' back and called them by their names that Cissie said, " I've got something to tell you. " Her voice had dropped to a whisper and she
brought her face close to mine.

  "You know last Saturday afternoon?" I couldn't remember anything particular about last Saturday afternoon, but I nodded and said, "Yes."

  And she went on, her voice dropping even lower, "Well, you know what happened? You wouldn't believe it but I was coming across Top Fell, I hadn't reached the top, I was just at that part near the stile where the bushes are, you know that narrow cut?"

  Again I nodded.

  "Well, I met Father Ellis there and you know what?"

  I shook my head now and there was a long pause before she said, "He tried to kiss me."

  I stopped dead, my eyes stretching upwards, my mouth stretching downwards, even my ears seemed to be stretching out of my head.

  "You dont believe me?"

  "No, I dont." I backed from her as if she was the devil himself.

  "You're wicked. Priests dont kiss people, not girls. Eeh! Cissie Campbell."

  "He did, I tell you, and I run away."

  "You're lying and I'll tell Mam about you. He's... he's holy. My dad says he is the best priest in the world."

  "You promised not to say anything."

  I didn't. "

  "You did." She was advancing on me now.

  "If you dare tell your mother do you know what I 'll do ?"

  I backed again, staring at her all the while.

  "I'll tell your mother what you and Don Dowling do down by the river."

  "D ... D ... Don." I was spluttering now, and a little fear was creeping like a thread through my body, vibrating on a memory from the past.

  "I've never done anything with Don, never."

  "Yes you have, he told me. And I'll not only tell your mother but I'll go to Father Howard and tell him. And you won't half get it from him if I tell him all Don Dowling told me, so there."

  The many dangers that involved me through Don was security enough for Cissie, but as I watched her stalking away up the hill, her bottom wobbling, I wasn't thinking so much of Don and what he had said about me, but of Father Ellis, and my mind kept repeating, "He didn't do it, he wouldn't do it."

  The Sunday following this incident my father came into my room very early in the morning and whispered, "I'm off to mass. Your mother's going to have a lie in this morning, she's not feeling too good.

  Wouldn't you like to get up and get the breakfast under way? "

  I got up and went downstairs and into the front room. Mother was sitting up in bed and she gave me a warm smile as I entered.

  "Youbad'Mam?"

  "No," she said.

  "I took some medicine last night and I've got a pain in my tummy, that's all."

  "Oh." I let out a long sigh of relief, Epsom Salts always gave me a pain in my tummy.

  After getting dressed I set the table for breakfast and then did the vegetables for the dinner, and after Dad came back and breakfast was over I washed up and did the kitchen. With all this I was too late for the ten o'clock mass, the children's mass, so I went to eleven o'clock.

  The church was different at eleven o'clock for it was full of grown-ups and all the men seemed to stand at the back while there was still some empty seats at the front. I was sitting behind a pillar and the only way I could see Father Howard was when I craned my neck, and I did crane my neck as he began his sermon, for without any leading up he yelled one word at the congregation.

  "Immorality," he yelled, and then there was such a silence that you could hear people breathing. I did not understand anything of what he said at first until he began to talk about the girls and women of the parish.

  "Babylon isn't in it with this town," he cried, 'and I'm not referring to the prostitutes in Bog's End. They carry out their profession in the open, they dont hide behind religion, nor have they the nerve to come to mass and the sacraments with blackness in their hearts that even they would be ashamed of. This parish has become such that it isn't safe for a priest to walk the streets at night. "

  I knew without names being mentioned that the priest Father Howard was referring to was Father Ellis. There was another priest younger than Father Ellis, called Father James, but he did not have a nice face nor a nice voice like Father Ellis. And I also knew that Cissie Campbell had wanted the priest to kiss her and she wasn't the only one, for lots of the grown-up girls were always hanging round him.

  When the mass was over and I was going up the side aisle I saw my Aunt Phyllis walking in the throng up the centre aisle; her head was high but her eyes looked downwards, and she had the appearance of someone wrapped around with righteousness. When she saw me outside she seemed surprised and asked, "Have you been to this mass?" And when I said

  "Yes' she said, " Ah well, I hope it's done you some good. "

  Later the whole town was talking about Father Howard's sermon, but neither Dad nor Mam asked me anything about it.

  The following year, nineteen-thirty-five, our Ronnie and Don Dowling left school and both started at the Phoenix pit. Dad said it would not make much difference to us as they would dock it off his dole, and they did.

  There hadn't been much laughter in our house for some months until one night, sitting at the table, I began w eat slowly, toying with my food, my whole attention concentrated on the thought that had been coming and going in my mind for some long time past. And now, being unable to contain myself any longer as to the truth of Aunt Phyllis's remark, I suddenly raised my eyes and, looking across at Dad, said, "Have I really got a silly laugh. Dad ?"

  They all stopped eating and stared at me, then one after the other they began to laugh. My mother first, her body shaking before she would let her laughter loose, Ronnie's mouth was wide and his head back, and Dad, with his two

  hands clasped on the table, leant across to me I was now laughing myself and shaking his head slowly he said, "It's the best laugh in the land, hinny. Never let it fade ... never."

  That night Ronnie came into my room. I dont know what time it was, I only know that a hand on my shoulder startled me into wakefulness, and I couldn't see anyone in the dark. But then I heard Ronnie's voice whispering near my ear, "Ssh! it's me."

  I turned on my side in an effort to get up, but his hand kept me still, and I asked, "What is it? Is Mam bad?"

  "No," he murmured, "I only wanted to talk to you."

  I screwed my face up in the dark, then said, "Talk to me? What about?"

  "Oh, lots of things," he whispered.

  "I miss you, Christine, now that I'm at work, and we never seem to go anywhere without Sam or Don." He paused, and although I could only see the dark outline of him I knew that we were staring into each other's eyes. Then, with a little gurgle of merriment in his voice, he asked,

  "Have you been worrying about what Aunt Phyllis said that night about your laugh?"

  "No," I lied; 'only I would stop laughing if I thought it was silly.

  "

  "It isn't silly, it's as Dad said, you've got a lovely laugh. And you know something', what I heard the day?"

  "No."

  "It was when we were on the wagons. Harry Bentop you wouldn't know him but he's seen you. Well, he said, " By, your sister's not half a smasher, she's going to be the prettiest lass in Fellbum. " How d'you like that?"

  The? "

  Huh, huh. "

  I hadn't thought about being pretty. I knew that I had nice hair, everybody said so, but pretty. It was nice to be thought pretty, it was something that I would have to think about, really think about. So went vague thoughts in the back of my mind, but what was bringing me into full wakefulness was a puzzling, bemusing thought, a thought that was there and yet wasn't. It was more of a feeling, and the feeling said that my mother wouldn't like our Ronnie to be here talking to me in the middle of the night.

  "I'm sleepy," I said and, turning abruptly round with a great flounce, I faced the wall.

  Some seconds passed before I heard him padding across the room, and although I strained my ears I didn't hear the opening of the door, but knew he was gone by the relieved feeling inside of m
e.

  I could not get to sleep now. Was I going to be the prettiest girl in Fellbum? Did the lads in the pit talk about me? But most of all my mind was groping around the question of why Ronnie had come into my room in the middle of the night to tell me this, why hadn't he told it to me in the kitchen, when Dad and Mam weren't there?

  That week-end Ronnie brought home a puppy. He said its name was Stinker, that he would pay the licence and it could live on scraps.

  This last was to assure mother that it would be no bother as regards food. And lastly he said it was for me. My delight in the gift overflowed from my body and filled the house, and as I took Stinker into my arms, a love sprang up between us that was to make us inseparable until the day he died.

  When I was fourteen I asked my mother if I could go to the baths. A number of the girls from school had joined a swimming club, and I had a great urge to learn to swim. I remember she considered thoughtfully for a moment before saying, "No, Christine, I dont think it wise."

  "But why?" I asked, 'all the girls go, and I'm the only one that can't swim. Ronnie, Don and Sam can swim like ducks and there's me, I have to pledge on the edge. Oh, Mam, let's. "

  Again she bowed her head as if considering, then said, "Not yet awhile, hinny, leave it for a year or so."

  A year or so. In a year or so I'd be old and working, and not wanting to swim. But I didn't upset my mother with my pleading, for she wasn't herself these days, she spent a long time sitting in the lavatory at the bottom of the yard, and when she came into the kitchen she would huddle dose to the fire and her face would look grey and drawn. But sometimes for weeks she would be all right, and I would get her to walk in the wood with me, and draw out her laugh with the fantasies I made about the trees. I would point out the oak

  and say, "There it goes making its bread crumb pudding again." This was when it threw its brown, crumbly flowers out in the spring. Or I'd bring in a spray of horse chestnut, and day after day give a commentary to her on its unfolding. When from its scaly brown cloak there peeped a pale reddy-brown nose, I would turn from the kitchen window where it was stuck in a jar to cry, "Look, Mam, it's turned into a ballet dancer." And she would come and stand near me and look at the silver down-engulfed thing straining away from the brown cloaks that endeavoured to keep it covered. When on the next day the ballet dancer would be gone, leaving only two deep olive green leaves, one dangling in folds from a stalk where the down disappeared at the touch of a finger, so fine it was, I would continue my story. But she wouldn't, I noticed, look so much at the wonder of the opening chestnut bud as at me. In the middle of my narrating, if I turned and looked up at her it would be to find her eyes riveted on my head, and the soft, warm, comforting light in them would bring my attention wholly to her, and I would fling my arms around her waist and lay my head on her shoulder now I could do that, for I was tall for my age.