A Dish of Stones

by Valentina Hepburn

  The roles had reversed without her even realising it. Kate had become responsible for the family, including Angie who had released herself of any responsibility towards her own welfare and that of her children. Her eldest daughter had emerged as the strength; the backbone keeping them all together. Kate had resigned herself to the fact that this was the way of things. When a problem came up she dealt with it without ruffling feathers, making waves or unbalancing the already rocky equilibrium of their lives. Change unsettled her and the role that she’d taken on did not sit easily on her shoulders. To change things would have meant there was no room left for Joe’s return, so she knew she had to keep going. She had already admitted to herself there was a small corner of her resolute belief she would see Joe again that trembled with doubt. She would just take a deep breath and ignore it. He would come back when he was able to. She knew that in her heart.

  Emma felt she owed Angie nothing but contempt. She was still a child, starved of love and support and affection. In her mind she had devised her own resolve; she would never become a slave to Angie, constantly bowing to her mother's demands. Instead, she would fight Angie and do whatever it took to get out of the nightmare even if it meant leaving her mother to fend for herself. She wanted to stay with Kate because she was the only person in her life who gave her security, even though she would never understand why she accepted Angie’s treatment of her. Her frustration and fury at Kate for letting Stephen go almost overwhelmed her but she knew the circumstances were completely out of her control.

  When Emma had turned on Kate for letting Stephen Barton slip through her fingers it had felt to Emma as though they had lost any chance of climbing out of the dark pit they’d been thrown in to. They had argued ferociously about it.

  “How can you say having sex with someone is nothing, Emma? I could never sleep with someone without loving them, without respecting them or wanting them to be the special one. Can’t you see that?” Emma waved a dismissive hand towards her. “Why not? Why can't we use it if it doesn't mean anything? I don’t understand the way you talk, Kate. It’s like listening to riddles with all your words. You're just like Dad used to be. OK, so Stephen tried it on, so what. I’m surprised he waited so long. All you had to do was go along with it. You just wouldn’t would you?

  “Your bloody high-handed, fancy ideas get in the way yet again, Lady Muck, and we’re stuck with her and you go back for more every time. Why aren’t you out there looking for Dad? We both know he’s probably back in Ireland. You could be looking for him, or getting in contact with Granny McGuire. I’d have found him by now and I might just yet.

  “I don’t understand you. You’ve let the best chance we’ve had of making things better for us slip through your fingers because of a few high-and-mighty ideas you’ve got about yourself, although God knows why.” Angry tears ran down Emma's cheeks as she struggled to come to terms with what Kate had done. “You’re the wrong one, Kate, not me. You’re the one who’s got it completely wrong because you think you’re someone you’re not. Don’t think yourself any different to the people who live round here.

  “We all know what we are; it’s you who’s out of step. Did you really think that Stephen wanted you because you think you're clever? Don’t make me laugh. Even you’re not as thick as that. It’s sex they want. Your morals won’t feed us when we’re hungry or give us a cuddle at night when we’re scared and they won’t find our dad, so you can stick your bloody morals up your arse.”

  She ran out of the house, slamming the back door behind her. Kate was devastated for her younger sister. She hadn't realised how vulnerable and scared Emma felt because she always put up such a defiant front, but it changed nothing. If she'd given into Stephen, it would have destroyed her. She could never have lived with herself afterwards.

  Chapter 14

  “Kate came by today.”

  “Did she?”

  “She cheered-up our Jack up no end. He looked happier than he’s done for weeks.”

  “Oh, hang on a minute. Don’t start match-making, Ivy. He’s only been home five minutes and he might go back to the army and someone will get a broken heart.”

  “Oh, Ray, honestly. Match-making, indeed. Who would do something like that?”

  “You would.”

  A hot July sun shone like a burnished globe in a cloudless sky. Kate pulled the collar of her school shirt away from her neck but it didn’t help. The room was sweltering and she could feel beads of perspiration collecting on her forehead. The questions on the subject-paper swam before her eyes and she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to calm her nerves. This was the moment she had been anticipating for the last year-and-a-half and here she was feeling dreadful. The time required to finish the paper stretched in front of her like a marathon. All that streamed through her mind was that the next two hours were two of the most important in her life.

  She’d been confident she would do well in English; a subject she loved, and having read through the questions twice saw they were far more difficult than she'd expected. The overwhelming heat was distracting but she gritted her teeth and tried to ignore it.

  The decision to stay at school and take her exams had been an easy one. Surprisingly, Angie had not demanded she leave. Kate had prepared herself for Angie’s insistence that bringing in money to the house was more important than exams. But even if Angie had insisted, Kate knew on that subject she would have fought her tooth and nail, regardless of what Angie had dished out to her.

  Some of Emma's fighting spirit had rubbed off onto Kate, and after their argument she had vowed to do this one thing for herself; to stay on at school and complete her exams. When they were over and done with she could leave school and get a job; any job to supplement the scant amount of money they had coming in. Two-and-a-half hours later, she walked slowly home, relieved her English exam had ended. She smiled to herself. It had gone well in spite of her earlier reservations. Only Geography and History remained. Slinging her book-laden satchel over her shoulder, she rolled up the sleeves of her school shirt. The shortness of her skirt didn’t matter in the beautiful weather accompanying the arrival of the summer months. Her long slim legs were tanned a honey-brown and she made an attractive picture as she strolled down Sunningdale Terrace.

  Ivy Daly called to her as she passed by her house. She stood in her front doorway, the heat torturing the big woman who mopped her brow constantly. “Kate. Kate love. Come in will you?” Kate smiled and crossed the road. As she walked down Ivy’s front path she admired the garden that Ivy and Ray took such pains with. “Your garden looks so lovely, Aunty Ivy. I wish we had more flowers in ours.”

  “Oh, it’s hard work, pet,” she said. “Ray and me love our garden, but he doesn’t always feel like it when he comes home from work and sometimes I’m not up to it with me rheumatism an’ all. Still our Jack should be able to help us soon.” Kate’s heart leapt at the mention of his name.

  “How is Jack now? Is his leg better?” Ivy beckoned to her. “He’s sitting in the back garden. There’re a couple of deckchairs out there. Why don’t you go and see him, he could do with some company? I think he’s a bit fed up with his dad and me.”

  Kate went through the kitchen and out into the garden. Jack was sitting in a deckchair with one leg propped up on a stool.

  “Hi, Jack.”

  “Hello, Kate. How you doin’?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  She sat on the deckchair beside him, a tingle of nervousness running through her. She thought it funny they should be sitting so near each other now. Jack still didn’t know how she'd felt about him when she was a little girl. He was her first love and she’d loved him then with her heart and soul.

  When they were children she would wait outside the house for hours, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. Sometimes he'd played football and cricket in the street with her and Emma. He was always in her mind then. From the time she woke until bedtime she would think of him. She remembered hating the winter
months because she rarely saw him, and when he left home to join the army, she was thirteen years old and inconsolable. Joe had known how she'd felt. He'd taken her into his arms and comforted her when she’d cried.

  “He’ll come back, y'know. It happened to your Aunty Marie in Ireland. The one she loved left her to go into the army. Another woman she said, I can beat with one hand tied behind me back but the army is a woman with more than I have. I’m no match for it. But you know Katie, she was wrong. He came marching up the road one day towards our farm and he asked her to marry him. They got married and had four children. There. Never stop hoping, sweetheart. You must make your wish for Jack on a dandelion clock. It’s plenty powerful is the dandelion clock. Just make your wish.”

  He'd gone out to the garden and picked her a dandelion clock she’d carefully pressed inside her poetry book. Every night before getting into bed, she took the book from its hiding place, careful not to dislodge the dandelion clock, fearful that it would disintegrate along with her dream. She'd stood at the front window facing Jack’s house every evening, dressed in her pyjamas, and closed her eyes, the book pressed to her heart. She’d wished on her dandelion clock that he would notice her and fall madly in love with her. But that had been before – before things had changed.

  As Kate sat next to him, Jack turned and smiled broadly at her. She felt herself melting under his gaze. He was good-looking in a mischievous way, with olive skin and fair hair that had once been long and wayward but was now cropped short. Blue eyes that still twinkled with humour as she remembered they always had were now looking directly at Kate.

  “You look happy. Something happened that we should all know about?” Kate laughed. “I’ve just finished my English paper. I'm so glad it’s out of the way.” Jack nodded. “Yeah, I can remember how I felt when I’d finished my exams. It was brilliant. I went to the pub with my mates.”

  “But Jack, you were only sixteen.” He laughed out loud. “What’s that got to do with anything? Anyway I looked older. I was happy and I wanted to tell the world. The other lads and I ran through the centre of town making lots of noise and having a great time. The police arrested a couple of my pals for drunk and disorderly but I was the lucky one. I got away with it. Mind you, Mum wasn’t too pleased but she saw the funny side of it.” He paused, still looking at Kate. “And what will you do when all your exams are over. Go to a nightclub, go out with your boyfriend, what?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.” Jack looked surprised and Kate knew she was blushing. Please don't blush, she thought. Not in front of him.

  “A gorgeous girl like you doesn’t have a boyfriend? I can't believe it. You’d go down a storm with my army mates.” Kate frowned. “What does that mean? A storm.” He smiled, amused at her naiveté. He leant towards her and she felt the roots of her hair stand on end. “It means they'd fancy you.”

  “Jack.” Ivy came into the garden carrying a jug of cold lemonade and glasses for them. “Is he teasing you, Kate?” She set the jug and glasses down on a small garden table. “He’s a little so-and-so for that. He does it to me all the time. Now, have some cold lemonade and no dirty jokes, Jack. He told me and his Dad one yesterday, well, I hardly understood it. My Ray did though. He said it was better I didn’t know.” She wagged an admonishing finger at him and Jack laughed. “I think I’ll tell Kate that one Mum...see if she understands it.”

  “Don’t you dare. Kate’s a young lady. She don’t want to hear your naughty jokes.” She grinned at them both. “It’s so lovely to hear you laughing again, son. If you only knew Kate, what he’s been like lately. When he’s not telling his rude jokes he’s been a right old misery guts. Moping about the house, oh, it’s been awful. Missing his mates see. In the army. You’ve cheered him up no end, ducky. Thank you.” Kate smiled at Ivy thinking how could anyone feel lonely with her around?

  “Kate says she doesn’t have a boyfriend, Mum. Can you believe it?”

  “Yes, I can. She’s a sensible girl who wants to get her learning over and done with before she starts on all that malarkey, don’t you, pet?” Kate nodded. She wished they would change the subject. “When do you go back to your barracks, Jack?”

  A dark cloud descended over Jack then engulfed them as he went quiet. Kate felt it instantly and Ivy changed the subject, running her words into each other to cover up the atmosphere. “There was such a commotion over at the Taylor house night before last, Kate. Did you not hear it? Mari Taylor came out to her Frank with a frying pan full of his teatime fry-up and threw it all over him. Ray and me laughed till our sides ached. He’d gone off with her housekeeping and taken it to the races… and that’s where he left it by all accounts. Oh, it was hilarious.” Jack raised his hand to silence her. “Mum...Mum, it’s OK. I need to talk about it.” Ivy looked at her son and a frown creased her brow. “But, Jack you’ve taken it so bad. You’ve been in such a bad humour. Your dad and me, well we’re at a loss to know what to say to you. That feller who came to see you from your barracks said you’d take it hard and you have.”

  Kate was totally confused. All she knew was that she'd said something that had caused Jack anxiety. “I said something, didn’t I? I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s all right, Kate.” He shook his head, angry with himself for taking it out on his parents and for making Kate feel bad. “It's not your fault, honestly. Y’see the injury to my leg was much worse than first thought. I assumed it was just a simple break. Some blokes get injured when we’re training, it goes with the territory. I had a medical last week and I’d hoped they’d declare me fit enough to resume my post. Instead of that they told me that my leg hasn’t healed as well as expected and I might not be fit enough for anything anymore. I’ve got one more appointment with my doctor and one with the medical officer attached to my unit. If it’s no better, they’ll offer me a medical discharge.”

  Kate was stunned. She felt her heart soaring with complete joy. She struggled to hide it but she knew she must. Jack looked devastated by what he'd been told.

  “If I’d known I wouldn’t have mentioned it. You must feel very sad.”

  “Yeah, it’s brought me down but I’m staying strong. That’s one thing the army taught me. Perseverance. You have to keep going no matter what and that’s what I intend to do. I’m just going to keep hoping. You never know, within the next couple of weeks I could be as fit as a fiddle. I’m not giving up yet. If the news isn’t good, when I’m recovered enough to start work I’m going to look for a job. Start again.”

  Ivy laughed and flung her arms around his neck. “Oh my darlin’ Jack. My baby. I knew you could do it. Kate, you’ve brought us luck. You’re welcome here any time you like. Well, you always have been, my pet, but you’re good for us. Isn’t she, Jack?”

  “Mum will you stop squashing me, woman?” he said, trying to fend off her huge arms. “You’re suffocating me, and I’m not your baby. I’m twenty-one.”

  Kate put her hand across her mouth to stop herself from laughing. The sight of Ivy flinging herself at her son like a huge octopus and enveloping him in her colossal arms was hilarious. Ivy pulled away from her son, still grinning from ear to ear. “You might be twenty-one but you’re still my baby and the baby of the family. You know how I’ve worried. Now. I’m going to leave you two young people. I’ve got some mending to do so you carry on enjoying yourselves.”

  The exertion had been too much for Ivy. She returned to the relative coolness of the house, puffing and panting as she went. Kate was still trying to hide her laughter. She looked away to the other side of the garden, pressing her lips tightly together. She didn’t want to offend Jack. Not when they were friends again.

  “It’s all right,” he said with a sigh. “You’re allowed to laugh.”

  “You’re so lucky, Jack, to have a wonderful mum like Ivy. She loves you so much and she’s not afraid to show it is she?”

  “No,” he said, rubbing the side of his neck and wincing. “She isn’t. I reckon she’s strained my neck throwing her a
rms round me like that. It’ll put my recovery back by a month at least. It’s like having a mountain descending on you. We could have done with her when we were on manoeuvres.”

  Kate shrieked with laughter. Thoughts of Stephen, Angie, Emma and the absent Joe had faded away. She was with Jack and they were laughing together. The wish made on her dandelion clock many years before had finally come true.

  Chapter 15

  “My mum told me to be careful with the lads on the fairground.”

  “Why. What’s wrong with them?”

  “They make a bee-line for the easy girls. That’s what my mum says.”

  “And how would your mum know that, Jenny?”

  “I don’t know, Em’. How should I know?”

  The music from the fairground got louder the closer they got to Willowbridge Park. Emma and Jenny wandered through the gaudy circular stalls stacked up with trashy prizes, encouraging punters to spend money on games only the stall-holders could win. Standing in the middle of each stall was a girl or boy shaking a bucket full of coins, or holding out weather-beaten hands clutching raffle tickets to entice people to take their chances.

  “Come on, love.” A girl of about twelve or thirteen with dull, mousey hair pulled carelessly into a scruffy pony-tail called to Emma. “Bright girl like you must be dead lucky.” She smiled widely at them, her face pulled into a false smile, her arms stretched out towards them ringed with hard rubber hoops like over-sized bracelets.

  “It’s ever so easy. Look, dear. I’ll show yer. If I can do it, you can.”

  She tossed a hoop expertly over a bottle of whisky and Emma laughed, thinking that whisky was the last thing she'd want to win.

  “No, thanks.” The girl persisted. “It’s only a few pence, darlin’. Come on try your luck.”

  Emma and Jenny walked away from her pleading. They were far more interested in the fairground rides and they headed through the crowds to the bright lights and ear-splitting music they both loved.