‘That teacher’s made a difference in him, hasn’t she?’ said Meg. ‘Doesn’t he talk real nice now, too?’
Nellie sighed. ‘Yes, eighteen months ago when Sam went Tom was just a little lad but now he seems different altogether. In the Junior Boys too, as well as all this with Miss Helsby.’
Meg and Bobby decided to name the baby David Robert and asked Nellie to be his godmother. Sam would be godfather if he was home, otherwise Bob’s friend from work would stand in.
The baby was very small and Meg and Bobby worried about him. Each spoke privately to Nellie about their fears.
‘He’s tiny, isn’t he, Nell?’ Bobby said one night as he walked her home. ‘But your Tom was too, wasn’t he? And look at the fine big lad he is now.’
‘Yes, and he never ails much, not as much as other kids round about anyway,’ Nellie encouraged him. ‘Don’t worry, lad. Sometimes the smallest babies come on the best,’ and Bobby seemed comforted.
Nellie offered Meg the same comfort a few days later when Meg said she was worried because the child was small and delicate. But then Meg went on to say, ‘Is it true that you were very ill when Tom was born, Nell, and that’s why you had no more?’
Nellie blushed. ‘He had the cord round his neck so it made it hard for me, like. Hard for him an’ all. He was really born dead and Janey put him to one side but Nurse McCann saved him. She called to Bobby to bring hot water and she doused the baby in it then in cold water and she brought him round. God, when I heard him give a cry! She was a clever woman, Meg.’
‘Fancy that, and when you look at your Tommy now!’ Meg said. She hesitated. ‘And do you think that’s why you haven’t had no more?’
‘I don’t know,’ Nellie said. ‘Nurse McCann said my womb might be tilted but she was too sick to examine me.’
Meg looked down at the tiny child in her arms. ‘I hope he’s not going to be the only one,’ then looking up in time to see the sadness on Nellie’s face she said impulsively, ‘Oh, Nell, you could still have more but if you don’t I hope my children will be like your own to you.’
Within a very few years those quick words of sympathy would often be recalled with sadness by the two women.
Nellie and Tommy were eagerly counting the days to Sam’s return although once again there were no letters from him.
‘It’s a shame the way they get held up,’ Gertie said. ‘Why don’t you see if Prudence can tell you anything? Lettie’s going twice a week to the church hall. She’s doing the costumes for them amateur dramatics people.’
‘I’d love to,’ Nellie said eagerly. ‘Will you find out when I can come, Gert?’
Two nights later Gertie called Nellie to her house and took her in to the dimly lit parlour. Prudence sat behind the small table and after greeting Nellie she again took her hand, then looked into the crystal.
She leaned back in the chair, her eyes closed, then suddenly her body was shaken by sobs.
‘Prudence. Mrs Gilligan,’ Nellie cried in alarm but the woman sprang to her feet and began to pace about the room.
‘Why? Why me?’ she cried, flinging her arms in the air. ‘I didn’t ask for this gift. I don’t want it.’ She flung herself back in the chair and seized Nellie’s hand.
‘Don’t. Don’t try to lift the veil. The strength will come with the sorrow.’
‘Sorrow!’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘Is it Sam? Oh God, don’t tell me I’ll never see him again. Please, please, Mrs Gilligan, tell me what you seen. Honest, I’d rather know, to be ready, like.’
Prudence still gripped her hand. She sighed then said in a faint voice, ‘You will see him again. Blows, quarrels, partings.’ She moved her head restlessly against the back of the chair, her eyes closed. ‘Bad, bad, darkness,’ she whispered, ‘I see you standing alone, but no – the boy. The boy will cleave to you. Money, success, but sorrow.’
She stopped speaking and Nellie leaned forward, her eyes devouring the woman’s face, her hands tightly gripping her hands. ‘Prudence,’ she said urgently then the woman began to speak again.
‘Money, success, sorrow,’ she said. ‘Water, so much water. Flowing between you but the golden cord will never break. A stranger in a strange land.’
Her voice died away and they sat in silence, Nellie afraid to speak lest she missed other revelations, until Gertie tapped on the door and looked in.
‘All right?’ she asked and Prudence stirred and stood up.
‘I should have refused. I won’t do this again, Gertie,’ she said fretfully.
‘But it’s a help,’ Nellie protested. ‘I mean, if something’s going to happen it means you can be prepared, like.’
Prudence shook her head. ‘What use is it to know now?’ she said. ‘When sorrow comes the strength to bear it comes.’
‘So you saw something?’ Gertie exclaimed. ‘Come in to my room and have something to revive you.’ She led the way into her living room and took a bottle from the cupboard. ‘Someone brought this for me from Spain. It’ll do us more good than tea.’
Nellie drank the sherry quickly and it seemed to make her feel strong and happy. ‘That must be good stuff, Gertie,’ she said. ‘I feel ready for anything.’
‘Has it made you feel better, Prudence?’ Gertie asked and her lodger, who was sipping daintily at the liquid, nodded.
‘It’s certainly strong,’ she said.
‘The feller who gave it to me said it was powerful,’ Gertie said. ‘So I thought I’d save it for when you foretold the future, like. Lettie says it takes a lot out of you, that’s why she doesn’t like it.’
‘I won’t do it again,’ Prudence said. ‘What comes to me I will keep to myself. What use is it to tell of unhappiness? It means living through it twice.’
‘Well, I’m glad you told me what was in store for me,’ Gertie declared. ‘I won’t be worrying thinking I’ll never get married because all the lads have been killed in the war. I know I’ve got a happy life to look forward to.’
Nellie knew that Gertie was anxious to hear what she had been told but they were unable to talk about it while Prudence was with them.
Gertie brought out a pack of cards. ‘What about gin rummy?’ she said. ‘We can play for matches.’
They settled down to play with refilled glasses beside them and they were still playing, all suddenly in high spirits, when Lettie returned.
‘We’ve led your mam down the primrose path,’ Gertie giggled. Nellie announced, ‘Yes, we’re real bad lots, boozing and gambling.’
They expected Lettie to be annoyed but she was in a surprisingly good humour. ‘No harm,’ she said. ‘Some people say playacting is sinful but there’s nothing wrong with the people I’ve been with tonight.’
Mrs Gilligan stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse me,’ she said grandly and walked unsteadily through to the parlour with Lettie. Gertie brewed tea for herself and Nellie.
‘You can stay, can’t you, Nell?’ she said and Nellie agreed.
‘Once Tommy’s asleep it’d take an earthquake to wake him,’ she said.
She repeated what Mrs Gilligan had foretold and Gertie looked grave.
‘Maybe it’s right what she said, Nell. Maybe it’s best not to know and to worry ahead. Especially if like she says you’ll get the strength to bear the sorrow when it comes.’
‘No, I’d rather know,’ Nellie said stubbornly. ‘I worry anyway when I think of them lot at the other end being jealous of me. Makes me think how lucky I am and if it can last, like. I think Meg feels the same way because everything’s going so well for them.’
‘What a pair you are!’ Gertie exclaimed. ‘You should be enjoying the good luck and making the most of it.’
Nellie smiled and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I wonder though, Gert, do you think that lot might be ill-wishing me?’
‘No, I don’t believe in that,’ Gertie declared. ‘Nothing’s happened to you yet anyhow. And at least it was all good about Tommy and success and money and that. Him sticking to you too.’
&
nbsp; ‘Yes, and she didn’t say nothing about death this time,’ Nellie said. ‘Only the same thing about the golden cord.’
‘There you are then. Just take notice of the good bits,’ Gertie advised but Nellie looked worried.
‘I’ll be glad when Sam’s letters come,’ she said. ‘I don’t know whether it’s because of the fortune telling but I’ve got a sort of feeling about them.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ Gertie said robustly. ‘You see, they’ll all come in a bunch like they did last time,’ and Nellie agreed that she was probably right.
Chapter Twenty
Days passed but still no letters from Sam, then when Nellie went to the shipping office for her money she was told that Sam had been put ashore on the Ivory Coast and was in hospital there. He would return on another of the company’s ships when he was well again.
Nellie decided to tell Tommy and they spent some anxious weeks until George Adams arrived home and came to see them.
‘I don’t think he’ll be far behind us,’ he told Nellie. ‘Him and a fella from the Dingle got taken ashore to hospital because they come out in a rash and they was feverish, like.’
‘Is Sam very ill?’ Nellie asked fearfully but George reassured her.
‘No, he was over the worst when he got took off. I don’t think the mate woulda bothered only there was this good hospital handy and the rash might have been infectious, like.’
‘Is it a proper hospital?’ Nellie asked.
‘Yes. It’s an English doctor runs it. Be all accounts he’s got pots of money and him and these students they do research, like, into tropical diseases. Like the School of Tropical Medicine in Pembroke Place. I heard some of the officers talking about it,’ said George.
‘And they’ll look after Sam proper?’ Nellie said.
‘Oh aye. The doctor’s probably made up to get a couple of Englishmen for his testing and that. He’s got plenty of money to throw around so the grub should be good anyhow,’ said George. ‘I wouldn’t have minded a touch of it meself. A good rest just laying in bed doing nothing.’
‘You’d better not let Rose hear you,’ Nellie joked and George stood up.
‘I’d better get back but don’t you worry, Nell. He won’t be more than a couple of weeks behind us and the rest’ll do him the world of good.’
Nellie often thought of what Prudence had foretold during the following worrying weeks, particularly about herself standing alone except for Tommy. Was she going to lose Sam? Yet George had been sure that he would soon be better. Then the blows and the darkness and the parting Prudence had spoken about it.
Could that mean that Sam might start fighting at the hospital? Her mind ranged over every possibility as she lay awake night after night. Still no letters had come but finally one short letter arrived. Sam’s letters were always stilted in tone but there was a curtness about this letter that made Nellie feel that it had been written by a stranger. It simply said that Sam had been ill and would soon be home.
To add to her worries Charlie West had reappeared. He had been playing in a dance band in Blackpool for the summer season but was now home again. Nellie had come face to face with him in Johnson Street and he had barred her way, asking if she was glad to see him again.
‘I don’t care one way or the other,’ she snapped at him but he only said admiringly. ‘Little spitfire, aren’t you?’
The gossip round Bella’s step was that he was bragging about being chased by girls all the time he was away.
‘That’s his story,’ Bella said, laughing heartily. ‘But we could tell them they was wasting their time. Queer as a nine-bob note, that fella.’
‘I think Charlie could be telling the truth though,’ Katy said later to Nellie. ‘The girls do run after fellas in bands and me mam says herself he likes it both ways.’
‘I wish one of them girls’d catch him, then, and keep him away from me,’ Nellie said. ‘Especially now Sam’s on his way home. I don’t want none of Charlie West’s troublemaking.’
She had been told that Sam was once again on his way home on another Elder Dempster ship and she wanted nothing to mar his homecoming. She suspected that West had visited Janey several times, being admitted and leaving by the side entrance, but he had not attempted to enter her kitchen.
Nellie felt Janey was becoming more and more of a problem. Although she had always seemed impervious to the weather now she came in the back way every day and settled in front of Nellie’s fire.
Nellie had offered to make a hot toddy the first time Janey complained of the cold and she had accepted. ‘Put the oven shelf in me bed an’ all,’ the old woman said but Nellie made the excuse that it was already in Tommy’s bed. The next day Nellie bought a stone hot-water bottle from the pawnshop.
‘I wouldn’t fancy using the oven if the shelf had been in her bed,’ she said to Gertie. ‘You should see the state of it but what can I do? She won’t let me in to do nothing there but I feel ashamed.’
‘It’s not your fault if she won’t let you in to clean,’ Gertie said. ‘It’s a shame you’ve got to put up with it. One thing about Lettie. She keeps their rooms spotless. She’s a real hard worker.’
‘Has Prudence kept to it about not doing the fortune telling?’ Nellie asked.
‘She doesn’t like it called fortune telling,’ Gertie said. ‘But she won’t do it now anyway. She told me she’s given a glimpse of the future sometimes like her mother was but she doesn’t want the gift. She said her mother could never see anything about her future and she has never seen anything about Lettie’s. Strange that, isn’t it?’
‘I’d love to have that gift,’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘To be able to see ahead, like. I’m sure I’d be saved a lot of worry.’
‘Prudence doesn’t feel like that,’ Gertie said. ‘I feel sorry for her. She sees things about people that she doesn’t want to see but she’s not going to tell them no more. She says the things have already happened when she sees them, although they are in the future.’
‘I don’t understand that,’ Nellie said. ‘If things are happening in the future you must be able to change them.’
‘I don’t understand it either,’ Gertie confessed. ‘Although I did when Prudence was telling me. She said when she’s talking to someone sometimes she sees a sort of picture in her head if she lets herself accept it. Things that haven’t happened yet, and yet they have so nothing can be changed. I can’t explain it like she did, Nell.’
‘I still think it’s a waste if she’s got that gift and she won’t use it,’ Nellie said. ‘At least Lettie’ll be pleased.’
‘I don’t think that’s why she’s given up,’ Gertie said. ‘Lettie’s a lot more pleasant these days. More happy, like. I think she enjoys going to that concert party thing in the church hall.’
‘Maybe it’s because her mother has given up the fortune telling,’ Nellie suggested. ‘Yet maybe she’ll go back to it,’ but Gertie said that Prudence was adamant.
‘She’s real worried about you,’ she said but when Nellie looked alarmed she said quickly, ‘Only because you was the last she done. It’s funny Janey feeling the cold now. She’s always been as tough as an old boot, hasn’t she?’
Nellie realised that Gertie was changing the subject but she said no more about Prudence and instead talked about Janey.
She was sorry if the old woman was ill but Janey insisted that there was nothing wrong with her. She still monopolised the fire though and accepted hot toddys and the filled hot-water bottle from Nellie, and more and more Nellie resented herself and Tommy being excluded from the fire.
There was also an unpleasant smell drawn from the old woman’s clothes and her unwashed body by the heat, but more than anything Nellie was offended by Janey’s comments about Sam’s illness. She seemed to regard it as something shameful and her hints and innuendoes about Sam and his family made Nellie furious.
If she protested Janey sneered instead about how Sam would feel when he found his son a gentleman or hinted about Nellie
’s own family or the doubts about Tommy’s birth. ‘He he, it’s a wise child that knows its own father,’ she often cackled, sometimes while Nellie was actually making a drink for her or filling her hot-water bottle.
I’m sick of her, Nellie often told herself, the ungrateful old bitch. I should just make her go in her own room and get on with it. She’s nothing to me, no relation, and it’s not my duty to look after her, yet she continued to care for the old woman. At the same time she worried about what she could do with her when Sam came home.
Meg and Bob had decided to postpone the christening until Sam arrived home to be godfather. Nellie had knitted a lacy shawl for the baby and Meg had made him a beautiful christening gown in white silk trimmed with lace and a tiny lace-trimmed hat to match.
A week before Sam arrived Tommy brought a note home from Miss Helsby asking if she could come to see Nellie. Nellie was thrown into panic by the note. ‘What does she want with me?’ she demanded. ‘Have you been up to something, Tommy?’
The boy protested that he had done nothing. ‘I think she wants to talk to you about me keeping on with the classes,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to write a note to say when she can come, Mam.’
‘I know, I know, clever clogs,’ Nellie said, although she was dismayed at the prospect of writing to a teacher. After much thought she wrote,
Dear Miss,
I hope this finds you well as it leaves us at present. You will be welcome to come after school tomorrow, I hope Tommy is a good boy.
Yours respectfully,
Mrs Meadows
‘There, you couldn’t do no better than that and I never went to school hardly,’ she told Tommy as she gave him the note.
‘Ah, but what about Mr Ambrose?’ Tommy said mischievously. Nellie laughed but she felt uneasy. What would Sam think of the way she and Tommy talked to each other now? Putting himself on the same level as me as if we was the same age, she thought. She would have to warn Tommy about it and tell him to drop his posh speech and the washing and cleaning his teeth while Sam was home. Yet I don’t want to deceive Sam, she sighed. It was all very difficult.
A Wise Child Page 29