A Wise Child

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by A Wise Child (retail) (epub)


  The kitchen, newly decorated ready for Sam’s return, was looking its best when Miss Helsby arrived. It was a cold day but a bright fire burned in the shining blackleaded grate and drew reflections from the gleaming fire irons. Nellie had spread her best cloth on the table and laid it with china cups and saucers, a plateful of thin bread and butter and a home-made fruit cake.

  I’ll show her I know how a table should be set, Nellie thought, and there’s some things she doesn’t need to learn Tommy. She was wearing a clean flowered wraparound pinafore and her hair, worn in a neat bun on her neck, was clean and shining.

  She greeted Miss Helsby and offered tea and the teacher immediately set out to persuade her to allow Tommy to sit for a scholarship to the grammar school.

  ‘I’m sure he could do it,’ she said. ‘His arithmetic was weak but it’s improving with my coaching and his English is outstanding. He works hard and I’m sure he would make full use of his opportunities if he reached the grammar school.’

  She had been encouraged by the cleanliness of the room and Nellie’s neat appearance and reserved manner and she was unprepared for her emphatic refusal.

  ‘No thank you, miss,’ Nellie said firmly. ‘Lads from round here don’t go to the grammar school. We couldn’t afford it anyhow.’

  ‘But there would be nothing to pay for fees or books if he won a scholarship,’ the teacher said. ‘And as for clothes, no need to worry about that. There is a grant available.’

  ‘Charity, like?’ Nellie said. ‘No, miss, his dad wouldn’t hear of it. He’s always looked after us proper and we’ve never been on the Parish. Tommy’s never gone short of nothing, even if his dad’s gone without himself for him.’

  ‘But it’s not charity, Mrs Meadows. It’s a right,’ Miss Helsby said.

  Nellie shook her head. ‘No, his dad wouldn’t like it,’ she said. ‘And I’ve seen them lads going to school and Tommy’d be outa place with them. They’d skit at him.’

  ‘Why should they? He speaks as well if not better than most of them. That is the purpose of my classes,’ said Miss Helsby.

  But Nellie still said stubbornly, ‘No thank you, miss.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should consult your husband, Mrs Meadows? I know Thomas has received a lot of encouragement from him. I’m sure he would wish the boy to improve himself. To have a better life and the chance of a better job when the time comes.’

  ‘He’s away at sea but he thinks the same as me, miss,’ Nellie said sullenly. ‘Speaking nice is one thing, but – the grammar school. We don’t want him to go out of his class and get laughed at.’

  ‘But haven’t I just explained? He wouldn’t be laughed at, and class! What is class?’ Miss Helsby said in exasperation. With an effort she controlled her temper. ‘Thomas has shown that he would benefit by a better education,’ she said quietly. ‘It would broaden his mind. Open new horizons for him. I think he deserves the chance.’

  Nellie had been sitting with her head bent, rubbing her finger back and forth on the tablecloth, but now she raised her head. Here comes the real reason, thought Miss Helsby.

  ‘I don’t want Tommy to get big ideas,’ Nellie said. ‘Him and his dad think the world of each other now, I don’t want Tommy learned any different. To look down, like, on his dad, think he’s better than him. No, I’ll leave things the way they are.’

  Miss Helsby was about to argue further but she recognised defeat in the stubborn set of Nellie’s mouth and only said with a sigh, ‘A pity, because there are so few boys with Thomas’s gifts, but of course the decision rests with you.’

  ‘Will you have another cup of tea, miss?’ asked Nellie and Miss Helsby accepted, trying to crush down her anger at the denial of the chance for what seemed to her a trivial reason. She said that she hoped that Thomas would continue to come after school for speech training and coaching in arithmetic and Nellie promised that he would.

  She was aware of the teacher’s disappointment and she said diffidently, ‘You’ve made a lot of difference in him, miss. The way he talks, like, and keeping himself clean. He enjoys being learned all these things too.’

  ‘It’s very rewarding,’ Miss Helsby said. ‘He’s so intelligent and eager to learn and very proud of his father, and of you too, of course.’

  She sighed involuntarily and Nellie said defensively, ‘Sam’s a good father to him. He had a hard life himself, living rough and being knocked from pillar to post, but he wants better for Tommy. Doesn’t begrudge it, like, although he had such a hard time himself. I won’t let Tommy turn his nose up at him, being just a deckhand and that. He’s our only one an’ all.’

  She felt that she had explained badly but Miss Helsby thought that she had a much clearer picture now. I must tread as warily as Agag but I must try to help this boy, she thought.

  She spoke in glowing terms of Tom’s schoolwork and his behaviour and before she left she said gently, ‘If you reconsider, Mrs Meadows, there is still plenty of time for Thomas’s name to go forward,’ but she was unable to resist adding, ‘I hope that Thomas will not resent being denied this chance.’

  When Tommy came in his mother told him the purpose of the teacher’s visit but concealed the arguments that she had used against it.

  ‘Did you say I could try, Mam?’ Tommy asked.

  ‘No, you don’t want to get mixed up with them snobs, lad. You’ll get a good job without that,’ Nellie said.

  ‘Me dad doesn’t want me to go to sea,’ Tommy said.

  ‘There’s plenty of jobs apart from the sea,’ Nellie said. ‘Plenty of time before you need to worry about that, anyroad.’

  Later Maggie Nolan came in and she agreed with Nellie.

  ‘You’d get skitted soft, Tom,’ she said. ‘By them stuck-up kids in the grammar school and then by the lads round here when you come home. You’d be neither fish, fowl nor good red herring, lad.’

  When Maggie had gone Nellie saw Tom scribbling in his exercise book and looked over his shoulder.

  ‘Neither fish, fowl nor good red herring,’ she read aloud. ‘That’s what Mrs Nolan said. What are you writing it down for?’

  ‘I’ve never heard it before and I like it,’ Tommy said defensively. ‘I’ve written it down so I won’t forget it.’

  ‘You’re a funny lad, Tom,’ Nellie said affectionately, ruffling his hair.

  Miss Helsby told Tom’s present teacher, Mr Morton, about her unsuccessful visit to Tom’s home.

  ‘Quite frankly I think you’re wasting your time,’ he said bluntly. ‘You can’t help these people. They’re stubborn and ignorant and they’ve no ambition for their children.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ Miss Helsby said sharply. ‘The boy is very well cared for and she told me she was grateful for the training I’ve given him. She was very clean and respectable and she seemed to have done her best with a quite dreadful house.’

  ‘But she won’t allow the boy his chance?’ Mr Norton said.

  ‘No, but there was something. If I’d had her twenty years ago I could have made something of her. She just seemed very protective towards the father, afraid the boy would come to despise him.’

  Mr Morton laughed. ‘You know my opinion, but still, you might prove me wrong. Still time if they reconsider anyway.’

  Tom showed no sign of resentment at his mother’s decision, and continued to attend Miss Helsby’s coaching after school, but a few days later he brought home a composition on ‘A Night at Sea’, which his teacher had marked ‘Excellent – 10 out of 10’.

  ‘Miss Helsby asked sir if I could bring it home to show you,’ he told his mother.

  Nellie recognised the teacher’s motives but when she read through the essay she was impressed by Tom’s knowledge and his choice of words. ‘How did you know that about the stars being so big and the warm wind?’ she asked.

  ‘Me dad told me about when they were in the Med and they used to go up and sit on a hatch cover when they came off watch,’ he said.

  Nellie felt a twinge
of jealousy. Sam never talked to me like that, she thought, but then she felt ashamed. She should be thankful that Sam and Tommy were so close.

  She told Meg about the essay on her next visit to her and the baby. ‘Sam never has much to say but he must talk his head off when he’s out with Tommy,’ she said. ‘Mind you, I suppose Tom never stops firing questions at him.’

  ‘That teacher must think a lot of Tom too, giving up her time to learn him even though he’s in the Big Boys now,’ Meg said.

  ‘She didn’t like me saying no to her,’ Nellie said. ‘But I’m not chancing him turning his nose up at his dad.’

  ‘I’m sure he’ll never do that, Nell,’ Meg protested. ‘They seem such good friends, I’m looking forward to meeting Sam.’

  Nellie sighed. ‘It’s been such a long trip and then the hospital on top of it,’ she said. ‘You know, I feel all worked up, Meg. I hope I don’t feel strange with Sam.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t,’ Meg comforted her. ‘Maybe for the first five minutes but that’s all.’

  ‘Only a few more days now anyway,’ Nellie said. ‘I think Tommy’s as worked up as me, waiting for him. His dad’ll have a lot to tell him this time anyhow.’

  The final few days before Sam arrived were very trying for Nellie and Tommy, who were both very tense. They felt that they had been waiting such a long time for his return, deferred by his time in hospital, and subconsciously each wondered whether they would be like strangers when they met Sam again.

  Tommy showed his tenseness by being aggressive towards his schoolmates and came home one night with a black eye and a cut lip.

  ‘The state of you!’ Nellie exclaimed. ‘What’s your dad going to say, seeing you like that? Who was you fighting?’

  ‘A lad two years older than me,’ Tommy said proudly. ‘Me dad won’t mind me fighting. He might be mad though that I dropped me guard and got this shiner after all he taught me about defence.’

  ‘Here’s me getting new clothes ready so you’ll look nice when he comes and look at the cut of you! I’m mad, never mind your dad,’ Nellie said.

  In spite of her words to Tommy, Nellie herself relieved her tense feelings by a bitter quarrel with Ada Ginley. She had almost forgotten Rose’s warning about the wash-house gossip linking herself and Gertie with Martha Miller and her trade, until Ada Ginley shouted across the street to a neighbour as Nellie passed, ‘Some in this street are bloody well dressed and we know how, don’t we, Jinny? On Martha Miller’s game.’

  At another time Nellie would have walked on, ignoring her and shedding tears later in the privacy of her home. But now she confronted Ada Ginley, arms akimbo.

  ‘You watch your dirty lying tongue, Ginley, or it’ll be the worse for you,’ she yelled at her. ‘People in glass houses can’t throw stones. I heard about you and your gang in the wash house. You want your mouths washed out with soap.’

  A group of women immediately collected round them.

  ‘That’s right, Nell,’ one woman shouted, ‘you give her what for, girl.’

  Ada had been silent with surprise but she soon recovered. ‘Yer can’t deny it,’ she shouted, ‘you and that soft mare across from you, Gertie. Youse were seen going on the game with Martha Miller.’

  ‘We walked along with her for a bit on the way to the pictures,’ Nellie said. ‘No law against that, is there?’

  ‘Ho ho, a likely story,’ Ada scoffed. There were shouts of encouragement for her now as well as for Nellie from the women gathered round them.

  ‘Wharra we supposed to do? Cross the road when we seen her?’ Nellie yelled. ‘Anyhow, you’ve no call to look down on Martha after what I’ve heard about you.’

  Ada screeched and attempted to run at Nellie and bury her hands in her hair but Bella put her vast bulk between them.

  ‘Cut it out, the pair of youse,’ she said with authority. ‘I thought you had more sense, Nellie Meadows, taking notice to what this one says. And you, Ada Ginley, you’re tongue’ll get you hung before you’re finished.’

  Ada tried to break free of the women who held her to get at Nellie but Bella said warningly, ‘Don’t forget who lives with Nellie. Do you want Janey on yer back?’

  The women swiftly melted away and even Ada only made a token show of resistance as she was drawn back to her own house.

  ‘I never knew they was all so afraid of Janey,’ Nellie said to Bella.

  ‘Aye, well, maybe they think they’d better not take no chances,’ Bella said. ‘I know Janey’s not the woman she was but she still has a hold over a lot of them.’

  Nellie went back to her house, wondering how many people believed Ada Ginley’s gossip. What if Sam heard of it?

  Gertie heard about the row and came over to see Nellie. She was just as angry as Nellie had been when she heard the details but surprised that Nellie had challenged Ada Ginley.

  ‘I don’t know what came over me?’ Nellie confessed. ‘I just flared up, and the things I said! I didn’t know I had it in me.’

  ‘A good thing you did,’ Gertie said loyally. ‘Maybe she’ll think twice before she jangles about you again.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s worried about me but they all seem afraid of old Janey,’ Nellie said.

  ‘I’m that mad,’ Gertie said, ‘I’d like to do what our supervisor did. She sent a solicitor’s letter to some woman what was calling her. It only cost seven and sixpence.’

  ‘That might be better than what I did. Screaming like a fishwife,’ Nellie said, but Gertie shook her head.

  ‘No, I’d never live it down if I done that,’ Gertie said. ‘Nobody round here wouldn’t never speak to me again. I could go mad though, Nell.’

  ‘So could I,’ Nellie said. ‘Just because we didn’t treat Martha like a leper.’

  ‘I don’t know why we should worry anyhow,’ Gertie said. ‘People who know us know it’s not true and the others’ll soon find out.’

  ‘I’m worried in case Sam hears some fancy tale about it, on top of being worried about that troublemaker Charlie West being back.’

  ‘Oh, to hell,’ Gertie exclaimed suddenly. ‘Why should we waste our lives worrying over what might never happen? I’m sure Sam won’t believe any tales about you. You should be on top of the world now with him nearly home after all this time.’

  ‘I am,’ Nellie said, smiling again. ‘Bob and Meg are having the christening on Sunday so Sam can be godfather. I’ve never been a godmother before. I’m real excited.’

  With an effort Nellie pushed all her fears to the back of her mind and happily made her final preparations for Sam’s homecoming.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sam had been eagerly looking forward to returning home to see his wife and son again and he was dismayed to find a rash spreading over his body as the ship was turning for home. He felt ill and feverish and feared that his illness might delay his return.

  His shipmates ‘carried’ him for a while but then another man developed the same rash. The ship was putting in to Freetown and there was a hospital run by an English doctor not far from there so it was decided that the men would be put ashore for treatment. The doctor had come aboard to examine them and had offered to admit them to his hospital.

  Sam protested strenuously that his rash was going and he was feeling better but to no avail. George tried to console him. ‘Just as well to get it seen to, lad,’ he said. ‘Then you’ll be fighting fit be the time you get home.’

  ‘That doctor just wants us to practise on,’ Sam said bitterly. ‘The mate doesn’t care. He’s took on them two that were hanging round, backed off their own ship. I’ll be as right as rain in a couple of days and I’ll bet I’d do more work than them two put together.’

  ‘Don’t worry. We won’t have no skivers on this ship,’ George said grimly. ‘Just make the most of the rest, lad. Just think. Be the time you’re home we’ll be spent up and ready to go back and you’ll still have it all to come. I’ll go and see Nellie and tell her about you.’

  The h
ospital was much more comfortable than Sam and the other man, Jimmy McGregor, expected, but they were irritated by the constant tests and questioning by the doctors.

  ‘I never knew me pee was so interesting,’ Jimmy said to Sam. ‘That’s three times today they’ve took samples of it and then the blood tests and even me seed, like.’

  ‘I know and the questions!’ Sam said. ‘They want to know every bit about you from the minute you was born.’

  ‘My dad scarpered when I was a nipper,’ Jimmy said, ‘I don’t know nothing about him but the things they keep asking me.’

  ‘The boss man, Dr Fairbrother. He’s the worst,’ Sam said. ‘I felt like a wrung-out rag by the time he’d finished.’

  ‘I heard him going on about when you was a kid,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Aye, I said to him, “What’s that got to do with me rash?” but he said, “Privations in childhood can affect you all your life.”’

  ‘I reckon we’re just guinea pigs for him,’ Jimmy said. ‘He’s made up to get some white men to practise on.’

  ‘My rash is nearly gone and when that goes I go,’ Sam declared but Jimmy said he was in no rush to leave.

  ‘Good food and comfort here,’ he said. ‘Better than what I’d get at home, never mind on board. Me ma’s always in the alehouse, so I can put up with the tests, and they’ve got to run outa questions some time.’

  ‘I want to get home to my wife and kid,’ Sam said. ‘I won’t know me lad if I’m away much longer.’

  The young doctors, four white men, showed no sign of running out of questions and one of them was always beside Sam and Jimmy as soon as they awoke in the morning. One of them in particular, Dr Doyle, chatted to Sam on a variety of subjects and made copious notes on his answers.

  He was a big awkward young man, always falling over objects or knocking things down, and Sam and Jimmy often made jokes about him. They had all questioned Sam about his hardships as a child, when he had slept rough and often been cold and hungry.

  One day when Sam was sitting in the garden Dr Doyle came to him, carrying the huge folder of notes. He chatted to Sam for a few minutes about his general health then looked through the voluminous notes.

 

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