‘True enough,’ Katy said. ‘But how will you live, Nell?’
‘I’ve got the promise of a cleaning job, through the cook in me last place,’ Nellie said.
She marvelled at how easily lies came to her now but before she could dwell on it, Gertie said emotionally, ‘Oh Nellie, all Prudence told you has come true, hasn’t it? But remember she said strength will come with sorrow. I’m sure it will, Nell.’
‘I can’t remember all she said,’ Nellie said but Gertie pulled a piece of paper from her pocket.
‘I wrote it down,’ she said. ‘Most of it, anyway. She said, “Birth and death and a great cloud of hatred and bitterness, a red-haired man or woman”. Another time she said, “Death will come and all will be made clear”. That must be your Bob and his baby and Janey’s death, mustn’t it?’
‘Will you leave me that bit of paper, Gertie?’ Nellie asked. ‘That much has happened, like, I can’t remember proper what she said.’
Both women tried to persuade Nellie not to act hastily.
‘Sam might come back,’ Katy said. ‘That one only took advantage of him while he was drunk, me mam said.’
Gertie said sentimentally, ‘All your happy years, Nellie. He can’t just forget them. And poor Tommy. He needs his dad.’
‘Don’t tell me, Gertie,’ Nellie said forcefully. ‘I’m not the one who cleared off. Anyhow, I don’t want him back. It suits me to live me own life.’
She was determined not to tell them that Rose Adams had been to see her and told her that George had heard that Sam was living in Southampton with Madge Kenyon and working on the docks. ‘It’s better to know, Nell, than to live in hope, isn’t it?’ she said gently and Nellie dully agreed.
Now she hid the agony the news had caused her, but as Katy and Gertie left Katy said, ‘She’s that upset she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s better here where we all know her and feel for her and want to help her. Especially now she’s fallen out with her brother.’
‘She should take a lodger,’ Gertie said. ‘Someone like Prudence who’d be company for her.’
‘Perhaps she wants to get Tommy away. Kids are cruel and he’s in fights all the time about things said about his dad,’ but Gertie disagreed.
‘He’s not changing schools,’ she said.
Nellie stubbornly went ahead with her preparations. She packed up clothes and household goods and had them taken to Grey Street by a boy with a handcart. Her furniture, the rickety table and chairs, Sam’s chair and the dresser and beds were loaded on a cart ostensibly to go to her new home but she had sold them to a second-hand dealer. She was determined to discard the bed and the chair, which brought back so many memories.
Using some of the silver coins she bought new beds and a few items of solid furniture. She told herself that she was leaving the house in Johnson Street with no regrets, blocking from her mind memories of happy years with Sam and Tommy.
Nellie sometimes felt that she was two people in one. On the surface a hard capable woman able to plan and scheme and show an unconcerned face to the world, and underneath a distraught humiliated woman who felt that she had been wounded past bearing.
During her long wakeful nights the softer woman took control and sometimes Nellie felt that her suffering was more than she could bear. She felt that she had never realised how much she loved and depended on Sam until she lost him.
She was bitterly hurt that Sam had made no attempt to get in touch with her. Every day she had watched every post hoping for a letter, until sick at heart she had decided that Sam had forgotten her. He must be sober by now but he had chosen to stay with that woman. Even in her thoughts she was unable to say Madge’s name.
Nellie had never lived in rooms so she knew none of the disadvantages but she soon found them. The rooms were clean and the area more respectable but she felt hemmed in and restricted.
Tommy hated them and spent as little time as possible in them. He had a longer walk to and from school and as soon as his meal was over he escaped back to his old companions.
Nellie had been vague about her address but Katy asked for the number of the house and came to see her. Fortunately Nellie had found a temporary job cleaning offices in Dale Street so she could tell Katy that she was managing very well.
‘Maggie Nolan thinks the woman who got your house found some money hidden in the parlour,’ Katy said. ‘Maggie said the kid told their Walter that his mam found gold doubloons in the wall. She tackled the woman and told her that if she found anything it was yours be right but the woman swore blind the kid was making it up. I don’t believe her though.’
‘If she’s found anything she’s welcome to it,’ Nellie said. ‘The way Janey got her money I don’t want it.’
‘But the rent she owed you, Nell,’ Katy protested.
‘I don’t care. I only wish Maggie had found it,’ Nellie said. She still felt amazed at the ease with which she could lie.
Katy said nothing about the new furniture but Nellie told her that her old furniture was too big for the rooms and she had exchanged it. They were ill at ease with each other and when Katy left Nellie felt that she would never come again. I showed her I didn’t want her, she thought, and I don’t. It was her brought me word about Sam and that woman and I don’t want reminding about it.
Without putting the thought into words she felt vaguely that if anyone talked about Sam it would breach the wall she had built up between herself and other people. Even Tommy, and the boy seemed to recognise this and never spoke of his father.
It had been easier for him to avoid Miss Helsby’s classes after school because she had slipped on the icy pavement in March and sprained her ankle.
Sunk in her own misery his mother had paid no attention when he told her about the teacher, nor had she asked about her since. When Miss Helsby returned she sent messages to Tommy which he ignored but one night when he dashed out of school she was waiting for him.
‘Come with me, Thomas,’ she said briskly and old habits of obedience made him obey, although sullenly. She was walking with the help of a stick and she gave him a bag of books to carry but she said no more until they reached her house.
She took him to her study. ‘Sit down,’ she said. She handed him a glass of ginger beer and sat down opposite to him, her legs planted firmly and her hands on her knees.
‘Now, Thomas, tell me why you have been avoiding me and why you have become a hobbledehoy?’
‘I don’t know, miss,’ Tom mumbled.
‘Miss Helsby,’ she corrected him. ‘Now I’m not a fool, Thomas, and neither are you. Tell me what has caused the change in you.’
He said nothing, staring down at his glass with his lower lip out-thrust but in spite of himself the familiar surroundings affected him.
When Miss Helsby said quietly, ‘Are you worried about your father?’ it was like the breaking of a dam. All his pent-up guilt and misery flowed out, his feeling of shock and betrayal at his father’s disappearance in such circumstances, even the fact that his mother had turned against him.
‘She knows it’s my fault me dad went, miss,’ he said.
Miss Helsby had listened quietly, without interrupting him but now she said briskly, ‘Nonsense, Thomas.’ She handed him a handkerchief and when the boy had dried his eyes and seemed more composed she said gently, ‘There is never one simple explanation for anything that happens. No one knows all the reasons why a person acts as he or she does, not even the person concerned. If you are to be a writer, Thomas, you must understand that. Try to explore minds and motives, but remember only God knows the secrets of all hearts.’
Tommy looked at her wide-eyed. ‘A writer, miss?’ he said.
Miss Helsby looked at him quizzically. ‘Don’t tell me that the thought has never entered your mind, Thomas,’ she said.
His face grew red. ‘I – used to like—’ he mumbled.
‘Exactly,’ Miss Helsby said, well satisfied. ‘Now I will lend you a book which exactly describes your feelings
so you will know that they are common to everyone who suffers bereavement.’
‘But my dad hasn’t died,’ Tommy said in alarm, ‘at least I don’t think so.’ But Miss Helsby quickly reassured him. ‘Desertion for whatever reason is similar to bereavement, Thomas. Those left have the same feelings of guilt. That they are to blame. That they should have done more for the one who has gone, in addition to the feeling of loss. The book will help you to understand.’
She rose and went to the bookcase and Tommy said shamefacedly, ‘Me hands are dirty, miss.’
‘Then go to the bathroom and wash them,’ Miss Helsby said. ‘You know where it is.’
In the bathroom Tommy washed his hands and face then examined himself in the mirror. I look a proper cut, he thought, trying to smooth down his unruly hair. He looked around him, at the large bath in a mahogany surround, at the lavatory with the pan patterned with flowers and the ornate handle of the chain. Some day I’ll get a bathroom like this for Mam, he vowed.
Downstairs Miss Helsby was waiting for him with the book wrapped in brown paper. ‘Remember, Thomas, you must comfort your mother,’ she said. ‘You have gone through the first stage and you are now entering on the stage where you must pull yourself together and start again. I will expect you on Saturday morning at nine o’clock.’
‘Yes, miss,’ Tommy said, then with a grin, ‘Miss Helsby.’
She smiled. ‘You’ll do, Thomas,’ she said. ‘Away with you now and don’t forget what I’ve said.’
Tommy ran home feeling light-hearted but when he went into the living room his mother was crouched by the fire in an attitude of despair.
‘Mam,’ Tommy exclaimed, crouching down beside her and putting his arms round her, ‘Mam, what’s happened? What have you heard?’
‘Nothing, lad,’ Nellie said wearily. ‘It’s just – oh, everything.’ She looked at his face close to her own and sniffed.
‘Vinolia soap, Mam,’ Tommy said eagerly. ‘I’ve been to Miss Helsby’s and I got washed in her bathroom with her soap.’
‘I thought you didn’t go there no more,’ Nellie said. ‘Wasn’t she sick or something?’
‘She sprained her ankle but I’d stopped going anyway,’ Tommy said. ‘She was waiting for me outside school. Mam, she thinks I’ll be a writer.’
Nellie looked at his beaming face and suddenly burst into tears. ‘Oh Tommy, lad,’ she wept while Tommy held her and rocked her.
‘Don’t cry, Mam,’ he begged her. ‘Miss Helsby thinks we’re over the worst. I told her all about, y’know, thinking it was my fault me dad went, and she said everyone thinks like that. She’s give me a book about it.’
‘You never told me about that,’ Nellie said.
‘I did, Mam, but you never listened,’ Tommy said with a touch of resentment. He took the book from the brown paper and showed it to her.
‘Life After Bereavement,’ she read, then looked up startled. ‘Your dad isn’t dead, lad.’
‘No, but Miss Helsby said the feelings are the same. Fancy her saying I could be a writer, Mam.’
‘Fancy,’ Nellie echoed, looking at him fondly. He’s only a kid, she thought. I’ve been talking to him as if he was a man, then with a shock she thought, I haven’t been talking to him at all.
She stood up. ‘It’s only corned beef for tea. I can’t cook nothing properly here, Tom. I miss me kitchen, bad as it was. It’s all scrap meals here.’
She watched Tommy covertly as she prepared the meal. His long tangled hair, his torn jersey and trousers.
I must’ve been outa me mind, she thought. Fussing over leaving the house an’ all that and me poor lad going to the dogs.
Tommy was still talking about his visit to Miss Helsby’s house.
‘She said I’m over the first stage, Mam, and I’m starting the second where I have to pull meself together and start again.’
‘Oh aye, then you can start by washing your hair,’ said Nellie. ‘Then get down to John Henry’s and get it cut. Where’s your other gansey?’
‘It won’t go near me, Mam. It’s like a straitjacket,’ Tommy said.
‘Give me that one, then, and I’ll mend it,’ Nellie said.
Tommy set off clutching the penny for the barber, whistling and leaping in the air from time to time with pure happiness. Everything was going to be fine, he felt, and he was going to be a writer. His dad would be proud of him when he came home, as he was now sure he would.
At home Nellie had tidied the room then sat down to read the book. There was much that was not relevant to her situation but with a shock of surprise she realised that she too had been blaming herself for Sam’s desertion. How often she had thought of Sam as she had last seen him, the shock and despair on his face as she cringed away from him.
I’ve been thinking that was why he went, Nellie thought, and blaming myself, but he wouldn’t have gone just for that. Or at least he wouldn’t have stayed away. At the thought she began to cry again but she quickly dried her eyes when she heard Tommy on the stairs.
‘That’s more like it,’ she said when he came in, looking at his clean face and clean short hair and his mended jersey. Tommy was still in high spirits and Nellie managed to appear cheerful until just before he went to bed.
She had come across the paper on which Gertie had written down the forecasts by Mrs Gilligan and remembered the glib explanation Gertie had found that they related to Bob and his baby and Janey’s death.
She might have been right about Janey’s death, ‘all will be made clear’, Nellie thought, but the rest is about when I was born. She turned the paper over to read the forecasts made on her second visit.
‘Strength will come with sorrow. Blows, quarrels, partings. I see you standing alone. No. The boy will cleave to you. Money, success, sorrow, water flowing between but the golden cord will never break. A stranger in a strange land.’
Did this mean Sam or Tommy? Alone but the boy will cleave to you, Nellie thought, and suddenly flung her arms round Tommy weeping bitterly.
‘Oh lad, there’s only you and me now,’ she cried and Tommy held her close and cried with her.
‘We’ll be all right, Mam,’ he said. ‘I’ll look after you.’
Nellie wept even more bitterly as she remembered Sam standing before her twisting his cap in his hands and saying, ‘I’ll look after you, Ellie.’ Finally she dried her eyes and tried to smile.
‘That’s it now, lad. I’ve cried meself out. I’ll be all right now.’
‘That’s good,’ Tommy said with such evident relief that his mother laughed.
‘Yes, I’m finished with crying now, lad,’ she said. ‘Miss Helsby got it right. It’s time we was putting all this behind us and making a fresh start. You’d better get to bed and leave me them trousers to mend.’
It was true. This was a watershed for Nellie, the time when she accepted that Sam was lost to them, and put the past behind her. She might weep in the privacy of her bed in the small hours of the night but by day she set about making a new life for herself and her son.
She and Tommy were close again but there was a subtle change in their relationship. He was no longer the child clinging to her hand but a strong companion standing beside her and helping her.
For Tommy too it was a fresh start. The boy he had become during the past unhappy months, the hobbledehoy as Miss Helsby had described him, was alien to all that he had been taught during the first ten years of his life. Thankfully he turned away from that boy and reverted to his own true nature.
He would never forget his father and always cherish a hope that Sam would come back to them but until then he would look after his mam. He felt with a thrill of excitement that life was opening out before him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sam slept most of the way to Southampton, helped by drinks from the bottle of rum held by Madge every time he stirred. She dragged him off the train with difficulty at Southampton and into a cab, giving the address of a lodging house in a street near the docks.
‘He can’t half sleep,’ Madge said giggling breathlessly. ‘I’m glad you had a room, Kitty.’
‘I had a first-floor front too but I thought the back might suit you better,’ Kitty said. She dug her elbow in Madge’s ribs. ‘Unless you’ve changed,’ she said meaningly but Madge only laughed.
‘I’m that dry,’ she said. ‘Any chance of a cup? He’ll sleep for hours.’
They went out of the room locking the door behind them and down to Kitty’s basement kitchen.
‘Well, what happened?’ Kitty asked, pouring tea. ‘I thought you were going to marry that fella you followed to Liverpool?’
‘So did I,’ Madge said. ‘He went off on a long voyage, nearly two years, and when he came back he was hopeless. A real skinflint. I never saw nothing hardly of his pay-off but this fella’s different.’
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Kitty said dryly.
Madge said immediately, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll see you all right.’
‘If you’re going back to it you’ll have to watch yourself,’ Kitty said. ‘Big Eddie’s taken over more since you went. He doesn’t like anyone on his patch.’
‘Sam’s a match for Big Eddie,’ Madge boasted.
‘Sam? That his name?’ Kitty said. ‘Hope he’s good with the knife, then. Doesn’t seem to know where he is.’
‘That’s just the drink,’ Madge said. ‘He’ll be all right.’
She felt that Kitty was asking too many questions and soon went back to the room.
It was some time before Sam woke then he sat up looking around him with bleary eyes and passing his tongue over his dry lips. Madge poured him a glass of water from the jug on the washstand and he gulped it down.
‘Where’s this?’ he asked. ‘Where are we?’
A Wise Child Page 37