A Wise Child

by A Wise Child (retail) (epub)

  Bessie told Nellie that Jean’s husband had been a clerk in a weighing office at the docks and had been knocked down and killed by a wagon carrying cotton bales, as he returned home.

  ‘She never got no compensation because he’d left work, see. All she’s got to live on is her ten-bob widow’s pension and five bob for the eldest and three for the other lad. Not much left to feed and clothe three of them after she’s paid six bob a week rent. She feels it more because they was well off before.’

  Nellie had just brought a fresh tray of pies through one day when Jean was in the shop with her children. The pies smelled appetising and Nellie saw the eldest child looking longingly at them then plucking his mother’s arm and whispering to her.

  Jean shook her head and counted out the pennies for her purchases from her thin purse. This is how I’d be, having to refuse Tom, if I hadn’t found that money, Nellie thought, and longed to give pies to the children, but she feared to offend Jean’s pride.

  The next day when Jean came in for bread, accompanied as usual by her boys, Nellie said suddenly, ‘Jean, will you do me a favour? Will you come behind the counter for me while I put more pies in to heat up? They sell much better when they’re hot but I can’t leave the counter.’

  Jean agreed willingly and Nellie spent ten minutes in the kitchen, taking out hot pies and putting others in the oven.

  The two little boys, proud of being allowed behind the counter, were peeping in at her from the doorway and Nellie called them in and gave each of them an apple, then she quickly broke the crust a little on two of the pies.

  ‘Will you hide these in your tummies for me?’ she asked and the boys nodded wide-eyed. She carried the tray of hot pies into the shop followed by the boys carrying the apples and pies.

  ‘What have you got there?’ Jean said sharply and Nellie winked at her.

  ‘Two of my disasters,’ she said. ‘They’re going to hide them in their tummies for me.’

  Jean looked doubtful but the children’s delight was so patent and Nellie seemed so unconcerned that she accepted the situation. ‘I’m sure you could sell them, damaged or not,’ she said.

  ‘What, and let people know I’m not a perfect cook?’ Nellie said laughing and Jean was forced to smile.

  Nellie made a tentative attempt to offer her payment but Jean said quickly, ‘No thanks, I was glad to help and you’ve given to the boys.’

  Later Nellie told Tom about the incident and she was surprised when he flung his arms round her and hugged her.

  ‘What’s that for?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you’re like you used to be,’ Tom said. ‘You wouldn’t have bothered to do that a few months ago, Mam.’

  Nellie was about to make an indignant reply until she thought, the lad’s right. I wouldn’t, but I’m coming out of it now.

  She looked proudly at her son. How tall and strong he had grown and what a comfort to her. He was old for his age too, she thought, and she could talk over all her problems with him.

  ‘You’ve got an old head on your shoulders, lad,’ she said. ‘That’s my fault.’

  Tom laughed. ‘Miss Helsby says I’m mature for my age, Mam. It means the same but it sounds better, doesn’t it?’

  Nellie smiled too. ‘Well, seeing as you’re so mature you can tell me what you think of my idea.’

  She told him that most of her profit was coming from the pies but now that the weather was cold they sold better hot.

  ‘I’ve been thinking that I might close the shop and open the front room as a cafe. What do you think, Tom?’

  ‘Just selling hot pies?’ he said doubtfully.

  ‘No, I’d do other things. Pasties and apple pies and big pans of pea soup and scouse. I could get Jean to help me with the serving and I could sell pies to take out.’

  ‘It’s a good idea, Mam, but you don’t want to kill yourself trying to do too much,’ Tommy said. ‘I wish I could leave school and help.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. I’ll enjoy doing the cooking and if Jean’ll help—’ Nellie said. ‘I’ll keep the shop going till I’ve made me plans.

  ‘I think you’ve got most of them made already,’ Tom said with a cheeky grin.

  It was true and Nellie realised that subconsciously the idea had been in her head for some time.

  She took Jean aside and asked if she would be willing to help and Jean agreed eagerly.

  ‘My sister’ll mind the boys for me,’ she said.

  Nellie warned her that it was all a gamble at present but she was surprised at how quickly everything fell into place.

  The man who supplied the dry goods for the shop advised her to keep her counter for a while. ‘If you’re going to sell pies to take out you’ll need somewhere to put them,’ he said. ‘And you could have a tea urn where your shelves have been.’

  Nellie took his advice and also continued to buy the groceries for the cafe from him. She bought second-hand tables and chairs and covered the tables in American cloth which would wipe clean.

  Accompanied by Tom she went to the mug market and bought thick serviceable dishes and two huge pans. At Tom’s suggestion she also bought cruets and cutlery and ashtrays.

  ‘I would’ve forgot about them,’ she told him. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you, lad.’

  Tom also helped her to lay linoleum on the bare floorboards and to set up the tea urn.

  Nellie had engaged a fourteen-year-old school leaver to serve in the shop for the last few weeks, while she was occupied with her plans, and then to help with the cafe.

  ‘I want to see how she shapes before I open the cafe,’ she told Jean. ‘I’m hoping I’ll be too busy then to train anyone.’

  The girl, Winnie, was small and timid but a very willing worker and she soon gained confidence. Nellie was pleased one day when she was in the kitchen to hear Winnie dealing firmly with someone asking for credit.

  ‘No, Mrs Meadows is dead against it. She might give me the sack if I done it,’ she said and the woman went away empty-handed.

  Nellie closed the shop on a Saturday and by Monday morning the cafe was ready for opening. It was a bitterly cold day but a bright fire burned in the big grate and steam from the bubbling urn made the room even warmer.

  Winnie and Jean had both come in early and there was a large pan of scouse and one of pea soup ready, a pan of potatoes and one of cabbage and dozens of pies and pasties.

  ‘Oh, God, Jean, what if nobody comes?’ Nellie said nervously, looking at all the food.

  ‘Don’t worry, they will,’ Jean said confidently.

  Their first customer was a foreman from a demolition gang. Nellie had placed a card in the window giving details of the food available and the prices, and put a similar card on the wall of the cafe. The man looked at it.

  ‘Got any bacon butties?’ he asked.

  Nellie and Jean looked at each other but Jean said swiftly, ‘They’ll be a few minutes yet. Wouldn’t you like a pie?’

  ‘No, don’t seem right for me breakfast,’ the man said. ‘I might have one for me dinner.’

  Back in the kitchen Nellie sent Winnie running to the grocer’s for bacon and cut thick slices of bread. Meanwhile Jean had brought the man a mug of tea and he had opened a newspaper. He had secured a chair near the fire and seemed in no hurry for his sandwiches but Nellie managed to produce them within a few minutes.

  ‘I’ve never fried bacon so fast in me life,’ she gasped to Jean.

  ‘I’ve never run so fast neither,’ Winnie giggled.

  The next two customers were more accommodating and ordered pea soup and a pasty but the smell of the bacon hung in the air and both men asked if bacon butties were on the menu.

  ‘We’ll have them tomorrow,’ Nellie promised. ‘We only opened this morning.’

  ‘This’ll put a lining on me stumick,’ one man said as he finished his generous helping of pea soup. ‘But I might have bacon or sausage butties tomorrow. Smells tasty.’

  Trade was slack for a while but a
s the dinner hour approached the tables filled up and Winnie was also kept busy serving pies and pasties to take out. They took their own meals as they could and all worked well together. At the end of the day Nellie was amazed to find only a few pasties were left and some apple pie.

  Tommy had come home from school and he and Winnie were washing up while Nellie and Jean sat at the kitchen table preparing vegetables for the scouse and pea soup.

  ‘I never thought all that scouse and pea soup would go,’ Nellie said. ‘The size of them panfuls I made!’

  ‘And all the pies,’ Jean said. ‘We’ll have to have more potatoes ready for tomorrow and more cabbage.’

  Nellie agreed although she said soberly, ‘It might have been just the novelty, like, today. We can’t count on every day like that.’

  They all laughed together over the bacon butties episode and Jean suggested that they had some bacon and sausage sandwiches ready when they opened. ‘There mightn’t be much call for scouse and stuff early on, more for dinner time,’ she said.

  They shared out what was left of the food and Winnie surprised them by saying darkly, ‘I’m going to hide these for our Cath and our Vinny. Me mam’ll only give them all to him.’

  ‘Who do you mean, love?’ Nellie asked and Winnie told her she meant her stepfather.

  ‘We all hate him,’ she said frankly.

  Nellie said no more, but later Tom said that Winnie had told him that her mother had remarried two years after her father’s death, and now had two children to her second husband.

  ‘She said he wanted her to go into service so she’d be out of the house. He wants her sister and brother out too. Her brother was sixteen and was going to join the army as a boy soldier.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ Nellie said indignantly. ‘What can her mother be thinking of?’

  Nellie’s fears that the first successful day was only a flash in the pan proved unfounded and the cafe was a success from the start. She continued to make the pies and pasties to take out as they were so popular. She was up early every morning, baking and cooking throughout the day to replenish the food which was so quickly sold, then up late doing the books after preparing vegetables and meat for the following day. Jean and Winnie worked hard and willingly and Tom helped as much as possible but Nellie carried the greater part of the burden.

  No matter how hard she worked she could never stop grieving for Sam. If only she could turn back the clock and tell him how much she loved him. She reproached herself for not trying harder to find him and bring him home when he went to Southampton.

  He was a sick man and needed her but she had let him be taken advantage of by that harpy, she mourned, just because of her foolish pride. She blotted the memory of the rape from her mind and thought only of her happy times with Sam. For some reason the memory she returned to most often was of his rescue of her when they were both children.

  As Christmas approached she thought often of her brother too and of Meg and David.

  ‘I wish I’d wrote back to Meg that time,’ she told Tom. ‘I was just that moidered at the time. And David me godchild and he must be four by now.’

  Tom had left school and was due to start work in a newspaper office in January, but he suggested that he and his mother should go to Yorkshire when the cafe was closed for Christmas. Nellie readily agreed and wrote to Mrs Handley but there was no reply.

  ‘Never mind, you know what you say, Mam,’ Tom said. ‘Nothing venture, nothing gain.’

  They set off early in the morning but when they arrived at the little railway station they were told that Mr and Mrs Handley had died in July within two weeks of each other. Nellie asked for Bob Williams and the man told her that he lived in a cottage not far from the railway with his little son.

  He said nothing about Meg and Nellie was afraid to ask, as she feared the worst. When they reached the cottage she knocked timidly and there was no reply, but when Tom banged the knocker Bob opened the door.

  He looked haggard and untidy and Nellie stared at him is dismay.

  ‘Oh, Bob,’ she said and the next moment they were in each other’s arms.

  ‘Meg?’ Nellie said fearfully and heaved a sigh of relief when Bob said Meg was in a sanatorium.

  A tiny boy was peeping from the door of the living room and Tom slipped past his mother and uncle in the hall and went to the child.

  He picked up the boy. ‘Hello, David, I’m your cousin Tom,’ he said gently. Nellie and Bob were still clinging together weeping, then Bob drew Nellie into the living room where Tom was standing holding David in his arms.

  Nellie looked with dismay round the dirty neglected room and Bob looked shamefaced.

  ‘We’re in a bit of a mess, our kid,’ he said. ‘There’s that much to do and be the time I go and see Meg and see to David…’

  He shrugged and Nellie said quietly, ‘I feel ashamed, lad. Why didn’t you let me know?’

  He mumbled that he didn’t like to after what had happened and Nellie took David from Tom’s arms.

  He’s as light as a feather, she thought in consternation, but the child snuggled happily into her arms as Bob told her that Meg had not recovered her strength after David’s birth and her cough had grown worse.

  ‘I think she had an idea about the consumption, like,’ Bob said. ‘She wasn’t surprised when we got told. That’s why we come back here. Thought the air would do her good but it never made no difference. She’s been in the sanatorium a year now.’

  ‘And you’ve been trying to manage all that time?’ Nellie said.

  ‘We was all right at first. Mrs Handley seen to everything and she kept David there while I was at work but she died in July.’

  ‘The man told me,’ Nellie said. ‘Her and Mr Handley in two weeks. What happened?’

  ‘She was at a funeral and there was a thunderstorm. She was soaked and she got a cold and it turned to pleurisy and she died. He just sort of give up and his heart give out. They’d been real good to me. I was proper cut up,’ Bob said.

  ‘And how do you manage now?’ Nellie asked.

  ‘I’ve got this girl comes in. Supposed to look after David and do a bit but to tell you the truth, Nell, I worry about leaving him with her. She’s a bit backward, like, but I can’t do nothing else. The people here – there’s no neighbours like at home. You know the way everybody’d take a kid from a family in trouble.’

  Nellie leaned her cheek on David’s hair, her eyes full of tears, and Bob looked distressed.

  ‘I wasn’t getting at you, girl,’ he said. ‘It’s my fault we never seen each other all this time.’

  ‘No, it was me. I’m sorry, Bob.’ She was unable to say more and tried to wipe away her tears without alarming the child on her knee.

  Bob looked at the clock. ‘It’s time I went for the hospital,’ he said. ‘Hetty’s supposed to be here be now. I nearly always have to go for her.’

  ‘Knock and tell her not to bother. We’ll look after him,’ Nellie said. She found a shirt among the ironing and ironed it for Bob and told him to tell Meg she would see to things now.

  ‘He looked better already than when we came,’ Tom said when Bob had gone.

  ‘Aye, that shirt looked as if it had been washed in pea soup and dried up the chimney but at least it was ironed,’ Nellie said.

  Nellie had made tea and fried two eggs for Bob before he left and now she boiled an egg for each of them while Tom made toast at the bright fire. Tom made soldiers of toast for David with his egg and for the first time the little boy smiled.

  ‘Poor little lad, he hasn’t had much luck, has he?’ Nellie said. She had filled the copper and boiled water and now she washed some shirts of Bob’s and clothes of David’s, then thoroughly cleaned the kitchen and the scullery.

  Tom cleaned the windows, with David standing beside him handing him cloths and smiling shyly at him from time to time. Nellie could find nothing in the larder except eggs and cheese to make a meal and some vegetables stored in an outhouse.

  By t
he time Bob came back the room was bright and clean, David had been bathed and changed and there was a panful of leek and potato soup bubbling on the hob. Nellie made savoury pancakes to follow and she was pleased to see both Bob and his little boy eating with obvious enjoyment.

  Bob said that Meg had been delighted to hear that Nellie and Tom had arrived and she could stop worrying about Bob and David now.

  ‘What will you do, Mam?’ Tom asked quietly as he and Nellie washed up. ‘Does Uncle Bob expect you to stay? What about the cafe?’

  The same thought had been worrying Nellie. There had been no opportunity to talk at length with Bob and she wondered how to broach the subject of the cafe but before she spoke of it, Bob said, ‘I haven’t asked you anything about yourself, Nell, I’ve been that glad to see you. You’ve given me the heart to carry on now, our kid, until Meg gets home.’

  ‘How long do you think it’ll be?’ Nellie asked.

  ‘The spring, the doctor said, if everything goes all right,’ Bob said, ‘but I’ll be all right now, Nell. What about you? Have you got a job?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Nellie said and began to tell him about the shop and the cafe.

  ‘I’m made up to hear that,’ Bob said, ‘You and Tommy could’ve starved for all I knew and I never bothered. I feel that ashamed, our kid.’

  ‘It was six of one and half a dozen of the other with us,’ Nellie said firmly. ‘But all that’s behind us now and we won’t talk about it no more. I’m worried about you though, lad.’

  ‘You needn’t be,’ Bob said. ‘I was down but you’ve give me fresh heart, Nell. I’ll be all right. Hetty was playing on me. She’s not as daft as she looks and I’ll see she does what she gets paid for from now on.’

  ‘Could we take David back home with us? Would that help, Bob?’ Nellie asked but Bob refused.

  ‘He might fret after me. Y’know, with his mam going and then losing Mrs Handley,’ he said.

  Before they left it was arranged that Bob and his son would come to stay for Christmas with Nellie and Tom.

  Sam had not been mentioned but when Bob was saying goodbye to Nellie he said awkwardly, ‘I’m made up to see the way Tom’s turned out, Nell. His dad would be proud of him.’