A Wise Child

by A Wise Child (retail) (epub)

  Nellie laughed and rapidly distributed the mugs of tea, even those who had one already accepting the free one. I must be mad, she thought. A dozen mugs of tea just so I can give this man one but he smiled at her gratefully when she put the mug on his table.

  ‘Are you working round here now?’ she asked, seeing flour on his sleeve.

  ‘No, I’m just casual on the flour wagon for the day,’ he said. ‘The regular man’s off.’

  ‘Well, I hope you get a few more days and we see you again,’ Nellie said. ‘Good luck. I hope something else turns up if that doesn’t.’

  ‘Thanks, missus,’ the man mumbled turning his cap in his hands and Nellie saw with horror that he was near to tears and made an excuse to hurry away. Oh Sam, Sam, she thought, if you’re down on your luck, lad, please God someone will give you a bit of help or a word of comfort. She dashed upstairs to the bathroom and locking herself in cried as though her heart would break.

  She bathed her eyes and busied herself in the kitchen but later Jean whispered to her, ‘Is something wrong, Nell, or have you just been thinking about Sam?’

  ‘Just thinking,’ Nellie whispered but she was unable to say more.

  When Nellie bought the house Bob studied the deeds and discovered that some of the waste ground behind the house was included in the sale. Now he was urging Nellie to build an extension to the cafe and a kitchen on this land. ‘I’d chip in, Nell,’ he said, ‘and we could build a flat over it for me and Meg and David.’

  Nellie thought it a good idea as it would give them a home of their own yet they would still be near at hand and Tom agreed with her but Meg seemed strangely reluctant. Nellie wondered if Meg was experiencing symptoms which she was concealing from them.

  Although she tried to help she seemed to tire very easily and even talking seemed to exhaust her. She preferred to sit reading or listening to the radio, not even paying much attention to David or Bob.

  David had been at school for nearly three years now and he looked very different to the frail little boy who had arrived at Nellie’s house. He was still like a replica of Bob, with red hair and a deep cleft in his chin, but now he had the same sturdy body as his father and his eyes were bright with intelligence and health.

  His best friends were still Jean’s two boys, Leslie who was older and Douglas younger than him, and the woman who worked in the cafe often said, ‘Youse are like one big family.’

  She said it to Meg one day and Meg smiled sadly.

  ‘Just as well, I think,’ she said. Nellie overheard her but said nothing then. Later when they were alone she took Meg’s hand.

  ‘Is something worrying you, love?’ she asked gently.

  Meg’s eyes filled with tears. ‘I think I’ll have to go back to the sanatorium,’ she whispered. ‘You know I was having periods when I came home but they’ve stopped and I’ve brought up blood a couple of times.’

  ‘Perhaps the periods have stopped because you’re pregnant?’ Nellie said, but Meg shook her head.

  ‘No, even when I first came home I couldn’t,’ she said sadly. ‘I think it had been so long. Poor Bob, he got a bad bargain in me.’

  Nellie hugged her. ‘Don’t ever say that. You wouldn’t say it if Bob was the one ill, would you?’ she said. ‘Bob loves you. He’d only be worried about that on your account. Does he know about your symptoms?’

  ‘No, I’ve tried to keep it from him but I think he might suspect. The way he looks at me sometimes.’

  Nellie stroked Meg’s hair gently. ‘Do you have to go back to that place?’ she said. ‘I’m sure sleeping out on that balcony in cold weather can’t be good for you. Why can’t you be nursed at home? Just stay in bed here and rest. I’ll do whatever’s needed.’

  ‘No, it’ll be too much for you,’ Meg said. ‘But thank you anyway, Nell. You’ve been a good sister to me and Bob.’

  ‘We’ll see what the doctor says,’ Nellie said briskly, ‘but you can go to bed now and rest and don’t worry about David. Whether you stay in bed here or you have to go away for a bit we’ll look after him – if I can get him away from his friends for long enough. He’s such a favourite with everyone.’

  ‘I know I needn’t worry about David,’ Meg said. ‘You know, on Saturday when I saw him and Jean’s two lads going off with Bob to watch Tom playing football, I felt so thankful. I thought of what a lonely little boy he’d have been if he’d stayed in Sudely. God must have sent you that day, Nell.’

  Nellie put her arm round Meg. ‘I only wish I’d gone sooner,’ she said, ‘but I’m thankful I went. It’s meant a lot to me and Tom to have you and Bob and David here. Our own family.’

  She suggested that Meg went to bed, as the talking seemed to have exhausted her, but Meg wanted to talk to Bob before she went. Nellie made her comfortable in the armchair until Bob came home from work.

  As Meg had expected Bob was not surprised to hear of her symptoms.

  ‘I’m only surprised that they let you come home from the hospital, love,’ he said, ‘but I’m glad they did.’

  He went for a doctor and had a talk with him before returning to the house. The doctor was a Polish Jew, a refugee from Hitler’s Germany, and although his English was imperfect he was a clever and compassionate young man.

  He agreed that Meg could be nursed at home but told Nellie that Meg’s dishes must be sterilised and kept separate from the rest of the family’s.

  ‘You too must have care,’ he said. ‘The washing of hands. Much antiseptic. Only a few weeks I think then hospital it must be.’

  The extension plans were postponed, and Nellie engaged another cook and a waitress so that Jean and two cooks did all the cooking, and she was able to stay away completely from the cafe.

  Once her illness was confirmed, Meg seemed to decline rapidly. It was the autumn of 1938 and everybody in England was breathlessly waiting for war to be declared but the minds of Meg’s relations were filled with her struggle. She was brave and uncomplaining and pathetically grateful to be nursed at home.

  Nellie knew how much she dreaded a return to the hospital and how much it meant to her to be at home, so when the doctor said he thought the time had come for Meg to be moved to hospital Nellie pleaded for her to be left at home a little longer.

  She was always glad that she did and that the doctor agreed.

  Two nights later the doctor had been on one of his frequent visits and Nellie and Bob were settling Meg for the night.

  All was peaceful and Nellie had gone to the window while Bob bent over Meg gently smoothing back her hair. Suddenly there seemed to be an alteration in Meg’s breathing and Bob said in a scared voice, ‘Nellie,’ but she was already beside him.

  Meg’s breathing had ceased and stunned Nellie said, ‘She’s gone, Bob.’

  ‘She can’t have,’ Bob said distractedly.

  He rubbed Meg’s cheek and her hands and lifted her in his arms but Nellie said gently, ‘It’s no use, lad. She’s gone just like that. No struggle.’

  She saw Tom, aroused by some sixth sense, peep into the room then she heard him running down the stairs. Time had ceased to exist and it seemed only a moment later to Nellie that the doctor was gently moving her and Bob away from the bed.

  He bent over Meg then turned and put his hand on Bob’s shoulder.

  ‘A peaceful end. I hoped for this. Be grateful.’

  Bob only stared at him wildly and Nellie said, ‘She just seemed to stop breathing, Doctor.’

  He shrugged and put out his hands, palms upward. ‘The disease or the heart. The heart has been first. A kinder death so be happy for her.’

  David had wakened when Tom left the bedroom and now Bob insisted on bringing him in to kiss his mother’s cheek.

  ‘It’s all wrong,’ Nellie said tearfully to Tom, ‘the poor child.’

  Tom said soothingly, ‘Better this way, Mam. Now he’s seen her just lying peacefully in her bed. Much better than that ghoulish habit of lifting children up to coffins.’

  The ve
ry peacefulness of Meg’s death seemed to make any noisy grief unseemly and Nellie and Bob talked quietly together until she persuaded him to lie down on the sofa.

  ‘I won’t be able to sleep,’ he said, but within minutes he had fallen into an exhausted sleep.

  The cafe staff were sad to hear of Meg’s death but all agreed it was a merciful end. One of the helpers, Mrs Evans, said thoughtfully, ‘Somehow she never seemed as though she was here to stay. Always a bit apart, like.’

  Jean wept when Nellie told her. ‘That poor little boy,’ she said. ‘And he’s such a darling.’ She dried her eyes. ‘And poor Meg to go so young and with so much to live for. At least though it was peaceful and in her own bed as she would have wished.’

  ‘I’ll always be grateful to the doctor for that. He’s been so good,’ Nellie said. ‘He’s only got a few patients so far but I hope he does well.’

  ‘I suppose after what he must have been through he can feel for other people,’ Jean said. ‘Like you and I can feel for Bob because we’ve been through it ourselves.’

  Jean seems to forget sometimes I’m not a widow, Nellie thought, but maybe she’s right. Yet it was impossible for her to abandon hope completely.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Two days after Meg’s funeral the Munich Agreement was signed. On newsreels and in newspapers the prime minister Mr Chamberlain was shown waving a piece of paper which he said would mean ‘peace for our time’.

  Most people were delirious with joy that war had been averted but Tom and Bob were sceptical.

  ‘That doctor doesn’t think we can trust Hitler and he should know,’ Bob said. ‘He thinks we’ve been conned.’ But these views were unpopular. Everyone wanted to believe that the threat of war was over.

  Bob grieved sincerely for Meg but he threw himself into the planning of the extension. He thought that they should still have the rooms built over the new dining room and kitchen, although he and David would stay with Nellie.

  ‘They can be used as storerooms for now,’ he said to Nellie. ‘I think you should stock up, Nell. If war comes all the stuff you use will be scarce,’ and although Nellie thought he was being pessimistic she agreed to order extra supplies.

  Everyone at the cafe made an extra fuss of David to make up for the loss of his mother, especially Jean and the two ‘little mice’ as Jean and Nellie called Winnie and her sister Cathy. They were as quiet as mice and very happy in their flat in the attics and David was always a welcome visitor there.

  Both girls had worked very hard, and often returned in the evening to help while Nellie was absent nursing Meg, but Jean had shouldered most of the responsibility. Nellie was very grateful to them and wondered how to show her appreciation but it was Tom who suggested how to do it.

  The sale of pies to take out had been discontinued due to lack of space but Nellie knew that there was still a demand for them, and she had asked Bob to include a narrow room to serve as a shop against the wall of the new kitchen in the plans.

  Now Tom suggested that the sisters should be given charge of the shop with a commission on everything they sold there, in addition to their wages for their help in the cafe. Winnie and Cathy were delighted with the idea but said that they were willing to run the shop without commission.

  ‘You’ve already done so much for us,’ Winnie said. ‘Honest, Mrs Meadows, I don’t know what would have happened to us without you. Our stepfather’d changed his mind about wanting us out,’ (‘And we know why,’ Cathy interrupted) ‘and he wouldn’t have let us leave home to go in rooms. He couldn’t stop us taking the flat although we were so young because he was afraid of you.’

  ‘Afraid of me?’ Nellie said laughing.

  ‘Well, you’d have soon seen him off if he tried, wouldn’t you?’ Winnie said seriously.

  It amused Nellie that Winnie who had been such a giggler was at twenty a tall girl with a serious manner, and plump Cathy was now the giggler.

  Nellie had already decided on a plan for Jean and Tom and Bob were both enthusiastic about it. ‘Jean’s been in with me from the beginning and she’s been a tower of strength to me. I think I should make her a partner,’ Nellie said.

  She put the idea to Jean one evening when they had been to the cinema and returned to Jean’s house for supper.

  ‘But I can’t put money in, Nell,’ Jean exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t want you to,’ Nellie said. ‘You’ve put more than money in. You’ve backed me up and worked like a slave for the business, even though I could only pay peanuts at first. I couldn’t have done it without you, Jean, and I should have suggested this long ago.’

  ‘But the money you used to start up,’ Jean said. ‘It must have been very hard for you to get that together.’

  Nellie hesitated then she said, ‘I’ll tell you something, Jean, that no one else knows, not even Tom. You mightn’t want to go in with me when you hear it.’

  She told Jean of the money she had found and about Janey and her moneylending and receiving. ‘At the time it just didn’t bother me,’ she said. ‘I told myself that I was entitled to it because I’d kept Janey and had no rent from her, but now I wonder. I think the money I found came from the receiving not the moneylending.’

  ‘Why do you think that?’ Jean asked.

  ‘Because I want to, I suppose,’ Nellie said honestly. ‘Somehow it doesn’t seem so bad because it’s stolen from people who are not too scrupulous themselves.’

  ‘Like Raffles or Robin Hood,’ Jean said laughing.

  ‘The moneylending money is really tainted,’ Nellie said. ‘Taken from poor people who are desperate but I hope that was stolen when her basket was pinched. The police seemed to think there was a lot of money in it although I don’t know how they knew. They didn’t get it back. The people who took my house found sovereigns behind a brick by the fireplace too.’

  ‘She must have been rolling in money,’ Jean exclaimed.

  Nellie agreed. ‘And she never spent a ha’penny on herself or any comfort,’ she said. ‘Well, now you know about the money, what do you think?’

  ‘I see nothing wrong in you having it,’ Jean said. ‘As you say, you kept her for years, and then she had no relations so the money would only have gone to the Crown.’

  ‘I meant how do you feel about the partnership?’ Nellie asked.

  ‘I’d be made up and I think you’re very good to ask me,’ Jean said, kissing Nellie impulsively.

  Before Christmas it was all arranged, to take effect from January 1st 1939.

  Tom was very pleased about the arrangement. He felt that now with Jean to share the responsibility for the cafe, and with his uncle and cousin living with them, he could relax some of his anxious care for his mother. He was convinced that war would come and that as he was now eighteen years old he would be eligible for war service.

  He knew that he would pass any medical examination. Although he had blue eyes and brown hair and fair skin which burned easily in sunlight, like his mother, he was tall and broad-shouldered, though less burly than his father.

  He often thought about his father and wondered whether he was alive or dead. None of the enquiries he had made about him had produced any news of Sam since he left his ship in New York. Tom had only confused memories of Sam’s brief time at home when he last saw him and he felt unable to ask his mother for any details.

  He had heard the rumours and gossip when Sam left, it was alleged with another woman, and heard Nellie’s explanation to Bob, but he felt that some vital link was missing. He often went over in his mind the stories Sam had told him and his memories of his father and used them for the stories he wrote.

  He was now very successful and sold his work with ease. It provided a useful supplement to his salary as a shipping clerk, but more than that it was something he enjoyed doing, and it was still a thrill to see his work in print.

  David had now moved back to his father’s bedroom so Tom had his room to himself and he spent all his spare time there scribbling, often far
into the night. He had started a novel but he told no one about it, not even his mother.

  One of the first stories Tom wrote was based on what he had heard of his father’s childhood. He had called it ‘Little Boy Lost’ and he had sent it to a highbrow monthly magazine, the Quill. It had been returned with a letter which Tom treasured and which encouraged him to try to write a novel.

  The editor wrote that the story was interesting and unusual, and he was impressed by the lyrical quality of the writing, but the subject and setting were not suitable for his magazine.

  ‘I suspect that you are quite young,’ he wrote. ‘You possess talent which with perseverance will ensure success. I wish you well and expect to hear more of you in years to come.’

  Tom put the letter away with the treasured letters from his father and as with them it was taken out and read and reread, although he knew the words by heart. The novel was well advanced and he was spending as much time as possible on it, as he felt there would be little chance of writing if he was called up.

  David was very proud of Tom’s success and bragged about him to all his friends. Like Tom he loved reading and Tom tried to guide his choice of books as Miss Helsby had guided his.

  He told Miss Helsby of this on one of his now infrequent visits to her.

  ‘So your influence goes on,’ he said smiling.

  ‘That is as it should be, Thomas,’ she said seriously, ‘knowledge passed from generation to generation.’

  Tom told his mother of the conversation. ‘Mind you, Mum, it’s not exactly a generation, is it? Eight years between us. David’s more like my younger brother.’

  A shadow crossed Nellie’s face. ‘Aye, I remember when he was born. I’d always wanted more children and poor Meg said if I couldn’t have them her children would be like my own to me. Poor Meg. We often talked about that in those last few weeks.’

  Tom would have liked to ask why he was an only child but he knew that he dared not. Close though they were there was much which his mother kept to herself and shared with no one, not even him. Although Tom loved David without reservation he was often annoyed with Bob. He felt that his uncle was too free with criticism of the way his mother ran the cafe and took her sacrifices for him for granted.