A Wise Child

by A Wise Child (retail) (epub)

  Now he said that he had no wish to get in touch with his father but he would write to the solicitors to ask them to confirm that there was no insanity in the family or anything else that Henk should know.

  Henk told him that Trudie had already told him how she felt about Bill, as she called him.

  ‘I haven’t liked any of the young fellows who’ve hung around her these last few years,’ Henk said frankly. ‘And I’m not worried about you having nothing behind you. I’ve got a good business here that’ll go to my girl, but only one thing worries me. You’ve wandered all these years. Can you settle?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ Chancer said. ‘Sam and I – we decided we’d come to the end of the wandering.’

  ‘It’s a good enough life for a man but not for a woman,’ Henk said. ‘I wouldn’t tolerate it for my girl.’

  It was Sam who convinced him. They were having a drink together late one night while Chancer worked in the bakery and Trudie kept him company and Sam said that he planned to return to England soon.

  ‘I’ve got a wife there,’ he said. ‘She’s with someone else but I just want to see her again. See she’s all right. Me and Chancer had a talk before we came into town. We’ve reached the end of the wandering. It suited us and we suited each other but you know how it is. You just get to it. One part of your life’s finished.’

  ‘I’ll be sorry to see you go, Sam, and Joe Eddy’ll be more than sorry, but I’ve got to say you’ve eased my mind. Trudie’s like her mother. Easy and placid, but by God if she jibs you might as well give up. There was no changing her mother’s mind and there’s no changing hers and she intends to marry Bill. While you were still around I’d worry about him taking off again and breaking her heart.’

  ‘No need to worry,’ Sam said. ‘He’s mad about her and I tell you. He’s as straight as a die.’

  Joe Eddy was as sorry as Henk had predicted when Sam told him that he intended to return to England.

  ‘You’re the best man I’ve ever had,’ he declared. ‘You’ve got a feeling for machinery and I’ll tell you now you’ve mended many a thing I’d given up on.’ To Sam’s surprise Joe said he was born in Hull and had deserted from a ship many years ago. ‘I’ve still got relations there though,’ he said. ‘I can give you a few addresses.’

  ‘Thanks all the same,’ Sam said. ‘But I think I might make for London. I’ll work my passage home but then I’m giving up the sea. You’ve paid me well and I haven’t spent much so I’ll have a bit behind me.’

  He decided to wait until Chancer and Trudie were married but before that Chancer went to the doctor that the barber had told him about. The doctor not only altered the scar so that the eye was not distorted but he also rearranged the bones in Chancer’s broken nose.

  He was able to afford the operation because the lawyer’s letter not only made it clear that there was no hereditary taint but informed him that his father had died intestate two years ago.

  They had been trying to trace Chancer as his father had left the sum of three thousand one hundred pounds, five shillings and threepence and a house which was worth upwards of twenty thousand pounds.

  ‘I’m glad you didn’t miss out on the five and threepence,’ Sam grinned.

  Chancer was inclined to repudiate anything that had belonged to his father but Trudie dealt firmly with his scruples.

  It was now the spring of 1939 and after the wedding Sam set off with a light heart to make his way to Montreal. It was a wrench to leave the friend with whom he had spent so many years and who had been a true friend through their many adventures, but he left him very happily settled. They promised to keep in touch and Chancer said quietly to him, ‘Go with an open mind to see Ellie, Sam. What you heard was only hearsay. Best of luck, mate.’

  Sam managed to sign on a ship that docked at Cardiff and from there he made his way towards London. War had been declared a fortnight after the ship docked and the blackout and chaotic travelling arrangements made him almost sorry he left Canada.

  Now that it was possible to go and see Nellie Sam found excuses to put it off. He had managed to preserve most of his savings but he told himself that he must get some money together before travelling to Liverpool. What if Tommy needed new boots or a gansey, he thought. He would want to be able to buy them for him, then he realised with a shock that Tommy would now be a man of twenty years.

  Nevertheless he was determined to have a good sum of money by him before he went to Liverpool. The real reason, that the faint hope he still had of a reconciliation would be lost if he found her with someone else, he pushed to the back of his mind.

  He had found work without difficulty in a booming repair business not far from Reading and he was amazed at the amount he was able to earn. He felt that there he was less likely to meet any of his old seafaring friends.

  It was doubtful if any of them would have recognised him. He was still very deeply tanned and his dark hair which he wore cut very short was sprinkled with grey hairs. His speech had not altered when he was first in America as he and Chancer talked more to each other than to anyone else but gradually he had picked up some transatlantic expressions. His sailor’s roll, once so marked, had been replaced by the long easy stride of a man who walked many miles in a day.

  He had found rooms in a small clean boarding house near the works, where the food was sparing but he could have a meal in a local cafe to supplement it. He thought of going to Liverpool at Christmas but put it off again and it was March when he finally set off.

  ‘Is your journey really necessary?’ a poster in the station demanded. It is to me, Sam thought grimly.

  He had heard of Nellie’s cafe quite by chance from a lorry driver from Liverpool. They met in the cafe where Sam often went for a meal and after commenting on the food the man spoke of Nellie’s beefsteak pies.

  ‘I always time me run so I’m there when she’s open,’ he said. ‘I’ve never tasted nothing like them. They melt in yer mouth and tasty! I can taste them yet. Always get a couple to bring with me but they’re better hot.’

  ‘I had a relation named Nellie,’ Sam said. ‘Used to be good at beefsteak pies. Was this a little woman, used to live in Johnson Street?’

  ‘I don’t know, mate,’ the man said. ‘She’s a little woman. Fairish. Sort of brown hair, blue eyes. I took more notice to the other woman. Someone said she was a widow. Nice looking, thin dark woman, named Jean.’

  Sam tried to find out more about Nellie but the man only wanted to talk about the food.

  ‘No wonder the place is always packed out,’ he declared. ‘A proper little goldmine but I don’t know how they’ll go on when the rationing gets going.’

  ‘Where is it exactly?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Near Worcester Road. I don’t know the name of the street. It’s on a corner. Big old house really. I think her and her family live over the cafe. Jean lives in a little house round the corner. If you’re thinking of going anybody’d tell you where it is,’ the man said.

  He had finished his meal and taken out his cigarettes and Sam felt that he was looking curiously at him.

  ‘Too far to go for a beefsteak pie,’ he joked. ‘But I remember how good they were. Quiet little woman though. I’m surprised to hear she’s running a cafe. Her husband’s fell on his feet.’

  ‘Not half,’ the man said. ‘Mind you, for all she’s quiet she can soon put a fella in his place if he talks out of turn.’ He stood up. ‘Ta-ra, then.’

  Sam longed to detain him to ask about Tommy but he could only say, ‘Ta-ra,’ and hope to meet the man again. He could see that the man already thought he was asking too many questions, yet he had not asked the ones he really needed to ask.

  Now as he sat in the train bearing him to Liverpool he went over all the man had told him. He was convinced that the Nellie of the cafe was his Ellie and the fact that the man had distinguished the other woman as being a widow implied that Nellie was married.

  And he had not disputed that her husband had fall
en on his feet. She must have decided I was dead by this time, Sam thought, and married the fella who moved in after I’d gone. Still, it’s all just talk, like Chancer said, so I’ll see for myself.

  It was still the time of the ‘phoney war’ when shortages had begun to affect Britain but before Dunkirk and the Blitz had brought home the reality of war. Liverpool looked little different to Sam. A woman on the tram was in tears and being comforted by two other women and one of them told the conductor that the weeping woman’s husband had been lost at sea.

  Sam’s clothes and his accent had marked him as a stranger so no one spoke of the heavy shipping losses which were bringing such grief to the wives and families of the Liverpool crews and Sam felt like an outcast in his hometown.

  He went first to Johnson Street, drawn there by his memories, but careful to approach it from the bottom way so that his own house was the first one he came to.

  The side door opened and a small boy erupted into the passage, closely followed by a bigger boy, both yelling. They looked dirty and neglected and a woman was screaming after them, ‘D’youse want to get ’vacuated again? Knock it off.’

  Sam jumped back. Nellie was not there, it was clear, and he walked quickly up the entry behind the houses. As he emerged into the street at the top he saw a stout old woman surrounded by several small children and realised with a shock that she was Bella Edwards. She looks like a liner with tugs, he thought, hastily averting his face, but Bella was too engrossed in scolding the children to notice him.

  Sam made his way to Worcester Road and found the cafe without difficulty. As it was Sunday it was closed but he dawdled along on the opposite side of the road looking across at the big shabby house and the large windows showing the empty tables and chairs.

  He darted into a shop doorway when the house door opened and Nellie stepped out with a tall man with grey hair and a young boy. They were all smartly dressed. Nellie was wearing a brown wool dress and a short fur jacket with a small hat covered with iridescent feathers on her short curling hair, and brown shoes, handbag and gloves.

  The man wore a suit and the boy, of about ten years of age, wore a grey flannel suit with short trousers. Sam was able to feast his eyes on Nellie as she stopped to speak to a woman who was passing and in the Sunday quiet of the street he could clearly hear the conversation.

  ‘You look smart, Nell,’ the woman said. ‘Are you off out somewhere?’

  ‘To Jean’s for tea,’ Nellie said laughing. ‘I thought I’d get dressed up. I don’t often have the chance.’

  Sam listened in amazement. Even her voice was different, he thought, and she looked so changed, relaxed and assured yet unmistakeably Nellie.

  ‘That’s a lovely jacket,’ the woman said.

  Nellie replied, ‘Yes. Our Tom bought it for me for Christmas. I think Jean helped him to choose it.’

  ‘Eh, you’ve got a good son, Nellie,’ the woman said. ‘How does he like the army?’

  ‘He’s settled down, I think,’ Nellie said. ‘How’s your Cyril?’

  ‘Having the time of his life be all accounts,’ the woman said. ‘Plenty of friends to drink with.’

  ‘Tom’s with the lad he joined up with,’ Nellie said. ‘And he likes the other fellows in his hut.’

  ‘I’ll tell you, Nell, we miss them more than they miss us,’ the woman said and Nellie laughed.

  ‘Well, as long as they’re happy,’ she said.

  The man had gone back into the house and come out again carrying a parcel and Nellie said goodbye to the woman and turned away with him. ‘David,’ she called and the boy ran back to her.

  He must be hers, thought Sam, and looking at the red-haired freckled boy thought that he was the image of Nellie’s brother Bobby. In the tall grey-haired man he failed to see any resemblance to Bobby as he remembered him, and thought bitterly that the man must be the brandy drinker from the Volunteer he had been told about.

  None of them looked across the road and as soon as they were out of sight Sam walked slowly away. He was stunned by the change in Nellie. In his thoughts of her she had still been the timid girl in a black shawl with her hair long and worn in a bun.

  Her smart appearance and easy confident manner as she chatted to the woman had taken him by surprise. Evidently she had forgotten all about him and made a good life for herself, he thought, and the best thing he could do was to keep out of it.

  I didn’t expect her to forgive and forget, like, he thought. I just wanted to see she was all right, her and Tommy, and leave them some money.

  In his heart though Sam knew that there had always been a small unquenchable hope that some day he and Ellie and Tommy would be a family again.

  Sick at heart, he went directly to Lime Street Station. It was only when he was sitting in the train that he began to feel angry.

  Why am I thinking about Ellie forgiving me? he thought. What about me? It was me finding out she’d tricked me that started all the trouble. His anger only lasted for a short time then softer feelings prevailed.

  Hadn’t he decided long ago that Ellie had been tricked too in some way? It was that wicked old bitch Janey, he thought. She was at the bottom of it all.

  At some point in his journey he realised that he felt weak with hunger and managed to get a mug of tea and some sandwiches, but by the time he reached his room he was exhausted.

  In spite of that he sat down and wrote to Chancer of what he had seen. ‘So that’s that,’ he wrote. ‘Now I know that Ellie has made a new life for herself and it’s up to me to do the same.’

  He slept heavily and woke determined to make a success of his life. If I ever see her again she’ll see I can do well for myself too, he promised himself.

  Sam threw himself into his work and worked long hours. Overtime was readily available and Sam took as much as he could. He still lived frugally, rarely going for a drink and still staying in the cheap boarding house, but amassing money for his private dream.

  At supper one night in the boarding house the talk had turned to a local successful businessman, who had died leaving a fortune.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ one of the boarders said. ‘It’s a true saying, no man ever made a fortune working for another man.’

  The remark stayed in Sam’s mind and fuelled his ambition. Although the factory was booming now he looked ahead to the end of the war when it would probably have to dismiss many of the workers.

  If he could start his own business he could prepare for the day when war contracts were finished but repair work was still needed.

  A man he worked with, an excellent mechanic, often complained about the inefficiency of the works.

  ‘If I ran this place I’d have none of this,’ he told Sam. ‘None of the scamping jobs and skiving in the toilets that goes on here. I’d have a good job done in fairness to the lads who’ll use this stuff. I’ve got a lad overseas myself and it makes me mad to see what’s passed here.’

  Stan Riley was married but his wife was on war work too and their son overseas was the only one so Sam thought he must have a tidy nest egg like himself. He considered suggesting that they started up together but first he went to ask the advice of his bank manager.

  I’m thinking that Ellie’s changed, but I must’ve changed myself, he thought as he was ushered into the manager’s office, and sat down feeling quite at ease.

  The manager sent for Sam’s account and after studying it approved of Sam’s idea of starting up on his own or in partnership with Riley.

  ‘I think a partnership might be wiser,’ he said. His eyelids had flickered when Sam mentioned Riley and Sam felt sure that he knew his financial state although he was discreetly silent about it.

  Sam asked Riley out for a drink and put the idea to him and the other man was enthusiastic. They decided that after Riley had talked it over with his wife he and Sam would go together to see the bank manager.

  It was a fruitful meeting. The bank manager told them he had made some enquiries and that there was m
ore war work than could be handled so there was room for another workshop.

  ‘The Ministry of Supply handles all that,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you the name of a man who can advise you how to approach the department about sub-contract work.’

  ‘My wife’s brother drives for him,’ Stan Riley exclaimed when he heard the name.

  ‘Very useful,’ the manager said dryly.

  The manager advised them to see a solicitor and have a contract drawn up. ‘I know you are both men of integrity,’ he said, ‘but snags arise and a contract is very useful.’ He also gave them the name of a solicitor.

  ‘And I suppose the solicitor gives his clients the name of a good bank manager,’ Sam said with a grin after they left.

  Stan Riley invited him to come back with him and meet his wife. ‘She’s as keen on the idea as I am,’ he said. ‘So I think she should meet my partner.’

  Mrs Riley was still wearing the overall and turban she wore for work when they arrived at the house but she welcomed Sam warmly.

  ‘I’ve just got in,’ she said. ‘I’ll just wash then we’ll have a bit of dinner and you can tell me how you got on.’

  ‘Famous,’ Stan said. ‘There’ll be no stopping us now, will there, Sam?’

  Mrs Riley produced a savoury hotpot and insisted that Sam joined them for the meal and memories of Nellie’s hotpots flooded back to Sam. He said little at first but Mrs Riley talked so much that his silence was not noticed.

  When she heard the name of the man the bank manager advised them to approach she exclaimed immediately, ‘Our Henry’s been his chauffeur for years. He’ll fix it up.’

  It was general knowledge that Sam had travelled widely in America and Canada and because of this he found that people expected him to be more knowledgeable and sophisticated than he felt himself to be. Nevertheless the fact that he was treated with respect gave him confidence and he was surprised to find how easily he could grasp the intricacies of setting up a business.