A Hopscotch Summer (13 page)

He picked up Violet in one arm and the bag in the other.

‘Open the door,’ he ordered.

Cynthia did so, gazing back at her children.

‘Go on – out, woman!’

Her distraught eyes drank in their tear-stained faces. ‘I’ll be back soon, little’uns. Take care of each other!’

With tears rolling down her cheeks, Cynthia was urged out through the front door by her husband, the children’s cries following her leaden steps along the freezing street.

‘Em – oi, Em! You coming to play?’

Em had just come out of the house when she was hailed by a group of girls from school. They were squatting on the pavement playing jack stones, the latest craze to hit the neighbourhood.

Em pretended she didn’t hear, immediately wishing she could escape indoors again. Katie O’Neill was among the girls, though she had not been the one who shouted. Of course not, Em thought sourly. Katie wouldn’t have anything to do with her now. It was a long time since Em had been out to the Girls’ Brigade or anything like that.

‘Em?’

She shook her head, hurrying past. ‘Can’t – I got to go somewhere.’

‘Be like that, then,’ the girl said, but not nastily. Katie didn’t even look up. She kept her head down so low that the ends of her plaits were dragging on the pavement. The girls went back to their game, throwing a stone in the air and trying to pick up another of the five before it hit the ground.

The street was humming with life and most of the neighbourhood children were outside, shooed from under their mothers’ heels. The sun was sinking low, though well disguised with a pall of grey cloud, and a mean wind was blowing the smoke from the chimneys to one side. Em put her head down, hugging herself in her thin jersey as she hurried to Mrs Button’s shop. As she got to the door, Mrs Button was standing there about to close up. Bullseye the dog was peering out from behind her skirts.

‘Ah – so you’ve come, ’ave yer?’ she said, her chins wobbling cheerfully. She led Em into the little house. ‘I was about to shut up for the night. In fact I’d just said to my Stanley, “I think I’ll shut up shop,” so you’ve come just in time – don’t mind the dog, ’e’ll only sniff at yer – not that I wouldn’t open the door to yer, but Stanley ain’t too keen on callers after hours. ’E says ’e wants me all to ’imself then!’

‘Quite right!’ Stanley Button’s jovial voice called from out the back somewhere. ‘Who is it, Jen?’

‘It’s little Em Brown – you know, from over the road.’

‘Oh ar,’ Stanley said. ‘Well, I’m sure you’ve got summat for the wench, ain’t yer, Jen?’

Everyone knew there was something badly wrong with her mother by now, Em realized, or they thought they knew and made up the rest. Some were very kind. Others were not and seized on the opportunity to look down on someone else’s misfortunes. Em’s heart warmed at the sound of Stanley Button’s kindness. Bullseye kept gently pushing his wet nose into her hand and she patted him, enjoying the feel of his wiry coat. There was a smell of bleach in the room.

‘Oh, you ain’t come in vain, bab. I’ve a couple of things for yer.’ With a grunt Jenny Button bent down to retrieve a small paper package from under the counter.

‘There ain’t no bread left today but there’s a couple of cakes for you and yer dad. What d’yer say?’

‘Thank you,’ Em said politely, as her mother had taught her. ‘It’s very nice of you.’

‘Well, there ain’t much I can do but a bit of cake always helps to cheer you up, that’s what I say.’

Em bought the family’s bread from Mrs Button as usual in the morning, but for a week now she had been telling Em to come back at the end of the day to see if she had any leftovers. It was her way of helping.

‘Any news of your mother?’

Miserably, Em shook her head. She was back to her burden of care in the house, though she had managed to get to school three times. Bob had told her to go.

‘We’ll ’ave that nosy bugger from the Corporation round, else . . .’ They didn’t think the School Board man would take notice if she stayed at home for wash day and another day in the week, so long as she was there most of the time.

‘And how’re you managing?’ Mrs Button asked. ‘It’s hard on yer, bab, that it is. You’re a poor skinny little waif as it is. You need feeding up.’

Em hung her head. She couldn’t explain to Mrs Button just how alone she felt, trying to be housekeeper and mother to her brother and sister when all she ached for herself was her mom back, taking care of them.

‘Poor little things,’ Mrs Button said. Then, as if on impulse, she suddenly added, ‘’Ere, now you come through here with me a minute. I’ve got summat to show yer’ll lift your spirits.’

To her surprise, Mrs Button led her though to the back room. Em had never been in there before, and she looked round curiously. A large part of the room was taken up with a big double bed, pushed into the corner by the window. Stanley Button, a pink, plump little man, was sitting in a chair which was squeezed in between the bed and the hearth, and he was reading his paper. His wheelchair was in front of him, between him and another easy chair, and it was acting as a table, with an empty cup and saucer resting in the seat. Right in the corner, behind him, was a small table with a cage on it, in which were perched two chattering green budgerigars.

‘I know it’s a bit of a squeeze,’ Jenny Button explained, seeing Em’s surprise. ‘We have to stop down here, see, cos my Stanley can’t do stairs. I’ve got my little bakehouse ouot the back, see? And I keep my stores and suchlike up there. But down here it’s the menagerie!’ She shook with laughter at this.

Em nodded and smiled at Stanley Button, who had looked up in surprise. His blue eyes were friendly.

‘Well, you’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he said amiably. ‘All right, are yer, bab? See my little pals? Peter and Poll, I call them. Don’t know if they’re boys or girls or what!’ He gave a wheezing laugh. Em gazed fascinated at the birds and their beady eyes seemed to stare back at her.

‘Thought I’d show it her,’ Mrs Button said with a significant nod towards the back door. ‘I shan’t be long, Stanley.’

‘That’s all right.’ He smiled and winked at Em. He reminded her of a baby because he was so round and chubby and had only a thin fluff of hair. She felt sorry for him because his legs didn’t work.

With Bullseye shadowing their steps, Mrs Button led Em out into a tiny yard at the back, with the little brewhouse where she baked at one side. Apart from a strip across the middle, above which hung a sagging clothes line, there was no space to move, as the place was absolutely crammed on all sides with pots full of plants. Em’s eyes widened in amazement.

‘See, I like my flowers,’ Jenny Button said, taking Em round them as if introducing her to friends of hers. Bullseye wandered into a corner and cocked his leg. ‘Dirty boy,’ Mrs Button tutted. ‘See, here I’ve got my herbs – rosemary, mint, sage . . . Then here’s my pretty flowers for the summer. But this is my favourite – look at her.’

In the corner stood a wide pot containing a shrub with glossy green leaves and tight buds, at the tip of which peeped the tips of crimson flowers.

‘You wait – come back after Christmas and she’ll be a beauty, all blooms,’ Mrs Button said. She spoke about her flowers so lovingly as if they were children.

‘It’s lovely,’ Em said shyly.

‘She’s called a camellia,’ she was told. ‘My little camellia. You come back and see her when she’s in flower.’

‘I will,’ Em said.

She left, holding her packet of cake, feeling a little comforted. As she was going back along the road she saw there were people standing outside her house. Narrowing her eyes she peered to try and see who it was. Her father was one side of the conversation. She noticed then, with a tiny part of her mind, that he looked different. It was the way he was standing – upright, attentive, handsome again, not like the weary, wilting man they mostly saw these days. He had just come back from work and he was talking to the widow lady from round the corner, Flossie Dawson. As Em crossed the road and came closer she saw that there was also a girl with them. The girl saw Em coming and Em felt herself being stared at. She was older than Em, with a pale oval face and straight brown hair, not black like her mother’s, and red-rimmed eyes that made Em think of a rabbit. Em also saw that the dark red coat she was wearing was lovely and warm and soft-looking so that she almost wanted to stroke it. But perched on her hair was a knitted hat in a bright, vicious green. Bogey-coloured, Em thought. Why did she wear that with that nice coat?

They all noticed Em’s arrival.

‘’Ere’s one of mine,’ Bob said. ‘Awright, love? This is Em – ’er’s seven.’

‘Eight. Nearly nine,’ Em corrected him crossly.

‘Oh ar – so you are!’ Bob laughed. He sounded more jovial and relaxed than he had in ages. ‘I lost count!’

‘Oh, I’m sure you haven’t really!’ Mrs Dawson gave a laugh that gurgled like a stream. She obviously thought it impossible that anyone could forget their child’s age. Em found herself being observed.

Close up she realized that Flossie Dawson was shorter in stature than she seemed, as if the strength of her personality somehow added to her height. Her black hair was, as ever, tucked under the black cloche hat with its white band and narrow brim, from under which her eyes took in Em with a teasing expression. She had a healthy, pink complexion and prominent cheekbones, the left one of which was marked by a mole. Em noticed the shine on her black button-up boots, and her own scuffed, charity
Mail
boots suddenly felt dreadfully tatty in comparison.

‘Nice to meet you, Em,’ Mrs Dawson said, in a tinkling voice. ‘Aren’t you a pretty little girl? I’ve seen you in the baker’s shop, haven’t I?’

Overwhelmed by the woman’s vivacious attention, and her genteel accent, Em just nodded shyly.

‘Say summat, Em,’ her father urged. Em could feel the girl staring at her. It wasn’t a very nice stare. It matched her nasty hat.

‘Yes,’ Em murmured.

‘Well, this is my daughter, Daisy,’ Mrs Dawson said, her hand on her daughter’s back to propel her forward. ‘Daisy’s a bit older than you, dear, she’s thirteen. Say hello, Daisy.’

‘Hello,’ Daisy said sulkily, as if speaking to Em was completely beneath her.

Em said hello back with as little enthusiasm.

‘Goodness me!’ The woman laughed. ‘They’re not very forthcoming at this age, are they? Anyway, I mustn’t stand here idling all day. It’s been very nice to meet you, Mr Brown. No doubt we’ll meet again.’

‘Yes,’ Bob said, rather gushingly. ‘Well, yes – I hope so.’

Em stood beside him as they watched the mother and daughter walk down the street. Em looked up at her father, a question that she had never asked before forming in her mind.

‘Dad – are we poor?’

He barely seemed to hear her. ‘What?’ he asked vaguely, still staring after the shapely Mrs Dawson. Em tugged on his hand and repeated the question.

He looked down at her, trying to make sense of what she was asking.

‘Well, we ain’t living in a palace, that’s for sure.’ He stroked a hand over his stubbly chin.

‘No, but are we?’ It had felt as if Mrs Dawson was above them in some way and she wanted to know why.

‘We ain’t the poorest – not like them’s on the Parish, like, with all them Means Test meddlers coming in their ’ouses . . . I s’pose you’d ’ave to say we’re middling.’ His face, quite lit up during the conversation, clouded again and his body seemed to sag as he came back to the sorrow and worry of his daily reality. ‘You got the tea on?’ he asked.

Somehow they’d got through the next weekend. Em found herself on her own with Joyce and Sid and they went and played outside. Bob took himself off, unshaven, to the pub both days, came home and slept away the afternoon. His wife’s absence had floored him. He seemed scarcely capable of being a father to the three of them, let alone trying to be a mother as well.

On the Monday Em stayed at home for wash day. It was a cold, miserable morning and the water heating in the copper gave off clouds of steam which wafted out through the open back door. Sid was at school and Joyce had gone grizzling round to Dot’s.

‘Don’t wanna go!’ she cried. ‘Don’t like Nance, she’s nasty to me!’

‘Don’t be so silly,’ Em said, trying to sound grown-up and in command. ‘You and Nance are best friends.’

‘No!’ Joycie wailed. ‘She’s nasty – she keeps pinching me!’

Em dragged her round there all the same. These days Joyce was not the sunny little sister she remembered. Her face often wore a woeful, sulky expression and Em found more and more she was having to tell Joyce off and put up with her tantrums. What with that and Sid’s bedwetting and bad dreams, her own nerves were badly frayed. All she could think of was trying to do everything she knew Mom would want her to do, to try and keep her bereft family together.

She gathered up the clothes for washing, dragged the bedding down from upstairs. Each day now she exchanged the threadbare sheet from Sid’s bed with that of hers and Joyce’s as Sid had taken up permanent residence in bed with them anyway. Every morning they were all drenched in his urine and Joyce would scream and cry and say she didn’t want her ‘smelly brother’ in bed with them. Em bore it all quietly. There wasn’t anyone she could appeal to anyway. Her father was numb with his own misery. But the sheets badly needed a proper wash and a constant aroma of urine hung over the bedroom. Sometimes Em felt like giving up, but Mom was proud that they slept in beds with sheets on.

She sorted the dark clothes from the white ones. She was just about to plunge the whites into the hot water when she heard a timid knock at the door. On her hands and knees in the scullery she hesitated, her heart beating faster. It wasn’t Dot’s knock – she always came straight in, ‘cooee-ing’ as she did so. And it didn’t sound like the School Board man either; he knocked as if he had a right to come in.

She crept to the front and peered out. Molly was on the doorstep. Em breathed out with relief and opened up.

‘What’re you doing here?’

Molly was looking nervously up and down the street. ‘Can I come in?’

Em stood back to let Molly in and quickly shut the door. ‘Why ain’t you at school?’

Molly’s face so often wore a blank, self-protecting expression, but now she looked hunted. ‘Our mom doesn’t know I’m ’ere . . . I didn’t want to go to school.’ Now she looked upset. ‘Can I stop ’ere instead?’

‘Won’t your mom find out?’ The thought of Iris Fox in a rage was something Em found terrifying. But she found she wanted Molly to stay. She was glad of the company.

Molly shrugged. ‘Not if you don’t tell ’er. You doing the washing? I’ll help yer.’

Suddenly the thought of the long, lonely day didn’t seem so bad. The girls rolled up their sleeves. Molly was wearing a thick brown skirt that was too long for her and got in the way so she tucked it up, pushing the hem up inside her bloomers, and the two of them got to work with the dolly and maiding tub and mangle. Em found that Molly was surprisingly strong and they managed to get the washing done without flooding the place as much as Em did on her own. Some of the time they laughed and joked or sang snatches of songs. They played a guessing game, ‘Guess what I’m thinking of: is it animal, vegetable or mineral?’

‘When’s yer mom coming back?’ Molly asked while they were pegging out clothes across the yard in the cold wind.

‘Dunno. Soon.’ Em tried to sound nonchalant, reaching up to peg out Bob’s shirt. ‘She’s gone to stay with her sister for a bit, for a rest.’

‘Our mom says your mom’s a loony and ’er’s never coming back.’

Blood rushed to Em’s cheeks. ‘No, she’s not!’ she shouted, on the point of hurling the rest of the pegs in Molly’s face. ‘Don’t you say nasty things about my mom! You say that again and I’ll slap yer!’

Molly looked genuinely taken aback. ‘I dain’t mean to be nasty – that’s what Mom said, that’s all.’

‘She doesn’t know anything. She’s a fat cow!’

‘Don’t call my mom a cow!’

‘Well, she is – she’s a fat, soppy, ruddy cow!’ Em felt a strange exaltation at the language she was using. If Mom could have heard her she’d have been for it all right! ‘And you can bugger off home – I don’t want your help. I never asked you to come, did I?’

Molly threw to the ground the pegs she was holding and disappeared inside. Em stared after her, close to tear, her chest heaving. How
dare
Molly say that – and her horrible bullying mother? She wanted to roar and shout and hit something. But the anger quickly passed; and now that Molly had gone and she was alone, the tears washed down her cheeks. She dropped the peg bag and went and slid down against the rough brick wall, curled up so that her arms were clutched round her legs, head leaning on her bony knees.

‘I hate her!’ she raged against Molly’s mother. ‘She’s a cow, a fat stupid
cow
!’

The sobs were wrenched out of her and for once she gave in to them. She seldom cried, because most of the time she was trying so hard, doing everything, trying to be a mom to Sid and Joycie and look after her dad, who was not the big strong man she had always thought he was, but fragile as a paper flower. That was as frightening as all the rest of it.

At last she raised her head, coming back out of her darkness with her face pink and stained. Startled, she realized that Molly was squatting beside her, looking at her with sad, bewildered eyes.

‘You thought I’d gone home, but I can’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t go now – Mom’d beat me. What’s up, Em? I’ve never seen you cry before.’

Em could hardly trust herself to speak, but Molly had seen her crying already and the truth poured out. ‘I j-just w-want everything back how it was. I want my mom . . .’ More tears ran down her cheeks though she tried to stop them.

Molly moved closer and sat right up close. Even with her blocked nose, Em caught a whiff of her, like the smell of Sid’s sheet. But it was comforting, her sitting there like that.

‘I’ll stay with yer,’ was all Molly said. ‘I’ll be your friend.’

Em looked at her and solemnly nodded.

Molly fumbled in the pocket of her once-white blouse.

‘D’yer wanna play?’

On her hand lay five stones. Em nodded again.

Molly stayed all day while the washing dried slowly in the cold. Sid came back from school, quiet now, not roaring in through the door shouting ‘Mom – what’s to eat? Can I have a piece?’ Normally he could be sure that Cynthia would send him out again with a ‘piece’ – a slice off the loaf with a scraping of margarine and, if it really was his lucky day, a sparse sprinkling of sugar as well.

But today he came in quietly and said sullenly, ‘I’m hungry.’

‘Have these,’ Em said, giving him some broken biscuits Dot had bought for them from the Bull Ring. ‘Say ta!’ she said crossly as he snatched them from her and crammed them into his mouth, disappearing through the door again to the playground of the street.

Dot had taught her how to make stew and she had it all ready by the time Bob was due home. Molly had slunk off home to pretend she had been at school all day. ‘I’ll come another day,’ she said.

While she was frying up an onion, Em caught her right index finger on the scalding side of the pan and a blister came up which she wrapped in a piece of rag, feeling sorry for herself. Once the stew was bubbling on the range she went to the window, still nursing her throbbing finger. It was time Joycie came home, and Dad.

Pushing aside the greying net curtain she looked out. Her attention was drawn immediately by a smiling couple just along the street. It took her seconds to realize that the man, looking vivacious in a way he never did at any other time now, was her father and the lady was Mrs Dawson. This time there was no sign of snotty-faced Daisy. Bob and the woman seemed to be deep in conversation. Mrs Dawson was smiling. Raising a hand she fiddled with the band on her hat. Em saw that her lips were painted red, not glaringly, but you could see there was lipstick. Em noticed she had nice even teeth. She watched her father’s face. He was transformed by the woman’s company. His smiles made Em go cold inside, though she couldn’t have said why. Grown-up ways were hard to understand. But there was too much in Mrs Dawson’s manner and in his smile for polite conversation.

A few moments later they parted, Bob raising his cap and nodding. Flossie Dawson fiddled coquettishly with her hat again and turned back along Kenilworth Street with her brisk, graceful walk.

‘Got the dinner on?’ Bob greeted Em as he came in, humming a tune and hanging up his cap. The smiles had gone but something of his cheerfulness lasted for a time. ‘Smells a bit of all right, wench. Is it ready? I’ll get that down me – then I’m off to the Crown.’