A Hopscotch Summer (27 page)

‘Are you back, love?’ he asked shamefully, looking down at the pillow close to her head.

‘I hope so,’ she whispered.

‘Can I – you know?’ The very words made him erect. His hand moved over her breast.

And slowly, tentatively, she inched across the bed towards him.

Now Easter was over it really felt as if spring had begun, mild enough for doors to be left open all along the street. The warm, still air was thick with the sulphurous smells from the gas works and chemicals from factories as Em sat on the front step one afternoon, idly playing with her old cat’s cradle string and looking dreamily about her. It was still the school holidays but she wasn’t in the mood for playing out, like Joyce, Nance and Sid. Joyce and Nancy, both with March birthdays, had just turned five and were making the most of their freedom before starting school. They were all too young for Em. She missed Molly and just felt like staying quiet where she was. Cynthia was sitting feeding Violet from a bottle in the back room and Em could hear a wonderful, miraculous sound: her mother softly humming a lullaby that she had sung to all of them as babies. Em sat drinking in the familiar notes and suddenly found she couldn’t see the string wound round her hands for tears.

‘All right, bab? Nothing the matter is there?’ She hadn’t seen Dot coming, checking that Cynthia was all right as she so often did. Em shook her head, smiling despite her watery eyes. Dot patted her head.

‘Good girl. Thought I’d pop in and see your mom.’ She stepped in past Em. ‘Coo-ee, Cynth! It’s me again! You don’t get rid of me that easily!’

Soon the two women were talking in low voices in the back room and Em heard the sounds of the kettle being put on the stove and cups clinking. She drank in the feeling of life returning to normal. She heard Violet gurgling cheerfully after her feed which made her smile, but then a cold, hard feeling grew inside her because Mom was crying. She did cry sometimes when Dot came and Em hated it. It terrified her.

‘It’s all right, love,’ she heard Dot saying soothingly. ‘It’s not like that. Just give her a chance to settle in again. She knows you’re her mother . . .’

There was more muffled talk, then Em heard Cynthia saying, ‘I’m scared Dot,’ in a high, frightened voice. ‘Sometimes, the way Bob looks at me, I know he’s waiting for me to do or say summat that’ll make him think I’m . . . I don’t want to go back there again.’

‘You’re not going back there, Cynth. You’re doing ever so well.’

‘But it’s Bob . . .’ She lowered her voice a little. ‘It’s not the same. It’s not that he’s unkind – he’s falling over himself to help and that. But he’s not right, as if he’s keeping summat from me and I can’t get through to him properly. Not like it used to be.’

‘Give him a bit of time,’ Dot advised. ‘It’s been hard for ’im. I expect he’s scared you’ll get bad again. You need a bit of time and you’ll feel more yourself again. I know it ain’t easy for you.’

‘Now I’ve got this little one back, I’m never giving
her
up again, or the others. I never want to leave my kids again.’ Her voice sounded stronger suddenly. ‘D’you know, when I was in the asylum, once I could think about anything I kept thinking about our mom. I don’t know why, it was as if it all came back to me again after all these years, how it was when she died and everything. It was a terrible time, Dot, and I’d never given it a thought since, never wanted to go back over it, I s’pose. It all came flooding back and I kept having a weep about it. I couldn’t seem to stop for a bit. Funny really, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe it’ll help,’ Dot said. ‘They say having a babby brings things back.’

‘But it wasn’t as if she was my first!’

‘No, well, there you are. But you seem stronger, Cynth.’

‘I can keep cheerful with the kids, that’s the main thing. But I do get frightened sometimes. It all just wells up.’

Em listened, wanting and half not wanting to hear what was being said. Clouds drifted across the sun, sending diaphanous shadows chasing along the street. The pavement was busy with children, and with housewives coming in and out with shopping bags, chatting by their front steps before going back to the daily grind.

Someone came skipping along the road on the other side, past the pawn shop. Em sat up straight, narrowing her eyes. It couldn’t be, could it?

Then she was sure, and scrambled excitedly to her feet.

‘Molly!’

Molly waved, a grin spreading across her face as she saw Em, and she came running along exuberantly. Em jumped up and down with excitement as well.

‘What’re you doing here? Have you run away again?’

‘No, I just wanted to come and see yer! I got me grandad to give me the bus fare. Mom’d kill me if she knew I was ’ere!’ Molly chattered excitedly. She looked thinner, and there was a shadow round her left eye, the ghost of a bruise. ‘Any road, our mom says she wants to come and live back over this way. She don’t like it up Aston but they’ve got to find somewhere away from this landlord so he don’t find out they’re here.’

‘So you’re coming back?’

‘Might be. I ain’t going to that school over there neither. I went once and I dain’t like it so after that I pretended to go and then I just hung about up the park. They never caught me. I want to come back and go to school with you.’

Em beamed. Seeing Molly felt like another thing returning to normal. Even the familiar aroma that hung around her didn’t matter at all. Molly had shown herself to be a friend, not like some of the others, and that was all that counted.

She thrust her hands towards Molly, the string wrapped round them ready. ‘Here, give us a game!’

In a moment they were lost in playing, their troubles forgotten.

Within a fortnight, the Fox family had moved back to Nechells, this time to a house in a yard off Lupin Street.

‘At least they’re not too close,’ Bob said when Em told him the news. ‘We don’t need that bloody lot round the corner from us.’

‘Molly’s all right,’ Em said. ‘There’s no need to be nasty about her.’

‘Don’t talk back at me like that!’

‘Why not?’ Em wasn’t going to be silenced. ‘She’s my friend.’

‘You’re a cheeky so-and-so these days,’ Bob said. He was riddling the grate as he talked. ‘Well, she may be your friend, but as for the rest of ’em – that old man Rathbone, Iris’s father, he’s a filthy old bugger.’ Bob stopped, as if he’d said too much. ‘It’s Joe I feel sorry for. He used to be a decent bloke before the war did for ’im.’ He wiped his arm over his face. ‘Course, he’s got a few years on me, but I can remember Joe Fox when he was a young’un with the arse hanging out of his trousers.’ He shook his head sorrowfully.

‘Was that before you went to the Home, Dad?’ Em asked. It was so seldom that he ever said anything about his past that she jumped at the opportunity.

‘Yes.’ He turned away, picking up the coal scuttle. ‘Many moons ago.’

The other person who was delighted to see Molly was Jenny Button.

‘You come and see us whenever you like,’ she told her. ‘Stanley and me’ve missed your company. And any trouble, bab – you know where to come.’

‘All right – ta,’ Molly said, beaming at this warm welcome.

Em and Molly often popped in to the Buttons’ now, to collect bread and see the flowers in the back yard which Jenny tended devotedly, and to say hello to Stanley and Bullseye and the budgies. It was a bit further to get to Molly’s, across the other side of Great Lister Street, but Molly ran up to Kenilworth Street to meet Em on the way to school.

Things got back into a routine, much like they used to be. Cynthia was still fragile but she put on a brave face in front of the children, and Em and the others would hardly ever have known if she was having a difficult day, or was in one of her panics. Now they were all back at school, Em had not heard her crying for a long time. She was always there when they came in from school, just like before. Day by day, inch by inch, the family was coming together again, getting back to something like normal, and trying to heal the scars of the past terrible months.

Then, that Sunday evening in April, a month after Cynthia came home, they were all sitting round the table having tea. Bob was standing, carving slices off a little joint of beef, and the room was full of the delicious smells of roast meat and potatoes.

‘There yer go, son, you can get that down yer, give yer muscles of iron!’ Bob put a plate down in front of Sid, who received it eagerly, licking his lips. Cynthia spooned potatoes onto his plate.

‘Roast!’ Sid said in raptures. ‘All Em ever does is nasty boiled ones.’

‘Now, now, Em was doing the best she could, weren’t you, love?’ Cynthia said, seeing Em stick her tongue out at Sid. ‘And I don’t s’pose you gave her much help, young man.’

‘I’m a man,’ Sid said loftily. ‘Men don’t do cooking.’

They were all laughing at this when there came a knocking on the front door. Bob tutted, laying down the carving knife.

‘What a flaming ridiculous time to call. I’ll get rid of ’em. Don’t want anything to spoil our tea, do we?’

A moment later there was a commotion in the front room.

‘I’m coming in, Bob, and you’re not stopping me.’ It was Flossie’s voice, shrill in defiance. The children looked at each other, knowing this was trouble.

‘Who’s that?’ Cynthia frowned. ‘Whatever’s going on?’

Flossie erupted into the room with Bob behind, trying to pull her back.

‘It’s no good, Bob,’ Flossie announced. ‘It’s all got to come out.’ She spoke in a pert, triumphant way. Cynthia, still sitting at the table, stared at her in total bewilderment. ‘You must be Bob’s wife. I’m very sorry to say I’ve got some bad news for you.’ She cast a look at Bob.

‘While you’ve been, er,
away
,’ she began spitefully, ‘I’m afraid you may not have realized that your husband has not been all he seems. You see, Bob and I are in love and he’s been living discreetly with me whenever he could, and he wants to marry me. The fact is,
Mrs Brown
– ’ and here she paused for effect – ‘I’m expecting a child, and it’s Bob’s.’

‘No!’ Bob cried, looking as if he wanted to stuff the words back into Flossie’s mouth. ‘That’s not right, it can’t be! You know that, Floss – I mean, I never . . .’

‘Oh you did, Bob.’ She dropped her voice into the seductive tone she had used with him so often. ‘That last week. Surely you haven’t forgotten?’

There was a look of dawning horror on Bob’s face. God, it was true, of course he hadn’t forgotten, but it was just that couple of times when he hadn’t been able to hold back and pull out when he was at the height of his excitement. She hadn’t done anything to put him off – she’d wanted it too. And she’d said it would be all right! He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, then opened them again to look at Flossie, his face etched with shame and utter defeat.

Everyone was silent. Em watched her mother, barely understanding, but so afraid of the feeling that something bad was about to happen.

Then Cynthia stood up. She seemed ominously calm.

‘Cynth,’ Bob said in warning.

Pushing the chair in under the table, but still holding on to it as if she might at any moment pick it up and throw it, Cynthia faced Flossie Dawson.

‘Now you’ve come and spread your poison,’ she said quietly, ‘you can get out of my house.
Our house
. Go on!’ Her voice began to rise. ‘Just clear off out of here!’

‘You’d best go,’ Bob urged Flossie, who had dropped her ladylike air and looked as if she was spoiling for a fight.

‘I’m not going anywhere!’ she began, but Bob took her by the shoulders and steered her forcibly out of the room, still screeching. ‘You’ve got to see me right. You haven’t heard the end of this! I’m having your baby, I tell you!’

‘Look,’ they heard Bob pleading, ‘this is my family. You didn’t have to come in like this. Why did yer have to do it like this?’

‘Oh, that’s right, have your fun and clear off, leaving me all alone with a child to bring up! And think you can keep it all secret! I thought you were a man, Bob Brown.’

‘Keep yer voice down, Floss, for Christ’s sake!’ Bob’s voice was low and urgent. ‘Look, what d’you want off me? I don’t know what to do.’

‘You’ll have to pay for its upbringing, that’s what, if you’re not going to keep your promises and marry me. You needn’t think you can get away with it. You men are all the same – sow your oats and think you can turn your back on the issue. Well, I’m not standing for being treated like some street whore!’

‘Look, I’ll come and see yer.’ He was speaking very low, hoping they couldn’t hear him, but of course they could. ‘Just leave now, Floss, for God’s sake.’

‘I’m going,’ she declared loudly. ‘But you needn’t think you’re going to worm your way out of this. I want every penny I deserve for the way you’ve treated me – and don’t you forget it.’

The door slammed. Having stood still as a statue while all this was going on, Cynthia suddenly released the back of the chair and strode across the room. The children heard her disappear upstairs. After a few moments, Bob followed her.

Joyce gazed in confusion at Em and Sid. ‘What was Mrs Dawson saying?’ she asked. ‘Is she going to do summat bad to our dad?’

Em, shaking all over, tried to gather her shattered wits to comfort her little sister. ‘No, I don’t suppose so. She’s just in a temper about summat. Don’t worry, Joycie. Let’s let Mom and Dad sort it out. We’ll do the washing-up, shall we?’

‘Is it true?’

Cynthia was sitting on the bed, her back to Bob when he came into their room. He stood by the door, afraid to go in any further. He was astonished, and frightened by her icy calm.