A Kiss and a Promise (30 page)

By the time she had reached Schubert Street, however, Ginny had remembered how some of the wives in Victoria Court had grumbled that ‘The old feller drinks half his money and gambles the rest, which is why I has to work, no matter that I’ve got half a dozen kids to look out for.’ Aunt Amy probably took it for granted that Uncle Lewis spent the money on himself. She knew he liked good clothes and always dressed impeccably, went to a good barber to be shaved each day and generally took care of himself.

As she had entered the house on Friday evening, thankful to be out of the biting wind, and smelled the rich aroma of the meat and potato pie, Ginny had decided that at least Uncle Lewis was not wasting his money. It had seemed, to her, very much better that a feller should feed two families rather than pour bevvies down his own throat or gamble his cash away on the horses or in a Pitch and Toss school. As she had settled down at the kitchen table to eat the meal that Aunt Amy had kept hot for her, she had decided that she would definitely visit Aunt Mary as soon as it could be arranged.

Having made up her mind on this point, she had finished her meal and gone to bed without having said a word on the subject to anyone.

‘Ginny! Ginny, I thought you said we was goin’ to see Aunt Mary, but you’ve just walked straight past her canny house, an’ oh, I do love seein’ Aunt Mary, ’cos she gives us nice things an’ lets us play games wi’ her kids. You promised, you did, you know you did!’ It was Ivy, tugging resentfully at her cousin’s arm, and Ginny realised, with some surprise, that the younger girl was right. She had indeed marched straight past the canny house whilst her mind was still occupied with what had happened in Crosby the previous week.

‘Oh, queen, I’m so sorry,’ she said repentantly, clapping a hand to her forehead. ‘I were that engrossed in me own thoughts, I clean forgot where I were goin’.’ She had turned on her heel and retraced her steps. Ruthie’s legs were getting tired and she was dragging on Ginny’s arm and Ginny guessed the child would be glad enough to sit down in Aunt Mary’s kitchen after her long walk; all the children must be quite hungry for they usually went straight home after school and had bread and jam, or a piece of plain cake if their mother had baked one.

Ginny shepherded the children through the canny house, ducking under the long counter where the food was served. Aunt Mary greeted them kindly, for it was a quiet time of day, and accompanied them into the kitchen.

‘Where’s Gran?’ Ginny asked curiously, glancing around her. The kitchen was empty, save for Polly, who sat meekly in a corner, doing a jigsaw on a wooden tray balanced across her small knees. Despite her disabilities, the child was fitting in the pieces both quickly and accurately and looked up and smiled vaguely in the direction of her cousins as they came tumbling into the room. Polly wore thick pebble glasses which made her eyes look enormous, but even so her sight was so poor that Ginny guessed she was putting in the pieces of the jigsaw more by touch than by what she could see of them.

‘Didn’t you see your gran as you came through?’ Aunt Mary said. ‘She’s sittin’ at a table in the corner, gossipin’ with a couple o’ pals. And she’s peelin’ a big barrel o’ spuds at the same time.’

Ginny went back and peered into the canny house. Sure enough, there was Gran, actually doing something for a change. She had not noticed Ginny but continued to work and to talk to the two old shawlies at her table, but it occurred to Ginny at once that Granny Bennett looked healthier and happier than she had ever seen her.

Ginny turned back to the kitchen and beamed at Aunt Mary. ‘She looks grand, an’ real happy, so I won’t disturb her,’ she said. ‘Where’s the twins, Aunt Mary?’

‘They’re playin’ out,’ Aunt Mary replied. She turned to Ginny’s charges. ‘Come up to the table, kids, and I’ll get you your teas.’ She began swiftly placing various ingredients on the sideboard. ‘Well, this
is
a nice surprise! It isn’t often we see you down this way, but your mam’s workin’ late tonight, I dare say.’ She turned to Ginny. ‘Or are you doin’ messages down the Scottie for your Aunt Amy? Ivy, run an’ fetch your cousins, there’s a good gal, then you can all have your teas together.’

Ivy, who had been standing by Polly, stroking the younger girl’s hair and chattering away to her, promptly rushed out of the kitchen, and Aunt Mary took the tray from Polly’s knees, picked the child up and sat her in a chair by the table. Ginny noticed that the chair was the only one with arms and that the arms kept Polly securely in position, for she knew that as a result of a serious illness at birth, Polly could not walk unaided and was usually taken around in a converted pushchair. She also knew that Polly was bright as a button, knowing a great many books by heart when Aunt Mary had only read them to her a couple of times. Because of her disabilities, she did not attend school, but despite the canny house and all her other responsibilities Aunt Mary put aside a period each day during which she was teaching Polly all sorts of things, so that the child was always happily occupied and had little time to brood on her situation.

With tea on the table and the younger children eating and chattering, Aunt Mary gestured to Ginny, drawing her to one end of the kitchen where it was quieter. ‘Everything all right at home, queen? Only, as I said earlier, it ain’t often that you bring the whole fambly down this way and it were clear from the start you’d not come to see your gran! Amy’s a good woman, hard-workin’ an’ that, but no one could call her easy and that sister o’ hers …’ She shook her head and clicked her tongue disapprovingly. ‘Well, least said, soonest mended, I always say. But if there’s anything I can do …’

‘I – I rather wanted a word wi’ you,’ Ginny said hesitantly. ‘There’s something I think you mebbe oughta know, something I found out by accident …’

Aunt Mary looked shrewdly at Ginny’s flushed face. ‘Sometimes, something you find out by accident is best kept to yourself, best forgotten in fact,’ she remarked. ‘Just think on, queen. If you saw someone cheatin’ in a school examination, would you feel it your duty to tell the teacher?’

Ginny shook her head; she had no need to even consider, she knew very well what her reaction would be. She might disapprove strongly, she might say something to the child in question, but she would never, never tell a teacher. Clearly, Aunt Mary could read her reaction in her face for she smiled and patted Ginny’s shoulder.

‘There you are, then. You’d not tell on a pal, you wouldn’t even tell on someone you dislike, if you’re honest. You’re fond of your Uncle Lew and Aunt Amy, aren’t you? Well, you’re right to be fond of them, and if you can’t confide in them, it’s gorra be somethin’ connected wi’ one of them, I suppose.’ She sighed gustily. ‘It’ll be Lew, I reckon, still up to his old tricks.’ Ginny began to speak but her aunt shook her head. ‘No, no, you don’t have to tell me, because if it were something you aren’t meant to know, then I guess it applies to me and George as well. I dare say, though, queen, that every married couple have their disagreements from time to time and mebbe someone marches out an’ goes to the pub, and does somethin’ daft. That’s married life, gal, and married life is something you’ve had no experience of, right? So just you put whatever you saw, or heard, right out of your head an’ gerron with your own life. That’s my advice, chuck. All men are weak, an’ if a woman makes up to ’em when they’s had a bit of a barney at home … well, it don’t mean a thing, it’ll be forgot by next day – unless someone tale-clats an’ makes trouble. See what I mean?’

Ginny nodded slowly, relief washing over her. So Aunt Mary knew what Uncle Lew was up to and was advising Ginny to do just what she realised she most wanted to do; mind her own business and keep quiet. ‘All right then, I’ll keep me gob shut.’

Aunt Mary nodded, satisfied, then turned anxiously back to her niece. ‘I think I’m readin’ you right, chuck, but mebbe I’m not, mebbe it’s somethin’ different. It – it ain’t nothin’
illegal
, is it?’ she hissed beneath her breath. ‘I mean nothin’ that would get the scuffers a-knockin’ on the door?’

Once more, Ginny did not even need to think about it. ‘No, it’s nothing illegal, just – just a bit unusual and like what you said,’ she assured her aunt, choosing her words with care. ‘Something Uncle George would never do,’ she added.

A look of complete comprehension passed over her aunt’s face. ‘Oh, I
see
,’ she breathed. ‘I’ve always known Lew was a great one for the judies when he were in the Navy … oh, don’t you worry your head over that, queen; it don’t mean a bleedin’ thing.’

At home once more in Schubert Street, tucked up in bed with her cousin Ivy’s back snug against her own, Ginny decided that she was glad she had not told on Uncle Lewis. After all, what harm was he doing? And though Aunt Amy seemed to be neither warm nor loving, she was a good deal better than Gran had been. She expected a great deal of her niece, taking it for granted that she would be at her beck and call twenty-four hours a day, but she fed all her family, including Ginny, extremely well, and saw that she was respectably dressed and shod. Ginny often thought, wistfully, of the beautiful shoes which were still, presumably, in the wardrobe at the Waits’ flat in Washington Street. Sometimes she worried that she might outgrow them before she was able to wear them again, but she did not intend to bring them back to Seaforth. Her aunt would think them far too fine for her niece and would probably put them away for Ivy to wear when she was old enough. Aunt Amy provided all the children with plimsolls for school and ugly old boots for winter wear, and now that she came to think of it, Ginny realised that no one in her present school wore shoes as good as those she had left behind. But one day she meant to get back to the Rathbone Street school and her dear Miss Derbyshire, and when she did she would need the shoes again. She had no idea how she was to perform this miracle but remembered how impossible she had once thought it that she should be able to go to school in respectable shoes. Surely, if she was prepared to walk all the way from Seaforth to Rathbone Street, she could find someone willing to take charge of her young cousins to and from school. There were girls in her own class, friendly, pleasant girls, who looked after their younger brothers and sisters. If she managed to earn some money and could offer to pay them, surely one of those girls would be willing to give an eye to the young Bennetts.

Despite her hopes, she had never been able to get back to Rathbone Street on a Saturday, so that she might join Danny at the rag skips, and so had not been able to earn any real money. She had thought that if she woke at the crack of dawn and sneaked down the stairs, she might elude both her cousins and her aunt, but this had not proved to be the case. She had tried it twice; the first time, the Bennetts’ dog, Rufus, a skinny mongrel with so much hair that he looked like an animated hearthrug, had bounded to his feet, yelping with delight. The row had brought Uncle Lewis down, hair on end, a poker in his hand, convinced that they had burglars. She explained, rather lamely, that she needed to go to the lavvy, but Uncle Lewis had reminded her that there were chamber pots under each bed and advised her, curtly, to make use of them rather than disturb the whole house.

That had been appallingly bad luck since Uncle Lewis was almost never at home at weekends; she now knew the reason for his absence and where he went, though she had not done so at the time. He seldom came in for a meal on Friday evening and did not return until late on Sunday. Ginny had known that he had a really lucrative job – he was chief buyer for a firm which manufactured yachts, cruisers and the like, for the holiday market – and thought it just her luck that he should have been at home on that particular Saturday.

She had returned to her bed, red-faced, and next time she tried it, had thought to bribe Rufus with a bone. However, Rufus’s delight over the bone had been almost as noisy as his reaction to her sudden appearance crossing the kitchen, and this time it had been her aunt who had descended the stairs, which meant that Ginny had received a clack round the ear which made her head spin. Clearly, escape in the early hours was out of the question, and the worst of it was, she had had no opportunity to tell her pal that she would not be joining him.

Ivy turned over in bed, pushing the covers impatiently down to waist level, for the night was warm. Ginny sighed, to herself and burrowed her face into her thin flock pillow. Now that the evenings were growing lighter, she thought it might soon be possible to visit her old haunts and explain the circumstances of her new life to the Waits and to Danny. Her aunt had many tasks for her but she was not ungenerous; when Ginny came in, staggering beneath the weight of a large canvas marketing bag, they would check the contents together on the kitchen table and Ginny would hand over whatever change she still had. Invariably, Aunt Amy would push a copper or two back across the table, saying: ‘Buy yourself some toffee or a bag o’ sherbet. You done awright, queen.’

Such praise was delightful to Ginny, quite as welcome as the pennies, and these were not spent on sweets but carefully saved up. When she first came to Schubert Street, she had hidden the money in a hole in the mattress on her side of the bed, but soon realised that this was not necessary. On one occasion, when she and Ivy were turning the mattress, a penny fell out and rolled across the floor and Ivy, pursuing it, gave her big cousin a reproachful look. ‘Why d’you put money in our mattress, Ginny?’ she asked plaintively. ‘Mam will give you a tin if you ask – haven’t you seen our tins on the window sill? Us puts our money away so as we can go to the seaside, and the penny rush on Sat’days, and have some money to buy presents with, birthdays and Christmas. And sweeties, of course,’ she had finished.

Ginny had noticed the tins on the window sill. One had originally contained baked beans, another sardines, and a third, cough drops. Ivy had pointed proudly at the baked bean tin. ‘Mine’s the beans,’ she had announced. ‘Ruthie’s is sardines, ’cos you don’t get much money when you’re only four, and Millie’s is the cough drops. We gerra Sat’day penny, o’ course, but me and Millie has ha’pennies and farthings sometimes when we get messages or when we’re ‘specially good.’ She had turned large blue eyes up to her cousin’s face. ‘Ask Mam to give you a tin.’