Tuppence To Spend (8 page)

‘Hello, Dad, it’s only me. Jane sent you her love and says she’ll pop in tomorrow, and I’ve got some lovely big eggs, a couple of their hens have just come on to lay early and she saved them specially for you. And our Lizzie’s walked back with me to say hello. She heard from Alec today and he’s—’

She pushed open the living-room door and walked in, then stopped short. Lizzie, still struggling with a boot, heard her gasp.

‘
Dad
!’

‘What is it, Auntie?’ A cold dread gripped her and she jerked the boot off and left it where it fell. ‘What’s happened?’

‘It’s Dad,’ Ruth whispered. ‘Oh,
Lizzie
…’

Lizzie peered over her aunt’s shoulder. Already half prepared for what she would see, the sight of her grandfather, lying on the floor with his neck twisted and his eyes rolled upwards, still came as a shock. She let out a little cry and tried to push into the room, but Ruth was there before her. She ran to kneel beside his body, laying her head to his chest and feeling for a pulse in his wrist. Lizzie, her own heart thudding, stared at her with frightened eyes.

‘He’s not dead? He’s not, is he, Auntie?’

Ruth laid his hand gently on his breast. She looked at Lizzie and nodded, her eyes filling with tears.

‘I knew it the minute I saw him. It must have been another stroke – only just after Mrs Perkins had been in, I should think. He’s still warm, see. Oh, Dad …’ She gazed down at him, her lips drawn in and her eyes and nose wrinkled with grief. ‘Oh,
Dad
…’

‘Poor Grandad,’ Lizzie said softly. ‘Poor, poor Grandad.’

They sat for a few moments, gazing at the old face that had been so familiar to them and so dear. He had been with
them all their lives, first as a young, strong father, then as an ageing grandfather but still hale enough to do a good day’s work, until the stroke had bound him to his chair. They would miss him dreadfully and so, they knew, would the whole village. Joe Sellers had known everyone and been everyone’s friend. Bridge End would be a poorer place without him.

Ruth closed his eyes gently and looked in her purse for two pennies to lay on them. ‘I’ll have to go and tell the rector. And I suppose I should fetch the doctor in too, since Dad’s been under him for the past few months. And there’s our Jane, she’s got to know, and we’ll have to get the funeral arranged. There’s a lot to see to …’

‘And I’ll see to it,’ Lizzie said quietly. ‘I’ll go and see the rector and the doctor, and then I’ll go home and fetch Mum and Dad. We’ll all come down and be with you, and I’ll stop the night too, if you want me. We can think about the funeral tomorrow. We’ll all help, Auntie, you know that.’

Ruth nodded. ‘I know, love. I know. You’re a good girl and Jane’s the best sister anyone could ever want. But there’s one thing I do want to do myself. I’ll lay him out.’ Gently, as if she were still taking care not to hurt him, she straightened the twisted body. ‘It’s the last thing I can do for him, poor old soul.’

Lizzie pulled on her boots and scarf again and hurried out into the storm, knowing that for a little while Ruth wanted to be alone with her father. She could sit here beside him, in front of the fire Mrs Perkins had made up, and stroke the thin grey hair and look at the face she had known since she was a baby, and give him her thoughts and her prayers. Soon enough his colour would all have gone and his flesh would cool and harden. But for a little while it would be as if he were just asleep.

As she sat there, Ruth heard Silver scuffle and scratch in the kitchen. He’d be wanting his sunflower seeds, she
thought, and was glad she still had one living being to look after. She stroked her father’s head and bent to lay a soft farewell kiss on his forehead.

‘
Poor
old Joe,’ Silver said mournfully from the kitchen. ‘
Poor
old Joe … You old bugger, you!’

As Ruth had said, snow in Portsmouth was very different from in the country, its pristine whiteness quickly rimed with black from the soot of many fires and the dirt of passing vehicles. On the roads it turned to slush and the slush then froze into grubby ridges of ice. The pavements were death traps, and worse where the children turned them into polished slides.

A lot of Portsmouth children didn’t go back to the country. There hadn’t been any bombs and once they’d come home it didn’t seem worth going through all that upheaval again. They roamed the streets, starting up snowball fights and terrorising passers-by. The schools, commandeered for first-aid posts or war offices, were barred to them and although a scheme had begun for holding classes in people’s front rooms, it was difficult to pin down the pupils.

Micky Baxter, who had hardly ever gone to school even before the war started, now ignored it completely. With most of the other April Grove children away, he took to hanging about outside number 2, waiting for Sammy to come out to do the shopping, and fell into step with him, kicking his feet in the slush as they walked up October Street. ‘What’re you going for today?’

‘I got to get a cabbage and some potatoes, and then ask Mr Hines for some mince. We’re having shepherd’s pie.’

‘I don’t mind shepherd’s pie,’ Micky said. ‘We has that sometimes, with peas. I like the crunchy bits round the edges.’

Sammy said nothing. He and Gordon argued sometimes over those bits, until their father told them to shut up. Usually, Gordon got them but Nora would slip a few bits on to Sammy’s plate if she could.

‘I’m going down Charlotte Street in a bit,’ Micky said, referring to the market street behind Commercial Road. ‘I know a bloke there that gives me stuff free – cabbages and carrots, whatever’s going. You could come too if you like.’

Sammy shook his head. Nora had told him several times not to go anywhere with Micky Baxter. She didn’t like Gordon going with him either, even though Gordon was older, but Gordon didn’t take any notice. ‘I’ve got to go home with the meat and stuff.’

‘Well, after that then. I’ll wait for you.’

‘I don’t know.’ Suddenly, Sammy longed to go. He was tired of having no one to play with and Micky carried an aura of excitement and danger with him. ‘What about those gold necklaces? Do you get them down Charlotte Street?’

Micky gave him a sly glance. ‘Why, d’you want one?’

‘I wouldn’t mind. I’d like to give Mum a gold necklace. You said you and Gordon could get some, Christmas Day, but you never.’

‘No, well, the place wasn’t open, see.’ Micky looked consideringly at Sammy. ‘Anyway, like I said, you’re too little. You’d better tell your Gordon to come down my house when he gets home from work one day.’

‘But
I
want to get one.’ They were at the butcher’s shop now and Sammy stared at Micky. ‘Please. I want to give my mum a gold necklace.’

Micky looked at him again, narrowing his eyes. ‘Well, maybe you could be useful. Being little – you could get into places—’ He broke off abruptly. ‘Tell you what. Go and get your meat and stuff, and I’ll meet you in half an hour. We’ll go down Charlotte Street and p’raps I’ll show you the gold necklaces … But better not tell your mum, all right?’

Sammy nodded doubtfully. He didn’t much like keeping
secrets from his mother, yet the thought that he was doing something secret to get her such a present as a gold necklace made him feel grown-up and powerful. He took his place at the end of the queue standing outside the butcher’s shop, his heart thumping a little with excitement.

Mr Hines didn’t have any mince and Sammy had to be satisfied with some neck of mutton. He came out and found Micky sitting on a wall, waiting for him.

‘Here you are,’ Micky said, ‘here’s your cabbage.’ He thrust it at Sammy, together with half a dozen carrots. ‘They didn’t cost nothing, so we can use the money to buy sweets.’

Sammy stared at him. ‘How’d you get them for nothing?’

Micky gave him a scornful glance. ‘How d’you think? I went in and arsked, didn’t I?’ He burst out laughing at the expression on Sammy’s face. ‘Well, how d’you
think
I got them? Old man Atkinson wouldn’t give his grandmother a free carrot, not if she was dying. I
pinched
’em. It was easy – the shop was full of old women all doing their shopping and I just nipped in and grabbed what I could. I got some apples too.’ He took one from his pocket and bit into it.

‘But that’s
stealing
,’ Sammy said.

‘So what? Don’t tell me you never pinched nothing from a shop.’

Sammy opened his mouth to deny it, then remembered a day, several years ago, when he’d been in the paper shop with his mother and taken a small bar of chocolate from the counter. He hadn’t even realised it was stealing at the time but Mr Brunner had noticed and snapped sharply at him to put it back, and his mother had been crosser than he’d ever known her. She’d marched him home and given him a good telling-off, ending up by saying he could go to prison for stealing, and for over a week he’d lived in fear of a policeman coming to take him away. He’d never taken anything since.

Micky was watching him, a sly grin on his face. ‘See?
You can’t. Anyway, your Gordon wouldn’t be so bothered. Catch him passing up the chance of getting something for nothing.’

Sammy looked at him, then at at the cabbage in his hands. A slow realisation crept over him. ‘The gold necklaces …’

‘Well, what d’you think?’ Micky threw away his apple core and jumped down from the wall. ‘Well, are you coming or not? You’d better take that stuff home first. We’ll use the money to go on the bus if it’s too far for you to walk to Charlotte Street.’

Sammy looked at the cabbage again. He thought of giving his mother a gold necklace, imagining the pleasure and excitement in her face as she opened the box, and he longed to be able to give her that pleasure. Then he remembered the bar of chocolate in Mr Brunner’s shop and the look on her face as she’d scolded him, and his own fear as he waited for a policeman to come, and he made up his mind.

He handed the cabbage back to Micky. ‘I’ve got to do my mum’s shopping. She wouldn’t like me pinching stuff and Mrs Atkinson’s her friend. I can’t come with you.’

Micky’s scorn deepened. ‘You won’t get no gold necklace, then. Your Gordon’ll get her one, but
you
never won’t –’cause you’re a scaredy-cat, that’s what you are, a scaredy-cat and a baby!’ He grabbed the vegetables and marched away. ‘
My
mum’ll take ’em and be glad of ’em,
she
won’t care where they come from. And I’ll get her another necklace too. There’s plenty of other kids’ll come with me.’ He turned to sneer at Sammy again. ‘Baby! Cissy! Mummy’s little darling! Yah!’

Sammy watched him go. He picked up his shopping bag and trailed off to the greengrocer’s shop to join another queue. He felt miserable and despised, and the fact that he’d done what his mother would have wanted didn’t seem to help at all. All he could think of was that he’d never be
able to give her a gold necklace now. He would never be able to put that look of pleasure and delight on her face.

I thought being good was supposed to make you feel better, he thought as he finally reached the top of the queue and asked for a cabbage and a pound of carrots, none of them as good as the ones Micky had offered him. That’s what they told us in Sunday School, and the man said it again in church when me and Mum went on Christmas Day. But it doesn’t. It just makes you feel even more miserable. And Micky Baxter’ll never want to play with me again.

Still, he thought a little more cheerfully as he trudged back down through the frozen slush of October Street, at least there won’t be a policeman coming for me. And I won’t have to go to prison …

Nora Hodges, weaker than ever, spent almost all her time in bed these days and only struggled downstairs in the evenings to get a meal ready for her husband. Sammy did his best to look after her, bringing her thick, uneven slices of bread spread with margarine and fish paste or jam, and cups of lukewarm tea. She tried to eat his offerings but as often as not he would creep upstairs again later to find the teacup still half full and a partly eaten sandwich on the plate. He took them down and finished them off himself by the cold grate, then cleared the ashes out of the fireplace and got the fire going for her to come down to. He still went round all the neighbours every day, asking for errands to run, but now that there were more children at home he found his trade falling off.

Sammy had only one shirt and one pair of flannel shorts, both thin and ragged, and an old woollen jersey several sizes too big which served as a jacket. It wasn’t enough to keep out the bitter cold and one day Nora sent him out to get some brown paper. He spent a penny of his errand money to buy some from the rag and bone man; when he
took it home, Nora tore it into the shape of a vest and sewed it round his thin chest to wear under the shirt. After that he felt a bit warmer but it wasn’t the same as a good, thick coat.

Dan, who was working long hours at the Camber dock and often had to go to sea for a few days to attend to the engines of the cargo boats that used it, seemed to veer wildly between concern and impatience. He was exhausted by his job, panic-stricken by the war and bewildered by his wife’s illness. He wanted to come home to a bright fire and a good meal, with a wife who was well and strong and would help him to forget, and the reality came as a constant and bitter disappointment. He did not admit, even to himself, how frightened he was by Nora’s weakness. Instead, he took refuge, as he had learned to do years ago, in bad temper.

‘What the hell do you ever
do
to get so tired?’ he demanded when he came in from work, stamping the slushy snow from his boots, and found her lying in the chair. ‘It’s not bloody housework, that’s for sure. The place hasn’t been cleaned since we got here.’

‘I just don’t seem to have the strength …’

‘Strength!’ Dan echoed. ‘What sort of strength d’you need to sweep the floor a bit and make a bloke a cup of tea? I’ve been working my flaming guts out all day down the docks
and
had to walk most of the way home in the blackout because it’s snowing again and the bloody buses aren’t running. I need a bit of comfort when I get home. And I need some grub too. What is it tonight, faggots and chips again?’ He shrugged off his thick working jacket and hung it on the back door, then pulled off his cap and shook the snow off it in a shower of white. His thick black hair was greasy and needed cutting.