Faded Dreams (21 page)

   Mr Massey was a formidable human being, although with that permanent air of menace,
human
might have been an overstatement. Short and burly with thick white hair, stiff white moustache above flabby purple lips, watery eyes terrifyingly magnified by black-rimmed spectacles searing into the soul of any wrongdoer, eyes that bulged with rage as he whacked his thin flexible cane across small children. Unofficially, he was known as Pa Massey. 

    Ellen was caned for minor misdemeanours at least twice a week but each time her mother saw the straight red lines stinging with pain across her palms the response was, ‘Serves you right, you should be a good girl.’

   Florrie’s only involvement with the school had been when Ellen’s feet were officially measured. (Her 10-year-old feet, already the size of the average woman’s, qualified for extra shoe coupons, and her mother had to be present.)

   Ellen worked hard at her lessons if only to win the approval of her favourite teacher, Miss Shuttleworth. It seemed to her that Miss Shuttleworth was the only teacher in the whole school , even the whole world, who cared about children and treated them with kindness.

   Ellen’s further education - indeed her entire future - was to be determined by the results of The Scholarship Examination.  She had hoped to join Betty at The Blakey Moor School For Girls but all that was before Betty’s budding show business career, before she’d gone off dodging bombs somewhere in the south of England and going to a different school every week. For the very first time Ellen’s dreams started going beyond Blakey Moor. Just supposing…just supposing she was clever enough to pass her Scholarship and go to The Blackburn High School For Girls instead?

   Her mother was off work nursing a hangover when the Examination Day dawned and oblivious to its importance. With stomach churning, and neither expecting nor receiving a word of encouragement, Ellen left for school. After putting every effort into the exam she came home exhausted but exhilarated.

   ‘Mum, I sat my Scholarship today.’

   ‘Did you, love?’ and before she could go on, ‘Fetch me a Cephos and a pot of water cock. My bloody head’s splitting.’

   She unfolded the small oblong packet, refolded it to make a funnel for its contents, tipped them to the back of her tongue and gulped the water.

   ‘Well?’ She made a face and shuddered at the bitter taste. ‘What did you say you did at school?’

   ‘Nothing much.’ Ellen went upstairs and lay on her bed.

*

   The day of the exam results would live in Ellen's memory for the rest of her life. Her mother, again unaware of the day’s significance, was in bed with yet another of her ‘sick headaches’.

   Pa Massey interrupted the lesson halfway though the morning to read out the names of the children who had been successful in The Scholarship. Eager young faces lit up one by one as the names, thirty-seven in all, were called.

   ‘Now,’ he barked, ‘all those children whose names have
not
been called, stand on their seats.’

   He might as well have walked over and punched Ellen in the chest. His voice was distant and distorted as if he were miles away. She was hot and clammy, she wanted to retch, her eyes struggled to focus and oblivion threatened. She mustn’t faint… she had to do what he said… get up on her seat.

   ‘Well, come along,’ he bellowed, ‘I’m waiting.’

   Nervous sniggers broke the silence and thirty-seven pairs of eyes turned to stare at the solitary failure. Climbing out from behind the desk that she shared with Mary on the back row she stumbled onto the bench, hands pressed over her face to hide her shame.

   She didn’t want to cry - not in front of Pa Massey anyway - but it felt like she had been standing there trembling forever.  She clenched her buttocks together in panic… she was going to pee down her legs… or worse.

   Sensing Mary weeping in the desk alongside her, she could no longer hold back her own tears. Then, and only then, after waiting stony-faced and motionless for her spirit to break, did Pa Murray finally and triumphantly give her permission to get down.

   ‘Send her home Miss Shuttleworth,’ he shouted over his shoulder as he swept from the room, black gown billowing bat-like from his shoulders.

   The young teacher had been rooted to the spot in horror at his callous behaviour.  Her arm went instinctively around Ellen’s shoulder only to be shrugged off as she fled the room and fled the school without even pausing to collect her coat from the cloakroom. By avoiding the streets and keeping to the backs of the terraced houses she was home in five minutes.

   Standing at the kitchen window half asleep and still in her underclothes, Florrie watched her daughter clamber over the backyard wall and stumble up the path.

   ‘Why didn’t you come round the front way?  What’s up? Why aren’t you at school? Are you ill? Where's your coat?’

   Ellen struggled to explain but her mother was obviously baffled by the intensity of her disappointment.

   ‘Hush love, it’s not important, it’s only an exam,’ she said, rocking her backwards and forwards in her arms. ‘Our Betty didn’t pass her scholarship and
she
did all right at Blakey Moor till she went on the stage, didn’t she?
You’ll
be all right at that school too. Now come on Ellie, you’ll make yourself ill if you don’t stop this scrikeing.’

   She wiped the cold wet dishcloth over Ellen’s tear-streaked face and was just contemplating if she had enough Cephos Powders for the two of them when there came a knock at the front door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

   ‘Quick Ellie, reach my frock for me, and see who’s at the door while I get dressed.’

   Moving slowly to the door Ellen glanced back to make sure her mother had buttoned her frock. On the doorstep stood the delicate, fragrant Laura Shuttleworth.

   ‘May I come in Ellen? I would like to speak to your mother.’

   Ellen stepped aside blinking in disbelief as her beloved teacher walked through the parlour and into the kitchen. Overwrought as she was, she was acutely aware of her shabby surroundings, the coconut-matting square which allowed the dirt and dust  to fall through to the grubby flagged-floor beneath. Bess, the scruffy old mongrel was asleep on the lumpy couch and dirty dishes and clutter were everywhere. Remembering Mary Kingsley’s house across the road she knew that homes didn’t
have
to look like this.

   ‘Sit yourself down… on here…um…Miss,’ a stuttering Florrie put her hand under the twitching snoring hound to hook it off the couch then brushed its warm resting place with the palm of her hand.

   Politely settling into the random arrangement of lumps and dog-hair and then wriggling discreetly amid wayward metal springs that had broken free of their moorings, the young woman began to speak.

   She was here, she explained, to correct a mistake. Ellen had, after all, been successful in the exam and Mr Massey would like to see Mrs Pomfret at school after lunch to discuss one or two matters.

   At that moment Ellen’s anguish changed to elation. She could hold her head up high again…she could go to The High School For Girls…she could even go to college later on and learn to be a teacher like Miss Shuttleworth.

   It didn’t occur to Florrie to question the so-called “mistake”... to ponder whether Mr Massey’s plan had been to take away Ellen’s chance and offer it to someone from a
more suitable
background... to ask why it had been necessary to humiliate her in such a sadistic manner.

   ‘Thank you very much Miss,’ she said meekly, resisting the temptation to brush the patch of black dog-hair from Laura Shuttleworth’s smart grey skirt as she showed her to the door.

   Mother and child rocked again in each other’s arms, this time with renewed hope. No need now for a Cephos Powder for either of them, even the boiled eggs and toast that Florrie had hastily prepared remained untouched.

   An hour later she buttoned her best coat, which as a rule didn’t get an airing on an ordinary weekday like today, and walked Ellen back to school. The thought of meeting Mr Massey terrified her. What would he say and how would she be able to keep up with his posh talk? Should she sit herself down in his office or wait till he offered her a seat? She reckoned she’d just have to do her best and try not to show herself up.

   Pa Massey had no intention of inviting her into his office. He was more comfortable conversing with the well-heeled sort of parents over a round of golf or a drink at the cricket club. As far as he was concerned there was little to discuss with the likes of the Pomfrets who showed no interest in their children’s education. The child obviously had no future so did not merit much of a discussion.

   A steady stream of teachers and pupils made their way along the corridor to their classrooms, jostling Florrie and Ellen while avoiding the headmaster standing beside them. Straining to hear his voice above the din of chattering children and the “shush-ing” of teachers, Florrie thanked him profusely for seeing her and apologised for taking up his time. He came straight to the point, his voice loud and impatient.

   ‘Now just because Ellen has passed her Scholarship it does not mean that The High School is a suitable school for her future education. The emphasis there is on
the academic and
is more suitable for children who will be going on to university. Your daughter will be happier,’ he went on firmly, ‘at The
Technical
High School. There she can study for an office-based career, typing, shorthand, and bookkeeping, that kind of thing. The
High
School is very expensive and I can assure you it is only suitable for girls and boys who want to become doctors or teachers.’

   ‘Just like me, not just Mary Kingsley, me too’ Ellen wanted to scream as her eyes darted from his face to her mother’s, ‘that’s what
I
want to become… a teacher.’

   ‘Well Sir, if
you
think that’s the best road for our Ellen, that’s good enough for me and Mr Pomfret.’ Florrie nervously twisted her hands together and raised her eyes briefly off the floor.

   ‘Good, then that’s that. I shall put her name forward for The Technical High School.’

   ‘Thank you very much Sir,’ Florrie said, but Pa Massey, black mortarboard balanced above his purple face, was already out of earshot.

   She breathed a sigh of relief that she’d come through the meeting without disgracing herself and there had only been one word she hadn’t understood. Mr Massey had said that the emphasis at The High School For Girls was on “the epidemic” but surely that couldn’t be right?

   So that was that. The majority of Ellen’s classmates, including Mary Kingsley, would attend The High School if they were girls or Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School if they were boys, and become doctors, scientists and yes, even teachers. And on the whim of one man, Ellen, together with the remaining few who had also passed their Scholarship, would attend The Technical High School and become typists or plumbers.

   Never before had Ellen felt such an all-consuming hatred. That night she prayed that Pa Massey would die in his sleep.

*

   The brown pleated tunic, the blazer, the cream shirt and the yellow and brown striped tie had been displayed for more than a week on a wooden coat-hanger hooked over the top of the parlour door. Ellen had almost worn out her school uniform by gawping at it, but tomorrow she would wear it for the very first time.

   But now, as she watched her father struggle to light the parlour fire, her excitement had turned to anxiety. The fire was only lit on birthdays, Christmas, and Sundays.  Ellen had a feeling that
today was a
Sunday when it would have been better left un-lit.   

   With no firewood to hand her father fetched a bag of sugar from the kitchen and threw a handful on to the tiny orange flame. The fire came back to life momentarily before spluttering once more towards extinction.

   ‘You bloody rotten swine,’ he cursed it for its lifelessness then refuelled it with a blazing rolled-up newspaper and a lump of beef dripping from the chip-pan.

   Whoosh! High in the chimney the soot caught fire and became like an erupting volcano spewing lumps of burning lava in a crimson and orange cascade into the grate and on to the fireside rug. It was out of control and so was Joe. Beside himself with rage yet determined not to be beaten, he threw a bucket of water up the chimney and over the rug. More blazing balls of fire fell with black clouds of soot settling on Ellen’s new clothes.

   ‘Stop it dad… please,’ she cried, dragging at his arm, ‘look what you’re doing… you’re spoiling my new uniform.’

   ‘Shut your gob, or I’ll shut it for ya,’ he shook her off with a force that sent her reeling to the other side of the parlour, ‘don’t just stand there, fetch some more water.’

   Ellen carried the overflowing bucket from the kitchen, past her brother screaming hysterically under the table, past her mother shouting abuse and crying at the same time, and past her sister… silent, unbowed, face etched with undisguised loathing.