Home for Christmas (5 page)

His face lit up when he saw Agnes’s mother, the ends of his moustache seeming to curl up closer to the corners of his eyes.

His voice boomed in welcome. ‘Good day to you, Sarah.’

‘Good day to you, George.’

‘My offer still stands,’ he called out to her.

Wearing a slightly bemused smile, Sarah swept on by over the hopscotch squares chalked on the pavement, almost skipping by the time she reached the threshold of her mother’s house.

It wasn’t so long ago that George Jarman had asked her to marry him. He made a point of asking her every time she visited her mother. He’d even offered to adopt Agnes as his own. ‘Seeing as that wastrel of a husband has never given the child the time of day,’ he’d pronounced.

Sarah had turned him down. She’d given him no reason as such except to say that she was managing quite well, thank you, and that Tom Stacey might still be alive somewhere, and if she married George, she would be committing bigamy.

Being an upright man who scorned the public house and attended the Methodist chapel on Sundays, George had nodded sadly on each occasion she’d delivered her answer.

‘A man can hope,’ he’d said to her.

‘You’re hoping my husband is dead, George,’ she pointed out to him.

‘So be it,’ he’d said. ‘I’ll keep hoping and keep asking.’

Number one Myrtle Street was right next door to the shop and the first on the right in the street. It was also the only one with a brass step, all the others having cold, white marble.

Henry Proctor, Agnes’s grandfather had been responsible for that. He’d worked in a turning mill in Bristol, shaping metals for various uses. Brass was one of them, and this particular piece, left over from a job, had arrived miraculously at number one Myrtle Street when they’d moved there.

He was dead now, but Ellen Proctor lovingly polished that step twice a week.

‘In his memory,’ she was fond of saying. ‘I keep it shining so his memory will always shine. He’d come back and haunt me if I don’t keep it polished.’

Agnes followed her mother into the cramped little house, her nose tingling, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

The smell of stale food and mothballs mingled with that of old drains and cats.

Agnes began to scratch.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ whispered her mother. ‘Not already.’

Agnes shrugged. ‘I can’t help it. I don’t dislike cats, but my body does. My eyes do. And my nose.’

She began to sneeze.

Sarah Stacey frowned as she began unbuttoning her coat. ‘You do it on purpose. I know you do.’

‘I can’t …’

Agnes sneezed again, a big almighty one into one of Sir Avis’s old handkerchiefs she’d thought to bring with her.

Sarah Stacey took off her hat and coat. Agnes followed suit without bothering to argue further about the cat thing. Her nose was tickling; her eyes were watering and just the thought of being close to those cats again was making her itch.

‘Is that you, our Sarah?’ called a voice from the back of the house.

‘Yes, Ma,’ Sarah called back.

‘I’m out back, mangling.’

Sarah Stacey’s sharp eyes took in the amount of cleaning she would have to do whilst she was here. The fact was her mother was getting on in years and not up to doing other folks’ laundry and keeping on top of her own housework. They were only here for a few days, just the other side of London from the house in Belgravia. Between the two of them, she reckoned her and Agnes could sort things out. By then Agnes would have stopped scratching and sneezing. Once they’d seen Ellen all right and had a pre-Christmas party of their own, then they would leave Myrtle Street behind and get the train to Heathlands, Sir Avis’s country estate lying to the west of London. The house in Belgravia was already locked up for the Christmas period.

Sidestepping a glossy black cat with orange eyes, Agnes followed her mother through the scullery and out into the back yard.

Three separate washing lines each carrying a line of limp laundry and leaving barely enough room to move, criss-crossed each other,

Ellen Proctor, Agnes’s grandmother, was turning the wheel of a cast-iron mangle with one hand and feeding through a grizzled-looking shirt with the other. The fact that she had few remaining teeth showed when she smiled.

‘All right, my babs? A few bits more and we can have a cup of tea. Got to finish it though. That old skinflint Mrs Bennett is only paying me half a crown, but that’s better than nothing. My cupboard’s as bare as that Mrs Hubbard’s is. How’s you, Agnes?’

Agnes was rubbing each arm in turn.

‘Fine, Gran. What are you going to buy with that half a crown?’ she asked with a smile.

The fat red arm that turned the wheel of the mangle never faltered. Bright blue eyes, half-hidden by plump cheeks and drooping eyelids, twinkled.

‘Pork cuttings, onions, potatoes, bread, butter and cheese. What the ’ell doss thee think I was going to buy? Fur coat? Frills and frippery fer wearing to the ball?’

Her accent was Bristolian, her tone teasing but oddly serious. When work had dried up at the Bristol docks some years before, this is where Agnes’s grandfather had come to find more work. The River Thames had less of a tidal surge than the River Avon flowing through Bristol, thus ships could come and go more easily. Also, as a capital city, it attracted more trade and Henry Proctor had been tempted by a more plentiful supply of work.

No amount of teasing from her grandmother could dampen Agnes’s spirit. She was ready in an instant with a cheeky response.

‘I thought you might be splashing out on a new cap? Or a new pipe?’

‘Cheeky thing! Me cap’s nice and greasy. Keeps off the rain. And as long as there’s baccy in me pipe, it suits for me.’

She said all this without looking up, without slowing the process of feeding the laundry through the rollers. The mangle squeaked with each turn and the water poured down, splashing her feet and trickling down the drain.

As she spoke, she clenched the clay pipe in the last of her teeth, sucking it in with each downward turn of the mangle and blowing out on the upward stroke. No more than three teeth, two at the top and one at the bottom, gripped her pipe.

Her mother read her mind and nudged her arm in warning.

‘I’ve brought you a few things, Ma,’ said Agnes’s mother. ‘Leftovers, but all good. Half a leg of cold lamb, a knuckle of cooked ham, a chocolate cake and a veal and ham pie. That should keep you going for a while.’

‘Lovely,’ exclaimed Ellen Proctor. ‘If you put the kettle on, we can have a piece of that cake with our tea. This pair of coms is the last,’ she declared as the legs of a pair of men’s combinations came through the rollers and dropped into the laundry basket.

Agnes watched with interest as her grandmother wiped her meaty hands in her apron. She didn’t know how old her grandmother was, but guessed at sixty. Her hair was white as Old Man’s Beard growing on the hedgerows around Heathlands; her face was wrinkled and plump, and her body as round as a cottage loaf.

‘Me back aches fit to break in ’alf,’ Ellen Proctor grumbled while massaging the small of her back with both hands. ‘I’m gettin’ too old fer this lark.’

‘How old are you, Gran?’ Agnes asked, seized with a sudden urge to know exactly.

Her grandmother winked, her wrinkled face only inches away from that of her granddaughter. Agnes and her mother helped hang out the washing before going into the kitchen.

‘Too old. Know this, me girl, that it’s better to be young though youth is wasted on the young. And I used to be young. I weren’t born this age. Theese oughta know that.’

Just like Agnes and her mother, Ellen Proctor’s eyes were amber and tilted upwards at the outer corners. It was difficult to deduce what her features had been before they became bloated with age and scarred with hard work. The hair beneath the man’s cap was thin and white. Her figure had long gone to seed and she was shorter than both her daughter and granddaughter.

Agnes’s grandmother, who was giving herself a good scratch, her flesh wobbling beneath her faded dress and patched apron, noticed her prolonged stare.

‘What you looking at, girl?’

‘You don’t wear stays do you, Gran?’ Agnes asked.

Her grandmother threw back her head and belted out a hearty laugh.

‘Agnes!’ exclaimed her mother, who had just put the kettle on to the hob. ‘That is rude. This is your grandmother. You should have more respect.’

Agnes shrugged. ‘I was only asking. It doesn’t look as though Gran does wear stays, and I was wondering …’

Ellen Proctor’s eyes twinkled as she took it all in.

‘Well, wonder no more. You’re getting too big for your boots, young lady.’ Her mother chided her.

‘Leave the girl be, Sarah. I likes to be comfortable and I don’t care who knows it. She’s curious. It don’t hurt being curious. Anyways, I don’t wear stays. They itch and I feel like a horse in harness. Why should I be constrained like a horse just ’cause I’m a woman?’

‘Men don’t,’ said Agnes, pleased with her grandmother’s response. ‘And I don’t want to. I mean, what’s the point?’

‘So, what do you like to wear?’ asked her grandmother whilst tipping the contents of her teacup into her saucer.

‘Trousers. And goggles. I like driving. I want to be a chauffeur when I grow up.’

Her grandmother slurped back some tea, her eyes never leaving her granddaughter’s face. Shaking her head, she said, ‘No. That’s no good. You want somebody to drive you around, not you driving some bigwig around.’

Sarah bristled. ‘Don’t encourage her, Mother. She’s difficult enough as it is.’

Agnes beamed from ear to ear. ‘I’m going to learn to drive a motor car and a motor bike. Then I’m going to fly like the Wright brothers. They flew high above the ground in an aeroplane at Kittyhawk and now everyone’s doing it. Their exploit will go down in history. That’s what Sir Avis told me.’

While her mother stood looking dismayed, her grandmother laughed even heartier than before and told her she could be whatever she wanted to be.

‘Please yourself,’ she said, her broad smile enabling Agnes to count every tooth in her head. ‘Please yourself, my girl! Before long, girls will be doing whatever boys are doing.’

‘That’s what Sir Avis says,’ Agnes proclaimed, her complexion brightened by the sparkle in her eyes, her pink lips slightly parted. ‘He said in this modern world I could be whatever I want to be. He told me to reach for the sky and I might end up sitting on the roof. And he’d help where he could.’

‘He would,’ said her grandmother, a knowing look passing between her and Sarah, and her daughter.

Agnes looked at her mother who was hanging her head over her cup and saucer and sensed that her red cheeks had nothing to do with the hot tea.

The sound of heavy footsteps came from the passageway that led to the street.

‘Mrs Proctor? Are you there?’

Agnes’s grandmother put down her cup and got to her feet. ‘I’m out in the scullery,’ she shouted back.

‘Harry Allen come for his mother’s laundry,’ she exclaimed while wiping her hands down her apron. She winked at Agnes. ‘At least she ain’t mean with the money like Mrs Bennett.’

Harry Allen, a young man of seventeen, with blue eyes and a shock of corn-coloured hair, breezed into the scullery. On seeing Agnes and her mother, he took off his cap.

‘Hello, Mrs Stacey. Hello, Agnes.’ His eyes lingered on Agnes. ‘My, but you’re growing up. Nice dress. You’re even beginning to look pretty.’

Agnes didn’t like being reminded that she was a girl and had to get used to wearing dresses with lace and frills and bobs and bows; even being called pretty irritated.

‘I am not a child and I hate wearing dresses.’

He laughed as though she were even younger than she actually was which irritated her even more.

‘Well, I think you looks lovely. If you keeps on going as you are, I might even ask you to marry me when you grows up.’

Agnes was speechless. She eyed the fresh-faced boy with his glossy hair and happy countenance. She should feel flattered but instead felt even more irritated.

‘Oh no, you will not! Whatever makes you think I would marry a stupid boy like you?’

Her mother sighed with exasperation. ‘Would you like a slice of chocolate cake and a cup of tea, Harry?’

Agnes was in no doubt what her mother was up to; Harry liked her and was available. But she didn’t want Harry. She wanted Sir Avis’s nephew, Robert. She’d known him since they were both two lonely children, one without a father and one whose parents spent their time overseeing a sheep station in Australia or touring the world with a fashionable set.

Robert was the love of her life and if she couldn’t have him, she’d never marry.

Harry accepted the cake and tea, his eyes hardly leaving her face as he pulled a chair from beneath the kitchen table and sat down.

‘There’s one of them picture houses opened down Lambeth way. How about I take you there?’ He turned abruptly to Agnes’s mother. ‘If you’ve no objection, Mrs Stacey.’

Agnes cringed when her mother answered that she had no objection at all.

‘I think you’d enjoy that, wouldn’t you Agnes? They’re so modern, these moving pictures.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Agnes replied tartly. ‘Watching a stage in the dark gives me headaches. I think I’ve got one coming on now what with the travelling and the cats. I itch you know,’ she said to Harry. ‘I itch because of the cats and get rashes all over me. Quite ugly rashes in fact. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m quite tired. I need a lie down.’

Aware of her mother’s harsh looks, she took the creaking narrow stairs that led to her grandmother’s bedroom two at a time. Once there, she flung herself on to the patchwork quilt that smelled of stale snuff and damp.

Cradling her hot cheeks in her hands, she stared out of the window: not that there was much to see; just the window of a room much like this and roof after roof and chimney after chimney beyond that.

To think that Harry Allen entertained the idea of marrying her! What a silly idea that was. It was Robert she loved; Robert she would always love.

They’d come across each other in the orchard at Heathlands, a shady place of gnarled old fruit trees and long grass.