The Girl From Seaforth Sands (9 page)

‘I’ll teach you,’ her mother promised. She blew on the tea, then looked out of the small window, avoiding her daughter’s eye. Amy saw that Isobel was in her nightgown and felt the first stab of genuine fear. She must be really ill; she had said she was going to lie down for a few minutes while the meal cooked, not that she intended to go to bed. No one in the Logan family went to bed during the day unless they were very ill indeed; even the kids tended to be rousted out after the first flush of some childish ailment – measles, chickenpox, a septic sore throat – had run its course. ‘Umm . . . Amy, I’ve got something to tell you.’

Amy’s heart gave a lurch. Mam was going to tell her that she was really bad, perhaps dying. Mothers did die. Aggie French’s mam had died last year and now the family was ruled by an old and irritable grandmother, who spent most of her time telling the children that it wasn’t fair or right that she should be bringing up a young family at her time of life. Aggie was Amy’s age but the rest of the French kids were all younger; Aggie said she couldn’t wait to get a job
and leave home, so her gran wouldn’t be able to nag and whine at her so much.

However, it wouldn’t do to let her mother know what she was thinking. ‘Oh . . . I’ve got the supper on the go, Mam,’ she said, gabbling a little. ‘I’ve done the spuds, and I’ve gutted the fish and it’s all ready to go in the pan. And Albert’s done the messages, he’s brought back some good, long carrots and . . .’

‘I don’t know whether you’ve noticed owt, Amy.’ Isobel’s voice rose resolutely above her daughter’s. ‘I should have told you some time back – Mary knows – but somehow I couldn’t bring myself . . . a woman my age . . . I hate to think what young folk like that Suzie Keagan will say . . . and you and me’s not known each other all that well, queen, for all you’re my youngest child. But I said to your father that it wasn’t fair . . . I’ll be asking more of you even than I did of Mary, especially when I get near my time.’ She looked at Amy with the air of one who has told all and now expects a reaction.

Amy stared straight back. What on earth did her mother mean? Mary knew? And her dad must know too, but he had been more than usually cheerful lately, not at all like a man who has received bad tidings, who has a sick woman on his hands. But her mother was sipping tea again, even taking a nibble of cake, looking at her with a little half-smile. It was no use, she would have to say she didn’t understand or the most awful complications would result. ‘What d’you mean, Mam? Are . . . are you ill? Is that why you’ve put your nightdress on in the daytime?’

‘Oh. Well, I’m not ill, but I’m old for . . . women of my age don’t . . . I mean, you’re my youngest child and you’re all of eleven years old . . .’

‘You aren’t old, Mam,’ Amy said quickly. ‘My dad’s older than you and so’s heaps of the women in the St John’s fish market. What d’you
mean
?’

Isobel stopped glancing out of the window, down at her hands, around at the whitewashed walls, in fact, at everything but Amy. She then looked squarely into Amy’s eyes. ‘Oh, chuck, I’m expecting a . . . a baby,’ she said and, to Amy’s astonishment, tears came into her mother’s eyes. ‘I’ve not told the boys yet, nor my friends, but as I said, I told Mary and . . . and I thought you ought to know. As I get – well – get bigger, I shan’t be able to bend so easily, nor I won’t be as quick with the gutting and filleting, so you’ll be doing all sorts and if you don’t know, don’t understand . . .’

‘Oh, Mam, I’m that relieved, I thought you must be dying when you looked so pale and chucked up your breakfast the other morning,’ Amy said. ‘And what’s wrong with having another baby, anyway? I’d be right glad to have a little brother or sister, even if it does mean a bit more work. I’ve often envied Ruth, having all those young ’uns about the place. When will it come, Mam? Will it be soon? When will you stop working?’

Isobel laughed. She looked relieved, Amy thought, as if she had been dreading telling her daughter of the expected arrival, though why she should feel like that Amy had no idea. A baby is a delightful thing, Amy told herself, taking the empty mug from her mother’s grasp and watching as Isobel finished off the last crumbs of cake.

‘I bet Dad’s pleased as pleased can be,’ she said and was rewarded by the look of delight that crossed her mother’s face. ‘Do you want a girl, Mam? You wouldn’t want another boy, surely?’

‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s a boy or a girl, so long as it’s healthy,’ Isobel told her. ‘Your dad’s going to tell the boys, now I’ve broken the news to yourself. But if you like, queen, you can tell Albert, seeing as how he’ll be wondering what we’ve been talking about up here. Maybe he’ll wonder what I’m doing in bed, too,’ she added.

Amy, halfway to the door, stopped for a moment to smile back at her mother. ‘You know what today is, don’t you, Mam? The King and Queen were crowned a year ago today. So if it’s a boy you could call it Edward, and if it’s a girl . . .’

‘. . . Alexandra.’ Isobel returned the smile. ‘What a mouthful for a little girl, though, queen. Maybe I’d best stick to the ordinary names and leave the long ones for royalty. D’you know, I’m feeling more rested already? If you give me a shout when the food is on the table I think I’ll join you downstairs. I won’t start interfering with what you’ve done, but I might give you a hand with the washing up. And we’ll plan the meals for tomorrow between us, shall we?’

Amy, agreeing, went downstairs with a full heart. She felt that an understanding was growing between herself and her mother, perhaps for the first time in her life. She had always thought it would be a grand thing to be friends with your mam, as Mary had been and indeed still was, and now it looked as though she, too, was beginning to share in their friendship. Suddenly the hard work at the fish market and the slog of door-to-door selling no longer seemed such a weary way to spend her spare time. Summer holidays from school might never be the same again, but to be friends with her mam would make losing the freedom of the streets and shore
almost worthwhile. Besides, it was the first real sign that she was growing up, becoming a woman. What was more, mam had said she would need a deal of help when the baby came and this might well mean she would keep Amy by her until the child was four or five. She would be unable to cope with all the housework, the preparing and selling of the shrimps, and with a young child without help from someone. Why should it not be Amy? Amy, who had always loathed the idea of going into service, found she was delighted at the thought of being a real help to her mother. She had no idea whether she would be paid a wage for such work, but found this scarcely seemed to matter. Mam will do right by me, she told herself, descending the narrow stairs. And though three months earlier she would have doubted this statement, she now realised it was true. Isobel was as fond of the new, grown-up Amy as she was of Mary.

Amy entered the kitchen feeling that her cup of happiness was full and beamed across at Albert, who was struggling to pull the heavy pan of potatoes to the side of the fire. He looked up as she entered the room and cursed as hot water splashed out of the pan, narrowly missing his feet. ‘Where the hell have you been?’ he enquired caustically. ‘These bloody spuds have boiled over twice already and I’ve near broke me arms heavin’ them off the fire. What was you doin’, for God’s sake? You’ve been gone
hours
, Amy Logan!’

Amy went over to the fire and pushed Albert to one side so that she might move the pan without scalding either of them. ‘I’ve been talking to Mam,’ she said importantly. ‘She’s been telling me we’re going to have a new baby, what about that, eh?’

Albert stared at her, round-eyed. ‘A
baby?
’ he said, his very tone incredulous. ‘She can’t be havin’ a baby, queen, women her age is grannies, not mams. Why, our Edmund’s twenty-one.’ Edmund was working the trawlers now and sailing from Fleetwood, and what was more, was courting a local girl whom Isobel had disliked on sight. Consequently they saw very little of him, though Bill, Amy thought, visited his elder son from time to time.

‘It doesn’t matter how old you are, if you’re a woman,’ Amy said knowingly. ‘Anyhow, our mam isn’t old and she
is
having a baby, she told me so this minute, so that’s one in the eye for you, Albert Logan.’

‘Well, I think that’s disgustin’,’ Albert said morosely, slouching across the kitchen and throwing himself into his chair once more. He picked up the paper and flung it down again with a groan. ‘What’ll I tell me pals? Damn it, I’m thirteen goin’ on fourteen – I’ll be in work soon. The fellers will laugh their heads off, I’m tellin’ you.’

‘Well, none of my friends will laugh,’ Amy said stoutly. ‘Women don’t laugh about babies, they like them. And don’t you go telling our mam that you aren’t thrilled, because she’ll be mortally upset if you do. She . . . she said something about being too old herself, so the last thing she’ll want is to hear you talking such rubbish. Now, shift yourself, Albert, and give me a hand for once. Mam’s coming down when the grub’s on the table and I know Dad would say we’ve all got to show her a cheerful face. So start grinning and stop scowling or I’ll give you a clack. And when I dish up I’ll make sure you get the smallest plateful, so there!’

Albert got to his feet and went over to the dresser.
He pulled open the drawer which contained their meagre supply of cutlery and selected a handful, then reached up for the enamel plates. ‘Right you are, I hear you’ – to lay the table – ‘but it’ll mean a deal of work for you and me, chuck. Babies always does. Still an’ all, it’s better than if Mam had been really ill. I were beginnin’ to wonder, to tell you the truth.’

Amy, sliding the floured fillets into the frying pan, nodded her head in violent agreement. ‘Aye, you’re right there,’ she admitted. ‘I was really worried, Albert, and that’s the truth.’ The fat in the pan started to spit as it heated up and she flinched away from the flying droplets. ‘Gawd, these perishin’ dabs are fighting back! I never knew fish could be so fierce.’

‘You oughter try catchin’ them, heavin’ the net up when it’s loaded with slippery, snappin’ critters from the deep,’ Albert said with relish. ‘That’s man’s work if you like, gal. Fancy moanin’ about fryin’ a few fillets.’

‘Then you do it, if you’re so clever,’ Amy said briskly. She tilted her head as her ears caught the sound of the back gate clicking open. ‘Hey up, here comes Dad and the boys. We’d best get a move on, Albert, or we won’t have the food on the table by the time they’ve washed up.’

Amy woke and lay for a moment staring into the dark and wondering what had roused her. She glanced towards the window but could tell that it was not yet morning by the grey glimmer of light showing round the curtains. In fact, from the heavy feeling of her head and limbs it was probably no more than one or two o’clock. She had been lying on
her side, but now she rolled on to her back and listened. Nothing. No one talking or moving in the house, no traffic passing by in the street below. Yet something must have woken her. The scratch of a mouse as it emerged from beneath the skirting board? A sparrow’s sleepy chirrup as a cat passed by? Sometimes she was woken when the weather was rough by the sound of waves crashing on the shore, but it was a calm, still night in mid-February. Nothing, in short, should’ve brought her so annoyingly wide awake, so she had best curl down under the blanket again and try to recapture some sleep.

She obeyed her own instructions and closed her eyes firmly, curling her left hand under the pillow while her right held on to several strands of hair. This was how she always slept, but tonight the familiar magic did not work and she remained awake.

She had just decided that she had better begin to count sheep when she heard the mewing. It wasn’t loud or particularly close, she thought, but somewhere out in the cold dark, a cat was in trouble. The Logan family had never owned a cat, or indeed any other pet; Mam and Dad said they had their work cut out to feed the family without stretching their meagre resources to cover animals as well. But Amy knew that stray cats did hang around the premises and that Bill sometimes fed them odd scraps of leftover fish. If one of those stray cats had got shut into the wash-house there would be all sorts of trouble. For a start, it might devour and generally mess up a quantity of the fish that would be sent to the fish market the following day, or – horror of
horrors – it might fall into the copper, which her father usually kept full of water, and drown itself.

On that thought Amy jumped out of bed. One of the stray cats she had seen in the yard was little more than a kitten; she doubted that it would survive long if it did fall into the copper, which was slippery from the shrimps cooked in it and probably very attractive to feline appetites. She slung her shawl round her shoulders but did not bother with her boots. It took ages to lace them in daylight, heaven knew, so what it would be like in the dark she could not bear to contemplate. Instead, she padded across the room, out on to the tiny landing and began to descend the stairs.

Halfway down the flight, however, the mewing sound came again and this time she was sure it had come from behind her. Immediately, before she had time to think, she had whipped round, run up the stairs again and hurled herself at her parents’ door. The baby! The baby must have come, although she had heard no sound of a nurse arriving. She no longer believed in the fairy tale of the stork, flapping in through the window and leaving the baby on the fortunate mother’s bed, because Ruth had long ago disabused her of this fanciful notion. But she still had very little idea of how a baby actually arrived and thought, in her innocence, that its journey from the parental tummy into the light of day was a quick and simple matter. She knew the nurse would come but had very little idea why this was necessary and assumed, vaguely, that it was another of the adult mysteries into which her parents were so reluctant to admit her.

She shot the door open, bounded into the room and stopped short, both hands flying to her mouth.
Her mother lay on the bed, scarlet-faced and sweating profusely, with her legs drawn up and the covers pushed down to her waist. The nurse, a local woman by the name of Mrs Scott, was sitting in a chair by the bed. She had obviously been chatting to her patient but stopped suddenly at Amy’s abrupt arrival.