Two Penn'orth of Sky (35 page)

This explanation had eased the anxiety which Diana had felt over her mother’s return; things would not change that much, then. But she was still aware of changes in herself and dreaded that Emmy might try to treat her like a child, not realising that, in her three years’ absence, her daughter had grown up.

She and Charlie were better friends now than they had ever been, so she decided to ask him whether he thought her mother would recognise that her daughter was no longer a kid to be ordered about. They were on Great Nelson Street, hovering between the stalls of the outdoor market, hoping that someone would buy a roll of linoleum, which the children might then offer to carry home for the customer. Their experience with the policeman had taught them that adults were not always to be trusted, so now it was half the money up front and the other half on arrival at the customer’s home.

‘Charlie, I’ve been wondering . . . it’s about me mam coming home . . .’

Charlie listened attentively, as Diana carefully put her worry into words, then gave her a friendly punch on the shoulder. ‘She may not realise, just at first, but she’ll soon twig things is different, and you most of all,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Why, when you come to live with us, you couldn’t knock the skin off a rice
puddin’, ’cos you’d never done no real work in your life. But now you’re damned nearly as strong as our Lenny. You lug that fat baby about as though he weighed no more’n a kitten, and you can carry bags, when you’re doin’ the messages, which weigh a ton, or bleedin’ nearly, anyway. And look how Bones does what you say! He didn’t take no notice when you bawled at him three years ago, ’cos he thought you was just a kid, like Bobby is now. But now when you tell him to sit, his bum hits the ground just as fast as though it were me dad speakin’.’

Diana chuckled. It had not occurred to her before that Bones’s obedience was a sign of her own maturity, but she realised, with a small glow of achievement, that Charlie was right. Bones often accompanied her and Charlie on expeditions into the countryside, and when they raided an orchard, or hunted for straying hens’ eggs in hedgerows and ditches, she only had to hiss ‘Down!’ to the dog, and he would instantly obey her, lying still as stone until the danger, whatever it was, had passed.

‘Thanks, Charlie; you’ve made me feel a whole lot better about me mam coming home,’ she said humbly. ‘I want her back, of course I do. Every night, when I say me prayers, the first thing I pray for is that Mam will get well and come home again. So – so it seems strange that I worry over whether she’ll realise I’ve changed . . .’

‘No it don’t,’ Charlie said bluntly. ‘Just so long as you know that she’ll have changed, too. After you’d gone to bed the other night, I heard Mam and Dad talkin’. Mam was saying that Aunty Em had lived a kind of unnatural life for three years, with no responsibilities, no work, and precious little fun, either. She said the nurses and that had told your mam when
to sneeze, and it weren’t goin’ to be easy for Aunty Em to make her own choices, make her own decisions. Mam were sayin’ we should all have to help Aunty Em as much as we could, and Dad said . . .’ He hesitated, staring thoughtfully at his feet, and Diana realised that he was mentally editing what his father had said. She punched him on the arm and grinned.

‘Go on, then; just what
did
your dad say?’

Charlie grinned, too. ‘He said it were a good job Emmy was so pretty, because he didn’t fancy she’d be a widow for very long,’ he admitted. ‘He didn’t mean it nastily. It were a sort of joke.’

‘Well, he were out there,’ Diana said roundly, feeling a sort of bitter taste at the back of her throat. ‘My mam’s been locked away in that sanatorium seeing no one but old Mr Mac for the past three years, so it isn’t likely she’s thinking about marrying again.’

Charlie stared at her. ‘Seeing no one?’ he said slowly. ‘Wharrabout that Carl Johansson, eh? And Johnny Frost? Or don’t you count them?’

Diana frowned. ‘But I told Mr Johansson she’d moved away, and Mam’s never mentioned that he visits, when your mam and I go down to see her. And who’s Johnny Frost?’

‘Diana, I know you’re supposed to be real clever an’ I know you’re top of your class, but sometimes I wonder about you,’ Charlie said. ‘You knew Mr Johansson wrote letters to your mam, you must have done! So you must have known that he’d find out you’d told him lies.’

Diana felt her face grow hot. ‘If I told a bit of a – a fib, it was for my mother’s sake, because having visitors, particularly visitors like that horrible Johansson man, was bad for her,’ she said haughtily.
‘But you haven’t answered my question. Who’s Johnny Frost?’

‘Oh, he and your man were going to get married back in the old days, only then your mam met your dad and dumped Johnny,’ Charlie said baldly. ‘He left the ‘Pool and started up a hotel or something in Llandudno. He’s been visiting her for ages and ages.’

‘I don’t
believe
you!’ Diana shrieked, suddenly losing her temper. ‘You’re the liar, not me, Charlie Fisher. You’re making up stories to frighten me. And how would you know, anyway?’

‘Don’t you dare call me a liar, you nasty kid,’ Charlie said wrathfully. ‘You don’t think twice about lyin’ – look what you said to Mr Johansson – but I’ve been brought up different. As for how I know, it’s because I stay up later’n you lot. And half the time Mam and Dad forget I’m there and talk pretty free, so put that in your pipe and smoke it!’

‘Then your mam and dad are liars, if they think my mam would even dream of marrying again,’ Diana yelled. ‘Why, I’ve been visiting the sanatorium for three whole years and Mam’s never said a word about either of those fellers. If they’ve been visiting her –
if
, I say – then it’s just as friends, which is why she’s not mentioned them to me. You’re wicked, Charlie Fisher, to try to frighten me. I’ll tell your mam of you.’

Charlie laughed scornfully. ‘My mam believes in tellin’ the truth, unlike some,’ he said. ‘And what’s wrong with your mam marrying, anyroad? No one could be happier than my mam and dad . . . don’t you
want
your mam to be happy?’

For a moment, Diana, quite literally, saw red. She told herself that of course she wanted her mother to be happy, but thought that Emmy should need no
one but her daughter to achieve such a state. At the same time, self-knowledge insisted on creeping in. She, Diana, wanted all Emmy’s attention and affection for herself – had she not been forced to do without it for three years? – and did not mean to share her mother now with anyone. And here was Charlie, looking smug and self-satisfied, accusing her of lying and ruining her mam’s chance of happiness. Diana gave a growl of pure rage and flew across the short distance which separated them. She slapped Charlie’s face hard and then went for him, a small tornado of fury intent upon doing as much harm as she could before he began to defend himself.

So far as Charlie was concerned, the attack must have been completely unexpected, for he staggered back, colliding with the corner support of the nearest stall. It rocked, tilted crazily, and then collapsed, partially burying Charlie under rolls of linoleum whilst Diana stood back, suddenly appalled by what she had done. Her wretched temper! She had been Charlie’s pal for ages, and now what must he think? Charlie, red-faced, was struggling out from under, revenge in his expression. He would probably have thumped her despite his being so much older had not the stallholder’s wife interfered. She was a fat, good-humoured woman, with apple cheeks and soft brown hair plaited into a coronet on top of her head. She grabbed Diana, lifted her off her feet and carried her behind the stall, where she sat her down on a tall stool and told her to stay where she was until she’d come to her senses.

‘I dunno what your young friend said to annoy you, but there ain’t never no excuse for behaving like a wildcat,’ she said severely. ‘It ain’t as if he could really fight back, because he’s a good bit older and
bigger’n you and I ’spec his mam’s telled him young fellers don’t hit girls. Now what were the trouble about, eh? One minute you were chattin’ away, friendly as you like, and the next you flew at him an’ all hell broke loose. Well?’

Diana stared sulkily at her feet. She was deeply mortified, for she knew the woman had spoken nothing but the truth, but feeling thoroughly ashamed of the way she had behaved did not, unfortunately, let her off the hook. She looked at the woman through eyelashes still wet with tears of temper and said, sulkily: ‘He called me a liar, and I’m not! And he said I’d been badly brought up – that’s not true, either. He – he says my mam might marry again . . . oh, I hate him, I hate him!’

‘It sounds to me as though you’ve got yourself in a right state for no real reason,’ the woman said, looking very hard at Diana’s hot and tear-swollen face. ‘I seen you and that young feller here often and often, trying to earn a few pennies by carrying linoleum home for me customers. Now, are you going to apologise to your pal? ’Cos he’s doin’ his best to help Alfie – that’s me husband – set things to rights and if there were any justice it ought to be you doin’ it, because it were you started the whole row off, I see’d you.’

Diana slid off the stool, fished a hanky out of her knicker leg and rubbed her face dry with it. Then she said: ‘I’m really very sorry I made such a mess of your stall, missus, because I didn’t mean to. And I shouldn’t have smacked Charlie’s face; I know my mam would say it wasn’t a ladylike thing to do. I’ll give a hand with tidying up the mess – though most of the work’s already been done – but I’ll never forgive Charlie for the things he said. Not if I live to be a hundred.’

‘You won’t live to be twenty if you don’t curb that temper,’ the stallholder told her, though there was a twinkle in her eye. ‘D’you realise the weight of some of those rolls of lino? Your pal might easily have been knocked unconscious . . . even killed. When I saw him go down, and the rolls crash on top of him, me heart were in me mouth. Ah, here comes your pal; what say you shake and make up?’

Under the woman’s eagle eye, Diana grudgingly held out her hand and shook Charlie’s, though she avoided his eye.

‘I’m awful sorry, Charlie, only . . . only you upset me,’ she said in a small, gruff voice. ‘You’re me pal, but – but you did say my mam hadn’t brought me up right. Only I never meant . . . if you’ll say sorry for that, I’ll say sorry for hitting you.’

This seemed to her downright handsome, but Charlie was looking at her with narrowed eyes and she could tell that apologising was the last thing on his mind. But he said, grudgingly, that he was sorry if he’d upset her and then the two of them set off in the direction of the court, Charlie marching ahead and Diana dragging along behind him, head bowed.

When they were well clear of Great Nelson Street, Charlie spoke. ‘I didn’t mean to get your goat an’ make you lose your temper,’ he said gruffly. ‘But it’s no use pretendin’ your mam hasn’t been seein’ fellers in the sanatorium because she has, so there is a chance she’s thinkin’ about marriage.’

Diana sighed heavily. ‘You may be right, Charlie,’ she admitted after a long pause. ‘But I don’t think you are. So don’t let’s talk about it. I’m sorry I hit you and I’m sorry I knocked you into the lino stall. I wonder what Aunty Beryl’s got for our tea.’

Emmy came home on a wild autumn day, with a gale roaring up the Mersey and tearing the leaves off any trees in its path. She was supposed to be brought by ambulance, but Dr Masters had said, bluntly, that he did not think it was a good idea. ‘The ambulance is old and the springs are worn,’ he had told her. ‘A long journey in that vehicle will shake your bones into splinters, very likely. No, you’ll be best getting a friend or relative to come down on the train and accompany you back. What about your sister Beryl? She seems a sensible woman and won’t let you overdo it, I’m sure. Write to her, Mrs Wesley, and tell her what I’ve said. I’m sure she’ll be happy to oblige us both.’

Emmy had smiled to herself, remembering how she had lied to everyone at the sanatorium about her relationship with Beryl because, in the early days, patients were only supposed to be visited by relatives. The fiction, however, had stuck and everyone still believed that she and Beryl were sisters. So now she agreed to write to Beryl and was not at all surprised when her friend announced that she would catch the earliest train possible and then accompany her back to Liverpool.

After all
, Beryl had written,
since you’ll be staying with us in Nightingale Court, it makes sense for me to come and fetch you. If you have a great deal of luggage, I’d best bring Charlie to give a hand, but I won’t keep
Diana out of school, since she’s planning a bit of a surprise for your first day back home (only don’t tell her I said anything or she’ll be as stiff with me as she is with Charlie)!

The last remark had surprised Emmy. Diana’s letters were always full of Charlie, and when she visited the sanatorium his name seemed to be constantly on the tip of her tongue. However, children were always falling out and then falling in again; probably, by the time she got home, Diana and Charlie would be the best of friends once more.

Johnny Frost had offered to hire a car and take her all the way to Liverpool in it, and the last time Carl had visited he had made a similar offer, but she had turned them both down. She had told Mr Mac of both invitations and he had smiled, but then said that Dr Masters was a sensible man. ‘Follow his advice and you won’t go far wrong,’ he had said. He had cocked an eyebrow at her, twinkling. ‘You don’t want to go giving anyone false hopes, do you?’

So now, here was Emmy outside Lime Street Station with Beryl lugging her large suitcase beside her, heading for the nearest tram stop. She found the traffic extremely daunting after spending three years in a sleepy seaside town and as an enormous lorry thundered past, making her flinch, she wondered whether she would ever get used to the noise and bustle again, for the pavements were teeming with people as the roads teemed with traffic.

The tram queue was a long one and the suitcase heavy. Beryl had placed it on the pavement and was beginning to say something to her friend when Emmy heard herself hailed by a familiar voice. She turned, startled, and saw Iris, one of the waitresses from Mac’s, gesturing to her.