Two Penn'orth of Sky (43 page)

The day wore on. Emmy enjoyed her work, but now, when Mr Mac came over and spoke to her, she was uncertain how she should reply. It would be dreadfully shaming if he realised she was in love with him, since he could not return her feelings. If only she knew just how fond he was of his wife-tobe! But the very fact that he meant to marry must mean he adored the woman.

All afternoon, Emmy wondered what she should do for the best. The obvious course was to tell herself that Mr Mac, as an almost married man, was out of the running as far as she was concerned. Yet surely there must still be some hope for her? After all, he had repeated his invitation to her to view more houses on her next day off. I
know
he likes me, Emmy told herself stubbornly, as her shift ended and she went to the staff room to put on her coat and hat. And if he likes me – well, you never know what might happen. I’ll be so nice to him that he’s bound to begin to think of me as a friend rather than just as an employee. I shall ask old Mrs Mac to tell me about his lady friend . . . I shall pretend I want to know so that I can judge her taste when viewing houses. But, oh dear, what a fool I’ve been! I’ve had a hundred opportunities to make him love me, and I’ve let them all slip. But I won’t give in, I won’t, I won’t! Somehow, I’ll make him see that his marrying anyone but me would be a terrible mistake.

‘Emmy, if we’re going to walk home together,
you’d best gerra move on. The rain’s stopped, for a miracle, so if we hurry we might get back without being soaked to the skin.’

Emmy swung round. It was Dolly, who had recently moved into a house not far from Nightingale Court, and the two of them often walked home together. ‘Sorry, queen,’ Emmy said, hurrying across the staff room in Dolly’s wake. ‘I want a word with Mr Mac, though, before I leave. Can you hang on for two more minutes?’

Emmy had no idea what she intended to say but, in the event, said nothing. Mr Mac had left.

Diana came thundering down the stairs and burst into the kitchen. Her mother, she knew, had left for work early this morning – if she was going to work, that was. Diana thought it was her mother’s day off, but Christmas was getting near and the staff at the restaurant were frantically busy, so when Diana had woken to find Emmy already dressed and about to depart, she had assumed that she was working overtime to help out.

As she entered the kitchen, Aunty Beryl looked up from her morning task of cutting Charlie’s carry-out – Wally had already left – and smiled at her. Charlie had managed to get a job as a delivery boy for a local butcher, Mrs Sparks on Limekiln Lane, and usually left for work at the same time as the rest of the family left for school. ‘You’re early, love,’ Beryl said cheerfully. ‘Your mam rushed off early, too; she’s probably wanting to get some Christmas shopping done before she starts work at the restaurant. Want some porridge? You’ll have to ladle out your own ’cos I’m cutting Charlie’s sarnies.’

Diana went over to the stove and dipped the big ladle into the black porridge pot. ‘I know I’m early, and it’s ’cos I wanted a word with you before Charlie and the rest come down,’ she said. She carried her bowl of porridge over to the table and settled herself before it. ‘Aunty Beryl, what’s the matter with me mam? I’m worried in case she’s getting ill again or
in case she’s going to do something stupid, like agreeing to marry that Carl. You know he invited us to go to Sweden?’

‘Yes, I did know; but since your mam says she’s going to turn down his invitation, that shouldn’t worry you overmuch,’ Beryl said placidly, continuing to slice bread and spread margarine and meat paste. ‘What do you mean, you’re afraid she might be getting ill again? Her last check-up was real good, she told me.’

‘I know. It’s – it’s just that she doesn’t always listen when I’m speaking to her,’ Diana said, her spoon suspended over the porridge. ‘It’s as though she was thinking of something else, something more important, and though I’m only a kid, what I say
is
important – to me, at any rate. Does she do that to you, Aunty Beryl? I mean, ask you a question and then not listen to your answer . . . stuff like that.’

Beryl laughed. ‘Just because someone’s a bit absent-minded, a bit turned in on themselves like, that doesn’t make them ill,’ she said. ‘And yes, your mam acts absent-minded with me as well as with you. The fact is, queen, Emmy’s got rather a lot on her mind right now. For the first time in her life, the thing she wants most isn’t going to be handed to her on a plate. So, of course, she’s spending a lot of time wondering what went wrong and how she can put it right.’

Diana gave this pronouncement some thought as she spooned porridge, then looked up at Beryl with a puzzled frown. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said plaintively. ‘What hasn’t she got handed to her on a plate? And why is she turned in on herself?’

‘I telled you; because she thinks she must have done something wrong . . . no, not wrong exactly.
Oh, Diana, me love, I can’t really explain but I think, in a way, your mam’s growin’ up.’

‘Growing up?’ Diana said, now completely bewildered. ‘But she is grown up, Aunty Beryl . . . she’s old. Well, not terribly old, but she isn’t a kid.’

Beryl sighed and began to wrap Charlie’s carry-out in a piece of greaseproof paper. ‘Just you take my word for it, queen, that there’s nowt wrong wi’ your mam and she isn’t going to marry anyone all in a rush. What’s more, I’d bet a pound to a shilling that neither of you will be going off to Sweden when summer comes, so you can stop worrying over that as well. Want to toast yourself a round of bread?’ She cocked her head as the sound of boots came thundering down the stairs. ‘Here come the heavy brigade, expectin’ their breakfast on the table so’s they can guzzle it down an’ gerroff in good time. Be a pal, Di, and dish up some bowls of porridge for me.’

Diana set about the task, aware of a feeling of relief. She did love her Aunty Beryl, who was always so sensible, so kind. She had managed to put all of Diana’s fears at rest. She had as good as said that Mammy wasn’t ill and wasn’t going to marry anyone, either. It also sounded as though her mother meant to give Carl his marching orders, which was marvellous. Diana carried the first bowl of porridge to the table just as Charlie and Lenny burst into the room, getting stuck in the doorway and cursing each other as they jostled and shoved. ‘Stop mucking about, you two, and don’t you go barging into me, Charlie Fisher, ’cos I don’t want porridge all down me decent skirt,’ Diana said briskly, beginning to fill the second bowl. ‘I dunno, boys act more like wild animals than human beings.’ She smiled across at Becky as the child came dreamily into the kitchen in Bobby’s wake, her cardigan half
on and half off, one boot on her foot and the other in her hand. ‘You two ought to take a lesson from our Becky. She doesn’t shove and push or shout and swear, but I bet she’s ready for school while you lads are still squabbling over who’s got the most porridge.’

Since Charlie and Lenny were even now disputing who should have the larger bowl, Diana was sure she would presently be proved right. She settled Becky in her chair, having first straightened her cardigan and buttoned it correctly, then knelt on the floor and began to push Becky’s foot into her boot, remarking as she did so that the younger girl could do with a new pair. ‘Feet do grow at such a rate, don’t they, Aunty Beryl?’ she said, tying Becky’s laces into a neat bow and getting to her feet. ‘Now don’t hurry, Becky, or you’ll spill porridge on your nice clean cardy. Want some milky tea?’

Becky replied that she did and presently the two girls hurried out of the kitchen, Diana’s arm looped affectionately round the younger girl’s waist. As she had prophesied, the boys were still at the table, eating bread and marge, talking with their mouths full and occasionally taking a pull at their tea.

‘I ’spec they’ll be late, Di, like you said they would,’ Becky remarked, as they crossed the court and turned into Raymond Street. ‘The boys is nearly always late, ain’t they, Di? They doesn’t seem to care like us girls does.’

Diana chuckled. For all Becky was so slow in some things, she was sharp as a needle in others. She was still in the infants’ class, painfully learning to read and write, though she was making big strides at both, and Diana reflected that another good thing about her mother’s not marrying was that she would be able to remain with the Fishers. Diana still admired
Charlie very much and was on excellent terms with Lenny, but now that she was growing up she got enormous satisfaction from taking care of Becky, and teaching her as much as the child’s brain would hold. As they hurried along the street, she began to teach Becky a little poem which her mother had taught her when she was four or five. Becky was ten now but Diana knew that her mental age was a good deal less – knew also that she would enjoy learning the poem. ‘I’m going to teach you a little verse, Becky, as we go to and from school,’ she said instructively. ‘It’s a lovely poem, all about flowers . . . and you love flowers, don’t you, queen?’

Becky nodded. ‘Yes, I does love flowers; an’ I loves you, too,’ she said, in her flat little voice. ‘Tell me the poem then, Di.’

Diana was touched by Becky’s affection and gave her hand a squeeze before beginning to recite the poem. ‘It goes like this:

Little brown seed, oh little brown brother
,

Are you awake in the dark?

Here we lie cosily, close to each other

Hark to the song of the lark
.’

Becky listened intently, then began to repeat the words, and Diana, nodding encouragement, thought how nice it was to have a little sister who loved you and looked up to you, even if she wasn’t your real sister. Becky came to the end of the second line and stopped short, and Diana gave her a hug. ‘You
are
clever, Becky,’ she said admiringly. ‘Why, you said those two lines just as good as I could. Say ’em once more and then we’ll start on the next two.’

*

Beryl watched the two girls leave the kitchen, a smile hovering. She reflected how Diana’s attitude to Becky had changed over the years and told herself that it was not only Emmy who was growing up. Diana might be only eleven but she was a real little mother to Becky. Once, Beryl had worried a great deal when she had agreed to let Becky start school. She had known how cruel children can be and knew, also, that Becky would not know how to complain to authority if she was bullied, beaten or mocked. On Becky’s first day, however, Beryl had wandered along at playtime and had been delighted, and relieved, to see Becky and Diana, their hands tightly clasped, queuing up for a turn at hopscotch. She had watched as Diana showed Becky how to throw the slate into the square she wanted and how Diana had squashed another girl who had tried to shoulder in first. When the children had come home that afternoon, she had asked Becky what she thought of school and the child had replied, with her usual transparent honesty, that it were nice. ‘Teacher were kind to me. I chalked on the board and made a castle of bricks,’ she had said. ‘Can I go back tomorrer?’

‘Mam, me shoelace has bust. Is there a bit of string in the drawer?’ Bobby’s voice broke into Beryl’s thoughts, and for the next ten minutes she was far too busy getting the boys off to school to think about anything else. Charlie got himself off to work and was never late, because he brought his delivery bicycle home each night and cycled off at top speed each morning.

‘Young Diana was right; you’re going to be late, as usual,’ Beryl scolded the other three, bundling them out of the door when they would have lingered. ‘No, Lenny, you can’t come back for that tatty old football.
You aren’t supposed to take it to school, anyway. Now, off wi’ you, and you’d best run because I don’t want no more complaints from Father Ignatius that the Fishers is always late.’

Returning to the kitchen, Beryl got out her flat irons and stood them in a row by the fire to heat whilst she cleared away the breakfast things and washed up. Then she put a blanket on the kitchen table, covered it with an old piece of sheeting, and went over to her laundry basket. It was warm in the kitchen and the top tablecloth was almost dry, but the rest were nicely damp still and would iron up a treat. Beryl picked up the first iron and spat on it; yes, it would do nicely. She shifted all the other irons up one, tucked the almost dry tablecloth beneath the others, picked up the second cloth, and set to work, reflecting as she did so that she could have done this job in her sleep. The long, smooth sweeps of the iron continued until the cloth was finished. Then she folded it neatly, placed it carefully in her big wicker basket, and began on the next. She glanced, a trifle anxiously, at Freddie, playing with the wooden cars Charlie had made for him, but he was absorbed, so she continued with her work, letting her mind wander. She had suspected for some time that Mr Mac was sweet on Emmy and had been truly astonished – and dismayed – when Emmy had told her that Mr Mac was going to get married. At first, she had felt quite angry with Emmy for never really noticing her boss as a human being. He had confided in Beryl once, when they had travelled back from Llandudno together on the train, that he blamed himself for Emmy’s illness. ‘I knew she was in difficult financial circumstances and thought that the best help I could give would be to employ her for more hours.
Evening work is better paid so I saw to it that she was given evening work, never even suspecting that it was too much for her. Of course I cursed myself for a fool when someone pointed out how thin and pale she was getting, but when I tried to reduce her hours she seemed more upset than delighted. So I thought . . . I thought . . .’

Beryl had nodded, understanding Mr Mac’s dilemma. ‘Yes, I know what you mean,’ she had said. ‘She were that difficult and bad-tempered, not like her usual sunny self at all. Why, she even fell out wi’ me, her closest friend, took Diana away from me, wouldn’t let me so much as pass the time of day with the kid. Naturally, I were cut to the quick, but instead of trying to find out what the trouble were, I took offence. I thought two could play at that game and when we passed in the street, or even in the court, I kept me eyes to meself. I knew she were meetin’ that Carl pretty reg’lar and I telled meself that now she’d got a feller she didn’t want her old friend no more. So you see, if anyone was to blame, it were me. And when I did see her – after she’d collapsed, I mean – you could ha’ knocked me down with a feather.’ She had smiled at him across the railway carriage. ‘So don’t you go blaming yourself, Mr Mac. Why, she’s had no more reg’lar visitor than you since she’s been in the sanny, and she enjoys your visits that much, I’ve been quite jealous at times.’