A Mother's Spirit (37 page)

It was the word ‘opportunity’ that seeped into Joe’s brain. He remembered Brian Brannigan holding out the hand of opportunity to him and that he had grasped it. It was up to him to help his son in the same way and so he said, ‘I hear what you say, sir. I would like him to have the chance of taking this eleven plus, if he is bright enough. That all right with you, Ben?’

Ben shrugged. None of it was all right, but when did that ever matter? Ben was taken down to join his new class, accompanied by the school secretary, a position the school in Buncrana hadn’t needed. Joe had stayed talking to the headmaster and Ben knew why he was being shuttled out of the way: his father was going to tell the headmaster about his mother and what she had done. He burned with shame that anyone had to know, but his father had been firm that the school had to be told. ‘It is your mother who has done wrong,’ he told Ben when he complained. ‘You have nothing to be ashamed about.’

‘Course I have,’ Ben had cried. ‘The others will take the mickey.’

‘But why?’ Joe was genuinely nonplussed.

‘They just will, that’s why,’ Ben said. ‘Well, you tell the headmaster the truth if you want to, but I am going to tell anyone who asks that my mum is dead. It isn’t really a lie either, because she might as well be.’

All this went through Ben’s head as he stood by the teacher’s desk that first morning. Her name was Miss Tranter and she was young and quite pretty and, Ben guessed, not all that strict. However, as he looked around at the sea of
faces he knew straight away who he would have trouble with and that was a group of boys at the back of the class. He saw them nudge one another in delight and knew they viewed him as a new boy to bait, and knew too he was in for a tough time in the playground.

Ben had been at school just over a fortnight when Tom came home. Joe was immensely glad to see him. Tom had always been a firm favourite with Ben, and Joe was greatly worried about him because he seemed to be worse, not better, since he had begun at the school. Joe had hoped that he might have made friends and begun to settle to life in Birmingham, but that hadn’t happened yet, and if ever Joe tried to talk to him about it he always claimed he had homework to do.

Ben did tell his father that as the records hadn’t come through from the school at Buncrana he had been given an aptitude test, which had showed him to be grammar school material and so he had homework every night and he would disappear into his room and stay there. From then too, he would never let his father into the bathroom when he was washing or in the bath. It had never bothered him before but he knew he would have a hard job explaining away the bruises and abrasions on his body to his father’s satisfaction should he catch sight of them.

Joe had made enough fuss about his constantly grazed knees. ‘Goodness, Ben!’ he exclaimed a few days previously when once more his scraped knees had been covered with a plaster. ‘What’s the matter with you? You never used to be this clumsy. Can’t you keep on your feet at all?’

It’s hard, Ben might have said, when the legs are kicked from under you. What he did instead was growl at his father, ‘I fell over, that’s all. I didn’t do it on purpose or anything, so what you’re giving out to me for?’

‘It’s just … Ben, is anything the matter?’

‘I told you there isn’t,’ Ben cried. ‘So why don’t you leave me alone?’

Joe had great hopes that Tom might break through the hard shell that Ben had wrapped all around himself, but as one week slipped into another, Ben seemed to distance himself further and further away from them all.

Even Kevin had tried to find out what was wrong, to no avail. ‘You have to get over this, mate,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘Look, I know what it’s like to lose your mother,’ he said more gently. ‘It is just about the worst thing that can happen in the whole of your life and it hurts like hell. But in the end you have got to face it, because nothing you do will change it.’

‘Your mother died,’ Ben hissed, ‘and I know that was sad and everything, but she had no choice. My mother chose to go away and leave me and leave my dad. She preferred some stupid American that she had only just met to us. You have no idea how that feels.’

It wasn’t just the lack of his mother that was bothering Ben, but also what was happening in the school. The very things that had made him popular in London worked in the opposite way in Birmingham.

His accent now was a mixture of American with an Irish lilt, not at all like the Brummie accent, and something else to tease him about. His good looks appealed to many of the girls so the bullies called him a sissy. He was also bright and keen to learn and, like his father, quick to pick things up. While this endeared him to the teachers it enraged the bully boys on the back row.

Each morning, as he turned in the gate as late as he dared to be, he would feel as if he was entering a hostile battleground, and the knot lodged in the pit of his stomach would tighten as he saw those boys elbowing one another as they saw him arrive.

There was no hope of avoiding them at playtime, for if one wouldn’t spot him, another would, and they would congregate round him and start jeering. Anything could start
them off. They even mocked him because he had no mother. It was useless to try to defend himself, though he attempted this when the jeering and name-calling escalated into blows. In the beginning the girls in the playground had tried to intervene and stop the fighting, but it made matters worse and their intervention was just another stick to beat him with. Now they watched helplessly.

Going home too was a trial. He always left the building like a bat out of hell, but the bullies often caught up with him and would continue what they had begun in the playground. He would arrive home with his clothes in complete disarray, often with a rip in his shirt or jersey. His father was always annoyed with him about the state of his clothes, reminding him he only had so many coupons a year to buy him everything he needed and urging him to take more care.

Then he would often ask him if there was anything the matter. Ben would shake his head because there was a great deal the matter but nothing that his dad could help with. There was one person, though, that he was strangely drawn to and that was his Uncle Tom’s friend Isobel, whom he called Aunt Izzy. He couldn’t understand why this was and yet while she seldom said much, he felt that she was sympathetic towards him.

Isobel was a kindly lady, like Uncle Tom. Her brown hair, which she often wore in a soft roll at the nape of her neck, was streaked with grey, but her deep brown eyes in her honest and open face missed little, and he wasn’t a bit surprised that she was so friendly with his uncle, for, as his dad said, they were made in the same mould.

Isobel wasn’t a great talker. She had been the younger sister and had let the elder one talk for her. Then she’d married a voluble man who had taken over where her sister left off, so Isobel had learned to listen and found a person learned a lot about another by observation. She found out too at an early age that sometimes what a person did was
a better indicator of what was going on in their head than what they said.

And so she knew that it wasn’t only the loss of his mother that was making Ben so unhappy, it was something else as well. She guessed it was to do with school because it was the only place Ben went, and yet Joe said he had no trouble with the work and was in line to sit the eleven plus. Isobel didn’t badger him with questions, though she knew he was suffering, because she also knew that he wasn’t ready to say anything yet.

As the bullying continued, Ben worked even harder. He knew that none of his tormenters would be sitting the exam and the only way to get rid of them, as he saw it, was to make sure he passed, so he took extra work home. He even took work home to do over Christmas because the exam was in two parts, the first part to be held in the town hall in January.

By Christmas the end of the war seemed as far away as ever. Since September, the beleaguered Londoners had been attacked by a new hazard: V-2s, pilotless like the doodlebugs, but which were even more dangerous as they made no noise at all.

‘I feel so sorry for the Londoners,’ Joe said. ‘The blitz was shocking, wasn’t it, Ben?’

‘I’ll say.’

‘Do you remember it well?’ Isobel asked, and Ben nodded vigorously.

‘I’ll never forget it,’ he said. ‘Dad was a volunteer fireman and it was usually just me and Mom down the shelters.’ He stopped. He never spoke about his mother, but now that he had, the memories came flooding back. He remembered the feel of her arms around him and how comforting they were when he was so scared, and how brave she was in the teeth of the most terrifying raids. He could even remember the smell of her as she held him
close. The loss of her stabbed his heart as keenly and as painfully as it had in the early days.

Isobel looked into Ben’s anguished eyes, guessed at the thoughts tumbling about his head and felt her heart turn over for the young boy. She knew this had been a particularly poignant time for him, the first Christmas without his mother.

Isobel wasn’t surprised when Ben suddenly leaped to his feet and made for his room.

When Isobel got up to follow Joe said, ‘I should leave him be. He gets over these moods on his own.’

‘I don’t think he is in a mood,’ Isobel said. ‘I think he is finding the memories almost more than he can cope with. Maybe he needs the comfort of another human being in the room.’

‘He might be rude to you,’ Joe warned.

Isobel shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter if he is,’ she said. ‘I have very broad shoulders.’

Ben lay spread-eagled on the bed and he continued to lie there though he knew that Isobel had entered the room. She made no comment, just sat down on the chair beside the bed. The room was virtually silent and yet it wasn’t uncomfortable. Instead it seemed to radiate peace, and as Ben lay there he felt all the tension seeping out of his body.

Eventually he turned over on his side and regarded Isobel as she sat on the chair as if she had all the time in the world. ‘Why aren’t you interrogating me with questions?’ he asked in the end.

Isobel smiled. ‘Is that what you would like me to do?’

‘No,’ Ben said. ‘I’d hate it, but that’s what most adults do all the time.’

‘Maybe I’m not like most adults.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Kevin said. ‘So why did you come in here then?’

‘I had the feeling that the memories you had were suddenly too much to bear,’ Isobel said. ‘I have been there too and
sometimes it helps to have someone with you, especially if they know what you are going through.’

‘What were your memories then?’

‘Of my son … my husband,’ Isobel said. ‘There are so many memories that comfort me now, but it wasn’t always like that.’

‘Did they die?’

‘Yes, Ben,’ Isobel said.

‘But that isn’t the same,’ Ben argued. ‘That’s like Kevin’s mother and father, and I know it’s sad but it isn’t the same. They had no choice in it, but my mother chose to go off.’

‘My son, Gregory, chose to go in the army,’ Isobel said. ‘He didn’t have to. He was only seventeen and he lied about his age. He could have deferred it too, for he had a brilliant future ahead of him, a place in medical school virtually guaranteed, which he was due to start the following year. But he didn’t listen. I could have gone to the recruitment board with his birth certificate and they would have released him.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Because it wasn’t what he wanted,’ Isobel said. ‘He wouldn’t have been happy.’

‘So what happened to him?’

‘He died at Dunkirk,’ Isobel said. ‘My husband, Gerald, never got over it. He collapsed when the telegram came and was never fit for work again, and I nursed him till he died in 1941.’

‘So do you think your son was selfish?’

‘Perhaps a little.’

‘Well, he only thought about himself, didn’t he?’ Ben said.

‘Yes, he did,’ Isobel said. ‘But lots of people do that.’

‘Like my mother.’

‘Yes, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t love you, Ben. Gregory loved us very much, but he still went. Your mother wanted to take you with her, remember.’

‘Dad would say that is like having your cake and eating it.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘And, anyway, I didn’t want to go,’ Ben said. ‘How could I go and leave Dad on his own?’

‘Your mother will know that now,’ Isobel said. ‘She must love the American very much, but there won’t be a day goes by when she won’t miss you, and even perhaps wishes things had worked out differently.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Because I miss Gerald and the son we had for just such a short time every day, and it is as if there is a hole in my heart where they used to lie.’

‘Yeah,’ Ben said. ‘That’s what I feel like too.’ He looked up at Isobel. ‘You know, no one has ever spoken to me like this before.’

‘The thing to remember, Ben, is that whatever bad situation you are in, there will be someone in the world even worse,’ Isobel said.

‘So I just have to put up with things.’

‘Yes, Ben,’ Isobel said. ‘If you can do nothing to change the situation. That’s exactly what you must do.’

Ben thought about Isobel’s words and knew she spoke the truth. He had to accept that his mother had chosen to go away and live a different life in America and there was nothing he could do about it. He had missed her so much at Christmas; though they had spent the day at Molly’s, with Uncle Tom as well, he felt like there was a gaping hole inside him.

He accepted now that that was something he had to deal with on his own. His dad couldn’t bring his mother back, which was really what he would like him to do, and so it was no good getting cross with him because it didn’t help anyone. As for the bullies at school, as long as he passed the eleven plus, he would leave them far behind, so in a few months his life was bound to be better than it was now.

He slid off the bed and Isobel said, ‘Now where are you going?’

‘Back into the living room,’ Ben answered. ‘I’m getting on with it, like you said.’

Early in January, with the schools not long back after the Christmas holidays, Isobel took Ben into Birmingham to the town hall so that he could sit the first part of the eleven plus. She had offered to do this, knowing that Joe hated missing time from work. Molly was too near her time to go far from home at all, and Aggie was reluctant to leave her.

Isobel was quite glad it had fallen to her because the more she had to do with Ben, the better she liked him. He was waiting for her and they set off into the raw, bleak day. The skies were gunmetal grey with thick oppressive clouds and they both shivered as they hurried to the tram stop.

‘Tell you one thing,’ Isobel said a little later as they boarded the tram, ‘after the exams are over, we will go out for a slap-up lunch, or at least what passes as a slap-up lunch in war-torn Birmingham.’

‘Haven’t I got to go back to school then?’ Ben asked, knowing that if his father had brought him, he would have delivered him back to school as soon as he could so that he could get back to work.

‘Not at all,’ Isobel said. ‘Goodness me, no. After an exam like that you need feeding up. And in weather like this that means something that sticks to your ribs.’

Ben grinned at her. The day was already sounding better.

‘How are you feeling?’ Isobel asked.

‘All right, I suppose.’

‘You do want to go to grammar school, don’t you?’ Isobel asked. ‘It’s not something that you have been forced into?’

It had been a concern of Isobel’s and yet she knew that she hadn’t any right to express an opinion about it. Ben, however, allayed her fears straight away. ‘No, I really want to go. In fact, I can’t wait.’

‘You have to pass the exam first.’

‘I know, but the teacher said I had a good chance,’ Ben said. ‘And I have done extra work, more than the others mostly.’

‘How many are taking it then?’

‘Just one other boy and two girls from our school,’ Ben said. ‘They’re all right. It’s not them that I have problems with.’ Ben gave a gasp as he realised that he had said the words aloud. He could have bitten his tongue out. What an idiot he was.

Isobel glanced at Ben’s red, agitated face and said, ‘So who do you have problems with?’

Immediately it was like there was a shutter across Ben’s face. ‘No one really,’ he muttered.

Isobel knew Ben was lying but didn’t pursue it. He had enough on his plate for now, but she stored the subject away for later.

Ben had never seen so many desks as were in that hall that morning. He was told they were arranged alphabetically, which meant that his desk was probably in the last row. He hadn’t noticed that his shoes had a squeak until he walked almost the length of the room and then up and down the rows, searching for his name. The desks were all singles, he noted, and each one far enough apart from its neighbour to ensure there could be no copying. As he took his seat the teacher began laying out the papers face down on the desks. He knew what they would be because his teacher had explained about the verbal reasoning tests, and before
Christmas they had practised these over and over, as they had the English and arithmetic tests, which he knew would follow.

When Ben first turned over the paper, for a moment the words swam before him and he was gripped by panic. He couldn’t do this. He would make an utter fool of himself. He told himself not to be so stupid. This was the day he knew would come, that he had been working towards for months, and he picked up his pen and began.

After the exam, the candidates were sent into the reception area to meet up with the people who had come with them.

‘That your mum?’ a boy asked Ben, pointing his finger at Isobel, who had spotted him across the room and was waving.

Ben didn’t know how to explain Isobel. It sounded strange to say that he was a friend of his Uncle Tom’s. ‘I haven’t got a mom. She’s dead. That’s my Aunt Izzy,’ he said as she approached.

Isobel heard what Ben said and wasn’t surprised, because it was far better for him to say his mother was dead than to say that she had run off with someone else. So she made no comment, but instead just said, ‘You survived it then?’

‘Just about,’ Ben said. ‘And I’m starving.’

‘Me too,’ Isobel said. ‘Let’s go.’

A little later they were studying the sparse menu in the city-centre restaurant.

‘Spam fritters, mashed potato, swede and carrots,’ Isobel said. ‘It’s not quite the banquet I had in mind, but never mind. It will probably be better than poor man’s goose, which I happen to know is liver, or Lord Woolton pie.’

‘Ugh, I’ll say,’ Ben said with feeling. ‘And at least we know what Spam is.’

‘Oh, I dispute that,’ Isobel said with a laugh. ‘No one knows what Spam is. All we can say is that it is edible and we know of no one who has died from eating it.’

‘It’d better be Spam then,’ Ben said with a resigned sigh.

A short time later, as they attacked the meal, Isobel said, ‘Do you want to talk about the exam or not? I don’t mind either way.’

Ben laid down his fork and said, ‘You know, Aunt Izzy, you are the oddest grown-up I know.’

Isobel smiled and said, ‘Am I supposed to take that as a compliment?’

Ben nodded. ‘You’re not full of questions like lots of grown-ups.’

‘Well, I think that sometimes people have to get things fixed in their own head before they want to share it with others,’ Isobel said. ‘And some things they might not want to share at all, and then I don’t think they should be forced to.’

‘That’s it exactly,’ said Ben. ‘And really there isn’t much to say about the exam. It was hard as I expected it to be, but I did my best and I hope that I did enough to pass, but we will have to wait and see and that’s all there is to it.’

‘Right,’ Isobel said. ‘That’s the exam dealt with. Anything else you want to talk about?’

‘Y … yes,’ Ben said hesitantly. ‘You probably won’t answer, though.’

‘Try me.’

‘Are you going to marry Uncle Tom?’

‘No, I’m not, Ben, but what made you ask?’ Aggie said.

‘Well, you are friends with him, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am,’ Isobel said. ‘And proud to be because he is a lovely man. But he is just that, a friend.’

‘Will you ever marry again?’

‘I’m not looking for anyone else in my life,’ Isobel said. ‘I had a lovely marriage to a wonderful man, and I really think that there is no way that that could be repeated. But I’m not against marriage for other people.’

‘Uncle Tom used to say that he wasn’t the marrying kind.’

‘No,’ Isobel said. ‘He is happy single. He told me he has
never been happier nor more content than he is at the moment, and Paul said he took to factory work like he had been born to it.’

‘He likes working for your brother,’ Ben confided. ‘He told me that.’

‘Paul’s a kind man,’ Isobel said. ‘He owes your family a debt because if Molly’s father hadn’t crawled in to save him that time in the First World War he wouldn’t be here today.’

‘Molly told me about that,’ Ben said. ‘And Kevin said a bit. Must have been brave, their dad, mustn’t he?’

‘I’ll say he must have been,’ Isobel said. ‘Two of my brothers, both older than Paul, had already been killed, and with each one I saw my parents age a little more. Mind you, we didn’t know our brothers much because my sister and I were so much younger, and then when they were eight they were sent away to school.’

‘I wouldn’t like that much.’

‘It’s how it was,’ Isobel said. ‘No one ever questioned it. There are seven years between Sarah and Paul and so she was only about a year old when he went to join his brothers. I am two years younger again and they always seemed quite grown up to me. Anyway, that was all a long time ago and there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then. I know something far more interesting from your point of view.’

‘What?’

‘I happen to know that they have apple pie and custard on the menu for once. Have you room for it now you have cleaned your plate?’

‘Are you kidding?’ Ben said with a grin. ‘For apple pie and custard I would always have room.’

‘Well, you’re better than me then,’ Isobel said. ‘Because I haven’t the smallest space left, but I will buy it for you with pleasure. I love to see a boy with a good appetite.’

Ben tucked into the pudding, which he described as delicious, with gusto, and Isobel let him enjoy it.

He had almost finished when she suddenly said, ‘Is someone bullying you at school, Ben?’

There was no lead up to the question and so Ben was taken completely unawares. He was about to make an emphatic denial when his eyes caught the concerned ones of Isobel and he lowered his head and mumbled, ‘Yeah, a bit. How d’you know, anyway?’

‘Something you said before the exam. What’s it all over?’

Ben shrugged. ‘Anything and everything.’

‘Why don’t you tell someone?’

‘That’s a daft thing to say,’ Ben said. ‘You know I can’t do that. And I wouldn’t mind it so much if it was one to one, but there are three of them. The others join in sometimes, but I think they only do it because they are scared that, if they don’t, they might start on them next. But none of them are sitting the eleven plus and so if I pass, they won’t be able to bully me any more.’

‘They should be taught a lesson before that,’ Isobel said. ‘Bullies are nasty people and usually cowards. We have fought a war for five years now because of a bully.’

‘Maybe someone will bully them in the secondary school,’ Ben said. ‘It would serve them right. And you know what? I’d laugh if I got to hear about it.’

‘And so would I,’ said Isobel.

Just over a week after this, Molly gave birth to a baby girl that she called Nuala in memory of her mother. Ben was very impressed with the baby. He had never had much to do with babies and had no idea that they were so small, or helpless, or so perfect. He could quite understand Kevin’s pride in her, which was almost as great as Mark’s.

Ben was ticked pink when she was laid in his arms, and he held the little child as gingerly as if she was made of delicate bone china. He noted the fine down on her head, the slightly pink cheeks and the baby-blue eyes trying so
hard to focus that a pucker had developed between them, and he envied Kevin being her uncle.

‘Well, you’re her cousin,’ Kevin said, when Ben said this.

‘Am I?’ Ben asked. ‘I thought I was your cousin.’

‘You are,’ Kevin said. ‘That’s how it works. You’re my cousin and Molly’s, and because of that you are the baby’s second cousin, but still a cousin.’

‘I’m glad,’ Ben said, ‘because she is lovely, isn’t she?’

‘She isn’t half,’ Kevin said. ‘Molly said she can see that Nuala will be able to twist me around her little finger before she is much older, and you know what? I wouldn’t mind that a bit.’

‘I won’t mind either,’ Ben said.

‘I am glad, though, that I will be out at work soon,’ Kevin said. ‘Molly and Mark shouldn’t have to provide for me now that they have a baby to see to.’

‘I won’t be working for ages,’ Ben said.

‘If you get to grammar school you won’t,’ Kevin told him. ‘When do you hear if you passed that exam or not?’

‘The teacher said we will be sent the results by early March,’ Ben said. ‘If I have passed the first part of the exam, the second part is taken at my first choice of school.’

‘St Philip’s?’

‘That’s right.’

‘It’s over the other side of the city.’

‘Only just,’ Ben pointed out. ‘Anyway, I had to put a Catholic grammar school as my first choice and that is St Philip’s. Aunt Izzy can’t understand it either.’

‘Well, she wouldn’t,’ Kevin said. ‘She’s not a Catholic.’

‘Neither are you.’

‘No,’ Kevin said. ‘Not now I’m not, but I still sort of know how it works.’

‘Aunt Izzy says Bishop Vesey’s in Sutton Coldfield is a good school,’ Ben said.

‘She’s nice, isn’t she, Aunt Izzy?’ Kevin said. ‘I wonder if she will ever get together with Uncle Tom.’

‘She says not.’

‘Don’t say you’ve asked her?’

‘Yeah, I did,’ Ben admitted. ‘The day of the first exam. I didn’t think she’d answer but she did. She said that she is very fond of Tom and proud to be his friend, but she isn’t looking for anyone else and neither is he.’

‘Ah, but you know what grown-ups are,’ Kevin said. ‘They don’t always tell the truth, do they? I mean, they often tell us what they think we’d like them to say instead of being totally honest, which we would prefer.’

Ben nodded his head. He knew exactly what Kevin meant.

Just over a fortnight after little Nuala was born, Ben was in his bedroom settling to do his homework when his father came into the room. ‘Can I talk to you, Ben?’

Ben was wary. ‘What about?’

‘Your mother.’

‘No.’

‘Ben …’

‘No. I don’t want to hear anything that she has got to say.’

‘Look, Ben,’ Joe said sternly, ‘I know your mother ran out on you and I understand it was hard, but it was really me that she was leaving, not you. She has not suddenly developed two heads, or even stopped loving you.’

‘Huh!’

‘Ben, she’s written to you every week,’ Joe said, and saw his son’s eyes widen in astonishment. ‘I have kept all her letter – unopened, of course – just in case you want to have a read of them some day.’

‘Small chance.’

‘Listen, Ben,’ Joe said, ‘this morning she wrote to me saying she had a feeling that you weren’t getting the letters because she had never got a reply. She accused me of keeping the letters from you, which I had been doing in a way, and asked that you at least be told the latest news.’

‘And what’s that, as if it matters?’

‘Your mother has given birth to a baby girl,’ Joe said. ‘She was born a week ago and they are calling her Rebecca Norah. She is your half-sister, Ben.’

Ben felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. Somewhere in that vast continent of America his mother had had a baby, his sister that he would never see, or hold, or learn to love. He knew he would get to know Molly’s baby much better than the one his mother had had. It wasn’t right, and it was just one more thing to blame his mother for.