A Whisper to the Living (6 page)

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’

‘Well then, I suggest you start knowing and caring pretty damn quick. We are moving up Long Moor and that’s flat. Now stop being so daft and pass me that pan of mince off the range.’

I banged the large iron pan hard onto the table, causing utensils to rattle and fly about. My mother pushed a lock of hair from her face, leaving a smudge of flour on the end of her nose and I studied this as she spoke.

‘Eeh, it’s a lovely house, Annie. Wait till you see it, just you wait. It’s got a back-boiler and a bathroom – well, a sort of bathroom, just like a big cupboard off the front bedroom. And we’re getting the electric in – proper lights and a cooker.’ She paused in her labours to look at me. ‘Listen, Annie. Your Grandad has give us the deposit – some money, like, to put down. Now that’s a secret and you mustn’t tell nobody, even your cousin Eileen, for Grandad can’t do it for everybody and we don’t want to cause no fights. Can’t you see what this means, love? We’re to have a mort-gage, a proper mort-gage instead of a rent book. It’ll be our house, not the landlord’s. Won’t you try to see I’m doing what’s best?’

It was hopeless. I’d have been as well off talking to the wall, yet still I went on. ‘But it’s not what I want, is it? Nobody ever asks me about anything in this house. I just get told what to do – not asked – told. And if I don’t do it then I’m in trouble.’ I stopped for a second to draw breath. ‘You went and married him and I have to live with him. I can’t choose, I never get the chance to choose. Now you say I’ve got to leave my own house, my Dad’s house, and go piking off to live where you want to live. Well, it’s not fair. I don’t want to live up Long Moor with electric and a bathroom.’

‘Do you want to stop here with rats and cockroaches, then? Is that what you want, to stop in a filthy slum the rest of your life?’ She was waving the rolling pin in the air now. ‘Now you listen to me, our Annie. Six sisters I’ve got and every last one of them married to some no-good lump of an Irishman, every one of them up to their eyes in muck and kids they can’t feed. Well, I never married an Irishman, because apart from your Grandad they are the scum of the earth. Your Dad was a fine man, a Gordon Highlander and he would have looked after us if he’d lived, oh aye, your Dad would have done right by us.’

She must have seen my lip quiver, because she continued in a quieter tone, ‘But he didn’t live, Annie. Get that into your head, will you? And now he’s dead, Eddie has took us on, both of us, and he’ll do his best now he’s on the mend. Oh, Annie . . .’ She came round the table and took my hand in hers. ‘All I’ve ever wanted is me own front door, me own bit of garden with a few daffs and marigolds. It’s got a bit of garden at the front, you know. And there’s fields nearby where you can play and the tram stops right outside the door to take you to school.’

I wrenched my hand away. ‘You go then. You go and catch the tram, because I’m stopping here. I shall move in with Mrs Hyatt and Tom and Freddie. Tom’ll look after me.’

My mother sighed deeply before saying ‘Tom won’t be there, love.’ My fists clenched into tight balls as I asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘Tom’s off to America soon, lass. He’s away to seek his fortune and I can’t say that I’m surprised . . . Annie . . . where are you going . . .?’

But I was already off and down the lobby, into the street and hammering on Mrs Hyatt’s door. A startled Mrs Hyatt peered through the window, then I had to wait, hopping from foot to foot until she finally let me in.

‘Is Tom there?’ I gasped.

‘Aye, he’s just sat down for his tea. I . . .’

I flew past her and into the kitchen. Tom paused with a forkful of food in his hand as he saw me standing breathless in the doorway.

‘Whatever’s the matter with you, Annie? You look like you’ve seen a ghost . . .’

I swallowed hard. ‘Is it true?’

‘Is what true?’

‘That you’re going to America?’

‘By the hell.’ His fork dropped with a clatter and he pushed his chair back from the table. Looking past me, he spoke to his mother. ‘See? I told Nancy not to tell her. I told her I wanted to do it in me own time and in me own way.’ He looked straight at me now. ‘Yes, it is true, Annie. I’m going, sooner or later.’

‘Why? Why, Tom?’ My voice was full of pleading as I choked back the tears. How many more people would I lose? Did I have to lose everyone I loved?

‘I’m going for a better life, Annie. There’s more chances over there, I’ll get a good job, better training . . . oh heck, how do I explain all this to a child?’

Mrs Hyatt came to stand beside me, her aproned bulk filling the small space between dresser and table. She placed a fat, heavy arm around my shoulder, but looked at Tom as she said, ‘Nay, Tom. This is no child. This one were never a child, God love ’er.’ Then to me she said, ‘I’ll still be ’ere, you know. And Freddie. We’ll look out for you – you’ve only to bang on the wall.’

‘But Tom said he’d always be here, Mrs Hyatt,’ I sobbed. ‘He said he’d always look after me . . . and he tells lies, just like all grown-ups.’

It seemed to me that this was the last straw, the final betrayal. My Dad gone, my Mam’s affections and attentions directed elsewhere, now Tom was going . . . I would be alone. Utterly, completely, totally alone, no adult on my side, nobody to turn to for comfort or love. Even Tom, my Tom, whom I had begun to trust, was deserting me.

‘Is it far to America?’ I gulped between tears. ‘Can I get there on the tram or a trolley-bus?’ But I knew the answer before it came and confirmation arrived in the form of a choking sound from Mrs Hyatt, who turned away quickly towards the dresser. But she was not laughing at me. There was no laughter in those sagging shoulders.

‘No, Annie,’ said Tom. ‘It takes a good few days on a ship to get there.’

I ran to him, flinging my arms about his neck and he drew me gently into his lap. ‘Take me with you, Tom. I’ll be a good girl, I promise. Just take me with you – please.’

Mrs Hyatt, who was weeping openly now, her wide back shaking with sobs, said, ‘You’re not the only one as’ll miss ’im, Annie. Nay, ’e’ll be very sadly missed, will our Tom.’ Then she went through to the scullery, clattering the pots and pans to drown the sound of her sobbing.

‘You’d want your Mam, Annie,’ said Tom gently. ‘You know you can’t leave your Mam. She’ll be needing you one of these days when you’re a bigger girl.’

‘She doesn’t need me, Tom. She’s got him.’

‘But you love your Mam, don’t you?’

What a daft question this was. Even the best of adults seemed to ask daft questions. Of course I loved my Mam. But did she love me? If she had loved me, would she have needed that dreadful Eddie Higson, would she have married a man like that? And would we be moving up Long Moor if she loved me?

‘Yes, I love my Mam, Tom,’ I answered, almost wearily.

‘And if you ever need anybody to help you, or just somebody to turn to, Freddie and my Ma will be here to see to you.’

Obviously, Tom didn’t know anything about the proposed move. Briefly, I wondered whether or not I’d get into trouble for telling the Hyatts our business, for Mrs Hyatt was, in my mother’s book at least, a busybody and a gossip. But I couldn’t keep it to myself, so, throwing caution to the winds, I blurted out, ‘We’re moving, Tom. Up Long Moor. They’re making me go with them. But if you’d stop here instead of going to America, then I could get back and see you and . . .’

Mrs Hyatt bustled into the kitchen, drying first her eyes, then her hands on a corner of the capacious apron. ‘Long Moor, you say? When?’

‘I don’t know, Mrs Hyatt. Soon, I think.’

‘Well!’ She lowered her bulk into a chair. ‘Well, I’ll go to the foot of our stairs! What have I always said, Tom? What have I always said? Ideas above ’er station, that one. By! Next news, she’ll be ’avin’ tea parties wi’ bone-china cups and lace doyleys. I’d not be at all surprised if she stopped talkin’ to the likes of us.’

‘Shut up, Mam. Before you go too far again.’

But Mrs Hyatt was not going to shut up, not for anyone. She was on her high horse and she’d probably stop there till she fell off, or got kicked off – and Tom was too gentle a man to go hard on his mother.

‘Buying a house then, is it, Annie?’ she asked, her tone sweetening.

‘Yes. My Mam says we are to have a mort-gage.’ Instead of a rent book, my mother had said. Perhaps it was bigger than a rent book, or a different colour. Though it sounded more like an exotic fruit to me.

‘Well, we’ll just have to see ’ow your Mam goes about paying her mort-gage while she’s married to that soft bugger. Oh, ’e doesn’t fool me, Tom. Like I said before, ’e’s no bleeding ’ero, comin’ back snivelling from a prison camp after sittin’ it out for four bloody years. I’ll bet ’e built no escape tunnels. Only reason ’e joined up was over that lass . . .’

‘Watch what you’re saying, Mam.’

‘Anyroad, Nancy’ll have to work all the hours God sends for ’er fancy ideas. ’Cos there’s no road as ’e’ll pay for much. And shortage o’ money’s not the only thing she’ll be worrying about . . .’

‘Nancy knows nothing about all that, Mam. And neither do you if the truth were but told.’

‘Don’t talk to me about truth, Tom Hyatt. Are you going to eat this or not?’ When Tom made no reply, she snatched his plate from the table, then, jabbing the air with Tom’s fork as if to emphasize every word, she said, ‘The truth is dead, Tom, dead and can’t speak up for itself. And ’e seems to me to be the right type to . . .’ she faltered, placing the fork on the plate. ‘Alright, Tom. ’Ave it your own way. Maybe I am wrong, maybe I’ve said too much in front of this one.’ She gestured towards me. ‘But I do know this – something about you-know-who is not quite right. And I can’t ’elp ’aving me say. Speak as I find, I do.’

She wobbled into the scullery and we heard her, as she scraped Tom’s dinner into the slops bucket, muttering not quite to herself ‘there’s no smoke without fire’ and ‘a wrong un if ever I saw one’.

Tom took my chin in his fingers and gently turned my face towards his. ‘Look, lass. I’m sorry if it looks like I’m letting you down, but I’ll be back some day with all kinds of tales to tell you – and presents for you too. Oh yes, I’ll bring back some fine presents for my little Annie. You’re a sensible girl, got a good head on them shoulders. Now listen to me. Just you stick up for yourself, do what you think’s right and do your best at school. I shall write to you every week from Philadelphia – for that’s the name of the town I’ll be bound for – and you can write to me. How does that sound? You’ll have a pen pal in America.’

I knew I was beaten. I had no way of preventing Tom from going to America, no way of changing my mother’s mind about moving to the other end of the town.

When I got down from Tom’s knee and crossed the room towards the door, I was aware that I was letting him go there and then, for he had already left me, was making plans for a new start away from me. He didn’t love me, couldn’t love me. Perhaps I really was not lovable, perhaps nobody would ever love me enough to stay with me.

Within the space of two years I had lost the three people who had been most important to me. With my father, I had had no choice, but with my mother and Tom, I felt I had made a conscious decision to let go.

But that decision was just an invention of mind, a pride-saving piece of my imagination. Because, in truth, I had had no choice in any of these matters.

I was forced to admit to myself, however grudgingly, that Long Moor Lane was a great improvement on Ensign Street. Although the rooms at the back of the house had flagged floors, there was a proper kitchen instead of a scullery. This large, single-storeyed square was attached to the rear living room and its unplastered brick walls were painted in a light shiny green colour.

My mother was proud of her new kitchen, especially after she had replaced the low slopstone with a proper porcelain sink and had purchased a kitchenette, a tall cupboard, green to match the walls and with many compartments and drawers fitted into it. She also bought a real cooker which she tended with loving care, forever polishing and cleaning its various surfaces, while in truth she still depended greatly on the living-room range, though she would never have admitted her distrust in the new-fangled gadgetry with which she was filling our home.

For many months she would not switch on the new electric lights unless she had a cloth in her hand to protect herself against the unknown. For a while, she even wore wellington boots for such occasions, having heard or read somewhere that rubber soles ‘stopped it going through you’. She adhered rigidly to the use of her flat irons until Eddie Higson proved, by plugging in the new iron to the ceiling light fixture and surviving, that she might try an easier way of pressing the clothes.

Our living-room range was another novelty, being constructed of a beige ceramic material that required no leading and having a raised area of tiles set on to the floor in front of it. In the recesses to each side of the chimney were floor-to-ceiling cupboards in which we stored crockery and such linens as we owned, thus making redundant the large mirrored dresser that had always dominated our Ensign Street kitchen.

There was no lobby in this house, just a small square vestibule leading straight into the front room, which had a wooden floor, a source of great pride in my mother’s book. This room also had cupboards in the recesses, but while the living-room cupboards were panelled in wood and strictly utilitarian, these were ornate by comparison, their upper portions being glazed and leaded. Into these compartments went my mother’s few treasures, bits of cut glass, framed photographs, a plaster saint or two and a set of white demi-tasse coffee cups, a wedding present for which she had never found a use. A square of moss-green secondhand carpet was acquired and my mother spent many hours varnishing and polishing the surrounding floorboards.

But outside, there was still the midden and the tippler lavatory and no amount of fancy cupboards and instant lighting could compensate, in my mother’s mind, for these two festering sores. So when Eddie Higson’s window round became reality, when he had finally purchased bucket, leathers and goodwill, my mother began to save with a grim determination known only to the victims of true deprivation. We were forced to eat strange meals, soups thick with lentils and barley, meat and potato pies with the emphasis strictly on the potato, scones without raisins, jam butties without margarine. The closest Eddie Higson and I ever got to camaraderie was then, as we stared blankly at one another across a table that held these odd offerings.