Down Daisy Street (13 page)
Jane, of course, had listened to this recital as well as Kathy and, when Mr Philpott left them, gave her friend a speaking glance, placed one forefinger on her left temple and waggled it in the well-known gesture meaning that she considered Mr Philpott to be only ten pence in the shilling. ‘He’s norra bad chap; quite nice looking if you don’t mind watery eyes and a pink nose,’ she observed, as soon as it was safe to talk, which meant when the children, with whoops of excitement, had set off for the swings. ‘He’s awful weedy, but I suppose that’s due to never being fed properly. Well, if there’s one thing your mam’s first rate at, it’s cooking and feedin’ folk, so I dare say she’ll put some flesh on his bones. If only he had a better opinion of himself! But there, if we’d been treated the way he’s been treated, we’d begin to believe we weren’t of much account.’ She glanced at Kathy through her lashes. ‘How different from the glamorous Mr Bracknell! He’s got a very good opinion of himself, wouldn’t you say?’
Kathy laughed. ‘I know he’s good looking but, to do him justice, I don’t think he knows it, or at least he acts perfectly normally and even seems sorry for Mr Philpott,’ she said. ‘They are completely different, though. Mr Bracknell has heaps of friends and goes off at weekends on rambling expeditions into North Wales, or he catches a bus into the countryside and has a day out with his pals. He really isn’t in the house much, though the pair of ’em turn up regular as clockwork at mealtimes. Mr Bracknell sometimes says: “Thank you very much, Mrs Kelling, that was delicious”, but he doesn’t spread it on too thick, if you see what I mean. The lodgers get the same breakfast every morning – porridge and bacon and egg, lucky blighters – but Mr Philpott always says what a good breakfast and thanks Mam before going off to work. You’d think he was frightened of being given notice, only the month’s well up and there’s no question of it. We get along like a house on fire and they’re both good wi’ Billy. They chat to him, mealtimes, and don’t mind givin’ an eye to him if Mam’s busy with the meal and I’m finishing off me homework. I tell you, Jane, I dreaded having lodgers sharing the house, but it’s turned out to be better than having Mam out at the café all day.’
‘The money must help,’ Jane acknowledged. The two of them were sitting on a green-painted wooden bench, watching the children playing on the swings, and now Jane delved into her shabby black handbag and produced a roll of mints, which she offered to her friend. ‘Want one?’ she enquired. ‘I put a packet of digestive biscuits and a bottle o’ water into the pram in case the kids got hungry before we got home. How’s school, by the way? Did I tell you Mrs Mitchell is puttin’ me money up? She thinks I’m capable of takin’ over from her two days a week – it’ll be Tuesdays an’ Wednesdays – so I’ll have a bit more money for meself because Mam won’t take any more off of me.’
‘No, you never said,’ Kathy assured her friend. She sighed a trifle enviously. ‘I’m still doing my Saturday job – working in the kitchens at Dorothy’s Tearooms – but I give the money to me mam. After all, she gives me a really good carry-out each day and the things I need for school aren’t cheap, so I can’t complain, but it would be nice to have a few pennies to spend from time to time.’
‘Why don’t you ask Dorothy’s if they would take you on evenings?’ Jane suggested. ‘They must need help in the kitchen just as much then as on Saturdays.’
Kathy shook her head. ‘No, there’s a woman comes in regular to wash up, clean down, clear away and the like but she doesn’t do Saturdays. Anyway, I get such a lot of homework that by the time I’ve helped Mam with the evening meal and washed up afterwards it’s finish off my schoolwork and then straight to bed. I told Mam I’d be willing to do a job after school, but she’s dead against it. She says we can manage on what’s coming in and I think she’s right. After all, I do the messages, Jane, and I couldn’t spend so much time finding where the bargains are if I were working as well.’
Jane agreed and presently, as the afternoon began to darken into dusk, the girls piled the little ones into the pram and set off for Daisy Street once more. They walked briskly for the autumn air was growing chilly and Kathy could not help thinking, rather wistfully, that it looked like being a long time before she would be able to gain a measure of independence by working for her own living. Recently, she and her mother had been invited up to the high school to discuss her future. Miss Beaver had waxed enthusiastic over Kathy’s abilities and had assured Mrs Kelling that, if she would allow her to do so, Kathy was quite capable of gaining both her School Certificate and her Higher. ‘And then, of course, there would be university entrance,’ she said briskly, her small brown eyes bright with enthusiasm. ‘It isn’t often that we have a scholarship girl as gifted as Katherine, Mrs Kelling. With three years at university and a degree to her name, there are few heights she could not attain. Her future would be assured, if only she can remain at school.’
Kathy had longed to object, to say that it was not fair on her mother, or her little brother, but she had scarcely taken breath to speak before her mother cut in. ‘I agree completely, Miss Beaver,’ Mrs Kelling had said. ‘Kathy is a very bright girl and deserves her chance.’
Miss Beaver had smiled indulgently. ‘Katherine does very well,’ she said. She had risen to her feet and walked round the desk, shaking Mrs Kelling’s hand warmly. ‘Thank you for your time, Mrs Kelling. You have relieved my mind. So many girls have potential but are unable to fulfil it because of family circumstances. I’m glad that Katherine will not be one of them. Good afternoon to you both.’
‘Penny for your thoughts, Kathy?’ Jane said suddenly, bringing Kathy back to the present with a jerk. Above their heads, the street lamps were beginning to glow, and the yellow light streaming from the shop windows as they passed made Kathy even more aware of how the year was slipping away. Soon it would be November; the curtains would be drawn early and Mrs Kelling would prepare stews and casseroles to line their stomachs after a hard day’s work. She and Billy would get out their winter coats and mufflers and they would begin to look forward to Christmas. She remembered last Christmas, how sad and bereft they had been and how passionately she had missed their father. She would miss him still, perhaps she would always do so, but she knew that the presence of the lodgers would add a new dimension to Christmas. It would not be fair on either Mr Philpott or Mr Bracknell to mope around, shedding tears into the turkey. She and her mother would have to put aside memories of other Christmases and face the different life which her father’s death had brought about.
‘Kathy! Will you stop gazin’ at nothin’ and answer me,’ Jane said, only half laughing. ‘Honest to God, girl, wharra dreamer you are! I asked you what you were thinkin’ about, remember?’
‘Sorry, Jane,’ Kathy said contritely. ‘I were thinking about Christmas. Last year was awful, what wi’ me dad’s death and Billy’s illness and everything. But this year should be better, don’t you think? I mean, we can’t show a long face to the lodgers. Mam always tries to be cheerful and bright and, of course, I follow suit.’
‘But suppose they go home for Christmas?’ Jane said. ‘Lots of lodgers do, so I’m told. I know Mr Philpott were brought up by an aunt but that don’t mean to say he might not go off for the holiday. Damn it all, Kathy, there must have been someone in his past life who were good to him! After all, he’s twenty-six or twenty-seven, isn’t he?’
Kathy gnawed her underlip. ‘I suppose Mr Bracknell might go to relatives,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Or to friends for that matter. But I don’t reckon Mr Philpott will go far from Daisy Street, and I’m not sorry. It’ll be better for Mam and me to have company over Christmas.’
‘I expect you’re right,’ Jane said, though a trifle doubtfully. It was clear that she could not visualise a Christmas which was not strictly a family affair. Jane’s parents both came from large families and it was their custom, each year, to share out the Christmas holiday between them so that, in actual fact, Mrs O’Brien only cooked a Christmas dinner once in every four or five years since everyone took a turn at being host to the rest of the family. Kathy had frequently been asked to Christmas tea at whichever O’Brien household was host that year and had thoroughly enjoyed herself. Kitchens were cleared of everything but chairs and cushions and the entire family joined in guessing games, charades, Chinese whispers and the like. But she had always been glad to return to her own quiet fireside, to lean against Dad’s knee while he read Billy a story or to mastermind the setting out of chestnuts on the fire bars, where they could be roasted to a turn and then hooked off and crunched down as soon as they were cool enough.
Walking beside Jane, who was now chattering about recent developments at Daisy Street School which Tilly had passed on to her, Kathy allowed her mind to return to their lodgers. They were such complete opposites: Mr Bracknell so very hail-fellow-well-met and clearly far more experienced in worldly matters than Mr Philpott, doubtless owing to the fact that he had been married once. He had only recently told Sarah Kelling the sad story of a young wife who had died in childbirth after just a year of marriage. Sarah had been touched by this sad story and had wondered why he had not remarried, though it seemed tactless to ask him to his face. Kathy, however, had asked Mr Bracknell outright why he did not have a lady friend and he had given her a quick, amused glance before replying: ‘What makes you think I haven’t, Miss Poke-Nose? I shall call you Keyhole Kate, after the girl in the comic, if you keep trying to discover me dark secrets.’
Kathy had been confused by this ambiguous reply and had decided to keep an eye on Mr Bracknell. He was so very good looking; any woman would be glad to receive his attention, she felt sure. Perhaps he really did have a lady friend – perhaps he even had half a dozen – but if so, he never brought anyone back to Daisy Street and had never been spotted by either the Kellings or the O’Briens with a female companion.
Mr Philpott, Kathy was sure, had never had a lady friend in his entire life. He was so bashful and quiet, and came home every evening and either sat by the fire, reading a book, or went to his room. Of course he went out occasionally – he belonged to a railwaymen’s club and sometimes spent the evening there – but Kathy was certain that none of these outings were taken in the company of young ladies. If Mr Philpott was in the kitchen when Jane came round to visit, he would turn red as a beetroot and sit hunched over his book, eyes fixed on the page, though Kathy had been unable to help noticing that he did not continue to read but stared at the same page for twenty minutes. If the girls began to laugh and chat and he felt himself forgotten, he would remain in the room, but if they glanced towards him or tried to include him in the conversation, he would quickly mumble an excuse and leave them.
‘Kathy Kelling, I don’t think you’ve been listening to a word I’ve said,’ Jane said accusingly, as they turned into Daisy Street. ‘I were going to tell you about Jimmy McCabe but I’m sure I don’t see why I should. You aren’t a bit interested in all the thrilling news of life at Daisy Street School so I suppose you won’t be interested in Jimmy either.’
Kathy cast her friend a reproachful glance. Jimmy McCabe seemed to take a positive pleasure in making snide remarks about Kathy’s school, her uniform and even her ambitions. He told her, whenever he saw her, that she ought to be in a job, like every other girl of her age, not wasting her time gadding around in a fancy uniform. Kathy knew very well that Jane would probably have explained the situation to him, told him that she was remaining at school in order to get a much better paid job when she eventually left, but it made no difference to Jimmy. He enjoyed taunting her and making her mad as fire and wouldn’t stop, she imagined, until she left school and took a job of some description. She doubted that he knew about her job at Dorothy’s Tearooms and she was grateful to Jane for not informing him of it because he would certainly jeer at the idea of “Little Miss White Socks” up to her elbows in greasy water every Saturday.
‘I’m not interested in Jimmy; so far as I’m concerned, he’s just a pest of a boy who likes nothing better than riling me,’ Kathy said frankly. ‘I don’t know how you can stand him, Jane, but I suppose he isn’t as nasty to you as he is to me. What’s he done, anyway?’
‘He’s gone and got himself a better job than an office boy in that typewriter repair shop,’ Jane said proudly. ‘He’s a delivery boy for the butcher on Heyworth Street. He gets paid nearly twice as much and he’s gorra delivery bike, provided by the firm – it’s a big old-fashioned thing and heavy as lead, Jimmy says – but when he’s old enough, Mr McCready means to teach him to drive the van ’cos the old feller what drives it now is seventy if he’s a day. Then it’ll be a real good job because he’ll take the van down to the markets to pick out animals for slaughter and then he’ll collect the carcasses from the slaughter house and bring them back to Heyworth Street.’ She glanced rather shyly at her friend. ‘He – he’s asked me to go to the Broadway on the Stanley Road with him one evenin’ this week, to see the new film they’re showing, starring Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. What do you think of that?’
Kathy looked at Jane with a most unfamiliar sinking feeling in her stomach. It wasn’t just that she disliked Jimmy McCabe. She suddenly realised that what she most disliked was change, and Jane going out with Jimmy was a change indeed. In fact, it would change everything. She thought of her total reliance on Jane’s companionship. The two of them had been as close as sisters – closer – for as long as she could remember. It had been a blow when Jane started work and she remained at school but how much worse it was to realise that she would no longer be able to take Jane’s company for granted. Kathy had no interest in boys, or at least not in boys like Jimmy McCabe, but she realised that if Jane had a boyfriend and she herself had none, their closeness could no longer be taken for granted. Jane would have secrets from her, or if not secrets at least experiences which she would not want to share.
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