Faded Dreams (4 page)

*

   According to the doctor it was a miracle that Florrie, with a twisted womb like hers, had had a baby at all, but then a year later in 1932 her daughter was born.

   Although she was named after Princess Elizabeth, the granddaughter of King George V,
Elizabeth
Pomfret
would be known by the more down-to-earth name of
Betty
.

   Racked with the fear of losing another child, Joe fussed over Betty obsessively. Inevitably, as time wore on she picked up on his anxiety and became prone to hysterical screaming fits, which Florrie tried to 'cure' by hurling dishes of cold water at her small, purple face. Or failing that, by thrusting her head under the cold running water until she gasped for breath.

  
Another “miracle”, another mouth to feed, was the last thing Florrie wanted. She didn't even suspect she was pregnant again till she was five months gone. J
oe hoped for a boy, a replacement for John, but it was not to be.

   
Ellen was born in 1934 as the wireless was playing The National Anthem to honour the fourth birthday of the King and Queen's  younger granddaughter, Princess Margaret Rose. The patriotic midwife stood to attention and sang ‘God save The King’ at the top of her voice, slapping the baby’s bottom with a flourish at the point when the cymbals crashed.

   Ellen, with her fair skin and tight white curls, the spitting image of her lost brother, dragged up painful memories of his short life for Joe and Florrie.

   As for the highly-strung Betty, she reacted to the newcomer with resentment and affection in equal measures, while Ellen grew to realise as time went by that no matter how chaotic  her world would become, with parents often too drunk to care, she could always depend on  her older sister.

*

   It was New Year's Eve and Joe’s patience was running out faster than the old year. He spat generously on his hands and ran them through his curly hair.

   ‘Come on lass, shape yourself,’ he shouted  from the bottom of the stairs, ‘or it’ll be New Year’s Eve
next
year afore we’ve even set off. What the hell are you doin’ up there anyway?’

   In the front bedroom Florrie disentangled herself from a pair of anxious children.

   ‘Don’t go out, mummy,’ Betty pleaded.

   ‘Don’t be daft, I’m not going out. I’ll only be downstairs, now lie down and be sharp and get to sleep, both of you.’

   A few minutes later Betty pulled herself upright in the small iron bed cocking her head and listening for the sounds of her mother pottering about.

   ‘Mummy, I’m thirsty…can I have a drink of water?’

   ‘No you can’t. Be a good girl and get to sleep and let our Ellie get to sleep. I’ll not tell you again…if I’ve to come up them stairs, Betty…I’m warning you, I’ll tan your hide for you.’    

   Betty’s backside, still smarting from a ‘tanned hide’ earlier that day, had no yearning for another. She kept quiet for as long as she dared before calling down once more. It came as no surprise that this time, instead of angry threats, there was an uneasy yet familiar silence.   

   She peered into the deepening darkness towards the small rusting fireplace that  her father  filled with a shovel-full of cheerful blazing coals from the kitchen fire whenever she or Ellen lay ill in bed. It was almost invisible now but for the black hole where Father Christmas had landed feet-first last week and the grate where the big bad wolf might drop down the chimney any minute.

   To the left of the fireplace was an alcove with a makeshift wardrobe or a bogeyman’s den, depending on how old you were and how dark it was. The shabby curtain, strung haphazardly across on a length of twine, caught the draught from the ill-fitting window and sprang to life revealing two sinister-looking shapeless coats huddled together on the metal rail. Betty's eyes widened.

   The weight of responsibility hung heavily on her five-year-old shoulders. She reached for the tearful baby sister clambering across the beds. ‘ Ellie, they’ve gone out. Shuddup crying and let's go and look for them.’

   Pausing just long enough to gather up the old coat spread across the foot of their beds   and nervously ignoring the black-coated bogeymen lurking deep in conversation behind the gently moving curtain, they tumbled downstairs into the gloomy street, too scared to move further than the front doorstep.

   And that’s where Joe and Florrie Pomfret, staggering home with the dawning of 1938, found them, huddled in each other’s arms beneath the coat with home-made nighties pulled taut over cold, bare little toes.

   Even as they were scooped up and taken indoors Betty knew the routine. No smacked bums for her and Ellie – no, not after the pub. They would be hugged and kissed long into the night and eventually taken upstairs where their mother would fall asleep sprawled across the bottom of their two small beds. Downstairs, their father snoring like a pig, would be laid out on the kitchen floor with his head in a foul-smelling bucket.

*

    A year later the Pomfrets  moved across town from Copy Nook to a rented  terraced house near Revidge Road. They had a parlour and a kitchen downstairs, two bedrooms upstairs and a narrow backyard long enough for Joe to keep his variety of livestock and grow a few vegetables.

   Florrie hoped he might calm down in this better part of town. Their new home faced large detached houses owned by doctors, solicitors, businessmen or retired gentlefolk, definitely a big step-up from  where they lived at Copy Nook, although there didn’t seem to be the same neighbourliness.

   The corner pub was a bit too posh and less lively than the down-town pubs,  so on the weekends  Joe  kept to his favourite, The Old Bank on Mincing Lane, while Florrie took her custom across  the road to The Wheat Sheaf.

   Betty and Ellen, a little older now, relished the peace and quiet of their snug, small kitchen on Friday evenings, with their potato crisps, bottle of pop, a couple of comics to read, and a warning not to go near the fire or open the door to strangers.

   Long past bedtime their inebriated parents returned and invariably engaged in a vicious quarrel until a change of mood had them kissing their children and each other into the early hours. Only then, with their parents asleep wherever they fell, Betty and Ellen would quietly take themselves off to bed.

*

   Clattering down the street in her clogs before dawn, Florrie was one of only a handful of working wives. She was generally ignored when she came across the posh women in the corner shop who bought food with
money
instead of “on tic” like herself. These were wives who were proper ladies and unlike her, didn't go out drinking unless  accompanied by their menfolk.

   Even the working-class Sagars next door seemed to be a lot better off than the Pomfrets.  Florrie  didn’t really mind that some folks had more money - what she
did
mind was her drunken husband showing her up in front of their new neighbours with his shouting and cursing. But one thing was certain, they’d never complain about Joe for fear of antagonising him further.

   Every day, after work, he went straight to the pub, but Saturday afternoons were the worst; he never knew when to come home, never knew when he’d supped enough ale. Occasionally Florrie would march her daughters into The Old Bank and sit them on the bar beside him.

   ‘Right, look after your kids for a change, I’m buggering off somewhere,’ she’d shout before storming out, with the raucous laughter of him and his pals ringing in her ears.

   Betty and Ellen, not yet old enough to be embarrassed by their parents’ behaviour, accepted their abandonment as entirely normal. It was left to the resident barmaid, Lily Rawcliffe, one of the many girls flattered by their father’s amorous advances, to settle them on to the couch in the kitchen with potato crisps and lemonade until the pub closed.

   When he finally arrived home Joe would either be infuriated by the way she’d “shown him up”, or he'd be relishing the way she had made him the centre of attention amongst his friends.

   ‘There’ll never be another Joe. They call me,
Joe, Joe, The Sheik of Cow-heel Row,
’ he’d recite to his reflection in the mirror. ‘You’ll all miss me when I’m dead and gone. Just mark me words, Florrie, there’ll never be another Joe.’

   ‘Oh aye,’ she’d say with a sharp nod of her head, ‘and it’s to be hoped-to-God there never is another like
you
. I hope they broke the bloody mould after they made
you.
’

   She’d seen and heard it all before, his silly rhymes and childish behaviour but refused to pander to his vanity. But his outward brashness and humour often masked his anxieties, and perhaps a little flattery to build up his confidence might not have gone amiss.

   Women thought of Joe as “a bit of all-right”, but men’s opinions were divided. Some saw him as a comedian and good company after a hard day’s work, but to others he was just a loud-mouthed fool who flirted too much with their wives.

   Not that Florrie was above flirting herself, after working hard all week in the thunderous weaving-shop. She could ill-afford her Friday nights down-town but, more often than not, an admirer would treat her to a gill of mild beer on a promise of a kiss and cuddle after closing-time.  However, with all this talk of war she had become reluctant to let the children out of her sight, even on Friday nights.

   Now it was Saturday afternoon again, and the same old story. She moved the empty dinner plates across to the sink and splashed them with cold water. Her stomach was already churning when the parlour door opened, her mother’s visit perfectly timed to coincide with Joe’s expected return.

CHAPTER FIVE

   From an early age Florrie had observed her mother’s strategy for dealing with a husband who rolled home drunk every weekend.

   From the minute her father fumbled with the metal door-sneck and teetered into the house her mother began her relentless tirade. To begin with, he slumped in his chair offering no defence, at the same time recognising that the only way to end the nagging was with his feet and fists.

   ‘Shut your mouth woman, afore I get my feet stuck in ya.’ By the time the words were out he’d got his feet, or to be more precise his clogs with their fearsome bands of hard steel on the soles, stuck in her. And as sure as night followed day, the beating would bring about a change in her mood.  

   ‘Now Jem, now stop all this silliness Jem, and be still, and I’ll make you a nice pot of tea with a drop of whisky in it.’

   She knew exactly how to calm him for the time being, but a week later just as the black and blue patterns on her legs were turning to yellow it would all begin again.

*

   Mabel Sefton hated all men, but especially her son in law, Joe. She considered him uncouth, a wastrel who was no good for Florrie. And so on this Saturday afternoon, ignoring her granddaughters’ ashen faces, she went to work on Florrie.

  
What time did he call this? Why did she put up with a life like this?  When was she going to stop being a bloody doormat and put her foot down?  And it was to be hoped the daft bugger could find his way home when they threw him out of wherever he was. Best thing for her and the kids was for him to get his ‘calling-up papers’ when this war started, and then at least they’d be shot of him for the duration.

   Throughout 10 years of marriage Florrie had strived to prevent history repeating itself and her own life echoing her mother’s miserable one, but it seemed she was fighting a losing battle. Today, with another confrontation between her husband and mother brewing she tried to close her ears to her mother's sarcasm and spitefulness. Yet at 5 o’clock when Joe stood swaying in the doorway trying to focus his bleary eyes on his family, she found herself mouthing her mother’s words.

   ‘What time do you call
this
?  Can’t you get enough ale down your throat before chucking-out time?’ 

   Mabel nodded  in smug agreement. Aware of his mother-in-law’s never-ending disapproval Joe began to stagger around the parlour, exaggerating his drunkenness, crashing into furniture, falling to the floor. Then, holding on to Florrie’s knees for support, he hauled himself to his feet. 

   Curling her lip Mabel entered the fray. ‘If she had any sense she’d take
my
advice and chuck you out, you drunken bugger.’

   ‘Shut ya gob and mind your own business afore I chuck
you
out, you  interfering two-faced bitch. Nay, wait a bit… you
can’t
be two-faced or you’d come out with a better face than
that
… or else you'd wear a paper bag o'er your head.’ He chuckled at his joke, and at the disgust and indignation on his mother-in-law’s face.

   Mabel flinched at his words and reached into her handbag for her Smelling Salts, moving the small green  bottle back and forth under her nose in a dramatic appeal for sympathy. 

   ‘Well Florrie, if you think I’m gonna stand here…as ill as I am…and be insulted by an ignorant bugger like him, you’re one-off.’ She grabbed her coat and in that instant Joe’s laughter turned to rage.