The Girl From Penny Lane (34 page)

The girls scuttled off to do her bidding and Mrs Brierson saw Lilac tucked up in bed and beginning, drowsily, to come round. She held Lilac’s cold hand, murmured soothingly to her and presently despatched a maid to tell Monsieur Arrat that they would have the supper tray in ten minutes, please. Then she settled down to wait for Lilac to acknowledge her whereabouts.

Lilac opened her eyes. Outside the window she could see the sky, deep blue with dusk, but someone had lit the gas and a faint golden glow suffused the room in which she lay. She moved restlessly and realised someone was holding her hand. Her heart bounded joyfully in her breast – she had known Art was coming to her, he was here, he was holding her hand, sitting by the bed . . .

She clutched the fingers in hers and it was Mrs Brierson bending over her, saying something about a supper tray. Behind Mrs Brierson, Charlotte hovered, pale, red-eyed. Lilac shook her head at the mention of a supper tray, thoroughly disorientated, unable to remember with any clarity what had happened to her or where she was. After all, if she was still at the Delamere, what was Charlotte doing? Charlotte belonged to another life, her dancing academy life, she would not be at the Delamere! After a moment or two, however, Lilac sat up on one elbow and looked around her. She saw she was in bed, in the hotel, with hot bottles behind her knees and at her feet, with her employer sitting beside her holding her hand, whilst a great, echoing emptiness filled her aching head.

She looked helplessly across at Charlotte, wanting to ask her what had happened, why she felt so ill, but the words would not come. Slowly, she slid down the bed again. She turned her head away from Mrs Bierson and Charlotte and closed her eyes, but she was powerless to prevent the tears from squeezing out under her lids and trickling, slow and cold, down her cheeks.

‘Lilac, my dearest child, my own dear girl, what a tragic, wicked waste, your dear boy gone and you far away, unable to do anything about it. Come to Nellie, dearest, tell Nellie!’

Warm arms enclosed her, a warm cheek was pressed to hers. The cheek was wet with tears, the hands clutching hers were trembling. She could feel Nellie’s passionate sorrow, the love which enfolded her as Nellie hugged her tight.

‘Oh, Nell, it isn’t true, say it isn’t true,’ Lilac begged. Her voice was odd, harsh and croaking. ‘He can’t be drowned, not my Art, not my dear old Art.’

‘You know it’s true, love,’ Nellie whispered. ‘He’s a hero, he saved a kiddy’s life . . . but that don’t help, not when he’s gone.’

‘Oh, but it’s a mistake, it must be! We’re going to be married, we’re going to New Brighton for our honeymoon, we’d planned it in our letters, he came all the way from Gibraltar for two days just to talk about it! He can’t, he can’t be drowned.’

‘He’s dead, queen,’ Nellie said gently. ‘But you’re alive, and you’ve got to go on living. Come on, sit up and have some of this nice supper what chef prepared.’

‘He’s dead? My Art really is dead?’

‘That’s right, queen. Look, a cup of thick soup, some bread – chef’s homemade – and a glass of whisky to help you to warm up, all set out so lovingly . . . they’re that fond of you, Li, that . . .’

‘You’re telling me that the newspapers got it right? That it was my Art who dived off the ship and saved the little girl and then got sucked under by the currents round the hull? My Art who drowned?’

‘That’s right, Lilac love. I’ve never lied to you, have I? And I’m not lying now. Art’s gone and you’ve got to come to terms with it.’

Lilac nodded slowly and lay back against her pillows. The ache in her breast wouldn’t go away, she supposed it never would, nor the hollowness in her mind. Could a person live with such pain, such loss? She asked Nellie whether it was possible and Nellie looked at her with such understanding, such loving sympathy in her big, expressive eyes!

‘A person can try, queen,’ she said quietly. ‘A person has to try.’

If it hadn’t been for her iron determination to get her family straightened out, Kitty didn’t think she would have survived that first month. Patch helped, just by her constancy and affection – just by being there, when Kitty knew very well that the dog was pining for the countryside – but it was a terrible four weeks for Kitty, after three years of clean air and comfort on the farm. Poor Patch, too, was a country dog, terrified of city ways, city traffic, city people. But dogs are resilient and when they love they put their hearts and souls into it. Patch had loved Kitty from the moment the girl had let her off her chain and fed and watered her when Maldwyn was unable to do so. She had stuck closer to Kitty than a burr, always at her heels, only going off with Johnny or Maldwyn when they needed her to round up stock or bring cows or sheep in off the mountains.

Now, living in a city slum with food scarce and kicks ten a penny, she still stuck to Kitty. She grew gaunt and nervous, though Kitty did her best to see the dog was as well fed as circumstances allowed, but Patch never wavered in her affection and concern for her young mistress. And Kitty, no matter how tired she was, no matter how much she longed for a sit-down, took Patch down to the waterfront or up to the park night and morning and threw a stick for her so that the dog got plenty of exercise to keep her muscles in trim. What was more, Kitty begged bones from the butcher, scraps, rag-ends of meat or fish, and saw, somehow, that Patch was always more or less adequately fed.

The family fared equally well; that was to say they were mainly fed. Betty was a big help, carting the two younger ones around with her, using an old pram to carry shopping home and thus earn pennies. But once Sary’s initial joy over Kitty’s return cooled a little, Kitty often saw her mother staring at her with a horrible sort of calculation in the mean, bloodshot eyes. And the doctor had proved adamant. He would not come to the Court unless he was paid in advance.

So after a month of trying to improve her mother’s physical condition, Kitty somehow lugged her parent, by tram and on foot, up to the centre on Brougham Terrace where free medical treatment was handed out, if you didn’t mind the waits, the queues, and being treated by many of the medical staff as though you were nothing better than ignorant and unimaginative cattle who were lucky to be examined and should not expect to also be addressed.

They saw a young doctor, a man who examined Sary Drinkwater thoroughly, but with a sort of sneering distaste which annoyed Kitty very much. At the end of his examination he sent Sary off in the care of a nurse who would weigh and measure her and turned to Kitty.

‘You the daughter?’

‘Yes,’ Kitty said equally baldly.

‘Hmm. She drinks to excess, of course.’

‘Yes.’

‘Eats all the wrong food, too . . . fried potatoes? Bread and jam? That sort of thing?’

‘When she eats at all,’ Kitty said. ‘What’s ’er food got to do wi’ anything?’

‘My dear girl, it has everything to do with her state of health! She’s overweight, flabby, I daresay she seldom walks . . .’

‘She don’t ’ave the strength,’ Kitty said bitterly. She was disliking this young man more with every moment that passed. ‘What I want to know is, what do I do about it?’

‘Do? Why, stop her drinking and start her eating properly. She needs milk, meat, fresh fruit and vegetables of course . . . hey! Where are you going?’

‘I’m goin’ to find if there’s a doctor in this place what can talk sense,’ Kitty said furiously, turning to glare at him. ‘Me Dad left ’ome three year ago an’ we don’t get ’is ‘llowance no more; me brother flew the coop soon after. There’s me an’ three little sisters, I ain’t gorra proper job, I picks up what I can . . . ’ow the ’ell d’you expect me to find food like that for me Mam?’

The doctor looked a little abashed, then rallied.

‘I can only advise,’ he said pompously. ‘She’s got where she is today through her own faults, you can’t expect me . . .’

But he was speaking to a closed door. Kitty had slammed out.

Getting Sary to see another doctor was hard, but Kitty did not intend her time to be wasted. She bullied her mother into joining another queue and said grimly that unless Sary behaved she would find herself minus an elder daughter by morning. Sary gave her an evil look but consented to join the queue and presently they were ushered into another small, bleak consulting room. To Kitty’s relief the second doctor was older, and, if wearier, very much more practical.

‘She’s had some sort of debilitating fever which has affected her mind, I fear,’ he said to Kitty, smiling down very kindly at her. ‘She isn’t mad, as you feared, but she has lost touch with reality a little. If you can keep her away from alcohol and see that she drinks fresh milk and has something like cabbage or carrots most days, I am fairly confident she will recover. I’ll have a tonic mixed up in the pharmacy, but fresh air, exercise and the best food you can manage will do her more good than any medicine I can provide. Now, my dear, what are your circumstances?’

Kitty explained.

The doctor nodded and frowned.

‘I really think your smaller sisters should go to the Father Berry Catholic Children’s Home on Shaw Street. They will be well-treated, well-fed, and that will enable you to see to your mother as best you can.’

‘But they ain’t orphans,’ Kitty protested. ‘They’ve gorra mam an’ a dad; and me, acourse.’

‘They have no one to support them,’ the doctor explained. ‘Your mother is ill and likely to be so for several weeks yet, your father has gone, and you’re . . . what, fourteen?’

‘Fifteen,’ Kitty said. Being a practical young woman she could see the truth in his words. ‘Right. ’Ow do I gerrem into this place?’

So the deed was done, with the doctor’s help. Ruthie might not have understood what was happening to her but Eth did, and the look of relief on her small face when she was taken into the home and warmly welcomed, when she watched as Ruthie was picked up and cuddled by a fat nursery-maid and was shown the clean, warm clothing she would wear, went a long way to convincing Kitty that she had done the right thing. What was more the little girls were reunited with Kitty’s other sisters, Phyllis and Mo, who had been at the Home for over a year and were very happy there.

Kitty told the girls that this was not a permanent thing, that they would only be cared for until Sary Drinkwater was able to take them back. But in her heart she could not see Sary ever again being sufficiently responsible to take care of her children. Even when Sary’s health improved she was clearly not a happy woman and the future seemed to hold no charms for her.

‘Me dad leavin’ must of cut ’er up more’n I’d ha’ guessed,’ Kitty remarked to Betty on a day when their mother refused to leave her bed. ‘Poor Mam, she really must of liked the old soak.’

‘Well,
I
didn’t,’ Betty said. ‘Mam was always me favourite. She were awright when she were well, was me Mam.’

Despite missing the two younger girls, coping was easier once it was just Kitty, Betty and their mother, with Patch as moral support. Easier in one way, that was. Sary, who never seemed to take the slightest notice of her children, was told that the younger ones had been taken to someone who would feed and clothe them whilst she was too ill to do so, and accepted the explanation without more ado. Betty wept for a couple of nights and gave Kitty long, pained stares . . . she was presumably thinking that she had done her best to keep the family together yet this big sister had handed the little ones over without a murmur . . . but Kitty herself really missed Eth and Ruthie and felt guilty into the bargain, until she had visited them a couple of times after they had settled in.

The orphanage was a plain place, and practical, but the children were fed and neatly clothed, well taught, and if not loved, at least cared for in a responsible manner. Eth was soon seen to be in her element as the staff took her in hand, and Ruthie had been happy from the start, not only enjoying the food and the clothes, but revelling in the constant attention. Kitty, horribly aware of her own shortcomings as a provider, was glad to see the little girls growing sturdier with each visit, and soon stopped blaming herself for letting them go. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate, for even after a month her mother seemed little improved and the work Kitty managed to get scarcely fed the three of them. It would never have stretched to five.

‘What did you do when you wasn’t ’ere, Kit?’ Betty asked, one chilly evening as the two of them and Patch snuggled down in the pile of rags. ‘Was you very un’appy all alone?’

‘I weren’t alone, chuck, I were with a pal,’ Kitty said slowly, a hand buried in the thick ruff of fur round Patch’s neck. ‘We was in the country, me an’ me pal, on a farm. I ’spec’ we’ll go back, one day.’

‘A farm? Wha’s a farm?’

‘Oh Betty, you know very well! Pigs an’ cows an’ that. Medders, fields . . . honest to God, kiddo, you must ha’ seen about farms in books!’

‘Oh, books,’ Betty said. ‘I can’t read good.’

‘I’ll teach you if you like,’ Kitty said. ‘You goes to school, though.’

‘Oh, aye, but only when I ’as to. I’ll be ’appy when I can stay ’ome wi’ you an’ our Mam.’

Kitty did not reply. She knew very well that Betty sagged off school as often as she could but she simply could not take on the task of forcing the younger girl to attend classes. Besides, when school was in it was easier for Betty to get the odd job – fetching shopping for the old or the idle, wheeling the pram down to the docks for broken boxes which she could sell for firewood, lugging coal or potatoes home from the market – whereas in holiday time every kid was out there trying for work.

‘Kit?’

‘Yes, chuck?’

‘Tell me about your farm.’

‘Well, it’s at the foot o’ the Berwyn range – them’s mountains. They’re real lovely, are mountains. Blue an’ misty sometimes, clear an’ ’ard agin the sky others, spread wi’ all sorts o’ greens in the spring an’ purples an’ pinks in ’igh summer when the ’eather’s out.’