The House by Princes Park (20 page)

‘No, friends,’ Ruby whispered. Beth began to cry. The little girls caught her mood and cried with her, little hacking sobs, as it dawned on them that their dear Arthur was dead.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Dr Brooker murmured.

‘Is he still here? I’d like to say goodbye – we all would.’

‘He was taken to the morgue only minutes before you arrived. It’s not long since his body was found. The young man, Herbie, was worried there was no sign of life when he returned this evening with the cart. Apparently, Mr Cummings always came out to greet him.’

‘He’d still be alive if we hadn’t gone away,’ Ruby said, her voice suddenly harsh. ‘It was us going that finished him off. Five days, the war only started five days ago, and already we’ve lost someone we love.’

It was the saddest night they’d ever known. The children were worn out and went to bed willingly. Greta and Heather were upset about Arthur, but not old enough to mourn. Ruby and Beth stayed up until the early hours, talking about their old friend, reminiscing, crying sporadically, taking turns to comfort each other. They blamed themselves for deserting him.

When Beth began to fall asleep in front of her eyes, Ruby made her go upstairs, then stayed in the chair, staring at the empty fireplace, while other thoughts flitted in and out of her mind. The scene with Miss Scanlon had brought home to her an aspect of life she hadn’t known existed; colour prejudice. She would never repeat to Beth the terrible things that Miss Scanlon had said, but the words would forever stay seared on her soul.

Her thoughts turned to Jim Quinlan, as they often did when she was alone. They’d only met a few times since the party in the Malt House. Looking into his warm eyes, she’d hoped to see something more than the friendly interest he took in everybody’s affairs, but had looked in
vain. Ruby sighed. Even if he considered her the most desirable woman in the world, she couldn’t imagine Jim Quinlan allowing himself to show a scrap of interest when he thought she was married.

Next morning, there were practical issues to consider. Would the landlord let them have the house? Beth wondered aloud.

‘Not unless we take over the yard as well. They both go together. I don’t know about you, but I don’t fancy running a coal business.’

‘I didn’t think of that. Which reminds me, I’ll just have a word with Clifford. Just because he’s a horse, it doesn’t mean he won’t be as upset as anyone that Arthur’s gone.’

Herbie arrived soon afterwards, wanting to know if he should deliver the coal as usual and who would pay him if he did. ‘And there’s more needs ordering. We’re running low.’

‘I think you should nip round the landlord’s first, tell him about Arthur,’ Ruby advised. ‘Things need sorting out.’

‘Would he let our dad take over the place, d’you think?’ Herbie asked, his young face bright with hope. ‘He lost his leg on the docks a few years back, our dad, then our mam did a bunk and we lost the house an’ all. Me and him and our Mary have been living in rooms ever since. We could run the place together. Mary could do the paperwork, she’s good at sums. We talked about it last night.’

‘All you can do is ask, Herbie. If you move in, I won’t have to worry about Clifford being looked after.’

Beth came up and overheard the last remark. ‘No, but you can start worrying about something else, Ruby – where are
we
going to live?’

‘I know exactly where we’re going to live,’ Ruby sang. ‘In a nice, detached, five-bedroomed house overlooking Princes Park.’

‘What if she comes back, this Mrs Hart?’ Beth asked next day as they toured the house, upstairs and down. The girls ran ahead, gleefully exploring, Arthur forgotten. Jake tottered along on his chubby legs, clutching his mother’s hand.

‘She went to America to escape the war. She’s not likely to come back now it’s started, is she?’

‘I’ll be worried all the same.’

‘So will I, a bit, but I’d sooner be worried than live somewhere like Foster Court. I’d write and ask Mrs Hart if it’d be all right if we stayed, but her sister’s address turned out to be a laundry list when I opened the envelope with the keys. She was always a bit of a scatterbrain. Isn’t everywhere lovely and big!’

The hall and the landing were enormous and four of the spacious bedrooms had bay windows with padded seats – one was still full of Max Hart’s childish toys. The furniture was old and shabby and the carpets as faded as the curtains and the upholstered suites in the two big reception rooms at the front. Here and there, a young Max had scribbled with a crayon on the pale, knobbly wallpaper, though was unlikely to have been chastised by his indulgent mother. Mrs Hart hadn’t thought to cover the furniture or put things away before she set sail for America. The beds hadn’t been made, there was half-finished knitting in the kitchen where dishes had been left to drain. Ruby hadn’t felt inclined to tidy up the times she’d come to make sure everything was all right.

‘It looks as if she’s just popped out to do a bit of shopping,’ Beth remarked. ‘It’s creepy. She’s even left a record on the gramophone with the lid up. It’s full of dust.’

Ruby thought the place had a run-down, appealing charm that hadn’t been evident in the more sumptuously furnished Brambles. ‘Stop moaning and count your blessings,’ she said sternly.

‘Oh, I’m counting them, don’t worry.’ Beth smiled. ‘I never dreamt I’d ever live in a house like this. Bagsy me a bedroom overlooking the park.’

‘Bagsy me the other. Anyway,’ Ruby frowned and looked thoughtful, ‘I think it best if we kept to the back, downstairs too, we’ll use the living room next to the kitchen, so as few people will notice us as possible, but we’ll have to think of a story for the neighbours to explain why we’re here – say we’re housesitting, for instance, that we’ve got permission to stay. We’ll have to get some blackout curtains. It’s lucky Mrs Hart put sticky tape on the windows before she went away.’

‘There’s a sewing machine in the little bedroom, a treadle. Me mam had one the same at home. It’ll do to sew the blackout curtains – and I can make us some clothes.’

They returned downstairs, leaving Greta and Heather trying out the inside lavatory. ‘I’ll arrange to have the mains turned on,’ Ruby said, thinking aloud. ‘I’ll say I’m Mrs Hart’s daughter if anyone asks. It means we’ll have bills to pay, electricity, gas. Tomorrow, I’ll start work again. Probably no one’s noticed I’ve been gone – there wasn’t time to tell them.’

‘Oh, this is the gear!’ Beth picked Jake up and gave him a little excited twirl. ‘You’re a miracle worker, Ruby O’Hagan, you really are. I’m ever so glad I met you.’

‘You can thank Jake’s dad for that. Don’t forget, it was him you met first.’

It wasn’t long, a matter of weeks, before Ruby was forced to declare the pawnshop runner another casualty of war. Most of her former customers no longer needed to pawn their valuables. Unemployment had vanished at a stroke and wages had risen. Women were taking over men’s jobs, earning fabulous amounts in factories. They delivered post, read meters, joined the Forces, became tram and bus conductors, did all sorts of jobs that had once been the preserve of males.

The world had changed. There was a different spirit in the air. Germany had laid down a challenge and the British people had taken it up with enthusiasm. The pawnshop runner was out of date. She belonged to a world that no longer existed. Ruby would have to find another, quite different job.

Ironically, the new poor were women with families whose husbands had been called up. They were allowed a pitiful sum to make up for the breadwinner being away risking his life for his country.

‘Why aren’t you getting an allowance?’ Beth enquired when Ruby, rather foolishly, conveyed this piece of information and expressed her disgust. ‘You’ve got a husband in the Army.’

‘I told you, it’s pitiful.’

‘How much is pitiful?’

‘About twenty-five shillings,’ Ruby replied, uncomfortably aware the conversation had taken a dangerous turn.

‘Twenty-five bob!’ Beth gaped. ‘Don’t be daft, we could do a lot with that.’

Ruby yawned. ‘I can’t be bothered applying.’

‘I’m surprised you didn’t get it automatically as soon as Jake joined up.’

‘Are you?’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Beth went into the kitchen and Ruby to the garden to watch the children play. She gave a sigh of relief, thinking the subject of allowances had been dropped, but her interrogator appeared a few minutes later.

‘Why are you known as Ruby O’Hagan, not Veering?’

‘Why not?’ Ruby countered weakly.

‘Because it’s what happens when people get married, soft girl. The woman takes the man’s name. Me, I was looking forward to becoming Mrs Veering.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You and Jake weren’t married, were you? Don’t argue,’ she snapped, when Ruby opened her mouth to insist they were. ‘I know for sure because there’s no way in the world you’d turn down twenty-five bob without good reason.’

‘Oh, all right, we weren’t.’ Ruby shrugged.

Beth went pale. ‘So, he
could
have married me.’ She burst into tears. ‘I’ve always told meself he went away with a broken heart because we couldn’t get wed.’

‘Well you were wrong.’ Ruby was inclined to give the occasional emotional outbursts concerning Jacob short shrift. ‘I bet he went away happier than he’d been in a long time. He was escaping from us both, not to mention his children – including Jake.’

‘You’re as hard as nails, Ruby O’Hagan.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m a realist. I’ve never seen the point of crying over spilt milk. We’ve got more important things than Jacob to think about at the moment – ourselves. I’m
not making enough for us to live on. I need to find another job. Just try thinking about that!’

‘I’ve already thought about it.’ Beth sniffed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve. ‘Why don’t
I
get a job instead of you?’

Ruby stifled a laugh. Beth was upset enough, it wouldn’t do to upset her further, but what on earth could she
do?
She thought the world of her, but to put it bluntly, Beth was useless. She wasn’t very strong nor particularly clever. She glided dreamily through life and nothing could hurry her. Looking after children, doing housework, was the most she could be trusted with. ‘What sort of job?’ Ruby asked, feigning interest.

‘In one of them munition factories. You said yourself the wages were good. I can be the husband for a change. You can stay at home and be the wife.’

‘You think you can manage that, do you?’

‘Well, I can try.’

‘All right then, try.’ Ruby hid a smile, knowing it would all end in the inevitable tears and she’d be looking for a job herself in a few weeks’ time. She could take over Beth’s! ‘Let’s see how you get on.’

Ten days later, Beth started work as a fly presser at A. E. Wadsworth Engineering, a small factory on the Dock Road that had recently converted to war work.

‘I’m going to stamp out parts for aeroplanes,’ she said importantly when she returned from the interview. ‘The wages are three pounds, five and six a week. I get a five bob rise after six months. It’s ever such hard work.’ She grimaced. ‘You should see the size of the press I have to operate. It’s
huge
.’

The first day she came home, her hands wouldn’t stop shaking and she went to bed straight away. During the night, Ruby heard her sobbing quietly, but decided to leave her to it, doubting that she’d last the week.

On the second day, her right arm was paralysed from using the heavy machine and she could hardly walk from the tram stop on her swollen feet. She refused anything to eat and cried again in bed.

Wednesday, she cried before she went to bed. The women she worked with were horrible and the men made fun of her. ‘One of ’em said I had the strength of a gnat.’

‘Cheek!’ Ruby expostulated.

Thursday, she arrived with a bandage on her thumb. ‘I caught it in the machine.’

‘Is it still all there?’

‘The machine or me thumb?’

‘I don’t care about the machine. What about your thumb?’

‘It’s just bruised, Rube. Don’t worry.’

Ruby worried again on Friday when there was no sign of Beth by half-past five. She arrived two hours later, slightly unsteady on her feet, and looking twenty years older than at the beginning of the week. ‘I went for a drink with me mates,’ she announced. ‘I’m a little bit tiddly.’

‘Mates!’ Ruby shrilled. ‘What mates? I thought everyone was horrible or made fun. You’ve got a cheek! I took ages making your tea and now it’s ruined. I’m not making another.’

‘S’all right, Rube. I’m not hungry.’ Minutes later, she was fast asleep in the chair.

Ruby wouldn’t have felt quite as irritated at the way things had turned out if she hadn’t found it so hard to look after three small children as well as clean a very large house and keep the garden tidy. Now that Jake was walking, he couldn’t be let out of sight.

‘We need a playpen,’ she informed his mother.

‘I’ll buy one as soon as I can afford it,’ Beth promised in
the same airy tone Ruby used to adopt in Arthur’s house when told something was urgently required.

Greta and Heather demanded constant attention. ‘How am I supposed to play with you, keep an eye on Jake, clean this place, and prepare the food?’ Ruby shrieked.

‘Beth didn’t shout at us,’ growled Heather.

Six months later, in March, Beth got the promised five-shilling raise. She loved her job and claimed it made her feel very much part of the war effort.

Ruby sulked. She didn’t feel she was contributing anything towards the war. By now, a playpen had been acquired, the girls were encouraged to help with the housework, and a rota had been drawn up so only a certain number of tasks were carried out each day. There was time for a walk to the shops each morning, a visit to the park in the afternoon, an occasional ride into town on the tram. She responded to the call to ‘Dig for Victory’, and planted vegetables in the garden.

But it wasn’t enough. She was bored out of her skull. Martha Quinlan suggested she join the WVS and Ruby said she’d love to, ‘But what would I do with the children?’

‘We can have meetings in your nice big house,’ Martha said. ‘You don’t have to be an active member like me. We meet regularly to roll bandages, knit blankets, make toys, do all sorts of useful things. Before Christmas, we made gift parcels for the troops. Last week, we stuffed mattresses for evacuees – some of the poor little mites still wet their beds.’