A Hopscotch Summer Read online

  As soon as they set foot inside, Iris bawled at them from upstairs.

  ‘Molly – is that you? ’Bout bloody time!’ Her fury-fuelled tread was heard thudding down the twisting staircase. Em shrank inside at the sight of her, but Iris took no notice of Em at all; clutching a greyed sheet in front of her she went straight for Molly. ‘What’s this, then, yer dirty little bugger?’ She held out the offending article, with its unmistakable yellow stains.

  ‘Come ’ere, yer filthy bleeder . . .’ She grabbed Molly and shoved the urine-soaked sheet hard into her daughter’s face.

  ‘There, see how yer like that, yer little vermin!’

  ‘Ow, Mom, gerroff!’ Molly wailed. Iris had seized her by the back of the neck and she was struggling to get away, but to no avail.

  ‘Gerroff be damned! What’s that, then, eh? What did yer do – go on, tell us – what’s them stains, eh?’

  ‘It ain’t nothing!’ Molly cried, starting to sob.

  Iris dealt her a ringing slap round the face.

  ‘I’ll give yer nothing! I said, what is it?’

  Iris’s viciousness made Em sick at heart. No one in her life had ever spoken to her like that.

  ‘It’s . . .’ Molly whispered. ‘I had a bit of an accident.’

  ‘A bit of an accident!’ Iris mocked. Then she shouted. ‘You ’ave another “bit of an accident” and yer’ll be out on yer ear on the bloody street to fend for yerself, d’you ’ear, yer dirty little bastard!’

  ‘I never meant to. I couldn’t help it.’

  ‘Well, yer’d better start helping it. You’re just as cowing bad as him!’ Iris pointed disgustedly at the old man, who was leering at all of them through clouds of pipe smoke. ‘And I ain’t fetching and carrying for the lot of yer. Now take this and go and wring it out!’

  She hurled the sheet at Molly, whose round face was crumpled into lines of utter misery. The pungent stink of Molly’s sheet reached Em’s nostrils and she just wanted to run back home. She was relieved that Iris didn’t even seem to have noticed she was there.

  ‘Come on, Em,’ Molly said. She went to the scullery and picked up a bucket.

  As they went, Em heard the old man say in a wheedling voice, ‘Make us a nice cuppa tea, Iris, there’s a girl.’

  To Em’s surprise, as soon as she and Molly got out into the yard, Molly’s demeanour changed immediately. All her lip-trembling misery disappeared and she went back to normal, as if what had just happened in the house was nothing and she had forgotten it.

  ‘Come on – I’ll ’ave to get this hung out and then we can play summat,’ she said.

  But after that, Em hadn’t been in the mood for playing anything.

  Just as the girls got ready for their game of hopscotch, a raucous burst of laughter broke out in the horse road. A group of lads ran out from the entry to another yard, led by Molly’s brother Bert, who was making a loud show of guffawing mockingly at another lad. The boy, a sad little orphaned lad called Johnny, was bent over, a desperate, mortified expression on his face.

  ‘Look at him, the dirty sod!’ Bert Fox blared, making sure the whole street could hear. He made his finger and thumb into a peg for his nose. ‘He’s just gone and crapped ’isself! Stand back, everyone!’

  The boy’s thin face crumpled and he started to snivel.

  ‘I never,’ he sobbed brokenly. ‘They was hurting me . . . I never . . .’ He hobbled off along the street, in obvious discomfort at his rear end, with Bert’s taunts raining down on him like stones.

  ‘He’s vile, that Bert,’ Em whispered to Katie. She felt sorry for poor little Johnny, but she knew better than to challenge Bert, who was as vicious a bully as his mother.

  ‘You coming to play?’ Molly was by them now. ‘I’ve got chalk, look.’

  From inside the elastic of her knicker leg she produced several broken, but otherwise presentable-looking bits of chalk.

  ‘Don’t know,’ Em snapped. She felt like punishing Molly for the cruelty she’d just seen in her brother, even though she knew it wasn’t Molly’s fault.

  She did join in, of course. It was too much fun to resist, and soon she and Katie were caught up in the game with Molly and Joyce and the others, trying to put the bullying they had seen out of their minds.

  They’d not been playing long, though, when she saw Bob advancing along the street towards them on his way home from work, black from head to foot, his jacket slung over one shoulder. She saw the weariness in his face, but catching sight of her, he waved and smiled.

  ‘Dad!’

  She and Joycie ran to him, proud to be seen out with him. They knew he was seen as one of the best dads in the neighbourhood.

  ‘Can we make that kite tomorrow?’ Em asked. It had all been put off because of the baby.

  ‘I don’t know, wench,’ Bob said. Close up she saw the coal dust caught in the creases of his face. ‘Look, Em – you’d better come in now. Your mother’s not well and I’ll need your help.’

  Sorry to leave the game, but feeling important because of this summons, Em went with him. He took her hand, and she felt safe with him tall and strong beside her.

  ‘I don’t know why your mom’s not picking up better,’ he said, and now he sounded sad. ‘It’s never been as bad as this before, but we’ll have to muck in and help. I can count on you, can’t I, Em?’

  She nodded as hard as she could. ‘Yes, Dad. Course you can.’

  He raised a smile and a wink. ‘Good kid.’

  Hide and Seek

  Four

  Cynthia did not know how long she had been sitting on the edge of the bed, staring out at the hazy sky. At last she rocked forward, covering her face with her hands. Her lips moved but only the faintest sound issued between them.

  ‘Dear God . . . help me . . .’

  Outwardly she appeared recovered from the baby’s birth. The pallor had gone from her cheeks and she had washed her hair, which was hanging loose in pretty chestnut curls. The strap of her white nightdress had slipped to reveal her strong shoulder and more than a hint of a breast swollen with milk. She looked a healthy young woman, sitting in a shaft of sunlight on the rumpled bed, her baby daughter asleep at her feet in the bottom drawer of the bedroom chest which just fitted in at the end of the bed.

  But the lifeless look of despair in her eyes told a different story.

  Violet was now a fortnight old, and though only just over five pounds at birth, was feeding well and thriving. She lay pink-cheeked and sated with a ragged piece of sheet over her, oblivious to her mother’s desperation.

  Bob had already gone to work. Em and Sid were back at school. But Cynthia could not seem to move, as if her limbs had been filled with wet sand.

  ‘You’ll be back to normal soon,’ Bob kept saying, cheerily. ‘You know you sometimes feel a bit down after a babby, just for a few days.’

  And she would nod at him in a vague way, trying to wrench her lips into a smile, to make him feel better.

  She didn’t feel as if she’d ever be all right again, as if she had been locked into this dark, despairing place and someone had thrown away the key. No one could reach her nor she them. It was blackness far worse than the ‘blue’ days she had known before. She felt utterly cut off from everyone.

  It was only then that she saw it was a nice day and thought to open the window and let in the warm air, but she just couldn’t find the will to budge from the bed. She ought to be heating up the copper in the scullery so that by mid-morning she would have a line of clean washing drying in the balmy September breeze. But what would have been normal routine before now felt an impossible task. All she wanted was to lie down and slip back into oblivion, away from everything. Just sleep and more sleep. That was all she could manage.

  Nothing felt the same. Until now she had loved this simple room where she and Bob slept each night. They couldn’t afford much; the floorboards were bare and there was nothing but the bedstead and an old chest of drawers and a chair, but it was theirs, and cosy with
the colourful patchwork quilt she had stitched in preparation for marriage. They were not living on a yard, they’d not sunk that low. Now, though, everything had changed in her eyes. Even in the sunlight the room looked poor and mean, the quilt tatty, the floorboards wormed and rough. The grime on the windows blown from countless chimneys around them, and the endless battle with bugs and vermin, oppressed her. Everything screamed of tasks undone and it was all more than she could manage. And the child . . . Her eyes filled with tears as she looked down at Violet, so sweet and pretty with her down of soft, brown hair.

  ‘I don’t want you,’ she whispered. Hearing her own words, she was horrified that she should say such a thing out loud. ‘You’re too much. I can’t look after you. I’m no good as a mother, no good to anyone. Someone should take you away . . .’

  For a moment she imagined pressing something over Violet’s innocent face: so quiet it would be, stopping her breathing, no more noise, no more crying. She could sleep, just sleep . . . Her hand even strayed to the pillow, as if daring herself, then she pulled back with a sharp gasp, starting to tremble all over. God in heaven, what had she come to? A child murderer?

  She was about to give way to the desperate tears that seemed to well up so often when she tensed, hearing cautious footsteps on the stairs. Joyce came tiptoeing in, then, seeing her mom sitting up, relaxed and ran excitedly towards her.

  ‘I been sitting quiet in my room like Dad told me but you’re awake now! Can I help with the babby?’

  Joyce looked so sweet in her gigantic frock, some of her hair caught up and tied with a strip of rag into a little topknot. Em must have done it before she went to school. She had her shoes on, little T-bars, and her face shone with eagerness, but Cynthia found that the child’s presence filled her with overwhelming panic. Joyce’s energy was too much for her, her sheer vitality seemed to drink Cynthia dry. She stared at her little girl and said, ‘Oh Joycie, look at you, your ribbon’s filthy and your shoes are all scuffs.’ Her dress had dried porridge spilled down the front, and at the sight of all this Cynthia dissolved into tears.

  ‘What’s the matter, Mom?’ Joyce asked, eyes wide with alarm.

  Cynthia felt like two different people in one. Her real self that wanted to be kind, to let Joycie help her, had been locked away somewhere. The witch she had become snarled at her, full of irritation.

  ‘Just go on downstairs, Joycie. I can’t be doing with all yer noise up here. You’ll wake the babby and I need to get myself dressed.’

  Joyce put her hands behind her back and swung herself from side to side for a moment, her face pulled into a hurt, angry pout. She was trying to decide whether to argue but she didn’t dare say anything. All excitement wiped away, she sidled off towards the stairs again.

  ‘Go and see Nance,’ Cynthia called after her. ‘Just go and play. Or go and see Mrs Button. She might have a cake for you.’

  There was no reply. She heard Joyce pause halfway down the stairs and stand kicking her feet resentfully against the wall, until Cynthia thought she’d scream.

  ‘I said go down, will you!’ she yelled. ‘For heaven’s sake, let me be!’

  As Joyce thumped furiously down the rest of the stairs, Cynthia fell sideways on the bed, sobbing her heart out.

  ‘If only I could sleep, I’d feel better.’ It wasn’t just the baby waking her. She felt so wound up all the time she just couldn’t settle, and she’d lost her appetite and could hardly get anything down her, despite Bob saying, ‘You need to keep your strength up, what with feeding and that. Come on, love, try a bit more.’ But she felt queasy and the smell of food repelled her.

  Once again she found herself just lying there for she didn’t know how long. Time swam by, her thoughts turning like a cruel wheel. She found herself dwelling on things long in the past, on those weeks only a few months after Mom died. Her father, desperate for someone to care for his three children, Geoff, herself and Olive, had brought Mary Jones to live with them, saying she was going to be their new mother.

  She’d never liked Mary, not even for a second. And with her came three sons, all older than Cynthia. Percy and Joe were thirteen and eleven, and Albert nine. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, trying to block out the memory of when they’d arrived with their gross habits. Mary Jones was never much of a housekeeper, and the boys! Cynthia recoiled at the thought. Their loud, battering voices, the crude teasing, the skeins of snot and all the smells that came with them had filled her with the deepest loathing. They had bullied Geoff, her sweet-natured brother. And it was Albert’s fault she had burned her hand. One day he was clowning around in the back room, in a space far too small. His teasing always had a threat in it and he grabbed Cynthia and started to swing her round and round by her hands, too fast, while she shrieked at him to let go. Suddenly she was whirling across the room, unable to stop, and broke her fall by plunging her hand into the grate.

  Mary Jones, a small, mean woman, had come running at her screams.

  ‘What in hell’s name are you doing, you stupid girl?’ She dragged Cynthia back from the fire and slapped her cheek for the racket, before realizing that her screams of agony were rooted in a genuine, terrible injury. She dressed Cynthia’s hand but she never said a word of reproach to Albert.

  Those years of misery and fear, feeling so helpless with her mother gone, a father who didn’t care and the rough slovenliness of Mary Jones, all came back to haunt her. She had always tried so hard never to think of it, but now it all welled up, raw and agonizing, however hard she tried to push the memories away. All she had wanted was a place that was safe and clean and loving. All! That had been everything she yearned for!

  As soon as she was old enough, Cynthia had got a job at a button factory on the edge of the Italian quarter in Duddesdon and moved into a bug-infested room. Anything was better than living with Mary Jones. Eventually, that day on the tram when she was eighteen and she had seen Bob’s dancing eyes fixed on her, and she’d looked back into his generous, open face, life had begun in earnest, with someone to love her.

  They’d been so happy, in their cosy little house, making a family. Cynthia knew Bob was proud of her and relied on her. She loved the way he called her ‘my girl’ even now, or ‘my wench’, to tease her.

  ‘Girl sounds better,’ she’d say archly. ‘Wench is common.’

  ‘Oh, you’re not common,’ Bob might say, sidling up to kiss her, then pinch her bottom, making her squeal with laughter. ‘You’re queen of the household, that’s what you are, missis.’

  Who was that person who could laugh, she wondered now, remembering all her happiness with him. And she’d had Dot to share everything with. Everyone respected Dot for managing the way she had after Charlie was killed without ever once turning to the parish. Dot had always been a staunch friend. Together, they’d been two of the most energetic and capable mothers in the street. She certainly didn’t feel up to much these days.

  ‘Oh, Bob, I’m sorry,’ she whispered, pressing her face against the pillow. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with me.’ She was letting him down, letting Dot and all of them down. The way she felt now, they’d all be better off without her.

  Five

  ‘Emma Brown!’ Thwack!

  A sharp slap across the side of her head forced out a whimper between Em’s lips.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ Miss Lineham towered over her. She was a young teacher, with pale, washed-out looks and a very strict, spiteful personality. ‘All this time and there’s nothing on your slate. Stop biting your nails, it’s a disgusting habit. I don’t know what’s come over you this term.’

  The class all watched in amazement. It was almost unheard of for Emma Brown to get a telling-off.

  They’d been back at school a week. The heavy, metal-framed wooden desks were arranged in lines, two children at each, and Em and Katie were seated side by side. In front of every pupil lay a slate and on the blackboard was a set of subtraction sums. The sound of the squeak of pencils on the
slates filled the room as the children attempted the calculations.

  Em and Katie had walked to school together, down Kenilworth Street and along to the big red-brick school which crouched there waiting for them. The doors which had been locked all summer were flung open now. Across the road was the big goods yard next to Windsor Street Wharf and behind, belching out steam, the power station. School did not normally hold too much fear for Em and Katie, as they were able girls and most people wanted to be their friends.

  Em’s cheeks burned and tears stung her eyes at Miss Lineham’s attack on her. She wasn’t used to being in trouble. She had always tried her best at school, but today she couldn’t keep her mind on anything, was barely conscious of the classroom’s panelled walls, the wilting aspidistra in its pot on a little table at the side or the vase of pinks on the teacher’s desk. She sat dreamily chewing away at her nails.

  ‘You’d better get working or it’ll be the cane for you!’ Miss Lineham threatened.

  Hurriedly Em took up her slate pencil and started to copy a sum from the board. Katie nudged her in sympathy but Em ignored it. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Molly Fox glance round and mouth something at her when Miss Lineham’s back was turned. There was an odd number of children in the class and Molly was the only one sitting at a double desk on her own as no one wanted to sit with her. Em felt her cheeks go even redder. She didn’t want Molly’s sympathy either.

  A while later her left hand automatically strayed back to her mouth and she was nibbling at her nails again. She pulled her hand away and stared at them; they looked raw and ugly now she had bitten them down to the quicks. How did that happen? She never used to bite them.