The Women of Mulberry Lane, page 8
Peggy checked the beef. Time to pop the Yorkshire in and turn the potatoes. She was hungry, and despite her own troubles, she knew how lucky she was.
Christmas was a time for sharing and for families. She was glad she had so many of her friends and family close to her. Maureen was only just round the corner and she’d rung earlier to say thank you for a pretty lace blouse Peggy had given her. Peggy smiled. At least they were both having a good Christmas no matter what the future held.
*
Maureen handed Gordon the keys of the shop and saw him pocket them. He kissed her cheek before he left and she smiled because he looked so pleased with himself. He still used one crutch to walk on and he hobbled, his progress slow as he set off down the street, but it was such an improvement.
‘You take it easy today,’ he’d told her as he prepared to leave. ‘You’ve had a lot of cooking to do over Christmas and I don’t want you ill…’
Maureen had promised she would, though there was a lot of tidying up to do after the fun of Christmas. Just two days and it was over. The shop needed to open because a lot of folk would need to buy their rations. Many people in the lanes didn’t buy in an excess of food, because they couldn’t afford it. Christmas was like any other day to those families. If they got a dinner with meat of some kind they were lucky, and they could only afford a few treats if they’d saved into a Christmas club. Maureen ran one at the shop for those that asked and it enabled them to buy extra, like a tin of fruit or a packet of jelly, providing it was available.
Maureen knew that the children Shirley had invited to her own little party had been amazed to be given sandwiches made with pink salmon, strawberry blancmange and tinned fruit cocktail. The tinned fruit had actually come through Shirley’s school. The luxury food parcels had been donated by families in Canada; hundreds of them had been distributed through schools up and down the country. There had been enough tins, bars of chocolate and sweets for every child to have something. Shirley had chosen the fruit rather than sweets, because she said more of them could share. Rather than keep it for their family, Maureen used it for Shirley’s friends, some of whom had never eaten blancmange or tinned fruit. Even when these things were not rationed, their parents couldn’t afford them and the children considered them a wonderful treat.
After she had changed the beds, put the sheets to soak in the scullery in the copper and lit a fire beneath it, Maureen sat down for a cup of tea with Gran. Robin was out with Shirley, who had taken him to visit with Carol, Vera Brooks’ daughter. She would spend the day there and help out so that Vera could open the shop again for a few hours. It was doubtful they’d have many customers this close to Christmas, but someone might have had five bob in their stocking, and there were plenty of items on the rail for that sum.
‘It’s time you sat down,’ Gran said when Maureen poured her tea and bit into one of the last mince pies. ‘You told Gordon you would have a rest…’
‘I don’t feel I need to,’ Maureen said and smiled. ‘Though Christmas is exhausting. I hope you’re not too tired?’
‘I can go and rest on the bed this afternoon if I feel inclined. It was a good idea to bring my bed down and it was decent of the neighbours to come round and do it.’
‘People are kind,’ Maureen said, because two teenage boys and their grandfather had organised the move. It was accepted that Gordon couldn’t lift and the boys had been only too pleased to help out. ‘But I think young Richard was out to impress Shirley…’
Gran looked at her sharply. ‘Shirley is much too young to think about boys yet!’
‘Yes, she is and she doesn’t, at least not in that way,’ Maureen reassured her. ‘But Richard Kent is fifteen and he likes our Shirley a lot. He carried her satchel home from school at the end of term because she had that decoration she’d made for Peggy and another for us. I saw him blushing when she asked him in and offered him a cup of tea and a bit of my fatless sponge…’
‘Well, I hope he’s not gettin’ ideas,’ Gran said. ‘The money I gave you and Gordon at Christmas is the last – apart from this house, of course. I’ve got some put by and it’s for Shirley – to see her through college. She wants to be a teacher. She’s a bright girl, Maureen, and I don’t want her havin’ to get married at sixteen and tied down with kiddies before she’s lived.’
‘I’m pretty certain she won’t,’ Maureen reassured. ‘Shirley has a sensible head on her. If she wants to go to college, she will… and you should spend some of your savings on yourself, Gran.’
‘What do I need money for?’ Gran clicked her tongue. ‘You and Gordon pay all the expenses and I only buy a bit of the food – and you’d give me the money for that if you could.’
Maureen swallowed a sob. ‘You’ve given me everything, Gran. I don’t think I’ve ever told you how grateful I am for all you’ve done – not just the shop and the money, but your love and your time…’ Her eyes were damp with tears, even though she held them back.
Gran smiled. ‘I know you appreciate me, love. I’ve always thought myself fortunate to have you. Neither my husband nor my son truly appreciated the help I gave them – but they gave me you, and you’ve given me Shirley, Robin and both my Gordons. I love you all and I’m content…’
Maureen nodded and poured them both a second cup of tea. She was enjoying this quiet time with Gran. Life had been hectic for too long and she was thankful that Gordon had made it possible for her to have this period in her life. She just hoped it wouldn’t be too much for him and found herself looking at the clock as the afternoon wore on. He’d been going to leave the shop to Rose after lunch, but he still wasn’t back.
She was just thinking about going round to the shop when the door opened and Gordon walked in. He looked a bit tired, but she also saw a hint of excitement in his eyes.
‘What do you think I found?’ he asked and produced a black tin cash box from behind his back. ‘I saw a loose floorboard in the stockroom and lifted it up – and this was underneath. It feels heavy. It doesn’t rattle, but it might be full of coppers.’
Maureen picked up the box and looked at it curiously. ‘How odd… it looks like the cash box Dad used to keep at home when I was a girl. Is there a key?’
‘No…’ Gordon hesitated. ‘I could force it, but that’s up to you…’
She frowned. ‘Dad left everything to Violet…’
‘But he hid this… why do you think he did that?’
‘Open it and mebbe you’ll find out,’ Gran said.
‘I always thought there should’ve been more money,’ Maureen acknowledged. ‘I’m not sure what I ought to do with it – but I want to see what is inside…’
Gordon went to the kitchen dresser and took a heavy screwdriver from the top drawer of the oak dresser. He stuck the flat end under the edge and pressed down hard. It took some brute force to break the lock, but eventually it came open.
Maureen looked inside. There were several little brown paper packets and a folded sheet of paper on top. She took that out first and read it, reading it again and a third time before giving it to Gordon.
‘This is for you, Maureen,’ he read aloud. ‘If I don’t get round to telling you about it, Tom will find it one day. Violet wasn’t what I thought she’d be. I left her what I could, but this belongs to you. It was your mother’s – and the gold coins I bought with some of the money I got from selling bits of her jewellery and also some of my savings.’
Maureen stared at Gordon and then took the first of six paper packets. In it was a diamond ring with three big stones; in the second was a pair of large diamond earrings and in the third a diamond brooch in the shape of a crescent. The other three packets contained two gold sovereigns each.
‘My goodness!’ Maureen said. ‘The jewellery is worth a bit, I should think – and the gold…’
‘Yes, the jewellery is worth a few hundred,’ Gran said. ‘I wondered what happened to the diamonds, because you never had them. They were left to me by my grandfather and I gave them to your mother when she married my son. I think there was a real pearl necklace, but that may have been sold with some other small bits. I knew he hadn’t given you everything she left you.’
‘Oh, Gran…’ Maureen looked at her. ‘He must have kept them from me all those years.’
‘At least he had the decency to return them,’ Gran said and nodded her satisfaction. ‘You’re goin’ to keep them I hope?’
‘I’m not sure about the coins.’ Maureen frowned. ‘The jewellery is mine because it was left to me… but Dad may have bought the coins with his own money, which means Violet is entitled to them under the terms of his will.’
‘Don’t you be so stupid, my girl!’ Gran said crossly. ‘If Harold had wanted her to have them, he’d have said so… Besides, she had all he left – and she didn’t deserve it after the way she treated him at the last.’ Violet had been less than caring to her husband after his stroke.
‘I’m not sure that makes it right.’
‘His letter said he bought the coins with money from other jewellery,’ Gordon reminded her. ‘I’m not sure what the law would say, but I think these belong to you, Maureen.’
‘I’ll keep the jewellery, but I need to think about the rest,’ Maureen said. ‘I don’t like Violet, but she was Dad’s wife…’
‘And she didn’t treat him – or us – as she should,’ Gran said. ‘If you don’t want the money put it by for the children, Maureen.’
‘Yes, perhaps,’ Maureen smiled and shook her head. ‘What a surprise. It’s a wonder Tom didn’t find the box.’
‘Perhaps he did, but he knows your soft heart,’ Gran said. ‘You take notice of me, my girl, and keep this little windfall for yourself. You never know when you may need it.’
Maureen nodded, but looked at her husband. ‘So how did it go otherwise?’
‘Good, I enjoyed myself,’ Gordon told her. ‘I think I was meant to be a shopkeeper.’
Maureen nodded, but her thoughts were of her father’s box and its contents.
Both Gordon and Gran thought she should keep all of her father’s secret hoard for herself, but there was a part of her that felt it was unfair. She would think about it and then she would speak to Violet – see what her father’s widow was thinking of doing in the near future. Violet wasn’t an easy person to talk to – she moaned every time she saw Maureen and made it clear she thought she’d been cheated, even though her own solicitor had told her that Harold had never owned the building but only the goodwill of the shop and the stock, which she’d been paid for. Yet she’d been Maureen’s father’s wife and her conscience wouldn’t let her just take this windfall without making sure Violet was all right for money.
*
Shirley had the chickenpox. She’d returned home from spending the day with her friend Carol and complained of feeling hot and having a headache. Maureen sent her to bed and gave her a quarter of an Aspro, but she didn’t seem to settle and by morning she was tossing and turning feverishly.
‘We’d better have the doctor,’ Maureen said and Gordon rang him before leaving for the shop. ‘I’ll let you know what he says,’ she promised and he went off looking anxious.
Maureen telephoned the shop after the doctor left later that morning. ‘He says it’s a nasty case of the chickenpox,’ she told Shirley’s anxious father.
‘Do you think she got it from those things I bought her?’
‘No, of course not,’ Maureen said. ‘The doctor told me he’s been called to a score of cases over Christmas – all of her school friends have got it. I suppose she was bound to catch it, and I think Robin may be going down with it too.’
‘You will have your hands full, love.’ Gordon was anxious but sympathetic.
‘It’s just as well you’re lookin’ after the shop.’
‘I’m glad you’re at home. Let’s hope young Gordon doesn’t get it as well…’
‘Yes…’ Maureen smothered a sigh. The virulent disease often went through the whole family or even a whole school. Shirley was really suffering and Robin looked like being just as bad, which was perhaps not surprising, because they were always together.
Maureen went back to the bedroom. She was glad they were both in the same room. Gran had taken little Gordon downstairs to her room. She was trying to keep him from picking up the infection, but since Shirley had been nursing him the previous day it was likely that he too would go down with it. A lot of people put their children together when it struck so they all got it at once, because mostly it did no real harm, but, being a nurse, Maureen knew that sometimes it could kill.
Maureen bathed Shirley’s forehead and soothed the little girl as best she could. Doctor Morris had given her a mild liquid painkiller and Maureen hoped it would help. He was disinclined to give Robin anything, as he was so young.
‘Just keep him as cool as possible,’ he’d said. ‘Call me again if the fever mounts.’
Maureen went from Shirley to Robin all that day, sitting with them both through most of the night until Gordon forced her to rest. Gran refused to let her near little Gordon. She insisted that she could look after him, and it seemed she was right, because he didn’t contract the awful sickness, but Gran said it was best to be safe and insisted on caring for him, with some help from Gordon.
By the end of four days Maureen was nearly exhausted, but that same evening Shirley began to recover. She stopped whimpering and tossing and by morning she was sitting up and able to drink from a glass instead of the china teapot Maureen had used to give her liquids when she couldn’t lift her head from the pillow. Her face, arms and body were now covered with the red blisters the illness had brought, but she seemed better in herself.
Robin, however, seemed listless, even though his fever appeared to have abated. He didn’t have as many spots as Shirley but was clearly ill. Maureen was worried, because Robin always had so much energy and he’d been the liveliest of her children, but now he just lay and looked up at her with wide hurt eyes that made her heart ache. She held him in her arms for hours on end and Gordon sent for the doctor at her insistence. Something inside Maureen sensed that she was losing her beloved child, but the doctor examined him and said it was just weakness after a particularly nasty bout of chickenpox. He would recover in time. Maureen begged him to give her something to help, but he just smiled and patted her hand.
‘He’ll recover, my dear,’ he said. ‘A lot of the children in the lanes are still very sick. It seems to have been a particularly nasty strain this time – but I’m sure your child will be fine.’
However, Robin did not improve despite all Maureen’s devotion throughout the following week. Shirley was out of bed now, and though still pale and tired, she was clearly on the mend. Maureen had sent her to sleep in Gran’s old room and she kept creeping to the door of Robin’s room and peering in as Maureen nursed him.
‘Is he goin’ to die, Mum?’ she asked one night. ‘Is it my fault… did I give it to him?’
‘No, of course you didn’t,’ Maureen said. ‘Oh, Shirley don’t blame yourself. Neither of us wanted this to happen.’
Maureen wanted to go to her and hug her, but she couldn’t leave Robin. He was fading hour by hour and she could see the change in him, his laboured breath and his poor little wan face tugging at her heart and making her weep inside. He seemed so tiny and so frail that it wrung her heart.
‘My little love,’ Maureen whispered as Shirley left and kissed his forehead. He wasn’t hot any more, in fact he felt cold and she held him to her, wrapping a shawl over him, trying to instil her own warmth and health into him. ‘Let it be me instead of him, if someone must die,’ she prayed as she held him through the night. ‘It isn’t fair. He is so young, so beautiful and full of life – why him? Why my Robin?’
It was just before dawn when Maureen knew his little life was ended. She sat with the tears dripping down her face, holding him, unable to let go or lay him down in his bed. An icy numbness was creeping over her and she felt as if someone had kicked all the life out of her. Her darling Robin was gone. She would never hear his laughter again or see his naughty little smile as he ran rings round his big sister, Shirley – she would be devastated! Shirley already blamed herself, she would feel guilt, but it wasn’t her fault.
Maureen heard Gordon enter the room behind her. He stood with his hand on her shoulder and then he bent down and kissed Robin’s forehead.
‘I loved him too, you know…’
‘Yes…’ Maureen croaked. ‘I know. We all loved him. I don’t know how I shall bear it…’
Gordon took Robin from her arms and placed him gently back on the bed and then he drew her to her feet, holding her as the storm of tears broke from her and she sobbed until there were none left. Shirley came to the threshold, looked at them and then ran sobbing to her own room.
‘Go to her, Gordon,’ Maureen said. ‘I’m all right now. She blames herself for bringing it home to him. Don’t let her, because it wasn’t her fault. She couldn’t have stopped him catching it.’
Gordon looked at her oddly, but he did as she asked. Maureen sat by the side of her son and felt numb. She thought she might never be able to feel anything again. She’d thought her world was perfect, but a virulent disease had blown it apart, stripping everything from her. Even little Gordon couldn’t make her smile, because to lose a child was like having your heart ripped out.
*
Shirley had been next door to visit her friend Richard Kent. Like her, he’d had the chickenpox and recovered easily, but his little sister Cathy had died. Shirley was white-faced when she crept back to the kitchen and sat hugging her knees and staring at the floor.
‘What’s wrong, love?’ Gran asked but she knew what was upsetting the girl so much. ‘You mustn’t blame yourself over Robin, Shirley. It wasn’t your fault he died – it wasn’t anyone’s…’
‘I know…’ Shirley raised her head and looked at her through tear-laden eyes. ‘Richard’s little sister died of it just like our Robin, and he says his mother blames him for bringing it home, but his dad told him it was the will of God…’ Shirley looked at Gran sorrowfully. ‘Is God cruel?’
