We continued our walk in silence. She thought I was satisfied, but I was wondering about her, and wondering where I would go to find out what I wanted to know.
When it was washday I hid in the dustbin to hear what the women said. Nellie came out with her bit of rope and strung it up nail to nail across the back alley. She waved to Doreen who was struggling up the hill with her shopping, offering her a cup of tea and a talk. Each Wednesday Doreen queued up at the butcher’s for the special offer mince. It always put her in a bad mood because she was a member of the Labour party and believed in equal shares and equal rights. She started to tell Nellie about the woman in front buying steak. Nellie shook her head which was small and tufted, and said it had been hard for her too since Bert died.
‘Bert,’ spat Doreen, ‘he were dead ten years before they laid him out.’ Then she offered Nellie a wine gum.
‘Well I don’t like to speak ill of the dead,’ said Nellie uneasily, ‘you never know.’
Doreen snorted and squatted painfully on the back step. Her skirt was too tight, but she always pretended it had shrunk.
‘What about speaking ill of the living? My Frank’s up to no good.’
Nellie took a deep breath and another wine gum. She asked if it was the woman who served pie and peas in the pub; Doreen didn’t know, but now that she thought of it that would explain why he always smelled of gravy when he came home late.
‘You should never have married him,’ scolded Nellie.
‘I didn’t know what he was when I married him did I?’ And she told Nellie about the war and how her dad had liked him, and how it seemed sensible. ‘I should have guessed though, what kind of a man comes round to court you and ends up drinking with your dad instead? I used to sit all done up playing whist with his mother and one of her friends.’
‘Did he not take you anywhere then?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Doreen, ‘we used to go down the dog track every Saturday afternoon.’
The two of them sat in silence for a while then Doreen went on, ‘Course the children helped. I ignored him for fifteen years.’
‘Still,’ Nellie reassured her, ‘you’re not as bad as Hilda across the road, her one drinks every penny, and she daren’t go to the police.’
‘If mine touched me I’d have him put away,’ said Doreen grimly.
‘Would you?’
Doreen paused and scratched in the dirt with her shoe.
‘Let’s have a smoke,’ offered Nellie, ‘and you tell me about Jane.’
Jane was Doreen’s daughter, just turned seventeen and very studious.
‘If she don’t get a boyfriend folks will talk. She spends all her time at that Susan’s doing her homework, or so she tells me.’
Nellie thought that Jane might be seeing a boy on the quiet, pretending to be at Susan’s. Doreen shook her head. ‘She’s there all right, I check with Susan’s mother. If they’re not careful folk will think they’re like them two at the paper shop.’
‘I like them two,’ said Nellie firmly, ‘and who’s to say they do anything?’
‘Mrs Fergeson across saw them getting a new bed, a double bed.’
‘Well what does that prove? Me and Bert had one bed but we did nothing in it.’
Doreen said that was all very well, but two women were different.
Different from what? I wondered from inside the dustbin.
‘Well your Jane can go to university and move away, she’s clever.’
‘Frank won’t put up with that, he wants grandchildren, and if I don’t get a move on there’ll be no dinner for him and he’ll be back with pie and peas in the pub. I don’t want to give him an excuse.’
She struggled to her feet as Nellie started to peg out the washing. When it was safe, I crept out of the dustbin, as confused as ever and covered in soot.
It was a good thing I was destined to become a missionary. For some time after this I put aside the problem of men and concentrated on reading the Bible. Eventually, I thought, I’ll fall in love like everybody else. Then some years later, quite by mistake, I did.
My mother said that we had to go down town.
‘I’m not coming.’
‘Get that mac on.’
‘I’m not coming, it’s raining.’
‘I know and I’m not going to get wet on my own.’ She threw that mac at me and turned to the mirror to adjust her headscarf. I kicked the dog out of her box, and tried to clip on her lead. My mother spied me. ‘Leave that thing, it’ll only get trodden on.’
‘But . . .’
‘Leave it!’ And she grabbed her shopping bag in one hand and me in the other and dragged me off to the bus, complaining all the way about ingratitude. When we got on the bus we saw May with Ida, one of the women who ran the forbidden paper shop, and played bowls for the local team.
‘Look out, it’s Louie with the nipper,’ hailed May with pleasure.
‘No nipper now,’ said Ida, ‘she’s fourteen if she’s a day. Have one of these coconut macaroons.’ And she stuck out a crumpled bag.
Have one of these coconut macaroons.’ And she stuck out a crumpled bag.
‘Thanks,’ said my mother, and took one.
‘Art going down town?’ asked May.
My mother nodded.
‘Well I tell you, there’s nowt that’s cheap if you want fruit, only some muck from Spain.’
‘We’re getting mince,’ said my mother, folding herself round her handbag. She didn’t like talking about money.
‘Well I tell you, there’s nowt,’ repeated May. ‘I tell you what though.’ She leaned forward, pinning my hair to the seat with her bosom.
‘May,’ I gasped.
‘Auntie May,’ snapped my mother.
‘Let’s meet up at Trickett’s for a cup of Horlicks at three o’clock.’ And she leaned back, pleased, letting free my scalp.
‘Look, Louie, that child’s moulting.’ May poked my mother and waved the strands of my hair attached to her coat.
‘They do at that age,’ Ida butted in. ‘It’s nowt.’
The bus pulled into the Boulevard. (My mother always called it that because of her memories of Paris.) May and Ida went off to the tripe stall, and my mother went into the newsagent’s, only to find they had forgotten to save her Band of Hope review. I was foolish enough to ask if I could have a new mac.
‘That mac’ll outlast your father,’ was the retort.
We went into the market next. My mother always got her mince cheap because the butcher had been her sweetheart once. She said he was a devil, but she still took the mince. While he was wrapping it up, I got my mac caught on a meat hook and pulled the sleeve off.
‘Mum,’ I wailed, waving it at her.
‘Beezum,’ she cried. And she took out a roll of sellotape and started to wind it round my arm. At that moment we saw Mrs Clifton, who gave singing lessons, and did her shopping at Marks and Spencers.
‘Is something the matter with Jeanette’s arm?’ she enquired.
‘It’s just her sleeve,’ replied my mother, keeping her ‘h’ as best she could.
‘Oh, but I think she needs a new one, don’t you?’
My mother shifted her shopping bag.
‘No I don’t,’ I piped up, ‘I really like this one.’
She looked at me with distaste.
‘Well, I do think …’
‘We’re getting a new one this afternoon,’ said my mother firmly. ‘Goodbye.’ She moved us away, leaving Mrs Clifton alone beside the belly of pork.
‘You’re a disgrace,’ hissed my mother, as soon as she could. ‘What would your grandad say?’
‘He’s dead.’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘She’s stuck up and I don’t like her.’
‘You be quiet, she has a lovely home.’
Before I could protest any further she pushed me inside a shop that sold oddments and seconds.
‘They haven’t got any,’ I said, peering about with some relief.
/> ‘Oh yes they have,’ answered my mother triumphantly.
She was rummaging behind a pile of cardboard boxes that had SURPLUS written on the side, like branded sheep.
‘Try this one.’
I put it on.
It was enormous.
‘Look, it’s got a hat with it.’
She thrust a shapeless piece of plastic towards the place she thought my hand would be.
‘Which way round does it go?’ I was feeling trapped.
‘It’ll keep you dry which ever way.’
I remembered a film I had seen called The Man in the Iron Mask.
‘It’s a bit big,’ I ventured.
‘You can grow into it.’
‘But Mum …’
‘We’ll have it.’
‘But Mum.’
It was bright pink.
We walked in silence to the fish stall.
I hated her.
I looked at the shrimps.
They were pink all over too.
There was a woman next to me carrying a Battenburg cake.
It had pink icing and little pink roses.
I felt sick.
Then somebody was sick. A small boy. His mother hit him.
‘Serve him right,’ I thought meanly.
I wondered whether to drop my hat in it, but I knew she’d make me wear it just the same.
I felt miserable. When Keats felt miserable he always put on a clean shirt.
But he was a poet.
I wouldn’t have noticed Melanie if I hadn’t gone round the other side of the stall to look at the aquarium.
She was boning kippers on a big marble slab. She used a thin stained knife, and threw the gut into a tin bucket. The clean fish she laid on greaseproof paper, and every fourth fish had a sprig of parsley.
‘I’d like to do that,’ I said.
She smiled and carried on.
‘Do you like doing it?’
Still she said nothing, so I slid, as discreetly as a person in a pink plastic mac can, to the other side of the tank. I couldn’t see very well because of the hood over my eyes.
‘Can I have some fish-bait?’ I asked.
She looked up, and I noticed her eyes were a lovely grey, like the cat Next Door.
‘I’m not supposed to have friends at work.’
‘But I’m not your friend,’ I pointed out, rudely.
‘No, but they’ll think you are,’ she replied.
‘Well I might as well be then,’ I suggested.
She stared at me a moment, then turned away.
‘Get a move on,’ hastened my mother, suddenly appearing round the whelk tray.
‘Can I have a new fish for my tank?’
‘We’ve hardly enough money to feed what we have got, without another mouth. That damn dog costs enough.’
‘Only a small one, a fantail?’
‘I’ve said no.’ And she marched off towards Trickett’s.
I felt wronged. If she had taught me to read like other children had been taught to read, I wouldn’t have these obsessions. I’d be happy with a pet rabbit and the odd stick insect.
I looked behind me.
But Melanie had gone.
When we got to Trickett’s, May and Ida were already there. Ida was doing her pools coupon and eating raspberry ripple.
‘Look out, it’s them,’ she nudged May as we came in.
My mother sank down.
‘I’m finished.’
‘Get some Horlicks down,’ May shouted for the waitress, who put down her cigarette and sloped across. Her glasses were at a funny angle, and stuck together with band-aid.
‘What you done?’ demanded May, ‘You weren’t like that just now.’
‘That Mona put her new delivery of beefburgers on them,’ she answered peevishly, easing herself against the wall.
‘They freeze them just like bricks nowadays.’
She flicked a dishcloth over the table.
‘Just like bricks, it’s not natural.’
She wiped out the ashtray.
‘Not that I think there’s owt wrong with a fridge mind, but you can go too far.’
‘You can,’ agreed May. ‘You can.’
‘I had that Mrs Clifton in here this morning,’ the waitress went on. ‘She’s a right one, common as muck, but all fancy with it.’ (My mother blushed.)
‘I said to her, I said, Doreen, what you pay at Marks and Sparks you get for half the price down here.’
Ida murmured her assent.
‘But you know what she said back?’
May said she didn’t but she could guess.
‘She said, posh as anything, I like to fill my freezer with things I know are good, Mrs Grimsditch.’
‘Ho, she’s a one,’ exclaimed May. ‘Called you Mrs Grimsditch did she? What’s wrong with Betty then?’
‘Aye,’ put in Ida, ‘what’s wrong with Betty?’
And they all started chorusing under their breath.
My mother was getting desperate.
‘Mrs Grimsditch …’ she began.
‘What’s wrong with Betty?’ glowered the waitress, turning round.
My mother turned to Ida for some help, but Ida was busy with her coupon.
‘Liverpool against the Rovers,’ she said to May. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Nowt,’ said Betty, butting in. ‘Now what do you want? I haven’t got all day, there’ll all them glasses to wash.’
My mother was visibly distressed.
‘People spit in them and all sorts, it’s enough to turn your stomach.’
She looked at me.
‘Do you want a Saturday job?’
My mother brightened up.
‘Yes she does.’
‘Well it can start now, can’t it Betty?’ Ida spoke from behind her pools coupon.
‘Aye,’ said Betty, ‘there’s all them glasses.’
So I set to work, while my mother and Ida and May filled in the coupon and drank Horlicks. I didn’t mind the work, and there wasn’t much spit in the glasses, besides it gave me time to think about the fish stall, and Melanie.
Week after week I went back there, just to watch.
Then one week she wasn’t there any more.
There was nothing I could do but stare and stare at the whelks.
Whelks are strange and comforting.
They have no notion of community life and they breed very quietly.
But they have a strong sense of personal dignity.
Even lying face down in a tray of vinegar, there is something noble about a whelk.
Which cannot be said for everybody.
‘Why do I feel like this?’ I wondered. Then, just as I was about to turn away and buy myself a baked potato for comfort, I saw Melanie walking round to the stall. I went straight up to her. She looked a bit surprised.
‘Hello, I thought you’d left.’
‘I have left, I’ve got a job in the library now, just Saturday mornings.’
What could I say next? How could I make her stay?
‘Would you like a baked potato?’ I offered wildly.
She smiled, and said she would and we went to eat it on the bench outside Woolworth’s. I was very nervous, and the pigeons got most of mine. She talked about the weather and her mother, that she had no father. ‘I haven’t either,’ I said, to make her feel better. ‘Well, not much.’ Then I had to explain about our church and my mother and me being dedicated to the Lord. It sounded odd for a moment, but I knew that was because I felt nervous. I asked her if she went to church, and she said she did, but not a very lively one, so of course I invited her to ours the next day.
‘Melanie,’ I plucked up courage to ask at last, ‘why do you have such a funny name?’
She blushed. ‘When I was born I looked like a melon.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her, ‘you don’t any more.’
The first time that Melanie came to our church was not a success. I’d forgotten that Pastor Finch w
as visiting on his regional tour. He arrived in an old Bedford van with the terrified damned painted on one side and the heavenly host painted on the other. On the back doors and front bonnet he’d inscribed in green lettering, HEAVEN OR HELL? IT’S YOUR CHOICE. He was very proud of the bus, and told of the many miracles worked inside and out. Inside had six seats, so that the choir could travel with him, leaving enough room for musical instruments and a large first-aid kit in case the demon combusted somebody.
‘What do you do about the flames?’ we asked.
‘I use an extinguisher,’ he explained.
We were very impressed.
There was a collapsible cross that fitted across the back doors, and a very small sink so that the pastor could wash his hands after every operation.
‘Water is of the essence,’ he reminded us, ‘just as Christ bade the swine leap into the sea, so I rinse the demon under this tap.’
After we had all admired the bus for long enough, Pastor Finch led us back into the church and asked his choir to sing his latest composition. ‘It came to me from the Lord, just as I left Sandbach Motorway Services.’ The song was called You Don’t Need Spirits When You’ve Got the Spirit. The first verse went like this …
‘Some men turn to whisky, some women turn to gin, But there ain’t no better rapture than drinking the spirit in.
Some men like their beer, others like their wine, But open your mouth to the Spirit, if you want to feel fine.’
The choir sang this and the rest of the verses, six in all, and we had a sheet to join in the chorus, which was accompanied by Pastor Finch on the bongos.
The chorus went like this …
‘Not whisky rye not gin and dry not rum and coke for me.
Not brandy fizz but a Spiritual whizz puts the fire in me.’
We had a wonderful time. Danny got out his guitar and picked up the chords, then May started beating out that twelve-bar on her tambourine. Before long we were all in a long line going clockwise round the church singing the chorus over and over again.
‘The Lord is working mightily,’ puffed Pastor Finch, smacking the bongos with his palms. ‘Praise the Lord.’
‘Roy, don’t tax yourself so,’ fussed Mrs Finch who was desperately trying to keep up on the piano. ‘Somebody take those bongos off him.’ But nobody did, and it wasn’t until Mrs Rothwell fell over that we finally stopped.
It was only then that I noticed that Melanie hadn’t joined in.