A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin. Helen Forrester

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ She laid two mugs on the floor beside the range, where they could be visible in the firelight. She then sat down close to Patrick on yet another sturdy fruit box, used for storing coal.

      Inside the box were a few lumps of coal, which Mary Margaret had also given her. Since Mary Margaret’s room did not have a fireplace, she cooked what little she had to cook on a primus stove. When she did not have paraffin for her stove, she would put a stew pot beside Martha’s on Martha’s fire.

      Mary Margaret’s Dollie thought it was a great game to follow a coal cart round the local streets and pick up any lumps that the coalman dropped. When he lifted the one-hundredweight sacks from his cart and carried them across the pavement to pour the contents down the coalhole in front of each terraced house, she would listen for the clang of the lid being put back onto the hole, and for the weary man to shuffle away. Then she would race over and pounce on any small bits she could find. Sometimes, when the horse moved with a jerk to the next house, a few pieces would roll off the back of the cart. Quick as a cat after a mouse, she would garner these, too, before any other child could beat her to it. She would bring it all back to her mother in an old cloth bag.

      Her mother promptly gave the coal to Martha in thanks for being allowed to share her fire. She would tell Dollie, ‘Without your Auntie Martha, I don’t know what I’d do, I don’t.’

      As Patrick finished the last ladleful, he gave a small sigh of relief, and handed the bowl back to his wife. She put it with the ladle on the mantel shelf: if it had stopped raining by tomorrow, she would take out anything to be washed to the pump in the court and rinse it there.

      She picked up a potato from the box top and, with a little smile, handed it to him. He tore it into pieces and ate all of it, including the skin.

      After he had finished eating, he belched and then sat for a while staring silently at the glowing embers.

      When Martha felt he was rested enough, she broached the subject which was worrying her most. She asked, ‘Did you know that Court No. 2 is to be emptied? That means that our Maria and George has got to move.’

      Patrick belched again, and then said, ‘Oh, aye. George told me. They’re getting a new house in Norris Green.’

      ‘What’s he going to do out there?’

      Patrick gave a grim laugh. ‘Go on Public Assistance. He’ll have to sling his hook.’

      Martha nodded. George would, indeed, have to hang up his docker’s hook for ever, if he was to live so many miles away in a suburb with no places to work and no transport. Even if there were a bus to take him down to the docks, how could he afford bus fares on a docker’s wage? It was ridiculous.

      ‘Can’t they find a Corpy flat nearer here for them?’

      ‘Na, Corporation flats is all filled up. All the court houses is being cleared, as you well know.’

      He stirred uneasily. ‘I heard some more today, though. They’re going to build air-raid shelters outside in the street all along here, right across the pavement from the front entry.’

      ‘Holy Mary! What for?’

      ‘They reckon there’s going to be a war. And what’s more, they’re going to pull down the wall of our court, so we’re open to the street.’

      ‘Humph, and where are they going to put the rubbish bins? They’re fixed in the wall.’

      ‘Don’t ask me. Maybe the council will give us a bin or two. They must reckon that if there’s no wall, we can run into the shelter real quick.’

      It did not strike either of them that the Public Health Department had viewed the statistics of the recent influenza epidemic with anxiety. Unable to bulldoze the remaining unhealthy courts until more City housing was built, they were using a cheap remedy, the removal of the enclosing wall, to get some cleaner air to circulate in the crowded court.

      Martha gave a little laugh of relief as her fear of being moved receded. ‘They must be expecting that this court won’t be moved for a while, if they’re building us a shelter.’ She chuckled. ‘We’d have a right job all of us getting through the entry at the same time, that’s for sure – Alice Flynn upstairs is that fat she has to edge through it sideways already. Why aren’t they moving us to Norris Green?’

      ‘Dunno. I suppose they haven’t built the houses yet.’

      ‘It’s real funny that they’ve found a way to make room for an air-raid shelter, but they can’t build new houses for us right here.’

      ‘Maybe they’ve stopped building houses everywhere and are doing air-raid shelters instead?’ suggested Patrick.

      Martha leaned forward to put her empty mug on top of the oven. ‘Is there really going to be a war, Pat?’

      ‘Oh, aye. I believe so.’

      ‘But Thomas said as Mr Chamberlain was talking with Adolf Hitler, and thought Germany was being reasonable.’

      Patrick shrugged, and then said shrewdly, ‘Na. All he’s doing is get us a bit of time to build tanks and guns. He’ll sell the Czechs down the river to do it, you’ll see.’

      ‘Will you have to go for a soldier, Pat?’

      Pat laughed. ‘Me? Na, I’m too old.’

      ‘Well, praise all the saints for that. And our Brian is too young?’

      ‘Oh, aye.’ He glanced round the dark room. ‘Where is the lad?’

      ‘He’s working late – it’s Thursday. And Tommy’s gone down to see his pal. They’ll be back just now.’

      Their father heaved himself up from the chair. ‘Well, I’m going to turn in. I’ll be working tomorrow.’

      He knelt down and moved little Joseph further across the mattress. He winced as he laid himself down, turned on his side and closed his eyes. He was asleep in seconds.

      Martha sighed, got up, took an old coat from a hook on the front door and laid it over him. She then rearranged Number Nine’s blanket to cover his sister Ellie as well. She would not lie down herself until she had decided what to do about breakfast – she would have to go out again into the cold, that was for sure.

      She stood uncertainly, her toothless mouth tightly clenched as she looked down on the sleeping children and her snoring husband. She had not a crumb left to give them for breakfast, and, as she had sat patiently waiting for Patrick, this fact had been gnawing at her, almost outweighing her fear of being whisked off to Norris Green.

      After the children’s fighting that afternoon she had not wanted to leave home until Patrick returned. She reckoned that Mary Margaret alone could not reasonably be expected to watch them all tonight; she really was not well, and this knowledge added to the painful ache of Martha’s own hunger and to her other worries – Kathleen, for example. She’d have to give the girl a good talking to: she must be taught to take care of the kids better.

      She turned, and quietly padded up the stairs and through Sheila and Phoebe’s room to reach Mary Margaret.

      Her friend was asleep on her narrow camp bed in the far corner, her head pillowed on a roll of rags, her shawl wrapped tightly round СКАЧАТЬ