Far From Home. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ Plaza,’ Sally repeated, enthralled. ‘Even the name sounds exotic,’ she added, and was surprised when the two older girls laughed.

      ‘It’s all right for you two,’ Sally said hotly. ‘But I have never even seen inside a cinema. I can hardly believe that Kate is taking me in there to see a film tomorrow afternoon.’ And she spun around with the excitement of it all and hugged herself with delight.

      Susie laughed. ‘Let’s go and have a dekko on the boards outside now and see what’s on.’

      ‘What about the tram chugging up the hill at this very moment?’ asked Kate.

      ‘What about it?’ Susie said. ‘There’ll be another one. Trams to town of a Saturday come every few minutes, you know that, and it won’t take us long to have a look outside the flicks.’

      Kate gave in, and when they passed the chip shop, which was opposite the cinema, Sally said to Kate, ‘I can’t believe either that you have hot food like this on your doorstep – and such delicious food as well. Is that the chip shop you used last night, Kate?’

      ‘Yeah,’ said Kate. ‘There is one nearer down the Slade, but this one is better and gives bigger portions. And I was going to Susie’s anyway, so it seemed sensible.’

      Sally nodded, but then they crossed the road and the cinema took all her attention. Just to stand so close to that wonderful emporium while they studied the boards outside gave her butterflies in her stomach.

      ‘The Lady Vanishes is on at the moment then,’ Kate said to Sally. ‘That all right for you?’

      ‘Are you kidding?’ Sally said with a squeal of excitement. ‘Going to the pictures is another thing I’ve never done in my life. I’d like to see anything.’

      ‘It’s just that it’s a Hitchcock thriller and that means it might be a bit frightening for you, that’s all.’

      Sally shook her head. ‘No, I promise, I won’t be the least bit frightened.’

      Kate smiled at the look of excitement on her sister’s face and she linked her arm and said, ‘Come on then, Sally. Birmingham, here we come.’

      ‘Yes,’ added Susie, taking hold of Sally’s other arm. ‘And if you think these shops are something special, girl, you ain’t seen nothing yet.’ And the three giggling girls hurried off to the tram stop. They had only to wait a few minutes before they spotted a tram at the bottom of the Streetly Road. As Sally watched it clatter up the hill, she said, ‘I saw trams when I came out of the train station last night, and I don’t mind admitting that I am really nervous of them.’

      ‘I’m not surprised,’ Kate said with a laugh. ‘I was the same at first. Do you remember my telling you so in one of the letters I wrote when I first came to Birmingham. I was terrified the trams were going to jump off the rails when they took a corner at speed or something, especially as Susie had told me that there had been some accidents in the early days.’

      ‘Yeah, there were,’ Susie said, as the tram drew to a clanking stop beside them. ‘They are safer now, though,’ she assured her as they boarded.

      ‘We’ll take your mind off the journey,’ Kate promised. ‘Let’s go upstairs and it will be easier to point things out along the way.’

      As the tram rattled and swayed down Slade Road towards the city centre, Kate and Susie told Sally all about the canals of Birmingham that ran behind the houses. ‘A lot of them meet at a place called Salford Bridge,’ Susie said. ‘But you’ll see this for yourself when we cross over the bridge in a minute.’

      Once they were in sight of the canals, Sally admired the brightly painted boats she could see there, and was very surprised when Kate told her people lived in them. ‘When my Dad was young my Nan said he was always messing about on the canals. He learnt to swim in there when his brother pushed him in,’ Susie told them.

      ‘Bit drastic.’

      ‘Oh, I’ll say,’ Susie agreed. ‘He was glad after, though, because in the summer a lot of the boys used to strip off and go skinny-dipping in there. Still do as well.’

      ‘Oh, the boys do that in the rivers in Ireland too,’ Sally said.

      ‘I remember,’ Kate said. ‘And all the girls were forbidden to go near, never mind look.’

      ‘And weren’t you ever tempted to have a little peek?’ Susie asked with a grin.

      Kate exchanged a look with her sister and admitted, ‘I was sometimes.’

      ‘And me,’ Sally said. ‘But I never did. I mean, Mammy would go mad if she found out, but really it was because I would have had to confess it to the priest.’

      ‘Oh, the priests in Ireland hold the morals of the young girls tight,’ Susie said. ‘And it annoys me sometimes that the boys have all the fun, but in this case – while I wouldn’t mind plodging in the clear sparkling rivers in Ireland – you wouldn’t get me near a mucky canal for love nor money.’

      ‘Nor me,’ Sally and Kate said together.

      Sally turned her attention back to the sights. They were over the bridge now, leaving the canals to weave down behind the houses again. Kate said, ‘Now we are coming to Nechell’s, where you will see really squashed-up houses – I’d say not that much bigger than the canal barges.’

      Sally agreed with her. ‘They don’t look real,’ she said. ‘And there are so many of them, all tightly squeezed together.’

      ‘Oh, they’re real all right,’ Kate said grimly. ‘They call them back-to-back houses. And you’ll see plenty more when we go through Aston.’

      ‘Yeah, Kate’s right,’ Susie said. ‘And we’re coming to Aston Railway Station now.’

      Sally looked around her with interest. They passed a large brick building that Kate told her was a brewery and a big green clock that had four faces on it, standing in a little island all on its own; it was surrounded by all manner of shops, very like those at Stockland Green. Susie told her, ‘There are factories too. Small ones tucked in beside the houses.’

      Sally shook her head. ‘It’s all so different from Ireland,’ she said. ‘You must have found it all strange at first, Kate.’

      ‘Oh, I did,’ Kate admitted. ‘And for a time I was really homesick, but it was something I knew I had to get over. But now I’ve made my life here and I wouldn’t ever want to go back to Ireland to live. And look, we’re passing the fire station now and soon we’ll turn into Steelhouse Lane and reach the terminus.’

      ‘Steelhouse Lane is a funny name for a street.’

      ‘Not if the police station is on the street too,’ Kate answered. ‘And opposite is the General Hospital and that’s another hospital that used to be a workhouse.’

      ‘Yes, and people have got long memories,’ Susie said. ‘Mom says there are old people today who still refuse to go in that hospital.’

      And Sally could understand a little of the trepidation people felt when she alighted from the tram and stood before the solid brick building of the General Hospital. СКАЧАТЬ