Walking Back to Happiness. Anne Bennett

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СКАЧАТЬ settled into the Abbey school. She’d thought her accent might have made her the butt of jokes, but she found many of the children were Irish, or from Irish families, and she was soon settled in. She got on well with the girls in her class and made a special friend of a girl called Mary Byrne who also lived nearby. She found the teachers very strict, not at all like the sleepy easy-going village school she’d gone to.

      Her sisters always said she could count herself lucky, for there had been no village school for them and they were taught at the convent, almost three miles away, while the boys went to the Brothers’ almost as far away.

      But it wasn’t the distance alone. They’d always told her that the nuns were the very devil and they’d beat the hands off you for the merest thing. The village school had come to Josie’s rescue and although they might have been shouted at, Josie never saw anyone struck.

      That wasn’t the case at the Abbey school and she knew her sisters had been right about the devilish nuns that taught them being hot on punishment, for the headmistress at the Abbey was a nun from the nearby St Agnes Convent. She wielded a cane to help exert her authority and had no hesitation in using it. Sometimes, after playtime was over, there was a line of children, who’d been sent in by the dinner ladies, waiting outside the headmistress’s room, to be ‘dealt with’.

      So far, Josie had never had the cane, but the prospect of it was held over their heads like the Sword of Damocles. But school didn’t occupy her whole life and with the homesickness receding and with Mary at her side, she was finding out some of the advantages of city living and she wrote to Eileen and told her all about it.

      Erdington village is no distance away. Soon, after Hannah’s marriage, it’ll be just at the end of the road. There are so many shops you wouldn’t believe, and crowds of people, like the town on a fair day. But even better, they have a cinema. They do dances there as well, but that’s for older people. They have special films for children on a Saturday morning and it costs sixpence, but most Saturdays Hannah lets me go.

      If not, we can go swimming because they’ve got a proper baths and Hannah has bought me my first bathing costume. She says if you have no choice about a place then you must make the best of it and so I am. There’s a library here too, a massive place with a proper children’s part, and you can borrow two books and keep them for a fortnight.

      She posted that letter with relish, hoping Eileen was consumed with envy on reading it for she was proving a great disappointment as a correspondent.

      And now there was the wedding to brag about. She wished Hannah would be married in a white floor length dress made of silk and decorated with lace and little rosebuds so that she could describe her looking like a princess to Eileen. But she wasn’t wearing white, nor a dress either. ‘It wouldn’t be seemly with everything in such short supply and a wicked waste of clothing coupons,’ Gloria told Josie. ‘That navy costume trimmed with cream is much more practical and it can be worn again. It will look nice enough, especially now Amy’s decorated her hat to match the cream shoes and handbag Hannah has.’

      Hannah looked more than just nice, she looked lovely, but then she always looked lovely. She didn’t look like a bride, that was all. Josie supposed it was more practical, but did you want to be practical on that one day of your life? She did take on board the bit about clothing coupons, though. She knew they were a headache and one of the first things Hannah had to see to after her arrival was to fit her out with a ration book and a set of clothing coupons.

      Josie, coming from the land of plenty in comparison, had imagined that now the war was over, everything would be back to normal, but it was far from that.

      And yet Hannah had used some of those precious clothing coupons to get material for a dress for her that had been made up by Amy. It was pale blue and in shimmering satin that fell from her waist in soft folds. It was the nicest and prettiest dress that Josie had ever owned and she had an Alice band covered in rosebuds holding back her hair and pure white socks and black patent leather shoes.

      That was another thing, her hair. Gloria had given her a hairbrush and said she must brush her hair one hundred times every night to make it shine and after a month or two, when it had got long enough, she rolled rags around it after her bath on Saturday, so that it would be wavy for Mass on Sunday.

      Josie never skimped on the hundred brushes after she’d overheard Amy telling Gloria that Josie’s hair was shining like burnished copper. Burnished copper! Josie said the words to herself, liking the sound of them.

      Amy went on to say that her hair was her best feature, for she was a plain little thing, not a patch on her aunt, but if she made the most of herself as she grew up she’d make a quite presentable turn-out in the end. Josie hadn’t been a bit offended by Amy’s remarks for she knew she only spoke the truth.

      She had no illusions about her looks and if she’d ever had, they’d have been dispelled the day her mother took her as a small child to visit her great-granny, who lived in the hills, and was ill in bed. She’d been taken by the hand into the bedroom where an old toothless lady with a bonnet covering her head had peered at her with small gimlet eyes in a face screwed up in a scowl. ‘Is this the one?’ she said. ‘The afterthought?’

      Then she’d turned her gaze from Josie and looked Frances full in the face and said, ‘Well girl, I don’t know what you’ve done with this one, but she’s as plain as a pike staff.’ And so, at the age of three or four, Josie had learned what she looked like. She knew her eyes were too big for her face, although they were deep brown and could have been attractive in anyone else, her mouth was too big as well, and her skin had a sallow look to it.

      But then she’d learned that her hair, which no one had ever bothered much with before, was her best feature and that she might make a good turn-out after all, and for someone who’d thought she was plain as plain could be, that prediction was a soothing one.

      So she’d walked behind Hannah down the aisle of the long church, filled with pride as she noted the numbers of people crowding the pews on either side. There was not a relative amongst them, but many of the neighbours and the friends Hannah had made in the area and in the church were there for her special day and Gloria had invited friends of her own to make the day more of an occasion.

      Arthur seemed to have few friends and no relatives either. But he’d invited some work colleagues and his boss, Reg Banks, and his lovely wife Elizabeth, and with them all the church was almost full.

      At the altar, Josie had taken the bouquet of roses and carnations from Hannah and slipped into the pew beside Gloria, who’d squeezed her arm in support, even while she dabbed at her eyes with a screwed-up lace hanky she held in her hand.

      Hannah knelt at the altar beside Arthur, letting the Latin words of the Mass wash over her, soothing her, telling her she was doing the right thing. She didn’t love Arthur, but she’d not deceived him. She’d never said she loved him, nor had he said those words to her. She’d known his reason for marrying her, he’d done it primarily to please his boss.

      The boss’s wife, Elizabeth, who Hannah had taken to straightaway, had confided in Hannah as they’d washed up in the kitchen the first time they’d been asked to dinner. ‘Reg thought Arthur a bit of a cold fish. The sort of man married to his mother, you know the type?’

      Hannah had nodded. ‘He was very fond of her,’ she said. ‘It upset him greatly when she died. He told me all about it.’

      ‘Oh, I know it did,’ Elizabeth said, handing Hannah a plate. ‘I’m not meaning to make light of it, but somehow while she was alive, he didn’t seem able to let go and get on with his own life. You do understand me?’

      Oh СКАЧАТЬ