A Hopscotch Summer (9 page)

Worst of all was the fear of her father’s return from work. He seldom came back in time for tea now. On the good days, which were few, he would come home, trying to do the right thing, to look after the children and his sick wife. But more often his route from the power station took him via the pub, and when he came in his mood was self-pitying and ugly. Em tried to make sure they all went up before he came back, but it was impossible to sleep, waiting for the bang of the door, his slurred, angry voice downstairs, Mom begging him to be quiet, not to shout.

Last night she and Joyce had lain clinging to one another, waiting, but as soon as they heard the shouts downstairs, Sid had appeared by their bed.

‘Wanna come in with you, Em,’ he’d said miserably, sounding much younger than his six years. So the three of them had squeezed in together, cuddling up and trying to block out the shouting.

‘I’m not bloody having this any more! Where’s my dinner, then, you skinny cow?’

Em had pressed up tight against the wall as the slamming and cursing of the mild father she had once known and her mother’s weak protests and her weeping pushed their horrible way up between the floorboards. Once again she’d put her fingers in her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to make it all disappear.

‘You off ’ome now, pal?’

‘I’ll be off when I’m sodding well ready!’ Bob’s reply was a slurred snarl. He was needled by the note of concern in Stan, his workmate’s voice. ‘I’m having a cowing drink, if that’s all right with you.’ He knew they were talking about him these days, how Bob Brown had started to put away more than his ration, was making a fool of himself.

He pushed himself up, steadying himself against Stan’s shoulder.

‘G’night, you buggers,’ he said, half affectionately.

‘See yer tomorra, Bob,’ Stan called after him. ‘Go easy, mate.’

‘Go easy . . . yerself . . .’ Bob replied vaguely, weaving his way to the door of the pub. He slid on a wet clot of sawdust and had to grab hold of the edge of a table so as not to fall. He could feel them watching him.

‘I’m all right!’ he insisted at full volume.

It hit him, the second he stepped outside into a bitter, mizzling evening, the ache in his heart like a black void and all the pain of loss and confusion. He stopped in the shadows and leaned against the wall of the pub for a moment, both arms braced, his spinning head slumping forward. The rain fell cold on the back of his neck. He had to go home but he felt as if he had no home to go to, because she was not there. The woman he loved, his Cynthia, wife and mother of his children, was not there. Instead there was this lethargic, shrunken stranger who barely spoke, could not look at him except with the deadest of eyes, who shrank from him and would not accept his loving or his physical need of her.

‘Damn and blast her!’ A sob escaped him and he punched his fist against the wall, yelping with pain at the graze on his knuckles. ‘What does she want? What the hell am I s’posed to do? I want my girl back!’

As he walked along in the damp, miserable night, self-pity and anger swelled inside him.

‘I’m not ’aving this,’ he mumbled savagely. ‘She can come back and be my bloody wife or clear off – that’s what!’

By the time he reached the house he was ready to explode. He slammed in through the front door, expecting her to be sitting there, passive as ever, staring at him with that deadened look which made him shrivel inside. Instead, there was no one in the front and when he strode through to the back he found Em and Sid sitting at the table hunched over a sheet of paper. The room was a dismal mess despite Em’s efforts. Cynthia had taken to her bed for most of the day. There was a stench from the pail of napkins soaking by the scullery door and of stale boiled cabbage. The obvious neglect and the way his children looked up at him like terrified rabbits brought Bob’s blood to boiling point.

‘Where’s yer mother?’ he bawled.

‘U-upstairs,’ Em whispered.

‘I s’pose ’er’s been lying abed all sodding day while I’m working my guts out, swallowing bellyfuls of dust!’ he roared. ‘Well, the idle cow can get up and see to my tea, that she can! I’ll show ’er what a wife is!’

He stumbled up the stairs, past thinking, long past being the kindly man he had been, and crashed into the bedroom. It was dark in the room as she had not even lit a candle. Bob lunged at the bed and seized hold of Cynthia’s arm, even in his drunken state registering just how thin and bony she had become. She let out a shriek as he hauled her out of bed.

‘Bob, stop it! What’re yer doing?’

‘Come out ’ere where I can see yer. I want to see yer!’

‘Stop it! You’ll wake Joycie and you’ll scare the kiddies . . .’

‘Scared be damned!’ Bob blared. ‘What’ve they got to be scared of? I’m their bloody father, ain’t I?’

‘Oh, Bob, stop it,
please
!’ Cynthia was sobbing, clinging to the bedstead as he tried to drag her away.

‘I’m not having any more of it . . . I’ve ’ad enough and it’s time you stopped all this nonsense and started being a wife to me . . . Give me what I need . . .’ He was pawing her, trying to yank her away from the bed, loathsome to himself even as he did it, but in his pain and fury he couldn’t hold back, he needed her, he had to have her back or he’d go mad.

‘Stop it, you’re hurting me! For God’s sake, Bob!’ The last was a desperate scream.

Ignoring her cries he lunged at her, and in the darkness he swiped her far harder than he had intended. She crumpled to the floor and he heard a moan of pain.

‘Cynth . . .’ He grovelled round her. ‘Christ!’ What had he done? He felt like a small boy now, close to crying. ‘Cynth, where are yer?’

‘Get off me, you bastard!’ Her voice was muffled. She started to weep, a weak, racking sound. ‘You’ve hurt me. I hate you!’

With trembling hands he reached for the candle and matches, at last managing to get it alight.

‘Oh Christ, Cynth—’ He stumbled over to her, aghast to see blood seeping from her mouth into the blanket which she had pressed to her mouth.

‘You’ve knocked a tooth out,’ she wept.

He was too befuddled to think what to do.

‘Get me some water!’

‘Em!’ he yelled down the stairs. ‘Get some water for yer mother!’

When Em came up with a crock half full of water Bob took it from her and tried to help his wife stem the flow. Looking up after a moment Bob caught sight of Em still hovering by the door, her face white with shock.

‘Get away downstairs with yer, wench! Just get out!’

His words seemed to catapult her away into the darkness with a last, terrified look.

When the bleeding gum had been staunched, Bob and Cynthia sat looking at one another warily.

‘It hurts,’ Cynthia said at last, plaintive as a little girl, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

Bob, all his hurt and worry plain in his face, said, ‘
Please
, Cynth, we can’t go on like this. I can’t stand it. You’ve shut me out and I can’t get to yer. You’ve got to pull yerself together – or I’m going, and that’s final. I can’t stand any more of it. I feel as if I’ve lost yer . . .’

She gazed back at him, her eyes very wide. ‘I’ve lost myself.’

They both fell into a restless sleep and woke to a cold, wet day. Bob groaned, sick to his stomach and his head pounding.

‘Fetch us a cuppa tea, bab,’ he murmured to Cynthia, half awake, forgetting how she was.

There was no reply. He rolled over and dragged his eyes open, seeing her lying there in what he thought of as her corpse state: as if lifeless, dead eyes fixed on the ceiling, a smear of blood from last night encrusted on her chin. It was as if a door had clanged shut in his face.

‘I said, fetch us a cuppa tea!’ he snarled.

‘I can’t.’ Her voice was a hoarse whisper. ‘I just can’t move. I feel so . . . terrible . . .’

Then the tears started up again and rage shot through him like electricity. He jumped out of bed.

‘That’s it, then. Summat’s got to give ’ere, Cynth. You’ve got to get yerself sorted out cos you’re neglecting your family. The place is going to rack and ruin.’ He stood over her, hands on his hips, and inspiration struck him. ‘I know what – you go and stay with that sister of yours for a bit. Why shouldn’t she do summat to help us? We never hear a word from ’er from one year to the next.’

‘Olive?’ Cynthia looked appalled. ‘I can’t just go and park myself on her! We’ve never been close.’

‘Well, my girl . . .’ Bob bent over and pushed his face close to hers. Cynthia winced at the stench of stale beer on his breath. ‘You’d better sort it out and get yerself over there. Because if you don’t get out of ’ere for a bit and try and pull yerself together it’ll be me going – and for good. Got it? This is your last chance – you’re no bloody good to anyone as you are!’

Three days later Cynthia sat squeezed into her seat in the trolleybus as it growled its way from Nechells into Birmingham. It was very crowded, but a man had given Cynthia his seat, seeing that she was carrying a small infant. She slid in gratefully beside the grimy, steamed-up window, pushing her little bag in at her feet.

She had begged and begged Bob not to send her away. Every nerve in her body was screaming that she didn’t want to go, leaving home and her other children, but she knew there was no choice. Bob had made that abundantly clear. Now she was on her way to Olive’s neat little terrace in Kings Heath, a suburb south of the city.

Olive’s letter had come by return of post, brisk and chilly as ever, in reply to Cynthia’s enquiry.

‘Bob thinks I should get away for a little while. I haven’t been quite myself since the last child . . .’ Bob had hurried off to post it for her, as if he couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.

‘You’d better come, then, if you must,’ her younger sister had written in her stiff, copperplate hand. ‘If that’s how it is. But I’m not offering charity, you’ll have to pay your keep. Don’t come Wednesday, I won’t be in. Sincerely, Olive.’

She and Olive had never seen eye to eye. Cynthia had always far preferred their brother Geoff, three years her senior. You could laugh and play with Geoff, a boisterous, wholehearted boy, whereas Olive had always been prim. Geoff had gone to war and was killed in 1917 when Cynthia was thirteen. She had broken her heart over it, and still did now, whenever she thought back to that day when they heard the news.

Beside her on the seat was a large, talkative lady who was twisted round, holding forth to the woman behind her. To make sure no conversation was demanded of her, Cynthia pulled the brim of her hat down a fraction and kept her gaze fixed on her baby, tucking the shawl round her.

‘At least you’re here with me,’ she whispered. ‘You’re a good girl.’ She was grateful that Violet had been sound asleep all the way. Her shredded nerves could not have stood a crying baby on the journey. It was bad enough having to make her way through Birmingham on her own. Since having her family her life had revolved round a few streets. And she scarcely went anywhere by herself. Even when she walked to the nearest shops in Nechells, she and Dot nearly always went together. Now here she was, surrounded by strangers, all giving off a humid fog of sweat and neglect and unwashed clothing on a day so rainy it made her heart sink even further.

The tram along the Moseley Road was less crowded but, with every mile it travelled, Cynthia felt more torn apart at the thought of it carrying her further and further away from home, from the little ones and Dot and everything familiar. She had been wrenched away that morning, early, without saying goodbye to them. Bob had thought it for the best.

It won’t be for long, she told herself as the tears rose once more in her eyes. I’ve got to get better somehow. As she sat holding Violet, though, the sight of her brass wedding ring twisted her heart even more. The day came back to her, nine years ago, when Bob slipped that ring onto her finger, his eyes alight with love and happiness. They had both felt so blessed to have found each other. How full of hope they’d been, both of them having lost their mothers so young, that they could make a family and give their children all the love and stability that had gone missing in their own childhoods. Cynthia had saved herself for her wedding night, and it had been in some ways a fumbling, shy experience, neither of them practised at love-making, but it hadn’t seemed to matter. Again, it was Bob’s face which was her most precious memory, the tenderness, the look of rapture as he gazed down at her once they were tucked up in bed together for the first time. Soon after, when they found out Em was on the way – how happy he’d been! Her husband was so good at appreciating life, she knew, treasuring the simple things so many other people took for granted, because of all he had lost and all those loveless years in the Boys’ Home.

Her memory ran over the years of their marriage, the birth of their children. Cynthia kept her face turned to the window, her tears flowing, and it was all she could do to stop herself breaking down at the bittersweet thoughts that coursed through her mind. It had been good, her marriage, bolstered by her friendship with Dot, who had always been there like a big sister to her, the two of them helping each other through so many of the daily ups and downs, the childhood illnesses, the domestic hiccoughs.

‘You got any flour to spare, Dot? I’ve clean run out.’ Her lips turned up for a second at the memories of visiting Dot’s door, so often with scrapes she had got herself into, and Dot could always help her out. Dear old Dot, always there, full of beans, keeping those kids of hers in order like no one else in the street.

She wiped her eyes on a scrap of rag and pushed it back up her sleeve, trying to calm herself, but more tears came. It felt as if everything was slipping away from her, her family, her marriage and happiness. Even her wedding ring could slide so easily from her finger now, she was so scrawny. It was all her fault! She didn’t
want
to spoil anything. It was horrible the way she felt, the way she’d gone to pieces. Who was she becoming? How did it happen that she’d lost her grip on life?

‘I can’t help it, I can’t!’ she murmured desperately. Yet she had to get better for everyone’s sake. She knew really that Bob was right to send her away, however much it hurt. But still his harsh words echoed in her head, words from a Bob she hardly recognized either:
This is your last chance, Cynth. Don’t come back until you’re better – because you’re no bloody good to anyone the way you are.

She put her hand over her face for a moment. ‘God help me . . .’

And although it came out as a quiet whisper, it was a cry deep from the heart.