Martha's Girls (3 page)

Sheila, sitting alone on the church wall waiting for her family to stop socialising, also saw the wink and she didn’t like it, not one little bit. Mr Grimes had called at the house a few times since her father had died. Mrs Grimes hadn’t been with him. In fact she was rarely seen outside, she never came to church and although she was a family friend she never came to visit. Sheila knew she wasn’t well; something to do with her nerves. Lately, Mr Grimes had taken to dropping in when he was either going on or off shift. Last week, when she’d come in from school, his gun and peaked cap with the Irish harp badge were on the kitchen table. She’d gone through to the front room and there he was, bold as brass, drinking tea. He stood up to go when she came in. ‘Now, don’t you forget, Martha, I’m here if you need anything doing. Anything at all,’ he said as he passed Sheila on his way to the kitchen, presumably to retrieve his cap and gun.

From where she sat, Sheila watched those who lingered chatting in the sunshine and was surprised to see Reverend Lynas deep in conversation with Irene. It wasn’t like her to get drawn into a religious discussion, yet there she was listening attentively, giggling occasionally in the way she always did when she talked to a man, no matter what his age and the minister was positively ancient. She was nodding, as though agreeing to something. She’d ask her about that when they got home.

*

‘But it can’t be right!’ shouted Peggy. She had stopped sewing and pushed the heavy black curtain away from her. ‘You must be entitled to more than that.’

Martha didn’t look up, but continued making neat hemming stitches. ‘Oh it’s right, all right,’ she said, passing the needle through a loop of thread and drawing it tight to finish off the hem. ‘I told you, the manager explained it all to me, I’m to get ten shillings a week pension. It would have been different if he’d died in an accident, but a burst appendix is like an act of God, no one’s fault.’ She drew the hem up to her mouth and bit off the thread. ‘He said our family was grown up and earning, except for Sheila, and she’d be fourteen soon enough and able to bring home a wage.’

‘I’m going to go and see that manager and I’ll tell him it’s wrong. He’ll listen to me or he’ll get what’s coming to him,’ said Peggy.

‘I don’t think you giving him a piece of your mind will get another farthing out of him, Peggy. Rules are rules and we’ll just have to lump it,’ said Pat.

‘The McCrackens must have plenty of money,’ suggested Irene. ‘Maybe they’d lend us some.’

‘I can’t just ask them for money,’ Martha was appalled at the suggestion.

‘Why not? They’re your cousins and they must have plenty of money if they own a shop.’

‘Even if they lent us money for the rent this week, where would we get it for next week or the week after? Answer me that!’ Martha looked round the table. No answer.

Pat fetched a jotter and pencil and began scribbling. After a few minutes she circled a figure. ‘I’ve calculated all our income and outgoings and what we need is another wage like Irene’s and mine. Now in three months they might let Sheila start work in the mill and we could just about manage.’

‘In three months! We’ll be out on the street in three weeks, if we can’t pay the rent,’ said Martha.

‘And if we pay the rent, we’ll starve within a month,’ added Peggy.

‘Don’t exaggerate. We could live on bread and dripping,’ said Irene, ‘and we’ll walk to work and back.’

‘I think you’re all forgetting something. I don’t want to go to work yet; I’m staying at school.’ Sheila turned to her mother. ‘Mammy, that’s right isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know, love, we’ll have to see.’

‘I’m not going to work in a mill!’

‘Maybe something’ll turn up. It always does and there’s time yet to decide,’ said Martha.

‘So, you’d better make the most of it.’ Peggy chipped in.

‘And you’d better mind your own business,’ screamed Sheila.

‘It’s time you started pulling your weight around here,’ Peggy said bluntly. ‘You’ve always had it easy. We’ve had to help round the house since we were tall enough to set a table or reach the sink. But you—’

This could go on all night, thought Irene, time to change the subject. She’d been saving her news to talk about at teatime, but it was just the diversion needed.

‘Let’s worry about all that later. Do you want to hear some good news?’ She secured her needle in the hem. ‘The Reverend Lynas wants to know if we would sing at a concert he’s organising. It’s for the Red Cross to raise money for medical supplies and the best bit is … ’ She paused for effect. ‘It’s in the Grosvenor Hall!’

‘The Grosvenor Hall!’ gasped Pat. ‘But that’s one of the biggest halls in Belfast; nearly as big as the Opera House.’

‘Sure it holds nearly two thousand people,’ said Irene her voice rising. ‘Can you imagine singing on that stage?’

‘When’s this concert happening?’ asked Martha, trying to suppress her excitement.

‘A week on Saturday. We can sing three songs and I’m to let the Reverend Lynas know which ones by Wednesday night so they can be printed in the programme.’

‘We don’t have to sing hymns, do we?’ asked Pat. ‘I know the Grosvenor Hall is a kind of church, but if this is a concert where people are going to pay to get in, they won’t want to listen to hymns all night, will they?’ Pat’s initial excitement was dwindling, but Irene quickly reassured her.

‘No. No. We’ll be able to sing something modern. Something with …’ She searched for the word. ‘Swing!’ She moved her arms from side to side as though throwing something gently over her shoulders and at the same time clicking her fingers in rhythm.

‘
Nothing’s impossible I have found
’ she sang.

Pat sang the second line an octave higher and they turned to Peggy, expecting her to sing the next line. To their amazement she was still sewing, head bowed over the blackout curtain. The song stopped abruptly.

‘What’s the matter with you?’ asked Pat.

Peggy looked up, her face expressionless. ‘What do you mean?’

‘You know perfectly well. Not joining in means you’ve got it on you about something.’

‘Why should I join in? It’s got nothing to do with me what you two sing.’ She bent again to her stitching.

‘Peggy, we’re going to have to decide on our three songs, so we can start rehearsing right away. Sure it’s not long ‘til a week on Saturday.’

Peggy spoke as though she was explaining something to a five year old. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me, because I won’t be at the Grosvenor Hall a week on Saturday.’

Her sisters looked at her in stunned incomprehension, but Martha had raised this child and recognised that ingrained tendency Peggy had to cut off her nose to spite her face. Oh aye, thought Martha, I see what you’re doing, my girl.

‘Peggy, you’re needed to play the accompaniment and if you don’t go, Irene and Pat can’t either.’

Chapter 3

Mrs McQuade arrived in her classroom at the Girls’ Model School looking flushed and carrying two large bags.

‘Now girls, there’s going to be so many young men joining up to fight in this terrible war, it’s up to us to do something for them in return and as young women we have the skills to give them something they will come to need desperately …’ She paused for effect, smiling broadly. Sheila could see Jeannie Cameron’s ginger pigtails shaking two rows in front as she tried to suppress her giggles, but Mrs McQuade was too wrapped up in her master plan for defeating Hitler to notice. ‘Scarves!’ she announced. ‘Each of us will send a scarf to a soldier.’ She paused again as though surprised by her impromptu slogan and then emptied both bags over the work bench covering it in a rainbow of coloured wool, to the sound of falling knitting needles.

Sheila had been taught to knit when she was five and by the time the bell rang for the end of school, she had six inches of scarf in moss stitch and a half-formed idea that would take her on a detour on the way home. Around the school were terraced streets of kitchen houses that ran like the weft in the fabric of north Belfast, between the main roads that led out of the city. Sheila wove her way through them to the corner of Manor Street where John McCracken kept his grocers shop and lived a good Christian life with his sisters Aggie and Grace and their Aunt Hannah.

On the pavement in front of the shop, wooden crates of vegetables were tilted against the wall below the window; the scales stood on an upturned crate and the large brass scoop, dulled by a thin covering of dust, lay on top of a sack of blue potatoes. Sheila hesitated. What had seemed like a good idea an hour before, when she cast on her stitches, now seemed like madness.

‘Hello, Sheila!’ Aggie McCracken swung her callipered leg out of the doorway and into the street and held fast to the doorpost as her good leg followed it. She wore a floral overall of blue and yellow and the late afternoon sun glinted on her wire-rimmed glasses. ‘What brings you down here? Did your Mammy forget something on Saturday?’

‘No …’ Sheila hesitated. ‘… she just asked me to call round on my way home to see if you were all right. In case maybe you were worrying about anything. You know, with the announcement of the war and all …’ Her voice trailed off; it sounded pathetic, but Aggie looked pleased.

‘Oh that’s grand. Come on, on in and have a wee cup a tea. We can go in the back. Sure we’ll listen out for the bell if there’s a customer.’

‘Is John not in?’

‘No, he’s had to go away down the town; didn’t say what for. He’ll be back soon but.’

They passed through a heavy chenille curtain and into the back room which served as both kitchen and sitting room. There was a small iron fireplace with tiled sides and a low fire, more ash than flame, burned in the grate. The smell of baking filled the room and Sheila saw on the table the two matching halves of a sponge cake and beside them a jar of raspberry jam with a knife sticking out of the top. Aggie filled the kettle and put it on the gas stove, then brought out china cups, saucers and piece plates, white with gold rims. The McCrackens could afford to have such things for everyday use.

‘It’s a terrible thing, right enough, this war.’ Aggie began. ‘Never thought it would come to this.’ She shook her head and began spreading the raspberry jam thickly on one of the sponge halves. ‘Thought our prayers had been answered when Mr Chamberlain came back from Munich…’ She sandwiched the two halves together. ‘… picture of him on the front of the
Belfast Telegraph
with that piece of paper. Useless it was.’ She limped across to the larder and came back with a tall sweetie jar filled with caster sugar. She unscrewed the lid and, in one quick movement, dipped her hand inside and scattered a handful of sugar over the top of the sandwich. ‘Peace in our time. Aye, well it wasn’t to be, was it?’ She sighed and cut two generous wedges of sponge, put each on a piece plate and handed one to Sheila.

‘What do you think’ll happen to us?’ asked Sheila as she took a bite of the cake. ‘Will we be bombed, do you think?’

‘Well now, John seems worried. Sat there last night, read out a bit from the paper about air raid patrols they’re getting up. Then Grace pipes in with the talk from Robb’s, about how the manager says they’re to have fire buckets in each department filled with water. In the end John got out the good book and read the story of David and Goliath to cheer us all up.’ At that moment there was a loud banging from above. ‘Bless us! She’ll have the ceiling in, that one.’

‘Is Aunt Hannah not so good today?’

‘Oh she’s up an’ down. You wet the tea, there’s a good girl,’ said Aggie, ‘and I’ll see to her.’

Sheila had no sooner made the tea, when the shop bell rang. She’d watched John many a time serve customers and over the next twenty minutes she sold bread, potatoes, sweets and cigarettes as if she’d been doing it all her life. By the time Aggie popped her head through the chenille curtain she was really beginning to enjoy herself. I could easily do this, she thought.

‘Wee bit of a rush was there?’ asked Aggie. ‘That’ll be the four o’clock shift from the mill. Good job you were here.’

It’s now or never, thought Sheila. ‘Aunt Aggie, do you think, there’s any chance—’ The shop bell rang behind her and moments later John McCracken, a tall man, with a bony face and thinning hair entered. He looks different, thought Sheila. Then she realised it was because she was used to seeing him in the brown cotton coat he always wore when he worked in the shop and here he was in the suit he usually wore to church.

‘Hello, Sheila. How’s your mother keeping?’ He had an odd way of smiling, so fleeting that Sheila wondered whether she had actually seen a smile, or simply a stretching of his lips that caused his teeth to show for a moment.

‘Not too bad, Uncle John.’

‘There’s tea on,’ said Aggie.

In the back kitchen, John took off his suit jacket and hung it carefully on a wooden hanger behind the back door. He put on the brown coat, deep in thought as he buttoned it up. Once or twice he looked about to speak, then seemed to think better of it. He settled himself in the wing-backed chair next to the fire and took a drink from his tea.

‘I did a lot of thinking last night, thinking and praying.’ He nodded to himself and went on. ‘God is on our side in this war. He’ll defeat the Nazis all right. But to my way o’ thinking, he won’t do it on his own. No, he’ll do it through good Christian people, people who hear his call. So, I took myself down town to see about this here ARP work. There’s an office in the City Hall where they tell you all about it, the fire-watching and checking folk are keeping to the blackout …’ His voice trailed off. He took a long drink of his tea and stood to place the cup and saucer on the table. Then as though addressing a public meeting, he straightened himself up, lifted his chin and spoke to the mirror over the fire. ‘And the upshot of it is, I’ve signed up for an ARP warden and I’m to report for training Saturday afternoon.’

Aggie didn’t speak and Sheila felt obliged to fill in the silence. ‘That’s great, Uncle John. Do you get a uniform and everything?’ She thought of Ted Grimes in his smart bottle green, with the shiny badge on his cap.

‘It’s a bit soon for that, Sheila. I’ve many a Saturday training to do and we’ll probably get an armband for the evening patrols.’

Suddenly, Aggie spoke up. ‘What about the shop, John? Saturday’s our busiest day. The men come home with their pay on a Friday night and this place is packed out from nine in the morning.’

‘Aggie, God wants me to do this. He’ll help us.’

Sheila could see Aggie’s agitation, her hands clenched against her chest, shaking a little as she struggled to find the words to get through to her brother. ‘Well,’ she said at last, ‘it’s to be hoped He has some experience with a bacon slicer then!’

John rounded on her. ‘Now listen here, Agnes McCracken—’ he began. Just then the shop bell rang and, as neither of them seemed to have heard it, Sheila gratefully slipped through the chenille to keep shop. The customer was a young woman who didn’t look as though she had two ha’pennies to rub together. She carried a sleeping child wrapped in a shawl tied round her hip. She bought two eggs, a pan loaf and a quarter of Nambarrie tea. The child’s head lolled backwards escaping the shawl as the mother counted out the coppers on the counter and when Sheila said the baby had lovely curls, the mother smiled with pride showing her rotten front teeth. By the time Sheila returned to the kitchen, John and Aggie were eating cake and smiling.

‘Now then, young Sheila,’ said John, dusting the crumbs from his hands. ‘Aggie tells me you’ve a bit of a way with the customers, been helping out this afternoon while she tended Aunt Hannah.’ Aggie winked at her and gave a smile of encouragement as John went on. ‘How would you like a wee part time job here at the shop?’ Sheila’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth to reply, but John carried on. ‘Of course, you’d have to ask your mammy, see what she thinks. You could come here Fridays after school and on Saturday you’d have to be here at eight on the dot to help me open up and you’ll work to six. We’d give you your tea both nights. Then when your mammy comes for her messages on Saturday night, you could go home with her. Now, how does that sound?’

Sheila beamed. It sounded great, better than great. It was just what she wanted. She hugged them both. It was true what they said in Sunday school, she thought, God did work in mysterious ways.

*

‘Mammy, I love champ, but I’m fed up eating it,’ complained Irene. ‘Can we not have something else?’

Martha ignored her and called through to the sitting room. ‘Pat, will you get this table set. The tea’ll be ready in five minutes.’ She drained the pan and mashed the potatoes vigorously, then tipped in the frothing pan of milk and green scallions. A big plate of champ would stick to their insides. Pat laid the table carefully, as always, then went to the foot of the stairs and called Peggy. Martha arranged the portions of champ in a circle on each plate with a hollow in the middle into which she slid a lump of butter then carried each to the table as quickly as possible before it melted.

‘I’ll have to put Sheila’s in the oven to keep warm. I’ve no idea where she’s got to.’

‘I’ll have hers if she doesn’t come in soon,’ said Peggy.

‘You will not!’ snapped Martha, ‘She’ll have a proper meal like the rest of us. I’ll not send a child of mine to bed with just bread and jam.’

‘Sure I’ve been working all day and she’s just been sitting in school doing next to nothing,’ said Peggy.

Irene changed the subject. ‘We’ll need to decide tonight which songs we’re going to sing at the Grosvenor Hall and I think we should have a practice every night. We’ve got to be on top form in front of all those paying customers.’

‘Well, I think they’ve got to be classy songs,’ said Pat. ‘A piece of light opera would be nice. What about a bit of Gilbert and Sullivan, ‘Three Little Maids from School’ maybe?’

‘Ach for goodness sake, Pat, people don’t want that. We need something up to the minute,’ said Irene. ‘Peggy, what about that song you were playing last week? We could work out some good harmonies for that. What was it called again?’ Peggy turned her head slowly and stared at Irene, who thought she hadn’t made herself clear. ‘You know the one with the great title. ‘Paper Moon’, that was it!’

Peggy ignored her and pushed her empty plate to one side. ‘I’ll leave you to it then. I’m off down the Oldpark to the pictures with Thelma.’

In unison Pat and Irene turned towards her. ‘What?’

Martha caught Peggy’s arm as she made to leave the table. ‘Now, you listen to me, my girl. You’re not going to let this family down. This concert is important; it’s for the church and to raise money for a good cause. It doesn’t feel like it yet, but make no mistake, there’s a war on and if the last war taught me anything, it was that we have to help each other. Morale’s important and the last thing needed is for us to fall out among ourselves.’

Peggy was calm. ‘Mammy, I’m not letting anybody down, because I never agreed to be part of it. There’s nothing more to be said.’ And with that she got her coat and left.

Irene and Pat set about doing the dishes with heavy hearts. ‘We’ve got to perform at this concert,’ said Irene. ‘It’s too good an opportunity to miss.’

‘But we need three of us for the harmonies to work.’

‘Maybe we could get Sheila to sing too.’

‘And have you forgotten?’ said Pat. ‘We’re three sisters and a piano. We need to be accompanied.’

‘We’ll get Mammy to play. Sure she taught Peggy the piano. She could do it. I’ll go and ask her.’

‘Mammy’s not got the same style as Peggy. It wouldn’t suit us at all.’

‘Ach it’ll do rightly. It’s the singing that counts. We’ll just have to be brilliant to make sure nobody realises that Mammy’s not familiar with boogie woogie!’ The two of them began to laugh at the very thought of their mother playing in that style. As usual, once Irene started she couldn’t stop. She tried to wipe her eyes with her soapy hands and ended up with suds over her face. They were still wiping away tears when Sheila came in the back door and wanted to know what was so funny. They tried to tell her, but found it impossible to speak. It was just a moment to be completely silly and Sheila, without even knowing why they were laughing, was soon in stitches.