Our Lizzie (10 page)

Meg jumped to her feet. “Tea won't be long. I've got it all ready for you, love.”

He sniffed appreciatively. “I could tell that as soon as I opened the front door. Cottage pie?”

She nodded.

“Lovely.” He went through into the scullery to wash his hands and face, sighing with tiredness. There seemed to be more dirty crockery here than usual—he pushed a pile of plates aside carefully—but perhaps Mam had had a busy day and had left it all for one big wash-up after tea.

When he went through into the kitchen again, she was stirring something on the stove.

“Guess what?”

Clearly good news from her expression. “What?”

“I've found two lodgers, and they couldn't suit us better. Well,” she amended, “it was Sam who sent them round, actually. That lad's been a good friend to us, Percy, a very good friend.”

“Aye, I know he has. Who are they?”

“Miss Harper and Miss Emma Harper.”

“Oh, he's spoken of them two. They come from outside the town, Harcup way. Why are they looking for lodgings? I thought they'd gone to Mrs. Blackburn's?”

“They don't like it there. Well, Peggy Blackburn's no housewife. They've obviously come down in the world.”

Percy sat down at the table, waiting for her to bring his food. He could sympathise with the two ladies' problems, he could indeed. There were many ways of coming down in the world. Today he'd had to tell the foreman that he couldn't go to Technical School next year to study. Ben Symes had understood and sympathised, but that hadn't made Percy feel any better. You could study other things at night classes, but to do the course he wanted you had to go part-time, which meant your employer had to be agreeable to it. He realised his mother was still talking and the other children were sitting listening to her with interest. “Sorry. What did you say?”

“I said they want to rent the attic, not my bedroom, so we won't have to move out of our rooms, and they have some furniture of their own they want to bring. That'll save us ever so much money. But we'll need to stain the floorboards up there and paint the walls before they can move in and they want to move in as soon as they can. Do you think you could do that for me, love? I swept the place out carefully today and gave it a bit of a mop to get rid of the dust, then I went and bought some stain. Dark walnut. I can get some distemper for the walls tomorrow. Pink, I thought. Is that all right?” Meg was exhausted now, absolutely exhausted, but pleased with her efforts.

“Yes. I'll go up and have a look at that floor after tea.”

She nodded to Polly. “Go an' call Johnny in. I told him not to go past the corner.” She didn't like her girls being out on their own after dark, but it was different with lads. Still smiling, she began to dish up.

Percy frowned round the table. “I don't like Lizzie eating on her own every night. Maybe we could have our tea later when she's on afternoons?”

“Goodness, no! She doesn't get back till well after eight and I need to get Johnny to bed before then. Besides, you're always hungry when you come in. A man needs a good dinner after a hard day's work.”

Eva put her book away and sat down. Tonight the little room seemed hot and overcrowded. She thought with longing of Miss Blake's pretty kitchen and elegant little parlour. What it'd be like here with two lodgers sitting at the table as well didn't bear thinking of. For a moment, she almost envied her elder sister, eating on her own in the evenings. Then she thought of the lukewarm leftovers that sat on a plate by the fire waiting for Lizzie to come home and changed her mind.

*   *   *

Having the Misses Harper living with them made life a bit easier for Lizzie, because her mother didn't shout at her or slap her in front of the boarders. Mam had never slapped them like this when Dad was alive, but she was always doing it now—well, she slapped Lizzie and Johnny a lot, and Polly sometimes—though usually only when Percy was out. She never slapped Eva, though she shouted at her. It wasn't fair.

Lizzie continued to miss her father very keenly as the weeks passed. It seemed to the grieving child that no one really cared about her now. Her mother only spoke to order her to do jobs around the house or to tell her off about something. When Percy was at home, Mam usually hovered near him, but quite often nowadays he went out for a drink in the evening with Sam, saying if there was no point studying, he might as well enjoy himself a bit, and he could make a half last all evening.

Polly was her usual quiet self, rarely speaking up, just watching everything the family did with her wide, pale blue eyes. And Johnny was a typical little boy of four going on five. He had started school in the babies' class at the beginning of the year because their mother said it got him off the streets. But the little children all had to have a nap in the afternoons, so when he came home at tea-time, he was always full of beans, rushing out to play with his friends or coming back in bawling to have an injury bathed or else to whine for something to eat. And if Lizzie was around she was the one who had to see to him. In fact, if she was around in the afternoons, her mother hardly lifted a finger.

Sometimes it all got to be too much for the child, this strange new life. It was at those times she went out and sat in the lav by herself, the darker the night the better, because there was something comforting about darkness and people didn't disturb her there. Well, not unless they were desperate to go.

Even her sister Eva, with whom she had previously been quite close, now spent a lot of time round at Miss Blake's, since the teacher was giving her private coaching in return for more help in the house. And since Miss Blake lived quite a way away, she had lent Eva an old bike and Mam had given her permission to be out after dark—so long as she came back by the main road and didn't cut through the back lanes.

Only—when Eva wasn't there to do the chores, Mam always gave the extra work to Lizzie. So much work. Would it never end? What with Dearden's and school and housework, not to mention the extra washing up, Lizzie was always exhausted by bedtime. She would go up to bed early sometimes and lie there in the darkness, listening to the quiet murmurings from the lodgers upstairs, vaguely comforted by them. Sometimes she would try to tell herself stories like the ones she used to read in the comics—only Mam wouldn't let her buy comics now. And she took all the money Lizzie earned at Dearden's, every farthing. Life was rotten.

*   *   *

At the beginning of December, Miss Blake came to Bobbin Lane again to speak to Mrs. Kershaw about Eva and school. On her pupil's advice, she chose a time when Percy would be at home.

Meg showed the teacher into the chilly front room, rarely used because the lodgers always sat up in their attic room in the evenings.

“I've come to speak to you about Eva and the scholarship,” Alice Blake began.

“She's going half-time next year, so she won't need to sit for it,” Meg said promptly. She was looking forward to having another addition to the family income and had even started to build up the savings account her husband had once opened and rarely paid into. Money was much safer in the bank than sitting on your mantelpiece where people could pinch it.

“That's what I've come to ask you about—does she have to go part-time? If she did get a scholarship, couldn't she stay on at school for a year or two?”

“No, she couldn't. You know how we're situated.”

Percy looked at his mother sideways, frowned, then turned back to the teacher. “Why do you ask?”

“Eva is such a clever child, it's a pity to take her away from school. Is there no way…” Alice paused delicately.

“What would be the point of her staying on?”

“She wants to train as a teacher, and I think she'd make a good one. It'd be such a shame to waste her talents, Mr. Kershaw.”

Percy could see his mother shaking her head and sat for a moment, thinking. He'd lost his chance in life, but surely they were managing all right, even without Eva's earnings as a part-timer? “What exactly would all this entail?”

Meg leaned forward. “It doesn't matter, Percy. She can't—”

“Shh, Mam. Let Miss Blake tell us.”

Alice explained about how a teacher was trained, and he nodded, asking occasional questions, proving, though he didn't realise it, that Eva wasn't the only clever one in the family.

“We'll have to think about it for a few days,” he said when she had finished speaking. “It's not something you decide in a hurry.”

Meg breathed in deeply, feeling betrayed, but she wasn't going to argue with him in front of a guest.

“Let me show you out, Miss Blake,” said Percy, standing up.

As he fumbled with the front door, he whispered, “Leave it to me. Give me a few days to talk Mam round.”

She clasped his hand and nodded. “Eva
is
worth it. She's one of the cleverest girls I've ever taught.”

He went back to face a tirade from his mother about how careful they had to be nowadays and how they couldn't possibly afford for Eva to stay on at school.

Only when she'd run herself down did he say mildly, “It does bear thinking about, you know.”

“Have you been listening to a word I've said, Percy Kershaw? It's not just her staying on, there's the uniform to buy—and books—and other things, too. We simply can't afford it.”

“I know it'd be hard, Mam. But teachers earn good money, you know. Our Eva would be better placed to help you in your old age if she was a teacher, don't you think?”

Clearly, that possibility had not occurred to Meg. She gaped at him for a moment, then said sourly, “Well, we still can't afford it. It takes them years to become teachers nowadays. They can't go as monitors first, as they did in the old days. And anyway, she's a pretty lass. She'll get married as soon as she's finished, whatever she says now, and then all that schooling will be wasted. They can't stay teachers if they get married, you know.”

“Not everyone gets married, though teachers meet a better class of person to marry, don't you think? It wouldn't be a chap like me.” One with no prospects. “So she'd still be better placed to help you.” And if he knew their Eva, she'd not do anything stupid with her life. She wasn't a madcap like Lizzie.

His mother's face crumpled. “Oh, Percy lad, it's
you
who should be getting some more schooling, not a lass.”

“Leave it, Mam. That's over and done with.”

“But—”

“Leave it, I said!”

But he had the satisfaction over the next few days of seeing his mother studying Eva, looking thoughtful. And she stopped complaining when his sister got her schoolbooks out.

In the end, it was decided just to see how they went. After all, as Mam said, Eva still had to get the scholarship.

Listening to the discussions, Lizzie felt more left out than ever. Eva spent most of her spare time, apart from helping round the house, with Miss Blake, now that she had that bicycle.

Life was rotten. The only time Lizzie felt happy was at Dearden's—and that was partly because of young Jack Dearden. He was only a bit older than she was, and was going to leave school that summer, to work in the shop full-time. He was such fun, Jack was, and could make you laugh when everything seemed black. And he didn't mock you because you were a girl, like other lads did. In fact, all the Deardens were nice, really lovely people.

So long as you worked hard. There was no place at the shop for slackers and when Fred left to go and work with cars, Mrs. D said it was good riddance. But Lizzie enjoyed shop work. It was all so interesting, even the packing and sorting, because stuff came from all over the world. Mr. Dearden had told her one day about how tea was grown, and Peter had told her about coffee plantations. He was nice, Peter was. Jack was so lucky having a family like that.

*   *   *

Twenty lessons for twenty shillings
, the advert said.
Next course begins in January
. Emma knew it wasn't a very good commercial school, and in fact “school' was an ambitious term for two rooms over a shop, but they could afford fees like this without dipping too deeply into their savings.

“Are you sure?” Blanche worried. “I don't like the thought of you going out to work.”

“I need to earn my living, dear, you know I do. I'll go and see about the lessons this afternoon.”

Miss Aspinall, who ran the school, was a very plain woman with a tired face, but she seemed to know a lot about office work and Emma took to her at once.

“I can probably help find you a position afterwards, as well,” the proprietor said as she wrote out a receipt. “Employers know I train the girls properly and some come to me for staff.”

“I'm a bit older than your usual pupils, I think. Will that make a difference?”

“Not at all—so long as you don't mind working at the same things the other girls do?”

“I can't afford to mind.” Emma hesitated. “And you can really get me a job afterwards?”

“Oh, yes. It won't be a good position, because you've never worked before, but I'll find you one where you'll be able to get some useful experience and at least you'll be earning something while you learn, even if it's only fifteen shillings a week.”

“As little as that? I thought people got about a pound a week for office work.”

“They do when they're experienced. Still, with your looks and background, you'll not have too much trouble finding something better once you know the work.”

So Emma walked home feeling she'd taken a positive step—and bought herself a quarter of her favourite caramels to celebrate.

Chapter Six

December 1908–March 1909

Lizzie missed her dad even worse at Christmas. Her mam kept crying and they only had a small present each, because Mam said they couldn't afford to spend much this year. Miss Harper looked terrible after a bout of influenza, and even Miss Emma wasn't as cheerful as usual.