September Starlings (12 page)

My door burst inward. ‘I saw her waving at you, Laura
McNally. Thank goodness I had the foresight to peep through a crack downstairs. You are shaming me. Why can’t you do as I ask? Why?’ I cowered in a corner as she raised an arm to strike again.

The shape behind her spoke. ‘Because your requests are unreasonable sometimes.’

She turned on him. At least her attention had strayed from me. ‘This child is a disgrace. You are never here, so don’t criticize me and my methods of dealing with her. I cannot have her mixing with the people next door, not after the way they insulted me.’

‘The people next door are your sister and your brother-in-law. Anne is Laura’s cousin, so there should be no bad blood.’ My father must have seen the anger in her face. He stepped back, one foot in my room, the other escaping to safer territory on the landing.

‘Do not tell me how to behave,’ she screamed. The revels outside seemed quieter, as if the whole party had slowed to listen as Mother ranted. ‘I could have married Eddie Cross. He would have been glad to have me, and there would have been none of this staying at work all hours. He’s got his own building business, and it puts your pathetic shop to shame. Even through the war, Eddie made money. And I’m condemned to stay here with your wayward child while you linger on Blackburn Road with your potions and lotions – what sort of a life is this for me?’

Father’s voice was quiet. ‘Then your father should have taken his shotgun elsewhere. He should perhaps have sent Eddie Cross up the aisle instead of me.’

She threw a glance over her shoulder, had a quick look at me, pushed him outside and slammed my door. But I could still hear it all.

‘As it turned out, the shotgun was unnecessary.’ John McNally had one of those voices which, though very soft, seem to carry well.

‘I didn’t know that. As far as I was concerned, you had had your way and the symptoms indicated—’

‘No, you had had your way. And your way was the
fastest route out of the weaving sheds. Why do you impose all this nonsense on the child? Are you so anxious to avoid questions about your humble beginnings? I am proud of mine, grateful that my parents worked so hard to give me a chance. As for you believing that you were pregnant at the time of our marriage, I’ll have to take your word for that.’

I fastened my ear to the door, tried to ignore the drumbeat that was my heart. Never before had I known Father to interrupt her and to use strong words. I feared for him, feared that she might turn on him. But after a small pause, he continued, the voice still calm and conversational in tone. ‘Your word,’ he said. ‘I had to accept it then just as I must now take your word about Laura. She will grow, Liza. And she will grow away from you, beyond your reach. Already, she doesn’t love you. The girl will have the sense to get away in ten years or so. God, I hope that she can escape your clutches.’

‘How dare you!’

‘I dare. But for the most part, I shall keep my opinions to myself, just as I always have. She will have some stability. She is the reason why I tolerate this silly situation. When she is grown, I hope she is a match for you.’

He did not often stand in my corner. When he had time for me, he was considerate and loving, but for the most part, John McNally was a man with a mission, a brain full of formulae and chemicals, no space for life’s trivia. He loved me, but he had little room for me in his busy life. So he left me to her, trusted to luck, but my meagre store of luck kept running out.

We lived in a large semi-detached house on a spoon-shaped avenue called a cul-de-sac. Our house was right at the tip of the spoon and it was fastened to Cousin Anne’s. Auntie Maisie was my mother’s sister, while Cousin Anne was almost my twin, as we were born within a week of each other when the war was a few months old.

As babies, we saw a great deal of one another, because our mothers worked shifts at a paint factory down Bridgeman Place. I was not very old when I realized that
my mother was ‘too good’ for such labour. Liza McNally was simply making her patriotic contribution towards the downfall of somebody called Hitler who had a funny moustache and a strange way of talking. As the wife of a dispensing chemist, she would not normally demean herself in such a way.

She would stand in front of the mirror dabbing a smelly liquid on her hair. ‘Laura! Is it gone? Can you see any more paint in my hair? Laura, bring my manicure set. The paint is eating into my skin. Laura, get my hand lotion. Where are my slippers? You are four years old and you know that my feet are tired. Some eau-de-Cologne for my head. See if there are any Aspros in the cupboard. If not, go next door, see if Maisie has a spare tape of Aspros.’

When I went next door, things were completely different. Auntie Maisie might have paint in her hair, on a hand, on a shoe, but she would be laughing with her husband or toasting bread in front of the fire. She even laughed when she got a blob of blue on her nose, a big smudge that took days to wear off. I would look at her, try to fill my mind with the sights and sounds of her home. ‘Have you any Aspros, Auntie?’

She frowned sometimes. Even when she frowned, her face was happy. ‘Another headache, sweetheart? Look in my brown bag.’ And I heard them whispering about me, about my parents. Things like ‘No wonder he stops out late’, and ‘Time she started thinking about that kiddy’. There were always smiles and cuddles, bites of toast, a finger-dip of condensed milk, a spoonful of treacle. I did not mind their concern even when it bordered on pity, because they loved me. Any feeling born of love must be good – even a child can sense that.

During the war years, I stayed at Anne’s when Mother was on duty. The two sisters’ shifts were staggered so that children could be minded by members of their own family. Sometimes, Uncle Freddie was with us in Anne’s house, and such times were filled with so much laughter that I often suffered from hiccups for several hours after
returning home. Anne didn’t like coming in our house, but I was safe when she was there, was free to act like a child.

The oddest and funniest of days were brought to us courtesy of Freddie Turnbull Esquire. He always called himself ‘Esquire’, said it gave some standing to a poor man who spent his days knee deep in spuds and spilled sugar. Uncle Freddie Turnbull, a huge man with whiskers and a limp from the Great War, was considerably older than my gentle father. He was what everybody called ‘a scream’, because he was forever imitating people. Not famous names, just the folk from round and about. ‘They’d not make one straight man between them,’ he would say about those who traded in our area. ‘If they’d a pair of eyes or legs among them, they’d be stood up in the front lines with a pop-gun and a tin of corned beef.’

It was awful, even excruciating, but it brought excitement into our narrow lives. ‘Sithee,’ he said, the face serious and concerned. ‘Just go to the door and pay yon feller. He’ll be stood waiting for his money while bedtime if you don’t shape. Come on, Laura, come on, our Annie.’

‘I’m not doing it.’ I stood my ground, felt the butterflies trembling in my chest. ‘I’m not doing it unless you promise to behave.’

‘I promise.’ A hand lay on his heart. ‘I’ll upset nobody.’

Anne snatched the money, sniffed, knew what would happen. ‘Don’t laugh, Laura,’ she said. ‘Mam says we’ve to be polite no matter what Dad does.’

Hand in hand for companionship and security, we opened the door like a pair of Christians who expected death at the claws of some enormous feline. ‘How much is it?’ we asked the tradesman.

It was truly dreadful, extremely testing for two robust and high-spirited young girls. The milkman had a lisp, the coalman suffered with a stammer, while the insurance man, cross-eyed and bow-legged, always said the same thing. ‘Eeh, aren’t you a pretty pair, a sight fer sore eyes come rain nor shine.’

The insurance man was the worst. Uncle Freddie posed on the stairs, out of sight of any callers. Our peripheral vision was drawn to him like base metal to a magnet, because we knew that he would not be good. His whole body sagged downward, and the good leg curved itself like a letter C. We did not dare look straight at Uncle Freddie until the Prudential man had wobbled off on his bike, because Anne’s dear daddy was gifted with the ability to make irises and pupils all but disappear into the sides of his nose. Then he ‘did’ the insurance man’s voice, echoed the words perfectly.

Auntie Maisie rushed out of the kitchen. She pretended to have no time for such behaviour, though she always listened and giggled while the pantomime was in progress. The damp tea-towel was slapped across Uncle Freddie’s face. ‘For a crippled man, you don’t half take the Michael out of other unfortunates. What are you teaching these two, eh? Our Liza will have you drawn and quartered if she catches you carrying on like this in front of our Laura.’ Her cheeks glowed when she looked at him, and a smile hovered on the edges of her mouth, held back by sheer willpower and a strong sense of fun.

Uncle Freddie acted hurt and contrite. ‘Ooh, Maisie, you’re lovely when you’re angry. Look at her, girls, isn’t she beautiful? There’s a dimple now, see, she nearly smiled. Anyway, Maisie Turnbull, I’ll have you know that my game leg entitles me to make fun of my fellow cripples. Straighten your face and put that kettle on, Missus. Early to bed for you tonight.’

She was lovely, my Auntie Maisie. Round, plump and pretty, always smelled of yeast mixed with soap and gentle perfume, wore flowered pinnies and a string of coloured glass beads that she’d won on the fair years earlier. The fine blond hair was scraped back into a bun, but little wisps tended to escape round her ears and at the nape of her neck. Uncle Freddie used to kiss the back of her neck and whisper in her ears till she went pink.

I loved them. I suppose that they loved me too, because
they never left me out of anything – unless my mother intervened, of course. At weekends, Uncle Freddie took us to Queens Park, trained us in the art of ‘handling the Americans’ and forbade us to tell our mothers about our unseemly behaviour. There were two ways of ‘handling the Americans’. Sometimes, it was best to look sweet, pretty and twinnish, ask for ‘some gum, chum’. But that worked only when we were clean. After skirmishes with roundabouts and swings, we had to use a different ploy to attract the support of our allies.

Anne, who was endowed with great acting ability, lay on the cinder path and blubbered a lot, rubbed her big blue eyes. I ran to the soldiers, my face twisted with suppressed laughter which was usually mistaken for some other emotion. ‘My sister’s hurt.’ We got chocolates, sweets, biscuits, lectures about being careful near strangers. And once, we were given a whole silver dollar and we polished it, took turns to have custody of the shining disc.

Anne and I must have been five when the trouble happened. The war was dwindling towards its chaotic and supposedly triumphant end. Mother and Auntie Maisie were working shifts of just four hours. Uncle Freddie was still managing the local Co-op, while my father continued to spend most of his time at the shop, probably mixing medicines and working at his bench in the upstairs rooms. Everything was normal one minute, terrible the next.

There was a row. We children did not hear it and, for a while, we had no knowledge of its subject. But in the middle of 1945, I was forbidden to go next door, was ordered never to speak to Auntie Maisie, Uncle Freddie, Cousin Anne.

Grief overcame fear several times and I tackled my mother repeatedly. She was more agitated than I had ever seen her, so I took the opportunity to dig deep into her mind. I think she must have been a lonely woman, but perhaps solitude was what she deserved. In a way, she was turning to me, using me as a sounding board, a figure at which she could direct her thoughts.

‘Please, Mother. I want to play with Anne.’

Anger and frustration coloured her cheeks, made her truly radiant. My mother was a woman of exceptional beauty. She had copper-gold hair, clear blue eyes and a skin of alabaster that stained itself pink when she became excited. ‘You will do as I say, young lady. Exactly as I say.’

I don’t know where or how I got the knowledge, but for a few weeks after the Big Row, I felt confident that she would not hit me. She was somewhat depleted and lacklustre after the argument, kept failing to finish off sentences. I was brave enough to keep asking why. ‘Why can’t I play with Anne?’

‘Because I am your mother.’

Sometimes, adults made no sense at all. I tried to be good, obedient and quiet, failed totally, attempted to rekindle my newborn courage. ‘Auntie Maisie is my auntie. Uncle Freddie is my uncle. You told me to mind grown-ups and to be nice to them. Why is it all different now?’

She was floundering in a pit of her own digging. Because of her rigorous persistence, I was a precocious child, could read and write, add and subtract, chant a list of capital cities, sing after a fashion, blunder through two simple pieces on the piano. She enjoyed showing off her creation, wanted me capable when it suited her, like on the days when her ‘friends’ visited and ‘took’ tea and dainty cakes. I was Mother’s party-piece-by-proxy, and she lapped up the shallow praise like a cream-hungry cat.

My talents were not particularly remarkable, but I drew lavish accolades from Mother’s attendants. These people formed a gaggle of polite and dull women whose husbands were professional men. Auntie Maisie, even before the disagreement, was never invited to the afternoon teas, was definitely not good enough to be on show when high society descended on our home. ‘We shall move away,’ Mother declared hotly when I was still struggling to mend the breach between the two houses.

My temper bubbled. ‘You can go if you want to. I’m staying here, I shall move next door and live with Anne.’

She wrung her delicate fingers, turned to the fireplace, groped for the umpteenth cigarette. When her lungs were filled with confidence, she looked at me again. ‘We got them that house. I persuaded your father – it was my doing – mine!’ The hands waved a lot, one leaving in its wake a trail of smoke like the emissions from a fighter plane’s engines.

She was proud of her hands, kept a bone-and-silver manicure set in her dressing room. The dressing room was the tiniest front bedroom, linked to the larger room by a doorway made by my father after much harassment. I spent a great deal of time running to and from the dressing room, bringing her this and that, returning hairbrushes, mirrors, powder boxes.