Strawberry Fields (26 page)
Presently, Sara ‘slid off’ and they pushed the bicycle across the busy road, then remounted to turn into Fountains Road, which was wide and, to Sara’s relief, relatively traffic-free.
‘I try not to breathe along this stretch, ’cos of the Stanley Mortuary,’ Miss Boote announced breathlessly over her shoulder. ‘Been down here before, have you, Miss Cordwainer?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Sara said. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I walked, Miss Boote?’
But Miss Boote assured her passenger that it was ‘a piece of cake, honest’, and continued to pedal on and to shout over her shoulder as she did so.
‘We’re just passin’ St Athanasius’ Church,’ she announced presently. ‘Big, ain’t it? And St John’s Presbytery’s there . . .’ the bike wobbled perilously as she pointed. ‘And a bit further along yet, between the Saddle Inn – that’s a nice pub, very quiet – and the Kendal Castle – that’s a bit livelier – there’s the Jewish synagogue. If it were Saturday you’d see ’em all comin’ out wi’ their little caps on and their long beards. All we need is a mosque, I tell them at the Barracks, and everyone’s represented round here.’ She laughed heartily at her own joke.
How odd, she seems to know the public houses as well as she knows the churches, and she obviously takes a great interest in both, Sara thought. Now I wonder why that is?
She was soon to know. They turned into Westminster Road, wobbled along for a few hundred yards, and stopped beside a hail with big doors which opened out on to the pavement. Several shabby-looking men were making their way towards it and Miss Boote hailed them as she passed.
‘Evenin’, Mr O’Hare! How’s your rheumatiz? Evenin’, Mr Ross, come to give us a hand gerrin’ rid o’ that broth you like? Evenin’, Mr Fellowes, I’ve brung you me copy of yesterday’s
Echo
, I know you like a read before bed.’
Echo
, I know you like a read before bed.’
The man thus addressed turned and laughed. ‘I thought that ’ud be you – you’re a caution you are, Miss! ’Alf the time that newspaper
is
me bed! Still an’ all, I’m grateful for it.’
is
me bed! Still an’ all, I’m grateful for it.’
Miss Boote brought the bicycle to a halt outside the hall and waited whilst Sara disentangled herself from the carrier, then stood the machine in the small wooden porch.
‘Come along in, Miss Cordwainer, and I’ll introduce you,’ she said. ‘When we’ve finished wi’ the soup though, I’ll have to leave you for a few minutes. I’m goin’ round the pubs tonight, so I’ll need me uniform or God above knows what the customers will think.’
‘Uniform?’ Sara said, thoroughly bewildered. ‘What uniform?’ It was news to her that it was necessary to wear a uniform to go into a public house, but then so far as she knew women never went past the doors of the pubs. Oh, round the back, perhaps, to get a jug of ale which they would drink at home, but never up to the bar!
Miss Boote took her elbow. ‘Ah, there’s Mrs Puddifoot – you’ll like her, she’s a good sort. And Miss Edrich, and Mrs Callowe . . . they’ll show you what to do, but by the time I leave – and I won’t be long away, not above an hour – you’ll have picked it up.’
‘But the uniform,’ Sara persisted. ‘Why the uniform, Miss Boote?’
‘Because if you go into a pub without the uniform they might think . . .’ Miss Boote broke off, staring incredulously at Sara. ‘Don’t tell me your gran hasn’t said anything to you? I’m a Salvationist, Miss Cordwainer, a member of God’s Army!’
At first, Sara worked in a daze, scarcely able to believe what she was doing. Her parents had despised the Salvation Army and had brought her up, she now realised, to do the same. She had put money in their collecting tins behind her mother’s back from time to time, and once or twice she had listened, with tapping foot, as they sang carols in the streets at Christmas, but other than that she had seldom thought about them, save as people in rather old-fashioned clothing who appeared in the city centre, armed with shiny brass instruments, and played bouncy hymns and the better known carols.
‘They sing in the streets; for
money,
’ her mother had said, as though it was a crime so dastardly that she hardly dare put it into words. ‘They wear
uniform,
the women as well. The bonnets are all right, but those heavy coats and skirts!’ She had shuddered expressively. I wouldn’t been seen dead in them, and the shoes are really frumpy – dreadful things.’
money,
’ her mother had said, as though it was a crime so dastardly that she hardly dare put it into words. ‘They wear
uniform,
the women as well. The bonnets are all right, but those heavy coats and skirts!’ She had shuddered expressively. I wouldn’t been seen dead in them, and the shoes are really frumpy – dreadful things.’
‘I’m told they do a lot of good,’ her father had said. ‘For the lower classes, of course. But then so do the Goodfellows.’
Damning by faint praise, Sara had thought it, and now, as she worked beside Miss Boote, Miss Callowe, Mrs Puddifoot and Miss Edrich, she realised that her father had been way, way out. The Goodfellows collected money for the poor, they didn’t work for them. They didn’t put huge aprons round their middles and clean and prepare great mountains of vegetables, chop bones with a hatchet to make stock, beg butcher’s scraps to enrich their soup. They didn’t serve the soup, either, unlike her fellow workers, none of whom was too proud to take it over to an old woman who sat dribbling down her stained coat, only just able to lift the bowl to her lips.
‘Where do you get the vegetables?’ she asked Miss Boote at one stage, when a skinny boy came in, staggering under the weight of a sack of cabbages. ‘They can’t all be presents!’
‘Yes, they are, the shopkeepers are always generous,’ Miss Boote told her. ‘The joke of it is, we have a lot of kiddies and women during the daytime, though it’s mainly men at night. And if we have to buy anything – crockery, utensils – it is paid for by the ould fellers of the wives and kids we feed!’
‘Then they contribute willingly? But why don’t they give their wives the money, then their wives could make soup for them,’ Sara, ever practical, said. Miss Boote laughed and ladled more soup into more tin pannikins.
‘It don’t occur to them that they’re contributin’, for the most part,’ she admitted. ‘We go into the pubs with the
War Cry
and tell them we need the money desperately, for to feed the poor. They’ve had a few, they’re merry, very likely, so they put their hands into their pockets – it’s only a few pence, and they think it’ll keep us quiet, off their backs. Yet that money goes to help to feed their wives and children, more often than not.’
War Cry
and tell them we need the money desperately, for to feed the poor. They’ve had a few, they’re merry, very likely, so they put their hands into their pockets – it’s only a few pence, and they think it’ll keep us quiet, off their backs. Yet that money goes to help to feed their wives and children, more often than not.’
‘You mean they’ll give you a few pence, but they won’t give it to their wives?’ Sara asked, shocked. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
‘It makes very good sense. You see, we’re in the pubs and the fellers what drink their money away love the pubs. They’re amongst their mates, it’s warm and cheerful in there with no crying kids, no hungry, weeping wife. So they’ll put on a bit of a show, boast a bit, chuck their money about. Sometimes they offer to buy us a bevvy, as they call it, and we smile ever so sweetly and tell them to pop the money into the collectin’ tin, we’ll have our bevvies later.’
‘Well, I don’t understand it, but it’s good,’ Sara said after a moment’s thought. ‘What else do you do for the poor, Miss Boote?’
‘We run hostels for the homeless, places where wives can stay when their husbands beat them up, soup kitchens – this is one – and cheap canny houses where those with a few pence can get a good, hot meal. And we try, very gently, to show them that God cares. That’s if they want to come to the citadel, that is.’
‘I see. And – and could I come to the citadel? I don’t mean to be one of you, exactly, I just mean to see what happens there.’
‘’Course you could,’ Miss Boote said briskly. ‘Well, I’m off to do me stint in the pubs down the Walton Road. God knows, there are plenty of pubs there, yet it’s a poor area. The women have large families and a lot of the men are unemployed.’
‘Don’t they get this assistance they talk about?’ Sara asked cautiously. She had heard others besides her father being contemptuous of anyone who could not manage, saying that the person should ask for public assistance.
‘It’s means tested,’ Miss Boote said briefly. ‘Can’t stop now, queen, got to be off. But I’ll be back in an hour and we’ll tootle off home on me old bike, eh?’
She disappeared into the night and Miss Callowe, who had been standing beside Sara cutting the long brown loaves and handing over a slice as each diner approached, poked her in the ribs. She was a girl of about Sara’s own age, with lovely smooth, light-brown hair, but she had gaps in her teeth and those that remained were grey and unhealthy-looking.
‘Hey, Miss Cordwainer . . . Lord love you, what a mouthful! D’you have another name?’
‘Yes, I’m Sara,’ Sara said happily. ‘What’s your first name, Miss Callowe?’
‘Margaret, but everyone calls me Maggie,’ the girl said. ‘Are you goin’ to join us? The uniform’s lovely, honest. I got a new one a few months ago ’cos my old ’un was too tight and very worn, so Captain Edwards helped to pay for it, because I work in Sykes the baker on Walton Road, and it ain’t a job what pays much.’
‘The uniform is pretty, but I don’t know about joining you,’ Sara said guardedly. ‘Actually, I haven’t got a job at all at present so I can’t afford so much as a new hanky.’
Maggie laughed. ‘You’ll gerra job, you’re ever so pretty and your teef’s good.’ She indicated her own mouth. ‘Mine are awful poor – the dentist up at the centre says it’s ’cos I weren’t fed right, as a child.’
‘Goodness – what did your mother say when he said that?’
There was a pause before Maggie spoke.
‘I ain’t got no mother, nor no father, norrany more,’ she said quietly. ‘They dumped me in a children’s ’ome when I were five. I ’spec’ they’re dead, now. So you see, the Army’s more’n just a friend, it’s me family an’ all.’
‘I see,’ Sara said inadequately. ‘I’m sorry, Maggie.’
‘Don’t be sorry; likely it were the best thing that could ’ave ’appened to me,’ Maggie said, suddenly cheerful. ‘I gorra lorra friends, the Army ’ostel’s a nice place, an’ one day I’ll marry some feller an’ gerra place o’ me own.’
‘I’m sure you will,’ Sara said gently. ‘Oh, the soup’s running low; what happens now?’
‘You shout someone . . . Mrs Puddifoot will do . . . an’ they’ll bring a fresh pan through,’ Maggie told her. ‘What’s left’s a bit thin an’ all . . . ask Mrs P for more veggies in the next lot.’
On her way home that night, sitting on the back of Miss Boote’s bicycle, Sara thought about her evening. She had enjoyed it tremendously, even though what she had secretly hoped for had not come to pass. She had not found herself serving either the missing Carbery or the other one, Grace, the older girl that Jess had mentioned. Well, if she had served them they had both changed, which, Sara thought ruefully, would not be out of the question – she herself had changed.
But she had looked very hard at every child aged around seven or around eleven; that was how old Mollie and Grace would be, by now, she had calculated, and none of them had had either Mollie’s wonderful red-gold curls or Grace’s extraordinary likeness to her elder sister.
But even if I’ve not actually helped either of those children, I’ve helped others whose plight may be similar, Sara told herself robustly, as Miss Boote dismounted from the bicycle and she slid off the back. It would have been an
unbelievable
coincidence had I met either of them on my very first foray into trying to help the poor.
unbelievable
coincidence had I met either of them on my very first foray into trying to help the poor.
And presently, over a hot cup of cocoa, she told Miss Boote that she had been looking for the Carbery children, just in case her friend knew of them.
‘I’ve not heard of ’em,’ Miss Boote said when Sara finished the story. ‘But has it occurred to you, queen, that they might have bettered theirselves by now? They might be doin’ all right, Mr Carbery could’ve finished wi’ the booze and the kids might be properly fed an’ that. You never know. It does happen, with God’s help.’
It was a cheering thought to go to bed on, and Sara fell asleep happily, hoping against hope that Miss Boote was right. But though the dream hadn’t troubled her for years, that night she dreamed of Jess, and the tragedy, and it seemed to her that Jess was trying to tell her something, trying to tell her that she must keep on looking, because there was something she could do for Jess’s little sister. And in the dream Jess came right up to Sara and whispered in her ear and Sara suddenly knew what it was Jess wanted and what she herself must do.
But when she woke in the early hours she could remember only the unhappiness on Jess’s small, pale face, and a sense of loss.
Next morning Sara was late up, but despite this she was extremely cheerful. She sang as she washed and dressed and, in the kitchen, ate a hearty breakfast of porridge and toast.
‘Who’s left you a hundred quid?’ her grandmother asked, cocking her head on one side. ‘You sound happy this mornin’, our Sara!’
‘I am. Until last night, Gran, I felt so sorry for myself you wouldn’t believe. I told myself I was an unloved child, that my parents hadn’t prepared me for real life, that I was a failure. I – I don’t mind telling
you
, Gran, but I’ve set my heart on finding that Carbery baby and making sure she’s all right, so the soup kitchen seemed a good place to start. I didn’t see any sign of her, but somehow I’m sure I will, one of these days. And last night I met someone much worse off than myself, and she was cheerful, sensible . . . she counted blessings she didn’t have, and was happy. So who am I to moan and grumble just because my parents didn’t care for me much, and I don’t have a job or any visible means of support?’
you
, Gran, but I’ve set my heart on finding that Carbery baby and making sure she’s all right, so the soup kitchen seemed a good place to start. I didn’t see any sign of her, but somehow I’m sure I will, one of these days. And last night I met someone much worse off than myself, and she was cheerful, sensible . . . she counted blessings she didn’t have, and was happy. So who am I to moan and grumble just because my parents didn’t care for me much, and I don’t have a job or any visible means of support?’
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