Swansea Girls (4 page)

‘Go quietly down the passage.’

Katie didn’t need the warning. Opening the only other door in the kitchen as noiselessly as she could, she slipped off her shoes and tiptoed over the worn quarry tiles, past her parents’ bedroom door on the left and down the passage. Of the three rooms in the basement, the one at the end would have admitted the most daylight if it hadn’t been partitioned into two. The smaller of the two cubicles had an alcove, which her mother had curtained off to hold her clothes, and a single bed, which took up ninety per cent of the remaining space. It was also as black as a coal-hole, because the window was in the cubicle shared by her brothers.

Retrieving the bag from a shelf in her makeshift wardrobe, Katie retraced her steps, but not quickly enough.

Her parents’ bedroom door slammed back on its hinges and her father staggered out on bare feet, braces dangling over crumpled, baggy trousers, his flies open below his beer-stained vest. He stood in the doorway of the kitchen, effectively blocking her escape. ‘Tea, woman,’ he growled.

‘It’s all ready for you, Ernie, bar the fresh tea, and I put the kettle on when I heard you stirring,’ Annie muttered nervously.

‘Is that the bloody time?’

‘It’s not half past seven.’

‘You know I wanted to be out by opening time.’

‘You hadn’t had any sleep since yesterday. I thought ...’

‘You thought – you thought!’ He stepped into the kitchen and scowled at the table. ‘Is this all the ham there is? You gave the rest to those bloody boys, didn’t you?’

‘No, Ernie. I didn’t. I swear it. They had cheese like they always do.’

‘You bloody liar!’

‘There’s a drop of tea in the pot. It’s still warm.’ Annie fluttered around him like a sparrow feeding a fat cuckoo that has taken possession of her nest. ‘Would you like it to be going on with until the kettle boils?’

‘Knowing you, it’ll be stewed.’

‘Shall I cut more bread and butter?’ Annie moved to the breadboard after she poured his tea.

Steeling herself, Katie prayed that for once – just this once – she’d be able to walk through the kitchen and out of the door without her father passing comment or creating a scene. Summoning her courage, she forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

‘’Bye, Mam.’ She walked behind her father’s chair, leaving as wide a berth as the room and furniture would allow. Kissing Annie’s reddened cheek she headed for the door.

‘And where are you off to, miss, all dolled up like that?’ Ernie pushed his chair back from the table.

‘The Pier.’

‘You can’t be paying your mother enough if you can afford to buy a new dress.’

‘It’s Judy’s.’ Katie knew she’d made a mistake the second the words were out of her mouth.

‘So, you go begging round your rich friends for castoffs now.’

‘Girls are always borrowing one another’s clothes, Ernie.’ Annie hurried to the table, picking up the teapot as Katie backed towards the door.

‘I’ll not allow a daughter of mine to go out in another girl’s clothes so everyone in the street can point their finger and say I don’t bring in enough to keep my family decent.’

‘Please, Ernie, no one points ...’

‘This is your fault, Annie.’

Katie winced as her father’s fist connected with the table sending his cup and saucer rattling. He raised his arm. Annie stepped back, but not far enough. The back of Ernie’s hand slammed across her face. Annie dropped the teapot. It shattered in a mass of brown clay shards, damp clumps of tea leaves and sticky brown puddles as she reeled into the Belfast sink.

‘Hit her again and I’ll knock you into the middle of next week.’

Katie sank down on the step as her brother Martin stepped through the door that connected their basement with the rest of the house.

‘You?’ Ernie sneered as Martin moved between him and Annie.

‘It’s my fault ...’

‘It’s not your fault, Mam, it never is. Jack and I could hear him upstairs. So could Mrs Lannon and we were helping her move furniture on the top floor.’

‘I pay the rent. I’ll make as much noise as I like.’

‘You can have a brass band playing down here for all I care. But you’re not hitting Mam again. Not while I’m here to stop it.’ Unlike Ernie, Martin was calm, composed and completely in control. Katie had never been so afraid of, or for him. ‘I mean it. Touch Mam again and I’ll hit you harder than you ever hit any of us.’

‘You young ...’ Ernie drew back his fist. Martin caught it mid-air as their brother Jack walked in behind him. Gripping his father’s arm, Martin flung Ernie into the only easy chair in the room. Ernie jerked back. The thin cushion proved no protection against the wooden frame. Katie heard her father’s head crack against the top bar. Dazed, he stared up at Martin in disbelief.

Wiping her eyes on the dishcloth, Annie winced gingerly as she moved from the sink towards the chair.

‘He’s all right, just stunned.’ Martin turned away in disgust as his mother hovered over his father.

‘Better all round if you’d killed him,’ Jack pronounced acidly.

‘Now I’m home from National Service and bringing in a wage, Mam, you and the kids can move out of here. I’ll look after you.’ Martin glared contemptuously at his father. ‘And better than he ever has.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Annie broke in fervently, pressing the damp dishcloth to the back of Ernie’s head.

‘No, I don’t. I don’t understand why any woman would stay with a man who beats her.’ Martin gripped the back of a kitchen chair so tightly that Katie flinched, expecting the bar to snap. ‘Mam, take a hard look at yourself and this place.’

‘You bastard,’ Ernie mumbled drunkenly. ‘Home less than a week and you raise your hand to your father. Is that what they taught you in the army? Well, I’ll not have you back in this house ...’

‘I only returned to this pigsty to help Mam.’

‘I’ll ...’ Ernie left the chair, tried to square up to his son and crumpled in a heap on the floor.

Annie fell to her knees beside him.

‘He’s piss-drunk, Mam.’

‘Less of that language in front of Mam and Katie,’ Martin warned his brother.

‘All high-class and refined now you’ve been away, aren’t you. Well, I’ll tell you something for nothing. You haven’t a bloody clue what it’s been like for us back here with him while you’ve been off gallivanting, seeing the world.’

‘I said no swearing in front of Mam and Katie and I meant it.’

‘Or what? You’ll thump me like you thumped him? Or do you only pick on drunks?’ Elbowing Martin aside, Jack scooped Ernie none too gently from the floor, slung him over his shoulder and carried him into the passage. Opening the door to the bedroom, he tossed him on the bed.

‘Martin – what your father said – when he wakes up you’d better say sorry.’

‘Not to that animal.’

‘You know how he is,’ Annie begged. ‘There’ll be no peace ...’

‘There’s never been any of that in this house, Mam, and there won’t be while you stay with him.’

Annie stared at the mess of broken crockery and spilled tea on the floor, and began to cry. Soft, fat, silent tears that tore at Martin’s heartstrings.

‘This is my fault. I shouldn’t have borrowed Judy’s dress.’ Katie crouched and gathered the larger pieces of teapot, all the while staring at the floor so her mother and brother wouldn’t see her own tears.

‘There’s only one person to blame and it’s neither of you.’ Martin lifted the dustpan and brush out from under the sink.

‘Out the way, both of you. Katie, you’ll dirty Judy’s dress.’

‘I can wash it.’

‘If you’re going out you’d best be on your way.’

Martin helped his sister to her feet. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of Mam.’ He gave her a reassuring hug.

‘I don’t feel like going out now.’

‘Best you don’t stay here. You’ve enough money?’

‘I kept back five shillings.’ As she opened her bag, her face fell.

‘I saw Dad in your room earlier.’ Putting his hand in his back trouser pocket, he handed her a ten-shilling note. ‘Try and forget this happened. Have a good time.’

‘Marty ...’

‘I’ll be leaving but I’ll not go far without you.’ He pulled out his handkerchief and blotted her tears. ‘Go on.’ He smiled. ‘You’ll miss the other girls if you hang around.’

‘You really going?’ Jack shovelled a pile of old comics on to the floor so he could sit on the windowsill.

‘Yes.’ Martin flicked the catches on his case, opened it flat on the bed they shared and separated his clothes from Jack’s on the rail.

‘It must be nice to be able to afford to move on when you feel like it.’

‘Army pay doesn’t allow for much in the way of savings.’

‘You’ve enough set aside to put this bloody mess of a family behind you.’

‘Jack ...’

‘It’s all right, I’d probably do the same in your shoes.’

Martin looked at his brother and saw misery and disappointment behind the swagger and bravado. ‘I shouldn’t have come back, not here. It was hard enough when I was away, thinking of Mam and you and Katie getting the rough edge of Dad’s hand, but my being here only makes things worse for Mam. And I can’t stay and watch it, Jack. I’m sorry.’ He pleaded for understanding. ‘I just can’t.’

‘I could come with you.’

‘You will as soon as I find somewhere big enough for all of us. But I don’t know where I’ll be sleeping tonight.’

‘I’ve slept rough before. There’s still a lot of houses round here with air-raid shelters. Some of them aren’t that damp.’

‘And Mam and Katie?’

‘You heard Mam. She won’t leave him and Katie won’t leave without her.’

‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but please stay until I find somewhere decent for all of us. I’ll sleep easier knowing you’re here if Dad decides to have another go.’

‘The last time I got between him and Mam was the week I got out of Borstal. He broke my arm. That’s why my call-up’s been delayed for a year.’

‘You never wrote ...’

‘It mended,’ Jack interrupted, in a tone that warned Martin to drop the subject.

‘I’ll find someone to put me up for tonight and I’ll start looking for rooms first thing tomorrow.’ Snapping the locks on the case, Martin lifted it from the bed and walked to the door. He glanced back at the double bed covered with a patchwork of rags that had been worn even before his mother had laboriously stitched them together. ‘I know there’s a shortage of rooms around here but I’ll try to find a place for the four of us. Then there’ll be no more broken arms or black eyes and, if I have to, I’ll carry Mam there and lock her in so she can’t come back here.’

‘Between us we could ...’ Jack’s voice trailed as he realised the magnitude of what he was about to suggest.

‘Tackle him? We’d probably kill him and there are laws against that.’

‘You haven’t been here.’

‘But I’m here now. And like I said to Katie, I’ll not go far.’

‘But you won’t be in this bloody house.’

‘Watch over Katie and Mam until I can get the three of you out.’

‘We’ve managed without you for two years. We’ll manage again.’

‘I promise you won’t have to manage much longer, Jack. I’m going to change things, for all of us.’

‘Seeing is believing.’ Jack turned his back as Martin offered him his hand.

‘Is there anything I can say to persuade you to leave with me?’ Martin stood in the kitchen, watching his mother fiddle with the food she’d laid out on the table for his father. ‘I haven’t much money but I have enough for a couple of days’ bed and breakfast for the four of us while I look for rooms,’ he pressed.

‘Rooms round here are like gold dust and your father’s always fine after he’s slept it off.’

‘Fine enough to hit you again.’

‘I deserved it. I knew he wanted to go out and I didn’t wake him.’

‘Mam, sometimes you can be downright stupid. If you won’t think of yourself, think of Katie. She’s terrified to draw breath in front of him. And Jack – eighteen and already served two years in Borstal. Before I’d been back in Swansea five minutes, I was told he’d become wilder than ever since his release.’

‘Jack’s just growing up.’ She averted her face as he tried to kiss her cheek, so he wouldn’t see the reddish-purple portent of fresh bruises.

‘If you won’t go, I’ll still take Katie and Jack.’

‘He won’t let you, Martin, and they’re under age.’

Feeling frustrated, helpless and weary of useless argument, he went to the door. ‘I’m going.’

‘Marty, try to see things my way. I married your father for better for worse.’

‘And got the worse,’ he observed bitterly. ‘I’ll not go far. I’ll try to get a room in this street.’

‘Is that wise? Your dad ...’

‘I know the thought of me earning and paying lodge to someone other than him will hurt his pride and his beer money, and they’re the only things he cares about, but I’ll not move away from Carlton Terrace. Not while you and the kids are here. First thing tomorrow I’ll look for a place to rent that’s big enough for all of us. Law or no law, Katie and Jack won’t take much persuading to join me. And I promise, if you move in you won’t have to worry about housekeeping. I’ll pay the rent, bills and put food on the table – and more and better than he pays for.’

‘You can drop us anywhere here.’ Helen looked around uneasily as Joe slowed the car and turned left off the Mumbles Road on to the crowded lane that led down to the Pier.

‘I may as well take you down to the bottom.’

‘There’s no need.’ Helen dug her fingers into the back of Joe’s seat as she leaned forward and scanned a group of boys.

‘Looking for someone you don’t want me to see?’

‘Leave off, you two.’ Judy opened her evening bag and pulled out her compact.

‘I said anywhere ...’

‘And I can’t stop the car in the middle of this crowd,’ Joe snapped, turning the wheel sharply to the right.

‘Thanks a bundle, Joe,’ Judy complained. ‘I’ve now got lipstick halfway up my cheek.’

‘Here.’ Lily handed Judy a handkerchief.

‘I said this is fine!’

‘I heard you the first time, Helen.’ Joe pulled in close to the rock face on their right.

‘Thank you for the ride.’ Lily smiled, hoping to deflect any more argument.

Turning off the ignition, Joe opened his door as far as it would go without hitting the cliff, stepped out and walked round to the passenger side. Opening Lily’s door, he offered her his hand as Helen, Katie and Judy spilled out of the back.