Minerva's Stepchild Read online

  The front door bell clanged sonorously through the house. I expected our landlady to clatter down the stairs to open it, but there was no sound from the upper regions of the house, so very diffidently I rose and answered it.

  At the door, stood an enormously tall man in long, black skirts. In his arms he carried Fiona.

  TWO

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  I quailed before the apparition on the doorstep—it reminded me of an outsize bat. But the voice that issued from the apparition's bearded face was gentle and melodious, and asked to see my mother.

  Nervously, I invited him into the hall, and he slid a white-faced Fiona to the floor, while I went to see Mother. She told me to bring the gentleman to our room, and for the first time since our arrival, a slight animation was apparent in her face.

  He entered, leading Fiona by the hand, and immediately my mother assumed the gracious manner of an accomplished hostess.

  "Father!" Her voice was bell-like. "This is a pleasure! Come in. Do sit down." She ignored poor Fiona, who came and stood by me, and stared dumbly at our newfound friend.

  Father? I had never seen an Anglican priest in high church robes, nor yet a Roman Catholic one. I stood, with fingers pressed against my mouth, and wondered what further troubles this visit portended.

  He was explaining to Mother that the school was an Anglican Church school. After Fiona had come out of her faint, the headmistress had wormed out of her something of what was happening to us, and had then telephoned him. The descent of four well-dressed, well-behaved children on a slum school had already caused some stir among the teachers (and considerable jeering and catcalling among the other pupils), so the headmistress had asked him to call upon us. Could he be of help?

  Mother poured out a condensed version of the story of Father's losses. He was a Liverpool man originally, she said, and had come back to his native city in the hope of earning his living there. To me, the well-edited tale still presented a picture of foolishness, extravagance, and carelessness. But now, at last, I knew why we were in Liverpool and what the word "bankruptcy" really meant.

  I knew, with terrible clarity, that I would never see my bosom friend, Joan, again, never play with my doll's house, never be the captain of the hockey team or act in the Easter pageant. My little world was swept away.

  I looked at Alan, equally silent by the window. His eyes met mine, and we shared the same sense of desolation. Then his golden eyelashes covered his eyes and shone with tears, half-hidden.

  "Have you no relations who would help you?" asked the distressed young priest.

  "I have no relations," said Mother coldly, "and my husband's have refused to know us at present."

  The priest combed his beard with his fingers, and smiled when Avril tried to reach up to touch it. Within thirty seconds she had established herself triumphantly on his knee, fi-om which safe throne she surveyed the rest of the family gleefully.

  "There is a great deal of unemployment in Liverpool, " he said. "I fear your husband may encounter difiicult^ in finding work. "

  Mother just stared at him disconsolately.

  At that moment Father entered, dragging his feet. The children ignored him, the exhausted baby slept. Desperate to fill the silence, I cried gladly, "Daddy!"

  He managed to smile faintly.

  Mother introduced him formally to the priest, and he sat down and waited politely to hear why the priest was there, rubbing his blue hands together to restore the circulation.

  Explanations over, the priest said to him, "First things first. You must have a fire or your youngest child will die. Probably I can persuade old Wright to bring up a hundredweight of coal. I have some small funds and I will bring some food. .After you have eaten, perhaps I can advise you a little. "

  He put his hand out over the children's heads in a gesture of blessing, said good-bye, and let himself out of the house.

  The boys immediately broke into jubilant conversation at the idea of food, and gradually Father began to relax a little. He had spent hour upon hour in the employment exchange, being chivvied from one huge queue to another, until he had finally got himself registered for work as a clerk. He was not eligible for

  unemployment insurance since he had never contributed to that fund, and the employment exchange clerk just laughed when he asked about jobs. There were, he said, a hundred men for every job, and my father's age—thirty-eight—was a grave obstacle.

  He had hardly finished telling us his adventures when the doorbell rang again. I answered it quickly.

  A surly voice inquired where it should put t' coal, and not to keep im waiting cos e adn't all night to run after folks as adn't enough sense to get it in the daytime.

  The landlady had shown me where our coal could be stored, and the coalman clomped through the house behind me, and heaved the coal expertly into a broken-down box in an outhouse. Then, still muttering about improvident folks, he stomped back through the passage and departed into the darkness.

  I flew in to Mother, and it seemed no time at all before we had a huge fire glowing, with Father's coat and jacket and Edward's diaper steaming in fi-ont of it. The cloying stench of these garments drying filled the room, but we did not care. We learned then that, when one has to choose between warmth and being half-fed, warmth is the better choice.

  An hour later the priest presented himself again, carrying two large boxes and accompanied by a boy carrying two more. The boy dropped his burdens on the step and trotted away. The priest came in, smiling at the sight of the comforted children kneeling by the fire, and, with Father's aid, he unpacked the boxes.

  The table was soon loaded with six loaves of bread, oatmeal, potatoes, sugar, margarine, a tin of baby milk, two bottles of milk, salt, bacon, some tea, a bar of common soap, a pile of tom-up old sheeting (for cleaning, and for the baby, he explained apologetically) and, wonder of wonders, a towel, a big one.

  The priest sat down, and called the boys to him, while Father and I made baby formula and cereal, and Alan collected all the dishes he could find. It felt oddly like a Christmas celebration. Even Mother seemed to come a little out of her apathy as she sipped tea and ate cereal. I fed the baby while the children stuffed themselves with cereal, bread, and margarine and chattered excitedly. At the priest's insistence. Father and I finally ate, and Father became more his old lively self.

  We boiled a quart of water, and I took Fiona, Brian, Tony,

  and Avril to the bathroom, and washed their hands, faces, and knees. They had not had their underclothes off for thirty-six hours and did not smell very sweet, even after my washing efforts, but the beds stank so much that they were bound to smell by morning anyway.

  Afterward I took them into the bedroom, tucked their overcoats over them, heard their prayers, and returned to Alan and my parents.

  Unemployment was so rampant in Liverpool that the young priest felt it necessary to warn Father that getting work would be a very slow process—he was too kind to say virtually impossible. He suggested that Father should apply for parish relief.

  "What is that?" asked Father.

  "Well, it's really the old poor-law relief for the destitute, but it is now administered by the city through the public-assistance committee—allowances rather than committal to the workhouse."

  Father went white at the mention of the workhouse. I stared in shocked horror at the priest. I had read Charles Dickens—I knew all about workhouses.

  "I see," said Father, his voice not much more than a whisper. "I suppose I have no alternative."

  The priest asked about our accommodation and sat drumming his fingertips on his knee, when he was told that our landlady wanted her rooms back at the end of the week.

  At last he spoke.

  "There are a lot of older houses in the south end of the city. You might find a couple of rooms in one of those. Some of them are still quite respectable. There is also a High Church school in that area. However, you
might have to pay twopence a week for each child—and that might pose a problem."

  Father said optimistically that such a small amount would not be a problem, once we got settled.

  The priest opened his mouth to speak and then decided otherwise. We would soon learn.

  "Would you like to ask me about anything else?" he inquired.

  "No, thank you," said Mother suddenly. "You have been most kind." Her gray eyes were steely as she held out her hand in dismissal.

  I was siiq^rised at her firmness, and then remembered that neither she nor Father had ever had any great respect for the Church. In addition, the priest represented to her the class of people who, she must have felt, had left her in the lurch when she most needed friends.

  Father was obviously loath to let the priest go, and yet was afraid that, if he said anything. Mother might start another bitter family row.

  The priest settled the question by getting up abruptly. He ignored Mother's hand but inclined his head slightly toward her, as he moved through the crowded room to the door. Alan, Father, and I hastened to see him out, with many protestations of gratitude.

  I closed the door, and stood leaning against the inside of it, while the others went back to the family. I had hoped so much that the young priest would have noticed that there were five children of school age in the family and realized that only four had been enrolled in his school. I had envisaged him instructing Father to send me with the others for lessons the following morning. But he had not noticed. I fought back my disappointment and told myself that I would probably go to school as soon as we were settled in a more permanent home.

  The untold amount of anguish that I could have been saved if the good priest had only counted his little flock is hard to imagine. The education committee would surely have enforced my right to schooling had he reported this discrepancy.

  I slunk back into the room.

  "A capable man," Mother was saying to Father, with a look that added "unlike you."

  Before this subtle barb could be plucked out and shot back, she announced that she would go up to the bathroom. Hitherto, she had managed to use an ancient, cracked chamberpot found under one of the beds.

  Refusing Father's help with a lofty air, but using me and anything else she could to hold onto, she slowly eased her way into the hall and halfway up the narrow staircase. This was her first real effort to walk since her return from hospital, and she came down the stairs by going from step to step on her bottom. In spite of all the calamities she was undergoing, her strong body was healing, and all that was required to return her to reasonable physical

  health was the will to try to strengthen her muscles. Her pretty, pink wool dress was already spoiled where the baby had wetted it, and the journey down the dusty stairs did not improve it.

  The following day, she pottered round the room quite a lot, while Father went in search of that mysterious personage, "The Parish." The children, including Fiona, went to school, and I again stayed at home. Father had made the fire, and I managed to heat some water and wash Edward. When the sun came out about midmorning, Mother ordered me to take him outside and walk up and down in the sun.

  I was gone in a flash, the startled child whimpering at my sudden movements.

  The bliss of being out of the fetid room overwhelmed me, although the street was not much better. But the wind, sweeping in from the estuary, was invigorating despite the gas fumes it carried. A blank brick wall shielded one side of the street, and from behind it came the shuddering sounds of shunting trains.

  Our house was one of a row of shabby, jerry-built Edwardian buildings, with a grocery store at one end of the block and a public house at the other end. Toddlers with nmny noses and sores on their faces scrabbled around in the gutter. An older boy flitted barefoot up the road and called something insolent after me. At the door of the public house, droopy men in shabby raincoats waited for opening time. They stared at me. I must have been an unusual sight in my private-school uniform, ugly velour hat rammed neatly down on to my forehead, and carrying an almost new baby up and down the pavement.

  A sudden diversion brought a number of women to their doors, and in some houses ragged blinds and curtains were hiistily drawn.

  A funeral procession came slowly down the street, led by a gaunt man in deep black. He was followed by the horse-drawn hearse, a wonderful creation of black and silver, with glass side panels and small, black curtains drawn back to expose the fine wooden coffin. The four horses were well matched blacks and as they paced slowly iilong, they tossed their heads as if to show off^ the long black plumes fastened to their bridles. They were driven by a coachman in a black cloak and top hat.

  The men outside the pubHc house, with one accord, removed their caps, and the toddlers scampered out of the gutter and took refuge behind me.

  The hearse was followed by a carriage in which sat a woman dressed in heavy widow's weeds, dabbing her purple face with a white handkerchief edged with black. Occasionally, she would bow, in imitation of royalty, to one of the onlookers. Opposite her, sat two pale, acne-pocked young men in black suits too large for them.

  The widow's carriage was followed by five other carriages, each filled with black-clad mourners.

  "Smith always does 'is funerals very nice," said a voice behind me, rich with approval.

  I glanced back quickly.

  Two fat women, their arms tucked into their aprons to keep them warm, had come out to see the procession.

  "e does. Better'n old Johnson, e did her daughter's wedding, too."

  There was a faint chuckle fi*om the first woman. "She's got more money to spend on 'er 'usband's funeral than she 'ad on the wedding, what with is insurance and all." There was silence for a moment. "Ah wonder if 'er Joe will keep on the rag-and-bone business?"

  Her companion murmured some reply, but I was too intrigued at the idea of a ra.g-and-bone man having such a large funeral procession to be interested in them further. Everybody I had seen that morning had looked so poor, and yet one of their number was being laid to rest like a prince. Surely the money such a thing would cost was needed for food.

  My spirits drooped as the cortege turned the comer and disappeared. Like most children, I was afi'aid of death, and the funeral seemed an ill omen to me.

  I turned, and went indoors.

  Alan came home at lunch time with a black eye. A boy had asked him if he carried a marble in his mouth, because he spoke so queerly. Alan had replied that he spoke properly, not like a half-baked savage. The half-baked savage had then blacked his eye.

  "He's got a black eye, too, " said Alan with some satisfaction as

  I put a wet piece of cloth over the injured part. "You're lucky not to have to go to this school—even the girls fight."

  "I'd like to go, just to get out of this horrid house, " I said vehemently. "And, oh, Alan, I'm so afraid Father won't bother about sending me. "

  "He'll have to send you. Isn't there a law about it?"

  "Yes, there is."

  "Well, the school inspector will tell him he must."

  I removed the wet cloth from hi eye and cooled it again under the tap. "If he knew I existed, I expect he would, " I agreed. "But, Alan, I was thinking about it all night, and if Father never tells them about me, they'll never know I'm here. "

  He looked at me uneasily. "Probably when we get a proper house, he'll arrange for you to go."

  "I hope so." But I remembered the funeral and my stomach muscles were clenched with apprehension.

  Father returned at lunchtime with food vouchers to last us for two days, while "The Parish" made inquiries as to the rates of relief paid in the small town from which we came. Apparently, this town would have to reimburse the Liverpool public-assistance committee for any relief given to us. It was expected that we would be granted forty-three shillings per week. This sum must cover everything for nine people—rent, food, clothing, heating, lighting, washing, doctor, medicines, haircuts and the thousand and one needs of a growing fami
ly.

  Mother looked at him disbelievingly.

  "It's impossible, " she said, her unpainted face puckered up with surprise. She was used to spending more than that on a hat.

  "I can't help it, " Father said helplessly. "That's what they told me. "

  He sat, rubbing his cold hands gently together to restore the circulation, anxiety apparent in every line of him.

  "I must obtain a position. But I don't even know anybody whom I could ask about a post."

  I remembered that when mother wanted a servant she sometimes used to advertise in the newspaper, and I suggested that perhaps other posts were advertised also.

  This idea was a revelation to Father, and he hailed it with

  delight. "By Jove, the girl is right. Look in the newspapers."

  We succeeded in borrowing the landlady's newspaper, after promising faithfully to return it intact.

  And so began an endless writing of replies to advertisements on pennyworths of notepaper. Father did not know that firms frequently got seventy to eighty replies to an advertisement for a clerk, and that they just picked a few envelopes at random fi-om the mighty pile, knowing that almost every applicant would be qualified for the post advertised.

  Two days later "The Parish" presented us with thirty-eight shillings, which represented forty-three shillings less five shilfings for the food vouchers already supplied.

  Only two more days were left of our tenancy of the rooms, and our landlady had already reminded us, quite civilly, that she would require the rooms at the end of the week. Mother said, therefore, that she would take the money fi-om "The Parish" and, with the aid of a taxi, go to the south end of the town to see if she could find us a home.

  Father protested that she was not fit for the journey, but she insisted coldly that she could manage and, after instructing me to look after baby Edward and Avril, she sent him to arrange for a taxi.