September Starlings Read online

  But the trouble with Anne was that she was persistent. ‘They are always kissing,’ she repeated stolidly. ‘And there’s no babies. I asked them about it and they said they weren’t going to have any more children.’

  I scratched my nose – just as I always did when flummoxed. ‘Perhaps they only want you. Children are very expensive, you know.’ My mother went on constantly about how much I cost to feed and clothe. ‘So if they only want you, they don’t do the magic spell first.’

  ‘Eh?’ Anne, a practical soul, did not go a bundle on sorcery. ‘What spell?’ She fixed me with a hard stare, pulled at the sleeve of my hideous navy blue uniform gaberdine. ‘There’s no such thing as a spell except in stories.’

  My imagination ploughed another furrow from the depths of which I would be lucky to climb. I puffed out my chest and looked at her with disdain. ‘Rita’s dad is a doctor and her mother is a midwife, so Rita knows all about the special things that happen to grown-ups.’ Thus I gave birth to another piece of McNally wisdom. It hung in the air for a few seconds before my cousin pounced on it. ‘Sometimes, you are so daft, Laura.’ She paused for a second or two. ‘Go on, then.’ The tone was challenging. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well …’ I looked quickly over my shoulder into the garden behind us, wore the air of a secret agent in the midst of some world-altering intrigue. ‘Listen, Anne. Never turn round three times on the spot before you kiss a boy.’

  She made a loud vomiting sound. ‘I don’t kiss boys. They smell of dirt and Derbac soap and you never know whether they’ve got a spider or a worm in their lunchbox. There’s always worms at our school and frogs and beetles and caterpillars.’

  I liked the sound of her school. All we got in our St Mary’s dining-room was an overcooked dinner with watery vegetables and grace before meals, grace after meals, lectures all through meals. We couldn’t even talk at the table, let alone compare our back-to-front ladybirds. During lunch, we were supposed to be ‘ladies’ while the Mother of the convent read out stories about Jesus and Noah and some poor fellow whose head finished up on a plate. John the Baptist put most of us off our treacle sponge, while Jonah’s brief residence in the belly of a whale was hardly designed to improve the appetite.

  The nuns were always harping on about gratitude. We were to be grateful for our school, for our parents, for the smelly cabbage on our plates. We were to be grateful for our teachers, for the weather, for the fact that we weren’t starving like some black babies in Africa. We all adopted one of these babies for five shillings and were allowed to choose a name. My baby was called Maureen and she sat next to my beaker all through lunch. We had to look at our babies and pray for them and hope that they all had a nice plateful of smelly cabbage and tough meat.

  Each girl had what the sisters called a serviette, and though this item was provided to protect clothing, any spot of gravy or sago pudding had to be washed out immediately by the offending pupil. Before the meal, our hands were examined. Alter the meal, both sides of our serviettes were scrutinized. ‘I wish I could come to your school,’ I groaned.

  She laughed. ‘Your mother would go mad if she knew we were meeting on the way home.’

  She would have gone madder still had she discovered that I owned one of Mr Evans’s cats, a little grey one called Solomon, and that Solomon was in residence with Anne and Uncle Freddie and Auntie Maisie. Anne was very fair about my cat. She never called him hers, tried not to get close to him. Anne was and is the most equitable person I have ever known. I attempted a careless shrug. ‘Bugger her. She’s never in when I get home. I have to get the key from the shed and let myself in.’

  Anne stopped laughing. ‘She’ll be out with one of her boyfriends,’ she whispered. ‘I heard my mam saying something about it. She said Liza’s never happy unless someone’s crawling all over her and calling her beautiful.’

  I stared blankly across the road. My dad was terribly busy, had sunk every halfpenny of profit from the shop into his new venture. Mother was buying lots of dresses and costumes, had three pairs of high-heeled shoes. And she no longer worked, so she was spending Dad’s money instead of her own. We couldn’t afford any of it. ‘She’s always dressed up,’ I grumbled. ‘And I’m learning to cook things because she can’t.’

  Anne placed a companionable hand on my chilled fingers. With all the wisdom of the mature eight-year-old, she comforted me by saying, ‘The boyfriends will be paying for the new clothes, not your dad.’

  ‘Oh.’ What else could I have said?

  ‘With any luck,’ confided Anne. ‘She’ll take a fancy to one of them and buggar off to the other side of town. My dad says you and Uncle John would be better off without her, ’cos she’s a disgrace.’

  It isn’t easy knowing that your mother is a disgrace. It was becoming obvious that Liza McNally had moved on after her years of wartime patriotism, had lost that bevy of admiring sycophants who haunted our house once a fortnight during the conflict. She was out for some fun and she would bring trouble on my father’s head, I felt that in my bones. For my own part, I was not concerned about Mother’s behaviour. It suited me to have peace after school sometimes, while I actually enjoyed the culinary efforts I made for myself and for my father.

  Anne leapt down from the wall. ‘You go first. She might be in today, and we’d best not be seen together in case she’s in a mood.’

  I ran the rest of the distance home, sped past the house as usual, made for the shed where the spare key was kept. I unlocked the door, replaced the key under its plantpot in the shed, walked into the kitchen. ‘No!’ The scream pierced its way past the slightly open door to the dining-room.

  ‘It is my business.’ This was my father speaking. ‘And I shall employ whomever I choose.’

  It was a large kitchen, because Mother had hired a builder to extend it into the rear garden. The dining-room was also spacious, but I felt as if I were standing right next to my mother, since her voice was shrill with anger. ‘The Co-op has no further use for him. They’ve able-bodied men now with strong legs and a bit of brainpower. He was bound to get the sack sooner or later. So you are taking pity on him, is that it? How will you cope with a cripple managing your stupid factory?’

  Dad’s voice was quieter, so I had to creep across the kitchen to hear his words properly. ‘Of course, you would know all about the able-bodied demobbed men, wouldn’t you? After all, you did ask me to give the job to one of your escorts.’

  Even her breathing was noisy by this time, rattling through a short pause while she considered her response. ‘David Moxton is my friend’s husband and I simply—’

  ‘Friend? How can Ada Moxton be your friend when you are intimate with her husband? Liza, you are behaving like a whore. And when you’re not behaving like a woman of the street, you come over all bountiful, handing out jobs like Maundy money. This is my concern, my factory, so I shall choose my workers with care.’

  She lit a cigarette. I heard the match trembling on the rough edge of the box, heard the strike when it came, listened as she grabbed a deep breath of noxious courage. ‘You never take me anywhere. Every single hour, you are with your customers, your inventions, your daughter. You have no time for me, so I go and—’

  ‘I’ve time for Laura. If I had the opportunity, I’d spend every day with the child.’ Though he kept his tone soft, I knew that my mother was wary, because she stopped her screeching each time he spoke.

  ‘You never wanted her,’ he continued. ‘I married you because you said you were expecting my child. You lied then, and you have continued dishonest for evermore. When Laura was eventually on her way, you resented that little unborn baby, became ugly in your own eyes. I’ve watched you with my daughter, and you are an appalling mother. And now you are cavorting about like a cheap trollop. Have you any idea of how you look? It’s like having a gangster’s moll in the house. This whole town is laughing at you.’

  My father was not one for long and meaningless conversations. He was economical with words, so I knew
that he must have felt very strongly to talk so clearly, almost elaborately.

  Mother was having trouble digesting the concept of being a laughing stock. ‘I have not been a subject of ridicule,’ she said loftily. ‘Furthermore, I have not been unfaithful.’

  ‘That is no concern of mine,’ he replied. ‘All I worry about is Laura. How will she react when she grows up to understand that her mother is a tart?’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Her rope was shortening – I could tell by the voice that she was nearing the end of her patience. ‘Nonsense,’ she snapped again. ‘And no-one is laughing at me, John McNally. It’s you they mock, you! What would they say if I told them about our sleeping arrangements? You’re not a man, never were a man. Which man insists on separate beds because of his so-called insomnia? What sort of man never touches his wife?’

  ‘The sort who would rather reach out to Satan.’ The short pause that followed was punctuated by a gasp from her. ‘I am the sort of man who has too much self-esteem to meddle with the unclean.’ He stopped again, coughed, raised his tone slightly. ‘Laura will be here in a moment. For her sake, this will stop now. You may, if you wish, remain under my roof for the sake of continuity, for Laura. She would be ridiculed if we separated, especially while she is with Catholics. I shall employ Freddie, because he is a trustworthy man, far too sensible for your gin-soaked advances. And you, my dear wife, have my permission to return to hell’s flames and enjoy yourself.’

  ‘You … you have a woman!’ she cried. ‘You are … having an affair, aren’t you?’

  ‘I will not dignify that question by awarding it an answer,’ he said. ‘Think what you like. I am here for Laura and only for her. And you are here to make things look right for our small-minded community. Keep your activities to the centre of town, will you? And try not to be recognized – you could perhaps try a disguise – sunglasses?’ Even I was able to identify the sarcasm in his words. ‘I shall go upstairs now for a rest. You would exhaust the resources of a saint.’

  I didn’t know why, am ignorant to this day of the reason for my exit, but I dashed from the house, tore to the end of the avenue, fled down Chorley New Road until I was almost in town. When I reached the fire station, I was moving in a slightly more decorous fashion, though my ribs still ached with panting for breath.

  On a whim, I crossed the road and walked down the brew towards Bolton’s finest park, passing a little shop that sold delicious pasties and ice-creams. I was starving and I had no money. For a long time, I sat on a park bench and watched other children playing, saw them running to their mothers for comfort when they tumbled, for food when their bellies screamed for sustenance. These were proper mothers. Proper mothers took their children to the park, smiled at them while they played, sat down and talked to other proper mothers about the sort of things that proper mothers do with their families. My mother had never brought me to the park, not once. Uncle Freddie used to bring me with Anne, but he wasn’t allowed to do that any more. Self-pity is an unattractive emotion, and I wallowed in it for just a short time. It was something I needed to work through, a path I had to walk until I reached a sunnier place.

  I sniffed, felt sorry for myself, craved Auntie Maisie’s fat arms round my shoulders, longed for her to have yet another row with my mother about taking me to the fair. Auntie Maisie loved the fair, took Anne to the rides and sideshows twice a year, bought her black peas with vinegar, toffee apples, candy floss, celluloid dolls on elastic, lumps of tooth-cracking treacle toffee, bags of hot salted nuts. And a present for me. Oh yes, there was always a present for poor Cousin Laura.

  I was a deprived child, I suppose. Deprived of love and adventure, starved of maternal support, paternal guidance. My dad did what he could, but he was a man of ambition with just one life to live, one chance to leave a mark. I had everything. I had enough to eat, decent clothes in spite of shortages, a room of my own, books galore, music lessons, ballet and tap classes, a large garden.

  I saw the poor children sometimes, watched them clodding along in iron-soled clogs, skimpy frocks or over-long trousers that had been bought to last. And I heard them singing, shouting, caught them tumbling about in fun, in anger. Outside the pubs, they would wait for their parents, sneak in occasionally, be dragged out by an irate father, an unsteady mother. After the customary clip round the ear, the urchins would flee with the pennies they had culled from elders whose senses were numbed by alcohol. Then they would sit outside a nearby mill, huddled over a meshed vent where warm air escaped, and they would pounce on their two penn’orth of greasy chips, would taste their parents’ guilt, repentance, love. I envied them.

  One of the park keepers approached me. ‘Are t’ alreet, lass? Where’s tha muther?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘Oh.’ He stroked his shadowy face and I could hear the sandpaper roughness of newgrown stubble. ‘Dun’t she fret while tha’s in t’ park on tha own?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  He squatted, poked his kind and rugged face towards me. ‘There’s funny folk about,’ he said. ‘Tha mun’t ’ang round ’ere when t’ day’s growin’ dim. Nobbut last week, a lass got took out of a park down Manchester way. Sithee.’ He drew a large twist of barley sugar from his top pocket, handed it to me with great solemnity. ‘Tha mun tek this from me, then tha mun never tek nowt from no bugger. Dust tha understand?’

  I nodded. His face had gone strange, was distorted by my own unshed tears. ‘You are very kind,’ I said.

  ‘Ay, and tha’rt a lady. I can tell a lady, tha knows. And there’s other folk that’s not so kind, lass. There’s them that’ll ’urt thee if they catch thee. Wilt tha mind my words?’

  ‘I will.’ And I did. I only saw that man once, yet he taught me more about self-preservation than I had learned from my parents in eight long years. He reminded me of Mr Evans, whom I visited regularly. Both were good men, old men with hearts of gold.

  After that day in the park, I looked after myself, indulged less frequently in bouts of self-pity. Life was what I made of it, and I tried to make the best. We do grow up in jerks, I think. We start the process towards maturity at school, then little incidents jog us closer to adulthood. After my encounter with a generous soul who really cared about children, I became my own guardian.

  Chapter Four

  Norma Wallace looked as miserable as sin, or as miserable as the markedly unsinful saints who jostled for space on the walls above our heads. I messed about with my jotter, struggled to decipher a few notes about adjectives and adverbs, tried to sort out in my mind which were which. ‘Norma?’

  She looked up, the pale eyes red-rimmed and sore. ‘What?’

  ‘Does an adverb usually end in “-ly”?’ Our teachers were keen on grammar, taught us to decline and parse at an age that now seems ludicrously young.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it says how something was done, like quickly or slowly?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I pencilled in some crude corrections. ‘Have you lost your pass?’

  She sniffed loudly, blinked several times. ‘Not yet. She doesn’t want me any more, though. She says I’ll be giving germs to the babies. I like babies. Even when they’re wet and dirty, I like them. But I can’t go any more. I suppose I’ll have to hand my ticket in to one of the sisters.’

  The ticket was a rectangle of yellow cardboard, and its value was beyond pearls in our school. If we were good – or, as in my case, if we were astute enough not to get caught being bad – we were granted a Special Permission Pass. These were so rare and so coveted, that they merited capital initials even in speech. I had a pass. My pass had been granted by Sister Maria Goretti so that I could go out of school at lunchtimes to help Mr Evans with his chores. Special Permission Pass girls ate their meal early, were released from the dining-room by 12.15 to go out and work in the community. So as well as a degree of freedom from supervision, the chosen few also escaped formal grace and stories about Lazarus and lepers.

  ‘I thought she liked me, th
e babies’ mother.’

  I suddenly felt sorry for the ugly little girl. We all mocked her because she looked unusual, and because of her permanent drip. A girl in the top class even brought a washer to school one morning, threw it across the playground and advised Norma to get a plumber to fit it. Now she had been dismissed by a local housewife for being a health hazard. It was an awful shame. ‘Come with me to Mr Evans’s,’ I said, immediately regretting my impulsive behaviour. ‘We’re supposed to go in twos anyway. Margaret Fishwick was coming with me, but she’s found an old woman with a dog that wants walking.’ I have always been one of those stupid people who regret their haste, then compound the stupidity by being over-effusive. ‘It’s up to you,’ I added lamely.

  ‘You don’t want me. Not really.’

  She was right. Having Norma Wallace nearby was like sharing a meal with a noisy eater. The sound of her sniffing and snerching was so infuriating that I had to stop myself from screaming out loud. But it was still a pity. She had a permanent cold, summer and winter, was blessed with uneven features, teeth that had started to grow in crooked, and eyes that were pale enough to be almost invisible in the pasty white face. ‘Norma, you can come if you want to.’

  The pallid eyes were searching my face. ‘I might do. I might come tomorrow. Today, I’m having extra maths.’ It was a well-known fact that Norma’s prowess in maths was almost of School Certificate standard. At eight years of age, she was delving into algebra, geometry, logarithms. The rest of us, the Philistines, continued to struggle with twelve-times tables and the odd bit of long division.

  I scrutinized my messy English prep. ‘So an adjective describes a thing, not a happening?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sounded impatient. ‘Just listen to the words, Laura. A verb’s a doing word, so it stands to sense that an adverb qualifies it, relates to it.’ She was like something from another planet. ‘Learn it,’ she said quickly. ‘It will help when you come to clauses. I’m doing clauses at home.’