A Strong Hand to Hold. Anne Bennett
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on at the factory and she loved to sing along to the songs. When any of the girls said how terrific her voice was, she always replied that they should hear her daughter Linda, as hers was even better, and she tried hard to remember the words of the songs to teach Linda in the evening. Then she heard of the ‘never never’ or ‘hire purchase’ scheme where you could make a down payment on a wireless, then pay so much back a week. But oh, the excitement in the house the Saturday it was delivered!
Linda had looked as if Patty had given her the Crown Jewels. ‘Can we afford it, Mom?’
‘Let me worry about that,’ Patty had said. ‘Any road, we need to hear the news, don’t we, or this flipping lot will be invading us and we’ll know nowt about it till the church bells start to ring.’
‘Oh, Mom!’
‘I’m only joking,’ Patty said. ‘But we do need to know what’s happening. If it gets too miserable we can always turn the dial to summat else, eh? They have good plays on, the girls at work were telling me.’
The thing they enjoyed the most was singing together, and they’d join in the old favourites belting out from the wireless. Beattie loved to hear them. Patty and Linda had been singing together ever since Linda was just a nipper, but it had all come to a stop when Patty married Ted Prosser. Didn’t like to hear it, Patty had said. Didn’t like much, if Beattie’s opinion had been asked. Didn’t seem to take to Linda either and resented any closeness between her and her mother. But then he didn’t go great guns for his own babbies either. Funny man altogether and Patty was better off without him, not that she went around telling her like, but she was.
Patty knew what Beattie thought, for even if she said nothing, her face spoke volumes. They’d been neighbours since she’d come on to the estate in 1930. Patty Lennox she’d been then, of course, and she thought she was in heaven getting one of the new houses on the Pype Hayes Estate, after living in one room in a rat-infested house in Aston since her marriage three years previously. She was so proud and kept the place like a new pin. She enjoyed looking after her husband and little girl, and hoped there would be more children to fill the house with their chatter.
However, when she lost her dear husband Billy to TB in 1932, Patty was glad she only had Linda to see to. It was Beattie who’d been her support then and helped her to pull herself together for the sake of her child. Later it was Beattie, too, who minded Linda when Patty did cleaning at the Norton pub. Patty also worked behind the bar a time or two to make ends meet, and that was where she met Ted Prosser. She often rued the day, for the man had hard fists, a vicious temper and a short fuse which grew shorter according to the amount he’d drunk. Added to that, he kept Patty short of money and when he did give her any, often borrowed it back to supplement his beer money.
Patty knew her daughter disliked him and there was something else, a wariness that had always come into Linda’s eyes when they spoke of him; and she never wanted to be left alone with him in the house. Patty had her suspicions, but didn’t know how to raise them with the child. What if she was wrong and put all sorts of ideas in her head? She’d thought Linda would come to her if there had been anything, but she hadn’t. That apart, Patty soon knew she’d made a grave mistake marrying Ted Prosser, one she’d pay for for the rest of her life, because she couldn’t see him agreeing to divorce. When she received word of his death, she felt little grief; her overriding concern was how she’d feed and clothe three children.
But the letter from the corporal told her of a husband she didn’t recognise. He’d given up his place in a boat leaving Dunkirk for the corporal because he’d been injured and lost his life because of it. The corporal said Ted had been a brave fine man and her loss must be a grievous one and he said also he would be recommending him for a bravery award. His description of Ted Prosser bore no resemblance to the bully he’d become to his wife, and Patty knew if she’d glimpsed that brave and selfless soldier the corporal appeared to know, she’d have considered herself proud to be married to him. The fault must have been hers, she told herself. She’d failed to recognise Ted’s good points and had annoyed and frustrated him in some way, so he’d been forced to lash out at her and go to the pub to escape. It had been those feelings that had overwhelmed her. She’d thought she was no good as a wife or a mother and everyone, including the children, would be better off without her. Now she knew that wasn’t true. It was just possible that Ted Prosser would have returned from the war a changed man, but privately she doubted it. What she didn’t doubt was the love she had for her children, and that encouraged her to get better, helped by medication from the doctor.
Linda was relieved that Sunday when the doctor said her mother would soon be up and about again. He said chest infections were rife in the winter and it was nothing to worry about, and she’d soon be back at work. Linda was glad she’d be leaving school herself in a couple of years, for then the money problems would be easier and her Mom might not have to work so hard. One thing she did know was that they didn’t need a man to look after them.
Just once her mother had said, ‘Well, I’ve had two husbands and that’s one too many, but without Ted there would be no George or Harry, and I wouldn’t want to be without them, would you?’
Linda would not. To be without her brothers was unthinkable, but she remembered the times Ted had come home drunk from the pub and the sounds of slaps and punches and the screams of her mother. The next day Patty would host a black eye, split lip, or bruises on her cheek and Linda thought it was a bloody high price to pay.
If her mother stayed up that evening, maybe she could get her to tell her about her real father again, she thought. They’d take the photographs out of the shoebox in the glass-fronted cupboard in the alcove and Linda would study her mother in her wedding dress and the father she could scarcely remember, stiff but smart in a suit anyone could see he was unaccustomed to wearing. There were others – one of him cuddling her in his arms as a baby, and one of him holding her hand in the wilderness of a garden he had eventually tamed, according to her Mom. There were more of them both in the tended garden, pushing her on the swing he’d built for her and another helping to blow out the three candles on the day of her third birthday party. After that she knew he became sick, but when her mother spoke about how much he’d loved Linda and how happy they were together, it often brought a lump to the young girl’s throat. Patty had told Linda how much she missed Billy when he died, and Linda supposed that was why she’d married Ted Prosser. She didn’t ask her, though; she never mentioned the man’s name if she could help it.
She glanced out of the window. Although it wasn’t yet half past two, the dark autumn day had turned dusky and Linda knew she would soon have to attend to the blackout. She loved the cosiness of their house in the winter’s evenings. Once the supper things had been washed and put away and the little ones were in bed, the thick red curtains would be drawn across the bay window cutting off the hated blackout curtains. Then Linda and Patty would sit in front of the fire; Patty could now afford plenty of coal. They’d talk, or listen to the wireless, or play cards, or knit socks and balaclavas for the troops. Tonight, Beattie would be with them as her Bert was on nights at the Dunlop, but Linda didn’t mind that; she liked Beattie.
Suddenly there was a pounding on the door, and Linda opened it to see Beattie herself outside, standing with Harry in the pushchair and George holding on to the handle. ‘Beattie,’ she said in surprise.
‘Let me in, girl, this cold goes through you like a bleeding knife.’
Linda stood aside and Beattie marched into the living room, surprised to see Patty sitting by the fire. ‘What are you doing up?’ she asked.
Patty’s mouth had dropped agape. ‘Never mind me,’ she said. What are you doing home at this time of day?’
Beattie began unstrapping Harry as she explained. ‘Got a call about my sister Vera from the hospital. Silly bugger’s fell down the stairs and broke her leg bad. They’re keeping her in so it mustn’t be straightforward. She’s in the General. She wants me to go and see to their Vicky and her husband Lennie.’
‘Doesn’t she live in Sutton Coldfield?’
‘Yeah,’ Beattie said and added, ‘I hate the bloody place