Child on the Doorstep. Anne Bennett
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mammy will pop in and see Mary if I ask her to. She thought a lot of her.’
‘I know,’ Angela said. ‘But, as I said, the schools have broken up for the summer now, so Connie will be here most of the time if I ask her to and she is always very good with Mammy. She gets her talking about the old days, even before my time, when her and my real mother were girls growing up together and where they met their husbands and all. She’s really interested in that sort of thing, and Mammy loves talking about her memories. It’s strange that sometimes she is very vague and by dinnertime has trouble remembering what she had for breakfast, and yet you get her talking about the olden days and she has no trouble remembering everything.’
Maggie nodded. ‘I’ve heard of that before in older people. Odd, isn’t it?’
‘Oh I’ll say,’ Angela said. ‘But Connie encourages her anyway and doesn’t seem to mind if she repeats herself and she never corrects her. Course, Connie loves her to bits and will be devastated when she is no longer with us.’
Maggie didn’t say anything more. She had seen herself how frail Mary had become over the last months.
And Angela went on, ‘At the moment Mammy is often quite silent or sleeping much of the time. I almost look forward to pulling pints at the pub. At least there is a bit of conversation there, even if it is pretty male-dominated.’
‘Yeah, but what sort of conversation?’ Maggie said. ‘Men seem interested in only two things, football and sex.’
Angela laughed. ‘We manage, though I am not a whit interested in football and put a veto on sex from the beginning. You would be surprised though how many men, hearing I was a widow, asked me if I was ever lonely at all. I know of course what that is a euphemism for and they got short shrift from me. I mean, I wouldn’t mind, but most of these are married men. I know their wives and even if I was looking for another husband, and I’m not, I would not consider a married man.’
‘Nor me,’ Maggie said.
‘Well, Michael might have something to say if you did.’
‘Oh yes,’ Maggie said and then added with a grin, ‘And then Michael’s response would be nothing to the reaction of Father Brannigan if he got the merest hint of impropriety. God, he’d burst a gasket.’
‘He would that,’ Angela said and the two women laughed at the vision conjured up.
Despite the hilarity though, Angela had been shocked at first by the men who wanted to keep her company, stop her from feeling ‘lonely’. Unbeknown to her, initially Paddy Larkin had watched carefully, ready to step in if ever the matter got out of hand. But he soon saw that Angela was able to refuse any liaison without causing offence, but in a firm enough voice that very few asked a second time, and so was able to relax slightly. The men appreciated the fact that Angela was a pleasant little body, always had a smile on her pretty face, with a good sense of humour so that she liked a joke as well as the next person. The fact that she wasn’t sharing her favours with all and sundry marked her as a woman of principles, and the majority acknowledged that and treated her with respect so she was able to enjoy her job.
There was one particular man who seemed more keen on Angela than the others. His name was Eddie McIntyre, an Irishman who had spent time in America and who was now in Birmingham on business. He had become a regular in the pub and always made a beeline for her. He was full of confidence and funny stories. He made Angela laugh and forget about the cares of the day, but although she knew he was a bit sweet on her, she was careful not to give him any encouragement and refused his tips. She had no intention of getting a reputation, for once sullied it could never truly be wrung clean, she knew.
She did wonder though how long she would be able to work the long hours at night and leave her mother. Connie was good but only a child yet and Angela wasn’t totally sure she realised just how sick Mary was.
However, Connie did; she was no fool. She thought Mary might like it if Daniel came to see them again, for her granny had enjoyed talking to him, but Daniel seemed to have gone back to his suffocating life in Sutton Coldfield. She was sorry about that in a way, and yet she had to admit he might find himself completely alone if he rejected the only parents he knew, because he seemed totally friendless. Connie couldn’t understand it because he seemed nice enough and lovely with her granny.
But if Daniel wasn’t going to come then he wasn’t, and meanwhile she knew her granny was lonely. So, one morning, when her mother was out cleaning, she helped her granny on to the settee and manhandled her chair to the window where she could see out and watch the world go by.
‘That will be better for you, Granny,’ she said. ‘Now the summer’s here you won’t need the warmth of the fire so much.’
It worked a treat, for as Mary waved at neighbours going past many would pop in and have a word. Some days she couldn’t cope with much more than that, and on her vaguer days, if she wasn’t always absolutely sure who everyone was, no one seemed to mind.
‘God, this growing old is a bugger,’ Norah said one morning, meeting Angela coming home from her cleaning job at the pub.
‘But the alternative is worse,’ Angela answered.
‘That’s true,’ Norah agreed. ‘And God knows we might all be the same some day.’
Angela knew that was all too true and she also knew ‘the alternative’ couldn’t be put off for ever. She wondered how much Connie was aware of. But Connie knew her grandmother’s life was ebbing away and knew also that her death would leave a big hole in her life because Mary had been a constant in her life since the day she’d been born.
There had been a time when Connie was younger when her mother had gone away. She had gone to Ireland and, though her grandmother loved talking about things past, she was always very vague about that time. Mary said Angela had had to go to Ireland and help a family out after the mother died, and yet she had previously told her that her mother had no relatives to take her in and so that was why she stayed with the McCluskys. And whoever the family had been that had called on her mother’s help, her grandmother said she couldn’t recall their name. Connie had missed her mother a great deal and been very glad her grandmother was there, a solid loving presence who soon would be no more.
The summer slipped by far too quickly. Angela could scarcely believe it was September and the schools were open again. Mary’s chair was once more moved closer to the fire because those autumn days were windy ones and it was hard to keep the house draught-free. Despite the heat from the fire, Mary seemed constantly cold for, as the wind gusted down the road, it seeped through the ill-fitting windows and snaked under the door and along the floor, attacking the backs of Mary’s legs like a cold flannel.
Angela, seeing how cold Mary was, brought down an extra cardigan and a blanket to wrap around her, knowing it was bound to get much colder still. She was glad she had the money to lay in enough coal and buy good food and plenty of it to help them all, and Mary in particular, cope with the drop in temperature. She had worried about leaving her mother on her own while she worked once Connie returned to school, but she needn’t have worried for Mary was seldom alone as one of the neighbours would invariably pop in to see her. And at the weekend, when Angela worked the bar at the Swan in the evenings, Connie could stay up later because she hadn’t school in the morning. Mary didn’t keep late hours anyway and so the girl could easily help her grandmother to bed.
Angela knew how lucky she was. The house and area she lived in was not great but she was blessed with good, kind neighbours who cared for one another and a daughter and mother in a million. If Barry had returned from the war hale and hearty life would have been just perfect, but, as she reflected, few people achieve perfection in this life. She was content, only now she had met Stan’s son, Daniel, she found herself wishing Stan had survived too. How proud he would have been of that young man, who, if he’d had the chance to know him, would have realised what a great father he would have been.
But there was nothing she could do about that, and besides, Daniel hadn’t been near them since the early summer when they had put him straight about any misconceptions he’d