A Little Learning. Anne Bennett
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a fraught time for them all for so long, and it still was of course, for her mother was no better and Janet privately thought she wouldn’t improve until the baby came. She watched her dad go off with a tray full of stuff from the table for Betty and crushed down the guilt she felt at having such a good time while her mom lay so ill.
Betty was glad to see them back from the party but gladder still at the shine in Janet’s eyes as she sat on the bed and told her all about it. It was the next day before Janet remembered that Patsy had asked about the baby’s name. She asked her mother if she and her dad had discussed it between themselves.
‘Sort of,’ Betty said. ‘Your dad asked if it was a boy, would I call it Timothy, or Tim, after a mate of his killed in the war.’
‘Timothy,’ Janet said, rolling the name round her tongue to see how she liked it. ‘That’s all right,’ she decided, ‘but what for a girl?’
‘I thought I’d call a girl Sarah after me ma,’ Betty said. ‘I know it would please her, and we could call her Sally while she’s small.’
‘That’s nice,’ Janet said, and added, ‘I hope it’s a Sally, but if it’s a Tim I suppose we’ll have to put up with it.’
‘We have to take what God sends,’ Betty said, ‘but … well, it can’t hurt to hope.’
Two days later it was Janet’s birthday, but no one seemed to remember it. The doctor was pleased with Betty’s progress and allowed her to get up, and Janet tried to be glad about that and not mind that no one had even wished her happy birthday, let alone got her a card. She kept the hurt feeling to herself.
Duncan was now supposed to make sure there was coal in for the fire and sticks chopped up. He also had to take turns with his father washing up after the evening meal, as this was Bert’s way of helping Janet out with the housework. Also, as part of the new arrangements, until school opened Duncan had to take the twins out to Pype Hayes park for two afternoons in the week, if the weather was dry, to give Janet some time to herself.
This Janet looked forward to most of all, and when Duncan suggested taking them with him that Tuesday afternoon, she was delighted and thought she might slip up to Miss Wentworth, even if she hadn’t remembered it was her birthday either.
She was, therefore, furious when her Auntie Breda came round and presented her with a long shopping list. ‘You don’t mind getting this for me, do you, Janet love?’ she asked. ‘I’d go myself but Linda’s got a racking cough.’
Janet glared at her, but knew she could say nothing. Respect for her elders had been drummed into her all her life. She wanted to cry. It wasn’t fair. It was her birthday, for goodness’ sake. Why couldn’t her aunt take Linda round to her gran’s and do her own shopping? But she knew she could say nothing, and she took the list and the purse with money in without a word of protest.
The shopping took simply ages. Aunt Breda wanted items from the grocer, the greengrocer, the butcher and the newsagent. Every shop had a queue and the people in front of Janet seemed in no hurry as they exchanged news and snippets of gossip with the shopkeeper, along with their order. Janet hopped from one foot to the other in impatience as she willed them to hurry up. Her fidgety behaviour only caused the shopkeeper to look at her sternly and made no difference at all to the chattering shoppers.
Aunt Breda had produced two bags for her to carry the shopping in, but the weight of them dragged Janet down. She felt as if her arms were being pulled out of their sockets. It’s all right for Auntie Breda, she thought crossly, stopping for the umpteenth time to rest her aching arms. She packs the shopping around Linda in the pram, or hangs the bags from the pram handle. She doesn’t have to carry anything.
Slowly she carried the bags to Breda’s house, only to find her aunt was out. Rage boiled through Janet’s body. Linda’s hacking cough, that had prevented Breda from shopping for herself, had not stopped her going out somewhere else.
‘And I bet it wasn’t to the flipping doctor’s,’ she muttered as she bumped the bags back to her own door.
There a surprise awaited her. Everyone was there: her mom, pale but up and sitting in a chair, Auntie Breda, Gran, Grandad, Duncan and the twins, and as she entered they all shouted: ‘Happy birthday, Janet!’
‘Did you think we’d all forgotten, Janet pet?’ Gran said, seeing the tears filling Janet’s eyes.
‘Sorry we had to send you for the shopping,’ Breda said, ‘but we had to get you out of the way.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with Linda then?’
‘Linda’s as right as rain and asleep on your bed this minute,’ Breda said, ‘but we wanted it to be a surprise for you.’
‘You wanted what to be a surprise for me?’ Janet said.
In answer, her family stepped away from the table they’d been hiding from her, and she saw the party food arranged there. In the centre was a cake with ‘Happy Birthday Janet’ written on in icing, and eleven candles, and arranged around the cake were parcels and cards. Janet was speechless.
‘Peter will be along later, and I’ve phoned work and said I won’t be in because I’m sick,’ Breda said.
‘And Brendan and Patsy will come after work,’ Gran said, ‘and your dad, of course.’
Janet could only gape at them all.
‘Are you going to catch bleeding flies all afternoon?’ Breda asked with a laugh, and Janet began to gabble.
‘How did … who … who … how did you do it and who did it?’
‘Me and Ma,’ said Auntie Breda. ‘After you working so hard and all, we thought you should have a bit of a party. Mammy did some, she made the cake as well, and I did the rest. Then we had it all piled in Mammy’s kitchen and we had to get you out of the way and the twins too, or they would have demolished it before you’d even seen it.’
‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ Janet was crying, throwing her arms around her grandparents and her aunt and her mother while tears poured down her cheeks.
‘Here, here,’ said her grandmother, ‘less of the water-works, girl, you’ll have us drowned in a minute. Open up your cards and presents and we’ll leave the food until the others get here.’
From Auntie Breda was a watch. ‘You’ll need to organise your life from now on,’ she said to Janet as she strapped it to her wrist. Her grandparents gave her a fountain pen and a bottle of ink.
‘Put it to good use, my lass,’ said Sarah McClusky.
‘I will, said Janet. She knew it was a good pen, and an expensive one. ‘I’ll look after it, I promise.’
There was a pencil, a sharpener, a notebook and a rubber from the twins, and a geometry set from Duncan.
‘I asked the form teacher at school before the holidays,’ he said, ‘and he said you’d need one of those at the grammar school.’
‘Thank you, Duncan.’
There was one more parcel, which Janet supposed was from her parents, but Betty told her that Bert was bringing their present on his way home from work. This parcel was from Gran’s people in Ireland: a wooden pencil box into which all the twins’ gifts fitted neatly.
They were all drinking a cup of tea Breda had made when Brendan and Patsy came in and handed Janet another parcel. Janet was almost too overawed to mutter her thanks when she pulled a brown leather satchel from the wrapping. It was so beautiful and she stroked it almost reverently.
‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘oh, it’s lovely. Oh thank you, thank you.’
Inside, despite her happiness, Janet was feeling quite desperate. Everyone expects me to pass the eleven-plus, she thought, no one has even considered the fact that I may fail.
She caught her mother’s eyes on her and forced a smile. ‘Shall