A Little Learning. Anne Bennett
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produce a good meal for him just the same. She’d be another like her mom. Then there were his twin boys, washed and pyjamaed for bed. They had been drinking their milk until they saw their father, and then they threw their bottles down and began clambering all over him.
Bert was inordinately proud of the twin sons and was far more easy-going with them than he had been with Duncan and Janet when they were small. Sarah McClusky, who believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, watched in disapproval as Conner and Noel leaped at and climbed up their father’s body.
‘Leave your dad be, he’s been at work all day, he’ll be tired,’ she admonished.
‘They’re all right, Ma,’ Bert said good-humouredly. ‘I see little enough of them.’
‘They were getting ready to go to bed,’ Sarah said reprovingly.
‘That’s what I mean,’ Bert said. ‘They’re always nearly ready to go to bed when I get in …’ But his dinner was waiting and he had no desire to fight over it, and certainly not with his mother-in-law. He was only too aware what they owed her, him and Betty, for if she hadn’t agreed to come and see to the kids at night, Betty couldn’t have worked, and he had to admit the money was useful.
His wages never seemed to stretch far these days, with the four children. He was constantly amazed by the way the children went through their clothes and shoes, and what they cost to replace. Then there was the amount of food consumed in one week. He was grateful for the government introducing the new family allowance, but he recognised that without the bit Betty earned, they’d often be strapped for cash. Sarah McClusky’s presence meant that his life changed very little. Betty would prepare dinner before she left for work, to be cooked by her mother or Janet ready for his arrival. After he’d eaten he could go down the club for a pint, leaving his mother-in-law to keep an eye on the children.
Anyway, Bert told himself as he ate his tea, bringing up kids is a woman’s job. He was looking forward to the time when him and his lad would be mates in the factory, going down the pub together and to Villa Park on Saturday afternoons. But up until that time, any decisions about Duncan’s upbringing, or that of the others, he would leave to Betty, or her mother if Betty wasn’t there.
Later, when he was washed and changed ready to go out, everything was much quieter. He knew his younger sons were fast asleep in their separate cots, because he’d tiptoed in to see on his way down from the bedroom. His mother-in-law was knitting placidly, while she listened to the wireless.
‘You away now?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’ll go for a quick one.’
Sarah McClusky’s eyes betrayed nothing. She personally thought Betty wouldn’t have to go to work if Bert didn’t tip so much money down his throat, but that was their business. Betty had made that abundantly clear, the one time Sarah had mentioned it.
‘Bert’s a good man, Ma, and a good provider. He always sees to us first, and what he does with the money in his pocket is his business. Anyway,’ she’d added, ‘I enjoy my job.’
So Mrs McClusky kept her own counsel now, and what she said to her son-in-law was:
‘You might tell young Duncan to come in on your way out.’
‘Where is he?’
‘Kicking a ball in the street somewhere, but the nights are drawing in now.’
‘He’ll be all right.’
‘Betty doesn’t like him out in the dark,’ Mrs McClusky said. ‘They get up to all sorts of mischief, she says.’
Bert thought of Duncan and his mates and knew that Betty had a point. ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said, and added, ‘Our Janet’s not out there too, is she?’
Sarah McClusky chuckled. ‘Not her, she’s too sensible for that gang of hooligans. She’s in the kitchen, doing homework.’
Bert frowned. He had no desire for his daughter to be running wild around the estate, especially with Duncan and his pals, but she was a little too sensible for his liking. It wasn’t normal.
‘She’s an odd kid all right,’ he said.
Sarah had a soft spot for her granddaughter, much as she loved her grandsons, especially the two rips named for her dead sons. She also loved Breda’s little girl Linda, cheeky monkey though she was, but between her and Janet there was a special bond.
It had grown with the resemblance she’d had to her mother as a small child, when Sarah had looked after the children so that Betty could do her ARP work during the war. Sarah was aware very early of Janet’s ability to listen and absorb. She’d sit for hours and listen intently to her gran recounting an incident from her own childhood, or Betty’s. Sometimes she’d interrupt with a question, but most times she’d stay still and quiet.
She’d been able to read before she went to school, because Sarah had read to her often and she’d picked up the words. They’d chosen books together from the public library in Erdington village, but though Sarah had told Betty about the trips there, she never let on that Janet could read. She told Janet to keep it to herself too, for she had an idea the teachers wouldn’t like it. She hadn’t been as surprised as her daughter when the teachers had commented on Janet’s intelligence, but she’d said nothing. She wasn’t certain now that the grammar school was the solution for Janet, and was of the opinion that men didn’t like girls who were too clever. But she wouldn’t let anyone put her granddaughter down either.
She looked at her son-in-law now over the top of the glasses she held on the tip of her nose in order to see the stitches on the needles, and said:
‘She’s all right, your Janet, a good lassie. Just because she finds no pleasure in running wild doesn’t mean she’s odd.’
‘I didn’t mean odd exactly,’ Bert said, uncomfortable under Sarah McClusky’s unfriendly scrutiny. ‘Just different.’
And she was different, he thought, as he opened the door to say good night. She was bent over her books so intently she hadn’t heard the click of the latch. Brought up as she was in a house with a brash elder brother and two younger ones prone to yelling and screaming their way through the day, she’d learnt to cut herself off from everyday noises that could distract.
So Bert had to speak before Janet jerked up from the exercise book she’d been writing in. Her eyes held a note of impatience, he noticed, and it annoyed him. But he made an attempt to try and understand this young daughter of his, who somehow held herself away from him.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘English,’ Janet answered shortly, and then, because she knew that had sounded rude, she went on, ‘We have to write an essay and then I have an exercise in maths.’
‘Why didn’t Duncan have homework like this when he was at Paget Road Primary?’ Bert asked, genuinely puzzled.
Janet shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t want homework,’ she said.
‘Want it! Do you mean you don’t have to do it?’
You do if you want to get into grammar school, Janet could have said. She could imagine the explosion that would cause. Anyway, her mother had told her she’d handle it, so she just said:
‘You can have it if you like.’
‘And you like, do you?’ Bert shook his head. He couldn’t understand an attitude like that.
‘Yes, yes, I do.’
What could he say to that? He patted his daughter’s head self-consciously. ‘Don’t work too hard then,’ he said, ‘and bed by nine.’
‘I know,’ Janet said impatiently. She didn’t understand why her dad was suddenly so interested. Her gran would tell her it was time for bed if she were to get immersed in something and forget the time. Her father was seldom at home at bedtime, but she knew if she wasn’t in bed when her mother came