A Girl Can Dream. Anne Bennett
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to her glittered with unshed tears. ‘Don’t fight me at every turn, Meg,’ he said. ‘I am doing the best I can.’
It was on the tip of Meg’s tongue to snap that her father’s best was not good enough, but she stopped herself. Instead she said, almost gently, ‘Perhaps things might be better for all of us if you stayed in more.’
‘And do what?’ Charlie demanded. ‘Stare at four bare walls?’
Before Meg could reply, Terry entered the room, followed by Billy, and Ruth started to wail. With a glance at them all, Charlie lifted his coat from the door and set out for work.
He, Alec and Robert worked in the same place, Fort Dunlop, so they tended to go to work together. As Charlie waited for them that day he went over Meg’s words.
Before Maeve’s death he had never been a heavy drinker, nor an habitual one, but whereas during the day he could keep his thoughts in check because he was busy, they came back to haunt him in the evening. To drink heavily was the only way he could try to blot out that dreadful day when his beloved Maeve had died. The doctor had warned them before that another pregnancy would put her life at risk, but he had been selfish and careless and he couldn’t help but blame himself. And now the presence of the child – whose birth had caused his wife’s death – ensured that he would never totally forget. He knew he was wrong to feel this way but he just couldn’t help it; he wished he’d stood up against them all and left her at the hospital. She’d have been taken to some orphanage and adopted, and he would eventually have been able to come to terms with the loss of his lovely wife.
When Meg heard the imperious knocking on the door that morning, Meg guessed it must be the rent man. But instead it was a young man wearing a dark blue suit, and a trilby hat over light brown hair. His tanned face had a haughty look to it and his eyes were piercing blue, as cold and hard as granite.
‘I am Richard Flatterly,’ he said. ‘I am here to express condolences about the death of your mother.’
‘Oh, your father—’ Meg began, but the man cut her off.
‘My father’s unwell and so you’ll be dealing with me from now on. I see you owe three weeks’ rent.’
‘I can pay this week’s.’
‘I was hoping for something off the arrears.’
‘I’m afraid I haven’t got it at the moment,’ Meg said, ‘with Mom’s funeral and all.’
‘I am not interested in excuses, my dear,’ Richard Flatterly said, and there was no doubting the slight menace in his voice. ‘I am just interested in getting the money owed me. I do not run a charity, and if you can’t pay your rent I shall have to let the house to someone else. Do you understand that, my dear?’ He looked her slowly up and down.
Meg nodded dumbly and handed the man the rent book and the ten-shilling note.
‘If I take it all,’ Flatterly said, ‘it will be two and six off the arrears.’
‘I know that,’ Meg said. ‘But I need it for food.’
Flatterly smiled but his eyes remained cold. ‘I understand your father is in full-time work.’
‘Yes, he is.’
‘Then the rent should present no problem to him,’ Flatterly said, handing Meg back half a crown. ‘So next week I will return myself. I will want the full rent and a good bit off the arrears, otherwise I can make life very uncomfortable for all of you.’
Meg scuttled inside as soon as she could, shut the door and leaned against it. She felt really shaken. Flatterly’s animosity had been almost tangible.
‘Phew, sis!’ Terry said.
‘You heard that?’
‘Every word.’
‘We must make Daddy realise that Richard Flatterly will have us out of this house without a qualm if we don’t pay off something next week,’ Meg said.
‘I think so too.’
‘We have to make Daddy see that,’ Meg repeated. ‘But just for now, the problem is making the money I have left stretch, so tomorrow night you and I will go to the Bull Ring just before the stallholders close up and see what they are throwing out that we can use.’
It was what the really poor people did. Meg had seen them a few times: be-shawled women holding keening babies, usually with stick-thin children in tow as well, dressed in little more than rags. She had pitied them. Never had she imagined that she’d be joining them. Terry was looking at her, appalled.
‘Don’t look at me like that, Terry,’ she cried. ‘I like this no better than you, but it’s what we must do to survive.’
‘There’s no other way?’
‘Not that I can see.’
Terry sighed. ‘S’pose we must then.’
So the following evening, Terry and Meg grabbed two shopping bags they hoped to fill with cheap meat and vegetables. Ruth was safely in her cradle in the bedroom, and she was sound asleep, as was Billy. Sally and Jenny, were also drowsy, yet still Meg hesitated to leave them as her father was down at the Swan.
‘We’ll have to go if we’re going,’ Terry said. ‘It’s a fair step.’
‘D’you think they will be all right?’
‘Of course,’ Terry said heartily. ‘What could happen to them?’
Then, as Meg still dithered, he opened the door. ‘Come on, Meg. We’ll go past May’s and ask her to keep a lookout. And Dad’s not a million miles away.’
‘Huh,’ said Meg, stepping onto the street beside him. ‘He might as well be in Outer Mongolia. A fat lot of use he’ll be with a bellyful of beer inside him.’
‘I don’t know so much,’ Terry said. ‘When we told him about Richard Flatterly and what he said, it did shake him up.’
‘Yes,’ Meg said, ‘but how much? Didn’t bother him enough to offer me extra money . .’
‘Mmm, I suppose you’re right,’ Terry said. ‘But you would hardly let him near Ruth.’
‘He wouldn’t go near her anyway, Terry, not by choice,’ Meg said. ‘I really think he would like to pretend that she doesn’t exist.’
Terry knew what Meg said was true but there was no point keeping on about it so after a while he said, ‘I wish we didn’t have to skulk around for leftovers, but it will be nice to see the Bull Ring on a Saturday night,’ Meg smiled. ‘Yeah, it will and we can have a little look around. The stallholders won’t be giving stuff away till they’re near to closing up.’
When they reached the cobbled streets of the bustling market place it was almost as busy as it was in daytime, but they weren’t surprised, for they’d heard lots of stories about the entertainment to be had on Saturday nights in the Bull Ring. It was even better when darkness seeped into the light summer night because then the spluttering gas flares were lit and the Bull Ring was transformed into something resembling fairyland. Terry and Meg walked around looking at the stalls, edging between men dressed up to the nines, even wearing top hats, moving effortlessly on very tall stilts.
Elsewhere a boxing ring had been erected and inside it was a bare-fisted burly boxer, challenging the watching men to a fight. There was a prize of five pounds if any knocked him down, but there were no takers.
‘Too early see, ducks,’ an old woman said to Meg and Terry as they turned away. ‘When the men have enough beer inside them, they’ll think they can climb Everest and beat the champ with one hand tied behind their back.’
‘Have you ever seen it done?’ Terry asked. ‘Has anyone knocked him down?’
The woman gave a cackle of laughter. ‘Well, if they have then I’ve