Forget-Me-Not Child. Anne Bennett
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believe that this man was going to employ her. She could go home and put a smile on Mary’s face, because it was nearly the holidays so she could start work straight away. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she added and wondered if it was bad form to ask about wages. She needed to know, but wouldn’t like to scupper her chances.
George wondered if she knew how expressive her face was. He was surprised she hadn’t asked straight away what she was to be paid when he told her the hours she would be working, but knew from her face she was working up to do it now.
And so he forestalled her. ‘And the wages are ten and six a week,’ he said, knowing if he had employed a boy he would have started him on twelve and six.
However, Angela didn’t know that and ten shillings and sixpence sounded fine to her, especially when George added, ‘And a basket of groceries every Saturday.’
George readily agreed to write a note for the school so that Angela could be released from school early and she began in the shop at the start of the Easter holidays. She was a hit with most of the customers and soon he didn’t know what he had ever done without her. She loved serving in the shop and it showed. She greeted every customer, even the awkward ones, with a bright smile and if someone had a sick child they were worried about or a doddery mother or chesty husband she would remember and enquire about them. Added to that, she was quick and efficient and could reckon up faster and more accurately than any boy he had ever employed.
He felt quite paternal towards Angela. She could easily have been his daughter and how he wished she was. He had thought by the age he was now he would have sons to help him in the store and carry on after his day, as he had done with his father, and maybe a daughter or two to gladden his heart.
But it was not to be, for Matilda didn’t like that side of married life. That hadn’t worried him at first for girls of her class were not supposed to like sex and as they were heavily chaperoned during their courtship he was unable to ask or reassure her about it. In fact they had both been so constrained and had such little time totally alone thatt he knew no more of Matilda when he married her than when the courtship had begun.
She was completely innocent of sexual matters or what you did to procreate a child. In that she wasn’t unusual of her station; very often it was expected that the husband would teach a girl what was what on their wedding night. So George imagined that he would talk to her about sexual matters and any problems could be sorted out.
However, she didn’t even like discussing such things. She said it was ‘dirty talk’ and was completely disgusted when he explained how they might conceive a child together. She threw him from her with such force that he almost fell out of bed while she screamed at him that she was surprised at such dirty words spilling from his mouth and she never wanted to hear a word about it again. So nothing was sorted out at all.
Matilda agreed to share a bed and often lay beside him as stiff as a board, but that was all. She wouldn’t allow George to touch her in any way. He had initially thought she might come round in the end, but as time went on her attitude became more and more entrenched. He begged and pleaded, cajoled, but Matilda wouldn’t budge an inch. ‘But don’t you want a child, my love?’ he’d asked in desperation and frustration one night.
‘A child!’ Matilda had shrieked as if she had never heard of such a thing. ‘No I don’t want a child. I have no desire to find myself lumbered with some smelly, bawling brat.’
George felt a stab in his heart as he realized he had fallen for a beautiful face, for in her youth Matilda had been a stunning beauty and he had been overawed that she had agreed to walk out with him. Her parents made no objection to their courtship for though George was ‘Trade’ he was known as a steady, sober and easygoing sort of chap who would inherit the shop after his father died.
What George got was a shell instead of a real flesh-and-blood woman. One who looked good on the top but with nothing underneath. He was heartbroken that his dreams of a family to fill the rooms above the shop would only ever be dreams and never become reality. However, he believed marriage was for life and if you made a bad choice you had to live with it, and as he wasn’t the sort of man to force himself on a woman he settled for a loveless and a sexless marriage.
He felt ashamed that his wife spurned him so totally and he threw himself into the shop, knowing there he was in charge and a success, but it was a sterile success for he was working only for a woman who had no interest in it and was only interested in the profit made.
And now Angela had brought brightness to his days he was almost content.
Angela could have told him he had brought contentment to Mary with the groceries she took home each Saturday. In fact it was more than contentment. In fact that first Saturday, as she unpacked the bag and laid all the articles on the table, Mary burst into tears and wiped her eyes on her apron as she felt the worry of making nourishing meals for them all slide from her shoulders.
And so when Angela gave her her wage packet unopened she extracted sixpence from it and gave it back to Angela. ‘I don’t want it, Mammy,’ Angela said. ‘The money is just for you.’
Mary shook her head. ‘It’s right you keep something, for the men hold back their ciggy money, so you should have something.’
‘But I don’t smoke.’
‘I should think you don’t,’ Mary said. ‘But there might be something else you want. Save it if you can think of nothing just now, but you can rely on sixpence coming your way every week.’
‘Thank you Mammy.’
‘Yes, and talking about smoking, I wish your father didn’t do so much of it,’ Mary said. ‘He has that hacking cough and smoking can’t help. Smoking less might help his stomach too.’
‘What’s wrong with his stomach?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Mary said. ‘Indigestion most likely. It only seemed to start when you started bringing the food from Maitland’s. His stomach’s not used to good food, too rich for him.’ And then she added as she saw Angela’s brow creased in concern, ‘But don’t worry yourself, Angela. If that is what’s upsetting him he’ll get used to it in the end.’
Mary thought life had finally reached a more or less even keel. She had no idea what the future held, but just for the moment things were going along nicely. True, like their elder brothers, Sean and Gerry could find no permanent jobs, but that wasn’t so important now that Angela was bringing in ten shillings a week and a big bag of groceries. Barry, now two thirds of his way through his apprenticeship, had had a raise and he was able to also tip up ten shillings a week and Matt earned three pounds and kept little back for himself. It meant if Sean and Gerry had earned anything it was a bonus and if they hadn’t managed that, it didn’t matter.
Barry knew that wasn’t how his brothers viewed things because he had discussed it with them. They felt failures and they viewed the lives of their brothers in America with unbridled envy. ‘I don’t think I’m asking a lot,’ Sean said. ‘I want a job of work that pays enough for me to live independently, pay rent and bills with enough over to buy some much-needed clothes, or have my leaky boots mended, or go out for an evening and have a few beers. Now I call that living a life.’
‘Well you can’t do that here,’ Gerry said. ‘Just at the moment a person needs to go to America to live at all.’
‘Well why don’t you go then?’ Barry asked.
‘Basically because of you, mate,’ Gerry said.
‘Why me?’
‘Because we’re dropping you in the mire.’
‘How?’
‘Well we can’t all swan off and leave Mammy and Daddy on their own.’
‘They won’t be on their own,’