Читать книгу To Have and To Hold - Anne Bennett - Страница 6

Carmel knew from talking to others that she was one of the few there who had left school at the statuary leaving age of fourteen and was not kept on till sixteen, or even later. Despite the excellent tuition from Sister Frances that had enabled her to pass the exam, she worried that she wouldn’t be able to understand the classes and would make an utter fool of herself.

However, she saw much of what she was taught was common sense and she enjoyed the first six weeks, despite the long hours. The working day began at 7.15 a.m. and didn’t end until 8.30 p.m. Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene were taken by a sister tutor in the lecture room. Senior doctors used the same room to teach the theory of nursing in their specialist subjects, and so the students learned about ear, nose and throat problems, ophthalmics, gynaecology, midwifery, paediatrics and how to care for post-operative patients. They had many visits to the wards to observe what they had been told about in action.

They visited a sewage farm too, in order, Carmel supposed, to see the benefits of cleanliness in the hospital and for a similar reason they went another day to Cadbury’s to view their ventilation system. The place Carmel liked most, though, was Oozels Street, where they had cookery classes so they could manage the special diets some patients might have.

Both because of fatigue and lack of funds, most girls tended to stay close to the hospital during their free time in the early weeks, despite their proximity to the city centre. There was nothing more frustrating, Carmel thought, than looking into shops when a person hadn’t a penny piece to spare to buy anything, or smelling the tantalising aroma seeping out from the coffee houses when there wasn’t the money to sample a cup. Most of the girls were in the same boat, though some, like Lois, had an allowance, but she didn’t make a song and dance about this.

The Hospital was well aware of this, and organised whist and beetle drives for the girls, and they were promised a dance nearer to Christmas. They often met up in the common room to chat or play dominoes or cards. Carmel hadn’t a clue at first, but she quickly caught on and was soon a dab hand at rummy or brag. Often the four friends would just go back to their room, Carmel and Lois feeling incredibly fast as they experimented with some of the cosmetics that Jane and Sylvia had or tried out different hairstyles on one another.

Sometimes they would just chat together. It was soon apparent to the others that though they would talk freely about their families, Carmel never mentioned anything about hers and she neatly side-stepped direct questions. They knew she wrote dutifully to her mother every week for she had told them that much, and to the nun Sister Frances, whom she seemed so fond of. She received regular replies, but never commented about anything in the letters.

As far as Carmel was concerned, her life began when she entered the nurses’ home. Despite her lack of money, a state that she was well used to anyway, she was very happy, and couldn’t remember a time when she had felt so contented. Warmed by the true friendship of the other three girls, she didn’t want to be reminded of the degradation of her slum of a home, and certainly didn’t want to discuss it with anyone else.

In fact, she often found it difficult to find things to write to her mother about. Sometimes the letters centred around the church she now attended, St Chad’s Cathedral. She wasn’t the only Catholic studying at the hospital, although she was the only one in the first year, and they all had dispensation to attend Mass on Sundays. Fortunately St Chad’s was only yards from the home, on Bath Street, which was at the top of Whittall Street. The first time that Carmel saw it she was impressed by the grandeur of the place, though she had to own that for a cathedral it wasn’t that big, and very narrow, built of red brick with two blue spires.

She had made herself known to the parish priest, Father Donahue, but he already knew more about her than she realised. St Chad’s Hospital was primarily a hospital for sick or elderly Catholic woman and Father Donahue called there regularly to hear confession, administer communion, tend or give last rites to the very sick or dying and sometimes took Mass in the chapel for the nuns and those able to leave their beds.

The four nuns who had travelled to Birmingham with Carmel had told the priest all about her and the type of home she had come from. Father Donahue never mentioned this to Carmel, but it gave him a special interest in the girl and he always had a cheery word for her. She would write and tell her mother this, and about the nuns in the convent that she visited as often as she could and who always made her very welcome.

Eve’s replies told Carmel of her father still raging over what he called ‘her deception’. Carmel knew what form that raging would take and that her mother would bear the brunt of it. She would hardly wish to share that with anyone, or what her deprived siblings were doing and the gossip of the small town she was no longer interested in.

One Sunday morning, as Lois watched Carmel get ready for Mass, she suddenly said, ‘My Uncle Jeff is a Catholic.’

‘How can he be? You’re not.’

‘No. He’s married to Dad’s sister, my Aunt Emma, and she turned Catholic to please Jeff. The boys have been brought up Catholic too—the dishy Paul and annoying Matthew.’

‘Dishy Paul?’ Carmel echoed.

‘I tell you, Carmel, he is gorgeous,’ Lois went on. ‘He is tall and broad-shouldered and has blond hair and beautiful deep blue eyes and he only has to go into a room to have all the girls’ eyes on him.’

‘Sorry,’ Carmel said, ‘that is exactly the type of man I dislike most. I bet he is well aware of that and totally big-headed about it.’

‘That’s just it, he isn’t,’ Lois maintained. ‘I think that it is something to do with the family being so down-to-earth—well, Uncle Jeff, anyway. I mean, he owns a large engineering works and they have pots of money, but you would never know it.’

‘And so Paul is going to have the factory handed to him on a plate?’ Carmel said, in a slightly mocking tone, all ready to dislike this so perfect cousin of Lois’s.

‘No,’ Lois said, ‘Paul doesn’t want it. He’s training to be a doctor. Ooh, I bet he will have a lovely bedside manner,’ she said in delight. ‘When they let him loose I should imagine at least half of the female population will develop ailments that they have never suffered from before.’

‘You are a fool, Lois,’ Carmel said, though she too was laughing. ‘No one can be that charming and good-looking.’

‘Paul is,’ Lois said adamantly. ‘I tell you, if only we weren’t first cousins I would make a play for him myself. Paul has everything I admire in a man and I am not talking money here either. He even speaks French like a native. I mean, I learned French but mine is very schoolroomish. Jeff was half French and when Paul and Matthew were little, their French grandmother was alive and lived not far away and they would natter away to her in her native language. After she died, Uncle Jeff said he didn’t want the boys to lose the language, so Paul studied for two years at the Sorbonne.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘A university in Paris. Matthew will go too next year.’

‘You don’t like him so well.’

‘He’s all right,’ she said. ‘I suppose he is handsome too, in a manner of speaking, but he is a poor shadow next to his brother and he’s the one going to inherit the factory as Paul doesn’t want it, though Uncle Jeff says he will have to start on the shop floor and work his way up, so he will know every aspect of the trade.’

‘I think that is a jolly good idea.’

‘Me too,’ Lois agreed.

The six weeks passed quickly as the days were so busy. The four room-mates were delighted to find they had all passed their exams at the end, and with good marks too. Now they could go down on to the wards like proper nurses.

They began at seven o’clock each day and, with short meal breaks, continued until eight o’clock at night with one day off a week.

Each day, the ward sister would read the report left by the night sister and allocate work to be done that day by the senior and junior staff nurses and probationary nurses alike. Carmel was first under the direction of Staff Nurse Pamela Hammond, whom she estimated to be in her late twenties. Her grey eyes were kindly, and from around her cap, tufts of dark blonde hair peeped. She worked hard and expected her probationer to do the same. As hard work was second nature to Carmel, the two got on well.

In the early days it seemed to Carmel and her friends that they cleaned all day long, unless they were helping serve drinks or meals. They cleaned lockers, bedsteads and sluices. The rubber sheets of the incontinent had to be scrubbed daily and left to hang in the sluice room, bedpans were scalded, and at the end of each day, all dirty laundry had to be folded, counted and put in linen bags to be taken to the laundry. The girls were usually too weary even to talk at the end of a shift and only fit to fall into bed, particularly when they also had to attend lectures in their scant free time away, which they did after the initial six weeks on the wards were up.

Although it didn’t help the weariness, Carmel found the day passed quicker and far more pleasantly once she saw the patients as people. She had done this before in Letterkenny, though many had been known to her at least by sight, maybe from Mass or in the shops. She found if she thought that even the unappealing tasks she was doing were for the patients’ comfort and well-being that gave everything more of a purpose. Also it was pleasant to chat to them as she was working, and many said they loved her lilting accent.

The preliminary six-week period was over just before Christmas. Carmel offered to work through because she had nowhere to go. She had been asked by each of her flat mates in turn to go to their homes for Christmas, but though she know the girls well, she didn’t know a thing about their families and was nervous of descending on anyone at such a family time. Anyway, the hospital was always short-staffed at Christmas and extra hands were always welcome.

Carmel enjoyed the dance put on for the girls. She could do none of the dancing herself, but she wasn’t the only one, and she liked the music and to see people enjoying themselves. Unfortunately the girls had to dance with one another as there were no men present, and the evening came to an end altogether at nine-thirty. The singing of carols with the other nurses and the concert put on for the patients on Christmas Eve she thought she enjoyed more than they did, for she had never seen or done such things before.

The next morning Carmel slipped out to Mass before beginning her shift on the ward, which brought home to her the true meaning of Christmas once more. She felt at peace with the world as she returned to the hospital.

After the Christmas period was over, Carmel was introduced to the experience chart, which the sister had to fill in and which she explained was deposited with the matron each term so she could see the progress of each probationer at a glance. So over the next few days Carmel watched as the more experienced nurses showed her how to read a thermometer, to dress a wound, make up a poultice, roll a patient safely and give a bed-bath. Though she had done some of these things alongside Sister Frances, she said not a word about it.

The new year of 1932 wasn’t very old when all the room-mates had to do their annual block on night duty. All probationers once a year had to do almost three months on nights. This involved the girls moving out of the nurses’ home to rooms above the matron’s offices, which were quieter so that they could get some sleep in the day. Sleep was desperately needed as the girls worked from 11 p.m. until 8.15 a.m. for twelve nights followed by two nights off duty. So it wasn’t until the end of April, after their spell of night duty was over, that all four girls had a Saturday completely free.

‘We shouldn’t waste a whole Saturday off,’ Lois said gleefully after breakfast.

‘I suppose you would consider it a total waste if I suggested spending my day off in bed?’ Carmel said wistfully.

‘Yes I would, so don’t even bother thinking that way,’ Lois said firmly. ‘Come on, Carmel. What’s the matter with you? I want to show you around Birmingham, take you to my dad’s shop, show you the Bull Ring.’

‘All right, all right,’ Carmel said, giving in, ‘but the other two might not want to go gallivanting around the town.’

‘They’ll be fine,’ Lois said confidently, but Jane and Sylvia were difficult to rouse, impossible to motivate and point-black refused to go anywhere for a fair few hours.

‘But the day will be gone then.’

‘Good,’ said Sylvia.

‘Where do you want to go in such a tear anyway?’ Jane asked.

‘To town, the Bull Ring and that.’

‘Are you mad?’ Jane said. ‘Haven’t we seen it all a million times? It can wait until we feel a bit more human.’

‘Carmel hasn’t seen it.’

‘Well, show it to her then,’ Sylvia said irritably.

‘All right then,’ Lois said, conceding defeat. ‘Why don’t you meet us for lunch in Lyons Corner House on New Street?’

‘Make it tea and I’ll think about it,’ Sylvia said with a yawn. ‘I want a bath and to wash my hair and there’s homework to do first, and so until then let a body sleep, can’t you?’

‘All right,’ Lois said. ‘We can take a hint. We know when we’re not wanted.’

As they walked up Steelhouse Lane a little later, Carmel wondered what was the cheapest thing Lyons Corner House sold because she hadn’t the money to go out to eat. She would have to impress that on Lois as soon as she could.

‘Right,’ Lois said, taking Carmel’s arm, ‘if we were to walk up Colmore Row as far as the Town Hall, then we can go for a toddle round the shops and have a bite to eat in Lyons before we tackle the Bull Ring. What do you say?’

‘I say, I can’t really afford to eat out, Lois,’ Carmel said uncomfortably.

‘My treat.’

‘No, really.’

‘Listen,’ Lois said, ‘Daddy sends me an allowance every month and I have hardly spent any of it. I have plenty to treat my friends.’

‘Even so…’

‘Even so nothing,’ Lois said airily. ‘Come on, this is Colmore Row now.’

The road was long and wide with tram tracks laid the length of it. Carmel’s eye was caught by an imposing building on her right. It had many storeys, supported by pillars, and arched windows. ‘Snow Hill Station’ was written above the entrance.

‘There are three stations in Birmingham,’ Lois said, taking in her gaze. ‘The one you arrived in was New Street, this is Snow Hill and the other one is called Moor Street down Digbeth way. We’ll be nearly beside it when we are down the Bull Ring. But that is for later.’ She pointed. ‘If you look across the road now you will see St Philip’s Cathedral. See, it’s no bigger than St Chad’s.’

It was grand, though, Carmel thought, taking in the majestic arched, stained-glass windows. There was a tower above the main structure and a clock set just beneath the blue dome above it. All around the church were trees and tended lawns interspersed with paths, with benches here and there for people to rest on. Carmel thought it a very pleasant place altogether and would have liked the opportunity to sit and watch the world go by.

However, Lois was in no mood for sitting. She led the way up the road, and after a short distance it opened out before a tall and imposing building of light brick.

‘Our own Big Ben,’ Lois told Carmel with a smile, pointing to a large clock in a tower at the front of it, ‘known as “Big Brum” and this statue here is of Queen Victoria.’ She led Carmel over to look at the statute of the old and rather disgruntled-looking queen.

‘And that truly magnificent building in front of us is the Town Hall you spoke about?’ Carmel asked.

‘The very same.’

‘It’s huge!’ Carmel said, approaching the marvellous structure. ‘Look at the enormous arches on the ground floor and those giant columns soaring upwards from it, and all the carvings and decoration.’

‘You never really look at the place you live in,’ Lois said. ‘And I am ashamed to say that, though I knew all about the Town Hall, I’ve never truly seen its grandeur until now. It’s supposed to be based on a Roman temple.’

‘Gosh, Lois,’ said Carmel in admiration. ‘What a lovely city you have.’

Lois was surprised and pleased. ‘You haven’t even seen the shops yet,’ she said.

‘Well,’ said Carmel, ‘what are we waiting for?’ She linked arms with Lois and they sallied forth together.

Carmel came from a thriving town, a county town, which she’d always thought was quite big, but she saw that it was a dwarf of a place compared to Birmingham. The pavements on New Street, on every street, were thronged with people, and she had never seen such traffic as they turned towards the centre where cars, trucks, lorries and vans jostled for space with horse-drawn carts, diesel buses and clanking, swaying trams.

Carmel had never see a sight like it—so many people gathered together in one place—had never heard such noise and had never had the sour, acrid taste of engine fumes that had lodged in the back of her throat and her mouth. The size of the buildings shocked her as much as the array of shops or things on offer. Some of the stores were on several floors. Lois had taken her inside a few of these and she had stood mesmerised by the goods for sale, by the lights in the place, the smart shop assistants.

Some of the counters housed enormous silver tills, which the assistants would punch the front of and the prices would be displayed at the top. Carmel had seen tills before, but none as impressive as these. Best of all, though, were the counters that had no till at all. There the assistant would issue a bill, which, together with the customer’s money, would be placed in a little metal canister that was somehow attached to wires crisscrossing the shop. It would swoop through the air to a cashier who was usually sitting up in a high glass-sided little office. She would then deal with the receipt and, if there was any change needed, put it in the canister and the process would be reversed.

It was so entertaining, Carmel could have watched it all day. But Lois was impatient. ‘Come on, there is so much to see yet. Have you ever been in a lift?’

No. Carmel had never been in a lift and when Lois had taken her up and down in one, wasn’t sure she wanted to go in again either.

‘I’ll stick with the stairs, thank you,’ she said.

Lois grinned. ‘I’ll take you to some special stairs,’ she said, when they were in Marshall & Snelgrove. ‘See how you like them.’

Carmel didn’t like them one bit. ‘They are moving.’

‘Of course they are.’ Lois said. ‘It’s called an escalator.’

‘How would you get on to it?’ Carmel said. ‘I prefer my stairs to be static.’

‘Where’s your sense of adventure?’ Lois demanded. ‘It’s easy, even children use them. Come on, follow me.’

Carmel did, stepping onto the escalator gingerly and nearly losing her balance totally when the stair folded down beneath her foot. All the way to the next floor she didn’t feel safe, but still she felt proud of herself for actually doing it.

‘They have escalators in Lewis’s too, where Dad works. You remember me telling you?’ Lois asked. When Carmel nodded she added, ‘Well, that is where I am going to take you next.’

Carmel thought Lewis’s at the top of Corporation Street a most unusual shop altogether. It appeared to be two shops on either side of a little cobbled street called The Minories, though Lois said they joined at the third floor.

Carmel gazed upwards. ‘I can see they join somewhere.’

‘The fifth floor is the place to be,’ Lois said. ‘It’s full of toys.’

‘Toys?’

‘Yes, but toys like you have never seen. Before my mother took to lying on a couch all day long and moaning and groaning, she’d bring us to town sometimes and we always begged to go to the toy floor. I have to go again, if only to see if it has the same fascination now that I am an adult.’

With a smile, Carmel agreed to go with Lois so that she could satisfy her curiosity, but she didn’t expect to be much interested herself. What an eye-opener she got.

The first thing she saw were model trains running round the room, up hill and down dale, passing through countryside, under tunnels and stopping at little country stations where you could see the streets and houses and people. Then they would be off again, changing lines as the signals indicated.

‘It’s magical, isn’t it?’ Lois said at her side. ‘I used to watch it as long as I was allowed.’

Carmel could only nod, understanding that perfectly.

There were other toys too, of course, when Carmel was able to tear herself away—huge forts full of lead soldiers, or cowboys and Indians. There were also big garages with every toy car imaginable and a variety of car tracks for them to run along.

Another section had soft-bodied dolls with china heads and all manner of clothes nice enough to put on a real-life baby, and the cots and prams and pushchairs you would hardly credit.

‘Did you have toys like these?’ Carmel asked Lois.

‘No,’ Lois said. ‘Our stuff was basic, nothing like these magnificent things.’

Carmel wandered around the department, mesmerised. Teddy bears, rocking horses, hobby horses, spinning tops, skipping ropes with fancy handles, jack-in-the-boxes and kaleidoscopes were just some of the things she knew her little brothers and sisters would love. There were giant dolls’ houses, full of minute furniture and little people that would thrill the girls. And she so wished she could buy her brothers a proper football, for all they had to kick about were rags tied together, or the occasional pig’s bladder they begged from the butcher in the town. And wouldn’t they just love the cricket sets and blow football, and they could all have a fine game with the ping-pong.

The only thing the Duffy children had to spin was the lid of a saucepan, and their toys were buttons, clothes pegs, or stones. Any dolls were made of rags. Carmel felt suddenly immeasurably sad for her siblings, but even worse, she also felt guiltily glad that she was no longer there to share their misery.

‘Well,’ said Lois, ‘I don’t know about you, but I am ready for my dinner and Lyons is as close as anywhere.’

‘Are you sure you can afford it?’

‘Don’t start that again,’ Lois said. ‘We have already discussed it. Come on quick for my stomach thinks my throat is cut.’

Carmel realised she too was hungry and her stomach growled in appreciation when just a little later a steaming plate of golden fish and crispy chips was placed before her. Both girls did the meal justice, and Lois sighed with satisfaction as she ate the last morsel.

‘Ooh, that’s better,’ she said. ‘It’s amazing how a meal revives you. I was feeling quite tired.’

‘So was I,’ Carmel said. ‘But I have enjoyed today, for all that. You have a very interesting city here, Lois.’

‘You know,’ Lois said. ‘I have never really thought that before. What do you say to us exploring the Bull Ring now?’

‘I say lead the way,’ Carmel said, and the two girls left the cafeteria arm in arm.

The Bull Ring astounded Carmel. There were women grouped around a statue selling flowers, such a colourful and fragrant sight, though she had to shake her head at the proffered bunches for she hadn’t enough spare money to buy flowers.

The hawkers, selling all manner of things from their barrows, swept down the cobbled incline to another church that Lois told her was called St Martin-in-the Fields, though there were precious little fields around, she noted. It was however, ringed by trees, its spire towering skyward.

Everywhere hawkers shouted out their wares, vying with the clamour of the customers. One old lady’s strident voice rose above the others. She was standing in front of Woolworths, which the two girls were making for, and she was selling carrier bags and determined to let everybody know about it.

‘Woolworths is called the tanner shop,’ Lois said.

The two girls wandered up and down the aisles, looking at all the different things for sale for sixpence or less.

‘Everything is just sixpence?’ Carmel asked in amazement.

‘Oh, yes,’ Lois said with a smile. ‘Though some say that it’s a swizz. I mean, you do get a teapot for a tanner, but if you want a lid for it that is another tanner and a teapot is not much good without a lid, is it?’

‘No,’ Carmel agreed. ‘But I don’t know that that is not such a bad idea. After all, it is usually the lid breaks first. I would be very handy to be able to get another and all for just sixpence.’

‘Well, yes,’ Lois conceded. ‘That’s another way of looking at it, I suppose. Come on, I want to take a dekko at Hobbies next door.’

The window of Hobbies was full of wooden models of planes, cars and ships of all shapes, sizes and designs. Carmel was amazed at the detail and size of them.

‘My brother would spend hours in here,’ Lois said. ‘They sell kits, you know, to make the things you can see, and Santa always had one in his sack that he would drop off ready for Christmas morning.’ She wrinkled her nose and went on, ‘I can smell the glue even now. It was disgusting.

‘Now,’ she said, turning away from the shop, ‘I think the Rag Market is the place we’ll make for next, down by the church. Watch out for the trams. They come rattling around in front of St Martin’s like the very devil and there might be a couple of drayhorses pulling carts too.’

‘Drayhorses I have no problem with,’ Carmel said. ‘I’m used to horses, but those trams frighten the life out of me. I will give them a wide berth, never fear.’

Lois laughed. ‘You’ll soon get used to them,’ she said, but Carmel doubted she would. She’d seldom seen anything so scary.

Once inside the hall, there was a pervading odour.

‘What’s the stink?’ Carmel asked Lois. ‘It’s like fish.’

‘It is fish, left over from the weekdays when this place is used as a fish market,’ Lois said. ‘But never mind that. This is the place where bargains are to be had.’

Carmel thought it a strange place, for while some of the goods were displayed on trestle tables, others were just laid on blankets spread on the floor. She was very interested in the second-hand stalls where she saw many good quality clothes being sold comparatively cheaply, and she thought she would bear that in mind in case she needed anything another time.

She could have spent longer in the market, for such unusual things were being sold there. She stood mesmerised by the mechanical toys a man was selling. Catching Carmel’s interest, he wound up a spinning top.

‘On the table, on the chair, little devils go everywhere,’ he chanted. ‘Only a tanner. What d’you say?’

What Carmel would have liked to have said was that she would take four or five to send home to her wee brothers and sisters. She could imagine their excitement, but instead she turned her head away regretfully. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t the money to spare.’

‘Your loss, lady.’

‘Come on,’ Lois urged. ‘I want you to see Peacocks. You can buy almost anything there, and we must go to the Market Hall before we leave.’

When they were outside the Rag Market a far more pleasant smell than that of stale fish assailed Carmel’s nostrils and she sniffed appreciatively.

‘That’s the smell from Mountford’s, where they’re cooking the joints of meat,’ Lois said. ‘Makes you feel hungry, doesn’t it?’

‘Not half.’

They passed the shop, where there was the tantalising sight of a sizzling joint on a spit turning in the window. Carmel felt her mouth water. It would be at least another hour before she ate anything, for she and Lois were not meeting the others until five and it was only four o’clock.

‘Come on,’ Lois urged. ‘Let’s go and see around Peacocks. I used to love this too when I was just a child.’

Peacocks was packed—Lois said it always was and Carmel could well see why, for the store had such a conglomeration of things for sale, clothes and toys as well as anything you would conceivably need for the house.

Outside Peacocks, a hawker had a stall selling fish. ‘What am I asking for these kippers?’ he demanded. ‘A tanner a pair, that’s what. Come on, ladies, get out your purses. You won’t get a bargain like this every day.’

Because of the press of people, the girls had reached the steps leading up to the gothic pillars either side of the door into the Market Hall before Carmel noticed the men. They were shabbily and inadequately dressed, their boots well cobbled, and the greasy caps rammed on over their heads hiding much of their thin grey faces. They all had trays around their necks, selling bootlaces, razor blades, matches and hairgrips. Carmel felt a flash of pity for them, and as soon as they were in the Hall and out of the men’s hearing, asked who they were.

‘Flotsam from the last war,’ Lois told her. ‘They can’t get proper jobs, you see. I mean, there is little work anyway, but some of these men couldn’t do anything hard or physical, because many are damaged in some way from the war, shell-shocked perhaps, or suffering from the effects of gas. There is one man comes sometimes and he’s blind and led along by a friend, and another with only one leg.’

‘It’s awful,’ Carmel burst out. ‘And so unfair. These men have fought for their country—surely the government should look after them now.’

‘Of course they should, but when has that made any difference?’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Look,’ Lois said, ‘this is your first experience of this, but I have seen them there for years. You get almost used to it, though if I have any spare cash I will buy something because I do feel sorry for them. But if we get upset, it won’t change things for them, will it?’

And of course it wouldn’t. Carmel saw that and she took her lead from Lois. In the Market Hall there was much to distract her, anyway, for, like the barrows outside, stalls selling meat, vegetables and fish were side by side with junk and novelty stalls and others selling pots and pans, cheap crockery, sheets and towels. However, for Carmel the main draw was the pet stall.

She had never owned a pet, and though she would have loved a cuddly kitten of her own, or a boisterous puppy to take for walks, she knew there had been barely enough food for the children, never mind an animal. She’d never have taken a defenceless animal near her father either, for she thought a man who would beat his wife and children without thought or care, wouldn’t think twice about kicking an animal to death if the notion took him.

There were rabbits and guinea pigs in cages, and twittering canaries and budgies that Lois spent ages trying to get to talk. Carmel had never heard of a talking budgie and was inclined to be sceptical. However, just as Lois was maintaining that some budgies did talk and she had an aunt who had owned such a bird, there was a sudden shriek and a raucous voice burst out, ‘Mind the mainsail. Keep it steady, lads. Who’s a pretty boy then?’

The milling customers laughed and the stall owner went into the back to bring out a parrot that neither Lois nor Carmel had noticed.

‘There,’ Lois said with satisfaction. ‘I told you that some birds can talk.’

‘You said budgies could, not parrots,’ Carmel contradicted. ‘I knew about parrots, though I had never heard one until today.’

‘Even budgies…’

However, Lois didn’t get to finish the sentence, because someone beside her suddenly said, ‘It’s nearly five o’clock.’

Carmel put the kitten she had been holding back in the box, and stood up, brushing the straw lint from her coat. ‘We’d better get our skates on,’ she said. ‘The other will be there before we are.’

‘No, wait on,’ Lois said. ‘If we are a few minutes late, they won’t mind. They can have a cup of tea or something.’

‘But what are we waiting for?’

‘The clock,’ Lois said, pulling Carmel to the front of the stall. Everyone was suddenly still, Carmel noticed, and gazing up at the wooden clock on the wall, watching the seconds ticking by. And then the hour was reached and three figures, like knights and a lady, emerged to strike a set of bells to play a tinkling, but lilting tune. Carmel was as enthralled as anyone else.

‘Oh, it’s lovely,’ she cried, when the strains of it had died away.

‘It wasn’t always here,’ Lois said, as they walked outside again. ‘It was first put into an arcade up Dale End way, but my dad said that the arcade went out of business through lack of custom. He told me the man who made the clock was never paid the full asking price and he is supposed to have put a curse on it and that was why the arcade in Dale End had to close. That is hardly going to happen here, though, to the thriving Market Hall. You saw that for yourself today.’

‘Yes I did,’ Carmel agreed. ‘But I can’t help feeling sorry for the man who made the clock not getting the money for it. It’s a magnificent piece of work and must have taken him ages and ages—and then to be diddled like that…’

‘You’re all for the underdog, aren’t you?’ Lois said. ‘First the old lags on the market steps and now the poor clockmaker. I’ve never ever given that man a minute’s thought.’

‘I don’t like unfairness.’

‘No more do I,’ Lois said. ‘Only now that I am nearly grown up I see that there is unfairness everywhere, and as individuals there isn’t much we can do about it. The poverty of this place, which I imagine is repeated in most cities, would really depress you if you let it. You sometimes have to rise above it, even if you care desperately.’

Carmel said nothing more, for wasn’t that just what she had done—risen above neglect, poverty and the downright tyranny of her home and left the others to manage as best they could? She had cared while she was there, for all the good it did, but when this means of escape had been handed to her, she had grasped it thankfully and pulled herself up. She had no intention of letting herself go back to that sort of situation ever again and so without another word she followed Lois to meet the others.