Читать книгу The Dreaded Workhouse - Danny McFaul - Страница 6

It was one of those cold dull and dark Fridays in the late afternoon of December 1941 when assistant Bank Clerk Vera Roberts wished that winter would get on with its job of covering the town in snow. She had found a temporary job in the Northern Bank in Upper Main Street opposite to the Town Hall, in her home town. She had been sharing a small flat over one of the nearby shops with an old school friend Nellie Stewart who was working as a retail assistant in a hardware shop. But on their meager wages, they were struggling to pay the rent and adequately keep themselves in food and clothing. They were therefore forced to move to a small cottage that was the only place available at number 16 Mill Lane, a few hundred yards from the bank in what was known as the Old Town. In the early 1900s, this cottage, though small, was used as a lodging house. Times were hard then and in the Old Town area practically, most of the accommodation in the maze of lanes was condemned and earmarked for demolition. Mill Street and Mill Lane both ran from Pound Street to High Street, which was where the New Town continued to grow after the Town Hall was built in 1869. The main street of the Old Town was Mill Street and it was once the centre of the towns manufacturing industries which ranged from Flour Mills to the making of straw covers for wine bottles.

The small flat that Vera had shared was quite crammed even with only the two girls living there. But they soon became aware of what it was like to live in a real slum as there was no running water in any of the cottages built at Mill Lane with accommodation of one up, an attic, and two down, a small bedroom and a sitting room. Water had to be collected in buckets from a stand pump, which fortunately for the girls were only a few yards away at their end of the lane. There was no bathroom, no kitchen, no scullery or sink, and the toilet which was a ‘dry closet’ was at the bottom of the back garden. Toilet paper was unheard of as torn up local newspaper neatly cut into eight or nine inch squares were deemed sufficient. Rats and mice were commonplace; no doubt attracted by the Middens as the closets were called. Mill Street and Mill Lane area of the town had one or two larger than life characters living there at the time. One of these characters lived with his petite wife next door to Vera and Nellie at number 14, Mill Lane. He was known simply as Surly. When he and his wife first came to the town, they couldn’t find lodgings. They had arrived late on a Saturday afternoon with a donkey and cart as Surly was a Tinker by profession. After a verbal battle in the middle of that first night in Mill Lane (brought on by heavy drinking that afternoon), Surly unyoked the donkey and he and his wife eventually bedded down on some straw in the cart after securing the donkey to the cartwheel.

Surly also kept a gander and a couple of geese which often kept the girls awake at nights flapping their wings and hissing, so much so that Vera and Nellie became afraid to venture down the back garden to the Midden at night in the wartime blackout of the 1940s. Surly did help the girls out on several occasions by setting mousetraps for them. He insisted that he would set the traps himself for fear of the girls getting their fingers caught when setting the bait. The girls of course supplied the cheese for the bait in the trap. The whole of Britain was ‘blacked out’ on the first of September 1939, two days before the outbreak of the Second World War. Everyone had to cover their windows and doors at night (before sunset) with heavy blackout curtains, cardboard, or paint. They needed to prevent any glimmer of light from escaping and aiding enemy aircraft during bombing raids. Street lights, such as they were then, were switched off or dimmed and shielded to deflect their light downward. Traffic lights and vehicle headlights were fitted with slotted covers to deflect their beam down to the ground. Yet many people nationwide died in road accidents, especially in the larger cities.

The number of road deaths increased because of these restrictions which were strongly enforced. It was a harsh winter and earlier in the year the German Luftwaffe had bombed the nearby city of Belfast a few miles away. It was also a time when, due to the acute shortages of food and all other commodities, rationing was strictly in force. As Christmas was approaching, Vera Roberts had managed to save some coupons on her ration book in order to treat herself to the best chocolate bar that she could find. Her favourite shopping store was Lipton’s, situated in Dunluce Street where the local newspaper office was, near the bottom of Mill Street. The store had a meat section, a produce section, and a confectionery section. Most of the items didn’t stay very long on the shelves, and people used to queue for hours even before the deliveries arrived. Most of the merchandise was sold out of things like fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, milk, and meat in a very short time.

So with a casual glance at the almost empty fruit and vegetable shelves, Vera ambled over to the sweet section. There were a couple of packets of chewing gum, some loose toffee sweets, a small bar of Terry’s Old Gold, and just one small box of her favourites, Cadbury Chocolate Soldiers. A few customers were in the store, and as Vera reached to get the lone chocolate box to inspect it, her hand accidentally collided with another hand which was attached to a slim, dark-haired male. ‘I am so sorry’. Vera said instantly, she being one of those people who apologies for bumping into someone even if it was the other persons fault. Slim, dark, and as she had already noticed, handsome, replied with a smile. ‘It didn’t really hurt very much.’ He said. ‘I should have been more careful.’ Vera answered. ‘Looks like we have the same taste in chocolates’ the handsome man replied as he reached forward to pick up the chocolate box and hand it to her. ‘I assume this is what you are after?’ He said. ‘Oh . . . no, I couldn’t,’ she replied, a little flustered, wondering how he knew that she wanted that particular one. ‘It was careless of me not to notice that you were there,’ Vera said. ‘Not at all, I just happened to get in your way,’ said slim, dark, and handsome. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘your interest in the box of Chocolate Soldiers made me want to give them a try.’ Vera grinned sheepishly. ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘You keep the Chocolate Soldiers because that gives me an excuse to pick out that bar of Old Gold’.

She smiled and retreated to the fruit and vegetable section. To her surprise and delight, slim, dark, and handsome followed. ‘Let me introduce myself, which will allow you to introduce yourself. That way, I can find out what your name is without having to ask you outright. My name is Kirk Hansen,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘Vera Roberts,’ she said, shaking his hand and noting his surprised reaction upon hearing her name for the first time. ‘Vera,’ he muttered. ‘You look more like a Mary Jane to me Ms Roberts, but as I said before, we seem to have a common interest in Chocolates.’ Without looking at him, Vera turned rather abruptly. Small talk was not something she enjoyed, certainly not with a stranger and certainly not after the kind of day she had in the bank, no matter how handsome the stranger is. She was about to mumble a casual ‘Nice meeting you. Enjoy your chocolate’ when he appeared at her elbow. ‘Do you by chance believe in fate, Ms Roberts?’ He had a serious expression with just a hint of a grin. Vera stopped and stared at him.

Two thoughts popped into her head. One, it was an unfitting end to a disastrous day to bump into a psychopathic stalker over a small box of Chocolate Soldiers, and two, if this Kirk Hansen was not a stalker, he certainly needed a lot of help with his chat up lines. Vera was generally quiet and reserved, but she spoke her mind at certain times, and this she thought was one of them. ‘Mr. Hansen, either you are a psychopathic stalker or you need help with your chat up lines, and in response to your question, I think that only people who do not believe in the Almighty use the word Fate. Her words were firm, but her voice was clear and friendly but she was totally unprepared for what happened next. Kirk gave her a large grin and started to chuckle. ‘Very well put, Ms Roberts. May I buy you a cup of coffee?’ ‘Why, Mr. Hansen, does it feel like I just passed some sort of test?’ she asked. ‘That is because you just have Ms Roberts. That was not my chat up line. It was my screening plan,’ Kirk told her. ‘It was what, Mr. Hansen?’ ‘Look, I admit that I find you attractive, and I see no reason why I can’t meet someone like you in a grocery store just as I would at a party or in a dance hall. But the point is that you cannot really find out a lot about someone over talk about how rosy the tomatoes are, or how oval the eggs look today. So I ask, as you imply a very lame chat up question and see how the person responds.’ Vera was grinning. ‘I don’t normally drink coffee because it is very scarce and expensive. Don’t you know there is a war on, Mr. Hansen?’ ‘What about a cup of tea then?’ he said with a smile. ‘I do prefer tea, I must say,’ she answered.

Vera was quite a sensible girl and romantic enough to say, ‘Tell you what, Mr. Hansen, if you make the effort to find my phone number, you can give me a call and we can talk some more.’ She smiled and then strode towards the counter to pay for her Chocolate Soldiers. That first meeting with Kirk Hansen was on a Friday, and for several days afterwards, Vera found herself hurrying to the office phone every time it rang, her pulse racing. When she went to lunch, she never took a full lunch hour. She had to be there when the phone rang for her. She even rehearsed several times what she might say. After a week, hopes of him calling were fading, and on the following Tuesday, she was quite miserable at work, which was completely out of character for her.

On Thursday, she found that the milk had run out in the Tea Room at the bank. She didn’t want to go out if she didn’t have to, but on that day, as she was the junior member there and as everyone knows the junior makes the tea and runs the errands, she decided to go out to the store. Eventually, she told the manager that she was going across to Lipton’s Store in Dunluce Street for some milk, not that she expected to get fresh milk, but there was usually some powdered milk about. She was also very conscious that she may possibly encounter the presence of Kirk Hansen again, and if that did happen, she was not quite sure how she might handle the situation.

Common logic told her that the odds of him being there at that time of the day were quite small when she considered how many people there were in the town, and besides, Friday was delivery day for the larger stores and the time when they attracted the larger customer flow as well as being payday. Soon she was back in the bank, had made the tea, and was wondering why she was getting confused and flustered just thinking about a complete stranger. It was another week later that she decided to buy another box of Chocolate Soldiers if there were any at the store. On this occasion, she decided to keep to the confectionery department of the store, but all that remained on the shelves was a small box of Terry’s Old Gold.

After checking her ration coupon, she gave in to her better judgment and decided that the Old Gold was better than nothing. Suddenly, as she moved to pick up the chocolates, she heard a familiar voice from behind her. She became very tensed and nervous. ‘I didn’t think that you could last out very long without chocolates,’ she heard the male voice say. She took a deep breath, turned, gave him a little smile, and made her way towards the fruit and vegetable department as he followed her. ‘You shouldn’t go making assumptions and get upset just because some things don’t happen the way you want them to,’ he said. Ignoring him, she picked up two rather bruised and battered apples and then went towards the pay counter as slim, dark, and handsome followed. ‘What would have happened if I had called you?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know,’ she replied, icily. ‘And you don’t care, right?’ he said, in a mocking tone. Vera paused and then turned to him slowly. She was wondering if she should speak her mind again. ‘No, as a matter of fact, I did care. I cared for about two weeks, and then the strain of caring and being disappointed got a little too much. I taught myself to care less. But you know I am rather mad at myself that I did. I just wanted to know that you cared enough to make some effort.’ ‘Would you have been so honest over the phone?’ he asked. ‘Yes, I consider myself a very honest person,’ she replied. Kirk looked straight at her before saying, ‘Well, let me tell you what I did after we first met. I rehearsed a dozen different opening lines, thought up several answering phrases, and I even practiced my voice. I tried to figure out if I should try to sound casual or serious. By the following day, I didn’t even recognize myself anymore, so I decided that this phone business was a rotten idea after all. I therefore developed another plan.’ It was Vera’s turn to grin. ‘I see, and that plan would have been to hope that we would once again meet by the chocolate counter, was that your great plan?’ she said in a mocking fashion. ‘It wasn’t by chance, in fact, it was inevitable seeing as I come here almost every Friday evening.’ Vera lifted her eyebrows as he continued to tell her, ‘Are you aware that this store gets a delivery every Friday? Most of the stuff is sold very quickly as they really don’t get enough for all of their customer’s needs, but Cadbury Chocolate Soldiers are a luxury when there is a war on, a luxury that most people can’t afford to waste their precious coupons on.’ ‘And, of course, you know that I come here as well most Fridays after work?’ she replied.

Before either of them could say anything more, a young shop message boy came close to Kirk and said, ‘Hi, Kirk, did that girl ever turn up?’ ‘Hi, Billy,’ Kirk replied, and he then very quietly said, ‘She is here now.’ discretely nodding in Vera’s direction. Vera couldn’t help overhearing a bit of their conversation. ‘How often have you been here in the last two weeks?’ she asked Kirk. ‘Oh once or ... a few times,’ Kirk replied. ‘OK then every day since we met’ he admitted. ‘You and your fancy plans,’ she muttered. ‘Do I pass then?’ Kirk asked as he handed her a slip of paper. It had the Northern Bank telephone number on it. She smiled and held out her hand. ‘Call me Vera’ she said.

When Kirk got home one day, he thought of his mother being dead. She had died in the Workhouse. He had survived, but now his father was also dead. His father had died in a tragic accident. He had just sat there not knowing what to do or say, knowing he would never see or speak to his father again. He cried for his father and then for his mother. Never again would they see the light of day. Never will Kirk forget that day as it was so strained and painful. He didn’t have either of his parents any more. In one day, his life was broken up, shattered to pieces. He went to a new College and then to a new workplace but every morning, he was scared of what the other students and collagues would think of him if they knew his secret.