Sadie Was A Lady (33 page)

‘D’yer fancy a game of rummy, queen?’

‘What’s rummy when it’s out, Grandad?’

Joe looked surprised. ‘It’s a card game … surely yer’ve played cards, queen?’

Sadie shook her head. ‘Never in me life, Grandad, honest! But yer can teach me – I’m quick at picking things up.’

‘It’s an easy game – so yer’ll pick it up in no time,’ Sarah said. ‘A couple of hands and yer’ll be knockin’ spots off me and Joe.’

‘It’ll pass an hour away,’ Joe said, opening a drawer in the cupboard built into the recess at the side of the
fireplace.
‘There’s nothin’ on the wireless that would interest a young girl like you.’

‘I’ll have a bash, Grandad, but yer’ll have to be patient, me being a learner, like.’

‘He’s a one for cheating, is my Joe.’ Sarah winked broadly. ‘But I’ll keep me eye on him until yer’ve got the hang of it.’

Sadie glanced at the clock, as she’d been doing every few minutes for the last hour. It was five to eight. ‘I think I’d better nip down the yard first, save goin’ in the middle of a game. I’d hate to give me Grandad a chance to cheat on me.’

Sitting on the scrubbed wooden bench-like seat of the outside lavatory, Sadie wrung her hands. Harry would be waiting for her outside the park gates right this minute. Oh, she should have told him; it was a lousy trick to play on him. Perhaps she could write to him and explain, say how sorry she was. If she did that, at least he’d know she cared. And she didn’t have to tell him where she was – she could leave the address off. Yes, she’d do that tomorrow. She’d buy some paper and an envelope, and write it in the privacy of her bedroom tomorrow night. She knew she’d never see Harry again, but she couldn’t bear the thought of him thinking ill of her.

Her heart a little lighter, and a smile on her face, Sadie walked back up the yard to be introduced to her first game of cards.

Harry paced up and down outside the park gates. He’d been waiting for half an hour and was now beginning to lose hope. Perhaps she didn’t feel well and wasn’t able to let him know. There must be a good reason; Sadie wouldn’t let him down unless it was something important. But he couldn’t help feeling depressed. His whole life revolved around his twice-weekly meetings with her, and right now he felt so disappointed he could cry. He’d have to try and catch her coming home from work tomorrow night to ask why she hadn’t turned up. And he needed to see sight of
her;
he couldn’t wait until Wednesday – that was a lifetime away.

Harry didn’t whistle on his way home, he felt too miserable. He’d have to bring his relationship with Sadie out into the open; he couldn’t carry on like this. He knew his mother would go mad, but it was his life and the one thing he was certain of was that Sadie was the only girl with whom he wanted to spend it.

Mary Ann stood shaking her head as she watched Sadie going through the bundle of clothes she’d just opened. It was a ritual with her now, checking each bundle for clothes that would suit her brothers and sisters. This was her sixth week working at the market and once or twice a week she’d find something suitable and it would be put away until the weekend when she got her wages and could pay for them.

‘It’s none of my business, girl, but surely to God yer’ve got enough clothes now to kit the bleedin’ army out! Isn’t it about time yer started getting some gear for yerself? It’s nippy this morning, yer could do with something warm on.’

‘I’m only young, Auntie Mary, and young ones don’t feel the cold like you oldies.’ Sadie grinned. ‘Anyway, I’m saving up until a fur coat comes in.’

‘Huh! Yer’ll have a long ruddy wait, sunshine. If a fur coat comes in … and it’s a big flamin’ “if” … yours truly will be first in line. I don’t mind yer havin’ the superior-quality clothes stall, even if it does make yer sound more posh, but when it comes to yer havin’ a fur coat, well, I draw the line at that.’

Sadie handed her a boy’s grey shirt that had obviously been worn as part of a school uniform. ‘Will yer put it away for me, Auntie Mary, please? I can pay yer for that today and that’ll keep us straight.’

Mary Ann huffed as she took the shirt. ‘I think it’s bloody ridiculous that yer spendin’ yer hard-earned coppers on clothes when it’s yer mam’s place to buy them.’

‘I know she should buy them, Auntie Mary, but the trouble is, she doesn’t. And I don’t spend all me money on them – I always put at least one and six away every week. And don’t forget I’ve bought some beddin’ for meself, as well, so I haven’t done too bad. And now I’ve got enough clothes for the kids I’ll start to see to meself.’

‘Now yer’ve got all this gear, what d’yer intend doin’ with it? Have yer thought of a way to get it to them without yer mam and dad seein’ yer?’

Sadie nodded, ‘Yeah, I’ve got it all figured out.’ She was looking very pleased with herself. ‘If you’ll let me have an hour off one afternoon, I can be outside our Jimmy’s school when he comes out.’

Mary Ann looked suitably impressed. ‘Ay, that’s a good idea. Yer not just a pretty face, are yer, girl?’

‘No, I do have a few loose brains rattling around in me head.’ The grin slipped from Sadie’s face. ‘Can I go tomorrow, Auntie Mary? I’m dying to see him, and to find out how all the others are.’

‘Of course yer can, girl, it’s only natural yer want to see him. Are yer goin’ to tell him where yer live, and that yer work here?’

‘No, it wouldn’t be fair on him. He’s only ten, and me mam and dad would easy get it out of him. I’m not goin’ to ask him to lie, so it’s best if he doesn’t know. What he doesn’t know, he can’t tell. I’ve been the biggest liar on God’s earth for the last two years – I don’t want to turn him into a liar as well.’

‘The lies you told never hurt anyone, girl, so don’t be losing no bleedin’ sleep over it. If yer parents had been halfway decent it wouldn’t have been necessary.’

‘There was someone I hurt with me lies.’ Sadie eyes were on the ground. ‘I hurt the one person who’d been more kind to me than anyone.’

‘Yer talkin’ about Harry, the boy next door?’

Sadie nodded. ‘God will punish me for what I did to him.’

‘Are yer still hankering after him, sunshine?’

‘I do miss him,’ Sadie admitted. ‘But I wouldn’t feel so
bad
if I could have told him to his face that I was leaving.’

‘I was under the impression that yer’d written and explained.’

‘I did, but words on a bit of paper are cold; I would rather have said it to his face. We could at least have parted as friends.’

‘Don’t be getting yerself all upset,’ Mary Ann said. ‘Just think of what yer’ve got to look forward to tomorrow.’

Sadie hugged herself. ‘Yeah, I’m really looking forward to seeing our Jimmy. I bet he’s grown a lot in the last six weeks. I wish it was tomorrow now.’

‘Well, the time passes slowly when yer hands are idle, girl,’ Mary Ann said, her face as straight as a poker, ‘so why don’t yer sort that bundle out and take whatever yer think is suitable for yer superior-quality clothes stall? It’s not that I don’t like standing jangling with yer, ’cos I’d go as far as to say I’m quite partial to it. Unfortunately, I’m also quite partial to eating, an’ the way we’re going on there’ll be no bleedin’ money to satisfy me partiality.’

Sadie feigned a frown as she tilted her head. ‘I don’t think that’s very good English, Auntie Mary.’

‘What’s not good English, girl?’

‘What you’ve just said. I’ve never heard anyone say “satisfy me partiality”.’

‘Of course yer have!’

‘I have not!’

‘Yer’ve just bleedin’ well heard
me
say it, yer daft ha’porth! If I hadn’t said it, why would you have said yer’d never heard of it?’

Sadie raised her hands in a gesture of surrender. ‘You win, Auntie Mary, I know when I’m beat.’ She went back to sorting the clothes out but could not stop her laughter from erupting. ‘Yer know, Auntie Mary, if the customers that come to my superior-quality clothes stall heard the language out of you, they’d be decidedly highly indignant.’

‘What does that mean, girl?’

‘What does what mean, Auntie Mary?’

‘This decidedly highly indignant lark. Haven’t never heard that before.’

‘Yes, you have.’

‘Oh yeah, silly me, of course I’ve heard it before – from you! Honestly, I’ve got a head like a bleedin’ sieve.’ Mary Ann clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘There I go again with me bad language. Oh, woe is me, I’ll never get promoted to the superior-quality clothes stall. I’m destined to remain forever on the tuppence with a hole, thruppence without a hole.’

The two of them burst out laughing before attacking the bundles with a vengeance to make up for the time spent jangling.

Sadie stood with her hand gripping one of the bars of the school railings, the bundle of clothes at her feet. She’d heard the school bell go a short while ago and knew that any minute now, swarms of children would pour out of the doors screaming and shouting, rejoicing in their freedom from the fear of a rap on the knuckles with a ruler or, horror of horrors, three strokes of the cane. And if they went home and complained that they’d had the cane just for turning around in the middle of a lesson, they’d be told they must have deserved it and get a cuff on the ear for good measure.

The double doors burst open and the stampede began. Sadie’s breath was coming in short gasps and her tummy was turning over as her eyes scanned the faces of the boys. There were so many she began to fear she’d miss her brother, and when the crowd petered out and he still hadn’t appeared, her heart sank. She’d either missed him or he wasn’t at school. She had almost given up hope when a lone figure emerged through the doors.

‘Jimmy!’ Sadie waved her hand through the railings. ‘Over here!’

The boy stopped and screwed up his eyes as he tried to make out who was calling his name from the other side of the high railings. Then, when recognition dawned, his face broke into a smile and he dashed across the playground and through the gates. ‘Sadie!’

Sadie held her arms wide and he ran into them. As
they
hugged each other, tears streamed down his face and for a brief second he felt ashamed in case any of the other boys in the class saw him. Then when he looked into his sister’s face and saw how happy she was to see him, he stopped worrying about being called a cissie. ‘Are yer coming home, our Sadie?’

Sadie held him away from her. ‘Yer’ve shot up since I last saw yer. The way yer going on, yer’ll be head and shoulders over me soon.’

Jimmy seemed to grow in stature at her words. But he wanted an answer to his question. ‘Are yer comin’ back home?’

‘No, Jimmy, I’m not ever going back home. But I’ve missed yer and I think about yer all the time.’ Sadie touched the bundle with her toe. ‘I’ve been saving up an’ I’ve brought some clothes for yer. There’s things there for you, some for Ellen, Les and the baby. So yer see, although I might not be there, yer always in me mind.’

Jimmy looked crestfallen. ‘It’s terrible at home without yer. Me mam and dad do nothin’ but shout at us and our Dot’s a holy terror. Nobody smiles any more, not since you left. Won’t yer come home, our Sadie, please?’

Sadie’s heart went out to him. His clothes were dirty and torn, he had no socks on and his shoes were falling off his feet. It was such a shame because he was a nice-looking boy and dressed decently would be a credit to anyone. ‘I’m sorry, Jimmy, but I couldn’t live in that house any more. And I’ll never live with me mam and dad again, nor our Dot. You know I had no life there. I was sixteen and didn’t have a friend because of them. I used to be ashamed walking down the street because of them. Frightened to have a boyfriend because of them. No, Jimmy, I couldn’t face living like that again.’

‘Where are yer livin’, our Sadie? Couldn’t I come and live with yer? I wouldn’t be no trouble, honest, I’d be as good as gold.’

‘I haven’t got a place of me own, Jimmy, I live with someone. And I’m not goin’ to tell yer where it is in case me dad belts it out of yer. But I promise yer this, and it
goes
for Ellen and Les, too, that as soon as I’m old enough to get a house of me own, I’ll have yer all to live with me. And that’s a promise.’

‘I’d like that, our Sadie, livin’ with you. We’d have a nice clean house, wouldn’t we, like Mrs Young next door.’

Sadness wrapped around Sadie’s heart. ‘Yes, Jimmy, like Mrs Young.’

‘Her son stopped me one day – you know, the one called Harry. He asked me where yer’d got to, said he hadn’t seen yer around.’

‘And what did yer tell him?’

‘I couldn’t tell ’im nothin’, could I? I said we didn’t know where yer were, that yer’d just left home.’

Sadie sighed. For a brief moment she thought of giving Jimmy a message to pass on to Harry, but she quickly dismissed the idea. ‘I had to be underhanded, Jimmy, otherwise I wouldn’t have got away with it. But tell me what happened on the Saturday I did leave. What did me mam and dad say?’

‘There was ructions! Me mam sent me down to the factory to see if yer were working late, but the place was closed. She was ranting about what she’d do to yer when yer got in, for leavin’ her without money. Then when it got to night-time she said she was goin’ to the police, but me dad wouldn’t let her. I’ll leave out the bad swearwords he used, our Sadie, ’cos they was terrible. He said, “Can’t yer get it through yer thick head that the so-and-so has left home, yer silly old cow?”.’

‘Are things still as bad, Jimmy?’

‘Well, our Dot’s had to go out to work.’

Sadie gasped. ‘Go ’way! When was this?’

‘The week after yer left. There was murder over it. Our Dot was dead hard-faced with me mam, said she had no intention of findin’ a job and that was that. But me mam gave her the hidin’ of her life, belted her all around the room and said if she didn’t get out the next day and find herself a job she’d break her so-and-so neck.’

Sadie’s eyes were wide. ‘What did me dad have to say about that?’

‘He agreed with me mam that they needed the money. So our Dot now works at that tobacco factory, and she hates it. She’s hard, is our Dot, as hard as nails. She goes out with fellers now an’ sometimes it’s turned twelve when she comes in.’