Time Goes By (4 page)

‘What a lovely idea,’ said Aunty Win, and Kathy thought she could see a tear in the corner of her eye, although she looked very happy.

Shirley dashed across at the end of the service. ‘Hello, Kathy … Have you asked your aunty if you can come for tea tomorrow?’

‘Yes, she has asked me,’ said Aunty Win, ‘and of course she can go … It’s very kind of you,’ she said to Mrs Morris, Shirley’s mother. ‘Thank you very much.’

‘It’s no trouble,’ said Mrs Morris. ‘We love having Kathy, and my husband will bring her home afterwards.’

They said goodbye and Kathy and her aunt walked home, leaving Mrs Morris and Shirley to wait for Graham.

‘It’s going to be a busy week, Kathy,’ Aunty Win told her. ‘You’re out for tea tomorrow; it’s Brownies on Tuesday; and on Wednesday the drama group is meeting to cast the new play.’

‘Are you going to have a big part, Aunty Win?’ asked Kathy. She had gone to see the last one with her daddy. Aunty Win had taken the part of the mother and had had a lot of words to remember. Kathy hadn’t understood it all, but she knew that her aunt had done it very well.

‘I’m not sure,’ smiled her aunt. ‘I’ll just have to wait and see. There are a lot more ladies as well as me.’

‘But they’re not as good,’ said Kathy, loyally.

Aunty Win laughed. ‘And then on Thursday it’s your open evening at school, isn’t it, dear? Your dad and I will be going to see Miss Roberts and find out how you’re getting on.’

‘Yes, we’ve been doing all sorts of special things to make a nice display on the walls,’ said Kathy.

‘Yes, I shall look forward to seeing that. All in all, a very busy week ahead,’ said Aunty Win.

K
athy loved going to tea at Shirley’s home. It was a small house, nowhere near as big as the hotel where she lived. It was only a few minutes’ walk from Holmleigh in a street of what Shirley told her were called semi-detached houses; that meant that their house was joined on to the one next door.

There was a small garden at the front with a tiny rectangle of grass and flowers growing round it. The garden at the back was not much bigger, but Kathy thought it must be lovely to have a garden at all. At Holmleigh there was just a paved area at the front and a form where the visitors could sit. And at the back it was just a yard with a coal shed, a wash house and an outside lavatory. But they did have three toilets inside the house as well, which were necessary for the visitors. 

There was a small bathroom upstairs at Shirley’s, and three bedrooms. One of them was very tiny and that was where Shirley’s brother, Graham, slept. Shirley said he grumbled because she had a bigger bedroom, but that was because she had to share with her little sister, Brenda, who was three years old. And Mr and Mrs Morris slept in the other one.

Kathy had slept in lots of different bedrooms at her home, depending on whether or not there were visitors staying there. During the winter she had quite a nice-sized bedroom on the first landing, but she liked it best in the summer when she sometimes slept in one of the attic bedrooms. The ceiling sloped right down to the floor at the front and you had to kneel down to look out of the window. It was a lovely view, though, right across everybody else’s rooftops. She could see Blackpool Tower, and the tiniest glimpse of the sea, sparkling blue if the sun was shining or a dingy grey if it wasn’t.

They had a bathroom now at Holmleigh, but it had only been built last year, onto the kitchen at the back of the house. It was just for the use of the family, but there were washbasins in all the visitors’ bedrooms. Aunty Win had told her that those had only been put in a few years ago. Until then the visitors had used big bowls and jugs that her aunt had filled with hot water every morning.
There was still a bowl and jug in the attic room that Kathy used in the summer, very pretty ones with pink roses all over. And there was a chamber pot to match as well that went under the bed. Aunty Win called it a ‘gazunder’. It was just there for emergencies because there was no toilet up in the attic.

Kathy remembered that until last year, when the bathroom was put in, she used to have her weekly bath – on a Friday night – in a huge zinc bath in front of the fire. The rest of the time the bath had hung on a hook in the wash house. Kathy supposed that her dad and her aunt had used it too, perhaps, on different nights. She still had her bath on a Friday night. The new bath was gleaming white and shiny, but the bathroom was sometimes cold, and she missed the comfort of the fire and the big fluffy bath towel warming on the fireguard.

Shirley’s mum made the two girls a drink of orange juice when they arrived home from school on that Monday afternoon, then they played with Shirley’s doll’s house, which stood in a corner of the living room. They liked rearranging the furniture and putting the tiny dolls on chairs so that they could have a meal. Kathy had a doll’s house too. It had been her big Christmas present a few months ago. But this one of Shirley’s was a bit different, a more old-fashioned sort of house;
Shirley’s mum said it was an Edwardian house, whatever that was. It was actually a bit bigger than Kathy’s, but not nearly as posh; in fact it was a little bit shabby but Kathy wouldn’t dream of saying so. She guessed it might have belonged to Shirley’s mum before it was given to Shirley.

‘I’ve called the girl Janet and the boy John, like those children in the reading books,’ said Shirley.

‘That’s nice,’ said Kathy. She didn’t tell Shirley that she had christened her doll’s house children Tim, after her friend, and Tina, because it sounded good with Tim. Shirley would only laugh and tease her about Timothy Fielding and say he was her boyfriend.

‘They’ve had their tea now. Let’s put them to bed,’ said Shirley, rather bossily. ‘Look, they’ve got a bedroom each, ’cause there’s a lot of bedrooms upstairs. Mummy says they used to have a lot of children in Edwardian times, and that’s when this house was made.’

Shirley liked to show off sometimes about all the things she knew. She was, actually, one of the cleverest girls in the class and usually came top in the spelling tests, and mental arithmetic – that was when you had to work out sums in your head. Shirley was in the top reading group too, and she, Kathy, was in the second one. Shirley was a bit of a ‘clever clogs’ – that was what Tim called her – but she was still Kathy’s best friend for all that.
Kathy knew she was not quite as clever as Shirley, but it didn’t worry her. She knew that she always tried her best, and Aunty Win said that that was the most important thing.

‘Look, there’s a baby in the cradle too,’ said Shirley. ‘Wrapped in swaddling clothes, like Jesus was. But I’m pretending it’s a girl baby. I’ve called her Jemima, ’cause it goes with Janet and John.’

‘Can I play?’ shouted Brenda from across the room. She had been playing on the floor, building towers of wooden blocks, but that, suddenly, was getting boring. What the older girls were doing looked much more interesting. She knocked over the pile of bricks and trotted across the room. ‘Can I put the baby to bed, Shirley?’ she asked.

‘No, you can’t! She’s already in her bed.’ Shirley gave her a push, not a hard one, but one that showed she was annoyed with her little sister. ‘Go away, Brenda. You’re a nuisance! Mummy says you haven’t to play with my house. You’re only a baby and you’ll mess it up.’

Brenda’s face crumpled and she looked as though she was going to cry. ‘Not a baby!’ she protested. ‘I only want to help.’

‘Oh, go on, let her,’ said Kathy. She felt sorry for the little girl. She was such a sweet little thing, with wispy blonde hair the same colour as Shirley’s plaits, and big blue eyes that were filling up with tears. ‘She can’t mess it up if we’re here,
can she?’ Kathy thought how nice it would be to have a little sister like Brenda. Probably she could be a pest at times, but Kathy knew she would love her very much if she were her sister. And she was sure that Shirley did love her, really.

‘Oh, all right, then,’ said Shirley. ‘Stop crying, Brenda. Don’t be such a baby! Here, you can hold Jemima.’

That pacified the little girl and they all played happily together, until the next interruption. That was when Graham came into the room followed rapidly by his mother.

‘Graham, how many times have I told you to take off your football boots before you come in the house. Just look at the state of you! Now there’s mud all over the carpet! Go and get them off at once, and put your football things in the washing basket. Honestly! Whatever am I going to do with you?’

‘OK, Mum,’ said Graham, quite casually. ‘It’s only dried mud; it’ll brush off. Keep your hair on!’

‘And don’t be cheeky,’ said Mrs Morris, although she was smiling and so was Graham.

‘He’s a pest,’ observed Shirley when he had left the room. ‘Mum’s always telling him about his football boots and stuff … But it goes in one ear and out of the other,’ she added, in an
old-fashioned
way. ‘I bet you’re glad you’ve not got a big brother, Kathy. He drives me potty!’

Kathy didn’t answer that remark. She was thinking it would be rather nice to have an older brother, just as she had thought, earlier, that she would like to have a little sister, or even a big sister.

Graham came back into the room a few minutes later and flopped into a chair with his
Dandy
comic.

‘D’you want to come and play with us, Graham?’ invited Brenda. ‘I ’spect Shirley’ll let you.’ But her remark was greeted with scorn.

‘Huh! Girls’ stuff!’ he sneered. ‘No thanks! Anyway, shouldn’t you be helping Mum to set the table, Shirl?’ It was her job, sometimes, to put the cloth on the table and set out the cups and saucers.

‘Why should I?’ Shirley retorted. ‘Why should it always be me? Why can’t you do it?’

‘Because I’m a boy, that’s why,’ replied her brother. ‘It’s women’s work, cooking an’ cleaning an’ washing up an’ all that stuff. That’s what Dad says. And it’s girls that have to help.’

Kathy gathered that Graham didn’t reckon much to girls. He hadn’t even said hello to her, although he knew she was there. Aunty Win said he was a lovely boy and so nice-looking too. But she had only seen him on a Sunday, dressed in his choir clothes and looking angelic. She didn’t know what he was like the rest of the time. Kathy
realised, though, that he might be considered handsome, like princes always were in fairy tales. He was dark-haired, not fair like his sisters, and he had brown eyes with a roguish gleam. Like his dad, Kathy realised later when Mr Morris came in from work.

She had seen Shirley’s dad before, but at the other times when she had been there for tea, the children and Mrs Morris had had their tea first – a sandwich tea followed by home-made cakes – whilst Mr Morris had had a cooked meal prepared specially for him. Today, though, they all sat down together to a meal of sausages and chips with baked beans. Kathy thought it was delicious. They didn’t often have sausages and baked beans at home. Her father, and her aunt as well, were used to cooking rather different meals for the visitors, such as roast meat and two veg, and sausages were usually cooked as ‘toad-in-the-hole’ which she didn’t like very much. Baked beans, too, were frowned upon, except occasionally in an emergency, as Kathy’s dad reckoned nothing to ‘eating out of tins’. And there was HP sauce, as well. She noticed that Shirley and Graham and Mr Morris put on great dollops of it. Kathy loved it, but was not often allowed it, although it was always put on the visitors’ tables for them to have with their bacon and eggs.

‘Nice to have you with us, Kathy,’ said Mr
Morris, giving her a friendly wink which made her feel shy. She smiled back, feeling her cheeks turning pink. ‘Special tea an’ all because you’re here,’ he went on. ‘Don’t tell anyone, but we usually have bread and dripping.’

Kathy knew that was not true and she laughed a little uncertainly. Her own dad didn’t often crack jokes or talk very much at all at mealtimes, but Shirley’s dad was full of fun. She wondered if he was always like that.

‘Take no notice of him, Kathy love,’ said Mrs Morris. ‘He’s a terrible tease. He knows very well he has a cooked meal every night, don’t you, Frank? The children and I have ours at dinner time when they come home from school.’

‘Yes, I know that, Mrs Morris,’ said Kathy quietly. ‘I know he’s … er … only joking. I have my dinner at dinner time too. But this is lovely,’ she added.

‘Aye, take no notice of me, love,’ said Mr Morris. ‘My missus looks after me real well, don’t you, Sadie love?’

‘Kathy’s dad does the cooking in their house,’ chimed in Shirley. ‘Doesn’t he, Kathy?’

‘Well … yes,’ replied Kathy. ‘A lot of the time he does. But that’s only because—’

‘Aye, it’s because they’ve got a boarding house, isn’t that right, Kathy?’ said Mr Morris. ‘It’s Mr Leigh’s job; that’s why he does the cooking.’

‘Yes … he’s a chef,’ said Kathy in a little voice.

‘A chef … aye, real posh that, isn’t it? Like I said, it’s his job. You wouldn’t catch me in the kitchen. Not on your life!’ Mr Morris grinned at his wife. ‘Anyroad, my missus enjoys cooking, don’t you, Sadie love?’

‘I don’t suppose I’ve got much choice,’ said Mrs Morris with a sigh. But she was smiling. ‘I don’t mind a bit of help, though, sometimes.’

‘Well, you’ve got a daughter to help out, haven’t you? And soon there’ll be two of ’em,’ said Mr Morris beckoning towards little Brenda. ‘I don’t reckon you’re so badly off, love.’

Mrs Morris didn’t answer. ‘Now then, who’s for pudding?’ she said, a few moments later, getting up to collect the dirty plates.

‘Do you need to ask?’ replied her husband. ‘All of us!’

‘Yes … please,’ added Kathy politely.

Pudding was big pear halves – out of a tin, Kathy guessed – with lots of evaporated milk. Once again, it was delicious and a lovely treat.

When they had finished their meal Mrs Morris cleared the table. Kathy noticed that Shirley was helping, and so she did her bit too, carrying her own pots into the kitchen; she was used to helping Aunty Win at home. She noticed that Mr Morris and Graham got up from the table and sat down in the easy chairs, Mr Morris with the evening
paper and Graham with his
Dandy
. But then her own dad did that as well. He didn’t mind cooking – in fact he enjoyed it – but he wasn’t all that keen on washing up.

‘Thank you …’ Mrs Morris smiled at the two little girls. ‘A little help is worth a lot of pity.’

‘My aunty says that,’ Kathy told her.

Mrs Morris laughed. ‘Yes, I daresay it’s a common saying amongst us womenfolk. Anyway, off you go, you two. I’ll soon have this lot cleared away, and then perhaps we can have a game or two – Ludo or Snakes and Ladders – before Kathy goes home. Can you find them, Shirley? They’re in the sideboard drawer.’

‘Oh, here’s the tiddlywinks as well,’ said Shirley, rooting in the drawer. ‘Goody! Let’s have a go at that, shall we, while we’re waiting for Mummy to finish washing up.’

Mrs Morris had put a velvety cloth over the table when it had been cleared. There was one just like it at Kathy’s home, except that theirs was brown and this one was red.

‘We need a flat surface,’ said Shirley, ‘or the tiddlywinks won’t jump. I know; we’ll use the Ludo board … Are you going to have a game with us, Graham?’

‘What, tiddlywinks?’ scoffed her brother. ‘No thanks; that’s kid’s stuff.’ He turned back to the doings of Desperate Dan.

‘Can I play?’ begged Brenda, running in from the kitchen where she had been watching her mother. ‘Let me, please let me!’

‘All right, then,’ agreed Shirley. ‘See, kneel up on the chair, then you can reach.’

Kathy thought the little girl was so appealing, shouting out in delight every time one of her tiddlywinks jumped into the pot. There were shouts of ‘Shut up!’ though, from her brother, and even Mr Morris winced a little at her piercing voice.