A Little Learning

A Little Learning Anne Bennett Can an ordinary girl dare to be different? The compelling new bestseller from Birmingham’s Queen of FictionJanet is determined to make something of herself, instead of being chained to a sink with a baby a year like most women of her generation. She passes her eleven-plus and wins a scholarship to go to a good grammar school, but her father refuses to believe that girls have the right to do anything other than look after their husbands and raise children.Struggling to fit in at her new school and picked on by the other girls, Janet befriends, Ruth, another lonely pupil whose Jewish family have suffered many hardships. Janet and Ruth forge a strong friendship through her school life and beyond. But will their friendship survive when Janet falls for Ruth’s brother, Ben –marriage to a Catholic girl would go against everything his community hold dear. When the whole world seems stacked against her, can Janet hold onto her dreams? ANNE BENNETT A LITTLE LEARNING Copyright (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. HarperCollinsPublishers The News Building1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk) This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017 Copyright © Anne Bennett 1999 First published in 1999 by HEADLINE BOOK PUBLISHING Anne Bennett asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Source ISBN: 9780007547821 Ebook Edition © July 2017 ISBN: 9780007547838 Version: 2017-07-11 Dedication (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) I would like to dedicate this book to my editor Kate Bradley and my agent Judith Murdoch for being major components in my security blanket. Thank you both. Table of Contents Cover (#uf5d8911e-14e2-5156-abcb-b9332952d6f2) Title Page (#u0e881493-8a3c-5aee-b146-840d4d91a97a) Copyright (#ua0458f6d-4e7a-5af0-90d0-e7a5ef60d012) Dedication (#u14ddbb3c-ee2e-58de-866b-621c28b9c91b) Author’s Notes (#ub81915ab-e7af-5d9d-addd-6c16c3c51cdb) One (#u84a9a8b4-0c1d-5291-936e-97f35c836954) Two (#u5e3b4c50-fc25-5ce7-97fb-de7e11ae4822) Three (#u94690519-2e1e-5f21-a828-6ab6267a8437) Four (#u4b124494-c4fe-594c-bfff-69b87a98ec72) Five (#u899a1e8a-7c5d-501f-ac08-a51505a1c861) Six (#udd4f25d9-1f99-53b8-8b3f-292151758cd2) Seven (#litres_trial_promo) Eight (#litres_trial_promo) Nine (#litres_trial_promo) Ten (#litres_trial_promo) Eleven (#litres_trial_promo) Twelve (#litres_trial_promo) Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo) Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo) Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo) Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo) Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo) Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo) Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo) Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo) Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo) Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo) About the Author (#litres_trial_promo) About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo) Author’s Notes (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) This book, A Little Learning, is where my writing life began, for this is the first book I ever had published, originally for Headline Publishers but later bought and re-issued by HarperCollins. At the time, I was living in beautiful North Wales, moving from Birmingham after I had been invalided out of teaching because a spinal injury left me unable to walk and in a wheelchair. As I had time on my hands – a luxury I hadn’t had before – I decided to take to writing seriously. I had been dabbling from when I was a child though I never dreamt I would ever make my living this way. I initially researched and wrote about the origin of nursery rhymes, something that has always intrigued me, and then books for the children I had taught, which were never published and are still in manuscript form. I then wrote short stories for Writing Magazine which I received every month though never submitted to them until 1995 when I wrote a spoof romance for a writing competition centred around Valentine’s Day and won second prize which was a year’s subscription to the Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA). Although I didn’t want to write straight romance I joined and found they ran a critique service called the New Writers’ Scheme (NWS) and as they would consider all stories with an emotional content, I sent my first submission in September of that year. My reader said it was good, but not good enough for publication and explained why it wasn’t. So, armed with that assessment, I wrote my second novel in 1996 making sure I didn’t make the same mistakes again. This time a different reader said it was too wordy and suggested losing 30,000 words. It meant a rewrite which I completed in four months before sending it to Headline Publishers. The editor at Headline liked it but also suggested changes and corrections which I took on board and eventually that book became this one which they published in the spring of 1998 after offering me a two-book contract. Altogether I had four books initially published by Headline before we parted company in 2001 and I joined HarperCollins. I found Harper Collins an amazing publishing house to work for and have sixteen books published by them in addition to the Headline ones. I have now been in the writing business for twenty-one mainly happy years and I am busier than ever and consider myself a very fortunate person doing a job I love. ONE (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) ‘Do you really want to sit the exams for grammar school?’ Duncan asked his sister, hardly able to believe she did. Janet spun round in excitement. ‘More than anything,’ she said. Duncan stared at his sister in astonishment. He couldn’t understand her, and that bothered him, because he and Janet had always been very close, at least till this business. He couldn’t deny she was excited, it shone out of her. He’d never thought of Janet as pretty. He was the good-looking one, with his blond curls and brilliant blue eyes. When he was younger, people were always saying he was too pretty to be a boy and what a shame his sister was so plain. He’d never looked at Janet much, she was just his sister, but he looked at her now. He noted that the mousy hair, that Mom made her keep short because of the risk of nits, seemed to have more body and was somehow fluffed out around her face. Even her eyes, usually a nondescript sort of deep grey, sparkled with excitement and transformed her whole face. Her skin had lost its sallowness and her mouth didn’t seem so large, caught up as it was in a beam of happiness. Duncan couldn’t help grinning back at his sister. Janet’s delight was infectious. He shook his head as he said, ‘Well, I can see you’re pleased, Jan, but I don’t see what you’ve got to be pleased about.’ ‘Oh, Duncan, it’s what I’ve always dreamed of.’ ‘Well,’ Duncan said, ‘if it means that much to you I hope you pass, but I still think you need your head testing.’ Janet watched Duncan kicking a ball up the garden for his young twin brothers to run after, but didn’t run after them. They’d all been sent to the garden because their parents wanted to talk, and Janet knew what about. Though her father had come round a bit about the exams, in the beginning he was all for not letting Janet take them at all. She knew he was worried about the expense of it all, like keeping her at school all those extra years and buying her uniform. Her mother said she’d just fix it and Janet would like to believe her, but how would she find money they hadn’t got? She chewed at her thumb nail and wished she could hear what was being said inside. ‘Well, say our Janet passes this bloody exam you talked me into letting her sit,’ Bert said glumly, ‘how the hell are we going to afford the uniform? This bloke at work told me it costs a bleeding fortune.’ Betty knew only too well that it did – she’d checked it herself – but if Janet passed, then somehow the money for the uniform had to be found. ‘We’ll afford it, don’t you worry,’ she said fiercely. ‘Look, old girl,’ Bert said, ‘I don’t want to put a damper on the whole thing, but exactly how are we to pay for it all?’ ‘I’ll get a Co-op cheque out,’ Betty promised. ‘That will do for the uniform at least, and paid in weekly, it won’t be so bad.’ ‘And how will you pay for that?’ Bert persisted. ‘A five-pound cheque won’t cover this.’ ‘I know,’ Betty said impatiently. ‘I suppose I could go back on the twilight shift at the sauce factory. Our Breda could put a word in, and they always said I could go back.’ ‘I know that’s what they said, but I don’t think it’s right, you working nights like that just to send our girl to grammar school,’ Bert said. ‘Don’t you see!’ Betty cried. ‘I’m going to work so she won’t have to work like me. I’m going, to give her a chance.’ ‘You said all this before,’ grumbled Bert, ‘when you and that Miss Wentworth talked me round for her to put in for the bloody exam in the first place.’ ‘Yes,’ Betty said, ‘and that’s because you said at first that education was wasted on girls.’ ‘And so it is.’ Betty stood up in front of Bert and banged her fist on the kitchen table. ‘Listen, you blooming numbskull,’ she said angrily. ‘All my life I’ve worked. From the age of fourteen I was serving in the tobacconist’s shop at the corner of Corporation Street, often for twelve hours a day. Then we wed, and when Duncan was small and Janet a wee baby, I was office cleaning from five in the morning till eight, and then again at night in the chip shop to make ends meet. Then after the war our Breda got me set in the HP Sauce factory at Aston Cross. So don’t you tell me about education being a waste.’ ‘I know you’ve worked, love,’ Bert said soothingly. ‘You’re one of the best, none better.’ ‘Well, I want better, better for my daughter,’ Betty cried. ‘I don’t want her working like I had to, like most women have to.’ ‘Yes, but when a woman’s married …’ Bert began, but Betty leapt at him again. ‘Her life stops, is that it?’ ‘Not at all,’ Bert declared stoutly. ‘Some say it begins.’ ‘Oh yes it does,’ Betty said. ‘You’ve a house, a husband, children, less money than you’ve ever had in your life and more to do with it.’ Bert had his set face on, so Betty tried again. ‘Look, Bert, I’m not blaming you. It’s just the way it is. But the world’s changing now. When you and all the other men were charging around Europe killing Germans, the women were holding the fort over here. They were doing jobs women had never done before!’ ‘I know that.’ ‘But you must see that that sort of experience would change a woman’s outlook on things.’ ‘Till the men came back.’ ‘No,’ Betty cried. ‘Six years is a long time. Women won’t just give up and go back to the kitchen sink. Things will have to change. Miss Wentworth was even telling me that married women will soon be officially allowed to teach. I mean, they did in the war, because they had to, and then they expected them to go back to their husbands. Only some didn’t want to, and some of the poor souls didn’t have husbands any more, but they still had a family to bring up.’ ‘It’s this Miss Wentworth who’s filled your head with such nonsense,’ Bert said stubbornly. Betty knew he had a point, for she had listened to the teacher and to her vision of the new, emerging Britain, where women could take their rightful place alongside men. ‘Women like your Janet, Mrs Travers,’ she said. ‘Intelligent women. The time will come when men and women will work side by side, and that will include married women. Even when they have children, they will be going back to work. It will eventually change the face of the world.’ Betty had kept quiet. She didn’t say that women had been working for years and working bloody hard and yet it had changed nothing. Sarah McClusky, her own mother, had worked from dawn till dusk and for a pittance. They’d lived in Summer Lane then, the bottom end of Edgbaston. The houses were back to back with dilapidated roofs and walls, crowded around a central courtyard which housed the shared lavatory and brew’us, where the washing was done, and where the tap was that served the whole yard. Betty remembered the stench from the small industries and workshops that abounded in the area that made the atmosphere smoky and gloomy and dirty as it discharged its gases into the air to mix with the smoke from thousands of back to back house chimneys. Betty looked at Claire Wentworth and realised she didn’t know the half of it, not her Janet either; she hoped her children would never know poverty like there was then. It was the threat of that that made her mother trudge across to the other side of Edgbaston to clean the homes of the gentry. Winter or summer, and often the only thing to protect her from the elements was a shawl, and the well cobbled boots on her feet might have cardboard inside them to try to keep the wet out of the soles worn through. All day she would clean and return home weary and bone tired to a meal Betty would have to have made after her day at school. It was her job, as the elder girl, to clean and cook as best she could and, with her elder brother Conner, give an eye to the little’uns Brendan, Breda and Noel. Twice a week Sarah would bring home a large laundry basket covered with a sheet, and Betty would know her mother would be in the brew’us all the rest of the next day washing for her employers. It was no mean feat to wash clothes then, even for a family, and yet Sarah wasn’t the only woman to take on extra. She would creep from her bed at five the next morning and poke Betty awake as she slept in the attic in the bed with her younger sister. Bleary eyed, Betty would stumble after her mother in clothes hastily fastened around her and her feet in the boots given free to the poor children by the Daily Mail. In her hand she would carry a bucket of slack to light the copper, and inside the brew’us her mother would be filling it up bucket by bucket from a tap in the yard. Betty would begin to maid, or pound, the clothes in a dolly tub and then scrub at the offending stains. At some point her mother would take over and Betty would return to the house to wake and feed her brothers and sisters and her father too. In the brew’us, Sarah would boil all the washing in the copper and then swill the whites in a bucket tinged with Reckett’s Blue before starching. When the children returned at dinnertime, to bread and dripping they made themselves, Sarah would be mangling the clothes, and if the day had been fine and dry, by hometime she was ironing the lot with a flat iron heated in the fire, for the clothes would have dried on the lines that criss-crossed the yard. If however it was wet, the clothes would be strung above the fire and around the hearth, and the house would be cold and smell of damp washing. But no one complained, for the washing Sarah took in to supplement her cleaning paid the rent and put food in hungry children’s bellies. Even Sean who was often unable to provide for his family said little, and in actual fact, Sarah’s job didn’t disturb him much at all and as long as his own laundry was always done, his dinner always on the table, the fire kept up and the children seen to, he didn’t moan much. The house might have got a lick and a promise rather than a good going-over, the stove might not have been blackleaded every week, nor the brass polished, nor the step scrubbed, but those were things the men didn’t notice. Until the slump, Sean McClusky had been employed at Henry Wiggins and Co in Wiggin Street which produced nickel and steel plate, but as the depression bit deeper, he was just put on short time and then out of work altogether; it was her mother who then put food on the table, Betty remembered. Yet her father would never do a hand’s turn in the house and it hadn’t seemed strange. Without work, he would loll on street corners with mates in the same situation, or sit listlessly in front of the fire for which his wife’s money had bought the coal. Miss Wentworth painted a view of life Betty didn’t understand, or quite believe in. Her own jobs, like her mother’s, had been chosen to fit in with Bert and the children. In time life had become easier for the McClusky family. Betty married Bert which was no surprise to anyone, and the family moved from Summer Lane to the new sprawling council estate of Pype Hayes, north of the city, where Betty in time was also given a house. Money was easier as the younger McCluskys were all at work, and Sean got a job making tyres at Fort Dunlop in 1937. Then war was declared. Bert Travers was called up, along with his brothers-in-law Conner and Brendan, while Noel volunteered and Breda went to work in the munitions. ‘Come on, our Bet, the money is desperate, so it is,’ she’d urged her sister, but Betty had shaken her head. The years had been hard on her parents and she thought she couldn’t leave them in charge of Duncan and Janet all day, whatever the lure of the money. Breda soon sported the uniform turban like all the rest of the factory girls, wore scarlet lipstick and smoked strong-smelling cigarettes. Her language, Betty noticed, was pretty strong too. She’d have had her lugs scalped if she’d tried such talk, she told her sister. ‘Da says that and worse,’ Breda had protested. ‘That’s different, he’s a man.’ Then Breda had laughed. ‘I think you can give yourself a pat on the back for noticing that, Bet, for I’d never have worked it out on my own.’ But Betty’s attitude changed when her youngest brother, Noel, was killed in the first year of the war. He was just eighteen years old. Betty thought she’d never get over it, and yet she had to cope because her parents were bowed down with grief. Eventually, anger at the waste of Noel’s life replaced the sadness, and this anger was further fuelled by the blitz of Birmingham that began on 25 August 1940. When Tyburn Road was targeted the following evening, it was dangerously close to her Pype Hayes home, threatening her family. She decided that knitting balaclavas and cowering at home was no longer good enough for her. ‘I need to do something, Mammy,’ she appealed to her mother, ‘or I’ll feel Noel has died in vain. But I can’t do it without your help.’ Sarah McClusky had no wish to see another of her children exposed to danger, but she knew it was Betty’s way of dealing with her brother’s death. She took a deep breath to steady her own fear and said firmly, ‘The weans will be as right as rain with us. Dad has the shelter that cosy, with bunks fixed to the sides and the oil heater to take the chill off, and they’ll be as safe as houses.’ Betty was grateful, for she knew what it had cost her mother to react the way she did. The following day she joined up as an ARP warden. It soon became apparent that Birmingham was ill equipped to deal with the casualties of the bombing raids, which were intensifying throughout the city. The job of the wardens included trying to arrange temporary accommodation of some sort for the homeless, plus clothes, bedding and food. People taking shelter where they could often did not get any aid for hours, and there were some disorderly scenes among the desperate and often destitute people. In an effort to help the situation, mobile canteens were set up, and Betty elected to serve in one of these, together with her fellow ARP warden and friend Cynthia, who was the driver. On the night of 19 November 1940, the sirens had not even died away when the first thuds were heard. Sarah McClusky felt her stomach tighten in fear as she watched her daughter struggle into her coat. She knew Betty had to go, and hoped the raid would be over soon, but she had to look after Duncan and Janet, so she began hurriedly to pack a bag to take down to the shelter. ‘Take care, lass,’ she said to Betty as she was about to leave. ‘I will, Mammy,’ Betty said. There was a sudden explosion very close and she went on quickly, ‘Don’t worry about me, Mammy, I’ll be fine, but get the children and yourselves down to the shelter quick.’ She gave her mother and children a kiss. ‘See you in the morning.’ It was a long raid and a bad one. The ack-ack guns were at work as she made her way to the ARP post in Erdington, and the searchlights were raking the skies. She sent up a prayer that her family would be safe when she returned – the children, her parents and Breda on her night shift. Hours later, as the mobile canteen drove towards Birmingham city centre, which seemed to be ablaze, Cynthia was cut badly about the face by shards of glass from the windscreen, which had been shattered by a bomb blast. One of the ambulancemen who took the unconscious and bleeding Cynthia to hospital turned to Betty and said, ‘Have to leave the van where it is, love, and hope it isn’t blown to kingdom come.’ Until then, Betty had given no thought to the van, but she knew they were needed – indeed, they were a lifeline for many families, and for the rescue workers digging people out, often near dead on their feet with exhaustion themselves. ‘No bloody Hitler’s getting my van,’ she said, climbing into Cynthia’s seat. She didn’t know how to drive, but she’d seen Cynthia do it often enough. She turned the key and the throbbing engine came to life. Slowly and carefully she put it into gear and touched her foot on the accelerator. She was slow and a bit jerky, but she was driving, and a thrill of exhilaration ran through her. She negotiated potholes and piles of debris blown into the road by the falling bombs. The wind buffeted her through the gaping hole in the windscreen, and all around her was constant noise. Black arrows of death were tumbling from the droning planes above, the never-ending rattle of the guns seeming to make no impression on them. She heard cries and terrified screams, and saw walls crumple with shuddering thuds before her eyes, exploding in clouds of dust. The sirens of fire engines and ambulances screamed through the night. She saw the city skyline lit up with a strange orange glow, and the acrid smell of smoke was in her mouth and nose. And she drove through it all, like a scythe cutting a swath through corn, too excited to be scared. A little while later, she was dishing out tea and sandwiches to people in an emergency rescue centre, and being described as ‘an angel’. She told no one about her driving. She told her mother as little as possible anyway. Sarah McClusky understood Betty’s need to be doing something and looked after Duncan and Janet with no complaint. However, if she’d had her way, she’d have had her Betty tucked up in the shelter with the children. Sarah was confused by the way of the world. By working her fingers to the bone, she’d been able to put shoes on her children’s feet and food in their stomachs when times were bad. She’d kept them safe and healthy, she’d nursed them through childish ailments, they were well nourished enough to fight. She was proud of her fine family. But she’d already lost one son to the war, with the other two risking their lives daily, and a daughter to the munitions, for she knew that Breda – never as easy or compliant as her sister – would go her own way after this. Then there was Betty. With her husband away fighting, she doled out nourishment, hope and sympathy to the homeless and rescuers alike in the city centre where the raids were heaviest. Betty told her mother that they took shelter when the raids were bad, but Sarah wasn’t sure she’d been telling the truth. She had the idea she wasn’t told about a lot of things. ‘You dark horse,’ Cynthia said when Betty visited her in the General Hospital later. She was swathed in bandages and looked a little pale, but she smiled bravely as she asked: ‘Why did you never say you could drive before?’ ‘Oh, you know,’ Betty said, busying herself with an imaginary stain on her skirt so that Cynthia wouldn’t see the telltale flush flooding her face. ‘It’s a long time ago. I wasn’t sure I still had the knack.’ ‘I think it’s like riding a bike,’ Cynthia said. ‘You know, you never really forget.’ ‘Yes,’ said Betty, anxious to get off the subject. She looked out of the window at the steel-grey skies and the people hurrying below huddled in thick coats, scarves and hats. ‘It’s bitter out there, Cynth, you’re in the best place for the moment.’ ‘Don’t you believe it,’ Cynthia said. ‘D’you know what they do when there’s a raid? They stick us underneath the beds. Some chance if the hospital gets a direct hit, eh? I’d descend to the ground floor mighty quick, if you ask me, under tons of masonry, crushed flat by my own iron bed. No, I’d rather take my chance out on the street, where you can see the buggers coming.’ ‘Oh, Cynthia,’ Betty said with a chuckle, ‘I’ve missed you.’ ‘Well, you’ll have to go on missing me,’ Cynthia said, ‘because even when I’m out of here, you’ll probably get a different crew now. I don’t think they’ve got enough drivers to put two together.’ ‘Oh, no … I mean, yes … of course, you’re right.’ That hadn’t occurred to Betty, but she enjoyed driving so much, she didn’t want to give it up. She kept the truth from her mother and her husband who might have spilled the beans that she’d never had a driving lesson in the whole of her life. No one asked, and as drivers were in short supply, she was in great demand. The war went on relentlessly. The raids eased a little, but the battle for the housewife was coping with shortages and rationing. Making do and mending was all very well, Betty thought wryly, if you had something to make do with in the first place. Then, just before the spring of 1944, Bert came home for pre-embarkation leave. ‘I think this is it, my old duck,’ he told Betty, ‘the big push, the beginning of the end, old girl.’ And what if, when the end finally comes, I have no husband? thought Betty, and she cried into Bert’s shoulder and wouldn’t tell him why. The ARP post had to do without her for two nights while she lay in Bert’s arms, and their lovemaking was frantic as they realised that their time together was short. By the time Bert was treading the beaches of Normandy, Betty was getting used to the idea of another little Travers to join Duncan and Janet. She cut down on her war work as her pregnancy advanced, and gave it up entirely just before Christmas of that year. The second telegram arrived the day the Christmas cards were due to come down. Sarah opened it with trembling fingers, and when she read that Conner, her eldest son, was to lie beside his brother in foreign soil, she fell down in a faint. Sean McClusky envied his wife her unconsciousness, and wished he didn’t have to deal with the knowledge that two of his children were dead and gone. He put his head in his hands and wept. Betty’s grief was deep and profound for the big brother she’d always looked up to. Noel’s death had acted as a catalyst, urging her to take a more active part in the war that had stolen her brother. This time there was nothing she could do to lessen the hurt, for hostilities were nearly at an end and the tide of war was turning. However, she wasn’t allowed to grieve for long, for just days after they received the news about Conner, her pains began. Her labour was long and difficult and the midwife sent for the doctor. He was mystified as to why Betty should be having such a difficult time, until it was established that there were two babies, not one as originally thought. Betty couldn’t believe her ears and redoubled her efforts, and on a raw January day gave birth to twin boys, both healthy, lusty and a good size. When Sarah McClusky was told the news she dropped to her knees. ‘The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,’ she said. Betty agreed with her mother’s sentiments, and the two boys were christened Conner and Noel. Sarah often looked for signs of her dead sons in the twins. ‘I think Conner has his uncle’s nose,’ she’d say, or ‘Noel is the image of his namesake. Even their eyes are the same shape.’ Betty didn’t agree because in her opinion both boys looked like Bert. In their identical faces she could see Bert’s hazel eyes, and his large nose. Even the shape of their faces was the same – round, with ruddy cheeks – and eventually, Betty guessed, their chins would turn craggy like Bert’s. Only their wide mouths and the colour of their hair was the same as hers and Janet’s. It was Duncan who resembled his dead uncles, in both colouring and build. ‘Ma can’t see it,’ Betty said to Breda. ‘Duncan is the spit of our Noel at the same age. I remember him well. I can’t remember Conner as a child, because he was older than me, but I’ve seen photographs.’ ‘She doesn’t want to see it,’ Breda said. ‘Not in Duncan. She wants the twins to look like their dead uncles because in her mind they’ve replaced them.’ She struggled and went on, ‘It helps her cope.’ Betty said she supposed it did, she had neither the time nor the inclination to argue further; she was too busy dealing with the family to do any further war work, and she was just glad that things were winding down at last. The VE celebrations and street parties were tinged with sadness for many who had loved ones not returning after the war. Betty and her parents felt sad that Conner and Noel had not lived to celebrate the day, but the twins’ birth helped them all to cope. Betty knew she had much to be thankful for. Her husband and one brother were safe, and her sister, and she had her fine family, Duncan, Janet and the twins. She was immersed in domesticity now, but busy as she was, she often found the days tedious. Driving around the ravaged city dealing with the destitute and the desperate had seemed important work. She had dealt with the bereaved and the sick and those in shock, and had felt useful and needed. It wasn’t that she didn’t consider her family important; it was the boredom of doing the same thing day after day she found hard to take. She also seemed to lack any identity now – just wife and mother, where once she’d been someone in her own right. She knew that when Bert returned she would tell him little of the work she’d done in the war. He’d never have recognised the organised person driving the mobile canteen through the streets of Birmingham as his Betty anyway. Betty herself found it hard to remember what she’d been like then, and now the family claimed all her attention. Duncan could have taken the eleven-plus that year, but he didn’t want to and the teachers told Betty there was little point. ‘An apprenticeship would be ideal, Mrs Travers,’ the headmaster said. ‘Or something in that line. He’s not a stupid boy and he’s good with his hands, but not grammar school potential. Now if it were Janet …’ The words were left hanging in the air. Betty pondered on them, but said nothing to anyone. Duncan didn’t care. ‘I don’t want to go to no soppy grammar school, Ma. I want to go to Paget Road Secondary with my mates.’ Janet had wished she’d had the opportunity to sit the exam, and wondered if she’d ever be allowed to. She knew Duncan didn’t want to go to grammar school, he’d told her often enough. He disliked school and thought it a waste of time, but realised he had to be there for a while and went without too much fuss. He was determined to leave at the first opportunity. ‘But what will you do?’ Janet asked. ‘I reckon our dad can get me set on at Fishers with him.’ ‘Is that what you want?’ Janet persisted. ‘Make car bodies all day?’ Duncan stared at her. He’d never considered what he actually wanted to do. You went to school, left, got a job and had money in your pocket to spend. That was life. ‘Course it’s what I want,’ he snapped. ‘It’s what everyone wants, ain’t it?’ Janet didn’t answer. It wasn’t what she wanted, but it wouldn’t help to say so. Bert was delighted with Duncan’s decision. ‘Chip off the old block, eh, son?’ he said, clapping him on the shoulder. He had a vision of him and his son in a few years’ time, walking side by side through the factory gates. Betty was glad that Bert was pleased, because she knew the war had robbed him of his youth. The man who returned to her had grey streaks in his dark hair, and Betty noticed that he was going thin on top. She said nothing, just being glad he’d returned safely. She didn’t comment either on the haunted look that was often in Bert’s eyes as he seemed to stare vacantly into space, or the times he cried out in his sleep. She could only imagine the horrors he’d witnessed in the war and doubted that many of the returning heroes were untouched by their experiences. Bert had also begun to get interested in politics again, as he had before he’d joined up. The first election of peacetime was held on 5 July 1945, but as most of the armed forces had not demobbed by then, the result could not be calculated until 26 July when all the postal votes were in and counted. Bert was home in time to hear that Labour had been elected to government by a resounding majority, and he was cock-a-hoop with excitement. ‘This will make a difference, you’ll see,’ he said to Betty. ‘Transport and some industries will be nationalised, so the State will own them and everyone will benefit.’ ‘You mean like with communism?’ ‘Communism be damned, woman, this is socialism I’m talking about,’ Bert said furiously. ‘And that’s not all. They’ve committed to taking on the Beveridge Report; that means family allowances and setting up a health service at the very least.’ ‘Well you seem pleased, at any rate,’ Betty said. ‘And if I get family allowances to help feed and clothe the children and don’t have to pay every time I go to the doctor’s I’ll be thankful enough.’ Bert went one step further and without further delay he joined the Labour Party, and went on to run for shop steward in Fisher and Ludlow’s factory where he made car bodies. All in all, Bert was well satisfied with his life and relieved that none of his family had been hurt in the war. And though he was sorry about his brothers-in-law Noel and Conner, he couldn’t help feeling pleased that his wife and children were safe, and a credit to Betty who’d had most of the rearing of them while he’d been away. Bert found little to say to his quiet, studious daughter, but he was bowled over by the twins, who looked so like him, and whose early months he’d missed. They were turned six months now, and they chuckled as Bert tossed them in the air and put them astride his bouncing foot to play ‘horsy’. He was less pleased with the job Betty had got, doing the evening shift at the sauce factory with her sister. Breda had had a good war. Despite rationing and restrictions, she had a wardrobe bursting with clothes, money in the bank and many memories, some happy, some sad. For a time it had seemed she might marry a GI and go to live in the States after the war. Mr and Mrs McClusky, in an agony of worry, had appealed to Betty, who tackled her sister. ‘I’m having a good time, that’s all,’ Breda had snapped. ‘I’m not looking for a husband. Rick’s never mentioned marriage, and even if he did it’s not a foregone conclusion I’d take him on.’ It was hardly satisfactory, but it had to do. Betty told her parents that Breda and her Yank were just good friends. Then there were the two dashing airmen who were both killed in action. Breda had arrived at Betty’s home in tears after she’d heard about the second one. ‘You see,’ she’d wept, ‘how can we talk about the future with this godawful war? Who’s going to be left alive at the end of it all?’ Betty had hugged her, rocking her almost without being aware of it. She knew what Breda meant. Each evening when she reported for duty, she viewed the desolation around her and was amazed that anyone could still be alive, or that people struggled to gain some sort of normality in it. ‘I know, love,’ she told Breda. ‘All we can do is keep going.’ There were no attachments for Breda after that. Though she went out with many men, she never kept them for long, and never allowed herself to get involved. Betty was concerned that she might make a name for herself, but said nothing and kept her worries to herself. Then, at the end of the war, Breda had taken up with Peter Bradshaw, a lad she’d gone out with a few times before war broke out and who now returned, one of the conquering heroes. ‘Do you love him, Breda?’ Betty asked. ‘I’m marrying him,’ Breda said, and added, ‘What’s love anyway, Bet? I’ve loved and lost enough in the last few years to last a lifetime, and I suppose me and Pete will rub along well enough.’ The munitions factory was closed and the staff dispersed, and Breda lost no time in getting herself a job in the HP Sauce factory, which was taking on a twilight shift. ‘Come on, Bet, it’s four nights a week, half five to half nine,’ she said. ‘I don’t know …’ ‘Course you know. You can cope with your brood all day, give them their tea, and I’m sure our mam will do the honours till you come home.’ All of a sudden it seemed an attractive prospect to go out in the evening and talk to adults about adult things. She was restless at home and missed the camaraderie of the war years. ‘If Mammy agrees to see to them, I will,’ she said. She enjoyed her job, repetitive though it was. She loved the bald, raw humour of the married women, most like herself with children and waiting for their husbands’ demob. She wondered, though, how Bert would view the idea of her working when he came home. The other women also worried about their husbands’ reactions, though none wanted to give up their jobs. Betty banked her money and had a little nest egg to show Bert when he expressed doubts about her ability to cope. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘the factory has kept my job open.’ ‘I know,’ Betty said, ‘but the children are always needing things, and with Conner and Noel it’s two of everything and that’s extra expense. And then of course there’s the house.’ ‘What’s wrong with it?’ After years of army barracks, his home looked very comfortable to him. ‘It’s shabby,’ Betty declared. ‘There was nothing to buy during the war, but soon there will be things in the shops and new colours in paint and wallpaper, and we can do the place up a bit.’ Bert surveyed his living room. Its familiarity had given him comfort when he arrived home: the sofa with the broken springs, and the faded lino on the floor. Now he saw it through Betty’s eyes and realised how dingy and patchy the wallpaper was and how dull the brown paintwork. It could certainly do with brightening up, he thought, and perhaps they could even get a new wireless and a carpet square eventually. ‘All right, love,’ he said. ‘You keep your job. As long as you can manage, I’ll say nothing about it.’ Things rubbed along nicely for over a year. Brendan got married to Patsy Brennan, a local girl from an Irish family, and Breda had a baby girl, Linda, but continued working afterwards. Duncan started at Paget Road Secondary Modern, and Janet began her last year at Paget Road Primary. The autumn term was into its fourth week. Betty had been delighted when school started again. She’d been tired out coping with the demands of four children all day and working in the evening, but she’d never complained to Bert. Bert was recounting some tale from the factory around the tea table, and Duncan was listening avidly. He was fascinated by anything to do with the world he would soon be joining. Betty was keeping a watchful eye on the twins, who were making a mess of feeding themselves but screamed if she tried to help them. She was just thankful it was Friday and she didn’t have to go to work. Janet had kept her head down all through tea, and catching sight of her now, Betty realised that she’d been quiet all evening. She hoped Janet wasn’t sickening for something. There was a small silence after Bert had finished, broken only by the twins banging their spoons on their high-chair tables. Suddenly Janet said: ‘Mom, Miss Wentworth would like a word with you.’ There was a hoot of laughter from Duncan. ‘Why, what you done?’ he said, and added in disbelief, ‘Goody-goody Janet’s in trouble.’ ‘I’m not, I’m not,’ Janet declared hotly. ‘That will do, Duncan,’ Betty said. She turned her gaze to her daughter and said: ‘D’you know what it’s about?’ All eyes were on Janet now, and she stammered: ‘I … I think it’s … it’s about the exam.’ ‘The exam?’ Bert said. ‘What’s this?’ ‘The eleven-plus, she means,’ Duncan said. ‘Oh,’ said Bert airily. ‘No need to worry your head about that, pet, you don’t need to do no eleven-plus.’ Janet’s face flushed crimson. Betty took pity on her and said, ‘Do you want to do it, love?’ ‘Oh, yes.’ There was a shocked silence. Even the twins were staring at her. Bert put down his knife and fork and asked in genuine puzzlement, ‘Why do you want to take the eleven-plus?’ ‘Miss Wentworth says I have a good chance of passing,’ Janet burst out. ‘She says I have a good brain and …’ ‘This Miss Wentworth has been talking a lot of nonsense,’ Bert said, ‘and filling your head with rubbish. You’ve no need for a grammar school education and you can tell her that from me.’ Betty looked at her daughter’s stricken face and said, ‘It will do no harm to listen to what the woman has to say.’ ‘Do no bloody good either.’ ‘Bert,’ Betty admonished, with a nod towards the twins, who were reaching the age when they liked to latch on to unusual words and repeat them. ‘They’ll hear worse before they’re much older,’ Bert said, ruffling the heads of his small sons fondly. ‘Proper little buggers they’re growing up to be.’ Betty gave up. He’d never be any different. He stood up, scraping his chair back. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m away for a wash.’ ‘You going to the club?’ ‘I always go to the club on Friday.’ ‘Yes, I know.’ Betty began collecting the plates, then said, almost casually, though she knew her daughter would be holding her breath for Bert’s reply, ‘I think I’ll pop along to the school and have a chat with our Janet’s teacher anyway, all right?’ ‘Yes, if you want,’ Bert said. ‘Do as you like but it won’t make any bloody difference.’ He chucked Janet under the chin as he went out. ‘Cheer up, ducky,’ he said. ‘Why the long face? You’re much too pretty to worry yourself over any silly exams.’ Janet didn’t answer. She watched him lift the kettle from the gas and take it to the bathroom that opened off the kitchen, and a little later she heard him whistling as he had a shave. TWO (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) Betty went to see Miss Wentworth the following Monday lunchtime. ‘You really think our Janet has a chance of passing the eleven-plus?’ she asked, gazing at the teacher in amazement. ‘Indeed I do,’ Claire Wentworth said with an emphatic nod of her head. ‘Janet has an exceptional brain. She seems to soak up knowledge.’ Does she? Betty thought. Miss Wentworth went on to describe a child Betty did not recognise as her daughter. ‘She’s one of the brightest I have ever taught,’ she said at last. ‘But she’s always so quiet at home, our Janet,’ Betty said. ‘Assimilating all the knowledge gained, I suppose.’ ‘Pardon?’ said Betty, not quite understanding the words the teacher was using. ‘Taking it all in, you know,’ said Claire. ‘She’s probably got too much going on in her head for chattering a lot.’ ‘Maybe,’ Betty said. ‘She often looks as though she’s in a dream. She must be thinking.’ She smiled and added, ‘It’s not something the rest of us do a lot of.’ Claire studied the woman before her. Betty Travers wasn’t at all how she’d expected her to be. She was younger, for a start, and prettier, very like Janet, with the same reflective eyes and wide mouth. Her hair was the same colour as Janet’s but slightly longer, and judging by the straggly curls, it had once been permed. She looked open and approachable and did not appear hostile to her daughter taking the exam. A lot of parents were against their children bettering themselves, especially the girls. Yet there was some obstacle, because when Claire had asked Janet that morning if she’d broached the subject at home, her eyes had had a hopeless look in them, and there’d been a dejected droop to her mouth. She’d said she’d told her mother, and that she was coming in to discuss it, and now here was the mother and proving very amenable too. ‘You are agreeable to allowing Janet to enter then, Mrs Travers?’ Betty didn’t answer immediately. She twisted her handbag strap round and round in her fingers. Eventually she said: ‘Well … the thing is, my husband … he … well, he … he doesn’t see the point.’ It was nearly always the fathers, Claire thought angrily. ‘You mean her father is refusing to let her take the examination?’ she snapped. It came out sharper than she had intended and it put Betty’s back up. Janet’s teacher had no right to talk that way about Bert. ‘He’s a good man,’ she said stiffly. ‘It isn’t that he doesn’t want the best for Janet, but he sees this eleven-plus as a waste of time.’ ‘It’s not!’ Claire cried. ‘It’s a wonderful opportunity for her. You must see that.’ Betty stared at Claire Wentworth, but she wasn’t seeing her. The word ‘opportunity’ had stirred her memories. The war had given Betty the opportunity to be something other than a wife and mother. It had given her an independent life that she seldom spoke of, even to Bert, sensing his disapproval. Now an opportunity of a different kind was being offered to her daughter, and she was rejecting it on Janet’s behalf. Have I any right to do that? she thought. Will she resent me and her dad for not letting her try? She knew Bert would be furious, but she felt she couldn’t deny her daughter this chance. ‘When is the examination, Miss Wentworth?’ she asked. Claire smiled. ‘The examination is in three parts,’ she said. ‘There is a maths paper, an English paper and a paper to test intelligence. She must pass all three, and the first set is held in November.’ ‘That’s not far away, it’s October already.’ ‘Yes, I must enter Janet’s name by the end of the week. And she will need extra tuition.’ Betty was startled. ‘What d’you mean? You said she had a good chance of passing, you never said a thing about her needing tuition. I can’t afford that.’ ‘Mrs Travers, you don’t have to afford it. I will coach Janet. She has a chance of passing now, without extra work, but the classes are large and I have no extra time to give her. I’ve explained all this to Janet. She is prepared to work hard.’ ‘You will do that for our Janet?’ Betty asked, amazed. ‘I would do it for any pupil who would benefit from it,’ Claire said. ‘Unfortunately, most children at Paget Road junior school look no further than the secondary modern. It’s what they want and what their parents want, and they see no need to take an examination.’ ‘But Janet’s different?’ ‘Undoubtedly,’ Claire said. ‘Now, the first set of exams will be marked by Christmas; you will probably have the results with your Christmas mail. If Janet passes, she will automatically go forward to the second set of examinations, which will be more extensive and will be held at the beginning of February. It will probably be April before you hear if she has passed or failed those.’ ‘And say she gets through all this and passes,’ said Betty. ‘Where will she go then?’ ‘Whytecliff School in Sutton Coldfield would be my first choice,’ Claire said. ‘It’s private but it offers scholarships to a quarter of the intake. I hear it’s a marvellous school, with wonderful facilities. I’m sure Janet would love it, and provided she passes the exam, you’d pay for nothing but the uniform.’ ‘That would probably cost a pretty penny, I bet.’ Claire could not deny it, and Betty knew the money would have to be found somehow. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Put our Janet’s name down for this here exam and we’ll see what she’s made of.’ Claire was delighted, but she didn’t want to raise the child’s hopes only to have them dashed again. ‘I’d be only too happy to, Mrs Travers,’ she said, ‘but your husband …?’ ‘Leave him to me,’ Betty said decisively. She said a similar thing to her daughter that evening. Janet had had a chat with Miss Wentworth, who told her of the outcome of her mother’s visit. That afternoon, after school, she settled down in the kitchen, gazing at her mother almost shyly. Betty smiled at her. ‘Went to see your Miss Wentworth today,’ she said. ‘I expect she told you.’ ‘Yes, she did.’ ‘Pretty young thing, isn’t she? I thought she’d be a crabbed old maid.’ ‘Oh, no,’ Janet said in the hushed tones of adoration. ‘She’s beautiful.’ She’d spent hours looking at Miss Wentworth. The teacher’s hair was so light brown as to be almost blonde, and she tied it back from her face with a black ribbon. Her eyes were the darkest brown, and she had the cutest nose and the loveliest mouth. Her whole face had a kindness about it, and her eyes often twinkled with amusement. She had the most gentle speaking voice, that she hardly ever raised in anger, but she could get the children to listen to her just the same. Janet’s dream was to look like Claire Wentworth, but her more realistic aim was to get into the grammar school, because that would please her teacher. ‘She thinks a lot of you,’ Betty said. Janet said nothing, but her eyes shone. ‘Thinks you have a chance of the eleven-plus if you work.’ ‘I know. I will if you’ll let me try.’ ‘Well, I think you should have the chance,’ Betty said. ‘What about Dad?’ ‘Leave your dad to me.’ Janet knew it wouldn’t be easy to change her father’s mind, and Betty didn’t try to kid her otherwise. She hadn’t time to do much then anyway, for she was rushing to make tea for everyone and get to work. ‘Now,’ she said, getting into her coat, ‘you get these dishes washed and put away before your dad comes home. Put the vegetables on at half past five for his tea, and don’t let them boil dry.’ ‘I’ve done it before, Mom,’ Janet protested. ‘Anyway, isn’t Gran coming round?’ ‘Yes, but she’ll have her hands full getting the twins to bed,’ Betty said. ‘I want your dad’s tea on the table when he comes in, and a tidy house. I want him in a good mood.’ ‘Why?’ asked Duncan, puzzled. ‘Never you mind,’ Betty snapped. Duncan saw the glance his mother gave to Janet. He wondered why his mom was trying to sweeten his dad up, and what it had to do with his sister. He didn’t ask, for he knew his mom wouldn’t tell him, and she was agitated about being late for work anyway. Then Breda was at the door and he watched the pair of them scurry down the road. When Bert Travers came in at six o’clock the house was spotless. Janet had dusted and polished and a hint of furniture polish still hung in the air. His dinner was ready, and he stood in the kitchen doorway watching his daughter dish up his meal and pour gravy over it. He felt a surge of pride for his family. His son was a lad to be proud of and was preparing to follow in his dad’s footsteps when he was fourteen. A daughter was bound to be different. Janet was much quieter than Duncan, and said to be clever, but she could produce a good meal for him just the same. She’d be another like her mom. Then there were his twin boys, washed and pyjamaed for bed. They had been drinking their milk until they saw their father, and then they threw their bottles down and began clambering all over him. Bert was inordinately proud of the twin sons and was far more easy-going with them than he had been with Duncan and Janet when they were small. Sarah McClusky, who believed that to spare the rod was to spoil the child, watched in disapproval as Conner and Noel leaped at and climbed up their father’s body. ‘Leave your dad be, he’s been at work all day, he’ll be tired,’ she admonished. ‘They’re all right, Ma,’ Bert said good-humouredly. ‘I see little enough of them.’ ‘They were getting ready to go to bed,’ Sarah said reprovingly. ‘That’s what I mean,’ Bert said. ‘They’re always nearly ready to go to bed when I get in …’ But his dinner was waiting and he had no desire to fight over it, and certainly not with his mother-in-law. He was only too aware what they owed her, him and Betty, for if she hadn’t agreed to come and see to the kids at night, Betty couldn’t have worked, and he had to admit the money was useful. His wages never seemed to stretch far these days, with the four children. He was constantly amazed by the way the children went through their clothes and shoes, and what they cost to replace. Then there was the amount of food consumed in one week. He was grateful for the government introducing the new family allowance, but he recognised that without the bit Betty earned, they’d often be strapped for cash. Sarah McClusky’s presence meant that his life changed very little. Betty would prepare dinner before she left for work, to be cooked by her mother or Janet ready for his arrival. After he’d eaten he could go down the club for a pint, leaving his mother-in-law to keep an eye on the children. Anyway, Bert told himself as he ate his tea, bringing up kids is a woman’s job. He was looking forward to the time when him and his lad would be mates in the factory, going down the pub together and to Villa Park on Saturday afternoons. But up until that time, any decisions about Duncan’s upbringing, or that of the others, he would leave to Betty, or her mother if Betty wasn’t there. Later, when he was washed and changed ready to go out, everything was much quieter. He knew his younger sons were fast asleep in their separate cots, because he’d tiptoed in to see on his way down from the bedroom. His mother-in-law was knitting placidly, while she listened to the wireless. ‘You away now?’ she asked. ‘Yes, I’ll go for a quick one.’ Sarah McClusky’s eyes betrayed nothing. She personally thought Betty wouldn’t have to go to work if Bert didn’t tip so much money down his throat, but that was their business. Betty had made that abundantly clear, the one time Sarah had mentioned it. ‘Bert’s a good man, Ma, and a good provider. He always sees to us first, and what he does with the money in his pocket is his business. Anyway,’ she’d added, ‘I enjoy my job.’ So Mrs McClusky kept her own counsel now, and what she said to her son-in-law was: ‘You might tell young Duncan to come in on your way out.’ ‘Where is he?’ ‘Kicking a ball in the street somewhere, but the nights are drawing in now.’ ‘He’ll be all right.’ ‘Betty doesn’t like him out in the dark,’ Mrs McClusky said. ‘They get up to all sorts of mischief, she says.’ Bert thought of Duncan and his mates and knew that Betty had a point. ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said, and added, ‘Our Janet’s not out there too, is she?’ Sarah McClusky chuckled. ‘Not her, she’s too sensible for that gang of hooligans. She’s in the kitchen, doing homework.’ Bert frowned. He had no desire for his daughter to be running wild around the estate, especially with Duncan and his pals, but she was a little too sensible for his liking. It wasn’t normal. ‘She’s an odd kid all right,’ he said. Sarah had a soft spot for her granddaughter, much as she loved her grandsons, especially the two rips named for her dead sons. She also loved Breda’s little girl Linda, cheeky monkey though she was, but between her and Janet there was a special bond. It had grown with the resemblance she’d had to her mother as a small child, when Sarah had looked after the children so that Betty could do her ARP work during the war. Sarah was aware very early of Janet’s ability to listen and absorb. She’d sit for hours and listen intently to her gran recounting an incident from her own childhood, or Betty’s. Sometimes she’d interrupt with a question, but most times she’d stay still and quiet. She’d been able to read before she went to school, because Sarah had read to her often and she’d picked up the words. They’d chosen books together from the public library in Erdington village, but though Sarah had told Betty about the trips there, she never let on that Janet could read. She told Janet to keep it to herself too, for she had an idea the teachers wouldn’t like it. She hadn’t been as surprised as her daughter when the teachers had commented on Janet’s intelligence, but she’d said nothing. She wasn’t certain now that the grammar school was the solution for Janet, and was of the opinion that men didn’t like girls who were too clever. But she wouldn’t let anyone put her granddaughter down either. She looked at her son-in-law now over the top of the glasses she held on the tip of her nose in order to see the stitches on the needles, and said: ‘She’s all right, your Janet, a good lassie. Just because she finds no pleasure in running wild doesn’t mean she’s odd.’ ‘I didn’t mean odd exactly,’ Bert said, uncomfortable under Sarah McClusky’s unfriendly scrutiny. ‘Just different.’ And she was different, he thought, as he opened the door to say good night. She was bent over her books so intently she hadn’t heard the click of the latch. Brought up as she was in a house with a brash elder brother and two younger ones prone to yelling and screaming their way through the day, she’d learnt to cut herself off from everyday noises that could distract. So Bert had to speak before Janet jerked up from the exercise book she’d been writing in. Her eyes held a note of impatience, he noticed, and it annoyed him. But he made an attempt to try and understand this young daughter of his, who somehow held herself away from him. ‘What are you doing?’ he asked. ‘English,’ Janet answered shortly, and then, because she knew that had sounded rude, she went on, ‘We have to write an essay and then I have an exercise in maths.’ ‘Why didn’t Duncan have homework like this when he was at Paget Road Primary?’ Bert asked, genuinely puzzled. Janet shrugged. ‘Maybe he didn’t want homework,’ she said. ‘Want it! Do you mean you don’t have to do it?’ You do if you want to get into grammar school, Janet could have said. She could imagine the explosion that would cause. Anyway, her mother had told her she’d handle it, so she just said: ‘You can have it if you like.’ ‘And you like, do you?’ Bert shook his head. He couldn’t understand an attitude like that. ‘Yes, yes, I do.’ What could he say to that? He patted his daughter’s head self-consciously. ‘Don’t work too hard then,’ he said, ‘and bed by nine.’ ‘I know,’ Janet said impatiently. She didn’t understand why her dad was suddenly so interested. Her gran would tell her it was time for bed if she were to get immersed in something and forget the time. Her father was seldom at home at bedtime, but she knew if she wasn’t in bed when her mother came in, she’d catch it. ‘Well, good night then,’ Bert said uncomfortably. He was aware that his daughter was just waiting for him to go. She was regarding him as an intrusion, he thought suddenly, and had only spoken to him to be polite. All the time he’d been in the kitchen she’d remained bent over her books, with her pen poised, waiting to continue. Bert banged the kitchen door behind him angrily. Janet had got under his skin, but there was nothing in her manner of speaking to him that he could tell her off for. It was just a feeling he had. Mrs McClusky looked across at him and said, ‘You go slamming doors like that, I’ll have the two rapscallions awake again.’ Bert glared at her. He longed to tell her to shut her mouth, but didn’t dare. Instead he made his way out of the front door, deliberately banging it loudly behind him. He called out to Duncan to get himself indoors, in a voice that brooked no argument, then hurried through the cold, dark streets to the club, where he always found congenial company. Janet heard her mother come in, and the murmur of voices between Mrs McClusky and her daughter. She heard her grandmother leave. In fact, so alive were her senses, she imagined she heard her mother filling the kettle, and the pop of the gas. She lay and gazed at the ceiling in the smallest bedroom, which she had all to herself. She wondered if she would be able to work up here – that was, of course, if she was ever to get to the grammar school. She had a wardrobe and a chest of drawers in the room, and Mom had said she’d get her a mirror to sit on top of the chest so it would be like a dressing table. But really she needed a desk. She wondered if she could use it for homework if she cleared the top off. But it was rather high – at least it was for the plain wooden chair which was the only other thing in the room. Then there was no place to put her legs, they’d have to dangle to the sides. And then it could be very cold up there in the winter. She’d have to wear her overcoat to work up here. But she was seriously worried about working in the kitchen if she got into the grammar school and had the masses of homework Miss Wentworth had told her about. Duncan came in every evening filthy dirty and starving hungry. Gran or Mom would make him wash at the sink and he’d splash water everywhere. Then he’d make great wads of bread and jam, smearing the table and leaving the sticky knife lying there. Or he’d make cocoa, stirring the sugar in so vigorously that the brown liquid slopped all over. Janet’s books had already had more than one lucky escape from Duncan’s attempts at preventing himself from starving to death. Then there were the twins … Janet wasn’t aware how they did it, but their hands were nearly always sticky, and ranged from merely grubby to filthy. She shuddered at the thought of them handling her things. They were messier than Duncan and twice as clumsy, and what if they were to get hold of a crayon and scribble over her work? No, somehow, she decided as she closed her eyes, she had to work in her bedroom. She was jerked suddenly awake and lay for a moment wondering what had roused her. The louder buzz of voices from the living room told her that her father was home; it was him coming in that had probably woken her. It had happened countless times before, and Janet had always turned over and gone to sleep again. She prepared to do this now. Her bed was warm and she was cosy, but she couldn’t rest. She wondered if her mom would broach the subject of the eleven-plus to her father that night. Miss Wentworth had told her that the first exam was soon, and that she needed extra tuition. She knew her mother couldn’t wait indefinitely, and she also knew that Mom tended to tackle things straight away, head on. She’d loved to have heard what they were saying, but although she could hear the drone of voices they weren’t distinct enough to make out the actual words. She wondered if she should get out of bed. She’d never listened at doors before, but this was her future they were discussing. The cold made her gasp as she stood on the freezing linoleum in her bedroom, and her bed looked very welcoming. She turned her back on it, slipped a jumper over her head and old shoes on her feet and tiptoed out to huddle on the stairs. Bert and Betty were having a cup of cocoa before bed. Bert had had enough to drink to make him view the world with a rosy glow, and his earlier bad mood was forgotten. Betty was glad that her husband had reached that mellow point, because she had to get this business of Janet and the exam cleared up. Her daughter and the teacher were keen enough, and she wanted what was best for Janet. She knew that speed was essential. It was also essential for another reason, but no one knew about that but Breda. ‘Not again!’ she’d exclaimed as Betty whispered her suspicions to her sister that evening. ‘Ssh,’ Betty cautioned. They’d been in the canteen, and Breda’s voice carried. ‘Well, I mean, Bet, really,’ Breda said, though she lowered her voice considerably. ‘What you trying to do? Populate the whole of the bleeding British Isles by yourself?’ ‘Don’t be daft,’ Betty said. ‘It just happened.’ ‘Don’t you be daft,’ Breda retorted. ‘It doesn’t just happen. You know what causes it, for God’s sake. Didn’t he take any precautions?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Come on, girl, you weren’t born yesterday. Don’t he wear a johnny? You know what they are.’ Betty couldn’t believe that such words were coming out of her younger sister’s mouth. ‘I … I’ve never … I couldn’t … Bert wouldn’t.’ Breda looked at her sister with pity. ‘You couldn’t even bring it up with him, could you?’ Miserably, Betty shook her head. ‘Then you have to get yourself seen to,’ Breda said. ‘As soon as this is over, I’m taking you up the clinic.’ ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘I thought you knew all about it, our Bet,’ Breda said in amazement. She shook her head sorrowfully. ‘It’s like you were born yesterday. Look,’ she went on, ‘there’s this little rubber thing that you shove up inside you and it protects you, you see.’ ‘Oh no, I couldn’t,’ Betty said. ‘Course you could,’ Breda retorted. ‘I do. Anyway, Bet, the choice as I see it is, either you use this cap that your old man don’t have to know anything about, or you tell him to keep his bloody hands to himself when he reaches out in the dark.’ ‘He was away six years,’ Betty said, somewhat stiffly. ‘I know that. So were countless others, like my Peter. Doesn’t give him the right to try and populate the universe single-handed,’ Breda said. ‘Anyway, our Linda’s one body’s work, and I certainly don’t want no more.’ Betty stared at her sister. Breda knew as well as Betty did that it was wrong to plan one’s family. The priests were telling you that all the time. Neither of the sisters went to church very often now, but they’d been brought up as staunch Catholics and the Church’s teaching went deep. Betty had been a regular attender when she was younger, and even when she was first married, and Duncan had been down to go to the Abbey Roman Catholic school, just outside Erdington village, and a short bus ride away. When war broke out, however, and Betty joined up as an ARP warden, Duncan was enrolled in Paget Road, just round the corner from where they lived, and Janet followed him there. The priest had called to see Betty after her prolonged absence from church had been noted, but by that time, Mrs McClusky was beginning to curse the God who had taken her son from her, and was short with the priest. He came back later, when Betty was at home. ‘I have to send the children to school somewhere,’ she cried when the priest appeared to judge her by his very silence, ‘and it’s too much for Mom fetching them from the Abbey.’ ‘I understand it’s difficult for you at the moment,’ the priest said soothingly. ‘Do you?’ Betty burst out angrily, suddenly enraged that the priest was seemingly untouched by a war that had ripped their family apart. ‘Do you really? My husband’s overseas, one brother’s dead, the other two are still fighting. My parents haven’t time to grieve, they’re too busy looking after Duncan and Janet so I can work as an ARP warden. In our own small way, we are doing our bit to win this war, and you are concerned about where my children go to school.’ The priest never came back, and Betty felt as if she’d scored a small triumph. Yes, she’d had her moment of rebellion, but a sin was still a sin. She hesitated to broach the subject with Breda, certain that her sister would mock, but her conscience troubled her. She had to try. ‘Breda, don’t you worry about saying things like that?’ ‘Like what?’ ‘You know, planning your family.’ Breda stared at Betty. She couldn’t understand her sister. All that carnage of war, all those people mutilated and killed, and she still believed in God and was terrified to do what the priests said was wrong. How the hell would they know anyway? she thought. Aloud she said, ‘Don’t tell me you believe it’s a sin, or I’ll fall about laughing.’ Betty was silent. ‘You do, don’t you?’ Breda cried. ‘How can it be anyone else’s business how many children people have?’ Betty didn’t know. She was hazy over the reasons why the Church was against birth control; she just knew they were. The hooter went before she could think of an answer. Break was over and it was back to work for the rest of the shift, her thoughts whirling in her head. She was on the capping machine and so was working on her own, with no opportunity to talk to Breda, or anyone else either. It was as they walked home together that Breda suddenly said: ‘What did your Bert say when you told him?’ ‘I haven’t told him,’ Betty said. ‘Why not?’ ‘I’ve only just missed. I mean, it could all be a false alarm.’ But she knew it couldn’t be. This would be her fourth pregnancy, and the bodily changes, though minimal so far, were definite enough. ‘Is that the real reason?’ Betty hesitated, and then said, ‘Part of it. I want to keep it a secret a bit longer anyway. I mean, he’ll hardly be pleased. We have enough of a struggle to manage now, and there’s this business of our Janet wanting to sit the eleven-plus.’ Breda was impressed, but not totally surprised. ‘Mam mentioned something about it,’ she said. ‘Your Janet always was bright, though.’ ‘The teacher thinks so too,’ Betty said. ‘And she thinks Janet has a good chance of getting through the exam, but …’ ‘Bert’s not keen,’ Breda put in. ‘He doesn’t think it’s necessary,’ Betty said. ‘Course it isn’t necessary,’ Breda said sarcastically. ‘Not for him it’s not. As long as he has someone to cook his dinner, wash and iron his clothes, clean up after him, look after his kids and be ready to accommodate him in bed, he’s happy. He goes to work, and on Friday he tips up the amount of money he thinks you should manage on, and if you can’t it’s your fault. The rest is his, to spend at the club, or betting on a horse, or going to football, or any other bloody thing he likes.’ ‘He’s not like that,’ Betty protested. ‘He’s a good man, he cares for us.’ ‘He is like that,’ Breda replied, ‘but it’s not his fault. It’s been that way for years. Your Bert’s not used to any other way, and he’s better than many. But do you think Janet will be happy with a life like that?’ Betty knew she wouldn’t be. Breda didn’t need an answer; Betty’s silence spoke for her. ‘You needn’t wait for men to change things and fight for an independent life for women. It’s women have got to do it for each other, or condemn our daughters to looking no further than the kitchen sink and having a baby every year.’ ‘It’s down to me, then, to fight for our Janet?’ Betty said. ‘Too right,’ Breda replied. ‘But don’t waste your ammunition. Don’t fire till you see the whites of his eyes.’ ‘You are a fool, Breda,’ Betty said, but even in the dark, Breda could tell she’d made her sister smile, and she was glad. She was sorry Betty was pregnant again. She really had enough to do now. The birth of the twins had really dragged her down. She’d not been the same since. She should have put her foot down long ago, as Breda had done with Peter. Peter hadn’t believed his luck when Breda agreed to marry him after the war. He’d adored her before he went, but she’d kept him at a distance and he hadn’t even felt able to ask her to write to him. On the rare occasions he was home on leave, Breda always seemed involved with another man. But when he was demobbed, he came home to find her still single. He couldn’t understand why no one had snapped her up. She even seemed pleased to see him, and told him how glad she was he’d survived the war. In Peter’s opinion, she was the most stunning-looking woman for miles, with her mane of auburn curls cascading down her back and her flashing green eyes. When she insisted that he tip his wages up every Friday and they’d work out a budget for everything – personal pocket money for each of them and a bit saved – it seemed sensible. When Linda was born and Breda said that one was enough, Peter agreed that since she’d carried the baby and given birth to it, and had the major job of bringing it up, it had to be her decision. He wasn’t keen on taking precautions himself, but was quite prepared for Breda to go and get something. He also appreciated the fact that she left his dinner ready, just to heat over a pan, when he came home from work. First, though, he fetched Linda from the neighbour who looked after her for them, and put her to bed. He always had the tea mashed and a snack meal in the making for Breda when she got in. He said it was only fair. Breda knew that Betty had a different life, because she’d seen Bert’s chauvinistic attitudes. He was typical; it was Peter who was different. Breda knew it would be the next generation of women who could change things for the majority. ‘When are you going to tell Bert then?’ she asked Betty. ‘I’m trying to keep it till the exams are over,’ Betty said. ‘When’s that?’ ‘The first is in November, the second in early February.’ ‘You’ll never keep it till then,’ Breda said. ‘Not February you won’t. Christ, Betty, you swelled up like a bleeding elephant last time.’ ‘I was having twins then,’ Betty reminded her sister. ‘You’d hardly remember how I was with the other two.’ ‘Maybe it’s twins again,’ Breda said cheerfully. ‘Don’t. I’d go mad if I had two more like Conner and Noel,’ Betty said. ‘I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they have me run off my feet.’ ‘Don’t tell me, it’s bad enough with one.’ ‘Anyway,’ Betty said, ‘if I can get Bert to change his mind about the first exam, before he knows about the baby and the additional expense that’ll mean, it’ll be something. If she passes, she automatically goes through, and if she fails, well, that’s that, isn’t it?’ ‘She won’t fail,’ Breda said. ‘I know she won’t. I’ve got faith in that girl.’ Betty kept that in mind as she faced Bert. She was unaware of her daughter trembling on the stairs; unaware that her words sent a shiver of icy fear down Janet’s spine. ‘I went to see our Janet’s teacher today,’ Betty said. ‘That Miss Wentworth.’ ‘Oh, aye.’ Fuddled by beer, Bert wasn’t even on his guard. ‘Thinks our Janet has a good chance of getting this eleven-plus.’ Bert pulled himself up in the chair. ‘You told her, though,’ he said, ‘you told her we don’t want her taking no exams?’ ‘No,’ Betty said, ‘I didn’t say that, because it wouldn’t have been true. I said you weren’t keen but that I was agreeable if that’s what Janet wanted.’ Bert was astounded. His wife had never gone against him before. ‘You said that,’ he said indignantly, ‘after I made myself clear the other evening?’ ‘Yes, yes, I did.’ ‘Am I not master in my own house now?’ ‘This is about Janet and her life, not yours.’ ‘I’m her father,’ Bert thundered. ‘I say what goes in this family.’ His mellowness and good humour, restored at the pub, had left him. His wife and daughter ganging up on him. He wouldn’t stand for it. ‘How long has this been going on?’ he demanded. ‘How long has what been going on?’ ‘This conniving between you.’ ‘Oh, Bert, don’t be stupid.’ ‘Oh, it’s stupid I am now?’ ‘Look, Bert, I’m sick of this,’ Betty said. On the stairs Janet sat hugging her knees, rocking slightly as sobs shook her body. Her parents didn’t hear her; they were too busy shouting at one another. ‘We’re talking about giving our daughter a choice in her life,’ Betty cried. ‘Why are you going on as if it’s a bloody crime?’ ‘I’m not.’ ‘You bloody well are. Duncan had the choice, why not Janet?’ ‘Duncan was different.’ ‘Why, because he made a choice you approved of?’ Betty asked. ‘Or is it more than that?’ ‘And what do you mean by that remark?’ ‘Are you cross because your daughter has the chance Duncan didn’t have the ability to take up, even if he’d wanted to? Do you think daughters are of no account and anything will do to occupy them until they marry and become a slave to some man?’ There was some truth in Betty’s accusations, and Bert was quite ashamed of his feelings put into words like that, but he wasn’t going to admit it. ‘That isn’t what I think,’ he said. ‘Isn’t it, Bert Travers?’ Betty said quietly, and it was Bert who looked away first. ‘Let her try, Bert,’ Betty pleaded. ‘The first exam is in November. Miss Wentworth says that even with her being bright she’ll need extra coaching. If she doesn’t get in, that will be the end of it. We’ll know by Christmas.’ Bert still didn’t speak, but Betty knew him well enough to know he was wavering. She went on while he was in this muddle of indecision. ‘The factory is probably the right place for our Duncan, he’ll likely be happier there than at school at any rate, but our Janet is not Duncan. You’ll have to give her this opportunity to do something better, or … or she might hold it against us for the rest of her life.’ Bert looked at his wife, but he wasn’t seeing her. He was seeing his daughter before he’d left that evening, resenting his intrusion into her life. Was that because she imagined him to be the stumbling block in her wish to go to the grammar school? And if he stood alongside his principles and refused to let her take the exam, would she get over it eventually, or would she always hate him? He wouldn’t, couldn’t take that chance. He sighed. ‘All right,’ he said slowly, as if the words were being pulled out of him. ‘Let her take the bloody exam and we’ll see how clever she is.’ Janet allowed a long, shuddering sigh to escape from her body. She felt as if she’d been holding her breath for hours. No one heard her creep back to bed, although her limbs were so stiff with cold she stumbled a few times before she reached her bedroom. No one heard because Betty and Bert were entwined with one another. ‘You won’t be sorry, Bert,’ Betty said. ‘You’ll see.’ ‘You could reward me for being the understanding sort tonight if you’d have a mind,’ Bert said with an ogling leer. And Betty smiled as she said, ‘Maybe.’ After all, she said to herself later that night, it’s a bit bloody late to make a stand now. THREE (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) After that, it was fairly easy. Bert had given permission for Janet to take the exam, and he accepted the fact that twice a week, Wednesday evening and Saturday afternoon, Janet would go to Miss Wentworth’s home for special tuition. The rest of the week, she would work at home. On the day of the first exam, a hollow-eyed Janet, who had slept very little, was surprised to find her father in the kitchen when she came downstairs. It was Saturday, and Bert hadn’t to work. There was little enough overtime these days, and he usually enjoyed a lie-in at the weekend, but there he was, large as life. He made no mention of the exam, no comment at all that it was a special day, but Janet was glad he was there to wish her all the best. ‘Now, what would you like for breakfast this fine morning, Miss Janet?’ he asked. ‘Oh, nothing,’ Janet said. ‘I … I couldn’t eat anything, Dad.’ ‘Couldn’t eat anything when I’ve got up specially to cook it?’ Betty had followed Janet downstairs. The two stared at him in astonishment. ‘You!’ they both said together. ‘You had to do your bit in the forces, you know,’ Bert said. ‘I’m a dab hand with bacon and eggs.’ ‘You never said,’ Betty said accusingly. ‘You never asked,’ Bert replied. Betty and Janet laughed, and Janet wondered why it couldn’t always be like this. Suddenly, the sick feeling in her stomach eased and the lump in her throat disappeared, and she smiled at her father, who was making such an effort. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’d love bacon and eggs.’ It was a great breakfast. Every subject was discussed except the first part of the eleven-plus that Janet would sit that morning. Duncan had been primed by his mother, and the twins, of course, knew nothing anyway. At last it was time to go, and Janet went up for her coat. ‘Keep an eye on her, Bet,’ Bert said. ‘She looks as if she hasn’t slept a wink.’ ‘She probably hasn’t. I’ve tossed and turned all night myself.’ ‘Well, at least she has something inside her. I thought if she didn’t eat this morning she’d pass out on you.’ ‘It was a nice thought, Bert, thank you.’ ‘Pity I couldn’t get you to eat, though,’ Bert said. ‘Going out with just a cup of tea is no good to anyone.’ ‘I’m all right,’ Betty said. ‘Truth is, my stomach is churning on account of young Janet. I thought it was better to keep off the fried stuff this morning.’ Janet asked the same question of her mother on the bus. ‘Why didn’t you have any breakfast, Mom?’ ‘I didn’t fancy a fry-up this morning, pet. I didn’t fancy anything much.’ ‘You used to eat bacon and egg.’ ‘Can’t take it now, though. Must be getting old.’ ‘You’re not old, Mom,’ Janet said, and then qualified it to: ‘Not that old, anyway.’ ‘Watch it, miss,’ Betty said with a smile. ‘I heard you being sick the other morning as well,’ Janet said. ‘It was something I ate, must’ve disagreed with me,’ Betty said. The bus ride wasn’t helping her queasiness, and she felt her stomach give a heave as they turned a sharp corner. ‘Let’s leave the subject of my stomach and concentrate on getting off at the right stop, shall we?’ Betty said. ‘Don’t be silly, Mom, we have to go right into Birmingham,’ Janet said with a laugh. ‘We can hardly miss the terminus.’ ‘You’re too smart by half, young Janet,’ Betty said, but she smiled back at her daughter and hoped the journey wouldn’t be too jerky, for she was feeling incredibly nauseous. She knew she wouldn’t be able to keep her pregnancy a secret much longer. Only the previous evening she’d seen Bert looking at her quizzically as she undressed. She’d tell them this weekend, she decided. After all, Janet would be over the first hurdle, and it would give them something else to think about besides her results. ‘We’re here, Mom,’ Janet said suddenly. ‘This is it.’ The exam room was meant to be intimidating, with its rows and rows of single desks, and Janet was glad Miss Wentworth had warned her that it would be like that. She had to walk nearly up to the end row, because her name came late in the alphabet. She stared at the other children and they stared back, and Janet knew they were as frightened as she was. Just before she went into the room, Betty had pressed a package into her hand. ‘A lucky shamrock,’ she said. ‘Gran had it specially sent from Ireland to bring you luck today.’ Janet wondered if she’d be allowed to have her lucky shamrock on the table with her, and then she saw that most of the children had something: a teddy, a small horseshoe, a rabbit’s foot. Her shamrock sat at the side of the desk in its little box, and reminded Janet that her grandparents were rooting for her too. She didn’t find the papers that hard. Miss Wentworth had done her work well. She’d obtained old English, maths and intelligence papers and they’d worked through them at her house. Now Janet finished those in front of her with ease. Then she looked at all the other children and was assailed by doubts. She’d made a complete mess of the tests! She must have or she wouldn’t have finished in the time allotted. English was the only paper she needed more time for, and that was only because she overran on the essay. As Janet suffered inside the examination room, Betty suffered outside it. At one point she felt she had to get out of the soulless corridor in which all the parents were waiting and had gone to look around the city shops. She seldom had a chance to visit Birmingham centre now with the demands of her family. She soon realised she wasn’t taking anything in and was constantly looking at her watch, willing it to be time to collect her daughter. Eventually, she forced herself to drink a cup of coffee, but it was a struggle, for her stomach was churning more than ever. It’s not the end of the world if she doesn’t pass, she told herself. It’s only an examination, and she’s only a child. They shouldn’t be under such pressure. But she knew that for Janet it would be the end of the world, and she sent a silent prayer up to the God she still believed in and asked His help for her daughter. On the way home on the bus, because she felt peculiarly drained and was a bag of nerves because of the strain of it all, Janet didn’t speak much and answered questions as briefly as possible. What Betty wanted to say was ‘How did it go?’ but she looked at Janet’s white, drawn face as she came out of the examination room and didn’t dare. She told Bert she thought it had gone badly, and everyone kept off the subject so that Janet would not be upset. Janet thought it odd that no one mentioned the exam. It was just as if she’d not sat it at all. They don’t think I’ve passed, she thought, and her own confidence began to ebb away. She went to Miss Wentworth’s on Sunday afternoons now, as well as on Saturday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Sometimes she wondered why she bothered, or why Miss Wentworth still wanted to coach her. When the Christmas cards began arriving, Janet was in a fever of anxiety. When at last the long, thin brown envelope dropped on to the mat, she picked it up with trembling fingers and handed it to Betty. ‘I can’t open it,’ she said. Betty took the envelope and tore it open. ‘Oh my God!’ she cried, her eyes bright with unshed tears of disbelief. ‘You’ve passed, lass, you’ve bloody well passed.’ Bert took his family out for a meal to celebrate, and after that began to talk at work about his clever lass who’d soon be going to grammar school. In vain did Janet tell him that this was just the first step, and that she had another exam to pass. In Bert’s opinion, the result of the second exam was a foregone conclusion. Many of the men at the factory expressed doubts as to the value of educating a girl. ‘Boy or girl,’ Bert told them, ‘makes no difference. If they have the brains, they should have the opportunity, I say.’ ‘It’s as if he was never against it in the first place,’ Janet told Miss Wentworth, ‘and he’s so proud of me, it’s embarrassing.’ Miss Wentworth smiled. ‘Your mother won him over then. She was determined she would.’ ‘I’ll say.’ It was a Wednesday evening towards the end of January, and Janet’s last lesson before the final exam the following Saturday. It was bitterly cold and the roads were thick with ice. They’d finished work and were having a cup of cocoa and buttered crumpets before Janet set off home. Janet, who was sitting on the rug before the fire, stretched out her legs contentedly and said suddenly: ‘I shall miss coming here.’ ‘I should miss it too,’ said Claire Wentworth, ‘if you stopped. But why would you?’ ‘What would be the point?’ Janet said. ‘I mean, the exam’s on Saturday.’ ‘That just proves you have the intelligence to get into grammar school,’ said Claire. ‘My next job is to make you able to cope with it.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean, my dear girl, that we will then embark on a course of improvement,’ Claire said. ‘We will visit the art gallery in Birmingham and learn a little of the lives of the artists; the natural history and science museums, where we will learn many interesting facts. We will take some of the classics from the library and read and discuss them. I will explain a couple of Shakespeare’s plays to you so that you will understand more when you go to grammar school, and we will examine the rudiments of Latin.’ ‘Why Latin?’ ‘Because you may need it,’ Miss Wentworth said. ‘It is the basis of language, for one thing, and you need it to get into many universities.’ ‘You think I’ll go to university?’ Janet asked incredulously. ‘Janet, you’re not eleven years old yet. Who knows what you’ll achieve, or where you’ll end up? We must cover all the options. And when you go to grammar school, I want you to go on equal terms, not as a scholarship girl to be pitied.’ Years later, Janet would realise how wise Claire Wentworth had been. Now, she was just thankful that her visits to her teacher’s small terraced house in Erdington weren’t coming to an abrupt halt. The second part of the eleven-plus had to be taken at Whytecliff School, because that was Janet’s first choice. As the school was in Sutton Coldfield, outside Birmingham’s boundaries, Janet and Betty had to go on the Midland Red bus, not on one of Birmingham’s yellow and blue ones. Janet had never been on one before, nor had she ever been into the small town of Sutton Coldfield itself. The bus took them along Eachelhurst Road and down the side of Pype Hayes Park, lined with prefabs, a legacy from the war. It was just past the park’s perimeter and over the Birmingham border. This was the furthest Janet had ever been from her home. She looked out at the large detached houses, set well back from the road, with long front gardens and drives that disappeared behind privet hedges. ‘Think of the cost of all the coal you’d need to heat one of those places,’ Betty whispered, seeing Janet’s concentrated gaze. ‘I think if you were that rich you wouldn’t have to worry about the price of coal,’ Janet whispered back. She wondered if any girls from the houses they were passing would be sitting the second part of the exam with her that day, but there were no girls of Janet’s age at the bus stops; in fact, more often than not, nobody was at the bus stops and the bus just sailed past. Janet began to feel nervous as they went further and further into unfamiliar territory. ‘How will we know our stop, Mam?’ she asked as the bus trundled along. ‘The conductor will tell us,’ Betty assured her. ‘Don’t worry.’ They passed farmland, with fields stretching out on either side, and then a few big houses scattered here and there, even larger than the first ones they’d seen. Then suddenly the conductor alerted them, and they alighted from the bus and stood looking about them. ‘Whytecliff High School for Girls’ was written in gold lettering above two wrought-iron gates which stood wide open. The school was in a road with other houses of similar size dotted along it, but in the distance Janet could see farmland. Suddenly she was unaccountably nervous. She moved forward cautiously and saw a sweeping gravel path which led to a large, imposing building set well back. Now Janet saw the other girls. It appeared that no one else had come by bus. Most were getting out of private cars or taxis, and some drove past Janet and Betty as they crunched their way forward. Janet felt conspicuous and ill at ease. As she approached the school she saw tennis courts positioned on either side of it, and a thrill ran through her as she realised that one day she might be there, playing tennis with other girls like herself. She looked up and saw the ornamental bushes decorating the front of the school and the wide stone steps that led up between them from the path. There were two newel posts at the bottom, decorated with stone balls, and a rail ran up either side and a balustrade along the top. As Janet joined the girls going in, she almost ran back down the steps and told her mother she wanted to go home. But Betty knew her daughter and pressed her forward. ‘Go on,’ she hissed. ‘You have as much right to be here as anyone else,’ and Janet held her head high and mounted the last few steps to the front entrance hall. Betty, however, was overawed by the whole place and only waited until Janet was taken into the hall before she wandered outside. She scarcely saw the tree-lined avenues she walked along, for her thoughts and prayers were for her daughter bent over the vital examination papers. In actual fact, despite Janet’s unease at being inside Whytecliff School, she felt quietly confident that she had done well as she laid down her pen at the end of the third paper, although she recognised that the second part of the exam was much harder than the first had been. She talked it over with Miss Wentworth that same evening. ‘I finished,’ she said, ‘but only just.’ ‘Even the English paper?’ ‘Even that since I’ve done so much work on timed essays.’ ‘And you feel confident?’ ‘In the exam room I did, but now I’m not so sure.’ ‘Oh, Janet, believe in yourself!’ Claire cried in exasperation. ‘You have a good brain. Don’t use it to demean yourself.’ ‘I don’t,’ Janet protested. ‘It’s just that I don’t know. I suppose I’m worried I’ll let them all down.’ ‘You need to be taken out of yourself more,’ Claire said. ‘Come over tomorrow and we’ll go out for the day.’ ‘If I can I will,’ Janet promised, ‘but it might be difficult.’ Claire’s eyes met Janet’s, but though they were puzzled, she didn’t ask questions, and Janet didn’t offer an explanation. The following afternoon, Janet fought her way through the cold and blustery winter’s day with sleeting rain stinging her cheeks. Claire opened the door. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘You must be freezing.’ Janet hung her sopping coat in the hall and followed Claire down the passage to the back room she tended to live in, rubbing her raw, freezing hands together. ‘It’s bitterly cold out there,’ she was saying, and then she stopped. There was a strange woman sitting in the chair by the fire that Miss Wentworth usually occupied. One of her legs was encased in plaster and raised on a cushion. She turned and smiled, and Janet saw she was an older version of Miss Wentworth. ‘Hello, dear,’ she said. ‘You must be Janet. My daughter has told me so much about you. I slipped on the ice, I’m afraid, and have broken my leg. Such a nuisance, I know, but there it is. Claire has said I must stay here until I’m fully recovered.’ Janet felt a momentary flash of jealousy. She didn’t want to share their special times together. It was different at school, where Miss Wentworth was so scrupulously fair and was just as hard on Janet as on the others – harder if anything, never picking Janet for any particular job or privilege – but that was school; this was their special time. Here Miss Wentworth was totally hers. She stared at the older woman, quite prepared to dislike her heartily. Then Mrs Wentworth disarmed her totally with a charming smile. ‘I’m sorry that you’ll have to put up with an old duffer like me, Janet. I hope I won’t spoil things too much.’ Janet was prevented from answering by the arrival of Claire with a tray of tea and sponge cake. ‘Good job we’d made no plans,’ Claire said, ‘and anyway, it’s a filthy day. As it turned out, after you left yesterday, Janet, Mom’s neighbour, who fortunately has a car, came to fetch me and take me to the casualty department of the General Hospital. They’d called an ambulance for Mom after they found her in the garden, unable to move, with her leg broken.’ She turned to her mother and said, ‘Honestly, Mom, what were you doing out in the pitch black?’ ‘I told you,’ Mrs Wentworth said, ‘feeding the birds.’ ‘In the middle of the night?’ ‘Don’t exaggerate, dear, it was just after seven. I’d intended to fill the feeder earlier in the day when I saw it empty, but I’d forgotten. Birds feed at first light, you see, and they need so much food in this intense cold. And it is just outside the kitchen door.’ ‘Well, it’s as well the Pritchards heard you, that’s all I can say,’ Claire said, ‘because if you’d lain outside all night …’ ‘I wouldn’t be here now, I know,’ said Mrs Wentworth with a hint of impatience. ‘But I didn’t and I am here, and surely you’re not going to go on and on about it until my dying day.’ She turned to Janet, gave a wink and said, ‘Bossy, isn’t she?’ Janet thought that she could probably get to like Miss Wentworth’s mother very much, and she grinned back and said, ‘Yes, she is.’ ‘Don’t encourage insurrection in my pupils, please,’ Claire said with mock severity. ‘I have quite enough trouble with this one already.’ ‘I don’t believe it, my dear,’ Mrs Wentworth said, taking a large bite of sponge cake. ‘Come and sit here beside me, Janet, and we’ll have a chat. Either bring up a chair or sit on the rug nearer to the fire.’ Janet plonked down beside the older woman and said, ‘What do you want to talk to me about?’ ‘Before we go any further,’ Mrs Wentworth said, ‘I know you have to call Claire Miss Wentworth. It’s to do with rules and discipline. Apparently school would fall into a crumbling ruin if children knew their teachers’ names.’ ‘Mother!’ Claire burst out in exasperation. Mrs Wentworth waved a dismissive hand in her daughter’s direction. ‘I’m not talking to you, Claire dear, but about you. I’m addressing your pupil at the moment. Now, Janet, I’m sure you don’t want to call me Mrs Wentworth, do you?’ ‘Um, I don’t know really.’ ‘Well, I don’t want you to,’ said Mrs Wentworth decisively, ‘but I suppose you would feel awkward calling me Mary. Could you manage Auntie Mary?’ ‘Er, I suppose, I mean … that is, if you want,’ Janet said, feeling that never in her life had she met anyone quite like Claire’s mother. For all that, she sat at her feet all afternoon and talked as she’d never talked before. She told her of the tales she’d learnt from her gran, and how she and Grandad had both been born in Ireland but had had to leave to find work in England, where they met and married. She told her about Duncan, and how they’d had to spend a lot of time with their grandparents while their mother was an ARP warden and their dad was fighting. She told of the two uncles killed and the twin boys born just before the end of the war. She didn’t say that her father hadn’t seen the point of her sitting the exams, but what she did say was: ‘My mom’s sick at the moment. I mean, she’s having a baby, but she’s sick with it.’ ‘Is she, Janet?’ Claire said. ‘You never mentioned it.’ ‘She didn’t tell anyone she was even pregnant until I’d sat the first part of the eleven-plus,’ Janet said. ‘I knew something was wrong, because I’d heard her being sick a few times and she kept saying she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. But she still keeps being sick and eats hardly anything. That’s why I couldn’t come till this afternoon. I have to help out a bit.’ Mary Wentworth met her daughter’s eyes over Janet’s head. They both realised that the young girl was worried. ‘I’m sure your mother will be fine, you know,’ Mary said. ‘Pregnancy takes it out of a woman, and of course, if she has to look after a family too, it can be hard. I only had Claire. Her father was badly injured in the First World War and died before Claire was out of babyhood.’ She added, as if to herself, ‘I was glad he died before the outbreak of the Second World War. I think it would have finished him to think of all that carnage starting again.’ She saw Janet’s grave eyes on her and gave a start. ‘Forgive me, dear, I was remembering for a while how it was. It affects one like that as one grows old.’ ‘Stop fishing for compliments, Mother,’ Claire said briskly. ‘You know you don’t look anywhere near your age, and you’re not half as ga-ga as you make out. Now, if you will excuse me, government guidelines or no, I must get more coal for that dying fire or we’ll all freeze to death.’ Because of the national shortage of coal, people had been asked to put off lighting fires till late afternoon, and then not to pile them up with coal but to use as little as possible. It was not easy, for the winter was a particularly severe one and everyone was feeling the pinch. Janet jumped to her feet. ‘I’d better go,’ she said. ‘Mom went for a lie-down as the twins were having a nap. That’s why I was able to come. They’ll be up now, I expect, and plaguing the life out of her.’ ‘Where’s your brother?’ Mary said gently. ‘The older one, Duncan, is it?’ ‘Yes, Duncan,’ Janet said. ‘He’ll be playing football or something. He’s no good, he’s a boy. And my dad went down to the club after dinner and he’ll probably be snoring his head off.’ ‘Ah, that’s men for you,’ Mary said. ‘That’s men all right,’ Janet said fiercely. ‘I don’t think I’m going to bother getting married.’ ‘That’s what Claire always said too.’ ‘Well, she didn’t, did she?’ Janet said. ‘I mean, you didn’t, did you, Miss Wentworth?’ ‘No, I didn’t.’ Claire didn’t say that there had been somebody once who she had been willing to throw everything up for, but he hadn’t loved her enough and they’d gone their separate ways. That wasn’t the sort of confidence you shared with a pupil of not quite eleven years. Her mother knew. She was the one who’d picked up the pieces of Claire’s shattered heart and given her back her self-respect, but she didn’t want to tell the tale either. As Janet trudged home, she determined that that was how she would be: single, independent and alone. People mocked single women, she knew that. They called them old maids and spinsters, but if you got married, you were little more than a slave. This was further reinforced when she got home. It was just as she’d said it would be: Duncan kicking a football in the road with a crowd of mates, her father snoring in the chair. Her twin brothers had woken up from their nap, climbed out of their cots and systematically set about destroying the bedroom. Janet popped in to see her mother, who was sleeping the sleep of the totally exhausted. Sighing, she ushered her young brothers downstairs and began to prepare tea for them all. As Betty’s pregnancy advanced, she became more and more tired. Often, Janet would arrive home to find her mother asleep and the twins with Auntie Breda or Gran. Even with Janet home, Betty seemed loath to move. ‘Get me a cup of tea, pet,’ she’d say, ‘and I’ll be as right as rain.’ So Janet would make a cup of tea and fetch the twins and make up the fire and cook a meal for all of them. Duncan would come flying in and demand: ‘What’s for tea? I’m starving,’ and Janet wanted to hit him. Betty continued to work in the evenings, though Bert and the doctor urged her to stop. ‘A few more weeks,’ she’d said. ‘The money’s useful.’ As often as she could, Janet escaped to Claire’s. It was the only place she could let down her guard. At home she had to be the one to cope and encourage her mother to rest. At Claire’s she could be a child again. ‘It will be worth it all when you have a new brother or sister, won’t it?’ Mary said one day. Janet was a long time answering. She didn’t know how to be truthful and yet not shock this woman whose good opinion she craved. ‘Babies are lovely,’ she said at last. ‘They’re sweet and innocent, but really it’s better if they’re someone else’s and you can hold them and play with them and then give them back, like I used to be able to do with Auntie Breda’s Linda.’ ‘Oh, surely …’ ‘Mom doesn’t want this baby,’ Janet said. ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s nonsense, my dear,’ Mary said. ‘Sometimes grown-ups say things they don’t mean.’ Janet said nothing, but she knew she was right. She’d heard her mother and Auntie Breda talking about it. ‘You should have done something about it earlier,’ Auntie Breda had said. ‘I know people … qualified … you know.’ ‘Ah, not that!’ her mother had cried, aghast. ‘God in heaven, Breda, what are you suggesting? You haven’t …?’ ‘No, I haven’t,’ Breda said. ‘I had a good time in the war, but I wasn’t a bleeding fool like some of them. I tell you, some of them in the munitions were wetting themselves to find they were expecting and their husbands overseas and been there a couple of years. Many were glad, I’ll tell you, to be able to get rid of it.’ ‘Well, that’s hardly my position.’ ‘No, it isn’t. But you can’t look me in the eye and say you want it.’ ‘No, God forgive me, I don’t want it, but I couldn’t get rid of it. I dare say I’ll think enough of it when it comes.’ Poor little baby, Janet thought, no one wants it. Duncan when told just raised his eyes to the ceiling. Privately he said to Janet, ‘More bloody yelling and nappies all over the house.’ He leaned closer and added, ‘I didn’t think they did that sort of thing any more, did you?’ ‘What sort of thing?’ ‘Oh God!’ he’d said. ‘You do know all about it, don’t you, sex and that?’ ‘Course I do,’ Janet said, but she didn’t. She was totally ignorant of most sexual matters and was very vague about how babies materialised, but she wasn’t letting on to Duncan. He sneered, ‘You don’t know anything, do you? And you so blooming clever.’ ‘I do,’ Janet had cried. She was aware of the hot blush that had spread all over her face and down her neck, and she’d run from her brother. Bert had called the baby another bloody millstone round his neck. ‘It’s as if he had nothing to do with it,’ Breda said angrily. ‘He should have thought, taken a few precautions.’ ‘He’s only worried.’ ‘And you’re not? And that’s another thing. He should do more. He can see the way you are.’ ‘Our Janet’s very good.’ ‘Janet’s a child. She has her own life and her future to think of.’ Too right, Janet thought. She was glad that Breda at least thought of her. It came to her with absolute clarity one night in bed that whatever sex the new baby was, it would have to share her small room. There was no more space to be found in the boys’ room, nor would there be much in hers. Bang went her plans for working at night in her bedroom. Even if she could have persuaded her parents to buy her a desk, there would now be nowhere to put it. She would work in the kitchen, where her books would be at the mercy of her messy family. She would devise an essay, or work out algebraic equations, while stale cooking smells mingled with the aroma of the damp nappies strung across the kitchen on a line. She wanted to weep, and yet she knew she was being selfish. Duncan had never complained about sharing with the twins. He’d just accepted it and asked Bert to buy him a padlock so he could lock treasures away. Janet felt ashamed of herself, but she didn’t want this baby either. She wasn’t losing sight of her goal, though. Underlying all the worry of the family she was aware that one day an insignificant brown envelope would drop through the letterbox and its contents would decide where she would spend the next few years of her life. Because whether she passed or not, she’d have to leave Paget Primary in July. Claire had decided to put off the visits to Birmingham until the spring, when the weather would be better and her mother might be fully recovered and returned to her own home. Until then, they explored Claire’s extensive library. They’d read Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Silas Marner and The Mayor of Casterbridge and two of Shakespeare’s plays. Janet never took the books home; she read them only at Claire’s. Sometimes Claire would read out loud, and occasionally Mary would. After a chapter or two, Claire and Janet would discuss what they’d read. In the beginning, it was Claire asking the questions and Janet answering. But gradually, so gradually she had not been aware of it happening, Janet was starting to analyse what she read. She was able to talk about characterisation, the structure of the plots, how the tension was built up and the dialogue between the characters. Sometimes, if Claire had marking to do or something to attend to, Janet would play chess or backgammon with the woman she called Auntie Mary. But what she really liked to do was talk to her about Claire, her Miss Wentworth. She attempted to model herself on the woman who’d taken her so far. Mary realised what she was doing and told her of the fun Claire had had at school, and the gaggle of girlfriends always at the house. ‘They had boyfriends,’ she said, ‘but nothing serious.’ She hoped Claire would forgive that small lie. ‘They tended to go round in groups anyway,’ Mary said. ‘None of them wanted to be tied down, certainly not while they were at school.’ ‘But after school?’ Janet persisted. ‘They were split up then. Most of Claire’s friends went on to university, but of course they went to different ones, or were on different courses. Universities, though, are the place to make new friends. She went to Reading University near London. I had an aunt living in London then, and Claire used to visit from time to time.’ ‘Where did she live, Auntie Mary?’ ‘In the university halls,’ Mary told her. ‘I was rather worried about her, but I needn’t have been. She said it was a marvellous experience, and it’s led to a job she enjoys and independence.’ ‘Yes,’ breathed Janet. ‘And that’s probably the path your own life will take,’ Mary said. ‘Yes,’ said Janet again. ‘Yes, yes, yes, that’s what I want.’ Later that same day, when Claire and Janet were discussing the merits of Keats’ poetry, Janet suddenly said, ‘Have you ever had anyone else pass the eleven-plus before me?’ ‘I haven’t,’ Claire admitted. ‘That’s not to say other colleagues haven’t, but remember the disarray the country was in for six years. Many children had part-time or sporadic schooling, or none at all. You’ll find now that most of the schools like Paget Road will have a steady increase in the numbers of children going through the scholarship scheme.’ ‘I hope so,’ Janet said. She felt odd and different being the only one, and wished there was another girl to go with. Claire didn’t say that she found coaching Janet more exhausting and time-consuming than she’d thought, and it put severe restrictions on her private life. She’d already decided that any further children would be taught in extra lessons at school – she’d not open her home again, nor would she get so involved – but all these thoughts she kept from Janet. She didn’t explain either that she didn’t intend to live like a nun for the rest of her life. She didn’t tell Janet about David Sunderland, who she’d met at a teachers’ conference after work one day, or about how he’d complained bitterly when she’d explained how her weekends were tied up. She didn’t tell Janet that they’d been out together a few times and she liked him very much. She didn’t understand the pedestal Janet had put her on, and didn’t know Janet assumed she would work her way through life independently and free of any man, because Janet could tell her none of this. The Easter holidays were looming and Claire believed that the day of reckoning would come before they returned to school. Betty Travers eventually gave up work. The baby was expected at the end of May and she thought it was time. Mary had had her plaster cast removed and had returned home where the obliging neighbours, the Pritchards, would be able to take her to the hospital in their car for physiotherapy. Claire would have missed her mother more if David Sunderland hadn’t been around. Janet’s presence at the house was intermittent now and she could never stay long, as her mother’s confinement was getting closer. David didn’t like Claire constantly talking about the girl. ‘You’ve done more for her than for any other child in your class,’ he said. ‘You have forty-nine others to concern yourself with, often from far worse homes and tragic beginnings.’ Claire couldn’t disagree with David. He was right. ‘You’ve given her a start few others have had, and certainly no one else at your school,’ he went on. ‘Now she’s either got fed up or is needed at home, but whatever the reasons for her absence, you must let her go, Claire.’ It was true, Claire knew that. Janet was strangely elusive, even at school. She arrived often just as the bell was ringing, flew out of the door at lunchtime and left on the dot of four in the afternoon. It was hard to find out how things were when Claire wasn’t even able to snatch a quiet word with her. By tacit consent neither of them spoke about Janet’s visits to Claire’s house. They were well aware that the other children would make Janet’s life a misery, and even the school authority might view it unfavourably. They knew, of course, that the Travers’ girl was in line for a grammar school place and were pleased with that. However, Claire knew they would frown on what would be termed ‘overfamiliarity’ between a teacher and a pupil. A general enquiry such as ‘How is your mother, Janet?’ was met with: ‘She’s all right, thank you, Miss Wentworth.’ A request from Claire to stay behind met with an agitated entreaty: ‘Oh please, Miss Wentworth, I can’t, my mother relies on me. I really must go straight home.’ How could Claire argue with that? She hoped that the birth of this fifth child into the Travers house might go smoothly and that afterwards life would settle down a little for Janet, but she didn’t say any of this to David. FOUR (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) By the time the Easter holidays were a few days off, Betty Travers had been in bed for over a week with high blood pressure. The family doctor, Dr Black, had wanted her shipped to hospital, but she became so distressed that he relented, but warned, ‘No slipping downstairs to peel the odd potato or do a spot of ironing, mind.’ For Bert and Duncan, life went on just the same. Sarah McClusky took on most of the housework, Breda looked after the twins a lot of the time and a heavy load fell on Janet. One day the doctor called not long after Janet had got in from school. She’d cooked tea for Duncan, the twins and herself, prepared a tray that she was going to take up to her mother and was getting her father’s dinner ready to cook while she tried to stop the twins killing one another. The doctor watched her for a few minutes, then remarked, ‘You’re a splendid girl, Janet, and I know you’re a grand help, but don’t work yourself too hard. Get Duncan to help you.’ ‘Duncan, Doctor?’ Janet said in amazement. ‘He’s a boy.’ ‘I’m aware of that,’ Dr Black said with a smile. ‘Well, boys don’t do anything, do they?’ ‘What about your father?’ Janet stared at the doctor for a minute, but didn’t speak. He gave a grim smile and asked, ‘Aren’t you going to point out that he’s a man?’ Without waiting for a reply, he said, ‘Tell your father I’ll be round to see him this evening after surgery. I think we need to have a chat.’ When Janet reported to Auntie Breda what the doctor had told her, she said, ‘About time someone spoke to him. You two better come to me for your tea. I’ll ask Mammy to see to Betty and your dad and get Conner and Noel to bed, but you two had better be right out of the road. Bloody good job it’s Friday and I haven’t got a job to go to.’ After their tea at Auntie Breda’s, Duncan and Janet were sent into the living room to look after Linda while Breda talked to Peter in the kitchen. Duncan was disgusted. ‘Boys don’t look after babies,’ he said. ‘Can’t I go out to play with my mates?’ ‘No, you can’t,’ Auntie Breda told him. ‘I’m not having you hanging around your house. As for boys not looking after babies, you’ll probably have your own one day.’ ‘Yeah,’ Duncan said, ‘but that will be my wife’s job, won’t it?’ ‘You have a lot to learn, young Duncan,’ Breda said. ‘The modern woman and what she wants will be like a slap in the face to you and those like you. In this house, you’ll start by doing what you’re bloody well told.’ Still sulking, Duncan allowed himself to be propelled into the living room, where he kicked disconsolately at the skirting board and said to Janet: ‘I don’t know why they’ve sent us round here. It isn’t as if we don’t know what Dr Black wants to see Dad about, is it?’ ‘Isn’t it?’ said Janet. She’d picked up that the doctor wasn’t pleased with her dad, but she didn’t know what it was all about. ‘You really are stupid sometimes, our Janet,’ Duncan snapped. ‘He’s going to tell our dad to stop doing it … you know …’ He looked at Janet’s puzzled face and burst out, ‘Well, they don’t want more babies, do they?’ At that moment, Breda’s voice came clearly from the kitchen. ‘Well, someone had to speak to him, Peter, and he’d never listen to me. Someone had to tell Bert Travers to keep his bleeding hands off our Betty and put them in the washing-up bowl more often.’ Peter murmured a reply but neither of the children heard it. They picked up Auntie Breda’s voice more easily, high-pitched as it was with indignation. ‘Well, I don’t trust him. He might do what the doc says now, but as soon as that baby’s born, he’ll be back to groping.’ ‘See,’ Duncan said with satisfaction. ‘Ssh,’ Janet cautioned, for Breda was still talking. ‘He’s a man like all the rest, only after one thing. I’m getting her down that clinic, get her sorted out, as soon as that kid’s born.’ ‘What does she mean?’ whispered Janet. ‘Oh, it’s just women’s talk,’ Duncan said airily. He wasn’t going to admit to not knowing. But Janet knew Duncan didn’t understand. She didn’t either, but she pieced together what she did know. According to Auntie Breda, Dr Black was going to tell her dad he couldn’t touch her mother any more. That would mean he couldn’t kiss her, because he couldn’t do that without touching. Not that her parents went in for that sort of thing much, but she supposed they did in bed. There were lots of things people did in bed that she wasn’t sure of. Groping sounded pretty awful, and Janet wondered what it was. Her father obviously used to do it to her mother, because Auntie Breda said he’d be back to it. That was probably it. This groping was the thing they did that brought the babies, and Dr Black was going to tell her dad there was to be no more of it. Bert Travers was very subdued when the children went back after Sarah had sent word that the doctor had left. He’d been soundly told off for allowing his daughter to become a drudge. ‘Considering how sick your wife is, I’m surprised you’re not giving more of a hand,’ the doctor had continued. ‘After all, Janet’s not old enough to be doing everything, is she?’ Bert hadn’t even really been aware of it. He never thought about what Betty did. He knew that everything got done, but she’d never complained. He’d never considered it hard work. After all, he did the hard day’s work in the factory and he wasn’t keen on starting again when he came home. ‘Your wife is fretting upstairs,’ Dr Black said. ‘She says Janet looks pasty and run-down. Worry is the last thing she needs. No wonder I can’t get her blood pressure down. Go on in the selfish way you have been and you’ll have a sick daughter as well as a sick wife, and then where will you be?’ Bert felt suitably chastened. He hadn’t realised, he said. He’d do more, and draft in young Duncan to give a hand. But the doctor hadn’t finished. ‘While we are on the subject of selfishness, you do understand that this child must be the last?’ Bert gulped. ‘We hadn’t intended this one, Doc, not after the twins, you know.’ ‘Intending is one thing, making sure is quite another,’ Dr Black said grimly. ‘You must ensure, if you wish to continue marital relations with your wife, that you take precautions.’ Bert stared at the doctor until he snapped irritably, ‘You know what I’m talking about, man, they’re on sale in all the barber’s shops.’ ‘I’m not using them things. What do you bleeding well take me for?’ Bert gasped. ‘Well, I hope you’re just a fool and not a cruel idiot into the bargain,’ Dr Black said sternly. ‘I’m telling you straight, Betty has had a hard pregnancy and she has the classic signs of a hard birth. She’ll not go through another one totally unscathed and I would be worried for her very survival. Take precautions or curb your natural desires, the choice is yours.’ ‘Some bloody choice,’ Bert said gloomily. ‘Well, I’ll leave you to decide,’ the doctor said, walking to the door. There he turned and said, ‘About young Conner and Noel …’ ‘What about them?’ ‘They seem to have boundless energy and Janet is hardly able to control them. Your wife will have her hands full in the summer with a new baby as well, and she’ll need to rest at times. They could start at the Gunter Road nursery in September. There is a waiting list, but I do have some influence and I could put in a word.’ ‘I don’t know whether Betty would like them to go to a nursery,’ Bert said doubtfully. ‘Talk to her,’ the doctor said. ‘Point out the advantages. No need to make a decision yet. I’ll say good evening to you, Mr Travers, and I’ll be along on Monday to see your wife.’ Bloody doctor! Bert said to himself as he watched the doctor’s retreating back. Bloody interfering sod! ‘Bert! Bert!’ Betty called from upstairs. ‘Bert, was that the doctor I heard?’ Oh, bloody hell, Bert thought as he went upstairs. He told Betty how the doctor thought he might be able to get the twins into the Gunter Road nursery in September. He had just called in to tell them so they could talk about it. ‘Wonder he didn’t come up,’ Betty said, ‘and as for the twins, I don’t really know. None of the others have been to nursery.’ Looking at Betty’s white, strained face, Bert felt ashamed of his behaviour. It was obvious that Betty was far from well. Her lank hair, scraped back from her face, had silver streaks in, he noticed with surprise, and she heaved herself up in the bed awkwardly. His mother-in-law, sister-in-law and daughter had been the ones running up and downstairs with cups of tea and meals for Betty while he’d just slipped into bed at night and out again in the morning and hadn’t really looked at his wife at all. Now, though, he understood the doctor’s concern. Something will have to be done, he thought, because I don’t want to put her through this again, and another child would cripple us financially anyway. We’ll have to have a talk about it when Betty is feeling stronger. There was a get together at the McCluskys’ on Easter Sunday afternoon. Janet thought it strange going without her mother, although she liked her relations. Bert promised to bring Betty some tasty goodies from the table which, Janet knew, would be groaning with food. Satisfied, Janet was glad to visit her grandparents’ house, which was almost as familiar as her own. She knew Breda would be there with Peter and Linda, as well as Brendan and Patsy. They’d seen little of Brendan since his marriage. According to Mrs McClusky, part of the reason for this was that Patsy lived too near to her own mother. ‘She’s there so often she might as well not have left,’ she’d confided to Janet. ‘Now, now, Sarah,’ Sean McClusky had said. ‘The lassie’s only young, and sure, it’s only natural. You’d have something to say if our girls didn’t visit often.’ A sniff was Gran’s only reply. Grandad had winked at Janet, and she’d been hard pressed to prevent a giggle escaping from her. ‘Anyway,’ Grandad had continued, ‘isn’t Brendan up to his eyes in work this minute and has been run off his feet these last months?’ Janet knew that was true, because Brendan was a carpenter and in great demand after the devastation of the war. ‘Likely to be that way for years,’ Bert had put in, ‘with the government promising new housing for the hundreds made homeless.’ ‘Humph,’ Gran had said. ‘Governments’ promises are like pie crusts – made to be broken.’ Janet liked her Uncle Brendan, and she was glad that he had plenty of work. Not everyone was as fortunate. She liked his wife too, though she’d never had the opportunity to speak much to her until that Easter Sunday. She realised almost immediately that Patsy was pregnant, just like her mother, and must be near her time too. She was, she told Janet, a shorthand typist, and though the work was fairly interesting, she had been glad to give it up and was excited about looking after her baby when it came. ‘It’s a shame your mother is so poorly,’ she commiserated with Janet. ‘Mind you, it must be a strain having a family to cope with too.’ She cast an eye over the boisterous twins, who were threatening to bring the table of goodies down on top of themselves, and remarked, ‘I mean, Conner and Noel seem full of beans, enough to wear anyone out, I’d say.’ ‘They are,’ Janet agreed wholeheartedly, watching as her grandad hauled her brothers away from the table and gave them both a little shake to remind them of their manners. ‘I’ll bet you’re hoping for a wee sister?’ Patsy continued. Janet realised with a sudden jolt that she’d not really thought about the sex of the baby her mother was soon to have. She would be eleven years old, for it was her birthday a few days after Easter, so it hardly mattered, and yet she already had three brothers, so she turned to Patsy and said: ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ ‘Have your parents chosen any names yet?’ ‘No,’ said Janet, ‘at least they haven’t said anything.’ It was odd, really. As far as she knew, names had not even been discussed. It was as if the new addition to the Travers household was not a real person at all. ‘You can’t expect our Janet to be interested in mundane things like names for her baby brother or sister,’ said Brendan teasingly. ‘Professor Brainbox she is, be above the likes of you and me before she’s much older.’ Breda saw the pink flush on Janet’s face and said sharply, ‘Leave the girl alone, Brendan, you’re embarrassing her.’ ‘Don’t mind him,’ Patsy advised. ‘He’s so proud of you really and tells everyone he meets about his clever niece who’s off to grammar school.’ Janet was mortified. What if she should fail now? she thought. She wouldn’t just disappoint herself; she’d let her whole family down. Everyone was depending on her. Breda, watching Janet, was aware of what was going through her mind. Janet crossed over to her aunt. ‘What if I fail?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think you will,’ Breda told her confidently, ‘but if you do, the earth won’t stop spinning on its axis and civilisation as we know it won’t come to a standstill.’ ‘I know, but …’ ‘Stop it, Janet,’ Breda said. ‘You can’t carry the hopes and expectations of the whole family on your shoulders. Patsy and Brendan have their own dreams to build on. Do you think they’ll really care whether you’ve passed or failed when they hold their own child in their arms in a few weeks’ time?’ Janet looked across to where they stood, arms linked. ‘Suppose not,’ she said. ‘Everyone has to follow their own star,’ Breda went on, ‘and have their own aims and desires to reach for. They can’t hitch on the back of other people. I’ll be pleased if you pass for grammar school, because you want to go. All the family will be disappointed if you don’t get in, for your sake, but our lives and yours will go on as before, either way.’ Auntie Breda had a way of explaining things, Janet thought, and she felt the burden of responsibility shift a little from between her shoulder blades. ‘Now then,’ Breda said, ‘stop thinking about your old exams and go and help your grandad choose some records to put on the gramophone.’ Sean’s gramophone and record collection were his pride and joy. Betty had often told her daughter how things had been in the slump and how every article a person had that was termed ‘luxury’ by those who determined the means test for poor relief had to be sold before a family qualified for help. ‘Ma sold everything we had except Da’s gramophone,’ she said. ‘Lots of items were pawned to pay the rent or buy food, but my ma hung on to the gramophone through all that. She said Da had lost more than a job, he’d lost his self-respect, and the gramophone was the only thing he had in his life that he cared about.’ Janet was always glad they’d been able to keep it. One of her earliest memories was of her grandfather turning the handle and the sound of the Irish music of his youth spilling out of the golden microphone that rested on the top of the spinning record and helping to drown out the sound of falling bombs. Now she walked over to where Sean sat sorting through the record collection he kept in an old wooden box, and smiled at him. ‘Hello, my lass,’ he said. ‘You can help me choose the airs to play.’ ‘Something lively,’ Janet said. ‘A reel or something.’ ‘You’re on,’ Grandad said. ‘Something that would wear those two rips out would be welcome.’ He indicated Conner and Noel, who were careering around the room. ‘I think,’ Janet said, ‘we’d be worn out before they would.’ ‘You could be right, Janet, aye, you could indeed,’ Sean McClusky said with a chuckle. He selected a few records. ‘These will do for starters.’ Janet had said she’d stay with the record player, but Brendan wouldn’t hear of it and scooped her up to gallop around the room. Janet couldn’t remember when she’d last had such fun. It had been a fraught time for them all for so long, and it still was of course, for her mother was no better and Janet privately thought she wouldn’t improve until the baby came. She watched her dad go off with a tray full of stuff from the table for Betty and crushed down the guilt she felt at having such a good time while her mom lay so ill. Betty was glad to see them back from the party but gladder still at the shine in Janet’s eyes as she sat on the bed and told her all about it. It was the next day before Janet remembered that Patsy had asked about the baby’s name. She asked her mother if she and her dad had discussed it between themselves. ‘Sort of,’ Betty said. ‘Your dad asked if it was a boy, would I call it Timothy, or Tim, after a mate of his killed in the war.’ ‘Timothy,’ Janet said, rolling the name round her tongue to see how she liked it. ‘That’s all right,’ she decided, ‘but what for a girl?’ ‘I thought I’d call a girl Sarah after me ma,’ Betty said. ‘I know it would please her, and we could call her Sally while she’s small.’ ‘That’s nice,’ Janet said, and added, ‘I hope it’s a Sally, but if it’s a Tim I suppose we’ll have to put up with it.’ ‘We have to take what God sends,’ Betty said, ‘but … well, it can’t hurt to hope.’ Two days later it was Janet’s birthday, but no one seemed to remember it. The doctor was pleased with Betty’s progress and allowed her to get up, and Janet tried to be glad about that and not mind that no one had even wished her happy birthday, let alone got her a card. She kept the hurt feeling to herself. Duncan was now supposed to make sure there was coal in for the fire and sticks chopped up. He also had to take turns with his father washing up after the evening meal, as this was Bert’s way of helping Janet out with the housework. Also, as part of the new arrangements, until school opened Duncan had to take the twins out to Pype Hayes park for two afternoons in the week, if the weather was dry, to give Janet some time to herself. This Janet looked forward to most of all, and when Duncan suggested taking them with him that Tuesday afternoon, she was delighted and thought she might slip up to Miss Wentworth, even if she hadn’t remembered it was her birthday either. She was, therefore, furious when her Auntie Breda came round and presented her with a long shopping list. ‘You don’t mind getting this for me, do you, Janet love?’ she asked. ‘I’d go myself but Linda’s got a racking cough.’ Janet glared at her, but knew she could say nothing. Respect for her elders had been drummed into her all her life. She wanted to cry. It wasn’t fair. It was her birthday, for goodness’ sake. Why couldn’t her aunt take Linda round to her gran’s and do her own shopping? But she knew she could say nothing, and she took the list and the purse with money in without a word of protest. The shopping took simply ages. Aunt Breda wanted items from the grocer, the greengrocer, the butcher and the newsagent. Every shop had a queue and the people in front of Janet seemed in no hurry as they exchanged news and snippets of gossip with the shopkeeper, along with their order. Janet hopped from one foot to the other in impatience as she willed them to hurry up. Her fidgety behaviour only caused the shopkeeper to look at her sternly and made no difference at all to the chattering shoppers. Aunt Breda had produced two bags for her to carry the shopping in, but the weight of them dragged Janet down. She felt as if her arms were being pulled out of their sockets. It’s all right for Auntie Breda, she thought crossly, stopping for the umpteenth time to rest her aching arms. She packs the shopping around Linda in the pram, or hangs the bags from the pram handle. She doesn’t have to carry anything. Slowly she carried the bags to Breda’s house, only to find her aunt was out. Rage boiled through Janet’s body. Linda’s hacking cough, that had prevented Breda from shopping for herself, had not stopped her going out somewhere else. ‘And I bet it wasn’t to the flipping doctor’s,’ she muttered as she bumped the bags back to her own door. There a surprise awaited her. Everyone was there: her mom, pale but up and sitting in a chair, Auntie Breda, Gran, Grandad, Duncan and the twins, and as she entered they all shouted: ‘Happy birthday, Janet!’ ‘Did you think we’d all forgotten, Janet pet?’ Gran said, seeing the tears filling Janet’s eyes. ‘Sorry we had to send you for the shopping,’ Breda said, ‘but we had to get you out of the way.’ ‘There’s nothing wrong with Linda then?’ ‘Linda’s as right as rain and asleep on your bed this minute,’ Breda said, ‘but we wanted it to be a surprise for you.’ ‘You wanted what to be a surprise for me?’ Janet said. In answer, her family stepped away from the table they’d been hiding from her, and she saw the party food arranged there. In the centre was a cake with ‘Happy Birthday Janet’ written on in icing, and eleven candles, and arranged around the cake were parcels and cards. Janet was speechless. ‘Peter will be along later, and I’ve phoned work and said I won’t be in because I’m sick,’ Breda said. ‘And Brendan and Patsy will come after work,’ Gran said, ‘and your dad, of course.’ Janet could only gape at them all. ‘Are you going to catch bleeding flies all afternoon?’ Breda asked with a laugh, and Janet began to gabble. ‘How did … who … who … how did you do it and who did it?’ ‘Me and Ma,’ said Auntie Breda. ‘After you working so hard and all, we thought you should have a bit of a party. Mammy did some, she made the cake as well, and I did the rest. Then we had it all piled in Mammy’s kitchen and we had to get you out of the way and the twins too, or they would have demolished it before you’d even seen it.’ ‘Oh, thank you, thank you.’ Janet was crying, throwing her arms around her grandparents and her aunt and her mother while tears poured down her cheeks. ‘Here, here,’ said her grandmother, ‘less of the water-works, girl, you’ll have us drowned in a minute. Open up your cards and presents and we’ll leave the food until the others get here.’ From Auntie Breda was a watch. ‘You’ll need to organise your life from now on,’ she said to Janet as she strapped it to her wrist. Her grandparents gave her a fountain pen and a bottle of ink. ‘Put it to good use, my lass,’ said Sarah McClusky. ‘I will, said Janet. She knew it was a good pen, and an expensive one. ‘I’ll look after it, I promise.’ There was a pencil, a sharpener, a notebook and a rubber from the twins, and a geometry set from Duncan. ‘I asked the form teacher at school before the holidays,’ he said, ‘and he said you’d need one of those at the grammar school.’ ‘Thank you, Duncan.’ There was one more parcel, which Janet supposed was from her parents, but Betty told her that Bert was bringing their present on his way home from work. This parcel was from Gran’s people in Ireland: a wooden pencil box into which all the twins’ gifts fitted neatly. They were all drinking a cup of tea Breda had made when Brendan and Patsy came in and handed Janet another parcel. Janet was almost too overawed to mutter her thanks when she pulled a brown leather satchel from the wrapping. It was so beautiful and she stroked it almost reverently. ‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘oh, it’s lovely. Oh thank you, thank you.’ Inside, despite her happiness, Janet was feeling quite desperate. Everyone expects me to pass the eleven-plus, she thought, no one has even considered the fact that I may fail. She caught her mother’s eyes on her and forced a smile. ‘Shall I … shall I make another pot of tea?’ she said, and escaped to the kitchen. ‘I wonder what’s keeping Bert,’ Betty said as they were finishing their second cup of tea. ‘I won’t be able to keep the twins off the table indefinitely.’ ‘Nor Linda,’ Breda said, for Linda, awake from her nap, was toddling round the room, grabbing hold of anything she could find. Twice already she’d had to be distracted from tugging on the dangling tablecloth and bringing all the party food down on her head. There was another knock at the door. ‘That’ll be him now,’ Betty said. But it wasn’t. It was Claire Wentworth. Janet was totally unprepared for her entrance into the room and was so surprised that she hardly noticed Uncle Peter, who had come in after her. Janet did not say a word as Claire strode across the room. ‘Happy birthday,’ she said, handing her a small parcel and card. Then she looked at Betty and said: ‘I’m glad to see you up, Mrs Travers. Are you feeling stronger?’ ‘Yes, a little,’ Betty said. ‘I’ll be …’ But whatever she was going to say was forgotten as Janet cried out, ‘Oh, oh, but it’s beautiful. Thank you, thank you.’ Dangling from her hand was a silver locket she’d withdrawn from a velvet lined box. ‘I’m glad you like it,’ Claire said. ‘I had it inscribed.’ Janet turned the locket over. Written on the back was: ‘To Janet, with love from Claire Wentworth, 1947.’ ‘Thank you,’ Janet said again. Claire was glad Janet liked the gift, because she’d argued with David over it. ‘You can’t give a present to just one child,’ he’d maintained. ‘Janet has become like a friend to me.’ ‘Even so,’ David insisted, ‘you’re making too much of her.’ ‘It’s a gift for her birthday, that’s all.’ ‘You’re giving her an exaggerated view of her own importance.’ ‘I am not,’ Claire retorted. ‘Surely you’re making too much of this?’ ‘No, I don’t think I am,’ David said. ‘I don’t think you’re fully aware what you’re doing, buying expensive presents for …’ He got no further. He’d failed to see the anger sparking in Claire’s eyes and the two spots of colour in her cheeks. But he couldn’t mistake the ice in her tone as she said: ‘What I do with my own money is my affair. I don’t need your permission or approval. I think you’d better go now!’ She watched as he turned on his heel and left without another word, and then she took the locket to town and in a spirit of recklessness had it inscribed. It was almost worth the row to see the joy in Janet’s face, though she’d spent a miserable day waiting for David to come back. She longed to make the first move herself but a stand had to be made somewhere. There was still no sign of Bert, and the twins were becoming restless and Linda fretful, so they decided to make a start on the buffet laid out on the table. Claire Wentworth was pressed to stay and Janet was over the moon with happiness to have all her family and Miss Wentworth together for her birthday. They’d almost finished eating when Bert arrived. It was obvious from his demeanour that he’d called into the pub on the way home. ‘How could you, Bert?’ Betty cried. ‘On our Janet’s birthday.’ Bert looked round the company: his affronted wife, his mother-in-law with her accusing eyes and clamped mouth, his father-in-law’s calm gaze and Breda’s eyes flashing in temper. He could see that Peter, Brendan and Patsy were embarrassed, and there was a young woman he’d never seen before. Janet was flushed red. She was mortified at the possibility of a scene in front of Miss Wentworth. Bert knew he was in the wrong, so he blustered and became angry. ‘What’s the matter? It’s a party, isn’t it? I had to get the man a drink, didn’t I?’ ‘One drink?’ Betty asked sarcastically. ‘We got talking, it isn’t a crime,’ Bert said. He winked at Janet. ‘Happy birthday, pet. Come on outside, I’ve got a surprise for you.’ They all trooped into the front garden, and what Janet saw took away all the irritation she’d felt at her father’s late arrival, for leaning against the house was a blue bicycle. Janet couldn’t believe her eyes. ‘It isn’t new,’ her father said. ‘Some chap at work bought it for his wife a year or two back, but she never took to it and I asked him if I could buy it.’ ‘Oh,’ Janet breathed, ‘I can’t believe it.’ She could see the bike was hardly used. Even the tyres were fairly clean and unworn, and the chrome was shiny silver. It had a basket in front and a carrier behind, and it was the loveliest thing Janet had ever seen. In the midst of her happiness and excitement, Janet saw Duncan detach himself from the admiring crowd and slope off to the back garden. Later, after she’d thanked her parents and said that she couldn’t believe how lucky she was, she took her bike round to the garden shed at the back and found him there. Duncan had never had a bike – there’d never been money for those kind of things – and Janet felt almost ashamed that now she had one and her brother hadn’t. ‘You can ride it any time you want, Duncan,’ she said. ‘A lady’s bike!’ Duncan exclaimed scathingly. ‘Are you kidding? I wouldn’t be seen dead on it. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll be earning in just over a year and I’ll get my own bike if I want one, only mine will be new.’ ‘I’m … sorry.’ Duncan didn’t answer, and after a while Janet went back inside. Claire Wentworth was leaving and her father, obviously forgiven, was eating the leftovers from the table. ‘We didn’t cut the cake,’ Gran said. ‘Miss Wentworth, you can’t go without a piece of cake.’ ‘We didn’t light the candles or sing “Happy Birthday” either,’ Betty said. ‘We were just going to, if you remember, when Bert arrived.’ ‘Let’s do it now.’ When the candles were all lit, there was a rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ which was enthusiastic and noisy rather than tuneful. And then Breda was saying: ‘Blow them out with one blow and you can have a wish.’ Janet took a deep breath. She knew it was stupid and childish, but she really felt that if she blew the candles out in one blow, it would be a perfect end to a perfect day. The candles were out and around her they were crying, ‘Make a wish! Make a wish!’ Janet’s eyes met those of Miss Wentworth and she closed them tight. There was only one thing to wish for; she knew it and Miss Wentworth knew it. I wish, she thought, I wish with all my heart that I’ve passed the exam to Whytecliff High School. FIVE (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) When Janet got up the morning after her birthday and saw the brown envelope on the mat, she stopped stock still for a minute and looked at it. Then Duncan was at her elbow. ‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that what you’ve been working for?’ ‘I’m scared,’ Janet said. ‘Oh, Duncan, what if I’ve failed?’ Duncan shrugged. ‘What if you have? It isn’t the end of the world, is it?’ ‘Isn’t it?’ Janet said with feeling. ‘It might be for me. Look at the stuff I got yesterday. Apart from the watch, the locket and the bike, they were all for using at the grammar school.’ ‘Talk sense, Jan,’ Duncan said irritably. ‘You’d use a pen and the stuff the twins got you whatever school you went to. Even the geometry set. It’s best for you to have your own stuff wherever you go.’ ‘At grammar school maybe, but how many have sets like that at Paget?’ Duncan hedged. ‘I don’t know, in the top group they might.’ ‘And they carry it to school in a leather satchel?’ Janet said sarcastically. ‘No, you know they don’t,’ Duncan burst out angrily. ‘Now open the damned letter, can’t you? Then you’ll know whether you can use your leather satchel, or whether you’ll have to exchange it for a book on how to survive failing the eleven-plus.’ If he expected Janet to laugh he was disappointed, so he went past her, picked the envelope up from the mat and ripped it open. ‘You’ve done it, Janet, you passed!’ he cried. ‘They’ve offered you a scholarship to Whytecliff High School. You’ve got to go to see round the place Monday.’ Duncan pulled a face, then grinned and went on, ‘Jammy beggar, I’ll be back at school by then.’ A little later, Janet was on her way to Claire Wentworth’s with the letter safely in her pocket. It was a beautiful morning, she thought. Surely the sky had never been so blue, or the sun as bright, or the breeze as fresh. She wanted to leap off her bike and go singing down the road, and it was only the thought of one of the neighbours ringing Highcroft, the local mental home, that stopped her doing so. She realised it would be hard to complete a grammar school education encased in a straitjacket and housed in a padded cell. Claire was also feeling happy that morning. David had called to see her and apologised for his bad behaviour of the previous day. He could only say in his defence that he loved Claire dearly and was jealous of Janet Travers. Claire stared at David, amazed by his revelation. She understood his resentment of Janet – he had shown her that side of him before – but he’d never said he loved her. She wondered if he meant it, but he said nothing else and just stood looking at her. ‘Well, what do you want me to say?’ Claire said at last. ‘You could tell me you loved me,’ David said. ‘Do you?’ ‘Well … I …’ David’s nearness was affecting Claire so much her insides were churning, yet she made no move towards him when he put his arm round her shoulders, she just snuggled closer. ‘Claire,’ said David, ‘I love you with all my heart and soul, you must know that.’ Claire said, her voice husky, ‘I wasn’t sure. I love you too, David.’ ‘We haven’t known each other long,’ David said, ‘but I feel so strongly about you. Claire, darling, would you consider getting married?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ Claire said, and when their lips met she was astounded by the heat of desire that shot through her body. It was consuming her. David’s probing tongue was spiriting her to peaks of passion, and even if she’d wanted to, she couldn’t have stopped him unbuttoning her blouse and pushing her gently back on to the settee. Janet shot off her bike and went down the entry to the back gate. She hadn’t time to wait for someone to open the front door. She was surprised that Claire wasn’t in the kitchen. She ran into the passage, pushed open the door to the living room then stood stock still on the threshold, too shocked to move or speak. Miss Wentworth was lying on her back and her top was bare. Her blouse was open, her brassiere discarded on the floor, and a man was lying on top of her, fondling her breasts. Miss Wentworth had her eyes closed and was making loud moaning sounds. Then the man kissed her and it was as if he was eating her up, but she had her arms tight around his neck and she was moving her body under his. Eventually he broke away. ‘Oh God, Claire!’ he said. He spoke, Janet thought, as if he had a sore throat. Then he bent his head and began kissing Miss Wentworth’s breasts. Janet’s hand flew to her mouth as she felt the bile rise in her throat. She ran out of the door and through the house, and was violently sick in the back garden. She went back to her bike, but didn’t attempt to ride it. She felt too churned up inside, her legs were all shaky and she was terribly afraid she was going to cry. She wandered aimlessly for some time, pushing her bike, until she came to Rookery Park. She slipped gratefully inside, glad to be off the streets where passing pedestrians had stared at her tear-stained face. There were lots of children in the playground, but Janet veered away from them and found an empty bench in the shrubbery at the park’s perimeter. She sat down, laid her bike on the ground and tried to make sense of what she’d seen. And suddenly Janet knew what they’d been doing – groping! That nasty word described perfectly the actions she’d just witnessed, and she could quite understand her Auntie Breda being annoyed at her dad doing it. She was sure her aunt was mistaken, though, for her mum and dad wouldn’t do a thing like that. And yet, she reminded herself, Mom was having a baby and she must have done something to get it. She must have done it before too, for her, Duncan and the twins. No wonder the doctor had been cross. Janet got to her feet. One thing she knew, she could never tell them at home, never. It must be her secret. She knew Miss Wentworth and the man hadn’t noticed her. No one would get to know what she’d seen. But it was in Janet’s head and she couldn’t rid herself of it. She was suddenly furiously angry with Miss Wentworth. Claire was everything Janet wanted to be – beautiful, clever and independent – and Janet’s whole desire was to be like her. She’d only wanted to go to the grammar school so badly because Claire Wentworth had been for it and Janet’s earnest wish was to please her. She’d enjoyed the extra tuition because it enabled her to spend time with her idol, and she worked hard in order that Claire would praise her, and not just for herself alone. Janet put her head in her hands and wept for the woman she’d thought she knew. They’d talked for hours about everything – at least, Janet had told Claire everything, but Claire must have kept things back, big things too, judging by what she was allowing that man to do to her. And who was he? Claire wondered, knowing that, since the previous October, Claire had had precious little time to meet men, what with her job and teaching Janet too. If she’d only just met the man, it made it even worse. Janet made her way home with a heavy heart. Janet told her mother she didn’t have to go to Whytecliff High School with her. Auntie Breda had offered, if Betty didn’t feel up to it, but Betty told Janet not to be silly, of course she was going. Now Janet sat in the hall where she’d taken the second part of the exam, listening to Miss Phelps, the headmistress, talk to the parents of the new girls, and felt ashamed of her mother. She was ashamed of being ashamed, but there it was. She wished her mother had accepted Auntie Breda’s offer of the loan of a coat. Auntie Breda’s coat was a lovely blue and would have covered her up properly. Instead, she wore her dingy old brown one that barely met in the middle and was pulled together with a belt. It made her look like a badly packed sack of potatoes. Janet saw many of the girls, and even their mothers, look with slight disgust at the swell of her mother’s stomach. And did she have to wear those old shoes, trodden down, shapeless and so out of fashion? Especially when Auntie Breda had offered her those lovely sandals with little heels. Then there was the ridiculous hat, slapped down on top of hair that hadn’t seen a hairdresser for some time. The mass of unruly curls – all that was left of a very old perm – proved too much for the grips and hat pins, and the hat had been pushed up higher until it perched on the top of her head like the one the clown had worn at the circus Janet had been taken to once. The unconfined hair then escaped in untidy strands around her face, over her ears and down her back. Betty seemed unaware of her dishevelled appearance, or how embarrassed her daughter was of her outfit, and that included the bag she’d bought especially for the occasion. She thought it was smart, but Janet thought it cheap and tawdry, and it screamed ‘plastic’. Janet was amazed by the size of the school when they were taken on a tour, and wondered how on earth she’d ever find her way around. They saw the dining hall, the science laboratories, the art and music rooms, the domestic science kitchens and the sewing rooms with their rows of Singer sewing machines. On the next floor the staff room was pointed out to them, but the sixth-former accompanying them explained that no girls were ever allowed inside. Then they moved on to the lecture theatre and the library, where they were given a uniform list. Betty heaved a large sigh as they left. ‘Thank God that’s over,’ she said. ‘I thought it was going on all blooming day.’ ‘Yes, it did drag on a bit,’ Janet said, but she was watching the girls playing tennis in their white skirts and shirts in the courts alongside the school, and seeing herself doing the same thing soon. ‘Let’s make the most of it and take a bus into Sutton and have dinner out,’ Betty suggested, adding recklessly, ‘Hang the expense for once. Mammy said she didn’t mind seeing to the twins, and we could do with a treat.’ It was as they were eating their mixed grill that Betty said, ‘You’ll have to tell Miss Wentworth all about it. She’ll be interested.’ Betty didn’t notice Janet’s reticence, though she might have done if her swollen legs hadn’t been giving her such gyp. ‘Feather in her cap for her as well, I suppose,’ she said, ‘and you can’t say she hasn’t worked hard with you.’ She winced a bit and said, ‘I did intend taking the bus to Erdington to look in the Co-op at the cost of the uniform, but if it’s all the same to you, lass, I feel as if I’ve done enough for one day. I could do with getting home and putting my feet up.’ ‘Okay,’ Janet said. ‘We haven’t got to get anything yet anyway.’ ‘Not a word to your dad about the uniform list, mind,’ Betty warned. ‘It’ll only worry him to death.’ ‘No,’ Janet said. ‘I won’t tell him how tired you got either. We wanted you to let Auntie Breda come with me. It was too much for you.’ She thought the same thing next morning, and before she left for school, she asked, ‘Do you want me to stay at home today?’ She felt guilty because it wasn’t only worry for her mother that made her want to stay away from school. She dreaded meeting Miss Wentworth, and was scared that in her mind’s eye she’d see her lying underneath the man, moaning and letting him do unspeakable things to her bare breasts. She shut the image out of her mind and said again, ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ ‘Yes, fine,’ lied Betty, and added, ‘But you could just pop into your gran’s on the way to school and ask her to come round. Maybe she could take the twins off my hands.’ ‘All right,’ Janet said, but she left her mother unwillingly. She took the twins into the kitchen and gave them a big slice of bread and jam and a cup of milk each, then left them her mom’s button box to play with, waved them goodbye and warned them to be good before running quickly round to her gran’s. When she got to school, the bell had gone, the children were inside and Miss Wentworth was taking the register. It was common courtesy to stand by the teacher’s desk and give your reasons for being late. Some of the teachers automatically gave you a smack across the hand with a ruler or strap. Miss Wentworth only did it to persistent offenders. However, Janet did not stand by the teacher’s desk, but slunk to her own, her head bent. Miss Wentworth had seen her, but pretended not to. She noticed Janet’s dejected air and wondered if she was worried because she hadn’t yet heard about the grammar school. She was surprised herself; she did think she would have had the results by the time they returned to school. Or maybe Mrs Travers was ill again, she thought, and Janet was anxious about that. She’d been absent the previous day, the first day back after the Easter holidays, and it might explain why Claire hadn’t seen her for a few days, since the day of the party, in fact. She continued to take the register, and when she got to Travers, she barely heard the mumbled ‘Present, miss.’ Claire looked up. ‘Janet,’ she said, ‘were you ill yesterday?’ ‘Yes,’ came the muffled but terse reply. What’s wrong with the child? Claire thought. She knows that’s no way to answer. She saw the other children listening, amazed that Janet Travers had been rude to the teacher. They were watching to see what she’d do. She couldn’t let it pass, it would affect discipline. ‘Yes, Miss Wentworth,’ she rapped out. Janet looked at her. Claire recoiled from the look in those eyes. ‘Yes, Miss Wentworth,’ repeated the girl in a singsong voice that bordered on the insolent. Claire was puzzled and a little angry. ‘Well, what was the matter with you?’ Janet was staring at the floor. ‘I was ill, Miss Wentworth,’ she said in the same droning tone. ‘Have you brought a note?’ Miss Wentworth snapped. Janet gave a shrug. No doubt now about the intended insolence. ‘Well, have you or haven’t you?’ ‘No, I haven’t,’ Janet said. There was a significant pause, and then she added, ‘Miss Wentworth.’ ‘You must bring a note, you know that.’ Claire knew she wasn’t handling the situation very well. If anyone else had behaved like this – and she knew the ones to watch – she’d have had them hauled before her desk and administered a few strokes of the strap to remind them of their manners. She was aware of the amused glances and the odd titter from the class, who were delighted because Janet was sort of laughing at the teacher. The fact that it was goody two-shoes Janet Travers who was doing it just made it more interesting. Janet was aware of the amusement, and it pleased her. She’d make Miss Wentworth suffer. She was a well-liked teacher, but if Janet was to spread around the school what she’d seen her doing, she wouldn’t be quite so popular, even though Janet knew many wouldn’t believe it. She didn’t even like thinking about it, but she couldn’t help it. Every time she looked at Miss Wentworth she saw her lying panting and moaning under that man. ‘Can’t get no note,’ she said now. ‘My mom’s bad …’ again that pause, ‘Miss Wentworth.’ ‘Janet Travers, you are being impertinent.’ Janet glared at her. ‘No I’m not,’ she said. It wasn’t exactly a shout, but she hadn’t spoken quietly. There was a gasp of admiration. Claire’s face flushed and two spots of anger burned in her cheeks. David hadn’t recognised them but Janet did, because Janet had seen Miss Wentworth cross before. She smiled. The smile enraged Claire. ‘Come out here this instant,’ she said, and banged the desk with her hand so hard the box of chalks and the board rubber jumped. There was a moment of absolute stillness, and Claire actually thought for one awful moment that Janet would refuse. But then, slowly, so slowly, as if she had all the time in the world, Janet stood and sauntered between the aisles. There was a collective sigh, as if all had been holding their breath. The boys who were usually in trouble leaned forward eagerly. Someone else was going to get it for a change. Claire stared into the grey eyes she thought she knew so well, but the brooding look she saw there was unfathomable. Claire’s own eyes were pleading for Janet to stop this behaviour. She was more than a pupil, she was a friend, and Claire had never had occasion to censure her before, let alone strike her. She didn’t want to do it now. Janet blinked. Again the smirk crossed her face, and she said: ‘Going to beat me into submission, are you?’ The other children thought Janet had gone mad. Claire thought so too. She wondered for a moment if the strain of the examination preparations and her mother’s illness had been too much for her. But whatever the reasons, Claire could not tolerate behaviour like this. Already the class were moving and muttering in a way they wouldn’t have dared to do the day before. ‘Silence,’ she rapped out. ‘Get out your arithmetic and start the next exercise.’ ‘Please, miss,’ said a boy called Williams from the back, ‘you haven’t finished the register.’ Claire had forgotten about the register. She was flustered, and she could see that Janet, beside her, was enjoying it. ‘Why don’t you just hit me?’ the girl suggested, with a smile so scornful Claire longed to swipe it from her face. ‘Then you can get on with the lesson.’ Right, Claire thought, I will. She’s asking for it. She took the strap from the drawer, then changed her mind and instead drew out the thin, whippy cane that whistled as it flew through the air. It was used only sparingly, and then only for serious misdemeanours, and the class murmured in disbelief. ‘Hold out your hand,’ Claire demanded. She marvelled that Janet’s hand was so steady and her face unafraid. But it was contempt for this woman now about to hit her that kept the shakes from Janet’s hand and the fear from her eyes. The cane whined through the air, and when it landed across Janet’s palm a sympathetic ‘ooh’ went up from the girls in the class. Janet, however, did not flinch, or make a sound. She felt as if her hand was on fire and she had an insane desire to grab the cane from Miss Wentworth’s hand and beat her about the head with it. The outstretched hand trembled slightly, so that Claire’s next slash missed the mark and hit her fingers. Oh God, it hurts, Janet cried to herself, but still she made no sound. Claire saw the spasm of pain cross the girl’s face, but she didn’t cry out. Suddenly it was important that she did. Claire had to establish control. She lashed out again and again, and eventually Janet let out a strangled sob. The children by then were utterly silent, staring at the teacher. Her eyes looked wild, her hair had come undone and was tumbling around her shoulders, and sweat glistened on her face. She was crimson and panting slightly, and feeling ashamed of the way she’d lost control and laid into Janet. Janet felt as if she was going to pass out. She saw the cuts either side of her palm and the ridges across her hand that she knew would turn to weals. She felt she would die with the pain that ran right to the top of her arm and made her feel sick. The feeling of nausea brought back the time she’d been sick in Miss Wentworth’s garden, and the reason why. It was agony to move. She wanted to sink to the floor and cry because it hurt so much and Miss Wentworth had caused that hurt. She wanted to tuck her hand under her arm for a measure of comfort. But more than either of these things, she wanted to lash out at Miss Wentworth, to hurt her back. She stared at the teacher and said, in a voice that trembled just slightly, ‘Have you finished?’ Miss Wentworth leaned on the desk, her chest heaving. She knew she’d lost. ‘Get out,’ she said, but she was too weary and worn down to shout properly. ‘Stand outside the door!’ Janet turned and walked out. Her legs were shaking but she knew that as long as she kept moving, no one would know. Her injured hand hung by her side, and everyone in the class realised that Janet Travers had guts. She didn’t wait outside the door. She walked out of the school gates and into the street, where she looked about her furtively, for the primary school opened on to Westmead Crescent, the road her grandparents lived in. Even if they were safely in the house, she could be spotted by any of the neighbours, and she knew they would feel a pressing need to tell the family they’d seen her wandering the streets when she should have been in school. No, Janet thought, no way could she risk walking through the estate. She mustn’t be seen by anyone at this time of the morning, yet if she lingered in the playground she was sure to be seen by one of the teachers, and she wasn’t going back into school either. She had to find somewhere to hide out till lunchtime, when she could go home. Westmead Crescent was the last road on the estate, and ahead of her was Woodacre Road, the start of the private houses. Janet left the playground, her eyes darting up and down the crescent. As no one was in sight, she crossed and began walking cautiously down the road. She had to skirt carefully past the shops, because Mr Freer the shopkeeper knew everyone, and often stood at the doorway looking out, but there was no sign of him. Then she saw that the gates to Holyfields Sports Ground opposite the shop were open. She’d never seen them open before, and without thinking she slipped inside. She could hear a motor mower on the sports field and guessed the groundsman was up there cutting the grass, but she wasn’t going to go that far up. There were plenty of places to hide by the steel railings, because shrubs had been planted against them on the inside, and if she crawled in amongst them no one would see her. She had to take her throbbing hand from her armpit, where she’d held it for comfort since she’d left the school, and drop to her hands and knees to crawl between the bushes. The straggling branches caught and snagged on her clothes, thorns pulled at her hair and sharp roots dug into her knees, but she paid no heed. Not until she was well hidden in the bushes did she take time to examine her hand. It was crusted with damp earth. Janet wiped it as gently as she could with the hem of her dress, but still winced at the smarting pain of it. The slashes were deep and had cut into the flesh, where they’d bled a fair bit. The ridges where the cane had bitten into the palm were purple-red and angry-looking and hurt like hell. ‘Bugger! Bugger! Bugger!’ said Janet, and was surprised to find she felt better for saying it. She wondered then if she could convince her mother she felt ill and then she might give her the afternoon off school. God, she did feel ill. She’d never felt pain like this, and she just might get away with convincing her mam she felt sick. But what could she do about tomorrow, and all the tomorrows till July? She wondered if she had the courage to defy Miss Wentworth again, but she doubted it. She knew Miss Wentworth had hit her harder than she’d ever seen her hit anyone, and she didn’t think she could put up with such a beating day after day until July without dissolving into a blubbering wreck. She’d like to be able to, because she’d feel she’d scored a victory if she could. She knew Miss Wentworth had been confused and almost hurt by her defiance that morning. She wished with all her heart that she didn’t have to go back to school tomorrow. She wished that when she woke up in the morning it was September and time to begin Whytecliff High. Suddenly she remembered the priest telling them about the power of prayer. She’d gone to mass on Easter Sunday with Gran at St Peter and St Paul’s. She didn’t mind mass. She liked the flowers, and the fancy altar with the decorated cloth on, and the smell of the stuff he swung around the church that Gran said was incense. She liked the flickering candles and the statues and pictures all along the edges and the service that was in Latin. She couldn’t understand it, but she liked to listen. It was like music. Most times she didn’t listen to the sermon – that was the boring bit – but there was plenty to look at while the priest was going on. She hadn’t intended to listen on Easter Sunday – she had heard the story before, after all – but the priest had captured her imagination. ‘Jesus performs miracles today, in people’s lives,’ he said. ‘Jesus said that if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains.’ Janet didn’t know how big a mustard seed was, but it didn’t sound very big. And she didn’t want to move mountains either, they suited her just fine where they were. She wanted something much more important. She shuffled on to her knees in the damp soil and prayed: ‘Please, Jesus, can You fix it so I don’t go to Paget Road School again. Thank You. Amen.’ She wondered if that was easier to arrange than moving mountains about the place. She had no doubt it would be achieved, for her faith would have filled a whole mustard pot, but later she was to marvel and be awed and a little frightened at the power of prayer. It was a tedious morning for Janet, and her hand and arm continued to throb. She wished she had a book to read, to take her mind off things, but she hadn’t even brought her bag with her. And she realised with horror that she’d left her coat behind. Oh, she’d catch it now. Sometime that morning she dozed off, sitting up, with her head leaning against a shrubbery bush. She woke stiff, cold and uncomfortable. It took a minute for her to remember where she was. Then she crawled carefully out and, glancing to right and left, walked to the gates. She saw the children on their way home to dinner and realised she’d probably been woken by the dinner bell. Fortunately, few children from Woodacre Road went to Paget Road School, and none of those who passed spotted Janet hiding in the bushes. As soon as the streets were quieter again, Janet pelted home. Gran opened the door, and Janet could tell she was cross. For a moment she imagined that Miss Wentworth had been to the house, for Sarah McClusky burst out, ‘What time do you call this, miss?’ Then she exclaimed, ‘Mother of God! Have you seen the state of yourself?’ Janet looked down. One black stocking had a hole in the knee and the other a long tear, and Janet remembered the trailing thorn that she’d caught it on. She saw that the thorn had entered her skin and globules of blood were oozing through the stocking. ‘Look at your dress, child,’ Gran went on, indicating the brown soil staining the checked dress, ‘and what have you done to your hand?’ Fortunately, Janet’s hand was too dirty for Sarah to see exactly what had happened to it. She went on, ‘Your face is all over dirt. Dear God, Janet, as if we haven’t trouble enough.’ ‘I’m sorry, Gran, I fell over, I was running,’ Janet gasped out. ‘But what trouble?’ ‘Your mother’s on her time,’ Gran said. ‘You’re to go to your Aunt Breda’s. Duncan’s gone already. He’s been home this long time.’ Janet felt faint. The baby wasn’t due yet, not for weeks. Now she understood why her gran had kept her on the doorstep. A shuddering scream came from above. ‘But I want to see Mom,’ Janet cried. She attempted to rush past her gran, but Sarah was too quick. ‘Oh no you don’t, my girl,’ she said. Another agonising scream rent the air, and Janet almost leapt from her grandmother’s arms. ‘Janet, Janet,’ said her gran pleadingly, ‘you can’t do anything for your mother. Be a good girl and go to Aunt Breda, there’s a love.’ ‘She’ll be all right, Gran, won’t she?’ Janet asked. ‘Of course, my dear,’ said Sarah, but she didn’t meet Janet’s eyes. ‘I’ll have to go back upstairs to help. You must go now.’ ‘Sarah! Sarah!’ Janet heard the voice of Mrs Williams, the midwife, and knew her gran was needed. She turned away without another word and made her way to her auntie’s. ‘You took your time,’ Aunt Breda said as Janet went in through the kitchen door. Then she turned and caught sight of her niece’s appearance, and said, as her mother had: ‘Mother of God, what happened to you?’ ‘I fell over.’ ‘Well, get yourself washed and something inside you and you’ll feel better. You’d better strip off those stockings and I’ll try and darn the tears, though it’s your mother who’s the best darner. The teachers were always praising her for her neat stitches. She …’ Breda’s voice trailed away, for her eyes met those of Janet, who suddenly burst into tears. ‘Oh, Auntie Breda, Mom’s bad, isn’t she?’ she gasped. ‘Oh, lovey,’ Breda soothed, gathering Janet in a hug. ‘She’ll be all right.’ Noel and Conner were sitting up to the table attacking their stew with their spoons. They caught the seriousness of the atmosphere and it frightened them. They began to bawl too. Duncan couldn’t stand it. ‘I’m finished eating,’ he said. ‘Can I go?’ ‘Take the two boyos with you,’ Breda said, indicating the twins. ‘Haven’t I to go back to school then?’ Duncan said, surprised. ‘No, I might need you to give a hand,’ Breda said. ‘Well, I still don’t see why I’ve got to take the twins with me,’ Duncan said mulishly. ‘Because I said so,’ Breda snapped, ‘and because they’re only little and they’re frightened and don’t understand anything, and it won’t hurt their big brother to think of someone other than himself for once.’ Duncan felt momentarily ashamed. He was a bit scared too. He knew things weren’t right with his mother having the baby so soon, and he was turned twelve and a half. His brothers were only babies. ‘Stop snivelling,’ he told them sternly. ‘If you do, I’ll take you up the park.’ The two little boys gulped and tried manfully to stem the tide of tears. Breda, still hugging Janet, said, ‘Get a tanner from my purse on the mantelpiece and buy some sweets for you all. The sweet coupons are behind the clock.’ That brought smiles to all their faces. As Janet watched them go down the road she said: ‘He doesn’t care, our Duncan, he doesn’t care.’ ‘Of course he cares,’ Aunt Breda said. ‘But he’s a man, or nearly a man. They deal with things like this by going away and pretending it isn’t happening. ’Tisn’t as if they can do anything. They’re best out the way.’ ‘Can I … can I stay off school this afternoon too?’ Janet said. ‘Well, I don’t think you’d concentrate much, would you?’ Aunt Breda said with a smile. ‘Anyway, you couldn’t go in that state and I’ll not darn those stockings in five minutes, nor get the stains out of your dress. You’ve not had a bite to eat yet either, and anyway, you’re more use to me here.’ Later, as Janet washed her stinging hands and smarting legs in a bowl of hot water, she prayed silently, Not this way, Jesus, please don’t let anything happen to my mom. I didn’t mean You to do it this way. Claire finished the register quickly, and leaving it on the desk, went out to find Janet. It didn’t occur to her that Janet had left the building. She thought she was hiding away in the school somewhere and she returned to the classroom deep in thought. The children watched her with reproachful eyes. When the boy Claire chose to take the register to the office reported that Janet wasn’t outside the door any more, whispers started to go round the room. They remembered the look on Claire’s face as she beat Janet. They thought she’d taken her to the Head for further punishment, and that wasn’t considered fair. Claire set the class some exercises and went off to search for Janet. She found her coat and bag on her peg, and decided that she’d pop across to the Travers’ house with them at lunchtime. It was a trying morning. The whole class, Claire realised, seemed to blame her for the incident. They were silent in disapproval. No one answered the questions she asked after lessons, and no one volunteered to give out books or apparatus. There was no pleasant interchange between teacher and pupils as there had been formerly, for the children refused to play. Claire felt the barriers go up, and though they were all icily polite, by the end of the morning she was exhausted. At lunchtime, a staff meeting was called, so Claire had to stay in school instead of going over to Janet’s house. The girl did not materialise that afternoon either, and time seemed to drag slowly. Just before four o’clock Claire overheard a conversation between two mothers waiting in the playground outside her window. ‘I hear Bet Travers is in a bad way. Our Elsie bumped into Sean going for the doctor.’ ‘She’s been bad this long time.’ ‘Yes, but she’s been in labour all day, they say, and the screams of her can be heard down the street. She’s not due for another few weeks.’ ‘Be the hospital for her, likely.’ ‘Yes, and God help them if it isn’t the crematorium for one or the other.’ Oh my God, what have I done? Claire thought. Perhaps Janet’s mother was in labour before she came to school, and in her anxiety she was rude to me. And I lashed out at her. Why didn’t I take her from the room and talk to her? Janet’s never acted that way before. Why didn’t I imagine it was something like that? She wondered if someone had come for Janet while she was outside in the corridor. Leaving her bag and coat behind seemed to suggest a headlong flight prompted by agitation. As soon as the last bell had gone, Claire caught up Janet’s coat and bag and took it up to the house. Mrs McClusky opened to her knock. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘you’re Miss … Miss …?’ Worry had driven the name from her mind. ‘Our Janet’s teacher. I thought you were the ambulance.’ ‘The ambulance!’ Suddenly, Dr Black was running down the stairs. ‘Is that them?’ he demanded, then, seeing the young woman at the door, he barked, ‘In or out, please, the ambulance will be here shortly and I can’t have the hall cluttered with people.’ ‘How is she, Doctor?’ Mrs McClusky asked. ‘Sleeping at last,’ the doctor said grimly. ‘I’ve anaesthetised her. She was worn out.’ Claire was aware of heart-rending sobs. They came from a man sitting with his head in his hands in a chair in the living room. Through the half-open door, she recognised him as Janet’s father, who had arrived late and merry at the party. The man’s grief shook her. ‘She’s not … Mrs Travers isn’t …’ ‘She’s very ill,’ Mrs McClusky said. ‘We’ve had the priest. He gave her the sacraments, you know. He told the doctor if it has to be a choice between the mother and the child, the Church’s teaching is clear, it must be the child. I say bugger the Church, begging your pardon, miss. Where would the children be without our Betty, not to mention him there?’ She indicated the sobbing Bert. ‘Big gormless lump he is without my lass behind him. We need her here.’ Mrs McClusky’s voice broke. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to Claire, ‘but we’re distracted with it all. Was you wanting something?’ ‘No,’ Claire said, thinking that they all had enough to worry about. ‘I’ve just called with Janet’s coat and bag. She left them at school.’ Mrs McClusky thought that odd, and any other time she would have questioned it, but at that moment the sirens were heard. ‘You must excuse me, that’s the ambulance,’ she said. Claire watched on the pavement with a knot of neighbours until she saw Mrs Travers carried to the ambulance, Bert stumbling behind her in his distress so that they had to help him too. The doctor got in his car and offered Mrs McClusky a lift. ‘When we see how she’s doing I’ll bring you back home,’ he said. Mrs McClusky knew he meant ‘if she pulls through’, and with a sigh she climbed in beside Dr Black. Claire watched as they drove away. You deserve to be flayed alive for what you did to Janet Travers today, she said to herself. And I don’t know how you’re ever going to make it up to her. SIX (#u64889633-81be-5c85-8b0d-b3de988a34aa) When Dr Black called round to Breda’s the next morning to tell them the news of Betty and the baby, he wasn’t surprised to find that Breda had taken all the Travers children in, although only Janet was up, and drinking tea with her aunt and uncle. ‘They’re fine,’ the doctor assured the three of them. He looked at Janet and said, ‘You have a baby sister. She’s small but she’s a fighter. She’s in the special care unit, being so premature.’ Janet felt little for the baby that had disrupted their lives and would continue to do so for years to come. ‘What about Mom?’ she said. ‘Well, she’s had a tough time,’ Dr Black said, ‘but she’ll be all right.’ ‘Oh, thank God,’ Breda said. Janet felt like crying with relief. ‘Can I see her?’ ‘Not at the moment,’ the doctor said. ‘They’re only allowing Bert and her parents in. Later I’ll see what I can do.’ He nodded across at Peter and said, ‘Could you tell them at the factory that Bert won’t be in today. He’s been up all night. I told him I’d see to it.’ ‘No problem,’ Peter said. ‘And Mammy must be bushed,’ Breda said. ‘I’ll keep the children with me today. I’ll have to go and get some clothes for them in a minute.’ ‘Have we to go to school?’ Janet asked. ‘Not today,’ Breda said. ‘I could do with you at home anyway to give me a hand with the twins and Linda, but tomorrow you should be back.’ Tomorrow could look after itself. Janet let her breath out in a sigh of relief. Dr Black glanced up at her and said, ‘Thought you liked school?’ ‘I do usually,’ said Janet. ‘Only I don’t particularly want to go today, ’cos I’m worried about Mom.’ ‘I can understand that,’ Dr Black said. He stood up. ‘Well,’ he sighed, ‘I’ll have to be off or I’ll have patients beating the door down.’ He looked at Breda and added, ‘I’ll drop you at your sister’s if you like, it’s on my way.’ Janet saw Breda hesitate. ‘I’ll be here to see to the others if they wake up,’ she told her aunt. ‘Well, I certainly need to get them some clean clothes,’ Breda said. ‘The twins have gone to bed like a couple of tinkers and Janet here came home yesterday with holes in her stockings and her dress only fit for the rag bag.’ Janet, who’d been loaned a pair of Breda’s pyjamas for the night, saw the doctor’s eyebrows raised quizzically, and explained, ‘I fell over.’ She said the same thing, just a few minutes later, when Peter had left for work and Breda had gone upstairs to change out of her slippers. Dr Black and Janet were alone. Janet reached across the table to collect the cups to rinse in the sink and suddenly Dr Black took hold of her hand and turned it over gently. Janet looked at the blistered ridges that had appeared overnight and pulled away from the doctor’s grasp. ‘I fell over,’ she said again. ‘Auntie Breda told you about the state of my clothes.’ ‘Yes,’ said Dr Black, ‘but Auntie Breda’s not here now and you can tell me what really happened.’ ‘I told you.’ ‘Janet, I’m not a fool,’ the doctor said impatiently. ‘Who did this to you?’ ‘Did what?’ ‘Someone’s hit you with a cane or something,’ Dr Black said. Despite his impatience, he understood Janet’s reluctance to speak out: she wasn’t the type who was often in trouble and was probably ashamed that she’d been punished. Janet looked at the doctor. She’d known him all her life. She wondered what would happen if she was to tell him everything. She gave an involuntary shiver. It didn’t bear thinking about. She stared at him and said decisively, ‘I fell over.’ Dr Black sighed. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘have it your own way. But you’ve got dirt in it. If you don’t want it to fester, it will have to be cleaned and dressed.’ By the time Breda came down, Dr Black was winding a bandage expertly around Janet’s hand. ‘Young Janet got some dirt in that cut on her hand,’ he said by way of explanation to Breda. ‘Have to keep it out of the water for a day or two.’ ‘What some people will do to get out of the washing-up,’ Breda said with a smile at Janet. Janet was too nervous to smile back. She’d been worried what the doctor would tell Auntie Breda and was grateful to him for saying nothing. Her hand felt much better, though it had stung like mad when he was cleaning it. But the ointment he’d dabbed on it was soothing and now it felt much easier, protected as it was by the thick wad of bandage. Duncan, much to his disgust, was dispatched with a shopping list later that morning. Seeing the sulky droop of his lips Breda said sharply, ‘Don’t even bother complaining, Duncan. Janet is more help to me in the house, and anyway, she can hardly carry heavy bags with her sore hand.’ He went, only slightly mollified. Being unused to shopping, it took him even longer than it did Janet, and when he’d finished he turned for home gratefully. He was aware of his grumbling stomach and knew it must be nearly lunchtime. As he turned into Paget Road, the rain began. The early April shower was cold and stung his face, and he bent his head against it. Suddenly he cannoned into someone whose own view was obscured by the umbrella they were battling with. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I didn’t see … oh, hello, Miss Wentworth.’ ‘Hello, Duncan.’ Claire saw the bulging bags and realised that he’d been kept at home to help. She’d hoped that was the reason Janet was away too. ‘How’s your mother?’ she asked. Duncan looked at her in astonishment. Although news on the estate travelled like wildfire, usually teachers were excluded from the inner circle of gossip. ‘I called at the house yesterday,’ Claire said, seeing Duncan’s surprise. ‘Janet left school in such a rush, she forgot her coat and bag.’ Duncan’s eyes narrowed. Janet hadn’t left school in a rush. She’d arrived at Breda’s after him. But this wasn’t the time to go into it. He was aware of the rain seeping into his coat, despite the umbrella Miss Wentworth held over them both. ‘My mom’s all right,’ he said. ‘She had a baby girl.’ ‘And the baby?’ ‘She’s in a special baby place,’ Duncan said. ‘The doctor came round and told us. She’s sick but the doctor seems to think she’s a fighter.’ He fidgeted a little. The bags were getting heavy. ‘I gotta go,’ he said. ‘The shopping!’ ‘Yes,’ Claire said, ‘of course.’ Then added, ‘Is … is … Janet’s hand better?’ Now, how did she know about Janet’s hand? Duncan thought. ‘She says it feels easier now the doctor’s dressed it,’ he said. He watched carefully to see what Miss Wentworth’s reaction would be to his words. He wasn’t disappointed. Miss Wentworth started, her eyes seemed to grow larger and her voice was a mere whisper as she said, ‘A doctor! She had to see a doctor?’ ‘No, he came round, I told you,’ Duncan said. ‘To tell us about Mom. He saw Janet’s hand and said she’d got dirt in it and he cleaned it and put ointment and stuff on and a bandage.’ ‘She’d got dirt in it?’ Miss Wentworth repeated. ‘Yes, from when she fell over,’ Duncan said. ‘From when she fell over?’ Duncan wondered if Miss Wentworth was going deaf or daft. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That was how she hurt it, wasn’t it?’ He wondered again how Miss Wentworth knew. Had she seen her fall or what? Or maybe one of the kids had said? It wasn’t important. His arms felt as if they were breaking and he dared not put the bags on the soggy ground. ‘I really must go,’ he said. ‘Of course. Tell your sister I’m sorry.’ ‘What for?’ ‘Just tell her.’ Duncan’s face was creased in a frown. He was certain Miss Wentworth was going loopy. It’s all that studying, he thought, enough to turn anyone’s brain. He was even more certain of this when Miss Wentworth continued, ‘And tell her she’s sure to hear any day now about the examination results.’ ‘But … well, she knows, doesn’t she?’ Duncan said. He’d read the thing himself, for heaven’s sake, and he knew Miss Wentworth must know. He’d been sent to the factory to tell his dad, and when he got back his mom said Janet had ridden over to tell her teacher. He looked at Miss Wentworth and wondered if she’d had a knock on the head. She was staring at him as if he was the one who was odd, her eyes narrowed in disbelief and her mouth agape. ‘She … she can’t know,’ she said at last. Her mind didn’t want to accept it. ‘She does know,’ Duncan said emphatically. He didn’t like being disbelieved. ‘I picked up the letter and opened it because she wouldn’t, and it said she’d won a scholarship to Whytecliff High School. They went to see the school as well on Monday, Janet and our mom. Auntie Breda said that’s what brought the baby so early, with Mom not being well and then …’ He broke off and said to Miss Wentworth, ‘Are you … are you all right?’ The colour suddenly drained from Claire’s face and she swayed on her feet. She felt light-headed and tears swam before her eyes. It felt like the ultimate betrayal. Why, for God’s sake? Why? her mind screamed. Perhaps, she thought, Duncan might be mistaken. She doubted it, but she had to know, and she had to get rid of Duncan before he reported that he’d seen Miss Wentworth bawling her eyes out in the street. ‘I’m perfectly well,’ she replied stiffly. ‘I have just remembered something I have to do in school and I really mustn’t keep you any longer.’ Duncan watched her walk away and shook his head. Queer kettle of fish, teachers, he thought. Nice as ninepence one minute and pulling rank the next, going all stiff and starchy. To hear Janet talking, you’d think Miss Wentworth was a blinking saint, but she was as bad as all the rest and crackers into the bargain. Less you had to do with teachers the better, he decided. Claire’s legs were shaking as she walked into the school. She went straight to the headmaster’s room, knowing he was away for the day, picked up the phone and asked to be put through to the education department. As she listened to the girl’s voice at the other end explaining that the letters had been sent out of the office on 24 March, she realised that Janet Travers had indeed won a scholarship to Whytecliff High School but for some reason had not had the decency to inform her teacher. She didn’t understand. She thought she knew Janet so well, but the girl seemed to have undergone a character change. Claire was willing to admit she’d hit Janet harder than she’d ever hit anyone before. In fact, she’d hit her because she was Janet Travers. She’d taken her insolence as a personal affront and overreacted. Janet obviously hadn’t mentioned it at home, but that wasn’t unusual. Claire used the cane and the strap sparingly, but when she had occasion to resort to it the boy – it was usually a boy – took his strokes with good grace, usually knowing that he’d well deserved it. No one ever mentioned getting in trouble at school to their family. They knew they would get little sympathy, and probably another dose to remind them to behave better in future. In the same way, no child would say what they’d seen Miss Wentworth do to Janet, for they’d have to explain why. When their parents heard the reason for her discipline, they would think the punishment justified. It was Claire herself who was having doubts. In the worry of the Travers household that day, where the mother lay ill and in grave danger of giving birth to a premature child, little notice would have been taken of Janet’s hand. When the doctor had spotted it, she’d obviously told him she’d fallen over. He must have known she was not telling the truth, but that was the story she must have stuck to, for it was all Duncan knew. Claire wondered whether, if she’d sent the child from the room in the beginning, when she was still in control of her emotions, Janet would have told her what had upset or offended her, for it was obvious to Claire, thinking it over now, that something had. I need to talk to her, she decided, and I must do it this evening after school. Duncan dumped the bags on the cupboard top by the sink and said, ‘I’m starving, and these bags weigh a ton.’ Auntie Breda laughed. ‘Come up to the table, your dinner’s ready. Your dad’s been round and said your mom’s looking a lot perkier, so the news is good.’ ‘And the baby’s holding her own too,’ Janet said. Duncan didn’t really care about the baby, but he wished that everything was over and he could go back home. He didn’t mind Breda, despite her bossiness, but he’d rather be at home, and he even thought he’d rather be at school than being sent shopping and looking after his little brothers and Linda all the time. The thought of school brought to mind his strange meeting with Miss Wentworth. ‘I met your teacher coming home,’ he said to his sister. ‘Did you?’ Janet’s response was guarded and cool. She didn’t ask what she’d said, or how she was. Duncan was still puzzling over this when his aunt asked, ‘Did she wonder at you not being at school?’ ‘No, she knew, I mean about Mom. She asked about her.’ ‘How did she hear?’ ‘She said she went to the house yesterday after school.’ He looked across at Janet and said, ‘You left your coat and bag behind and she took them round.’ ‘That was kind of her,’ said Aunt Breda. Janet and Duncan looked at each other. Janet thought that Aunt Breda hadn’t been a mother long enough to worry over a child losing a coat. ‘She asked about your hand as well, Janet,’ Duncan said. ‘She asked if it was all right.’ ‘Did she?’ Janet’s eyes were trying to tell Duncan something. Asking him to be quiet. He ignored the pleading look. ‘She said to tell you she’s sorry.’ ‘What for?’ Aunt Breda said. ‘That’s what I asked her,’ Duncan said, ‘and she said just to tell Janet sorry.’ ‘She must have seen you fall,’ Breda said, but her mind was distracted because just at that minute, Noel almost tipped what remained of his dinner over his lap. ‘I’m putting these little ones down for a nap,’ Breda said, ‘so you two deal with the dishes, and Duncan, you’ll have to wash.’ ‘Are we going home tonight?’ Janet asked. ‘I’ll see how the land lies,’ Breda said. ‘I’ll pop and see your dad. If you can’t, I’ll have to phone in to work. They won’t like me taking another night off, but they’ll have to lump it.’ Janet knew her aunt’s words were mere bravado. Twilight shifts were like gold dust to mothers, enabling them to bring money in without paying most of it out again in childcare. No one could afford to jeopardise their job by taking days off all the time. Duncan waited until Breda left the room and then began swirling the soapy water in the bowl over the plates. Suddenly he turned to face Janet and said, ‘Why didn’t you tell Miss Wentworth you’d passed the eleven-plus?’ Janet could think of nothing to say, no excuse. ‘I … I did,’ she said. ‘Miss Wentworth said you didn’t,’ Duncan said. ‘She was upset, I think.’ Janet knew she had to tell Duncan something. ‘I … I went but she had someone with her, a friend. I’d not seen her before and I didn’t want to say anything in front of her, so I came away.’ ‘You could have gone again.’ ‘I didn’t know how long the friend would be staying. I thought I’d wait till I got to school.’ ‘But you didn’t tell her then either,’ Duncan said. ‘She knew nothing.’ He stared at Janet for a minute, and then, because he knew that in some way it was connected, asked, ‘What really happened to your hand, Janet?’ Janet pondered the question. Many of the kids in her class had older brothers and sisters in the secondary school and would tell them about yesterday’s incident, especially as it was Janet who was caned. It was only parents they’d be wary of informing; and they’d take particular pleasure in telling Duncan. In fact, she thought, probably the only reason he doesn’t already know is because he wasn’t at school today. If she didn’t tell him now and he found out from others, he might, from spite, fling the knowledge out in front of her gran, Dad or Auntie Breda. Again she gave her version of the truth. ‘Miss Wentworth gave me the cane,’ she said. Duncan’s mouth dropped open in surprise. He’d had the strap a few times, and a couple of strokes of the cane, usually well deserved, and he’d accepted it as one of the trials of growing up. Girls seldom had corporal punishment administered. He stared at Janet. ‘Don’t tell, will you?’ she said. ‘What do you take me for?’ Duncan said scornfully. ‘But what did she give you the cane for?’ ‘Cheeking her.’ ‘You cheeking Miss Wentworth?’ ‘Yes,’ Janet burst out angrily. ‘What d’you think I am, a saint or something?’ She sighed and added, ‘I wasn’t at school Monday, was I? I didn’t tell Miss Wentworth I’d be away, but Mom thought I had so she didn’t send a note. Then I was late because Mom felt bad and I had to go and fetch Gran round to see to the twins. I was a bit worried about Mom and when Miss Wentworth went on about the note I gave her some cheek and she gave me a couple of strokes of the cane and sent me out of the classroom.’ She stopped there. No way was she going to say she’d run away – he’d think she was feeble – and she wasn’t going to tell him how many strokes of the cane she’d had either, or how bad her hand was. He might think flogging her hand for cheek was excessive, especially if he’d seen the seeping open wounds on her palm and fingers. She blessed Dr Black and his concealing dressing as she went on. ‘Anyway, that was it really, or would have been if I hadn’t fallen down on the way home and cut my hand and got dirt in, and you know the rest.’ Duncan doubted he did. He knew Janet a sight better than Miss Wentworth did, and he was certain he wasn’t getting the whole truth. He also knew that if he talked to her till the next morning he’d get no more. She’d always been stubborn. He thought of asking her why she’d left her coat and bag behind but knew she’d come up with some other plausible lie, so he didn’t bother. He knew he’d got some of the truth, and it certainly explained Miss Wentworth’s strange behaviour earlier that day. Neither of them spoke of it again, and when Breda came back and said they were to return home that day, they were both pleased. ‘Your gran’s coming in to see to you,’ she said, ‘because you won’t be able to cook meals and things till your hand’s mended, Janet. And you’ll be going back to school tomorrow. You know how much store your mom puts by education!’ Duncan made a face, out of habit. For once, he was looking forward to going back more than Janet. She had a cold pit of dread in the base of her stomach every time she thought of it. Mrs McClusky hadn’t yet arrived when the knock came on the door. Janet was by herself. Bert had gone to buy flowers for his wife and taken Conner and Noel with him, and Duncan was out somewhere. When she saw Miss Wentworth on the doorstep, she wasn’t even surprised. ‘You’d better come in,’ she said, and Claire walked past her into the room, where they stood apart like two combatants. Neither spoke, and the silence became uncomfortable. Claire felt she should apologise for hitting Janet so hard, but she also felt that Janet should apologise and explain why she’d not told her about passing the eleven-plus. Eventually the silence became too much for Claire, and she said: ‘I suppose you’re wondering why I’ve just come like this?’ ‘No,’ Janet said. ‘Duncan said he met you. I almost expected you.’ ‘He told me your mother’s had a baby girl.’ ‘Yes, she has.’ ‘You … you must be pleased,’ Claire said. Janet was being deliberately terse and unhelpful. ‘Not really,’ Janet said. ‘I told your mother but she didn’t believe me. No one wanted this baby.’ ‘Oh, but I’m sure …’ ‘You didn’t come to talk about any baby, did you?’ Janet said. ‘Nor my mother either.’ ‘Janet, why are you like this?’ ‘Like what, Miss Wentworth?’ ‘So antagonistic,’ Claire said. ‘What have I done, what has happened between us?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘You’re like a different person.’ Janet shrugged. ‘Oh, Janet,’ Claire burst out, ‘why didn’t you tell me you’d passed? You must have known I’d want to be told straight away.’ ‘I came to tell you,’ Janet said. ‘It was a week ago today, the morning after my party, when the letter came. Mom told me to go straight round and I cycled over after breakfast.’ ‘Was I out?’ ‘No, Miss Wentworth, you were in. But there was a man with you, and both of you were busy.’ Janet stressed the last word, and Claire flushed crimson on her face and neck. She felt faint and clutched for the back of a chair. She remembered it so well: David’s kisses driving her wild, and knowing she wanted him to make love to her more than she’d wanted anything in her life before. She’d pulled away with difficulty, and tugging her blouse around her had turned the key in the kitchen door before leading the way upstairs to the bedroom. If she’d picked up Janet’s meaning correctly, the girl had arrived before she’d thought to lock up. ‘You saw …?’ ‘I saw all right,’ Janet said, and her voice trembled as she remembered it all again. ‘I was so excited, so pleased, and I knew you would be too. I didn’t bother ringing the doorbell, but went straight down the entry to the back door. You were in the living room and had no clothes on your top. You were letting him … he was … you were just moaning, you weren’t doing anything to stop him!’ ‘Don’t,’ Claire said, ‘please don’t say any more.’ Janet had a lump in her throat which she swallowed with difficulty. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Are you embarrassed? I was disgusted.’ She saw that Miss Wentworth was crying, and she felt tears welling in her own eyes, but she was too nauseated by the whole thing to let them fall. ‘I know it must have been a terrible shock,’ Claire said eventually, her voice muffled with tears, ‘and I wouldn’t have had you see it for the world, but David and I love each other. We are going to be married.’ ‘Married!’ exclaimed Janet. She couldn’t believe she’d heard right. ‘You’ll be giving up everything you’ve worked for, for a man.’ ‘No, Janet, it doesn’t have to be that way.’ ‘It does where I live,’ Janet spat out, suddenly angry. ‘Only Auntie Breda and Uncle Peter are different, and everyone says Uncle Peter’s henpecked and Auntie Breda wears the trousers.’ ‘More marriages will be like your auntie’s in the future, Janet,’ Claire said. ‘Husbands and wives will both work and share the household jobs.’ ‘They’ll share having babies too, I suppose,’ Janet said scornfully. ‘I mean, what if you had a baby?’ ‘I won’t,’ Claire said confidently. ‘How can you be so sure?’ Janet said. ‘Look, Janet,’ Claire said, embarrassed afresh. ‘This is a conversation you should be having with your mother, not me.’ ‘I didn’t see her doing anything.’ ‘Well, I’m not going to tell you,’ Claire said, ‘except to say there’s things you can use, clinics you can go to. At the moment I don’t want a baby, but I may change my mind one day, when I’m married and we decide we want to start a family.’ Janet remembered Aunt Breda’s angry words to Peter the day of the doctor’s visit to her father: ‘I’m getting her down that clinic, to get her sorted out, as soon as that kid’s born.’ That was what Auntie Breda meant, she thought with sudden clarity, and wondered if her mother had chosen to have baby Sally like Claire seemed to suggest women were able to. Somehow she doubted Sally had been planned at all. ‘So,’ Claire said, ‘where do we go from here?’ ‘Nowhere,’ Janet said flatly. ‘I want nothing to do with you. I’ll make my own way from now on.’ ‘Janet, listen to me …’ ‘No, I have listened. You made me feel I could do it, make a life of my own, and I can and will. If you’ve decided that’s not for you, that’s fine, but I don’t want you to teach me any more. You let me down. It made me sick.’ ‘When you’re older you’ll probably understand a little more.’ Janet shrugged. Claire remembered the shrug of the previous day and said, ‘I’m sorry about your hand. I shouldn’t have reacted as I did.’ Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/anne-bennett/a-little-learning/?lfrom=688855901) на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.