Secrets to Keep

CHAPTER FOURTEEN





Aidy was torn between feeling angry and relieved the next morning when her father did not make an appearance before the children left for school and she for work. He was obviously not in any hurry to reacquaint himself with his elder children or, in Marion’s case, meet her for the first time. Early in the morning, though, was not the best of times to break the sort of news Aidy had to impart. She would meet the others out of school and break the news to them on the way home, she decided.

Aidy herself was feeling wretched, her body stiff and sore, eyes gritty, the old lumpy armchair not having proved at all comfortable to spend the night in, though she’d had too much preying on her mind for the luxury of sleep anyway, she supposed. The thought of spending another night like her last was not a welcome one at all. She knew she’d have to do something about it. And for her grandmother too. Sleeping on the sofa, which was no more comfortable than the armchair, was the only option open to Bertha while she was incapacitated, but it couldn’t continue after she was healed.

Doing what she’d originally proposed and taking in a lodger was one solution. Her grandmother and she could take over the girls’ room, moving them into George’s … both rooms were much smaller than they had just now and would prove a tight squeeze for all of them, but in her and her grandmother’s case, would at least be big enough to hold a bed where they’d get a far more restful sleep than the sofa and armchair offered. Then a Put-u-up for George in the recess in the back room. But that meant he would have nowhere to escape his father when it wasn’t possible to go out, and remembering her father from the past, and it being apparent that he hadn’t changed, had in fact become worse, Aidy felt there were many times ahead when her brother would need to do that.

Turning the parlour into a bedroom for herself and her grandmother was the only other answer. But just the idea was distressing to her. That room had been her mother’s pride and joy. It had taken Jessie years to furnish it with two old but quite comfortable wing-back leather chairs, given to her when an employer’s father had died and Jessie had rescued them from being thrown out; a second-hand oak table just big enough to seat six was saved up for and lovingly dusted and polished ever since to a high shine every week. Several cheap but precious ornaments given her over the years by her family at Christmas and birthdays sat on the mantel over the black-leaded fireplace. It was Jessie’s room, the one where she had entertained her special visitors and where she’d found peace and quiet when she felt the need.

Even to be contemplating doing what she proposed seemed to Aidy like desecrating her mother’s memory. If she were alive, though, Aidy knew Jessie would be telling her there was no room for sentiment at a time like this.

She couldn’t … wouldn’t … get rid of any of the furniture her mother had so painstakingly acquired and treasured. Instead she’d carefully stack it up at one end of the room, and the space left would just have to do them. Finding the money for a bedstead and mattress, even second- or third-hand, was out of the question. She wondered how much the pawnbroker would want for a half-decent flock that didn’t appear to be riddled with bugs and need fumigating before they could use it. It would definitely be a few shillings which at the moment she hadn’t got. Would any of the neighbours have one they could borrow until she found the money? Aidy doubted it. Anything not being used by her hard-up neighbours would, she had no doubt, already have been pawned or sold.

It seemed to her that, whether she liked it or not, the armchair would stay her bed until she could come up with a way to find the money to buy a flock.

Then an idea struck her. When she had left her marital home, she had taken nothing but her clothes. She was entitled to something for all she had done towards building that home, surely? Would it be remiss of her to request the mattress off the marital bed? She didn’t care, she was going to. After all, Arch was in a better position to replace it than she was. Besides, unless circumstances had changed, it wasn’t Arch himself who was using it but his mother and father, Pat having told Aidy herself she’d commandeered the room on moving in. If anyone should be forking out for a replacement mattress, it was Pat. Aidy knew the other woman would not give it up without a fight, but she was prepared to stand her ground. She meant to have that mattress. She would go around tonight and tackle Arch about it. The fact she wasn’t mentally prepared to face him yet didn’t even enter her head. Her need for the mattress was paramount.

Having seen the children off to school and made Bertha promise to be on her best behaviour so far as her son-in-law was concerned, Aidy set off for work.

When she arrived she found a queue forming outside the waiting room. It looked like the morning surgery was going to be a busy one, which she was glad of as it would help keep her awake and her thoughts on other matters than what was happening in her personal life.

She’d let herself in when her eardrums were immediately assailed by the loud hammering and banging coming from the dining room. It seemed the doctor had wasted no time in instigating improvements. Her immediate concern was where she was going to continue with the task of sorting the record cards. Popping her head around the dining-room door, she saw the cards still spread out over the table as she had left them. It seemed she was being expected to carry on sorting them while work went on around her.

Aidy would be so glad when the improvements had been completed. Once the new shelving and cupboards to hold medical supplies and drugs was finished, and the doctor moved out of his previous tiny room into the more spacious one, the wall between the waiting room and the old surgery was to be knocked through, allowing her more room to put in a bigger desk, plus a table at the back to hold the record boxes and other items Aidy needed to do her job. There would also be a larger seating area for the patients to occupy during their wait. Formerly, when the surgery was heavily attended it had proved extremely difficult for Aidy to hear the doctor summoning her to send in the next patient over the din of their chatter, crowded around her as they were. That wouldn’t be the case in the new waiting room.

Ty had intimated that he proposed to hand over more work to her when her time was freed up after she had completed reorganising the record cards. Aidy was looking forward to having a more varied workload and to feeling she was helping to ease the doctor’s workload. He always looked to her as if he could do with a good night’s sleep. She might not be fond of him as a person but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel sympathy for him, strained as he was by his unrelenting labours.

The last patient had just left and Aidy was about to lock the surgery door, then make Ty a cup of tea before he went out on his morning rounds, when the door opened and to her surprise a nun walked in. There were no convents around here that Aidy was aware of so she was surprised Doc had a nun for a patient.

Aidy studied the woman. She was of medium height. It was hard to tell what her figure was like under her habit, but her face was very pleasant with kindly eyes and she was in her late thirties or early forties. Aidy told her, ‘Morning surgery’s actually finished, Sister, but I’ll go and tell Doc you’re here. If he can fit you in before he has to go out on his round I’m sure he will, you being who you are. Would you like to rest your legs while I go and see him?’

Just then, armed with a pile of record cards from the patients he had seen during morning surgery, Ty came in. He stopped short, taken aback for a moment to find a nun in his waiting room. Composing himself, he said to her in his usual stiff manner, ‘What can I do for you, Sister?’

She smiled at him. ‘It’s what I can do for you, Doctor. My name is Sister Teresa. I’ve come from St Catherine’s, Glenfield Road. Mother Superior has assigned me to your surgery. I’m ready to start as soon as you wish me to.’

Aidy stared at Ty in shock. This was the first time she had ever seen him show any emotion. Although the rest of his face was displaying his normal impassive expression, from the light kindled in his eyes it was apparent he was delighted to be gaining the services of a nun to help ease his workload.

He said to her in his usual monotone, ‘Surgery generally finishes around ten in the morning, so if you arrive by ten-thirty I will have a list of patients ready for you to visit that day along with a bag of supplies. I will leave it with my receptionist, Mrs Nelson. Please express my appreciation to your Mother Superior for assigning you to my surgery. And now, do excuse me. I must get on with my rounds.’

He placed the pile of records on Aidy’s reception desk and returned to his surgery.

Sister Teresa smiled at her and said, ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you in the morning, Mrs Nelson.’

Aidy was very pleased by this turn of events. She had been dreading the doctor asking her to undertake a dressing change on his behalf, something she had told him she was adept at during her interview when in fact she wasn’t, so having the nun on board to do such things was going to save her possible embarrassment.

Despite his good fortune earlier in being awarded the invaluable help of a nun, for which he was very grateful despite the fact that her attending patients on his behalf meant a lost fee for him, Ty returned from his morning round feeling more depressed than he usually did. He had examined and decided on the best treatment for all those he had been asked to visit, ignoring as best he could the dire conditions the majority of those patients lived in. He had been bemused by a statement made by one patient, though in fact it had been said to him a couple of times previously by others visiting him at his surgery, that they were only seeing him because the old woman … whoever she was … was not available at the moment for them to get their treatments from. Then, as he’d been about to knock on the door of a patient he was treating for a nasty leg ulcer that needed redressing, the sort of chore which in future Sister Teresa could tackle on his behalf, from a house in the row opposite a woman rushed out into the street, a bundle in her arms, wailing hysterically that her baby had stopped breathing.

Automatically, Ty rushed to take the child from her, dashing with it into her house and sweeping his arm out to clear the clutter off the rickety kitchen table so that he could lay the child on it while he examined it. There was nothing he could do. The baby was already dead and long past resuscitation. It transpired that the six-month-old child had been fretful while it was teething and in her effort to quieten it, the mother had given it a dose of laudanum – or overdose as it turned out. This was not the first child who had met its end in the same or similar circumstances since Ty had taken over the practice and it reduced him to despair that some mothers around these parts would resort to using such highly addictive substances, just to stop their babies from crying. Usually he managed to keep control of his feelings and go on his way, but today he’d been unable to hold then back. Did they not realise how precious a young life was? He had vented his anger on the already distraught woman, leaving her in no doubt that she was responsible for the death of her baby.

Aidy was to find out about this incident later, and of Ty’s reaction. An idea then struck her of just how the doctor could help to avoid any repetition of the sad event in future, but putting her idea to him was a different matter. He had already made it very clear to her it wasn’t her place to tell him how to run his surgery.

Due to this incident it was after two o’clock when Ty returned. Aidy had already left for her afternoon break. For a moment he stood in the hall and listened to the silence. A sudden wave of loneliness engulfed him. With a shock he realised he was actually missing his receptionist’s presence; her just being here brought life to the house. He discovered he liked her welcoming him back with a hot cup of tea, asking him as she always did, ‘How did the round go this morning … this afternoon … then, Doc?’ To which he would always reply in his curt manner, ‘Fine, thank you.’

It still managed to infuriate him that she insisted on addressing him as ‘Doc’, no matter how much he reprimanded her. He had every right to dismiss her for such patent lack of respect towards him … but, more and more, he was beginning to realise that he actually liked her more informal way of addressing him.

So far as her work went she hadn’t given him any reason to regret employing her. She seemed to be getting on with sorting the record cards, albeit it was taking her an age. Though, in fairness, it wasn’t exactly a straightforward job, there being over five thousand records for her to work her way through, and many for current patients that needed to be found quickly should they call in for a consultation. He’d be glad, though, when she’d finished it and be free to take more of the mundane jobs off his shoulders, such as the resharpening of the needles and instruments on the honing block and sterilising them by boiling; ordering the drugs, doing the accounts … how he detested that time-consuming job! He wouldn’t hand that over completely to her as what he ultimately earned was a private matter, but much of the preliminary work could be done by her.

The patients seemed to like her, judging by the favourable comments he had received from several of them during their visits. She did, though, irritate him with her endless questions whenever he asked her to do something she hadn’t done before, extracting every minute detail from him on just how he wanted the job doing in a way he felt an experienced clerical person like her shouldn’t need to. But he passed this off as her making sure she did exactly what he was expecting of her, so that there were no mistakes on her part. And he did prefer her to do that as mistakes could cost lives in his profession.

He became aware of the deathly silence again; that overwhelming sense of loneliness reinvaded him. For a fleeting moment he wished for nothing more in the world than Aidy to appear; her presence, her zest for life, to lift his gloom. He gave himself a mental shake. Now and again he was bound to feel lonely, bound to crave the company of other human beings, but it was the price he had to pay in order not to put himself in danger again.

Very conscious that he was already late on making a start on his afternoon round, he hurried into the kitchen to put together a sandwich to wolf down while he replenished items in his medical bag. Once there he stopped short, spotting that the plate and cup he’d used for breakfast and left in the sink to see to later had been washed and put away. On the kitchen table was a plate covered by another and a cup with a saucer over it. Curiously, he stepped over to look under the plate. He found a very appetising-looking cheese and pickle sandwich. Under a saucer, in an effort to keep it hot, was a cup of tea.

As time had worn on and he had still not returned, Aidy had obviously realised his round was taking him much longer than usual. Knowing he would not have time to prepare himself lunch before he’d need to depart on his afternoon round, she had taken it upon herself to prepare something for him. It was indeed both thoughtful and efficient of her. He was very appreciative of her gesture but wouldn’t express it to her, of course. For Ty, any relationship with a woman from now on would be kept strictly on a business footing.

At just after three o’clock that afternoon, basket of provisions for that day sitting at her feet, Aidy scanned her eyes over the children leaving school. They were mostly shabby and ragged-looking, a few with no shoes on their feet, spilling out of the school entrance and swarming across the playground to join their equally shabby mothers or else making their own way home with friends. There was no sign of any of her siblings. She hoped none of them had been kept back for any reason. She had been gearing herself up all day for what she had to tell them, and wanted to get it over with. After that she needed to steel herself for her visit to Arch, in the hope he would be feeling benevolent enough to agree to her taking the mattress.

Fifteen minutes later, the multitude of pupils streaming through the door and filling the playground had thinned down to a few last stragglers, and still there was no sign of Aidy’s brother and sisters. It was worrying that not one of them had made an appearance yet. She was just about to go inside and make enquiries when she spotted Marion’s teacher, Miss Amelia Siddings, emerging from the door dressed for home. She was a very pretty, slim woman who hardly looked old enough to have left school herself. She smiled on spotting Aidy and changed direction to join her.

‘Did one of the Greenwood children forget something? The caretaker will help you find whatever it is, I’m sure. I just saw him in classroom three as I was leaving. You should still find him there. Please excuse me won’t you, only I’m in a rush to get home tonight.’

Probably got a date with a handsome man, Aidy thought. She said, ‘My brother and sisters certainly have forgotten something, Miss Siddings. Forgot to come out of school!’

Amelia Siddings looked taken aback for a moment before she responded, ‘Oh, but aren’t you aware they were all sent home mid-morning? Not only your sisters and brother but half of the school, it seems. It appears we have a measles epidemic and Marion, Betty and George have certainly succumbed to it, according to the headmistress. The children who were affected started showing the signs of being ill soon after assembly and Miss Frinton immediately recognised what was ailing them all. Thankfully I had the illness as a child so I’m immune to it. Hardly pleasant for a child to suffer, but I understand it is really nasty for adults to go through.’

Aidy was looking stunned. So Betty had been showing the first signs she’d caught this awful disease the previous night, and Aidy herself had just dismissed it as over-tiredness. And Marion wasn’t just blackmailing her grandmother into a cuddle and a story, she really wasn’t feeling well either. George wouldn’t complain of feeling under the weather even if he was, seeing it as not the manly thing to do. Guilt swamped her for not taking more notice of her siblings. Then panic reared within her. The three of them had been sent home that morning? That meant they would have encountered their father before she’d had a chance to explain it all to them.

Much to Amelia Siddings’ surprise, Aidy turned tail and ran off like the devil himself was on her tail.

She burst through the door into the back room and stopped short, taking in the scene before her. Her grandmother lay on the sofa, her face tight with suppressed anger and frustration, lips pressed together firmly. It was obviously she was fearful of saying something that could result in catastrophe for them all. Arnold lay sprawled in the armchair, his nose buried in the racing pages of a newspaper. He looked a sight cleaner than he had done when he had arrived, obviously having had a thorough wash down and a shave. Aidy just worried how much extra fuel he had used heating up all the water.

On hearing her enter, without lifting his eyes from what he was studying, he growled, ‘Good, yer home. That fire needs banking up.’

She fought to stop her temper flaring. ‘And couldn’t you have done that?’ she evenly responded.

He did lift his head then to smirk at her. ‘Why should I when I have my lovely family around to wait on me hand and foot?’

She almost forgot herself then, to tell him where to go, but remembered her primary concern. She addressed Bertha. ‘I understand the kids were sent home from school this morning, suffering from measles. Where are they?’

It was her father that snarled back at her. ‘Where they should be. In bed. I don’t wanna see their faces down here until they’ve been given the all clear.’ Dropping the newspaper in a crumpled heap, Arnold eased his bony body out of the chair, gave a yawn and a stretch, and announced, ‘I’m off to the privy. Have the fire made up and a cuppa mashed for when I get back.’

He walked out, leaving Aidy glaring after him.

His departure gave Bertha the opportunity to vent all the pent-up fury she’d had to control until now. ‘That man!’ she fumed. ‘He’d try the patience of God Himself, let alone a saint. He wasn’t the nicest of people by the time he left yer mam the second time, Aidy, but those years he’s been away have turned him real nasty. Obviously the better life he thought he’d get never happened. Now he’s harbouring a deep grudge over it and teking it out on all of us.’

She eyed Aidy earnestly. ‘It’s been hell on earth for me today, him snarling his snide sarky comments at me ’cos I can’t fetch and carry for him and he had to get his own breakfast, moaning all the time ’cos there were no eggs and bread left and he had to make do with porridge. Then he was grumbling ’cos he had to boil his own water for his wash down. Mind you, at least he had one … a dustbin smells pleasanter than he did! Thank God you’ve come home. I don’t think I can keep me promise to keep me mouth shut any longer, love. It took me all me strength today not to give that bastard a piece of me mind.’

Aidy reminded her, ‘Well, you’re just going to have to try, Gran. He will throw you out if you cross him, I’ve no doubt of it. And are you going to be able to live with yourself if we’re all reduced to traipsing the streets?’

Bertha shook her head.

‘Well, then. I know it’s hard but just ignore him, Gran. Look, I promise I’ll find a way to get him out.’

‘I so wish you could, but I don’t see how.’

‘Nor do I, but I’ll try and find one. Nobody wants him gone more than I do, Gran. I hate him! I hate breathing the same air as he does. I hate the thought of the kids finding out what type of man their f—.’ She stopped short, her face filling with horror. ‘Oh, Gran, the kids!’

Bertha’s face coloured guiltily. ‘I haven’t been able to check on them since they came home, see if the poor little blighters need anything, ’cos I can’t get off this sofa, can I? There was no point in me asking him if he would check on them, ’cos I knew the answer.

‘Oh, Aidy, it were awful when they all trooped in, looking so sorry for themselves. It was obvious they weren’t at all well. As soon as George appeared in the doorway, he told me they’d been sent home as the teacher told them they’d all got measles. On hearing the word, he let rip, of course. Screamed blue murder at them to get up the stairs and out of his sight, and not to come down ’til there was no danger of him catching it. I’ve never seen them scarper upstairs so quick in all their lives! Poor little souls have no idea who he is, let alone why he’s bellowing orders at them. They must be worried witless. They haven’t had a drink or anything to eat since they came home …’

Aidy’s thoughts were in a whirl. All the time she had been shopping and waiting at the school, the children had been feeling ill and frightened. How did she explain to them that the strange man who had terrified them was their own father, and that for the foreseable future he would be living here with them?

‘I’d better go and see them. Do you know what I need to do to help them? I remember having measles when I was young but I can’t remember what Mam did for me. Do I need to get Doc in?’ The cost of such a visit never entered Aidy’s head. Her siblings were sick and, whatever it took to get them better, she would do.

Bertha shook her head. ‘There’s nothing either the doctor or me can give them to cure them of measles, love. How much they’ll suffer depends how bad they’ve each got it. They’ll probably have a fever, which’ll need to be kept down as best yer can with cold flannels on their foreheads, and there’s an awful cough that goes with it. Nothing you can give them for that either. Regular doses of honey and lemon in hot water could help ease their throats. Otherwise, make sure they drink plenty of water, and it’s best not to give them too much to eat. The disease needs to run its course … in about a fortnight, they should be up and about again.’

Two weeks! Aidy now had four invalids to look after, her wastrel of a father to contend with, plus work full-time. She sighed. ‘Well, I suppose the only good thing about this is that they’ll be kept out of the way of him. Let’s just pray that he decides to leave before they’re up and about again. Or meantime, between us, we come up with a way to get rid of him.’

Aidy found the children all huddled together in Betty and Marion’s bed. Not content that her children should sleep on a flock mattress on the hard floor like most children did in this area, Jessie had saved and haggled hard to obtain them proper beds to sleep in, covered with blankets. Above the bed clothes, Aidy saw that Betty had small clusters of red spots by her ears and down the sides of her neck, the other two showing signs of them beginning to erupt. All of the children looked feverish and were coughing intermittently.

Three pairs of fearful, bewildered eyes settled on Aidy as she entered the room.

In a pitiful voice George said to her, ‘I feel rotten, Aidy.’

The other two agreed, just as sorrowfully, ‘So do we.’

‘Yes, I expect you do,’ she said, looking at them all tenderly as she went over to the bed and perched on the edge of it. She put her hand on George’s forehead. He felt hot to the touch. ‘I’ll get you a wet cloth to help cool your head for you. Gran’s told me you’re all to drink plenty of water, and then all that’s for it is bed rest until you’re over this. I’m going to make you all some hot honey and lemon to help ease your throats.’

Usually the prospect of staying in bed was viewed as a punishment, but they were all obviously feeling so poorly that they looked relieved.

Then came the question she was dreading. It was George who asked it. ‘Who’s that man, our Aidy? And what’s he doing in our house?’

‘I don’t like him. He was really nasty to us. He made me cry,’ said Marion, her bottom lip quivering.

Betty blurted, ‘You’ll make him go, won’t yer, Aidy? Yer won’t let him hurt us? We’ve bin worried ’cos Gran’s down there and we don’t know what he’s done to her. He ain’t hurt her, has he? We had to stop George from climbing out the window, getting the coal hammer out the shed and going to tackle that man. We wouldn’t let him.’

‘No, we wouldn’t. We sat on him ’til he promised not to,’ Marion told her. ‘’Case that man hurt him as well as Gran.’ She then eyed Aidy hopefully and said, ‘If I wish hard enough, maybe Mam will wake up and come back. She’ll make that man go and leave us alone.’

Aidy’s heart went out to her sister. Marion still hadn’t accepted the fact that her mother was never going to wake up and come back to them, no matter how hard she wished or prayed. She assured them, ‘The man hasn’t hurt Gran, she’s fine. But she’s been very worried about you all. She’s sorry she couldn’t manage to get up the stairs because of her broken ankle and check on you, get you anything you needed.’ She looked at each of them in turn, hating herself for having to lie to them in order to explain away the appalling behaviour of their own father. ‘Look, the man never meant to be nasty or to frighten you. It was him who was frightened of you. You see, measles isn’t a nice illness for adults to catch. He was just worried he would, if he got too close to you all.’

‘But who is he, Aidy?’ Betty asked her.

She looked at them all for a moment before taking a deep breath and telling them, ‘Well, he’s … he’s our father.’

They all stared at her wide eyed and opened their mouths in shock.

‘But … but … he can’t be,’ said Betty with conviction. ‘Mam told us our dad was a nice man and loved us all, but he went away ’cos some men ain’t cut out to be family men and our dad was one of those.’

Their mother had loved her younger children far too much to want them to go through life knowing that their father was a thoroughly selfish man who had deserted them all because he hadn’t wanted to shoulder the responsibility of a wife and children any longer. Aidy loved her siblings far too much to tell them that the only reason he’d returned was because he was destitute and had nowhere else to go.

‘Mam never lied. She would never lie to you. Father wasn’t cut out to be a family man and it was felt best he should leave. But he wants to try and be a family man now, and has come back to live with us and have a go. We need to show him what good children he’s got and make him feel welcome. He only shouted at you earlier because it’s like I said, he’s frightened of catching the measles because it can make adults very, very ill. Now you all need to get better. You must stay up here until you are. I’ve already had it so I’m not in danger.’

She smiled at them all fondly, leaned over and tenderly ruffled George’s hair. ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t stay in here with your sisters and be company for each other until you’re all better. I’ll be back up shortly with a drink for you each.’

She returned back downstairs to find her father sprawled in the armchair once more. He glared at her accusingly. ‘You ain’t backed up the fire nor made me a cuppa. See to it, and hurry up.’

Aidy sensed her grandmother’s rage at her son-in-law’s selfishness and flashed a warning look at her. She wanted to ask her father if he thought well of himself for frightening his own children witless, but knew he wouldn’t give a damn if she did.

‘And I want some money,’ he told her then. ‘A couple of bob should do me just now.’

She shot back at him, ‘A couple of bob would do me too. Then I could have bought something better for us to have for dinner instead of days-old soup. You want money for frivolities, you’d better go out and earn some. Hopefully your conscience will see that you give me a contribution towards your keep out of it before you blow the rest on yourself.’

With that she went across to the range and snatched up the battered coal bucket sitting on the hearth, lugging it off to the coal house so she could build up the fire to boil a kettle.