‘Good. Fancy a glass of beer with us?’
‘No, Jesse … Thank you. I’d best be getting back.’
She made the conscious decision then to turn and walk away with as much dignity as she could muster. The sound of her own footsteps seemed deafening as they echoed through the entry. Now her frustration was complete. Not only had she failed to see Stanley, and broadcast to his sister and to Jesse Clancey that she was actively seeking him, but she had also discovered that Jesse was intimately involved with Sylvia. What could he possibly see in her? He couldn’t possibly be in love with her.
Lizzie felt foolish. It was evident now to even a blind man that Stanley was not interested in her. She had made a big mistake by allowing herself to be enticed by his insincere show of interest in the first place. And what did Sylvia mean by saying that Stanley was out having a last drink?
What if she’d been just a bit more responsive to Jesse that Sunday evening? What if she’d plucked up the courage to actually strike up a conversation with him instead of smiling coquettishly and making stupid cow eyes at him? Would he have asked her out, even though she was so much younger? Or would he still have arranged to see Sylvia? But he had not asked her, so it hardly mattered. In any case he could never really be a serious contender since his father was indirectly responsible for her own father’s death. She could never justify it. And their mothers, with their insane rivalry, would never allow it anyway. Nobody would condone it. There were just too many impediments.
She climbed Buffery Road’s steep incline, feeling hot, uncomfortable and miserable. She felt like crying when she arrived home, fraught and in despair. Her skin was clammy, sticky with the humidity, and she wanted to lie in a bath-tub full of cool water. She hoped that Sarah and Tom might have taken her mother to The Junction, so she could have some time to herself for a while, to cry, to think, to calm down, to sort out her bewilderment. But, as she opened the back door, she could hear her Uncle Tom’s booming voice. She groaned inwardly, but forced a smile.
‘Oh, I’m that hot,’ she declared flatly, trying to hide the turmoil inside her. ‘I’d give anything to stand in the cut for half an hour.’
‘Where’ve you been?’ Eve asked. ‘We was wondering what had happened to you?’
Lizzie shrugged. ‘I called to see Stanley.’ It was a reckless admission, but she was too hot and too miserable to care. ‘He wasn’t in, though.’ She resisted the urge to mention that Sylvia and Jesse Clancey were having an intimate evening of it.
‘You won’t be seeing much of our Stanley in future, Lizzie,’ Tom said. ‘He’s took the king’s shilling and signed up. I was just telling your mother as he’s off to start his training tomorrow. He’s got to be up at the crack of dawn to catch the train. I reckon as he’ll be sent to the Cape, you know.’
The Cape? South Africa? But Stanley had mentioned nothing about joining the army.
‘Or India,’ Sarah suggested with a hint of discontent.
‘Or India. Either road, it’s one way of seein’ the world. It’ll mek a man of him. We’ll miss him, though.’
So that was what Sylvia meant when she said he’d gone out for a last drink. ‘What made him decide to do that, Uncle Tom? Was it sudden?’
Tom glanced at Eve. Sarah in turn looked at him, awaiting his answer.
‘Well, you know what young chaps am like, these days.’
May Bradley and Joseph Asa Bishop were married on New Year’s Day, 1907. Only a few guests – close family of the bride and groom, the Dandos, and Beccy and Albert Crump from next door – were invited to their new home for some liquid refreshment afterwards. Albert uttered not one word about the evils of drink, in deference to May’s family, whom he did not know and had no wish to alienate, while he supped cups of tea. But, while he anxiously listened to his wife singing raucously after drinking several glasses of port, he believed it might behove him to register his avowed disapproval. So he gave her a glance conveying notice of the divine retribution about to be visited on her if she did not shut up and regain her dignity. At about midnight the newly-weds were left to enjoy their first night together, after Grenville and Ted had made an apple-pie bed for them, with biscuit crumbs liberally folded in for good measure.
So Eve and Lizzie were finally left to themselves in their little house, which had, over the years, been so crowded with family that there was barely room to move. Lizzie soon took advantage of Joe’s departure by moving into the larger of the two front bedrooms. Eve reflected that as each year passed, so the population within had decreased; as each in turn left, or was taken by the good Lord, the quieter it became. No day passed, though, when Joe or May would not call to see them. Because May continued to work, Eve took on the extra task of doing their washing, for which Joe paid his mother handsomely. He was aware that the loss of his wage would hit them hard. Lizzie was the only one now earning any money at number 48, and her wage was barely enough to keep them in starch. His mother, approaching sixty, could hardly be expected to find a job, though many women her age worked. In any case, Joe vowed he would not allow her to. As far as he was concerned she’d done a lifetime’s labour rearing her children and looking after a husband whom Joe, these days, was not sure had been everything that a husband should be.
May, too, was considerate. She would buy an extra couple of chops, or an extra half dozen eggs, especially for Eve and Lizzie. It pleased her to do so, since she felt closer to her mother-in-law than to her own mother. In any case she could afford it. She would pay for a quart of lamp oil from Theedhams whenever Lizzie said they needed any, and send round two plated dinners of a Sunday, to save Eve the trouble and expense of a Sunday joint.
Ted and Grenville usually called to see their mother at a weekend, Grenville on a Saturday when Wolverhampton Wanderers were playing away. Ted’s day was a Sunday when his shop was shut. Between them, they donated what they could to the welfare of their mother and youngest sister.
Even their kindness, however, was insufficient to maintain them in anything like a comfortable existence, and it was especially hard on Eve. Although Isaac had been nothing less than a swine in many respects he always turned his money up. Consequently, they’d always lived well, though he’d never saved; gambling and drink had devoured all his spare cash. Now, things were different. Eve thought she might be entitled to some parish relief, but the indignity of having to ask precluded her from getting it. So she struggled on, managing with what they had, with what was donated, and with what could be bought cheaply.
New clothes were out of the question. Fortunately, Eve could mend and alter the old clothes that remained in the house in abundance, cast-offs from the departed members of the family. Shoes were more of a problem, though; Lizzie wore out shoes quickly, having to walk the mile or so to and from work every day. During the summer Eve took care of every last penny, conscious that come the winter, they would need extra coal to keep warm.
Lizzie realised she was destined to live with her mother for the foreseeable future, even when she eventually wed, and the man she married would have to accept it. Indeed, it would have to be a condition of marriage.
It surprised Lizzie that Tom Dando was so consistently kind to her mother. His Wednesday evening visits with Sarah continued with a regularity that was almost monotonous. Fridays also, on his way home from work, he would hand money to Eve and tell her it was a bit of pension from Turner’s Brass Foundry. Tom’s own family were all grown up and gone, with the exception of Sylvia, so he evidently felt he could afford to help Eve.
Lizzie asked her mother why it was that Tom seemed to favour her so much.
‘Oh, when we was young, your Uncle Tom was sweet on me.’ Her eyes smiled distantly at the recollection of it. ‘In fact, when I married your father it broke his heart.’
‘But they were cousins, Mother.’
‘Well,