Our ethel, p.10
Our Ethel, page 10
‘Everybody. I told Olive, so she told everybody. Mrs Sath soon got wind an’ gave me a mouthful an’ a slap in the shop, an’ that’s when I got the sack.’
‘Well, you’ll need folk to ’elp when the time comes to nurse,’ said Annie.
‘I can’t go through wi’ this by meself,’ said Ethel. ‘I’m scared.’
‘Well, you will, love. Don’t be daft. You’ve no say in it now. We ’ad all this same bother when our Mary got herself pregnant, an’ she ’ad you no problem. It allus works out somehow. There’s lots worse that ’appens round ’ere. Now you get Jack another pint pulled. He’ll show you ’ow till you get the hang of it, an’ get that fire lit up again. I’m gettin’ us dinner on while you get servin’ in the public bar.’
Twelve
Dennis Slater opened his butcher’s shop more or less when he felt like it. It was a short bike ride up St Paul’s Terrace then along a couple of streets into town, but there was usually something more important to do before he set off. He might pay a call on Olive if he knew Charlie was on an early shift, or even talk to his new clutch of pigeons. Selling meat could always wait.
A few days after Ethel had left home for Rochdale, he unhooked the roller blind from the catch at the bottom of the shop door one morning and flipped the little sign in the window from ‘Closed’ to ‘Open’ at half past nine. He opened the door onto a line of irritated customers. They stepped in while he stepped out onto the pavement to lower the awning. His customers included the woman he despised more than any other, Mrs Sath, his next-door neighbour. Lady muck, he called her, and thought it was just his luck that her spotty son had gone and knocked up his daughter. He hated her. He was not alone. Most other people down the terrace did as well. Aggie Sath thought the butcher was lowlife, and she detested his bloodstained apron and the smell of raw meat he had about him. His sleek black hair and swarthy good looks irritated her too.
Mrs Pearson was at the front of the queue.
‘Mornin’, Mrs Pearson,’ he said. ‘What can I tempt you with today?’ He paid no attention to Mrs Sath.
‘Just six rashers of streaky, please, Dennis.’
Dennis lifted a hefty side of bacon off from a hook behind him and impaled it raw side down into the crook of the bacon slicer. Turning the wheel with one hand, slowly he slid six thick slices into a sheet of grease-proof paper laid out in the palm of his other hand. Mrs Pearson counted out some copper from her purse onto the counter between them. He wrapped the paper round the bacon, dropped it on the scales, put the little pack into her hand, and slid some of the pennies into the till.
‘How’s your Mary going on?’ said Mrs Pearson.
‘So-so, you know,’ said Dennis. ‘She’s still badly with ’er nerves.’
‘Well, look, Reverend P and me are always here to help. We’re only up the road, you know that. All you have to do is knock on our door. I’ll try and bob in to see her later today. I know you’ve got the shop to see to. And your Ethel, how is she doing? I hear she’s gone off to her auntie’s in Rochdale? That’ll do her a world of good. She’s salt of the earth is Annie.’
‘That’s kind, Missus P. We’re gettin’ by as best we can, thanks. We thought it would give our Ethel a break; she’s a lot on. An’ Olive’s comin’ over to sort out Mary at bedtimes and cook us summat.’
Mrs Pearson turned to go, leaving Dennis to serve Mrs Sath. She faced him square on. He returned her scowl. The urge to slap her was almost unbearable. All Mrs Sath had to do was be there in Dennis Slater’s thoughts, for him to see the misery of her pinched, sour face, her piggy eyes overlooking her spectacles, her straggly hair bunched under her stupid hat.
She placed her shopping bag onto the counter between them. ‘I’ve not come in ’ere to buy owt,’ she said.
‘Just as well,’ replied Dennis. ‘You’re barred.’
Mrs Sath didn’t so much as flinch. This was nothing new to her.
The two remaining customers turned round and left.
‘I’ve come to tell you this to your face,’ Mrs Sath continued. ‘I’ll not be buyin’ owt in ’ere again, and nor will most other decent folk.’
‘Apart from the vicar’s wife and all ’er cronies, you mean?’
‘Your mucky daughter led my Eddie on, and now she’s payin’ for it.’
‘Piss off.’
‘And you can tell ’er when you see ’er not to expect any ’elp from me or anybody else round ’ere. She’ll get no brass out of us.’
Dennis had been expecting this. He knew from old what to expect from the sharp end of Mrs Sath’s tongue. He leaned across the counter, brought his face up to hers, and whispered his attack.
‘Tell your son if he ever shows ’is face again that he should’ve kept ’is cock in ’is pants. Ask ’im if he likes ’ospital food. ’Cos I’m gonna break ’is legs next time. Now sling your ’ook, you stupid old bitch.’
She grabbed her bag, turned on her heels, and was gone.
*
Olive was glad to find Dennis alone in his shop. The three dried pork chops languishing on a tray in his window had put the finishing touch to her plan for the evening. She’d worn her tight leopard-print jumper and left the front of her coat unbuttoned to show herself to best effect. Dennis had often told her that her pert nipples were his favourite feature. She’d also put a bit of lippy and eyeshadow on, even though she was only wandering into town, nowhere special. She was very fond of both Dennis and his wife Mary, but in such very different ways. She’d been through a lot with her old friend Mary and she worried about her illness. She knew Mary was dying, but there was nothing she could do to stop that. She worried too that Dennis might lose interest in her. He’d put some spark, some sort of loving, and sex, plenty of sex, back into her boring life. A man who noticed her.
Dennis heaved the side of bacon back onto its hook and took a deep breath.
‘Old Aggie’s said ’er piece, ’as she?’ asked Olive. ‘Got it off ’er chest?’ News of an Aggie Sath row travelled fast. ‘Good riddance, ey? It’s not as if you need her business exactly.’
‘I just told ’er to sling ’er ’ook. I didn’t ’it ’er. I was really nice to ’er. I’ll give ’er Eddie a serious kickin’, though, if he shows ’is ugly face again. I’ve ’eard tell the little shit ’as gone to ’is mate in Preston.’
She took his hand in hers on the counter and leaned across it.
‘Bubbles to Aggie Sath,’ she told him. ‘Forget ’er. You expectin’ me this evening?’
‘She’s a fucking cow. She wants slappin’.’
‘You can still ’ave me, you know? Any time you want.’
‘I do know, an’ I do want,’ he replied. ‘How about now?’
She didn’t react to his suggestion, and he left his hand where it was.
‘You’d ’ave to take your apron off first,’ she said. ‘Look, Charlie’s on a late today, and won’t be ’ome till tomorrow breakfast. An’ your Mary is wantin’ me to stay over. Be nice to see you.’
Dennis grinned and, grabbing her cheeks with both hands, plonked a kiss on the end of her nose.
‘Ger’off, your big ’ands smell o’ bacon, you daft ha’p’orth.’ She laughed. ‘Mrs Sath might come back in!’
‘Let ’er.’
‘How about this, then?’ said Olive. ‘Why don’t you bring us those nice chops round to number 14 an’ I’ll cook ’em and bring ’em over? I’ll feed Mary and get ’er bedded down.’
‘An’ stay on. Mary’s dead to the world by nine.’
*
Olive walked across St Paul’s Terrace in the early evening carrying a plate, a bowl, and a jug of gravy on a tray covered over by a steaming towel. She balanced the tray on her knee as she pushed open the door to number 13 with her foot and carried her delivery down to the kitchen. Dennis removed the towel with a mock flourish and lifted his hot plate of a pork chop, mash, and boiled cabbage onto the kitchen table.
‘Gor blimey!’ he said.
‘I’ve ’ad mine already,’ Olive said, and bent down to kiss his forehead. She ruffled his fringe. ‘I’ll take this through for Mary.’
‘You smell nice, Olive,’ said Mary. ‘You been in the bath?’
‘No,’ replied Olive. ‘I’ve got body mist under me arms. You’ve a nice cheerful fire there, Mary. You’re better off in ’ere than out there, I can tell you. It’s freezin’.’
Olive put her hand behind Mary’s head and lifted it off the board then pulled up the pillow. She’d cut up the meat at home already and minced it together with some potato and gravy. She spooned it to Mary’s lips, wiping the drips off her chin with the towel with each mouthful.
‘You ’eard from our Ethel yet?’ she asked.
‘No, but I wouldn’t expect to yet really. She’s only been gone a few days, I think. I’m gettin’ ulcers on me ’eels, Olive. They sting.’
Olive lifted the blankets up from the bottom of the bed and was hit by the pungent smell of bed sores. Her heels were wrapped with coarse grey bandages secured with safety pins.
‘Do you want me to take this lot off an’ ’ave a better look?’
‘There’s no need, love; the nurse ’as been. She comes most days. She’s very good. You’re a grand lass an’ all, Olive, steppin’ in like this while our Ethel’s away. I’d be lost without you.’
‘It’s the least I can do, Mary. You’ve not eaten much, though. You’ve got to keep your strength up.’
‘I think I’m ready for me bed, Olive.’
‘Do you need your bedpan?’
‘No, I’ve been not an hour since. The nurse sorted me. Thanks, love.’
‘Alright, Mary,’ said Olive. ‘Give me your teeth. An’ I’ll close your door to keep it warm while you nod off, an’ I’ll be back early to get you sorted in the mornin’.’
She took up the tongs and put a few more lumps of coal on the fire, peered out of the window at the snow, and drew the curtains across the gap, then squeezed Mary’s hand and tucked in the sheets.
‘Night night, Mary,’ she said. ‘Sleep tight.’
‘And don’t let the bedbugs bite,’ Mary returned.
Olive chuckled.
‘Just think of our dancin’ days, Mary. Sweet dreams. See you first thing.’
Olive closed the bedroom door from the hallway, pulled the handle firmly so the catch clicked shut, then leant her forehead against it. She knew only too well that what she was about to do, or rather what Dennis was going to do to her, wasn’t right. It never had been. She loved her old friend Mary deeply, as only women can, and she hated herself nearly as much. But, and she had been through this in her head so many times, what Mary and Charlie didn’t know couldn’t hurt them. And she might leave her Charlie if she didn’t have Dennis, and then she couldn’t look after Mary. None of all this sex and guilt was about love and betrayal, not really. It was all about survival, and human needs, pure and simple.
She put her ear to the door and could hear the coals crackling, turned and shouted, ‘Bye Dennis,’ down to the kitchen, then opened the front door and closed it again in front of her. She slipped her shoes off silently onto the floorboards then tiptoed back down to the kitchen.
Mary turned her head towards the window. She liked to look at the spaniels and watch the fire reflected in the glass cabinet doors. She strained to hear Olive’s footsteps scuttle across the street to her own front door but couldn’t. She wished she could remember happy days dancing in town, the evening Dennis had held her hand, walked her home, and first kissed her, but those memories had turned bitter now. She just listened to her own heartbeat instead.
Olive found Dennis smoking a cigarette in the kitchen and softly closed the door. He patted his thigh then ran his hand up underneath her skirt as she put her arm round his neck and lowered herself down onto his lap.
‘I’ve made you a quick brew,’ he said. ‘You ’ave that while Mary gets off. She generally goes out like a light.’
‘By, don’t things change, Dennis?’ she said. ‘I’ve just told Mary to think on our dancin’ days. She was a spring chicken then. Look at ’er now.’
‘I ’ad me eye on you on the dance floor, you know that?’
‘You’ve allus ’ad your eye on everybody. Dance floor or anywhere.’
He squeezed her around her waist.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Sup up. She’s asleep, I can ’ear ’er snorin’.’
‘Like ’ell you can. Any road, this tea’s stone cold.’
Her hand felt for his groin and they kissed.
‘We’re just wastin’ time now,’ Dennis said.
He smacked her rump as he crept up the stairs after her.
‘Shush, you idiot,’ she whispered to him on the landing and held her finger up to her mouth. ‘She might not be off yet.’
‘Stop gigglin’ then,’ he whispered back, and pushed her through the door into Ethel’s old room. But she couldn’t stop herself, as he threw her onto the bed and removed her pinny, skirt and bra with practised ease. He quietened her down with a pillow pushed into her face. ‘An’ start moanin’,’ he told her into her ear, and rolled her onto her front.
Olive always did what Dennis told her, and this time was no exception. But it was not their lovers’ laughter and muted voices, or the emptiness of her life with her Ethel gone, or her fear of dying alone that kept Mary awake that night. It was the noise through the floorboards of the rhythmic creaking of Ethel’s bed, as she cried herself to sleep.
Thirteen
Albert liked to tell Ethel that running The Junction was just like trying to navigate a destroyer across the North Atlantic. You would think you were ploughing through clear blue water, and a storm would blow up. You could hit mountainous seas when you least expected it.
Ethel and Annie were both at the helm in the tap room when they hit a squall in the middle of the evening session on the busiest Saturday of the year a week before Christmas. Annie was led by the hand through to the lounge to get the knees-up underway, Jack came to the hatch and ordered a round for everyone in the room, and the barrel went off. All within the space of five minutes.
Annie had lugged the Christmas box down the ladder from the loft, and Ethel had spent the morning decorating the tree, licking and gumming paper chains for the ceilings and draping some tinsel along the picture rails. Her belly was uncomfortable now after all the stretching and bending, and her back ached more than ever. They’d stood the tree in a bucket of water in the far corner of the lounge and slid it up against the little window facing the street. Annie and Albert had then wheeled the piano across the front to wedge it upright. They’d learned this trick from previous years. If you left the tree out in the middle of the room, Annie reckoned, or even tucked it in the corner behind the door as they tried once, drunks were forever stumbling and crashing into it. And then she spent all her time twisting baubles and fairies and little parcels and Santa Clauses back onto the branches and scratting up needles with a dustpan and brush. It got to be hard work by New Year and she couldn’t be doing with it.
Unlike the tap room, the lounge at The Junction was carpeted, and even had two plush scarlet drape curtains. The polished wooden bar ran the length of the room, there was a fine selection of spirits dispensed from gleaming optics, and the room was lit by a warm red crystal chandelier. Annie liked to think that the atmosphere in there was genteel and more suited to her customers with taste. It also had easy chairs and a dozen or so little round tables scattered around the room, mainly for couples who met the same friends on the same evening week in, week out. They would make each other laugh about all the petty things in their lives that gave them grief, and forget the dwindling ration coupons and the meagre pay packets for a while.
Annie set her port and lemon down onto the top of the piano and raised the lid. She kicked off her shoes under the tree, pulled out the stool, and lowered her weight onto it in as ladylike a fashion as she could. She paused for a second, as if trying to make a decision, then closed her eyes and launched into the tune she played first in her repertoire every Saturday evening. ‘You Made Me Love You’. It was Annie’s favourite. The room burst into song. This was why they had left their own four walls on this snowy dark night.
Ethel could swing her bulging belly round to get to the till and the crisps much easier with Annie playing landlady in the lounge. There was standing room only in the tap room on this evening. In fact there was no room at all. Any latecomer who tried to get in from the corridor was met by a wall of bodies. Jack pushed his way to the bar.
‘You should ’ave some mistletoe above this ’atch, love,’ he said. ‘’Ow about a kiss for Christmas?’
He leant through the hatch at Ethel, breathing stale beer and pipe smoke, and pouted his lips.
‘Be’ave yerself, Grandad,’ she replied. ‘Act your age. Pint of mild, is it?’
Ethel felt the panic rising in her throat as Jack twisted round to the room and asked every man on the bench in turn if he’d join him in a festive pint. This didn’t happen very often and there were no refusals. She made no attempt to count the shouts of mild, best bitter, or stout, so reached up for a glass and began pulling the first pint of best.
‘That’s eight best, I reckon, to start with, love,’ said Jack, ‘and three milds.’
He delved into his coat pocket and slapped a pound note onto a beer mat in front of her.
‘Give Annie a shout, Jack, please,’ said Ethel. ‘Uncle Albert’s not ’ere. He’s gone down the Legion playin’ billiards.’
‘Don’t be daft, lass, you’re alright,’ he told her. ‘She’s just nicely got goin’. You just keep linin’ ’em up, and I’ll round up some empties. It’s eight times one an’ three to start with. That’s ten bob for the bests.’
She set the first two down on the cloth for their heads to settle before topping them up, while Jack took hold of the empty pint glasses from outstretched arms and stacked them up on the bar. There was no time to rinse them out. But her wrist was almost too shaky to start pulling the third, when just gas and froth sputtered from the nozzle.
