Kathleen, February 1932
‘The British Empire,’ intoned Miss Price, ‘is one of the wonders of the world, a great achievement of which we must all be proud.’
Chalk dust flew off the blackboard as she wrote, in her neat copperplate handwriting: ‘Australia, Canada, Africa, the West Indies, Burma and India . . .’
Georgie Harwood put up his hand.
It was as if she had eyes in the back of her head, because she said, without turning around: ‘Yes, George, what is it this time?’
‘Miss, India wants independence, don’t it, miss?’
‘Well, yes, George, perhaps it does but the Empire is a very good thing and we don’t want to let it go now, do we?’
‘My dad says—’
‘That is quite enough, George,’ said Miss Price curtly. ‘This is St Patrick’s Catholic School not a meeting of the local trade union.’ She emphasized those two words, to signal her distaste.
‘But, it is true, Miss!’ he protested.
‘That is quite enough!’
She slammed her hand down on the desk, breaking her chalk in two in the process. The class gasped.
‘Come here,’ she said. Her eyes were like little grey stones behind her glasses. Kathleen thought she was really quite a horrid teacher, though she had her favourites, and her sister Peggy was one of them.
George got out of his seat and walked slowly, very slowly, to the front of the class.
‘Hand out,’ said Miss Price, pulling a wooden ruler from her desk drawer. He obeyed, mutely. She brought the ruler down three times on the palm of his fat little hand, each time saying, ‘Do not interrupt!’
As he turned back to face the class, Kathleen could see that he was fighting back tears. Feeling sorry for poor George, who was really quite handsome with his blue eyes and blond hair, she smiled at him. He blushed.
Silly Georgie Harwood. He was always butting in. It was all his father’s fault. He was a shop steward working on the docks and had got a lot to say for himself. George spent most his life repeating it to anyone who would listen.
Daddy seemed to like Mr Harwood and said he was a good fellow, but Mum said the family thought they were a cut above because they lived on the other side of the Waterloo Road, in Roupell Street, known as ‘White Curtain Street’. That meant they thought they were a bit better than folks from Howley Terrace, really. They did jobs in offices and things like that. One of them even had a car, which Kathleen’s brothers, Jim and Frankie, thought was the most terrific thing ever.
None of it seemed to do George any good at school because he was always getting whacked with that ruler for talking. Why couldn’t he just be quiet and let Miss Price get on with the lesson? She was a right old bossyboots and Kathleen had learned it was better to keep your mouth shut. She suppressed a cough because it would only annoy Miss Price further. Her throat had been hurting her for weeks now and although Mum did treat it with honey and lemon juice at first, that had run out and there was no way they could afford more. She swallowed, feeling as if someone was scratching the inside of her throat with their fingernails.
At least while the teacher was busy writing on the blackboard Kathleen was able to spend some time gazing out at the playground below and dreaming of her future up in the theatres of the West End. The tall buildings on the other side of the water were silhouetted against the darkening sky of a winter’s afternoon but she knew that over there, up in the West End, was where her future lay. She would get a starring role, yes, she would. She’d been getting Eva and Frankie to do cartwheels and tumble turns while she worked on her role as the main attraction, the Sheikh of Araby. The question was, would she be able to borrow Mum’s best tea towel and show Gladys from down the road her new act, without getting into trouble?
‘Stop daydreaming, Kathleen!’ shouted Miss Price, bringing her back to reality and the main exports of the British Empire. ‘Pay attention or you won’t be playing piano in assembly tomorrow!’
Kathleen sat bolt upright. She lived to play that piano, once a week. It was a big old thing, standing in the corner of the hall, and it made her feel special because she was the only one of the children who was allowed to touch it. It had ‘John Broadwood and Sons’ written on it in gold lettering above the keyboard and it was really quite old. The ivories were worn and cracked but she didn’t mind about that. She even forgave it for going a semitone out of key in the hot weather.
Kathleen copied in her exercise book, in her best handwriting: ‘Oil in the East and sugar in the West Indies, gold from Africa, rubber from Malaya and copper from Burma.’
As she finished, she couldn’t help noticing that George Harwood was staring at her.
When Kathleen got home, a cart was pulled up outside, with a horse snuffling in its nosebag of oats, while the tallyman drank a cup of tea in the scullery. His hair was slicked back, revealing gaunt cheekbones, and his yellowing teeth were visible as he sipped. Kathleen couldn’t help staring at him. He pulled his wares from his special suitcase which seemed to have hidden pockets stuffed with surprises. Mum bought some clothes pegs and was admiring two crisp white tea towels.
‘But I can’t afford them, so don’t tempt me,’ she said, pouring him another cup.
‘Oh, come now, Mrs Fraser,’ he said, his little brown eyes dancing with delight. ‘You know I can put it all in my little book and hubby need never find out.’
He tapped his nose with the side of a slender nicotine-stained finger. Mum smiled. The tallyman seemed to be the only visitor to their home who could bring a smile to her face. Kathleen noticed that it made her look years younger. He pulled a stubby little pencil from the breast pocket of his waistcoat, which was buttoned up tight and straining slightly, and licked it before writing down everything she had bought in his little red notebook. And, more importantly, what she owed. The tea towels, meanwhile, had found their way, as if by magic, into the drawer of the kitchen table.
To Kathleen their whole life seemed to be attached by invisible strings to these male visitors with their little books whom she had known since she was a baby: the insurance man, the rent man, the tallyman. All of them came and went when her father was not present and she never talked about the men in front of him. It wasn’t that Mum had told her not to; it just didn’t seem right or as if he needed to know, in fact. It was an unspoken thing: that her mother could trust her not to say anything.
Eva came hurtling through the door into the kitchen, with Frankie in hot pursuit.
‘You two,’ said Kathleen, ‘have got work to do with me!’ She ushered them out into the yard and after ten minutes’ rehearsal they came back into the kitchen, where Mum was spreading some margarine on slices of bread for their tea.
Kathleen put her hand to her throat again. It was still painful but she wasn’t going to let it ruin her big moment. She didn’t feel much like eating either. While her mother’s back was turned, she whipped one of the precious new tea towels from the kitchen drawer and fastened it around her head.
‘Ta-da!’ she chimed, announcing the start of her show.
‘Oh, my good Lord! Whatever next?’ Mum cried, in fake surprise. Of course she’d known from the start that Kathleen was up to something, but she played along because she knew how much it meant to her to perform.
Kathleen began to sing, shimmying across the scullery: ‘Well, I’m the Sheikh of Araby and your love belongs to me . . .’
Frankie dashed in and turned a cartwheel, narrowly avoiding the kitchen table and Eva chose this moment to follow him and jump down into the splits. With the tea towel slipping down over her eyes, Kathleen continued: ‘At night, when you’re asleep, into your tent, I’ll creep . . .’
But she didn’t get any further because she tripped over the giggling mass of legs and arms on the scullery floor.
Mum applauded wildly. ‘Oh, that was lovely! Wait till Nanny Day sees that. She’ll have you sold off to the circus.’
‘It would be better if we had music,’ said Kathleen apologetically, taking a deep bow.
Margaret was still humming the tune to herself as she tucked the children up in bed that night. Kathleen complained that her legs and arms were hurting now. Margaret muttered to herself that she should have gone to the chemist and got her a tonic at least, but she said a prayer over her. As she made her way downstairs, the guilt of not getting Kathleen to the doctor weighed on her. It was just the cost of it all. Later on, she checked the girls and then fell into a fitful sleep but was woken in the small hours by Eva standing at her bedside.
‘It’s Kathleen. She’s gone and wet the bed,’ said Eva, hopping from one foot to the other. ‘Everything is soaking.’
Kathleen was twelve and her bedwetting days were long gone. Margaret sat bolt upright. James was still sleeping soundly next to her. He was so dog-tired after a day in the factory that it would take an earthquake to wake him. She lit a candle and ran upstairs and found Kathleen thrashing about in a heap of bedclothes. She put a hand to her forehead. It was burning up. She ran back downstairs into the scullery and plunged one of her precious new tea towels into a bowl of cold water standing in the sink. Margaret brought it upstairs, laid it on her daughter’s burning forehead and said three Hail Marys. Kathleen opened her eyes and croaked: ‘It hurts everywhere.’
There was nothing for it. James would have to fetch the doctor. They had paid into the Friendly Society for basic medical care from the doctor when they needed it but this would cost extra, being a night-time visit. James, still in a sleep stupor, pulled on his clothes and his boots and went off into the night, returning half an hour later with the doctor, carrying his big, black leather bag. The doctor was a tall man, so tall that he had to stoop to avoid banging his head on the lintel over the doorway to the little bedroom. He pulled out a stethoscope and listened to Kathleen’s chest before taking her temperature, which he said was very high indeed.
‘It’s the fever, Mrs Fraser, rheumatic fever most likely,’ he said. ‘We will get her moved off to hospital at first light. Just try to keep her cool for the next few hours.’
Eva had no idea what the rheumatic fever was but she no longer cared that she’d been woken up by Kathleen and regretted that she had ever found her annoying or tweaked her plaits as she slept because she was so pretty and it wasn’t fair. Eva only cared about her sister and whether she would ever get better. And when she did, she would be the best sister to Kathleen. In fact, she made her mind up there and then: she would get her a piano so she could sing all her favourite songs and have music and be in a show up in the West End.