I do, when I can,’ Angela said, ‘but I have other charity work nowadays – meetings I go to in the evenings. I’m only working here this evening because I have to finish a report on—’
‘Not too busy to go for a drink later, I hope?’ He looked at her and Angela was unsure what she could see in his eyes. ‘We really ought to talk …’
‘Oh …’ Angela hesitated and then inclined her head. ‘I should be finished by eight – if you want to meet somewhere?’
‘I’ll pick you up then and we’ll have supper at that pub by the river – we went there once before, if you remember?’
‘Yes, thank you,’ she agreed. ‘I shall be ready by eight and I’ll come down to the hall. It will be nice spending time with you again, Mark.’
‘Yes, I’ve missed our time together,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to this evening.’
‘Yes, me too,’ she said, giving him a smile as she watched him leave. It was time she started work on that report, yet she lingered for a moment, thinking about Mark and the way he’d always been there for her until Carole came between them.
As she put a sheet of paper into her typewriter, Angela’s thoughts turned to Kelly, the girl Muriel had complained about so bitterly. She was a pretty dark-haired girl and bright, always friendly when Angela saw her – so why was she proving so very unreliable?
‘Oh, Mammy,’ Kelly Mason said, looking at her mother as she sat slumped in her wooden rocking chair by the kitchen fire. The kitchen looked as if a bomb had hit it, and needed a really good clean. ‘Why didn’t you tell me if you were feeling ill again? I would have done all this last night. I can’t stop now or I’ll be late again and Nan … I mean Mrs Burrows, told me that she will have to let me go if I keep having time off.’
‘You get off then, my love,’ her mother sighed. ‘Make me a cup of tea first and then I’ll get up and see to the bairns.’
Kelly saw the weariness in her mother’s face and sighed inwardly, knowing that she couldn’t desert her mother when she was like this; getting the younger children ready for school would be too much for her. When Mammy started to tremble and took her tea with unsteady hands, Kelly knew there was nothing she could do but stay for another hour or so to see to the children before she left for her work at St Saviour’s.
Running upstairs to pull her siblings from their beds, Kelly was thinking about her job at the children’s home. She loved working there, even though she was only employed in the kitchens as a skivvy, washing up, scrubbing and helping Cook by peeling mounds of potatoes and chopping cabbage or scraping carrots. Sometimes, Kelly thought she would throw up if she saw another carrot covered in mud, because they had to be scrubbed under the tap in the scullery before she could peel them; she hated the ones with wormholes, especially if there was still something inside, and Cook was so fussy about her food. If she found one speck of dirt in the cabbage she made Kelly’s life a misery.
Her sister and brothers squealed as she yanked the covers off them and then physically ejected them from bed; they were lazy devils and did little or nothing to help Mammy, even though Cate was old enough at nine to help with the simple chores.
‘Get up and wash now,’ Kelly said crossly, ‘or you’ll get no breakfast. I’ve got to get to work and I can’t wait about for you. Mammy isn’t well this morning so you can do the washing up before you go to school.’
‘There’s no school today ’cos there’s a hole in the roof and we wus told not to go in,’ her brother Michael complained bitterly. ‘I ain’t goin’ ter get up yet, our Kelly. You’re mean to get on at us like you do.’
‘Well, you may have a day off but I don’t,’ Kelly said. ‘I’m not telling you again. There’ll be toast and dripping and a cup of milk for you downstairs. I’m leaving as soon as I’ve washed up the supper things – and if I find Mammy worse tonight because you didn’t help her, Cate, you’ll feel the back of my hand.’
‘I’ll help Mammy,’ Robbie said. He was only five but more serious than the others and she knew he tried but he couldn’t do much other than set the table or fetch things from the shop.
‘Thank you, Robbie love,’ Kelly said. ‘Make the others help her too and make sure she doesn’t do too much. I’ve got to hurry or I might lose my job.’ She didn’t earn much but even a few shillings extra helped to pay the rent and make sure there was coal for the fire.
She took Bethy from her cot and into the bathroom, washing her face and changing her nappy. Bethy was nearly three and still in nappies; it seemed she wouldn’t learn to use the potty or perhaps Mammy was too tired to train her into it as she had the others. She’d never really been well since the birth of her youngest child.
Kelly ran back downstairs, knowing that her younger sister would get up even if Michael did not. In the kitchen she settled Bethy in her high chair with a piece of bread and strawberry jam; toast was too hard for the little girl and she liked to suck on her bread until it was soft and she could swallow it without having to chew. Kelly wasn’t sure if the child was backward or simply lazy, like most of her family seemed to be. She herself seemed to take after her Irish grandmother who had brought up a family of twelve and never stopped working until she dropped down dead in her mid-fifties of a heart attack.
Almost an hour later, Kelly had fed the baby, brought a semblance of order to the kitchen and abandoned her brothers and sister to their quarrel over who should do what, as she grabbed her shabby coat and left the house. She saw a bus coming that would take her close to Halfpenny Street and ran to catch it, sighing with relief as the cheery conductor collected her fare. At least she was on her way to work and perhaps Nan would let her off as she was only a bit late …
Angela popped out at lunchtime to pick up some shopping, taking it back to her flat before returning to Halfpenny Street. In the heart of Spitalfields, the street was typical of others in the neighbourhood with its rundown houses and shabby commercial properties. St Saviour’s had started life as a grand Georgian house with gardens at the rear and three floors plus attics above, but it had long ago lost its air of grandeur. People of all nationalities lived and worked in the surrounding streets, which had once formed part of the prosperous silk district, populated first by émigré Huguenots. In later years many Jewish synagogues and businesses had taken the silk merchants’ place, and they in turn had moved on as a variety of new, much poorer inhabitants flooded in. Even on a lovely September day, the street looked grimy and most of the buildings were dilapidated, but what had for a time been the old fever hospital was now a place of hope for the children who lived there. The window frames and doors had recently been painted and it looked more cheerful now that the attic windows were no longer boarded up, the roof space having been turned into two large offices.
On her return, Angela met Staff Nurse Michelle coming downstairs with a tray of dirty cups and plates as she entered the hall, and stopped to speak to her.
‘Is Muriel still behind? I think Nan gave her a hand earlier as Kelly Mason was late again …’
‘Kelly is having a bad time at home,’ Michelle said with a sympathetic look on her pretty face. She was a striking girl with midnight black hair and a pearly complexion. ‘Have a word with her before you think of sacking her, Angela. She isn’t lazy. I think it’s just that her mother can’t manage without her help.’
‘Give me the tray, Michelle. I know you have better things to do upstairs.’
Angela carried the tray through to the kitchen and discovered Kelly talking with one of the newer carers, Tilly. They were sitting at a table drinking tea and seemed intent on their talk until she entered, but their conversation died and she fancied Kelly looked a bit apprehensive.
‘Don’t let me interrupt you,’ she said. ‘I came in the hope of a cup of tea.’