Child on the Doorstep

‘It’s like a story, isn’t it?’ she said to Connie.

Connie nodded happily. ‘It’s nice knowing about your family, even if bad things happened like my uncles drowning in the Atlantic Ocean when their ship went down. Anyway Granny said she’ll tell me more tonight after Mammy’s gone to work.’

‘Chapter Two tomorrow then,’ said Sarah.

That night Connie rushed through her jobs and had only just got settled before the fire when she said, ‘Granny, did Mammy miss her own mammy?’

Mary shook her head. ‘She was too young,’ she said. ‘I know sometimes as she was growing up she felt bad she couldn’t remember her family. She used to study the picture – you know, the one on the sideboard.’

‘The one of my grandparents on their wedding day,’ Connie said. ‘Mammy told me that much. They wore funny clothes.’

‘It was the style then,’ Mary said.

‘It was a shame Mammy couldn’t remember anything about either of them,’ Connie said. ‘I know a little bit of how that feels because I can’t remember my daddy. I’m glad as well that I have a picture so I know what he looked like. But that’s all, so it’s good that Mammy at least knew what her parents looked like.’

‘Yes, that’s why she was so taken with the locket.’ Mary stopped suddenly and Connie watched a crimson flush flood over her grandmother’s face. She had never intended to mention the locket because it brought back that distressing time when Angela was forced to do that almost unforgivable thing. Maybe Angela was right and the past should be left in the past.

However, Connie didn’t connect her grandmother’s odd behaviour with anything she said, she thought rather that she was having some sort of seizure.

‘Granny,’ she said. ‘Are you all right?’

And when Mary didn’t answer she put her hand on her grandmother’s shoulder and said again, ‘Granny, is anything the matter?’

Connie’s touch and anxious voice roused Mary, who knew that now she had mentioned the locket she had to give Connie some explanation. She looked at her beloved granddaughter and said, ‘No, I’m fine. Sometimes memories crowd in my mind and just then I remembered how upset your mother was when she lost the locket, for it meant so much to her.’

‘I’ve never heard of it before.’

‘That would be why,’ Mary said. ‘It was beautiful and bought by your grandfather and given to your grandmother on their wedding day. Your grandmother gave it into my keeping when I took charge of Angela and said if anything happened to them I was to give it to Angela on her wedding day.’

‘And you did.’

‘Of course,’ Mary said. ‘Your mammy was moved to tears to be holding something in her hand that had once belonged to her mother.’

‘And she lost it?’

‘Yes,’ Mary said. ‘Maybe the clasp was faulty or something. But, however it happened, she lost it on the way home from the munitions one night.’

‘Oh, I bet she was upset,’ Connie said. ‘Did she look for it, or inform the police or something?’

‘Oh, I can’t remember the details of what she did now,’ Mary said somewhat vaguely. ‘But I believe she tried all ways to recover it.’

Mary thought of the locket, left in the care of the tiny baby on the workhouse steps, the only reminder of the mother who gave her away.

‘Ah, someone will have picked it up and pocketed it with no idea what it means to the person who lost it,’ Connie said. ‘Was there anything inside?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Mary. ‘There was a miniature of the picture on the sideboard, your grandparents’ wedding day, and in the other side some ringlets from your mammy’s hair tied tight with a red ribbon, for she had perfect ringlets just as you do.’

‘Oh, I wish she still had it.’

‘It was supposed to come to you on your wedding day.’

‘Oh,’ said Connie, surprised at the disappointment she felt that this wouldn’t happen now. It wasn’t as if she remembered ever even seeing the locket.

‘Don’t ever mention the locket to your mother though,’ Mary warned.

Connie shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t. She must have been upset when she lost it and it would just make her sad. What did she do in the munitions? I know she worked there. I remember that and you used to take me to the nursery and then to school, but she doesn’t like talking about what she did.’

‘She made shells,’ Mary said. ‘It was in a very hot, noisy, smelly factory. They couldn’t wear anything metal that might cause a spark as that could easily cause an explosion – everything metal, even hair grips, had to be removed. Your mammy used to leave her wedding ring and locket here in the end.’

It was on the tip of Connie’s tongue to ask, if her mammy had left the locket at home, how had she managed to lose it coming home from the munitions. She actually opened her mouth to ask, but she was forestalled for Mary went on, ‘I was on at her to leave there at first, get something not so dangerous, but she said, though she hated doing it, there was a desperate shortage of shells. In the end though, she was seldom in the factory for they taught her to drive and she used to drive the lorries all over the country.’

‘Golly, did she?’ Connie said and she thought of her mother who, despite the fact she pulled pints at the pub, and cleaned there too, was so essentially a housewife and a mother and yet she had this quite exciting past. She thought of her behind the wheel of some of the big trucks chugging along Bristol Street and somehow the image didn’t seem to fit.

‘I find it hard to think of Mammy doing that.’

‘Oh she did,’ Mary said. ‘And at first I was pleased that she was out of the smelly factory, but then I thought that driving those shells all over the place was no safer than making them in the first place. Really, in a war of that magnitude, people, and not just soldiers, had to be prepared to take risks and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing in peacetime. And of course it was very well paid and that was important for your mother.’

‘Yes,’ Connie said with a slight sigh. ‘So she could save some of it for my secondary education.’

‘Yes, but more than that, she’s thinking of university.’

Connie could hardly believe her ears. ‘But, Granny, people like me don’t go to university.’

Mary nodded. ‘I agree, but what stops them if they have the brains to pass the exams?’

‘Cost, I suppose.’

‘And what if your mother could afford to send you?’

‘How? Just how big is this nest egg?’

‘Not that big,’ Mary said. ‘But your mother has something else.’

‘What?’

‘Your mother left school at fourteen and went to work for a grocer, by the name of George Maitland,’ Mary said. ‘Angela loved serving in the shop and all and was so pleasant and hardworking George said she was a godsend and I think he felt quite paternal towards her. She was there before she married Barry and after, till just a few weeks before you were born. George paid good money, especially for a girl in those days, and sent home a big basket of groceries every week too. He was very good to us and Angela was quite fond of him. He died suddenly just after your father enlisted and, though his shop and all went to his wife, he left some of his mother’s jewellery to Angela.’

‘He gave some of his mother’s jewellery to Mammy?’ Connie almost squealed in excitement. ‘Is it valuable?’

‘I’d say it must be worth something for it to be lodged in the bank for safe-keeping. The bank manager was anxious for Angela to see it and give him instructions as to what she wanted to do with it. However, Angela couldn’t get there in normal opening hours for she was by then working long hours in the munitions, so the bank manager opened the bank especially so she could see what George had left her.’

‘You went into a bank?’ Connie said incredulously.

‘I did,’ Mary said. ‘I went to support Angela, for she didn’t want to go on her own and no wonder. Going into the bank in the normal way of things would have been nerve-wracking enough, but as the bank was opened especially just for us we were the only ones in there. Tell you, our boots sounded very loud on those marble floors and the lofty domed ceilings seemed to be miles away, and all around us were gleaming high counters with grilles in front of them. It was all very grand and I don’t know how your mammy felt, but I was very uncomfortable.’

‘But you saw the jewellery?’

Mary nodded. ‘The bank manager took us into a special room for that.’

‘And so what did you think of it?’

‘It was very fine.’

‘Is that all you can say?’ Connie said, disappointed.

‘What d’you want me to say?’ Mary said. ‘I know nothing about jewellery and this was during the war nine or ten years ago and I have never set eyes on any of it since. Anyway, that’s what the bank manager said when Angela asked him if any of it was valuable. He said he didn’t know the absolute value of it, because he wasn’t a jeweller, but he did say there were some fine pieces there. He offered to get them valued, but your mammy said not to bother, that she could make no decision till the war was over and your daddy was back home. Till then she was leaving them in the bank.’

‘But he didn’t come home.’

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Mary with a sigh. ‘But she had a plan for what to do with it anyway, for she told me. And if he had survived the war, Barry would have supported her, for all that pair thought about was you.’

‘What was the plan?’

‘To sell most of the jewellery to enable you to go as far as you were able in your education and save a couple of the prettiest pieces to give you on your wedding day in place of the locket. There,’ said Mary. ‘I probably wasn’t meant to tell you that, but the damage is done now.’

‘I’m glad I know,’ Connie said. ‘But I wish Mammy wasn’t so set on this. I really don’t think I am that brainy and, even if I was, I don’t want all this money spent on me. It’s her money, she’s earned it, and I would rather she spent it on herself and wore the jewellery someone was kind enough to leave her in a will or whatever. I’m sure that’s what this George Maitland intended. I bet he never imagined for one minute that she would plan to sell it all and give all the money made to someone else.’

‘I agree with you,’ Mary said. ‘But I doubt you will ever get your mother to see things that way. Educating you seems to be her life’s work.’

‘I know,’ Connie agreed gloomily. ‘And I suppose I must accept it, unless of course at the end I turn out to be a real dumb cluck and she can see for herself that funding further education would be money wasted.’

‘There is a saying that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,’ Mary said.

‘Of course you can’t,’ Connie said. ‘And that’s what Mammy is trying to do, make me out to be someone I’m not and someone I don’t want to be either.’

However, they knew all the talking under the sun would not change Angela’s opinion once her mind was made up.

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