Bone Street/Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
MARTHALICE
BRADLEY returned to Hinchcliffe’s after putting Jack to bed. This had been a delicious joke between father and son. Jack’s sleepiness had been part of the fun, so Bradley was enabled to pretend that the boy was a baby again, and Jack to allow himself to be laid on the bed and undressed by his father without any loss of dignity. He caught his father’s eye with a chuckle, and then wriggled the squalid bedclothes into comfortable folds round his neck, and was asleep in twenty seconds, the smile not fading from his face. And the smile copied itself in the father’s face as he again entered Hinchcliffe’s living-room; Granny Hinchcliffe looked for it, and found more than she had hoped.
“Sit tha dahn, lad,” she said. “Let’s talk it over; he’s a grand lad, and a bonny lad, but he’ll spoil if tha doesn’t brighten up a bit at hoam. Ezra and me has been talking it over, and we’ll be glad and willing to help tha.”
Bradley put up his hand in complete surrender.
“Ah’ve been thinking what I could do every minute of this day,” he replied. “Ye knaw, missus, when ahr Mary deed, three years sin’, Ah got that Ah couldn’t bear to be in yon house alone, an’ ther wor nowheer to goa but t’pub. An’ Ah couldn’t bear another woman abaht t’place, an’ besides, Ah haven’t that much wage. So Ah tried to manage by misen. Ah’ve made a poor business of it, but it isn’t all t’drink, missus. If once Ah can get straight, Ah can keep off t’ale.”
“Nah then, then,” said sensible Granny Hinchcliffe. “Let’s mak’ a start wi’ t’house. It’ll want some cleaning reight, Ah’m sure Ah doan’t knaw hah thar’s managed so long. But Ah’ll tell tha what we’ll do. Ah’ll get ahr Marthalice to come in and straighten up a bit. Such as papering and whitewashing tha can do thisen, an’ then she can clean t’house up after thi, an’ tha’ll be cap’t what a difference a clean house can mak’. She won’t want much: a shilling or two, happen. Ezra,” she added, “thee slip dahn an’ fetch ahr Marthalice.”
“Nah then, we’re getting our orders,” said Ezra, with a humorous smile at Bradley to forestall his possible protest, and off he went.
Martha Alice, or Marthalice as she was universally called, was forty-five years of age: stout, and big of bone, and was what you might call a bustling woman. She had reared three children on her husband’s wage of twenty-five shillings a week; and when he had died six months previously, leaving her with a baby eighteen months old, she was sorely put to it to live, but she eked out the full time wages of her two elder girls by cleaning and taking in washing, in addition to which she would look in at her mother’s an hour or two every day to help with the housework there, for Granny Hinchcliffe was almost crippled with rheumatism.
A year of her life would have killed many women, yet she found time to perform more neighbourly kindnesses than any other woman in Bone Street, where the chief virtue is human sympathy, and where a dead-level of poverty makes all men brothers in a manner which comfortable people, aloof from each other’s affairs, never understand. Hardly a baby in the street had not been left for Marthalice to look after some time while the mother was out at work, or on some business or pleasure. “Bring t’bairn in,” she was wont to say. “One or two more mak’s no difference.”
Marthalice was now, as it were, an alderman of Bone Street. Her front house on the best side of the street was of the roomiest type, containing two bedrooms and an attic. Never was a house so swept and garnished, and yet her readiness to lend a hand to her neighbours showed no signs of decreasing.
When Bradley’s case was explained to her, she accepted the task readily, and in five minutes the bargain was struck.
“Ah can’t come to-morrow,” said Marthalice, “cos it’s wash day. Ah’ll come Tuesday. Ye get a bit of papering and whitewashing done, an’ get soap an’ soda, an’ Ah’ll come over t’minnit Ah’ve getten straight.”
And so it was agreed, to the entire contentment of Granny Hinchcliffe, and when, after another pipe and a little desultory talk, Bradley departed for home, he was aware that he had enjoyed the respect and friendly regard of the Hinchcliffes, and henceforth their sitting-room was free to him, after the easy custom of Bone Street.
“Off wi’ tha then,” said Granny Hinchcliffe, on parting, “an’ mind tha doesn’t wake t’lad.”
Jack awoke first next morning. It was half-past seven, but Bradley worked on the night turn, and his first shift would commence that night at five-thirty. Jack crawled over his father, gathered up his clothes and went downstairs. He pattered across the stone floor in his naked feet, collected some chips, and laid the fire, which grew and gave forth warmth. He went to the tap and partly filled the big iron kettle, setting it on to boil. This would take some time, so he felt himself at leisure. With a feeling of invoking the gods which had blessed him yesterday, he again approached the sink, and lifting down the great earthenware bowl, set it on the floor, and filled it with cold water by means of a lading can. He took off his shirt and kneeling down washed himself to the waist. He then stepped gingerly into the bowl and stood upright to wash his loins and thighs. Ugh! it was cold, and there was not much room, but first standing on his right leg to wash the left foot, then on the left leg to wash the right foot, marked with pride the change in the colour of the water. He reached over to put the soap back on the sink. His foot slipped ever so slightly on the soapy glaze of the bowl; he staggered wildly to recover his balance, and failed; the boy and bowl overturned on to the floor, and a glorious cataract fled down the cellar steps.
Somewhat sobered, Jack got up and examined the damage. The bowl was unhurt: that was the main point; the water would find its way into the cellar, and dry up in time. So he seized the smutty roller-towel which hung behind the door, and dried himself as far as its tether would allow him. After considerable acrobatic feats, he managed to dry even his feet and legs, and returned, cheerful and clean, once more into the room to dress.
The fire was now full grown, and Jack glowed all over his body. His ragged clothes troubled him, but yet blessed with comfort, as clothes do after cold water, even in August.
What was there for breakfast? Bread and dripping. A brilliant idea occurred to him: he would vary the programme. He cut several slices of bread; reached down an old wire toasting-fork, a remnant of the days when the Bradleys’ meals had been more interesting, and set himself to make toast. He toasted six slices, and then the kettle boiled. Jack put his toast on the fire-shelf, hurriedly slipped the tea into the can, and ran to call his father.
“Dad!” he shouted, “breakfast’s ready.”
A prompt bump told him his father was rising, and two minutes later he came downstairs. There was no question of ill-temper this morning. Father and son grinned understanding at each other, and they sat down at table as old friends might do, without a word save “Smells all reight” from Bradley, and “Aye” from the boy. Bradley picked up a piece of toast, spread it with dripping, lightly sprinkled it with salt, crushed it double, and bit deeply. After munching a couple of minutes he announced:
“We’re going to clean dahn.”
Jack silently adjusted his ideas.
“Did ta enjoy thisen yesterday?” continued Bradley, seeking an opportunity to explain the position. “Aye,” said Jack. “An’ reight,” he added, feeling some emphasis to be necessary.
“Well, we’re going to pull up. Things hessn’t been reight in this house, an’ they’re going to be different. Granny Hinchcliffe’s Marthalice is coming in to-morrow to straighten up a bit for us, and thee and me’s going to do some papering to-day, so tha can mak’ up thi mind to have t’place upset for a bit. An’ more than that. Tha’ll be going on half-time in a month, so Ah’ll try to get a job on t’day turn, an’ then tha won’t be so lonely at neets. An’ tha can read to me at neets instead of me getting ale at t’pub.” Bradley, suddenly abashed by his second long speech in three years, actually blushed.
“By gum it’ll be grand at nights with thee at home,” was all Jack, smitten with shyness, could find to say.
It was still school holidays for Jack, so immediately after breakfast man and boy set off to the Town Hall, where an enlightened and efficient, but only too impotent, Health Department gave citizens the free loan of a whitewash brush on their undertaking to return it in good condition. On the way home they turned into a paperhanger’s, and after some delightful anxiety of indecision, bought ten rolls of paper of a sufficiently bright and interesting pattern. Arriving home, Jack was sent first to Mrs. Hinchcliffe’s for a few pounds of flour for paste and the loan of a pair of scissors, and then, with a pail, to a neighbouring plasterer’s yard for three pennyworth of lime. Then the fun began.
There were few irritating preliminaries, in the way of pictures to take down or furniture to cover, and Bradley dragged the table into one corner of the room, and stood upon it, brandishing his brush. Jack, sitting on a stool by the fender, trimmed off the selvedge on one side of every roll of paper, and gave due audience to his father, who started off in fine style, lifting his brush and shedding a feathery line of drops from the arc of its path. Unfortunately he had to work with his hand raised so that the lime ran down his sleeve. This, he felt, cramped his style. Moreover, he had to raise his face to watch his work and——With a roar he jumped off the table, feeling as if his eye had been burned out.
After the necessary Red-Cross work, Bradley decided that the futurist method did not suit his particular genius. Again he dipped his brush in the pail, but only a little way; then patted it against the side, lifted it gently, and drew it across three feet of ceiling with an exaggerated care for the benefit of Jack. Soon he was adept, but for all that there was nearly as much lime on the floor, table, walls, and Bradley, as there was on the ceiling when the job was finished. Upstairs the work was more exciting, because the table could not be coaxed up the narrow staircase and the stance was built up of a chair and a stool. Here Jack’s help had to be called in to hold up the bucket when required.
As they worked they chattered on the happiest of terms; of the present, the future and the past—as far back as yesterday. Further back was ignored by mutual consent. Jack talked of the promise of his father’s words at breakfast. In another month he was to be a half-timer; he would have a job and earn money. Which meant he must have an outfit. He would have a white harden smock—a garment something like a sweater—and corduroy pants. So another pair of clogs would join the modern mill-race which scurried up Bone Street at ten minutes to six in the morning. For Jack the prospect held nothing but glory. In the streets where he played, the half-timer lorded it over his younger fellows, had frequent pence for hot pies and green peas when the old barrow-man’s cracked voice split the dusk; wore long trousers instead of “three-quarters” and wound a twisted cotton handkerchief round his neck.
The half-past-twelve hooter warned them of dinnertime, just as the bedroom ceiling was nearly finished, and Jack was sent off to Hinchcliffe’s for half a pound of corned beef. He did not stay to wash—he wanted to show himself off in his spotted condition. He wanted the whole street to know they were cleaning down.
After dinner they began the difficult business of paper-hanging, but the lack of a table big enough for pasting, their own incompetence and, the fact that Jack had cut the selvedge from different sides of the rolls, made it a slow business. At three o’clock they had not half finished the kitchen, but there was a meal to make and the cleaning up to be done. Jack punted the tangle of curling selvedges into a heap and crammed the whole lot into the fire-place, where it blazed up the chimney, while his father gathered up the rolls of paper, paste, etc., and put them under the bed for safety. Tea was prepared and eaten and food packed up in a cotton handkerchief for the two meals Bradley would need in the night.
“Tha mun go to bed soon toneet, lad, and put t’alarm on. Ah’ll do a bit more in the morning afore I go to bed, and a bit every morning till it’s done. Good neet, lad. Ah’ll speak to the gaffer to see about getting me a day job, and happen we’ll be able to be together a bit more now.”
He looked at the lad hungrily, and Jack responded with a kiss, the first for many years.
“Good night, dad.”