LITMIR.BIZ

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be the children. Now you give young Terry here three pounds ten shillings and that will enable Meg to pay off any tick and still have enough. And now Terry …’ Robert drew his own wage packet from his pocket and withdrew two half-crowns from it, ‘… this is for Meg to help pay off the arrears.’

      Charlie might have protested more about the amount he’d been made to hand over, but before the determined eyes of his brothers and the resentful ones of his son, he could hardly do that, especially as his eldest brother had put his hand in his pocket to help them all.

      Meg was astounded at what Terry had done and enormously grateful to both him and their uncle Robert. She immediately added seven and six to her uncle’s five shillings and put it away in the box with the rent book. She also set aside the amount of tick she had run up at Moorcroft’s, intending to pay it off first thing in the morning.

      The following morning, Meg was able to pay the rent and five shillings of the arrears. Richard marked it all in the book but emphasised he would want the same every week until all the arrears were paid off. Meg decided she would be only too glad to keep her dealings with him to the minimum each week. He had stroked her hand in a rather unpleasant way as he handed back the rent book, and he had a slow way of looking at her that made her feel uncomfortable.

      Early the next morning Meg meeting May in the yard told her what Terry had done, and of her uncle’s generosity. May was pleased something had been sorted out and she said, ‘let me give you a bit of advice. Spend as much of the money your father gave you as you can, because towards the end of the week when he is running out of beer money he may take any you have left off you. He will be unable to do that if you have bought food with it.’

      Meg saw the sense in that and with the children looking after Ruth she went along to Moorcrofts and paid what she owed. Mindful of her neighbour’s words, Meg came back with brimming baskets of food. ‘I’ve not bought many vegetables and only a bit of meat,’ she told May who popped in to see how she’d got on. ‘Because I think they are cheaper in the Bull Ring’

      ‘I agree with you,’ May said. ‘Are you leaving little Ruth here? I’ll mind her for you if you like.’

      ‘Thanks, May, but I mean to take her with me,’ Meg said. ‘She was difficult to settle just now, and a pram ride will probably send her off nicely. Anyway, I can pack all the stuff I buy around Ruth; she barely fills a quarter of that enormous pram.’

      ‘Aye,’ said May with a grin. ‘She looks lost in it right enough.’

      ‘You can give an eye to the others if you like,’ Meg said, settling Ruth in the pram. ‘Terry’s in charge, but Billy plays it up sometimes, as you know, and Sally and Jenny can fight. They’ve been warned – not that that will make any difference.’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ May said, and added with another grin, ‘I will be in with my big stick if I think it necessary. Now you get yourself away.’

      Meg smiled as she wrapped Ruth in a lighter shawl, as the day was a warm one. It was a fair step, but it was a pleasant day for a walk, warm but with a breeze, and as Meg set off at a lick along Bristol Street, she reflected on how good it felt to have enough money in her purse to feed them all that week, and pay something off the rent arrears as well, though she did wonder if Terry would be able to get money off their father every week in the same way. Still, she chided herself as she turned into Bromsgrove Street, why worry about things before they happen?

      She pushed the pram down the incline through the teeming mass of people and into the Bull Ring itself. Ruth slept peacefully, not disturbed in any way by the bumpy, cobbled streets or the clamour of the people. The flower sellers were lining the railings that enclosed the statue of Nelson, and the fragrant smell hung in the late summer air as Meg passed the vast array of stalls. Those selling bedding, curtain material, cookery and kitchen utensils, antiques and junk were interspersed with others selling vegetables, fruit, fish, meat and cheese, and the smell of those rose in the air as well.

      She had bought quite a few good-value vegetables and was just reaching for a cabbage from one of the vegetable stalls when someone beside her said, ‘Hello. Margaret, isn’t it?’

      Meg swung round and her big dark eyes met the merry ones of the girl she had met at Lewis’s in July. Just before Meg was due to leave school that summer, Miss Carmichael had encouraged her to apply for somewhere more upmarket than the factories or domestic service and Meg had managed to get an interview at Lewis’s, a city centre department store. Although she had done well at the interview, events with her mother had prevented her actually taking the job. But here was the girl with the head of dark brown curls who had put her at her ease that day with her wide smile and friendly chatter. Meg remembered thinking that her name perfectly matched her character.

      ‘Yes,’ Meg grinned back. ‘Joy, isn’t it?’

      ‘I say,’ Joy said, indicating the slumbering baby in the pram. ‘Not yours, is she?’

      ‘Not in the way you mean,’ Meg said.

      ‘It’s just that when I asked about you, Mrs Matherson in the office said you wouldn’t be able to take up your place at Lewis’s due to personal circumstances.’

      Meg nodded. ‘Fact is, my mother started in labour the next day, only she haemorrhaged and died, but they were able to save the baby.’

      ‘Oh God,’ Joy cried. ‘You poor cow.’

      ‘It was a terrible time,’ Meg said. ‘Still is, I suppose, because I miss my mother so much.’

      ‘I bet,’ Joy said. ‘I would miss mine loads. And you are landed with the baby?’

      Meg shrugged. ‘Wasn’t something I chose but there was no one else. But it isn’t only the baby. I have a brother, Terry, who is two years younger than me, two sisters, Jenny and Sally, and my youngest brother, little Billy, who is going on for five. Oh, and a dad who is like a lost soul and who has taken to the bottle.’

      ‘Typical man, then,’ Joy said. ‘And I will say it again. I think you are a poor cow.’ She glanced at her watch suddenly and said, ‘I have to get back; I’m only on my lunch hour. Nice to see you again.’

      Oh, yes, it was nice, Meg thought. She missed her old school friends and envied them as she saw them tripping down the street arm in arm, sharing confidences or else laughing and joking together as they made their way to the pictures or a dance somewhere.

      But her life was totally different from that of most girls her age, and money was a constant problem. She watched Joy threading her way through the stalls in the Bull Ring and turned regretfully to continue her shopping.

      She didn’t bother telling any of the others about meeting Joy, and anyway, Terry had news of his own. He announced he had taken on a paper round.

      ‘A paper round?’ Meg repeated. ‘Who gets their papers delivered around here?’

      ‘It’s not round here,’ Terry said. ‘It’s Neil’s uncle’s. You know Neil Drummond.’

      ‘Drummond Stores,’ Meg said. ‘His sister, Claire, was in my class. She said it’s at the far end of Bristol Street.’

      ‘It is,’ Terry said, ‘not far from where the big houses start – and that’s where they deliver papers, the big houses.’

      ‘It will be one hell of a trek for you,’ Meg said.

      Terry shrugged. ‘Don’t care about that,’ he said. ‘It’s half a crown a week, Meg.’

      Meg lifted the baby from the pram and started to feed her as Terry went on, ‘As long as I can get a decent amount of money from Dad before he blows it in the pub, the money I earn will help to pay off the rent arrears.’

      Meg’s sigh of relief was audible – she hated to be beholden in any way to a man like Richard Flatterly. ‘It will be a godsend, right enough,’ she told Terry. ‘But you must have something for yourself.’

      Terry shook his head emphatically.

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