A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin. Helen Forrester

lips of her interlocutor tighten, and wondered frantically if there was anybody among these charming-looking ladies who would understand that married men rarely came to such charities, unless they wanted something for themselves; it was the wife who scrounged, begged, borrowed or stole to cope with the needs of their huge families.

      Yet another lady was called and a whispered conversation ensued. The new lady, elderly, dressed in black, ran her fingers through a card index as she checked on Mary Margaret’s name. The card evidently told her something more than the name. She looked hesitantly at Martha. Then, with genuine pity at the sparrow-like creature before her, she said, ‘We’ll make an exception today – the weather is terrible.’

      Martha’s eyes filled with tears. She said with genuine feeling, ‘God’s blessing on yez, Miss.’

      The lady smiled at the weeping woman, and said, ‘I hope times get better for you soon.’

      In relief, Martha cried quietly to herself most of the long way home. In the pram, she had the huge bath-water ewer and Mary Margaret’s jar, both full of soup right up to their lids, and almost too heavy to lift. In addition, in big brown paper bags lay three two-pound loaves of bread, two for her own family and one for Mary Margaret’s, and a pile of potatoes baked in their jackets.

      The fact that the potatoes had been cooked told her that They understood the predicament of those who often had nothing with which to cook: no coal, no gas, no wood, no fireplace, no nothing.

      Some of Them was real nice, she snivelled to herself. In her gratitude, she even forgot the excruciating pain of her chilblains.

      SIX

       ‘Stop It, or I’ll Put the Boot to Yez!’

       January 1938

      As she carefully pulled the old pram up the front steps so as not to spill the soup, she could hear the ruckus in the house.

      She quickly loosened her wet shawl from her head, and, with one elbow, pushed open her own door. She bumped into little Number Nine who was apparently bent on escaping into the court.

      He looked up at her with a tear-stained face, and said thankfully, ‘Mam!’ as he hid himself in her skirts.

      She pushed him off and shoved the pram over the sill. She hastily backed it through her own doorway and then heaved it forward to slot it into the hall recess. As the raucous racket within rose in intensity, her expression became grim. With great care she picked up the containers of soup; their comforting warmth penetrated her blouse.

      Out of the corner of her eye, through the open door of her room, she could see that a full-scale fight was in progress between her daughter Bridie and Mary Margaret’s Dollie.

      ‘Jaysus! What’s up?’ she exclaimed, as she paused to get a better picture of what was happening.

      Tommy, Martha’s eleven-year-old, had hold of Dollie round the waist and was trying to pull her off a recumbent Bridie, to make her loose a chunk of Bridie’s hair and stop punching her in the face. Joseph and little Ellie, behind Mary Margaret’s chair, were clutching each other and screaming in unison. The two younger Flanagan girls cowered behind them, apparently paralysed at the sight of their bigger sister’s ferocity.

      Martha’s eyes narrowed as she slowly slid the soup containers to the floor by the door.

      Mary Margaret, grey-faced, stood holding onto Martha’s only chair with one hand, while with the other she clutched her sewing to her. She was shrieking, ‘Dollie, let go of her!’

      ‘She cheated,’ screamed Dollie, and hit Bridie squarely on the nose.

      As her nose began to bleed, Bridie roared in fury.

      Martha flung off her shawl, and waded in. With all the weight of her thin, muscular body behind it, she gave Dollie a resounding slap across her face. She swung her other hand and gave an equally heavy slap to Bridie’s bloodied face.

      ‘Stop it,’ she snarled, ‘or I’ll put the boot to yez.’

      Dollie let go of her antagonist and clapped her hands to her stinging mouth. She reared up and tumbled backwards over Tommy and brought him to the floor. He let out a curse which would have done credit to his father, and kicked her in the bottom. Beside herself with rage, Dollie turned on him.

      Martha leaned over her and grasped her round the waist. She lifted her bodily off the boy, turned round and shoved her out of the open front door of the house, into which the sleet was blowing steadily. She slammed the door shut on her and turned the key, in the comfortable belief that the shock of the cold would sober her. Her father’s sister, Auntie Ellen, who lived on the other side of the court, would probably take her in, listen to her and send her back home when she had sobered up.

      Bridie began to splutter to her mother a defensive explanation of the quarrel. Mary Margaret sat down suddenly on the chair and reeled in a faint.

      Impeded by all the smaller children hurling themselves towards her for comfort, Martha ignored Bridie.

      ‘Catch her, Tommy,’ she shrieked, pointing to Mary Margaret as the angry boy got up off the floor.

      She pushed roughly through the panic-stricken children towards her friend.

      ‘Now then, shut up, the lot of yez,’ she roared. ‘There’s your poor mam in a faint, now. And where’s our Kathleen in all this? Isn’t she home from school yet?’

      A muffled, scared voice from the top of the staircase outside said, ‘I’m here, Mam. I’m doing me homework.’

      ‘Well, forget it and get a cup of water for your auntie. Quick. Make yourself useful for once.’

      Quaking because she was certain that, as Martha’s eldest daughter at home, she would be blamed for the uproar, Kathleen tucked her exercise book and pencil into a corner of a stair. She scrambled down and hastily did as she was bidden: the water pail with a cloth over it was kept close against the staircase wall, so that it would not be knocked over. She dipped a grubby enamelled mug into it and handed it, dripping, to her mother over the heads of the whimpering younger children.

      Except with regard to Bridie, who was using the front of her frock to wipe her bloody nose and whose anger was reduced to a wail for attention, order was being restored. Even Dollie’s hammering on the outside door was easing off.

      Tommy had half lifted Mary Margaret so that she was leaning back in her chair. He was now doing his best to keep her from sliding down off it. He was so afraid that she would die that his face was nearly as colourless as that of the woman herself.

      He thankfully gave way to his mother, and retreated to sit on the stairs out of her way. He ignored Dollie’s slowly lessening pounding on the locked front door. Let her rot.

      Martha cooed gently to her friend, as she proffered the water, ‘It’s all right, Mary, love. Take a sip of water. I got lots of soup for you.’ She glanced at the fire which was low, but still glowed. ‘I’ll heat it for you and you’ll be all right, love.’

      She snatched a rag out of a basketful already neatly folded for the market, and dipped it into the water. Gently she dabbed Mary Margaret’s face.

      She yelled to Tommy over her friend’s head. ‘Come back and pull the mattress down from the wall. We’ll lay her on it, near the fire here.’

      Tommy slid back into the room. He called, ‘Mind out, everybody!’ and the children scattered, as he heaved the sagging mattress onto the bare floor.

      Mary Margaret showed signs of coming round, and, with Tommy, Kathleen and Martha’s help, she was gently laid down.

      Martha knelt by her and tucked her skirts and shawl around her, while she hissed in Kathleen’s ear, ‘How could you let them get into a fight like that? You’re the eldest, you should know better; and you