Rags to Riches. Nancy Carson

Chapter 1

      ‘Living in the same house as Stephen Hemming for two years hasn’t exactly been the most inspiring thing that’s ever happened to me,’ Maxine Kite admitted philosophically to Lizzie, her mother. Maxine had never spoken to her before about her love life but right now, companionable together on this special day in this unfamiliar scullery with its clean whitewashed walls, she felt a compelling need to talk.

      ‘So what’s wrong with Stephen?’ Lizzie asked, wringing water from a sheet she was rinsing in the deep, stone sink.

      ‘Oh, I’m not so sure that Stephen’s the problem, Mother. It’s me.’ Maxine stared reflectively at the brass tap that was fixed to the wall, dripping water. ‘I can’t stand his eyes following me at every turn. He makes me feel uncomfortable – as if he’s mentally undressing me.’

      ‘You poor soul, our Maxine. I sympathise. I can only imagine what it must be like. And yet he seems such a nice, gentle chap.’

      ‘Oh, he is, Mother. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He thinks the world of me, I know he does…And I like him – as a friend – he’s a good friend. But I’m not in love with him. I know he’d like me to be, but I can’t help the way I feel about him. And I don’t like him looking at me the way he does, either.’

      ‘But that’s just men,’ Lizzie remarked. ‘You’re a nice-looking girl, our Maxine. You’ve got lovely dark hair, a lovely trim figure. Men like pretty girls, and they’ll always turn to have a good look at those they think are worth looking at. You must expect it. Be thankful for it, our Maxine.’

      ‘But it’s when he sits down opposite me…I’m sure it’s only so he can look up my skirt…’

      ‘Men will always try to look up your frock whether or no.’

      ‘Yes and I daresay some girls like it when they do, if it’s somebody they fancy who’s having a peep – but I bet they wouldn’t be so keen on Stephen doing it. Whenever I go to my room to change, he always seems to be hovering – as if he’s trying to peer at me through the crack in the door. Even when I practise my cello I have to wear a long, flared skirt to hide my legs. It’s laughable really.’

      ‘It’s because he fancies you, our Maxine. It’s been worrying me, you and him living under the same roof,’ Lizzie declared frankly. ‘So I take it there’s been no hanky-panky.’

      ‘With Stephen?’ Maxine scoffed. ‘Mother, you cannot be serious. I just don’t fancy him that way. I’m not especially fond of him touching me. And that’s the trouble. In any case, his mother and father are always around. I’m lodging with them, remember. Not him. The fact that he lives there as well is by the by.’

      Maxine perceived the relief in her mother’s expression at her blatantly honest response; she knew Lizzie had always worried about her precious daughters; no doubt she always would. After all, a pretty daughter and a hot-blooded man did not always create a favourable combination.

      ‘You don’t think you’re imagining all this?’ Lizzie queried sceptically, treating the sheets to another immersion in water so cold that it was making her bare hands tingle.

      ‘No,’ Maxine replied. ‘I’m not imagining it. Pansy’s noticed as well.’

      ‘You mean he looks up his sister’s frock?’

      ‘No, Mother.’ Maxine started to giggle at the unthinkable absurdity. ‘Pansy’s noticed he’s like that with me. He doesn’t give her a second glance. She’s his sister, for goodness sake…So…let’s hope I pass this audition with the City of Birmingham Orchestra. It’ll give me the perfect excuse to get away from him.’

      ‘Have you told him yet as you’re likely to be leaving?’ Lizzie added some hot water from the gas geyser and looked up from the white cotton sheets as she kneaded out the last trace of suds.

      ‘Well, not yet. I want to be straight with him, Mom, but I haven’t plucked up the courage yet.’

      ‘Then it’s time you did, our Maxine.’

      ‘I know…’ Maxine replied guiltily. ‘I’ll tell him tonight.’

      ‘And what do you think he’ll say?’

      Maxine shrugged. ‘It’s not up to him to say anything.’ She felt suddenly irked that Stephen should be considered important enough to even warrant a say in the matter. ‘It’s my decision, not his.’

      ‘But he’ll have an opinion, Maxine. Allow him that.’ Lizzie said, wringing a sheet now.

      ‘Course he will. But he doesn’t own me. Okay, I know he wouldn’t want me to give up lodging at his family’s house, but it’ll be a lot more convenient living here if I get that job. Besides, I don’t want to live in the same house as him any longer.’

      ‘I take it you’re not thinking of getting married then?’

      ‘Me, married? I’ll never get married, Mom. It’s not something I desire. I’m married to my music. I’d never marry Stephen anyway.’

      ‘Never say never,’ Lizzie counselled gently. ‘You just might change your mind.’

      Maxine shook her head resolutely and folded her arms as she leaned against the cupboard. ‘No. I’ll never change my mind about Stephen.’

      Maxine stared forlornly across the shimmering expanse of water known as Rotten Park Reservoir, which kept Birmingham’s canals topped up. A team of ducks, and the more exotically coloured drakes that accompanied them, sailed importantly some distance from the edge. Moorhens shepherded a waddle of tiny black chicks that bobbed in the radiating rings of a fresh-cast fishing line. It was as pleasant a view, through the yellow-flowered curtains that framed the imperfect panes of the scullery window, as you would find from the rear of any terraced house. Soon, it might be her new home.

      Of course, she could return to live with her mother in Dudley but, rather, Maxine was inclined to accept her sister’s offer of accommodation here. She had tasted freedom and relished it. Going back to mother’s she would lose that precious independence. In any event, her self-esteem would not allow her to return home.

      Maxine was pinning all her hopes on the audition. It would mean regular work, money in her pocket. But most importantly, it would allow her this much-needed breathing space from Stephen. No, she was not in love with him. Trouble was, he was too fond of her, too protective. He was suffocating her. And this house here in Ladywood, the home of her sister and brother-in-law, was far more convenient for the Town Hall and the CBO’s rehearsal rooms than having to lug her cello to and from his folks’ house in Smethwick, especially on those occasions when she had to make the journey by tram. The trouble was, there had been talk of moving from Ladywood back to Dudley; and that meant Smethwick would be more convenient again. Still, she wouldn’t mention that to Stephen yet; he would only try to get her to stay.

      ‘I should’ve thought the chances of anybody making a living playing a cello in Birmingham would be a bit limited to say the least,’ Lizzie commented and Maxine detected the same sad scepticism she’d heard a hundred times before. ‘It’s not as if they want a celloist on every street corner.’

      ‘The word is cellist, Mother,’ Maxine corrected, amused that her mother had got the word wrong. ‘But I can play piano as well, remember…and I can sing. If I don’t get this job in the CBO I’d be quite prepared to play piano and sing – in a pub even.’

      ‘Over my dead body.’ Lizzie wrung the sheet more animatedly and tossed it into a wicker washing basket with the other, ready to peg out. ‘I’m not having you singing in a public house like some wailing old music hall tart. I’ll see you back home first. You’re not twenty-one yet, remember…Struth, it’s been bad enough worrying over our Henzey up there these last few years, not to mention our Alice. Now I worry about you as well.’

      ‘You