A Family Affair. Nancy Carson

the easy, foot-tapping tunes.

      The Court Casey Circus was a knockabout troupe that had the place in uproar and their antics brought tears to her eyes. She forgot about Mary Ann’s stern glare. Dottie Baxter did a second spot, this time dressed as a policeman. She sang a song about how the policeman lost his love to the sergeant, which was poignant and funny all at the same time. Little Tich closed the show and he’d certainly been holding his funniest jokes till last. Even when the orchestra had finished playing ‘God Save the King’, Clover still had tears in her eyes from laughing.

      She turned to Tom, coming out of her happy dream. ‘I suppose we’d better hurry.’

      He nodded and grabbed his umbrella. She held his hand as he thrust his way through the men that were lingering around the aisle stretching their legs and the women smoothing their dresses. Outside, the rain was pouring. He opened the umbrella and, beneath it, they crossed the road, heading towards the Station Hotel and Trindle Road. The street lamps beyond the Station Hotel were not so bright, but the paltry light they afforded was increased as it reflected off the glistening cobbles.

      ‘I’ve really enjoyed tonight, Tom,’ she said, looking up at him as they turned into Claughton Road. ‘Thank you for taking me.’

      ‘Thank you for coming,’ he answered. ‘I hope we can have plenty more nights like it.’

      ‘I hope so too. I just hope my mother doesn’t spoil it. I expect she’ll be all of a franzy.’

      ‘I told you, Clover. Don’t worry. I’ll handle it.’

      It was after half past eleven when they arrived at the Jolly Collier. Clover looked at Tom apprehensively while he opened the door and allowed her to go in before him as he shook the water off his brolly. The taproom, full of noise and smoke, was still busy and Mary Ann, Ramona and Jake were all working.

      ‘Is it still raining?’ Jake asked Clover.

      ‘Pouring,’ she said over the hubbub and smiled at him appealingly. ‘I bet Tom would like a pint, wouldn’t you, Tom?’

      He winked at her. ‘I’d love one. Bitter, please.’

      ‘We’ve been to the Opera House,’ she explained to Jake. Ramona, by this time, was standing by her. ‘Shall we sit down, Tom?’

      ‘Was it a good show?’ Jake asked pleasantly. ‘One or two have said how good it is.’

      ‘Oh, it was grand, Pop. You ought to take Mother. You’d both love it.’

      ‘Hear that, Mary Ann?’ he called. Mary Ann looked up from the washed glasses she was wiping. ‘Clover says as how good the show is at the Opera House this week. She reckons I should tek you to see it.’

      ‘Oh yes. And who’s going to serve in here while we’m gone?’

      ‘Well I could, Mother,’ Clover said. ‘And Tom wouldn’t mind helping either, would you, Tom?’

      ‘I’d be delighted. It could be my penance for keeping Clover out so late, Mrs Tandy.’

      ‘Is that an apology, since you mention it?’ Mary Ann asked, stone-faced.

      Tom smiled steadily, not about to be unnerved. ‘If you honestly feel one is necessary, Mrs Tandy.’

      Perceiving dissension, Jake waved it aside. ‘Christ, Mary Ann, anybody’d think the wench was late in,’ he retorted placing a pint of bitter in front of Tom. ‘I’ve told you before, she’s twenty now. This time next year she’ll be of age and able to do as she pleases. She’ll even be able to go and get wed without having to ask you. Think about that. You’d best start letting go of her now.’ He winked at Tom and poured a glass of cider for Clover. ‘Here, have these on me.’

      ‘As long as she can get up in the morning,’ Mary Ann responded, conceding defeat.

      ‘Cheers,’ Tom said and raised his glass. ‘Here’s to you, Jake.’

      Jake smiled. He’d won another round by reasonableness and good sense.

      Tom stayed in the taproom for twenty minutes before deciding it was time to go. Clover went outside with him in the rain to say goodnight and they stood under his umbrella, facing each other, their bodies touching tantalisingly.

      ‘Thanks for a lovely night,’ she said again. ‘And for squaring it with my mother.’

      He put his arm around her waist and gave her a squeeze. ‘Jake did that. Not me.’

      She smiled into his eyes then looked at his mouth, so inviting. She had not yet kissed him and the urge to, fuelled by the warmth of his companionship, overwhelmed her. Impulsively, she pursed her lips and turned her face up to reach him, then, standing on tiptoe with her hands behind her back, she planted a kiss on his lips as gentle as a butterfly landing on a petal, lingering just a little.

      ‘There. I’ve done it,’ she said, as she experienced the eminently palpable thrill shuddering through her. ‘I’ve kissed you. I bet you think I’m a right hussy.’

      He laughed with delight. ‘Oh, unquestionably. But I’m pleased you are. When can I see you again?’

      ‘Friday?’

      He smiled with happiness. ‘Yes, please, Clover. Friday.’

      The family took turns to take baths when they could fit it in, often between brews when the huge copper boiler on the first storey of the brewery was free to heat up water for cleaning with enough left over. Normal practice was to put the tin bath in the scullery and fill it with hot water, fetched in buckets from the brewery. One Saturday evening in August, Elijah, sweaty and hot from cleaning the mash tun, the coolers and the available fermenting vessels, decided to take a soak himself before getting changed for a night out with Dorcas, which would finish inevitably with some vigorous courting at Jake’s old house afterwards.

      In the small brewhouse that housed the mangle that Zillah used on washing day, he lifted the galvanised bath off the whitewashed wall and bore it across the yard to the brewery where he set it on the quarry-tiled floor. He drew off the fresh water that was already heating up, by way of a hose arrangement and, while the bath filled, he returned to the brewhouse to cut himself a cake of soap. On the way back, he fetched a towel from the house and whistled tunelessly as he strutted across the sunlit yard. Back in the brewery he put his fingers in the water to check its temperature. It was too hot so he stemmed the flow of hot water and turned on the cold tap, playing another hose into the bath. He undressed himself, had a good scratch round and dipped his toes in the bath. It was still hot, but bearably so. Having got used to the intense heat of India and enjoying it, bathing in hot water always reminded him of his time there; he liked to get a bit of a sweat up.

      He immersed himself in the water, lay back and relaxed. His thoughts drifted back to India and, inevitably, to those beautiful Indian women he’d enjoyed so much there. Such sultry pleasure he’d had in India’s fierce heat with sensuously perspiring, dusky girls with sleek, jet-black hair, dark eyes and wonderful bodies, many of them younger than his niece Ramona. Recalling those times aroused him enormously.

      At about the same time that Elijah was getting all steamed up, the tea was ready. Clover had taken pork chops out of the oven all sizzling and succulent and smelling divine, and put them on warmed plates along with fresh-cooked vegetables and steaming gravy. But nobody was around to serve it to. Where was everybody?

      Ramona appeared. ‘Do you need any help, Clover?’

      ‘You wouldn’t like to round everybody up, would you? Mother and Pop are serving in the taproom. Uncle Elijah will still be in the brewery, I daresay.’

      ‘I’ll go and fetch him,’ Ramona said, wiping her hands.

      As she stepped into the yard the whine and clatter of a lorry’s engine trespassed into the late afternoon air as it chugged up George Street, and a neighbour’s pig was squealing discontentedly close by. A dog barked in St John’s Street and a flock of pigeons flapped in a great whooshing arc overhead. The door