A Daughter’s Choice

Jean Cole had been as good as a mother to me, loving me and making sure that I never went without anything if she could help it, though I suspected she sometimes had help with money from a source she wouldn’t reveal.

A Londoner through and through, she had lived in the same house since marrying at the age of seventeen, moving only three houses when she left her home to start her married life. Our lane was just across from the St Katherine’s Docks, which were now a part of the larger London Docks, but when they were first built almost a whole parish, including the old hospital of St. Katherine’s, had been pulled down to make way for them.

‘Well, I must get on,’ Bridget said, her voice breaking into my thoughts. ‘Our Tom is coming for a meal this evening. He’s a doctor with the Army, you know, but they didn’t send him to France with the troops because of that bit of bother he had when he was a lad. Not that it troubles him now. In fact, he thinks he may never have had consumption at all, just an infection of the lungs. He knows all about that sort of thing now, our Tom – and he says the doctors made a lot of mistakes in the early days.’

‘You’ll be glad to see your brother, I expect.’

‘Yes, I shall. Tom is busy so we don’t see him as often as we’d like – but at least he keeps in touch. I haven’t heard from Jamie for ages. He was in America the last time he wrote and doing well, but that was years ago …’

She frowned, her eyes full of shadows as if she were remembering an old sadness. I knew there was some story about Jamie O’Rourke having gone away after his girl was killed in a fire on the eve of their wedding, but I didn’t know the details.

‘Give my best wishes to your grandmother, Kathy love – and if you need anythin’ you know where to come.’

‘Thanks, Bridget,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell Gran you asked after her.’

She smiled, nodded and moved on, seeming to have something on her mind. I thought it might be to do with her elder brother Jamie and wondered if Gran would tell me the whole story if I asked.

I was reflective as I walked on. If my father had married Bridget I would be her daughter and Amy Robinson would have been my younger sister – or perhaps I wouldn’t have been around at all. A sigh escaped me as I thought that I would have liked Bridget as a mother, but it was hard to believe that my father had ever wanted to marry her. He always seemed to dislike her, though it was her husband he really hated.

‘You stay away from that Bridget O’Rourke and her ’usband,’ he’d said to me time and again when I was a child after Bridget had given me a treat of some kind, as she often did. ‘That bleedin’ Joe Robinson is too clever for ’is own good!’

It was odd that he should call Bridget by her maiden name, but then my father was a law unto himself. He hadn’t been so bad when I was a small child. I could remember him taking me up on his shoulders to carry me down the lane when he was in a good mood, and there had been occasional visits to the fair and one never-to-be forgotten trip on the train to Southend as a treat for my tenth birthday. There had always been enough money in the house for food and rent then; it was only since Da’s accident that he’d turned sullen and taken to the drink.

He’d been a driver for Mr Dawson at the brewery, and proud of the wagons he drove with their magnificent horses and shining harness, but he wasn’t capable of loading or unloading the drays now. Mr Dawson had kept him on in the brewery, because with the onset of the war he had been short of men, but of late he had been given only the more menial of jobs to do and was forever complaining about his employer.

‘You mustn’t mind your da, Kathy love,’ Gran had told me when he came home full of the drink, swearing and yelling the house down. ‘He’s in pain from his leg – and he’s a disappointed man. He’s not had a fair deal from life, your da.’

‘What do you mean, Gran?’ I’d asked but she only shook her head as she always did when I asked questions about things she didn’t want to tell me. Her silence only made me more curious.

What had happened to my father to make him so bitter? Was it just that my mother had gone off and left him when I was a baby? Yet it was Gran who had had all the trouble of bringing me up, and she wasn’t bitter.

‘Wait up, Kathy Cole! I want a word with yer …’

I turned as I heard the sound of running feet behind me and hesitated, recognizing at once the man who had called out to me. It was Billy Ryan, Maggie Ryan’s youngest son. He was twenty-six going on seven and I was seventeen, but he’d been after me since I’d left school and started work at the glove factory. Billy had worked there too as a foreman for a while, but he’d joined up as soon as war was declared, one of the first to do so in our street. Before he went away he’d told me to wait for him, because he was going to marry me one day.

‘Oh, so you’re back,’ I said, not smiling at him. I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about Billy Ryan. He had always been a cocky lad and people whispered that he’d been in a bit of trouble a couple of times and was lucky he hadn’t been up in front of the magistrates. ‘Did the Army throw you out then?’

‘You haven’t changed,’ Billy replied and grinned at me. ‘Glad to see me then are yer, Kathy girl?’

‘I’m indifferent either way,’ I said with a shrug of my shoulders and he gave a hoot of laughter.

‘Swallowed a dictionary this mornin’, did yer?’ Billy’s parents were Irish, and still spoke with a soft Irish accent but Billy had lived in London all his life and sounded like a cockney. He wasn’t in the least put out by my manner and despite myself I warmed to him. He had a nice smile and he wasn’t bad looking, his hair dark and wavy and his eyes a melting chocolate brown. He had smartened up and I supposed the Army had done that for him; his boots were polished so fine you could see your face in them. ‘Fancy going to the Pally this evenin’ then?’

I stared at him in silence for a moment or two. My father wouldn’t be pleased if I went out with Billy, but then he didn’t like any of the people in Farthing Lane these days. Gran would encourage me to go. She said I didn’t get out with other young people often enough.

‘I like dancin’,’ I said at last. ‘But I’m not sure I should go with you, Billy Ryan. You might try to take advantage.’

‘God’s honest truth I’d never do that to yer, Kathy,’ Billy said and he sounded sincere. ‘It ain’t just ’cos you’re the prettiest girl in the lanes with that lovely hair o’ yourn and them big eyes. You’re the girl I’m goin’ ter marry one day, and I respect yer. I swear on me ’onour that I won’t put a finger out of place. I won’t even kiss yer unless you agree, lass. Cross me ’eart and ’ope ter die.’

I wasn’t surprised by his answer. Billy had told everyone for years that he was going to marry me one day. It had been a joke amongst my school friends, but looking at him now I almost believed him.

‘I’ll come then,’ I said making up my mind. ‘I’ll meet you outside the brewery at seven.’

‘I was goin’ ter call fer yer proper, Kathy. We might as well start out right.’

‘Me da might not like me going with you,’ I said doubtfully. ‘But perhaps you’re right. Call for me at seven then – that will please Gran anyway. She says no one shows her any respect these days.’

‘I’ve got every respect for Mrs Cole,’ Billy said. ‘She’s been good to you, lass – just the way I shall be when we’re wed.’

‘And who said I was goin’ to marry you? Sayin’ I’ll come to the Pally with you doesn’t mean I’ll marry you, Billy Ryan.’

He grinned at me cheekily. ‘First things first, Kathy. Yer don’t know me yet, but you’ll soon change your mind when yer see how generous I can be. I’ll be there at seven so don’t keep me waitin’!’

I glared at him, almost sorry that I had agreed to go out with him that evening. Just who did he think he was? I nearly told him to forget it but something held me back. I was seventeen and I hadn’t had a regular boyfriend yet. I’d been dancing at the Pally with other girls and their brothers, and a few of my dance partners had made a pass at me. I hadn’t let any of them kiss me. It annoyed me because one or two of them had seemed to imagine that I would be easy and I didn’t see why. I wasn’t a flirt and I had never been out with a man on my own.

Once I’d heard some boys whispering about my mother and laughing in a nasty way, and it had made me wonder. Why should people laugh about Grace Cole in that way – and why did the men sometimes look at me oddly? I wasn’t a tart and I had never given anyone cause to think it.

It was a mystery, and it would never be solved until I could get some answers about my mother – but no one would tell me anything.

I made up my mind to ask Gran about it again when I got home. Surely I had a right to know the whole story?

‘Well, I suppose you are old enough to know the truth,’ Gran said when I took a cup of tea up to her in bed and told her what was on my mind and why. ‘It might be best if you know – especially if you’re goin’ ter start courtin’.’

She had her pink bed shawl about her shoulders, and the patchwork quilt she had made with her own hands as a young woman was pulled up tight about her. Even on a warm day the old house seemed cold and draughty, and in winter we often needed a fire in the bedrooms.

‘I’m only goin’ dancin’ with him, Gran.’

‘Yes – but these things lead to somethin’ more in time,’ Gran said. She was looking tired and I knew her illness had dragged her down, but at least she was beginning to improve. ‘Grace was no better than she ought ter be, Kathy. Yer da wasn’t the first with her by a long way …’ She hesitated as though she wanted to say more and then shook her head. ‘And she went off and left yer as a baby – that’s reason enough fer me to dislike her. Some folks might think you will likely turn out the same way. They don’t know yer the way I do, love.’

‘Is that why …?’ My cheeks were bright with fire as I looked at her. ‘Does Billy Ryan think I’m that way, too? Is that why he wants to take me dancin’?’

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Gran replied. ‘Billy is a bit of a cheeky devil, and he doesn’t always know which is the right side of the law – but he is fond of you, Kathy. Even when you were fifteen he was always ’ere tryin’ ter get yer ter to go out with ’im. If I thought he wouldn’t treat yer right I wouldn’t let yer go.’

‘Do you mind if I go, Gran? Can you manage without me?’

‘Of course I can, Kathy. I’ll be fine tucked up in me bed. Leave yer da a cold supper on the table – though God knows what time ’e’ll get ’ome. Just be sure that Billy brings you ’ome by half past ten – and if he does try anythin’, give him a slap round his ear.’

‘He promised he wouldn’t,’ I said and bent to kiss her cheek, which felt papery soft and dry. The sheets were clean on that day and smelled of soap, as she did herself after I’d helped her to wash. ‘He says he respects me too much.’

‘Then I’m sure ‘e means it,’ Gran said and smiled lovingly as she reached up to touch my cheek. ‘You’re a good girl, Kathy, and bright. You did well at school and you speak better than most round ‘ere – better than yer da or me. I should like ter see yer make somethin’ of yerself. Don’t get into trouble and rush in ter marriage, love. Look at Bridget Robinson. Her mother was a drunken slut, but Bridget was smart – like you. They say she does all Joe’s bookwork fer ’im, and she’s got a couple of market stalls ’erself. Likes sellin’ flowers, Bridget does. I should like yer to settle with a good man like Joe Robinson – so you just be careful. Billy Ryan is all right, but make sure ’e’s what you really want afore yer settle on ’im.’

‘I’m not thinkin’ of marryin’ yet, Gran,’ I said and laughed as I flicked back my hair, which was a dark honey blonde and set off eyes Gran always said were green like a cat’s. ‘I’m too young to train as a nurse yet, but that’s what I’d like to do. I keep thinkin’ about all those young men getting hurt so bad over there …’ I sighed. ‘When is it all going to end, Gran? I think it’s terrible that all our boys end up gettin’ killed in the trenches.’

‘We all feel the same, Kathy,’ Gran said. ‘It’s a wicked shame that it happened at all, that’s what I think – decent folk shooting at each other. Bridget’s eldest son is out there fighting, and she told me that he wrote to her about the first Christmas of the war, when the German soldiers and the British played football together in no-man’s-land between the trenches. She said her Jonathan thought the Germans were just like us then; they didn’t want to fight and kill people. It’s all the fault of them what started it – the Kaiser and politicians.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose we shall solve anythin’ by talkin’,’ I said. ‘But if the war isn’t over when I’m eighteen I shall join the Voluntary Aid Detachment as a nurse.’

‘That’s what I like to hear,’ Gran said approvingly. ‘My girl has a bit of ambition – not like her father. You stick to your guns, my girl, and don’t you let anyone talk yer out of it.’