A Mother's Duty (3 page)

He shook his head and a blond curl fell on his forehead. ‘Secret means don’t tell
anyone.
’ He smiled angelically. ‘I want my cocoa. Miss Drury’s cook doesn’t have cocoa.’

‘Doesn’t she now?’ Kitty’s heart gave a peculiar jump and she added grimly. ‘You mean Miss Drury who lives in Princes Road?’

Ben clapped a hand over his mouth and his expression was anguished. ‘Don’t tell Jimmy I split,’ he said in a muffled voice.

‘Split!’ exclaimed Kitty wrathfully. ‘I’ll have him split! What’s he thinking of taking you to Myrtle Drury’s house?’

Myrtle and Kitty had been in the same class at school but Myrtle’s father had owned several properties in far from salubrious areas of Liverpool and Myrtle had looked down on Kitty who had in turn disliked her intensely. An arrogant little bitch and no better than she should be was what Kitty’s mother’s employer had called Myrtle. Her father had been a widower and there had been a time when he had shown an interest in Kitty’s mother, after her employer had died and left her the house in Crown Street and a little nest egg. For a short while in her adolescent years it had looked like Kitty and Myrtle might have become stepsisters but it had not happened. He had died a few years back and Myrtle had inherited his pile. Immediately she had put up her rents, despite the houses being broken down and often rat-infested. A year ago she had employed a bully boy to frighten those who complained or would not pay up.

‘What did Jimmy go and see Miss Drury about?’ asked Kitty.

Ben shook his head.

‘You tell Ma,’ intervened Teddy who had been listening. ‘Or do you want Jimmy to leave? I bet that Miss Drury’s behind this idea of his to go, Ma.’

Kitty thought he was probably right and was about to attempt to prise more information out of Ben when the door opened and Jimmy and Mick entered.

‘The Potters would like tea,’ they both chorused and pulled faces.

‘He’s a queer one,’ said Jimmy and shook his head.

Questions hovered on Kitty’s lips but she decided they would have to wait and hurried upstairs.

In the kitchen a bell was buzzing. It belonged to one of her regulars, a travelling salesman in patent medicines who, like Ben, enjoyed his bedtime cocoa. She put on a couple of kettles and lifted stone water bottles from a shelf near the floor, wondering if Ben could be mistaken about Myrtle Drury.

There was a sound at the door and she turned to see Jimmy standing there looking defiant. ‘Ben said you know.’

‘Miss Myrtle Drury,’ she said with distaste. ‘How could you? You must know the kind of a bloodsucking vampire she is!’

‘Gossip!’

‘Gossip or not, it’s true!’

His mouth tightened. ‘True or not, I don’t care! She’s taking over a hotel in Rhyl and wants me to help her. Plenty of good clean air and the holiday trade bucking up again. I could make a packet.’

Kitty said grimly, ‘She wants to get you away from me. I bet that’s it. We’ve never liked each other. I can offer you another five shillings but that’s it.’

‘It’s not just money,’ said Jimmy, toying with a stopper from one of the bottles. ‘And you’re insulting me thinking it’s only because of you she wants me. She’s prepared to share things with me. Everything in fact.’

‘She’s what?’ Kitty did not believe it.

‘You heard me! I’m not a noggin, you know, just because I can’t read or write. She wants to marry me.’

Kitty was flabbergasted. ‘Marry you! But – but she’s not a nice person, love. I could accept your leaving for anyone else but not her. Any nice girl would do but – but not her!’ She repeated the last few words, getting more annoyed with him. ‘She’d eat you for breakfast. Now what about Annie? She loves the bones of you.’

He scowled and his dark brows hooded his eyes. ‘She’s another reason for me to get out of here, looking at me all the time with spaniel eyes when all the time it’s—’ He hesitated before continuing in a rush. ‘It’s you, Kit, I want you looking at me like that.’

‘Like a spaniel,’ she could not help saying and then wished she could have recalled the words because from the expression on his face he was deadly serious. Her heart sank.

‘No!’ he yelled. ‘It’s you I’d like to be partners with! Me and you married and running this place together.’

Kitty stared at him, barely able to believe she had heard the words. ‘You and me married?’

‘Yes!’

‘But – but you’re Jimmy. You’re Michael’s brother. We couldn’t,’ she babbled. ‘It just wouldn’t be right. Besides haven’t you been running this place with me since Ma and Michael went?’

‘No, I haven’t. You’re the boss.’

There was a deathly silence. So that’s what this is all about, she thought. Suddenly she was angry. ‘You want to be the boss? You think I’m not making a good job of it now Ma’s gone?’

He flushed. ‘I didn’t say that. I’d settle for running the place alongside you.’

‘You mean you want to be part owner?’ She was thinking how, after only a few years of marriage, her widowed mother and herself had had to support themselves and their offspring. ‘Even Michael was not that,’ she added forcefully.

‘Michael was sick. His lungs—’

‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ she cried scathingly. ‘Ma bought this place so nobody could throw us out of it. Michael accepted that it would be mine if anything happened to her.
Mine
, Jimmy, mine for the boys! It’s all I have for them!’

‘But they could still have it,’ he said in a pleading voice. ‘Think about it, Kit. You and me together.’

She shook her head.

He looked stricken. ‘I might have stayed for a maybe. But not now.’ He left her.

Kitty hesitated before hurrying after him. ‘Jimmy, think twice. I know Myrtle from old. She’s a prize bitch. Sooner or later she’ll decide you’re not good enough for her. She’s mean and ruthless and’ll make you unhappy.’

He halted at the foot of the stairs. ‘I’m unhappy now. Married to her I’ll at least have a husband’s rights.’

Kitty hissed, ‘I don’t believe she’ll marry you. More likely she’ll string you along and get as much work out of you as she can – and if you step out of line she’ll have her bully boy onto you.’ She could tell from his face he was not convinced and decided to try a different tack. ‘Anyway, think what Michael would have thought about all this?’

As aware as Kitty was that guests might be listening at doors, he said in a low voice, ‘I wondered when you’d say that. I don’t give a fig what Michael might have thought.’ He reached out and touched her shoulder and his voice dropped even further. ‘Have you ever wondered how it might have been between us if I’d been the elder brother? I’ve always found you attractive, Kit.’ His hand moved and touched her cheek. ‘I know I’m a few years younger than you but you’ve kept yerself well.’

‘Thanks very much!’ Those words had surprised her! ‘But stop right there! I wouldn’t feel right about it.’

‘Why? Michael’s dead and I’m very much alive! You don’t have to be madly in love with me. But I’ve been like a father to your lads without any of the advantages. You don’t know what it’s been like lying in bed knowing that you were sleeping only a wall away in the next room. There were times when I just couldn’t get you out of my mind.’ He sounded desperate and suddenly he pulled her against him and kissed her, taking her completely by surprise.

For a moment Kitty was passive in his embrace. She had been lonely for a man’s touch for a while now and if she had felt something she might have reconsidered her decision, but it just did not feel right being held by Jimmy. He had fulfilled the role of the brother she had never had for too long. It was a pity but there it was. It would have to be a clean break, she realised, because things could never be the same between them again. She dragged herself out of his arms. ‘Perhaps it’s best you do leave and maybe you shouldn’t come back,’ she said quietly.

A flush rose in Jimmy’s neck and spread to his face. ‘God! I never thought I’d hear you say that,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Right, I’ll go to Rhyl and make pots of money and have a helluva good time without your kids hanging round my neck!’ He turned and ran upstairs.

For a moment Kitty stared after him, hating herself for having to hurt him. But what other choice had she? She stood indecisively for a moment before remembering the kettles were on and marched into the kitchen. Number two’s bell was buzzing again and the kettles were boiling. She made a jug of cocoa and a pot of tea and tried to put aside what had happened in the lobby but the memory was too close and Jimmy had shaken the facade of iron-like control she tried to have over her emotions.

She went out of the kitchen and under the stairs, calling down to the basement for Mick. When he appeared she told him to see to the hot water bottles whilst she took in a tray to the guests in the Smoking Room. Her mind was buzzing with all Jimmy had said as she exchanged small talk with some of the guests and gave information concerning the best places for bargains to a mother and daughter from Wales. Part of Kitty wanted to cry because she felt emotionally drained. Then she heard the front door slam and suddenly found herself making her excuses and she fled out onto the step. She looked up the lamplit road and saw Jimmy, a rucksack bobbing on his broad back, and called to him.

He turned. ‘Have you changed your mind?’ he yelled.

She hesitated, reluctant to let him go. He was Michael’s brother and they had shared a past which contained two people she had cared for dearly. So many memories! She was going to miss him but he could not stay on his terms. ‘No!’ she cried. ‘I just want to say if you’re ever stuck you know where to come.’

He made no answer but turned and walked away.

With her cheek pressed against the doorjamb and an obstruction in her throat, Kitty watched until he was out of sight before going back indoors. She found Ben sitting on the bottom stair. ‘Jimmy didn’t come back with my cocoa,’ he said sleepily.

‘He forgot, sweetheart.’ How could she explain to him, to any of the boys, about Jimmy leaving them for Myrtle Drury and Rhyl? She pulled Ben to his feet and took him into the kitchen where she made fresh cocoa for the pair of them and for number two. She was tired out but her mind was busy allotting Jimmy’s workload for the next day. Teddy would have to be up early to clean the guests’ shoes, despite his injury. Mick would have to fill the coal scuttles and light the fires in the downstairs rooms. Her eldest son would also have to write a notice to put in the front window advertising for an odd-job man. At least there shouldn’t be any difficulty in finding someone with the way unemployment was. Somehow she would manage.

But what about Annie! Her spirits sank. How on earth was she going to explain Jimmy and Myrtle to her? She couldn’t! She wouldn’t! It would break her cousin’s heart. Lord, how was she going to cope with it all? For a moment she longed for a strong shoulder to lean on and wondered if she had been a complete fool letting Jimmy go. Then in her mind she heard an echo of her mother’s voice saying, ‘You can do it, girl! We’re strong, you and I.’

Yet, as Kitty sipped her cocoa, she did not feel strong at all, she just felt tired and weepy. There were tough times behind her but she guessed there were going to be even tougher ones ahead.

‘I can’t believe it! I don’t believe it,’ cried Annie, her small pointy face crumpling and her fingers screwing up a corner of her apron. ‘Why did he have to go?’

Kitty avoided her eyes as she slid a fried egg onto a plate. ‘I told you, more money. There’s not much here at the moment.’ She had sworn Mick and Teddy to secrecy concerning Myrtle Drury’s part in Jimmy’s leaving and was praying that Ben would not think about mentioning his visit with Jimmy to Annie. Kitty would not be able to cope if her cousin went to pieces, knowing Jimmy had another woman.

‘Well, I never thought Jimmy the type to put money before us,’ said her cousin.

‘Me neither,’ said Kitty blandly. ‘But you know how he loves the seaside. And perhaps he wants to spread his wings before it’s too late. He is over thirty. We’ll just have to try and forgive him.’

‘Yeah, we’ll have to. But I do think he’s mean leaving us in the lurch. I’d never leave you like that, Kit.’ Annie sniffed back her tears, smoothing her apron before taking the plate to place on a tray beside another.

Kitty was touched as well as pleased to hear it. With part of her mind she had worried about letting it slip that he had gone to Rhyl fearing Annie might go chasing after Jimmy there.

Her cousin paused in the doorway. ‘I’m not going to be the only one missing Jimmy, though, Kit. We’re going to have trouble with Ben. I can just see it coming.’

Kitty had already had trouble with Ben. Upset about Jimmy’s departure, her youngest son had soon got up to mischief. She had not known about it until his yells had penetrated the kitchen and she had dashed to the coal hole which ran under the pavement to discover him tear-stained and covered in coal dust. He had flung himself at her, dirtying her apron and yelling that Teddy had locked him in! Five minutes later Teddy had informed her in an equally furious voice that Ben had taken all the shoelaces out of the guests’ shoes and knotted them together
and
he’d left fingermarks on the glossy surfaces
he
had spent ages achieving. She was exasperated with them both and, despite what she had said to Annie, she felt far from forgiving towards Jimmy for his leaving her to cope with them alone.

She broke another egg into a frying pan and glanced up as Annie bustled back into the kitchen. ‘You’re going to have to get someone to fix that wobbly chair, Kit. I put it to one side but someone’s moved it back again.’

‘Mick’s doing a notice for the window. Someone’s bound to answer it. You OK now?’

Annie nodded. ‘What’s all this about a notice? Mam was saying me uncle Horace’s still out of work. He’d probably appreciate anything you can throw his way. I mean most men can repair things, can’t they? Might as well keep it in the family.’

Kitty did not think that it was an absolute truth that all men were handy but she only murmured, ‘I don’t really know your uncle Horace.’ She slid another egg onto a plate.

‘I don’t know him much meself.’ Annie picked up the plate. ‘He’s hardly ever in when I go there but I know Mam’s worried in case Dad starts slipping money me aunt’s way. It’s hard enough for Mam to cope as it is with the six of us girls and her having to take in sewing.’