Nancy Carson - A Family Affair

‘Thank you…Pop.’ She was having difficulty getting used to calling him that.

‘Huh!’ Mary Ann tutted indignantly. ‘Tis to be hoped you’m as finicky when you get married, our Clover. Lord help whoever it is as gets you.’

Conversation paused while the family, all self-conscious of each other in their new situation, concentrated on their breakfasts. Despite Clover’s concern about just how radically the presence of a new stepfather and stepsister might affect her, it seemed that things might not be so bad after all. Maybe she was going to like her new stepfather. He seemed very fair.

‘Are you courting, Clover?’ Ramona asked, tackling her food with determination.

Clover shook her head and smiled self-consciously, glancing at her mother. ‘No, no, I’m not courting.’

‘Not courting at nineteen?’ Jake sounded incredulous. ‘Why they must be a-queuing up – a fine-looking madam like thee.’

Clover smiled demurely and continued eating.

‘Oh, there’s one or two that come in the taproom and ogle at her all soft-like,’ Mary Ann admitted. ‘But I wouldn’t give tuppence for e’er a one.’

‘I’m a-courting,’ Ramona stated proudly. ‘I’ve been courting more than six months now.’

Jake burst out laughing. ‘Courting at seventeen, eh? What d’you think about that, Mary Ann?’

‘I think seventeen’s a bit young to be a-courting, Jacob,’ Mary Ann declared disapprovingly. ‘I take it as you ain’t serious with this chap, Ramona? Whoever he is.’

‘No, I ain’t serious, Mother,’ Ramona felt inclined to confirm. ‘It’s just a chap I know.’

‘There’s no harm in the wench stepping out with a young chap a couple of nights a week if she wants to, Mary Ann,’ Jake said. ‘As long as she’s back home afore ten.’

‘What they can do after ten they can do afore it, Jacob,’ Mary Ann argued. ‘I don’t hold with young women being out nights on their own with men, as our Clover knows. Specially at seventeen. But if you’m content, Jacob, then I’ll be ruled by thee.’

‘She’ll come to no harm, Mary Ann.’

Clover smiled to herself. Things were really looking up, because whatever Ramona could do, she would be able to do also under this new regime.

The terraced buildings that lined both sides of George Street and Brown Street on Kates Hill were made up mostly of dwellings, but were interspersed with little shops. Brown Street, generally the busier of the two, boasted shops that sold lamp-oil and clothes pegs, sweets, haberdashery, greengrocery, as well as a barber’s shop, a fish-and-chip shop, a couple of butchers’ shops and several public houses. George Street hosted a newsagent, a pawnbroker, a coal yard, and a grain merchant. A mere three pubs vied for trade in George Street; the California Inn, the Jubilee Inn – which was the headquarters of the pigeon club – and the Jolly Collier. But then it was less than a hundred yards from one end to the other.

Clover proudly showed Ramona around Kates Hill that afternoon to help walk off their Sunday dinners. Groups of children tumbled through the narrow streets on their way to Sunday school, and courting couples strolled hand in hand. All were wearing their Sunday best.

‘It’ll be nice having a sister,’ Ramona said chirpily as they ventured up Cromwell Street, and Clover began to feel they were growing close already. ‘’Course, with my mother dying when she had me there was no chance of a brother or a sister after.’

‘Oh, I didn’t realise your mother had died in childbirth,’ Clover said sympathetically. ‘So your dad’s been on his own all these years.’

‘More’n seventeen years now. I worked it out – they had to get married, you know. They’d only been married five months when I was born.’

‘But that’s tragic,’ Clover remarked with the utmost sympathy. ‘Your poor father. He’s hardly known any married life. And he must have reared you by himself.’

‘With a bit of help from my two grandmothers. When I was little, I used to go to one of my gran’s when he went to the market.’

‘I like your father,’ Clover proclaimed. ‘He seems very fair.’

‘He’s all right. Your mother don’t smile much, though, does she?’

Clover chuckled good-naturedly. ‘She was smiling this morning at your father…’

‘I know…What if she gets pregnant, Clover?’

‘Pregnant? At her age?’

‘Well, I know she’s forty-two but women do have babies at that age.’

‘No, not my mother, Ramona. Not Mary Ann. She wouldn’t. That sort of thing wouldn’t interest her .’

‘It interests every other woman. Why should she be different?…Anyway, Clover, tell me about your father.’

‘I can hardly remember him. Just a few vague impressions, that’s all. He was called Toby. He and Mother became licensees of the Jolly Collier in 1890 when she was twenty-five and I was just two. He died of pneumonia when I was four.’

They passed the Sailor’s Return on their left, which fronted the Diamond Brewery.

‘So who’s this Ned Brisco you mentioned?’ Ramona asked.

‘Oh, Ned? He’s just a friend. But a good friend. I’ll show you where he lives in a minute.’

‘Isn’t he your sweetheart?’

‘My sweetheart?’ Clover burst out laughing. ‘No, I don’t fancy him that way.’

Ramona registered surprise. ‘Have you ever had a lover? Have you ever done what lovers do?’

Clover shook her head, half resolutely, half apologetically. ‘No. I’d wait till I was married before I did anything like that.’

‘I have.’ Ramona paused for Clover’s reaction.

‘You mean…?’

Ramona smiled smugly.

‘Ramona! You never.’

‘It’s nothin’ to make a fuss about, you know. Plenty of my friends do it.’

They were silent for a few seconds, hearing only the sound of their footsteps on the Ketley blue paving-blocks with the criss-crossed pattern, while Clover mulled over this surprising information.

‘Does it hurt? They say it hurts.’

‘A bit. The first time. Made me bleed a bit as well, but it didn’t stop me liking it. I really liked it, Clover.’

Clover was intrigued. ‘So who did you do it with? That boy you’re courting?’

‘’Course. Sammy.’

‘How long since the first time?’

‘Last Christmas. I was seventeen, Clover,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I mean, it’s not as if I was a child.’

‘But where did you do it? I mean, if it was Christmas?’

‘Me and my father were going to my gran’s for our Christmas dinners, but he wanted to go to the Jolly Collier first for a drink. So he left me in our house by myself getting ready, and I was supposed to meet him at my gran’s after. Anyway, Sammy called to bring me my Christmas box. I gave him a big kiss for it…you know…and one thing led to another…I locked the door and we ended up on the hearth in the front room, me with me nightdress up round me waist.’

‘God…But what if you’d got pregnant, Ramona? Think of all the trouble, the disgrace.’

‘Oh, I won’t get pregnant. Sammy pulls it out a bit sharp when he’s ready to…you know…’

Clover digested this thought-provoking information for a few seconds while they turned the corner by the Junction Inn. Watson’s Street, where Ned lived, stretched narrowly to their right, a steep hill that took you to the top of Cawney Hill and its tiny twisted streets, its back-to-back cottages and its disused quarry. But Clover decided not to point out Ned’s home; it would be too distracting and she wanted to explore this fascinating subject more. So they began the climb up Hill Street with its row of terraced houses on the right and its allotments on the left behind a small row of cottages.