Anne Bennett - To Have and To Hold

Carmel could only nod, understanding that perfectly.

There were other toys too, of course, when Carmel was able to tear herself away—huge forts full of lead soldiers, or cowboys and Indians. There were also big garages with every toy car imaginable and a variety of car tracks for them to run along.

Another section had soft-bodied dolls with china heads and all manner of clothes nice enough to put on a real-life baby, and the cots and prams and pushchairs you would hardly credit.

‘Did you have toys like these?’ Carmel asked Lois.

‘No,’ Lois said. ‘Our stuff was basic, nothing like these magnificent things.’

Carmel wandered around the department, mesmerised. Teddy bears, rocking horses, hobby horses, spinning tops, skipping ropes with fancy handles, jack-in-the-boxes and kaleidoscopes were just some of the things she knew her little brothers and sisters would love. There were giant dolls’ houses, full of minute furniture and little people that would thrill the girls. And she so wished she could buy her brothers a proper football, for all they had to kick about were rags tied together, or the occasional pig’s bladder they begged from the butcher in the town. And wouldn’t they just love the cricket sets and blow football, and they could all have a fine game with the ping-pong.

The only thing the Duffy children had to spin was the lid of a saucepan, and their toys were buttons, clothes pegs, or stones. Any dolls were made of rags. Carmel felt suddenly immeasurably sad for her siblings, but even worse, she also felt guiltily glad that she was no longer there to share their misery.

‘Well,’ said Lois, ‘I don’t know about you, but I am ready for my dinner and Lyons is as close as anywhere.’

‘Are you sure you can afford it?’

‘Don’t start that again,’ Lois said. ‘We have already discussed it. Come on quick for my stomach thinks my throat is cut.’

Carmel realised she too was hungry and her stomach growled in appreciation when just a little later a steaming plate of golden fish and crispy chips was placed before her. Both girls did the meal justice, and Lois sighed with satisfaction as she ate the last morsel.

‘Ooh, that’s better,’ she said. ‘It’s amazing how a meal revives you. I was feeling quite tired.’

‘So was I,’ Carmel said. ‘But I have enjoyed today, for all that. You have a very interesting city here, Lois.’

‘You know,’ Lois said. ‘I have never really thought that before. What do you say to us exploring the Bull Ring now?’

‘I say lead the way,’ Carmel said, and the two girls left the cafeteria arm in arm.

The Bull Ring astounded Carmel. There were women grouped around a statue selling flowers, such a colourful and fragrant sight, though she had to shake her head at the proffered bunches for she hadn’t enough spare money to buy flowers.

The hawkers, selling all manner of things from their barrows, swept down the cobbled incline to another church that Lois told her was called St Martin-in-the Fields, though there were precious little fields around, she noted. It was however, ringed by trees, its spire towering skyward.

Everywhere hawkers shouted out their wares, vying with the clamour of the customers. One old lady’s strident voice rose above the others. She was standing in front of Woolworths, which the two girls were making for, and she was selling carrier bags and determined to let everybody know about it.

‘Woolworths is called the tanner shop,’ Lois said.

The two girls wandered up and down the aisles, looking at all the different things for sale for sixpence or less.

‘Everything is just sixpence?’ Carmel asked in amazement.

‘Oh, yes,’ Lois said with a smile. ‘Though some say that it’s a swizz. I mean, you do get a teapot for a tanner, but if you want a lid for it that is another tanner and a teapot is not much good without a lid, is it?’

‘No,’ Carmel agreed. ‘But I don’t know that that is not such a bad idea. After all, it is usually the lid breaks first. I would be very handy to be able to get another and all for just sixpence.’

‘Well, yes,’ Lois conceded. ‘That’s another way of looking at it, I suppose. Come on, I want to take a dekko at Hobbies next door.’

The window of Hobbies was full of wooden models of planes, cars and ships of all shapes, sizes and designs. Carmel was amazed at the detail and size of them.

‘My brother would spend hours in here,’ Lois said. ‘They sell kits, you know, to make the things you can see, and Santa always had one in his sack that he would drop off ready for Christmas morning.’ She wrinkled her nose and went on, ‘I can smell the glue even now. It was disgusting.

‘Now,’ she said, turning away from the shop, ‘I think the Rag Market is the place we’ll make for next, down by the church. Watch out for the trams. They come rattling around in front of St Martin’s like the very devil and there might be a couple of drayhorses pulling carts too.’

‘Drayhorses I have no problem with,’ Carmel said. ‘I’m used to horses, but those trams frighten the life out of me. I will give them a wide berth, never fear.’

Lois laughed. ‘You’ll soon get used to them,’ she said, but Carmel doubted she would. She’d seldom seen anything so scary.

Once inside the hall, there was a pervading odour.

‘What’s the stink?’ Carmel asked Lois. ‘It’s like fish.’

‘It is fish, left over from the weekdays when this place is used as a fish market,’ Lois said. ‘But never mind that. This is the place where bargains are to be had.’

Carmel thought it a strange place, for while some of the goods were displayed on trestle tables, others were just laid on blankets spread on the floor. She was very interested in the second-hand stalls where she saw many good quality clothes being sold comparatively cheaply, and she thought she would bear that in mind in case she needed anything another time.

She could have spent longer in the market, for such unusual things were being sold there. She stood mesmerised by the mechanical toys a man was selling. Catching Carmel’s interest, he wound up a spinning top.

‘On the table, on the chair, little devils go everywhere,’ he chanted. ‘Only a tanner. What d’you say?’

What Carmel would have liked to have said was that she would take four or five to send home to her wee brothers and sisters. She could imagine their excitement, but instead she turned her head away regretfully. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t the money to spare.’

‘Your loss, lady.’

‘Come on,’ Lois urged. ‘I want you to see Peacocks. You can buy almost anything there, and we must go to the Market Hall before we leave.’

When they were outside the Rag Market a far more pleasant smell than that of stale fish assailed Carmel’s nostrils and she sniffed appreciatively.

‘That’s the smell from Mountford’s, where they’re cooking the joints of meat,’ Lois said. ‘Makes you feel hungry, doesn’t it?’

‘Not half.’

They passed the shop, where there was the tantalising sight of a sizzling joint on a spit turning in the window. Carmel felt her mouth water. It would be at least another hour before she ate anything, for she and Lois were not meeting the others until five and it was only four o’clock.

‘Come on,’ Lois urged. ‘Let’s go and see around Peacocks. I used to love this too when I was just a child.’

Peacocks was packed—Lois said it always was and Carmel could well see why, for the store had such a conglomeration of things for sale, clothes and toys as well as anything you would conceivably need for the house.

Outside Peacocks, a hawker had a stall selling fish. ‘What am I asking for these kippers?’ he demanded. ‘A tanner a pair, that’s what. Come on, ladies, get out your purses. You won’t get a bargain like this every day.’