Twopence to Cross the Mersey by Helen Forrester

Author:Helen Forrester
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-07-28T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

We crept through the spring and summer, cursing wet days, rejoicing in warm, dry ones, ignoring petty ailments and hunger, since we could do nothing about either.

Several of the children had sores which took a long time to heal. These were sometimes caused by normal cuts and abrasions, acquired while playing, going septic; and sometimes from their scratching at their vermin-ridden bodies. We nearly all suffered from toothache from time to time, and Mother’s teeth began to loosen. Brian suffered torture from gumboils. His first teeth had been good but he had several large cavities in his second ones, caused, perhaps, by the large amount of white bread in his diet. His wizened face would swell up and he would cry hour after hour, until finally the abscess would burst and the pain would be reduced. On one occasion his weeping was heard as far away as the basement of the house; and Mrs Hicks, prodded by her out-of-work, bricklayer husband, made the long journey up the stairs, to inquire what was the matter.

‘He’s got a bad tooth,’ I explained. ‘He can’t go to school today, because it hurts too much.’

‘Well, poor luv!’ she exclaimed, her double chin, with its little crown of spiky hairs, wobbling sympathetically. ‘Na, then, I got some oil of cloves. Come daanstairs with me, luv,’ she called to Brian, who was hovering nervously in the background. ‘Ah got somethin’ as will help yer. Come on, na.’

Brian allowed himself to be beguiled downstairs, where he spent the afternoon lying on Mrs Hicks’s horsehair sofa in front of her blazing fire, having hot cloths put on his cheeks and quantities of bitter oil of cloves dabbed into his cavities.

Nobody had ever made such a fuss of him, and, despite the pain and the foul taste of oil of cloves, he loved it. He loved also the warmth, the cosiness and the old tin teapot keeping its contents warm on the hob.

Mr Hicks called him a brave lad, and, when he was feeling better, and was ready to return to our cold, clammy apartment, Mrs Hicks invited him to come down again on a day when his teeth were not hurting, and have a cup of tea and a homemade scone with them.

He came back full of glee, in spite of his swollen face, and remained Mr and Mrs Hicks’s devoted friend and message-runner for years.

The Hickses had so little, and yet they managed to make their dark basement so cosy. Mrs Hicks must have been an excellent housekeeper and, unlike many of her neighbours, she understood the nutritional value of many cheap foods like herrings and lentils, and she pointed out to me that brown bread was better than white. My mother, like many middle-class English people at that time, knew very little about the need for a well-balanced diet.

Another good cook was the Spanish lady who had given us the Chariot. I found she had a Spanish husband, who was a warehouseman in one of

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