Footnote (viii) – New Boots
THE END OF THE BOER WAR! ALL DAY LONG THE STREETS had been full of
people celebrating the news. By happy coincidence there was a great
travelling fair visiting St George’s Field and Lillian and Nell
were hoping to visit its gas-lit stalls and experience the thrill
of being amongst the crowds on such a patriotic occasion. Albert
had gone fishing with his pal Frank, and Tom was already away from
home, living in lodgings in Monkgate. Lillian was fifteen now and
Nelly fourteen and both were working. Lillian was at Rowntree’s in
the packing department. When she’d first left school Rachel had
made her go into service, but one morning Lillian had just stood
there in the kitchen, her arms folded, her chin up, and said she
wasn’t going to skivvy for anyone. Nell had prayed every night that
her sister would get another job soon because they needed new boots
so desperately and Rachel said they couldn’t have any until Lillian
was bringing in a wage again. Their old boots were worn right
through so that they could feel the pavement through their
stocking-feet.
Nell earned hardly
anything; she was apprenticed to a milliner in Coney Street and
both girls had to hand over every penny of their wages to Rachel
every week when she grudgingly gave them a few coppers back. They
got their new boots before Lillian got her job because Lillian was
so disgusted by the state of their boots that she’d gone out one
day in her bare feet, and Rachel, her face red with fury, was
finally goaded by embarrassment into giving them the money for new
boots.
‘Can we go to the fair
after tea?’ It was Lillian that asked, of course. Nell was so timid
that she got Lillian to do all her talking if she could. Rachel
looked right through Lillian and completely ignored her. ‘Say
“please”,’ Nell whispered in her sister’s ear. Lillian screwed up
her face, ‘Please can we go to the fair after
tea?’
‘No.’
‘Why
not?’
‘Because I said not,’
Rachel said, looking from one to the other of them as if they were
both idiots. Then she picked up a pile of clean laundry and walked
out of the kitchen. Lillian picked up a wooden spoon from the
kitchen table and threw it after Rachel’s retreating back and to
pay them back Rachel waited until they were both up in their room
and then she turned the key in the door and locked them
in.
They sat on their
bedroom floor and laced up their new boots. They were made of soft,
black leather and were the most expensive boots they’d ever had.
‘She’ll find out,’ Nell said, staring at the still unscuffed toes
of her boots. ‘I don’t care,’ Lillian said, jumping up and lifting
the sash. They were still living in the house in Walmgate, a poky
upstairs apartment in a slum courtyard. The yard beneath their
bedroom window was dank and smelt of sewage and slimy green moss
covered the paving-slabs. But in the middle, through a big, cracked
hole in the stones, a lilac tree had taken root many years ago, its
seed blown in from some pleasant town garden along the length of
dark Walmgate. Its bark was rough and torn as if someone had taken
the tines of a giant fork and scratched them down the trunk, but
its blossom was as rich and heavy as any tree in a grander place.
Last year, Lillian had reached out from their bedroom window and
torn off a great branch of it and stuck it in an old jug in their
room and the heady scent of lilac had cheered them for
weeks.
Nell brushed
Lillian’s hair for her and tied her ribbons, then Lillian did the
same for Nell. ‘I’m sure the branches will break with our weight,’
Nelly hissed as Lillian put one leg over the sill.
‘Stop fussing, Nelly,’
Lillian whispered back, one arm already grasping a branch. Lillian
swung herself out and grabbed the trunk. ‘Mind your boots, Lily!’
Nell hissed as Lillian clambered down the tree. She stood at the
bottom and said, ‘It’s easy, Nelly, come on.’ Nell was already
sitting on the window-sill, leaning out, but then she drew back;
she’d never had a good head for heights and when she looked down
she felt sick – although it wasn’t so much the height that stopped
her as the fear of Rachel’s wrath if she found that they’d sneaked
out like this after she’d expressly forbidden them. Nell shook her
head miserably. ‘I’m not coming, Lily.’ Lillian cajoled and pleaded
with Nell, but it did no good and in the end she said angrily,
‘What a coward you are, Nelly! Well, I’m going even if you’re not!’
and she marched out of the yard and out of Nell’s sight without a
backward glance. Nell stood for a long time at the open window. The
sound of people celebrating the end of the war drifted into the
courtyard on the soft air of a May evening. Nell’s tears had dried
and the sky had grown a very dark blue and the first star was out
before Lillian came back, her ribbons askew, her new boots scuffed
and a grin of triumph on her face.
Nell opened the window
for her and helped her climb back in over the sill. Lillian took a
paper poke of toffee from her pocket and shared it with Nell. ‘It
was really grand, Nell,’ she said, her eyes
shining.
A wind got up in the
night and it began to rain. Nell was woken up by the tapping of a
branch of the lilac tree against the bedroom window. Nell lay with
her eyes wide open in the dark, listening to Lillian’s peaceful
breathing next to her. Nell wished she was more like Lillian. The
rain and the tapping grew louder and the wind wilder and Nell
didn’t think she’d ever get back to sleep.
