Memories are made of this

The Wedding
“Not the accepted way to go to your Mum’s wedding; sitting on the top deck of a green United Counties bus” thought Esther, staring out the window as their bus twisted and turned towards the local foundry, set on the hill.
“Good idea, Mark. Let’s get off here and go down the mill to paddle. They won’t miss us. Don’t want to go anyway”.
“He has nothing to do with us, do him?” muttered her younger brother Andrew.
Twenty or so minutes later, though, they were all legging it down East-field Road past all the houses with drives and trees laden with pink blossom.
“Come on, Ogles!”
Of course, neither brother could ever realize how hurtful words like that were then, and, after all, weren’t they used to name-calling themselves, and bullies who fed on the weak?
Breathless and scared, they pushed hard against the heavy oak Roman Catholic Church door then quietly went and stood right at the back, as their new stepfather and mother walked back down the aisle. The organist played, the bells pealed but there were few guests, and no photos, so back home again on the United Counties bus that rattled back down the road, now full of Saturday market shoppers with bulging bags and gossip to catch up on.
“It’s been so kind of you all to do this for us...and me your new neighbour”.
Her neighbours husband, Mick, moved slowly around their front room later handing out egg and cress sandwiches and broken biscuits from the factory where he worked as a foreman. Laura then continued her thanks as she sat on a wooden chair in her front room, hardly believing what she had gone and done, as she drank from her mug of tea and felt a shudder run through her.
“We all hope you and Joe are really happy together with these lovely kids of yours”.
Maggie glanced doubtfully across at Laura’s kids standing forlorn and ill-at-ease, with no real grasp how life was to change. Then the same lovely plump lady with tight curly brown hair touched her breasts, which were leaking through her frilly nylon blouse, signifying a need to feed her new-born son. Then she had vanished out of the back door, lifting her bosoms and scratching beneath her arm-pits and pulling her knickers away from where they had stuck.

Laura’s parents had avoided the reception, as they had her first wedding, without excuse, but she now had a partner for the lonely and the difficult times, to help her with her children as they grew and then challenged her, as children always seemed to do. Once outside in their long flat street Maggie waved, readjusting her dress whilst settling her child close to her.
In the distance was Fred, just returning from the Prince of Wales, having just finished his work down at Finedon Mines. He waved back at her now with his nap-sack on his shoulders, wobbling on his Rudge cycle just past Banks Park where, only days earlier, a May Queen from Esther’s new class had been crowned. He was one of the many brave men who had returned to Finedon after the war, and rarely spoke about how he had been a rear gunner – this was true about many folk in their little town with sad memories they kept tucked inside their own heads.

Was she the only one to fear her school
In those last months of Junior School (before it became a doctor’s private residence) Miss Brown had said to Esther as she sat uneasily on her form,
“What did you say the meaning of buoyancy is Esther?”
“It means…it means…”
Miss Brown had appeared visibly shocked that Esther actually knew that 11-plus answer. However, she had not known enough, for only three girls out of a class of over 60 actually passed the 11-plus, two of those going to High School and the other to Technical School. Everyone else, including Esther nervously off to Secondary Modern School. At the end of the day the three selected girls returned from High School with their homework, their leather satchels, their boaters with blue ribbon, their grey socks. They didn’t acknowledge their old friends who still swore, blew bubble-gum that got stuck to shoes, seats, floors and sometimes hair. Old friends who wore parkas, stood in gangs outside the Co-op in the fog, or hung upside-down on monkey frames in the park, or one of the swings and then getting stuck and hauled out with red faces, but laughing, as adults walked by and sighed at the foolishness of youth. Once it grew too cold for the bravest of the gang they would head to the youth club at Star Hall. It was there that Esther overheard something that she did not entirely understand.
“Albert, you know, my brother Albert, who works down at the pits. Well…silly bugger, only gone and got himself a dose of the crabs from some old snapper”.
They had all laughed, including Esther, who still had no idea what she was laughing at.
“Anyway,” he continued, as he noisily drew Coca-Cola through a blue and white striped straw, sitting Centre-stage, with his mates probably wondering too. Anyway- he cleared it himself with no help from the quack with Ajax and a scrubbing brush. I tell you, though; he did walk real funny for weeks after that!”
Esther was puzzled. The only crabs she knew of to be found at the seaside or in posh restaurants. The way he walked and laughed it must have been nasty though.

April moved quickly into May and, of course, Maypole dancing, with Esther skipping around the pole which stood in the middle of the playground. She was always fascinated with the weave of bright ribbons and how they magically wove and spread like ink on blotting paper. Suddenly falling flat on her face amidst her class-mates screaming and kicking but protesting it wasn’t her fault. Weakness never aiding her so she scrambled again to her feet then grabbing her red ribbon she continued her dance through life.
Why should they want, or need, another daddy as if you could pick one from the sweetie counter at Wool-worth's and then pay with some pennies? It wasn’t as if they didn’t have other male influences in their young lives. There was an uncle who owned a wood-yard which ran and spread wider at the back of the little cottage that he shared with his lovely wife. She had a precious gift listening rather than pretending. On her way back home from her Uncle Frank later that week – and another ‘lovely haircut’ assured her Aunt Rose had kindly handed her the very last piece of her delicious sponge cake. Walking the long street she glanced at her grandfather’s pig-van her eyes drawn down to the vans wheels touching the edge of the curb and two workman’s red lights sat close to the front and back of his van wheels. Esther hesitated but decided against calling in as it was getting late. And her grandfather would be watching the news. Nan, she imagined, would be crouching over with her bunion feet spreading wide in a tin bowl beside the last embers of the fire. Esther strolled onto the house that was no longer her home where Joe sat and her mum crept.

The next day she didn’t go to school because they all had overslept. It didn’t matter much to her and anyway, she was always glad to be free from school and Miss Brown who was quickly discovering her weakness including knitting as well as mathematics, although she excelled at learning her times table by rote.
Soon she would want to go to school, however much she might have once hated it. Terror forced most of the girls in her class not to make too many mistakes. They didn’t particularly like the idea of being struck by their teacher flashing the innards of her wide open mouth and ill-fitting false teeth in the direction of her charges. Standing, legs astride, where fat met fat, chalk in fingers and half-rimmed spectacles balancing on her nose. Cutting with a ruler, carried with great force and precision but just missing her captive’s knuckles. Some girls sent by her to stand in the corner of the class for at least thirty minutes until their legs wobbled and knees ached and they tried hard not to cry as the rest of the class looked on and they not wanting to lose face.

It had been difficult to concentrate for the last few days though, as she thought of the man who was now supposed to take the place of their daddy- he had even suggested that he might adopt them and legally become their new daddy; a sickening thought!
Her mind was dragged back to the class as her teacher spoke….
“Go back to your desk immediately Esther and undo all that tangled mess and start again with your knitting. By the time you have knitted those slippers you will have grown out of them. Buck up, you stupid child, and go and sit down now. I need to see some evidence of knitting from those needles of yours or there will be no playtime for you”.
In a way, Esther was glad at the thought of stopping in the warm near the noisy old radiator instead of the cold and the snow that was settling quickly in the same schoolyard where the Maypole once stood. She really needed to sharpen up if anyone was to ever rely on the skills that her Aunt Rose with a beard and a deft hand had…especially with embroidery and cakes to die for.
Again, she later hid the last bit of sponge in the hedge of her aunt’s house on the A6 on the way home. That tea-time she passed a red-headed road man who, with a stiff broom, cleaned their streets so thoroughly. He always had a smile on his face and would happily pass the time of day with those with a readiness to do so. Then life drifted, driftwood on driftwood, and they caught in its tide, but at least they did it quietly and played the backstage so very well.