Memories are made of this

Being blind didn’t make you nice
Esther and her brothers arrived home later than they had planned, having spent much of the day at nearby Wick-steed Park, which folk visited from miles around to spend their money. Fractious kids and tense parents crowding back into the coaches at five with empty purses.
“Well sis, do you think he’ll go soon?” asked Mark, blowing an enormous bubble before spitting his gum down through the metal steps where they had all stood for over twenty minutes, just to spend five minutes or so in the water. Hands in the air, as their chute plunged into the chilly, dank lake far below, with shrieks of delight as cold water cascaded over them all. Esther shrugged.
“Don’t know…let’s hope so…he might go like that posh man went. There’s nothing we can do about it anyway…is there?”
“What’s a widower?” demanded Andrew, whirling round there on the winding metal park stairs, again catching her frightened eyes with his, as they moved up three more steps to go on the water chute again.
“I’ll tell you later”. Esther didn’t really know herself, but she would ask her mum about that. She was the biggest at home and she should know.
By the time their day was done, Andrew had been on most of the free rides and then been sick down a shocked lady’s neck and into her picnic basket. He had been for the umpteenth time on the pirate ship, which soared into the sky. Esther had thought just before he had done it, how he looked like their daddy, but how could that be for he was just a kid.
After a bag of chips wrapped in yesterday’s news, smothered with pickled onion, vinegar and batter bits which they ate with inky hands as they walked through the park, they returned home. It was fortunate that the bus shelter had a roof and sides, but not that the colder air now blew through shattered panes. If they had more time, they would have gone to the outside lido and then walked right round the big park again.
“You’re for it!” warned Mr. Underwood later, as he reached tip-toe on his step ladder in his corner shop where they had called before continuing along the long terraced street.
Esther continued, “It’ll just be your fault if you’re sick again. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Why not keep your sixpence, and put it in your money box instead?”
Then, finally down from his shop steps, Mr. Underwood brought two glass bottles. He took off the funny lid and counted, as he stood behind his low counter, six gobstoppers for Andrew and lemon sherbet and liquorices for Mark and, for Esther some Turkish delight…well, she was a kid too, really, wasn’t she?
What did Mr. Underwood mean? What had they gone and done that was so very wrong apart from being a little late? It wasn’t their fault that they missed the bus was it?
Thanking Mr. Underwood, they shot out of the door turning left into the street for home and the joking shop owner followed them out to fetch his coal barrow from where it was stored outside - close to his fresh fruit and veg. He lit his pipe then bent to tighten his shoe-laces and whistled. He stood up to see Mick the Co-op baker who began talking about a break-in at the Co-op and cigarettes being stolen in a brazen lunch-time raid.

Really the thought of the blind man with the sharp voice and a stern face who handled his guide dog unkindly made Esther’s blood run cold.
“Remember to say you’re sorry” whispered Esther, as they ran down their alley. They hadn’t had time to visit nana.

They entered the cold living room, despite the flickering flames from the open fire, Joe sprung from his chair in the corner, near to where he penned his guide dog in to keep it away from her pet, Timmy, he said to her mum. Moving forward to put his pint mug onto the hearth he spilled it onto the cracked tiles and the brown sticky fluid onto the wooden floorboards trickling beneath his tartan slippers.
“Where have you lot been? Don’t you know how your mum has been worried about you? Anything could have happened to you. Things need to change right now in this house. Go to bed all of you! Hush, Laura, it doesn’t help to make excuses for them. They need a strong man’s hands, I am thinking!”
“We...we’re so sorry, but…”
“No excuses!” he snapped, pointing his wrinkly hands in the direction of the stairs, so they went without arguing. Esther crawled beneath the cold sheets in her tiny bedroom, catching her Poe with her toes. What a good job she had emptied it that morning! Surely her mummy had been wrong to choose a man like him to be their new daddy hadn’t she? Downstairs in their tiny kitchen, their mummy clattering and splashing dishes- being heard from Esther’s jammed window.
Laura was stuck in her thoughts and wished that there was someone she could talk to, but how could she ask either her mother or father, who in their own minds thought she had failed. She wished she had remained in Essex, living with people who knew her well. However high Joe stoked the wood in the range in their front room, or hold the metal dustbin lid across the chimney breast, it seemed they would never feel warm again.