Memories are made of these

Being blind didn’t make you nice
Esther and her brothers arrived home later than they had planned, having spent all the day at nearby Wick Steeds Park; which folk visited from miles around to spend their hard earned money. Fractious kids and tense parents crowding back into their coaches at five with petulant and tired children and empty purses.
“Well sis, do you think he’ll soon go?” asked Mark, blowing an enormous bubble before spitting his chewing gum down through the metal steps where they had all stood for over twenty minutes, just to spent 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 not…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 ladies neck and into her picnic basket. He had been for the umpteenth time on the pirates ship, which went higher and higher into the sunshine. Esther had thought just before he had done it, how he looked like their daddy, but how could that be he was just a kid, and he could see, thank god, just as she could.
After a bag of chips, smothered with pickled onion, vinegar and batter bits wrapped in yesterday’s news, which they ate with inky hands as they walked through the park, they were ready to go 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 into the outside lido and then walked right round the big park. But that would have taken another two hours. Anyway, it was getting very late!
“You’re for it,” warned Mr. Underwood, as he reached on tip-toe on his step ladder in his corner shop where they had called before continuing along the long, dark terraced street which was now their new home.
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 boxes instead?”
Then, finally down from his shop steps, Mr. Underwood brought two glass bottles and counted, as he stood behind his low counter, six gobstoppers for Andrew and lemon sherbet and liquorices for Mark and Esther some Turkish delight….well she was a kid to, really, wasn’t she?
What did Mr. Underwood mean exactly, and what had they gone and done that was so very wrong apart from being nearly two hours late? It wasn’t their fault that they missed the United Counties bus was it?
Thanking Mr. Underwood, they shot through the door and turned left into their now grey street for home, as he followed them out with his coal barrow. First though, he lit his pipe but was then stopped in his tracks by Mick the Co-op baker who they overheard 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 walked down their alley. They hadn’t had time to visit nana, and their other brother Michael, who didn’t seem to want to play with them anyway, and who for reasons beyond her control, she didn’t know. Esther always wondered why it was so hard to talk to Michael, or why he often went to his room when they went to visit Nana who lived about two hundred yards away. Then as they entered the cold living room, despite the flickering flames from the open fire range, 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 spilt it onto the cracked tiles and then it dripped slowly onto the wooden floorboards.
“Where the bloody hell have you lot been? Don’t you know we have been.....