enjoying meself. Mind you, I was thinking a wee bit a company would be good too, if you get me drift an’ all.’
‘Jimmy, how could you? Daddy’s being buried tomorrow and you’re round here trying to ask me out!’ She stood up, hoping he’d realise she wanted him to go.
Instead, he stood to face her. ‘But I’ve always liked you, Pat, ever since I first came round here with Mr Goulding. I think about that summer all the time, when I helped him fix the fence out the back garden and you talked to me about the roses. Do you remember?’ He put his hand out to touch her face.
She moved her head back. ‘No I don’t. Why would I?’
‘Look I’m only asking you to go out with me for a bit of company. I’ve told you, I’ll have money to spend.’
How she wished she hadn’t let him in. If only she’d taken the tool bag off him at the door. ‘Jimmy McComb, are you suggesting I would go out with someone just because they had money to spend? Now you get this straight. I go out with someone because I like them and right now you don’t come anywhere near that category.’
It was as though he’d been slapped in the face. He stepped back, all bravado gone. ‘I just thought that—’
‘I know exactly what you thought,’ she snapped, ‘but what you didn’t think is that you’ve only got that job because my father is dead. You’re so stupid, you didn’t realise that it’s Daddy’s job you’ve taken and he’s not even buried yet!’ With that she pushed past him and ran into the kitchen. He could see himself out.
*
The curtains in the street were still drawn as a mark of respect, when the funeral car deposited Martha and her daughters outside their home. The rest of the mourners arrived shortly after for a bite to eat and a cup of tea.
Martha and Irene had been up at six to start the baking: Victoria sponges, fairy cakes, seed cake and three different kinds of scones. Pat and Peggy had made the sandwiches and Sheila was given the job of washing all the china. Before they left for the funeral they had laid everything out, covered with tea towels to keep it fresh. As the first kettle came to the boil, Anna, Martha’s younger sister, and her husband Thomas Wilson arrived in their new Rover motor car, gleaming red with plenty of chrome.
‘Don’t mind us,’ said Anna adjusting the fox fur around her shoulders. ‘We’ll just sit in here and let you get on with things.’ She looked carefully at the armchair under the window, weighing up its worn beige brocade before, in one continuous movement, she smoothed the back of her skirt with both hands and sat down. Thomas didn’t sit, but stood with his back to the unlit fire as though warming himself. His pinstripe suit was well cut, his shirt gleaming white and a gold watch and chain stretched across his waistcoat. The other mourners began to arrive and the front room steadily filled up.
‘Bad business about Poland,’ Thomas said to no one in particular.
‘It was bound to happen,’ said Kathleen, Robert’s sister. ‘I’m telling you, Hitler won’t stop ‘til he’s got everything he wants. You can’t reason with a man like that. You have to stand up to him. That’s what Chamberlain’s got to do now.’
‘If he does, it’ll be war for sure,’ said Thomas, ‘and we’ll be hit hard in Belfast, I can tell you, living within spitting distance of one of the biggest dockyards in the country and as if that isn’t bad enough, it’s cheek by jowl with a huge aircraft factory. Oh aye, you mark my words, we’ll get it in the neck all right.’
In the kitchen Anna, who’d slipped away at the first sign of war talk, was also getting into her stride. The fox fur had slipped a little, but she still wore her hat clamped firmly in place with a huge amber hatpin as sharp as the words she was directing at her sister.
‘You’ve got to face up to it Martha, now that Robert’s gone you just can’t afford it. This is a decent-sized family house in a good area.