‘That’s not to say other colleagues haven’t, but remember the disarray the country was in for six years. Many children had part-time or sporadic schooling, or none at all. You’ll find now that most of the schools like Paget Road will have a steady increase in the numbers of children going through the scholarship scheme.’
‘I hope so,’ Janet said. She felt odd and different being the only one, and wished there was another girl to go with.
Claire didn’t say that she found coaching Janet more exhausting and time-consuming than she’d thought, and it put severe restrictions on her private life. She’d already decided that any further children would be taught in extra lessons at school – she’d not open her home again, nor would she get so involved – but all these thoughts she kept from Janet.
She didn’t explain either that she didn’t intend to live like a nun for the rest of her life. She didn’t tell Janet about David Sunderland, who she’d met at a teachers’ conference after work one day, or about how he’d complained bitterly when she’d explained how her weekends were tied up. She didn’t tell Janet that they’d been out together a few times and she liked him very much.
She didn’t understand the pedestal Janet had put her on, and didn’t know Janet assumed she would work her way through life independently and free of any man, because Janet could tell her none of this.
The Easter holidays were looming and Claire believed that the day of reckoning would come before they returned to school. Betty Travers eventually gave up work. The baby was expected at the end of May and she thought it was time. Mary had had her plaster cast removed and had returned home where the obliging neighbours, the Pritchards, would be able to take her to the hospital in their car for physiotherapy.
Claire would have missed her mother more if David Sunderland hadn’t been around. Janet’s presence at the house was intermittent now and she could never stay long, as her mother’s confinement was getting closer.
David didn’t like Claire constantly talking about the girl. ‘You’ve done more for her than for any other child in your class,’ he said. ‘You have forty-nine others to concern yourself with, often from far worse homes and tragic beginnings.’
Claire couldn’t disagree with David. He was right. ‘You’ve given her a start few others have had, and certainly no one else at your school,’ he went on. ‘Now she’s either got fed up or is needed at home, but whatever the reasons for her absence, you must let her go, Claire.’
It was true, Claire knew that. Janet was strangely elusive, even at school. She arrived often just as the bell was ringing, flew out of the door at lunchtime and left on the dot of four in the afternoon.
It was hard to find out how things were when Claire wasn’t even able to snatch a quiet word with her. By tacit consent neither of them spoke about Janet’s visits to Claire’s house. They were well aware that the other children would make Janet’s life a misery, and even the school authority might view it unfavourably. They knew, of course, that the Travers’ girl was in line for a grammar school place and were pleased with that. However, Claire knew they would frown on what would be termed ‘overfamiliarity’ between a teacher and a pupil.
A general enquiry such as ‘How is your mother, Janet?’ was met with: ‘She’s all right, thank you, Miss Wentworth.’
A request from Claire to stay behind met with an agitated entreaty: ‘Oh please, Miss Wentworth, I can’t, my mother relies on me. I really must go straight home.’ How could Claire argue with that? She hoped that the birth of this fifth child into the Travers house might go smoothly and that afterwards life would settle down a little for Janet, but she didn’t say any of this to David.
By the time the Easter holidays were a few days off, Betty Travers had been in bed for over a week with high blood pressure. The family doctor, Dr Black, had wanted her shipped to hospital, but she became so distressed that he relented, but warned, ‘No slipping downstairs to peel the odd potato or do a spot of ironing, mind.’
For Bert and Duncan, life went on just the same. Sarah McClusky took on most of the housework, Breda looked after the twins a lot of the time and a heavy load fell on Janet.
One day the doctor called not long after Janet had got in from school. She’d cooked tea for Duncan, the twins and herself, prepared a tray that she was going to take up to her mother and was getting her father’s dinner ready to cook while she tried to stop the twins killing one another. The doctor watched her for a few minutes, then remarked, ‘You’re a splendid girl, Janet, and I know you’re a grand help, but don’t work yourself too hard. Get Duncan to help you.’
‘Duncan, Doctor?’ Janet said in amazement. ‘He’s a boy.’
‘I’m aware of that,’ Dr Black said with a smile.
‘Well, boys don’t do anything, do they?’
‘What about your father?’
Janet stared at the doctor for a minute, but didn’t speak. He gave a grim smile and asked, ‘Aren’t you going to point out that he’s a man?’ Without waiting for a reply, he said, ‘Tell your father I’ll be round to see him this evening after surgery. I think we need to have a chat.’
When Janet reported to Auntie Breda what the doctor had told her, she said, ‘About time someone spoke to him. You two better come to me for your tea. I’ll ask Mammy to see to Betty and your dad and get Conner and Noel to bed, but you two had better be right out of the road. Bloody good job it’s Friday and I haven’t got a job to go to.’
After their tea at Auntie Breda’s, Duncan and Janet were sent into the living room to look after Linda while Breda talked to Peter in the kitchen. Duncan was disgusted.
‘Boys don’t look after babies,’ he said. ‘Can’t I go out to play with my mates?’
‘No, you can’t,’ Auntie Breda told him. ‘I’m not having you hanging around your house. As for boys not looking after babies, you’ll probably have your own one day.’
‘Yeah,’ Duncan said, ‘but that will be my wife’s job, won’t it?’
‘You have a lot to learn, young Duncan,’ Breda said. ‘The modern woman and what she wants will be like a slap in the face to you and those like you. In this house, you’ll start by doing what you’re bloody well told.’
Still sulking, Duncan allowed himself to be propelled into the living room, where he kicked disconsolately at the skirting board and said to Janet:
‘I don’t know why they’ve sent us round here. It isn’t as if we don’t know what Dr Black wants to see Dad about, is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’ said Janet. She’d picked up that the doctor wasn’t pleased with her dad, but she didn’t know what it was all about.
‘You really are stupid sometimes, our Janet,’ Duncan snapped. ‘He’s going to tell our dad to stop doing it … you know …’ He looked at Janet’s puzzled face and burst out, ‘Well, they don’t want more babies, do they?’
At that moment, Breda’s voice came clearly from the kitchen.
‘Well,
