A Cuppa Tea and an Aspirin by Helen Forrester Page A

No. 5 were, and her pity for her unwelcome guest was tempered by her disgust at the sheer smell of her – at present, her nice clean living room had the strong odour of humanity, which her shop sometimes had on abusy day. She could endure that stench outside the lace-curtained door, but not in her home.
    â€˜How are you feeling now?’ she asked Martha.
    Martha did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Despite her best efforts, the tears began to run down her face once more. She had not been so beautifully warm for months, and the pain in her stomach had been assuaged; yet she still had no breakfast or lunch for Patrick and the children.
    She sniffed and swallowed hard. ‘I’m feeling steady now, Annie. You’ve been so kind.’ She stood up and immediately felt woozy again.
    She grinned at Annie. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m wobbly – feel as if I’ve had too much to drink!’
    What am I going to do? she wondered desperately. I can’t ask these people to let me have bread on tick, after they’ve been so good. Maybe, if I walked round to see Maria, she’d give me a loaf.
    Not likely, she decided. I told her weeks ago in my stupid temper to go to blazes. Tonight, she’ll be all packed up ready to move to Norris Green first thing tomorrow morning. I should have gone to see her about her eviction and made it up with her, and now it’s really too late. And, Jaysus, I’m so tired.
    She sighed, and her shoulders sagged. Sisters were a quarrelsome lot at best.
    Annie made a determined effort to be hospitable once more. ‘Sit down again and rest for a few minutes. There’s no hurry; we’re not that busy in the shop. And I’ll get our Ted to walk you back home.’
    Martha sat down rather quickly, because she had no option. For the moment, she realised, she could not walk home.
    Ted, who had been relieved from his shop duties by the return of his father to the counter, was again struggling with his geography homework. He was partly trying to remember the tributaries of the Mersey River and partly listening to the two women.
    When his mother committed him to escort duty, he muttered ‘Blast!’ and chewed his pen savagely. The last thing he wanted to do was to walk a dark and, to him, rather threatening street with a woman from the courts. Though he knew Martha’s Tommy, he did not play with him – Tommy was a Catholic.
    Both the O’Reillys had been born in the district. His parents’ attitude, however, was that they were socially far above court people, except when dealing with them as customers. This petty snobbery had rubbed off onto their only child, making him, occasionally, even more vulnerable to attack bythe Roman Catholic urchins round him. He was scholarship material, his father would tell him; they hoped he would win one to a grammar school and do really well for himself; his teacher said he could. Perhaps he could hope to be a teacher himself, one day.
    So Ted was sometimes a little hard-pressed to find enough boys to put together a game of footer or cricket in the side street onto which the living-room window looked, and he was prone to being bullied.
    â€˜You don’t have to bother Ted, Annie. I’ll be all right in a few minutes.’
    â€˜Are you sure?’
    Martha fought back her tears. ‘Oh, aye,’ she said.
    Ted sighed with relief, and wondered if the Leeds–Liverpool Canal counted as a tributary.

ELEVEN
    â€˜You Can’t Do Nothing about Consumption’
    January 1938
    Martha sat for a few minutes more in front of the O’Reillys’ fire, and talked desultorily with Annie. She mentioned the likelihood of the removal of the wall which shielded her court from the main road.
    â€˜Aye, I heard that,’ replied Annie, as she straightened up after adding some pieces of coal to the fire with a pair of tongs. ‘It’ll give you more fresh air.’
    â€˜I’m