Our Lizzie by Anna Jacobs

kitchen and elegant little parlour. What it’d be like here with two lodgers sitting at the table as well didn’t bear thinking of. For a moment, she almost envied her elder sister, eating on her own in the evenings. Then she thought of the lukewarm leftovers that sat on a plate by the fire waiting for Lizzie to come home and changed her mind.
    *   *   *
    Having the Misses Harper living with them made life a bit easier for Lizzie, because her mother didn’t shout at her or slap her in front of the boarders. Mam had never slapped them like this when Dad was alive, but she was always doing it now—well, she slapped Lizzie and Johnny a lot, and Polly sometimes—though usually only when Percy was out. She never slapped Eva, though she shouted at her. It wasn’t fair.
    Lizzie continued to miss her father very keenly as the weeks passed. It seemed to the grieving child that no one really cared about her now. Her mother only spoke to order her to do jobs around the house or to tell her off about something. When Percy was at home, Mam usually hovered near him, but quite often nowadays he went out for a drink in the evening with Sam, saying if there was no point studying, he might as well enjoy himself a bit, and he could make a half last all evening.
    Polly was her usual quiet self, rarely speaking up, just watching everything the family did with her wide, pale blue eyes. And Johnny was a typical little boy of four going on five. He had started school in the babies’ class at the beginning of the year because their mother said it got him off the streets. But the little children all had to have a nap in the afternoons, so when he came home at tea-time, he was always full of beans, rushing out to play with his friends or coming back in bawling to have an injury bathed or else to whine for something to eat. And if Lizzie was around she was the one who had to see to him. In fact, if she was around in the afternoons, her mother hardly lifted a finger.
    Sometimes it all got to be too much for the child, this strange new life. It was at those times she went out and sat in the lav by herself, the darker the night the better, because there was something comforting about darkness and people didn’t disturb her there. Well, not unless they were desperate to go.
    Even her sister Eva, with whom she had previously been quite close, now spent a lot of time round at Miss Blake’s, since the teacher was giving her private coaching in return for more help in the house. And since Miss Blake lived quite a way away, she had lent Eva an old bike and Mam had given her permission to be out after dark—so long as she came back by the main road and didn’t cut through the back lanes.
    Only—when Eva wasn’t there to do the chores, Mam always gave the extra work to Lizzie. So much work. Would it never end? What with Dearden’s and school and housework, not to mention the extra washing up, Lizzie was always exhausted by bedtime. She would go up to bed early sometimes and lie there in the darkness, listening to the quiet murmurings from the lodgers upstairs, vaguely comforted by them. Sometimes she would try to tell herself stories like the ones she used to read in the comics—only Mam wouldn’t let her buy comics now. And she took all the money Lizzie earned at Dearden’s, every farthing. Life was rotten.
    *   *   *
    At the beginning of December, Miss Blake came to Bobbin Lane again to speak to Mrs. Kershaw about Eva and school. On her pupil’s advice, she chose a time when Percy would be at home.
    Meg showed the teacher into the chilly front room, rarely used because the lodgers always sat up in their attic room in the evenings.
    â€œI’ve come to speak to you about Eva and the scholarship,” Alice Blake began.
    â€œShe’s going half-time next year, so she won’t need to sit for it,” Meg said promptly. She was looking forward to