Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Violet

Periwinkles

They are playing a waiting game. She is waiting for a letter to tell her if she can come for an interview. Her mother is waiting for the money order to be delivered for her work on board ship.

Her mother sits on the bottom step of the stairs, watching the letterbox, her toes tapping. She is humming to herself but they can't catch the tune. She and her sister sit on the top step, watching their mother watching. Her mother has always loved games and she can magic them from the air. She makes a game out of sharing and a game out of doing without– she is very good at that one. Now she is playing the waiting game. The feet tapping in time to her private song are wearing her second-best boots. They are part of the game, too.

If the money order comes, then the running will start. Her brothers are home now and ready to go; they have played this game many times before and know just what to do. They raced in the back yard to find the fastest runner, tripping and shouting as they ran up and down. She thought her mother might fall out of the window, leaning out and calling to them, clapping her hands for the winners and losers alike and blowing them all a kiss.

The fastest runner has been chosen, and when the money order comes, he must run the first leg in the game. Down the alley, past the church, up the hill to the pawnbrokers where sits a pair of handsewn boots in the window. He must take the money order with him and race back with the change– shillings and pence– and the boots, of course. Her mother will want to be wearing them when the game ends.

When the money is back, runner number two must set off for the butchers at the end of the street and runner number three to the market, dodging between the carts and horses. Runner number three is usually her youngest brother. Small and quick, he never lets anyone cheat him out of what is his due.

Runner number four, slow and strong, will go to the coal merchant, trusted to carry the weight without spilling a single lump.

Now, the boys are stomping and stamping in the yard, like young colts ready to be off. They just have to wait for the game to start.

If the postman does not come, the game will not be spoilt. Runner number one will race to the pawnbrokers with her mother's periwinkle broach, and runner number two will buy scraggy mutton rather than beef for dinner. As her mother always says, ‘God never shuts one door without opening another'.

She tries to imagine God reaching out to open their front door, but the hand she sees grasping the brass door handle isn't God's but her mother's.