Farewell To The East End

his heart again.
    Julia stayed at home with her father. She was sixteen and doing well at school, coming up to her School Certificate, which her teachers were confident she would pass with Matriculation. Father and daughter were left alone together.
    The relationship was tricky. Julia had never liked her father and felt that he did not like her. In reality they had both suffered from the fact that they were too similar in temperament. In particular, neither of them could talk much, which was a great disadvantage. Both of them imagined that the other was looking at them with some sort of malign thought, whereas each one was actually trying desperately to think of something meaningful to say. So long periods of silence existed between them, each wanting to break the ice, but not knowing how to do so.
    They were both intelligent, but the gulf widened because they each had a different type of mind. His was entirely practical and instinctive, whilst hers was becoming increasingly academic. She would be doing her homework, and he would pick up a book and say ‘What’s this?’
    ‘Algebra.’
    ‘What’s that?’
    ‘A branch of mathematics.’
    ‘You mean arithmetic?’
    ‘Yes, if you like.’
    ‘Looks like a load of rubbish.’
    ‘Well it’s not. It’s beautiful.’
    ‘Beautiful! What do you mean?’
    And so it went on. The publican spent just about all his time immersed in his business, and Julia spent all her time at school, in the public library, or doing her homework. Each of them, father and daughter, were locked into their own worlds of loneliness and unhappiness.
    But the young can be perceptive beyond their years. Although she said little, or perhaps because she spoke little, Julia observed, absorbed and interpreted everything. She began to think that her father was not as indifferent as he appeared to be. She and her mother wrote to each other every week. Mrs Masterton never wrote to her husband, but every time a letter arrived from Skegness her father was eager to know the news.
    ‘How are the children, are they doin’ all right?’ and he grunted with satisfaction at the weekly good news. Once he shyly handed to Julia some pretty hair ribbons and a child’s bolero. ‘It’s Gillian’s birthday. Send this to her, will you? I hope it’s the right size.’ He kept on repeating, ‘I hope I got the size right. The woman in the shop said it would fit. It’s pretty, don’t you think? Do you think she’ll like it?’ Nervously he repeated the doubts and questions several times. When a picture done with coloured crayons and a letter in childish print arrived for him he seemed happier than Julia had ever seen him. She was surprised and saw her father with new eyes, but still she could not speak openly to him. Neither of them had ever shown any affection towards the other, and it was impossible now that he was so completely turned in on himself and his business, and she was verging on adulthood, expanding her mind and emotions to the world beyond the Master’s Arms.

    Six months passed, and the boy seemed to be completely better after the summer at the seaside. The family returned home, and Mr Masterton had his little girl again.
    Julia watched them together and was amazed at the liberties he allowed. Gillian would sit on his knee at breakfast and dip bread-and-butter soldiers into his boiled egg – something it would have been unthinkable for any of the other children to do. He brushed her hair and tied a ribbon in it. He seemed to notice the little boy more too, and was kind to him. ‘You did right,’ he said to his wife with grudging respect. ‘They are glowing with health.’
    But tuberculosis is cruel. A person can contract the disease, and the bacillus will lie dormant for years, sometimes for a whole lifetime, and the host will not even know it is there. At other times it can strike and kill within months or even weeks – that sort used to be called galloping consumption. The little boy came home from school with a temperature. His mother put him straight to bed and called the doctor. He was transferred to the sanatorium and given all the treatment known at the time. But, three months later, the doctors advised that there was nothing more that could be done for him, and he would be happier if he came home to die.
    Grief again gripped the family with cold, grey hands. The boy was laid out in the parlour, like his brothers before him, and family and friends came to pay their respects.