The service had seemed never-ending to her. There had been times during it when she had had to restrain herself from shouting out to the Vicar that her mother did not need her earthly sins forgiving before God would accept her spirit back into His Kingdom. Her mother would never wittingly have done wrong against anyone. Jessie had been a good woman who had done her best to raise her children after her husband had abandoned her and left her destitute. She had been a loyal friend and neighbour, and would help even a stranger in need if it was in her power to do so. Now standing tightly packed in by neighbours around the graveside, it was unbearable to Aidy to think of her mother resting inside a box six feet under. In only a few short minutes they would be expected to say their last goodbyes then go on their way to get on with their lives. Aidy wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her mother, not ready to get on with her life without Jessie in it, and she knew that neither was the rest of her family.
With sisterly protectiveness she looked in turn at her brother and two sisters. Flaxen-haired Betty was a gawky nine year old, her childish face already showing the signs of the good-looking woman she would become. She was openly crying, periodically wiping away the river of snot that was pouring from her nose, using a sodden handkerchief. Aidy’s heart went out to her. She was desperate to gather the young girl in to her arms and offer her comfort, but it would have to wait until the Vicar had finished talking.
Next to her stood Marion, eight years old, chubby and mousy haired. She was clutching her favourite doll which had long since lost its hair and one of its legs. She was staring into the grave, at the coffin holding their mother. Despite having it explained to her as best they could, she couldn’t quite grasp what death actually meant. That she wouldn’t physically see her mother again. Marion believed that her mother was asleep inside that box, and when she wasn’t tired any more she would get out and come home. How Aidy wished that was in fact the case. Since their mother’s death Marion had started to wet herself, mostly during the night but occasionally throughout the day too. The fact that she now had her legs crossed made Aidy fervently hope the child could hold herself until the ceremony ended, and avoid the acute embarrassment any failure would bring.
The girls’ grey school skirts and white blouses might have been cast-offs from the better off, acquired from a charitable organisation for a few coppers by her mother, but both of them looked smart and tidy, and a credit to the mother who had done her very best for them.
Aidy then cast a glance at ten-year-old George, his usually unruly brown hair parted down the middle and flattened down with help from Arch’s Erasmic hair cream. The slogan on the label boasted it would keep every hair in place, but it was failing to do so as strands of George’s were sticking up already on his crown, like a peacock’s tail fanning out. To outsiders he came across as a hard nut who was not afraid to use his fists in defence of family, friends or himself, but to his family George was a sensitive, thoughtful and honest boy, fiercely protective of them all.
Aidy knew he felt uncomfortable wearing the borrowed suit very kindly offered to them for the day by a neighbour, Miriam Liberman, who was well aware George wouldn’t possess one. The suit had been made for her son for his Bar Mitzvah last year by a kindly uncle on her husband’s side, himself a tailor with a shop on Cheapside in the market place. The son was shorter than George by a couple of inches and not as broad, so the jacket was tight and the trouser legs finished above his ankles, but regardless Aidy felt his mother would have been proud of how handsome he looked. His face was mask-like, however, and Aidy knew that it was taking him all his strength not to break down in front of the rest of the congregation. Men didn’t cry in public. In George’s opinion he was a man, so he didn’t cry either.
Next to George stood Bertha, Arch’s arm hooked through hers