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Candy Kisses

1958

1

Lizzie and Aunty Dot

The rich scent of chocolate was strong in the air as Lizzie Pringle entered the tiny kitchen.  She stopped in the doorway, smiling as she took in the sight of all those bright little faces, mouths rimmed with chocolate, small fingers sticky with the delicious velvety substance despite Aunty’s strict rules that they must never be licked.

There was Joey, the tallest of them all, his spiky blond hair standing on end as if something had surprised him; eight-year-old Beth bossing her younger brother Alan around, telling him how it should be done as usual, and young Cissie who, at three, had to kneel on a stool to reach. 

            And there was Aunty Dot herself in her familiar flowered overall, supervising the entire operation, gently pouring the melted chocolate into a mould, tipping it from side to side so that it was evenly coated, and then pouring the excess back into the jug before placing the moulds, hollow-side down, on to waxed paper to set.

Occasionally she would reach across the big scrubbed table and gently guide a small hand struggling with a ribbon, or turn to jiggle the handle of the pram where a baby snoozed, oblivious to all the heat and bustle in the over-crowded kitchen, the happy noisy chatter.

            Aunty looked up and smiled at Lizzie.  ‘We’re making chocolate rabbits.’

            ‘How exciting!’  Lizzie took off her hat and shook out her dark auburn curls.  She unbuttoned her coat and hung it behind the door.  ‘Can I help?’

            ‘Not till you’ve put your feet up and had a cuppa.  Put the kettle on, Beth, yer big sister’s home from work.’

            ‘It’s okay, I can do it myself.’

            ‘You will not.  Sit down and read the paper for five minutes.  I expect you’ve been rushed off your feet on that stall with Easter coming up.  I hope so, anyroad.  Don’t we need the money with all these greedy little tykes to feed?’

            Aunty Dot beamed at all the rosy faces around her and they smiled happily back, knowing that stuffing them with good food was one of Aunty’s greatest pleasures in life.

            ‘Anyroad, we need it for our day trip to the seaside, don’t we, chucks?’

            A loud cheer went up all round.  Easter Sunday had been chosen for their day out, and all the children were excitedly looking forward to it.  It would be a reward for all their hard work preparing chocolate eggs for Easter.

            ‘Will we go on a train?’ Joey wanted to know.

            ‘We certainly will.  And on the Big Dipper.’

Another cheer, louder this time, so that Aunty quickly brought them to order.  ‘Beth, don’t forget that tea.’

            The little girl scrambled down from her chair to do as she was bid, although reluctant to leave the chocolate rabbits and ordering her brother not to touch anything while she was gone.  She ran to Lizzie and gave her a warm hug before pushing the kettle into place on the stove and lighting the gas jet under Aunty’s watchful eye.

Lizzie likewise obediently did as she was told, settled herself comfortably in the chair by the fire and picked up the evening paper.

            This was always a good moment in her day, when she returned home to the heart of her family.  Not that it was a real family, not in the strict sense of the word.  Beth wasn’t her real sister.  Five year old Alan might be the little girl’s brother but none of the other children were related.  Aunty Dot wasn’t even their real aunt.  But they felt as if they were a family, and that was what counted.

            Aunty Dot was the children’s foster mother.  She was a small, plump woman who was always smiling, with a shiny nose red as a cherry.  Her round cheeks seemed to be permanently dusted with sugar or smeared with streaks of chocolate powder, and her eyes were like big brown sultanas.

            ‘I’m like a Christmas pudding,’ she would tell the children.  ‘Put custard on me and you could eat me right up.’

            Aunty Dot had a heart as big as Manchester City football ground.  Social workers, the NSPCC, or the ‘cruelty people’ as the children called them, knew they could bring a child or a baby to Dorothy Thompson’s house at any time, day or night.

Clad in her blue flowered overall with the two big pockets in which she carried clean hankies, safety pins, and a few wrapped mints, she would gather them to her soft bosom for a cuddle.  Then she would heat water and bathe them with Pear’s soap till their skin was silky with cleanliness.  She would shampoo their filthy hair and patiently comb out the head lice, teasing apart the dreadful tangles.  She would tend the inevitable sores and bruises, the red patches of scabies and ringworm, then wrap the child in warm towels and give them hot cocoa and home-made biscuits for their supper before putting them to sleep in a clean bed, often for the first time in their lives.

            For as long as they stayed at number thirty-seven Champion Street, Aunty Dot would do her utmost to put some flesh on their bony little bodies.

She’d done this for Beth and Alan, who’d been with Aunty for five  months now.  They’d come to her wild and unkempt with a background no one cared to explore too deeply; it hadn’t been easy for her to tame and calm them into anything like normal behaviour.

She’d gently shaved every scrap of hair off Beth’s scabby head and carefully tended the raw skin till it healed and a fresh silky crop of dark brown curls sprang into life.  Aunty had weaned the small boy off his baby’s bottle, the only food he’d known in his entire life, and given him the confidence to handle a knife and fork so that he could eat hot pot and creamy rice pudding like grown-up people.

Most children stayed only a short time with her and were then returned to their parents, who by then would hopefully have resolved whatever problems had beset them.  Others became regulars, the NSPCC using Aunty as a sort of respite home now, a place where children could be properly fed and cleaned up.

So it was with Joey who’d first appeared at Aunty’s door almost a year ago, one dark stormy night.  He’d been locked in his own silent world and was only just starting to speak now, thanks to Aunty’s cuddles and endless patience.  But his mother, who was struggling to cope on her own while hiding from a violent husband, wanted him to come home whenever it felt safe for him to do so.  Too often she was wrong and the result of these visits would be Joey’s abrupt retreat into that dark private world of silence, and when he returned to Champion Street he would sit in a corner and rock himself back and forth for hours on end.

Cissie had been here a week and was a sweet little girl, though she wet her bed every night.  And the baby – there was always a baby - who’d arrived only yesterday morning had rarely stopped crying since.  His poor mother had threatened to kill herself, or him, if they didn’t take the little mite away.

             For Lizzie Aunty had done much more, something the young woman would never forget or be able to thank her for enough, if she lived to be a hundred.  Aunty Dot had rescued her at the age of twelve from an industrial school run by the Sisters of Mercy, (who were in fact anything but).  The pair of them had hit it off right away and in this bustling household Lizzie had found the love and care for which she’d always longed.

Aunty Dot was the anchor of Lizzie’s life, the centre of her heart and soul, and her loyalty and love for the older woman were unwavering.

            Now Lizzie sat watching fondly as the children fetched trays and knives and forks, and napkins folded in their own individually painted wooden rings, while Aunty heated up the stew for supper.  The chocolate rabbits were all made and the family would eat the meal on their knees so as not to disturb the moulds on the table.  The children weren’t required to help.  They could play with the toys that Aunty provided, or take a turn on the tricycle they all shared.  But few of them could resist joining in with all the exciting culinary adventures that went on in Aunty’s kitchen.

            Lizzie felt exactly the same.  There was nothing she liked more than to assist Aunty in making the chocolates and sweets for the Chocolate Cabin, the stall Lizzie ran on Champion Street Market.  It wasn’t possible to stock it entirely from this tiny kitchen, but Aunty did what she could because she enjoyed sweet-making and it helped keep costs down.

            Today, after a busy day on the market, Lizzie was tired and glad of the opportunity for a rest.  She enjoyed the stipulated five minutes, which actually lasted nearer half an hour but when the food appeared, she gladly set the paper aside.  It had little in it of interest anyway other than a story about Elvis Presley swapping his guitar for a gun as he joined up to do his stint in the US Army.

            There was never much conversation while they ate.  To these children, who had known the reality of starvation, eating was a serious business. 

Even so, Aunty couldn’t relax.  Every now and then she would get up to inspect how the process was coming along, and as the chocolate began to dry out would gently scrape away the excess from around the rim of each mould.  Once it was completely set the chocolate shrank a little, and then Aunty gave each mould a gentle tap so that the half rabbit dropped easily out on to the paper.

‘We’ve got a good crop,’ she told her helpers, pressing one hand surreptitiously to her side as she returned to her seat and her plate of beef stew.

Lizzie considered her with a thoughtful frown, blue eyes clouding with worry, for there was a shadow over this happy household.  Aunty was not quite her usual cheery self.  ‘What’s wrong?  Have you got that pain again?’

‘It’s only a stitch from leaning over the table too long.  I should sit down.  I keep telling mesel’, but do I listen?’

The children giggled.  Aunty was famous for her talking aloud, issuing firm instructions to herself to hurry up or she’d miss the bus, or to keep her chin up and stop complaining.  Not that she ever did anything but hurry, and certainly never complained.

Following the death of her son in Tobruk in 1941, Lizzie knew that Aunty had buried the pain of her loss by caring for other people’s children.  First it was war orphans, now it was children who’d been neglected or abused.  Aunty had suffered an abused childhood herself, her own father had terrified her.  Consequently she wasn’t one to tolerate bullies.  Nor did she have much patience with the so-called authorities since she’d got little or no help from them at the time.  But then Aunty Dot wasn’t one to take any nonsense from anyone.

Lizzie was also aware that all that suffering had taken its toll.  However chirpy Dot might appear in front of the children, more often than not she was dropping on her feet from exhaustion by the end of the day.  Consequently Lizzie did what she could to take as much weight from Aunty’s shoulders as she possibly could.  A task which was far from easy.

But that pain in her side, which had started up recently, was becoming a real worry.  If only Lizzie could persuade her to see a doctor.

They were spooning up the last delicious scraps of rice pudding when there was a loud hammering on the door.

Aunty clicked her tongue in annoyance.  ‘Now who can that be at this time?’

‘I’ll go.’

‘Right, kids, half an hour’s play before bed, not a minute more.’  The back door slammed shut on their disappearing figures before she’d finished speaking.  Laughing, Aunty tickled the baby under his chin, then picked up the trays and began to clear away.

Lizzie opened the door to find Jack Cleaver standing on the doorstep.  Jack was the commercial traveller for Finch’s Sweets, Lizzie’s main supplier.  She wasn’t surprised to see him here as he’d taken to popping round fairly frequently lately in a bid to persuade her to go out with him.  Somehow though, with his forties-style slicked back brown hair and double-breasted suits, the prospect of a night on the town with Jack Cleaver did not appeal.

But because he seemed lonely and so obviously besotted, Lizzie always tried to be kind and let him down lightly.  Not that he was good at taking no for an answer because he’d be back the next day, or the one after that.  Now she braced herself for another polite refusal, but on this occasion he didn’t have courting on his mind.

‘Evening, Lizzie.  Sorry to disturb you but Mr Finch would like a word.’

‘Mr Finch?’  Now Lizzie was surprised.  It was a rare occurrence for her to see Jack’s boss, the proprietor of the sweet factory, and unheard of for him to call at her home.

‘He’s waiting in his car.’  Jack nodded in the direction of a big black Humber parked at the kerb.  It was clear that the large man seated inside, well muffled up in overcoat, scarf and Homburg hat against the cool March  evening, had no intention of stepping out of it, so Lizzie walked over and tapped on the window.

‘Good evening, Mr Finch.  How are you?’  She didn’t quite know what else to say.

Cedric Finch wound down the window and considered her with eyes that looked cold and hard behind his spectacles.  ‘I’ve been hearing disturbing things about you, Lizzie Pringle.’

Surprised by this, Lizzie judged it wisest to maintain her silence until he’d explained further.

‘I hear your Aunty has set herself up in competition.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t deny it.  I make it my business to keep my ear to the ground and be aware of what’s going on.  I have my spies, you understand, who keep me well informed.  I believe the terms were set out clearly from the start when I  agreed to do business with you.  Finch’s was to be your sole supplier.’

Lizzie was struggling to take in exactly what he was accusing her of.  ‘And so you are.’

‘I think not.  Jack informs me that your aunty also makes sweets and chocolates for the stall.  Your chocolate Easter egg order is pathetic, almost non-existent.  I have to say, Lizzie Pringle, I find that most unsatisfactory, most unsatisfactory indeed.  It simply isn’t good enough.  Your orders are falling far below what I require from a customer.  Unless you put a stop to the amateur efforts of that interfering Aunty of yours, and start putting all your business our way, then I shall have no alternative but to stop supplying you.’

Lizzie was incensed, not only by his nasty remarks about Aunty, but by his threatening manner.  She certainly had no intention of being pushed around by anyone, however posh they were.  ‘Finch’s isn’t the only factory that makes sweets in Manchester.  I could find another supplier.’

Now he smiled at her, but the sight did nothing to warm her.  ‘I don’t think so.  I’d make damn sure no one else would look at you, love.  Take my advice, have a word with dear old Aunty Dot.  Tell her to stick to minding kids and leave chocolate and sweet-making to the experts.  Otherwise, it could be curtains for your little stall. ‘

Then he instructed Jack Cleaver to drive off which, after an apologetic backward glance at Lizzie, he did, leaving her standing on the pavement with her mouth hanging open.

Later, when the children were all tucked up in bed, Lizzie read them a story from the big book of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.  Aunty heated a baking sheet then quickly touched the rim of each hollow rabbit against the hot metal so that when she placed the two halves together they melted slightly and stuck together to form a seal.

Usually, Lizzie would argue that this task could wait till morning, and  Aunty would insist it must be done tonight and the chocolate rabbits properly stored away so that the kitchen could be cleaned and tidied ready for breakfast.  The children always ate their porridge sitting together at the big table.

But on this occasion Lizzie was thankful for the distraction of helping with these extra chores, telling Aunty it had only been Jack at the door, making a nuisance of himself as usual.  She made no mention of his boss’s threats.

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