Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
Also by Ruth Hamilton
Copyright
TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS
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www.penguin.co.uk
Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies
whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com
First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Corgi edition published 1998
Copyright © Ruth Hamilton 1997
Ruth Hamilton has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a book of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library.
Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781446487327
ISBN 9780552145664
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
5 7 9 10 8 6
The Shawcross family was a strange and unhappy one. Edward Shawcross absented himself as much as possible and kept a red-haired mistress in Tintern Avenue. Alice, his wife, sought solace in chocolate and continually carped at Connie, her beautiful daughter. And Connie and Gilbert, their children, formed an uneasy alliance in the face of their parents’ antipathy.
Twenty years before, Edward Shawcross had been an impoverished millhand, born in a slum to feckless parents. Overnight his fortunes had changed. To everyone’s surprise he had married the plain and awkward daughter of the wealthy Fishwick family. Almost at once the Fishwicks, owners of a lucrative mill and a grand house, went to live abroad leaving Edward in charge of all their business interests. No-one could understand why Edward had suddenly made this leap of fortune.
But as the new generation began to grow up, so the truth behind old scandals begin to emerge. Then, after many years, the Fishwicks returned and violence swiftly followed. Before Connie and Gilbert could throw off the legacies of the past and build their own lives, there were to be many shocking revelations.
In memory of Eric ‘Rushie’ Rushton and all the laughter.
Ruth Hamilton became one of the north-west of England’s most popular writers, her bestselling books include With Love From Ma Maguire, A Crooked Mile and Dorothy’s War. Ruth Hamilton was born in Bolton, which is the setting for many of her novels, and spent most of her life in Lancashire before moving to Liverpool. She died in 2016.
A WHISPER TO THE LIVING
WITH LOVE FROM MA MAGUIRE
NEST OF SORROWS
BILLY LONDON’S GIRLS
SPINNING JENNY
THE SEPTEMBER STARLINGS
A CROOKED MILE
PARADISE LANE
THE BELLS OF SCOTLAND ROAD
THE CORNER HOUSE
MISS HONORIA WEST
MULLIGAN’S YARD
My sweet and gentle Labrador, thank you for twelve wonderful years of loyalty and perfect innocence. If there were dreams to sell, merry and sad to tell, and the crier rang the bell, I would buy you back tomorrow. Goodbye, my lovely friend.
My thanks to:
Diane Pearson, my long-suffering editor.
David and Michael, my sons.
Sergei, Olga and Julia from Chernobyl, who brightened my summer.
Helen Barford and Susan Acton for making me laugh.
Spike, who lived in my house for five months and who remains in my heart.
My animal family – Benny, Scooby, Soapy, Bodie, Ladybird, Jack and Vera.
A very special thank-you to Sandra and Josephine of Sweetens Bookshops for all the help with research.
Dream-Pedlary
Thomas Lovell Beddoes, 1803–1849
If there were dreams to sell,
What would you buy?
Some cost a passing bell;
Some a light sigh,
That shakes from Life’s fresh crown
Only a roseleaf down.
If there were dreams to sell,
Merry and sad to tell
And the crier rung the bell,
What would you buy?
Alderman Edward Shawcross was a striking figure of a man. He was tall, erect of stature, and he owned a full set of well-trimmed facial hair whose original darkness had become streaked with small amounts of silver. A solid gold albert was stretched across his waistcoat, while all cufflinks and tie-pins were of the same precious metal.
Sadie Martindale, a doffer of sufficiently long standing to warrant bunions and corns, waited for the wrath of Teddy Shawcross to fall on her head. He looked regal enough to warrant a place on British coinage, she thought. Anybody catching sight of him now might think he had always been grand, but Sadie knew better. She remembered Teddy Shawcross’s beginnings, recalled seeing him on his way to school with holes in his trousers, iron-bottomed clogs on his feet and enough wild life about his person to start a miniature zoo.
The alderman took the hunter from his pocket, looked at it, listened to it, polished it on his hanky. ‘Sadie,’ he began. ‘I am saddened. What are you thinking of?’ He hated pretending to be cross with the woman who had done so much for him, but he could not afford to allow bad examples and dangerous behaviour in his mill. ‘Well, Sadie? What’s on your mind?’
Sadie Martindale was thinking about her bunions, but she said nothing. Years of running about to don the new and doff the filled tubes had made the joints of her feet resemble gnarled bits of tree. She lifted a shoulder, remained silent.
‘Smoking in the toilets,’ he continued, the tone still mournful. ‘There should be none of that.’
Everybody smoked in the bloody toilets. Where else could they smoke? Over a pile of cotton or a can of oil?
‘How long have you worked for me?’ he asked.
Sadie narrowed her eyes and stared at the window. She counted backwards, got lost, started again. There was Bernard and Mary, then Tommy. She’d had about six years off, then she’d done evenings, back to days, back to evenings when her mam had got ill …
‘Sadie?’
‘I’m counting. More than twenty-odd year, Mr Shawcross, on and off, like.’ Out of work, everybody called him Alderman, but within his empire, he was plain Mr Shawcross. There wasn’t much side to Teddy Shawcross, which was just as well, because he’d had no fancy start in life, not by a long chalk. And anyway, this was his wife’s firm, really. It was common knowledge that he’d only married Alice Fishwick for her money, Sadie reminded herself inwardly. And who in his right mind would have married Alice for her looks or her personality? Alice Fishwick had a physog like a month of wet Sundays, miserable, all down in the mouth and scraped-back hair. Temperament to match, too—
‘You shouldn’t be sneaking away from your work, Sadie.’
The doffer pulled herself up, reined in her wandering thoughts. ‘No, Mr Shawcross.’
‘Time is money.’
‘Aye. Right you are, Mr Shawcross.’
He didn’t always feel comfortable in the company of Sadie’s generation. Like him, Sadie had come from the streets of School Hill, had been raised in poverty. But Sadie was older than he was. She had a long memory, too, could probably recall looking after him and his brother after their mam’s untimely death. The colour had risen in his face, and he was glad of the whiskers. ‘Don’t do it again, please, Sadie.’
‘No, Mr Shawcross.’ She hobbled to the door.
‘Sadie? What’s the matter with your legs?’
She stopped, turned slowly and grimaced. ‘Bunions,’ she said. ‘I’m a martyr to them. Corns and all. Feet swells in the heat, Mr Shawcross, then they rub and your skin gets all sore. There’s more dangers in a mill than just smoking in the lav, you know.’
He rose slowly and walked round the large desk. She was wearing heavy clogs that seemed far too big for her. ‘Are they yours?’ he asked. He wondered how she managed to drag herself around the spinning mules in order to do her job – the footwear looked as if it weighed a couple of pounds. There were irons on the soles, not rubbers – he had heard the clattering when Sadie had mounted the stairs to his office.
‘They’re our Tommy’s. He grew out of them years back and I don’t like waste.’ She fixed a gimlet stare on Teddy Shawcross’s watch chain. It would have kept a family of six for a month with enough left for the Saturday rush, pie and peas, plus a pint or two of brown ale.
‘No slippers?’
Sadie clicked her porcelain dentures. Her slippers had given up the ghost weeks earlier, had curled up with the heat like everything else in this place. She was curling up herself, was having trouble with her back, her knees, her feet. ‘They got crusted with rings,’ she said. The tiny circles of metal became embedded in soft-soled shoes, sometimes cutting their way right through to the skin. Though most folk wouldn’t feel any pain, she pondered, because the skin on their feet was tough enough to take soling, heeling and, if necessary, a full set of clog irons.
‘Buy some more.’ He pushed some money into her hands.
Sadie eyed him warily. He was a boss. She had wiped his snotty nose, had changed his mucky clothes, had wrapped him up against the weather. His mam had died of gin, his dad had died eventually of whisky, but Teddy Shawcross was a boss. ‘I can’t,’ she said sadly.
‘Why not?’
She raised her shoulders, felt her bones creaking and clicking as if they, too, had shrivelled and become desiccated in the scorching heat of cotton-spinning rooms. ‘It’d be favouritism, Mr Shawcross, if I took this money off you.’
‘Don’t tell anyone, then.’
His logic was undeniable. If she kept her gob shut, nobody would know. Sadie was fifty-three going on ninety. Her thin hair was prematurely white, her husband was dead and her eldest lad was a drinker. Even young Tommy, who had been a promising boy, had come home several times in a medicated state. ‘Why do they drink?’ she surprised herself by asking.
He closed her fingers round the money. ‘Sadie, I don’t know. Why did my parents drink? Because it’s grim and grey out there.’ He pointed to the window, remembered dragging his father home, recalled his mother’s decline into delirium. ‘A dark world,’ he muttered softly.
‘Sun’s shining,’ she replied.
‘You know what I mean,’ he said.
She knew. She knew that her house was grey, that no amount of summer weather would make it bright. The meatsafe was empty, and their Bernard was drinking half his wages before tipping up on a Friday. They’d had bread and scrape for supper three nights in a row, and the boss had just given her the price of a nice cow heel tea and a bit of gammon to boil for Wednesday and Thursday. She’d likely get a drop of pea and ham soup out of the gammon, too, because there was pearl barley in the cupboard and a few lentils. Her mouth moistened at the thought of marrowfat peas soaking overnight, getting plump with water, then a couple of bacon ribs and a crust of new bread to complete the banquet.
Edward Shawcross walked to a cupboard and reached inside. ‘Remember Dolly Minton?’ he asked.
Sadie smiled broadly, though a dampness in her eyes spoiled the grin. Everybody remembered Dolly. She’d been about twenty stones, as wide as she was tall and with a laugh that might have frightened a bull terrier out of its coat. Dolly had worked at Fishwick’s from leaving school until dying in the mill yard and in the middle of telling a very rude joke. ‘A grand old lass,’ said Sadie. ‘We’ll not see her like again, Mr Shawcross.’
He lowered his head, shook it slightly. ‘I remember the riot she started over tea-breaks,’ he mused. ‘A big lady in more ways than one. Big, but her feet were small.’ He lifted out a pair of shoes with bunion holes cut into their sides. ‘We collected Dolly’s bits and pieces for her family, but her daughter left these in case anyone might need them. You need them, Sadie. Try them on later,’ he suggested.
Sadie accepted the shoes, decided to make a stab at politeness. ‘How’s Mrs Shawcross?’ she asked.
‘Very well,’ he answered.
‘The children?’
‘In good health, thank you.’ He paused, made sure that she had finished with the social niceties. ‘No more smoking in my time, Sadie,’ he said.
She looked him up and down, remembered him crying into her shoulder the day his mother died, recalled how frightened he had been, how young and vulnerable. ‘I won’t smoke in your time,’ she promised solemnly. He’d be off to one of his council meetings soon. While the cat was away, she’d sneak the odd puff.
He returned to his desk and watched through the upper half of his door while Sadie hobbled back to work. Smoking in the toilets was the least of his problems. There were bigger fish to fry, bigger problems to solve. With his soul in his boots, Alderman Shawcross prepared himself for another evening at home.
Alice Fishwick had expected to be loved universally. An only infant of doting parents, she had been cosseted and cajoled through childhood, had attended a nice little school for gentlefolk, was now an expert needlewoman and arranger of flowers. The trouble was that embroidery and snipping rose stems took up too little of her time. Alice brooded a lot. She brooded because she had turned out all wrong, had inherited her mother’s originally podgy frame and her father’s heavy facial features, plus that supposedly good man’s large hands and feet. She was ugly. Nobody loved ugly women, so the promises of her childhood had never been fulfilled.
Nature was a player of cruel tricks, Alice told herself. Constance, daughter of the Shawcross marriage, was a comely young woman. She had dark blonde hair, blue eyes, a dainty nose, dark eyebrows and lashes and a flawless skin. Constance’s figure was well proportioned, while her singing and piano-playing were becoming legendary in genteel circles.
‘Sit up straight,’ snapped Alice, hating herself for envying her own daughter. ‘You are playing beautifully,’ she added apologetically. The girl had to do something with her life. Often, Alice wanted to scream at Constance, wanted to tell her to get out and make a life, make a place for herself in the world. But Alice had been raised as a lady, so she said little or nothing.
Constance straightened her spine and devoted all her energy to the practising of a Chopin étude. Mother seemed to be in a bit of a flap again. Gilbert, lucky Gilbert, was out of the way. He had gone riding with some people from Top o’ th’ Moor, the rather grand house which sat like a crown above Aston Leigh. Aston Leigh, a slightly less salubrious mansion, had been lent to Mother by her parents. Constance had never known her maternal grandparents.
‘Was that the right note, Constance?’
‘Yes, Mother.’ Constance would never hit the right note, she told herself. As far as Mother was concerned, many of the things Constance did turned out wrong. She was accused of practising too often, of practising too seldom. She played over-loudly, too softly, too quickly, too slowly. What Constance failed to understand was why Mother insisted on sitting here, in the library and right next to the piano, whenever Constance played.
‘That was another wrong note,’ snapped Alice Shawcross. Edward would be home in an hour or so, and Alice’s temper shortened as the hour of his return approached. After a meal, he would probably go out again to sit on some committee or other. In Alice’s opinion, Edward did not love his wife. He was pleasant to his children, his colleagues on the council, his workers, his customers. Alice ground her teeth. It wasn’t his mill. It wasn’t hers, either, because it really belonged to her parents, a pair of nomads who had chosen to wander the face of the earth. Edward was the owner of nothing at all, yet he managed to love everyone. Nearly everyone, that was. Where loving his wife was concerned, Edward Shawcross was an utter failure.
‘May I go upstairs to change now, Mother?’ asked Constance.
‘Yes.’ Alice fanned her face with a limp handkerchief. The day had been far too hot for a person of large build. ‘Will Gilbert be back in time for dinner?’ Dinner at Aston Leigh was a splendid, quiet meal. Everyone chewed as noiselessly as possible in order not to break the silence by allowing a crass bodily function to be audible. If a person gnashed accidentally, Alice glared. A noisy swallow could be enough to send her reeling from the table before finishing her meal. Alice ate secretly and voraciously in her room. The secret was an open one, though none dared to mention it.
‘He said he would be back,’ replied Constance. Gil could have stayed out, could have eaten among normal people who actually talked at table. She rose, pulled down the piano lid, walked to the door.
‘The deportment lessons did very little for you,’ was Alice’s parting remark. Alice leaned back and closed her eyes. She was becoming snappier by the day, was picking at her daughter, was sharp with the house staff, was deeply, horribly unhappy. ‘It’s myself I hate,’ she whispered into an uncaring, empty room.
Constance lingered in the hallway. It was a squareish area with a fireplace, two sofas and a low table for coffee and teacups. Grandmother and Grandfather Fishwick had probably withdrawn to the hall after each evening meal, would have taken coffee and petits fours here. The floor was of marble mosaic with a huge star in its centre. Lamps and occasional tables stood around the walls, while a dead tiger lay in front of the hearth. Constance could never bring herself to look this poor creature in its glass eyes.
She began to ascend the curving staircase, her gaze fastened to a portrait of her grandparents. They were alive, in good health for their time of life and in Africa. The older Fishwicks had taken up residence in a decent climate where they could find a decent bridge partnership and some decent conversation. Their daughter had disappointed them by marrying a man of poor blood, so the Fishwicks had upped and offed in a flurry of tempers and eccentricities.
Constance sat on the top step. This was a very strange family. Not once had her grandparents visited her or Gilbert. A letter arrived occasionally for Mother, but she never discussed the contents or passed on any messages. ‘I am the disappointment of a disappointment,’ she told a painting. ‘And it’s almost certainly your fault.’
The portrait stopped a hair’s breadth from life-size. A whiskery man who bore a marked resemblance to Father and to King George V stood next to a seated woman of great beauty. The artist had sculpted Grandmother Fishwick with care, had shaved off a few dozen pounds of flesh in order to be paid a goodly sum for the work. Constance had overheard people talking, knew full well that Grandmother and Mother were similarly cursed. ‘I wish you two would come home,’ sighed Constance. ‘At least there would be something new to talk about.’
The Fishwick grandparents were a pair of enigmas. No-one seemed to know them thoroughly. Mother, upset by what she chose to interpret as their abandonment, would scarcely discuss them. Constance was forced to admit that they appeared peculiar to the point of insanity. Who on earth started a new life in a faraway country at the age of fifty or so? Who on earth were these strange ancestors? Mother answered few questions, invited no dialogue on the subject of her family. Yet Constance knew that this house belonged to her mother’s parents. What would happen if and when they returned from Africa? Well, they would provide a topic for discussion, at least, Constance reminded herself.
Nobody talked. Mother snapped, because Mother was a lonely and embittered woman. Father nodded and looked at his watch a great deal. Gilbert had a life outside, while Constance filled the role of Mother’s companion. She should get a job. This was 1950 and history’s various dark ages were long over. What might she do? Mother wanted her to go to university, had forced her to apply several times, but Connie had deliberately flunked entrance examinations and interviews. Although she had not chosen her future path, she realized that she did not belong in the heady atmosphere of true academia.
‘Constance?’
‘Yes, Mother?’
‘Stop loitering. Go and dress for dinner.’
One interesting thing about Mother was that she knew everything. If the maid sneaked outside to meet the gardener’s lad, Alice Shawcross knew. When the cook brewed an extra pot of tea for the small staff, Mother always chose that day to examine the caddies. She was from a different age, was carrying on in the footsteps of the mother who had deserted her.
Constance entered her bedroom. It was a plain area with cream walls, cream carpet, beige curtains and bedspread. A door of varnished oak led to a bathroom with white tiles and white fittings. She sat on the edge of a stool and stared at her reflection in the central mirror of her dressing table. There were three mirrors, two that hinged against the larger one. As a child, Constance had angled the glass, had stared at Constance after Constance in seemingly eternal repetition.
Mother was unhappy. Mother didn’t understand the world and was unfit for it. She picked on other people all the time, was particularly hard on her daughter, because Alice Shawcross, née Fishwick, had been rejected by her own parents. ‘Come home,’ said Constance softly. ‘You loved her once, yet you abandoned her when she married my father.’ Why had the Fishwicks allowed Father to move into their house? Grandfather Fishwick had scuttled off with his wife to the other side of the world, had left Edward Shawcross to take charge of the mill. Why?
Gilbert tapped on the door. ‘Another moody day, I take it?’ he asked his sister.
Constance smiled wryly. ‘We live in a very odd household,’ she said.
‘At last! She has noticed!’ Gilbert threw himself onto his sister’s bed. ‘Mother wants you downstairs.’
‘I’m changing.’
‘Into what? A pumpkin?’
Constance jumped up from her stool, slapped her brother’s hand. ‘What am I going to do with my life?’ she asked.
Gilbert sighed dramatically and placed the slapped hand on his heart. ‘Get thee to a nunnery,’ he suggested. ‘Or take lessons in train driving.’ He felt sorry for Connie. She was a grand-looking girl and a good sort, but Mother was trying – albeit quietly and subtly – to direct Connie’s life. Mother was a miserable old soul whose attitude to Connie vacillated between envy and frustration. Alice was jealous of Connie’s beauty, yet she wanted her daughter to go forth, enjoy a good education before making a sensible marriage. Mother was a mess. She stuffed herself silly with sweets and chocolate, moaned and groaned at the servants until they left, had all the charm of an ill-tempered viper. Loving Mother was difficult; disliking her was dreadful. Disliking a parent made a son guilty, so he stopped thinking about Mother for a few moments. ‘James Templeton’s been looking at you again through the binoculars,’ he said. ‘All wistful and sad, like a dog who never had a bone.’
Connie lifted her eyes to heaven. ‘I shall report him to the police,’ she declared laughingly. ‘Poor James. No-one will have him, I suppose, because of the limp. If his mother knew that he was looking down the hill at me, she would die of shame.’ The Templetons were not trade. The Templetons enjoyed a private income from land and properties all over Lancashire and Cheshire.
‘You could do worse,’ said Gilbert.
‘I know.’
‘And you’d get away from Mother.’
Constance Shawcross had no intention of using marriage as an escape. If and when she did tie herself to a man, she would not be running away. No. Marriage should be the beginning of a future, not the end of an unsavoury past. ‘I’m going nowhere,’ she replied tartly. ‘Except, perhaps, to the technical college.’
Gilbert closed his mouth with an audible snap. ‘What? She’ll never buy that one, old girl. She wants you to do history or music, something decorative.’
The ‘old girl’ gave him another thump. ‘I’m twenty,’ she told him. ‘And you’re twenty-two. I’m going to learn shorthand, typing and other office skills.’
Gilbert sat up. ‘Have you asked her?’
‘No. I’m going to ask Father.’
Gilbert jumped up and saluted his sister. Constance was capable of causing uproar in the household, he told himself. After National Service with the Air Force, Gilbert had returned to find his sister at the complete beck and call of Mother. But Connie had a fuse of a certain length, Gilbert reflected. Once she chose to light it, she could go off in a dozen directions all at once. ‘How’s the magnum opus coming along?’ he asked.
Constance dragged a frock from her wardrobe, spat on a finger and rubbed at a stain. ‘Gravy,’ she grumbled. ‘I should have had this laundered.’ She pulled out another garment, cast it across a chair. ‘I haven’t done much,’ she admitted. For a while, she had been bent on becoming a writer. But writing was boring. Writing meant sitting down with a lot of pretend people and trying to make them interesting. ‘My life has been too dull,’ she advised him. ‘So I have very little to write about.’
Gilbert ruffled her hair, received another mock blow for his pains. ‘Get married, Con,’ he said. ‘Find a chap and clear off out of this place. It’s all right for me. Another few terms at the university and I’ll just follow Dad.’
Connie nodded. ‘It isn’t his business, Gil.’
‘I know.’
‘It isn’t even our house.’ They had discussed the subject for hours in the past, had invented all kinds of scenarios for grandparents whose absence made them glamorous and mysterious. ‘They could come back tomorrow and throw us out,’ Constance reminded her brother.
‘They could, indeed.’
‘What happened, Gil?’ she asked. ‘If Father wasn’t good enough, then what on earth persuaded them to rush off and leave him in charge?’
Gilbert shrugged. ‘I know what you know, and you know what I know.’
‘Exactly.’ Without a trace of self-consciousness, Constance heaved off her day dress, powdered her upper body and pulled on a smarter gown. ‘She’ll know I haven’t bathed,’ she said. ‘She listens to the pipes. I should have run the water.’
Gilbert Shawcross smiled at the girl he sometimes called Minnie the Minx. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Save that for when she hears about technical college. Compared to that, unwashed flesh is nothing.’
Sadie Martindale stirred the stew, licked the spoon, then added another dash of salt. She lowered her tired body into the fireside rocker and gazed around at her worldly goods. Thanks to Teddy Shawcross, she had managed to get hold of some scrag end and spuds, so there was the smell of cooking to cheer things up a bit. And, in the meatsafe, a small joint of ham promised a tasty tomorrow.
The window boasted three sections of glass, the fourth having been replaced by strips from a demolished orange box. Outside in the yard stood an air raid shelter. Sadie had never managed to work out why money had been spent on brick shelters. If somebody had to die, he’d be better dying in his own bed rather than in a freezing shack in the back yard. No-one had ever been inside the single storey building. Cats and rats probably used it, she thought, because it stank like an open sewer.
Sadie’s kitchen was not clean, as she was too weary for housework, but things were more or less in order, pots on a shelf above the range, pans on a rack next to the hearth. The room was dominated by a large, square table with bulbous legs and a dark green cloth. This had been Sadie’s mother’s table. All that remained of Sadie’s mother was this table and a pot dog from Blackpool. The dog sat next to a pile of plates above the mantel, paint missing from a lolling tongue, his tail a bit skew-whiff after being glued back on by Tommy.
Tommy was a good lad, she told herself determinedly. Bernard was a bugger, Mary was an energetic and lovable pest, and Tommy would turn out all right if he just stayed out of the pub. He had a good job at Walker’s Tannery, had served his apprenticeship and was waiting, alongside others, for dead men’s shoes to carry him towards promotion. The poor lad ponged a bit, because the stink from Walker’s was enough to bring tears to the eyes of a corpse, but he tried. He got an all-over wash every night, and a total immersion each Friday at the slipper baths. Bernard, a miner, took a shower at work when he came off shift. The trouble with Bernard was that he couldn’t seem to hang on to his money. Sadie’s eldest went from shower to pub, arriving home in time for a meal only on the nights when his beer money had run out.
Sadie closed her eyes. A corner of her mind could still hear the clatter of machinery, a sound that had been an integral part of her life since school. She was worn out, wearied to the marrow. For how much longer would she manage to earn her keep? The days blended together, were becoming one endless succession of chores with the odd break for sleep and food.
‘Hiya, Mam.’
The woman in the chair jumped. ‘God Almighty,’ she said breathlessly. ‘You frightened me near to death, Mary.’
Mary, bright as a button, bent down and kissed her mother’s hair. Mary helped to run a sweet stall in the Market Hall. Bubbling with goodwill and enthusiasm, she had become a firm favourite with Bolton’s shoppers, because she invariably had a good word and a smile for everyone.
‘You’re a pest,’ declared Sadie.
‘I’m a manager,’ replied Mary. She stalked up and down the kitchen with a hand extended, tried to pose like a model. ‘They’re putting me wages up, Mam. And there’s a rumour going round that toffees could be off ration soon.’
Had Sadie owned sufficient strength, she would have leapt for joy. ‘You’re going up in the world,’ she said. ‘And good luck to you, girl. You’re a worker, I’ll give you that.’ Sadie had forbidden her daughter to go in the mill. She didn’t want Mary ending up with aching bones, horrible feet and ringing in her ears. ‘When do you take over?’
‘Two weeks. I’ll have a white overall with a pink collar, Mam. And a brooch thing with me name and “manager” on. Mr Smith’s had enough, because he’s seventy. He says I’m the only one in the world he’d trust with his money. They’ve bought a little bungalow somewhere near Blackpool, but they’re keeping their house up Chorley New Road. Their son’s going to live in it and run their other shop.’
Sadie blinked away some drops of happiness. She wanted their Mary settled. The lads – well – lads went their own road and shamed the devil. There wasn’t a lot a widow could do for sons. But Sadie intended to see this girl of hers set up for life and well away from the cotton industry. ‘I’ve made stew,’ she said.
Mary pulled a parcel from her basket. ‘Here you are, Mam. A little present for you.’
Sadie stared down at the package. She hadn’t received a gift for ages … oh, yes, she had. Teddy Shawcross had given her a few bob today. But this was different. This was wrapped up in dark blue paper. Mary had taken the care to make the offering special.
‘Open it, Mam.’
It was half a dozen little lavender bags with pink ribbons.
‘For your underwear drawer, Mam.’
Sadie’s underwear drawer was usually empty. She had three pairs of knickers – one for on, one in the wash and the third drying on the pulley line above the kitchen fireplace. ‘Lavender,’ she whispered. ‘You remembered how I’ve always liked lavender.’ She would wrap these little bags inside her one and only underskirt, a poor thing with the hem wanting stitching and a shoulder strap broken. Perhaps Mary’s present would goad Sadie into getting out her sewing basket.
Mary saw her mother’s weakness, heard exhaustion in the voice. If Mary Martindale had to work her socks off, she would do it. Mam deserved a better life, a life away from this dark house. ‘I do love you, Mam.’ Those words had not been said for a long time.
‘I’ know you do, Mary.’
‘You need a rest.’
Sadie tried to smile. ‘There is no rest, lass, not for the wicked.’
Mam had never been wicked. Mary looked down on her mother’s prematurely white hair, tried to remember a time when Sadie’s brown locks had not been streaked with strands of silver. Mary’s hair was brown and curly. It shone with health and regular shampooing, and it had a life of its own. There was so much of it that Mary often gave up and tied the whole lot of it into a bundle. At work, she wore a white mob cap into which the disobedient mass was tucked, but she struggled with it at home.
‘I’ll just taste the stew again,’ said Sadie.
Mary took herself off into the front room, a tiny square with oilcloth, a rug pegged out of old clothes onto sacking, two uncomfortable armchairs and a table next to the window. Mam’s blue-and-white bowl sat on the table with a large, evil-looking plant growing out of it. Mary could not remember a time when the plant had not been there. As a child, she had often wondered whether it might come to life and take over the house. It sat smugly in its container, shiny leaves thrusting their confident way up towards the ceiling. It produced no flowers, wasn’t a cheerful piece by any stretch of imagination.
She sat down, wriggled until a loose spring settled. How did a person go about making a decent life for a worn-out mother? There must be something, Mary told herself, a bit of evening work that would bring in an extra pound or two. Sometimes, Mary’s heart felt broken when she looked at Mam. Mam expected little and got less. Bernard was a stupid lout and a drinker, while Tommy’s wages were still not quite up to scratch.
‘It’s always down to the bloody women,’ Mary whispered into the unwelcoming room. ‘Men think they’ve done it all when they’ve managed a week’s work.’ Men should be ashamed of themselves. Their wives, sisters and mothers had jobs. After their paid work was finished, they were expected to come home, cook and wash for a family, do the shopping, clean the house, tend the sick, look after the young, stone the steps and sweep the backyard. For women, there was no freedom.
When the front door opened, Mary leapt from the front room and into the narrow lobby. Bernard had arrived. Bernard was a useless great lump with no discernible conscience and very little sense. All the same, Mary beckoned him into the so-called parlour and tackled him. She noticed that the coal was eating into fine lines around his eyes, that there was a bluish tinge to his skin. ‘Bernard, Mam’s had enough,’ she began.
Bernard took a step back. Their Mary was all right until she got riled. She took some riling, but she wasn’t the sort of person a man would choose for an enemy. ‘We’ve all had enough,’ he replied.
He didn’t understand, and Mary told him so. ‘She’s up at six messing about with porridge and butties for you and Tommy, then she puts in a full day at Fishwick’s. Now, she’s got the tea to make, and God knows where she found the money for it.’
Bernard sniffed the air. Thank God it promised a bit more than yesterday’s bread and dripping. ‘What do you want me to say?’ he asked.
‘You’ve got to stop drinking.’
He looked at his sister as if she had suddenly gone mad. It was obvious that Mary had no idea, no idea at all. ‘What the bloody hell are you going on about? A couple of pints? Do you want me to sign the pledge while I’m at it? Have I to join the Sally-Anns and run about with a trumpet or a sodding tambourine?’
‘Salvation Army wouldn’t have you,’ came the quick reply.
He scratched his head. After a full eight hours beneath the earth’s surface, Bernard was not in the market for a fight. ‘I need a drink now and again,’ he said.
‘You spend half your wages in pubs,’ snapped Mary. ‘While our Mam struggles to put a bit of tater hash on the table.’ She drew herself up to full height, which was a not inconsiderable five feet and seven inches. ‘I think you should leave home,’ she advised him quietly. ‘If she didn’t have you to feed, she’d manage better.’
Bernard’s mouth hung open for a few seconds, then snapped shut. ‘Are you off your head?’ he asked. ‘I tip up every Friday, don’t I?’
‘Not enough to keep yourself, no.’
The oldest of the three Martindales leaned against the wall.
Mary continued her attack. ‘There’s rooms for ten bob. You can feed yourself, but remember pennies for the meters. Oh, and you’ll have to do your own washing. No fetching bundles home for Mam to tackle.’
‘I can’t afford ten bob,’ he said.
‘You’ll have to. There’s nowt for less. Ten bob’ll get you a bed and a gas ring if you’re lucky.’ She strode up to him and grabbed the front of his jacket in her fist. ‘You’re not putting my mam in her grave, Bernard Martindale. I hand over every penny of my wage, because she’s looked after us all our lives. And, if you’re not careful, you’ll be dragging Tommy into the gutter and all. She’s fair, is Mam. She’ll give you your spends if you cough up all the wage. But just remember, Mam listens to me. I can get her to show you the door if I work on her.’ She released him, stepped back. ‘Well? What do you have to say for yourself, then?’
He was fed up to the back teeth, including the four wisdoms, all of which had led him a dance while breaking through. He sighed, ran a hand through his hair. His hair was receding already because of the flaming pit hat.
It had been one hell of a shift. The foreman had been on at him all day, and their gang leader had gone and got cramp in the middle of a propping job. Bernard had finished up using his back to stop the seam from collapsing on himself and six others. ‘It’s not a bobby’s job, you know,’ he said. ‘I nearly got killed this morning. There wasn’t one of us without dust in our eyes, and Loony Lundy got the rosary beads out again. What good is he up to his neck in Hail Marys while the rest of us are up to ours in muck and coal? Eh?’ He was warming to his subject.
Mary was ready for him. ‘Listen, Pie-can. You’ve had it easy and no mistake—’
‘Easy? Try blinking National Service for a kick-off, girl. Two years of running round like a mad hike, some stupid fart of a sergeant telling you to polish your buttons, swill the lavs out, stand on your head for half an hour in the rain.’ He stopped, pondered. The army had been a sight better than the pit. Any damned thing at all would be better than mining. ‘You women don’t know you’re born.’ His voice rose in conjunction with his temper.
‘You weren’t the only one called up,’ snapped Mary. ‘Our Tommy went and he never complained.’
The door opened. Sadie looked with great sadness upon her children. ‘What’s all this?’ she asked.
‘It’s him and his beer,’ snapped Mary. ‘He should swallow less and cough up more.’
Bernard had the good grace to blush. He stood up properly and looked at his mother. She did look a bit peaky, a bit on the worn-out side. She had removed her shoes, and the bunions were bright red and angry. Mary was right. If he didn’t start pulling his weight, Mam might become really ill. ‘I’ll try to cut down on the beer,’ he mumbled.
Sadie glanced from one to the other, knew that they had been arguing fit to burn. ‘Your tea’s ready,’ she said. ‘And keep your voices down in my house, will you?’ She returned to the kitchen, her head shaking in despair.
Mary spoke to her brother in a whisper. ‘I don’t care what I have to do, Bernie, but I’m getting our mam out of that mill.’
Bernard listened to Mary, heard his grumbling stomach. After a nice plate of stew, things would look brighter, he told himself.
‘Did you hear me?’ she asked.
‘I heard you, all right.’
Tommy was already at the table. He had come in the back way, was halfway through his bowl of stew. ‘Good day, Bernie?’ he asked.
‘Brilliant,’ came the sarcastic reply. Bernard took the edge off his hunger before fixing his eyes on Mam. Mary was a pain in the backside, but she was right, as usual. ‘You can go back on evenings,’ mumbled Bernard. ‘Or mornings, if they’re offered. Me and Mary and Tommy’ll look after you.’
Sadie froze, her spoon halfway between plate and mouth. She couldn’t eat, couldn’t have swallowed to save her life. Bernard was the man of the house, she supposed, and he had spoken.
‘You’re doing too much,’ said Mary. ‘My wages are going up, then our Tommy should get more soon.’ She smiled over-sweetly at Bernard. ‘And Bernard’s going to hand the full packet over from now on. Aren’t you?’
Bernard nodded.
Sadie put down her spoon and wept silently. Teddy Shawcross had given her three bob and Dolly Minton’s famous Bunion Beaters. Mary had bought lavender bags, and now all her children were going to leave themselves short just for her sake.
‘Don’t cry,’ said Tommy. ‘Having a bit more time at home should make you happy.’
Sadie dried her eyes on her pinny. ‘You’re good to me,’ she said. ‘Pass the beetroot, Mary.’ Her appetite was improving fast.
He would be with her, of course. He would be paying court to that reed-thin woman in her corporation house on Tintern Avenue. Vera Hardman was the name. Vera Hardman was the love of Alderman Shawcross’s life, and it was time somebody spoke up about his carryings-on.
Alice Shawcross stuffed another chocolate into her mouth and continued to stare blindly at the mirror. She didn’t see herself, didn’t see anything, because she was concentrating on mint creams and being angry. Edward Shawcross was a mean-spirited man with no thought for his family. Oh, he pretended to love his children, but shouldn’t he also love their mother? She had given up so much for him, had lost her once-adoring parents, her childhood friends, her figure. It had taken ages to get decent people to call at the house – after all, who wanted to associate with a common weaver? It had taken just a few years for Alice to lose her youthful frame. Two children, she had borne him. And what did she have to show for it? A wardrobe filled with outsize frocks, and a starved soul that craved sweets because love was no longer on offer.
She screwed up the empty bag and rummaged in a drawer. The coupons were running out again. If sweets didn’t come off ration soon, she would be bereft of all comfort. Cook did her best with biscuits and cakes, but chocolate was Alice’s balm. Oh well, she would telephone a few people tomorrow, would beg for help on some pretext or other. Alderman Shawcross would perhaps need sweet coupons in order to buy presents for needy children.
Alice glanced at her watch, wiped her mouth on a handkerchief, made sure that her hair was decent. It was time for dinner. He had not telephoned, had not bothered to inform his family that he would be late. Why had she married him? Why? Her face crumpled for a second as she remembered how she had loved him and needed him. There had been few suitors, as Alice Fishwick had been less than comely. Then, all of a sudden, this charming fellow had turned up, had spoken to her, had nervously invited her to walk with him down the lane outside Aston Leigh. And she had been hooked almost from the start.
She looked at a photograph of her parents. Eleanor and Samuel Fishwick had allowed the marriage. They had, in a sense, created the situation by introducing their daughter to Edward. Then, soon after the wedding, they had disappeared to another continent. Why? Had they hated Edward so strongly? No, no, she reminded herself. Samuel, in particular, had grown very fond of Edward Shawcross, had owed his very life to the young man.
Before her engagement, Alice had sensed her parents’ anxiety, had been aware that Mummy and Daddy had worried about her remaining single. It was all a muddle even now, the sudden appearance of a suitor, the quick marriage, the disappearance of Mother and Father. She prayed that they would return to claim back their house and the mill. She hoped fervently that Edward would be cast out, sent back to the slum from which he had crawled.
Her shoulders slumped forward. None of that could happen, she told herself. Even if her parents did return, Edward would have to stay with her. The disgrace of separation would be too much for her to bear. Unless, of course, he chose to go off into the sunset with the skeletal redhead.
Tomorrow was whist day. Alice’s partner, wife of a wealthy and rather common butcher, would accompany her to Top o’ th’ Moor. There, in the splendour of a true mansion, Alice would struggle to remember trumps and court cards while keeping a careful eye on the lady of the manor. If Alice could manage to play all her cards right, Constance might be married to that crippled boy of theirs. If the silly girl continued to refuse a university education, she would have to make a good marriage. Constance was of a trade family, but James Templeton’s limp was a great leveller. Perhaps she should drag Constance along to the game. No. That might be too obvious, too clumsy. It would soon be Constance’s birthday. Alice might summon the energy to put on a party for the young people, could perhaps steer her daughter in the direction of the money that dwelt up the moor.
The dinner gong sounded. Alice picked up a pile of sweet wrappings and placed them in a drawer. No-one knew about her private little habit, she told herself. She stood up and walked to the door. Just before leaving the room, she caught sight of a very bulbous woman in the full-length mirror. A few seconds passed before she realized that she was looking at herself. Life was so cruel, so unfair.
On the landing, she almost bumped into her husband. ‘Oh,’ she squeaked, a hand to her throat. ‘I thought you were with … I thought you were elsewhere.’
‘Not this evening, Alice.’ His voice had modulated itself over the years, yet traces of flat, Bolton vowels continued to colour his words. ‘We must talk,’ he said.
‘But the gong—’
‘Never mind the damned gong,’ he replied. ‘Your parents are coming home.’
She staggered away from him, steadied herself against the door to her room. They had not shared a room for … for how many years? And what had he just said? ‘I beg your pardon, Edward?’
‘Your parents are returning soon.’
‘But—’
‘Go back.’ He reached past her and turned the handle.
When they were inside Alice’s bedroom, he waited until she was seated. ‘I had a letter this morning,’ he said.
She stared hard at him. ‘You had a letter? My parents write to me, not to you.’
Edward pushed his hands into his pockets. He didn’t know what to tell her, whether to tell her anything at all. For many years, Edward had guarded a secret, had kept a certain group of big bad wolves from the door, had protected Alice, her parents and the children. The truth was unpalatable, yet it might prove useful at this point in his life. Gilbert and Constance were grown. There was nothing to keep him here, nothing at all. And Bolton Council could take a running jump, because he would rather be a free man than an imprisoned alderman. Yet he had enjoyed his civic work, had liked planning and sitting on committees. And, as he looked at his unlovely wife, he knew that he could not hurt her at this moment, could not say those words. Could he leave her? he wondered. Yes, he probably would leave, but he had no intention of destroying Alice by revealing a secret that really belonged to her father.
‘Edward?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why are they coming home?’
‘Your father is in uncertain health,’ he told her. ‘He needs treatment and a good doctor.’
Alice was suddenly frightened. Her marriage had been a sham, and she had always felt that the whole situation had been delicate, even manufactured. She fixed her eyes on her husband’s face. ‘Why did you marry me?’ she asked.
He offered no reply.
‘And what is wrong with my father?’
‘I’m not sure.’
She would get no answers, she decided. ‘We must join the children,’ she said. No matter what, the rhythm of Alice’s household must remain steady. It was all she had. The domestic certainties provided steadiness and comfort for her insecure soul.
As his wife left the room, Edward Shawcross looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. He was such a coward. The speech had been rehearsed perfectly. And she had given him the ideal opening by asking why he had married her. But he hated hurting people. ‘I have to,’ he mouthed silently. ‘I have to get out of this house before I go mad. But Samuel can do his own bloody dirty work when he gets home.’ All in all, Edward had done far too much for Alice’s parents. From now on, they could take care of themselves.
Edward Shawcross straightened his tie and followed the mother of his children down the stairs.