Paradise Lane
| Paradise Lane | |
| Ruth Hamilton | |
| Transworld (1996) | |
| Tags: | Historical Fiction, Saga |
There were only four houses in Paradise Lane, and young Sally Crumpsall lived in No.1. If it hadn’t been for the kindly inhabitants of the Lane she would have been even more neglected than she was, for with a father too ill to care for her, and a mother who was to abandon her, she led a ragged and lonely existence. When – finally – both mother and father had gone, then the Lane moved in and, with the help of Ivy, Sally’s old and stubbornly aggressive grandmother, they decided to raise Sally as best they could.
But Paradise Lane was built in the shadow of Paradise Mill – and Andrew Worthington, owner of the mill, loomed menacingly over the lives of everyone about him. A corrupt, evil and greedy man, he had totally destroyed his own family, and soon his venom was directed towards Ivy, her friends in Paradise Lane, and finally threatened the very existence of young Sally.
As events moved towards a violent and terrible climax, only the combined efforts of all who loved the young girl were able to save her.
A powerful, vigorous and richly dramatic story of the people of the north.
Contents
Ruth Hamilton
This one is for Mrs Florence Allen of Southsea, who has been my stalwart supporter from the start.
God bless you, Florence.
A very big thank-you to my editor, Diane Pearson, who copes with me so well!
There were only four houses in Paradise Lane, and they were all on one side of the street. The front ‘parlour’ windows of numbers 1 to 4 inclusive enjoyed an uninterrupted view of Paradise Mill, while the backs of these dwellings overlooked the Paradise Recreation Ground. Those lucky enough to have a cottage in the tiny lane had rear gardens too, long and narrow strips of land whose main feature seemed to be a total antipathy towards anything approaching cultivation, though weeds from what the locals called the ‘Parry Rec’ grew in abundance all the year round.
Ollie Blunt and his wife Rosie lived at number 2. This childless couple had moved into the cottage a few years before Ollie’s retirement from the mines, and Ollie Blunt’s battle with barren soil had continued for two decades. Even now, at the age of eighty, the robust ex-miner, who had left Blackburn to finish his working days on the surface of a Westhoughton pit, was wont to express his disillusionment with the town of Bolton. ‘It were nowt like this i’ Blackburn,’ he was heard to say with a frequency that was monotonous. ‘We’d good soil over yon. I were known all over for my leeks and cabbages in my day.’
His wife, who also hailed from Blackburn, owned several answers to Ollie’s moanings. ‘Yer’ve never grew a leek in yer life – it were your dad had the green fingers,’ was one, though her favourite was longer and usually louder. ‘Get thissen back ’ome, then,’ she would yell with all the vigour of an exceptionally lively seventy-plus-year-old. ‘Nigh on twenty year we’ve been i’ Bowton. If tha wants t’ pack up an’ go ’ome, get gone afore I clock thee wi’ me posser.’ Her posser, a circle of wood attached to a long pole, was always on guard just outside the scullery door. Only when clothes were battered in a dolly tub was the posser used for its original purpose.
Rosie Blunt was a tiny, apple-cheeked woman whose previously dark locks had bleached themselves silver with the passage of time. What she lacked in height, she made up for in what her husband called ‘nowtiness’, and this tendency to quick temper had resulted in a collection of armoury stored in the kitchen, under the stairs with the coal and in the back yard. Armed with shovel, clothes prop, posser or yardbrush, she had clouted Ollie, chased dogs, seen off gypsies, children and tramps. But she never went too far. Those who had suffered a ‘possing’ or a ‘shovelling’ had come out intact, more or less.
Sally Crumpsall, the youngest resident of Paradise Lane, would sit on the back doorstep of number 1, partly to escape the unhappy situation in her own neglected home, and partly because she enjoyed listening to the Blunts’ many arguments. This was one of her few escapes, though her favourite times were spent in the company of a man and some pigeons whose address was 4, Paradise Lane. There wasn’t much in Sally’s life. School was all right, she supposed, but no-one wanted to be her friend. Although the area was far from rich, few children chose to play with a child as ragged as she was. So her pleasures were few and mostly solitary.
‘Sal?’ wheezed her father.
Sally picked herself up, turned reluctantly towards the scullery of her home. Dad was dying. He’d been dying ever since a year after the end of the Second World War, since round about Sally’s sixth birthday.
‘Sal?’
‘Coming, Dad.’
She hurried through the scullery, almost fell over the cat. What would happen to Gus when Dad died? she wondered. She seldom thought about her own future, because it seemed too terrible to contemplate. Gus shot outside, bounded over the fence, across the Blunts’ garden, into Maureen Mason’s. Sally could hear Maureen shouting, ‘Come on, Gus, I’ve a bit of fish for you.’ But Gus wouldn’t stop in Maureen Mason’s garden, oh no. Because Gus would be on his way to see Mr Goodfellow’s pigeons . . .
Dad looked awful. At the age of thirty-three, Derek Crumpsall was a doomed man. Doctors and hospitals had done all they could for him, and Derek had come home to die in the company of his family. He gulped painfully, realized, not for the first time, that apart from his ageing mother, this little ragged child was his whole family. He could not lie there and allow her to watch his steady deterioration. Any hope of rekindling the ashes of his marriage was long shattered, so he must now take steps to protect his beloved baby from what was to come. ‘Get your gran, love.’
Sally hesitated, one hand straying to her mouth. Mam couldn’t stand Ivy Crumpsall. Granny Ivy was a big, tall woman with a stoop which had caused her to lose a couple of inches in height, though her vocal power showed little sign of diminishing with the passage of years. The child swayed from side to side, the movement betraying inner turmoil.
‘Go on, Sal.’
She continued to shift her weight from foot to foot. ‘What about Mam?’
He stared at her, the over-large eyes burning in their sockets. Every bit of him was sore. Soon, too soon, there would be a daily visit from the doctor. A cocktail of drugs would be administered, its components varying and intensifying in strength until the patient’s senses had been removed. Derek was a moderately well-read man, and his depleted brain scuttered about now among a mountain of half-remembered phrases. ‘One may have good eyes and see nothing.’ Was that from some Italian writings?
‘Dad?’
He no longer had good eyes. They were huge in his face, because his flesh was disappearing, but nothing functioned adequately any more. Who had looked after this child between ’40 and ’45? he wondered. ‘Who looked after you while I was away fighting?’ he asked.
‘Mr and Mrs Blunt and Maureen Mason.’ The old couple from next door and the Irish lady from number 3 had cared for Sally. They had looked after Gus, too. Sometimes, child and cat had slept in Maureen Mason’s spare room at number 3 while Mam had been out with her friends. Often, Sally, Gus, Maureen Mason and the Blunts had spent the night trying to rest in an air raid shelter. It had been cosy then, Sally thought. Cosier in the shelter than it was in number 1, especially after Tom Goodfellow’s arrival at the end house. The war had been almost finished, and there had been no more bombs. But Mr Goodfellow had limped to and from the shelter, his legs infirm as a result of an accident in an aeroplane. Sally was dreaming, remembering, because she didn’t want to fetch Granny Ivy, didn’t want her mother to come back angry and shouting . . . But poor Dad needed somebody.
Derek closed his eyes, felt as if he were literally sinking lower and lower into the mattress of uncomfortable flock. Lottie. Aye, she’d be back shortly, would Charlotte Crumpsall. He seldom spoke to her these days, preferring to wait for help until a neighbour came in. Tom Goodfellow had turned up trumps, took bedpans and soiled linen in his stride. But Derek needed nursing during the nights now. He couldn’t ask Tom to do even more, didn’t want to place a burden on the Blunts or on Maureen Mason. And as for Lottie – well – she was often the worse for drink at night, and she couldn’t bear to touch her dying husband. ‘I need you to run down to Worthington Street for Gran,’ wheezed Derek. ‘Tell her . . .’ Tell her what? That his time had come? ‘Tell her your mam’s out and I need some shopping. Then come back with her.’
Sal backed out of the kitchen and into the small scullery. Mam would be back in a minute. She’d only gone to the post office to send a letter to New York. What would happen if Mam and Granny Ivy came face to face again? Another big row, another lot of yelling and bawling? Mam hated Granny Ivy Crumpsall with a ferocity that was overwhelming for a child of seven.
She always wrote back to America straight away, did Mam, always scuttered off to post her reply before the ink had dried properly. She’d been at the mirror today for half an hour before setting off for the shops. While Derek Crumpsall waited for his end, Lottie had preened and pouted, had spat on her fingers to wet the kiss-curls and make them more firm.
Little Sally Crumpsall leaned against the slopstone. Had she been able to see herself, the child would have noticed much of Granny Ivy in her own stance. Ivy Crumpsall, a great thinker, often stood staring into her own slopstone when cogitating. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ mouthed the child. ‘They’ll only fight.’
She lifted her head, looked through the window at a sky dulled by filthy glass. Mam didn’t love her, didn’t love Dad. Mam loved a man in America, a big, loud person with red cheeks and greased-down hair and a laugh that didn’t sound real. There was a letter every two weeks from America. Mam always giggled when she read those letters.
Sally scraped the toe of a clog against the floor, swallowed a bubble of pain, grimaced against the echo of a stomach whose sole occupant was guilt. ‘She’d like me if I were good,’ she whispered to herself. Lottie Crumpsall had been Sally’s mam for seven years, but she showed no love for and no patience with her daughter.
The little girl drew a hand across her face, then skimmed an unclean flannel over tear-stained cheeks. Mam had chosen an awful boyfriend. He was too old to be a boyfriend, really, because he was a great big grown-up lump of a man. But all of Paradise knew about Lottie Crumpsall’s American bloke. Folk who didn’t like Lottie – and there were many of those – would sometimes call after her, ‘Oy, how’s yon Yankee boyfriend, Lottie?’ and ‘Got any gum, chum?’ There shouldn’t have been a boyfriend at all. Married people were supposed to look after one another, were supposed to have no girlfriends and boyfriends. It was all a mess and it made Sally ashamed, especially when the letters came and Mam read them and laughed in front of poor Dad.
Mr Goodfellow got letters too, mused Sally, her thoughts expanding to encompass the lovely man from number 4. Every four weeks, a big white package was delivered to number 4, with
goodfellow
printed above the address, and a fancy blue drawing on the back of the envelope. Nobody else ever got much mail, but numbers 1 and 4 were visited regularly by Henry Chaucer, who had a red bike and a funny moustache. Henry Chaucer said Mr Goodfellow’s letters had all been redirected from a London address and that the blue drawing on Mr Goodfellow’s letters was a crest, but it had never looked like a bird’s topknot to Sally.