‘She’s old,’ said Sally. ‘She might get ill.’
Rosie understood. ‘We’re all here for you, love. Your dad said we’d all to have a hand in looking after you. Me, Ollie, Maureen and Tom. Then there’s the Heilbergs. You don’t think they’d let anything happen to you, do you?’
‘I don’t know.’ She was tired, wanted her bed, wanted her father. ‘I’m not anybody’s, Mrs Blunt. I was my dad’s girl. Mam doesn’t want me. She didn’t even stop to help with Dad. So it’s . . . it’s like there’s just me on my own.’
Rosie nodded wisely. The poor child had lost all her framework in a matter of days. Whatever Lottie had been, she had figured in the centre of Sally’s universe. Now, the little girl had no security, no way of knowing what her future would be. ‘Your gran’s moving into number one. She says that’s what Derek would have wanted.’
Sally tried to feel relieved, because one of the problems had been sorted. But she was still alone.
Red came over, half a pasty clutched in an unclean hand. He grinned at Sally, told her that this was the best feed he’d ever had. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll sit on the doorstep.’
Sally fixed her eyes on Paradise Mill, wondered what this great big lad was doing here. His mates would laugh at him for hanging about with a girl from Standard One. No, they wouldn’t. Not to his face, at least, because Arthur ‘Red’ Trubshaw was cock of the school. But they might smile behind his back. So why was he here?
‘She were just like you,’ he muttered through a mouthful of pastry and potato.
‘Who was?’
He swallowed noisily, took a swig from a lemonade bottle. ‘Our Alice. She were nine.’
Sally waited, knew he would carry on at his own pace.
‘I were chasing her one day and she kicked me. Same place as you clobbered me with your knee.’
‘Oh.’
He devoured another wedge of pasty, spat out a bit of beef gristle, wiped his mouth with a cuff. ‘She had a white coffin, our Alice. It were last year, just after her birthday. Our Alice were on the thin side like you, but she packed a punch.’
Sally turned her head slowly and stared at Red. ‘Only nine?’
He nodded.
‘I thought you had to be old to die.’
He shook his carroty head vigorously. ‘No. We’ve a woman down our way past a hundred. Mam says when your time comes, you just die, doesn’t matter whether you’re three or three hundred.’
‘So can my gran live till I’m grown up?’
‘Course she can.’ He finished the lemonade, grinned at her. ‘She were the only girl, our Alice. Rest of us is lads. You remind me of her. I’ll tell you summat now, eh?’
‘If you want.’
‘Well, you just say your name very fast. Say it about ten times.’
This was daft, Sally thought. ‘What for?’
‘Just do it.’
Sally shrugged. ‘Sally, Sally, Sally, Sally,’ she said.
‘Faster,’ commanded Red.
‘Sallysallysally—’
‘Can you hear it?’ His cheeks glowed. ‘Can you? When you say “Sally” fast, Alice is in it. And that were me sister’s name.’ Pleased with himself, he jumped up and dragged Sally to her feet. ‘Shall we go and swing on yon lamp post?’
Sally nodded, followed him to the corner. It was no use worrying. She was Sally/Alice and Gran might live for years and years. And swinging from the lamp post was good fun.
Ivy opened the door of 1 Paradise Lane. She could hear a commotion of some sort, and she wasn’t one to miss out when an event of import was afoot. Sally was at school. That odd-looking lad with the red hair and freckles had walked up with her this morning. Ivy knew the Trubshaws only vaguely, but she remembered the little girl dying about a year ago. Arthur seemed to have taken Sally under his wing, so at least the child wouldn’t get teased at school any more, because Arthur Trubshaw was a bruiser, as big as many thirteen-year-olds.
She craned her neck, tried to see what was happening in the mill yard, but the gatepost was in her way. Ivy was not the sort to be overcome by an obstacle as frail as a few hundred bricks and a bucket of mortar. She slammed the door, crossed the cobbles, stood in the gateway.
Andrew Worthington had gone a strange shade of purple. His eyes seemed to bulge from their sockets, put Ivy in mind of a very large, dead and extremely unsavoury fish. He was screaming at a group of women. ‘No more excuses.’ He pulled at his collar, turned towards the mill, swivelled again. ‘If I let people out every time there’s a funeral, I’ll be in the bankruptcy court within weeks. So get out, the lot of you. There’s no excuse for what you’ve done.’
Rosie Blunt came across and stood beside Ivy. ‘Hey, do you reckon yon man with the pencil did give names in?’
‘Might have,’ said Ivy. ‘The lad’s got a living to make. But it makes no difference in the long run, because yon owld bugger has eyes in the back of his head.’
Rosie nodded thoughtfully. ‘Them at the front of his head are bad enough. They look ready to roll across the floor any minute.’
Ivy decided to step into the arena. She shook off Rosie’s attempts at restraint, strode across the yard with a vigour that would have surprised her doctor.
‘What do you want?’ asked the mill owner. He remembered Ivy Crumpsall. Ivy Crumpsall had made his life difficult for many years. When the harridan had retired, Andrew Worthington had breathed a sigh of relief before treating himself to several brandies and a roll in the sorting shed with some girl or other . . . No, he didn’t seem able to remember the name of that one.
‘Have you sacked this lot?’ she asked.
‘Is that any business of yours?’
The old woman straightened her spine as best she could, cursed the slight curvature that had become more pronounced of late. Being bent over all the while made her look weak, submissive. ‘Course it is. It were my lad we were burying. And yes, you would be bankrupt if you let folk out for every funeral, because you’re killing us by the bloody thousand. There’s undertakers lining pockets and coffins every minute of the day.’
Ivy looked the women up and down. ‘Listen to me.’ Her voice was confident, strident. ‘This bad swine wants stopping. Don’t listen to him. Go and get your bloody union sorted out, get yourselves affiliated. Terrified of unions, he is. He’s sacked more good spinners and weavers than any other mill boss in this town. Your working conditions stink and you’ve got to keep your daughters locked up in case the evil beggar takes a fancy to them.’
‘How dare you?’ he spluttered. His heart leapt about, just as it did every time he heard the word ‘union’. Most other mill owners had thrown in their hands, had given in to the concept of organized labour. But Paradise was still a proper mill, a place where folk knew their place and kept their place. ‘How dare you?’ he repeated, his tone quietened by the expression on Ivy’s face.
‘Easy,’ she snapped. ‘I just open me gob and let the truth float out. You’ve cottages for kept women on Halliwell Road, Blackburn Road and Vernon Street. There’s been big bellies of your making since I were a lass.’
‘Prove it,’ he said.
‘Right, I will.’ She squared up to him, arms akimbo, feet planted apart. ‘In 1921, Rita Eckersley from somewhere down Darcy Lever way had a boy of yours. You paid her to keep her mouth shut, only you didn’t pay her enough. Shall I go and fetch her? That lad’s twenty-six now, and he’s fought in a world war. Last time I saw Rita, she reckoned as how her lad were just waiting for a chance to give you a hiding. Then there was Mary Shaw’s girls, Tilly Saxton’s lad . . . no, that were a girl and all. And Phyllis Caldwell had twins, one of each. Aye, you hit the jackpot that time, eh?’
‘This is slander,’ he hissed.
‘It’s the bloody truth, you owld swine. And the state of you – it’s got to be rape. No woman in her right mind would lay down with that physog on the next pillow.’ She moved forward until she was so close that she could smell his breath and almost taste his anxiety. ‘I’ll get them to speak up. There’s others, too, girls who ran home with a ripped frock and a fistful of half-crowns and two-bob pieces. But there’s power in numbers. You’ve forced yourself on too many women, you see. One or two would have stayed quiet, but when I get all this lot together, you’ll be in court so fast you’ll need clean underwear.’
The group of women backed away. They knew all these things, had heard the rumours, had even met the offspring. But nobody ever bested Andrew Worthington.
‘You can get out of my house tonight,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll have you thrown out.’
‘No.’
‘Just you wait,’ he whispered.
‘No.’ She smoothed her hair, bared the few teeth that remained. ‘I’m living in one of Mr Heilberg’s houses now. You know the ones I mean – Paradise Lane. It’s that little street there, the one that joins Worthington and Spencer in unholy matrimony. She’s a sensible woman by all accounts, your wife. I hear she kicked you out of bed within a fortnight because of your . . . strange way of doing things. Any road up, I’ll be living on the street you tried to buy. No way will Joe Heilberg ever let you get your mucky paws on that piece of Paradise. He bought that with the bit he smuggled out of Austria, and we’re all grateful to him for keeping you in your place. And shut your cake-hole, there’s a number three tram coming, might stick in your ugly gob and choke you.’
Silence hung over the yard like a thick, black cloud. Even the sounds from the mill seemed muted. He stared at her with a loathing that was almost tangible. She had returned to haunt him again. Ivy Crumpsall hadn’t always looked like this. She had been a thing of beauty in her time . . .
‘I’m on that list, Worthington,’ she said, her voice clear enough for all to hear. ‘I might be a good fifteen year older than you, but you had the blouse off my back, didn’t you? You chased me the length and breadth of this yard.’ She turned round, her eyes sweeping the walls. ‘Over there.’ She jabbed a finger towards a pile of skips. ‘Just outside the carding shed. And a miner coming off shift saved me, remember? He were that covered in coal dust, he weren’t recognizable. Blacked your eye and thickened your lip, he did.’ She laughed, but the sound she made was menacing. ‘Fastened your trousers quick enough that time, didn’t you? Mind, as I look back now, you’d not a great deal to hide in that department.’
He backed away, a hand to his throat. All his life, he had been sure that none of his prey would speak up, that each one would be too ashamed to talk about him. Yet he had always feared this one. She had been the exception, older than his usual targets, widowed. And now, thirty years on, she was punishing him. ‘Take them back,’ she ordered.
‘What?’
‘You heard me. Or are you deaf as well as pig flaming ignorant? Give these girls their jobs back, or I’ll organize a lynch mob. You know I will. You know my threats are never empty.’
He blinked a few times, seemed uncertain of what to do next.
‘Take them back,’ she repeated.
Andrew Worthington drew the watch from his pocket, looked at it for several seconds. ‘These people are not dismissed,’ he said carefully. ‘It was my intention to suspend them until tomorrow.’
Ivy inclined her head. ‘Very nice, I’m sure. I wish you could be suspended till tomorrow, Worthington. By the neck, with a nice thick piece of rope. Happen I’ll nip round to the rope walk, see if they’ve any seconds. All you’re fit for, seconds.’ She turned and walked out of the yard, alarmed by the weakness that suddenly invaded her body. She had to make it, had to walk out of this yard with dignity. She paused, fiddled with her hair, gave herself time to breathe.
Rosie took her arm. ‘He’ll have you, Ivy.’
‘Nay. He tried once and didn’t get so bloody far. And this time, I’m ready for him.’
The woman hammered on the door of number 1, pushed it open impatiently when there was no reply. ‘Hello?’ she shouted. ‘Anybody in?’
‘They’re out.’
The intruder turned and faced Rosie Blunt. ‘Where’ve they gone?’
‘Lass is at school and Ivy’s doing her cleaning job, then going down the fishmarket buying finny haddy for their teas. Any road, who are you?’
‘I’m Lottie’s sister, Sally’s auntie.’
Rosie sagged against the wall, made a great effort to remain composed. Lottie’s mother had birthed three or four, Rosie seemed to remember, every one with a different father. But they’d never been near. As far as Rosie could recall, no sister of Lottie’s had ever visited Paradise Lane. So what did this fancy piece want?
‘Will they be long?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lottie Kerrigan-as-was’s sister was a right mess in Rosie’s book. She wore a frock of emerald green crêpe, very skimpy, plus wedge shoes and a black hat with a veil covering the front of improbably red hair. All of which might have looked all right on a thin woman, but this one’s backside was spreading faster than gossip, and her belly had never been introduced to a corset. According to Rosie, any female who didn’t wear whalebone was a disgrace.
‘I thought I’d see how they were getting on. Lottie sent me a letter.’ She waved a bit of paper under the old woman’s nose. ‘Said I’d to come round when Derek died. So I’ve come.’
‘Aye, I can see that.’ You’d have to be blind not to see such a woman, thought Rosie. This creature could get noticed from a mile off, enough slap and rouge on her face to paint the
Mona Lisa
including background. ‘This your first time round these parts, like?’
‘No. We live up Derby Road, next corner to Heilberg’s shop.’
‘Not far to come, then.’
‘No.’
‘But you never came while your Lottie were here.’
The woman blushed till her heavily rouged cheeks clashed loudly with the orange hair. ‘We didn’t get on, me and our Lottie. I never approved of the road she carried on. But a niece is a niece.’
Rosie’s head leaned itself to one side. There was something not quite right about this person. It wasn’t just the way she was dressed. There was a deep sadness in her, an old grief that sometimes rose to fury behind the greenish eyes. ‘Have you any kiddies?’
‘No, we’ve not been blessed.’
So, that was it. Rosie had seen the same expression many times in the mirror while combing her hair. As a childless female, she recognized the resentment in the intruder’s face. The woman had come for Sally, then. Rosie’s chief concern was to get to Ivy before this one did. ‘What’s your name? I’ll tell Ivy you called.’