He told her. Not just about the rejected proposal, but about his whole life. ‘And that’s why I don’t want children,’ he concluded.
Ivy put her head on one side, studied him for several seconds. A clock on the mantel ticked loudly, each sound definite enough to be a pronouncement in itself. ‘You’re a big-headed pie-can,’ said Ivy, whose metaphors were often confused when she felt strongly. ‘Why should any child of Maureen’s take after your lot?’
‘You’ve not seen the true colour of Goodfellow blood,’ he replied.
Ivy’s face and voice did justice to the word caustic. ‘She’s got a past and all, you know. Maureen comes from generations of hard-working Irish farmers. What makes you think your blood’s stronger than hers? She’s a good Christian woman. A Catholic, mind, but you can’t hold that against her – I don’t, never have. That girl would make a good mother, Tom.’
‘I had a good mother—’
‘Not for long, eh? You were only young when your mam popped her clogs. That there Jon might have been a lot different if your mam had been around. And, while you’re talking so clever, how come you never turned out like your dad?’
He stared at her for what seemed an eternity. ‘I’ve had my moments.’ His voice was soft, almost a whisper. ‘Gambling, chasing women and so forth.’
‘But you’ve never hurt nobody.’
‘Not deliberately.’
Ivy leaned forward, craned her neck at him. ‘Then get off your backside and take your good blood down to the infirmary. Tell Maureen I’m here. Oh, and while you’re there, think on what I said. Her ancestors might not have owned half of Ireland, but they were just as important as your family. Get married and take your chances the same road as the rest of us does. There’s never a one of us knows how children will turn out, ’cos marriage is a gamble, and you know all about gambling, eh? There’s vicars whose dads were murderers, then there’s thieves with nice kiddies. Tom, you keep pretending you’re just an ordinary bloke, but when it suits, you start on about being gentry with bad ways. Fact is, you make no more sense than Ollie Blunt, and he talks like he’s been twice through the bloody mangle. So get weaving before I thump you. I know Rosie’ll lend me her yardbrush if I ask nice. Ever been clocked with a yardbrush, Tom?’
He shook his head absently. Ivy had probably said to him all the things his own mother might have voiced, though the language would have been slightly different and no broom would have entered into the conversation, he thought. The old woman was right. How could he presume that his ‘blue’ line would be predominant? ‘Thank you,’ he said gruffly.
‘What for?’
He shrugged, tried to lighten the atmosphere. ‘For putting me in my place, Mrs Crumpsall.’
Ivy got out of the chair, announced her intention to visit the Heilbergs. ‘Come seven o’clock tonight, I want everybody in number one,’ she told him.
‘Everyone?’
‘Aye. That’s me, you, Maureen if they let her out, Joseph, Ruth, Rosie and Ollie.’
‘Mrs Worthington and her housekeeper are supposedly with us, too.’ He told her of the two women visiting the Heilbergs.
Ivy’s eyes blazed in near triumph. ‘I knew it. I knew that lass would turn on him one day.’ The grin was replaced by a frown. ‘Chairs,’ she said. ‘There’s not enough in our house.’
‘I’ll bring mine,’ he volunteered.
She shook her head. ‘Fetch Maureen’s and Rosie’s and all.’
‘Why so many?’
The old woman tapped the side of her nose. ‘Just you wait, son,’ she said. ‘I’ve not even started yet.’ She turned to leave, changed her mind. ‘Get in yon car and up to Worthington’s house,’ she ordered. ‘Tell the missus about the meeting.’
He thought for a moment. ‘What if Mrs Miles and Mrs Worthington are part of some evil plan?’
Ivy smiled grimly. ‘Nay. Cora Miles is a good lass – I used to push her out in her pram when she were little. As for Mrs W, she must be feeling strongly about summat if she’s putting more than the end of her nose past the front door.’
‘Agoraphobia?’ he asked.
Ivy fixed him with a stare of cast iron. ‘Aye, if there’s enough chairs, he can come and all.’
He scratched his head.
‘Aggery-wotsit.’
‘Phobia.’
She smiled properly this time. ‘Funny name, but as long as he’s on our side, we’ll make room for him.’ She awarded him one of her vast store of knowing looks. ‘All right, leave Mrs Worthington till later. We’ll think about it. Happen she’s best left out of it, or happen she’s best warned. We’ll stew on that.’
When the old lady had left, Tom walked to the grate and pulled a little box from behind the clock. Inside, on a bed of satin, lay a sizeable diamond in a ring of rose gold. Would the bandages be off by now? Even if they weren’t, Maureen could wear the ring on a chain or a ribbon round her neck. She had a pretty neck, long and elegant.
Tom sat by the grate, stroked the velvet lid of the tiny container. She wanted a child. Like most other humans on the globe, Tom Goodfellow had never completely subdued the urge to procreate and continue his line. His own line, the Marchant line.
Ivy was right. He must take his chances and trust that the ‘blue’ in his veins would be diluted by Maureen’s healthier corpuscles. At forty-odd, he could surely manage fatherhood – no matter what that status brought into his life.
Her hands were so small, made purple and red by the burns. ‘I’ve got to let the air to them,’ she told her visitors. ‘It’s only the surface that’s damaged, but my fingers feel tight, you see. I have to go for some kind of therapy to get myself moving properly again. But they’re not as bad as I thought they might be.’
‘Aye, there’s nowt beats oxygen for healing,’ said the sage in the brown coat.
Maureen studied Ivy for a while. ‘Ah, now I know what’s wrong with you,’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re in a coat and no shawl. I only just now realized that I’ve never seen you without shawl and apron. The coat suits you.’
‘And your hair suits you and all.’ Ivy stood up so that she could admire the newly cropped cap of black curls. ‘Eeh, you’ve an Irish head on you, girl. That’s one thing about the Irish – they always have good hair and strong teeth.’
‘That’s two things,’ replied Maureen, who was feeling more like her usual self. She hadn’t yet spoken to her other visitor except for a brief greeting, but she was pleased with her hairdo, gratified by the doctor’s assurance that most scars on her hands would disappear in weeks or months. ‘In fact, it’s a lot of things, thirty-two teeth and more than a few thousand hairs.’
‘Back to bloody normal,’ groaned Ivy. ‘Clever answers, contrarywise look in her eyes, ready to argue.’ She turned to Tom. ‘She’s all yours, lad. I’ll go and muster an army for tonight.’
Maureen watched while the old lady walked down the ward. ‘What’s she up to?’
‘War,’ replied Tom.
‘Oh.’ Maureen looked at him, knew that she could get lost in eyes as blue as his. Did children really matter? She knew folk who hadn’t been blessed, yet they seemed happy enough. In fact, it was often the arrival of babies that sounded the death-knell of a marriage by relegating husbands to back seats. ‘What kind of war?’
He fingered the box in his pocket. ‘An “Ivy” kind of war.’
‘I see. There’ll be no prisoners taken, then.’
‘Very few.’
She wanted him. She had wanted him for ages, had been inventing excuses to drop into his house just to see him, just to stand next to him, to breathe the same air . . . ‘Sure, it was nice of you to come, Tom,’ she told him. ‘If you’ll go outside and wait, I’ll get one of the nurses to help me dress. The doctor says I can come home as long as somebody takes me and looks after me. I’m sure Rosie and Mrs Heilberg will see to my needs.’ She held up the discoloured hands, stared at them. ‘It’s all on the surface, thank God,’ she said. ‘The flesh underneath wasn’t touched.’ She looked at him. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Right.’ He opened his mouth to continue, thought better of it, walked the length of the ward with one hand gripping the jewellery case as if his life depended on its contents.
Eventually, she joined him in the corridor, a nurse by her side. ‘Thank you,’ said Maureen. ‘I promise I’ll be right back if I can’t manage.’
‘Ah, you were lucky,’ said the nurse. ‘But go easy, won’t you?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Maureen told her. ‘There are neighbours who will see to me.’
‘Goodbye, Mrs Mason.’
Tom smiled almost nervously at his companion, slowed his pace to match hers as they made for the main door. ‘Let’s go through the park,’ he suggested.
She blinked against the afternoon brightness. ‘Lead on,’ she said. There was something in the Bible that seemed apt at this point, a woman speaking to her mother-in-law, Maureen thought. Was it the Book of Ruth? ‘Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge. And thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.’ She felt like that. If he had suggested sailing to China, she would have gone with him. Though she was glad it was just the park, because she still felt tired.
‘Maureen?’
‘Oh, I beg pardon. I was miles away.’
‘Where?’
‘China.’
He smiled, told himself that he might have to get used to the vagaries of this lovely woman’s mind. Women in general had a tendency to allow their thoughts to wander unleashed, and this particular lady was possessed of a fine brain and a colourful turn of phrase. Life with Maureen would never be dull. Life with Maureen would be full of broken things and glue. If she would have him, that was.
‘Look at the children playing.’ She nodded towards a group of rascals jumping on and off the ‘crown’, a roundabout that bore a strong resemblance to a monarch’s headgear. ‘They’ll be all cuts and bruises come bedtime.’
‘You like children.’ It was not a question.
She sighed heavily. ‘I’ve come this far without a baby, so I suppose I can make the rest of the journey without one.’
‘No need,’ he told her. ‘It was Ivy who put me straight, of course. A child of mine would be a child of yours. The goodness in you would teach him how to behave.’
She stopped dead, swung on a heel and stared at him. ‘Is this you proposing again?’
He nodded, his face very solemn.
‘You look fit for a requiem,’ she said.
Copying Ivy, he used his fingers to stretch his lips into a smile. Her laughter was infectious, so they dropped on to a bench and let the mirth fly. ‘Will you wear a ring?’ he asked between giggles.
She glanced down at her hands, suddenly found the scars to be extremely amusing. ‘When I can bear it,’ she replied.
When both were almost composed, he took the diamond from its nest of white satin and allowed the sun to dance along its smooth table. ‘Wear it on a chain for now,’ he said, a note of satisfaction in his voice. ‘When your hands settle down, we can see if the ring’s the right size for you.’
Maureen fixed her gaze on the gem. Its facets split the sun’s rays into a thousand shards that pricked her eyes. But she wouldn’t cry. No, it would be bad luck to weep over an engagement ring. ‘Tom,’ she managed finally. ‘Did this cost a lot of money?’
‘Only an arm and a leg.’
‘Ah well, sure it’s a good thing you have two of each.’ She smiled broadly at him. ‘I don’t have to be a lady, do I?’
He tried to look worried. ‘If you are less than a lady, ma’am, I shall be forced to withdraw the proposal.’
She dug him in the ribs. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘No. You can be plain Mrs Marchant.’
The children in the playground continued their reckless games, shrieking and shouting as knees and elbows were grazed and bruised. To them, there was nothing special about the moment. But had they stopped their play for a time, they would have noticed a man and a woman embracing on a park bench. Of course, that would have been nothing new, as many lovers walked these paths on summer evenings. And who might have guessed that a lord of the realm was about to relinquish title and lands to settle in a mill town with a woman of ordinary stock?
The games went on and so did the kissing.
The last of the shift had disappeared in all directions, backs stained with the sweat that made for discomfort in summer, pneumonia in winter. Some mill owners had managed, at great cost, to ventilate the sheds, but Worthington stuck to his money and to the old law, an eleventh commandment that stated, ‘Thou shalt open no windows during thy shift, or a plague of unemployment shall descend upon thee and thy families.’
Ivy had discarded the coat, was back in uniform – white blouse, grey skirt, black shawl, snowy apron. She leaned against a gatepost, remembered how ill and weak she had felt while standing here a few months ago after Derek’s death. Her breathing and her mind had been cleared by the fresh country air, and she was ready for him. Oh yes, on this occasion she was more than fit to face the devil.
A man emerged from the carding shed, his face grim. ‘Ivy.’ He reached out a hand in greeting. ‘Come inside, love. I’ve facts and figures in me book.’ He glanced up at the window of the boss’s office. ‘He can take a bloody running jump up his own back passage after today,’ he said. ‘Sixty-five, I am, Ivy. Sixty-bloody-five. Except for the first war, I’ve spent fifty-three year in this hole. And the war weren’t what you might call a holiday, neither. Come on, hurry up afore you get clocked. If he sets eyes on you, he’ll know there’s summat afoot.’
Together, Ivy and the old foreman pored over newspaper advertisements and lists of names. ‘There’s nigh on thirty spinners applied to Ainsworth’s and Deane Top for a kick-off,’ said the old man. ‘And at least another thirty are asking round and about – Kippax’s, Beehive and others. The lads and lasses who’ve been interviewed have took references from me and other foremen – ’cos bosses with decent workplaces know Worthington won’t give nobody a character.’ He picked up more papers. ‘Monday morning, Worthington’ll be seventeen weavers down. And them boys and girls as leave here next week’ll be nicely settled in mills with proper union representation and a bit of a thank you along of the wage packet.’
‘Nobody’s give notice?’
He shook his head. ‘Not a man-jack nor a woman-jill. Why the bloody hell should they? He’s fought tooth and nail to stop them getting organized proper, so they owe him nowt at all. Fortnight from now, Paradise’ll be near gutted, not enough workers to run at half-mast.’