Ivy Crumpsall put her head on one side. ‘Well, it were this road, pet. Our mams wore black when they got to forty. It were always a black skirt, dark stockings, grey shawl.’ She opened the shawl, looked down on her blouse. ‘It’s nice, is black, as long as you’re old enough to carry it. But my blouses is always nice because I look after them proper. I starch them, see. I boil, bleach and starch every Saturday. This used to be a good blouse when it were young.’
Sally walked across the room, placed a hand on her grandmother’s knee. ‘Black’s sad.’
‘And sensible.’
‘Yes, but it would be nice to have a change.’
Ivy sighed. Change was coming. Derek had done well at school, she thought suddenly. If she’d had a bit of money, a pinch of clout and a lot of cheek, she might have got him educated. If she’d got him educated, he wouldn’t have gone down the pit. If he hadn’t gone down—
‘Gran?’
‘What, Sal?’
‘Don’t be sad.’
Yes, change was coming. Lottie Kerrigan-as-was would no doubt make a run for it any day now, would take off into the wide blue yonder with her French knickers and her Yankee fancy man. Derek would die soon, please God. She sat as upright as her stoop would allow, realized with a jolt that she was wishing him gone, wishing him past pain. ‘We must both try to cheer each other up,’ she advised her granddaughter. ‘See, here’s a ha’penny. Go up to Florrie Dent and get yourself some cocoa and sugar.’
Ivy stared blankly into the empty room, listened as Sally’s footsteps grew fainter. If he hadn’t gone down the shaft, he wouldn’t have got cancer. She rose, tightened her apron, waited for Lottie’s return. She decided to do a bit of cleaning, use up some anger. If she got busy, then she might just keep her hands away from Lottie’s throat. When the sleeves were rolled, she mopped, scrubbed and tidied, but in spite of all the work, she remained ready for the fray. Lottie was out of order, and Ivy simmered as she spoonfed her precious son.
‘You only came to live round here once you were pregnant,’ said Ivy softly. She was not averse to street-fighting, had even been hauled up before the magistrates for brawling with a woman who had pinched a good woven quilt off the line. But this was family business. Her lad had listened to enough for one day, so this particular altercation must take place out of doors, and as discreetly as possible.
‘We’d never have come at all if I’d had my road,’ replied Lottie. The wind was freshening, and she’d only just had her hair done. It felt like rain, too, and she didn’t want to waste the half-pint of setting lotion she’d not long paid for. Her hair was her best feature, and she intended to look after it. ‘I’m going in.’
Ivy grabbed the front of Lottie’s coat, twisted the lapel into a tight ball. ‘Stop where you are, lady, or I’ll shove you through yon window. Aye, your hair’s a picture.’ She allowed a smile of mockery to touch her lips briefly. The intricately sculpted style did little to enhance Lottie’s rather ordinary features. ‘You came to Paradise Lane so’s I’d be handy. You thought I’d step in and rear yon kiddy, didn’t you?’
‘Me rolls are coming down.’ Lottie patted a sweep of hair that threatened to tumble. ‘I’ve been invited to a mill do at the Empress tonight.’
‘Oh aye? And who’s looking after our Sal?’
The younger woman tried to shrug, was stopped by the iron grip on her coat. ‘This coat cost seven and six,’ she snapped. ‘And Maureen’ll see to Sally.’
‘And Derek?’
‘Look, I can’t stop in all the while. I’m only thirty-three. Me life’d be over if I sat in there all day and all night long. Any road, it’s none of your business.’
Ivy’s mouth stretched itself into a snarl that was made fiercer by all the gaps in her teeth. ‘I’ll bloody swing for you yet,’ she whispered. ‘And when that rope cuts into my neck, I’ll still think I’ve done the right thing. You’re scum, you are. Your mother were a cheap piece and all, still chasing men right till the day she choked on her own gin-soaked vomit.’
Lottie’s patience was fully extended, not because of Ivy’s taunts, but on account of the expensive hairdo. She raised both hands, raked ten red-painted nails down Ivy’s face. ‘I hate you,’ she screamed as her mother-in-law backed away with scarlet rivulets decorating her cheeks. ‘You’re an ugly old bag, and you’re jealous because I’m still good-looking enough to get a decent bloke.’ She jerked a finger towards her own front door. ‘As for him in there, he were no use when he were right. I’m not stopping in with him coughing his filth all over me and—’
Ivy’s balled fist made hard contact with Lottie’s nose. Both women stood motionless for a few seconds, the elder fascinated and stunned by all the blood, the younger struck dumb with shock. ‘If you’ve broke my nose,’ she managed eventually, ‘I’ll kill you. And when I’ve killed you, I’ll stamp on your horrible mug.’ Pain arrived then, a horrible throbbing ache that spread the width of her face and up into her skull.
‘Try me. Go on, try.’ Ivy’s fists were raised in the fashion of a prize fighter, the left punching air, the right defending her face. The hump seemed to be disappearing as she rose to full height. ‘Come on, you daft bitch, take me on.’
‘Sod off.’
‘Aye, I thought as much. All wind and water, you are. Now just you listen to me. I’m stopping in this here house till my son’s laid to rest. If you so much as show your face round these parts when we take him to our chapel, I’ll set all my mates on you. See, the difference between me and you is I’ve got friends, good friends as’ll stand by me come all weathers. If anybody catches sight of you when Derek goes under, you’ll have more than a broken nose.’
‘Mrs Crumpsall?’
Ivy glanced over her shoulder, nodded in the direction of Tom Goodfellow. ‘I’m all right, lad. Unless poison sets in from them claws of hers.’
Lottie’s nose was hidden beneath a white handkerchief. ‘She’s god ad broke by dose,’ she muttered with difficulty.
Tom eyed Lottie Crumpsall, thought about the poor man inside number 1. Derek Crumpsall had lost all his dignity, needed to be toileted like a newborn. The pain showed in the good man’s eyes, yet he never flinched while he was lifted and turned, while bedsores were treated with lotions that seemed to serve no purpose. ‘A broken nose is nothing compared to a broken heart,’ he said in perfect English.
‘Why dod’t you bugger of ad all?’ spat Lottie through the makeshift face mask. I were goig to the Ebpress todight. Dot dow, though. Dot with a sbashed dose.’
‘What about that poor child of yours?’ asked Tom. ‘She’s in my garden now playing with the cat. Don’t you ever think about her? Aren’t you concerned for her future?’
Fierce hazel eyes burned at him above a crumpled square of cotton.
Ivy chipped in. ‘You see, she’s no brains. Most folk grow out of dance halls and the like once they’ve got kiddies. But this one wants to carry on like a girl of eighteen. And there’s money in it, too, because she’ll drop her knickers for anybody with a couple of bob. She got that off her mother, of course. Her mother were a bit on the stupid side and a right trollop.’
‘Shut your bouth, you.’ The younger woman positively bristled with anger. This was too much, she thought. She had all her papers, a ticket for the boat, the money sent by Morton – and a sore nose. She would clear out of here now, today. ‘I’b goig,’ she announced with a sudden burst of energy that propelled her into the house. She hurled herself at the door’s inner side, pushed the bolt home. Ivy pounded with both fists, but the door remained closed. ‘Get round the back,’ she told her companion. ‘Hurry up.’
She waited for several minutes, tried to ignore a small gathering that had begun to form at the Worthington Street end of Paradise Lane. As soon as Tom appeared, Ivy ran to him. ‘Locked?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘Bolted.’
Lottie’s head poked itself through the lower half of a bedroom window. ‘What are you goig to do dow?’ she yelled.
‘How will Sally get in?’ asked Tom Goodfellow.
‘She wod’t.’ The handkerchief was dropped for a moment while Lottie addressed the congregation. ‘Look what she’s dod to by dose,’ she yelled.
‘Aye, what about the scratches on her face?’ replied a neighbour of Ivy’s. ‘She’s nobbut an old lady.’
‘Lady?’ screamed Lottie. ‘She’s a bloody bitch.’
Ivy took Tom on one side. ‘Get home and see to our Sal,’ she advised. ‘And leave the rest to me.’
Rosie Blunt’s posser had never looked so menacing. The owner of the implement claimed first place in the line, though Ivy Crumpsall was hot on the heels of the small, silver-haired woman. Behind Ivy, a pair of hefty girls from Worthington Street brought up the rear, faces almost splitting in two at the hilarity of the situation. ‘Rosie?’ yelled one.
‘What?’ Rosie was running out of patience with a lot of things. Had she been required to write a list of the banes of her life, Lottie Crumpsall and Ollie would have shared the top place. Ollie Blunt was a bloody great moan from dawn till dusk, and Lottie deserved the death penalty for neglecting that child. Rosie would have loved a little girl. ‘What?’ she called again, temper spilling into the words.
‘Are you fit for this?’
Rosie left her end of the posser and walked down the short line. ‘I’ve fettled for yon daft husband of mine for over fifty years,’ she snapped. ‘There’s no door thicker than yon man’s head.’
The girl stopped laughing. ‘Right,’ she said meekly. ‘You shout, then we’ll run.’
Ivy relaxed her hold on the pole, gave her daughter-in-law one last chance to open the front door. ‘We’re breaking in now,’ she shouted. ‘When I’ve counted to ten, we’ll be giving you no more chances.’ She bent, pushed an ear against the letterbox. Not a sound came from within number 1.
‘We might make our Derek worse,’ she said to Rosie Blunt. ‘All the noise’ll fret him.’
Rosie nodded quickly. ‘All that blinking hunger and thirst’ll fret him more, Ivy. Are we ready?’
‘Yes,’ chorused the invading force.
They walked to the other side of the cobbled way, stumbled in the ruts between stones. As they waited for Rosie’s command, a voice reached their ears. ‘Ivy?’
They all swivelled and saw Tom Goodfellow emerging from his house. He stood still for a second, wondered how on earth they expected to break down a door with a dolly posser. ‘No need,’ he advised them. ‘She’s just gone across the Recreation Ground carrying a couple of cases. She allowed Sally into the house, then bolted the door again until she left. Sally’s all right – she waved to me from her bedroom window.’
‘All well and good.’ Ivy motioned to the other women until they had laid down their battering ram. ‘Only we’ve not done, girls. We’ll happen give her a good send-off. Tom, if Lottie’s gone, I know the back door’s open, ’cos there’s no key. It can only be bolted from the inside, and Lottie must have opened it to scarper. So get in that way and see to Derek, will you?’
‘Certainly.’
Satisfied that Tom would also be keeping young Sally occupied, Ivy faced her fellow soldiers, rubbed her hands together, then beckoned towards a gathering clutch of onlookers. ‘She’s done a bunk,’ she said loudly. ‘Took her cases and every penny in yon house, I shouldn’t wonder. I think we should give her a nice little ta-ra party to wish her well. We need a few bits and pieces, though.’
‘Good idea,’ called a younger woman.
Ivy nominated search areas. ‘Jimmy Foster’s shop’s your best bet,’ she announced. ‘Root through his back yard, then make your way to the Rec. The rest of you split up and cover Worthington and Spencer. Five minutes, that’s all. We meet on the Rec as soon as we’ve collected enough ammunition. Are we all game?’
‘Yes,’ came the spirited response.
‘Right,’ ordered Ivy, every inch the Sergeant Major. ‘On your marks – get gone!’
A short time later, a dishevelled group gathered on the Parry Rec, each woman breathing hard and carrying a miscellany of putrid vegetable matter. ‘You want to see what’s in some of them Spencer Street middens,’ complained a fat housewife with sweat streaming down reddened cheeks. ‘Fair turns your stomach, it does.’
‘Shut up, Molly Hargreaves,’ snapped Ivy. Her hair had tumbled down, and a few streaks of dirt mingled with caked blood on her cheeks. ‘This is serious business. Right. Are you all listening?’
They all listened.
‘Remember when Cissie Burns-as-was left her children in the house all night? Remember what we did to her when she showed up next morning?’
‘Aye,’ replied Rosie Blunt. ‘That were a right good do. Eeh, I did enjoy it.’
‘Well, we want more of the same.’ Ivy knew she looked fearsome. Various substances had clung to her skin, giving her the appearance of a Native American painted in readiness for battle with white intruders. ‘Follow me,’ she commanded. ‘Her won’t have got far, not with two cases.’
The women crossed the open ground, turned into Wigan Road and made a beeline for Trinity Street Station. As they walked past the market, several members of the group stopped to pick up bits of discarded fruit and veg. On Newport Street, passers-by gave Ivy’s army a wide berth, as the smell of putrefaction was becoming far too strong for most noses.
They turned into Trinity Street, Ivy still in the lead. She stopped abruptly, causing a slight pile-up of breathless females in her wake. ‘I can see her,’ she said. ‘Stand still a minute, keep out of the road where she can’t catch sight.’
She stood alone on the corner, watched while Lottie Kerrigan teetered across tram tracks on thick wedge heels. The suitcases made her weight uneven, and she was plainly struggling to carry all the luggage.
‘Well,’ said Ivy. ‘Poor lass needs help. She can’t manage all yon packages, so we’d better go and give her a hand, eh?’
With a whoop of joy, nine women dashed into the road, each pushing and shoving her neighbours in an effort to be the first on the scene. Ivy simply stood under the station clock, arms akimbo, head to one side as she studied the scenario.
Lottie was soon separated from her bags. Lids flew open, clothes were grabbed, torn, fought over. ‘I allers wanted some of these fancy keks,’ cried a woman from Spencer Street. She waved a pair of satin knickers above her head. ‘I reckon I might even stir the owld man back to life if I wear these.’