‘I’m halfway through me eighties now.’ Oh God. This poor girl had lost her mam and dad, one to America and the other to the Lord. ‘There’s not just me for you.’
‘I know that, too, Gran.’
‘Mrs Spencer and Cora and Gert – they’ll fettle for you. Tom and Maureen, too. I mean, I’m not shuffling off this minute. It’s just – well – these things has to be faced up to sooner or later.’
Sally shivered again, hoped that this involuntary movement did not show. After all, she was a big girl now, a supposedly clever girl who had won a scholarship to Bolton School. If she could just conquer a modern language, she would be sure of a university place. Oxford. Even now, after seven years, she still rememberd that first visit, was still in touch with the childish excitement that had seemed to pierce the very core of her existence. If Granny Ivy died . . .
‘Sal?’
If Granny Ivy died, nothing would be worth anything. And if Granny Ivy lived, Sally would have to stay here, on Crompton Way, to watch over the woman who had reared her, loved her and kept her away from harm.
‘Sal?’
Granny Ivy wasn’t even her real grandmother. ‘Yes, Gran?’
‘Stop thinking, love. Just for a minute, give your brain a rest.’
At first, when they had returned from Hampshire in 1947, things had been hard. Sally had been recognized, jeered at occasionally, had been whispered about in playgrounds and parks. But like most gossip, the topic had died and gone to rest. Sally and Red had both won places at grammar school, and the subject of parenthood seldom troubled either of them. Red Trubshaw spent half his time with Prudence Spencer, the other half with his family in Paradise. Sally lived with Ivy, who was, she supposed, her adopted grandmother, and with Gert Simpson, her real auntie.
‘You’ll set that frown,’ warned Ivy. ‘Come 1960, you’ll have two deep lines between your eyes.’
‘I don’t care.’
Ivy perched on a stool while the young one clattered cups, brewed tea, dashed upstairs with a tray for Gert. She was easy on the eye, was Sal. Tall and slender, she was, with big blue eyes and blond hair that was too healthy for obedience. Long strands were always escaping from their prison of plaits to dangle down Sal’s face until pushed impatiently behind the ears.
‘You’ll not cut it, will you?’ asked Ivy. Apart from a quarterly trim, Sal’s hair had never been shortened.
‘I don’t know. I don’t think so.’
‘You’ve bonny hair.’
Sally buttered a scone. ‘So you keep saying. But you’re not the one who has to let it dangle in your dinner.’
Gert put her head round the door. She had altered beyond recognition, had become a confident woman who wore little make-up and quiet, sensible clothes. ‘I’m fetching the doctor,’ she announced.
‘Is she bad?’ One of Ivy’s hands pressed itself against the lean bosom.
Gert nodded. ‘Aye, she’s took a bit of a downward turn. I’ll ask Mrs Spencer to drop in.’ Gert had never managed to call her ex-employer by her Christian name.
Sally was out of the kitchen in a flash. She bounded upstairs and let herself into the back bedroom. Rosie Blunt, who was no bigger than the average ten-year-old, lay sleeping against a mound of pillows whose height was supposed to ease congestion in her lungs. There was no medicine for her now. Rosie was drifting peacefully towards her end on a vehicle called double pneumonia. Gran had named this particular malady the old person’s friend, because it was usually peaceful and easy. The young girl smiled fondly as she recalled Rosie’s anger and her need to carry weaponry. At four feet and eleven inches, Rosie Blunt had needed armaments to reinforce her bossy nature.
Sally thought back to her own illness, remembered that pneumonia had brought her peace. Andrew Worthington was the man who had started her life, but Derek Crumpsail would always be her dad. Dead or alive, Derek was her father. Yes, pneumonia had been quiet, she thought. Was Rosie having a visitor at this moment? Was Mr Blunt reaching out a hand to guide his wife into the next world? In spite of the sadness, Sally smiled again. Mr Blunt would be pleased to see his wife, because she would probably arrive in heaven unarmed.
Derek had not helped Sally to cross over. No, he had pushed her back to Granny Ivy, to Red, to the Blunts and Maureen and Tom, had made her return to Rose Cottage. Andrew Worthington had disappeared from sight, had never been heard of since his stay in hospital. Sally shook off the feeling of unease. He would not come back. Even if he did, she was a big girl, almost old enough to deal with him.
‘All right, lass?’ Ivy, breathless after climbing the stairs, sat on the edge of Gert’s bed. ‘Is she with us?’
‘Yes.’
Ivy put her head on one side, looked at the face of her old friend. ‘She looks peaceful. I’d say her time’s nearly up.’
Sally swallowed, then allowed the truth to spill from her tongue and into a room that was suddenly hollow, as if all the furniture had been moved out. ‘I don’t want you to die, Gran.’
‘Well, I’m not that keen on it meself, you know. But the flesh is weak, love. I’m living in a worn-out shell. Any road, death’s a natural part of life, isn’t it?’
‘I just can’t imagine . . . well, I can’t.’
Ivy sighed and studied her hands. The fingers were gnarled and twisted like the wind-whipped branches of a winter tree. Aye, the sun was shining outside, the air was warm and the sky remained as blue as Sally’s eyes. But this was the winter of life, all right. She wouldn’t cry. No, no, she wasn’t going to kick off howling and skriking in front of Sal. Skriking? Yes, that had been one of Ivy’s mother’s words . . .
‘Gran?’
‘What, love?’
‘She’s stopped breathing.’
Ivy gulped back a lump of pain. ‘Aye, well. Happen it’s best for her.’ Ivy stayed where she was. Wearied by the sheer length of her life, she was beyond kicking up a fuss. Anyway, Rosie would be better out of it, because she’d said nothing for days, was plainly ready to be on her way. ‘Remember Ollie’s spuds?’ Ivy asked her granddaughter.
‘Yes.’
‘Green, they were. Green enough to put an army in hospital. Bad for you, green potatoes.’ She shook her head again. ‘He struggled day in and day out with that garden. Couldn’t even grow weeds proper. Always made a big do out of it, he did. Always moaned at Rosie.’
Sally blinked away her tears, touched Mrs Blunt’s cooling face. ‘It’s not fair, you know. People work so hard and have no money. Then they die.’
‘Like Jesus,’ Ivy reminded her. ‘He worked hard and never had nowt, but He still had to go back to heaven.’ She sniffed back a threatening moisture. ‘Any road, there’s no such thing as death. Little Rosie’s gone to another place, that’s all. Jesus showed us as how death weren’t real.’
Sally crossed the room, placed her hands on Granny Ivy’s shoulders. There was no substance to the bone any more, no vigour in the flesh. Mrs Blunt lay dead at the other side of the room, while Ivy Crumpsall simply waited for the reaper’s call. ‘Oh, Gran,’ sobbed the girl.
‘Stop it.’ Ivy looked into Sally’s eyes. ‘No matter what happens, I want you to get an education. Do you know what education means, our Sal?’
The girl nodded mutely.
‘Looked it up in the library, I did,’ continued the old woman. ‘It’s from some daft foreign language – might have been Latin. You do Latin, don’t you?’
Again, the girl simply inclined her head.
‘It means leading out, Sal. It means being brought out of the dark and into the light. It means coming away from mills and factories and going into a better world.’ She paused, inhaled, tried to strangle at birth the sobs created by Rosie Blunt’s passing. ‘Education means chances and choices, lass. I don’t want you stood here weeping when I go. There’s no need to look back. Just lead yourself out of here and read all them books you’ve always wanted.’
‘Gran, I . . .’ The rest of the sentence was drowned by tears.
‘Don’t let me down,’ whispered Ivy. ‘There’s me shares in Paradise and there’s the cottage. Sell the lot and get down to Oxford. Have a bike and a black cloak, go on one of them stupid boats with a long pole. Start your own life.’
‘Not . . . without you.’
Ivy struggled to her feet and allowed her grief to spill over. She would have been taller than Sally but for the hump, she thought irrelevantly. Five foot seven, she used to be. ‘They called me beanpole at school,’ she mumbled. ‘And Thin Lizzie. Till I clouted them.’ She waved a hand towards Rosie. ‘She had a little policy for this, Sal. Same as her Ollie. They even tidied up for themselves after they were dead. Good folk.’ The real sobbing began.
Sally mopped at Gran’s tears with a handkerchief.
‘Sal?’
‘Yes?’
Ivy pulled what remained of herself together and gripped her granddaughter’s arm. ‘Let me go, love. Promise me you’ll let me go when it’s my turn. I don’t want to go hovering about with no harp because you’re keeping me earthbound. Me and Rosie are time-served, you know. We’re both due for wings, ’cos . . .’ The old lady coughed, heaved for breath. ‘’Cos we went to chapel when we could.’
For what seemed to be the first time, Sally saw Granny Ivy’s vulnerability. Like everyone else, this lady had her weaknesses. The end of life had to be faced, because no-one could possibly continue for ever in earthly form. The young girl straightened, looked into intelligent eyes whose irises were no longer clearly defined. ‘When . . . when God takes you, Gran, I’ll cry. But I’ll let go.’
Ivy nodded, felt a drop of moisture as it leapt from her face and onto the surface of a starch-crisped blouse. ‘Growing up is letting go, lass. You let go of the child you used to be, then you let go of them as minded you. When I start to fail proper, like, don’t give up owt for me. ’Cos one day, you’ll be a mother. That’ll be your turn at doing the minding. Remember, I’m not your kiddy.’
‘Right, Gran.’
Ivy sniffed. ‘I’m not really your grandma, either. Only we’ve never talked much about that, have we? You got chosen, pet. Me and your dad chose to have you. And as I stand here this very minute with me best friend just gone, I can tell you I regret nowt. You were the most wonderful thing as ever happened to me – apart from my Derek.’
Gert arrived and tripped lightly into the room, saw the grief in the faces of two people who were dear to her, knew that the third precious soul had gone. ‘Eeh, Ivy,’ she breathed. ‘Mrs Spencer and Cora’s gone out – so has the doctor.’ She crossed the floor, looked down on Rosie’s calm face. ‘God bless you, old lass,’ she said softly. ‘Even though you near clocked me with yon posser, I did love you.’ She dashed away a tear, turned to look at Sally and Ivy. ‘Go down,’ she whispered. ‘I’ll see to her.’
But Ivy remained where she was, her hand clasped around Sally’s. ‘Gert?’
‘What?’
‘If . . . when it’s my turn, will you see to me?’
Gert nodded. ‘Don’t start talking daft, Ivy. Don’t—’
‘I want Sally to have a good life. I want her to go to that there Oxford place and get one of them university degrees and a funny hat. Then, if she wants to come back and work in Paradise, she can. And if she wants to be a teacher or some such fancy thing, she can do that and all.’
Gert tried to lighten the situation. After all, Rosie wouldn’t have wanted everybody to be morbid and grisling. ‘Talk to Irene Lever about teachers first, Sally. Remember what she did? Aye, her got the sack for breaking Basher Bates’s cane. Glad of the job in Paradise, she were. There’s worse than Paradise, Ivy. But I know what you mean.’
‘Good.’ Ivy kept her gimlet eye pinned to Lottie-Kerrigan-as-was’s sister’s face. ‘You’d make ten of yon sister of yours, girl.’
Gert pretended to bridle. ‘Fifty, more like. Look, if that one ever shows her face round here, I’ll have a thing or two to say to her. I will, you know.’
Ivy bit her lip. ‘And Worthington?’ She felt Sally stiffen. ‘What about him?’
‘Same,’ snapped Gert. ‘The very same.’ She watched while the young one guided Ivy out of the bedroom, listened to the aged woman’s faltering steps as she was led downstairs. Then Gert Simpson got on with the job. She talked to Rosie all the time, said things which had been held inside for too long. ‘I did love him, you know. Bert, I mean. He weren’t much, but he were mine and we were suited. Only he killed the love when he near killed Maureen Marchant.’
She washed and dried Rosie’s still-warm body, arranged the hair, dressed Rosie in the best pink winceyette nightie with a bit of white lace round its collar. ‘No kiddies for me, love. And none for Maureen, either. In her forties now, same as me. All that love and she still got no babies.’ Rosie would have made a good mam, too, Gert thought. Aye, this lovely woman would have reared some bonny kiddies if only God had been more willing.
For a few moments, Gert lingered near the window and remembered Bert. She’d seen him from time to time, had bumped into him in town, had turned him away from the door of her prefab. It had been nice, that prefab. Two bedrooms, a nice living room, a kitchen with a fridge built in. And she’d given it up to come and mind Rosie.
Poor Rosie. Gert returned to the bed and smiled down at the relaxed face. ‘Won’t be the same without your snoring, lass. But I’ll stop on here and see to Ivy. She gets fed up on her own all day while Sally’s at school.’ Worthington would have done anything to get his hands on Sally. Oh, he hadn’t wanted the child, but he’d longed to break Ivy’s heart. ‘Where is he, Rosie?’ she mouthed. Even now, she could feel him, could smell his filth, was often awake in the night after one of those terrible dreams. The man was still alive. Gert could sense his existence, felt certain that his death would have brought her peace. ‘I’ll know when you’re dead, all right,’ she said. ‘I won’t need no notice in the papers, ’cos I’ll rest after you’ve gone.’ She jerked her head upward, stared at the ceiling. ‘World’ll be cleaner when yon man’s out of it,’ she advised the Almighty. ‘And You’d be saving me from murder and all, ’cos I’ll swing for that rotten swine if needs be.’
Gert sat with Rosie and waited patiently for the doctor to arrive. She lingered with her thoughts, recalled who and how she used to be, wondered how her life might have turned out had she not been raped. Ever since that evening, Gert had kept herself to herself. If she couldn’t have Bert, she wouldn’t have anybody. And she couldn’t have Bert because Bert was weak and stupid.