‘Don’t worry, I have,’ replied Gert. ‘They talk as if he’s left of his own accord, like. They kept telling me about some bloke who went out for a box of matches in 1936 and never came back. But I know Bert. He wouldn’t have gone without eating his tripe. He wouldn’t have gone without his money. There were fifteen and thre’pence in one of his old boots. Landlord had been through the place looking for rent, like, but he never found that bit of savings.’ She opened her fingers and let the money trickle out into the other hand. ‘He’s dead,’ she pronounced.
Sally walked across the room and put her arms round the woman she had never called Aunt. Gert was more like a friend, a chosen person who was a valued part of Sally’s life. ‘They’ll find him,’ she said softly. ‘They will. Have they tried the hospitals? If he had to go in suddenly, he might have been forced to leave all his things.’
Gert nodded jerkily. ‘They’re doing that now, love, going round all the hospitals. That’s me only hope, isn’t it? All I can pray for is that he’s had an accident or a funny stomach again.’ She swallowed. ‘But unless it were TB or summat, they’d not keep him this long. With TB, he’d have got warning. He’d have been able to tell me about it.’ Her head dropped. ‘No, he’s not in no sanatorium, Sal. He’d have wrote to me so’s I’d visit him.’
Sally understood Gert’s terrible dilemma. Without knowing all the details, she realized that Gert loved a man who was not good enough for her. Love had nothing to do with reason, Sally thought now. You could love somebody without liking them. Sally had loved her own mother, had even missed her for a while, but there seemed to be nothing likeable about Lottie Crumpsall.
Red joined Sally and Gert. ‘I’d best get searching,’ he said. ‘I’ll fetch the Spencer Street gang out. There’ll have to be an armistice between Spencers and Worthingtons while this search gets going.’ Realizing what he had said, he smiled apologetically at Prudence. ‘They fight one another, them two streets,’ he said.
Prudence nodded. ‘Yes.’ There was enmity between the two who had named the streets, and confirmation of this further trouble served only to make her more uneasy. Spencers and Worthingtons should never have met. She gulped down some air. No-one knew the whereabouts of her ex-husband, either. She and Gert were in the same situation, though Gert did retain some affection for her man. Oh, surely Bert’s disappearance had nothing to do with this . . . this feeling? It wasn’t even a feeling, she informed herself. It was just a lump in her chest, a heavy mass that sometimes made swallowing difficult. ‘Do what you can, Red. Will you go home or come home?’
‘Go,’ he answered. ‘I’ll stop with Mam for a couple of nights.’ With no sign of embarrassment, he kissed his adoptive mother and Cora Miles. ‘See you soon,’ he said before disappearing into the night.
Ivy’s rheumy eyes fixed themselves on Prudence Spencer’s face. ‘What’s up with you?’ she asked. ‘You’ve had a face like the dog’s dinner for months.’
Prudence shrugged. ‘A bit of indigestion,’ she replied lamely.
‘Then you’d best get a spoonful of bicarb and go to the doctor’s on Monday.’ That was not stomach trouble, thought Ivy as her good friend left the room. ‘Is she fretting?’ she asked Cora.
Cora shrugged, didn’t want to upset the frail old lady. ‘It comes and goes,’ she answered. With her hands joined in her lap, she prayed for God to take away Prudence Spencer’s troubles.
Lottie was worried. As Mrs Alan Westford, she had the status of a married woman, a house that promised to be pretty once she got round to cleaning it, and a husband whose sexual appetite had dwindled to nothing. At the age of forty, Lottie remained young in her mind, had never considered herself to be ageing. But being stuck with a man of sixty-eight was not her idea of fun. The thing that bothered her most was the terrible coldness in his expression. Sometimes, when the two of them talked about getting Sally back, the ice would melt a little, and he would liven up considerably. Lottie knew that it was anger that melted the frost, and she was not comfortable living day to day with the man’s terrifying pent-up rage.
She placed some whites in the dolly, picked up the posser and stamped it against the washing. He was inside messing with a second-hand Hoover cleaner, a terrible thing that coughed and spat dust all over the place. In the lean-to scullery, Lottie lit a cigarette and warmed her hands by cupping them round the match.
She felt that nothing would ever warm her soul again, though. Her attitude was a puzzle, because she ought to be grateful, really. She had entertained so many men in the past that a rest should have been welcome. Yet she missed being held, kissed, stroked, talked to. If she thought about it, the final act had been an also-ran, a thing to be endured. She dragged at the Woodbine, spat a bit of loose tobacco into the suds. Sometimes, she had enjoyed being with a man, had achieved her share of pleasurable moments. But that had happened when her partner had been kind, gentle and talkative.
Lottie dragged out a shirt, pushed it through the mangle and into the sink for rinsing. He wanted his shirts white, he had insisted. She toyed with a packet of Dolly-Blue, couldn’t be bothered with the instructions, threw it in with the rinse water.
‘What are you doing?’
She turned on her heel, looked him up and down. ‘Flying an aeroplane,’ she replied.
‘I’ve fixed the Hoover.’
‘Good.’ She dipped the Woodbine in the water, threw it into a bucket. ‘I’ll be done soon.’
He stared at her for a few seconds. ‘Where did you go yesterday afternoon?’
Lottie shrugged. ‘Here and there. Shopping.’
‘For what?’
Again, she raised her shoulders. ‘Nowt. I found nowt worth buying.’
Westford frowned. ‘The word is “nothing” Charlotte. You must learn to improve your speech.’
With the washing pincers held aloft, she approached him. ‘My name is Lottie. I can’t be doing with the full handle, and I ain’t taking no elocution lessons from you, neither. Who do you think you are, eh? A mill owner?’ She laughed mirthlessly. ‘If you’d still owned Paradise, you’d never have looked at me. I’m here because I’m useful. I’m here because you want to get Sally away from Ivy and that po-faced first wife of yours. But if you think I vomited my way across the Atlantic in that rotten boat just to do your bloody washing, you’d better go and get your head tested for woodworm.’ She slammed down the pincers and pushed past him.
He followed, watched as she dragged on her coat. ‘Where are you going?’
Lottie grinned. ‘That’s for me to know and for you to worry about.’ She measured his temper by the quick movements of his now sunken eyes. ‘Go on. Hit me.’
He closed his fists tightly, slammed a hand against each side of his body. His anger must continue hidden, he told himself. If he alienated Lottie, his chances of having his day with the Crumpsalls, the Marchants and the Heilbergs would be greatly reduced. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he managed at last.
‘Don’t hold your breath,’ advised Lottie. ‘I’ll come back when I’m good and ready.’ She turned towards the front door, stopped, looked over her shoulder. ‘Oh, by the way – you’d best see to them shirts before the water gets cold. If you want ‘em white, you have to wash ’em hot.’
Westford glared at the closed door for at least a minute after his wife had left. What the hell had he done? She was ugly, she couldn’t cook, wash or sew. Sighing deeply, he walked to the scullery to rescue a shirt soaked in enough Dolly-Blue to turn it navy. The one piece of sanity he clung to was the knowledge that Lottie was Sally’s mother. Surely no-one could keep a child from its natural parents? He turned on the tap and rinsed the shirt. It would all come out in the wash. Wouldn’t it?
The school was on Chorley New Road. Lottie had stood here at letting-out time for three days on the trot, and she had at last plucked up enough courage to ask about her daughter. On the previous day, a girl had pointed out Sally, but Sally had been getting on a bus with some other girls. Lottie sighed, pulled up the collar of her coat. School would probably close today for Christmas.
She didn’t really know why she was here. Yesterday, when she had finally seen her little girl, she had been terrified. Sally wasn’t a little girl. She was as tall as Lottie, with a healthy body and the sort of hair that should belong to a film star. Unconsciously, Lottie fingered the mass of greenish-brown frizz that peeped out beneath the front fold of her headscarf. Sally was above her and beyond her. She didn’t deserve such a daughter, not after the way she’d carried on.
The school doors opened and the girls came out. They didn’t push and shove and scream like normal children, because this was Bolton School. At Bolton School, the pupils did Greek, Latin, the sciences. Lottie, who considered herself to be as thick as a double-brick wall, tried to melt behind a tree. She was a sight. Even in this fur coat he’d bought her she looked a freak. Even if she took off her gloves and flashed the three diamonds on a twist, she would still be out of place.
Her heart seemed to turn upside down when she realized that the group crossing the road towards her included Sally. She grabbed her dorothy bag, opened it, pretended to search for something.
‘Sally already has a boyfriend,’ laughed one of the girls. ‘She lives next door to the famous Arthur Trubshaw.’
‘Be quiet, Chloe.’ Lottie had just heard her daughter’s voice for the first time in over seven years. ‘He is not my boyfriend. Red’s more of a brother.’
Another girl spoke. ‘He’ll walk into Oxbridge without even trying. I’m sure he’s ready now, before the Higher Certificate. Supposed to be a genius.’
Sally giggled. ‘Whereas I will have to master French first.’
‘Oh, you’re fine now, Sally. Sixty per cent isn’t bad.’
‘Not where my grandmother’s concerned,’ answered Sally. ‘She accepts nothing less than a ninety, and even then she wants to know what happened to the other ten. Come on, girls, there’s the bus.’
Lottie sagged with relief and shock. Her daughter talked like a woman, an educated woman. Sally’s mother lingered near the tree long after the bus had moved off with its cargo of chattering young people. ‘You don’t belong here,’ she told herself in a whisper. ‘That girl has no need of you.’ And no need of the monster that showed sometimes in the eyes of Alan Westford.
After realizing how cold she had become, Lottie began the long walk to . . . to where? She wandered on in a more or less straight line, turned left at the fire station, continued until she found herself at the junction of Bradshawgate, Churchgate, Deansgate and Bank Street. Should she go left or right? Should she carry on or double back to a bus stop? Before taking time to think, she strode down the slope of Bank Street, her head down, her feet slipping against a thin film of ice. It took her a long time to reach Crompton Way, and she was glad that she had found Ivy’s address among papers at the cottage. Crompton Way was a ring road, but Westford’s notes had been with a map he had drawn, so Lottie was able to place the house between Thicketford Road and Bury Road.
She stood on the opposite side, looked across the road and saw her daughter again. Sally, who seemed to be alone in the front parlour, was pinning a bunch of holly above the fireplace. Festoons of crêpe paper hung from the ceiling, and a wreath of fir and ribbon was fastened to the front door. Christmas. When had she, Lottie Westford, previously Crumpsall, née Kerrigan had a Christmas? Mam had always been drunk, too drunk for cooking and filling stockings. Lottie should have learned from her mother, should have made sure that her little daughter had enjoyed a few decent Christmases. Derek had bought little gifts, had trimmed a tree once or twice.
Tears trickled down her face, threatened to freeze in the merciless cold. Her exhalations hung in the air like miniature clouds, and her hands were numb even though encased in thick gloves. How she wanted to walk to that door and raise the knocker above the yule-tide decoration. How she wanted to sit with Sally by a roaring fire. They could drink tea and have a mince pie and talk about Sally’s dreams for the future.
Reluctantly, Lottie left the scene and cut through to Tonge Moor Road. Here, she could catch a bus for Bromley Cross and home. But home was a man with a stony heart and no love. Perhaps Sally would change all that. Next year, the three of them might sit down to eat a Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, candles, silver thre’pences in the pudding, an iced cake.
When her long journey was over, she trudged up the path to the cottage, braced herself, threw open the door.
‘Where’ve you been?’ he asked.
She pulled off her gloves, held out blue fmgers to the fire. ‘Looking at me daughter,’ she replied. ‘We leave her till after Christmas.’
Westford, who had been looking forward with glee to the chance of ruining Ivy Crumpsall’s seasonal festivities, said nothing. There was an edge to Lottie, a coating she had acquired overseas. She was manageable, but only just. He speared a piece of bread and held it to the fire. ‘Toast?’ he asked.
Lottie made no reply.
They’d had a terrific Christmas. Red, who had matured considerably, was now sufficiently genteel to use his stink bombs outdoors. The recipe he had perfected over recent months produced a remarkable stench that went far beyond any smell created by a shop-bought bomb. When he had released three on Crompton Way on Christmas morning, dogs had howled, cats had fled the neighbourhood and four housewives had spent an hour or so fretting because they thought the smell was their meat going off.
Sally and Red sat on the wall. ‘I think I’ll try for Imperial in London,’ he said. ‘Oxford and Cambridge would be too hoity-toity for me.’
‘No, they wouldn’t. Education’s for everybody these days, and you’re cleverer than most. Oxford’s so beautiful. You’d love it.’ She poked him in the ribs. ‘Are you going to get a degree in stink bombs?’
He awarded her a glance that was meant to be withering. ‘Physics,’ he told her. ‘I want to get into something new. Like nuclear energy.’
It was all a mystery to Sally. She enjoyed the classics, was not particularly inspired by pipettes, Bunsen burners and the digestive system of a worm. ‘Mrs Spencer’s gone strange again.’ She jerked a thumb towards the house that was a twin to hers. ‘Depressed, Gran says.’