Within a matter of seconds, Lottie stood alone. The empty cases lay on their sides, and not one item of clothing was intact. Ivy’s gang began to circle the traveller, each tossing a tomato or a rotten cabbage in her hands. Ivy came forward at last. ‘Girls?’ she asked.
Money was passed from hand to hand, each member coughing up every last penny culled from the luggage. Ivy nodded just once, and the two battering-ram bruisers stepped towards the terrified Lottie, waited for the order.
‘Right,’ shouted Ivy. ‘Tilt.’
They tilted. Lottie’s head was where her feet had recently been, while the silk-clad and inverted legs were parted in mid-air. ‘Hey,’ yelled one of the large women. ‘She’s got nowt we haven’t got.’ First a purse, then some loose coins were passed into Ivy’s hands. She pocketed the latter, opened the former. ‘Here’s her tickets for the trains, and here’s her passage for the ship.’ These were placed in Lottie’s hands once she had been righted. ‘I hope she bloody drowns. Let her go now.’
When Lottie had straightened her rumpled clothing, she stood red-faced and sweating with shame and temper. ‘I’ll bloody get you for this, Ivy Crumpsall,’ she snarled. ‘Nobody shows me up and gets away with it.’ She touched her swollen nose, tried to arrange her hair into some kind of order.
Ivy grinned. ‘From America? What can you do to me while you’re stuck in New York?’
‘Morton’s got friends—’
‘Very nice,’ replied Ivy. ‘Right, girls. Ready, aim . . . fire.’
A barrage of stinking vegetable matter was thrown, most of it spattering the victim. When a police whistle sounded, the attack stopped with a suddenness that was not far short of miraculous. Nine pairs of legs beat a swift retreat towards the centre of town, but Ivy stood her ground until the policeman was almost upon her. ‘One word out of you, Lottie, and I’ll have you in prison,’ she whispered. ‘Remember, I know things about you. There’s been a fair bit of stolen and black market stuff through your hands.’ She did her best not to worry about Rosie Blunt. Rosie was getting on and – Ivy stopped mid-thought, remembered that she was two years older than Rosie. In that case, she told herself severely, it was every woman for herself.
The policeman ground to a halt, looked at Lottie, at Ivy, at the tomato-spattered pavement. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘Nice of you to ask,’ said Ivy. ‘Yes, I’m well enough, fair to middling as you might say.’
He frowned deeply. Ivy was a legend in her own lifetime. She’d had many a cup of tea in the police station, had Ivy Crumpsall. If she’d been a bit younger, she would have been dangerous, he mused. In fact, he thanked his lucky stars that he hadn’t been in the force during those years when Ivy had been truly powerful. ‘How’s she got in that state?’ He jerked a thumb in Lottie’s direction.
‘I were wondering that myself,’ said Ivy sweetly. ‘She’s my daughter-in-law and—’
‘We know who she is, Mrs Crumpsall.’
Ivy nodded, folded her arms. ‘There’s nowt as queer as folk, lad. See, she were a bit on the friendly side when it came to the Yanks, so—’
‘We know that and all.’
‘Neighbours took umbrage, like. She’s off to America to start a new life, see. And when the women from Paradise heard about it, they were upset, like, ’cos her husband – our Derek – is very ill. Then there’s the little lass. Lottie here is setting off for New York without even saying ta-ra proper to our Sal. So all the girls followed her down here. I did what I could, but—’
‘Names?’ He pulled a black book from a pocket.
‘Eeh, I don’t know,’ answered Ivy. ‘They had masks on, didn’t they, Lottie?’
Lottie growled what sounded like a ‘yes’.
‘And how did you get hurt?’
Ivy remembered her face, put a hand against the crusted blood. ‘Well, I were sticking up for her. See, we know she’s no good, but you can’t just stand there and let people get away with assault in broad daylight.’ A few more policemen had appeared at the Manchester Road junction, but she was confident that the contingency from Paradise was well out of danger.
‘That blood looks old and dry,’ he said sharply.
‘I’ve thick blood,’ she answered. ‘It sets quick. I remember when I near took my finger off with a breadknife – I were as right as ninepence within five minutes. They’re always saying in the Paradise streets as how they wish they could find jelly crystals that could set as quick as my blood. Once, oh a few years back, I were stood in the middle of town minding my own business—’
‘Shut up, Ivy,’ he said resignedly.
She turned to Lottie, handed over a ten shilling note. ‘Here you are, lass. This should keep you in grub for a while. And if you get a bit short, you know how to earn a few bob. Sailors is always ready for your sort.’
‘I’ve no clothes,’ managed Lottie.
The constable studied the victim’s face. ‘What’s wrong with your nose?’ he asked.
For answer, Lottie spat in the road, wiped a few bits of vegetation from her jacket and staggered off towards the station.
‘She’s left her bags,’ said the policeman.
‘Aye, and her husband and her daughter.’
He watched until Lottie had disappeared. ‘Never mind, Ivy,’ he said. ‘It looks like you’ve done a good enough job on her.’
‘I wonder how she’ll travel in that state?’ asked Ivy.
He shrugged. ‘She’ll come up smelling of roses. That sort always does.’
‘Rotten cabbage, more like.’ Ivy smiled at him, then started back towards a dying son and an abandoned child.
‘Ivy?’ He had followed her, was pushing a half-crown into her hand. ‘For the little girl,’ he said before marching off to speak to his colleagues.
She lingered for a moment, weighed the coin in her palm. For the first time ever, she had seen tears glistening in the eyes of the law.
The front parlour of number 3 Paradise Lane was very interesting, because Maureen Mason collected things. She wasn’t an organized collector, kept no books of stamps, no collages of dried flowers. Maureen simply bought anything that took her fancy, kept it for a while, then sold it on. She had a sweet face, a pleasant temperament and an ability to negotiate that might have been useful in the making of international treaties.
Sally gazed round Maureen’s ‘best room’. ‘What’s that?’ Everything had changed in a matter of days. She pointed at a monstrous plant in a blue-and-white container.
‘Aspidistra. Belonged to Betty White’s mother when she was alive. Betty White didn’t want it, so I brought it here. It was a lovely funeral, too—’ She cut herself off, because funerals should not be on the menu when the child’s dad was dying. ‘I found a good home for the Chinese figurines, made two shillings. Remember? That Buddha with the gold trim – he was one of them. That’s a snuff box, Sally, worth a bob or two. Be careful, there’s a bit of inlay coming loose. Now, where’s my glue?’
While Maureen went in search of what she called her ‘mendings’, Sally had a good look round. There were figures under domes, without domes, then there were domes without figures. A large dog sat on the mantelpiece, but his nose was on a small table waiting for glue. On the floor, a one-legged shepherd leaned on another dog. Sally smiled. If the dog went off to round up sheep, his master would fall over. She searched for the man’s leg, gave up when she found a dead tiger behind a chair.
‘That’s Sinbad,’ Maureen told her when she returned with her repair kit. ‘He was going to the ragman, but I rescued him. He’ll be all right once I find an eye to match.’ She lifted a brush from a pot, dripped glue all over the place. Maureen Mason was known as a good-hearted woman who was dangerous with glue. ‘Don’t go near on a mending day,’ the neighbours often said. ‘Or you might finish up stopping there for ever, stuck fast to a chair.’
‘Shall I help?’ asked Sally, her eyes fixed to a beautiful glue-ravaged carpet.
‘No, I’ll manage, love. Go through and put the kettle on. Not the copper one, there’s a hole in it.’
Sally wandered into the kitchen, set the grill across the fire, put the kettle in place. In spite of all the chaos, Maureen Mason’s home was a thing of beauty. The shine on the black grate was almost like glass, and a pair of old chairs had been rejuvenated by the simple act of throwing quilts over their war wounds. A flowery tablecloth spread its knee-length skirt over a table whose shins boasted many applications of beeswax. All around the walls, holy pictures in gilded frames punctuated distemper of a colour that Maureen had invented herself by mixing green and white.
‘You all right, love?’ called the voice from the parlour.
‘Yes, thank you.’
After a small pause, Maureen spoke again. ‘I think I’ve stuck this man’s leg on back to front, Sally. My hands are covered in glue, so can you help?’
The child managed not to laugh. Maureen squatted on the floor with a brush in one hand, a glue-pot in the other. ‘I daren’t put these down,’ she explained. ‘Last time I put them on the floor, they stuck. Can you pull his leg off?’
Sally did as she was asked, stayed with Maureen until the shepherd’s limb conformed with nature’s design.
‘I liked him wrong, though,’ said Maureen thoughtfully. ‘He’d a bit of character when he was wrong.’
The little girl perched on the edge of a chair while this wonderful Irishwoman continued with her mending. She tackled the snuff box, a cake stand and a milking stool. ‘Ah well,’ she sighed when the last job was completed. ‘Sure there’s one leg a bit longer than the other two, but that’s a never-mind, for it reminds me of home.’ She rose, looked at a photograph on the mantel. ‘He loved England,’ she said to herself. ‘Enough to die for.’
Sally heard, kept quiet. The sad thing about Maureen Mason was that her husband was dead. Patrick Mason had been born to an Englishman and an Irishwoman. He had lived half his life in Bolton, until the death of his father, then had returned to Mayo with his mother. Patrick and Maureen had married in Ireland, had returned to Bolton only months before the beginning of the war. It was awful, Sally thought, because Maureen Mason enjoyed looking after people. She wanted to look after Mr Goodfellow, but Mr Goodfellow wanted females kept in cages . . .
‘What are you thinking of, Sally?’
‘Mr Goodfellow. I’ve to call him Uncle Tom.’
‘That’s a marvellous man, Sally.’
‘Yes.’
‘Always very kind to me, you know.’
‘Yes.’ Should she say something? It was wrong that Maureen should go on hoping. It would be better if she went to the Empress where all the mill dances were held. Or the Aspin, or the Palais, or the Floral Hall. Maureen might get a new husband at the Palais. ‘He says ladies should be in cages.’
Maureen stood still, her head on one side. ‘Who did?’
‘Mr . . . Uncle Tom. Said they should be in cages like Scarlet.’
‘Ah, you must have got him wrong there, Sally. The man would not even harm a flea. See, come away now till I get you a nice slice of soda bread. Did I ever tell you about the day my daddy was attacked by the bull?’
‘Yes.’
It didn’t matter, because Maureen would tell the tale anyway. She believed in keeping a child’s mind occupied while trouble was afoot. The tale changed, of course, just as all Maureen’s tales did. The main thing was to keep talking. If the poor little girl were allowed to think, her mind might be filled by all kinds of gloom. ‘So we sold him,’ she announced.
Sally nodded. The last time, the bull had run away never to be seen again the length and breadth of three counties. The time before that, he’d been given to a passing leprechaun with a limp. The leprechaun had tamed the animal to the point where it wore a saddle. From that day on, the crippled leprechaun had saved his bad leg by riding through Mayo on the back of a bull.
‘And there’s a bit of shortbread for you.’
Sally munched and thought. Sometimes, not very often, Maureen Mason got on Sally’s nerves. She was like a toy that got wound up and just rattled on until its spring ran down. Except that Maureen’s spring never reached its end. But this lady was the soul of kindness. Perhaps she might have a few answers to the questions Sally had never dared to ask. She swallowed, took a sip of tea. ‘Mrs Mason?’
‘Yes?’
‘What’ll happen to me and Gus?’
Maureen sat in the chair that faced Sally’s. ‘Well now, I’m not entirely sure I understand what you mean, Sally.’
The little girl took a deep breath. ‘See, my dad’s going to die. It’s something to do with coal, Granny Ivy says. And my mam’s getting ready to go to New York. Morton doesn’t like children. Mam says she’ll send for me, but she won’t. Granny Ivy is very old. Old people always die, don’t they? So when she dies, there’ll be just me and Gus.’ She looked straight into Maureen’s green eyes. ‘I can’t pay the rent. I don’t want to go in the . . . orphan place. There is no orphan places for Gus. What’s going to happen, Mrs Mason?’
Maureen had no idea. ‘Ah, something will turn up.’
‘What, though?’
‘I don’t know, child. But you’re such a lovely girl – somebody will surely . . . We can only wait and see.’
Sally nodded. ‘Why does my mam not want me? If she wanted me, she’d stay here. There’s other children with no dads, because their dads died in the war, but their mams don’t go to America, do they? No, they stay and look after all the children.’
Maureen had never heard Sally say so much in one go. She hadn’t realized how pensive the girl really was, because replies from Sally were few and far between. As for questions – well – Maureen was not ready for any of this. ‘Your granny will be back soon, child. Will we go up and see how your daddy is?’
Sally sighed. ‘All right.’
Maureen prettied herself in the mirror, dabbed on a bit of powder, smeared a dot of lipstick over her mouth. She didn’t believe in going over the top, because Mr Goodfellow saw inside a person. Satisfied that she was neat and tidy, she took Sally’s hand and walked towards the door. ‘Sally?’ she said, a hand resting on the shiny brass knob.
‘Yes?’
‘You’ll not starve while I’m alive. And, God willing, I’ve a way to go yet.’
Derek’s eyes had bucked up a bit, partly because he was enjoying Tom Goodfellow’s company, mostly because Lottie had gone. Also, strange as it seemed, a couple of brandies seemed to have knocked the pain out for a while. ‘I feel good,’ he told his companion. ‘For the first time in months, I’m a bit better.’