‘Come on, lass, come on through to the kitchen and we’ll have that cuppa,’ said Gladys when they had both dried their eyes. ‘There’s something I need to put to you and it’ll be better with a cup of tea inside us.’
‘His
mother
?!’ They had drunk two cups of tea and eaten a shive of sly cake each, and now Connie sat back in her seat at the kitchen table and stared at Gladys who was nodding her head.
‘Aye, aye that’s my theory for what it’s worth. The words on the pavement is John to a T, mind, and him trying it on figures; his poor wife has had a raw deal all her married life from what I can make out. His lad hates him leastways, it’s as plain as the nose on your face. But the letters . . . Now that smacks of a woman to my mind, and it’d be just up Edith’s street. She’s a nasty piece of work is their mam.’
When Art arrived home half an hour later he agreed with his wife and his voice was both ashamed and weary. ‘I’d say it’s the pair of them involved in this, Connie,’ he said quietly. ‘My mother can be a mealy-mouthed woman when it suits her, but other times she’s worse than a fish wife. I don’t understand her and John, I never have, but there’s something in both of them . . .’ His voice trailed away and then he straightened, his hand going across his face as though to brush something away. ‘Do you want me to talk to them and sort this out?’
Connie looked away from them both for a moment before she said, ‘If I’m being honest, Art, there’s nothing I would like more, and if it was just John I would ask you to come with me to see him, but. . .’ She paused, then taking a deep breath said, ‘I have to go and see your mother myself, she needs to know I mean business, and if things are as you and Gladys suspect then John will do what he’s told, don’t you think?’
Gladys had made a quick urgent movement of protest as Connie had spoken, and Art glanced at his wife before he said, ‘You don’t know what she’s like, lass,’ his tone expressing far more than the actual words.
‘I’m beginning to.’
‘Well, let me come along with you then, eh? For moral support. Dan would expect that.’
‘I think it’s better I go alone,’ Connie said gently.
Gladys’s face was very troubled. ‘Connie, she’s got a tongue that would cut steel.’
‘I know. I have had some experience of her in the past, remember?’
‘Oh, lass.’
Connie spent another hour with Gladys and Art and she left promising she would return the following Sunday afternoon with Hazel. It was only a ten-minute walk from St George’s Square along Park Lane to Holmeside, but the November night was raw and cold with a stinging icy rain and keen wind, and when Art insisted on accompanying Connie home she protested until she realised he and Gladys were not going to take no for an answer.
‘Dan would do the same for Gladys.’
‘But I’ll be fine, really.’
‘Aye, that’s as maybe.’
There was genuine warmth in the goodbyes of the two women, and once she and Art were walking along Park Lane, Connie said, ‘Gladys is a grand lass, Art. You’re a lucky man.’
‘Aye, I know it, and the same could be said for our Dan.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I mean it, lass, and don’t you worry, you’ll be hearing from him someday soon and then you can set about making your wedding plans, eh?’
Connie glanced at the big figure next to her. ‘Do your mother and John know he has asked me to marry him?’
‘Put it this way, lass, I haven’t told ’em. It’s up to you and Dan to tell who you want to, and as far as I know he’s said nowt to anyone but Kitty and me and Gladys. Speaks volumes about our family, doesn’t it,’ he added a trifle bitterly.
Connie nodded but said nothing; there was nothing to say after all, and as Art glanced at the slim young girl at the side of him he found himself praying he was right about them hearing from Dan, and it wasn’t all to do with concern for his brother. This young lass had had a raw deal – whichever way you looked at it she’d had a raw deal and his family had started the ball rolling; it was time she had a bit of happiness. Although happiness and his mam didn’t go together. He frowned at the thought. He didn’t like the idea of her going to see his mother – it smacked too much of sending a lamb to the slaughter-but he had to admit there was a well of strength in Connie Bell that you didn’t suspect when you looked at the ethereal beauty of the outside, and maybe she’d be a match for the woman who tried to rule all their lives. He hoped so. He did hope so.
It was another three days before Connie made the visit to Ryhope Road.
She had returned home from Art’s house on the Tuesday evening determined to go first thing the next day, but on walking into the parlour she had found Mary in floods of tears and Wilf sitting in abject misery at the side of her, his head drooping.
‘He’s enlisted.’ Connie had barely got through the door when Mary flung the words at her, her face blotchy and red. ‘Just because one or two have bin makin’ remarks he’s had to go an’ enlist.’
‘Remarks? What sort of remarks, Wilf?’
‘’Bout him bein’ lily-livered an’ gutless an’ the like,’ Mary said before Wilf could open his mouth. ‘It’s her that lives next door to him that started it; her lad bought it first week he was in France an’ now she’s determined every other poor devil’ll get the same.’
‘It wasn’t Mrs Trotter, not really,’ Wilf protested, a trifle weakly. There had been feelings of patriotism there too, along with growing frustration about his relationship with Mary. It was one step forward, two steps back all the time as far as he was concerned; he’d lost count of how many times he’d asked her to marry him since that first time at the beginning of September when he’d decided – what with the war and all – that he couldn’t wait until he was well set up as he’d originally planned. She had made every excuse under the sun except the real one – that she was frightened of him. That was it at bottom. Oh, he knew she’d gone to hell and back with what her uncle and his friend had done to her when she was a little bairn, but surely she knew him well enough now to know he would never do anything to hurt her? At least he’d thought so, before the war had prompted him to find out different. And he’d been getting more and more angry and confused, and he didn’t want to feel like that, not about Mary, so . . . he’d escaped the situation, he’d enlisted. It might not have been the brightest thing he’d ever done but it would have had to have happened sooner or later; this war clearly wasn’t going to be the short, hard slam at Kaiser Bill that they’d all been led to believe. So, with things as they were, it might as well be sooner. That’s how he felt about it.
By the time Wilf had left that night Connie had persuaded Mary to spend the next day with him before he departed for training camp, and to try and get things sorted out, and then the two girls had sat up half the night talking.
‘You’ll never find anyone else who loves you like Wilf does,’ Connie had said gently when Mary had poured out her fears about marriage and commitment.
‘I know, I know.’
‘And with him going away to fight . . .’
‘Oh, Connie.’
‘You were going to have to say yay or nay one day, lass, so it might as well be tomorrow. It’s only fair for the lad to know where he stands and he’s been patient, you’ve got to admit that, Mary.’
‘I
know
.’
The end result had been Mary coming back flushed and happy the next day with the cheapest ring the jeweller’s shop had boasted, which she wore with touching pride.
And then the next day Ellen had been unable to come to work due to her youngest being ill so again they were short manned, and it was the Friday morning, when the papers were full of the news that German and Austrian civilian internees had rioted at a detention camp on the Isle of Man, having been part of the national round-up of aliens at the end of the previous month, before Connie could get away.
She caught the tram to the top of Ryhope Road, and although the icy rain and bitter wind of the last few days hadn’t let up, Connie was oblivious to the weather as she alighted at her stop. All her thoughts were on the forthcoming confrontation with Dan’s mother.
Ryhope Road had changed little in the last fourteen years, and as Connie walked briskly down the wide and pleasant road, her three-quarter-length mink-coloured coat and hat in thick good cloth bought at a fraction of the original cost from the old market in the East End at the beginning of the autumn effectively keeping out the worst of the cold, the hard knot in her stomach became tighter.
In her mind’s eye she could see three little ghosts – one a slim and beautiful golden-haired woman, the others a boy and a girl – walking down this same road, and for a moment the desire to go back in time was so acute she could taste it. Fourteen years ago they had been here, her mam and Larry, alive and warm and breathing. She had been able to touch them, to see them, to hold them . . .
Stop it, stop it
. The voice in her head was strong. Deal with now, you can’t go back, and she’ll seize on any weakness she senses in you. Think about what you are going to say, concentrate on that and that alone. You are a respectable businesswoman, you
are.
She can’t intimidate you or frighten you because you aren’t going to let her.
The house was exactly as she remembered it as she opened the fancy wrought-iron gate set in the high stone wall, and the pebbled drive just as immaculate, even the giant oaks – their gnarled limbs devoid of leaves as they had been that morning fourteen years ago – appeared frozen in time.
Connie’s heart was thudding as she mounted the seven horseshoe-shaped steps to the front door, but after she had pulled the bell she remained on the top step with her head held high and her back very straight.
‘Good morning. I’d like to see Mrs Stewart please.’
It was Kitty who answered the door, and as Connie spoke the Irishwoman’s face stretched a little before her head jerked and she said, her voice quivering, ‘Eh lass, lass, it’s you, isn’t it. What have you come here for?’
The words themselves could have been presumptuous, but spoken as they were, in a gentle, pleading fashion, they took on a quite different connotation, and now – knowing how fondly Dan thought of this woman – Connie said, ‘I have to see Mrs Stewart; there’s been some unpleasantness and I have to clear it up but I’d prefer to do it without Dan being upset. Could . . . could you tell her I’m here?’
‘Lass, are you sure? She’s bin in a right two-an’-eight since she found out about you and Dan and there’s no reasoning with her. Dan knew that.’
‘It’s not about our relationship. There’s . . . been letters, nasty letters. I can’t let it continue.’
‘Aw, lass, no. No, not that. Oh, it’s heart sorry I am, lass. What are things coming to?’
Connie swallowed before she could answer – the other woman’s understanding and warmth was welcome but it undermined the anger she needed to feel to empower her to take on Edith Stewart and win. Finally she managed to say, her voice low, ‘I do need to see her, Kitty.’
And then, in a repeat of that morning fourteen years ago, an autocratic voice demanded from inside the house, ‘Kitty? Who is it?’
Kitty didn’t answer, she just continued staring at Connie and it was a moment or two before the door opened fully and Edith Stewart stood framed in the aperture, her manner abrasive as she said, ‘For goodness sake, woman, I was speaking to you. I asked you –’ And then her words were cut off as though by a knife.
‘Good morning, Mrs Stewart. I need to talk with you and I’m sure you know what about.’
If Edith was taken aback by the cool authority in Connie’s voice and manner she didn’t betray it by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. She seemed to rise in stature, her small, thick body bridling, and Connie watched the invective fill the chunky frame before it spewed forth in spitting rage, her eyes flashing as she said, ‘Get off my property, you trollop you! How dare you come here!’
‘Oh I dare, Mrs Stewart. I most certainly dare.’
‘I’ll have the police on you.’
‘I think not.’ Connie’s voice was controlled and steady, in stark contrast to that of Dan’s mother, and no one looking at her would have guessed her insides had turned to water. She kept her head high and her gaze directed full on Edith’s furious face as she said, ‘In fact I think that should be more my line than yours in the circumstances.’
‘You’re mad, unhinged! The life you lead has unbalanced you, you filthy –’
‘That’s enough of that.’
Connie was aware of Kitty’s fascinated gaze on the perimeter of her vision but her focus was concentrated on Edith’s countenance which looked evil. ‘You wrote some letters to me, disgusting, horrible letters, and the police have a way of checking handwriting, Mrs Stewart. I think they would be very interested in what I have to say.’ She was bluffing, she had destroyed each letter as it came – most unread – as the thought of keeping such poison had been insupportable, but Dan’s mother didn’t know that, and she knew she was on the right tack as the other woman’s face changed. ‘There was another letter too, in the same handwriting, and I feel sure Mr Alridge would be only too pleased to show that to the police. I wonder how your fine friends would view such behaviour, Mrs Stewart? Or perhaps they wouldn’t mind associating with someone who was in court answering such charges?’