The Tangling of the Web (3 page)

‘No.’ An uneasy silence fell between the two women until Sally asked, ‘Do you think I should have all the children attend the funeral?’

‘Take them to a graveside?’

‘No. It will be in the crematorium at Seafield.’

Flora sniffed again. ‘Suppose it is their granny.’

‘Aye, but she was no better a granny than she was a mother.’

Silence descended again until Flora, who was always trying to make things easier for Sally, asked, ‘I suppose your mammy wasn’t made the way she was. I mean, nobody is born … heartless.’

Sally gave a sarcastic chuckle. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. Her parents couldn’t take her indifference either and got rid of her as soon as they could.’

‘That’s what I mean,’ Flora said defensively, ‘your mammy herself wasnae treated right so she didnae know that bairns should be treasured and not …’

‘Used as punch bags …’

Flora realised the subject should be changed, so, grabbing the teapot, she poured out another cup of tea for herself. ‘Now,’ she hesitantly began, ‘if you’re going to take our wee fellow to the service will you not be needing to go to that Polish shoe repairer up in Restalrig Road to see if he’s managed to build up Bobby’s shoe. You know how self-conscious he is about people seeing him limp.’

Looking up at the clock, Sally nodded. ‘Look, first I’ll finish my tea. Then I’ll go and pick Bobby up at the school and take him to get his shoes.’

‘Does he need to go? Could you not just pick them up?’

‘No,’ was the emphatic reply. ‘Davidovich will want to see that he has done the alterations exactly to the specifications.’

The shrill, impatient ringing of the front doorbell caused Flora, who was dozing, to rise and run to answer the summons. Before she left the room, she smiled sweetly to Josie and Maggie, who were also startled by the pealing. She was only halfway along the hallway when she noticed through the half-glass panel that the bell-ringer was none other than her grandson, Bobby. Opening the door, she hissed, ‘Why on earth are you ringing the bell? You know just to come in.’ Looking beyond him, Flora could see Bobby was accompanied by his mother. ‘And you too, Sally, do you think I’ve nothing else to do but answer the door to people who stay here?’

Sally smiled. ‘Look, Flora, just go back up the hall and pay attention to Bobby.’

Flora did as she was bid and then Bobby started to walk towards her. Walk towards her
without
a limp. And because Sally had got the headmaster to agree that he could wear long trousers to primary school, you couldn’t even notice that one of his shoes was built up.

‘So what do you think?’ Sally crooned. ‘Now do you still think I was throwing away good money on a craftsman doing the job?’

Shaking her head and not wanting to speak because she was choked with tears, Flora ran towards Bobby and embraced him. Looking towards Sally, she managed to mumble, ‘You’ve got visitors.’

‘Visitors?’

‘Aye. Your pal Maggie and your sister Josie.’

‘Maggie, well she’ll be no bother, just sit her in the corner and she never says a dicky bird. But our Josie, now she could be … bad news.’

Even although Sally was apprehensive when she bounced into the living room, nobody, especially Josie, could have suspected she was anything but happy to see her.

Josie decided she should take the initiative and before anyone else could speak she blurted out, ‘Paddy, you know your pal and our erstwhile stepfather, has flung me out.’ No one replied and Josie continued after a snort, ‘And here’s me left my job early so I could travel up here to look after Mum and the minute she dies I’m given the bum’s rush.’

‘But why? I would have thought he would have waited until after the funeral.’

‘He would have done, but he found out that when I came up here I was on the rebound.’

‘Rebound?’ Sally exclaimed. ‘But I thought you were marrying that guy who is studying human behaviour at Cambridge, no less?’

Josie looked down at her feet, and although she was speaking to Sally it was her feet that got her attention. ‘He did have the university’s scarf right enough, but it turns out that his mother bought it in the hope someone would be fooled into thinking he was an under-or post-whatever graduate and give him …’

‘The time of day?’ interrupted Sally.

‘I know you think I’m a fool. But you met him and you thought at last I had landed a good meal ticket.’

Sally grimaced and Flora started clearing the table.

‘So, Sally, are you going to put me up?’

‘Well, you would need to squeeze in with …’ She was just about to say ‘Flora’, but Flora was indicating behind Josie’s back that no way would she share her bed with Josie.

‘Look, could you not just stay at Mum’s until after the funeral and then you’ll be able to think about your long-term future?’

Josie sighed before flashing her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Oh Sally, you are so naive. Can’t you understand that my life is so difficult because all men find me irresistible?’

Sally gawped. An answer was expected from her, but nothing that wasn’t quite what Josie wanted to hear came into Sally’s mind.

‘And Paddy is flesh and blood,’ Josie blundered on, unaware that no one was answering her, ‘and even although Mum is not yet cold I have to accept he cannot trust himself to be alone with me.’ She paused before whispering, ‘And that and that alone is the real reason he asked me to leave!’

‘Here we go again,’ Flora, who had started lifting up the last of the dirty cups from the table, whispered to Sally, who did not respond.

Josie then went on to elaborate. ‘Oh Sally,’ she sighed, ‘I know you and Flora being plain and homely don’t understand that instead of my beautiful face being a blessing … it’s a curse. Every man who looks at me wants to possess me – control me – have me for his lover, and I’m only one woman. So how can I satisfy so many?’

Sally stayed mute, because all she could think about was Josie and her problems with men, which had surfaced when she was much too young to have had such liaisons.

It also had to be acknowledged that since Josie had returned from Blackpool seven years ago, she had always gone away in the spring to work in hotels and in the winter she returned to stay as Sally’s guest because their mother wouldn’t have her or anyone else who wasn’t prepared to pay their way.

The only reason that Josie had been staying at her mother’s for the last two weeks was because Peggy was near death and required round-the-clock nursing care and she was so weak that she couldn’t summon up the energy to throw Josie out.

Six-year-old Josie had just returned from school to find that her mother was yet again in the bedroom. By the huffs and grunts that echoed out of the room she knew better than to disturb her mother, who was obviously entertaining some man or other.

Since her mother had got older, and had become less in demand by the up-town gentry, her goal had been to get a man, any man, to marry her and provide for her. This aim should have been easy because Peggy, despite her advancing years and lifestyle, was still a beautiful woman, although she was now developing a widow’s hump.

During the last two years, several men had come into her life but unfortunately also left it. But as soon as Paddy Doyle, a muscular young Australian, had arrived on the scene she was determined to snare him.

Josie looked about her and was pleased to see a tin of syrup and some bread lying on the table, so she began to spread a piece for herself. She had been so liberal with the syrup that it was oozing over the edges of the bread and onto her fingers. She had just laid her piece down and was starting to lick her fingers when Paddy Doyle emerged from the bedroom dressed only in his combination underwear. Slinking as unobtrusively as she could round to the far end of the table, Josie’s eyes never left Paddy’s face.

‘Never seen a man in his drawers before?’ cackled Paddy.

Josie, still licking her fingers, shook her head.

Paddy then squinted long and hard at her, causing a deep flush to rise from Josie’s neck and up her face. ‘Like your mammy you are.’

‘I am?’ stuttered Josie.

‘Aye, a real beauty if ever there was one.’ Paddy was now smiling broadly. ‘Mind, you might have the face that will drive a man wild, but like your mother your arse will always be the right height for my boot.’

Josie didn’t try to defend her short stature. Her reluctance to retaliate came firstly from knowing that being very small had its advantages – like people being exceptionally kind to her, as they thought her little more than a baby. However, now that her mother had come into the room, the consequences could be far-reaching if Peggy heard her speaking to Paddy.

‘Paddy, don’t you be filling her head with rubbish,’ Peggy warned, with a meaningful glare at both Paddy and Josie. ‘Good-looking she may be, but listen, and listen good, it will be a long, long time before she will be stepping into my shoes.’

Before Peggy realised what had happened, Paddy had advanced towards her and imprisoned her in his arms while rasping in her ear, ‘Aye, lady, but remember I won’t tolerate a wife who might get too big for her boots, and never ever, if you value your life that is, imply that I would tarnish pure innocence.’ Without warning, he began to drag Peggy back into the bedroom. ‘Whereas my lovely,’ he muttered through gritted teeth, ‘I don’t mind how often I have to give a right good seeing-to to someone like you, who is as pure as the driven slush.’

Josie was just fourteen years old and about to leave school when George Grant told her she was the most beautiful woman he had seen in whole wide world. She was just so flattered she didn’t take into consideration that thirteen-year-old George hadn’t seen much of the world, as he had never ventured any further than the top of Easter Road. George then confided he was so in love with her that he would be treating her to the pictures with a coconut slice added in. ‘You will?’ exclaimed Josie, who just loved going to see all the films. That was where she could escape into her make-believe world where she was tall and willowy as well as beautiful. She also knew that if ever she did get to Hollywood in no time at all she would make a name for herself. ‘But just a minute,’ Josie added when reality returned, ‘where will you get the money?’

‘Easy-peasy,’ replied George. ‘See the fish shop down in the Kirkgate? Well, he also sells pigeons, and see me …’ He now stuck his fingers through his braces as he swaggered in front of Josie. ‘Haven’t I just asked him if he would be interested in getting his hands on a dozen freshly killed birds, and he’s up for it.’

‘He is?’ crooned Josie.

‘Aye,’ replied George, nudging Josie with his elbow, ‘and he will pay enough for the two of us to get chummy in the cuddly seats.’ He paused to savour the moment before adding, ‘And if you are really nice to me I’ll throw in …’

‘A wee box of Cadbury’s Milk Tray?’

‘Naw. A couple o’ penny dainties because I cannae even afford the coconut ice I promised you.’

Of course, George was not too bright and didn’t realise that the pigeons in the fish shop were wood pigeons – a delicacy when cooked – and the pigeons that roosted in the railway yard were feral or, as the fish-shop owner put it, ‘Rats with wings.’ Naturally George was disappointed about the unreasonable conditions the fish-shop owner had laid down about the birds he sold. However, he was not as piqued as Josie, who, instead of being treated to a night of romantic entertainment, found herself reduced to licking a penny toffee cup while George tried to put his hand up her jumper.

In the summer of 1944 Josie began working in Crawford’s Biscuit Factory in Elbe Street. There her horizons widened, and before she had said a final goodbye to George, Steve, the store-man in the factory, whose job it was to keep her supplied with biscuit tins, had fallen madly in love with her. Steve was so besotted with her that he even carried the tins straight to her station. The only problem was that he was supposed to do that anyway and his dilly-dallying at her station meant the other women workers had to go and fetch their own tins.

Fed up with the situation, the older women quickly told Josie that Steve was married and was the father of seven children – and not all by his wife, because he was known to have an eye for young, gullible lassies – and if she didn’t mind could she give him the bum’s rush before he was the father of eight. After much deliberation, Josie resolved to do just that and then vowed that in future she would only encourage well-heeled older men.

Three months later, Josie was counting the days until she would be fifteen. It was about that time that news was being filtered out that now America had joined in the Second World War, Britain might emerge triumphant. This news excited

Josie especially, as the bulletin said that they still required as many women who could be spared to join in the battle. Josie decided there and then that what the country needed was her. So she marched into the recruiting office, where she was disappointed to find out that she was too young for the battle zones but that they could use her on the farms howking tatties.

Peggy made no comment on Josie’s news that she would be leaving to go down to live and work on a farm in East Lothian. She was, however, put out because since she had had Luke, who was now nine, and Daisy, now five, she had relied on Josie to watch over them when she was out gallivanting with Paddy. Paddy, unlike Peggy, did comment on Josie’s leaving. She was surprised and tears bubbled up in her when he said, ‘Now remember you are my little princess. I’m your daddy and I’ll kill any man who doesn’t do right by you.’

* * *

Two weeks later, Josie joined the team on a Tranent farm. Three of the lassies were young, though not as young as Josie, who had advised them she was seventeen but was small for her age. Her short stature, she confided to them, was because she had been born three months premature when her mother had been frightened by a bogeyman. Feeling sorry for her, the girls immediately welcomed her into their circle.

Time off for the girls was usually at the weekend. ‘How would you like to go up to Edinburgh with us on Saturday?’ enquired Senga, who had appointed herself leader of the pack.