Looking Back

by Looking Back (retail) (epub)

  Rosie’s chest swelled three inches with pride. ‘He’s right,’ she said grandly. ‘That’s what we are – “enterprising”.’

  The last port of call was Mrs Panter from Duckworth Street. ‘Two barmcakes and a small Hovis,’ she told Molly. ‘And I don’t want a burnt one neither.’ She was adamant. ‘Me teeth get stuck in a hard crust an’ I can’t get ’em out.’

  The two women were hard put not to chuckle at this.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Rosie said, as she and Molly made their way to Ainsworth Street, ‘she’s an ugly old sod as it is. I wouldn’t like to see her without her teeth, that’s for sure!’

  Despite her fondness for the old woman, Molly giggled all the way to the shops.

  Come three o’clock and it was time to fetch the children from school. ‘Eddie’s slept right through,’ Molly said. ‘I hope he’s all right.’

  Rosie felt his face. ‘He’s fine,’ she said. ‘Cool as a cucumber, so he is. I’ll make my way back with him now. By the time you get home with the children, I’ll have him fed and changed and ready to fight the world.’

  Molly thanked her. ‘We’ve had a good day,’ she declared, taking out the bag of money. ‘By my reckoning, we’ve earned six and eightpence.’

  ‘But that’s three and fourpence each, and it’s only the first day!’

  Sitting on the bench at the tram stop, Molly spilled the coins into Rosie’s palm. Counting them out she told her, ‘There! You’ll be able to buy yourself a packet of snuff on the way home.’

  Rosie was horrified. ‘Hush your mouth!’ She glanced anxiously up and down the street. ‘Sure, you and me are the only ones who know I take snuff.’

  ‘Singleton’s is the best,’ a voice intervened. ‘I’ve tried ’em all, but I allus come back to Singleton’s.’

  A red-faced woman popped her head round the corner of the shelter. ‘Mark my words, once you’ve had a pinch o’ Singleton’s, you’ll not want no other.’ To prove it, she opened a small silver tin, and taking a pinch of brown powder between finger and thumb, she stuffed it first up her right nostril then up her left, each of them stained brown from years of taking the stuff.

  ‘By! That’s grand!’ she exclaimed, giving a little cough and a sigh. Then she went off down the street like a young ’un, leaving Molly and Rosie open-mouthed.

  ‘Did ye see the cut of her nose?’ Rosie wanted to know.

  ‘All brown and gooey, you mean?’ Molly was trying desperately not to laugh out loud. ‘Yes, I did. Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Rosie stared at the girl as if she’d gone mad. ‘Because it’s put me right off, that’s why!’

  ‘What? D’you reckon your nose might end up like that?’ After a fine day’s work, Molly felt mischievous.

  ‘No, it bloody won’t!’ Rosie retorted. ‘’Cos I’ll not give it a chance.’ With that she dipped into her pocket and, taking out her little snuff-tin, she marched to the waste-paper bin and disposed of it. ‘That’s the end o’ that!’ she declared, though she did take a peep to see where it had landed.

  ‘What about the spare tin you keep in the drawer at home?’

  Rosie hummed and hawed. ‘Aye well, you never want to burn all yer bridges,’ she argued, and would say no more on the subject.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Sandra threw open the door and bounced in. ‘I think I know where to find him,’ she told Molly excitedly, not stopping to say hello. ‘There were a bloke in the pub, and he said I should look for my Dave in Skegness.’

  With the children round her feet, Molly had been peeling potatoes for dinner. Now she ushered them into the front room to get on with their drawings. ‘I’ll call you when dinner’s ready,’ she promised.

  Returning to the scullery, she washed her hands and left the potatoes to soak in the bowl. ‘You’d best sit down,’ she told Sandra, ‘and calm yerself. You’re all red in the face.’

  Sandra threw herself into a chair. ‘That’s ’cos I’m excited. I’ve been searching for the bastard these past weeks, and now I’ve found him, I can’t believe it.’ She grinned. ‘I’ll tell yer summat else an’ all. I can’t wait to see his face when I walk up to him.’ She laughed out loud. ‘Gawd knows what he’ll do when I tell him he’s gonna be a daddy!’

  ‘Have you told your mam yet?’ Molly thought that was just as important, maybe more so.

  Sandra’s face dropped a mile. ‘Have I heckerslike, and you mustn’t neither.’

  ‘I’ve already promised I won’t say a word. Though I think it’s a big mistake, and very selfish of you not to let Rosie know what’s going on.’

  ‘It’s best she don’t know, at least till I’ve got him to admit it, and made him face up to his responsibilities.’

  ‘And when are you thinking of doing that?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning, first thing. I’m taking a day or two off.’

  ‘If you do, you’ll lose your job for sure this time.’ Molly had lost count of the number of days Sandra had taken off work. ‘If you’re pregnant and without wages, it’ll only make things harder, and I should know.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph! You’re not, are you? Our Alfie didn’t leave you with a bairn on the way, did he?’

  Molly dispelled Sandra’s excitement with a wave of her hand. ‘No, he didn’t.’ More’s the pity, she thought. ‘I meant with that little lot in there…’ She pointed to the door.

  ‘But you’re doing all right, aren’t you? Now that you’ve got the errand thingy working well?’

  ‘That’s not what I’m saying.’

  ‘I know what yer saying, Moll, and it doesn’t bother me one bit. I’m going after him if it’s the last thing I do, and I’m going in the morning, job or no job!’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘That’s right. It is.’

  ‘It seems to me he’s not worth running after. Do you really think he’ll accept responsibility on your say so?’

  Angry that her friend should be so dead set against her going, Sandra demanded, ‘What the devil’s wrong with you, you miserable cow? Course he’ll accept responsibility. He’s the bleedin’ father, ain’t he?’

  Molly was loath to hurt her feelings, but she was afraid for Sandra. ‘I don’t mean to make you feel bad,’ she apologised. ‘I just worry about you.’

  ‘Huh! You coulda fooled me!’

  ‘I’ve heard your side, and I’ve heard your mam’s side, and it seems to me this bloke is a real bad lot. He’s got you pregnant. He’s knocked you about. And now he’s buggered off and you’ve had to root him out the best way you can.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Happen you’d do well to let him go his own way, Sandra. Tell your mam about the bairn. She’ll do everything to help, I know she will.’

  ‘You don’t know her then. She’s a funny old biddy about these sort o’ things. Like as not, she’ll kick my arse out the door and never talk to me again. Besides, I want to find him. I want him to accept me and the bairn. Because, God help me, I love him, Molly. I want to be with him.’

  Molly saw how desperate she was. ‘Then there’s nothing me or your mam can say to make you change your mind, is there?’

  ‘Not a lot, no.’ Getting out of the chair, she told Molly she would see her when she got back.

  ‘Take care then,’ Molly said anxiously. ‘If he gets nasty, come away.’

  ‘Why should he get nasty?’

  ‘Any man who can do what he’s done to you is capable of anything.’

  For a long, emotional moment, Sandra gazed at Molly, her eyes bright with tears, and the strangest smile on her face. ‘I love him so much,’ she murmured. ‘I’d do anything for him… just like you with Alfie.’

  After she’d gone, Molly wondered at the sincerity in Sandra’s voice. It wasn’t like her friend to be that serious about any man. ‘Love ’em and leave ’em’ – that was her motto up to now. And for some inexplicable reason, Molly couldn’t help but feel there was something ve
ry wrong with this one.

  What kind of man would have an intimate relationship with a girl, then for no reason just take off, not leaving an address, or any clue as to where she might be able to find him?

  As she set about her work again, Molly expressed her innermost fears. ‘I wish you didn’t have to chase after him, Sandra,’ she whispered. ‘In fact, it’s a pity you ever met him in the first place.’

  * * *

  The fat lady from the coconut shy had taken a liking to Lottie. ‘It’s nice having a pretty young thing like you about the place,’ she told her one cold, bright morning. ‘Though why you should want to throw in your lot with a bad ’un like Dave, I will never know!’

  Lottie finished putting the coconuts atop the stands. ‘Because I love him,’ she answered. ‘That’s why.’

  ‘He’s had women before, and they’ve never lasted more than a few days. In fact, there was a woman worked right here on the fairground. Her and that Dave o’ yourn had something going, but there was a big fight and he marked her for life.’ Slicing her thumb down her face she drew the picture well.

  ‘Gossip, that’s all it is,’ Lottie said stalwartly, though her heart was dismayed. ‘I’ve heard other things about him that aren’t true. I don’t believe any of it.’

  ‘Aye, well, as you please, dearie, but he don’t keep his women long, that’s what I’m saying. Yet here you are… weeks later, and he still ain’t thrown you out the window.’ She gave a mischievous wink. ‘Keep him happy, do you, gal? Is that why he’s hanging on to you?’

  After working with Lily from her first day, Lottie knew her well enough not to take offence. ‘It’s him that keeps me happy,’ she declared simply. ‘I tell you now, if Dave were to ask me to wed him tomorrow, I’d jump at the chance.’

  ‘Huh! More fool you then.’ Taking out a half-toothless comb, Lily ran it through her hair. Having done that and made little or no difference at all to her wild mass of red hair, she then bunched it all together with her podgy fist and tied it up on top of her head, not realising or caring that she resembled one of the coconuts.

  Lottie was still on the defensive. ‘He’s all right, is Dave.’

  ‘For a time, aye, he’s all right. But then he goes a bit crazy and smashes the place up.’ Tutting, she warned Lottie, ‘I’ve lost count of the times he’s tekken a hammer to that lorry of his. I’ve seen it in tatters from one end to the other. That’s why it’s so pretty now… ’cos he’s not long put it right after one of his mad red rages.’

  As always, Lottie gave as good as she got. ‘Come on, Lily, leave him alone, why don’t you? Dave’s not as bad as folk make out.’ She wouldn’t hear one bad word about him, not even from Lily, who’d been like a mother to her.

  ‘You’re right, gal,’ Lily answered darkly. ‘He ain’t as bad as they make out… he’s a bloody sight worse!’ When she laughed, as she did now, her jaw wobbled – as Dave said, ‘Like the arse-cheeks of a rhino on the run’.

  ‘I’ve heard you’ve thrown a few out the window in your time.’ Lottie could say that and not be afraid.

  ‘Who told you that?’ Now Lily was on the defensive.

  ‘The big man who mends the rides.’

  ‘Big man, eh?’ Erupting in a fit of laughter, Lily frightened away a young couple who were about to have a go on the shy. ‘He ain’t so big with his trousers down, let me tell you! And I should know, ’cos I’ve thrown him outta my trailer more than once an’ all. He’s all right mending rides, but he ain’t much of a performer, if you know what I mean.’ She gave a naughty wink.

  Laughing with her, Lottie watched the young couple scurrying off. ‘You’re frightening the customers away.’

  Lily wasn’t put out. ‘They’ll come back,’ she said.

  A few minutes later, they did, swiftly followed by another three couples, all trying their luck and nobody winning. ‘You’ve got them ruddy coconuts glued to the stands, that’s why we can’t knock ’em off!’ one irate man complained.

  He soon made himself scarce when Lily sucked in her breath and confronted him with a bosom huge enough to suffocate him.

  After setting up the coconuts for the fourth time, Lottie came back to continue the conversation. ‘You were telling me,’ she said ‘about the big man.’

  Lily seemed to blush. ‘Never you mind,’ she chided. ‘You’re too young.’ Regarding Lottie for a moment, she envied the high cheekbones and the striking hazel eyes; yet, for all her backchat and boldness, she seemed younger than her years. ‘By the way, young ’un, how old are you? You never did tell me.’

  ‘Seventeen an’ more.’ Lies came easy to Lottie.

  ‘Never! Are you sure?’

  ‘Course I’m sure. I ought to know my own age!’

  ‘Hmh! You don’t look fourteen, never mind seventeen.’

  ‘Well, it just goes to show then, don’t it?’

  After that, Lottie was well and truly on her guard. If Dave was to find out how old she was, he’d throw her out for sure, and that was the last thing she wanted.

  ‘Hey!’ Lily pointed over the river to the sky above. ‘There’s an old saying: “Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”.’

  Lottie laughed. ‘Now what are you talking about?’

  ‘Look at the sky, gal. It’s all red. I ain’t never seen that before in January.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, like I were saying, “Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”. Happen there’s a storm brewing.’

  ‘I’ve never heard that saying before.’ Lottie learned something new every day. ‘I bet you’re making it up.’

  ‘All right, have it your way, but I’m telling you what I know. “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”.’

  Pointing to the river, she smiled serenely. ‘Lovely though, ain’t it, gal? The river and the ducks and everything. I’m glad we changed direction from Skegness to come here. I’ve always liked the West Country, and West Bay is so pretty.’

  ‘Why did we come here, Lily?’ She’d already asked Dave but he hadn’t really given an answer. ‘I were looking forward to Skeggie.’

  ‘We changed direction because the boss got word that his brother was already there with his own amusement fair. They’re arch enemies, them two. If they’d tried to serve the same patch, there’d have been murders, I’m telling you.’

  As always, from two o’clock to four, there was a lull in trade. ‘It’s always the same,’ Lily said. ‘They feed theirselves and have a pint or two, then they sleep it off and come back with a vengeance early evening. You get off and snatch some sleep an’ all,’ she suggested, when Lottie started yawning. ‘You’ve been up since five this morning. I can see you ain’t used to it yet.’

  Asleep on her feet, Lottie didn’t argue.

  ‘Don’t forget to set your clock, and be back here for five,’ Lily advised. ‘Else you’ll get no wages on Friday.’ She gave her booming laugh.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Lottie was in a deep sleep when she felt a hand sliding up her skirt. ‘Hey!’ Scrambling up, she pressed herself against the wall, relaxing only when she saw it was Dave who had crept up on her. ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ she screamed. ‘You frightened the bloody life out of me!’ For one split second, she wished she was back home, with her mam and the family.

  ‘Don’t gimme the wide-eyed innocent!’ he sneered. ‘You can’t tell me I’m the first to have his hand in your knickers.’

  Ignoring his spiteful remark, she got out of bed and went to the stove. ‘D’you want a brew?’

  ‘Why not?’ He rolled into the warm spot she’d left behind.

  ‘How come you’re not working?’

  ‘You first.’

  ‘There’s nothing doing at the stall. Lily sent me back to get some sleep.’

  ‘It’s always like that mid-afternoon.’

  ‘Is that why you’ve come back?’

  ‘No, and stop being so bloody nosy!’ />
  ‘So, why aren’t you working?’

  He sniggered. ‘You’re a defiant little bugger.’ But he liked it that way. ‘We’ve shut the Waltzer for an hour or two,’ he explained. ‘There’s a grinding noise coming from the motors. It’s already gone haywire once this morning. Tom’s taking a look at it now.’

  ‘What if he can’t fix it?’

  Stretching his long legs over the bed, he saw her bending to the stove, and wanted her there and then. ‘Tom’s good with motors,’ he said. ‘He’ll have it right in time for the rush tonight.’

  Handing him his mug of tea, she was not surprised when he set it on the floor and grabbed her by the wrist. ‘I’m lonely.’

  ‘So?’ She knew what he wanted, and it made her feel good.

  ‘So, put your tea down and get on this bed.’

  Lottie climbed on the bed and one thing led to another. The wagon rocked and rolled, and those who knew Dave knew what that meant. ‘He’s at it again!’ they laughed. ‘Randy bugger.’

  * * *

  Afterwards, they sat and drank their tea and talked. ‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ Dave told her. ‘I’ve had women before, and I’ve never let them get to me. It wouldn’t matter to me if they walked out the door and I never saw them again. In fact, I’ve chucked the buggers out the door quick enough and been glad of it.’

  Lottie recalled what Lily had said. ‘Would you chuck me out the door?’

  ‘I might.’

  ‘You’d miss me if you did.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You’d have to chuck me out,’ she confessed. ‘’Cos I would never leave of my own free will.’

  He gazed at her lovely face and the cut of her shapely figure, and he knew he would never throw this one out. ‘There’s summat about you,’ he admitted. ‘You make me laugh.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘It’s enough for now.’

  ‘Do you love me, Dave?’

  His mood instantly changed. ‘Hey! Don’t start talking any claptrap about love and families and all that rubbish. I’ve been there, remember?’