by Marie Joseph
It wasn’t much of a joke, and Clara refused to laugh. The praise Elaine Maynard had heaped on her head after she’d finished singing still echoed in her brain. ‘Perfect pitch,’ she’d said. ‘A voice that cries out to be trained,’ she’d told her husband, jumping up to greet him as he came in from outside, smiling at Clara and going over to warm his hands at the leaping fire.
‘A piano,’ Seth said, as if it was a word he’d never heard before. ‘And sixpence twice a week for lessons. Does this Mrs Maynard think money grows on trees?’
For a long time now making ends meet had been a constant worry to Seth. Since the war had ended clogs were losing their popularity. Young mill workers were turning to shoes, saving up and paying over ten shillings for flimsy things that gave them corns and bunions and no proper spread for their toes. He stared across the table at Clara, sensed the impatience boiling inside her, saw the desperate pleading in her eyes, and hesitating was lost.
‘And there’ll be no more silly talk about going on the stage?’
Clara’s large eyes widened in amazement. ‘I told you! I’ll be playing proper music. Minuets and things,’ she added vaguely. ‘John told me his mother could have been a concert pianist if she hadn’t got married.’
‘That’s the stage.’
‘It’ll be years before I’m good enough for that!’ Clara laughed him to scorn. ‘Ten years at least.’ Spearing a forkful of tripe, she popped it into her mouth, chewing vigorously. ‘Mrs Maynard says to be good enough for that you have to practise eight hours a day.’ Putting the fork down she flexed her hands. ‘Mrs Maynard says I’ve got piano fingers. I can span more’n an octave, Dad. Mrs Maynard says …’
Seth was doing sums in his mind. The small store of coins in the tin box beneath his bed had been sadly depleted during the past two years. The rent had gone up to eight shillings a week; the blockmaker he dealt with had put his prices up, and Seth would have nothing to do with the newfangled machine-made soles. They were made of beech and not alder for one thing, and for another a machine-made sole couldn’t cater for any deformity in a foot. Alder was cut in the spring or summer when the sap was high in the tree, so that it absorbed damp. And who needed protection from the damp more than weavers standing at their looms on floors oozing water?
‘Tha’ll ruin theself, Seth,’ a clogger from the other side of town had told him. ‘Machines’ll tek us all over in the end. Why not make friends with them instead of trying to fight ’em? An’ forget about brass nails. Iron tacks do the job. Master craftsmen are a dying breed, Seth. Tha must know that.’
‘It’s not in me to cut corners,’ Seth had said. ‘My clogs’ll stand up to the worst the weather can chuck at them, aye, and fit like gloves as well.’
‘High principles don’t fill empty bellies,’ were his friend’s parting words.
‘I can start lessons straight away, Mrs Maynard says …’ Clara was still talking, waving her fork to give emphasis to what she was saying, fixing Seth with the intensity of her gaze. ‘But I won’t be able to practise …’
‘Till we get a piano,’ Seth interrupted, smiling. ‘Cheese and flippin’ rice, how have we lived all this while without one standing over there with the sofa pushed up against it, except when a certain young lady does her practising? Answer me that afore I die of amazement!’
Clara’s arms round his neck and the hug she gave him almost knocked him off his chair.
‘Give over,’ Seth protested. ‘What are you trying to do, Clara Haydock? Throttle the life out of your poor old dad?’
It wasn’t surprising that it was one of the West boys who found out where an ancient upright piano was to be had for the princely sum of £4. What Alec’s rake-off would be for the transaction Seth could only guess at, but he knew there’d be something in it for the black-haired lad who had been out of work for the past eighteen months.
‘It’s on the first floor of the YMCA, Mr Haydock,’ Alec told him. ‘They’ve been given a better one, but this plays all right.’ He winked at Clara. ‘Our Walter knows where he can borrow a handcart to get it to your house. For fourpence an hour,’ he added. ‘Dirt cheap at the price.’
‘I’m glad you live across the street instead of next door to us,’ he told Clara as they walked through the streets the next night. ‘How much do you want to bet me that Mrs Bates next to you does a flit afore long?’
They were a strange quartet hurrying with the handcart along the darkened streets. Alec and Walter trundling the cart, with Seth limping alongside on the pavement, and Clara almost skipping in her excitement. A lone policeman on his beat stepped out into the road and demanded to know where the West boys thought they were going at that time of night with an empty handcart. Seeing Seth, he stepped back onto the pavement and, touching a finger to his helmet, apologized.
‘Begging your pardon, Mr Haydock. I didn’t know you were with these two.’
‘On official business,’ said Alec cheekily. ‘On behalf of Miss Haydock ’ere.’
‘That larnt him,’ said Walter, picking up his shaft again and doing little running steps along the cobbles. ‘Frightening innocent folks like that.’
When Seth saw the piano, heavy dark mahogany, with ornate brass candlesticks on either side of the ivory keyboard, his first reaction was to wonder how on earth it had ever been manhandled up the single flight of stairs, along the corridor and into this large concert room.
‘Well, it didn’t grow here, Mr Haydock.’ Alec knelt down on the floorboards and worked the pedals up and down with his hands. ‘There’s casters here all right, but they’re rusted in. Reckon this bugger’s been sitting here since Adam were a lad.’ Getting to his feet, he grinned at Clara. ‘Now why couldn’t you have decided to learn the mouth organ? We could’ve carried that home in us pocket.’
‘You two at that end.’ Seth touched Clara lightly on her shoulder. ‘We’ll get it home, love.’ He scratched his head. ‘It’s somehow bigger and heavier than I had visions of it being, but we’ll manage.’ He nodded at Walter. ‘You help your brother at that end, and I’ll back out with my end. Clara, you keep out of the way.’
Watching them straining to move the piano, Clara was struck all at once by the fragility of her father. During the past year or so he seemed to have shrunk, so that the nose on his strong face looked bigger, more bony. He was wearing the flat cap he’d worn for years to do his clogging, and beneath it his hair showed in thick greying tufts, giving him the appearance of an old man.
Alec and Walter were laughing as they pushed, but her father’s forehead was already beaded with sweat, the veins sticking out as he struggled. All at once Clara wanted to tell him to leave the piano where it was, to forget the whole thing. Just to stop looking so ill and tortured, hurting his bad leg with every laboured step.
By now they were outside the big room, out on the wide landing, the piano moving more easily.
‘We haven’t lifted it yet,’ Clara heard Alec mutter. ‘Want to bet we’re all in the infirmary with a rupture apiece this time tomorrow?’
‘The only way will be to turn it on its side.’ At the top of the uncarpeted stairs Seth spat on his hands and rubbed them together. ‘You two lads hold it back while I guide it down. Slow. Step by step.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the long flight leading down to the tiled hall. ‘Once down with it we’ll be all right. Ready?’
‘Careful! Oh, please. Do be careful!’ Clara’s plea was a whisper inside her head.
Seth peered round the end of the piano. ‘Up with it, lads. Watch it! Cheese and flippin’ rice, but it’s a weight.’
‘Got it, Mr Haydock.’ Alec’s gruff voice was subdued now, devoid of laughter. ‘Sure you wouldn’t like me to come down and take the weight with you? Clara and Walter could hang on to this end.’
Clara can keep out of it.’ The piano was now on its side. They were edging it inch by inch towards the top stairs …
‘The ruddy candlesticks are going to catch on the bannister. We should’ve levered it mo
re towards the wall.’ Alec’s voice had a hint of panic in it.
‘Up with it. Now!’ Seth took a step backwards, found his bad leg wasn’t strong enough to sustain him, and called out, ‘Hold it! Hold it!’
Desperately the two boys tried to cling on, but the cumbersome piano, past the point of no return, toppled forwards. As though filmed in slow motion, it rolled over, sliding down the stairs, taking Seth with it.
‘Dadda! Dadda!’
The jangling sound froze the blood in Clara’s veins. The boys were there already, climbing over the piano, struggling to lift it while she stood looking down, her hands clasped over her mouth in a soundless scream.
‘He’s all right!’ Walter’s face, uplifted to her, was white with shock. ‘It’s not got him. It’s only his arm and his hand.’
‘We’ll get you free, Mr Haydock.’ Alec scrabbled at the piano as if he could forcibly lift it from where it rested, trapping Seth’s right arm from the elbow against the wall.
‘Dadda!’ Squeezing herself past the piano, Clara knelt down and took her father’s head on her lap. His face was as chalk-white as if the blood had been siphoned from it, but he was fully conscious as he looked up at her.
‘I’m all right, chuck.’ His pale eyes were glazed with pain. ‘Get this thing off me, lads. Then get me home.’
The place had seemed to be deserted, but now the hallway was filled with people.
‘It’s wedged itself fast.’
‘No room to turn it.’
‘Call the Fire Brigade.’
‘Loosen his collar.’
‘Run and get a drop of brandy from the pub.’
‘Oh, dear God. Just look at his hand!’
When they freed him at last, Seth’s right hand hung limply from his wrist. Even as they stared it swelled, the blood pouring from a jagged tear in the palm where one of the candlesticks had pierced the skin, bursting the flesh to expose the fatty globules underneath.
Clara, held back by kindly arms, cried without making a sound. Seth’s teeth were clenched hard together as he fought the agonizing pain. Yet when they brought the brandy he turned his head away.
‘He’s praying,’ somebody said. ‘A nip of the ’ard stuff’d do him more good than any prayer.’
Clara whirled round, but the sudden movement brought the floor up to hit her smack between the eyes.
‘You want to keep your gob shut, missus.’ Alec put both arms round the fainting girl. ‘Here, gie us that brandy. Over ’ere.’
When the ambulance came and they lifted Seth onto a stretcher, a man stopped Alec on his way to the door.
‘What about that piano, son? It can’t stop there.’
Alec stared at him in disbelief. As the little crowd gasped in amazement he told the man exactly what he could do with the piano. In so many words.
‘There’s no call for language like that.’ The man looked round him for moral support. ‘It can’t stop there. It’s broken beyond repair as far as I can see.’
‘Then chop it up first afore you do with it what me brother told you to do,’ said Walter. ‘Piece by piece, and I ’ope it ’urts. Like ’ell.’
‘You go with Clara,’ he told Alec. ‘I’ll take the cart back.’
‘It’s surprising what they can do these days.’ The ambulance man was very kind on the way to the infirmary. ‘They’ll patch your father’s hand up as good as new.’
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. And the small girl with the big green eyes knew it too. By the way she just looked at him and said nothing, it was obvious she knew that every bone in her father’s right hand was splintered and broken, the sinews torn beyond repair.
‘He were the best clogger in town,’ she whispered as if to herself. ‘The best clogger in the whole world, my dad were.’
Six
CLARA SAW THE man smoking a cigarette lounging against the wall the minute she stepped out of the little jobbing printer’s front office into the street She hurried past, head bent, sparing him no more than a cursory glance. If he – whoever he happened to be – was daft enough to stand there getting wet through, then that was his business. But when she heard his footsteps behind her, she quickened her own.
Fumbling in the crown of her felt hat, she pulled out a long hatpin, holding it in front of her like a dagger. When the footsteps slowed to match her own, she whirled round.
‘Who do you think you are, following me?’ She brandished the pin. ‘I’ll use it on you if you don’t go away. Who are you, anyroad?’
They had come out of the rainswept darkness, into the light of a gas lamp. The man took off his trilby hat, sweeping it in front of him in an exaggerated bow.
‘Clara! Little Clara Haydock! Don’t say you’ve forgotten me already?’
At one time, he told himself, she would have hurled herself into his arms, covering his face with childish kisses. But now he stood there before her, dismayed when she didn’t laugh, stunned by the thinness of her, shocked by the dull expression in her eyes. Holding her by the shoulders, he shook her none too gently.
‘What’s up with you, our kid? I told you I’d come back, didn’t I?’ Pulling her into his arms, he strained her against him. ‘You know I always turn up sooner or later, don’t you?’
Recognition brought no change in her manner. When he tried to kiss her, the push she gave him almost sent him reeling.
‘That was three years ago, Joe West! Three flamin’ years.’ Anger choked her. She speared the hatpin into place again with a furious jab. ‘Don’t you care that your mother’s been eating her heart out for a sight of you? Don’t you even know that she’s been ill with the pneumonia?’ Clara’s voice rose. ‘An’ what about your Alec, left with an iron on his leg after being buried alive in a pit fall out at Burnley? An’ do you care a sausage that your Walter’s got a girl into trouble and him not quite seventeen?’ She pointed at the suitcase in his hand. ‘You’ve not been home yet, have you? I bet you came here straight from the station.’
‘To see you, sweetheart.’ Joe turned her round and, walking jauntily, hurried her along the wet pavement. ‘Don’t be hard on me, love. I’ve never missed sending the money home. Once a month, regular, more money than me mam’s seen in the whole of her natural.’ He grinned. ‘Joe’s been doing all right for himself down in London.’ They were into darkness again and he had to twist sideways to see the expression on her face. ‘Didn’t they tell you about the money?’
‘’Course they told me!’ Her voice dripped scorn. ‘Pound notes in an envelope. No letter, no address, no nothing. You think money means everything, Joe West. Shove some notes in an envelope, then forget.’ Her voice was shaking now. ‘You know you’ve always been your mother’s favourite. When you was reported missing in France she went out in the yard and banged her head against the wall. Till the blood came. Then you disappear again, making her think you don’t care a tuppenny bun.’
This time when he pulled her into his arms she made no move to push him away. It was like holding a little bird, he thought, all small bones and softness. Her hair, escaping from the atrocious hat, tickled his chin.
‘Was it you thinking I didn’t care?’ he whispered. ‘Was it you really waiting for a letter?’ Tilting her chin he looked into her eyes, surprised to see they were filled with tears. ‘You know I can’t spell. You know I was always bottom of the class. Writing letters isn’t for me, love. You know me better ’n that.’
He’d forgotten how fierce she was, how loyal. If he’d thought about her at all it had been to remember her voice, that glorious singing voice, the like of which he’d never heard, not even on the London stage.
Keeping a protective arm around her, he guided her across the street, bending his head to whisper in her ear, ‘Are you still rocking ’em in the aisles of the chapel with your singing, love?’ He squeezed her closer to him. ‘Want to know who came and sat in the stalls at the Palace Theatre down in London last week?’
‘Who, then?’
‘Ch
arles B. Cochran, that’s who!’
‘An’ who’s he when he’s at ’ome?’
Joe pretended to faint. He staggered along the pavement with a hand to his head then wheeled to face her, pointing an accusing finger.
‘You mean to tell me you’re going on the stage one day and you’ve never heard of Charles B. Cochran? My dear young lady, he’s only the most famous impresario in the country, that’s all! He’s spotted more talent than you’ve had ’ot dinners.’
Clara was beginning to perk up a little. Half the things Joe told her she didn’t believe, but he’d always been able to make her laugh. She could listen to Joe talking for ever.
‘It was one of the great man’s auditions. Savvy? He was just sitting there, leaning back in his seat, when a girl around your age danced for him with an umbrella almost as big as herself. She had a funny blob of a nose and a real cheeky face, and you should’ve seen C. B. sit up when she did her little piece. I can tell you now, that kid’ll have her name in lights before long. Old C. B.’ll have her out of the chorus faster than your dad knocks nails in his clogs. She’s not got much of a stage name, though.’ Joe thought for a moment. ‘Jessie Matthews. Bet he makes her change that.’
Suddenly, knocking his arm from her own, Clara turned to face him, squaring up to him like a boxer in the ring.
‘I’m not coming any farther with you, Joe. I wasn’t going home anyroad. I’m going to me Bible class.’
‘Without your tea?’
She was very dignified as she glared at him. ‘There’s such a thing as food for the soul, Joe West.’
He grinned. ‘D’you reckon Jesus’ll have a chip butty waiting for you, then?’
She was walking away from him and he’d be damned if he’d run after her. Food for the soul, indeed … Picking up his case Joe turned on his heel, striding off in the opposite direction.