But still, a chill had settled on her heart, and a sense of foreboding that made her shiver.
Chapter Eighteen
Enid Crawford was full of righteous indignation as she continued to walk towards the corner of Bridge Street where Tom was picking her up. She was a little late, for running into Lucy had delayed her, but with her shopping bags full of this and that and the pavements treacherous, she didn’t dare rush, although with her head full of the last few minutes she nearly went headlong a couple of times.
You live and learn, she told herself grimly. Oh aye, you live and learn all right. She would have bet money that Donald had dragged Lucy and the others down south against the lass’s wishes, and that Lucy would have come to see her immediately she was up north again, should they return this way. But no. If she’d heard her right, Lucy had never left these parts. Jacob had been grieving for her, fair tearing himself apart in the early days, and all the time she’d been making a life for herself with some widower or other and having his baby.
Edith’s eyes narrowed as she peered through the snow-filled air towards the corner of Bridge Street up ahead, but there were too many bustling shoppers coming and going to see if Tom’s car was waiting for her.
And the way Lucy had been with her too, barely giving her the time of day, if truth be told. She’d always had a soft spot for the lass and she’d imagined Lucy thought a bit of her too, but today she felt like she’d been kicked in the teeth. And on Christmas Eve an’ all. She wished now she’d stayed in Monkwearmouth and got her last bits there, but with Tom offering to bring her in and things so bad at home, she’d fancied getting out for a bit.
For a moment Lucy’s cursory treatment of her was pushed aside as she thought of Aaron and the lads. Miserable as sin these days, Aaron was, and Frank and Ralph weren’t much better. She didn’t understand them, she didn’t straight. Thanks to Tom, they were bringing in good money at a time when most folk didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, but were they grateful? Were they heck. Faces as long as old Meg’s backside from dawn to dusk.
She sighed her disapproval, her mouth set in a grim line.
She cooked and cleaned and washed for them, and barely got a civil word. It felt as though they were blaming her for something, but she’d done nowt wrong. And when she’d lost patience the week before as they were sitting at the evening meal, and told them they ought to count their blessings, Aaron had turned on her. Like a loony, he’d been. And the lads had said nothing as he’d raved and ranted.
She stopped for a moment, adjusting her shopping bags and catching her breath, every word Aaron had flung at her burnt on her mind. ‘You can say that? Count me blessings? Blessings!’ He’d turned to glance at Frank and Ralph and they’d lowered their eyes to their plates. ‘You’ve no idea, have you, woman? And why? Because you don’t want to see. As long as you have your new front room and your gramophone and wireless and the rest of it, you keep your head buried in the sand. He’s bought you – lock, stock and barrel – and to hell with the rest of us. Well, you can’t spit in the face of the Almighty and get away with it forever. There’ll be a day of reckoning, sure enough. Remember that, when I go the same way as Walter and Ernie Fallow.’
He’d stomped out of the back door, pulling on his cap as he went. She had been left staring after him. She had turned to Frank and Ralph in bewilderment. ‘What did he mean? Go the same way as Walter and Ernie?’
They hadn’t answered her, saying instead, ‘We’d better get after him’ and she had been left staring at the uneaten meals on the kitchen table. They hadn’t come back till she was in bed.
She walked on and was relieved to see Tom’s car waiting for her, the engine running. He jumped out and took her bags, throwing them on the back seat before helping her into the passenger seat as he said, ‘I was beginning to think you’d come a cropper; the ground’s like glass, and it looks like we’re in for another packet. I shouldn’t have let you go by yourself, but I didn’t think at the time.’
She glanced at him fondly as he slid into the driver’s seat. ‘Don’t be daft, lad. I’m all right. I’m sorry I kept you waitin,’ but you’ll never guess who I ran into a minute or two back.’
Tom was concentrating on pulling out into the traffic, his mind preoccupied when he said, ‘Who was that then?’
‘Lucy Fallow and the bairns.’
The car swerved, a loud blast of a horn from a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction causing Tom to pull the wheel sharply to the left again. He swore at the other driver before saying, ‘Lucy Fallow? Are you sure?’
‘Course I’m sure. She was just coming out of Binns, she’d taken the bairns in for tea apparently. Her husband must be good for a bob or two if they can afford to do that.’
‘Husband?’
‘Oh aye, told me she’d married some bloke or other, a widower by all accounts with a couple of bairns. Got one of her own an’ all, six months old, she is.’ Enid stared complacently out of the windscreen where the wipers were labouring to clear the snow. It was grand travelling in style like a lady, she thought, the luxury restoring a sense of wellbeing. ‘Bonny little thing she was, the image of Lucy. Seems Donald cleared off down south like we’d thought, but Lucy and the bairns stayed in these parts. And not a word to me, when she must have known I’d be worried about ’em.’ Enid’s voice hardened. ‘She’s not the lass I thought she was, that’s for sure.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘We didn’t get on to that. Truth be told, she didn’t want to know me, lad.’ Enid’s sniff spoke volumes. ‘Couldn’t wait to get away.’
Tom was gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white. It took all his will power to relax. He wanted to turn the car round this minute and go looking for her, but of course that was impossible. But to think she had been under his nose the whole time. Fury was a white-hot ball in his stomach. But then much of his business was contained to Monkwearmouth and Southwick; he only came over the river to see the Kanes on the whole. But now he knew for sure she was in these parts, he’d ask Jed to put the feelers out. Casually he said, ‘So you didn’t get her married name, anything like that?’
‘No. Why?’
‘No particular reason, Mam. Just making conversation. I’m sorry she upset you, though, you were always good to the Fallows.’ He patted her hand briefly. ‘Try and forget it now. Don’t let it spoil your Christmas.’
‘No, you’re right, lad, but when I think of her going off and getting wed, and our Jacob in the state he was about her, it makes my blood boil. I didn’t realize it until he was in the hospital, but he was fair gone on her, and from what he said he’d had some encouragement that way an’ all. I didn’t think she was the type of lass to play fast and loose, not Lucy. She took me in good and proper.’
‘You know what they say about the quiet ones who look as though butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. They’re always the worst.’
Enid nodded. ‘That’s true enough.’
They were crossing the Wear Bridge now, and as they reached North Bridge Street, Tom said quietly, ‘Might be best not to mention seeing Lucy to Jacob, Mam. You don’t want to rake it up again, considering how cut up he was.’
‘You think so?’ Enid looked at him doubtfully. ‘I thought if he knew she was married with a bairn, it’d finish any hopes he might have about her coming back one day.’
‘I don’t think he thinks that way. He’s got on with his life, hasn’t he? Even walked out with the odd lass or two. But likely it did leave a nasty taste in his mouth and what’s the point in reminding him, now he’s settled and happy? He thinks she’s down south with Donald – leave it at that.’
‘If you think that’s best, lad.’
‘I do.’ He didn’t want Jacob muddying the waters.
‘Aye, all right. We don’t see much of him these days anyway, as you know.’ Enid glanced again at the son who was her sun, moon and stars. ‘You’re a good lad, bothering about him, when he’
s the way he is with you.’
Tom shrugged. ‘He’s still my brother, Mam. That’s the way I look at it.’
Enid continued to ramble on about her afternoon until he dropped her off outside her front door, promising he’d be round for Christmas Day lunch the following day. He declined her offer of a drink, saying Mrs Hedley would have his dinner ready and it would take him longer to get home than usual, with the snow coming down so thickly. Once clear of Zetland Street, he pulled the car into the kerb and sat for a few minutes, staring blankly through the windscreen. His hands were shaking, he realized, holding them up in front of his face and giving a ‘huh’ of a growl. Stupid!
Angrily he started the engine and drove home too fast for the weather conditions, his head buzzing. Over eighteen months and not a day, not an hour, but Lucy hadn’t come into his mind. But he’d never once imagined she was married.
He let loose a string of obscenities, beside himself with rage. She must have had this bloke that she had married on the go all along, that was the answer. There was no doubt she’d still been a virgin the night he’d taken her, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been seeing someone on the quiet. But when would she had found the time and opportunities? She’d had her hands full with the bairns and keeping house, hadn’t she? He’d thought Jacob was the fly in the ointment, but perhaps she’d been stringing them both along and had had her eye on this other bloke, this widower. She’d thought she could keep them all dangling most likely – that was the way women were. And then she’d caught her toe with him, when he’d given her what she’d asked for.
He ground his teeth, wanting to hurt something or someone.
He’d find out what was what in the coming days, he promised himself. She thought she could treat him like a fool and then play Happy Families, did she? Well, she had another think coming. He wasn’t done with Lucy Fallow. No, not by a long chalk.
Enid entered the house by the front door and as she walked along the hall she could hear Aaron holding forth about something or other. She paused outside the kitchen door, which was very slightly ajar. She couldn’t have explained why she was about to eavesdrop, because she suspected she wouldn’t like what she heard.
Aaron’s voice was loud and slightly irritable. ‘I tell you, I heard it straight from the horse’s mouth. It’s the same bloke who told me about Walter and Ernie, and he was there that day an’ all. Maurice Banks, him that lives in Bright Street. He only talks so freely cos he knows I’m Tom’s da and he thinks I know everything that goes on, being family. Family! Huh.’
Enid screwed up her eyes against the bitterness, but still she didn’t make her presence known.
‘But how does he know it was Tom who ordered the bloke to be done in?’
‘Like I said, Frank, Maurice was there. All right? Part of it. This wasn’t second- or third-hand. Tom reckoned he had it on good authority that the bloke was working for the customs, undercover like. And this isn’t the first time some poor so-an’-so’s disappeared or been done over so bad their own mother wouldn’t recognize them. You know that as well as I do.’
‘Aye, an’ I also know it’s not wise to talk about it.’
‘Oh, come on, this is just us three. What’s said in these four walls stays in ’em, but let’s face facts. Tom’s goin’ to hell in a handcart, and I for one don’t know him any more. He’s no lad of mine, not these days. I’ve had a bellyful, I tell you straight.’
‘Da, we’ve been over this before. There’s no way out. We keep our heads down and do as we’re told. There’s the Kane lot, don’t forget. No one in their right mind goes up against them, and Tom’s as thick as thieves with Jed.’
‘Thieves is about right, but I wouldn’t mind if it was just the thieving. It’s the rest of it that sticks in my craw.’
‘Aye, well, that don’t concern us. Like I said, we do our bit an’ keep quiet. The rest is just hearsay, when all’s said and done. He’s never asked us to do anything like that.’
‘And if he did?’
‘He won’t. He knows you’ve got your breaking point.’
‘Oh aye, very respectful of me, he is,’ Aaron said with deep sarcasm.
Enid couldn’t bear another moment. Creeping back up the hallway, she opened the front door, but banged it shut this time, calling out as she did so, ‘I hope there’s a brew on, cos I’m frozen through.’
‘Hello, Mam.’ Ralph opened the kitchen door as she reached the end of the hall, taking one of her bags. ‘Got everything you wanted?’
‘Well, what I haven’t got now we’ll do without. It was cold enough to cut you in two out there, but still the town was full and, when you think, it’s only two days, isn’t it? Day after Boxing Day it’s back to normal except everyone’s drank and eaten too much.’ She was gabbling, she told herself. She had to act natural. Taking a deep breath, she walked across and opened the oven door to check the pot roast she’d put in before she had left with Tom. ‘It’s ready,’ she said. ‘I’ll just take me things off and put away the shopping and then I’ll dish up.’
‘I’ve poured you a cup of tea, lass,’ Aaron said behind her. ‘Come an’ have it an’ get warm, the dinner can wait. The lads’ll see to the shopping.’
His voice had been kind – kinder than it had been for some time – and as she turned she saw that he was pulling out a chair for her at the table. She looked at his weatherbeaten face, at the lines that years of honest, back-breaking toil to provide for his family had carved out. He had used to come back from the shipyard exhausted and spent, and often frozen to the marrow in the winter. It was no wonder he was riddled with arthritis and a hundred and one other complaints.
When the moan sounded loud in her ears she didn’t realize for a moment it had burst forth from her own throat. It was shocking, like the cry of a woman in labour. And when Aaron pressed her down into a chair and then put his arm round her as she wept and wailed, murmuring, ‘There, there, lass, don’t take on. Nothing’s worth this. Come on, me love’, it made her cry even harder. He was heaping coals of fire on her head. Because she knew, through the remorse and guilt, that she wasn’t going to tell him she had been listening.
Once again, she was choosing Tom.
Chapter Nineteen
Christmas came and went on a high of jollity and no one but Ruby knew that behind Lucy’s smiles and gaiety was a nagging, ever-present fear. Once Perce was asleep on Christmas Eve, Lucy had crept out of bed and gone into her sister’s room, where Ruby was wide awake and waiting for her. They’d sat in the sitting room and, over a mug of hot milky cocoa, Lucy had told her sister the whole story, omitting nothing. They had cried together and spent half the night talking, and Ruby had agreed to keep her eyes and ears open in the coming days for any sign of Tom Crawford sniffing about.
On New Year’s Eve they celebrated the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new one quietly as a family. Ruby and John stayed up until midnight and were allowed a small glass of Perce’s beer each, and Perce acted the goat and stepped outside the flat to knock on the front door as first-foot, on the initial stroke of the New Year.
Later, in the warmth of their big bed, Perce drew her gently into his arms, but not for the reason Lucy had supposed. Instead he lay quietly for some minutes holding her close before saying, ‘I can’t believe you’re mine, lass. I looked at you tonight and it swept over me again how lucky I am. This last year since the bairn’s been born, well, it’s been the happiest in me life.’
‘Oh, Perce.’ It was at times like this that she told herself she must do everything she could to make him never regret taking them in. He was so good, so kind. ‘I think I’m lucky, too, to have you.’
‘Oh aye, a man twice your age, with two bairns and a face like a battered pluck.’
She could hear the smile in his voice and she giggled. ‘I like your face.’
‘That’s all that matters then.’ He kissed the top of her head before settling her more comfortably against him. ‘I love you,’ he whispered so sof
tly she could barely hear him.
She could not say, ‘I love you too.’ Instead she turned and reached for his face, bringing his mouth to hers.
Gradually over the next days and weeks the threat of Tom Crawford was relegated to the back of Lucy’s mind. It was still there, manifesting itself in the odd nightmare now and again or a jittery feeling when she left the safety of the flat to take Daisy and Charley to the park or to do some shopping, but she forced herself not to dwell on it. Her soup kitchen, as Perce called it, was a huge success and took more of her time than she’d expected, but this was welcome in the circumstances. It left her no time to brood.
On Daisy’s first birthday at the end of February Perce closed the shop for the afternoon and they took the children to the Winter Garden at the rear of the Museum and Library building. The large conservatory was full of tropical plants and flowers and had a pond full of goldfish, but it was the aviary that delighted little Daisy. Even after two hours of looking at the birds she wasn’t ready to leave.
It was a wonderful afternoon, and when they got home and had finished the birthday tea, Daisy put the final seal on the day by taking her first steps unaided. A proud Perce whisked her up into his arms shouting, ‘That’s me darling, that’s me bonny babby’ and everyone clapped. After that Daisy had insisted on staggering about until bedtime, delighted by the attention.
It was in the second week of a bitterly cold March, when unemployment’s upward spiral had reached a new peak of one and a half million, resulting in angry demonstrators fighting with the police in some major cities, that Lucy noticed Perce deep in conversation with a customer one evening. John was keeping an eye on the little ones in the flat above the shop, and she and Ruby were busy dealing with the queue for hot soup at the far end of the marble counter, which stretched the width of the premises. They were some distance from Perce, and Lucy couldn’t hear what was being said.
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