by Marie Joseph
‘He was my friend,’ Harry said simply. ‘We talked for hours. He told me to go home. Almost the very last thing he did was to urge me to go home.’
‘As he wished he had done . . . ?’
Harry’s voice was firm. ‘As he wished he had done, Mrs Craven.’
Watching him talk, seeing the proud tilt of his head and the steadiness of his dark eyes, Yvonne felt the stirring of an old familiar excitement. This one was different. God, how very different, but it was a difference she decided she liked.
When dinner was announced she preceded Harry into the dining-room, her slim hips swaying provocatively in the full pleated skirt.
‘They liked you,’ she told him much later, as they sat in the parked car outside Harry’s lodging house in the darkness of the late afternoon. ‘I hope you’ll go and see them again when I’m gone.’
‘Gone? Gone where?’ He had talked almost non-stop on the way back, filled with the elation that was still with him, the surety that from now on everything would change. There would be no more knocking on doors like a beggar. He would search out the big horticultural firms and try his luck there; he would try the big stores in Oxford Street and Regent Street with their garden tool departments. He’d even drop his Lancashire accent to some extent. He’d dropped it today, hadn’t he? He was filled with the euphoria of certain success. All in the space of one day they had given that back to him. From now on he would be calling the tune. He felt it in his very bones. ‘But you can’t go away,’ he said foolishly, then more slowly, ‘can you?’
She smiled without answering, then leaning across she kissed him, keeping her mouth closed, her lips warm and dry on his own.
‘That was just practising,’ she whispered. ‘And yes, I am going away.’ Her eyes were very wide and dark in the light from the street lamp. ‘To get married. To Canada.’ Slowly she traced the line of his mouth with her finger. ‘To someone I knew before Charles. Someone who said he’d always be waiting for me if ever I needed him. And I do need him, Harry. I’m no good without a man.’
‘But do you love him?’ Harry pulled her to him and defiantly kissed her again. ‘You’re talking a language I don’t understand.’
‘That was better.’ Snuggling close, Yvonne laid her head on his shoulder. ‘You’re so sweet, Harry, and of course you don’t understand. But I’m not going just yet. Not for another month, not till after Christmas, so there’s no need for goodbyes. Not that I ever say them. Goodbyes can be very tedious.’
Stretching across him she opened the door on his side, and feeling foolish and as though he’d been abruptly dismissed, Harry got out.
‘Remember I haven’t said goodbye,’ Yvonne called out, as he stood irresolutely on the pavement.
‘I’ll think on’t,’ he said, and sketched her a jaunty salute, then fielded his cap neatly as she threw it out to him.
Bemused, his mood of euphoria still sending the adrenalin coursing through his blood stream, he turned towards the lodging house. His step faltered as he reached the scarred front door, the thought of his lonely bed beneath the sloping roof of his attic room checking his stride.
By the time the car had disappeared round the bend of the road, he was walking swiftly away in the opposite direction. He was a man with nowhere to go, but this time going nowhere happily. The events of the day, the wine he had drunk, the way his eyes had been opened to a way of life so far removed from his own drab and hopeless existence, had soothed and cushioned him against a reality he was in no mood to face. Not yet.
Harry didn’t know how he was going to do it, but of one thing he was certain. Never again would he go cap-in-hand to anyone. No more begging for what he felt now was his by right. They had liked him, Roger’s parents; talked to him as an equal and wiped out the sense of inferiority that had been threatening his very manhood.
‘Remember I haven’t said goodbye.’ Yvonne’s last words to him rang in his ears like a promise.
For the moment he was his own man again, as free as his Romany ancestors had been, walking tall across the moors and fells of his beloved countryside. That his feet were pounding pavements, that on either side he was hemmed in by shabby houses, tattered blinds drawn across their windows, didn’t seem to matter.
Cramming his cap down on his head and pulling it low over his forehead, Harry walked with a purposeful stride, his shoulders back, swinging his arms as in the long ago days of his soldiering.
In the north, the snow had turned the fell grass sallow. It had frozen, thawed, then frozen again, leaving a treacherous film of ice over the field paths. To the east of Polly’s cottage, Pendle Hill crouched beneath a sky more grey than blue, its humped-back shape softened by a thin blanket of snow pitted by dark patches like currants on an iced cake.
There was still no trace of Jack Thomson. Police stations all over the country had been alerted, but the local search parties had been called off. Rough blizzards during those first bad days had folded the snow in massive drifts on the higher slopes, and unless he had got clean away it was assumed that Jack had perished in temperatures well below freezing.
Bella had bolted herself into the tiny cottage, just as Polly had known she would. Milk and food left on her doorstep had been snatched inside. During the night, her benefactors guessed.
Twice the police had forced an entry round the back of the tumbledown cottage, coming out red-faced after an abortive search of the tiny rooms.
‘By the left,’ Sergeant Wilkinson had reported, ‘that young lass knows more swear words than owd Nick himself. And that baby looked none too clever. I never saw none of mine lie as still as that. Even when he was asleep our Eli was all of a twitch. She wouldn’t let me near that baby.’
Sergeant Wilkinson’s nearly-fledged constable, a lanky young man who still read comics hidden beneath the ledger on the station counter, and during the search for Jack Thomson had fantasized himself into the role of the Wizard’s Lionheart Logan of the Royal Mounties, chasing his prey through the Canadian snow-covered outback, pricked up his ears.
‘She couldn’t have been hiding her husband behind the baby’s cot, could she, Sergeant?’
‘It was in a drawer,’ Sergeant Wilkinson said, shifting the stub of a cigarette from one side of his mouth to another. ‘And I wasn’t born yesterday, young fella-me-lad. If our hero had been anywhere in that cottage, I’d have rumbled him. Anyroad, he’d know better than to come back and spit on his own doorstep. Crafty, his sort are. Loony but as cute as a cartload of monkeys.’
At exactly the same time as Harry was climbing into Yvonne Frobisher’s car, Polly opened the door of the cottage to shake out the rag rug just in time to see her mother struggling up the hill, small head in the atrocious helmet-type hat bowed against the wind. For every step Edna took, she seemed to slip one back. Her body was bent like a question mark, but her usual cavernous handbag was looped over her arm, and as she drew near Polly could hear her breath rasping in her throat.
‘Mam!’ Throwing the rug down, Polly went to meet her mother. She took the bag from her and with a supporting hand helped her up the last icy stretch. Anxiety and concern made her voice sharper than she intended.
‘For heaven’s sake, Mam! I never expected you to come today. Not in this! I was going to come and see you tomorrow after I’d finished work at dinnertime. You should be by your own fireside in weather like this.’
Edna’s face was pinched with cold, but her pale watery eyes shot daggers at her daughter. ‘Want me to go back, then? If I’m not wanted I can allus turn round and go home. The bus’ll still be there. You’ve only to say the word. I know when I’m not wanted.’
‘Oh, Mam!’ Polly gave her mother’s arm a little shake. ‘You know I’m glad to see you. Sunday isn’t the same without you. It’s just that I never expected you to even think of coming.’
‘It’s better than stopping in on me own.’ Edna made straight for the fire, peeling off layers of coats, scarves and gloves as she went. ‘They’ve salted the roads down
the town, so it weren’t so bad there. I’d forgotten how the snow sticks out here in the back of beyond. If what they said on the wireless is right, we’re in for a right bad spell. So I thought I’d come and see you before you get snowed in proper.’ She looked round the room. ‘Where’s our Martin?’
‘Out with the dog.’ Polly glanced worriedly through the window. ‘I told him to keep to the hill path and not go into the wood.’ She handed Edna a steaming cup of tea from the freshly brewed pot in the hearth. ‘We’ve had a bit of excitement, if you can call it that, since last week.’ She held the sugar bowl out to her mother. ‘Jack Thomson attacked a male orderly at the Institution then did a bunk.’
‘Killed him?’ Edna asked with relish, her eyes brightening over the rim of the cup.
‘He’s still in a coma.’ Polly added two more potatoes to the four she was peeling on a newspaper spread on the table. ‘They reckon there’s not much hope for him.’
‘Poor soul,’ Edna said insincerely. ‘Then Jack Thomson’ll be up for murder if they catch him. Funny I never saw a word about it in the evening paper.’
Polly stopped what she was doing, the peeler held loosely in her hand. ‘Bella’s locked herself in.’ She sighed. ‘I feel so helpless. That girl’s no older than Gatty, and God knows what she’s doing shut away inside with her baby. He wasn’t breathing right the last time I saw him. When I told Bella she ought to get the doctor she swore at me.’
Edna bent down to scratch her chilblains. ‘I’ve told you before about interfering in other folk’s lives. That lass would let you in if she wanted to. And babies are stronger than you think. I’ve seen babies brought up in houses no better than muck middens – aye, and thrive on a bit of neglect.’ She straightened up. ‘Where’s Gatty? Still stopping in bed?’
‘Gatty isn’t here.’ Polly dug furiously at an eye in the potato in her left hand. ‘She’s staying with Winnie for the time being. I didn’t like the idea of her walking home up the hill with Jack Thomson prowling about on the fells somewhere. I still feel he’s alive, waiting his chance to get back into his own cottage. And Bella would hide him. I’m positive of that.’ Yet again she glanced through the window. ‘I wish Martin would come back.’
‘Harry should be here.’ Edna sniffed with appreciation as Polly drew a dish of oxtail from the fire oven, checked the meat with a fork then pushed it back, closing the door, with a slam.
‘You know why Harry isn’t here, Mam.’ For a moment Polly felt a surge of honest dislike for the little woman complacently rocking herself to and fro in Harry’s chair. ‘There’s nothing for him here. He’s only one of thousands moving south for a chance to better themselves.’
‘It would be different,’ Edna said, ‘if you were in a house with neighbours on either side, so you could knock on the wall if you wanted anything. You could be lying dead up here for days and none would be the wiser. If Harry Pilgrim wanted you to live in a field, then he should’ve stopped to look after you. But then, it’s a man’s world. Always has been and always will be.’
Polly drew a basket of carrots towards her. There were only a few left and they were the last of the winter crop. The turnips and swedes she had meant to get in were buried beneath the rock-hard ground, where they could stay for weeks if the weather didn’t improve.
A fox had come down from the fells in the night. She had heard the hens squawking, but he hadn’t managed to worm his way into the run. Not yet. Polly nodded her head up and down twice to make her mother believe she was listening. The money was running out, and Mr Goldberg would be telling them any day now that the factory was forced to close. Polly had seen it in his face as he’d talked to them in the workshop. And she didn’t even know if Harry had written in the past week, because if he had, his letter would be locked away in the cottage at the bottom of the hill with Bella.
Gatty was all right where she was. For the time being. Polly had liked Winnie’s mother the day she had met her briefly in the fish market buying coley, a fish Edna always said was only fit for cats. Yes, Winnie’s mother was rough and ready, but she’d keep her eye on Gatty. Mentally Polly crossed off one less worry from her mind.
‘It’s the gypsy blood in your Harry making him wander off like that.’ Edna pursed up her thin lips, trying to make out what was eating at her daughter’s heart. Leaning forward, she picked up the poker and gave the fire a good prodding. It licked the chimney back, and washed the cream walls to the colour of pink flowers. She lifted the lid of a pan in the hearth and her mouth watered at the sight of Polly’s home-made soup, stiff with barley, its surface glistening with globules of goodness from its bone marrow stock.
There was no point in asking Polly straight out what was worriting at her. She knew from experience what the answer would be. ‘There’s nothing wrong, Mam. Why should there be?’
Edna twisted round in her chair as the door banged back almost to the plaster, letting in a rush of cold air and Martin with his face as scarlet as his jersey, his fair hair plastered into strands as if it had been combed with a rake.
‘It was Jim, Mam!’ he gasped, getting his say in before Polly could speak. ‘I’d have been back ages ago, but he went in the woods, a long way in, barking his head off, an’ when he wouldn’t come out I had to go and get him.’
The little dog slunk across the floor to his basket, stump of a tail drooping, ears flat to his head.
‘Just look at him, Gran. He knows when he’s done wrong. But I had to go after him, Mam. He might’ve been caught in a trap.’
‘Go and towel your hair, that’s a good lad.’ Polly pushed the pan of potatoes on its trivet over the fire. ‘And kiss your gran. You haven’t said hello to her properly yet.’
At the sight of her grandson, Edna’s features had softened into love. Bending down to the handbag which was never far from her side she took out two white paper bags. ‘Palm toffee, banana splits,’ she said, holding them out, ‘and aniseed balls. Which one shall it be?’
Knowing he would get the whole lot eventually, Martin pretended to choose. ‘No gob-stoppers this week, Gran?’ he asked cheekily, then gave her the kiss he knew she wanted, screwing up his face at the familiar smell of wintergreen embrocation which clung to her summer and winter.
At two o’clock, as soon as the last of the dinner things had been cleared away, Edna said it was time she was going. ‘I dursn’t wait for the later bus, not with the snow starting again.’ She began to layer herself against the cold, tying a scarf round her hat and buttoning first one cardigan then another up to her chin. When her heavy tweed coat was swagged round her like a dressing-gown, she looked straight at Polly.
‘For two pins I’d ask you to come back with me. The both of you. Martin could go in the spare room, and you could sleep with me.’ She picked up the bulging black handbag, looping it fiercely over her arm. ‘I get lonely,’ she said.
The admission startled Polly so much she could only gaze open-mouthed at her mother, but before she could say anything Martin was beside her, tugging at her sleeve, cheeks bulging with Palm toffee, eyes sparkling with excitement.
‘Let me go, Mam! You know I’m the next to the main part in the Christmas play, an’ if we get snowed in an’ I can’t go Ernest Boland’ll get it an’ he’s a rotten snob. Just because his father owns a mill at Preston.’ For a moment Martin stepped out of his surroundings into the role of Tom Bedwing from the Magnet comic, the poor but talented scholarship boy, showing his true worth at Greyfriars School. ‘If I have to stop at home because the bus doesn’t run and I can’t get there, old snotty Boland’ll get my part. Oh, please, Mam. Just till we break up for the Christmas holiday. Let me!’
As if to add its weight to his argument the snow thickened, coming down now in large feathery flakes, sticking to the frozen ground. Polly hesitated. And was lost.
‘But I’m staying here,’ she told her mother, as Martin rushed headlong up the stairs to hurl books and pyjamas into a bag. ‘For one thing Harry’s letters are left at Bella’s cottag
e, and for another my place is here.’
Following her son upstairs, she added another reason under her breath. The thought of sleeping with her mother, living with her mother, leaving the cottage to the vagaries of the weather, couldn’t be stomached.
‘And besides, there’s Jim,’ she said, as five minutes later they started down the hill. ‘He’s used to running wild. He’d drive your neighbours mad with his barking.’
‘One excuse would have done.’ Clinging to her daughter’s arm, the snow settling on her like a mantle, Edna concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. ‘Why don’t you say you don’t want to come and have done with it?’
Polly watched the single-decker bus drive away, with Martin bouncing up and down on a seat next to his grandmother. Turning away, she was immediately buffeted by a snow-laden wind.
At Bella’s cottage she almost lost her footing on the icy ground, but regaining her balance she hammered on the unyielding door.
‘Bella! It’s me. Polly. Stop this daft play-acting and let me in. You can’t go hiding yourself away for ever.’ Hammering again she raised her voice. ‘Bella! Everybody knows you’re there. For the baby’s sake, let me in!’ Hearing a scuffle from behind the door, Polly lowered her tone to one of soft persuasion. ‘You can’t live off bread and milk for ever. Your baby needs broth. Good nourishing stew made with fresh vegetables. I’ve got some here with me,’ she improvised. ‘Just open the door and let me see you’re all right. I’m your friend, Bella. Your good true friend.’
The sudden shout made Polly step back a pace. Bella was screaming at the top of her voice, the ugly raucous sound amazing Polly by its volume.
‘Friend, did you say, Polly Pilgrim? You call yourself a friend? Last time I saw you, you told me you’d tell on my Jack. That’s the kind of friend you are!’
‘Bella?’ Polly was whispering now. ‘Jack’s not in there with you, is he?’ She cleared her throat. ‘The man he attacked died last night, Bella. I’ve just come back from the village and they’re talking about it. Bella? There’s no way Jack can escape what’s coming to him. Not now. So if you know where he is you have to say.’