by Irene Carr
Katy laughed, relieved that he had agreed. She had a shrewd idea how Fleur might regard the partnership. Matt ran down the stairs to the office and returned a few minutes later with a sheet of paper, a pen and bottle of ink. He laid the paper on the table before Katy: ‘There you are. A written agreement. You take twenty-five per cent of the profits and assets.’ He grinned at Annie: ‘You can witness our signatures.’
So it was done.
Katy was relieved that she had got her way, glad that Matt was happy, and happy herself that she had secured this home for her and Louise. Only the spectre of Ivor Spargo haunted her.
A day or two later, Matt told Fleur, ‘I’ve bought a lorry. I’ll be able to branch out into bigger loads, longer distances.’
Fleur smiled delightedly, ‘I’m so pleased for you. You work so hard.’ For a time she had doubted him. When his business had slumped and he had been reduced to driving a horse and cart, and even worse, working as a labourer, she had cold-bloodedly decided to ditch him. She had only delayed while she sought another escort with better prospects — though without success. She decided now that she had been right all along, and Matt was headed for success. She would be able to introduce him to some of her old school friends: ‘This is my fiancé. Matt owns Ballard’s.’
He thought she was looking prettier — and more cheerful and welcoming — than she had for a while. He was proud to walk out with her on his arm. With the lorry running he began to make more money, from business attracted by a new set of leaflets which Katy persuaded the local shopkeepers to show. He was able to take out Fleur more often. More and more he was taking over work that would formerly have been done by the Spargos.
Whenever Katy saw Ivor in time she avoided him, but sometimes he ambushed her going to or coming from the shops in Dundas Street. He always taunted her but now his threats that she would be homeless and Ballard’s would go broke, were hollow. He knew it and that inflamed him more, but it meant Katy could smile and ignore him. But then came the day when he asked his father, ‘When are you going to let me take a lorry out?’
Vera Spargo had gone to see her sister in Blyth and would not return until evening. She had left explicit instructions as to how her husband should deal with the work of the day, and her usual warning that he should not diverge from them. That warning always nettled Arthur Spargo. Did she think he couldn’t run the yard? So he told Ivor, ‘Aye, you can take one today, but watch what you’re doing.’
Ivor was driving through Monkwearmouth and savouring his position, seated above the pedestrians and winking and leering at the girls, when he saw Katy with Louise in her pram. He reached over the side of the cab to squeeze the bulb of the horn and Katy turned at its hooting, at first thinking it might be Matt. She saw the lorry bearing down on her and Ivor grinning malevolently at the wheel. For a horrified instant she thought he meant to run down her and her child and she swerved away from the kerb with the pram. She saw him laugh at her fright and as the lorry roared past her he leaned out of the cab to shout back at her, ‘I’ll teach you to give lip!’ Then he faced forward again.
Too late, he saw the coal cart backing out of a cul-de-sac, its driver at the horse’s head. It had appeared while he was shouting back at Katy. He tried to stop, to swerve, but the lorry skidded across the road with a screech of brakes then crashed into the cart. Coal was scattered over the road and the horse reared in panic. Its driver shouted, ‘Are you blind or bloody daft?’ The front of the lorry was smashed in and a mixture of petrol and water spilled onto the road.
Ivor looked around him wildly. He saw Katy standing on the kerb and shrieked at her, ‘You’re the cause of this!’
A bystander bawled, ‘Get away wi’ ye! Ye weren’t looking where you were going! I saw ye!’
Ivor did not hear him. Intent on Katy he raged, almost in tears, ‘It was you! You’ve got the evil eye! But I’ll get you for this! I swear! I’ll see you burn in hell!’
The curious crowd that had gathered now stared at him disbelievingly. A policeman came pushing through them and Ivor shut his mouth but still shook his fist at Katy. She turned away and ran.
Ivor told Vera the next day, ‘That Merrick lass has been a curse on us ever since we threw her out for her loose living! That Ballard she works for is taking our trade! We should wreck them, burn them out, before they finish us!’
Vera regarded him with contempt. ‘Don’t be daft. If you go on like that they’ll put you away.’ And to Arthur:
‘If you’d done as I told you, this wouldn’t have happened. Don’t let him near a lorry again.’
The incident cast a shadow of fear over Katy. She contrived to hide it from Matt but it was always lurking at the back of her mind. She had known for some time that she had made an enemy in Ivor Spargo, but now she believed he was mad.
Chapter Fourteen
MONKWEARMOUTH. JULY 1912.
‘We need another lorry,’ Katy raised her voice to be heard above the throb of the engine. She had taken to riding with Matt as driver’s mate — while Beatrice was at school and Annie Scanlon looked after Louise — on those days when the load could be handled better by two pairs of hands rather than one. At first Matt had agreed only reluctantly, ‘What — a woman? It’s not a woman’s job.’
Katy had replied, ‘Why not? If it helps?’ And after a while she had her way. Matt found that, though she did not have his strength, she was quick and did her fair share of the work.
Now Matt, seated at the wheel, answered, ‘Another lorry? We’ve got a full order book and could take more. But if we took on a second lorry we’d need a driver for it. We’d have to pay him thirty bob a week and we might not have enough work to keep him and his lorry busy. That’s where we could move from profit into loss.’
Katy argued, ‘We can afford a lorry under the subsidy scheme.’ She knew their balance at the bank to a penny.
Matt shot a startled glance at her, ‘You’ve been looking at that scheme, have you?’ Then he conceded, ‘All right, we could manage the lorry that way but we can’t afford the driver.’ Matt braked the Dennis at a level crossing and grinned at her, ‘Leaving aside your share as partner, I’m only paying you a few shillings. I wouldn’t get a driver for that.’
Katy was silent a moment, then said, ‘Teach me to drive.’
‘You?’ Matt was incredulous.
‘There are a lot of women driving nowadays.’
‘Rich men’s wives playing around in their motor cars, not women driving lorries for a job.’ The gates of the crossing opened, Matt let out the clutch and the Dennis rolled forward.
Katy retorted, ‘I bet it’s no heavier than a day’s washing. The actual driving, I mean.’
‘Well . . .’
Katy seized on his indecision: ‘You’ve never done a day’s washing!’
He laughed, ‘I’ve washed out my clothes in a bucket many a time, but — no, not the way you mean.’
‘If I took all the light loads, fitted in their delivery when the girls were with Annie or at school — that would help.’ Katy urged him, ‘Give me a try! See if I can!’
He glanced aside at her eager face, her eyes fixed on him. As he looked forward again, he laughed, ‘I don’t know what folks will think, but — all right, next time we have an hour or so to spare, I’ll try you out.’
Katy smiled happily as she gazed out at the countryside rolling by. She enjoyed these longer trips — they were headed for Durham with a load that day. Louise was with Annie Scanlon, a ready volunteer to care for the child. Katy reflected that she was very lucky. In the year since they had bought the Dennis they had gained more work, and in particular, more long-distance loads. Their income had increased by leaps and bounds. It was only limited now by the fact that they had only one lorry and its driver. There might be work to keep two lorries busy, or there might not. Katy was convinced there would be and thought, There’s only one way to find out.
‘Open the throttle part way — like that. Now close the air shutter . . . and sw
itch on.’ Two days after returning from Durham they were seated in the Dennis again but this time only in the yard and with Katy behind the wheel. She listened and watched intently as Matt talked her through the starting procedure. As they trundled slowly around the yard with Katy gripping the wheel, Matt said with surprise, ‘You got hold of that soon enough.’
Katy admitted, ‘I’ve been watching you.’ And so she had, every time she had gone with him in the cab.
At the end of an hour she had progressed from manoeuvring about the yard to driving out of the gates and around the neighbouring streets. That was with many a helping hand from Matt, but as he said, when back in the yard and he was helping her down, ‘You didn’t hit anything.’
Katy smiled at the praise. She felt exhausted by the nervous strain and concentration of the past hour, but —she had done it!
By the end of a month she was taking turns with Matt to drive the Dennis out on local work while he sat at her side as driver’s mate. Heads turned as she drove past and Matt would grin and wave. ‘That’s something they’ve not seen before!’
They bought a spanking, brand new Dennis under the War Office subsidy scheme. Annie Scanlon asked, ‘What scheme is that?’
Katy explained, ‘The War Office gives us a subsidy of a hundred and ten pounds towards the cost of the lorry, provided we maintain it properly and make sure it’s fit for Army use if they have to requisition it. They send an inspector round once a year to check on it.’
Annie peered at her, wary. ‘What if they find summat wrong?’
Katy assured her confidently, ‘They won’t. Matt will be servicing it.’
But Katy drove it. When Matt brought the Dennis into the yard for the first time he walked around it with Katy, both admiring the gleaming paintwork, the shining, slick newness of it. Then he turned to her and grinned, ‘Now it’s your turn.’ He handed Katy up into the cab, though that was a courtesy because for a long time she had swung up into the old Dennis with practised ease. Then with Matt beside her she drove out through the streets and across the bridge into the town. And that was where Ivor saw them.
He reined in his horse as they drove along Fawcett Street, with its clanging electric trams, big shops and crowded pavements, and past the Town Hall. Ivor looked from the immaculate Dennis to Katy at the wheel, then back to the Dennis as the brightly painted rest of it slid by him. Neither Katy nor Matt saw him as they passed because he was hidden. in a long line of traffic on the other side of the road. He watched them go away from him, still not saying a word, let alone shouting an insult after them. But he had got back his tongue by the time he drove his horse and cart into the Spargo yard.
Ivor confronted Arthur Spargo and snarled, ‘Ballard and that tart Katy Merrick have got a brand new lorry.’ He told his father how they had passed him. ‘That makes two lorries they’ve got now! They’re getting bigger all the time and a lot of that is due to her and what she learned here. The bitch has it in for us. I said we had to finish them before they finished us!’
Arthur grumbled, ‘Aye, I reckon you’re right.’ He scowled at Ivor, ‘That lass did the dirty on us.’ It still rankled with him, how Katy had humiliated Ivor and himself on the day she walked out. He decided now, ‘We’ll settle her.’ He stopped there because he did not know how to set about it.
Ivor did: ‘We’ll burn them out. Set fire to both their lorries.’
‘Aye?’ Arthur wasn’t sure about that. The immorality of such an attack did not worry him but suppose Vera found out?
Ivor read his thoughts and urged him, ‘Ma’s away.’
‘Aye, she’s looking after that poorly sister of hers at Blyth. She won’t be back till the end of the week; that’s what she said in her letter I got this morning.’ Arthur added bitterly, ‘That and a string o’ bloody orders.’ He smarted from Vera’s acid-tongued instructions. He would show her.
Ivor said, ‘So we’ll go tonight. Who will we take with us?’
Arthur scowled, ‘Why do we have to take anybody?’
Ivor insisted, ‘Somebody has to climb the wall and open the gate for us. I’ll do the job after that but I want somebody to watch my back; I’m not going in on my own.’
Arthur still demurred: ‘I don’t like the idea of taking somebody else in. Suppose he splits on us afterwards?’
Ivor grinned unpleasantly, ‘I’ll fetch Ernie Thompson. He won’t dare to open his mouth.’ Ernie was a labourer in the Spargo yard, a skinny underfed little man. He had a wife and five children and they all lived from hand to mouth on his small wage and without it they would starve.
Arthur nodded, ‘You’re right there: Ernie will be safe enough.’
It was close to midnight when Arthur drove one of his lorries into the street next to Ballard’s yard. He put on the brake and switched off the engine. He, Ivor and Ernie Thompson, sitting side by side in the cab, peered out at the silent street with its pools of light from the street lamps. The only sound was the metallic clinking as the engine cooled. Then the clock in the Town Hall across the river chimed twelve times.
Ivor muttered, ‘Everybody’s abed. Let’s get on with it.’ He climbed down and a frightened Ernie followed. Arthur came reluctantly, having doubts now. Ivor reached back into the cab and lifted out a gallon tin of petrol. Carrying this, he set off with the others following him. The yard was just around the next corner. Its gates, still painted Docherty & Ballard, were closed. Ivor tested them and whispered, ‘They’re bolted.’ He glanced at the wall on either side of the gates and saw the broken glass on its top glinting in the light from the nearest street lamp. ‘You’ll have to go over the gate.’ He jerked a beckoning thumb at Ernie then he and Arthur gripped the little man’s legs and lifted him until he could swing first one leg and then the other over the gate. He hesitated then for a moment, fearful, propped on his stiffened arms holding on to the top of the gate. Then Ivor hissed, ‘Get on with it!’ And Ernie let himself down inside the yard.
With solid ground under his feet he paused again, his back to the gate and his head turning as his gaze tried to probe the darkness, his eyes blinking nervously. The cobbled yard stretched before him and he could see it was empty. The walls which surrounded it, however, cast deeper, black shadows which hid everything. He could just make out to his left the roofs of a garage or shed and a stable. Ahead of him the office with the flat above stood out in silhouette but cast its own black shadow. The yard was a dark square in a black frame and nothing stirred but the wind which brushed his cheek.
‘What’re you doing?’ Ivor hissed. ‘Get on with it!’
Ernie obeyed. The bolts and hinges on the gates had been oiled, Matt had seen to that, so there was no noise as the bolts slid and Ernie swung one of the gates open. The breeze tried to blow it shut again but Ernie held it. The others entered cautiously and Ivor muttered, ‘You took your time.’
Ernie excused himself: ‘I was making sure there was nobody watching.’
‘Who’d be watching at this time o’ night? Ballard can’t afford a watchman.’ Ivor brushed past him contemptuously. ‘You come with me.’ As Ernie released the gate and it started to close at the push of the breeze, Ivor addressed Arthur: ‘Hold on to that gate and keep it open. Don’t let it slam.’
Arthur whispered, ‘You be careful.’ His courage was running out now. It had been easy to growl threats back in his own yard but now . . .
‘Don’t worry,’ Ivor told him, ‘I know what I’m doing. We’re going to settle some scores tonight — with Katy and that bloody Ballard.’ He started to cross the yard but then a child wailed faintly in the flat above the office. Ivor and Ernie froze and the wail came again but then faded away into silence. They waited a minute, breathing shallowly, then Ivor muttered, ‘All right.’
He set off across the yard again, heading for the garage. Its doors were shut and he went to open one of them, whispering to Ernie, ‘Hold this.’ He held out the can of petrol and released it, but, fumbling in the darkness, Ernie had not taken it properly. It s
lipped from his fingers and fell on the hard standing in front of the garage with a tinny clangour. Ivor snatched it up and hissed, ‘You bloody clumsy—’ He stopped there, listening, head turned back over his shoulder to peer at the office and flat. But there was still no movement or sound, only the sigh of the wind.
Ivor let out his pent breath and thrust the can into Ernie’s hands, but this time making sure he held it. ‘You’re lucky. Nobody heard that.’ Then he pulled open the door of the garage a foot or so. Inside was as black as a pit but he could make out the gleam of metal on the lorries within. He took the petrol can from Ernie again and passed inside.
He had been wrong. Katy had been quick to go to Louise when her daughter awoke, crying in the night. She soothed the child and Louise was soon sleeping soundly again. Katy waited a little while to be sure both little girls had settled and she was about to return to her bed when she heard the clunk-clank come faintly from the yard. She tiptoed to the window, drew back the curtain an inch or so and peered out. The yard lay in darkness but over by the garage the deeper shadows moved and she knew someone was there.
Katy’s heart thumped as she pulled on her coat over her nightgown, thrust her feet into her shoes and ran silently down the stairs on her toes. She flitted through the office to the counter and reached down to shake Matt but found only the blankets he had cast aside. They were still warm from his body. She gave a little sigh of relief, thinking that it would be Matt in the yard. Still, she wondered, Why?
Katy padded back through the office to its door, opened it and passed through. She paused a moment then, standing in the deep shadow of the building, her gaze fixed on the garage. One of its doors was open and she could just make out a figure standing before it, but surely that was too small to be Matt? She took a hesitant step forward — then an arm wrapped around her, binding her arms, and a big hand slipped over her mouth. She stood still for an instant, frozen in shock by the sudden assault, then a voice breathed in her ear, ‘Don’t move or make a sound. Do you hear, Katy?’ She managed to nod against his hand. He took it away and his arm slipped from around her body. Katy felt herself shaking with reaction from that moment of fear. Now she could see him, that he had pulled on shirt -and trousers.