Dancing on Deansgate

by Freda Lightfoot

  Steve gave up the argument, as he usually did, and called out for the girls to play his all time favourite, I’ll Be Seeing You. ‘That was the night I first told you that I loved you, and you responded by running away and marrying another man.’

  They were considered to be quite a Bohemian couple, both musicians, with two children, living together and running what was quickly developing into one of Manchester’s favourite night-spots, and yet still unwed.

  Jess had never again gone, cap in hand, to beg Doug for a divorce. Once was enough. She’d sent letters, both from herself personally, and via her solicitor. All had been ignored. In the end, she’d given up the campaign and settled for what she had. She and Steve were happy, with a family they adored, so what did marriage matter? It was only a piece of paper, after all.

  Deep down Jess knew that it did still matter, very much, but events had somehow overtaken them and there had been more important issues to deal with at the time. She’d been pregnant with Jo, and Leah had suffered two broken ribs and a broken cheekbone, spending weeks in hospital and needing two operations on her face before they were certain she’d eve be able to see again. Jess had sworn never to speak to Harry ever again, were she so unfortunate as to run across him.

  The word was that, like his father before him, he’d done a runner. Only Cora, Bert and Jess knew the truth, that Bernie hadn’t run anywhere. Had they known the true facts, they might have said that his son had been luckier. Harry had at least survived.

  They’d learned that he hadn’t got very far. As luck would have it, Big Pat had had a match on that evening, at the Donkey on the corner of Hardman Street. She’d just stepped outside to take a breath of smoke-encrusted air when who should hurtle around the corner but the very bloke who owed her brother a deal of brass. Never one to let an opportunity slip by, Big Pat had lifted him in a powerful bear hug, bounced him off a couple of walls, then pinned him to the ground in a scissors hold which threatened to detach his head from his body.

  No one was quite certain about what happened after that, but knowing Big Pat’s style, she’d probably have been satisfied that she’d made her point. She certainly always liked to win but never bore anyone a grudge. No doubt she picked up him, dusted him down, added a few deft words of her own inimitable advice and sent him on his way.

  If Harry had managed to get over the shame and humiliation of being beaten by a woman, he certainly didn’t hang around to prove his case. Harry Delaney hadn’t been sighted in Deansgate Village from that day to this. Legend had it that he never did pay his debts, that Little Jimmy and his brigade of ex-squaddies were still keeping an eye open for him, just in case he ever ventured back on their territory.

  Strangely enough, none of his family had gone looking for him, not even his wife or his mother, so, as folk said when they discussed this juicy titbit on street corners, he couldn’t have been much missed.

  Quite the contrary, for just as when Bernie had vanished off the face of the earth, the rest of the family all curiously seemed to benefit as a result.

  Jess and Steve paid off all the debts, moved into the flat and took over the club. They sacked the girls, completely refurbished the place and due to much hard work and endeavour, it was now thriving.

  Leah, having made a good recovery from her dreadful injuries, occupied two of the best rooms above the club, together with her daughter, Susie. Lizzie was said to occupy a third as a bedsit. A shadow of her former self, rumour had it that she never touched a drop of the hard stuff these days. Didn’t dare, for fear Jess would turn her out in the street. Although they were said to be largely reconciled, Lizzie wasn’t taking any chances.

  Cora remained contentedly in Cumberland Street with her children: the twins, as self-contained as ever, never far from her side. Sandra, now quite a young woman was causing her mother endless bother. And if Harry had gone, young Tommy was back in the fold, with his new wife in tow happily expecting their first child. Cora could hardly wait for the new addition to the Delaney flock as she was always ready and willing to mind Jess or Leah’s children for an hour or two, and was a frequent visitor to her son Bert’s house where his wife Maisie had recently been delivered of her third son.

  Cora was in seventh heaven. The Delaneys, she thought, were going from strength to strength.

  As always when the band was working, Cora spent much of the evening upstairs minding the children, but she slipped down for a few minutes with her sister-in-law and long-standing enemy, Lizzie, to enjoy the music while Maisie took charge for a bit.

  ‘It’ll give you a break, Mum,’ she said. A good hearted girl if ever there was one.

  ‘I’m that blessed with my childer,’ Cora declared, heaving her rolls of fat into a comfortable position on a too small chair while humming the familiar bars of The Blackout Stroll, which she remembered Joe Loss used to play.

  Lizzie was saying, ‘Particularly those what belong to other people, like our Jess, and poor overworked Maisie.’ As usual, they were indulging in their favourite pastime of what was politely termed in these parts, a bit of argy-bargy.

  ‘Nay, Maisie’s a Trojan and not in the least overworked. Our Bert wouldn’t hear of it. He worships the ground she walks on. They’re grand, these girls. They fair get my feet tapping. If only that lass of yours would get up there and join them. Why don’t you try talking to her? What’s a mother for, if not to support her kids?’

  For once there was no fierce response. Lizzie wasn’t even listening to her. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the door. Cora fished in her cardigan pocket for her glasses, so that she could better see who she was looking at.

  ‘I don’t believe it.’ Lizzie was on her feet now, while Cora was looking frantically across at Jess, to see if she’d noticed. She had.

  Jess too was standing, with one hand on Steve’s shoulder as if for support. ‘What is it, love?’ he asked. Cora saw him mouth the words but Jess made no attempt to answer. She was moving slowly forward, her face chalk white, as if she were seeing a ghost. And, in a way, she was.

  ‘Dad? Daddy, is that you?’ The man in the door turned when he heard the sound of her voice, and a smile lit his face, crinkling his eyes in that old familiar way she loved so much, though the face was one in which the bones stood out sharply, ravaged by starvation and the result of an incarceration neither his wife, nor a loving daughter would ever understand.

  ‘Jess love, how are you?’ Jake wrapped his arms about his beloved daughter and held her as tightly as he could, blessing the angels who had guarded him all these years, just so he could return and see his child’s lovely face again. Tears flowed but neither father nor daughter suffered any embarrassment from it, or paid any heed to the sighs and whispers of their audience. They clung to each other and laughed, and wept, then stood back and marvelled.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s really you.’

  ‘It’s me all right. And you look a right little cracker. Always knew you’d turn out that way. Eeh, hello Lizzie lass. You’re looking - well.’ Only Jess noticed the pause and the look of shock in his eyes.

  Lizzie herself appeared utterly stunned by the return of her husband, and almost as worn out by time as he, if for a very different reason. But Jake’s attention was back with his daughter who was now introducing him excitedly to Steve, telling him of her children asleep upstairs, asking how he’d found her. And Jake was laughing at this deluge of information.

  ‘I found you because this club of yours bears my name. And I understood that this was your band, so why aren’t you up there, playing in it?’

  Jess looked at him in wonder for another half minute, vaguely aware of Steve’s voice softly remarking, ‘Good question. Why aren’t you up there, Jess?’

  And suddenly Jess knew that she must play. For him, for the man who had first taught her the beauty and magic of music. Her fingers were itching to touch the valves, her lips poised to coax liquid gold from her precious instrument. But where was it? Where had she put it all those years ago? ‘Where’
s my trumpet?’

  ‘Whose trumpet?’

  ‘All right, your trumpet. Where is it? Please, please, may I borrow your trumpet one more time.’

  ‘With pleasure,’ Steve grinned, bringing it from behind his back and handing it to her, rather like a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat.

  Jess couldn’t help but laugh, before kissing him with her thanks. ‘You’ve had it waiting every time the girls went on stage, haven’t you?’

  ‘I certainly have. Waiting for the day you saw sense, the day you would finally erase the last of the scars.’

  And so Jess took her rightful place on stage. ‘This is for my dad,’ she told her startled audience. ‘He’s been away a long time, like many of you here tonight he’s been kept from these shores against his will. But he’s back home, has travelled right across an ocean especially to hear me play. I might be a bit rusty but if I can remember which button to press on this thing, I’ll give it a go.’ She sent one radiant smile to the two men in her life, and then lifted the trumpet to her lips and began to play: I’ll Be Seeing You, in all the old familiar places. . . till there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

  Jess Delaney had been reborn.

  Also available by Freda Lightfoot as ebooks

  Ruby McBride

  9780957097834

  ‘An inspiring novel about accepting change and bravely facing the future.’

  The Daily Telegraph on Ruby McBride

  The grand opening of the Manchester Ship Canal is a big day for Ruby McBride and her young sister and brother. Its glories fade into insignificance, however, when their mother Molly, due to illness, reluctantly entrusts her beloved children to Ignatius House, and the not-so-tender care of the nuns. Ruby, a rebel at heart, is always on the wrong side of authority, but when she is sixteen, the Board of Guardians forces her into marriage and she has to abandon her siblings, vowing she will reunite the family just as soon as she can.

  Convinced that her new husband is a conman, she discovers life on the barge is not at all what she expected. She is furious at being robbed of the chance to be with her childhood sweetheart, Kit Jarvis, so resists Bart’s advances for as long as she can. But Ruby’s courage and spirit enable her to rise above the disadvantages of her birth and make a life for herself within the thriving community of waterways folk.

  Daisy’s Secret

  ISBN 9780957097827

  ‘Another Lightfoot triumph’ Dorset Echo on Daisy’s Secret

  The Lakes 2012

  Laura is having problems with her marriage, so when she is left a house in the Lake District by her grandmother, she starts to look at her life anew. And she begins to investigate the cause of the feud between her father and his mother. What was Daisy’s Secret?

  Manchester 1939

  Abandoned by her sweetheart and rejected by her family, Daisy agrees to being evacuated to the Lakes at the start of the war. Still grieving for the baby boy she was forced to give up for adoption, she agrees that he will be her secret - a precious memory but spoken of to no one. She seeks consolation by taking under her wing two frightened little girls. Can helping evacuees make up for losing her own child?

  Luckpenny Land

  9780956607300

  Life is hard for Meg Turner. She lives on a lonely farm in the bleak but beautiful mountains of the English Lake District with a bully of a father who wants to keep her stuck at home. But Meg wants more than the kitchen sink, and turns for love to her best friend Kath, and to Lanky Lawson, who’s more of a father figure than her own father will ever be. But World War Two approaches and Meg soon discovers that the only thing she can really count on is her passion for the land she loves. Until one day a stranger arrives in the dale and her world changes for ever.

  Historical sagas

  Lakeland Lily

  The Bobbin Girls

  The Favourite Child

  Kitty Little

  For All Our Tomorrows

  Gracie’s Sin

  Daisy’s Secret

  Ruby McBride

  Dancing on Deansgate

  The Luckpenny Series:

  Luckpenny Land

  Storm Clouds Over Broombank

  Wishing Water

  Larkrigg Fell

  Poorhouse Lane Series

  The Girl from Poorhouse Lane

  The Child from Nowhere

  The Woman from Heartbreak House

  Champion Street Market Series

  Putting On The Style

  Fools Fall In Love

  That'll Be The Day

  Candy Kisses

  Who’s Sorry Now

  Lonely Teardrops

  Historical Romances

  Madeiran Legacy

  Whispering Shadows

  Rhapsody Creek

  Proud Alliance

  Outrageous Fortune

  Contemporary

  Trapped

  Short Stories

  A Sackful of Stories

  Available in print and ebook

  Historical sagas

  House of Angels

  Angels at War

  The Promise

  My Lady Deceiver

  Biographical Historicals

  Hostage Queen

  Reluctant Queen

  The Queen and the Courtesan

  The Duchess of Drury Lane

  About Freda Lightfoot

  Born in Lancashire, Freda Lightfoot has been a teacher and bookseller. She lived for a number of years in the Lake District where in a mad moment she tried her hand at the ‘good life’, kept sheep and hens, various orphaned cats and dogs, built drystone walls, planted a small wood and even learned how to make jam. She has now given up her thermals to build a house in an olive grove in Spain, where she produces her own olive oil and sits in the sun on the rare occasions when she isn’t writing. She’s published 40 novels including many bestselling family sagas and historical novels. To find out more about, visit her website and sign up for her new title alert, or join her on Facebook and Twitter where she loves to chat with readers.

  http://www.fredalightfoot.co.uk/

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  If you find any faults with this ebook please do contact the author so that it can be put right for future readers. mailto:freda@fredalightfoot.co.uk