‘From an impeccable source.’
‘Who, Sam Beckett?’ Joe sneered.
‘No, as a matter of fact, it wasn’t Sam. Ask Alec, he’s heard the same rumour. The city’s house building schemes are making rapid progress. I heard that Kersal, Regent Road and the Hanky Park slums will come down this year. Both Salford and Manchester City Council are voting in favour of demolition all over the shop. It’s inevitable.’
‘I’ll believe it when it happens,’ Joe scoffed, reaching for his pint of bitter.
‘Oh, so we do nothing till it’s too late, do we? Is that the way you’re thinking?’ Belle challenged him, violet eyes flashing with temper. ‘Good job you’re not in charge any more then.’
Rose was sitting with her best mate, Winnie Holmes, a glass of lemonade on the mahogany table in front of her, paying little attention to the argument that ebbed and flowed about her. Having decently disposed of the deceased a few days ago, she was now busily dissecting his life and character.
‘He were a quiet man, were Stan, very private. Patient, you know, but then he’d need to be, married to my Joyce. Save for when he were in pain, then he could really let rip. I can’t say we were ever bosom pals but I used to feel sorry for the poor chap at times. Never complained. Kept things close to his chest, as I mentioned earlier. Secretive like.’
‘But now it’s all out in the open, eh, all that stuff you told me after the funeral? It may be none of my business, but how did your Harriet take it?’ Winnie asked, avid for every gory detail, as always.
‘Like a trouper. I dare say she’s still champing at the bit for more, but I’ll leave that to Joyce.’
Winnie took a sip of her Guinness, wiping the froth from her upper lip with the edge of one finger. ‘Is that wise? I mean, Joyce won’t make it easy for the lass, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘How could I mind, when it’s true? But I’ve decided it’s nowt to do wi’ me. Not my job to interfere,’ said Rose, somewhat self-righteously, as if she hadn’t done so already.
Winnie considered her friend with a wry shrewdness. ‘Aye, I reckon it’s best to leave ‘em to it, in the circumstances. So who was she then this flighty piece Stan knocked up, and what happened to her?’
There was a slight tightening of Rose’s mouth but Winnie didn’t notice. ‘She was killed in an air raid in nineteen forty-one. Harriet were nobbut a couple of months old.’
‘Eeh, that were a bit of bad luck. And Stan were away at sea at the time, eh?’
Rose agreed, the long ear rings she always wore clicking noisily as she briskly nodded. ‘Aye, as luck would have it. We were still living in Ancoats at the time. Anyroad, by a miracle the babby survived, found half buried beneath the rubble and he weren’t for letting her go, not Stan, for all she’d be a cuckoo in the nest.’
‘Oh, aye, soft as butter that lad, not like your Joyce who’s hard as nails.’
‘You might say that,’ Rose drily commented. ‘Though life has played some cruel tricks on her, so softness isn’t something she can afford.’ Quietly sipping her drink Rose was beginning to wish she’d never started on this conversation. Joyce was very particular about not being shown up in front of folk and she’d go for the jugular if she thought her mother had been talking out of turn. Fortunately, Rose had only related their agreed version of the tale, although even that might be too much.
Eyes stretched wide with curiosity, Winnie was saying, ‘Eeh, it were a miracle that babby were found alive. The good Lord must’ve been watching over the little lass on that day.’
‘As He has been watching over her ever since.’ Rose smiled softly, knowing she too had kept a watchful eye on the girl, just in case the good Lord forgot. The reason she’d broken her word to her daughter after all these years was because of Harriet. She couldn’t bear to see the child go on being blamed for a situation that was none of her making, and it would be sure to get worse, now that her father was no longer around to protect her. Anyroad, it was long past time the matter was brought out into the open, and to hang with the consequences. Things surely couldn’t be any worse than they were already.
‘Even so she has my profound sympathy. Joyce never struck me as a woman who’d generously overlook her husband’s fall from grace and take in a poor illegitimate infant. She must’ve been mad as blazes to have such trouble land on her doorstep. It’s a miracle she forgave him.’
Rose pondered this for a moment. ‘I’m not sure she ever did. No one could say they enjoyed a happy marriage, more like world war three.’
‘Still, there’s allus a silver lining, eh? She’s a treasure is your Harriet. I must say I was surprised when you told me all of this. I never thought that the lass weren’t Joyce’s real daughter, not for a minute, and I shall look on Joyce with more compassion in future. She’s a real trooper, bless her heart. A saint, no less to accept the lass as her own.’
Rose swallowed the last of her lemonade in a single gulp and stood up. She’d said more than enough. Too much. ‘I reckon I’ll be off to me bed. It’s been a long day one way or another and I’m fair beat. See you tomorrow, Winnie.’
‘Aye, chuck, take care. And don’t worry, it’ll all come out in the wash.’
‘Yes,’ Rose wryly agreed. ‘Dirty laundry generally does.’
An hour or two later, Rose was sterilising the scissors and combs and wiping down the counter tops as she usually did at the end of a working day. Once the salon was all neat and tidy, with every scrap of hair swept up off the linoleum-covered floor, they’d go upstairs and she would put the kettle on for a brew before supper.
Joyce took off her pink overall and hung it behind the door, then touching up her make-up and teasing her dark curls into place with a damp finger, she told Rose not to bother making a cup for her as she was going straight out to meet Joe in the Dog and Duck, as usual.
Rose muttered something under her breath but her daughter’s response was swift. ‘If you’ve something on your mind, Mother, come right out and say it. Don’t chunner to yerself like some old witch.’
Rose for once decided not to take issue on the perils of demon drink and instead mildly enquired, ‘I only wondered if you’d seen our Harriet recently?’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘It’s just that I haven’t seen her around today and I wondered if happen you’d found time to have another little chat with her.’
‘Why should I?’
‘You were a bit blunt the other day, the way you told the tale. And you left quite a bit out, didn’t you?’
Joyce stabbed at her thin mouth with a bright fucsia pink lipstick. ‘I told her all she needed to know. Anyroad, how would I know where she is, I’m not her keeper. No doubt she’s off sulking somewhere, still nursing her supposed wounds.’
Rose leaned on the brush and considered her daughter. ‘So you aren’t going to tell her the rest?’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘No names, no places, no further details, nothing more.’
‘No, and don’t you say owt neither or you’ll be sorry. You’ve said too much already. Why can’t you keep your big trap shut and leave these matters to me?’
‘I were only trying to help, in my way,’ Rose protested.
‘Well you didn’t help, not one bit. You just made matters worse.’ Joyce pencilled a smooth brown line along each thinly clipped brow.
Rose pursed her lips. ‘And what about our Grant? What are you going to tell him? Were you thinking of ever getting round to telling your son about his correct parentage? That Stan was no more his father than you were Harriet’s mother, that the pair of you based that sham of a marriage on a lie. No wonder it ended up mired in secrets as dark and nasty as a muck-cart.’
Joyce whirled about before even her mother had finished speaking, her face draining of all colour so that the pink lips looked lurid against the grey pallor of her skin.
‘Shut your mouth. I’ve told you a thousand times to keep your nose out of my business and not interfere.�
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‘Right then, I’ll shut up,’ Rose announced, slamming down the brush. ‘My lips are sealed. Not another word. I’ll just have to conveniently lose my memory, then, won’t I? As you say, it’s none of my business. But don’t blame me if the lass keeps on probing. She’s not stupid isn’t our Harriet.’
Rose stalked off upstairs to put the kettle on for that much needed cup of tea, and Joyce left the salon in a huff to meet up with Joe in the Dog and Duck, so neither of them saw Grant emerge from the little kitchenette just behind the salon. He’d been helping himself to a few quid from the stash of notes his mother kept in a small safe in the wall, having acquired the combination some months ago. He was always careful not to take too much at a time, and to make sure he never touched the money on a Saturday when his mother counted it carefully and audited her accounts before depositing the cash in the bank on a Monday morning.
This evening, apart from being anxious for the two women not to discover this little habit he’d acquired of furnishing his own back pocket with a bit extra, he’d been riveted by the conversation between the two of them. He hadn’t been able to believe his own ears. Now he walked out into the darkened, empty salon rather as a sleep-walker might.
He was shocked, stunned to the core. Stan not his real father? Then who the hell was, and why had his mother never bothered to inform him of this important fact? He felt betrayed, cheated, and deeply angry.
Grant presumed that Joyce must have been pregnant when she married Stan, a fact she’d obviously omitted to mention to her unsuspecting husband. That would be what his grandmother had meant when she said the marriage had been based on a lie. Never own up to the truth if there’s any danger of it causing you problems, that was Joyce’s motto. And his dearly beloved mother was nothing if not creative, which was perhaps a skill he’d inherited from her. Poor old Stan probably hadn’t even been aware of what was going on until it was too late.
But he hated the fact that his mam had lied to him just as she had to Harriet. Not that it made him feel any more sympathetic towards his half-sister. Grant cared about nobody but himself.
Deep down he blamed Harriet entirely. He certainly didn’t blame his mother. If Joyce hadn’t been compelled by Stan to keep his stupid love-child, then he might well have paid more attention to his son, albeit one who wasn’t of his own flesh and blood. And if Nan hadn’t taken it into her daft noddle to spill the beans in an effort to protect her precious granddaughter from his mam’s so-called bullying, none of this would’ve come out at all, and he’d have been none the wiser. So any way you looked at it, Harriet was the one to blame.
But what did this mean for him? Grant had no regrets about not having Stan’s blood run through his veins. He’d hated the man for years, sensing there was some problem between them which had blocked all hope of a normal relationship, rather as Joyce had felt towards Harriet. He laughed, a bitter mirthless sound.
‘What a family!’
It wasn’t really a laughing matter though. He’d been happily seeing himself as better than Harriet, a cut above, as it were, since he’d been born in wedlock. Now it seemed they were tarred by the same brush, both by-blows of somebody or other in this farce of a marriage. All that mocking he’d done, calling Harriet a bastard, and now he’d discovered he was one himself, although he had still been born in wedlock, so maybe he wasn’t.
Grant glowered, his agile brain clicking over like tumblers unlocking a door. It might be worth finding out who his father really was though. If he’d been a married man, which was likely since the pair of them had obviously been unable to marry, the chap might be none too pleased to find a forgotten son emerging out of the woodwork. And he might well be willing to pay to keep his mouth shut on the matter. Grant made a mental note to try to find out the names of some of his mother’s war-time friends from Nan. Rose would be bound to know. But he’d do it without arousing suspicion if he could, at least until he knew a bit more. Such information could prove to be very useful. Money, after all, was far more important than whose blood ran in your veins.
What this revelation also meant, of course, was that he and Harriet were not related at all. They didn’t share a single parent so she wasn’t even his half-sister. Funny that. He’d always rather fancied her in an odd sort of way. Grant had little time for taboos but he supposed he could savour that feeling to the full now. It would be all the more fascinating because Harriet wouldn’t know anything of what he’d just learned. She would continue to think they were related, which would be all the more fun for him.
He chuckled softly at the thought.
Neither were his mother and grandmother aware that he’d overheard their conversation. So really he was free to do as he pleased with this fascinating piece of information, and perhaps use it one day to his advantage, if only with this so-called half-sister of his.
Chapter Five
Harriet couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the poor girl who’d given birth to her. How old had she been? What on earth did it feel like to find yourself pregnant and with no chance of putting things right by marrying the man responsible? She shivered at the thought. Even more dreadful was to die like that under a pile of rubble, or burned to death in the fire that always followed such bombing raids.
And what amazing luck that she herself had survived. Where had they found her, that little baby? Harriet wondered. How come she too hadn’t been killed by the bomb? Didn’t people usually hide under the stairs during an air raid, or in an Anderson shelter in the back yard? Maybe she’d been flung clear by the blast. Harriet decided she must ask Nan for more details, just as soon as she felt strong enough to cope with the answers.
Once her afternoon shift at the salon was over Harriet had walked down to her favourite place by the river, this time quite alone, needing time to think. She was still struggling to come to terms with all that had happened to her, and somehow, knowing that her friend Patsy was about to get married on Saturday seemed to emphasise the precariousness of her own situation. Patsy had found a place for herself at last, a man to love, a family to belong to, something Harriet had always taken for granted. Now she couldn’t, not any longer.
Harriet thought about her mother, her real mother, and wondered what she’d been like, wishing she had a picture of her. Had she been a strawberry blonde with the same stormy grey eyes as her own? No, she got those from her dad. Had she too been afraid of spiders, hated rhubarb and loved to walk by the river so she could smell the new grass and pretend she was in the country?
Had she intended to keep this unexpected baby, dreamed of a good future for the two of them before she died in that terrible bomb raid? Or was the poor girl upset at finding herself in such a predicament and at a loss to know how to cope?
And what about her own future? Would Joyce even want her around now? Did she herself wish to stay?
Harriet glanced about her, at the rickety old footbridge that straddled the lock, the cracked paving stones beneath her feet that looked like a map of the world, and began, very softly, to weep. A part of her wanted to run away from this miserable situation and escape into a different world, to a place where no one knew her, where she could start afresh as someone new.
Yet the thought of leaving home, leaving Champion Street and all her friends, filled her with fear. She loved the market and the people who worked on it. Most of all she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her nan. Harriet loved that old woman, and, whether they were blood related or not, would always think of Rose as her grandmother.
Something rustled in the undergrowth and Harriet jerked round in her seat, dashing the tears from her eyes as she listened for the sound of a footfall. Was this Steve coming to look for her? She could do with a comforting hug right now. ‘Hello, is there anyone there?’
When no answer came she sank back into her gloom, her face cupped in her hands, her thoughts and grief utterly consuming.
She’d tried all her life to be a good daughter. She’d always done what she could to help in
a practical way, for Nan’s sake, if nothing else. She put a good meal on the table each night, kept the small flat clean while Joyce worked in the salon below, and Rose helped with the washing and ironing.
They both saw this as their contribution, their share of the chores, which was fair enough. Harriet had sometimes felt as if she did more than her fair share, often being required to work in the salon in between attending the dreaded shorthand and typing course. She would have liked to see her brother making an offer to do the dishes once in a while, but mentioning this complaint to Joyce brought no response at all. Favourite sons, apparently, were spared such mundane tasks.
She’d tried to be loving and affectionate, although having been ignored or pushed away so often Harriet had largely given up the effort where her mother – stepmother - was concerned. She’d grown used to coping with Joyce’s ill temper, to her sharp tongue and the way she veered from total indifference to bitter criticism.
But as long as she’d still had Dad, Harriet had learned not to let her mother’s coldness bother her too much. Now this behaviour had taken on a whole new significance.
As the sun dropped lower in the sky she plucked a few daisies and began to thread them into a chain. Dad used to make daisy chains for her when she’d pushed him out in his wheelchair. He had indeed called her his little princess, worthy of a crown, even if it was only made of daisies. Oh, how she missed him.
And this poor girl, her mother, must’ve loved him too, or why would they have stayed in touch, as they surely must have done throughout her pregnancy? He must have cared for the girl or else he wouldn’t have insisted that Joyce adopt the child, despite the difficult circumstances.
Harriet chewed on a piece of grass and thought about this for a while.
Lonely Teardrops (2008) Page 4