‘Well you two hold on in there.’ Gladys’s voice was urgent now. ‘John would just love it if the pair of you threw in the towel and let your mam buy you out, and that wasn’t what your da worked all the hours of the night and day for, was it. He wanted the business for all of you.’
‘Aye.’ Dan stretched out his legs and sighed deeply. ‘He was a good man, my father, Gladys. A canny businessman but a nice bloke too.’
‘I know that. You and Art are like him.’
‘Oh aye?’ Art had just entered the room and caught the last piece of the conversation and now he grinned at his wife, his eyes twinkling. ‘Well, if we’re so perfect and such a good pair of blokes, why isn’t the tea on the table, wench? Eh? You answer me that.’
‘Oh you.’ Gladys pushed at her husband as she spoke, but she was relieved at his bantering tone. He was carrying a heavy load and it was weighing him down, and she didn’t really know how to help him except to be there for him. What with all the talk of the build up of arms in western Europe – ‘organised insanity’ as Lloyd George called it – fuelling fears of possible war, this last altercation with his mother, which had reached new heights once Art had learnt from John his mother was holding him mainly responsible for Dan not returning home, the constant pressure of the business and the hundred and one other problems connected with life in general, Art was not himself. And although she would never let on to Dan, she knew that this lass, Connie Bell, turning up again had brought all the guilt from the past surging back too. Art had never forgiven himself for what had occurred at the house in the wood all those years ago, or the ramifications of the attack which had led to his father’s death and Jacob’s suicide. She knew now it would haunt her husband to his dying day.
Gladys shivered suddenly, in spite of the warmth of the room, but her voice was ordinary sounding when she said, ‘We’re not having much the night so I warn you two. There’ll be plenty to eat later and I want everyone to tuck in then. Art’ – she paused, reaching out her hand and touching her husband’s arm as she passed – ‘you are absolutely sure you don’t want to go to your mam’s do tonight? I’ve only asked the neighbours and Ray and Martha and their brood to come in, so I can easily call it off if you’ve changed your mind?’
‘We’re staying put, lass. The others’ll go to Mam’s, and she’ll have all her fancy friends like she normally does, but I couldn’t stomach being there and neither could Dan. Right, lad?’
‘Too true.’ Dan’s voice was as grim as Art’s face, and Gladys nodded at them both as she said, ‘All right then, if you’re sure. David and Catherine will love having Ray and Martha’s bairns to play with, they’ve been beside themselves with excitement since I said we were seeing the New Year in here with a little party.’
‘Aye, well we should have done it years ago,’ said Art bitterly. ‘The times I’d have preferred to stay by me own fireside, but out we’ve trotted to answer the royal summons. No more, lass, I’m telling you, no more. That’s all done with, whatever you say about family harmony and the rest. Christmas and New Year, and Easter too, we’re staying here.’
‘All right, all right, don’t go on.’
As Gladys bustled out of the room the two men exchanged a wry smile, and when the door had closed behind the big, thick-set woman, Art murmured quietly, ‘She’s one of the best and no mistake.’
‘Aye, man, I’d agree with you there.’ Dan had always been aware of the special relationship between Art and his wife – special within the folds of his family anyway – but it wasn’t until he had come to live with them a week ago that he had realised he deeply envied them too. They loved each other. And it wasn’t just that they were well set up; if Art was a docker or a miner up to his eyes in filth and muck all day and sweating to provide bone broth or scraps of pot stuff, Gladys would still worship the ground he walked on. And that was what he wanted. That feeling, that emotion that they had. He wanted that with the woman he married and he wouldn’t settle for anything less, even if he had to remain single for the rest of his life. And as though the two things were entwined in his mind, he found himself saying in the next moment, ‘I’m going to go and see her the night, Art. I can’t go in to the New Year without knowing if I stand any chance at all.’
Art didn’t have to ask to whom his brother was referring, but what he did say, his voice low but purposely expressionless, was, ‘You know what it will mean? If she agrees to take up with you, that is. Are you prepared for the backlash?’
Dan was silent for a moment and then he nodded, his voice faintly embarrassed as he said, ‘I can’t get her out of my mind, Art, and not just because she’s bonny. It’s more than that. I can’t explain it but from the minute I saw her again it was like I’d been waiting for that moment for years without recognising the fact, but then I knew. In an instant I knew. Oh’ – he rubbed his face, his tone irritable – ‘I can’t put it into words.’
‘You did a pretty good job of it I’d say. You tell her what you just told me and I can’t see any lass not falling on your neck, lad,’ said Art drily.
‘But she’s not just any lass, is she. That’s the trouble.’
Aye, that was the trouble all right. Art glanced once more at the bowed figure of his brother holding his head in his hands, his elbows on his knees, and gave a hard silent sigh. Damn it all, how was this going to end? And then, as though to refute the deep unease he felt whenever he considered his brother and Connie Bell, he found himself saying, ‘Aye, well when you see her, and if she’s amenable, you can always bring her back here to see the New Year in, and any of her pals she’d like to bring along, you know that. ’Course, she’s likely to have made plans already, but you never know, with her working in the hotel trade and all.’
‘Thanks, man, but I doubt she’ll look the side I’m on.’
Art doubted it too, and he felt a sense of betrayal as he realised he was praying that would be the case. Life was complicated enough at the moment without what would virtually amount to a live grenade being thrown into their midst.
Chapter Fourteen
When Connie emerged from the back entrance of the Grand Hotel at eight that same evening, Mary and Wilf just a step or two behind her, her mind was full of nothing more uplifting than Colonel Fairley. The man had been a source of great irritation all day, trying to waylay her several times and hinting that he had something to say to her of supreme importance. If it hadn’t been for the fact that they were rushed off their feet and every minute was precious, she would have made the time to take him somewhere secluded and tell him in no uncertain terms to leave her alone. But tomorrow should be quieter – most folk were battling with thick heads and upset stomachs after drinking and eating too much the night before on New Year’s Day – and she would definitely have a word with him then, whether he be a relation of Harold Alridge or King George himself. The last time he had stopped her on the stairs between the second and third floor, he had had the nerve to press himself against her in a most suggestive way, and she wasn’t putting up with that kind of behaviour from anyone. Disgusting, horrible man. . .
‘Miss Bell?’
The start she gave as a tall dark shadow appeared out of the side of the building almost caused Connie to land flat on her back on the icy, snow-packed ground, and her hand was still pressed to her throat when Dan said, ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you, but I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss you and they said you usually leave this way.’
‘Who said?’ It was all she could manage as her heart continued to pound.
‘The lady I spoke to earlier. A stout lady in a blue dress.’
Mrs Pegg. Of course it would have to be Mrs Pegg of all people he had spoken to. The housekeeper already had ears like cuddy-lugs, and they’d be flapping all the more now she’d got wind of a young man asking for her. A young man. . . Connie swallowed hard, but as Mary and Wilf joined her, one on each side, she felt sufficiently composed to be able to say, ‘I don’t understand why you are
here, Mr Stewart.’
She wasn’t going to make this easy but he had expected that, hadn’t he? Damn it, he was hot and sweating in spite of nearly having frozen to death in the two hours he had been skulking out here waiting. What should he say? He had been rehearsing enough variations on opening lines to fill a book. And then, strangely, he knew what he was going to say, and it was scattering to the wind all his previous ruminations. ‘I couldn’t stay away.’ It was quiet but steady and Connie’s heart flipped over.
This was impossible. She knew it was impossible for more reasons than she could name. She had to nip it in the bud now. And then she looked into the dark-brown eyes that appeared black in the dim light and heard herself say, ‘Does . . . does your family know you are here?’
‘The ones that matter, yes. The others. . . I moved out of my mother’s home a week ago, Miss Bell. I’m living with one of my brothers now, Art. I think I mentioned him to you before.’
Art. The brother who supposedly felt sorry, like him, for what had happened. Had there been a family row of some kind?
Dan was staring now, he couldn’t help it. She was so incredibly lovely. He could drown in the blue of her eyes. And then he caught his racing thoughts, bringing them under control, and speaking softly, vitally aware of the two silent – and he felt condemning – figures either side of her, as he said, ‘My brother and his wife are having a few friends in to welcome the New Year. There. . . there won’t be any other members of my family present. They wondered – I wondered – if you would care to join us? Your friends too, of course,’ he added quickly, glancing once at Mary’s set face. ‘As Gladys would say, the more the merrier.’
There had been a family split. Connie hesitated before saying, ‘Gladys?’
‘My sister-in-law.’
So he wasn’t married or courting. She had wondered about that once or twice, although she had assumed from the way he had behaved and the fact that there had been only four other women with his mother and brothers at the hotel that Dan was free. But you couldn’t always tell, she reminded herself silently. Still, he was hardly likely to invite her to his brother’s house if he was spoken for.
She hadn’t said no straight away. Dan felt almost drunk with relief. But she might be going to refuse, and he’d never have the courage to go through this again. That little lass at the side of Connie was looking at him daggers. Had he made himself clear enough? They did understand that this was all above board?
‘Please don’t misunderstand me, Miss Bell,’ said Dan hastily. ‘The invitation is perfectly genuine. Really. It’s just that. . . Well, with it being New Year’s Eve and all, I thought . . .’ Damn it, he couldn’t say he had hoped it might be a time for new beginnings, she’d likely hit him. ‘I would be honoured if you would come,’ he finished weakly, knowing she was going to refuse him. He was on the brink of a chasm, and he could do nothing to prevent himself being cast into endless darkness. Because if she refused him, if she would not countenance having anything to do with him, that’s what his life would be from this point on. Oh hell, what could he say?
She must answer him, Connie thought feverishly; they couldn’t just stand here. She was aware she’d reached a crossroads in her life and that her head was urging her to do one thing and her heart another, and right until she said, ‘There’s more than just three of us, we’re having a little get together with the four ladies at our lodgings,’ and Dan said eagerly, ‘Oh bring them, please, do bring them. We’ve masses of food and drink and everything,’ before falling silent, clearly hotly embarrassed, she hadn’t thought she’d known what her reply was going to be. But as soon as she’d spoken she had known that she’d already made the decision to see him again the moment she had realised it was Dan waiting in the shadows. He had sought her out. Her pulse leapt at the thought and she looked into his red, bashful face as the blood sang in her veins. A man like him, a man who could have any lass he wanted, he had come back and waited to see her.
She took a deep breath, her voice betraying just the slightest echo of her inward turmoil as she said, ‘Thank you, Mr Stewart. I’ll have to check with the others of course and make sure it’s all right with them, but hopefully we’ll be able to come to your brother’s party for an hour or two later. If you would care to give us the address?’ And she smiled at him.
‘I think you’re loopy. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I’m goin’ to say it all the same. Blood’s thicker than water, lass, an’ in the end it’s blood that’ll out. An’ lettin’ him walk you to the house weren’t none too clever either.’
‘Oh, Mary.’
‘An’ don’t “Oh, Mary” me in that voice, now then. If it was anyone else you’d be sayin’ exactly the same as I’m sayin’. This just isn’t like you, lass. I don’t understand you.’
She didn’t understand herself either.
Connie stared at Mary for a moment across the room, the dress she was going to change into and which she had bought just a few days ago hanging limp in her hands. It was a nice dress, bonny, and if she was honest with herself – really honest – she had bought it with the secret hope that one day, somehow, Dan Stewart might see her in it so that he could picture her in something other than her blue work dress and the apron she had been wearing that night before Christmas. ‘You heard what he said, Mary,’ she said after a long pause. ‘He’s left his mam’s house and all that side of the family, and he’s living with the other brother now. Dan was only fourteen that night, you know.’
‘There’s plenty bin workin’ for a good year or two at that age, he was no bairn.’
‘He tried to stop them, and he came back and saved me from the snowdrift. I’d have died that day without him, don’t forget that.’
‘You might not have.’
‘Oh aye, I would. And I owe him something for my life, don’t I? One evening isn’t too much to ask.’
‘One evenin’?’ Mary’s tone was sceptical. ‘You really think he’s goin’ to be content to leave it at one evenin’?’
‘Probably.’
Aye, and probably not. But what really worried her was that Connie herself didn’t want just one evening with Dan Stewart, Mary told herself glumly. She’d been different since she had seen him again. Oh, she’d been right upset the night it had happened, and with that John – the callous so-an’-so – it wasn’t surprising, was it, but when she’d got over that side of it she’d been. . . Mary searched for a word to describe Connie’s state and found it. Skittish. That’s what she’d been. And that just wasn’t like Connie. She deserved better than to be taken up for a time with the likes of that scum and then dropped when he’d had what he wanted. And that’s what would happen. A man in his position didn’t get serious with a lass whose mother had worked the streets. He’d have his fun and off he’d skedaddle.
‘I’m going, Mary.’ Connie had watched the play of emotions on her friend’s face and now her voice was steady and low. ‘Even if I have to go by myself, I’m going.’
‘Don’t be daft, lass! As if me an’ Wilf’d let you go by yourself.’
The other four lodgers had plumped for staying at Walworth Way when they had told them about the invitation on their arrival home some minutes before, and had appeared perfectly happy to settle down in the kitchen amongst the food and drink Connie had bought the previous day, Wilf joining them while Mary and Connie changed their working clothes.
‘I’d be all right. I’m sure someone would see me home.’
Aye, she didn’t doubt it, and she knew his name an’ all, and that was enough to make her go to this blooming party if nothing else. ‘No, we’re comin’, lass, ’course we are.’ Mary watched her friend hold the lovely, thick linen dress in a delicate shade of gold against herself for a moment as Connie glanced in the oak-framed mirror hanging over the fireplace. The dress was circumspect by any standards, the sleeves long and ending in a V on the wrists, the bodice fitted but with a high collar, and plenty of material in the skirt which fell to just above the ankl
es, but on Connie it became, well, alluring, Mary admitted anxiously. The more so because Connie was completely unaware of just how beautiful she was. Looking at her friend now, at her warm, glowing face, her mass of thick golden hair and trim figure and the intrinsic freshness that was part of Connie, Mary felt afraid, and her voice was all the more strident as she repeated, ‘We’re comin’.’
St George’s Square was under half a mile from Walworth Way but it could have been the other end of the world. The misery and hardship that went with disease, unemployment, injustice, grinding poverty and class-consciousness had not touched the square’s tranquil borders. Here children still had hot homemade bread, a comic and a bag of dolly mixtures and juju’s on a Friday night when their da got paid, but it was without the spectre of the dreaded words ‘being laid off’ entering into their consciousness. Life was secure here. There was wallpaper on the walls and it was bug free, the pawn shop wasn’t part of their vocabulary – neither was the dread and humiliation that went hand in hand with it – and the workhouse was just a building on the other side of St Michael’s Ward.
It had seemed to Connie and her two companions that half of Sunderland was out on the streets as they had made their way down Crowtree Road and into Park Lane, passing Stone Yard on their left as they walked on to West Park. The public houses were doing a roaring trade, and although it wasn’t yet ten o’clock there was more than one bleary-eyed reveller lurching along under the starry, icy sky or hanging shakily on to the solidity of a lamp-post or sitting, half propped, on a friendly stone windowsill as they surveyed the world with an inane happy grin.
The three of them had been giggling and infected with the inexplicable thrill that accompanied the seeing in of a northern New Year when they had left Walworth Way, but by the time they had passed Higher Grade School they had become more subdued.
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