Yet again the brush stopped. ‘Me leave the store for a month?’
‘It’ll hardly crumble to bits in your absence. What about Francis, can’t he take care of it?’
‘He can’t be in two places at once. He’s doing a bit of touring himself, though a bit less exotic than the sort you’re proposing.’ Finishing with the brush she began to plait her hair, and told him what she had told Nick, concluding with Francis’s own words. ‘In ten years’ time there could be a Penny & Co. in every northern town.’ Patrick made no congratulatory noises, said simply and to her utter amazement, ‘Then if not Francis, why not leave Nicholas in charge?’ As her mouth fell open he added, ‘Aren’t y’always saying what an innovator he is?’
‘Well, he is… the lad’s done very well at the Goodramgate shop. Oh, but I can’t expect him to run two stores, Pat.’ The three strands of hair worked rapidly through her fingers. ‘And there’s the warehouse, the factory…’
‘Aye, go on,’ he prompted, rising from the bed and looking intently at the glass. ‘What other excuses can ye find so’s ye don’t have to be in your husband’s company for a whole month?’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to be with you…’
‘No, just that your work is more vital. For Christ’s sake, Tommy, anyone’d think you were married to that store from the amount o’ time ye spend with me. An’ if you’re not there then you’re out at some meeting with Francis.’
She fastened off the plait and primped distractedly at her hair. ‘But you encouraged me to go. You hated sitting through dinner listening to all that talk about finance.’
‘’Tisn’t so much that I mind ye going, Tommy, I’d just like ye to remember when you’re battling to save some old relic from demolition that there’s another old relic that needs ye, too.’ Her detached expression crumpled in sympathy. ‘It’s not asking a great deal, is it, for you to spend just one month with your husband?’
In that moment she realised just how much he had been missing her. ‘Well… I suppose Erin would be quite capable of running the factory for that time… and the warehouse manager is trustworthy… I’m not so sure about Nick – but then I could ask Francis to keep an eye on him.’ A genuine smile. ‘All right, Pat, you can take the thumbscrews off.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
So the holiday went ahead. With more than a few misgivings and despising her sentimentality, Thomasin left Nick in charge of financial matters with strict instructions to send a cablegram should anything – ‘anything, you understand?’ – be beyond his managerial capabilities. She gave him a list of addresses where they would be staying and the approximate times they would be found at these places.
‘Go on your holiday, Nan,’ he had said with that old-fashioned look. ‘When you come back you won’t know the place.’
‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,’ had been her reply, but still she had packed her belongings alongside Patrick’s and their two grand-daughters’. With Abigail in tow they had launched themselves at the Continent.
After a few days of wondering if Thomasin’s worries would ever cease – ‘I hope Nick remembered the quarterly accounts need doing. What if the staff have taken huff at his officiousness and walked out? You know how he can raise people’s hackles’ – the holiday settled into a mood of enjoyment that Patrick had not experienced for a long time. Apart from Rosanna’s upset there had obviously been some discord between her and Belle too – but like their grandmother the girls appeared to perk up after a few days. Pat had not told Sonny of the true reason for this holiday, allowing his son to view it as just another example of Grandfather’s spoiling. Thomasin had agreed it was best to keep it to themselves.
After enjoying a week in Belgium they moved to France and today they had taken an open landau to view the sights of Paris. The girls’ excited comments on the ladies’ fashion as they jogged down the Champs Elysees prompted Thomasin to laughter. ‘Eh, Pat, do you remember those old poke bonnets we used to wear? Weren’t they a sight when you think back?’
‘Sure, I never wore a poke bonnet in me life,’ announced her husband, bringing forth giggles from their granddaughters. ‘I always favoured the pork pie meself – if ye got sick o’ wearing it ye could always eat it. God, will ye look at that!’ He watched, awestruck, as a horseless carriage came chugging past at great speed. ‘The things they think of… they’ll be wanting to fly next.’
Thomasin, delighting him with a long-lost tenderness, laid her head on his shoulder recollectively. ‘How things have changed since we married. The young’ns today don’t know they’re born with all these gadgets at their disposal. Still, I suppose we’re all guilty of taking things for granted. We only had the telephone put in three years ago an’ I never give a thought now to the marvellous brain that invented it.’
‘An’ these girls of ours will never know hardship.’ He was loving the closeness of her, stroking her hand. ‘The things we had to do when we were kids.’
‘Ee, Ah say,’ Thomasin’s Yorkshire accent came rushing back with her memories. ‘D’you remember t’old rushlights? By, what a job it were to peel all t’rind away from the pith. Your fingers used to be red raw by the time you were done. An’ if you happened to get your hands near that scalding mutton grease – by ’eck, you didn’t half cuss!’
Patrick laughed aloud. ‘Ye don’t know how lucky y’are,’ he informed the girls who, forgetting past quarrels for that split second, smiled at each other as their grandparents went on, ‘An’ do ye remember so and so… oh, an’ what about those… yes, didn’t we have a time that day!’ Belle thought how good it was to see them holding hands like a pair of young lovers… though the sight conjured up images of Timothy. She turned to catch her cousin’s reaction, but Rosie’s eyes had glazed over – saw only a young man with unruly hair and a kind smile. She had tried desperately to get away, to tell Tim that it was just a holiday, but Patrick had stalled each move. After Church on Sunday he had made every excuse to keep her in his sight, inviting her parents over from Leeds so that she would be unable to detach herself from the family gathering without appearing bad-mannered. During the time that the holiday was being arranged he had excused her from her bookwork as though this were some sort of favour, but she knew it was just to keep her imprisoned. Try as she might, she failed to get word to Tim.
Belle turned her eyes from her grieving cousin to look at the sights. She could not admit to feeling sorry for the girl. Though she had thought better of giving the game away herself she was grateful to Joseph for doing so. Knowing that Rosie had been denied him as well made her own hurt easier to bear. She shivered involuntarily as the carriage passed over a bridge. As ever, the mere knowledge that water was near sent shivers through her. It was a fear she felt she would never conquer.
After spending some time in France they moved on to Switzerland. Patrick felt marvellous and it wasn’t just due to the clean country air. By some miracle he and Thomasin seemed to have recaptured their old relationship. They laughed, explored, reminisced, the years falling away. The blow came so sneakily… His guard down, he had no way to parry it. The family was enjoying a leisurely breakfast on their final morning in Switzerland, looking out over the most breathtaking panorama Pat had seen outside his homeland. A waiter stepped up to the table bearing a tray and directed himself at Thomasin. ‘A cablegram, madame, for you if you please.’
The woman made him jump with her cry of dread. ‘I knew it! I just knew he’d never cope.’ She thrust the cablegram at her husband. ‘Oh, you do it, Pat! I can’t bear it.’
As the waiter left with a tip the Irishman opened it and read, ‘Help Boadicea… Boadicea?’
‘Oh, it’s from Francis.’ She held out her hand for the cable. ‘Yes, he always calls me that. Says I should have knife-blades attached to my skirts, the way I always carve through the council when they mention the word demolish.’ She straightened the piece of paper to read it.
‘Help Boadicea. Have found not one but two. Both pr
ime sites. Excellent position. Leeds and Bradford. In a quandary. Please advise forthwith.’
The hands holding the cablegram flopped to her lap. ‘Well… what do I say?’
‘Ye might as well ask the waiter as me. Sounds more like his lingo. What the devil’s he on about?’ Of course, it had had to happen. They couldn’t spend an entire month without business creeping in like the insanitary cat.
‘It’s simple enough. I’ve got to choose which store I think we should buy. And how do I do that without seeing them?’ She became deep in thought, eyes narrowed. ‘I wonder when the auction is. It’s all very well for Francis giving me half the story and expecting me to make a snap decision… Oh, it’s no good, Pat.’ Abruptly she began to gather her bits and pieces from the table. ‘I shall have to go back.’
‘Go back! But we’ve another week left.’ With disbelieving face he watched her prepare to desert him.
‘I’m sorry, dear, but I just can’t sit here while there’s important decisions to be made at home. Besides, Francis can’t move either way without my signature.’
‘But what’s to become of us?’ he demanded.
‘I’ll leave Abi to take care of you. There’s no need to spoil everyone’s holiday.’ She clasped his hand. ‘We’ve had three lovely weeks together. I’ve enjoyed every minute, but if I don’t go we could lose out on a very big move. You do understand, don’t you, love?’
‘Aye,’ he answered glumly, his spine losing its rigidity. ‘I understand. You go ahead. We’ll cope.’
Belle and Rosanna looked at each other as Thomasin left. Poor Grandfather. Then the glassiness took over Rosie’s eye and she returned her unseeing gaze to the mountains.
The holiday seemed to go flat after this. When Thomasin had departed they went on to Germany but despite the magnificent scenery there was scant enjoyment for anybody except Abi, who had met with a nice German waiter named Gerhardt. Indeed, it was she who was the sorriest when the time came for them to leave and asked Patrick if he might consider giving her the night off so that she could spend her last evening with her friend. ‘You go ahead and enjoy yourself, Abi,’ said her employer. ‘The girls have decided to have an early night for their long journey tomorrow so they’ll not be needing ye. Have a good time.’ You’ll be the only one of us who is, he thought self-pityingly. At eight-thirty Rosanna went off to bed leaving her cousin and her grandfather sitting on the balcony staring out into the purple evening. The heather-hued sky seemed to move in on Patrick, suffocating him. Not since home had he felt such depression. Despite his unwillingness for conversation he forced out a token sentence for his granddaughter’s sake. ‘Soon be on your way to university, Belle.’ His voice was soft, emerging on a cloud of cigar smoke, his favourite pipe inadvertently left at home – another comfort denied him.
‘Don’t feel you have to make words for my sake, Gramps,’ replied Belle, taking a sip of her hot chocolate. ‘I’m quite content just to sit here.’ He bestowed a smiling frown, as if not understanding. ‘Sure, I’m not saying it ’cause I like the sound the air makes on me vocal cords. I’ve always been extremely interested in your education, you know that.’
‘Oh yes, I just meant…’ she shrugged, smiled and took another sip.
He ignored the implication, wanting not to dwell on his troubles but to be taken out of them. ‘I expect you’re lookin’ forward to it?’ The lack of response caused another frown. She turned to meet the enquiring glance. ‘You’re not looking forward to it,’ he corrected himself.
‘I’ll get by,’ she smiled half-heartedly.
Her grandfather gave one of his special laughs. ‘That’s what I keep fortifying meself with; I’ll get by.’ The pretence was over. He half-hoped she would encourage him to talk about it, thought it might help, though God knew how.
‘Grandmother’s leaving made you very unhappy, didn’t it?’
‘Ah, the Irish aren’t so good at hiding their emotions, Belle.’ He drew long on the cigar; its tip glowed against the purple of the sky.
There was silence for a while, then she said – unexpectedly, for he had thought to hear a query on the rift between the aged lovers, ‘Has life brought you what you hoped it would, Gramps?’
‘Now that’s a deep one,’ his answer came on a long exhalation of smoke. ‘Perhaps it brought me what I deserve.’
‘I can’t think you deserve unhappiness. You’ve always been so good to us – especially me.’
‘Maybe, maybe… ’tis true I care deeply for those around me, but what have I actually done for the wider community – apart from that spell in ’eighty-three, which was hardly successful.’
‘I imagine it made you wonder if those people were really worth the effort?’
‘Aye, I admit it did. But then they can’t help being the way they are, Belle, uncouth and apathetic though we may find them. There’s times I thought I gave in far too easily, thought I might try again when Frank Lockwood got in, but then what would they say? Here’s an old fella trying to buy his place in Heaven – God knows I was accused enough times during that election of rising to wealth on the backs of fellow Irishmen.’
‘Hecklers,’ said Belle firmly. ‘They knew nothing whatsoever of your character.’
He patted her hand. ‘I’m not sure I merit such loyalty, though it’s awful glad of it I am at the moment. Ah, Belle, ’tis a rum life an’ no mistake. Which of my friends would’ve thought thirty years ago that I’d be sitting here like the gentry looking out over a glorious scene like this when all we knew then was black, brown an’ grey.’
‘You seem to regard it as some sort of sin to be well-off and live in comfort, Grandfather.’
‘It is if ye don’t use your wealth and knowledge to profit others, Belle.’
‘But apart from what you tried to do in ’eighty-three you and Nan have given work to dozens of people,’ she protested.
‘Aye, but the problem goes deeper than that. I daresay ye’ll remember when your mother took ye to see the place where she was born?’
‘Will I ever forget it? If someone had told me that there were people who lived like that and more relevantly that my own grandparents started there I’d never have believed them.’
‘An’ ’tis still going on, Belle,’ he answered wonderingly. ‘Despite the surveys an’ complaints about the filth an’ squalor, the grand speeches we all made, people still have to live in those hovels. An’ I’m doing nothing about it but talk.’
‘Now listen, you did your best to persuade the Irish to use their vote.’
‘Not hard enough, pet. Wrote them off without a fight.’ Another long silence in which Patrick’s cigar burnt almost to his fingers, then Belle said experimentally, ‘Gramps… when we get back to England, before I have to leave for university, would you take me there again?’
Surprise. ‘Is once not enough for ye?’
‘I’d like to see – no,’ she corrected herself, ‘like is hardly the word. But I feel I must see more, know the whole story.’
‘To get the whole picture of how these people exist ye’ll have to see more than their houses. They’re lambasted from gutter to courtroom – not just the immigrants y’understand, though they come out the worse for it, but the poor in general.’
‘Then you must take me there, too,’ insisted Belle.
‘Sure, I’ve never been near the place in…’ He broke off suddenly.
‘What’s the matter, Gramps?’ She noticed the strange look on his face. ‘Are you unwell?’
‘No, no… ’tis just that I was about to say I’ve never been near the place in me life – an’ me tasting Her Majesty’s justice at close quarters.’
She was astounded. ‘You’ve been to prison?’
‘There’s no call for alarm, I only killed the five o’ them.’ He grinned, caught her hand and shook it. ‘No, ’twas the Debtors’ prison I was in.’ He saw that she wanted more and reluctantly admitted to his stupidity. ‘The simple matter was that I set meself up in a business I just was
n’t ready for. Someone stole some goods that I’d purchased on credit an’ without the goods I couldn’t do the work an’ without the work I couldn’t pay for the goods. So the Law moved in an’ we moved out; my wife an’ kids to Grandmother Fenton’s, me to one o’ Her Majesty’s hotels.’
She was staring at him. ‘I never knew that.’
‘It’s hardly a thing ye tell your grandchildren.’ He laughed ironically. ‘There, an’ I’ve just gone an’ told ye. Ah well, now ye know it all.’
‘I’m glad, it’s very interesting.’
‘Oh, very.’ The laughter was sincere this time.
‘Tell me some more about your life, Gramps.’
‘More o’ the sordid bits, ye mean,’ he grinned, but soon found himself vacating his heart of the injustices, the hardships, the prejudice. When he had finished he said in amazement, ‘Sure, I don’t think I ever talked to anybody like this before – apart from your grandmother an’ Father Kelly. Ye must be a witch.’ She was a strange one was Belle. Looking back, Pat found that he could not envisage her as a child – only a miniature adult. It was the latter that had tempted him into saying all kinds of things he would never have dreamt of telling Rosie. The two were such opposites. Oh, he loved them equally, but for different reasons. ‘Er, I trust you’re not thinkin’ to write a book?’ Her mouth turned up at the corners. ‘My lips are sealed – on one condition.’
‘There’s always a proviso, isn’t there?’
‘That you take me to see these places you talked about, Gramps.’
‘Belle,’ he said carefully, ‘I get this awful feeling there’s more to this than just looking.’
‘I hope I’m not so transparent when it comes to making excuses to Mother about why I can’t go to university.’
‘Oh, now wait…’
‘Listen to me, Gramps. It was your own speeches all that time ago that helped to awaken me to these people.’ This was only partly true. The current rejection she had suffered had made her re-examine her values, alter all the plans she had envisaged for the future. Not for her a husband and babies. When her mother had introduced her to that alien colony she had felt pity and revulsion but little else, no sense of obligation. But Tim’s rebuff had caused her to think more deeply. There would be no man in her life now or ever, so the gap must be refilled with something of purpose. This holiday had lent her time to decide what that something might be. Patrick had helped in that direction, too. She would dedicate her life to helping those miserable wretches she had seen – educate and civilise them – and for this she would need her grandfather’s support. ‘I’m going to help them, Gramps. I haven’t yet decided how but help them I will. Society’s got to be made to change its mind.’
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