Polly's War Page 7

  Polly expressed doubts on her mother-in-law wriggling like any eel the following morning, no matter how much she might protest to the contrary. ‘You’re all clammy and cold. Couldn’t I just leather our Benny for losing you. I’ll fetch you some Fenning’s Fever Cure, in case you’re getting a temperature., and you’ll stay right here, with your feet up tomorrow and no argument.’

  Big Flo gave a weak smile as Polly tucked the covers tight. ‘Thee allus manages to have yer own way, lass. Always did, I seem to recall, even against our Josh. Only one I know who ever dared to stand up to him.’

  Polly was startled. This was the first time in years that the old woman had spoken of her favourite son in the past tense. She’d grown used to hearing Joshua Pride referred to as if he were still with them, as if Big Flo expected him to walk in at any moment. And with such conviction that there were times when Polly would glance over her shoulder and shiver. She hated to be reminded of her brother-in-law’s malice, thankful only that she’d beaten him in the end, if at a price. He’d ended his days in an institution for the mentally insane and his mother had never quite recovered from the shame of it.

  Polly made up a fire in the bedroom, then piled extra blankets on the big high bed.

  ‘Don’t forget the blackout,' came the forceful voice and realising there was little point in arguing that the war was over, Polly dutifully pulled down the black paper blind and drew the curtains over it, but she didn’t return to the kitchen. Instead, she sat with her mother-in-law, sipping quietly at her tea, her eyes on Big Flo’s face, remembering a time when the pair of them had been constantly at odds. They’d been forever at each other’s throats, just as Benny and Lucy were now. Polly could hear them continuing their quarrel down below. ‘Will you listen to the pair of them. You’d think they’d be sick of war and want a bit of peace, wouldn’t you?’ Polly said with a sigh, but the only answer was a heavy snore and she smiled, letting her own eyes close. Wasn’t it grand to have a minute’s peace herself?

  After a while she heard Benny go out and Lucy climb the stairs to put the children to bed. The house was filled to bursting so it was. Oh, but she didn’t mind a bit. Didn’t she love having her family about her?

  It was a good house, for all she’d have preferred to stay on at Cheetham Hill had they been able to afford. But they’d three bedrooms which was one more than most in Pansy Street, save for Minnie Hopkins at the top house with seven. Even so Benny was forced to sleep in the alcove bed downstairs since Lucy and the children were crowded into one, and Big Flo had this little box room. Downstairs, the front door might open directly onto the street but the long lobby led the way to a living room as well as a front parlour. At the back was the kitchen with a few steps leading down into a backyard which they shared with no one, and wasn’t that a treat? They even possessed a good sized cellar, which was where they’d spent much of the war, though Big Flo had always favoured the Anderson Shelter. One day soon, when Polly was feeling brave, she’d have the dratted thing pulled to pieces.

  She smiled down at her mother-in-law, sleeping peacefully, like an old war-horse herself. She thought how different things would have been if Matthew had lived. Not that she didn’t love Charlie. She’d been fortunate to have two good husbands in her life. She and Matthew had enjoyed many happy years together, not like poor Lucy who’d lost her own husband far too young. Yet somehow, Polly knew she’d manage. Didn’t you always, when you’d no choice in the matter? This reminded Polly that her first task tomorrow was to help Lucy find someone to mind Sean after the nursery closed, otherwise wouldn’t she be landed with the job herself? And much as she loved the little tyke, she needed to get her business going and not spend her days baby minding. But it needed to be someone trustworthy and reliable to take care of her grandson. She worried a long time over this.

  Charlie came in, urging her to go to bed and get a bit of rest but still she refused to leave Big Flo. Much later Polly heard the front door bang when Benny came back from the pub, and the sound of his stumbling feet going along the lobby. He was singing some raucous song and bumping into the furniture. Wouldn’t she clip him one if he woke the poor old soul up, not to mention those children in the next room. Polly had changed into her old dressing gown by this time and she pulled it close about her before tiptoeing downstairs, ready to give him a piece of her mind.

  In the dim light of the kitchen fire, she saw him slumped in a chair, head flung back, loud snores emanating from his wide open mouth. A stink of vomit filled the tiny kitchen. Polly punched her son in the chest.

  ‘Will ye wake up, you good-for-nothing lout. Is it come to this, that you defile your own mam’s hearth?’

  Benny woke with a start, mumbling apologies that he’d only been celebrating his own homecoming, though he was clearly having difficulty focusing on exactly who it was he was apologising to. Polly pulled down the alcove bed that nestled in the wall by the kitchen fire, with a snap. Cramped it may be for a lad as big as Benny, yet it was warm and snug and more than he deserved, drunken sot that he was.

  ‘See you wash your face and take off those filthy boots before you get into it, you useless tyke,’ stabbing him in the chest with one finger to emphasise every word. Polly could feel her whole body begin to shake with fury. ‘First you leave your poor old grandmother wandering the city like a lost soul, so is it any wonder she’s sick with a temperature and possible pneumonia. Now you come home the worse for drink. Tis me Da all over again, to be sure, and see how he ended up. Dead as a nail. I’ll not have it. Not in me own house. Couldn’t I just batter your daft head in.’

  Benny flinched as he saw her snatch up the dish cloth, but it was only to wipe the sick and spittle from his face, just as if he were a lad still. He jerked his head away, anxious to avoid her ministrations but knew better than to argue, not when she was in this frame of mind. In truth he was secretly ashamed of his drunkenness. By trying to sink his sorrows over Belinda, he’d succeeded only in worsening the poor opinion his mother already had of him. He could see her winding herself up into a fair paddy. In addition he’d made himself ill and would no doubt suffer a thick head in the morning.

  Polly poured a jug of cold water over her son’s head, soaking him through. ‘Tomorrow you’ll come to the warehouse with me and no more nonsense of being your own boss, or finding yourself a job. There’s enough work there to keep us all busy and don’t we need all the help we can get?’

  ‘Aw Mam. I’ve told you already. I’ll not work for you in the warehouse, I’ll not. I mean to make me own way.’

  She could hardly believe what she was hearing: her own son still stubbornly refusing to work with her, and after the way she’d given him his first job when he was no more than a whelp. The Irish temper rose in her so fierce that a flush of red seemed to blur her vision. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you’d make a saint swear, so you would. I’m thinking you’re too stubborn for your own good. You’ll pull your weight as I tell you to, or it’s out on the streets for you, ye daft galoot.’

  Benny drew himself up in the chair to his not inconsiderable size, concentrating hard so that he didn’t fall off it while he put this very important point, enunciating each word as slowly and carefully as he could. ‘I’ll please myself. I’m warning you Mam, I’ve had enough of folk tellin’ me what to do. I’m going to pleashe meshelf in future.’

  ‘Oh, is that so, to be sure. Then its a bill you’ll be getting every week for your bed and board,’ and swinging on her heels Polly strode from the room, ignoring his pleas of ‘Aw, Mam, you can’t do that. I’ve no money yet.’

  At the door she stopped and the finger wagged one last time. ‘Then you’d best earn some pretty quickly, or it’s the warehouse for you, like it or no. I don’t want to spend every day doing battle with me own son, but if it’s a war you want, then it’s a war you’ll get. Only I’ll win.’

  After an achingly long and uncomfortable night, necessitating frequent trips to the privy down the yard, Benny felt worse rather than better
as daylight approached. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. How did he imagine he could take on his mother? Wasn’t she notorious for getting her own way? Why couldn’t he just agree and accept the miserable job? What was so marvellous about independence anyway? He never did find the answer to this one before merciful oblivion took over.

  At some time during her long vigil, Polly must have closed her eyes and slept too, for when she next woke with a start, it was to find the night-light had guttered, the fire gone out and the room felt strangely cold for early summer.

  Polly drew back the curtains and lifted the paper blackout blind a fraction so she could see to find a match to relight a candle. The moon still hung in a pale grey sky, sending a shaft of pale light into the bedroom, eerily encircling the figure which lay so still in the high brass bed. That was the moment in which Polly realised her mother-in-law was dead.

  For once in her life, without making any fuss, Big Flo had slipped quietly away when no one was looking.

  Polly sat on the polished seat of the pew, her family gathered silently about her and tried to take in the words of the minister as he droned on about Florence Pride, our dear departed sister. The small chapel was almost filled with family and friends, some in severe black, others wearing well-used arm bands over their ordinary coats. Aunt Ida was there, almost as stoic as Big Flo herself had been in a lifetime of troubles. Uncle Nobby, looking pale and solemn and smelling faintly of the manure he’d put on his rhubarb patch that morning. Lily Gantry putting her hand on Polly’s arm. ‘Eeh lass, I’m sorry. She were a grand woman in her day.’ Minnie Hopkins dressed in a funereal black coat that had a greenish cast to it from long disuse but her shoes were well polished, and she’d put her teeth in for the occasion. The two women sat together like a pair of old crows.

  Behind them came other neighbours. The Taylors and Beckworths, Maggie Stubbs, Maisie Wright, Harry Entwistle the joiner and Mrs Shaw from the end house. Then of course there was Doris-from-next door and Gladys and Vera Benson, the two sisters who ran the corner shop for all they too, like Polly, were Catholics and would have some explaining to do for even being present in a Methodist chapel. The sisters had managed to find a bit of ham and pickles from ‘under t’counter’, for those who wished to go back to the house for a bite of refreshment afterwards.

  Every now and then Polly would sniff into her hanky and Charlie pat her shoulder, or Sarah Jane would feed her little brother a toffee to still his chattering tongue. He’d surely be sick if he had many more, Polly thought, watching them. Benny was looking unusually sombre in his drab demob suit, as if the bomb Big Flo had been expecting for so long, had finally fallen and he’d been the one to bring it. And so he should.

  Polly could hardly believe she was sitting here, calmly taking part in Big Flo’s funeral. The old woman had seemed indestructible, larger than life itself. Now, all because of Benny’s neglect, she was gone. She swallowed the lump of tears that blocked her throat. Sure and she’d be hard pushed to forgive Benny for his carelessness, so she would.

  Michael Hopkins, occupying the pew immediately behind the diminutive figure of his aunt, leaned over to whisper a few sympathetic words and while Polly nodded vaguely, Lucy turned her head to smile a radiant response.

  ‘Look at that little madam,’ came the hissing voice of Lily Gantry to her companion Minnie Hopkins, overriding the muted tones of tuning-up from the organ. ‘Making eyes at that nephew o’ thine at her own grandmother’s funeral. You’d happen think her a merry widow instead of a good Catholic wife to a soldier declared missing.’

  Polly felt as if someone had struck her. How dare they! If she weren’t in chapel, she’d give them a piece of her mind for uttering such blasphemy. She cast a sideways glance at Lucy, who was using her hymn book to hide her scarlet cheeks.

  ‘Blethering idiots,’ Polly whispered.

  The minister was asking them to rise, hymn books were being opened, throats cleared and the organ straining to find the right notes. Then good Methodist voices soared up to the gallery, The Day Thou Gavest Lord is Ended, and Polly felt the tears roll unchecked down her cheeks, to make little splashes on the blurred words in the book. Oh, but she’d miss the old dragon, so she would.

  Chapter Six

  Outside the chapel Michael Hopkins hovered at Lucy’s elbow. ‘Will you be coming to work tomorrow, as usual?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’ Lucy sounded her surprise for didn’t she have her living to earn?

  ‘Only I’d like a word.’ He meant about the whispers they’d all clearly heard in chapel but even as he disappeared amongst the crowd she didn’t dare watch him go, too keenly aware of his aunt’s all-seeing eye fixed upon her and her evil tongue still wagging. Lucy contented herself with tugging Sean’s collar into place and hustling Sarah Jane into the waiting car to cover her embarrassment.

  The cortege of two funeral cars, hired by Polly to show how they could still hold their heads high, unemployed or not, carried the entire Stockton and Pride family and various close friends along Lower Byrom Street on its way back to Pansy Street.

  Benny took no part in the polite attempts at conversation around him, too concerned with his own troubles. He’d loved Big Flo. Hadn’t she spoiled him rotten as a boy for all her sharp tongue, and he’d never meant her any harm. Yet he could sense that everyone blamed him, just as if he’d deliberately left her sitting on that bench in the hope she’d catch pneumonia. Coming home seemed to have been something of an anticlimax. There’d been no welcome home banner for him. Arriving at the same moment as the telegram bringing news of Tom’s fate had scuppered any chance of that. The longed for freedom in Civvy Street was, in reality, a bleak and lonely place. He still hadn’t sorted out his future and he’d even messed up his chances with a wonderful girl called Belinda.

  It was as the cars turned into Liverpool Road that he saw her. For a moment he thought his eyes were deceiving him, that he’d conjured her out of a battered and overworked imagination. He couldn’t think what she might be doing here, at Castlefield, but he would have recognised her anywhere, even in a large floppy red beret that hid half her lovely face from his view. She was standing at the corner of Fenton Chemicals, talking to a young man. Wearing a light grey costume that seemed to mould itself to her slender figure, Benny thought she looked even more beautiful than he remembered.

  ‘Stop the car.’ He was shouting at the driver and Lucy was slapping his arm, telling him to be quiet and show more respect. But the car did indeed stop and within seconds he was beside her, grinning from ear to ear.

  She looked startled, as well she might, to have him appear out of nowhere. There was a slight puckering between her straight brows as she gazed at him with those mesmerisingly wide blue eyes. Perhaps, he worried, she didn’t even remember him. Benny was about to remind her who he was when the brow cleared and she laughed.

  ‘Of course, you’re the chap who got me served in the Rating Office.’

  Benny beamed. ‘You remember me.’

  ‘How could I forget?’

  She introduced him to her companion, Frank Fenton no less, the son of the owner. He was thin, not very tall, with light brown hair and eyes, pale pockmarked skin and a faintly sulky expression on his boyish face. A nondescript in Benny’s opinion and he took pleasure in paying the fellow scant attention. ‘I’m glad I caught you. I must’ve missed you the other day.’

  Benny couldn’t take his eyes off her, saying the first thing that came into his head, foolishly asking how she came to be here in Liverpool Road, as if it mattered so long as he’d found her again. She told him that her father had business interests in the area and they were soon chatting twenty to the dozen until Lucy shouted to him to hurry up. He turned and yelled back, to tell her he’d be along later and she slammed the funeral car’s door in a most inappropriate fashion. Benny hastily explained how he couldn’t hang around for long as he was at this very moment on his way back from his grandmother’s funeral, earning himself a softening of those dazzli
ng blue eyes as a result.

  ‘I’m so sorry. Don’t let us hold you up,’ Belinda murmured, in that wonderful humming voice she had.

  ‘You could come and have a bite with us, if you wanted. There’s plenty.’ He’d no idea whether there was or not, but he was anxious to hang on to her, wishing Fenton would take the hint and vamoose. Instead, the man simply stood there, foursquare, as if he owned the flippin' road as well as the factory.

  ‘Oh, we wouldn’t dream of intruding, would we Frank?’

  The young man shook his head. ‘Indeed not. Our commiserations to your family,’ taking hold of Belinda’s arm as if he had a right to it. Benny longed to shove him away and take hold of her himself, but she wasn’t the sort of girl to appreciate a tug of war between two warring suitors.

  Panic struck. Benny knew he must do something to delay her, to make sure they met again. Then he was pulling out his pocket book, asking her to write her name and address in it, and she was laughing up at him, in just the way he remembered.

  ‘And my telephone number too, I suppose?’

  She had a telephone? Hadn’t he known she had class. ‘Of course,’ he casually agreed and watched with satisfaction a frown mar Frank Fenton’s brow as she carefully noted the details down, closed the book and handed it back to him.

  ‘Good to see you again,’ she said quite lightly but, he was sure, with absolute sincerity.

  ‘Happen you’ll be seeing me sooner than you think.’ He saluted, and then remembering he wasn’t in uniform, held out his hands by way of apology, making her giggle. How he loved her chuckling laughter.

  Benny strode away at such a cracking pace it took him a moment or two to realise he was going in quite the wrong direction, so was forced to double back and march past them both again, making her hoot with laughter all the more, Frank Fenton smirk, and his own neck and cheeks to fire up. Still, he was beyond caring, he was so pleased with his good fortune. Benny would never have thought such a bit of luck could come out of such a sad day. If it wasn’t disrespectful to say so, happen his grandmother had fixed it for him, from the other side, to show that she at least had forgiven him. Benny rather hoped so.