Faded Dreams (2 page)

   Clearing his throat and scrubbing at his eyes with a piece of rag from his pocket, he took the broken pipe from a rusty tin and passed  it to his wide-eyed, speechless son. The immature 14-year old, incapable of finding words of comfort, studied the pipe then handed it back, inadvertently brushing his fingertips across his father’s calloused palm as he did so.

   'Nay, keep it lad,' his father closed the tin and shoved  it back to Joe, 'treasure it and never forget what I've just told ya about it.'

   The pipe would never be mentioned again. but for the rest of his life Joe would remember that day when his father had seen  fit to bare his soul.

CHAPTER TW0

   The only reason Florrie Pomfret’s parents allowed her to go walking up and down Preston New Road with Hettie Blackledge on Sunday afternoons was because this seemed to be a perfectly innocent way for a sixteen year old girl to spend part of The Sabbath. They didn’t know the half of it!

   “Walking The Road” was  the first step to formal courting.  Boys and girls had the opportunity to eye each other up as they walked backwards and forwards along the long main road, up one side and down the other. It was on one such outing that Joe Pomfret and Fred Pickering saw the two girls strolling towards them and Joe decided there was no time to waste if was to make it on with this shy bonny young lass.

   ‘Watch this Fred,’ he said mischievously.

   ‘Aw come on Joe, leave her alone,’ Fred was sick of hearing about her, and sicker still of being dragged though Woolworth’s every Saturday afternoon just to gawp at her.

   ‘Pretend we haven’t seen ‘em, Hettie. Am I blushing?’ Florrie whispered.  

   And then there he was, blocking her path, moving from side to side as she tried to edge past, the clattering of a passing tram drowning out the thundering of her heart.

   ‘Well…if... it... isn’t…Florrie…Sefton,’ he emphasised the words by drawing them out. ‘Now then, what’s that they brag about at Woolworth’s?
Nothing Over A Sixpence?
Well if I didn’t need me last tanner for the tram-ride home I’d buy meself one of their bonny lasses with it.’

   Florrie was tongue-tied. She wondered how he knew her name even though she
had
taken the trouble to learn his. Her more self-assured friend took her arm and marched her off with as much dignity as they could muster.

   ‘Aw shuddup, Joe Pomfret,’ Hettie called over her shoulder, ‘she can do a lot better than the likes of you and your sort.’

   Joe had a way with girls, it would only be a matter of time before he won her over and the following Sunday brought a second opportunity. Now, if Fred would be a good pal and make it on with the other lass it would leave the way clear for him with Florrie.

   ‘Well!  If it isn’t the Nothing Over a Sixpence lass!’

   He smiled, and Florrie, a little more confident, smiled back. They were a few yards from the bottom of Corporation Park which Joe thought was a stroke of luck. Florrie and Hettie knew different, having walked slowly in order to reach the ornate iron gates at the same time as the boys. 

   ‘Do you bonny  lasses fancy a walk up the park then?’ Joe thought his chances were good.

   The girls um-ed and ah-ed and had a hurried but exaggerated discussion.
Would they have time for a short walk, or should they be going home?  Would they miss the tram and be late for tea if they accepted the offer?

  
The debate was essential to show they were decent girls with principles, not like some girls who let anybody pick them up. Just when it looked like Joe and Fred might lose interest, Hettie announced with a shrug that they might as well have a walk seeing as they’d nothing better to do.

   Halfway up the tree-lined Broad Walk Joe reached for Florrie’s hand gripping it tightly when she tried to pull away. She knew he was laughing at her, feeling her trembling, knowing the effect he was having on her. After a furtive glance around, he steered her behind a tree and turned her to face him.

   ‘Well, are you gonna give us a little kiss then?’ His voice was soft, persuasive.

   ‘Oh Joe Pomfret! What gave you that idea?’ She turned away from him. ‘What sort of  girl do you think I am?’

   Joe cupped her face gently in his hands and brought his lips down on hers, barely touching them at first then more passionately as she softened in his arms.

   At sixteen, it was the first time Florrie had ever been kissed. She wasn't sure how to respond to this exciting new experience, or even
if
she should respond.  She was more than a little frightened and thought she might faint, she had heard from more experienced girls that if a boy’s tongue went in your mouth you did indeed faint. She didn’t want that to happen, not here, not in the park in broad daylight. The kiss set her whole body on fire and went on forever, but through it all she remembered she was a decent girl, so that when his tongue began searching between her lips she kept them shut, tightly. 

   By the time they rejoined the others she didn’t know what to make of her feelings. Was this what her mother meant when she warned her,
keep yourself to yourself, and keep away from fellas, they’re all alike, they’re only after one thing, you mark my words.
  Was a kiss like that, the one thing boys like Joe were after? She didn’t know whether to feel guilty or happy, she only knew that for better or worse she was in love with Joe Pomfret.

*  

   The more Florrie got to know him the more she realised that with all that Gypsy blood in him Joe wouldn’t be easy to tame. He told her of his Granny Feasby telling fortunes on Epsom Downs, how his mother had been born in a horse-drawn caravan during a thunderstorm and it all seemed to fit in with his fiery unpredictable nature. Yet she had no idea what went on inside that curly head of his or whether his intentions were serious.

   He was unreliable too. Sometimes he promised to meet her and then didn’t turn up. Like the evening she stood on The Boulevard in the teeming rain.  A dozen other young people waiting for their own sweethearts in front of Billy Gladstone’s statue began pairing off, laughing together, running for shelter. And then  Florrie was alone,  except for the plump, unamused statue of Queen Victoria towering over her. She ran home with tears and rain splashing down her face and the following day Fred passed her a note.

   Dear Florrie,

   I didn’t turn up last night because it was pouring down and it wasn’t fit to turn a  dog out so Fred and me went to the Palladium. See you next week, same place and time.

Yours Joe.

   That was the best she could expect by way of an apology and t was two years before she dared tell her parents that she was walking out with Joe, although by then she had been allowed to bob her hair, and her hems.

   Every two weeks she and Hettie went to the Saturday night dance at the Blackpool Tower ballroom, an hour away by train. She had one “best” frock and to ring the changes she would pin on an artificial flower or a new lacy collar, or a few pieces of ribbon or even swap frocks with Hettie. With their chests crushed into bodices giving them the fashionable boyish look, the two of them got many an admiring glance.

   The perfume machine in the cloakroom had two choices - Jasmine or Ashes of Roses. Wallowing in the glamour and romance of it all, they carefully made their choice, put a penny in the machine and got a generous squirt on their frocks before making their way down the stairs to Joe and Fred in the magnificent  ballroom. Those carefree Saturday nights at the dance came to an end after the two couples became engaged to be married.

   For three years Florrie had daydreamed about Joe's proposal of marriage. They would stroll through Corporation Park where they had shared their first kiss, he would go down on one knee with a diamond ring at the ready, his words would be like a poem, he’d give her a posy of flowers, watch her blush and hesitate and then she would say yes and he would take her in his arms.

   It so happened that Joe’s mind was on Blackburn Rovers, his other great love, on that special day in April 1928.  The local football team had beaten Huddersfield 3-1 in the FA Cup Final at Wembley and The Cup was coming home.

* 

   Joe and Florrie joined the ecstatic crowds on Bolton Road as the motor bus  carrying the triumphant team with their trophy drove through the town-centre and out towards Ewood Park Football Ground. 

   The noise was still deafening long after the charabanc had disappeared from sight. That's when a jubilant Joe whisked Florrie into the air.

   ‘Let’s get wed, Florrie,’ he shouted. ‘Will ya marry me?’

   She wasn’t sure if she had heard right...this wasn’t how his proposal was meant to be.

   ‘What?’ she screamed above the din.

   ‘I said…let’s…get…wed, you  love me, don’t ya? ’ he screeched, his voice hoarse from hailing his football heroes. ‘We’ll go round to your  mam and dad's , and see if it’s all right with your  pa, eh?’

   Turning their attention to the young couple, men were patting Joe on the back and shaking his hand and the few women in the crowd were clutching Florrie in breath-stopping hugs.

   ‘Aye, all right then…I’ll marry you,’ laughed Florrie, only mildly disappointed at the lack of the romantic words, the posy of flowers, the diamond ring...

   Joe’s mother had warned her about his quick temper when he didn’t get his own way, but Florrie wouldn’t believe it of a lad who was so full of vitality and fun. But now they were engaged and he wanted his own way with her, she struggled to make him take “No” for an answer.

   ‘Come on, you’ve got me ring on your finger sweetheart,’ he pleaded, ‘we’re as good as wed.’

   ‘We’re
not
as good as wed, an engagement ring isn’t the same as a wedding ring,’ she told him firmly.

*  

   Never in a million years would her father have allowed her to go to Oliver’s “Bottle Party” had she not convinced him that she was staying that night at Hettie’s. She had her own misgivings about Joe’s friend, Oliver. She was uneasy with the way his hand would linger on the nape of her neck then fall slowly across her backside as she wriggled away. He looked old enough to be Joe’s father and didn’t seem to have a proper job and yet Joe wouldn’t hear a word against him.

   The night wore on with empty beer bottles littering the kitchen and Florrie silently wishing she had gone to Hettie's. Her father would kill her if she went home now with the smell of drink on her breath and anyway she’d already missed the last tram.

   Others left the party from time to time and Oliver disappeared upstairs with a coarse-looking woman of about forty with maroon lips and cheeks.

   Crushed against Florrie in a shabby armchair, Joe ignored her half-hearted struggles against his frenzied kisses and then, sensing her resistance waning, pulled her gently down on to the rug in front of the dying embers of the fire.

   She lay in his arms, his hands caressing her slender body, her feeble cries of “No” smothered by his burning mouth until she could fight him no more. She loved him, wanted him, but knew for certain that after tonight she would never be the same.

   He sat up and reached for a cigarette, his ardour as spent as the grey coals in the hearth, but his contentment was cut short by Florrie’s stifled sobbing.     

   ‘What’s up lass?’ He held her again, so tightly shecould hardly breathe, and felt her warm tears through his open shirt. She stiffened and pulled away.

  ‘Nothing’s up. I’m all right.’ She finished buttoning her frock and dragged herself a bit painfully on to the chair.

   ‘Well of course your all right, love,’ he gently brushed her damp hair from her forehead with his fingertips. ‘You’ll always be my girl and we’ll be wed afore you can say “Jack Robinson”, and after that I promise ya Florrie… I’ll love you for ever and ever, amen.'

   How could Florrie tell him that she felt dirty and ashamed, that this was all her fault, that she would never have believed she could do such a wicked thing and she wished she could turn the clock back; she would never be able to hold her head up on her wedding day but worst of all she’d never be able to wear a white wedding gown.

  
CHAPTER THREE

1929

   ‘Well, just the fella I'm looking for. I've got news for you, Joe Pomfret,’ Mabel Sefton pounced on him as soon  as he walked through the door, raising her chin so that she could look down her nose at him. ‘I’m telling you straight, no arguments, you’ll be wed to our Florrie as soon as I can make arrangements.’

   The colour drained from his face, his knees buckled and he sank into the nearest chair. Good God he’d only been engaged a few months and he’d only done that with Florrie once. A glance at Florrie told him nothing and when he found his voice he didn’t recognise it as his own.

   ‘Er… why?’ It was no more than a croak.

   ‘Because me and her pa’s going to Blackpool for a week in July and you don’t need to think we’re leaving our Florrie at home on her own.’ She stared at Joe’s face as if trying to read his intentions. ‘I don’t trust you an inch Joe Pomfret…never
have
done. God only knows what you’ll get up to while we’re away and I don’t want neighbours gossiping.’