Netherwood (17 page)

‘What’s tha think?’ said Clem.

‘It’s a bit bare,’ said Seth. ‘Whose is it?’

‘Well …’ said Clem, looking at Amos for guidance.

Amos said, ‘It was your dad’s, not that ’e ever knew ’e ’ad it. It came free just before t’accident. That’s what me an’ Clem are doin’ ’ere, like. It needs sortin’ out.’

Seth processed this information for a moment, then said, ‘Can I ’ave it?’

Amos’s craggy face broke into a rare smile. ‘There you go!’ he said to Clem. ‘It’s just as I told thee.’

The issue of the allotment secured so recently for Arthur Williams had lain heavy on Clem Waterdine’s mind for a day or two after the funeral. He was loath to bother Eve, yet felt it was a matter of some urgency. There were, after all, too many living men on the waiting list to let the plot remain in the name of one who was dead. On the other hand Clem knew that it was Eve, not Arthur, who had wanted the allotment in the first place, and it might seem unfeeling to hand it on to the next bloke in line without so much as consulting her. For her part, and to Clem’s astonishment, Eve seemed to have forgotten about it entirely. He had seen her two or three times since Arthur died and she’d said very little indeed, and nothing at all relating to the allotment. Clem wondered if she had quite understood the honour conferred by ownership.

It was a vexed question, but nevertheless he had made up his mind to bite the bullet earlier in the week and had been walking down Allott’s Way towards Beaumont Lane when he saw Amos Sykes coming towards him in his pit filth, on his way home at the end of the day’s shift. Amos nodded at him and would have walked on, but something about Clem’s manner made him stop.

‘Ey up, Clem,’ he said.

Clem, never in a hurry to get anywhere, looked uncharacteristically keen to move on.

‘What’s up?’ said Amos.

The old man pursed his lips and pondered a reply, but thought better of it.

‘Top secret is it?’

Clem cleared his throat. ‘Allotment business,’ he replied,
and his voice was loaded with such preening self-importance that Amos felt it was his civic duty to poke fun. He staggered backwards in feigned alarm and pressed his palms against his ears. ‘Spare me!’ he said. ‘T’less I know, t’safer I’ll be.’

Clem knew he was being mocked but decided nevertheless to unburden himself. Amos listened, and when the old man had related his tale he said, ‘You’re a daft old sod, Clem Waterdine.’

Clem bridled.

‘Arthur’s barely cold in ’is grave. Eve Williams ’as more to think about than a veg patch,’ Amos said.

‘Aye, well,’ said Clem. ‘She mun give it up then.’ He felt belittled and, as a result, less certain about his mission. Even so, he made as if to move off. He had no desire to engage in verbal sparring with Amos, who could be merciless with his sharp tongue.

‘Tell thi what,’ said Amos, entirely oblivious to Clem’s wounded pride and the complicated politics of the allotment system. ‘I’ll meet thi there on Sat’day, ’ave a look at it missen.’

Clem snorted derisively. If Amos Sykes thought he had any say in the matter, he had another think coming. He could get to the back of the queue, like it or lump it.

And yet there they were, come Saturday, agreeing that young Seth Williams, under Amos’s guidance – and, for the sake of the paperwork, under Amos’s name – would take the allotment intended for his father. More than that, the old autocrat Clem Waterdine had about him the rosy glow of the benefactor; if he felt outwitted by Amos, it was more than compensated for by the smile on Seth’s face and the gratitude later that day from Eve that there would be fresh vegetables in abundance come next autumn, God and the weather permitting.

A
mean February wind blew the smile off everyone’s face and thin, persistent rain fell from the pewter sky, as if to put the dampers on any enthusiasm for the new venture. Eve felt like a fool; a grown woman, playing shop. Earlier that Monday morning she had taken a slate board and placed it, doubtfully, outside her front door, leaning it against the wall. She hoped her writing would withstand the weather, because the slate bore the chalked-up products she was hoping to sell and their prices. Against her better judgement, but encouraged by Anna and Eliza, she had given her business a name, and this was carefully spelled out in fancy capital letters at the head of the list.

EVE’S PUDDINGS & PIES

open 9am
–
2pm Monday to Friday

it said, and below it:

Meat and potato pie – 2d a slice; 6d whole

Raised pork pie – 2d a slice; 4d whole

Faggots – 1d each

Drop scones
–
4 for 1d

Tea cakes
–
4 for 2d

Eve’s Pudding
–
6d

All freshly made on the premises.

Thank you for your custom.

She’d used much of Tobias Hoyland’s ten-shilling birthday present to buy the ingredients – a great sack of flour and a smaller one of dried fruit, a bag of waxy green Bramleys, a hessian sack of dusty potatoes, six blocks of lard, some stewing steak, pork shoulder and middle bacon, new pots of mace and allspice and a tiny bottle of anchovy essence. At Wilton’s hardware stall on Barnsley market she’d bought a crisp stack of brown paper bags and made a down payment for twelve new pie dishes, promising Eli Wilton, more in hope than conviction, that he’d have the rest of the money by the end of the week. Her pies and puddings, if bought whole, were to be sold in the dishes they’d been baked in, and her customers – if there were any, and she was by no means sure there would be – were to be asked to wash and return them. Lilly next door thought Eve should be charging tuppence, refundable on return of the dish, just to be sure they kept it safe and brought it back, but it seemed to Eve that she should at least begin in a spirit of trust, even if experience might teach her the error of her ways. Anyway, she told Lilly, she wasn’t selling to strangers; she could walk to their houses and fetch the dishes back if it came to it.

Lilly, who was a poor cook – ‘Pigswill Lil’ Arthur used to call her, though never, thank the Lord, within her hearing – had watched with studied bemusement as preparations next door reached fever pitch. She kept referring to ‘t’grand opening’ in a sardonic voice that Eve only tolerated because she needed her help with the children. Lilly regarded Anna with deep suspicion; her accent, her Slavic looks, her oddly named baby,
all these things inspired mistrust, and she simply couldn’t comprehend why Eve would give them house room. But neighbours in Netherwood helped each other out – always had, always would, even when they were barely speaking to each other – so Lilly’s house was the crèche and baby Maya was round there now, sitting rather glumly in the bottom of a crate so she didn’t crawl into trouble in the kitchen. Anna, meanwhile, had pushed up her sleeves and begun scrubbing pots at Eve’s sink, a task she had done, unasked and on a regular basis, since she’d arrived. A basket of dirty linen squatted in the centre of the kitchen and when the dishes were done she would make a start on the washing. Eve, a woman of high standards and set methods, worried a little that the blouses and bloomers, socks and singlets might, after washing, show the absence of her expert hands, but she was a pragmatic perfectionist and even she acknowledged she couldn’t see to wash day at the same time as running a shop.

In any case, Anna had shown herself to be competent in every way, and cheerful too; she sang now as she worked, a Russian folk song about a dark-eyed lover, which reminded her of home, though she wasn’t melancholy. Rather, she felt more full of hope now than she had since leaving Kiev, a fact which made her feel at the same time guilty, for it implied she had always harboured a lack of faith in her future with Leo. Her thoughts wandered to him often, but the memories caused little pain; by the time he died, the process of separation was well under way. His protracted illness reduced him by degrees, taking him day by day a little further away from her. For weeks, it seemed, he was defined only by his terrible illness; what little energy he had went into simply drawing breath. Anna would never confess it, for it seemed to her a shameful emotion, but she felt unfettered now, as if Leo’s passing had not mired her in misery but released her from it.

Eve came into the kitchen from the parlour and interrupted her reverie. She gave Anna a crooked, uncertain smile.

‘Nearly time,’ she said. The clock said ten minutes to nine.

‘T’grand opening?’ Anna said, imitating Lilly, and Eve laughed.

‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘Still, we won’t go hungry.’

She nodded her head back towards their makeshift counter in the other room, which they’d fashioned out of a long board – courtesy of Amos – balanced on the backs of two sturdy chairs. It was effective, in as much as the height was perfect, but more than a little precarious; one wrong move on either side might send the display crashing to the floor. But what a display; in the past five days they had, it seemed to Anna, made enough food to feed a Roman legion. Eve, while always supposing no one would come, had nevertheless thrown herself full tilt into the task in hand. Pride played a part; she would be judged on the merit of her produce, and no one must find it wanting. She wanted to demonstrate abundance as much as quality, so a pyramid of pork pies, glossy and nut-brown, rose up at the centre of the counter and around them were arranged eight meat-and-potato pies in their dishes and an oven tray, scrubbed bright by Anna, bearing a pungent pile of knobbly round faggots. The drop scones and tea cakes were piled in baskets lined with linen cloths and in a tidy line at the back, four Eve’s Puddings – she hadn’t been able to resist – completed the collection.

Anna dried her hands on the teacloth and together they walked into the parlour. ‘In Ukraine, at New Year, we would make feast like this, with table bearing good food. But different food, like blinis and kulich. And not pig pies. These I don’t know.’

‘Pork,’ said Eve. ‘Say pork, not pig.’

‘Yes, pork,’ said Anna. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Never mind,’ said Eve. ‘My Russian lets me down sometimes. Right, shall we get it over with?’

She edged around the counter and stood at the front door, taking a moment to smooth her apron and pat her hair. And though it was more out of nerves than vanity, she tutted inwardly at herself, fussing and preening as if she was about to walk on to a stage. Just open the ruddy door woman, she said to herself, there’ll be no one there anyroad.

So she did, and she was wrong.