Polly's Pride (30 page)

‘If you’re so keen on football, let’s see you do some training,’ Joshua told him, and Benny was marched out into the back yard and instructed to run round and round it, back and forth with his arms above his head.

‘But footballers don’t train like this,’ he tried to explain, except that Uncle Joshua wasn’t interested in hearing how real footballers trained.

It took no more than half a dozen laps to make him feel slightly queasy, but whenever he put his arms down, or slowed his pace, his uncle would emerge at the back door to glower and shout at him to put them up again and run faster.
 

In no time at all Benny was feeling sick and dizzy, losing his balance and staggering about the yard like a drunkard. Most of all, he was heartily wishing he’d never set foot anywhere near Manchester North End, and swore he never would again. They were a lousy team anyway, not even in the proper FA League. He could feel the dreaded threat of tears thicken his throat and was terrified that at any moment he’d be blubbering for his mam, just like a baby.

The worst of it was, he could see her standing at the window watching him. She had her two hands pressed flat against the glass
 
as if imploring him to be brave. For that reason alone, he mustn’t cry.

The wind had changed direction and a drop of rain fell on to his head, then another. Benny shivered. Within minutes he was drenched, his whole body soaked through, and shaking with fatigue and cold.

If Uncle Joshua killed him by making him run up and down with his arms over his head in the rain, then he’d be a murderer and they’d hang him and it would serve him right. At the thought of his own death which would have to take place to bring about this terrible fate, and of how upset his mam would be if that happened, Benny finally succumbed to tears. But it didn’t seem
to
matter now that he cried, for who could tell the difference between the rain and his tears?

Chapter Twenty

Polly turned from the window to face her brother-in-law, crimson with rage at this harsh treatment of her son.

‘
How dare you
do this to Benny! You’ve no right!’

‘I have
every
right, as his uncle. The boy has no father and is clearly in need of a man’s hand’

‘But this - Polly jerked a thumb at the scene outside, the boy still running back and forth in the yard with his arms above his head in the pouring rain. ‘This is inhuman. I’m fetching him in this minute.’ She made for the back door but Joshua blocked her way before she had taken two steps.
 

Then he bent his head down to hers and hissed, ‘You will not interfere. Do you understand?’

‘No,’ she shouted. ‘I do not understand. You have no rights over him at all. He’s
my
son, and I’ll not have him treated so cruelly.’

Joshua smirked. ‘And how do you propose to stop me?’

For a moment she did not understand his meaning. To Polly the case seemed clear-cut; she was surely the one responsible for the welfare of her own family and Joshua must be made to see that. She struggled to shake off the effects of the last sleeping powder she’d taken, not even certain how she’d been drawn back into the habit. ‘May the good Lord forgive you for I never shall, Joshua Pride. Benny!’ she called, and flung herself at the door. Unfortunately, she was nowhere near quick enough.

Joshua easily grabbed her, vigorously shaking her as if she too were a wayward child. ‘Let the boy take his punishment. He needs discipline, as does his mother. No wonder Matthew couldn’t control you. You’re a wicked, wilful woman who panders to her children. It does no good to spoil them. See what it’s done to them. No wonder they run wild about the streets. Matters are going to change in this house, and for the better.’

He stopped speaking only because he had run out of breath, but his fury drove him to push Polly backwards and press her against the wall. ‘Remember this, woman. I am not my brother. You’ll find me less easy meat to push about your plate.’

Polly was shaking with emotion, desperately striving to take in the full impact of this threat. Instinct told her there must be something more to it than the misdemeanour of a child trying to see a football match he hadn’t bought a ticket for, but she couldn’t for the life of her think what it might be.

With an enormous effort she shook her arm free. ‘Did I not thank the good Lord every day of our lives together for the fact that Matthew was not like you, his own brother? No, indeed, you’ll never match him, if you live to be a hundred. A kinder, sweeter soul never walked God’s earth. As for you, you conniving, scheming, nasty b-’

‘Hold your tongue! I’ll have no blaspheming in my house.’
 

Polly gasped. ‘I think you have that wrong somewhere. This is
my
bloomin’ house.’

`Not any longer, Polly. It is
our
house, or perhaps even
mine,
since I now pay the rent.’ And he put back his head and laughed, an unpleasant sound that chilled her to the bone.

Yet still she paid no heed to the danger signals. This man didn’t care a jot for her or for her children. He hadn’t moved into her house out of sympathy or family duty. It hadn’t been kindness he’d practised towards her but his own special brand of despotic authority, even resorting to drugs to keep her dazed and distracted. Why had she not realised this before? He worshipped
power
, not God, and had some twisted motive of his own for hurting her child, one she couldn’t fathom.

Her instincts had been right to make her concerned about his discovering her friendship with Charlie. But by sweet Jesus and the Blessed Virgin, she’d stand up to him or die in the attempt, sooner than see her son suffer in this way.

Benny!’

Tears were raining down her cheeks but some of the old Polly reasserted itself, and she slapped Joshua full across his sanctimonious face. The marks of her fingers were livid against the white of his skin. But even as she again made for the door, he’d grasped her wrist and with one casual flick twisted it behind her back, to push her face forward against the damp wall of her own kitchen.

‘That was a big mistake, woman. You will pay dear for that little act of defiance. What did Lucy call it, a penance? That’s it. You will pay a penance, as your son is doing right now. I shall enjoy devising one especially to suit your volatile temperament.’

She had never known such pain. At any moment Polly expected to hear a crack as the bone in her shoulder parted company with her arm. Amazingly, his grip tightened further, jerking the arm still higher up her back till she felt nauseous with the agony of it. Inside her head she was screaming, yet forced herself to stay silent, determined not to let him see how he hurt her.

He put his mouth against her ear and chuckled with a cruel venom. ‘I like a woman with a bit of temper. Not like that madam who lives next door. She has no fight in her at all.’ Polly shuddered as the hiss of hot breath caressed her ear. ‘You bewitched him, my poor stupid brother. Because you’re a Jezebel, a whore!’

A redness was creeping into her eyes and Polly felt so light-headed she was certain that at any moment she would pass out.

Whether she would have done so, or what his reaction might have been if she had, Polly was not to discover for at that moment the front door banged open and Big Flo’s voice called out.

‘Its only me. By heck, it’s raining stair-rods out there.’ Hearing his mother’s voice, Joshua instantly released Polly from the punishing grip. She fell back against the wall, white-faced, eyes bright with unshed tears as she eased her arm tenderly into its normal position.

Her strange appearance earned her a keen-eyed stare from her mother-in-law as she entered the kitchen. Joshua was already heading for the back door, but not before Big Flo had spotted Benny in the yard.

‘What the hangment is that lad doing now? He’ll catch his death. Tell him to stop marleking about and get in here this minute, Joshua, or I’ll have his guts for garters. And you put the kettle on, lass, the daft boy will need warming up.’

As Polly gladly hastened to carry out Big Flo’s bidding, rubbing at her wrist and blessing all the saints for this unexpected rescue, she caught the old woman’s eye. It came to her in that startling moment of unexpected contact that Big Flo wasn’t half so ignorant, nor so accepting of her remaining son’s behaviour as Polly had supposed.

Inside her a child was growing, more than likely a cousin for young Lucy and Benny, thanks to their uncle, did they but know it. Eileen was secretly terrified. What would Terence say if he ever found out? Dear God, she daren’t think. What would it look like, this baby? They said that at the moment of birth a child looked more like its father than ever it would thereafter. She could only hope this one would be an exception.

Men took advantage of you, she knew that well enough. They used you and then threw you away like an old dish mop. Even the idle Terence was staying out later than usual these days, and it couldn’t be work that was keeping him. She was beginning to worry that he might have another woman on the side somewhere. He hadn’t been interested in her for weeks, and that filled her with fear too.

After supper, the minute her husband had gone out, Eileen again washed herself from head to toe, and inside and out, just as she had done night after night since the attack. She’d hoped and prayed that the non-arrival of her monthly curse had simply been due to shock, rather than the thing she most dreaded. But she recognised all the signs of pregnancy and desperation set in. Bearing a child that had been forcibly inflicted upon her was bad enough; bearing one of Joshua Pride’s was more than she could stomach.

It was Sunday morning and Lucy had risen early so she could hurry next door to make arrangements with Eileen. There would be rugs to finish off, the hand cart to clean and get ready for the week ahead. Following his usual lively Saturday night, Terence always had a longer lie-in on a Sunday so they were rarely interrupted. Lucy slipped in through the unlocked back door and crept across the kitchen flags on tip-toe, anxious not to risk waking him. Hangovers did not improve his temper.

In the event he wasn’t there at all. Lucy found the children sitting on the stairs, their nightdresses soaked with urine and tears rolling down their puffy cheeks. She wasted precious moments tending to them before finding that it was Eileen, for once, who was still in bed. Her eyes were closed and sunken with dark rings beneath, her face pale and pinched. Lucy was appalled and instantly alarmed.

‘Eileen? What is it? Are you ill? I’ll fetch Mam.’

‘No, no,’ she weakly protested. ‘There’s nowt she can do. She’s enough on her plate, without me an’ all.’ The words were hardly out of the poor woman’s mouth before she began to retch and vomit. Lucy waited no longer but turned on her heel and ran.

Within minutes she’d fetched Polly, who needed only one glance to guess what had happened.

‘Sweet Jesus, what have you done to yourself this time Eileen? What’ve you taken?’
 

She couldn’t exactly remember, hadn’t she tried just about everything these last weeks? By the time she’d mentioned a few, including Penny Royal and Slippery Elm, and putting laxatives where they were never meant to go, Polly was frantic with fear.
 

‘Aw, the Lord bless us, it’s a doctor you’re needing, and quick. Lucy, run and fetch Doc Mitchell. Go now - fast as you can!’

Lucy ran with the wind on her tail. But by the time she’d argued the toss with the doctor’s wife, who claimed that since it was Sunday and the doctor’s day off he would only come out for emergencies, and could they afford to pay him if he treated this as such, it was far too late. He set down his bag, gave a perfunctory examination to the sick woman as he listened to the sad tale, then declared there was nothing to be done. Eileen’s system had been poisoned by all the potions and preventatives she’d used in her efforts to rid herself of the unwanted child.

Polly stared at him, incredulous. ‘What d’you mean,
nothing to be done?
We can’t just let her die.
Do something, drat you
!’

Eileen was taken to Ancoats Hospital where her stomach was pumped out, but if this was unpleasant the miscarried remains of a dead foetus was even more so. Polly made Lucy wait outside, thinking it no place for a young girl.

The volunteer nurse on duty shook her head, indicating there was little hope. ‘She’s lost too much blood, I’m afraid. And now septicaemia has set in. We’ve done what we can.’

Eileen lay close to death, eyes riveted upon Polly’s lovely face. ‘You were me best friend. Only one I’ve ever had.’

‘I still am your best friend.’ Tears streamed down Polly’s face as she grasped the frail hand, stroking it as if she could instil her own strength into Eileen through the blue veins that threaded it. ‘Aw, don’t give up, lass. You can fight this. Why did you do it? Why didn’t you go to that flipping clinic?’

‘It wasn’t my fault, it were ‘im.’ The voice was rasping and faint, but the eyes were filled with a bitter hatred.

‘Who, Terence? We’ve sent for him. He’s on his way.’

‘No, not Terence.
Him
!’ The effort to speak was almost too much for Eileen and she broke into a fit of coughing. Polly hushed her, urging her to rest.

‘I must talk - while I still c-can. I must s-save you.’

A cold thread of fear uncurled in Polly’s stomach. She felt as if she were trembling on the brink of a precipice, from which at any moment she might fall. ‘What are you trying to say, Eileen?’