Polly's Pride (35 page)

‘Oh, hello Tom, I thought you’d disappeared off the face of the earth,’ she chided, picking up his snap tin which had gone spinning to the ground.

‘I thought you were too busy looking after your mam.’ The reddening of his cheeks told Lucy she was still in with a chance.

‘I was, but she’s better now, so I might be able to find time to go out now,
 
were someone to ask me.’

She tossed the words at him with a slight lift of her chin, trying to show that she really didn’t care one way or the other whether he asked her out or not; but was secretly thrilled and delighted when he grabbed at the chance.

‘I’ve been wanting to take you out for ages, Lucy, you know I have,’ the young man informed her earnestly. ‘We’ll go to the Palais, eh?’

The Palais was the most expensive place he could have suggested, costing ninepence to get in. She told him she’d consider it and let him know, feeling a leap of excitement in her heart, though what on earth she would wear for such an outing, she hadn’t the first idea.

Bet Sutcliffe’s old clothes shop solved the problem. Though she gave Lucy a few funny looks at her enquiry, she produced a red polka dot frock rather like a magician brings a rabbit out of a hat. Lucy was enchanted.

‘How much?’

Bet named a sum but on seeing the girl’s face fall, dropped it a few more pence. ‘Go on, I’m a fool to meself. You can have it for one and sixpence. Pay up quick afore I change me mind.’ Lucy paid, the coins carefully saved from her meagre earnings. Bet threw in a pair of equally daring scarlet shoes to match out of sheer pity. The lass had obviously got herself a lad, and Bet remembered being young herself once. She was willing to keep their little transaction a secret, for the very same reason.

The
Palais de Danse
was on Rochdale Road and Lucy was well aware that even at sixteen she was still young to go. Even her mother, were she aware of the plan, would be against it. Grandma Flo would call it ‘a den of iniquity’ and the women and young girls who went dancing there either ‘fast pieces’ or, even worse, ‘scarlet women’, for all it was Temperance and nothing stronger than coffee was ever served there.

But Lucy had no intention of telling anyone, most especially not Uncle Joshua. What the eye didn’t see, the heart didn’t grieve over, wasn’t that one of Grandma Flo’s favourite sayings?

She took especial care with her bath on the following Friday evening, even offering to carry extra buckets of water from the street tap so she could have clean water of her own instead of sharing everyone else’s.

Polly was surprised but Big Flo reminded her of her own fetish for cleanliness, so where was the harm?

‘I’d rather be on me own too, while I have it,’ Lucy insisted, and after exchanging amused glances her mother and grandmother discreetly obliged by going upstairs to sit in a bedroom while the hour-long bath took place. Uncle Joshua was out distributing leaflets for the coming NUWM elections and not expected back for ages, and Benny was off with his pals as usual, so there was no one else to disturb her. Lucy lay back in the steaming water and thought of Tom. She’d fancied him for years; had dreamed of him asking her to be his girl. Perhaps tomorrow he would. Oh, she did hope so!

She heard the click of a latch which she assumed to be her mother. Her eyes were closed and the heat of the water was causing her to drift into a delicious dream of anticipation. Tomorrow would be her first proper date with a boy. What would it be like? Would Tom admire her? Would he even try and kiss her? Oh, she couldn’t make up her mind whether she wanted him to or not, or how she should respond if he did.
 

She certainly didn’t intend to ask her mother for advice. The less people knew of her plans, the better. She could hardly wait.
 

Upstairs Big Flo settled down to her knitting in the only chair in the small bedroom while Polly sat staring out of the window, watching people pass in the street, although not seeing the one person she longed to see most of all. She hadn’t set eyes on Charlie Stockton for months but he was still there in her mind, an elusive and cherished memory. He’d probably forgotten all about her, perhaps gone off to find work in some other part of the
city.
Manchester was big enough for anyone to get lost in.

Big Flo said, ‘Do you reckon our Lucy has found herself a lad?’

Remembering a previous conversation with her daughter, Polly smiled. ‘I think that might well be the case.’

‘Then you’d best have a word then, about - you know.’

‘Don’t be daft, Flo! I had a "word" with Lucy ages ago. She’s a good girl and I’m sure we’ve nothing
to
fear in that direction.’

‘I never had any trouble with my lads, but girls are different. Here, you might as well do summat as sit on that window-sill in a day-dream.’ Flo handed Polly a skein of wool to hold between her hands, and once she’d adjusted the position to her satisfaction began to wind up a ball of it at lightning speed. ‘Grand lads they were too, all three of them. Never gave their mother a moment’s concern.’

Polly said nothing but moved her hands automatically to accommodate the winding process while continuing to stare out of the window.

‘I know our Matthew was keen to marry
young,
and Cecil never
got
chance. But our Josh never had no time for women. More interested in his work at the chapel, and politics, and whether his shirt collars were clean enough. Always very particular in that respect.’ Flo smiled fondly.

Polly thought
it
a great
pity
he wasn’t quite so fussy about the purity of his mind. ‘Lucy will be fine,’ she said again, discouraging further conversation on the subject.

Lucy would have heartily agreed were she privy to the conversation. She felt blissfully happy, but the water was growing cold so she stood up in the bath, enjoying the sensation of the water sliding off her body.

The man standing by the crack of the door noted her pleasure, watching as she ran her hands over the firm contours of her young breasts with a movement that was almost sensual. He saw her shiver, though whether from excitement or the draughts in the old kitchen he couldn’t have said. It was the body of an alluring young woman, not a child, the breasts taut, the hips softly rounded. It was almost a pity, he thought, that she was blood-related. Although the Bible permitted him to chastise her, it would be wrong for him to lust after her. But there were other pleasures which would serve to curb his own weaknesses of the flesh as well as his young niece’s. She was a wanton child, growing up too fast and in dire need of discipline. But not now, not today. He’d slipped back only to collect his members’ address list, which he’d forgotten to take with him. As Lucy reached for the towel. Joshua slipped quietly away.

Benny was, at that precise moment, seated deep inside a railway wagon, waiting with heart in mouth for the chap with the long hooked pole to knock it free and send it rattling away down the track. He’d worked out a new way to deal with the bullying. He’d decided that as he couldn’t possibly win against Georgie Eastwood, not even with the backing of the Dove Street Gang. then he must tackle the problem head on and make friends with the enemy.

The very next time Georgie pounced, Benny had been ready. ‘Wait, wait!’ he’d yelled as the older boys tugged and pulled at his clothing, pushing him this way and that as if he were a yo-yo on a string. ‘I want to join your gang.’

Georgie held up one grubby hand and his ‘men’ instantly stopped their taunting while he considered the matter. ‘You want what?’

Benny had swallowed hard, wondering if this was such a good idea after all. ‘I want to join your gang,’ he’d repeated, deciding there was no other way.

Georgie’s mouth twisted into a nasty smile, as if this were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. ‘You’d have to take a test. An initiative test. We don’t want no weaklings in our gang.’

‘I don’t mind. I’m your man. I’ll take any test you like, only I’m fed up with the Dove Street lot. They’re no good. I want to join yours.’

Georgie had grinned from ear to ear as he’d clenched hold of Benny’s coat collar and dragged him close. ‘Now that’s something I’d really enjoy - seeing you take one of our tests. That’d be a rare treat, that would. Come on then, we’ll show you what you have to do to join our gang, won’t we, lads?’

And so here he was.

Riding the rails had been the last thing on Benny’s mind when he’d once expressed a wish to work on the railways. But he’d made the mistake of letting Georgie Eastwood know of this ambition, and so the test had been devised.

Somewhere over the wall he could hear a group of girls chanting a skipping rhyme: ‘
I’ll tell me ma when I get home, The boys won’t leave the girls alone.
’
For the first time in his life, he envied them their uncomplicated lives.

But Benny wasn’t interested in girls. He wasn’t as interested in trains as he used to be either, he discovered. But then he’d never before been at such close quarters with one. He just had to make sure that he survived the experience. He was going through all of this, he told himself, to stop the bloomin’ Eastwoods from bullying him. If he could just convince them he wasn’t a coward, they’d leave him alone, he was sure of it.

He stood up to peep over the sides of the wagon. It was too high. He had to scramble up the side and cling on like a monkey with all his toes and fingers. Over by the arches he could just catch a glimpse of the Eastwoods. They were huddled together, watching the man who operated the turntables to route each wagon on to its proper line. Benny fell back into the wagon with a clatter, cricking his ankle and wincing with the pain. What had he let himself in for?

He could hear the gush and hiss of steam as trains approached the nearby London Road station. In his mind’s eye he could see its great glass dome with the clock, and the dark red brick patterned with cream tiles. How many times had he hung about that great central area hoping for a bit of a job carrying some lady’s luggage, or a free sandwich from the cab men? Now, here in the goods yard, he heard the piercing sound of a whistle, the clank of rods and swish of pistons, wheels screaming on the tracks and then the terrifying boom-boom, like the explosion of a giant banger on Bonfire Night as wagons banged into each other.

He listened with keen attention because each time the man blew his horn it was the signal for the next wagon to be pushed off. It would roll fast along the track till it clanged and banged into the next and the next, running them all together faster and faster along the rails till they reached the buffers at the end. Benny had watched the process a thousand times, and admired the skill involved. This time he was inside one of those very wagons and had never been more scared in all his life.

He told himself that all he had to do was sit tight and wait his turn. Then it would be over in minutes, and he’d be a hero. His turn came sooner than he’d expected and before he was quite prepared.
 

There was a jerk and the wagon lurched suddenly forward so that he knocked his head on the floor as he fell. He made a grab for one of the iron grips that were stuck into the wooden sides but managed only to grasp hold of a gap where the planking had split. He could feel the pull of gravity as the wagon started to roll faster and faster and then found himself slipping, legs splaying uncontrollably beneath him, the wind whistling through his ears as though it came in one side of his head and out the other. Terror rushed through his body in much the same way.

He told himself he’d be all right. He’d be a hero like Tom Mix or Hopalong Cassidy. Then the Eastwoods would let him join their gang, and leave him alone for good. All he had to do was sit tight and hope for the best. He lost his grip just as his wagon cannoned into the next.

Perhaps it was watching her daughter’s excitement which brought Charlie Stockton back to mind. But it seemed no sooner did Polly allow herself to think of him than he was there, standing on her doorstep with a woebegone Benny at his side. Her first emotion was a sunburst of joy that he hadn’t left the city as she’d imagined, swiftly followed by relief that Joshua was out on one of his collecting rounds. For a moment she could do nothing but gaze into Charlie’s eyes. And then she looked at her son.

‘Sweet Jesus, what have you been up to?’ Polly couldn’t believe the state of him. He was covered in coal dust from the tips of his hair to the caps on his clogs, and what she could see of his clothing in between appeared to be hanging in ribbons from him. His socks were round his ankles and blood-red scratch marks, gravely pock-marked with black, ran down his legs like tram-lines. ‘Oh, Benny, what have you done to yourself now?’

A pair of glistening eyes blinked at her, begging mutely for sympathy.

‘He’s been in a bit of bother,’ Charlie quietly explained, but it was his glances over her shoulder into the house beyond which alerted Polly to the real danger. She had Benny over the threshold in seconds.

‘Thank you, you can leave him with me. I’ll see to him now, and get to the bottom of whatever the daft galoot has been up to.’

‘Polly!’ He had his toe in the door, preventing her from closing it. Panic washed over her like a hot tide.

‘Don’t, Charlie. Please leave before . . .’She didn’t finish the sentence. Her son’s face was screwed up tight with pain and the effort not to
cry.
He was clearly hurt and Polly really didn’t know who to deal with first: Benny, who deserved no sympathy at all for whatever mischief he’d got himself into, or Charlie, who should be thanked for fetching him home, but risked life and limb should Joshua clap eyes on him.