Polly's Pride (39 page)

‘Would you take me, Charlie Stockton, if I asked you to?’ She felt his arms tighten convulsively about her. ‘That’s not fair, Polly. You know I want you. But we aren’t wed, have no hope of getting married until we’ve a decent income coming in and a home of us own.’

She sighed. ‘The trouble with Lancashire folk is they’re far too practical for their own good. A little Irish romance wouldn’t go amiss, don’t you reckon?’

‘I agree, but romance doesn’t pay the bills.’ He laughed softly in her ear. ‘Don’t I love every little bit of you, Polly Pride? We’ll make it come right, I’m sure of it. While you’re building yourself a fine carpet business I’ll find myself a job, or do a bit of trading on me own account. Then I’ll find us a house and marry you like a shot. Won’t I then take you to my bed with joy?

‘Goodness, if we’ve all of that to go through then we’ve really no time to waste, kissing and canoodling,’ said Polly, kissing the lobe of his ear and sliding her mouth along the line of his jaw, in spite of her words.

As he reached for her, she pushed him playfully away to run from him, squealing with delight, leaping over tree roots, skipping through the bluebells deep into the woods so that he had to chase and catch her. Only then did she let him kiss her and roll her amongst the flowers, becoming intoxicated by their scent and his closeness so that it was hard for her to think, let alone resist him. And because he couldn’t help himself, he wasted a good half hour returning her kisses with a new fierceness whilst struggling to keep a tight hold on his emotions. It wouldn’t do to let them run away with his common sense, not just yet. What would happen to Polly if she took trouble home? He didn’t care to think.

Some time later she sat up, tidied her hair, dusted off the grass and petals, and smiled into his eyes. ‘Come on, laddy. We’ve work to do.’

Charlie set out on his own quest for household items to sell. He hoped one day to buy a horse and cart. Might even buy this one off his pal. It would come in handy if Polly were to make a success of the carpets, as well as be useful for selling his bits and pieces. He’d done well lately, chopping and selling firewood. He’d even managed to buy some boxes of early strawberries which he’d sold at a good price to the ice cream makers. But it wasn’t a regular income, which was what he desperately needed, for all of this brought in barely enough to cover the cost of his lodgings.

Perhaps it was his cheeky charm which appealed to the housewives but today he struck lucky. He bought several items which he felt sure he could sell on at a profit. An old iron mangle with wooden rollers, a pram, even a fancy bird cage amongst other practical items. He stowed them aboard the cart and went on his way, whistling.

Polly too had finally been successful.

‘Yes, dear, I’ve an old bedroom carpet I’d be glad enough to see the back of,’ came the much hoped for reply at last. ‘Perhaps I can persuade my husband to buy me a new one then.’

For a moment Polly was so surprised at this positive response that she found herself suggesting the woman’s husband may not care to be deprived of it, but the woman only laughed, declaring he’d been promising her a new carpet for years. ‘All he needed was a kick up the backside, as you might say. What would you give me for it? I’d want at least five pounds.’

‘It’s not worth thirty bob,’ said Polly, shaking her head and looking suitably glum as she viewed the carpet. Inwardly she was delighted by its size. The house was a large Victorian villa, the bedroom large enough to take the whole of her own modest dwelling, and the carpet, though at least as old as the house, was thick and substantial. ‘The colours have faded. Can’t sell it as it is, of course. It needs cutting and stitching.’ And a good clean, though she didn’t like to say so.

She drove the woman down to one pound fifteen shillings and counted the coins into her hand before she could change her mind.

Later, when Charlie had rolled it up and stacked it on the cart, he expressed his admiration. ‘Thirty-five bob for a carpet that size? You’re a hard bargainer, Polly Pride.’

‘No, just meaner than her poor husband, who’ll find himself with a large bill for a new replacement.’

This success filled her with new hope, and perhaps the fact that they now carried a carpet gave them credibility, for their luck improved. They found two more willing sellers and later, as they unloaded their booty in the warehouse, discovered they’d accidentally rolled up a chamber pot with the bedroom carpet, by mistake.

‘Not to worry,’ said Charlie. ‘We’ll start a new line. It can go with the bits and bobs I’ve found. It’ll all help to make our fortune, Polly lass.’ Then he pulled her into his arms to kiss her again by way of celebration at their success, right in the middle of all the rolls of carpet and general clutter.

Finally breaking away, all pink-cheeked and flustered, Polly said, ‘You’ve a wicked way with you, Charlie Stockton. I worry over me own daughter getting into trouble, and here I am behaving like a loose woman. Our Lucy has more sense than I have.’

Polly might well have thought differently in the weeks following, had she witnessed her daughter tossing the red shoes over the back yard wall each Saturday evening. She did guess that Lucy was not going to chat with her friend Sal quite so often as she claimed, but was in fact walking out with Tom Shackleton. Polly could only hope that Joshua was not quite so wise to the antics of young girls as a mother was. So long as he didn’t suspect, there was really nothing to worry about. But then, she didn’t see Lucy walking off to the Palais dressed in a polka dot dress that would have given her grandmother a heart attack.

Lucy always came back down to earth from the excitement of these expeditions with a rude bump as she shinned over the back yard wall; thereby avoiding the risk of clicking the latch on the gate. It also allowed her time to strip off the party frock in the lavatory and pull on the skirt and blouse she’d hidden there earlier. Shivering with cold and the residue of delight from Tom’s kisses, she would wrap the dress and shoes in a brown paper parcel, carefully stowing it away in her secret hiding place behind the ash pit. Finally dusting herself down, and checking that she’d wiped off every trace of lipstick, she would saunter casually into the kitchen. usually empty at that time of night, and scurry upstairs to bed.
 

On one particular night she found Uncle Joshua sitting at the kitchen table reading a paper. He looked up when she entered, then pointedly took out his watch from his waistcoat pocket to consult it. ‘And what time do you call this? I told you to be home by ten. It’s ten minutes past.’

‘I’m sorry. We got talking and forgot the time, Sal and me,’ Lucy said, sticking to her story.

‘Talking girlish nonsense, no doubt.’

She couldn’t resist trying to score a point over him. ‘As a matter of fact we were talking about Father Donevan, and how upset he is that I no longer go to church, as I have done for years.’

‘Indeed?’

‘He’d like me to go and have a chat with him, at the presbytery, to explain. I said I would.’ The whole story was largely a fabrication, though she justified it by thinking that Father Donevan would indeed love to have her back in the fold, as she would love to get one over on her uncle. Lucy was enjoying the way he was scowling, for she knew how he hated to be bested by anyone, most of all a Catholic priest.

‘Go to your room. You’ll come to my study before breakfast and I’ll set you some scriptures to learn on the subject of obedience. That’ll teach you for staying out late, and satisfy this sudden craving you have found for religion.’

Lucy experienced such a surge of loathing towards her uncle that she pummelled her pillow till she was utterly exhausted, only wishing it were his sanctimonious face. She had expected her mother to be there in the big bed, ready- to offer comfort, but Polly still wasn’t back from her trip to Cheshire. Moments later she did arrive home but was so obviously tired Lucy said nothing as she slid between the sheets, and within seconds was deeply asleep.

Sleep refused to come for herself, although she was by now outwardly calm. Lucy marvelled that Uncle Joshua couldn’t feel the heat of her anger through the bedroom wall. She felt as if she were walking a tight-rope, and he was just waiting for her to fall off it. She vowed she would take whatever he threw at her without complaint, so long as he didn’t find out about Tom. She was hoping to win her mother round to her side before her uncle discovered the truth. Polly liked Tom Shackleton, and since Dad had died saving his life, surely she would approve.

Downstairs, in his draughty cubby-hole under the stairs, Benny shivered and worried in private, subdued by deep pity for his sister and only too thankful it wasn’t he who had to face Uncle Joshua in the ‘study’ tomorrow. He wondered if bravery was something you acquired more of as you grew older. He’d be thirteen this September. Would that help?

But by morning all Lucy’s good intentions had evaporated and she didn’t even hang around for breakfast, let alone meekly present herself at her uncle’s study. She quitted the house shortly after five-thirty and consequently arrived at the tripe stall an hour early, much to Dorrie’s surprise.

‘By heck, you’re an early bird.’

‘I swear I mean to spend as little time as possible within the four walls of that house, even if it is me own home. How dare he treat me like a child? He’s not even me father, only an uncle. He’s no right to tell me what time to come in or go out.’

‘Ah, like that is it? The baby bird growing up, eh?’ And seeing how the land lay, Dorrie left Lucy to work off her temper by chopping tripe.

Chapter Twenty-Six

In no time at all, it seemed, Polly was asking Lucy to give up her job on the tripe and trotter stall and take over the hand cart on Oldham Street so she could sell the carpet rugs full-time. Lucy was delighted, feeling life had taken a turn for the better. Benny too was feeling much happier. Although his ploy to be accepted by the Eastwood Gang had failed miserably and Georgie continued to harass him, Benny was determined to ignore it because he was so happy to be working for his mam. He still had to attend school, of course, which was boring but wouldn’t last forever. For now, on evenings and weekends he heaved carpets, earning himself enough coppers in tips to go to the flicks twice a week if he wanted. Life was sweet.

Polly herself spent much of her time at the warehouse these days.

She and Big Flo could be found crawling about the floor on their hands and knees, cutting carpet into strips for stairs, rectangles for fireside rugs and bedrooms, and even the odd square for those with the money to buy a decent-sized piece for their parlour. All this work demanded a great deal of stitching and binding, and their fingers became covered in calluses and painful nicks from the scissors. Bob Reckitt’s wife Marge gladly agreed to work with them. Nellie Sidebottom too, once she’d found a neighbour to sit with her sister Betty, since they were in dire need of the money and Polly could pay well.

Everyone complained of aching backs and wrists, eyes blurred from tiredness, but not for a minute would Polly rest or permit anyone else to slacken either. There was no time to lose. Hadn’t she wasted enough already?

Charlie too was making good progress. He’d long since grown tired of asking for work at the various factories. McConnell’s were having a difficult time, Hetherington’s weren’t taking on anyone new at the moment. He’d tried Mackay’s, Allsopp’s, Cooper’s, and many more besides. Now he concentrated on hawking, an unpredictable life style with an unreliable income, but at least he was in charge of his own destiny, just like Polly.

He went down to the Pension Office in Dickinson Street and applied for money out of the King’s Fund. This provided him with a horse and cart, though it meant a slight reduction in his naval pension, and from then on he set about the task in earnest. He would often pick items up while he was out and about on Polly’s behalf. Once they shared the cost of an advertisement in the
Manchester Evening News
. As
a result, notes were delivered to the warehouse by post and by hand, some with details of old carpets people had to sell, others enquiries from people who wished to buy. Polly picked up two more cinema carpets that way, and one from a hotel that had gone bump.
 

She would take a tram, look the carpet over, make a bid and arrange for Charlie to come along later to collect it. Sometimes it had to be cut before it could be moved, with several trips required to transport it all, but no matter how much of a struggle the work was at times, business was brisk and no one was complaining.

Sales at the warehouse became a regular feature, advertised in the local papers. Potential buyers came from far and wide to view the pieces on offer. Her next major task, Polly decided, would be to find more retail outlets, in order to spread her net ever wider. But her first priority was her family.

As
a result of her increased income she was now able to consider moving house. She’d been paying her share for some time at number twenty-three. Joshua collected five shillings a week in rent from her, and seven shillings and sixpence for food, though some weeks he demanded more if he thought the children had eaten too well. Polly paid up gladly, even though she hated the way he continued to control their lives. What she wanted most was freedom, for herself and her children.

One day she took her courage in hand and suggested that Joshua be the one to leave. ‘You only moved in because I was unwell after Matthew’s death. I’m fine now, so if you and Flo want to go elsewhere . . .’