Polly's War (14 page)

All of this put more pressure on her as the bread winner. She spent night after night with her little piles of coins, juggling finances, robbing Peter to pay Paul. She’d heard of a loom going cheap, out Hebden Bridge way and she meant to have it. She was determined to break into manufacturing as the best way forward. Perhaps then Benny would come in with her. She knew that a business either expanded or died, and she wasn’t prepared to let that happen.

Never short on courage yet this seemed an enormous risk. And buying the loom was only the beginning. She’d need more than one, lots more, and there were bobbins, spools, work benches and fitted shelving called cribs needed to hold the raw wool; a machine to wash the wool, and maybe another to dye it. Money would need to be found for all of this. Polly wondered if perhaps she was getting too old to face the risks involved but then would chide herself for such self pity. She could do anything she wanted to do, she told herself. Always had.

But tired as she was, how could she find the patience to deal with an obstinate son blocking her plans, on top of everything else?

Today the argument had blown up again because she’d insisted Benny stand in for Charlie whose knees had swollen up so much he could barely stand, let alone deliver carpets. It was true that Benny had done the work, as asked, but Polly wasn’t in the mood to listen to him blathering on about his dreams and fantasies. She felt only irritation that this young whippersnapper could stand in her own office after a single day’s shift and think himself an expert on a business she’d devoted her life to. Now he was saying he might come in with her after all, if she made him a full partner and let him have an equal say.

Polly pooh-poohed this ridiculous notion and told him in her no-nonsense way that he could start at the bottom like everyone else. But Benny had a chip on his shoulder after six years of being told what to do, and absolutely refused this option.

‘You’d soon learn and move up the ladder,’ Polly snapped. ‘I mean to get into manufacturing one day, once we have some money coming in and can afford to buy looms and equipment. Second-hand carpets are what got us started in the first place. It’s what we do best. Cleaning and steaming is our bread and butter, as it was for a number of years before the war.’

Benny pulled a face, still not satisfied. ‘The war’s over and done with, Mam. It’s history. Now it’s time to move on. You shouldn’t wait too long. After all, you could always borrow on the house.’

‘I don’t like to borrow.’ Polly was loathe to abandon the skills she’d acquired through those hard early years, insisting that it was surely not impossible to move forward with new ideas while hanging on to the old. ‘I don’t want to take any risks till I can find the capital.’

Benny scoffed at this. ‘Everyone borrows in business. Anyroad, there are other things that’ll make more money without buying looms and taking on too much labour. We could sell furniture and household goods for instance. Belinda’s father makes a fortune out of stuff like that.’

Polly put back her head and laughed at him. ‘So now we’re to become a grand furniture store are we, or is it a huge joinery factory you’ve a mind for?’ She clicked her tongue with annoyance. ‘Tush! And where do ye imagine we’d find the capital to expand the business in such a way?’

Benny’s voice took on a sense of urgency as he leaned across her desk, eagerness lighting his young face. ‘Listen to me for a minute Mam. If you’re short of capital, you shouldn’t be wasting it on second hand stuff, or on all these workers you have to employ to deal with old carpets.’ He waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the humming work room. ‘All that expensive labour. Is it worth it? You’d do better lending your money to me. I’m young. I’m the future. With enough capital behind me I could buy a proper shop, in the city centre, and really make my way. All you have to do is back me.’

Polly gaped at him. ‘So now my carpet business is as dead as the dodo is it, and I should give all my money to you? I don’t think so.’

Benny scowled. ‘You’ll do nowt for me, will you?’

‘I’ve done
everything
for you, ye daft galoot, if only you’d the sense to see it. One minute partnerships, the next a fancy shop. I’m thinking ye should get your feet planted back on this earth with all speed.’ She didn’t mention that the last time he’d had his head in the clouds, he’d mislaid his grandmother who later died, but it was there somehow, in her face as she confronted him.

Benny’s greeny-grey eyes, so like Polly’s own, flashed with anger at his mother’s intransigence. ‘And I reckon its time you came out of the ark, time you listened to someone else’s ideas besides your own.’

Polly was shocked to the core. She was on her feet, fists planted on the desk in front of her as she glared across at him. ‘Will you listen to his divil tongue? I’m old and past it am I? Out of the ark, am I? Haven’t I paid a high enough price for this business in the past?’ She certainly had no intention of giving it up because her son had taken some daft notion into his head to sell furniture from a fancy shop in the centre of the city. She shook a fist in his startled face. ‘Find the money some other way. I’ll not finance your crack-brained schemes. Leave me out of it.’

He was shouting at her in his desperation. ‘Watch me then, and don’t think for one minute that I won’t succeed.’ And with this parting shot he tossed the van keys on to his mother’s desk and strode out of her office, slamming the door behind him.

Benny was tired and in a foul mood as he marched home. He hated quarrelling with his mother in that way. Why had he done it? He knew the reason. Because he was keen to have his own business then he could ask Belinda to marry him. Hadn’t he bragged from the start how he was going to be his own man? What would she think of him if he failed? What chance would he have with her then?

He might’ve agreed to go in with Mam if she’d let him have some say, been a full partner. But no, everything had to be done her way, the way things had always been done. Why couldn’t she understand that he needed to make his mark, not be an underling. He’d no time for starting at the bottom, even if being part of an expanding business like Pride Carpets might win him a bit more credibility with Belinda’s family. He wasn’t totally against the idea, but nobody would listen to
his
. And he knew why. It was because of Big Flo. The whole family still blamed him for his grandmother’s death, and it mortified him.

His first call as he turned into Pansy street was to Benson’s Corner Shop for more cigarettes.
 
He usually had plenty of fags but he’d finished the packet during that boring delivery run. He was wasted driving a van. If only he could make Mam listen. Benny swaggered out again and strode off, looking about him with the air of a man who knew he was on his way up in spite of an ill-fitting suit and pathetically few quid in his pocket.

Since it was a Saturday he expected Lucy to be at home, perhaps even Belinda as well if the two girls had been to a matinee. They’d have his tea ready for him and a bottle of stout to go with it. Benny rather enjoyed this sort of attention after six years of war and NAAFI food, particularly if he could share it with Belinda.

He’d promised to take her out for a drink tonight, or to the flicks. He could hardly wait to see her again, but then he was always like this before one of their meetings, all tense and sick feeling inside. He wondered if she felt the same when she was waiting to see him. He really must convince her that he was going all the way to the top. It was his only chance. If she thought he was a no-hoper, she’d drop him like a stone.

He found the door locked and the house in darkness. Women, he thought. Completely unreliable. The silent, empty house seemed to echo the awfulness of his day, convincing Benny that not a soul cared. In a fit of pique he took himself off to the Crown on Byrom Street. Here he downed a couple of pints, relating at length his plans for the future to anyone who cared to listen. This cheered him a little and at half past seven he decided the girls must have arrived home by now and be wondering where he was. He liked the idea of Belinda worrying about him but he couldn’t bear to wait any longer, besides he was feeling a bit peckish, ready for his supper.

He was passing the end of Camp Street when a dark figure suddenly lurched out of the shadows. The next minute he was flat on the ground with his nose pressed hard into the pavement.

‘Were you wanting your thumbs cut off?’

Benny tried to speak, to say that he didn’t but couldn’t seem to manage it. His teeth were grinding into the paving stones and an elbow was applying painful pressure on the back of his neck, which was having a disastrous effect on his windpipe. Then he felt his head lifted by a hand grasping a fistful of hair and shaken vigorously from side to side.

‘Is that a no?’

‘Yes,’ he croaked. ‘No. Yes.’ He was growing confused, could feel the wet dribble of blood on his chin and he wondered how many teeth he’d broken.

‘I’m glad to see you’re paying attention,’ The voice was calm, controlled and entirely unfamiliar. Benny had terrible memories of being bullied as a boy and wasn’t taking kindly to this treatment. He’d thought himself past all of that and could feel a terrible rage gathering in his veins.

‘Get your bleedin’ hands off me before ...’

‘Before what? I don’t reckon you’re in any position to make threats, do you?’ The face came down close, the voice hissing in his ear, so soft and melodious it sounded like rushing water. ‘I’m here to ask - nay - to
inform
you to leave Belinda alone. Right? Lay one finger on her, or try to see her again, and I’ll chop them fingers and thumbs of yours right off, followed by your chattering tongue. Do you understand that, soldier boy?’

Benny might have grunted a response, had he been able. Fury was soaring through his rigid limbs, his vision blurred with a haze of red fury but his position, face down on the hard unyielding pavement with the weight of the man on top left him helpless. If he could just break free he’d paste the floor with the bastard.

‘The message comes from her father. He doesn’t like to be crossed, doesn’t our dad.’ Benny’s head was jerked upwards for one last neck-crunching twist before being smashed down on to the pavement. He never heard the terrible ringing sound it made, as blackness crashed in.

Chapter Nine

Lucy had indeed gone to the Saturday afternoon matinee with Belinda. They didn’t hurry home because they knew that the children were with Doris-next-door, that Polly would still be at the warehouse, trying to cope with a pile of paperwork and worrying over how she should develop the business. For once Benny would be there too, helping with deliveries. Do him good to put in a full day’s work, Lucy thought.

It had started to rain and they were sheltering in a doorway when they saw the shop.

‘Look at this.’ Belinda was staring through the filthy windows. ‘What did this used to be?’

This used to be Netta Abram’s tripe shop. She sold the best pig’s trotters I’ve ever tasted. What a delicacy.’

‘What happened to her?’

‘She died.’ Lucy filled her mouth with hot fish cake, spitting bread crumbs as she talked. ‘She was reluctant to go, mind, her only being ninety-eight at the time.’

They were both now peering through the dirt-encrusted glass but someone had painted it on the inside so it was impossible to see in. ‘Wouldn’t this be just the thing for Benny?’ Belinda said.

‘Our Benny? I thought he was looking for summat grander.’ Lucy rubbed at the filthy glass, aghast at the very idea.

Belinda pointed out that the best thing the shop had to recommend it was its position. Situated as it was so close to the Co-op it would never be short of customers, assuming it had something of interest to sell. She sounded optimistic, almost excited. ‘Why not? It’s what he wants, to make furniture. He talks about it often.’

‘Aye, that’s the way he is. All talk. He’d never have the gumption to actually do it.’ Lucy wiped her mouth and looked at Belinda with curiosity. ‘I can’t make you out, a girl from Cherry Crescent going with a chap like our Benny. He’s a bit of a rough diamond, you know. Harmless enough but not the brightest creature on two legs.’

Belinda smiled. ‘Perhaps I find him a refreshing change after the hypocrisy and snobbiness in my own family, not to mention the endless machinations of my father to find me a husband.’

Lucy gave a snort of laughter. ‘Well you’re safe enough there with our Benny. He’d run a mile at sign of a wedding ring.’ She popped a chip in her mouth. ‘What about your own brother? What does he do?’ Lucy had noticed that Belinda rarely spoke of her own family.

‘Ron managed to spend the duration working part time for the post office delivering mail, and the rest feathering his own nest, as you might say.’ Belinda frowned as she wondered, not for the first time, just how he’d managed to evade the call up. ‘He’s in the business with Pops. Bit of a yes man, to be honest, which suits my father down to the ground.

‘And you’re the opposite?’

‘Seems so.’

‘Well, don’t expect our Benny to follow in your father’s footsteps. He couldn’t win an argument, let alone run his own business. Forget it.’

Belinda wasn’t listening. ‘Let’s look inside, for goodness sake. I’m soaked through,’ giving a push that made the door swing open.

‘Hey, what you doing?’ Lucy had exactly twenty minutes to spare, then she must collect the children from Doris-next-door, and she’d promised to peel some potatoes for Polly and Charlie’s supper. Both girls stepped inside and at once put their hands to their noses in disgust.