Saturday's Child (10 page)

‘Lily,’ said Magsy, her voice wavering, ‘if a dog could cry tears of joy, we’d be flooded.’

Lily blinked. ‘Aye, well, she’d best behave. I don’t want her taking washing off lines and dragging it about.’ Oh, God, the expression worn by Skinny would have melted
the coldest heart. And look, here she was putting a paw on Lily’s knee. What had happened to her? Had she been a poor racer, had she got herself pregnant and been thrown out?
‘I’ll see you right, lass,’ Lily said quietly. ‘Only remember who’s boss and you’ll not go far wrong.’

The room relaxed, as if the very walls sagged with relief. The issue of Miss Hulme was not raised again. By the time they had settled the dog in an old wash basket containing a khaki blanket,
no-one had sufficient energy to deal with anything further.

Magsy and Beth went home, while Roy Hardcastle went into the business of finding bedding for Skinny-Bones.

Half an hour and two more army blankets later, the bitch was ensconced in a corner of the kitchen. She had always been here; her memory of times past slipped away in the warmth that surrounded
her. She was in the right place, the best place. And nothing else mattered.

Hesford was a robust little village, its main street cobbled and flanked at each side by sturdy, square houses built of rectangular stones. On a slope that reached onward
towards the mountains, its pavements were steep enough to warrant occasional steps, stumbling blocks for many a playing child, the curse of young mothers with prams.

There was just one gap in this monotonous arrangement, another square, a space containing Knowehead, a four-bedroomed detached house of Accrington brick. Most of its curtains remained closed,
although it seemed to watch the road constantly from one particular upstairs pane, yet another oblong shielded by thick lace. Everyone knew about the shrivelled crone labelled Miss Katherine Moore
– and God help anyone who forgot the ‘Miss’. Like the sky, the birds and the weather, Miss Moore was always there, was threaded through the continuum of life, a supervisor, an
onlooker who chose not to take part in Hesford’s small daily ongoings.

She sat there when the new people moved into the shop opposite, watched the young bride in her full-skirted white frock, the groom in a suit too shiny to be new, his withered mother in winter
coat and close-fitting blue hat. Change. Katherine Moore hated change. She hated most things, really, was a bitter person whose small view of the world kept her narrow, unaccepting.

‘Bloody fool,’ she snorted when she watched the new Mrs Barnes moving into the shop, ‘marrying a man old enough to be her father.’ Miss Katherine had never married; no
man had come up to her rigidly set views of correctness, her idea of her own place in society. No mere mortal had ever pleased Katherine’s father, whose temper had been unpredictable even on
the best of days.

She sighed. ‘And I am another fool.’ The voice, unused to exercise, croaked its way out of a parchment-dry throat. There was no-one with whom she could converse. That stupid girl
would be downstairs, no doubt, was probably entertaining one of those young yokels who sneaked up the path from time to time. ‘I should have got out of here,’ she muttered,
‘should have left him to rot.’

But she hadn’t gone, had waited, instead, for Father to die. Had she abandoned him, he might well have left his paltry legacy to a charity, a home for worn-out horses or foxhounds. Damn
him, anyway. How much he had lost, how little she had received after years of drudgery, ‘Yes, Father, no, Father, of course you are right, Father.’

Katherine had never owned a mother. Mother had died on the day of Katherine’s birth, had left Father angry in his grief. In his turn, Bertram Moore had created an ill-tempered daughter,
one who had grown up knowing little of love or forgiveness.

She turned her head and gazed at a blank wall. Had she been able to see through plaster and masonry, Miss Katherine Moore’s eyes would have lighted on the roof of a mansion, a solid pile
with seven bedrooms, servants’ quarters and several acres of land. Father had imbibed it, had converted it to liquid – whisky, gin, brandy. Chedderton Grange was now a school for young
ladies, a place where the daughters of the privileged enjoyed an expensive and thorough education.

As a daughter of the privileged, Katherine was angry. Now in her seventies, she had enjoyed a limited period of learning dealt out by a series of governesses and tutors whose main function had
been to bed her father or to join him in drink, depending on their sex and inclinations. Miss Farquar-Smith had left under a cloud and with a large belly; Mr Collins had finished up in hospital,
had died of a bleeding ulcer caused by alcohol; Miss Bellamy, whose vices had embraced both of Father’s hobbies, had been taken away in an ambulance, her demented screams rending the air as
she was dragged on board.

And here sat the daughter of the landed gentry, a small servant girl her only companion, her days spent fastened to a window through which she saw little, enjoyed nothing. It was the unfairness
of it all that drowned her spirit, though she congratulated herself on needing no alcohol to dampen her soul. Alcoholism ran in families, and she did not intend to follow in her male parent’s
unsteady footsteps.

The door opened. ‘Ready for your dinner, Miss Moore?’ asked the girl.

The girl was pretty in a rather loud way, large brown eyes, home-permed hair, the complexion coarsened by ruddy cheeks, a sure sign of healthy country living. Katherine noticed the insolence in
her tone, a message that spoke volumes about activities below stairs. This one would be pregnant soon, no doubt, would pick names out of a hat until she decided which bumpkin she should trap.
‘I am not hungry,’ she replied.

‘Cup o’ tea, then?’

‘Later, thank you.’

A slight raising of the servant’s shoulder conveyed a nonchalant attitude. She had to go. Katherine sighed. Here she sat, three score and ten already achieved, with a few months added on
for good measure. How many of these girls had she been through in recent years?

‘But you’ve got to take your tablets,’ wheedled Phyllis Hart. She wanted to be off, needed to grab a couple of hours before returning to tidy up Miss Katherine for the
night.

‘My arthritis is slightly better today.’

Phyllis could not have cared less. This miserable old devil deserved the pain – she never spoke a word of thanks, never offered a smile. In fact, if the biddy were to smile, her dried-up
face might well snap into two pieces.

‘I’ve got to get back to me mam, miss.’

Katherine nodded. The chit did not want to get to her home – she probably had an assignation with some spotty youth, a plan to give herself away yet again to anyone with the price of a
chocolate bar. ‘Then go,’ she said.

Alone once more, the crippled woman picked up her sticks and dragged her aching body across the landing into a rear bedroom. From here she could see her back garden, was able to focus on the
summer house. A wooden structure, it was built around a chimney breast of brick, so it was possible to keep a fire going on cool evenings. It had a porch all round, three rooms and a primitive
kitchen. ‘I’ll do it,’ she stated aloud. ‘I shall make sure that the place is weatherproof, then I shall advertise.’ She was sick to the core of feckless young women.
It was time to hire someone more mature, a female who could be on the spot and on call at all times. She would advertise in the
Bolton Evening News
, would get a woman from the town. Said
woman could live in the summer house – it could be furnished with bits and pieces from the attic of Knowehead.

Sighing, Katherine sank onto a spare bed. Her life was pain and pain was her life. The tablets took the edge off the misery, but only death offered a promise of complete release. Trapped
upstairs within easy reach of the bathroom, she had not visited the ground floor of her own house for almost a year. Soon, it would be Christmas. Christmas would mean little but more misery, as the
girl’s visit would be brief, just a few sandwiches and a flask of tea to last all day. This was no way to live.

‘You have two choices,’ she informed herself. ‘You can take all the tablets in one go, or you can hire live-in help.’

For a reason best known to her subconscious, she opted for the latter. The urge to continue alive in this valley of unhappiness remained strong even now. It was not yet time to die.

Rachel Barnes could not work herself out at all.

She had a wonderful new husband who would probably worship her for ever, a kind mother-in-law, a shop and a house with plenty of space, acres of space when compared to the hovel she had shared
with her parents and siblings. Yet she managed to be lonely.

‘You’ll get used to it, love,’ Dot had told her on several occasions. ‘Everything takes time.’

Rachel wondered. There was something about a big family, she concluded, and she had taken it for granted for too long. How badly she had wanted her own room, how often she had needed to jump the
queue for a quick morning swill in the scullery sink.

But she missed the music, the fights, the constant flow of emotions and ideas that emanated from her father, her mother, from the other girls, from Thomas, who was now Grogan-Higgins. There were
few secrets in the Higgins household, because privacy was a luxury enjoyed by none when such a crowd lived in conditions so close, so crushed.

It was the silence, then. Even at work, Rachel’s world had been noisy, the clatter of spinning mules, the shouting of comrades who, rendered half deaf by exposure to machinery, were
boisterous when tramping homeward in the evenings. This place was so quiet. Even when the shop was busy, folk spoke in muted tones until they arrived at the front of the queue waiting to be
served.

The shop was wonderful. It had two distinct sides – one for ironmongery, the other for general groceries, sweets, tobacco and newspapers. Frank looked after the hardware, while Rachel and
Dot, firm friends from the start, worked opposite him at a long polished counter.

Behind the shop there was a large living room, a scullery and a washroom with its own toilet. Never before had Rachel or Dot enjoyed the luxury of indoor sanitary arrangements. Upstairs, three
bedrooms and another bathroom completed the living quarters. Rachel and Frank had a large bedroom, while Dot, who had turned the second bedroom into a sitting room for herself, slept in the
smallest, just space for a bed, a chest of drawers, a chair and a makeshift wardrobe with a curtain instead of a door. Dot, anxious not to interfere, lived a life as far away as possible from her
son and his wife. She cooked, cleaned, worked in the shop, then listened to the wireless in her own room.

Rachel felt guilty. Christmas was almost here, and all she wanted was to be with Mam and Dad. There would be few presents, yet John and Sal would provide the yearly jigsaw, a puzzle of many
parts that would take up the whole kitchen table for days, its presence forcing the family to take meals while perched on the edge of the beds in the front room. The melodeon would be on hand,
carols would be sung, two chickens would be stretched to feed the whole happy band. Irish potato cakes, soda bread, pounds and pounds of potatoes, the favourite filler of many Irish bellies.

‘This is your family now,’ Rachel advised herself aloud on several occasions. But it wouldn’t be the same, could never be the same. She simply had to get used to it, and that
was that.

Then she noticed the house across the way, was suddenly keen to know about the inhabitants, the lack of movement, and she stopped thinking about herself.

Phyllis Hart offered the story while buying two slices of boiled ham and a small Turog loaf. ‘She’s a miserable old woman,’ the girl announced to a shop that was empty except
for herself and Rachel. ‘Has to take pills for her arthritis.’ The girl sniffed. ‘And she pays rotten wages, too.’

Rachel weighed the ham. ‘Will she have Christmas with her family?’

‘She hasn’t got no family.’

‘No-one at all?’

Phyllis raised a careless shoulder. ‘Me mam says she used to be posh. They had a big house a few miles away down in a dip – you can’t hardly see it unless you climb up on a
roof, like. It’s a school now.’

Rachel passed the merchandise across the counter, dropped money into the till drawer, handed out the change. ‘So she’ll be all alone on Christmas Day?’

‘I’ll go in to give her some dinner, like, but she doesn’t want nobody, really. She just sits at that window all day.’ Phyllis pointed across the road. ‘That one
there. She’ll be staring at us now. There’s not much happens round here what she doesn’t know about. But she says nowt. Get blood out of a stone easier than words out of her, me
mam says.’

Rachel decided that this was a shame. That very evening, while sharing a meal with Frank and Dot, Rachel announced her intentions.

‘But you can’t do that, love,’ exclaimed Dot. ‘From what you say, she can’t hardly walk. How’s she going to get here?’

Rachel smiled sweetly at her husband. ‘Frank can carry her.’

Frank dropped his fork, depositing a shower of pickled red cabbage in his hotpot. ‘You what?’

‘Carry her,’ Rachel repeated.

Frank glanced from his wife to his mother, back to his wife. ‘I can’t go dragging a woman across the road,’ he cried. ‘She could have me up for assault.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Dot, ‘and from what I’ve heard, she likely will.’

Rachel grinned, the width of her smile announcing that she was confident of her ability to twist Frank right round her little finger – plus five times round the block. She would be happy,
she would. Anyone would be happy with Frank Barnes.

He tutted, lowered his gaze so that he might avoid that vision of perfection, clouds of dark hair tumbling to shoulders he had kissed, eyes of brightest sapphire, skin smoother than silk. And
the way she responded, uninhibited, joyful, unselfish. He knew that he was beginning to blush . . .

‘Frank?’

He studied his plate. ‘What?’

‘She shouldn’t be on her own, not at Christmas.’

Dot tried not to smile. She knew that these two were enjoying each other, though she did her best not to listen to the sounds created by lovemaking. Let them be like this for always, she begged
inwardly. She knew that Rachel was about to get her own way, but she would offer no further counsel.