Secrets to Keep (6 page)

He scraped back his chair and stood up, saying, ‘I’d better get to the chip shop before it shuts.’

Aidy too had heard the parlour door announce its opening and knew her grandmother had finished her task and was now on her way to join them. It was besides a lame excuse he’d used to make his escape as Hattie Cheadle who operated her fish and chip business from her front room, taking orders and handing them over through the open sash window, wouldn’t close up until she was absolutely positive there were no more customers to be had that night, needing every penny as she did to support her invalid husband and ten children. But Aidy fully understood her husband’s need to make an escape. Very few men were of use in emotional times like this, and all the rest merely looked on helplessly, not knowing what to say or do, and generally getting under the women’s feet. Before he left she would have liked a comforting hug from him, but men like her husband did not make displays of emotion in public. The most Arch would do if others were around was give her a peck on her cheek.

He gave her a hurried one now and then shot out the back door.

Bertha looked surprised to find her granddaughter alone when she arrived a moment later. ‘I thought I heard voices?’

‘You did. It was Arch. I’ve packed him off home.’

‘Best place for him. There’s n’ote he can do here. I’m just glad word hasn’t got around yet about Jessie. I couldn’t be doing with people calling tonight. They’ll be around in droves when word does get out, though. My daughter was a popular woman.’ Bertha looked searchingly at her granddaughter. Aidy looked liked death. For Bertha herself losing a daughter was bad enough, but Aidy had lost her mother, and so unexpectedly, with no chance for a goodbye. Without a word, Bertha headed off into the pantry, returning moments later with a bottle in her hand. Selecting a pot cup from several that hung from hooks under a shelf on the wall, she bustled back to the table, put the cup down on it, uncorked the bottle and poured a generous measure of greenish-looking liquid into it. She forced the cork back into the bottle, then picked up the cup and thrust it at Aidy. ‘Drink that,’ she ordered.

Aidy looked dubiously at it. ‘What is it?’

‘Summat that’ll do yer good.’

She took a sniff, grimacing. ‘God, that smells vile.’

‘How many times have I told yer? The worse it
smells, the better it is for yer. It’s one of me potions for soothing upsets. Now get it down yer.’

‘Where’s yours then?’ Aidy challenged her.

‘I had a draught earlier. Now, for God’s sake, will you do as you’re told?’

Aidy knew she might as well get it over with as her grandmother would stand over her until she did. In truth, though, she could do with something to lift, even a fraction, her misery for the loss of the woman who had meant so much to her. She knocked back the thick liquid in the cup, giving a violent shudder. It tasted even worse than it smelled.

Handing the empty cup back to her grandmother, she looked at Bertha hard. She was worried about the old lady who looked as if she had aged ten years during the past couple of hours, though that wasn’t surprising considering the shock she’d received.

‘How are you bearing up, Gran?’ Aidy asked.

‘Well, I’m not going to go the same way I did when yer granddad passed, so yer needn’t be worriting yerself about that. I had a good chat with yer mother when I was seeing to her in the parlour, and I made her a promise that I was going to stay strong for the family on her behalf. I’m determined to.’

Aidy smiled wanly at her. ‘When I was sitting in here earlier nursing Marion, I made Mam the same promise, Gran.’

Bertha tenderly patted her shoulder. ‘Then,
between us, we’ll make sure we all get through this.’ But she took a deep breath, worry clouding her face. ‘I’m not sure how I’m going to manage from now on without a bit of help, though, me duck. I wish I were younger and wouldn’t need to burden you. It’s not like your own life ain’t full enough as it is.’

Aidy frowned up at her, bemused. ‘Help? With what?’

‘Well, the gels can help with the housework and some of the lighter jobs, but it’s the heavy part that’s worrying me. I ain’t as strong as I used to be.’

Even more bemused, Aidy asked, ‘The heavy part of what?’

‘Well, while I was seeing to Jessie, I was racking me brains for how I could earn our keep, and as I can’t see anyone taking me on at my age, the only option I’ve got is to do what she did. I’ll move out of the bedroom I shared with yer mam and give that over to a lodger. I’ll use a Put-u-up down here. And I’m gonna take in washing and ironing. I was wondering if yer think Arch would light the fire under the copper for me before he went to work each morning, and if you could see yer way to coming home at dinnertime and helping me with the mangling? I wish I didn’t have to put this on yer, but I’ve no choice. I need to provide a living for the kids and meself in whatever way I can.’

Aidy gawped at her. The shock of her mother’s
sudden death had been all-consuming. She hadn’t given the serious matter of how life should carry on from here without Jessie a thought. Aidy’s heart swelled with love for the elderly, worried-looking woman standing beside her. It took a special person at her advanced age to propose undertaking what she had just suggested doing for the sake of her family. And it wasn’t just talk on her part either. But whatever the answer was to their serious problem, it was not going to involve her gran labouring over other people’s dirty washing twelve hours a day, or labouring at all at her age, Aidy was adamant on that. She knew inside that there was only one answer to this situation. ‘You needn’t be worrying about any of that, Gran. Arch and me will be moving in here and taking care of you all.’

Bertha looked appalled by the very idea. ‘Oh, but you’re both young with your own lives to be getting on with and …’

Aidy held up a warning hand. ‘You’re our family, Gran. I don’t want to hear another word on the matter.’

Bertha heaved a deep sigh of relief. ‘Well, I can’t deny that’s a load off my mind, Aidy. But what about Arch? Will he be agreeable?’

‘Of course he will, how can you ask? He’ll see, like me, that us moving in here makes sense.’

Bertha had to agree, it did, although she still felt
it a great shame that she wasn’t more bodily able, and then the burden of caring for herself and the youngsters wouldn’t be down to her granddaughter and her husband. But Bertha had always pulled her weight around the house as much as she could, and would continue to do so. She said to Aidy, ‘You finally got Marion to settle down then?’

Aidy sighed heavily. ‘Arch took her up to bed. They’re all asleep, bless them. Exhausted themselves with all their crying.’

‘And with a little help from the sleeping potion I gave them in their milk before I went through to see to laying out Jessie,’ Bertha informed her. Then she asked, ‘Are you feeling the effects of what I’ve just given you yet?’

Aidy appraised herself. Considering all the pentup anger she was experiencing at her mother being taken from them so young and without any warning, she was surprised to find she did indeed feel a kind of calm seeping through her. ‘I’m not sure what it’s doing, but it’s doing something to me. I feel sort of relaxed … like you do when you’ve had a couple of glasses of port.’

Bertha looked happy with her response. ‘That’s just what my potion is supposed to do. If you want any more, just say.’ As she eased herself down on a chair opposite Aidy, the young woman got up and went across to the stove, collected a cup and saucer
and poured her grandmother a cup of tea. Putting it before her, she sat back down in her own chair, saying, ‘I know that’ll taste better than what you just made me drink.’

Bertha managed a small chuckle. Picking up the cup, she warmed her hands around it before she took a sip of the hot, sweet liquid.

Aidy asked her, ‘Did you manage to do what you went through to the parlour to do, Gran?’

Bertha nodded. ‘I did. Jessie always liked to look her best and she looks beautiful now, bless her. I put on her best blue dress … the one she wore for your wedding. She loved that dress. Only one she ever had that was bought new from a shop. Took that extra job so she could save for it, she did. She so wanted to look nice for you. And she did, didn’t she? I know she wasn’t the religious sort, but I found the Bible the Sunday School gave her when she was a child and she’s holding that. She just looks like she’s asleep, Aidy love. So peaceful. I shall be sitting with her tonight. I can’t bear the thought of her being left alone.’

Normally the thought of being in the vicinity of a dead body would have revolted Aidy, frightened her even, but the body was that of her beloved mother, and her grandmother would be there, so she offered, ‘Would you like company, Gran?’

The old lady reached over one thin, veined hand
and gave Aidy’s an affectionate pat. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better, if you feel you’d like to. I know your mam would appreciate it.’

They both lapsed into silence then, acutely aware this would be the last time the three of them would be together.

Taking another sip of her tea, Bertha’s aged face darkened as she spat, ‘I blame
him
for Jessie’s death.’

Aidy looked at her knowingly. ‘By
him
you mean me dad?’

‘That man doesn’t deserve the honour of being called yer father. He’s never been one to you, or to your brother and sisters. And Arnold Greenwood was certainly no husband to yer mother after you came along. If he hadn’t left Jessie high and dry, to fend single handed for her brood, she wouldn’t have worn herself out trying to make ends meet, causing her heart to give out. And he didn’t leave her just once, did he?
Twice
he did it.’ Bertha shook her head, her face set grim. ‘I took an instant dislike to the man the first time I clapped eyes on him when she brought him home to meet me and yer granddad. Yer granddad never took to him either. Don’t ask me why, but there was just something about him we didn’t like. It wasn’t a happy day like it should have been, the day she married him, not for me and yer granddad, but Jessie had made her choice and there was n’ote we could do but grin and bear it.

‘We did think we was wrong about him at first ’cos they were very happy together and he seemed to be being a good husband to her. He’d a reasonably paid job as a dyer for Corah, which gave him the means to rent this place, and he handed her a good portion of his wage for her housekeeping. But then he changed after you came along.

‘’Course, me and yer granddad didn’t really know any of this until after he’d left. Yer mam didn’t want to worry us about the way he was treating her, and she was ashamed that her marriage was going wrong. Every time we visited she’d put on an act that it was all right, so for a long time we thought it was. She told us after he’d left that not long after you were born, Arnold started going out at nights, leaving her home caring for you, and of course he needed money to fund his outings so he cut her housekeeping. And
then
he’d have the nerve to complain about the cheaper food she put in front of him, and the fact that the house wasn’t as warm as he liked it because she had to be sparing with the fuel. He would give her hell too if you made a noise and disturbed his peace.’

Bertha paused long enough to finish off her tea, putting the cup back in its saucer, then pushing it towards Aidy by way of informing her she’d like a refill. Aidy already knew the story of her parents’ failed marriage but her grandmother obviously felt a need to re-tell it so she patiently listened.

When Aidy got up to oblige with her refill, Bertha continued, ‘Arnold left the first time without any warning whatsoever. You were three at the time. Jessie got up one morning and he’d gone, taken all his belongings with him as well as the rent money. Walked out of his job too. I’d no doubt he’d gone off with another woman and, deep down, although she never actually came out with it, I know that’s what Jessie suspected too. Naturally she was very upset at the time, but there was some relief too that she hadn’t to put up with his shenanigans any longer and keep thinking up excuses to cover for his absence whenever we popped in, as we frequently did. Now she’d be left in peace to raise you on her own and let you play and cause as much noise as you liked without
him
having a go at her. She was terrified, though, how she was going to manage without yer dad’s wage coming in, worried about not being able to earn enough to keep this house on and having to raise you in the sort Pat Nelson lives in. Thankfully, though, she found a job the first day she started looking.

‘While she went to work, I looked after you for her. Jessie loved her job. Mrs Crabtree treated her like gold, paid her a decent amount for her cooking and housework duties, and any leftover food, Jessie was allowed to bring home. Well, Jessie being Jessie she always saw to it that me and yer granddad got a
share, and the neighbours too if there was enough. Mrs Crabtree was always giving Jessie her old clothes, some she’d hardly worn … got money to burn, she had, her husband being some bigwig for a firm in town … and that meant some of the clothes she was given, Jessie could use the fabric to make up things for you. Mother and daughter were at one time the best dressed around these parts, thanks to Mrs Crabtree and much to the envy of lots of the folks around here. So what with taking in a lodger too, Jessie managed just fine moneywise.’

A smile twitched at the old lady’s lips. ‘You remember Claudia Badger, don’t you, Aidy? Who could ever forget her? I never knew quite what to make of her, meself. She dressed like a floozy in low-cut blouses and tight skirts, had her hair bleached and styled like that film star Greta Garbo … no, that’s not the one … Jean … Jean Harlow. And she worked for Woolie’s as a counter assistant, selling cheap make-up and costume jewellery, and always had some bloke in tow. At first I thought Jessie was out of her mind, choosing her when she could have had her pick from lots at the time wanting good lodgings. I thought Claudia the type who would take advantage and abuse Jessie’s hospitality, but she wouldn’t listen to me ’cos she had taken to Claudia above all the others who’d wanted her room, and that was that.