The Girl From Penny Lane (24 page)

‘They don’t cost a lot because there’s so much unemployment in the Pool. They’re all unemployed during the day and they make a bit at night by playing for places like this. They’re rather good though, don’t you think?’

‘Awful good,’ Nellie said. ‘The trumpeter keeps smiling at you, Li. He seems a nice young man.’

‘Oh, that’s Spudsy Bishop. I was at school with him . . . well, I wasn’t actually since he was at St Ant’s, but I knew him pretty well. He was in Art’s class, in fact.’

‘Oh. Does he . . . do you . . . ?’

Lilac laughed.

‘No he doesn’t and we don’t! I’ve no time, Nell, and precious little inclination to tell you the truth. I’m . . . I’m still waiting for . . . for . . .’

‘Good,’ Nellie said, nodding her head decisively. ‘You’re right to do so. He’ll come back, I’m sure of it.’

Lilac took the Gallaghers to the hotel of course, and the staff were charmed by Elizabeth and pronounced Nellie and Stuart a very pleasant young couple. Mrs Brierson insisted on entertaining them to coffee and biscuits in her suite of private rooms and told Nellie that she valued Lilac very highly.

It was what Nellie most wanted to hear. And when Stuart tactfully took Lilac for a walk whilst Nellie saw to the baby, his first remark was a promise that Nellie should not hear what he was about to say.

‘That sounds bad,’ Lilac said rather apprehensively. Stuart had gone off visiting friends a couple of times, leaving the girls in the flat together. Newspapermen being the way they were, Lilac guessed that Stuart might have enquired about The Waterfront Academy of Modern Dance and its proprietresses, Miss Lilac and Miss Charlotte.

‘I wouldn’t say it was bad, chuck, but you must be careful. A feller told me that when you started the dancing school it was widely believed you were running quite a different business from what you advertised – get me?’

‘Yes. I
told
Charlotte that would happen but she said so long as the fellers came and saw for themselves, it wouldn’t matter. And it hasn’t mattered, not really. We’re very respectable now.’

‘Oh aye, now you are, so I won’t reproach you – but you wouldn’t want Art hearing rumours about you and perhaps believing them, would you?’

‘My God . . . you don’t think . . . is
that
why . . .’

Stuart laughed and squeezed her arm reassuringly.

‘No, I’m sure it isn’t. But two young girls running a business have to be whiter than white, chuck. When you start your own hotel, and Mrs Brierson seems to think you will one day, then your reputation must be above reproach. So bear it in mind, eh?’

‘I will,’ Lilac said fervently. ‘And I’m ever so grateful to you for not saying anything to Nell, because she’d be upset and there was nothing like that, I promise you.’

‘You don’t have to promise me; I know it. Come on, better turn round and go back to the flat or Nellie will wonder what we’ve been discussing for so long.’

On the Monday, Nellie and Stuart went the rounds saying goodbye, telling everyone it wouldn’t be long before they came home, promising to write. Their train left at noon, so Lilac offered to take Elizabeth out for a walk whilst her parents packed and Nellie was delighted to have the child taken care of whilst she and Stuart were busy.

It was a very cold morning. Elizabeth was warmly wrapped up in a bright red coat and hat, with sturdy shoes on her tiny feet when she set off with her aunt. But she couldn’t walk far, and since she had greeted Lilac’s suggestion of going down to the docks with great enthusiasm, Lilac ended up carrying her most of the way.

Elizabeth loved the shipping. Down to the pierhead the two of them trundled, then along the docks, Elizabeth now walking, now riding triumphantly in her aunt’s arms. She still wasn’t talking much, though she could mum-mum and dada-dada with the best, but she could wave, and smile, and crow with delight and she did a great deal of it as Lilac pointed out the big ships, the water, the bustling people on deck.

They reached the deep-water berth where a big liner was about to sail and stood watching the preparations for a bit. Elizabeth jumped up and down, sat on her well-padded bottom, allowed Lilac to lift her up onto her shoulders the better to see what all the noise and bustle was about.

Just before the liner steamed out, Stuart joined them. He took the baby from Lilac and the three of them waved enthusiastically to the crowds on deck, most of whom waved good-naturedly back.

‘Wasn’t that fun, queen?’ Stuart said to Elizabeth as they turned away to return to the flat. ‘Now let’s hope you’ve been so active that you’ll sleep all the way to Balham!’

Art saw them. He had prowled the city, waited outside the bag and sack factory, even visited the house in Lord Nelson Street where Lilac had lodged, and gone round to 39 Penny Lane. He had had no luck, but then he didn’t rightly know if he wanted any luck. He wanted to see her yet he dreaded it – rightly, as it turned out.

He had signed on as assistant purser again, but this time on a much smaller liner, one that crossed the Atlantic less with party-going in mind than business trips. He had been working hard ever since the passengers began to come on board and stopped for a moment when the flow slackened, went over to the porthole in his crowded office for a breath of fresh air.

She was there, within thirty feet of him, her beautiful hair tugged loose by the wind and by the baby in her arms, looking up at the ship as she began to steam out of her berth, waving, smiling.

He stood as if turned to stone. He could only stare, whilst all the unacknowledged, subconscious hopes he’d nursed for the past year crumbled to dust.

They were getting smaller, smaller . . . Lilac just a tiny figurine, the babe a dot in her arms . . . and then a man approached them. He took the baby, held it comfortably in one arm, put the other gently round Lilac’s waist for a moment. Then the three of them waved and waved . . .

‘Mr O’Brien, if you’ve nothing better to do, perhaps you could give me a hand with these figures?’

Art turned away from the scene. There were tears in his eyes, tear-tracks down his cheeks. He rubbed at his face fiercely, trying to calm himself, but the purser, who had reminded him of his duty, was looking down at the pages on the desk.

‘Sorry, sir,’ Art said huskily. ‘Saw someone I thought I knew. Pass the stuff over, I’ll get on with it now.’

Chapter Nine

The year that Kitty was fourteen, Maldwyn bought her a proper dress. Before, she’d scrimped and saved out of her egg money or any bit of cash she was paid for anything and kept herself in working clothes, but this time Maldwyn said she should have the dress and Johnny, looking at her critically as they washed up after their meal, agreed.

‘You’ve growed out o’ everything you’ve got, Kit,’ he said. ‘Kecks is fine for workin’ in, but you want a decent dress for market days an’ that.’

‘I can buy a skirt,’ Kitty protested. She looked down at herself and noticed, for the first time, how much leg stuck out at the ends of her trousers and how much wrist from the ends of her shirt-sleeves. ‘Anyway, I’ve gorra skirt, come to think. Won’t that do?’

‘It iss not good enough for what I’ve got in mind, lass,’ Maldwyn said. ‘Look, Johnny’ll tell ye.’

He limped off, a huge man, shy as a girl and as gentle as one, too.

Kitty turned to Johnny. ‘What’s ’e mean? What’s ’e gorrin mind, Johnny?’

‘It’s the farm,’ Johnny said slowly. ‘Maldwyn wants us to ’ave it when ’e’s dead an’ gone. You an’ me, Kit. I said we didn’t expect nothin’, that we’d no right, but ’e said we’d earned it. Better’n that nephew of ’is, ’e said, cos Elwyn Ap Thomas don’t know one end of a pitchfork from t’other. Elwyn’s goin’ to be a ’countant, Maldwyn says. Mal ’asn’t got no time for ’countants.’

‘That’s true,’ Kitty agreed. ‘Cor, fancy ’im wantin’ to leave the farm to us, Johnny! But they won’t let ’im, eh?’

‘Mal says they will. Says ’e’ll tie it up all legal an’ sign things wi’ a lawyer. Wants it to ’old water ’gin any court in the land.’

‘Oh. But the dress . . .’

‘We’ll ’ave to go up to Corwen wi’ Mal, an’ see the lawyer,’ Johnny said patiently. ‘Mal says we’ve gorra look real respeckable, else the lawyer will think ’e’s off ’is chump.’

‘Oh, I do understand, then,’ Kitty said thankfully. ‘But there’s no ’urry, is there? Mal’s got over ’is bad foot a treat, ’asn’t ’e?’

‘Yeah, but . . . ’ow old d’you think he is, Kit? Maldwyn, I means.’

Kitty frowned. To her an adult was an adult, unless he was bald or had snow-white locks. Maldwyn’s grizzled hair was still more dark than grey and his weatherbeaten visage looked just like everyone’s face round here.

‘Umm . . . thirty?’ she volunteered at last, seeing that Johnny honestly wanted to know what she thought and didn’t intend to give her a clue.

Johnny shook his head.

‘Nope. Older’n that.’

‘Oh. Forty . . . no, say fifty.’

‘Older’n that.’

‘He ain’t never sixty!’ Kitty said in an awed voice. That was a ripe old age, that was, and Maldwyn got about just as well as she and Johnny would if they had a bad foot.

‘The truth is, queen, ’e’s seventy-two. That’s what ’e told me an’ Mal never lies, it’s one of ’is things.’

‘Seventy-two!’ Kitty whistled. ‘No wonder ’e wants to mek ’is will, then!’

‘Yeah. So you let ’im buy you the dress, an’ we can get it all sorted out.’

‘All right. I’d like a dress,’ Kitty said thoughtfully. ‘But give us the farm . . . they’ll never let ’im, Johnny.’

Maldwyn took them to a lawyer in Corwen, but left the two youngsters in the outer office whilst he and Mr Brindley Travers talked. There were a few magazines on a table in the outer office so Johnny and Kitty amused themselves by reading, but presently Maldwyn came out again and gestured to them to follow him down the stairs and back into the street.

‘English, he is,’ he said in a low voice, jerking a thumb towards the door from which they had just emerged. ‘Not a nice person, I’m thinking. We’ll catch a bus to Wrexham’

‘Where’s Wrexham?’ Johnny asked as they clattered along the pavement, all three of them in their best boots. ‘What did ’e say, Mal?’

‘Seemed to think I wass running mad to leave the farm away from family, though as I said, families stick together in times of trial and hardship, they don’t go their own ways like that Elwyn has. So I thought, get going Maldwyn or this feller will ’ave the pants off you, and not a word of Welsh to ’is name either! Wouldn’t trust ’im with a bundle of hay, let alone my farm. We’re lucky though, there’s a bus in ten minutes to take us to town.’

‘So why Wrexham?’ Kitty said as they reached the omnibus stop. ‘Do you know anyone there?’

‘I do. Man wi’ an office on Charles Street, not far from the hotel . . . the Wynnstay Arms. Feller named Hywel Hughes. A friend, like. Trust him wi’ me life, I would.’

‘Oh, then that’s all right,’ Johnny said cheerfully as the vehicle they wanted came trundling up the street towards them. ‘Wouldn’t like to t’ink I’d put on me best kecks for some English bugger what ’ud cheat ’is own gran’mother!’

Maldwyn chuckled and pushed Kitty ahead of him on to the omnibus step.

‘You’ll like Hywel,’ he assured them. ‘Trust ’im wi’ me life I would.’

Kitty was collecting eggs. She knew most of the places the hens laid, and in summer, when the hens laid more eggs than they could use, she took them to Corwen Market and sold them to the townsfolk along with butter, cream and a few vegetables or a couple of past-lay hens. Today being market day, she would go into town in the trap with the brown pony, Tilly, between the shafts. Once, Maldwyn or Johnny had always accompanied her when she went to sell, but not any more. She had grown tall on the good farm food and though she was slim she was also tough and capable. She could put up her small stall herself, and sell her goods, and if anyone tried to molest her or take her money it would be the worse for them. Patch always went with her and Patch could give a troublemaker a nasty nip on the ankles if nothing worse.

Besides, Kitty thought, laying the big brown eggs tenderly in her basket, it wasn’t as if there ever was trouble at Corwen. Most of the farmers and their wives knew her and although they still tended to speak in Welsh amongst themselves they often included her in their conversations, especially now that she was beginning to be fluent in Welsh. Indeed, often she spoke the language instinctively; Maldwyn spoke Welsh as his first language and she had picked it up almost without noticing, suddenly realising that she understood and could answer in the same tongue.

From the byre, she could hear Johnny whistling. They had milked the cows earlier and Johnny was mucking out whilst she collected the eggs. Maldwyn would be getting breakfast – they took it in turns – and as soon as they’d eaten she would go out to the field, bring the pony in and harness her up to the trap. Maldwyn and Johnny would do all the work about the farm today, including her share, whilst she sold their eggs, chickens, butter and vegetables. Last night she and Johnny had collected the string beans. They had had a good summer and the beans hung thick and heavy, far more than they could eat or salt down. Maldwyn had pulled a basketful of carrots for her, too, and had washed them under the pump. Carrots sold better all bright and clean, though they didn’t keep so long – but townsfolk didn’t seem to care about things like that.

The little black hen with the torn comb usually laid right at the end of the orchard, so Kitty went that way, pushing through the long, dew-wet grass and singing to herself. September was a good month, and October wasn’t bad either – she would have a great many apples to pick and bottle, and store away in the apple loft. At the bottom of the orchard there was a thick old hawthorn hedge, less to keep stock out than to protect the apple trees from the winds of winter, and it was here that the little hen scraped herself a scrappy, twiggy nest and laid her clutches of eggs.