‘Then you’ll be in good company.’ Leena glanced at the clock. ‘It’s ten past ten and you’ve got an early start. And I don’t like that green, I want Wedgwood blue.’
Alf and Bert looked at each other, sat at the table and waited for the women to leave. They had some calculations to do and there was no fire in the front room and no big table, either, so they had to stay here and—
‘Who the hell’s that at this time?’ Leena asked when someone tapped at the door. ‘It can’t be Elsie – she’d have walked straight in.’ She stalked out to admit whichever creature had no respect for those who needed sleep. A minute later, she re-entered, Peter Chandler following her into the kitchen.
Marie felt her cheeks as they flushed to advertise her awareness of him. He looked upset. She did not like the idea of his being in distress.
‘Hello,’ said the newcomer. ‘I know it’s late, but … I don’t know why I’m here.’
‘Don’t worry yourself, lad.’ Alf’s tone was warm. ‘Our Leena hasn’t known why she’s been anywhere in ages. She stood in Woolworths for half an hour last week before remembering why she was there.’ He looked at his wife. ‘Why were you there?’
‘I can’t remember,’ was the quick response. ‘I’ll let you do the remembering for me, same as you remembered Wedgwood blue and brass handles in me kitchen.’
Peter felt his shoulders as they sagged towards relief and relaxation. This was a safe place. This was a place in which each man and woman had full permission to be him or herself, where discussions about handles and paint were declarations of affection, where everyone cared. ‘I had to get out of the house,’ he said. ‘And I finished up here after driving round for ages.’ He blinked as if waking from sleep. ‘It’s terrible.’
Bert took the hint and rose from his seat. ‘You were in the pub up yon earlier,’ he said to Peter. ‘Thanks for not interfering – every other bugger was full of advice about pointing and bloody plastering. Anyway, I’d best get going before my Elsie separates me from my future.’ He smiled at the company and left the scene.
‘Sit down, son,’ said Alf kindly. ‘Do you want a cuppa?’
Peter sat. ‘No, thanks. I shouldn’t be here at this hour.’
‘Course you should,’ Leena protested. ‘Shall we leave you with our Marie? Happen you’d be easier talking to somebody nearer your own age.’
‘No.’ Peter drew a hand across his forehead. And everything spilled from him, words pouring from his mouth, tears clouding voice and vision, knuckles tightening as he relived recent hours. ‘So, my father is in a straitjacket, my mother is hurt, Nan is hurt, Grandfather is sleeping on Pol Fishwick’s sofa’
‘And you are hurt too,’ Marie concluded for him.
He let out a huge sigh. ‘We are all damaged, Marie.’
Leena tutted. ‘Drink can be a bugger,’ she achieved eventually. ‘Your grandad was a drinker, too, or so I’ve heard.’
‘Yes. He is supposed to be locked away upstairs. He got out and we are told that he is safe, but he is in a cottage inhabited by a woman who is not quite the lady … well … she has a way of dealing with difficult men. And my grandfather falls into that category – except when he is asleep.’ He dried his eyes and made an attempt to smile. ‘Mr Martindale, please tell me what happened between you and my father during the war.’
Alf shook his head. ‘No, son. Sorry, but I can’t do that. It was another time and another place – it has nowt to do with life these days. Things were very different then, you know. People acted … well … differently.’
‘I need to know.’
‘No, you don’t. What happened between me and your dad is between me and your dad.’
‘And the regiment,’ said Peter. ‘I shall find out. I know people who can get the truth for me.’
Alf sighed deeply. ‘Up to you, son, but you’ll not get it from me. Even Leena doesn’t know all of it. I made a pledge to myself, Peter; to me, not to the country or the bloody army.’
Peter lowered his head.
‘Is your mother all right now?’ asked Marie.
He looked at her. ‘I honestly don’t know. As soon as everyone had gone upstairs, I got out. I had to. Thank God Meredith wasn’t there – she would have killed him. She has his temperament, but I hope she doesn’t follow him into drink.’
‘She won’t.’ Leena sounded confident. ‘She’s a woman, so she has the edge. See, women don’t mither like men do, inside themselves, like. Women let it out—’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ Alf interspersed in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, ‘specially when it come to paint and brass handles. Look,’ he invited the visitor, ‘see how she’s giving me the witch’s eye?’ Imitating a child in the nursery class, he placed a finger on his lips.
‘Right, where was I?’ Leena asked.
‘Letting it all out,’ answered Marie.
‘Oh, aye. Men locks it up inside theirselves and it can come out in drink.’ She nodded wisely. ‘I’ve seen it all before, Peter. They’d be best off with a dolly-tub and a posser to worry about. That’d soon put them straight, oh, no mistake about it. While you’re hanging washing out, you get talking. And it all comes out.’
Peter smiled faintly. ‘I can’t imagine Meredith hanging out washing. Or my father chatting with his neighbours.’
Leena paused. She had become distracted for the moment, because she suddenly found herself worrying all over again about who was going to help her up at the cottage. How would she let everything out? There would be no Elsie, no safety valve, no release. Cows and owls were not going to take the place of neighbours, were they?
Marie rose to her feet. ‘Come on, Peter,’ she said, ‘let’s go for a drive.’
‘Bit late for that, isn’t it?’ asked Alf.
But Leena, who knew more than enough about life, shook her head. ‘No, love,’ she told her daughter, ‘it’s not too late at all.’
* * *
They sat at the base of Rivington Pike, looked at a sky that was almost purple, faraway suns spread across its incomprehensible endlessness. ‘Like sequins on velvet,’ commented Marie. She didn’t know him, but she wanted to hold him, to comfort him, to say the words that would show her support, yet she could not, because she did not trust herself. The feelings she harboured were silly and without foundation. She had known him for such a short span – this was only the third time they had met.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said. To how many girls might he have admitted that?
‘I know.’
And how many would have understood? ‘Such a mess,’ he continued. ‘Mother is buying a house on Crompton Way. Now, with Father gone – and we have no way of knowing when his treatment will end – she will be able to stay at the grange. Meredith is in a hotel, her head full of nonsense. My grandfather – oh, I don’t want to think about him—’
‘Then don’t.’ She steeled herself and took his hand. His fingers were slender, tense, cold. Her hand, warmer and certainly more relaxed, closed around his. ‘You know where we are, me, Mam and Dad. We’re not much, but we see life as it is.’
‘You mean a great deal to me,’ he answered carefully, ‘as do your parents. It’s so warm there, so pleasant. Your parents love each other.’
Marie realized then how much she had taken for granted. Of course her parents loved each other – they were married. Elsie and Bert loved each other, too. They moaned and they called each other names, but they were solid, had always been rocks strong enough to withstand any storm – and she had never even thought about it. ‘I’m lucky,’ she said now.
‘You have a decent family, Marie. I haven’t. Luck of the draw.’
Was it the luck of the draw? she wondered. Children could not choose their parents, but parents could choose to work at marriage, to make sure that it stayed whole and wholesome. ‘It may be money that spoils things,’ she said quietly.
‘Privilege,’ he replied. ‘Privilege without responsibility is a poor foundation. Yes, my family is compa
ratively rich, but it’s the attitude, Marie. He has always been the big man, the squire. I think he half expects the villagers to bend a knee or doff caps at him. He takes a mistress as if he has droit de seigneur, as if the chosen one should be grateful.’
Her grip tightened. ‘It must be hard, hating your father.’
‘It is. Because from him came the seed that is me.’ Peter turned and looked at his companion. ‘You really are a stunner, you know.’
Her heart fluttered, but she forced herself not to react. This young man was too injured, too needful. To encourage him now would be more than foolish – it might even be dangerous, because his pain was too big and lay not quite within the scope of her comprehension. ‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘You are welcome.’
They sat in silence for a few more minutes, then he retrieved his hand and drove back to Bolton. The past hour or so had given him strength, and he had sense enough to know that he should not be led by his heart while there was no order in his existence.
‘Good night.’ She pecked him on the cheek, opened her door and dashed into the house before he could leave the driver’s seat. Had she waited, he would have played the gentleman, would have walked round and helped her from the car. Sometimes, a person needed to think by herself for a while …
Marie Martindale leaned against the closed front door of 34, Emblem Street. He was not a Catholic; he was from the wrong social class; he was from a family so disordered that Wuthering Heights seemed almost believable.
‘Marie?’ called Leena from the kitchen.
‘I’m just hanging my coat up, Mam.’ She listened as he drove away in his ramshackle Austin; and she knew that a part of her heart had gone with him.
SIX
It was like going back in time. Pol Fishwick dragged open the curtains, turned, looked at the old man. He had cast aside his teeth; they were lying on the hearthrug, tossed away at some point during the night. Before even considering what she was doing, she found herself at the kitchen sink with the tap running, nailbrush scrubbing back and forth against porcelain dentures. Grandad. Yes, this was like Grandad all over again. And the man on the sofa looked so frail in sleep, so small and harmless, just an old person who was on the brink of a second childhood. This was a very cruel world.
There was no real harm in Henry Chandler – that much had been plain last night. He had chosen his reputation, had invested in it, had made a career out of it, she supposed. His brain was not as it had been, but he knew that; he had simply screamed and fought, a trapped animal who had needed alcohol, who had been dried out in the cruellest way. How could his own son have done such a thing?
She wiped her hands – aye, this was the doing of Richard Chandler, a man who wanted his own way, who needed to tidy out of sight all that offended his eye. Well, he had better look into a mirror, because his own image was rather less than perfect. Angrily, Pol cut slices of bread for toast, set out two mugs for tea and went to rouse her unexpected guest. It was a shame to wake him, but she had promised that she would. ‘Mr Chandler?’
He grumbled, opened one rheumy eye and glared at her. Who was this? She was big enough, that was certain, but why had they suddenly decided to appoint a woman as zoo-keeper? Women were afraid of him, weren’t they? He had developed an attitude towards them, they were a part of his scheme, his plan to make life as difficult as possible for all who had allowed him to be imprisoned like a criminal—
‘Mr Chandler?’
Mr Chandler. Mr Richard Chandler. He was the real criminal. Henry relaxed slightly, remembered where he was. ‘You’re the woodsman’s wife and you got rid of your husband.’ He smiled, displaying pale gums and a tongue that looked dry.
‘I am that very person and yes, I did. Call me Pol. Here’s your teeth. I scrubbed them as best I could – you threw them out in the night.’
Henry planted the dentures in their proper place of residence and grinned broadly. He had escaped, was free, was out of the house and … and was wearing a nightshirt. What chance had he of being declared sane while he was dressed like this? Another problem to be considered by a head already full of clutter. ‘Did your husband leave any clothes?’
Pol looked him up and down. He had been quite tall, but life had shortened him and he was shrivelled, curled like an October leaf, all the sap gone, dry, withered. ‘He was broader than you.’
‘And younger. Everyone is younger. I have to get some clothes. But first, a bit of breakfast would be good. And where’s the lavatory?’
‘Out there.’ She waved a hand towards the kitchen. ‘It’s that little shed in the back garden. And if you want a bath, that’s hung on a nail near the door. I’ll sort it out for you if you like, get some water heated.’
He gathered around his shoulders the blanket under which he had slept, rose from the sofa and pushed his feet into the slippers. It was a cold day, he needed clothes and he wanted the doctor. In the doorway, he turned. ‘They’ll come for me today.’ His voice was hollow.
‘They came for you last night, but I wouldn’t let them in.’
He was pleased. ‘Thank you. But today they will bring reinforcements. I have no money and can get none, can’t buy clothes. I don’t know how that damned son of mine did it, but, from what I have overheard while supposedly sleeping, he had me judged unfit to manage my affairs so that he could get his hands on everything. I was never insane; I was drunk, then furious.’
‘I know,’ she answered. ‘And now he’s the drunk.’
Henry sighed, nodded and went on his way, throwing over his shoulder the opinion that lunacy ran in the family, that every Chandler since time began had been a daft good-for-nothing type, spineless, stupid, all the same, never knew when to stop …
Pol smiled to herself as Henry Chandler’s voice faded with the rest of him into the back garden. She spread butter on the toast, made a new tablecloth out of a more recent newspaper, threw away the old one. Never the housewife, she suddenly began to realize how shabby her environment was. There was dust everywhere, springs in the furniture were acting as Henry had acted – making a break for freedom. The fireplace wanted a good scrubbing, as did the windows and the paintwork – oh, she couldn’t be bothered with any of it.
She sat down to tea and toast, then offered him a smile when he returned and rinsed his hands under the single cold-water tap. ‘I did you a bit of toast with plenty of strawberry jam – you’ll be needing the sugar today.’ And so would she, thought Pol grimly.
He attacked the food with gusto, loose dentures snapping and clicking as he made his way through two doorsteps spread liberally with butter and jam. This freedom hurt, because he understood how tenuous it was, knew that time was slipping through his fingers as quickly and as easily as this surfeit of butter. ‘What can I do?’ he asked when he had drained his mug for the second time.
Pol had no idea and she said so. Yet there was fight in her, anger that stemmed now not just from her own fury with this man’s son, but also from the old chap’s sorry situation. ‘You don’t need to be dressed to see a doctor,’ she opined, ‘because I can fetch him here if that’s what you want.’
‘Clothes are armour,’ he answered, ‘and if ever a man needed chain mail, then I am that man.’ He glanced down at a cocoa stain on his nightshirt. Cocoa stains were particularly revolting, as they resembled something far less palatable. ‘I look as if I have had a very bad stomach complaint,’ he moaned. ‘Dr Beddows will think I am still worth nothing.’
‘And you could shelter from rain under that moustache. I’ll tidy it for you in a minute – I’ve got nail scissors somewhere.’
He sat back and studied her, wondered how a woman as strong as Pol had managed to become involved with Richard. It would have been for security, he decided. This tied cottage was her home; it was also a dump that needed some work to make it fit to live in. Henry framed the question. ‘How did you come to be knotted up with that son of mine? Worthless swine, he is. He never treated his wife properly, forbade her to come n
ear me. In fact, I think he convinced her of my madness.’
She shook her head. ‘No, you did that, according to Dave Armstrong – he said you carried on something terrible. I’ll bet you were mad at the beginning, after all those years of drinking. Alcoholics need the stuff if they want to carry on looking normal.’
‘Yes, drunk was normal. So, answer my question. Why Richard?’
Pol gave him the truth. ‘I was bored and he had money.’
‘And now?’
She raised beefy shoulders in a shrug. ‘He doesn’t need me any more. There was talk of … of him finding something for me to do in the village, but I’ve had enough of him. He uses people, carries on as if he owns them. So I’ve got to move on.’
Henry found himself wishing that this relative stranger would not move on. He liked her. Also, should he be recaptured, here sat a woman on the outside who could vouch for his sanity. And he would be found; any moment now, his guards would force their way into Pol’s kitchen, would grab him and take him back to a place that really did make him insane. ‘I want you to help me,’ he said. ‘When they come for me, tell them that you believe I am held prisoner in my own home. Please.’
‘I will,’ she replied, ‘but they won’t listen to me, Mr Chandler.’ She had no value in this community, was judged worthless by her so-called betters. How could she help poor old Henry?
‘Call me Henry – or Hal. When I was young, my mother called me Hal.’ He closed his eyes. ‘She was fragrant, very correct and Victorian, starched collars and stiff lace at her throat, corsets so tight that she could scarcely breathe. Tiny feet. I remember her shoes. My father, on the other hand, was a pig from hell. A buffoon.’ Eyelids raised themselves slowly, blinds at windows that did not want to allow in the sun. ‘History repeats,’ he added. Which of his grandsons would succumb? he wondered.
‘It doesn’t have to,’ said Pol. ‘People can change things if they try. We don’t need to follow our fathers, even if it is bred into us. I was lucky, I had a good grandad. He looked after me. Mam and Dad were always working, but he made time for me.’
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