Luckpenny Land

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Oh, aye.’ The child winced. ‘I could dance a jig.’

  They managed a steady pace up the path to Broombank, carrying the suitcase, Effie’s brown paper bag and gasmask which she would not part with, pushing Meg’s bicycle between them. It was all they owned in the world. Padding along between them came Rust, where he meant always to stay.

  Meg had left a note on the kitchen mantelshelf for Sally Ann, explaining where she’d gone. But she did not expect Joe to come after her. She knew that once she had left home, he would never allow her to return.

  She was entirely dependent now upon Lanky’s goodwill, but felt certain of a warm welcome.

  Breakfast at number six, Southview Villas, was the most informal meal of the day. Alice, the little maid, would set out tureens on the long sideboard, rather as if for a grand country house-party, and everyone was permitted to help themselves. It was folly though to arrive more than a moment after the gong sounded for the number of sausages, kidneys or slivers of bacon was strictly limited and a latecomer ran the risk of going without. There was no question of the dishes being refilled.

  Kath, however, found she could not face even the smell of food first thing in the morning so she made a point of waiting until her fellow guests had departed to their various shops and offices before slipping into the breakfast room to nibble on a slice of dry toast.

  She was thus engaged, wondering if the nausea would ever pass and if she could face coffee this morning, when her aunt strode into the room.

  Ruby Nelson never walked. She marched, strode or flounced, head thrust forward as if in a hurry to get where she was going. She was dressed this morning in a dark green spotted dress with a square neck and rows of beads reminiscent of the roaring twenties, in which period, apparently, she had bloomed.

  ‘You’ll be off out job hunting again today, my dear?’

  Kath agreed that she would, though she had as yet, made not a single enquiry. She felt far too ill. Whoever had said pregnant women bloomed must have been mad. Or a man.

  ‘I heard they might be wanting some kitchen help at the Kardomah.’

  ‘I’ll go and ask.’ Kath finished her toast and decided against the coffee. Perhaps later.

  She’d reached the dining-room door when Ruby asked her more pertinent question, very sweetly, as always. ‘Was that you in the bathroom this morning, dear?’

  ‘I always go to the bathroom in the morning.’

  ‘You sounded dreadfully ill. Not sickening for anything, I trust?’

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  Ruby adopted her sympathetic expression. ‘That’s all right then. I do hope you cleaned the basin down when you’d finished.’

  Kath’s hand found the polished doorknob and got the door open somehow. She grabbed her coat from the hallstand and left the house as quickly as she could without turning to say goodbye. That way she could avoid the suspicion in her aunt’s eyes.

  The expression in Ruby Nelson’s eyes was more that of shrewd speculation and frowning disapproval. She didn’t trust that little hussy, not one bit, she thought. What Rosemary was thinking of to send her here in that condition she could not imagine. Did she imagine that her beloved sister had been born yesterday? Old maid she might be, but she could recognise a girl in trouble when she saw one. Something must be done about it, and quick. Scandal was bad for business and Ruby had no intention of risking it.

  ‘I’ll not have her on my plate,’ she announced, wagging a finger at the closed door. ‘Dear me, no.’ And spinning on her heel she marched to the kitchen and flung open the door. ‘Alice. Get this table cleared. I have some letters to write.’

  Kath decided to walk all the way down to the water line this morning. It took a long time. The sea was far out on the wide flat sands, deserted at this time of year, but she needed to fill the day somehow, give herself time to think.

  She checked off in her mind the tasks that lay ahead. She had to find a doctor who would tend her without asking too many questions. Not an easy task in itself. It had been a mistake to come to Southport, she realised now, for how could she pretend to be a widow or a married woman with her aunt to give the lie to the tale? She needed to enquire about adoption agencies. Perhaps Liverpool would be a better place for that. And she still hadn’t decided whether she should write and tell Jack about her problem. What did she want him to do about it if she did? Then there was the vexing question of money. Dare she write home and ask for more?

  So many decisions to be made when what she really wanted was a bit of fun to cheer herself up. To go dancing and find some delicious young man. She was too young for all these problems. It wasn’t fair. Kath decided to put it out of her mind for a while. There was no rush after all, months and months before she need worry. Thinking too much was unsettling, and she didn’t yet feel ready to confront the reality of a baby growing inside her. A child that would one day be born and require looking after.

  After her bracing walk she went in to the Kardomah. ‘Coffee and a custard slice, please.’

  ‘You’ll be lucky, love. There’s been that much panic buying and threat of restrictions we can’t get half what we need. I can do you a nice toasted teacake and a pot of tea.’

  ‘That’ll do fine.’

  Kath didn’t ask about the chance of a job. The place seemed to be teeming with waitresses in their smart little aprons and caps. And the thought of working with food all day made her stomach heave.

  It was raining when she got outside again but near enough to tea time to justify going back to Southview Villas.

  ‘All the positions were filled,’ she explained as her aunt sliced bread with lightning strokes. Kath crossed her fingers against the lie.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that, sweetheart. Since you are family, after all, I’d be prepared to forgo the cost of your board.’

  ‘Thank you, Aunt Ruby. That’s very decent of you.’

  ‘What’s family for, that’s what I say? And you look proper peaky. A bit of peace and quiet is what you want, not working in a noisy café.’ The shrewd eyes turned upon Kath. ‘Have to stick together in troubled times, eh?’

  ‘Er, yes.’

  ‘So you can forget the job hunting and give me a bit of a hand here. That would be lovely, wouldn’t it? Us working together?’ Ruby scraped off half of the margarine and butter mixture she had already spread upon the bread. ‘Waste not, want not. Alice is set on going to work in a munitions factory in Liverpool. Sweated labour I call it but the money’s good, or so she thinks, silly girl. So how about it then? You can work for your keep and that’ll solve both our problems, won’t it?’

  ‘Y- yes,’ Kath said slowly. ‘I suppose it would.’

  ‘That’s a good girl. Now put an apron on and finish buttering this bread. Not too generous, mind.’

  Thereafter, breakfast time was taken up with Kath cooking sausages and laying tables, or deep in suds up to her elbows at the sink. Her mornings were spent turning mattresses, making beds, sweeping floors, beating rugs, brewing coffee and peeling potatoes. It was a new, not altogether pleasant, experience.

  ‘I thought you just wanted me as a waitress,’ she said to Ruby one afternoon when her aunt presented her with a dustpan and brush.

  ‘So I do, my dear, but there are plenty of other jobs involved in running a boarding house like mine. I have my standards and one of them is clean tablecloths. Naughty girl, you forgot to dust off all the crumbs after lunch before laying for the evening meal. I found several when I checked just now.’

  Kath, in her best brown coat ready for off, stared in dismay at the implements. Her aunt must have scoured the cloths with a fine toothcomb to find one crumb, she thought angrily. ‘But I’d have to clear all the tables and lay them all over again.’

  Ruby wagged a chiding finger and smiled sweetly. ‘Well then, that will teach you not to forget in future. It won’t take a minute. Oh, and did you put the fresh counterpanes on everyone’s beds this morning?’

  Kath shook her head
, feeling dazed. ‘You didn’t tell me to.’

  ‘But we always put on clean counterpanes on a Wednesday. Now you know.’

  ‘Don’t go, Alice,’ Kath groaned. ‘Don’t leave me to all of this.’

  But Alice resolutely packed her bags and walked out, kicking the dust of number six from her feet with such joy in her step you could almost think she was glad about the war.

  Kath tried not to grumble. Now that war had been declared she too could easily be forced to work in a factory. Southview Villas was surely better than that. Though sometimes she longed to take a proper part in the action. To do something crazy, or exciting, or dangerous.

  In one of Rosemary’s regular letters, Kath had learned that Jack had joined the Navy. She thought of him sailing across the seas to adventure and envied him. But the knowledge that he was on training in Liverpool, so close by, made her worry over whether she should go and see him.

  But there was to be no escape. Reality came home to her each morning as she stuck her head in the bathroom sink, wretching as silently as possible, aware of her aunt’s flapping ears.

  Kath’s only free time was in the afternoons. For two hours after lunch, always cold, and before afternoon tea and the evening meal had to be prepared, she was free to do as she pleased. She made the most of it. Whatever the weather, she went out.

  Sometimes she wandered down Lord Street, in and out of the fashionable shops, spending money she could ill afford just to cheer herself up. At other times she would visit the Winter Gardens or take a ride on a tram. On very wet days she went to the pictures and had been known to sit through a film twice, one showing fast asleep. Once she went to the bus station and very nearly caught a bus into Liverpool to find Jack. She stood there so long that the bus conductor called out to her.

  ‘Are you getting on, love, or taking root?’

  ‘N-no, thank you. I - I’m waiting for someone.’ Pink-cheeked and embarrassed, she hurried away.

  But her favourite place was the long beach that stretched right to the sand dunes at Ainsdale if she walked far enough. This, she had discovered, was a favourite place for a local stables to train racehorses. She loved to watch them gallop on the hard-packed sands, or spraying up the water on the edge of the tide. They needed no shoes on this surface as it was kind to their legs while strengthening the muscles essential to a good horse. Kath could understand this and sat for hours watching the training sessions thinking of her own much missed Bonnie, of dear Meg, and home.

  Oh, how I do miss you all. Why did I imagine I was bored at home? This is much, much worse. She ran her hand over her still flat stomach. When would she start to show? Something had to be done. Decisions could not be kept waiting for ever. Jack had to be told some time. Perhaps it would be better if he came here, to Southport. She’d ask him to meet her, far away from the house of course and Aunt Ruby’s prying eyes. It would be good to see a friendly face. This decision made Kath more cheerful and she started to sing.

  ‘Well, will you listen to that now? You’ve decided to smile at last, have you?’

  Kath jumped and swivelled about. A figure rose from behind the dunes. Tall and dark, his face weathered and tanned from long hours in the open, he had a grin on him that would put a Cheshire cat to shame.

  Kath was incensed. ‘Have you been spying on me?’

  ‘And would it be such a crime if I had?’ Tis one of the great pleasures in life for a man to peek at a girl. It’s not an arrestable offence so far as I am aware.’

  ‘It is in certain circumstances. Peeping Toms are not very pleasant.’

  ‘Well now, and how did you guess that my name was Thomas?’ He bowed low, with great exaggeration. ‘Tam O’Cleary to be exact. At your service.’

  A voice called from the direction of the race horses. ‘Tam, get over here will you, and stop wasting time.’

  ‘Sure and is there no peace for a poor working man?’ The stranger rolled his eyes in such a self-pitying way that Kath burst out laughing.

  He started to stroll away, hands in pockets, whistling airily. He wasn’t a big man, she couldn’t help but notice, lean with a rangy long-legged walk, but well formed. Good to look at. He stopped and swivelled on his heel to meet her enquiring gaze.

  ‘Have you had a good shufti then?’

  She blinked and coughed, tugging her wind-flapped skirt down over bare knees. ‘I wasn’t staring.’

  ‘You were too. So we’re even. Except that you haven’t told me your name.’

  ‘Katherine Ellis.’

  ‘Katherine, is it? Like my mother.’

  ‘I thought all Irish mothers were called Kathleen.’

  ‘And all Irishmen, Paddy, I suppose? And there’s me forgetting to bring my shillelagh.’

  Kath flushed. ‘I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.’

  ‘Well, Katherine Ellis, I’ll see you tomorrow mebbe, if I’m spared a minute for me own pleasure, and you’ve nothing better to be doing.’

  Without waiting for her to agree or not, he swung on his heel and strode away.

  ‘Of all the cheek. I won’t come,’ she called after him. Shivering, she returned to Southview Villas, putting him firmly from her mind.

  Kath helped to prepare the evening meal and listened to the news on the wireless with her aunt which sounded far too grim for words, the BBC trying to say as little as possible about ‘our boys in France’ which made everyone worry all the more. Then at the earliest opportunity she went up to her room to write a note to Jack. She’d decided there was no reason why he shouldn’t share the responsibility of deciding what was best to be done about the baby. It was his problem too, after all. She’d write and ask him to meet her.

  The fire had long since died by the time they reached Broombank and Meg sat Effie by the empty grate, making her promise to stay put. ‘As soon as I’ve seen to Lanky I’ll get a fire going and make us some tea.’

  ‘It stinks in’ ere.’

  ‘It’s mainly coming from outside, the animals and byre, but it’s true the house could do with a good clean. Lanky hasn’t been well enough lately to see to things properly. But we’re here now and just the ones to do it, I reckon.’

  ‘I’m no good at cleanin’.’

  ‘No,’ smiled Meg. ‘I don’t suppose you are. But you can learn.’ She felt almost cheerful as she clattered up the stairs to Lanky’s bedroom. Though she had been unable to return herself last night, as she had hoped, she’d left him the medicine and food by his bed. She hoped he would be feeling more himself as a result. She’d go and fetch the eggs in a minute and boil them each two for breakfast. Then she’d find some flour and make soda bread. You could face anything on a full stomach. Her mind was already stirring with wild, crazy ideas. Ideas that featured Lanky’s son in an important part.

  The bed was empty, the covers neatly in place as if it had not been slept in, or Lanky had been up and about particularly early. That must be a good sign, she thought.

  The medicine bottle was on the bedside table with a spoon beside it. Very little had been drunk but some of the food had gone. She’d give him a piece of her mind about that, gallivanting around this early without taking his proper medicine. Oh, but she’d watch him like a hawk in future. Make sure he didn’t do too much. ‘Stubborn old fool. I shall enjoy looking after you though.’

  Back downstairs she found Effie shivering in the cold, huddled with Rust in Lanky’s big chair. She’d taken the sheepskin that usually hung over the back of it and pulled it over them both. Child’s and dog’s small pointed faces peeped out above. The delight in the dog’s eyes showed that he thought he’d landed in heaven. He looked so comical that Meg started to laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny? I’m frozen stiff.’

  ‘Sorry, love. I’ll light a fire.’ She found some larch twigs and dead holly by the dry-stone wall outside.

  ‘Nature’s firelight,’ she told Effie as she broke them into small pieces. ‘We’ll soon have this fire going.’ The last thing she wanted was for the poor
child to take a chill after her shock. Meg laid an ash log across the back of the small pyramid of sticks and soon the room was filled with the fresh, clean scent of burning wood. She filled the smaller of the two kettles with enough water for tea for them all. Then she collected the eggs, surprised to find the hens still shut up, and put half a dozen in a small pan on the trivet over a small flame.

  ‘We’ll light the boiler after breakfast, then we can start getting this place clean. It’ll be fun, you’ll see. And you’ll like Lanky.’

  ‘We didn’t bother with no cleanin’ at home.’

  Meg chuckled. ‘I don’t expect you did.’

  When the old man hadn’t appeared by the time the kettle was almost boiling, she decided to go and fetch him. ‘You’d best stay here. I won’t be a minute. He’s probably doing the milking.’

  The trouble was that now Jack had gone, Lanky needed more help about the place, more labour. Even Meg’s help would not be enough and she knew that a solution to this problem would have to be found soon. But then she and Lanky had a lot to talk about.

  The cow byre was empty and only two cows were in the field. There were four yesterday. Had two wandered off and got lost? Surely not. Perhaps Lanky had taken it into his head to move them to another field. She couldn’t think where, or why, but she would see to the mystery first thing after breakfast.

  Meg filled a jug with milk from the kit and cradled the heavy jug against her hip as she pushed open the barn door. If the dogs were gone then Lanky was already out on the fells.

  They came to her at once, Tess and Ben, whimpering their pleasure at seeing her.

  Lanky too was in the barn. He was hanging from a rope fastened very carefully to the rafters. His milking stool lay overturned on the ground beneath him.

  The jug of milk slipped from Meg’s hand and flowed into a pool as white as Lanky’s face, all over the cold slate floor.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was a perfect, crisp autumn day for the funeral. Overhead a buzzard circled in the clear air and in the hedgerow a pair of stoats played. Lanky would have loved it. In her mind’s eye, Meg could see his slight figure striding out over the fells, his familiar rolling gait making short work of the steep gradients as he checked on his beloved sheep. But Lanky was gone and would never breathe the clear, autumn air ever again.