Agnes, Denis, Eva and Fred walked to the station and climbed aboard the Derby Street bus. They sat on the lower deck, each tired and deep in thought, waiting for the stop nearest to Noble Street. Eva fiddled nervously with gloves and handbag; Fred stared through a window, outwardly absorbed in sights he had seen for seventy years.
As they walked to the shop after leaving the bus, Fred mouthed a message at Denis, a clear enough instruction regarding the approach to Agnes. Denis sighed. He had rescued Helen; now he had to contend with Agnes, who was sober, at least. Didn’t Fred know his granddaughter well enough to approach her himself?
‘Aren’t you coming home, Pop?’ Agnes asked.
‘No. Me and Eva are going to have a drop of cocoa and Navy rum. We’ve things to talk about.’ He winked at Denis. ‘I won’t be long. Go on – get yourselves sat down and have a rest.’
Agnes remained where she was, arms folded under her chest, a foot tapping the ground. The old couple disappeared into the shop before she spoke. ‘What’s going on, Denis? I know there’s something brewing – I’ve felt it all day. I didn’t arrive here with yesterday’s Fleetwood catch, you know.’
He sighed again, wishing that his wife could be slightly less sensitive to atmosphere. ‘I have to talk to you, but I’d rather we did it at home. Come on, shift yourself.’
She tapped the foot again. ‘Is Miss Spencer still after your body? Has she asked you to elope with her?’
Denis forced a smile. ‘As good as, yes – but that’s nothing to do with what I have to say. Sad woman, that. The drink loosens her tongue – I’ve heard more words out of her this last couple of weeks than she’s spoken in years. But there’s nowt I can do about her.’
Agnes gritted her teeth during the short walk to the house. Secrets were things to be investigated, considered, dealt with. As soon as they were both inside, she spoke. ‘Well? Come on, out with it.’
‘Sit down,’ he said.
‘Why? Am I going to fall over with shock? Have you done something terrible?’
‘I’ve done nothing,’ he answered. ‘Apart from trying to separate Helen Spencer from her brandy bottle. She’s got that many sheets in the wind, she looks like Nelson’s little trip to Trafalgar. No. It’s not her this time. It’s your granddad.’
‘Oh?’ Her face blanched. ‘He’s not ill again, is he? He looked well enough today, showing me up all over the Pack Horse. Don’t tell me he’s sick, Denis. I can’t face any more, not after Nan.’
‘He’s not ill.’
‘Good. What, then?’
‘He’s engaged.’
Agnes flopped into an armchair. ‘He’s what? He’s seventy-bloody-two, Denis. He’s not long recovered from a stroke and Nan’s death – engaged? Don’t talk so daft – he’s having you on. Who’s he engaged to? Helen Spencer and her brandy bottle? Or did he pick up a floozy outside Yates’s Wine Lodge while I wasn’t looking?’
Denis shook his head. ‘No. He’s engaged to Eva Hargreaves and her back yard air raid shelter. And tatie pies.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard me, Agnes. He’s engaged to Eva. They’re both happy, and he asked me to tell you about it. I suppose he doesn’t want any scenes. He thought you might be upset because of your nan, you see. It’s a bit quick after her death, and he’s well aware of that. He’s doing what he thinks best all round.’
Agnes tried to be upset, but could not manage it. She had watched her beloved grandfather blossoming in the company of Eva, had been relieved to hear his jokes and listen to tales about customers for firewood, customers for doll’s houses, the price of paraffin and coal bricks going up. The old man was alive again, was laughing, remembering, was almost in charge of his own day-today existence. God love him, he was one hundred per cent better since starting to work with Eva.
‘Agnes?’
‘I’m thinking.’
He left her to it and went to make cocoa. She needed leaving alone when thinking deeply – that was one of the many traits they shared. Although there were few secrets in the marriage, each kept thoughts and feelings inside until ready to communicate. Denis knew that this was common sense, so he was willing to wait as long as necessary.
But he didn’t need to wait.
She took the mug, enjoyed a sip of hot chocolate, then spoke. ‘He does right,’ she said. ‘From that very first day with the notebooks – the day Nan died and we had that bit of bother with Glenys – Eva’s been helping. She went out of her road to make sure Pop had a purpose in life, first with his notes in different colours, then with the shelter for his houses. Trusting him to work in the shop did him good, too, gave him a bit of responsibility and dignity. No, I’m all right about it. Run up and tell them it’s OK – these new shoes are killing me. If I don’t separate them from my feet, I’ll have to separate my feet from the rest of me.’
While Agnes soaked her battered toes, Denis ran up to the shop to tell Fred that he didn’t need a white flag to get back in the house.
Agnes leaned back and closed her eyes. It had been a funny sort of day. Nice – the wedding had been lovely – but Mags getting friendly with Helen Spencer had seemed rather strange, as had the information that Helen was on her way to alcoholism. Agnes hadn’t mentioned Denis’s predicament, but she hoped that Mags would not get too close to that sad woman. What if Helen Spencer had told Mags that she loved Denis? Oh, bugger.
Now, here she sat with her feet in hot water and her grandfather on his way to the altar. She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘You always liked Eva, Nan. She’ll look after him and he’ll look after her. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want you back. You were the love of his life. We just need him to be safe and happy.’
Denis returned. ‘He’ll be back in half an hour,’ he said.
Agnes stared at him with mock severity in her gaze. ‘Just one thing, Makepeace.’
‘Oh, aye? What’s that, then?’
‘I am not being a bloody bridesmaid or an anything of honour at Pop’s wedding. I’ve had enough of watered silk and new shoes to last me a lifetime. I shall go to the church in me pinny.’
‘All right.’ He grinned. ‘Better still, you can be the pretty little ring-bearer with a satin cushion and some rose petals. Hey!’ he yelled when a missile hit him in the chest.
‘There’s your satin cushion,’ she told him.
He tossed the weapon back to her. ‘All right. Have it your own way, as per bloody usual.’
When he arrived home, Fred was the receiver of another of Agnes’s famous ‘looks’. This time, having achieved an air of patience layered over anger, she looked like a headmistress in the process of punishing a naughty child. ‘I’m disgusted with you,’ she began.
Denis fled to the scullery and stifled laughter with a tea towel.
‘Seventy-two,’ she went on. ‘Seventy-two and still running after women. It’s like living with a teenager, honestly. I mean, most folk grow old gracefully; you are doing it disgracefully. Thank goodness you’ve got a decent suit, you dirty old man.’
Fred beamed. He knew his Agnes of old. ‘Second childhood?’ he suggested tentatively. ‘That does happen to old folk.’
‘If it were second childhood, you’d be chewing crayons. This is second adolescence. Chasing the girls, indeed.’
Fred sat down. ‘Well, I was lucky for a while, because they outran me. Every bloody one of them was faster than me. But it’d take a mad bull to make Eva run – that’s why I caught her. She just stood there. It’s not my fault that she can’t get any steam up.’
Agnes rose, removed dripping feet from the bowl, bent over and hugged one of her favourite men. ‘Be happy,’ she whispered. ‘That’s an order.’
‘I will, lass. And it’s no reflection on Sadie. If you look at it one road, I must have had a happy marriage – otherwise, I wouldn’t try it again, eh? It’s a compliment to a very good wife.’ He dried a tear. ‘And Eva can cook proper.’
She slapped his hand.
‘Well, she ca
n. She can do more with a potato than anyone else I’ve ever known.’
‘She can stuff a pound of King Edwards in your gob and shut you up, then. That way, she’d be of service to the nation. The queen would give her an OBE for outstanding achievement as a peacemaker.’
Fred laughed. ‘We’ll look after each other, babe. You and Denis can take that nice little cottage without thinking about me. There’s a bus. You’ll still get to your training from up yon. Think of his chest, love. Up Skirlaugh, Denis would breathe better.’
In the scullery, Denis stood still as stone. Move nearer to madness? Be on hand every time the judge fancied a little ride out? Stand by helplessly and watch the decline of a woman for whom he had felt respect, a woman he had liked? But Skirlaugh Fall was pretty, and Agnes, who had always wanted a garden, deserved pretty.
He washed cocoa mugs and decided to let Nature take its course. In the absence of any other solution, it was the best he could do.
Zachary Spencer drifted into the kerb for a third time. ‘Something wrong with the steering,’ he said, also for the third time.
Helen, in the back of the car, replayed in her head all she had heard in the ladies’ room. It wasn’t just her. Even those who had to bow to his superiority in court disliked him. Their wives made fun of him; his daughter despised him; Denis Makepeace tolerated him for the sake of a pitifully small income.
‘What did you think of James Taylor?’ asked the judge.
He expected an answer? This was an unusual day. ‘I scarcely know him.’
‘Get to know him. He’s a high flyer.’
She fought the need to cite as a mitigating circumstance an inbuilt fear of heights.
‘Good barrister, good chap, has his sights set on government. Several of the Inns of Court have expressed an interest in him. Like me, he will go the whole hog – no pussyfooting around for that young man. Well thought of in the Masonic Lodge, too.’
Mixed metaphors. She wondered whether he used those in court. A hog and a cat’s paw were hardly partners. Unless the cat was partial to bacon, of course. A giggle rose and she coughed it to one side.
‘Did he ask you out?’
‘Yes.’
He sighed impatiently. ‘And?’
‘He will telephone me.’
‘Good. You should snap him up like a bargain. You’d want for nothing if you married him. Get yourself settled.’
Helen seethed. For some unknown reason, the balance of power had shifted slightly today. No, that was untrue, because she did recognize the reason: a catalyst had suddenly been poured into the mix. The chattering women had made her feel stronger, because, from this afternoon, she had not been alone. Would there be a hung parliament in Lambert House? Was she going to start arguing her own case from the back benches?
‘You will go out with him,’ ordered the driver.
As usual, she offered no reply.
‘Did you hear me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Develop the friendship and let it take its course.’
Seething inwardly, Helen forced herself to imagine donating her virginity to a man whose face resembled the surface of the moon, whose nose was the upper half of a question mark, whose body was thin to the point of emaciation. Denis rushed unbidden into her thoughts. He had a frail chest, but his physique was excellent. Tanned from hours of working outdoors, his muscles had developed normally. That was the difference, then. Denis was normal, while James Taylor was a joke.
The rest of the journey was accomplished in complete silence, a fact that made Helen more comfortable, because silence was her father’s preferred environment. It was hers, too, as she had been raised in a vacuum created by the selfish male who was biologically responsible for her existence. This was not a father; this was a mere robot with grandiose ideas and a liking for loud, dictatorial music, the kind of noise that had been much loved by Adolf Hitler.
He parked the Bentley, removed the keys and marched into his domain. She waited for a few seconds. When leaving the wedding, he had opened the rear door for her, had closed it after she had sat down. There was no one here for him to impress, so he reverted to type. He was a pig. No, she had met pigs, and they had been noisy, but pleasant.
She got out of the car, closed her door and walked inside, making straight for the staircase and her own room. Halfway up the flight, she paused. His eyes were boring into her spine. He ordered her into the study, then preceded her into it. Oh, no. Helen felt ill-prepared for further lectures on the virtues of James Taylor.
Her father was seated behind his desk, fingers steepled below his chin. ‘Sit,’ he said.
Feeling like one of his clerks, a mere minion provided to serve his every whim, she sat. He was ugly from a distance; close up, he was hideous. His face was lined, and none of Nature’s tracks could be blamed on laughter, as he seldom smiled. She could not imagine him indulging in a good belly laugh when anecdotes were shared at his place of work. This was the face of a disappointed man, a man of ill-temper and personal indulgence. He was flabby, ill-defined, a glutton, a drinker. Helen swallowed. She, too, was a drinker, though she had yet to serve out her apprenticeship.
‘There is a matter we must discuss,’ he began.
Discuss? He would hold forth; she would be allowed little space for opinion or comment.
‘I have remarried,’ he stated baldly. ‘My wife is currently collecting her belongings with a view to setting up home here, with me.’
A clock chimed. Outside, blackbirds fussed their way through evensong. Helen’s spine was suddenly rigid. He had married without a word to her, his sole relative? Her flesh crawled. The thought of him touching a woman – any woman – was almost as repulsive as her earlier musings on the subject of James Taylor. Married? Living here? With me, not with us, he had said. Helen was anxious not to react, yet she could not quite manage to hold her fire in these circumstances. ‘The dancer?’ In spite of better judgement, she allowed her lip to curl.
The judge’s face became a pleasant shade of purple. ‘What?’ he roared.
She was betraying nobody when she spoke again. ‘The ladies’ lavatories were alight with the news. It seems your colleagues cannot contain such secrets.’ Her heart was banging like a steam hammer.
‘The lavatories?’ he roared. ‘Today?’
She nodded.
‘You should not listen to such drivel.’
‘Contained in a stall, I had no option.’ She could feel her moment travelling through her body. It was now; she could say much if she so chose. ‘They were all agog about your many indiscretions – their words, not mine. I confess I was quite shocked when they spoke, but I heard a great deal.’ The man was squirming, and she had a sudden urge to cheer.
He shifted his weight in the chair yet again. ‘It’s all nonsense,’ he blustered. ‘What else? What else was said?’
It had arrived. Her time was now and she must use it well. ‘They were laughing at you and saying that their husbands often do the same. You are not popular among lawyers – that was the gist. At that point, I forced myself to put in an appearance and the gossip ceased.’ Married? She could not believe it. He was going to bring home a wife?
‘Who were these people?’ The judge’s skin had returned to its normal condition – grey and moist.
‘I have no idea. They were married to the lawyers at the wedding – friends of the bridegroom.’
‘Describe their clothing,’ was the next order.
‘There is no point,’ Helen replied. ‘I heard voices, but I could not attach any one voice to any one outfit. As I said, they stopped talking when I joined them at the washbasins. They know I am your daughter.’
Zachary Spencer banged both fists on his desk. ‘I owe you no explanations,’ he spat. ‘As you just said, you are my daughter, no more than that. Yes, I have searched for a wife. I want a son.’
He wanted a son? God would surely need to come to the aid of any male child who might be raised in the image of such a man.
&
nbsp; ‘To answer your earlier question – yes, Louisa has been a dancer, though she is also a qualified legal secretary. You might feel happier in another house – there is your mother’s money to be used for that purpose.’
Helen simply stared at him.
‘We shall need our privacy.’
She stood up and gathered all her strength around her, building a cage of anger and grief. ‘This is a large house. I shall open up some of the far rooms, install a kitchen and live there until I choose to leave.’ The glove had been cast onto the desk, and she waited for him to rise to her challenge. Never before had she denied or defied him. His discomfort was a joy she could scarcely contain. ‘I can win the battle, but not the war,’ her inner voice said.
Only his laboured breathing and the ticking of the clock pierced the ensuing silence. Unused to discussion, Zachary found himself almost speechless. Helen’s mother had possessed a backbone – it appeared that her daughter had inherited some of that wilfulness.
‘Is that all, Father?’ she asked.
The judge blinked. ‘For the moment, yes. Louisa will arrive in a week or so. Perhaps you should remain here for a while – you can make yourself useful to her.’
Helen nodded. Her staying had to appear to be his idea, otherwise he would have failed to get his way. Had she owned a gun, she could have shot him quite cheerfully in that moment. ‘Oh, another thing, Father. There is a young man named Harry Timpson – some nonsense about a jewel robbery in Manchester. He was involved, though just on the fringes of the crime. His mother is an acquaintance of mine – a great reader.’ The lies slid glibly from her newly loosened tongue. ‘She is not in good health. A long custodial sentence might well mean that she would never see her son again. You know the importance of sons in a family – he is the oldest.’
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