Made in Myrtle Street (Prequel)

by B A Lightfoot

  ‘Dad. When you’re away can I shift that wood out of the shed so that I can put my bike in there?’ his son shouted, intruding into his reverie.

  ***

  Edward had said his goodbyes to his widowed mother and his brothers the day before. She had told him to make sure that he got plenty of potatoes down him and not have too much of that foreign muck that they all eat over there. To send him on his way, his Mam had sat him down at the table and given him a large plate of hotpot, cooked with a thick, shortcrust pastry top, followed by his favourite custard tart.

  As he had left, she had told him to watch his bowels and, in a rare show of emotion, had given him a big hug and a kiss on his cheek.

  Edward now bent his head tentatively towards his wife’s face but the hurt in her grey eyes made him hesitate and he turned, instead, and kissed the forehead of the sleeping baby that she was holding. Laura was embracing the child protectively against her breast but her gaze held Edward’s steadily in wordless communion. They heard the clatter of a horse-drawn cart passing down the cobbled street outside. There was no thudding rumble in the note from the wheels. It would be the coalman returning empty to the yard at the top of the street.

  ‘Laura. That money in my wage packet. I need to tell you. They paid us off. I have no job to come back to.’

  She placed her hand on his shoulder and kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘I know. We’ll manage. Something will turn up.’

  ‘I’m sorry love. You just seemed so pleased with the extra pay that I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. How did you know, anyway?’

  ‘Brig told me. You must have mentioned it to Liam.’

  ‘It’s not right really. The Corporation are keeping the jobs open for their lads but all the private firms round here seem to be laying their people off.’

  ‘Maybe it is safer to have the money in your pocket now. A job to come back to won’t help the families of those who don’t come back.’

  Edward suddenly sensed the deep dread that had gripped his wife. It had locked her into this silent world of fear where even the odd word spoken might betray thoughts that were too awful to air. She had seen more clearly than he had that this wasn’t a rugby match with its bruising physical contact but limited dangers; it wasn’t the pantomime heroics on the practise fields of the Prestatyn army camp. This was a real war, raw and brutalising. They would be facing an army of professional soldiers that had rampaged ruthlessly through Europe and men would be killed and maimed. The camaraderie and bravado of the pub, the rush of the preparations, had dominated the last few weeks and obscured the realities of the combat. He had dwelt on domestic arrangements – she had sensed sacrifice and feared for his life. He had dreamt of a heroic, vanquishing, Comic Cuts adventure whilst his wife was seeing his battered and lifeless body; unreachable and beyond her care.

  The constricting tightness in his throat and chest crushed the words of his farewell. The kiss would be the final act of parting. Edward touched his lips into the fiery orb of her hair and deferred the moment.

  He tousled the hair of young Edward who was gazing up at him, proud of the Dad who was going off to beat the Germans. He felt a twinge of guilt as he thought of the extra burden that was going to fall on the boy. ‘Look after your Mam whilst I’m away, young fella’ he said and smiled as he saw the shoulders bracing back in an odd contrast to the loud sniff and the quivering lip.

  He bent down and kissed the upturned face of seven year old Laura who was getting to be more and more like the gentle but mischievous girl that her mother had been when he first knew her in Turner Street. ‘Bye Pippin’ he murmured. She reached up, touching his face for reassurance. Next to her was her younger brother Benjamin who, at only five years old, was finding it hard to be the brave soldier that his Dad was telling him to be. Finally, there was a hug and a squeeze for Sadie. She had been named Sarah after her Aunt but they had adapted it to Sadie because they liked it and it avoided any confusion. Sadie was crying because she didn’t understand what was happening and anyway she was only three and her Dad was going off somewhere and her Mam was hanging on to him.

  He pressed his face again into the soft, coppery red hair of his wife. After twenty years of sharing their lives as children and then adults, they were to be separated and it would probably be for some months. He was trying desperately to be calm and strong. It had been very difficult, telling her that he was going to fight in another country, even though she had been so supportive. Since then, the preparations for his departure had been hectic, almost exciting, but it was this inevitable final moment of farewells that he had been dreading.

  A shaft of sunlight was coming through the freshly cleaned windows and it hung like a burnished frame around her head. He kissed her lips briefly as though extra seconds might expose more hurt. The thoughts that flooded around in his brain seemed to falter in his unresponsive throat and he clung to her in a silent intimacy of unspoken need. No words seemed adequate to express the tumult of emotions that flooded through his body. He told her not to worry and that he would be back soon. She whispered to him as she turned to kiss his cheek. Her tear stayed on his skin like a cold breath of air.

  With a heavy heart he slung his kitbag on his back, went through the front door and down the cream-stoned steps into the bright sunlight. He barely heard his children’s ‘Bye Dad’ because of his thudding heart and the echoing response from his studded boots on the stone paving flags. Numbed and confused, he walked the few yards down Myrtle Street and past the house of his in-laws. Laura’s whispered ‘Keep safe, Love’ ran round his head like a mantra. She had spoken it so quietly. He felt as though he had heard her heart praying.

  He kept telling himself that it would be just like going to summer camp but maybe for a bit longer.

  On the corner he hesitated for a moment then turned. He needed the detail of the already familiar image fixed in his mind. The red brick walls, neat painted window sills and carefully stoned steps were strong and ordered. A warm, comfortable backcloth. Neighbours stood on their steps to see him off. The coalman, unhitching his horse at the top of the street, waved to him. Laura was at their front door. Her arms were locked around the baby. Long black dress with a white pinafore. A housemaid in a drama. Her glowing red hair framed her white face. The children were clustered round her legs. He waved briefly but they were frozen into this brief pastiche.

  It was only a hundred yards walk to the left over the railway bridge and up Cross Lane to the Drill Hall but Edward opted instead to turn right, walk past the theatre and down to the crossroads. The concerns oppressed him – would Laura be able to manage on his 1/7d a day for the next few months; would she get a bit behind with the rent and be kicked out of the house? He would try to save something out of the one shilling that was paid directly to him so that he could sort things out when he got back and perhaps have a bit over for Christmas.

  Each sector of the crossroads was fringed with tubular iron railings, thoughtfully built so that the top rail was a convenient height for the elbows of the out-of-work Salford men from the houses behind that corner. Like four tribes they gazed out with taut-faced resignation at the passing traffic. The groups were dotted with the khaki of enlisting soldiers.

  Edward joined the cloth-capped men who stood around the Ship Hotel corner, their hands thrust deep into their pockets or cupped around sustaining cigarettes. They were mostly dockworkers who hadn’t been chosen that morning in the inequitable daily lottery of gang selection. Every day they rose early and crowded hopefully around the Dock gates, shoulders shrugged against the chill mists that rolled across the canal, and prayed that today they might be lucky. Each morning, the dowdy gang stood in stark contrast to the showy opulence of the Dock offices and hoped that, if fortune had smiled on them, they could go home that night with their heads held high.

  Now, the luckless rejects from that morning’s selection had made their way up to the corner at the crossroads and were aimlessly discussing the weekend’s sport, the runners in t
he dog racing and the injustices that burdened their lives. For the past two months, following the assassination on the 28 June of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the subsequent outbreak of the rapidly escalating war, the conversation had increasingly centred on the fighting in Europe and the employment opportunities that this might offer. Some of the men had strong opinions about the political wisdom of Britain entering the battle but most of the talk was tinged with a sense of excitement at the prospect of a change in their personal circumstances and fortunes.

  Muttered greetings were exchanged with Edward but the men respected the silence of his confused mood. To his left, Regent Road ran down into the bustling commercial centre of Manchester whilst to his right, the route ran past the huge, formidable Salford Workhouse and on through Eccles into Warrington. In front of him, Trafford Road was busy with the endless streams of carts ferrying products to and from the Docks; the horses leaving numerous, steaming markers to denote their passing. The rich warm vapour from the sweating horses hung like a thin cloud over the junction, contrasting sharply with the stale odours emanating from the open door of the Ship Hotel behind him. The cleaners had begun their daily struggle to free the pub of the evidence of the previous night’s indulgencies. Woodbine smoke hung in the still September air, dulled by the smell of the grain flour that had lingered for the last two days in the dockworkers’ jackets.

  A motorised cart tumbled the clouds of damp haze and left behind the pungent traces of burnt fuel as it passed through. Edward was fascinated to see that these trucks were becoming more commonplace. His Dad would never have believed that, in his son’s day, they would be seeing horseless carriages pushing the carters off the roads.

  He watched the groups of coolies from the ships on their way up to the shops and pubs. They walked in single file like a line of sombre, grey geese. Their eyes were lowered submissively and they crossed the road maintaining the same order and distance between them. It was a deliberately non-confrontational and non-intrusive style, he reflected, as though it was a part of their shipboard training.

  Edward stood with his arms resting on the rail, his hands clasped in front of him as if in supplication. His eyes were fixed on the church on the opposite corner where he had married his childhood sweetheart ten years before. He was not a regular churchgoer and Laura and the children now went to Salford Central Mission, the big new church that he could see just a bit further down Trafford Road. This imposing, three storey building with the domed roof above the central section, had been opened only six years before, yet already it was the hub of the community. Up to a thousand people attended the Sunday services and each day during the week there was a range of interesting activities for young and old alike. He had often joined the hundreds of men who enjoyed the thought provoking addresses given by the speakers at the secular Pleasant Sunday Afternoon Society meetings. The steaming jungles of South America, the exotic spices of India and the commercial brashness of New York had all been brought to their Salford doorstep.

  When they were young lads, the racecourse had stood at the bottom of Broadway, the road that ran in front of the church. Since then, it had been relocated to Kersal and the land now housed the huge Number 9 Dock. The voracious growth was dizzying. His mother hated it and never came down further than the market.

  The Mission did seem a friendlier place, and less formal in its purveying of the Christian message, but the statuesque, Victorian gothic pile of the building opposite elicited from Edward a special reverence.

  This elegant edifice of Stowell’s Church was imbued with the spirit of a thousand happy unions that had been blessed within its walls. There were fragments of both his and Laura’s beings embedded in that majestic stone. He admired the skill of the masons that had gifted this building to the community as a repository for the golden threads of the mutual commitment that bound together their often drab lives. He wondered at the skills and learning of the artisans that had created this complete and unified whole out of the rough-hewn rocks that had been brought to them.

  Occasionally, there would be a loud, metallic thudding as a monstrous steam traction engine rumbled by hauling a heavy trailer. They carried massive castings from Lancaster and Tonge’s in Pendleton destined for one of the new factories in the rapidly developing Trafford Park industrial estate.

  Many of the men shouted a greeting to Edward and wished him good luck. Some said that they would see him over in France sometime soon. Edward smiled bleakly and waved back at the many familiar faces.

  He watched the horse drawn carts coming up Trafford Road with the loads that they had collected from the Docks. A lot of them were carrying large bales of cotton or crates of fruit, whilst others were weighted down with strangely shaped blocks of rubber. Some were loaded with timber and Edward mused as to whether any of these were on the way down to the Regent Road sawmill where he had worked.

  Streams of carts were going back down towards the Docks with loads for the waiting ships. They were carrying the fruits of Lancashire’s industries, the products of northern ingenuity, artistry and engineering skills. Edward was intrigued to see the number of gleaming gun carriages, the burnished steel coated with a thin, protective film of oil, being carted down to the Docks. They would be mated with the precision-milled barrels being brought in from the mighty engineering sheds of British Westinghouse in Trafford Park.

  The carters sat hunched on the front of their vehicles, their elbows resting on knees covered by large leather aprons, reins resting loosely in their hands and the clogs on their feet hanging adjacent to their horses’ plodding flanks. The men’s faces almost invariably bore the baleful expressions of the disinterested, resigned to their tediously exploited existence. The older horses maintained the same stoic pace throughout the day, heads bowed like bored old men, but the younger animals occasionally raised a small objection with a skittish shake of the head. Their exuberance was quickly curtailed by a sharp rap on the rump from the carter’s whip.

  Along the side of the road there was a line of handcarts carrying the short distance loads. These were the entrepreneurs of the carting trade; men who had worked long hours and saved every penny to buy their own handcart and then grabbed every opportunity that was offered to move even the smallest load. They took unfettled forgings from the ironworks to the engineering shops where they picked up sacks of brass turnings that they then carted to the motor manufacturers. On the way back they collected window frames from the joinery company to take to the building site before returning again to the ironworks.

  A sharp young voice penetrated his thoughts. ‘Eh up, Mr Craigie. Yer must ‘ave been up early to get that tidied up.’ He looked down at the thin, but imperturbably cheerful face of his daughter’s eight year old best friend. Her dad’s worn and threadbare cap was perched coquettishly on her fair curls and her grey blouse, with cuffs that hid her small hands, was spread out over an ankle length skirt. The toes of her black leather clogs protruded from beneath the double frill around the bottom of her skirt and she beamed up at him with a mischievous smile as she banged her clog irons on the paving stone, trying to create a spark.

  It was impossible not to be drawn in by her impish smile. ‘Hello, Amy. Do I look smart enough then?’

  ‘Aye. Yer look a real toff. But yer’ll ‘ave to do summat about t’ socks. They’re full of wrinkles,’ she said, pointing at the puttees round his calves.

  ‘Well, I think that they’re supposed to be like that but I’ll ask the Major when I get to the barracks. Where are you off to then?’

  ‘I’m going to t’ shop for a loaf for me Mam. Me Dad ‘ad t’ rest of it for ‘is butties.’

  ‘Here you are then,’ Edward said, charmed by her irresistible good humour. He handed her a halfpenny piece. ‘Buy yourself a liquorice stick.’

  ‘Eh, ta Mr Craigie. I’ll save ‘alf of it for your Laura. Bye for now.’ She waved cheerily and skipped off up the road.

  Edward watched as she dashed past two women, shawls pulled round their shoulders,
carrying a heavy cotton bag between them. She narrowly avoided two men in suits and straw boaters before colliding with the portly greengrocer in his brown overall. He heard her shout ‘Oops, sorry Mr Artingstall’ before she disappeared into the crowds on Eccles New Road. Mr Artingstall smiled and shook his head indulgently before returning to his task of artistically arranging the shiny red apples on the trestle in front of his shop.

  Crossing the road, Edward hesitated for a moment. He had forgotten which foot he had started into the road with. It was usually his left. He adjusted his step and finished comfortably on his right. At the gateway to Stowell’s Church he stood for a moment looking up at the commanding steeple and admiring its powerful, manmade presence. He was thrilled by the thought of the huge volume of free air that the masons had enclosed as they reached up to their God. Standing in the entrance he ran his hand over the joints of the heavily studded door and gazed at the precise carving of the lintel. His outstretched hand was resting palm downwards on the stone pillar at the side of the door when he heard Big Charlie.

  ‘Hey, Eddie. Are you alright? Are you walking up to the barracks, then?’ the big man boomed out. Big Charlie, like many men of his size, was formidable in appearance, clumsily rumbustious in approach, but gentle and caring in manner. He was going to war with enthusiastic gallantry because he had been told that it was the right thing to do and because he was convinced that it would all be over by Christmas.

  Edward joined his pal and together they walked up Cross Lane towards the railway and the barracks of the Lancashire Fusiliers. ‘How was your Dot, then?’ he asked Big Charlie.

  ‘Well, she wasn’t right taken with my going. But she did do me a grand breakfast to see me on, like. And she’d got me a lovely bit of tongue for some butties for afterwards. Nice with some pickled onions. What about your Laura?’