In the Bleak Midwinter

by Carol Rivers

  ‘You’ve not had the first one, yet,’ Pat returned spitefully.

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘You told us all what a beauty it was, a family heirloom, an’ all, but you’ve not seen it since.’

  Birdie could hardly speak for mortification. How dare Pat say such a thing especially in front of Harry, who suddenly seemed entranced by the sight of the gravy marks on the tablecloth.

  ‘Don is . . . he’s . . .’ she began in desperate embarrassment, ‘he’s making sure it’ll be a good fit, that’s all.’

  ‘I reckon it was a trick,’ Pat said boldly. ‘To win you over to the Thornes.’

  Birdie laughed in astonishment. ‘Whatever are you talking about?’

  ‘Me and Willie heard Willie’s mum. Mrs Mason was telling Mr Mason in their kitchen, after she’d bought him some nails and a hammer up Thorne’s. She said there was a racket going on out the back and Aggie was shouting—’

  ‘Pat, what’s got into you?’ Birdie interrupted, shocked at the words that were tumbling out of his mouth. ‘It’s a sinful thing to talk behind people’s backs.’

  ‘It’s no sin to tell the truth,’ Pat retaliated. ‘It was just before you went to work there. Aggie Thorne was in a right strop, accusing the widow of trying to take over the business by getting off with her son. And she would have, an’ all, if Aggie hadn’t steered him to marry you.’

  Birdie’s heart rolled over like thunder as a feeling of sickness swamped her. And Pat wasn’t finished as he gabbled, ‘Then the widow shouted back that Don hadn’t put a ring on your finger yet and wasn’t likely to, if she got her way.’

  Birdie stared at her brother. ‘That’s . . . that’s terrible lies!’

  ‘I’m not lying to you, honest,’ Pat insisted, his face red and blotchy. ‘I never would do such a thing. You’re my sister and always done the best for me. It was you and Frank that I always looked to, and now . . . now . . .’ he sucked in breath as he searched for words and couldn’t find them. ‘Ask Mrs Mason, if you don’t believe me,’ he choked eventually. ‘She was dithering whether to tell you, but me and Willie heard Mr Mason say it was none of their business.’

  Birdie stood up, her legs unsteady beneath her. ‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered, holding tight to the draining board. ‘You . . . you’re making it up.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Pat said, scrambling up beside her, tears on his lashes. ‘I . . . I never wanted to upset you.’

  Even the air around her seemed different, changed, sullied by Pat’s cruel words, as if dirt had been thrown over her life.

  Loosening the belt of her apron, she folded it and placed it on the table. Then she lifted her coat from the kitchen door and slipped it on. Walking out into the yard, she then made her way through the alley towards the park, breathing in the clean evening air as though she had been starved of it.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, on the park bench, in the quiet, as the river mist settled in ghostly pools in the dark. The world continued in its same way, as if nothing had happened to disturb it. The sounds of passing vehicles drifted over from the road along with the hoots of the late river traffic. But it felt to Birdie as though she was part of another world, a place she was looking down on, numbed to the sensations that went with it.

  It gradually grew colder and the sky turned black over the arches, where she had played as a child and brought Pat to play after Bernadette had died. And where, this year in the freezing cold of winter, she had met Frank in secret and cut the red hair from his chin.

  Gradually, stars emerged and twinkled, and the river noises quietened as the gulls screeched their last hungry cries. From some way off there were voices; dockers most likely, those lucky enough to have been called off the stones and given jobs. Ambling home from a long shift, they would join the straggling queues from the warehouses, shoulders slumped and faces caked in grime. She knew it all so well, the docks were second nature to her, reassuring and familiar. And yet tonight it seemed as though everything was sharp and out of focus.

  Why would Pat say such things? Was he angry with her for leaving them? Was he so against being left to manage for himself and look after Dad that he’d think up such a story?

  Then she felt someone beside her, a tall frame. It was Harry.

  ‘Take no notice of me,’ Harry said as he sat down. ‘I’m just going to have a quiet moment.’ He stretched out his long legs, rummaging in his pockets for tobacco.

  It was not so much the smoke he craved, but something to occupy his hands. He wanted to comfort her, but how could he? There was truth in Pat’s words, no doubt, but it had come at a price.

  ‘Why did Pat do it?’ she asked. ‘How could my own brother say such things?’

  ‘He’s just a kid,’ Harry replied carefully. ‘You said so yourself, that you look on him as a boy. He’s too young to be tactful.’

  ‘So you believe him, is that it?’

  ‘I’m not saying one way or the other,’ Harry shrugged. ‘But Pat’s no liar.’

  ‘Then it must be true.’

  Harry realized he wasn’t questioning the truth of Pat’s outburst. He was only wishing it could have been said differently.

  ‘But what if it was gossip? Why should I believe that Lydia is after Don just because Mrs Mason said it?’

  ‘Granted, Pat’s done no good to himself or to you tonight,’ he tried. ‘He only spoke out to save you distress.’

  ‘And what am I in now?’ she burst out, and he flinched as though his words had returned to bite him. ‘Am I sitting here clapping me hands for joy at the thought of me true love—’ She stopped as if the emotion was subsiding enough to let in a bit of calm. ‘But I can’t put this on no one else. It’s me own fault, I know.’

  He sat quietly, afraid to move lest he upset her train of thought. He could feel her thinking everything through, as though it was in his own head.

  ‘Harry, do you remember what I told you? When I saw them, that day by the shop, and they hadn’t seen me. And Lydia was, well, she just looked happy. But I’ve never seen her the same again, not until I saw them in the Dock Road that time with you. Oh, a thousand thoughts are whirling through me brain,’ she whispered as if to herself. ‘The glances between them and, yes, there have been many. But I thought . . . ah, what did I think? And that look on her face when I went to tea, when Aggie said Don and me were to have her rooms. I tried to put meself in her place, so I did – but I was thinking of meself and me own future.’

  ‘That’s as it should be,’ Harry nodded, ‘for a bride.’

  ‘And little James, what of him?’ she continued as if not hearing him. ‘He was skipping beside Don that day in the Dock Road, as though Don was his father.’ Again she stopped and rocked a little.

  ‘The boy is close, I’ll admit, but shouldn’t an uncle be so loved too?’

  ‘Perhaps James doesn’t know the difference? And Lydia herself has been unwell. Could unhappiness be the cause? For surely to goodness, I’ve not seen her smile since that day in the Dock Road . . .’

  She drifted into silence and it was not until a cold wind blew harshly across them that Harry suggested they walk home. She took his arm and they made their way back to March Street, and Harry found himself once again pressed to find any good point in that shopkeeper’s nature.

  After saying good night to Harry, Birdie found Pat asleep on the couch.

  ‘Oh, you’re home,’ he yawned, sitting up, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

  ‘I’d only gone to the park.’

  ‘Are you still angry?’

  ‘No, but I don’t feel my normal self,’ she admitted, sitting beside him.

  ‘I’m sorry. But I had to tell you.’

  ‘And it was all from the lips of Willie’s mum?’

  ‘Me and Willie was under the open window,’ Pat said quietly. ‘Mrs Mason didn’t know we was there.’

  ‘So you was eavesdropping?’

  ‘Couldn’t help it, could we?
We was stuck there till they went in the parlour. Willie and me agreed we’d keep quiet, like Mr Mason told Willie’s mum to.’

  ‘But, what you heard was only Mrs Mason’s view,’ Birdie protested. ‘And like you and Willie, she wasn’t supposed to have overheard.’

  ‘Yes, but Mrs Mason don’t gossip. Not like some do round here.’

  Birdie sighed again. ‘You’re right, Pat. She’s not the type to speak out of turn. Now, it’s time we went to bed, for both of us have an early morning. I’m off to the store bright and early, for I’ll not be satisfied until I know the truth.’

  That night in bed, she thought about what she would say to Don. She would demand to know if he was in love with Lydia. And was he only marrying at the insistence of Aggie? What would she do if he told her he was in love with Lydia? But that was impossible. There had to be some kind of mistake. But these questions tormented her and she slept only fitfully, before waking up in a cold and clammy sweat.

  Chapter 28

  The next morning, Tuesday, Birdie made her way to the store as usual. But her heart wasn’t in it. Despite the challenging work she had accepted her role and had wanted to please Aggie. But now it was all changed by what Mrs Mason had overheard. She wanted to be resolute, single-minded. But she was thrown back into panic. As she turned the corner of the High Street, her footsteps were slower. She wanted a husband who loved her. She wanted what Flo and Reg had. But was this impossible now?

  Lifting her face to the breeze, she swept away a tear. Then she stopped, gasping for breath. Grey, foul-smelling smoke curled high into the sky above the roofs of the shops and swept into her face. Horses shied restlessly as a thick blanket of smoke filled the road.

  ‘What’s happened?’ Birdie demanded, clutching hold of the fishmonger’s arm as he stood outside his shop.

  ‘It’s Aggie Thorne’s store,’ he coughed, shaking his head doubtfully. ‘They had a fire in the early hours. Put out the blaze, the firemen did, but God knows what the old girl had in there. You can’t get rid of the stink.’

  Birdie moved blindly forward until she couldn’t bring herself to move any further. She stared over the people’s heads to the canvas awning outside the store, which was now caked in black grime. A steam vehicle with four red wheels and a brass funnel stood in the road and a trail of smoke blew across on the breeze. The long ladder that was held in place on the back of another cart was being lowered by two firemen. The two black horses that pulled a cart further down the street had been led off, out of the reach of the fumes.

  ‘Is anyone . . . was anyone . . .?’

  ‘Dunno,’ replied the fishmonger, coming alongside, with a shrug. ‘It was a corker, just as dawn was breaking. I could feel the ’eat from my place. Lucky the steam engine yard was next door, as they wheeled out an engine to drive the pump.’

  Birdie ran then, trying not to breathe in the fog of fumes as she pushed her way through to the store.

  ‘Don, Aggie?’ Birdie stepped warily into the blackened doorway of what once had been the shop. The glass in the door was gone and there was no window at all. She could still feel the heat in contrast to the cold morning and the ash blew up in gusts. A fireman appeared in his dirty tunic, his face and his brass helmet streaked with dirt.

  ‘You can’t come in here, miss, it’s not safe.’

  ‘Is everyone alright?’ Birdie pressed her hand over her mouth. The air was so foul she stepped back. ‘My fiancé, Donald Thorne, and his mother, Aggie? And there’s Lydia and her son, James. They live above—’

  ‘They’re all next door,’ he barked at her, dragging a hose pipe after him and stamping his boots in the puddle. ‘Lucky for them they’d next door to go to, or else they’d ’ave been down to the Sally Army for a bed ternight.’

  ‘Next door,’ Birdie gasped. ‘The fire didn’t reach there?’

  ‘No, though it’s a miracle it didn’t spread from the shop. This place was a tinder box,’ the fireman grumbled, wrestling the hose through the debris. ‘Stuffed to the gunwales, it was.’

  Birdie thought of the kindling and coal and the paraffin and the matches crammed together and all the other stock that Aggie insisted on keeping. Aggie had once warned herself of the dangers of causing sparks.

  ‘Nasty business this,’ continued the fireman. ‘Lucky the steam engine yard is next door and they got the pump going afore we arrived. The fire would have taken down the rooms above too, even the whole block.’ He glanced over his shoulder. ‘Shop’s off limits and you can’t go up the apples and pears yet. We’ve got to inspect the rooms above afore they move back.’

  Birdie took a last glance around. Curiously some of the jars and tins on the shelves stood singed but intact. At the other end, where the coal and wood had been kept, there was nothing but debris. The store and all its contents were ruined. And what of upstairs? Would it be safe to return to? All Aggie’s plans for the future were in disarray.

  What was going to happen now?

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’ It was Lydia who opened the street-door to Birdie’s knock. Her tone was unwelcoming and her clothes smelled strongly of smoke. ‘You’d better come up. I’ve taken James to school. It’s best he is away from all this. Aggie is . . . well, you’ll see.’ She stared down at Birdie with clear dislike. ‘Donald is out in the yard, trying to save some worthless stock at his mother’s insistence.’

  Without a word more, she turned and made up the staircase. Birdie followed, listening to the sound of Lydia’s slight heels on the echoing staircase. Despite the dirty marks over her skirt and blouse, Lydia had lost none of her natural elegance. She was undoubtedly an attractive woman, with a keen appetite for the business and a young son to support, and Pat’s words repeated themselves in Birdie’s head. The widow said that Don hadn’t put a ring on your finger yet and wasn’t likely to, if she got her way.

  Birdie wanted to take hold of Lydia and demand to know the truth. But she found herself at the top of the stairs and standing on the landing, and before she could confront Lydia, Aggie’s voice rang out.

  ‘Oh, so you’ve arrived at last!’ Aggie poked her turbaned head around the door. ‘Come along in.’

  Birdie entered the unfamiliar, musty-smelling room that Aggie had rented for Lydia. A grey haze lingered, banking up thickly in the corners and laying like a blanket over a cheap wooden table and four chairs. ‘It’ll clean up good as new in here,’ Aggie said as she bent down to drag a pail of dirty water across the bare-boarded floor. ‘The ash even got up here. ’Spect you saw the damage on your way up. But we ain’t done bad, consid-erin’. Won’t be able to go back, though, till they’ve inspected upstairs. Meanwhile we’ll set about business again.’

  Birdie was amazed to find Aggie in such determined spirits. Not for her a catalogue of woes, or self-pity. She looked as though she had been fighting the fire single-handedly as two white circles stood out around her eyes as though she’d rubbed away the soot. Her hair was scraped back from her long, thin face and gathered up under the turban. Her coarse apron was already filthy and her laced boots were bound securely by string around her ankles as though to defy any flames.

  ‘But there’s no shop now,’ Birdie pointed out. ‘Everything’s in ruins.’

  ‘A bit of a fire won’t stop Aggie Thorne,’ Aggie answered resolutely. ‘I mean to have the insurers cough up and deck me place out proper again. Meanwhile I’m going to make the landlord an offer on the room below. Not that you can see what state it’s in as the window is boarded. Has been for donkey’s years. But I’ll be likely to rent it for a pittance if I promise him we’ll do that up, an’ all.’

  ‘Do it up?’ Lydia said in a shrill voice. ‘This place is not fit to occupy, let alone downstairs.’

  ‘If you’ve a better idea, then spit it out.’ Aggie glared challengingly at her daughter-in-law.

  ‘I never agreed to me and James living here,’ Lydia retorted, for the first time showing her feelings. ‘I’ve been forced into this and it’s all because . . . because . .
.’ Lydia turned an accusing glare on Birdie, ‘. . . of her!’

  ‘Shut up, you daft wench,’ Aggie interrupted sourly. ‘You’ve been nothing but a misery for weeks. We’ve suffered a fire, but we’re still on our feet, ain’t we? You’ve got a roof over your head and clothes on your back. But what do I hear from you – nothing but complaint! I’ve allowed you your own way after grieving but now I’ll tell you straight to yer face. I always thought my Stephen had wed a spoiled bitch and now I’m proved right.’

  Lydia’s dark eyes narrowed as she pulled herself up. ‘I’ve always known you’ve disliked me, Aggie.’ Again Lydia glanced at Birdie. ‘Indeed, you have my sympathy, Brigid. Your life will be a misery under this woman’s thumb.’ Lydia turned slowly back to Aggie, her expression bitter. ‘Have you forgotten it was me who helped you through the war? You were eager to have me then, but now, having found an opinion of my own, and with your son to support me, you want me out of the way.’ Lydia smiled unpleasantly. ‘Rest easy, Aggie, for I have no intention of spending the rest of my life at your beck and call. And if Donald has any sense, he’ll come with me.’

  Birdie stood in shocked silence as Lydia turned and swept out of the room. Her footsteps rang on the boarded stairs and the front door banged.

  ‘Oh, take no notice of her.’ Aggie flapped her hand dismissively. ‘She won’t go nowhere. Got the kiddy to think about, ain’t she? Knows when she’s well off even though she turns her nose up at this.’ Aggie shuffled across and clamped a rough hand on a tired-looking Gladstone bag. ‘We was lucky not to have lost anything upstairs. And I might have, if that bloody fire had its way.’ Aggie placed the bag on the floor and stood over it, a strange smile on her face. ‘Why don’t you go and see Donald? Go through the scullery there and down the steps to the back yards. Cheer him up, it will, seeing you.’ Aggie gave a twisted grin. ‘Then come up and finish this floor off for me. I’m catching the bus up to Aldgate to see the landlord, so we can get crackin’ again.’