‘Ah, like that is it? The baby bird growing up, eh?’ And seeing how the land lay, Dorrie left Lucy to work off her temper by chopping tripe.
Chapter Twenty-Six
In no time at all, it seemed, Polly was asking Lucy to give up her job on the tripe and trotter stall and take over the hand cart on Oldham Street so she could sell the carpet rugs full-time. Lucy was delighted, feeling life had taken a turn for the better. Benny too was feeling much happier. Although his ploy to be accepted by the Eastwood Gang had failed miserably and Georgie continued to harass him, Benny was determined to ignore it because he was so happy to be working for his mam. He still had to attend school, of course, which was boring but wouldn’t last forever. For now, on evenings and weekends he heaved carpets, earning himself enough coppers in tips to go to the flicks twice a week if he wanted. Life was sweet.
Polly herself spent much of her time at the warehouse these days.
She and Big Flo could be found crawling about the floor on their hands and knees, cutting carpet into strips for stairs, rectangles for fireside rugs and bedrooms, and even the odd square for those with the money to buy a decent-sized piece for their parlour. All this work demanded a great deal of stitching and binding, and their fingers became covered in calluses and painful nicks from the scissors. Bob Reckitt’s wife Marge gladly agreed to work with them. Nellie Sidebottom too, once she’d found a neighbour to sit with her sister Betty, since they were in dire need of the money and Polly could pay well.
Everyone complained of aching backs and wrists, eyes blurred from tiredness, but not for a minute would Polly rest or permit anyone else to slacken either. There was no time to lose. Hadn’t she wasted enough already?
Charlie too was making good progress. He’d long since grown tired of asking for work at the various factories. McConnell’s were having a difficult time, Hetherington’s weren’t taking on anyone new at the moment. He’d tried Mackay’s, Allsopp’s, Cooper’s, and many more besides. Now he concentrated on hawking, an unpredictable life style with an unreliable income, but at least he was in charge of his own destiny, just like Polly.
He went down to the Pension Office in Dickinson Street and applied for money out of the King’s Fund. This provided him with a horse and cart, though it meant a slight reduction in his naval pension, and from then on he set about the task in earnest. He would often pick items up while he was out and about on Polly’s behalf. Once they shared the cost of an advertisement in the Manchester Evening News. As a result, notes were delivered to the warehouse by post and by hand, some with details of old carpets people had to sell, others enquiries from people who wished to buy. Polly picked up two more cinema carpets that way, and one from a hotel that had gone bump.
She would take a tram, look the carpet over, make a bid and arrange for Charlie to come along later to collect it. Sometimes it had to be cut before it could be moved, with several trips required to transport it all, but no matter how much of a struggle the work was at times, business was brisk and no one was complaining.
Sales at the warehouse became a regular feature, advertised in the local papers. Potential buyers came from far and wide to view the pieces on offer. Her next major task, Polly decided, would be to find more retail outlets, in order to spread her net ever wider. But her first priority was her family.
As a result of her increased income she was now able to consider moving house. She’d been paying her share for some time at number twenty-three. Joshua collected five shillings a week in rent from her, and seven shillings and sixpence for food, though some weeks he demanded more if he thought the children had eaten too well. Polly paid up gladly, even though she hated the way he continued to control their lives. What she wanted most was freedom, for herself and her children.
One day she took her courage in hand and suggested that Joshua be the one to leave. ‘You only moved in because I was unwell after Matthew’s death. I’m fine now, so if you and Flo want to go elsewhere . . .’
He looked at her, plainly horrified, as if the thought had never occurred to him, which troubled her greatly. ‘We are family,’ he insisted. ‘This is our home now and we have no intention of leaving. Not ever.’
That was the day Polly set about seriously looking for a house of her own. She’d certainly no wish to make Big Flo homeless, in any case. But it proved to be far more difficult than she’d hoped. Then quite out of the blue Bet Sutcliffe, her neighbour who owned the old clothes shop just up the street, announced she was moving, and Polly seized her chance. True it was still uncomfortably close to Joshua, but she’d have her own front door to close against him, and the children their own rooms.
‘Can I take on your shop, Bet? Not the old clothes, you can sell those off, but the premises?’
‘Gladly! I’m going to help our Dot run a grocer’s shop in Wilmslow. Be a nice change for me, and in a better area. You’re welcome to this one, so long as the landlord’s happy.’
Bet wasn’t the only one to be leaving Dove Street, or Ancoats for that matter. The City Corporation had finally got around to providing better housing in an attempt at slum clearance. However, there were grumbles that the new tenants, moving into Wythenshaw for instance, were more likely to be white-collar workers with steady employment and a good wage coming in than the poorer working class in need of a leg up.
Like many another, Polly was one of those offered no such escape.
‘It’s small,’ she warned her children, ‘with only two bedrooms, but one is large enough to split into two with a curtain for you to have half each.’
‘Does that mean we won’t be living with Uncle Joshua any more?’ Benny wanted to know, pausing from loading the hand cart, eyes suddenly alert and interested.
Polly ruffled her son’s hair. ‘It means exactly that, with your own bed and private space.’
‘Oh, spiffing!’ And Polly laughed at the word, so out of place coming from the mouth of her grinning urchin of a son. He’d probably picked it up from Billy Bunter in the Magnet.
‘We won’t stay there for ever but it’s a start, a foot on the ladder towards something better.’ She also welcomed the opportunity to expand her business through the shop, small though it was. Dove Street could hardly be compared with King Street but every little helped, and who in King Street would want to buy second-hand carpet rugs in any case?
When informed of this plan, Joshua was beside himself with rage. Painfully aware by this time that without Polly’s income he could barely afford the rent on number twenty-three, let alone a decent standard of living, he put forward every argument against the plan he could muster, fighting desperation with anger.
‘The house is far too small for a family.’
But this time, Polly stood her ground. ‘We’ll manage fine, thanks.’
‘And no doubt rife with bugs from all those old clothes.’
Polly almost laughed. ‘I reckon we’ve coped with that problem before. I’ll call in the council before we move.’
‘In any case, it’s a complete waste of money to pay two rents when we can all live together on one.’
‘It’s my money, Joshua, so I’ll spend it as I choose, thanks all the same.’
And then in near desperation he said, ‘The truth is, woman, that it isn’t fitting for a respectable woman to be living on her own at all’
‘Why ever not? I’m perfectly capable of looking after meself. I’ve had enough, Josh. I’m leaving.’
‘You are not! You’re going nowhere unless I say so.’
She pushed her fists into her waist and confronted him with defiance flashing in her green-grey eyes. ‘Indeed I am. And no one, certainly not you, can stop me. Ye’ve been nasty to me and my children from the start, Joshua. It can’t go on. Sure and it’s time for us to go our own way, so nothing you can say will make me change my mind.’ Perhaps it was joy at finally scenting freedom that made her reckless. ‘I might even be getting married soon, then you won’t be troubled by me ever again.’
Joshua st
ared at her as if she had run mad and his voice, when it came, was low and hissing. ‘Don’t talk ridiculous! You’ll marry no one. Not while I have any say in the matter.’
Polly lifted her chin, and met the severity of his gaze with fortitude. ‘That’s just it, you don’t have any say. I’m a grown woman and free to do exactly as I please.’
There followed a long, chilling silence. ‘We’ll see about that.’
Before Polly had time to move one item of her belongings, Joshua spoke to the landlord and somehow convinced him she would be an unreliable tenant. The man let the property to another family without even informing her. It was only when Polly saw curtains go up in the dusty shop window that she learned what Joshua had done. Yet again he had bested her. She stood helplessly in the street, staring at the curtains in utter disbelief. ’I’ll swing for him, so I will!’
All the neighbours came out to offer their sympathy as well as to fill her in on the missing details of the saga. Connie Green patted her shoulder, urging her to stay calm, while Vera Murray told her to do just the opposite and pop one on him.
But they were deprived of the joy of witnessing the confrontation as Polly stormed into the house and slammed shut the door, leaving their curiosity unquenched. The red in her dark hair glinted with the fury that raged through her as she stood before him, small fists clenched, as if they might just do as Vera had suggested. Joshua simply flipped open his evening paper and told her to get the supper on. He was hungry.
‘I’m sorry Flo, but I can’t - won’t - go on like this.’
It was wash day and the kitchen was filled with steam from the dolly tub, the crumbling walls running with the resulting damp. Behind the wainscot they could hear the scratching of tiny feet, for all their efforts with mouse traps and poison. Polly felt as if she were going mad, trapped herself with nowhere to run.
Big Flo looked upon her daughter-in-law with a deeply sad expression in her tired old eyes. It was true they’d never been particularly close, them having such different views on religion, but her respect for the lass had grown tenfold over recent years. Polly was a worker, no doubt about that. She might be soft as butter on the inside, but outside she had some mettle, of which Big Flo approved. She was a woman of strength and courage. But scratch that surface too deeply and sparks would fly, as they had as a result of Joshua’s latest interference.
‘I reckon he’s lost his marbles. He’s so fastened his mind on looking after thee, since our Matthew isn’t here to do it like, that he never stops to think what you might want.’ It was the longest and fullest criticism Big Flo had ever made of one of her sons, and for all it wasn’t entirely accurate, it left Polly dumbstruck.
‘Look at it this road,’ Big Flo continued. ‘If you’d been meant to have that shop, you’d have got it. It’s providence, that’s what it is. Summat better’ll turn up, you mark my words. You just have to keep your eyes open a bit wider, that’s all.’
It was good advice which Polly followed, and with success, for some weeks later something better did indeed turn up. Something out of Ancoats altogether, just as she had once dreamed of.
While out and about looking for carpets, she found a three-bedroomed house to rent quite close to Cheetham Hill Road. Here there were open spaces, green fields and the scent of fresh air, the streets not being congested with motorbuses, motor cars and horse and carts. It would be as if they were living outside the city altogether, with an almost village-like atmosphere, just as she had always longed for. Cheetham Hill also boasted a rapidly developing parade of new shops, a prospect which greatly appealed to Polly. Perhaps, once she was better placed, that would be worth investigating.
The small terraced house she acquired at the exorbitant rent of thirty shillings a week had everything she could desire. Three good bedrooms, a front parlour and living kitchen, and, best of all, a bathroom with hot running water. She couldn’t believe her good fortune. Outside was a tiny front garden complete with a gate she could latch behind her, providing a quiet haven of peace after the rigours of Dove Street.
She’d been nervous at first about whether she could afford such luxury, but the business was really starting to make a profit, and it was worth the risk to get away from Joshua. Eventually of course, when she and Charlie married, they would have two steady incomes coming in, plus whatever the children earned. The depression seemed definitely to be lifting and things to be generally looking up, for them at least.
Benny was delighted by the prospect of a bedroom to himself, but disgusted to discover that a cinema seat costing fourpence in Ancoats, cost twopence more at the new Premier Cinema in the village. There was also a Public Swimming Baths which pleased him, and a Public Library which didn’t interest him in the least, although Lucy meant to use it to seek out romances to sigh over. She could still savour the delights of open-topped tram rides with Tom, whenever she had an afternoon off, or simply browse amongst the many shops, not least Greenhalgh’s cake shop which made her mouth water just to look at the French pastries in the window. It seemed like another world, far from the one in which Joshua Pride held sway, promising them all a bright new future.
Joshua’s future was far from bright. So far as he was concerned, his life was falling apart. He had failed in his political ambitions, was still having no luck at finding employment, and despite thinking he’d curbed his sister-in-law’s aspirations, she was about to escape his clutches entirely. He thought he’d succeeded in preventing her from walking out, but ever since she’d informed him of the house she’d acquired in Cheetham Hill, he’d been obsessed with devising some way to prevent the move.
She’d even won his mother over to her side.
‘By heck, that’s grand,’ the old woman had said when Polly made the announcement. ‘I’m made over for thee, lass.’
The woman was as slippery as an eel. He’d hurt her children, deliberately, in order to prove to her the extent of his power; even robbed her of her husband so that she could understand how it felt to lose someone she loved. He’d striven to restrict her everyday life, had put any number of obstacles in her path to prevent her from making friendships and building a new life for herself. He’d made it as clear as possible that she could no longer expect to have things all her own way, as she had with his foolish brother. But whatever he did, however much he hurt her, she came bouncing back, as lively and determined as ever, with her hunger to succeed all the greater for the difficulties she encountered.
In that devastating moment Joshua realised that for all his manipulation, his canting and preaching, the control and authority he’d exerted over the family, his labours had produced an effect exactly opposite to his intentions. He might have put her down for a while, but she’d come back fighting, and won.
Now the dratted woman owned a thriving business when others were still going bankrupt. She’d rented a house in a much improved locality, with the prospect of marriage ahead. His hatred and loathing of her had never surged more strongly through his veins than they did in that moment.
It was as he walked down Swan Street and saw the crowds gathering outside the Rising Sun, a pub which had never shut in living memory, that it came to him how he might put a spoke in the wheel of her progress.
‘How do, Joshua,’ said one man as he approached, while another merely acknowledged him with a nod of his head and a tug on the peak of his cap, as if touching his forelock. It brought a jolt of satisfaction to Joshua that they treated him with such respect.
‘Let me buy you a pint,’ he offered, surprising them both, for he was not known for his generosity.
‘Thanks, mine’s a pint of bitter.’
‘Mild for me,’ put in his mate.
With all the contacts Joshua now had through the NUWM, he was quite certain he would ultimately be successful. As he drank with his two companions and put a few tentative enquiries in motion, Joshua considered his plan. It wouldn’t be easy to bring about, but he felt reasonably optimistic of success.
He had little to go
on beyond the name ‘Murdoch Shaugnessy’ but hoped that would be enough. It was a name which should strike fear in Polly’s heart since the man had entirely blighted her childhood and directly contributed to her own mother’s death.
Once Polly’s plans had been thrown into chaos, he meant to hit her where it really hurt. The second part of his scheme would naturally provide him with the greatest satisfaction, but then devising a punishment to suit any occasion had always been one of his strengths. He would take it step by step. The first task was to completely unsettle her.
He’d been watching his young niece for some time, and saw how she came home all flushed and excited, and always later than she should on a Saturday evening.
Following the occasion when she had bolted instead of coming to his study for her punishment as directed, he’d conducted a thorough search, not only of her bedroom but of the back yard too, since she always insisted on returning home that way. It hadn’t taken him long to discover the scarlet dress and shoes. And, an even worse sin to Joshua’s puritanical mind, he’d also discovered lipstick and powder.
Lucy was undoubtedly an attractive young woman, but a foolish and wanton one also. He would take great pleasure in teaching her a lesson for miring herself in debauchery. His intention was to humiliate and break her without contravening his own high moral code. It could be done. He was sure of it.
Having concluded matters to his own satisfaction at the pub, he was actually smiling by the time he reached the house where his latest conquest lived. ‘Victim’ was not a word which ever sprang to Joshua’s mind, though this was exactly what the woman appeared when she opened the door, almost cringing at sight of him. Despite her protests that she was not well, that her son was off school with a bad toothache, that she had not a crumb of food to offer him, he pushed her along the passage and bolted the door. It took no time at all before his spirits began to improve, having pumped out the worst of his ill temper into her defenceless body. By way of reward he left her a packet of chitterlings for her children’s tea, and the name of an employer who might, or might not, be in a position to offer her work.
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