Polly's Pride

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Course you did.’ Big Flo folded her great arms as if she’d just won ten rounds in a wrestling contest. ‘There we are then. All mended, done and dusted. Isn’t that grand? Now, shake hands, the pair on you. It’s time breaches were healed.’ And she smiled with pleasure as, after some initial reluctance on Polly’s part, this was brought about.

  When Charlie came home Polly ran into his arms and begged him never to go away again. ‘Aw, didn’t I miss you every waking moment? I’m sorry we quarrelled. What an old gripe I am. Will you forgive me?’

  He seemed to have forgiven and forgotten already for he was kissing and hugging her as if he might never let go. Later, much later, he told her all about his trip to Liverpool. He’d seen a man, he said, off whom he’d bought a load of brushes, brooms and wash leathers which Charlie was certain would sell well on his barrow. ‘He also gave me an interesting piece of news.’ And he began a tale which held Polly enthralled from the first word to the last. She wasted no time when he was done in going straight to her children.

  ‘Lucy, will you keep an eye on Benny for me? I have to go away.’

  ‘Go away where? Her daughter looked concerned.

  ‘Don’t fret, it’s only for a little while. To Liverpool, to see a man about a ship.’

  Benny, who had been taking an interest in the conversation since it concerned him, opened his eyes wide. ‘What sort of ship? Can I see it?’ He was considering a change of career if he ever got bored with his mam’s warehouse, perhaps in the navy instead of the railway. He didn’t feel quite the same about trains as he used to.

  Polly tweaked his nose. ‘No, you can’t see it. You still have to go to school. It’s a liner about to be decommissioned. That is, broken up. And isn’t it filled from stem to stern with fine things which have to be auctioned?’

  ‘You mean, carpets?’ Lucy asked, excitement in her voice.

  ‘I do indeed. The finest the steamship company could buy. Sure and if I manage to get a fraction of what’s on offer at a bargain price, won’t we make a small fortune?’

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. She was trying to imagine the size a ship’s carpet might be. ‘Will we be able to cope with it?’ But Polly only chortled with glee at the prospect.

  ‘Let’s say it’ll be a challenge, but one we can meet. I haven’t the smallest doubt of that, m’cushla.’

  And so it was agreed that she and Charlie would go to Liverpool to bid for as much of the ship’s carpet as they could get. Benny and Lucy would continue to help Big Flo at the warehouse, and Lucy would see to Benny’s meals and that he went to school on time, despite his protests that he didn’t need any girl to tell him what to do.

  ‘And what about your da?’ Charlie mildly enquired, blue eyes twinkling.

  ‘We were both right- me about him being completely unreliable and forever falling off the wagon, and you about Joshua having planned the whole thing. But we’ve made a pact. My brother-in-law has promised faithfully to stay out of my life in future. We’re free of him at least.

  ‘As for me da - sure and I’ve no idea what’ll happen to him, nor do I care.’ But a frown of concern gave the lie to that statement. By the next day she had her answer, in part at least.

  Polly and Charlie were packing their bags ready to depart when they saw him. Murdoch was dressed in his smartest derby tweeds and bowler hat, a blue collar and tie instead of his usual muffler, face scrubbed clean and shiny. The very picture of sobriety.

  ‘I’m off now, Mary Ann. Have a good trip,’ he said in his cheeriest voice.

  ‘Off where?’ She thought for a moment that he meant he was leaving and felt a jolt of unexpected disappointment. In that instant Polly realised she’d no wish for him to go. She wanted to get to know her father better, to find a way of helping him to overcome his problem, perhaps even one day learn to forgive him for what he’d done to her mother. Before she had time to express any of these jumbled thoughts, she heard the click of the front gate and saw Big Flo marching up the path.

  She was dressed as if it were a Sunday, in her chapel black, though it was but Wednesday. On top of her frizzed grey curls was squashed a flattened pancake of straw masquerading as a hat. ‘Now then, Polly. Mind what thee gets up to in that den of iniquity. Full of wicked sailors is Liverpool.’

  Big Flo considered most places other than Manchester to be rife with evil. Polly struggled not to laugh as she solemnly agreed to ‘watch her back’, then looked from one to the other of her visitors with curiosity. ‘And where are you two off to, might I ask?’

  ‘Do you never listen to owt anyone says to thee, lass?’ Big Flo said with a heavy sigh. ‘Didn’t I mention I was going on the Reccabites’ Harvest Trip today? We’re going to Bispham in a char-a-banc. Murdoch has agreed to accompany me.’

  ‘Indeed, it is my great pleasure,’ he said, bowing solemnly.

  ‘Not only that, your da’s planning to come to meetings regular like, aren’t you, lad?’

  ‘I am so. It’ll be the making of me, will it not?’ And before Polly and Charlie’s astonished gaze, the pair of them said their goodbyes and set off down the street, walking arm in arm for all the world as if they were the most respectable couple on God’s earth, and Polly’s father the most sober individual.

  ‘Will you look at that? Sure and I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with me own eves. The old besom has won!’ And Polly fell laughing into Charlie’s arms.

  Benny was not taking kindly to being looked after by his sister. like a child who needed minding. There wasn’t a minute of the day when she wasn’t ordering him about.

  Wash the dishes. Wash your face. Go to school. Go to bed. Get up. Benny was weary of it. And judging by her behaviour, he considered it was Lucy who needed looking after, not him. She was never in the house more than ten minutes together, always off somewhere with that Tom Shackleton, or else giving Benny a tanner to make him go off some place so they could be alone, kissing and canoodling like they did in soppy pictures. Benny and his mates always booed through those bits. To have such goings on in his own house was too embarrassing for words.

  There were some evenings when she didn’t look after him at all but stayed out far later than his mother would like. Benny made a point of telling her so, more than once.

  ‘What would Mam say if anything were to happen to me while you were off courting?’ he challenged her. ‘It was half-past ten last night when you got in.’

  But Lucy only tossed her pretty head, asking what could possibly happen to him, accusing him of sounding like Uncle Joshua. She also reminded her young brother that since he objected to being constantly watched over like a child, he couldn’t have it both ways.

  Her mention of their uncle made Benny warn her to take care Joshua didn’t spot what she was up to.

  Lucy sniffed, and indelicately thumbed her nose. ‘See if I care. He’s no control over us now we have our own house, so stop fretting. You’re old enough to be left on your own for a little while, I’m sure, big lad like you.’

  Benny watched in silence as she applied far too much scarlet lipstick to pursed lips for someone who was only going for a walk in the park.

  ‘We’re off to listen to the band, then we might take a walk or go for a cup of tea and a bun somewhere. After that . . . well.’ She shrugged her slender shoulders, studying the effect on her new bias-cut frock with its wide cape collar. ‘After that we might go to the pictures, or even to the Variety.’

  ‘What about me? Mam said you were to look after me.

  ‘There’s a cold meat pie in the larder for your tea, after you’ve finished those deliveries,’ she told him. ‘All you have to do is eat it.’ She began to smooth her fair curls around her fingers, teasing each one into place. ‘Don’t take on so, Benny. You’ve spent most of your life living by your wits on the streets. A few hours here and there isn’t going to make much difference. Mam fusses far too much. Parents do. Now scarper, will you? Tom will be here any minute.’

  Benny scarpered, pe
rversely relieved to be free from Lucy’s tyranny, for all his complaints. He almost felt sorry for Tom Shackleton, being told where he must go and what he must do all the time. He decided there and then he’d have nothing to do with this courting business. Not ever. Not unless the girl was a lot less bossy than his sister, anyroad.

  Lucy did not mean to be unkind to her brother but at seventeen, but very much a young woman with a mind of her own she had far more important matters to concern herself with than whether a thirteen year old boy was supervised day and night. He’d be leaving school soon, then he’d have to get a job and join in the real world instead of being mollycoddled by his mother. Mam was far too soft with him in Lucy’s opinion, never making him dry the dishes, peel potatoes, or even set the table. She conveniently forgot all the times Benny had kept the family supplied with wood and coal, not to mention Christmas dinner on one notable occasion. Boys, she thought, had things far too easy.

  Now an autumn sun was shining guinea bright, and she was walking in the park with her arm hooked through Tom’s, feeling very much the young lady about town. Children were scrambling over the old canon, just as she once used to do. Today she sat with her young man upon a bench and listened to the band playing ‘There’s a Rainbow Round My Shoulder’ and ‘Somebody Stole My Gal’, which got everybody in the park singing. Lucy couldn’t remember ever having been so happy.

  ‘Somebody had better not steal you,’ Tom whispered in her ear, making her shiver with delight.

  ‘They wouldn’t dare. Not unless I wanted them to,’ she teased, as carelessly as she could. Then, meticulously arranging the skirts of her dress, she went to sit on the grass and started picking daisies.

  Tom looked stunned. ‘You wouldn’t, would you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t what?’

  ‘Want them to?’

  Lucy threaded two daisies before slanting a sideways glance up at him. ‘Want who to do what?’ But then, seeing his adorable young face looking so wounded and confused, she burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Tom, you shouldn’t let me tease you so easily,’ as if it were all his doing. Mollified by her laughter, he dropped down beside her to plant a kiss upon her cheek.

  ‘I don’t care how much you tease, so long as you’re my girl. Oh, you are, aren’t you? I do love you, Lucy, and I’m saving like mad.’ She lifted a pair of painstakingly plucked eyebrows to regard him with some surprise. ‘Saving for what, might I ask?’

  A bright crimson stain flooded his neck and cheeks. ‘You know full well what I’m saving for.’ And after drawing a deep and heavy sigh, ‘For us to be wed, soon as may be.’

  Lucy threaded two more daisies upon her chain, pursing her scarlet lips into a delightful moue. Her frequent visits to the picture-house, and the romances she devoured daily from the Public Library, had made a deep impression upon her. The heroines of these novels were always sophisticated, elegant and languid but extremely modern and glamorous. She read about them in such titles as Love’s Fool and The Flame of Youth. They certainly didn’t hang around waiting for a proposal. They took jobs in hat shops, if they weren’t whisked off to the desert by an Arab sheikh. But failing either of these diversions, Lucy was well aware how vital it was for a young lady, when in the company of her admirer, not to appear too forward. Not if she was to bring him to his knees and get a proper proposal out of him, which was exactly what Lucy was getting at now, in a roundabout sort of way.

  ‘Wed?’ she enquired, wrinkling her pretty nose. ‘I’ve no recollection of any conversation on that score. Did I miss something?’ And she turned to offer her suitor the full beguiling beauty of her innocent blue eyes. Not having kept pace with the same kind of literature or films, Tom was lost. He’d thought everything was settled between them and, unfortunately for him, said as much.

  ‘I thought it were all taken for granted like? You and me.’ Dramatically dropping the daisy chain, Lucy put her fingers to her lips and gave a tiny gasp, rather as the heroine had done in the last Annie S. Swan novel she’d read, just to let him see how shocked she was. ‘Never, Tom Shackleton, should you take a lady for granted.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean it like that.’ Tom looked thoroughly miserable, as well he might, the whole sunny afternoon becoming dull grey as every word he uttered seemed to be turned against him. There followed a tiny disquieting pause while Lucy waited for the expected proposal. Tom worried how it had all gone so badly wrong and what on earth he could do to put it right. ‘I’m no good with words,’ he pointed out, in all fairness to himself.

  ‘I think we are agreed upon that,’ Lucy tartly remarked.

  Perhaps it was the casual way she picked up the daisy chain again that fired him, but in that moment Tom made a decision that was to affect his entire life. Ripping the flowers from her grasp, he tossed them aside. ‘I might not have much to say, but I’m a man who knows what he wants. And I want you.’

  Whereupon he swept her into his arms and kissed her every bit as thoroughly as any heroine could dream of. Lucy melted in his arms and returned his passion, kiss for kiss. After they had come up for air, all pink-cheeked and breathing hard, it was a matter of moments to fix a date not too far distant. And then, to seal the bargain and celebrate their engagement, for surely that was what it was, Tom bought her a strawberry ice cream as a treat.

  Later that same evening, after a visit to the Princes Musical Theatre in Oxford Street, they dawdled slowly homewards, hand in hand, lost to the world as they planned and dreamed of their bright future together. So absorbed were they in each other they were quite unaware that for much of the day they had been followed.

  Meanwhile, tucked up in his bed at home alone, Benny struggled to stay awake so that he could tell Lucy off for being late home yet again. But, tired after a long day delivering, his eyes drooped and within moments he was asleep.

  The next day, being a Sunday, Benny didn’t hang around waiting for his sister to nag him over breakfast. He hoped she’d sleep late and not miss him, following her evening out. Quietly he tiptoed past her closed door, making sure he didn’t wake her, and fled.

  He was revelling in the sensation of unaccustomed freedom. His mam and Charlie would be back soon, of course, but probably not until evening. And since Uncle Joshua was no longer in a position to force him to attend Zion Methodist, a wonderfully free Sunday stretched out before him, long and bright and unseasonably warm, his to do with as he pleased. While he considered various possibilities, he decided to go for a walk.

  He walked the length of Ancoats Lane with no particular destination in mind, whistling a merry tune as he strolled along, though inside he felt just a little bit empty. He hadn’t seen Liam, Don or Joe for longer than he cared to reckon. Ever since his mistaken effort to get round Georgie Eastwood by joining his gang, Benny had been treated as an outcast by all his former mates. It had been a great blow, and totally unexpected. He’d thought they would understand what he’d been about, but no, they saw him as a traitor. And a cowardly one at that.

  So now, as per usual, even as he revelled in the freedom of a whole day to himself, loneliness niggled within.

  He found himself nearing the Medlock, its swirling brown waters now clearly visible. As it rushed under Pin Mill Brow Bridge, all sorts of rubbish came with it, ropes and boxes, old boots and cart wheels. It was a favourite occupation of the local children to scavenge the river, where they could reach it, for anything of value. So it didn’t surprise him to see a group of them laughing and arguing over some supposed prize as he neared the bridge. And then he realised who it was and his steps instinctively slowed.

  It was Georgie Eastwood. His henchmen were with him, as usual, and Benny glanced nervously back over his shoulder, wondering if there was some way he could escape before they spotted him.

  And then he saw who they were teasing.

  It was Daft Betty. He could see her straight brown hair and round face, hear her piping voice. She sounded quite unlike her usual cheerful self, distressed and afraid. She was shouting something about jam j
ars, offering to give them some if they would let her go. But Benny could see that they had no intention of doing that. These lads enjoyed pulling wings off flies and legs off toads, and were clearly capable of far worse. Poor Betty Sidebottom didn’t stand a chance. Even as he stood, frozen to the spot, wondering what best to do, he saw them push her to the lip of the bridge. Seconds later, to his horror, he heard a terrifying splash. They’d pushed her in! Without considering whether or not she could swim, they’d thrown Daft Betty into the river.

  Without any thought of escape now, Benny started to run to the side of the bridge where the lads were hanging over the parapet, watching her thrash helplessly below. They were laughing as if they’d done something clever.

  ‘You lot want your heads seeing to,’ was all Benny had time to yell before kicking off his clogs and, without a second’s hesitation, flinging himself into the mucky depths.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Somehow, against all the odds, Benny managed to grab the woman and hold her head above water while he swam as best he could, despite the fact that she was bigger than himself.

  ‘Don’t worry Betty, I’ve got you,’ he yelled, getting a mouthful of filthy water for his pains.

  Yet it felt like a living nightmare, as if they’d be trapped forever by the rushing waters of the Medlock as it raced along carrying them with it, with no hope of escape as dark mill walls lined its edges like great black cliffs. Then just as he felt he couldn’t hold on to her solid body for a minute longer, Benny saw what he was looking for: a break in the wall where a boat was tied up. Kicking his legs like fury, arms entirely devoid of sensation by this time, he managed to pull Betty to the side and helped her to hold on to the mooring rope.