Rags, Bones and Donkey Stones (Sequel)

by B A Lightfoot

  ‘I keep thinking about it but my mother would kill me. It wouldn’t have been a problem for you before. You didn’t have all these curls that go like tight little springs if they get wet.’

  ‘No, it would just have hung there like rats’ tails. Anyway, he’s here now.’

  Grasping the front of his jacket to secure a tight fit against his body with one hand and holding his cap in place with the other, a dishevelled figure came scurrying round the corner from Goodiers Lane. ‘What’s taken you so long, Billy Murphy?’ Amy demanded ungraciously. ‘We have been standing here for twenty minutes being eyed up by a line of coolies coming up from the docks. If Pip’s dad had seen us waiting here he would have had something to say.’

  ‘I couldn’t help it,’ Billy protested. ‘Dad keeps the picture in the lavvie and our kid was in there for about half an hour reading his comic. He does that so I won’t take it off him. As if I want to read his kids’ stories, anyway.’

  ‘Never mind, Billy,’ Pippin said. ‘At least you are here now. Did you manage to get the painting?’

  ‘Aye, I did. I shoved it under my coat then nipped out of the back door. I’ll have to make sure that I get it back before my dad gets home though, or he will notice that it has gone missing.’

  ‘Come on, then,’ Amy said, urging them along. Billy manoeuvred himself into place outside Amy whilst Pippin switched to the inside and they headed off past the police cabin and down towards Ordsall Park. When the three of them had studied the list that Amy had so hastily copied, they had become convinced of the connection with the Salford Canary. There were names of people in Salford, Manchester and London that they had never heard of, many of them women, but the presence on the list of the names of Frobisher, Higgins and Molineaux had led them to conclude that Harry Grimshaw had been appointed as an agent to make anonymous reparation to the people and families whose lives had been scorched by the stellar passage of the super nova of the Victorian theatre, Ellen Connolly. It was an observation by Billy, however, that had set them on today’s errand to visit Amy’s granny with the hope that, at the end of it, they might finally have the explanation for the mystery that had so troubled Billy’s father for the last three years.

  ‘We must remember not to say anything about the list,’ Amy said. ‘If Mr Blenkinsop hears about that, we could be in serious trouble.’

  Amy’s granny was donkey stoning the front step when they arrived. ‘I won’t be a minute, dear. I just thought that I would get these done while Arthur takes the dog for a walk in the park.’ She had already creamed a section on each side of the step and now laid a flat piece of wood on it. ‘Can’t abide wiggly lines,’ she muttered. ‘Shows a lack of pride.’ She picked up a white stone, dipped it in her bucket of water and stroked it carefully alongside the wood.

  By repeating the process on the other side, she achieved a symmetrical pattern of white within the cream. She straightened her back and scrutinised the step carefully before lifting the coal grid and white stoning a two inch band around the hole. ‘That’s not bad, Gran,’ Amy joked. ‘You are getting better as you get older.’

  ‘Aye, well, it’s just a pity that a few more don’t take a bit more interest in their fronts,’ her granny retorted huffily. ‘I keep telling that Mrs Azzabandi woman from two doors down that I will show her how to clean her steps but all she does is smile and say “Hello, Good Morning.”’

  ‘She doesn’t understand you, Gran. They probably don’t use donkey stones in Malta.’

  ‘Well, that’s as maybe. But we use them here and, as they say, you should do what the Romans do. Anyway, come in and we’ll get the kettle on. Here you are, Billy, make yourself useful,’ she said, handing him the bucket. ‘Wipe your feet when you go in; I’ve just cleaned and polished the lobby.’

  Billy carried the bucket through to the back yard and, while Amy filled the kettle, Pippin lit a wax taper from the fire and took it through to the kitchen to ignite the gas stove. Amy’s granny took some china cups and a half-pint mug from the shelf and arranged them on a tray. ‘We’ll sugar and milk them in here, Gran. It will save taking everything into the front room.’

  ‘That’s alright as long as you know how many sugars your young man has. Don’t forget to warm the pot before you pour the water. Wait until it starts boiling as well. Can’t abide it made with warm water. Makes your tea taste as though the dog has weed in it.’

  ‘Gran, fancy saying such a thing. It sounds horrible.’

  ‘Well, it’s as bad as these men drinking it when it has stewed. What pleasure is there in that? I sometimes think that it a waste of time using fresh tea leaves for Arthur. He would drink dishwater if it was warm and brown. He says that it is a waste emptying tea down the sink. “Just put a drop of hot water in out of the kettle to liven it up,” he says. What harm is that doing to his stomach, I ask you? He says they use tannin to preserve leather so it will be keeping him going. How’s your mother doing? Has she got rid of that sore throat yet?’

  ‘Yes thanks, Gran. She had a hot potato in a sock tied round it last night and she said that it feels a lot better this morning.’

  Amy carried the tray of drinks into the sitting room and placed it on the walnut dining table that Arthur Blenkinsop had brought with him when they got married. ‘Gran, we’ve got a bit of a mystery that we thought that you might be able to help us with.’

  ‘Well, now. This sounds intriguing,’ her granny beamed, then her face straightened. ‘You’re not in some sort of trouble are you?

  ‘Oh, no, nothing like that,’ Pippin said hastily. ‘We just wanted to show you this picture.’

  Billy finally released his grip on the edge of his jacket, extracting the package like a bashful magician. He removed the newspaper wrapping and placed the painting with elaborate ceremony in the centre of the table. Amy’s granny searched on the mantelpiece, rummaged around the top of the sideboard, then found her glasses in the pocket of her pinafore. She peered carefully at the two faces on the picture, going from one to the other as if trying to interpret some connection between them. ‘Would have thought he was a bit out of his depth there but he was never one to duck a challenge,’ she muttered quietly.

  ‘What did you say, Gran? Do you recognize them?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know who she is; looks a bit top drawer if you ask me.’ She held the picture up in front of Billy. ‘You can see the family likeness, can’t you?’

  Billy’s face dropped. ‘You think that it is my dad?’

  ‘Your dad? Goodness me, no. Your father was never that handsome. Smart chap, maybe, but never one for the girls like this one was. Had a fancy for him myself, if the truth were known. He was a twinkle-eyed charmer if ever there was one. No, it’s not your dad, Billy, but I can see how they would be mistaken. They were a bit like two peas out of the same pod. It’s your dad’s older brother, Pat, before he got his jowels.’

  Chapter 29

  The foot of the trombonist playing at the front of the bandstand was tapping rhythmically to the stirring march. The piece of cardboard, fitted inside his shoe to cover the hole in the sole, had worked loose and now flapped in the measured cadence of the music. The back edge of the turn-ups on his shiny black gabardine trousers were slightly frayed and flapped gently in the warm spring breeze, his knees were bent as he strove to achieve the embouchure for the high notes in his solo. The blue jacket of his band uniform, hanging loosely on his spare frame, had neatly pressed lapels but a heavily creased flap. His head was thrown back, his eyes closed with wanton pleasure as his hands worked a thrilling and precisely executed glissando from his shiny mouthed instrument. A tired bandage was hooked over the thumb of his left hand, wrapped round his wrist and down behind the faded gold-braid of his sleeve. The musician’s right thumb, adjusting with minute accuracy, exercised a tight control of the unusual flexible stay; a sure sign, Callum thought, that the trombone was a trophy wrested from some unfortunate enemy bandsman during the war as the Germans favoured the flexible stay. The crowd
applauded, the pink-faced musician wiped his lips, held his trombone aloft and bowed his head in grateful acceptance of the appreciative response. The conductor turned towards his star performer, adding his own polite applause as he ushered the preening musician back to his chair.

  The tuba player, whose sheltered position under the Peel Park bandstand had now been cruelly exposed by the afternoon sun, put his heavy instrument on the floor and attempted to ease his sweaty discomfort by shuffling his chair forward. His portly body, not permitting of subtle movement, knocked over the music stand shared by the tenor horns. ‘Hang on, Alf,’ grumbled the horn player with the watery eyes and the glasses held together by a grubby strip of gummed brown paper. ‘You are not the sylph-like creature you once were, you know. You’ve knocked my Sousa marches under the trumpets.’

  ‘Sorry, Dennis, but there was no way that I could get through the sodding Thunderer March with that sun on me. I’m as hot as a whore’s knickers. Hey, Billy. Under your seat. Could you just pass Dennis’s sheets back up?’

  The trumpet player stooped down to oblige, but failed to notice that his neighbour had been resting his instrument on his knee, and the mouthpiece caught in Billy’s eye. ‘Bloody hell, Sid. Watch where you are putting your trumpet. Why do you stick it out right where I am bending my head.’

  ‘It’s not my fault, Billy. It’s bloody Dennis over there not looking after his music properly.’

  ‘Now hang on a minute,’ Dennis objected, standing up and removing his glasses to gain a wider perspective. ‘It’s Alf who’s upset the applecart, trying to move in on the tenor horns when there is no space.’

  The conductor, whose shiny forehead was now beginning to resemble his slicked-over hair, tapped his baton on his music stand. ‘Gentlemen, please,’ he hissed. ‘Can we prepare ourselves for our next piece?’ He turned to the audience, forcing a smile that strove to reassure, before returning to the band. ‘Are we ready for The Thunderer March, gentlemen?’

  ‘Hurry up, Alf,’ a man in the audience called out. ‘It’ll be going dark in a bit.’

  ‘And look at those clouds coming over,’ another called. ‘You’d be better making it The Thunderer and Lightning March.’

  Jean put her hand on Callum’s arm. ‘Oh, look at poor Alf. He is struggling enough without everybody starting on him.’ The unfortunate tuba player was now attempting to lift himself from his knees after his struggle to retrieve the scattered sheets. He put both hands on the chair, easing one portly leg forward to give some leverage, but the effort required proved beyond the capacity of his hot and exhausted body.

  Billy and Sid put down their trumpets and helped the struggling tuba player back on to his chair. ‘Right, Alf. Get yourself settled,’ Sid urged. ‘You’ll need all your energy for this next one.’

  ‘I am sure that he’ll be ok, darling’ Callum laughed. ‘He probably had one too many before they started. I saw him coming out of the Craven Heifer when I was coming up to meet you.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Did you come up on the tram?’

  ‘No, I felt like the walk. I had just been with Uncle Liam to see Eddie Craigie. He’s not been too well lately.’

  ‘Is it his chest again?’ Jean asked.

  ‘It is, I’m afraid,’ Callum said. He pulled off a piece of grass and chewed on it thoughtfully. ‘He really struggles with his breathing sometimes. I can’t see him getting any better. The gas has done too much damage.’

  ‘Oh, that is so sad. How did he manage to get so much exposure to it? Was he not wearing a gas mask?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly. Uncle Liam told me about it. He feels pretty bad about the whole thing because he said it was basically his fault.’

  ‘That sounds like a burden for him. What happened exactly?’

  ‘It was when he got shot in the head. He said that he shouldn’t have been there in the first place but he hadn’t been thinking straight since Lizzie had died whilst he was in Egypt.’

  ‘You told me about that. It must have been really difficult for him.’

  ‘I suppose it was. I didn’t see much of them there because I was still on the motor bikes. But when I met up with them again in France he was definitely a changed man. The whole thing was getting on top of him. I… I don’t think that he wanted to come back.’

  ‘He wanted the honourable way out?’

  ‘I think so. When he got shot, Eddie had gone after him and he dragged him out down this ditch. There was a lot of gas about. Uncle Liam knew nothing about it but the other lads told him afterwards. Eddie had held his gas mask over my uncle’s face while he pulled him out.’

  ‘So he exposed himself to the gas instead?’ Jean asked. ‘That was a massive sacrifice to make,’ she added quietly.

  Callum watched two children arguing about whose turn it was next in their game of peggy. Their mother was opening a large cake tin full of sandwiches and passed one to an older lady that she called ‘Ma’ then two larger ones to her husband. ‘I don’t think that he would have seen it like that at the time,’ he said. ‘He would have known there was a risk but he just decided to chance it. It was like that. Live for the moment. It was his mate out there, dying. Why add to his problems with gas? That’s all that would have mattered at that point in time. Deal with any consequences later.’

  ‘He deserved a medal for that,’ Jean said.

  ‘He wouldn’t have thanked you for it. He got better than that. He got his mate back. They have been pals since they were kids. He had already lost Big Charlie.’

  Callum stared distantly at the cricket match that was taking place beyond the crowd sitting in front of the bandstand. A man tugged at his braces, polished the ball on his trousers then lumbered up to the pile of coats that denoted the end of the pitch. He effected a promising spin, confounding the batsman who swung at it wildly with his home made bat, only to see the wicketkeeper catch it and knock over the three branches that comprised the stumps. An argument ensued about the exact position of the crease but that was resolved by an older man, sitting on an orange box at the side, who shouted ‘You’re out, Charlie. Sod off and do some fielding. The other team are a few short.’

  Jean put her arm across Callum’s shoulder. ‘Sweetheart, thank you for sharing that with me. I really do appreciate it.’

  Callum put his hand onto hers and smiled at her. ‘Who else would I share it with?’

  ‘It’s just that I know most of the men don’t want to talk about anything that happened out there. I’m glad that you feel you can.’

  He looked at the serried ranks of park chairs, filled with people enjoying the welcome sunshine and the uplifting music. The soothing, pastel shades of the parasols, the excited voices of the children and the laughter of their parents, the courting couples holding hands and gently pecking at each other; all seemed to have a feel of instability, a sense of unreality, as if they could at any time be swept away and replaced by the brutalising world of the battlefield. Had they earned this gentle peace or were they merely glossing over the destructive corrosion that drove men and nations to war?

  ‘What’s the matter, Call? You seem lost in another world,’ Jean said, stroking his ear with the tip of her finger.

  ‘Sorry, darling. I was just thinking how frail this all feels; this playing at being normal; grasping at bits of happiness before they get snatched away again. It’s difficult enough for me to tell you what it was like but, there again, I only ever carried messages or spanners; I never carried a rifle.’

  ‘I understand, my love,’ Jean said, linking her arm into his and squeezing. ‘It’s horribly selfish of me, but I am just so glad that you don’t have that guilt to carry.’

  ‘I was a part of it though. You can’t escape the guilt.’

  The band had finally begun to play again and Callum listened with horror at the discordant sound that they were creating. The conductor rapped his baton irritably on his music stand and waved his hands from side to side, finally quelling the cacophony which had, by now, brought the cricket ma
tch to a temporary halt. A somewhat irascible discussion resulted in the discovery that the tuba player, Alf, had been playing the Washington Post March whilst the rest had been struggling valiantly with the Thunderer. The eagle eyed drummer eventually spotted Alf’s music under the trombonists’ chairs, the harassed conductor mopped his brow and counted the band in to a stirring and, this time, harmonious rendering of Sousa’s Thunderer March.

  ‘Eddie and Uncle Liam were talking about the woman who was in that picture; you know, the one they called the Salford Canary.’

  ‘I remember. The very glamorous, but rather naughty, lady that Liam couldn’t remember ever having met. I thought that it might be Aunt Agnes.’

  ‘Apparently her name was Ellen Connolly so that puts Aunt Agnes off the list of suspects.’

  ‘Was that her real name or her stage name?’

  ‘I don’t know, to be honest. I never thought that it might be different. But what did come as a bit of a shock was that the man in the picture wasn’t Uncle Liam. It was my dad; he must have been one of her conquests. I know that he was a bit of a Jack-the-lad but I wouldn’t have thought that he was in her league.’

  Jean pursed her lips, deep in thought. ‘I suppose that puts it more or less in the early nineties. But it doesn’t preclude Aunt Agnes. Her middle name is Helen and I don’t know what stage name she used; it was all so long ago. And do you remember when you went to the bank for the loan and they said it would be vetted by Miss Connolly? Well, Aunt Agnes was married to a banker and, when he died, he left her his shares and I know that she still goes down to the bank for meetings and things.’

  ‘But there is another odd thing; my dad’s funeral was paid for by Harry Grimshaw. I thought at the time that it was just an act of charity on Harry’s part. Don’t say anything about this but Eddie tells me that there is a fund of money in the bank that has been used to pay out for a few funerals. It seems as though they could all be people who have been hurt at some time by this Salford Canary. And that fund is administered by the mysterious Miss Connolly.’