The Favourite Child

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Is it about when we are to marry?’

  Jinnie couldn’t help but smile softly at him. He reminded her of a little boy with his nose pressed to the window of a sweet shop, longing to taste the ware. ‘Can’t you wait even a little while?’ she teased. ‘Just to be absolutely certain that we are suited.’

  ‘I could wait for ever,’ he recklessly and inaccurately assured her. ‘And of course we’re suited. I adore you Jinnie.’

  ‘Oh, and I adore you but why - why did you choose me? I mean, you know nowt about me. You know nowt about where I lived before we met, ‘ceptin that I come from the roughest streets; nor where I were born, not that I rightly know meself. I’d no job, no family, nothing but the clothes I stood up in, so how can you love me? Why did you want to wed me?’

  ‘I love you because you’re you.’

  Jinnie felt her heart contract with love for him. No one but Edward had ever said such lovely things to her. ‘But what if I’d done summat terrible?’

  ‘How could you possibly have?’ He nuzzled a kiss into her neck and Jinnie had to push him away, to make him sit up and behave. Cheeks flushed, she looked so delightfully embarrassed that he kissed her again.

  ‘Stop it, folk are looking. What if I’d told you lies or summat?’

  ‘I don’t believe you could ever tell a lie, darling Jinnie.’

  He smiled into her eyes and Jinnie experienced that familiar melting sensation deep inside, followed by a clench of pain somewhere she shouldn’t. Oh, but she loved him so much Jinnie felt she might die if she lost him. She reminded herself that it’d been Bella who’d made up the tale of the accident with a runaway cart horse, not herself. She’d been too ill to care. Though it was true she’d had ample opportunity to put the matter right since. She tried again. ‘Well, not a lie exactly. What I’m trying to say is, how could you possibly still love me if I had - done summat terrible, I mean.’

  ‘What sort of terrible thing can a sixteen year old girl as lovely as you possibly do?’ He was laughing at her now, tweaking her pert nose then kissing it, right there on the top of the tram. ‘Anyway, I don’t care about your life before you met me. That’s over.’

  It was all exactly what Jinnie had most longed to hear and her heart soared with fresh hope. But before she could get another word in and finish what she’d started, he began to spoil it. ‘I love you because you are special, different, not like the other girls always up to mischief in those rough streets. No better than they ought to be.’

  After a moment’s pause for breath, she said, ‘What if I were the same as the other girls, the ones always up to mischief, would you still love me then?’ She was gazing at him with pleading in her eyes but he didn’t seem to notice because he was busily trying to kiss her cheek before the conductor came upstairs for their tickets.

  ‘Don’t ever let me hear you putting yourself down in this way again. You’re not like the other girls. You’re my girl. You have standards, class, beauty. That much is clear in every line of your lovely face, in your sweet, delicious body, in your fragile fingertips.’

  Jinnie closed her eyes, weak with love for him. ‘Give over. You sound like you’re drunk.’

  ‘I feel drunk. Drunk with love. You make me so happy, Jinnie. Don’t ever talk of my not loving you ever again.’

  How could she tell him how wicked she’d been, after that? But she remained thoughtfully silent for the rest of the journey.

  ‘Same again next Sunday?’ Edward pleaded as they alighted at the corner of Liverpool Street and Jinnie could only nod, bemused and oddly excited, brown eyes glittering with raw emotion.

  If she’d failed to tell him the truth about her past, what did it signify? He loved her and would hear no word said against her, not even from her own lips. She was perfectly certain that nothing and no one could ever destroy their love. Not ever.

  Edward was waiting for Bella in the pie shop after the clinic closed the very next Thursday evening, and begged her to come and talk to their father. ‘He’s looking for you to meet him half way and he’ll be only too happy to take you back. He already regrets his outburst of temper.’

  ‘He hasn’t said as much though, has he?’

  ‘Not in so many words but he does feel it, I can tell. He’s miserable as hell and hardly leaves his study.’

  Bella pursed her mouth into a tight line, apparently unconvinced. ‘He knows where to find me if he wants me. You did. He can leave a message any time at the clinic, or with Aunt Edie here,’ indicating Mrs Heap whose ears were flapping along with a good many other interested spectators as she slid pies into waiting basins. Then she grinned up at her brother. ‘Have you any money with you? Buy me a pie. I’m fair clemmed, as Violet would say.’

  ‘You’re just as stubborn as he is,’ Edward railed, slamming some coins down on the counter. Bella bit into the hot pastry, hazel eyes bright with mischief.

  ‘Maybe that’s where I get it from.’

  Taking her by the elbow, he marched her out into the street where they might talk with greater privacy. ‘Is this what you’re living on? Pies.’

  ‘I’m living on charity.’

  ‘With Violet Howarth? Pa would never think to look for you there. And he’d not come here either.’

  ‘If this is a battle of wits he’s on to a loser, because I won’t give in. Ever. The clinic stays and I’ll fight anyone who tries to close it.’

  ‘You would too, you daft idiot. You were always the spirited one in the family. I remember you socking me one on a number of occasions when we were children. There were times at school when I could’ve done with your strong right arm.’

  Bella chuckled as she made a parody of punching him, then tucked her arm into his. They walked for some time in affectionate but gloomy silence, each acknowledging the impossibility of either one backing down. ‘Do you know something, I’m happy here. I feel I’m doing something useful. But I miss you. Jinnie too.’

  ‘And we miss you. I admire your gumption, sis, but we’d both like you to come home.’

  ‘I can’t ever do that. I’ve certainly no intention of abandoning what I passionately believe in, just to please Father. It’s far too important. Has Jinnie spoken to you yet? Has she told you...’

  ‘Told me what? You’ve asked me that before. What is this?’ He held her away from him, a frown puckering his brow.

  ‘Nothing. I just thought... Nothing. I’m probably worrying unnecessarily.’ Bella fondly patted his cheek. ‘Go on with you, soft lad. Go home and be a better son than I’ve been a daughter. Tell Mother I’m fine and I’ll pop in and see her one afternoon while Pa’s at the mill. Is she up and about yet?’

  Edward shook his head, his expression doleful. ‘I despair she ever will be. And it’s all my fault she had that damned stroke. I shouldn’t have gone charging in like a bull in a china shop with my decision to marry Jinnie.’

  ‘Well, perhaps your ardour should have been tempered just a little. But don’t worry, mother’s state of health is not your responsibility. These things happen. It isn’t your fault and I’m sure she’s not half as bad as she makes out.’ Bella was sorely tempted to tell him the truth, that it was all a pantomime to bring him to heel, but decided against it. Family emotions were stretched to breaking point as it was, heaven knew what might happen if Emily’s little scheme were ever discovered. It could destroy the mother and son relationship for all time. Much better she be left to come out of her sulks in her own good time. ‘Don’t fret. She’ll make a miraculous recovery one day, I guarantee it.’

  ‘Ever the optimist.’ Edward poured the contents of his pocket, little more than five shillings in coppers and silver coins, into her hand. ‘I’ll get you some more. I can do that for you at least, even if Father won’t. What a family, eh?’

  ‘Bless you. Yes, what a family!’

  A few days later Bella returned from a visit to Sally Clarke to find a note propped up against the mantle clock. The compassion in Violet’s eyes told her it was from Seedley Par
k Road, even before she recognised the handwriting.

  Bella picked it up with a sense of foreboding. It had not been a good day. Her visit had been entirely unsuccessful. Only once had she persuaded the woman to come to the clinic and every time she’d called at the house since, Bella never could get to speak to Sally without her husband being present. Today had been no different. Reg Clarke had been adamant that his wife would use no artificial means that went against his religion and might be seriously detrimental upon his own health.

  ‘We will leave the matter in God’s hands,’ he’d told Bella, showing her firmly to the door.

  It was, she felt, like beating her head against the proverbial brick wall.

  Now she opened the letter and was horrified to discover that Simeon had stopped her allowance. Afraid of being a burden to her kind hosts, she barely touched the substantial meal set before her. How dare she take food from out of children’s mouths? It wouldn’t be right. She did what she could to help Violet around the house but with no money coming in how could she pay her way? Bella decided that she must find employment, and soon.

  Dr Syd expressed concern on being brought up to date on events and instantly suggested that the clinic pay Bella a wage. She refused. ‘That’s not why I opened it, to make money for myself. Anyway, it isn’t possible. The clinic barely has enough to survive. I have some savings to call on. Besides, I mean to speak to Mother. She may be willing to help. Failing that, I shall sign on. Isn’t that what everyone else does?’

  ‘You could always find yourself a husband,’ Dr Syd suggested, lips twisting into a wry smile. ‘That’s usually the answer for a penniless female.’

  ‘No thanks. ‘

  ‘You surprise me. I heard you were walking out with Doctor Lisle.’

  ‘Heavens, whoever gave you that idea?’

  ‘He did. He’s quite convinced you would make a perfect pair.’

  ‘Drat the man. All he does is adopt the moral high ground and preach at me. I swear there’d be blue murder done if I were ever alone with him for more than five seconds.’

  Bella’s ‘ladies’ at the clinic were equally sympathetic but no more able to solve her financial problems than their own. Aunt Edie said baking for a living was hot, tiring work and very low paid. Mrs Solomon admitted they didn’t have any vacancies for an assistant in their fish shop, largely because they rarely had much fish to sell and even fewer customers. ‘Those who pay regular anyroad. We get by,’ she said. An oft-repeated phrase. Mrs Stobbs was unfit for work of any kind, even if she could get it, what with her numerous children and her health problems, and Mrs Blundell said that she worked a punishing shift system in the mill, which she wouldn’t recommend to anyone.

  ‘Not to a lass such as yourself. Though that Jinnie’s different. She’s used to roughing it and has her old friends around to make her feel at home’

  ‘Old friends?’

  Mrs Blundell folded her arms across her floppy bosom, leaned against the door jamb and settled in for a long natter. ‘Aye. She hobnobs every dinner time with that Len Jackson and Harold Cunliffe. Right pair of loose bobbins them two, never seem to do a hand’s turn but harmless enough, I dare say, in their way.’

  Bella frowned but asked no further questions. What Jinnie did was really no concern of hers. Though perhaps it was Edward’s, a voice in the back of her head quietly commented.

  When Harold Cunliffe came to Jinnie with his suggestion to cheat on Billy Quinn, she refused to have anything to do with it. ‘Nay, if you value yer life so cheaply, that’s up to you. I want to live a bit longer.’

  Harold pointed out that Quinn had left him rotting in jail for three months during which time his wife had been taken into the sanatorium, his children sent to an Orphan’s Home and his youngest child had died of malnutrition. ‘Otherwise known as starvation. By the time I came out I’d no job, no family, and not even a house to call me own. He’s left me with nowt, and I’m not the first he’s treated so badly. For all he’s put me back on the pay roll as his runner, I can’t forgive him for what he did. It’s time someone stood up to Billy Quinn. I thought happen you’d feel the same.’

  ‘Oh, I do, I do, but...’

  ‘You’re too much of a coward. Like everyone else round here, you want to save yer own skin.’

  ‘Is that a crime?’

  ‘It is if it leaves such as Quinn on the rampage. Like a loose canon he is. One of these days he’ll blow somebody’s bleedin’ head off.’ Harold leaned closer, eager now to share his plan. ‘We could get our own back on him if we joined forces, Jinnie lass. Make money out of him, instead of him making a fat profit out of us. He owes me that much at least. All we have to do is fiddle the clock bag by not shutting it till after the first race. Then you run and put on a last minute bet. He doesn’t get the result through quickly, so he takes bets till the start of the second race. We’d clean up, I tell you.’

  Jinnie listened to the plan with mounting trepidation. ‘How would you get the result though, before he does?’

  ‘There are ways. Are you in then?’

  ‘I’ve enough to do keeping tabs on all these bets. I’m up to me ears in work.’ Jinnie wisely opted for self preservation. She collected the bets and handed them over to Harold, exactly as she was told to do by Quinn. No risks. No trouble. What Harold did with them after that was his affair.

  The following week Mrs Blundell won twelve pounds and made sure everybody in the weaving shed knew about it. ‘By heck, I’m rich. Here lass, it’s all due to you,’ and she gave Jinnie a sovereign.

  Jinnie stared at the coin in wonder. She’d never held so much money in her hand before in her entire life. Nervous of having the coin about her person and afraid of anyone finding it, she tucked it in the back of a dressing table drawer when she got home that night and said nothing to anyone about it. The least Edward knew about her working as a bookie’s runner, the better.

  A week or two later Mrs Blundell won again, twenty pounds this time, her pendulous breasts shaking with joy as she trundled through the weaving shed, yelling to everyone about her good fortune. ‘I’ve come up trumps again. Better watch which horse I puts me money on in future, eh?’ This time she gave Jinnie two sovereigns. ‘You’re a right lucky star for me, lass. Buy yourself summat nice.’

  Jinnie gazed at the money with eyes grown big and round with wonder. ‘How did you do it, Mrs Blundell?’ It didn’t seem possible to win once, let alone twice in just a few weeks. She could hardly believe it.

  Neither, it seemed, could Billy Quinn.

  He was waiting for her at the end of her shift, as she half feared he might be, lounging against the wall in his familiar arrogant manner. Jinnie recognised the curl of blue smoke from the end of his cigarette long before she reached him. No one else had so much money to spend on fags as Billy Quinn. She felt a chill of cold fear settle in her stomach.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Don’t practise yer fancy new way of talking to me, girl. This punter of yours, how come she won twice? Is there something ye should be telling me, Jinnie?’

  ‘What can there be to tell? I’ve no idea which horse will win, have I? I just do what you tells me, give them the tip like you say I has to, then I collects the money and hands it over to Harold and he puts it in the clock bag.’ A memory stirred, of Harold’s plan to fiddle the clock bag, and she suddenly saw how it came about that Mrs Blundell had won twice. It could all be done very easily, even without her connivance. Jinnie could feel herself flushing, just as if she were indeed the guilty party, and realised with a quickening of fear that Quinn had seen the betraying blush too. The blue eyes narrowed with suspicion, and pinching the fag end between finger and thumb, he tossed it aside.

  ‘You and Harold wouldn’t have a little racket going, would ye?’

  ‘Racket? No, ’course we don’t. What sort of racket could that be? I know nowt about any racket.’ However hard she tried, Jinnie couldn’t keep the sound of gu
ilt out of her voice. She could kill Harold Cunliffe for getting her in this mess, as if she didn’t have problems enough already. ‘I’m going to miss me tram, Quinn, I have to go.’

  He struck her with the flat of his hand, jerking her head back so hard that she heard her neck crack. Jinnie felt a trickle of blood run from her nose and into her mouth. Then he slammed her up against the entry wall, making her cry out as the back of her head met solid stone. Quinn pressed the length of his hard body against hers, one hand circling her throat, trapping her so that she could scarcely breathe, let alone move.

  ‘Ye know what I’d do, if ye were ever daft enough to cheat on me, don’t you, girl?’ Jinnie couldn’t even move sufficiently to nod. ‘I’d cut out yer lying tongue, so I would. Then put you through the mincer, just as if you were a pound of beef.’ He smiled and the effect was chilling. ‘And ye can tell Harold Cunliffe he’ll get the same treatment, if’n he tries anything either. No, on second thoughts, don’t bother. I’ll have a quiet word with Harold meself, so I will.’ Having made this decision, he released her and stepped back. Jinnie almost fainted from relief.

  ‘There, I’m not so terrible am I? Now get off home, Jinnie me love, afore I change me mind. Go now!’ he yelled, and she wasted no time in doing so, not even pausing to catch her breath until she’d jumped on to a passing tramcar.

  The minute Jinnie arrived back in Seedley Park Road, she quickly secreted the two sovereigns in the back of the drawer beside the first, shaking with fear as she did so. If Quinn had looked in her pockets he’d have found them for sure, and she’d have been mincemeat there and then. At least she was safe now, and had some privacy here to hide her money. No one would ever find them.

  It was a couple of days later that a man’s body was dragged from the canal. It was identified as that of Harold Cunliffe, presumed to have taken his own life through drowning after losing his wife and children.

  Jinnie listened in stunned silence to the report as Edward read it out loud from the morning paper. Her heart froze with fear but she urged herself not to panic. All she had to do, she told herself sternly, was exactly what Quinn told her. Hadn’t she always known those were the rules. Harold had understood them too, until desperation had driven him to abandon caution. On no account must she make the same mistake.