Fools Fall in Love

by Freda Lightfoot

  Fran’s period of working with her brother in the kitchens hadn’t lasted beyond a day. Once Amy had vanished, she’d been sent back to the pie stall to take her sister’s place. Fran was not in the least bit happy with the way things had turned out. Having the bedroom all to herself was one thing, but being the one Molly could call on to do all the chores and extra jobs around the house, as well as working all day and every day on the stall right beside her, was quite another entirely. It was driving Fran up the wall. She never seemed to be free from her mother, not for a second.

  In addition, Robert had insisted she go round to the kitchens several evenings a week to help out there too, since they were so short staffed.

  Besides which, to her great surprise, Fran actually found herself missing her little sister, irritating and sanctimonious though Amy may be at times. Fran had no one to talk to, no one to listen to her woes, of which she had plenty right now.

  But however unhappy and hard done by Fran might feel, Molly was complaining the loudest.

  ‘If I carry on working as hard as this, I’ll be wearing a wooden overcoat before long.’ By which she meant a coffin.

  The woman customer seemed to find this amusing. ‘Eeh, Molly, you’re allus good for a laugh, chuck. They’ll need an extra large size when it gets to be your turn, but I doubt it’ll be soon. You’re a right live-wire, you. Full of beans. Outlive us all, you will.’

  ‘Not the way them girls of mine are carrying on. They’ll be the death of me, for sure. Have you seen how grey I’ve gone lately? And I’m a mere shadow of me former self.’

  ‘Aye, I can see you are love, by the size of you,’ laughed the woman, running an amused glance over Molly’s substantial figure.

  Fran was heartily sick of her mother’s moans and groans, and when she spotted Patsy hovering near, called her over. ‘Do me a favour, girl, and take me mam for a frothy coffee. She’s driving me doo-lally this morning going on about our Amy doing a flit.’

  ‘What? Where’s she gone?’

  ‘She disappeared weeks ago. Mam’ll tell you all about it. At length.’

  It took some persuasion, but eventually the efforts of both girls paid off and Big Molly conceded that a coffee break might do her a world of good.

  Patsy was agog to learn what had happened to Amy but it took two cups of tea, Molly not being fond of frothy coffee, and a couple of chocolate éclairs in Belle's caff to calm her sufficiently to prise the tale out of her.

  Even then, they first of all had to listen to Belle's grumbles. ‘They’re all out to get me, the whole bleeding market up in arms just because Billy Quinn wants to build a block of flats here. And he’s prepared to pay good compensation. I’m only thinking of everyone’s welfare.’

  ‘And whose welfare would that be, Belle?’ Big Molly dryly enquired. ‘Yours or theirs?’

  Belle blinked her long mascara coated lashes and pouted crimson lips. ‘Don’t you start, Moll. I’d like to think someone was on my side.’

  Big Molly gave a harsh laugh. ‘Oh, aye, you can see I’d be dead chuffed to have some bull dozer come and knock down my house. Have a heart, Belle love. We like it here on the market as it is, and we don’t like change.’

  ‘Well, I call that a very selfish attitude, I do really. People are desperate for houses. You could still have a home here, a nice modern flat in a high rise block, and you could live on the rest of the compensation for life. You’d never have to work again.’

  Big Molly considered this enticing proposition for a full thirty seconds, and then an image of herself sitting in her empty kitchen every morning, wondering what to do with herself now their Robert did all the baking, came into her mind. ‘It don’t do for me, being idle. I’m not the retiring sort. Think again, Belle love. You tell the developer, this Billy Quinn, to go sling his hook. It won’t wash, we’re not selling.’

  ‘Tell me about Amy,’ Patsy reminded her, as soon as Belle had flounced off in high dudgeon.

  Molly loaded three spoons of sugar into her third cup of tea before starting on her tale. ‘She just up and vanished from the stall one day. She went for a cuppa and never came back. He abducted her, that’s what’s happened. She’s run off with that lad, that Chris George. He hasn’t been seen around for ages either. Mrs Crawshaw, one of my customers who’s on his milk round, was furious when her milk delivery was late. Had to send her husband off to work without his porridge, poor man. It shows very little consideration, don’t you think, leaving folk without their breakfast? Never gave so much as a day’s notice to the dairy, just upped and left, along with our Amy. Now she’s sent us a postcard from Carlisle, though what the hecky-thump she’s doing in that neck of the woods, I’ve no idea. Says I’m not to worry me head about her, she’s fine. How can I not worry? Oh, God, where is the silly cow?’

  Big Molly took out a large handkerchief and blew loudly into it, wiping her eyes on it too before tucking it back into her overall pocket. It was upsetting enough to be facing the possibility of losing her home and livelihood, without all this extra worry about Amy. She’d worked herself up into a fine lather, telling her tale, kept sweeping a hand over her eyes, brushing away a few stray tears.

  ‘Mind you, I told Mrs Crawshaw, fat lot you have to worry about if you’re only missing a dish of porridge. It’s my flipping daughter he’s run off with. How am I supposed to feel about that? I’m not a bad mother, am I? I have feelings too, you know.’ Whereupon she burst into tears.

  Patsy was shocked. She’d never seen Big Molly in such a state. She chewed on her lip for a moment then said, ‘I can make a guess why she’s in Carlisle, Molly.’

  The tears dried instantly. ‘You can?’

  ‘You aren’t going to like this but I think she and Chris might be on their way to Scotland.’

  ‘Barry Holmes said as how they’d be heading north. But why the hangment would they be doing that? It’ll be cold in Scotland, and full of midges,’ Molly said, still not getting the picture Patsy was drawing for her.

  ‘They could be eloping, to Gretna Green.’

  Molly slapped a hand over her mouth, and looked to be on the point of collapse. ‘Oh, my giddy aunt! Oh, put me daft head in a bucket and batter me brains, I never thought. We have to stop them. Where’s our Ozzy? Ozzy, where are you? Get out here this minute.’ She was on her feet, rushing out of the café and through the market hall, causing startled customers and stallholders alike to leap out of her way.

  Big Molly pushed her way through the market stalls, knocking baskets and boxes everywhere as she hurtled across the street in record time, considering the girth she was carrying, flinging open her front door and charging down the hall. Patsy wasn’t far behind, having managed to keep pace with her remarkably well, eager not to miss a moment of this drama.

  Surprisingly, considering he was incapacitated by a bad hip and knee, Ozzy was not at home.

  ‘He’s down at the pub again, flipping lives there. Never around when he’s needed.’ Then Molly collapsed on to the battered old sofa among the detritus of newspapers and old cardigans and sobbed as if her heart might break.

  Patsy’s own heart filled with compassion. ‘Don’t take on so, Molly. She’ll be all right. They’ve probably, you know – done it by now – so it’s maybe best if he does marry her, don’t you reckon?’

  Evidently this did not offer the consolation Patsy had aimed for.

  Molly looked at her out of blood shot eyes as if she must have run mad. ‘What’re you saying? Done what? Oh, blimey, no, not that!’ She let out a great wail that must have been heard the length of Champion Street. ‘No, I’d rather be put in that wooden coffin than have any lass of mine marry one of them Georges, even if she is up the duff!’

  ‘Why, for goodness’ sake? I’m sorry, Molly, but I have to ask. What have you got against them? You make pies, they are best at making cakes. Their pies and pasties aren’t a patch on yours, so you aren’t really in competition, and they seem nice enough people to me.’

  ‘That’s
all you know.’ And then Molly told her the tale of the feud, how Chris’s uncle Howard, his father’s elder brother, got Molly’s sister Lena pregnant, and because she wasn’t fit to bring up a child, being somewhat simple-minded, she had been forced to have an abortion. As a result she’d contracted an infection and died. ‘And he got off scot-free. Beggared off to live in Canada, or Australia or some such fancy place. I’d kill him with me own bare hands if I ever got chance.’

  Patsy tried to sound sympathetic but was still feeling slightly bemused and more than a little concerned for Molly’s state of health. ‘I can appreciate how dreadful it must have been, Molly, but that was years ago, surely, and nothing at all to do with Chris. What can you have against him?’

  ‘He’s a George, that’s reason enough. And as if I haven’t enough trouble with our Amy running off to Scotland, there’s that other little madam, our Fran. I’m going to fettle her though, see if I don’t. I’ll clip her wings good and proper, first chance I get.’

  When Ozzy returned, Molly gave him a good ear-wigging for not being there when she needed him, which he thought rather unfair.

  ‘What can I do? I can’t chase after them to Scotland, can I? Not with my hip.’

  ‘How would I know? You claim you can’t get out of that chair half the time, but you can toddle off down the pub fast enough, or the chippy if you’re hungry. Do you ever win anything in these bets of yours? Because I never see any of it.’

  ‘It’s a mug’s game,’ Ozzy sadly remarked.

  ‘That explains everything,’ Molly agreed, slapping a plate of sausage and mash in front of him. ‘You’re well suited to it then.’ She piled a plate for herself but by the time she was seated before it with knife and fork at the ready, her appetite had quite deserted her. ‘Eeh, I’m that worried about her, lad. What’ll we do?’

  Ozzy loved his younger daughter dearly but now he shook his head in despair. ‘I don’t know. It’s a bad business and no mistake.’

  ‘Aye, and if it’s not one, it’s the other. Where’s our Fran tonight? She hasn’t even come in for her tea.’

  They sat and ate in silence, eating not so much out of hunger as of necessity. Molly was a great believer in keeping body and soul together with a plate of good food. ‘What we need,’ she said at last, as she washed and stacked dishes and Ozzy made an effort to dry, ‘is to put the frighteners on him.’

  ‘On Chris George? How can we do that when we don’t know for sure where they are, and don’t have a car to chase after them? And nobody would give us a lift, not all the way to Scotland.’

  ‘I’m not talking about our Amy now. I’m talking about that other little madam,’ Molly said, as if she were addressing a child, which was rather how she saw Ozzy. ‘Fran still hasn’t turned up for her tea, you’ll notice. Been in a right pet for days, and we know who to blame for that. She’ll be with her fancy man, that Eddie Davidson. I’ve been thinking there must be some way we can put a stop to that young man’s philandering . . . What we need is a bit of help from the right quarter, and listening to you just now, it came to me where we might find it. Who is it what runs the betting from that pub of yours? Hasn’t he a reputation for being tough?’

  ‘What, Billy Quinn?’

  ‘Aye, Billy Quinn. That’s the chap. By heck, is he the same Billy Quinn who’s trying to buy Champion Street from under our feet?’

  Ozzy’s eyes opened wide in fear. ‘Aye, that’s him. You mustn’t mess with the likes of Billy Quinn. He’s dangerous. Trouble with a capital T. Stay well clear of him, lass. You have to handle Quinn with kid gloves, and show proper respect. Betting may not be legal but that doesn’t stop him. He’s been doing it for years, has the polis in his pocket. Nothing and nobody gets in the way of Billy Quinn.’

  Molly snorted her derision. ‘I notice it doesn’t stop you going down t’pub most days, whether betting is legal or illegal, and despite this so called proper respect you have to show for him. Well, I might just pop down myself and have a word. I can tell him where to put his offer for Champion Street at the same time. He sounds like just the sort of chap who doesn’t mind getting his fingers dirty. It can do no harm to ask him for a bit of help with what I have in mind.’

  Had he been capable of it, Ozzy would have been jumping up and down on the spot, he was getting so agitated. He was in such danger of dropping the plate he was supposedly wiping that Molly snatched it from him with a sigh. But even that didn’t silence him.

  ‘It can do a great deal of harm. Leave well alone, Molly love, I beg you. Don’t get involved. Let Jimmy Ramsay sort Belle out. She can’t get anywhere without our support. As for our Fran’ll, she’ll come round in time, mark my words. It’s a phase she’s going through, that’s all. The more we set us-selves against it, the more she’ll go for him. Just ignore it, that’s the best way.’

  ‘Ignore it? We don’t have time to ignore it. We can’t afford to take the risk, you daft fool. She’ll be up the duff if we don’t watch out, then what will we do? We couldn’t make him marry her, could we, since he’s already married? Oh, for goodness sake get off your backside and do something for once in your useless life.’

  Ozzy was shaking his head with extraordinary vigour. ‘Not if it means tackling Billy Quinn.’

  ‘Then I will. I’m not afraid of anyone, certainly not some jumped up Irishman who runs a bit of betting on the side. If he can sort out that Eddie Davidson for me, it’d be one less worry on my mind. And when he’s put an end to that daughter’s romance, we can send him after the other one.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  On Friday evening Annie and Clara announced they were off to listen to the Hallé Orchestra. ‘The Free Trade Hall was badly damaged during the war and it’s the first time we’ve attended a concert there since it was reopened a few years ago,’ Clara told Patsy. ‘It’s a little treat for us. I do hope you don’t mind being left on your own for once.’

  Patsy was delighted. ‘No, course I don’t mind. Why should I?’

  She’d been waiting and hoping for just such a chance ever since she’d received Shirley’s letter, little enough though it had told her. Patsy intended to take advantage of the sisters’ absence to do a bit of digging on her own account. If she could discover a few more facts then she might feel able to pluck up the courage to confront Clara, demand to know the truth, one way or the other.

  Even if she didn’t find the answer she was looking for, it might put an end to her agonising, and her sleepless nights. She could then start to make some proper decisions about her future.

  Clara said, ‘Perhaps we should have got you a ticket too. It’s Sir John Barbirolli, a wonderful conductor. He’s Italian, you know. We’ve been fortunate enough to have him here with us in Manchester for many years.’

  ‘I don’t suppose it’s Patsy’s sort of music,’ Annie dryly remarked, and as Hound Dog was even now blasting away on the new record player up in her room, they couldn’t help but laugh. Even Annie gave a droll little smile. Unheard of! Poor Annie, having a teenager in the house was not easy for her.

  ‘You’re absolutely right, not my cup of tea at all. Sorry! Anyway, I reckon I’ll have enough of Italians on Sunday,’ Patsy commented, glaring meaningfully at Clara who had pushed her into accepting the invitation. Not that she saw it as a date exactly, merely a duty. ‘Have a nice evening.’

  I certainly intend to, Patsy thought. Once she’d given the place a thorough search, she’d put up her feet and relax with the hit parade on Radio Luxembourg and enjoy some precious privacy for a change, without Annie breathing down her neck.

  After they left, Patsy immediately switched her record player off and stood for several long minutes, listening, making sure that they truly had gone. Clara had a nasty habit of forgetting things, like keys or her hanky, and would frequently come dashing back.

  When she was finally convinced that it was safe, Patsy made her way to Clara’s room.

  She began with the dressing table, searching meticulously through every dr
awer. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was searching for. A birth or marriage certificate would be perfect, but perhaps too much to hope for. A letter perhaps, a photo, anything at all that would give a clue to her past. She found nothing.

  Patsy searched the wardrobe next, then the small chest of drawers by the bed. Again she drew a blank. Her disappointment was keen. How could a person not have anything to show for all the years she’d lived on this earth?

  The loft! Clara was a remarkably well organised, tidy sort of person. Perhaps she’d stored away all her documents in the attic, where they wouldn’t remind her of earlier pain.

  It was a struggle to get the ladder from the back yard in through the kitchen and up the stairs. Patsy was terrified of knocking it against the flocked wallpaper and making a dent, and very nearly did so. With another precious twenty minutes wasted, she quickly climbed up it and pushed at the square loft door with all her might. It opened easily. Moments later she was inside, the flick of a switch illuminating a bewildering assortment of boxes, most, by the shape of them hat boxes. Was this where they put old stock? Surely not.

  It turned out that the hat boxes were an ideal repository for all the detritus that cluttered the sisters’ lives but which they couldn't bear to part with. Silver photo frames, cracked vases, chipped figurines and ornaments, piles of cheap saucers . . . though why they had kept these, Patsy couldn’t imagine. Books, of course, by the score, and stacks of pictures ranged against the walls. A collection of Victorian hat pins, a rusty tobacco tin containing a clay pipe, and any number of old gas mantles.

  And finally, when Patsy was jumpy with nerves, only too aware of the clock ticking and precious time passing, she found what she was looking for. A bulky brown envelope of what must be family papers.

  She sat on an old tin trunk to go quickly through them. The envelope contained numerous marriage and birth certificates of various members of the Higginson clan, and featured several other strange names and places that she didn’t recognise at all. But, infuriatingly, none of them mentioned Clara, let alone Patsy’s own name. It was so frustrating.