He sat up pondering well into the night. He had relatives, that was certain. They might not be as well-born as Cyril, but they sounded a far better gamble. For now, Charles would do nothing but watch and wait. Poor Amelia would soon be too far gone to care what was happening outside her own bedroom. And if Paddy Maguire was dying too . . . What a terrible way to think! But was there a real alternative?
When he eventually got to bed, he slept well. John would have approved of this new-born scheme, he felt that in his bones. As for the niceties and proprieties – well, time would surely show the way, fill in the massive gaps, help Charles to do what was right. Yes, whatever Philip Charnock’s opinion, he could help that family.
And in helping them, he might just solve some of his own problems too.
Chapter 8
Yorick was also known as Alas-poor. This second naming had been performed by no less a person than Miss Sarah Leason, who, during her more poetical phases, had a distinct leaning towards the great English bard, whom she was given to misquoting when chiding inferior beings.
Yorick was an inferior being. It was in his nature to be inferior and he had no ambitions with regard to improvements or elevations in status. It suited him well enough to act as doormat, draught excluder, foot warmer and fetcher of half-chewed slippers. These latter items were a constant reminder of his low calibre, for he was the one who had masticated the nice fluffy bits into pulp while getting rid of his puppy teeth. At sixteen weeks of age, Yorick was already an old dog, a wise dog with an eye to a full plate and an ear ever cocked for Ma’s call.
She looked fondly at him now, recognizing how much they had both changed since his arrival just a couple of weeks ago. Although the dog was far from a trier and a long way from industrious, he had altered in spite of himself, had become calm because he was in the company of an old lady. So they had both improved, both by accident. He because he was a little older, she because the thing in her head was mending itself – and Yorick had had a lot to do with that. Something about the way he just sat and existed had encouraged her, while his devotion was touching and very comforting. None of her faculties had been taken permanently. All along, she’d been able to think and calculate clearly once she’d got the words sorted out in her mind. And now she could almost walk unaided, while her speech improved daily.
‘Stop chew . . . ing your tail. It’s like a fea . . . ther duster al . . . ready.’
She picked up the wooden walking frame that Paddy and Miss Leason had thrown together in the wash-house, a rough item constructed from the remnants of a wrecked chair and a snapped broom handle. With grim purpose dripping from every pore, she dragged herself across the room, bed to window, window to bed, the dog at her heels each time she turned. If she hadn’t picked up on yesterday’s performance, then Sarah Leason would raise the roof again. It was terrible. She was so bossy – why, she’d get anybody’s back up, would Sarah. Ma grinned ruefully. Perhaps she was getting some of her own back, some of the stuff she herself had dished out over the years.
Janet put her head round the door. ‘Is he ready for his walk, Gran?’ There was little enthusiasm in her tone. Taking Alaspoor Yorick for a walk was a bit like leading an innocent man to the gallows, all pulling and persuading and sad eyes. And when he went on sit-down strike, especially in the middle of the road, life could get a bit unusual to say the least.
‘You want to ta . . . ke him?’
‘Not really. Nobody in their right mind would want to be seen out with him. Miss Leason says he’s got a complex, something to do with not being loved. And he’s so ugly!’
‘I lo . . . ve him. He’s a good do . . . g.’
Janet came in and flung herself on to the bed. ‘I’ve been trying to work out what he is, Gran. I reckon his tail’s spaniel, only thinned out a bit. The legs are definitely greyhound, but those feet are more St Bernard. His in-between bits don’t seem to have made their mind up yet, but for now he’s a Spangreynard. Do you think we’ve invented a new breed?’
‘Sh . . . ush. He’s sensi . . . tive. Don’t up . . . set him.’
‘Upset him? I can’t get through to him! He sat at the edge of Butler’s rec yesterday and I couldn’t budge him. It took four of us at the finish, one leg each. Come on, then,’ she sighed. ‘Let’s get it over with. Show me up again and I’ll strangle you with the lead.’
She pulled him out of the room while Gran just stood there laughing.
It wasn’t an easy journey, because she had decided to kill two birds with one stone and return Miss Leason’s property at the same time. So she struggled along with bag, bucket and reluctant animal until she reached the corner of Lever Lane. Here she stopped and placed Miss Leason’s things on the pavement. It was time to come to grips with Yorick.
‘Why can’t you be nice? Other dogs don’t need pulling along, because they like walkies. Walkies are a good thing. Look at me when I’m talking to you!’
Yorick had never gone a bundle on eye contact. Ma he could cope with, but these younger ones with so much life in their faces terrified him. He wagged his tail weakly, realizing that as he was off his home patch, he had better co-operate before he got abandoned in unfamiliar territory. With this awesome possibility in mind, he picked up the bag as a gesture of good will. If he made himself useful, then he might get home in one piece.
Janet patted his head. ‘Good dog. I reckon we might make something of you yet.’
He grinned widely and the bag fell to the floor. Life was a very confusing thing. Whatever he did was wrong somehow, because she now snatched up the bag and dragged him away with his rear scraping painfully along the pavement. Resignedly, he raised his hind quarters and walked. It was easier in the end to take the line of least resistance.
As they neared Miss Leason’s house, they met Joey who was pushing a heavily loaded handcart, furniture piled high and fastened on with strings and ropes. ‘House clearance,’ he breathed, pausing to greet his sister.
‘Dog,’ she answered, jerking a thumb towards her own burden. ‘Who are you clearing out?’
‘Somebody called Mathieson, died last week, next door neighbour of Witchie Leason’s. Seems the old girl had no family, so Mr Goldberg’s selling her furniture off for charity. Soft bugger, he is. She left some sort of message with him about orphans, so he’s giving it all to a children’s home.’
‘Fair enough.’ She cast an eye over the cart. ‘That looks better than your pram, doesn’t it?’
Things had got a bit strained between Janet and Joey lately, especially after she’d refused outright to help him with the pawnie’s round. Course, Joey was managing fine on his own, didn’t need her to fetch and carry now he’d got that big pram. In a way, she could only admire him. Not many lads going on fifteen would dare be seen pushing a pram full of pledges round twice a week. He’d taken a fair bit of stick for it from the other boys, but he’d sorted them out, threatened them with a clouting if they didn’t leave off. So they’d left off. Nobody tackled Joey Maguire lightly.
‘Mr Goldberg says I can use the handcart whenever I want, so I’ll get rid of the pram, clean it up, see if anybody wants it.’
She smiled. Nothing would ever go to waste, not with Joey, not if it could put a penny or two in his back pocket.
‘He says this used to be Gran’s cart. She sold it to him years ago after she stopped going round the streets with her medicines.’
‘Family heirloom, then?’ She tugged at the dog’s lead as he began to show a meagre interest in a passing cat.
‘Suppose so. Where are you off to?’
‘Just taking Miss Leason’s things back. I know she comes round nearly every day, but she always forgets them. I reckon they might be a bit heavy for her.’
He laughed. ‘Heavy? For her? She could raise the Titanic single-handed, that one. Anyway, why bother giving them back? She’ll never miss them.’
‘Because they’re hers, Joey.’
‘You’re daft, you are. Why worry over a filthy old biddy like her, eh? You’re nev
er going in her house? It’s crawling, covered in muck. I’ll bet there’s rats and mice as well as cockroaches in there climbing the walls. Happen she catches them and uses them in her spells at midnight, rats’ eyes and ground-up spiders all minced in a pot with bits of toad and castor oil.’
She rounded on him, not for the first time lately. ‘Shut up, you! They used to say our Granny was a witch and she wasn’t! It’s cruel, that sort of talk, no need for it! All you care about is money and where you can get it, who you can take it from next. Oh . . . go and push your pram round, leave me in peace!’
He looked down at his clogs, a frown creasing the tanned forehead. ‘Sometimes I think you hate me, Janet.’
‘That’s rubbish! You talk a lot of that lately, Joey Maguire! I don’t hate anybody. I’m not the one who wishes me own dad dead and me granny out of the road!’ She took a deep breath after this outburst. ‘I’ve told you before, it’s not easy to like you at times, but I don’t hate you.’
He sighed loudly. ‘Do you want me to take old Alas-poor home? He can sit on top of this tallboy, king of the castle. I’ve got to pass the end of our street anyway.’
‘No, it’s all right.’ She knew he was trying to be nice, trying to get round her. ‘I’m going to train him. If it’s the last thing I do, Joey, I’ll have this lunatic walking in a straight line on all four feet like a proper dog.’
‘I wouldn’t lay odds on it, Jan.’
‘We’ll see.’ She gave him an appeasing smile, then continued along to Miss Leason’s. It was awful. Filthy windows, cracked and peeling paintwork, gutters hanging at impossible angles from the roof’s edge, dirty lace curtains all full of holes where the cats had caught them.
Cats. She glanced down at her passive companion. He looked angelic enough in a sombre sort of way, but you never could tell with dogs and cats. So she tied him to the stone gatepost.
After knocking several times without getting a response, Janet pushed against the door. Most people left their doors on the latch when they went out. Rent money, insurance, milk and coal payments would remain lined up on a dresser or a table, each resting on the appropriate book or bill slip in readiness for various callers who were trusted to take only what was owed to them.
The door swung open, thirsty hinges screaming for a drop of oil. Janet stepped into the vestibule, gagging immediately as the smell of the place filled her nostrils. And it was a lovely house, she could see that in spite of the dirt. Once her stomach had settled, she found herself opening the interior door. Oh, it was grand, that vestibule, like something you might find in a real posh house up Chorley Road. Their house in Delia Street had the front door in the living room, just a single stride off the pavement. But this was grand. The floor had black and white tiles in a pleasant pattern, all squares and diamonds. Well, it was supposed to be black and white, only the white bits were grey and the whole area was covered in a sort of greasy skin.
This inner door, which led into the hall proper, had Janet fascinated. The top half was glass, but you couldn’t see through it, partly because it was filthy, but mostly because the glazing was patterned and had leaded bits round the edges, all red and blue crinkly glass. She closed this door, noting that the handle was of tarnished brass, then rubbed at a red patch and stared at the rosy world outside, all bright pink through the open outer entrance. Even Yorick managed to look cheerful with his dull yellowish hair coloured in. It was beautiful, like something out of a story, a piece of magic right here in Miss Leason’s house. She longed to clean it up properly so that she might enjoy the distorted and tinted view, but she was keenly aware of being an intruder, so she walked further into the wide hall.
‘Miss Leason? Hello? Anybody in?’
When no answer came, she began to look around for a place where she could leave the bucket and the bag. The smell didn’t seem so bad now. Happen you got used to it after a while, she thought. But her breath was taken by what she found in the hall, a veritable treasure-trove of books piled floor to halfway up the walls on both sides. They smelled old and mouldy, as if they’d been stored for ever and some of the dirtier piles were festooned with garlands of cobweb on the tops. Cats crawled in and out of boxes, jumping from atlas to encyclopedia, from Austen to Dickens. Shakespeare’s works were almost hidden beneath the latest litter of kittens, the mother cat hissing at Janet from behind the crate containing her family and a full collection of plays.
After spitting back at the harassed cat, Janet examined some of these volumes before walking through to the back living room. The condition of this was so bad that she had to steel herself before stepping inside. There was cat-soil on newspaper, fire-ash raked out well beyond the hearth’s boundary, a table covered in rotting food and dirty clothing. And there were cats and books everywhere, messes piled upon messes.
Instinctively, Janet set to work on the ashes, using the bucket to carry the debris out through the cluttered scullery and into the yard. After five trips, she was exhausted, but the grate was empty. She placed bag and bucket under the table, screwed up the worst of the decaying foodstuff into an old paper bag and dumped it in the ashpit down the yard.
Although her fingers itched to tidy the rest of the room, she forced herself not to begin. For one thing, she wouldn’t really know where to start and for another, Miss Leason might well take umbrage at such high-handed behaviour. Perhaps the old lady liked living in a mess, happen that was how she wanted it. And people had a right to live how they pleased. Yet Janet felt that Miss Leason really didn’t know how to take care of herself, hadn’t had the right education for it. After all, she’d likely been waited on right up to her mam and dad dying, wouldn’t know the first thing about lifting a hand to housework.
Anyway, something had been achieved, because a fire would be wanted sooner or later and nothing could have got burning in that choked-up range. It was posh too, the fireplace, moulded patterns on the oven door and little plaques set into the surround, all flowers and leaves on them. With a bit of leading on the black bits, it would be really pretty, welcoming and homely on a cold night.
Just as she was about to leave the room, Janet noticed that a box beneath the table had been overturned, probably by herself as she pushed the bucket under out of harm’s way. Well, there was no point in adding to the mess – she’d better stand it up before she left. Her heart almost stopped when she picked up the container, because it was stuffed to the brim with money – notes and coins packed in any old way. She gathered up the scattered contents and piled them back inside, shoving the money well down so that it would not spill again. There must be hundreds – thousands even!
When the rotting cardboard treasure chest had been replaced, she straightened, her mind still not fully capable of taking in what she had just seen. All that money and the door not locked? She shivered. There it stood under the table, ‘Crawford Biscuits’ fading on the side, a dozen or so five pound notes sticking out of the seams where the sides were giving way. Why? Why did Miss Leason keep all that money here when it should be in the Post Office? This wasn’t safe – it wasn’t right!
She stepped back into the hall, realizing that the floor in here was parquet, zig-zag blocks of wood covered in fluff and grease-spots. ‘Oh dear,’ she muttered. ‘What a shame! What a blinking stupid shame!’ The front room likely had the same floor – it would look lovely washed and sanded down then a bit of polish on it. Aye, this was a posh house, flags at the back and wooden floors at the front just like the rich folk had. And Miss Leason was rich, wasn’t she? Oh yes, she could afford to get this house set to rights if only she’d put her mind to it. ‘For God’s sake!’ Janet exclaimed now to the surprised mother cat. ‘Even if she’s a miser, soap and water costs nowt. And I’d have you lot cleared out for a kick-off!’ Janet was not a cat person. Was she a dog person? She raised her eyes to heaven before going outside to collect her charge.
Yorick greeted her joyfully as she untied him and led him out to the pavement. He had just suffered ten minutes of sheer hel
l. Surely he wasn’t being brought back here to all those sharp claws, all that flying fur? Gratitude as deep as this must be demonstrated, so he walked nicely by Janet’s side, keeping pace, maintaining a satisfactory distance to heel. She grinned at him, somehow understanding how he felt. ‘Good boy,’ she said.
He woofed politely. They walked homeward and dinnerward, Yorick pausing just once, very apologetically, to leave a marker on a lamp post. After all, if he should ever pass this way again, he’d be wanting his bearings. And anyway, being a ‘good dog’ made him feel all warm inside, like after finishing Ma’s porridge in a morning. They turned into Delia Street and he held up head and tail with something approaching pride. It promised to be not a bad life after all.
Sarah Leason, after pummelling Ma’s leg and arm in much the same way as she might have massaged a healing horse, pushed the hair from her own damp face and helped Ma into her chair by the window. ‘Great show,’ she said brightly. ‘Have you up and running in no time now.’
‘Good.’
‘Right. Now say “a pound of onions, please.”’
‘A pou . . . nd of oni . . . ons please.’
‘Again!’
The elocution lesson continued for another five minutes, then Sarah pulled an envelope from her pocket. ‘This was given to me a few weeks ago by my next door neighbour, a Mrs Mathieson. Pleasant woman, made good scones and had an affection for cats. Died last Thursday, unfortunately. Used to be housekeeper up at Briars Hall. Remember her? Something to do with feet?’
Ma nodded. So old Cissie had gone at last.
‘Anyway, she instructed me to pass this message on to you in the event of her death.’
‘I don’t re . . . ad.’
‘Yes. I’m aware of that. There was a verbal message too, for you to trust me to open this and tell you its contents. But if you’d rather someone else . . . ?’
‘No.’ Ma studied Sarah Leason. A rough and ready soul, a lady deep down, kind, dependable, definitely not a gossip. ‘You do it.’
With Love From Ma Maguire Page 30
