Angel of the North (40 page)

‘I did not. I didn’t tell her anything about it. I gave Hannah a pile of money for her upkeep, though, and I didn’t see her pass it on to the couple who took her.’

‘Bert and Molly, do you mean?’

‘All right, Bert and Molly. I think they’ve a better right to it than Hannah. I’ve a good mind to go and demand it back.’

‘Well, why not? You can probably take it in kind, if she’s already spent it.’

She’d hit a nerve. Charles stopped, grasped her shoulders, and shook her. ‘You talk about being sensitive. I can’t listen to any more of this. I’m beginning to think you
enjoy sticking the knife in. You’re driving me mad!’ He walked swiftly away from her, then started to run, without a backward glance, his army boots clattering on the pavement.

She smiled as she watched him go, not the least bit sorry. Charles Elsworth had done wrong, and he deserved to feel it. She walked alone to the end of the avenue, then along Cottingham Road.
When she turned down Newland Avenue Charles was out of sight, not waiting for her, as she had anticipated. She felt a twinge of apprehension, and speedily dismissed it. Surely he wouldn’t let
one caustic little comment drive him off for good. He’d loved her too much and too long for that. But the twinge became an ache, as the stark fact that no other man would do for her struck
Marie with the blinding light of revelation.

At the end of Newland Avenue, rather than turn down Princes Avenue she walked along Queens Road. Then, regardless of rules and uniform, she boldly entered the forbidden portals of the Queens
Hotel and asked a woman who was doing some cleaning to fetch the landlord.

‘That couple who took that baby the other night,’ she said. ‘Bert and Molly. Do you know where they live?’

He gave her short shrift. ‘No. And I wouldn’t tell you, even if I did.’

The woman who was doing the cleaning followed Marie to the door. ‘I know a Bert and Molly,’ she said. ‘They live on Park Grove, opposite the entrance to Pearson
Park.’

‘Did George tell you? He brought Eva here for her tea while you were out at Charles Elsworth’s yesterday,’ Aunt Edie said, when Marie got back.

Marie’s eyes widened in surprise, and her eyebrows lifted slightly. ‘No, he never said a word, and we were talking for a long time.’

Aunt Edie gave her a very knowing look. ‘I know. I heard you come in. They’re getting on like a house on fire, him and Eva. In fact, we both like her.’

Marie’s eyebrows lifted further. ‘What’s she like?’

‘A bit taller than you. Brown hair, brown eyes, rosy cheeks. She looks real healthy, but then she would. She comes from a farming family in Holderness; they don’t go short of
much.’

‘No, I don’t suppose they do,’ Marie said, remembering the milky coffee and buttered scones in Bourne.

‘Me and your mam, we’d have liked to see you and George make a go of it at one time. But I don’t think that’s on the cards, is it?’

Aunt Edie seemed to be determined to get all those cards on the table. Marie took a deep breath, and chose her words carefully. ‘George has been a good friend to me, Aunt Edie, and I love
him for it – as a friend. As a brother, even.’

‘You’re too hooked up with that Charles Elsworth –’ Aunt Edie spat his name – ‘even after everything he’s done.’

Marie didn’t dispute it.

Aunt Edie fixed her large blue eyes on Marie’s face. ‘Well, George needs a woman who’s all for him. He’s just about got over that Nancy,’ she stressed, ‘but
Eva’s a different kettle of fish altogether. A straightforward, honest young lass. If you see them together, you can tell she thinks the world of him. He’s lucky to have found her. I
think she’ll make him a good wife. In fact, I’m sure she will. And I’m sorry to say this, thinking about your mam, but he doesn’t want to be kept dangling by somebody who
doesn’t know whether she wants him or not.’

Those big, supposedly half-blind eyes saw plenty, and Aunt Edie was warning her off. She wasn’t having anybody mucking her boy around again, and she couldn’t be blamed for that.
Marie wondered if she’d got wind of George’s yearning to emigrate, but to hear that conversation she would have had to get out of bed and creep halfway down the stairs. Marie
wouldn’t have put it past her. Her lips twitched into a tiny smile at the thought. And a girl from a farming family might be the very thing to keep her George near his mammy –
especially if she had no brothers.

So, whether Chas came back or not, Aunt Edie was telling her she’d better pass up her chance of travelling the world as the wife of a civil engineer. It was a pity, in some ways, but she
was right. Maybe it was to do with being an only child, with a father who’d died when he was young and a mother who had no other interest in life but him, but George seemed to have been born
old. He fitted with his parents’ generation better than with his own, and they’d been creeping into middle age when they’d had him. As his mother was so fond of saying, George was
a good lad, but Marie lacked that feeling for him that a woman ought to have for the man she marries. There was no spark there. None at all.

‘Don’t worry, Aunt Edie. Everything will work out for the best,’ she said, certain of the truth of her words in their case, and trusting to fate in her own.

Marie and George strolled together in the park after tea, reminiscing about their childhoods, the kindness between their two families, and the feeling, at that time, of total
security in their peaceful little homes. George would always be a part of her happiest memories of childhood, Marie thought, more precious to her now than ever.

‘I sometimes think,’ she said, ‘that they must have had a struggle to survive at times, but we knew nothing about it. At least, I didn’t. All I saw was that they were
always busy, busy, busy, always doing, never idle, making the most of everything. But I never felt any of the strain.’

‘That’s the thing that sticks in my mind,’ George said, ‘how peaceful it was, and how safe I always felt before my dad died. That’s what shattered it for me.
That’s when I realized what a cold, hard place the world can be.’

‘It shattered the whist playing as well,’ Marie said, ‘You remember them trying to teach us, months later? But neither of us was much good at it, and they went on to play brag
after that. Your mother was dead keen, I remember that. Her eyesight must have been a lot better then than it is now.’

George gave a sceptical little laugh. ‘My mother’s eyesight seems to come and go, a bit. There was nothing wrong with it before my dad died. I sometimes think it’s a way of
clinging on to me, or maybe making me feel indispensable. She’ll survive, if we go on our travels.’

There was an expectant silence, as George waited for her answer.

‘I don’t know how it’ll work out between me and Charles,’ she said hesitantly. ‘I only know I can’t marry anybody else.’

He paused for a moment, then sighed. ‘Well, I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but you’ve never been dishonest. And I’d no real hopes that you would marry me.
I’ve always known you were too gone on him. But bloody good luck to you; I hope you’ll be all right. And Eva’s the best consolation prize going. We’ll be all right
together.’

‘I’ve no doubt she’ll have a better dowry than mine. All I’ve got to offer is a set of garden tools, and the cobbler’s last you rescued from the ruins.’ She
grinned, as a thought hit her. ‘Eva might giveth what Nancy tooketh away,’ she said.

He lifted his chin, and grinned back. ‘Well, there is that,’ he nodded.

Terry arrived an hour or so after they got back to the house, to take her dancing. For a split second Marie hesitated, toying with the thought of going, and then decided not to
risk it. If Charles arrived while she was gone, it might be the final straw. Taking a leap of faith, she said: ‘I’m expecting Charles any minute. We’re getting married next week,
by special licence.’

Terry put on a face of mock devastation. ‘Oh, no, you can’t be! Not when I’ve been pulling all the stops out to get you into my clutches all the time he’s been
away.’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘You’re throwing yourself away! I’m the one you should be marrying! Black armbands on for me, then,’ he grimaced.

She laughed as she closed the door on him, thinking what easy company he was, never too many demands, never any awkwardness. But the black armbands summed Terry up for her. She could never see
him or think of him without thinking of Margaret, and Margaret’s death.

She returned to the front room to listen to the radio with George and Auntie Edie, their companionable silence interspersed with laughter at the jokes. After half an hour she started
surreptitiously twitching the curtains, looking for Charles. The street was empty. She went to get her coat.

‘I’m just going for a quick walk. I won’t be more than half an hour,’ she said.

She walked to the end of the street, and crossed Princes Avenue to Park Grove. At the entrance to the park she stood and looked at a well-kept house. She was tempted to knock on the door, but
there was no excuse she could have given. She walked away, hoping to bump into Charles on her way back to Aunt Edie’s. There was neither sight nor sound of him, and no mention of his calling
when she got back to Clumber Street. Marie couldn’t bring herself to ask whether he’d been. Aunt Edie would have told her if he had, since she no longer had a motive for keeping it from
her.

There was no Charles waiting for her when she finished work on Sunday, either. She felt an awful pang, but pride forbade her to go to Park Avenue to find out what was
happening. Charles had run off, and Charles would have to come back, with no prompting from her. She lifted her chin, stiffened her back, and walked swiftly down to Clumber Street, stubbornly
fighting back the tears that were pricking her eyes.

Alfie was waiting for her with a few chrysanthemums he’d brought for them to take to the graves, and the usual half a dozen eggs for Aunt Edie. Marie hugged him with the pent-up fervour
she would have loosed on Charles, had he come to meet her.

Alfie’s eyes widened at this effusive display of affection. ‘You all right, Marie?’

‘’Course I’m all right,’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be all right?’

‘I don’t know. You just seem a bit . . . keyed up, somehow. I don’t know.’

‘I’m all right,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll just get changed, and then we’ll be off.’

The day was bright but cold, and she was glad of her slacks, thick jumper and jacket on the bike ride up to the cemetery. After laying the flowers on their parents’ grave, they went to
Jenny’s.

‘They’ve got her a nice headstone,’ Alfie commented as he reverently laid his flowers on her little grave.

Marie read the inscription: ‘Beloved daughter of Hannah and Lawrence Reynolds’
.
‘Hmm,’ she said. Maybe that was true in Larry’s case, but she doubted it
very much in Hannah’s. Divorce could never be an option for Marie, but she wouldn’t have blamed Larry for ending his marriage to Hannah. She didn’t deserve him.

‘We ought to get a headstone for our mam and dad.’

‘Well, we will, as soon as we’ve got some money,’ Marie promised.

‘It’s getting real cold. It’s Hull Fair weather,’ Alfie said, when they left their bikes in the yard at Aunt Edie’s, and went into the house. ‘I used to love
going after dark, with everything lit up.’

‘Well, Hitler’s put paid to that. He’s put paid to a lot of things,’ she said, ‘including our family.’

She rode with him half the way to Dunswell, then turned back to Aunt Edie’s, hoping to see Charles on the way, but there was no sign of him. It was beginning to get dark, and the last
thing she wanted was to go back to Clumber Street, to sit in the house with George and Aunt Edie listening to the wireless with minutes dragging by as if they were hours, while she waited for a
knock on the door that never came.

Instead, she turned into Pearson Park. Quite a few people were out, making the most of the fresh air and what remained of the daylight. The grass and roads were strewn with
leaves of red, gold and brown, and the bare branches looked like filigree against the sky. The park was lovely, peaceful and still, but it couldn’t calm the fret arising deep within her. She
rode through the whole of it, and then saw a woman pushing a spanking new pram, looking at her and walking in her direction, as if to speak to her. But Marie was mistaken. As she got nearer the
woman showed no sign of recognition, and walked past. Marie turned the bike and dismounted beside her.

‘Can I have a look?’ she asked, looking straight into Molly’s eyes.

There was still no sign of recognition. Molly beamed at her, and stopped the pram. The white, beribboned bonnet just visible above the muffling blankets would have given the baby’s sex
away, if Marie hadn’t already known it.

‘What’s her name?’ she asked.

‘Lucy.’

‘A lovely name for a lovely baby. I like her bonnet. Who did the knitting?’

‘Me,’ Molly laughed. ‘I’ve got piles of it. She’ll probably have grown out of most of it before she even has it on.’

‘Lucky girl. I can see you’re going to spoil her.’ Marie looked intently at the child’s face. The curve of the lips reminded her of Hannah, but that was all.

‘You can’t spoil babies,’ Molly said. ‘The more you love them, the better they are.’

‘You’re out a bit late with her.’

‘It gets her to sleep. Coming for a walk gets her to sleep better than anything.’

Marie pulled two half-crowns out of her pocket and put them in the pram. ‘For Lucy’s money box.’

Molly’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I can’t take that. It’s half a week’s rent, for some people.’

Again, Marie looked her straight in the eyes. ‘You can’t refuse it. It’s bad luck.’

Odd, after that awful scene in the Queens, that Molly had failed to recognize her. But she’d had eyes only for Lucy, then as now.

Perhaps Charles had been right when he’d said the child might not be his, Marie thought, as she cycled back to Aunt Edie’s. Whatever the truth was, she was relieved the little girl
was well cared for and, to her shame, very, very glad that she was not with the Elsworths. Even so, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something not quite right about a
child’s not knowing her own parents, or even her own grandparents. Not only not quite right, but altogether wrong. Still, this imperfect arrangement was undoubtedly the best thing that could
have happened to Lucy, things being what they were. And if she was honest, it was certainly the best thing that could have happened to Marie and Chas – if there was going to be any Marie and
Chas. Serious doubts that there would ever be a wedding began to gnaw at her, and when she got back to Aunt Edie’s she couldn’t resist asking: ‘Has Charles been?’