Daisy's Secret (35 page)

Rita prevaricated, concentrating on peeling potatoes with short, furious stabs of the knife. ‘How should I know? I’m not her flippin’ keeper.’

‘Why have you got that frosty look on yer face? Nay, you two haven’t had another falling out? Not in the middle of all this.’

‘She started it. Miss High-and-Flippin’-Mighty. Does she think she’s the only one with problems? I told her: you can go and jump, you. Go and lord it over someone else fer a change.’

Joe shook his head, looking exasperated. ‘Nay lass, you’re a nasty piece of work at times. What else did you say?’

‘I told her to go back to her husband.’

‘It’s not your place to tell her what to do. For once in your life, woman, don’t interfere. Haven’t you done enough damage to our Daisy? Leave well alone, why don’t you?’

Rita turned on him in a fury. ‘What’s come over you, sounding off all of a sudden? I’ve done nowt to our Daisy save what was best for her.’

‘What’s best for
you
, you mean.’

‘You agreed. You did nowt to stop me.’

‘I’d need to call out the Manchester Brigade and the Auxiliary Fire Service to stop you, once you’ve an idea fixed in yer head. And what else happened? Go on, tell me the worst.’ Joe was determined to get to the bottom of this matter because he could see by the triumphant expression on his wife’s face, there was more to it than she was telling.

Rita smirked. ‘I was right all along, she’s been lying to us all these years. There is no fancy big house, no rich husband, only a flamin’ farm.’

‘Nay lass,’ Joe said, his tone weary, ‘I knew that already. Didn’t you ever guess? It was fairly obvious when she never wrote to show off her new-found wealth, or invite us over to view this grand house she supposedly lived in. Why you bother to be jealous of her I’ve never been able to work out. She’s got nowt to write home about at all, none of her dreams have come true. No big house, no rich husband, no wonderful love-match, and she’d give her eye-teeth to have a daughter like our Daisy.’

His words seemed to inflame Rita’s rage still further. ‘She’s welcome to her, wittering on about that flippin’ child she lost, as if she were the only one. What about me? Haven’t I suffered most with our Daisy behaving like a loose woman? I told our Florrie to go home to her husband, and good riddance.’

Joe grabbed his wife by the arm, an unheard of action in this house, and gave her a little shake. ‘You can be a venomous old cow, Rita, when you put your mind to it. You know she’s depressed. Has been for years, ever since she lost the babby. She can’t help it, poor lass, that’s the way she is.’

‘Well, she doesn’t have to weep all over me! I’ve enough troubles of me own.’

‘She’s yer sister, fer God’s sake!’ Joe shouted and turned to the door, his face a mask of concern and anger. ‘I’ll go after her. It’s not safe out there. Bombs dropping all over the show. Didn’t you hear the siren? We’re in for another battering. Who knows when the next one will drop.’

Rita was untying her pinny, reaching for her coat and scarf. ‘Don’t you try to play the hero, or stick up for that little madam, it doesn’t suit you. Get down the shelter. I’ll fetch her back. The silly woman can’t have got far.’ Rita slapped the potato peeler into his hand. ‘And finish them spuds afore you go. We need us tea, German bombs or no German bombs.

The secretary of the Local Oral History Society, a plump, bustling lady with spectacles hanging on a chain around her neck, led Laura with a cheery smile to an impressive filing system. ‘If your grandmother recorded anything, anything at all, it will be listed here. What was the name again? Daisy Thompson.’ An agonising wait while she riffled through countless cards. ‘No, sorry, nothing under that name.’

‘Oh well, it was just a thought.’ Laura turned to go.

Chrissy, who had insisted on coming with her on this quest, said, ‘Perhaps your gran was a modern woman and used her own name for personal matters. What was it?’

‘Atkins. Daisy Atkins.’

The secretary tried again. ‘Ah yes, well done, dear. Daisy Atkins. Not just one tape, in fact, but several. You’ll need to provide references, fill in a form, become a member of the library and so on, if you wish to borrow them.’

‘No problem,’ Laura said. She felt as if she’d struck gold.
 

Daisy’s own voice came over strong and clear. ‘
My name, for the sake of the tape, is Daisy Atkins, although I am known locally as Thompson, my married name
.’

‘Lord, she sounds as if she’s giving evidence in a police station,’ Chrissy chuckled.

‘Hush, I can’t hear.’ Laura rewound the tape to listen again to the bit she missed. They were all three, Laura, David and Chrissy, sitting in the kitchen at Lane End Farm, anxious to hear whatever the tapes could tell them.

‘
This is my story, a part of it anyway, for those of my family who wish to hear it. An oral diary, and because of the personal nature of what I am about to disclose I hope listeners will bear in mind that I did always what I thought was for the best.
’

David said, ‘This sounds pretty private. Would you like me to go?’

‘No, I want you to stay. You’ve heard so much of Daisy’s story already, and she was your friend. You might as well know the rest. There are too many tapes to hear it all at one go, so we’ll start with this one - intriguingly labelled ‘Robert’s Inheritance’.

‘
Twice I have lost a son and in neither case through death, though it might just as well have been for the pain it caused. I don’t blame Robert for leaving. He was upset and cross. I hope and pray that he will not prove stubborn about accepting his due inheritance which I give to him now, as a gift, before I die. I’ve put it in trust for him so that he can’t do anything silly in a temper, like selling it. With that in mind, I tell my story. Perhaps, in time, he will forgive me, or at least understand.
’
 

They came to the part where she’d finally found the farm, and how Daisy had taken at once to Clem. ‘
Florrie was not settling back in Salford. She got caught up the blitz, and that’s when everything changed
.’

Rita caught up with Florrie at the corner of Weaste street where she was arguing with an ARP warden. He was ordering her into a nearby shelter and Florrie was furiously resisting. ‘I have to catch my train. I’m not going down no shelter. Anyway, I suffer from claustrophobia.’

‘You’ll suffer from much worse Mrs, if you don’t get off this street right this minute.’

‘I’ll take my chances. I’m going home, I tell you.!’ Florrie made to set off but the warden grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the entrance of the shelter.

‘Don’t be so flamin’ stubborn, woman. It’s my job to see you’re safe.’

A mother and two children appeared on the scene and joined in the argument. ‘Nay, leave her be. She’s not the only one who doesn’t like bleedin’ shelters. I’ve left a pan simmering on the hob, Bill, so I’ll just nip back to take it off before I go down.’

Rita said, ‘We’ve a shelter of our own in t’back yard. We’ll go there, thank you very much, if we need to,’ and she made a grab for Florrie, capturing her in an arm lock so she couldn’t run off again.

‘There’s no time for a flippin’ mother’s meeting here, fer God’s sake!’ The ARP Warden looked about him in desperation, as if he might whip off his tin helmet and tear his hair out if the irate trio didn’t behave. ‘Women! Do as you’re told for pity’s sake. Take them childer in that shelter this minute.’ Then he pushed the young woman and her two children down the steps into the crush of people already hurrying below ground for protection. As he turned to do the same with Florrie and Rita, the world exploded all around them. It came with a surprisingly dull clunk but they felt the pavement shake and open beneath their feet, smelled the acrid scent of smoke and raw fear, saw the sky itself blaze with fire as they were lifted, arms wrapped tight around each other, and thrown backwards on a blast of hot air.

Chapter Twenty

The next guest to follow in Miss Copthorne’s intrepid footsteps during Daisy’s first week of business was a commercial traveller in agricultural foodstuffs by the name of Tommy Fawcett. He wouldn’t be permanent, he explained, but definitely a regular as staying on farms was generally his preference; so much more convenient in his type of trade.

It was arranged that whenever he was going to be in the area, he would write and let her know his dates well in advance. ‘You’ll soon get used to my routine, it doesn’t vary much,’ he explained, tipping his brown felt hat over one eye, ‘not like my dance routine which is even more imaginative than Fred Astaire’s.’

Daisy laughed. ‘Nobody can dance as well as Fred Astaire. I won’t have folk who tell fibs in my boarding house. We might as well start as we mean to go on.’

He pulled a sad face. ‘I can’t resist trying to impress a pretty young girl. Mind you, my mother always told me my bragging would get me in trouble one day. If I were as good as him I’d be in the films too.’ He pronounced it filums. ‘All right, mebbe he has the edge, but I am involved in amateur dramatics. Back home in Blackburn, I’m famous for my twinkle-toes,’ and he did a few steps, there and then on the lino, making such a lovely clicking noise that it brought Miss Copthorne and Clem to see what the noise was all about. In no time they were all laughing as he jumped up on to a chair, then tap danced across the kitchen table and down onto the next chair. Oh yes, he was a real card was Tommy.

Next came a widower by the name of Ned Pickles. He was a small, wiry man in his late fifties, as stiff and starched in his manner as the high collar about his long skinny neck. One glance at his tired, gloomy face, the dusty spectacles, threadbare suit and well polished, if down-at-heel shoes, and Daisy decided he needed looking after. He was clearly missing his late-lamented wife, which would mean he’d have something in common with Clem, who was still pining for the absent Florrie. Daisy hoped the two of them might get along famously. She pushed her carefully devised list of rules back into her apron pocket and put him in the back bedroom; the one with the blue eiderdown and a bookcase, since he claimed to be fond of reading and brought a stack of books with him when he moved in the very next day.

Sometimes, Daisy wondered at her own temerity in embarking on such a scheme. Here she was in the midst of getting a lodging house started just as rationing was going from bad to worse. The value of the meat ration had dropped from 1s 6d to 1s 2d, a state of affairs she complained about loud and long to anyone prepared to listen, quite certain that those in power would not be struggling on such meagre rations. Jams and marmalades were also now on ration and Daisy made a mental note to dig out Aunt Florrie’s recipe books and have a go at making her own; assuming she could buy some sugar, of course.

But she meant to do things properly. People were already sick and tired of ‘Lord Woolton Pie’ , ‘Boston Bake,’ mock cream, mock marzipan, mock beef soup and mock everything else. Daisy knew that she must feed her guests well if she was to keep them. Living on a farm and being able to produce better food than was generally available in the town, was her one advantage. It was also the most sound reason for her lodgers being prepared to put up with the long trek up the lane every day.

But then, they were so lucky, having this lovely place to live in.

Florrie was the first to recover. Finding herself unexpectedly clasping her sister to her breast, she quickly pushed her away and gave her shoulder a little shake. ‘Are you all right, our Rita? By, that was a close one.’

Rita struggled to sit up, looking dazed as she began to pick bits of plaster out of her hair. ‘Am I all in one piece? Eeh, thank God!’ She began to cough, her throat thick with lime dust.

‘I reckon we must have cushioned each other as we fell.’

‘What, saved each other’s life d’you mean, while I was hell-bent on wringing your neck? There’s a turn up for the book.’

What amazed them most was the calm. People were gathering up their belongings and going quietly about their business, some to wait for their bus or tram as if nothing amiss had taken place. The world appeared to be falling apart in mayhem and chaos, yet they were concerned only with whether or not they caught the 54 bus on time. A woman appeared out of a haze of dust, a tray of tea mugs in her hand.

Rita gazed at her open mouthed. ‘How long have we been out cold, or was she boiling that kettle even as the bomb dropped?’

Yet another woman appeared out of nowhere, insisting that Rita sit still while she had her head examined.

‘Nay, me head has needed examining for years. Happen the bomb will have knocked a bit of sense into it.’

They might have laughed had it not been so awful. What remained of the shelter was a flattened pile of rubble and as Florrie and Rita sat in stunned silence contemplating the horror of it, they each realised that being thrown backwards into the street together was indeed what had saved them. The mother and her two children, along with the rest of the occupants who had dived below for safety had been less fortunate. The ARP warden was even now scrabbling at a hole he’d found in the heap of smoking bricks, desperately trying to find some sign of life within.

‘Don’t just sit there ladies. Give us a flamin’ hand.’

With one accord they struggled to their feet, heads still spinning yet they hurried to help. All hope seemed lost and then a baby’s cry was heard and they dug all the harder to retrieve it. Black with smoke and dust yet it proved to be alive and well, unharmed in any way. ‘You’re one of the lucky ones, chuck,’ said Rita, plonking it in an upturned barrel while she got on with the digging.