Polly's Pride (25 page)

Even Lucy was scathing when he protested, refusing even to listen to the full tale. ‘You great soft lump! You should stand up for yourself and not give in to bullies.’

‘It’s all right for you to talk,’ he protested. ‘You haven’t had Georgie Eastwood breathing down your neck.’

‘Huh, I’m scared of no one,’ she protested. ‘I wouldn’t let anyone tell me what to do.’ But later, as she lay in bed, a memory stirred of a voice whispering close to her ear, hot breath against her shrinking flesh. It spoke the kind of dirty words which had come to her out of the darkness that long ago night in the barracks. That couldn’t have been Georgie Eastwood too, could it? Surely not. He was sitting nowhere near her at the time. But if not Georgie, then who? She’d never discovered.

Her eyes opened again as panic assailed her. Somewhere in the darkness she heard a faint hiccupping sob and her heart filled with pity. She got quietly out of bed and crept downstairs. From the cubby-hole beneath she could hear her brother’s sniffles quite clearly. She wriggled in beside him and stretched out her hand to pat him gently on the shoulder. ‘You’re right, Benny love, I’ve never had to face up to real bullying like that. I reckon anybody would’ve been scared.’

‘Dad wouldn’t,’ Benny whimpered, wishing his father were here now so that he could sort out Georgie Eastwood.

‘No,’ she agreed in a sorrowful voice, snuggling down under the greatcoat which still smelled faintly of her father. She thought of Tom Shackleton and again experienced that familiar ache in her chest. ‘Mam never used to let anyone bully her either, once. But she does now.’ On this grim thought they both fell silent and finally fast asleep, but with tears on their cheeks.

Unaware of the bullying her son was suffering, or of her daughter’s misery at not being permitted to attend her own church, Polly began to feel an urgent need for the ritual and calming influence of her own religion. She wanted to see again the flickering candles that seemed to herald the presence of the Holy Ghost; smell the incense and hear the rhythmic chanting in Latin, most of which she had never understood but had always loved. She did once consider going to see Father Donevan yet couldn’t quite pluck up the courage to do so. He’d never supported her when Matthew had been alive, so why should he now?

One morning she stood at the kitchen window and listened to a blackbird trill its merry song in the back yard. Yet another spring without Matthew. How could she endure it? She couldn’t go on like this. Polly knew she must do something to snap herself out of this endless melancholy. But what?

Joshua came up behind her with one of the powders, mixed in a mug of warm milk, which he assured her would calm her fragile nerves and prevent the panic attacks which so frightened her.

‘Drink up, Polly. You know it will make you well.’ He sounded impatient, as if he were in a hurry.

She nodded obediently, taking the cup from him. Through the grime of the window, which she really ought to clean, she watched the sparrows peck at invisible crumbs, remembering how she and Matthew had always gone to Platt Fields at Easter to roll eggs for the children. After that would come the Whit Walks. But no, not any more. Wasn’t it the Whit Walks that had started the trouble between them in the first place? she thought in confusion. Her stubborn determination had driven her to take on extra work in a public house so she could buy Lucy a new frock. Matthew had been so angry, yet she hadn’t taken him seriously, even then.

If only she could turn back the clock. This single thought was repeated again and again in her head like a cracked record, and nothing would shift it.

Eileen had once told her she should get out more. Polly looked again at the sparrows and thought how lovely it would be to walk in the park. Perhaps that was what she needed to do. Perhaps she should give it a try. She set down the cup and turned to her brother-in-law.

‘I think I’d like to go out for a walk.’

‘No, Polly, not yet.’

Protests formed in her head but none reached her lips. Joshua continued, ‘I’m off out collecting. Big Flo is sitting with Betty Sidebottom while her sister Nellie goes shopping. The woman isn’t fit to be left apparently.’ He’d once hated to leave Polly on her own; now he felt quite certain she would obediently drink her milk and stay by the fire. She wasn’t going anywhere ever again, not until he was ready to let her; or had thought of another way to punish her.

Poor daft Betty, Polly thought, and subsiding into the chair by the fire, sipped at her milk, just as Joshua had told her to.

As he opened the door a waft of spring air blew into the little house, and a shaft of disappointment at not being able to walk in the park struck unexpectedly sharp and keen in Polly’s breast. It came to her then that she didn’t have to obey Joshua. She could go if she wanted to.
 

He was saying something about a meeting of the church elders which he must attend later and as the door clicked shut a memory stirred of another church she’d visited once, near Cheetham Hill. Polly recalled a more sympathetic priest who’d told her to call any time she was passing. Father Thomas, that was his name. He’d seemed kind and understanding, not the sort of priest to condemn a woman for loving a man with a different religion. But could she find it again?

Without stopping to think or even to put on her coat, in a mood of sudden resolve Polly poured away the sleeping draught, walked out of the front door and set out to take the tram.

As she walked along Dove Street, it crossed her mind that she hadn’t seen Eileen for a long while. The last time her friend had called, Joshua had insisted Polly wasn’t well enough for visitors. With the sun on her face she felt an unexpected surge of energy, like new blood pouring into her heart and lungs. Sure and she’d call on Eileen on her way home, prove to her that she was doing as her friend had suggested and getting out and about again.

She came to the tram stop and, jostled by the crowd, became suddenly confused, overwhelmed by indecision and panic as she struggled to remember what she was doing here and where she had meant to go. It seemed so strange to be out amongst people again that she could barely think. What was it she’d meant to do? Polly shivered, feeling a great desire to turn and run, to escape something or other, though from what she was escaping or where she should run, she couldn’t imagine.

‘Are you all right, love?’ The voice sounded concerned, the eyes that looked down into hers were gentle, brown as melted chocolate and fringed with long curling lashes.

She said, ‘Yes, I think so.’

‘You’re shaking.’

‘I just feel a bit cold.’

‘I’m not surprised. It’s cold enough to crack a nut today for all it’s supposed to be spring. And you’ve no coat on, lass. Here, take this.’ He was whipping off his own thick reefer jacket and draping it around her shoulders. The warmth of it seemed to seep into her frozen soul. ‘Charlie Stockton, at your service, as they say.’ And he grinned at her. His round face, weathered by sun not normally found in Manchester, seemed to Polly in that moment the most welcome sight she had ever seen. Yet still she shivered and Charlie became even more concerned.

‘What tram were you wanting? I mean, are you in hurry? We could go into that caff over the road and get a drink of something hot. Tea and a toasted teacake. How do you fancy that?’

There was something solid and comforting about the man, never mind the prospect of hot tea and toasted teacake. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with short brown hair cropped close to his head, belying the hint of natural curl to it. His clothes were rough and ready but clean, a hole in the sleeve of his pullover had been carefully darned, she noticed. It crossed her mind that he might have a wife who did such tasks for him. If so, what would she have to say about him taking a strange woman into a cafe?

‘That would be grand,’ she said, amazed at herself for agreeing but it suddenly seemed wonderful to be free and out of the house, talking to this friendly young man. A situation, she thought with a small spurt of rebellion, which Joshua would not approve of. But how would he know if she didn’t tell him? Besides, if anyone was in need of a friend right now, surely to goodness it was herself.

Chapter Seventeen

They ate and drank in companionable silence, at first not quite looking at each other, perhaps shy of saying the wrong thing and spoiling this unexpected meeting. And then both of them started to talk at once.

‘I was looking for a church,’ Polly began.

‘I was looking for work,’ he said at the same time, and they both burst out laughing.

‘You first,’ Polly said, beginning to relax for the first time in months.

Charlie grinned, lighting up his whole face and making his brown eyes sparkle. ‘It wasn’t important. You said you were looking for a church. Any one in particular? There’s a cathedral back there.’

Polly smiled. ‘I need a Catholic one. Are you Catholic?’ She didn’t know why she asked and instantly apologised. ‘Listen to me, nosy old goat, ‘tis no business of mine what you are.’

‘I’m nowt,’ Charlie told her, cheerfully enough. ‘I’ve attended churches of just about every religion under the sun, in just about every country, while I was in the Navy. And I’ve discovered there’s not a lot to choose between any of them. It’s the same God after all.’

Polly smiled. ‘Exactly my own way of thinking. But what about when you were a child?’

‘Aye, well, that depended where I was living.’ Then between sips of tea he proceeded to relate his life story; how his parents had both died of TB when he was quite small, and he’d been taken into Blackburn Orphanage. ‘Great big place it is. Victorian. Rows of beds, big long tables, high ceilings. Grim but well intentioned, if you know what I mean. There were worse places I could’ve been sent. Sometimes we were all taken out for Sunday teas, picnics, or on day trips; loaned out like a library book to worthy, do-gooding “aunties”.’ He said this with such a twinkle in his eye that Polly almost laughed, but managed to stop herself in time. After all, it wasn’t the least bit funny for a small boy to be handed about from pillar to post.

‘Were they kind to you, these aunties?’ she asked instead, feeling quite comfortable asking this perfect stranger personal questions.
 

‘Oh, yes, only I was such a rebel at the time I’d be sure to blot me copybook in some way. Like once I put salt instead of sugar in the bowl of one lady’s tea set. She wasn’t best pleased.’

‘I shouldn’t think she was,’ Polly was almost bursting with her efforts not to laugh.

‘Another time I picked all the roses from the garden to give to one auntie but she was furious. How was I to know they wouldn’t grow back again by the next day? I was only a lad. You’d think she’d have appreciated the thought at least, wouldn’t you?’

Polly was hiccupping with laughter by this time, and Charlie grinned impishly at her. ‘So there you are, they always got fed up and I’d be confined to barracks for a few weeks. Anyroad the orphanage did well by me. They made sure I had an education, then I went into the Merchant Navy and saw the world, as they say. Now I’m land-locked and looking for something different.’ He set down his cup and cocked his head to one side, looking very like a quizzical sparrow. ‘Now it’s your turn.’

‘Oh, you don’t want to know about me,’ she said.

‘I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.’ Charlie liked the look of this frail young woman, was itching to know everything about her, but something about her behaviour troubled him and he’d hoped his own openness would inspire her to be equally frank. He considered her more carefully. She’d had a hard time, he could tell by the pinched look about her face, the eyes red from recent weeping. And she was dressed all in black. Common though this was among the poor, he believed it to have a particular significance in her case. He leaned back in the wooden chair and set both his hands flat on the table with a deep sigh. ‘It’s hard when you lose someone. I remember when both me mam and dad died. I thought I’d never get over it, even though I was but a child. You never do, of course, in a way. Just get used to living with it. Who was it you lost, lass? Your husband?’

Polly nodded, and after taking a moment to compose herself, briefly told her tale, relieved that her eyes didn’t instantly fill with tears as she spoke of Matthew’s terrible accident. She had no wish to cry in front of this man. She didn’t want to cry ever again. For the first time she felt a great surge of pride in the way he had saved that boy. ‘He died a hero, and for what he believed in.’

‘There are worse ways to go.’

‘Yes, I suppose there are.’ She looked at him with gratitude, grateful for this new viewpoint. And in the moment when their eyes met, Polly experienced a great desire to start living again. It felt good to see someone smile at her, and to feel she’d made a new friend.

He walked her to the tram stop where she hastily handed him back his jacket as a tram drew in. Jostled by the crowd as the waiting queue piled aboard, they had a small argument over it, since he was still concerned about her catching cold, but Polly won. It was just as well, for it was then that Joshua found her.

‘Are you lost, Polly?’ he enquired in his soft, rasping voice, and her heart sank. She shook her head and struggled to explain her purpose, her tongue somehow seeming to stick to the roof of her mouth.
 

Joshua cast barely a glance in Charlie’s direction, dismissing him as a nonentity. ‘Just as well I was passing this way, as it’s time you were home,’ he said, grasping her arm. ‘You know you shouldn’t be out on your own. Not yet.’