That'll Be the Day (2007) (47 page)

Judy was struggling. She’d found herself a two bedroom flat but the window frames were parting company with the walls, as was the wallpaper in the living room. Mould flourished everywhere and the kitchen was so small it contained only one Bellman cooker, one kitchen dresser painted a sickly green, and a sink. There was no room even for a table let alone a washing machine. Not that she had one of those any more.

Judy was forced to use the communal wash house at the public baths. She took a bath there too, since hot water was rarely available at home. The flat was six floors up from the street, there was no lift, and there was nowhere to dry clothes except by stringing them out of the window and hoping they didn’t blow away in a howling gale.

From her window that looked out over the rapidly changing vista of Salford in the throes of modernisation, she could see swathes of bombed-out houses and decrepit air-raid shelters. The city had little land available for new development so had opted for tower blocks, and even then slum areas had to be cleared first. Judy rather thought the tenement block she was living in ought to be next.

In the street directly below, the setts glistening in the rain, she could see the wreck of an abandoned car and a small girl taking her younger sibling for a walk in her pram, clattering along in her mother’s high heels. Judy wondered if the child was quite safe to be out there in the street by herself. No one took any notice of her, hurrying by with their faces buried in their coat collars, looking very much like figures from a Lowry painting.

The image made Judy think of her own children and a tear slid down her cheek. Who would look out for them now that she wasn’t there to care for them and love them? Sam and his mother, she supposed, which surely wasn’t quite the same. She missed them so much it felt as someone had stuck a knife in her heart and left it there.

Oh, and she missed her friends too, and the liveliness of the market. Judy hadn’t realised how much she loved Champion Street until she’d left it. She missed the people, the smells and noise of the place, the women rooting through the second-hand clothes stalls looking for cheap cardies, mufflers, kecks and nebbers, the latter being a flat cap for their husband.

And she missed their banter. ‘Nay, it’s chuckin’ it down this morning, I’m fair frozzed. Sell us that brolly, luv. Call that a bargain? Gene Kelly would pay less.’

Not that Judy had any money to go shopping with these days, even for bargains on a market. There was a pawnbrokers on the corner, which was handy. Ticketed suits hung in the window, rolls of carpet stood at the door and inside it smelled of cat pee, stale sweat and lost hope. She’d already pledged her gold watch and wedding ring. What need did she have of such things now?

Did Tom and Ruth blame her for what had happened? Did they believe that she had deserted them? Judy couldn’t bear it if that were the case.

Ruth was just about as angry as a ten year old child could be. Her brown eyes seemed to have no iris left around the black pupil, as if she hadn’t slept in weeks, with twin patches of colour on each cheek. ‘I hope Daddy finds a new mummy because you’re no good any more. How could you just let us go like that, without even trying? You didn’t even
care
!’
 

These were the sort of accusations the girl constantly threw at her mother following the magistrate’s heartbreaking decision. Judy hadn’t the first idea how to answer them without criticising Sam, which she didn’t feel would be wise, in the circumstances. Apart from the fact it would make him very angry, starting a slanging match via the children was no solution, in Judy’s opinion. Yet she couldn’t allow her children to feel abandoned or neglected.

‘I did my utmost, darling, I promise you. I love you so much but your father is stronger than me. He has the money to fight for you, a business and a lovely home for you to live in, which I don’t.’ Judy put her arm about her daughter to pull her close in the bus seat but Ruth shook it off. They were on their way to Buile Hill Park yet again, and she’d been hoping for a peaceful afternoon.

‘Can’t you get more money?’ Tom asked, big round eyes filling with tears.

How could she explain how difficult that would be without any skills or training, and far too many years confined to the kitchen sink. Judy tried to sound bright and optimistic. ‘Of course I will, lovey, but it will take a little time. I’ve made a good start by getting myself a job in a snack bar serving sausage sandwiches,’ trying to make it sound fun. Tom was impressed. Sausages were his favourite food.

Ruth was scathing. ‘Fat lot of good that will do. Tom keeps crying, and he’s getting all his sums wrong.
I
probably won’t pass the eleven-plus because I’ve got too far behind, and it’s all
your
fault. Daddy can’t even cook, and there are lists everywhere of what we’re supposed to do.’

Judy detected a note of panic in her daughter’s voice and again put her arm about her and gave her hunched shoulders a little squeeze, relieved to find that this time Ruth didn’t shrug it off. ‘I’m sure you will pass the exam, darling, because you are clever as well as pretty. Look, this is our stop,’ Judy said, ushering them off the bus on to the pavement. ‘And the sun is shining so let’s not think of unpleasant things today.’
 

 
‘Oh, no, not the museum again. Can’t we go and see
Pillow Talk
? Museums are so
boring
.’ Ruth trailed unenthusiastically behind her mother and Tom.

‘At least it will be warm,’ Judy joked, ‘and they serve tea and iced buns.’

Tom, who rather liked iced buns, turned on his sister, his small face quite cross, ‘Do stop moaning, Ruth. Mummy’s told you she doesn’t have any money yet. Anyway, I like museums, Mummy. Do they have dinosaurs?’

Chapter Forty-Seven

Christmas was rapidly approaching and Lynda was running the flower stall alone, struggling to take her mother’s place, which wasn’t easy. All the pleasure seemed to have gone out of life and working the stall wasn’t fun any more. Not that she had any choice in the matter. Ewan insisted she continue working as it brought in good money, and he was very much in charge these days. It also kept her out of the house of a morning while he did his bit of business.

Since Betty’s disappearance her home had become a centre for fenced goods, about which Lynda dare say nothing. There was no question now of revealing the loot to Constable Nuttall, even though boxes filled every bedroom and lined the stairs. She was far too much under Ewan’s control. Lynda cleaned the house, cooked his meals, minded her flower stall and kept her head down.

At least having to deal with the stall allowed Lynda a sort of escape for a while and helped to keep her mind off her grief.

This morning she was struggling to make holly wreaths, incorporating ruscus, which had heart-shaped leaves with a prickle on the end. It was a plant that grew wild in Cornwall and was ideal for a Christmas wreath but Lynda didn’t possess her mother’s skill so she was all fingers and thumbs. Nor did she have Betty’s knowledge of flowers to be able to match the right bloom to the right person.
 

She looked it up in her little book and discovered that holly was for foresight, which Lynda fervently wished she’d had more of when Ewan had moved in; and mistletoe for surmounting difficulties. She’d certainly need to do plenty of that. But when she’d tried to sell Winnie Holmes a potted azalea the other day, on the grounds that it was for temperance, the woman had taken offence, refused to buy it and had not been near the stall since.

Sometimes one of the other stallholders would wander over and ask if there was any news of Betty, or to express their regret over her loss.

‘Eeh, I do miss your mam’s cheery face, and her lovely sense of humour,’ they would say.

Big Molly, for one, was never away, constantly fussing over Lynda and offering her potato pies to keep her strength up. ‘Don’t give up hope, chuck. She could pop up out of the woodwork one day, who knows? You can’t keep a good woman down, not one like our Betty.’

Clara Higginson would remind Lynda on a daily basis, as did many of her other friends and neighbours, that she must pop in any time if she felt like a bit of company. Ewan would never permit Lynda to indulge in tittle-tattle, but she was grateful for the offer and glad to know they were there.
 

She did her best to smile as the comments were meant only out of kindness but inside Lynda felt frozen and strangely numb. She’d even lost interest in her secret wedding. How could she even consider such a thing with her mother missing, feared dead?

A group of mummers were playing out St George and the Dragon on the market place cobbles, and Lynda paused in her labours to watch their antics.

She could see Terry through the window of his father’s music shop and her heart leaped at sight of him, as it always did. He was laughing and joking as he served a customer with a record, maybe Bobby Darin’s
Mack The Knife
, which was in the charts right now, or Adam Faith’s
What Do You Want
? Lynda certainly knew what she wanted. She wanted Terry. She wanted to be happy. She wanted to be normal!

Terry hadn’t minded postponing the wedding, so long as it wasn’t for too long, although he was even more concerned for her safety. Lynda didn’t care about herself any more, she was far too concerned about her mother. Every morning when she opened her eyes, her first thought was to wonder where she was, and what had happened. And each day she half expected a visit from Constable Nuttall to tell her that Betty’s body had been found washed up somewhere.

It might almost be a relief if he did. At least they’d know then, one way or the other, and not be constantly worrying and wondering. Hard as that would be to deal with, at least Lynda would then be free to leave and start living her own life with Terry. And Jake could find himself a decent job and go straight.

But until they were absolutely certain that Ewan didn’t have Betty locked up somewhere, frightened and alone, doing God knows what to her, they daren’t take the risk of standing up to him.

Lynda was haunted by this thought.
 

 
She would ask herself ten, twenty, a hundred times a day. If it was right what he’d said, that her mother was still alive and well somewhere, where could he have hidden her?
 

Night after night she and Terry would search the alley-ways and back streets of Castlefield, hoping for some clue, a sighting, or news of where Betty might be. Terry had made posters and stuck these up all around town. Lynda even persuaded the editor of the
Manchester Guardian
to put a picture of her in the paper with a piece about her mysterious disappearance, hoping against hope for some sort of response. There was none. Clearly no one had seen her mother anywhere.

Ewan read the articles in the press and laughed himself hoarse.

What she couldn’t understand was why Ewan would go to all this trouble. Why would he bother to kidnap and lock up his ex-wife? Was it in order to take control of her home, her business and her children?

Jake’s theory was that Ewan’s activities as a fence was only a small part of his plan, that he had something else up his sleeve, something big, and that he needed their help to carry it out.

‘The only way he can force us to be a part of it is to threaten to hurt Mam if we don’t go along with his nasty scheme, whatever it is.’

If only they could find her before that.

Jake spent every waking minute running errands for his father, taking messages, fetching and carrying stolen goods, loading and unloading on the docks in the dead of night. Like it or not the poor boy was up to his neck in criminal activity. She herself had turned into a complete drudge, become a shadow of her former confident self and grieved for the warmth of the love she’d once enjoyed with her mother.

On the other hand this could all be a tissue of lies and really he’d drowned her on the same night as he’d done for poor Queenie. Lynda knew that he was perfectly capable of taking advantage of their grief to wield an even greater hold over them.

But the police had dragged as much of the canal basin as seemed feasible, searched many of the surrounding waterways and found no sign of her.

There was one occasion when they came and took Ewan away for questioning but could find no evidence against him. No blood in the house, no body, no evidence at all of any crime being committed, only an empty wheelchair by the canal. In the end they came to the conclusion that Betty Hemley had met with an accident and they’d let him go.

Until they did find Betty, either dead or alive, both brother and sister were entirely at Ewan’s beck and call. The noise of the market seemed to wash over her as if she weren’t really a part of it, as if she were separated from it by a shield of frosted glass.

She could hear the lively banter: ‘I’m not asking ten shillings, I’m not even asking five . . .’

‘I should think not, mate. I wouldn’t give you tuppence for it.’

But none of this brought forth a smile. These days Lynda had a permanent sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, and an icy chill running along every nerve ending.

The wicked dragon in the Mummer’s play had finally been vanquished and recovered sufficiently to quaff a gill of ale along with the rest of the lively cast, and everyone was clapping and cheering having enjoyed the entertainment. All perfectly normal fun. If only Lynda’s own life were normal, if only she was able to vanquish Ewan from their lives half as easily, then they wouldn’t be in this dreadful mess.