That'll Be the Day (2007) (7 page)

 
As for Ewan Hemley, she would make sure that none of them were at home on Sunday when he called. Betty hoped and prayed that when he found the door locked and bolted against him with no answer to his knock, he would think better of it and go away for good.

Chapter Seven

Betty was back at her stall bright and early the next morning, happily setting out her flower buckets, filling them with red and pink gladioli, a glorious array of dahlias and great bunches of michaelmas daisies. She made up a bouquet of her favourite brick red chrysanthemums which were surely for love, together with dark blue-veined veronica for fidelity, and added a few sprigs of fragrant jasmine for elegance and grace.

And while she worked, a plan formed in her mind on how to deal with the problem of her ex-husband. Betty was now even more determined that none of them would be at home when Ewan called on Sunday. It really didn’t matter where they went so long as all three of them were out of the house. She meant to put this plan into effect just as soon as Lynda joined her later.

She set down the duck board which kept the damp of the hard pavement from her booted feet. Lynda hadn’t scrubbed and swept it clean enough to her liking from the day before, a point she’d remind her daughter of when she got the chance. Oh, but the girl was a hard worker, and Jake wasn’t a bad lad, not really, she told herself, as mothers do.
 

She’d given him a bit of a lecture over breakfast, since she didn’t have to dash off this morning to Smithfield wholesale market, about this tendency he had for getting into mischief. Betty had made it very clear that one more step on the wrong side of the law and she’d leave him to sink in his own mire.

‘You listen to what Constable Nuttall says, son, because this is your last chance,’ she’d warned.

Jake had avoided answering by stuffing his mouth with cornflakes but then Betty had been careful not to antagonise her son too much. She could have told him that he was taking after his father, that if he carried on along this road then he too would end up spending half his life in t’clink, but that would mean revealing the kind of truths she’d spent all of
her
life protecting him from.

The lad would sort himself out, given time, and although as he’d headed out the door he’d mumbled that he still intended going out with his mates that night, some of her words must have stuck because he’d promised to be home at a decent hour and not to get into any more bother.

Betty could only hope that he’d keep that promise.

Now she opened up her folding chair and settled herself to the pleasing occupation of observing people. There was nothing Betty enjoyed more than indulging in her favourite sport of trying to assess folk, to guess and sometimes cheekily enquire who a particular gift of flowers was for, and speculate on the true nature of their relationship.

Right now she could see Sam Beckett chatting to that Fran Poulson. No better than she should be that lass. God knows what she’d got up to when she went missing for months on end. Rumour had it she’d been earning a living down under the arches with that prossy Maureen. Not that you’d think so to listen to her mother Big Molly talk, who thought the sun shone out of her elder daughter’s backside.

Betty’s lip curled with disapproval as she watched the girl pat her bleached blond curls and stick her breast out in that too-tight sweater. Sam Beckett wasn’t above enjoying the show. Why young Judy put up with him Betty couldn’t imagine. She’d put rat poison in his soup if he was her husband. That would soon cool his ardour.

Something not very nice was undoubtedly being hatched between the pair of them, or she wasn’t Betty Hemley, a shrewd judge of character if ever there was one. Generally speaking her guesses were uncannily accurate, although with some customers it was more difficult and Betty knew she could at times be wildly off the mark.

Leo Catlow, for instance, was one who fell into the more enigmatic category, notoriously difficult to assess. Smiling graciously as he requested his usual bouquet Betty pretended to misunderstand. ‘Are these for the wife then?’

A slight puckering of the brow between a pair of penetrating dark brown eyes. ‘For my mother, Betty. I always visit my parents every month around this time, as you well know.’

‘I do, aye. And they’re enjoying the sea air in Lytham St Anne’s, I hope?’

‘I hope so too. Put in some of the pinks. Mother does so love carnations.’

Betty selected a dozen, together with three reflex chrysanthemum blooms and the same number of euphorbia with their long, elegantly curved branches for focal interest, slipping in a few stems of leatherleaf fern as greenery before wrapping the bouquet carefully in pale green tissue. Whatever you might say about Leo Catlow as a husband, he certainly didn’t stint when buying flowers for his mother.

Was that because he loved her, Betty wondered, or simply out of guilt because he didn’t visit very often? This trip to the coast to see his parents was cancelled more often than not, which Betty surmised was probably because Leo and his father, old Jonty Catlow, never had got on.

‘Retirement suiting your poor father, is it? He’s much improved, I trust? The dear lady must be worried sick about him.’

‘Yes, she must,’ Leo said, handing over several notes without asking the price.

Tight-fisted he may not be but tight-lipped he most certainly was, Betty thought.
 

She’d dared to speculate at the time about how his dear mother would cope when Leo’s father had suffered a massive heart attack and been forced to retire from the family business. Old Jonty Catlow had become increasingly irascible and in need of constant care, and everyone knew the poor lady was losing the thread. She tended to get confused, perhaps doing her shopping twice over, or boiling the kettle dry because she’d forgotten she was making herself a cup of tea. A fact which saddened all of Champion Street since Dulcie Catlow had been a familiar figure in her twin set and pearls, and the kindest of ladies, always with a ready smile and time for a chat. Leo, however, had refused to accept there was anything wrong.

Betty, on the other hand, ventured to suggest that Leo and his wife had moved into the family house with his parents in order to keep a better eye on them. ‘I expect your wife will be glad of the larger place, once the babbies start coming, and your mam will enjoy doing a bit of baby-sitting and dangling her grandchild on her knee.’

‘You don’t know everything, Betty Hemley, for all you may think you do,’ he’d snapped. ‘Some things are not always what they seem.’

Now what had he meant by that?
 

But then the old couple had upped and retired to the coast, leaving the family home to his son, something Jonty Catlow had sworn he’d never do.

Ever since that day Betty had adopted a little more caution with her questions, but she was feeling particularly perverse this morning. ‘So what about the missus then? What sort of flowers does she get on this fine autumn day?’

Betty couldn’t recall him ever buying his wife a similar bouquet. Word had it that the couple were at odds because Leo was desperate to start a family, and his wife had not yet managed to fulfil her duty of providing him with the much-needed son and heir to carry on the family business. How true this was Betty had no idea but she couldn’t resist provoking him at every opportunity, good customer or no.

Truth to tell she didn’t much care for Helen Catlow. Elegant and sophisticated she may be, exactly like jasmine, and every bit as fragrant and delicate, but the woman was a snob, far too full of herself. She always spoke in a low-pitched gentle voice as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to address a lowly flower-seller.

‘How about one of these pots of African Violets, or a single long-stemmed rose for the good lady?’

He didn’t rise to the bait, but then he never did. Leo Catlow was what you might call “close”. He was a private person who liked to keep his opinions to himself. Quite good looking in a conventional sort of way with that strong square chin of his, ears flat to the side of his head, a long straight nose and wide mouth with even white teeth. And oh, those smouldering, deep-set brown eyes. Had she been twenty years younger Betty might have fancied him herself. As it was, he was simply a well-heeled customer, a man who, like others of his sex, neglected his wife and treated his parents with appalling callousness.

Betty counted out his change, giving him a sideways glance of condemnation as she did so. ‘Happen the younger Mrs Catlow will be lucky next time, or when her birthday next comes round, eh?’

Leo moved his mouth into what might have passed for a smile but the gesture didn’t reach those wonderfully enigmatic eyes, and with a brief nod of his fine regal head he was gone.

Betty chewed on her lip and tried to work it all out. Something wasn’t quite right, but she couldn’t put her finger on what it was.
 

In her somewhat prejudiced mind she couldn’t find it in her heart to lay the blame for Leo Catlow’s all too evident unhappiness on his wife. Maybe the woman spoke in a half-whisper because she was scared witless. Who knew what went on behind closed doors?

Nevertheless, as she watched him walk away, shoulders hunched, head down, she felt a stirring of unexpected pity for him. That wasn’t normal behaviour for such a proud, upstanding bloke, a man who owned one of the largest warehouses on Salford Docks and was used to dishing out the orders and expecting to be obeyed. There were moments when he looked so sad Betty had the urge to put her arms around the man and give him a cuddle.

‘Get away with you, Betty Hemley,’ she sharply scolded herself. ‘You must be going soft in your old age feeling sorry for one of the enemy! You’ll be inviting that ex-husband of yours to come home for good next.’

Chapter Eight

Helen Catlow didn’t normally frequent the Dog and Duck. With an air of disdain she ignored its brave show of window boxes stuffed with snapdragons, French marigolds and scarlet geraniums and saw only its smoke-blackened brick façade and cracked panes of glass.

A plump woman stood at the door, a basket of violets on her arm, no doubt in case some guilty soul should wish to buy a bunch as a sop to his wife for the state of his inebriation. Two Teddy Boys lounged against the wall, looking very much the worse for wear, and if the men Helen had seen staggering out were anything to go by the place must be heaving with drunks.

‘Buy a bunch of violets, lovey?’

Helen shook her head. She’d seen the woman before, seated by her flower stall, but hadn’t the faintest idea what her name was. ‘No thank you.’

‘Just suit your colouring, madam, they would. Nothing nicer than a rich purple next to porcelain skin, and violets are for faithfulness and modesty, which I’m sure you are, lovely young lady like yourself. Only sixpence a bunch.’

‘Oh, very well. I suppose they might at least distract me from the smell of this dreadful place.’

Helen barely tolerated living in Champion Street with its jumble of stalls and Victorian iron-framed market hall, its stacks of orange boxes and rotting vegetables. It was an on-going grievance between herself and Leo that he wouldn’t even consider living anywhere else but in the corner Victorian three-story terraced house where he’d been born. The house might well have been in the family for generations and handy for the warehouse on Potato Wharf, but was highly
in
convenient so far as Helen was concerned.

Leo was a lovely caring man, a good husband and employer, sensitive to the feelings of others yet not afraid to take risks or to live on the edge were it necessary to do so. He was his own man, which was what she loved most about him. It was a pity therefore that with so many natural attributes and undoubted success at his fingertips, he consistently failed to appreciate how she, his own wife, might sometimes see things differently and have utterly diverse needs and desires in life.

As for public houses, they were, in Helen’s view, strictly for layabouts and drunks. Leo might wax lyrical about the character of the place and the friendliness of the locals, but such places were anathema to her.

She hesitated before going in, hovering by the door as she tried to peer through the stained glass panels in the hope of seeing him, protectively holding the violets to her nose. She’d hate to arrive early and have to hang around with the riff-raff.

Leo had insisted she meet him here for a bite of lunch because it was ‘handy’ after a long morning at the warehouse, allowing her no opportunity to refuse.

It wasn’t difficult to guess the reason. Hadn’t he offered, almost threatened, to make her an appointment with the doctor, adamant that if something were preventing her from conceiving then they should go together to find out the cause of the problem? It would be just like him to have made such an appointment, for Monday morning perhaps, and choose a very public place to tell her of this fact in order to avoid her making a fuss.

Why could he not be satisfied with their life as it was, or at least pour his energies into something far more worthwhile than children? He knew of her ambitions for him, her desire to see him succeed as a man of note in the community, with her by his side.

He’d been offered the opportunity to stand for parliament at the next by-election but where was the point in her winning favours from the people who mattered, if he refused to take the offer seriously?