The Girl From Penny Lane (35 page)

‘Mmm, sounds real lovely. Is that where you got your Patch from?’

‘That’s right. One mornin’ me and me pal ’ad been sleepin’ warm in an ’aystack . . .’

She told Betty about their arrival at the farm, Maldwyn’s injury, his kindness to them. And when the child slept she went on thinking about the farm – and about Johnny Moneymor.

What had happened to him – more important, what did he think had happened to her? Had he found the witness to the will, taken him back to Wrexham, fetched a lawyer to confront the thieving Ap Thomases with their lies and treachery? Had he searched for her, Kitty? Somehow, she was sure he had, but it was too late. No one could search for ever and if he was still prosecuting his claim then he would have to be in Wales, and if he had been successful and had won, then he would have to be on the farm, taking care of things, protecting his property. Their property.

Because of course Johnny knows that I know where the farm is, whereas all he knows about me is that I used to live in Paradise Court but swore I’d never return there. He didn’t get the note, that’s for sure. So he might hunt for me up and down the Scottie, but likelier he’d go to Penny Lane because he knew I had a friend there, or he’d hunt through the docks and the area he told me to search. The one place he wouldn’t look is the Parry, so I’m safe enough here.

But that was silly, because she wanted her pal more than almost anything, certainly more than she wanted this collapsing house or her mean-eyed mother. But she couldn’t just leave them to manage without her, not when she knew very well that they wouldn’t. See them right first, she told herself meaninglessly, because seeing them right was an impossible task. See them right first, and then go your own way.

But thinking about the farm, and Johnny, was an escape from the bitter poverty, the ugly dilemma, in which she found herself. The apparent friendliness which Sary had shown at first had soon dissipated; her mother would have used violence against her, save that Kitty was clearly the stronger and fitter of the two. I’m more of a gaoler than a daughter, Kitty thought bitterly, for she hid her money away from Sary, never allowed her a penny to herself. If she did, she knew very well it would all be splashed out on drink, and that she dared not allow. And not only did she keep Sary short of cash, she also kept her either in the house or accompanied her outside it. Her mother would steal to get alcohol, and on the only occasion she had managed to get herself as far as the Black Dog unaccompanied she had also got herself very drunk indeed. Kitty guessed she had begged drinks, and supped the dregs in glasses, and because she hadn’t drunk for so long, Sary had speedily become incapable. It had taken the combined strength of Kitty and her younger sister to drag the screaming, cursing hulk which was Sary Drinkwater out of the gutter and back to the house in Paradise Court.

‘Nex’ time we’ll leave you lie,’ Kitty had hissed breathlessly as they dropped Sary unceremoniously on the bottom stair. ‘I’m warnin’ you, Mam, there ’adn’t berrer be a nex’ time!’

But it was no life for any of them, Kitty thought now, as the dog’s warmth mingled with that of the two girls and made the bed almost comfortable. And what’ll we do when the weather worsens? Even now she was always tired, always hungry, always worried. September and October had been relatively mild, but now it was November, and when it grew really cold she doubted her ability to keep them warm and fed. Sary was clearly far from well and cordially hated her gaoler-daughter, even though everything Kitty did was for her ultimate good. But you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, Kitty thought, stroking Patch’s silky ears. Her mother had always been a violent woman, a heavy drinker. Nothing would change that now, except for old age and infirmity, and Sary was only thirty-eight, though she looked and acted sixty.

But it was no good thinking like that or she’d never sleep. Kitty curled up with an arm round Patch’s neck and directed her thoughts back to the farm. Wouldn’t it be marvellous to wake up in her own little room, with the mountain range glowing with sunrise outside her window and the heather’s purple deepening to brown? Downstairs a big log fire, outside the clean, fresh mountain air, the winter-pale grass, the trees with their bare branches dusted with frost.

Some kids are so lucky, she thought drowsily, her mind eased and gentled by her recollections. Some kids have all that from birth, it’s as natural to them as city streets and hunger are to kids like Betty, to women like me Mam. Why, if things had been different . . . .

She sat bolt upright, ignoring the cold air which her sudden movement had brought swirling into their nest. If things had been different . . . well, why should they not be? Why should she, her mother and her sister, to say nothing of Patch, not set out on the road, as she and Johnny Moneymor had done? God knows they could not be worse off than they were at present, and at least if they were in the country they would have fresh air to breathe, fresh water to drink, and the clean fields and meadows to walk in. Patch would be better – she worried more about the dog than about the rest of the family since she had brought Patch to this dreadful pass – Sary and Betty would be better and she, Kitty Drinkwater, would probably be able to earn them a living of sorts.

Even if the Thomases are still at the farm, I can earn my living in the country, Kitty thought. I can milk a cow, clean a byre, drive a pony and trap, sell at a market . . . her skills, which were non-existent in a city, suddenly began to mount up to something worthwhile when you thought about the country. Why, I could keep house for a bachelor farmer, she thought excitedly, remembering how Maldwyn had painstakingly taught her to cook, to make and to mend, to clean and polish. Oh yes, of course, why hadn’t she thought of it before? It was in the country that their future lay, Mam’s and Betty’s as well as hers and Patch’s. She would talk to them about it the very next day!

‘Go off, ’oofin’ it? Wi’ winter comin’ on? You’re mad!’

Sary Drinkwater heaved a huge shoulder up in the air and burrowed further down under her filthy bedcovers. The gesture said louder than words that she did not intend to budge from her bed unless she was forced. Kitty gritted her teeth and caught hold of the dirty blanket. She tried not to notice the tiny movements of bugs in the matted wool; they’d die off when the weather worsened, she told herself – so long as we don’t follow suit, she added, with grim humour. She heaved and the blanket slid half off the bed.

‘Get
up
, Mam,’ she said sharply. ‘The doc telled you fresh air an’ exercise. We’re goin’ for a walk to the country, me and Bet, an’ you’re coming’ with us.’

‘No – I – ain’t!’ Each word was accompanied by a heave on the blanket and Sary was still a strong woman. ‘You goes, the pair of yez, an’ good riddance I say!’

‘We will go,’ Kitty threatened. She turned and stormed out of the room, with Betty and Patch close on her heels. At the bottom of the stairs she turned to her sister. ‘What’ll we do, Bet? I can get work in the country, I’ve got friends there, but there ain’t much I can do in the city! Shall us go, you an’ me?’

Betty heaved a sigh and shook her head.

‘She’ll die if we leave ’er,’ she pointed out. ‘She’ll be up the boozer a-beggin’ bevvies – or stealin’ ’em – afore you can say scuffers. We’ll ’ave to sit it out till she’s gorrer full senses back.’

Kitty sighed and nodded, biting back a sharp retort that their mother would be a fool even if she had her full senses, as Betty called them, returned to her tomorrow. But she did try to make her point.

‘Mam lives for the booze now, flower,’ she said gently. ‘I dunno as ’ow I can stay for ever, an’ with Mam that’s what it’ud be.’

‘I know; but Mam was good to us when she were ’erself,’ Betty said. ‘Not to you, Kit, you’ve gorra right to go, I know it, but she were awright to the rest of us.’

‘You wouldn’t go to the children’s home, like the others, I suppose?’ Kitty said without much hope. ‘They’d feed you there, an’ that.’

‘If I did that Mam wouldn’t even try to git better,’ Betty observed shrewdly. ‘She’d sink like a stone, I tells you.’

‘Yeah; you’re right. Well, we’ll go on tryin’ for a bit, then,’ Kitty said wearily. ‘See ’er through the winter. Best tek the pram down to the docks, see if you can find some broken boxes to sell. I’ll bide ’ere wi’ Mam and try to think it through.’

She was still thinking, without getting anywhere at all, when there was a tentative knock on the door.

Johnny! Kitty thought; he’s found me! And she flew across the room and hurled open the front door.

‘Oh, Johnny, I’s . . .’

It wasn’t Johnny. It was a buxom, smiling girl a few years older than Kitty herself. Kitty recognised her as one of the Fletchers who now lived in what had once been Mrs O’Rourke’s neat house. She smiled rather diffidently; the three big daughters, and this was one of them, were always friendly and cheerful, and though the males of the family did roar out songs and a few curses when they came back from the boozer, though the females seemed to have rather a rapid turnover of gentlemen friends, Kitty thought the Fletchers were a cheery crowd. At least they were a change from the rest of the inhabitants of Paradise Court, who tended to keep themselves to themselves and clearly considered, despite Betty’s strictures, that it was the Drinkwaters who had brought the Court low rather than the arrival of others.

‘’Ello, chuck,’ the girl said. She had thick yellow curls, bright blue eyes and a wide, friendly grin. Her front teeth had a little gap between them which somehow made her look younger than she probably was, more Kitty’s age. Kitty could tell that the yellow curls came out of a peroxide bottle and that her pink cheeks also owed something to artifice, but she admired the older girl nevertheless. ‘I t’ought it were time we interdooced ourselves, seein’ as we’re neighbours, like. I’m Marigold Fletcher, an’ you’ll be . . . ?’

‘I’m Kitty Drinkwater,’ Kitty said. She held out her hand. ‘How d’you do?’

That was what they said in books, but Marigold looked taken aback for a moment, then seized Kitty’s hand in a warm and friendly grip.

‘Ow do, Kitty,’ she said heartily. ‘I come to ask ’ow’s your mam?’

‘Poorly, thanks,’ Kitty said gloomily. ‘I were tryin’ to get ’er to come for a walk . . . jest a bit of a way at first, the doc say she oughter ’ave exercise an’ fresh air . . . but she won’t budge from ’er pit.’

‘Eh, dat’s a shame. I brung ’er a rice pudden’, still ‘ot. Think she could swally a mouthful?’

‘She could, I’m sure,’ Kitty said, holding out her hands for the pudding basin the girl had been holding behind her back. ‘Ooh, you are good, you are kind . . . it’s been queerin’ me ’ow the ’ell I were to get ’er a meal today . . . gelt’s runnin’ low to tell the truth.’

‘Yeah . . . well, I wondered if you’d like to do a bit o’ work for me,’ Marigold said. She dimpled beguilingly at Kitty. ‘I been an’ got meself a room on Grayson Street – for me business, like – but the fellers don’t know where to find me. If they come ’ere, our Daisy an’ our Vi’let will oblige, but the fellers from the dock won’t bother to search me out, see? An’ someone told me you wrote lovely, so I bought a pad an’ a pencil an’ I thought you could write me some lickle notes, like? I’d pay, acourse,’ she added hastily.

‘Be glad to,’ Kitty said joyfully. A job where she could stay and keep an eye on her mother would be ideal. ‘Gi’s the paper, I’ll do some right away.’

‘Good. An’ will you deliver ’em for me? Down at the docks where the big ships come in? I’m fed up wi’ walkin’ up and down meself, so I’ll pay you two bob a day so long as you write out twenty or thirty and deliver the same number. What say?’

‘Well, aye, but who do I deliver ’em to?’ Kitty said, rather mystified. ‘I wouldn’t know your friends from Adam, would I, eh?’

Marigold giggled and the pink in her cheeks deepened.

‘Well, I’d like to say officers only, but I reckon I might do meself in the eye that way, eh? So ’ow about any feller off of a ship what’s just docked?’ ‘Ah, I see,’ Kitty said. Now she understood – Marigold wanted sailors to pay her for . . . well, whatever it was that sailors paid bad girls for . . . but she didn’t want to walk the streets herself, not now she’d risen to the heights of renting her own room. ‘But Marigold, suppose the fellers thought it were me what was toutin’ for business? What then, eh?’

‘Just given ’em some lip an’ keep the dog by you,’ Marigold advised after some thought. ‘You’d be awright, the fellers like . . . well, they like a woman wi’ some flesh on ’er bones, you’re a kid, really.’

‘It’s worth more’n a couple o’ bob a day, though,’ Kitty said pensively. ‘I’d ’ave to get someone to sit wi’ me mam, else she’d start knockin’ back the gin before you could say mother’s ruin. If I ’and them papers to twenty fellers . . . .’

‘Oh ah, I see what you mean, but I won’t git twenty customers from twenty papers,’ Marigold said quickly. ‘Oh, you ’ave to put yourself in the way of a dozen, mebbe more, blokes to get one or two customers.’

‘I daresay. But once they knows where you are you won’t need me, so I gorra mek the money whiles I can,’ Kitty pointed out righteously. ‘Five bob a day an’ you’re on.’

‘Five bob! Gawd, you’ll ’ave me flat on me back in the gutter at that rate,’ Marigold protested, though still so good-naturedly that Kitty guessed she was willing to pay more. ‘Say four an’ a tanner?’

‘Five bob,’ Kitty said placidly, sensing her advantage. ‘Can’t give up me time for less.’

‘Right. Five bob, then. Start tomorrer?’

‘Start now; gi’s the papers,’ Kitty said with her usual practicality. ‘I’ll keep on till you’ve got enough steadies, then I’ll ’ave to find summat else. Where’s the copy?’

‘Ain’t got one,’ Marigold admitted. ‘I thought you’d do it better’n me. Just say that it’s Marigold, now available at Number 20 Grayson Street. Prices reasonable.’

‘Hadn’t you better say you’re teachin’ French or something?’ Kitty said, starting to write the message on the first sheet of thin paper of the pad Marigold had thrust into her hand. ‘Ain’t this agin the law?’