The Loner (19 page)

‘Oh, sorry, darling, I was miles away!’ He helped her aboard. ‘Yes, it does stop at Mill Hill, and goes all the way to Samlesbury’

When the woman was safely in her seat, he pressed the button to leave; with a last glance at Don’s departing figure, he thanked his lucky stars that he himself led a simple, uncomplicated life. When his work was done, he went home to a hearty meal and sometimes, if his wife was in the mood, a bit of slap and tickle before he went to sleep. He was a contented man who worked hard and provided, and with a good woman to tend his every need, he wanted nothing more.

These days, it was the only real pleasure he had; save for when Judy would come by and they would talk about her young dreams, and he would tell stories about his own youth. These past few years, the girl had been his salvation, and he valued her for the genuine friend she had been to him.

‘Good day to you, Joseph!’ That was the lady from the corner shop. ‘Don’t sit there too long,’ she advised with a wag of her chubby finger. ‘They say it might rain later, and you don’t want to be catching a chill.’

Returning her greeting, Joseph joked as usual, ‘I won’t mind a bit o’ rain, Elsie.’ He gave her a knowing wink. ‘It’ll save you giving mea bath later.’

‘Away with you, Joseph,’ she laughed aloud. ‘Saying things like that will get the whole street talking!’ And she trotted up the road feeling twenty years younger.

‘Up to your old tricks, are you, Joe?’ Having overheard the mischievous conversation, Lenny Reynolds paused a moment at the old man’s doorstep.

‘Aw, she loves a bit o’ flirting,’ Joseph chuckled. ‘It makes her day. Besides, we might be old in the tooth, but we can’t have folks thinking we’re past it, can we, eh?’

‘No, that would never do.’ Lenny enjoyed his little chats with Joseph. After everything he’d been through, the man could still be very entertaining. ‘And how are you today, Joseph – apart from chatting up the women?’

‘I’m all right, thank you, Lenny. And how are you, lad?’

‘Fine and dandy, thank you.’ He threw off his work satchel. ‘OK if I sit beside you for a while?’ He always enjoyed the banter with Joseph, and besides, it was good to catch up with news of the lovely Judy Makepeace.

‘Course ye can.’ Joseph shifted along the step. ‘Sit yerself down, young fella-me-lad.’ He had a lot of time for Lenny. He had seen him grow from boy to man these past four years, until now he was a handsome, strapping fellow who, in spite of his disinterested parents, had turned out really well. He already had a thriving greengrocer stall on Blackburn market, and was saving up to buy a shop in the heart of town. Oh yes! Lenny Reynolds was going places.

‘Tell you what,’ Joseph clambered up. ‘Come inside and you can tell me how the business is going.’ He smiled into Lenny’s brown eyes. ‘Judy was around earlier. She’s learning to drive, did you know that?’ He wasn’t surprised to see how, at the mention of the girl’s name, Lenny’s face lit up like a beacon.

As they went down the passageway towards the back parlour, the torrent of questions never stopped. ‘When did she start learning to drive? Who’s teaching her? Did she mention me? Will she be popping round again, d’you think?’

‘Hold on, lad!’ Joseph dropped himself into the chair. ‘You can’t give yourself a minute to breathe, what with Judy this and Judy that!’ He gestured towards the kitchen. ‘Go and put the kettle on,’ he said. ‘All them questions ’ave fair worn me out!’ As Lenny went to the kitchen, Joseph called out, ‘Oh, an’ I wouldn’t mind a drop o’ the good stuff in me tea. You’ll find it in the bottom cupboard. And don’t be too stingy with it, neither.’

In a surprisingly short time, Lenny was back with two mugs of tea and the biscuit barrel. ‘I found the brandy,’ he told Joseph. ‘I put a good measure in your tea, and there’s still a bit left for a nightcap.’

Setting the biscuits and mug of tea down beside Joseph, he sat down in the other armchair and watched as his neighbour took a generous swig of the hot liquid. ‘Aw, that’s just what the doctor ordered.’ Joseph smacked his lips. ‘It might ’ave tasted even better if you’d tipped the lot in, but so long as there’s a drop left to help me sleep, I’ll not grumble. Thank you.’ He raised his cup. ‘You’re a good lad.’

Though he had come to respect Lenny, Joseph had no liking whatsoever for the boy’s parents. Devious crafty pair they were, he thought. They smiled and chatted to your face, while behind your back they were pure poison. He had never suspected how false they were, until one day he heard them talking in the backyard – about Joseph’s family having left him to his own devices. ‘We should keep him sweet while we can,’ he heard that bitch next door say. ‘After all, he’s got nobody else to leave his few belongings to, and who knows? He might well have a bit of money stashed away somewhere.’

After that, Joseph had little to do with them. He nodded and smiled, and graciously declined their offers of help, and Ron and Patsy Reynolds were satisfied that he knew nothing of their expectations.

Lenny was a different kettle of fish. It was common knowledge that he didn’t get on with his parents, and that they had little time for him. So Joseph be friended him, and sometimes the two of them would sit in his parlour putting the world to rights, and Lenny would confide in him – about how he had always felt as though he didn’t belong to his parents. Sometimes he sensed that they resented him, and he didn’t know why.

Joseph would reassure him, and he would go away less troubled, and in return for the bond of friendship that had grown between them, Lenny kept a wary eye on Joseph. When the old man was feeling under the weather, he would run errands for him, and make sure the house was warm and Joseph was eating properly.

For now though, Lenny sipped his tea and listened while Joseph rambled on, about how he missed his family, and how he wished to God he could turn the clock back, because if he could, then he’d happen be more tolerant and not let things get out of hand the way they had done on that particular night when it all ended in tragedy.

Lenny wisely made no comment. It was not his place to pass an opinion on Joseph’s family, or the way it had been; though like everyone else down the street, he knew how shamelessly Rita Adams had behaved, and brought the family into disrepute.

Joseph went on, eyes down and staring at the floor, his hands relentlessly twisting round his mug of tea. ‘I lost it all,’ he said brokenly, ‘my young grandson and my only daughter … and a son-in-law who had never set a foot wrong that I know of. That night though, he couldn’t take any more, d’you see? It all blew up in our faces and there was nothing I could do. One minute I had a family all round me, and the next – I was standing in this very parlour, all alone. And oh, the silence after that terrible row. That’s what struck me the most … the awful silence.’ He gave a deep long sigh. ‘They’re all gone now, but not the silence. That’s always there.’

The more he sipped of his tea, the more Joseph rambled on. ‘One way and another we all suffered the consequences of that night. We all paid a price for my daughter’s behaviour. She lost her life; Don went away and never came back, and as for young Davie … I daren’t think how he must have suffered. Y’see, he really believed he could save his mammy from her bad ways, but in the end it were himself as needed the saving.’

He raised his red-raw eyes to Lenny. ‘Not a single day goes by when I don’t think about the lad. If
I
find myself feeling abandoned and lonely, what does
he
feel, eh? That’s what I ask myself.’

He took a deep breath, as though the memories weighed him down. A long pause, and he was talking again. ‘So where is he, my Davie? How is he surviving, or did he not survive at all? The police say they searched high and low for him, but I some-times wonder if they were trying hard enough. After all, he were nearly fourteen. Happen they thought he were old enough to take care of himself.’

Lenny patiently let him talk away the memories, just as he had done many times since the departure of Joseph’s family. Living next door to him all these years had made him appreciate just how lonely the old man must be. ‘Joseph?’ Exhausted now, old Joe was staring into space.

‘What’s that you say, lad?’ Joseph was brought sharply to attention.

‘I was just thinking. Is there anything I can do for you?’

Joseph shook his head, cleared his throat and thanking Lenny for his gracious offer, he answered with a smile, ‘The only thing that can ease my pain is for my family to be here.’ Though, after five long years alone, he had come to believe that neither Davie nor Don would ever come this way again.

Before emotion overwhelmed him again, he quickly changed the subject. ‘Well then, young fella-me-lad,’ he asked brightly, ‘How’s the business doing?’

‘It’s good,’ came the proud answer. ‘At long last I’ve taken on an assistant. She’s hard-working and honest as the day is long.’

Joseph was duly impressed. ‘An assistant, eh? And who might that be?’

‘Annie Needham – and before you say anything, she’s changed. She’s not so bold and loud as she was. In fact, she seems to have grown up, all of a sudden. She came and asked me for a job on the stall, and I said I’d give her a week’s trial. She worked like a trooper, and the customers really seem to like her. So I’ve made the job permanent. She helps me with the stall, she collects and delivers when I’m off buying, and if I need her to, she’ll get stuck into the accounts, and from what I’ve seen I’d trust her implicitly.’

‘Well, I never! And she’s not disappointed you at all?’

‘Not so far, no.’

Joseph was pleasantly surprised. ‘At one time, Tom Makepeace forbade Judy from having owt to do with Annie. Said as how she was too keen on the menfolk, and the few times she came here with Judy, you could hear her halfway down the street. Gob on her like the Mersey Tunnel, folks used to say.’ But for all that, he had taken a liking to Judy’s friend. ‘If she’s changed as you say, then it can only be for the best.’ He chuckled. ‘One thing’s for certain, it couldn’t get any worse!’

Lenny admitted, ‘I was nervous about taking her on at first. But she proved me wrong. In fact, I don’t think I’d have got a better assistant if I’d scoured the whole of Lancashire. I can takeoff and deal with other things and leave her in charge, and when I come back, everything’s in order and everything accounted for.’

Joseph congratulated him. ‘That’s wonderful news, lad. Well done, the pair of you.’ He could always give credit where credit was due.

‘I’ve got some other news that’s even
more
wonderful.’ Leaning forward, as though to avoid anyone else hearing what he had to say, Lenny lowered his voice. ‘I think I’ve managed to swing it at last,’ he confided excitedly. ‘I’ve discussed a deal with the owner of that shop in the high street I mentioned the last time we chatted. The bank manager is right behind me, and so long as nothing comes along to clobber it, the deal is good as done.’

Joseph was thrilled. ‘Aw, lad, that’s grand … bloody grand!’ He shook Lenny by the hand. ‘An’ it’s no more than you deserve …’ Laughing out loud, he tipped the rest of the brandy into Lenny’s tea. ‘This calls for a celebration,’ he said. ‘Here’s to you, son – and may you go on to own a chain o’ greengrocers right across Lancashire!’

‘I’ll drink to that.’ Raising their mugs of tea, they clanked them together and downed the drinks in one go.

They talked awhile about the new shop. ‘Once I’ve got the lie of the land, I plan to sell gift-wrapped baskets of fruit. I’ve just started selling them on the stall and they’ve increased my profit no end,’ Lenny said proudly.

Joseph told him, ‘If you keep on like this, I’ve no doubt you’ll be a millionaire one day.’

‘That’s what Judy said,’ Lenny said wistfully. ‘I told her how badly I wanted the shop, but she doesn’t know I’ve managed to do the deal.’

Joseph had long imagined Lenny and Judy making a go of it together. ‘It would be good if you could find someone to share it all with, don’t you think?’

‘Yes, that would be good.’

‘So … have you found a sweetheart yet?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘What about the girl you took out last weekend – her from Leyland Street?’

Lenny shook his head. ‘She was good company, but that’s all.’

‘So, there’s still nobody you like enough to put a ring on their finger?’

‘No, there’s nobody special,’ Lenny sighed. ‘I’ve dated a few girls, but it never comes to anything serious.’

‘Ah, well!’ Joseph was no fool. ‘That’s because you’ve only got eyes for young Judy.’

Lenny blushed. ‘How did you know that?’

‘’Cause I’ve seen you!’ the old man retorted. ‘When she comes round to pay me a visit, you never tek yer eyes off her. Mesmerised, you are!’ He gave a cheeky wink. ‘Mind you, I’m not surprised, ’cause she’s a real lovely lass.’ He nudged Lenny in the ribs. ‘Why don’t you ask her out?’ he suggested mischievously. ‘Tek her to the pictures or summat.’

Lenny’s eyes lit up. ‘If I did ask her, d’you think she’d say yes?’

‘Who knows?’ On the occasions when Joseph had seen these two young people talking and laughing together, they were more like mates, with Judy seemingly content to leave the relationship as it was. But it was a well-known fact that a girl could always change her mind. ‘If you don’t ask her, you’ll never know,’ he warned. ‘Anyhow, what have you got to lose?’

‘Her friendship, maybe.’ Lenny was afraid of taking that first real step. ‘I don’t want her to turn away from me altogether.’

‘Aw, lad … she would never do that.’ Joseph was certain of it. ‘In life you meet all sorts o’ folks,’ he told Lenny now. ‘Them as mek a good pretence o’ being friendly, an’ them as are friends to the last. Judy is a true friend. Through thick and thin, she would never turn away from you.’