With Love From Ma Maguire (61 page)

She put a hand over her mouth and nodded slowly. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled. ‘Specially after the boys and the Missus. This must feel like the last flaming straw—’

‘Flaming is right, lass. There’s jobs threatened, people with smoke on their chests, one dead. And a load of others that would swing for him given half a chance.’

‘Eeh Jacob!’ Her voice was cracking. ‘What the hell do we do for the poor lad?’

Perkins moved closer to her. ‘We get him out of there afore he starves hisself to death.’

‘That’s it. First things first, eh? But listen – before we go – do you reckon he’s for naming these Maguires? What about Alice and Squirrel?’

He smiled weakly at the old joke they had made so often about Cyril’s name. ‘I’ve no idea. Same as you said before – it’s none of our business. But he’d perked up a right lot – seemed to have been setting some store by these twins if I’ve got it weighed proper. Now, we’re back to square bloody one—’

The doorbell rang sharply and Perkins poked his head into the hall corridor. ‘Who the hell’s that at this time of day? And he won’t talk to nobody—’

‘Oh, just go and see whoever it is on their way. We’ve more to bother about than visitors. Go on.’ She pushed him out of the kitchen.

Perkins opened the heavy front door to find a man in a suit that had seen better days, a scrubbed and polished person with a flat cap twisting nervously between work-gnarled fingers. ‘Is the boss in?’ The tone was controlled, though the speaker was plainly ill-at-ease.

‘I’m afraid he’s not available. Who shall I say called?’

‘The name’s Higgins – Jim Higgins. I’m from number one, worked there man and boy, I have. And I’ve heard as how Mr Swainbank’s took it bad – the fire and all – so I come up to see him. Is it true he’s never set foot over the step since it happened?’

Perkins looked the man up and down. Was this one of those after Mr Swainbank’s blood? Had he come up to make bother?

‘I saved him from a stoning. They’d have gone for him but for me. Let me talk to him – please.’

‘Well, I don’t know. He’s not seeing anybody.’

‘He’ll see me. I promise you he will.’

Jacob Perkins scratched his chin thoughtfully. Happen this chap might be the key to the locked study door. On the other hand, would there be trouble for the staff if someone got let in against orders? It was all getting a bit much for Perkins to handle, all these decisions about right and wrong, working out what would be best or worst. And the time for desperate measures had definitely arrived. He stepped back and allowed Jim to enter the hallway.

‘How the other half lives, eh?’ Jim gazed around before permitting the manservant to relieve him of his cap. ‘Where is he?’

‘In here.’ Perkins led the visitor to the study door. ‘And I hope you have better luck than we did.’

Jim tapped lightly. ‘Mr Swainbank? You in there?’ He turned round. ‘Are you sure he’s here?’

‘Oh aye. He’ll start cursing at you any minute. The language can get a bit ripe at times—’

‘Bugger off!’ A chair scraped across the floor and the voice came closer. ‘Go away and leave me alone! I’ve told you, Perkins, if I get disturbed at all, you’re for the high-jump. And where’s that claret I told you to fetch from the cellar? Will you leave me in here bloody parched?’

Perkins smiled wryly at Jim and approached the study door. ‘You’re getting no more, sir. Not off me anyroad.’

‘What?’ The voice shook with temper. ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’

‘I’m talking to you, sir. If you want to drink yourself soft, then you can do it without my help.’

‘Aye – and without mine!’ This from Mrs M who had arrived at a run from the kitchen with a tea towel clutched tensely in her hands. ‘I’m fed up with cooking meals for chucking out,’ she shouted. Turning to the two men, she lowered her tone. ‘Last time I saw him – on his way to the bathroom – he looked like something dragged out of the gutter on a Saturday night.’ She pushed her face against the door. ‘Either you come out or we come in. Mr Swainbank? Are you listening? If you’d prefer it, we’ll go off – all of us! That there Beddows chap as owns the bleachworks is looking for good staff.’

‘Then go! I can manage without you!’

A long silence followed. Mrs M and Perkins crept away to the fireplace while Jim continued his efforts. ‘Mr Swainbank?’

‘Who the bloody hell are you?’

‘Jim Higgins – weaver from number one.’

Several thuds informed the small audience that the news had not been well-received. ‘He’s chucking books again,’ whispered Mrs M.

Jim placed a finger to his lips.

‘Higgins?’

‘Yes sir?’

‘There’s a job in another shed if you want it. As for the eye – take the hall clock, it’s worth a couple of thousand. Then go away and leave me in peace!’

‘I’m going nowhere, Boss. But you are and that’s for bloody sure. They’ll be here in a bit with the cart, shove you in the loony bin with the other daft folk. So. You can either open up now, or you can wait for them in the white coats to kick it in.’

‘How dare you?’ Another loud crash followed this rhetorical question.

Jim cast a glance over his shoulder at the two servants who were hanging on to one another in trepidation while furniture hit the walls. ‘Thank God it’s Emmie’s day off,’ mumbled Mrs M. ‘She’d likely go into one of her hystericals if she saw this! Get him out, Mr Higgins – he’ll damage hisself afore long.’

The visitor concentrated his attention on the solid oak door. ‘Are you asking me how I dare, Mr Swainbank? Well, I’ll tell thee! I’ve got the upper hand now, you see. You’re stuck in there like a dog in a kennel and I’m out here coming and going as I please. I’m telling you what to do and you’re having to listen, like it or not! So stick that in your wineglass and see how it tastes.’

Perkins raised his eyes to heaven. ‘Careful, lad. Don’t rile him—’

‘Shush! I know this man near as well as you do. He’ll be out before I’ve done with him, never bother.’

‘How long have you worked in my mill?’ roared Charles.

‘Since you were in nappies, son!’

‘Well, you’re bloody sacked!’

‘Am I? You can shove your job and your clock and all! Now stop acting like a big kid and get out here. I’m sick of talking to a blinking door.’

Two or three ominous crashes confirmed that Charles was smashing items in the room.

‘That’s right!’ yelled Jim above the din. ‘Take it out on the furniture – it can’t answer back, can it? That’s what your father did, took his temper out on us that didn’t dare look him in the face for fear of the sack. That’s all we were to him, bits of chairs and tables! Are you practising for turning into what he was, a bloody tyrant? Anyroad, you listen to me, Mr Boss-man. You killed nobody, nobody at all! The firemen have traced what they call the source. It were that black box in the corner, that thing with all the wires in. Melted past recognizing, it was. And your cigar was stubbed out in the back half where the fire never reached – dead as a dodo in an enamel dish on the window ledge.’

In the silence that followed, one might have heard a feather floating on the breeze.

Jim came to join the others by the fireplace. ‘I’ve done what I came to do,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll be off now.’

‘But he’s still not out!’ shouted Mrs M. ‘You said you’d get him out!’

‘I’m out.’

Everyone stared at the dishevelled figure as it emerged slowly from the study.

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Jim. ‘Who got you ready for the party, eh? I’d sack the bloody tailor for a kick-off!’

Charles looked down at himself. The clothes hung on his thinner frame, shirt undone to the waist, cuffs hanging filthy and limp without studs to anchor them, socks covered in dirt from a week’s wear. Irrelevantly, he wondered briefly what had become of his shoes. ‘I’m not a pretty sight, am I?’

‘I’ve got to say I’ve seen better,’ admitted Jim. ‘Mostly up Breightmet in the gypsy caravans. The beard suits you, though. Your old feller had a beard, right proud of it, he was.’

‘Yes. Yes, he was a proud man altogether. And not a completely bad one, Mr Higgins. He’d a hard life, a lot on his mind.’

‘If you say so.’ Jim turned as if to leave.

‘Hang on!’ Charles made some small effort to tuck the trailing shirt-tail into his trousers. ‘Take him to the kitchen and give him a hot drink,’ he snapped. ‘I’ll get cleaned up.’

When the others had moved out of the hall, he climbed the stairs wearily, his heart still heavy with grief and pain. No, it hadn’t been his cigar, but the fire was still of his making. Hadn’t he known that the wiring was not completely safe? Wasn’t it on the agenda for checking . . . yes . . . just before the boys’ accident? Everything had gone from his mind at that time, had been pushed back even further by Amelia’s death. Yet he had done so well! Except for this one forgotten thing! But he was responsible for those three mills no matter what happened in his personal life, responsible too for the people who worked for him.

He dragged a desultory razor across his stubbly chin, trying hard to look at the positive side. The week had not been totally wasted. By telephone, he had arranged compensation for the dead boy’s mother, had instructed his managers to battle on in spite of this setback and the resulting animosity. But everything else seemed so negative! Janet was gone. Her obvious hatred for him had made Charles turn inward, had forced him to see himself as she and others surely must. What could he do to put things right?

He sat in his dressing room after pulling on a clean set of clothes. Should he sell the mills, cut his losses and retire to obscurity? Was there any real point in continuing with no-one to follow, no Swainbank to take up the slack once he was gone? And even if young Joey did come through with flying colours, was there any real future in such a bottom-heavy concern, hundreds of employees and one small family at the helm?

Charles retained just about enough sense to realize that this was not the time to make major decisions, simply because he was not thinking straight. All kinds of ideas had bounced around in his head these last few days while he sat in the study, his body starved of food, his brain befuddled by exhaustion and alcohol. According to sources, Paddy Maguire was at death’s door. Charles had even caught himself dreaming of marrying Molly, of adopting the twins and changing their name to his. And he’d been so haunted, the scenes of his past life floating before his eyes like a newsreel at the picture house – Molly, Amelia, John and Peter, Father dying with Ma Maguire as his only company, Mother screaming at the servants, Sarah struggling against the inevitable, the twins rejecting him, a terrible fire consuming everything . . .

Like an ostrich, Charles had buried his head, vainly hoping that he would not be seen simply because he himself could not see. But he must go back. To do that, to face angry scenes and humiliation, to face himself and the guilt he must suffer – this would take a courage beyond any depths he had plumbed so far. And did he really care, was he capable of that? Was he genuinely concerned for the childless widow, for those whose lives had possibly been shortened by exposure to such terrifying danger? Or was he merely out to protect himself from the barbs he would definitely feel?

He entered the kitchen and joined the solemn group at the table. ‘Get me an egg, Mrs M – and a bit of toast.’ He sat with the two men while she bustled off to cook this first requested meal. ‘It was still my fault,’ he said quietly. ‘I knew the wiring was worn.’

Jim nodded wisely. ‘I know how you feel.’

‘How can you?’ Charles buried his head in his hands. ‘How can anyone know?’

‘Easy. It’s not just gentry as gets in bother over decisions. I’ve been a bundle of contradictions all me own life, Mr Swainbank. I know what it’s like being dragged that many ways at once – sometimes, you can’t work out whether it’s Tuesday or breakfast time. Question of priorities, see – and I know all about them, nobody better.’

‘Really?’ He lifted his head and gazed at this conscientious, quiet and dependable employee, a man who, until today, had been almost anonymous.

‘Really. I wouldn’t fight in their war. Didn’t matter at first, but when conscription started some time in ’16, I got more than white feathers, I can tell thee. They come up to our house and asked me if I’d kill a man as raped me wife and daughter. Well, I had to think about that one, didn’t I? So I said I might, being as the grudge would be on the personal side, only I weren’t going traipsing round sticking bayonets in no Germans. They didn’t like it, Mr Swainbank. Happen I were wrong refusing to defend me country. Happen we’re all wrong at times—’

‘But you went!’

Jim nodded. ‘Aye. Bit of Red Cross training, then out to the front lines with half a dozen bandages and a bucket of mucky water. But I never touched a gun, sir. Bridie got that many white feathers she were thinking of starting a pillow factory. But I stuck to it all through.’

‘Brave man.’

‘Nay, I were judged a coward all the way, but I’ve never cared tuppence what folk thought. You’ve got to stop caring too, lad.’ He reached out a hand and covered Charles’s blanched knuckles. ‘There’s several ways of travelling the distance. You can sit on a bus and do nowt, let some other bugger do the driving. Or you can leave a mark or two by setting the pace like you have, or by dragging your heels like I did. Stick to your own way and you’ll not go wrong.’

‘But I killed that boy! I neglected the mill’s safety!’

‘And I killed a few by not standing in their place, little lads shot to bits, bits I couldn’t stick back together because I couldn’t find them! Do you think I were going to lock meself away worriting over that the rest of me life? No! There’s men in yon mills who know they dodged a bullet for the next feller to take it! Just stop it, man! Look what you’ve been through, eh?’ Two sons and a wife gone – how the hell can you be expected to think on electrics when you’re spending your time up the graveyard? Bloody hell – are you after being perfect? Far as I can work out, there’s only been one perfect and we blinking well crucified him with a couple of thieves!’

‘Thanks, Jim.’

‘Think nowt of it. I just wanted to let on as they’re not all gunning for you. Them with sense knows it were an accident and they all remember what you’ve suffered lately. Every last man jack of them came out for your lads. Working folk are not without heart, Mr Swainbank. Education might be lacking, but feelings run much the same. They don’t want you a saint, they only want you fair.’