That'll Be the Day (2007) (30 page)

The pair of them talked for a long time, far longer than they should as Judy told him all about Sam’s rigid control, the itineraries he made for her and the children, the immaculate accounts and inventories she was expected to keep. She described her experience with the solicitor, her lack of skills and success in job hunting, and Leo confided his long-held desire to have a family which Helen had persistently denied him.

It was the market clock striking in the distance that brought them back to reality. ‘Heavens, I’ve a client to see at two and I’m going to be late.’ He jumped to his feet but just as quickly sat down again to grasp her hands in his.

‘I want to see you again, Judy. May I see you again? Please don’t say that I can’t.’

They looked into each other’s eyes and nothing existed for either of them in that moment except what they found there. ‘You know that we shouldn’t.’

‘I know that we must. It’s meant. Tell me you feel it too.’

Judy’s cheeks grew pink under the intensity of his gaze but she couldn’t speak, only bite her lip and gaze at him in wonder.

Leo smiled. I’ll see you here tomorrow, same time.’ Then he gently squeezed her fingers and left. Judy remained where she was for a long time, listening to the beat of her heart.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

‘Larkspur, I’d say, will suit you nicely Lizzie love, seeing as how you’re so tall and slender. They’re blue to match your eyes, and meant for lightness and levity. Whenever I see you serving those delicious chocolates from your cabin, you always look so happy and full of life. A real ray of sunshine.’

Lizzie Pringle chuckled. ‘Why wouldn’t I be happy with such a wonderful job? I love making my chocolates every bit as much as I enjoy selling them. But I have to say, Betty, appearances are not always what they seem.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re another suffering from problems of the heart. I’ve enough of those with our Lynda. Are you married, chuck?’

Lizzie shook her head. ‘Nope. Single but not entirely fancy free. I live in hope.’

‘Ooh, that sounds interesting. What shall we put with the larkspur then, with the lightness and levity? Now let me think. Hope? No, wrong time of year for snowdrops, or for almond blossom. How about a few roses then for love, and for grace and beauty which you have in plenty, or carnations which say alas for my poor heart, or how about snapdragons for presumption - on my part I mean?’

Lizzie was laughing long and hard by this time. ‘We’ve so missed having you around, Betty. How would we know what’s going on in our lives without you to tell us, or offer advice.’

Betty put a hand to her plump breast in mock imitation of a Victorian maiden, eyelashes fluttering furiously. ‘Such kind words set me all of a dither. I believe you compare me to the sweetness of a peach whose charms are also without equal.’

‘Well, that’s certainly true, you’re a one-off, Betty Hemley, and no one can deny it. Which flower represents timidity, because you could never be accused of having that?’ Lizzie asked, blue eyes sparkling with amusement.

‘Amaryllis. Now I’m with you there,’ Betty said, brow creased in puzzlement. ‘Nobody could call the amaryllis timid either, could they, since it’s so flamboyant? Though some books do say the flower also represents pride, and I have that in spades, so maybe we would be a match after all,’ and she grinned happily at Lizzie as she wrapped the chosen selection of flowers.

‘Here, lass, put your signature on me pot leg. I’m getting everyone on the market to autograph it for me, then if I ever get lost they’ll know where I come from, won’t they?’

Lizzie wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes as she signed her name on the plaster cast. ‘When are they taking it off?’

‘Shouldn’t be long now, doc says. Eeh, that’s grand. I’m going to stick this bit plaster on my bedroom wall, once I can get up them flaming stairs.’

‘I’ve every faith you’ll do it too.’

Betty’s good humour dipped a little as Lizzie went on her way, worrying over what the future might indeed hold, but then she dismissed it with an impatient slap of her hand on the arm of the wheelchair. ‘Never cross a bridge till you come to it, girl,’ she scolded herself. ‘We’re not beaten yet.’

Oh, but it felt good to be back at work, to be chatting to folk and poking her nose in their affairs as she so loved to do. She could see Big Molly Poulson laying down the law to young Fran, wagging her finger like a good ‘un. No doubt wanting to know where she’s been hiding herself this time.

Youngsters, such a problem. They think they know everything when really they know nothing, not in Betty’s humble opinion.

And there was Leo Catlow, walking out with his mother on this fine summer’s morning, which was good to see. Oh, and here was the wife, watching them go. Was she about to join them? Betty wondered, watching with interest. Apparently not. Leo and Dulcie had turned the corner arm in arm, perhaps off to the warehouse or merely to take a stroll by the canal. Madam Helen turned in entirely the opposite direction and headed for the market.

Now where would she be aiming for? Hall’s music? A nice hat from the Higginson sisters? No, the ironmongery shop. By heck, Betty thought, I never saw
Mrs
Catlow as the sort to be in need of hammer and nails, unless she was after a bit of rope to hang her mother-in-law with. Common gossip had it that the two didn’t get on.
 

At that moment Sam Beckett appeared at the door of his little shop, and, looking quickly to right and left, grasped Helen’s arm and pulled her hastily inside. The next instant he turned the sign to closed and pulled down the blind.

‘Now that is interesting,’ Betty said to herself. ‘Very interesting indeed.’

As the warm days of June merged into the heat of summer and Betty grew ever busier at her stall, constantly spraying her precious flowers with cool water, and busily selling dahlias, delphiniums, sweet william and bunches and bunches of sweet peas which more than suited their characteristic of delicate pleasures, she did her best to keep a close eye on her son.

She also kept an even sharper eye on his pestilential father, her ex-husband, and became increasingly certain that Ewan was up to something, though she couldn’t quite summon up the energy to find out what it was. Anyway, what did she care? Nothing would give her greater pleasure if he got into trouble the law.

But Betty no longer felt able to talk to her old friend Constable Nuttall, not with all these lies and deceit hanging between them. The policeman was still under the impression that she’d broken her leg by tripping and falling down the stairs, and how could she disillusion him on that score without putting Lynda and Jake in danger?

Ewan was out for revenge and if she turned it into a vendetta, then her life would get worse, not better. In fact, none of their lives would be worth living. Ewan might only be a petty crook but he could turn pretty nasty if pushed, so best not to challenge him too much.

Betty just hoped and prayed she’d be out of this chair before too long. The doctors had warned her it would be months not weeks, and that she must be patient. Once she was out of the plaster they’d promised to give her exercises and physiotherapy to build up the muscles and help get her back on her feet. They hadn’t promised she’d make it, that she would in fact walk again, but she was determined to try. In the meantime, Betty hoped and prayed that Ewan would get bored, or hard up, and go off to make a bit of brass for himself some place other than Champion Street. When had he ever stayed in a place for long?

Trouble was, there was little sign of that happening.

When Betty wheeled herself home later that day, her spirits sank to rock bottom because there he still was, her ex, sprawled all over her little house as if he flaming owned it. And there was Lynda scurrying back and forth, ironing his shirts, putting coal on the fire, fetching his slippers and generally toadying to the lazy old so-and-so.

There’d been a troubling incident a week or two back when Lynda had been suffering from a worrying burn. She’d claimed to have ironed her hand by accident, because she’d been in a hurry, but Betty found the injury disturbing, since it carried echoes of similar incidents in her own life. Since then, she’d made a mental note to keep a closer watch on what was going on before her very eyes.

She glared at her husband with his feet up on the mantel. Something was different but she couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. ‘Do you ever get off your backside and do something useful?’

‘Why should I when I’ve got two women at me beck and call. Lynda, this tea is cold, pet, get me another will you?’

Lynda picked up the mug and marched to the kitchen, refilled the kettle and put it on to boil. Rage boiled up in her too, making a red mist swim before her eyes. She was so tired, near exhausted. It would have to be an easy tea, she decided, opening a tin of stewed beef and scooping the contents into a pan. She’d just peel a few potatoes for some mash.
 

‘I can’t go on like this, I really can’t,’ she said to Jake who was cleaning his shoes by the sink. ‘You could help a bit more. Peel some of these spuds, or open a tin of peas for me, at least.’

He cast her an anxious glance. ‘Don’t let him get to you, sis. Stay cool, daddy-o.’

‘Oh shut up! Why do you always stick up for him? Why can’t you feel a bit of sympathy for me, for once.’ She thrust her brother out of the way so that she could reach the tap to wash the potatoes, and in her rush to do so knocked the pan of stewing beef all over the floor. Lynda burst into tears.

Looking alarmed, Jake dropped his precious suede-soled shoe in the sink among the potato peelings, then flapped his arms about as if he wanted to take his sister in his arms but didn’t quite know how.

‘Nay, Lynda, don’t take on. Hush, don’t cry. I can’t stand to see you cry.’ He rushed to close the kitchen door, poured a cup of water for her and urged her to sit down at the table. ‘Hush, hush, he’ll hear you.’

Their mother’s voice rose in anguish from the living room. ‘Lynda, will you fetch me a fresh cuppa an’ all. Your father has just chucked my tea at the cat.’

Brother and sister looked at each other in complete and utter despair. ‘We have to do as he says,’ Jake whispered, ‘for mam’s sake. God knows what he’ll do next if we don’t.’

Lynda saw then that her brother wasn’t unfeeling and insensitive at all, he was every bit as scared as she was.

A few days later Ewan again approached his son. ‘Nothing’s come my way so far. What you playing at? Have you set your mates on the job, or not?’

‘Yeah, we’re cookin’,’ Jake said, meaning they were working on it.

Not fast enough so far as Ewan was concerned. He took hold of his son by the scruff of his neck and lifted him to the tips of his toes. Jake was tall but Ewan was taller, and where the boy was skinny the man was broad. ‘If I don’t see some results soon you’ll be the one who’s cooked.’

‘I’m doin’ me best,’ Jake whined. In truth he’d not even mentioned the plan to his pals, fearful of becoming involved in Ewan’s schemes, and frightened that Constable Nuttall might get wind of what he was up to and slap him in the clink again.

‘Your best, lad, might not be good enough. I need better than your best in this business. If you and me are going to make some real dosh we need merchandise to sell. And not cheap rubbish either. Radios, cigarettes, booze. You know the sort of stuff I mean, and be quick about it. I have obligations, so if you was thinking of sliding out of this commitment, lad, I’d think again, if I were you. You wouldn’t want to upset me, now would you? That wouldn’t help your mam to make a good recovery, would it, if I were put in a foul mood, and all because of you.’

‘What d’you mean? What has me mam got to do with any business between us?’

Ewan smiled at his son and it was not a pleasant sight. ‘Chicken out of the deal and you’ll soon find out. She’ll be nursing two broken legs then, instead of one.’

Jake was appalled. He could feel all the blood draining from his long lean body, leaving him cold and frozen as an icicle. ‘You wouldn’t hurt me mam, not again?’

‘Want to bet? I’ll do whatever I have to do to make my way in the world. That’s the difference between us, lad. You talk about being a success, I get on with the job.’

Deeply distressed by the mess he seemed to be embroiled in, Jake tried one more time to stand up to this bully, this so-called father of his whom he’d longed to meet all his life. ‘Aye, right, so successful you spent half your bleedin’ life in t’nick. Why would I want to do anything that’ll land me in t’same hole?’

Ewan punched his son on the nose and while blood spurted, growled at him. ‘I’ve told you why, wash out your cloth ears. Bring me summat good to sell by the end of the week or we’ll send your mam back into that hospital for a bit longer. You’ve got five days to prove you’re a man. Generous to a fault, I am.’

Chapter Thirty

When Leo arrived home, tired and restless and no nearer to resolving his dilemma of whether or not he should do anything to help Judy, he discovered that the Barfords were due to arrive shortly for supper. Leo was hard put not to show his impatience. In his opinion, David Barford was a bumptious, conceited twit who had no other topic of conversation beyond himself and politics, and his wife was a mouse, unsurprisingly.