Secrets to Keep

CHAPTER FIFTEEN





Having fetched and carried for her sick brother and sisters and made sure they were as comfortable as she could make them, Aidy tended to her grandmother, tidied the house, made bread and left it to rise, and prepared a meal of mashed potatoes and faggots. She had to eat hers sitting opposite her despised father and being made to witness the atrocious table manners he seemed to have adopted during his absence. After his dark, brooding silence at her refusal to fund a trip to the pub for him that night, the last thing she felt like was going back to work and being pleasant to all those who came into the surgery. Listening to the petty grumbles of some of them, she had to fight the urge to inform them that if they had half of what she had on her plate to deal with, then they’d really have something to grouse about.

Only a handful of patients turned up to consult Ty that evening, all with minor ailments that were quickly dealt with. All that is apart from one very attractive, twenty-five-year-old woman. It was very apparent to Ty she had absolutely nothing wrong with her. The purpose of her visit was purely to seduce him. Like others before her, it didn’t take her long to realise that her long, shapely legs, full breasts, puckered lips and fluttering eyelashes had no effect on him whatsoever. Like the others who had tried before her, she finally conceded defeat and stormed indignantly from his room, slamming the door shut behind her.

The sparsely attended surgery meant it was over an hour earlier than usual and Ty was extremely gratified at the prospect of some leisure time once he’d finished up his paperwork and attended to a few necessary personal chores. He had no doubt that his receptionist too would be pleased to be allowed to get home earlier than normal to her husband.

He went to join Aidy in the waiting room, finding her sharpening a pencil. Under normal circumstances she would have been equally delighted by the prospect of an early finish. But now, not only would the atmosphere in the house be anything but relaxed with her father present, she doubted he’d even allow her grandmother and her to natter away, disturbing his listening to the crystal radio set. How she wished she’d a few spare coppers to give him, so he could go off down the pub and release them from his presence. As if that weren’t enough, she’d her call on Arch to make. She’d have been tempted to put it off, but the thought of continuing to sleep in the chair was a deterrent. Regardless, she expressed her gratitude to Ty and made to collect her things together to make her leave, but he forestalled her.

‘Just before you go, there’s something I want to ask you. I’ve been meaning to for a while, but whenever I’ve attempted to, I’ve been prevented in one way or another. Anyway, with you being local, do you know of someone people around here refer to as the old woman?’

Aidy froze. Of course she did. That was the affectionate name the locals called her grandmother by. Why was the doctor enquiring after her? A medical man wouldn’t need her services surely? Cautiously she asked, ‘Is it important you find out who this woman is?’

He looked at her askance. ‘Not that it’s your business why I want to find out who she is, Mrs Nelson, but yes, it is, as a matter of fact. On several occasions since I’ve been practising here, patients have mentioned that the only reason they have been reduced to consulting me was because the old woman was indisposed at the moment, so they couldn’t get any of her remedies until she was back in business again.’ A look of disdain filled his face. ‘I cannot believe people are taken in by the likes of this woman. Believing her claims that her products have curative properties when I doubt they’re more than coloured water. This woman is just a confidence trickster and needs to be stopped from fleecing ignorant people out of their money.’ He paused for a moment, furrowing his brow. ‘Not long after I came here I have a vague memory of someone going on about selling their home cures to others. But for the life of me I can’t remember now either her or where I was at the time.’

Aidy cringed. She could. He’d been in their kitchen at the time, the night her mother died.

‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘if you are aware of who she is, I would appreciate your telling me.’

Aidy gawped at him, fighting not to show her outrage. Had dare he label her grandmother a confidence trickster? The recipes for her remedies had come down to her from a long line of individuals who had dedicated their lives to discovering the medicinal properties of plants and flowers. The lotions and potions that resulted did indeed have healing qualities. There were numerous people hereabouts whose ailments had been soothed and healed by them, including Aidy herself.

She had no idea how Doc had come to form his opinion of home remedy makers, but he obviously hadn’t met a genuine one like her grandmother. She smiled inwardly to herself. Had Bertha heard Doc brand her a confidence trickster, she would not have held back from putting him right! Well, the locals wouldn’t give up her grandmother to him, they all thought far too highly of her and were reliant on her cures, and Aidy herself certainly wasn’t going to, so she wished him luck in discovering her for himself. She looked him in the eye and lied. ‘I’ve no idea who this old woman is. Never heard of her. If I do, though, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

A short while later, having expected to be facing Pat and mentally preparing for a battle with her, Aidy stared in surprise at the middle-aged woman facing her, a stained wrap-around apron covering her plain working dress. Aidy decided this must be a friend of Pat’s. She was surprised, though, that the likes of Pat had any!

Aidy had obviously caught the woman in the middle of doing something as she didn’t look at all happy at being disturbed. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked in a hurried tone.

Her indomitable mother-in-law couldn’t be in. It wasn’t like her to allow someone else to answer the door in what she considered to be her house. Aidy was grateful she was being spared a confrontation with her, however.

‘I’d like to see Arch, please,’ she told the woman.

She frowned. ‘Arch? No Arch lives here.’

Aidy flashed a look at the number on the door. She’d made no mistake, this was definitely her former home. ‘Archibald Nelson? He does live here because he’s the tenant.’

‘Oh, sorry, dear. Forgive me, my mind was elsewhere. I’ve so much to get done tonight … it’s the previous tenant you must be after. I didn’t know their name was Nelson. I know nothing about them, in fact. But I hope it’s not money you’ve come to collect as I doubt you’ll get it, judging by the disgusting state they left this place in. They didn’t seem to have a penny to spare for soap. Absolutely filthy! I’ve had to scrub the place from top to bottom before it’s fit for me and my husband to move into tomorrow.’

Aidy was gawping at her. Arch had gone?

Now the woman was saying to her, ‘Maybe one of the neighbours might be able to help you. You will excuse me but I must get on or I’ll still be at it when the cart arrives with my furniture in the morning.’

As she shut the door, the front door of the house next door opened and another middle-aged woman came out to put milk bottles on the doorstep. Spotting Aidy, Hilda Morris smiled broadly as recognition struck. ‘Why, Aidy love, how nice to see you.’ A look of genuine sadness clouded her face. ‘I was so sorry to hear about yer mam. You have my condolences. Jessie was such a fine lady. As yer know, I used to chat to her over the yard wall when she came to visit you. I really wanted to attend the funeral to pay my last respects, but I wasn’t well at all that day so couldn’t manage it. I was so sorry to learn about you and Arch, too. If ever a couple was together for life, I thought it was you two.’

Aidy smiled wanly at her. ‘I thought so at one time too. Er … I’ve just found out Arch has moved out of next door, Mrs Morris. Did he by any chance tell you where he was moving to before he went?’

‘I can’t help you there, love. He’d no idea where he was heading. Just told me what had happened to cause your marriage to end, and said that’s why he’d made the decision to go away and make a fresh start.’

So he’d discussed with their neighbour the events that had led to their break up! How could he do this to Aidy? Tell others all their most personal business, for it to be gossiped and sniggered over by all and sundry. Just to confirm that she had indeed heard the woman right, Aidy asked, ‘Arch called on you and told you what had gone off between us?’

‘Well, no, he never actually came to see me and volunteered the information. He only told me after I found him huddled at the back of your privy, sobbing his heart out, the night it all ended between you both. I heard him … well, it was impossible not to … when I went to fill the coal bucket and popped me head over the wall to investigate. It was obvious he was deeply upset. Men like Arch don’t cry openly cry like that in public without a very good reason. It wouldn’t have been very neighbourly of me not to offer my help to him, would it? I thought, you see, that it was something to do with you … you’d had a fatal accident or something, the way he was carrying on.’

She stopped talking as a woman approached and nodded a greeting. Hilda responded then said to Aidy, ‘Look, we can’t talk out here – come in. Oh, and Arch left me a letter for you, which I need to give you.’

A few minutes later, a cup of stewed sweet tea cradled between her hands, Aidy was seated at Hilda’s kitchen table. Her husband was asleep in the chair by the range in the back room, round hornrimmed spectacles balancing precariously on the very end of his pug nose, the newspaper spread across his paunch.

Sitting opposite Aidy, Hilda carried on where she’d left off. ‘Once Arch got started I couldn’t stop him. Like a dam bursting it was. He told me how badly he’d let you down when you’d needed his full support to help you look after your grandmother and your orphaned brother and sisters. About his mother’s diabolical plan to get her hands on your mother’s house, too. How he’d stood by and not done anything when she was being so nasty to you and your family because he was so terrified of her turning on him in front of you all. Especially you, Aidy. He couldn’t bear the thought of you witnessing just what a coward he was as far as his mother was concerned.

‘He said he knew that it was over between you, and there was no going back, after he told you you wouldn’t be able manage to look after your family without him. He told me he so regretted saying that to you, letting you think he had no faith in you when he knew that, if anyone could, it was you. He was desperate by then to find any way he could to get you to give him another chance. But since you’d made it very clear to him that it was over between you, he couldn’t stay around here. He knew the struggle you faced, but that he would be the last person you’d turn to for help. And the thought of you maybe meeting another man … well, he couldn’t bear it. He said he had to go away.

‘I tried to persuade him that he was being hasty, should just let the dust settle a bit and see how the land lay between you both then, but he said he’d let you down far too badly to hope you’d ever trust him enough again to give your marriage another go. And there was the fact that his mother and father had taken over his own home. He couldn’t face the thought of having to live under the same roof as them, even for a short time until he found himself somewhere else to live … just couldn’t do it. I thought he was exaggerating how bad his mother was until I witnessed what she was like for myself. Then I couldn’t blame him for wanting to put a great distance between them.

‘It was the night after Arch packed up and went that I caught Pat stealing coal out of my shed. I heard a noise in the yard and came out to investigate. Apart from the fact I hadn’t a clue who she was then, when I asked her what she was doing, she told me she’d run out and didn’t think I’d mind her having a few lumps as neighbours helped each other. That was when she introduced herself to me. But, as I told her then, neighbours did help each other out but usually asked first. And, besides, her idea of a “few lumps” of coal was to be taking all I had. Cheek of her! She didn’t like it at all when I told her to put it back and that she could have just a bucketful to do her that night. I didn’t mind that … so long as I got it back the next day. Got in a right rage then, she did. Used language I’d never heard before. Kicked a hole in my shed door in temper.

‘I realised afterwards why she got so mad. She was going to sell on that coal. And how I know is because Mrs Kite, the other side of her, found all her coal missing the next day, and Mr Nelson was heard asking around the pub the night before if anyone was after a bit of coal on the side.

‘Well, while they lived here we had a spate of things going missing from backyards hereabouts. It’s stopped since they went so the finger is pointed firmly in the Nelsons’ direction. I got so fed up with her coming round asking to borrow a cup of sugar, a drop of milk, couple of spuds … you name it … which were never returned even though she always promised faithfully that she would. It was no good telling her I hadn’t got what she was after either. Very clever was Mrs Nelson. She’d wheedle out of you in a cunning way what you’d actually got before she asked. Well, I expect you know that trick of hers better than me, you being her daughter-in-law. I don’t know how you coped with her, love. I suppose there’s one consolation for you in respect of your marriage breaking up. You don’t have to have anything to do with Pat any more, do you?’ Before Aidy could make any response, Hilda continued. ‘Anyway, I got sidetracked. I told Arch that if he was going away and, the way he was talking, might never come back to Leicester, you deserved to know. He asked me if I would tell you. I told him no, it was only fair he should tell you himself. I think he asked me because he was ashamed to face you again after the way he acted to you. Anyway, he said he’d go round and tell you what he was planning to do before he headed off for the railway station, after he’d been back home and packed his bags. I got the impression he had no intention of letting his mother in on what he was up to, just going to sneak off and let her find out after he’d gone. So didn’t he come and tell you he was going away, after all?’

Yes, he had. That must have been the night he’d knocked on the door but she hadn’t answered because she hadn’t been ready to face him again so soon. Had she opened the door to him, would she have tried to persuade him not to go? Or would she have encouraged him to make a new life for himself, knowing there was little chance of their ever reconciling their differences? Aidy didn’t know the answer, and it didn’t matter anyway. She hadn’t answered the door and Arch had gone off to wherever it was he was heading, to try to start a new life for himself. The letter had been left to tell her what he hadn’t been able to in person. She hadn’t time to analyse how she was feeling about his going off, and the fact he might never come back, as Hilda was interrupting her thoughts.

‘I found an envelope addressed to you the next morning, pushed through my letter box. I should have brought it round to you straight away, but you know how time runs away with you.’ She got up from her chair. ‘I’ll fetch it for you.’ Then she went off into the back room and returned moments later, the envelope in her hand.

Retaking her seat, she said, ‘Just to put your mind at rest, what Arch told me that night, Aidy … it hasn’t gone any further and it won’t.’

Aidy knew she meant it. Hilda Morris listened eagerly to gossip and would keep it going by imparting it to others, but Aidy had never known her actually instigate any during all the years she had been living next door. She smiled at her gratefully. ‘I appreciate that, Mrs Morris.’ She’d picked up her handbag ready to leave when another question presented itself.

‘Do you know what happened to Arch’s parents? From what I gathered when I last saw her, Mrs Nelson had made herself well and truly at home in my old house and had no intention of leaving.’ She needed to find out where they’d gone. Aidy had no doubt that Pat still had many of her possessions from the house, including the mattress. It was unlikely she was going to hand it over voluntarily but Aidy wouldn’t give up on it easily, the thought of doing without it affording her the courage.

Hilda’s eyes lit up and her tone of voice became excited when she responded, ‘Well, didn’t the Nelsons’ departure have all us neighbours out in the street to watch? And weren’t all of us glad to see the back of them, especially me and Mrs Kite who suffered the worst of it. I mean, we’re not used to Pat’s type around here, with her foul language and treating all of us like she owned the street. You could hear her shouting at her husband from halfway down the road and it weren’t just the odd occasion. It were most of the time they were both at home.

‘And we all do our best round here to keep the rats down by keeping our yards clear of rubbish so it makes it difficult for them to nest. The Nelsons were only living next door a week at the most before the rubbish was piling up, and me and Mrs Kite were already remembering not to leave our back doors open.

‘And the noise Mr Nelson used to make at all hours, bringing back scrap metal he’d collected and sorting through it to sell on … Well, they might have been able to terrorise the neighbours and have them living in fear of them where they used to live, but they weren’t going to get away with it here!

‘I hung on a bit to make sure Arch didn’t change his mind and come back, but he didn’t, so last week I told Reggie Gimble, the rent collector, what was going on. That you’d both left the house and weren’t coming back, and that Arch’s parents had moved themselves in and of their atrocious behaviour and how they were mistreating the landlord’s property. Reggie Gimble paid a call on Pat, told her he’d heard her son and his wife had moved out of the property, and that as the previous tenant’s mother she was not entitled to live there without the express agreement of the landlord. Due to the state of the property and complaints from the neighbours about their behaviour, Reg Gimble told her that the landlord would never give them the official tenancy, so she and her husband had until noon the next day to quit or he would have them forcibly removed and done for trespassing.

‘Talk about all hell let loose! Pat was like a woman possessed. I was in my back room at the time, she at her front door, and I could hear it all like she was in the same room as I was, she was bellowing at him that loud. She threatened to have him for slander, insinuating they were scum and not good enough to live in this street … which actually was the truth of it. She kicked Reggie Gimble on his shins, gave him a black eye, slammed the door in his face, then screamed at him through the letter box that this was her house now and she wasn’t leaving it. As soon as she saw he had gone off, she came storming round to me, banging that fat fist of hers on my front door, yelling at the top of her voice that if she found out it was me who had reported them to the rent collector then I was a dead woman. Suffice to say, I never opened the door to her.

‘Then she went to Mrs Kite and threatened her the same, but not before she threw a stone at my front window and broke it. She did the same to Mrs Kite’s front window. Then she stood in the middle of the road and bawled out, so loud she could be heard from one end of the street to the other, that the Nelsons weren’t moving from their house and all of us had better get used to that. Then she went back inside and for the rest of the night until the early hours of the morning all I could hear was her screaming and raving and furniture being dragged across the floors, so it wasn’t much sleep me or Mr Morris got that night and neither did Mr and Mrs Kite.’

Aidy was neither shocked nor surprised to learn of Pat’s despicable behaviour, knowing only too well what she was capable of. She was, though, feeling somewhat ashamed that she was associated with this woman by marriage, and hoped that people around here would not look down on her for this fact.

Hilda, though, was thoroughly enjoying herself, relating events to Aidy. ‘Bang on noon the next day, Reggie Gimble turned up with six of the biggest bruisers I’ve ever seen. I’d only to look at them and they frightened me to death. One of them had a lump hammer with him, obviously to break the door down with should Pat not go voluntarily. They needed to use it. That furniture I’d heard being dragged across the floor the night before … well, she’d only barricaded the front and back doors! She obviously thought she had the place as secure as Fort Knox, but she wasn’t clever enough to give a thought to the windows.

‘The man with the lump hammer broke through the back-room window, and him and another of the hefty blokes climbed in. While one fended off Pat from attacking them with her frying pan, the other moved the furniture away from the front door and let the rest of them in. I couldn’t believe me eyes then, seeing Jim Nelson come out acting like he wasn’t aware all the neighbours were watching, or that he was actually in the process of being evicted. He just went off down the road like he was taking a stroll to the pub. Probably was, come to that.

‘Next thing all their belongings were being brought out and piled in a heap in the street. It had started raining an’ all.’ She paused for a moment to look sadly at Aidy. ‘All that stuff was yours and Arch’s, wasn’t it? Though there didn’t seem to be half what I remembered you having when you lived there. I’ve a mind Pat pawned most of it after Arch left and pocketed the money.

‘Last thing to come out of the house was Pat Nelson herself. It took all six of those beefy men to heave her out between them and, believe me, for all their strength they were struggling under her weight. That’s when all we neighbours went back inside our houses, just in case she decided to attack any of us.’

Aidy wondered where the Nelsons were now. Not back in their old place. Despite the dire condition it had been in, hardly fit for humans to live in, some desperate people would have snatched it up and be settled there now. Her in-laws wouldn’t have been able to park themselves on their other two sons, as they had done with Arch. Fortunately for them both, their respective homes were only just big enough for their growing families. That left only one place the Nelsons could have gone that Aidy could think of: the Leicester Union Workhouse. She could not find it in herself to pity them after all they had done to her.

Mr Morris was heard to call out then: ‘Any chance of a cuppa, love?’

Hilda called back, ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

Aidy took this as her cue to leave and stood up. ‘I’ll let you get on, Mrs Morris.’

Hilda Morris stepped over to Aidy and, much to her surprise, took her hand and patted it, saying, ‘It’s a grand thing you’re doing. Not many young women would abandon their own future to make sure their family has one.’

‘That tea ready yet?’ her husband called out, an irritated edge to his voice.

She called back good-naturedly, ‘Give the kettle chance to boil.’ Though she hadn’t actually put it on yet.

A few minutes later, Aidy sat perched on a low factory wall. She withdrew from her pocket the envelope Hilda Morris had given her. Arch had never written a letter to her before, he’d never had cause to. For a moment she looked at it, at her name written in Arch’s clumsy handwriting. Some of the letters had started to run through becoming wet. Sadness gripped her then. When Arch had been writing her name on this envelope, he’d been crying. Using a fingernail, she slit the envelope open and took out the folded piece of paper inside.



Dear Aidy,

I’m sorry I didn’t stand by you when I should have. When you first told me your plan it sounded simple, but now I’ve had time to think about the consequences, come time, I would have ended up resenting your family for making me give up my plans for the future. I know that now.

In the circumstances, it’s best I go away and make a fresh start.

I will always love you.

Arch





Aidy folded the letter back up and replaced it in the envelope. At least he was finally being honest about his own feelings now. A part of her would always love him too, and she genuinely wished him well. Hoped eventually he found love again, to take away the pain of losing her. Arch had proved to have traits in his character that she couldn’t live with, but it would not be right of her to begrudge him happiness with someone else. And she did still care very much about him, always would.

He hadn’t much liked his younger brother but he was close to his elder one, Stanley, and wouldn’t put him through unnecessary worry over his whereabouts and welfare. She knew Arch would let him know where he was, once he got settled, and since she’d got on well herself with Stanley, knew he would inform her how Arch was faring, to set her mind at rest.

Aidy made to put the letter safely away in her handbag. As her left hand passed through a shaft of light coming from the gas lamp there was a glint of light from the rings on her wedding finger. She held her hand out, spread her fingers and looked at them both. She knew how she could raise the money for a flock mattress …

It was upsetting for her that she had to resort to pawning the rings. that had been given to her with so much love, but at the moment they were the only things of any value she possessed. Arch had bought her the best he could afford at the time. The diamond on her engagement ring was only tiny, just a chip, and her wedding band was thin. But hopefully their second-hand value would cover the price of what she so desperately needed. The pawnbroker opened until nine every night except for Sunday so she had time to go tonight.

Aidy waited on tenterhooks while behind the counter Sidney Wilks took a quick glance at her engagement ring through his magnifying eye piece to assess its worth. He was an elderly little man, thin bodied and sharp featured, who always wore a red velvet smoking jacket, heavily embroidered on the collar and panels down the front. His grey hair was collar length and his short-sighted eyes peered at his customers through thick-lensed glasses. There were very few, if any, residents of the area who had not had cause to come through his doors at one time or another so he was acquainted with most of them. Although Aidy, as an adult, had never had cause to visit Sidney Wilks’ establishment, he knew her from the times she had come here as a child, when Jessie had found herself short and needed to raise a shilling or two to see her through.

Aidy had always been eager to attend to her mother’s business at the pawnbroker’s on her behalf, when she wasn’t able to go herself. This place had been a source of fascination to her. It was an Aladdin’s cave … a treasure trove. There was nothing that couldn’t be got here, from a tiny silver locket to a brass-framed bedstead, an ear trumpet to a zinc bath. As a child, while she waited her turn on busy days, Aidy used to try to guess some of the uses for many of the weird, dusty objects she’d never come across before.

‘Three shillings,’ Sidney Wilks said gruffly to her now.

‘Each?’ she asked hopefully.

‘For both.’

Aidy gave a disdainful tut. ‘Oh, come on, Mr Wilks, my two rings are worth more than that, even second-hand.’

‘I agree, they are, but I have to make a profit. I have to eat too, yer know.’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘Three and six, and that’s my final offer.’

‘And it’s still too low. But it’s not actual money I’m wanting to exchange them for, Mr Wilks.’

His eyebrows rose as he eyed her suspiciously. ‘Just what are you after in exchange for them then?’

‘A decent flock that you know comes from a good source. I was hoping for some blankets too.’

He said sardonically, ‘You don’t want much then. Single flock?’

‘Double.’

He shook his head. ‘No wonder I’m not rich when I let a pretty woman like yerself fleece me.’ He looked at her for a moment before he gave a resigned sigh. ‘Might be able to exchange a flock for the rings, depends what quality yer after, but as for blankets as well … Come through the back and I’ll see what I can do.’

Fifteen minutes later Aidy returned to the front shop feeling very pleased with herself. At first Sid had tried to convince her that her choice lay between several moth-eaten, thin and stained flocks, which she had flatly refused to consider. Her two rings were worth more than those and the pawnbroker knew it. She had pointed at flocks worth well in excess of what her rings would cover. She knew it and so did the pawnbroker. This went on until finally an agreement was reached.

The flock she had settled on was the well-padded sort, covered in thick twill and according to Sid Wilks had come from a good family fallen on hard times. It had arrived only the previous day which hopefully meant bugs hadn’t spread to it yet from others she knew to be infested by the looks of them stacked close by. Aidy would still give it a thorough shake and a meticulous scrub with turpentine and salt before she would sleep on it, though. That meant another night or so in the armchair while it dried, but at least she knew her discomfort was coming to an end.

Sidney Wilks had also reluctantly agreed to her having three grey army blankets, if only because Aidy had made it clear she wasn’t leaving his shop until he did. Well, a flock was no good to her without blankets. Regardless, she felt she had got herself a good bargain.

Sid Wilks back behind his counter and Aidy the other side, she informed him, ‘I’ll take the blankets with me, then I’ve just got to arrange for a strapping lad to collect the flock for me. I’ve several neighbours whose sons I’m sure would oblige if I slip them a copper each at the end of the week. Hopefully they’ll fetch it for me tonight.’

‘Well, you’ve an hour before I close.’ Sid then looked at her hopefully. ‘Before you go, though, do you think you could do me a favour? Mind the shop for me while I nip out the back.’ There were very few people he would entrust his shop to while he relieved himself but, although he hadn’t seen Aidy for years, he knew she was the trustworthy sort.

Aidy sat herself down in the comfortable wing-back chair where Sid Wilks spent much of his time in between customers, reading books. There was one resting on the small table to one side of the chair which he had been engrossed in when she had arrived. She too enjoyed reading, losing herself in a good adventure yarn or a soppy love story, but since the death of her mother hadn’t had time to enjoy such pursuits. She made to pick up the book but was stopped by the tinkle of the bell on the door, announcing the arrival of a customer.

The shop was over-full and badly lit so all Aidy was able to see was a shadowy figure approaching the counter. It was a woman, that much was evident. It wasn’t until she was almost at the counter that her features could be made out. On recognising them, Aidy exclaimed, ‘Col! Oh, how good to see you.’

Colleen Brown stared at Aidy, the very last person she had expected to find behind the pawnbroker’s counter. Equally as delighted to meet her, she responded, ‘It’s good to see you too, gel.’ She then asked, puzzled, ‘Are yer working here now?’

‘No, just minding the shop while Mr Wilks nips out the back. He’s only just gone but he shouldn’t be long.’ Then she told her friend proudly, ‘I work for the new Doc as his receptionist.’

‘I had heard that. Well, I don’t know how you swung getting that receptionist’s job, Aidy, being’s you wouldn’t have had the experience for it, but hats off to you for doing so.’

If Colleen knew the truth of just how she’d managed to land the job, would she still be so admiring? Aidy wondered.

Colleen was pulling a rum face. ‘I wouldn’t fancy working for that doctor meself, though. Not that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting him yet, and thank God I’ve not had to call him in as I couldn’t afford his fee, but by all accounts his face would crack if he smiled, and he’s rude and arrogant too … so it’s no wonder he’s not married, ’cos who’d put up with a man like him, eh? Good looking, though, so I’ve been told. Anyway, he can’t be paying you enough if you’re in here having to pawn summat.’

‘Well, the wage isn’t quite what I got in the factory, when I was filling my quotas, that is, but with very careful handling we can just about scrape by on it. I’m in here for another flock and some blankets. My father unexpectedly decided to come back home.’

‘Oh? I got the impression your mam was a widow, from what you told me. Well, what a relief for you. With your dad back, you’re not responsible for your family now, are yer? You and Arch can sort yer differences out and carry on where yer left off.’

If only Colleen knew that her father had only come back because he was broke and had nowhere else to go. Aidy wasn’t inclined to tell the whole sad truth, though, and especially not in the pawnbroker’s, risking the possibility that Sid Wilks would overhear. To change the subject she said, ‘I heard about the lay offs at the factory, and I was worried you was amongst them, Col.’

She flashed Aidy a wan smile. ‘I was one of the lucky ones who’s been kept on. For now anyway. I dread to think what the future holds, the way the country is going. Flo, Beattie, Lily and Muriel have gone. It’s not so bad for the other three as their husbands are all in work, but Muriel’s a widow with three kids to look after. How the hell she’ll manage, I can’t imagine. I fear it’s the workhouse for her and her kids. I don’t know what the hell I’ll do if I end up losing my job. Bob got laid off two weeks ago, Aidy, and ain’t had a tickle of nothing since. If he does hear of anything going, there’s a queue a mile long in front of him after it too.’

Aidy was devastated to learn this. Flo, Beattie, Lily and Muriel had worked nearby and the six of them used to sit together in the canteen at tea breaks and dinner-time, chatting about the trials and tribulations of their daily lives. But Colleen was her closest friend and so it was with her that Aidy’s main allegiance lay. She was relieved her job, at least for now, was safe in light of her husband losing his. But a worry did present itself to Aidy. ‘I so hope Bert gets set on with something before you have to stop work yourself, with the new baby.’

‘There is no baby any more, Aidy. I miscarried it the night he came home and told me he’d been laid off. It probably seems to you that I don’t care I lost it, but I did. A child is precious, no matter what. But maybe it’s better off than living the life we could give it. I look at my other three every night when they’re in bed and wonder if me and Bert did right, bringing them into this world, with the sort of future the likes of us can offer. We’ve having to move to a smaller place, only one bedroom between us, all squashed together tighter than sardines in a tin. And it’s at the back of a factory so all day the new place is shrouded in black sooty smoke. I’ll never be able to hang any washing out … but needs must, eh, gel.

‘I’ve popped in to see Mr Wilks to get an idea from him what I can hope to get for the stuff I can’t take with me. Some of my bits and pieces don’t bother me, but it’ll break my heart having to part with the Welsh dresser me gran gave me before she died. The rooms in the new place are so tiny I can’t fit it in.’

Aidy thought her own position bad enough but she couldn’t compare it to what Colleen was facing. But before she could express sympathy to her friend for her dire situation, the pawnbroker returned.

A new customer meant money to be made. Nodding a quick thank you to Aidy for obliging him, he then focused all his attention on Colleen, and she in turn in her desperation tried to glean as much money as she could from him for the precious belongings she could not take with her to her new home.

Promised a penny each on Friday, a neighbour’s two teenage sons eagerly shot off to collect the flock mattress for Aidy.

On her return home, before she entered by the back door, she took a deep breath to brace herself for what awaited her inside. She was surprised to find the place in complete darkness. She had to grope her way from the kitchen into the back room where the only light was coming from the dying embers of the fire.

Her grandmother’s eyes were obviously accustomed to the dark because as soon as Aidy stumbled her way through the back-room door she exclaimed, ‘Thank God you’re home, love! The gas meter ran out not long after you left. I’ve been sitting in the dark since, and the kids too upstairs. It wouldn’t have mattered if I could have lit some candles but with this dratted leg, I can’t.’

All Aidy was conscious of was the fact her father didn’t seem to be there. ‘Where’s he then?’ she asked, praying vehemently the answer was that Arnold had gone to bed for the night or better still had upped and left, although she thought there was little chance of that.

‘Gone out. To the pub, I guess.’

That was just the best news to Aidy but regardless a question presented itself. ‘He had no money to go to the pub with to my knowledge. And if he had money, he should have put it in the meter, the selfish …’ She stopped herself out of respect for her grandmother.

‘He didn’t have any money until the gas went and he went next door to borrow sixpence. I gather he got it as I haven’t seen him since.’

Aidy’s temper rose. Were there no depths to which that man would not sink? Leaving his family in the dark and going off down the pub with money he’d borrowed off a benevolent neighbour to replenish the meter. Money that she’d have to repay. Aidy was so angry she couldn’t speak.