Secrets to Keep

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





Ty did not often make mistakes in medical matters, and when he did he admitted them, if only to himself. The mistake he had made today was not lifethreatening, but it could delay the healing of Nell Crosby’s ulcerated leg.

Arriving in the waiting room, he found Aidy putting on her coat to go home for her afternoon break. She had been going one afternoon a week to Sadie Billson’s house for over a month, and under Sadie’s patient tutelage could now properly apply a bandage to different areas of the body so that it remained in place and secure. Sadie was instructing her how to clean a wound this afternoon and Aidy was anxious to get off because, before she was due there at three, she had shopping to buy on the way. On the afternoons Aidy was with Sadie, Bertha usually did the shopping, but couldn’t today as a neighbour had had a death in the family and Bertha had offered her services to prepare food for the funeral tea the next day.

Ty addressed his receptionist in his usual stiff manner. ‘I do respect the fact that it’s your afternoon breaktime, Mrs Nelson, but I’d appreciate it if you’d drop this in to Mrs Nell Crosby’s house.’ He put a small pot on her desk.

Aidy knew Nell Crosby well. She was a regular customer of her grandmother’s. Aidy had been present when Nell had called on Bertha for something for her leg when it had first started causing her problems, but on inspecting the open wound that wasn’t healing, Bertha had advised her she thought it to be ulcerous and to consult the doctor over it as none of her potions was strong enough heal it.

Ty was telling Aidy, ‘Sister Teresa needs it to treat Mrs Crosby’s leg. Mrs Crosby is her last call for today so if you go straight away you should be there before Nurse is.’ He then put a small bulky brown envelope on the desk beside the pot. It was Aidy’s pay packet.

With that, he turned and walked out of the room.

As she picked up the pot and her pay, Aidy realised Doc had obviously forgotten to include the pot with the other medical supplies he had handed her to put in the bag for the nun that morning. He wouldn’t openly admit his oversight to her because then he wouldn’t feel he could fairly chastise her should she ever err in a similar fashion. It seemed she was not even being given a choice whether or not to take the ointment in her own time but was expected to, as Ty had left without waiting for her reply.

Aware that Nell Crosby’s ulcerated leg was very painful to her and inhibited her from walking, when Aidy arrived at the house she made her way around the back, tapped purposefully on the door, opened it and called out, ‘Mrs Crosby, it’s Aidy Nelson from the surgery.’

Nell called from the back room, ‘Oh, come through, love.’

She found the old lady sitting in a shabby wooden chair by the range. Her bandaged leg was resting on a wooden stool. She was dabbing her eyes with a man’s white handkerchief.

Aidy’s heart went out to her. Her infected leg must be paining her something terrible for it to be making her cry.

The old lady asked, ‘You’ve come instead of Sister to see to me leg then? Not ill is she, I hope?’

‘No, she’ll be with you shortly, Mrs Crosby. I’ve brought the ointment she needs to put on your leg when she redresses it. I forgot to put it in the supplies bag this morning. Hopefully the ointment Doc has had made up will help ease the pain for you. It must be bad to make you cry. You do have my sympathies.’

‘Eh? Oh, no, lovey, the pain isn’t as bad as it was now Doc’s got it on the mend. I wasn’t happy, yer know, when yer gran told me she couldn’t be of help to me this time and advised me to see him. Well, apart from the fact I couldn’t afford his fee and would have to ask one of me sons to help me out with it, I’d heard he was young and I didn’t know how I felt about having a young man attending to me. I’d also heard that he was an arrogant young fella, with no niceties about him. Which turned out to be true! He’s very abrupt, isn’t he? Won’t sit and have a bit of a chat with a cuppa, like Doctor Mac did. But I have to say, he seems to know what he’s doing and I’ve no complaints at all about his doctoring skills. I can’t imagine he’s an easy man to work for, from my experience of him?’

She was looking at Aidy quizzically, waiting for her to enlighten her, but no matter how much Aidy agreed she knew it would not be right to discuss her boss in this way. She was, though, concerned to discover what had caused the old woman to be upset enough to cry, if it hadn’t been her leg.

‘If your leg wasn’t hurting when I came in, then what was the matter, Mrs Crosby? I don’t mean to pry. Just wondered if it was anything I could help you with?’

Mrs Crosby patted Aidy’s hand affectionately and smiled up at her. ‘Not unless you can bring my Albert back, love. I was having a little weep ’cos it would have been his birthday today. I lost him ten year ago. Caught a cold which turned to pneumonia, he did. He was a slater by trade. Up on them roofs in all weathers. Very few slaters live to old age, what with working in wet clothes more times than dry. It weakens their chests. He was in the trenches in the war, yer know, was my Albert. Would never talk about it, though, even to me. I know he was brave. Got presented with medals to prove it. Every birthday since he died, I take them out in honour of him and give them a polish. Only I thought I’d put them back where I always do, in the top drawer of me tallboy, with me underwear, when I had them out last year. But when I went to fetch ’em out again today, they weren’t there.’

Her brow creased worriedly. ‘I distinctly remember putting them back in their box in the top drawer of my tallboy. My Roger was here at the time. He’d come to walk me round to his house for dinner. His wife was cooking me favourite, stuffed heart … Roger’s me eldest. He’s the one who’s paying the doctor’s fee for me leg … he was moaning at me to hurry up as the dinner would be spoiled and his Dorothy wouldn’t be best pleased, and I told him I wasn’t going anywhere until I’d put his dad’s medals safely away.’

She heaved a sigh, scowling thoughtfully. ‘I’m sure I haven’t moved ’em since.’ She looked up at Aidy, clearly bothered. ‘Maybe I’ve got more wrong with me than a bad leg. Maybe me brain is giving up on me.’ Then she tutted and waved a hand dismissively. ‘Oh, Albert’s medals have got to be somewhere in here. Where else could they be? I’ll have another look for ’em when I’ve seen Sister out.

‘She’s very nice, is Sister Teresa. Very gentle in her ways and most considerate. I really look forward to her coming, unlike I did the doctor before Sister started with the surgery. If I as much opened me mouth, before I’d said a word he’d be looking at me like I was about to commit a cardinal sin, being so familiar with him. Sister now … she doesn’t mind me chattering away ten to the dozen while she’s tending to me. And helpful! Never fails to ask if there’s anything she can do for me before she leaves as she knows how difficult it is for me to manage some chores at the moment.

‘Both me daughter-in-laws do what they can for me, but they have enough to do, running after their own families. Sister very kindly changed me bed for me last time she was here. I’ll be kinda sorry when me leg heals and she’s no reason to come any more. I haven’t got much, but I will see if I can manage to get something for Sister as a thank you for how good she’s been to me. Maybe Sid Wilks has a little silver cross or something that’d be appropriate.’

‘I’ve no doubt he will have,’ said Aidy confidently, picturing the glass cabinet Sid used as his counter which was bursting with bits and pieces of second-hand jewellery. ‘Well, I’d best be off, Mrs Crosby. I’m sure it won’t be long before Sister is here. Oh, just a thought … Maybe with your son badgering you to hurry up, you put your husband’s medals in another drawer and not your underwear one.’

The old lady’s face lit up. ‘I never thought of that. As soon as Sister’s gone, I’ll go up there and have a look. Thanks, love.’

Aidy managed to do her errands and make it to Sadie Billson’s house just as her grandfather clock was striking three. When she left just over an hour later she wasn’t sure if she’d enjoyed her session that afternoon or not. It had certainly been informative and she had learned a lot from the ex-nurse, but picking grit and slivers of glass out of a deep cut in a pig’s trotter that Sadie had made was not something she’d have chosen to do. It wasn’t that Aidy was squeamish or had an aversion to handling dead pig’s trotters, it was just that Sadie had told her that after Aidy left, she would be boiling the trotter together with another for her own and her husband’s dinner that evening. Aidy was worried that if she hadn’t removed all the glass it could result in either Sadie or her husband suffering the consequences!

As she rounded a curve in the jetty and the back gate to her house came into view, she noticed that someone was loitering under the gas lamp close by. Then she realised the loiterer was in fact her grandmother. Bertha was looking very anxiously in the opposite direction from the way Aidy was coming.

She called out, ‘Gran, what are you doing out here in this weather?’

She spun round to peer short-sightedly in Aidy’s direction.

‘Oh, love, you haven’t seen George or Betty on yer travels, have yer? They should have been back by now …’

‘Back from where?’ Aidy queried.

‘Cobden Street.’

Aidy exclaimed, ‘Cobden Street? They know they aren’t allowed that far from home.’

‘Arnold sent them.’

‘What would he send them down there for?’

‘I don’t know. I only got to hear the bit I did ’cos I was stuck in the privy at the time.’

Aidy was totally confused. ‘What were you doing hiding in the privy, Gran?’

‘I wasn’t. I was just in there doing me business. As you know, I was helping Martha prepare the funeral food for the wake tomorrow. Well, yer know what it’s like, Aidy. As yer making it, yer sample a bit of it. Well, I must have sampled summat that didn’t agree with me, and by the time I got home I was running to get to the lavvy before I had an accident. I was in there when I heard the kids come home from school and go in the house. I was still in there a couple of minutes later when the back door opened and shut again and I heard footsteps crossing the yard that I knew were Marion’s, going into next-door to play with Elsie.

‘Then I heard the door open again and Betty’s voice saying, “Do we have to go? It’s really cold and we ain’t supposed to go that far away from home. I promised Aidy I’d have the spuds peeled for dinner.” I heard Arnold say, “I’m yer bloody father and you’ll both do what I tell yer to! Now go straight to the house in Cobden Street and do exactly what the man says. Hurry and get back here as quick as yer can.” I heard the back gate open and looked through the crack in the privy door to see George and Betty going out. By the time I’d tidied meself and rushed after them to ask them what was going on, they’d disappeared.’

A worried frown was creasing Aidy’s brow. ‘What did he mean by do exactly what the man says? I really don’t like the sound of this, Gran. Just what sort of errand has he sent the kids on? How long ago did they set off?’

‘About an hour.’

‘They’ve been gone an hour!’ Aidy started to panic then. It was nearly pitch dark and bitterly cold. The children shouldn’t be out at all but indoors in the warmth, and certainly not roaming around streets they were unfamiliar with, knocking on the doors of strangers and carrying out their instructions. Just what did this mean?

She cried, ‘I’m going to look for them. Cobden Street, you said? I’ll head down that way, knock on every door in that street if I have to until I find them. Pray nothing has happened to them, Gran.’

Only a street away, Aidy was tearing past an abandoned factory site so fast that she didn’t hear her name being called. She was vaguely aware that someone was shouting, but her mind was so filled with worry for her siblings it wasn’t registering with her just what was being yelled.

She had travelled another street away before she felt a hand grab the back of her coat and yank it to bring her to a halt.

‘What the hell …’

As her eyes fell on the person who’d accosted her, she fell to her knees, and grabbed her brother to her, hugging him fiercely and crying, ‘Oh, George, you’re safe. Thank God!’ Then she pushed him back from her to look into his face and demanded, ‘Where’s Betty? Is she safe. Nothing has happened to her, has it?’

He was panting hard, gulping for breath. ‘She’s … fine … She’s … she’s in the old factory. We … Oh, just a minute, Sis, let me get me breath back.’ He took several deep ones while patting his chest. Breathing more easily now, he said, ‘That’s better. You can’t half run when you want to, our Aidy. I had hell of a job to catch you up. I was shouting your name at the top of me voice, but you never heard me. Anyway, me and Betty were both waiting in the old factory. It were bloody freezing and we ain’t half hungry.’ Then he realised he had blasphemed in front of his sister and exclaimed, horrified, ‘Oh, I didn’t mean …’

She ruffled his hair. ‘You can swear as much as you like right this minute, George, I don’t care. I’m just so happy you’re safe and Betty too. But let me hear you blaspheme again after tonight and you can expect a clip around the ear and your mouth washed out with soap and water.’ Then something he’d said struck her and she looked at him quizzically. ‘What were you waiting in the old factory for?’

‘For you to come and get us, so we could go home with you.’

She stared at him in astonishment. As far as she was aware, their father had sent them on an errand to a house in Cobden Street, so why were they in a derelict factory only a couple of streets away from where they lived, waiting for her to collect them and take them home? Her knees started to smart from the icy cold off the cobbles she was kneeling on. She stood up and vigorously rubbed them to warm them up, saying to him, ‘None of this is making any sense to me, George. Let’s get back to Betty. Then you can explain to me properly just what is going on.’

They found the girl where her brother had left her to give chase to Aidy. Part of the low crumbling factory wall at the front of the building had collapsed, and with the bricks someone – kids, most likely – had fashioned a three-sided, den-like structure, putting rotting planks across the top to form a roof. The bricks forming the sides of the den were piled higgledy-piggledy. The structure appeared totally unsafe, in danger of collapsing at any minute. From inside it there was a clear view through a hole in the wall out into the street.

Betty was squatting inside the makeshift den on a pile of tatty old bedding. She looked mortally relieved to see both her brother and sister step through the gap in the wall and scrambled over to greet them, flinging her arms around Aidy and hugging her tightly.

‘I was so scared being left on me own after George chased after you. I’m sure I heard rats.’

‘You shouldn’t be in here, it’s dangerous,’ Aidy scolded them.

‘We play here a lot, Sis. It’s safe, honest, and we have loads of fun,’ George told her.

It was far from safe. One of the long gabled walls was buckled and looked to be in serious danger of caving in at any minute. But Aidy had too much on her mind at the moment to waste time discussing safe and unsafe places for the children to be playing.

Moments later they were all squatting in the den. Aidy hugged the children to her for warmth and said to them, ‘As far as I know from what Gran told me, Dad sent you on an errand to a house in Cobden Street, so how come you landed up in here, waiting for me to get you and take you home?’

‘Well …’ they both began together.

‘Just one of you tell me,’ she interrupted them sharply, by now desperate to make sense of all this. She saw they were about to argue the toss over it so made the decision for them. ‘George, you tell me.’

‘As soon as we got in from school, Dad told us he’d an errand we had to run for him. We was to go to a house in Cobden Street, go in the back way, and when a man opened the door, we was to tell him Arnold sent us. Dad said the man would give us a shopping bag and we was to take it where he told us to. He would give us an envelope and we …’

‘No, that’s not right,’ cut in Betty. ‘When we deliver ed the shopping bag to where the man told us to, that’s where we’d get the envelope from.’

‘I’m telling it,’ he snapped at her.

‘Well, get it right then,’ Betty snapped back.

Aidy snapped at them both: ‘That’s enough. What were you to do with the envelope when you were given it, George?’

‘Take it back to the man in Cobden Street, and then he’d give us half a crown which we’d to take straight back to Dad. He told us he’d give us a penny each, and said we’d get a penny more every time we did these errands for him. We told him we weren’t allowed to go that far from the house, honest we did, Sis, but he shouted that he was our dad and we were to do as he told us.’

Aidy’s face was set tight, her eyes ablaze with anger. So their father’s pub tricks weren’t reaping him the rewards they had any longer and he’d found himself another way to line his pockets: by farming his children out to no-good types to act as messengers, delivering their contraband to customers and collecting the payment in return. Who would ever suspect two children carrying a shopping bag of being up to no good? And how low did a man have to be, to trade his own children’s involvement in a probable criminal act rather than make the effort to get himself some honest work? Well, he’d gone too far this time.

She hugged the children closer and said to them, ‘We’d best get back before we freeze to death. Dad will be waiting for his money.’ She noticed a look pass between brother and sister and a horrible thought struck her. ‘Oh, no, you haven’t lost the money, have you? Is that why you were both waiting for me, because you daren’t go home and face him alone?’

‘No, we ain’t lost the money, Sis, but we ain’t got it,’ said Betty.

‘I don’t understand?’

‘Well, we ain’t got it ’cos we never went on the errand at all,’ George told her. ‘After you told us what you thought Dad was up to, showing us his tricks, and said that if he did anything else like that then we was to tell you, well … we thought we ought to ask you before we went on the errand, just in case you wasn’t happy about it. That’s why we’ve been waiting here, ’cos we knew if we weren’t home when you got back, you’d come looking for us. We know you don’t like us out when it’s so cold and dark and that you’d be worried.’ His little face creased in worry. ‘Did we do right, Aidy?’

She was looking at them both, stunned. So they did pay attention to her after all … and she hadn’t believed they listened to a word she said. ‘You did right. You did very right,’ she assured them.

‘What we gonna tell Dad, though? He ain’t gonna like it that we never did what he told us,’ said Betty tremulously. Her father had not as yet actually hit her like she knew some of her friends’ fathers did, but his nasty shouting whenever any of them had invoked his wrath was frightening enough for a little girl like her.

Aidy was thinking. No, he wasn’t going to like it at all, especially as she suspected the money the kids would have made he’d been banking on getting. She smiled at the children reassuringly. ‘I know, you tell Dad you knocked several times, very hard, but no one answered the door at the house. Tell him no mantles were lit inside so you didn’t think anyone was in. You waited around for ages for someone to come back but they didn’t, so you came home. He can’t tell you off for not doing his errand for him then, can he?’

‘No, he can’t,’ they both said together.

‘And do we do the same if he sends us on another errand like this one, Sis?’ asked George.

She eyed him proudly. ‘That’s exactly what you do.’

They spent a few minutes discussing their plan of action then set off home.

As soon as they rounded the bend in the jetty Bertha was on them, her relief to see them all safely back most apparent. Despite the bitter cold, she had not trusted herself to return inside the house and await their return, so afraid was she that she would not have been able to hold back from telling her despicable son-in-law exactly what she thought of him.

Aidy quickly outlined their plan to Bertha. They decided they would go in first, leaving the children waiting outside for a few minutes. They’d pretend they had just met up on their way home and knew nothing of where the children had been.

As soon as they walked in, Arnold appeared in the back-room doorway and looked mortally disappointed to see the new arrivals were not who he was expecting.

As she stripped off her coat, Aidy said to him, ‘You look like you’re expecting someone?’

He growled back at her, ‘I sent the bloody kids on an errand and they should’ve been back by now.’

She responded lightly as she took her apron off the hook on the back of the pantry door and tied it around her, ‘Well, this time of evening the shop will be busy or they could have bumped into friends and be having a quick natter. They’ll be back in a minute with your baccy, I expect. Best get the dinner started or I’ll be late back for work.’

An anxious Arnold returned to the back room.

Bertha was collecting potatoes out of a sack in the pantry and having a job controlling her glee. This was the first time since his return that the family had been given an opportunity to get one over on Arnold, and she was enjoying every moment.

The back door opened then. George and Betty barely had time to get a foot over the threshold before he was back in the doorway, his relief to see them very apparent. He demanded, ‘Give me what yer got then. Come on, I ain’t got all day.’ He was holding out his hand expectantly.

Aidy and Bertha were pretending to be taking no notice of what was going on around them but getting on with their tasks.

George and Betty stood pressed together by the back door.

It was George who nervously told him, ‘We ain’t got n’ote ter give yer. The bloke weren’t in.’

Arnold’s eyes narrowed darkly and he growled, ‘Wadda yer mean, he weren’t in? Why, yer lying little bleeders!’ Clenching one fist, he raised his arm, shouting, ‘He was in and you’re …’

Seeing things were turning ugly, Aidy jumped over to stand before him, blocking his way.

‘The kids don’t lie. If they say the man you sent them to see wasn’t in, then he wasn’t. It’s the bloke you made your arrangement with that’s let you down, not them.’

Arnold was so fuming, Aidy felt sure she could actually see steam coming out of the top of his head. Banging one fist furiously against the back-room door, the vibrations shaking the house, he stormed back inside uttering a string of expletives that could be heard out in the street.

Aidy dashed over to the children, gathering them to her. ‘Hopefully this has taught him a lesson: if he wants a job doing, he does it himself. But in future, to be on the safe side, me and Gran will do our best to make sure between us that you’re never left alone with him. One of us will meet you out of school, and one of us will be here with you all the time in the house.’

‘Yes, we will, kids,’ confirmed Bertha.

Aidy became conscious that time was wearing on and she needed to get back to work. ‘Betty, go and fetch Marion from next door. George, after you’ve taken your coat off, start setting the table. I’ve just about got time to get your dinner before I have to rush off back to work. I’ll have mine when I come back.’

After they had each gone off to do her bidding, she worriedly whispered to Bertha, ‘It’s obvious he’s no money to go out with tonight so you’re going to have to put up with him. But then, hopefully, he’ll go out for a bit to see the bloke he made the deal with and find out what went wrong. I should be back from work by then and you won’t have to put up with his mood on your own.’

Her face set gravely. ‘We’ve got to do something about him, Gran. There’s has to be a way to get him out of our lives. I can’t risk him dragging the children down with him into the world he seems to be getting himself involved in.’

As the family sat around the table in the back room eating their meal, Aidy was just about to put her coat on to take her leave for work when someone knocked purposefully on the back door. For a moment she wondered who it could be. No one called at this time of evening. Like this household, all the neighbours were busy having their dinner. Oh, all but one person … the rent man. With all that had happened in the last couple of hours, Aidy had temporarily forgotten it was Friday and his time to call.

She went to get the rent book from where it was kept in a drawer of the dresser in the back room, and then stopped short. A sudden thought struck her and panic rose within her. The wage packet that the doctor had given her at the end of her morning shift was in her handbag. With everything that had happened tonight, she had forgotten to take it out and hide it on her person. Her mind raced frantically. Where had she put her handbag when she had arrived in? Then she spotted it on the draining board. Dashing over, she unclipped it and pulled it wide open. Then breathed a deep sigh of relief. Tucked in by her purse was her unopened wage packet.

Aidy smiled warmly at the burly, middle-aged man facing her. He had been collecting the rent from the eighty houses his boss owned in these streets since the Greenwoods had first moved in, before Aidy was born. Leonard Trotter was dressed in a shiny brown suit, a white shirt, frayed around the collar and cuffs, and shabby brown overcoat on top. Covering his short back and sides was a black bowler hat. By his black, steel-capped boots sat a square bag, not unlike the one Doc carried, but instead of medical equipment the rent man’s bag held his collections and the paperwork pertaining to his job. He also carried a cosh in a specially sewn pocket inside his coat, to fend off any potential attackers … he had actually been robbed of his takings three times in the past. He’d a broken nose, a deep scar down one side of his face, and walked with a marked limp – all injuries received over his years spent carrying out this thankless job. People begrudged paying rent to an absentee landlord who refused to sanction all but the most basic of maintenance on his crumbling properties, not caring a jot what conditions his tenants had to endure as it was their choice if they stayed or not. There were plenty more waiting to take their places.

‘Evening, Mr Trotter. You’re well, I hope. And Mrs Trotter?’

Greeting her back pleasantly, he flicked through the pages of the well-used rent book Aidy handed him until he found the place where the last entry had been made the previous week. ‘I need to start a new book for you. This one is full,’ he said, and bent down to access his bag. Rummaging inside, he pulled out a new book, then took a fountain pen from the inside of his jacket pocket, took off the lid and opened the book on the first page so he could fill in the tenant’s details.

Suddenly it felt to Aidy like a million fireworks were going off inside her brain. Her heart started to pound so hard she feared it would burst out of her chest. The only reason her father was at liberty to force his presence on his family, be a drain on their scant resources, generally make their lives a misery, was because he was the official tenant of the house they lived in. But if he weren’t any longer, he would no longer have any official reason to live here and wield power over them all.

The rent man was presenting her with a miraculous opportunity to oust Arnold from their lives.

Aidy’s mind raced frantically, hurriedly forming a plan of how best to achieve her aim. She was going to have to lie blatantly to this man before her. She also risked her father appearing in the kitchen while she was carrying out her plan, and showing her up for the liar she was. She must take the chance that Mr Trotter was not aware of Arnold’s return. This opportunity to be rid of the man who was blighting her beloved family’s lives was worth any risk to Aidy’s own reputation, she decided.

Taking a deep breath, she said to the rent man, ‘Pointless putting my father’s name down as tenant still, Mr Trotter, since he hasn’t lived here for years. Disappeared without a word nine years ago he did and we haven’t heard a word from him since. He could be dead for all we know. Even if he’s not, after all these years it’s not likely he’s going to come back, not now Mam’s dead. Knowing what a selfish type he is, he’s certainly not going to give up the life of Riley to look after his own kids. Good job they’ve got me to look after them. As it’s me that’s paying the rent now, Mr Trotter, it should be my name on the rent book as the official tenant, shouldn’t it?’

Waiting for his response seemed to take an eternity to Aidy. In fact, he acted straight away.

Several minutes later she was clutching the new rent book to her chest as if it was the most precious thing in the world, a jubilant grin splitting her face as she watched her unsuspecting saviour depart for his next port of call. He was hoping that the tenants in that house parted with their rent as pleasantly and readily as the last one he had dealt with.

The first part of Aidy’s plan successfully concluded, she had to pull off the final stage without alerting her father to what she was up to. Nothing could stop his expulsion from their lives now she had the means, but until she had physically got him and his belongings out of the house she didn’t want to take any chances.

As she went into the back room, the only sound was of cutlery scraping against plates. Meal-times with Jessie had been social occasions, an opportunity for her family to share the events of the day. Upon his return however Arnold had made it clear he would not tolerate any conversation at the table. He preferred to eat his food in silence, so that’s how it was now. Aidy inwardly smiled to herself. This was the last meal her family would eat under their father’s selfish discipline. Mealtimes in future would return to being events to which the family looked forward and actually enjoyed, not dreaded the thought of.

Going over to the mantelpiece, she made out she was picking something up off it, then clumsily dropped whatever it was by the side of the armchair her father used. As she bent down in her pretence of retrieving it, she steadied herself by putting her hand on the arm of his chair. Making out she had picked up whatever she had supposedly dropped, she righted herself and simultaneously took her hand off the chair arm.

‘I’m off then,’ she said, looking at everyone around the table but her father.

Bertha smiled over at her. ‘Take care, love. I’ll have your dinner waiting for you when you get back.’

‘I appreciate that, Gran, but I’ll see to it.’

‘Oh, it’s no trouble …’

Arnold erupted, ‘For God’s sake, woman, be told. She doesn’t want you to have her dinner ready.’ A nasty glint sparked in his eye. ‘Obviously don’t like the thought of the muck you serve up.’ Then he shot a look at George and snarled, ‘You, boy! Sit up straight, shoulders back. And you …’ he was looking at Betty ‘… stop kicking yer feet against yer chair. And you …’ He never got to chastise Marion. She started crying, scraped back her chair and ran off up the stairs.

Aidy eyed him coldly. Considering he sat with his elbows on the table, scooping up food and shovelling it into his mouth as if he was afraid someone was going to steal it off him, he’d some gall pulling the children up for their small lapses. Bertha caught her eyes. Her expression was telling Aidy to get off to work before she was any later, and that she would see to Marion.

It seemed the one night Aidy was desperate for surgery to end so she could get home, all those who could afford the fee had turned up to see the doctor. The extended waiting room was heaving, and everyone who was sitting near enough to her insisted on engaging Aidy in conversation, which normally she delighted in but tonight found hard with her mind preoccupied with what faced her back home. Consequently surgery finished three quarters of an hour later than normal, and she still had to file all the patients’ records after Ty had handed them over to her before she could leave.

When he gave her the cards, wished her good night in his usual stilted manner and then went back to finish up his own work, it didn’t escape her notice that her boss looked fit to drop. Aidy wasn’t surprised, though. She doubted he’d had much, if any, sleep for the last forty-eight hours. The previous day too had been busy, both during surgery and with house calls. Winter was upon them and people were falling ill with ailments related to the bitter cold. Severe chest infections, influenza, whooping cough and glandular fever were only a handful of the life-threatening diseases rampant at the moment. He would have been within his rights to insist on limiting the number of patients he could comfortably see during each session and the number of house calls every morning and afternoon, but he didn’t. Just kept going until all those who needed his skills had been tended. Aidy may not much like Doc as a person, and that was his fault for making it so difficult, but as a doctor dedicated to doing his best to cure the sick under his care, she had a high regard for him.

But if the man didn’t look after himself better, it was her opinion he’d be ill himself soon. There were only so many meals and nights’ sleep a body could go without before it began to retaliate. Aidy wouldn’t like to take a guess when he had last eaten properly, actually sat down and finished a meal, judging by the number of times she had arrived in the kitchen and found plates filled but abandoned.

Considering the constraints on his time, she wondered why he didn’t employ a woman to come in and do for him. There were many around here who would jump at the chance of the opportunity to earn themselves a few shillings a week, to cook and do the doctor’s housework. She supposed he must have his reasons for not bothering although she couldn’t understand what they might be. He’d lived here for months, clearly a fish out of water in such a deprived area, and still they knew next to nothing about him. Aidy herself didn’t care about that. Whatever had caused him to come to this area, it had afforded her the means to support her family and for that she was grateful.

Having filed all the record cards away, she went into the kitchen to wash up her tea cup before she left and noticed a bought meat pie and a couple of potatoes on the kitchen table which the doctor had obviously taken out of the larder to make himself for dinner tonight. Her nurturing instincts rose up in her then. She felt a strong impulse to cook him his meal, stand over him while he ate it, see that he’d eaten at least one whole plateful for a change. She pictured him sitting alone at the table, eating his solitary meal, then clearing it away afterwards and sitting by himself in his armchair by the fire, no one to talk to, no one with whom to share the trials and tribulations of his daily life. No one to care for him. A great sadness filled her then. Everyone needed someone. The doctor didn’t appear to have anyone or, to her observation, make any effort to do so. Aidy gave herself a mental shake. What on earth was she doing, feeling sorry for him? His lonely existence was entirely of his own making. He must be happy with his life this way or he’d do something about it. Just like she was doing something about getting rid of the cause of her family’s misery.

Aidy didn’t expect to find her father at home when she got back, and she didn’t.

Bertha was in the kitchen, mixing ingredients into a paste in a pudding basin, to make an ointment to soothe burns. She had a dozen little brown jars lined up ready to put the ointment in when she had finished making it, along with labels to write out and fix on the jars. She smiled warmly at her granddaughter when she walked in.

‘Hello, love. You really should have let me have yer dinner ready. Yer must be famished. Anyway, the kids are in bed. Marion took a bit of calming down but was fine after I’d talked to her. Oh, it breaks my heart that she still can’t understand her mam isn’t coming back.

‘She said to me, “Gran, Mam won’t let Dad shout at us like he does when she comes back, will she? Can’t we go to the cemetery and make a loud noise and wake her up that way, instead of waiting for her to wake herself up?”

‘What can you say to that, Aidy? We’ve tried to explain in every way we can think of that Jessie isn’t coming back. Nothing works. And anyway, why can’t Arnold leave the kids alone? Why does he always have to be picking at them? George wasn’t slouching at the table tonight, or if he was then I was bent double. Arnold’s got some nerve, chiding the kids for their table manners when he’s got the manners of a pig. I deserve a medal, love, for not taking a knife to him after today. I’m very afraid it will come to that, though, if he pulls any more tricks like that.

‘Anyway, seems we’ve had a small miracle. After he finished his dinner it was apparent he wasn’t going out as he ordered me to make him a fresh cuppa and the kids all to go upstairs out of his sight. He said he wanted peace to listen to the radio but he’d only just sat down in his chair when he told me to forget the tea, he was going out after all. Must have found some money after all.’ She gave a despondent sigh as she stopped her mixing long enough to scoop a spoonful of greyish powder from another bowl into the one her mixture was in and begin stirring again. ‘I know we were all mourning for Jessie, and for what happened between you and Arch, but we were a happy little band before Arnold dumped himself back on us, weren’t we, love?’

Aidy took the greatest of pleasure in responding to Bertha with, ‘And we will be again in a few hours, Gran.’

Bertha looked at her, confused. ‘Eh?’ Aidy laughed. ‘Yes, you did hear me right.’ She pulled the rent book out of her coat pocket, opening the front cover to display the details of the tenant.

Putting down her wooden mixing spoon and giving her hands a wipe on the bottom of her apron, Bertha took the book off Aidy and stared at it. As her eyes scanned the words written in fresh ink, her face took on the expression of someone who could read perfectly well what the writing said but whose brain was having trouble accepting the evidence before it. ‘But … but I don’t understand? Your name is down as tenant.’ She lifted her face and looked in total confusion at her granddaughter. ‘But … but …’ As the significance of this registered, her eyes lit up. ‘But this is wonderful! It means … oh, God, we can get him out, Aidy.’

Her eyes were dancing merrily. ‘Yes, we can, Gran.’

‘But just how did you get the rent man to take Arnold’s name off without his permission?’

‘Lied to him. The old rent book was full so Mr Trotter needed to make us out a new one. I told him Arnold Greenwood was dead so far as we knew as we hadn’t seen him for years, and you can’t chase a dead man for the rent money, can you, Gran? Thankfully Arnold didn’t need to come into the kitchen for anything at that moment and scupper what I was up to. And he didn’t suddenly discover he’d some money to go out with tonight, I left two tanners on the arm of his chair for him to find. I did it to make sure he was out of the house when I got back tonight, so we could pack his stuff up and have his bag waiting for him in the yard when he comes back. That way we won’t have the task of forcing him to leave ’cos I doubt he’d go quietly.’

Bertha started to giggle, a gleeful chuckle that filled the kitchen and set Aidy laughing too. Grabbing hold of each other, they waltzed around, both whooping with delight. It was lack of breath that finally got Bertha to stop their dance of triumph.

Having caught her own breath, Aidy told her, ‘I’m off upstairs to pack his stuff.’

‘I’ll come and help yer, love. Be the most pleasurable job I’ve ever had to do.’

An hour later Arnold gave a loud belch as he arrived at the back gate and lifted the latch. He wasn’t drunk. At fourpence a pint, he’d only had enough to buy three with the shilling he’d found on the arm of the chair. He still couldn’t work out where the two sixpences had come from. He had realised after many fruitless searches that not even a farthing was ever left lying around the house for him to find. He knew his pockets had been empty which was why he’d been fuming about the kids returning empty handed from their errand.

And that was something else he couldn’t quite work out. Who was lying to him? The bloke he’d sent the kids to do the job for or his own children? One of them was. When Arnold had sought the bloke out tonight to confront him about welching on their deal, it seemed that the bloke had been looking for him, to confront him over being let down. The bloke swore blind he’d been in at the appointed time. The kids swore blind he wasn’t. Well, there’d be no mistake tomorrow. Arnold had badgered the bloke until he’d relented and promised to give him another chance to prove his worth. Another pick up and delivery had been arranged, same time, same place, but this time Arnold would be following the kids from a safe distance and watching their every move, to make sure they pulled it off. Then he’d make it a regular event. It would mean he’d have a supply of money coming in, not a fortune but enough to keep him in booze and fags and treat himself to a couple of changes of clothes.

Looking as shabby as he was, he wasn’t attracting quite the sort of women he liked. Not the head-turners he used to attract before time started telling on him, but not so dusty either. He had his eye on the barmaid of the Stag and Pheasant. She was no spring chicken but still had plenty of life in her. There was an empty space beside him in his bed which Maisie Turnbull and her big breasts would fill nicely … until something better came along, that was. Arnold didn’t care what the rest of the household felt about him moving in a woman. It was his house and they’d have to lump it.

Kicking the back gate shut behind him, he sauntered his way over to the back door. A flickering light from the gas mantle in the kitchen was casting an eerie light through the window out into the yard. Halfway down it he stopped short, surprised to see a bulky bag by the back door. Then he recognised it as his holdall. It looked like it was filled with something. Anger rose up in him. Who’d been in his bedroom and taken his bag to use without his permission? Well, wouldn’t they learn not to take what wasn’t theirs in the future! He was curious to know what the bag was being used for, though. Reaching it, he bent down and opened the buckle securing the strap. Seemed to be clothes inside … his clothes! And his razor and shaving brush and his few other personal possessions. What the hell was going on? Jumping up, he grabbed the knob of the back door and turned it. It would not budge. It was locked. He stood back from the door and bellowed, ‘Oi! Open this f*cking door!’

Two faces appeared at the kitchen window.

Glaring at them, Arnold shouted, ‘What the hell’s going on? Why is the door locked? And why is my bag out here with all my stuff in it?’

Aidy shouted through the window, ‘We thought you might need your belongings.’

Bewildered, he bellowed, ‘Why?’

‘Because you don’t live here any more.’

‘You stupid cow! I’m the tenant. It’s me who says who lives in this house and who doesn’t. If you and that old bag …’ he shot a murderous glare at Bertha’s amused face, peering at him through the window ‘… and those blasted kids want to keep living here, then open the door and let me in. I’ll kick it in, and you lot out.’

Aidy couldn’t remember when she’d had so much fun. ‘Do that and I’ll have the police on you. You aren’t the tenant any longer … I am. It’s me who says who lives here and who doesn’t from now on. And you don’t any longer ’cos we don’t want you.’ She placed the opened rent book flat against the window so he could clearly see that his name was no longer down as the tenant but his daughter’s instead. ‘Maybe if you’d paid some rent over to the rent man in person since you’ve been back, he wouldn’t have believed me when I told him you hadn’t lived here for years and were dead for all we knew. After that he happily handed the tenancy over to me. Now pick up your stuff and clear off!’

Arnold was left staring at her agog. He hadn’t a leg to stand on, and he knew it. His period of sponging off his family was over. He furiously snatched up his bag, which he slung over his shoulder, and stormed off down the yard disappearing through the gate to the accompaniment of loud laughter from inside the house behind him.