A Whisper to the Living (23 page)

She jumped up from the table, opened the door and walked past the wide-eyed librarian, then after checking that the coast was clear, she left the library and went down past the doctor’s to the Milk Bar where she ordered a coffee. The place was empty, the juke-box mercifully silent. Annie took her book to a corner table and began to read.

Across the road, Nancy Higson carried her husband’s breakfast dishes through to the kitchen. She felt tired, bone-weary, worn out after twenty years slaving in a cotton mill and the same number of years worrying about money. But she carried on, filling the bowl, washing and drying the pots, carried on just as always for the sake of peace and for Annie. At least the rows between her daughter and her husband had virtually stopped now. Funny how he’d given over cursing and screaming at Annie since the accident. Something to be thankful for, she supposed. And there were people a lot worse off, weren’t there? But oh, she wished things could be . . . different. Annie couldn’t bear to be in a room with him for more than two minutes and it was such an uncomfortable way to live, trying to please everybody and finishing up pleasing nobody, least of all herself. But she was a good girl, was Annie – the house fair sparkled of a morning when she was off school. ’Course, she’d be over at the library now, picking a book to read.

Eddie Higson sighed, looked out of the window to assess the weather and took a Woody from a paper packet of five. The room was stuffy and overheated because of the range, but he said nothing. Nancy wanted a better cooker for the kitchen, a safer one, she said – one that wouldn’t fight back and spit at her. The range had been good enough till now, so she could sod off for her new cooker. Anyroad, it was likely all down to that daughter of hers putting fancy ideas about because of all that education. Bloody education. The girl should be setting off for the mill any day now and if he’d had his way, he’d have driven her down there with a whip if necessary.

‘It’s half past ten, Eddie,’ Nancy was reminding him now. ‘Best of the day’ll be gone if you don’t get going.’

‘Don’t start your mithering, woman. I’m on my way.’

He nipped his cigarette and placed the stub behind his ear then shuffled through to the yard for his bucket and leathers. As he steered the newly acquired ladder cart through the gate, he grinned to himself, dragging the feet of the ladder across the bottom of a snow-white sheet. ‘That’ll show the young bitch,’ he muttered, pausing to feel for the cigarette-end behind his ear. He’d have his day with that one as sure as eggs were eggs.

As he walked away, he didn’t notice Nancy standing in the gateway shaking her head. After he had disappeared, she painstakingly removed the large double sheet from the line. It would have to go in the dolly for another soak – oh, if only she could afford one of those washing machines! Well, the cold war between Eddie and Annie was far from over – the thick black lines on the sheet were proof enough of that.

‘How did that happen, Mother?’

‘Ooh Annie, you made me jump!’ Nancy clutched the sheet to her chest. ‘Eddie caught his ladder on it . . .’

‘Again?’

‘It was likely an accident, love . . .’

‘An accident? He did the same thing last week because he knows I’m doing the washing.’

‘I’m sure he didn’t mean it.’

‘That’s a load of rubbish, Mam and you know it. He’s mean and spiteful – oh God how I hate him!’

‘Now you just stop that kind of talk, Annie. He puts food in your mouth, doesn’t he? Do you think you’d be at St Mary’s if he’d never worked to keep us all going? He took you on, I’ve told you before. He took us both on . . .’

‘And killed your baby!’

They stared at one another across the small yard, then Nancy, her voice low, said, ‘I think we’d better go inside, don’t you?’

After closing the outside door carefully, Nancy rounded on her daughter. ‘What do you expect, eh? You treat him with nothing but contempt – oh yes, I’ve seen the way you look at him. He helps us pay our way and don’t you ever forget that!’

Annie’s laugh, which was not really a laugh at all, made Nancy shiver. ‘And you’re grateful? Grateful to a lazy lump who should have been out cleaning windows for two hours at least? Grateful because you’re forced to scrimp and save while he pours shillings down his throat in the Star? Oh, Mam.’ As usual, in her anger, Annie fell back into her old way of speaking, vowels flattened, ends of words missing or distorted. ‘You took him on, just you remember that. You took on a murdering bastard! He was fit for nowt when you married him and he hasn’t improved over-much.’

‘Annie!’

‘I’m sorry, Mam. Sorry you have to bear the brunt of it. I’ll go upstairs now before I say any more.’

Nancy Higson stood alone in the kitchen, her knuckles as white as the sheet she twisted between her fingers. Yes, she’d taken him on out of pity. Or was it out of fear? Had it been panic that forced her hand, panic because Billy had died and left her with a child to support? Would she have got another chance if she hadn’t leapt at Eddie Higson’s offer so readily? Or could she and Annie have managed alone? They’d have been re-housed, possibly somewhere nice – and she could have got a grant for Annie’s needs. Dear God, why had she married him? He was a cruel man, of that she was sure. His victim had needed no grave, but he had murdered and in cold blood too. Nevertheless, Nancy felt duty-bound to defend her husband no matter what he had done. Marriage, like death, was inescapable and a thing to be endured.

Annie climbed to her room at the top of the house. From her window she watched Martin Cullen leaning on his gate. He took a comb from a top pocket and smoothed his fashionable quiff. A strange lad, that one, she thought as she took her seat and opened the Seton novel. He was brainy but stupid. Briefly, she wondered how somebody could be clever yet daft at the same time, but then she did know others of the same ilk: nuns, priests, teachers who were all clever but as thick as two short planks when it came to common sense.

The angry exchange with her mother had been upsetting, was yet another thing to forget. So she opened the book and immersed herself in the tale of wild romance. The room, the road, the moors didn’t exist any more.

Annie had escaped.

She wouldn’t look down, he knew that. He was beneath her in more ways than one, her sitting up there like a bloody princess in an ivory-tower, him standing in the street thinking about her as usual. She didn’t even care whether he thought about her or not, didn’t notice his existence most of the time. Whenever he did manage to engineer a meeting she always treated him as if he was only tenpence to the shilling, a few bricks short of a load, as if he needed another brain cell to qualify as a plant.

If only he’d tried harder. If only he’d passed that flaming scholarship instead of arsing about as if he didn’t care or worse still, as if he didn’t have enough chairs at home to do the soft test. Well, he wasn’t thick – he’d show her that, right enough. Anyway, what difference would it have made if he had got a place? They would still have been separated, her with the nuns and him with the brothers. But she might have looked at him different if he’d passed. ‘Naw,’ he muttered, kicking a stone into the road. His Mam would never have let him go to the grammar anyway; she wanted him working pretty damn quick with all those mouths to feed.

Martin hated being in their house now. It had been alright when they were kids, it had even been fun living in a midden then, but now he was sick to the back teeth with it. Better out here on the road than in there, nowhere to sit, dirty pots and mucky clothes heaped everywhere, his Mam sitting either pondering or laughing in a corner, kids crawling out of every crack in the walls, muck and stench all around them. He wanted more than that, better than that. He wanted order, quiet, cleanliness and above all, success.

Ah, what the hell – she wasn’t going to come out again today; he knew her pattern better than he knew his own. Even if she did come out, he’d likely open his big gob and put both feet in it again, start going on about girls and gangs and fights. And he did know about other stuff, he did! She wasn’t the only one who read books and things. They did have common ground, he knew it. But what if the lads ever found out he could discuss Samuel Taylor Coleridge instead of just carrying on about James Dean and Bill Haley? But he wanted . . . oh, he didn’t know what! Yes, he did. He wanted to say things. To her. Words he thought of while he lay in that stuffy, overcrowded back bedroom, things his mates would never understand in a million years. How the hell could he approach her? You couldn’t walk up to a girl in the cold light of morning and say ‘your hair’s nice’ or ‘fancy a walk over the top?’ Not with this girl, anyway. She was different and that was why he needed her.

He took a deep breath then gritted his teeth and looked up at her. She was like a statue, never moved except to turn a page or to push a strand of hair from her face. She didn’t wear her hair in a pony tail like the other girls did. It hung loose like a silken waterfall down her back and shone in the sun, a mixture of gold and platinum threads – but he could never tell her that. And her eyes, cast down on the book now, were clear and green with long gold-tipped lashes. She was a tall girl, taller than him by an inch or more, but his thick crepe soles helped a bit. Still, she wasn’t the type for a Teddy Boy, was she? He couldn’t imagine her bopping at the Palais on a Friday or having a bit of fun in a doorway on the way home. He’d never gone all the way yet, but he’d had one or two of them breathing hard, panting for something he still felt too inept to try. He couldn’t imagine her like that, giggling and groping in the dark, giving you a feel for the price of a lemonade and a couple of Woodies in the dance hall. One day, he would marry a girl like her, a girl beyond price.

The Hall i’ th’ Wood bus rattled past and she looked up from her book. Embarrassed beyond measure, Martin jumped up onto the garden wall and, holding an imaginary pole for balance, he executed an impromptu tightrope walk up and down, falling off at the gate and rolling on the ground as if mortally wounded. He picked himself up and began to walk with an exaggerated stiff-legged limp, then, turning to look up at her once more, he made a deep bow. She was standing at the window now, clapping her applause and half doubled over with laughter. He had made her laugh!

He pushed a hand through his hair, waved to her, then walked off grinning like an ape. She liked him, she was laughing at him. And anyway, he was one of the lads, wasn’t he? He couldn’t be ‘in love’ like they said in the pictures. But his heart was racing and he couldn’t wipe this stupid smile off his face.

Never mind, time was on his side. He was not quite sixteen, only months older than her. But he’d be starting work soon, he’d have a few bob in his pocket. Maybe then, she’d like him more and . . . well . . . go out with him properly, be his girl. He met Lofty going into the Milk Bar. The gang was there, the jukebox was blaring. It was going to be a good day, this was.

‘Your dinner’s here, Annie,’ yelled Nancy from the foot of the stairs. She walked to the range and lifted off the soot-blackened pan of pea and ham soup, setting it down on the metal side-shelf where it could keep warm. She had to get Annie’s over with before Eddie came in, otherwise there’d be all that sighing and shuffling at the table again. She ladled a portion of soup into an earthenware dish as Annie came into the kitchen. ‘There’s fresh bread and marg if you want it.’

‘Thanks, Mother.’ Annie sat at the square table in the centre of the room and took a spoonful of the thick, scalding liquid. Winter and summer alike, Nancy Higson served at least one hot meal a day, soups, broths, stews, hotpots – ‘to line your ribs against the winter,’ she would say.

‘Have you done all your homework?’ asked Nancy anxiously. ‘You shouldn’t be reading all them stories if you haven’t done your work for school.’

‘I’m doing a couple of hours study every morning and I finished the essays in the first week.’ The school work was no real problem to her. Even the long holiday assignments came with comparative ease – it was just a matter of organization, get the right material, read it, answer the questions . . .

‘Just don’t be getting too cocky, that’s all. Remember you’re a scholarship girl and the town’s paying for you.’

‘I don’t need reminding of that.’ The nuns reminded them often enough that they were charity cases, financed by the ratepayers and supported by the Church. Yet the scholarship girls were usually the clever ones, the achievers, while fee-paying students tended to lag behind, spoiled brats most of them, pushed along by doting parents with more money than sense.

Nancy stared hard at the girl who had suddenly begun to call her ‘Mother’ instead of ‘Mam’, who now washed her hair twice a week and took more baths than Nancy considered necessary or even healthy. And she wouldn’t have a bath at night like everybody else did, oh no, she had to be different, had to have her bath in the middle of the day and that often meant two sets of clean clothes instead of one. ‘Just don’t get past yourself, that’s all, Annie . . .’

The loud click of the rusted gate latch, which reached even Nancy’s mill-damaged ears, made her stiffen noticeably. He was back and Annie hadn’t finished. And anyway, how many windows could he have cleaned in that short space of time? ‘Don’t start,’ she warned her daughter.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not staying here to listen to him eating. It’s like hearing the tide going in and out . . .’

A knocking at the back door prompted Nancy to look out through the side window overlooking the yard. ‘It’s Dr Pritchard’s lad – what’s he doing here? I’ll bet his mam doesn’t know . . .’

‘I’ll get it, Mother.’ Annie ran into the kitchen to open the door. Simon stood in the yard, a school satchel under his arm, his face red with nervousness.

‘Is . . . er . . . something the matter?’ asked Nancy, peering over the shoulder of her daughter who was now the taller by several inches.

‘I just . . . wanted a word with Annie, if that’s alright, Mrs Higson.’ As always, Simon was the essence of politeness.

Feeling rather snubbed and not quite understanding why, Nancy retreated to the living room. What was he doing here, the doctor’s son of all people? Not that he wasn’t a nice enough lad, though. And Nancy had never forgotten that great day out with his dad in that daft car – but they’d been kids then, Annie and Simon. Now they were . . . well . . . growing up, like. She was a dark horse, was their Annie, if she was knocking about with Simon on the sly. Apart from anything else, he was a Protestant, wasn’t he? That was right, he’d got into Bolton School, but not without a lot of string-pulling. She remembered how proud she’d been when Annie had strolled through the scholarship exams while Edna Pritchard’s lad could only squeeze in by the skin of his teeth and because of his parents’ standing in the town.