Polly's War (30 page)

‘Nay lad, don’t go in there,’ Minnie told him, blocking his way as he marched up the lobby. Benny thrust the old woman aside, not unkindly but with a desperate determination. He didn’t care if she’d lost the baby, he wanted only to find his beloved Belinda.

She lay quite still on the sofa, in a parlour which seemed crowded with people, their anxious voices dying away to a dreadful hush as he approached. Someone had tried to light a fire and it smoked fitfully in the tiny grate. Beside it stood a bowl covered in a blood-soaked cloth. He averted his eyes from this and went at once to Belinda. A soldier’s greatcoat was slung across her slender body, now showing no sign of the pregnancy which had dogged her life for months. Her face, he thought, as he kissed her, had lost its strained expression and was once again, exquisitely beautiful, the eyelids curving up and outward at each corner, the veins shadowed a translucent blue. Her lips too were smiling as they had been that very first day when he’d seen her in the rating office, but it was only when he found no response to his kisses, heard the whisper of soft tears around him that he realised what he’d lost that night. The very meaning of his existence.

Minnie placed what appeared to be a bundle of rags in Benny’s arms. ‘Take good care of this little mite. He’s thy son, and he’s needs you now more than ever.’

Benny gazed in stunned disbelief at the pink, screwed up face staring up at him from the folds of cloth. He’d assumed the baby to be dead but here he was, alive and well and in his arms. He wished with a terrible intensity that it were not so, that it had been the baby who’d died and Belinda spared. He felt his knees start to shake as the awesome weight of responsibility closed in and he sank on to a chair someone had thoughtfully provided, the soft bundle held awkwardly in his big hands. This was a living nightmare. He couldn’t take in what was happening.

He felt disorientated, set apart from the real world as if he were trapped in a bubble and couldn’t reach through it, back to reality. He could hear, as if from a great distance, Minnie Hopkins fussing and arranging the baby in his arms, Lily Gantry and her cronies discussing arrangements to have Belinda moved to a Chapel of Rest, hushed voices wondering whether next of kin had been informed and suddenly Benny needed his own mother.
 

‘Mam,’ he said, and Minnie gave his shoulder an awkward little pat, assuring him that Polly and Lucy had both been sent for. Nausea rose in his gullet at the pain and shock they were about to face.

He looked again upon his child.

He knew he should cry for his lovely Belinda but somehow no tears would come. Somewhere in his head he could see a gaping black mouth, hear a silent scream, and in his chest a tight sensation which felt like fear but wasn’t. Then it was as if he was falling through that mouth, through a long black tunnel and a voice was shouting in his ears. ‘
It’s not true. She isn’t dead. She’s not! She’s not! Bloody vultures! Get out, the lot of you. Get out!’

The baby was gone from his hands, the room emptied in seconds. All except for Minnie Hopkins, who sat with the child on her knee.

‘And you can bloody go too.’

She didn’t move, just sat rocking the baby without saying a word, not even when he grabbed the aspidistra pot from its tall stand and smashed it against the mahogany fire surround. Nor when he swept all the books from her shelves, including the family bible and followed this by smashing the Westminster Chime clock given to her by her beloved employer. Minnie merely commented that she’d never really liked it anyway.

It was then that he crumpled. Head bowed he sagged to his knees and great racking sobs came out of some black pit deep inside, one he couldn’t reach the bottom of but somehow must in order to rid himself of this terrible pain.

‘That’s it lad. Let it come.’ But he really had no choice. For now that he had started, nothing would stop him. Benny put his head in his hands and gave in to his grief.

The entire street came to pay their respects, which took place in Polly’s front parlour, more fitting than a funeral home. She set several candles around the open coffin and put a garland of flowers in Belinda’s golden blonde hair. Minnie Hopkins and Lily Gantry insisted every mirror in the house be covered, so that her precious soul could not be stolen by the devil. Lucy, who spent hours sitting with her friend, thought she had never looked more beautiful.

‘It’s such a waste,’ she sobbed, quite unable to control her distress.

Polly took care of the baby, which Benny ignored completely.

The funeral took place the following Tuesday when, for the first time, the two branches of Belinda’s family came together in one place. Benny was white-faced and rigid in his grief, Lucy clinging to his arm and Polly quietly weeping. All Belinda’s friends and neighbours were there, more than she would have expected, being a modest, unassuming sort of person.

Belinda would not have been surprised, however, to see her father, Councillor Hubert Clarke, in his best funereal attire, watch chain swinging over the curve of his belly, take complete charge of the service whether it be reading the lesson, singing the loudest through the hymns, or leading the mourners to the graveside and then on to a cold repast at the Tudor Cafe. Joanna’s role, as a grieving mother was relegated to second place. And Benny, as a distraught husband, was ignored completely.

Hubert knew where to place the blame for his daughter’s death. He had completely erased from his mind the blocks he’d put on Benny’s enterprise, though there was, of course, the small matter of the eviction notice. But then if Benny Pride hadn’t got his daughter pregnant in the first place, she’d have been alive today, eviction or no eviction. Hubert certainly had no intention of bearing the responsibility for her death and, just to be on the safe side, had taken the precaution of ensuring that the landlord didn’t shoot his mouth off about why he’d decided to put the squeeze on the young couple in that way. He was certain that his role in the matter would never be mentioned. The subject was closed.

The need for justice, however, so far as Hubert was concerned, was not. Not by a long chalk. If Benny Pride thought he could seduce his lovely daughter, get her pregnant and force her into an entirely unsuitable marriage, then keep her in abject poverty which resulted in her death, he was in for a rude awakening. Hubert meant to take his revenge for her loss. He meant to make Benny pay.

It was Hubert, however, who was in for the first surprise. When he reached his office on Potato Wharf the following morning, it was to find Tom leaning against the door-jamb, waiting for him. ‘What are you after now, Shackleton? More problems with your paperwork?’ Hubert’s tone crackled with annoyance. He’d a busy day ahead, with no time to listen to this nincompoop begging yet more favours.

‘I thought I’d do you a service,’ Tom mildly replied. ‘At least give you the chance before I went elsewhere.’

Hubert thrust his key in the lock, pushed open the door sufficiently to let himself slip through without giving any indication that the young man could follow. ‘Give me a chance at what?’ he barked, his curiosity awakened despite his better judgement.

‘I was out walking, that night your Belinda copped it. Glad to be out of the house, away from a nagging wife. You know how it is. I was on my way for a drink wi’ me mates and I wondered what all that pile of furniture was doing out on the pavement in the rain.’

‘They were evicted. My daughter was turned out on the street because she’d married an idiot who couldn’t look after her properly.’

Tom took a step closer, his voice dropping to barely a whisper. ‘Or because somebody decided to apply a bit of extra pressure. Put the boot in as it were. Somebody quite close to her, in fact, with his own axe to grind. Or so Percy says. You remember Percy Simpkins? He was Belinda and Benny’s landlord. Good mate o’ mine is Percy. We go back a long way. Used to work alongside him when I lived in Ancoats. I believe you had a quiet word with him on the subject of eviction only recently, is that right?’

Tom’s mildly enquiring gaze met the blazing fury in Hubert’s bloodshot eyes, and seemed to find it amusing. The corners of his mouth tilted into his famously charming smile. ‘Small world, eh? Lift up a stone and you’ll always find a worm or two underneath. Or so I’ve found.’

‘You’d best come in,’ Hubert growled, and glancing up and down the empty street, allowed Tom Shackleton into his private domain.

The worst time for Benny came after the funeral, after Joanna had meticulously repossessed every item of her daughter’s clothes and belongings, after everyone had gone home and when all practical details had been attended to. Benny was, quite literally, left holding the baby.

What, in God’s name, was he going to do with it? He knew nowt about babbies.

His son lay in a crib in Polly’s room, though during the day Benny wasn’t sure what happened to him, and didn’t greatly care.
 

He’d moved into his sister’s old room at his mother’s house, now it was free, lying alone in the big brass bed he’d once shared with Belinda. Besides this there was a small chest of drawers and a single chair. The sparse surroundings seemed to suit his mood.

Most of the time his mind seemed locked in a blessed numbness, as if unable to take in the terrible event that had occurred. He would get up, wash and shave, go to work, come home, eat, give every appearance of normal behaviour. But every so often the numbing mists would lift and disperse and he would realise with a terrible clarity that his beloved Belinda was dead. It was then that the pain started and all he could do was to sit with his head in his hands and think of Belinda, of her laughter, her teasing sense of fun, her lovemaking. No, he couldn’t bear to remember her lovemaking. Not yet, for when he did, the pain became almost unbearable.

At other times he couldn’t bear to think of her at all and he’d storm out, walk the streets, down several pints at the Dog and Duck where he became a frequent visitor, or occupy himself with some useless task at the shop or even in the warehouse. He’d stay all night if necessary, anything to keep occupied so that when he fell into bed, he would sleep instead of his mind going endlessly over his loss.

Polly found caring for a tiny baby taxing, on top of coping with a new business. If she didn’t grieve for Belinda quite as intensely as Benny did, she still missed the girl sorely and felt she owed it to her to do the best she could for her poor motherless child.

‘Benny will have to come round to it soon,’ she groaned wearily to Charlie as she climbed from her bed for the second time one night to go in search of a warmed bottle. ‘I’m too old for this caper, so I am.’

‘Give the lad time,’ was all Charlie would say. Perhaps he was right, but then again maybe Benny needed a bit of a push, if she could just think of the right way to give him one. In the meantime, she’d ask Lucy for a bit more help. Perhaps helping care for Belinda’s child would help with her own grieving. To her great surprise and disappointment, Tom refused to allow it.

‘She has enough on her plate,’ he tartly informed her, ‘looking after our own two.’

‘One more wouldn’t be any trouble,’ Lucy said, her voice thick with tears. ‘He’s so tiny, and he’s family after all, my nephew.’

‘I say you’ve enough to do, and I’ll hear no argument on the matter.’ He glared fiercely at Polly. ‘You should know better than to ask, seeing as how we’ve only just set up home together after all this time apart.’

‘It would only be during the day, while you’re at work, as I am myself.’

‘That’s your problem, and Benny’s. I’ve said no.’ Lucy shot him an anguished glance but Polly was forced to concede defeat. She certainly wouldn’t beg. It seemed every request, however simple, created bad feeling in her family.
 

‘You should have asked me, Polly love,’ Doris-next-door chided her. ‘Tha knows how I loves childer, and I could do wi’ the money. The little mite’ll be safe enough wi’ me till his da’s up to taking over. What is the little lamb called?’

‘Benny hasn’t named him yet,’ Polly said, her face sad.

‘Nay, poor little sausage. No name. That’s a bad show, that is.’

From the very first day after the funeral Polly drew some consolation from the fact that Benny came to work as usual, as if he realised it was even more important now for him to bring home the bacon, to try to make up to his son for the loss of a mother. Polly certainly didn’t intend for the child to want for anything. Hadn’t she seen enough poverty in her time? Not for this babby a jam buttie on a cold doorstep. He would have the best.
 

When Hubert called in sometime in the second week, claiming Joanna had asked him to enquire about the arrangements and well-being of their grandson, she was pleased to inform him that he was being well taken care of.

‘Yet he lacks a mother,’ Hubert rather pedantically stated.

‘But he’ll never lack for love,’ Polly stoutly replied. ‘Getting back to business, what about this new shipment of bentwood chairs you promised me. We’re nearly out of stock and you know how popular they are. You can swap them for those heavy Victorian monstrosities you brought last month. I can’t shift those for love nor money.’

He rocked back on his heels, thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and scowled at her. ‘You need to put more ingenuity into your selling techniques then, lass.’

Polly itched to tell him that she wasn’t his lass, that she could sell anything so long as it was worth buying, which those chairs were not, but managed to bite her tongue. There were enough ill feelings about already. Benny spent every evening searching for Percy Sympkins, the landlord who’d turned them out on the streets, ever since the day it happened. God help the poor creature if he ever did find him.