Polly's War (42 page)

Tom shrugged. ‘I’ve lost my wife and family, so why would I want to stop on in Castlefield? I’ve always fancied moving on and mean to do so, soon as I’ve completed one other bit of business. All I need is the wherewithal.’ He named a sum which made Hubert wince.

‘You set a fire and ask me to pay for it? Don’t push it, lad. I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces and make a go of that furniture shop. I’ll admit you’ve got a hold over me with what you know, but don’t take me for a fool. In any case, what other bit of business would this be?’

‘Nothing that need concern you. A domestic matter, you might say.’ Again there was that smile which, charming and handsome as it might outwardly seem, appeared strangely disconnected from the rest of his face. ‘I could always throw in a bit more information by way of a bonus, so you know you’re getting a good deal,’ Tom added.

Hubert’s eyes narrowed. ‘Meaning what exactly?’

For a moment Tom didn’t speak, but when Hubert walked over to his safe, opened it and took out a metal box, he began to talk fast while his greedy eyes fixed on the crisp notes Hubert was counting. ‘I was in Polly’s house the other night. Took a shufty at a few papers she’d left lying around while she cooked me a good supper. Very trusting of me is my mother-in-law.’

Hubert was instantly alert as he flicked the notes with his thumb, inches from Tom’s nose. ‘Go on, I’m listening.’

‘She’s just about used up all her spare cash, as you know, from starting the carpet warehouse up again and going into manufacturing. The problems she had with you, finished her.’

‘I know all of that.’ Hubert sounded irritated. ‘Get on with it. Have you something more or not?’

‘Only that she took out a mortgage on her house in Pansy Street in order to fit out the shop and come in with you.’

‘Normal business practice,’ Hubert said, rubbing his chin between finger and thumb. ‘A cheap way of borrowing money. I’ve done the same myself.’

‘Then there was the bank loan. Not huge, you understand, but enough to help tide her over when things got sticky and she found herself over-committed.’

Hubert smiled. ‘You mean when I overstocked her and started manipulating new rules of play.’

‘I wouldn’t know about that but I saw a letter from her bank manager. He’s not too happy now and is asking how she means to make the payments. She’s a bit behind, do y’see?’ Tom’s face was a picture of innocence. ‘Not that I would repeat such sensitive information to anyone outside the family, you understand? But then you are family, are you not? By marriage like.’

‘So I am,’ Hubert agreed, his tone quietly thoughtful as he counted the notes into the outstretched palm. ‘You could say that.

Polly wasn’t in the warehouse when Lucy found her, because she no longer had any right to use it. She was sitting on a bollard watching the barges load in the canal basin. Lucy came to sit beside her mother on a nearby step and without even glancing up, Polly said, ‘Hubert Clarke has won. I’ve to start all over again m’cushla, from scratch.’

‘I know. Minnie told me last night.’ She half glanced back at her newly found friend, who was pretending to feed the pigeons with bits of bread crust, keeping a discreet distance.

‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve done that already. Remember when I sold every scrap of furniture we had in the house, just to buy second hand carpet. Your dad thought I’d run mad, so he did.’

‘You were wonderful.’

‘I’m not sure I’ve the energy to start again.’

Moved to tears, Lucy put her arms about her mother and held her close. For all their differences at times, she was still her mam and in that moment as they clung to each other they were as one, together again, all differences forgiven and forgotten. They smiled into each other’s eyes, mopped up each other’s tears, understanding without needing words.

‘Of course you can start again. You can do owt, you. Always have been able to. Isn’t that what I love most about you, the way you get up, dust yourself off and bounce right back.’

‘Not this time. All my bounce has gone. He’s finished me, for sure, sweetheart. Benny’s surrendering the lease of the warehouse this very minute, but we’ll still be liable for the restoration of it, whether the insurance company pay up or not. It’s over, Lucy.’

Keeping an arm about Polly’s shoulders, which seemed much too frail and thin, Lucy watched the barge in the cut before her, the mate blowing on his hands this cold frosty morning, having had to put out his fire in the bow as regulations demanded while it slid under the warehouse for loading. How careful everyone had to be to avoid disaster, she thought, just as her lovely mam had always been with the oily waste. Why would it suddenly burst into flame?

‘Has anyone discovered what started the fire?’ she asked, but Polly shook her head. A tear splashed on to her arm and Lucy wiped it away with one finger. ‘What about our Benny? I suppose he was no help.’

Now that a reconciliation had taken place, Minnie edged nearer, to lean nonchalantly on her brush. She was a bit hard of hearing and didn’t want to miss anything.

 
‘He’s been marvellous so he has,’ Polly was saying. ‘I don’t know what I would’ve done without him.’

To Lucy’s sharp ears, Polly sounded defeated, as if every ounce of her mother’s once formidable energy had indeed evaporated and she had no resources left, which in truth she didn’t wonder at. Her own opinion of her brother was far less charitable. Hadn’t Polly always spoiled him? ‘If it hadn’t been for Benny, Mam, you’d never have got involved with Hubert Clarke in the first place.’

‘Aw, don’t blame him. He’s worked like a Trojan, so he has. Didn’t he only want the best for his little family? Where’s the crime in that?’ What Lucy said was true in a way. She would never have needed to borrow money from the bank to buy stock, nor been at the mercy of Hubert Clarke’s unscrupulous business practices if Benny hadn’t begged her to go in with him. And she’d have been spared a great deal of worry. ‘What’s done is done and can’t be changed so why fret over it?’

Lucy pointed out that Benny had always shown a tendency to be careless. ‘Look at the way he lost Big Flo,’ she reminded Polly who, surprisingly, laughed as she hugged Lucy close.

‘Nobody could control that old woman. What a character. Had a mind of her own and a will power second to none, so she did.’

‘But ...’ Lucy caught the expression in Polly’s eye and stopped, pursing her lips tightly together as she struggled not to argue that all of this must be Benny’s fault. And all because of his foolish dreams and the fantasy tales he used to spin to Belinda, not forgetting his stubborn determination to work for no one but himself. Instead, unwilling to upset this happy rapport she’d at last established with her mother, she grudgingly admitted, ‘I suppose he has worked hard, recently anyway, as well as looking after little Matt.

‘Hey up, t’lad’s here now,’ Minnie said and Benny came running up Castle Street as if he had a fire on his tail.

‘It’s the bailiffs,’ he shouted. ‘They’re stripping the house clean.’

Polly was on her feet in a second, rigid with fear. ‘Charlie,’ she cried, her voice little more than a whisper. Benny grasped her arms, smoothing, calming.

‘It’s all right, don’t fret. He’s next-door with our Matt.’ Then he cast an anguished glance from Lucy to Minnie and back again. ‘But they’re taking everything, every stick of furniture we own. They say they’ll have to sell the house if we’re to avoid bankruptcy. It’s the only way to pay off the bank loan and what’s still owed to Hubert.’

Polly didn’t wait for any further explanations, she was off, heading in the direction of Pansy Street to save the remnants of her pride. But it was too late. By the time she arrived the last item of furniture was being loaded on to the back of a lorry which drew away, giving a cheeky blast on its horn. Polly might shake her fist at it but that didn’t alter the facts. The house was stripped bare, furniture and ornaments gone, carpets ripped up. Each and every room stood empty, just as if it had been scrubbed clean.

 
‘Sorry love,’ said the bailiff. ‘I’ll have to ask you to leave too.’

‘You can’t do this!’ Benny yelled, beside himself with fury. Baby Matt, being gently jostled in the arms of Doris-next-door who stood by silently weeping, stretched out his arms to his dad and set up a howl of anguish.

‘By heck,’ Minnie said, too shocked to find a more appropriate riposte as the Pride family filed out again and stood on the street, watching in stunned silence as the man locked the door, pocketed the key and walked off with a sympathetic nod, shoulders hunched. All that was left was an untidy heap of clothes, a large carpet bag, a few books, papers and other personal possessions all scattered about the pavement. One or two sympathetic neighbours were gathering them up and putting them into brown paper carrier bags.
 

‘So here we are then,’ said Polly at last. ‘Right back where we started. With not a scrap to our name.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Charlie was the only one who could offer comfort. He sat next to his wife on the horse hair sofa alternately patting Polly’s hand, stroking her shoulder or her hair, and sometimes drying the tears as they fell. ‘It’ll turn out all right Poll,’ he kept saying, without being able to offer any reason why it should.

They were sitting in Minnie’s front parlour amongst the aspidistra, the whatnots and the overbearing Victorian furniture, heavy curtains blocking out the sun and the sound of the measured clonk of the grandfather clock loud in their ears. To Polly it seemed to be marking out the final moments of her youth. From now on she would be an old woman with no future left. No warehouse to go to each day, no money to her name, not even a home to call her own. Twenty years ago, less, she would have rolled up her sleeves and started again without a second thought. With youth and energy, most of all a belief in herself, she’d always felt she could achieve anything.

But where was all that now, vanished in the pall of smoke that still hung over the remnants of Pride Carpets.

‘We’re finished,’ she said again, as if by repeating this fact she might drum the awful reality into her head.

Lucy glared across at Benny, who was sitting with his head in his hands in the far corner of the room. ‘See what you’ve brought us to.’

‘No,’ Polly said, shaking her head. ‘Don’t blame our Benny. Hasn’t he only done what he thought best for us, and for that little treasure.’ She smiled softly at her grandson who was sitting on Minnie’s rug chewing on a crust. Recognising his nanna’s smile he grinned back at her, showing two white teeth, and offered her a bite of his bread. Polly pretended to take one and the baby chuckled, hiding the crust behind his back.

‘What are you accusing me of anyroad?’ Benny wanted to know. ‘Of wanting to make my way in the world, of needing to earn a decent living to bring up my son? Of being a man? You could go so far as to say if only I’d never met Belinda - because that’s what set this all off - but I for one don’t wish that, not for a minute.’

‘Aw no, bless her sweet nature, me neither,’ Polly said, putting a hand to her mouth to stop fresh tears. Minnie handed her a handkerchief which Polly took without a word, or even realising who had given it to her.

Lucy, ashamed suddenly of where her accusations had led, hung her head, ‘I’m sorry Benny. I never meant it that way. Belinda was my very best friend. We all loved her. I wish she was here now, alive and well.’ Lucy took the handkerchief from Polly and blew her nose upon it as her own tears spilled over. ‘Instead the poor love died in that dreadful way because a no-hoper like Percy Sympkin, your odious landlord wouldn’t give you time to pay the rent arrears.’

Polly was nodding sadly. ‘Aye, for all our Benny had finally been accepted by Belinda’s family and had hopes of a brighter future. A tragic irony, eh?’

It was as if a light had been switched on in Lucy’s head. As if everything had suddenly become crystal clear. This was no fault of Benny’s. None at all. This whole thing had been planned from the start. The loss of Belinda, Hubert’s own daughter, had been little more than an irritation to him, an inconvenience rather than a tragic loss, serving only to fuel his jealousy and greed still further.

‘Mam,’ Lucy said, her voice dropping to a low pitch with a hint of wonder in it at this new realisation. ‘You’re right. This is none of our Benny’s making.’

‘I’m glad you see sense at last,’ Benny said, still sounding aggrieved.

‘None of it is. Hubert Clarke engineered all of it from the minute he discovered Mam had a profitable little business. Once he knew she owned Pride Carpets, he started to put the squeeze on so that he could get his hands on it. What he didn’t bargain for, was for Belinda to stand by you. He knew she was used to an easy life and solid middle class comforts. He expected her to come running home the minute money got tight, then he could put an end to your marriage and Mam’s business in one fell swoop. After she died, he continued with his nasty little plan, out of revenge, but he’d have done it anyway.’

Shocked glances were exchanged all round.

‘By heck, you’re right,’ Benny said. ‘He wouldn’t give me the time of day in the beginning, then suddenly, for no reason, his attitude changed.’

Lucy was nodding. ‘That must’ve been when he realised he could do himself a good turn by fattening his own profits while he bled us dry.’

Benny’s mouth had gone ash dry. ‘And Belinda? Are you’re saying it was
 
Hubert Clarke who had us evicted?’