With Love From Ma Maguire (43 page)

After bending to kiss her, he left to summon help for his dying wife.

Charles brooded for a long time in his study after supper. It was a real bloody mess and no mistake. All that damage he’d caused for one night of . . . no, he couldn’t even call it pleasure. The girl’s fury, the resulting marriage to a man hardly fit to rear an orphaned sparrow, let alone a child. Then the murderous weapon Beatrice had picked up and wielded. Ah yes. Mother was not one to leave a sword idling long in its sheath. And poor Amelia, all this time a wronged wife and never a word had she uttered. It was the fact that she had known and kept silent that hurt him most.

What to do? He’d have had it out with Ma Maguire pretty damned quickly if the old girl had been at her looms. To think she’d pocketed the money year after year without telling Molly! Was it really about protecting Molly, that elaborate charade thought up by Ma? Or was she salting the money for her own purposes? Probably not. No, she’d likely kept the whole family, his own offspring included, in a decent enough style. She wasn’t a bad old stick.

He moved across to his desk and lit a cigar. Yes, he would have to make a decision soon. If he were to die intestate, then that chicken-livered idiot would get the lot – why, that went beyond all reason! Cyril in a Swainbank hat? The thought was more than ridiculous.

Should he pursue his instincts, approach Joey directly? Perhaps he could offer him work, a good salary and a decent post? No. That wouldn’t do either. The boy was going to start his own business once Ma was up and running again. From the sound of Joey, he would choose to be his own master rather than another’s minion.

Other alternatives arrived stillborn as soon as he thought of them. To face Molly would be more than difficult after all this time. Paddy would have to remain where he was – strictly in the dark, while Ma, the one he really needed, was out of commission for now.

Patience was a virtue foreign to Charles. Even if he were to pray for it, he’d probably beg for it to arrive by return of post. But he must continue to watch and wait until the time was right. Right to do something that might turn out to be so wrong.

Slowly, he pulled from a drawer the new will, a document ready to be signed and witnessed in Philip Charnock’s presence in spite of loud protestations. The way he had worded it – well, it seemed more a confession, a testament to all his sins. But Molly must be protected. Molly with her cheeky grin and laughing green eyes should suffer no more. It was his fault, his guilt. And the will was written accordingly.

Molly stood glowering in the centre of the rug, her face twisted by anger as she looked down at Joey who was cowering in a fireside chair. ‘So it looks as if you’ve got away with it, then. She’s alive at least – happen we should be grateful for that! According to what I’ve heard, she’s saying it was an accident. Seems you hit her that hard she’s lost her bloody memory or summat!’

‘I didn’t hit her! I keep telling you—’

‘Tell me nowt, lad! When it’s your turn to speak, I’ll let you know. Right.’ She placed her hands on her hips and leaned forward, her face almost making contact with the top of his head. ‘How do we get the brass back to her? Come on, clever lad – you were wanting a turn to use your voice – how do we manage that, eh? Stick it in our Michael’s go-cart and trundle it round the bobby shop, cod on as we’ve found it at the back of Leatherbarrow’s?’

‘I don’t know, do I?’

‘Aye well, it’s your problem. Except of course we’re all involved now. Janet and me – we both know who did it and we’re sheltering a criminal. Do you realize that your sister, who’d never hurt a flaming fly if she could help it, could finish up in prison over this? Me too ’cos I hid the bloody evidence! Me! Good job your dad was bad ways that night, otherwise he’d be in it too!’ Aye, right up to his neck, she thought. Paddy would have had the stolen money spent by now. No, he wouldn’t. Even a chap as selfish as Paddy wouldn’t pinch poor old Miss Leason’s money.

‘I can put it back,’ said Joey lamely.

‘Put it back? Put it blinking well back?’ she screamed. ‘How? Break a window and chuck it in? That house is crawling with the sanitary folk – how are you going to get past them? And I wouldn’t trust you to do it anyway – I’m not that daft, lad. Nay, I’ve met some bloody fools in my time, but you take the whole bag of biscuits, you do! Aye – and the Crawford’s box with the money in and all! Well? What have you got to say for yourself?’

‘Nowt.’

‘Right. You just listen to me, you little rat! I know Sarah Leason. She’s a decent sort for all she’s a bit on the peculiar side and I reckon I’ll have to go and make my peace with her. It shouldn’t be up to me – this is your bother, not mine. Only I fetched you up and it’s me as’ll get the blame for you going wrong. So I’ll have to find out a way of getting the money back to her. That’s unless she changes her mind and wants to get the law in. If she does, then there’ll be nothing I can do for you.’

‘You’re going . . . to see her?’ His face was white. ‘Down at the infirmary?’

She nodded. ‘And I’m telling you now, this is the last time I’ll be cleaning up your leavings. I dare say your sister feels much the same road.’

‘I wouldn’t know. She doesn’t talk to me any more—’

‘What did you expect? Hero’s welcome and a band, happen a few flags strung up between doors? It’s you as wants flaming stringing up! Nay, you’ll be lucky if that girl walks the same side of the street as you from now on. She’s disgusted with you! And so am I!’

Molly stepped back, turned and took her coat from a peg on the stairway door. Dear God, how could it be possible to despise your own child while all the time you knew you still loved him? She wanted to open her arms and draw him close, comfort him, lessen his pain. Like another pain years ago – sobbing and weeping in a courtyard, moonlight on stable roofs, shadows, a thin coat and nowhere to go . . . Except here. To all this. Charlie bloody Swainbank! She pulled the coat on angrily.

‘Mam?’

‘What?’

‘Tell her . . . tell her . . . oh, I don’t know—’

‘Neither do I. I don’t know what to tell a seventy-odd year old woman with a broken skull. She could finish up like your gran did after that clot – you might have crippled her for ever. No, I can’t think of one single sensible word to say.’

‘Then . . . don’t go.’

‘Take the coward’s way out, is that it? Shut me eyes and pretend nowt’s happened, carry on as if we were just a normal family with a nice lad as the eldest? I can’t. It’s not in my nature, Joey Maguire.’

‘Then create it, Molly!’ They both turned to find Ma in the doorway of the best room. She walked slowly forward a few paces and lowered herself into a dining chair. ‘Whatever, you can’t let the boy down.’

‘What?’ yelled Molly. ‘After what he’s done?’

‘He is your son!’ The voice arrived strong and firm. ‘Fifteen years old next Wednesday! They make mistakes, Molly! Did you never make one?’

Molly stared hard at Joey. ‘Yes, I’ve made mistakes. And I’ve paid for them.’

‘Got round them, you mean. Just as we all do. Forgive him, Molly.’

‘I’ll do me best. Just like I’ve always done me blinking best!’ She grabbed her bag and flounced out of the house.

Ma gazed across the table at her grandson. No matter who Joey really was, no matter what his name should have been, he was still her grandchild. From the day in the church with her hands covered in soda, these twins had been hers morally and actually. ‘Follow your mother, Joey.’

‘Eh?’

‘Go to the hospital, see Miss Leason. It is your duty.’

‘I can’t. I daren’t . . .’

Carefully, she removed the tiger’s eye brooch from the front of her shawl. ‘Take this, Joey. It’s not magic, but it helps somehow. I mind the times it’s helped me . . .’ She placed it on the table. ‘Go and do what must be done.’

He picked up the brooch and stared at it. ‘You’re talking proper now.’

‘Yes. Look at me, Joey Maguire. I am going to tell you something now, something I have kept from the rest of this family. Before I had the stroke, I was alone one day in this very kitchen when a knocking came at the door. I found a man from the prison over to Manchester. He had with him several policemen who were dressed in ordinary clothes. They carried a paper allowing them to search my house from top to bottom.’

Joey swallowed audibly. ‘What . . . what were they looking for? I hadn’t done nothing . . .’

‘They were searching for Seamus Maguire. Do you want to be like him, Joey? Running all your life, escaping from prison on the back of a muck-cart with all the pig-feed in your hair, hiding, stealing, doing wrong? The worst part is that I don’t really care what happens to my own husband. If you continue, then nobody will mind you or look out for you. Is that any way to live at all?’

A tear made its way down the boy’s thin cheek. ‘No.’

‘Then go and make your peace. If Sarah had wished it, you would have been with the police long before this. There is nothing to fear except fear itself. Start today with the truth and do the best you can with all the tomorrows, see each morning as a clean start with no black marks to it. I ask you to do this in return for my support, Joey. And if you need to get back your mother’s respect, then go down now to that hospital.’

‘She . . . hates me—’ He was sobbing now.

‘Away with your bother, man! Molly Dobson never had a hateful bone in all her body! She loves you. ’Tis love that took her this day to the infirmary with the pride swallowed, love makes her fight and hope for you. Sure she’s a bag of wind at times, sounding off about this, that and t’other thing as if the world was about to finish in a puff of smoke. But I tell you honestly now, your mother got that from me and from her own mother too. We were a right pair together, meself and Edie Dobson, plain-spoken and hurtful at times. You’ve a good mother, so away now this minute and make peace.’

‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, Gran—’

‘For what?’

‘Calling you an old biddy, cursing me dad as useless, stealing all that money—’

‘But you didn’t hit Sarah Leason. I know you didn’t, son. Go on now. Take Uncle Porrick’s brooch in your pocket and keep your hand on it. The little people are on the side of whoever holds the brooch – and aren’t Sarah and Molly knee-high to a grasshopper the both of them?’

He stumbled to his feet. ‘Thanks, Gran.’

‘Don’t mention it.’

He was gone, the tiger’s eye tucked safely into his trouser pocket.

Ma stared at herself in the brass-framed mirror. An old lady gazed back at her and smiled grimly. She must find her black dress, the teeth, the good black shoes, that box, all the papers. Tomorrow had finally arrived, nothing could be put off now. She was armed, shielded by the almost complete return of her faculties, stronger, wiser, richer in spirit because of this latest brush with death. She exhaled loudly. It was time to take on the world.

Chapter 10

They stood outside Cowley’s General, the grocery store that used to be Freddie Chadwick’s clog shop. Molly dabbed a suspicion of moisture from her eyes, then turned as if to study a pyramid of soapflake boxes in the window. ‘I’ll just nip in here for a quarter of potted meat.’

‘Didn’t our Janet fetch some this morning?’

‘Aye.’ She grimaced to hide her emotion. ‘Bloody Yorick ate it – paper and all. That was for your dad’s butties. He’s fetching a herd over from Chorley tomorrow. Flaming dog!’

Joey grinned, though his eyes remained sad. ‘You shouldn’t talk about your husband like that, Mam.’

‘Don’t start! You know what I mean, Joey Maguire. Are you waiting or walking back home by yourself?’

‘I’ll hang on.’

She touched his arm almost hesitantly. ‘I’m . . . I’m proud of you, lad. Prouder than I was this morning anyroad. It took guts, did that, coming down and facing the woman . . .’

Pleased and embarrassed, he tapped the ground with the heel of his clog. ‘What was she going on about though? All that about sleep and knitted sleeves? Have they got her making jumpers through the night?’

Molly began to giggle quietly, the sound echoing an inner hysteria that had simmered all day. ‘Eeh Joey! That was her bit of Shakespeare, love. It’s summat to do with a good kip making things better – and she’s getting no sleep. According to that there Sister – the one as Miss Leason calls Dragon – old Sarah sat up till all hours in the lavvy singing Rock of Ages. She said it was an appropriate hymn ’cos it matches her bed. They’ll be chucking her out any day, can’t cope with her. She makes your gran look like the Archangel Gabriel at times, does Miss Leason.’

‘Gran’s on the mend, isn’t she?’

Molly nodded. ‘Aye. Fur and feathers will fly any minute, Joey, you just mark my words. She’ll launch herself with a bang, not a whimper. I’ve never known her do anything quiet. I’m told she used to be a bit on the shy side as a girl, a bit backwards at coming forwards, but I’ve got me doubts about that. Happen we should pin a notice on the front door to warn the neighbours.’

‘Mam?’

‘What?’

‘I’m going to . . . well . . . try and put things right.’

‘How?’

‘If you straighten it with Miss Leason, I could use some of her money for a bit of distemper and paper – get the house nearer to scratch. And our Janet might help me.’

‘She might.’

‘Will you have a word?’

‘I will. Now wait there till I get a few odds and ends.’

While Mr Cowley patted butter with two wooden bats, Molly made polite conversation, her eyes straying towards the door where Joey lingered, a look of despair and self-loathing on his usually mischievous face. Yes, he’d had a hard lesson, but – God willing – the lad had learned from it. With his right side in shadow, he was the spitting image of Charlie Swainbank, the same expression too, the way Charlie had looked that night in the stable yard . . . Mr Cowley dashed round the counter and helped her to pick up the dropped change. ‘My, you fair shivered then, Mrs Maguire. Somebody walk over your grave, lass?’

‘Aye. Thanks,’ she stammered.

‘Got everything you need?’

‘Yes, I think so.’ Yes, she had everything. Except peace of mind . . .